I’ve really enjoyed the last few Kairos puzzles that I’ve solved and blogged, but this one contained some stuff that I wasn’t enamoured with. Some really remote synonyms are my main complaint. Took me ages. Could just be that I’m having a bad hair day, so tell me what you thought of it.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed
definitions are underlined
Across
1 Kind of camera seen in car, a Ford
AUTOFOCUS
Well, it’s AUTO plus FOCUS, a brand of Ford car, but I’m not sure I’d ever describe an AUTOFOCUS as a ‘kind of camera’. It’s a feature that a camera has.
6 See and hear evidence
SIGHT
A homophone of CITE.
9 Power station stores a limited source of fuel?
STAMINA
STA for ‘station’? It’ll be in some dictionary somewhere. In which case, it’s A MIN[E] inserted into STA.
10 Miracle Anselm bottles to set free from guilt
CLEANSE
Hidden in MiraCLE ANSElm bottles. St Anselm was a Benedictine Monk, so there are (as quite often with Kairos) some religious overtones. ‘I cleanse thee of thy sins’ and that kind of stuff.
11 Fool returns to US city for a beer
TINNY
A reversal of NIT and NY for New York. An Australian usage, I think. ‘Fancy a few tinnies this arvo, mate?’
12 Game for American flyer
SOLITAIRE
As regular readers will know, I like my birds, but this one was new to me. It’s a dd, and here’s the obligatory Pierre bird link.
13 A limit on island volunteers is shared equally
PER CAPITA
A charade of PER (as in tuppence per/a bag if you’re a Mary Poppins fan), CAP for ‘limit’, I for ‘island’ and TA for ‘volunteers’. Phew.
15 Reactionary’s record on Twitter
CHEEP
A charade of CHE for ‘reactionary’, Señor Guevara, and EP for an (old) ‘record’.
16 Small defenceless tailless animal
SNAKE
A charade of S and NAKE[D].
18 Determine beforehand to adorn pier garishly
PREORDAIN
(ADORN PIER)*
20 Urgent plan to capture relative
INSISTENT
An insertion of SIS in INTENT. Is INSISTENT a synonym for URGENT? You decide.
23 American detective‘s notes on resort
SPADE
I had vaguely heard of this fictional American detective, first name Sam. It’s SPA and D, E for two musical ‘notes’.
25 Issue a note for former taxmen in Middle East country
EMANATE
The ‘Middle East country’ would be EMIRATE. IR is the Inland Revenue or ‘former taxmen’ (now superseded by the Customs and Revenue, I think). So replace IR with A N and you’re there.
26 Cunning first lady holds back travel document
EVASIVE
An insertion of VISA reversed in EVE, who was, according to Genesis, the ‘first lady’. She foolishly listened to the 11ac, and soon afterwards she and the old man realised that they were both ‘defenceless’ in the Garden.
27 Other people’s oriental motif
THEME
A charade of THEM and E. You need to read the apostrophe s as ‘has’.
28 Championship achievement leads to transfer
TITLE DEED
Well, I suppose that a TITLE DEED is a ‘transfer document’; if you win the ‘Championship’ in football then you’ve got a TITLE; and a DEED can be an ‘achievement’.
Down
1 Help when fixed
ASSET
AS plus SET.
2 Coach‘s riddle not solvable initially
TRAINER
[S]TRAINER. Not the puzzle kind of ‘riddle’, but the gold-panning one.
3 Note reality’s disturbed by this story
FAIRY TALE
More musical ‘notes’. FA is the fourth note of the tonic sol-fa (and ‘a long long way to run’ if you are a Sound of Music fan – see how I’ve got two Julie Andrews references into the blog already?) and if you follow that with (REALITY)* then you get your ‘story’.
4 Tumult of Charles in love – quite the reverse
CHAOS
An insertion of O in CHAS.
5 Time off after chewing vile cakes
SICK LEAVE
(VILE CAKES)*
6 Pretty rock?
SWEET
A dd. ‘You look so sweet, upon the seat, of a bicycle made for two.’
7 Original sinew essentially supports knee
GENUINE
INE is the middle (‘essentially’) of sINEw. And GENU, I discovered, is in dictionaries as ‘knee’. It’s from the Latin, and the only reason I got this solution was that genou in French is ‘knee’. And of course Catholics GENUFLECT. But I don’t like it: GENU is obscure and I’m not sure ‘original’ and GENUINE are synonymous. Good grief, I am being grumpy this morning.
8 Article on voucher company dismissed straight away
THEREUPON
A charade of THE, RE and [CO]UPON.
13 Mischievous rascal. In France he’s turning ten
PESTILENT
My SOED gives this definition as ‘sixteenth century colloquial’, which is perhaps not ideal for a daily cryptic. Whatevs, it’s PEST, IL and (TEN)*
14 Perform with instrument
IMPLEMENT
A dd.
15 Sparkle in complex court case
CORUSCATE
This is, as you have probably understood by now, not my favourite ever Kairos puzzle. However, I will congratulate him on correctly defining CORUSCATE. ‘Entwistle’s early lack of leadership and gravitas led to coruscating attacks from media commentators.’ (Independent, Oct 29, 2012) That Indy journalist will have to have a slap, I’m afraid, because CORUSCATING does not mean ‘scathing’. Now that rant is over, it’s (COURT CASE)*
17 Moderate embrace when yours truly leaves on time
ASSUAGE
I think this is ASSU[ME] plus AGE. ‘Embrace’ for ASSUME?
19 Sin of confused vicar in hospital department
AVARICE
The compiler is a vicar, so I hope this wasn’t written from experience. It’s (VICAR)* in A and E. One of the seven deadly ones. LUST is more fun.
21 Author’s proof seen in novel form
SHAPE
S?A?E has a good number of possibilities, so give me a break and make it easy? I probably haven’t understood this at all, but I’m guessing that AP is an abbreviation for ‘author’s proof’ in SHE, the novel by Rider Haggard.
22 Minister to prostitute rising to take ecstasy
TREAT
An insertion of E in TART reversed (‘rising’, since it’s a down clue).
24 Editor employs army to change text
EMEND
A further insertion of MEN in ED.
Many thanks to Kairos for this morning’s puzzle. I’m sure others will be less grumpy about it than I have been.
Not my favourite either.
Since when did our favourite revolutionary become a reactionary?
maliche@1 beat me to it. Reactionary and revolutionary are antonyms surely? SHAPE was my LOI and it took me a while to untangle the wordplay. GENUINE was entered from checkers and a feeling that “original” just about fitted the definition.
I found this a mixture of very easy and quite tricky clues. I couldn’t make any sense of shape at all and thought the answer might be Shane (which is a novel as well as a film). I agree with the comments on Che being reactionary – it’s a term usually applied to crusty old Tories rather than revolutionary socialists. At least there weren’t any CDs based on items of church equipment.
Agree with Pierre and others about curious synonyms. In my 1912 Chambers, mischievous is given as one of the synonyms/meanings of pestilent, though mischievous hardly has this connotation now.
Just a feeling of oddness about some of the wordplay, but perhaps we are just not on Kairos’ wavelength, as he usually appears in the IoS with less obscure matter.
Anyway, something different, so thanks to Kairos and Pierre.
Found most of it fair and straightforward but a number of answers went in with question marks over their parsing or, occasionally, their defining so was difficult to be absolutely sure. I’d never come across riddle as a strainer, for example but got it from wordplay and crossers; defeated by ASSUAGE, SHAPE and INSISTENT and I don’t think I’d have got them if I’d spent the rest of the day on them.
Excellent work, blogger! I found all the difficulties highlighted above and feel a good grump is in order.
Che Guevara was a revolutionary, not a reactionary.
Well I think someone should speak up for poor old Kairos. I read a bit of this before doing the crossword and wondered whether or not it was worth doing, but in my opinion it wasn’t nearly so bad as people make out. There are some good clues (EMANATE, THEME, SHAPE). I agree that Che seems to be a mistake, and both insistent = urgent and mischievous = pestilent are a bit odd, but lots of setters do such things, and on this site people have in the past waxed enthusiastically about puzzles that have seemed to me to be rather dodgy. Why aren’t they waxing enthusiastically about this one?
What everyone else said. In the end, there were several I couldn’t get, not helped by my guess for 17dn being wrong.
Thanks Kairos and Pierre
I failed to solve 23a & 9a, and I needed help to parse 8d, 25a, 17d, 21d.
New word for me was CORUSCATE
Pierre, I think you mean that Eve foolishly listened to the 16a…..
That is of course exactly what I meant, Michelle. I told you I was in a grump.