Sorry about the lateness of this post. Also its primitiveness: the nice software that I generally use was for some reason unavailable this morning and I did it the old laborious way, writing out all the clues by hand. The bells and whistles aren’t there and I’m afraid I really can’t be bothered to go through it all changing the colour of the definitions, which are simply underlined.
Yet again Serpent’s and my paths cross. Although this was good I didn’t find it so enjoyable as some of his recent crosswords, probably because I found it quite hard. It took some time to see the theme, so 6dn was a mystery for a long time.
One of the problems with my not using that software is that it is now impossible (so far as I know) to hide what I’m writing so that the casual passer-by can avoid the Nina before doing the crossword. But this is so far down what I’m writing that it shouldn’t be seen [it isn’t]. The theme is red: all the across answers are words that follow ‘red’ — red herrings, red-headed, etc.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 7 Fish learns to avoid a netting enclosure (8) | HERRINGS — he{a}r(ring)s |
| 9 Directed commercial that’s centre of attention (6) | HEADED — he(ad)ed |
| 10 Substance abuse that initially started with illness (4) | MEAT — |
| 11 Member got depressed having taken heroin (5) | SHANK — s(h)ank — had to check that a shank was a member but it’s a word for a leg, as in Edward Longshanks |
| 12 Perhaps joker‘s one that cracks jokes (4) | CARD — 2 defs |
| 13 Pink exhibition room incorporates museum’s entrance (6) | SALMON — sal(m)on, the m being m{useum} |
| 14 Picked up fresh fruit (7) | CURRANT — “current” |
| 16 Felt left out and passed over (6) | HANDED — hand{l}ed |
| 18 Dog fouled street (6) | SETTER — (street)* |
| 21 Dullard mixed up AA and BBC, say, in reverse order (7) | CABBAGE — (AA BBC)* (eg)rev. |
| 23 Shower heads in proper positions stop one having a leak (6) | PEPPER — p{roper} p{ositions} in peer — someone who pees is a pee-er, or a peer |
| 25 Announcement of staff survey (4) | POLL — “pole” |
| 27 Large plant announced a radical slimming down (5) | CEDAR — Hidden in announCED A Radical |
| 28 Heavy metal singer like Ozzy Osborne? (4) | LEAD — 2 defs — the heavy metal rhymes with bed and the lead singer of Black Sabbath was Ozzy Osbourne, about whom I don’t really know very much beyond the fact that his name is Osbourne, not Osborne |
| 29 Wake up after midnight and moan (6) | GROUSE — {ni}g{ht} rouse — one of the Indy’s occasional forays into controversial territory, with midnight = mid-night |
| 30 Animal left after landowner barricaded run (8) | SQUIRREL — squir(r)e l |
| Down | |
| 1 Cheap information technology let you broadcast, like any other medium (10) | TELEPATHIC — (cheap IT let)*, the anagram indicator ‘you broadcast’ — ‘medium’ is something telepathic in the definition |
| 2 Acting in favour of one abandoned by couple (3,3) | PRO TEM — pro [= in favour of] {i}tem |
| 3 Lack of experience perceived by audience to some extent (2,1,5) | IN A SENSE — “innocence” |
| 4 Singer admits Yes could be a pain in the neck! (6) | CHOKER — Ch(OK)er |
| 5 Lawyers talk about right means of presenting facts (3,5) | BAR CHART — bar [= lawyers] cha(r)t |
| 6 Does representing theme ultimately feature in reversal of theme? (4) | DEER — Does is the plural of doe, a crossword favourite; the theme is RED, so reversal of theme is der and it’s de(e)r, the e being ‘theme ultimately’ |
| 8 Chaser collapsed in hunt (6) | SEARCH — (Chaser)* |
| 15 Rate a great shot and striker’s goal? (4,4) | TARGET AREA — (Rate a great)* |
| 17 Jazz blues sound essentially having ill-defined form (8) | NEBULOUS — (blues {s}oun{d})*, Jazz the anagram indicator — Collins provides slight justification for jazz in this sense as a verb, and no doubt the other usual sources do, although it’s close to the edge |
| 19 Shop flogged premium that covers nothing (8) | EMPORIUM — (premium)* round 0 |
| 20 Birds almost holding party with Rolling Stones (6) | GEODES — ge(od)es{e}, the od being (do)rev.: ‘party with rolling’ |
| 22 Bows provided by limitless fighting fund (6) | ARCHES — {w}ar ches{t} |
| 24 Attempt to support friend that’s miserable (6) | PALTRY — pal try |
| 26 Taking sides in programme relating to US (4) | OURS — US is really us: it’s {c}ours{e} |
I think 10ac goes —
Substance = MEAT
abuse that initially = AT
started with illness = ME (chronic fatigue) first.
I had a harrowing time with the site. It seemed like the ads were taking all my browser’s attention and the puzzle kept freezing. I mention not to 29ac but in case anyone else had similar and there’s an issue to pass on.
MEAT I think is A[buse] T[hat] after ME (‘illness’).
Whoops, crossed with Alan. I found this really hard, but getting the Across theme helped the finish enormously. Good puzzle thanks to both.
Thanks. Blog amended.
Clever stuff but a few clues that were too hard for me: GEODES, ARCHES and OURS. Some clues I wasn’t keen on: using ‘you broadcast’ rather than ‘broadcast’ for anagrinding in 1d; the ‘homonym’ in 3d doesn’t work for me. DEER was my third one in, so the theme was known early on, which certainly helped. Thanks to Serpent and to John for the explanations.
Having failed as usual to spot the theme, DEER went in completely unparsed.
Alan @1 I concur. The website was awful for quite some time, then stopped working completely with ad blocker installed, then improved for a while without ad blocker and is now back to its old dreadful freezy self. Tempted just to buy the print edition – oh, wait a minute…
Thanks Serpent and John, mostly enjoyable!
Alan Connor@1-re Indy site, I just print ASAP and solve with pen(or pencil for much of this)Very tough for me.
A bit of a struggle and defeated by GEODES in the end. Fooled by the ‘US’ in 26d and was thinking about all things American until the PD’ed. Didn’t know CABBAGE for ‘Dullard’ but I like it. I wonder if you can be can be both a noodle and a cabbage at the same time?
Good to have the red after Serpent’s green theme of a couple of weeks ago and I look forward to another colourful puzzle in the next few weeks.
Thanks to Serpent and John.
Serpent in unforgiving mood but with lots to like, I thought.
Having recalled his last couple of ‘all the across word’ thematics, I spotted the ‘red’ connection quickly. That helped get me off to a flyer and I thought I was going to get a record Serpentine solve for 20mins before I got well and truly stymied. Ended up with all but 7 before retiring bloodied and beat.
Lots of nice stuff, but no particular fave today so my honours go to the theming. Many thanks to The Snake for the fun and the torture and also to John The Don for blogging on even though his software was gone.
Our second Indy puzzle today having tackled Hob’s Tuesday offering earlier this evening (in 30+c heat here in Greece)..
Great to have two brilliant puzzles on the same day. As with others, we discovered he theme early on and it definitely helped with completion – the NW corner being particularly tricky.
All-in-all, a great challenge so thanks to Serpent and to John for persevering with the blog.
Very good indeed. Great ideas written well.
Thanks to John, for the blog, and to everyone who has taken the time to solve and comment.
Cheers
Jason
Late to the party after a fraught day, but doing it with a “trainee solver” seemed to help if only because one is then thinking aloud and explaining how clues work. We spotted the theme fairly early on via 6dn but MEAT was our penultimate one in, followed by GEODES as LOI. Two nominations for CoD – SQUIRREL and the aforesaid GEODES.
Oops! forgot to thank setter and blogger.