Independent 10,113 by Loglady

by

Loglady is new to me, which is not surprising since he/she has almost always appeared in the IoS, which I don’t see. Glad to have made the acquaintance: to begin with my impression was that this was an easy new setter, as the first answers went in quickly, but I ground to a halt and was defeated by 6dn.  On the way there were some very good clues (1dn, 8dn).

Definitions underlined, in maroon. Anagram indicators in italics.

My guess (based on 6dn and the fact that I can see nothing else) is that there is a Discworld theme. If so, then I leave it to you.

Across
1 INFLUX Mass invasion during times after disease (6)
in [= during] ‘flu x [= times]
4 IMPALE Spike beer, led by demon (6)
imp ale
10 PRICKLINESS Exercise conscience with academic punishment’s sensitivity? (11)
prick [= exercise conscience — “I felt a prick of remorse”] lines’s
11 KIT Young cat gets bird, almost (3)
kit{e}
12 GOURMET Foodie‘s gut – more wobbly (7)
(gut more)*
14 MAILMAN Masculine tautology articulated by American man of letters (7)
“male” and “man” are very much the same thing, so a tautology
15 WESTERN SAHARA Cowboy film is expression of discovery touching on gunmen in territory (7,6)
Western’s [= cowboy film’s] aha! RA
16 CONFLAGRATION Languish on allotment, learn to start fire (13)
flag [= languishl ration [= allotment] with con at the start — I agree with Loglady  and not The Times or, so I thought, Eimi of the Independent, and feel that ‘A on B’ doesn’t have to be BA; it can perfectly well be AB
21 HAIRIER With more locks, but less safe? (7)
2 defs
22 BANGKOK City‘s fringe attracting half-hearted weirdo (7)
bang ko{o}k
23 CAN Is able to let go in the US (3)
2 defs, although the second one was new to me; Collins tells us that it is US slang for dismiss from a job
24 PASTEURISED Former lust returning to fix union made sterile (11)
past (desire)rev. round U, nothing about the EU
26 SALARY Wage is small, fairly regularly docked (6)
s{m}a{l}l {f}a{i}r{l}y
27 SMOCKS Society makes fun of artist’s clothes (6)
S mocks
Down
1 IMPUGN Criticise unopened dumping ground (6)
({d}umping)*
2 F B I Leading character in football wanting male and female agents (1,1,1)
f{ootball} bi
3 UNKEMPT Messy bed, bachelor absent, unoccupied mostly (7)
{b}unk empt{y}
5 MESSIAH Shame is unusual for Jesus? (7)
(Shame is)*
6 ANKH-MORPORK Henry beheaded and His Majesty’s soldiers pig-food in surreal literary city (4-7)
{H}ank HM OR pork — this completely defeated me, not surprising really, since my knowledge of Terry Pratchett’s oeuvre is non-existent — it’s this
7 EXTENT Text entirely covers degree (6)
Hidden in TEXT ENTirely
8 VICTORIA CROSS One who defeats 1A getting award (8,5)
victor 1 Across — nothing to do with 1ac in this crossword
9 LES MISERABLES Sees Monsieur bear ills in performance of this? (3,10)
(Sees M bear ills)* — &lit.
13 UNEMOTIONAL Mountie swimming on a lake, becoming cold (11)
(Mountie)* on a L [thanks gwep]
17 FLIPPER More frivolous feature of dolphin? (7)
2 defs
18 TANTRUM Brown shirt, odd fit (7)
tan T rum — I’ve never heard a T-shirt being called a T, but this is fairly common in crosswords nowadays so I suspect I may be out of date
19 CHICKS Rednecks going after college girls (6)
C hicks
20 SKODAS Slovakia’s small commotion about Czech cars (6)
Sk (s ado)rev.
25  SAC Blabbed about loot in pocket (3)
“sack”

*anagram

18 comments on “Independent 10,113 by Loglady”

  1. I too was defeated by 6d – I even thought it might be Pratchett-related but I wasn’t able to investigoogle.  My favourite was 8d

    Thanks to Loglady and John

     

     

  2. Well it certainly takes all sorts. 6d was FOI for me, having read most of the splendid Diskworld books. However if there is a related theme it is lost on me, obviously not quite such a devotee after all.

    23a went in not fully parsed so thanks for that explanation which eluded me.

    Enjoyed this though, fairly swift but exercising all the same.

    Thanks to Loglady and John

  3. Apart from the Terry Pratchett, I liked this. The former is OK if you are familiar but its hardly like CS Lewis or Tolkein- or Lewis Carroll.

    I remember the Skoda jokes and then VW took over. FBI didnt work for me-otherwise fine.

  4. No hope with 6d especially as I couldn’t get ‘Hal’ for ‘Henry’ out of my head and didn’t even think of ‘Hank’.

    I liked FLIPPER for the reminder of the TV series (though the theme tune will keep me awake tonight) and the device for VICTORIA CROSS, which fooled me good and proper until I finally solved INFLUX.

    Thanks to Loglady and John

  6. Followed the link to 6d – not surprised I haven’t heard of it and think I’m happy to leave it that way!   Don’t think I knew that Hank was related to Henry either, never really thought about it.

    Would agree that 8d was clever and I also liked 1a/d.

    Thanks to Loglady and to John for the blog and the Terry Pratchett homework.

  10. Well, we completed this with 6dn being our LOI.  We worked it out as  Alkh Morpork (Henry being Hal but we couldn’t explain the first K) to which Google responded “Did you mean ANKH MORPORK?” so there was our answer.  As for Hank = Henry, the appendix to Chambers says that’s the current usage but originally it was a diminutive of Hankin, itself a diminutive of … John!

    Favourite was VICTORIA CROSS

    Thanks, Loglady and John.

  11. Weird, there are 6 Ks in the grid. Good crossword, although I didn’t know the Pratchett thingy.

    There is always debate about whether FBI and similar words should be 3 or 1,1,1. I tend to think that 3 is OK, because it’s always printed like that in dictionaries but I know some others would object.

    I liked the cowboy film, UNKEMPT and VICTORIA CROSS.

    Thanks loglady and John.

  13. 6dn was FOI for me too.  Not only have I read most of the Discworld books but I even once had Terry Pratchett say hi to me in a shopping mall in Boston, Mass.  But there doesn’t seem to be a Pratchett theme in this.

    It was the crossing pair of 1dn and 10ac that defeated me and I had to do a word search to get the latter, which gave me the former.

    I couldn’t parse 20dn.  I didn’t know Sk was an abbreviation for Slovakia.

  14. Thanks John, and all commenters.

    No theme coming from 6d but I can understand why people thought there might be – I just really like the name! bit of a wasted opportunity though I guess

  15. re john’s comment on 16 across – I use A on B meaning AB fairly often. I didn’t know the other way was common, I’ve never seen it or considered it. To me ‘on’ suggests ‘above’, but is reasonable for across clues as well as down.

    To justify A on B meaning BA it could also be synonymous with ‘added to’, but in that case would it not still effectively be the short version of ‘on top of’? (which would be counterintuitive and misleading esp for down clues)

    To be honest, as a relatively new setter and inexperienced solver, (and often gratuitous user of link words!), it feels much more about convention than strict grammatical interpretation

  16. After yesterday’s Vigo, the surface of 4a (IMPALE) had me thinking of a different Spike, with his demon friend Clem playing kitten poker.

    I’m contractually obliged to like KIT 🙂 – and also purred at the MAILMAN, HAIRIER, ANKH-MORPORK and more.

    Nearly failed to parse the cleverly disguised dumping ground (IMPUGN), and did fail to “see” the homophone in SAC, but never mind.

    Many thanks Loglady and John.

  17. Loglady @15, I think generally ‘on’ in an across clue means ‘after;’ however, quite a few setters seem to use it to mean before… Obviously, in a down clue it means above.

  18. Thanks to John and Loglady

    I enjoyed this but, as I know almost nothing of the works of Terry Pratchett 6d was a struggle – I was trying to work something out to do with Angkor Wat, but to no avail (obviously).

    Only one real quibble @10a EXERCISE CONSCIENCE = PRICK? , surely PRICK here is simply synonymous with EXERCISE, as in worry.

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