As is always the case with Donk a wonderfully imaginative crossword. One often struggles to understand how a clue works (in some cases here I’m afraid without complete resolution) and then says “My goodness, I’d never have thought of clueing the word that way”.
Back to the old format this time because of computer glitches (or possibly incompetence on my part) but at least I’ve given the clues and you should be able to cope. And you may very well see what I’ve failed to see — some theme.
Definitions underlined.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Fleeced one’s cleaner, shipped out east as investment (5,3): SHEEP DIP: A sheep is fleeced, so its cleaner is a sheep dip — (shipped)* around E |
| 6 | Finish off my wine that’s knocked (6): JEERED: ‘My’ is I think ‘Jeez’, so it’s Jee{z} red [= wine] |
| 9 | Crack shot (4): SNAP: 2 defs — this seems familiar and I suspect the same clue has been used in the past — shot = photo = snap |
| 10 | Wind turbine’s beginning clean fuel shifts (10): FLATULENCE: (t{urbine} clean fuel)* |
| 11 | Plan tax on cycling lights (11): ORCHESTRATE: rate [= tax] after torches with the t moved to the end — excellent clue with not a carthorse in sight |
| 14 | Bristol smells, one recalled (4): BOOB: b.o. repeated, the second one reversed — rhyming slang: Bristol City |
| 15 | Added support to one helping queen down (6,2): BEEFED UP: bee [one helping the queen bee] fed up [= down] |
| 18 | One edits record at ground (8): REDACTOR: (record at)* |
| 19 | Choice of boundaries for scout group (4): SORT: an idea that you often find in Azed, and a clue that — dare I say it — is as good: the boundaries of ‘scout’ are s and t, so it’s s or t |
| 21 | Housework occupies him, sexual superhero? (11): CONGRESSMAN: 2 defs — the Senate and The House of representatives are the two parts of the United States Congress, so perhaps this clue would have been more accurate with ‘may occupy’ instead of ‘occupies’ |
| 24 | Arguments as hikers miss turning (10): SKIRMISHES: (hikers miss)* |
| 26 | Cheat’s admission that’s symbolic (4): ICON: A cheat might say “I con” |
| 27 | In geography, phenomenal A-Level mark? (6): HYPHEN: Hidden in geograpHY PHENomenal: a hyphen occurs in the word ‘A-level’ — I’m not sure what the question mark is doing, since there’s no doubt about the fact that there’s a hyphen in ‘A-level’ |
| 28 | Torquay employer’s last to sack legendary killer (8): BASILISK: Basil is the Torquay employer [Basil Fawlty of Fawlty Towers, set in Torquay] is {sac}k |
| Down | |
| 2 | Better half of two hours on top (4): HONE: If you hone something you polish it, better it — h one [one is half of two] |
| 3 | Plant thing about Brussels protecting right (9): EUPHORBIA: An ‘EU phobia’ might be held to be a thing about Brussels: this with r inside |
| 4 | Spoil veggie cafe, dire hosts after turnover? (6): DEFACE: Hidden rev. in veggiE CAFE Dire |
| 5 | Some speak, repeatedly, and appeal for kids’ ammunition (3): PEA: Three times hidden, in sPEAk, rePEAtedly, and apPEAl — a pea for a pea shooter |
| 6 | Shot character hosting BBC shows with more animation (8): JAUNTIER: Auntie [= BBC] in JR, the character J.R. Ewing in ‘Dallas’ [“Who shot JR?”, very memorable (1980) for those of a certain age] |
| 7 | Worried men, each hides behind clearing (5): ENEMA: ea [=each] surrounds [= hides] (men)* — an enema is a ‘behind clearing’, a clearing of the intestinal tubes |
| 8 | Fund departments broadcasting Deep Blue/Kasparov? (10): EXCHEQUERS: I think this is “ex-checkers”, those who play chess being regarded as checkers (nothing to do with the game of draughts I think) — in the 1990s Kasparov, the then world champion, played a much-publicized match against a computer called Deep Blue, which Deep Blue won, causing Kasparov to accuse its programmers of cheating, but nothing could be proved because its programmers promptly dismantled the whole thing — but the link to the clue itself seems a bit tenuous and I suspect I’m missing something |
| 12 | Gets on with setter in lift – how happy setter responds? (7) : EMBARKS: ‘with’ is a link-word — (me)rev. barks — which is what the happy dog would do |
| 13 | Two openers keep partnership going after half-hour dance (5,5): HOKEY-COKEY: ho{ur} key (co) key |
| 16 | Basic tea, less in brews (9): ESSENTIAL: (tea less in)* |
| 17 | Grand opening leads to Sky split (4,4): STAR SIGN: I’m not quite sure how the definition works here, assuming that I’ve got the wordplay right: it seems to be stars i{g}n, where g [= grand] is opening stars in [= leads] and to is a link-word — a star sign is a sign of the zodiac which perhaps splits the sky into twelve groups |
| 20 | Charms, while shepherds think (6): AMUSES: a(muse)s — ‘as’ shepherds [= surrounds] muse |
| 22 | Big characters from Brighton made their way to London? (5): (Brighton – big)* — ‘made’ is I think the anagram indicator |
| 23 | Throw to ship (4): TOSS: to SS |
| 25 | Tramp’s bottom wiped – it might emit gas? (3): HOB: Hob{o} |
There seems to be a rude message in there, or maybe it’s just me …
Can’t figure out 17 d.
I thought this was great fun, and thanks for your blog too.
Goodness me, I found that hard! I got on well with the lower half and then ground to a halt. Only grit and determination not to be beaten made me carry on (and nothing better to do ). Finally ground out the top half. Favourite was 12d.
Thanks, John, for a great blog. I couldn’t see how 17dn worked but I think you’ve got it.
i had a lot of fun with this – ticks all over the place. Super surfaces, as always. SKIRMISHES, particularly, made me smile, as I’ve been in that situation more than once. Other favourites: FLATULENCE, SORT, HYPHEN, BASILISK, JAUNTIER and NORTH.
Lots of lovely little touches, too – ‘fleeced one’s cleaner’, the fed up bee, ‘behind clearing’. Great stuff!
Huge thanks, as ever, to Donk.
Excellent puzzle, and basically what Eileen said. STAR SIGN was my LOI unparsed after I finally got CONGRESSMAN (which also led me to NORTH)
Slightly off message with regard to 7 down, but it amuses me so I hope nobody minds.
Years ago the New Statesman ran a competition where the idea was to alter a famous quotation by just a single letter, and thereby utterly transform its meaning.
My favourite was taking the quote from the Parable of the Weeds (Matthew 13:28 ) and had the landowner surveying the tares among his good crops and saying: An enema hath done this.
@Endwether yep there most certainly does appear such a message, Donk has form as they say.
Cracking puzzle as was expected when I saw Donk’s name in the paper, love misdirection and misleading defs.
Thanks John, not an easy blog to do today.
Thank you, John.
It’s Thursday, it’s hard. Pleased to finish this one, because it was at the outer edges of my competence and time constraints.
Farts, bums, enemas (and a tit thrown in for good measure) … I can see KIS ARSE across the middle unches, but beyond that, don’t ask me.
This setter is good, but hard. Thanks to him too.
Thanks Donk & John.
One of my infrequent visits to the Indy. Lovely puzzle with lots to admire. I loved the interlinked ENEMA and FLATULENCE – hope they didn’t occur at the same time. 😉
Leads=stars in was something I would never have thought of.
🙂 @Conrad very nice.
“It’s Thursday, it’s hard” (K’s D @7).
Well, I think it could have been much harder.
Unlike others (just like last Tuesday [Monk]), I found this crossword really accessible with enough easy clues to start with (all the short ones, 18ac, 4d, 24ac, 16d, to name quite a few).
Where Donk, indeed, scores is in nicely misdirecting definitions and inventive clueing of old warhorses (or should I say carthorses?).
Very clean all the way through.
I am actually not a great fan of crude imagery (anymore), therefore 25d is not my cup of tea, nor do solutions like ENEMA or FLATULENCE brighten up my day – that said, these two were clued very well.
If I had to choose favourites today, I would perhaps go for HYPHEN, NORTH and EUPHORBIA.
The only niggle I had was the apostrophe-S in 28ac becoming IS.
It’s surely OK but a bit impure to me – out of tune with Donk’s style of setting.
And yes, STAR SIGN (17d).
I’m sure, John, you’re on the right track.
But I keep on thinking about it as something doesn’t feel right.
I hope Donk drops in tonight to give his view.
So?
Another good one!
Too tough for me. In the end, I started making wild guesses, of which most were wrong but I was surprised to find my guess for 14ac was right. (Couldn’t see how the clue worked but I guessed it from the definition.)
But 21ac did raise a rare smile when I got it.
Evening all,
Firstly, thanks to John for the super blog. Your parsing of STAR SIGN is exactly what I intended (the def is as much as I could gather from Wiki!).
As for the nina, I can categorically state it wasn’t deliberate! When it was first mentioned that there was an extra message, I had to go off and find it!
Once again, thanks to everyone for the comments.
All the best,
Donk
We started this too late last night and managed, with a lot of head-scratching, to finish this morning without electronic assistance.
As Bristolians, we forgive Donk for the disparaging nature of 14ac – it raised one of several smiles!
As expected, some very inventive definitions and wordplay.
Many thanks to John for the blog and Donk for the most enjoyable work-out