Independent 10,597 by Bluth

by

When Bluth’s first crossword appeared there was great excitement because Bluth is Dave Gorman, and the blog had what is I think a record number of posts (57). I don’t expect we’ll get quite that number now that Bluth is settled in, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that this was all very pleasant.  It was made a bit easier because there were rather a lot of anagrams and clues where you had to pick out letters from within a word, but this was compensated for by some terribly difficult words. I thought it was very suitable for a weekday newspaper crossword. Nice surfaces.

Definitions in indigo, underlined. Anagram indicators in italics.

The at times strange words suggest to me that there is something going on, but as usual …

ACROSS
1 PUNNING Interior of foreign inn updated all round using playful ambiguity? (7)
Hidden reversed in foreiGN INN UPdated
5 MARTIN Grit regularly swallowed by cardinal bird (6)
({G}r{i}t) in main — the cardinal numbers four, five and nine came to mind first
11 UNDECAGON There are many sides to this German and, ultimately, he can go berserk (9)
und {h}e (can go)* — an 11-sided polygon — ‘und’ is the German for ‘and’
12 MAIMS Mars mission within months (5)
m(aim)s — mars a verb — m = month, so months = ms
13 LARGE Big league auctioneer’s covering empty garage (5)
L a{uctionee}r g{arag}e
14 TREMBLIER Shakier judge takes me over lawyer (9)
((me)rev. BL) in trier — the lawyer is a BL, a Bachelor of Law — a pretty rubbish word, but no doubt the grid fill was getting tricky just here
15 NATURAL Spontaneous Aunt travelled by rail wanting independence (7)
(Aunt)* ra{I}l — wanting in the sense of lacking
17 MAXWELL Weight in questions about extremely logical Victorian physicist (7)
(e(w)xam)rev. l{ogica}l — James Clerk Maxwell
18 CHEAPEN Downgrade pound after each broadcast (7)
(each)* pen
20 LITERAL In 50/50, is tie break oddly strict? (7)
LL round (i{s} t{i}e {b}r{e}a{k})
23 PHARAONIC Chap on air excited about old ruler (9)
(Chap on air)*
24 MUSIC Perhaps house or garage? (5)
2 defs
26 HOMES Addresses part of macho message (5)
Hidden in macHO MESsage
27 SELECTION Reading, with fringes of Southcote first choice (9)
S(outhcot)e lection — a lection is an archaic word for a reading of a text found in a particular copy or edition
28 PARADE Housing row show (6)
2 defs
29 FRITTER Bit of rubble in tradesman’s waste (7)
f(r{ubble})itter — I had trotter, on the grounds that Del boy was a tradesman (a totter I thought), his name was Trotter, and a pig’s trotter is arguably waste — but that’s all very vague and of course this is far better
DOWN
2/16 UNDER THE HAMMER It describes a lot – somehow her mum heard ten (5,3,6)
*(her mum heard ten) — an auction lot
3 NUCLEAR Can rule out sort of energy (7)
(Can rule)*
4 NIGHT BLINDNESS And eighty able minds knew LSD use without limits leads to vision impairment (5,9)
{A}n{d} {e}ight{y} {a}bl{e} {m}ind{s} {k}ne{w} {L}S{D} {u}s{e}
6 ALMS BOX Charity is gathered here, releasing lambs and bull (4,3)
*(lambs) ox
7 TRILINEAR Hearing without advanced sort of headphones – this sort of filtering improves clarity (9)
tri{A}l in-ear — well I’d never heard the word, but it fit and I could think of nothing else; it’s no doubt true but goodness knows: I can’t understand the explanation on Wikipedia
8 NOSTRIL Bono’s trilby covers hole in head (7)
Hidden in BoNO’S TRILby
9 DUBLIN Hideous new build generates capital … (6)
*(n build)
10 INTERMOLECULAR … between very small bits about nice rural motel (14)
*(nice rural motel)
16 See 2
18 COP SHOP Carbon monoxide starts to poison some households by old power station (3,4)
CO p{oison} s{ome} h{ouseholds} o P — an informal term for a police station
19 PRAISED Admired quiet road containing excellent semi – ignoring motorway (7)
p r(A1 se{M1})d
21 TAME CAT Submissive American thanks flesh eating maniac at last (4,3)
ta me({mania}c)at — I didn’t know the term, but the wordplay is fairly generous — a tame cat is I assume an American term for someone who is submissive, but Googling it simply throws up a lot of stuff about what to do if your cat is feral and things like that
22 LUCENT Brilliant Lucy’s cut short – essential part of presenting team initially (6)
Luc{y} {pres}en{ting} t{eam}
25 SUITE Series sounds delightful (5)
“sweet” — ‘sounds’ goes with the last word and not the first, although you’d never know that until you had some checkers, or tried both options

 

26 comments on “Independent 10,597 by Bluth”

  2. I think Bluth is getting harder with each outing and I found this difficult. I managed to eventually complete the SE, but the NE defeated me, mainly because I couldn’t see the now obvious EXAM for ‘questions’. I couldn’t parse SELECTION, no wonder given the never-heard-of LECTION, and other uncommon words such as PHARAONIC and UNDECAGON gave more than a bit of pause for thought. I admit to being too lazy to even try to parse NIGHT BLINDNESS which was v. good.

    Look forward to hearing if there’s a theme.

    Thanks to Bluth for a real challenge and to John

  3. I agree with WP @2 that this was quite a challenge but the accurate cluing helped a lot with the solve, which was good fun.   Some of the surfaces seemed a bit strange but that didn’t detract too much from the enjoyment.

    I particularly liked UNDECAGON, FRITTER, NIGHT BLINDNESS & COP SHOP.

    Many thanks to Bluth and to John.

  4. A very enjoyable but challenging crossword. I was a mathematician before retiring 7 years ago but have never met UNDECAGON but the clue made it an obvious guess. PHARAONIC, TRILINEAR & TAME CAT were all new to me but again the clueing made them relatively straightforward guesses.

    Wasn’t entirely convinced about pluralising M in 12a (“months” tends to suggest MM rather than MS) but can’t really argue against it and it is a lovely alliterative surface.

    My personal favourites were the clever anagram for 2/16 (always nice when the split lines up as well), the ingenious construction for 4d and the humorous 8d. Thanks to Bluth and John.

  5. It’s a very rare event, but I can at least give some guidance to the theme – 26 + 2/16, plus presenters at 5,9 and 17, and a reference in 22. They were obtained by Googling 26 2/16, as my ignorance is at a high level.  I guess the theme is either wider or I have missed a few. I failed on the SE, and will add my admiration for the unparsed NIGHT BLINDNESS – very difficult to get a good surface like this for a long entry.

    Cheers to John and Bluth.

  6. Thanks Eccles. Forgot it was Tuesday. Never watched the program but it’s my mother’s favourite. I guess 25d is theme related.

  7. Like Eccles @5, theme-spotting is a rare event for me too but I did spot this one – I can also confirm that Lucy in 22d is indeed brilliant, I’ve known her since she was a little girl.

    More challenging than Bluth’s previous crosswords – perhaps this is a sign of trickier crosswords to come – thanks to him and John

    Copmus @1  – I can confirm that ‘Big Dave’ is someone entirely different

  8. I too had reservations about MS = months, but grudgingly concede that it’s acceptable .  I struggled in the SE corner but it eventually fell into place.  It’s always good to learn new words – anyone else remember “It pays to increase your word power” in Reader’s Digest? – and there were several in this.  The theme escaped me but then I don’t watch 26 + 2/16.  Good fun, so thanks Bluth, John and Eccles for drawing attention to the theme.

  9. Well done Eccles for spotting the theme. Although there are more clues that relate – but I’ll leave it for others to find.

    For those quibbling about MS for months… it isn’t simply M = month therefore MS = months

    To quote Chambers
    ms abbrev
    1 Manuscript
    2 Millisecond
    3 (also M/S) months

  10. Agree that this was a bit harder than previous Bluth puzzles, but it went in with a bit of pencil-chewing.  It’s Tuesday, it’s theme day, it’s ‘theme, what theme?’ day in our house.  Thanks to Eccles for the elucidation, and to S&B.

  15. It seems that I am destined never to sing off the same hymn sheet as today’s setter.   The possibly questionable humour of his previous puzzles has been replaced this time by obscurities and dodgy surface reads and it doubtless didn’t help that the theme concerned a show I’ve never watched!

    I know Bluth pops into the blog so want to send an apology to him for being so hard to please!

  16. KDense @13 – I’m thrilled that somebody spotted it. There are other clues that connect with the theme also – and plenty where the connection is in the clue, rather than the solution.

    jane @15 It wouldn’t be right if you didn’t come along and grumble about me, Jane. John thinks they’re nice surfaces, you think they’re dodgy. Que sera sera.

  17. Nobody seems to have explained Trilinear; I think it’s TRIAL for hearing,less the “a”, then In Ear for the headphones

  19. Oh by the way, while our esteemed blogger refers to LECTION as being archaic, I’m not sure that’s quite the case. A bit old fashioned, certainly, and formal and churchy… but archaic suggests it has fallen out of use and I think that paints it as more obscure than it really is. Chambers defines it as 1: A reading and 2. A lesson read in church.

    Here it is being used on the Church Of England website explaining the schedule for ordaining deacons or priests – a section so definitely not archaic that it starts ‘a man or woman may be’… etc etc

    https://www.churchofengland.org/more/policy-and-thinking/canons-church-england/section-c

    “The Schedule

    1. For the prescribed Epistle, namely either 1 Timothy 3.8-13 or Acts 6.2-7, there may be substituted either Isaiah 6.1-8 or Romans 12.1-12 or such other lections as may from time to time be duly authorized.

    2. For the prescribed Gospel, namely Luke 12.35-38, there may be substituted Mark 10.35-45 or such other lection as may from time to time be duly authorized.“

    I’m not remotely churchy myself, but my childhood was and I definitely heard the word back then. Please don’t make my childhood archaic!

  20. Actually I made a mistake in the blog: the A is excluded from triAl and I used the wrong type of brackets to indicate this, so I have sympathy for Wembley. Corrected now (or at any rate in about a minute).

  21. As a fan of Modern Life Is Goodish (and someone who refers to the giraffe joke) I’ve been watching HOMES UNDER THE HAMMER with a particular eye on their LITERAL MUSIC SELECTION ever since the episode from which this clip comes (posted by your setter today) https://youtu.be/hQEFoH_ijxw

    You’ll see the presenters, the PUNNING MARTIN Roberts, LUCy Alexander (referred to in LUCENT, who since left the show) and Dion DUBLIN. The clip predates Martel MAXWELL joining the show.

    There were numerous other references to homes in the clues and this just ticked all my boxes. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks to John for the blog and huge thanks to Bluth for making my day with this crossword.

  22. Ground through almost all of this (very happily) this morning whilst enduring an online chat session with an IT type talking about things I didn’t understand (very unhappily). Just had chance to finish it off over tea but was thwarted by SUITE and FRITTER, though I shouldn’t have been.

    As others have said, several entries were completed by good clueing allowing decent parsing and then saying “oh, is that a word?!”. No complaints at all here.

    I would just add my two penn’orth that Hoskins’ grid on Sunday was far racier than any of Bluth’s (so far, anyway): several of those clues/answers wouldn’t have been out of place in the Private Eye or Viz crosswords! Bring it on, I say.

    Thanks to Bluth and John, of course.

  23. EggCustard @22 & @Wrynose Thanks! Much appreciated. And yes, Wrynose you’re pretty much across all of the themed entries. HOMES UNDER THE HAMMER, PUNNING MARTIN, DUBLIN, MAXWELL & LITERAL MUSIC SELECTION. The clue that refers to Lucy doesn’t just namecheck her but accurately describes the story of her relationship to the show. There were a few clues doing double duty, in a sense, the clue for DUBLIN gives one of the presenters’ names, but also describes the sort of content that might be in the show – especially when paired with 10D when the pair describe the way the show is broken down into different sections. The clues for MUSIC & SELECTION are also the sort of thing you might see or hear on the show.

    As the show is about property auctions and property renovation in particular and about estate agency in general, I think, 13A, 28A, 29A are also vert much on topic, with 18D, 19D more loosely so and, if you’re generous, 25D might well sneak in also, albeit, it could be applied to pretty much any kind of series.

  24. A late comment as we only remembered last night to check the blog because we couldn’t find a theme. When we read the blog we were not surprised.

    We enjoyed the solve but actually we enjoyed the link provided by eimi even more – so thanks to him.

    Thanks also to S&B.

  26. A fun puzzle, but ultimately too hard for this solver. Did spot the Homes Under the Hammer reference (since he has talked about it on his show) and assumed that more of the clues would relate, but having never watched it myself I failed to make the connections.

    Hope his next is just slightly less obscure in its vocabulary!

Comments are closed.