This is Daedalus’ fourth appearance in the IoS/Indy, and the third one of those that has fallen to me to cover. He’s no doubt getting fed up with that, because I wasn’t a big fan of the first two I blogged, and while I did enjoy this one a bit more, there are certain aspects of his cluing that I don’t like, particularly for the IoS slot, which is supposed to be an approachable puzzle for improving solvers. Anyway, as I said last time, the blogger’s opinion is only one of many. What did you think?
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed
definitions are underlined
Across
1 In France, Lebanese name is conspicuous
CELEB
Hidden in FranCE LEBanese. Where would we be without slebs? If a day goes by where I don’t see Posh Spice in my paper I start to have a nose bleed.
4 Site manager brews up with mate
WEBMASTER
(BREWS MATE)* and a nod to our redoubtable Gaufrid on this site.
9 Cruelly hang, if a person in Kabul’s ready
AFGHANI
(HANG IF A)* for the Afghan currency.
10 Solver’s beginning to emigrate? Butt in: ‘I’ll look after your videos‘
YOUTUBE
Fairly random and long-winded surface, which I don’t quite understand. YOU (the ‘solver’) and E with TUB inserted. ‘Butt’ for ‘water butt’, I suppose, which is a sort of TUB.
11 In police trap, the object’s fairly well placed
SITTING PRETTY
IT in STING followed by PRETTY.
13 Glow in the dark or escape through chimney
FLUORESCE
An insertion of OR and ESC (look at the top left-hand corner of your keyboard) in FLUE.
15 Drink two halves of Coke with dash of Angostura
COCOA
Half of ‘Coke’ is CO; two halves of that are COCO; add A for a ‘dash of Angostura’.
17 Drug doctor’s given journalist for fix
EMBED
A charade of E, MB and ED.
19 Perhaps flavouring containing cocaine is very moreish
ADDICTIVE
An insertion of C in ADDITIVE.
21 Strutting fellow motivating few to hack lock
COCK OF THE WALK
(FEW TO HACK LOCK)* ‘Motivating’ as an anagrind? If you must.
24 Performing in fast Broadway song
TONIGHT
An insertion of ON in TIGHT. From West Side Story.
25 E.g. Horatio de la Nelson?
MANDELA
This setter is quirky. Some may like that; some might not. A charade of MAN (of which ‘Horatio’ is one) and DE LA.
Down
1 Graded fiscal side ‘uncertain’
CLASSIFIED
(FISCAL SIDE)*
2 For a picture of inspiration, settle on daffodil?
LIGHT BULB
A charade of LIGHT and BULB. For that LIGHT BULB moment when you finally work out what a clue is about.
3 Fire-holder is less rational, caught going for book
BRAZIER
[C]RAZIER with B substituted for C. A favourite with strikers on the picket line, so we won’t be seeing much more of them after the latest Tory legislation to limit industrial action.
4 Twist connections, severing one
WRING
W[I]RING
5 Lad right in buff with lover
BOYFRIEND
I think, but only think, that this is BOY plus R in FIEND, and that FIEND is ‘buff’ in the sense of ‘expert’.
6 A queen has short moment as a fish?
AQUATIC
A charade of A, QU and A TIC[K]
7 Verily thy reign hath no end where Earth’s last vestige hath fled away
TRULY
‘Verily’, quoth Pierre, ‘one of ye shall have to miraculously lay bare the mysteries of this clue, for the parsing cometh to me not.’
8 Said to cause a stink
REEK
A homophone of WREAK, as in WREAKING HAVOC.
12 Built us a true ark or dish
SAUERKRAUT
(US A TRUE ARK)*
14 Ready for the main other ways on journey
SEAWORTHY
(OTHER WAYS)*
16 Dodging and dashing a north-easterly line
CHICANERY
A charade of CHIC, A, NE and RY for railway ‘line’.
18 Figure there’s a month before the start of November
DECAGON
A charade of DEC, AGO and N.
20 Purge families around eastern Spain
CLEANSE
An insertion of E in CLANS followed by E for ‘Spain’.
21 She doubts motives shown when niceness follows intimacy
CYNIC
If niceness followed intimacy, you’d have intimaCY NICeness, with the solution hidden.
22 Note girl taking a shy
TIMID
A charade of TI and M[A]ID. Since when ‘taking’ became a removal indicator, I don’t know.
23 Want to throw piano away
ITCH
‘Away’ is certainly a removal indicator, so it’s [P]ITCH.
Many thanks to Daedalus for this morning’s puzzle.
7D Couldn’t be bothered trying to work it out at the time, but is it possibly RUL{e} in T{h}Y, where RULE (reign) has no end, and H, EART{h}’s “last vestige” hath fled away and the fact that RUL{e} is in T{h}Y indicates possession?
Is there a prize if that’s right?
Agree about weirdness of some clueing, but could breeze through it if one didn’t stop to puzzle over some of the parsing.
Thanks to Daedalus and Pierre.
Thank you, gwep. I will put up a prize, but we will have to wait for other entries before I can award it.
Never mind parsing 7dn, I couldn’t even solve it, but now I see the answer, gwep’s suggestion looks right to me. Also wasn’t sure about 8dn so thanks for explaining it.
Thanks, Pierre – I actually quite enjoyed this puzzle, although, like you, I found some of the clueing a bit ‘quirky’
What did you make of 26 and 27 across, though? Unless the page isn’t displaying correctly on my Mac….
Looking back at the grid, I see the reason I didn’t solve 7dn is that I managed to spell 4ac WEBMAASTR. Oops!
Thanks all, and Pierre, glad to hear you are warming a little to my puzzles. I am sure in a year you will be my greatest fan.
I knew 7d was on the hard side but I hope a few solvers enjoyed the echoes of Revelation (11:15, 21:1). My idea was much as gwep@1 describes: RUL(e) replacing H in THY. For those who liked it, here is a bonus clue I thought of afterwards. They make rather a nice pair if you like that kind of thing (if not, look away now):
Verily, Earth is become nothing beside an ancient city belonging unto thee (5)
Although I did quite enjoy this one I was, like Pierre, rather bewildered by 7dn, but well OK I suppose. ‘She’ in 21dn struck me as odd: it suggests something female, which a cynic is not necessarily. And I was unhappy with the definition of 1ac: a celeb is a name and a celeb is conspicuous and perhaps a celeb also has a name which is conspicuous, but a celeb doesn’t equal ‘name is conspicuous’, so far as I can see.
I thought this was spot on the level for an IOS crossword – I forgot that I hadn’t got the DTV last week so did it online after returning from the pub & it still took only 18 mins & was most enjoyable. 7d was pretty clearly TRULY, though it did take a bit of thinking to parse – once I had I thought it was a very good clue.
Wil @7 – if it had been ‘he’ rather than ‘she’ I’m sure you wouldn’t have questioned it, but there’s no reason the male pronoun should always be used – equal opportunities and all that, &, of course, setter’s misdirection – I was initially thinking it would be a woman’s name.
One thing did irk me about the online puzzle – when I entered incorrect letters they appeared in red showing my mistake – can this be switched off? – I would rather work out that I’ve made a mistake myself than for it to be flagged up straight away – especially (as today) when I was only ‘pencilling in’ tentative possible crossing letters.
Hi Will, glad you enjoyed the puzzle!
CELEB is ‘conspicuous’ in the sense of visible (in the clue). It’s not part of the definition, as you rightly say. I know the definition is almost always at the beginning or end, but this seemed to me a case where it didn’t have to be.
A CYNIC need not be a woman, but I am with Arachne on this:
http://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/crossword-blog/2012/feb/02/crossword-blog-meet-the-setter-arachne
Incidentally, when I wrote the clue ‘Small chance he’ll paint your car’, no-one complained that a SPRAYER might not be male.
Admittedly I could have ducked the issue with ‘I doubt motives’ etc.
Can anyone help with the parsing of 26a? I got ‘hackneyed’, but couldn’t say why! Unfortunately, 26&27a appear to be missing from Pierre’s blog
Otherwise, a thoroughly enjoyable puzzle.
Greg@10
HACK (horse) + N (knight in chess notation) + EYED (looked) = HACKNEYED (tired)
Apologies to the setter and to commenters for the omission of 26 and 27ac. A bit of cut and paste that went wrong. 26ac is as shikasta explains (thank you) and 27ac is GYP in ET. ‘My back’s giving me gyp this morning’, in ET for the setters’ favourite ‘alien’.
Thanks, shikasta.
Maybe I had a sheltered upbringing, but I have never associated ‘hack’ with ‘horse’ – ‘nag’ maybe….which of course can be associated with ‘hack’!