Skinny debuts in the daily Independent today. There have been Skinny puzzles in the Independent on Sunday before now but not in the daily version.
There’s a definite theme to this but I didn’t pick it up until I started to write the blog. There are quite a few instances of words from the title of Harry Potter books. We have POTTER, PRISONER [of Azkaban], The GOBLET of FIRE,The HALF-BLOOD PRINCE and The ORDER [of the Phoenix] We also have a reference to one of J K Rowling’s later books – Fantastic Beast and where to Find Them – of which a CENTAUR is an example. Unfortunately, the WARTHOG doesn’t make the cut in the book.
There were some very good surfaces amongst the clues. I particularly the clues for WARTHOG, PUB CRAWL, TROTTERS and CAULDRON.
A Happy New Year to all setters, bloggers and solvers.
| Across | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| No | Clue | Wordplay | Entry |
| 1 | Might he make a mug out of Ronnie O’Sullivan (6) |
POTTER (maker of articles of baked clay, such as mugs) POTTER |
POTTER (Ronnie O’Sullivan is a snooker player who pots balls; potter) double definition |
| 4 | Person I suspect has right to be inside (8) |
Anagram of (suspect) PERSON I + R (right) PRISONE* + R |
PRISONER (one who is held inside jail) |
| 10 | Criticism of minor routes over accidents essentially (9) |
B ROADS (secondary or minor routes over) + IDE (central letters [essentially] of ACCIDENT) B ROADS IDE |
BROADSIDE (critical verbal attack; criticism) |
| 11 | Hill – famous one on reflection for rambler (5) |
DAMON (reference DAMON Hill [born 1960], Formula 1 racing world champion 1996) reversed (on reflection) NOMAD< |
NOMAD (wanderer; rambler) |
| 12 | It turns but remains unchanged (5) |
ROTOR is a palindrome so when it is reversed (runs) it is unchanged >ROTOR< |
ROTOR (something that turns, for example a revolving cylinder for propulsion of a ship) |
| 13 | Bread not cut before supper, say (9) |
WHOLE (not cut) + MEAL (supper is an example of a meal) WHOLE MEAL |
WHOLEMEAL (type of bread) |
| 14 | Grotesque growth a feature of this beast (7) |
Anagram of (grotesque) GROWTH A WARTHOG* |
WARTHOG (any of a genus of wild HOGs found in Africa, with large WARTlike excrescences [growths] on their cheeks) |
| 16 | Light discharge (4) |
FIRE (sparkle of light) FIRE |
FIRE (instruction to discharge a weapon) double definition |
| 19 | League of Nations held back by protocol breach (4) |
BLOC (reversed [back] hidden word in [held .. by] PROTOCOL BREACH) BLOC< |
BLOC (a combination of parties, nations or other units to achieve a common purpose, unfortunately it didn’t work for the League of Nations) |
| 21 | Fantastic beast‘s beginning to confirm nature’s in trouble (7) |
C (first letter of [beginning to] CONFIRM) + an anagram of (in trouble) NATURE C ENTAUR* |
CENTAUR (mythical creature, half man and half horse; fantastic beast) |
| 24 | Pay for holiday, you say? That’ll slow you down (4,5) |
FOOT (pay for) + BRAKE (sounds like [you say] BREAK [holiday]) FOOT BRAKE |
FOOT BRAKE (pedal that is used to slow down a vehicle) |
| 25 | Eyes – not misty, peeled (5) |
OGLES |
OGLES (eyes impertinently) |
| 26 | Primitive home, one with good facilities (5) |
I (Roman numeral for one) + G (good) + LOO (toilet; facilities) I G LOO |
IGLOO (dome-shaped Inuit house made of blocks of hard snow; primitive home) |
| 27 | One makes mistakes more miserable when goofy nerd’s involved (8) |
An anagram of (goofy) NERD contained in (when … involved) BLUER (more miserable) BLU (NDER*) ER |
BLUNDERER (one who makes mistakes) |
| 28 | Animal killers held in esteem, a tad, or scorn (8) |
MATADORS (hidden word in [held in] ESTEEM A TAD OR SCORN) MATADORS |
MATADORS (men who kill the bulls in bullfights) |
| 29 | Claw right back almost to the beginning, revealing a pop star (6) |
PINCER (claw) with the R (right) moving back almost to the beginning to form PRINCE PRINCE |
PRINCE (PRINCE Rogers Nelson, pop star,[1958 – 2016]) |
| Down | |||
| 1 | Turn up combative to begin with during fight in boozy night out (3-5) |
UP reversed (turn) + (C [first letter of {to begin with} COMBATIVE] contained in [during] BRAWL [fight]) PU< B (C) RAWL |
PUB CRAWL (progression from pub to pub, stopping for one or more drinks in each; boozy night out) |
| 2 | Turkey, another creature with small feet (8) |
TR (International Vehicle Registration for Turkey) + OTTER (aquatic creature) + S (small) TR OTTER S |
TROTTERS (feet, especially of a sheep or a pig)) |
| 3 | Tree, more mature one (5) |
ELDER (type of tree) ELDER |
ELDER (more aged; more mature) double definition |
| 5 | Quickly declare that dance is cancelled (4,3) |
REEL (dance) + OFF (cancelled) REEL OFF |
REEL OFF (utter rapidly and fluently) |
| 6 | High court has dinner cooked (9) |
Anagram of (cooked) HAS DINNER SANHEDRIN* |
SANHEDRIN (a Jewish council or court, especially the supreme council and court at Jerusalem) |
| 7 | Cocaine is one, for example (6) |
NUMBER (cocaine can be used as a local anaesthetic to numb the senses) NUMBER |
NUMBER (one is a number) double definition |
| 8 | Hotplate’s no good? That’s a mystery (6) |
RIDDLE |
RIDDLE (puzzle; mystery) |
| 9 | VIP pantomime dame may have one (6) |
BIG WIG (a piece of costume that a pantomime dame might wear) BIG WIG |
BIGWIG (person of importance; VIP) |
| 15 | Black pudding is usually this hybrid (4-5) |
HALF BLOOD (black pudding is a food that is made with about 50% [half] blood) HALF BLOOD |
HALF BLOOD (relation between those who have only one parent in common; hybrid [organism that is the offspring of a union between different races, species, genera or varieties]) double definition |
| 17 | Freezing Scots man requiring kettle? (8) |
CAULD (Scots word for cold or freezing) + RON (man’s name) CAULD RON |
CAULDRON (large kettle for boiling or heating liquids) |
| 18 | Maintain quiet modesty’s awfully perverse (8) |
Two separate wordplays leading to the same answer 1. P (piano; quiet) + RESERVE (modesty) P RESERVE 2. anagram of (awfully) PERVERSE PRESERVE* |
PRESERVE (maintain) |
| 20 | Taps yellow light in meeting room (7) |
C and H (cold and hot; water taps) + AMBER (yellow light in a set of traffic lights) C H AMBER |
CHAMBER (Meeting room) |
| 21 | Angel fish enthrals cockney woman (6) |
CHUB (small fat European river fish) containing (entertains) ‘ER (cockney expression for woman) CH (ER) UB |
CHERUB (angelic being) |
| 22 | Stand by – a repeated phrase is coming up – musical tip (6) |
A + RIFF (musical phrase or figure played repeatedly) reversed (coming up; down clue) + M (first letter of [tip] MUSICAL) A FFIR< M |
AFFIRM (confirm or stand by) |
| 23 | Cup for a small mouth? (6) |
GOB (slang term for the mouth) + –LET (suffix used to form diminutives) GOB LET |
GOBLET (cup) |
| 25 | Organisation poured beer regularly (5) |
ORDER (letters 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 of POURED BEER) ORDER |
ORDER (organisation) |
The only way I could solve Sanhedrin was to search online for various combinations of ‘has ridden’, a bit unfair to have an anagram of a very rare word. Warthog is of course almost an inversion of Hogwarts. Thanks Skinny and Duncan and a magnificent new decade to one and all.
I thought I was being pretty clever putting in ‘Grande’ for the ‘pop star’ at 29a, even though it was a bit of a stretch to think of a webbed foot as a claw. Oh well. I had an idea about the theme but couldn’t identify most of the references.
The double wordplay for PRESERVE and the close to &lit WARTHOG were my picks.
Thanks and happy New Year to Duncan and Skinny
‘Has dinner’ even!
This all came together fairly easily, though we failed to make all the thematic connections despite HALF-BLOOD and CENTAUR registering as connected to POTTER – but then, we’re just muggles! We had no trouble getting SANHEDRIN, though.
We weren’t entirely happy with 10ac; ‘over’ as an indication that ‘ide’ follows ‘B Roads’ would be fine in a down clue but doesn’t work for an across clue.
Thanks, Skinny and Duncan, and a Happy New Year to all – setters, bloggers, commenters, lurkers and, last but by no means least, Gaufrid with thanks for keeping the show on the road.
Hello all, and thanks to Duncan for the blog. There’s a few other references sneaked in – WARTHOG was one, of course, and then there was (Tom) RIDDLE, the ELDER (wand), (cauld) RON, CHAMBER (of secrets), and the CENTAUR appeared in episodes 1 and (I think) 5. If I recall from the filling, there were 14 or 15 references shoe-horned in.
Despite thinking of Harry Potter when filling in 15dn, I totally failed to spot the theme.
6dn was a write-in for me. It seems like a word I’ve always known. Indeed, as I was filling it in I remembered a skit in an old film called Kentucky Fried Movie that I saw when it first came out. (1977, according to the IMDb.) It involved a painkiller called SANHEDRIN and I’m sure I already knew the word then.
Thanks to duncanshiell and Skinny
I thought of Harry Potter @ 1a and then forgot all about him until coming here. Ah well.
I think 10a must have been originally written as a down clue and somehow slipped through the net.
“Sanhedrin” I remember from the Gospels, I don’t think it’s particularly obscure.
1d is an excellent clue – a perfectly plausible short story.