This is Dutch’s 5th Indy puzzle and the first we’ve had the pleasure of blogging.
We found this perhaps slightly easier than we expected for a Saturday puzzle, but a very enjoyable solve with a solver-friendly grid and lots of great surfaces.
Our only minor quibble during the solve was with the wordplay in 8d where ‘Yogi’ seems to be synonymous with ‘stretcher’. A ‘yogi‘ is someone who a practitioner of yoga and not related to THIS character but yoga seems to entail a lot of mental discipline rather than just stretching!
We don’t think there’s anything thematic going on here, but we could very easily be wrong!
Apologies for the delay in correcting the parsing of 1d – we’ve been rather busy this weekend!
| Across | ||
| 1 | A new bottle of scent could be beginning to work (5,2,8) | |
| TABLE OF CONTENTS | An anagram of A N (new) BOTTLE OF SCENT – anagrind is ‘could be’ | |
| 9 | In the end spouse will part to be again free (7) | |
| RELIEVE | E (last letter or ‘end’ of ‘spouse’) in or ‘parting’ RELIVE (be again) | |
| 10 | More energy consumed by kitchen implement (7) | |
| GREATER | E (energy) in or ‘consumed by’ GRATER (kitchen implement) | |
| 11 | Where too much food goes to waste, I’m told (5) | |
| WAIST | A (rather too obvious?) homophone (‘I’m told’) of WASTE | |
| 12 | Take ecstasy (9) | |
| TRANSPORT | Double definition | |
| 13 | Disregarding books after nightwear finally removed (9) | |
| NEGLIGENT | NT (New Testament – ‘books’) after NEGLIGÉ |
|
| 15 | Dutch regularly chases women, at first ignoring size (5) | |
| WIDTH | DuTcH (alternate or ‘regular’ letters) after or ‘chasing’ W (women) I (first letter of ‘ignoring’) | |
| 16 | Pleased with a replacement being nothing like beer (5) |
|
| 18 | Moving flight will involve a real cost (9) | |
| ESCALATOR | An anagram of A REAL COST – anagrind is ‘involve’ | |
| 20 | Passing itinerants heading off to work (9) | |
| TRANSIENT | An anagram of |
|
| 23 | Blade Runner wanting tip to secure name of foe, ultimately (5) | |
| KNIFE | ||
| 24 | One who has seen written verses occasionally (7) | |
| WITNESS | Alternate or ‘occasional’ letters of ‘WrItTeN vErSeS’ | |
| 25 | Disturb our rest as appropriate (7) | |
| TROUSER | An anagram of OUR REST – anagind is ‘disturb’ | |
| 26 | Somehow she controls men’s beastly character (4,4,7) | |
| LOCH NESS MONSTER | An anagram of SHE CONTROLS MEN’S – anagrind is ‘somehow’ | |
| Down | ||
| 1 | Add the dryer for free to stop competition (5,2,3,5) | |
| THROW IN THE TOWEL | THROW IN (add for free) THE TOWEL (dryer) – thanks gwep for correct parsing – a lapse of concentration!! | |
| 2 | In essence, Lithuania is brilliant (7) | |
| BELTING | LT (Lithuania) in BEING (essence) | |
| 3 | Vote for remain primarily, providing May’s last thrill (9) | |
| ELECTRIFY | ELECT (vote for) R (first or ‘prime’ letter of ‘remain’) IF (providing) Y (last letter of ‘May’) | |
| 4 | Planes of one airline take off on time (5) | |
| FLEET | FLEE (take off) T (time) | |
| 5 | Wild corgi out drinking wine (9) | |
| ORGIASTIC | An anagram of CORGI (anagrind is ‘out’) round or ‘drinking’ ASTI (wine) | |
| 6 | Initially set up, somewhat embarrassed escort recognises Tiger Woods (5) | |
| TREES | First or ‘initial’ letters of Somewhat Embarrassed Escort Recognises Tiger, all reversed or ‘set up’ | |
| 7 | Clear my day for hold-up in court (3,4) | |
| NET CORD | NET (clear) COR (my – as an exclamation) D (day) | |
| 8 | One who tolerates Yogi’s suffering supporter? (9-6) | |
| STRETCHER-BEARER | STRETCHER (Yogi – one who practices yoga, involving a lot of stretching) BEARER (one who tolerates) | |
| 14 | Teams meeting opponents for refreshments (9) | |
| ELEVENSES | ELEVENS (teams) E S (East and South – opponents in card games such as Bridge) | |
| 15 | In good health, two men have celebrated (4-5) | |
| WELL-KNOWN | WELL (in good health) K N (king and knight – ‘two men’ in chess) OWN (have) | |
| 17 | Flexible even if power were lost to Spain? (7) | |
| PLASTIC | This could be PLASTIC or eLASTIC if the ‘p’ (power) were replaced by ‘e’ (Spain) – we had entered ‘elastic’ until we solved 16ac | |
| 19 | Triumphs in offensive and matching clothing (7) | |
| TWINSET | WINS (triumphs) in TET (offensive – in the Vietnam war) | |
| 21 | Film about English group of high-fliers (5) | |
| SKEIN | SKIN (film) round E (English) | |
| 22 | “Carry on Maiden” – a symbolic family feature? (5) | |
| TOTEM | TOTE (carry) M (maiden) | |
Enjoyed this. In particular the 4 fifteeners around the outside. The anagram at 26a is superb and the one for 1a is pretty damn good too. Took a while to believe WAIST was going to be the answer for 11a. Sometimes answers are so easy they become hard, if you get my drift. I feel the wording for 16a better fits HOPPY than HAPPY but could work either way, so a poor clue imo. Didn’t share your objection to 8d. Held me up for a bit thinking the ‘bear’ part was in reference to Yogi bear – maybe that was intentional. Other favourites include NET CORD and WELL-KNOWN. Thanks to Dutch and BJ.
My response to this seems to have disappeared into the ether. Any ideas where it’s gone Gaufrid?
Good morning Hovis – We found it in spam. Thanks for the comment.
Had the same problem with waist. I think it’s HOPPY not happy it says A replacement being O
flashling@4. That was my thinking @1, but, as in blog, you can read as HAPPY definition ‘pleased’ then ‘A replacement being O (giving) HOPPY’ as the cryptic part. Given that ‘happy’ is the more usual word, it may be the correct answer but, as I said, I don’t like this clue. Clearly not the only one. Has anybody tried revealing answer online. I always solve on a printout.
Thanks Flashing and Hovis. Blog is now correct.
A most enjoyable romp. Thanks Dutch, B&J
Agree with Hovis about the excellent long anagrams. Some quite complicated clues, but I liked the simpler ones too, BELTING, FLEET, TROUSER, WAIST. Liked WIDTH and RELIEVE for surfaces. KNIFE I thought a bit overwrought for the sake of getting Blade Runner in.
I don’t share the doubts about HOPPY, PLASTIC, I think they only work in the intended direction. Nor did I find WAIST too simple – it’s an excellent clue in any case. There’s nothing wrong with putting a direct homophone in the clue – in fact, isn’t it preferable to requiring a homophone of a synonym? Here, nothing else will do, as it’s part of go to waste.
Enjoyed this a lot. I particularly liked NEGLIGENT, WIDTH, NET CORD and TOTEM, but that list isn’t exhaustive. And even though I’ve had my fill of long anagrams today, I really liked Nessie sitting there at the bottom of the grid.
I had HOPPY first time and was happy with it. Though I can now just about see how the clue can work the other way it seemed naturally to work as intended.
I’ll defend WAIST too – the homophone is hidden in plain sight but has to be separated out from “goes to waste” so even though it’s not the hardest clue to solve, it’s still nice. If I recall correctly that one made me smile – and only a minority of clues manage that!
Sometimes one can see the TREES for the woods.
It amused me to notice that the ORGIASTIC corgi isn’t just out, it’s cycling. Wild.
Thanks Dutch and Bertandjoyce.
PS. Lovely to see you back, Flashling.
a very enjoyable puzzle from Dutch which I found harder to finish that I thought I might when I saw the very friendly grid. I have also a nagging feeling that there is something going on here which I’ve missed and will keep an eye open on the blog. Thanks to B&J and hi @flashling; what have you done with Hoskins?
How nice to get another puzzle from Dutch and I didn’t have any problem getting either HOPPY or PLASTIC which is unusual for me – I invariably dither over that type of clue.
Plenty to enjoy with 11&12a plus 1d getting top billing here.
Many thanks to Dutch and to B&J for the blog.
I’m with those who found both HOPPY and ELASTIC at least a little ambiguous, but easy to pick up since they interlinked in a way that could not fail to resolve any problem. Liked all the long entries, thought they were ingenious, amusing and well-constructed. Most enjoyable puzzle.
In 1D the definition is “to stop competition”, so that the wordplay divides after “free”. Thus: “add the dryer for free(throw in the towel)”/”to stop competition”.
Thanks to Dutch and Bertandjoyce.
I enjoyed this puzzle too. I had HAPPY at first, but when I failed to get a completion notice I rechecked the grid and decided it should be HOPPY, which turned out to be correct. I then spotted why my original LOI, BELTING, was correct. I struggled to start and after shoving HAPPY in from the guessed THE from 1d, I tried PLIABLE at 17d until I got WITNESS. Then PLASTIC went in and I got moving. Kept me busy for almost 40 minutes. Thanks Dutch and B&J.
A generally enjoyable puzzle but we too found 16ac and 17dn to be ambiguous. And we couldn’t parse 8dn satisfactorily – ‘Yogi’ suggested ‘bear’ which then suggested ‘bearer’ as the second word, which led us to the correct answer but then we couldn’t see exactly how Yogi fitted in, let alone his “supporter”, Boo-Boo. And we don’t quite see ‘stretcher’ as an adequate description of a practitioner of yoga. We liked the other three long anagrams, though.
Before getting 1ac, we wondered briefly if the planes in 4dn could be ‘trees’ but apart from the T we couldn’t fit that to the clue, and of course when 6dn turned out to be TREES it obviously couldn’t be.
No real CoD but WELL-KNOWN and ORGIASTIC are worth a mention.
Thanks, Dutch and B&J.
A few people seem to find fault with ‘stretcher’ for ‘yogi’. Sure, a yogi does more than just stretch. Equally well, ‘size’ in 15a doesn’t define width. But surely they work as reasonable examples of the words in question which is all you could ask for imho.
I found this harder to get into than previous puzzles from Dutch but when I did get going I really enjoyed it.
I can’t quite make up my mind about 8d but I thought the rest was terrific. Nice brief cluing with lovely surfaces.
I’ll join Jane in selecting 1a, 11a & 12a as favourites adding 26a too.
Thank you Dutch and B&J.
Thank you friends for commenting, thank you very much indeed
In response to bearchen@9, Hoskins has just lost his father so we need to give him some space. He’ll be back.
I apologise for ambiguities – obviously, I didn’t think there were any, but the acid test is you the solvers, so I do thank you. I was more worried about Plastic than Hoppy, but there you go.
Funny how clues evolve – very interesting actually – I originally had “Pleased with love replacing a taste for beer” but decided the definition was iffy. So, a crossword kind of takes on a life of its own, it is a creation that exists in its own right, the setter has to let that happen. Thoughts?
I also agree the blade runner clue got out of control – it was originally “Blade runner scratching head about new iron” but ‘new’ was already used in 1a, and i was warned it sounded like a dodgy reference to Pistorius.
The elastic /plastic was a bit of an experiment – seems people twigged in the end.
Can’t tell you how long it took me to get 26a to work, combining anagram indicator, fodder and def. Glad you liked it. Just so people know – the simplest clues are the hardest to devise.
Next one on the way
I love the Indy
oh and yeah, the yogi clue was always going to be a bit of a marmite clue –
and thanks gwep for correcting the parsing of 1d
cheers
A really nice puzzle with some lovely surfaces.
We loved it Dutch. Many thanks.
It would be easier to count the unstarred clues. Superb puzzle. Beautifully constructed anagrams and lots of smiles. Dutch, I thought 17d works very well and had no problem at all with the image of yogi as a stretcher.
Really enjoyed this. Just the right level of difficulty so I had to think a bit (mostly) but wouldn’t suffer in the struggle. THROW IN THE TOWEL came into my head as soon as I read the clue for some reason, but I really liked the smooth surface linking the defs. LOCHNESS MONSTER took me ages but the friendly monster coming out of the dark surface was very enjoyable when it clicked. I really wondered how the word got in the grid. Was it an early free choice or just a nice one of a few that could fit? I had no doubts about PLASTIC or HOPPY after considering which way the wp went. I haven’t got a problem with stretcher: it’s refers to characteristic of Yogis, and isn’t a fully defining term — and one knew it was right when one got it. I was looking for picnic-related meanings at first, too. I had R_____ for the second word at one point and wondered about Yogi’s nemesis, the RANGER. I had WELL KNOWN from def before I could explain the wp to myself. Very neat. KNIFE was hard work, but quite satisfying to unravel. Again, I got it from the def first. I saw that TROUSER was a possible anagram and dismissed it at first, still fooled by the sneaky <i>appropriate</i>. Doh!
I have seen the hidden message, but I will say no more so as not to prejudice Dutch’s chance of getting a commision from the Church Times.
Great puzzle, Dutch. Cheers!
Sympathies and commiserations to HH.
Just thought: a clue for STRETCHER BEARER could be “You can get carried away by them talking coarse muck”.
“Muck” is bricklayer’s slang for mortar, and a stretcher is a kind of brick. Bricks are laid in “courses” (which, until I thought about it just now, I had actually always conceived of as “coarses” for some reason, never having seen it written). So the muck that goes on the “coarse” below is actually what bears a stretcher.
A bit of a stretch for most people’s GK, perhaps, but it might be a write-in for some cryptic-solving brickie!