Goodness me, an absolute scorcher of a puzzle from Hob this week.
I’ve struggled a bit with this setter’s work in the past, but that wasn’t exactly the case here. There was a lot of interlinking between clues (along with some red herrings), which can sometimes make it difficult to get a foothold in a puzzle, but things did seem to fall into place quite smoothly.
The theme was based around 10 across musicians, and plenty of them. I spotted:
- Primal Scream
- Deacon Blue
- Lulu
- Travis
- Lonnie Donegan
- Texas
- Simple Minds
- Donovan
Lanarkshire’s Midge Ure puts in an appearance too, and there’s an indirect reference to Jack Bruce of (The) Cream, also from Lanarkshire. The histrogeography of Scotland is beyond my ken but that’s near Glasgow, I think.
You’ve also got a handful of non-Scots musicians like Prince, Sting, Blur and goodness knows who else.
Not that you really needed to know a great deal about all this modern music (It’s just noise isn’t it? What’s the point if you can’t hear the words?) to solve this one, but it did help.
A baffling query about 3 down remains. The internet tells me Argon is number 18 in the periodic table, rather than 17. What am I missing? I also can’t quite explain 28 down/TEXAS.
| Across | ||
| 1/4 | PRIMAL SCREAM | Therapeutic release from Prince: one big hit, backed by ’60s group (6,6) |
| PR + I + SLAM< + CREAM. | ||
| 9 | STUN | “Short dwarf” shock (4) |
| STUN[t]. | ||
| 10 | GLASWEGIAN | Scot going on vacation around Wales upset a fellow countryman? (10) |
| (WALES* in G[oin]G) + IAN. | ||
| 11/19 | DEACON BLUE | Clergyman taking care of unhappy group (6,4) |
| (C/O in DEAN) + BLUE. | ||
| 13 | SHORT CUT | Quick way to get to number 1? (5,3) |
| Two definitions. A “Number 1” is a short haircut, referring to the attachment on the clippers. | ||
| 15 | HYDRANGEA | Called into Greater Manchester town with a flowering shrub (9) |
| (RANG in HYDE) + A. | ||
| 20 | DUNE | Film of a Parisian (4) |
| D‘UNE. A film from 1984 directed by David Lynch, the internet tells me. | ||
| 21 | STRAPPADO | Torture to start with, private parts getting rejected at a party (9) |
| (P[rivate] + PARTS)< + A DO. | ||
| 26 | ANAPHORA | A short sleep at hotel, or before a part of the Eucharist (8) |
| A NAP + H + OR + A. | ||
| 27 | SITING | Policeman covering one location (6) |
| I in STING. Sting being one Gordon Sumner, not an officer of the law but rather a member of the band The Police. | ||
| 29 | AGGRANDIZE | Exaggerate unusually daring gaze (10) |
| (DARING GAZE)*. | ||
| 31 | XAVI | Footballer‘s acceleration during 16 (4) |
| A in XVI. No doubt there’ll be grumbles that a World Cup-winning footballer with 133 international caps is too obscure, but if you can find a better clue for X?V?, I think we’d all like to hear it. | ||
| 32 | NUTMEG | Head girl gets kick between her legs? (6) |
| NUT + MEG. | ||
| 33 | ORISON | Confiteor is one’s prayer (6) |
| Hidden in [confite]OR IS ON[e]. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | POTTERY | The Queen’s crazy about baked goods (7) |
| ER in POTTY. | ||
| 2 | IONIC | Sort of column written by 10 taking 13 (5) |
| 10 + NIC[k]. | ||
| 3 | ARGON | 17 Mar? Going topless, drink up (5) |
| [m]AR + NOG<. See preamble. | ||
| 5 | COWBOY | Sort of builder‘s bum primarily seen in women only, extremely firm on top (6) |
| CO + (B[um] in (W + O[nl]Y)). | ||
| 6 | EGG | Cooked breakfast for one? Good (3) |
| EG + G. | ||
| 7 | MEASURE | Tip from Midge Ure about each second bar of music (7) |
| (EA + S) in (M[idge] + URE). | ||
| 8 | LASSIE | Young female dog (6) |
| Two definitions. | ||
| 12 | OVA | 6s done, we’re told (3) |
| Homophone of “over”. | ||
| 14 | TULIP | Clue about Lulu stripping? It’s a bloomer (5) |
| [l]UL[u] in TIP. | ||
| 16 | RUN-UP | Quickly make an approach (3-2) |
| Two definitions, the latter a cricket reference. | ||
| 17 | GAS | 13 for rabbit (3) |
| GAS[h]. | ||
| 18 | AIR | Warm and dry current in 3 (3) |
| I in Ar. | ||
| 22 | TRAVIS | Sitarist Ravi Shankar’s group (6) |
| [sitaris]T RAVI S[hankar]. | ||
| 23 | PSI | Letter from broadband provider turned up (3) |
| ISP<. | ||
| 24 | DONOVAN | Star wearing flower’s a hippie icon (7) |
| NOVA in the River DON. | ||
| 25/20 | LONNIE DONEGAN | Musician playing online finished before mounting horse (6,7) |
| ONLINE* + DONE + NAG<. | ||
| 27 | SMEAR | Blur start off Simple Minds’ No.1 on the organ (5) |
| S[imple] + M[inds] + EAR. | ||
| 28 | TEXAS | Group of Scots, perhaps with back-up guitar (5) |
| There’s AXE< in there, but beyond that, I don’t quite follow this one. Good job you lot are here. | ||
| 30 | RAT | Run away with heart of mystery shopper (3) |
| R + A + [mys]T[ery]. | ||
* = anagram; < = reversed; [] = removed; underlined = definition; Hover to expand abbreviations
Thanks, Simon, and well done.
I couldn’t quite finish the south east.
Re 3d: Argon is a ‘gas’ (the solution to 17d).
And TEXAS? Perhaps, it is a reversal of ‘axe’ inside TS (which is a part (‘group’) of Sco/ts.
With the intention to write an &lit-ish clue.
I think TEXAS is taxes (scots) with the axe reversed inside. The definition is group, or possibly &lit.
I think you’re right, Muffyword.
‘Texas’ was one of the three I couldn’t get, together with ‘Xavi’ (thought of Rush) and poor old ‘Donovan’.
I thought TEXAS is perhaps ax< in set, ax being the American spelling that came up in a recent Indy cryptic.
I too was held up by the SE corner. Having come across Strat as a type of guitar but not axe I confidently entered TARTS for 28 down, thinking the Scots element had to do with tartans. I then went on to assume that 31 across was REVS, with Rev being short for Revie. That’ll teach me to write in solutions I haven’t fully parsed…
Apart from that it was a highly satisfying puzzle. Thanks, Hob and Simon.
31ac and 28dn were the two I couldn’t get. I too thought of TARTS. XAVI I’ve never heard of, but I last went to a football match at the 1966 World Cup.
I agree that this was a fine puzzle. I’m another who had a reversed “strat” at 28dn for ages, but because I couldn’t make 31ac work I thought about it some more and eventually biffed TEXAS from the theme, which led me to XAVI as my LOI. Well done to Muffyword for parsing TEXAS, although I’d like to think I might have seen it if Scots hadn’t been capitalised.
Help – why does “taxes” = “scots”? Got the answer but still can’t see why.
Eric@8 – think noun, not verb. A scot is an old form of tax. The expression “getting off scot-free” originated as a description of people who did not pay the tax.
Another waste of ink in the i paper 2019,
Ok for specialists in the Independent in 2015 a prize puzzle 2 boot.
This is not the sort of puzzle to encourage new solvers or readers to a new paper,
But as usual economics rule.