A crossword that I liked very much, full of silky smooth clues.
Only when writing up the blog, I noticed that there were quite a lot of single-letter indicators. Perhaps, one or two too many.
Vigo often has some kind of ghost theme (which I normally miss) but I cannot see one.
What I did see, quite early on actually, was that the crossword was a pangram.
Definitions are underlined wherever possible and/or appropriate.
| Across | ||
| 1 | FRENZY | Agitation cook suppresses exercising zen (6) |
| FRY (cook) around an anagram [exercising] of ZEN | ||
| 4 | SPIFFING | Excellent learner removed from joint popular with Goths originally (8) |
| SPLIFF (joint, that kind of) minus L (learner), followed by IN (popular) + G[oths] | ||
| 9 | RIPEN | Mellow epitaph on bottom of tombstone by name (5) |
| RIP (epitaph, Rest in Peace) + [tombstone]E + N (name) | ||
| 10 | MERCENARY | Drunk consuming dinner in Spain is greedy (9) |
| MERRY (drunk) around CENA (dinner, in Spain) The answer to this clue was clear. I had to check ‘cena’ though. The final meal in the Spanish day. It has its origins in Roman culture, apparently. |
||
| 11 | CHAP | Watch a policeman detaining man (4) |
| Hidden answer [detaining]: Watch a policeman | ||
| 12 | AXLE | Pin left in weapon (4) |
| L (left) inside AXE (weapon) Well, you can use an axe as a weapon, can’t you? |
||
| 13 | SCALE | Flake found in case of Slavic beer (5) |
| S[lavi]C + ALE (beer) | ||
| 15 | SKILLED | Expert head of security gets terminated (7) |
| S[ecurity] + KILLED (terminated) | ||
| 16 | DRIP | Swim across river getting wet (4) |
| DIP (swim) around R (river) ‘Wet’ as a verb, I guess. |
||
| 19 | JOWL | Cheek from Japanese bird (4) |
| J (Japanese) + OWL (bird) We needed a J for the pangram, so I was happy to accept J for ‘Japanese’ (and, yes, it’s right!). |
||
| 20 | CHIANTI | Song about one beginning to imbibe wine (7) |
| CHANT (song) around I (one), followed by I[mbibe] | ||
| 23 | EVENS | Odds given in un-timed races perhaps (5) |
| EVENTS (races, perhaps) minus T (time) I was almost fooled by the definition in the corner of the puzzle that I found relatively tricky. I only missed a V to make it a pangram, which was very helpful. |
||
| 24 | SILK | Material is kind on skin at first (4) |
| S[kin] + ILK (kind) | ||
| 25 | LEFT | Felt sadly abandoned (4) |
| Anagram [sadly] of FELT | ||
| 27 | GONDOLIER | Boatman travelling old region (9) |
| Anagram [travelling] of OLD REGION Nice & simple. |
||
| 28 | SQUAD | Question notice by second team (5) |
| S (second) + QU (question) + AD (notice) | ||
| 29 | SHORTAGE | Lack of time following drink (8) |
| AGE (time) coming after SHORT (drink) | ||
| 30 | CREEPY | Constituents of randy peer caught rolling like dirty old men (6) |
| Hidden answer [Constituents of]: randy peer caught, then reversed [rolling] | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | FORECAST | Prophecy warning actors (8) |
| FORE (warning) + CAST (actors) | ||
| 2 | EMPHASIS | Weight gained from pie and mash mixed with bit of sugar (8) |
| Anagram [mixed] of PIE + MASH, + S[ugar] Nothing wrong with it but a bit of a pity that he anagram indicator here is the same as the one we needed in 10d. |
||
| 3 | ZONE | Section of Heinz to can edible roots (4) |
| Last letters [roots] of: Heinz to can edible | ||
| 5 | PERPENDICULAR | Erect pillar half-heartedly with prudence abandoned (13) |
| Anagram [abandoned] of PIL[L]AR (only one L in the middle) + PRUDENCE | ||
| 6 | FREE SPIRIT | Complimentary drink for Bohemian (4,6) |
| FREE (complimentary) + SPIRIT (drink) | ||
| 7 | IN A WAY | Kind of home abroad (2,1,3) |
| IN (home) + AWAY (abroad) Those who are great admirers of ‘Lift & Separate’ clues may have thought too deeply here, splitting ABROAD into A + B-ROAD. But hey, this is The Independent, not The Guardian. |
||
| 8 | GEYSER | Bloke said something effusive (6) |
| Homophone [said] of GEEZER (bloke) | ||
| 10 | MIXED BLESSING | Glibness could be seen as dubious gift (5,8) |
| Reverse anagram: if you make an anagram [mixed] of BLESSING you may get GLIBNESS | ||
| 14 | BLOOD SPORT | Black bog heartless dogs left in pursuit of fox perhaps (5,5) |
| B (black) + LOO (bog) + D[og]S + PORT (left) How do you mean, sport? |
||
| 17 | INSECURE | Dangerous six footer leaving court to get fix (8) |
| INSECT (six footer) minus CT (court), followed by CURE (fix) This was my last one in as, initially, I was too much focused on the answer having to start with ANT. Then I thought SECURE = ‘fix’ but where does IN come from? It took a while for the penny to drop. |
||
| 18 | BIRTHDAY | Labour’s result is cause for annual celebration (8) |
| Kind of cryptic definition but if you want to be it a double definition, fine I actually saw it as a straightforward definition plus a surface made cryptic by its party political allusion. |
||
| 21 | HEDGES | Surrounds stalls (6) |
| Double definition | ||
| 22 | LEAN-TO | Terrible time alone in shelter (4-2) |
| Anagram [terrible] of T (time) + ALONE | ||
| 26 | USER | American queen is drug taker (4) |
| US (American) + ER (queen) | ||
I thought a pangram was on the cards in yesterday’s Hypnos and here it is a day later. Didn’t spot it until almost finished, so it wasn’t any help in the solve. Had the same problems as you, Sil, in 17d although, in my case, I failed to parse it so thanks for that. I always have problems with this sort of clue where I see it as ‘court leaving six footer’ not the other way around.
A good challenge, I thought, quite hard for a Monday perhaps. Thanks to Vigo and Sil.
I imagine the idea at 18d is that being born causes birthdays. Well, yes, I suppose that’s true 🙂
I thought 18d was a (just about) double definition: “Labour’s result” (for BIRTH DAY) and “cause for annual celebration”.
Thought 3 and 10 down were excellent clues. Thanks to Vigo for the fun and Sil for parsing 17 in which I failed as I was too stuck on ANT!
I wonder what are the odds against the same solution appearing in two different crosswords on the same day.
Almost got there – we couldn’t make very much of 3dn; thought it might be ZONE with ‘section of Heinz’ being ‘z’ and ‘roots’ being one’s origin or ‘zone’ but (obviously now) we couldn’t make it work. But we did see the ‘six-footer’ in 17dn as ‘insect’ straightaway.
FRENZY, JOWL and GONDOLIER were our favourites (the latter having no connection with a setter in Another Place).
Thanks, Vigo and Sil.
Thought this was up towards the top end of Vigo’s difficulty ‘rating’ but very much enjoyed the solve. Relieved to note that I wasn’t alone in needing to check on the Spanish meal.
Top three for me were EVENS, MIXED BLESSING and BIRTHDAY.
Many thanks to Vigo and to Sil for the blog.
Nice Monday crossword, also wanted to start 17D with ANT but eventually got over it. Particularly liked 4, 10D, 17.
Sil, perhaps it’s my screen, but the colour of the bolding does not stand out very well, particularly when only a single letter, from the main colour of the blog.
Thanks to Vigo and Sil van den Hoek.
I found this a breath of fresh air on a day when I can’t get same by opening a window, and of a perfect difficulty for a day which is too warm and muggy for a moggy like me.
A different last in here: I had to stare at HEDGES for a while before I could see the way through.
Many thanks Vigo and Sil.
David @5 – the short answer to your question is that the odds of any repetition which might cause a “what are the odds?”-type question are actually quite high. There’s a bit of analysis here (click on the box in the introduction), although it focusses on repeats within a crossword series rather than across them – those happen a little less than by chance, because of editorial intervention.
gwep, I can’t help you with technical issues. On my screen ‘bold‘ is really ‘bold‘, generated in the usual way by the blogging software. Perhaps, others have an opinion on it.
And my answer to David @5: do not say anything about other crosswords here. It is perhaps not really a spoiler – and surely not like the one that, recently, unveiled that ‘Neymar’ was an answer in Puck’s Guardian puzzle – but please think of people like me & surely others who haven’t done other puzzles yet!
Too bad. You’ll just have to try to be less sensitive.
I’m not sure about that, david.
It didn’t spoil solving the Pasquale puzzle (and, actually, at first, I thought you were referring to ‘Sn’), yet it can be a spoiler.
Nothing to do with sensitivity. It’s just that at Fifteensquared we do not like comments giving away anything about other puzzles.