Independent 7,194/Eimi
Posted by Ali on November 5th, 2009
I suspected we might get a Bonfire Night theme today, and this didn’t disappoint. There were plenty of long across answers and anagrams to open up the grid, though I did struggle a bit to finish off some of the downs, and admitted defeat on 20D. Very enjoyable stuff though.
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| 8/9 | CHRYSANTHEMUM FOUNTAIN – (HOUSE MARTIN + FUNNY MATCH)* | |
| 10 | SPIDER – Double def. A tough one for me as I’m no Harry Potter fan, but this makes nice use of the snooker context too | |
| 10 | FIRECRACKERS – (FIRE)* – One of those ‘the answer is also the wordplay’ type clues | |
| 16 | CATHERINE WHEELS – HE(lium) in (LACE WHITENERS)* | |
| 19 | ROMAN CANDLES – (RED SALMON CAN)* | |
| 23 | DAHLIA – A1 rev. on (Roald) DAHL | |
| 25 | SPARKLER – Cryptic def. | |
| 27 | BOTTLE ROCKETS – (TO BLOCK STREET)* | |
| Down | ||
| 1 | ACTON – ACT,ON | |
| 2 | BRANDISH – BRAN,DISH | |
| 3 | ASIA – AS,I(ow)A | |
| 4 | ANON – Hidden in ryAN O’Neal | |
| 5 | PHYSIC – PHYSIC[-s] | |
| 6 | EMPIRE – MP in EIRE | |
| 7 | AMIE – AMIE[-ns] | |
| 12 | EAR – Alterntate letters in bEl AiR | |
| 13 | RAINA – Not sure on this one. I’m guessing it’s a deletion, but can’t quite get it | |
| 14 | SILK – S,ILK – I guess this is an &lit. too | |
| 15 | HAIR – Double def. | |
| 17 | WAD – WA[-n]D | |
| 18 | EVEN KEEL – EVEN indeed) + (Howard) KEEL – A nice reference to Clayton Farlow there! | |
| 20 | MALATE – L.A in MATE – Puzzled over this for a good 10 mins at the end, then gave up. It’s a salt of malic acid apparently | |
| 21 | NEARLY – EARL in NY | |
| 22 | PERSE – PER SE – Another tricky one. It’s a blue-grey colour | |
| 24 | ABBA – Hidden in zenAB BAdawi’s – This one made me smile, as Badawi’s name is forever etched in my memory thanks to this classic Alan Partridge horse racing sketch from The Day Today. After his recent Partridge puzzle, I’ll bet Eimi knows this one too! | |
| 25 | SARK – S[-n]ARK | |
| 26 | ARCH – A peice of ARCHitecture! | |
November 5th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Thanks, Ali.
Very nice one, this.
Very thorough theme, every across answer being type of firework (or an effect).
…and what with 12, 14, 22, I was looking for “souse” (to no avail, unfortunately).
Thanks, eimi.
November 5th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
16A HE is short for High Explosive. Helium’s thankfully pretty inert otherwise the mix of birthday candles and helium balloons could make kiddies’ parties go with the wrong sort of bang.
13D I think is RANIA which is IRANIAN minus its borders (Is Tehran acting as an adjective here?)
November 5th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Very enjoyable puzzle – I think Tehran’s = of Tehran = Iranian
November 5th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Good one, but a bit frustrating for me. Raced through most of it once the theme was spotted, but struggled and in fact failed on PERSE, MALATE et al.
November 5th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
I felt the three (a surprisingly low number given the circumstances) trickier entries were very honestly clued: a very enjoyable puzzle.
November 5th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Ah yes, I’ve inhaled helium. Probably should have remembered that!
I hadn’t realised that spider and dahlia were also fireworks/effects, so am even more impressed with the grid now.
Re: the trickier answers, I think 22D would have been slightly fairer if enumerated (3,2) rather than (5)
November 5th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
Thanks to all. It’s an interesting point about perse/per se. I actually put per se in the grid before I found that there was a colour called perse, but then reasoned that it was fairer to claim that perse is made up of per se than vice versa, hence the enumeration.
This was another of those instances in which the other setters didn’t supply anything suitable for today so I stepped in and compiled something myself – I wasn’t planning to put myself in twice in five days, honest!
Thanks to Ali for the blog and the link to the clip. I do have The Day Today on DVD, but haven’t watched it for a while, so it was nice to watch it again. Genius!
I’m off to watch a few acrosses now.