Independent 12,094 by Stamp

A pleasant start to the puzzling week from Stamp.

There wasn’t too much to frighten the horses here, though it took me a little while to get on the right wavelength, which I did with some METHADONE at 10ac, after which things seemed to flow in quite a mellow way.

The cluing is elegant and concise, with some very amusing surfaces, such as the brothel-visiting monk, the louche bishop at 9dn and the youngster enjoying foreign pornography at 23ac. Many thanks to Stamp.

MOH’s entirely fictitious hardness scale rating: Fluorite

 picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1 NAMECHECKS
Author opening a chapter to cut drinks references (10)
Double insertion of ME (author) inside (‘opening’) A CH (a chapter) inside (‘to cut’) NECKS (drinks)
6 POOR
Striking sprinter’s original track pants (4)
sPOOR (track) minus (striking) S (sprinter’s original)
10 METHADONE
Coppers deceived by an artificial drug (9)
Charade of MET (Metropolitan Police, coppers) + HAD (deceived) + ONE (an)
11 NEARS
Tight at heart, miser gets even closer (5)
NEAR (tight, in the sense of miserly) + S (miSer at heart)
12 SHELF
Who am I, taking over hotel terrace? (5)
SELF (who am I) around (‘taking over’) H
13 VIOLINIST
One with television set scoring every English player (9)
Anagram (‘set’) of I (one) TeLeVISION (scoring/deleting every/both instances of English)
14 SMITTEN
One holding hand with son in love (7)
S (son) + MITTEN (one holding hand, I think)
16 CICADA
Bug agency to catch rat (6)
CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) around (to catch) CAD
19 BEGGAR
Tramp briskly at first, say on paper round (6)
B (briskly at first) + EG (for example, say) + reversal (’round’) of RAG (paper)
20 LESSONS
The French issue warnings (7)
LES (the French) + SONS (issue, offspring)
23 OBSCENITY
Boy on vacation notices exotic pornography? (9)
Anagram (‘exotic’) of BY (BoY on vacation) and NOTICES
25 DRAWN
New division after setback pulled together (5)
Reversal (after setback) of N + WARD (electoral division of a district or borough council)
26 HOPES
Cycling retailer admitting European ambitions (5)
HOPS (retailer/shop, cycling the S to the end), with E inside (admitting European)
27 FRONT LINE
Grounds for engagement? (5,4)
Cryptic definition
28 LEAD
Line attached to electronic plug? (4)
L (line) + E (electronic) + AD (plug), &lit/clue as definition
29 STONEHENGE
Broadcast on genes, the historical building blocks? (10)
Anagram (‘broadcast’) of ON GENES THE
DOWN
1 NEMESIS
Arch rival is seen married off (7)
Anagram (‘off) of IS SEEN M (married)
2 MUTTERING
Complaining in Chinese, say (9)
Envelope (‘in’) of MING around UTTER (say)
3 CHAFF
Banter about husband attracting a female following (5)
C (about) + H (husband) + A (from surface) + F (female) + F (following)
4 EVOLVING
Cracking EV to replace Tesla, essentially in development (8)
(s)OLVING (cracking) with EV replacing S (teSla essentially)
5 KEEP ON
Continue to employ largely fake eponym (4,2)
Hidden (‘largely’) in faKE EPONym
7 OMANI
Quickly upset, like some Middle Easterners (5)
Reversal (‘upset’) of IN A MO (quickly)
8 ROSETTA
Stone found here rotates for grinding (7)
Anagram (‘for grinding’) of ROTATES
9 INHIBITS
Bishop having sex when in his cups, stops (8)
Insertion – if you’ll pardon the term – of B + IT inside IN HIS (cups/contains)
15 TRAVERSE
Climbing route, put up cunning lines (8)
Reversal (‘put up’ in a down clue) of ART (cunning) + VERSE, for the climbing manoeuvre
17 ADORATION
Praise A-road into Barking (9)
Anagram (barking) of A ROAD INTO
18 PLAY DOWN
Minimise yield when under pressure (4,4)
LAY DOWN (yield, as in lay down weapons, for example) under P
19 BROTHEL
One in refectory, maybe finishing early, left stew (7)
BROTHEr (one in refectory, maybe, finishing early, ie deleting last letter) + L, ‘stew’ being an old slang term for a house of ill repute
21 SINCERE
Cordial from the time of former monarch making comeback (7)
SINCE (from the time of) + RE (reversal of Elizabeth Regina, former monarch making comeback)
22 MISFIT
Hamilton etc screened by film freak (6)
Insertion (screened by) of FI (Formula 1 – Lewis Hamilton etc) into MIST (film)
24 SEPIA
Sun setter getting into Mirror raised tone (5)
S (sun) with I (setter) getting into a reversal (‘raised’) of APE (mirror)
25 DITCH
Drop dead before long (5)
D + ITCH (long)

18 comments on “Independent 12,094 by Stamp”

  1. A sticky Stamp, for me: a Cryptic crossword with a capital C, packed with original devices and leftfield definitions. To nit-pick, I personally felt I had to cut the setter some slack, on a number of clues.
    9(d) stops = inhibits; 20(ac)warnings = lessons; 21(ac) cordial = sincere; 12(ac) who am I = self; 27(ac) groundS, plural.
    In 11(ac), why is nears, ” gets EVEN closer”? 25(ac), DRAWN feels OK….until I think about it.
    Despite quibbles, I found this a fascinating and immersive puzzle, with the front-runner being 28(ac), LEAD, of all things. Though don’t ask me if this is a charade/CD/ &lit/ or semi&lit, I’ve no idea.
    First-class Stamp & MOH

  2. Not a hard puzzle, but quite enjoyable. Neat surfaces. Stamp tries to construct his clues
    without link words, I think. I couldn’t find any link word in the entire puzzle.

    Liked METHADONE, SMITTEN, FRONT LINE, LEAD, MUTTERING, EVOLVING, TRAVERSE and SINCERE.

    Excellent blog. Quite neat and detailed.

    Thanks Stamp and MoH

  3. Pleasing an imaginative as usual from Stamp. LEAD was very neat. I also liked METHADONE CICADA. KVa@2 Interesting point.

  4. Supremely elegant, as always, with lovely little stories all over the shop. INHIBITS, VIOLINIST, OBSCENITY and LEAD (super &lit) are all crackers. I didn’t really consider it mid-solve but KVa @2 is, of course, spot on. The lack of links is extremely impressive. Best thanks both.

  5. Great point KVa @2; what about, eg, “attached to” in 28ac, is it because they do have a function that they’re not link words?

  6. grantinfreo@5
    LEAD
    Yes. ‘attached to’ is part of the WP as well as the def. It’s an & lit by the way.

    I have one query though here. What is an electronic plug (in the def)?

  7. It’s Iike moh says, the three bits are separate: line is l, e is short for electronic as in email, and plug = ad[vertisement].

  8. KVa @6 – to distinguish it from a sink plug? Actually, ‘electric’ would work better for the def, and just as well for the wordplay, since E can be an abbreviation for ‘electric’ as well as ‘electronic’. So yes, I’m knocking half a mark off 28ac!

  9. I didn’t find this as easy as some others, largely owing to the ‘original devices and leftfield definitions’ but all meticulously clued and therefore ultimately rewarding.

    As always, I appreciated the smoothness of the surfaces and particularly enjoyed those highlighted by moh.

    My ticks were for VIOLINIST, BEGGAR, LEAD, ROSETTA, ADORATION and BROTHEL, where I was temporarily held up by not knowing the definition. TRAVERSE in that sense was new to me, too.

    Thanks to Stamp and to miserableoldhack.

  10. We’d like to echo Eileen’s comment. We did however know traverse as a climbing route but it was our LOI as we kept looking for a ‘reversal’ of something.

    BROTHER went in first until we couldn’t parse it and then checked BROTHEL in Chambers.

    Thanks to Stamp and some miserable old person who has brightened up our day with a blog!

  11. Setter popping in to thank MOH for the excellent and accurate blog and commenters for their input.

    It was fun to create a puzzle without links – that is, links between WP and definition. Though I am not against them at all; they can add lots to surfaces. The link in LEAD is simply a connector between two elements of WP. And I would have loved to use ‘electric’ in the clue but the editor will not accept definitions that are not dictionary supported and ‘electric’ = E is not in Chambers – despite its ubiquitous use. I have tried to get it in before! I will just have to accept the half point deduction.

    Ref ENBoll&’s list of slack being generously cut, Chambers defines ‘inhibit’ as ‘prevent’; ‘lesson’ as ‘a warning experience’; ‘cordial’ as ‘sincere’ and ‘self’ as ‘who I am’. The S in ‘Grounds for …’ I justified on the basis that the WW1 Western Front stretched for hundreds of miles, giving multiple grounds on which engagement might occur. And ‘drawn’/’pulled together’ are surely synonymous as past participles or as adjectives – at night my bedroom curtains are drawn/pulled together? I shall fess up to EVEN being strictly unnecessary and am happy to accept the slack given there!

  12. More with Eileen@9, altho I have had practical experience of TRAVERSE, in that sense.. I did find working out the actual definition tricky in places, but accepted them after some thought.. BROTHEL/STEW was a case in point, partly because the French use BORDEL to describe a difficult situation, or a mess which I am familiar with as a def of stew… pleased to finish… defo no speed awards, but not a bad way of spending Bastille Day…
    Thanks Stamp n MOH…

  13. Hi Stamp, thanks ever so much for popping by. Didn’t realise E=electric isn’t sanctified by Chambers… I know this is rather perverse of me, but I prefer to solve without aid of a dictionary. I’m not claiming any kind of cruciverbial superiority here, I know many solvers will resort to them and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that – it’s just the way my mother raised me to do cryptics! In cases like this, however, it’s extremely useful to have an arbiter of last resort, so I am forced to reconsider my half-point deduction…
    It was, as KVa points out above, a real feat to compile a puzzle so devoid of link words and yet not sacrifice the surfaces. Brilliant work, thank you!

  14. It’s surely only a matter of time till dictionaries acknowledge E = electric, given the current ubiquity of E-bikes and E-scooters.

  15. Thanks Stamp for a nicely crafted crossword. I didn’t notice the lack of link words; when surfaces read so well it’s easy for me to miss such things. This was not a cakewalk but I did complete it in a reasonable amount of time. My top picks were SHELF, SMITTEN, HOPES, MUTTERING, CHAFF, and SEPIA. I did wonder about ‘set’ as an anagram indicator in VIOLINIST; I’m only familiar with ‘upset’ and ‘reset’. Thanks MOH for the blog.

  16. Couldn’t really get into this. After 90 minutes, I’d got about a third done and had other things to do.

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