Hello hello hello, shiny happy people, and welcome to our shiny new site! (A warm welcome to matte and miserable people too, of course – I’m with you!) I am so grateful for all the brilliant work put in by the development team to bring us here.
I think this puzzle won’t have troubled seasoned solvers; even I squeaked in at under 5 minutes (by a fraction of a second). It’s harder to judge how others might have found it, so for that it’s over to you.
Chambers proved not the best reference dictionary for today, as when blogging I had to defer to Oxford/Collins for the required definition of 2d and to check the given description of 13a. I think my favourite clue was 4d. It inspired me to write a clue for the definition.
Thanks Orpheus!
Definitions are underlined in the clues below. In the explanations, quoted indicators are in italics and I’ve capitalised and emboldened letters which appear in the ANSWER. For clarity, I omit most link words and some juxtaposition indicators.
| Across | |
| 1 | Complete basic food, it’s said, for top-quality horse (12) |
| THOROUGHBRED — THOROUGH (complete) + BRED, a homophone of (… it’s said) BREAD (basic food) | |
| 8 | Greek for Room at the Top? (5) |
| ATTIC — A double definition | |
| 9 | Rude man badly lacking means of defence (7) |
| UNARMED — RUDE MAN anagrammed (badly) | |
| 10 | Flightless bird met at first in Brussels? (3) |
| EMU — Met’s first letter (at first) goes in EU (Brussels, used as a metonym) | |
| 11 | Beneficial manoeuvre (9) |
| EXPEDIENT — Two definitions | |
| 13 | Refrain from eating first bit of undercooked cake (5) |
| DONUT — DON’T (refrain from) around (eating) the first letter of (first bit of) Undercooked. For anyone querying whether a donut is a cake, Oxford and Collins describe a do(ugh)nut as a small fried cake of sweetened dough | |
| 14 | Part of action, a director’s lowest point (5) |
| NADIR — The answer is part of actioN A DIRector | |
| 16 | Damage garden tool by church in Moroccan city (9) |
| MARRAKECH — MAR (damage) + RAKE (garden tool) + CH (church). I definitely needed the wordplay here to confirm the spelling! | |
| 17 | Reason for which the river at Chepstow is mentioned (3) |
| WHY — WYE (the river at Chepstow) sounds like the answer (is mentioned) | |
| 19 | Word in India for stations like Euston, etc (7) |
| TERMINI — TERM (word) + IN + I (India) | |
| 21 | Appearing for trial, aim to stand vertically (5) |
| UPEND — UP (appearing for trial) + END (aim) | |
| 22 | Chance money originally coming in, to do with teeth (12) |
| COINCIDENTAL — COIN (money) + the initial letters of (originally) Coming In + DENTAL (to do with teeth) | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Article about an old clan chief, Macbeth, for example (5) |
| THANE — THE (article) around (about) AN | |
| 2 | Old-fashioned athlete, a carriage attendant once (9) |
| OUTRUNNER — OUT (old-fashioned) + RUNNER (athlete). The answer was new to me, and not in my Chambers app, although it’s there in Collins and Oxford. An attendant who runs in front of or beside a carriage, etc | |
| 3 | Fancy Hector’s share? It’s the scorer’s job (13) |
| ORCHESTRATION — An anagram of (fancy) HECTOR’S + RATION (share) | |
| 4 | Petulant doctor unknown to drink spirit (6) |
| GRUMPY — GP (doctor) and Y (unknown) containing (to drink) RUM (spirit) | |
| 5 | Entering hotel on river, a provider of accommodation (8,5) |
| BOARDING HOUSE — BOARDING (entering) + H (hotel) + OUSE (river) | |
| 6 | Miller regularly climbing a tree (3) |
| ELM — Alternate letters of (… regularly) MiLlEr reversed (climbing, in a down entry) | |
| 7 | Press chief possibly cycled up carrying it (6) |
| EDITOR — RODE (possibly cycled) reversed (up) containing (carrying) IT | |
| 12 | Demon went mad, providing hand-out (9) |
| ENDOWMENT — DEMON WENT anagrammed (mad) | |
| 13 | Downgrade woman getting to grips with vehicle test (6) |
| DEMOTE — DEE (woman) around (getting to grips with) MOT (vehicle test) | |
| 15 | Twins, say, going north by car (6) |
| GEMINI — EG (say) reversed (going north, in a down entry) next to (by) MINI (car) | |
| 18 | Vocalise Southey’s last poem on lake (5) |
| YODEL — SoutheY’s last letter + ODE (poem) + L (lake) | |
| 20 | Brazilian port’s endless civil unrest (3) |
| RIO — Without the last letter (endless), RIOt (civil unrest) | |
Hello, this is my first comment on the new site.
Brilliantly done, congratulations to all involved. I’ve always been a BBC fan so the lack of adverts makes me feel right at home.
My only regret is that I jumped off the blogging bus just before it arrived. It would have been fun to have done some blogs on it but overall I am glad of the little bit of extra freedom I have gained. Thanks again to Kitty for taking over.
Neither this one nor the other one was too difficult today, but entertaining as usual. Many thanks to everybody involved in the new site and the bloggers and setters.
Don
AND the new system of naming seems to allow me to call myself Astarte as originally intended instead of Astartedon! An unexpected bonus.
Hurrah! New site, late posting as I was v busy yesterday.
Not too bad, liked ORCHESTRATION –
5:33
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