Independent 9,230 by Tyrus

by

A good tough Saturday workout from Tyrus this week.

There’s a fairly overt theme there, with plenty of references to the press, newspapers etc. Which I suppose could be seen as fairly ironic, given the Independent’s new non-newspaper status.

Good stuff anyway, so thanks to Tyrus.

Across
1 MUTATE Morph‘s dog eating a bone at last (6)
(A in MUTT) + [bon]E.
4 EPISODIC Soap’s so huge (featuring one unpleasant character) (8)
(I + SOD) in EPIC.
10 DENNIS THE MENACE He’s indecent! Name unholy terror who’s stripped (6,3,6)
Anagram of (HES INDECENT NAME)*. “Stripped” as in comic strips.
11 LORETTA Learning to race with a female (7)
LORE + TT + A.
12 SPARTAN Quarrel about rule with an ascetic (7)
(R in SPAT) + AN.
13 ENSHRINED Take in lustre in object regarded as sacred (9)
(R in SHINE) in END.
16 DUSTS Perverse – boss’s son in detention daily does this (5)
S in STUD<.
18 SLEBS The Kardashians maybe busy – bless! (5)
Anagram of BLESS*, and I guess a contraction of “celebs”.
19 ROTTEN ROW Tired rider edges out round bridle path in capital (6,3)
(WORN + Frankie [d]ETTOR[i]), all reversed.
20 EXPRESS Plain paper (7)
Two definitions, though I had to think about the first one. It’s in the sense of “clear” or “explicit”.
23 EMERITI ‘This writer is boring’ – I object, backing old academics (7)
(I TIRE + ME), all reversed. At least I think “I object” is ME, as it’s how you’d refer to yourself as the object of a sentence.
25 NEAR TO ONE’S HEART The reason ornate building is loved (4,2,4,5)
Anagram of (THE REASON ORNATE)*.
26 REORDERS Further requests from registrars – no contracts first and foremost (8)
RE[c]ORDERS.
27 TRUDGE Plod right to detain BBC man (6)
DG in TRUE.
Down
1 MIDDLE EASTERNER Earl’s determined rent for foreigner (6,9)
Anagram of (EARLS DETERMINED)*.
2 TENDRESSE French love figure that’s not fully clothed (9)
TEN + DRESSE[d].
3 TWIST Idiot’s succeeded in unexpected development (5)
S in TWIT.
5 PEERS Some say a morning irritant for fellows (5)
Presumably some sort of homophone, but of what? Given the theme, it could be Piers Morgan, I suppose.
6 SKEDADDLE Kelvin, as he was in lumber: ‘Get out of here!’ (9)
(K + ED) in SADDLE. Kelvin is both a unit of temperature and a reference to Kelvin MacKenzie, former editor of The Sun.
7 DRAFT I’m annoyed about following plan (5)
F in DRAFT.
8 CLEAN AS A WHISTLE Involved in nothing illegal? Breaking the law in nearly all cases! (5,2,1,7)
Anagram of (THE LAW IN + AL[l] + CASES)*.
9 STRAINER Riddle of back-to-front shoes (8)
From TRAINERS, with the S moved to the front.
14 RESPECTED Relaxed about exercise, Charlie appreciated (9)
(PE + C) in RESTED.
15 DOTTEREL Point at exotic tree with large bird (8)
DOT + TREE* + L.
17 STREISAND Sister annoyed with singer (9)
SISTER* + AND.
21 PRADO Image production trouble for gallery (5)
PR + ADO.
22 SCOUR Hunt through – and bitter about Cameron’s leadership (5)
C[ameron] in SOUR.
24 ESHER Racecourse town in Wales he remembered (5)
Hidden in [wal]ES HE R[emembered]. The town in Surrey which is home to Sandown Park racecourse. I had to look it up.

 

* = anagram; < = reversed; [] = removed; underlined = definition; Hover to expand abbreviations

 

15 comments on “Independent 9,230 by Tyrus”

  1. Tough indeed, and there were a couple I couldn’t parse (including PEERS – never thought of Morgan; does he do breakfast TV? I’m a ‘Today’ man meself).
    In SKEDADDLE, I had the ED as meaning ‘from Edinburgh’ (‘Ed’ in academic degree abbreviations: it’s in Chambers), which William Thomson, later Lord Kelvin of scale-fame certainly was. Tho’ his degree was from Glasgow, apparently.
    Altogether a bracing work-out. Thanks to Tyrus & Simon.

  2. Oops, turns out Kelvin was Irish. Stet Kelvin MacKenzie. I’m not having a good day. And while I’m back on, the ‘Morph’ in 1a again confused matters because the setter’s name doesn’t appear in the Indy daily, and now seems unlikely to before I end my subscription.

  3. Definitely tough for me, pleased to have finished it although couldn’t parse a couple. Have no idea on PEERS.

    Where does the R in 13ac come from ?

    Thanks to both ….

  4. geebs ‘r’ is take as in recipe. A ‘trick’ quite often used to send you the wrong way.

    Jim the Great does it again, thanks Tyrus. And a well judged blog Simon. If Beelzebub has gone, we still have Tyrus don’t we?

  5. Ah, Geebs, the ‘R’ in 13a.
    I can help there because this was a new one on me until quite recently and you’ll like it. I did, anyway. The ‘R’ stands for the Latin word for ‘take’ = ‘recipe’, pronounced ‘rechipay’, and it’s nice because the reason they’re called ‘recipes’ is that in Latin (and everywhere else) they all start with the word “RECIPE” which simply means ‘take… ‘
    You know, “Take… half-a-dozen oysters, a pound of fillet steak, a few truffles…”
    All mine do. In my dreams anyway…

  6. A good workout today, but with several clues I couldn’t parse, or at any rate couldn’t parse completely tho’ I could see where some bits came from. Never come across SLEBS before – not in my (1998) Chambers, but I see it’s in the OED.

    At the risk of boring everybody, more about the R in 13ac: I can’t recall if they still do, but until recently prescription forms used to have the symbol ? printed on them meaning ‘recipe’. Not telling the patient what medicine to take but what ingredients the pharmacist should take to make up the medicine. A bit superfluous these days when everything’s prepacked.

    Thanks, Tyrus and Simon.

  7. That question mark should be an uppercase R with a bar across the tail: it came out OK when I clicked ‘preview comment’ so obviously got ‘lost in transit’

  10. Vastly entertaining, particularly SLEBS (never heard of but had to be), EMERITI, DENNIS THE MENACE, many more. In 27A, I had forgotten about the DG of the BBC being so referred to and parsed it as R in TUDGE, after finding there was a BBC chap by that name.

    In 19A I think “bridle” is part of the definition, otherwise it shouldn’t be there. Typo in 7D is F in DRAT.

    Thanks to Tyrus and Simon Harding.

  11. I really liked this. The long anagrams are brilliant. I had ROTTEN ROW but stupidly couldn’t see Dettori despite knowing I was after a rider with the construction *ettor*.

    Thanks for the blog and super puzzle.

  12. A late contribution. Never heard of SLEBS (but like it) and didn’t understand PEERS. BIFD a few including ROTTEN ROW which I would never have got from the wordplay. EPISODIC and DUSTS were my favourites. Thanks for the ‘R as recipe’ explanation and discussion – v. interesting (really).

    Enjoyable way to spend my Sunday evening. Thanks Tyrus and Simon.

  13. Is Tyres confirming the irritant is Piers? Don’t really see him as more irritating in the morning than any other time….

  14. A long shot, I know, but in view of the Piers/PEERS homophone I wonder whether morning/Morgen (the German equivalent)/Morgan might come into the reckoning…

  15. The irritant (purely personal opinion, of course) is indeed Piers Morgan. He now appears regularly on early morning television, hence the reference.

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