Independent 8,921 by Anax

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Anax usually appears on Saturdays in the Independent, or so it seems, but he has put in a welcome weekday appearance today. This is the usual excellent production (I would say that wouldn’t I, since he may well be at the S&B later today; but of course it’s true). It wasn’t at all easy, but Anax seldom is; I think I’ve just about understood everything, but there are one or two slightly dodgy parsings which I trust will be explained properly by someone.

Definitions underlined.

Across
1,6 HIGHLY STRUNG
Extremely likely, in shopping area, to get called excitable (6,6)

(High (l{ikel}y) St) rung [= called, as in telephoned]
4 ICY STARE
Daggers are on bag-like thing, and before that I… (3,5)

cyst [= bag-like thing] are, all preceded by I — to look daggers is to give someone an icy stare, but I can’t quite see how exactly icy stare = daggers: is there some pair of sentences in which they are interchangeable?
9 TOP OF THE MORNING
… am in this issue of Hello ? (3,2,3,7)

am is really a.m. here and ‘top of the morning’ is a form of ‘hello’, thus ‘this isue of’ is equivalent to ‘this way of saying’; I think, but with Anax you can never be sure that there isn’t some devilish extra that I’ve missed
11 INSULAR
With water all around, urinal’s out of order (7)

(urinal’s)*
12 UNNOBLE
Vulgar – unable to take ‘no’ for an answer? (7)

unable with the a [= answer] replaced by ‘no’ (‘an’ suggests that there are two a’s in unable, which there of course aren’t, but this is a small blemish justified by the surface) — I had always thought that ‘ignoble’ was the usual form, but evidently not now: under ‘unnoble’ Chambers says that ‘ignoble’ comes in Spenser and Shakespeare, although it gives a perfectly straight stand-alone definition of ‘ignoble’, so I’m not sure
13 MINCE PIE
Mushroom I put in my fancy pastry (5,3)

min(cep I)e — ‘my’ in a fancy way is ‘mine’
14 GOLD
Au gratin? Only starter that’s stale (4)

g{ratin} old [= that’s stale] — a very nice but difficult clue that held me up for ages
17 TRUE
The odd things making torture constant (4)

t{o}r{t}u{r}e
18 CREATION
Mass loss in burning everything? (8)

cre{m}ation
21 RETRAIN
Be an employer, embracing right to teach new skills (7)

ret(r)ain
22 IMPASTO
I’ve reached ‘P’ for ‘painting‘ (7)

I’m past ‘O’ in reading through the alphabet
24,23 TO CUT A LONG STORY SHORT
Put simply, what starts their chronology starts out spectacularly (2,3,1,4,5,5)

(t{heir} chronology starts out)*
25 PLEASURE
Will appeal, of course (8)

plea [= appeal] sure [= of course] — I wasn’t really sure about will = pleasure, but it’s in Chambers
26 ULSTER
Length in 17’s new coat (6)

Since 17 is TRUE, it’s l in (true’s)* — an Ulster
Down
1 HOTTIE
Rush to grab outrageous good-looker (6)

h(OTT)ie
2 GAPES
Is yawning, given talk about exercise (5)

ga(PE)s
3 LIFELINE
Lion scratches on cat rescuer? (8)

Li{on} feline — the word ‘scratches’ indicates removal
5 COMMUNICATION
Message from middle of Munich coming in, turned it on (13)

Here the comma is part of the wordplay: it’s {M}unic{h} in comma, then (it on)*
7 ACID BROWN
A paint manufacturer accepts bid to mix dye (4,5)

a C((bid)*)rown — this took me some while because this as a dye wasn’t in any of my lists, but if you Google ‘acid brown’ you get the term with lots of numbers and sites like this, so it does exist — the paint manufacturer is Crown, not a name that was on my lips
8 EGGHEADS
Clever people say he will interrupt wanderings (8)

eg g(he)ads
10 HORSE-WRANGLER
Welsh ranger or poor cowboy? (5-8)

(Welsh ranger or)*
13 MOUSTACHE
Charlie is one in love and has to suffer about it (9)

m(0)ust ache — I didn’t know this but apparently one type of moustache is called a Charlie (after Charlie Chaplin)
15 STIR IT UP
Spiritualist hurt – Ali’s out to make trouble (4,2,2)

(Spiritu{alis}t)*
16 DISPOSAL
Clearance for use (8)

2 defs
19 CACTUS
‘Living rock’, say, from Coldplay? Not them (6)

c act [cold play] us [them and us] — living rock cacti
20 BOWYER
In her private room, close to Jeffrey Archer (6)

bow({Jeffre}y)er
*anagram

19 comments on “Independent 8,921 by Anax”

  3. Seven solutions are titles of songs by one particular 80s band.
    A good starting point might be 14ac (GOLD).
    [for now this should be enough, I don’t want to spoil it for others]

    Meanwhile, I liked this crossword very much.
    I failed on 4ac but otherwise things went smoothly (for an Anax, that is).

    My favourites were 12ac and 14ac.
    I was surprised to see Coldplay for ‘c/act’.
    No problem as such but many call this a typical Guardianism.

    Thank you John for the blog.

  5. I think in 9a you have to include the “I” from the previous clue to give 1am which is the top of the morning.

  6. Great blog and puzzle- thanks.
    Putting lustre for coat held me up until check button pointed the way to my error.
    Cant find acid brown in Chambers- had to guess, not remembering Crown as a paint maker.

    Not sure about theme but Cactus was a 70’s band with Carmen Appice on drums-if anyone remembers

  7. Fiendishly clever, also defeated by 4A; and 7D.

    4A to “look daggers at” somebody is to give them an icy stare.

    25A He did it at his pleasure ie did it when he wanted to (at his own will).

    Must remember to think of gold every time I see “au”.

    Any theme over my head.

    Thanks to Anax and John.

  8. Too hard for me! I wrote “Icy State” for 4A, imagining there was a word “cystate” meaning bag-like (there isn’t, but there should be) and to be at daggers is to be in an icy state. And I couldn’t solve 14A gold at all, although the clue is now (thanks, John) obvious. Otherwise, great stuff, I enjoyed it very much. Thanks, Anax!

  9. Heather – as far as 21ac is concerned one of the definitions of “retain” in my Chambers is “to employ or keep engaged”, and when you put an r (right) in it it becomes RETRAIN, which fits the definition of “teach new skills”.

    After today’s Times and Guardian puzzles I actually found this one more straightforward, and that’s something I never thought I’d say about an Anax puzzle. I needed the wordplay for ACID BROWN (fortunately I remembered Crown as a paint manufacturer) and CREATION was my LOI. However, I admit I biffed TO CUT A LONG STORY SHORT and TOP OF THE MORNING.

  10. We missed the theme but thanks to Sil Bert remembered the 80s band, but we needed a search to idenify the related answers.

    Thanks Anax, as expected there were some devious devices but with two heads at work we completed the grid. We couldn’t quite parse 9ac so thanks to sidey and John.

  11. Many thanks for the blog, John, and sorry I couldn’t attend today’s S&B. Had to abandon plans to use the train (5x more expensive than driving – and we’re supposed be persuaded to use public transport?) but very heavy rain this morning made me chicken out of taking the car and standing still amid rush hour motorway mayhem.

  12. Now then, here we go:

    Spandau Ballet is the band.
    And th songs are: Gold, True, Pleasure, Communication, Highly Strung, To Cut A Long Story Short, Lifeline.

    Spandau Ballet – S&B?

  13. And anax, I agree with you about public transport.

    What about this:
    I went to London today (S&B near London Bridge tube station).
    A return from Cambridge to Kings Cross: 24 pounds.
    A return from Cambridge to London Bridge (to/from Kings Cross + tube): 41 pounds.
    Which means 17 pounds for two tube rides of 10 minutes each.
    [A Travelcard was 31 pounds, also too expensive for what I wanted but not unreasonable as you can take more than just the tube train I wanted]

    I think this is criminal.
    Did you hear me, Mr Cameron?

  14. What a terrific puzzle! There must be something seriously wrong with me as I completed and parsed fully in well under 15mins and Anax usually takes me much longer….
    I adored GOLD!
    Great blog – just one thought. For MINCE PIE, I had as you but with ‘mine’ for ‘my’ with ‘fancy’ as a sneaky added DD (the rhyming slang)
    I’d love Anax to tell if I’m right or wrong…..
    Huge thanks.

  15. Count me as one who until now thought 80’s music was an oxymoron.

    IAC never having heard of Spandau Ballet, following Sil’s hint, I googled the most likely looking song title I could see, namely Stir it Up, only to be pointed at Bob Marley.

    How wrong can you be? Watch this space, it is all downhill from here.

  16. Sil @12: ‘Pleasure’ as well, which was a very good album track.
    William @14: John’s interpretation is the one. We tweaked this clue slightly as I think I had a straight mine=my def. ‘Fancy’ was added to point to it being archaic/poetic, but I wonder how solvers would have felt without that addition.

  18. I haven’t done much solving lately. I thought this was an outstanding puzzle. I didn’t spot the theme but I should have.

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