Independent 11,099 by Atrica

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An enjoyable Tuesday challenge from Atrica.

The influences here range from MPs of the late 20th century to current football players and recent food fads. I enjoyed the sneaky definitions in 11a/12a, 2d, and (especially) 23d.

It’s Tuesday so we’re looking for a theme. I must admit that solving 9a followed by 10a made me think of Notre-Dame de Paris, but the real theme appeared soon afterwards, helped by 24a (cleverly clued with reference to a different author) and 25a (with a more direct reference). We’re looking at the poet and playwright TS ELIOT: his works include The HOLLOW Men, Murder in the CATHEDRAL, The LOVE SONG of J Alfred Prufrock, Old Possum’s Book of Practical CATS, Journey of the MAGI, The WASTE LAND, EAST Coker, The Dry SALVAGES, and LITTLE Gidding. Have I missed anything? I’m sure you’ll tell me if I have. UPDATE: that should be EAST COKER, and also BURNT Norton; thanks to Ian SW3 and mw7000 for their comments.

Thanks Atrica for the fun.

Definitions are underlined; BOLD UPPERCASE indicates letters used in the wordplay; square brackets [ ] indicate omitted letters.

ACROSS
1 HOLLOW
Do this to physique to make exercise valueless (6)
If you HOLLOW out P[hysiqu]E by removing the inner letters, you get PE (physical education = exercise).
4 SALVAGES
After collapse, Las Vegas recovers (8)
Anagram (after collapse) of LAS VEGAS.
9 BURNT
Overcooked cake at temperature recipe included (5)
BUN (a small cake) + T (temperature), including R (abbreviation for Latin recipe = take, in old-fashioned drug prescriptions).
10 CATHEDRAL
One hundred articles rejected shortening church (9)
C (Roman numeral for 100) + A + THE (indefinite and definite articles), then LARD (shortening = solid fat used for baking) reversed (rejected).
11/12 LOVE SONG
Tonight, for example, scoreless prior to Spurs forward getting header for goal (4,4)
LOVE (scoreless, in tennis) + SON (Spurs football forward Son Heung-min) + first letter (header) of G[oal].

Tonight is a love song from the musical West Side Story.
13 PEACH
Fruit and vegetable? Chef chops only the common ingredients (5)
PEA (a vegetable), then the two letters that are common to CH[ef] and CH[ops].
15 NORMANS
Fowler and Lamont, perhaps not completely typical partners (7)
NORMA[l] (typical) without the last letter (not completely), then N + S (North and South = partners in the game of bridge).

Norman Fowler and Norman Lamont are both former Conservative cabinet ministers, now life peers.
16 NAIL
Arrest invalidly, ignoring the odds (4)
[i]N[v]A[l]I[d]L[y], ignoring the odd-numbered letters.
19 EAST
Cardinal‘s festival spurning the Queen (4)
EAST[er] (festival) without ER (the Queen).

One of the four cardinal directions of the compass.
21 OCTUPLE
Original couplet, eight times over (7)
Anagram (original) of COUPLET.
24 ELIOT
John almost making a comeback, or George? (5)
TOILE[t] (john = a slang word for toilet), without its last letter (almost), reversed (making a comeback).

George Eliot = pen name of the author Mary Ann Evans, which she used because women weren’t generally taken seriously as writers in the 1800s. The surface seems to refer to two late members of the Beatles; and of course the solution also refers to another writer Eliot, who gives us today’s theme.
25 CATS
Initials of Anglo-American poet going on about practical creatures (4)
TS (T S Eliot, Anglo-American poet) added to (going on) CA (ca = abbreviation for Latin circa = about = approximately).

Extended definition: Eliot wrote Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, a collection of verses (on which the musical Cats is based).
26 MAGI
Bearers of gifts damaging contents (4)
Hidden answer (contents) in [da]MAGI[ng].
28 WASTELAND
Dawn’s late breaking in the desert (9)
Anagram (breaking) of DAWN’S LATE.
29 COKER
US junkie more politically correct, giving up whiskey for a bit of chardonnay (5)
[w]OKER (woke = often derogatory word for “politically correct”), replacing W (Whiskey in the radio alphabet) with the first letter (a bit) of C[hardonay].

Coker = US slang for a cocaine user = junkie.
30 TALISMAN
Charm in part of capital is manifest (8)
Hidden answer (part of . . .) in [capi]TAL IS MAN[ifest].

Charm = an object with supposed magical powers.
31 LITTLE
Origin of literary title freely associated with Women, Chicken and Gidding? (6)
First letter (origin) of L[iterary] + anagram (freely) of TITLE.

Reference to the titles of three literary works: Little Women (by Louisa May Alcott), Chicken Little (folk tale otherwise known as Henny Penny), and Little Gidding (a poem by today’s theme writer).
DOWN
1 HOBBLING
Henry heading off, teetering and limping (8)
H (abbreviation for Henry = unit of electrical inductance) + [w]OBBLING (teetering) with its first letter (heading) taken off.
2 L-DRIVERS
Left and right blocking various impediments to rapid progress? (1-7)
L (left), then R (right) inserted into (blocking) DIVERS (archaic spelling of diverse = various).

Short for learner drivers, who may drive more slowly than other road users would like them to.
3 OATH
Curse unlimited hate (4)
[l]OATH[e] (hate, as a verb) without the outer letters (limits).
5 ANTIGEN
What can produce an allergic reaction? Some say Aunt Jennifer (7)
Homophone, possibly, depending on your accent (some say) of AUNTIE JEN (Aunt Jennifer). Some would pronounce “aunt” or “auntie” with a short A as in “ant”; some wouldn’t. But the homophone indicator acknowledges that this won’t work for everyone.
6 VIEWPOINTS
Unusual case of Washingtonian with positive opinions (10)
Anagram (unusual) of the outer letters (case) of W[ashingtonia]N + POSITIVE.
7 GERMAN
Endless material from Heidelberg? (6)
GERMAN[e] (material = relevant) without the last letter (endless).
8 SYLPHS
Superficially, sorry leadership hurts spirits (6)
Outer letters (superficially) of S[orr]Y L[eadershi]P H[urt]S. Could our setter possibly be thinking of the Prime Minister and his colleagues?
10 CROSS
Angry mule? (5)
Double definition: the second refers to cross = crossbreed = a hybrid animal.
14 BAD ACTRESS
Car ads best alternative for a talentless performer (3,7)
Anagram (alternative) of CAR ADS BEST.
17 UPMARKET
Maker put out high quality (8)
Anagram (out) of MAKER PUT.
18 PEDIGREE
Strain of impeding disagreeable central characters (8)
Central characters from the words [im]PEDI[ng] [disa]GREE[able].

Strain = pedigree = biological lineage.
20 TOCCATA
Pointless staccato playing in organ piece (7)
Anagram (playing) of [s]TACCATO, without the S (south = a point of the compass). Or “point” could just mean “first letter” perhaps.

A piece for a keyboard instrument (often but not necessarily the organ), showing off the player’s fingering skills.
21 OUTED
Revealed the truth – I’d say that hurt Mr Heath (5)
Homophone (I’d say) of OW! (that hurt!) + TED (Ted Heath, former Conservative PM).

Out (as a verb) = to say something publicly about someone who would prefer to keep the matter private.
22 PEEWIT
Uplifting cry? It could be a bird (6)
WEEP (cry), reversed (uplifting, in a down clue) + IT.

A bird named for the sound of its call.
23 MISSAL
Girl from the north shares letters with girl from the south in book for the masses (6)
MISS (girl) reading downwards in a down clue (from the north), and LASS (girl) reading upwards (from the south), sharing the SS in the middle.

Book of texts, prayers and instructions for Roman Catholic Mass services.
27 ACAI
Leaders to advocate celery as indispensible superfood (4)
First letters (leaders) of A[dvocate] C[elery] A[s] I[ndispensable].

South American berry, regarded by some as a “superfood”, with various unsubstantiated claims about its medicinal value.

13 comments on “Independent 11,099 by Atrica”

  4. Liked HOLLOW, LITTLE, L-DRIVERS, GERMAN and MISSAL (a rarely used device, I think).

    Thanks, A and Q!

  5. T.S. Eliot’s love of cryptic crosswords and desire to be referenced in them has been noted here before, so he would be pleased. I came to 24 across and thought “Nice to see a toilet clue
    refer to a different Eliot” only to come to 25 across to stumble across the theme, which helped with COKER and WASTELAND, but had me looking in vain for Murder and Norton. I suppose OCTUPLE makes only two of the FOUR QUARTETS.

  6. Thanks Quirister as I did wonder what had happened to the second “e” of “diverse”, had forgotten why H for Henry was valid and didn’t exactly know what a MISSAL was. Not sure I have ever referred to L-DRIVERS (of course L-PLATES are familiar, as are just “Learners”) and BAD ACTRESS comes close to being a “Green Car” doesn’t it? Nevertheless, lots of fun from the clever clues and unusual devices, thanks Atrica.

  7. An enjoyable solve, helped by spotting the theme as we went along. We found most of the thematic entries, apart from 4ac. We wondered if there was a particular reason, such as a significant anniversary, for the theme today but couldn’t find anything. We failed to parse OATH, taking ‘unlimited hate’ as the middle letters of ‘hate’ so that we couldn’t fathom wher the O and the H came from, and we thought 14dn a bit disappointing in that the answer seems to be just two words put together rather arbitrarily – but perhaps it was dictated by the constraints of the theme.
    Two of the themed entries were among our favourites – CATHEDRAL and WASTELAND, together with TOCCATA.
    Thanks, Atrica and Quirister.

  9. Thanks very much to all who commented and particularly to Quirister, whose blogs are always a great pleasure to read. I’m kicking myself for not noticing that two quartets would be OCTUPLE as Petert pointed out. That could have been the basis for a much better clue! As to “bad actress” it was either that or “papaw trees” (or a radical redesign…). I’ve never seen pawpaw spelled with only one “W” before so didn’t feel that would have been fair. Incidentally, the clue for “bad actress” was a reverse anagram until it was pointed out to me that it did not have a unique solution.

  11. Trouble is, 19A is a themer! You can use “copartners” or “tenantless” with some nonthematic changes, but I don’t much like those words either. I wonder how one draws the line with adjective + noun? I think “bad actress” is more coupled than “green car” but less than “mad hatter”.

  13. Thanks Atrica for the insight into your construction process and I am very happy that you rejected the papaw trees and other possibles! Dave@12 yes I thought that at the time although I think the meaning is different isn’t it? Anyway as we all got it I don’t suppose we mind too much after all.

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