Independent 8546 / Anax

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Well, we were ready for a Thursday toughie, and then we found it was an Anax today – always a good challenge!

1 across had us really worried – not a good start! However, as we worked our way through, we found some of the solutions very straightforward (for Anax!) so we were able to sort out most of the crossing letters to the more difficult clues. There were several head-scratching moments, and several electronic checks to clarify parsing, but all-in-all a good, fair puzzle with some inventive clueing, as we have come to expect from Anax.

We only came up with the parsing of 1ac after completing the rest of the puzzle and realising that there could only be one logical answer – we’re still not convinced by the parsing however – any more thoughts out there?

Across
1   Shoot art imitator in European capital
BUDAPEST A real puzzler to start with! We think this must be: BUD (shoot) + APEST – possibly a made-up word (?) for the old-English present tense of the verb to APE (imitate) – if thou ‘art’ an imitator, thou ‘apest’ (past tense – ‘thou hast imitated!)??? …..maybe not?
5   My band stays
CORSET COR (my!) + SET (band, as in a group of musicians, such as The Alan Price Set from many moons ago!)
10   Two horses crossing motorway to find traditional home?
DUNROAMIN DUN and ROAN (two horses) round or ‘crossing’ M1 (motorway)
11   Blood is full of good stuff
GORGE GORE (blood) round or ‘full of’ G (good)
12   Floor show has male ending in nude  Thanks Anax!
STAGE Amazingly, we struggled over this one for a while, thinking it was an overcomplicated (and not very good!) clue for SHAME before realising it was very straightforward – STAG (male) + E (last letter or ‘ending’ of nude)
13   Spooner’s best name for chaffinch
WHEAT BIRD A Spoonerism of BEAT (best) WORD (name)
14   US TV programme canned when host got hit
THE TONIGHT SHOW An anagram of WHEN HOST GOT HIT – anagrind is ‘canned’
16   Awfully inept, losing her dog
ENGLISH POINTER An anagram of INEPT LOSING HER – anagrind is ‘awfully’
20   Be sensible before filling in age
SEE REASON ERE (before) ‘filling in’ SEASON (age)
21   Distinct circle around houses
CLEAR Hidden or ‘housed’ in cirCLE ARound
22   Hearts footballers will swallow a single port
HAIFA H (hearts) FA (footballers – Football Association) round or ‘swallowing’ A I (a single)
23   Gloomy yet exciting sort of origin?
ETYMOLOGY An anagram of GLOOMY YET – anagrind is ‘exciting’
25   Feeling a brainwave? Not a chance
BETIDE BET (feeling, as in a guess) + IDEa (brainwave) without ‘a’
26   Bunker is a mountain around second tee
ABSENTEE A BEN (mountain) around S (second) + TEE – unusual for Anax to give us part of the solution directly in the clue!!
Down
1   Tough US lawyer – deep pockets
BADASS DA (lawyer) in or ‘pocketed by’ BASS (deep)
2   Who treats the tiny danglies?
DENTAL HYGIENIST Cryptic definition – An anagram of THE TINY DANGLIES (anagrind is ‘treats’) – though whether one can describe teeth as ‘tiny danglies’ is a bit dubious – Bert had an impacted wisdom tooth removed last week – it certainly didn’t feel tiny or dangly!!
3   Assert, being a nuisance, that hot air expands
PROTEST PEST (nuisance) round, or ‘expanded by’ ROT (hot air)
4   100 subtracted from the lowest total
SUM ScUM (the lowest) with ‘c’ (century) removed or ‘subtracted’
6   Thug – not criminal – should not
OUGHTN’T An anagram of THUG NOT – anagrind is ‘criminal’
7   Fat nurses agreed thin bum correct?
STRAIGHTENED OUT STOUT (fat) around or ‘nursing’ an anagram of AGREED THIN – anagrind is ‘bum’
8   Root with opening can get bound
TIED DOWN EDDO (root) W (with) in or ‘opening’ TIN (can)
9   Crack or new drug, closer to heroin, not fully developed
UNDERGROWN An anagram of OR NEW DRUG (anagrind is ‘crack’) + N – last letter or ‘closer’ to heroin
13   Before small domestic row, lifts rifle
WINCHESTER TER (terrace – ‘small domestic row’) after WINCHES (lifts)
15   Wife of author married relative, without a husband
MEMSAHIB ME (author) + M (married) + SIB (relative) around, or ‘without’ A H (a husband)
17   One antelope circling river country
IRELAND I (one) ELAND (antelope) round, or ‘circling’ R (river)
18   Nothing buries rocks like it!
NICE ONE NONE (nothing) round, or ‘burying’ ICE (rocks, as in diamonds)
19   Mole’s genitals, say
GROYNE Homonym of (‘say’) GROIN (genitals)
24   Tough love cuts through upset
YOB O (love) in, or ‘cutting’ BY (through) reversed or ‘upset’

 

20 comments on “Independent 8546 / Anax”

  1. Thanks, B and J.

    I’m sure you’re right about 1ac. [There’s a similar clue in today’s Guardian puzzle.] I [half] remember the same device in a lovely Araucaria clue for TEA CHEST.

    Many thanks, Anax – I really enjoyed it.

  2. That was how I read 1ac as well. Another tough but fair Anax puzzle, and I made one mistake that I only corrected after I didn’t get the congratulatory message after I entered what I thought was my LOI, BETIDE, after I finally got MEMSAHIB. My error was 12ac where I had entered “shame” with “floor” as the definition, parsed as SHA=has* with show as the anagrind, plus M (male) plus E (ending in nude). My excuse is my brain was fried by then, and it didn’t take me long to think of the correct answer when I revisited it.

  3. An Anax I actually finished! – albeit needing a couple of visits with cogitation time in between. Thanks to him and B&J

  4. Hi Andy B – we had exactly the same parsing for SHAME until we realised the error of our ways!

  5. Greetings everyone, and thanks to B&J for a typically super blog.
    Hadn’t noticed SHAME as a possible reading for 12 – it’s actually not far from working. The def is a little sneaky (Floor show has) but don’t worry; it fooled Eimi as well.

  8. Thanks B&J and Anax. Quite a struggle, but a good one. I was so pleased to see STAGE, making some kind of sense of the wordplay, that I didn’t see PeeDee’s problem@7 Would it be a dd? Floor=stage, show has – stage …?

  9. It’s just casual English Mike/Peedee – you have to mentally insert ‘which’ as in ‘Floor (which) show has’.

  11. Well, another notch on the bedpost with Anax (figuratively, of course). Managed this one without understanding all the parsing, so thanks to the bloggers for that. But I’m pleased that I’m managing this setter more often than not these days (says he, waiting for the next humiliation) because the clueing is indeed often inventive. I liked in particular DUNROAMIN and SEE REASON.

    Bravo, Anax. (I won’t big him up too much ‘cos his team had a spawny 3-1 victory over mine last weekend.)

  12. Marvellous as usual with Anax, 12a alternative never occurred to me. Perhaps a bit overboard on the longish anagrams. Thanks B&J fab blogging.

  13. Another one with SHAME here for 12ac, and there’s a bug in the paper version of the puzzle in that you don’t get a congratulatory message when you complete it, so I hadn’t realised it was wrong. In the end, too much of a slog to be really enjoyable, needing several e-searches to get anywhere near finished.

  14. @Dormouse bug in the paper version 🙂 love it. Although I do dead tree I can’t see a way to fix this one. Ideas anyone?

  15. I should stick to crosswords earlier in the week – too much for me! Why is Dunroamin a traditional home? Can’t see much about the term on the internet…

  16. It’s a bit of a tongue-in-cheek clue, Gareth. People who have retired are DONE ROAMING, so DUNROAMIN is a play on words with that, because they’ve settled down and won’t move any further. It’s naff, but you do see it as a house name sometimes, presumably as a reputedly Scottish derivation.

  17. Gareth @15 – Dunroamin is traditionally used as a house name by people who have moved into the last house they are ever going to live in because they have ‘done roaming’. Apparently there are now houses called duntawkin and dunstruglyn and even kantafordyt.

  18. Sorry, very much a Johnny-come-lately today. I see that Anax has contributed to the blog and hasn’t made a comment about 1a, but I initially wondered if there was a typo, with ‘imitator’ being substituted for ‘irritator’. The latter would work – BUD + A(art (maybe!))+ PEST (irritator). My ageing eyes occasionally do muddle an ‘rr’ with an ‘m’ – my excuse anyway.

    Thanks to B&J and Anax.

  20. Thanks Kathryn’s Dad and Cryptic Sue, I hadn’t the foggiest! Even though I didn’t get many it was fun to see later how they were put together

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