I found this a good cryptic challenge with some stand-out surface readings. Just a bit hard.
The Independent on Sunday puzzle has historically been along the lines of ‘suitable for less experienced solvers’, but that of course is not written down anywhere. This definitely didn’t fall into that category: it took me three goes to finish it and a similar number of attempts to parse and blog it.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
cad clue as definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed
definitions are underlined
Across
1 Spooner’s cooked food that’s on the breakfast table
TOAST RACK
I think it’s reasonable to say that Spoonerisms are not everyone’s favourite clue type, and for me at least this shows why. It’s how the legendary Reverend might have said ROAST TACK. One of the definitions of TACK is ‘food, generally’ according to Chambers but it’s hardly in common usage; and Roast Tack is not on the menu in the same way as Roast Beef or Roast Lamb is, so this solver wasn’t immediately guided to the solution. Whinge over.
6 Came to like The Guardian
WOKE
A dd, but the second definition is, Grauniad readers (like me) might say, somewhat provocative. This blog is not the place to discuss that, though.
8 Soldiers consider queen a saviour
REDEEMER
A charade of RE for Royal Engineers, DEEM and ER, the now ex-queen.
9 News at Ten – viewing only middle bit with Brunel is essential
INNATE
A charade of I for ‘Brunel’, NN for ‘News’, AT and E for the ‘middle bit’ of TEN.
10 They’re typically round gold coins
ORBITS
A charade of OR and BITS.
11 Mingle briefly with one’s ambassador in front of Palace
BLENHEIM
A charade of BLEN[D], HE for His/Her Excellency or ‘ambassador’ and I’M for ‘one’s’. ‘Ambassador in front’ gives you the instruction for the order of the particles.
12 Protective cover helps heat house centrally
SHEATH
Hidden in helpS HEAT House.
15 Centred ball leads to save – bringing this into play?
CROSSBAR
A charade of CROSS for what a winger might do and BAR. ‘All bar/save one of the runners finished the race.’ I don’t really get the extended definition here, despite being an aficionado of the beautiful game. The keeper might make the save onto the crossbar. But if she’s any good she might not need assistance from the woodwork.
16 Unopened load – mixed tuna and octopus
ARGONAUT
A charade of [C]ARGO and (TUNA)* The argonauts are a genus of pelagic octopuses, I learned this morning.
19 Retro container with an old-fashioned lid
TOPPER
A charade of POT reversed and PER. The price of gold this morning was £1,608.38 per/an ounce. We are talking hats here, I think.
21 Seaman leaving India and having first a transfer to Far East country
BOTSWANA
The setter is inviting you to take I for the phonetic alphabet ‘India’ out of BOATSWAIN to give yourself BOATSWAN, then ‘transfer’ the first letter A to the ‘Far East’ of the word, giving you the solution. As mentioned above, chuffing Nora.
22 Lean on westbound Asians
TAMILS
A reversal (‘westbound’) of SLIM for ‘lean’ and AT as a possible equivalent of ‘on’.
24 Get stuck in men’s pants – what about that!
ENMESH
An insertion of (MENS)* in EH? for What? The anagrind is ‘pants’ and the insertion indicator is ‘about that’.
25 Shocked by jokes about eating fish
SHAKEN UP
An insertion of HAKE in PUNS reversed. The insertion indicator is ‘eating’.
26 Recall Egypt’s principal deity – Sun God
ARES
A reversal of E for ‘Egypt’ and RA the Egyptian king of the gods, followed by S for ‘sun’ gives you ARES, who was the Greek god of war and courage. Confused? So was I.
27 It’s one finally going free, travelling light
SET ON FIRE
(ITS ON[E] FREE)* with ‘travelling’ as the anagrind.
Down
1 Now, this sometimes supersedes his spoken word of reassurance
THEIR
Another dig at the 6ac, I fancy. A homophone (‘spoken’) of THERE, which – particularly when repeated – gives reassurance. ‘There, there, the puzzle wasn’t that hard after all, was it?’ The clue is referencing the fact that in these gender-fluid times, some persons choose to eschew the masculine possessive pronoun ‘his’ in favour of the more gender-neutral ‘their’. You even see these kind of preferences in the sign off of corporate emails, where the sender indicates how they wish to be addressed. Mebbes even folk at the Guardian do it.
2 Steamer I caught, taking passage to New World
AMERICA
Hidden in SteAMER I CAught.
3 Turn up house temperature to get by
TIMES
A reversal (‘turn up’, since it’s a down clue) of SEMI and T. This is ‘by’ in its multiplication sense.
4 Caber one tossed outside circle, as form of exercise
AEROBIC
An insertion of O in (CABER I)* The anagrid is ‘tossed’ and the insertion indicator is ‘outside’.
5 Film released after treatment for Kevin Spacey’s beginning
KNIVES OUT
A charade of (KEVIN)*, S for the initial letter of ‘Spacey’ and OUT for ‘released’. KNIVES OUT is a 2019 American mystery film which didn’t feature Kevin Spacey.
6 Owen, chest bared, should get girls
WENCHES
Hidden in oWEN CHESt.
7 Cat reportedly on track of bird
KITTIWAKE
A bird. Excellent. A charade of a homophone of KITTY and WAKE for ‘track’. The obligatory Pierre bird link shows you a graceful member of the gull family, whose name is derived from its shrill call of ‘kittee-wa-aaake, kitte-wa-aaake’. A boat trip to the Farne Islands is my recommended way of getting up close and personal with them (I took one last month), but you won’t be able to land this season because the islands are shut to visitors due to avian influenza.
13 One making pointed attack on individuals in school?
HARPOONER
A cd.
14 Cycling onwards ultimately dissipated upper body pains
HEADACHES
‘Cycling’ is, usually, crosswordspeak for changing the position of the first and last letters: here, Brunel is asking you to take AHEAD for ‘onward’ and cycle the first letter to the end to give you HEADA. Add CHES[T] to that and you’ve got your ‘pains’.
17 Tory steps occasionally upset residents in Beds
OYSTERS
(TORY S[T]E]P]S)* with ‘upset’ as the anagrind.
18 Crossing Cook Strait north
TRANSIT
(STRAIT N)* with ‘cook’ as the anagrind.
20 Oxygen pipe I’m assembling to reach where many lie entrapped
POMPEII
(O PIPE IM)* with ‘assembling’ as the anagrind.
22 Mark II?
TWAIN
A dd. Which took me forever to see, even with the crossers.
23 Small animal decapitated by large rat
LOUSE
A charade of L and [M]OUSE.
Many thanks to Brunel for this week’s puzzle.
Thanks, Brunel and Pierre!
Quite a detailed and interesting blog.
CROSSBAR
Do we need more than the wordplay of CROSS+BAR and ‘this into play’ as the def?
(a subtext: c(entered) b(all) leads=CB. Probably, not intended to be a hint to lead us
to CROSSBAR).
Liked BOTSWANA, HARPOONER and HEADACHES (in addition to CROSSBAR).
THEIR
THERE (macmillandictionary.com)
used for expressing satisfaction, sympathy etc about something that you have just done or that has just happened
There, I’ve done my duty as a good host.
there now: There now – does that feel better?
there (you are) (=used when something has proved you were right): There, I told you she wouldn’t mind.
‘There’ (even without repetition) seems to satisfy the ‘spoken word of reassurance’ part of the clue.
CROSSBAR
Eccles clued thus a few months ago:
Ball in from the wing leading to save that goes onto both posts (8)
KVa at comment 2. I did say all that in my blog – if you read it carefully, you will see that I said ‘particularly when repeated’. That implies that it still works as a single word, so I think your clarification with a dictionary reference that we can all access if we really feel the need isn’t particularly pertinent.
My apologies Pierre! I should have read the blog more carefully. Sorry.
Excellent blog which very much chimes with my experience of solving this one. Chuffing Nora, indeed.
Not complaining, though – it’s a very well crafted puzzle. I even managed a wry smile of appreciation at the cleverness of 6a (fully paid-up yoghurt-knitting Guardianista that I am).
Thanks, Brunel and Pierre.
I agree with Pierre’s comments about this being very tough. I failed on ARES for which I just popped in an unparsed “Eros” for ‘God’ and couldn’t make sense of the def of THEIR. I took a long time to get BOTSWANA and still don’t get the ‘first a’ bit.
Could have spent even longer on this but I did have some luck in seeing TWAIN and HARPOONER quickly.
Thanks to Brunel and Pierre
Annoyed to have failed with BOTSWANA even though I had twigged that a first A was going to be moving to the right! I ran through my mental list of sailors – and even considered ‘bosun’ but not ‘boatswain’. It was certainly tricky – took me longer than most weekday Indy offerings so not the gentle start to a Sunday I was expecting. Favourites include BLENHEIM, CROSSBAR, ENMESH, TIMES, WENCHES, OYSTERS, POMPEII and the very neat TWAIN.
Thanks Brunel and Pierre
It took me a long time to get this anywhere near sorted out so I don my “topper” to our blogger.
I had to laugh at WOKE, thought ENMESH was funny and clever and liked TIMES too. Although it was smart HARPOONER didn’t sit well with me though.
Many thanks to Brunei and Pierre for a top puzzle and blog.
*doff my topper !!
Did complete this, but it took a long time and use of the check button, leaving far too many little eyes scattered across the puzzle, and I spent ages trying to squeeze some wordplay out of HARPOONER. Lots of groans when I saw THEIR, TWAIN, WOKE (as another Guardian reader).
Thank you yo Pierre and Brunel
A difficult crossword for a Sunday or indeed any other day of the week
Thanks to Brunel and Pierre
As Pierre says chuffing Nora. Many thanks for the wordplay I couldn’t be bothered to work at any more.
Hard work without a doubt, not helped by the fact that I’d never heard of the 5d film and found it hard to justify the definition of CROSSBAR.
Ah well – I did have ticks alongside KITTIWAKE & TWAIN.
Thanks to Brunel and most definitely to Pierre for all the enlightenment and the cute nestlings.
I was not helped by entering DRIED FISH at 1ac as my first one in. I know, but I’ve seen smoked fish at breakfast occasionally… I agree with the other commenters, this was hard, but satisfying to finish eventually. Thanks to Brunel and Pierre.
Actually, dried fish is a breakfast delicacy in the Philippines. See https://villagepipol.com/classic-filipino-breakfast-we-all-love/. It often accompanies the roast tack 🙂
I found most of this fairly plain sailing, until BOTSWANA and the combo of ORBITS and THEIR held me up for a while (especially while I tried to figure out a parse for the definition of THEIR). Alongside today’s Sunday Times & Paul’s prize yesterday, both of which I found very tough, we’ve had quite a weekend workout!
THEIR was my LOI here, and the email sign-offs I see tend to say “he/him” or “she/they” (etc). “His/their”, for whatever reason, doesn’t seem to be the chosen combination of pronouns. Hey/ho.
Thanks Brunel & Pierre.
Thanks Brunel for a satisfying challenge. The check button was my friend today and that got me out of a jam or two. Most of this, however, came to light with second or third readings and I never had to reveal an answer. Top choices included WOKE, TAMILS, SHAKEN UP, AMERICA (nicely hidden in a good surface), and TIMES, my LOI. Thanks Pierre for a most readable blog.
Thanks both. Tough; Sunday wasn’t made to be so….I still have no real idea what the Guardian references are all about
It’s one of those things that on a Sunday I sail through the Azed in The Observer and get thoroughly stuck on the Indie whereas people say the Azed is hard. Got a lot more of this done than I thought I would but several I couldn’t get and many entries were lucky guesses.