This is Wiglaf’s fifth crossword in the Independent, although the first one that I have blogged. We seem to have plenty of newish names nowadays, although you wouldn’t know that they were newish because their crosswords are pretty good; as you’d expect of course, as they wouldn’t have got past Eimi if they weren’t.
I found this to be a bit hard in places, but quite sound and any failings were my own. Perhaps a bit clunky in places, such as 5dn, but this is made up for by some very nice clues.
Definitions in italics.
Nina? I never saw one, although of course … Actually I couldn’t be bothered to search very hard, not knowing if Wiglaf (by the way what an extraordinary name: I wonder how it was arrived at) does Ninas in any case.
| Across | ||
| 1 | ANAEMIC | Unhealthy American, not right, lacking energy (7) |
| (American – r)* — the anagram indicated by ‘Unhealthy’ | ||
| 5 | DEJECT | Cast down – failing to get justice for fellow (6) |
| The defect is the failing, and if in this word f is replaced by j you get deject | ||
| 8 | DIAGHILEV | Ballet impresario lived unhappily with one hag (9) |
| (lived 1 hag)* | ||
| 9 | FETCH | Escort stripped off to make an impression (5) |
| {o}f{f} etch — I had some doubts about escort = fetch | ||
| 11 | AVIATOR | A pilot once discovered a sex toy after clearing out bedroom (7) |
| a vi{br}ator | ||
| 12 | LIE-DOWN | Before noon, Oscar Wilde went off for a quick nap (3-4) |
| (O Wilde)* n — never mind if it is O = Oscar as in the NATO alphabet, or O the abbreviation for Oscar Wilde’s first name | ||
| 13 | GOLDMAN SACHS | German father’s laundered cash for US bankers (7,5) |
| G old man’s (cash)* | ||
| 17 | LABOUR-SAVING | It’s so efficient to have party at bar (6-6) |
| Labour [= party] saving [= bar] — actually I’m only vaguely aware of the connection between saving and bar and can’t immediately think of a sentence where they are interchangeable | ||
| 20 | FORBEAR | Refrain from anxiety when catching ball (7) |
| f(orb)ear | ||
| 21 | CASSOCK | Early riser catches fool in clerical attire (7) |
| c(ass)ock | ||
| 23 | YEAST | Still with old copper lining that’s used when making whisky (5) |
| ye(as)t — an as is an old coin (bronze and, later, copper, according to Wikipedia) | ||
| 24 | NIT-PICKER | Egg’s best served with endless butter for fussy type (3-6) |
| nit [= egg] pick [= best] {butt}er — butt = end | ||
| 25 | ETHYLS | Railroads blown apart by your old radicals (6) |
| e(thy)ls — elevated railroads, thy = your (old) | ||
| 26 | SALADIN | Old Kurdish leader perhaps leaves home (7) |
| salad [= perhaps leaves] in — although I can’t see the need for ‘perhaps’: ‘leaves’ gives a number of possibilities (as does ‘Old Kurdish leader’), one of which is ‘salad’, just as ‘river’ gives a number of possibilities, one of which is ‘Nile’; you don’t see ‘river, perhaps’ in clues | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | ANDEAN | A new faculty head from the highlands? (6) |
| a n dean — the Andes highlands | ||
| 2 | ADAGIO | Coming back through Soho, I gad about at a slow pace (6) |
| Reverse hidden in SohO I GAD About — the reversal is indicated by ‘Coming back’, not by ‘about’, which is needed for something else | ||
| 3 | MY HAT | Banks of money going to Panama? I don’t believe it! (2,3) |
| m{one}y hat — Panama hat | ||
| 4 | COLORADO SPRINGS | Polar coords carved on roundabout sign, indicating US location (8,7) |
| (Polar coords)* (sign)* | ||
| 5 | DEVIL’S ADVOCATES | RC officials have been turning down case studies, primarily involving mischief (6,9) |
| (lived)rev. [lived = been] (sad [= down] voc [= vocative, the case] s{tudies}) round Ate [the Greek goddess of mischief] — one type of Roman Catholic official is a devil’s advocate — phew! | ||
| 6 | JEFFERSON | Jane’s offer is out of order after ignoring a president (9) |
| (Jane’s offer)* – a | ||
| 7 | CUT NO ICE | Axe murder cases never fail to make an impression (3,2,3) |
| cut (no) ice — cut = axe, no = never, ice = murder | ||
| 10 | HONEST | Whetstone after splitting open (6) |
| After splitting, whetstone becomes whet stone and whet = hone, stone = st — this type of clue, where the setter carefully alerts the solver to the splitting of a word, seems perfectly good to me although I once submitted a clue along similar lines to Azed and he rejected it (I know this because he quoted it in his slip, although I can’t now find the details) saying that it was a clue to a clue and therefore unsound. I didn’t go along with what he was saying (although I have been careful in his competitions ever since); you quite regularly see this kind of thing and I like it. It’s certainly done well here. | ||
| 14 | OPULENTLY | United spent lolly without using heads, recklessly and lavishly (9) |
| (U {s}pent {l}olly)* | ||
| 15 | FLUFFY | Clever, posh females admitted being soft and light (6) |
| fl(U f f)y | ||
| 16 | ABERRANT | Strange Fruit, mainly penned by suggestion of Adam Ant (8) |
| A{dam} (berr{y}) Ant | ||
| 18 | FORKED | People changing sides regularly tend to be deceitful (6) |
| Folk with R for L, {t}e{n}d | ||
| 19 | SKI RUN | Maybe Reading University will block film course (3,3) |
| ski(R U)n — reading (or writing or arithmetic) is one of the three R’s | ||
| 22 | SKILL | Son gets off craft (5) |
| s kill [= off, a verb] — in this crossword we have had two slightly unusual synonyms for kill: ice and off | ||
*anagram
Yes, I liked this too, though had reservations about FETCH for ‘escort’ and missed some parsing such as ATE for ‘mischief’, AS for ‘old copper’ and the ‘elevated railroads’ bit of ETHYLS. I see what you mean about ‘perhaps’ in 26 and I don’t know if it’s meant to be part of the def or wordplay. HONEST and AVIATOR were just some of many good clues, with CUT NO ICE being my favourite.
Thanks to Wiglaf and John
Quite tough, I thought. I couldn’t parse HONEST but I too reckon it’s legit once explained. Another form of deviousness for which to keep an eye open. Good.
I’m doing this on the road and I couldn’t check the AS component of YEAST so mentally oh-welled it as ‘A Shilling’, knowing full well that shillings weren’t copper but silver in the old money.
I liked the ‘railroad’ indicator that the railway in q was American (in YEAST).
Fun. Thanks to John and Wiglaf.
I thought this was excellent, with some outstanding clues – particularly liked GOLDMAN SACHS; also SALADIN (I’m happy with “perhaps” because there are all sorts of salads and they don’t all contain leaves), CUT NO ICE, FORKED, SKI RUN. Only dubious about WHETSTONE.
Great stuff Wiglaf, thanks to John for blog.
A bit of a challenge but it all came together after I had perforce to leave it for a couple of hours. Held up in the NE corner by putting SCORE for 9ac [taking ‘make an impression’ as the def, ‘escort stripped’ as ESCOR and ‘off’ as an anagrind] – obviously wrong after getting JEFFERSON but it then took me a while to get FETCH – like you, John, I don’t really see it as a synonym for ‘escort’. Needed the blog to parse HONEST but I don’t have any problem with that sort of clue.
Can’t really nominate a CoD but I liked NIT-PICKER, and AVIATOR made me smile.
Thanks, Wiglaf and John.