Explanations and clarifications needed for 1a, 8, 12, 13, 19 and 26.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | GOLF WIDOWS – can’t make head or tail of this, beyond some sort of pun on “putting”: “In small numbers, their men want to be putting themselves out?” |
| 6 | I,BID – short for ibidem, Latin for “in the same place”. |
| 9 | A BIT,IT(MUS)S – ABI TITMUSS is famous for reasons which escape me now. Google her if you’re interested. |
| 10 | COD,A – would “doorstep collection” be COD or “cash on delivery”? |
| 12 | LETTER OPENER – I guess this must be a cryptic def but a couple of things seem odd: why the businessman reference? Anyone can have a LETTER OPENER can’t they? And why “hold dear”? |
| 15 | E(VA)NS – ENS means “entity” and Mary-Ann EVANS was the real name of George Eliot. I wasted a not inconsiderable about of time thinking Eliot was T.S. |
| 16 | SOL(RIDE)*O,N – SOLDIER ON. |
| 18 | S(MALL,BEE)R |
| 19 | GRACE – “graceful” can mean “becoming” but does that justify “become” for GRACE? |
| 20 | PRINT(BE CLEAR)*T – PRINCE ALBERT. |
| 24 | OVAL – a reference to the Tube station (which is on the Northern Line I think) and the fact that an OVAL is not a circle. |
| 25 | (FORTUNE THE)* – FOURTEENTH. |
| 26 | ESKY – don’t understand this one and had to use Reveal to get the answer. An ESKY is a portable insulated container for keeping drinks cool. Full clue is “What’s reached for in raid takes out first two in cooler”. |
| 27 | B(LIND’S)IGHT – had to guess this from the definition and crossing letters as I didn’t understand the Nightingale reference. Looks like it’s a reference to the opera singer Jenny LIND, aka “the Swedish Nightingale”. |
| Down | |
| 1 | GO,AT |
| 2 | LAIN – sounds like “lane”. |
| 3 | WRITER’S BLOCK – which, for Spooner, would sound like “blighter’s rock”. “Blighter” is a term of playful abuse (“you little blighter”) meaning the same as beggar or scamp, and “rock” is a type of opera (like soap, or space). And John Gay wrote The Beggar’s Opera. |
| 4 | DEMI(TAS)SE – a small cup for, or of, (usually) black coffee. |
| 5 | W,(RISE)* – WISER |
| 7 | BROW,NB,READ – NB is “nota bene”, Latin for “note well” or “take notice”, so “that’s important” might be another way of saying that. BROWN BREAD is Cockney rhyming slang for “dead”. |
| 8 | DEAD RINGER – which is how you might describe Quasimodo and means “double” but why does the clue say “having done his last”? |
| 11 | SPRING GREENS |
| 13 | PERSE,PH ONE – on the Ph scale, ONE is very acidic but I can’t explain where PERSE comes from. |
| 14 | S(AFAR,I)PARK |
| 17 | LOR(ROD BY)*N – LORD BYRON. |
| 21 | A,TOLL |
| 22 | SN,GO (going up) – SNOG. Excellent clue – Sn is the chemical symbol for “tin” and definition is well-disguised. |
| 23 | WHIT – double definition. |
26ac – “Reach for (th)E SKY”
1ac – maybe the “small numbers” refers to wanting to “putt out” in a low number of shots, so the whole clue is just a cd?
26A “Reach for the sky” is the biography and film about Douglas Bader, and I suggest the phrase is now very well known. So ESKY it is from [th]E SKY.
13D PERSE is PER SE i.e. “essentially”
19 is a DD. Grace as in become and the great WG.
8 if he is dead he has done his last. Question mark means a little latitude is permitted.
12ac I don’t have the full clue to hand, but I can help with “sear”. “Dear” is usually the first word in a letter (as in Dear Sir), so is “letter opener”.
I meant “dear”, of course [lousy typing]
Haven’t got any dictionaries to hand. Is ESKY which I hadn’t heard of in any of them?
Al
‘Esky’ is in Chambers and Collins but not COED.
I’ve heard of ESKY but I think that it is a bit of a down-under-ism.
26A: Douglas Bader seems irrelevant – think stagecoaches. ESKY must be short for eskimo.
I thought the Bader link was air raids, but now you mention it I can see the cowboy connection too.
12ac: A businessman’s secretary opens letters, as does a blade and (as already noted in comment 4) the word ‘dear’
7D I can’t see how “leading” can be justified. Surely it should be “following”. The wordplay as it stands leads to NBREADBROW.
I couldn’t finish this and a lot of the answers I did get were pencilled in with question marks. Thanks to the above I can understand most of it now.
I can see an argument for both – the letters could be the first part entered in the light, or leading could be taken as ‘ahead of’ in that they are further into the light. It’s like when I suggest that someone parks ‘just in front of that car’ and they park what I consider to be behind it.