Amazingly it’s almost two years since we last blogged a Radian puzzle, so we really looked forward to an interesting challenge today.
There certainly were some challenging clues, but also some straightforward ones to get us started.
As it is a Radian puzzle (and it’s Tuesday) we started looking for a theme as we worked our way through the puzzle.
At first we thought that the theme was ‘spies and spying’ in general, but looking at the completed grid in more detail, we realised that, as well as several entries connected with spying – 5a, 8d, 10a/2d, 9d, 14a and 28a, several other entries feature in the titles of John le Carré’s espionage novels – ‘Tinker, TAILOR, Soldier, SPY’, ‘Smiley’s PEOPLE’, ‘The Secret PILGRIM’, ‘The RUSSIA House’, ‘The SPY Who Came In From The COLD’, ‘The Looking Glass WAR’, ‘The Little DRUMMER GIRL’, ‘A Perfect SPY’, ‘The TAILOR of Panama’, and ‘Our Kind of TRAITOR’.
As we have come to expect from Radian, this was an amazing grid-fill and a puzzle that was fun to solve.
SPACE (room) CI (101 in Roman numerals) all reversed or ‘about’
An anagram of HOPElesSLY without or ‘abandoning’ les – anagrind is ‘bad’
Hidden (a ‘group from’) and reversed (‘returning’) in PakistaN OR India
LA (city) DOWNERS (drugs) round or ‘impressing’ N (northern)
TAIL (shadow) O (old) R (Republican)
An anagram of CELTIC (anagrind is ‘played’) in or ‘boring’ E (European) C (clubs)
IN (modern) FaRMERS (husbandmen) with the ‘a’ (area) replaced by O (old)
RANG (called) E (English)
L (left) OVER (deliveries at Old Trafford, in a cricket match)
A GI (soldier) sTATION (Waterloo, say – railway station) without the first letter or ‘heading off’
START (beginning) round or ‘inspiring’ D (Democrat) US (American)
Hidden (‘a cluster of’) and reversed (‘in retreat’) in FrencH SUBMArines
An anagram of HELP SOLENT – anagrind is ‘sorted out’
L (large) RIG (outfit) reversed or ‘heading west’
COLD (bitter) and RAW (bitter) reversed or ‘sent back’
RUMMER (funnier) after D (last letter or ‘tip’ of OED) – a reference to Phil Collins, drummer with Genesis
RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary – former police) reversed or ‘upset’ + TA (Territorial Army – reserves) + IN
CAN (tin) AL (aluminium)
LIP (border) reversed or ‘erect’ + GRIM (forbidding)
PELE (former footballer) round or ‘invaded by’ OP (surgery)
HAND (give) + RAF (service) in CT (court)
LING (fish) round or ‘crossing’ R (river) in UK
An anagram of IRON INTO GREAT – anagrind is ‘cast’
OVER (remaining) RU (Rugby Union – game) LED (went in front)
Players of the board game Monopoly start at the square marked ‘go’, or ON THE GO
TRAIT (characteristic feature) OR
OB (old boy) SERVE (start game in court – tennis, squash, badminton, etc)
pRUSSIA (old kingdom) without the first letter or ‘leader’
BUM (wrong) round or ‘clothing’ EG (say)
Thanks B&J for explaining Cold War, I couldn’t see that at all, so a DNF for me. Also the theme was lost on me, not being a Le Carré fan. Despite this, I enjoyed the puzzle, so thanks too to Radian.
Thanks for identifying all the Le Carré references, only some of which I could spot. All that Cold War espionage seems like part of history now, but who knows…
Took a bit of effort to work this out. I liked HELLESPONT and the ‘people with their properties’ was a real brain teaser at the end.
Thanks to Radian and B&J
Thanks B&J I went from this to Brummie without checking for theme so its nice to relax later with these themers.I am a fan opf JLC but alas no expert-thanks again and thanks Duggie.
We finished this without much trouble and, being Tuesday and Radian, looked for a theme but failed to spot the Le Carré references. All we could see were a couple of words that might be half (only) of names in music – IRON (Maiden) and (Ziggy) STARDUST but realised that Radian would never short-change us in that way. But as always not seeing the theme was no bar to completing the puzzle.
We liked INFORMERS and HELLESPONT; favourite was AGITATION for the misdirection.
Thanks, Radian and B&J
I got ICECAPS by mistakenly thinking the end was CA (about) PS (coverage of poles), it wasn’t until I’d put that in that I saw it and realised I’d somehow still managed to get the end right.
Didn’t see all of the theme but some great clues.
Thanks Radian and B&J