An entertaining little tussle. Thank you Shabbo.
The clues are straightforward, but nevertheless I found quite a few of them difficult. I attempted this puzzle after a good dinner and several glasses of wine. Usually a little lubrication loosens up my subconscious and the solutions start to jump out, but perhaps this time the wine was not a good match for the puzzle?
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | EXPEDITE | Former partner takes exercise alongside unusual diet to make things happen (8) |
| EX (former partner) takes PE (exercise) alongside anagram (unusual) of DIET | ||
| 5 | ADVERB | Raved about bachelor unduly perhaps (6) |
| anagram (about) of RAVED then B (bachelor) | ||
| 9 | COVENANT | Agreement between spelling group and social worker (8) |
| coven (witches, a group who cast spells) and ANT (a social worker, a worker ant in a colony) | ||
| 10 | ABSENT | A series of books about bovine disease is missing (6) |
| A and NT (series of books) contains (about) BSE (cow disease) | ||
| 12 | POTPOURRI | Award for French state is an aromatic assortment (9) |
| POT (award) POUR (for, French) then RI (Rhode Island, state) | ||
| 13 | TRAIN | Coach self-discipline to give up siesta outside (5) |
| resTRAINt (self-discipline) missing REST (siesta) | ||
| 14 | ROOM | Space for bear’s friend to get married (4) |
| ROO (Winnie-the-pooh’s friend) gets M (married) | ||
| 16 | SHADOWS | Traces dogs‘ companions (7) |
| triple definition | ||
| 19 | ROMANCE | Love Italian cafe surroundings (7) |
| ROMAN (Italian) then CafE (outer letters, surroundings) | ||
| 21 | PADS | Every year police officer gets protection (4) |
| PA (every year) then DS (detective Sergeant, police officer) | ||
| 24 | STRAP | Band brought back “Bits & Pieces” (5) |
| PARTS (bits & pieces) reversed (brought back) | ||
| 25 | SALVATION | Alison confused about tax redemption (9) |
| anagram (confused) of ALISON contains VAT (tax) | ||
| 27 | GALLIC | French singer returned after third of August (6) |
| CILLA (Cilla Black, singer) reversed (returned) following auGust (third letter of) | ||
| 28 | SANDWICH | Opponents in charge of hospital food (8) |
| S AND W (south and west, opponents in bridge) with IC (in charge of) and H (hospital) | ||
| 29 | SEAMEN | Bowler changes end to get ratings (6) |
| SEAMER (bowler) with end letter changed | ||
| 30 | ADJOURNS | Defers notice – press have nothing to lose (8) |
| AD (advert, notice) then JOURNoS (press) missing O (nothing) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | ESCAPE | Key flight (6) |
| double definition – a key on a computer keyboard | ||
| 2 | PIVOTS | Goes round to block up drip internally (6) |
| STOP (to block) reversed (up) contains (with…internally) IV (a drip, medicine) | ||
| 3 | DINGO | Starts to describe indigenous native growling Ozzie (5) |
| first letters (starts to) of Describe Indigenous Native Growling Ozzie | ||
| 4 | TANTRUM | Fit French aunt didn’t finish drink (7) |
| TANTe (aunt in French, not finished) then RUM (drink) | ||
| 6 | DEBIT CARD | Terribly bad credit? Use this instead (5,4) |
| anagram (terribly) of BAD CREDIT | ||
| 7 | ELEVATOR | About to reveal what helps Americans get to the top (8) |
| anagram (about) of TO REVEAL – what the Americans call a lift | ||
| 8 | BOTANIST | Somehow obtain good person who is an expert on bloomers (8) |
| anagram (somehow) of OBTAIN then ST (saint, good person) | ||
| 11 | DISS | Speak impolitely about Norfolk town (4) |
| double definition | ||
| 15 | OENOPHILE | Connoisseur‘s glasses contain small measure with Greek character and lime zest (9) |
| OO (a pair of glasses) contain EN (small measure, printing) with PHI (Greek character) and LimE (outer letters, zest of) | ||
| 17 | PRESAGES | Predicts time when reporters go round (8) |
| AGE (time) inside (when…goes round) PRESS (reporters) | ||
| 18 | UMBRELLA | Broadly embracing weather protection (8) |
| double definition | ||
| 20 | ESSE | Existence, whichever way you look at it (4) |
| a palindrome (whichever way you look at it) | ||
| 21 | POLLARD | Cut up fat and remove crown (7) |
| LOP (cut) reversed (up) then LARD (fat) | ||
| 22 | AIRIER | Fresher environment reportedly (6) |
| sounds like (reportedly) “area” (environment) | ||
| 23 | INCHES | Worms discovered in cabin chest (6) |
| found inside cabIN CHESt – crawls along | ||
| 26 | AUDIO | Sound system adds nothing to car (5) |
| AUDI (car) with O (nothing) added | ||
Thanks Shabbo and PeeDee for an enjoyable Sunday morning crossword and answers. We managed with minimal thesaurus help today!
Chuffed we got glasses as OO. We hadn’t seen that before. Only confusion remaining is why pot is an award?
Hannah and Alex
I found the SW corner very difficult, eventually had to resort to electronic aids, and even then it was a struggle. Up to then it had been very smooth, apart from 2D where I had to come here for the explanation that IV = drip. Thanks anyway Shabbo for the challenge and PeeDee for the blog.
Labradoodle @ 1, Pot is slang for an award of some sort e.g cup or trophy.
What a delight. This was light and great fun with commendably brief cluing and great surface readings.
I’m not at all keen on “journo” as a word as it’s in both Chambers and Collins it’s perfectly fair from a setter’s point of view. For me, 18d is “same-sidey” as the meaning of “broadly embracing” is a direct derivation of the “weather protection”.
My page was littered with ticks and my long short list comprises 16a (I love a good triple definition), 27a, 28a, 3d, 6d & 15d.
Many thanks to Shabbo and to PeeDee.
I missed out a word in my comment @4. It was supposed to say – … BUT as it’s in both …
Very enjoyable, although we couldn’t parse TRAIN (we thought we had to remove S and A – outside letter os ‘siesta’ from something) or PIVOTS (we’d forgotten the intravenous sort). And we just couldn’t think of a word for ‘fresher’ that was a homophone of one meaning ‘environment’ – a real facepalm moment when we got AIRIER from a wordfinder!
We think the definition of COVENANT is simply ‘agreement’ with ‘between’ indicating that ‘coven’ and ‘ant’ between them give the answer.
Favourites were the aforesaid COVENANT, plus BOTANIST and OENOPHILE.
Thanks, Shabbo and PeeDee.
Thank you for your kind words. They are very much appreciated.
Sorry about the journo, RD!
On to the next one!
Another excellent puzzle, Shabbo, and so refreshing to have a compiler who doesn’t resort to using obscurities in his puzzles – although I do detect a penchant for sports from time to time in your compilations!
Profuse apologies – forgot to thank our excellent blogger for his hard work – thank you PeeDee!
I forgot as well!! Many thanks PeeDee for an excellent blog.