Independent 9,651 by Daedalus

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The maze making Daedalus returns for our Monday entertainment, but will it fly?

There doesn’t appear to be any theme as such, a couple of clues have the same defintion and there’s few references to phones.

Thanks Daedalus.

 

completed grid

Across

1 I subsist unhealthily with chips and junk food? (5,8)
SHIPS BISCUITS
A cryptic def in the fact that a junk is a type of boat. An anagram of of [I SUBSIST CHIPS]* unhealthily. A grand surface for the starting clue.

9 You can pull me when party’s over (5)
LEVER
REVEL (party) reversed – over

10 Wander casually towards Cornwall with a cop from home (4,5)
SWAN ABOUT
Towards Cornwall would for most of us be in the SW direction & A & NAB for cop & OUT (not at home)

11 Noah, Solomon and the rest take bit of tea in garden (9)
ALLOTMENT
“Noah and Solomon and the rest” could be ALL O(ld) T(estament) MEN & a bit of T(ea)

12 Don’t start to feel sorry for wader (5)
EGRET
(r)EGRET doesn’t start

13 Ministers showing cold dislike, except for a Liberal (6)
CLERGY
C(old) & A L(iberal) removed from (al)LERGY for dislike

14 Nick and Henry’s bird (4-4)
HALF-INCH
As in steal, HAL for Henry & FINCH for the bird

17 Vet (not mouse), removing tails with toxin … (8)
VENOMOUS
Take the tails off VE(t) NO(t) MOUS(e)

19 … interviews second-in-command about animal surgery (3,3)
VOX POP
The V(ice) P(res) is the second in command with an OX inserted & OP(eration)

22 Was in charge of church and farm (5)
RANCH
RAN & CH(urch)

24 Earl wearing coat over husband’s only ring (9)
TELEPHONE
E for Earl inside PELT for coat reversed & H(usband) & ONE for only

26 10-4 in bold (9)
GALLIVANT
IV = four inside GALLANT for bold. Clue 10’s answer is SWAN ABOUT

27 Round and hollow, like an eggshell (5)
OVOID
O – round & VOID – hollow

28 Don’t decide to put down the receiver! (3,2,3,5)
SIT ON THE FENCE
SIT ON (put down) & THE & FENCE for a criminal receiver

Down

1 What’s a lass dancing? (5)
SALSA
&lit-ish [A LASS]* dancing

2 Embrace with hot, very soppy love (7)
INVOLVE
IN – hot, the IN thing & V(ery) &a soppy LOVE*

3 Plan for lifting huge pies (9)
STRATAGEM
A reversal of MEGA TARTS, Eccles recently did this as extremely loose women,

4 Agreeing this month’s record (2,4)
IN STEP
INST (of this month) & the E.P. record.

5 About to leave friend picking up rubbish (8)
CLAPTRAP
C(irca) & a reversal of PART PAL

6 New Yorker’s ticked off current score (5)
IRATE
I the S.I. unit for current & RATE for score. Is the NY bit necessary? Not convinced but Chambers does say it’s US slang.

7 Sizzling porn star lacking shirt pocket (7)
SPORRAN
T for T-shirt missing from a sizzling [PORN S(t)AR]*

8 Frame Wes? (6,2)
STITCH UP
Wes reversed is SEW hench STITCH UP

13 Where you can call 100 too old (8)
COVERAGE
Coverage as is mobile phone signal. C – one hundred & OVER AGE – too old

15 Guaranteed to make teacher look silly about oxygen (9)
FOOLPROOF
O(xygen) inserted in FOOL PROF(essor)

16 As carriages on railway lines (8)
QUATRAIN
QUA – in so far as. & TRAIN for carriages. Does anyone here really use QUA in their everyday speech?

18 New leg added to stump (7)
NONPLUS
N(ew) & ON for the leg side in cricket & PLUS – added

20 Poor nun disfigured herself, perhaps (7)
PRONOUN
a disfigured [POOR NUN]*

21 Hold tight and pedal (6)
CLUTCH
Double def

23 Job is a crock of shite (5)
HEIST
Well a criminal job anyway. it’s a crocked SHITE*. The surface amused me.

25 Provide space as required (5)
ENDUE
EN the space the size of the letter N & DUE – as required

9 comments on “Independent 9,651 by Daedalus”

  1. Always look forward to a challenge from Daedalus and this was no exception. Loved it although wasn’t entirely won over by SALSA clue. Finished, fully parsed, but have to admit to using a word fit to get VOX POP – a really tough clue I thought. SPORRAN and HALF-INCH took some teasing out. Many favourites including ALLOTMENT, NONPLUS, PRONOUN, HEIST and the already mentioned SPORRAN and HALF-INCH. Lovely surfaces for the most part, as I’ve come to expect from this setter. Thanks to all.

  2. We too needed a wordfinder for VOX POP, and also for QUATRAIN, having failed to lift and separate ‘railway lines’. And no, we don’t use ‘qua’ in everyday speech; except for sine qua non (where it means ‘which’, not ‘as’) we’ve only come across it in books published before about 1950.

    Could there be an element of criminality with HALF-INCH, FENCE, STITCH-UP and HEIST in the puzzle?

    There’s plenty to like anyway; our favourite was NONPLUS.

    Thanks, Daedalus and flashling.

  3. It was the top left corner that held me up. Needed to do word searches to get 3dn and 11ac to open it up.

    As someone with a physics degree, may I point out in 5dn that I is not the SI unit for current, that’s the ampere. I is the symbol used to represent current in an equation.

  4. I don’t have a physics degree, but I think you mean 6d dormouse ; )

    I found this harder than I expected at first, but stuck with it and found it a very satisfying solve. Very tricky, very nice.

    I got very close to entering LOVER at 9a (L for liberal party + OVER), wandering whether anything goes now.

    I kinda thought eggshells lost their shape, at least by the time I’ve finished with them, and egg might have worked better for me – but I understand the hollow bit.

    Great fun, many thanks Daedalus and thank you Flash

  5. I really enjoyed this. Like Dutch, I found that it proved trickier than it first appeared. I don’t think I used any cheats (this morning was a long time ago!) but I did fail to parse TELEPHONE.

    Really laughed at 23d.

    There were some other crackers in there as well. I marked out all of Hovis’s favourites plus SIT ON THE FENCE – and LEVER too, just for the surface.

    Thanks to Daedalus and Flashling.

  7. For many (and for me, too) Nimrod is the hardest of the Indy setters.
    Looking forward to another struggle within a week or so!

    But my fellow citizen Daedalus is also one who sets crosswords I which I find hard to complete.
    His style is, in my opinion, sometimes a bit weirdish, off the beaten track or – as others would say – ‘original’.

    I thought, 16d (QUATRAIN) was wonderful as was 11ac (ALLOTMENT), clued like I’ve never seen before.
    However, 23d is one step too far for me.
    Amusing surface, a laugh out loud moment?
    I think it is really too crude.
    That said, just read the last part of my comment #28 of Rufus’s Guardian puzzle, and call me a hypocrite.

    I got everything right but didn’t understand a couple of them (28ac, 6d).
    Now I do.
    Daedalus, not sure he will ever become my favourite setter but he’s different.
    And not everyone is, so that’s a good thing.

    Thanks Flashling for the blog.

  9. Thanks Flashling and all!

    6d didn’t have the New Yorker originally – it was the redoubtable Eimi who suggested the Americanism should be marked, and I dare say he was right.

    As for QUA, I wouldn’t say I use it every day. But I have been known to use it. I may have got it from Bertie Wooster, who admittedly was not quite secure with it:

    “He said the spots qua spots … Is it qua?”
    “Perfectly correct, sir.”
    “His verdict was that the spots qua spots didn’t amount to a row of beans and could be disregarded. They will pass by me like the idle wind which I respect not.”
    “Extremely gratifying, sir.”

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