Hi all. Fun from the wiggly one today, completed in a normal quickie-level time. There are a couple of living people, but living is generally how I like my people (they much better drinking companions for a start). There is also a clue that may divide opinion as it contains a non-word. My clue of the day is 5d, and the clues for the three-letter answers were good too, much more inventive than the tiddlers can often be. Meowny thanks Wurm!
Definitions are underlined in the clues below. In the explanations, most quoted indicators are in italics, specified [deletions] are in square brackets, and I’ve capitalised and emboldened letters which appear in the ANSWER. For clarity, I omit most link words and some juxtaposition indicators.
| Across | |
| 3a | Ginger Spice in queue for underwear (8) |
| LINGERIE — GERI (Ginger Spice) in LINE (queue) | |
| 7a | Be one about to lead nation (6) |
| BRUNEI — BE and I around (about) RUN (to lead) | |
| 8a | Party clothes news boss creased (3-5) |
| DOG-EARED — DO (party) + GEAR (clothes) + ED (news boss) | |
| 9a | Princess wanting some man necessarily? (4) |
| ANNE — For the answer we want some mAN NEcessarily | |
| 10a | Nailed body part to table finally? (3) |
| TOE — TO + the last letter of (… finally) tablE | |
| 11a | Sea dog in battered coastal location (3,5) |
| SAN DIEGO — SEA DOG IN anagrammed (battered) | |
| 13a | Wax for one red gemstone (4) |
| RUBY — Two definitions | |
| 15a | Anxious England gutted: Germany too! (4) |
| EDGY — EnglanD without inner letter (gutted): GermanY (gutted) too | |
| 17a | This writer maligns Samoan perhaps (8) |
| ISLANDER — I SLANDER (this writer maligns) | |
| 19a | With which each grebe generally starts? (3) |
| EGG — First letters of (with which … starts) Each Grebe Generally – &lit | |
| 22a | That West End mewsical? (4) |
| CATS — A jokey definition | |
| 23a | Everyone prepared to follow British sport (4,4) |
| BALL GAME — ALL (everyone) and GAME (prepared) to follow B (British) | |
| 24a | Raise dough — go north (6) |
| LEAVEN — LEAVE (go) + N (north) | |
| 25a | Beg while working fairground feature (3,5) |
| BIG WHEEL — An anagram of (… working) BEG WHILE | |
| Down | |
| 1d | Doctor treated Kurd, an alcoholic (8) |
| DRUNKARD — DR (doctor) + an anagram of (treated) KURD AN | |
| 2d | Popular exploit for sure (6) |
| INDEED — IN (popular) + DEED (exploit) | |
| 3d | Beach — nothing under cover? (4) |
| LIDO — O (nothing) under LID (cover) | |
| 4d | One unused to early retirement? (5,3) |
| NIGHT OWL — A cryptic definition playing on two meanings of retirement | |
| 5d | Times editor’s outside in rubber (6) |
| ERASER — ERAS (Times) + EditoR’s outside | |
| 6d | Thought middleman oddly ignored (4) |
| IDEA — Without odd letters (… oddly ignored) mIdDlEmAn | |
| 12d | Move abroad good coming into Arab state (8) |
| EMIGRATE — G (good) coming into EMIRATE (Arab state) | |
| 14d | Unusual three-bar rest (8) |
| BREATHER — An anagram of (unusual) THREE BAR | |
| 16d | Chicken or canary? (6) |
| YELLOW — Two definitions | |
| 18d | Delicious beverage Cretan brewed (6) |
| NECTAR — CRETAN anagrammed (brewed) | |
| 20d | One’s business is picking up or dropping off? (4) |
| TAXI — Cryptic definition, seeming to refer to how well business is doing rather than what it is doing. EDIT for clarity: The surface meaning is how well business is doing, but the definition is that the business of a taxi is picking up and then dropping off passengers | |
| 21d | Archer William to have noticeable effect (4) |
| TELL — Double definition | |
Well it didn’t work out very well during this very complicated day. 24:09 because I simply couldn’t see TAXI for 10 minutes or so. Looked for wordplay (something that makes sense both forward and backward?) for far too long. Then went right by it in two alphabet trawls. The rest went pretty smoothly. Took LINGERIE and RUBY on faith (RUBY particularly hard if, like me, you’ve never heard of her). Sorry, I thought CATS a bit lame. Liked TELL, but TOE my favorite. (Yes I agree the surface is gruesome, but it made me laugh with misty memories of Monty Python. Dinsdale!)
Thanks to Wurm and Kitty.
14 minutes. Ok-ish.
90+ minutes on big puzzle and still couldn’t get one clue. Also a silly mistake. Frustrating that I’ve nothing to show for such a significant investment of time. ☹️
Thanks Wurm – I finished this puzzle and those are the puzzles I tend to appreciate 🙂
Very enjoyable solve and I always find it very strange when more experienced solvers struggle on a clue that for me was a write in… TAXI in this case.
Very much enjoyed LINGERIE.
Cheers Kitty
P.S – just started doing the Telegraph cryptics which I find are very nicely placed for me – just slightly above the QCs
A good QC today – thank you Wurm. All finished and parsed in just over 20 minutes.
FOI LIDO with a MER as we think of it as an outdoor pool.
LOIs BRUNEI and TAXI which delayed us by some minutes.
COD the mewsical clue for its LOL moment.
Thanks Kitty for the blog
13:52 for me. Never thought much of Ruby Wax, and didn’t think a lot about her today either. Thanks all.
Great puzzle to start the week and really pleased to see the setter corresponding. I think TOE parses as the last letters of part to table, kitty, not TO and E but unimportant. FOI DRUNKARD, struggled with ERASER and BRUNEI, was sure 8AC was an anagram for far too long and LOI INDEED, for some reason. If anyone wanted to point to a perfectly pitched QC this would be it, in my opinion. Thank you.
13:01. got stuck on BRUNEI for aaaaaages! thanks both!