It’s been a while since it last fell to me to blog a puzzle by Donk, so I was looking forward to getting my teeth into this one.
Overall, I think I found this one to be towards the easier end of the Donk spectrum, and thus about average in terms of difficulty for the Indy crossword in general. As is often the case with me, I struggled most with the shortest, in this case 4-letter, entries, and 25 and 27 were my last ones in.
Noticeable today was the sauciness of a number of the clues – at 4, 10 and 25 – and it struck me that these clues might not all have got past a broadsheet crossword editor ten years ago, say – times have changed cruciverbally too, it seems. In addition to these clues, my favourites today were 19, for its smooth surface, and 26, for its “no tips” device.
I have not spotted a theme or indeed a hidden message here, although the grid is one that lends itself to Ninas. Incidentally, the grid contains no long entries, with 8 letters being the maximum word length. Donk has chosen not to divide any longer expressions across a number of grid entries.
(…) indicates an anagram; definitions are italicised; // separates definitions in multiple-definition clues
| Across | ||
| 07 | COME TO | Total space traveller’s taking over
COMET (=space traveller) + O (=over, in cricket) |
| 08 | ROCK STAR | Musician surprises with short cover
ROCKS (=surprises) + TAR<p> (=cover, i.e. tarpaulin; “short” means last letter dropped) |
| 09 | DOUGLAS | Man’s place also dug up
*(ALSO DUG); “up” is anagram indicator; Douglas is the capital of the Isle of Man, hence “Man’s place” |
| 10 | JOISTS | They support one’s bits, boxing
I’S (=one’s) in JOTS (=bits) |
| 11 | SCHTUM | Small church pot makes you silent
S (=small) + CH (=church) + TUM (=pot, i.e. pot-belly); “to keep schtum” is “to remain silent” |
| 13 | ABU DHABI | A druggie’s problem, short of capital
A + BUD HABI<t> (=druggie’s problem, where “bud” is slang for “weed, marijuana”; “short” means last letter dropped); Abu Dhabi is the capital of the United Arab Emirates |
| 15 | BELONG | Go last for ages
BE LONG (=last for ages); “to belong” is to be suitable for, go, as in “That painting doesn’t go/belong here” |
| 17 | MARTIN | Skill covered by 60s bird
ART (=skill) in MIN (=60s, i.e. 60 seconds = 1 minute) |
| 20 | ANARCHIC | Are stylish clothes managed in turn during rebellious phase?
NAR (RAN=managed; “in turn” indicates reversal) in [A (=are, i.e. land measure) + CHIC (=stylish)] |
| 22 | ALFRED | A Liverpool fan left female inside (one that was great)
[L (=left) + F (=female)] in [A + RED (=Liverpool fan, from colour of strip)]; Alfred the Great was King of Wessex from 871 to 899 |
| 24 | REVEAL | During Midsummer Eve, a light show
Hidden (“during”) in “MidsummeR EVE A Light” |
| 26 | ICED TEA | Drink dedicated to engineer (no tips!)
*(<d>EDICATE<d>); “no tips” means first and last letters dropped from anagram, indicated by “to engineer” |
| 28 | PRESSURE | Demands help at last, when extended
<hel>P (“at last” means last letter only); the extended form of the abbreviation P is “pressure” |
| 29 | ROOFER | Thatcher’s one for turning with “ore”?
*(FOR + ORE); “turning” is anagram indicator |
| Down | ||
| 01 | MOOD | Second overdose in vein
MO (=second, i.e. moment) + OD (=overdose) |
| 02 | JESUIT | I’m in Paris, nearly – time to find religious chap
JE SUI<s> (=I’m in Paris, i.e. the French for “I am”; “nearly” means last letter dropped) + T (=time) |
| 03 | NOBLEMAN | Recollected no blame’s attached to new duke?
*(NO BLAME) + N (=new); “recollected” is anagram indicator |
| 04 | ACAJOU | Some aphrodisiac! A journo gives you wood
Hidden (“some”) in “aphrodisiAC A JOUrno” |
| 05 | IS WITH IT | Follows fashion (does funny man do well?)
IS WIT (a) HIT? = does (a) funny man do well? |
| 06 | RAFT | Host service for flying doctors centrally
RAF (=service for flying, i.e. Royal Air Force) + <doc>T<ors> (“centrally” means middle letter only); a raft of proposals is a large number, array, host |
| 08 | RASCAL | Rogue artist’s balance in detail
RA (=artist) + SCAL<e> (=balance, i.e. for weighing; “in de-tail” means last letter dropped) |
| 12 | CABIN | Origin of complaint one can lodge
C<ompaint> (“origin of” means first letter only) + A (=one) + BIN (=can, i.e. slang for “prison”) |
| 14 | BONCE | Head back to lab immediately
<la>B (“back to” means last letter only) + ONCE (=immediately, as soon as) |
| 16 | LARGESSE | Charity raising some awareness e.g. rallying
Vertically reversed (“raising”) and hidden (“some”) in “awarenESS E.G. RALlying” |
| 18 | AMATEURS | They’re not paid in rum at sea, unfortunately
*(RUM AT SEA); “unfortunately” is anagram indicator |
| 19 | SCRIBE | One writing Eric Blair’s first and second works
*(ERIC + B<lair> + S (=second)); “first” means first letter only; “works” is anagram indicator |
| 21 | HELIUM | He’s seeing Pong entertaining priest
ELI (=priest, in Old Testament) in HUM (=pong, stench); He is the chemical symbol for “helium” |
| 23 | FITTON | Darts player in match gets 100
FIT (=match, suit) + TON (=100); the reference is to English professional darts player Darryl Fitton (1962-) |
| 25 | EURO | You’re aroused, missing why Spaniard’s ready for one
*(<y>OU’RE); “missing why (=Y, in SMS language)” means letter “y” is dropped from anagram, indicated by “aroused”; the euro is the unit of currency (“ready”) in e.g. Spain |
| 27 | AMEN | Donk’s described by article – I think so too
ME (=Donk, i.e. the setter) in AN (=article) |
I also found this rather gentle for Donk. I follow his Twitter account so cannot claim any credit for this whatsoever, but there is a theme and I think its root can be found at 12 28 – but I am unfamiliar with it and can’t be *’ß#+ to google it.
Thanks to Donk and RR
There could be more in 9ac than first meets the eye, DOUGLAS being also a man’s name, the clue can be interpreted as: Douglas is (= man’s) Douglas (= place) Douglas (= anag of ‘also dug). A sort of triple definition.
But some of the other parsings escaped me – MARTIN and PRESSURE among them, but so simple when I saw them; and I had to google to confirm FITTON.
Can’t help on the theme, I’m afraid.
Thanks, though, to Donk and RatkojaRiku. Concidentally, btw, the recycled Indy in yesterday’s i was the subject of RatkojaRiku’s first blog, and also had JESUIT as one of the answers (although clued differently).
Thought 17a was a classic surface.In any level of difficulty this man is sheer class.
I found it a bit of mixed bag, although mostly good. I’m not sure I’d accept 60s as a synonym for minute – when does anyone ever say that? Can you give me 5 60s please? I liked the use of He in 21 down, although using chemical symbols is becoming so frequent now I might even start anticipating them soon.
@NealH
It says sixty seconds – 60s, using the SI abbreviation. I don’t think it’s been done before – a brilliant innovation if not. I expect it’ll be copied soon enough.
@NealH
Actually I don’t think I can have understood your objection. Presumably you’re not actually saying 60 seconds isn’t the same as a minute?
Impenetrable for me, I’m afraid. I got about half of it out and ground to a complete halt. Donk is a talented but hard setter; but unless he gets a bit better at losing gracefully or I get a whole lot better at solving daily cryptics then I don’t think much is going to change.
If 17ac was a classic surface, then I’m afraid that it was completely lost on me: I have no idea what it’s referring to. And a completely unknown darts player in FITTON? Give me a break. We’ll be having golf references next. At least I’ve heard of Ernie Els
Thanks to S&B.
@K’s dad
Not a red letter day for you in crypticland!
Fitton, definitely obscure, isn’t an accident clearly and this puzzle seems to be based around a comedy prog written for BBC Radio4 (finally got round to searching for it although not in depth)
Very intricate with some stretched synonyms. I thought I was clever with 2 down, reading it as ‘I’ in ‘pres'(French for near) followed by ‘t’ to give me ‘priest’.’Douglas’ put me on the right track.
Quite a challenge, and quite enjoyable – had to resort to a bit of cheating to finish the NE corner. Missed the Cabin Pressure theme completely – that would have helped a little…
I’ve been away for two weeks so I got about half myself. Not so bad for a return to concentration. Thanks to both.
Thanks, baerchen, for your sympathetic comment. The crossword in Another Place was fine, it’s just that the theme, when it was revealed, sounded like fingernails scraping down a blackboard. For me.
Here, now that it has been explained, it just seems to me like it’s another puzzle sacrificed on the altar of a random theme. How many people in the Indy solving population (excluding the twenty or so obsessives who comment here regularly) are really going to have heard of this R4 programme? Answer: very few. So that’s no help to solving for the majority. The grid made it difficult, but the grid is only there because the setter needed it to get in all the references. And as I keep saying, daily cryptics should provide pleasure for solvers if they do manage to finish, and not be an ego trip for the setter to parade one of their pet likes.
My day outside cruciverbiland has been fine, since you ask.
Well thanks all for the puzzle and help, but I’m still in K’sD’s corner, that’s two old goats then… And counting?
As regards 12d I thought that “can” and “bin” were synonyms for “get rid of”.
Well here’s one solver for whom this daily cryptic did provide pleasure. The fact that the setter paraded one of his pet likes was irrelevant as far as this solver was concerned as no knowledge of the theme was necessary. The one rough edge was FITTON but it was clear from the wordplay and fairly easily confirmed.
We’re with allan_c @15 on this one. We thought there must be a theme but know nothing about the R4 programme but it really didn’t matter. FITTON was our LOI but once we had the checking letters it was fairly obvious.
Thanks Donk and RR.
Oh dear, are we Radio 4 listeners really such a tiny minority now? The aforementioned MARTIN Crieff was played by Benedict Cumberbatch, who was still in the cast long after he should have been too big a star to bother.
I agree that FITTON was pretty obscure even to those of us that remember the series, and it is also obscure in whatever context you try to define it, so not a nice choice for a ghost theme. The darts player was unfamiliar to me too but easy enough to look up, and I enjoyed the crossword without seeing the theme.
beery hiker@17 – Don’t think that we are not Radio 4 listeners because we didn’t know anything about the theme. We are great fans of many of their programmes – just not Cabin Pressure!
B&J @18 – sorry – I didn’t intend my comment @17 to be any criticism of you – it was really a reply to Ks D @12 and I should have made that clear
To be fair I did find the program quite juvenile and annoying at times – I just tend to have Radio 4 on from the 6 p.m. news until the end of Front Row most weekdays.
As I wrote, I did suspect that there was a ghost theme of some description, but I am rather glad that I didn’t spend too much time head-scratching, as I have never heard of the programme. Nevertheless, no knowledge of it was necessary to finish the puzzle and to have an enjoyable solving experience – spotting the theme, if you happen to know the programme, just adds an extra layer of pleasure, I imagine.
Thank you, allan_c, for the reminder of the first blog, back in December 2010.
I’m clearly in a minority – I really liked the show. Nobody else has mentioned it, so I might as well point out the Nina across the top row: MJN AIR is the name of the tiny airline in the show, owned by Stephanie Cole’s character Carolyn (who doesn’t seem to appear in either grid or clues). “MJN” stands for “My Jet Now” – Carolyn got it from her ex-husband as part of their divorce settlement, and calls the one plane that comprises MJN Air GERTI – a second Nina across row 11 – which is her serial number. As well as Carolyn, a second central character – Arthur, who was played by the show’s creator and writer John Finnimore – also seems to be missing.
By the way, by explanation of the inclusion of the very obscure FITTON, the airfield by that name is the home of MJN AIR in the show. Beery Hiker has already mentioned MARTIN, as played by BC; DOUGLAS Richardson was the snarky co-pilot, played by Roger Allam.
Just standing up to be counted among fans of ‘Cabin Pressure’, one of a tiny handful of Radio 4 comedies that make me laugh out loud no matter how many times I listen to each episode. With a cast of such quality it really can’t go wrong, and John Finnemore is for me a writer and performer without peer.
Coming too late to the party because I don’t usually do the Indy, but would have done had I known the theme was CP. I’m with Polly and Mitz – love the show which is beautifully played (particularly by the wonderful Roger Allam) and John Finnemore is a comedy writer of genius.