Lorraine: Good morning to you all.
Started off quite quickly this morning with 14, 18ac and 22dn being the first in the grid. Spotted 14ac straight away as it is one of my favourite meals. 🙂
Enjoyable solve as always. Big thank you to Everyman.
| Across | |||
| 1. | Cheat to secure point in game (8) | ||
| CRIBBAGE | CRIB+BAG+E | ||
| 5. | Watches wife chasing a wild mare (6) | ||
| SEESAW | SEES+(W after A); wild mare is another name for seesaw | ||
| 9. | Frenchman wants, initially, to begin again (5) | ||
| RENEW | RENE+W(ants) | ||
| 10. | Moderate consumed with rage, initially (9) | ||
| TEMPERATE | TEMPER(rage first)+ATE | ||
| 12. | Lengthens terms of imprisonment (9) | ||
| STRETCHES | dd | ||
| 13. | Implied I must be bound by discretion (5) | ||
| TACIT | I in TACT | ||
| 14. | Peep’s dish her undoing? A meat dish (9,3) | ||
| SHEPHERDS PIE | (PEEP’S DISH HER)* | ||
| 18. | Both comrades badly injured (4,2,6) | ||
| HORS DE COMBAT | (BOTH COMRADES)* | ||
| 21. | Genuine about point relating to the kidneys (5) | ||
| RENAL | REAL around N | ||
| 23. | It’s beside the point, a Parisian’s told (9) | ||
| UNRELATED | UN(Fr. ‘a’)+RELATED | ||
| 24. | Tell all to turn up fresh (4,5) | ||
| COME CLEAN | COME+CLEAN | ||
| 25. | Capital I invested in Chesterfield, say? (5) | ||
| SOFIA | I in SOFA(chesterfield) | ||
| 26. | He painted Goliath clasping one? (6) | ||
| TITIAN | TITAN around I | ||
| 27. | Doctor treated Kurd, an alkie (8) | ||
| DRUNKARD | DR+(KURD AN*) | ||
| … Down |
|||
| 1. | A red used by Spencer is exquisite (6) | ||
| CERISE | hidden: spenCER IS Exquisite | ||
| 2. | Pass by poor region (6) | ||
| IGNORE | (REGION)* | ||
| 3. | WC and bidet he vandalised in film (9) | ||
| BEWITCHED | (WC+BIDET HE)* | ||
| 4. | Understand what art collector might want to do (3,3,7) | ||
| GET THE PICTURE | pun+cd | ||
| 6. | Calm, the leader in trampolining competition (5) | ||
| EVENT | EVEN+T(rampolining) | ||
| 7. | Something from the watercolourist? (8) | ||
| SEASCAPE | cd+pun on water… | ||
| 8. | Sumo type in baggy trews, the Parisian on right (8) | ||
| WRESTLER | (TREWS*)+LE+R | ||
| 11. | Eliot’s young Silas bringing in iodine for merchant ship’s captain (6-7) | ||
| MASTER-MARINER | MASTER(young)+[silas](MARNER around I) | ||
| 15. | Unerring opener for Sussex, batting with pride? (6,3) | ||
| DEADLY SIN | DEADLY+S(ussex)+IN | ||
| 16. | Wanting to pick a quicker route (5,3) | ||
| SHORT CUT | SHORT+CUT | ||
| 17. | Send maiden over in carriage (8) | ||
| TRANSMIT | M in TRANSIT | ||
| 19. | Group of people employed on a Hebridean island (6) | ||
| STAFFA | STAFF+A | ||
| 20. | King Lear, perhaps (6) | ||
| EDWARD | pun+dd king EDWARD & EDWARD lear | ||
| 22. | Synthetic material stored in costly crate (5) | ||
| LYCRA | hidden: costLY CRATE | ||
| … | |||
Thanks for the blog, Lorraine. I needed your help to parse 1a, 5a.
New word for me is SEESAW = ‘wild mare’.
I liked 20d, 18a, 11d, 15d, 25a.
Enjoyable as ever; thanks Lorraine for the blog.
I, too, didn’t know SEESAW = ‘wild mare.’
I particularly liked the clue for TRANSMIT.
I don’t understand ‘DEADLY’ for ‘unerring’ in 15D, and I would have thought it needed ‘for example’ after ‘pride’ to properly clue SIN. Makes me feel that I am missing something bigger from the parsing of that clue. Can anyone help?
‘Unerring accuracy’ is one way to exp lain it John.
Also the question mark after ‘pride’ indicates that it is an ‘for example’.
Nick
Thanks, Rowland and Nick
16d was my last one in rationalised it as pride being one of the seven deadly sins
Never heard of wild mare before….! might be a term known in uk? Any other kiwis ever heard of it? Enjoyed this one
Worked out the answer “had to be” seesaw but never heard of one being called a wild mare – and Collins dictionary had lots of wild other things didn’t give seesaw as a meaning of wild mare. We live and learn.
Ref comments #8, #9: I guess most ‘older’ people in the UK (like myself and Lorraine) would know ‘wild mare = seesaw’ as it is an old word not used much (and I can’t remember the last time I have seen a seesaw in a park!).
The word and definition does appear in Chambers under ‘wild’.
Nick
My new (now) quite old Shorter Oxford has ‘see-saw’ under mare. Note the hyphen. 18a was a puzzle until Kath,my friend who I work with on the puzzle, came up with combat. It was easy after that. I still don’t get 15d! A relatively easy puzzle and looking forward to next Saturday. The highlight of my week….
Thanks everyone. Another Kiwi here who has never heard of wild mare for seesaw. Also I’m curious about 17D. Is the “over” redundant? It doesn’t seem to contribute anything to the answer.
On a cricket scorecard, in the bowlers section, a ‘maiden over’ is indicated in the square with a capital ‘M’.
Nick
JohnM,
An example here:
scorecard
Note the bowlers section at the bottom, column 3.
Nick