Independent 7776 by Bannsider (Saturday Prize Puzzle 17 September 2011)
Posted by mc_rapper67 on September 24th, 2011
No fancy themes or ninas/Ninas from Bannsider this week (or, at least, none that I could see) – just an enjoyable mental work-out for a Saturday morning – and a bit of Saturday afternoon, eventually finished off late Sunday… although…
Having said that, once I solved 26A (AMY WINEHOUSE) I did suspect there might be another tribute to a (more recently) deceased songstress, after last week’s Nina Simone theme. I’m not overly familiar with the late Amy’s catalogue – I thought Steve Winwood’s ‘Valerie’ much superior (;+>) – but a brief bit of research didn’t throw up any obvious connections. Open to the floor…
Some lovely surface readings – from 3D evoking the great Clive Lloyd gracing English summers in the late 70s/early 80s; 16D, with a disturbing mental image of HM wandering round Buck Pal in her birthday suit (or is that just me?!); and the Cyclops-ian 18A.
Coincidentally, 14A WANTONLY – also appeared in the Auracaria Saturday prize puzzle in the Grauniad on the same day – which helped, as I had done that one first, so the word was in my subconscious somewhere.
I delayed myself a bit by jumping into a TAX(I) as ‘London Transport’ at 22A – leaving me looking for an ‘ancient European city’ at 23D to fit X-S-E. I should have noticed the Capital Letters on London Transport, and not those on VAT, and gone down the TUB(E) instead - although these days I am more of a Boris-Biker.
All in all, very enjoyable fare!…
| Across | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
| 1A | STUPID O’CLOCK | Very early South American Indian dwarf hair (6, 6) | Very early / S (South) + TUPI (Native American Indian) + DOC (one of the seven dwarfs) + LOCK (hair) |
| 9A | BAD NEWS | Airline ends with trips for fast traveller (3, 4) | Fast traveller, as in ‘bad news travels fast’ / BA (airline, British Airways) + anag (i.e. trips) of ENDS + W (with) |
| 10A | TREFOIL | Whistle-blower stopping slave labour in plant (7) | Plant / TOIL (slave labour, or indeed, any kind of labour?) around REF (whistle-blower) |
| 11A | ERR | Those last in the bar clamber to be out (3) | Be out (as in, inaccurate) / last letters of ‘thE baR clambeR’ |
| 12A | LED ZEPPELIN | Influenced by Marx, mostly left-leaning sort of Green group (3, 8 ) | Group / LED (influenced) + ZEPP (most of Zeppo Marx) + ELIN (Nile green, backwards) |
| 13A | BEHALF | Part from spare tyre filled with gas and spun (6) | Part / BEHALF = FLAB (spare tyre, around waist) around HE (Helium, gas) – all reversed, or spun |
| 14,A | WANTONLY | Just after pasty, finish off dessert with abandon (8) | With abandon / WAN (pasty, or pale) + T (last letter of desserT) + ONLY (just) |
| 17A | MAHAYANA | No word of enlightenment in a mass, backward form of Buddhism (8) | Form of Buddhism / MAHAYANA = A + M (mass), around NAY (no) + AHA (word of enlightenment) – all backwards |
| 18A | WEE-WEE | Teams of bridge engineers employed initially making water passable (3-3) | Water, passable / W+E (bridge team, West and East) + E (initial letter of Engineers) – repeatedly (teams) |
| 20A | RUMOUR HAS IT | Strange the success we have boxing when we believe (6, 3, 2) | We believe / RUM (strange) + OUR HIT (success we have) around AS (when) |
| 22A | TUB | Twenty-five percent off London Transport VAT (3) | Vat / TUBe (London Transport with one quarter missing) |
| 24A | SPENDER | Poet who’s stopped betting? (7) | Poet / &lit-ish – SP (starting prices, in betting, stopped by…) ENDER |
| 25A | ERINYES | Agreement on Ireland punishing trio (7) | Trio (of Furies, mythology) / ERIN (poetic for Ireland) + YES (agreement) |
| 26A | AMY WINEHOUSE | Setter’s success intercepting poet with drug for male singer (3, 9) | Singer / A E HOUSman + E (poet, with E – drug – for MAN – male), around MY WIN (setter’s success) |
| Across | |||
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
| 1D | SABRE | What Serb assassin uses in rising? (5) | &lit, what assassin uses / &lit-ish, reversed hidden letters in sERB Asssassin |
| 2D | UNDER THE HAMMER | Lots come this close to doom: three unharmed, amazingly (5, 3, 6) | Lots come this (at auction) / anag (i.e. amazingly) of THREE UNHARMED + M (last letter of doom) |
| 3D | ICED LOLLY | Five runs from Clive Lloyd represented a summer treat! (4, 5) | Summer treat / anag (i.e. re-presented) of CLIvE LLOYD (without V – five, which ‘runs from’ the anagram) |
| 4D | ONSIDE | Dismissing case of councillor, assess players legal position (6) | Player’s legal position / cONSIDEr (assess, without CR, the ‘case’ of CouncilloR) |
| 5D | LUTHERAN | Protestant getting hard time for nothing in English town (8) | Protestant / LUToN (English town) with H (hard) + ERA (time) in place of O (nothing) |
| 6D | CREEP | Edible fungus rings touching edge (5) | Edge (along) / CEP (mushroom, edible fungus) around RE (on the subject of, or touching) |
| 7D | GO ALONG WITH YOU | Response to flattery, maybe, in second year of university (2, 5, 4, 3) | Response to flattery / Go ALONG WITH (second, as in support, back up) + Y (year) + O (contraction of ‘of’) + U (university) |
| 8D | KLONDYKE | Artist rejecting Virginia for Kuala Lumpur and old gold mine (8) | Gold mine / (Artist) vaN DYKE replacing VA (Virginia) with KL (Kuala Lumpur) + O (old) |
| 13D | BUMS RUSH | Hurrying out from inferior sushi bar one’s run inside (4, 4) | Hurrying out (summary dismissal) / BUM (inferior) + SUSHi (without I, one) around R (runs) |
| 15D | TWENTYISH | Henry wins, yet strangely goes about sort of cross about score (9) | About score (as in twenty) / anag (i.e. strangely) of H (Henry) + WINS YET, around T (Greek Tau, also a sort of cross) |
| 16D | IN THE RAW | Woman in palace that during warmer weather’s going round naked (2, 3, 3) | Naked / IN THAW (during warmer weather) around ER (Elizabeth Regina, or ‘woman in palace’) |
| 19D | ASTERN | Son brought in a bird to the rear (6) | To the rear / A TERN (a bird) around S (son) |
| 21D | UNDAM | Release German with a warrant initially overturned? (5) | Release / UND (German ‘and’, or with) + A + M (W turned over, first letter of warrant) |
| 23D | BASLE | Package tours sold bypassing ancient European city (5) | European city / BALE (package) around S (sold without ‘old’ – ancient) |
September 24th, 2011 at 12:58 am
Cor blimey it were tough, didn’t finish, so thanks for the blog, dunno why I find Nimrod and Bannman so hard to get. What makes a setter tough to impossible compared to say Dac/Phi?
September 24th, 2011 at 1:59 am
Ouch. I never even saw this one, but don’t doubt that I would have struggled to get even halfway, if indeed I’d managed break into it anywhere.
That being said, I’m not disheartened. Even with all checking letters, I can’t think how I (or others) would ever be able to look at the wordplay ‘poet with drug for male’ and think “ah, that must be A.E Housman with E replacing man”.
Brilliantly hard stuff though. The crossworld is all the better for puzzles like this.
September 24th, 2011 at 7:38 am
Tough but solvable, with several “oh, of course” moments. Last in was 1a, worked out from the wordplay and confirmed by googling, which gave this reference – http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=stupid o’clock – and a vague idea I had heard the expression before.
September 24th, 2011 at 7:43 am
Sorry, that link hasn’t come out properly – probably because of the space between stupid and o’clock – which is there in the original – but it’ll take you to the right area.
September 24th, 2011 at 8:45 am
Thanks to both setter and blogger. Hard but do-able – except that I fell into the TAX(i) trap and never got out of it. I had initially thought that we were heading towards a pangram (1a initially looked as though it might be SQU…), so I never seriously questioned the X. We live and learn!
September 24th, 2011 at 9:47 am
Feel quite proud to have completed about half of this – and got caught in the taxi trap as well.
September 24th, 2011 at 11:45 am
Yes, this was very good and one of the toughest of the year. Esp liked LED ZEPPELIN, WANTONLY, RUMOUR HAS IT, TUB, ONSIDE, BASLE. Had never heard of 1 across but (eventually) the wordplay confirmed it pretty clearly. Only one I did not understand till coming here was SPENDER. Thanks, Bannsider and mc_rapper67.
September 24th, 2011 at 11:54 am
Great to have Bannsider back -lets hope we don’t have to wait so long for his next one. Wondered if there was a music theme going on with 12, 20, 26ac and elsewhere, but maybe just imagining things.
Your lucky fortnight Flashling, Nimrod today!
September 24th, 2011 at 7:32 pm
Thanks for all the feedback – general consensus seems to be that it was a much-appreciated toughie…
I haven’t got started on today’s Nimrod yet…fingers crossed…
September 25th, 2011 at 1:02 pm
Thanks for the comments and especially to mc_rapper67 for the blog. Helpful and fascinating as always. I can confirm that there was no theme lurking in the puzzle.