I found this very tough but a thoroughly enjoyable solve. Lots of great clues (my personal favourite is 12a), and a very clever touch at 19 and 20d. I’m still unsure about 17a, 21a and 18d though.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 5 | L,I in FROC[-k] – I should have got this quicker but I spent some time pondering the significance of “observed”, a mistake I know I’ve made more than once. |
| 10 | (NAVAL)* in ACHE,D |
| 12 | TB in UREA in OK – what a fantastic clue: “Disease spread by bacteria in body waste, needing satisfactory containment”. |
| 14 | NUTMEG – “trap dummy” could be NET MUG. |
| 15 | (BIT PLAYER ID CGI)* – CREDIBILITY GAP. The enumeration is a big help here as you just need to look at what 3 letter words are possible and that might fit with the definition. |
| 17 | FORTUNE TELLING – I’m not sure if this right but I also can’t see what else might fit. Full clue is: “Loud, badly echoed, no good” – that wraps up song prediction”. “Loud” could be F or FORTE and “song” is TUNE but I can’t work out the rest. |
| 21 | NEVADA – not sure about this one either: “Roue can hold this state back in two ways”. |
| 23 | CEP in SAUNA (with N and A switched) |
| 24 | ASHY – this one is very devilish: “Like the Grateful Dead in appearance?” A full grate would be ASHY, which is what a dead person might look like (or indeed the manager of Neasden FC, Private Eye fans). Yes, the capital G shouldn’t be there in the cryptic reading but who could resist using “Grateful Dead” like that? |
| 25 | ELIOT,R in HOPE |
| Down | |
| 2 | V in BI,OU,AC – another great clue but this was a real toughie to unravel. |
| 3/1 | A,BALL<,OAR,D |
| 4 | AND in [-u]NOILED (going up) – the toughest one of the puzzle for me as I knew nothing about DANDELION clocks (from the Wikipedia page: “The flower matures into a globe of fine filaments that are usually distributed by wind, carrying away the seed-containing achenes. This globe (receptacle) is called the “clock”). |
| 6 | D in (IRON)* – mercifully, a nice easy clue. |
| 8 | CHIMER,A |
| 9 | SHAK[-e],TI[-e] |
| 13 | (BY ALES HEART)* – BREATHALYSE. Another comparatively easy one. |
| 18 | OVERSEW – there’s nothing else that will fit here but I can’t work out the clue: “Stitch edges of front surface, cutting book width”. I also can’t decide where the definition ends: is it just “stitch” or “stitch edges of front”? |
| 19 | initial letters of “Get Richelieu As”,PP,LE |
| 20 | last letters of “geT RichelieU aS pressureS,LE – exactly the same clue as 19d: “Tips to get Richelieu as pressures put on the French struggle”. Very cleverly done. |
| 22 | AD HOC[-k] |
FORTUNE TELLING is FORTE + ILL rev + NG about TUNE
OVERSEW I’ve only just seen a week on, and it’s O(B)VERSE + W
NEVADA I remin baffled by, assuming it’s the answer
I can’t believe you never “told the time” with a dandelion clock tho 🙂 If you took say five blows to blow the fluff off it was 5 o’clock 6 and it was 6 o’clock and so on. Far more thrilling than a playstation …
21ac I went for KERALA, an Indian state…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala
I thought for a long time about putting NEVADA in, but couldn’t crack the wordplay.
So plumped for KERA from ‘rake’ = ‘roue’, and LA as in ‘AL’ (Alabama) back…
We’ll see if I’m wrong tomorrow…
Thought 19+20d was a very nice touch!
Still doesn’t look right though does it? I mean, there’s nothing telling us to turn “rake” into KERA. That said I can’t do a thing with NEVADA so KERALA seems more likely at the moment.
It’s the ‘back in two ways’ bit I was wondering about…
It is Nevada and it’s extremely difficult: reverse NEVADA inside ROUE and you get …
I doubt I would ever have spotted that.
Ah! There I was reversing NEVADA inside ST and RD etc to get a type of ROUE (!)
And that’ll teach me not to go with my first instincts as regards the answer!
NEVADA Phew! It baffled me too, but, I knew, it being Nestor, that there would be a bullet-proof explanation. Thanks, Eimi.
Monk’s the bullet-proof one.
http://www.bulletproofmonk.com/