I haven’t blogged an Anax puzzle before – in fact I’m not sure that I’ve even seen one in the Independent. That said, the name is of course more than a little familiar to frequenters of this site.
Well, this was a wonderful crossword with some great clueing and an interesting theme. Progress was steady and satisfying, apart from the NW corner, which put up something of a fight and needed a second session to finish off.
*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, cd=cryptic definition, dd=double definition.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | NUDIST – NUT “admit” DIS. |
| 4 | MARZIPAN – (MA + RAN) “to swallow” ZIP. |
| 9 | COAXIAL – COAX + 1 + AL. |
| 11 | TONE ROW – (ON TOWER)*. I got this from the anagram, but was unfamiliar with the term, GCSE music classes being as distant as they are. |
| 12 | OVOID – 0 + VOID. This one took a lot of staring at before the penny dropped. |
| 13 | UNSELFISH – [co]UNSEL + FISH. |
| 14 | EXPRESSWAY – EXPRESS WAY. |
| 16 | KILN – L with KIN around. “Firing range” is a wonderful and misleading def. here. |
| 18 | ACNE – [hidd]EN CA[mera]<. |
| 19 | CURMUDGEON – ((C + URGE) “sandwiches” MUD) + ON. “Mud” as in someone’s name being mud. |
| 22 | UNADAPTED – U[nivers] + NADA + PT + [baskervill]E + [bol]D. A quite wonderfully-worked font-themed long charade. |
| 23 | OUGHT – [n]OUGHT. |
| 25 | FARRIER – FA + (IE in RRR). “Basic education” being the three Rs. |
| 26 | CANZONI – CAN + (IN OZ)<. |
| 27 | RAMPAGES – PAGE “breaking up” RAMS. |
| 28 | EDBERG – E + DB + ERG. |
| Down | |
| 1 | NICE ONE – NONE “conceals” ICE. |
| 2 | DRACO – (0 + CARD)<. |
| 3 | SKIN-DEEP – (SEE + P) “gripping” KIND. |
| 5 | ANTISPASMODIC – (DIPSOMANIACS + T)*. |
| 6 | ZANILY – (LAZY IN)*. |
| 7 | PARTITIVE – PRIVATE* “nurses” (T[reat] + 1). |
| 8 | NOW THEN – NOWT + HEN. |
| 10 | LOUIS QUATORZE – L + OUI + SQUAT + OR + ZE. Another quite splendid charade. |
| 15 | PENTAGRAM – PEN + TAG + RAM. |
| 17 | ADJOINED – A DJ + (ONE I’D)*. |
| 18 | AQUIFER – FEAR* “about” QUI[p]. |
| 20 | NOTHING – NOG with THIN “content”. |
| 21 | MANILA – (A NIL) in MA. |
| 24 | GLOVE – G + LOVE. “Kid on hand” is another wonderfully misleading definition. |
Hi Simon
Nothing to add to your great blog, except to say that I enjoyed this puzzle immensely. I admired all the clues you mention particularly and 13ac made me laugh. I got the theme earlier than I might have done at one time, before I learned to look up words that I thought I knew the meaning of. [I got it from 4ac – I didn’t know ‘zip’ meant nothing.]
Many thanks, Anax – I hope it won’t be too long before the next one.
Ah Eileen, you haven’t read as much American trash fiction as I have, hence your knowing zip about zip. (Sorry, I’m leaving now.)
Thanks to Anax.
I liked this one too, but was a bit disappointed anax couldn’t have tried to use “diddly-squat” somewhere in the wordplay…
A very nice puzzle, and certainly helped that I’d blogged Virgilius’ similar take on the same theme late last year:
http://fifteensquared.net/2008/12/09/independent-6911dac-placeholder/
Interestingly enough, SQAUT, which is one that Virgilius didn’t use, was my way into this puzzle.
Am enjoying Anax’s puzzles muchly. A great addition to the fold.
I was delighted to see Anax’s name again and the puzzle lived up to the high standard of his debut. A masterpiece of setting and an absolute joy to solve. Lots more please!
I agree with all the praise above, a theme exploited to the full.
A terrific puzzle. Very difficult, as the clues are seamless and require a lot of grey matter to solve. Although I got “nothing” quite quickly (actually I got nothing for quite a while!) I found that the thematic clues were still hard to crack. Liked 1d and 7d particularly. It took me a long time to realise how the definition for “curmudgeon” worked or why card = book.
The best thing about this puzzle is that despite being very hard, the clues were absolutely fair so it was a joy to keep at it, rather than a slog. Great stuff, well done.