Independent 11,363 by Grecian

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An enjoyable challenge from Grecian today.

As usual on a Tuesday, we can expect some sort of theme. There are several phrases in italics, so perhaps these are titles? Yes, they’re all David Bowie songs, albums or films. However, there’s a lot more going on: we have Bowie’s first name in the wordplay for 28a, his secondary career in 9a, and a stage persona he used in 2d. The clues also include several more references to Bowie songs and albums, not shown in italics: Let’s Dance, Young Americans, Heroes, Fashion, Life on Mars, China Girl, Fame, Diamond Dogs, Changes, Under Pressure, Sorrow, Starman. You could also include Station [to Station], Beauty [and the Beast], and Ashes [to Ashes]; and the Christmas reference made me think of Bowie’s role in the film Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence. But, as with all the best themed puzzles, you don’t need to know all of these to solve the clues – with the exception of 2d, which I think is a pretty well-known one. I wondered whether today is the anniversary of a particular Bowie event, but I can’t find anything. Either way, it’s an impressive number of references in one puzzle.

Perhaps the effort of fitting in all of these caused a few slightly clumsy clues, for which I’ve noted a few niggles below. 1d stood out in particular: the abbreviation is faulty, and the girl’s name is slightly obscure, though the definition is pretty obvious in Crosswordland. But there are some delightfully inventive ideas too: my personal favourite was the “batter coating” of 16d. Thanks Grecian for the fun and the Bowie memories.

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

ACROSS
1 CLANDESTINE
Let’s dance in pants in private (11)
Anagram (pants = terrible) of LETS DANCE IN.
7 CAP
Cat People starts without a beat (3)
Starting letters of C[at] P[eople], outside (without) A.

Cap = beat = outdo.
9 ACTOR
Player from Barça oddly missing height (5)
[b]A[r]C[a] missing the odd-numbered letters, then TOR (rocky outcrop or hill = height). The surface may suggest the footballer Lionel Messi, who’s not very tall but had a starring career at FC Barcelona (Barça).
10 CREDULOUS
Cloud user’s terribly naive (9)
Anagram (terribly) of CLOUD USER.
11 BIRDS NEST
Spooner’s geek is top in place of breeding (5,4)
Spoonerism for NERD’S BEST (geek is top).
12 ADENI
Amnesty welcoming sanctuary for Arab (5)
AI (abbreviation for Amnesty International, often referred to simply as Amnesty) containing (welcoming) DEN (sanctuary = private space).

Someone from Aden in Yemen.
13 RUGRATS
Young Americans’ golf hero retiring after game (7)
G (Golf in the radio alphabet), then STAR (hero) reversed (retiring), all after RU (Rugby Union = game).

US slang for small children, especially at the crawling-on-the-floor stage.
15 ARIA
Song about racism in Absolute Beginners (4)
First letters (beginners) of A[bout] R[acism] I[n] A[bsolute].

Aria = a solo song as part of a larger choral or operatic work.
18 CONS
Downsides of taking the lid off Heroes (4)
[i]CONS (heroes = role models), without the first letter (lid). The surface may suggest Cadbury’s Heroes: a chocolate assortment that comes in big tubs with a lid.
20 PANTONE
Perhaps Aladdin Sane‘s second half provides range of colourful numbers (7)
PANTO (short for pantomime, for example Aladdin) + second half of [sa]NE.

Short for Pantone Matching System, which defines a range of standardised colours identified by numbers to help with colour matching across different media.
23 HIPPO
Animal power in Modern Love (5)
P (abbreviation for power), inserted into HIP (fashionable = modern) + O (zero = love in tennis scoring).
24 ACROPOLIS
Bastion of cool Paris fashion (9)
Anagram (fashion, as a verb = make) of COOL PARIS.

A defensive settlement on a hill (bastion), especially the one in Athens.
26 SENSITIVE
Emotional and extraordinary visit welcoming life on Mars finishes Earth (9)
Anagram (extraordinary) of VISIT, containing (welcoming) the last letters (finishes) of [lif]E [o]N [mar]S, then E (abbreviation for Earth).
27 SHARD
Part of Breaking Glass is building (5)
Double definition, though the second is derived from the first. A broken piece of glass or pottery; or a tall building in central London, so named because it’s the shape of a shard of glass pointing upwards.
28 D V D
David evens out production of Sound and Vision (1,1,1)
D[a]V[i]D with the even-numbered letters left out.

Short for Digital Video Disc = recording medium for combined audio and video.
29 SINGULARITY
Sly guitar in remix of Space Oddity (11)
Anagram (remix) of SLY GUITAR IN.

Gravitational singularity = a point at which gravity is so intense that space-time becomes distorted around it, such as a black hole = an oddity in space.
DOWN
1 CHAMBERS
China Girl’s dictionary (8)
CH (which looks like an abbreviation for China, but it isn’t: China is CN or CHN, and CH stands for Confederatio Helvetica = Switzerland) + AMBER’S (Amber can be a girl’s name).

Chambers Dictionary of the English Language: one of the standard reference works for crosswords.
2 ALTER EGO
Ziggy Stardust possibly short-changed over advance (5,3)
ALTERE[d] (changed) without the last letter (short), then GO (advance).

David Bowie adopted the stage persona of Ziggy Stardust during the early 70s.
3 DARTS
Dutch star transformed game (5)
D (abbreviation for Dutch) + anagram (transformed) of STAR.
4 SUCCESS
Susan Stranks on vacation admitting small amount of fame (7)
SUE (short for Susan) + S[trank]S (on vacation = inner letters emptied out), containing (admitting) CC (abbreviation for cubic centimetre = a small amount).
5 ICED TEA
Diamond Dogs’ leader has dinner and drink (4,3)
ICE (slang for diamond) + leading letter of D[ogs] + TEA (a meal in the late afternoon or early evening; dinner = the main meal of the day, regardless of what time it occurs).
6 EDUCATION
Changes cautioned in teaching (9)
Anagram (changes) of CAUTIONED. The grammar is a little odd: “changes” as a verb would need a subject (someone changes . . .), and “changes” as a noun would need a preposition (changes to . . .).
7 CHOKER
Kooks occasionally covered by female singer’s band (6)
Alternate letters (occasionally) from [k]O[o]K[s], covered by CHER (female singer).

A decorative band worn around the neck.
8 PASTIS
Wine Society under pressure to make aperitif (6)
ASTI (short for Asti Spumante = sparkling wine) + S (abbreviation for society), after (under, in a down clue) P (abbreviation for pressure).

French aniseed-flavoured aperitif.
14 APOLOGIES
Dad upset over injured goolies getting words of sorrow (9)
PA (dad = father), reversed (upset = upwards in a down clue), then an anagram (injured) of GOOLIES.
16 KOHLRABI
Cabbage in pub served up with batter coating (8)
BAR (pub = drinking establishment), reversed (served up = upwards in a down clue), contained in (with . . . coating) KOHLI (Virat Kohli, a batter in international cricket for India).

A vegetable in the cabbage family, of which both the root and leaves are edible.
17 FEAST DAY
Flying safety limiting Father Christmas perhaps (5,3)
Anagram (flying) of SAFETY, containing (limiting) DA (familiar name for father).
19 STATION
Stop standing (7)
Double definition. A place where a train stops to set down or pick up passengers; or someone’s status / reputation in society.
20 PARVENU
Upstart beauty not finished after knock-back (7)
VENU[s] (a beautiful woman, from the Roman goddess) without the last letter (not finished), after RAP (knock) reversed (back).

Parvenu = upstart = a derogatory term for someone who has recently attained a particular social class rather than being born into it.
21 CHASED
Went in pursuit of 400, accepting Ashes nearly lost (6)
CD (which could represent 400 in Roman numerals: C = 100, D = 500, so CD with the smaller number first means 100 less than 500), containing (accepting) an anagram (lost) of ASHE[s] without the last letter (nearly).
22 OPINED
Suggested date under old tree (6)
D (abbreviation for date, or more specifically the “day” part of a date), after (under, in a down clue) O (old) + PINE (tree).

Opine = to state as one’s opinion = suggest.
25 PASTA
Secretly chomp a Starman’s food (5)
Hidden answer (secretly) in [chom]P A STA[rman’s].

19 comments on “Independent 11,363 by Grecian”

  1. This was good fun with a nice theme that even I couldn’t fail to spot. It allowed me to wallow in the nostalgia of one of my favourite albums from 1983 – Let’s Dance. I’ll have to dust off my vinyl copy and give it a play later.

    Lovely clueing which was commendably brief with nice smooth surfaces throughout.

    Unusually I will pick the 11a Spoonerism as my favourite today as it made me LOL.

    Many thanks to Grecian and to Quirister.

  3. My lack of interest in cricket meant I couldn’t parse KOHLRABI, but otherwise, great fun, with lots of earworms.

    Thank you to Quirister and Grecian.

  4. Thanks Grecian and Quirister

    Nerdy pedantic / technical point: DVD was originally conceived as Digital Versatile Disc, as the same medium could be used for video (DVD-V) or audio (DVD-A). But the audio variety never took off.

  6. Hi, Quirister – The online app doesn’t do italics, so where are you getting your version from? I’d like to have a look at it.
    Wondering why these song titles get the italic treatment whereas so many others don’t:
    Cat People, Absolute Beginners, Aladdin Sane, Modern Love, Breaking Glass, Sound and Vision, Space Oddity, Kooks,
    ([Cracked] Actor is another Bowie song.)
    For 1d Amber Heard is hardly obscure.

  8. really loved this one, and appreciate our blogger pointing out the references i missed.

    for 1d, Chambers (aptly!) gives Ch. as an abbreviation for China, among other things. i also disagree that Amber is an obscure woman’s name – Amber Rudd is a fairly well known politican in the UK i believe

  9. A DNF for me as I couldn’t see CONS at 18A and bunged in unparsed LOWS in desperation. Spotted the theme of course though not to my taste. Otherwise much enjoyed so thanks Grecian and Quirister.

  10. Well, at least I’d heard of Ziggy Stardust but that was the closest I came to finding the theme! I did need to look up the 16a batter and also check on PANTONE but had no trouble remembering the young lady in Forever Amber.
    I’ll go with RD and put the Spoonerism at the top of the pile with a mention for HIPPO which made me laugh.

    Thanks to Grecian and to Quirister for the review.

  11. FrankieG @6: thanks for pointing out the issue with italics. The bloggers on this site get a sneak preview of the puzzles in PDF format, and that included the italics as I’ve shown them above; I hadn’t realised that they wouldn’t show up in the online puzzle. I’m guessing that our setter used italics where the surface requires us to read the song title as a title (for example in 20a), but not otherwise (for example in 24a where we need a standard meaning of “fashion”).
    I stand corrected on “Ch” being in the dictionaries as an abbreviation for China, though I don’t think I’ve ever seen it used; I’d have thought that the ISO 3166-1 codes would now be definitive. But as they say, the great thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from . . .
    And yes, Amber isn’t a massively obscure name; I suppose my point is that “girl” could mean any one of a huge number of names, and this type of clue usually requires one of the more obvious ones. But it’s easy enough to work backwards from the definition.

  13. Thanks both. Needed help with KOHLRABI as I knew the cricketer but not the cabbage. Also struggled with ADENI which is embarrassing as my wife was born there! Amused by APOLOGIES for its surface, and by HIPPO as ‘hip’ for me is a massively outdated expression yet it means modern. I wonder if CHAMBERS includes CHAMBERS defined as dictionary?

  16. I totally forgot that this was being published yesterday, so belated thanks to Quirister for the excellent blog and to all the other commenters, for the kind words. G

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