It’s a while since we’ve had the pleasure of blogging an Alchemi puzzle, so we really looked forward to this one.
Whilst it was not the trickiest puzzle we have tackled, it was good fun and the fishy theme became obvious very early on. Alchemi clearly did not want to hide the theme and ten fish feature directly in no less than 9 clues – highlighted in ‘salmon pink’ – (what else?) in the grid below. Other fishing-related terms appear in two other entries – highlighted in blue – although we’re not sure that it was intentional in 20ac.
Across
1 Rope separator initially seen between fishes (11)
MARLINSPIKE
S (first or ‘initial’ letter of ‘separator’ ‘seen’) between MARLIN and PIKE (fishes) Thanks Hovis
7 Fun cut short (3)
GAS
GASh (cut) without the last letter or ‘short’
9 Actress Cherie wastes hours getting Indian dress (5)
LUNGI
LUNGhI (actress Cheries Lunghi) without or ‘wasting’ the ‘h’ (hours)
10 Lucky because fish finishes in last place (9)
FORTUNATE
FOR (because) TUNA (fish) T E (last letters or ‘finishes’ of ‘last’ and ‘place’)
11 Fish extremely eager to be riding horse (9)
PERCHERON
PERCH (fish) EageR (first and last letters or ‘extremes’ only) ON (riding) – a new word for us
12 American, one Cortez destroyed after stealing gold (5)
AZTEC
A (one) + an anagram of CorTEZ witohut ‘or’ (gold) – anagrind is ‘destroyed’
13 Itinerant Australian‘s bird carrying silver money (7)
SWAGMAN
SWAN (bird) round or ‘carrying’ AG (silver) M (money)
15 European Commission accepts irrational tale of heroism (4)
EPIC
EC (European Commission) round or ‘accepting’ PI (‘irrational’ number)
18 Fish with a tailpiece (4)
CODA
COD (fish) A
20 Upset, although not cross, X-Men go at their foe (7)
MAGNETO
An anagram of x-MEN GO AT without the ‘x’ (cross) – anagrind is ‘upset’ – we had to check this as we’re not too familiar with the X-Men films
23 Hidden images showing tough stuff (5)
DENIM
Hidden (‘showing’) in hiDEN IMages
24 Fish included in types of firelighters (9)
KINDLINGS
LING (fish) in KINDS (types)
26 Exploits fish drink (9)
MILKSHAKE
MILKS (exploits) HAKES (fish) Thanks again to Hovis
27 Honey-badger gets speed on line (5)
RATEL
RATE (speed) L (line)
28 Chefs miss out on good lettuce (3)
COS
COokS (chefs) witkout or ‘missing out’ ‘ok’ (good)
29 Fish in a hat’s ridiculous for mountains (11)
CARPATHIANS
CARP (fish) + an anagram of IN A HAT’S – anagrind is ‘ridiculous’
Down
1 Distance marker moles tip up (8)
MILEPOST
An anagram of MOLES TIP – anagrind is ‘up’
2 Call Stewart about a by-pass (4,4)
RING ROAD
RING (call) ROD (Rod Stewart) round A
3 European funfair is held inside (5)
IRISH
Hidden (‘inside’) funfaIR IS Held
4 Dark Lord banishes you for following a flower (7)
SAFFRON
SAuRON (‘dark lord’ – from the Lord of the Rings) with the ‘u’ (you) replaced by or ‘banished for’ FF (following)
5 Grannie’s disturbed and could be shot (2,5)
IN RANGE
An anagram of GRANNIE – anagrind is ‘disturbed’
6 9 team goes round copying others (9)
EMULATING
An anagram of LUNGI (9 across) TEAM – anagrind is ‘goes round’
7 Works hard to get good service at empty tearooms (6)
GRAFTS
G (good) RAF (service) TearoomS (without the middle letters or ’empty)
8 Smell first of some fish (6)
STENCH
S (first letter of ‘some’) TENCH (fish)
14 Detectives all over problem raised by low ambient sounds (4,5)
MOOD MUSIC
CID (detectives) round or ‘all over’ SUM (problem) reversed or ‘raised’ after MOO (low)
16 Laxative infusion for Spooner’s state (5,3)
SENNA TEA
A Spoonerism of TENNESSEE (state)
17 Hoodwink fish with ultimately bogus comforts (8)
CONSOLES
CON (hoodwink) SOLE (fish) + S (last or ‘ultimate’ letter of ‘bogus’)
19 Warlike, regularly starts to mount attacks against random Dutch city (7)
ALKMAAR
Alternate or ‘regular’ letters of wArLiKe + first letters or ‘starts’ of Mount Attack Against Random – we’d never heard of this city before
20 Fellow of the French Nelson? (7)
MANDELA
MAN (fellow) DE LA (‘of the’ in French)
21 A mother I see naked (6)
ADAMIC
A DAM (mother) I C (see) – another new word for us
22 Fishes in corners (6)
ANGLES
Double definition
25 Large archipelago, large plant (5)
LARCH
L (large) ARCH (archipelago)
There’s a mistake in blog for 1a. Definition is “Rope separator” and the S comes from Seen. Also in 26a, HAKE should be singular.
MARLINSPIKE, PERCHERON & LUNGI were all new to me. I saw ADAMIC in another crossword not too long ago.
In 28a, I don’t think of OK as “good” and would have preferred “fine”. Always thought “kindling” was a mass noun so I guess I was wrong.
Thanks to Alchemi and Bertandjoyce.
Thanks Hovis – we are just on the way out and will amend the blog this afternoon.
This fishy puzzle was good (better than “OK”!) fun.
Hovis @1. Good = OK is an American usage that’s crept into our language over here. Some years ago I asked an American friend who was staying with us if he would like another drink and he surprised me by replying “I’m good”. I said, “that’s debatable but would you like another drink?”
I needed to check ADAMIC and MAGNETO too, and the thought of “actress Cherie” brought a smile to my face.
Many thanks to Alchemi and to B&J.
Thanks Alchemi and B&J. I completed this quite quickly (for me anyway), but though I correctly solved 7A and 15A, for some reason I couldn’t parse them properly. I thought KINDLINGS was a bit odd, but apparently it’s acceptable. Pleased to see CARPATHIANS as this is the extensive mountain range of which my speciality (the Tatras) forms a small but dominant part.
Good standard with quite a few that had me thinking. The same unknowns as B&J, though as luck would have it, MAGNETO was referred to in relation to the X-Men in another puzzle only a day or so ago.
I enjoyed the thematic clues but my favourites were SWAGMAN and AZTEC. A bit of a pity about the ‘one’ in the clue for the latter, as otherwise it would have qualified (in my book anyway) as an &lit.
Thanks to Alchemi and B&J
Definitely something fishy going on here! I think there’s an extra one in 9a.
Same unknowns for me as for our bloggers and I thought 21d a very strange word but, for once, I managed the Spoonerism without tearing my hair out!
Thanks to Alchemi for the puzzle and to B&J for the review.
Thanks B&J and all.
The intentional references to fish are explicit. That you may be able to contrive to spot other fish references is entirely up to you, since I didn’t mean them.
Alkmaar may not be the best-known city in the Netherlands, but by coincidence it was the venue for last week’s European Road Cycling championship races.
Alchemi@7 …and given that their football team is AZ Alkmaar quite appropriate for a crossword!
A puzzle where I needed to trust the wordplay in a couple of places – but I did, and all was hunky dory. Thanks Alchemi and B&J.
We didn’t quite skate through this, as a handful of clues were a little tricky, but it was a very enjoyable solve. We remembered ADAMIC from a fairly recent crossword, too, and also remembered RATEL from a while back.
So, with e yesterday and pi today, what’s tomorrow’s irrational (number)?
And we saw AZTEC as an &lit.
We liked SWAGMAN, but our favourite was PERCHERON.
Thanks, Alchemi and B&J
Was it just me or did others get Stuart B-road for 2d. Threw me for a while.
Was it just me or were others confused by Stuart B-road for 2d. Confused me for a bit.