From the magazine

2717: With my little eye

La Jerezana
EXPLORE THE ISSUE 23 August 2025
issue 23 August 2025

Eight unclued lights (three of two words, including an abbreviation) comprise two ingredients, an instruction and its instructor, and the work in which they feature. The ODQ provides confirmation.

Across

1 Terribly pale, Tacitus yields (11)

11    Exotic fruit and slice of smelly cheese (6)

15    Tea after endless day in Russian cottage (5)

16    Pub screening sport in lead-up to ski jump (5)

17    Collide with cycles, back end first (6)

18    Fur coats originally sold in Slavic city (5)

21    Element of flamenco, initially jaunty and light, eventually overwhelming (5)

22    Departed, leaving female unescorted? Never mind (3,5)

27    Stop the French beginning to somersault like tumblers (8)

30    The poor are down here (2,4)

32    Consider imprisoning drug addict (5)

34    Foreign thug is toast, firing a round (6)

36    Bust-up among falsettos (3-2)

37    Fiery blazes materialise (5)

38    Soldiers guarding new drone, pending delivery (2,5)

39    Monstrous old Spanish artist, essentially unethical (6)

40    Dismissed, exhausted and away from home (3)

41    Exalted and adored ships at sea (11)

Down

1 Awakens Salome, seething with vice (5,5)

2 Sound off and witter on about endless love (8)

3 Island covered in bizarre starlike symbols with three legs (9)

4 Event for stiff establishment figures (5-2-5)

5 Extremely trampish, odd and shaggy (7)

6 Marine mammal snaffling retired Scotsman’s fish (3,5)

7 Avoids birds (5)

8 Closure of reactionary organ in revolutionary time (4)

9 Picked up cheap food in Scotland (6)

10    Cut final elements of business profit margin (5)

14    Rough estates involved in dispute (5,3,4)

23    Sunbathed topless, as requested (5,3)

24    Energy ebbs and flows in polymers (8)

25    Sons frequently mellow (6)

26    Admire a complex wine (7)

28    Sibling told police about network (6)

31    Prefaces to letters of sardonic English novelist (5)

33    Regularly disdain and outwit vacuous ninny (5)

Download a printable version here.

A first prize of a £30 John Lewis voucher and two runners-up prizes of £20 vouchers for the first correct solutions opened on 8 September. Please scan or photograph entries and email them (including the crossword number in the subject field) to crosswords@spectator.co.uk, or post to: Crossword 2717, The Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9HP.

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