Overall it was harder than recent weeks – no personal bests today, I suspect – but very doable. It was full of hidden delights. 11ac was a standout, with good support elsewhere. 5ac, 9ac, 15ac, 24ac and 16dn were vocabulary expanders. Others had high quality cryptic definition and lots of elegant wordplay. Thanks to the setter for a very enjoyable puzzle.
Clues are in blue, with definitions underlined. Answers are in BOLD CAPS, then wordplay. (ABC*) means ‘anagram of ABC’. Deletions are in [square brackets].
Across
1 Who might steal eggs and cook them? (7)
POACHER: cute double definition.
5 Politeness but misplaced emphasis in report of special-purpose subgroup? (6)
COMITY: a sounds-like clue, signalled by “in report of”, along with the acknowledgement that COMITY has its emphasis on the first syllable, while COMMITTEE has its on the second.
It took a lot of time looking at C—T- to come up with COMITY as an option, and more time to decide whether I knew what the word actually meant.
8 Dashing person has known lady primarily for the time that dampens fire (9)
SPRINKLER: replace the T=time in SPRINTER = “dashing person” by KL, first letters of Known Lady.
9 Don’t speak badly as an accomplice (5)
SHILL: SH=don’t speak, ILL=badly. Another word of whose meaning I was uncertain, but I trusted the wordplay and wrote it in as soon as I saw it.
11 Flamboyant alias for “Denny”? (5)
LAIRY: this made me laugh. A den might be a lair, so if DENNY means “like a den”, LAIRY can do likewise. I suspected “lairy” might be an Aussie word, and Chambers agrees, but here it is!
12 Nutcracker part unexpectedly exuded sap (3,2,4)
PAS DE DEUX: anagram (“unexpectedly”) of (EXUDED SAP*). A part of the ballet, of course, nothing to do with a literal nutcracker.
13 Extraordinary and not welcomed by a retiring gentle person (8)
ABNORMAL : A, BMAL=LAMB “retiring”=gentle person; all “welcoming” NOR=not.
15 What makes old lady jerk uncontrollably? Substance applied to joints (6)
MASTIC: or, MA’S TIC. Apparently mastic can be used as a glue.
17 Maintain batting is over, stumped (6)
INSIST: IN=batting, SI=IS “over”, ST=stumped. A double helping of cricket!
19 Thus form band, making things serious (8)
SOBERING: or, SO BE RING.
22 Poor health for one’s partner (5,4)
OTHER HALF: anagram (“poor”) of (HEALTH FOR*).
23 Order stopped short of November, which gives us pause (5)
COMMA: COMMA[nd] = order, stopping before N=November.
24 Welcome remedy (5)
SALVE: A double definition, the first from Latin.
25 Dry up about crime syndicate, saving the last family head (9)
PATRIARCH: PARCH “about” TRIA[d], “saving” the final letter.
26 Author more appropriate for audiobooks? (6)
WRITER: sounds like (“for audiobooks”) RIGHTER=more appropriate.
27 Bribe accepted by salesmen returning giveaway (7)
SPOILER: OIL=bribe, “accepted by” SPER= (REPS=salesmen “returning”).
Down
1 Finland, note everything’s doomed from the south — or undetermined? (13)
PUSILLANIMOUS: I had to get this from the helpers and the (delicious) definition, and reconstruct the wordplay later. It’s a reversal (“from the south”) of SUOMI=Finland, N=note, ALL IS=everything’s, UP=doomed, as in “the game is up”.
2 Ring Arab without final roaming charge (7)
ARRAIGN: anagram (“roaming”) of (RING ARA-*), where ARAB is without its final letter.
3 Series of thank-you letters in small rag (5)
HANKY: hidden answer.
4 Bungled op? Really pretend to be someone else (4-4)
ROLE PLAY: anagram (“bungled”) of (OP REALLY*).
5 Crack up on the boards (6)
CORPSE: cryptic definition. One that’s come up more than once in recent months. It’s a theatrical term for an actor’s collapsing in laughter.
6 Honour to maintain, with lives stuck in sin (9)
MISBEHAVE: MBE=honour, HAVE=maintain, with IS=lives “stuck in” between. This was my LOI. I got hung up thinking the definition would be honour.
7 Camp under chopped spruce cut into thirds (7)
TRISECT: TRI[m]=spruce, “cut”, SECT=a metaphorical camp.
10 My career is meaningful by definition (13)
LEXICOGRAPHER: A cryptic definition of a person who compiles, um, definitions.
14 Raise note on curtailment of county court (9)
RESURRECT: RE=on, SURRE[y]=“curtailed” county, CT=court.
16 Jailbird following trucks for digger proves wrong (8)
CONFUTES: CON=jailbird, F=following, UTES=an Australian (diggers’) word for small trucks. Not a word I knew. It’s odd that “confutes” seems to mean much the same as “refutes”.
18 Academic chief breaks from the Sun (7)
SCHOLAR: CH=chief, in SOLAR.
20 One million marks on exam — cheating? (7)
IMMORAL: I=one, M=million, M=marks, ORAL=exam. The question mark is part of the definition, since it’s a definition by example.
21 Almost nothing limits software for remote control (6)
ZAPPER: ZER[o] “limiting” APP.
23 Nothing for Poles in Australian city or Egyptian one (5)
CAIRO: CAIRNS, with the north and south poles replaced by O=nothing.
I did like SUOMI backwards and also LEXICOGRAPHER. Like you, Bruce, my LOI was MISBEHAVE but my favourite was POACHER.
Quite chewy in parts, and although POACHER was a write-in, I eventually concluded that “bottom upwards” was the direction to take.
I vaguely remembered COMITY and SHILL, and impressed myself by cracking the nut at 12A quickly. Ballet is on my “avoid at all costs” list.
An enjoyable puzzle – thanks Bruce and setter.
FOI POACHER
LOI CORPSE
COD PUSILLANIMOUS
TIME 16:22
Edited at 2019-03-30 07:30 am (UTC)
Too many problems to list but if you’ve never heard of Suomi, 1d is tough (I’d got POACHER early). Also did not know SHILL. Had Lairy and Shiny and others as candidates for 11d. So, a learning experience for me.
Now I must go and find some reading material for my trip to Reading, material game today for Preston against relegation threatened Reading.
David
Actually I will be reading The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis.
For Preston.
I vaguely remembered SHILL but looked it up in Chambers to confirm before submitting (there’s a book token at stake), losing more time by not noticing there’s a second entry, which is the right one. Chambers says its from the USA, short for shillaber, a snake oil salesman’s stooge.
Never knew MASTIC was a natural product, at least originally.
56 minutes for this fun puzzle. FOI 1a POACHER, LOI, unaccountably, 26a WRITER, where I was probably overthinking it.
This took a lot of sessions, a lot of help with reference (I just don’t have the vocabulary for lots of these) and 78 minutes to finally get this one done. I think that I enjoyed it !
A couple of Australianisms gave me a kick start with LAIRY (the first in) and CAIRO (as the second – actually flying up to Cairns in 4 or 5 weeks to escape these 11 degree days down here in Melbourne). Afraid there weren’t too many ‘quicks’ for me after these two.
I spend quite a bit of time going over the finished grid when I’m finished … and it paid off this time – originally had CURTSY in at 6d (my last entry – from a rather coarse interpretation of the clue) and only came to know this definition of CORPSE by a dictionary crawl when I was convinced that mine was wrong. SALVE was another that I’d written in … and it took quite a while to find the ‘welcome!’ meaning of it.