As far as I can see, this is a debut by Mitz in the Indy, so welcome. I did like some of it, but there were two intersecting clues where I had to go higher up the food chain of bloggers to get help to solve and parse them. And the surfaces weren’t in many cases the best, but perhaps that’s just me being a bit pernickety about surfaces.
There’s a theme. Gene Wilder, the comic American actor, died recently. There’s a nod to him in the top across clues – BLAZING SADDLES – and a mention also of THE PRODUCERS and YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN. In addition there’s a mention of CHARLIE BUCKET from Willy Wonka, which starred Wilder; and a reference to Mel BROOKS, who worked with Wilder on a number of productions. There may be more stuff in there: I’m not a huge cinema fan, but have seen and enjoyed all the films that Mitz has worked into the puzzle.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) missing
definitions are underlined
Across
1 First and last, putting out ostentatious show of wealth is super hot
BLAZING
An insertion of A and Z for ‘first and last’ in BLING.
5 Leaves very quickly brushing off sheep tick burdens
SADDLES
The surface is meaningless, which I shall use as an excuse for not being able to parse this. Help appreciated.
10 Logo to signify minicab “optional” when all empty
SYMBOL
The outside letters (‘all empty’) of SignifY MinicaB OptionaL.
11 Sarcasm from Benny on the way up or down
HILLSIDE
Well, the ‘Benny’ is Benny HILL, which is pretty random, and SIDE is ‘sarcasm’; and I suppose a HILLSIDE goes ‘up or down’.
12 Financial backers of goods: rhinoceros skins
PRODUCERS
A charade of PRODUCE and RS for the outside letters (‘skins’) of ‘rhinoceros’. A Wilder and Brooks film, which also starred the actor mentioned in 4dn.
14 Wilder scientist was described thus in the second person: no good
YOUNG
Gene Wilder starred in YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN as the ‘scientist’, so it’s YOU for ‘second person’ grammatically and NG.
16 Intellectuals initially like sex both ways, interrupted by hearsay regularly
LITERATI
For me, this is just a piece of maths rather than a meaningful surface. It’s L + IT + ERA for the even letters of hEaRsAy + IT reversed.
18 Pirate‘s unfettered rage
SILVER
This is the one I needed help with. If you ‘unfetter’ ‘rage’ you get AG, which is SILVER, as in Long John. But I don’t think he’s normally referred to just by his last name.
19 Barely run 22s
STREAK
22 is OUTDOOR, so if you run OUTDOORS, you’d STREAK. Mainly at sporting events when you’ve had too much to drink.
21 Musical dueller to make support illegal?
BANJOIST
It’s BAN JOIST for ‘make support illegal’, but what ‘dueller’ is doing in there, I’m not sure. ‘Musician’ would have done just as well, surely? I’m missing something, no doubt.
23 Wild unknowns bend backwards
CRAZY
A reversal of YZ for the arithmetical ‘unknowns’ and ARC.
24 Idle around; copy in naked gents – it’s unorthodox
ECCENTRIC
The surface is not putting a picture in my head and the parsing wasn’t obvious (to me at least). ‘Idle’ is ERIC, the Python; you need to put CC for ‘carbon copy’ and ENT for [G]ENT[S] in that.
27 Head off gambler with low income heading back to sleeping compartment
ROOMETTE
Not a word I’d come across before. It’s a reversal of [B]ETTER with MOO for ‘low’ inserted. The unlikely insertion indicator is ‘income’ and the reversal indicator is ‘heading back’.
28 Wilder collaborator runs into reserves
BROOKS
An insertion of R in BOOKS for Mel BROOKS.
29 Garland’s original Eastern holiday
LEISURE
I see that the ‘garland’ is a LEI, and that the E comes from the first letter of ‘Eastern’; but beyond that I don’t know. I’m not being much help to you today, am I?
30 Joe receives text your setter would read as “drive illegally”
JOYRIDE
An insertion of YR for textspeak for ‘your’ and I’D for ‘your setter would’ in JOE.
Down
2 “Chicken song” by Queen
LAYER
A charade of LAY for an archaic word for ‘song’ and ER for our current monarch.
3 Springer: final letter to American taking drug to “crib”
ZEBEDEE
Magic Roundabout time. An insertion of BED and E for ‘drug’ in ZEE for the last letter of the alphabet for Americans.
4 Zero Mostel, infamously holding it up
NIL
Hidden reversed in MosteL INfamously. Zero Mostel starred with Wilder in The Producers.
6 Pole, 40, found in analytical exploration initially
AXLE
An insertion of XL for 40 in Roman numerals in A and E for the first letters of ‘analytical exploration’.
7 Rob dictator unendingly – I have last to fail
DESPOIL
A charade of DESPO[T], I and L for the last letter of ‘fail’.
8 Gene drains liquid I left behind and puts at risk
ENDANGERS
Most likely another nod to Gene Wilder: it’s (GENE DRA[I]NS)* with ‘liquid’ as the anagrind.
9 Willy Wonka’s protégé is luckier? Betcha mess it up!
CHARLIE BUCKET
(LUCKIER BETCHA)*
13 “Comedy hero always looked knowingly youthful,” starts White
CHALKY
The first letters of the first six words of the clue.
15 Proper attitude when time has passed for agreed period of exchange
USANCE
Another one I needed help with. It’s a charade of U for ‘proper’ (as opposed to NON-U) and S[T]ANCE and it’s a word I’d never heard of.
17 Put in chasing group following Italian giants after small loss
INTERPOSE
A charade of INTER for the Italian ‘giant’ football team and POS[S]E. Or PO[S]SE. You choose.
20 In frenzy, mescaline brings forth biological catalysts
ENZYMES
Hidddn in frENZY MEScaline.
22 Do better than men in the open
OUTDOOR
A charade of OUTDO and OR.
25 Annoyed when made permanent, knight goes right in
IRKED
I think that this is INKED with the K replaced by R. Another pretty meaningless surface.
26 Can cause trouble
STIR
A dd, with ‘can’ and STIR both being slang words for prison.
28 Nasty smell with nothing to add, surprise, surprise!
BOO
A charade of BO for ‘body odour’ and O. Why we need two surprises I’m not sure.
Many thanks to Mitz for his debut puzzle.
Nice to see Mitz in the Indy.
The clue for SADDLES (which I’d never have solved had I not seen BLAZING in the first across light) is skedaddles – ked (a sheep tick as an fule kno…)
LEISURE is lei(garland) + Ur (original) +E
“Duelling Banjos” feaured in the film Deliverance.
Thanks to Mitz and Pierre
Thanks baedhen@1 for parsing of SADDLES. There was indeed some tricky parsing and involved wordplay but I loved the use of the theme and nice to see Mitz on a Monday.
I was desperately triying to fit in a Q to make the set!.Well done that man!
I haven’t seen the crossword: just wanted to say congratulations to Mitz on getting published in the nationals.
Thanks for a great blog, Pierre – rather you than me! 😉
On the first run through, I entered nothing at all. I was put off, I think, by the rather surreal surfaces – like Pierre, I set great store by surfaces but I know not everyone does.
I’m assuming that this is the Mitz who used to comment here [in which case I’ve met him at a couple of our S and Bs] so I wanted to persevere – and I’m very glad I did.
ENDANGERS was my first one in, but I didn’t twig the ‘Gene’. For some reason, I’d originally taken the Wilder in 28ac as Billy but couldn’t find a collaborator to fit. Then, after a short break, I saw 9dn, which gave me a nice lot of letters and reminded me of Gene’s death a couple of weeks ago [another hot-off-the-press puzzle from the Indy – well done!].
Once I’d skewed myself onto Mitz’s wavelength, answers began to drop in at a satisfying rate and I found myself really enjoying the challenge. I didn’t spot all the clever references, so thanks to Pierre and baerchen for pointing them out.
Favourite clues: ECCENTRIC, ZEBEDEE, IRKED [for the construction, at least], LEISURE and JOYRIDE [whose surfaces did make sense.] 😉
Welcome to Mitz and many thanks for an interesting and enjoyable puzzle. I look forward to the next one.
baerchen @1 – you’ve missed out the S in LEISURE [Garland’s].
Thanks for a great blog, Pierre. In 25 it is the “n” (for knight, in the chess sense) from “inked” that is replaced with an “r” to make IRKED. The pirate in Treasure Island is referred to as simply “Silver” more-or-less throughout (it is his name, after all). And in 28, wouldn’t the surface be pretty meaningless if there was only one “surprise”…
In addition to Blazing Saddles, [the] Producers and Young [Frankenstein], SILVER STREAK and STIR CRAZY were two of the films in which Wilder co-starred with the wonderful Richard Pryor.
The clue for 13 is my comment on Wilder himself, who was indeed a hero of comedy who always seemed to have a knowingly youthful twinkle in his eye.
Thanks everyone – (adopts cheesy American accent): I’m just happy to be here.
Always great to see a new setter here – well done Mitz and well done the Independent!
@Eileen
Oops!I also missed out the ‘y’ in ‘as any fule kno’ – if one is to quote an old deliberate mis-spelling gag, one ought to mis-spell it properly, I guess.
I put it down to the excitement vicariously felt on seeing Mitz’s name above the puzzle (I’ve met Mitz a few times and I know how pleased he’ll be)
Wasn’t getting very far at all until I started to think about Wilder films, which helped with 1,5 and 12. Didn’t quite finish this – fell short on 15 and 18. I had seance in my mind for 15 as a period of exchange (with the spirit world), but the parsing doesn’t quite work.
Ever since I had trouble getting the Indy site to accept input I’ve taken to printing out my own dead tree version, which is quite helpful since I can see all the clues and the grid at once (and it encourages me to take time off from the computer to have a coffee while I attempt the crossword). Today it was particularly helpful in that a quick glance at the clues suggested – even though I’m no film buff – that the puzzle was themed around the late Mr Wilder, so forewarned was forearmed and I undertook a little research beforehand.
All of which meant that it was a bit of a breeze, even if, technically, it could be regarded as cheating. Having seen STREAK, for example, I guessed SILVER had to be in there somewhere (though I couldn’t see the parsing). There were still a few that eluded me, notably the BANJOIST/USANCE crossers which were my last ones in.
CoD was ECCENTRIC, not least for having ‘naked gents’ for ENT instead of the overworked ‘hospital department’. (Though all hospital departments are probably overworked in the present state of the NHS!)
Enough of my ramblings; time to say thanks to Mitz and Pierre.
Well, I finished it, with a bit of help, but there were many I couldn’t parse, so thanks all for that.
I’d just read Treasure Island last week, but 18ac was one of the last I got.
I failed to spot all the two-word film names in answers, but I was amused that 12ac referred to both The Producers and Rhinoceros, both films starring Wilder and Mostel (although the latter is somewhat obscure and I’ve never seen it).
Beaten by a few clues, but enjoyed the solve. Thanks to Pierre for the blog and congratz to Mitz on the debut.
A toughie but fair enough. I sort of agree with Pierre about the surfaces and I sort of don’t. I love a good surface as much as the next solver but if all you want is a nice even surface with lots of ‘E’s and Latinate answers then go and do The Times which is lovely in its way but the opposite of why we do the Indy. We like it a bit rough. Or is it only me?
Perhaps the Indy features a variety of styles, Grant, including smooth and angular.
We’ve only just finished the puzzle and came here for some explanations.
Chambers doesn’t have KID as a ‘sheep tick’ – we now see why!
Yes, the surfaces could at times have been smoother but ‘naked gents’ and ‘income’ were good.
Thanks Mitz for the puzzle and Pierre for the blog.