Dac is occupying his customary mid-week slot today.
I actually found this puzzle towards the tougher end of the Dac spectrum and had trouble with the intersecting 10-letter lights at the heart of the grid. Although these four solutions eventually slotted into place, there was also new vocabulary for me at 4A and 9.
True to form, Dac has peppered his clue with beautifully smooth surfaces, the best today, in my humble opinion, being 6, 21 and 23. It was interesting to find 12 in a crossword puzzle, as a word that every Brit will now know but which can’t yet have made it into any dictionaries, I suspect.
*(…) indicates an anagram; definitions are italicised; // separates definitions in multiple-definition clues
| Across | ||
| 01 | DUTCH | European tax cut backed by Switzerland
DUT<y> (=tax; “cut” means last letter dropped) + CH (=Switzerland, in IVR) |
| 04 | CROSSOVER | Angry about multi-talented artist?
CROSS (=angry) + OVER (=about); a crossover musician is one whose work extends beyond the genre with which he was originally associated |
| 09 | ORLEANIST | Bourbon supporter‘s poor relations?
*(RELATIONS); “poor” is anagram indicator; an Orleanist is a supporter of the family of the Duke of Orleans as claimants to the throne of France, hence “Bourbon supporter” |
| 10 | ALLOW | Permit sickly-looking son to leave
<s>ALLOW (=sickly-looking); “son (=S) to leave” means letter “s” is dropped |
| 11 | LAREDO | East of Los Angeles reconstruct city of Texas
LA (=Los Angeles) + REDO (=reconstruct); Laredo is a city in south Texas, on the north bank of the Rio Grande |
| 12 | REMOANER | Anti-Brexiteer more confused by an embodiment of sovereignty?
*(MORE) + AN + ER (=embodiment of sovereignty, i.e. Elizabeth Regina); “confused” is anagram indicator |
| 14 | BROWN BREAD | Something to make sandwiches or toast for a Cockney?
Brown bread is Cockney rhyming slang for “dead”, hence the colloquial, as in “You’re toast!” |
| 16 | LIMP | Lacking energy? // That’s a problem for a walker
Double definition: limp is droopy, lacking in energy, flaccid (as an adjective) AND an uneven gait (as a noun) |
| 19 | GREW | Cultivated part of flower garden in retirement
Hidden (“part of”) and reversed (“in retirement”) of “floWER Garden” |
| 20 | FANDANGOES | Cool fellow tries Spanish dances
FAN (=cool, as a verb) + DAN (=fellow, i.e. man’s name) + GOES (=tries, as a noun, i.e. attempts) |
| 22 | FITFULLY | What made-to-measure clothes should do, every now and then
Cryptically, made-to-measure clothes should fit the wearer fully, without need for alteration! |
| 23 | COSSET | Pet tearing about in Tesco’s
*(TESCO’S); “tearing about” is anagram indicator; as a verb, to pet is to pamper, indulge |
| 26 | TIRED | After half-time, Liverpool player is exhausted
TI<red> (“half-” means half of letters only are used) + RED (=Liverpool player, i.e. one of The Reds) |
| 27 | CALLING ON | Having recourse to language used in California (North)
LINGO (=language) in [CAL (=California) + N (=north)] |
| 28 | NEW JERSEY | State‘s fresh milk supplier?
NEW (=fresh) + JERSEY (=milk supplier, i.e. cow) |
| 29 | GENIE | Short chap, namely a character in fairy tales
GEN<t> (=chap; “short” means last letter is dropped) + I.E. (=namely) |
| Down | ||
| 01 | DOODLEBUG | Enthusiasm shown by cartoonist making a bomb?
Cryptically, an enthusiastic cartoonist would have the bug for doodling! |
| 02 | TILER | One working high up, labourer lacking oxygen
T<o>ILER (=labourer); “lacking oxygen (=O)” means the letter “o” is dropped |
| 03 | HOARDING | Accumulating // advertising space
Double definition: hoarding is accumulating, gathering AND is e.g. a billboard |
| 04 | CAIN | Form of punishment, you say, for a killer
Homophone (“you say”) of “cane” (=form of punishment, especially in schools); Cain slew Abel in the Old Testament, hence “killer” |
| 05 | ON THE CARDS | Likely place of kings and queens
Kings and queens are found among the cards in a pack |
| 06 | SHADOW | Trailer: form of publicity during performance
AD (=publicity, i.e. advert) in SHOW (=performance); a trailer or shadow is someone, e.g. a detective, who follows another |
| 07 | VALENTINO | Old actor, not an evil sort
*(NOT AN EVIL); “sort” is the anagram indicator; the reference is to Italian actor Rudolf Valentino (1895-1926) |
| 08 | ROWER | Argumentative participant in boating event?
A row-er in the sense of argue-r would be an argumentative participant |
| 13 | DREADLOCKS | Kind of shock about vandal regularly breaking into parts of port
[RE (=about) <v>A<n>D<a>L (“regularly” means alternate letters only)] in DOCKS (=parts of port); the “shock” of the definition is a head of hair |
| 15 | OVERTHROW | Public line about Henry’s defeat
H (=Henry) in [OVERT (=public) + ROW (=line)] |
| 17 | PAST TENSE | Tapes sent for review? That could be perfect
*(TAPES SENT); “for review” is anagram indicator; in grammar, the past perfect tense is e.g. I had taken, he had spoken |
| 18 | UNMOVING | Still // unlikely to arouse feeling
Double definition: unmoving is motionless, stationary, still AND not arousing emotions, not touching |
| 21 | SUBDUE | Check membership fee needs reviewing?
If a “sub” (=membership fee) needs reviewing, it could well be “due” for payment |
| 22 | FUTON | Not getting up after endless fun in bed?
FU<n> (“endless” means last letter dropped) + TON (NOT; “getting up” indicates reversal) |
| 24 | SAGAN | Long story by new French writer
SAGA (=long story) + N (=new); the reference is to French writer Françoise Sagan (1935-2004) |
| 25 | PLAY | Start to produce amateur drama
P<roduce> (“start to” means first letter only) + LAY (=amateur, as in lay reader) |
In contrast to out esteemed blogger I breezed through this one. 22d is my COD for obvious reasons, but lots of nice stuff here so thanks to Dac for the pleasant puzzle and to RR for the blog.
Fairly speedy solve, but nonetheless enjoyable. Liked ON THE CARDS, also REMOANER, solvable though not heard of in Adelaide; an apt term.
Housekeeping. 27A, the additonal “L” is missing from “CAL”. 13D “RE” (about) is missing from the parsing. 17D, the examples “I had … ” are the pluperfect (or past perfect) tense. “I have… ” is the perfect (or past) tense.
Thanks to Dac and RatkojaRiku.
Thanks to gwep for the “housekeeping” points: I have corrected the two typos.
On 17, I had interpreted the definition to mean that the “past tense” can be the “past perfect tense” (as opposed to some other past tense, e.g. present perfect), hence the examples I have given.
Thanks for blogging, RR.
I’m considering retiring from cryptics, because this is the third Indy in a row that I haven’t been able to finish. I am losing it, I swear, when I can’t finish a Dac. I ballsed this one up by entering ON THE BOARD instead of ON THE CARDS (listen, it nearly works); then I put in REMAINER having never heard of REMOANER (tick for the setter for contemporary language, however); I’d always write FANDANGOS for the plural (Scaramouche! Scaramouche!); and I’m not certain that GENIE is a character in fairy tales (pantomimes, perhaps).
I’m going out for a pint later on. Perhaps that will restore my mojo, if I ever had one. Thanks to Dac for the puzzle.
I, too, had never heard of REMOANER and entered REMAINER, which messed up 6dn. When I started reading the blog and saw my mistake, I immediately got 6dn.
I almost breezed through this, then got hung up for ages with just 4ac and 6dn remaining, then when I got SHADOW it was so obvious I don’t know how it took so long to see, and after that CROSSOVER was my LOI. It took me a while though to get DUTCH as I initially took ‘backed’ to be a reversal indicator – maybe that was an intentional misdirection.
I thought ‘remainer’ momentarily for 12ac but immediately realised it didn’t match the wordplay. A nice example of a portmanteau word – ‘remainer’ and ‘bemoaner’. Count me as one!
Thanks, Dac and RatkojaRiku.
I think 1dn is a good example of the question mark being in the wrong place. It really needs to be (although of course it can’t be) after the word ‘cartoonist’, and then RR’s parsing makes perfectly good sense. As it is I read it as bug = enthusiasm and doodle = cartoonist, and wondered how on earth the verb doodle could be equivalent to the noun cartoonist.
Agree with RR that this was marginally more difficult than usual. But only marginally.
Interestingly, the reprinted Dac from 2012 in the i yesterday (it’s Thursday now) had DOODLEBUG clued in the same way, apart from using ‘obsession’ instead of ‘enthusiasm’. But if a setter can’t re-use his own clues, who can?