I think this is my first encounter with Wire, and it took me a while to get into the right mindset – but once I got started, everything seemed to be straightforward.
Definitely in the pleasing category of “not easy, but you know you’ve got it right when you see it”, with clear wordplay in all cases. The surfaces are good too – each one creates its own mental picture that must be ignored in order to solve it. Hard to pick a favourite, but it’s probably 14a, which was my last one in: I needed all the crossers before the penny finally dropped and it was obvious.
Thanks very much to Wire – I look forward to meeting you again.
Definitions are underlined; square brackets [ ] indicate omitted letters.
| Across | ||
| 1 | PLASTER | Cover for cut cake (7) |
| Double definition: adhesive wound dressing, or to cover thickly (for example shoes caked / plastered in mud). | ||
| 5 | HELIPAD | Soft area in New Delhi for place to land (7) |
| P (soft in musical notation) + A (area), in an anagram (new) of DELHI. | ||
| 9/12 | TASTE BUDS | Sensors locate son in gallery with American friends (5,4) |
| S (son) located in TATE (the Tate Gallery), with BUDS (buddies). | ||
| 10 | GO TOWARDS | Approach understood by old departments (2,7) |
| GOT (understood: “I’ve got it!”) + O (old) + WARDS (hospital departments). | ||
| 11 | HOME VIDEOS | Films setter in dodgy Soho dive (4,6) |
| ME (the setter of this crossword) in an anagram (dodgy) of SOHO DIVE. | ||
| 12 | See 9 | |
| 14 | LABRADOODLE | Cross City supporter is against draw (11) |
| LA (Los Angeles = city) + BRA (supporter: an old crossword joke) next to (against) DOODLE (draw). A Labrador / poodle crossbreed dog. | ||
| 18 | MIKE YARWOOD | Old Impressionist and I may do work to order around Spain (4,7) |
| Anagram (to order) of I MAY DO WORK around E (España = Spain). Impressionist as in comic impersonator, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Yarwood, and old as in 1970s Saturday night television; millennials will probably have no idea what we’re talking about. | ||
| 21 | HALF | A portion of veal possibly hot rather than cold (4) |
| CALF (which may possibly become veal), with H[ot] replaning C[old]. | ||
| 22 | LAUNDRETTE | Mangle turned in former cleaning outfit (10) |
| An anagram (mangle) of TURNED, in LATE (former). I think “launderette” may be the original version, but Chambers allows both spellings. | ||
| 25 | BUTTERNUT | Total fanatic is after British species of tree (9) |
| UTTER NUT (total fanatic) after B[ritish]. Hands up all those (including me) who only knew about butternut squash; allegedly there’s also a type of nut tree with the same name, related to the walnut. | ||
| 26 | See 28 | |
| 27 | ANNULET | Ring lady needing university permit (7) |
| ANN (lady’s name) + U[niversity] + LET (permit, as a verb). The sort of clue where one has to think “I know annular means ring-shaped, so could an annulet be a little ring?” and then look it up. But it’s a plausible word and the clue construction is straightforward. | ||
| 28/26 | HAMMOND ORGAN | Actor with car collecting working daughter’s instrument (7,5) |
| HAM (bad actor) + MORGAN (sports car), containing ON (working) + D (daughter). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammond_organ – another one for those of us who remember the 70s. (Or the 60s, but as the old joke has it: if you can remember the 60s, you weren’t there.) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | PATCHY | Postman caught on Harley … extremely irregular (6) |
| Postman PAT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postman_Pat + C (caught in cricket notation) + H[arle]Y (extremely = end letters). Irregular as in “patchy rain”. | ||
| 2 | ASSUME | Take on one animal and return another (6) |
| The animals are ASS and EMU (the second returning = reversed). I rarely think of birds when I need to come up with an animal, but zoologically it’s a valid example. | ||
| 3 | THE EVIL EYE | A glare from you once sat with horrid Yankee on vacation (3,4,3) |
| THEE (you once) next to (sat with) VILE (horrid) + Y[anke]E (vacation = emptying). As in “to give someone the evil eye”. | ||
| 4 | RIGID | Upbringing of some Saudi girls is strict (5) |
| Hidden answer (some) from [sau]DI GIR[ls], reversed (upbringing: taken upwards in a down clue). The surface seems to be an accurate statement too. | ||
| 5 | HOT POTATO | Tricky problem of stolen vessel at bottom of Sargasso (3,6) |
| HOT (stolen) + POT (vessel) AT [sargass]O (bottom letter in a down clue). Hot potato = an issue that gets passed on as quickly as possible because nobody wants to take responsibility for it. | ||
| 6 | LEWD | Obscene wife in jail (she confessed finally) (4) |
| W[ife] in the last letters (finally) of [jai]L [sh]E [confesse]D. | ||
| 7 | PERSUADE | Convince most of the country with broadcast material (8) |
| PER[u] (most of a country) with a homophone (broadcast) of SUEDE (material). | ||
| 8 | DISASTER | Tragedy when upset fellow stood on flower (8) |
| SID (fellow = man’s name), upset = reversed in a down clue, on ASTER (a flower such as Michaelmas daisy). | ||
| 13 | POWDER ROOM | The German tracks prisoner climbing heath and bog (6,4) |
| DER (a form of “the” in German) after (tracking) POW (prisoner of war), + MOOR (heath) climbing (reversed in a down clue). “Powder room” is a polite expression for “toilet”, and “bog” is an impolite one. | ||
| 15 | BAR MAGNET | Perhaps glossy bag under counter is something attractive? (3,6) |
| MAG (magazine, which may be a “glossy” = magazine with photos, printed on glossy paper) + NET (bag), preceded by (under) BAR (counter). Bar magnet = a straight length of magnetized metal, as opposed to horseshoe, ring or other magnet shapes. | ||
| 16 | AMPHIBIA | One medic fixing broken hip starts to inspire awe in a class (8) |
| A MB (one Bachelor of Medicine), containing an anagram (broken) of HIP, and the starting letters of Inspire Awe. Class as in biological classification. | ||
| 17 | SKELETON | Asked to strip and reveal frame (8) |
| [a]SKE[d] (stripping the outer letters) + LET ON (reveal a secret). | ||
| 19 | STAG DO | Organised drug to be taken on Oscar’s last day of freedom? (4,2) |
| STAG[e]D (organised), taking out E (ecstasy = drug), and O (Oscar in radio alphabet). Stag do = a bridegroom’s men-only party, traditionally the last night before the wedding. | ||
| 20 | PENNED | Put down swan with Edward in attendance (6) |
| PEN (female swan) with NED (short for Edward). “In attendance” is only there for the surface, but could just about mean “next to it”. Penned (as a verb) = put down = wrote. | ||
| 23 | NOTCH | Nick criminal clambering over top of the hospital (5) |
| CON (confidence trickster = criminal), clambering over (upwards in a down clue, containing) the top of T[he], and H (hospital). This is the only clue where the wordplay seems a little clumsy, because “clambering over” is doing two jobs at once – unless someone can come up with a better explanation? Notch = nick = a cut on an edge. | ||
| 24 | KEEL | Sailors banned from core part of ship (4) |
| KERNEL (core), removing (banning) RN (Royal Navy = sailors). |
This turned out to be a puzzle of four quarters for me in terms of difficulty. The NW corner fell into place straightaway followed in turn by the SE, NE and, finally, the SW where several clues held out for quite a while.
One of my personal bugbears is what I describe as nebulous names, where “boy”, “girl”, “woman”, “man” are used as part of the wordplay to refer to a random name, and I was disappointed to see two included here. The surfaces of a couple of the clues were a bit iffy, particularly the clunky 3d.
Those comments aside, this was an excellent puzzle which I enjoyed a lot. 14a was my favourite.
Many thanks to Wire (and well done on indicating the 12a Americanism) and to Quirister.
My pick of the day. Excellent Monday puzzle.Too many goodies to single any out.
Thanks Quirister and Wire.
A most enjoyable solve only slightly marred by the random forenames and the ‘bog’. I’ve started to think that the inclusion of at least one piece of lavatorial humour is an essential requirement for an Indy puzzle!
Masses of ticks on my sheet but I think the image of Postman Pat riding a Harley just about takes the gold.
Many thanks to Wire – you’ve come a long way from Rookie Corner – and to Quirister for the blog.
I enjoyed this very much – I particularly lied, 21a and 19d, but the favourite has to be 1d
Thanks to Wire and Quirister
A pleasing puzzle which didn’t hold me up for long. Not for long enough really. Now I have to go and do something useful. My vote goes to 1d too. Thanks to Wire and to Quirister for the very clear blog.
This was excellent, subtle and ingenious.
My thanks to Wire and to Quirister.
Thanks Wire and Quirister
This took me longer than expected for a Monday, and that’s no bad thing.
I think 23 works if you separate ‘clambering’ and ‘over’: clambering = the reversal bit, ie going up, and over = the inclusion indicator.
Good, entertaining solve; I particularly enjoyed the 1s and LABRADOODLE. I also quite liked the bog.
Thanks to Wire and Quirister.
Thanks to everyone for taking the time to do the puzzle and for posting the comments … all very helpful feedback for me. And many thanks to Quirister for the excellent blog.
Thanks Wire. Always good to hear from setters as well as solvers.
We found this a puzzle of two halves – the top half filled up quite quickly but then we slowed considerably for the bottom, particularly the SE corner. At least we’ve been around long enough to remember the old impressionist.
Favourites were HELIPAD, PATCHY and SKELETON.
Thanks, Wire and Quirister.