Independent 9392 by Maize (Saturday Puzzle 19 November 2016)

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Another new (to me, at least) setter…I seem to have been saying this a lot recently, which can only be a good thing! I can’t find any previous Maize puzzles on this site, so I assume this is his/her Indy debut – if so, welcome Maize, and what a way to kick off…

After getting SQUELCH at 1D and HADJ and TAJIKISTAN at 14/15A, I subconsciously noted we could be looking at a pangram…Qs, Js and Ks making an early appearance…always worth mentioning in a blog, to show you have spotted it…

I made steady progress – the appearance of some Xs and Zs making the pangram more likely. A few more place names – WREXHAM, BULGARIA, IZMIR (or is that ISMIR?) – and a nice reference to Ai WEIWEI.

Being a lazy (but IT-literate) sort, I have set up a little Excel spread sheet (other spread sheet software is available!) which counts the occurrences of each letter to see if a filled grid is a pangram. It is also useful to create a filled grid to decorate the blog with. So, having solved on paper, I duly typed this into my spreadsheet and, lo and behold, by changing ISMIR to IZMIR we have not just a pangram, not just a double pangram, or even a triple, but, ladies and gentlemen – behold before your very eyes, a QUADRUPLE PANGRAM!…

Not sure I have ever seen a triple pangram before, let alone a quad, and it exposed the limitations of my spreadsheet formula, as I hadn’t included the possibility of multiple pangrams…duly fixed:

 

indy9392

Quite an achievement to fit all that in – and some interesting surface readings/misleadings as well – e.g John MAJOR’s KEY to No 10 (did Edwina Currie have a spare? Sorry, but now I have that image in my mind, I have to share it!). 19A was a lovely image of the Church of England wringing its hands over some of the dubious places it has its hoard invested. Some apt anagram indicators as well – ‘fixed’ equities in 19A, ‘cured’ flu, in 10A, with the use of Lourdes to indicate French..

All in all an enjoyable solve and blog, thank-you to Maize, and if it a debut then a pretty impressive one…

 

Across
Clue No Solution Clue Definition (with occasional embellishments) /
Logic/parsing
1A SQUASH Queen dressed appropriately for crowd? (6) crowd /
S_ASH (item of clothing) around (‘dressing’) QU (queen)
4A MAJOR KEY A flat, perhaps it once granted access to Number 10? (5,3) A flat (musical term) /
John MAJOR used to have the KEY to No 10 Downing Street
10A UNPAINFUL A loaf of bread in Lourdes cured flu without discomfort (9) without discomfort /
UN (a, dialect, and French) + PAIN (loaf of bread, French, i.e. in Lourdes) + FUL (anag, i.e. cured, of FLU)
11A IZMIR Turkish city is no better than we’re told (5) Turkish city /
homophone – IZMIR sounds like IS + MERE (no better than)
12A LURCHES Dining occasions right for introduction of nutritious rolls (7) rolls /
LU(N)(R)CHES – dining occasions, with R – right – replacing N – introductory letter of Nutritious
13A WREXHAM Welsh town in ruins, as reported by amateur (7) Welsh town /
WREX (homophone, i.e. as reported, of wrecks, or ruins) + HAM (amateur)
14A HADJ Religious duty enjoyed by justice (4) Religious duty (for Muslims) /
HAD (enjoyed) + J (justice)
16A TAJIKISTAN Soldiers’ kit is unreliable in January here in Central Asia (10) here (a country) in Central Asia /
TA (Territorial Army, soldiers) + J_AN (January) around IKIST (anag, i.e. unreliable, of KIT IS)
19A DISQUIETED Theologian holding fixed equities could be made anxious (10) made anxious /
D_D (doctor of divinity, theologian) around ISQUIETE (anag, i.e. fixed, of EQUITIES)
20A JAZZ Originally just a snoring sound, making music of a sort (4) music, of a sort /
J (origin of Just) + A + ZZ (snoring sound)
23A VIRAGOS Sign over area with small dragons (7) dragons (bad-tempered women!) /
VIR_GO (sign, of the Zodiac) around A (area), plus S (small)
25A OVIFORM Elliptical Roman poet’s clipped style (7) elliptical /
OVI(D) (Roman poet, clipped) + FORM (style)
27A LUXOR Lined up entrances by golden temple in Egypt (5) temple in Eqypt /
LU (first letters, or entrances, of Lined Up) + X (multiplied by) + OR (golden)
28A INEQUABLE Not even proficient after endless equine training (9) not even /
INEQU (anag, i.e. training, of endless EQUIN(E)) + ABLE (proficient)
29A PACK AWAY Clear up impact of global warming on polar ice? (4,4) clear up /
the impact of global warming is to make the polar ice PACK melt AWAY
30A WEIWEI With AI, Chinese artist articulated methods (6) Chinese artist (first name Ai) /
multiple homophone, i.e. articulated – Chinese artist (AI) WEIWEI’s surname sounds like WAY+WAY (methods)
Down
Clue No Solution Clue Definition (with occasional embellishments) /
Logic/parsing
1D SQUELCH Noise made by middle parts of mosques’ swivelchairs (7) noise /
middle parts (letters) of ‘moSQUes’ and ‘swivELCHairs’
2D UPPER A case of dinner without having been properly introduced (5) a case (in terms of letters/writing) /
(S)UPPER – dinner, missing first letter, i.e. not properly introduced
3D SMITHY Place for forger reserved in American university? On the contrary (6) place for forger (of metal, rather than money!) /
S_HY (reserved) around MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, American university)
5D AGLOW Radiant silver luminance over town centre (5) radiant /
AG (Ag, argentum, silver) + L (luminance, physics) + OW (central letters of tOWn)
6D OLIVE OIL Stay in glasses – the Italian’s dressing (5,3) (salad) dressing /
O_O (glasses, looks like spectacles!) around LIVE (stay), plus IL (definite article, the, in Italian)
7D KAMCHATKA Match arranged between two Fords in Russian peninsula (9) Russian peninsula /
KA_KA (two Ford Kas), around MCHAT (anag, i.e. arranged, of MATCH)
8D YARDMAN Farm worker upturned cart and dung, spilling half (7) farm worker /
YARD (dray, or cart, overturned) + MAN(URE) – dung, spilling half
9D OFFSTAGE Adult accepts punch, but not one hidden from audience (8) hidden from audience /
OF_AGE (adult) around (accepting) F(I)ST (fist, or punch, without I – one)
15D DYSPRAXIC Doctor prays team in capital get poorly coordinated (9) poorly coordinated /
D_C (capital, of USA), around YSPRA (anag, i.e. doctor, of PRAYS) + XI (team, eleven)
17D ICEBOXES Coolers in US eliminate fights (8) coolers, in US /
ICE (kill, eliminate) + BOXES (fights)
18D BULGARIA Short, swelling song representing this country (8) this country /
BULG(E) (swelling, short of a letter) ARIA (song)
19D DEVELOP European opposing East Germany’s rising progress (7) progress /
POLE (European) + V (versus, opposing) + E (East) + D (Deutschland, Germany) – all rising
21D ZAMBEZI South Africa award Zulu second bit of finance for river (7) river /
ZA (South Africa, Zuid Afrika) + MBE (award) + Z (Zulu, Z in phonetic alphabet) + I (second letter of fInance)
22D FIGURE Work out for bust, waist and hips? (6) double defn. /
FIGURE can mean to work something out; and the female ‘FIGURE’, or vital statistics, consists of measurements of the bust, waist and hips…
24D SHIVA Bangladeshi Variety Shows / Lord of the Dance (5) Lord of the Dance /
hidden word, i.e. shows, in ‘BangladeSHI VAriety’
26D OXBOW Steer front of boat into kind of lake (5) kind of lake /
OX (steer, cow) + BOW (front of boat)

27 comments on “Independent 9392 by Maize (Saturday Puzzle 19 November 2016)”

  1. Thanks mc_rapper67
    Indeed, quite an achievement! There was a triple pangram back in August 2011 (Indy 7756/Tees), which I believe was the first ever, and there hasn’t been one since until today when Maize has gone one better and produced a quadruple.

  3. what an extraordinary achievement, chapeau Maize.
    A quadruple pangram is in itself a quite incredible effort but the clueing by no means plays second fiddle to the grid-fill.
    Great stuff, thanks to S&B

  4. Well done Maize! I am massively impressed – while solving, you don’t notice anything particularly unusual (ok you feel a pangram is in the works). Only when you finish and start counting do you realise it is a QUADRUPLE.

    You have managed to do this with mainly normal-looking clues – I only had to check Tajikistan and dyspraxic – Kamchatka is familiar to anyone who has played Risk. what an achievement

    And the cluing is fun as always.

    Congratulations, I hope the nation is suitably impressed

    Many thanks mc-rapper67

  5. About a year ago (?) I test-solved an impressive tripangram from Maize (by coincidence, it transpired that we were both at Leeds Uni in the late 70s), and was struck by the accuracy, freshness and wit of his clueing. As if that wasn’t impressive enough, Maize has effectively broken new ground here by setting a quad not only on a standard, normally checked and fully interlocked grid with a healthy average word length, but with the “harder” entries being perfectly reasonable and, to top it all, great clues with super surfaces. This is a cruciverbal magnum opus: bravo! Truly a-Maize-ing. Looking forward to the “pent” …

  9. Thanks Maize and MC_R

    What an amazing achievement. I suspected a pangram fairly early, but then when multiple Qs, Js etc started to appear I began counting. Absolutely trmenedous, congratulations Maize. It’ll be a tricky one to top though! 😉

  10. Like others, I clocked pangram potential quite early in the solve but only realised the full beauty of it afterwards. By my (rough) count there are 162 letters in the filled grid, of which 104 participated in the quad-gram. Hard to see how that could be bettered … very, very impressive. Hat doffed …

    Thanks MCR67. Excellent blog.

  12. Gosh! I was talking to a fellow solver this afternoon and said I thought this was triple pangram. I was stuck on the bottom right and had the wrong spelling for 11ac, and I didn’t bother to count further.

    Incidentally, one minor correction. Ai Weiwei, Ai is his family name as is the custom in China, so Weiwei is his given name and not a surname.

  13. Thanks for all the comments/feedback – looks like one and all are well and truly ‘quadruply’ impressed…an ‘I was there’ moment…one small step for a Maize, a giant leap for crossword-kind.

    Dormouse at #12 – thanks for the clarification on Chinese names – as it is ‘World Toilet Day’ today, I will stick with Wee-Wee…(;+>). Sorry, corn-y joke for a Maize puzzle…

  14. Now that was truly a stunning achievement.
    Finding an appropiate grid and then filling it with mostly non-obscure words.
    Impressive!

    Pangrams (and ninas) may help solvers to get their way through grids in which many first letters are unchecked.
    This grid was not, and I didn’t think for a moment about pangrams.
    I am afraid, I missed this puzzle’s pangrams completely.

    Perhaps sorry to say but, personally, I cannot be bothered too much about the thing.
    For me it is all about the quality of cluing.
    Or as Neil Young once said ‘I only care about the music’.
    And good it was!
    I particularly like crosswords with surfaces that refer to what some consider as ‘lower culture’ such as football (or sport in general), pop music and
    politics (lower? – well, who needs politicians nowadays, we can all become leaders in whatever as long as we embrace these wonderful opportunities).
    Maize uses a lot of geography which I also like.
    Indeed, as Monk says, cluing wth some sort of freshness.

    Maize has put his name on the map with this debut – no doubt about that.
    All the praise above is truly deserved.
    But as I said before, for me the high quality of the clues is what makes me look forward to the next one.

    Meanwhile, chapeau!

  15. Thank you mc_rapper67 – the perfect blogger for this puzzle.

    There was a quadruple done by AfterDark in ‘The Hindu Crossword’ last year on a bespoke but British style grid, and it’s also been done in the USA on an American style grid – not sure how many times.

    Monk@5, I had a little play at penta, but soon came to the conclusion that it was a challenge for someone else.

    Simon S @9 – indeed!

  16. This was quite stunning. While it may be Maize’s debut here, he had a triple pangram on BigDave’s NTSPP a while ago, and is a fellow graduate of the Rookie Corner. I would very much recommend all of his puzzles on there, if you haven’t seen them; one of the RCs was as good as it gets.

  17. Started off with a strange feeling about MAJOR KEY-as Ab could be minor but as the puzzle unfolded I started applauding and thought OK John Major.But I spelt everything correctly, mainly due to the excellent cluing and forgot to look for extras.Wow!Glad I checked in. Thanks all.

  18. Absolutely excellent. I’m a bit annoyed in that I spotted the triple pangram but was too lazy to look any further for the “impossible” quadruple one. Anyway, not too fussed given how good it was, and apart from the pangrams there were some top-rate clues including OFFSTAGE and DYSPRAXIC.

    Thanks to mc_rapper67 for your blog (and v. helpful table/graphics) and especially to Maize for a memorable puzzle. Look forward to the next one.

  19. absolutely astonishing. So glad a I found my way to it, via Guardian site. Huge congratulations to Maize. And thanks too to Mc-rapper67. A suitably flashy blog to go with.

  21. Bravo!

    It’s quite hard doing a single, let alone a double. And as triples are even trickier, this is a great achievement.

  22. And of course Tees @ 21, it was your triple – Indy 7756, reprinted in the i earlier this year – which was the inspiration.

  23. Everyone seems to be banging on about the multipangraminess (must be a word) – didn’t even notice that myself – rarely do – themes occasionally but usually only if they’re referenced somehow – or all the across answers or similar. Just thought it a good puzzle – absolutely no idea it was by a newbie – saw the name Maize obviously but didn’t twig to the extent of “Oh – that Maize”.

    Just thought it a good puzzle. Certainly a great debut.

    Congrats to Maize and thanks to mc-r for the blog.

  24. Awesome Maize. Welcome to the club. I dabbled with this too once.

    2015/03/quadruple-pangram-in-thc.html?m=1

  25. Good to see your name AfterDark – excellent! And good of you to drop by – I wonder how you heard of this…?
    You probably saw that I gave you a namecheck @15 above and, although it was indeed the triple from Tees which inspired my effort, I did encounter your pioneering achievement at the thc whilst doing the composition – a global first!
    I also studied it closely – and may I rather belatedly offer you my congratulations.
    I have played at trying to get a penta using a slight variation on your grid, but I fear it may never be possible using dictionary style words, as opposed to the more permissive abbreviations allowed in the USA.
    And the clues to your original quadrangram can be seen here: http://thehinducrosswordcorner.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/no-11335-friday-06-mar-2015-afterdark.html

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