Wednesday 6 July 2016

No 11745, Wednesday 06 Jul 2016, Vulcan

Enjoyed the surface reading of most clues, specially 11A.

ACROSS
1   City of Dubai, a hub, extremely developed (3,5) ABU DHABI {DUBAI+A+HuB}*
5   Issue is, a couple of pages are torn (6) APPEAR {A}{PP}{ARE*}
10 Associate with a female friend, fundamentally independent, recent one to join in (9) AFFILIATE {A}{F}{Fr...d}{In...t}{L{1}ATE}
11 Earthworm's head emerging out of fruit, one in shock (5) APPAL {APP{A}Le}
12 Federal agency's retired men getting into films (6) CINEMA {CI{NEM<=}A}
13 Return from break about one, not working – try to kill time (7) REENTRY {RE{Eno <=}NT}{tRY} (Addendum - {RE{onE}NT}{tRY} - See comments)
14 Careless errors by head office corrected finally (8) SLIPSHOD {SLIPS}{HO}{c...eD}
15 Plain and somewhat bit undramatic (6) TUNDRA [T]
18 Exit the computer and leave for the day (3,3) LOG OFF [DD]
20 Sounds like sense prevailed. Hence goes without capital punishment (8) SENTENCE (~ ?){SENT}{hENCE} First part of Anno not clear (Addendum - (~ scent){SENT}{hENCE} - See comments)
22 Depressing stuff? (4,3) TEAR GAS [CD]
25 First off, wrote about a group of 9 (6) ENNEAD {pENNE{A}D}
27 Opening clue not hard to start with, right, it's nothing (5) INTRO {hINT}{R}{O}
28 Union's firm. 9 backing the leader of guild (9) FASTENING {FAST}{NINE<=}{Gu..d}
29 Offending queen with rhetoric (6) ERRANT {ER}{RANT}
30 A player gave up, not basically determined (8) ADJUDGED {A}{DJ}{bUDGED}

DOWN
1   A serum is said to be absent (4) AWAY {A}{WAY}(~whey)
2   Design a lungi, fine, for the most part reliable (9) UNFAILING {A+LUNGI+FINe}*
3   Lady's hosting former proprietors (7) HOLDERS {H{OLD}ERS}
4   Boasts coming from hired killers closing a deal at first (8) BRAVADOS {A}{Deal} in {BRAVOS}
6   Level of philosopher, say (7) PLATEAU (~plato)
7   Previous head finally gone, banished (5) EXPAT {EX}{PATe}
8   Event rarely troubled the champion (5,4) RELAY RACE {RARELY}*{ACE}
9   Mockery of justice, starting to get weird, that's unacceptable (4) JEER {Ju...e}{EERie}
14 Nothing in it is real, tricky game (9) SOLITAIRE {O} in {IT+IS+REAL}* My father's favourite pastime in the days of no computers
16 Clash with a girl during midnight, eccentric person (4-1-4) DING-A-LING {DIN}{G-A-L}{IN}{niGht} One of my favourite songs. Listen to Chuck Berry singing it.

17 Dead indeed, case is bizarre (8) DECEASED {DE{CASE*}ED}
19 Warning signal starts to have neighbours go for broke (7) FOGHORN {Have+Ne...s+GO+FOR}*
21 Rear seating compartment/unit with awesome upholstery primarily (7) TONNEAU {TONNE}{Aw...e}{Up...y}
23 Flower expert, not male (5) ASTER mASTER
24 Vault say, not entirely iron (4) SAFE {SAy}{FE}
26 Old one's often greedy (4) AGED {A}{GrEeDy}

GRID

13 comments:

  1. 13 Return from break about one, not working – try to kill time (7) REENTRY {RE{Eno <=}NT}{tRY}

    I took ABOUT to be the container indicator and reversal indicator {RE{(-on)E}NT}{(-t)RY}

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  2. Easy again. Fire is missing from the Roman God!!!

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  3. Nice xword overall .. though a bit staid/boring for VUlcan?? Thanks for the earthworm /apple pic.. made me laugh.. Yep cannot account for the "sent" - sounds like sense prevailed = sounds like scent?? Bit weak that.. are expats banished?? hee hee.. in Adjudged still have an old Q...is basically the starting or the middle letter indicator?

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  4. Lovely one..loved the wordplay

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  5. I took sense prevailed=scent

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    Replies
    1. Same here. Prevailed was a bit misleading I felt. Wonderful clues.

      Delete
  6. Deepak saab,
    My fav pastime is Freecell. I have been playing for the last decade

    ReplyDelete
  7. Col.,
    Thank you for the link to 'tonneau' and the nice picture. Delighted to read the article.

    ReplyDelete
  8. As there is no CW in today's paper I will publish a Holiday special by Pluralist. It will be scheduled for 8 AM

    ReplyDelete

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