Very straightforward for a Thursday, without much misdirection in the definitions.
| Across | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ON TIME | =”punctual” | ONE=”Somebody” around TIM=”boy” |
| 4 | PEA GREEN | =”colour” | PEN=”Writer” around AGREE=”match” |
| 9 | ON EDGE | =”Nervous” | ON=”working” + EDGE=”creep” [as a verb] |
| 10 | STERNEST | =”most austere” | S[outh] TER[race] + NEST=”refuge” |
| 11 | AS MAD AS A HATTER | =”crazy” | (A star ashamed at)* |
| 13 | DINING ROOM | =”mess” | DIN=”Uproar” + IN=”popular” + GROOM=”union member” |
| 14 | CALL | =”name” | C[harlie] + ALL=”full” |
| 16 | COPE | =”vestment” [a priestly robe] | OP=”work” in CE=”church” |
| 18 | INSANITARY | =”not conducive to health” | INSANITY=”madness” around A R[ex]=”king” |
| 21 | DRESS REHEARSAL | “final run-through” | DRESS=”Don” + REAL=”actual” around HEARS=”tries” [in court] |
| 23 | NARRATED | =”told the tale” | rev(RAN)=”Hurried back” + RATED=”scored” |
| 24 | LENDER | =”uncle”=pawnbroker | [s]LENDER=”Poor beheaded” |
| 25 | ENTREATY | =”Request” | EAT=”dine” inside ENTRY=”lobby” |
| 26 | FIANCE | =”Intended” | FI[n]ANCE=”capital” with n[ame] removed |
| Down | |||
| 1 | OBOE | =”Player” | O=”ought”=zero inside OBE=”decoration” |
| 2 | TREASON | =”act of betrayal” | (Senator)* |
| 3 | MIGRAINE | =”attack” | MIG=”aircraft” + RAIN=”drop” + E[xplosives] |
| 5 | EXTRAPOLATE | =”project from experience” | PO=”Jerry”=chamberpot following EXTRA=”minor role”, + LATE=”after hours” |
| 6 | GERMAN | =”European” | GERM=”Shoot” + A N[orth] |
| 7 | ELECTRA | =”vengeful daughter” from Greek myth | ELECT=”Pick” + R[oyal] A[cademician]=”artist” |
| 8 | NATURALLY | =”Of course” | (aunt)* + RALLY=”motor race” |
| 12 | ARRANGEMENT | =”understanding” | (Aren’t German)* |
| 13 | DECADENCE | =”Corruption” | DE=”of [in] French” + CADENCE=”intonation” |
| 15 | DISRAELI | =”old PM” | DI=”girl” around ISRAEL=”country” |
| 17 | PIERROT | =”Entertainer” | PIER=”support” + ROT=”collapse” |
| 19 | ABANDON | =”Leave” | A BAND ON=”a group playing” |
| 20 | ESTATE | =”car” | (tea set)* |
| 22 | BRIE | =”cheese” | hidden in GaBRIElla |
Thanks to Chiifonie and Manehi. I can hardly wait for RCW’s thoughts on the number of write-ins! 22? On a Thursday?
Thanks manehi and Chifonie
Mostly write-ins, though CALL gave me some more thought.
New (to me)clueing of OBOE – I’ll watch out for “ought” for O in future.
I thought (s)LENDER was a bit feeble.
Please don’t tell me this one was particularly easy. I thought I was finally getting this.
Fairly straightforward, thanks manehi and Chifonie.
I didn’t know ought=nought or Jerry=po; I thought it must have been ‘can.’
Thanks manehi and Chifonie
With Xmas and its various preparations beginning to loom (though not unpleasantly), Chifonie’s easy – in more than one sense – style this morning was just the thing.
Lots of quick write-ins but some characteristically neat cluing, though I can see Muffin’s point re (s)lender, nice as the uncle reference was.
I particularly liked 13a, 26a, and 5d, and 13d was quite pleasing too.
Thanks Chiifonie and Manehi. I could see that this was going to be very easy so set myself a target of 5 minutes to finish it. I failed because 1dn eluded me. Did anybody else finish it ALL in 2less than 5 mins.?
Whoops! I meant just less than , not 2 less than!
Mostly straightforward but LENDER was a bit too obscure.
Apparently ‘ought’ as ‘nought’ derives from a mistaken division of ‘a nought’ as ‘an ought’ cf. the more complex example of ‘eft’ and ‘newt’ and also, possibly via French, ‘orange’ and ‘naranj’. I came across the ‘ought’ case as a youngster in Manchester. I suppose ‘nought’ is ‘not aught’ or ‘n-owt’.
🙂 After all that I must confess I missed all this when writing in the answer and assumed ‘o’ was simply an abbreviation for ‘ought’ as a verb!
Thanks all
I shall disappoint Dunscotus and concentrate on the one clue which took me longer than all the rest together.In fact I never did write it in because the only solution which occurred to me seemed so unlikely.
In 24ac I am happy that uncle = lender but how is slender = poor?
Thanks to manehi for the blog. I had DRESS REHEARSAL but failed to parse it.
RCW@10 “He has a slender chance of winning” could be said as “he has a poor chance of winning”. But I agree that this clue was weak.
RCW @ 10 How about slender chance = slim chance = poor chance ?
Of slender means?
Cheers
Rowly.
Indeed, many write-ins. Lingered over the same three as Muffin @2; OBOE, as it’s something played rather than a player; LENDER, for the same reasons as everybody else; and CALL, because it was the best clue in the set.
But after the exertions of the last two days – three or four clues left incomplete both times – a bit of relief is in order, surely?
Rowland @13
I think you have put your finger on the usage of “slender” that Chifonie was thinking of. There is a Muriel Spark novel called “The girls of slender means”.
Nothing to add to the above, but I’ve just heard a, for me, highly unlikely American homophone: “..it was all futile (pronounced “feudal”!
anyone still there? sorry to be thick but how does ‘germ’ mean ‘shoot’? I think I am going to be embarrassed as nobody else asked…..
As in “germination” – the first shoot out of a seed.
Trailman @14
It is standard practice to refer to a player in an orchestra by the name of their instrument – first violin etc.
Thanks, Chifonie and manehi.
This was just the ticket after a day’s shopping and secret present-wrapping!
I thought of RCW, too!
Giovanna x
Thanks for trying but I don’t think anybody has convinced me that slender = poor.
In all the usages above slender has its usual meaning ie slim, thin.
We have slim chance, slim pickings. Poor is a much wider adjective which can be just ‘not very much’ of anything of which I suppose width might be one but it is extremely vague.
(I know I like vague, but there must be limits!)
I do agree with those who highly rated ‘call’.
OK thank you, Muffin, I see, though I don’t really think that a germ is a shoot, or a shoot a germ in any way, maybe a it is a bud
…..anyway I get the idea, thanks.
I agree, izzythedram – not as close as it might be.
RCW @21:
The ODE gives for ‘slender’ as its second definition: ‘barely sufficient in amount or basis’ plus as an example ‘people of slender means’.
I think that comes close enough.
Somewhere else I saw ‘slender wages’.
Well!!! Two cracking crosswords, one even nominated for crossword of the year followed by this.
Must be the easiest crossword of the year. Not expected on a Thursday.
Thanks to Manehi.
P.S. Accidentally posted this om Bonxie’s blog!! Whooops
OK I give in.
And so you should: slender = meagre, and that’s poor in anyone’s language.
Re “ought” @ 2, 4 and 9, Dickens’s Mr. Micawber famously says: “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”
I thought this was a very easy puzzle, except for LENDER – because I couldn’t think what the beheaded word could be – and CALL (just no idea). Enjoyed it, though.