Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27384
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BD Rating – Difficulty * – Enjoyment ***
It is quite rare to get a Pangram in a Saturday prize puzzle but Cephas provided us a crossword which included all the letters of the alphabet in addition to several of his usual nicely-indicated anagrams.
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Across
5a Defying orders, perhaps, fellow learner’s joining expedition (8)
FLOUTING – F (fellow) and L (learner) join an OUTING (expedition).
8a One female in France, say, confused and uncomfortable (6)
UNEASY – UNE (the female version of the French word for one) followed by a confused anagram of SAY.
10a Coal’s left out to light (6)
IGNITE – Simply omit the L (left out) from LIGNITE (brown coal).
11a Get back, i.e. revert, when ordered (8)
RETRIEVE – Another anagram (when ordered) of IE REVERT.
12a Ways in front will be immeasurably better (7,5)
STREETS AHEAD – STREETS (ways) and AHEAD (in front).
15a Travel round Antipodean island briefly or Mediterranean island (4)
GOZO – Insert OZ (the abbreviation(briefly) for the Antipodean island of Australia) into GO (travel).
17a One keeps moving, though certainly not disturbed (5)
NOMAD – NO (certainly not) and MAD (disturbed).
18a Debauchee has nothing to be sorry about (4)
ROUE – Insert O (nothing) into RUE (be sorry).
19a Build in sections and lay a fibre carpet (12)
PREFABRICATE – An anagram of A FIBRE CARPET.
22a Tense, organised bedspread to cut temperature, becoming calm (8)
TRANQUIL – T (tense) RAN (organized) and QUILT (bedspread) with the T (temperature) cut or removed.
24a River that makes a U-bend (6)
DANUBE – A river that probably has lots of U-bends but here A U BEND is the anagram fodder.
25a Like Olive perhaps, drunk (6)
STONED – The capital O for olive, of course, being there to mislead!!
26a Covered second edition about island (8)
SECRETED – S (second) and ED (edition) ‘about’ the island of CRETE.
Down
1d Pointless transforming it into refined fuel (6)
FUTILE – Two anagrams – FUEL is refined and then a transformed IT is put into the result.
2d Amateurish poet accepting fancy title (10)
DILETTANTE – A fancy anagram of TITLE is inserted into the Italian poet, DANTE.
3d Barely free from bias (4)
JUST – Double definition – the first being exactly as per the BRB; the second meaning fair or impartial.
4d Others dropping a hint (8)
REMINDER – Drop the A from REMAINDER (others).
6d Easy to carry, Punch picture editor might use one (5,3)
LIGHT BOX – LIGHT (easy to carry) and BOX (punch).
7d A nameless germ spreading disease (6,7)
GERMAN MEASLES – an anagram (spreading) of A NAMELESS GERM produces the disease that stopped me going on a school outing to London Airport in 1961!
9d Rescue bangers a veggie keeps under wraps (4)
SAVE – Hidden (under wraps) in bangerS A VEggie.
13d Result of multiplying shown in finished article (3-7)
END-PRODUCT – Without the hyphen, the two words refer to the result of multiplying two numbers together.
14d Becoming match fit (8)
SUITABLE – SUIT (match) and ABLE (fit).
16d Mate initially needs ten cycles as competitor (8)
OPPONENT – OPPO (an informal term for one’s opposite number or mate) N (the initial letter of Needs) and ENT (the initial letter of TEN moved (cycles) to the end).
20d Soundly beat hard nut (6)
CONKER – A homophone (soundly) of CONQUER (beat).
21d Court order that’s mostly in pen (4)
WRIT – Almost all (mostly) of WRITE (pen).
23d Partly honour Dutch in another language (4)
URDU – Hidden in part of honoUR DUtch.
I’ll be back next week with the explanations of the Saturday Mysteron’s Prize Puzzle.