I’m struggling with this month’s Genius by this setter’s Guardian alter-ego – in fact I’ve got hardly anywhere with that. Thank goodness this puzzle wasn’t quite as tricky as that.
It was pretty tricky though. I can count on the fingers of one hand the clues I got on the first pass, and one of those, one I was so proud to get, I misspelt as I wrote it in, which caused trouble at the the last knockings.
I was so pleased to get the long 1Ac/15 mostly from the letter count after spotting the finally CLEVER from the crossers, but the crop of first letters took a while to grow and bear fruit. And as for 1D – I was convinced it was something THE something after getting THE’s T from Treacle and assuming 16A was something like E-blah like E-Mail etc. It took till very near the end before the penny dropped on 1D’s beautiful anagram.
It was another anagram that I should have got earlier that contributed to clearing off the final few. 13D was simpler then I suspected misled as I was by a misplaced T from “Izvesttya”. Big sigh of relief to finish.
There must be a few bits of wordplay I haven’t properly parsed (17A Tbilisi I’m looking at you)
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1/15d | IT’S NOT BIG AND ITS NOT CLEVER | That is a little stupid (3,3,3,3,3,3,6) IT’S (it is = that is = that’s) NOT BIG AND ITS NOT CLEVER (stupid) &Lit. |
| 9 | CLUBHEADS | Top journo’s written off Leeds, blowing it with such bad strikers (9) (LE[eds] SUCH BAD)* AInd: blowing it. The “ED’S” lost from Leeds are “Top journo’s”. |
| 10 | VESTA | Undergarment (top half) in need of a match (5) VEST (undergarment (top half) ) A |
| 11 | MIGHT AS WELL | Cannot lose power to boot (5,2,4) MIGHT (power) AS WELL (to boot, also). Definition seems a bit of a stretch to me but gets there: “Might as well” … “Can’t hurt” … “Cannot lose” |
| 13 | AAH | Hard on the heels of Carmen, a regular partner of 3 (3) 3 is “Ooh”. We all “Ooh and aah” occasionally, don’t deny it, especially over babies. AA (carmen – car men – Automobile Association) H[ard] |
| 14 | TREACLE | Blandishments that make Electra complex (7) (ELECTRA)* AInd: complex. What other anagram indicator could you possibly use |
| 15 | NEAREST | Next of kin perhaps snared in Madrid will be back (7) Ref. Nearest and dearest. I needed offspring currently learning Spanish at skool to get the wordplay: NE[ARES]T – SERA (Spanish for will) reversed inside (in) NET (snared) |
| 16 | X-FACTOR | It’s fine by retiring luvvie (1-6) ( F[ine], X (by) )< (reverse indicator: retiring) ACTOR (luvvie). &Lit (I suppose – no other def. to be seen) Hovis suggests the definition is just “It”, presumably both “It” and “X-factor” are synonyms for Sex or Sex Appeal |
| 17 | TBILISI | City becoming stable now, sang parts out (7) I think this must be STABLE with the vowels (sang parts) removed, which makes STBL, anagrammed (out) to make TBLS, which is TBILISI similarly with vowels removed. That can’t be right can it? If so that’s some of the most Dada wordplay I’ve seen See Comment #1 for the correct parsing |
| 18 | EYE | Nimrod’s reported aim (3) Homophone “I” (Nimrod) |
| 19 | CONFLAGRANT | In (formal) do, draw attention to harangue (11) CON (do) FLAG (draw attention to) RANT (harangue) Got this from crossletters and wordplay, but do not understand definition: “In (formal)” “in” as in “hot” I suppose? |
| 21 | INGOT | Cart before horse gained entrance to bar (5) GOT IN (gained entrance) changed in a “cart before horse” manner to IN GOT |
| 23 | IZVESTIYA | Viz comic strip’s Top Tips for intelligentsia, yet bad news from Russia (9) (VIZ)* AInd: comic, then ( S[trip] (strip’s top), I[ntelligentsi]A YET ) * AInd: bad. Russian for Truth. Currently telling us Skripol’s were poisoned by UK agents to deflect from bad Brexit coverage. What I tell you 3 times is true. I am wrong. Pravda is Truth, Izvestia is just News apparently. See comment #5. Sorry for exhibiting my ignorance of Russian. |
| 25 | FALL ON HARD TIMES | Meet suffering MP known for touching novel (4,2,4,5) Fallon (MP = Michael of that ilk, erstwhile Defense Sec. – known for touching <wiki link> ) Hard Times (Novel) |
| Down | ||
| 1 | INCOME TAX RELIEF | This charity may claim doctors fix male erection (6,3,6) (FIX MALE ERECTION)* AInd: doctors. I wonder how many minutes, after he discovered it, Nimrod waited to use that anagram |
| 2 | STUN GRENADE | Bug under agent’s arm (4,7) (UNDER AGENTS)* AInd: bug |
| 3 | OOH | I like it hot, with bubbles rising over it (3) H[ot] with OO (bubbles !?) on top (rising over it) |
| 4 | BOAR-SPEAR | Pole taken in hand by hunter stole fruit outside scientific institution (4-5) BOA (stole,(noun)) and PEAR (fruit) around RS (Royal Society) |
| 5 | GESTE | Beau of P.C. gets upset about constable’s climax (5) (GETS)* AInd: upset, around [constabl]E. Refers to Beau Geste <wiki> who is the title character of a book by P C Wren. I didn’t know what “P.C.” referred to till I looked him up though I had heard of the character – subject of several movies even from the silent years, |
| 6 | NAVEL-GAZING | Part of church spirit has reformed lag in search of soul (5-6) NAVE (part of church) ZING (spirit) around (has) (LAG)* AInd: reformed. |
| 7 | IQS | So quiz regularly shows them up? (3) S[o] Q[u]I[z] reversed (up) &Lit. |
| 8 | SPAGHETTI STRAPS | On second thoughts conserving energy, navigate straight past hold-ups (9,6) (STRAIGHT PAST E[nergy])* AInd: navigate, on PS (second thoughts). Tricky because I never heard these called as such but know what they refer to. |
| 12 | TICK-TACK-TOO | Second course also game (4-4-3) TICK (second) TACK (course) TOO (also) |
| 13 | AMERICANISM | Cunningly deployed mini camera quashes second term for Trump (11) (MINI CAMERA)* AInd: cunningly deployed, around S[econd]. One of the last to get because I misspelt “Izvesstya” and had a crossing T instead of I |
| 20 | NEIGH | Sound from stall, the one adjacent to No 9, doubly abrupt (5) [a]N EIGH[t] I liked this one – one of the first I got (cold solved – yes, I got this far down). As shown by Hovis in comment #2 a better explanation is: N[o] EIGH[t] |
| 22 | GEL | Climbing on 24 (3) Def. 24 is SET like jelly, LEG< “on” (as in cricket) reversed (climbing) Last One In after studying every possible vowel in G-L |
| 24 | SET | Ready to position TV (3) Triple def. Only another 125 definitions of “Set” to use |
TBILISI is STABILISING with SANG removed.
I took IT as the definition in 16a and parsed NEIGH as No EIGHt, which fits in with the No used for number in the clue. I failed to get 23a, which I didn’t know and used an aid to get 8d, also not known.
Pick of the bunch was 1d for me. Great stuff. Thanks to Nimrod and beermagnet.
It can’t have been the trickiest Nimrod because I solved it all in one session. The usual brain-mangling entertainment – I did know 23a but it took me a while to work out how to spell it.
Thanks to Nimrod and also to beermagnet
Thank you Hovis. You are clearly correct on all counts.
23ac. I don’t attempt these puzzles but enjoy the blogs and comments and sometimes intervene.
No. Izvestia means News and it is Pravda that means Truth. Stalin’s Daily Mail and Daily Mirror – a clever chap, indeed
So different from the Genius(alter ego Enigmatist) . This was rather wild whereas the other is pretty precise and i am still struggling to finish it off.
A real tough solve which took up time we could have spent more profitably. 1dn held us up looking for the name of a charity which we thought had to be ‘something FOR something’ and therefore stopped us getting 14 and 16 till we twigged what 1dn really was. And we didn’t know the spelling given for 12 – we know it as ‘tic-tac-toe’.
The Russian newspaper we would normally spell as ‘Isvestia’ so we had to check via Google, which gave two altenatives including ISVESTIJA – with a J, making the puzzle a pangram.
Thanks, Nimrod for the challenge, and beermagnet for explaining a few we couldn’t parse properly.
As they said in Stalin’s time: V Pravde nyet izvestii i v Izvestiakh nyet pravdy (in the Truth there is no news, and in the News there is no truth).
Excellent puzzle as is to be expected from this setter. After the write-in from the first clue I thought this was going to be a doddle – should have known better. I took “in” in 19 to mean “alight” as in “the fire is in/lit” but don’t really understand the significance of “formal” here.
cruciverbophile@8: Chambers qualifies ‘conflagrant’ as ‘formal’ way of defining ‘burning’.
… or even a formal way …
Completely defeated me. Tried to solve it on the train both going to and coming back from a trip and got barely a handful of answers.
Well, we struggled with this one. Started very late and finished abruptly when Bert hit the ‘reveal’ key instead of the check button when we still had 5 to solve!
We needed the blog and the other commenters though for a number of parsings.
Typically mind-boggling clueing. We are also baffled by the Genius – relieved we aren’t due to blog this one! Stil, we have completed the Inquisitor so that’s all good then.
Thanks Nimrod and beermagnet.
Exceptionally testing. Some amazing wordplay, one of those crosswords where the first couple of passes make it look almost impossible, then a gradual fight to the finish, with much self-congratulation as clues are cracked. LOsI were BORE-SPEAR (I suppose there is such a thing – I wonder where one can buy one) and CLUBHEADS.
Much thanks to Nimrod for stimulation of the brain cells and to beermagnet for the blog.
Thanks Allan, didn’t think to look in Chambers. My bad.
A bit late to add anything detailed now, but just wanted to say thanks to Nimrod and beermagnet. Lately I’ve been solving quite a few of the Indy puzzles in the pub with friends, and I made sure that this would be one of them! I don’t know (well, ok, maybe I have a pretty good idea) how I’d have fared on my own, but with some better brains on board this was lots of fun. Thanks again, S&B.
beermagnet – I had a look at the Genius following your intro. You have my sympathies there!