What new is there to say about Dac? This was one of his easiest, many of the clues not really very different from those in The Times Quick Cryptic, but the surfaces were as always perfect. I wondered if Dac was amusing himself by having all clues with their definition at the beginning certainly this seemed to be the case at first but it soon became clear that he wasn’t.
Definitions underlined.
Across
1 Creature in former times transported by ship (6)
BOBCAT
bo(BC)at
4 Hide a hundred pounds I kept in store possibly (8)
CLOISTER
CL, then I in (store)*
10 State of rider? (9)
CONDITION
2 defs
11 Poet, one included in English collection (5)
ELIOT
E l(1)ot
12 Good person at home during day (5)
SAINT
Sa(in)t
13 Town providing accommodation for brownish-grey horse (9)
DUNSTABLE
A dun stable is a stable for a dun
14 Footballer once went off with away team (7,4)
OUTSIDE LEFT
left [= went off] with [in this case after] out [= away] side [= team]
18 Male has a difficult experience, suffering one day of marriage (11)
MATRIMONIAL
m a tri(1 Mon)al the trial is the difficult experience, suffering the (rather unusual) inclusion indicator I think
21 Like a joint individual initially dismissed (9)
ARTICULAR
{p}articular
23 Brief broadcast by unknown country once (5)
ZAIRE
z aire{d} broadcast is in the past tense Zaire is now the Democratic Republic of The Congo
24 Subject, say, tucked into pork pie (5)
LIEGE
li(eg)e rhyming slang: pork pie = lie
25 Amid disorderly retreats, you finally get hold of small cars (9)
RUNABOUTS
r({yo}u nab)outs for Dac none of this textspeak that we had the other day, hence ‘finally’
26 Foppish sort to visit judge? That’s right (8)
POPINJAY
pop in J ay
27 Well-known nightspot, say, in outskirts of Charleston (6)
CAVERN
aver in C{harlesto}n
Down
1 Defenders in front of leading baseball player (8)
BACKSTOP
backs [= defenders] in front of top [= leading]
2 Robbers officially prohibited, you say? It can go either way (8)
BANDITTI
“banned” it (it)rev.
3 Look mother is enthralled by group of celebs and respectable writer (8,7)
ALISTAIR MACLEAN
A-list (air Ma) clean
5 Add protective cover to new fabric (5)
LINEN
line n
6 Book by 3, craziest one, a bit odd (3,7,5)
ICE STATION ZEBRA
3 is Alistair MacLean and this is one of his books (craziest one a bit)*
7 Attempt to collect one pound in hat (6)
TRILBY
tr(1 lb)y
8 Punk singer‘s goal: getting right winger almost completely upset (6)
ROTTEN
(net tor{y})rev. ref Johnny Rotten
9 Most stormy in the Caribbean, perhaps, with onset of typhoon (8)
WINDIEST
W. Indies t{yphoon}
15 One going abroad using money allocated by old record company (8)
EMIGRANT
EMI grant
16 Mock one top policeman in cruel fashion (8)
RIDICULE
(1 DI) in (cruel)*
17 Spineless sort almost fails to get up (6,2)
SLEEPS IN
(Spineles{s})* at least I think so, although if that’s the case then it really needs to be the silly ‘spineless almost sort fails to get up’, so perhaps I have it wrong and there’s some other explanation
19 Strike, with everyone having work reduced (6)
WALLOP
w all op
20 Cruelly pester US star (6)
STREEP
(pester)* Meryl Streep
22 See sailors with a girl (5)
LORNA
lo RN a
*anagram
I parsed 5d as ‘n’ (new) inside ‘lien’ (security, cover).
I spent many hours in my youth watching baseball, but I don’t recall backstop being used as a metonym for catcher. The online dictionaries have it,though, so I suppose it’s kosher. Thanks to Dac and John.
An excellent solve. Many thanks to Dac and John.
Another Dac puzzle that I really enjoyed. Despite coming from Merseyside CAVERN was my NTLOI, and BOBCAT was my LOI. As Ian@2 said BACKSTOP is in the dictionaries so that makes it ok for setters to use, but I would always use “catcher” for the position in question and I have never heard or seen “backstop” being used even though I’ve been following the game for thirty years.
I think it was used in rounders when I played, many years ago.
17D Sort (almost) seems OK for the Anagrind.
Good clean fun.
Thanks to Dac and John.
I recall Alistair MacLean coming up before in puzzles – I suppose having a 15 character name makes him something of a favourite with compilers.
Spineless sort almost fails to get up
As long as the ‘spineless sort’ is SLEEPSINS, we’re okay: chop the last letter off and we’re there. Obvious I know, but that’s how the clue remains sound.
Thank you Dac for an extremely pleasant puzzle and John for the excellent blog.
How strange – I bought the 30p Independent today (whatever it’s called) for a crossword to do in the pub. It was a Dac crossword. It took about five minutes (so far, so good), but…it wasn’t this one. Surely there isn’t a different puzzle in the cheap paper? I have no idea – I rarely buy the paper (after the Guardian and The Times, which I do daily, next choice is the Telegraph Toughie, but my newsagent had run out of Telegraphs by this evening).
@8Paul B Could have sworn that’s what I said @6.
Ian@9: they recycle old crosswords in the I, the cheap version of the Independent. And they apparently don’t remunerate the setters for their second appearance, which is I suppose how they keep the price down.
John@11 Thanks. Didn’t know that (obviously). There should, I think, be a “repeat fee”, even a modest or token one would be appropriate.