By dint of (almost) skipping typo watch, I scrambled in just one second under 30 minutes, but I’m not sure why I made (for me) rather heavy weather of this one. For the most part, the anagrams in particular are easy to spot, and some of them rearrange themselves generously in front of your eyes. Unless you can’t identify the correct term for Albert II and chums, there’s not much obscurity here. To compensate, there’s a 4 letter answer with the dreaded ?A?E pattern (choose any 1 from 171 examples in Chambers)
We are one letter short of the pangram: I suspect the setter eschewed the opportunity for correcting the omission just to annoy fans of the bottom left hand corner of the keyboard.
Here are my musings, with clues, definitions and SOLUTIONS provided.
ACROSS
1 Shifting coffee table and PC provides surprising health benefits (7,6)
PLACEBO EFFECT Shifting immediately suggests an anagram: coffee table +PC are your fodder. I suppose health benefits from pills with no medicinal content would be surprising, but belief is a powerful agent of change. Discuss
9 Spirit of old duke regularly seen in V&A (5)
VODKA My easy starting point. O(ld) plus DuKe (regularly seen ) in V and A. That sort of spirit.
10 Make ruddy new offenders put in long stretch of time (9)
ENCRIMSON N(ew) CRIMS, an Australian (?) contraction of criminals place inside EON for long stretch of time.
11 European party appropriating £1000? (10)
MONEGASQUE Saved from misspelling by the wordplay. The party is a MASQUE, and £1,000 translates into ONE G.
12 Leaves of the elder (4)
SAGE (though I bet there’s other possibilities). A double definition, leaves rather loosely indicating some sort of greenery.
14 A small room amid New England housing (7)
NACELLE Housing as in for a jet engine and such. Your small room (not loo this time) is A CELL, found in N(ew) E(ngland).
16 Chubby US mother avoiding starters and large chunk of bread (4,3)
LUMP SUM (so not a door step, or the wonderful South African bunny chow). Remove the first letters from PLUMP US MUM
17 Mark off pieces of furniture in stalls (7)
ARRESTS M(ark) away from ARMRESTS, pieces of furniture rather than – um – pieces of furniture.
19 Universal launch epic involving good outlaw (3,4)
BIG BANG A cutesy definition, and epic: BIG, embracing G(ood) outlaw: BAN. I lost time working through the merry men, the James gang and Ned Kelly.
20 Voiced disapproval about uranium and source of banned material (4)
TUSK TSK is your voiced disapproval, and Uranium (obviously) is U. The sale of ivory from elephant tusks is banned in the UK. I associate the sound tsk with Bugs Bunny, though I can’t track down an authority for that. So here’s a limerick I found instead:
TUSK TSK is your voiced disapproval, and Uranium (obviously) is U. The sale of ivory from elephant tusks is banned in the UK. I associate the sound tsk with Bugs Bunny, though I can’t track down an authority for that. So here’s a limerick I found instead:
Elmer Fudd loudly started to swear
At a restaurant down by the square
They served up some bisque
To Bugs Bunny tsk tsk
But he cannot stand soup in his hare
21 Notes alarming blunders before I answer (10)
MARGINALIA Either alarming or blunders could provide the anagram indicator or fodder, but you need MARGINAL to add to I A(nswer). You work it out.
24 Half of day is boring dry lecture (9)
SERMONISE MONday provides the half day you want, and you add IS and place both in SERE for dry. An alternative spelling could have provided the Z to complete the pangram.
25 Snack made by British Muslim pilgrim (5)
BHAJI Yum. Onions deep fried in spicy batter. And a mildly surprising use of the completely unrelated HAJI, Arabic for pilgrim, following B(ritish)
26 Heard if cooking celebrity is worn down by exposure (7-6)
WEATHER BEATEN Sounds remarkably like whether (Mrs) Beaton
DOWN
1 One presenting a down-at-heel image? (8,6)
PAVEMENT ARTIST Cryptic definition, down at heel not meaning shabby, but rather more literally down at or by your heel.
2 Poetic form master in eau de nil (5)
AUDEN Hidden in eAU DE Nil. WH Auden was a school teacher in early life, but I’m not certain whether that’s the reference or that he was a master of the poetic form.
3 Advocate leaving set off (10)
EVANGELIST LEAVING SET “off” Anagram clues don’t come with greater economy than this.
4 Curate poetry written in Old English (7)
OVERSEE So not the master of diplomatic egg criticism, but the verb. Poetry: VERSE in O(ld) E(nglish).
5 Documentary’s bad fault when incorporating account (7)
FACTUAL Documentary as adjective. Anagram (bad) of FAULT plus AC(count)
6 Onset of extra time keeps football team going (4)
EXIT First of Extra, plus T(ime) surrounding XI for team
7 Drink down under while chap’s getting stuck into meal (6,3)
TASMAN SEA Strewth, that’d be a big tinnie. While: AS, chap: MAN, seat in meal TEA.
8 Mixing one surgeon’s title up in midst of complex operation (14)
INTERMIGRATION Integration always felt pretty complex when I was doing Maths, but there may be a more technical connection. Surgeons are by courtesy always Mr (not Dr, dear me, no). Take one (and one: I), reverse him* and place him in INTEGRATION
*and what, pray, would you call a lady surgeon?
13 Big AA Milne novel not too far-fetched (10)
IMAGINABLE A “novel” version of BIG AA MILNE
15 Opener from county’s team (9)
CORKSCREW The team from – um – Co CORK
18 Seconds before profuse grovelling (7)
SLAVISH S(econds) followed by profuse: LAVISH
19 Tap on shoulder produces pain in the neck (7)
BUGBEAR Tap as in wire tap: BUG plus shoulder (burden): BEAR
22 Tipped British director to take away Oscar (5)
LEANT David LEAN (Dr Zhivago, Brief Encounter and, well, almost every Great British Movie) plus TO with the O(scar) taken away
23 Travel always upset painter (4)
GOYA Travel GO and always AY reversed.
Excellent puzzle, though I’d have thought it excellenter had I finished it.
Jordan -2 Monaco 0
Edited at 2018-08-02 11:49 pm (UTC)