Some tricky bits to this one I thought, not the usual Sunday stroll. Thank you Kairos.
| Across | ||
| 1 | SAGITTARIUS | A guitarist’s shot archer? (11) |
| anagram (shot) of A GUITARIST’S | ||
| 7 | MAN | Piece of germanium (3) |
| found inside gerMANium – a chess piece | ||
| 9 | BILGE | Anger about Government’s rubbish (5) |
| BILE (anger) contains (about) G (government) | ||
| 10 | DWELLINGS | Department coming up with small houses (9) |
| D (department) WELLING (coming up) with S (small) | ||
| 11 | PACKHORSE | Drudge has wrap with heroin (9) |
| PACK (wrap) with HORSE (heroin) | ||
| 12 | STAGE | Put on coach (5) |
| double definition | ||
| 13 | CRIMSON | Bloody politician touring Borders (7) |
| CON (Conservative, politician) contains (touring) RIMS (borders) | ||
| 15 | GRAY | King George alas is dull in America (4) |
| GR (George Rex) and AY (alas) | ||
| 18 | LENS | Maybe Goodman’s means of seeing French town (4) |
| LEN’S (Len Goodman’s, ballroom dancer – two definitions | ||
| 20 | SKYLARK | TV presenter briefly in Channel Island with bird (7) |
| KYLe (Jeremy Kyle TV presenter, briefly) in SARK (Channel Island) | ||
| 23 | AMEND | Welsh politician’s objective to improve (5) |
| AM (Assembly Member, of the Welsh Parliament) has END (objective) | ||
| 24 | EXPLORERS | Scouts – opportunists using Republican for sex (9) |
| EXPLOitERS (opportunists) with R (republican) replacing (sed for) IT (sex) | ||
| 26 | RIO GRANDE | Ordering reconstruction around American border with Mexico (3,6) |
| anagram (reconstruction) of ORDERING containing (around) A (American) | ||
| 27 | TORSO | Doctor’s operation involves part of the body (5) |
| found inside docTOR’S Operation | ||
| 28 | LAD | Knight leaves country boy (3) |
| LAnD (county) missing N (knight) | ||
| 29 | PERIOD PIECE | Point gun in Arms and the Man? (6,5) |
| PERIOD (point, full stop) and PIECE (gun) – play by Bernard Shaw, an example of a period piece if staged today? | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | SUBSPACE | Part of a matrix shown by u-boat’s speed (8) |
| SUB’S (u-boat’s) PACE (speed) – I can’t find this definition anywhere. For some reason subspace is not listed in Chambers, I would have expected it to be. | ||
| 2 | GALACTIC | Heavenly festival chief’s entertaining tango (8) |
| GALA (festival) then CIC (commander-in-charge, chief) contains (entertaining) T (tango, phonetic alphabet) | ||
| 3 | TEETH | Support half of those people with force (5) |
| TEE (a support) and THem (those people, half of) | ||
| 4 | ANDIRON | Joiner’s smooth in bar (7) |
| AND (a joiner) has IRON (smooth) – an iron bar used in a fireplace | ||
| 5 | ICEBERG | I reportedly see bird coming back with lettuce (7) |
| I then C sounds like (reportedly) “see” and GREBE (bird) reversed (coming back) | ||
| 6 | SALESLADY | One selling special beer to youth in Seychelles (9) |
| S (special) ALE (beer) then LAD (youth) in SY (Seychelles) | ||
| 7 | MANUAL | Side on a large keyboard (6) |
| MAN U (Manchester United, a football side) on A L (large) – an organ keyboard | ||
| 8 | NOSHES | Eats without lady and son (6) |
| NO (without) SHE (lady) and S (son) | ||
| 14 | SPEED TRAP | Police equipment motormouth’s split up (5,4) |
| SPEED (motor) and TRAP (mouth) – motormouth split up is motor mouth | ||
| 16 | CAREFREE | Unlikely offer from private nursing home is nonchalant (8) |
| CARE is unlikely to be FREE in a private nursing home | ||
| 17 | SKI SLOPE | One may be slightly inclined to be Green (3,5) |
| cryptic definition – a green ski slope is an easy one, with only a slight slope (incline) | ||
| 19 | STERNER | Author’s right to be more authoritarian (7) |
| STERE (author) had R (right) | ||
| 20 | SUPREMO | Boss promoting European involved in wrestling (7) |
| PR (public relations, promoting things?) E (European) inside (involved in) SUMO (wrestling) | ||
| 21 | PATROL | Guards touch up regimental officers’ ladies initially (6) |
| TAP (to touch) reversed (up) then first letters (initially) of Regimental Officers’ Ladies | ||
| 22 | SECOND | Transfer back (6) |
| double definition | ||
| 25 | ON TAP | Elderly person keeps books to hand (2,3) |
| OAP (elderly person) contains (keeps) NT (New Testament, books of the Bible) | ||
definitions are underlined
I write these posts to help people get started with cryptic crosswords. If there is something here you do not understand ask a question; there are probably others wondering the same thing.
Thought this was a beauty especially on a Sunday.Thanks Pee Dee for the tip off.
Good challenge, apart from SUBSPACE, which I find hard to believe is even correct. I’m well aware of the mathematical meanings for ‘subspace’ and ‘matrix’, not to mention the somewhat different meanings used in SF, but subspace as ‘part of matrix’? – not as far as I’m concerned. Perhaps Kairos will elaborate.
Didn’t know Green ski slope and really struggled in the NW corner but got there in the end.
Thanks to Kairos and PeeDee.
Certainly made of STERNER stuff than the usual put-your-feet-up-with-a-cup-of-tea-and-a-biscuit Independent on Sunday we’ve come to know and love, but I thought this was excellent. Had virtually nothing in on the first run through and didn’t go in with a rush at any time after that. Some that I guessed such as MANUAL, which I didn’t know as an organ keyboard, and SECOND for ‘transfer’ which, and I’m sure it’s just me being thick, I still don’t get.
I had no idea about SUBSPACE either (thank goodness for the ‘u-boat’ bit of the wordplay) but there is something about it and how it relates to a ‘matrix’ in Wikipedia, though I couldn’t understand a word of the explanation.
SKI SLOPE and SPEED TRAP were both good, but I’ll go for the not very promising sounding ‘dull in America’ as my pick.
I parsed LENS as a triple def, but depends on how you look at it I suppose.
Thanks to Kairos and PeeDee
Hovis @2
Kairos was probably using the Collins definition for subspace – “A part of a mathematical matrix; a subset of a space which is itself a space”.
WordPlodder @3
From Collins under ‘second’ – “To transfer (an employee) temporarily to another branch, etc”.
I studied Maths at uni and I don’t understand what Collins is referring to. A matrix can define a subspace of a vector space, but the subspace is part of the larger vector space not part of the matrix. It was all a very long time ago so perhaps I have forgotten something.
That was a bit of a shock to the system on a Sunday morning! SUBSPACE was a blind guess, MANUAL was a bit of a leap of faith and I wasn’t too sure about the ‘green’ SKI SLOPE.
I liked CAREFREE and ON TAP, favourite was SPEED TRAP.
Thanks to Kairos for the wake-up call and to PeeDee for the blog.
WordPlodder@3 – SECOND for ‘transfer’ I think refers to a person being on secondment. I parsed LENS as a triple as well.
I chose not to count LENS as a triple definition because as one of the definitions leads to LEN’S, the other two lead to LENS. Not that I think this is important or anything!
PeeDee @6. I agree with you. (My electronic version of Collins does not contain this entry.) Yes there are subspaces associated with matrices but these are part of the matrix as much as a road trip is part of a car. Given the entry in Collins though, we can certainly accept Kairos using it. (I should perhaps add that I taught matrix theory at University for around 30 years before retiring.)
Gaufrid – how old is your copy of Collins?
PeeDee @10
12th Ed. 2014. The on-line Collins has the same definition: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/subspace
Just to say that the boy’s name IRA (as in e.g. Ira Gershwin, George’s younger lyricist brother) also works for 28a (IRAn without kNight). Grr.
But apart from the Grr, a fun-if-stiff workout for s Sunday, PERIOD PIECE a favourite for its multiple military misdirection.
Thanks to Kairos & PeeDee.
Thanks to Gaufrid @5 and jane @7 for explaining SECOND for ‘transfer’. Hadn’t heard of it and worth filing away.
Grant – IRA(n) was my first attempt too. I had to bin it when nothing else fitted.
Lovely puzzle with, yes, a little more meat than on some Sundays.
I fell down the SKI SLOPE, completely forgetting about the colour coding, so that went in without full comprehension. I’ve forgotten enough maths to have been blissfully ignorant of the problem with the SUBSPACE.
Likes include the Government’s rubbish (BILGE) and the bloody politician (CRIMSON), as well as the SALESLADY selling the special beer and the CAREFREE motormouth with the SPEED TRAP.
Thanks Kairos and PeeDee.
As Kitty says, a little more meat than on some Sundays, but we got there in the end.
A couple of easy ones, SAGITTARIUS and MAN got us started but the pace slowed after that. Neither of us ever got our heads round matrix theory so we just guessed SUBSPACE from the wordplay. SKI SLOPE was a guess, too, as we didn’t know about the green bit.
But there was lots to enjoy, SKYLARK, RIO GRANDE and ICEBERG among them.
Thanks, Kairos and PeeDee.
Well, that was made more difficult by my entering 5dn wrongly. I entered the ‘c’ in the wrong square, leading to my only options for 10ac to be DOCKLANDS and DUCKLINGS, neither of which fitted the clue.
My university maths was 45 years ago, and the only SUBSPACE I’m familiar with these days is on Star Trek.
I had no idea why 17dn was SKI SLOPE, so thanks for the explanation. As I hate cold weather, heights and travelling at speed, skiing has never appealed to me.
Many thanks to PeeDee for the blog and to all for commenting. I wondered if anyone would spot the ghost theme but they are not usually seen on Sundays.
Apologies to the mathematicians for the matrix clue. My only defence is Collins definition.
Thanks for dropping by Kairos and alerting us to the ghost theme. Sadly I still have no idea what it might be, could you give me a hint please?
I think I’ve got it. The author E.E. “Doc” Smith wrote Skylark of Space, Subspace Explorers, Gray Lensman, Galactic Patrol, Second Stage Lensmen. Can’t see any more.
I read most of these back in the seventies (long after they were first written). Incidentally, this years World Science Fiction Convention in San Jose is giving retroactive awards for 1943 (as the war prevented a convention being held that year) and Second Stage Lensmen is one of the finalists. (Voting for members ends this month.)
Dormouse is spot on. I read them all in the seventies too.
Damn. Skylark jogged my memory and so I looked up the EE Doc Smith book on Wikipedia but failed to find any other references. It seemed a very long shot so I gave it up.
Well, I knew the Skylark and Lensman series by memory, so it didn’t need much looking up. Subspace Explorers I vaguely knew and that one I looked up.
No references that I can see to Masters of the Vortex, which Panther brought out as part of the Lensman series in the seventies, but is nor really part of the series, just set in the same universe.
And it’s amazing how much of this I remember after 40+ years.