Independent 7456/Dac
Posted by John on September 8th, 2010
The usual excellent crossword from Dac. There is absolutely nothing (apart perhaps from 20dn) that I have any problem with, and all the clues have a deceptively simple and elegant surface.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | HOPELESS — referring to the pairing of Bing Crosby and Bob Hope in the ‘Road to …‘ films; when Crosby was on his own he was without Hope (actually he wasn’t hopeless then, probably rather better, but that’s not the point) |
| 5 | RABBIT — 2 defs |
| 9 | REST-CURE — Ur in (Crete’s)* |
| 10 | ADO RE {brothe}R |
| 11 | Buxton And, Typically, Harrogate Spa |
| 12 | ENCLOSURE — 2 defs |
| 14 | C ENTRE(STAG)E — stag is men only |
| 18 | LOVE-IN A MIST — love-in a.m. (it’s)*, the flower |
| 21 | MON(T ERR)EY — I suspected that Dac had made a mistake here, until I discovered that the Monterey that features in John Steinbeck’s novels is a quite different place from this, indeed is in a different country |
| 22 | WE B(E)R |
| 23 | GRAM MY |
| 24 | C.H. IN ATE A |
| 25 | STEPPE — (pets)rev. PE |
| 26 | A PP AREN’T |
| Down | |
| 1 | HARD{y} BACK |
| 2 | POSITING — P.O. siting |
| 3 | LUC{k} AS — referring to George Lucas |
| 4 | SCREENSAVER — 2 defs, one of them whimsical |
| 6 | ANDROMEDA — (modern)* in ad, a: a = about is an abbreviation that is in Chambers but always surprises me by not being more often used by setters |
| 7 | BAR(QU)E |
| 8 | T(ERSE)R |
| 13 | CHARITY SHOP — (history)* in chap |
| 15 | RELIEF MAP — (fail{u}re MEP)*, definition simply ‘plan’, very nice clue |
| 16 | BI(MBE)TTE{r} |
| 17 | STAR PART — (trap rats)rev. |
| 19 | 1 M AGES |
| 20 | INMATE — (matine{e})* — the Birdman of Alcatraz was an inmate — I’m not absolutely convinced that ‘Early end to special matinee’ is an indication to shorten matinee and then make an anagram of it; ‘Special early end to matinee’ would be OK, but perhaps Dac was favouring the surface — at any rate that’s my excuse for eventually failing on this one |
| 22 | sWAN DAily — referring to the film ‘A Fish Called Wanda’ |
September 8th, 2010 at 8:15 am
John, thanks for the blog.
Thanks to Dac also for another nice puzzle.
Favourite clue 26A, for ignoring punctuation.
Re6D: You may be quite right about “a”=”about”, but perhaps it didn’t need to apply here. Believe the last “a” in “andromeda” is refered to by “…article” in the clue.
Also, I note the rare use of “qu” for “queen”, from the usual “er”,”r” or even “q”, in 7D.
September 8th, 2010 at 8:44 am
Many thanks, John. BARQUE was the only one I couldn’t see, getting fixated with the R in ADORER being the queen reference. I’m sure it’s been done before, but I really liked STAR PART.
Like scchua, I took the A in 6dn to be ‘article’.
Dac never disappoints – good puzzle again today.
September 8th, 2010 at 11:08 am
Further general comment. Funny how a moan presumably in the right place can have the desired effect. No more flickering and i didn’t notice java updating itself but hey! Thanks sidey for http://www.crosswordsolver.info/ address but have to admit i couldn’t navigate to the reqd page, evenso the compiler looks interesting.
September 8th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
This was a gentle exercise with not too many of Dax’s trademark abbreviations. The only one I had not seen before was Tr. for translator but, yes, it is in Chambers and Collins. I had the same problem as John not realising that Monterrey and Monterey are two diiferent places but the wordplay is quite clear.
I liked the clue to Love-in-a-mist and I finished with Bimbette working my way through CBE, DBE, GBE, KBE, CBE and OBE to get the right order.
September 8th, 2010 at 2:21 pm
This was a very enjoyable puzzle. I had a bit of trouble with the top left corner, mainly because I convinced myself for a while that 11 across must be gates because that was hidden in “Harrogate spa” and also the l and s towards end of 1 across did make it look like it might be an anagram of solo. My favourite clues were 18 across and 17 down.
September 8th, 2010 at 3:15 pm
Thanks for the blog, John. As you say, an excellent puzzle, even by the exalted standards of Dac. I esp liked HOPELESS, RABBIT, ENCLOSURE, GRAMMY, CHARITY SHOP, STAR PART, INMATE.
September 8th, 2010 at 9:12 pm
Thanks John/Dac, never come across barque before. 1ac had me going thinking about Crosby Stills Nash & Young rather than Bing until it twigged.
Usual nice stuff from Dac, did wonder about stag=men rather than man but we did have recently a similar thing with hen (parties).
September 8th, 2010 at 11:53 pm
Everyone’s so kind to me. Yes I was quite wrong in my parsing of 6dn and my a = about is clearly a red herring: obviously ‘about’ is needed to get ad round the outside of the anagram.
September 9th, 2010 at 10:44 am
Nice (but didn’t do too well) – I liked 22D, because I love the film.
September 9th, 2010 at 10:46 am
Is there some particular event that is marked with all the cinematic references, or is Dac just a film buff?