Dalibor sets the Saturday challenge this weekend.
We found this puzzle rather easier than we have come to expect from this setter. Early on in the solve, we had several of the more unusual letters (V, W, Z, J, Q) in the perimeter cells and we wondered if all the letters of the alphabet were going to appear round the outside. However, the grid has 28 perimeter cells, and we soon had several perimeter letters repeated, so we abandoned those thoughts. We then worked on the basis (which turned out to be correct) that it would be a pangram, although that did not really help us with the grid-fill.
As far as we can see, there is no theme, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t one.
We hadn’t come across the crime novel at 4d before and 10ac was a new word for us, but both were eminently gettable from the wordplay with a quick electronic check for confirmation.
We puzzled for some time over our last one in (15d) – the plural form does not appear in Chambers when you use the word search, and we had fallen for the setter’s crafty device of misleading us to the entries at 9, 11 and/or 12.
All in all, a good Saturday work-out, with excellent surfaces – our only quibble was the rather weak (in our opinion) clue at 5d.
IC (in charge) in VERONA (Italian city)
OPEN (frank) UP (happy)
EAT IN (don’t dine outdoors) after Z (unknown, as in algebra)
An anagram (‘foolish’) of ADMIRER round or ‘filled with’ E (energy)
J (judge) + an anagram (‘changing’) of A PLEA + NO (not – we had to check this in Chambers)
BUNK (place to sleep) UM (I’m not sure)
An anagram (‘going crazy’) of HERE LATE TONIGHT
An anagram (about’) of THINK round or ‘welcoming’ G (good)
EAR (attention) DROPS (diminishes)
SyriA (first and last letters or ‘extremes’) round or transfixed by RANK (row) round IsraeL (first and last letters or ‘borders’)
An anagram (‘diffuse’) of NEBULA
S (succeeded) EX (old) REX (king) all reversed or ‘from the east’
An anagram (‘in confusion’) of I GOOGLED
HE (his excellency – ambassador) + alternate or ‘regular’ letters of LiE-iNs + A
FOOT (pay – as in foot the bill) + first letters or ‘leaders’ of Homage To All Political reversed or ‘after they retire’
WI (Women’s Institute – ‘group of women’) IE (that is) round or ‘collecting’ NelsoN (first and last letters or ‘clothes’)
An anagram (‘extraordinary’) of CHARLOTTE BADEN’S – a reference to an Agatha Christie Hercule Poirot crime novel
MONEYBAGs (a very rich person) without the ‘s’ (society)
YEsMAN (lackey) with the ‘s’ (son) replaced by or ‘becoming’ O (ordinary)
QUIt (end) without the ‘t’ (time) + ETUDE (piano piece by Chopin)
ARIES is one of the 12 houses of the zodiac, so the other 11 could be described as NON-ARIES
AS (when) TOSH (nonsense) ‘written’ round NI (Northern Ireland)
T (last or ‘ultimate’ letter of Alpert) + R (right) in or ‘visiting’ ARAGON (part of Spain)
LAX (laid-back) in GAY (carefree)
R (last letter or ‘back’ of computer) OUTER (external)
Double definition
Think your intro said it all for me. Seems we had an almost identical experience. Also wondered about NO = NOT (wish Chambers would give example usages). My personal favourites were XERXES & FOOTPATH. Quite easy for a Dalibor but enjoyable nonetheless.
I struggled with this, especially in the SW corner, where Sri Lanka only came to mind at the last minute after I had tried to do something with Linda!! I only got ‘nonaries’ with a word search and even then couldn’t parse it, though it’s obvious now. I saw the pangram but can’t see a theme either. Thanks Dalibor and B&J
I think 12a works better if you take the definition as just ‘hot thing’, leaving ‘not a’ to give ‘no’, eg not a / no chance.
Good puzzle I thought, thanks Dalibor and Bertandjoyce.
My only suggestion on NOT=NO is if you parse it as “NOT A” (leaving Hot Thing as the definition) then this is the same as No as in
I’m NO genius at Crosswords
I’m NOT A genius at Crosswords
Struggled a bit today and needed help on a few – NONARIES very clever but I was nowhere near!
Thanks Dalibor and B&J
Caroline @3 puts it better than me 😉
And I can’t read , apologies to Carolynne @3 for my misspelling
Thanks to Carolynne and Tombsy. Bert smiled when he read your comments as that is exactly how he parsed it when writing up the blog! When Joyce checked everything through, she queried it and checked in Chambers and found that NO = NOT under adverb 3. So, she altered the blog. Perhaps we are all correct. Maybe Dalibor will drop in and let us know how he parsed it.
The expected challenge from Dalibor which took a while to complete. I too was unsure of the NO in JALAPENO, but the ‘not a’ wordplay (now) makes good sense. I’d never heard of ZEATIN either and was looking for a human hormone. NONARIES was also new, or at least not recognised easily and putting in an unparsed ‘notaries’ first didn’t exactly help with the SW.
I liked PHLEGM – a flash of inspiration saved me from the dreaded alphabet trawl – and XERXES, which I could only get from wordplay, not GK. Good to have the pangram to top things off.
Thanks to Dalibor and B&J
Thanks Dalibor and BnJ
I mused whether NOT = NO could be from the way some folk say ‘“I’m no’ bothered” etc.
Tombsy @6 Apology accepted, and you’ve also been misspelt @7!
Simon @9. I wondered about that too. It’s an interesting question as to when it is acceptable to drop an apostrophe in a crossword solution. It is common practice to have words like “can’t” and possessive nouns dropping the apostrophe, but “no” for no’ troubles me. In some places, people may say tha’ for that but I think people would balk at THA as a word.
It appears to be a pangram of initial letters.
Thanks to all
Afternoon, all.
12ac’s ‘no’ should be seen as ‘not a’ (see Collins) – that was my intention.
Pangram?
Look how many clues there are ….
…that’s what I meant
Thanks to DuncT for noticing the use of the first letters which make up the pangram and to Dalibor for his comment on 12ac. Thanks also to Carolynne for pointing out our spelling mistake@7
Apologies to Tombsy – Joyce will correct the spelling of Tombsy in our earlier comment.
Hovis @ 11: I take your point about THA. But the waters become very murky about what’s acceptable – didn’t we have WANNA or GONNA somewhere recently?
Somewhat belated thanks to Bertandjoyce for their fine blog and to those who took the time to comment.
Especially, DuncT @12 who spotted what was going on here.
While this crossword was a pangram, I would rather call it an Indy-style alphabetical.
Since the Independent is an e-paper only, it cannot handle preambles nor proper alphabeticals (like the ones we sometimes see in The Guardian or the FT).
It also explains why ‘zeatin’ was one of the entries – where the grid as such would have allowed me to use a more normal word.
Alphabeticals are often a breeding ground for obscurities but I hope solvers agree that I largely behaved myself today.
B&J @15 absolutely no apology needed – you and the other bloggers are a constant source of education (and amazement) to me daily
Sadly did not spot the cleverness of the theme, but it’s quite an achievement. Was left staring at 15d as well. Many excellent clues, especially XERXES.
I thought XERXES was clever, and I suppose that having a solution beginning with X should have alerted me to the initial letters “theme”. NON-ARIES was also very clever and took quite a long time for the penny to drop, though ‘houses’ gave me a hint which I was slow to follow up.
I agree with our bloggers’ assessment that the clue for 5d is weak, but I would also have quibbles about a couple of others. ‘Frank’s happy’=OPEN UP? I’m not ‘happy’ about ‘Frank’s’ where the apostrophe-s is totally superfluous – surely it should mean has or is, or be used as fodder somehow, not just ignored.
And ZEATIN may be “eminently gettable from the wordplay with a quick electronic check” or if you happen to have identified the unstated “theme” but otherwise requires a successful guess. Not my idea of a good clue. (What about doing a subtraction from ZEAL for the first part, and ‘can’=TIN for the second? Not earthshatteringly original, but at least it could be fair to solvers. Or stick with the present clue but insert the word ‘last’ where appropriate.)
I understand the explanation from Dalibor @17 as to why an alphabetical jigsaw is technically not possible here, but it’s a little sad that hardly anyone cracked the code and therefore the setter’s cleverness remains largely unappreciated. I wonder if some sort of hint could be contrived if this is going to be tried again in future? Congratulations to DuncT and thanks to B&J.
Sheffield Hatter @20, I do not see the issue with the apostrophe-s in 9ac. It can mean ‘has’ and indeed this should be seen as: OPEN + (has) UP.
As to the idea of an Indy-style alphabetical, just after I submitted this crossword – I think it was October or November last year – Hovis thought this was what’s happening in another crossword (but it wasn’t).
Today he didn’t see it …. lucky me. Lucky?
Dalibor – thanks for responding. I still don’t like the apostrophe-s device, but accept that it is not unfair – I solved the clue with no problem, after all!
As regards the Indy-style alphabetical: “…lucky me. Lucky?” – you’re joking, of course. You do want solvers to, erm, solve your crosswords, don’t you? And enjoy themselves while doing so? In an alphabetical jigsaw, as Araucaria used to do them, it’s understood that there will be obscure words, and the solver expects that the setter will make a lot of the clues solvable without crossers to facilitate completion of the puzzle. In your version of the game it is permitted to be a bit less accommodating, but it would surely make for an increase in general happiness of you were to be more OPEN so that we could be a bit more UP?
Wiglaf did one of these a while back, I don’t think many if any spotted it then either, but I don’t think that matters if the setter finds it worthwhile. Didn’t think pangrams of any kind were Dalibor’s cup of tea though.
I thought Veronica and Helena might have been Charles’s exes (vomiting Veronica and Miss Piggy) but apparently just a coincidence.
Thanks to Dalibor & Duncan
SH, I am not sure I have the same thoughts as you about Araucaria’s alphabeticals, let alone the recent ones by Paul.
On the other hand, I do accept your point about a clue like the one for ‘zeatin’.
That said, I do not like the last line in your previous comment (at all).
Sorry, Dalibor. I don’t understand what you mean by the last line in my previous comment. Having re-read all of my comments on this puzzle, I am struggling to find something that could have put your back up. Please explain and I will be happy to apologise if required.
SH, if there’s nothing to it, then just leave it there.
[but I still disagree about Araucaria]
Yeah, Araucaria could be a bit of a b________!