Independent 11,549 by Kairos

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Kairos fills the Tuesday spot this week – with a very unusual grid.

This is a crossword of three thirds with only two entries connecting each third to the next, resulting in a lot of short words and a lot of clues to go with them. We found that a lot of entries were ‘write-ins’.

It is Tuesday – theme day – so we assumed that the strange grid was required to accommodate a lot of thematic entries. However, we soon realised that the theme seemed to be pubs in TV 32ds. We do not watch any soaps, but we have heard of the 7ac/6d from Coronation Street (with ‘coronate’ at 1d) and the 15d/30d from Eastenders. Some electronic help established that the 33ac/22ac features in Emmerdale. We can’t help feeling that there must be more thematic entries, given the grid, but our knowledge of Soaps is extremely limited, so we hope that someone out there will have picked up more. Do SUE (9d), OLIVE (16d) and GILL (28ac) feature in some soaps? They don’t seem to be landladies of the three pubs.

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
7. Controversy surrounds some footballers (6)
ROVERS

Hidden in (‘surrounded by’) contROVERSy

8. Seal cubs swimming around parts of Tower Bridge? (8)
BASCULES

An anagram (‘swimming around’) of SEAL CUBS

10. Rabbit eats head of velvet flower (4)
DOVE

DOE (female rabbit) round or ‘eating’ V (first letter or ‘head’ of velvet) – the ‘flower’ being a river

11. Took kiln left for Victor (5)
STOLE

STOvE (kiln) with the ‘v’ (victor in the phonetic alphabet) replaced by L (left)

12. One rule for possessive pronoun (4)
YOUR

YOU (one) R (rule)

13. Bribe friend with money (4)
PALM

PAL (friend) M (money)

15. Percentage is not revised in tenders (10)
QUOTATIONS

QUOTA (percentage) + an anagram (‘revised’) of IS NOT

19. Australian native‘s commuter train? (3)
EMU

Double definition – EMU (electric multiple unit – trainspotter’s term for a commuter train)

20. Orange layer of bronze statues (4)
ZEST

Hidden in (‘of’) bronZE STatues

21. Real virtue’s oddly overlooked in high society (5)
ELITE

Even letters only (‘oddly overlooked’) of rEaL vIrTuE

22. Company store (4)
PACK

Double definition

24. Spots ship leaving food (3)
PIE

sPIEs (spots) with ‘ss’ (ship) missing or ‘leaving’

25. Styptic thread kept in a hospital department (10)
ASTRINGENT

STRING (thread) in A ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat – ‘hospital department’)

27. Road network’s beginning to expand (4)
LANE

LAN (Local Area Network) E (first letter or ‘beginning’ to expand)

28. Part of fish to cook without recipe (4)
GILL

GrILL (cook) missing ‘r’ (recipe)

30. Royal Victorian Order put back ballots (5)
VOTES

VO (Royal Victorian Order – who knew it doesn’t have an ‘r’?) + a reversal (‘back’) of SET (put)

33. Look for large coat (4)
WOOL

WOO (look for) L (large). We had to check Chambers –  woo = seek to gain – perhaps a rather tenuous synonym.

34. Poorly rendered description of poetic ugliness (3-5)
ILL-FACED

ILL (poorly) FACED (rendered)

35. Passionate Shakespearean publisher meets Troy (6)
ARDENT

ARDEN (Shakespearean publisher) T (Troy). Another one we had to check as we had never heard of the publisher.

DOWN
1. One actor performing wearing a crown? (8)
CORONATE

An anagram (‘performing’) of ONE ACTOR

2. Army engineers cycling around small lake (4)
MERE

REME (Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers – ‘army engineers’) with the last two letters moved to the front or ‘cycling’

3. Understands King George killed snakes (4)
ASPS

grASPS (understands) with ‘GR’ (King George) missing or ‘killed’

4. Leaders of export bank recruit old Spanish banker (4)
EBRO

First letters or ‘leaders’ of Export Bank Recruit Old – the ‘banker’ being a river

5. Uranium fuels minor navigational aid (4)
BUOY

U (uranium) in or ‘fuelling’ BOY (minor)

6. Go on first to answer (6)
RETURN

TURN (go) with RE (on) first

9. Called native American lady (3)
SUE

A homophone (‘called’) of SIOUX (nature American)

14. Measure oxygen extracted from extra-terrestrial body (5)
METER

METEoR (extra-terrestrial body) with the ‘o’ (oxygen) missing or ‘extracted’

15. One may be dancing with board member (5)
QUEEN

Double definition – the first referring to ‘Dancing Queen’, the second to the chess piece

16. Green source of oil (5)
OLIVE

Another double definition

17. Bill supported by English port master (5)
ADEPT

AD (bill) E (English) PT (port)

18. Upstanding character quits imperial force (5)
IMPEL

IMPEriaL with a reversal of ‘air’ (character) missing or ‘quitting

23. Surprise headline reporting prisoner’s capture (8)
CONFOUND

If a prisoner (‘con’) has been captured, the news headline might be CON FOUND

26. Drunkard’s stopped guard (6)
SHIELD

A homophone of how a drunkard (slurring the ‘s’) might say SEALED (stopped)

29. Person appears upset in feature film (4)
LIFE

Hidden (‘appears in’) and reversed (‘upset’) in featurE FILm

30. Deputy finally dismissed Bob’s partner? (3)
VIC

VICe (deputy) missing the last letter or ‘finally dismissed) – Vic Reeves is associated with Bob Mortimer

31. Reportedly fixed movement (4)
TIDE

A homophone (‘reportedly’) of TIED (fixed)

32. Cleaner in TV series (4)
SOAP

Another double definition

33. Old tennis champion with Jennifer’s husband (4)
WADE

W (with) ADE (Ade Edmondson, Jennifer Saunders’ husband) – a reference to Virginia Wade

 

22 comments on “Independent 11,549 by Kairos”

  1. Thanks, Kairos and B&J!
    ROVERS RETURN is fresh in my memory from a discussion on an interesting clue (BAR SOAP) elsewhere.

    Top fave: CONFOUND.

    Could the setter be alluding to some soap brands like PALMOLIVE, LIFEBUOY etc.,? There seem to be a few more of them.

  2. We think you have it KVa. There’s DOVE and TIDE there as well. We knew we must be missing something.

  3. I found this quite a struggle but got there in the end with a similar conclusion to B&J about the mini-theme of soap pubs. I learnt two new abbreviations (EMU and VO – bizzarre to omit the R from the latter).

    Picking up on KVa’s observation about soap brands, we could add SHIELD, DOVE, ZEST and TIDE to the list.

    CONFOUND was my favourite too.

    Many thanks to Kairos and to B&J.

  4. I haven’t checked them out but have a vague feeling ZEST and SHIELD were soap brands.

    Thanks Kairos and B&J

  7. 18d – IMPEL – The clue contains “imperial” but you need to borrow the “leather” from Fed’s 14d in the G.

  10. Liked ILL-FACED … “ill-faced, worse-bodied, shapeless everywhere” … and IMPEL. WADE was a reveal. No GK thereof. Thanks.

  15. There’s also ASTRINGENT soap, and TIDE is a soap powder, so maybe it’s accidentally part of the theme. WOOL+PACK sound as if they should come in somewhere, though I can’t see it. Many thanks Kairos and B&J.

  17. Two bits of guesswork required today – didn’t know the trainspotters jargon or Jennifer’s husband. Just as well the old tennis champion was very familiar! Picked up on the TV bars but only post-solve.
    I chose the same favourite as others – CONFOUND.

    Thanks to Kairos for quite a work-out and to B&J for the review.

  19. Thanks both. I enjoyed the double helping of soaps, particularly as I spotted them early, however did not quite finish, and am still not entirely understanding the definition for ILL FACED though I guess Sofamore@10 is indicating at least one poet has employed the expression as a synonym for ugly

  20. Total defeat for me. Got about half of it done, and I don’t think I would have spotted the theme if I had completed it.

  21. Really fascinating the way you experts find the theme :
    For me this was hard because there were quite a few synonyms of words that could never be found unless you were thinking laterally. For example
    Bribe and Palm
    You and One
    Person and Life
    Thanks to setter and blogger

  22. I was OK with You/One and Bribe/Palm but can’t see how Life and Person equate at all. Other than that I found this puzzle very scary at first but yeilded bit by bit. Not quite ‘write-ins’ though. Missed the theme and variations completely!

    Thanks S&B

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