24:09 for a puzzle with some delightful words, many unknown to me. Some of the wordplay will have to be figured out in medias blog, as I confess to having biffed several answers.
With this, my brief stint as a substitute blogger comes to a close. It’s been a pleasure to serve you.
| Across | |
| 1 | High-risk entertaining the queen’s court (8) |
| CHANCERY – CHANCY around ER | |
| 5 | Nag with repeated notes read aloud (3-3) |
| GEE-GEE – homophone of G G
I hadn’t known this but thankfully the crossing letters and the hint ‘repeated’ made it impossible to get wrong! |
|
| 10 | Cheap pub to bring in wicked blokes ahead of time (7-8) |
| BARGAIN-BASEMENT – BAR + GAIN + BASE MEN + T | |
| 11 | Mixing up Torah and Bible creates a bewildering situation (6,4) |
| RABBIT HOLE – anagram of TORAH BIBLE
Didn’t know this one, either. Found it in Collins, but not in Chambers. |
|
| 13 | About to get brief details (4) |
| INFO – IN FO{r} (“about to get”)
The definition was much easier to see than the (lovely) wordplay! |
|
| 15 | Ran with Del Boy, perhaps, almost getting diamonds (7) |
| TROTTED – TROTTE{r} + D
Derek “Del Boy” Trotter is a character from Only Fools and Horses. Sadly, I did not know this helpful bit of info! |
|
| 17 | Room in northern Surrey to wander (7) |
| NURSERY – anagram of N SURREY | |
| 18 | Unhelpful instruction for conserving something? (7) |
| USELESS – “USE LESS!” | |
| 19 | Paper with unfinished petition, for instance (7) |
| EXAMPLE – EXAM + PLE{a} | |
| 21 | Unlimited wine for chap in Cologne? (4) |
| HERR – {s}HERR{y}
Definition by example (“Cologne, for instance”) indicated by ‘?’. |
|
| 22 | Half-heartedly holding back cool old city (10) |
| STALINGRAD – STAL{l}ING + RAD | |
| 25 | Rewritten epistle torn open — you won’t like what it says! (6-3,6) |
| POISON-PEN LETTER – anagram of EPISTLE TORN OPEN
Hadn’t heard of this before. Collins defines it as “an unpleasant unsigned letter which is sent in order to upset someone or to cause trouble”. Sounds like a definition of ‘the internet’. |
|
| 27 | Drink knocked back before working is a spirit (6) |
| DAEMON – MEAD reversed + ON | |
| 28 | Witches put a strain on city (8) |
| COVENTRY – COVEN + TRY (“put a strain on”) | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Tom, say, catches nude show (7) |
| CABARET – CAT around BARE | |
| 2 | Scottish town‘s broadcast on the radio (3) |
| AYR – homophone of AIR | |
| 3 | Rider‘s shout of joy suppressing a scream (10) |
| CHARIOTEER – CHEER around A + RIOT | |
| 4 | Farm sector loses leader (5) |
| RANCH – {b}RANCH | |
| 6 | Need to change prime minister (4) |
| EDEN – anagram of NEED | |
| 7 | Rookie footballer is an employee of course! (11) |
| GREENKEEPER – GREEN + KEEPER
Somehow I feel like we’d call this a GREENSKEEPER or GROUNDSKEEPER here. I tried to outdo the puzzle by trying to think of restaurant employees! |
|
| 8 | Treaty port nearly covering up chaos (7) |
| ENTROPY – hidden reversed in {trea}TY PORT NE{arly} | |
| 9 | Music style picked up pop jargon (8) |
| PARLANCE – RAP reversed + LANCE | |
| 12 | Vocally expresses disapproval of sailors’ drunken voyage (5,6) |
| BOOZE CRUISE – BOOS CREWS
Very funny. |
|
| 14 | Awfully energetic around a relative (5-5) |
| GREAT-NIECE – anagram of ENERGETIC around A | |
| 16 | Computers from the French, a thousand at most (8) |
| DESKTOPS – DES (“from the” in French) + K + TOPS | |
| 18 | Employed to secure luck, like a horseshoe (1-6) |
| U-SHAPED – USED around HAP | |
| 20 | Old wood put on walls of library (7) |
| ELDERLY – ELDER + L{ibrar}Y | |
| 23 | Slowly advanced over top of obstacle (5) |
| LENTO – LENT + O{bstacle} | |
| 24 | Charm — it’s missing from cocktail (4) |
| MOJO – MOJ{it}O | |
| 26 | Rubbish / bit of needlework? (3) |
| TAT – double definition
This one and EDEN felt like they belonged to a rather different puzzle. |
|
Made a much better fist of this one, (nearly) finishing in about 25 minutes – apart from the second half of BOOZE -, and the now-so-obvious MOJO! So pretty chuffed to very nearly get there. (PARLANCE biffed , I have to admit, as I thought the Pop translated to PA, and wouldn’t let that go!)