Independent 10,772 by Mev

by

Another new setter today – welcome to the Independent and 225, Mev.

We’re always intrigued by coming across a new setter, and whilst overall we enjoyed the challenge, we found this to be quite a mixed bag of clues. Some, such as 5ac and 12ac, seemed very contrived whilst others, such as 21ac and 27d were very straightforward. Admittedly Mev has managed to include a reference to Earth Day (today) in the clue for 5ac.

We are not fans of cryptic definitions and 4d felt a little weak whilst we thought 26/6 worked quite well. Most of the clues had smooth surfaces including 30ac, 1d and 18d, but some, such as  23ac and 31ac, didn’t quite hit the mark in our opinion.

19d has to be our COD. We watched the film recently that was based on Arthur Ransome’s book. Very dated but Bert enjoyed being reminded of his childhood.

All in all, a bit of a curate’s egg of a puzzle, but we’re still looking forward to the next one.

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1. Ill-sounding Italian’s love for maple (8)
SYCAMORE

A homophone (‘sounding’) of SICK (ill) + AMORE (Italian for love)

5. Changed the heart of every cop at the end of Earth Day (6)
EDITED

E (the middle letter or ‘heart’ of every) DI (cop) T (last letter or ‘end’ of ‘at’) E (earth) D (day)

10. Defy small wretched insect (9)
DAMSELFLY

An anagram (‘wretched’) of DEFY SMALL

11. Climbers limited by heaviness (5)
VINES

Hidden in or ‘limited by’ heaVINESs

12. Old call turns stomach: “At last, charge over the top!” (7)
EXTREME

EX (old) TERM (call) with the middle letters or ‘stomach’ reversed or ‘turning’ + E (final or ‘last’ letter of charge)

13. Oceanic shocker (7)
TORPEDO

Cryptic definition – We had TSUNAMI first as we had the initial letter.

14. Insignificant lake (4)
MERE

Double definition

16. Visualising one mother and her ruin in Gabon (9)
IMAGINING

I (one) MA (mother) GIN (mother’s ruin) IN G (Gabon)

20. The gram we pulped into cereal foodstuff (9)
WHEATGERM

An anagram (‘pulped’) of THE GRAM WE

21. 3 “not hard” for Rowan? (4)
TREE

ThREE (3) missing H (hard)

23. Boggle at Herbie’s entertaining tanned skin (7)
LEATHER

Hidden (‘entertained by’) in boggLE AT HERbie

26/6. Worker under pressure 18 (4-3,5)
DEEP-SEA DIVER

Cryptic definition – 18d being ‘in the main’

28. Regularly mined boron rocks that create pigment (5)
OCHRE

Every third fourth letter (‘regularly mined’) in borOn roCks tHat cReatE Thanks Hovis. 

29. One that might be red after dance with singer (9)
BALLADEER

A DEER (one that might be red) after BALL (dance)

30. Band has a Yankee swagger (6)
SASHAY

SASH (band) A Y (Yankee in the phonetic alphabet)

31. Instrument ray finds timber source (8)
HORNBEAM

HORN (instrument) BEAM (ray)

DOWN
1. Plants found by southern borders (6)
SEDGES

S (southern) EDGES (borders)

2. Colombia greeted traveller focused on sun (5)
COMET

CO (Columbia) MET (greeted)

3. French man always in exam to achieve highest level (2,7)
MT EVEREST

M (Monsieur – French man) + EVER (always) in TEST (exam)

4. Myself, for example (9)
REFLEXIVE

Cryptic definition

6. See 26 Across
7. Paranormal anti-green colour (9)
TANGERINE

An anagram (‘paranormal’) of ANTI-GREEN. We’ve not seen ‘paranormal’ as an anagram indicator before.

8. Criticise house then move (8)
DISLODGE

DIS (criticise) LODGE (house)

9. Stuff from pharmacy sterilised liquid-filled cavity (4)
CYST

Hidden in (‘stuff from’) pharmaCY STerilised

15. See Haley’s wavy facial hair (9)
EYELASHES

An anagram (‘wavy’) of SEE HALEY’S

17. Give guns to Rashid to bag large ordinary animal (9)
ARMADILLO

ARM (give guns to) ADIL (Rashid as in Adil Rashid, an English cricketer who plays for Yorkshire and England) around or ‘bagging’ L (large) + O (ordinary). We had to resort to an online search to confirm the parsing of this clue.

18. Mostly surrounded by water (2,3,4)
IN THE MAIN

Double definition

19. Takes in Amazons’ enemies? (8)
SWALLOWS

Double definition with the Swallows and Amazons referring to the classic Arthur Ransome series of children’s books from the 1930s and 40s.

22. Sheep climbing over another for grass (6)
MARRAM

RAM (sheep) reversed or ‘climbing’ over RAM (another sheep)

24. Scavenger’s expression of contempt about money (5)
HYENA

HA (expression of contempt) around or ‘about’ YEN (money)

25. Minimally restrictive interconnected bone structures (4)
RIBS

A sort of clue as definition – the initial letters  (‘minimally’) of Restrictive Interconnected Bone Structures

27. European married in Home Counties (5)
SWEDE

WED (married) in SE (South-East – Home Counties)

 

19 comments on “Independent 10,772 by Mev”

  1. Enjoyed this on the whole. Took a while to parse OCHRE (which I take to be every fourth letter). Agree that 4d is weak. Not convinced by the use of “minimally” in 25d, either in wordplay or in definition.

  3. A straightforward puzzle perfect for a Monday except that the reference to Earth Day wouldn’t work

    My favourite was the same as B&J – 19d – for memories of childhood and of my late sister, who was probably the biggest Arthur Ransome fan ever

    Thanks to Mev and B&J

  4. I found this to be an enjoyable and fairly gentle debut, thanks Mev! I liked that the topical Earth Day theme runs through quite a few of these nature-based and watery solutions. Like others I enjoyed 19d and had difficulty parsing 28a, and 29a and 26/6 were favourites. LOI was 8d which I originally entered as DISPLACE.

  5. I particularly liked 11, 23, 3d, 19d and 22d. Couldn’t understand 5a, 28a, 4d; wasn’t sure about 13. 23 scuppered me (though I would have probably got it with a ? at the end of it!). Nice debut.

  6. I thoroughly enjoyed this, even though I couldn’t parse 12A until I came here. The ‘every fourth letter’ device at 28A was brilliant – I’ve seen every third but not every fourth, must have taken some working out for that. Which setter will tax us with every fifth? Thanks and welcome Mev, and thanks to B&J of course.

  7. Found this one to be a completely mixed bag. Not really sure whether I enjoyed it but would be happy enough to give the setter another whirl on his next outing.
    Favourite by a mile was SWALLOWS.

    Thanks to Mev and to B&J for the review – particularly the cricket homework!

  8. Good to have a new setter and no write-in for me. I had trouble parsing a few, including TORPEDO (not knowing the fish giving the electric shock till looking it up post solve), HORNBEAM as a ‘timber source’ and the ‘Rashid’ bit of the wordplay for ARMADILLO.

    Working out the exact periodicity of the letters for OCHRE was too much for my aged brain, but I agree it was a very original take on an old device.

    Thanks to B&J and thanks and welcome to Mev

  9. Hard to tell whether this is themed or not. Angel has referred to an Earth Day denominator which is probably broad enough to encompass everything. We have trees (5 if we allow VINES), grasses (2), animals (2), birds (2) an insect and a veg.

    I welcome a new setter and am more than inclined to cut some slack. I agree with B&J that a couple were rather tortuous (and, no, I didn’t parse them) but the already mentioned OCHRE, the anagram for DAMSELFLY, the construction of SYCAMORE, the misdirection for MT EVEREST, the surface for BALLADEER and the simple yet clever device for MARRAM all earned ticks from me.

    Thanks Mev and B&J

  10. Had no idea it was Earth Day, so I enjoyed picking up on the theme. Favourites were sycamore, leather, balladeer and the simple but very cute marram. Couldn’t parse extreme or torpedo, so thanks to Bertandjoyce for that and an interesting blog. And thanks and welcome to Mev.

  11. I enjoyed this, especially OCHRE, although I did not parse EXTREME – thanks to Bertandjoyce for explaining it. Welcome to Mev!

  12. Very interesting puzzle, which I did not find too difficult overall, though I did need your help for a few of the parsings, thanks. Not too difficult and thought, esp when Earth Day was mentioned in one of the clues, that maybe was the theme, with some generally relevant answers. My favourite was also SWALLOWS, though I also liked the hidden CYST quite a lot, and there was a novel feel to the puzzle. Thanks, Mev, and BertandJoyce for the excellent blog.

  13. Thank you to B&J for the blog, and to everyone for the welcome, and your comments, which are all fair.

    Yes, it was a wide natural-world theme for Earth Day. An off-world guest appearance at 2d, and a [balla]DEER hiding in there too. I think PostMark @9 got most, but I was including animals/insects, geography, various plants, and body parts too. Not that theming should ever come above clueing, so I’ll keep trying to improve.

    For 13, my intention was it to be a D/CD, with both definitions including both words: The fish and the missile both might shock you in different ways the ocean.

    I hope to return before too long.
    Cheerio!

  14. Mev @13: thanks for dropping in and do make it a habit. Always enjoyed by us commenters, especially if there’s been skulduggery on your part (or ours) or crass stupidity on our part (or yours) 😀

    I wondered if the COMET was associated and, if you can have the DEER, then you can have the RAM as well. Shame there’s not a relative of the sloth called a SLOD.

  15. Ah, but the RAM is already used in the MARRAM, no? If you were to allow me such double-ups, I could claim the river CAM and an ARM as well! I’m not claiming LEATHER or [sas]HAY, as they require a bit of processing. 🙂

  16. I don’t think the RAM is used in MARRAM any more than DEER is used in BALLADEER. Neither RAM nor DEER were mentioned in their respective clues. Both form constituent parts of a solution. Both are valid theme members in my book. You could include the Cam but it’d be a tad weak – though probably allowable. An ARM??? “I’m celebrating Earth Day by acknowledging my arm?” Even a day out on the Cam would be more fitting than that. 🙂

    And I enjoyed your processing gag. (Did you see Nutmeg’s Grauniad of two days ago: I won’t repeat in case it’s a spoiler but there’s an ‘unrefined coke’ clue that you’ve reminded me of. If you haven’t, here’s a convenient link to the blog in which it caused delight and a number of developments of the idea)

  17. We found this a bit of a mixed bag but enjoyable on the whole. One or two we couldn’t parse fully but everything was gettable. We liked IMAGINING, TANGERINE and EYELASHES.
    19dn brought back memories from reading Ransome’s stories in childhood and then reading them again with our own children – and, as it happens, looking through a couple of them recently and realising that a copy of Coot Club picked up in a charity shop some years ago is actually a first edition.
    Thanks, Mev and B&J.

  18. A very good puzzle on the whole, with a ‘natural’ Earth Day theme to almost all the solutions. Unfortunately not every clue was as natural and a few, mainly the ones previously mentioned, took a bit too much head scratching.

    Looking forward to Mev’s next entry though. Thanks.

  19. We enjoyed this although I have trouble seeing an Earth Day theme in there. Didn’t understand 13a until I reached Wordplodder@8, having never heard of the fish, so it’s a day when I’m grateful for the comments as well as the blog.

Comments are closed.