Rodriguez hasn’t appeared since April 2017 and I’d never heard of him or her — must have forgotten. I was expecting a newcomer who was possibly very easy (it being Wednesday), something that I didn’t find to be the case at all. In fact my first attempts suggested that Rodriguez was at the difficult end of the spectrum, but perhaps that was just me: certainly once I got started it was often quite straightforward. Everything was pleasantly and well clued.
Definitions in maroon, underlined. Anagram indicators in italics.
Some of Rodriguez’s crosswords have had themes. But I can’t see anything here. Probably staring me in the face.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | POSTMARK | Where Luke is found, or Frank (8) |
| Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are the gospels in the New Testament, so Luke is post-Mark | ||
| 5 | PHOBIC | Having a complex kitchen appliance breaking still (6) |
| p(hob)ic — the pic is a still photograph | ||
| 9 | FORENAME | Handle warning about receding hair (8) |
| fore about (mane)rev. — fore is the warning shout made by golfers who hit their ball crookedly and dangerously — or it should be, but nowadays people tend to shout ‘fore left’ or ‘fore right’, which I always think is rather self-centred | ||
| 10 | SIGN ON | Italian man hasn’t right name to claim benefits (4,2) |
| signo{r} n | ||
| 12 | LUCRE | Coax to eat cold lolly (5) |
| lu(c)re — I’d have thought that lolly was specifically money but lucre was any form of gains, but this idea is scotched by Collins, which says that lucre is (usually facetious) money or wealth | ||
| 13 | NEGOTIATE | Working at one, I get hammer out (9) |
| *(at one I get) | ||
| 14 | PSEUDONYMOUS | Like this puzzle you’d mess up on originally (12) |
| (you’d mess up on)* — the fact that it’s set by someone calling himself or herself Rodriguez means that it’s pseudonymous, unless someone with that name has actually composed it, which seems pretty unlikely in view of the fact that all other Indy setters use pseudonyms | ||
| 18 | INCANDESCENT | Where prisoner is going down seeing red (12) |
| in can descent — the prisoner is ‘in can’, going down is descent | ||
| 21 | IN THE MAIN | It’s mostly off-shore (2,3,4) |
| 2 defs — mostly = in the main, and off-shore is in the sea or main | ||
| 23 | EMOTE | Ham and cheese to melt around sandwiches (5) |
| Hidden reversed in cheesE TO MElt | ||
| 24 | ENTICE | Tempt with place to treat bad throat and chill (6) |
| ENT ice — the hospital department ENT (Ear, Nose, Throat) is a staple of crossword setters | ||
| 25 | BEWILDER | Live with increasingly feral fox (8) |
| be wilder | ||
| 26 | TACKLE | Louise gutted after poor food’s in lunch box (6) |
| tack L{ouis}e — I haven’t heard ‘tackle’ referred to as a lunch box for years: once ‘Linford Christie’s Lunch Box’ was often mentioned — or does the current generation never use expressions like this? Perhaps it’s just me and Rodriguez. | ||
| 27 | STAMP OUT | Some current beer bottles for Scotch (5,3) |
| st(amp)out — beer (stout, in this case) is bottling (surrounding) some current (which is measured in amps) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | PIFFLE | Rubbish heap’s collected with great volume (6) |
| pi(ff)le | ||
| 2 | STRUCK | Sierra a larger vehicle hit (6) |
| s truck — s = Sierra in the NATO alphabet | ||
| 3 | MANDELSON | Bananas and lemons for a Baron (9) |
| *(and lemons) — ref Lord Mandelson (Peter Mandelson) | ||
| 4 | ROMAN NUMERAL | I, for one, run away with amoral men (5,7) |
| (run amoral men)* — I is the Roman numeral for 1 | ||
| 6 | HEIST | Job, a bit of a headache, is tedious (5) |
| Hidden in HeadacHE IS Tedious — strictly speaking the ‘a’ shouldn’t be there in the wordplay, but perhaps it’s just about OK | ||
| 7 | BUNGALOW | Home‘s hit, receiving a gun shot (8) |
| (a gun)* in blow | ||
| 8 | CONVERSE | Discuss how ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol’ may be described? (8) |
| 2 defs, one of them fanciful: ‘The B. of R. G.’, the poem written by Oscar Wilde when in prison, may be regarded as a con-verse | ||
| 11 | AGE OF CONSENT | A chap welcoming return of enemy politicians when Congress officially gets going (3,2,7) |
| A gent round ((foe)rev. cons) — Congress = sexual congress | ||
| 15 | YANKEEISM | Bostonian’s behaviour getting off A1, heading for Milton Keynes (9) |
| *(A I M{ilton} Keynes) — not a word I was all that familiar with, but when you see how it works it can’t be anything else | ||
| 16 | VIVISECT | Repeatedly, Roman sex cult is to do controversial experiments (8) |
| VI VI sect — VI is six in Roman numerals and sex is the Latin for six. Also, Collins gives sex as a combining form of six. | ||
| 17 | ECSTATIC | Case of electric crackling noise that’s very high (8) |
| e{lectri}c static | ||
| 19 | HOODOO | Curse rings that gangster’s put on (6) |
| hood OO | ||
| 20 | HEARST | Gathers Tottenham’s no. 1 is a big shot who inspired Kane (6) |
| hears T{ottenham} — ref William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper magnate who inspired Orson Welles to make the film Citizen Kane | ||
| 22 | EXCEL | Office product is to stand out (5) |
| 2 defs, although the producers of the program no doubt used the other definition when making up a name for it | ||
Surely this is Picaroon. Who else could come up with 1a?
Great puzzle with not a dud or a filler to be seen
Thanks John and James
Really enjoyed this. Don’t remember the name but the standard of the clues is top notch. I thought 20d was a footballer reference and wasn’t aware of the newspaper magnate. Too many good clues to mention so I’ll leave that to others. Thanks to Rodríguez and John.
Brilliant puzzle. I happened to be present when Eimi twisted Rodriguez’ arm to recruit him to the Indy stable – carry on twisting, I say.
Thnaks to S&B
Thanks, even. Thnaks are what Violet Elizabeth eats between meals
I was going to say that this was the first Rodriguez puzzle I have attempted, but that is not surprising as, according to John, his last Indy offering was over three years ago.
I thought this was faultless, nicely challenging, and great fun to solve.
My podium choice from an excellent selection was 1a, 25a, 8d & 20d.
Many thanks to Rodriguez – more soon please! Thanks too to John.
Very enjoyable, thanks to Rodriguez. Lots of clever definitions and surfaces. As an example, it’s perhaps worth pointing out the significance of the misdirecting surface in 20d: England football captain Harry Kane plays for Tottenham.
Thanks also to John. My co-solver spotted quickly the Luke/Mark connection in 1a, so we were off to a good start.
Thank you to Rodriguez for the great crossword – my particular favourite was 14a although there are many others I could have mentioned
Thanks also to John
I echo all the compliments for Rodriguez. Although I solved them, I couldn’t understand the wordplay for down clues 1, 8 and 20, so thanks to John for the elucidation and of course Rodriguez for an excellent puzzle.
as John describes… but getting started seemed more challengng than usual… parsing was ok once the answer was in front of me.. but certainly struggled with some .. like trying to fit ROSEBUD into 20dn.. yes I know.. too many letters.. loved 1ac altho it was pretty much my last one in, also 4d, 7dn,16dn, 12ac, 18ac, 25ac were delightful..
thanks John and Rodriguez
Yes, great to see Rodriguez make another appearance in the Indy after a gap of over 3 years, even if we have enjoyed his offerings elsewhere in the meantime. Lots of enjoyment along the way to solving what was certainly not just a warm-up puzzle from a newbie setter.
Look forward to more – let’s hope we don’t have to wait till 2023.
Thanks to Rodriguez and John
Brilliant stuff, as ever.
It would be quicker to list the clues where I don’t have ticks but, since I gave double ones to 14ac and 11 and 16dn, I suppose I could mention them.
Many thanks to Rodriguez – welcome back to this side – and to John for the blog.
First time I’ve tackled an offering from this setter but I hope it won’t be the last, an excellent puzzle even if I did go down the football route when justifying 20d.
Top three for me were 1&25a plus 8d.
Many thanks to Rodriguez for the fun and thanks to John for the review and the take on 20d.
An absolute treat to have this to follow the Guardian’s Tramp. Two stonkers in one day. And, having observed and commented on the occasional namechecking of posters before, I was, of course, delighted to encounter 1ac! Just ashamed it took me until half way through the puzzle to spot it – and that was after enduring some “Frank” jokes aimed at my new moniker when it appeared. With the beautifully anagrammed PSEUDONYMOUS and also FORENAME, I wondered if there was a theme on the way…
I share likes with Eileen (as happens so often) – VIVISECT and AGE OF CONSENT were lovely; HEARST was a lovely misdirect (which I got only because of another recent puzzle which played on the Hurst/Hearst homophone); ROMAN NUMERAL of course had me thinking about the setter as ‘I’ rather than the solution; TACKLE was cheeky and clever and, yes, Linford Christie did play a part in bringing it to prominence; I’m with Rabbit Dave in enjoying BEWILDER – for me, because of its surface and, finally, I thought INCANDESCENT was very smooth.
I have no idea whether there is etiquette involved in identifying setters/pseudonyms for the Indy. Several posts acknowledge the novelty/rarity of this particular one and others, including copmus @1, have suspicions. Baerchen appears in the know and Eileen too who answers the question over on the Guardian blog today. For those who, like me, genuinely didn’t know. Thanks to Rodriguez and John.
Hi PostMark@13 – I’m glad you got over here in the end!
It’s not rocket science, really. When I saw ‘Rodriguez’, it rang a distant bell, so I looked up the archive, where eimi, the Indy editor, revealed his identity on the blog of his first puzzle. I didn’t even do that puzzle, because it was no one I’d ever heard of. I only do the Indy when it’s one of my favourites! I don’t know how on earth I’d forgotten in the meantime that Rodriguez was Picaroon – although it is rather a long time since his last appearance and I do forget some things these days. 😉
Postmark13 To be frank you should feel honoured.
Eileen @14: thanks for explaining the detective work. Interesting just how many setters have multiple alter egos and appear in so many different publications. I’m not sure I’m good enough to spot whether they have different styles in their different guises.
Copmus @15: exceedingly so. Even though I know it’s a coincidence I’ve had a big smile on my face ever since I solved!
PostMark – they’re all there under ‘Setters’ at the top of the page.
PostMark @13. Thanks for explaining the Hearst/Hurst homophone. Not being a footie fan, I didn’t even realise @2 that I didn’t know how to spell Geoff Hurst’s surname.
Thanks also to those who have revealed Rodríguez’s other identity. I often look to the Setters tab here for such info but it wasn’t there for some reason.
Wish I’d seen your comment, Eileen, before posting. Either the info has recently been updated or I was blind this morning.
[Hovis @18: it was an Anto puzzle in the Guardian in May. “Son in pain? He made sure it was all over (5)”. The solution, of course, is Hurst, the footballer (and the reference to the Wolstenholme commentary from the 66 World Cup). Some solvers thought Hurst was the newspaper magnate with the ‘it was all over’ referring to newspaper coverage. But the spellings are different (and, of course, different lengths too!) I slightly misremembered in that it was the solving community that delivered up the confusion between the two, rather than the setter.]
Eileen @14: I’ve just taken the time to follow the link you posted to Rodriguez’ debut. Said to see the Indy editor having to make the statement “we’re not dead yet” back in 2016. I’m delighted the publication still provides a cruciverbal option, having thoroughly enjoyed my time here since tackling the Independent more regularly.
50% went in easily then laboured through the rest but in an enjoyable way. Got there, almost, having to reveal HEARST in the end which was annoying since I had an inkling which Kane it was and I have actually visited Hearst Castle. I tried ‘sees, ‘gets’ and ‘reaps’ for “gathers’ to no avail.
We didn’t realise it was so long since Rodriguez’ previoius appearance but knowing he is Picaroon must have put us on his wavelength because although we didn’t exactly romp through this we did get 1ac straight off as FOI and we finished in reasonable time.
ROMAN NUMERAL was our favourite but it was all great stuff, including EMOTE, BUNGALOW and ECSTATIC.
We got HEARST from the wordplay and wondered about a homophone of ‘Hurst’; googling revealed an American Football player named ‘Hearst’ as well as the newspaper magnate, but we failed to make the connection to Citizen Kane.
Thanks, Rodriguez and John.
First thing first: many thanks to John for the elucidations, as well as to the commenters for extending me such a warm welcome back. A big thanks to the gaffer, too, for running this puzzle after such a long absence. The Indy is an absolutely tremendous series and I’m delighted to appear here once again.
The question John raises of the “a” in the clue for HEIST is an interesting one from a technical perspective. I’ll give my own view on this; others may well disagree and have good reasons to do so.
I concur that padding in hidden clues is technically poor, but I don’t see the article as padding here because it’s essential to the phrase “a headache” (= a problem, a tedious task), which is different from a + headache (= a pain in the head). In the first case, the two words combine to form a single semantic unit which can only be expressed when both words are used together; accordingly, the article isn’t redundant.
Since he didn’t change it, Mike was obviously happy enough with this clue. I believe that it would be accepted in the Guardian too, but that it wouldn’t fly in the Times in its current form. It seems to me that the different perspectives on this matter revolve around the question of whether padding means any further word, or whether it means removable and therefore redundant semantic units.
To give an example: “Passage from La Clemenza di Tito (4)” [ADIT]. In some series, the article would be seen as padding which needs to be cut. Personally, I’m happy enough with the “La” because it’s part of the single unit which is the name of the opera. However, I would argue that: “Passage from Mozart’s Clemenza di Tito (4)” contains extraneous verbiage and needs pruning to be satisfactory.
Best to everyone.
New setter to me. Thanks to Rodriguez. Had no idea what to expect, but challenging and a delight to solve. Hope to see more.
Oh my goodness, as pointed out by copmus above it’s Picaroon! I thought a brilliant setter had appeared out of nowhere. 🙂