The puzzle is available here.
Hi everyone. It must be Christmas! I think this is Umpire’s second puzzle in the Indy, the first being on Christmas Day last. No problems for me, just plenty of smiles, which included EGGS (6a), AL DENTE (32a) and WALL (17d). Thanks Umpire!
Definitions are underlined in the clues below. In the explanations, quoted indicators are in italics, explicit [deletions] are in square brackets, and I’ve capitalised and emboldened letters which appear in the ANSWER. For clarity, I omit most link words and some juxtaposition indicators.
Across
1a Obscure fairy tale prince queen ignored? (3)
FOG
F[r]OG (fairy tale prince) with R (queen) left out (ignored)
3a Mobile hospital crossing river in swamp (5)
MARSH
MASH (mobile hospital) around (crossing) R (river)
6a Regularly engages clutch (4)
EGGS
Alternate letters of (regularly) EnGaGeS
10a Lawsuit covering rogue’s fall (7)
CASCADE
CASE (lawsuit) surrounding (covering) CAD (rogue)
11a Five vote against getting hold of fresh coal that might explode (7)
VOLCANO
V (five) and NO (vote against) containing (getting hold of) an anagram of (fresh) COAL
12a Gruel I cooked is less appealing (6)
UGLIER
GRUEL I anagrammed (cooked)
13a Victorian hiding small crystal (5)
PRISM
PRIM (Victorian) enclosing (hiding) S (small)
16a Balls American women managed (7)
OVERSAW
OVERS (balls – in cricket) + A (American) + W (woman)
18a Mark, in time, getting pound for crystalline substance (7)
MINERAL
M (mark) + IN + ERA (time) + L (pound)
20a Help police incursion when leader leaves (3)
AID
[r]AID (police incursion) on removal of the first letter (when leader leaves)
21a Briefly trialled redesigning of letters (7)
LITERAL
Without the last letter (briefly), TRIALLEd anagrammed (redesigning)
24a Rock‘s more daring for the audience (7)
BOULDER
BOLDER (more daring), homophone (for the audience)
27a Fruit with bulges Penny moved to the front (5)
PLUMS
LUMPS (bulges); P (penny) is moved to the front
28a Hard to stop prey flying after unknown wind (6)
ZEPHYR
H (hard) inside (to stop) an anagram of (… flying) PREY, all after Z (unknown)
32a Cookery firm lamented cooking after master’s departure (2,5)
AL DENTE
An anagram of (… cooking) LA[m]ENTED with M removed (after master’s departure)
33a Artist in front of ship displays array of colours (7)
RAINBOW
RA (artist) + IN + BOW (front of ship)
34a Rule room number’s to be put first (4)
NORM
RM (room); NO (number) is to be put first
35a Spirit of that group cycling (5)
ETHOS
THOSE (that group) with the letters cycling round so that the E ends up at the front
36a Characters in Hamlet lying about tree (3)
ELM
Some letters or characters in haMLEt reversed (lying about)
Down
1d Brave expert supporting fellow (4)
FACE
ACE (expert) following (supporting, in a down entry) F (fellow)
2d Greet us excitedly with wave, perhaps (7)
GESTURE
An anagram of (… excitedly) GREET US
3d Spotted condition of male lessens ingesting pill at last (7)
MEASLES
M (male) + EASES (lessens) taking in (ingesting) the last letter of (… at last) pilL
4d Old magistrate is concerning First Lady (5)
REEVE
RE (concerning) + EVE (first lady)
5d Some bees tremble without wings (4)
HIVE
sHIVEr (tremble) without its outer letters (wings)
7d Mass of ice mostly happy daughter removed from drink (7)
GLACIER
All but the last letter of (mostly) GLAd (happy) + CI[d]ER (drink) from which D (daughter) has been removed
8d Top of mountain collapses from below causing violent weather (5)
STORM
In reverse (… from below), the first letter (top) of Mountain plus ROTS (collapses)
9d Credit note covers removal of fat that sits at the neck (4-2)
CLIP-ON
CN (credit note) goes around (covers) LIPO (removal of fat: informal short form of liposuction)
14d Korean city outlawing English style of music (4)
SOUL
S[e]OUL (Korean city) removing (outlawing) E (English)
15d Often overlooked film’s dub might be listed here? (1,1,1,1)
IMDB
Missing regular letters (often overlooked) fIlM‘s DuB. The IMDb is the Internet Movie Database
17d Erection obtained when wife touches everything (4)
WALL
W (wife) is next to (touches) ALL (everything)
19d Bird with large chest (4)
LARK
L (large) + ARK (chest)
22d Mallard’s rear hunter shot with loud noise (7)
THUNDER
An anagram (shot) of mallarD’s last letter (rear) and HUNTER
23d Spaniard’s agreement to enter boxing arena causes revolt (6)
RISING
SI (Spaniard’s agreement) going into (to enter) RING (boxing arena)
25d Perhaps shaves heads of unwilling nude hirsute adults in reality show (7)
UNHAIRS
The first letters (heads) of Unwilling Nude Hirsute Adults In Reality Show
26d Long-lasting bad rule replaced (7)
DURABLE
BAD RULE anagrammed (replaced)
27d Student tucking into French bread that’s unseasoned (5)
PLAIN
L (student) going inside (tucking into) PAIN (French bread)
29d Dirt from home initially removed (5)
EARTH
hEARTH (home) without the first letter (initially removed)
30d Appetiser covered by lime zest (4)
MEZE
The answer is covered by liME ZEst
31d Coming up, mouths moved through the water (4)
SWAM
In reverse (coming up), MAWS (mouths)
Light but great fun. I’d never heard of 15d but the wordplay was crystal clear and the SE took a bit more thought than the rest.
Smiles throughout the grid, particularly liked OVERSAW, AL DENTE, ZEPHYR the use of brave as a verb for FACE, MEASLES and the slightly risque WALL.
Many thanks to Umpire and Kitty.
Thanks, Kitty & Umpire. I enjoyed this too. FOG was my favourite for the delightful surface.
All parsed satisfactorily for me. I think what held me up longest was the sheer number of clues – 39 compared to just 26 in yesterday’s Brendan in the Guardian. Top marks for value for money!
Nice and gentle. Reminded me of an Everyman – right down to the primarily clue 😉 FOG and EGGS made me smile, along with LARK which is no less cheekier than Wall. As widders says, who knew you could get 39 clues into a crossword (or that UNHAIR is a – rather ugly – verb)?
Thanks Kitty and Umpire
This was light but very enjoyable.
The answer to 25d is a hideous word, but it is in the dictionaries so no criticism of the setter using it.
Many thanks to Umpire and to KItty.
Not too difficult for me, but I did become a bit stuck in the SE like Stephen L @1, not helped by never having heard of MEZE. I agree about UNHAIRS being a forgettable word.
Unlike Widdersbel @2, I didn’t count the clues, but did note the more than usual number of brief answers. Maybe it was just related to the number of clues, but many of the answers were related to weather phenomena (eg FOG, THUNDER, STORM, RAINBOW) or to natural features of the landscape (eg MARSH, VOLCANO, GLACIER) and I wondered about an EARTH theme.
Thanks to Umpire and Kitty
I think that’s a good call re the theme, WordPlodder.
Thanks both. A quick solve, but not entirely parsed, e.g. could not see (H)EARTH. The blog has a rogue ‘r’ in CLIP ON which was my first thought for the abbreviation
Oops! Thanks TFO – now corrected.
Thanks for the kind words all, and for the lovely blog Kitty (glad to hear about the smiles!)
Regarding the theme, WordPlodder @5 has chosen all themed answers, but not with the right connection.
BOULDER, CASCADE, THUNDER, RAINBOW, SOUL, MARSH, VOLCANO, EARTH, HIVE, ZEPHYR, PLAIN, FOG, STORM, MINERAL, GLACIER and RISING are the first 16 badges obtained in the Pokemon video game series – along with Professor ELM in the corner as a happy coincidence.
Ash and Pikachu leave the Pokemon TV show imminently after 25 years as protagonists, so this is my nod to them.
And yes, UNHAIRS is a horrible word – I can only apologise.
Thanks again.
As Stephen L says, light but great fun. A criticism sometimes levelled at ‘light but great fun’ crosswords is that they’re over too soon, but with 39 clues that’s not applicable here. EGGS and AL DENTE were our favourites. LOI was CLIP-ON where we took a while to realise what the definition referred to.
Thanks, Umpire and Kitty.
Very enjoyable solve resulting in masses of ticks on my sheet. Particular favourites were FOG, MARSH, MEASLES and LARK. Our Umpire must be male as I doubt that a woman’s first thought of a CLIP-ON would be a tie!
Hadn’t heard of 15d before today and had to check that UNHAIRED really is a word but those were my only sticking points.
Thanks to Umpire for the fun puzzle and also to our Miss K for the review – I ‘clicked’ to watch the 6a video and made the mistake of letting it run on to the next clip about poor little Ben, how could someone abandon such a tiny soul.
Thanks Umpire for a pleasant crossword. I value readable and amusing surfaces so there was a lot to like here. Thanks Kitty for the blog, parsing FOG and CLIP-ON, and of course the photo that accompanied EGGS.
Yes, light, suits me fine.
Went astray at 1a I remembered Prince Farq from Shrek and at a stretch FAR = OBSCURE. Ah well.
Thanks Umpire and Kitty
Missed out on bonus points on the online version by about a minute and a half. Lovely light relief after yesterdays Serpent Struggle.
Plenty of lovely clues. Particularly liked EGGS. Didn’t know REEVE although as with all the clues it was precisely clear what the answer was.
Thanks to both setter and blogger (great kitty pic for the clutch!)
Thanks all for commenting, and extra thanks to Umpire @9 for dropping in and enlightening us as to the theme. Certainly didn’t catch ’em all!
There are days when I can stare at a crossword for hours and get only half the answers. This was not one of those days. Having finished Azed in (for me) a record time, I then got through this in about half an hour.
It intrigued me those people who didn’t know the IMDb. I’m always checking things in that.
Thanks for correcting me about the theme, Umpire @9, not something I’m afraid I would have been able to identify myself. I was interested to hear Pokémon has been going for as long as this.