Apologies for the late post everyone. Thank you Aardvark.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | RICKSHAW | Strain’s shown by husband and wife pursuing a people carrier (8) |
| RICK’S (strain, of the neck) by H (husband) and then W (wife) following A | ||
| 5 | TIN CAN | Metal container, earliest in trove, related to an ancient culture (3,3) |
| Trove (first letter, earliest in) then INCAN (relating to an earlier culture) | ||
| 9 | BLITHELY | Works in outskirts of biggish cathedral city, in a casual way (8) |
| LIT (works, is on – or Literature, works) inside BiggisH (outer letters, outskirts of) then ELY (cathedral city) | ||
| 10 | OPENER | During over with velocity excessive, confine batsman (6) |
| OvER missing V (with velocity excessive) contains (during…is…) PEN (confine) | ||
| 11 | IN TANDEM | At home, cycle together (2,6) |
| IN (at home) TANDEM (a cycle) | ||
| 12 | STARCH | Before presentation of award, celebrity needs stiffener (6) |
| CH (Companion of Honour, award) follows (before presentation of…is…) STAR (celebrity) | ||
| 14 | STAFF NURSE | Rod runs awkwardly, side of knee tender (5,5) |
| STAFF (rod) anagram (awkwardly) of RUNS then kneE (side of) – one who tends | ||
| 18 | TARANTELLA | See you, when in North America, count steps (10) |
| TARA (see you) then NA (North America) contains (when in…is…) TELL (count) | ||
| 22 | RIYADH | During fourth day, Irene reviewed capital abroad (6) |
| found reversed (reviewed) inside (during) fourtH DAY IRene | ||
| 23 | SCHUMANN | Son Colin peripherally embraces genial composer (8) |
| S (son) ColiN (outer letters, peripherally) contains (embraces) HUMAN (genial) | ||
| 24 | AKIMBO | Stance writer’s taken after spirit rebuffed by book circle (6) |
| I’M (writer is) follows KA (spirit) reversed (rebuffed) then B (book) O (circle) | ||
| 25 | SNAKE PIT | Wind pressure – it creates a site of mayhem (5-3) |
| SNAKE (wind) P (pressure) IT | ||
| 26 | SIGHER | Soldier’s rejected that woman who expresses dejection (6) |
| GI’S (soldier’s) reversed (rejected) then HER (that woman) | ||
| 27 | PETRARCH | Amended chapter includes right poet of Early Renaissance (8) |
| anagram (amended) of CHAPTER contains R (right) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | RABBIT | Bang on front of residence by Jack had an impact (6) |
| Residence (first letter, front of) then AB (Jack) and BIT (had an impact) | ||
| 2 | CHINTZ | Some Greek religious books with variable printed material? (6) |
| CHI (some Greek, one letter) NT (religious books) and Z (variable) | ||
| 3 | SPHINX | Crime spot attracts local person of mystery (6) |
| SIN (crime) X (spot, X marks the spot) contains (attracts) PH (public house, local) | ||
| 4 | ALL-WEATHER | Type of running track a centre of excellence with showers, for example (3-7) |
| A then exceLLence (centre of) and WEATHER (“showers”, for example) | ||
| 6 | IMPOTENT | Helpless monkey returned to hospital department (8) |
| IMP (monkey) then TO reversed (returned) and ENT (hospital department) | ||
| 7 | CONTRARY | Perverse hoax attempt to apprehend artist (8) |
| CON (hoax) then TRY (attempt) contains (to apprehend) RA (Royal Academician, artist) | ||
| 8 | NORTH SEA | The main card player’s attending rehab regularly (5,3) |
| NORTH’S (bridge player is) with rEhAb (regularly) | ||
| 13 | OFF LICENCE | Retailer left in charge during transgression (3-7) |
| L (left) IC (in charge) inside (during) OFFENCE (transgression) | ||
| 15 | STAR WARS | Celebrity promoted second unaltered picture from 1970s (4,4) |
| STAR (celebrity) then a reversal (promoted) of S (second) RAW (unaltered) | ||
| 16 | GRAYLING | Tory politician good in speech, protesting angrily (8) |
| G (good) then RAYLING sounds like (in speech) “railing” (protesting angrily) – Chris Grayling | ||
| 17 | INEDIBLE | Dine at sea, stimulating bile, and any food might seem thus (8) |
| anagram (at sea) of DINE then anagram (stimulating) of BILE | ||
| 19 | QUAKER | Friend perhaps a bogus doctor, caught out by hesitant remark (6) |
| QUAcK (a bogus doctor) missing C (caught) then ER (hesitant remark) | ||
| 20 | JASPER | It’s a gemstone, according to past head of jewellery (6) |
| AS PER (according to) follows (past) Jewellery (first letter, head of) | ||
| 21 | SNATCH | Lift disheartening sermon at church (6) |
| SermoN (dis-heartened, no middle letters) AT CH (church) | ||
Really struggled with this. On hindsight, I’m not sure why but it certainly wasn’t easy.
I parsed a couple differently. In 9a, I took LIT to refer to “literature” (works) and in 16d, I took it to be G followed by an anagram of “angrily” but don’t really understand what the “in speech” is doing. If a homophone indicator, then what is “protesting” doing? Thanks both.
Sorry. Just read your parsing of 16d again. Makes perfect sense. Maybe Aardvark didn’t spot the anagram? Or maybe he tried to fool people like me.
Hi Hovis, I prefer you Literature explanation for lit = works
Thanks, Aardvark and PeeDee. Got much of it quickly but needed help with LOI, RABBIT – didn’t associate “Jack” with “AB” (sailor) until I looked it up.
Got 15D from crossers, but how does “promoted” mean reversal? Something like moved from bottom to top?
Thought it was a pangram but I don’t see a V – am I overlooking one?
Hi jeff,
I think the idea is that promoted means “to lift up”, “lift up” could be read as “to turn over”, so “promoted” is a reversal indicator.
I’m far from convinced by this sort of reasoning, but it is a longstanding tradition in cryptic crosswords and happens everywhere. I think all the obvious anagram, containment and reversal indicators got used to death years ago, so to keep things interesting there is a tradition of allowing greater tolerance for those.
Enjoyed this despite having to rely on PeeDee for explaining the parsing of GRAYLING (homophones are a weakness of mine), OPENER ( I’ll never understand cricket), and AKIMBO (too convoluted for my brain.) Liked BLITHELY, SNAKE-PIT, and QUAKER. Thanks to both.
Jeff @4. I noticed that as well. My guess is that it started out as a pangram attempt but any attempt to lever in the V ended up spoiling the crossword which would hardly be worth it. It could, of course, be an unintentional lipogram.
Another who searched in vain for a pangram.
Like Hovis, I made heavy weather of this for no good reason.
It was unfortunate to have ‘celebrity’ = ‘star’ in two clues, I thought.
Thanks Monk and PeeDee
Although it’s not a pangram, looking for one helped us to get CHINTZ and SPHINX, which then gave us RICKSHAW as our LOI. Elsewhere we puzzled for ages over 23ac; we guessed it had to be SC*****N but the only composer we could think of at first was Scriabin and ‘riabi’ was obviously nonsense – a real ‘DOH!’ moment when we realised the correct answer.
A satisfying solve, though. Thanks, Aardvark and PeeDee.
I was completely beaten in the NW corner (apart from “in tandem”) so thanks PeeDee for the illumination. Played with ELY and ALL but could not finish. Otherwise I enjoyed the great clues in the rest of the grid.
I made reasonably quick progress until the Southwest corner when I came a cropper on Tarantella, Grayling and akimbo. Tarantella was a completely new word on me. The other two I should’ve got
Thanks Aardvark and PeeDee
Typically entertaining puzzle from this setter in which, similarly to allan_c@9, the hint of a pangram helped with the solving of CHINTZ and SPHINX – never did check whether it was or not. Was able to start off by seeing the hidden RIYADH straight away and then worked through the interesting set of charades until landing up to that difficult NW corner which took as long as the rest of it to do.
With no new terms, it was a credit to Aardvark to make the journey as tricky as it was.
Thanks Aardvark & PeeDee.
In 10 across, the blog contains Aardvark’s hint that the pangram is “missing V”.