Independent 11,692 by Twin

by

This was a very entertaining puzzle with some excellent and deceptive wordplay.

I thought 15A, 24A and 2D all had excellent surfaces. 8D was probably my favourite for the cunning in the wordplay.

ACROSS
1 THE FORCE AWAKENS
Star Wars movie fan cast Ewok here, somehow (3,5,7)

(Fan cast ewok here)*. This was the seventh film in the main Star Wars series.
9 WHOLE
Everything with pickle (5)

W{ith} + hole(=pickle in the sense of a difficult situation)
10 ESTABLISH
No good to go for effort in English show (9)

English with n{o} g{ood} replaced by stab(=effort). The def is used in the sense of show/establish that something is true.
11 RAREBIT
Dish‘s undercooked part (7)

Rare(=undercooked, as in steak) + bit
12 MUMBLED
Old lady suffered and didn’t speak up (7)

Mum(=old lady in the sense of mother) + bled(=suffer, as in the bleeding/suffering has stopped).
13 OPPONENT
Work restricted without concerning them? (8)

(Op(=work) + pent(=restricted)) around on(=concerning). Them seems a bit loose as a definition but I suppose people often talk of the enemy as an unspecific "them".
15 PEDAL
Siegfried finally entering Ring cycle (5)

[Siegfrie]d in peal(=ring in the sense of bells)
17 OCEAN
Scotsman’s no company for returning Indian, say (5)

(Nae + Co{mpany})<
19 TICK OVER
Broadcast TV OK with Eric Idle (4,4)

(TV OK Eric)*. The def is used in the sense of a car engine idling/ticking over.
22 SIDEARM
Type of card enclosing precious weapon (7)

SIM(=type of card used in mobile phones) around dear.
24 PROSAIC
Boring spies with very standard way of talking back (7)

(CIA(=spies) + so RP(=receieved pronunciation))<
25 MARDI GRAS
Millions hanging about to enjoy festival (5,4)

M{illions} + (arras(=hanging, tapestry) around dig(=enjoy)
26 ONION
Two legs, either side of one head (5)

On(=leg or legside in cricket) twice around I.
27 DAYLIGHT ROBBERY
Extortion that might leave us in the dark? (8,7)

CD
DOWN
1 TAWDRY
Loud cheers and mocking to welcome daughter (6)

Ta(=cheers, as in thanks) + wry(=mocking) around d{aughter}. The def is used in the sense of loud clothing etc.
2 EGO TRIP
It’s self-indulgent to produce tears after each of the main awards (3,4)

Rip(=to produce tears) after EGOT(=all awards, an acronym for anyone having an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony award).
3 OVERBLOWN
Umpire’s call sounded excessive (9)

Over(=call made by a cricket umpire to indicate that an over is complete) + blown(=sounded, in the sense of blow/sound a trumpet)
4 CHEAT
Two-time champion’s beginning to warm up (5)

C[hampion] + heat(=warm up).
5 AUTOMATIC
Caution mostly exercised, holding dull-looking gun (9)

(Cautio[n])* around mat(=dull). Exercised is the anagram indicator.
6 ALBUM
5 for the People, say, almost all worthless (5)

Al[l] + bum(=worthless). Automatic for the People is an album by REM.
7 ENISLED
Erected citadels in Europe, somewhat isolated (7)

Hidden, rev in "citadels in Europe". To enisle is to create an island, which would be an act of isolating something.
8 SCHEDULE
Escape mounted under cover of school timetable (8)

Elude<(=escape) under sch{ool}
14 ECTOMORPH
Thin person damaged chrome pot (9)

(Chrome pot)*. An ectomorph is someone with a thin body shape.
15 PHOTOBOMB
Enter picture books into soup packet (9)

OT(=Old Testament) in pho(=a Vietnamese soup) + bomb(=packet in the sense of "it costs a packet/bomb")
16 CONSUMED
Exhausted student tackling new bit of maths (8)

Co-ed(=student) around (n{ew} sum(=bit of maths))
18 ELDERLY
Old tree likely to get hollowed out (7)

Elder + l[ikel]y
20 EXAMINE
Dictator engaged in river survey (7)

Amin(=Idi Amin, dictator of Uganda) in Exe
21 SCANTY
Meagre, filthy home’s outside toilet (6)

Sty(=filthy home) around can(=toilet)
23 ALIBI
I bail out? (5)

&lit – (I bail)*.
24 POSER
Difficult question about bribe overturned (5)

(Re sop)<

19 comments on “Independent 11,692 by Twin”

  1. Thanks Twin for this enjoyable puzzle.
    Thanks NealH for this detailed blog.

    Loved DAYLIGHT ROBBERY and ALIBI.
    Liked EGO TRIP for the ‘to produce tears’.

    OPPONENT
    As in Us and Them?

  2. I liked a lot of this but, to get my quibble out of the way early, I was thrown by the definition for OPPONENT. I feared the setter might be using a non-binary pronoun. If so, that is something I have been concerned about for a while. We rely so much upon precision in crosswords. If a pronoun that has meant multiple numbers can be used to indicate a single instance, there is huge potential for being misled which, I feel, would be to the detriment of the craft. All that said, I might be wrong, but I’m not convinced that ‘them’ = the enemy = opponent works that well. ‘Twas the only issue in the puzzle.

    On the positive, lots of fun constructions and ideas as always. WHOLE, PEDAL, TICK OVER, PROSAIC, MARDI GRAS, CHEAT, SCHEDULE, CONSUMED and ELDERLY were my big ticks. No criticism of the setter for using ENISLED (I can imagine what Paul might have done with that in the G!) but what an ugly word. I’ve not heard of Automatic for the People but assumed there was an album called 5 for the People!

    Thanks Twin and NealH

  4. I had to consult a wordlist for PHOTOBOMB as I didn’t know ‘pho’ = soup. Otherwise all slipped in neatly, though like PostMark I struggled with ‘them’ = opponent, didn’t quite work for me. Thanks Twin and NealH.

  5. Big ticks for ESTABLISH, ENISLED, ECTOMORPH, and the favourite PHOTOBOMB, a fun clue. Liked OCEAN also (loi). Thanks Neal and thanks TWIN for an entertaining challenge.

  6. Like ENISLED – nice old word – oed.com has ‘…b. 1852– To place or settle on an isle. Also figurative. To isolate, sever, cut off.’
    citing ‘In the sea of life enisl’d..We mortal millions live alone. M. Arnold, Empedocles on Etna, & Other Poems‘
    PHOTOBOMB (2008) and EGOT(1984) have both come up here recently.
    Fun puzzle. Thanks T&NH

  8. This was good fun. I didn’t know EGOT or the Vietnamese soup, but Google helped me out with those. Although ENISLED is a valid word, it goes straight into my dictionary of ghastly words. I too wasn’t keen on “them” as the definition for OPPONENT.

    MARDI GRAS was my favourite with DAYLIGHT ROBBERY a close second.

    Many thanks to Twin and to NealH.

  9. Good fun indeed. PHOTOBOMB and PROSAIC were my favourites, but lots I enjoyed throughout. Happy enough with ‘them’ for OPPONENT in the general sense Neal suggests.

    Automatic For the People includes several of REM’s biggest hits (Everybody Hurts, The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite, Man on the Moon).

    Thanks Twin & NealH.

  10. @frankieg. Thanks for reminding me how old I must be! :-). 32 years and it was far from the first of their albums I bought.

    Lovely neat crossword h. Thanks Twin and Neal.

    Now off to listen to Drive etc. whilst trying to fit in answers in Saturday’s prize

  11. Superb puzzle, completely agree with the opening line of the blog. MARDI GRAS was my fave. Thanks, Twin and NealH.

    “Us and them” is surely a common enough idiom? I think I’ve seen “them” used to define enemy/opponent before and it works perfectly well for me.

  12. I made a bit of a mess of this by putting OVERBOARD for OVERBLOWN (bored = sounded???) and REBUS (re + a reversed SUB) for POSER. Nice to be reminded of Automatic For The People, though.

  13. Coincidentally, I was also reminded of Automatic For The People when I was in Tesco on Saturday – they were playing Man In The Moon on the PA. It struck me at the time that being played in Tesco is clearly a sign that the album has achieved classic status, though it was “alternative” when it first came out.

  14. We’d agree with NealH that this was an entertaining puzzle. DAYLIGHT ROBBERY made us smile in particular. We were OK with OPPONENT as we were thinking of THEM and US on opposing sides.

    Thanks Twin – more like this please. Thanks NealH too.

    Happy Easter Sunday to everyone.

  16. Rabbit Dave@14 – I take your point and Postmark’s but we are still happy. If you think about ‘a team’ they can be your opponent even though they may have a number of people within it but you may describe the team as THEM.

  17. Interesting to see the differing views. I wouldn’t normally come back in to argue my point – and I stress, I very much enjoy Twin’s puzzles and I liked the remainder of this one. I was not trying to make a major beef out of it but I am not in agreement with the US and THEM argument. Surely, in that context,, it is plurals that are being compared. Why US otherwise? Chambers helpfully defines the phrase: Any of various pairs of groups in society, such as management and workforce, considered to be in opposition to each other. ‘Groups’ being the key word.

    My major point in my earlier comment was with regard to the potential confusion of non-binary terms. I have seen that done, albeit not in the nationals (or not that I can recall). And I have wondered whether it would appear at some point in one of them. Maybe Twin will pop in at some point to clarify.

  19. Gaps in my GK meant that I didn’t know the acronym required, the REM album or indeed anything at all about Star Wars. In the event, none of those caused much of a hold-up in what I thought was a very well constructed puzzle.
    Favourite was definitely DAYLIGHT ROBBERY with minor places going to PROSAIC & MARDI GRAS.

    Thanks to Twin and to NealH for his help with my missing GK.

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