Silvanus makes one if his relatively rare appearances this Tuesday.
We tend to think of Silvanus as an IoS setter, but we realise that he has appeared occasionally during the week. We have only blogged one other Silvanus puzzle – and that was in 2017, so we are well overdue for another.
It took us a while to get into this puzzle, but in writing up the blog, we wonder why – all good clues with some crafty definitions and a couple of entries we had to check – 28ac and 21d.
Tuesday tends to be ‘theme’ day in the Indy, but we can’t find anything thematic here – what are we missing?
PSYCHO (film) PATH (approach) Y (unknown)
EAtER (diner) with the middle letter or ‘heart’ changed from ‘t’ to G
TIGHT (drunk) ROPE (guy)
Double definition
oPINE (suggest) without the ‘o’ or ‘loveless’ + D (daughter)
B (black) B (bass) in or ‘inhabiting’ NILE (river)
Alternate or ‘regular’ letters of vAlUeS a TeRm I hAdN’t
An anagram (‘excited’) of FAIL TO BE
K (a thousand) HA (hectares) L (first letter or ‘leader’ of Libya) IF (provided)
First letters or ‘starts’ to Sample Underarm Deodorant Others Recommend
A reversal (‘back’) of alternate letters (‘at intervals’) of rEsTrAiNt If and MILE (some distance)
An anagram (‘criminal’) of SINFUL LIE
A homophone (‘said’) of TOPE (drink heavily) AS (like)
TRENCh (cut) without the last letter or ‘short’ + HER (that woman’s) MAN (husband)
A homophone (‘we hear’) of SINES (more than one function)
Double definition
FIT (attack) after or ‘undermining’ (in a down clue) OUT (public)
N (north) A (American) U (university) ‘drawn into’ ARGOT (slang)
HOT (popular) SPOT (nightclub)
An anagram (‘adjustment’) of A GIRL’S PENSION
DOWN and HILL are both alternative terms for ‘fell’
An anagram (‘alternative’) of ENERGY IF FED round NZ (New Zealand)
hUDDLE (crowd) without the first letter or ‘heading off’ with BEFore (‘first half’) in front or ‘beginning’
VALERIe ANn (two women’s names without the last letters, or ‘separately clipped’)
BARRIE (JM Barrie – Scottish playwright) + R (last or ‘ultimate’ letter of Oscar)
An anagram (‘surprising’) of HERO round or ‘catching’ IST (first – ‘principal’)
KIT (outfit – 4d) SCH (school)
Hidden in clinicAL PHArmacology
Rope, Frenzy, Lifeboat, Suspicion. Topaz, Psycho, Downhill…
Thanks Silvanus and BertandJoyce. There is a Hitchcock theme
Thanks to mw7000 and Mirrorboy for spotting the theme. We saw Psycho obviously but the others are all new to us.
Beaten to the mark with the theme, although Downhill is a new one to me. Strangely, only yesterday I learned that the Spanish word for ‘sweat’ (noun) is ‘sudor’ but didn’t know it was a term from medicine as well. There’s no way I was ever going to get VALERIAN without a word fit.
Like Hovis, beaten by VALERIAN, even with all the crossers. Last time I was fulsome with praise for Silvanus it was (totally, completely and utterly) co-incidental with my appearance on Rookie Corner which was slightly embarrassing. No such constraint today so I can, once again, sing the praises of a splendid puzzle. My, we have been spoiled to day with Brendan in The Other Place.
Very neatly incorporated background theme – if sadly lost on this Hitchcock philistine. But it didn’t matter insofar as the puzzle didn’t rely on it and was full of gems. TIGHTROPE – lovely use of ‘guy’; NIBBLE – brilliant surface; AUSTRIAN incredible alternation; ditto ELIMINATE ; very clever and almost hidden homophone in TOPAZ; neat, clean anagram in LIFEBOAT and a brilliant one in PERSONALISING; and another with that neat NZ insertion in FEEDING FRENZY leading us to the last and possibly my favourite for its simple but brilliant spot of two interpretations of the same word – DOWNHILL.
At tour de force. Splendid.
Thanks Silvanus and B&J
I can only echo PostMark – great crossword, very finely crafted throughout. Also have to echo our esteemed bloggers – lots of clues here that had me scratching my head but the answer seemed blindingly obvious once the penny dropped.
14a gave me a bit of grief – I spent far too long thinking the definition was just “angler” and couldn’t reconcile the solution for ages. Very nice clue!
Thanks, B&J and Silvanus.
It wouldn’t have helped me get this out, but I probably would have missed the theme had this not been a Tuesday Indy. Very enjoyable – a couple of new words in TRENCHERMAN and HOISTER (specifically for ‘shoplifter’) and some good surfaces, eg for SUDOR and defs, eg for NIBBLE.
I was left with all of the crossers for the scary looking 17d (my last in) when, as if by magic, VALERIAN materialised out of the ether. Sometimes you get lucky.
Thanks to Silvanus and B&J
Liked this. Thought it was easy-ish but perhaps I was on the wavelength with the setter for a change. Trencherman is new and the plant was for the gardeners. I found out suspicion is synonymous with scintilla. Delightful word in that sense. I thought the clues were very logical. Missed the Hitchcock theme despite looking because it was Tuesday.
Thanks both. Thought I was completing this in record time for a while, then needed help with both VALERIAN – no key crossing consonants to guess a plant I don’t know, and thousands of potential shortened female names to guess at..,,and TRENCHERMAN where I felt further hindered as the ‘trench’ element isn’t actually cut short if you read from the left. Tope was also unknown, so clearly my body is a temple
Very relieved to see from B&J’s comment that the theme also passed them by – PSYCHO would have been the only film familiar to me. Didn’t matter a jot though as this was a most enjoyable solve from one of my favourite setters, the master of surface reads.
Packed with excellent clues from which I selected TIGHTROPE and TOPAZ for favouritism.
Many thanks to Silvanus and to B&J for the review.
Quick progress at first (possibly buoyed up by updating my old browser which seemed to fix the glitches that made Indy puzzles hard to complete online), but then really slowing up on the right hand side – too long getting Feeding Frenzy, but once past that… I wondered if the setter was tempted to link that one with Trencherman.
Austrian was brilliant – I confidently put in the _ ian at the end having spotted the alternate letters in ‘I hadn’t’, not realising for ages that there were other alternates staring me in the face!
Not being The Man Who Knew Too Much, I missed the theme. 🙁
Strictly for The Birds!
There I was looking for Bernard Hermann in a nina
Thanks all.
Many thanks to Bertandjoyce, I’m glad our paths have crossed again after such a long time. You are possibly not alone in thinking of me as more of an IoS setter, but actually over 75% of my Indy puzzles have appeared on weekdays, mostly Mondays. I don’t set too many themed crosswords, but there may well be a few more coming up. Watch this space!
Thanks also to everyone who took the time to post comments, they are always read with great interest.
Being Tuesday we were on the lookout for a theme and had a SUSPICION (sorry!) it might relate to films but we couldn’t recall any other titles, Psycho excepted, from the Hitchcock oeuvre. We solved it all, however, albeit held up a while by 20ac which we wouild spell as ‘caliph’ – which of course wouldn’t parse. But we did get VALERIAN unaided – after trying to find something to fit ‘—-dian’ (from ‘Diana’).
A satisfying solve. Thanks, Silvanus and B&J.
I did a double take when I couldn’t see NOTORIOUS in the blog. Oops! That is from ‘another crossword’. VALERIAN was fresh in my mind as I had just gone through one of many ‘alphabets to help you drop off’. Floral in this case. Rarely works.
I look forward to more theming from Sylvanus. Thanks to B&J.
Not too difficult although I didn’t spot the theme till the end. 11ac was my LOI and the end of the word was enough to give me the theme.
I knew VALERIAN from somewhere (and not from the 2017 film that had it in it’s title) and I recall the deputy head at my school in the sixties referring to himself as a TRENCHERMAN.
I enjoyed this, even though two female names and a plant are a bit of a solver’s nightmare. Salad, I find valerian itself does help me sleep . Same experience as TFO with AUSTRIAN.
Thanks Silvanus for an expertly crafted crossword and to B&J for the blog. Needed help for 17d and 28a but all else fell into place. Had I thought to look for a theme I might have seen it because I know most of Hitchkock’s films.