I am off for my FIAT club meet will be back in the afternoon only, shall post some snaps of the meet tomorrow.
ACROSS
1 - Circle newspaper article revealing chief troublemaker in group (10) – {RING}{LEADER}
6 - A cat, ounce (4) – {A}{TOM}
9 - Very bad, the French records (10) – {CHRONIC}{LES}
10 - Artist's line after nothing said (4) – {O}{RA}{L}
12 - Swindle German woman and daughter (5) – {FRAU}{D}
13 - One in bar ordered drop of rum - that's something requiring little thought (2-7) – {NO-BRAINE*}{R}
15 - Besides displaying bravado, one is struggling against second in league (4,3,5) – {OVER AND ABO*}{V}{E}
18 - It's nothing to get in? Not right, there's this charge (9,3) – ADMISSION F
21 - Spy on the awfully small witch (9) – {PYTHONES*}{S}
22 - Had on about son being poorer (5) – {WOR{S}E}
23 - Toy boy losing head twice, flipping (2-2) – YO
24 - Dora lit me a fresh cigarette (6-4) – TAILOR-MADE*
26 - Sounds like legal documents for top hotel (4) – RITZ(~writs)
27 - Player against international, an opener for Trinidad (10) – {CON}{TEST}{AN}{T}
DOWN
1 - Fierce criminal in Brazilian port (6) – RECIFE*
2 - Common girl's language, initially (6) – {NORMA}{L}
3 - Maths exercise causing lengthy disagreement (4,8) – {LONG} {DIVISION}
5 - River in Sussex, England (3) – EXE [T]
7 - In which one may see Ping, Pang and Pong go round a point (8) – {TUR{A}N}{DOT}
8 - Potential army leak? Nonsense (8) – MALARKEY*
11 - Make a short speech, or be taciturn about article (3,1,3,5) – SAY A FEW WORDS [DD]
14 - Dish - nuts left in mine (6,5) – {BANANA S}{P{L}IT}
17 - In the morning they changed stone for a purple variety of sapphire (8) – {AM}{ETHY*}{ST}
20 - Leave course, disheartened (6) - DES
25 - Head of Assembly, shot in the past (3) – {A}{GO}
Good morning
ReplyDeleteSome nice clues. A few of them posed a real challenge.
Liked RINGLEADER, CHRONICLES, ADMISSION F(-r)EE, RITZ (~writs), CONTESTANT, AU CONTRAIRE, TAXPAYER and others.
TAILOR-MADE: Never knew it meant a cigarette also.
Wow ! Only got mislead on 6a initially. Put in Puma. Got ATOM once the MALARKEY and TURANDOT crept in. It certainly wasn’t a NO BRAINER, as our RING LEADER would agree in his CHRONICLES after YOYOing our pleasure/displeasure for the last few days over the near FRAUD being perpetrated on solvers or WORSE. Is it NORMAL to call someone a PYTHONESS OVER AND ABOVE the other @&%$# used by post-men and post-women in this blog? I don’t recall the ADMISSION FEE at the RITZ on Naubat Pahad in Hyderabad. TAILOR MADE cigarettes were the rage many years back. ORAL, ARMADA, DESERT (BANANA SPLIT), RECIFE, AU CONTRAIRE were nice too.
ReplyDeleteKishore,
ReplyDeleteRitz on Naubat Pahad! After a long time I am coming across Naubat Pahad. I hope you had good darshan of Balaji at Birla Mandir and enjoyed a view of Hyderabad from atop the pahad.
My dad was a smoker and he usually smoked the readymade cigs only. He used to get cartons containing packs of 10's or tins containing I know not how many.
ReplyDeleteHowever, on occasions I as a young boy have seen him get these packages containing shreds of tobacco and self-adhesive paper and roll a cig himself before he lighted it and took it to his nicotine-stained lips and puffed at it. I didn't know that the thing was called TAILOR-MADE.
How come children don't inherit their father's habits?
Amethyst seems to be a variety of quartz.
ReplyDeleteThe other day when I saw Gridman's clue being REEFER, I went, "Hmmm, Gridman knows reefers too, huh. What's he been smoking?" :-)
ReplyDeleteSatya
ReplyDeleteI like it!
People remembering Gridman's "lights"!
Giri: I used to live in Adarsh Nagar on Naubat Pahad in 1973 when the temple was being built.
ReplyDeleteLocoweed ?
ReplyDeleteTalking of 'lights' here is a ditty written in English to be read in English but understood in Hindi !
ReplyDeleteBB BD PTT, PK PK KTT, "AG, BD PO G, BD PK G OG".
Kishore 19:22
ReplyDeleteLet me make a modest guess. It could be close.
Bibi biDi piti thi, pike pike kehti thi, ae ji, biDi piyo ji, biDi pike jiyo ji
Waah Janaab ! The modestfullness of yourself is terrific (a la Billy Bunter's friend Hurree Jamset Ram Singh)
ReplyDeleteKishore:
ReplyDeleteYour bidiwali biwi cryptic ditty badi achhi thee magar aajkal toh, you may have to alter the last bit to mean , bidi peeke dono cancer se saath marenge jee!!
TURANDOT is an answer that I came across this first time in my 35 and odd years of cryptic puzzle solving. One never stops learning, isn't it?
RAJU UMAMAHESWAR