Bluejacket first appeared in the Independent in April. this year. This is puzzle number five.
The surfaces of the clues are very good, with many painting a picture related to the answer. In particular, I liked the clue for ARTWORK with its reference to ‘the animals went into Noah’s ARK, TWO by TWO‘
Sometimes there is a theme in Thursday’s Independent puzzles. There are ten occurrences of double letters in the entries, but I don’t think that constitutes a theme. I thought we might be on for a pangram, but there are three letters missing – J, V and Z
| No | Detail |
| Across | |
| 1 | Quality of the special effects reflected on performer (1-6)
X-FACTOR (an informal term for an unknown or unexplained element that makes something more interesting or valuable; quality) FX (abbreviation for ‘special effects’) reversed (reflected) + ACTOR (performer) X-F< ACTOR |
| 5 | Pawn captures are the safe play against white’s openings (4-3)
CAT’S-PAW (a person who is used by another; a pawn) CAT’S-PAW (first letters of [openings] of each of Captures ,Are, The, Safe, Play, Against and White) CAT’S PAW |
| 9 | Confirmed landlubber dies at sea (9)
NOTARISED (authenticated; confirmed) NO TAR (not a seaman; a landlubber) + an anagram of (at sea) DIES NO TAR ISED* |
| 10 | One fighting infections in order to curb cold (1-4)
T-CELL (A type of lymphocyte that matures in the thymus gland and has an important role in the immune response. There are several subclasses: killer T-cells are responsible for killing cells that are infected by a virus; helper T-cells induce other cells (B-lymphocytes) to produce antibodies; one fighting infections) TELL (order) containing (to curb) C (cold) T (C) ELL |
| 11 | They say to make firm declaration (13)
PRONOUNCEMENT (declaration) PRONOUN (‘they’ is an example of a pronoun) + CEMENT (to make form) PRONOUN CEMENT |
| 13 | Current leader of KGB, boring communist, gets bugged (5)
IRKED (annoyed; bugged) I (electric current) + ([first letter of {leader of} KGB] contained in [boring] RED [communist]) I R (K) ED |
| 15 | Confused at fiancés showing interest (9)
FASCINATE (interest exceedingly) Anagram of (confused) AT FIANCES FASCINATE* |
| 17 | Setter’s at mike using speech for evil purposes (9)
IMMORALLY (for unscrupulous or unethical purposes; for evil purposes) I’M (I am; setter is) + M (MIKE is the international radio communication codeword for the letter M) + ORALLY (using speech) IM M ORALLY |
| 19 | Sort out clothing for man in wedding (5)
GROOM (to make clothes clean and tidy in appearance; sort out clothing) GROOM (unimportant man at a wedding) double definition Unfortunate typo above – see comments 1, 2 and 3 below GROOM |
| 21 | Check perennial for new life (13)
REINCARNATION (the embodiment of a soul in a new body after it has left the old one at physical death; new life) REIN (restrain; check) + CARNATION (an example of a perennial plant) REIN CARNATION |
| 25 | Caught part of ladder becoming twisted (5)
WRUNG (becoming twisted) WRUNG (sounds like [caught] RUNG [part of a ladder)] WRUNG |
| 26 | Permanent marker (9)
TATTOOIST (one who makes an indelible [permanent] design [marker] on the skin using dyes) The wordplay is simply a cryptic definition of a TATTOOIST. Perhaps not even that cryptic. TATTOOIST |
| 27 | Instrument playing shortly after bugle’s entrance (7)
BASSOON (musical instrument) B (first letter of [entrance] Bugle) + AS SOON (at that very moment; shortly after – dictionaries give this as AS SOON AS) B AS SOON |
| 28 | ‘Cervid‘ rook? Dictionary essentially misspelling term (3,4)
ROE DEER (‘cervid’ means relating to one of the true deer family. A ROE DEER is an example of a cervid) R (rook in chess) + OED (Oxford English Dictionary) + E (middle letter of [essentially] misspElling) + ER (middle letters of [essentially] tERm) R OE D E ER |
| Down | |
| 1 | Loving the foreign lexicon in translation about Greek character (10)
XENOPHILIC (loving foreigners or foreign things) Anagram of (in translation) LEXICON containing (about) PHI (a character of the Greek alphabet) XENO (PHI) LIC* |
| 2 | Illustration of Ark containing right number of each animal Noah saved (7)
ARTWORK (illustrations and other decorative material in a publication) ARK containing (containing) (R [right] + TWO [the number of each animal that Noah saved on his ark]) A (R TWO) RK |
| 3 | Audibly ripped stitch in upper body (5)
TORSO (trunk of a statue or human body, without head or limbs; upper body) TOR (sounds like [audibly] TORE [ripped]) + SO (sounds like [audibly] SEW [stitch]) TOR SO |
| 4 | Nurse left wound to become sore (9)
RESENTFUL (bitter; sore) Anagram of (wound) NURSE LEFT RESENTFUL* |
| 5 | Villain dealing with gang (5)
CADRE (group [gang] of activists in a revolutionary, originally Communist, party) CAD (a man who lacks the instincts of a gentleman or who behaves dishonourably; villain) + RE (with reference to; dealing with) CAD RE |
| 6 | Linking sci-fi movie up with horror movie (9)
TETHERING (tying together; linking) ET (sci-fi movie) reversed (up) + THE RING (horror movie) TE< THE RING |
| 7 | Picks power to lead criminal cartel (7)
PLECTRA (plural of PLECTRUM [a guitar pick]) P (power) + an anagram of (criminal) CARTEL P LECTRA* |
| 8 | Use heat to bond metal and yellow dye (4)
WELD (to join [bond] two pieces of metal by fusing, forging or applying pressure, using any of several methods, eg raising the temperature at the joint by means of external heat) WELD (a scentless species of mignonette, also known as dyer’s rocket, yielding a yellow dye; the dye itself) double definition W ELD |
| 12 | What stops metro train going off the rails? (10)
TERMINATOR (someone or something that brings to an end; what stops) Anagram of (going off the rails) METRO TRAIN TERMINATOR* |
| 14 | Heroism going wrong amid unexpected uprising (7-2)
DERRING-DO (daring action; bravery; heroism) ERRING (going wrong) contained in (amid) ODD (out-of-place; unexpected) reversed (uprising; down entry) D (ERRING) DO< |
| 16 | Flyer promoting Icelandic dairy product with custom jams (9)
SKYWRITER (one who writes a message, often a promotional message, in the air with smoke trails from an aircraft) (W [with] + RITE [formal act or procedure prescribed or customary in religious ceremonies; custom]) contained in (jams) SKYR (an Icelandic dairy product made from curdled milk) SKY (W RITE) R |
| 18 | Parisian who God inspires to be noble (7)
MARQUIS (title of nobility) MARS (Roman God of war) containing (inspires) QUI (French [Parisian] word for ‘who’) MAR (QUI) S |
| 20 | Opening provided to infiltrate gold reserve (7)
ORIFICE (a mouth-like opening) IF (provided) contained in (to infiltrate) (OR [gold tincture in heraldry] + ICE [reserve]) OR (IF) ICE |
| 22 | Copper can intervene (3,2)
CUT IN (interrupt; intervene) CU (chemical symbol for copper) + TIN (can) CU T IN |
| 23 | Positive part of a lyric poem (5)
ANODE (the positive electrode in an electrolytic cell; positive part) AN (a) + ODE (lyric poem) AN ODE |
| 24 | Heading to get seaman’s mop for cleaning decks (4)
SWAB (a mop for cleaning floors or decks) SW (South West; direction; heading) + AB ([able] seaman]) SW AB |
Couldn’t make the clue for BASSOON work. Maybe there is a sense in which ‘as’ can mean ‘playing’? Didn’t know the yellow dye’ in 8d.
Duncan, is there any reason you refer to a ‘groom’ as being ‘unimportant’?
Perhaps Duncan speaks from bitter experience.
Same as Hovis, I don’t get AS SOON, and nho WELD as a dye but assumed it had to be. Everything else pretty straightforward,
Hovis @ 1 and Gnomad @ 2
Oops! – that was supposed to read ‘an important man at wedding’.
My wife for 45 years has just confirmed that I was fairly important on the day.
Hovis @1: I was lucky enough to have seen Anthony Sher as/playing Richard III at Stratford?
PostMark. Yes, of course. Thanks.
TILT: CERVID, as the true deer family. I’m familiar with CORVID as the group of birds to which the rook belongs, and with which Bluejacket was intending (successfully in my case) to confuse us.
Thanks to him/her for a fun puzzle and DS for the blog.
Same here re 28ac, DP @6, looking for something to do with crew, maybe; in the end bunged in with absy no bleep idea …
I felt a bit stupid, looking for synonyms for Ark until the penny dropped. Still my favourite clue, though. Thanks PostMark for clarifying “as”.
I second duncanshiell’s comment about the surfaces. I thought some of these were exceptional. PRONOUNCEMENT is one example. A+ to Bluejacket – I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Did you know: Not all the animals went two by two, because Noah was instructed to take seven pairs of all the kosher animals.
Thank you to everyone for the lovely comments and thanks especially to duncanshiell for the blog post. 🙂
“Playing” is synonymous with “as” in the sense of a cast list – “Clint Eastwood as Wyatt Earp” means that the actor is playing the part of that character. Then “shortly” becomes “soon”, leaving “after” to indicate that the B comes first.
I had a lot of fun with this one.
Postmark@4: Me too.
Brave of the setter to put an X in the upper-left corner. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a setter force himself / herself to find two entries that start with X. On that note, also good to see XENOPHILIC rather than its sadly all-too-prevalent phobic counterpart.
I made very short work of 3/4 of this before slowing down in the SE, which took as long as the rest combined. Looking back on it, I have no idea why. Thank you to Bluejacket for the fun and to Duncan for the always impeccably clear blog.
[On a side note, is Bluejacket aware that the professional ice-hockey team in Columbus, Ohio are the Bluejackets? The team is a relative newcomer to the NHL (25 years or so) and has never been better than mediocre, so a non-North American wouldn’t have heard of them unless they were either a massive hockey fan or went actively looking for things called Bluejackets.]
Thanks both. Similar to mrpenney@14 but in a different section, being the NE corner which delayed me, not knowing those meanings of WELD and CATS PAW, and not readily recognising T-CELL nor ‘curb’ as a perfectly valid insertion device. Then there’s TETHERING, which still triggers my one-person campaign that ET is merely the informal name of the movie so-often referenced in clues – please someday, someone clue it as the name of the lead character.
TFO @15: arguably the lead character is Elliot (er, excuse me, ELLLIOTTTT….). E.T. is indisputably the title character, though. [Incidentally, we watched the movie about a week ago, and it holds up remarkably well.]
[Funny you mention that mrpenney@14. I had the same thought on Bluejacket’s debut back in April. We’ll make a hockey fan of him yet 😂]