A tour de force from Virgilius. Somehow he has managed to get some reference to a topic that continues to increase in importance into every clue, either in the answer or in the clue itself, sometimes more than once.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | CARBON (=duplicate) FOOTPRINT. This was particularly hard since I had 2D as ODORISE, thinking that somehow or = as, and the Oxford Dictionary of English. If that actually exists (OED, NODE, …?). |
| 9 | HOT AIR. I got this from the definition and numeration, but it helped with 15/19. |
| 10 | TROUSERS – user in sort rev. Lower gear is a nice definition. |
| 11/22A | WIND FARM – CD |
| 12 | If you break “heart”, i.e. HEARTBREAK, then you can get “earth”. I always think these clues are nice. |
| 13 | SO in (SOLAR E)*. Brilliant semi-&lit. |
| 15/19D | GLOBAL WARMING – (blog)* w in alarming. Easy enough in conjunction with 9/22, although I can’t quite see why “alarming” = “scare”. They seem the wrong parts of speech. |
| 16 | GALORE – Al Gore with G moved. Marvellous clue. |
| 18 | SPAR((WOR(ld))REV.)S |
| 20 | NO BEL(PR)IZE. I don’t quite understand “recent”. |
| 23 | K(yoto) I LOG RAM |
| 25 | RENEWABLE ENERGY – (green era be newly)*. I suppose one could carp and say that “new” appears in each without a different meaning, but otherwise a perfect &lit. |
| Down | |
| 2 | A TOM(IS)E. |
| 4 | NORTH POLE – (help or not)*. This took me a long time since I was fairly sure that 1A was double something. |
| 5 | OUT (= spent) L AYS ((say)*) |
| 6 | TROUT. I wasn’t sure about this, but I think it’s out (= extinct) with r (= river), then t (= temperature) rising above it all. |
| 8 | NIRVANA – van in (rain)* |
| 14 | O ZONE HOLE. This term, to my surprise, is in Chambers – I’d only ever heard about a hole in the ozone layer. |
| 15 | GRACE NOTE – C in (not eager)*. Seems a rather odd definition. |
| 17 | CO IN (AINT)* E |
| 21 | ARK in P(er) A(nnum). Reminds me of that old joke about per anum and paying through the nose. |
| 22 | oF ALS Examples |
15/19d – I think it’s “causing scare” for ALARMING.
Agreed, great puzzle.
Yes, thought this was brilliant. The theme made it fairly easy to guess a lot of the answers, though I found the bottom half a lot easier than the top.
16ac I liked – not the first time Al Gore’s been referenced as an environmental campaigner in crosswords lately, if I remember rightly. Sure it was in The Independent a while back…
I’d pencilled in ODORISE for 2D as well, and so got myself into a mess thinking that 1ac must be DOUBLE something… Explaining, really, my problems with the top half of the grid.
I still can’t get 7d, and have no idea where the ‘van’ in 8d comes from!
7d I’ve just got… The hazards of putting in SWALLOWS instead of SPARROWS for 18ac.
8d ‘van’ is ‘leaders’ i.e.in the van(guard).
Cheers!
This puzzle is now available online at the new Indy website
Woohoo! That’s fantastic news!
Just a couple of questions. Is it going to be updated daily? Is it going to continue to be one day behind the printed version? Is it going to have a byline?
At present the plan is for the crosswords to run one day behind, apart from prize puzzles which will be a week behind. I’m not sure about the byline situation yet.
Looks good. Like the Reveal Letter / Reveal Word buttons – is this part of a big push to attract novice solvers? I’d have liked to have seen the link to the crossword more prominent on the home page – ‘Extras’ wasn’t the first place I thought to look for the link. Perhaps ‘Games’ would have been better? But there again, I did find it quickly enough, so perhaps I’m just being picky?
That sounds fine (although I would be quite keen to know who I’m doing!). Publishing a day behind is a good compromise on the phoneline issue and the “reveal” option is helpful for beginners.
Congratulations on getting this up and running! I am definitely converting to be a regular Indy kid from now on (rather than flitting between FT, Indy, Guardian and Times).