Solution to 26A 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 solve, if not solved by 1 PM.
It Opened With Open Government
ACROSS
1 Wild daughter leaves for college, returns polite (5) CIVIL LIVI(-d+c)C<=
4 Bundle new breaks into tax for affordability (9) CHEAPNESS {C{HEAP}{N}ESS}
9 Pet's DNA shocked some particular people (7) PEDANTS*
10 Resist free on-board crackers (no wrong done!) (7) FORBEAR {FREe+on+BOARd}*
11 "Select the third option, no?" she teased (6) CHOSEN {abC}{NO+SHE}*
14 What is misinterpreted as an increase in friendliness? (4) THAW*
15 Research probing secrets about women serving the clergy (10) RECTRESSES {RES} in {SECRETS}*
18 Child (one guarded by several rugged knights) (10) CHEVALIERS {CH}{EVAL{1}ERS*}
19 Maybe ball bearings absorb shock to an extent (4) ORBS [T]
22 "Get Back" amongst popular Queen soprano numbers? (8) INTEGERS {GET<=} in {IN}{ER}{S}
24 One might break through defences of exhausted housekeeper, snaffling cake sneakily (6) HACKER {Ho...{CAKE*}...eR}
26 Police officer claims victory after evicting General Electric employee (7) S?R?A?T (Addendum - SERVANT SER(-ge+v)VANT - See comments)
27 Experience mince pies with celebratory song (7) EPISODE {PIES*}{ODE}
28 Says, in a strange voice, "Space agency makes up stuff about sun" (9) NASALISES {NASA}{LI{S}ES}
29 Next Olympic boxing champion (5) EXTOL [T]
DOWN
1 Ape fur includes soft hints of yellowish colour (7) COPYCAT {CO{P}{Ye...h}{Co...r}AT}
2 On-screen entertainment? Bad movie, egad! (5,4) VIDEO GAME*
3 Understands making one small change to large, fragile devices (6) LENSES (-s+l)LENSES
4 Turning point of century: American president (4) CUSP {C}{US}{P}
5 Presumption: often, ferry gets diverted (10) EFFRONTERY*
6 Fried bread, fried not fully kneaded, as that takes care of contaminants (8) PURIFIER {PURI}{FRIEd}*
7 Substantially vile demagoguery is swelling in the U.S. (5) EDEMA [T]
8 Roads where moving right two steps and reversing changes nothing? (7) STREETS ST(-r)EE(+r)RTS<=
13 Old Indian ways of batting (drives, etc.) limiting India (5,5) VEDIC RITES {DRIVES+ETC} over {I}
16 Remove headless fish eaten by small fish (6,3) STRIKE OUT {S}{TR{pIKE}OUT}
18 Red Cross abruptly ordered to embrace extremes of imperialism by nationalist (7) CRIMSON {CROSs}* over {Im...sM} by {N}
20 "Yes," admits Republican, "each Liberal is weird" (7) SURREAL {SU{R}RE}{E}{L} Each/E?
21 Ridicule Sunday clothes (excluding one shirt) (6) SATIRE {S}{ATtIRE}
23 Some rabble-rouser (I think), raised flags (5) TIRES [T<=]
25 Noisy females in stitches (4) SEWS (~sues) Sew is pronounced as SO and not SUE (Correction (~sows) - See comments)
Reference List
Daughter = D, College = C, New = N, Fine = F, Research = RES, Child = CH, Queen = ER, Soprano = S, Victory = V, Sun = S, Soft = P, Small = S, Large = L, Century = C, President = P, Fried bread = PURI, India = I, Nationalist = N, Republican = R, Liberal = L, Shirt = T
25d that deragatory!
ReplyDeleteFemale pig:sow!
"Sows" are female pigs, hence "females" -> "sows" in the cryptic reading -- the surface reading is not derogatory., nor is the cryptic reading, imo.
DeleteThe connection to female to sow is through derogatory usage (which thankfully has been discarded in cryptics recently) of calling a woman a sow to indicate repulsiveness.
DeleteWithout that, just female to sow is a stretch because, sow is very specific stage of female pigs. A female pig is gilt. A gilt which gave birth to atleast one piglet becomes sow.
Would it be acceptable if "children" indicates cubs/calves.
IMHO, it's unfair to solvers
And in any case female pig sow is pronounced sau and sew is pronounced as so.
DeleteNot hp.
One gets into problems with homonyms.
Delete"child"/"children" are generally for humans, hence won't work. "female" is generic. The pronunciations seem very close to me (see pronunciation links on https://www.thefreedictionary.com/sew and https://www.thefreedictionary.com/sow).
DeleteWe can agree to disagree on this one. No intent to refer to a human derogatorily.
A couple of Guardian examples, fyi:
Stop having contact with female involved in racket (6)
https://www.fifteensquared.net/2017/09/04/guardian-quiptic-929-pan/
Pretty me in female bowler, say? (8)
https://www.fifteensquared.net/2016/08/11/guardian-26960-paul/
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sow
DeleteBritish pronunciation for SOW is correct hp
Delete20d (for) each:a
ReplyDeleteThe clue would be better if
Yes admitting republican for each liberal is weird.
You're right, I messed up a bit in this one! Let me post a fix for posterity (just "changing" admits to "admitting" destroys the surface).
ReplyDelete"Yes," Republican admitted, "each Liberal is weird" (7)
DeleteSURREAL. SURE {Yes} around {..., ... admitted} R {Republican} + EA {each} L {Liberal}.
Anno is 8 letters. For each/per is the only way out!
DeleteAh, there were two mistakes!
Delete"Yes," Republican admitted, "American left is weird" (7)
DeleteSURREAL. SURE {Yes} around {..., ... admitted} R {Republican} + A {American} L {left}.
One question
ReplyDeleteWhat is the difference between "mainly" and "mostly" in crossword clues?
They are synonyms and the worst part for me is all their definitions are using one or the other synonyms.
DeleteSo my def is "for the most part" ie majority.
'Mainly' could be first letter or middle letter?
ReplyDeletePricipally/chiefly are synonyms of both for the same definition.
DeleteSo I would actually say one of them can be retired.
26A - SERVANT = employee
ReplyDeletePolice officer SERGEANT
Evicting General Electric (-GE)
and claiming Victory (+V) = SERGEANT
Yes, Vasu!
DeleteCorrection :Servant
ReplyDeleteCorrection SERVANT
ReplyDeleteThere is one more thematic entry to be identified.
ReplyDeleteYes, Prime Minister the famous comedy series
DeleteSathia
Allow me to narrate the latest EPISODE.
ReplyDeleteVladimir after finishing the VIDEO GAME in his mainframe, moves on
to watch a CHEVALIER Sivaji Ganesan movie.
He looks at his leg. Pedal EDEMA? Yes and oh no - a HANGNAIL too...
Ganesh takes Vladimir in his CRIMSON red Audi, manoeuvres the STREETS
and quickly reaches their CHOSEN clinic.
The nurse SEWS the damaged toe as Vladimir watches intently...
What happened next?
Was that a surgical strike?
DeleteCalling it a day, posting my notes for this crossword now. Many thanks to the Col. for blogging, and to all solvers, esp. sree_sree for the feedback!
ReplyDelete*Notes*
ReplyDeleteThe theme of this crossword is the BBC TV political SATIRE (21d) from the 1980s, Yes Minister. The title of the sequel, YES PRIME MINISTER, forms the nina in this crossword, running across the fourth row from the top and the fourth row from the bottom.
The show features a crafty CIVIL (1a) SERVANT (26a), Sir Humphrey Appleby, who almost always manages to have his way with the mostly hapless minister (and later, prime minister), Jim HACKER (24a).
The title of the crossword refers to the opening EPISODE (27a) of the show, which was titled Open Government.
*Personal notes*
The final part of this summer has been a busy time for me, at home, at work, as well as for crossword-setting.
The son started his college journey at San Jose State University (majoring in aviation). The daughter visited from Boston for a couple of weeks. She was craving rava-coconut laddus (like my late mother-in-law used to make), so we got some from a local store and those were not particularly good. I then had a go at making them at home myself, following the recipe in Ruchira. These turned out quite well (except that next time I need to reduce the quantity of sugar even more).
Ruchira (https://www.amazon.com/Ruchira-Bhag-Marathi-KAMLABAI-OGALE-ebook/dp/B01MXDU7E3, https://www.amazon.com/Ruchira-Bhag-Marathi-KAMALABAI-OGALE-ebook/dp/B01N322LDK) is an excellent, legendary compendium of Maharashtrian food recipes, written by Kamalabai Ogale (written in an endearing style, using a vaati—small steel bowl—for almost all measurements). It includes recipes for almost all the yummy food that I grew up with and have fond memories of (thanks, Kedar D., for introducing me to this treasure!).
Home cooked specialties?!!!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAn easy puzzle from Ratnakar today.
ReplyDeleteFor 20dn - I took each to be 'a'
SUR(R)E + A + L.
My fav
CHEAPNESS, CONFLATE, PURIFIER.
Thanx!
Thanks!
DeleteThere were two flaws in 20d ("each" is generally EA, and the fact that the cryptic reading is not grammatically correct in "X admits Y Z is [definition]").
I'll try to review even more carefully before submission, in the future. In fact doing that right now for my next one :-).