Wednesday’s Independent puzzle is set by Filbert, a setter I usually find quite challenging.
Wednesday puzzles tend to be message or theme free and I think this one is similar.
The clues made me think both in terms of the definitions and the wordplay, but I made steady progress and think I have got all the parsing right.
We had one of those quirks of grid filling today when ACTIONABLE appeared again just a few days after Phi clued the same word last Friday. The wordplay in each case was very different.
I wasn’t aware that a picaroon was a pirate until I came to write the blog. The entry at 17 across was clearly GALLEON from the wordplay. Initially I wasn’t sure about the definition, but the pirate connection cleared up my original lack of understanding.
My last one in was DISNEY although I’m not sure why as the clue is very clear.
My 900th blog on fifteensquared.
| No | Detail |
| Across | |
| 1 |
Groovy accent to go with tan (8) BACKBEAT (a secondary syncopated beat; groovy accent?) BACK (support; go with) + BEAT (tan) BACK BEAT |
| 5 |
Surgeon’s left without dressing wound (6) SNAKED (followed a winding course; wound) S (first letter of [left {of}] SURGEON) + NAKED (without dressing) S NAKED |
| 10 |
Surround soldier returning permit and gun (11) MANTELPIECE (ornamental structure over and in front of a fireplace; surround) MAN (soldier) + LET (permit) reversed (returning) + PIECE (gun) MAN TEL< PIECE |
| 11 |
Platyhelminthes includes a group of species that can grow to 80 feet (3) ELM (species of tree that can grow to 80 feet) ELM (hidden word in [includes] PLATYHELMINTHES ELM |
| 12 |
Grief very touching (4) SORE (grief) SO (very) + RE (in respect of; about; touching) SO RE |
| 13 |
One must complete many courses to become an expert in bonds (10) BRICKLAYER (an expert in bonding BRICKs and mortar) BRICKLAYER (some who LAYs course of BRICKS) taken together these two interpretations form a cryptic definition of a BRICKLAYER BRICKLAYER |
| 15 |
Leave car at home after cycling deal (7) DETRAIN (leave a railway carriage) DETRA (string of letters formed by cycling the letters in TRADE [deal] two places to the right with the end letters going to the beginning) + IN (at home) DETRA IN |
| 16 |
Daughter oddly upset by saying "waste of chips" (7) SAWDUST (the residue [waste] of chipping away at a piece of wood) SAW (saying) + D (daughter) + UST (letters 1, 3 and 5 [oddly] of UPSET) SAW D UST |
| 17 |
Volume inscribed with ‘English prize for Picaroon‘? (7) GALLEON (a picaroon is a pirate and a GALLEON could be a ship looted [taken as a prize] by a pirate) GALLON (unit of volume) containing (inscribed with) E (English) GALL (E) ON |
| 19 |
Hot stuff, like teacher I see coming over (7) HARISSA (hot paste made from chillis, spices and olive oil, used in North African cuisine) (AS [like] + SIR [form of address to a male teacher] + AH [interjection meaning I see]) all reversed (coming over) (HA RIS SA)< |
| 21 |
Tailor in lab coat beginning to experiment, generating suit (10) ACTIONABLE (descriptive of something liable to generate a law suit) Anagram of (tailor) IN LAB COAT + E (first letter of [beginning to] EXPERIMENT) ACTIONABL* E |
| 22 |
Pass end of cables through walls (4) VISA (permit; pass) VIA (through) containing (walls, as a verb) S (last letter of [end of] CABLES) VI (S) A |
| 24 |
Online business promoting diversity and staying cool (3) ECO (denoting concern for the environment, possibly by promoting diversity of flora and fauna and by challenging climate change so that we stay cool) E (electronic) + CO (company) – online business E CO |
| 25 |
Religious leader closed church wanting time for small box of buns (6,5) RABBIT HUTCH (home [often a small box] for bunny rabbits [buns]) RABBI (religious leader) + SHUT (closed) with T (time) replacing (wanted for} S (small) + CH (church) RABBI T HUT CH |
| 26 |
Cartoonist desires papers to make comeback (6) DISNEY (reference Walt DISNEY [1901-1966], pioneer of the animation industry [cartoonist]) (YENS [desires] + ID [identity paper]) all reversed (to make comeback) (DI SNEY)< |
| 27 |
Romping in the dew made to look innocent (8) WHITENED (freed from guilt; made to look innocent) Anagram of (romping) IN THE DEW WHITENED* |
| Down | |
| 1 |
Clueless lady artist thinks about in bed (7) BEMUSED (confused; clueless) MUSE (The MUSEs were the rare goddesses of the liberal arts, so one of them was a lady artist. MUSE also refers to a lady who inspires a creative artist. MUSE can also mean to think about, so there are many interpretations of MUSE in this clue) contained in (in) BED BE (MUSE) D |
| 2 |
An actor’s guilt on skipping compliments (15) CONGRATULATIONS (compliments) Anagram of (skipping) AN ACTOR’S GUILT ON CONGRATULATIONS* |
| 3 |
Sounding rude, produced wind (4) BLEW (produced wind) BLEW (sounds like [sounding] BLUE [rude]) BLEW |
| 4 |
Prescribed drug hopin’ to get high? (7) ASPIRIN (drug used for relieving rheumatic pains, neuralgia, etc, and as an anti-coagulant) ASPIRIN‘ (ASPIRING [hoping to improve to a higher goal ] with the g dropped to form ASPIRIN‘as in hopin’) ASPIRIN’ |
| 6 |
Rely on large furry alien to have queen in stitches (10) NEEDLEWORK (stitches) NEED (rely on) + L (large) + (EWOK [furry alien creatures in the Star Wars universe] containing [to have] R {Regina; queen]) NEED L EWO (R) K |
| 7 |
Appropriate suggestion for chill? (4,4,5,2) KEEP YOUR SHIRT ON (encouragement to stay calm or to chill) KEEP YOUR SHIRT ON (suggestion to keep warm so that you don’t catch a chill) double definition KEEP YOUR SHIRT ON |
| 8 |
Drain part of the main from below fault? (7) DEMERIT (fault or defect) (TIRE [exhaust; drain] + MED [Mediterranean sea; part of the main]) all reversed (from below; down entry) (DEM ERIT)< |
| 9 |
Dictator’s [possessed by English devils (6) DEUCES (devils) DUCE’S (Il DUCE was the title assumed by the Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini [1883-1945]) containing (possessed by; dominated by a spirit that has entered the body) E (English) D (E) UCES |
| 14 |
E.g. grey hares around here (10) RACECOURSE (somewhere a grey horse might run round fast [hare]) RACECOURSE (cryptic definition) RACECOURSE |
| 17 |
Enterprising leader of Indian state? (2-5) GO-AHEAD (enterprising) GOA (Indian state) + HEAD (Leader) GO A HEAD |
| 18 |
Miserly times not far off (6) NEARBY (not far away) NEAR (miserly) + BY (multiplied by; times, as in 5 by 6=30) NEAR BY |
| 19 |
Terrible Janet maybe has two husbands kept separate (7) HELLISH (terrible) ELLIS (reference Janet ELLIS [born 1955], television presenter. An example of a Janet) contained in (kept by separate …) (H [husband] + H [husband], two husbands) H (ELLIS) H |
| 20 |
Sheepish sailor remains embarked after evacuation (7) ABASHED (embarrassed; sheepish) AB (able seaman; sailor) + ASH (remains) + ED (letters remaining in EMBARKED after the central letters MBARKE are removed; after evacuation) AB ASH ED |
| 23 |
Mum books vaccination (4) SHOT (vaccination_) SH (be quit; keep mum) + OT (Old Testaments; books) SH OT |
I think the only way to parse 1d is to have ‘muse’ – ‘lady [that an] artist thinks about’.
I do like Filbert puzzles (including this one) but didn’t care for the definitions in 1a & 24a.
Was it “Keep ONES shirt on” or YOUR?
It lis usually ONES but it didnt seem to gel here in a CD
And so it proved when I saw zillions of words fitted the ONES possibility
So YOURS it was
Thanks Filbert and DS
Thanks, Filbert and duncanshiell!
Many good ones.
A few to mention: DETRAIN, GALLEON, RABBIT HUTCH, DEMERIT and RACECOURSE.
Hovis@1: Your parsing of BEMUSED is convincing. We can wait to see if anyone else has a better explanation.
BACKBEAT: Looks like groovy accents are groove-like accents used to notate backbeats (as opposed to excellent or fashionable ways of speaking).
I parsed BEMUSED as did Hovis and it was one of my favourites. I did struggle to get onto Filbert’s wavelength today; in fact I don’t think I did get onto it. Some of the cryptic definitions didn’t fall – the two Hovis mentioned, SAWDUST and RACECOURSE – and I am most impressed that duncan parsed the ‘possessed by’ indicator as an instruction to put a letter in. I still haven’t got my head around that and wouldn’t have thought of it in the proverbial month of Sundays.
NEEDLEWORK and GALLEON my other two favourites today. And 11a must be the longest word I’ve ever seen used to hide a 3 letter solution; fortunately it was not too difficult to spot – it’s another cd I’m not sure I’d have worked out on its own.
Thanks Filbert and duncan (and congratulations/compliments on your 900th blog: fitting that the Indy should be observing a round number anniversary on the same day – No 11100)
This was almost as tough as today’s Gozo in the FT. Some difficult defs such as for BRICKLAYER and SAWDUST and I was only able to get ACTIONABLE after it appeared in Friday’s Phi as mentioned by Duncan.
Failed to parse DETRAIN (no hope) and missed DEUCES which I might have been lucky with on a good day.
Thanks to Filbert and thanks and congrats to Duncan for your great effort in completing 900 blogs
I found this tough and DNF by a long way. However, re 13a, my father was a bricklayer and I remember him talking about ‘bonds’ being the way the bricks are laid in relation to one another – the only particular one I recall is a ‘Flemish bond’.
Thanks for a toughie Filbert and for your much needed blog, Duncan.
Don’t know if I can do a link, but see here
https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Types_of_brick_bonding“>
Hi, 16a – Chips is the slang for a carpenter who saws and creates the waste product of sawdust. Wood chips and sawdust are not the same.
[Sourdough @8: in this day and age, I think it was most courageous of you to search the internet for ‘Flemish bond’: who knows what you might have turned up!]
[PostMark@10 if the right get upset about the idea of Idris Elba playing the iconic English agent, the prospect of some Belgian doing it would drive them mad]
[Petert @007: 😉 ]
900 is a lot of blogs. An awful lot. Congratulations on your persistence and skill. Without you and your like I might have given up on cryptics some time ago.
Thanks Filbert. I finished Gozo in the FT much more quickly than I thought I would so I had time for another — Filbert was a good choice with clues like SAWDUST, NEEDLEWORK, GO-AHEAD, and SHOT. I needed a bit of help to get BLEW and DEUCES and I needed the blog to parse DEMERIT. Thanks duncanshiell for explaining.
Not a good day for me. After about an hour, I had four answers. A definite DNF.
Conratz to DS on a blogging milestone – 900 lots of helping others learn more about crossworld and its working is no mean feat and some good thing. 🙂
Indeed Harry, many thanks filbert and DS- I’ve done only 300 and thought that quite a few but 900 wow.
I love Filbert’s puzzles! I find them quite difficult but most satisfying. The constructions and surfaces are brilliant. For me the NW corner this time was by far the hardest and my LOI was 1ac.
DS – congratulations on an impressive milestone!