Independent 10,739 by Vigo

by

This was a fairly gentle Monday puzzle. Nothing really stood out for me but it was all very enjoyable and well-constructed.

ACROSS
1 SANDPIPER
Smooth musician producing flyer (9)

Sand(=smooth in a DIY sense) + piper
6 WEIGH
Measure approach to audience (5)

Hom of way
9 ARTISAN
Tsarina wrongfully executed crafty fellow (7)

Tsarina*
10 AVENGER
Swear to overwhelm English member of superhero squad (7)

Aver around Eng{lish}. Def refers to the Avengers squad of superheroes from Marvel comics and films.
11 FOLLIES
Mock ruins of half-hearted comic stories (7)

Fo[o]l + lies.
12 IMITATE
Ape I note by gallery (7)

I + mi (doh,re,mi) + Tate
13 ATTENDANT
Usher in National Theatre following a dry finale with a bit of applause (9)

(N{ational} T{heatre} after (A TT(=teetoal) + end + a[pplause])
15 SHELL
Bombard Hull (5)

DD. Hull, along with its other meanings, can refer to the outer shell of a fruit.
16 TV SET
Revolutionary trial keeping five in box (2,3)

Test< + V
19 SECONDARY
School crayons Ed chewed (9)

(Crayons Ed)*
22 ROUNDER
Complete circuit is more ring-like (7)

DD – a rounder is a run round all 4 bases in Baseball
23 MARTINS
Birds ruin metal containers (7)

Mar + tins
25 PENSIVE
Thoughtful, dear former lover departing (7)

[Ex]pensive
26 PLACATE
Win over Palace? Fudging about time! (7)

Palace* around t{ime}
27 DODOS
Old birds from two parties succeeded (5)

Do(=party) twice + s{ucceeded}.
28 TEENAGERS
Generates moving characters for young people (9)

(Generates)* – a familiar anagram but given a different slant here.
DOWN
1 SCARF
Mark on fine band of material (5)

Scar + f{ine}
2 NOTELET
Short letter to reveal upset over film (7)

(Let on)< + ET
3 PASSION
Outburst from quiet oaf about maintaining independence (7)

P(=quiet) + ass(=oaf) + on(=about) around i{ndependence}
4 PANTS
Rubbish vegetation left out (5)

P[l]ants. This is a colloquial expression – "it's pants!".
5 REALISTIC
Article about boxing is true to life (9)

Article* around(=boxing) is
6 WEEPIES
Films tiny dishes (7)

Wee + pies
7 INGRATE
Angry about no good, thankless person (7)

Irate around n{o} g{ood}
8 HORSEPLAY
Fooling around in Equus perhaps? (9)

DD – Equus by Peter Shaffer is a famous play concerning a man's obsession with horses.
13 ARTHROPOD
Trap door collapsed trapping hard crustacean? (9)

(Trap door) around h{ard}. Crustaceans are a subset of arthropods, hence the question mark.
14 ABSORBENT
Spongy sphere in middle of somewhere else (9)

Orb in absent(=somewhere else)
17 STUNNED
Study by fans upset and astonished (7)

(Den + nuts)<
18 TEDDIES
Terry initially swirls around in underwear (7)

T[erry] + eddies. Teddy or Teddies is a woman's undergarment.
20 NIRVANA
Grandmother keeping one recreational vehicle in paradise (7)

Nana around I r{ecreational} v{ehicle}. Technically, nirvana is a state of being rather than a place, although it is used more colloquially to mean paradise.
21 AGITATE
A fool consumed shake (7)

A git + ate
23 MAPLE
Destroyed ample plant (5)

Ample*
24 SHEDS
Gets rid of part of unfinished symphony (5)

Hidden in unfinished symphony

12 comments on “Independent 10,739 by Vigo”

  1. What Neal said. I struggled with PASSION, not really associating it with ‘outburst’, but it had to be that. What a boon the film ‘ET’ has been to crossword setters! Thanks Vigo and Neal.

  2. I don’t much like 19a which is an adjective used to describe a school but I see it has crept into Chambers as a noun. That aside, this was a light delight. WEEPIES was my favourite.

    Many thanks to Vigo and to Neal.

  3. An enjoyable Monday solve – no particular favourite but always nice to have a few birds fluttering round the puzzle.
    Thanks to Vigo and to Neal for the review.

  4. I’m in agreement with the general tone here; light and straightforward with no particular favourite and the same raised eyebrow as Tatrasman @1 with regard to PASSION. Nice succinct clueing, esp for SHELL.

    Thanks Vigo and NealH

  5. Collins has PASSION = outburst in the sense of rage. It’s the first entry in the second list of synonyms in the Chambers Thesaurus, so I guess the setter is off the hook.

    I thought I would try this after speeding through the two Guardian’s today. A good Monday crossword IMHO. I got a bit stuck on the 6s but liked the WEE PIES.

    Thanks Carpathian and NealH.

  7. I seem to remember Victorian fictional characters flying into a passion.
    Enjoyed both crossword and commentary. Thank you.

  8. Weepies is a popular favourite and mine, too.
    Nice to see Hull get a mention and a very apt surface – it was the most severely damaged town or city in the UK in WW2 but was generally referred to in the news as “a North East coast city”, and not named. That, combined with its nice end-of-the-line location, meant London and Coventry loom larger in most accounts.
    Thanks to Vigo and NealH for the fun.

  9. Enjoyed this, ran aground in the NE corner (after reading Jayjay @8 what an apt place to put SHELL) as not getting a combo of WEIGH and WEEPIES left me stuck, however my COTD was in that corner – HORSEPLAY, I “aha’d” out loud at the point I got it!

    Thanks to Vigo and NeilH

  10. An enjoyable solve with no real problems. We took a while to get TV SET – we tend to forget TV as a valid 2-letter word – but it was obvious once we got ARTHROPOD, which was our CoD.
    Thanks, Vigo and NealH.

  12. Late, I know, but just wanted to mention that as a baseball fan in the US, I have never heard or seen ROUNDER to mean going around all four bases. It may be a relic of the precursor game rounders…

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