Independent 9,669 by Kairos

by

Been a while since I’ve done a Kairos

Didn’t really enjoy this too much, a lot a name dropping, not so general knowledge or in one case knowledge of Generals and Latin terms made this feel like a bit of a slog rather than enjoyment.

Horses for courses I guess, there’ll be a few of you who love this sort of thing.

Thanks Kairos

completed grid

Across

1 Entertaining and emotional description of film? (5-9)
LIGHT-SENSITIVE
LIGHT entertainment & a SENSITIVE soul

10 Drunk started to smoke (3,2)
LIT UP
Double def

11 Everyone leaves US planner to capture Slough (9)
MARSHLAND
ALL (everyone) from MARSH(all), he of the plan & LAND – to capture

12 Ring drivers’ organisation about transport facility (3,4)
CAR POOL
LOOP – ring & RAC (drivers org) all reversed – about

13 August’s subject, “Fruit” (7)
SUBLIME
SUB(ject) & LIME – a fruit

14 Returning in local air transport is a test (5)
TRIAL
Hidden reversed in locaL AIR Transport

16 Vicars tee off with advertising types (9)
CREATIVES
[VICARS TEE]* off

19 Reduce the quality of quilt filling? (9)
DOWNGRADE
Well quilts are often filled with DOWN of various quality

20 Risked three diamonds (5)
DICED
D(iamonds) & ICE (diamonds) and another D(iamonds)

22 Drunken Viscount dumping Charlie for Peter? (7)
USTINOV
C(harlie) taken from a drunken [VIS(c)OUNT]*

25 Travels over stream heading off to see lizards (7)
GECKOES
A headless (b)ECK – stream in GOES

27 Maltreat male composer we hear (9)
MANHANDLE
MAN – male & sounds like HANDEL

28 Jewellery changing hands in institute (5)
BLING
L for R in BRING (about)

29 Range of dodgy horse while touring Indiana (5,9)
ROCKY MOUNTAINS
ROCKY – dodgy & MOUNT – horse & IN(diana) in AS for while

Down

2 Football team contend with audience (9)
INTERVIEW
INTER (milan) & VIE – contend & W(ith)

3 Stylish seaman in Augustine’s place? (5)
HIPPO
HIP – stylish & P(etty) O(fficer), Saint Augustine came from Hippo Regius in North Africa

4 Images of one short promontory in vertebrae (9)
SIMULACRA
1 & a short MUL(L) – promontory both inside SACRA – plural of sacrum, a bone in the back

5 New Hebrides regularly excluded the socially inept (5)
NERDS
N(ew) & alternate letters of hEbRiDeS

6 Before long editor injecting heroin becomes occupied (9)
INHABITED
H(eroin) inside IN A BIT & the ED(itor)

7 Lyricist on panel game is a foreigner (5)
IRAQI
IRA (gershwin) & the TV show Q(uite) I(nteresting)

8 What banks do in a recession without capital is boring (7)
ENDLESS
Without the L for pound – capital, money – the banks (L)END LESS

9 Secure the heart of Ms Kendal? (6)
ELICIT
It’s the heart  of fELICITy (kendal)

15 Heroic cricket side intent on woman leaving Mark (9)
LEGENDARY
LEG (cricket term) & END – aim, intent & M(ark) taken from (m)ARY

17 On record Geordie work unit returns retaining its vigour (9)
EVERGREEN
EVER – record, as in Trump’s inauguration wasn’t the largest on record & a reversal of NE for Geordie area & ERG – work unit

18 Late 19th Century men (9)
VICTORIAN
Two men VICTOR & IAN

19 Duke meets stranger tattooist? (7)
DRUMMER
D(uke) & RUMMER – more odd. Drummers do sometimes drum tattoos

21 Plan to remove signature! (6)
DESIGN
If you could actually DE – SIGN a document

23 Medicine knocked back during vaccinotherapy (5)
TONIC
Hidden reversed in vacCINOTherapy

24 Refer to love in film (5)
VIDEO
VIDE, latin to refer to & O – love

26 Lady Grantham drinking British beer (5)
COBRA
Indian beer brand – I never watched Downton Abbey but in it Lady Grantham was called CORA (crawley) with B(ritish) inserted

11 comments on “Independent 9,669 by Kairos”

  1. Know what you mean, but not too bad for a Monday, I thought. I got ‘Grantham’ & ‘Grantchester’ mixed up & spent a time trying to make beer out of fragrant Mary Archer but no probs otherwise. Thanks to both.

  2. I found this straightforward enough, but there is a niggle at 28a. How is one to know it is BLING (substituting L for R in BRING), rather than BRING (doing the opposite)? ‘Jewellery in institute changing hands’ would have been clear. Needless to say, I put the wrong one in at first.

  3. @2 in this case the clue construction is enough: the word “in” indicates that Jewellery is the definition and the rest is wordplay, but there are plenty of examples of setters who aren’t as careful with their construction. In fact, in 15d we have “woman leaving Mark” to indicate a woman’s name dropping M where it should really be “woman leaving Mark out/behind/off/(whatever)” since the M is leaving her name.
    Overall it was a fairly straightforward solve for me, though I’m in agreement with flashling that it was rather more General-Knowledge-y than cryptic.

    Thanks Kairos and flashling 🙂

  4. I enjoyed this although have to admit to needing to look up the birthplace of Augustine and the required vertebrae. I also needed flashling’s help to parse ‘on record’ in 17d and to arrive at ‘Mary’ in 15d.

    Despite the explanation from postmortes @3, I still think 28a works either way and yes – I did opt for the ‘wrong’ one!

    Thank you Kairos – I particularly liked 1,13&19a plus 18d (probably my favourite). Thanks also to flashling – I’m sorry you didn’t care for this one.

  5. Some head-scratching on the way but we got it all without help. Not sure that LEGENDARY means ‘heroic’ except in a very vague sense, though, and we thought 28ac was a bit ambiguous but eventually came down in favour of BLING.

    Lots of good stuff, though. We liked CAR POOL for its simplicity. Incidentally, Poins had ‘car pools’ yesterday – clued quite differently, of course.

    Thanks, Kairos and flashling.

  6. Postmortes@3: Yes Kairos is careful with his constructions, but ‘in’ can quite legitimately be a link word: “BRING with L for R (will be found) _in_ (a word for) INSTUTUTE”. As a matter of fact “in” is used in exactly that way in 3d. So this does not distinguish between the two possible readings of 25a.

    The usage of ‘leave’ in 15d is also fine in my view. To ‘leave’ something can mean to leave it behind – ‘Oh dear, that man has left his umbrella.’

  7. Thanks for blogging, flashling.

    I enjoyed this one. Didn’t mind it being too general knowledge-y (mainly because I knew all of them apart from the Downton Abbey character, and in that one I knew the beer) and Kairos is a bit of an ‘old-fashioned’ setter. I mean that in a positive way, and one of the things I like about the Indy weekday puzzles is that you get a variety of styles and a variety of subject matter.

    So that’ll do me for a Monday puzzle. Thanks to Kairos.

  8. Bit late getting round to this and, being a bit busy today, felt I didn’t give it quite as much time and attention as it deserved and didn’t complete. Fave clue was 16a for the surface so thanks to The Special K for the puzzle and to The Flash for the blog.

  9. Thanks kairos

    I liked 1a LIGHT SENSITIVE when I finally got it, it was my Loi, and alsoROCKY MOUNTAINS, DICED, VICTORIANS.

    I knew peter and ira but not Cora or Augustine. I don’t like clues like 4d where there is gk both in wordplay and answer – one or the other, please. I realise gk is different for everyone, general is a misnomer.

    I didn’t think endless=boring, you can have endless fun, can’t you? Well so I’m told…

    Many thanks Flashling and thanks kairos for the entertainment

  10. Found the bottom half easier than the top and needed to cheat quite a bit to complete this. Another one who knew the beer but not Downton Abbey but 4dn was a write-in.

  11. There was a bit of a North-South divide for me too. I was on home ground in the southern regions and had a smooth ride there. Met one new person in 26d but the beer aided in introducing us.

    On travelling northwards, though, I encountered strange and unfamiliar beasts and was left a little cold. Had to help myself to a fistful of aids.

    Oh, and I definitely thought BRING (sic) ambiguous. I pondered both options and in the end thought the one I just wrote the marginally better fit. I solved this one on paper so I’ve left it be.

    I also made use of having a printout to scrawl on by drawing a very scowly face by your 5d definition of NERDS, even if Chambers does agree with you. Not necessarily! They’re my people! (Dare I say our people?)

    I did enjoy lots of this though. My favourite clue is 20a DICED.

    In short I found Kairos (as Prolixic)’s Big Dave’s Monthly Prize Puzzle much more enjoyable than this, but I’m still a fan. Thanks to him and to Flashling for the blog which I made good use of today.

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