Rather a tough workout from Phssthpok today . . .
. . . not helped by a couple of editing goofs. Still, lots of solid clues.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | DISPATCH |
Expedition to find source of water in desert (8)
|
| SPA (source of water) inside (in) DITCH (desert) | ||
| 6 | REDACT |
Censor Communist legislation (6)
|
| RED (Communist) + ACT (legislation) | ||
| 9 | CHARGE |
Order tax raid (6)
|
| Triple definition | ||
| 10 | ROULETTE |
Spin this wheel when blockage is in road (8)
|
| LET (blockage) inside (in) ROUTE (road) | ||
| 11 | WRAP |
End of film clip broadcast (4)
|
| Homophone of (broadcast) RAP (clip) | ||
| 12 | TOILET ROLL |
Thread with online agitator is necessary for one’s business (6,4)
|
| I think this is supposed to parse as: TOILE (thread?) + TROLL (online agitator), with a slightly cryptic definition, but I think that there is a bit of confusion here. Chambers defines “toile” as “a thin cotton or linen dress material; a sample of a garment made in cheap material so that alterations may be made before the garment is made up in the correct material.” I also thought this might be: TOIL (thread?) + E (online) + TROLL (agitator), but I don’t think that works, either. | ||
| 14 | PANTHEON |
Temple to Leopard King is scratched on (8)
|
| PANTHE[R] (leopard) minus (is scratched) R (king) + ON | ||
| 16 | BODY |
Young man takes vitamin for physique (4)
|
| BOY (young man) around (takes) D (vitamin) | ||
| 18 | SPAT |
Did hawk flip over bugs? (4)
|
| TAPS (bugs, as a telephone line) reversed (flip over) | ||
| 19 | GASOLINE |
Petrol’s ultimately contaminating poor sealion (8)
|
| Last letter of (ultimately) [CONTAMINATIN]G + anagram of (poor) SEALION | ||
| 21 | ELECTORATE |
They pick leaders of opposition, legislature, etcetera, at random (10)
|
| Anagram of (at random) {first letters of (leaders of) {O[PPOSITION] + L[EGISLATURE]} + ETCETERA} | ||
| 22 | ICED |
Assassinated: chopped head off (4)
|
| [D]ICED (chopped) minus first letter (head off) | ||
| 24 | NIBBLING |
Chewing gaudy decoration on top of pen? (8)
|
| NIB (top of pen) + BLING (gaudy decoration) | ||
| 26 | SPIRIT |
Topples over after imbibing one alcoholic drink (6)
|
| {TRIPS (topples) around (after imbibing) I (one)} all reversed (over) | ||
| 27 | IGNORE |
Miss and Mr (in Italy, but not Sweden) (6)
|
| [S]IGNORE (Mr in Italy, i.e., in Italian) minus (but not) S (Sweden) | ||
| 28 | RARENESS |
In Meissen era, repairs reflected scarce quality (8)
|
| Hidden in (in) [MEI]SSEN ERA R[EPAIRS] reversed (reflected) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 2 | ICHOR |
Blood group of singers displays elevated iodine (5)
|
| CHOIR (group of singers) with the I (iodine) moved to the top (displays elevated) | ||
| 3 | PERIPATETIC |
Precipitate crisis in migration, carried out by people like this (11)
|
| &lit and anagram of (crisis in migration) PRECIPITATE | ||
| 4 | TREATIES |
Contracts bug visiting contests (8)
|
| EAT (bug) inside (visiting) TRIES (contests) | ||
| 5 | HERMIONE GRANGER |
Ginger Ron and her team magically vanquishing Voldemort at last! (15)
|
| &lit and anagram of (magically) {GINGER RON + HER [T]EAM} minus (vanquishing) last letter of (at last) [VOLDEMOR]T, referring to a character in the Harry Potter series. The enumeration should be (8,7), not (15). | ||
| 6 | ROUSED |
Aware sceptre has handle (6)
|
| ROD (sceptre) around (has) USE (handle) | ||
| 7 | DIE |
Bomb which gets shaken and then thrown (3)
|
| Double definition | ||
| 8 | COTYLEDON |
In bed, teased holding tip of bay leaf (9)
|
| Last letter of (tip of) [BA]Y inside (in . . . holding) {COT (bed) + LED ON (teased)} | ||
| 13 | RABELAISIAN |
Apart from one litre, I sell Arabian refined crude (11)
|
| Anagram of (refined) {I SEL[L] ARABIAN} minus (apart from) one L (one litre), referring to François Rabelais | ||
| 15 | APPALLING |
Software supported by big bet on good and evil (9)
|
| APP (software) + ALL-IN (big bet, e.g., in poker) + G (good) | ||
| 17 | ASSESSOR |
Inspector Morse’s baffled by idiot losing murderer’s head (8)
|
| ASS (idiot) + anagram of (baffled) [M]ORSE’S minus (losing) first letter of (head [of]) M[URDERER] | ||
| 20 | MOBILE |
Unstable jetty has centre that is not straight (6)
|
| MOLE (jetty) evenly around (has centre that is) BI (not straight) | ||
| 23 | EMITS |
Dispenses drug to Cambridge University student head (5)
|
| E (drug) + MIT (Cambridge [Massachusetts] University) + first letter of (head [of]) S[TUDENT] | ||
| 25 | BOO |
Surprise ending cut from novel (3)
|
| BOO[K] (novel) minus last letter (ending cut) |
Liked BOO and RABELESIAN.
A few editorial slips re TOILET ROLL (toile/troll better but still a stretch for me) and 5d for the enumeration.)
Could see CHARGE was a triple but I can’t think of a phrase in which charge equals order. I’m sure someone will find one here. Undone by 8.
Thanks to the unpronounceable one and Cineraria.
On second thoughts, I suppose ‘I charge/order you to do something’ works.
Yes, couple of hmm?s, toile being a fabric, and I always thought jetties were on piles, but no, AI says they can also be solid breakwaters like moles. Good puzzle, ta Phssthpok and Cineraria.
GIF@3: Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty is a fascinating piece of environmental art, well worth looking into.
Thanks for the steer, yes, quite a stunning statement. It’s a genre, like the guy who did big land art in the desert.
Well done to the blogger and anyone finding solutions! This was only for super-pros, not normal humans.
A setter to be left alone
Toile can be a garment used as a prototype to avoid wasting more valuable fabric. And I suppose, at a stretch, thread could be a garment as in natty threads? It’s in Chambers. Hmmm
Glad to see I wasn’t alone in finding this one tough but satisfying to complete albeit with a few trips to dictionary corner
Cheers P&C
Thank Phssthpok and Cineraria. I had a few mental blocks today but suspect that I would have got there a lot more quickly had the correct enumeration been given at 5dn.
For 12ac, I wonder if Phssthpok is connecting thread meaning “a fibre” with either toil² “a net” or toile “a thin cotton or linen dress material” (Chambers 2016 pp 1624 and 1640). These do not work for me, but it is the nearest I can get.
Edit re bodycheetah@7: thread meaning “a garment” does not seem to be supported by Chambers, since the relevant definition is “(in pl) clothes (sl)” I had thought of that, but I do not think it works unless I have missed something.
Thanks for the blog , good set of clues and pretty tough , RABELAISIAN very neat .
TOILE just seems to be a glitch , I think threads=clothes is only in the plural , thread=garment=toile is a stretch too far , prthaps Spandex .
I also found this difficult
I ticked RARENESS (well hidden), SURPRISE, DIE and APPALLING (a few good surfaces)
I did not parse MOBILE as I did not know a mole is a jetty. Indeed, the setter broke the obscure word limit for me, and then there were several stretched synonyms among words I did know.
Thanks setter and Cineraria
A struggle not helped by the wrong enumeration of 5dn and doubts about toile as a thread. And we couldn’t get 11ac – the best we could think of was ‘crop’ for ‘clip’ but the rest didn’t make sense. As it is, unless we’ve missed something, we think ‘end of film’ is a bit iffy; is it implying that the end (=object) of (cling?) film is for wrapping?
A few bright spots, though; we liked PANTHEON.
Thanks to setter and blogger.
11ac: The relevant definition of wrap¹ from Chambers 2014 or 2016 p 1810 is “the completion of filming or recording, or the end of a session of filming or recording (cinematog, TV)”, as in the sentence “That’s a wrap”. “End of filming” would perhaps be more accurate, but I was happy with “End of film”.