Independent 11,199 by Wiglaf

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First look at this grid I thought – Hello, perimeter unches, there’s going to be a theme around there.  But there are so few of them they can’t spell out much more than a couple of acronyms.  After getting a few answer it I didn’t take long to dismiss that idea and I generally forgot about looking for a theme while tackling the individual clues, until I suddenly realised there was something going on …

… something fishy

All down answers are types of fish except that long central 8D SEVENTY-FOUR.
What can this mean? It must mean something to someone, not just Wiglaf.
But in the words of Midge Ure – “This means nothing to me”
I thought there may be someone famous, like say Michael Fish, who is 74 today but I can’t find anyone to fit the bill.
I expect someone will be along to tell us more later (please).

Solving this was very pleasurable.  A couple of easy “hiddens” got me going and after teasing out a few anagrams (especially those longer central crossing lights) after a half hour I had attempted all clues and had about half filled in.   There were knots of unsolved lights in 3 of the 4 corners.  It was around this point I spotted all the fish in the down answers.  That greatly helped justify some of my answer ideas.  A few answers needed dictionary checking.  For no particular reason I seem to have said more than usual in the body of the blog this time.

Thanks to Wiglaf for the fun.

Across
4 SQUEAL A stretch of picturesque alfalfa grass (6)
Hidden in pictureSQUE ALfalfa
First read and quickly spotted.  Indeed the wordplay “A stretch of” indicated a hidden word so strongly I had the answer before appreciating the excellent surface reading.
5 FIZGIG Giddy girl has endless champagne before concert (6)
FIZ[z] (champagne, endless) GIG (concert)
One of the last clues solved.  I had never heard of this term which strikes me has a 1920s feel but this (Wiktionary) link tells me it is from the 1520s
9 MALLARME Poet in shopping centre toting gun, sawn-off at the end (8)
MALL (shopping centre) ARME[d] (toting gun, sawn-off)
The poet in question is Stéphane Mallarmé (wiki link) best known to me for the poem that inspired Debussy to compose Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune but certainly not the first poet to spring to mind!
When solving I was fooled thinking “toting” implied an inclusion so I needed most of the crossing letters to get this one.
10 SADDOS Nerdy types plug in special operating system (6)
AD (plug) in S[pecial] DOS (operating system)
11 TESTES Holy man diving into river is nuts (6)
ST (holy man, Saint) in TEES (river)
13 EVIL-EYED Poor devil gets charged by detective with a malevolent look (4-4)
(DEVIL)* AInd: poor, around (gets charged by) EYE (detective, i.e. Private Eye)
Last clue I fully wrote in.  I knew it must be that but it took me till writing the blog to assign “gets charged by” as the inclusion indicator, and detective as EYE. And now I wonder why I couldn’t see it before.
14 BALLETOMANE Dance fan ordered one meatball (11)
(ONE MEATBALL)* AInd: ordered.
That anagramming took some time, and time convincing myself the answer was possible.  It needed a dictionary check to confirm.  The -omane suffix seems to be a French import implying a milder fanaticism than the more anglicised -omaniac. (Try not to mention Le Petomane)
17 VINE-LEAF Fine veal could be stuffed in this (4,4)
(FINE VEAL)* AInd: could be stuffed. Is this a full &Lit or a semi-&Lit?  I favour the former but I’m never sure what the rules are in this area.  I’ve only ever seen vegetarian dolmades so if there are cases where some evil person has stuffed them with meat I’ll have to keep watch.
18 NUBILE Central point on foreign island is attractive (6)
NUB (central point) ILE (foreign island, properly Île in French)
21 ANTICS Opposed to Conservative’s capers (6)
ANTI (opposed to) C[onservative]’S
22 UNCLE SAM Can mules wander freely in America? (5,3)
(CAN MULES)* AInd: wander freely.
Happy to have cold solved this early on to give some letters in the bottom-right corner. The enumeration helps.
24 WIELDY Write all day on a regular basis? That’s manageable (6)
Alternate letters in WrItE aLl DaY
Thank goodness for a few relatively easy clues like this to get started in some of these corners – of course, it is relatively easy only if you’re on the look-out for word-play such as this
25 DRENCH Steep run impedes English actress (6)
R[un] inside DENCH (English actress, Ref. who know who)
Down
1 MULLET See union member’s revolting hairdo (6)
Unsure of wordplay here:  I think it is a full reversal (revolting) of TELL (see) U[nion] M[ember].  However, I am very sure of the Def. which surely includes the operating adjective because, well, it is.
2 PARR Some barbershop arrangements for consort (4)
Hidden in barbershoP ARRangements.  Ref. Catherine Parr, last consort & Queen to Henry VIII
Only the second clue read and it was another inclusion with the indicator “some” upfront.  With the crossing A already in place the answer was evident.  I would have had more trouble cold-solving convincing myself it is OK to refer to a Queen as just a consort.
3 MIDSHIPMAN Easy for one in military intelligence having compromised Danish PM (10)
Def. is Ref. Midshipman Easy (wiki link).   M[ilitary] I[ntelligence] (DANISH PM)* AInd: compromised.
The thing that caught my eye when reading up about the swashbuckling tale was that the lead in the eponymous film by director Carole Reed was Hughie Green!
I thought Wiglaf was being right up-to-date with the news, but it was the Finnish who was recently called out for having too much of a good time.  Unwarranted of course, I mean, whoever heard of a PM having a good time at a party while the rest of the country suffers?
4 SKATE Boot from the foot of Miss Minola? (5)
[mis]S KATE (Minola) Kate and Bianca Minola (wiki link) are title character and sister in “The Taming of the Shrew”. Who knew? (I didn’t)
6 GUDGEON Indignation after making the first daughter good bait for those down here (7)
DUDGEON (indignation) swap first D (daughter) for G (good). Are these fish used for bait? (I don’t really want to know).  Before I realised the fishy theme I nearly wrote in DUDGEON or DUNGEON but could not justify either.  I was lucky I didn’t as it would have mucked up solving those tricky crossing lights.
7 GROPER Greek guy, for instance, admitted he likes to cop a feel (6)
G[reek] ROPE (guy) so I suppose Greek guy is GROPER – otherwise I have trouble justifying the final R except from the definition.
I can attest that gropers are not necessarily male
Edit:  Wordplay correction.  GR[eek] around ROPE (guy) with admitted as a very suitable inclusion indicator
8 SEVENTY FOUR Number of tunes, very avant-garde (7-4)
(OF TUNES VERY)* AInd: avant-garde.
Solved, in retrospect, surprisingly early on after getting the crossing F and U which led me to think about an actual mathematical number rather than a tune.
12 SILVERSIDE Cut interest accruing to money (10)
SILVER (money) SIDE (interest, as in bias)
15 ALEWIFE Old local woman encapsulates English women in a sentence (7)
E[nglish] W[omen] in A LIFE (a sentence)
I only knew this as a fish so only got this from the crossing letters after looking for more.  The definition obviously makes sense
16 MINNOW Doctor goes round boozer with someone of no significance (6)
INN (boozer) inside MO (doctor) W[ith]
By the time I got this I had several down clues in place, but this was when I thought there might be something fishy going on.
19 BLENNY Swimmer‘s speed when crossing lake (6)
BENNY around L[ake] Benny slang for Benzedrine / Speed (drug)
20 LOACH Film director gets part of spliff that’s changed hands (5)
ROACH (part of spliff) swap R/L (change hands) Def. Ref. Ken Loach (wiki link)
23 CARP Complain about a BBC accent (4)
C (about) A RP (BBC accent)

 

15 comments on “Independent 11,199 by Wiglaf”

  1. I think GROPER is Greek GR admitting ROPE guy for example. I found this tricky and couldn’t parse MULLET. Thanks, both.

  5. I found this quite hard work this morning but in a pleasurable way. The theme did become apparent with the hint in 6d and, as I solve in numerical order, that was helpful. I did need convincing that all were fish, though. And my GK – certainly my piscatorial GK – was not up to the task. Not heard of the poet, Benny for speed, Minola as the Shakespearian surname, FIZGIG, BALLETOMANE or DUDGEON as solutions.

    Favourites included: TESTES, EVIL-EYED, BALLETOMANE, VINE LEAF, MIDSHIPMAN, GROPER and ALEWIFE.

    Thanks Wiglaf and beermagnet

  6. If you have nothing better to do the internet can often come up with the answer

    seventy-four (Polysteganus undulosus)

    Found in S Africa from the Cape to Delagoa Bay in deep water; name supposedly applied because the lines on the body resemble the rows of guns on the old warship (seventy-four) which carried seventy-four guns

  7. Thanks Wiglaf, beermagnet
    Gudgeon are very small and apparently are used as bait (sorry)
    Mr Midshipman Easy is quite a good read, though surprising as the key to a 21C clue. Hornblower has a seventy-four gun flagship in The Commodore.

  8. James @ 7 The Midshipman / Easy combo was also used by John Henderson in his Elgar guise within the last couple of years.

  9. Thanks to Petert and Martin for the 7D correction. I knew I’d got that wordplay a bit wrong.
    Also Hovis and trenodia for the surprising information that Seventy-Four is also the name of a fish. I have certainly never heard of that one. I went down the track thinking it was some fishy person’s 74th Birthday and looked down the Wiki list of “1948-09-03 births” of which there is only one alive – Don Brewer, drummer and last original member of “Grand Funk Railroad” – not particularly fishy.

  10. Simon @8, fair enough. I assumed it was obscure because my copy, nearly 100 and from a dusty corner of Oxfam, is the only one I’ve ever seen. Its first chapter is encouragingly titled ‘Which the reader will find very easy to read’

  11. Thanks beermagnet and Wiglaf.
    Saw the theme, helpful, but many catching for the first time, had to be verified.
    Looks like I am the only one who entered STREEP for 25a in great hurry – though she is American. Took a while to sort that one. Unusual grid.

  12. Thanks both. Solved almost all – parsed far from all, with same unknowns as others have mentioned here, so too obscure on balance to be enjoyable. I still don’t understand RP as BBC accent

  13. TFO @ 12

    RP = Received Pronunciation, the ‘cut-glass’ accent of English associated with so-called ‘upper’ classes and royals, and ossified in the pronunciation of BBC announcers from the 1940s (or earlier) to the mid or late 1960s.

  15. Most of this went in fairly easily, but we stuck on the SE corner and 6dn. Once we got GUDGEON from a wordfinder we realised what ‘those down here’ meant and were able to finish. We hadn’t heard of SEVENTY-FOUR as a fish, though. Favourites were the definitely non-fishy MALLARMÉ and BALLETOMANE.
    TFO/Simon S/Postmark: We heard a couple of clips from old programmes on the radio this week and, my goodness, the RP sounds terribly dated to modern ears (not that ours are very modern but the’yve adapted to the times).
    Thanks, Wiglaf and beermagnet.

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