Independent 10,467 by Wiglaf

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Gosh that was hard. Usually with a clue, you know more or less where you stand: you just have to make an anagram of certain obvious letters, or jiggle about with the letters in some clearly indicated way, but I can’t remember being at sea with so many of the clues. It just wasn’t obvious how they worked.

But they did all seem to work properly and although this was tough it was fair. I anticipate some people waxing lyrical about it.

Definitions in teal, underlined. Anagram indicators in italics.

Having got this far and completed it, I breathed a heavy sigh of relief and the thought of spending any more time on it was too much. But would I have unearthed anything?

ACROSS
7 TOIL Star in Cannes barely gets work (4)
{é}toil{e} — ‘in Cannes’ indicate the French connection
8 CLEMENTINE Fruity type of girl in size nines, going by air (10)
CD, referring to the fact that she wore size nine shoes; ‘going by air’ alludes to the song
10 VENEER Verne novel featuring Nemo’s second appearance (6)
{N}e{mo} in (Verne)* — a relief that my knowledge of Verne novels wasn’t tested, since I can only tell you one
11 IN HEAVEN Cat sits in pub, totally blissful (2,6)
in(heave)n — heave = cat as in being sick
12 ISOTHERM Contour shows mother is out of shape (8)
(mother is)* — is an isotherm a contour? I suppose just about, although I’d have thought of a contour as a shape, and a line joining points of equal temperature is only arguably that — but Collins does call it a defining line, so OK then
14 LAID UP Bet on a horse that’s out of commission (4,2)
laid [bet, past tense] up
15 CRUISERWEIGHT He fights with oarsmen on boat (13)
cruiser w eight — a weight in boxing
18 EREBUS Volcano here, blowing the front off public vehicle (6)
{h}ere bus — a volcano in Antarctica
20 CEPHEIDS Some stars from Die Hard engaged in speculation, after retiring (8)
After much cheating and searching I discovered these, of which I’d never heard (the word isn’t in Chambers although it is in Collins). It’s (s(die h)pec.)rev. — spec. = speculation is there, so fair enough, but for a word like this I’d have preferred something a bit more familiar in the clueing
22 POLONIUM Po, the central character in Teletubbies, participated in games (8)
(telet}u{bbies} in (polo nim) — Polonium is an element whose symbol is Po
23 OBELUS Dagger from old non-Arab country (6)
o Bel(Ar)us — an obelus looks like this — † — and (in its everyday use anyway) is used in the same way as an asterisk or a superscripted number.
25 HARD CHEESE Bad luck in Derby? (4,6)
2 defs — Derby is a hard type of cheese
26 TOES You can count on these at hotels regularly (4)
{a}t {h}o{t}e{l}s
DOWN
1 NOSE Informer has information to report (4)
“knows”
2 CLIENT Customer‘s right defended by court (6)
c(lien)t — lien = right is legal
3 SCARPERS Old Bob with nurses clothing quietly disappears (8)
s [old bob = old shilling] car(p)ers — one of these days we won’t say nurses’ and just say nurses, but not yet, so it was clear what was happening
4 LETHAL All the liquid is deadly (6)
(All the)*
5 STEAMING Rat-arsed group breaks into chorus (8)
s(team)ing — one of the million and one words for drunk, which I didn’t know
6 UNREQUITED A Parisian on leave with journalist has not returned (10)
un [‘a’ for Parisians] re quit ed. — I was thinking it was ‘undeparted’: if you haven’t departed you haven’t even been given the chance to return, but not very good and it was nice to see that the clue is much sharper (although now I look at it I’m not sure about the ‘has’)
9 ERIC MORECAMBE Comedian appearing in English town near Clapton (4,9)
I think this is a reference to Eric Clapton, and Morecambe is the English town
13 SACERDOTAL Police scared a lot of priests (10)
*(scared a lot)
16 UNBLOODY A lot of you’ll bond after revolution – if it’s like this? (8)
(you’l{l} bond)*
17 EXPLORER One discovers knowledge preserved by old priest (8)
ex-p(lore)r
19 SLIGHT Small sun lamp (6)
s light
21 EVENTS Almost 70 fixed points in the spacetime continuum (6)
(sevent{y})*
24 USER Druggie shooting up in Baltimore subway (4)
Hidden reversed in BaltimoRE SUbway

 

16 comments on “Independent 10,467 by Wiglaf”

  1. Phew! Didn’t think I would finish even with using aids but got there in the end. Too hard for me without use of word fits but all seems fair to me. Wasn’t sure about the parsing for CLEMENTINE. I remember watching Huckleberry Hound cartoons as a kid where he would sing about his darling clementine and didn’t bother checking lyrics (if this was even the song referred to).
    I remember some time ago Eileen mentioning “cat” can mean “vomit”, so that helped with 11a.

    Thanks to Wiglaf and John.

  2. For some reason I didn’t find this too hard, though I ended up/started out failing on the (in retrospect of course) not so difficult NOSE at 1d, for which I put in ‘dope’.  I couldn’t parse ERIC MORECAMBE (again obvious once it’s pointed out), CEPHEIDS was entered courtesy of wordplay and crossers and I had to dredge up a few others like ‘cat’ for HEAVE. ‘Police’ was an original anagram indicator for 13d.

    I like those chemical symbol as definition clues, so I’ll go for POLONIUM as my pick.

    Thanks to Wiglaf and John

  5. Too many stretches for me-I’m arthritic and dont do yoga (I stole Brig’s line there-just for a change)

  6. @ 1Hovis, I looked up the full lyrics of “Clementine” but can’t see anything about her wearing size nines, though she is otherwise relentlessly mocked for being very hefty and many verses appear, of which I was entirely unaware when singing it as a child on bus trips etc.

    @2Wordplodder, I also entered an unconvincing DOPE at 1D.  -O-E is pretty irritating, so I didn’t feel like giving it much time.

    18D “here” is not part of the definition.

    I worked out the only logical word from the fodder at 20A was CEPHEIDS and sceptically put in a word check and lo and behold …

    Had to be IN HEAVEN, but had no idea of this alleged use of cat for heave, Kitty notwithstanding.

    Overall a very diverting puzzle so thanks muchly to Wiglaf for the puzzle and John for the blog.

  7. Had to check that cat is indeed slang for vomit and also the spelling for cepheid. Still bemused by “police” as anagram indicator. Otherwise enjoyed the solve.
    Thanks to Wiglaf and John

  8. Kryptickate @ 7

    If you think of ‘police’ as a verb meaning ‘restore order’ I think it works.

  10. We didn’t find this too hard, either.  CEPHEIDS was new to us, but we found ‘cepheid’ in Chambers, as a sub-heading under ‘Cepheus’.

    Clementine’s footwear is mentioned in the song:

    Light she was and like a feather,
    and her shoes were number nine
    herring boxes without topses
    sandals were for Clementine.

    You can find one version of the words here

    We got TOIL straightaway as the Indy reprint in yesterday’s i had a clue where one had to inset TOIL between two E’s to get Étoile.

    We liked OBELUS and SCARPERS but our favourite was POLONIUM.

    Thanks, Wiglaf and John

  11. Toughest of the day for me. Needed help with a few, 20a, 13d, etc. but failed only on 1d where I could only think of MOLE.

  12. Thanks John. No one else has really done it yet, so I’ll wax lyrical about this one. I thought it was terrific. As you say, it looked impenetrable at first but gave way without too much stress.
    An isotherm is a type of contour line, and Collins gives contour line as one of the definitions of contour, so no problem there.

  13. Not as hard as some of late, I thought, but I did need the check button at the end.  (I’d guessed FEATHERWEIGHT for 15ac, thinking of oarsmen feathering their oars.)

    As an astronomy nerd from way back, CEPHEIDS was more or less my first in.  I read the clue, thought of “spec” backwards and the answer immediately stared back at me.

    I know CLEMENTINE from the Tom Lehrer version sung in mock Italian in the style of Mozart, and numero nine features in the words.

  15. Thanks, Wiglaf. Relatively new setter to me, enjoyable but highly challenging. SCARPERS and CLEMENTINE defeated me, but I’m happy to have gotten the rest.

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