After a tough workout with an Enigmatist last time out, a relatively gentle impaling by Vlad…
…with a leading contender for COTY (clue of the year) at 24A. ‘Dead soldiers ultimately losers’ – Mr President regularly awful (7) – EMPTIES
There are some US Presidents who lend themselves to nice cosy cryptic clues – like Abe Lincoln in ABED; Herbert Hoover with some sort of domestic appliance; either of the Bushes with a botanical bush/shrub; Clinton from Little Rock, or something more Cyclops-ean; and then there is Ronald T Dump, with his millionaire father convenient ‘bone spurs’ preventing him from going to Vietnam, describing dead soldiers as ‘losers’…WEASEL WORDs indeed, and yet the American people still re-elected him…
Chapeau to Vlad for that one. Worth its weight in gold…
Lots of other wonderful stuff – the POPULAR FRONT at 1A juxtaposed with Jeremy CORB-LIME-Y(N) at 10A; the expert fisherman (ROD ACE) in ECUADOR; a PUERILE TESTIS at 20D; the &lit(-ish?) PLACE NAME involving Nepal and Malta at 1D; and the juxtaposition of music (rap) and Liverpool (port) for RAPPORT. I could go on…
It took a couple of visits to finish this off, and I had to check WRIST-DROP and PORCH PIRATES (not in Chambers or Collins, but findable online), as I wasn’t familiar with either term, but I got there eventually.
My thanks, and aforementioned chapeau, to Vlad for this one – hope to see you at the York shindig in October, as usual.
[As is often the case, I will be attempting to control a small piece of gutta percha with a brassie and a niblick on Saturday morning when this gets published – I will keep an occasional eye on proceedings, whilst hoping the usual moderation and answering of queries and quibbles takes place…]
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/parsing |
| 1A | POPULAR FRONT | Left in van (7,5)
POPULAR (in) + FRONT (van, in the vanguard, towards the front) [reminiscent of Robert Lindsay in Citizen Smith; or the Life of Brian sketch with the PFJ, JPF, etc…!] |
| 9A | AGAIN | With Adams’ header, win a second time (5)
A (first letter, or header, of Adams) + GAIN (win) |
| 10A | COR BLIMEY | Wow! Old political leader pointlessly filmed Harry entering (3.6)
COR_B_Y( [who were the first two?!] |
| 11A | PUERILE | Trivial Pursuit’s first two getting egghead upset (7)
PU (first two of Pursuit) + E (head of Egg) + RILE (upset) |
| 12A | ECUADOR | Expert fisherman, one might say, takes you round country (7)
an expert fisherman might be a ROD A_CE, around (taking) U (you, txt spk) and turned around = ECUADOR! |
| 13A | WEASEL WORD | Wives receiving ‘support’? No way, it’s a misleading term (6,4)
W_W (wives) around (receiving) EASEL (support), plus ORD (no way could be zero roads, or O + RD) |
| 15A | ABED | President departs, lying (4)
ABE (Abraham Lincoln, President) + D (departs) |
| 18A | SEEK | Try to get religious believer talking (4)
homophone, i.e. talking – SEEK (try to get) can sound like SIKH (religious believer) |
| 19A | HIGHTAIL IT | Run up to end something special (8,2)
HIGH (up) + TAIL (end) + IT (something special) |
| 22A | RAPPORT | Music and Liverpool? It’s a good relationship (7)
RAP (music) + PORT (e.g. Liverpool) |
| 24A | EMPTIES | ‘Dead soldiers ultimately losers’ – Mr President regularly awful (7)
anag, i.e. awful, of S (ultimate letter of loserS) + MPEIET (regular letters of Mr PrEsIdEnT) [‘dead soldiers’ being a slang/informal term for empty alcohol bottles, but ‘Mr President regularly awful’ just says it all!] |
| 25A | BLADDERED | Wasted chance to go higher when retired? (9)
LADDER (chance to go higher, e.g. in snakes and ladders!) in B_ED (retired) = BLADDERED |
| 26A | ICENI | Old people’s home rejected jewellery originally (5)
ICE (diamonds, jewellery) plus NI (in, at home, rejected) |
| 27A | PORCH PIRATES | Thieves disposed of mostly property and cash around island (5,7)
PORCH P_RATES (anag, i.e. disposed of, of PROPERT( [a modern term for people who steal parcels off other people’s porches – often caught on video doorbells and posted on ‘social’ media] |
| Down | ||
| Clue No | Solution | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/parsing |
| 1D | PLACE NAME | Could be Nepal one accepted – also separately Malta? (5,4)
&lit(-ish?) – whole clue is definition, and wordplay – PL_NA_E (anag, could be, of NEPAL) separately around (accepting) ACE (one) and M (Malta) [Malta and Nepal both being place names] |
| 2D | PANTILES | ‘They’re on the house’ – worker comes in a lot (8)
P_ILES (a lot) around ANT (worker) |
| 3D | LUCRE | Decoy pocketing Charlie’s money (5)
LU_RE (decoy) around (pocketing) C (Charlie, phonetic alphabet) |
| 4D | RARE EARTH | Element from Red Planet (4,5)
RARE (red, as in steak) + EARTH (planet) |
| 5D | ROLL UP | Arrive in drag – men bowled over (4,2)
PU_LL (drag) + OR (Other Ranks, men, not officers), all bowled over to give ROLL UP! |
| 6D | NAMED | Titled gent upset by journalist (5)
NAM (man, gent, upset) + ED (editor, journalist) |
| 7D | PAWPAW | Greedily handles fruit (6)
to PAW can be to handle greedily, so pluralised = PAW PAW |
| 8D | HYBRID | Through Henry about to get free modern car (6)
HYB (BY, through plus H, henry, SI unit, all about) + RID (free) |
| 14D | WRIST-DROP | Powder, not drug – it’s right for treating medical condition (5-4)
anag, i.e. for treating, of POWD( [wrist-drop being the inability to extend the hand, often caused by lead poisoning] |
| 16D | BALMINESS | Playful lambs in SE showing soft and gentle nature (9)
anag, i.e. playful, of LAMBS IN SE |
| 17D | WARPAINT | Cunning hiding effect of injury – won leading decoration in battle (8)
W (won) + AR_T (cunning) around (hiding) PAIN (effect of injury) |
| 18D | SCRIBE | Writer’s copy almost ready for wrapping (6)
S_E( |
| 20D | TESTIS | Iceland ordeal over, having a ball (6)
TEST (ordeal) before (over, in a Down clue) IS (Iceland, IVR) |
| 21D | NORDIC | Against describing one medic standing as blue-eyed boy (6)
C_ON (against) around (describing0 IDR (I, one, DR, doctor, medic) = CIDRON, all standing up, for a Down clue, to give NORDIC! |
| 23D | PRADO | Where to see pictures causing trouble with publicists? (5)
PR (Public Relations, publicists) + ADO (trouble) |
| 24D | ELDER | The bilingual church official (5)
EL + DER (two definite articles, Spanish & German, i.e. ‘the’ bilingual!) |
Made fairly steady progress on this – especially considering it’s a Vlad and a Prize – but ground to a halt with PLACE NAME. I couldn’t see how to handle MT, the code for Malta. Still can’t.
I was also slowed down with NORDIC, which it seems is only an adjective, yet “blue-eyed boy” is a noun phrase.
EMPTIES was great.
Tx!
Dr W…Chambers has M as the IVR (International Vehicle Registration) for Malta. .mt is the internet domain, so understandable if some confusion…
And it also has NORDIC as a noun, as an example of someone of a Nordic race, stereotypically maybe a blue-eyed boy…