With the announcement of the title of the new Bond film, there was a good chance of a themed crossword on those lines and Punk has duly obliged with the usual inventive clueing. How quickly you got the theme probably depended on how quickly you solved 14, which was a giveaway for anyone with reasonable film knowledge. Some of the characters were a little more obscure than others – I struggled with the surname of 3 down, having worked out the first name. Though not the best surface reading, 13 down was a fun clue, if only for the image of a bishop punching Arthur Scargill.
| Across | ||
| 7 | See 11 | |
| 8 | BETRAYER | Snake’s given carrier mild bites? (8) |
| Tray in(=bitten by) beer (mild being a type thereof). | ||
| 9 | NAOMI | Character I express dissatisfaction about (5) |
| (I moan)< – from the Spy Who Loved Me. | ||
| 10 | PHI | My colleague, acidic? (3) |
| Phi, a fellow crossword compiler, PH 1 = very acidic on the PH scale. | ||
| 11/7 | FELIX LEITER | Reportedly, charge beat lesser character (5,6) |
| Hom fo fee + lick slighter. CIA agent who appears in a number of Bond films. | ||
| 12 | JUST THE JOB | Perfect character, though not odd? (4,3,3) |
| [Odd]job, who was a character in Goldfinger played by Harold Sakata. Sakata was a US actor but Oddjob was supposed to be Korean. | ||
| 14 | JAWS | Spielberg film character (4) |
| DD. Jaws was a popular character played by Richard Kiel who appeared in two James Bond films. | ||
| 17 | HEAD OUT | Leave each party in shed (4,3) |
| Ea(ch) do in hut | ||
| 18 | ASEXUAL | When former lover starts to undress, ageing libertine lacking the urge (7) |
| As + ex + initial letters of “undress ageing libertine”. | ||
| 19 | SHAH | Persian ruler shut up I see (4) |
| Sh(=shut up) + I see(=ah!) | ||
| 20 | DO YOUR BEST | Impressing teacher in the end, naughty boy used to try hard (2,4,4) |
| [Teache]r in (boy used to)* | ||
| 22 | SNAFU | Mess posh lovers turned around (5) |
| (U + fans). Snafu is an acronym for “Situation Normal, All F*cked up” (sounds a bit like Brexit). | ||
| 23 | OAP | Ostensibly ancient person, initially? (3) |
| &lit – inital letters of “ostensibly ancient person”. | ||
| 24 | DUBAI | Going the wrong way, I shoot around a capital city (5) |
| (I bud)< around a. | ||
| 26 | AUGUSTLY | In dignified manner, lady dropping guts at the beginning of September? (8) |
| L[ad]y after the end of August, which is sort of the beginning of September. | ||
| 27 | See 21 Down | |
| Down | ||
| 1 | MIRO | Placed upside down in error, impressionist artist (4) |
| Hidden, rev in errOR IMpressionist – Joan Miro, Spanish artist. | ||
| 2 | DEPICTION | In a manner of speaking, ceilings in effect plastered – that’s rendering (9) |
| Initial letters of e[ffect] p[lastered] in diction. | ||
| 3 | XENIA ONATOPP | Kiss record about one in North America relating to a principal character (5,7) |
| X(=kiss) + EP around (I in N(orth) A(merica) + on a top). She’s a character in the film GoldenEye played by Famke Janssen. | ||
| 4 | DRIFT | Bank card finally split (5) |
| [Car]d + rift | ||
| 5 | MY PLEASURE | I’m delighted to help spread endless maple syrup over pancake, ultimately (2,8) |
| (Maple syru[p])* around [pancak]e | ||
| 6 | DRAX | Character, almost entirely dreary and cross (4) |
| Dra[b] + X – Hugo Drax is a villain in Moonraker. | ||
| 7 | LONG JOHNS | Garment needing taking up, ladies and gents? (4,5) |
| Long(=needing taking up) + johns(=toilets i.e. ladies and gents). | ||
| 10 | PLENTY OTOOLE | Character advanced, knick-knack brought up into English port (6,6) |
| Lent + toy< in Poole. One of the suggestively named female characters that are a speciality of the Bond fanchise – she’s from Diamonds Are Forever. | ||
| 13 | SCARAMANGA | A bishop perhaps punching Yorkshire Marxist, though less afflicted, a character (10) |
| A man (chess) in Scarg[ill] + a – villain played by Christoper Lee in The Man With The Golden Gun | ||
| 15 | SOLITAIRE | Character like that on burning river (9) |
| So + lit(=burning) + Aire, river that runs through Leeds. She’s from Live and Let Die, played by the Henry the Eighth’s wife, Jane Seymour. | ||
| 16 | HEBRIDEAN | Fish inside underwear possessed by female islander (9) |
| Ide in bra in hen | ||
| 21/27 | PUSSY GALORE | Character with a line in purulent blood? (5,6) |
| A l(ine) in pussy gore. Another of Fleming’s ludicrous names – she’s from Goldfinger (played by Honor Blackman). | ||
| 22 | SNAP | Sudden shot (4) |
| DD. First meaning is as in “snap decision”. I was slightly dubious about the second meaning, although I suppose snap and shot are both sharp noises. | ||
| 25 | BLOW | Disappointment felt after this, for character on the radio? (4) |
| Hom of Blofeld (blow felt), a regular villain played by various actors, mostly recently Christoph Waltz. | ||
*anagram
Didn’t enjoy this much. I like James Bond but, for me, too many of the clues made it impossible to guess the unknown characters from the wordplay.
For 22d, second meaning is as in a photograph.
For 5d , anagram is of maple syru(p), I.e. need to remove P. Thanks to Neal for the blog and a muted thanks to Punk.
I dont think I would have liked Bond films so much without the music.
I think Sean was glad to say goodbye to them too. I dont think Fleming was as good a writer as Jo Rowling but its that trick of creating an icon.
I’d never heard of JAWS as a Bond character so I was loath to put that in as I didnt have a clue what the theme was.
It was only FELIX LEITER that pointed the way for me and that was tricky LICK SLIGHTER rather than LICKS LIGHTER.
But great for Bond addicts.
I expect some enjoyed this but once we’d got the theme, it came down to scanning lists of Bond characters on the web, which was not very exciting. I also don’t like the use of phi’s name in a clue: this just gives the impression that the Indy crossword is only for those in a clique who happen to know the names of setters, and is closed to newbies.
Not being a Bond aficionado and in any case deploring the increasingly unpleasant violence in these films (which seemed to arc up around the time of Daniel Craig’s appearance); and not knowing to what the repetitive “character” alluded – doesn’t seem satisfactory that one should have to solve JAWS and then realise it was a Bond character (I assume) – and then guess that that must be the theme, I couldn’t be bothered with it.
gwep @ 4
I think you’ll find that the way violence was depicted in Bond movies changed when they realisedthat their increasingly trite offerings were up against the much grittier Bourne colection.
I didn’t think this was one of John Halpern’s beter offerings either, finding it pretty impenetrable (“character” isn’t much of a definition) until I realised what the theme must be. After that it was a list-checker, as the solutions were hardly constructable from the wordplay.
Me @ 5
Sorry for the typos, recent bluetooth keyboard is much less responsive than the old one.
Violence, gwep? Try reading the books!
Not sure how well known this is but Christopher Lee, who played Scaramanga, was Ian Fleming’s step cousin.
All done and parsed, but like others here I’m not these days a fan of James Bond films – posh sexist crap.
Almost impossible. I’ve seen one Bond film and that was back in 1971, I think. I’d heard of only a couple of the characters and ended up doing lots of word searches but that got boring and I gave up.
The consensus seems to be: not a good puzzle
I quite enjoyed the first three back in the 60s, but know nothing about those that came after, so I didn’t even get the theme, and gave up and don’t now regret doing so. I’d never have got answers like XENIA OPATOPP in a million years, without a rather boring look at the lists.
Definitely a no-no for us – too much specialist knowledge required, and even a website devoted to Bond characters didn’t list them all. And 10ac was naughty, too, in expecting solvers to know the pseudonyms of other setters (even if most of us do). Certainly not a case of 12ac!
A late offering, but just to say as someone with only a basic knowledge of the Bond films, I found this very, very hard. I almost gave up but pushed on and with lots of guessing and shoulder shrugging, I ended up with a few wrong in the end which I had no idea about.
Hope the Tuesday themed puzzle is a bit easier!
Thanks to Punk and NealH
@7Nicola Simpson – thanks for the tip. I had occasionally thought about reading the originals, Fleming being an interesting, if unattractive, character. The violence of the films (though I have seen none since the trash Quantum of Solace) has increased with the general levels of violence in film and the Bond character has long lost all its originality and wit and is now no more than an over hyped international multi-billion dollar franchise.
Perhaps you will say that the more violent the latter day Bonds are, the more they resemble the originals. So a good reason not to read the books.
Apologies to the moderator if this is off topic.