Independent 7656 by Phi (Saturday Prize Puzzle 30 April 2011)
Posted by mc_rapper67 on May 7th, 2011
Bit of a quick last-minute post, so apologies for any typos or missed nuances. My first Phi blog, and I was a bit wary as I have enjoyed solving/attempting many difficult Independent cryptics and Inquisitors by Phi over the years.
In the end, it all seemed fairly straight-forward – good solid clueing and some nice misdirections/surface readings, but (IMHO) nothing beyond a mid-week Indy or Grauniad cryptic, rather than a fiendish Saturday prize puzzle – and I had done all except 1D in about 15 minutes…
1D – what can I say – not in my well-thumbed and broken-spined 1988 Chambers (8th edition?, paper and electronic), or in my 2006 Chambers (10th edition, paper and electronic) - or my Collins (not sure what years, but paper and electronic)… Perhaps it is in a newer version – 11 or 12? – of Chambers, and setters are on a (com)mission to include a few new words only in the latest edition, to encourage us to invest our hard earned pictures of the Queen? (Note to Editor: why not offer the latest Chambers – paper or electronic – as the prize for this puzzle?…)
Anyway, after much head scratching and pattern matching, I eventually twigged that the ‘prize’ was a ‘palm’ and found ‘face-palm‘ in Wikipedia – at which point I performed said action to my own forehead…DOH!.
| Across | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
| 1A | FACT | Truth drug not in view (4) | Truth / FACeT (aspect, or view) without E (drug, Ecstasy) |
| 3A | PANCREAS | Film across most of wrinkle in internal organ (8) | Internal organ / PAN (as in camera, panning across a scene) + CREAS (most of wrinkle, or crease) |
| 10A | CALGARY STAMPEDE | Showed annoyance in kinky lacy gear in Canadian show (7, 8 ) | Canadian show (annual rodeo in Calgary, Alberta) / anag (i.e. kinky) of LACY GEAR, containing STAMPED (showed annoyance) |
| 11A | PROMOTION | New job advert (9) | Double defn / PROMOTION = an advertisement, or attaining a new job |
| 12A | URGE | Strongly suggest, say, sport should be overhauled (4) | Strongly suggest / URGE = EG (say) + RU (sport, Rugby Union), then overhauled |
| 13A | LACUNAE | Gaps? Left a hint about new one (7) | Gaps / L (left) + A + CUE (hint), around N (new) + A (one) |
| 15A | ARIANE | Rocket, article into most of constellation (6) | Rocket (European Space Agency rocket launch vehicle) / ARIE (most of Aries) around AN (indefinite article) |
| 17A | SUPERB | Bird released in US sports event? Excellent (6) | Excellent / SUPERB = Super Bowl (American sports event) without OWL (bird, released) |
| 19A | SO THERE | Drunk’s arrived? Hard cheese! (2, 5) | Hard cheese (interjection, ‘bad luck’) / SOT (drunk) + HERE (arrived) |
| 20A | LIMO | Car fuel needing money invested, on reflection (4) | Car / LIMO = OIL (fuel) around M (money), then reflected |
| 21A | BAR MAGNET | Source of attraction in part of London probed by publication (3, 6) | Source of attraction / BARNET (London district) containing MAG (magazine, or publication) |
| 24A | PROXIMA CENTAURI | Star represented in American tour pix (7, 8 ) | Star (low magnitude red dwarf in Centaurus constellation) / anag (i.e. represented in) of AMERICAN TOUR PIX |
| 25A | DAMPENER | Mother to look round rear of cistern for wet blanket (8) | Wet blanket / DAM (mother), plus PEER (look) around N (last letter, or rear, of cistern) |
| 26A | LUNG | Part of body, note, located within ear (4) | Part of body / LUG (ear) containing N (note) |
| Down | |||
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
| 1D | FACEPALM | Reputation supported by award? One shows disbelief (8) | One shows disbelief (act of slapping one’s hand to the forehead on realisation of something obvious but not spotted) / FACE (reputation) + PALM (prize, as in Palm d’Or at Cannes Film Festival, or just a palm leaf as a token of victory) |
| 2D | CELLO | Location of fifteenth inmate’s instrument (5) | Instrument / &lit? If first prisoner was in Cell A, second in Cell B etc, then fifteenth would be in Cell O |
| 4D | ANTENNA | A new sport is ignored by a broadcaster (7) | Broadcaster / A + N (new) + TENN (tennis, sport, with ‘is’ ignored) + A |
| 5D | COMMUNIST PARTY | Political group, prats possibly, sheltered by body of people (9, 5) | Political group / anag (i.e. possibly) of PRATS in COMMUNITY (body of people) |
| 6D | EMERGENCE | Dirt beginning to collect, interrupting English lake’s appearance (9) | Appearance / GEN (info, or dirt) + C (first letter of collect) in E (English) + MERE (lake) |
| 7D | SUET | Fat? One’s the ultimate in disgrace in matching clothes (4) | Fat / SUET = SUIT (matching clothes) changing I (one) to E (last letter of disgrace) |
| 8D | LA DONNA E MOBILE | Duke’s aria laying out bloodline and a new name (2, 5, 1, 6) | Duke (of Mantua)’s aria (from Verdi’s Rigoletto) / anag (i.e. laying out) of BLOODLINE + A + N (new) + NAME |
| 9D | BY-LINE | No power in barmy story bearing new name at its top? (2-4) | &lit?, name across the top of a story/article / BY (barmy without ‘arm’, or power) + LIE (story) ‘bearing’ N (new) |
| 14D | CRUCIFORM | Caught Welshman in melée heading off crossways? (9) | Crossways (or cross-shaped)/ C (caught) + IFOR (Welshman) in CRUM (scrum, or melée, with first letter off) |
| 16D | KETTLING | King deciding to face guillotine, restraining unsettled populace (8) | (method of) restraining protesters/unsettled populace / K (king) + ETTLING (settling, or deciding, guillotined, i.e. losing its first letter) |
| 18D | BABBAGE | Graduate books a long time seeing historic scientist (7) | (historic) scientist (Charles Babbage) / BA (graduate, Bachelor of Arts) + BB (abbrev. for ‘books’) + AGE (a long time) |
| 19D | SORBET | Dessert’s spherical shape in gel (6) | Dessert / ORB (spherical shape) in SET (gel) |
| 22D | NAURU | Island shared between Argentina and Uruguay (5) | Island (in South Pacific), formerly known as Pleasant Island / hidden word in ArgentiNA (and) URUguay |
| 23D | SPUD | Secconds, dessert? Not this food (4) | &lit? (as potatoes, spuds, are not usually desserts!) / S (seconds) + PUD (dessert) |
May 7th, 2011 at 7:25 am
Thanks, mc_rapper67, for the blog and phi for the puzzle. Facepalm also took me ages to discover but I eventually got there after recourse to Roget’s Thesaurus which gave me ‘face’ and ‘palm’, then googling led me to Wikipedia. btw this is the reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facepalm
CALGARY STAMPEDE was my first to go in; ‘Canadian show’ gave it without even unscrambling the anagram. Similarly ‘Duke’s aria’ for LA DONNA E MOBILE.
Not sure about the equivalence of SO THERE and ‘hard cheese’. I think of the former more as equivalent to ‘Yah, boo, sucks!’ Just a co-incidence but ‘hard cheese’ was an answer in Another Newspaper’s crossword the previous day.
Liked PANCREAS and BAR MAGNET.
May 7th, 2011 at 7:33 am
Thanks, mc_rapper67 for the blog. I think my experience was similar to yours, I found most of it straightforward but then stalled in the upper left and lower right corners, since I also was unfamiliar with KETTLING and it took a while for me to work it out. With you, I had never encountered FACEPALM, which seems quite a useful word now that I know it. I also had to look up 8d, which I had parsed correctly but was in an area of knowledge I’m lacking.
May 7th, 2011 at 9:16 am
Hours of solving yielded only 1a,1d,11a,17a & 18d.
1a was my first in and 1d was my second in.
Simply too hard for me.
15mins to all bar one is Olympic standard!
May 7th, 2011 at 10:22 am
Don’t give up bamberger. You did as well as some of us if you got 1d, and it took me a while to get 11a. Keep reading the blogs and you’ll find your success rate improving as you see how the clues work. You do need to do a bit of second-guessing sometimes, though, to sort the clue into definition and wordplay etc.