Radian sets the Tuesday puzzle this week
Tuesday is usually a theme day and it is fairly clear what the theme is today.
5 down gives us the overall theme – CONVENIENCE FOOD – while there are individual examples of such food or general references to food throughout the grid. SARNIE, CRACKERS, CHOW MEIN, ALIMENTATION, BRIE, OATCAKES, REHEATED, DOMINO, [pizza?], ADDITIVE, BROWN SAUCE and BEAN are the key ones. I suppose milk is fairly convenient so we could add DAIRY FARM and if you consume too much convenience food, EMETIC may come into play.
The clues are also awash with food references – snack, bangers [sausages], nuts, bananas, dish, fruit, biscuits, wine, warmed-up, cook, feta cheese, microwave meals, preservative, relish and pulse. Feel free to identify some more if you can.
| No | Detail |
| Across | |
| 1 |
Snack service, one in wrapper ready for delivery (6) SARNIE (informal term for sandwich; snack) (RN [Royal Navy] + I [Roman numeral for one]) contained in (in) SAE (stamped addressed envelope; a wrapper that is ready for posting and, subsequently, for delivery) SA (RN I) E |
| 5 |
Bangers, nuts and bananas not all there (8) CRACKERS (fireworks that go bang; bangers) CRACKERS (‘nuts’, ‘bananas’ and ‘not all there’ are three words or phrases that mean crazy or CRACKERS ) quadruple definition CRACKERS |
| 9 |
Dog gets my German dish (4,4) CHOW MEIN (Chinese-style dish of seasoned shredded meat and vegetables, served with fried noodles) CHOW (breed of dog) + MEIN (German for ‘my’) CHOW MEIN |
| 10 |
Number Two‘s tax disc sent in (6) DEPUTY (substitute; second in command usually; number two) EP (Extended Play disc) contained in (sent in) DUTY (tax) D (EP) UTY |
| 11 |
A fruit tree’s top in country food (12) ALIMENTATION (nourishment; food) A + LIME (fruit) + (T [first letter of {top} TREE] contained in [in] NATION [country]) A LIME N (T) ATION |
| 13 |
It’s put on 24 and 16 (4) BRIE (soft cheese that could be spread on OATCAKES [entry at 24 across]) BRIEF (short) excluding the final letter (cut) F (SHORT CUT the entry at 16 down could therefore be a clue for BRIE) BRIE |
| 14 |
They conquer lady’s heart in stylish short poem (8) INVADERS (people who enter by military force with a view to conquering. Not all INVADERS actually conquer. Consider The Bay of Pigs Invasion which was a failed landing operation on the southwestern coast of Cuba in 1961 by Cuban exiles who opposed Fidel Castro’s Cuban revolution) IN + (AD [central letters of {heart} LADY] contained in VERSE [a style (?) of short poem] excluding the final letter [short]) E. I’m not sure why ‘stylish’ is required. No doubt I am missing something. IN V (AD) ERS |
| 17 |
Start with yen lad’s saved (6,2) SWITCH ON (start) SON (young man; lad) containing (saved) (W [with] + ITCH [yearning; yen]) S (W ITCH) ON |
| 18 |
We short-circuited race? (4) INDY (Independent, on-line newspaper, in which this puzzle is published; we) INDY (reference INDY car races where cars complete many laps [circuits] of a short high-speed oval; short-circuited race) INDY |
| 20 |
Insured flyer flies, not needing manual? (4-8) USER-FRIENDLY (something that is intuitive to learn and operate, such that users should not need to refer to a manual for help) Anagram of (flies) INSURED FLYER USER-FRIENDLY* |
| 23 |
Province‘s queen bee regularly wearing silk (6) QUEBEC (Province of Canada) (UEBE [letters 2, 4, 6 and 8 [regularly] of QUEEN BEE) contained in (wearing) QC (Queen’s Counsel; barrister; silk) Q (UEBE) C |
| 24 |
Royalty now and then gets hard biscuits (8) OATCAKES ([hard] dry biscuits made from OATmeal) OAT (letters 2, 4 and 6 [regularly] of ROYALTY) + CAKES (gets hard) OAT CAKES |
| 25 |
Warmed up, he put away wine bottles (8) REHEATED (warmed up) RED (type of wine) containing (bottles) (HE + ATE [put away]) RE (HE ATE) D |
| 26 |
Cook cut unimportant piece of game (6) DOMINO (one of the oblong pieces with which the game of DOMINOes is played, usually twenty-eight in number) DO (cook) + MINOR (unimportant) excluding the final letter (cut) R DO MINO |
| Down | |
| 2 |
Long slice of feta cheese (4) ACHE (long [for]) ACHE (hidden word in [slice of] FETA CHEESE) ACHE |
| 3 |
Learned books sustain latest paper supplier (9) NEWSAGENT (suppliers of NEWSpapers) NEW (latest) + SAGE (wise; learned) + NT (New Testament; books of the bible) NEW SAGE NT |
| 4 |
Nauseating article turns up in English clubs (6) EMETIC (causing vomiting; nauseating) ITEM (article) reversed (turns up; down entry) contained in (in) (E [English] + C [clubs]) E (METI<) C |
| 5 |
Novice once fed on random microwave meals? (11,4) CONVENIENCE FOOD (food [partly] prepared before sale so as to be ready, or almost ready, for the table. Such food is often heated in a microwave oven before serving) Anagram of (random) NOVICE ONCE FED ON CONVENIENCE FOOD* |
| 6 |
Charlie avoids habit-forming preservative for one (8) ADDITIVE (substance added to foodstuffs or other commodities for a special purpose, eg as a colourant or preservative.) ADDICTIVE (habit-forming) excluding (avoids) C (CHARLIE is the international radio communication codeword for the letter C) ADDITIVE |
| 7 |
Ford place out of commission (5) KAPUT (broken; ruined; out of commission) KA (model of Ford car) + PUT (place) KA PUT |
| 8 |
About to tour St Petersburg once, start off in reverse (10) RETROGRADE (to go back or backwards) RE (with reference to; about) containing (to tour) PETROGRAD (earlier name for the Russian city currently known as St Petersburg) excluding the first letter (start off) P R (ETROGRAD) E |
| 12 |
Relish top northern booze (5,5) BROWN SAUCE (any BROWN-coloured savoury SAUCE, now especially a sharp-flavoured commercially bottled variety, used as a relish) BROW (top) + N (northern) + SAUCE (American informal term for a alcoholic drink [booze]) BROW N SAUCE |
| 15 |
Countless flyers imported, all about milk supplier (5,4) DAIRY FARM (milk supplier) (MYRIAD [an immense number; countless] containing (imported) RAF (Royal Air Force; flyers]) all reversed (all about) (DAIRY (FAR) M)< |
| 16 |
Copper’s suggested faster route (5,3) SHORT CUT (a faster route) SHORT CUT (as a clue SHORT CUT could lead to CU [chemical symbol for copper] CUT excluding the final letter [SHORT] T) SHORT CUT |
| 19 |
Chopped and changed it in East Germany twice (6) EDITED (revised; chopped and changed) IT contained in ([E {East}+ D {Deutschland; international vehicle registration for Germany}] + [E + D] again [twice]) E D (IT) E D |
| 21 |
Bishop cuts canon’s cash in Crimea (5) RUBLE (unit of currency [cash] in Crimea at the moment) B (bishop) contained in (cuts) RULE (canon is defined as law or RULE) RU (B) LE |
| 22 |
Started to lose heart and pulse (4) BEAN (the name of several kinds of leguminous plants and their seeds; a pulse) BEGAN (started) excluding [to lose] the middle letter [heart] G BEAN |
Think I must have got out the right side of bed this morning. Rattled off all three crosswords (GiFT) with an hour to spare and no cheats, googling or reference to Chambers needed. Did have the same queries about 14a though.
Enjoyed trying to spot the many references to the theme in both clues and answers. I took a long time to work out the parsing for SARNIE, my last in.
For 14a, I had ‘in’ as a containment indicator, with ‘stylish’ therefore providing the IN of INVADERS and VERS(E) as the ‘short poem’. I parsed 18a as ‘We short’ – INDY for Independent – and ‘circuited race’ – the Indianapolis 500 – as a double def, or you could go with ‘We’ as one def and ‘short-circuited race’, the latter referring to INDY as an abbreviation for the motor race, as the other. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway is 2.5 miles in length, so doesn’t really count as a ‘short circuit’ in my book.
Anyway, all good fun.
Thanks to Radian and Duncan
Hocus @1 and duncanshiell. For 14a, isn’t stylish required before short poem to give ‘in vers’?
I thought BRIE was brilliant
WordPlodder & Johnnybgoode. Of course, you are right. Too hasty I guess.
copmus@4
I thought DAIRY FARM was brilliant.
Splendid puzzle with only EMETIC holding me up – which seems counterintuitive. I parsed INVADERS as WordPlodder @2 but share duncan’s slight reservation about the definition. There have been a few frustrated invasions of these isles too. I had a third (and probably the least elegant) parse for 18a taking ‘short-circuited’ as a whole to mean cutting Independent to INDY with ‘race’ as the definition.
Favourites include, in addition to DAIRY FARM and BRIE already mentioned, SHORT CUT, BROWN SAUCE, RETROGRADE, DOMINO and OATCAKES.
Thanks Radian and duncan
Maybe ALIMENTATION is the theme which widens it to all food… not sure the French would view Brie as a convenience food… its a labour of love!
Thanks Radian n duncansheill
I enjoyed this one- what was done in 13 is very impressive a clue about a clue in another clue. (The Brie -f being a shortcut). I was actually wondering why you might put Brie on bacon- short cut bacon being one of the main cuts sold here in Australia.
7dn- I was looking for Capri or Cortina somehow as a ‘Ford place’.
12dn- got brown from check letters, obvious after getting the sauce part- looked at the answer and thought – ah yes Newcastle ‘Brown’ is indeed a top Northern drop.
Thank you Radian and Duncanshiell.
A fun and, by my standards, not too difficult solve today. Took me a while to get 11A and 8D, and couldn’t parse 8D. 5D and 20A were my favorite clues.
Interesting to learn that Chambers classes sauce as American, I’d always thought of it as within GB use.
For 18A, how about “We short”=INDY=”circuited race”?
Thanks for all the comments on the blog. I’ll go along with stylish defining IN at 14 across.
I also like the two comments parsing INDY as ‘we short’ and ‘circuited race’
Took me a few sittings but enjoyed this although embarrassingly the theme passed me by!!
BRIE too clever for me, excellent clue With RETROGRADE my favourite
Thanks to Radian and duncanshiell
Tuesday puzzles from the Indy are usually themed and usually the theme is fairly easily spotted. Today was no exception. An enjoyable solve and like Undrell@8 we’d go for ALIMENTATION as the theme. We did have some headscratching moments, though, and needed the blog to parse SARNIE, our LOI (although it was obvious once we saw it).
Thanks, Radian and Duncan