Independent 10,919 by Filbert

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I found this quite tough in places but the compensation came in the form of some excellent clues.

5D was brilliant, although it's a shame Mr H spoils it slightly by spelling his name with two Ns. I also liked 13 and 2 for the excellent misdirection. 16D was clever but required a bit too much specialist knowledge for my liking. 6 was the only clue that I had reservations about.

ACROSS
1 USEFUL
Profitable source of energy promoted in America, oil perhaps (6)

E[nergy] moved up in US fuel
5 DECREASE
Peter out to relax after month with runs (8)

Ease after Dec{ember} + r{uns} (cricket abbrev).
9 CORNICHE
My special place way down the coast (8)

Cor(=my!) + niche. A corniche is a winding road in a cliff face.
10 MUTINY
Medium uniform given to very short rebel (6)

M{edium} + u{niform} (phonetic alphabet) + tiny. Rebel and mutiny are synonyms if they are both treated as verbs (e.g. "they mutinied").
11 VEGA
Star Victor Mature making a comeback (4)

V{ictor} + age<.
12 MADONNA
Mary delirious about new introduction to Adonis (7)

Mad + on (=about) + n{ew} + A[donis]
14 CONTINENCE
Innocent frolics before church, no sex (10)

(Innocent)* + CE
16 LOIN
Cut material for the floor, moving in later (4)

Lino with the "in" moving to later in the word.
17 OTIC
Touching your ears is old idiosyncrasy (4)

O{ld} + tic
18 INJUNCTION
Popular meeting place, usually a bar (10)

In + junction
20 GENESIS
European intelligence agency goes after information source (7)

E{uropean} SIS after gen. SIS stands for Secret Intelligence Service and is the proper name for MI6.
22 CUBE
Fifth baby, wanting eight perhaps (4)

CD/DD. A fifth baby might be called "cub E" and 8 is the cube of 2.
25 ANGORA
Fur shared by a couple of orangutangs (6)

Hidden in "orangutang orangutang
26 ILLUMINE
Brighten up run-down university, the one I went to (8)

Ill + u{niversity} + mine
27 GLASS EYE
Prosthetic leg’s easy to replace (5,3)

(Leg's easy)*
28 MORSEL
A bit of food left by solver who preferred a pint (6)

L{eft} after Morse, ref to Inspector Morse, a crossword and beer fan.
DOWN
2 SNORE
Sound sleepers make love, getting up around noon (5)

Eros< around n{oon}
3 FANTASTIC
Cool orangeade’s temperature is almost cold (9)

Fanta's t{emperature} + ic[y], although the "is" seems to get in the way slightly.
4 LICK
Taste defeat (4)

DD
5 DREAM ON
That’s highly unlikely, say Watson and Holmes shortly (5,2)

Dr (Watson is an example of a doctor) + Eamon[n], as in Eamonn Holmes the TV presenter.
6 COMEDIENNE
Miss amusing dinner invitation hosts sent without envelope (10)

Come dine around [s]en[t]. "Miss amusing" seems a bit of a stretch for comedienne and probably needs some sort of indication that it's more a possible description. The comedienne might be married or prefer to call herself "Ms".
7 ETTIN
Giant metal vessel carries creature from outer space (5)

ET on top of (or carried by) tin. Ettin is defined in Chambers as a giant but other sources seem to think the original meaning was more a bogle or ghost.
8 SAN MARINO
Filbert’s leaving Burma entering Chinese republic (3,6)

[My]anmar in Sino, an adjective relating to China.
13 SNAILS PACE
On vacation Susan has trouble with room rate that’s poor (6,4)

S[usa]n + ail + space
15 OCTAGONAL
Design a long coat shaped like an umbrella? (9)

(A long coat)*
16 LATECOMER
Disturbance in Molière, Act I gone? (9)

&lit – (mol[i]ere act)*. Refers to the play Tartuffe, which starts with a latecomer causing a disturbance in the audience.
19 JUSTICE
Only cool person on the bench (7)

Just + ice(=cool as a verb)
21 NOOKS
Presumably all disagreeing in corners (5)

CD/DD – no OKs = all disagreeing
23 BINGE
Too many bottles in dustbin, generally (5)

Hidden in "dustbin generally".
24 SLAM
Excitedly close high value contract (4)

DD – slamming doors and Bridge contracts.

15 comments on “Independent 10,919 by Filbert”

  1. Always look forward to a Filbert and this was no disappointment. Superb as always. Had to look ETTIN up though. DREAM ON was my pick of the day.

  3. Tough? How funny.
    For me, this was probably the easiest crossword Filbert wrote in the last couple of years.
    Very apt but it did surprise me somewhat.
    Or was it ‘that’ wavelength thing?
    Not that I could solve the thing in one go …..
    For 7dn (never heard of it, Filbert could have gone for EATEN) and the crossing 24ac/28ac.
    The latter was actually really nice!
    I enjoyed it.
    Many thanks to NealH & Filbert.

  5. Lovely stuff. DR EAMON, SNORE, MORSEL and SAN MARINO all brilliant. I also liked LATECOMER but didn’t realise it related to a specific play, so thanks to NealH for the extra info there.

    Thanks Filbert

  6. Almost got there – all we could think of for 24dn was ‘slim’ which as a verb could men ‘contract’ but we obviously couldn’t parse it. We couldn’t parse DREAM ON either. Lots to like, though – favourites included ANGORA, OCTAGONAL and JUSTICE.
    Thanks, Filbert and NealH.

  7. Thanks NealH for the blog and all commenters.
    I must confess to knowing nothing of Tartuffe. All I know of Moliere is the letters in his name and that he was a playwright.
    For OCTAGONAL, as I recall, I googled something like ‘octagonal things’ and was delighted to find that umbrellas are (very nearly) all octagonal. Specialised knowledge perhaps, but staring you in the face, particularly if you’re walking into a rainy breeze.

  8. Flew through the top half ground to a halt and came back later but can’t see why I had issues now. My printout did miss the last line of 28 and 8 which didn’t help. 19d reminded me of a Pratchett book where the goblins are demanding just ice from the police. Ta Neal and the nutty one.

  9. Filbert@7

    “I must confess to knowing nothing of Tartuffe. All I know of Moliere is the letters in his name and that he was a playwright.”

    So is it just a coincidence, then, that (as NealH informs us) “the play Tartuffe, which starts with a latecomer causing a disturbance in the audience”? If it’s not &lit, what’s the def? And if it is, what’s “gone” doing? I’m not trying to rip into the clue, just understand how you were thinking when you set it.

    Loads of brilliant clues, as usual. The tiny rebel with the ill-fitting uniform made me literally lol.

  10. Thanks, Tony.
    NealH’s explanation (before the sentence about Tartuffe) is what was intended. It’s an anagram (disturbance in) of MOLIEREACT without the I (I gone). The latecomer is the disturbance when they arrive after the start of the play.
    I don’t think Neal meant to imply that an event in Tartuffe was needed to make the clue work.
    I’ve had a quick look at the wiki summary of Tartuffe which is described as taking place entirely in one character’s house. Was the latecomer a feature of a particular production or is wiki missing details? It would be interesting to know.

  11. Too tough for me today I’m afraid. Managed 90% unaided but then needed a few strategic letter reveals. DREAM ON was my pick of some great clues.
    Thanks all.

  13. Filbert, my reference was https://playstosee.com/tartuffe-4/. I’m not sure if it relates just to that production or not. As a general definition, I don’t think I would have immediately related latecomer to someone causing a disturbance at a play but maybe something about that play or others like it has entered the general consciousness.

  14. Thanks, quite a coincidence. I suppose I was thinking of the ‘latecomers will not be admitted’ signs you get in theatres and relying on the setters’ get out of jail free card (aka question mark) to account for the various levels (theatre generally, Moliere specifically, end of Act I even more so) of example in the clue.

  15. Filbert

    When I woke up today I remembered what I had written and realized that “gone” is actually an important part of the &lit def, because if Act I is “gone” (i.e. has already past) that adds important information about the disturbance a LATECOMER causes. Ironically, it was Neal’s mention of that device of Tartuffe emerging from the house as a LATECOMER right at the beginning (i.e. much earlier than the end of Act I) that got in the way of my understanding.

    Btw, that linked review is about “an entertaining adaptation of Molière’s original satire”, so may not reflect exactly how any of Molière’s three versions started. (I hasten to add that I knew even less about Molière than you before reading the Wikipedia for Tartuffe. Hopefully some of it might come in handy when attempting the TLS!)

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