Independent 7,220 by Bannsider (Saturday Prize Puzzle, 5/12/09)
Posted by Simon Harris on December 11th, 2009
This was certainly a fair bit tougher than Bannsider’s other recent Saturday puzzle. I quite quickly moved from trying to solve this unaided to treating it much as I would a barred weekend crossword and leaning heavily on Chambers et al.
*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, cd=cryptic definition, dd=double definition.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | APOPLECTIC – POP in (ALEC + TIC[k]). Alec Guinness, of course. |
| 7 | WI-FI – WIF[e] + I. |
| 9 | JINGLING JOHNNY – J[apan] + [t]INGLING + JOHNNY (Cash). A completely unfamiliar term, I must admit. |
| 10 | SCRAPE – dd. |
| 11 | PASSBACK – (ASS + B[east]) in PACK. |
| 13 | SHAH – SH + A[nd] + H[um]. |
| 14 | CARE WORKER – (ARE + W) in CORKER. |
| 16 | GRAPE SUGAR – G + RAP + E + (Alan) SUGAR. |
| 18 | WEPT – [t]W[o] E[x]P[a]T[s]. |
| 19 | DYE-WORKS – YEW in DORKS. |
| 21 | SHOFAR – “so far” as perhaps pronounced by someone slightly the worse for wear. |
| 22 | WHAT’S EATING YOU? – (GOT UNEASY WITH A)*. I wasn’t sure why this was a “subsequent” question, but I might simply be splitting hairs. |
| 23 | BOSS – B.O.’S S. “Pen and ink” being cockney for “stink”, and thus “Stink from a person” being B.O. |
| 24 | STEPHEN FRY – F in (STEP + (Lenny) HENRY). |
| Down | |
| 2 | PRINCE HARRY – (N in PRICE) + HARRY. |
| 3 | PUGWASH – PUG + WASH. |
| 4 | EMINENCES GRISES – couldn’t follow the wordplay here, although I guess CRISES comes into it. |
| 5 | TOG UP – reverse cryptic. “Got” is TOG<. |
| 6 | CROSS SWORDS WITH – (S in CROSSWORD) + SWITH[in]. |
| 7 | WINE BAR – (A BREW IN)*. |
| 8 | FLY – dd. |
| 12 | CHEAP LABOUR – cd. |
| 15 | REG – RE + G[i][rl]. |
| 17 | PAWPAWS – PAW + SWAP<. |
| 18 | WRONG ‘UN – W + RON + GUN. |
| 20 | SLADE – hom. of “sleighed” and a pleasingly misleading reference to Noddy Holder. |
| 22 | WOO – WOO[d]. |
December 11th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
4 down is, I think, (ShellS IN EMERGENCIES)* Agree this was a very tough puzzle, some great clues, eg SLADE, CROSS SWORDS WITH, DYE-WORKS etc etc.
December 11th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Thanks for the explanation of 23a. I thought it had to be ‘boss’ but couldn’t see why.
3d – excellent clue, but one for aficionados of children’s TV of yesteryear!
December 11th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
I found this a tiny bit harder than the last Bannsider, but was solving without books. Helped by knowing “jingling johnny” and remembering the captain – I guess references like this are generation-specific but I like to see stuff like this mixed in with the higher-brow material. I guess the same goes for Noddy Holder, though we do get to hear him every Christmas.