Independent 11,494 by Knut

by

A very enjoyable and tricky puzzle.

There were an unusual number of alternate letter clues and there was some clever usage of the crossword setter's old staple bill=ad.

ACROSS
1 ASSOCIATED
Allied American cracking Stasi code (10)

A{merican} + (Stasi code)*
7 OLD
Getting on a bit, Log Lady is regularly edited out (3)

Even letters of "log lady"
10 RAINY
Wet outside, bright start having faded (5)

[B]rainy(=bright)
11 CLINGFILM
Change Eastwood’s ending to good movie – it’s a wrap! (9)

Clint (Eastwood) with t changed to g + film(=movie)
12 MAKESHIFT
According to Spooner, Arab bigwig offended substitute (9)

Spoonerism of "Sheikh miffed"
13 TRADE
Traffic electronic missile from the east (5)

(E{lectronic} dart)<
14 BURGLAR
He steals food brought round by the French Resistance (7)

Grub< + la(=the French) + R{esistance}. The abbrev could be used scientifically in formulae relating to electricity.
16 BILL
Irish banks originally sent back £50 note (4)

(I[rish] b[anks])< + ll (l as a abbrev for pound and l as a the Roman numeral for 50)
19 EDIT
Check Sitwell after leaving hospital (4)

Edit[h] (remove h{ospital}). Edith Sitwell was a British poet.
21 PAYWALL
An impediment to the free press? (7)

CD – a paywall would prevent the consumer getting access to free news
24 GATES
Tech titan, 29, engaging Lawrence (5)

Gas(=answer to clue 29) around TE, a ref to TE Lawrence, of Lawrence of Arabia fame.
25 AGAMEMNON
Tragic Greek king‘s name among injured (9)

(Name among)*
27 NECTARINE
Fruit juice that is containing nitrogen (9)

(Nectar(=juice) + i.e.(=that is)) around N{itrogen}
28 GECKO
Good with sound reverb, one is no stranger to scales (5)

G{ood} + hom of echo. Geckoes, being reptile, have scales on their skin.

29 GAS
Possibly noxious stuff occasionally leaking from Gdansk? (3)

Odd letters of Gdansk. Obviously not all gases are noxious (I think oxygen is OK), hence the need for the "possibly".
30 DISCOUNTED
Club side from Manchester I ignored, rejected (10)

Disco(=club) + un[i]ted
DOWN
2 STICKERS
Singular Hearts players could be depicted on these (8)

S{ingular} + tickers(=used colloquially for hearts)
3 OH YES
Och aye! Easy every now and again? Indeedy! (2,3)

Odd letters of "och aye easy"
4 ITCHIER
Much cattier bishop leaves, even more irritated (7)

[B]itchier
5 TWIN TUB
Washer/drier with fashionable rear mounted exterior (4,3)

(W{ith} in(=fashionable)) in butt<(=rear, mounted exterior indicating reversal and containment)
6 DIGITALLY
Be really into it, every last bit of country music recorded thus (9)

Dig it(=be really into it) + all(=every) + [countr]y
7 OHIOAN
American citizen over Hanoi shot (6)

O{ver} + hanoi*
8 DAMSEL
Female lead up and coming featuring female title (6)

Lead< around Ms
9 GRIMSBY
Fishing port “dreary” – leader in Sunday Times (7)

Grim(=dreary) + S[unday] + by(=times, as in "2 by 2")
15 LADYS MAID
Dismal labours crushing 16 year old servant (5,4)

Dismal* around (ad(=bill) y{ear})
17 BARNACLE
Crustacean without shell full of salt (8)

Bare(=without shell) around NaCl(=chemical formula for salt)
18 CLINTON
Boracic lint once bandaging Trump’s opponent (7)

Hidden in "Borac lint once" – ref to Hilary Clinton, whom Trump defeated in the 2016 election (although it's strange the Democrats didn't just rig that one as well…)
20 TOADIES
Conservatives drop right to detain 16 creeps (7)

To[r]ies around ad(=bill, as in advertising bill)
21 PLACEBO
Spot bad smell? That’ll be the fake medicine (7)

Place(=spot) + BO(=body odour)
22 EGGNOG
Say OBE for instance is coming up? Drink! (6)

Eg(=say) + gong<
23 STACKS
Fires maintaining temperature in chimneys (6)

Sacks(=fires in the dismissal sense) around t{emperature}
26 ELGIN
Victorian Earl batting, out leg before (5)

In(=batting) with leg* in front. Elgin is of course best known for procuring the Elgin Marbles, something which doesn't seem to have done him much good because he was forced to sell them to the British Government at a loss.

19 comments on “Independent 11,494 by Knut”

  1. Thanks, Knut and NealH!
    Enjoyed the puzzle and appreciated the neat blog.

    DAMSEL
    ‘Up and coming’ in the sense of ‘Rising’ seems a new device (to me, at least).

    DIGITALLY
    Is the def just ‘recorded thus’? Of course, the ‘music’ won’t be accounted for in that case.
    If we take ‘music recorded thus’ as the def, is there not a part of speech mismatch?

  2. Another lovely Knut puzzle – I have a dozen or more ticks!

    Like Neal, I particularly liked the exploitation of bill=ad (in 15ac, ‘old’ has to be part of the definition) and the use of GAS from 29ac in 24ac GATES.

    I grinned at 11ac CLINGFILM, 9dn GRIMSBY (It’s grim up north), 18dn CLINTON (bamboozled to begin with by ‘boracic lint’ = skint), 20dn TOADIES and I liked the Spoonerism (‘miffed’ is a favourite word of mine).

    I see what KVa means re DIGITALLY.

    Thanks to Knut for brightening up another miserable wet morning and Neal for a great blog.

  3. It’s lovely and sunny here but apart from that my thoughts once again match those of Eileen

    Thanks to Knut and Neal

  5. Well spotted, Duncan!
    BARNACLE BILL, GAS BILL …
    … and the old joke ‘BILL STICKERS will be prosecuted’.

  8. BURGLAR BILL leapt out at me because they were next to each other in the grid but I didn’t think to look for more, even though the “BILL STICKERS is innocent” gag immediately came to mind on solving 2d.

    Great fun, thanks, Knut and NealH. Pleased to see that even Eileen approved of the brilliant Spoonerism!

  9. Thanks both. On the gentler side, which not unwelcome on a rainy Monday. I have assumed ‘old servant’ becomes the complete definition for LADYS MAID although its cleverness initially defeated me in the parsing. PAYWALL didn’t strike me as very cryptic, given that ‘press’ is employed in context, but I still took a while to dredge up the solution

  10. Widdersbel @8

    As is well known, I think, I approve of all Spoonerisms that make sense! 😉 More often than not, in crosswords, they don’t – just lazy cluing, to my mind.

  11. Thoroughly enjoyed this, in particular the spoonerism and the clever use of bill/ad. Thank you, NeilH and Knut.

  12. Very enjoyable indeed, with too many great clues to single any out and of course the “Bill” theme giving it an extra dimension. My only slight quibble would be three clues involving the deleting of alternate letters is perhaps one too many but otherwise top-notch.
    Many thanks to Knut and NealH.

  13. I concur with the praise for this. I think we have read music recorded this as an ellipsis of music is (or can be) recorded this.

  15. An enjoyable solve, without any real holdups, although we failed to spot the various Bills. One minor gripe, we thought CLING FILM should be two words as on most boxes of the stuff – but we note that Chambers disagrees.
    Thanks, Knut and NealH.

  17. (Oops, sorry Eileen – I just saw that you had spotted him earlier! I managed to miss that first time through… )

  18. What others have said. Went in quickly, although took a while to get 17dn, my LOI. Totally didn’t spot the bills.

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