Independent 11,098 by Alchemi

by

An enjoyable puzzle where the bottom half seemed a little harder than the top.

There were quite a lot of film references and a few novelty clues like 24D, which was probably my favourite.

ACROSS
1 TWELVE ANGRY MEN
Film my new gravel net working (6,5,3)

(My new gravel net)*. This was a 1957 film starring Henry Fonda among others.
10 LOTTO
Group heading for draw (5)

Lot(=group) in front of (=heading) to(=for)
11 PEDICURES
Rude Spice’s unusual foot treatments (9)

(Rude Spice)*. I don't remember Rude Spice from the line-up but I'm sure she'd have made a good addition.
12 DERIDES
Mocks dried-out enchantress’s clothes (7)

Dried* + e[nchantres]s
13 SOLDADO
Spanish army guy promoted at a party (7)

Sold + a do
14 SWAMP
Did butterfly start to pollute bog? (5)

Swam(=did butterfly, as swimming stroke) + p[ollute]. The question mark may be there because "did butterfly" is an example of swimming, although it seems slightly in the wrong place.
16 ROWDINESS
Eats in lines, causing unruly behaviour (9)

Dines in rows
19 RISING SUN
Rebellions at New York office a daily event (6,3)

Risings + UN. The second part refers to the headquarters of the United Nations, which is in New York.
20 GOING
Medal keeps one operational (5)

Gong around I
22 NEW LAID
Win deal to scramble a type of egg (3-4)

(Win deal)*
25 BARTERS
Exchanges prison features inspiring Irish broadcaster (7)

Bars around RTE, the Irish national TV broadcaster, which is funded in a similar way to the BBC.
27 LOGOPHILE
Word-lover has dossier on company symbols, I hear (9)

Hom of "logo file", which might be a dossier containing logo information.
28 COMBE
Hollow farming equipment no longer fashionable (5)

Comb[in]e
29 WINNER TAKES ALL
Film director leaves halfway through talks resolving to have only one prize (6-5-3)

Winner (ref to Michael Winner) + (lea[ves] talks)*
DOWN
2 WATER RATS
Power to restrain rare swimming voles (5,4)

Watts(=power) around rare*. Although called water rats, voles are actually an entirely different family of animals.
3 LLOYD
Possibly Harold‘s Dolly Mixture (5)

Dolly* – ref to Harold LLoyd, the silent film star.
4 EXPOSURES
Vulnerabilities certain trade shows must cover (9)

Sure(=certain) with expos around it.
5 NODES
Network parts new poems (5)

N{ew} odes
6 RECALLING
Bringing back engineers on the telephone (9)

RE(=Royal Engineers) + calling
7 MYRNA
New vaccine technology cracked by unknown actress essential to 3 (5)

MRNA (standing for messenger RNA, a type of vaccine technology used in some of the Covid vaccines) around Y. Ref to Myrna Loy (middle part of [L]loy[d]).
8 NO SHOWS
Presents include second house which didn’t turn up (2-5)

Nows(=presents, although it's not a word I've seen pluralised before) around (s{econd} ho{use})
9 BLADES
These cut some grass (6)

DD (blades of grass)
15 PINEAPPLE
Bomb nuclear reactor broken by nearly-new software (9)

Pile around (ne[w] app). Pineapple is slang for a type of hand grenade.
17 WINDBREAK
Shelter one of 40 asleep, hiding straggly beard (9)

Wink (as in 40 winks) around beard*
18 EPIDERMAL
Skinny dip with me – real kinky! (9)

(Dip + me + real)*
19 RUNS LOW
Depletes stock as hunters fail to keep up (4,3)

DD. I think the second part might be "run slow", referring to Hunter watches.
21 GASKET
The moment king enters, fetch seal (6)

As K(=the moment king) in get(=fetch)
23 WAGON
Vehicle was first to carry silver (5)

Won(=was first) around Ag(=chemical symbol for silver)
24 DRIFT
Tendency of apparently unipedal medic? (5)

Dr on 1 f{oo}t would be a unipedal medic.
26 RUCKS
Vehicles not starting fights (5)

[T]rucks

8 comments on “Independent 11,098 by Alchemi”

  1. Thanks, Alchemi and NealH!

    My favourites are: SWAMP, WINNER TAKES ALL, MYRNA, RUNS LOW (I could not parse it. Your parsing is convincing. Thanks.) and DRIFT.

  2. Struggled with a couple of unknowns – the Spanish soldier and the actress. Even with crossers and an idea of wordplay, I had no idea what I was aiming at so I’m calling it a DNF.

    However, the ones I solved more than made up for the ones I didn’t. Favourites included ROWDINESS, COMBE, RECALLING, BLADES, WINDBREAK, EPIDERMAL (COTD) and DRIFT..

    I’m not sure I understand ‘moment king’ in the parsing of 21a. I had a different parse with As = the moment. “The brakes came on as/the moment the wheels touched the runway”

    Thanks Alchemi and NealH

  4. Thanks Neal. Wasn’t sure if ‘moment king’ was a Thing of which I was unaware. I know moment has a meaning that is not directly time related.

  5. Good start to the week with what would probably count as a theme. The film references weren’t too obscure which helped with some of the other answers, eg MYRNA. The name of the ‘Irish broadcaster’ is one of those acronyms I always have trouble with, so I was glad to have the def and crossers for BARTERS.

    I found SOLDADO difficult and the crossing RUCKS and COMBE didn’t yield easily at the end.

    Thanks to Alchemi and NealH

  6. This showed up a few gaps in my GK with the PILE, the Spanish army guy and the word-lover. Will I remember them? Probably not………..

    Thanks to Alchemi for the education and to Neal for the review.

  7. A fairly gentle start to the week with the long anagrams top and bottom being cracked without too much difficulty once a few crossing letters were in place. We didn’t know the actress at 7dn but the wordplay was clear enough and Google confirmed our guess. And we needed our Spanish dictionary to confirm SOLDADO. Our LOI was COMBE where we didn’t immediately think of the farming equipment. Favourites were BARTERS, EPIDERMAL and DRIFT.
    Thanks, Alchemi and NealH.

  8. Thanks everyone.

    It wasn’t consciously a film theme: obviously the ANGRY MEN were, but the rest were just what occurred to me when cluing them.

    As to the ? on 14a, the words of the clue form a question, and it’s normal to put question marks at the end of questions, isn’t it?

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