Solution to 18A has been deliberately left unsolved and is to be answered only by a non-regular / novice commenter, with proper annotation. Those who have answered earlier in the week, please give others a chance.
Open for anyone to answer, if not solved by 1 PM.
ACROSS
1 Avoids saving money or cuts corners (6) SKIMPS {SKI{M}PS}
5 From the point mentioned we can find a balm (8) OINTMENT [T]
9 Get big as tailor made most loose-fitting (8) BAGGIEST*
10 Missing in action POWS after losing leader spotted by animal noises (6) MIAOWS {MIA}{pOWS}
11 Say, European landlord could help in family planning (6,6) FRENCH LETTER {FRENCH}{LETTER}
13 List people at university (4) MENU {MEN}{U}
14 51 saints on board, could be counted (8) LISTABLE {LI}{S}{TABLE}
17 Old band put on trial ignoring law concerning monks (8) ABBATIAL {ABBA}{TrIAL} Law/R ?
18 Arms and legs cut in half and thrown around university at Norway (4) G?N? (Addendum - GUNS {leG{U}{N}S} - See comments)
20 Organization of rules (12) CONSTITUTION [DD]
23 Upset, upset with university at Britain, one with an inability to take decisions (6) ABULIA {AIL}{U}{B}{A}<=
24 Dreamt that I am having a drink with journo (8) IMAGINED {I'M}{A}{GIN}{ED}
25 Support a party having some principle to accept a nationalist (8) ADOPTION {A}{DO}{Pr...e}{T{1}O}{N}
26 Ends deaf almost, thus sounds like you will be missed (6) DEATHS {DEAf}{THuS}
DOWN
2 A medieval ruler from Bhadrakh ancestry (4) KHAN [T]
3 Large animals somehow manage to eat nothing unhealthy in the first place (9) MEGAFAUNA {MEGA{FA}{Un...y}NA*}
4 Harry resets unit (of volume) (6) STERES*
6 Anonymous salesmen partying (8) NAMELESS*
7 Say, beef served around noon implied... (5) MEANT {MEA{N}T}
8 ...more enthusiasm with a country (3,7) NEW ZEALAND {NEW ZEAL}{AND}
15 Man in harbour starting late for a country (9) ARGENTINA {mAR{GENT}INA}
22 Say, third son is determined to win hearts (4) SETH {SET}{H}
Reference List
Money = M, Missing in action = MIA, University = U, Saints = S, Britain = B, Journo = ED, Nationalist = N, Nothing = FA(Fanny Adams), Noon = N, Society = S, Hearts = H
4d def is singular and answer is plural
ReplyDelete14a can S be used in the plural
+1 to both
Delete+2
Delete💯
DeleteLiked the optical illusion. Nicely done.
ReplyDeleteSo was New Zealand.
Re: 5D Oil spill. I agree that caution is required in case of oil spills. But how can an oil spill be misleading?
DeleteCol., French letter and birth control? I quickly went through the link but could not find any French connection.
ReplyDeleteThe term ‘French letter’ refers to 18th-century French condoms made from animal intestines. These condoms were sometimes referred to as ‘Lettres de cachet’, which literally translates as ‘letters of seal’ in English. This phrase eventually evolved into its present form - ‘French letters’ - and has been used ever since to refer to condoms.
Deletehttps://condoms.uk/blogs/sex-education/why-are-condoms-called-johnnies#Why-are-Condoms-Called-French-Letters
Thank you Prasad. AD has gone into great details & Col. has followed suit!
ReplyDeleteRavi. I have known thru my friends that fl, stands for French leather erstwhile condoms.
ReplyDelete16d IVR code is K. Just took finally to indicate the lot of name changes in past half century!
ReplyDeleteWho would have IMAGINED?
ReplyDeleteVladimir wearing the BAGGIEST jeans, sitting in a restaurant in
ARGENTINA with his Mumbai pal KHAN and staring at the MENU card?
Khan cut a few jokes MEANT to be clean, but RIBALD no doubt.
"Our next stop is NEW ZEALAND and don't forget to pack the OINTMENT and
the FRENCH LETTERS..."
"Come again" exclaimed Vladimir.
What happened next?
He came again!!
DeleteNaughty😉
Delete18a - {-le{G{U)(N)S}}
ReplyDeletelegs - cut in half = -le(GS)
university-U
Norway - N
(U&N)* over GS
Def. is Arms - Guns
18A Arms = GUNS ; G{UN}S
ReplyDeletele(GS) cut in half = GS
thrown around = contains
(U)niversity at (N)orway = UN
Novices are absent till 1300 hrs!
After a long wait today I got an opportunity. Though I pressed the publish button @ 13:00:35, the system considered 12:59.
Delete1A SKIMPS was a nice charade with a good oxymoronic surface. ABBA was seen hiding as "old band" in 17A. 24A IMAGINED was also a good clue overall, with a natural-sounding surface and neat charade. 25A ADOPTION was an enjoyable, tricky charade with not a word wasted. 19D RIBALD was also a good clue with an interesting choice of words.
ReplyDeleteThe clue composition contained excess words in 5A ("...the...we can find..."). "Spotted" in 10A seemed to be redundant apart from linking the definition to the wordplay on the surface. In 12D "...on..." was a redundant link word but for the surface.
"Saints" became S in 14A and "hearts" led to H in 22A, while "law" somehow equated to R in 17A. In 18A and 23A, one wonders whether the universities would have been grammatically better off "in" Norway and "in" Britain respectively, as opposed to "at" (although "in" modifies the cryptic reading for both as a container indicator). I'm not a fan of FA = "nothing", as in 3D MEGAFAUNA. AD tends to use this one with some regularity, though I haven't seen other THC setters do it. I think it's too dated and obscure.
Even though "European" is a proper noun, "say" was not required in 11A as "French" is an example of a European - had the clue been the other way, with "French" in the wordplay and EUROPEAN in the solution, then "say" or another marker would have been required as a proper noun would have been used to define an ontological parent category. However, I cannot decide whether "say" was well-used in 22D SETH - if "first lady" is commonly used to denote EVE, then why not "third son" to denote SETH? I think in order to be proper it was safe to include an indicator as "third son" is an imprecise definition for SETH.
ABBATIAL, ABULIA and STERES were my picks for today's obscure words.
For the galleries - is "starting late" a fair deletion indicator for the first letter as used in 15D?
Hearts is the suit of cards and denoted by H.
DeleteNice summary Economizer. I hadn't heard of Fanny Adams until last night and it wasn't a fun one to learn the background of. However, there is a more modern reading of FA = Nothing that is a bit too vulgar for mixed company.
DeleteIMO "Starting Late" is 100% kosher to indicate deletion of first letter.
Agree that the usage of European, say feeling inverted. I also agree on SETH not needing say, though I'm not losing sleep over these and I will always enjoy a biblical clue.
After a little help from ChatGPT, I'm convinced and I accept that Law = R is a reference to legal proceedings (I see some British and some Canadian with cursory searches) in which R refers to "Rex" or "Regina", representing the state, or colloquially "the law", as plaintiff or defense, as in "R v Dudley and Stephens", just to name a random example.
Thank you Col - I stand corrected on that count.
Delete@Michael - Re: FA = nothing - Touché! Re: Law = R, it's too much of a stretch/'hallucination' for me.