Guardian 24,491 – Auster
Posted by Ciaran McNulty on September 11th, 2008
The setter’s name doesn’t ring a bell, but I enjoyed the style.
Luckily I got 5D first and was fairly confident I could get most of the linked clues but was stuck for a while on 13A and had never heard of 9A or 22D.
* = anagram
() = insertion
“” = homophone
dd = double definition
Across
1. KISMET. K + IS + MET
5. ROAD RACE. ROAD RAGE with G swapped for C. I’m not very happy with ‘note exchange’ as there are so many possibilities, and also wrote in ROAD RAGE as the answer initially.
9. ZINOVIEV. Z + I + NOV. (I.E.) V . Gregory Yevseevich (1883-1936), Soviet.
10. CASTRO. Fidel (b. 1926), Cuban.
11. ENVELOPMENTS. POSTMENEVEN*
13. BIKO. “BEAK” + O. Stephen Bantu (1946-1977), South African.
14. TINTACKS. TINT + CASK*
17. PLUG INTO. P(LUG)INTO. A pinto is a piebald horse.
18. MARX. “MARKS”. Karl Heinrich (1818-1883), German.
20. WHALE OF A TIME. WHEATMEALIFO*. ‘Substituted’ seems a bad choice of word.
23. AGENDA. AGE + DAN*.
24. IGLESIAS. G.I. rev + LASSIE*. I wonder if the setter means Julio or Enrique?
25. SPINNERS. dd
Down
2. IRIS. I + SIR rev. I think I learnt that ‘flag’ was a type of plant from a previous Guardian puzzle.
3. MAO ZEDONG. MA(O)ZE + DONG. (1893-1976), Chinese. The only revolutionary to get his full name in the grid (unless 6D counts!).
4. THIEVE. HIT* + EVE
5. REVOLUTIONARIES. REVOLUTION + ARIES.
6. AL CAPONE. AL(CAP ON)E
7. ROSIE. ROS(I)É
8. CARETAKERS. CA(RETAKE)RS.
12. FILL THE GAP. PIGLETHALF*.
15. AIMLESSLY. YESMAILSL*.
16. INNOVATE. IN + NOV + AT + E.
19. TITLED. TIT+LED.
21. LENIN. NILE*+N. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924), Russian.
22. CADE. C(A.D.)E. Jack, leader of the Kent Rebellion in 1450.
September 11th, 2008 at 11:08 am
Can anyone explain how 13 across fits the clue?
September 11th, 2008 at 11:11 am
Dawn – BIK is a homophone ['said'] of ‘beak’ [magistrate] + O
September 11th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Thanks Eileen – it was bugging me!
September 11th, 2008 at 11:53 am
I thought 5dn was rather a weak clue, especially as it was the key to the theme.
I hadn’t heard of Jack Cade till recently, but I think he’s appeared in a least a couple of puzzles in the last few months.
September 11th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
I agree, Andrew. i always get a sinking feeling when I see a preamble but 5dn was such an easy clue that there wasn’t much of a challenge.
I did know Jack Cade [in a manner of speaking] but I’d never heard of Zinoviev.
I didn’t like ‘substituted’ in 20ac at all. ‘Nothing’ wasn’t substituted, it was added, which would have made perfect sense in the clue.
September 11th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
“Substituted” is an anagrind for all the fodder, not an instruction to replace something with “O”.
WHEATMEAL IF O*
In this case “substitute” meaning the replacing of one construction with another.
September 11th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
I worked out Cade and Zinoviev from the wordplay without having heard of either. Didn’t get 13ac – guessed at Tito!
Is it just me or does 25ac barely qualify as cryptic?
September 12th, 2008 at 9:18 am
Smutchin – 25ac is a double definition, ‘some of Warne’s deliveries’ and ‘tops’ (as in spinning tops) giving two different sorts of ‘spinner’. I thought that was fair enough. My only real quibble is with the preamble: it’s the answers to the asterisked clues that are revolutionaries, not the clues themselves.
September 12th, 2008 at 10:27 am
can any one explain the second half of 26A to give ‘doyley’ for me?
September 12th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Revver: the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company presents Gilbert and Sullivan operettas.
September 12th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
I wasn’t thrilled with 18ac – Marx was not a revolutionary in the same sense that the others were.