Pleasant Tuesday stroll.
I don’t have much to say about this – only one minor quibble with POKER FACE.
| Across | ||
| 1 | SUPPRESS |
Drink with the mob and black out (8)
SUP + PRESS |
| 5 | STROPS |
Ceases to be interrupted by Romeo’s fits of temper (6)
ST(R)OPS Romeo is R in the phonetic alphabet. |
| 9 | TAKE FIRE |
Catch kite and fear breakage (4,4)
*(kite fear) |
| 10 | HALTER |
Henry gets change of riding gear (6)
H + ALTER |
| 12 | FIRST |
Trees take time to become predominant (5)
FIRS + T |
| 13 | CORKSCREW |
Irish port’s sailors use this to get to the drink (9)
CORK’S CREW |
| 14 | PASS ON |
Will infect (4,2)
Double definition – (“will” is a verb (thanks Coby) here, meaning to “leave in one’s will”) |
| 16 | SCOURGE |
Cat plague (7)
Double definition |
| 19 | OPEN AIR |
Lovebird’s to display outdoors (4,3)
O + PEN + AIR “Lovebird” has to be split into “love” = O + “bird” = PEN (female swan) |
| 21 | ON TAPE |
Recorded somebody catching bug (2,4)
ON(TAP)E |
| 23 | ARROGANCE |
Boasting of exotic orange car (9)
*(orange car) |
| 25 | LOOSE |
Promiscuous sweetheart is after the toilets (5)
LOOSE + E (the heart of “SwEet”) |
| 26 | SCANTY |
Inadequate lavatory in filthy place (6)
S(CAN)TY |
| 27 | PARAQUAT |
Factor storing water and weedkiller (8)
PAR(AQUA)T |
| 28 | SATIRE |
Father accepts a time for parody (6)
S(A T)IRE |
| 29 | REVEREND |
Republican always gets motive of clergyman (8)
R + EVER + END |
| Down | ||
| 1 | SET OFF |
Initiate display (3,3)
Double definition |
| 2 | POKER FACE |
Cope with freak distribution giving nothing away (5,4)
*(cope freak) Not sure the definition and solution match (“poker faced” = “giving nothing away”) |
| 3 | REFIT |
Soldier qualified for overhaul (5)
R.E. (Royal Engineer) + FIT |
| 4 | SARACEN |
Active ethnic group in Senegal is Arab (7)
S(A RACE)N SN is the International Car Registration indicator for Senegal |
| 6 | TRANSPORT |
Team leader supervised recreation in ecstasy (9)
T + RAN + SPORT
|
| 7 | OTTER |
Excessive hesitation of fish- eater (5)
O.T.T. (over the top) + ER |
| 8 | SCRAWLER |
School head has sycophant who writes badly (8)
S + CRAWLER |
| 11 | ARTS |
A group of subjects found in retirement in Australia (4)
Hidden backwards in AuSTRAlia |
| 15 | SLAUGHTER |
Son has convulsions seeing carnage (9)
S + LAUGHTER |
| 17 | REPRODUCE |
Copy for spin doctor entering contract (9)
RE(P.R.O.)DUCE P.R.O. stands for “public relations officer” ~”spin doctor” |
| 18 | MOLASSES |
Doctor the girls’ sweet treat (8)
M.O. + LASSES |
| 20 | RANT |
Loudly scold scoundrel without the last bit of contrition (4)
RA(N)T |
| 21 | OPERATE |
Perform works by Lawrence (7)
OPERA = T.E. (Lawrence) |
| 22 | HEATED |
Passionate earl in dance of death (6)
E in *(death) |
| 24 | ROAST |
Criticise a society involved in corruption (5)
RO(A S)T |
| 25 | LEAVE |
Surrender the French way (5)
LE + Ave. |
Yes, a pleasant wake-up exercise, thanks Armonie. And thanks loonapick — I think you’re being a bit strict on POKER FACE. I enjoyed OPEN AIR
Hornbeam
I don’t think I am being strict – pedantic, possibly, but not strict.
Were I being strict, there are a couple of clues that the Ximenean in me would disapporve of. For example the “the” in 1ac is superfluous, as is the “‘s” in 19ac. These are standard nowadays, so I don’t comment on them.
In 14ac: don’t you mean a verb?
Coby,
Of course – sorry for the senior moment – now edited!
Thanks Armonie and loonapick
Nice, straightforward and good to get one like this sprinkled in the mix of puzzles. Didn’t get the O bit of PRO in 17d and didn’t parse ON TAPE at all.
PARAQUAT was previously unknown to me andwas the last one in.
Thanks Armonie and loonapick.
I had the same concern as Brucew about the O in REPRODUCE and I don’t really believe that RANT = scold in 20dn.
I did play with OPEN OUT for a while at 19ac on the basis of ‘display’ doing double duty until the SLAUGHTER made things clear.
On POKER FACE I had the same concern as you to start with but then decided that it worked in the possessive rather than the descriptive – i.e. If you have a Poker Face you are giving nothing away vs if you are Poker Faced you are giving nothing away.
I was stuck on SPOTTY for 26a