Punk has clearly been very clever getting all those 13 24s in, but unfortunately I’m not the person to appreciate all his subtleties. Most of this seemed very good, but the odd one is a closed book. No doubt there are plenty of readers who will be very happy to explain things to me, like a child patiently showing a grandparent how to use the latest technology.
Another thing that made it particularly hard was all those cross-references: when you’re starting and can’t see what’s going on, the number of accessible clues is much diminished.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | GREASE — ref. Sandy in Grease |
| 4 | S(ABBA)TH — I think this is how it works, with sth a rather unusual point; ref. Black Sabbath, a heavy metal band, also of course Abba |
| 9 | MOTORHEAD — another heavy metal band in some way connected with Rush |
| 10/30 | JUDAS PRIEST — which is a heavy metal band, but the rest of it is beyond me. |
| 11/21 | LEAD SINGER — lead is a weight on a line when fishing, but I don’t quite get the way it’s put; ‘bass perhaps’ is singer (“base”); ref. |
| 12 | DEE{lam}P PURPLE — a heavy metal band |
| 14 | PULLED TO PIECES — Led [Zeppelin] in (people is cut)* |
| 18 | CONVERSATIONAL — (carnations love)* — I’m less than comfortable with the definition, which is presumably ‘it’s said’, and that doesn’t seem to me to equate to ‘conversational’ |
| 22 | IRON MAIDEN — well it’s this heavy metal band, but the wordplay??? |
| 27 | G HOST — host=present? — there is an obsolete sense ‘sacrificial victim’, but I doubt it’s this |
| 28 | ILL AT EASE — 1 late in (sale)* |
| 29 | RED FLAG — 2 defs — standard as in we’ll keep the red flag flying |
| Down | |
| 1 | GYMSLIPS — “Jim’s lips” — ref. Jim Morrison |
| 2 | EXTRA — 2 defs, ‘One’s part little’ referring to film extras, and ‘more’ |
| 3 | SORT — 2 defs |
| 4 | SODA POP — (pad o)rev. in sop |
| 5 | BIJOUTERIE — jo{b} in (Beirut)* ie |
| 6 | ADD UP — (pud DA)rev. |
| 7 | HOSIER — her around (1 so)rev. |
| 8 | DESERT — 2 defs |
| 13/24 | HEAVY METAL BAND — lead pronounced in two ways |
| 15 | LO 0 |
| 16 | EON — one with its bottom letter raised |
| 17 | grievinG LAD DESTined |
| 19 | {t}RAILING |
| 20 | A G(E)OLD — if English is gilt it’s in gold |
| 23 | O VOID |
| 25 | A MAZE — mazes are sometimes in gardens with hedges (but there are plenty of mazes that aren’t) |
| 26 | STAR — 2 defs |
Morning John, I’m glad I don’t do blogging.
22a is a reference (definition?) to this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_maiden_(torture)
27a Present in the sense of presenting a TV show I think.
I agree that not all mazes are hedged however I can’t think of any other puzzles apart from mazes that are hedged. Seemed like a good clue to me.
I think the Fish in 11/21 is this chap http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_(singer) as an example of a lead singer.
John,
I think 9ac. is “motor” = “rush”, the capital just giving an allusion to the band.
And 10/30 ASP (killer)+R(ight) inside DIE (stop) inside JUST (suitable – I know, not the best definition…).
Good puzzle, though, for those around my age, if not musical tastes…
Very tricky, but quite satisfying (not least because I both finished it and understood everything eventually).
It took me an age to figure out the wordplay for Judas Priest – I could see just, asp and r in it but struggled to put it all together. 1 across was the last one I got: one of those where I thought all along the answer must be Grease or Greece but didn’t put it in because I couldn’t see why. Only when I’d finished everything else did it dawn on me that Sandy might be the name of a character in the musical.
I thought I was in for a torrid time with this one on first look and often have problems with puzzles with multiple connected answers, but eventually got Deep Purple from the checking letters and worked back from there. Never been a grebo myself, but am familiar with all the bands, so once the theme was cracked, I polished it off pretty quickly (admittedly without stopping to check the wordplay in a lot of the band clues)
Overall, a hugely enjoyable puzzle, and classic Punk. The ‘lead’ connection with heavy metal is inspired, as is the tricksy use of ‘Fish’.
Not overly familiar with those bands, tho I heard heard of most of them without knowing they were HMBs but got there in the end. Some nice touches as always from Punk.
This was plain sailing for those of us brought up on NWOBHM bands. Loved the AMAZE clue.
What does NWOBHM mean…?
Was teenager at the start of heavy metal, but didn’t really like it, preferring stuff like Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Soft Machine etc. In my opinion, (based, admittedly, on limited knowledge- don’t think I have heard Judas Priest…) the only bands mentioned that were musically interesting were Led Zeppelin, the Doors (although I think it is a bit of a travesty to call the Doors a heavy metal band…) and, occasionally, Deep Purple (Concerto for Group and Orchestra is worth a listen with its Stravinsky-esque composition, but doesn’t really bear repeated listening).