An enjoyable puzzle as always from Aardvark. Thank you.
It looks like there is at least one pangram in here, anybody fancy the job of counting the letters? I had a quadruple pagram to blog last week from Gozo. Once one starts then they are all at it…
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | COPECK | Without training, company clerk drained money abroad (6) |
| PE (physical exercise, training) inside (without…is…) CO (company) ClerK (no middle letters, drained) | ||
| 4 | SQUEAKED | Trembled outside close to collapse after son confessed (8) |
| QUAKED (trembled) contains (outside) collapsE (last letter, close to) all following S (son) | ||
| 9 | AZORES | Unknown soldiers in ocean around archipelago (6) |
| Z (an unknown) OR (other ranks, soldiers) inside SEA (ocean) reversed (around) | ||
| 10 | VINEGARY | Wine from France and Spain Lineker found acidic (8) |
| VIN (wine, from France) and E (Espana, Spain) then GARY (Gary Lineker perhaps) | ||
| 12 | MOSQUITO | Bloodsucker doctor’s given somewhere in Ecuador (8) |
| MO’S (doctor is) with QUITO (somewhere in Ecuador) | ||
| 13 | BREEZE | Piece of cake causing wind (6) |
| double definition | ||
| 15 | NEAT | Variable number Hoover up and tidy (4) |
| N ( a variable number) and EAT (hoover up) | ||
| 16 | GRIPE WATER | Medicine for child having a temperature put in jug with clasp (5,5) |
| A T (temperature) inside EWER (jug) all following (with) GRIP (clasp) | ||
| 19 | INTRUSIONS | Roger probes dodgy unionist’s repeated meddling (10) |
| R (Roger, |
||
| 20 | MUSK | Minute Welsh flower, ingredient in perfumery (4) |
| M (minute) then USK (the River Usk, something that flows in Wales) | ||
| 23 | OSSIFY | Whenever controlled by faceless authoritarian, become rigid (6) |
| IF (whenever) inside (controlled by) bOSSY (authoritarian) missing first letter (faceless) | ||
| 25 | VERBOTEN | Catch alumnus and churchman heading west – it’s forbidden (8) |
| NET (catch) OB (old boy, alumnus) and REV (churchman) all reversed (heading west, right-to-left on a map) | ||
| 27 | ILLINOIS | Midwest region’s hostile current endlessly loud (8) |
| ILL (hostile) I (current, electricity symbol) NOISe (loud, endlessly) | ||
| 28 | DELUXE | Top-quality light unit clogging British river (6) |
| LUX (unit of illuminance) inside (clogging) DEE (the River Dee) | ||
| 29 | APOPLEXY | Raging father covered in beer by Yankee (8) |
| POP (father) inside ALE (beer) X (by, times) Y (Yankee, phonetic alphabet) | ||
| 30 | STODGY | Dense, sticky hot dogs regularly occupying enclosure (6) |
| every other letter (regularly) of hOt DoGs inside STY (enclosure) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | CHAPMAN | Tea minister’s taken with an itinerant dealer (7) |
| CHA (tea) PM (Prime Minister) with AN | ||
| 2 | PROP SHAFT | Support mum behind part of engine (4,5) |
| PROP (support) SH (mum, silence) AFT (behind) – something attached to an engine? | ||
| 3 | CHEQUE | Type of payment Argentinian put down, dropping two pounds (6) |
| CHE (Che Guevara, a famous Argentinian) then QUELL (put down) missing (dropping) L L (pound, twice) | ||
| 5 | QUIZ | 22 reckoned to be here in Scrabble competition (4) |
| the letter-tiles Q (10) U (1) I (1) and Z (10) added up (reckoned) make 22 in Scrabble | ||
| 6 | EYEBROWS | You’re probably surprised when they go up (8) |
| cryptic definition | ||
| 7 | KNAVE | Jack in obstructive van kindly reversed (5) |
| found reversed inside obstructivE VAN Kindly | ||
| 8 | DAYWEAR | Throwing away red pyjamas, say? Unlikely (7) |
| anagram (throwing) of WAY RED – not so unlikely in the Covid 19 era! | ||
| 11 | STARLIT | Sparkling young film actress, one representing East (7) |
| STARLeT (young film actress) with I (one) replacing E (east) | ||
| 14 | SPANDEX | Special toilet roll makers avoiding right material (7) |
| SP (special) then ANDrEX (toilet roll maker) missing R (right) | ||
| 17 | TRUST FUND | Store of money discovered not old – after time, corroding (5,4) |
| FoUND (discovered) missing O (old) following T (time) RUST (corroding) | ||
| 18 | CUP FINAL | Charlie delighted playing Alf in match (3,5) |
| C (Charlie, phonetic alphabet) UP (delighted) then anagram (playing) of ALF IN | ||
| 19 | IWO JIMA | Single woman mostly maintains journal on one WW2 battle (3,4) |
| I (one,single) WOMAn (woman, mostly) contains J (journal) on I (one) | ||
| 21 | KENNEDY | President understanding newsman in US city (7) |
| KEN (understanding) then ED (newsman) inside NY (US city) | ||
| 22 | ABJECT | Wretched article needs new start (6) |
| OBJECT (article) with a different starting letter | ||
| 24 | SALVO | Five left when flipping football burst (5) |
| V (five) L (left) AS (when) all reversed (flipping) then O (looks like a football) | ||
| 26 | JINX | Juliet admitted kiss cast ill-fated spell (4) |
| J (Juliet, phonetic alphabet) IN (admitted) then X (a kiss) | ||
I counted them (again). This time it’s a triple pangram. Superbly constructed with beautifully cryptic clueing and without recourse to unusual words. Brilliant!
Thanks, PeeDee.
This was ok apart from
Roger = R (it’s Romeo in the International Phonetic Alphabet),
A prop shaft isn’t part of a engine, it is part of the transmission,
and football = o (!!)
On a side note, I first came across that meaning for Chapman through “whil that the Chapman sleeps” in Chaucer’s prologue. This brought a few smirks from my class mates since that is my surname.
Suspecting a triple pangram two thirds of the way through saved the day, helping me to finish in the NE corner where I had hit the wall. Likewise, MUSK, which I could only visualise as ‘leek’ for a long time, being artfully deceived by flower. Some very clever surfaces. Really enjoyed KNAVE and VINEGARY. Yes, Gary Lineker, who, with a Leicester connection promoted Walkers’ salt and vinegar flavoured crisps, aka ‘salt and lineker’, geddit?). Thanks to Aardwark – very rewarding – and to PeeDee for filling in gaps I was too lazy to find in the parsing!
Sorry, Aardvark – autospell overrode me!
@2 So it is Grumpy. Might Roger=R be an abbreviation is radio communication? I can’t spot it in Chambers.
@2 “attached” to, not “part of” makes “prop shaft” fit perfectly!
Not sure where R for Roger can be found, other than in today’s Brummie crossword. Surely two different setters can’t both be wrong?
Collins has this in the derivation for Roger: C20: conventional name of international signal flag for R
…and a second derivation for a different entry for Roger C20: from the name Roger, representing R for received
Didn’t like 17d
Corroding? would have to be Corrosion surely?
Thanks Aardvark and PeeDee
Roger = R is also from the comms alphabet used by the RAF before the international one was adopted.
A minor point, but I think the abbreviated ‘loud’ in Illinois is noisy, not noise.
Hi Mark, most verbs can be made into a noun by adding -ing. Walking is healthy. Giving is a good thing. Corroding is a common problem.
Quite hard, I thought, and was away to a very slow start. But of my 1st 5 in, 3 contained Xs & so one naturally thinks, ‘Oh, hullo’ and that helped tremendously.
Thereafter, everything that Hovis says @1.
Great puzzle, thanks to both.
Very enjoyable, and a (triple) pangram to boot – what more could one want?
We got off to a flying start after spotting 5dn in a quick glance through the clues and, being Scrabble players, immediately thought of QUIZ. We weren’t sure what ‘here’ signifies in the clue, though – we wondered if it referred to placing those tiles in the corresponding position on the Scrabble board, but in that case the score would be 23, since the I would be on a double letter square.
We did have a minor issue with ‘corroding’ in 17dn. As PeeDee says, adding -ing to a verb can make it into a noun, which is fine for, say, walk, where there is a difference in meaning between ‘a walk’ and ‘walking’ but for ‘corrode’ using ‘corroding’ as a noun sounds very awkward and there is a pefectly good noun in ‘corrosion’ anyway – leave ‘corroding’ as a present participle or an adjective. But as we say, it’s a minor point in an excellent crossword.
Thanks, Aardvark and PeeDee.
Hats off to Aardvark for the triple pangram but, alas, I could not finish this crossword because CHAPMAN, GRIPE WATER, and ANDEX as a toilet roll maker are all foreign to me. Thanks PeeDee for the much needed explanations.
Ah, GRIPE WATER and ANDEX are literally foreign to me as well, as I am American. I enjoy learning new words and phrases.
Thanks Aardvark and PeeDee
Over the hour to get this one done across four sittings throughout the day. Became highly problematic that there was a pangram of sorts going on quite early in the piece, but didn’t pay too much attention to it during the grid fill after that – was only post solve that I counted up the triple pangram – a great effort.
Thought that the Scrabble clue at 5d was cute. Also liked the clever NEAT at 15a.
The centre connector clues in this grid pattern can be quite difficult … and so it was here. That is where I finished after finally recalling GRIPE WATER as the baby tummy medicine, which then let the clever STARTLIT fall and still a good bit of work to find SPANDEX (and Google the unknown British toilet roll brand) to finish it off.