Guardian 24,491 – Auster

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The setter’s name doesn’t ring a bell, but I enjoyed the style.

Luckily I got 5D first and was fairly confident I could get most of the linked clues but was stuck for a while on 13A and had never heard of 9A or 22D.

* = anagram
() = insertion
“” = homophone
dd = double definition

Across

1. KISMET. K + IS + MET
5. ROAD RACE. ROAD RAGE with G swapped for C.  I’m not very happy with ‘note exchange’ as there are so many possibilities, and also wrote in ROAD RAGE as the answer initially.
9. ZINOVIEV. Z + I + NOV. (I.E.) V . Gregory Yevseevich (1883-1936), Soviet.
10. CASTRO. Fidel (b. 1926), Cuban.
11. ENVELOPMENTS. POSTMENEVEN*
13. BIKO. “BEAK” + O. Stephen Bantu (1946-1977), South African.
14. TINTACKS. TINT + CASK*
17. PLUG INTO. P(LUG)INTO.  A pinto is a piebald horse.
18. MARX. “MARKS”.  Karl Heinrich (1818-1883), German.
20. WHALE OF A TIME. WHEATMEALIFO*. ‘Substituted’ seems a bad choice of word.
23. AGENDA. AGE + DAN*.
24. IGLESIAS. G.I. rev + LASSIE*.  I wonder if the setter means Julio or Enrique?
25. SPINNERS. dd

Down

2. IRIS. I + SIR rev.  I think I learnt that ‘flag’ was a type of plant from a previous Guardian puzzle.
3. MAO ZEDONG. MA(O)ZE + DONG. (1893-1976), Chinese. The only revolutionary to get his full name in the grid (unless 6D counts!).
4. THIEVE. HIT* + EVE
5. REVOLUTIONARIES. REVOLUTION + ARIES.
6. AL CAPONE. AL(CAP ON)E
7. ROSIE. ROS(I)É
8. CARETAKERS. CA(RETAKE)RS.
12. FILL THE GAP. PIGLETHALF*.
15. AIMLESSLY. YESMAILSL*.
16. INNOVATE. IN + NOV + AT + E.
19. TITLED. TIT+LED.
21. LENIN. NILE*+N. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924), Russian.
22. CADE. C(A.D.)E. Jack, leader of the Kent Rebellion in 1450.

11 comments on “Guardian 24,491 – Auster”

  4. I thought 5dn was rather a weak clue, especially as it was the key to the theme.

    I hadn’t heard of Jack Cade till recently, but I think he’s appeared in a least a couple of puzzles in the last few months.

  5. I agree, Andrew. i always get a sinking feeling when I see a preamble but 5dn was such an easy clue that there wasn’t much of a challenge.

    I did know Jack Cade [in a manner of speaking] but I’d never heard of Zinoviev.

    I didn’t like ‘substituted’ in 20ac at all. ‘Nothing’ wasn’t substituted, it was added, which would have made perfect sense in the clue.

  6. “Substituted” is an anagrind for all the fodder, not an instruction to replace something with “O”.

    WHEATMEAL IF O*

    In this case “substitute” meaning the replacing of one construction with another.

  7. I worked out Cade and Zinoviev from the wordplay without having heard of either. Didn’t get 13ac – guessed at Tito!

    Is it just me or does 25ac barely qualify as cryptic?

  8. Smutchin – 25ac is a double definition, ‘some of Warne’s deliveries’ and ‘tops’ (as in spinning tops) giving two different sorts of ‘spinner’. I thought that was fair enough. My only real quibble is with the preamble: it’s the answers to the asterisked clues that are revolutionaries, not the clues themselves.

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