Independent 6706 by Tees

by

*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed

The nuclear accident theme of some of the clues helping me to get off to a flying start on this, but then I started to struggle, with my lack of general knowledge letting me down on things like Oresteia and Malaprop.

Across
9 Uraninite: Unite around ran + i.
10 Hunch: Not completely sure about this but I’m assuming it’s hunch[back].
11 Leacock: I think this is Le + a + cock. Tees’s habit of using specific people to clue general things threw me again on this one, as I assumed “Voltaire’s the first” must be a V rather than just the French word for “the”.
12 Torture: I assume this is just a soundalike of “teacher”, although it’s stretching homophony a bit too far for me.
13 Acre: Are around c.
14 Metabolism: (mobile mast)*.
16 Applies: Apples around i.
17 Payroll: Poll around Ayr.
19 Cloudburst: (Tudors club)*.
22 Semi: Cryptic def.
24 Deficit: Deft around ICI.
25 Cryptal: C + (partly)*. Good deception in the use of partly as the anagram word.
26 Nasal: Hidden.
27,4 Radiation Sickness: I assume this is an &lit + anagram, but can’t quite work out what the anagram is. On the face of it, it looks like “Risk associated + [ur]ani[um]”, but there aren’t 2 Ns, so it doesn’t quite work.
 
Down
1 Nuclear Accident: (certain a clue CND)* + & lit.
2 Malaprop: (or pal)< in map.
3 Nixon: Nix on.
5 Bertha: berth A.
6 Chernobyl: Cheryl around nob.
7 Annuli: Another one I’m not entirely sure about. I think it’s Ann + Uli.
8 Three Mile Island: (I shall determine)*.
15 Windscale: Wind + scale.
17 Postcode: Post + cod + e. Zip (code) is the US equivalent of a postcode.
18 Oresteia: (easier to)*.
20 Offish: Of fish.
21 Upturn: Up + turn.
23 Dylan (Thomas): Seems to be hidden in “bloody language”, but I’m not clear how that is being indicated by the clue.

7 comments on “Independent 6706 by Tees”

  1. I think 27A is “Risk associated +[ura]n[ium] + in”*

    12A I thought might be a homophone of “taught your”, but this doesn’t quiet work either.

  2. I enjoyed this, esp good phrasing in 11A, 24A.
    12A is a slightly outrageous homophone for ‘taught you’ – as in “‘e tortcher everyfing you know”. It works for me anyway.
    23D: I think that “the opposite” tells us that it’s ‘bloody language’s poet’, i.e. Dylan concealed. But is this Dylan Thomas clued by his first name, or Bob Dylan?

  3. I enjoyed this puzzle immensely, especially the exemplary &lit for ‘radiation sickness’. Ray, I agree your parsing.

    The ‘hunch’ I think refers to Richard III, who is thought to have suffered from a physical deformity in literature only, hence the Shakespeare reference?

  5. Ta very much.

    Comments clear up the misapprehensions in the blog, so I needn’t go there except to say that the anagrind in the ‘sickness’ &lit is nounal. The preceeding IN is part of the fodder, and designed to be missed.

    I confirm the ‘Anglo-German couple’ is ANN and ULI (short for Ullrich), plus: Voltaire’s (or anyone French’s) the = LE, ‘first letter’ = A.

  6. Sorry to be a pain Tees; I get the Richard “Sent into this world scarce half made up…” stuff, and how “Torture” can sound like “Taught you” (I come from Yorkshire), but I just cant get the “Bloody Language” part of the Dylan clue. Please…?

  7. Hello Dunce – it’s abundantly clear you’re not one, and thanks for your question.

    ‘The opposite’ is a variant of the long-standing ‘on the contrary’ ploy compilers use to switch round elements in a clue to accommodate surface opportunities.

    In this example, ‘the opposite’ of ‘poet’s bloody language’ is ‘bloody language’s poet’: that word order doesn’t make particularly good sense per se, but does indicate the hidden word.

    (We had the debate about whether or not the possessive – that apostrophised S – is sufficient to indicate hiddens recently. As a child of Guardian rather than Times indication, I’ve always been okay with it.)

    Cheers.

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