A peculiarly tricky crossword from Math today, although I don’t know if that’s because I was trying to combine solving it with listening to the cricket. A couple that I don’t understand, but no doubt they will be explained to me. Also, a bewildering Nina: what does ‘William seventy’ (LH and RH unches) mean? ‘Today’s Birthdays’ doesn’t explain; perhaps it’s something personal to Math. Knowing Math, perhaps it’s the anniversary of some film or film star.

An interesting challenge today with some misleading clues and a few imaginative definitions. Whilst solving I thought that in one or two places the cluing was a little liberal but with hindsight I have no particular reservations.

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Across

1 GRATIS  RAT (traitor) in GIS (soldiers)

4 CRUCIATE  *(RACE I CUT) - there are two cruciate ligaments in the knee

9 UPPITY  UP (to raise) PITY (charity)

10 BOUNTIED  BO (man) UNTIED (set free)

12 BEEFCAKE  BEEF (meat) CAKE (congeal)

13 GENEVA  GEN (information) EVA (girl)

15 EXEC  EX (former) EC(European Community)

16 AFTERSHAVE  AFTERS (pudding) HAVE

19 CODSWALLOP  S (saint) in COD (fish) WALLOP (batter)

20 SONG  dd

23 NICETY  NICE (polite) T Y (two junctions)

25 QUAGMIRE  QUA (in the capacity of) GM (carmaker) I RE (note)

27 ARMCHAIR  A (article) RM (sailors) CHAIR (professor) - it surprised me a little that Chambers actually includes ‘theoretical’ in its list of definitions for ‘armchair’

28 OBOIST  *(BOOT IS)

29 ELAPSING  E (first exam) LAPSING (failing)

30 EXCESS  homophone of X S

Down

1 GRUMBLE  G (gravity) RUMBLE (discover)

2 APPREHEND  dd

3 INTACT  IN (batting) TACT (discretion)

5 ROOK  R (Queen) O O (loves) K (king) - ‘rook’ and ‘castle’ being two names for the same piece in chess

6 CONVERSE  dd

7 ABIDE  ID (instinctive desire) in ABE (President) - Abe Lincoln, an old favourite of setters

8 ENDGAME  - I’m not sure how to describe this one, ‘endgame’ is the final few moves in a game and if someone has won or lost then you have to end the game

11 SKIFFLE  *(LIKES FF) - I would not have described ’skiffle’ as ‘folk music’ but Chambers does

14 DECORUM  E (drug) CO (company) in DRUM (tattoo)

17 ABORIGINE  *(I GO IN BEAR)

18 SWATCHES  C (hundred) in SWATHES (wraps) - ’swatches’ are samples of cloth, carpets etc

19 CONCAVE  CON (trick) CA (about) VE (victory) - I’m slightly less than happy with the use of ‘victory’ to provide ‘ve’ but this is probably just nit-picking

21 GHETTOS  *(GHOST T[h]E)

22 EGG BOX  EG (for example) GB (Britain) O X (no vote)

24 COMMA  CO (commanding officer) M (married) M (maiden) A - ‘breather’ is a rather pleasing definition of ‘comma’ 

26 KILN  hidden word reversed in ‘burN LIKe’

I’d recommend Quixote’s puzzles to beginners - straightforward wordplay, always bulletproof, excellent surface readings.    This I found on the easy side, solving time 12 mins

* = anagram  < = reversed

ACROSS

1 DEFUSED    cf refused

5 SPO(T)-ON

9 EGALITARIANISM   (Is it managerial)*

10 CON FRONT

13 HEARTS   Hidden

14 SCHADENFREUDE    (cheered sad fun)*     Very good.    Malicious delight in the misfortunes of others.

18 POSTE R EST ANTE

21 C ASSIS(t)   Charlie = c in international radio communication

23 NEEDLES S

26 CHARLOTTE RUSSE   (chartreuse lots)*

27 D REAMS     I think if you work it out 500 (D) reams of paper = 250,000 sheets.

28 RODENTS   (snorted)*

DOWN

1 Judy D(R)ENCH

2 FLA (UN) TS

3 SKIER    Cricket shot

4 D RAIN

6 P(r)EACH

7 T(RIVAL)ENT

8 NEMATODE   (one mated)*

11 ON AIR   Double definition

12 TREASON   (senator)*

15 CITY-STATE   (Static, yet)*

16 F(R)AME

17 RO(MAN)CER    (credo)*

19 E (ME) R SON

20 ASSES S

22 SALE M (1000)

24 (t)ESTER

25 DA RED    ad<

Took me a while to crack into, but once a few of the longer clues were in, especially 1D, I managed to rattle through most of the rest.

I couldn’t spot any theme, aside from the two clues that related to 1D and a couple of Latin phrases.

* = anagram
cd = cryptic definition
dd = double definition
“” = homophone

Across

• 1 NET CURTAINS - TEN backwards + CURTAINS with a nice cd.
• 9 OMNIBUS - BONUSIM*
• 10 CUBISTS - CUBITS around S
• 11 STONEWALL - NOTASWELL* - refers to Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson the American Civil War general
• 12 CREDO - CO around RED - Latin for ‘I believe’, mostly associated with a part of the Catholic mass.
• 13 DOPE - DO + PE
• 14 STERILISED - S could be spade, but other than that I can’t see the wordplay. EDIT: “spayed”, an interesting use of a homophone definition
• 16 RESISTANCE - SISTER* + AN + C.E.
• 19 BATS - I initially wrote SANE in here. EDIT: Eileen pointed out the correct solution in the comments
• 20 TEETH - A cd with a charade hidden in it
• 21 DINING CAR - Another cd
• 23 OTTOMAN - NATO with MOT in, all backwards
• 24 ACCRUES - “A cruise”
• 25 STATE SECRET - TESTCREATES*

Down

• 1 NON COMPOS MENTIS - NO + SIN backwards around COMPOST around MEN - Latin for “not having a controlled mind”, i.e. insane
• 2 TABLE - T + ABLE
• 3 UPSTART - PUT* around STAR
• 4 TICKLER - (s)TICKLER
• 5 IMBECILE - (CLIMB + IE + E)* - I was prevented from getting this for a while because I was spelling it ‘imbicile’
• 6 SUSPENSE ACCOUNT - Something used in bookkeeping and a cd for a thriller
• 7 CONSIDERATION dd
• 8 AS BOLD AS BRASS - ASBO + LADS* + BRASS - An asbo is an AntiSocial Behaviour Order
• 15 ISCHEMIA - CHEMIS* + 1 + A - A blood disorder. I guessed it after spotting HEMIA in the anagram but had to look it up.
• 17 AIDANCE - A1 DANCE
• 18 CANDACE - CAN DACE - I spotted the girl’s name, hadn’t heard of the queen
• 22 NICER - NICKER - K

Just my luck! Two offerings from Cinephile within three days and both on days when I am scheduled for the blog. However, it was again an enjoyable challenge and a thematic element emerged.

The play ‘A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS’ was written by ‘ROBERT BOLT’, originally for the BBC in 1954 and later adapted for the stage. The principal character ‘SIR THOMAS MORE’ was played by ‘PAUL SCOFIELD’ in the 1960 London stage production and also later on Broadway and in the 1966 film directed by Fred Zinnemann.

It is a pity that Cinephile used an incorrect spelling of Paul’s surname in the grid.

Across

1 CLASSIC FM  ASS (fool) in *(FILM CC) - for those outside the UK, Classic FM is a radio station

6 MAGUS  MAG (periodical, magazine) US (American) - sorcerer, a person who practices witchcraft, is one definition of magus

9 TULIP  TU (French for ‘you’, first person singular, ie ‘one’) LIP (impertinence)

10 LORD REITH  *(RIDER) in LOTH (reluctant) - first Director-General of the BBC, hence a ‘broadcaster’

11 ROBERT BOLT  ROBE (garment) RT (radio telegraphy or telephony) BOLT (flee)

12 BEEF  dd

15 SKITTLE  SKIT (parody) *(LET)

17 REDWING  RED (left) WING (side)

19 V-NECKED  V (first letter of Virginian) NECKED (made love) - to neck is to kiss amourously so I supose it could be described as making love

20 HAWK  dd - as in hawk = try to sell and hawk = a jingoist (a sabre-rattler or warmonger)

22, 14a A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS  A MAN (Isle of Man) OR (gold) in FALL (autumn) SEASONS - ‘this and the others’ indicating ‘autumn’ and the other three seasons of the year

25 MANDATORY  M (first letter of Major) AND (with) A TORY (one of his party) - John Major was the Conservative Prime Minister from 1990 to 1997

26 RATTY  cd - Ratty was the name of the water vole in the book ‘Wind in the Willows’

27 STEEL  cd - the ‘enobled party leader’ is Sir David Steel, leader of the Liberal Party from 1976 to 1988

28 TREASURER  *(RATE) SURER (more confident)

Down

1 CATER  - the definition is obviously ‘provide’ or ‘provide food’ but what is the wordplay? I have determined four or five possibilities but am not particularly happy with any of them. The most acceptable (or possibly least unacceptable) is: CATE (food) R (river) - cate = viand = food in Chambers and cate = choice food in COD. The Congo was previously called the Pillar River (Rio de Padrao) and there is the Amud River (Pillar River in English) that flows into the Sea of Galilee.

Alternative suggestions as to how this clue works would be more than welcome.

2 ALL ABOARD  ALLA[h] (almost the Lord) BOARD (table)

3 SUPERSONIC  SU (opening of Sunday) PERSON (chap) IC (in charge)

4 COLOBUS  COLO[n] (nearly stop) BUS (vehicle) - a ’stop’ is a punctuation mark

5 MARBLES  cd - ‘from Athens’ referring to the Elgin Marbles

7 GRIME  G (good) RIME (old poem)

13 SIDEBOARDS  dd - ‘face growth’ being side wiskers

14, 6 SIR THOMAS MORE  *(MARRIES SMOOTH)

16 TAKE AFTER  TAKE (remove) AFTER (in due course)

18 GUMBOOT  GUMBO (soup) TO reversed - ’served’ as a reversal indicator is interesting and presumably refers to the act of throwing up (a ball) when serving in tennis and other sports

19 VANDYKE  *(KENYA DV) - DV is Deo volante or ‘God willing’. ‘Brown beard’ is a double definition. A Vandyke beard (a short pointed one ) is not necessarily brown but there is also a colour called vandyke brown

21 WINCE  CE (this in French) after WIN (success)

23 LAYER  [p]LAYER

24, 8 PAUL SCHOFIELD  *(CHAP SOUL) FIELD (the rest of the runners)