Guardian 27642

This was no fun. It seems to me that the Times cryptic always repays the effort put in, but not so much the Guardian's. I can only think that the Times editor, Richard Rogan, sets a higher standard.

Friday (the next day). I had to go to fifteensquared for some explanations, so I'll add to yesterday's notes.

8 across I don't understand. Satisfy (SLAKE) a companion to S. Beauty? What is S. Lake?

Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake. But the S stands for something different in each case. Not acceptable.

15 across. What are the 'contrasting volumes' in P and F? There's an anagram of 'foolish' inside those letters.

Oh, that kind of volume. Loud and soft. Ironically, as a musician, I should have thought of that straightaway.

17 across is (m)ELON + GATED (kept in college) I now see belatedly.

20 across doesn't seem to have a definition. BARER is a homophone for 'bearer' (messenger's spoken), and it you make 'lesson' into two words ('parts') you have 'less on'. But that's two lots of wordplay, with no definition. Neither is it an &lit. So I think it's just an incorrect clue.

The blogger ('Andrew') thinks 'lesson in two parts' is a definition for BARER. It's not. It's wordplay. (I need not mean what I say, but I must say what I mean - as Afrit [A.F. Ritchie] wrote many years ago.)

4 down should be OUTCROP, but I don't know why, which is why I inadvertently wrote in the wrong answer.

The blogger ('Andrew') thinks that 'what pokes out of the ground' is a good enough definition for OUTCROP. Maybe, but it's pedestrian.

10 down: the def. is NHS etc., but how does the wordplay work?

I was too irritable to see that in WELFARE STATE we have FLEW rev. + A REST + ATE.

And so on ...

14 down. I now know that TOOK is literally a Hobbit clan, but didn't wish to know that.

16 down. I'd never heard of a SOB SISTER being a sentimental actress.

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Garry Gillard | New: 17 October, 2018 | Now: 19 October, 2018