Slormgorm has some of his usual panache on display in today’s puzzle.
| ACROSS | ||
| 7 | HERO |
Leading man appearing in The Rocketeer (4)
|
| Hidden in (appearing in) [T]HE RO[CKETEER] | ||
| 8 | IMMODESTLY |
Repurpose my old items in a fresh way? (10)
|
| Anagram of (repurpose) MY OLD ITEMS | ||
| 10 | CURERS |
Successful doc finally stops folk smoking (6)
|
| CURER (successful doc) + last letter of (finally) [STOP]S, i.e., people who preserve, e.g., meat | ||
| 11 | NEAR MISS |
Miserly teacher getting a close shave (4,4)
|
| NEAR (miserly) + MISS (teacher) | ||
| 12 | HANDS OFF |
Don’t touch fruity bunches on holiday (5,3)
|
| HANDS (fruity bunches, i.e., of bananas) + OFF (on holiday) | ||
| 13 | IGNITE |
Light tipless fag with dope inside at last (6)
|
| [C]IG (fag) minus first letter (tipless) + NIT (dope) + last letter of (at last) [INSID]E | ||
| 15 | DENTAL HYGIENE |
Canine welfare service? (6,7)
|
| Cryptic definition, “canine” here being a tooth | ||
| 18 | WOMBAT |
Beastly type with club stealing medal (6)
|
| {W (with) + BAT (club)} around (stealing) OM (medal, i.e., Order of Merit) | ||
| 20 | WINE PALM |
Tree in, say, Red China close to mausoleum (4,4)
|
| WINE (say, red) + PAL (china) + last letter of (close to) [MAUSOLEU]M, with a capitalization misdirection | ||
| 22 | CAVALIER |
Supercilious old royalist (8)
|
| Double definition | ||
| 24 | MANAGE |
Bloke with a gun espied at the front? Run! (6)
|
| MAN (bloke) + A + first letters of (at the front) {G[UN] + E[SPIED]} | ||
| 25 | BALD-HEADED |
Dad restyled with blade? He’s saving on haircuts! (4-6)
|
| Anagram of (restyled) {DAD + BLADE + HE}. This clue has an &lit aura. | ||
| 26 | EASE |
Flirt taking top off provides relaxation (4)
|
| [T]EASE (flirt) minus first letter (taking top off) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | GET-UP-AND-GO |
Drive is what oversleeping worker might do (3-2-3-2)
|
| Double/cryptic definition | ||
| 2 | POSEIDON |
God’s attitude essentially mortified fellow (8)
|
| POSE (attitude) + middle letter of (essentially) [MORT]I[FIED] + DON (fellow) | ||
| 3 | FIASCO |
I like company, having over fellow failure (6)
|
| I think this parses as: F (fellow) + I + AS (like) + CO. (company), with “having over” indicating the order of the wordplay | ||
| 4 | IDEATING |
Drug stopping one in a relationship conceiving (8)
|
| E (drug) inside (stopping) {I (one) + DATING (in a relationship)} | ||
| 5 | ASHMAN |
US refuse worker entry to abnormally quiet island (6)
|
| First letter of (entry to) A[BNORMALLY] + SH (quiet) + MAN (island). I would not consider this word current in American usage. | ||
| 6 | PLUS |
Litre in drink must be knocked back? Good point! (4)
|
| L (litre) inside (in) SUP (drink) inverted (must be knocked back) | ||
| 9 | MAN OF THE WORLD |
Experienced chap damn fool threw off (3,2,3,5)
|
| Anagram of (off) DAMN FOOL THREW | ||
| 14 | THEOLOGIST |
Religious student hogs toilet getting changed (10)
|
| Anagram of (getting changed) HOGS TOILET | ||
| 16 | ATTAINED |
Accomplished criminal tainted by Mafia ultimately (8)
|
| Last letter of (ultimately) [MAFI]A + anagram of (criminal) TAINTED | ||
| 17 | EXPANDER |
Old brute with black eyes delivered in stretcher? (8)
|
| EX- (old) + homophone of (delivered) PANDA (brute with black eyes) | ||
| 19 | BRANDY |
Bishop wanting relations to get a stiff drink (6)
|
| B (bishop) + RANDY (wanting relations) | ||
| 21 | NOMADS |
Foolish to go in numbers to see Wanderers (6)
|
| MAD (foolish) inside (to go in) NOS (numbers) | ||
| 23 | AWAY |
A custom in another country, perhaps (4)
|
| A + WAY (custom) |
I thought this was good fun. Had a go while waiting for the Guardian blog to arrive. The FT app hops from one clue to the next, which is nice, but has no anagram function. Favs included CURERS, BRANDY and THEOLOGIST for their surfaces and IMMODESTLY for the misdirection of ‘fresh’.
Didn’t finish — a few were beyond me. I’ve never heard of near/miserly, but sure enough, there it is, about twenty-somethingth in Collins.
I enjoyed this: although a couple of clues were a bit beyond my abilities there was enough else that I had fun.
There were some relatively easy clues and some very obscure words:IDEATING and ASHMAN. Overall an enjoyable puzzle and blog.
Thanks Slormgorm and Cineraria.
I thought 19D was slightly rude. Clever.
SM@4 summed it up nicely for me. No favourites today, although I enjoyed it overall.
Thanks Slormgorm and Cineraria
Thanks to setter and blogger. Nothing too challenging, so a perfect degree of difficulty for a Tuesday puzzle for my abilities. LOI was 10A which took an inordinate amount of time. Doh! Particularly liked the surface of 3D. Special 👍to @Martin Brice for the comment about 19D, which made me laugh once I realized what he meant.
I slipped up on a few today. I often find short ones tricky, and I was convinced that 6 somehow involved “sip” or “pils”. It didn’t occur to me to use “sup”.
I also made a stab at “hobbit” instead of WOMBAT, thinking that “club” would be “hit” and then struggling to think of a medal called the OBB. So there were some nice misdirections as far as I was concerned.
I also missed CURERS, a very clever one.
This took a while; doable overall, but I allowed myself to be confused by the successful doc. I looked up ASHMAN to see what it was; not there, hey ho, obviously the solution. I learnt NEAR from crosswords this year, potentially the other place.
I liked GET UP AND GO, DENTAL HYGIENE, BRANDY and EXPANDER.
Thanks SLORMGORM and Cineraria.
Thanks Slormgorm and Cineraria
8ac: I wondered about “repurpose” as an anagram lead, but Collins 2023 p 1693 gives us “adapt to or use for a new purpose”, which is good enough for me. I always like these clues where you have to work out which of two possible anagram leads is actually the definition.
10ac: I share others’ liking for this clue. So often wordplay just adding an S to a singular noun can be mundane, to say the least, but Slormgorm here has shown how to do it with style.
11ac: Further to Martin@9, Bobcat in FT 18,388 (1 June 2026) had “Most parsimonious” defining NEAREST.
https://fifteensquared.net/2026/06/01/financial-times-18388-by-bobcat/
15ac: I was not so keen on this one. I still think my initial guess of DENTAL SURGERY is as good a fit to the clue, taking “service” in a different way.
1dn: I have commented in the past on how effective it can be to clue a well-known phrase by its figurative meaning and a whimsical take on its literal meaning. A lovely example here.
5dn: Collins 2023 p 115 has ashman “US dustman” under ash¹ with no indication of being archaic or obsolete, so Slormgorm is entitled to use it.
Me and Babbler #8 on the exact same page! Had fun. Thank you all
Babbler@8 I also had HOBBIT with an unexplained OBB. “Probably Order of the British Brotherhood” I muttered and moved on. Wrong, obviously, but didn’t hold me up.