On a Tuesday you never quite know who you will be crossing cruciverbal swords with. This week it has fallen to Alchemi to give the grey cells their morning workout.
I actually found this one quite tough in that I found it hard to make inroads into it. I really did have to chip away at it, and once I had completed the bottom half of the grid, I had to start almost from scratch in the top half. Re-reading my previous blogs of Alchemi puzzles, I can see that this has been my experience of solving most of them.
In the end, I was left with 4A, 4D and 5 and eventually needed to cheat on the Indy website to complete the puzzle. Both 4D and 5 were new terms to me, but had I managed to solve 4A, I would have doubtless worked out 5, although probably not 4D. 14 and 25 were also new to me, although I worked both of them out from the wordplay; similarly, I had not heard of the manager at 1A, but his name could be teased out from the wordplay. Finally, I am not sure of my parsing of 29.
I haven’t spotted a theme today, although I remember that there was one in the last Alchemi that I blogged. My favourite clues today were amongst the simplest and most concise in the puzzle, namely 9 and 10.
*(…) indicates an anagram; definitions are italicised; // separates definitions in multiple-definition clue
| Across | ||
| 01 | KLOPP | UKIP evenly split about cut for foreign manager
LOP (=cut) in <u>K>i>P (“evenly” means even letters only); the reference is to German Jürgen Klopp, currently manager of Liverpool F.C. |
| 04 | VALENTINE | A fast climber gets out anonymous message
[A + LENT (=fast, i.e. period of fasting)] in VINE (=climber) |
| 09 | BAROQUE | Ship carrying nothing ornate
O (=nothing) in BARQUE (=ship) |
| 10 | FLASHES | Displays trophy to sides in final
F<ina>L (“sides” means first and last letters only) + ASHES (=trophy, in cricket) |
| 11 | BROKEN ARM | Two guns satisfactory in causing injury
OK (=satisfactory) in [BREN + ARM (=two guns)] |
| 12 | SWEET | Nearly brush away first of the pudding
SWEE<p> (=brush; “nearly” means last letter dropped) + T<he> (“first of” means first letter only) |
| 13 | RAKISH | Diminutive child described by spots of a somewhat disreputable nature
KI<d> (=child; “diminutive” means last letter dropped) in RASH (=spots) |
| 15 | ESPOUSER | Dictator stripped naked by employer’s backer
<d>ESPO<t> (=dictator; “stripped naked” means first and last letters are dropped) + USER (=employer) |
| 17 | AMBROSIA | Slav mother comes back to Iowa for delicious meal
AMBROS (SORB=Slav; MA=mother; “comes back” indicates reversal) + IA (=Iowa) |
| 19 | OTITIS | Marshal rejected island’s complaint
OTIT (TITO=Marshal, of Yugoslavia; “rejected” indicates reversal) + IS (=island) |
| 22 | MINIM | Measure freedom in important cases
Hidden (“cases”) in “freedoM IN IMportant”; a minim is e.g. an apothecaries’ measure, equal to one sixtieth of a fluid drachm |
| 23 | AVERAGELY | See the consequence of state getting silver in a pretty normal way
AVER (=state, as verb) + AG (=silver) + ELY (=see, i.e. diocese) |
| 26 | SEAFOOD | Sort of cocktail of soda mixed with drug
*(OF SODA + E (=drug, i.e. Ecstasy); “mixed” is anagram indicator |
| 27 | BERSERK | Frenzied idiot goes round Queen’s
ER’S (=Queen’s) in BERK (=idiot) |
| 28 | CRICKETER | May possibly credit conspiracy theorist with talking extremely rationally to begin with
CR (=credit) + ICKE (=conspiracy theorist, i.e. David Icke) + T<alking> E<xtremely> R<ationally> (“to begin with” means first letters only); the reference is to Surrey and England cricketer Peter May (1929-94) |
| 29 | SHORT | Drunken type somewhat lacking
A person who is drunk might pronounce “sort” (=type) as “short”!; short means somewhat lacking in expressions such as to fall short, to be a man short in the team, a pound short in one’s wage packet, etc |
| Down | ||
| 01 | KEBAB | Beautiful woman initially keen to get up for fast food
BABE (=beautiful woman) + K<een> (“initially” means first letter only); “to get up” indicates (here full) vertical reversal |
| 02 | OARLOCK | Old demon with disappearing boat fitting
O (=old) + <w>ARLOCK (=demon; “with (=W) disappearing” means letter “w” is dropped); an oarlock is a less common term for rowlock |
| 03 | PIQUE | Irritation as game is cut short
PIQUE<t> (=game, of cards); “cut short” means last letter dropped |
| 04 | VEEJAY | Listened to Indian TV host
Homophone (“listened to”) of ‘Vijay” (=Indian, i.e. forename); a veejay (=video jockey) is a broadcaster who introduces and plays music videos, cf. disc jockey |
| 05 | LIFE MASK | Spooner identifies his surreptitious drink supply with facial impression
Spoonerism of “my flask” (=how he identifies “his surreptitious drink supply”); a life mask is a cast of a person’s face taken while they are alive |
| 06 | NEAT’S FOOT | Fasten damaged footwear, getting rid of black lubricating oil
*(FASTEN) + <b>OOT (=footwear; “getting rid of black (=B)” means letter “b” is dropped); neat’s foot oil is an oil obtained from the feet of oxen! |
| 07 | IN HEELS | Line she scrawled describing her footwear
*(LINE SHE); “scrawled” is anagram indicator |
| 08 | EASY TERMS | Festival script includes your first payment reschedule
Y<our> (“first” means first letter only) in [EASTER (=festival) + MS (=script, i.e. manuscript)] |
| 13 | READ MUSIC | Understand the score about commercial – you don’t want to face it!
RE (=about) + AD (=commercial) + MUSIC (=you don’t want to face it, as in to face the music) |
| 14 | STORMCOCK | Mistle-thrush finds mice, oddly, in street round Gibraltar?
M<i>C<e> (“oddly” means odd letters only are used) in [ST (=street) + O (=round, i.e. pictorially) + ROCK (=Gibraltar?)] |
| 16 | GIN AND IT | Trap outlaw stealing first drink
GIN (=trap, as noun) + <b>ANDIT (=outlaw; “stealing first” means first letter dropped) |
| 18 | BENGALI | Mangled Belgian language
*(BENGALI); “mangled” is anagram indicator |
| 20 | THERETO | Tore out article earlier in addition
THE (=article) + *(TORE); “out” is anagram indicator |
| 21 | MEMBER | Part of group, don’t forget, misses the first quarter
<re>MEMBER (=don’t forget); “misses the first quarter” means the first 2 of the 8 letters are dropped |
| 24 | ARRAS | French departmental capital embarrassed internally
Hidden (“internally”) in “embARRASsed”; Arras is the capital of the Pas-de-Calais department |
| 25 | YAKUT | Russian bovine essentially mute
YAK (=bovine) + <m>UT<e> (“essentially” means middle letters only); a Yakut is a member of a Turkic people living in NE Siberia |
Thanks RR. There actually is a musical ghost theme, but I don’t expect anyone to spot it unaided because while the singer-songwriter concerned is a cult hero to his relatively few fans, nobody else has heard of him.
Not my favourite spoonerism and thanks for blogging(didnt envy you at all) But all in all a tough but quite enjoyable workout.Thanks to all.
And i cant see Nick Drake anywhere.
Completely defeated by the NE corner and had never heard of the terms for 4d, 5d (though kept thinking of ‘death mask’ so the penny should have dropped) or 6d. I’m annoyed I missed FLASHES, but VALENTINE was out of my league. Didn’t know STORMCOCK or SORB for ‘Slav’. The theme has similarly passed me by I’m afraid.
V. tough for me, but a good challenge. (Peter) ‘May’ in 28 was my COD – he’s also appeared elsewhere in a similar clue a few weeks ago.
Thanks to Alchemi and RatkojaRiku
Something of a workout for the brain today. Got there in the end, with the NE corner being the last to fall, though it all seems pretty obvious once you see it. ‘Sorb’ for ‘Slav’ was new to me; not in Chambers, but I found it in Collins – I wondered at first if it was ‘Serb’ and an alternative spelling of AMBROSIA. 15ac held me up, too – I was looking for the name of a dictator rather than a synonym.
Re VALENTINE, how many people these days realise it’s meant to be anonymous? There’ll be plenty of cards in the shops, once Christmas is over, with wording like “to my wife”, “for my boyfriend”, etc.
Thanks, Alchemi and RatkojaRiku.
@Alchemi
I enjoyed the puzzle very much, but the ghost theme sailed harmlessly by; at least I picked the right word to google for a first time hit having seen your message!
Have a cigar!
thanks, and thanks to RR as well, of course
allan_c @4
“‘Sorb’ for ‘Slav’ was new to me; not in Chambers,…”
Actually it is if you follow the link Sorb-Wend-Slav.
That’ll be Roy Harper then …. Stormcock, Flat Baroque and Berserk, When An Old Cricketer … Etc
Correctamundo, Geebs. Lifemask, Valentine, Stormcock, (Flat) Baroque (and) Berserk. Flashes (from the Archives of Oblivion), (When an Old) Cricketer (Leaves the Crease), Short (and) Sweet
With only one brain present at the moment, Joyce found this very hard. Lots of ‘cheating’ by using word searches in Chambers for the top half. Very annoyed about missing VALENTINE though!
Thanks to S&B.
Here’s the other brain, a day late, similarly frazzled. Managed to complete it without word searches, but a lot of guesswork and revisiting the guesses for the parsing – not helped by the unusual words at 4 and 5d, and the football reference at 1ac, which means nothing to me.
The theme completely passed me by, but it does explain the inclusion of the odd words.
Some rather dubious definitions imho, but thanks to Alchemist for the challenge and RR for the blog.
we are working through puzzles from yesteryear to get through the pandemic restrictions… i noticed that the word LARAMIE is formed in the second column of letters….