I usually find Bobcat clever but accessible, but for some reason, I found myself struggling from start to finish on this one. The clues were fairly constructed, so I am not sure what the disconnect was.
The customary feline nina appears across the middle.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | INSURGENCE |
Guarantee to cover officer heading for certain rebellion (10)
|
| INSURE (guarantee) around (to cover) {GEN. (officer) + first letter of (heading for) C[ERTAIN]} | ||
| 6 | SHUN |
What’s conveyed by Cheshunt bypass? (4)
|
| Hidden in (what’s conveyed by) [CHE]SHUN[T] | ||
| 9 | CORN CIRCLE |
County force surround strange figure in field (4,6)
|
| CO. (county) + RN (force) + CIRCLE (surround) | ||
| 10 | ETON |
College in meltdown? Nothing odd there (4)
|
| Even letters only of (nothing odd there) [M]E[L]T[D]O[W]N | ||
| 12 | VANISHING POINT |
Focus of very eccentric paintings in Ohio (9,5)
|
| V (very) + anagram of (eccentric) {PAINTINGS + IN + OH (Ohio)} | ||
| 14 | HOMAGE |
Institution introduces silver service (6)
|
| HOME (institution) around (introduces) AG (silver) | ||
| 15 | NARRATOR |
I tell of North American bishop beginning to achieve eminence (8)
|
| NA (North American) + RR (bishop) + first letter of (beginning to) A[CHIEVE] + TOR (eminence) | ||
| 17 | SEASHELL |
Insiders fleeing sure as hell getting protection on the outside (8)
|
| Outside letters of (insiders fleeing) S[UR]E + AS + HELL | ||
| 19 | GAUCHE |
Clumsy cowboy at last leaving for Spain (6)
|
| GAUCH[O] (cowboy) last letter exchanged for (at last leaving for) E (Spain) | ||
| 22 | WASHING MACHINE |
Appliance from China weighs man erratically (7,7)
|
| Anagram of (erratically) CHINA WEIGHS MAN | ||
| 24 | IRAN |
Princess cycles around Asian territory (4)
|
| RANI (princess) moving the last letter to the front (cycles around) | ||
| 25 | ON THE HOUSE |
Where solar panels may be free of charge (2,3,5)
|
| Cryptic/double definition | ||
| 26 | EDEN |
Premier spot for ignorant nudists (4)
|
| Cryptic definition, referring to Adam and Eve. See Roz@6. | ||
| 27 | JET-SETTERS |
More than one wealthy crowd member gushes — about the sun? (3-7)
|
| JETS (gushes) around (about) SETTER (cryptically the sun?) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | INCH |
Measurement that’s key for the Scots (4)
|
| Double definition, the latter in the sense of “island” | ||
| 2 | SARCASM |
Contempt expressed by resistance corps’ leader as missile stalls (7)
|
| SAM (missile) around (stalls) {R (resistance) + first letter of (leader [of]) C[ORPS] + AS} | ||
| 3 | ROCKING CHAIR |
Doddering board member finds somewhere to sit down (7,5)
|
| ROCKING (doddering) + CHAIR (board member) | ||
| 4 | EARTHY |
In good spirits, Henry’s declined to be coarse (6)
|
| HEARTY (in good spirits) with H (Henry) lowered (declined) | ||
| 5 | COLONIAL |
Settler: one at large originally (8)
|
| COLON (:) + I (one) + first letters of (originally) A[T] + L[ARGE] | ||
| 7 | HIT LIST |
Intended victims of strike fired grasping strikers’ leader (3,4)
|
| HIT (strike) + LIT (fired) around (grasping) first letter of (leader [of]) S[TRIKERS] | ||
| 8 | NON-STARTER |
Dud northern actor bores observer (3-7)
|
| {N (northern) + STAR (actor)} inside (bores) + NOTER (observer) | ||
| 11 | APPROACH SHOT |
Top Pharaoh’s caught suffering a stroke (8,4)
|
| Anagram of (suffering) {TOP + PHARAOH’S + C (caught)}, referring to golf | ||
| 13 | GHOST-WRITE |
Put down life for payment and don’t accept credit (5-5)
|
| Cryptic definition, translating essentially to “be hired to write another person’s autobiography without claiming authorship” | ||
| 16 | ELEGANCE |
Polish national hacking into output of server supporting E.ON’s first branch (8)
|
| {First [letter of] E[.ON] + LEG (branch)} + {N (national) inside (hacking into) ACE (output of server, as in tennis), with “supporting” indicating the order of the wordplay | ||
| 18 | AT STAKE |
Girl escaping from Athens with escort’s in danger (2,5)
|
| AT[HEN]S minus (escaping from) HEN (girl) + TAKE (escort) | ||
| 20 | CONSUME |
Take against South Australian boomerangs (7)
|
| CON (against) + S (South) + EMU (Australian) inverted (boomerangs) | ||
| 21 | YACHTS |
Yale cheats regularly operating in pairs to exhibit craft (6)
|
| Alternating pairs of letters (regularly operating in pairs to exhibit) YA[LE] CH[EA]TS | ||
| 23 | LENS |
One effecting light diversion is inclined to lose heart (4)
|
| LE[A]NS (is inclined) minus central letter (to lose heart) |
I also found this tough and it took a while to finish. For me, several oblique, cryptic definitions made it difficult to sort out what sort of clue I was facing. I must admit I did not feel I was very rewarded for the time and effort. I ticked COLONIAL and WASHING MACHINE. I would have ticked INCH, but it was a clue you either knew or you did not.
I guess SARCASM is close enough to contempt expression. I could not parse it anyway. Nor could I parse IRAN, not knowing Princess Rani. I also parsed CORN CIRCLE as CORN for Cornwall, and could not see the purpose of “force”. Thanks for the steers, Cineraria
Thanks Bobcat and Cineraria
A dnf as I gave up staring and revealed the g to get ghost-write, and only then realised who the ignorant nudists were! The rest was ok, although I bunged in crop circle first, and I missed the SAM missile, d’oh. Thanks both.
… also, rocking is not a great match for doddering, imo …
I enjoyed the clues I managed to solve. Both of them.
Very good puzzle. Great blog.
Thanks Bobcat and Cineraria.
My picks: VANISHING POINT, ON THE HOUSE, JETSETTERS, NON-STARTER
and GHOST-WRITE.
IRAN
RANI is an Indian word for queen. The C boss says, Queen or princess.
So fair game.
Thanks for the blog , very good set of clues and pretty tough overall .
COLONIAL was very neat , I like a clue using a symbol .
I think RANI is fairly common in crosswords with various spellings , maybe I have seen it in Azed a lot .
EDEN is a double definition , a former Premier (PM) of the UK from the Suez crisis .
Roz@6: For EDEN: I was focusing on the sense “premier” meaning “first” or “most ancient,” with reference to the Garden in Genesis, but I suppose the cryptic clue still works if we dispense with “premier” altogether. Anthony Eden pops up quite a lot in crosswords.
I also had CROP instead of CORN. I’ve never heard the expression CORN CIRCLE, so I struggled to finish the north west corner.
I’m always happy to take on a Bobcat puzzle and hunt for the feline. Thanks!
I solved 5 clues. Pat on the back for moi, I think.
3 only. Tougher than IO today.
Expecting Io tomorrow!
As Cineraria said, mostly in SW, needed the blog for quite a few… I need to lie down somewhere cool now, especially if KVa#12 is correct…
Thanks Bobcat and Cineraria
I also struggled, but then I usually do if it’s Bobcat. I got less than half. I knew RANI but with that type of clue I never find it easy to work out which is the definition bit, so wasn’t sure whether to put RANI or IRAN. As it happens I guessed right. Never heard of CORN CIRCLE, (like Funsize #9) or APPROACH SHOT or a sam missile but that’s no excuse really as I might have deduced them if I’d been a bit more on the ball.
Like many of you today I finished this but struggled to get on Bobcat’s wavelength for some reason.
Thanks Bobcat for a great set of clues with a reasonable level of challenge. I revealed CORN CIRCLE, (I know this phenomenon as ‘crop circle’), I didn’t know the 2nd definition of INCH, and couldn’t fully parse ELEGANCE but all else made sense. My favourites were VANISHING POINT, SEASHELL (liked the ‘insiders fleeing’), GAUCHE, AT STAKE, YACHTS (liked ‘operating in pairs’) and OCELOT of course. Thanks Cineraria for the blog.
Definitely tougher than usual for Bobcat but in the end we only needed a wordfinder for GHOST-WRITE, although spotting the nina helped. We were held up in the NW corner for a while as we initially had Crop Circle (which we couldn’t fully parse) for 9ac till we realised 2dn had to be SARCASM.
Thanks, Bobcat and Cineraria.
Didn’t complete giving up with about 6 to go. Just didn’t enjoy.