Independent 10,214 by Knut

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Apart from my criticisms, which are detailed in the blog, Knut has given us his usual pleasant crossword.

Definitions underlined, in maroon. Anagram indicators in italics.

The theme is members of the Conservative government.  Lots of people are there in the grid and also the clues, quite an achievement. No doubt I’ve missed one or two: beyond the well-known ones who make the news I’m a bit vague about who they all are.

Across
1 HUNT Search shed, in which Cameron finally is found? (4)
hu({Camero}n)t
3 NEWS Summary of key points? (4)
The key points are N, E, W and S
6 GROUT Painful condition keeping radius in plaster (5)
g(r)out
10 PEPPERONI Coach for city with beer and sausage (9)
Pep [coach of Man City] Peroni [a brand of beer] — Pep Guardiola — my initial thought was that it should have been City, not city, since the team is Man City not Man city, but you could just argue that the clue is OK because the team represents a city. However, none of this agonising would have been necessary if the clue had been ‘City’s coach …’. Perhaps Knut deliberately didn’t do this, for some reason?
11 ADIEU Goodbye, moving 18 27 soon? (5)
18 being AID, this is *(aid) EU — when the UK leaves there will be 27 states in the EU
12 MAY TREE Right infiltrates PM’s support – it has many branches (3,4)
May t(r)ee
13 ECLAIRS 9’s resolved to start with English pastries (7)
9 is PERRY, which is no part of any anagram, suggested by ‘resolved’ — the only thing I can think is that this refers to the Conservative MP Claire Perry, and that we have to find an anagram of Claire, putting the e at the front, but this is surely no good at all: it’s an indirect anagram. The only excuse that I can think of is that, the theme being based around members of the government, we are particularly led to the anagrist. So perhaps not, in which case help please …
14 NOPE Off games? Absolutely not! (4)
no PE
16 BROKEN Brother Livingstone is finished (6)
Bro Ken [Ken Livingstone, not exactly a Conservative MP, so evidently not part of the theme]
18 AID I’m plugging commercial for disaster relief (3)
a(I)d — this grates dreadfully, largely because of my Ximenean conservatism (at which you may sneer, but it is followed by many) — X states in his famous book that you can’t have something like this, since it’s “I” to which things are being done, and so the setter has to say something like ‘I must be plugging’; ‘I am’ is simply grammatically wrong. But a while ago the winner of a clue-setting competition on the Crossword Centre website made the very same mistake (yes, I would go so far as to call it this) and was voted for by many; so not everyone agrees with me.
21 AGA The range of Chagall (3)
Hidden in ChAGAll, the inclusion indicated merely by the word ‘of’
22 STRIDE Activates Trident, picking up the pace? (6)
Another hidden, in ActivateS TRIDEnt — this time the hidden indicator is more obvious: ‘picking up’
23 TEST Examine competition (ignoring Tories) (4)
{Con}test
25/29 HAMMOND ORGAN Ah! Mr Goodman, playing new instrument (7,5)
(Ah! Mr Goodman)* n — referring to Philip Hammond, the Chancellor
27 ASEPSIS Pies cooked on board a ship where no germs are present (7)
a S(epsi)S, the epsi being (pies)*
29   See 25
30 REPAIRING Fixing Republican broadcast (9)
Rep. airing
31 HANDS German chap importing Dutch bananas (5)
Han(D)s — groups of bananas, which for once don’t lead to a synonym for madness
32 RUDD Amber fish … (4)
2 defs, one of them referring to Amber Rudd
33 CHER … caught by that lady who was in Mermaids (4)
c her — Cher was in the 1990 film Mermaids
Down
1 HYPOMANIA Theresa – in a mopy huff – flipped over a tendency for reckless spending (9)
Hidden [over] reversed [flipped] in TheresA IN A MOPY Huff
2 NIPPY Untie puppy, frequently having a tendency to bite (5)
{U}n{t}i{e} p{u}p{p}y
4 ECO-TERROR Blunder about French coast being an environmental threat (3-6)
e(côte)rror
5 SHIRE Henry – your Majesty – touring the county (5)
s(H)ire — sire is according to Collins only used now when addressing a male monarch
6 GRAYLING Daughter leaves niggardly, hopeless ferryman (8)
(niggar{d}ly)* — Chris Grayling was involved in ferries
7 ORIGINATE Begin to give a speech about independent spirit (9)
or(I gin)ate
8 TRUSS “Support Turkey!” – American Senate’s leader (5)
Tr US S{enate} — ref Liz Truss
9 PERRY Katy‘s conference tipple? (5)
2 defs, referring to Katy Perry [the model Jordan the pop singer — thanks Dormouse, shows what can happen when an old man tries to keep up with things] and to the drink made from pears, but if the reference is to Conference pears, which it looks like being, then why isn’t it ‘Conference’? I can find no reference to the pear with a small c in either Chambers or Collins. It would have been quite easy to have ‘Conference tipple for Katy’, so perhaps, as in 10ac, Knut is deliberately irritating people like me. (Various people who seem to know have made the point that you can use a capital where the surface is helped, even if the word is to be read without a capital, but if a capital is required by the word then you aren’t allowed to make it lower-case just to help the surface.)
15 PTARMIGAN Rampant GI shot flier (9)
(Rampant GI)*
17 KIDNAPPED Abducted Nad, drunk, having slept around (9)
ki(dna)pped, the dna being (Nad)* — I’m not quite sure who Nad is [evidently Nadine Dorries]
19 DATE SUGAR It’s naturally sweet to see a Lord on telly (4,5)
date [see] Sugar [a Lord on telly, as for example in The Apprentice]
20 ASTOUNDS Sports car ferrying upper-class Duncan Smith at the front takes the breath away (8)
Asto(U)n D{uncan} S{mith}
24 LEWIS Constable wishes to hug Inspector (5)
Hidden in ConstabLE WIShes — ref Inspector Lewis of the television program, but also thematically Brandon Lewis, the Chairman of the Conservative party
25 HOOCH Leaders of Home Office order cheap home-made booze (5)
First letters
26 DIRER Medic suppressing anger…it’s got even worse (5)
D(ire)r
28 SMITH Disgraced Liberal Farron put up in small hotel (5)
s(miT)h, the mit being (Tim)rev. — the surface suggests that Tim Farron is a disgraced liberal, but if so then there is no definition. I think this refers to Cyril Smith, who died before any court case but who is thought by police to have been a serial sex offender

*anagram

14 comments on “Independent 10,214 by Knut”

  1. Surely Katy Perry is a pop singer, Jordan is Katie Price.  (I had to google the latter.)

    24ac defeated me.  Totally missed the hidden word.

  2. Thanks to John and Knut

    Setters routinely require us to think of a synonym and “cycle” it. Perhaps 13a would work as “9 cycles to Greggs taking the last pastries”

    Is Nadine Dorries “Nad” to her friends?

  3. Thanks Knut and John

    Nicely worked theme – I especially liked the construction in 11.

    I don’t share the misgiving about 18. I is plugging/blocking AD, which seems straightforward to me.

    ‘Nad’ in 17 is, I suspect, a reference to Nadine Dorries, a Tory politician noted for her less than perspicacious observations on the state of the word.

  5. I forgot to say the parsing of 11a nearly escaped me – I spent a log time trying to justify the EU as being a sterile environment. A very good clue.

  7. There’s Brokenshire too.

    What’s the problem with 13a?  9’s = CLAIRE’S but it’s changed to start with E[nglish].

    I thought it was 27 including the UK.  Shows how much attention I pay.

    ‘…thought by the police to be…’; very diplomatic.  I don’t think he’s going to sue.

    Fun spotting the rogues as they appeared.  Thanks Knut, John

  8. Very enjoyable as always and a wonderful tribute to some of our best-loved politicians . . . er, maybe not.

    Cheers, Knut and John.

     

  9. Although I’m out of touch with the current Tory lineup I still enjoyed this and saw the more obvious ones.Got stuck on LEWIS at the end although it was a simple embed. Knew the TV character but not the polly.

    Thanks Knut for a feel-good puzzle and John for blog.

  10. I’m a bit out of touch with the current UK political scene too, so couldn’t spot many of the Tory MP references. Where are Douglas Hurd, Geoffrey Howe, Michael Heseltine and Edwina Currie – well, maybe not the latter – when you need them? At least we’ve got that nice Michael and his trains on the telly.

    Still, ignorance wasn’t a real handicap as the usual combination of guesswork, wordplay and crossers helped. I do remember the 28d Liberal politician, but had no idea about the subsequent allegations, so that one went in unparsed. Do you think ‘conference’ could be a homophone indicator in 9d?

    I’m still in therapy after yesterday’s encounter with “English post-punk/neo-psychedelic band formed in Liverpool in 1978” but I’m starting to get better.

    Thanks to Knut and John.

  11. Thanks for the blog, John.

    I had to go out before the blog was posted and I’m surprised and rather disappointed on coming home to see the response to this puzzle so far.

    I thought it was just brilliant. I don’t know how Knut goes on doing it. Like most people I know, I despair  of the current situatiion but a puzzle from Knut is just about enough to lift my spirits and this was a real gem. With answers like TRUSS and RUDD, with HUNT at the beginning, the theme was hard to miss, really, but when I got to the brilliant 6dn, I just laughed out loud – the only ferryman in Crosswordland thus far has been Charon, I think – and then seeing BROKEN SHIRE was the cherry on top of the icing on the cake.

    Apart from references in some of the clues, for the record, I counted ten themed answers – a quite impressive total – but, as often, this puzzle is more than the sum of its parts.

    Apart from the main theme, where 6dn is the stand-out, my favourites were GROUT, ADIEU, ECLAIRS, ASEPSIS, HYPOMANIA and HOOCH.

    Huge thanks, as ever, to Knut.

  12. I have at least 11 themed answers, I think: Hunt, May (tree), Broken and Shire, Stride (who has been the Leader of the Commons only since the EU elections, so it’s nice and up-to-date), Hammond (organ), Rudd, Grayling, Truss, Perry, and Lewis. There’s also Hands, who was in the Cabinet under Cameron but is now a backbencher, for a possible 12th.

    I also struggled with the parsing of 13, as I wasn’t thinking of the theme, but I think it’s just about fair: indirect anagrams may not be allowed, but cycles of words clued indirectly are. I’m just not sure “resolved” was the right word to choose to indicate it.

  13. Hi Tom

    I missed LEWIS but there’s also Julian SMITH, Chief Whip of the House of Commons. I counted BROKEN SHIRE as one.

     

     

  14. We agree with Eileen – 6dn was just brilliant!  But we’re glad Knut put a question mark at the end of 11ac, indicating that there’s still time for it to be ‘if’, not ‘when’.

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