Independent 7204/Virgilius
Posted by John on November 17th, 2009
U.K. Prime Ministers: I think there are ten of them (Major, Eden, Canning, Aberdeen, Wilson, Derby, Melbourne, Brown, Heath, Grey), which explains 17dn. We’ve become used to Virgilius cleverly fitting them in and avoiding strange words, although I’d never heard of 20ac and only got it from the anagram.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | A TRIA{l} |
| 4 | DEMERARA — (made rare)* |
| 9 | TRI(HE’D)AL — three-faced |
| 10 | MAJOR — 2 defs |
| 11 | RIG IDLY |
| 12 | OBE(SIT)Y |
| 13 | OP PR{of}ESSORS |
| 16 | EDEN — CD referring to the Garden of Eden |
| 19 | N OR M — the two central characters of the alphabet are M and N |
| 20 | EUGENE ARAM — (agree a menu)* — well there you are |
| 22 | CAN(N)ING |
| 23 | BO(L)SH I.E. |
| 25 | BRASS — 2 defs |
| 26 | LOOK SMART — again 2 defs |
| 27 | LEANED ON — yet again 2 defs |
| 28 | ETHAN — I think it’s {m}ethan{e}, but ‘named’ seems a bit odd — perhaps it’s just to make the surface a bit better |
| Down | |
| 1 | AFTERNOON — (a front one)* — nice misdirection with PM, when the puzzle is about PMs |
| 2 | RUIN {ma}G |
| 3 | ABERDEEN — (bare)* (need)rev. |
| 4 | DERBY — 2 defs |
| 5 | MELBOURNE — (one rumble)* |
| 6 | RUMMER — 2 defs |
| 7 | RE JOIN(D{oorway})ER |
| 8 | GREY — “Gray” |
| 14 | P(AREN’T)AGE |
| 15 | SQUIGGLED — (g (leg)*) in squid |
| 17 | NUMBER TEN — refers to the fact that there are ten inhabitants of Number Ten in the puzzle |
| 18 | DEC(LASS)E{mber} |
| 21 | WILSON — (slow in)* |
| 22 | CUB A — a cub is a baby bear, so Ursa Minor |
| 23 | BROWN — 2 defs, I think one of them referring to Peter Brown |
| 24 | HEAT H |
November 17th, 2009 at 1:33 am
Thanks John.
This one seems to be a companion piece to his (Brendan’s) recent American presidents one in the Guardian.
Just one thing…
I think the Rugby hero is more likely to be this Brown.
November 17th, 2009 at 1:46 am
Sorry, that didn’t seem to work.
I meant this one…
November 17th, 2009 at 11:13 am
Thanks for the post, John. Great stuff yet again from Virgilus. Is there a published collection of Virgilus/Brendan’s crosswords?
I also had to guess EUGENE ARAM from the crossing letters and fodder. I think I’d only previously heard of Bulwer-Lytton in the context of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. (The “lyttony” of winners has some wonderful examples….)
November 17th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Yes, another great themed one from Virgilius. Counting the PMs and finding I still had two to go helped me with the tricky SE corner. Re query in 3 above, I do not think there is such a collection. Re the pseudonyms quoted, I think copyright to those puzzles would be held by two different newspapers.
November 17th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
26 across did for me here. I put “look sharp”, which seems (and still seems) a perfectly reasonable answer. It’s actually more familiar to me than “look smart”. Thereafter, I had no chance of getting 17 down, although I should have spotted the PM theme from Major and the rest.
November 18th, 2009 at 2:19 am
I confidently put “look sharp” in, but since N_M_E_ couldn’t realistically be anything other than NUMBER, and nothing P_N made sense, the P had to be wrong. It was my fault as a solver, not Virgilius’s.
November 18th, 2009 at 10:17 am
Re 23D, I think it refers to Tom Brown’s Schooldays, set at Rugby School, hence the capital R.