An enjoyable and conventional puzzle from Vigo which was generally at the easier end of the spectrum.
I quite liked the misdirection in 1 across where most solvers would instantly assume two pints meant two Ps. 24 was also a very neat clue.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | QUARTERS | Shares two pints with Queen and son (8) |
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Quart (=two pints in old weight measurements) + ER + s{on} |
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| 5 | STREAM | Master managed flow (6) |
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Master* |
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| 9 | ARDENTLY | Perhaps painting outside of study with heartless lady fervently (8) |
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Art around den + l[ad]y |
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| 10 | STANDS | Bears in street with last of zookeepers (6) |
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St{reet} + [zookeeper]s |
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| 12 | LOCKS | Secures hair (5) |
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DD |
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| 13 | ALABASTER | A dog getting flower and stone (9) |
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A lab{rador} + aster |
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| 14 | LIGHTS | Illuminates thin head moving east (6) |
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Slight with the S moving to the end |
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| 16 | DRESSES | Daughter urges page to drop off clothes (7) |
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D{aughter} + [p]resses |
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| 19 | HUNTING | Looking for metal, floated around (7) |
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Tin in hung |
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| 21 | PIECES | Heartlessly stabs hunks (6) |
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Pie[r]ces |
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| 23 | TALISMANS | Satanism involved holding large amulets (9) |
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Satanism* around l{arge} |
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| 25 | COUNT | Consider noble matter (5) |
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Triple def |
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| 26 | LINERS | Ships brand outside of regions (6) |
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Line(=brand i.e. line of business) + r[egion]s |
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| 27 | FOUNTAIN | Infant dancing across old university water feature (8) |
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Infant* around o{ld} u{niversity} |
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| 28 | ESSAYS | Mensa regularly announces tests (6) |
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Even letters of Mensa + says |
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| 29 | ESCAPEES | SS surrounding point to get runaways (8) |
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Es (which I assume must be a phonetic version of S) around cape(=point as in headland) |
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| DOWN | ||
| 1 | QUAILS | Question troubles birds (6) |
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Qu{estion} + ails |
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| 2 | ADDICTION | Notice speech habit (9) |
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Ad + diction |
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| 3 | TANKS | Beat king with small military units (5) |
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Tan + k{ing} + s{mall} |
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| 4 | RELOADS | Tops up studies involving left overs (7) |
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Reads around l{eft} o{vers} |
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| 6 | TETE A TETE | Four identical notes about a meeting (4-1-4) |
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Te four times around a |
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| 7 | ERNST | Stern, unconventional artist (5) |
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Stern*, referring to Max Ernst. |
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| 8 | MISTRESS | Note strain for lover (8) |
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Mi + stress |
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| 11 | BAND | Obtained oddly deficient belt (4) |
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Obtained with the odd letters removed |
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| 15 | HAIRSPRAY | Musical husband broadcasts on request (9) |
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H{usband} + airs + pray |
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| 17 | SPECULATE | Cut a sleep out to reflect (9) |
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(Cut a sleep)* |
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| 18 | WHITE LIE | Scrap with priest over English falsehood (5,3) |
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Whit (=scrap in the sense of a small piece of) + Eli + E{nglish} |
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| 20 | GEAR | Stage a robbery carrying tools (4) |
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Hidden in stage a robbery |
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| 21 | PISTOLS | Private investigator puts up arms (7) |
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P{rivate} I{nvestigator} + slots< |
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| 22 | STONES | Rocks steamship filled with air (6) |
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SS containing tone(=air in the sense of the "tone/air of the place"). |
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| 24 | LANDS | Secures Elsa’s heart? (5) |
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L and S (the middle letters of Elsa) |
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| 25 | CONGA | Prisoner has endless space to dance (5) |
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Con + ga[p] |
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A light delight which made a lovely start to the week.
Many thanks to Vigo and to Neal.
Very nice; steady progress with no grizzles.
For WHITE LIE I took “scrap with” to mean (with)*, to get the same result, but I prefer your interpretation NealH.
Thanks also to Vigo, a good start to my week!
The only tiny niggle I had was the lack of the homophone indicator in 29a.
I didn’t parse LIGHTS at 14a but other than that all present and correct I think.
I suspect this was the quickest I’ve ever completed an Indy crossword the timer showing 35:49 with no recourse to google or an anahram solver. Nice lunchtime solve. Now what am I going to do this evening!?
Thanks as ever to Vigo and Neal.
Rocket @3. Horrible though it is, Es is the “word” for the letter S according to Chambers.
Rabbit Dave @3. Fair do’s.
The only tiny niggle I had was the lack of the homophone indicator in 29a.Perfect clueing today.
RD @4 Funnily enough, I made that comment on the spelling of ES but in a post for today’s Grauniad where it is spelt ESS. When you learn a new language (I’m trying to learn Spanish), you often learn the words for the various letters of the alphabet. Yet, when it comes to English, I have little idea how to spell many of the letters.
Vigo’s puzzles always come as a breath of fresh air – so many setters trying to be overly devious these days and that isn’t necessarily what solvers enjoy.
Think I’ll go with our blogger and give first place to 1a but I enjoyed all of it.
Many thanks to Vigo and to Neal for the review.
What Rabbit Dave said.
No real problems with this. All went in smoothly.
One correction to the blog. 1ac, when I was at school, quarts and pints were units of volume or capacity, not weight.
Thank you to NealH for the blog and to all who left a comment. If anyone is interested 15 of the answers are connected as they can all follow the same 4 letter word…
Come on, people! Vigo must be so disappointed! I can’t do it even with such a push, but (as I said) Come on, people!!!!
It’s surely Head. Thanks to Vigo, for the pleasure of getting it first
Head!!!!
Thank you Jayjay!
And TETE A TETE too. Nice.
That will teach me – I only look for themes etc on Tuesdays! Well done, Vigo.