This wasn't my favourite puzzle of the year.
I found it very uneven with the right side being extremely easy and the some of the clues on the left much harder with one or two of them seeming to have rather unnecessary verbiage. 15A seemed extremely obscure.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | EDIFICE |
Building unsecured if I certified locks (7)
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Hidden in unsecured if I certified |
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| 5 | NODS OFF |
Falls asleep creating clue for dons? (4,3)
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Implied anagram of dons |
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| 10 | VAGUER |
Very regularly catches fever, getting increasingly woozy (6)
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Odd letters of very around ague(=fever) |
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| 11 | HOEDOWNS |
Blue cycling shoe boxes needed for dance parties (8)
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Down(=blue in the sense of sad) in(=boxed by) (shoe with the s cycling to the end) |
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| 12 | PEA |
Discovered parcel of asparagus seed (3)
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[S]pea[r], referring to asparagus spears. |
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| 13 | FOETUS |
Hirsute officer set about devouring contents of egg (6)
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Hidden, rev in "hirsute officer" |
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| 14 | DOTTEREL |
Stupid fellow was first held back smuggling wild animal (8)
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Led<(=was first) around otter(=wild animal) |
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| 15 | ANOA |
Indonesian resident‘s limitless bank loan (4)
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[b]an[k] [l]oa[n]. I'd never heard of it but an anoa is a small forest buffalo which lives on Sulawesi. |
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| 16 | AWARENESS |
Extremely abstruse answers developed knowledge (9)
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(A[bstrus]e answers)* |
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| 19 | SPEED TRAP |
Unpopular revenue generator possibly shares around excessive returns (5,4)
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(Parts(=shares) around deep)<. I don't particularly want to bring politics into this but, while the right-wing press loves to present the motorist as the victim for having to pay a few fines for breaking the law, the real victims are the 29,911 people who were killed or seriously injured on our ever more unsafe roads in 2025 alone, many of them as a result of speeding traffic. |
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| 21 | SWOT |
One working hard starts to subedit world-renowned books (4)
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Initial letters of s[ubedit] w[orld-renowned] + OT(=Old Testament books) |
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| 24 | GRAFFITI |
Two taking time finishing off regional chart for auditor’s drawings (8)
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II(=2) around t{ime} after hom of graph(=regional chart). I'm not sure what the word "regional" adds. |
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| 26 | SEALED |
Closed up cell, finally having eased suspect outside (6)
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[Cel]l in eased* |
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| 27 | NIP |
Move quickly to pinch a small quantity of spirits (3)
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Triple def |
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| 28 | DOMICILE |
The same rodents overwhelming Illinois home (8)
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Do(=the same) + (mice(=rodents) around Il{linois}) |
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| 29 | INGEST |
Take in tongue-in-cheek broadcast (6)
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Hom of "in jest"(=tongue-in-check) |
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| 30 | WAY TO GO |
Excellent American directions (3,2,2)
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DD |
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| 31 | BELATED |
Lie around in bed, getting behind schedule (7)
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Tale(=lie colloquially, as in tall tale) in bed |
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| DOWN | ||
| 2 | DRAGOON |
Cavalryman with women’s clothing on checks zip (7)
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(Drag on)(=women's clothing on) around o(=zip in the sense of zero or nothing) |
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| 3 | FRUSTRATE |
Halt progress following corrosion estimate (9)
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F{ollowing} + rust(=corrosion) + rate(=estimate) |
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| 4 | CORPSE |
Key rings for climbing can be stiff (6)
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(Esc(=key) around pro(=for))< |
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| 6 | OVERTURN |
Tip up open vase (8)
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Overt(=open) + urn(=vase). Bit of an old chestnut, that one. |
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| 7 | SHONE |
Excelled partly through dishonesty (5)
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Hidden in dishonesty |
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| 8 | FINGERS |
Hand parts in Fidelio’s opening to awful singer (7)
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F[idelio] + singer* |
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| 9 | SHADOW CABINET |
Opposition politicians in Norway tucked into the cod prepared with wasabi (6,7)
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N{orway} in (the cod wasabi)* |
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| 17 | NOSTALGIA |
Lost again, rekindling homesickness (9)
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(Lost again)* |
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| 18 | STRIKING |
Stamping out (8)
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I think this is a DD |
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| 20 | PERSONA |
Fictional character likely to be first in identity parade? (7)
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CD/DD. The first person in an identity parade could be called Person A. |
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| 22 | OVERSEE |
Disregard poetry in Old English (7)
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Verse in O{ld} E{nglish}. Although not the normal meaning, disregard is listed in Chambers as an option for oversee. |
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| 23 | ASPIRE |
Have an ambition of rents rising in emergency accommodation (6)
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Rips<(=rents in the sense of tears) in AE(=Accident & Emergency) |
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| 25 | FOIST |
Wrongfully insert leader of uprising to begin with (5)
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Of< + ist(=to begin with) |
Different view, from me, than our blogger.
I found this puzzle well-balanced on difficulty and variety.
OVERSEE, ( 22d), like “oversight”, is a trappy concept, to be avoided; I don’t think that, “to oversee” is ” to disregard”.
24(ac), GRAFFITI: it’s not elegant, but “regional” seems to be there to narrow down the word “chart”, a graph being based, on the Y and X axes,
if you like, North and East.
SPEED TRAP, 10(ac), is just a well-constructed clue, so not sure about the blogger’s response.
Thumbs up from me , hippo graff.
Thanks Hippogryph and NealH
I thought the ‘regional’ in 24A was because some parts of the country say ‘grarf’ while others say ‘graff’.
Nice puzzle, suitably tricky.
I fall into the ENBoll& camp at #1 and I enjoyed the solve. The two unknowns for me (DOTTEREL and ANOA) were sympathetically clued, so just needed a quick check in Chambers for verification.
It will probably produce howls of protest, but isn’t HOEDOWNS American? Or have they crept over here now too?
Many thanks to Hippogryph and to Neal.
ENB @1: ref OVERSEE, whilst Collins does not support the setter, Chambers does:
‘overseeˈ transitive verb
To superintend
To overlook, disregard
To see without being meant to see
To see or look over
I agree that “regional” is there to provide the short “a” in graph. I had “Striding” for “STRIKING”, but wasn’t convinced by either answer. I couldn’t quite see why “deep” was excessive.