A largely sound and pleasant crossword from Burrows. He does use one or two devices with which I’m not familiar so either he is using things that setters nowadays and in the future will be using or he is making the odd mistake. Being a dyed-in-the-wool Ximenean I’m less than happy with the fact that several answers have less than 50% checking.
Definitions underlined in crimson. Anagrams indicated *(like this) or (like this)* and their indicators in italics. Deletions indicated [like this] and homophones “like this”.
| ACROSS | ||
| 6 | ADONIS |
Poster introduces Chinese revolutionary sex symbol (6)
|
| ad (Sino-)rev. — ad = Poster, Sino- = Chinese | ||
| 7 | DIVIDER |
Credentials redirected, crashing drive partition (7)
|
| (ID)rev. *(drive) — ID = credentials | ||
| 10 | BOUNDARIES |
Sign backing certain limits (10)
|
| Aries ‘backing’ bound — bound = certain, Aries is a sign of the Zodiac | ||
| 11 | SOON |
All that in a minute! (4)
|
| so on (as in “and so on”) — I’m not convinced by the exclamation mark: “soon” just means “in a minute”; there is no sense of exclamation about the statement. I can only assume that this a self-congratulatory exclamation mark: the setter is congratulating himself on his cleverness. Ximenes used to do this but admitted in his famous book that it wasn’t for the best. On reflection, perhaps this is OK: “All that in a minute!” expresses amazement that someone is completing it all in a minute, whereas without the exclamation mark it suggests irritation with someone trying to get one to hurry up: “I’ll do all that soon”, and if Burrows had wanted this to be the sense he’d have omitted the exclam. | ||
| 12 | CRICKETS |
Insects with constant vitamin deficiency (8)
|
| c rickets — c = constant, rickets = vitamin deficiency, not something that is very common nowadays thank goodness — this can be parsed in two slightly different ways: in each case “Insects” is the definition; in one case “with” is a link-word (something I don’t like) and it is just a charade; in the other it can be read as “with ‘constant’ is ‘vitamin deficiency'” (far preferable) | ||
| 14 | UNISEX |
College congress is gender-inclusive (6)
|
| uni sex — uni = College, sex = congress | ||
| 15 | POSSESSIONS |
Estate gang endlessly holding booze-up (11)
|
| pos(session)s[e] — posse = gang, session = booze-up — session = booze-up is perhaps a bit doubtful, something it would not have been if there had been a question mark | ||
| 19 | MUSSEL |
Delivery of beef or seafood (6)
|
| “muscle” — muscle = beef, “delivery of” is the homophone indicator | ||
| 20 | INCREASE |
Where John Travolta appeared as Danny Gee falling for college swell (8)
|
| in Grease (John Travolta appeared there as Danny Zuko) with G (Gee) being replaced by (falling for) c — good clue | ||
| 22 | OPPO |
Co-worker goes back and forth (4)
|
| A word that reads the same forwards as backwards — I never really like this and feel that “goes back and forth” should be “it goes back and forth”, but the device in the form used here is widespread | ||
| 23 | EMPLOYMENT |
Work frantically on my temple (10)
|
| *(on my temple) | ||
| 25 | TYPESET |
Model collection ready for publication (7)
|
| type set — type = model, set = collection | ||
| 26 | ESCAPE |
Slip away and space out on MDMA (6)
|
| E (space)* — E = MDMA, the drug Ecstasy | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | SAVOURS |
Takes delight in rescuers ignoring Burrows (7)
|
| sav[I]ours — saviours = rescuers, I = Burrows, the setter | ||
| 2 | TOWN |
Draw close to Barbarian settlement (4)
|
| tow [Barbaria]n — tow = draw | ||
| 3 | LIBATE |
Offer drink to one short of a full deck in classical Italian tantrum (6)
|
| LI bate — LI in classical Italian (ie Roman numerals) is 51, one short of 52, which is the number in a full deck of cards, bate = tantrum — the answer is said by Chambers (but not Collins) to be rare | ||
| 4 | MISSOURI |
Flower maiden belonging to US island (8)
|
| miss our i — we have to see this as flow-er, the crossword staple — miss = maiden, our = belonging to US = belonging to us, i = island | ||
| 5 | BIG SCIENCE |
HUMAN GENOME PROJECT? (3,7)
|
| CD — the human genome project is an example of science (the fact that it’s a definition by example is indicated by the question mark) and the capital letters indicate that it’s big | ||
| 8 | ERODES |
Fragments of poem in Irish Gaelic for the most part (6)
|
| Er(ode)s[e] — fragments a verb — ode = poem, Erse = Irish Gaelic | ||
| 9 | MISSISSIPPI |
Spread Pimm’s out for banker (11)
|
| Well it fits and, like the Missouri answer, we have to read the definition not as it seems: bank-er rather than banker. But the device is new to me: apparently it’s about letter-banks or word-banks and I’m probably not understanding fully, but the letters of PIMMS provide the letters for this (the fact that M appears twice in Pimms but only once in Mississippi doesn’t seem to matter) and if you arrange them, repeating some of them, you get the answer. Seems rather loose, but maybe that’s just me. | ||
| 13 | CROSSBONES |
Danger signal upset doctor (10)
|
| cross bones — cross = upset, bones = doctor (as Chambers says, a nickname for a doctor) | ||
| 16 | SOLDERED |
Joined together and fought hard, laying aside ego (8)
|
| sold[I]ered — soldiered = fought hard, I = ego — I’m not quite sure if there is any significance in the word “hard”, which seems to be unnecessary | ||
| 17 | SUPPLY |
Infinitely flexible unknown outfit (6)
|
| suppl[e] y — supple = flexible, y = unknown — I don’t think “infinitely” to indicate an omission of the last letter is quite adequate: OK infinitely means without end, but not in the required sense here — I’ve certainly never seen it before as a last letter deletion indicator and with reason I think | ||
| 18 | ASUNDER |
Broken up and sure to be redeveloped (7)
|
| (and sure)* | ||
| 21 | CHOOSE |
Pick sweets for audience (6)
|
| “chews” — ‘for audience’ indicating the homophone | ||
| 24 | MEAN |
Average portion of crème anglaise (4)
|
| Hidden in crèME ANglaise |