We don’t see Silvanus that often in the Indy, so I was pleased to have the chance to blog one of his puzzles this morning. Took a bit of getting into, mind you.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
cad clue as definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) missing
definitions are underlined
Across
1 Black and white photo’s source that is obvious
PIEBALD
A charade of P for the first letter of ‘photo’, IE for id est, and BALD. Mainly applied to horses, I fancy.
5 Romantic big day oddly ignored by lecturer Alice essentially
IDYLLIC
The even letters of bIgDaY followed by L and LIC for the internal letters (‘essentially’) of ‘Alice’.
9 On stage Jeremy presses clubs to expose West Ham United
IRONS
Not a dd, but a qd: a quadruple definition. Jeremy IRONS is pretty well known, as are West Ham United, who as well as being nicknamed ‘The Hammers’ are also referred to as ‘The Irons’.
10 Unhappy Lib Dem politician, in 2015 losing seat and pessimistic ultimately
MISERABLE
This took a bit of sorting out (and research to check my logic). Now that Nick Clegg is no longer an MP, ‘Lib Dem politician’ is almost always Vince Cable, and so it is here. Until the very end of 2015, when he was knighted and became Sir Vince Cable, he was simply MISTER CABLE: take T and C for the last letters of ‘seat’ and ‘pessimistic’ away from that, and you’re left with MISERABLE. Vince always looks a bit miserable, with a natural hangdog expression, but I have always thought him a well-informed, committed and effective politician.
11 One going around sporting a puffy skirt when husband finished work
HOVERCRAFT
You can’t say the surface doesn’t paint a picture. A charade of H, OVER and CRAFT for the somewhat dated method of transport.
12 Driver leaving Phoenix, first to accident, volunteers information
DATA
Perhaps less well known than Jeremy Irons, River Phoenix was an American actor who lived hard and died young, in 1993, aged twenty-three. Take ‘river’ out of ‘driver’ and you’ve got your D, then you need A for the first letter of ‘accident’ and TA for Territorial Army or ‘volunteers’. The TA is now called The Army Reserve, but crosswords are always behind the times.
14 Disputes Conservative is blocking changes
ALTERCATIONS
An insertion of C in ALTERATIONS.
18 Buzz, possibly, from opiate man supplemented with three rounds gone
ONOMATOPOEIA
(OPIATE MAN OOO)* with ‘gone’ as the anagrind.
21 Journey started in intermittent fashion close to Warwick
TREK
The even letters of sTaRtEd followed by K for the last letter of ‘Warwick’.
22 Those eating alfresco favour short topless garments
PICKNICKERS PICNICKERS
I parsed this as PICK and [K]NICKERS, but it could also work as PIC[K] KNICKERS, couldn’t it? Edit: got my knickers in a twist with the spelling. It’s PIC[K][K]NICKERS – thanks to Oren for pointing out my mistake.
25 Streaming out, they aim to settle abroad
EMIGRANTS
(STREAMING)*
26 Cake‘s been eaten, some of us have heard
SCONE
Is a SCONE a cake? Is it pronounced to rhyme with ‘gone’ or ‘bone’? To make Silvanus’ clue work, you’d have to favour the former, since the setter is suggesting that in answer to the question ‘Where is the cake?’, the reply might be, if it had been eaten, ‘S’gone.’ Having said this out loud to myself (in private) several times, I think it’s a pretty good homophone (‘some of us have heard’.) Other opinions on homophones are available.
27 So-called revolutionary plan I monitor a little
NOMINAL
Hidden reversed in pLAN I MONitor.
28 Reduces periods receiving energy for nothing
LESSENS
LESSONS with the O replaced by an E.
Down
1 Day under pressure brings difficult situation
PLIGHT
Since it’s a down clue, it’s LIGHT under P.
2 Disclose gun with case removed
EVOLVE
[R]EVOLVE[R] I wouldn’t say EVOLVE was a synonym of ‘disclose’, but that’s what the setter is suggesting.
3 One whose origins can be traced back to Darwin?
AUSTRALIAN
Not the great naturalist, but the town that was named after him in Northern Territory.
4 Object‘s mostly unassuming…
DEMUR
DEMUR[E]
5 …thereby a cost of perhaps tiny sum originally
IPSO FACTO
(A COST OF)* preceded by IP for 1p, which being a penny is indeed these days a ‘tiny sum’.
6 Reverse cart a short distance
YARD
A reversal of DRAY for ‘cart’. A YARD can be be a short or a long distance, depending on your perspective.
7 City supporter setting up bar somewhere in Canada
LABRADOR
A charade of LA for Los Angeles or ‘city’, BRA and ROD reversed. Some setters would just have written ‘in Canada’, but Silvanus is pandering to those apostles of Mr McNutt whose handlebar moustaches bristle at such an egregious disregard for ‘the rules’.
8 Vicar overlooks fool in church making crack
CREVASSE
An insertion of REV and ASS in CE.
13 Ways to reach the next level? Actress is confused about answer
STAIRCASES
An insertion of A in (ACTRESS IS)*
15 Meat cooked with no oil is tender
EMOTIONAL
(MEAT NO OIL)*
16 Train operator‘s ten hour disruption after beginning of strike
SOUTHERN
For those poor souls who have to use this train operator, the appearance of the word ‘disruption’ in the surface will ring true. A charade of S for the first letter of ‘strike’ and (TEN HOUR)*
17 Exclusive college disheartened intellectuals over minute breach of etiquette
SOLECISM
Since it’s a down clue, it’s a charade of SOLE, C, IS for the outside letters of ‘intellectuals’ and M.
19 Interpret Christmas poem?
DECODE
A ‘Christmas poem’ might be a DEC[EMBER] ODE.
20 Wealth of Roman coins bearing head of Tiberius
ASSETS
The ‘Roman coin’ is an AS. Two of them would be ASSES. Insert T for the first letter of ‘Tiberius’ in that and you’ve got your answer. I would usually expect ‘bearing’ in a down clue to indicate the placement of the T as the first letter; but I suppose (to carry on the Roman theme) when Mary was ‘bearing’ Jesus she carried him inside her, so it works that way for me as well.
23 Such passages that are often blocked partly in a sale
NASAL
Hidden in iN A SALe.
24 It’s an endless chore to smile
GRIN
My life motto. GRIN[D]
Many thanks to Silvanus for the start to the Indy puzzling week.
Thanks for the parsing of 10a. I’d forgotten he was Sir Vince. I bunged in Escalators at 13d which delayed me a bit, and the phone app’s daily trick was to leave off the last word of 17d but ho hum. Scone works for me, when I were a lad that’s how we said it and when the last one went it was just a matter of time before someone did. Cue collective groan. Hovercraft the favourite, enjoyed this one. Thanks to Pierre and Sylvanus. Shame no birds.
In 22A there’s only one K – it’s PICNICKERS – and therefore both PIC[K] and [K]NICKERS are shortened. Thus you have favour being “short” and the garment “topless”.
On 2D, Chambers Thesaurus does give EVOLVE as a synonym for DISCLOSE, though I’m not sure I know how to use it in a sentence that way…
Many thanks to Pierre and Silvanus for the Sunday enjoyment.
A ‘start halfway down’ crossword but after that it all fell nicely into place. I don’t think I’ve ever sat at work asking how one spells 18a before!
Lots to enjoy -I’d specially select 11a 22a and 3d for favouritism
Thanks to Silvanus and Pierre
[Anyone else still on autopilot scrolling down to do the Captcha sum? ]
We solved it all but couldn’t parse MISERABLE or IPSO FACTO so needed the explanations here. And although we differ on the pronunciation of SCONE, neither of us rated it a homophone as we don’t see (or hear) C and G as equivalent.
16dn was nicely topical, but our favourites were HOVERCRAFT, PICNICKERS and SOLECISM.
Thanks, Silvanus and Pierre
PS for crypticsue@3: No, but we’re still copying our comment to the clipboard before posting, in case it gets lost.
Thanks, Silvanus & Pierre
I liked ‘some of us have heard’, for SCONE. It was my LOI and I was expecting it be some sort of acknowledgement of one of the commoner bones of contention in homophone clues (shaw/sure etc), which seemed a bit like two fingers to those on the wrong side. I’m probably wrong, but I’m only aware of the scon/skeaun divide as a Hyacinth Buckety sort of thing, so found it amusingly apt.
SOUTHERN v good, also liked PIEBALD.
Allan and James @4 and 5
I wonder whether our setter was thinking of the joke “What do you call a cake when it goes really fast?”
As Pierre commented, we don’t often see a Silvanus puzzle in the Indy. Such a shame when he produces work of this calibre.
Took me a while to recall the necessary Phoenix in 12a and I did have to check on the 20a Roman coin along with the relevance of West Ham Utd in 9a but everything else slotted in quite smoothly.
Plenty of ticks on my sheet but the clue that will remain with me for quite a while is the puffy skirt at 11a – so descriptive!
Many thanks, Silvanus – and thanks to Pierre for the blog.
Many thanks silvanus. 16d is a belter.
Thanks Pierre for parsing 10a, no way was I going to be bothered looking into 2015 lib dem stuff, though the answer was clear.
Found this much harder to finish than I expect from a Silvanus puzzle; unlike earlier commenters, I got most of the way through fine but then found myself floundering, especially in the NW.
It was the easier SOUTHERN regions that I found the most fun – had a big GRIN at that one, and also marked out HOVERCRAFT ONOMATOPOEIA, PICNICKERS and EMOTIONAL.
Like Sue, the SCONE clue reminded me of the old joke, though the version I remember is slightly different.
Many thanks Silvanus and Pierre.
Many thanks to Pierre for his decryptions (sorry for the absence of ornithological clues this time!) and to everyone else for their comments.
As crypticsue @6 surmised, I did have that old joke in the back of my mind when thinking of the 26a clue originally.
Very nice, but quite tricky. I had given up with about five missing and loaded this page before deciding to have one last crack. Getting 1d PLIGHT via word search got me back in the game, though I failed to parse MISERABLE, DATA and ASSETS. Never heard of an as, and was annoyed to find ‘ass’ wasn’t a Roman coin. Thanks for the illumination, Pierre.
I doubted ‘disclose’ as a def for EVOLVE, too, but it’s in Chambers.
Allan_C, phonetically G and C are identical except G is voiced. S is unvoiced (it’s voiced counterpart being Z). When two consonants are together, they are both pronounced either voiced or unvoiced — it’s physically impossible to voice one and not the other, so as long as you pronounce the vowel in SCONE as some of us do, it’s a perfect homophone.
Realy, really late to the party – we have been a bit busy. We are now catching up on puzzles and tackled this over food this evening. Nothing too taxing but still enjoyable – especially HOVERCRAFT. Didn’t know the Hammers were also called the Irons but with so many definitions it didn’t really matter.
Thanks to Pierre and Silvanus.