Independent 11,092/Tees

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Tees has the bank holiday crossword for us. There is a theme among the answers today which, unless you have been living on another planet for the last six months, can hardly have escaped you.

Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
cad clue as definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed

definitions are underlined

Across

1/5 Bad girl at ease dancing round piano in 27 20 events?
ILLEGAL PARTIES
A charade of ILL and an insertion of P in (GIRL AT EASE)*

9 Drink finished, monarch leaves for the city
KIROV
A charade of KIR and OV[ER]

10 Scrambled egg covering over fish outside pub in place settings?
GEOGRAPHY
Two insertions: of O in (EGG)* and PH in RAY.

11 Are there still productions one seeks to avoid?
NON-DRINKER
A cd, I think, referring to the whisky ‘still’.

12 Penalty for attending 1A 5A in 27 20? Well!
FINE
A dd.

14 50 accommodated in Massachusetts do break down
MALFUNCTION
An insertion of L in MA and FUNCTION.

18 Diabolical song seduces: attempt to anticipate?
SECOND GUESS
(SONG SEDUCES)*

21 Swears loudly twice opening case of endives
EFFS
An insertion of FF in E and S for the outside letters of ‘endives’.

22 Small son holding best drink doesn’t quite finish
STOPS SHORT
A charade of S and another S inserted into TOP and SHORT.

25 Bourbon damaged tonsil and ear
ORLEANIST
(TONSIL EAR)* Referring to the Orleanist movement in France and the House of Bourbon.

26 Eagle maybe supplied with prescribed food discards wrapping
EDDIE
A charade of [F]ED and DIE[T]. Referring to the hapless skier.

27/20 Quickly necking booze, setter vandalised 3 hub
DOWNING STREET
A charade of DOWNING and (SETTER)*

28 Floor covering routine involves two mums
RUSH MAT
An insertion of SH and MA in RUT.

Down

1 Brian Boru causing irritation?
IRKING
Brian was an Irish King, so …

2 Cat eating a rat’s head and throat part
LARYNX
An insertion of A and R for the initial letter of ‘rat’ in LYNX.

3 Graeme Logan with sailors beginning to take control?
GOVERNMENT
This seems to be a charade of GOVERN, MEN and T, but I can’t explain the Graeme Logan bit, I’m afraid. Some kind soul will help me out, I’m sure.

4 Connect to computer using company symbol and name
LOG ON
A charade of LOGO and N.

5 Ordinary language curiously pleasing Sue
PROSECUTE
A charade of PROSE and CUTE.

6 Superb morsel overlooked in savoury dish
RARE
RARE[BIT]

7 Complete rascal not breaking law!
IMPLICIT
A charade of IMP and LICIT.

8 Irishmen detaining naughty boy — sauce’s source?
SOY BEANS
An insertion of (BOY)* in SEANS.

13 See my costs spiralling in complex communities
ECOSYSTEMS
(SEE MY COSTS)*

15 Fireball, that which illuminates northern parts
LIGHTNING
An insertion of N in LIGHTING.

16 Sit and adore rippling body
ASTEROID
(SIT ADORE)*

17 Habitual rule-breaker putting food before Jude?
SCOFFLAW
A charade of SCOFF and [Jude] LAW.

19 New London case dismissed marks Murty’s status?
NON-DOM
A charade of N, [L]ONDO[N] and M for ‘marks’. The solution is referring to the status of Mr Sunak’s wife.

23 Old man — one such as Hockney losing home
PATER
PA[IN]TER

24 Present suppliers not entirely marvellous
MAGI
MAGI[C]

19 comments on “Independent 11,092/Tees”

  1. Graeme Logan is Michael Gove’s original name. Sailors are RN MEN. A very enjoyable puzzle and clear blog. Many thanks to both.

  2. Just the smallest of notes to our blogger before I start the puzzle. Could you kindly make comments about themes etc a little below the very first sentence? I just visited 225 from which I normally get the link for the Indy puzzle and the opening preamble, visible without clicking on the link, has already told me there’s a theme which is a bit frustrating.

  3. Very smooth and quite tricky. NON-DRINKER defeated me – it’s so often the cryptics that do that. I didn’t twig what ‘still’ was referring to and, yes Pierre, I agree it’s the spirit still. I wouldn’t have got SCOFFLAW until coming across it quite recently and wouldn’t have got GOVERNMENT, had I not popped in to scrawl my earlier grumpy note (apologies, Pierre) – which meant I couldn’t help but see Desmond’s comment!!! 😀 I had no idea Gove was an adopted name so would have got nowhere!

    GEOGRAPHY, SECOND GUESS, EFFS, DOWNING STREET, RUSH MAT, LIGHTNING, ASTEROID and PATER were my favourites today.

    Thanks Tees and Pierre

  4. Quite tough this one. At 1A I couldn’t see NON-DRINKER and put NON-BRANDED, which sort of works, for me anyway, as brandy is a still production. I wonder why Gove changed his original name: what was wrong with Graeme Logan? Thanks Tees and Pierre.

  5. Prof. Google says:

    At the age of four months he was adopted by a Labour-supporting couple in Aberdeen, Ernest and Christine Gove, by whom he was brought up. After he joined the Gove family, Logan’s name was changed to Michael Andrew Gove.

    Thanks, T and P!

  6. My favs: EDDIE, RUSH MAT and GOVERNMENT (RN MEN T-I could guess. GOVE fell in place for I thought nothing else fitted there. Suspected some relationship between Logan and Gove, but could not guess the real link. Thanks Desmond@1).

    While ILLEGAL PARTIES are doing overtime, NON-DOM is topical and interesting.

  7. IRKING was a great clue. While I get the avoidance of distilled product, I’m still not sure exactly how NON-DRINKER works. Shouldn’t it be “one seeking to avoid” ? I assumed Graeme Logan was someone GOVE MET, maybe at a party, until I googled it.

  8. No idea about ‘Graeme Logan’ but the answer seemed to fit. Almost gave up on NON-DRINKER but inspiration (=luck) came to the rescue.

    Didn’t know all the political references but enjoyed those I could pick up. Nothing to do with the theme, but I was grateful for a recent program on the River Shannon for the reminder of ‘Brian Boru’.

    SCOFFLAW is a descriptive word which was my favourite today.

    Thanks to Tees and Pierre

  9. Petert@7
    ‘The whisky still’ is mentioned by the blogger above. A non-drinker seeks to avoid whiskey, brandy, etc., which are produced using stills (still productions).

    ‘One seeks to avoid’ in the crossword parlance is ‘one who seeks to avoid’.

  10. Thanks both. My view is there is some artistic licence in the wording of 11, but it is still a clever cd; also that the ‘men’ element of GOVERNMENT potentially opens up a gender diversity conversation, which will always be excused by the question mark

  11. KVa@9 I tried to make it clear that I understood the whisky still part of the clue. Even allowing for the “crossword parlance” the grammar of the definition is Yodaesque, at best. I suppose “One seeks to avoid still productions” would have been too straightforward.

  12. 11 across is straightforward for this solver. ‘Are there still productions (i.e. examples of alcoholic drinks) one (i.e. a non-drinker) seeks to avoid?’. Just a cd surely. And as for the ‘sailors’ being RN MEN, I do not believe it excludes RN WOMEN as an alternative. Sexism is horrible of course, and rife in the Services, but it isn’t here for me. I enjoy an Arachne crossword, where this is usually eschewed.

    Best clue for me the IR. KING, great idea, and I was okay with the theme as it’s so current. And ongoing. For goodness’ sake let’s get the Gray report published and have done with it, however.

  14. Petert@11
    Apologies. Misunderstood what you were trying to convey. Got it now. Sorry, again.

  15. Thanks for the blog. Graeme Logan seems like a pretty specialist piece of general knowledge but government was all it could be.
    Since no-one else stepped in to defend our blogger can I say that I like being told the theme and would expect it to be at the start of the blog. It’s hardly your fault if one solver gets to the puzzle in an unconventional way!

  16. All good fun. Nothing to add other than my appreciation of the rather good NON-DRINKER. A DNF of course as I know nothing of “NON-DOMs” and the crossing EDDIE was just the type of clue to fox me (“You must guess what I have in my pocket and what I can make of it…”) but I should have got that one.

  17. Thanks Tees. I got most of this (I made liberal use of the check button to get NON-DRINKER) despite my ignorance of Grame Logan, Brian Boru, Murty Sunak, and Eddie Eagle. I attribute this to either Tees’ expert clueing or my own lucky guessing. Thanks Pierre for the blog.

  18. Only just got to look at this one. SCOFFLAW was new to me and top marks went to IRKING & RUSH MAT.

    Thanks to Tees and to Pierre for the review – so sorry that you were robbed of a bird opportunity today.

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