A very late appearance of this on the Indy website means the blog has been considerably delayed. It’s not giving too much away to say there was a theme of cities.
I felt the cluing could have been better constructed. There were a few too many DDs and the intersection of two short clues at 15, one a DD and the other a homophone, made that section quite tricky if you’re not someone who can instantly reel off the names of dozens of cities.
| Across | ||
| 7 | ORIGAMI | Delicate operations in city between roundabout and motorway (7) |
| Riga in o + MI | ||
| 8 | BERLIN | City songwriter (6) |
| DD | ||
| 10 | YOKEL | Rustic bond with land, primarily (5) |
| Yoke + l[and] | ||
| 11 | NERVE CELL | Around back of tramcar there’s constant shifting about, little room for conductor (5,4) |
| Even< around [tramca]r + cell | ||
| 12 | REPROBATE | Rascal worried by agent, mug? (9) |
| Ate(=worried) after rep + rob, of which mugging is a variant. | ||
| 14 | ROUEN | City 12 heading for nick (5) |
| Roue + n[ick] | ||
| 15 | CORK | City stop (4) |
| DD | ||
| 16 | BONNY | Pretty city gritty, ultimately (5) |
| Bonn + [gritt]y | ||
| 18 | MISS | Pine for girl (4) |
| DD | ||
| 21 | NAIVE | Green water ebbing (5) |
| Evian< | ||
| 22 | RUN RAGGED | Doctor urged gran to keep busy (3,6) |
| (Urged gran)* | ||
| 25 | EMULATION | Following Australian runner, old Italian going round circuit (9) |
| Emu + latin around o | ||
| 26 | VIRGO | Sign right in the middle of city (5) |
| R in Vigo | ||
| 28 | PARISH | City Hall’s first administrative district (6) |
| Paris + h[all] | ||
| 29 | ESSENCE | Outskirts of Cologne east of city, Cologne! (7) |
| Essen + C[ologn]e | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | BOWYER | Robin Hood’s supplier ending in jeopardy in woodland retreat (6) |
| Bower around [jeopard]y. A bowyer produces bows, so might supply Robin Hood. | ||
| 2 | MINK | Fur coats finally taken out of city (4) |
| Min[s]k | ||
| 3 | EARLY ON | Attention on city while still young? (5,2) |
| Ear + Lyon | ||
| 4 | VIENNA | City queen, climber endlessly climbing (6) |
| (Anne + iv[y])< | ||
| 5 | ARREARS | Outstanding money comes up after a rise, initially (7) |
| Rears after a r[ise] | ||
| 6 | FINE TUNING | Provided raised catch in gun needs repairing, making slight adjustments (4-6) |
| If< + net + (in gun)* | ||
| 8 | BURGEON | Comestibles served up on time – that’s swell (7) |
| Grub< + eon | ||
| 9 | PLANES | Those flying out of Naples (6) |
| Naples* | ||
| 13 | PARTICULAR | Nice point (10) |
| DD | ||
| 15 | CANNES | City vessel, we hear? (6) |
| Hom of can | ||
| 17 | OGREISH | Unlimited foresight, terribly monstrous (7) |
| [f]oresigh[t]* | ||
| 19 | GELATIN | Setter with genital rash (7) |
| Genital* | ||
| 20 | HARVEST | A gathering storm truly starts after boxer claims victory (7) |
| S[torm] t[ruly] after Hare around v(ictory) – I assume it must be James Hare | ||
| 23 | NANTES | City relative put up (6) |
| Nan + set< | ||
| 24 | DOOFER | Thingummy on table, lifted (6) |
| (Re food)* | ||
| 27 | RING | Call round (4) |
| DD | ||
*anagram
There were far too many dubious double definitions and stretched definitions. Well done, Neal, for sticking with it.
Well we enjoyed it. We didn’t notice that there were two many of any particular type of clue during the solve and enjoyed the way that Punk wove the cities into the grid.
Very ingenious.
Thanks Punk – we’re sorry that you didn’t enjoy it NealH but thanks for the blog!
I found this challenging but enjoyed the geography test.
BOWYER was a new word for me. My favourite was GELATIN for the misdirection.
Well I enjoyed this, even if it was a bit of a trawl through the cities. Difficult though. But some very good clues, like 22ac. I wonder how the DDs can be called dubious. Seemed OK to me.
I thought the definition in 7ac was a bit thin.
Struggled with this but eventually got everything except GELATIN where I was totally barking up the wrong tree. I had ME for ‘setter’ and GAMIC as vaguely ‘genital’ and thought there might be a word MEGAMIC lurking deep in the recesses of the OED – maybe there is but whether it means ‘rash’ (in any sense of the word) is another matter. There’s certainly no such word in Chambers or Collins.
In 20dn I took ‘hare’ to be the animal, referring to its behaviour in spring as described in this Wikipedia article – “During this spring frenzy, hares can be seen ‘boxing’, one hare striking another with its paws…”
Thanks, Punk and NealH