An unfamiliar name for me, and a trawl of the 152 archives suggests this to be a debut from Loglady, in which case welcome!
We can never rule out an established setter in disguise, but I don’t think that’s the case here, despite a potential mention of usual suspect Tees at 13 down. Either way, I’d be fascinated to know the etymology behind the name!
On to the puzzle. I fairly raced through this without noting down a great deal in the way of commentary. Sorry about that. It was great fun though, so very much what we hope for in the Sunday slot.
Over to readers, then, and thanks to Loglady for an enjoyable solve.
| Across | ||
| 1 | WICKED | Like a candle‘s base (6) |
| Two definitions. | ||
| 4 | ACROSTIC | Answer could reference own solving, taking initial characters (8) |
| An acrostic, of course, of A[nswer] Could R[eference] O[wn] S[olving] T[aking] I[nitial] C[haracters]. Also an &lit, making this perhaps the most self-referential clue ever! | ||
| 10 | REARGUARD | A rare drug manufactured for ultimate fighters? (9) |
| Anagram of (A RARE DRUG). | ||
| 11 | EIDER | Duck! Unlike ultimately headless horseman (5) |
| [unlik]E + [r]IDER. | ||
| 12 | HASHTAG | Social media feature – dice game for children (7) |
| HASH + TAG. | ||
| 14 | DRAGOON | Duck! Taking cover from mythical monster horseman (7) |
| 0 taking cover in DRAGON. | ||
| 15 | PAPUA NEW GUINEA | State secretary turning up with a freshly minted coin (5,3,6) |
| PA + UP< + A + NEW + GUINEA. | ||
| 18 | QUINTESSENTIAL | One is absorbed by Rocky sequel – instant classic (14) |
| I in (SEQUEL INSTANT)*. | ||
| 22 | ARCHERY | Gunners return from jovial, half-hearted target practice (7) |
| RA< + CHE[e]RY. | ||
| 24 | ENLISTS | Nitless new recruits (7) |
| Anag of NITLESS. | ||
| 25 | SWISH | Sound airy and stylish (5) |
| Two definitions. | ||
| 26 | KIDNAPPER | Pied Piper type, in make-up, wearing oversized tie (9) |
| DNA in KIPPER. | ||
| 28 | MONOPOLY | Exclusivity in my pool – no swimming (8) |
| Anagram of (MY POOL NO). | ||
| 29 | CONDOS | Criminal turf around apartments (6) |
| CON + SOD<. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | WARSHIPS | Navy boats? Adores, with a burning love (8) |
| From WORSHIPS with A replacing (“burning”) the O. | ||
| 2 | CLAMS UP | American held up while involved in vice, refuses to talk (5,2) |
| US< in CLAMP. | ||
| 3 | EGG | “Good …”, say, for highest characters (3) |
| G after EG, and I think an &lit. | ||
| 5 | CODED | Cryptic verse in music recording (5) |
| ODE in CD. | ||
| 6 | OPERATIONAL | Working off energy on allotment, breaking up stone (11) |
| (E + RATION) in OPAL. | ||
| 7 | TADPOLE | Tiddler bit on rod (7) |
| TAD + POLE. | ||
| 8 | CARING | Kind of panicking, losing head (6) |
| [s]CARING. | ||
| 9 | GANGRENE | Horse laid up with fresh reported infection (8) |
| NAG< + homophone of “green”. | ||
| 13 | TRAINEESHIP | Shower in river to get cool in preparation for work (11) |
| RAIN in (TEES + HIP). | ||
| 16 | GO STEADY | Travel on fixed date (2,6) |
| GO + STEADY. | ||
| 17 | ALLSORTS | Troll’s reformed inside when offering sweets (8) |
| TROLLS* in AS. | ||
| 19 | UNCTION | Court briefly, engrossed by wedding fervour (7) |
| CT in UNION. | ||
| 20 | INSIPID | Fall is brought up after hip is weak (7) |
| IN + (HIP + IS)<. | ||
| 21 | HANSOM | Fine-looking articulated old carriage (6) |
| Homophone of “handsome”. | ||
| 23 | YOKEL | “Every second counts in my work”, tell rustic type (5) |
| Alternate letters from [m]Y [w]O[r]K [t]E[l]L. | ||
| 27 | ADO | Modern day love is a carry-on (3) |
| AD + 0. | ||
* = anagram; < = reversed; [] = removed; underlined = definition; Hover to expand abbreviations; BOLD = letters forming part of entries.
There’s a character in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks called the log lady.
Just right for an IoS. Some very nice surfaces – special mention to 11a, 7d and 17d, and of course the brilliant 4a.
(This is the puzzle I mentioned yesterday. Getting too far ahead of myself, thinking it was Monday. But like I said, totally 1 across.)
Thanks Simon and Loglady
I also thought of the Twin Peaks character. Straightforward, but requiring quite a bit of untangling so, as swatty says, just right for an IoS. Wasn’t entirely happy with 3d. Can see it as G for ‘good’ with the letters EG (say) placed as the highest characters but ‘Good egg’ is singular and ‘characters’ is plural. Maybe somebody has a better explanation.
Thanks to Loglady and Simon.
Welcome to Loglady.
Everything went in steadily, but then logopenia struck and I took ages to get GANGRENE and HASHTAG, my last two in. I didn’t really see either 4a or 3d when solving, but now see that they’re very clever, especially ACROSTIC.
As others have said, fitted the bill (thanks to Hoskins in another place) perfectly for a Sunday.
Thanks to Loglady and Simon.
Egg was my last to parse, though i’m not sure i did. I was placing the answer in the ellipsis to make sense of it and got myself confused in the same way Hovis@3 did
But what a puzzle! Beautiful surfaces abound and some clever devices. What a fantastic debut. Loved stuff like ‘in make-up’. Favourites were the rocky sequel anagram, the clever acrostic (which took me a while to spot, unlike most acrostics).
Also loved KIDNAPPER, OPERATIONAL, GO STEADY, ALLSORTS and i thought ‘every second counts in my work’ was clever too.
Hope to see plenty more of this setter. Many thanks Loglady and Simon.
Just to add to my comment on 3d. If the clue said “say to highest characters” then this conveys moving EG to the top and “Good egg” works as something you might say to ‘highest characters’, i.e. the best of people. Still not sure I am getting this.
I’ll stick my neck out and suggest that this is indeed a new face on the scene and one of the fairer sex. Sole reason being that I seem to invariably be in tune with female setters and I thoroughly enjoyed this one.
Plenty to choose from but I’ve given top scores to the 15a state and the 16d travel.
Many thanks to the setter – perhaps she’ll pop in later? – and to Simon for the blog. Think your wordplay for 20d needs a tweak.
Hovis@6 – agreed, i thought the whole clue worked as word play as you suggest, and the whole clue works as a definition if you think of the ellipsis as a mini definition (much like ‘this’ in a semi&lit), hence simon’s suggestion of &lit. I got confused with the plural/singular, but maybe it’s ok in that you would say “good egg” to the highest characters, i.e. the plurality doesn’t have to match. Phew, all that for egg. Maybe Ladylog will be kind enough to explain her intentions.
don’t watch enough twin peaks – very sorry, i mean Loglady of course.
A nicely balanced Sunday solve – some easy(ish) clues, others needing a bit of headscratching. We particularly liked the two duck/horseman clues for their contrasting answers. 24ac held us up for a while thinking the answer might be a slang term for new recruits who may have to have extremely short haircuts (to avoid nits); it was only after the penny dropped that we were able to get our last two in, GO STEADY and INSIPID.
We agree with Hovis@6 about 3dn; if we have any reservation it’s about 2dn where we thought there was a bit of overlap between clue and answer in the use of ‘up’ – but that’s a minor point; overall this was great.
So thanks and welcome to Loglady – and thanks to Simon.
Not being familiar with the Loglady’s style [but how could I?], this crossword took me longer than expected while I didn’t find it as easy as most of you.
To be honest, that did annoy me a bit and I did not appreciate the well-written surfaces enough during the solving process. Too much focused on parsing the clues.
It’s now a few hours later and I changed my mind!
[although I think 1d has a pretty nonsensical surface – looks like it’s only there to fit the (inventive) construction]
Some may find 3d ‘clever’ or ‘in the end OK’, for me it’s still a ‘clumsy’ clue. There are surely other ways to clue EGG.
As someone who likes to have the cryptic grammar right, I put a question mark to the use of ‘from’ in 22ac. Seems clearly out of place to me.
At first, I wanted to add 6d’s ‘off’ but, on second thoughts, that’s fine.
Altogether, an enjoyable walk in the park (which , unfortunately, looked like a forest to me).
Many thanks Simon & Loglady.
Loglady isn’t a lady, just as Peter isn’t a man – we’re all gender fluid these days aren’t we – but is a novice setter and I thought this showed promise.
Welcome to the Indy stable, Loglady.
We started this last night but only solved a few. We picked it up again this evening as we have been busy all day. We agree with Sil@11 that 3d is a little clumsy but otherwise all good fun.
Thanks to S&B.
There was a Twin Peaks puzzle in Rookie Corner last year – might be connected.
My log has something to tell you…
Thanks for the blog and comments. The twin peaks puzzle wasn’t me but i’m going to have a look at it now.
For ‘egg’ it was pretty much as dutch@8 suggested, except the singular/plural passed me by completely – now i like hovis@6 suggestion to change ‘for’ to ‘to’