Independent 11,865 by Tees

15 comments on “Independent 11,865 by Tees”

1. As one who knows little about the higher-brow end of the film industry, I had no chance with 14A etc nor 26/17D without looking up Olmi and Pagnol, then of course it was just a matter of reading their opuses and a write-in. The rest of it fell into place with little trouble but I was disappointed to have had to cheat. Thanks anyway Tees and Kitty.

2. Well this was quite the game of two halves. I positively galloped through the top half and even managed to derive the full (nho) …DRINKER… answer via my usual trick of utterly failing to get the primary reference initially [DRINKER, HOLY] but arriving at it from the cross-reference [INN, IRRELIGIOUS] rather than the other way around that the setters presumably intend!

   So I then smugly proceeded to the bottom half and was given a hiding 😛

   I had to reveal the nho EUTERPE, which led me to UNSAID and disabused me of my belief that the banter was the (less convincing) RIBALDRY and so I meekly replaced it with the correct word. I then had to reveal the nho EELPOUT, as well as MAE (neither spotted the definition nor parsed it). And then to firmly put me in my place I had to reveal STEALTH, though I think that was more out of the resulting crossword anxiety that had overcome me by that time 😀

   To cap it all, I also had to reveal SOURCES though I’m less ashamed of that; in fact I was pleased to have teased out MANON DES from the checkers and aural wordplay.. I knew what I was looking for but just couldn’t find the path. C’est la vie. (I thoroughly enjoyed Pagnol’s other works in A-level French, but somehow I’ve never heard of this one. I’m sure it’s worth a go.)

   Lovely puzzle overall; thanks both!

3. I found this fairly tough, having nho the long film and I was not going to make sense of that anagram. However, crossers enabled the – rather unlikely – title to be assembled. MANON DES SOURCES, I have seen and enjoyed (and it appeared as a solution somewhere else recently) though I could not have identified the director. And had no hope of spotting that homophone. I held myself up for a while by not taking on board the ordering of the two parts but, again, crossers came to my rescue and I realised my mistake.

   confess to a harrumph when I twigged what might be going on with EELPOUT – but then had a vague idea I’d encountered it before (it obviously appeals to Tees – it was in one of his back in November 2021). EUTERPE is another known only really from crosswords and was LOI. I really did think I was going to have to cheat and then inspiration came! What a cheeky word ordering – not the way I had been thinking at all. Interesting – if also challenging – to find another way of defining MAE – it was kind of Tees to bung in the traditional one as well. Throw in a couple of slightly less common abbreviations with LGE and STH and a Swiss theologian to top it all, this made for a challenging puzzle. But certainly enjoyable too.

   Thanks Tees and Kitty

4. Self @3: Marcel Pagnon was the writer, not the director!

5. 8d SLEEPER – second definition whimsical? I parsed it as a sleeping car on a train.

6. I did too, FrankieG @5 – I just meant that “car of your dreams?” is a whimsical way of putting it.

7. [26a MAE has the enumeration as “(undefined)” – weird.] — 27a ChloE THE Lioness must be Chloe Kelly. — Excellent puzzle. Great fun, too! 😀
   Thanks T&K

8. I too feel the stunningly beautiful (IMO) and outrageously gifted Ms Kelly is referenced here. She scored the winner against Germany in the Euro final, for those that don’t know. The lads have some catching up to do: maybe Mr Tuchel can help.

   Enjoyed the drinking jokes, especially the twisted homophone for MANON DES SOURCES. I think TLOTHD stars Rutger Hauer, IIRC. Fave is 2D today, for its absolute truth. There was aa true one in his Neo FT yesterday, I note.

   Thanks Tees & Kitty

9. Managed most of the top half, before grinding to a complete halt with the bottom half. Not my idea of fun. Thanks Kitty and Tees.

10. We had Manon des Sources recently elsewhere and I knew the Joseph Roth book from which the Olmi film is presumably derived. Interesting that one is defined by the book and the other by the film. I guess Roth books would be tougher to search for than Olmi films.

11. Got misled by bunging in Erasmus for the theologian until I realised the wordplay wouldn’t fit. Erastus (nho) does make a change. Needed the excellent blog to make sense of some of the clues and had to do rather more looking up on Google than desirable Thanks Kitty and Tees

12. Thanks both. Far from enjoyable for me, though I persisted, and failed only on the nho EUTERPE, my main issue being not knowing the niche film where the anagram fodder for the 25 letter answer was not initially clear. MANON DES SOURCES I remembered, but I’d say the homophone is well wide of the mark, where ‘des’ should be pronounced like ‘day’, unless we’re expected to say it like they might in Barnsley.

13. Well, that was tough. I had heard of MANON DES SOURCES but only vaguely the HOLY DRINKER, which I got through Google. But 8dn/16ac defeated me.

    I too thought of Erasmus, especially as a couple of months ago I attended a science fiction convention called Eramsuscon in Rotterdam in a convention centre that had a big statue of Erasmus outside. Never heard of ERASTUS – again Google helped.

14. Thanks Ms Kitty and all.

15. I read that one reviewer described the film, “The Legend of the Holy Drinker”, as “slow-going, with little action and few words”.
    Sums up my performance on this puzzle.
    I’m ashamed to say, I accepted defeat with four clues uncracked.
    Thumbs up to Kitty for putting me out of my misery.

    I doff my beret to those solvers who completed this one!

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