Independent 12,028/Coot

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A pleasing and reasonably accessible puzzle from Coot to start the Indy crosswording week.

Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
cad clue as definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed

definitions are underlined

Across

1 Touring west of England, composer makes Land’s End
BEACH
An insertion of E for the westernmost letter of ‘England’ in BACH. The insertion indicator is ‘touring’.

4 What doctor knows about development of endemic across India?
MEDICINE
An insertion of I in (ENDEMIC)* The insertion indicator is ‘across’ and the anagrind is ‘development of’.

8 Violent criminal crows about making a comeback
MURDERER
A charade of MURDER and RE reversed. A parliament of owls, a bevy of quail, a murder of crows.

9 Back from class wanting swim, dash off
SCRAWL
A charade of S for the final letter of ‘class’ and CRAWL.

10 Thingamabob‘s in goal
OBJECT
A dd.

11 Observe person voting in debate
EYE
Aural wordplay (‘in debate’) of AYE. ‘The Ayes have it. Unlock!’

12 Clarinet’s often somewhat quiet
SOFT
Hidden in ClarinetS OFTen.

13 Unwanted yogurt oddly flushed away
OUT
The even letters of yOgUrT.

14 Slowcoach in middle of Tesco initially no trouble
SNAIL
A charade of S for the middle letter of ‘Tesco’, N for the initial letter of ‘no’ and AIL. My pet snail was so much of a slowcoach I took his shell off to see if he would go faster, but he just got more sluggish.

16 Argentine lying about wild party filling one-third of summer
GUEVARA
An insertion of RAVE in AUG, all reversed. The insertion indicator is ‘filling’.

19 At home, mischievous child scratches Tesla “accidentally“
IN ERROR
IN [T]ERROR. T is the abbreviation for Tesla, the unit of magnetic flux density.

20 Cardinal and Father exiting carriage
EIGHT
[FR]EIGHT

21 Returning with vital information?
DNA
A reversal of AND, which in crosswords at least is considered a synonym of ‘with’. DNA is the most vital of all information: deoxyribonucleic acid is the polymer composed of two polynucleotide chains which in its double helix form carries the instructions for life itself.

23 Crack injection
SHOT
A dd.

25 Sorry leaders of underperforming club expect stick
CUE
(UCE)* with ‘sorry’ as the anagrind.

26 In a hurry, leave church do
FLEECE
A charade of FLEE and CE.

28 Pro’s opening two rounds once again rubbish
POO-POO
A charade of P, O and O all repeated.

29 Great admiration for icon dancing adroitly
IDOLATRY
(ADROITLY)* with ‘dancing’ as the anagrind. Coot is using ‘icon’ in its original, religious sense. Number two of ten says:

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. (Exodus, 20:4, KJV)

30 Smashing park visits with family east of Tring
WRECKING
An insertion of REC for ‘park’ in W, KIN and G for the easternmost letter of ‘Tring’. A town in Hertfordshire famous for being a gap town, having a branch of the Natural History Museum in its centre, and for the fact I used to live there. The insertion indicator is ‘visits’.

31 Duck, say, knocked over by eccentric cycling
DODGE
A charade of DOD, which is ODD ‘cycling’ (in other words with the last letter moved to the front) and EG reversed.

Down

1 Promotional material from Republican – weep digesting it
BLURB
An insertion of R in BLUB. The insertion indicator is ‘digesting’.

2 French creative‘s endless range, wretched dirge included
ANDRÉ GIDE
An insertion of (DIRGE)* in ANDE[S]. The insertion indicator is ‘included’ and the anagrind is ‘wretched’.

3 Where Tony’s sheltered until now
HERETO
Hidden in wHERE TOny.

4 Good arrangement kid cultivated growing profitably?
MARKET GARDENING
(G ARRANGEMENT KID)* with ‘cultivated’ as the anagrind.

5 Untidy plate of food left out – rank!
DISHEVEL
A charade of DISH and [L]EVEL.

6 Delivered Middle Eastern folk’s items from dairy
CURDS
Aural wordplay (‘delivered’) of KURDS.

7 Fluid penetrates recently acquired belt, breaking item
NEWSFLASH
An insertion of FL in NEW SASH. The insertion indicator is ‘penetrates’.

15 Reside by the banks of Uncompahgre, bighorn roaming
NEIGHBOUR
(UE BIGHORN)* with ‘roaming’ as the anagrind.

17 A group covering ‘Parasites’ – a favourite of Claire’s?
ALICE BAND
An insertion of LICE in A BAND. The insertion indicator is ‘covering’. I think the reference might be to a member of the group The Alice Band.

18 Refurbished crib cool green
BROCCOLI
(CRIB COOL)* with ‘refurbished’ as the anagrind.

22 Provide very strong soldiers before the day’s over
AFFORD
An insertion of FF and OR in AD for ante diem, ‘before the day’, used in the Roman calendar. The insertion indicator is ‘[i]s over’.

24 Unknown figure made pawn in poisonous matter
TOPIC
Coot is inviting you to replace the X in TOXIC with P.

27 Drop of vino – cracking remedy for wind
CURVE
An insertion of V in CURE. The insertion indicator is ‘cracking’.

Many thanks to Coot for today’s puzzle.

21 comments on “Independent 12,028/Coot”

  1. Took quite a while with my last two: WRECKING & TOPIC. Blog should say CRAWL in 9a. Isn’t Claire’s a shopping chain that sells Alice Bands, amongst other sundry items.

  4. Was stumped by Che Guevara.
    Pierre@2 – From the BBC – It all started on 28 April 2011 when Ed Balls was shadow chancellor. He was urged by his aide to look on Twitter for articles mentioning his name, but instead of doing a simple search he tweeted his own name in error. Never deleted it and 28th April is now known in some circles as ‘Ed Balls Day’
    Thanks to setter and blogger

  5. This was good fun which, apart from a run of three down clues, was generally straightforward.

    My first thought when I solved 15d is surely the answer can’t be a verb. But, according to various dictionaries, it is. 🙁

    Mrs RD helped me understand 17d. Her take on Claire’s is the same as Hovis’ @1.

    Re 18d, I don’t think you can use the singular “green” to define a vegetable.

    Thanks to Coot and to Pierre.

  6. Thank you, Doofs@4. As I have said on many occasions in the fifteen years I have been blogging on Fifteensquared: you learn stuff from crosswords, don’t you?

  7. Good puzzle. Neat blog.

    Thanks Coot and Pierre.

    My top faves: MEDICINE, GUEVARA, FLEECE, WRECKING, NEWSFLASH and AFFORD.

  8. I thought this puzzle was a load of balls.

    Just kidding – lots to enjoy, especially MEDICINE and ALICE BAND.

    Thanks both.

  9. Exactly what Amoeba said … balls to/from Coot! Very jolly indeed. ALICE BAND, DODGE and MURDERER for me. Very smooth, very funny. Ta lots both.

  11. All went smoothly, until it didn’t in NW.. held up by what appeared to be unnecessary wordage, “lying” in 9ac n “wanting” in 16ac.. no one else seems to have noticed, must be me then…
    Thanks Coot n Pierre

  12. Simon S @10. Both Collins and Chambers specify that it only means a green vegetable when used in the plural, i.e. greens.

  13. Nicely done by Coot with the combo of nina and the theme in the Across solutions (plus CURVE, I guess). Only EIGHT gave me some challenge as I wasn’t sure if I was deleting a FR, a PA, a POP etc and from what sort of carriage. I am perfectly happy with ‘lying about’ as a valid two word reversal indicator (‘knocked over’ is another of similar ilk in DODGE) and ‘wanting’ has been a juxtaposition indicator for ages. However, I’m with RD in feeling a single ‘green’ doesn’t really work – and have been caught out when trying to clue cabbage with the same def myself! Faves inc MEDICINE, CURE, WRECKING, DODGE, TOPIC and CURVE.

    Thanks Coot and Pierre

  14. Agree, PM @13, just green for broccoli was a bit Oh well if you must. Otoh, nice to see Che as just Argentine (still up there, with Eva, Diego and Lionel 🙂 ). French creative, too, is rather broad, so crossers essential. Perhaps ‘breadth’ is Coot thing, we’ll see. Thanks to him and Pierre.

  16. Very good – theme whistled over my head but now I see how well it was worked in! Despite being a Francophone and Francophile I had to reveal ANDRE GIDE – chaque jour est un jour d’école ! 😁

    Thanks Coot and Pierre.

  17. Thanks both. I can see ‘before the day’s over’ works very neatly in AFFORD, but it is another piece of Latin I was unfamiliar with prior to visiting here today. The Claire’s in ALICE BAND I also took as other commenters here, though I’d remembered it as Claire’s Accessories when my daughter was young enough only to be costing me small amounts of money.

  18. Many thanks to Pierre for the blog and to everyone who has solved and/or commented on the puzzle.

    RD @5 and others, I can’t recall how I justified ‘green’ to myself (it’s a while since I put this together) but it could have been an oversight. As a post-rationalisation, the OED entry, while focused on the plural, does say “Green vegetables used for food. Also occasionally in singular.” I’d rather not have to rely on the OED though.

    grantinfreo @14 – I certainly don’t have depth, as a balls-themed puzzle demonstrates!

    Happy Ed Balls Day everyone!

  19. Thanks Coot for an excellent crossword. I nho Ed Balls so I never thought to look for a related theme. I enjoyed this nonetheless because there were so many good clues including BEACH, MURDERER, DNA, CUE (nice mix of 2 devices), IDOLATRY, DODGE, HERETO, and CURVE. After a quick search I found ‘broccoli green’ as a paint colour that one can order from myperfectcolor.com, a specialty paint supplier in Quebec City. Coot’s off the hook so to speak. Thanks Pierre for the blog.

  20. GinF @14: your honor roll of famous Argentines is missing the late Jorge Mario Bergoglio, former Archbishop of Buenos Aires and, um, something more important than that, I forget what.

    But mostly I wanted to mention, re 6d, that there was a restaurant I used to go to–a pandemic casualty, I’m afraid–that had an item on its menu called “Cheese Kurds” [sic]. My reaction: so, Iraqis who like musicals? Anyway, that clue made me smile for that reason. (Clearly a misspelling: what you got when you ordered it was exactly the deep-fried cheese curds that are Wisconsin’s gift to the cardiological profession.)

    [North America loves its curds, doesn’t it. Quebec’s angioplasty on a plate is poutine: fries, curds, and brown gravy. At least they don’t fry the curds.]

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