Autumn is here and a puzzle from Donk to accompany the autumn tints and colourful storms.
A really interesting device in today’s puzzle. Not a NINO as such but a word chain. The linking of the clues 3dn to 24dn to 16ac to 23ac to 8dn to 13ac to 17dn to 14dn to 12dn as a word chain was a lovely touch. Each is derived from the previous entry by adding a letter and creating an anagram.
Some very nice misdirections in the other clues too – 5ac, 9ac, 18ac, 25ac, 26ac, 28ac, 1dn, 4dn and 12dn. All of these made me chuckle. I suspect it may work better for us Northeners.
A toss up between 19ac and 7dn for my favourite clues. 22dn was a particularly amusing homophonic construction.
Many thanks Donk – very enjoyable.
Key:
Underline (definition); * anagram; Rev. reverse; DD double definition
Across
1 One uncovered court cases in club (7)
A(one) + bare (uncovered) in ct (court) = CABARET
5 Short rotation works for one struggling with depth (7)
Cycle (rotation) – e (short) + ops (works) = CYCLOPS (as in depth of vision)
9 Part-design, for example (4,5)
Role(part) + model(design) = ROLE MODEL
10 Panic room’s empty, like heads (5)
A la (like) before rm (empty room) = ALARM
11 Fancy having worn a tee-shirt as host (6)
Hidden wORN A TEe = ORNATE
13 Master incorrectly left 8 out (8)
(l+seminar)* = MISLEARN
15 Make arrangement in lieu, unfortunately having a serious illness (9)
(make + lieu + a)* = LEUKAEMIA
16 Face employee’s corrupt new 24 (5)
(n + emir)* = MINER
18 One bedded you in Cannes, touching cheek (5)
Tu (you in Cannes) + lip (cheek) = TULIP
19 Exit august rally, taking latest couples out last (9)
Exit-it + August – st + rally – ly = EXAUGURAL
21 Girl’s tip for recorder (8)
Anna (girl) + list (tip) = ANNALIST
23 Don’t go spoiling a 16 (6)
(a + miner(16))* = REMAIN
25 Did sport mete out methadone? (3,2)
Methadone – mete = HAD ON
26 What’s left of clues leaves you cold without hesitation (9)
Numbing(cold) around er (hesitation) = NUMBERING
28 A decentralised stock check (7)
Per (a) + usual (stock) – u (centre) = PERUSAL
29 Return on giant, bumping head (7)
Re(on) + ogress (giant) – o (head) = REGRESS
Down
1 Way sharing fish upset ladies? (3,4)
Carp(fish) + Rev. loo (ladies) = CAR POOL
2 Able to speak in tongues? (9)
Cryptic definition BILINGUAL
3 Shocking when there’s no top lip (3)
Grim (shocking) – g (top) = RIM
4 Taking up correct flower’s variation (4)
Rev. (Edit (correct)) = TIDE
5 Quit for 24hrs-ish? (4,2,1,3)
Cryptic definition = CALL IT A DAY
6 Frank‘s head of NY section Lacey’s mate nearly frames (11)
Harlem (NY section) in Cagney (Lacey’s mate) – y (nearly) = CHARLEMAGNE
7 Zero degrees needed to become president (5)
O (zero) + (ba + ma (degress)) = OBAMA
8 23 mobile after beginning to show class (7)
(s + remain)* = SEMINAR
12 Bouncers need these essentially, after 14 fights (11)
(Impersonal + t)* t is these essentially = TRAMPOLINES
14 17 quiet jockeys, rather cold (10)
(p+ normalise)* = IMPERSONAL
17 Make regular stops in centre (embarrassingly 13 lines) (9)
(Mislearn + o)* (o = stops in centre) = NORMALISE
18 Somewhere to snack late, as hopefully sandwiches (7)
Hidden (laTE AS HOPefully) = TEASHOP
20 Writers’ payment lost for years (7)
Not sure of the wordplay here? = LINAGES
22 Lowest point: told “Darling, it’s a no” (5)
Homonym Nah Dear = NADIR
24 Redesign 3 and start to enrage ruler (4)
(rim(3) + e)* = EMIR
27 It could be poached for one grand (3)
Eg(for one) + g (grand) = EGG
Found the links a bit irritating at first, but changed to appreciation after their full beauty became apparent. LOI was CYCLOPS (kept looking for the second letter vowel). Overall, very clever and enjoyable, liked CHARLEMAGNE and EXAUGURAL, never seen that word used, but the clueing allowed it to pan out nicely.
9A I don’t think “for” is part of the definition.
15A Is more precisely make* in (rather than +) lieu* + a
16A Hard to underline these things accurately, but the apostrophe and possessive ‘s are not part of the definition.
6D Typo has left the N out of the definition
12D The “t” is essentially af(t)er
20D I think the answer is LINAGES, ie the payment to a writer according to the number of lines written in copy etc. – usually spelled lineages.
22D Homophone is “Nay dear”, which is how NADIR is pronounced.
Thanks to Donk and twencelas.
A really enjoyable puzzle from Donk, although I had to jettison my phone and switch on the pc to handle the linked clues in the very clever word chain.
Great clue for CHARLEMAGNE.
Thanks to S&B
Thanks Donk and twencelas. I agree with most of what gwep has written, but 22dn works either way. The wordplay for 20dn is L + IN + AGES.
@4Pelham Barton – yes, agree that L + IN + AGES is the parsing. Still 6.5+/7 certainly qualifies as “most of”.
Think 25 had-on counts as a double definition for both did and sport. Thought this was a fantastic achievement by Donk for that chain of clues although it unraveled after guessing trampoline early on.
Thanks Donk and twenceslas
I thought this was a tremendous puzzle, which deserves wider recognition than it will probably get.
Donk put his best forward on this-it was like building a Meccano or something. I first thought of (A)HEM for 3d but seeing as much of the rest depended on this, quickly changed my tune.Many thanks to all.
Took a while for the penny to drop about the word chain, but once it did I was well away. But at the end of the chain (12dn) I would parse it differently – ‘these essentially’ implies E, not T, so you have (as so often) to ignore the punctuation and read ‘essentially’ as referring to ‘after’ to give you the T; then the anagrind is simply ‘fights’. (The use of ‘after’ may also be an intentional misdirection since the T comes before the anagram of 17dn)
EXAUGURAL was a new word for me; not in my Chambers or Collins, though no doubt to be found in the OED.
A pleasant and interesting solve – thanks, Donk and Twencelas.
Wow, that was fun!!
Donk is a very good setter but once a year he does something really special.
In January 2013 he gave us a marvellous ‘football’ crossword and almost a year later a stunning puzzle with couples of identical clues leading to different solutions.
In May last year Donk did something extraordinary with the Fibonacci sequence.
Today was The 2016 Moment.
There were so many cross-references that I thought it would be a good idea to write them down.
I spotted the chain of consecutive anagrams very quickly but what an imaginative find!
It helped to fill the grid at a steady pace but it still took some time to complete.
The hilarious 22d (NADIR) was my first one in and probably my favourite.
In 4d Donk shows us how to deal with reversal clues (after some dubious ones on ‘the other side’).
He does not put the indicator between the two fodders.
As it (ideally) should be.
Wonderful!
Many thanks for the blog, twenceslas.
ps, I would like to echo Simon S @6.
I found this really quite difficult! Both my friend and I struggled and needed aid of Bradfords and Chambers/Collins.
We still had a few left unsolved. Thanks for the solutions here.
Thanks twencelas and Donk for taxing us!!
Jake.
I don’t normally enjoy “multi-dependency” clued puzzles, but like others once I’d worked out the cleverness of what was going on, I was converted for this one. New words, wit and a bit of befuddlement – what more could you ask for. Some brilliant clues, with the wordplay for NADIR and the defs. for TULIP, CHARLEMAGNE and CYCLOPS being my favourites.
A big thanks to Donk and to twencelas.
Like others, it took a while before the penny dropped – even then it took some sorting out. Quite a few went in and were parsed afterwards.
19ac was a new one on us but once we had a few crossing letters we realised the construction.
There were some typical Donk definitions as in ‘face employee’ but as Sil has said, every now and again Donk comes up with something really special.
Thanks to twencelas for the blog but a very big thank you to Donk!