Jambazi is a rare visitor to the Independent crossword arena in recent years. The fifteensquared search facility tells me that it was April 2017 when he last appeared.
I found this be very enjoyable . Some of the clues were quite spare but all had clear wordplay.
If there is a theme, I haven’t spotted it. On the other hand you don’t often see DUSSELDORF and ANTIPHON in a standard national daily puzzle which made me wonder whether they were forced on Jambazi as a result of some thematic element elsewhere. Nor do you see LANCE defined as ‘sand eel’ on a regular basis.
In any event, the puzzle was a good challenge
| Across | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| No | Clue | Wordplay | Entry |
| 1 | Meeting for sex (8) |
CONGRESS (assembly of delegates, specialists, ambassadors, etc for the discussion or settlement of problems, creating legislation, etc; meeting)
|
CONGRESS (sexual intercourse) double definition
|
| 5 | Carriage clock’s second hand initially missing gold (6) |
L (second letter of [second] CLOCK) + HAND excluding the first letter (initially missing) H + AU (chemical symbol for gold) L AND AU |
LANDAU (horse-drawn carriage with a folding top) |
| 9 | Fellow just revolting (9) |
F (fellow) + RIGHTFUL (just) F RIGHTFUL |
FRIGHTFUL (repulsive; revolting) |
| 11 | Tries seen in international matches (5) |
TESTS (tries) TESTS |
TESTS (international sports matches) double definition |
| 12 | Eye cover with revealing image (6,6)) |
CENTRE (the eye of a storm is the CENTRE) + SPREAD ( to open out so as to cover a wider surface; cover) CENTRE SPREAD |
CENTRE SPREAD (photograph of a nude woman or man printed on the two facing centre pages of a newspaper, magazine, etc; revealing image) |
| 15 | Musical with hard song (4) |
H (hard, in descriptions of pencil lead) + AIR (song) H AIR |
HAIR (musical, first performed in 1967) |
| 16 | Made platform sole comfortable, although primarily foot collapsed (10) |
SCA (first letters of (primarily) of each of SOLE, COMFORTABLE and ALTHOUGH) + F (foot) + FOLDED (collapsed) SCA F FOLDED |
SCAFFOLDED (made a temporary framework of platforms erected around a building) |
| 18 | This could be an old bus conductor’s role in retirement? (10) |
RATTLE (reference Sir Simon RATTLE [born 1955], conductor and currently musical director of the London Symphony Orchestra) + PART (role) reversed (in retirement) RATTLE TRAP< |
RATTLETRAP (rickety vehicle,an old bus for example) |
| 19 | Top line on book (4) |
B (book) + ROW (line) B ROW |
BROW (top) |
| 21 | Colour and shape for bunting (12) |
YELLOW (colour) + HAMMER (beat; mould; shape) YELLOW HAMMER |
YELLOWHAMMER (a bird also knows as the YELLOW bunting) |
| 24 | Sand eel caught in channel (5) |
C (caught) contained in (in) LANE (channel) LAN (C) E |
LANCE (alternative spelling of LAUNCE [sand eel]) |
| 25 | Pitch in Rugby Union town to go after game (5,4) |
SALE (reference the town of SALE, home to a very successful professional Rugby Union team, SALE Sharks) + STALK (go after game) SALE S TALK |
SALES TALK (a pitch to convince a client to purchase goods or services) |
| 26 | One believer is gripped by second part of bible (6) |
MO (moment; second) + (IS contained in [gripped by] NT [New Testament, part of the bible) MO N (IS) T |
MONIST (a believer of the philosophical theory that all being may ultimately be referred to one category) |
| 27 | Here toes put straight? (8) |
Anagram of (put straight) HERE TOES SHOETREE* |
SHOETREE (a support, usually of wood or metal, inserted in a SHOE when it is not being worn, in order to preserve its shape.) |
| Down | |||
| 1 | Restrain copper that’s very strong (4) |
CU (chemical symbol for copper) + FF (fortissimo; as loud as possible; very strong) CU FF |
CUFF (put handCUFFs on; restrain) |
| 2 | One’s caught by zip fastener (4) |
A (one) contained in (caught by) NIL (zero; zip) N (A) IL |
NAIL (a type of fastener) |
| 3 | Repair footwear on tip (6) |
RE (with reference to; about ; on) + HEEL (lean; list) RE HEEL |
REHEEL (repair footwear) |
| 4 | Firm with year contracts, over time they stop firing (6,7) |
(SAFE [firm] + Y [year] + CATCHES [contracts, as in contracts a disease) containing (over) T (time) SAFE (T) Y CATCHES |
SAFETY CATCHES (devices that protection against something, such as the accidental firing of a gun) |
| 6 | Piano playing with the short new song (8) |
(Anagram of [playing … with] PIANO and THE excluding the final letter (short) E) + N (new) ANTIPHO* N |
ANTIPHON (alternate chanting or singing; a type of church music sung by two parties each responding to the other; song) |
| 7 | Fancy dress? Endless fun around large party city (10) |
(Anagram of [fancy] DRESS and FUN excluding the final letter [endless] N) containing (around) (L [large] + DO [party]) DUSSE (L DO) RF* |
DUSSELDORF (German city) |
| 8 | Winning team drink in complete confusion (6-4) |
UP (winning) + SIDE (team) + DOWN (drink [a pint]) UP SIDE DOWN |
UPSIDE DOWN (in complete confusion) |
| 10 | Breaking ice with him; full bar providing drink (13) |
Anagram of (breaking) ICE and HIM FULL BAR LIEBFRAUMILCH* |
LIEBFRAUMILCH (wine; drink) |
| 13 | Clubs topping alcoholic drink with finest fruit (6,4) |
C (clubs) knocking off and replacing the first letter (topping) S of SHERRY (alcoholic drink) + PLUM (best; finest) C HERRY PLUM |
CHERRY PLUM (PLUM with a flavour similar to a CHERRY; fruit) |
| 14 | Private business in pornographic material (5,5) |
DIRTY (pornographic) + LINEN (material) DIRTY LINEN |
DIRTY LINEN (personal problems or grievances; private business) |
| 17 | Underwear could be slips? (8) |
BLOOMERS loose undergarment similar to knickers, with legs gathered above the knee) BLOOMERS |
BLOOMERS (errors; slips) double definition |
| 20 | One rents large spaces everywhere all empty (6) |
LE SS EE (letters remaining in each of [all] LARGE, SPACES and EVERYWHERE when the central letters ARG, PACE and VERYWHER are removed [empty]) LE SS EE |
LESSEE (one who leases [rents] something) |
| 22 | Young salmon from usual river (4) |
PAR (norm; standard; usual) + R (river) PAR R |
PARR (young salmon of up to two years of age) |
| 23 | Cycling team on European island (4) |
SKY (name of a professional cycling team – Team SKY [well it will be for another year until SKY end their sponsorship at the end of 2019]) + E (European) SKY E |
SKYE (Scottish island) |
Nice blog and good to see NW in the Indy.Slight clothing and foot wear ref but not like his themes in the Graun
Thanks guys.
Found this tougher than the usual Grauniad Tramp crosswords. Favourite was RATTLETRAP. Didn’t know ANTIPHON. I knew YELLOWHAMMER was a bird but that was all. Had to guess SALE was a RU town. Didn’t know LANCE for “sand eel”. Also struggled to equate “contracts” with “catches”.
All in all, an excellent crossword even if I found it a tad too hard. Always nice to be tested. Thanks to Jambazi and Duncan.
A nice crossword battle with lots to enjoy – thanks to Jambazi and Duncan
Once again, I echo crypticsue’s comment. Welcome back, Jambazi! 😉
Quite a few unusual words made this a real challenge but helpful wordplay meant that everything was gettable without too much guessing.
I liked RATTLETRAP and it was good to see YELLOWHAMMER make another appearance. My favourite though was LIEBFRAUMILCH – certainly made a change from ‘asti’.
Thanks (and welcome back) to Jambazi and to Duncan.
Thanks to Duncan for the super blog and thanks to others for the comments. Lately, I haven’t been writing themed puzzles but filling grids with mostly random entries and clueing whatever comes up. It’s quite challenging and time consuming. I’ve run out of ideas for themes.
Have a good Christmas everyone.
Neil
I liked “carriage clock” and “bus conductor” where the def and the wordplay join together to give a meaningful phrase. Lovely misdirection.
Thanks, Jambazi and Duncan.
Excellent crossword. Especially liked RATTLETRAP, FRIGHTFUL, SALES TALK and DIRTY LINEN.
Thanks to Jambazi and Duncan.
Held up mostly by the SW corner where CHERRY PLUM was an unknown. I was amused to see RATTLETRAP so soon after seeing it in another of today’s crosswords. Some really nice clues – I enjoyed DIRTY LINEN and SALES TALK most. Thanks Jambazi and Duncan.
Quite a challenge but we eventually solved it unaided, though we couldn’t parse 4dn (forgot ‘contract’ as to catch a disease – doh!). Some lovely clues; in addition to tose pointed out already we liked the misdirection in MONISM; needless to say we fell into the trap of seeing ‘second’ as an adjective for ‘part’ before we realised it wasn’t
One minor quibble – we thought the enumeration of 3dn should be 2-4. But we haven’t checked in Chambers or Collins.
Thanks, Jambazi and Duncan.
allan_c @ 10
Sorry Allan, but one word in both Chambers and Collins