27168

Times 27168

ACROSS

1. PLOUGHMAN (tiller) PAN around LOUGH (Irish lake) + M(ike) in that alphabet
6. SHAWL (wrap) SH (be quiet, 'wrap up') + AWL (tool making small holes)
9. RANGE (product line) no starting letter in (o)RANGE
10. LITTLE TOE (last piggy) (toilet let)* I was sure this must have WEE in it, as that's what the last little piggy says, all the way home - particularly as 'toilet' is in the clue
banks 11. STANDING OVATION (good reception) STAND IN (substitute) + GO (set of) + (on a tv i)*
13. ENCUMBER (hamper) take your CUCUMBER and replace CU (homophone for Q) with EN (homophone for N)
14. FASCIA (panel) FASCI(st) minus' s't for 'saint'
16. GRUMPY (surly) MP inside GRUY(ere)
18 BOTANIST (Banks maybe) (Yel)TSIN + AT + OB(last) - which is a Russian district — all rev. >>>
21. ON THE DANGER LIST (threatened) HE(')D (the man would) + ANGER inside (stilton)*
23. SIMPATICO (pleasant) IMP + A + TIC (jerk) all inside SO (extremely)
25. CLAMP (grip) CLAM + P (piano = softly in Italian - and so in musical notation)
26. DATED - dd
27. GUEST BEER (offer at pub) In England, a 'tied house' only serves one brand of beer, but they may be allowed to offer also one 'guest beer'. Rev. Spooner is supposed to have to said things like the 'town drain' when he meant the 'down train', giving rise to the notion of the 'Spoonerism'. Here, he is supposed to be thinking of 'best gear'. This a type of clue which is very tempting to set, because it seems so clever - but as a solver I find them annoying.

DOWN

1. PARIS (legendary prince - of Troy - this is not the 'county Paris' of Romeo and Juliet) PARTS (abilities - as in 'a man of many parts') without the 'crossbar' on the top of the letter T. I've never seen this before, and think it's brilliant. COD.
2. OF NO ACCOUNT - dd
3. GEEKDOM (anoraks) MODE around K (a thousand) + EG - all rev. Trainspotters in England wear anoraks (because it's always cold and wet) and so are called that. They're also called 'geeks'. And their empire might be called this.
4. MALINGER (fake illness) MA (mother) + LINGER
5. NUTJOB (crazy - in the nominal sense - a crazy person) The NUT is the National Union of Teachers and someone working for it might have this. The question mark is because it's a dodgy clue.
6. SULTANA (ruler's wife) It's (in)SULT 'lacking in' + ANA. I didn't know this meaning of ana = gossip. I quote from some dictionary online. '... a suffix that forms collective nouns denoting an assembly of items representative of or associated with the place, person, or period named by the stem: Americana; Shakespeareana; Victoriana'. ... In addition to that, the '-ana' has got separated and become a word in its own right: 'ana - a collection of memoirs, anecdotes, etc.; a miscellany ... Ana - a collection of the sayings of a person, 1727; literary gossip.
digitalis 7. APT - dd: prone (to) + an abbreviation for 'apartment' in real estate listings, perhaps
8. LIE IN WAIT (prepare an ambush) (we initial)*
12. INCRIMINATE (blame) put DIS in it and you have INDISCRIMINATE (careless)
13. ENGROSSED (absorbed) (sods green)*
15. FOXGLOVE (plant) FOX (trick) + (bottlin)G + LOVE (passion) The digitalis plant - or fox's glove - originally named after a German botanist called Fuchs (German for 'fox) gives digitalin (eg as digoxin) used to manage atrial fibrillation >>>
17. PIEBALD (unevenly coloured) PIE (dish) + BALD (with no cover on top)
19. APRICOT (fruit) We get APT from 7d and put that around RICO, short for Federico or Ricardo
20. TAXING (difficult) You only 'drive' a plane when it's TAXIING, an unusual word in having two IIs next to each other.
22. TOPER (lush = drinker, archaic word often found in crossword puzzles) RE-POT all rev.
24. MAT (rug) last letters of ballrooM dramA cuT

27168

At 15d, I biffed (see last note in the Key) KIDGLOVE, tho it's not a plant, and anyway clashed with my LOI, when I realised that 'Banks' must be referring to the botanist. Hence the correction.

KEY

to abbreviations and symbols which may have been used

(raga man)* = anagram of 'anagram'
cd = cryptic definition
dd = double definition
incl. = inclusive ('hidden word')
def. = definition (synonym, literal)
rev. = reversed
anagind = anagram indicator
homophind = homophone indicator
surface - the apparent meaning of the clue, disguising what's really going on
&lit - a clue in which the whole clue is the 'definition'
COD = clue of the day (imo); FOI, LOI, first/last one written in
BIFF = 'bung in' - as in 'I bunged in the wrong answer from the definition before parsing it.' I'm not sure if the F stands for something - 'first', maybe.

Garry Gillard | New: 13 October, 2018 | Now:13 October, 2018