Independent 11,829 by Quince

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I have done a few Quince puzzles since they appeared a few years ago but I’m not sure I’ve done one with so many questions left unanswered at the end.

I am looking to all you clever people out there to tell me if I have some of these answers wrong, and more particularly how they work.

There is some extremely original innovative wordplay here.  Just now, as I put this blog together, I have spotted how 1a and 28d work.  For 28d I wonder if this is going too far – after all it doesn’t work on an AZERTY keyboard!

Many clues I could cite as favourites:  1a (now I’ve understood it), 11, 16d and 27 all feature, but I will pick 6d with its reference to the second Labour of Hercules.

Some lovely surfaces to many clues.  My favourites match my very well hidden hedonistic nature: 7, 8 and 13

Several wordplays not understood, some partially, some completely:
Across 1 12 15 29    Down  3 27

Across
1 WISH LIST Married couple and lieutenant cuddling is stuff of fantasy (4,4)
WISH (married couple(?)), then LT (lieutenant) around (cuddling) IS
Later: Just got this one…
Both WH and LT are each around IS
W and H are from Wife and Husband
5 CHIVES Plants beginning to cause rash (6)
C[ause] HIVES (rash)  First one in
10 RENEWED Frenchman joined a union that’s modernised (7)
RENE (Frenchman) WED (a union)
11 ORDERER One directs former racketeer to replace iron with gold (7)
FEDERER (former racketeer) change FE (iron) to OR (gold)
Had me thinking of Al Capone and his like
12 ROUGH Trump caught in a bad lie, perhaps (5)
I do not understand this clue at all – my answer ROUGH may not be right.
Entered as most likely word to fit the checking letters.
Edit: Underlining added.
A lie is how the ball sits, so I presum if you’re in the rough it is a bad lie.
Trump is known golfer
14 MARGARITA Cocktail at marriage, endless supply! (9)
(AT MARRIAG[e])* AInd: supply.
15 BUSINESS SCHOOL Where to study bulls and bears, ferrets and fish (8,6)
BUSINESS (ferrets?) SCHOOL (fish).
Another unknown point here: What do ferrets know about business
Edit: A group of ferrets is a “business”
18 SUPERCONTINENT Old piece of crust that’s extremely dry (14)
Definition plus Cryptic def to “super continent”.
Edit:  “extremely dry” gives continent as the opposite of incontinent, i.e. lacking bladder control.
22 EXCESSIVE Tiny label read out by setter’s too much (9)
EXCESS from Homophone (HInd: read out) of “XS” (tiny label, XS=Extra Small), then I’VE (setter’s)
24 UNCAP Sun’s beginning to disappear? Better take top off! (5)
[s]UN CAP (better)
25 GO ABOUT Travel round state, fighting (2,5)
GOA (state) BOUT (fighting)
26 ENDURED Stop entertaining frightfully rude bore (7)
(RUDE)* AInd: frightfully, inside END (stop)
28 TYPIST Key worker making some faulty pistons (6)
Hidden in faulTY PISTons
29 SYMMETRY Balance that bid shows (8)
SYMME ?? TRY (bid)
More wordplay that eludes me
Edit: Double Definition. 
The word “bid” is an example of symmetry (mirror symmetry) 
Down
1 WARDROBE Somewhere to hang hospital gown? (8)
Cryptic Def
2 SEND-UPS Suspend outrageous parodies (4-3)
(SUSPEND)* AInd: outrageous.  This relative straightforward anagram eluded me for a long time
3 LAW
Edit: LOW		 See 21 down (3)
21d is WEIGHT
How can just Weight define Law?
Edit: I have now underlined down as the definition.
LO (See, as in behold!) 21 (W[eight])
4 SADOMASOCHISTS Stomach is churning with sodas they make it sore (14)
(STOMACH IS … SODAS)* AInd: churning.
6 HYDRA Labour target regenerating after cuts at the top (5)
Def. & secondary Def. or a semi or even full &Lit
I may not know how to precisely categorise the clue, but I do know it is an absolute corker!
The Hydra was the target of the second Labour of Hercules.
7 VERTIGO I got drunk after very briefly feeling high (7)
VER[y] (I GOT)* AInd: drunk.
8 STREAK Band run out of clothes (6)
Double Def.  one noun, one verb
9 YOURS SINCERELY Solver’s wrong about end of puzzle? Count last words (5,9)
YOURS (Solver’s) SIN (wrong) C (about) [puzzl]E RELY (count)
13 HINGE Swinger is one moaning, naked (5)
[w]HINGE[r]
A surface reading that would not be out of place in a Private Eye puzzle
16 HAIKU Lines of dialogue between human and pigeon recorded (5)
Homophone (HInd: recorded) of “Hi” “Coo”

Pigeon on the street
catches Man’s eye. Man says “Hi”
Pigeon replies “Coo”
17 STUPIDLY Parks in reverse without aim, like an idiot (8)
PUTS< IDLY (without aim)
19 UNCLASP Relative docked when heading to plane to prepare for takeoff (7)
UNCL[e] (relative, docked) AS (when) P[lane]
That kind of takeoff
20 EXCERPT Piece of work runs into bar (7)
R[uns] inside EXCEPT (bar)
21 WEIGHT Brawn won over rowing team (6)
W[on] EIGHT (rowing team)
23 SWOTS More than one nerd packs up (5)
STOWS< (packs, up)
27 DIM Sun set to the east by 28, getting dark (3)
Only as I type up this blog have I understood this wordplay.
28 is Typist
On a standard English keyboard the letters just to the right of S U N are D I M

Completely off topic so apologies to Quince but I would like to share a new “Wordle-like” game that you may not have seen at:
https://gisnep.com/
You have to build a quote.
At first I found it very tricky, but now I’ve tried the last 5 or 6 days and am beginning to enjoy it more, and have managed the last couple without resorting to the check button.

20 comments on “Independent 11,829 by Quince”

  1. ROUGH
    trump=(to ruff in card games) caught–> homophone
    I think ‘lie’ is a golf word for the ball position. ROUGH on a golf course
    must be a bad lie. Someone will correct me.
    SYMMETRY
    Does it refer to symmetric auction/bidding?
    LOW (not law)
    LO +W
    def: down
    BUSINESS SCHOOL
    A group of ferrets is a BUSINESS

    Took ages to see DIM. Loved HYDRA.

  3. SUPERCONTINENT
    dry=CONTINENT in the sense of ‘temperate’?
    extremely dry=SUPER CONTINENT?
    Is that what the blog says too?

    Apologies for the multiple posts.

  4. Brilliant crossword. Tricky in places but managed to parse everything. I think KVa has explained everything missing in the blog and has the same explanations as me. That meaning of ‘trump’ was used a lot during Trump’s presidency so got that straightaway. LOW was very nice. (The independent doesn’t use this formatting for clues across two parts, unlike the other crosswords.) Thought SYMMETRY was used nicely here.

  5. Some outstanding clues – Hydra for instance. Others appeared weak till blog comments showed their depth and cleverness – symmetry. I still think the homophones / sound-alikes are a bit of a stretch .

    Overall an excellent puzzle that is quirky but quite solvable. Quince is definitely a setter who puts one on notice that alternative thinking will be required. More of this please

    Thanks Quince and beermagnet

  6. @Kva №3

    “dry=CONTINENT in the sense of ‘temperate’?”. I think of it as more dry giving continent as the opposite of incontinent (lacking bladder control). But both work and are closely related if not quite the same

  7. Thanks Quince and beermagnet

    Really enjoyed this.

    I think 1D is more than just a cryptic definition: a ‘hospital gown’ could be defined as a ‘ward robe’.

    And while DIM may not work on an AZERTY keyboard, SYMMETRY only works with ‘bid’ in lower case!

  8. Wonderful. Ingenious. Above my pay grade but I got about 60% overall including several of the clever ones, and had to reveal others in order to keep making progress.

    Grokked almost all of them, but needed the blog to illuminate the ‘labour target’ bit of the hydra clue and the typist reference for DIM; and loved business school – in part because I got it 😉

    Agreed with all the comments here re the parsing, and I think the only thing that hasn’t been mentioned explicitly ( 😉 ) is that the ‘it’ in “they make it sore” is sex I presume. I spent most of the time spent on this clue being naively misdirected to stomach ulcers and goodness knows what else, until I had enough crossers to make sense of the anagram.

    Great fun!

  9. Hovis@4 “The independent doesn’t use this formatting for clues across two parts, unlike the other crosswords” – indeed, tho it took me a while to realise that, being still sleepy in the morning, so I then spent half the crossword thinking 28d was a two-word clue, despite not even being indicated as such. So Quince tied me in knots here too 😀

    Regarding the blog’s analysis for HYDRA, it’s simply a very clever cryptic definition, I think.

  10. Phew! A tough workout indeed and I did not understand WISH in WISH LIST or DIM (confused even more, briefly, by the references to 28d in blog and one comment). I think I have understood Hovis’s comment re LOW: I parsed it with the number 21 alone applying to clue 21 to give W and the word ‘down’ being the definition. I am still not sure whether to be delighted or outraged at Hi Coo!

    Thanks quince and beermagnet

  11. This was an original, but very enjoyable, workout. My last one in by a long, long way was STREAK – I simply didn’t see the smart second definition for a long time, and there were enough alternative words & possible wordplay constructions to keep me confused until I belatedly thought of the word. LOW and DIM were ingenious.

    Thanks both.

  12. Yes, agree with all the above. Very tough for me and help needed as usual. SUPERCONTINENT my favourite.
    I did wonder whether SPOTS was an unkind synonym for nerds, (stops reversed = packs up) but it was not to be.
    Thanks Quince and commiserations Beermagnet

  15. Thanks both. Brilliant? – maybe. Enjoyable? – for me, no. Too many twists and turns, though I guessed many well, and too many examples to pick one to substantiate my point, though I’d say in ORDERER Federer as ‘racketeer’ is at best artistic licence in the extreme, if not fundamentally inaccurate. Still don’t follow SYMMETRY but my patience had long since gone.

  16. I agree with TFO. Too many clues I just couldn’t get for this to be enjoyable. Got a lot more than I thought I would.

  18. Thanks for all the comments. Looks like everything is cleared up now.
    I have added corrections in the blog and changed the grid image to correct 3d LOW highlighting the changed O

    For 3 LOW (not LAW)
    I was completely fooled by “21 down” in the clue. It is just “21” that refers to WEIGHT (the answer for that clue number), “down” is the definition.

    12 ROUGH
    I did not know the word “lie” as a golf term. So I completely missed the golf connection in this clue despite knowing ROUGH as the unmown part of a golf course, and that Trump is known to play golf.

    15 BUSINESS SCHOOL
    I did not know the collective noun for ferrets is a business. Silly not to look it up as the other half of the wordplay is also a collective noun.

    29 SYMMETRY
    The symmetry of ‘bid’ may only work in lowercase but that is what is in the clue.

    TFO @#15 Referring to a tennis player as a ‘racketeer’ is fine. I have seen it used before without any quibbling. This is what wordplay is all about.

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