Basilisk offered today’s lockdown challenge. I didn’t realise this was a repeat puzzle (Hovis has pointed out that it is a repeat from a few days ago!). Still that allowed me to go back and see what was written then.
At first, I enjoyed this puzzle, but in the end, I felt frustrated as this was definitely a crossword in need of an editor. The most glaring problem was with the clue numbering, with 15,16 across indicated as 16, and 19,20 across indicated as 20. This should have been obvious even to an editor who doesn’t attempt to solve the clues. As this is just a repeat, this could have been sorted out.
The “theme” passed me by at first, but all of the across answers form phrases (PRINCE CHARMING, TARGET PRACTICE, HIGHLAND CATTLE etc)
I originally had an error in my parsing of 2dn, and I was disappointed with 8dn.
A shame because with a little checking and editing, this could have been a great puzzle, as some of the clues were very good (I especially liked those for PRACTICE, REPUBLIC, CREOLE, INSULAR, CULTURAL, COFFINS and NECKTIE.
Thanks, Basilisk
| Across | ||
| 1 | PRINCE | Work out cost of keeping new member of royal family (6) |
| PRICE (“work out cost of”) keeping N (new) | ||
| 4 | CHARMING | Attack government protecting member with appeal (8) |
| CHIN (“attack”) + G (government) protecting ARM (“member”) | ||
| 9 | TARGET | Misrepresent Greta Thunberg’s principal goal (6) |
| *(greta) [anag:misrepresent] + T(hunberg) [‘s principal] | ||
| 10 | PRACTICE | Moan about having time to kill in rehearsal (8) |
| <=CARP (“moan”, about) having T (time) + ICE (“to kill”) | ||
| 12 | HIGHLAND | Auditor’s welcome to settle up here (8) |
| Homophone of [auditor’s] HI (“welcome”) + LAND (“to settle”) | ||
| 13 | CATTLE | Cows Conservative post-war prime minister lacking in character (6) |
| C (conservative) + (Clement) ATTLE(e) (“post-war prime minister”, lacking a character) | ||
| 15,16 | FULFILMENT | Novelist let fun film spread feeling of personal achievement (4-10) |
| (Will) SELF (“novelist”) + *(let fun film) [anag:spread] | ||
| 19,20 | IRON | Cast urged actor to decrease uneven material (10,4) |
| *(urged actor) [anag:cast] + IRON (“to decrease” i.e. to take away the creases) | ||
| 23 | FOURTH | Position evident in half our theories (6) |
| Hidden [evident] in “halF OUR THeories” | ||
| 25 | REPUBLIC | Country remains divided by Unionist halving lead (8) |
| RELIC (“remains”) divided by U halving Pb (chemical symbol for “lead”), so RE(P(U)B)LIC | ||
| 27 | INDIRECT | About to charge to go round roundabout (8) |
| RE (“about”) with INDICT (“charge”) going round | ||
| 28 | OBJECT | Nine express disapproval (6) |
| Double definition, with the “nine” referring to the solution to 9ac, which was “target” | ||
| 29 | SMELLING | Humming line following first half of melody in chorus (8) |
| L (line) following [first half of] MEL(ody) in SING (“chorus”) | ||
| 30 | BOTTLE | Fail, after losing one’s nerve, to preserve courage (6) |
| Triple definition | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | PITCHES | Launches attempts to sell degrees (7) |
| Triple definition | ||
| 2 | IRREGULAR | Suspect guerrilla’s left to become resistance fighter (9) |
| *(guerrila r) [anag:suspect] which is guerilla with one of the Ls (for left) gone, however, I can’t see anything telling us to remove the L?
Edit: Going back to the previous blog, I see that the solution is simply “fighter”, with the “left to become resistance” part indicating that we need to replace an L with an R |
||
| 3 | CREOLE | Language from mid-Carolina adopted by indigenous Americans (6) |
| [mid] (car)OL(ina) adopted by CREE (“indigenous Americans”) | ||
| 5 | HERD | Broadcast tried to organise mass movement (4) |
| Homophone [broadcast] of HEARD (“tried”) | ||
| 6 | RACIALLY | Agents infiltrating demonstration on an ethnic basis (8) |
| CIA (Criminal Intelligence Agency, so “agents”) infiltrating RALLY (“demonstration”) | ||
| 7 | IDIOT | Stupid aspect of personality a little bit curtailed (5) |
| ID (“aspect of personality”) + IOT(a) (“a little bit”, curtailed) | ||
| 8 | GREYEST | Great having positive response for article that’s extremely dull (7) |
| GRE(a>YES)T having YES (“positive response”) for (instead of) A (“article”) | ||
| 11 | INSULAR | Closed urinals in need of refurbishment (7) |
| *(urinals) [anag:in need of refurbishment] | ||
| 14 | OFFERED | Did volunteer take case of sweet wine? (7) |
| [case of] (t)OFFE(e) (“sweet”) [taken] + RED (“wine”) | ||
| 17 | ENROLMENT | Enlisting men wanting leadership, mounted men and men flanked by officer (9) |
| (m)EN [wanting leadership] + [mounted] <=OR (other ranks, so “men”) + MEN flanked by Lt. (lieutenant, so “officer”) | ||
| 18 | CULTURAL | Extremely popular artworks stripped of aesthetic value (8) |
| CULT (“extremely popular”) + (m)URAL(s) [stripped] | ||
| 19 | COFFINS | Company set up suggestion boxes (7) |
| Co. (company) + [set up] <=SNIFF (“suggestion”) | ||
| 21 | NECKTIE | Doing this up could bring a lump to one’s throat (7) |
| Cryptic definition | ||
| 22 | PUEBLO | Look after English embraced by local Spanish-speaking community (6) |
| LO (“look”) after E (English) embraced by PUB (“local”) | ||
| 24 | UNDUE | University dons dancing nude without good reason (5) |
| U (University) dons *(nude) [anag:dancing] | ||
| 26 | ICON | Image could be Apple’s way to extract money from gullible people (4) |
| An i in front of something (as in iPod or iPad) is a feature of Apple products, so an iCon could be a way of extracting money from gullible people. | ||
*anagram
Looking forward to a new Basilisk cryptic. Very disappointed to receive a repeat of a fairly recent puzzle. It was 16,451 from Apr 15 this year. See comments for this to see theme etc.
Thanks, Hovis – I have amended my blog accordingly. The fact it is a repeat of a very recent puzzle adds to my disappointment, although the puzzle itself was in the main very good.
I wonder why there was a need to repeat it, errors and all? There can’t be a shortage of people submitting puzzles, surely?
Disappointing to find I’d solved this one before as like Hovis I was looking forward to a Basilisk crossword
Yes, disappointing to have this repeat offering, complete with the ”missing” 15a and 19a as before. I twigged when I solved CORRUGATED IRON and spent the rest of the time worried I’d miss on my second attempt what I’d been able to solve on my first only a few weeks ago. A pity because it was such a good puzzle.
Frustrating all around.
Thanks (for the second time) to Basilisk and to loonapick
Apologies for this one. An unedited puzzle crept in somehow and I have no idea how. Probably result of computer crash and reinstall of Windows 10.
Feeling enough like Groundhog Day at the moment without repeat crosswords. 🙂 Oh well, no real harm done.
I solved this today without realising it was a repeat from 3 weeks ago. In my defence, I have done about 60 puzzles since then. But this time I spotted the theme with the across answers. Maybe that was because I’d seen the device used just 3 weeks ago.
CREOLE triggered my first feeling of deja-vu; when I got to SELF-FULFILMENT I knew this was a repeat so I stopped there. No worries, the Qaos crossword in the Guardian was so
impressive that I’m more than satisfied for today.
Thanks Basilisk and loonapick
Like Tony@8, I’d entered 2 or 3 with a sneaky deja vu feeling before writing in SELF at 15 knowing that it was something that really had happened before and also stopped.
There is always the tomorrow … and look forward to the next original one by this setter.