Independent 7931 / Phi
Posted by duncanshiell on March 16th, 2012
The Independent crossword that I blogged last week – the one by Hypnos with the whistleblower theme – generated a good deal of comment and controversy. I feel sure that this one will attract less controversy, but I hope it generates plenty of comment as it is the kind of puzzle that should be solvable or nearly solvable by many during the daily commute.
There were a couple of phrases/words that I didn’t know – MAKE A LONG ARM and LINACRE but both were very clearly deducable from the wordplay.
Some of the definitions were not lifted straight from the dictionary. I have no problems with that. I enjoy it when there is a bit of lateral thinking required. However, one definiiton did seem to stray quite far towards the off-the-wall extreme. Having watched the final of Masterchef last night, I doubt if any of the contestants would have been happy if they had made a BEARNAISE SAUCE and the judges had described it as a ‘light yellow liquid’! If I had a concise crossword with a clue saying ‘light yellow liquid’, a number of other words or phrases would have come to mind sooner. I recognise though that (8,5) would probably have eliminated all of them.
The entries parsed without difficulty and there was a good mix of clue types. I liked the use of both Turkish and Ankara in the clue to PASHA and I also liked the use of ‘rising and falling aboard ship’ to indicate HILLY contained within SS
| Across | |||
| No. | Clue | Wordplay | Entry |
| 1 | An easy putt chap apparently missed in a crisis? (2,1,5) | A TAP IN (an easy putt) + CHAP excluding (missing) AP (apparently) | AT A PINCH (in a case of necessity or emergency; in a crisis) |
| 6 | Chap’s error, with loss of station (4) | MISTAKE (error) excluding (with loss of) STA (station) | MIKE (man’s name; chap) |
| 9 | Party and group retaining King’s part of England (6) |
(DO [party] + SET [group]) containing (retaining) R (Rex; king) DO (R) SET |
DORSET (county in England; part of England) |
| 10 | Number encountered in science lesson, initially in outline (7) |
TEN (number) contained in (encountered in) (SCI [science] + L [first letter of {initially} LESSON]) S (TEN) CI L |
STENCIL (a plate perforated with a design, lettering, etc from which copies are made by applying paint, etc through it onto paper or other material; outline) I can’t find a dictionary or thesaurus that gives a 1:1 relationship between ‘stencil’ and ‘outline’ but a stencil can obviously be used to draw an outline. |
| 11 | Dissent to lose vigour in dreadful conclusion to conference (8) |
(SAG [lose vigour] contained in (in) DIRE [dreadful]) + E (last letter of [conclusion to] CONFERENCE) DI (SAG) RE E |
DISAGREE (dissent) |
| 12 | Showing more colour, shifting one steering device (6) | RUDDIER (showing more colour [through healthy skin]) excluding (shifting) I (one) | RUDDER (steering device) |
| 13 | Redirected magma leak? No, run! Grab everything you can! (4,1,4,3) | Anagram of (redirected) MAGMA LEAK NO R (run) | MAKE A LONG ARM (to help oneself freely at table; grab everything you can) Not a phrase I have come across before, but with all the crossing letters, it was the only phrase that I could make. |
| 16 | Rising and falling aboard ship, Henry and friend appear uncertain (12) |
HILLY [rising and falling] contained in (aboard) SS (steamship; ship) + H [henry, the SI unit of inductance] + ALLY [friend]) S (HILLY) S H ALLY |
SHILLY-SHALLY (be indecisive; appear uncertain) |
| 19 | Animal, second available in market (6) |
MO (moment; second) contained in (available in) MART (market) MAR (MO) T |
MARMOT (a burrowing rodent; animal) |
| 20 | Part of aircraft one cracked? Bring in most of a further one (4,4) |
Anagram of (cracked) ONE containing (bring in) SECOND (a further one) excluding the final letter (most of) D NO (SECON) E* |
NOSE CONE (part of aircraft) |
| 22 | Fellow chasing information of no specific type (7) | GEN (information) + ERIC (man’s name; fellow) |
GENERIC (general, applicable to any member of a group or class; of no specific type) |
| 23 | University degree securing job as secretary – presumably not this! (6) |
(UNI [university) + D [degree]) containing (securing) PA (personal assistant; job as a secretary) UN (PA) I D |
UNPAID (one would hope that a job after graduation would not be UNPAID, but this is a topical issue in a very harsh employment and benefit policy arena …..) |
| 24 | Bank definitely missing a pound (4) | REALLY (in reality; genuinely; definitely) excluding (missing) A and L (pound [sterling]) | RELY (bank) |
| 25 | Still batting? Great scores for openers when night watchmen appear (8) | EVEN (still) + IN (batting) + (G and S, the first letters of [openers] GREAT and SCORES) | EVENINGS (the time when night watchmen appear) |
| Down | |||
| 2 | Hot current in river? On the contrary (8) | R (river) contained in (in) TOPICAL (current) so that we have ‘river in current’ rather than ‘current in river’ (on the contrary) | TROPICAL (hot) |
| 3 | Turkish official remains in power – Ankara’s foremost (5) |
ASH (remains) contained in (in) (P [power] + A [first letter of [foremost] ANKARA [capital of Turkey]) P (ASH) A |
PASHA (Turkish official) |
| 4 | Study of plants and animals that could make authority snarl (7,7) | Anagram of (that could make) AUTHORITY SNARL |
NATURAL HISTORY (the sciences that deal with the earth and its productions, ie botany, zoology and mineralogy, esp field zoology; study of plants and animals) |
| 5 | Hectare observed to contain black dinosaur? (3-4) |
(HA [hectare] + SEEN [observed]) containing (to contain) B (black [in pencil leads]) HA S (B) EEN |
HAS-BEEN (a person or thing no longer as popular, influential, useful, etc as before; dinosaur) |
| 6 | Nut, excellent, turning up under pavement (9) | MACADAM (material for covering a road or pavement with small broken stones to form a smooth surface) + AI (A one; excellent) reversed (turning up [down clue]) | MACADAMIA (an edible nut of a genus of Australian evergreen trees) |
| 7 | Fool around, keeping lieutenant (English) dressed for the Black Watch? (6) |
KID (hoax; fool) containing (around) (LT [lieutenant] + E [English]) KI (LT E) D |
KILTED (wearing a kilt, as members of the Black Watch regiment [Royal Highland Regiment] are when in dress uniform) |
| 8 | Tolerate nausea with ices dished up in light yellow liquid (9,5) | BEAR (tolerate) + an anagram of (dished up) of NAUSEA and ICES |
BEARNAISE SAUCE (a sauce made from egg yolks, butter, shallots, tarragon, chervil and wine vinegar; a light yellow liquid) |
| 14 | Quick buck? Many eyes excitedly gathering round (4,5) |
Anagram of (excitedly) MANY EYES containing (gathering) O (round) EASY M (O) NEY* |
EASY MONEY (money made without much exertion or difficulty; money that can be borrowed at a low rate of interest; qucik buck [dollar]) |
| 15 | Plot of substantial size providing lots of wood (8) | PLAN (plot) + KING (reference king-size [of larger than standard size]; of substantial size) | PLANKING (a series of planks; lots of wood) |
| 17 | Oxford college lecturer in the area? (7) | L (lecturer) + IN + ACRE (a unit of area) |
LINACRE (reference LINACRE College Oxford; The College is named after Thomas LINACRE [1460–1524], founder of the Royal College of Physicians and a distinguished Oxford humanist) |
| 18 | Judge’s point of view leading to contention (6) | J (judge) + ANGLE (point of view) | JANGLE (contention) |
| 21 | Better run to island – this one? (5) | CAP (surpass; better) + R (run) + I (island) |
CAPRI (reference Isle of CAPRI, an island in the Tyrrhenian Sea off |
March 16th, 2012 at 10:25 am
Thankfully Duncan we have forgotten what a daily commute is! However we always enjoy Phi’s puzzles and this was no exception. Last one is was 2D which had us puzzled for a while but in the end was cleverly disguised, or is that just because it took us longer than the others?
Hadn’t heard of ‘make a long arm’ or LInacre College before but easy to work out from the rest of the clues when you had a few cross checking letters.
Thanks Duncan and Phi. A fitting end to the week!
March 16th, 2012 at 11:19 am
Thanks for the blog. I don’t understand the objection to “light yellow liquid” in 8d. It seems to me a perfectly good definition, albeit not suited either to Masterchef or concise crosswords. But why on earth should it be?
March 16th, 2012 at 12:51 pm
Thanks Duncan and Phi. I agree with what’s been said – v accessible wordplay for the unfamiliar answers and everything clear in the end. Not too difficult.
March 16th, 2012 at 1:58 pm
Thanks Phi for an enjoyable crossword and Duncan for your usual detailed blog. Favourite clues 1ac and 16ac.
12ac: I had an alternative parsing. I took it as REDDER (showing more colour) changing E to U (shifting one = changing one letter). I much prefer the way Duncan has parsed it.
13ac: I needed five of the checked letters to get this. I can understand that compilers sometimes need to include obscure words or phrases to complete grids, but I would expect answers as long as this one to be entered early before such constructional difficulties arise. I wonder why Phi chose this phrase. Please note that the length of this comment is out of all proportion to my extremely tiny feeling of discontent.
16ac: Already noted as one of my favourite clues. I particularly like the way that Phi has used “aboard ship” in full as an indicator for “in SS”. Minor point: should not the enumeration have been (6-6)?
Another thing I like about this crossword generally is the way that the multi-word and hyphenated answers are all clued as a whole, avoiding the mundane device of giving definitions for the whole word and then for each word separately. Thanks once more for that, Phi.
March 16th, 2012 at 3:54 pm
Plenty to enjoy here as usual from Phi, with another fine Friday puzzle.
I too took the REDDER to RUDDER route, but Pelham’s right that Duncan’s explanation is much better. And I think I would normally write SHILLY-SHALLY with a hyphen as well.
We’ve had some good anagrams this week in the Indy, and NATURAL HISTORY was a clever one today. In fact we’ve had five very enjoyable Indy crosswords this week.
March 16th, 2012 at 4:08 pm
If I remember correctly,wasn’t Linacre College Phi’s own alma mater?
Fine puzzle, fine blog
March 16th, 2012 at 4:39 pm
SHILLYSHALLY is given as one word in Collins. When there is a doubt like this, I think it’s good to give the letter-count that does not give too much away.
March 16th, 2012 at 5:56 pm
A little bit more difficult than some from Phi, but none the worse for that. Like others I’d never heard the expression MAKE A LONG ARM, tho’ Linacre College was tucked away somewhere in my subconscious.
7d seems to me to have a superfluous word in the clue; both ‘around’ and ‘keeping’ can be indicators for ‘containing’ and ‘around’ obviously doesn’t indicate a reversal. (Although ‘dick’ can mean a fool and if reversed gives ‘kcid’ but then there’s no indication that ‘c’ has to be dropped.)
March 16th, 2012 at 6:52 pm
From a conversation with an Oxford townie thirty years ago:
“Which college are you at?”
“Linacre”
“That’s one of the new ones, isn’t lt? Where is it again?”
“You’re stood beside it”
Not even well-known in Oxford.
MAKE A LONG ARM was a phrase my mother used to use, and when I encountered it again recently I popped it in a puzzle, only to find Chambers defined it differently. In our household it was a request for you to pass something out of the requester’s reach: “Could you make a long arm for the salt, please?”
March 16th, 2012 at 7:30 pm
Allan_C@8: In 7dn I took “Fool around” as the indicator for KID (as an intransitive verb).
Phi@9: Thanks for popping in and satisfying my curiosity re 13ac.
March 16th, 2012 at 11:56 pm
I thought it was a bit harder than Phi’s usual, but as ever it was entertaining, well constructed and no real grouses although I also found “light yellow liquid” slightly strange , particularly as the nausea in the clue could have y allowed a more culinary cluing. With just the final “e” I was inclining towards”urine”!