So now we know why Phi was ousted from his usual Friday slot. Today sees the release of the much-advertised new Batman movie, The Dark Knight, and the completed grid here has a number of references to title, cast, etc. Lead actors Christian Bale and the late Heath Ledger have names which can be nicely dealt with across multiple clues. (Gary) Oldman gets a nod too, but Maggie Gyllenhaal and Aaron Eckhart understandably don’t get a look-in!
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | DARK – D,ARK – Not one for the strict Ximeneans out there, with “3,500” mixing part of the wordplay and the definition (which is in itself referring to another answer), but I think that this was nicely misleading | |
| 3 | BRUNETTE – RUN in BETTE – “It’s not fair” is a nice definition | |
| 9 | CARTLOAD – Hidden reversal in useD AOL TRACking | |
| 11 | HEATH – E in HATH | |
| 12 | LEDGER – L,EDGE,R | |
| 14 | VALE – V,ALE – “cryptically tee-total” presumably being “versus ale”. Possibly also a reference to Kim Basinger’s character in the Tim Burton Batman movie | |
| 16 | CHRISTIAN – (HIS TIN CAR)* – “One believes” and “boy” do double duty as the definition here | |
| 20 | BALE – HIdden in herBAL Esssence | |
| 21 | BATMAN – ATM in BAN – Our theme! | |
| 22/25 | BRUCE LEE – (CRUEL)* in BEE – BRUCE is of course 21’s real first name | |
| 24 | OLD MAN | |
| 25 | LADYSHIP – (DISHY LAP)* | |
| Down | ||
| 1 | DEATHWATCH – DEATH,WATCH | |
| 2 | RAT RACE – RA,TRACE | |
| 5 | NAKEDER – (RED KEN A)* | |
| 6 | TRICEPS – TRICE,P.S | |
| 8 | GOTHAM – GOTH (one who wears black!),AM – The fictional home to our themed hero | |
| 13 | PSALTERIES – (LET’S PRAISE)* | |
| 19 | NOBODY – NO,BODY – A cipher is also a non-entity or thing of little value | |
| 20 | BRUISER – I in BR USER (an old train traveller!) | |
| 23 | ALOE – Alternate letters in fAlLs OvEr | |
1a was very sneaky. Good puzzle though. I’d almost filled the grid before spotting the theme and it didn’t occur to me that VALE and OLDMAN might be part of it.
I think, as one who’d favour the Ximenean approach, I could live with 1 taking the , in 3,500 as a misleading break. Though knowing very little about the movie, I solved the puzzle in the end. When I saw Math was in today, I thought ‘film’.
It looks to me that there is a spelling mistake in 15ac: surely it should be ‘envelops’? I can’t find any support for the longer version in either Chambers or the COD.
Is 1ac really so un-Ximenean? It seems perfectly OK to me: the definition (‘3’) is separated from the rest by a mere comma. The Azed crossword of July 6th seems to contain a clue that is far closer to the edge (although it also seems fine to me): ‘Page 3 of 25 …’ as wordplay for PREP, where 25 is REPECHAGE.