Toughie 1191

Toughie No 1191 by Elkamere

Short-Pitched

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BD Rating – Difficulty **/*** – Enjoyment ****

How difficult you found this Toughie will probably depend on how well up you are on cricket and chess. I thought it was fairly gentle for an Elkamere but enjoyable as always. It’s also a pangram but once again I only twigged this after I’d finished solving it.

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Across Clues

1a Promotion’s said to be useless by scholars in capital city (5,5)
{ADDIS ABABA} – string together a short promotion or plug, an anagram (to be useless) of SAID and a couple of arts graduates.

6a Nothing’s offensive except hard work (4)
{OPUS} – the letter that resembles zero is followed by an offensive (in the military sense) without the abbreviation for hard.

9a Search heading’s off a little bit (5)
{RIFLE} – remove the initial letter from a word meaning an insignificant amount.

10a Soldiers about to get church support (9)
{REINFORCE} – a charade of the abbreviation for the sappers, a phrase (2,3) meaning about to get and the abbreviation for the established church in England.

12a As milk may be — pure, and its use questionable (13)
{UNPASTEURISED} – an anagram (questionable) of PURE AND ITS USE.

14a Hit it and eat bananas (8)
{ATTAINED} – an anagram (bananas) of IT AND EAT.

15a Point that’s surprising preacher (6)
{MULLAH} – this Muslim theologian comes from a Scottish word for a point or headland and an interjection expressing surprise.

17a Trouble from South African farmer, about 55? (6)
{BOVVER} – an Afrikaner farmer contains a couple of fives.

19a A sort of love and lust that won’t end depression (8)
{ALVEOLUS} – I didn’t know this anatomical term for a small cavity or depression but the wordplay is fairly straightforward. A is followed by an anagram (sort) of LOVE then we finish with LUS[t].

21a Apt way to enter Rotary Club? (9,4)
{REVOLVING DOOR} – a neat cryptic definition.

24a Everybody say one soldier’s loyal (9)
{ALLEGIANT} – the surface here doesn’t read very well – everybody is a singular subject so I’d expect the verb to be ‘says’. I suppose that the ‘say’ could be an imperative but even then the surface doesn’t make much sense. The related noun meaning loyalty is common but the adjective, which is what we need here, is not and according to the BRB it’s Shakespearean. String together another word for everybody, the abbreviation meaning say or for instance, I (one) and the usual soldier insect.

25a Money partly stolen, or kept back (5)
{KRONE} – a Scandinavian currency is hidden (partly) and reversed (back) in the clue.

26a By cutting knot, turned to leave (4)
{EXIT} – the single letter meaning by or times goes inside (cutting) the reversal (turned) of a knot or bond.

27a Face worker hiding shrink from psychic (4-6)
{MIND-READER} – an underground face worker contains (hiding) a verb meaning to shrink from or have forebodings about.

Down Clues

1d Shame the line’s wrong (4)
{AWRY} – a North American interjection expressing disappointment (often followed by ‘shucks’) and an abbreviation for line or track.

2d Failure to pay  the usual amount (7)
{DEFAULT} – double definition, the second a pre-set of the most likely option which means that you only have to have to do any keying if you want something else.

3d Have a record-equalling crash? (5,4,1,3)
{SLEEP LIKE A LOG} – cryptic definition with crash here meaning to drop off.

4d Non-smoker cutting grass in Yorkshire town (8)
{BARNSLEY} – the abbreviation for a non-smoker is inserted (cutting, again – see 26a) a hardy grass or cereal crop.

5d They say bark’s used to make cloth (5)
{BAIZE} – this cloth, often used to cover tables, sounds like (they say) a synonym for bark or howl plus the ‘S.

7d Look — a uniform taken from middle of stock (7)
{PERUSAL} – string together another word for a (as in ’50p a kilo’) and an adjective meaning stock or customary without its middle letter (the letter that uniform is used for in the Nato Phonetic Alphabet).

8d Short game? (5,5)
{SPEED CHESS} – this might seem to be just a not very cryptic definition if you were not aware that Nigel Short is an English grandmaster who was once good enough to play a match against Garry Kasparov.

11d Little sweet with lot in it? (7,6)
{FORTUNE COOKIE} – cryptic definition of a Chinese sweet containing a prediction of one’s lot or destiny.

13d Gibraltar resident wants locals to talk English (7,3)
{BARBARY APE} – string together a word for a local or pub, the same again, a verb to talk at length and E(nglish).

16d Damaged garden fences easily moved (8)
{BLIGHTED} – put another word for garden (or at least part of a garden where you might plant flowers) around (fences) an adjective meaning easily moved or insubstantial.

18d Composer‘s verses about one supermarket (7)
{VIVALDI} – the abbreviation for verse appears twice with I (one) between the two. After that we want the name of a ‘value’ supermarket which has prospered in the current recession.

20d Bloke restricting runs with balls (7)
{LARWOOD} – this is a brilliant all-in-one clue which I loved but I am anticipating complaints from non-cricket lovers that they have never heard of this pre-war England fast bowler. He was most famous for his ‘bodyline’ bowling in an Ashes test series in Australia in 1932-33; this involved bowling short and fast at the batsman’s body rather than the wicket (this well before the days of protective gear such as helmets) and aroused enormous controversy. Put another word for a bloke or a bit of a character around (restricting) R(uns) W(ith) and a couple of round objects.

22d National militants on TV panel game (5)
{IRAQI} – the abbreviation for the militants who opposed British rule in any part of Ireland precedes the name of the TV panel game hosted by Stephen Fry.

23d Comic needs way to escape ridicule (4)
{JEER} – a comic of ‘fool’ at a medieval court loses a two-letter abbreviation for a way or road.

I liked 3d and 13d but my favourite by a long way was 20d. How about you?