The Independent has changed things on its website and — for the time being at least, and probably for much longer — I have to use a more primitive method of blogging, which I hope won’t detract from your enjoyment. No longer colours and a nice layout I’m afraid.
Eimi has given us a very pleasant crossword themed around the modern world of computing and has managed to bring in many references. Not so difficult as some that you find on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I thought, but still with plenty of bite. Some excellent clues and little to grumble about.
Definitions underlined.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | HASHTAG — #foodlabelling? (7) — hash [= food] tag [= labelling] |
| 5 | TWITTER — Giggle about women in microblogging site (7) — t(w)itter |
| 9 | BATIK — Fabric outfit sailor returned (5) — (kit AB)rev. — it applies to the material as well as the method or activity |
| 10 | GRAM STAIN — Diagnostic test Instagram ordered (4,5) — (Instagram)* — not a term I knew, and it isn’t in Chambers or one or two other things I have, but it does exist, as I suspected when I had all the checkers |
| 11 | ANOTHER — One more American – him, obviously (7) — A [= American] not her [obviously not] |
| 12 | SINCERE — Pure no longer because religious education is brief (7) — since RE — presumably ‘no longer’ because pure = sincere is archaic, although I can’t quite establish this in Chambers; no doubt it’s somewhere |
| 13 | SOCIAL NETWORK — Waterloo Nick’s out to find friends online (6,7) — (Waterloo Nick’s)* |
| 17 | NOT MY CUP OF TEA — Tycoon put fame in unusual perspective, thus “unlikely to appeal to me” — (Tycoon put fame)* |
| 21 | SHIH-TZU — Some might say it’s a very unsatisfactory collection of animals: one small dog (4-3) — “shit zoo” |
| 23 | EAR LOBE — Listener feature: A Nobleman with Honour (3,4) — earl OBE |
| 25 | LEAF MOULD — Soil disease (4,5) — 2 defs, only one of which is in Chambers, but Google assures me that the other one exists, as I was fairly sure it did |
| 26 | POTTO — Small primate races through dung (5) — po(TT)o — (Isle of Man TT) |
| 27 | MYSPACE — Web site showing spy getting seen to in club (7) — mace containing (spy)* |
| 28 | SHYLOCK — Usury ultimately left an unpleasant feeling about a Shakespearean character (7) — ({usur}y l{eft}) in shock — semi-&lit. |
| Down | |
| 1 | HEBRAIST — Language student‘s fanciful description of man who likes wearing female underwear (8) — I’m not sure that I’ve grasped everything here: a fanciful description of someone who likes wearing female underwear might be to say that he is a bra-ist, but is this it? |
| 2 | SET-TO — Prepared for fight (3-2) — 2 defs, one of them without the hyphen |
| 3 | TAKE HEART — Be encouraged by Trump, perhaps (4,5) — 2 defs, one of them needing trump not Trump and referring to bridge — one might carp about ‘by’: what is it doing apart from helping the surface? |
| 4 | GAGARIN — Once a high-flier, singing Lady’s radical and fashionable (7) — Gaga [Lady Gaga is the singing lady] r in — ref Yuri Gagarin |
| 5 | TRANSIT — Passage from Tristan that’s translated (7) — (Tristan)* |
| 6 | IBSEN — He wrote Mad Cow Disease in Indiana (5) — I(BSE)n |
| 7 | TRAVEL KIT — Composer’s small violin placed under bottom of chest that contains holidaymaker’s essentials (6,3) — Ravel kit [a small violin] below {ches}t |
| 8 | RUNNER — Carpet smuggler (6) — 2 defs |
| 14 | CANNIBALS — Freaky eaters obsessive about part of pen found in Civil Service (9) — C(an(nib)al)S |
| 15 | OROGRAPHY — Mapping the peaks of Gary Hooper’s career (not including Orient) (9) — (Gary Cooper – E)*, the anagram indicated by ‘career’ — orography is the description of mountains, as I rather suspected but didn’t know |
| 16 | FACEBOOK — 13 confront personal hygiene problem well (8) — Since 13 is SOCIAL NETWORK, it is the definition — face [= confront] B.O. [body odour] OK — — does B.O. exist nowadays or was it only in those old advertisements where someone whispers ‘B.O.’ to his friend? |
| 18 | YOUTUBE — Buyout organised with support of European web site (7) — E (buyout)* |
| 19 | UREIDES — River fish heading for salmon compounds (7) — Ure ide s{almon} — here is the information I didn’t know but suspected was something connected with urea |
| 20 | ASYLUM — Place of refuge of youth leader in a bad area (6) — a s(y{outh})lum |
| 22 | TAMPA — Said to use corrupt practices in Florida city (5) — “tamper” |
| 24 | OUTDO — Surpass with a garden party (5) — an out do is a do outside — a garden party — I (and, more significantly, together with someone else in the crossword world who I can’t remember but knows rather more about them than I do) don’t like ‘with’ as a link-word : the other little words like ‘in’ and ‘from’ are if correctly used doing something |
Quite nice puzzle, although I thought the anagram for Gram Stain was a little weak. I hesitated to put it in because the Gram was already part of the fodder word Instagram, so it seemed too obvious. For 1 down, I thought of it as the man being a he-braist i.e. a man who likes wearing bras, as opposed to a she-braist say. As the clue makes clear, it is pretty fanciful.
Thank you Eimi, and thank you John for explaining in particular 7d, never having heard of kit in this sense, and 24d, which we knew was right, but didn’t look right.
I liked ‘gram stain’,for, although the test is quite old now, it was important in discovering VD early on to protect unborn children – if I remember my lectures from aeons ago – – . Nice puzzle. I seem to click with Eimi.
The first meaning for ‘sincere’ in 1998 edition of Chambers, Indian edition 2000, is ‘pure, unmixed’. It is not marked as archaic.
A very nice puzzle I thought, with some new words for me, eg 1D. I had a bit of trouble with spelling on 21A, and wrote in the homophones without thinking. Not the brightest thing I’ve done today.
I had a smile at 27A, which I remember as Murdoch’s folly. The most humblest Australian/American/custard pie eater paid nearly $600M for this website, only for it to lose almost all value in less than three years.
Managed to get all the social network etc clues, despite being a confirmed non-participant (a bit of Youtube). Amusing clue for SHIH-TZU.
I did not get the congrats message on completion. Is this another (non-)feature of the all-new set up?
Thanks to Eimi and John.
Thanks Eimi, 1a was obvious and obviously the theme setter after most was plain sailing other than the odd curve ball. Interesting to see if we get more comments tomorrow…
And well done John, hopefully pd or someone will come up with a way to do the Indy blog in a style that we’ve gotten used to. I know I started putting the clues in but typing up and then colouring and styling takes an age to do.
gwep@6: I’m not sure if your comment about the congrats message is a subtle joke or an indication that you’ve managed to download today’s puzzle somehow. If the latter, everybody else says that it should be giving you yesterday’s puzzle, and even that isn’t working at the moment. If the former, well the paper version never did give a congrats message. 🙂
Thanks, John, and all commenters. Ironic to have a puzzle loosely themed on the internet and social media when the Indy’s online output is in meltdown – I can only get a big black blob on my computer. Is there an opposite of social media? Antisocial media?
Many thanks Eimi – I rather enjoyed this and thought it a delight in parts. I am no hypertickist (adding ticks to but a distinct minority of puzzles) but I marked no fewer than four clues this way! They were: ANOTHER, SHIH TZU (me no hyphen), TAKE HEART and GAGARIN, each of which I found joyfully satisfying. I liked LEAF MOULD – what else is it, in time, but soil?!
Thanks again, and to John of course.
ravel kit brings memories of my late f-I-law, a BBC NDO sax player. He had a Ravel. Cleaner kit for his instruments.