I think we welcome another new setter to the IoS this week, though I do recall one or two Inquisitors set by eXternal quite recently.
This was a good puzzle, which required a certain amount of detective work to tease out the wordplay, but which was ultimately quite tractable. An enjoyable Sunday puzzle, so many thanks to eXternal!
*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, cd=cryptic definition, dd=double definition.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | STRAIGHTFORWARD – STRAIGHT + FOR WARD. |
| 9 | COMEDIC – CO + MEDIC. |
| 10 | REVAMPS – REV + A MP’S. |
| 11 | NANNA – (A in NNN) + A. I think the “news, triplets” signifies three Ns, at least. |
| 12 | SATELLITE – (A + William TELL) in SITE. |
| 13 | ITCHINESS – CHINES[e] in IT’S. |
| 15 | SLEEP – PEEL[er]S<. |
| 16 | CRACK – C + RACK. |
| 18 | INELASTIC – [illi]CIT SALE NI[cking]<. |
| 20 | MILK SHAKE – MILKS + HAKE. |
| 23 | THIEF – (F + EI[g]HT)<. |
| 24 | AIRFARE – AIR + FARE. |
| 25 | GLOTTAL – from GLOBAL, but with TT (famous motorcycle race) instead of B. |
| 26 | DAYLIGHT ROBBERY – (BODY BRIGHT + EARLY)*. |
| Down | |
| 1 | SECOND-IN-COMMAND – nice reverse cryptic. RESIGN could be clued as S in REIGN. |
| 2 | ROMANIC – OR< + MANIC. |
| 3 | INDIAN INK – IN + KANDIN[sky]*. I thought “unheavenly” was a nice way to clue “remove the SKY”. |
| 4 | HACKS – HACKS[aw]. Echoes of “four candles” here. |
| 5 | FORETASTE – (OF A SETTER)*. |
| 6 | REVEL – EVE in R.L. |
| 7 | ARMOIRE – O in (ARM + IRE). |
| 8 | DISRESPECTFULLY – (CYPRUS LED ITSELF)*. Potentially topical! |
| 14 | ELIZABETH – [b]ELIZ[e] + ABET + H. |
| 15 | SMART BOMB – SMART + BOMB. |
| 17 | ALLERGY – from GALLERY, with its leading G lowered. |
| 19 | THISTLE – HIST[oric] in LET*. |
| 21 | SWAMI – SW + AMI. |
| 22 | EIGER – E[lk] + [t]IGER. |
I enjoyed this puzzle by eXternal. I especially liked 3d, 4d, 12a, 14d, 15a, 20a and my favourites were ITCHINESS and ALLERGY (last in).
I was pleased that I could parse all of my answers, although I now realise I had not parsed 1d.
Thanks for the blog, Simon.
Lots to like with a bit of head scratching here and there, especially GLOTTAL as my last in where I got hung up on GEO. My favourite was 24a for the biggest groan when the penny (plus extra charges for luggage, use of toilet, a seat etc etc etc) dropped.
Thanks Simon and eXternal
I took a little while to get on the setter’s wavelength but once I did it all fell into place. A very enjoyable puzzle with some nice misdirections and tight cluing. I knew GLOTTAL from the linguistic ‘glottal stop’.
Welcome to the fold eXternal. Great puzzle. Looking forwards to seeing more in the future!
This took some getting into, but was eventually solvable. Possibly helped by the knowledge (gleaned at the Manchester S&B) that eXternal is a protegé of Anax.
So thanks to setter and blogger.
Thanks for the great review, Simon, and to all commenters. Glad you enjoyed the puzzle.
Welcome to the Indy!
Quite a lot of head scratching from us too. We look forward to more of your puzzles.
Thanks Simon!
Saturday a week ago at the Manchester S&B, Big Dave wholeheartedly promoted this puzzle written by a setter who is new to me.
I can only say, if this is the average level of eXternal’s crosswords we’re in for some treats in the near future (I hope).
This was a really splendid debut (if it was a debut).
Very tight economical clueing, no padding, all very clean.
Perhaps, it’s = that’s (13ac) is one step too far for me but apart from that a lot of clues worth ticking: 15ac, 5d, 14d (!) and 17d were some of the very best.
I enjoyed this enormously and look forward to more of this setter.