Poor Kairos must be getting fed up with seeing my name at the top of the blog for his Sunday Indy crosswords. His puzzles often seem to come around when I’m on duty. Not that I’m complaining: I enjoy solving and blogging them.
This one had a few trickier clues, but the grid was generous and the cluing clear.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) missing
definitions are underlined
Across
1 Plunders fishing boats leaving Malta behind
SACKS
S[M]ACKS
4 Land Peter tilled for one of our neighbours
RED PLANET
(LAND PETER)* with ’tilled’ as the anagrind.
9 International courier’s sharp with pretentious person
UPSTART
A charade of UPS, the courier company, and TART. Is an UPSTART pretentious? Just about, I suppose.
10 Try to consume every vegetable
SHALLOT
An insertion of ALL in SHOT.
11 Regularly backing corrupt expert
PRO
Hidden reversed in cOrRuPt.
12 Start home before King enters
INTRO
A charade of IN and R inserted in TO. A quarter to seven/a quarter before seven.
13 Tracks Vikings heading off to pursue sovereign
LANES
Not the kingly type of sovereign, but the old coin with a nominal value of £1, hence L (as in Lsd). Then it’s [D]ANES.
14 Source of cast-iron probed by current government
ORIGIN
An insertion of I G in (IRON)* with ‘cast’ as the anagrind.
15 Report of your on-line name rejected for access to computer network
GATEWAY
I think that Kairos is suggesting that YOUR E TAG would be a homophone of YAW E TAG. So reverse that and you get your solution.
19 Some Africans know heartless tales
KENYANS
A charade of KEN and YA[R]NS. I was convinced this started with KW.
21 North American support for mathematician
NAPIER
A charade of NA and PIER. The Scottish 16th century mathematician best known for his work on logarithms.
24 Role reversal involving married man down on his luck
TRAMP
An insertion of M in PART reversed.
26 Is concerned moving about fields?
ACRES
CARES with the first two letters (CA for ‘about’) reversed.
27 I may be essential to corporate governance
EGO
Hidden in corporatE GOvernance.
28 Flower in taupe growing wild
PETUNIA
(IN TAUPE)* TAUPE is the French word for ‘mole’ (the digging kind), btw. Which is why TAUPE is a moleskin type of colour.
29 Fires back without energy and power
STAMINA
A reversal of ANIMAT[E]S.
30 Maybe YouGov head governs half-heartedly
POLLSTERS
A charade of POLL for a slang word for ‘head’ and ST[E]ERS. They would probably have been happy not to be mentioned in despatches today, since in common with all other pollsters, they got the General Election horribly wrong.
31 New man heading off to see relative
NIECE
N plus [P]IECE, as in chess piece.
Down
1 Embroidery done by a wicket keeper?!
STUMP WORK
It had to be this, but I’d never heard of it. A type of raised embroidery, so a cd cum dd.
2 A discount arranged for Guardian
CUSTODIAN
(A DISCOUNT)*
3 Briefly swab his lip and tongue
SWAHILI
SWA[B], HI[S] and LI[P]
4 Turn and run over art benefactor
ROTATE
A charade of R, O and TATE.
5 Move policeman’s house
DISLODGE
A charade of DI’s (Detective Inspector’s) and LODGE.
6 Tract of arable land originally for rent
LEAFLET
A charade of LEA for ‘meadow’ or ‘arable land’, F for the first letter of ‘for’ and LET for ‘rent’.
7 Northern French city dropping lecturer’s material
NYLON
A charade of N and LYON with the L ‘dropped’ one place.
8 Under-Secretary’s supporting bird book
TITUS
US underneath TIT for the Epistle of Paul to Titus in the NT, often referred to as simply TITUS.
16 Heard comedian complain on the radio about European booze …
WHITE WINE
A charade of WHIT, a homophone (‘heard’) of WIT, and WINE, a homophone (‘on the radio’) of WHINE, with E inserted.
17 … that which is already brewed with infusion of old fruits initially
YARD OF ALE
(ALREADY)* with OF for the first letters of ‘old’ and ‘fruits’ inserted. I supposed you do have to carry forward the definition from the previous clue, which is why the ellipses are there.
18 Note a series of musical notes contains a time increase
ESCALATE
A charade of E, for one musical ‘note’ followed by A T in SCALE for a ‘series of musical notes’.
20 Hangs on when program finishes?
APPENDS
A charade of APP ENDS.
22 Refrain from seeing holy woman in a French bath
ABSTAIN
An insertion of ST for ‘saint’ in A BAIN.
23 Has confidence in modern hospital managers
TRUSTS
A dd.
24 Supplement found in setter’s pot?
TOP-UP
A whimisical way of saying that if a setter wanted to clue ‘pot’ he or she might use TOP UP. I’m certain that all setters are drug-free.
25 Article on the Spanish worker’s cooperative
ARTEL
Last one in, because I didn’t know the word and ART for ‘article’ confused me. ART plus EL for a Russian cooperative.
Many thanks to Kairos for another well-constructed puzzle in the IoS style.
I didn’t know ARTEL either, and went wrong at first entering DISPLACE for 5dn. Otherwise everything was pretty straightforward. Particularly liked RED PLANET.
Thanks to Kairos and Pierre
A good challenge which I enjoyed. I found the top half trickier than the bottom half. It took me a while to get the DISLODGE/GATEWAY crossers, and the STUMP WORK/ORIGIN crossers were my last ones in. For some reason I’d convinced myself that “government” was the definition for 14ac and I could have kicked myself when the penny dropped.