Independent 10258 / Dalibor

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Dalibor is an irregular contributor to weekday Independent puzzles but his puzzles are always challenging when they appear.

 

 

 

There was a clear theme to today’s puzzle with allusions to a topic that already dominates the headlines and will no doubt continue to do so for a while.

I though there were some very good clues and some excellent misdirection.  The clue for HONDURAS at 4 down was a splendid example.  The words ‘houses’, ‘moving’ and ‘around’ can all refer to some form of wordplay.  E.g. ‘houses’ often indicates a hidden word, ‘moving’ can indicate a change of position for a letter and ‘around’ can be an instruction to put one constituent part outside another.  In this clue, all words played a different role.

When DONALD crops up as he does at 10 across, I usually think cross references to the name will imply DUCK or TRUMP.  In this case it was the words of DONALD TUSK that we had to consider.  The cross reference clue (13a) led to a word that doesn’t yet seem to be in any dictionary that I refer to but I had come across it in the press earlier in the year.

The name of Bishop LATIMER was dredged up from the recesses of my memory but only once I had all the possible crossing letters to form REMITTAL at 20 across.

The Brexiteers FOX and GOVE came to mind fairly quickly (to fit they had to be short names) and together with the American president at 16 down, they gave me a foothold in the SW corner of the grid

I also enjoyed the clue for TURGENEV and fell victim to the ‘press release’ misdirection for a while.

XENOPHON was not a name I knew but the crossing letters helped track him down.

After yesterday’s SHADOW CABINET it was a small coincidence to have FILING CABINET today.  Are there any more CABINETs stacked up in forthcoming puzzles I wonder?

In recent months I have been struck by the number of clues in the puzzles I blog where the definition is at the beginning of the clue.  Dalibor has written clues where a sizeable majority of definitions are at the end.  Every setter has their own style which keeps solvers on their toes.  Dalibor also seems to eschew excluding letters from words in the clues with only a few occurrences of that technique.

Overall a very enjoyable crossword and I look forward to more puzzles from Dalibor.

Across
No Clue Wordplay Entry
7 / 17 Ministers messing it all up, not a useful thing in office (6,7)

(FAILING [messing it all up] + CABINET [group of senior ministers who together formulate policy in the government of a country])  excluding (not) an A [obviously the first one to give the required solution]

FILING CABINET

 FILING [CABINET] (a useful piece of office equipment, even though we are now urged to store everything digitally)
8 Even that is a drink! (8)

SMOOTH (even) + I.E. (id est; that is)

SMOOTH IE

SMOOTHIE (thick drink of smooth consistency made with pureed fruit, milk, yoghurt or ice cream)
9 Press release about to cover that Russian novelist (8)

VENT (release) reversed (about) containing (to cover that) URGE (press)

T (URGE) NEV<

 TURGENEV (reference Ivan TURGENEV [1818 – 1883], Russian novelist)
10 Scottish king to rip off foreign land (6)

DO (cheat; rip of) + an anagram of (foreign) LAND

DO NALD*

 DONALD (reference  any one of King DONALD [812 – 862], King DONALD II [died 900] or King DONALD III  [1032 -1099], variously Kings of Picts, Alba and Scotland)
11 Intimidate everyone including servicemen in area around Truro (8)

(COW [intimidate] + ALL [everyone]) containing (including) RN (Royal Navy ; servicemen)

CO (RN) W ALL

 CORNWALL (area around Truro in the South West of England)
12 Knocking back a pint’s fine for one from South Africa (6)

BEER (drink frequently served as a pint) reversed (knocking back) + OK (all right; fine)

REEB< OK

 REEBOK (South African antelope)
13 Stress after contract reveals offer from 10? (11)

FLEX (contract a muscle) + TENSION (stress)

FLEX TENSION

 FLEXTENSION ( a word coined by DONALD [entry at 10 across] Tusk [President of the European Council] in May 2019 when offering the United Kingdom a period of time [and a few conditions] to consider it’s position in relation to withdrawal from the European Union)
18 Forbid to steal weapon for one serving? (6)

BAN (forbid) containing (to steal) ARM (weapon)

B (ARM) AN

 BARMAN (one serving drinks)
20 Bishop burnt at stake?  In hindsight about time to show forgiveness (8)

LATIMER (reference Bishop Hugh LATIMER [1487 – 1555], one of the three Oxford Martyrs.  LATIMER was burned at the stake in October 1555 along with Nicholas Ridley.  The third martyr, Thomas Cranmer was burned in March 1556) reversed (in hindsight) and containing (about) T (time)

REMIT (T) AL<  Either T could be the one contained

 REMITTAL (remission; pardon; forgiveness)
22 Konta regularly represses instincts leading to power grab (6)

(KNA [letters 1, 3 and 5 [regularly] containing (represses) ID [one of the three parts of the personality, being the unconscious mass of primitive energies from which come instincts for the gratification of basic desires for food, sex, etc, and for the avoidance of pain, modified by the ego and the superego]) + P (first letter of [leading to] POWER)

K (ID) NA P

 KIDNAP (steal, often for ransom; grab)
23 Obsessive jerk going after new money from abroad (8)

N (new) + EURO (currency used in many countries of the European Union) + TIC (convulsive twitch; jerk)

N EURO TIC

 NEUROTIC (obsessive)
24 Liberal mangled by two Brexiteers – one’s a source of drugs (8)

L (Liberal) contained in (mangled by) (FOX [reference Dr Liam FOX {born 1961} Conservative politician,currently sitting on the backbenches.  Staunch Brexit supporter] + GOVE [reference Michael GOVE [born 1967] Conservative politician and currently a member of the Cabinet as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.  Also a staunch Brexit supporter)

FOX G (L) OVE

FOXGLOVE ( tall plant  with spikes of drooping [typically purple] bell-shaped flowers and leaves from which the drug digitalis was produced)
25 English composer’s daughter taken home (6)

E (English) + ARNE (reference Thomas ARNE [1710 – 1778], English composer) + D (daughter)

E ARNE D

 EARNED (money gained through labour and taken home)
Down
1 Discover by chance how Putin will suffer if wife leaves (3,4)

Anagram of (will suffer) HOW PUTIN excluding (leaves) W (wife)

HIT UPON*

 HIT UPON (discover by chance)
2 Pure alcohol’s part of how things can go on the Internet (8)

GIN (alcoholic drink) contained in (part of) VIRAL (rapidly circulated to a large audience on the Internet, e.g. by people frequently sharing it on social media sites

VIR (GIN) AL

 VIRGINAL (pure)
3 Time and running order of business (6)

AGE (time) + an anagram of (running) AND

AGE NDA*

 AGENDA (order of business)
4 Country houses vacated, inhabitants now moving around (8)

An anagram of  (now moving) AROUND contained in (inhabitants) HS (letters remaining in HOUSES when the central letters are removed [vacated])

H (ONDURA*) S

 HONDURAS (country in Central America)
5 Octane’s volatile in the blink of an eye (2,4)

Anagram of (volatile) OCTANE

AT ONCE*

 AT ONCE (immediately; in the blink of an eye)
6 Defeat Johnson?  Why?  They say he’s a party pooper (7)

KILL (defeat) + JO  (reference JO Johnson, Conservative politician {brother of Boris} and currently Minister of State for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation) + Y (sounds like [they say])

KILL JO Y

 KILLJOY (spoilsport; party pooper)
8 Overseeing all bananas and other fruit (7,6)

Anagram of (bananas) OVERSEEING ALL

SEVILLE ORANGE*

 SEVILLE ORANGE (another fruit, rather than bananas)
14 Ancient Greek pub will open by, ultimately, June 12 (8)

PH (public house; pub) contained in (will open) (X [multiplication sign; times; by] + E final letter of {ultimately} JUNE + NOON [12 {o’clock}])

X E NO (PH) ON

XENOPHON (XENOPHON of Athens was an ancient Greek philosopher, historian, soldier, mercenary, and student of Socrates)
15 In the open air better?  Endlessly worse! (8)

OUTDO (better) + ORS (letters remaining in WORSE when the outer letters (W and E) are removed [endless])

OUTDO ORS

 OUTDOORS (in the open air)
16 Mega-publicity is working for US president (7)

M (mega) + AD (advertisement; publicity) + IS + ON (working)

M AD IS ON

 MADISON (reference James MADISON [1751 – 1836], fourth President of the United States)
17 See 7 Across   [FILING] CABINET
19 Men of a certain age essentially ruled out living together (6)

MEN OF A CERTAIN AGE excluding the central letters OF A CERTAIN AGE

MEN AGE

 MÉNAGE (household; people living together)
21 EU’s divided, up in arms about damaging piece (6)

E and U reversed (up) contained separately (divided in) an anagram of (about) ARMS

MA (U) S (E) R*

MAUSER (any of a series of German rifles, especially a magazine rifle of 1897; damaging piece [gun / rifle])

8 comments on “Independent 10258 / Dalibor”

  1. Hard going, as usual with Dalibor, with TURGENEV unparsed and the portmanteau word at 13a being a new one to me. I was disappointed to hear that it wasn’t coined by The Donald – sounds as though it should have been. I was trying to fit in ‘Cranmer’ for 20a before I too dredged up LATIMER from somewhere. XENOPHON had some very tricky parsing but came up in a Monk puzzle last month which helped. I agree about HONDURAS which was full of misdirection and was my last in.

    Difficult, but some very good clues and repaid the effort.

    Thanks to Dalibor and Duncan

  2. Sad that there are so few comments on this blog of an excellent puzzle.

    I think I have only solved one other Dalibor puzzle. I loved this one.

    Honduras, Turgenev and Xenophon are absolutely outstanding clues and the rest of the puzzle not far behind.

    I failed to get remittal and therefore mauser which were both my fault not the setter’s.

    Thanks all.

  3. An excellent puzzle.  When I was a Cambridge Classics student, Xenophon was one of my heroes, and with Thucydides one of the founders of serious European history, as opposed to myth or gossip.  For some of what he wrote about (Anabasis,”the march up country”, he was there himself.

  5. Thanks to Duncan and Dalibor

    An exceptional puzzle – lots of variety and clever devices. Honduras is a classic and Turgenev not far behind.

    I, and I’m sure others, appreciate the effort that goes in to honing clues to this standard – it can’t be for the paltry fee, but rather reflects a love for the art.

    I differ from the blog only in which Johnson is referenced in 6d, but only one man knows!

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