It’s well over a year since we last blogged an Alchemi, and we were looking forward to this one.
Unfortunately, we found it to be a bit of a disappointment. It was immediately clear that there was a theme (it is a Tuesday!) which revolves around the gateway clue at 21ac. However, some of the definitions in the thematic entries, generally described as ‘part of 21’ were, in our opinion, somewhat forced.
Maybe we’re being a bit too pernickety – the entries are all pretty clear, but the definitions tend to be rather loose.
Sorry, Alchemi, the chemistry didn’t quite work for us this time – but we’re still looking forward to your next one!
| Across | ||
| 1 | Witch goes outside with book carrier (7) | |
| HANDBAG | HAG (witch) round or ‘going outside’ AND (with) B (book) | |
| 5 | USA’s let off gun’s part of 21 in these (7) | |
| SALUTES | An anagram of USA’S LET – anagrind is ‘off’ – we were puzzled by this at first, but we think it may be a sort of cryptic definition – the ‘chamber’ part of 21 being part of a gun that would be ‘let off’ in 21-gun SALUTES – if it is, it feels a bit too convoluted. | |
| 9 | Knight comes back to exchange cases for one in parts of 21 (9) | |
| BARRISTER | SIR (knight) reversed or ‘coming back’ inside or ‘cased by’ BARTER (exchange) – a reference to the ‘chamber(s)’ part(s) of 21 | |
| 10 | Express satisfaction about Spain being less polluted (5) | |
| PURER | PURR (express satisfaction) round E (Spain) | |
| 11 | New idea covers short-term mediation (12) | |
| INTERVENTION | INVENTION (new idea) round or ‘covering’ TER |
|
| 14 | Stadium space one assesses (8) | |
| EMIRATES | EM (space, in printing) I (one) RATES (assesses) | |
| 15 | Mission Darren messed up (6) | |
| ERRAND | An anagram of DARREN – anagrind is ‘messed up’ | |
| 18 | Part of 21, say, in terrible rage (6) | |
| REGGAE | EG (‘say’) in an anagram of RAGE – anagrind is ‘terrible’ – a reference to the ‘music’ part of 21 | |
| 19 | Demonstrated about posh Irish politician getting power taken away (8) | |
| SHUTDOWN | SHOWN (demonstrated) round U (posh) TD (Teachta Dala – Deputy to the Dail – ‘Irish politician’) | |
| 21 | Warning signal before problem returns during fashionable entertainment (7,5) | |
| CHAMBER MUSIC | AMBER (warning signal) SUM (problem) reversed or ‘returning’ in CHIC (fashionable) | |
| 25 | Company backing offensive 21? (5) | |
| OCTET | CO (company) reversed or ‘backing’ TET (the Tet offensive, an action in the Vietnam war) – 21 is often played by an octet, but we’re not sure about this clue if it is intended to be another cryptic definition – 21 surely wouldn’t be described as offensive? Can ‘octet’ and ‘chamber music’ be synonyms? | |
| 26 | Raised rejection of Brussels facilities as being worth a lot (4,5) | |
| HIGH VALUE | HIGH (raised) + EU (‘Brussels’) LAV (‘facilities’) reversed or ‘rejected’ | |
| 27 | County’s carriages (7) | |
| SURREYS | Double definition | |
| 28 | Please reduce illumination? (7) | |
| DELIGHT | Fancifully, to ‘reduce illumination’ could be described as DE-LIGHT | |
| Down | ||
| 1 | Somewhere to cook old tramp (4) | |
| HOBO | HOB (‘somewhere to cook’) O (old) | |
| 2 | Adrenaline rising for some boring specialist (4) | |
| NERD | Hidden (‘some’) and reversed (‘rising’) in aDRENaline | |
| 3 | A born liar deviously gives nothing away to a cricketer (5,4) | |
| BRIAN LARA | An anagram of A BORN LIAR – anagrind is ‘deviously’ – thanks to Paul A and Hovis who have the correct parsing. The O (nothing) needs to be replaced by A for the anagram to work | |
| 4 | Understood Erik, possibly understated? (8) | |
| GATHERED | THE RED (‘Erik, possibly’ – Erik the Red, a Norse explorer) ‘under’ GA (Georgia – US state) – if we’re right, this is a very devious clue! | |
| 5 | Vigorously push across river on a Tuesday (6) | |
| SHROVE | SHOVE (vigorously push) round R (river) | |
| 6 | Short bit of poetry about cheerful flower (5) | |
| LUPIN | LIN |
|
| 7 | Film terrible art with no merit (10) | |
| TERMINATOR | An anagram of ART and NO MERIT – anagrind is ‘terrible’ | |
| 8 | Someone vacantly making tears over a way of making part of 21 (10) | |
| SERENADING | S |
|
| 12 | Nuclear facilities include French telescopes (10) | |
| REFRACTORS | REACTORS (nuclear facilities) round FR (French) | |
| 13 | Sauron aspired to be such a circus performer (10) | |
| RINGMASTER | Sauron is the title character and main antagonist in Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ – he aspired to be the RING MASTER | |
| 16 | Second hearing about a couple of events being brought back (9) | |
| RETRIEVAL | RETRIAL (second hearing) round EV (first two letters or ‘couple’ of ‘events’) | |
| 17 | Quiet Hardy showed indifference (8) | |
| SHRUGGED | SH (quiet) RUGGED (hardy) | |
| 20 | Supporter of the monarch who composed 21 (6) | |
| BRAHMS | BRA (‘supporter’) HM’S (‘of her or his majesty – monarch) | |
| 22 | Steep climb ending next to empty house (5) | |
| BATHE | B (last letter or ‘ending’ of ‘climb’) AT (next to) H |
|
| 23 | Second ear to put in gun’s part of 21 (4) | |
| SLUG | S (second) LUG (ear) – a reference to the ‘chamber’ part of 21, but the definition doesn’t really work for us – a ‘slug’ would be put into a gun’s chamber, but the definition makes it a verb, not a noun | |
| 24 | Left part of 21 (4) | |
| WENT | Our LOI – we thought it could be BEAT being a ‘part of music’ but weren’t happy about it as a synonym on its own for left. However, if you write out 21 in full you find WENT hidden in the clue! | |
Similar feelings about the tenuous nature of some of the themed clues, and also fooled by WENT. For 4d the anagram loses the ‘o’ for an ‘a’, so the fern is just ‘cricketer’. Thanks to S and Bs.
Yes, I also parsed 24d as tWENTyone and parsed 4d the same way. Devious indeed. There is a mistake in your parsing for 3d. It is an anagram of A B(O)RN LIAR + A (nothing away to a) with just ‘cricketer’ as the definition.
I parsed 5a as you did but was very unsure of it. This seems too contrived to me. I wouldn’t really know if OCTET is ok with the ? at the end.
Thanks to Alchemi and Bertandjoyce.
Thanks for the ‘heads-up’ on the error in 3d. Bert was so impressed that he had remembered the name of a cricketer and also completed the blog in a bit of a hurry. Joyce who checked the blog obviously didn’t check it properly either!
25a. I agree with your comments about the forced nature of the theme but an octet is a group of musicians and also the name of a piece of music written for them.
Thank you.
Thanks trenodia – we are not that ‘au fait’ with Chamber Music as a genre.
I missed 24d, which was v. good, and had problems in teasing out the exact defs. for some of the clues referring to 21a. The TD in 19a was also unknown.
Do you think the ‘part of 21’ in 5a is MUSIC, rather than CHAMBER, in which case the def. might be ‘gun’s music in these’? SALUTES are a ‘gun’s music’ in a way (sort of!). I see now what Alchemi was getting at with the ‘understated’ bit of 4d, but it still doesn’t quite work for me.
I liked the association of NERD with ‘adrenaline’ and the idea of a HANDBAG as a witch’s book carrier. I’m sure there must be a male equivalent!
Thanks to Alchemi and B&J
Trouble was that Chamber Music was one clue. It would have been easier if it had been spread across two as reggae is only chamber when the chamber is full of spliff puffers.I didnt put anything in for 24. Whatever I thought of didnt work.
Otherwise some nice clues. Thanks Alchemi and B&J
I had similar reservations about some of the thematic definitions including 5a, but looking at it again 5a doesn’t refer to Chamber Music but to a 21 Gun Salute – sneaky misdirection!
Thanks to both setter & blogger.
I can do pernickety and my co-solver definitely can. However we both enjoyed the mental gymnastics involved in teasing out the 21 linked clues. We are Chamber Music devotees rather than experts on reggae. Liked 24D.
Thanks Alchemi and B and J.
Yes, some thematic bits were a bit shoe-horned and I agree with our bloggers about the definition for SLUG, but I really liked it when the theme dropped after a rather slow start.
Didn’t parse GATHERED or WENT – grr! – and wasn’t sure about the position of the hidden indicator for NERD, but I guess it’s ok.
After a while I came up with Wordplodder’s explanation @6 for SALUTES, but like Shikasta’s suggestion @8, however I can’t quite convince myself that that quite works either.
Still, a bit different, and much enjoyed. Thanks Alchemi and Bertandjoyce.
We have similar thoughts to others’ about the tenuous nature of some of the clues. We got WENT but parsed it quite differently and unconvincingly (to do with the sound if one ‘went’ in a chamber – the sort that goes under the bed). We thought 2dn had to be a hidden but all we could think of was adrenaline rising and wondered if ‘neri’ was a marine boring worm though we couldn’t find the word anywhere. And having got ‘the red’ for Erik we couldn’t understand how GA = stated in 4dn and even with the question mark we think it’s a bit too much of a stretch to see ‘understated’ as ‘put under state’.
copmus@7: The clue for 18 is ‘part of 21 …’ so we took it as just the ‘music’ part. In fact that helped us to solve 21.
Not the most satisfying of solves, but thanks to setter and bloggers.
I always look forward to Alchemi’s puzzles but, like others, I struggled to justify some of the ’21a’ connections in this one and so missed out on some of the expected satisfaction.
24d took the top spot – perhaps because I was so pleased with myself for achieving the parsing of it!
Thanks to Alchemi and to B&J for the blog.
Kitty @10 – 5ac does work – (USA’s let)*, off = anagram indicator – Gun’s (= Gun is) part of 21 in these. It would be more accurate to use ‘one’ instead of ‘part’ but then some of the misdirection would be lost.
I think shikasta’s explanation for 5a makes a lot of sense. I’m quite happy with it now.
Yes, I got a bit hung up on “part” rather than “one” and somehow got distracted by salutes being plural too – but “gun is part of 21 in salutes” does seem ok now. Thanks for the reply, shikasta. 🙂
Sorry this wasn’t to everyone’s taste – and shikasta’s correct about 5A. In an explicitly-themed puzzle, I have a compulsion to introduce red herrings which look as though they’re part of the theme but aren’t. Let’s hope you enjoy my next one more.