Gosh, quite a tough week for me. Browsing the answers it’s not hard to see why.
There’s a lot of unfamiliar stuff in there, either whole terms or just alternative spellings. Which we don’t mind at all. Good stuff and an enjoyable challenge once again.
*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | MUTATION STOP – A in (TOPMOST UNIT)*. |
| 10 | OBECHE – O + BECHE, which comes from BEECH but with an E (English) moved to the end. |
| 11 | SIENA – IE in ANS<. |
| 12 | LATHER – [s]LATHER. |
| 13 | SALAAM – (MA + ALAS)<. |
| 14 | LARAMIE –RA in L’AMIE. |
| 16 | USAGER – U + SAGER. |
| 18 | HOOLY – 0 in HOLY |
| 19 | TEREFAH – (THE FARE)* and &lit. |
| 21 | KEY-SEAT – a “key seat” is higly sought in an election. |
| 23 | ALNUS – N in ALUS. “Alu” being another spelling of “aloo”. |
| 24 | PENSEL – PEN + SE[a]L. |
| 26 | POSITIF – OP< + IS< + FIT<. Slightly complex wordplay, but the “Each recalled…” tells us to reverse each component. |
| 27 | ERMINE – ER + MINE. |
| 28 | GOOROO – GOO[d] + ROO[d], and an old spelling of the more familiar “guru”. |
| 29 | NAIAD – A in DIAN<. “Dian” is another spelling of Diana. |
| 30 | AMNION – A M[i]NION. Had to do so research here, but it turns out that both “parasite” and “minion” can both mean “flatterer” or “sycophant”. |
| 31 | STARGAZEY PIE – (GET A PRIZE SAY)*. An interesting-sounding Cornish pie in which whole fish are positioned with their faces poking out of the crust, hence “looking up”. |
| Down | |
| 1 | MOLLUSK – MO + L + LUSK. |
| 2 | TETRADYNAMIA – (ATTAIN DREAMY)*. |
| 3 | ACHAGE – HAG in ACE. |
| 4 | THEMELESS – THE + (L in SEEMS*). |
| 5 | OSSELET – [h]OSS + TELE<. |
| 6 | SILK – S + ILK. |
| 7 | TEAR-OFF STRIP – two definitions, kind of. |
| 8 | ON A PLATE – 0 + NAP LATE. |
| 9 | PAMMY – [s]PAMMY. |
| 15 | THREESOME – T + (REES in IN). I hadn’t heard of Dai Rees, but the name seemed entirely plausible. |
| 17 | SCELERAT – REAL* in TECS<. |
| 19 | TARPEIA – (A PIRATE)*. |
| 20 | HALF-ONE – (F + ON) in HALE. |
| 22 | ONIONY – I in ([specialit]Y + NO-NO)<. |
| 23 | AVENS – [h]AVENS. |
| 25 | LIAR – RAIL<. |
I remember finishing this quite late on Sunday, despite knowing and getting 31ac fairly quickly. I’d never heard of the golfer at 15dn and totally failed to notice the common Welsh name in the middle which should have told me how that clue works. Thanks for finding him for me.
Similarly, I’m now wondering what mental lapse led to be entering ON A PLANE for 7dn when the actual answer is obvious. (Well, obvious now you’ve told me.)
When I was a kid we had an old 78 of a song called The Man from Laramie. For hours after getting 14ac, I had it running through my head.