It seems that whoever gets me as a blogger also gets me the next time, since this has happened a bit recently, but so far as I’m concerned at any rate that’s no problem, for we have here the usual pleasant, not desperately demanding (as it so often is on Tuesdays, which was a relief), offering from Alchemi, themed around 11ac.
Definitions underlined, in maroon. Anagram indicators in italics.
I’m not a fan of crosswords where there is frequent reference to a particular answer, but in this case 11ac was so tractable that this was hardly a concern. Almost all the clues which referenced Poussin said that he was an influence on various later artists, so really, since the list of artists influenced by Poussin would be rather vague, it was just a matter of finding later artists.
| Across | ||
| 1 | DELACROIX | Rickety car oiled by artist who admired 11 (9) |
| *(car oiled) x [= multiplied by] | ||
| 6 | TARSI | Betrays reversal for Bones (5) |
| (is rat)rev. | ||
| 9 | RENAL | Starters in restaurant extremely nasty, annoying lovers of kidneys (5) |
| First letters | ||
| 10 | TRAIPSING | Supply inapt rigs for tediously walking around (9) |
| *(inapt rigs) | ||
| 11 | POUSSIN | Chicken cooked in soups (7) |
| *(in soups) — this artist | ||
| 12 | CEZANNE | Artist who admired 11 according to old queen on the radio (7) |
| “says Anne” | ||
| 13 | ORDERS | Requests some fabulous red roses from the east (6) |
| Hidden reversed in fabulouS RED ROses | ||
| 14 | BROCADE | Globe reflecting church containing poster for expensive fabric (7) |
| (orb)rev. C(ad)E | ||
| 18 | KITSCHY | Trashy equipment finally makes electric toothbrush handy (7) |
| kit, then last letters | ||
| 20 | JASPER | Judge, according to Stone (6) |
| J as per | ||
| 24 | RAPHAEL | Royal Academy help a struggling artist who influenced 11 (7) |
| RA (help a)* — the link to Poussin at 11ac says that Raphael was an influence | ||
| 26 | EFFECTS | Swears about shocking treatment of possessions (7) |
| eff(ECT)s — electro-convulsive therapy | ||
| 27 | QUALIFIER | QI failure amazingly the one through to the next round (9) |
| (QI failure)* — not a great surface since there are no rounds in QI, simply one-off programmes | ||
| 28 | NOSED | I don’t agree with that Sun journalist getting investigated (5) |
| no! S ed. | ||
| 29 | ETHAN | Hunt for Cruise, then a replacement (5) |
| (then a)* — those who know all about Mission Impossible will know that there is a character in it called Ethan Hunt, played by Tom Cruise — are there actually two definitions here? | ||
| 30 | MATCHWOOD | Splinters tie court down (9) |
| match [= tie] woo d | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | DIRT POOR | Spooner’s cheeky entrance having very little (4,4) |
| A Spoonerism of “pert door” | ||
| 2 | LANGUID | Cover over most of Scottish county, being sluggish (7) |
| l(Angu{s})id | ||
| 3 | COLD SORES | Things to settle about moving up blisters (4,5) |
| old scores with the c moved up to the top — clever to spot this | ||
| 4 | OUTING | Soliciting without beginning trip (6) |
| {t}outing | ||
| 5 | XMAS CARD | Cross, raving about Mark’s seasonal greeting (4,4) |
| X ma(scar)d | ||
| 6 | TOPAZ | Best street maps of a dark yellow colour (5) |
| top A-Z — referring to these things, which country people and those not in the UK may be unaware of | ||
| 7 | REIGNED | Perhaps Oliver drank gin cocktail, but was in total control (7) |
| Re(ign)ed, where the ign is (gin)* — ref Oliver Reed, the flamboyant actor, who was, I’m ashamed to say, the first Oliver I thought of — perhaps it was the idea of his drinking a gin cocktail that caused this | ||
| 8 | INGRES | Singer put off artist who admired 11 (6) |
| (Singer)* | ||
| 15 | CHAFFINCH | 25 husks on small island (9) |
| chaff inch — 25 being AVIAN this is a bird | ||
| 16 | THALLIUM | Poison stunted the leek? (8) |
| th{e} allium — I had to confirm that allium was a leek | ||
| 17 | PRESIDED | Lived under pressure of having occupied chair (8) |
| P resided — I’m not quite sure what the definition is exactly: as it is, ‘of having’ seems rather a long link | ||
| 19 | IMPEACH | Setter’s fruit something to do with Trump? (7) |
| I’m peach — well President Trump has been talked about as being about to be impeached but so far as I know this hasn’t happened yet | ||
| 21 | PICASSO | Cop is as befuddled as artist who admired 11 (7) |
| (Cop is as)* | ||
| 22 | BRAQUE | Confused bear has question for artist who admired 11 (6) |
| bra(qu.)e, the brae being *(bear) | ||
| 23 | SEURAT | Regrets getting up next to artist who admired 11 (6) |
| (rues)rev. at | ||
| 25 | AVIAN | One going through Norway like a bird (5) |
| a via N | ||
*anagram
A lovely puzzle for a Tuesday. I was able to get 15D, but Chambers lists CHAFFINCH (rationally) as a noun, but only lists “AVIAN” as an adjective. I’m relatively new to this cryptic world, but aren’t they supposed to agree? Many thanks to Alchemi for the puzzle and John for helping me parse a couple that had totally escaped me.
Oren
Collins also has AVIAN solely as an adjective but the ODE has:
avian
adjective relating to birds: avian tuberculosis.
noun a bird.
I think we should also congratulate Alchemi for creating a themed crossword that is also a pangram.
I have to admit I’d barely heard of POUSSIN, much less that he was a great influence on some Impressionist painters, but coming across such previously unknown subjects is one of the perks of doing cryptics. The pangram was a bonus.
Couldn’t figure out how ETHAN worked, but otherwise everything was pretty clear. I liked the idea of a stunted leek in 16d.
Wonder how A-Z is travelling in the GPS age?
Thanks to Alchemi and John
Thanks John and others.
I too had barely heard of Poussin, and I can’t remember how I ended up looking at his Wikipedia page when I was looking for inspiration to start a puzzle. But, like WordPlodder, I was intrigued to find that he was cited as an influence on people like Cezanne and Picasso, which meant that “influenced by Poussin” would be mildly misdirecting – even though, as John said, the only real information that it gave the solver was chronological. I also liked the idea of saying that it wasn’t an entirely random collection of artists, even if the link is pretty tenuous.
And making a pangram out of it seemed almost required when the thematic entries had already accounted for Q, X and Z.
A great themed pangram, Alchemi, which was very enjoyable despite me personally having no knowledge of the theme. Many thanks, and thanks too to John.
Thanks for the clarification, Gaufrid @2. I figured it had to be somewhere 🙂
Quite a quick solve for us as we spotted the theme at once. The only artist we weren’t too familiar with was Ingres, but known through the Man Ray photograph Le Violon d’Ingres. We also realised we were on course for a pangram which helped us get EFFECTS, CHAFFINCH and MATCHWOOD. Our LOI, though was ETHAN as we needed to google to confirm the fairly obvious answer.
Apart from the themed entries our favourites include TRAIPSING, TOPAX and JASPER.
Thanks, Alchemi and John
Not well up on artists so got off to a bad start by not knowing 11a and had to backtrack from a few more familiar names elsewhere in the puzzle.
The Spoonerism amused – bit of a rarity for me – but my favourite was CEZANNE, nicely done.
Thanks to Alchemi for a themed puzzle with more than one way in and thanks to John for the blog.
many thanks alchemi, a lovely entertaining puzzle, made all the more enjoyable by keeping it easy enough to get all of the themed entries readily. Didn’t recognise BRAQUE & SUERAT but clear from the clueing. Some nice anagrams, 1a, 27a, etc.
also liked Spooner’s cheeky entrance, wasn’t sure where that was going
Thanks also John