Independent 9658 / Maize

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This our first blog of a Maize puzzle, and we hope it won’t be our last!

 

We really enjoyed this – some original clueing and ‘interesting’ definitions, with a few relatively easy entries to get us started.

There’s a nina in the top and bottom rows, which seem to relate to 18ac – all very tidy! We do have a bit of a query over the parsing of 4d (see below) – although it was perfectly solvable with the crossers and the nina. The nina was also helpful with solving 19d and 24d.

Thanks Maize – more please!

Across
9   A bed for Madame Bovary in the dark (5)
UNLIT Madame Bovary, being French, would say UN LIT for ‘a bed’
  Writer elected to cover mad cow disease (5)
IBSEN IN (elected) round or ‘covering’ BSE (mad cow disease)
11   The old, old, old MP (3)
YEO YE (an archaic or ‘old’ version of ‘the’) O (old) – a reference to Tim Yeo, former MP for South Suffolk
12   Cardinal keeping two central letters back for Grand Inquisitor (7)
XIMENES SIX (a ‘cardinal’ number) round or ‘keeping’ EN and EM (two central letters in the alphabet) all reversed or ‘back’
13   Spin doctor avoids precipitative fall-out with third world leaders (7)
TWIZZLE drIZZLE (‘precipitative fall-out’) with the ‘dr’ (doctor) omitted and replaced by T W (first letters or ‘leaders’ of ‘third world’)
14   Poor quality shelter encounters earth tremor (5-4)
TENTH-RATE TENT (shelter) + an anagram of EARTH – anagrind is ‘tremor’. We spent too long trying to parse THIRD-RATE.
17   Bucolic scene written about in hillbilly diaries (5)
IDYLL Hidden and reversed or ‘written about in’ ‘hillbiLLY DIaries
18   Kiss, promise, and then wonder what you’re doing (9,6)
CROSSWORD PUZZLE CROSS (‘X’ – kiss) WORD (promise) PUZZLE (wonder)
21   Immerse oneself in British articles (5)
BATHE B (British) A and THE (articles)
22   Offensive remark by men about Alsop originally being a poor conductor (9)
INSULATOR INSULT (offensive remark) OR (other ranks – ‘men’) round A (first or ‘orginal’; letter of Alsop)
25   Poles involved in hard labours – might they be removed? (7)
TONSILS N S (north and south – ‘poles’) in TOILS (hard labours)
26   T S Eliot’s quirky figure of speech (7)
LITOTES An anagram of TS ELIOT – anagrind is ‘quirky’
28   Go for flipping instruction to cycle (3)
OPT PTO (please turn over – ‘flipping instruction’) ‘cycled’ by moving the last letter to the front
29   Maize: the regularly cited beginning for American culture (5)
AZTEC Alternate or ‘regular’ letters of mAiZe ThE + C (first letter or ‘beginning’ of ‘cited’)
30   African tribesman has ox slaughtered (5)
XHOSA An anagram of HAS OX – anagrind is ‘slaughtered’
Down
1   Whimsical short joke on topless type of dancing (8)
QUIXOTIC QUIp (joke) with the last letter omitted or ‘short’ + eXOTIC (type of dancing) without the first letter or ‘topless’
2   Comedienne’s lines collected by being husband-free (6)
ULLMAN LL (lines) in or ‘collected by’ hUMAN (being) without the ‘h’ (husband) – a reference to Tracey Ullman
3   Sort of mess that’s put away when picked up (4)
ETON A homophone (‘when picked up’) of EATEN (put away) – a reference to Eton Mess, the messy dessert made from meringues, strawberries and cream
4   Rest of school party, except the head (6)
SIESTA We think this must be: S (school) fIESTA (party) without the first letter or ‘head’ – but we can’t find the use of ‘S’ as an abbreviation for ‘school’ in Chambers – is Maize suggesting that the ‘head’ of school replaces the ‘head’ of ‘fiesta’? If so, it’s not very clear!
5   Time’s up in two places – doesn’t it fly! (6)
TSETSE SET SET (‘two places’) with the ‘t’s (time) moved up to the front
6   Single or, in the old top flight, double (10)
INDIVIDUAL IN DIV1 (Division One – the ‘old top flight’ of the Football League before it was renamed the Premier League) DUAL (double)
7   Listen, you should be in somewhere magical – you should be in Australia! (4,4)
OYEZ OYEZ YE (you) in OZ (‘somewhere magical’, as in the Wizard of Oz) + YE (you) in OZ (Australia)
8   Refusal of nearly every other poem entered (2,4)
NO DEAL ‘Every other’ letter of NeArLy with ODE (poem) inside or ‘entering’ – could this really be better than a bad one?
15   Extremely funny Conservative hairstyle gets brutal treatment (10)
HYSTERICAL An anagram of C (Conservative) and HAIRSTYLE – anagrind is ‘gets brutal treatment’
16   Code-breaker’s mostly shrouded location? (5)
TURIN TURINg (Alan Turing – ‘codebreaker’) without the last letter or ‘mostly’ – a reference to the Turin shroud
19   Repeated pattern lost in a top with no sleeves (8)
OSTINATO Hidden in (‘with no sleeves’, or without the outside letters) lOST IN A TOp – a new word for us, but apparently it is ‘a bass part constantly repeated with varying melody and harmony’
20   Pre-Roman sculpture of centaurs (8)
ETRUSCAN An anagram of CENTAURS – anagrind is ‘sculpture’
21   From the sublime to the ridiculous. Diocese sacrifices and … Well, gets nothing in return (6)
BATHOS BATH and WellS (diocese) with ‘and well’ omitted or ‘sacrificed’ and replaced by O (nothing). Having completed the Cotswold Way recently, we joined one of the excellent free walking tours in Bath. Our well-informed and very humorous guide explained the wrangling between the sees of Bath and Wells. This eventually resulted in the Pope in 1245 insisting that the new Bishop, appointed by Bath (disregarding the see in Wells) should henceforth be called the Bishop of Bath and Wells. Wells now has the cathedral and Bath has an Abbey – both fantastic buildings!
22   Inuit’s building where it belongs (2,4)
IN SITU An anagram of INUIT’S – anagrind is ‘building’
23   Pick and shovel initially put in office (6)
SELECT S (first or ‘initial’ letter of ‘shovel’) ELECT (put in office)
24   A beating which leaves a lasting impression? (6)
TATTOO Double definition
27   Volunteers on Times newspaper prepare for take-off? (4)
TAXI TA (Territorial Army – volunteers) X (times) I (newspaper)

 

19 comments on “Independent 9658 / Maize”

  1. A ‘Q’ to start with, multiple ‘X’s and ‘Z’s – here we go, another multiple Maize pangram, I thought, but no. A helpful Nina which for a change I spotted before the end, and nice clues. Opt delayed me, very clever. S for school seems natural somehow.
    Thanks to S&Bs.

  4. Thanks Maize, Bertandjoyce
    It was a relief to get a bit of a nudge from the nina towards the end, since I was finding some of them quite tricky. I liked the clue for CROSSWORD PUZZLE best, and missed the OPT trick.

  5. Done fairly briskly while waiting for the FT to come on line so’s I cd blog it but I thought this one really elegant. All those Zs & Xs created a never-quite-resolved tension until the shapes of the top, middle and bottom rows satisfyingly revealed themselves. The first clue – my favourite – drew one into a very enjoyable solve.
    Thanks to all three.

  6. Thanks, both.

    I particularly liked this one from Maize. Not the easiest, but I stuck at it and got it out eventually when I saw the nina. Couldn’t parse OPT, so thanks for that. S for school didn’t bother me – LSE was the London School of Economics last time I looked – and good to see serial shagger Yeo getting a mention.

    All round good stuff – thanks to the setter.

  7. For 4dn I wasn’t quite sure, missing the obvious parsing. So I looked up EST and found Eastern Standard Time, which does in fact make the clue sound, so I worried no more. But set with the t up is much better and is no doubt what Maize intended.

    Very nice crossword from Maize I thought: not of the really high standard of the one I blogged a few weeks ago but still pretty good.

  8. For a long time I got really stuck. Lots of unusual clues. Spotted the Nina which helped. A fantastic workout. Quite a few words I hadn’t met before: XHOSA, OSTINATO, YEO. I don’t recall seeing TENTH RATE before but this was clear. Feel sure I’ve met BATHOS before but had forgotten it. I’m another one who has not seen S for school (other than in combinations such as LSE, which doesn’t count).

  9. An enjoyable though challenging solve, and we too were expecting it to be a pangram. But we did spot the nina, which was a help. Once we had QUIXOTIC at 1dn XIMENES went in unparsed so the blog was a help there.

    Some really inventive clues. We liked the misleading surface of 22ac which appears to suggest male prejudice against female conductors such as Marin Alsop. We also liked BATHOS, and found LITOTES not unattractive.

    Wil@7: I think you mean 5dn.

    Thanks, Maize and B&J

  10. Fresh and inventive clueing, not too difficult although the NW corner held me up at the end because I never see a NINA.
    Well done to the Indy editor for continuing to provide a platform for new setters. A refreshing change from the ‘same old same old’ elsewhere.

  12. Oh dear! The Daily App edition has a puzzle by DAC, not the no doubt excellent puzzle above. Since DAC normally appears on Wednesdays, I have the answers to tomorrow’s puzzle if anyone wants them.

  13. Thank you B&J & Gaufrid too.

    Back in 2008 Phi created a puzzle with INSECT REPELLANT in column 8, and with LADYBIRD and HONEY BEE repelled, as it were, to the unches of columns 1 and 15. I loved that, and am popping in now to give due credit to this puzzle’s inspiration. Thank you Phi!

  14. Very enjoyable stuff. As with B&J I got into the puzzle with ease, and then slowed until the nina helped me out (spotted the bottom half first but it took quixotic to get the top half as I was doing less well there). Too much nice and entertaining clueing to choose a fave so I’ll just say ta to the Maizester for the puzzle and to B&J for the blog.

  15. Brilliant Maize, thanks very much! Got there in the end though BATHOS and XIMENES went unparsed so many thanks B&J for the full name of the diocese and the central letters. The Nina helped with SW, where, like others perhaps, I was desperately looking for extra Q’s.

    There were many clues I liked, TATTOO, ETON, AZTEC, and of course CROSSWORD PUZZLE with the Nina – in general I loved the inventiveness, plenty more great clues.

    Keep ’em coming please

  17. We are not sure what has happened Jane. The app for the Indy has Wednesday in the top right hand corner for all the puzzles. If you go onto the Indy web page it has the Maize puzzle. Dac usually appears on Wednesday as you may know.

    We use another app produced by Stand Alone Inc and they have the Maize puzzle today too.

    It’ll be interesting to see what happens tomorrow.

  18. Thoroughly enjoyable. I made steady progress through most of the grid, but got a little stuck in the NE corner until I spotted the Nina. Google wanted 7d to be everything but what I needed to check, correctly as it turns out. More please. 🙂

  19. Thanks Bertandjoyce. The answer is that I have a new puzzle which is also DAC and also no 9704. Curioser and curioser..

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