Independent 11,674 by Twin

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I found this quite tough and it took me a long time to get going.

There were quite a number of double definitions, which does sometimes make puzzles more difficult, as they can easily be misinterpreted. My favourite clue has to be 14A – a brilliantly apt &lit. Sometimes &lits can be a bit of a stretch, but this one really does work well.

ACROSS
1 BACK TO THE FUTURE
Stern child sorry about tense picture (4,2,3,6)

Back(=stern) + tot(=child) + eh<(=sorry backwards) + future(=tense of a verb)
9 RIEMANN
Navy tracking wayward marine who made unproven claims (7)

N{avy} after(=tracking) after marine*. I think the def refers to the Riemann hypothesis, which I won't attempt to explain as I haven't the foggiest what it's about, but it is one of the most important unproven conjectures in mathematics.
10 SWINDLE
Do turn into Headless Man? (7)

Wind(=turn) in [i]sle(Isle of Man being an example thereof)
11 LEAN
Spare bank (4)

DD
12 PIED A TERRE
See inside Curie’s second home (4-1-5)

Date(=see, as in "to see/date someone") in Pierre (Curie, husband and collaborator of Marie)
14 PEASANTS REVOLT
Riotous pastoral events? (8,6)

&lit – (pastoral events)*
17 MARTIAL ARTISTS
Dan etc developed alarmist traits (7,7)

(Alarmist traits)*. Dans are grading systems in some martial arts, so practitioners are sometimes called dans.
21 ACQUITTING
Walk through temporary clearing (10)

Walk(=quit, in the sense of walking from a job) in acting(=temporary)
23 KNEE
King once called joint (4)

K{ing} + nee(=once called i.e. name prior to marriage)
25 IMITATE
Some proclaim it a terrible ape (7)

Hidden in proclaim it a terrible
26 EDUCATE
School literature of elite becoming tender to Shylock (7)

Elite with the lit{erature} being replaced by ducat. Ducats are the currency used in the Merchant Of Venice by Shakespeare.
27 RUMPELSTILTSKIN
Mysterious character behind golfer to pitch film (15)

Rump(=behind) + Els(=Ernie Els, golfer) + tilt(=pitch) + skin(=film)
DOWN
1 BARELY
Just having nothing to wear? (6)

DD/CD
2 CREMATE
End another board game, perhaps, after onset of Chinese burn (7)

Re-mate (which might be a way of ending another chess game) after C[hinese]
3 TEAL
Duck in lift, bumping head (4)

[S]teal, lift here being a slang term for steal with the first letter "bumped" i.e. removed.
4 TENSIONAL
Pulling 3 around new Jerusalem (9)

Teal(=answer to 3) around n{ew} + Sion. Sion is one of the names of Jerusalem used in the bible.
5 EASED
Relieved and happy, but out of place (5)

[Pl]eased
6 UP IN THE AIR
Where pilots go to be confirmed (2,2,3,3)

DD
7 UNDERDO
Keep rare pair of diamonds, including queen, in card game (7)

(Two D{iamonds} around ER) in uno(=card game). The def refers to undercooking something like a steak.
8 ELEMENTS
Contents of table‘s bread and wine (8)

DD. The first part refers to the periodic table of elements and the second is the elements of the Eucharist, which are bread and wine.
13 ASSIMILATE
A ship with one crew member, wrapping article from Italy to take on board (10)

A SS(=ship) + ((I mate) around il(=masculine form of definite article in Italian))
15 SERENGETI
National park replaced green site (9)

(Green site)*
16 SMEARIER
Filthier S&M previously shunned by liberal (8)

S & M + ear[l]ier (minus l{iberal})
18 REQUIEM
Rock band covering mostly soft, sad music (7)

REM(=US rock band) around quie[t](=soft).
19 TINTACK
PIN number much appreciated, being in credit (7)

(N{umber} + ta(=thanks, much appreciated)) in tick(=credit). PIN stands for Personal Identification Number, which obviously isn't the definition here, but the tautological nature of "PIN number" does give a strong clue that number is fodder rather than part of the definition.
20 SEVERN
River always going in opposite directions (6)

Ever(=always) in S & N(=opposite directions)
22 TRESS
Brigitte Bardot’s very special hair (5)

Tres(=very in French, the language of Bardot) + s{pecial}
24 BUST
Stony sculpture (4)

DD, the first part being a shortened form of "stony broke".

14 comments on “Independent 11,674 by Twin”

  1. Always nice when, having filled in the final answer (KNEE), you turn to 225 and the blog has just appeared. All nice and fresh. Rather like the puzzle which was certainly a wake up call for a Monday. In similar fashion to NealH, I made tentative progress initially – and I share his nomination for COTD. I also particularly enjoyed three in a row towards the end in TINTACK, SEVERN and STRESS (where it took me a while to stop trying to recall nicknames for BB). EDUCATE, ACQUITTING and BACK TO THE FUTURE also got big ticks. nho REIMANN and needed all the crossers to make sense of the anagram. The only slight ‘meh’ being the definition for RUMPELSTILTSKIN – I don’t envy the setter but ‘Mysterious character’ feels like a def that could apply to a heckuva lot of things.

    Thanks Twin and NealH

  2. I found this tough. Used reveal finally and needed the blog to parse EDUCATE and the second def for ELEMENTS, ‘isle’ for ‘man’ again and the (nho) hypothesis. I thought 14a was a perfect &lit. Standout clue. 27a was in another puzzle last week so I remembered to spell the name correctly this time. Thanks NealH and Twin.

  3. Thanks Twin and NealH!
    A fine puzzle! A fine blog!
    Liked PEASANTS REVOLT (agree with the blog), EDUCATE (tender to Shylock), CREMATE (end another board game) and UNDERDO (make rare).

  4. Thanks Twin and NealH

    Odd that we had RUMPELSTILTSKIN, clued as an anagram, as recently as Friday’s Knut.

  5. It took me a while to drop onto the right wavelength but, when I had, it all came together slowly but steadily. I enjoyed the solve a lot.

    I’ll go along with the consensus and pick PEASANTS’ REVOLT as my favourite.

    SERENGETI seems to be cropping up in various publications with great regularity in 2024.

    Many thanks to Twin and to NealH.

  6. The biblical and mathematical obscurities spoiled an otherwise fun solve for me, but I agree 14 is wonderful. Thanks NealH and Twin.

  7. We wondered who would be blogging today. Pierre (a regular Monday blogger) sometimes makes comments about the fact that the Monday offering is ‘supposed’ to be an easier puzzle to start the week. This certainly wasn’t a straightforward solve.

    Still, lots to get the grey matter working overtime. We were lucky with 27ac. Joyce thought RUM could be ‘mysterious’. It wasn’t until we had guessed the answer and were trying to work out the parsing that we realised the mistake.
    Thanks Twin and NealH.

  8. Thanks both. I’ll disagree and not rate PEASANTS REVOLT as a favourite, purely as I resorted to help to solve the anagram. My religious knowledge was lacking for ELEMENTS but I put it in knowing the periodic table is a crossword favourite, and for TENSIONAL where Google first page did not seem to confirm Sion for Jerusalem – some embarrassment too as I have visited the city

  9. Another one here who learned enough chemistry to spot the periodic table, but who knows zip about religious rituals.
    Els is quickly becoming the only golfer in the same way ET is the only movie, 1a notwithstanding.
    I was on the wrong track completely for RIEMANN but the anagram was clear enough.
    Thanks Twin and NealH.

  10. TFO @8. My (possibly wrong) understanding is that Sion is the biblical spelling and the American spelling.

  11. Chambers only has the more familiar ZION spelling. As a retired mathematician, Riemann was easy but I was surprised to see him in a cryptic. His unproved hypothesis has been considered the greatest unsolved problem in Pure Mathematics for quite some time. Until its eventual proof, Fermat’s last theorem (last to be proved) was more in the public eye but of somewhat less importance. There are now quite a few corollaries to his hypothesis so there’s a bit riding on its validity.

  12. Thanks Twin. This was slow going but I enjoyed much of it with my favourites being BACK TO THE FUTURE, PEASANTS REVOLT, UNDERDO, ASSIMILATE, and REQUIEM. Even though they are legitimate I think TENSIONAL and SMEARIER are ugly words. Thanks NealH for the blog.

  13. Was a long slog today. Peasant’s Revolt was superb. But I agree there were too many “ugly words” per Tony Santucci’s apt description.

    Thanks Twin for the super hard mental workout and NealH for blog.

  14. Didn’t actually sail through this but got most of it done before eating this evening. Just had two I couldn’t get – 26ac and 24dn. Came back to it later and I immediately saw the remaining answers.

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