Superb one from Gridman. Took me a little time to figure out the anno for 22d.
ACROSS
1 Disney film number for Italian child (7) BAMBINO (BAMBI NO.) Not our vermicelli brand
5 Association almost let the fever catch on (6) LEAGUE (LEt AGUE)
9 One in terrible moan about prenatal test (5) AMNIO (1=I inside MOAN*) The best way to determine a baby's sex is after it is born
10 Troubled dealer rotting in prison (4-5) CARE LADEN (DEALER* in CAN)
11 Important gap in opening (7) KEYHOLE (KEY HOLE) The most embarrasing thing you can see through a keyhole is another eye. Nowadays used for surgery.
12 Gulf state reported complaint (7) CATARRH (~QATAR)
13 Poke tip of thong in crumbling dune (5) NUDGE (G inside DUNE*)
14 Remove // entrance? (9) TRANSPORT 2
16 Run, we hear, to beat the storm (9) HURRICANE (~HURRY CANE)
19 Vada doled out by one in a Chennai suburb (5) AVADI (1=I in VADA*) Best known for its tanks. According to Wiki: Avadi is an acronym for "Armoured Vehicles and Ammunition Depot of India. Can anyone here confirm that this is a fact? Reminded me of Mhow.
21 It makes sense if it’s a bridge manoeuvre (7) FINESSE (SENSE+IF)* Did a double take at the setter's name. So Ardenesque.
24 Military person to peruse piece of writing (9) CONSCRIPT (CON SCRIPT)
25 Crag provided a bit of foothold to leaders of climbers’ league (5) CLIFF (CL IF F)
26 Mix up all the French! (6) TOUSLE (In French TOUS and LE mean ALL and THE)
27 “Our sweetest songs are those that tell of __ thought” (Shelley) (7) SADDEST (GK, from To A Skylark, PB Shelly) from where we also got the immortal line: Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
DOWN
1 Extremely angry — like a tarred man’s visage (5,2,3,4) BLACK IN THE FACE (DD) Remember 'tarring and feathering a person and carrying him on a rail' like they used to do in Lucky Luke. Of course, if he is feathered, he may be white faced, so Gridman is talking only of tarring him
2 Given a little time, needy turns well-off (7) MONEYED (MOment + NEEDY*)
3 Elemental variant in one’s love to physical exercise (7) ISOTOPE (I'S O TO PE)
4 Its members must play in unison (9) ORCHESTRA (CD)
5 Cyril’s awful poem (5) LYRIC (CYRIL*)
6 Wears away a table’s sections (7) ABLATES (A TABLES)*
7 Suffer while transiting the subway? (7) UNDERGO (CD,DD) Ab hum to safar karte hain. Listen to this
8 Completely involved — no thinning there! (2,3,5,2,2) IN THE THICK OF IT (DD)
15 Embitters care-worn English writer (9) ACERBATES (CARE*+BATES) As against Norman Bates of Psycho, HE Bates seems to have been a nominally Ernest chap.
17 Turn-on I experience by bump (3,4) RUN INTO (TURN ON I)* Maybe when you run into a person, you meet him by accident
19 Medicine makes worker bitter (7) ANTACID (ANT ACID)
20 A north Indian business in dye chemical (7) ANILINE (A NI LINE)
22 Best girl out of murder (5) ELITE (ELIminaTE) As against the familiar Indian name of Meena, there is, of course, the English name Mina, familiarised to a large number of us by Bram Stoker as Mina Harker.
+1 for both parts of the byline
ReplyDeleteMina is used by some in India too. The wife of an agricultural scientist and Rajya Sabha member, for example.
ReplyDeleteI too have come across a couple of Minas in India, but Meena is the more common usage out here (like our old friend Manna's wife). As compared to the host of Gitas we know, though again Geetha seems to be more common down south.
DeleteMina means a port in Arabic. So you have a lot of Minas in the Middle East, like Mina Al Sultan Qaboos, Mina Raysut in the Sultanate of Oman.
DeleteThat's a comment from the starboard side...
My wifes cousins wife spells it as 'MENA'
DeleteAlso the place where Hajj pilgrims stone the devil.
DeleteProper names are these days spelt in quite a few variations thanks to numerology. Anything goes as long as the numbers add up? It is now up to our mathematician.
DeleteI frankly think the days of numerology are numbered. Or are they?
DeleteIn sum, this is wordplay-plus, calculated to raise some admiration.
DeleteFor those who like that kind of thing, today's TH, has 'The Traveller Crossword - 001'in the supplement 'The Traveller'. It looks like all the answers are available in the said supplement itself.
ReplyDeleteTH or DH?
DeleteTH. The front page refers to a supplement called The Traveller
DeleteNowadays these supplements are publication centre-specific; sometimes these could be area-specific even within a centre.
DeleteNo 'Traveller' supplement in my area
DeleteThe front page in Chennai today unusually does not have the index.
DeleteSmooth reading and very good to solve. Just a question:
ReplyDeleteWhy tip of the ThonG in DUNE*? An implement ending or beginning with G would have worked better.
May have been sowing wild oats in the desert ;-)
DeleteA thong is also a slipper/flip-flop which is what I took it to mean in the surface.
DeleteHonestly, I was looking for a hard object that ends in -g but could not think of one immediatelt. Tong requires a plural form to mean anything. Finally I settled for 'thong' which as Bhavan notes is a flip-flop that can conceivably be found on the beach as a single piece without its pair.
DeleteI did find a word but unfortunately can't spell it out here!
DeleteIn which case you would also need to put in an anagram for dune to make any sense.
DeleteAnd incidentally that would make a terrific clue
DeleteYou guys remind me of a nursery rhyme:
DeleteDing dong bell,
Pussy's in the well.
Who put her in?
Little Tommy thin,
Who pulled her out,
Little Tommy stout,
What a naughty boy was that,
To try to drown poor pussy cat,
Who ne’er did him any harm,
But killed all the mice in the farmer's barn
7 Suffer while transiting the subway? (7) UNDERGO (CD,DD) Ab hum to safar karte hain.
ReplyDeleteI was reminded of an anecdote about a student writing a leave note in Hindi - Main aaaj bukhaar se safar kar raha hoon...
Rajesh Khanna suffered from some terminal illness in Safar.
DeleteCould it be Anand, Babumoshai...?
DeleteSafar too. Rajesh Khanna, in those days did a number of these morose roles.
DeleteAnd the viewers of the movie also had to suffer.
DeleteNice Acronym for Avadi. But the place was known by this name long before the Tank factory was even thought off. Old timers may remember the Avadi Congress session in its early days (probably some time in the fifties)
ReplyDeleteI thought so too. That is why I asked if any one knew.
DeleteTypo- only of, not off!
ReplyDeleteSmooth srfaces, sugvestive clues.Very nice puzzle.
ReplyDeleteInformative to know that AVADI is an acronym
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteReally enjoyed this one, even though I did not get Bat tick and Consecrate :-(
ReplyDeleteBeing a Delhi wala, thought I would not get Chennai suburb, but thanks to the Integral Coach Factory (husband being a Railway man!), near Avadi, got it!
Good day all.
Masala Vada and Idli in the end is a part of Chennai.
DeleteGreat one Suresh
DeleteMasala Vadai is a part of chennai
DeleteSounds better
DeleteMany clues were good today. But I loved 21A, 3D and 16A
ReplyDeleteIn 16A the surface is so natural that it hardly reads like a CW clue!
ReplyDeleteToday it is Kishore's turn to recite a nursery rhyme. We had Col. correcting me yesterday. Feels like good old times.
ReplyDelete