Independent 11,851 by Filbert

Filbert makes another appearance this Thursday.

We had some difficulty getting onto Filbert’s wavelength when he first appeared in the Indy. However, we now feel more attuned to his style and we set off at a quick pace with this one…..and then slowed down – we are not sure why, although we had never heard of 26ac which held us up for a while. 12d took a bit of crafty parsing too.

It wasn’t until we came to write up the blog that we realised that we had the wrong answer for 17down. We wondered if we were the only ones to enter LINEAGE.

 picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1. Right piece, wrong method (6)
RECIPE

R (right) + an anagram (‘wrong’) of PIECE

4. Vice rings close to you? Say no more (4,2)
CLAM UP

CLAMP (vice) around or ‘ringing’ U (last letter or ‘close’ to you)

8. Bullied little sibling with book bolted (10)
BROWBEATEN

BRO (little sibling) W (with) B (book) EATEN (bolted)

10. Crossbar split goalie’s head (4)
RUNG

RUN (split) G (first letter or ‘head’ of goalie)

11. Seaside town without a bean – it’s struggling (3,9)
SAN SEBASTIAN

SANS (without)+ an anagram (‘struggling’) of A BEAN ITS

13. Criminal gang appeal (6)
BANDIT

BAND (gang) IT (appeal)

14. A floating hazard in river one tries to pass (8)
EXAMINEE

A MINE (floating hazard) in EXE (river)

16. Green building, perimeter walls half painted (8)
ECOLODGE

EDGE (perimeter) around or ‘walling’ COLOured (painted) missing half the letters

18. Drink little and often – advice applied regularly (6)
TIPPLE

TIP (advice) aPpLiEd (alternate or ‘regular’ letters only)

20. Very old article on Iran, say, soon after revolution (12)
NONAGENARIAN

AN (article) after or ‘on’ a reversal (‘after revolution’) of IRAN EG (say) ANON (soon)

23. Letter expected answer (4)
BETA

BET (expected) A (answer) – this took a while as we couldn’t see that ‘bet’ = ‘expected’

24. Job role that’s doubtful after childbirth (10)
POSTPARTUM

POST (job) ROLE (part) UM (that’s doubtful)

25. Colouring by hand drawn by the old you (3-3)
TIE-DYE

TIED (drawn) YE (old form of ‘you’)

26. Music from Louisiana ends in jazz medley, 20s style (6)
ZYDECO

Last letters or ‘ends’ in jazZ medleY DECO (20’s style)

DOWN
1. Ferry with two paddles docked (2-2)
RO-RO

ROw ROw (two paddles both missing last letter or ‘docked’)

2. Farm worker that hurts children with pinches (7)
COWHAND

OW (that hurts) inside or ‘pinched by’ CH (children) AND (with)

3. President stable after second popper (5,4)
PRESS STUD

PRES (president) and STUD (stable) after S (second)

5. Charlie’s best friend left where Americans live (5)
LINUS

L (left) IN US (where Americans live) – Charlie and Linus feature in the Peanuts cartoons

6. Cocktail one can spoil, layering parts from the bottom (7)
MARTINI

I (one) TIN (can) MAR (spoil) with each word ‘layered’ from the bottom up

7. Long bug, thin leaf (4,6)
PINE NEEDLE

PINE (long) NEEDLE (bug)

9. Bill allowed nine wayward sons a little sport (5,6)
TABLE TENNIS

TAB (bill) LET (allowed) + an anagram (‘wayward’) of NINE + S (sons)

12. 4 running shelter not happy (10)
MALCONTENT

4 across is CLAM UP – if you take CLAM and turn it ‘UP’ you get MALC followed by ON (running) TENT (shelter) – very crafty

15. Heartless pal during year out circulated impersonal email (9)
AUTOREPLY

PaL (missing middle letter or ‘heartless’) inside or ‘during’ an anagram (‘circulated’) of YEAR OUT

17. Couple making king new centre of family tree (7)
LINKAGE

LINeAGE (family tree) making K (king) the new centre. It wasn’t until we were writing up the blog that we realised that we had the incorrect answer. We do feel though that our parsing works as well – LINkAGE (couple) changing K (king) into E (the ‘centre’ of new) – The definition in our parsing would be ‘of family tree’

19. Spin dry tops for instance, each plain (7)
PRAIRIE

PR (spin) AIR (dry) I E (first letters or ‘tops’ of instance each)

21. With plenty of spaces, parking twice in fun? (5)
GAPPY

PP (parking twice) inside GAY (fun)

22. Award for Dune to hold and cherish alongside Oscar (4)
HUGO

HUG (to hold and cherish) O (Oscar). In 1966, ‘Dune’ won the Hugo award for best novel.

 

10 comments on “Independent 11,851 by Filbert”

  1. Fortunately, I first met ZYDECO recently in a Phi crossword (Sept 13 to be exact). I agree that LINEAGE does parse as you said but I didn’t think of that and went for LINKAGE. I don’t use the app, so would never have known until coming here which was the official answer.

  2. I had LINEAGE but was not comfortable with it: I am not sure Filbert would use ‘new centre’ to indicate the E. It would, strictly, need to be ‘new’s centre’ or ‘centre of new’. Likewise, I am not convinced ‘of family tree’ works as a def though I could possibly be persuaded. I had seen the possibility for a substitution – but it was the very last move in the puzzle to switch the E for a K!

    Very smooth as always: RECIPE, RUNG, EXAMINEE, NONAGENARIAN, ZYDECO, COWHAND, PRESS STUD, MARTINI and MALCONTENT were my favourites.

    Thanks Filbert and B&J

  3. Same as you B&J with LINEAGE.
    Nonagenarian still sounds very old, but seeing photos of Joan Collins this week maybe 90 is the new 60?
    Thanks Filbert and B&J.

  4. Good fun as usual. I occasionally do Codeword puzzles, where ZYDECO pops up from time to time, so that was alright.

    I paused over LINEAGE/LINKAGE, but for the reasons PostMark gives, went the right way in the end. RO-RO was new to me, although roll-on roll-off now rings a faint bell.

    Thanks both.

  5. Thanks both. This was very impressive, with my favourites being NONAGENARIAN and MALCONTENT. Only one with which I was unhappy mainly as I knew we had seen it recently but could not recall the word, being ZYDECO – it also makes me wonder whether we now need to indicate 1920’s for clarity, which scares me if I pause to think about it.

  6. Thanks Filbert. Favourites were RECIPE, RUNG, BANDIT, NONAGENARIAN, POSTPARTUM, LINUS, and MALCONTENT. Failed with EXAMINEE and PRESS STUD; couldn’t parse ECOLODGE. ZYDECO was a write-in for me, being introduced to that genre by Talking Heads with their hit, Road to Nowhere. Thanks B&J for the blog.

  7. Total defeat for me today. Got all of three clues.

    Not only did I not get 22dn, I was the administrator of the Hugo Awards when the World SF Convention was held in Glasgow. Incidentally, the recent film version of Dune also won the Best Dramatic Presentation (Long form) Hugo award in 2022.

  8. Nice to see 11a San Sebastián (Donostia) in a puzzle. I was last there last year when Stage 2 of the Tour de France finished near to its ’20s Art Deco bridge.
    (Also watched stage 1 (Bilbao), and the start of stage 3 Amorebieta-Etxano (Zornotza, Erin Dawes‘ home town) to Bayonne.
    Ongi eTOURi – It’s a “juego de palabras” (wordplay) “en euskera” (in Basque).

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