I have not seen Loglady’s name on a puzzle before, but I believe this is actually her second outing in the Indy. Always nice to see new setters come along. Thank you Loglady whoever you are.
| Across | ||
| 1 | APPLE PIE | Type of chart following tech company’s typically American product (5,3) |
| PIE (type of chart) following APPLE (tech company) | ||
| 6 | CICADA | Scoundrel getting berth in secret service. It’s just not cricket? (6) |
| CAD (scoundrel) inside CIA (secret service) – a Cicada is almost (just) a Cricket, but not quite the same | ||
| 9 | BANNER | One who outlaws hanging (6) |
| double definition | ||
| 10 | SEND-OFFS | Senator removes hat to make goodbyes (4-4) |
| SEN (senator) and DOFFS (removes hat) | ||
| 11 | OMNIPOTENT | All-powerful men opt into corruption (10) |
| anagram (corruption) of MEN OPT INTO | ||
| 12 | ETCH | Score and more, getting husband (4) |
| ETC (more) with H (husband) | ||
| 13 | GANGLAND | Underworld set alight (8) |
| GANG (set) LAND (alight). My first entry was DISMOUNT – DIS (underworld) MOUNT (set) definition “alight” | ||
| 16 | UNSAID | International organisation’s emergency relief not conveyed (6) |
| UN’S (international organisation’s) AID (emergency relief) | ||
| 17 | MOJITO | Cocktail giving Italian a veneer of sexual attraction (6) |
| IT (Italian) inside (given a veneer of…) MOJO (sexual attraction) | ||
| 19 | TETHERED | Bear traps in place, secured with rope (8) |
| TED (teddy bear) contains (traps) THERE (in place) | ||
| 21 | VIAL | Going through litre bottle (4) |
| VIA (going through) L (litre) | ||
| 22 | GOD COMPLEX | Spirit involved in delusional state (3,7) |
| GOD (spirit) COMPLEX (involved) | ||
| 25 | HANGNAIL | Put up picture with tack, getting finger injury (8) |
| HANG (put up picture) with NAIL (tack) | ||
| 26 | ISRAEL | Realist curtailed reforms in Middle East country (6) |
| anagram (reforms) of REALISt (curtailed) | ||
| 27 | DEFLEA | Remove parasites from ale-fed vagrant (6) |
| anagram (vagrant, wandering about) of ALE-FED | ||
| 28 | KATYDIDS | Children round at yard in chirpy jumpers (8) |
| KIDS (children) contains (round) AT YD (yard) | ||
| Down | ||
| 2 | PSALM | Snake upped and left maiden in Bible verse (5) |
| ASP (snake) reversed (upped) with L (left) M (maiden) | ||
| 3 | LUNGING | Breather during girl’s gymnastic exercising (7) |
| LUNG (breather) IN (during) G (girl) | ||
| 4 | PERSONA NON GRATA | Unwelcome presence of stranger, OAP off to hide soon (7,3,5) |
| anagram (off) of STRANGER OAP containing (to hide) ANON (soon) | ||
| 5 | ENSUE | Result of being soused regularly (5) |
| every other letter (regularly) of bEiNg SoUsEd | ||
| 6 | CONSTRUCTIONIST | Could be builder or interpreter, legally speaking, in America (15) |
| double/cryptic definition | ||
| 7 | CLOSERS | Deal makers meeting roughly with failures (7) |
| C (circa, roughly) with LOSERS (failures) | ||
| 8 | DEFECTIVE | Flawed policeman brings in female and removes shirt (9) |
| DEtECTIVE (policeman) missing T (removes shirt, a tee perhaps) and brings in F (female) | ||
| 14 | ABOMINATE | Despise a failure (but not another 7, by the sound of it) (9) |
| sounds like (by the sound of it) A BOMB IN EIGHT – something along the lines of a bomb (failure) in 8 down is not another loser (failure) in 7 down. You try and make sense of it!
If you were are producer and had put on 1 failure (a bomb) and 7 hits (not another 7 bombs) then you would have have a failure rate of A BOMB IN EIGHT. |
||
| 15 | DOT | It goes with a dash of pepper (3) |
| double definition | ||
| 18 | ILLEGAL | Diseased bird expressly prohibited (7) |
| ILL (diseased) and EGAL sounds like (expressly, as expressed verbally) “eagle” (bird) | ||
| 20 | EXPIRED | Finished with old flame before pride damaged (7) |
| EX (old flame) then anagram (damaged) of PRIDE | ||
| 23 | DALEK | Who’s enemy of the king beyond the valley? (5) |
| K (king) following (beyond) DALE (valley) – the enemy of Doctor Who in the BBC TV series | ||
| 24 | EMEND | People employed by editor to edit (5) |
| MEN (people) inside (employed by) ED (editor) | ||
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.
Very good puzze, thanks to Loglady and PeeDee (another DISMOUNTer here, if you’re keeping a score!)
Interesting how 13a can lead to two very different parsings & solutions. Didn’t know 28a but I suspect Katy did.
My only complaint is with regards to ABOMINATE. My thoughts were the same as in blog but this just doesn’t work for me. Maybe somebody will come up with a better explanation.
Thanks to Loglady and PeeDee.
14d was my kind of clue. “A bomb in eight” is one out of eight bombs – but not, therefore, the other seven.
My only gripe is with 10a. To ‘doff’ (< do off) is to remove an article of clothing. It could be a hat, but it could equally be a shoe or a pair of trousers.
Was there a bit of a transatlantic theme?
For 14d I took failure to be the BOMb bit (without its closer), but still only halfway there. Didn’t get Dot, but Deflea a lovely word. Thanks to S&B.
Harder than Loglady’s debut a month or so ago and the last few took quite a while to get. I couldn’t really see how ABOMINATE worked either, other than the ‘7’ just referring to the number and not specifically the 7d clue, but I still wasn’t convinced. I think Mr A Writinghawk @3 has now nailed it though.
CICADA was good, and I enjoyed seeing KATYDIDS making another appearance, little beasties I’ve only ever met in crossword land.
Thanks to Loglady (? a bloke despite the pseudonym) and to PeeDee
I thought this was awful.Sorry.
I think I should now withdraw my complaint about 14d. The more I look at it, the more it works. By the time I go to bed, it will likely be my favourite clue.
Endeavour replaces shirt with female-not working!(9)
Mr Writinghawk’s explanation of 14dn makes sense but is still missing a reason why it would be a bomb in eight, not any other random item that there happened to be eight of.
Thanks Loglady and PeeDee
I parsed 14 similarly to MAW @ 3, thinking of one bomb/failure in 8 attempts, as it has to be a synonym for failure. I think I needed most of the crossers though, certainly couldn’t cold-solve it.
It didn’t occur to me to DISMOUNT at 13a, but then it was one of my later ones in. I did of course think of DIS, so if I’d had my brain in gear earlier, I could well have given myself some trouble. Sometimes it pays to start slowly!
Do I want to be picky? Not really, but I hmmed a bit at the shirt being a T. Tee is used on it’s own for a tee shirt/T-shirt, but just T? I don’t think it’s a biggie though.
Still in picky mode (I thought I didn’t want to be picky?), a DOT doesn’t have to go with a DASH. I’d have been happier with “it might go with a dash …”
Thanks to Mr A Writinghawk for making me happy with 14d, my loi. Even while I didn’t think it quite worked, I liked the idea and the misdirection (especially when 7d does have a failure in the clue to really confuse things).
I really liked the CICADA and its link with KATYDIDS. Speaking of which, I did a quick check that these insects were exactly what I thought they were, and came across a Quite Interesting link.
Also always like to see a DALEK (they’re so cute!), nicely defined here. Also cute was the simple BANNER … I could go on, but I’ve already done that quite a lot, so won’t.
Many thanks Loglady and PeeDee.
Another enjoyable puzzle from Loglady although I agree with Wordplodder that it was somewhat tougher than the debut offering.
I wasn’t overly worried about either ABOMINATE or the T-shirt but I did wonder about ‘g’ as an abbreviation for girl in 3d.
DALEK and KATYDIDS were my picks.
Thanks to Loglady and to PeeDee for the blog.
I actually didn’t finish this puzzle, failing on ‘tethered’ (is TED really fair for ‘bear’?), ‘dot’ and ‘closers’ (not seeing ‘roughly’ = C – but that’s OK).
The crossword had a different feel compared to Loglady’s debut, harder but also somehow less smooth (although I won’t go as far as copmus @6).
Meanwhile, I am pretty disappointed with Loglady joining only a handful of setters who think G = ‘girl’ [3d].
I did another puzzle today that had the same idea as 8d …..
Altogether, fine but.
Many thanks to PeeDee & Loglady.
My log has something to tell you…
If I had my choice, and the ability to make it happen, there’d be five or six clues like 14d in all my puzzles. But i’d probably make more enemies than friends i guess!
Looking at it again I think the brackets are unfair as they do seem to signify that the homophone is limited to what’s inside them
It was generally more difficult than the last one then? I find it really hard to tell
Thanks for the blog and all the comments