The blogging cycle turned and delivered me Tyrus again which was great because I knew I would enjoy it, and also have a chance of completing it without causing too much grief.
If there is a theme it is one of cars, driving and road safety.
There is RED , AMBER and GREEN for traffic lights, SPEED, CAR NATION, a couple of motor manufacturers in the shape of AUDI and ALFA ROMEO, and a bit of GEAR changing from FIRST, till we are DRIVEN TO DISTRACTION.
This, and AMBER GAMBLERS at 1A in particular, gave me a sigh. A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending a Driver Awareness course and I’d thoroughly recommend the experience – it was obviously educational and actually quite interesting – certainly beats getting 3 points on the licence. Before you ask: I was caught on a camera doing 50 in the 40 limit through unfamiliar territory (Bournemouth) and didn’t know anything about it till I found the suspicious brown envelop on the mat when I got back from holiday a week later. I swear I was just following the car in front and have never knowingly exceeded the speed limit in all my time driving – funnily enough everyone else on the course said the same thing! Anyway the one thing that stands out was how few of the people on the course knew that a traffic light at Amber means Stop. Not “prepare to stop” or “speed up and get through before the red”. It means stop unless it is unsafe to do so. People who don’t stop at amber are liable to cause accidents and get nicked by eagle-eyed traffic cops.
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | AMBER GAMBLERS | Impatient travellers who don’t wait to see 11 (5,8) CD. Answer to 11 is RED. |
| 8 | OFFSHOOT | Bad fire at development (8) OFF (bad) SHOOT (fire). |
| 9/25 | DRIVEN TO DISTRACTION | Did investor go wrong with purchase? Very annoyed (6,2,11) (DID INVESTOR)* AInd: goes wrong, gives DRIVEN TO DIS, then TRACTION (purchase) |
| 10 | FRATERNISE | Get friendly with fellow’s bird grabbing rear? Quite the reverse (10) F[ellow] then TERN (bird) inside RAISE (rear) (Reverse of rear inside bird) |
| 11/16 | RED CARNATION | Flower that’s on racecourse land (3,9) REDCAR (racecourse) NATION (land) |
| 12 | IMOGEN | I think there’s information on Shakespearean heroine (6) IMO (In My Opinion = I think) GEN (information) |
| 14 | EYEPATCH | Cheap yet fashionable pirate accessory? (8) (CHEAP YET)* AInd: fashionable. First one in due to the easier “whole words” anagram fodder |
| 17 | FOREBEAR | Predecessor backing Echo’s stand (8) FOR (backing) E= Echo (NATO alphabet) BEAR (stand) |
| 19 | ASSURE | Coming back over, US sailor keeps promise (6) Hidden reversed in ovER US SAilor |
| 20 | FAN | Lover offers nothing new (3) FA (Nothing) N[ew] |
| 21 | CHANGE GEAR | Drop into 20D, perhaps causing rage (6,4) 20D = FIRST. Inverse anagram where you must imagine the answer as wordplay: GEAR* AInd: Changing = RAGE |
| 23 | ARRANT | Absolute guarantee – wife won’t be there (6) [w]ARRANT W from W[ife] |
| 24 | TALMUDIC | One-off letter that’s inclined to include vilification of law book (8) [i]TALIC around MUD (vilification) |
| Down | ||
| 1 | ALFA ROMEO | Letter said nothing more to resolve – one’s 9 (4,5) “Alpha” Homophone for a letter, (O MORE)* AInd: to resolve, where O is nothing. 9 is Driven |
| 2 | BESET | Elite force maintained attack on all sides (5) BEST (elite) around E (force – surely e is energy – can it be used for force like this?) Last one in |
| 3 | RIO GRANDE | About ten thousand invested in transatlantic runner (3,6) IO (ten) GRAND (thousand) inside RE (about) |
| 4 | ASTAIRE | Rogers partner – mostly it’s a real struggle (7) (IT’S A REA[l])* AInd: struggle. Fred of that ilk who famously partnered Ginger Rogers |
| 5 | BUDGE | Funds short so move (5) BUDGE[t] |
| 6 | ERITREANS | English terrain’s suited to countrymen (9) E[nglish] (TERRAINS)* AInd: suited |
| 7 | SPEED | Went with Santander’s original rate (5) S[antander] PEED (went) |
| 13 | GREEN CARD | Good on exotic dancer getting resident’s permit (5,4) G[ood] RE (on) DANCER* AInd: exotic |
| 15 | EVANGELIC | Turning against drugs gets very good as a crusader (9) V[ersus] (against) E (drugs) all reversed (Turning), then ANGELIC (very good) |
| 18 | ROASTER | Say, chicken in car finally thawed out (7) ROA[d]STER |
| 20 | FIRST | Take in duke initially (5) R (take) inside FIST (duke, as in “put up ya dukes”) |
| 21 | CITES | Calls to pick up spectacles (5) Homophone “Sights” = Spectacles |
| 22 | GAUDI | Architect‘s grand – A1 possibly (5) G[rand] AUDI (A1 – is an Audi model) |
I am full of anti anxiety meds for a dental appointment so it was entirely down to me that I couldn’t parse several. Nicely done Tyrus, And thanks beerm for helping my brian out.
Smashing blog and super puzzle. I particularly admired DRIVEN TO DISTRACTION, FRATERNISE, SPEED, BUDGE and my favourite FAN. I also liked the use of A1. Great puzzle.
Quite challenging but a nice way to occupy the train journey to York for the S&B event. 20ac and dn were my last two in as I kept thinking they had to start with D, but the penny eventually dropped and I think they have to be joint winners of CoD. Also liked the misdirection by omission of an apostrophe in 4dn.
Thanks, Tyrus and beermagnet.
Found this the most difficult Indy puzzle to get into I have ever experienced. Struggled almost to the end, never heard of 1A. Some fiendish clues, which, as always, look less frightening when one sees the parsing after entering the answer.
Thanks to Tyrus and beermagnet
Thanks to beermagnet for his excellent blog and to others for their comments.
Thanks Tyrus (it was good to meet you in York yesterday and today) and beermagnet
Sorry for the late comment, caused by my trip to York.
I’m bemused by 20D – R = take? I parsed it as ‘hear’ (take in) ‘Duke’ = German Furst, with, as you say. the definition being initially.
I can’t find anything to support duke as R – could you amplify please?
Thanks
Nice to meet you too, Simon.
20d is r (recipe is Latin for take,) in fist (duke being slang for fist). Beermagnet’s parsing was right.
Cheers
Thanks Tyrus, I’m OK with that. My fault for looking up ‘R’ rather than ‘r’. Strange that (to me at least) my parsing seeemed to work too.
bit late on parade with this after the logjam in York but another smashing puzzle from Tyrus, and a pleasure as always to see you at the weekend Jim
all the best,
Rob
@beermagnet: many thanks for the blog