Independent 8963 / Knut

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What a great puzzle from Knut today – many thanks for the fun.

 

This is a really ingenious construction with many references in both the clues and the entries to the Greek financial crisis and associated individuals who are definitely not having fun.

We particularly liked 19, but the surfaces are all excellent and many of the definitions are craftily disguised!

We’re in France this week helping to prop up the euro, so if there are any errors or corrections, it may take us a while to sort them out, depending on internet access.

Across
1   Administer curare to Jean-Claude Juncker?
EUROCRAT An anagram of CURARE TO – anagrind is ‘adminster’
5   War-torn country entertains leader of Zambia’s ruling party
SYRIZA SYRIA (war-torn country) round or ‘entertaining’ Z (first letter or ‘leader’ of Zambia) – Greece’s ruling party – at least when the crossword was compiled!
10   Notes poor service – don’t pay the bill
DEFAULT D and E (musical notes) FAULT (poor service in tennis)
11   American subject claiming honour killing unhinged his wife
MACBETH MATH (American school subject) round or ‘claiming’ CBE (honour – Commander of the British Empire)
12   Prickly character when animated collecting coins desperately
SONIC An anagram of COINS – anagrind is ‘desperately’ – a reference to the cartoon character ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ – we’re not quite sure why ‘collecting’ is in the clue, other than for the surface reading
13   One of six not unknown to go from 10/1?
COUNT DOWN COUNTy DOWN (one of the six counties in Northern Ireland) with the ‘y’ (unknown) omitted, or ‘to go’. Apologies for the late alteration with  ‘to go’ moving from the parsing to the definition as others have suggested. 
14   Haagen-Dazs has this secret plan
HIDDEN AGENDA AGENDA is HIDDEN in HaAGEN DAzs
19   She excites all adult Greek men
ANGELA MERKEL An anagram of ALL A (adult) GREEK MEN – anagrind is ‘excites’ – nice one Knut!
22   Australia? The truth: not very harsh climate
AUSTERITY AUS (Australia) T’ (the) vERITY (truth) without the ‘v’ (very)
25   Some stomach hallucinogenic experience on drug
TRIPE TRIP (hallucinogenic experience) E (drug)
26   Possibly collects Roy’s missing book?
ORISONS ORbISON’S (Roy Orbison of ‘Pretty Woman’ fame) without or ‘missing’ ‘b’ (book)
27   Excitement about Switzerland’s currency of the future?
DRACHMA DRAMA (excitement) round CH (Switzerland)
28   Fool the king into leaving currency for 27?
GREXIT GIT (fool) round REX (king)
29   One perhaps tastily dressed American clubber dancing
BLUE CRAB An anagram of A (American) CLUBBER – anagrind is ‘dancing’
Down
1   Most senior leaders of European lands declare emergency, summon Tsipras
ELDEST First letters or ‘leaders’ of European Lands Declare Emergency Summon Tsipras
2   Whistleblower in Europe’s to get rid of undesirables
REFINE REF (whistleblower) IN E (Europe)
3   Swiss city’s aloof wartime leader
CHURCHILL CH (Swiss – again!) UR (city) CHILL (aloof) – ‘oh yes’!!
4   Greek finding a source of cash here?
ATTIC A reference to ‘Cash in the ATTIC’ – the BBC TV show
6   Building Chay Blyth’s penultimate boat?
YACHT An anagram of CHAY and T (penultimate letter of ‘BlyTh’) – anagrind is ‘building’
7   Unable to move – frozen axle, reportedly
ICEBOUND ‘Axle’ sounds like (‘reportedly’) ‘axel’ – the term for a jump or BOUND in ICE-skating
8   Hera, then Ianthe, embraced troubled citizen
ATHENIAN Hidden or ‘embraced’ in herA THEN IANthe
9   One attacks Knut’s dog “Emperor” – tail bitten off
IMPUGNER I’M (‘Knut is’) PUG (dog) NERo (Emperor) with the last letter or ‘tail’ omitted or ‘bitten off’
15   Most squat when returning mud pies thrown first
DUMPIEST DUM (‘mud’ reversed or ‘returning’) PIES T (first letter of ‘thrown’)
16   “I’m no lap-dog!” snarled Alexis Tsipras, initially enraged
GREAT DANE An anagram of A, T (initials of Alexis Tsipras) ENRAGED – anagrind is ‘snarled’
17   Accompany young woman in dancing tango
TAG ALONG GAL (young woman) in an anagram of TANGO – anagrind is ‘dancing’
18   Nits changed order for kitchen aid
EGG SLICE LICE EGGS (nits) with the second word first or ‘changed order’
20   Spot woman’s instrument
ZITHER ZIT (spot) HER (woman’s)
21   Paint late King holding gold first edition
BEDAUB BB (BB King, the recently deceased American blues legend) round or ‘holding’ AU (gold) after ED (edition)
23   City oil scandal is something liable to infect the entire system
E COLI EC (city) and an anagram of OIL – anagrind is ‘scandal’
24   Person to person call ringing out in Switzerland
YODEL In youth culture a person calling another person called Derek might say “YO DEL” – innit?

 

34 comments on “Independent 8963 / Knut”

  1. Wow, what a puzzle! Hilarious, topical and acerbic by turns. Mind-bogglingly good. Jeez.

  2. Couldn’t possibly add anything to that. Well said, Conrad – and many thanks to all three!

  3. Great fun.

    Long before ‘turning pro’ this setter was renowned for producing high quality, topical crosswords almost instantaneously. Another cracker.

    Many thanks Knut and Bert and Joyce.

    (at the time, didn’t spot anything unusual in 12 – “collecting” coins, but thinking again, he was rings; Mario coins)

    ps… Angela Merkel 🙂

  4. Well, we’re getting spoilt this week so far in the Indy. Fine dayboo puzzle from Vigo yesterday, and another cracker from Knut today.

    All very topical, and for political animals like me, smile-raising. Which is what crosswords should be about, really.

    ANGELA MERKEL is my kind of politician (serious, intelligent, wearing the same outfit more than once and not giving a shit what the press say about it) so I am going for 19ac as my favourite this morning.

    I just took YODEL as as a dd cum cd, but B&J could be more in touch with yoof culture than I am. Whatevs, thanks to them and to Knut.

  5. 3dn – CHUR is apparently the oldest city in Switzerland (c/f Wikipedia), so the front bit could be that

  6. What a splendid puzzle! I loved this, especially because it didn’t require me to remember how to spell Yanis Varoufakis. My favourite was 14A Hidden Agenda because I had to list every ice cream flavour I knew before twigging. 28A Grexit, last in; 21D Bedaub and 7D Icebound least well understood, so thanks, Bertandjoyce, for your insight. Well done Knut!

  10. Agree with the above comments – great fun.

    Aside from the topical stuff, thought MACBETH was a tremendous clue.

  13. What a lovely crossword indeed!
    Actually, I think this was Knut’s most coherent puzzle so far (whatever that means).
    Also, the level of difficulty was exactly right.

    First one in was HIDDEN AGENDA (14ac).
    I remembered it from a Tramp crossword, years ago.
    Fifteensquared’s archive led me to 1 September 2011: ‘Ultimate motive of Haagen-Dasz?’.
    In the blog of that puzzle Paul B made clear that Tramp wasn’t the first ….
    But hey! Great minds think alike.
    Knut’s style is (at least for me) a bit similar to Tramp/Jambazi’s.

    Some really fantastic clues today, like: ANGEL MERKEL (19a), ORISONS (26a), DRACHMA (27ac), GREXIT (28ac), ELDEST (1d), REFINE (2d), GREAT DANE (16d).
    Phew, that’s a lot of contenders for CoD!

    I didn’t understand how 18d (EGG SLICE) worked but I can now see how clever that is.
    I wasn’t fully sure about the (nounal) anagram indicator ‘scandal’ in 23d but I guess it’s fine.
    And ‘thrown first’ for T – well, people know how I think about this kind of thing.
    Perhaps, I should get used to it.

    Thanks B&J for another comprehensive blog.
    Minor thing: In my opinion, the word ‘not’ in 13ac indicates the deletion of Y. The definition is therefore ‘to go from 10/1′. Bit puzzled why it reads ’10/1′ and not ’10 to 1’. I did this crossword using Crossword Solver, perhaps the dead tree version is different.

    And hedgehoggy: ‘Good ideas but poor techniques’?
    I don’t agree with the second part as a general statement.
    But did you see, you got a mention in 12ac …. !!

    Many thanks to Knut.

  14. Thanks Knut and Bertandjoyce

    I enjoyed this a lot, and thought it very well put together.

    Sil @ 13: I guess 10/1 is just a neat misdirection, since in the betting context 10/1 is spoken ‘ten to one’, so is somewhat less transparent than ’10 to 1′. Plausible?

  16. Hi Simon S @14

    I’m with Sil here: it’s a particular bugbear of mine how often we see, for example, notices advertising events running ‘from 1st – 8th July’ or shops opening ‘from 9.00am – 6.00pm’. I take your point about the way odds are indicated: would the clue make sense without ‘from’? [Incidentally, having long ago lived in the Six Counties, I really loved this clue.]

    Like Sil, I recognised HIDDEN AGENDA from one of Tramp’s very early puzzles – which helped to convince me that he would turn out to be one of my top favourite setters – but, at the moment, I’m a bit embarrassed at repeating my constant comment that some devices are so very good that they deserve a further outing for the sake of those who haven’t seen them before. That really only applies to setters recycling their own clues, though, and I’m not for the moment suggesting that Knut plagiarised it, since how can setters be expected to have seen every other crossword written? anax has talked interestingly of clues being discovered, rather than invented, and, in the world of science, it has happened that several people can claim to have made independent discoveries. Knut has so many excellent and innovative clues here thatI’m sure HIDDEN AGENDA was pure Serendipity [one of my favourite words] for him – and I envy him.

    My thanks again to him for a stunning puzzle.

  17. Hi Eileen

    I think the ‘from’ is necessary: ‘from ten to one’ is (to me anyway) a pretty clear description of a countdown. In my view, plain ‘ten to one’ would be woollier, though it’s a moot point.

  18. Probably it’s the fact that the answer (HIDDEN AGENDA) suggests its clue so screamingly that we see the Haagen-Dazs idea perhaps more frequently than, say, another idea. Especially as one’s CC *XXX* wordfinder chucks it out so readily.

    I confess I too am one who has located the ice-cream vendor, also discovering

    Features editor?

    … for PLASTIC SURGEON when I first started showing puzzles to compilers. I was sure I would be hailed as a god for that work of genius, until visited by the well-known and at that time local iconoclast John Henderson. Oh well.

    As a tyro I was so excited about meeting the compilers: Enigmatist, Paul, other leading lights (as we gridsters say): then, unfortunately, I met them.

  20. Paul B: what comes around, goes around. It’s still a good clue, (as indeed is PLASTIC SURGEON) and I’m sure Knut didn’t plagiarise it. We’ve had ORCHESTRA/CARTHORSE enough times. Enigmatist is a pussy cat as well as an iconoclast, btw.

  21. Found this much easier than the Wishbone Ash one, but no less entertaining – a welcome bit of light relief after the Imogen. Last in was BEDAUB. Liked MACBETH, ANGELA MERKEL and ORISONS.

    Thanks to Knut, B&J

  22. No K’s D, plagiarism is indeed not on the, um, agenda. Eventually though, as with CARTHORSES, the warning bells will sound for Haagen-Dazs. Shame really, cos it’s a good ‘un.

    Enigmatist is an anagram of ‘I am setting’, or ‘I’m setting a’. As more and more compilers are ‘discovering’.

  23. Another super puzzle.

    I think this is the golden age of crosswords; I don’t believe there has been a time with so many good setters being published. I used to think the late ’90s was the golden era but, looking back, there were fewer than 10 setters back then whose work I used to look forward to: now there are too many good puzzles around.

  24. There are times that I hope that someone will write a book on Them Really Classic Crossword Clues.
    Clues that are ‘worth the price of the newspaper alone’.
    Perhaps, it will be a boring book because everything in it is so great.

    IMO, Imogen had one today (‘A rat race?’), and the talented Beet’s Glasto puzzle on Big Dave’s site had a marvellous clue for TORRENTIAL.

    Perhaps, this is what I should do after retiring from work?
    Nah!

    ps, … but I wouldn’t mind to buy such a book.

  25. Sil @ 24

    No one who’s interested would buy the book – they would already have solved (most of) ’em…

    Shame, really!

  26. Many thanks to Bertandjoyce for the blog and the favourable comments about the puzzle.
    I can’t for the life of me think of a reason why a crossword setter would knowingly rip off someone else’s clue

  27. There is nothing to plagiarize in Haagen-Dazs, AGENDA is hidden there to be discovered anew all the time.

    Brand names are not allowed in the Guardian puzzles, I assume they are in the Independent ones ?

  29. Thanks to S&B(s). A terrific puzzle. Already, I foresee the film version – “Acropolis Now” (Sorry!).

  30. Cookie: “Brand names are not allowed in the Guardian puzzles”?
    I am afraid they are.
    (btw, I am not really afraid)

    I remember even Araucaria’s sometimes joining the party.
    “A bank where blows wild thyme etc and Titania some night initially (7)”
    Solution: NATWEST
    (8 April 2011)

  31. The ‘apostrophe s’ after Araucaria shouldn’t be there – sorry.
    I also looked at this long forgotten clue and, whoa, this one’s not hedgehoggy-proof. 🙂

    Knut, I started the ‘hidden agenda’ discussion but only because it was really my first one in (for the reason I mentioned).
    I want to make clear that I did not hint at any form of plagiarism.
    In that respect, I once discovered ‘Britney Spears’ as an anagram of ‘presbytarians’ myself, only to find out that Rufus did it before (and probably a few others too).
    The same with ‘Eric Clapton’ being an anagram of ‘narcoleptic’.
    These things happen.

    That said, about a year ago I saw a clue in a Daily Mail prize puzzle (not written by Duggie Anderson, aka Radian etc) that raised my eyebrows: ‘I say nothing (3)’.
    Such a famous clue, recycled?

    As to your puzzle – chapeau, once more!
    (that even included a ‘prickly character’ – how topical is that?)

  32. Fully endorse all congratulations and praise about this brilliant and entertaining puzzle.

    Agree with @13Sil van den Hoek that the definition in 13A is “to go from 10/1”. The words “not unknown” remove the “y”.

    I parsed 22A as AUST + {v}ERITY.

    Many thanks to Knut and to Bertandjoyce for the blog.

  33. Sil @31, muffin always raises his eyebrows when brand names appear, he considers it advertising. There was a chocolate one recently and a mustard one. The mention of brand and bank etc. names is very rare, what is the reason for that?

    Thanks Knut and Bertandjoyce, I only had time to go through the parsing yesterday, not enough to do the puzzle. It was great fun!

  34. Someone’s probably said this already, but the I think that the definition in 13 is “to go from ten to one” using countdown as a verb.
    Excellent crossword.

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