Wiglaf is occupying the Thursday slot this week, and it is a while since it has fallen to me to blog one of his puzzles.
That said, I found this one probably easier to solve, and definitely easier to parse, than some of Wiglaf’s earlier puzzles. Nevertheless, I almost fell foul of 9, and only when I realised that the completed grid was likely to form a pangram and that I hadn’t at that stage used a “k” anywhere did I manage to come up with a solution for 9, for which confirmation (or otherwise) of the parsing would be welcome.
My favourites today were 20 and 29, both for surface reading; and 7 and 25, both for putting a smile on my face.
*(…) indicates an anagram; definitions are italicised; // separates definitions in multiple-definition clues
| Across | ||
| 01 | IAGO | DiMaggio periodically visited a villain
<d>I<m>A<g>G<i>O; “periodically visited” means alternate letters only are used; Iago is the villain in Shakespeare’s Othello |
| 03 | CHORISTERS | Singers disturbed rector with his bit of skirt
*(RECTOR + HIS + S<kirt>), “bit of” means first letter only used in anagram, indicated by “disturbed” |
| 10 | DITTOED | Detective races to get dictionary copied
D.I. (=detective, i.e. Detective Inspector) + TT (=races, i.e. Tourist Trophy) + OED (=dictionary, i.e. Oxford English Dictionary) |
| 11 | TRUE RIB | Genuine rag and bone
TRUE (=genuine) + RIB (=rag, tease); a true rib is joined directly to the breastbone by its cartilage, unlike a false rib |
| 12 | FAMILLE NOIRE | Final Molière play coming to China
*(FINAL MOLIERE); “play” is anagram indicator; famille noire is a type of Chinese porcelain with a black background |
| 15 | NOVELDOM | Case involving criminal, loved in the world of fiction
*(LOVED) in NOM (=case, i.e. nominative in grammar); “criminal” is anagram indicator |
| 17 | COLOUR | Louise has broken my crayon
LOU (=Louise, i.e. abbreviated) in COR (=my!, i.e. gosh!) |
| 19 | TROPIC | Subject of discussion ending with interior lines in circle
<interio>R (“ending with” means last letter only) in TOPIC (=subject of discussion); the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn are imaginary circles around the globe |
| 20 | SOMERSET | Unexpected meteor showers completely gutted part of England
*(METEOR + S<hower>S); “completely gutted” means all but first and last letters are dropped from anagram, indicated by “unexpected” |
| 22 | YELLOWHAMMER | Singer in colourful clobber
YELLOW (=colourful) + HAMMER (=clobber, strike) |
| 26 | ADDRESS | A speech delivered // in 10 Downing Street?
Double definition: an address is a speech which is delivered to an audience AND “10 Downing street”, for example |
| 27 | LEISURE | Ease with which Melissa regularly falls into temptation
<m>E<l>I<s>S<a> (“regularly” means alternate letters only are used) in LURE (=temptation) |
| 28 | PLEASANTER | Parents wandering round meadow? What could be nicer?
LEA (=meadow) in *(PARENTS); “wandering” is anagram indicator |
| 29 | JETS | What’s in the centre of Skopje? Tsetse flies
Hidden (“what’s in the centre of”) in “skopJE TSetse” |
| Down | ||
| 01 | INDEFINITE | Fie! I intend to be devious and vague
*(FIE I INTEND); “devious” is anagram indicator |
| 02 | GET A MOVE ON | If you want to see a doctor with very little time, you’ll need to hurry up
GET (=see, understand) + A + MO (=doctor, i.e. Medical Officer) + V (=very little, i.e. abbreviated) + EON (=time, age) |
| 04 | HEDGEHOG | Husband with power to dominate Mrs Tiggy-Winkle?
H (=husband) + EDGE (=power, advantage) + HOG (=to dominate, e.g. the floor, a road); Mrs Tiggy-Winkle is a hedgehog in the work of Beatrix Potter |
| 05 | RATION | The limit of x:y, plus any number
RATIO (=x:y) + N (=any number) |
| 06 | SQUARE ONE | Agree on a starting point
SQUARE (=agree, tally) + ONE (=A) |
| 07 | ERRS | Topless German soprano showing boobs
<h>ERR (=German; “topless” means first letter dropped) + S (=soprano) |
| 08 | SYBO | A spring onion served up in Scooby Snacks
Vertically reversed (“up”) and hidden (“in”) in “ScoOBY Snacks” |
| 09 | KOHL | Ex-chancellor takes a stunner to the other place
KO (=a stunner, i.e. knockout) + HL (=the other place, i.e. from the House of Commons); the reference is to former German chancellor Helmut Kohl (1930-2017) |
| 13 | HOUSE MOUSE | Small rodent, part of school master’s ball practice
HOUSE (=part of school, i.e. internal division for e.g. sports competitions) + M (=master, as in e.g. MA) + O (=ball, i.e. pictorially) + USE (=practice, usage) |
| 14 | CRATERLETS | Wild tercels circling rat holes
RAT in *(TERCELS); “wild” is anagram indicator |
| 16 | LOITERERS | They hang around and rile others, hard to ignore unfortunately
*(RILE OT<h>ERS); “hard (=H) to ignore” means letter “h” is dropped from anagram, indicated by “unfortunately” |
| 18 | TOM WOLFE | US author produces book about Austrian composer
WOLF (=Austrian composer, i.e. Hugo Wolf) in TOME (=book); the reference is to US author Tom Wolfe (1931-), associated with the New Journalism movement |
| 21 | ALISON | Woman is in hairdresser’s having top clipped
IS in <s>ALON (=hairdresser’s); “having top clipped” means first letter is dropped |
| 23 | AXIS | A Greek character joins southern alliance
A + XI (=Greek character, i.e. letter of the Greek alphabet) + S (=southern) |
| 24 | GASP | Intake of breath when visiting doctor
AS (=when, as conjunction) in GP (=doctor, i.e. General Practitioner) |
| 25 | ADZE | A dead duck cut in half – using this?
A + D (=dead) + ZE<ro> (=duck, i.e. zero score; “cut in half” means 2 or 4 letters are dropped) |
I hadn’t heard of Sybo or Famille noire but both gettable. Your parsing of the House of Lords for HL in 9d is much better than my hitherto unknown abbreviation for Hell, and the K tripped the pangram switch. Not too hard for a Thursday. Thanks to Wiglaf and RR.
Thanks RatkojaRiku for the excellent blog.
I should point out there is an error in 21 down on the Independent puzzle website. It should read “hairdresser” instead of “hairdressers” for the clue to work grammatically.
@1Paul A – I also thought it may be an abbreviation for Hell at 9D, as certainly in Victorian times and likely some years after that, H–l was used for Hell in the same way as d–n for damn et cetera.
Unaware of Ditto as a verb, but sure it’s in some famous tome or other.
I guess though that RatkojaRiku’s parsing is correct.
Good fun crossword, 9D was my LOI.
Thanks to Wiglaf and RatkojaRiku.
Same unknowns as others have noted but all could be worked out from the wordplay. Towards the less difficult end of the spectrum but still liked this, with the surfaces for COLOUR and ERRS being my favourites.
Thanks to Wiglaf and RatkojaRiku
I have to add another couple to the ‘things I didn’t know’ mentioned by others – the two blokes in 18d and the 14d hole. Nevertheless, I found this easier than the last Wiglaf puzzle I solved, which necessitated having a copy of the periodic table in front of me!
As usual, I missed the pangram.
Top of my list were two of the easier ones – 22&26a.
Thanks to Wiglaf and to RR for the explanations.
Thanks for blogging, RR.
I usually take a deep breath before having a crack at the Thursday Indy, since it’s often the ‘hard’ one. This one went in nicely, though. A couple of unusual words (NOVELDOM, CRATERLETS) but all gettable. Was interested to learn SYBO as a Scots dialect word for ‘spring onion’, since I discovered that it’s related to la ciboule, the French word for the same thing, whereas standard English just has scallion or spring onion. The Scots and French ganging up on the English again.
Good puzzle – thank you to Wiglaf.
Enjoyed this and found at the easy-end of things (though I did miss 12a and 9d). Wondered whether there was a mini-literary theme with several authors, a character here and a bit of a novel title there, as well as a few things to do with the building blocks of a wordsmith. Honours today go to the German soprano who raised a titter so thanks to The Swedes for puzzle and blog.
@2 Wiglaf Far be it from me to dispute with a Setter who is fessing up, but I think 21D makes perfect sense. We say “she’s gone to the hairdressers”, those people who run a salon, just as much as, if not more than, “she’s gone to the hairdresser”. Don’t we?
Anyway, thanks again for the puzzle to Wiglaf. KOHL was my LOI and I was pretty pleased when I sussed it. Also liked NOVELDOM and got FAMILLE NOIRE from the mention of Moliere and knowledge of French, having never heard of the porcelain.
@8 Gwep I think you’re right on reflection. I reacted a bit too quickly. Hairdressers seems to be a British English thing – and I’ve been away far too long.
This one really lulled me into a false sense of security. I was enjoying nice swift (for me anyway) progress, but then ended up stuck with a few to go, and had to reach for the electronic aids to get me to the finish. I loved RATION, but my favourite is COLOUR just because it made me laugh. As for ERRS, our resident smutmeister above has phrased it perfectly. It raised a titter or two here too.
Lots of enjoyment had. Will Wiglaf again. Thanks to him and to RatkojaRiku.
Quite a lot of new/unfamiliar words which made it a bit tricky but got there in the end. Saw it was a pangram once we’d completed it but it wouldn’t have helped as our last few in didn’t have any letters needed to complete it.
HL is in Chambers for ‘House of Lords’ or ‘another place’ as the Commons refer to it.
Thanks, Wiglaf and RatkojaRiku
We had the same experience as RR – glad we noticed the pangram to help with 9d. Like others we thought that HL may be short for Hell.
Thanks RR for sorting it all out and Wiglaf for the challenge and fun, especially liked 7d.