What a difficult puzzle this was. There were lots of clues that I just couldn’t do for a long time, but I hoped to be able to complete the blog to my satisfaction; which I thought was on, but as you will see below just failed.
The less than 50% checking in several of the answers irritated me and justified me in my failure to make faster progress; quite wrong of course. The actual clues were very good and I have no excuse.
Definitions underlined in maroon. Anagram indicators in italics.
Phew! having got to the end I don’t want to go Nina-hunting now. Nothing stands out.
| Across | ||
| 7 | HOTEL SUITE | Number of connected rooms in silhouette? (5,5) |
| (silhouette)* — ‘in’ a rather unusual anagram indicator | ||
| 8 | HARP | Instrument in need of tuning, first off (4) |
| {s}harp | ||
| 11 | CROSSWORD SETTER | Odd bits of carbon, sulphur, steel and cement, possibly, for me? (9,6) |
| c{a}r{b}o{n} S sword [= steel] setter [= cement, possibly] — it took ages to work this out, the word ‘possibly’ suggesting that somewhere there was an anagram | ||
| 12/15 | FOREWARNED IS FOREARMED | English invading, Ned has front limbs equipped for battle? You must be prepared! (10,2,9) |
| Another one that took ages to work out. I think it’s E in ‘for war, Ned is forearmed’ | ||
| 16 | EROSION | No one annoyed about wear and tear (7) |
| (no 1 sore)rev. | ||
| 17 | See 2 Down | |
| 18 | EVENING DRESS | Still fashion designs about right for formal wear (7,5) |
| even (designs)* round r | ||
| 22 | PARENTAL CONSENT | Permission for a minor change of plan not as recent (8,7) |
| (plan not as recent)* | ||
| 24 | NOEL | Literary work losing focus for the present time (4) |
| no{v}el — Noel is the time for giving presents | ||
| 25 | See 4 Down | |
| Down | ||
| 1 | WHACK | Fair amount? Strike! (5) |
| 2 defs | ||
| 2/17A | STOOD AGAINST | Opposed in two ways, party hit back before elected (5,7) |
| This was one that I hoped I’d fully understand by the time the blog came along. There are still gaps, however, and I trust they’re going to be filled by the alert readers of this blog: the two ways seem to be st and st, and elected = in, so it’s st ((oodaga) in) st, but how to account for the ‘party hit back’ and the ‘oodaga’ I’m afraid I can’t see — I just thought that perhaps ‘agadoo’ was a name for a party of which I was unaware, but this isn’t supported by Collins or Chambers — however, I’ve just googled ‘agadoo’ and got this, so there we are: ‘Agadoo’ was a hit on the album ‘Party’ in 1984, as is no doubt well-known to everyone but me | ||
| 3 | PLUS | Not entirely luxurious benefit (4) |
| plus{h} | ||
| 4/25 | EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT | Political institution dispensing with French leader from afar, Marine Le Pen up to no good (8,10) |
| (afar Marine Le Pen up to)* minus F{rench} | ||
| 5 | STADIA | Arenas in development finally breaking down, perfect when up (6) |
| s(t)ad (A1)rev. — {developmen}t is breaking sad [= down] — another one that I initially couldn’t understand: it looked as if it should incorrectly be stag{e} (ia) | ||
| 6 | MASTODONS | Huge beasts once beating toads in battle (9) |
| M (toads)* ons | ||
| 9 | PARASITE | Average place to host a tapeworm, say? (8) |
| par (a) site | ||
| 10 | BEANBAGS | Large cushions started to go in the middle – a lot! (8) |
| be{g}an bags [= a lot] | ||
| 13 | OPINIONS | Those known by experts to hold sanctimonious views (8) |
| o(pi)nions — experts know their onions | ||
| 14 | PETER PAN | Eternal youth has to fade – savage! (5,3) |
| peter [= fade] pan [= savage, as in ‘the critic panned the book’] | ||
| 15 | See 12 Across | |
| 17 | AGRICOLA | Male leaving a horrible drink for Roman statesman (8) |
| a gri{m} cola | ||
| 19 | GO AWAY | Get lost somewhere in India on the road (2,4) |
| Goa way | ||
| 20 | REBEL | Rise in temperature believable (5) |
| Hidden in temperatuRE BELievable — good hidden, defeating me for a long time; I thought the ‘rise’ was a reversal indicator | ||
| 21 | STATE | Time to fill bottles, say (5) |
| s(t)ate — sate = bottles somehow, but I can’t see why; perhaps another reference to some music of which I’m unaware. Or perhaps it’s sta(t)e and ‘stae’ has to be accounted for. Either way I’m lost.
So I almost got to the end of the blog having just about been able to explain all the clues, only to fall at the penultimate hurdle. (It’s simply t in sate; time in fill; ‘bottles’ is the inclusion indicator. Thanks Muffyword and Hovis) |
||
| 23 | NEAT | American’s excellent in the opera Faust, all concluding (4) |
| {i}n {th}e {oper}a {Faus}t | ||
*anagram
Thanks John and Punk,
Great blog and puzzle.
I think Agadoo is just a party hit, because it is a song played at parties (with any luck not the ones I attend).
21: SATE = to fill
Enjoyed this but had struggles with parsing similar to yours. BEANBAGS was another tricky one. I did know Agadoo, even though I loath the song. Was of the same view as you for STATE then realised SATE means ‘fill’ and ‘bottles’ denotes the inclusion (which works this way around if you think about it). Thanks to Punk and John.
Thanks John and Punk.
Something very strange has happened here. As I was solving various little bells started going off, so I used the site search on a couple of the longer answers. Bar a mild rewrite of a clue or two, this is a repeat of Punk’s 9623 from August last year.
Has that happened before anywhere?
Thanks, John.
I didn’t find it as difficult as you, but levels of hardness are pretty subjective. The main thing is that I enjoyed it. AGADOO was beyond my parsing.
Well remembered, Simon. On checking the blog you point us to I find I didn’t comment, so perhaps I didn’t do that one. As Private Eye might say, shurely shome mishtake?
I have to hold my hand up and take responsibility, and also admit this is not the first time it has happened. There was a previous occasion when Don Manley’s birthday puzzle was repeated in the same year – one waggish fellow setter who spotted it enquired whether Don was like the Queen and had two birthdays.
I’ve discovered how it happened too. Checking my emails I found that John Halpern sent me the same puzzle with two different numbers, having misnumbered it the first time. The used one went into the ‘Used Punk’ folder and the other stayed in the ‘Punk’ folder like an unexploded World War II bomb. It’s interesting that no one remembered it – not me, not John when I sought amendments. Perhaps our efforts are not as memorable as we would hope.
You and John might think that, eimi; I couldn’t possibly comment. Thanks for the explanation.
OMG. I almost certainly did this before but don’t recall it at all. Always thought I was going senile. At least, I think I always thought this.
Interesting. I certainly didn’t find this difficult to fill in – I did it in one sitting whilst watching a TV programme – although 21dn was mostly a guess and there were several I couldn’t parse. Certainly with 2/17 I had in the back of my mind that DO was the party and I’d work out the rest later, but I never did.
As to the previous appearance, I have no memory of it. As it was August, I checked my diary. I was on holiday in Helsinki in August last year and on the 16th I spent the day going round an open air museum so it’s possible I was too knackered or didn’t have time to do the crossword when I got back to my hotel.
Well we found this difficult and had no memory of solving it before, despite having posted a comment that time. And not remembering ‘Agadoo’ we couldn’t parse 2/17. Also, in 24 ac, we didn’t remember the focus = centre bit and wondered if Punk was thinking of the Welsh spelling, ‘nofel’.
But we got it all in the end even if some was not understood. Thanks, Punk and John.
Interesting deja vu! Well at least I haven’t done this one before as I’m a relative newcomer to the Indy puzzles, having just started doing them after being encouraged to try them by Eccles and Dutch at the York S&B last year. I did find this quite tricky, failing to parse the first half of my LOI, BEANBAGS, and only seeing the proper parsing of AGADOO afterwards. NOEL made me smile when I finally twigged what was going on. 11a and 22a made me smile and went in relatively painlessly. Liked AGRICOLA. Good stuff. Thanks Punk and John.
Thanks Muffyword and Hovis @1 and 2. Blog amended.