At 6 minutes I found this one very easy and it takes my run of consecutive solves within my target 10 minutes to 8 so far. There are a few answers that may not be familiar to less practised solvers so there’s no need to be disheartened if you took a lot longer or struggled to finish.
As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions and substitutions are in curly brackets} and [anagrinds, containment, reversal and other indicators in square ones]
Across | |
1 | Holiday destination to organise again? (6) |
RESORT – RE-SORT (organise again). Not quite a double-definition as the second meaning would require a hyphen (2-4) | |
4 | Maps leading to Turkish capital, finally (2,4) |
AT LAST – ATLAS (maps), T{urkish} [capital] | |
9 | Remit as difficult for great composers (7) |
MAESTRI – Anagram [difficult] of REMIT AS. A maestro isn’t necessarily a composer so there’s an element of unsignalled DBE here. I much prefer the anglicised plural, ‘maestros’. | |
10 | Shift later slightly amended (5) |
ALTER – Anagram [slightly amended] of LATER. As indicated by ‘slightly’, in fact only one letter needs to change position. | |
11 | Obsessed with gin, toff drinks (4) |
INTO – Hidden in [drinks] {g}IN TO{ff} | |
12 | Toast is something found somewhere beneath the mouth, repeatedly (4-4) |
CHIN-CHIN – CHIN (something found somewhere beneath the mouth) x 2 [repeatedly] | |
14 | Earner Victor on a roll, perhaps? (11) |
BREADWINNER – BREAD (roll perhaps), WINNER (victor) | |
18 | Record call, getting to the point (8) |
TAPERING – TAPE (record), RING (call) | |
20 | Destroy one entering race (4) |
RUIN – I (one) contained by [entering] RUN (race) | |
22 | Eastern assassin in prison in Japan (5) |
NINJA – Hidden [in] {priso}N IN JA{pan} | |
23 | Australian mammal chained, unfortunately (7) |
ECHIDNA – Anagram [unfortunately] of CHAINED. Aka the spiny anteater, this is a word I know only from crosswords. | |
24 | Ridiculous speed, I observed (6) |
ESPIED – Anagram [ridiculous] of SPEED I | |
25 | By the sound of it, poet not allowed (6) |
BARRED – Sounds like [by the sound of it] “bard” (poet) |
Down | |
1 | Stay with marine or airmen on manoeuvres? (6) |
REMAIN – Anagram [on manoeuvres] of MARINE or of AIRMAN – take your pick | |
2 | Top person visibly hot? (7) |
SWEATER – Two meanings. ‘Top’ as in jumper. | |
3 | Consider cost (4) |
RATE – Two meanings | |
5 | Idiot ultimately falling for some practice (8) |
TRAINING – {idio}T [ultimately] RAINING (falling) | |
6 | A long letter (5) |
AITCH – A, ITCH (long) | |
7 | Seat chucked, we hear? (6) |
THRONE – Sounds like [we hear] “thrown” [chucked] | |
8 | Conservative player? (5-6) |
RIGHT-WINGER – Two separate meanings (politics and sport) plus wordplay RIGHT (Conservative), WINGER (player) | |
13 | Legitimate target in hoop-la, perhaps? (4,4) |
FAIR GAME – Again not quite a double definiton though I might describe ‘hoop-la’ as ‘a fairground game’ | |
15 | Duo race around country (7) |
ECUADOR – Anagram [around] of DUO RACE | |
16 | Expert bagging century immediately (2,4) |
AT ONCE – ACE (expert) containing [bagging] TON (century) | |
17 | Where fingers are present (2,4) |
ON HAND – A cryptic hint precedes the main definition | |
19 | Baby gripping popular model (3-2) |
PIN-UP – PUP (baby) containing [gripping] IN (popular) | |
21 | When hail of abuse starts, stop! (4) |
WHOA – W{hen}, H{ail}, O{f}, A{buse} [starts] |
As was the QC 8 minutes.
FOI 8dn RIGHT WINGER
LOI 1ac RESORT
COD 14ac BREAD WINNER
WOD 21dn WHOA!
Cod remain.
So a quick time for me overall, but.
Some very nice QC clues,liked WHOA, COD to TAPERING which held me up. David
Edited at 2019-06-24 01:21 pm (UTC)
Thanks for the blog
No problems, a nice, easy start to the week. Had I spotted RESORT straight away, I’d have been inside 3 minutes.
FOI AT LAST
LOI REMAIN (No thanks !)
COD TAPERING
TIME 3:01
Templar
Edited at 2019-06-24 10:33 am (UTC)