Bluebird sets today’s Independent crossword
Bluebird’s puzzles tend to make you think outside the box as the definitions are often a bit quirky. We certainly had a few today, such as:
God that’s handy for SHIVA
Shift 3 for POUND SIGN
A haiku cluing HAIKU
Bluebird has had themes in previous puzzles. I feel sure that something is going on in this puzzle, possibly something to do with SPELLINGS or MISSPELLINGS. There are plenty of entries with consecutive double letters (e.g.. HIPPOCAMPUS, ILLUSION, HEADDRESS and ANNIE) or consecutive double pairs of letters (CRISIS)
If you take one half of each consecutive pair you get a string PLISSESLDFN which can be rearranged as FIND SPELLS. That’s probably just a coincidence.
I struggled to parse two of the clues – the ones for MISSPELLINGS where I don’t have much of clue about what’s going on and CHRISTMAS where I think there may be two or more definitions. I also struggled with the homonym in DOWNPOUR where I think we are being asked to accept that POOR and POUR rhyme. They don’t for me.
| No | Detail |
| Across | |
| 1 | Me, by the end of Middlemarch – “this is a bit boring” (3)
MEH (expression of indifference or boredom) ME + H (last letter of [end of] MIDDLEMARCH) ME H |
| 3 | What makes you think it’s a wild animal on college grounds? (11)
HIPPOCAMPUS (a part of the brain that plays a critical role in the ability to engage in creative thinking) HIPPO (HIPPOpotamus; wild animal) + CAMPUS (college grounds) HIPPO CAMPUS |
| 9 | 4 are given to Mum – God that’s handy (5)
SHIVA (the third God of the Hindu triad, often depicted with four or more hands; God that’s handy) SH (quiet; mum) + IV (Roman numeral for 4) + A (are, unit of measurement of area) SH IV A |
| 10 | I doubt that Jackie tucked into large cake on vacation (3,6)
FAT CHANCE (slang term describing little or no opportunity or prospect. often said by people doubting the likelihood of a statement to become true) CHAN (reference Jackie CHAN [born 1954], Hong Kong actor) contained in (tucked into) (FAT [large] + CE [letters remaining in CAKE after the central letters AK are removed {on vacation}]) FAT (CHAN) CE |
| 11 | Shift 3 lbs with one exhausted groomsman (5,4)
POUND SIGN (To generate a POUND SIGN on most UK QWERTY keyboards, press the Shift key and the 3 together) POUNDS (lbs) + I (Roman numeral for one) + GN (letters remaining in GROOMSMAN when the central letters ROOMSMA are removed [exhausted]) POUND S I GN |
| 12 | What drunk people do, quietly or loudly – drink (5)
SLURP (drink loudly) SLUR (people who are drunk often SLUR their words) + P (piano; softly; quietly) SLUR P |
| 14 | Spooner? He played works by G Gershwin on the harmonica (6)
LADLER (one who uses a deep spoon to transfer a liquid to another receptacle) L ADLER (reference LARRY ADLER [1914 – 2001], harmonica virtuoso who included works by George Gershwin [G Gershwin] in his repertoire) L ADLER |
| 16 | Uncut rocks received by close associate on time (8)
PUNCTUAL (on time) Anagram of (rocks) UNCUT contained in (received by) PAL (friend; close associate) P (UNCTU*) AL |
| 19 | False impression given by reference following AI mixup (8)
ILLUSION (deceptive appearance; false impression) ALLUSION (indirect reference) with A replaced by I (AI mixup) to form ILLUSION ILLUSION |
| 20 | His Majesty is repeatedly in trouble (6)
CRISIS (time of difficulty or distress; trouble) CR (Charles Rex; current ‘His Majesty the King’ in the UK) + IS + IS (IS repeatedly) CR IS IS |
| 22 | Fruit snack taken away from gorilla? (5)
GRAPE (fruit) GREAT APE (gorilla) excluding (taken away from) EAT (snack) GR APE |
| 24 | Vital components from empty cars seen disintegrating by a railway (9)
NECESSARY (vital) Anagram of (disintegrating) CARS excluding the central letters AR (empty) and SEEN + A + RY (railway) NECESS* + A + RY |
| 26 | One next to bar, falling, in jacket, following Trigger’s remark? (9)
NEIGHBOUR (one next to) NEIGH (sound made by a horse. Trigger was Roy Rogers’ horse. Rogers starred in a number of American cowboy films) + BARBOUR (brand of waterproof jacket) excluding (falling in) BAR NEIGH BOUR |
| 27 | Cut Melvyn’s introduction on In Our Time (5)
MINCE (cut into small pieces) M (first letter of [introduction to] MELVYN) + IN + CE (Common Era; Christian era; time since AD 0; our time) M IN CE |
| 28 | Turns about monitor, resulting in Windows getting wiped on drive (11)
WINDSCREENS (sheets of glass constituting the window of motor vehicles, that get wiped when driving in the rain) WINDS (turns) containing (about) SCREEN (monitor) WIND (SCREEN) S |
| 29 | Naked figure? (3)
EVE (in the Bible, in the Book of Genesis, EVE was first introduced as being naked ) SEVEN (digit; figure) excluding the outer letters S and N (naked) EVE – &lit clue |
| Down | |
| 1 | Putting L between P and L in ‘misplaced‘? (11)
I really don’t understand this clue – there are two possible words from the crossing letters MISSPELLING and MISAPPLYING. I will go for MISSPELLING MISSPELLING (if you put an L between the P and the L in MISPLACED you get MISPLLACED which is a MISSPELLING) PLL doesn’t seem to be a recognised abbreviation, so I can’t use that in the wordplay. MISSPELLING |
| 2 | At the summits of/hazardous alps, ibexes/kick, unearthing this? (5)
HAIKU (a Japanese poem in three lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllables – (‘At the summits of’ – 5 syllables, ‘hazardous alps, ibexes’ – 7 syllables, ‘kick unearthing this’ – 5 syllables. The bulk of the clue therefore is a HAIKU) HAIKU (first letters of [at the summits of] each of HAZARDOUS, ALPS, IBEXES, KICK and UNEARTHING) HAIKU |
| 3 | Perhaps the Crown‘s official residence (9)
HEADDRESS (A crown is a form of HEADDRESS) HE (His Excellency, is the form of address for an Ambassador, who is a representative of the Crown in a monarchy) + ADDRESS (identification for the location of a residence) HE ADDRESS |
| 4 | West Ham fan’s drawing winger (6)
PUFFIN (bird; winger) PUFFIN‘ (PUFFING, drawing [on a cigarette], as spoken by someone who drops their Gs. A resident of West Ham in London could be such a speaker) PUFFIN |
| 5 | One struggling with gout fed unknown plant (8)
OX-TONGUE (composite plant of the daisy family, with yellow flowers) Anagram of (struggling) ONE and [with] GOUT containing (fed) X (letter frequently used as the value of an unknown value in equations) O (X)-TONGUE* |
| 6 | Test matches by striking the first two in jars (5)
ASHES (cricket test matches between England and Australia are played to win the ASHES) CLASHES (jars) excluding the opening two (first two) letters C and L ASHES |
| 7 | Swingers cavorting nude, covered in fruit (9)
PENDULUMS (heavy material points suspended by a weightless thread, free to swing without friction) Anagram of (cavorting) NUDE contained in (covered in) PLUMS P (ENDU*) LUMS |
| 8 | Woman lying on the floor, having forgotten PIN (3)
SUE (woman’s name) SUPINE (lying on the back; lying on the floor) excluding (having forgotten) PIN SUE |
| 13 | The result of distilling petrol (with bases of hydrocarbon) commercially? Yes (11)
POLYSTYRENE (a product whose manufacture starts with the distillation of hydrocarbon fuels into lighter groups) Anagram of (distilling) PETROL and NY (last letters of each of [bases of] HYDROCARBON and COMMERCIALLY) and YES POLYSTYRENE* &Lit clue |
| 15 | Pet of boy taken aback by alien showing no resistance (9)
DALMATIAN (dog kept as a pet) LAD (boy) reversed (taken aback) + MARTIAN (alien) excluding (showing no) R (resistance) DAL MATIAN |
| 17 | Festivities during which people are crowned close to present-day Turkey (9)
CHRISTMAS (period of festivities) I’m a bit baffled by the wordplay here – there may be more than one definition, e.g. CHRISTMAS is a day for receiving presents: present-day Turkey crowns are often part of the main meal at CHRISTMAS There are often paper crowns in CHRISTMAS crackers I don’t see where ‘close to’ comes in unless if signifies that people put on crowns from crackers in the days around (close to) CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS |
| 18 | Burst blue pants, by the sound of it (8)
DOWNPOUR (sudden burst of rain?) DOWN (sad; blue) POUR (sounds like (?) [by the sound of it] POOR [rubbish; pants]) DOWN POUR |
| 21 | Unusual gangster movie in which Fanny Adams gets dispatched (6)
SCARCE (unusual) SCARFACE (title of a gangster movie [1932 and 1983]) excluding (gets dispatched) FA (Fanny Adams) SCARCE |
| 23 | Stirred the giant’s spirit (5)
ETHOS (spirit) Anagram of (stirred) THE + OS (outsize; giant) ETH* OS |
| 25 | Characters somersaulting in Bernstein/Nabokov musical (5)
ANNIE (name of a musical that opened on Broadway in 1977) ANNIE (hidden word [characters] reversed in [somersaulting in] BERNSTEIN / NABOKOV) ANNIE< |
| 26 | Got up at once (3)
NOW (at this exact moment; immediately; at once) WON (got) reversed (up; down entry) NOW< |
I parsed MISSPELLING as EL between P & L in MISSING (misplaced).
CHRISTMAS
Guessing…
People are crowned at the dinner table close to where the Christmas turkey is?
DOWNPOUR
The pants-poor-pour-homophone parsing seems to be the correct one. Can’t think of any better.
I concur with both previous posters wrt parsing MISSPELLING, CHRISTMAS and the homophone in DOWNPOUR which does work for me. I’d also agree with our blogger that Bluebird can be devious with his definitions: I loved SHIVA. Also big ticks for the humour involved in GRAPE, SCARE and LADLER. I didn’t parse PUFFIN: I know various football teams have named groups of supporters and wondered if West Ham’s might be puffins! Though I also have a vague notion they’re associated with bubbles …?
Thanks Bluebird and duncan
Crikey this was tough and for me it was a curate’s egg with a mixture of very good clues and some, such as 26a, 4d and 17d, which were “pants” in my opinion. I also think that 26d is ambiguous as it could be read both ways round. I, of course, chose the wrong way to start with which held me up in the SW corner.
Thanks to Bluebird and to Duncan.
Totally with Rabbit Dave @4 on this one. I do think SHIVA is fantastic now it has been explained to me – thanks Duncan for a helpful blog – and I think MISSPELLING is very clever too. It somehow jumped out fairly quickly without any definitive parsing. But my tops would be be MEH. Thanks DS and BB.
Rabbit Dave @4. I also entered the ‘wrong’ right answer (so to speak) for 26d initially.
Some pretty good jokes in this, 1a being a great start – much enjoyed but agree it was tricky.
26a, Rabbit Dave perhaps not an OFAH fan?
This was a tough solve for me and also contained two of my pet hates – the dreadful MEH and the ridiculous Common Era.
On the upside, I really liked HEADDRESS and smiled at the reminder of Only Fools and Horses in 26a. Can’t recall whether David Jason was wearing a Barbour jacket at the time but that would make the clue perfick!
Thanks to Bluebird and to Duncan for the review.
CHRISTMAS didn’t fall immediately for me, but is just a simple cryptic def – people wear crowns around the table bearing a turkey on “present day”. It would be easy to shorten the clue, but the detail improves the surface and serves to obscure the intent quite nicely.
Also a big fan of POUND SIGN, which took a lot of puzzling and only started to unravel once I got the -GN and worked backwards from there. And SHIVA and HAIKU were lovely clues as well. No problem with the POOR/POUR homophone, but it wasn’t my favourite clue either.
I managed to get EVE and GRAPE without fully understanding them, but I think the problem was at my end. I tend to find that deletions can be hard to parse.
Thanks to Duncan, and Bluebird who I hope to see more often.
I really enjoyed this. Couldn’t parse MISSPELLING, but think it’s clever now it’s been explained. POUR / Poor is not an exact homophone, but close enough for me (and I know people who do pronounce them identically). I thought the clue for CHRISTMAS (which I parsed as Kva@1) was a funny and clever cryptic definition.
Chacun a son gout, I suppose.
Thanks to Bluebird and Duncan.
Despite starting off well I couldn’t really get into this and only managed to solve nine before nodding off. That’s the trouble with trying to do a difficult cryptic at 3 a.m! Thanks anyway Bluebird and Duncan.
There were several I couldn’t get, including 5dn. I only knew OXTONGUE as a meat used in sandwiches and didn’t know the plant.
Very late to this but I hope that the setter and blogger get a notification then I can praise both for their excellent work
A puzzle laced with wit and misdirection, it was right up my street, a couple of loose clues aside.
I really liked CRISIS, SHIVA, GRAPE and NEIGHBOUR. MINCE is also very clever as I’m sure the setter is alluding to the dating site Our Time with the false capitalisation and the surface read. Very smart.
Many thanks to Bluebird and duncanshell