Independent on Sunday 1,835 by Filbert

21 comments on “Independent on Sunday 1,835 by Filbert”

1. My geo ken is scanty, but I’m guessing apatite isn’t all that hard, although terminological and audiobook did take a while to work out. (I’m too lazy to do long anagrams on paper and not too good at doing them in my head). All part of the fun, thanks Filbert and MOH.

2. {Earworm: A favourite 13d, Karen Carpenter, appearing to do 19a “Acapulco”, [as Ernie Wise might have put it, in one of those plays what he wrote]}

3. My faves: FLESH OUT, DISINFORMATION, SONGSTRESS, PRESIDENT and CURVINESS.

   PALACE, LATTICE: The WP in Def format is official!

   Thanks Filbert and MOH.

4. [10a: (LATRINES*) accommodating V. — 26a: O+(BY INSECT*).]
   Note that for 17a GENU is Latin for knee, and the genitive can be GENUS, so “of knee” works in Latin, too.
   18d: See also beermagnet’s joke here: “Due to an unfortunate spacing error, this year I am looking forward to a week on the Norfolk B roads.” 🙂.

5. …. and of course genou in French, FrankieG, I thought genus rang a bell (or touched a nerve …)

6. 😊

7. In case anyone else is as non-plussed as me, Sasha Alexander seems to be the stage name of some z-list actress (born of notable parents). Way over my head.
   Thanks both.

8. Pete HA3 @7 – SASHA is a diminutive name for Alexander/Alexandra, apparently. I still had to take it on trust, but it’s not quite as bad as the actress!

9. Thanks both. All to then usual high standard, provided we are up on our Latin, Greek….and Slavic, it appears (SASHA).

10. Thanks FrankeG @4 – you’re right of course about the anagram parts of 10a and 26a. Blog edited accordingly

11. Really enjoyed this, finding it harder than some seemed to and so pleased to have finished it.

12. I found this tougher than many recent Filberts, I sense the setter may have noted that posters were too regularly finding the puzzles “easy”. What hasn’t changed is the skill level….great surfaces, crafty wordplays, interesting definitions.
    SASHA (6d) was a bit disappointing. But then, I was very disappointing on PAGER and LATTICE, where I fluffed the parsing.
    ARABICA (20d) was the best clue, for me, from a gridful of really good stuff.
    Thanks, Fil & MOH

13. Thanks Amoeba@8.
    Now I’ll have to learn all possible diminutive names. And I haven’t finished memorising every single author, poet, fish and Scottish island yet.

14. Pete @ 13 Don’t forget your cricket references too 😉

15. As it happens, I had heard of SASHA Alexander, although the name didn’t ring a bell until seeing Pete HA3’s comment. I had seen some episodes of the US cop show Rizzoli and Isles, in which she played Isles. But her parents don’t appear to have been notable. (Alas, the series was notable for one of the cast committing suicide mid-series.)

16. I really enjoyed Filbert’s puzzle in the Times on Friday (outed on Cracking the Cryptic) so thought I would give this a go. I think I found this tougher than others but apart from an erroneous PAID instead of PAIR I got through it without aids. I think it’s a sign of a good setter when you can get the ones you’ve not heard of with reasonable confidence.

    Filbert is fast becoming one of my favourite setters. So many great surfaces so hard to pick a favourite but today’s winners are FLESH OUT and NORFOLK

    Thanks MOH and Filbert

17. Thanks Filbert for a Sunday treat. I missed PAIR (cricket’s not my thing) as well as ARABICA with its odd surface. I loved the rest particularly INTERVALS, OPENING, THRONE ROOM, PRESIDENT, and OUST. Thanks MOH for the explanations.

18. Dormouse@15, quite right. I got bored with her bio so I didn’t read it properly. Famous parents-in-law.
    Pete.

19. I knew SASHA from tennis player Alexander (Sascha) Zverev, a perennial fixture in the top ten over the last several years who has had terrible luck in major finals. Current world #2, I want to say? Anyway, if you read Russian novels, you have to get used to the nicknames. Sometimes characters are referred to by just the first name, sometimes just the last, sometimes by first name plus patronymic/matronymic, and sometimes by the diminutive form of their first name, all depending on who’s talking to them. So a guy named Alexander Ivanovich Vronsky might be called Vronsky, Alexander Ivanovich, Alexander, or Sasha. It took me about 300 pages of War and Peace before I really caught on.

    I didn’t know the helicopter, so I cheated on that one.

20. I know it’s a bit (!)late, but Irving Berlin wrote “Alexander’s ragtime band”, which was a Tin Pan Alley hit. So that makes it rather a good clue IMHO

21. Yes, of course, that’s a very good point, Dreadnought @20 – the Alexander’s Ragtime Band/Tin Pan Alley reference went right over my head!

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