Is this the first puzzle by Dalibor in the Independent?
If so, this was a fine one to open the account.
I’m familiar with his puzzles created for the various Sloggers and Betters meet-ups, but I haven’t seen his name mentioned here before.
Solving began with 1D and then 1A slotting in quickly, and I particularly pleased to get the long answers early on. Then slowed to a pleasing struggle with the last few. I had to check Gravamen and Kennet but their wordplay was crystal clear.
There are a lot of famous faces populating the clues and the answers but I cannot spot an overall theme
Isabelle Huppert and Juliette Binoche are contemporary and contemporaries but two answers does not make a theme, does it?
Favourite clue: 7D Hysteria
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | MAIL BOMB | Hope to receive a thousand after chap said to send loads of messages (4,4) “Male” M inside BOB Ref. Bob Hope, comedian born in Eltham (Wiki) |
| 5 | TECHNO | Ultimately fast number in repetition? (6) [fas]T then N[umber] inside ECHO &Lit. A musical “number”. Last one in – eventually purely from the crossing letters before I realised the wordplay |
| 9 | SMALL FRY | Insignificant people like Elizabeth when she was just a baby? (5,3) Cryptic Def. Ref Elizabeth Fry prison reformer, born in Norwich (Wiki) |
| 10 | PERSIL | Washing powder‘s putting Siemens in danger (6) S[iemens] in PERIL – can we just assume S from Siemens like that? One of the last to go in |
| 12 | ISABELLE HUPPERT | Actress is a beautiful woman – hot, cheerful, cheeky (8,7) IS A BELLE (is a beautiful woman) H[ot] UP (cheerful) PERT (cheeky). Semi-&Lit maybe Ref. the actress born Paris (Wiki) |
| 13 | TRIDENT | Free camping? Something Corbyn doesn’t like (7) RID (free) inside TENT (thus camping) |
| 14 | MINT | Perfect how Brexit ends following May’s leadership (4) M[ay] then IN T (Brexit ends in “T”) in tears more like. I’ve seen some misleading surface readings in my time but this one … sheesh! |
| 18 | ASHY | Grey area, unproductive (4) A[rea] SHY (unproductive) I’m not sure how Shy means Unproductive |
| 19 | SHEERAN | Girl managed to hug English pop star (7) SHE and RAN hug E[nglish] Ref. Ed Sheeran, singer, born Halifax (Wiki) |
| 23 | JULIETTE BINOCHE | Actress Ms Midler recalled one night in Spain on the 1st of July (8,7) JUL 1 (BETTE)< I NOCHE (one night in Spanish). Clue Ref. Bette Midler, born Honolulu (Wiki) and answer Ref. J Binoche, born Paris (Wiki) |
| 24 | IRRUPT | Suddenly invade shady company leaving for Italy (6) CORRUPT (shady) swap CO for I |
| 25 | GRAVAMEN | Formal complaint‘s mostly serious, so be it (8) GRAV[e] AMEN (so be it) I needed to look that one up (Collins: Gravamen) |
| 26 | TENORS | They sing high notes without restraint, to start with (6) (NOTES)* AInd: high, around R[estraint]. |
| 27 | PSALMIST | One making predictions about debut of singer songwriter (8) PALMIST around S[inger] |
| Down | ||
| 1 | MYSTIC | Dalibor’s above criticism, almost otherworldly (6) MY (Dalibor’s) STIC[k] (criticism, almost) |
| 2 | IN A WAY | To some extent, at home and not at home (2,1,3) IN (at home) AWAY (not at home) |
| 3 | BILBERRY | King capturing heart of wild Queen online – that’s fruity (8) [k]IL[g] inside BB (Ref B.B. King) then ER (queen) RY (on line, railway) |
| 4 | MARBLED WHITE | Having no alternative, Lord, bear with me, otherwise I might perhaps flutter (7,5) (L[or]D (no alternative, so lose the “or”) BEAR WITH ME)* AInd: otherwise. Butterfly, not being born enough these days (Wiki) |
| 6 | EXEMPT | Free sex not special with European politician, tense! (6) [s]EX E[uropean] MP (politician) T[ense] |
| 7 | HYSTERIA | Madness may be touring this year (8) (THIS YEAR)* AInd: touring. Top clue! I always find it tricky when words like “this” are part of the anagram fodder |
| 8 | OIL STATE | Paintings and where you can see them, Saudi Arabia? (3,5) OILS (Paintings) TATE (where you can see them) |
| 11 | THUNDERBIRDS | As we see it, birth document signed for show (12) BIRTH = TH under BIR, then D.S. Document Signed |
| 15 | BANJOIST | Stop one supporting musician (8) BAN (stop) JOIST (one supporting) |
| 16 | CHILDREN | Kids will regularly get wet after cycling (8) [w]I[l]L DRENCH, the letters then “cycled” to shuffle a couple from the back to the front |
| 17 | CARNIVAL | Four taking part in erotic feast (8) IV (four) in CARNAL (erotic) |
| 20 | KEEPER | Banks look once more the other way? (6) REPEEK< Ref. Gordon Banks, goalkeeper, born Sheffield, (Wiki) |
| 21 | SCAMPI | Small river’s very good for prawns (6) S[mall] CAM (river) PI (very good) |
| 22 | KENNET | Mr Branagh’s in need of hot dog (6) KENNET[h] Ref. Kenneth Branagh, actor, born Belfast, (Wiki) I was troubled by the definition “dog” and took a while to find a medieval dog called a Kennet (Link: Dogs of Medieval Renaissance) |
I thoroughly enjoyed this. Brilliant clue for THUNDERBIRDS and plenty of lovely constructions elsewhere, as usual with Dalibor’s stuff which, like beermagnet, I’ve seen uploaded here from various S&B gatherings. I don’t understand shy=unproductive either, despite it being in Chambers.
Many thanks to S&B
ps I guess news of Branagh’s knighthood were slow to travel to Cambridge 🙂
Enjoyed this. Had to check a lot of unknowns but all were worked out first, which is how I like it.
Didn’t know either of the 2 actress names; the butterfly @4d; GRAVAMEN; KENNET. Also didn’t know EIizabeth Fry, ‘shy’ to mean ‘unproductive’ (which it can when applied to plants/animals) but did know S for Siemens (reciprocal of ohms), formerly called mhos.
Liked the clues for CHILDREN, HYSTERIA and THUNDERBIRDS.
Thanks to Dalibor for an excellent debut and to beermagnet.
I liked how the 14a surface may be read to suit your politics, depending on how you interpret ‘ends’
Great fun. Many thanks Dalibor – congratulations on your fine debut and thanks beermagnet
Jolly fine first innings, Sir.
Congrats on your Indy début, Dalibor! Collins has: (of plants and animals) not breeding or producing offspring freely for SHY.
I was very happy to see Dalibor’s name on this! Congratulations! I found it very tough and needed help, but agree that it’s a great puzzle. Thanks Dalibor and beermagnet.
Nice to see Dalibor making his debut in the Indy. An auspicious one too.
Like Kitty I found this quite hard, not many of the clues giving up without a bit of a struggle. I failed on THUNDERBIRDS. Much too cleverly indicated for me.
But a very enjoyable tussle all the same, with plenty of nice touches and lots to like.
Mr Branagh’s missing hot dog particularly took my fancy, as did the Madness tour.
Very enjoyable, although we needed a wee bit of wordfinder help, plus some googling to confirm a few answers worked out from wordplay and crossing letters. Lots of nice clues; we particularly liked TRIDENT, MINT and MARBLED WHITE.
Thanks, Dalibor, and congratulations on your Indy debut. And thanks to beermagnet for the blog.
Great puzzle. Well done Dalibor.
Many thanks to all who made me feel welcome, here & elsewhere.
And to beermagnet, in particular, for unraveling the clues and then writing it all down.
One more thing: those who are perhaps familiar with some of my crosswords, will know that there’s often something going on.
Not today though and deliberately so (as I didn’t want to be labelled as a writer of mainly themed crosswords etc).
That the two French ladies appeared together is, however, not a coincidence.
After I saw the film “Elle” which earned Isabelle Huppert a Golden Globe Award (in 2017), I thought that’s a good name to clue.
Precisely, 15 letters. And then I thought of the other one which had also 15 letters.
Bingo! – and so I built a puzzle around these two actresses, symmetrically placed. Not a theme, though.
Anyway, hope to be back at some point (if that’s all right).
This was a great crossword, if exceptionally hard. It took me well over an hour and even then I needed to use a wordfinder a couple of times. Usually by half an hour I’ve either finished or given up. But not this time, though I may have uttered a rude word once or twice, such as when I got 1ac …
Pretty decent puzzle, but to my taste there were far too many people in it.
Thanks Dalibor, beermagnet
Impossible not to like a puzzle with Isabelle Huppert and Juliette Binoche in it. The other lot were just within my ken, so no problem, though I’m glad not all crosswords have such a large cast. THUNDERBIRDS is very clever, also liked MARBLED WHITE, GRAVAMEN, TRIDENT, HYSTERIA.
Congratulations to Dalibor on this inaugural puzzle in the Independent, which a friend was kind enough to send to me. Like baerchen@1, I too have solved a couple of others from Dalibor that have been put up after S&B days, gatherings which I follow vicariously.
I found this very hard and it took some time. I did need to use reference sources to check some solutions – my list was very similar to Hovis@3: GRAVAMAN at 25a, the MARBLED WHITE butterfly at 4d and KENNET@2, though fortunately I did know the actors (the two long answers and Kenneth Branagh). The two long answers at 12a and 23a ISABELLE HUPPERT and JULIETTE BONOCHE were my two favourite clues, so I am in synch with several other previous posters – I thought they provided an excellent base on which to build a puzzle, Dalibor, so thanks for dropping in to tell us about your compilation of the grid.
Like beermagnet, I queried the “S” for Siemens in 10a PERSIL, and despite Hovis’ kind explanation, I still don’t get the ohms bit. I had trouble with the definition for 1a MAIL BOMB, as I am more familiar with those words describing an explosive bomb sent by post (took it too literally on this occasion). I was not 100% sure of the definitions for 5a TECHNO, 13a TRIDENT and 20d KEEPER (had not heard of Gordon Banks). On the other hand, I really liked the clue for 8d OIL STATE, as I do know about the Tate Gallery. I am probably missing something, but I didn’t see why “document signed” became D.S. in 11d THUNDERBIRDS.
Thanks to Dalibor and beermagnet, and the other commenters.
An excellent puzzle by an experienced newbie (!). I too thought it was going to be a theme. I have vaguely heard of both the actors, and those two were also two of my favourite clues. BANJOIST and THUNDERBIRDS were two other favourites. In the case of the latter, I was surprised to find that DS is a recognised abbreviation (for ‘document signed’) – but it’s in Chambers.
I was slow to get MINT and TECHNO, and I needed help to parse BILBERRY.
It was good to see a setter observing the rules and conventions that he likes all setters to observe!
JinA, the ‘siemens’ is the unit of electrical conductance, abbreviated to S. It is a derived unit, and all that means is that it is derived directly from the unit of electrical resistance, the ohm, as Hovis said: 10 siemens is 0.1 (one tenth) of an ohm.
Sorry this is so late. I tackled the crossword today, and it was quite a meaty puzzle to get my teeth into.
Thanks to Dalibor and beermagnet.
Far, far too late but I couldn’t let this pass without a word of appreciation to Dalibor for a fantastic and challenging puzzle. A name to be anticipated and feared in equal measure in the future. Welcome.
Thanks to beermagnet as well for sorting it all out so ably .
[Thanks Alan B@16, for the clarification regarding both D.S. and Siemens (hope you see this late post). Much appreciated.]
We’re very late in the day here, but we’re just catching up on puzzles we missed while we were away with intermittent internet access and almost no spare time.
Fantastic to see Dalibor make it to the Indy – congratulations all round.
As others have said, and as we have come to expect from Dalibor’s S&B offerings, we found this tricky but we managed to finish it without too much assistance. We’d heard of both the French actresses, but had not come across GRAVAMEN or KENNET, but they were eminently gettable from the wordplay.
Many thanks to Dalibor and beermagnet for the blog.