Independent 7,189 by Phi
Posted by Simon Harris on October 30th, 2009
*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, cd=cryptic definition, dd=double definition.
A solve of two halves for me – I raced through most of this in minutes, then ground to a halt on the remaining few. There's a few quite obscure references in there, which I think is what caught me out.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | PALINDROMIST – PAL + (ITS NIMROD)*. |
| 9 | CANALETTO – TALE* in CANTO. |
| 10 | DISCO – DISCO[rd]. |
| 11 | PELICAN – PEL[t] + I CAN. |
| 12 | COLLIER – COLLIE + R. |
| 13 | ROYAL – (LAY + OR)<. "Lay" (song) seems quite obscure to me, but then given the checking letters, one can't really complain! |
| 15 | TENEMENTS – (E + MEN) in TENTS. |
| 17 | SPHERICAL – (CAR IS HELP)*. |
| 18 | NAURU – U in (NA + RU). |
| 19 | SHOWMAN – (HOW + M) in SAN. |
| 20 | CAPTION – CAP + (I in TON). |
| 22 | GLORY – dd. This is in Chambers as “expressing surprise”, thus “my”. |
| 23 | CANTABILE – CAN + (I in TABLE). |
| 24 | STORM LANTERN – (SNARL + TORMENT)*. |
| Down | |
| 1 | PENALTY SHOOT-OUT – cd. |
| 2 | LILAC – CALL< "about" 1. |
| 3 | NOT ON – NOT[i]ON. This, plus 1ac had me looking for more palindromes, but I came up blank. |
| 4 | ROOT CANAL – CONTROL* “around” (AN + A). |
| 5 | MIDDLEMAN – (NAME + LD + DIM)<. |
| 6 | SESSION MUSICIAN – (IS MAN + SONIC ISSUE)*. Great clue. |
| 7 | SCEPTRES – (PRESS ETC)*. |
| 8 | FOUR – F[av]OUR. While the answer’s clear from the “number of gospels” def, AV for “bible” took some hunting for me. |
| 14 | LORD MAYOR – (D + MAY[o]) “aboard” LORR[y]. |
| 15 | TECHNICAL – (HIT CANCEL)*. |
| 16 | SQUANDER – (N in SQUAD) + RE<. |
| 19 | SIGH – SIGH[t]. |
| 20 | CANON – C + ANON. |
| 21 | PEAKE – hom. of “peak”. |
October 30th, 2009 at 11:23 am
Re the comment at 13ac.
Students of literature will be familiar with the Lay of the Last Minstrel by Sir Walter Scott.
October 30th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
My experience was similar to Simon. Some clues very easy, others very difficult esp for me in the lower half of the grid. I wondered about ‘funny’ in 20 across – it seems to be part of the definition but a CAPTION could maybe be funny but not necessarily so, in fact mostly not. Or maybe I’m misreading the clue.
October 30th, 2009 at 11:16 pm
Because, as you say, nms, a caption may be funny, I think Phi’s use of the question mark makes his clue for CAPTION OK.
October 30th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
Can someone please elaborate a bit more on 19d. I’m not understanding how “a great many falling” takes the off of sight.
October 30th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
Hi -
I read 19dn as “sight” = “great many”, and then “falling short” to indicate that it is to be, well, shortened.
October 30th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
Informally a ‘sight’ is a ‘great number’, dicts confirm so I think it’s the last letter being removed – the clue says “falling short”.