Independent 11,062 by Italicus

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The advance copy I received had a strange lack of spacing in some of the clues. I don't think that was deliberate, but one can never be sure with crossword setters.

This was mostly on the easy side with lots of clues put together from combinations of abbreviations and words with missing letters. The surface readings were quite good with special kudos to 7D for referencing an actual Elvis film.

ACROSS
8 NEMATODE
Worm boring around inside swelling (8)

Tame<(=boring) in node
9 ENAMEL
Electronic tag left in coat (6)

E{lectronic} + name(=tag) + l{eft}
10 FLAY
Beat back section of Royal Fusiliers (4)

Hidden, rev in royal fusiliers
11 SHRED
Extremely selfish communist has scrap (5)

S[elfis]h + red
12 SOUR
Tartnote written by university Romeo (4)

So (=note in solfege scale) + u{niversity} R{omeo} (R in phonetic alphabet)
13 THE THING
Get hint about grabbing husband in horrormovie (3,5)

(Get hint)* around h{usband}. The Thing was a 1982 John Carpenter film.
16 CASTLE
Keepplacingplayers beside short leg (6)

Cast(=players in theatre, cinema etc) + le[g]. I can't see any point to the lack of spacing.
18 DUST
Powder found by detective arresting posh model (4)

(DS(=Detective Sergeant) around U(U/non-U)) + T (as in the venerable Model T Ford).
20 ALONE
Endless nonsense is eschewed by all? (5)

[B]alone[y]
21 EASE
Starts to extol Ambassador Suite, emphasising comfort (4)

Initial letters of extol Ambassador suite emphasising
22 CENSOR
Inspector‘s son kidnapped by hideous crone (6)

S{on} in crone*
23 NATURIST
Article about holidaymaker spurning old stripper (8)

Na< (=indefinite article e.g "an item") + t[o]urist
26 PIKE
Weapon‘s power deployed by Eisenhower (4)

P{ower} + Ike (=nickname for Dwight Eisenhower, 34th President)
28 GROVE
Covert resistance fostered by Tory minister (5)

R{esistance} in Gove (=Michael Gove)
30 BELL
Beginning to engrave lines on bishop’s ring (4)

(E[ngrave] + l{ine} twice) on b{ishop}
31 NEURON
Nationalists collecting money for intelligence cell? (6)

N{ationalist} twice around Euro. A neuron is a cell in the brain, so might loosely be called an intelligence cell.
32 LEARNING
Right admitted to bias in education (8)

R{ight} in leaning
DOWN
1 WEALTH
Whitman, perhaps, capturing English hotel’s opulence (6)

(Walt around E{nglish}( + h{otel}. Walt Whitman was an American poet.
2 LADY
Young man suppressing yen to be a woman (4)

Lad on top of (=suppressing) y{en}
3 BONSAI
A snob set up institute for Japanese art (6)

(A snob)< + i{nstitute}
4 LEER
Like heartless queen’s lascivious look (4)

L[ik]e + ER
5 HEADACHE
Pain commander inflicted on a revolutionary (8)

Head(=commander) + a Che (Guevara)
6 CATS
Musical elements of play about reaching the top (4)

Acts(=elements of a play) with c(=about) moved to the top
7 BEGUILES
Charms Elvis originally displayed in disastrous GI Blues (8)

E[lvis] in (GI Blues)*. GI Blues was indeed an Elvis film from 1960.
14 TITUS
Emperor‘s footman essentially wearing outfit wrong way round (5)

[Foo]t[man] in suit<. Titus was a Roman emperor who lasted just a couple of years in the job before dying of a fever.
15 GROAN
Love interrupting elderly relative’s lament (5)

O in gran
17 STEER
Having captured Troy, oracle castrated bull (5)

Seer around T{roy}, which is an abbrev used in Troy weight.
19 UNEDITED
Original couple touring Spain and Germany with daughter (8)

Unite(=couple as a verb) around (E(=Spain, Espana) + D(=Germany, Deutschland)) + d{aughter}
20 ARROGANT
Haughtyking stops upcoming artist performing tango (8)

R(=rex, king) in RA<(=Royal Acadamecian) + tango*
24 TOERAG
Lowlife got over being given time inside (6)

Got< around era
25 SPLINT
Left welcomes new support (6)

Split(=left in the sense of "It's time I split") around n{ew}
27 EARL
Nobleprematurely abandoning leader of Yorkists (4)

Earl[y] (minus Y[orkists])
29 OWLS
Read Orwell’s letters regularly; they epitomise wisdom (4)

Odd letters of Orwells
30 BANE
Outlaw ultimately overcame nemesis (4)

Ban + [overcam]e

16 comments on “Independent 11,062 by Italicus”

  1. This was very light but great fun. My only hold up was needing to look up Whitman, as the only person of that ilk that I knew was the singer, Slim.

    I particularly liked 16a, 7d & 29d.

    Many thanks to Italicus and to Neal.

  2. I was defeated by 25d which then became a favourite and 6d which didn’t. I had thought the elements were the ‘cast’. Does ‘c’ for about mean circa? Having the crossers I needed Google for the worm and it took me some time to realise endlessly in 20a meant both ends. There was a surfeit of possessives – inspector’s, weapon’s and emperor’s – but I assume that’s acceptable misdirection. I enjoyed the grid and the blog. Thanks.

  3. A Mervyn Peake nina, I think – Titus Groan/Alone, Steerpike, Castle. There may be others, but neither the books nor the TV adaption were to my taste, so I never finished either.

  4. Well spotted Goujeers @3: oddly enough, I couldn’t get on with the books either. Not many that I end up leaving unfinished. Whilst I’m no great student of literature, RD @1, Walt was the first to come to mind and it makes a refreshing alternative to Disney. I’m not sure there are that many others, unless you delve into US sporting history. I guess we have our very own Walt Scott and Walt Raleigh …

    BONSAI, BEGUILES, TITUS and UNEDITED get my big ticks today.

    Thanks for a fun puzzle Italicus and to Neal for the blog

  5. Goujeers @3. I really enjoyed the first two books of the Gormenghast trilogy but I didn’t like the final one at all.

    Postmark @4. My point was not connected with Walt but with Whitman. I have never heard of Walt Whitman but I have heard of Slim Whitman, which I do accept probably qualifies me as a literary philistine.

  6. RD @5: he was a leading light in his field so a perfectly good thought to have had and a perfectly fine way of clueing SLIM. A – slightly grim – thing they have in common is their ability to prepare for end of life! Walt knew he was in decline and was able to finalise his last edition of his most famous work Leaves of Grass, subsequently known as the Deathbed Edition. Slim is one of those relatively rare celebrities to have been able to read his own obituary which was published in error some five years before he died.

  8. Flay was a servant in the Titus Groan trilogy. Titus’ aunts had cats and there was an owl mentioned somewhere we think.

  9. Thanks to NealH for the blog. I am not sure what happened with the spacing problems, but they were in no way intentional on my part. Well done to Goujeers@3 for spotting the Gormenghast theme, I tried to do it in a way that someone who has never even heard of the books could still solve the puzzle. I think I included 18 clues that can be related to the novels. Some, like STEER/PIKE, can be made by uniting two words (BELL/GROVE the headmaster, SOUR/DUST a teacher), other various characters (FLAY, SHRED, SPLINT, THE THING), the book titles TITUS GROAN and TITUS ALONE, the honorific titles of EARL Sepulchrave and LADY Gertrude Groan. and their related animals: OWLS and CATS. Finally the CASTLE of Gormenghast itself. Whatever you think of Mervyn Peake, he was great at choosing names for his characters!
    Thanks to all for the comments

  10. dryll @7: a covert is a copse or stand of trees or bushes. From Chambers, Covert: 3. Cover for game

    Italicus @9: thanks again. Certainly hand it to Peake that he choose good names. Another who has done well in that regard is Irish author Derek Landy in his Skulduggery Pleasant series for youngsters. China Sorrows, in particular, is a glorious combination.

  12. I did read the three Titus books, but many years ago. My friends seem to like them more than I did. I never spotted the theme.

    As to Walt Whitman, not only do I know him – he was much set by many composers, including Vaughan Williams in his Sea Symphony – but I just happened to have a collection of his poems next to me when I was solving. ( My favourite Whitman quotation: Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.))

  13. Very enjoyable. A couple of things required electronic verification but the rest was lightish, clever and good fun
    My ticks go to 20&31a plus 6&29d
    Many thanks to Italicus and Neal.

  14. An enjoyable solve without spotting the theme – which is as it should be. Favourite (difficult to choose, though) was OWLS
    Thanks, Italicus and NealH

  15. Cheers It and NH fairly easy solve – great for a Monday and an easily missed theme which is really the way it should be done. Grand job setter.

  16. dryll@7: for a nice example see the beautiful opening stanza of Keats’ Endymion – “…and clear rills, that for themselves a cooling covert make ‘gainst the hot season.”

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