I found that I rather coasted through this one, more quickly than I would through most of Phi’s offerings: why is it that when one has lots of blogging time on one’s hands that things seem to fall into place that bit more quickly than when time is limited?! Purely psychological, I would imagine.
I may not have parsed 16 correctly, since one of the words on which the wordplay relies – as I read it, at least – seems a tad obscure for a daily cryptic. My clues of the day are 8 and 9 for their surfaces and the cryptic definition at 21.
*(…) indicates an anagram
| Across | ||||
| 1 | CLIQUE | IQ (=intelligence measure) in CLUE (=what’s this, i.e. part of this crossword) | ||
| 5 | JEEVES | EVE (=woman) in JES<t> (=joke; “unfinished” means last letter is dropped); the reference is to Reginald Jeeves, valet to Bertie Wooster in the novels of P G Wodehouse | ||
| 9 | THAMES BARRIER | *(MARRIES BATHER); “at sea” is anagram indicator | ||
| 10 | GROTTO | GROTT<y> (=unpleasant; “mostly” means last letter is dropped) + O<xygen> (“minimum of” means first letter only is used) | ||
| 11 | OF COURSE | OF<f> COURSE (=going the wrong way; “one fellow (=F) leaving” means that one letter “f” is dropped) | ||
| 12 | CLOUSEAU | OU (=Oxford University, as in OUP) in *(AS CLUE); “unfortunately” is anagram indicator; the reference is to Inspector Clouseau, the bumbling detective in Blake Edwards’ The Pink Panther series, hence “I’m no match for Morse”, the highly accomplished detective in the novels by Colin Dexter | ||
| 14 | ONE-WAY | ON (=working) + E W (=bridge team, i.e. East and West) + A + Y (=year) | ||
| 15 | TWELVE | L (=fifty, in Roman numerals) in [T (=time) + WE’VE (=we have)]; the definition is “houses in a year”, referring to the twelve houses of the zodiac that together make up a year | ||
| 18 | EXPONENT | Double definition: an exponent is a “practitioner”, performer AND a symbol showing what power a quantity is raised to, in maths | ||
| 21 | CONFETTI | Cryptic definition, referring to the confetti (“paperwork”) left behind by a wedding party (“after signing of contract”) | ||
| 22 | DEBUNK | {[B (=British) + U (=University)] in DEN (=study)} + K (=potassium) | ||
| 24 | PRINCE CONSORT | [CE (=church) + CONS (=swindles) + OR (=gold)] in PRINT (=newspaper) | ||
| 25 | FRIGID | FR (=French) + I + GID (DIG=understand ; “turned” indicates reversal) | ||
| 26 | SLEEPY | LEE (=shelter) in SPY (=agent) | ||
| Down | ||||
| 2 | LITERAL | LITER (=liquid measure in American spelling) + AL<l> (=entirely; “almost” means last letter is dropped); a literal is a wrong letter in printed or typed material, a misprint, hence “mistake” | ||
| 3 | QUART | QUART<z> (=mineral; “most of” means last letter is dropped) | ||
| 4 | EYESORE | [YES (=certainly) + OR (=troops, i.e. other ranks)] in <gr>EE<ce> (“centre of” means middle letters only are used) | ||
| 5 | JERICHO | JE (=first person in Amiens, i.e. the French word for I) + RICH (=with money) + O (=old) | ||
| 6 | EPICUREAN | EPIC (=impressive) + [EA (=each) in URN (=vase)] | ||
| 7 | EURASIA | A (=area) + IS + A + RUE (=regret); “on reflection” indicates reversal | ||
| 8 | ABSOLUTE PITCH | A (=article) + *(PUBLISH OCTET); “in new arrangement” is anagram indicator | ||
| 13 | UPLIFTING | U (=university) + P (=positive) + LIFT (=elevator) + IN + <building>G (“finally” means last letter only is used) | ||
| 16 | WHOPPER | W (=Welsh) + HOPPER (=feed, as in a receiver, funnel or trough in which something is placed to be conveyed or fed) | ||
| 17 | ENTICED | *(I<n>DECENT); “a number (=N) getting stripped” means that a letter “n” is dropped; “dances” is anagram indicator | ||
| 19 | PEDANTS | ED (=edition) in PANTS (=shows enthusiasm) | ||
| 20 | NONSTOP | N (=number) in POTS ON (=keeps playing snooker); “coming up” indicates a vertical reversal | ||
| 23 | BOOZE | OOZ (ZOO=rowdy group; “up” indicates a vertical reversal) in B<ar> E<vidently> (“initially” means first letters only are used) | ||
Thanks, RatkojaRiku. I found this one fairly straightforward too, though enjoyable nonetheless. I solved it, but I wasn’t sure how LITERAL was a “mistake”, so thanks for clearing that one up.
Thanks, Phi and RatkojaRiku. I parsed 16 as you did, RR; I can’t see an alternative.
At last the Indy’s back on line, though I got a 404 message when I tried to get it from the website, so I was quite surprised when it came up via Crossword Solver.
And if I can be excused going off topic, can anyone explain 8d from yesterday’s cryptic in the i? The clue was: Sentry moves us around network of cells (6), leading to the answer DOSAGE. Totally beyond me, which is surprising as the puzzle was by Dac who may be challenging but hardly unfathomable.
It’s not exactly a literal Allan, but a cut-and-paste error and the i clue bears no relation to the answer. To reiterate, for those that haven’t read yesterday’s blog, the Indy online crossword is back but has a different url: http://www.independent.co.uk/extras/puzzles/crosswords/?crosswordType=cryptic
Hurrah! The puzzles are back and you can get them through Crossword Solver too. A good start to the weekend!
Thanks eimi @3. I think it was the first time this week that I did not try Crossword Solver. Looking at the blog above, I am sure that I would have really enjoyed this crossword.
Another Indy crossword, another pangram … it’ll be the days without a pangram which we’ll be commenting on next.
Very good stuff from Phi, which I much enjoyed (but not as much as I enjoyed seeing that the website is back up and running). The pangram helped me finish, since I was short of TWELVE and WHOPPER as my last two.
Good clueing and comprehensive blog. Thanks both.
Oh, and thanks to eimi for the new link – I missed that on yesterday’s blog.
Eimi @3
The new url doesn’t work for me. The page partially comes up but then (with ‘applet initialized’ showing at the bottom) it hangs with the hourglass for ever and I have to abort IE.
Anyone else getting this?
Conrad @8: could it be a browser problem? The new URL works for me (it was the old one that gave me the 404 problem), but I use Firefox, not IE. Or maybe a problem with JAVA.
Allan
It may very well be a browser problem, but I don’t have any other problems anywhere so it is hard to know what to do. I bet I’m not the only one in this fix though.
It works for me: Windows 7 with latest IE.
Thanks, Kathryn’s Dad, for spotting the pangram, which I missed once again.
Fairly straightforward one. I thought some sort of Oxford theme was coming as the Morse clue was swiftly followed by my getting Jericho and there being 2 other mentions of University in clues but it turned out to be a ‘poisson rouge’.
Did this whilst waiting for it to get dark after setting up friday’s display, quite a quick solve despite being rather tired, only noticed pangram post solve although the alarm bells were ringing when the rarer letters started to appear, but it wouldn’t have helped anyway.
Thanks Phil for the excuse to get out of the cold and RR for blogging it. Glad to see Indy site is up again.
Arrgh I’m Phil – I meant Phi!