DNF – hopefully for technical reasons regarding 18ac. I’m sure you’ll let me know if I’m missing something… [On edit, looking at the leaderboard, it seems I’m in good company!]
Otherwise a puzzle of average difficulty. I didn’t get 1ac straight away and ended up swiping through clues to find some easy pickings before returning to the less obvious ones. I’m a big fan of 11dn (both the clue and it’s solution), but my COD vote goes to the original and funny 11ac!
Definitions underlined.
| Across | |
| 1 | Unruly argument in open discussion meetings with Liberal left (4-3-3) |
| FREE-FOR-ALL – FREE (open), FORA (plural of ‘forum’, discussion meetings), L (liberal), and L (left). | |
| 8 | Kidnap a French duke in outskirts of Brest (6) |
| ABDUCT – A, then DUC (French duke) contained by (in) the first and last letters (outskirts) of BresT. | |
| 9 | Sound quality of Britain reduced in time (6) |
| TIMBRE – BR (Britain, abbreviated (reduced)) contained by (in) TIME. | |
| 10 | One mostly loved thought (4) |
| IDEA – I (one), and all-but-the-last letter of (mostly) DEAr (loved). Took a while to see the ‘dear’ bit. | |
| 11 | Tanning facility located centrally in resort island, luring frumps? (8) |
| SOLARIUM – central pairs of letters from (located centrally in) reSOrt isLAnd luRIng frUMps. | |
| 12 | Dandy around university runs business department (6) |
| BUREAU – BEAU (dandy) containing (around) U (university) and R (runs). | |
| 14 | Better, except when editor’s replacing short part (6) |
| EXCEED – EXCEpt with ED (editor) replacing ‘pt’ (short part). | |
| 16 | Brilliant group of puppies following good year (8) |
| GLITTERY – LITTER (group of puppies) after (following) G (good), then Y (year). | |
| 18 | Noticed small cuts (4) |
|
SAWS – SAW (noticed) and S (small). Now corrected after an earlier mishap (see comments below). |
|
| 20 | Unproductive noble, by the sound of it (6) |
| BARREN – homophone of (by the sound of it) “baron” (noble). | |
| 21 | Medicine man with counterfeit article (6) |
| SHAMAN – SHAM (counterfeit) and AN (article). | |
| 22 | Some rubbish appears wet for recycling (10) |
| WASTEPAPER – anagram of (for recycling) APPEARS WET. | |
| Down | |
| 2 | Fanatical attack captures bishop (5) |
| RABID – RAID (attack) containing (captures) B (bishop). | |
| 3 | Australian bird, a sort of teal, is mimic (7) |
| EMULATE – EMU (Australian bird) with an anagram (sort) of TEAL. | |
| 4 | Not at home in Tynemouth (3) |
| OUT – hidden in (in) tynemOUTh. | |
| 5 | Important transport link cut by hostile heavy guns (9) |
| ARTILLERY – ARTERY (important transport link) containing (cut by) ILL (hostile). | |
| 6 | The French half murder Madagascan native (5) |
| LEMUR – LE (‘the’ in French) with half of MURder. | |
| 7 | Gamekeeper’s beginning to stir up birds (6) |
| GROUSE – first letter of (…’s beginning) Gamekeeper, then ROUSE (to stir up). | |
| 11 | Eastern US is mad for sweet wine (9) |
| SAUTERNES – anagram of (is mad) EASTERN US. | |
| 13 | Loud PA broadcast put on a bigger system (6) |
| UPLOAD – anagram of (broadcast) LOUD PA. | |
| 15 | Source of starch fool put in Spanish fizz (7) |
| CASSAVA – ASS (fool) inside (put in) CAVA (Spanish fizz). | |
| 17 | Short time in drag for cast (5) |
| THROW – HR (hour abbreviated, short time) inside (in) TOW (drag). | |
| 19 | Sea creature in western sound (5) |
| WHALE – W (western) and HALE (healthy, robust, sound). | |
| 21 | View scene regularly omitted (3) |
| SEE – odd letters from (regularly omitted) ScEnE. | |
Blue Stocking
Only using the on line version when we are away
No problem with saws but felt that 11ac should have been wines not wine to match the anagram.
Tricky puzzle but fun
SAWS took me a while after my brain was whizzing about with other possibilities like SEEN SAWN etc. I think the difficulty here is the noun/verb indirection. In the clue cuts is a noun but in the solution it’s a verb.
I liked 15D.
Thanks,
Woodspiral.