A themed puzzle again today. I enjoyed this, thank you Gozo.
The themed answers are all types of fruit.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | COCONUTS | Crazy clown coming first (8) |
| NUTS (crazy) following (with…coming first) COCO | ||
| 5 | DAMSON | Daughter having the morning with her brother (6) |
| D (daughter) having AM (the morning) with SON (her brother) | ||
| 9 | PEARMAIN | Exercise the latter half of the year – most important (8) |
| PE (exercise) then yeAR (latter half of) MAIN (most important) – a type of apple | ||
| 10 | LOQUAT | Not half talkative at end of concert (6) |
| LOQUAtious (talkative, not half) then concerT (last letter, end of) | ||
| 12 | DATES | Italian poet’s anonymous (5) |
| DAnTE’S (Italian poet is) missing N (with no name, anonymous) | ||
| 13 | TANGERINE | Perplexed generations – not so! (9) |
| anagram (perplexed) of GENERATIoNs missing SO | ||
| 14 | ORANGE | Love what’s on offer (6) |
| O (love) RANGE (what’s on offer) | ||
| 16 | NAARTJE | Jean awkwardly embraced style (7) |
| anagram (awkwardly) of JEAN contains (embraced) ART (style) – a type of orange | ||
| 19 | APRICOT | March past, apparently, before October Revolution (7) |
| APR I (April 1st, March is past apparently) then anagram (revolution) of OCT (October) | ||
| 21 | MEDLAR | Small sea god (6) |
| MED (Mediterranean, a small sea) then LAR (a house god) – type of apple | ||
| 23 | PINEAPPLE | Long drink – about 2p . . . . (9) |
| PINE (long) ALE (drink) contains (about) PP (2 p) | ||
| 25 | PEACH | . . . . so, one hundred would cost a pound (5) |
| P EACH (penny each, one hundred would cost a pound) | ||
| 26 | RAISIN | Lives through the downpour (6) |
| IS (lives) inside (through the) RAIN (downpour) | ||
| 27 | GOOSEGOG | Go back and forth ?– goes wrong inside (8) |
| GO OG (go, back and forth) contains (with…inside) anagram (wrong) of GOES – a gooseberry | ||
| 28 | RUSSET | Contrary heroine booked after game (6) |
| TESS (Tess of the d’Urbervilles, heroine of a book) reversed (contrary) follows (after) RU (Rugby Union, game) – a type of apple | ||
| 29 | MANDARIN | Island Bobby (8) |
| MAN (Isle of Man, an island) then DARIN (Bobby Darin, singer) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | CUPIDS | Angelic figures I had seen in bras? (6) |
| I’D (I had) inside CUPS (bras) | ||
| 2 | CHARTERER | He hires boats – two Queens – and map, first (9) |
| ER ER (The Queen, twice) follows (with…first) CHART (map) | ||
| 3 | NAMES | Members of Lloyd’s having irregular means (5) |
| anagram (irregular) of MEANS – insurers Lloyd’s of London | ||
| 4 | THISTLE | Flower disturbs Lettish characters (7) |
| anagram (disturbs…characters) of LETTISH | ||
| 6 | AFORESAID | As already stated, terrible idea so far (9) |
| anagram (terrible) of IDEA SO FAR | ||
| 7 | SAUDI | Small car for Middle Easterner (5) |
| S (small) AUDI (car) | ||
| 8 | NATTERED | Last of women treated badly – were gossips (8) |
| womeN (last letter of) then anagram (badly) of TREATED | ||
| 11 | ANON | Leading article with no name. Yes! (4) |
| Article (first letter, leading) with NO N (name) | ||
| 15 | NECTARINE | Exhibition hall pitch concerned with energy (9) |
| NEC (National Exhibition Centre) then TAR (pitch) IN (concerned with) E (energy) | ||
| 17 | TRAFALGAR | Battle painting artist raised, holding tattered flag (9) |
| ART (painting) RA (Royal Academician, artist) all reversed (raised) contains anagram (tattered) of FLAG | ||
| 18 | TAMPERER | Chap who adjusts run to Finnish city, as 21 across would suggest? (8) |
| R (run) following (to, added on to) TAMPERE (Finnish city), also a TAMPERER would be a meddler (sounds like “medlar”, 21 across) | ||
| 20 | TOPS | The very best place to be upset (4) |
| SPOT (place) reversed (to be upset) | ||
| 21 | MYELOMA | Most of the lemon may be treated for bone marrow disease (7) |
| anagram (be treated) of LEMOn (most of) MAY | ||
| 22 | SHOGUN | Japanese military governor’s timeless firearm (6) |
| SHOtGUN (firearm) missing T (timeless) | ||
| 24 | NAILS | Poles have trouble within – they get hammered (5) |
| N ans S (poles) containing AIL (trouble) | ||
| 25 | POSED | Faced the camera, showing tranquillity. Not I (5) |
| POiSED (showing tranquillity) missing I | ||
Small typo in 18d – city is Tampere. Good fun though!
Thanks Jaydee, fixed now.
It was a great puzzle: and thoughtful in my opinion for Gozo to make the down-clues easier than the across ones (LOI 29ac MANDARIN). Thanks Gozo and PD.
Thanks Gozo and PeeDee
An entertaining themed puzzle in which the theme was revealed quite early on with TANGERINE. A couple of unknown fruit, including NAARTJE, PEARMAIN and GOOSEGOG and have only seen MEDLAR in crosswords.
Smiled when the first part of APRICOT dawned on me.
Didn’t know the Finnish city in 18d and only got the homophonic ‘meddler’ part of that word play. It was my last one in, preceded by that unknown GOOSEGOG and POSED (that took longer than it should have to see through).
GOOSEGOG and MANDARIN had me stumped even though the fruit theme announced itself early on. Was amused by the wordplay for MEDLAR and TAMPERER but had to look up NAARTJE, notwithstanding the adjacent ORANGE.
Thanks,Gozo,for a fun challenge and Pee Dee for the blog.
Thanks to Gozo and PeeDee. Great fun. I needed help from Google for GOOSEGOG but NAARTJE defeated me.
LOQUAT, NAARTJE, MEDLAR, MYELOMA, and the Finnish city were all new to me, or if not new then unfamiliar, so I used a word finder for these.
Guessed a few of the acrosses from the letters I already had before looking at the clues.
Thought “back and forth” was “out of order”, but presumably there for the surface reading.
The fruit theme unveiled itself early with DAMSON — that caused me to play a guess-what-fruit-fits-here game — in the end I found it to be less than satisfying. I do admire the skill it takes to construct such a crossword. Thanks to both.
We tend not to bother with crosswords that have a preamble, but a quick glance revealed DAMSON at once followed by PINEAPPLE so we decided to give it a go, and aftyer working through the downs most of the acrosses virtually solved themselves. We’d heard of NAARTJE or something similar but had to use a wordfinder for the spelling (Chambers, incidentally, spells it with only one A, indicating that the original spelling was with two.) And LOQUAT was new to us – revealed with a wordfinder after we’d tried to find something involving part of ‘voluble’ (for ‘talkative’).
Enjoyable, but a bit of an anticlimax.
Thanks, Gozo and PeeDee.
Loved learning the exotic fruit names! NAARTJE, PEARMAIN, GOOSEGOG – LOQUAT and MEDLAR I thought I knew but still had to look up. Great triple clue with TAMPERER. PEARMAIN was LOI – I tried “plantain” unsuccessfully for a long time which wouldn’t work with 3D.
Yes, ‘plantain’ kept popping into my head too but for 29ac – and there is a ‘Plantain Island’- but it wouldn’t fit with 25d.
Absolute cracker even though I had a DNF for Naartje