Independent 9,726 by Klingsor

by

It is always a delight when one of Klingsor’s puzzles is to be blogged. On his website a while ago, before he had become an Independent setter, he was bemoaning the fact that despite trying for ages he hadn’t got into the dailies. Thank goodness someone has seen the light, for he is one of the very best setters around. This crossword is up to the usual standard: plenty of lovely surfaces, some excellent clues, and a level of difficulty that means the setter loses graciously but not before quite some effort from the solver: all just as it should be.

Definitions in maroon, underlined.

Nina? My guess is that there isn’t one, although …

Across
1 CRAIC Academy dons mostly cramp fun (5)
cr(A)ic{k} — this took me a while because I had the A and was expecting it to be part of RA
4 CHRISTEN Companion turned to catch gentleman’s name (8)
CH (net sir)rev.
8 MARKET RESEARCH Are there consumers extremely disposed to follow brand? This can tell you (6,8)
mark [= brand] (are there c{onsumer}s)*
10 ALDEBARAN Rock band with a real star (9)
(band a real)* — rock (imperative) the anagram indicator
11 PURSE Contract bridge player wears white (5)
pur(S)e
12 RECOUP Make good on firm promises initially after university (6)
re [=on] co [= firm] u p{romises}
14 STOPPAGE Kitty’s backing call for strike (8)
(pot’s)rev. page
17 POSTGRAD Student flat accommodates East German and Greek (8)
p(ost [= east in German] Gr)ad
18 INSECT Batting order for cricket? (6)
in sect [= religious order]
20 EDICT English detective gets court order (5)
E DI ct
22 DEPRECATE Disparage, snubbing one? (9)
deprec{i}ate — &lit. — I had thought that this was an example of the thing that all those style guides mention, the frequent deprecate/depreciate confusion, since I thought that depreciate meant only the opposite of appreciate, but depreciate has another meaning that was news to me: to lessen the value of by derision, criticism, etc; disparage
24 LA DONNA E MOBILE Youth gets one an unusual phone number (2,5,1,6)
lad (one an)* mobile [as in mobile phone] — no doubt Klingsor cunningly arranged that there were 14 letters in the first four words of the clue, so that the hapless solver, trying to get a word that went ?A, and using the letters of these words, would be totally bewildered: a phrase of four letters that begins Ta? Or even Ha?
25 BEVERAGE Bar’s opening – first off, purchase a drink (8)
B{ar} {l}everage
26 TREAT Turkey lunch? That’s something nice (5)
Tr [the abbreviation for the country Turkey] eat
Down
1 COME A CROPPER Restored cameo parts cut by theatre about to fail (4,1,7)
c(omeac)rop (rep.)rev., the omeac being (cameo)* — parts a verb
2 AIRED Did express almost derail? That’s awful (5)
(derai{l})*
3 CHERBOURG Halved zucchinis stuffed with perhaps basil and port (9)
c(herb)ourg{ettes}
4 CURARE Poison gas inhaled by priest (6)
cur(Ar [Argon])é
5 RESONATE Rex turned up nose at leader in Evening Echo (8)
R (nose)rev. at E{vening}
6 STAMP Print extract from Mandelstam poetry (5)
Hidden in MandelSTAM Poetry
7 EXCORIATE Severely criticise former officer, one breaking rank (9)
ex co r(1)ate
9 RESETTLEMENT High street houses newly let by people offering relocation (12)
reset(tle men)t, the resett being (street)*, the anagram indicator ‘high’, and the tle being (let)*
13 CASTIGATE Punish one in scandal involving players? (9)
cast(1)-gate — cast-gate being a fanciful word along the lines of Watergate and all those other -gates that have followed it
15 PENTECOST Locked up before Green Street festival (9)
pent eco St
16 GARDENIA Plant needs a place to grow it, I answer (8)
garden I A
19 APIECE Each pastry dish has cool wrapping (6)
a(pie)ce
21 TROPE Figure of speech beginning to tickle Guy? (5)
t{ickle} rope
23 ALIVE Flipping bad acting gets you animated (5)
(evil A)rev.

*anagram

12 comments on “Independent 9,726 by Klingsor”

  1. I found this very tough going, with only a few in on the first run through. Didn’t get much better and struggled on for a couple of hours, before finishing with a guessed 1a which turned out to be incorrect. On the edge of being frustrating rather than enjoyable, but working out clues such as COME A CROPPER and the brilliant 24a (clue of the week for me) made it worthwhile in the end.

    Thank you to Klingsor and John.

  2. Percussive maintenance finally resulted in the printer working so I was able to sit by the pool with pen and paper with a dip when I got stuck, So I did a bit of swimming,
    very enjoyable, my pick of the day and a nice new clue for the aria.
    So many thanks to Klingsor and John

  3. Tough going but all gettable with some reference to Chambers needed to confirm guesses. We went up the bllnd alley of thinking 24ac was an anagram of the first four words, too, and puzzled over the single letter E until the lightbulb moment.

    One quibble: 3dn needed one to know that zucchinis are courgettes before halving ‘them’ to get ‘courg’. No problem if you know, but is this not a similar situation to the dreaded indirect anagram?

    That apart, this was great stuff. Our CoD was ALDEBARAN, for the simplicity of the clue and because Aldebaran doesn’t appear too often in crosswords (the last previous mention on fifteensquared was in November 2015).

    Thanks, Klingsor and John

  6. Thanks both. Enjoyed the level of difficulty but although harder work than some very satisfying to solve.

    Copmus@ 2. Glad you got your printer working but wish you hadn’t bothered with the lifestyle description. We are only just thawing out after the central heating boiler malfunctioned whist we also experienced snow ice and sub zero temperatures. An engineering solution was found but rather more involved than yours.

  7. Good puzzle. I thought LA DONNA brilliant too, though ‘number’ is a BIT loose as a def! Anyway, bravo.

    That COURG is fair for me. If he’d used COURGETTES, defined as zucchini, as part of wordplay (can’t quite think how at the moment!) you wouldn’t have complained, so I reckon it’s okay.

    Thanks for a great work-out and blog.

  8. Thanks, John, and Klingsor.

    An elegant and very enjoyable puzzle. I try not to do kicking myself where crossword solving is concerned, but a self-inflicted blow was delivered today when I finally saw LA DONNA E MOBILE. Very clever.

  9. Took a while to get going today then it all fell quite quickly. Just one of those days when the def shouted at me. Thanks K & John

  10. Thanks Klingsor, John
    ALDEBARAN, POSTGRAD, CRAIC, AIRED, BEVERAGE, INSECT + the phone one I thought were all great clues.
    I didn’t mind COURG, despite my moan about the same thing in Monk’s Saturday puzzle, since the letters are quite distinctive and you can go from the crossers to clue and see what’s needed. On the other hand, I did appreciate it in Flimsy’s FT puzzle yesterday that 50% of skirts was just SKI rather than [avo]IDS or something similar.
    I invented PALSE for 11a, thinking a palsy was like a tic, so PURSE and EXCORIATE took a while at the end.

  11. A challenging puzzle which kepy me busy for the best part of 40 minutes. It took the E in 24a before I realised I wasn’t looking for an anaesthetic or some sort of directory, but that opened up the bottom of the puzzle. I spent the first 20 minutes scooting round the grid trying to get a toehold. Lots of Aha! moments. I also assumed the RA was the academy at 1a so needed 1d before the penny dropped. PENTECOST also came along accompanied by a clinking sound. Great puzzle. Thanks Klingsor and John.

  12. I found this very hard but very good. Too much fur torn out over it to make 24a my favourite, and too many to pick from to settle on one other.

    Thanks to Klingsor and John.

    P.S. Allan_c @4 – I was as surprised as you to hear that I’m backing a strike call. I certainly don’t want the blogging and commenting to stop! (Better pay and conditions on the other hand … )

Comments are closed.