Independent 11,493 by Bluth

by

With a traditional British summer in full swing Bluth inerrupts the wind and the rain.

A great pleasure as always. Some novel constructs which I have come to expect from Bluth – all perfectly fair in my opinion – well all apart from 15ac and 8dn which I can’t seem to parse (doesn’t mean they are unfair though) – Thanks to KVa for explaining. Being a passionate northerner drum is not a word I have ever come across for a house {did have two visits to London this year which is one more than my other visits there since 2000 – loved the Elizabeth line, shame it didn’t  cross the pennines – that is a real need for a line of this sort}.

Clues I liked 1ac (nice anagram construction) ; 10ac (reuse of the M clearly signposted); 14ac (one where the answer was clear but how to get there wasn’t immediately); 26ac ( so obvious when you see it); 4dn (its surface); 13dn (use of the 5) and 21dn (unusual way to change Tina to Ta)

Thanks Bluth – brightened up my day

Key * anagram; DD double definition; underline definition; Reve reverse

Across
1 Rock music star’s at bar sons find extremely unpleasant (9)
(music stars at – sss)* = TRAUMATIC

6 Revolutionary shoots foot (5)
Rev fires (shoots) = SERIF

9 When husband remains (3)
as (when) + h (husband) = ASH

10 Rock band’s sharing mike with campaign for Amnesty (9)
REM (Rick band) + mission (campaign) sharing m (mike) = REMISSION

11 Thirsty seeing English beer with no head (5)
e (english) = lager (beer) – l (no head) = EAGER

12 Solo travelling over to the Far East – knight’s not giving up (7,2)
Han (solo) + going (travelling) moving o to the far east gingo + n (knight) = HANGING-ON

14 A naked member of the orchestra’s dressing (5)
a + violin (member of teh orchestra – vn (naked) = AIOLI

15 Protocol using one greenhouse component to grip the other (7)
eco (greenhouse component) in drum (greenhouse component) = DECORUM

16 Lily possibly cut by soldier returning for flower (7)
Rev. Allen (Lily possibly) around gi(soldier) = NIGELLA

17 Following organisation‘s sign discounting electronic book on Kindle (3,4)
clue (sign) – e (electronic) +  b (book) after fan (Kindle) = FAN CLUB

20 Perhaps steroid – and hard cash – briefly used to secure gold (7)
h (hard) + money (cash) – y (briefly) around or (gold) = HORMONE

23 Daughter getting into American university gets grant (5)
d (daughter) in a (american) + MIT (university) = ADMIT

24 One who shouts about opening of theatre as venue for The Hunchback of Notre-Dame? (4,5)
bellower (one who shouts) around t (opening of theatre) = BELL TOWER

26 Dice – one turned to a number 5 twice? (5)
dice swapping an (a number) for i (one) = DANCE [CAN CAN]

27 Watched Five making a comeback with cover of Roger Daltrey’s debut (9)
Moore (Roger) around Rev. tin (5) + d (Daltrey’s debut) = MONITORED

28 Whisky drunk by Harry Enfield (3)
Hidden harRY Enfield = RYE

29 At the end old friend gets trifle (5)
d (old end) + ally (friend) = DALLY

30 One who thinks the oxygen will go before part of flight (9)
the + o (oxygen) + riser (part of flight) = THEORISER

Down
1 Light seen when pastor joins church (5)
Hidden pasTOR CHurch = TORCH

2 Book a student on M5 northbound following start of accident (7)
a l (student) + m + Rev 5 (can) after a (sart of accident) = ALMANAC

3 Space satellite engineers sent up bit by bit gets more chaotic (7)
rev em (space) + iss(satellite) + re (engineers) = MESSIER

4 Dislocated mangy hobbit’s doodah (11)
(mangy hobbit)* = THINGAMYBOB

5/22 Kayak docked with conditions embodying potentially difficult situation (3,2,5)
canoe – e (kayak docked) + forms (conditions) around w (with) = CAN OF WORMS

6 Report following the woman’s affair (7)
she (the woman’s) + bang (report) = SHEBANG

7 Newspaper 50/50 in support of party – one might have been stitched up? (3,4)
rag(newspaper) + ll (50/50) around do (party) = RAG DOLL

8 Commit adultery – writer discovered 5,22 (9)
(rite + can + of)*  with worms indicating anagram = FORNICATE

13 Spraying Chanel No. 5’s cool (11)
(chanel no can)* = NONCHALANCE

15 Did government department occasionally fund head (9)
Defra (government department) + fUnD hEaD = DEFRAUDED

18 Initially naval officers’ mess is needing a list of names (7)
initials in clue n o m i n a l = NOMINAL

19 Princess dismissing Daily Mirror story – ultimately as speculation? (7)
Charlotte (proncess) – char (daily) + ry (Mirror stort ultimately) = LOTTERY

21 Eddy’s protecting unfashionable Tina Turner (7)
Tina – in = unfashionable in rotor (eddy) = ROTATOR

22 See 5

25 Director’s term supporting drama school’s way of finding oneself? (5)
r (director’s term) after RADA (drama school) = RADAR

27 Police force is satisfied (3)
DD MET

36 comments on “Independent 11,493 by Bluth”

  1. DECORUM
    One Greenhouse component=House=DRUM (a cockney slang for ‘house’)
    The other ‘greenhouse’ component=green=ECO
    DRUM gripping ECO

    The term ‘Drum’, meaning house, is derived from the pre-1960’s where criminals would knock on doors in order to find out which houses were empty. As anyone who has done house clearances will know an empty house has a distinguishable echo to it when the door is knocked. These characters were known as ‘drummers’.

    FORNICATE
    Writer discovered=RITE, 5=CAN, 22= OF + worms. (RITECANOF)* (*worms).

  2. Thanks, Bluth and Twencelas!
    Found the puzzle somewhat on the tougher side.

    Liked many clues. Just to mention a few:
    HANGING-ON, DECORUM, CAN OF WORMS, FORNICATE and LOTTERY.

  3. I filled a lot of this in on a wing and a prayer but did get a full grid with varying degrees of success when it came to justifying the solutions.
    As usual with this setter some novel and amusing surface reads along with inventive constructions, I particularly liked REMISSION, FAN CLUB, BELL TOWER, CAN OF WORMS and ROTATOR.
    Thanks Bluth and Twencelas.

  4. Thanks, Bluth and twencelas. Lots to enjoy here – I liked the different uses of CAN and thought the construction of FORNICATE was particularly clever.

  5. A fairly quick solve for me today. Had to look up DRUM to see how 15a worked and also had to check that ROTOR is a type of eddy current. DANCE took longer to parse than it should’ve. FORNICATE gains the top marks, so to speak.

  6. Liked everything including the thematic use of CAN from 5d, RAG DOLL for the 50/50, and the ‘unfashionable Tina’ in ROTATOR for which I needed the blog’s help. Tops is DANCE. I had that as a DD. Second def was ‘5 twice’. Thanks twencelas and Bluth.

  7. Although I have yet to catch up on Phi from yesterday, it has been a good Indy week and this delightful offering from Bluth tops it off nicely. Lots of current references as is his wont and some creative constructions. I enjoyed the varied ways in which 5d was employed, some of which eluded me on first pass through; by the time I revisited, as well as crossers I had the conceit in mind and was able to cruise to a smooth finish (other than a typo (mine) in THINGAMYBOB (what on earth do learners of English as a foreign language make of that, when they encounter it???)

    Favourites include TRAUMATIC, REMISSION, DECORUM, DANCE, THEORISER, RAG DOLL, FORNICATE and THEORISER. There is an neat extra layer to the lovely MESSIER: Charles Messier was an eighteenth century astronomer whose list of galactic features – Messier objects – are a target for NASA’s Hubble telescope. And Messier was also an aerospace engineering company.

    Thanks Bluth and twencelas

  8. Bluth, Bluth, Bluth, surely you know a canoe is not a kayak. If in doubt, try doing an Eskimo roll in a canoe and see what happens.

    Other than that, a delight as usual.

  11. Chambers:

    kayak /k??ak/
    noun
    An Inuit seal-skin canoe
    A canvas, fibreglass, etc canoe built in this style

    There may be a specialist interpretation but it seems good enough for the man on the street – or the Inuit on the ocean?

  13. Got it all but had a lot unparsed so thanks. As a Londoner never heard of drum in this meaning. Not sure I understand that meaning of radar. And on principle I refuse to remember the names of pointless princesses.

  14. So much for Chambers. In determining the name for an Inuit vessel, I would trust an Inuit over the man in a UK street.

  15. Thanks both. Perhaps a little more tricky to parse than other Bluth puzzles, which I always look forward to. Didn’t know ISS as the International Space Station could be defined simply as satellite, and still unsure like Ericw@13 how one finds oneself on RADAR. DECORUM seems really clever on reflection, but I’m another Northern soul who doesn’t have a Scooby about the ‘drum’ element

  16. A really interesting challenge as usual from Bluth. As far as Kayak is concerned, I think ‘e knew it would raise questions, but decided it would hold water.

  18. IanSW3 @14. Just to be clear, I would never refer to a kayak as anything but a kayak. Similarly, I wouldn’t call a pirogue a canoe either. However, if asked to define what they were to somebody who didn’t know, I would probably start with “It’s a type of canoe …”. I think it’s fair to use “canoe” generically in this sense. Interestingly, Collins defines the Inuit vessel as ‘canoe-like’ but also gives a second meaning of ‘kayak’ as ‘a fibreglass or canvas-covered canoe of similar design’. Maybe this is more to your satisfaction.

  19. Surely the distinction between canoes and kayaks is only really of interest in sporting or historical contexts? They’re both small boats propelled using paddles and that’s close enough for the terms to have become interchangeable in everyday use. Complain if you like, and glory in being correct while everyone else is wrong, but it’s a futile endeavour trying to force people to use words according to narrow prescriptive definitions.

  20. I don’t think it’s splitting hairs. A kayak is like a canoe in the same way a fork is like a spoon. In North America, where both canoes and kayaks quite common, unlike in the UK, everyone (not just enthusiasts) knows the difference. If the terms have become interchangeable in British usage, that is simply a mistake, and lexicographers should say so.

  21. Isn’t the problem that canoe is both the generic term for light keelless vessels propelled by paddling, and one specific example. It’s more like calling a Dyson a Hoover than a spoon a fork.

  22. Then you could just as well call a racing shell a canoe. In fact, that looks a lot more like a canoe than a kayak does.

  23. I shall look forward to watching the next Boat Race in coracles, since apparently all small boats are indistinguishable.

  24. A race between coracles would still be a boat race, though not the Boat Race. A racing shell does not conform to the definition above as it is a rowing boat.

  25. So If a canoe is a generic term for a class of small boats, what are the other specific examples (beside kayaks, apparently)?

    I can really only think of the two examples vaguely similar enough: canoes, which are open, and kayaks, which are enclosed. They have some features in common and can perform some of the same functions, but each can do some things the other cannot. Like forks and spoons.

  26. Dug-outs, outrigger canoes, racing canoes, fishing canoes. Wikipedia says that in British English a kayak is a canoe, but not in America.

  27. That is another way of saying that in the UK, most people don’t know the difference between a canoe and a kayak. For better or worse, though, we are in the realm of crosswords, which are especially alluring to pedants and overs of arcana (not that I consider the distinction here arcane).

    I agree that all of the examples you gave are canoes, as is evident from the names, including “dug-out canoe.” All are open boats. A kayak is not.

  29. Fortunately there are lots of people called “cricketers” who try to play a form of baseball using canoe paddles for bats. I can borrow one of those!

  31. A very good puzzle indeed, which I found very challenging to solve and parse and, correspondingly, very satisfying.

    I think most of us know the difference between a canoe and a kayak but the dictionary definitions others have cited show that it was perfectly fairly clued, particularly given the need to come up with a rough synonym for the wordplay in that particular clue.

  32. Thanks twencelas and thanks all.

    Re canoe/kayak. I wasn’t sure if it was reasonable to use Kayak for Canoe but looked it up and decided that the dictionary definitions given in both Chambers and Collins meant it was. (It’s also true of the kayaks I see for sale in Decathlon, say, and the kayak I paddled in Mallorca earlier this year.)

    As to: “ . If the terms have become interchangeable in British usage, that is simply a mistake, and lexicographers should say so” (IanSW3 @20) I couldn’t disagree more. I think dictionaries should tell us how language is used and not how it ought to be used. It’s not the rule book.

    Huge numbers of words have changed their meaning as a result of common usage and the dictionary doesn’t tell us we’re wrong, just that that’s now how the word is used.

  33. Thanks Bluth for my favourite crossword of this week and for your coherent explanation of common usage as opposed to technical correctness. I loved all the clues that played with the number five in particular. I couldn’t parse a few bits here and there so thanks twencelas for the detailed blog.

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