Independent 11,572 by Salty

by

Salty returns for a second outing in the Indy

Actually he was outed or revealed to be a Fifteensquared blogger last time. I found bits of this rather tricky to explain and some more unusual clue formations. Let me know what you think as I’m not totally convinced by some of my parsing.

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
7. Five ejected from bar for suggestive look (4)
LEER

V – five removed from LE(v)ER – a bar

9. Make fresh conclusions from Oscar Wilde novel (5)
RENEW

Concluding letters of oscaR wildE & NEW – novel

10. Asian banks to teach how ChatGPT works? (4)
THAI

Opening letters of Teach How & AI – artificial intelligence – how ChatGPT works

11. Best available vehicles for reversing (8)
OUTSMART

OUT – available, the latest book by someone is out say & TRAMS – vehicles reversed

12. Surgery on Barbie’s gob? (6)
DOLLOP

DOLL – barbie say & OP(eration)

13. Admit first wife’s leaving to find sensual pleasure (5)
ALLOW

W(ife) removed from (w)ALLOW

15. Accidents involved steamships set carelessly adrift (7)
MISHAPS

SET* – carelessly removed – adrift – from an involved [(ste)AMSHIPS]*

17. Setter in dairy put cash on the counter (6)
RENNET

TENNER – note – reversed – on the counter.

18. When arresting marines, peacekeeping organisation first removes weapons (6)
UNARMS

U.N. – peace keepers & RM – marines in AS – when

21. Pilot and co‘s broadcast was self-congratulatory (7)
AIRCREW

AIR – broadcast & CREW, crowed – self congratulation

22. 23 overwhelmed by discharged reptilious smells (5)
REEKS

23 is EKE OUT or EKE* or EEK inside a discharged R(eptiliou)S

23. Supplement that beekeeper must take to get horn (3,3)
EKE OUT

Bit unusual, you need to take EKE OUT of BE(eke)EPER to get BEEPER – a horn say

25. Tailed 10’s taxi carrying naked bimbo somewhere far away (8)
TIMBUKTU

A naked (b)IMB(o) inside a curtailed TUK-TU(k) – often used as taxis in Asian countries

27. Satisfied having consumed large US dish with cheese (4)
MELT

L(arge) inside MET – satisfied

28. Marlene and her twin share pipe cleaner (5)
ENEMA

Well certainly one type of pipe! It’s an indirect hidden in marlENE MArlene

29. Judge nude emperor’s “clothes” (4)
DEEM

Hidden – clothed by – nuDE EMperor

DOWN
1. Times leads with editor’s rant about socialism (4)
ERAS

Leading letters of Editor’s Rant About Socialism

2. We trade art in order to stay afloat (5,5)
TREAD WATER

An ordered [WE TRADE ART]*

3. Body of adult exciting to many (7)
ANATOMY

A(dult) & an excited [TO MANY]*

4. Outstanding opener for Oxford United (4)
OWED

Opening of O(xford) & WED – united

5. One tropical plant fills gallery designed by Nash? (10)
ITALIANATE

I’ll trust someone will expound of the definition. I – one & LIANA – a plant inside the TATE gallery

6. As Burns said: no curtsies for wealthy Europeans (6)
NABOBS

It sounds like NAE – Scottish for no & BOBS – curtsies

8. Ape behind, bird overhead (7)
EMULATE

EMU – a bird & LATE – behind, overdue

14. Bats hunt with normal interval of 29 days or so (5,5)
LUNAR MONTH

A batty [HUNT NORMAL]*

16. Lorne sausage and potato waffles make satisfying lunch? (6,4)
SQUARE MEAL

Both the sausage and the waffles are generally square shaped

19. Group invested in accessory for trumpet or bagpipe (7)
MUSETTE

SET – group in MUTE – a trumpet quietener

20. Beset by second performance issue, engineer’s dealt blow (7)
SWATTED

S(econd) & WATT – engineer & ED – issue

21. Joints below the head in bugs (6)
ANKLES

Without the head – leading letter of (r)ANKLES – bugs

24. Marry king for part of wedding cake? (4)
TIER

TIE – unite, wed, marry & R(ex) – king

26. Twice discovered source of the French language (4)
URDU

Take the outer letters twice from (so)UR(ce) & DU – “of the” in French

Thanks, I think, Salty.

 

23 comments on “Independent 11,572 by Salty”

  1. Looks like I parsed everything pretty much as you, flash. All seems solid. John Nash is credited with introducing the Italianate style of architecture to England in the early 1800’s. DOLLOP. ALLOW, EKE OUT, TIMBUKTU, ENEMA, LUNAR MONTH, SQUARE MEAL and ANKLES were my favourites with OWED taking the COTD for its succinct crispness and misdirection.

    A very nice second puzzle for Salty. Good to see him back. Thanks to both setter and blogger

  4. Thanks Andrew, I saw the Loren Ipsum but then forgot about it when writing it up, not sure I was even aware of the other one.

  5. Great to see Salty back. I really enjoyed the innovative constructions in this, EKE OUT in particular.

    THAI
    I think it’s T[eac]H + AI

    Thanks Salty and flashing.

  6. I could see IPSE LOREM but the top and bottom made no sense
    Sorry but i couldnt raise a smile here.
    Early days yet maybe

  7. I missed Salty’s debut puzzle and so I was looking forward to the next one, having discovered his identity from the blog.

    I’m pretty much in line with PostMark’s comments and favourites, with several additions, including NABOBS, which, like DOLLOP, made me laugh and 7ac LEER, 15ac MISHAPS and 4dn OWED, all for the surfaces.

    I admired the ingenious linking of 22 and 23ac but totally failed to see the Nina and to parse SWATTED, which I still don’t fully understand (performance issue = ED?).

    I might not have got MUSETTE without knowing this Christmas song:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co1gq2n-qKM

    Many thanks to Salty for a fun puzzle and to flashling for the blog (needed for TIMBUKTU – I didn’t know the taxi).

  8. Thought this was a stiffer challenge than our setter’s debut offering and had a couple of parsing issues which I needed our reviewer to sort out for me. Really don’t like 12a but I guess that’s just a personal ‘thing’.
    Top clues for me were ANATOMY, OWED & ITALIANATE.

    Thanks to Salty and to flashling for the review.

  12. Managed to solve the puzzle but needed the blog to see how ENEMA and RENNET(doh!) were parsed. The nina passed me by. Thanks Salty and Flashling.

  16. Well there were certainly some different clueing techniques at play there.
    No reveals but a few checks to make sure I hadn’t been unlucky with ones I had put in without parsing.
    I did parse it all in the end with the exception of ITALIANATE as I was splitting it in the wrong place and google wouldn’t give me ALIAN as a tropical plant! D’oh!
    Had never heard of a MUSETTE but it went in after I had a couple of crossers.

    Thanks to Salty and Flashling.

  17. Thanks both. I also liked the linking of EKE OUT and REEKED and THAI with TIMBUKTU. Needed help with RENNET owing to three factors i.e. not being too familiar with the word, having mis-read the clue as ‘diary’ only about 73 times, and deciding ‘put’ was part of the wordplay rather than an instruction so was determined to reverse ‘tin’ at the end – apart from that, I fared well with that clue!

  18. Welcome back Salty. I had exactly the same issue with ALIAN as rocket@16, although I eventually sorted out my feet. The parsings in particular kept me honest! Lots I enjoyed, including LEER, RENNET, OWED, and ENEMA.

    Both for novelty and childish reasons, I liked the ‘performance issue’ for ED.

    Thanks Salty & Flashling.

  20. Many thanks to flashling, super blog as always, and to everyone who has commented – I really do appreciate the kind words.

    Andrew @3 – well spotted!

  22. I am another who agrees with PostMark. In a purely crossword sense, erectile dysfunction makes a nice change from editor. I was relieved we avoided the discussion about whether it is appropriate to clue TIMBUKTU as somewhere far away.

  23. Noticed the typesetters’/printers’ Ninas after solving – which was as it should be. The puzzle was gentle enough without any extra help.
    Looked them up in Wikipedia as Andrew@3, where I discovered that ‘sometime before 1982’, Richard McClintock had tracked down the original
    [do]LOREM IPSUM – “pain itself” – text in a 1914 Loeb edition of Cicero (written in 45 BC), but hadn’t bothered to make it known until 1994, more than 2000 years later.
    ETAOIN SHRDLU told me that ‘The French equivalent [is] Elaoin Sdrétu’ so I looked up the French Wikipedia page https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETAOIN_SHRDLU where there’s an example from Le Figaro detailing the 101-year-old murder of “Elwina Kerlo”.
    I went down a rabbit hole determined to find out whodunnit, not helped by the fact that the victim’s name was Elvina not Elwina, and the murderess was
    Emilie not Amélie Rio. I also learned that “Portez ce vieux whisky au juge blond qui fume” is the equivalent of “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”.
    PostMark@19 – 😀 — Eileen@7 – I remembered the same French carol for MUSETTE.
    I especially liked the EKE OUT & BEEKEEPER nexus — Thanks S(W) & f – a fun solve.

Comments are closed.