Independent 11,745 by Rodriguez

This puzzle is available to solve online or download here.

 

Hi all, and happy Saturday.  And what better way to start the day than with a puzzle by one of the very best setters?

My last three answers (which I noted because they held me up somewhat) were the interlinked 15a/3d/14a: TENANCY, HORSEFLY and FRIEDRICH in that order.  Biggest chuckle at 20d, CLOVER, but all excellent fun.  Thanks Rodriguez!

 

Definitions are underlined in the clues below.  In the explanations, most quoted indicators are in italics, specified [deletions] are in square brackets, and I’ve capitalised and emboldened letters which appear in the ANSWER.  For clarity, I omit most link words and some juxtaposition indicators.

 

Across
8a Absurd innovator, one running supermarket with time off (7)
IONESCO I (one) + ON (running) + [t]ESCO (supermarket) without T (with time off).  Eugène Ionesco was a playwright associated with the beginnings of the theatre of the absurd
9a Outside broadcast fronted by Frank (4-3)
OPEN-AIR AIR (broadcast) preceded by (fronted by) OPEN (frank)
10a Line snorted by PM’s secretary in wellness facility (6,3)
HEALTH SPA L (line) taken in by (snorted by) HEATHS (PM’s) + PA (secretary)
11a Not wholly backing Odysseus’s imminent release (5)
ISSUE — Part of (not wholly) reversed (backing) OdyssEUSS Iimminent
12a Recipe – let it be for Wagamama dish (5)
RAMEN R (recipe) + AMEN (let it be)
14a German or Chinese food, mostly hot (9)
FRIEDRICH FRIED RICe (Chinese food) without the last letter (mostly) + H (hot)
15a Extremely tense part of Lorraine’s occupation (7)
TENANCY — Outer letters of (extremely) TensE + NANCY (part of Lorraine, in France)
17a Disengagement on the left during prosperous time (7)
BOREDOM RED (on the left) in (during) BOOM (prosperous time)
18a An amateur, pirouetting Spice Girl is OK (2,7)
NO PROBLEM NO PRO (an amateur) + reversal of (pirouetting) MEL B (Spice Girl)
20a It’s believed Conservative Party admits hesitation after U-turn (5)
CREDO C (Conservative) and DO (party) takes in (admits), once reversed (… after U-turn), ER (hesitation)
21a European leader not primarily a numbers whizz (5)
EULER E (European) + rULER (leader) without its first letter (not primarily).  The great mathematician Leonhard Euler
22a Stupidly miss grasping flipping fancy bit of logic (9)
SYLLOGISM — An anagram of (stupidly) MISS holding (grasping) backwards (flipping) GOLLY (fancy)
24a Bet news ends with a bit of cricket? (7)
ANTENNA ANTE (bet) + NN (news – two copies of N=new) + A
25a Bending fine classical laws, one’s charged (7)
FLEXION F (fine) + LEX (classical laws – Latin for law) + ION (one’s charged)
Down
1d Pavlova maybe divine nourishment without topping (4)
ANNA — mANNA (divine nourishment) missing its top letter (without topping)
2d Old ballet star has newly put on a lot of weight (6)
ASHTON — An anagram of (… newly) HAS put on TON (a lot of weight).  Frederick Ashton was a ballet dancer and choreographer who was inspired by Anna Pavlova, 1d
3d Bloodsucker’s fleshy bum prodded by soldiers (8)
HORSEFLY — An anagram of (… bum) FLESHY with insertion of (prodded by) OR (soldiers)
4d African cartographers going up country there (6)
SOMALI OS (Ordnance Survey: cartographers) reversed (going up) + MALI (country there, i.e. in Africa)
5d Dasher, say, losing energy lapping male jogger? (8)
REMINDER REIND[e]ER (Dasher, say) without E (losing energy) going around (lapping) M (male)
6d One may get played in reportedly immoral scam (4,6)
BASS FIDDLE BASS, which sounds like (reportedly) BASE (immoral) + FIDDLE (scam)
7d Berks place meat lacking taste under cut vegetables (8,6)
GREENHAM COMMON HAM (meat) and COMMON (lacking taste) under GREENs (vegetables) without the last letter (cut …).  Greenham Common in Berkshire, site of an RAF base for fifty years from 1942
8d Cost of succeeding is certain in the fixed American vote (11,3)
INHERITANCE TAX CERTAIN IN THE anagrammed (fixed) + A (American) + X (vote)
13d Doctor of football team receiving tiny bit of cash tardily (10)
MANIPULATE MAN U (football team) taking in (receiving) IP (1p: tiny bit of cash) + LATE (tardily)
16d Couples starting new, optimal relationships need rubber (8)
NEOPRENE — Initial pairs of (couples starting) NEw, OPtimal RElationships NEed
17d Speaking plainly about uniform put on two genders in the fuzz (8)
BUMFLUFF BLUFF (speaking plainly) around (about) U (uniform) put on MF (two genders)
19d Asian sailor’s article for Vegas vehicle (6)
LASCAR LAS (article for Vegas – LAS Vegas) + CAR (vehicle)
20d To begin with, Chelsea fan weed on the turf? (6)
CLOVER — The first letter of (to begin with) Chelsea + LOVER (fan)
23d Flag virtual helper raised (4)
IRIS SIRI (virtual helper) written upwards (raised)

18 comments on “Independent 11,745 by Rodriguez”

  1. Thanks Rodriguez and Kitty

    A nice start to the weekend. Liked a lot; especially seeing sailor being part of definition not a bit of charade (tar, os, etc.)

    Backstreet in Paris? Within it, the French and Swiss whizz (5).EULER

    This clue in Guardian a few days ago combined with 21A makes me think there is either copying of work in class or some mad form of crossword compiler morphic resonance

  2. Matthew Newell @1 – no malpractice involved: the clue in question was set by Picaroon, Rodriguez’s alter ego.
    [There have been requests in the past that no reference should be made to comparatively recent puzzles, as some solvers like to keep puzzles to do at the weekend, for instance.]

  3. Delightful puzzle, top to bottom. NEOPRENE is a splendid example of that kind of clue, I smiled at the def in INHERITANCE TAX, the misdirection in BASS FIDDLE, the witty surface imagery in BUMFLUFF, the clever disguise in ANTENNA and the brilliant spot for FRIEDRICH.

    Matthew @1: I really don’t think there is collusion/copying between setters. Puzzles can sit with the editor for months so coincidental timing is generally precisely that – coincidental. And it is generally certain 4 and 5 letter words that get repeated, often because they are the only ones that will link three words already in the grid. Euler, elemi, ennui, erato and obeli, for example, appear far more often than they should as they all link vowels/common consonants that appear as crossers. Same for iris/siri. Often they are not words setters would choose to clue – the definitions of all are difficult to disguise and, of course, they have all been done by others on so many occasions. But they are forced by the grid.

    Thanks Rodriguez and Kitty

  4. @Eileen #3 and @Postmark #4

    It was a very tongue in cheek comment not really to be taken seriously.

    Eileen’s explanation makes perfect sense; and goes a long way to explaining why I enjoyed so much an Independent Setter I didn’t remember. Postmark – answers with useful letters (reredos etc) I would agree, but answers and perculiar cluing is too suspicious.

    Apologies for spoilers to anyone saving up Guardian crosswords

  5. A delightful puzzle indeed, with lots of laughs.

    I see I have about a dozen ticks – and there could have been more – so I’ll just pinch all of Postmark’s highlights and add IONESCO, for the definition, NO PROBLEM, HORSEFLY and REMINDER, for the smiles, MANIPULATE, for the construction and GREENHAM COMMON, in memory of my erstwhile teaching colleague, who made regular visits there at weekends. Super surfaces throughout, as always.

    [@3, I should have said ‘Picaroon is another of Rodriguez’s pseudonyms’: there can only be one ‘alter ego’. 😉 ]

  6. Brilliant! I loved this with CLOVER my favourite.

    Many thanks to Rodriguez and to Kitty.

  7. And I forgot to say thanks to Rodriguez for the Saturday treat and Kitty for the lovely blog!

  8. Thanks Rodriguez and Kitty!

    Delightful puzzle, top to bottom. NEOPRENE is a splendid example of that kind of clue, I smiled at the def in INHERITANCE TAX, the misdirection in BASS FIDDLE, the witty surface imagery in BUMFLUFF, the clever disguise in ANTENNA and the brilliant spot for FRIEDRICH.
    Has someone said the same thing here before me? 🙂
    Forgot to say my COTD was NO PROBLEM (If you wanna have some fun, it’s more than OK)!
    Kitty missed an S. Eriously?

  9. [Edit: there weren’t any posts when I started typing]
    Picaroon (aka Rodriguez) had 21a EULER – “e to the eye pie…” – in the G just 3 days ago. He was a “whizz” there, too.
    23d IRIS – SIRI today. We had Alexa yesterday.
    16d NEOPRENE clearly using the US meaning of “rubber”
    Loved the picture for 17a – There’s more BOREDOM here. It’s only No. 2.
    Thanks R&K
    [25a FLEXION – LEX is Latin singular for law (plural leges). So why “laws” in the clue?]

  10. FrankieG @ 11 Lex Romana is Roman law meaning laws in the plural, but I agree it could easily just have been law which is used as a collective noun.

  11. Thanks both. I seem to always enjoy this setter’s puzzles, and this was no exception. Some of the GK was unknown, but clued well enough that my ignorance was no barrier; I expected not to know the Berkshire location, but GREENHAM COMMON does tease out some memories. IRIS as ‘flag’ I assume is in a floral sense which is far from my speciality, and SYLLOGISM was a lucky guess in that I decided something ending in ‘olly’ was required – does anyone still use the expression ‘golly’ I wonder?

  12. Thanks all, especially Eileen and PostMark for replying so swiftly to Matthew@1 (and thanks also to him for returning @6 to clarify).

    I always really appreciate it when questions posed here are answered by others because it adds to the nice community feel. (That it also saves me the effort is purely incidental. Ahem.)

    I’m not sure how I missed including NEOPRENE in my intro – brilliant! Too much time spent looking at what people do when bored at work and not enough on the job in hand.

    KVa @10 – it is a good day if I’m missing no more than an S!

    FrankieG @11 – I wasted a bit of time this morning scrolling though that link! Some real creativity on show there.

    Re Lex, I saw it as law in general being made up of individual laws, so no mismatch. Thanks to Ele @12 for the further detail.

    TFO@13 – yes, some species of iris are commonly known as flags. I should have clarified this; it’s a crossword regular.

  13. Late commenting but I did enjoy this despite it taking me quite a while to figure everything out.
    Top answers for me were HORSEFLY & CLOVER.

    Thanks to Rodriguez and to Miss Kitty for the review.

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