Firstly, best wishes for 2016 from me to everyone in the Fifteensquared community. Secondly, Chuffing Nora.
If the concept of the Monday Indy puzzle being ‘the easy one’ started disappearing last year, it has certainly disappeared now. It took me three goes to finally get this baby to lie down to sleep, and I’m not even sure that it’s still slumbering. If it wakes up again, I’m just going to stick a dummy in its mouth, shut the nursery door and ignore its crying. Parenting – and blogging – has its limits. Hard, hard, hard …
Bit of a musical theme, but I can’t see any Nina.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed
definitions are underlined
Across
9 Lively number by 10cc, first on island
CAPRICCIO
A charade of CAPRI, CC and IO for ‘ten’.
10 It’s what baritone might produce, not alto
OOMPH
I think that this is OOMP[A]H, but I’m not really sure why a baritone would produce more OOMPAH than an alto.
11 Perhaps 12 put out bucket
UP-TRAIN
An EXPRESS could indeed be an UP-TRAIN, if it was heading for London. A charade of (PUT)* and RAIN.
12 Squeeze out former papers and current one
EXPRESS
A triple definition. Although the Daily Express is not so much a paper as a right-wing rag whose main purpose is to put pictures of the Royal family on its front page and pretend that it’s news.
13 A Lloyd Webber’s ex-partner’s flash?
TRICE
A Lloyd Webber’s ex-partner was T(im) RICE. ‘I’ll be there in a trice.’
14 Callous man, naive, showing weakness in bridge?
HEARTLESS
A charade of HE and ARTLESS, and a nod to the fact that if you had no HEARTS in a round of bridge, then you’d have a ‘weakness’. Although I thought that if you were void in a suit, that would help things. I need Wil R/John to confirm what’s going on here, because I think he’s into bridge. Or maybe it’s chess, in which case I nominate someone else to help explain it.
16 Ask why all seem to upset 21D 21
MAKE HASTE SLOWLY
(ASK WHY ALL SEEM TO)* and referring to the two opposite instructions in 21dn/21.
19 Frogmen see in different ways
DIVERSELY
A charade of DIVERS and ELY for the setters’ favourite ‘see’.
21 How to perform fast overture to Otello? No
LENTO
A charade of LENT for the forty-day Christian ‘fast’ before Easter and O for the ‘overture’ or opening to Otello. LENTO is music-speak for ‘slow’ and not ‘fast’. An extended definition.
22 Left two lots of cash for rock attraction
LORELEI
A charade of L, ORE and LEI. The ‘two lots of cash’ are the currencies of Denmark (100 ORE in the Krone) and of Romania. LORELEI was a German maiden, transformed upon her death into a siren, who lured sailors to their deaths from a rock above the Rhine. Was she attractive? Perhaps the dead sailors didn’t think so.
23 Annually cheat Dubliner?
PATRICK
A charade of PA for per annum and TRICK for a typically Irish name. And that of their patron saint, of course, who got rid of all those snakes.
24 Brush up article a novelist penned
CLEAN
Hidden in artiCLE A Novelist.
25 Piano’s one facility: overpowering hectic playing
ARCHITECT
An insertion of (HECTIC)* in ART for the well-known (not) Italian architect Renzo PIANO.
Down
1 Used someone in dock to house cat
ACCUSTOMED
An insertion of TOM in ACCUSED.
2 Give up after notice for penalty
SPOT KICK
A charade of SPOT for ‘notice’ and KICK for ‘give up’.
3 Test these days should be played briskly
VIVACE
A charade of VIVA for ‘test’ and CE for ‘Common Era’, an alternative to AD for ‘Anno Domini’ to represent the current date system.
4 Inspect feet in small jail
SCAN
I think that this is referring to ‘feet’ in the poetic sense, so to SCAN verse. And it’s S plus CAN.
5 Design yard, keeping cost at average level
MODERATELY
An insertion of RATE in MODEL followed by Y. I think.
6 Where to remove big stone Harry swallowed?
HOSPITAL
Another insertion: of OS PIT in HAL, and an &lit.
7 Hamper emptied by mistake – tea reported missing
IMPEDE
(EMP[T]IED)*
8 So America’s short of energy?
THUS
TH[E] US
14 Hilarious Conservative wearing weird hairstyle
HYSTERICAL
An insertion of C in (HAIRSTYLE)* and a nod to the buffoon who is Boris Johnson. Or maybe Donald Trump, where ‘buffoon’ doesn’t even come close.
15 Broadcaster’s eating salad shoots up
SKYROCKETS
Another insertion: of ROCKET in SKYS.
17 Belting game in Tipperary inspires its leader
HURTLING
Another insertion: of T for the first letter of ‘Tipperary’ in HURLING for the traditional Irish game.
18 Get leg over, say, somewhere in Canada
WINNIPEG
A charade of WIN, PIN reversed, and EG. I would remind the setter that this is a family newspaper.
20 Eddy tore off between 5 and 10
VORTEX
Another insertion: of (TORE)* in V and X.
21 Treble parts swapped, sing heart out
LET RIP
Radian is asking you to take TRIPLE, and then swap (some of) the parts. Not my favourite kind of clue, because there’s no clear indication of which parts to swap.
22 Clip from film fellow cut …
LICK
[F]LICK. ‘She was going at a fair lick/clip.’
23 … with due respect to Speed
PACE
It’s the Latin, from the ablative of pax. ‘With due respect to (someone or their opinion), used to express polite disagreement or contradiction.’ A dd.
Many thanks to Radian for the start to the Indy daily New Year. But could you please ask the editor to schedule you on a Thursday from now on, please?
Thanks for the blog, Pierre!
I think I must have been lucky with this one, because the only clue that gave me a problem [apart from 10ac, which I don’t really understand either] was ARCHITECT, which seemed to be the only word that would fit but I hadn’t heard of Piano, I’m ashamed to say, because, when I sceptically googled him, I found he collaborated with Richard Rogers on the Pompidou Centre and designed the Shard.
I thought there were some excellent clues: my favourites were the clever linkage between 16ac and the 21s, HOSPITAL and VORTEX.
Many thanks, as ever, to Radian – I really enjoyed it.
Not my type of cluing at all. I wont rant though.
I think the theme is based around 16ac.
14A Agree with Pierre that being “heartless” is not necessarily a weakness at bridge. One could, if heartless, trump an opponent’s H winner. I think the use of “heartless’ here is what is usually designated in crypticland as whimsical.
I think the parsing to 8D is TH{e} US.
Yes, difficult indeed for a Monday and needed a couple of visits, but an excellent workout and fun.
Thanks to Radian and Pierre.
Thanks for the blog, Pierre.
There’s a slight error in your paring of 8d, which should be TH(E) US.
Parsing, even.
In 10ac I think the definition is simply ‘It’, OOMPH being defined as ‘the quality of being exciting, energetic, or sexually attractive’ Then ‘what a baritone might produce’ is ‘oompah’. The said baritone being probably a baritone sax rather than a singer – though I would think oompahs are more likely from tubas, euphoniums, etc.
Quite tricky, but thanks to Radian and Pierre.
@7allan_c – excellent spot, I reckon you’ve got “it”!
@7allan-c – that’s how I parsed it (eventually). The baritone Radian had in mind is, I think, this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baritone_horn
I am a rare visitor to the Indie, the Guardian being my thing, but I was intrigued by a reference by Pierre in the Guardian Quiptic blog to this being tricky, so I thought I’d have a go. Glad I did: I found it enjoyable and above average difficulty but not too much – just enough to be challenging. And, although I was misdirected by 25ac (cleverly so, given the mini-theme and the surface), I am aware of Renzo Piano, which means that he must be quite famous (as I’m no expert on architecture).
Thanks Rullytully, corrected now.
This is my first posting to say I think the policy of easy Monday cryptics just leads to boring Mondays. I enjoyed this puzzle and did not think it too tough. But it took longer to solve than January’s weak Grauniad Genius.
Thanks to all for the interesting blogs and comments.
I stopped doing the Independent some years back but now i’ve found I can get it on an Android tablet have started again. With a couple of exceptions I found this an excellent offering, just the right level of difficulty for me. My exceptions were 3d & 23d my knowledge of Latin is nonexistent, however I did complete it even if not fully understanding the parsing,so thanks for the explanations Pierre.
@9Rog – thanks for the link; I suspected there might be another sort of baritone. Not to be confused, btw, with the baryton which is something different altogether.
Defeated me. Got about half of it.
Agree with you Pierre yes this was hard. For me anyway. I can’t help with the heartless clue I’m afraid. Of what I know it’s a good thing not a weakness to have a void – I think that’s what it’s called. Yes a good spot of the definition in 10ac allan_c but still I can’t see how a baritone produces an oompah. Wasn’t happy with scan = feet in 4dn and suspect I’m missing something.
What is the convention about referring to clues? Surely LENTO is at 21ac rather than just 21. Or if the ac is omitted does this mean it’s assumed?
Wil @15
“Wasn’t happy with scan = feet in 4dn and suspect I’m missing something.”
You’re missing Pierre’s underlining of ‘INSPECT feet’ as the definition – see here:
http://prescannedshakespeare.aruffo.com/
We found this difficult to get into at first and ended up starting at the bottom and working our way up.
We weren’t sure about OOMPH and given the ‘speed’ theme we were surprised that the MPH wasn’t exploited.
It was a good challenging puzzle to start the week and the year.
Thanks Radian and Pierre.
“We weren’t sure about OOMPH and given the ‘speed’ theme we were surprised that the MPH wasn’t exploited.”
Good point, B and J! 😉
Thanks Pierre and Radian. Enjoyed this, mostly. My LOIs were 7d and 10a. Having settled on OOMPH, I was still struggling with 7d – until I spotted that Hamper emptied included AMPERE, which fitted the crossers. Oh dear! Well done, Pierre, for cracking the whole thing.
@15wil – oompah, or sometimes umpah, is a somewhat derogatory term for the sound produced by brass instruments, particularly in the lower register, such as the baritone horn mentioned by Rog @9. As Ogden Nash puts it in his verses to go with Saint-Saëns’ “Carnival of the Animals”:
All the brasses look like mumps
From blowing umpah, umpah, umps.
There are even groups calling themselves oompah bands.
Hi, great blog, I’m learning a lot.
Why is OS PIT a big rock?
Lockdown, no print paper, tried to download I cryptic, but got Hob from the Indy. Anyone advise how I get the I crossword?
Hi Ken. I think you need to be an ‘i’ subscriber. Then download the ‘i’-newspaper App and the paper can be read on line. There is a separate section for ‘puzzles’ but the cryptic also appears on the relevant page. I had to do a screen-save to be able to print it off. If using a lap-top you will need to turn it into an Android tablet. I used ‘BlueStacks’ which is free and seemingly harmless. Happy to offer more help if needed.
Sorted, but roll on the day when I can resume my morning walk to the corner shop to pick up a proper ‘i’.