Independent 10,254 by Tyrus

by

We hope we weren’t the only ones to find this very tough. At one point we were quite worried that we would not be able to provide a comprehensive blog. We ended up completing the bottom half first, hoping that this would open up the top half which only had 9ac, 10ac & 11ac written in.

When Bert managed to crack 12/14, things improved.

The difficulty seemed to be the odd unusual word to describe anagrams as well as a couple of cryptic definitions as in 3d and 12/14ac. We’d really like to hear how others got on.

Overall we found it an interesting challenge with some original clueing. We felt very pleased to have completed it.

The three highlighted entries refer to three women who have been linked with different USA presidents. Given the fact that 27/28 claims that the NDA she signed is invalid because Trump did not sign it, perhaps we ought to insert the word ALLEGEDLY in the previous sentence.

Thanks Tyrus.

completed grid

 

Across

1/5 “Hit back!” Lady not content to stop at home (president’s a well-known player) (7,6)
MARILYN MONROE
RAM (hit) reversed or ‘back’ + LadY (first and last letters only or ‘not content’) inside or ‘stopping’ IN (at home) MONROE (President)

8 Bill starts to complain instantly about teeth – sharp, maybe? (10)
ACCIDENTAL
AC (bill) C I (first letters or ‘starts’ to ‘Complain Instantly’) DENTAL (about teeth)

9 Doubtful Jack’s missed moment (4)
IFFY
jIFFY (moment) missing J (Jack)

10 A little crass when one eggs on lover (8)
CASANOVA
C (first letter or ‘a little’ Crass) AS (when) AN (one) OVA (eggs)

11 Nice here at office and unexpected (6)
SUDDEN
SUD (Nice is situated in the South of France or ‘SUD’) DEN (office)

12/14 “Dress nice and silky,” woman remarked in turn (6,8)
MONICA LEWINSKY
An anagram of NICE SILKY and WOMAN – anagrind is ‘dress’. Well, we guessed it from all the crossing letters but we have never come across ‘dress’ as an anagrind before. Also, the definition is cryptic in that you have to hear ‘intern’ for ‘in turn’ – hence the use of ‘remarked’ in the clue. We will be interested to hear what others make of this one.

16 Carrying racket I hurry round island (8)
TRINIDAD
DART (hurry) around or ‘carrying’ DIN (racket) I all reversed or ’round’

19 Kenya winger keeps changing direction (6)
YAWING
Hidden or ‘kept’ in KenYA WINGer

21 Wish to have Congress in the same place – look out! (6)
LIBIDO
IB ID (in the same place) with LO (look) ‘outside’

23 Speaker’s not pursued with sexual intentions (8)
UNCHASTE
A homophone (‘speaker’s’) of  UNCHASED (not pursued)

25 Posh motor trader gets fifty per cent off (4)
MERC
MERChant (trader) reduced by fifty per cent

26 Excitement lacking the first time? That’s dissembling … (10)
SIMULATION
StIMULATION (excitement) without the first T (time)

27/28 … and lies – though maybe not hers (6,7)
STORMY DANIELS
A play on the fact that an anagram of AND LIES is DANIELS with the anagrind being STORMY. The definition relates to the interview that STORMY DANIELS had with In Touch Weekly about Donald Trump. The President’s lawyer Micahel Cohen threatened to sue the magazine and allegedly paid money to Stormy Daniels to stop her talking about it and instructed her to sign an NDA. In August this year the New York District Attorney subpoenaaed the Trump Organisation for their records about the hush payments.

Down

1 Plaything may come out for entertainment (7)
MECCANO
CAN (may) inside or ‘being entertained by’ an anagram of COME – anagrind is ‘out’

2 Undoing belt I ran in and out (9)
RUINATION
An anagram of I RAN IN and OUT – anagrind is ‘belt’ – another new anagrind for us.

3 Mainly stop mentioning second romance (3,2)
LIE TO
A homophone (‘mentioning’) of LIE TWO (second lie or ‘romance’). The ‘mainly stop’ refers to a word used at sea or ‘in the main’ to describe stopping.

4 eSport? No (7)
NETBALL
A clue as definition – an e Sport could be a BALL game that you play on the web or ‘NET’. In this case it isn’t!

5 Lie was unravelling through leader previously not paying attention (5,4)
MILES AWAY
An anagram of LIE WAS – anagrind is ‘unravelling’ inside or ‘through’ MAY (previous leader)

6 Divine female close to announcing a date (5)
NAIAD
A homophone (‘announcing’) of NIGH (close to) A D (date)

7 Going to arouse, picked up when it’s not so busy (3-4)
OFF-PEAK
OFF (going – as in I’m off or I’m going) and PEAK – a homophone (‘picked up’) of PIQUE (to arouse)

13 “Right, included with promotion, you mean?” lowering head with difficulty (9)
ARDUOUSLY
R (right) inside or ‘included with’ AD (promotion) + U (you in text speak) + LOUSY (mean) with the L or ‘head’ moving lower down. We thought it was YOU SLY for ‘you mean’ to start off with but that didn’t work as you ended up with YY at the end.

15 “Different class” – describing leader of Laura Ashley’s team (9)
NEWCASTLE
NEW (different) CASTE (class) round or ‘describing’ L (first letter or ‘leader’ of ‘Laura’). Neither of us are interested in football and have no idea who Ashley is but the answer was thankfully quite obvious.

17 Seek to cut cost of hiring dress (7)
RAIMENT
AIM (seek) inside or ‘cutting’ RENT (cost of hiring)

18 Beat famous horse not on medicine (7)
DRUMMED
reD RUM (famous horse) without ‘re’ (on) + MED (medicine)

20 No, love, isn’t unseemly (getting ideas) (7)
NOTIONS
An anagram of NO O (love) ISN’T – anagrind is ‘unseemly’

22 Suffer having been eaten by dog? (5)
INCUR
A play on the fact that whatever has been eaten by a dog could be said to be IN CUR

24 Commander has only short organ (5)
COLON
CO (Commander) and LONe (only) missing last letter or ‘short’

15 comments on “Independent 10,254 by Tyrus”

  1. Tyrus/Vlad is one of my favourite setters. I enjoyed this outing but, for me, felt it fell short of his usual high standards. The clues for NETBALL & UNCHASTE didn’t float my boat in particular. Although I didn’t care for COLON, this was because I misparsed it as COL(onel) + ON(ly). Didn’t struggle that much with this.

    As a side note. If anyone is wondering what has happened with today’s Guardian prize, it is a Maskerade bank holiday special (so I won’t be attempting it) and, when I last looked, was erroneously placed with the cryptics not the prizes.

    Thanks to Tyrus and Bertandjoyce.

  2. Bully for you, Hovis! I’m with Bert&Joyce in finding this one viciously tricky.
    Monica Lewinsky I found borderline unfair and Stormy Daniels just plain hard.
    None of his was helped by the age I spent trying to parse ‘charLie MiNgus’ as the ‘famous player’ on the top row. I think the looseness of ‘player’ – which includes the whole of sport, acting and music – was a bit mean, to put it mildly.
    So, quite a lot a tutting and sighing in with the usual ‘aha’ moments.
    Thanks to Tyrus for the.challenge and B&J for the dogged blogging. Glad it wasn’t me today.

  3. I thought this was good even by his standards.

    Very slow start  an almost impenetrable grid but softly, softly….

    1/5 was the first to crack but I still had no idea. I was struggling to find a word for 14 then a light bulb indicated STORMY DANIELS in the bottom row which made MONICA LEWINSKY cave in.. .

    What with answers like  UNCHASTE, LIBIDO, CASANOVA ans allusions to lies in the clues, I thought this was well worth the effort-in fact reminding me of Araucaria, Bunthorne and Nimrod

    Fortunately the latter is alive and well

    Thanks all.

  4. Seeing as I’m sitting in the bar at an SF convention with noisy fans all around (the human kind, not the mechanical cooling devices), I thought I did pretty well to do this in under an hour without aids.  Mind you, there were a lot I couldn’t parse.  Thanks for all the explanations.

    Getting 27/28 from the crossing letters opened it up for me.  Once I got that I guessed the theme and what the other two-part clues must be and that was a great help in finishing.

    My brother’s a NEWCASTLE fan (and I grew up in the north-east) so I knew all about Mike Ashley and 15dn was a write-in, one of my first ones in.

    NETBALL made me laugh out loud.  Fortunately, in a bar like this, no-one noticed.

     

  5. Ouch, this was hard, and, I felt, quite contrived, to get the three names in.
    I wish I didn’t know who Ashley is either, but unfortunately I do. This was my first one in.Think cheap sports tat.
    Thanks to setter (I think) and bloggers.

  6. I don’t know why but I didn’t find this too hard though there was a bit of “put in the answer first and try to parse later”, eg for 12/14a and 13d, so thanks (and well done) for explaining everything. I liked the theme (which helped me get 1/5a) and some of the slightly naughty clues, of which LIE TO was my pick.

    Thanks to B&J and Tyrus

  7. Thanks to Bertandjoyce and Tyrus

    Tricksy and very good fun.

    I expected a reference to Donald in the clues somewhere, having seen “Jack” Kennedy, and “Bill” Clinton identified early on, but perhaps these were an extraordinary coincidence given the open opportunity to lampoon a naked Trump in 18d.

    I’ve seen an entry clued by a homophone once or twice before, but 12,14 might be seen as unfair if 1,5 or 27,28 hadn’t yet been solved.

    Once the W and K were in from the crossers though, it wasn’t overly difficult.

    Overall, a proper Saturday puzzle.

  9. We found this quite challenging but, like Wordplodder, not too difficult. ACCIDENTAL was our first one in as we thought of the musical sense at once. 12/14 was the first of the themed answers we got then 27/28 followed pretty quickly and finally 1/5 helped us fill in our last few.
    But there were several answers that we had to pencil in before we saw the parsing and were confident enough to ink them over.
    Favourites included the aforesaid ACCIDENTAL as well as MILES AWAY.
    Thanks, Tyrus and B&J.

  10. We found this hard, although obviously much helped once we got Stormy Daniels which opened up the other two long clues. Some of your favourite clues were our least favourite as we still have no idea why accidental is sharp, or lie two is romance. But don’t answer as we know you’ll give us the usual answer that we should invest in a Chambers and all would be clear!

  12. Lovely crossword and a fine companion to the Guardian’s Vlad that was also blogged today (despite that one clue).

    There is something about our beloved setter’s puzzles that makes me want to solve his next one (but I’m afraid I’ll have to wait a few weeks).

    Thanks to Bertandjoyce & Tyrus.

  13. EricW@10: In musical terminology, an ACCIDENTAL is a note outside the key currently being indicated.  This could be a sharp note. (I could get more technical, if you want.)

  14. Maybe the first time I’ve finished a Tyrus without having to cheat on one or two.  Managed to get the first two famous female crossers without really parsing them, STORMY DANIELS was near the end.

    Thought the COD was LIBIDO; so neat and clever.  In reference to that, not sure if it’s just a tiny glitch in the blog, but ibid is an abbreviation of ibidem and there is no split in the letters.

    Thanks to Tyrus, look forward to the next one, and to Bertandjoyce for the usual first-class blog.

  15. I found this very much on the tricky side but well worth it – brilliant stuff.

    It took a second visit to the grid to understand the definition of MONICA LEWINSKY – argh!

    Thanks to Tyrus and Bertandjoyce.

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