What new is there to say about Dac? Every clue tells a little story. I have misgivings about ‘provided’ as an anagram indicator in 4dn, and I suspect that there might be a typo in 12dn, since my suggestion is so simple that I can’t see why Dac didn’t do it that way (although now that I look more closely he may be right all along, the two words necessitating a verb without s; not sure about this — perhaps someone who knows about these things could drop in and tell us); but a small price to pay for a day of Dac.
Definitions underlined.
| Across | ||
| 1 | JACK-THE-LAD |
Cocky fellow halted manoeuvres after displaying flag (4-3-3)
jack [= flag] (halted)*
|
| 7 | GIBB |
Comeback of great British singer/songwriter (4)
(big)rev. B — lots of people (mostly brothers) called Gibb who were singer/songwriters
|
| 9 | PICTURES |
Imagines border raiders crossing northern river (8)
Pict(Ure)s
|
| 10 | ARIOSO |
Italian poet has no time for musical style (6)
Arios(t)o — arioso means literally ‘like an aria’
|
| 11 | THALIA |
Comic muse that almost inspires modern writer named Smith (6)
Tha{t} around Ali — ref Ali Smith — Thalia was the muse of comedy and pastoral poetry
|
| 13 | ORANGERY |
Round yard in which patrolman’s planted collection of fruit trees (8)
o (ranger) y
|
| 14 | INTO THE WOODS |
Keen on the prom maestro’s musical (4,3,5)
into the Wood’s — ref the Sir Henry Wood Promenade Concerts — this musical
|
| 17 | CINÉMA VÉRITÉ |
Film technique, one adopted by amazingly creative men (6,6)
(creative men)* round 1
|
| 20 | COMANCHE |
Indian to appear round cowboy’s estate right away (8)
com({r}anch)e
|
| 22 | ORDEAL |
Unpleasant experience, sticking gold on to wood (6)
or deal
|
| 23 | CALLUM |
Boy’s name – name given with some hesitation (6)
call um
|
| 24 | EMIGRATE |
Leave the country and head off east, taking plane at speed (8)
e{ast} MIG rate
|
| 26 | ARTY |
Cultured group of politicians having no leader (4)
{p}arty
|
| 27 | SETTLEMENT |
It involves paying bill for subsidence (10)
2 defs
|
| Down | ||
| 2 | ALIGHT |
What fellow smoker might ask for? Get off! (6)
A fellow smoker might ask for a light
|
| 3 | KIT |
Tackle one kilometre climb, reaching summit at last (3)
(1 k)rev. {summi}t
|
| 4 | HERBAL TEA |
With ale, the bar provided healthy drink (6,3)
(ale the bar)* — I suppose ‘provided’ is the anagram indicator since there are no other candidates, but I can’t see the necessary idea of jiggling around in the word
|
| 5 | LASH OUT |
Verbally attack the French, and yell (4,3)
la shout
|
| 6 | DRAMA |
Lightweight article producing tension (5)
dram a — I had thought that a dram was a quantity rather than a weight, but Chambers says that it is also 1/16 of an ounce
|
| 7 | GOING TO SEED |
Like sower leaving for work over the hill? (5,2,4)
2 defs — the sower is leaving to go to work and is going to seed
|
| 8 | BESTRIDE |
Sit on horse, perhaps, wanting first-class journey (8)
best ride
|
| 12 | LOIRE VALLEY |
Love Allier trip, reaching unknown area of France (5,6)
(Love Allier)* y — the word ‘trip’ is the anagram indicator and is I assume an imperative, otherwise surely it should be trips; actually I can’t see why it wasn’t trips in the first place
|
| 15 | EDITORIAL |
Leader one’s spoken about after tide has turned (9)
(tide)rev. or(1)al
|
| 16 | DINOSAUR |
Old creature is around? Wrong (8)
(is around)*
|
| 18 | EVEREST |
Mountain is most daunting: top’s invisible (7)
{s}everest
|
| 19 | FASTEN |
Football Association’s slightly deficient team in tie (6)
FA’s ten — a football team usually contains eleven, so is slightly deficient
|
| 21 | CAMUS |
Extract from Balzac amuses another French writer (5)
Hidden in BalzaC AMUSes
|
| 25 | RUM |
Penny off steak? Weird (3)
rum{p}
|
*anagram
Thanks to Dac and John,
I’m ignorant of the niceties of cluing, but couldn’t see anything wrong with 12d as written. I parsed 8d as ‘Sit on’ being the def, ‘horse perhaps, wanting first-class’ as BEST (BEAST without the A) and ‘journey’ as RIDE. I missed 10 and 11a – hopefully now in the memory bank.
Thanks again for a pleasant puzzle and for the helpful blog.
A puzzle I felt at home in! Thanks to DAC and blogger.
I found this slightly trickier than a Dac puzzle usually is, particularly in the NE corner, and I finished with BESTRIDE, ARIOSO and GIBB.
Perhaps a better anagrind in 4D would be “mixed”.
I take on board your reservations John, but as you say a fine puzzle. I had no problems with this.
I interpreted “trip” as a noun in the drug sense and thought it seemed fairly reasonable as an anagram indicator.
Perhaps in 12dn “trips” wouldn’t have made sense with “reaching unknown area of France” – you cannot have more than one trip to an unknown area as it would no longer be unknown after the first trip.
12D: “trip” is perfectly sound. There are two words in the anagram fodder, so a plural verb is justified – as you later realised!
Nice puzzle.
But might we not have found the unknown area on just one of the Allier trips?
Only popping in to note the sense of déjà vu surrounding 12dn. Previous consensus seemed to be that, whilst formal grammar might demand the anagramming of multiple components as, e.g., A, B, C and D trip, in cruciverbalese it would be OK to say A B C D trip but, indeed, we would say A trips. So Dac “a raison” … as he once taught me 😉