Independent 7,731 / Crosophile
Posted by RatkojaRiku on July 27th, 2011
Crosophile had the edge over me this morning, I have to say. Having only blogged one of his puzzles until today, I have not yet fully fathomed how this setter’s mind works. Perhaps end-of-term fatigue is setting in for me on the solving front as well as on the work front.
In any case, I am confident that I have correctly completed the grid, although I need help explaining part of the wordplay in 11 (as indicated by my triple question mark) and all the wordplay in 3 (reversal of cafe appears to be part of it). I have been staring at the letters in 3 for so long now that I just can’t see the wood for the trees, so I look forward to being enlightened and to correcting the blog accordingly. I am also rather ashamed to admit that I had to search Chambers to find 7A, having been blinded by a wrong answer to this clue since almost my first perusal of the puzzle.
On the positive side, the brilliantly hidden definition in 13 was a highlight for me, as were the & lit. at 17, the less common letter at the intersection of 6 and 9 and the misleading reference to a month of the year in 24.
*(…) indicates an anagram
| Across | ||
| 6 | GNOME | Reversed and hidden (“smuggling back”) in “scarEMONGers” |
| 7 | CARDINALS | Double definition: CARDINALS are “Church dignitaries” AND “sixes” and “sevens”, i.e. cardinal numbers. |
| 9 | ZESTIER | Z (=final letter) + <caus>ES (“causES” couple finally, i.e. last two letters) + TIER (=row) |
| 10 | EMBARGO | O (=ring) + GRAB (=snatch) + ME (=Crosophile, i.e. compiler of this puzzle); “back” indicates reversal; the definition is “restraint”, as in restraint of princes. |
| 11 | BARCELONA | BAR (=bank |
| 12 | CYCLE | Hidden (“some”) in “proficienCY CLEarly”; & lit. |
| 13 | FANCY THAT | T<affeta> (“a sample of” means first letter only) in [FANCY (=ornate) + HAT (=headgear)]; the cleverly hidden definition is simply “My!” (as an exclamation) |
| 19 | CLOSE | Double definition: CLOSE is “near”, not far AND “the end”, finish |
| 20 | ELABORATE | ELAB (BALE=bundle; “over” indicates reversal) + O (=zero) + RATE (=levy) |
| 22 | AQUARIA | A (=acceleration) + QUA (=in capacity of) + RIA (AIR=gas; “returnable” indicates reversal) |
| 24 | ALMANAC | ALM<s> (=charity; “receives cut” means last letter is dropped) + A (=adult) + NAC (CAN=may, i.e. modal verb not month; “returns” indicates reversal); the definition is “annual”, as a noun. |
| 25 | SOLAR WIND | SO (=very) + [WIN (=success) in LARD (=fat, as a noun); a solar wind is made of fast travelling, charged particles emitted by the sun, hence “output of local star”. |
| 26 | IBSEN | NESBI<t> (=children’s author, i.e. Edith Nesbit (1858-1924), author of The Railway Children, etc; “aborted” means last letter dropped); “comeback” indicates reversal; the reference is to Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906), author of A Doll’s House, etc. |
| Down | ||
| 1 | TONSURE | TON (=not; “over” indicates reversal) + SURE (=certain) |
| 2 | DELIBERATE | Definition: “on purpose”, intentional; cryptic definition: reincarcerate = de-liberate; i.e. again deprive of liberty |
| 3 | ARTEFACT | Definition: “it’s a designer thing”, i.e. a crafted object; |
| 4 | LIMB | Hidden (“needs to hold”) in “tree-cLIMBer”; & lit. |
| 5 | RAT RACE | RA (=of an artist, used attributively) + TRACE (=mark) |
| 6 | GAZEBO | GAZE (=long look) + B (=book) + O’ (=of, i.e. abbreviation in poetry) |
| 7 | CARGO | CAR (=vehicle) + GO (=make a move) |
| 8 | SMOKER | MOKE (=donkey) in SR (=Spaniard, i.e. abbreviation of Señor) |
| 12 | COAT OF MAIL | Cryptic definition relying on two meanings of MAIL: “post”, letters AND chain “mail”, armour. |
| 14 | CLEMATIS | C (=about, i.e. circa) + L (=fifty, in Roman numerals) + EMAT (TAME=not wild, of animal; “about” indicates reversal) + IS (=Iceland, in IVR) |
| 15 | OCEANS | *(C (=sound of sea, i.e. homophone) + ON SEA); “churning” is anagram indicator. |
| 16 | SOLUBLE | S<peakers> (“first of” means first letter only) + <v>OLUBLE (=loquacious”; “not Very” means the letter “v” is dropped) |
| 17 | GARNISH | N<osh> (“bit of” means first letter only) in GARISH (=colourful, over the top); & lit. |
| 18 | DEACON | CO (=company) in DEAN (=church official); the definition is “another one”, i.e. another church official. |
| 21 | AWARD | A (=academy) + WARD (=hospital unit) |
| 23 | RARE | Double definition: RARE is “bloody”, uncooked (of steak) AND “unusual”, uncommon |
July 27th, 2011 at 9:36 am
3 Reversal of CAFE TRAT(toria) with the head (now a T) moved to tthe bottom.
July 27th, 2011 at 10:21 am
I think the Bar is just from Gold Bars that banks take as collateral, Dialrib @1 has the same idea as me for artefact. Didn’t help myself by not fully reading 6d and entering gander=garden*.
13a is quite nice, took me ages to get it but my first reacrion was that MY was the definition.
Thanks RR and Crosophile.
July 27th, 2011 at 10:51 am
Thanks for the blog, RatkojaRiku.
“I have not yet fully fathomed how this setter’s mind works.”
Don’t worry; nor have I!
Dialrib and Flashling are right about ARTEFACT.
re 11, collateral = ‘side by side’ so is merely misleading padding to help the surface reading. So
City bank’s collateral with church before dodgy loan =
……. BAR ………….+……………. CE ……..+……. LOAN*
July 27th, 2011 at 1:42 pm
Thank you, RatkojaRiku.
Got ARTEFACT without the slightest reason why; still don’t understand where the BAR in BARCELONA is coming from ; and wasn’t mad keen on CARDINALS.
But overall this was a really enjoyable puzzle. DELIBERATE was cleverly thought out, and IBSEN too. Plenty of variety in the clueing which kept me engaged, although I noticed that there were no full anagrams, which is a bit unusual, I guess.
Good stuff from Crosophile today, thank you.
July 27th, 2011 at 2:08 pm
Thanks RatkojaRiku and Crosophile.
This was the easiest of the Big 3 today (still struggling with Araucaria). Favourites were 25A SOLAR WIND (my scientific inclination), 16A SOLUBLE and 11A BARCELONA. Hi K’sD@4 BAR = “bank”, as in “sandbank” = “sandbar”, ie. a raised ridge of material.
July 27th, 2011 at 2:13 pm
Thanks, scchua, that makes sense of course.
July 27th, 2011 at 5:06 pm
Thanks, Crosophile and scchua, for the explanation of “bar” in 11.
Thanks, dialrib and flashling, for unpicking 3 for me: I have never come across the abbreviated form of trattoria, so I would never have correctly parsed this clue unaided.
July 27th, 2011 at 6:39 pm
Thanks RatkojaRiku for the blog, and to Crosophile for an entertaining, if tough, puzzle. I came back to this at times over the course of the day and managed to complete it without cheating, and without understanding some of the answers; I struggled with ARTEFACT, BARCELONA and AQUARIA as I missed QUA for “in capacity of” and got myself fixed on measures of volume for a while.
My favourite was FANCY THAT, and because I convinced myself it was heading for a pangram I tried valiantly (and stupidly!) to make TAX fit for LEVY in 20ac. Duh……
July 27th, 2011 at 11:20 pm
Got off to a very good start with this one and then hit the buffers, including AQUARIA, which I failed on too, but overall a very enjoyable puzzle. Thanks Crosophile and RR. Liked 4d as well as others already mentioned.
One tiny peeve – what’s a colon doing after the question mark in 16d? I thought it had to be part of the wordplay at first as it’s completely wrong as punctuation.
July 28th, 2011 at 7:21 pm
Didn’t enjoy this one. Not really happy with clues for 3 or 4 down (when has a trattoria ever been a trat?). Also not heard of qua and not sure where the ‘at’ fits in for 7a. Oh well just not my thng I suppose.