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This is the first Amoeba puzzle I have blogged.
I was expecting it as they(*) have appeared in the Saturday slot before.
I thought some of the operative wordplay vocabulary was well chosen. Amongst anagram indicators we had spies eating messily, we entered a palace complex, and churches renouncing converts. The one that could only be an anagrind was Barking theatres, as any ‘ful no’ there is only 1 theatre in Barking.
[ Late news: It has recently closed down]
Favourite clue is the first of those: 9a. Surely the only way to eat udon is messily.
Solving started from 5a with an answer that I didn’t know. Even so, the wordplay was very clear so I wrote it in and confirmed it fitted by getting 6, 7 and 8 downs in short order. Also the word seemed similar to the holy city of Amritsar so I presume there is a strong connection.
All went in relatively well and with amusement apart from the last one. I had to put the puzzle aside and come back to it later so that I could stop thinking the answer to 23d was a Hebridean island but was at the other end of the clue. And it turned out to be an island I know very well. I haven’t visited, but intend to sometime and look in at the distillery of my favourite whisky, Lafroaig.
(*) “they” seems wrong for a single celled being, but I’m not sure if amoebas have gender (as we know it, Jim). Using “it” seems discourteous.
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | MANTRAPS | Sirens chant quietly close to Odysseus (8) MANTRA (chant) P (quietly) [odysseu]S |
| 5 | AMRITA | Divine drink before noon with Ms Hayworth? (6) AM (before noon) RITA Hayworth AMRITA: Elixir of immortality (Hindu) First One In. |
| 9 | PSEUDONYM | Spy me messily eating noodles incognito (9) (SPY ME)* AInd: messily, around (eating) UDON (noodles) |
| 11 | ASCOT | A drunk’s caught interrupting meetings here (5) A SOT (a drunk) C[aught] inside (entering). Horse racing meetings |
| 12 | INCONGRUENCE | Renouncing converts, church in conflict (12) (RENOUNCING)* AInd: converts, CE (church) Not much of of a conflict I’d’ve thought an incongruence might only be a tiny difference, but maybe I’m leaning too much on the mathematical meaning off congruence. Still. I suppose a tiny difference might be between which end of an egg to open, Big end or Little end, and we know where that leads. |
| 15 | AUNT | Cow kicking dead relative (4) [d]AUNT (Cow, without D[ead]) |
| 16 | ENTERPRISE | Unlimited rent increase holding back sandwich maker’s business (10) [r]EN[t] and RISE (increase) around (holding) PRET< (sandwich-makers, back) |
| 18 | BRAIN DRAIN | Lots of smart people leaving Britain and Germany amid downpours (5,5) B[ritain], D (Germany) inside (amid) RAIN and RAIN (downpours) |
| 19 | WREN | After abandoning children, pull singer (4) WREN[ch] (pull, abandoning CH[ildren]) |
| 21 | THE LAND OF NOD | Where you go when you’re out for the night? (3,4,2,3) Cryptic Def. Biblically the place “East of Eden” where Cain was exiled. Colloquially, being sleep. |
| 24 | OBELI | Periodically comb priest for daggers (5) [c]O[m]B ELI (priest). Dagger symbols †††††† |
| 25 | ELEMENTAL | Basic large English blokes tucking into meatballs regularly (9) L[arge] E[nglish] MEN (blokes) all inside [m]E[a]T[b]A[l]L[s] |
| 26 | DOTAGE | Senility caused by party drug without label (6) DO (party) E (drug) around (without) TAG (label) |
| 27 | ADULTERY | Surprisingly ready to accept leaderless cult’s extra-marital relations (8) (READY)* AInd: surprisingly, around (to accept) [c]ULT |
| Down | ||
| 1 | MAPS | American blocking British politician’s plans (4) A[merican] inside (blocking) MP’S (British politician’s) |
| 2 | NEEP | Root for the Scottish groom turning up with no ring at first (4) P[r]EEN< (groom, turning up) remove R[ing] Neep = Turnip. “Yum” says Baldrick |
| 3 | RODENT | Finally remember to feed the forlorn pet hamster? (6) Last letters: [remembe]R [t]O [fee]D [th]E [forlor]N [pe]T |
| 4 | PONTOON BRIDGE | Something that spans a couple of games of cards (7,6) Two different card games |
| 6 | MEA CULPA | It’s my fault maiden heard you entering palace complex (3,5) M[aiden] U (“you” Homophone) inside (PALACE)* AInd: complex. |
| 7 | INCENDIARY | Provocative couple on vacation breaking local record (10) C[oupl]E inside (breaking) INN (local), DIARY (record) |
| 8 | AT THE REINS | In charge of theatres in Barking (2,3,5) (THEATRES IN)* AInd: barking. |
| 10 | MAGNETIC FIELD | Caged men lift rocks, enthralling the setter in attractive region (8,5) (CAGED MEN LIFT)* AInd: rocks. <Edit addition> around (enthralling) I (the setter) Thanks FrankieG |
| 13 | RABBIT FOOD | On time, teacher eats and leaves (6,4) RABBI (teacher) on T[ime] FOOD (eats) |
| 14 | ENGAGEMENT | Silence fills Glaswegian flat after opening fight (10) GAG (silence) inside (fills) [t]ENEMENT (Glaswegian flat, after opening [letter]) |
| 17 | KNEADING | Pressing ahead after leader quits in support of extremists in Kazakhstan (8) [l]EADING (ahead, lead quits) underneath (supporting) K[azakhsta]N |
| 20 | BOREAL | Oddly, booze fails to inspire King of the North (6) B[o]O[z]E [f]A[i]L[s] around R (King) |
| 22 | STYE | Somewhat nasty eye infection (4) Hidden in naSTY Eye |
| 23 | SLAY | Hebridean island’s peak is covered in ice (4) [i]SLAY (Hebridean island, peak (first letter) covered (hidden)) Def. Ice as in kill (if you’re a member of the mob). Last One In |
10d MAGNETIC FIELD: ‘enthralling the setter’ = around an extra “I”.
For when you next find yourself blogging an Amoeba, beermagnet, I think you’ll be OK referring to the setter as a ‘he’. And he’s delivered us delightful Saturday morning romp. I agree, many of the indicators are nicely evocative and the anagrams are all neatly done. A few left-field definitions to throw us off the scent but that’s all fair game. I was particularly taken by (LOI) PSEUDONYM when I finally remembered the noodles; AUNT for the surface image and the misdirect; WREN for the amusing surface and THE LAND OF NOD for the cute CD. RODENT is a very smooth acrostic; INCENDIARY, again, conjures up an amusing scenario; I liked the deletion indication in ELEMENTAL; BOREAL has a superb link – or, more precisely, lack of link – between WP and def and the parting shot with (i)SLAY is a cracker. (Though I suspect one of our regulars will be reaching for his American dictionary …)
Thanks Amoeba and beer magnet
Learnt a new noodle, udon, to go with ramen and the pastas. Always fun, ta both.
[I like amoebe, I used them when teaching embodied cognition: they act purposefully but without a braiin or nervous system]
A very enjoyable puzzle.
First/last letter type clues are often too obvious but the surface for today’s pet hamster was a superb disguise.
Thanks all
[GIF @3: you clearly know our setter, too! 🤣🤣🤣]
A nice Saturday puzzle from Amoeba. The noodles and the attractive region were my highlight. The intersection of 11 and 8 briefly had me wondering if BRAIN DRAIN, THELANDOFNOD, OBELI, ELEMENTAL DOTAGE, NEEP ENGAGEMENT and MEA CULPA are horses running in the Grand National later on.
Thanks both. I really enjoyed this, with so many impressive surfaces. RABBIT FOOD just wins the race to be my favourite (no thoughts of 4p.m. today at all in mind). I very rarely drink whisky, however Laphroaig is my go-to when the moment feels right, and I seem to remember ownership of a tiny piece of Islay turf came with a bottle a few years ago.
Charlie@6, sadly, none of your horses made the cut, under the new rules for qualifying.
However, if you like PONTOON/BRIDGE…..then THREE CARD BRAG is in the line-up. (25 to 1 )
And surely, 23(dn) is pointing us towards HITMAN? (33 to 1).
It’s a wide open race this year; it’s about time we had a big price winner.
An awful lot to like in this puzzle, including many smart surface readings. “Sirens” = MANTRAPS, is my kind of setting.
Lovely stuff, Amoeba & beermagnet
MANTRAPS is a super surface and THE LAND OF NOD is great fun. Lovely disguise all over the shop – Root for the Scottish, King of the North, etc. Many thanks to Amoeba and beermagnet.
[PM @5, no disrespect meant to our setter, of course!]
I enjoyed this a lot, although I did have a few concerns as I entered the final straight with a handful of the second half of the down clues.
– Although “take the reins” and “hold the reins” exist, I am not convinced there is such a phrase as “at the reins”.
– I detest “eats” as a noun with a passion.
– Is “opening” an accepted instruction to remove the first letter?
– “Ice” is a horrible Americanism.
Nevertheless, overall this was a very accomplished puzzle which was great fun to solve with ticks all over my page.
Many thanks to Amoeba and to bm.
RD@11: how surprising to see you note your dislike for ‘ice’ 😉. With regard to ‘opening’, I took ‘… Glasgow flat after opening’ to mean ‘that part of (t)ENEMENT that follows its opening letter’. Similar to another device we see, ‘starting/opening late’
Rabbit@11 I agree . “at the reins” is a bit stretchy.
“On the reins”, is sort of a racing term, but it actually means that your horse is travelling well.
We tend to say ” on the steel”, or “on the bit”.
I can see that “at the reins” , might be extended to, say, ” who is at the wheel?”, to imply “in control of the steering”.
PM@12, as ever , has it right, about deleting the first letter: the word starts “after its opening”.
But, darn me, it fooled me, for too long.
Yep, I agree about “eats” too, but it seems to be a frequent flyer, in cryptics.
Quibbles apart, a pretty solid puzzle.
Couldn’t decide whether to tackle this or not but I’m quite glad that I did. Top clues for me were those for MANTRAPS, PSEUDONYM, NEEP & BOREAL.
Thanks to Amoeba and to beermagnet for the review.
RD – the indicator is “after opening”, ie [the rest of the word for a] Glaswegian flat after [the] opening [letter]
Very enjoyable puzzle. Agree with others on MANTRAPS being particularly splendid.
(Edit to add: just noticed others already made this point before me. At least we all agree!)
Late to the party.
Good puzzle. Neat blog.
Liked AUNT, BRAIN DRAIN, THE LAND OF NOD, INCENDIARY and ENGAGEMENT.
Thanks Amoeba and beermagnet.
PSEUDONYM is a lovely clue. I was completely fooled by the “after opening” device in ENGAGEMENT and, while I enjoyed the clue, I wondered if a pontoon bridge can be said to span??
Decent puzzle, my LOI was SLAY, which is mildly annoying, given the full blown isle produces some exceedingly fine whiskies, Bunnahabhain, Lagavulin, Ardbeg, Bruichladdich, just definition blindness intervened… no problem with “at the reins”, I’d say fairly common usage, altho mildly dated. No one could fail to understand “With Trump at the reins, America is on a ride to disaster..” or similar? Certainly fits with Charlie@6’s thought about a GN theme..
Thanks Amoeba n beermagnet
Thanks to beermagnet for the review, and to solvers & commenters. I can confirm there’s no deliberate theme here.
Thanks Amoeba. I got to this late but it was worth the wait due to clues like INCONGRUENCE, AUNT, ELEMENTAL, RODENT, INCENDIARY, KNEADING, and SLAY. (Several years ago I went on a tour that included 7 Islay distilleries — absolutely splendid hospitality & whisky.) Thanks beermagnet for the blog.
Very late to this one–I’ve had a busy few days and have been catching up. I quite enjoyed this.
I take it that Rabbit Dave is a frequent critic of American usages in British crosswords, so I’m wasting my cell-phone power responding. But it’s worth noting that “ice” for “kill” is confined to mob movies, and you won’t find ordinary Americans using it!
UDON is a staple of American crosswords, being almost the only word with that vowel pattern (and also chewier, literally and figuratively, than “upon.”)
[I’ve eaten my share of Japanese food, but I don’t think I’ve actually had udon. I remember an episode of one of Anthony Bourdain’s shows where he was served just a big plate of udon, no frills, not even any sauce, and he declared it amazing. So I’m open to it. But I love ramen (the real thing, that is) so much that I can’t stop ordering it.]