When I saw who was the setter my fear was that I was going to have to bite my tongue and go along with some of Donk’s less Ximenean ways, but so far as I can see it is all very sound and the reader of this blog is not going to get any of the traditionalist grumbles that might have been expected.
And it isn’t simply very sound — it’s very good: there are some lovely clues here.
The grid, with its unchecked letters at the sides, suggests some form of Nina, but I can’t see one. However, in these matters I am remarkably unobservant and in any case by the end of writing up the blog I’m so relieved to have got it all done that I don’t usually look very hard. Perhaps someone who looks at the grid at leisure will see something.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 7 | SUPERSONIC — (US)rev. person i/c |
| 9 | A(VI)D — the commercial (ad) breaks into two pieces and into the gap goes the Latin for six |
| 10 | OLD AGE — (gad)* in olé — I’m not quite sure what the joke is: why is old age the time of one’s life? |
| 11 | DEBUGGER — a debugger is a program that sorts out your problems with Windoze — de{al} bugger |
| 12 | reDIC TA TESpu — hidden rev. |
| 14 | CASH IN — not absolutely sure here: swap chips = cash in (as in a casino); cash = greens [money, esp dollar bills (sl)], but I can’t see where the ‘in’ comes from [Swap chips for greens] |
| 15 | ARMPIT — an armpit is a (quite possibly) hairy spot and it’s pit [= mine] and arm [= outfit, verb] and the ‘popped’ is simply there for the (very good, albeit disgusting) surface but is justified by meaning ‘placed’ |
| 16 | IMP ART — impart = offer in the sense ‘provide’ |
| 19 | CHAINS — (Can his)*, with the anagram indicator ‘pants’ |
| 21 | ACID TEST — (cat’s diet)* |
| 23 | B(EG R)UDGE |
| 25 | G AOL ED — AOL, the internet provider |
| 27 | ADored sInger aVerages pAmpering |
| 28 | PER CUSS I(O)N |
| Down | |
| 1 | NUCLEI — (clue in)* |
| 2 | B{lok}E TA — a beta is, I suppose, a letter so far as a Greek person is concerned, so a letter to Greek — perhaps ‘in’ rather than ‘to’ makes for a better definition but arguably the surface is then less convincing |
| 3 | ASCERTAINS — (sanctuaries – u)* |
| 4 | SCAB — 2 defs |
| 5 | HA(GG I{ntestine})S — the inclusion is indicated by ‘parts’ as a verb: these things part ‘has’ |
| 6 | W IN E-LIST |
| 8 | NUDISM — (undies – e{veryone})* {freedo}m |
| 13 | TOM — Tom Cruise, to M — I’m never very comfortable with these clues where one preposition is equivalent to another which on the face of it is quite different, but it’s possible to think of sentences where they are interchangeable — in this case quite easily |
| 14 | COM(B)ING OUT |
| 15 | ATHLETIC — h in (cite LTA)rev. |
| 17 | As Close To — def ‘act’ — the wordplay also leads to ‘ask’, but not the definition |
| 18 | CAREER — 2 defs |
| 20 | INROAD — (on-air)* d |
| 22 | STEP ON — a common hotel rule is ‘no pets’, and there I was thinking that h = hotel and r = rule |
| 24 | DOPE — I couldn’t explain this, wondering what an e-pod was (pod = school), but it’s simply ‘do PE’ and dope is grass (‘perhaps’? Yes, strictly, to avoid the definition by example, but there are several other definitions in this crossword that aren’t similarly qualified) |
| 26 | {r}OAST |
I think you’ll find anagram couplets. Wonder if he tried to get BUGGERED through
All the across answers have a symmetrically placed anagram eg 7&29 9&27 etc a very nice touch without having horrendously obscure answers in the down clues, nicely done Donk, thanks for the blog John, don’t think there’s more to it.
I enjoyed this puzzle although I failed to solve 25a & 26d, and I was unable to parse 15d, 24d, 4d, 27a & 14d which I still don’t completely understand. Does the definition “shock treatment” = the combing out of dreadlocks?
I also failed to notice the anagram couplets, which I now think are very clever!
I liked 16a, 23a, 5d, 9a and my favourites were NUDISM, CASH IN, WINE LIST & STEP ON.
Thanks for the blog, John.
What a clever grid, not that I noticed, oh well.
I think CASH IN is a slightly cryptic definition of what you’d do if you were a winner in Vegas. There are a lot of very nice clues here.
Defeated by 11a and 5 and 6 Down. Laughed aloud at 8D.
The paired anagrams are fab. Maybe I’d have finished if I’d spotted this but, as I didn’t, I didn’t deserve to. Well done, Donk, and thanks for the blog too.
Very impressive grid, and done without obscure words, as Flashling says. A very nice puzzle from Donk, with some lovely clues. 24 down brought to mind the odd afternoon spent doing the defined answer when I was meant to be doing the wordplay I’m afraid.
I loved this. It’s been a very good crossword day. I’m not sure I agree with the “..some of Donk’s less Ximenean ways”: he seems perfectly fair to me.
I thought this was a cracking puzzle that I managed to finish without recourse to aids. I’m afraid the across matching anagrams completely passed me by, but now that I’ve seen what Donk did I am even more impressed. I remember seeing something similar in an old Guardian puzzle, possibly a Brendan, where the same device was used but the answers were more obviously related.
Help, I don’t understand 9a from the newspaper clue: Commercial breaks for sex that’s passionate. The ad is fine but where does the VI = sex come in? Must be being really dim. Everything else eventually unravelled, thanks John for the blog and Donk for the brain workout
Hi andy @9
VI is six in Roman numerals. In Latin, six is sex (as in unus, duo, tres, quattuor, quinque, sex, septem, octo, novem, decem)
I wouldn’t have got 9ac either if Tees hadn’t used the same deVIce in Tuesday’s puzzle.
Super puzzle.
Is there a more Xim setter than Donk…? If so I would like to meet them (as long as it’s not in a dark alley).
Cracking puzzle – stands to reason. Really clever grid and brilliant cluing. Thanks both!
@1o Gaufrid, thank you, really was being dim.
My apologies to Donk if I’ve suggested that he doesn’t always hold to the highest standards — I had a vague recollection of a previous puzzle that met with general approval but which I quietly found rather tiresomely unsound. But perhaps I’m wrong and it wasn’t Donk at all.
Certainly I had absolutley no problem with this one.
And the anagram pairs device — without using unusual or inadequately checked words — is brilliantly done. Pity I didn’t notice it at first.
Even absolutely.
Tiresomely unsound? Sounds like one of mine…
We came to the blog to try and uncover why 14d was CAMPING OUT! Now we know why it wasn’t! Thanks John.
Brilliant puzzle with the matching anagrams which we also completely missed until we came here. But that’s what makes a good crossword even better, when nothing feels forced. We really liked 18d for its simplicity.
Thanks Donk – this was a cracker!
Evening all,
First things first, many thanks to the blogger for the thorough review and to everyone who has taken the time to comment, it really is appreciated and I do take all your comments on board. I will say that I’m slightly embarrassed the blog’s been introduced as it has – I certainly do aim to be grammatically fair and I was a bit gutted to read that I’ve been labelled as less Ximenean, especially in the intro blurb on the front page.
That said, I’m delighted solvers enjoyed the puzzle – it took me an absolute age to get the grid sorted so that there were no horribly obscure answers!
As always, best regards and I hope to see many of you at the next crossword event,
Donk
Andy B @8 saw a thing like this before and thought of Brendan.
No, it was an FT puzzle by who else than Cinephile, a year or so ago.
But if this was Donk’s own idea, full marks.
Today was a day with favourite setters (Arachne, Redshank, Donk) all of them being in a friendly mood.
This crossword was good (yes, it was) but apart from the anagram thing (which is indeed very special) the cluing as such was nowhere near Donk’s previous offerings.
That said, it doesn’t have to be an absolute corker all the time.
Re sex, though I like it and though I know a bit about Latin, where does the clue tell me VI = sex (Latin)? And what about ‘for’?
Please, Rorschach @17, don’t!
Donk, stonker
Nuff said