Filbert has been setting Indy puzzles for a year and a half now, but we haven’t had the pleasure of blogging one of his offerings until now.
We enjoyed this food and drink-themed puzzle, although we did think one or two definitions were somewhat obscure – particularly 16ac.
Food and drink items occupy all the across entries (sometimes reading across two entries) except at 15ac – which we thought was a bit of a pity, but certainly didn’t spoil the enjoyment.
Across
5 Poles cut farmer’s grass, perhaps going for beer in town (8)
BARNSLEY
N and S (north and south ‘poles’) in BARLEY (‘farmer’s grass perhaps going for beer’)
6 Blow hot and cold about small medical procedure (4)
CHOP
H (hot) C (cold) reversed or ‘about’ + OP (‘small’ medical procedure)
9 Heads, on tossing headless coins? (6)
ONIONS
ON + an anagram of cOINS without the first letter or ‘headless’ – anagrind is ‘tossing’
10 Fat bishop and I tuck into bird (8)
PORRIDGE
PODGE (fat) with RR (Right Reverend – ‘bishop’) and I inside or ‘tucked in’
11 Nothing stops terribly grey, sober singleton spoiling a date (10)
GOOSEBERRY
O (nothing) in or ‘stopping’ an anagram of GREY SOBER – anagrind is ‘terribly’
13 Who doesn’t think France has revolting facilities? (4)
FOOL
F (France) + LOO (‘facilities’) reversed or ‘revolting’
14 Play Winchester, perhaps, after the start of term (6)
TRIFLE
RIFLE (‘Winchester, perhaps’) after T (first letter or ‘start’ of ‘term’)
15 Smooth glider’s wings move gently (6)
GREASE
G R (first and last letters or ‘wings’ of ‘glider’) EASE (move gently)
16 Which end of plank would you like to nail? (4)
PORK
P OR K (first or last letter or ‘ends’ of ‘plank’). We’ve never come across PORK as a verb meaning ‘to nail’ before
17 Cancelling second run, limited by competency of fielder (10)
SCRATCHING
S (second) + R (run) in or ‘limited by’ CATCHING (‘competence of fielder’)
20 Noisy eaters caught with picnic baskets (8)
CHAMPERS
C (caught) HAMPERS (picnic hampers)
22 As a human, Superman sheds his last alien blood (6)
CLARET
CLARk (Clark Kent – Superman’s name ‘as a human’) without or ‘shedding’ the last letter + ET (alien)
23 Fuel valve in car husband pulled out (4)
COKE
ChOKE (valve in car – once upon a time!) with the ‘h’ (husband) omitted or ‘pulled out’
24 Daughter visits V&A – always plenty of good stuff that’s recommended (4,1,3)
FIVE A DAY
D (daughter) in or ‘visiting’ FIVE (V – roman numeral) A AY (always)
Down
1 Flying off the handle in a witch’s clutches (10)
BROOMSTICK
Cryptic definition – a witch would fly clutching the handle of a BROOMSTICK
2 Add this after signing one’s letters (4)
PSIS
PS (post-script – ‘add this after signing’) I’S (one’s)
3 Fireworks salesman satisfied with a rocket’s trajectory? (6)
TEMPER
REP (salesman) MET (satisfied) reversed or sent up (in a down clue) – as ‘a rocket’s trajectory’
4 Sean Connery’s sorry to abandon short hairy Asian lady (4)
THAI
Sean Connery is renowned for pronouncing an ‘s’ as ‘sh’, so his utternace of ‘sorry’ might be ‘shorry’. Taking this away from or ‘abandoning’ ‘short hairy’ leaves THAI
5 Queen finally confined to large old house (5)
BINGO
N (last or ‘final’ letter of ‘queen’) in or ‘confined to’ BIG (large) O (old)
7 It smells and looks like a dog’s (3,4)
PUG NOSE
Cryptic definition
8 Issue with US forces backpedalling in Qatar by Mr Al Thani (4,4)
ARMY BRAT
Hidden and reversed (‘backpedalling’) in QaTAR BY MR Al Thani. This was our least favourite clue. Qataris are not known for being addressed as ‘Mr’ and ‘Thani’ is superfluous to the wordplay.
12 Result fiddled by graduate to obtain post (8)
BALUSTER
An anagram of RESULT (anagrind is ‘fiddled’) after BA (graduate)
13 Learning aids bright spark with wits (5,5)
FLASH CARDS
FLASH (bright spark) CARDS (wits)
14 Nutritional drink after dinner reversed a brief digestive spasm (7)
TROPHIC
PORT (drink after dinner) reversed + HIC (brief digestive spasm)
18 Simple compound of Fe and zinc (not Zn) (6)
RUSTIC
RUST (compound of Fe – iron) + zInC (without Zn)
19 Before her marriage, Daisy’s clothes demanding lots of attention (5)
NEEDY
NEE (woman’s born name, ‘before her marraiage’) + DaisY (first and last letters or ‘clothes’)
21 Knock off and get paid (4)
MAKE
Double definition
22 Men behaved like cocks (4)
CREW
Double definition
Very nice.All I was missing was Barnsley Bitter(that were long while ago)In fact Im still missing it Thanks all.
Thanks S&Bs. I was once at a conference/exhibition in Vienna where they served canapés, including what looked like cream cheese on bread. It turned out to be a rather disgusting soft lard, apparently an Austrian delicacy. I asked a local what the topping was and was told it was GREASE.
16a: in case it’s not clear, “pork” and “nail” are both crude slang for “have sex with”.
“Pork” in this sense was new to me too – another candidate for my (free, ad-less) Wordsmith hobby-blog – check it out:
https://wordsmith.blog
I don’t understand the answer, or the parsing, of 24A.
Can we please have a moratorium on the recent craze for computer goobbledegook as in this clue? I can’t recall any clues of this type until about six months ago, now it seems to be a bandwagon.
Apart from that some excellent and toughish stuff, even managed to spot the theme, but late on so didn’t help much.
Thanks to Filbert (apart from 24A) and Bertandjoyce.
Thanks to Filbert & B&J. I think GREASE is thematic, isn’t it? I see it as a generic term for certain types of fast food. I was a bit taken aback by the wordplay for PORK – that envelope keeps getting pushed!
@gwep – I’m not sure I understand your ref to computer gobbledegook… “five a day” is how many handfuls of fruit/veg nutrititionists recommend for a balanced diet
Very hard going for me with several unparsed including THAI – our bloggers deserve a medal for working out that one. I’d forgotten the “non-fruit” sense of GOOSEBERRY and missed the reverse hidden in 8d. The theme helped with a few including PORK (no idea – just as well) and CHOP, my last in.
Yes, like baerchen @5, I took FIVE A DAY as referring to the recommended five serves of fruit and veggies a day, though we’re now told twice this is even better. I’m sure they’re right.
Thanks to Filbert and B&J
Like baerchen @5, I don’t get your objections to 24a gwep. The answer is as baerchen says and the parsing is clearly explained in the blog. (The only possible point of confusion is, perhaps, that D(aughter) is placed in “five a ay” and not just “five a”.) My slight criticism, if it counts as such, is that I have only ever seen this in the hyphenated form FIVE-A-DAY, which is also how it appears in my Chambers.
Thanks to Bertandjoyce and everyone who’s commented or solved.
Grease is the tasty bit that’s left after you’ve finished your chop. By chance, I’ve also just read this: ‘They lived upon grease – ate it, drank it, slept in the midst of it and their clothes were covered with it. To a Russian, grease is the greatest luxury.’ (Two Years Before the Mast (1840))
Rather painted myself into a corner with pork, not wanting to use any food-related definitions.
@B&J, I asked to stick with the Al Thani clue against advice – I was a little worried about the solution’s unfamiliarity as it only seems to be supported by online dictionaries. Since the Al can’t be without the Thani I’d say the Thani’s not superfluous, but accept that it’s less than ideal.
Thanks Filbert for dropping by and the information about the Al Thani clue. As we said – it didn’t spoil the enjoyment!
@7Hovis. The description of the placement of the “D” was what seemed wrong to me in the parsing. I don’t understand how others don’t understand what I mean by computer gobbledegook. What else is it?
gwep, I’m not sure what makes this one gobbledygook when others aren’t, but I’d like to know. Is it the V&A (i.e. the museum) that’s the problem?
I’m wondering if what gwep means is the creaky Indy software doesn’t always display ampersands correctly, so the V&A could have read something like V!!unknow
xml object: amp!!A. That was certainly the case with the PDF copy that I used. Then again, I’d have thought it was obvious that this was a computer glitch rather than the setter’s fault so perhaps that isn’t it at all!
Ampersand looked OK on the pdf I printed out yesterday. What I have been having trouble with recently is the clues encroaching onto the grid. But I do at last seem to have got round the problem of the website telling me to switch off my adblocker, even when the adblocker was switched off. Turned out the anti-banner option in Kaspersky Internet security was the problem.
@11Filbert – yes, my clue did read what @12 cruciverbophile says. I know (or think) that the conglomeration of symbols, exclamation marks, nonsense text etc portrays or represents a message from a computer that there is an error of some sort.
I just don’t know how to interpret it.