Hello again. My third and final stand-in for Ulaca, and I am still waiting for the legendary easy ride that Monday crosswords are supposed to deliver. I would not class this as difficult, but it made me think and it had some very neat clues and surface readings. As for COD, I think the kangaroo gets it by a nose from Jack and Jill.
I use the standard TfTT conventions like underlining the definition, CD for cryptic definition, DD for a double one, *(anargsam) and so forth. Nho = “not heard of” and in case of need the Glossary is always handy
| Across | |
| 1 | Approach shaking, bearing last of early religious texts (9) |
| APOCRYPHA – *(APPROACH), with (earl)Y in there. | |
| 6 | Formal body (5) |
| STIFF – a DD. | |
| 9 | African king is going the wrong way (5) |
| TUTSI – TUT, + IS reversed. A reference to the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun, aka King Tut. Tutsis are one of the tribes, with the Hutus, involved in several African genocides | |
| 10 | Killer left, drinking more rum? On the contrary (9) |
| STRANGLER – L(eft) in STRANGER (more rum) | |
| 11 | The dictionary’s description of it? (8,7) |
| DEFINITE ARTICLE – a CD, “the” being a definite article, unlike “a” or “an,” which are indefinite articles | |
| 13 | Flower that might indicate fall in the Rockies? (8) |
| SNOWDROP – A CD, the humble snowdrop flower which might be taken to refer to an avalanche. Why in the Rockies specifically, I have no idea. A mountain range closer to home might be more apposite, the Cairngorms or the Alps perhaps. Perhaps our setter is American? See also 23ac | |
| 14 | Case of robbery in solicitor’s practice (3-3) |
| TRY-OUT – R(obber)Y in TOUT, a solicitor of a sort | |
| 16 | Announced composer’s name (6) |
| HANDLE – Sounds like Handel .. | |
| 18 | Engineer unclear initially how this provides propulsion (8) |
| LAUNCHER – *(UNCLEAR), with H(ow) included | |
| 21 | What could result in Perón’s exile (9,6) |
| DISPLACED PERSON – *(PERSON) can be “displaced” to make Peron’s, at least as long as we don’t care about diacritics. | |
| 23 | Buzz from a great distance (9) |
| LIGHTYEAR – A light year is indeed a great distance, a bit less than six trillion miles. And I imagine you don’t need me to tell you about Buzz Lightyear. I would spell the distance as two words, as would Lexico and Collins. Chambers allows the use of a hyphen, but one word is not a European usage. It is an OK clue however, if you interpret the answer as being constructed from the distance, they do use the same letters.. | |
| 25 | Concede Istanbul provides sanctuary for believer (5) |
| DEIST – Hidden, slightly, in conceDE ISTanbul. | |
| 26 | Painter’s daughter drawn to wise man from the east (5) |
| DEGAS – D(aughter) + SAGE (wise man) reversed | |
| 27 | Dangerous area? Possibly, if men lied (9) |
| MINEFIELD – *(IF MEN LIED) | |
| Down | |
| 1 | As Garbo did, longed to be different at heart (5) |
| ACTED – ACHED (longed) with the H replaced with a T | |
| 2 | Might tired kangaroo be thus restricted? (3,2,6) |
| OUT OF BOUNDS – A DD, one jocular. My first idea was “out of pocket,” ha ha, but it doesn’t parse. | |
| 3 | Was Queen hailed in speech? (7) |
| REIGNED – sounds like RAINED. Does rained mean the same as hailed? Discuss .. (I would say, no!) | |
| 4 | Yours truly’s resigning from tax office (8) |
| POSITION – An IMPOSITION is a tax. Remove the I’M .. | |
| 5 | A route not taken by many across the pond? (6) |
| ABROAD – A B ROAD. If our setter thinks B roads are “not taken by many,” he clearly has never visited this part of Kent… | |
| 6 | Nurse a politician briefly, one in upper house (7) |
| SENATOR – SEN (state enrolled nurse) + A TOR(y). You can no longer qualify as a SEN, though I believe there are still some working. | |
| 7 | Jack leaving his companion out of sorts (3) |
| ILL – (j)ILL. A neat clue. Jack and Jill from the nursery rhyme:
Jack and Jill went up the hill |
|
| 8 | One entertaining a female retiree in novel way (4-5) |
| FIRE-EATER – *(A F RETIREE) | |
| 12 | Boxers hanging out here? (11) |
| CLOTHESLINE – A CD. I would spell this with two words, as would Lexico, but Collins allows it as one. Chambers uses a hyphen… so the choice is ours, it seems | |
| 13 | Kid turned up after school as arranged (9) |
| SCHEDULED – SCH(ool) + DELUDE (kid) reversed. | |
| 15 | Bureaucrat’s lover, courageous for the most part (8) |
| MANDARIN – MAN (lover, as in Stand By Your) + DARIN(g) (courageous) | |
| 17 | Warning signs slow to appear in records (1-6) |
| L-PLATES – LATE (slow) in LPS, records. Do they still make those? | |
| 19 | Many in Foreign Office on retiring accepting outcome (2,3,2) |
| NO END OF – END (outcome) in FO ON reversed. All quite logical although hard to visualise. The FO is now the FCDO, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, as of course we all know, although it doesn’t affect the validity of the clue | |
| 20 | Run off, grabbing last of champagne for a laugh (6) |
| SCREAM – (champagn)E in SCRAM, to run off | |
| 22 | Referred to absence of delinquent youth? (5) |
| NOTED – Oo-hoo, how I winced when I saw this clue. NO TED surely means the absence of a perfectly innocuous youth who likes dressing up a bit, not any sort of delinquent necessarily, as our late lamented commenter and blogger Jimbo regularly had to point out. Collins however does say “any tough or delinquent youth” | |
| 24 | An up-and-down performance (3) |
| GIG – a palindromic performance | |
Loved it! Just my style: started off at a great clip ( for a change), but then ground to a halt in the SW, being unable – like those poor contestants! – to identify HANDEL as the required composer (was expecting a more obscure one, as per usual). Which held me up with SCHEDULED…and I’m afraid I never gave old Buzz a thought. Much to like ( especially the ones that went straight in, of course) in APOCRYPHA, STIFF, OUT OF BOUNDS, etc.
Thanks for the site. It really helps one improve. Also apologies for the lateness as I solve a printed version in The Australian newspaper which is a few weeks behind the UK.
Given the wording of the clue for 5 down, why isn’t AIRWAY an equally valid answer? I am surprised those who had it haven’t questioned it. When worded thus, why does it specifically relate to the Atlantic Ocean? Many wouldn’t travel by air over any old pond!
Why is ABROAD definitively correct? I agree it parses from the clue but I would have thought AIRWAY does also.
Where am I going wrong please?
Ah, I was wondering why more comments appeared a month after publication … now I know! Welcome, I am glad you have found the site and glad you find it helpful.
You are the ninth commenter to mention AIRWAY, so clearly you are in good company in querying it. If you look at the other comments, there does seem to be a general feeling that it doesn’t quite work.
Airway is in the dictionaries but is not in common usage here in England in any aeronautical sense. I would only use it in connection with the passage from your mouth to your lungs. So we are being required to do two things in order to make the clue work: (a) a nonstandard use of the word airway, and (b) “Across the pond” meaning any old pond but not its usual one of the Atlantic. The given answer on the other hand allows both parts of the clue to take their usual meanings – a less busy road, and a trip to a foreign country.
So my best answer is that technically AIRWAY does more or less work, but ABROAD is a much more natural answer and makes for a cleverer clue, what is more. Actually I don’t think AIRWAY does work, unless you can find some way of instructing solvers to ignore the normal meaning of “Across the pond.”