We had the pleasure of solving Tees’ two hundredth Indy puzzle in a Monday slot before New Year, but today we have only the third of Atrica’s offerings, so a setter at the start of a career, I presume. I enjoyed solving this one – some words at the outer edges of my passive vocabulary, but all clearly clued; and some inventive constructions as well. I could handle some more like this.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
cad clue as definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed
definitions are underlined
Across
6 Orient, possibly, at the outset after clarifying advice
POINTER
(ORIENT P)* with ‘after clarifying’ as the anagrind.
7 Greet us clumsily and wave
GESTURE
(GREET US)* with ‘clumsily’ as the anagrind.
9 Jack’s predecessor receiving endorsement of minimal value
TOKEN
The playing card ‘Jack’ would be preceded by TEN, so it’s an insertion of OK in that.
10 Served, did she?
DISHED OUT
A rat (reverse anagram thingy). If you think of OUT as an anagrind, then (DISHED)* would give you DID SHE.
11 Creative hairstyling, you might say, in stock pictures
CLIP ART
A cd: a hairstylist might get creative with the clippers.
13 Characteristic image of returning setter (me) pocketing pound
EMBLEM
LB inserted into two separate lots of ME, all reversed.
15 Basic desire for one belief
IDEA
A charade of the Freudian ID and EA for each or ‘for one’.
17 Sounding slightly twisted in spirit
RYE
A homophone of WRY
Them good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye
Singing this’ll be the day that I die …
18 Pacifist in America jumped off cliff
DOVE
A dd, referencing the fact that in American English, the past tense of DIVE is DOVE rather than DIVED (following the pattern in both Englishes of STRIVE/STROVE and DRIVE/DROVE). It’s not pronounced the same, but that matters not. Bird link? Can’t.
21 Inclined to be half asleep, Pontiff stripped of original power
ASLOPE
A charade of ASL[EEP] and [P]OPE.
22 Is love gay, embracing male in a form of sexual union?
ISOGAMY
A charade of IS, O for ‘love’ and M inserted into GAY. A type of sexual union, mainly in simple micro-organisms. Not for human use. But there are options for you: monogamy, bigamy, polygamy, endogamy and exogamy should keep you going for a bit.
25 Curate and his unconventional liturgy
EUCHARIST
(CURATE HIS)*
26 Reached peak, got rid of unnecessary baggage, beginning ascent
CLIMB
A charade of CLIM[AXED] and B for the first letter of ‘baggage’. AXED is clued by ‘got rid of’ and ‘unnecessary’ is the removal indicator.
28 Fast-talking Nationalist’s plan
PATTERN
A charade of PATTER and N.
29 Average for a golfer? That’s fine, according to Spooner, but practise driving with colleagues
CARPOOL
A Spoonerism of PAR COOL. You’d have to consider CARPOOL a verb, which is just about possible, I guess. Competitors can medal at the the Olympics these days.
Down
1 Send friendly message with well-penned substance, perhaps
WINK
A charade of W for ‘with’ and INK.
2 Something Kipling wrote to some extent describes Tanzania
STANZA
Hidden in describeS TANZAnia.
3 Pervert portrayed as exploitative
PREDATORY
(PORTRAYED)* with ‘pervert’ as the anagrind.
4 Respected guide meets excursion group going back inside
ESTEEMED
Hidden reversed in guiDE MEETS Excursion.
5 Obsolete cars take the road in Italy to reach former republic
YUGOSLAVIA
A charade of YUGOS, LA and VIA. The last two elements are the Italian words for ‘the’ and ‘road’. The cars were in fact made in Yugoslavia and were renowned for their shoddy engineering and unreliability. This led to a number of one-liners (which have been applied to other makes since):
Q: Why do Yugos have heated rear windscreens?
A: To keep your hands warm when you’re pushing it.
Q: How do you double the value of a Yugo?
A: Fill it with petrol.
Q: What’s the difference between a Yugo and a golf ball?
A: You can drive a golf ball 200 yards.
6 Church submits before uprising
PUTSCH
A charade of PUTS and CH.
7 Burden of testing periodically brought up
GIST
The odd letters of TeStInG reversed.
8 Place in vault with space to add doctor
ENTOMB
A charade of EN for the printers’ ‘space’, TO and MB.
12 Where you might find sandwiches etc a disaster, lacking in taste
INDELICATE
A charade of IN DELI (where you might indeed find sandwiches) and (ETC A)*
14 Absurd poeticisms initially rejected in study of communication
SEMIOTICS
([P]OETICISMS)* with ‘absurd’ as the anagrind.
16 Elements of type found within spermatozoa
ALPHABET
If you look closely inside ‘spermatozoa’, you’ll find A TO Z. Which is where you’ll find the ALPHABET starts and finishes.
19 Invent what uranium and phosphorus do in combination
MAKE UP
The chemical symbols for the two elements are U and P, so ‘in combination’ they MAKE UP.
20 Mark hurls after eating my turnover
SYMBOL
MY inserted into LOBS, all reversed.
23 Slow vehicle from old times superior to, say, Tesla model
OXCART
A charade of O, X for the mathematical ‘times’, CAR (of which ‘Tesla’ is an example) and T for the model [Ford]. ‘Superior to’ tells you the position of the elements because it’s a down clue.
24 Asking in every other place for hint
SIGN
The even letters of aSkInG iN.
27 Half-eaten taco filling in recycle bin?
ICON
An insertion of [TA]CO in IN. The computer ICON you’ll find on pretty much every desktop.
Many thanks and bravo (or brava) to Atrica for the start to the Indy week.
Excellent puzzle and the usual, very entertaining Pierre blog.
Thought I didn’t know “gist” could mean “burden”. Turned out I didn’t know “burden” could mean “gist”.
Did a word fit on ALPHABET, followed by a head slap. Nice one.
Didn’t know “Yugos” but enjoyed the jokes. Thanks to all.
This was technically sound but I’m afraid it didn’t float my boat and a couple of the clues jarred badly with me: 29a & 5d.
CLIFF is padding in 18a and I don’t think LOB and HURL are synonymous (even though no doubt Thesauri will say otherwise).
Thanks Atrica and sorry to be so negative as I have previously really enjoyed your NTSPPs puzzle on Big Dave’s site. Thanks too to Pierre.
What jarred with 5d, Rabbit Dave? I thought it was a good clue.
Pierre @3. The name of the car (which incidentally is neither in Chambers nor Collins) is, as you have stated in your review, derived directly from the name of the former country so that part of the clue is not at all cryptic.
This was a struggle for me, and I had to use electronic means to find two anagrams. I agree with Rabbit Dave that ‘cliff’ is unnecessary in 18A. But otherwise very good so thanks anyway to Atrica and Pierre.
Thanks for the comments, all! I should have got a bird in there instead of the cliff. Incidentally, there’s a theme, setter points out timidly.
Thanks Atrica. I wouldn’t have spotted the theme without your 6a. Well done!
Thanks to Atrica and Pierre.
The Yugo jokes were also commonly applied to the Russian Lada cars which were often dubbed the worst cars in the world e.g.
What’s the difference between a Jehovah’s Witness and a Lada? You can shut the door on a Jehovah’s Witness.
or
How do you avoid speeding tickets? Buy a Lada.
I was looking forward to this one but – as RD found – it really didn’t seem up to the standard of those produced in the past by this setter for the Big Dave site.
Apologies to Atrica who I know can do better than this and thanks to Pierre for the review.
Having never come across this setter before (I should start solving NTSPPs) I could excuse myself for not being on the right wavelength.
I thought it a good puzzle but failed on 16d which was actually very clever and as a result on15a which I did not like as “for one” does not mean “each” to me.
The puzzle would not be out of place in the latter parts of a week.
Thanks all
Mixed feelings about this one. There was plenty to like, e.g. EUCHARIST, ALPHABET, but a handful of clues that didn’t quite work, such as YUGOSLAVIA and CARPOOL (which is surely a noun – or two nouns to be enumerated 3,4).
The Yugo/Lada jokes surely originated as Skoda jokes: What do you call a Skoda with a sunroof? – A skip!
We think we’ve spotted the theme.
Thanks, Atrica and Pierre.
I haven’t spotted the theme, so if someone could spell it out in words of one syllable, please …
I think there are 14 or so entries on the theme of 14d.
Merci, Cornick. Would never have seen that in a month of Sundays.