Yet another new setter in the Indy, and in my opinion a good debut puzzle. One or two I have struggled to parse, but I’m sure help will be forthcoming. What did you think of the new kid on the blog?
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) missing
definitions are underlined
Across
1 You must complete this, pointless, miserable toil
GRID
GRI[N]D, with N as the ‘point’ of the compass.
4 Shakes – it’s a verb
VIBRATES
(ITS A VERB)* and a bit &littish, I guess.
10 Music? It’s attention-seeking noise
RAP
A dd. As in a RAP at the door or a RAP on the table to request people’s attention.
11 Hague regularly pursuing Oscar-winning actress, one half of team Brangelina?
PORTMANTEAU
The ‘Oscar-winning actress’ is Natalie PORTMAN, followed by TE[AM] and AU for the even letters of ‘Hague’. ‘Brangelina’ is a PORTMANTEAU word, where two elements are combined to make a different word. Other examples would be BRUNCH and LABRADOODLE.
12 Broadcast date range for TV’s Scooby-Doo
GREAT DANE
(DATE RANGE)*
13 Good source of omega-3 for someone on restricted diet
SPRAT
It’s a dd, but I can’t see the second part.
Edit: thanks to crypticsue for explaining that it’s to do with Jack SPRAT, who could ‘eat no fat’ and would therefore be on a ‘restricted diet’.
14 Competition winner awarded an Apple iPad or the alternative
APHRODITE
(I PAD OR THE)* Aphrodite had multiple suitors and lovers, so I guess she could be said to be a beauty ‘competion winner’. And then there’s the story of Aphrodite and the apple, so I’m guessing that’s it, although the Classics are definitely not my strong point.
17 It’s socially unacceptable. Thanks, it’s meant to be shocking
TABOO
A charade of TA and BOO.
18 Mole used to measure what? Any substance or matter
THING
I don’t get this, I’m afraid: the definition is obvious, but the cryptic bit I’m struggling with. There are several MOLES: chemical ones, facial ones, and the ones that make a mess of your newly mown lawn.
19 Old car entered into races and not withdrawn
EXTROVERT
A charade of EX for ‘old’ followed by an insertion of ROVER for a type of ‘car’ inserted into the Isle of Man TT ‘races’. Interestingly, there was discussion on the Indy Friday blog about EXTRAVERT, the alternative and apparently original spelling. Personally, I’d always use this one.
20 Avid solver drops everything even delivering passage in church
AISLE
The odd letters of AvId SoLvEr.
22 Typical whinger miserable about personal appearance in High Barnet
POMPADOUR
A charade of POM (as in the Aussie term of abuse ‘whingeing Pom’ and DOUR with PA for ‘personal appearance'(?)inserted. ‘Barnet’ is slang for hairstyle.
24 Spread marg so roughly, Rob’s ruined last piece of bread
SMORGASBORD
(MARG SO)* plus (ROBS)* plus D. The two anagrinds are ‘roughly’ and ‘ruined’.
25 Core elements in aquifer – calcium and magnesium – producing hard water
ICE
The central letters of ‘aquIfer’, calCium and magnEsium.
26 Short spell of weather unexpectedly involves a very warm period
HEAT WAVE
(WEATHE[R])* with AV inserted.
27 Given time, this arse would become president.
RUMP
Sadly, the arse has already become president, and is frightening the bejeezus out of everyone. [T]RUMP
Down
2 Regret hosting Games in Indian capital
RUPEE
An insertion of PE in RUE, referring to the Indian currency.
3 Oi?! Pickpocket gets held up by hot pants
DIPHTHONG
DIP as a slang word for ‘pickpocket’ is supported by H and THONG. Oi! is an example of a DIPHTHONG.
4 Having many gifts from eccentric relatives
VERSATILE
(RELATIVES)*
5 Bowled over by honour – it’s sweet
BOMBE
A charade of B, O and MBE for the tart.
6 They’re part of family outings (Japan excepted)
AUNTS
[J]AUNTS
7 Early start. Cereal box empty. Disastrous. Awful
EXECRABLE
The first letter of ‘early’ followed by (CEREAL B[O]X)* The anagrind is ‘disastrous’.
8 Moment of anticipation in the club before Tiger Feet heard
PREGNANT PAUSE
PREGNANT for ‘in the club’ followed by a homophone of PAWS.
9 Simply ask politicians for help? Juvenile fantasies!
JUST SO STORIES
A charade of JUST, SOS and TORIES. By Rudyard Kipling.
15 Bit of bad weather and calls taxi to Nice on vacation
HAILSTONE
A charade of HAILS, TO and N[IC]E
16 Leader of Opposition in bad temper after European vote, but with no plan
EXTEMPORE
E and X for ‘European vote’ followed by O in (TEMPER)*
17 Does it need a cast? Just a brace
TWO-HANDER
It does need a cast, but only two of them. Best example probably Educating Rita, but there are many others.
21 Lose little bit of weight to get hourglass figure
EIGHT
[W]EIGHT. EIGHT, I learned today is a fashion term for an ‘hourglass’ figure’, presumably because of its resemblance to the digit.
22 Grandpa’s taking part in Italian course
PASTA
Hidden in GrandPAS TAking.
23 Drug quietly smuggled into cycling event in place of multivitamin casing
OPIUM
Beet is asking you to replace MN for the outside letters of ‘multivitamin’ with P for the musically quiet. I’ve never understood the rules for the OMNIUM.
Good debut from Beet – thank you to him/her.
Beet is definitely a lady – and I’m delighted that she’s made it to the Independent
13a Jack XXXXX could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean – so they were both on restricted diets
@Pierre /crypticsue
I don’t seem to be able to access this puzzle on the Indy website and the usual trick of changing the date manually in the url doesn’t work either.
Is it just me?
This puzzle is not on the Indy web site at the moment. How did you get hold of it?
There were/are problems with uploading this week’s indy puzzles. I solved and blogged this from a pdf version sent to me by Gaufrid.
baerchen@2 you have mail!
I’ve been waiting for baited breath for this one, so was disappointed not to find it online this morning. I will just have to wait until I get home this evening – I hope it’s been uploaded by then. 🙁
Any chance Pierre or Gaufrid could provide a link to the pdf?
Thanks Beet and Pierre.
An excellent debut, I thought.
Ref 18, from eChambers:
mole4 /m?l/
noun
1. A base SI unit, the unit of amount of substance (symbol mol), defined as the amount of substance that contains as many (specified) entities (eg atoms, molecules, ions, photons) as there are atoms in 12 grams of carbon-12
2. Formerly defined as equal to gram-molecule (abbrev mol /m?l/)
hth
Having spent the last couple of years telling everyone that Beet was my ‘hope for the future’, I find it rather sad that people aren’t able to access her crossword via the Independent site
For 18, think Adrian, and laugh (if you remember the reference).
Great stuff, thanks to S&B.
I’m also frustrated I can’t see this puzzle having eagerly waited for it
Thanks, Pierre.
Congratulations, Beet, on a super debut puzzle. Some superb clues, my top favourites being the brilliant APHRODITE [the clue refers to The Judgment of Paris http://www.shmoop.com/judgment-of-paris/summary.html ] and the hilarious 18ac, now that Eccles has pointed it out. I don’t know how I didn’t see it, being a great Sue Townsend / Adrian fan. It seems so simple now.
Several people seem to know who Beet is. I look forward to meeting her at some S and B [or perhaps I already have]. Anyway, huge thanks to her – I really loved it.
Ah, that’s better..
Many thanks Beet and welcome, really great to see you here, congratulations. A great debut.
Really enjoyed the puzzle. Love Apple iPad and family outings. wasn’t familiar with the 18 reference but sure others will be, great clue. had to look up the cycling event.
favourite has to be 14a. also really liked 1a, 4a, 19a, 26a, 8d, and 16d with it’s impressive surface.
Sorry your debut puzzle was plagued with site downloading problems – hope these will be resolved soon and everyone else can enjoy the puzzle too
Congratulations again, very happy to see you join the team
18 – recorded as “Norwegian leather imports” as I recall?
‘Exports’, muffin.
Thanks, Eileen – a long time since I read it!
No one seems to have mentioned yet that William Hague is a close friend of Oscar-winning Angelina Jolie, which makes 11a especially ingenious.
What a fantastic puzzle. Thank you Beet and Pierre.
Dutch @ 13:”Ah, that’s better..”
Does that mean you can see the puzzle on the Indy site? Because I can’t. Grrr.
Sorry about the late arrival but hopefully worth waiting for – I understand that the situation in being rectified now (as America is waking up)
The puzzle is showing on the Independent site now
This was emailed to me after I’d given up-pretty welcome with not much else puzzle-wise to occupy me.
The pro’s outweighed the cons-good debut.
well worth waiting for; an excellent and very funny puzzle. Thanks to Beet & Pierre (and to dear crypticsue for the International Rescue service)
A witty and original puzzle – but no surprise to those of us who have enjoyed Beet’s earlier work. It certainly brightened up what is usually the dullest day of the crossword week. Well done Beet and may there be many more.
Brilliant stuff from Beet – I expected nothing less!
Didn’t know the 11a word reference or the cycling event but I certainly did remember friend Adrian’s obsession in 18a!
So many goodies to pick from – I eventually gave the nod to 9&21d.
Speaking of goodies – not only is Beet a shining new star in the crosswording firmament, she also has excellent cooking skills. Her carrot cake is sublime!
Many thanks, Beet, and thanks to Pierre for the decryption.
Having solved Beet’s puzzles on Big Dave’s site before, it’s no surprise to me that this was very good indeed.
Welcome to the club!
Many congratulations to Beet on an excellent debut (having enjoyed her previous puzzles greatly I expected nothing less). I loved 11a with its brilliant surface, 14a, 24a, 2d and 16d but favourite must be the hilarious 18a.
Filling a crossword grid may be pointless … but this one was definitely not a grind!
It was very enjoyable! Thanks to Beet.
Thanks, also, to Pierre. I am also still missing something in 18a.
Definite thumbs up from me with some v. witty clues. Loved POMPADOUR and DIPHTHONG especially.
Thanks and welcome to Beet – look forward to more – and to Pierre.
StanXYZ, Adrian MOLE was a teenage character created by Sue Townsend and the first novel of the series was The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, aged 13 and 3/4. Among other teenage angst, he was obsessed with the length of his penis, which he called his ‘thing’, and used to measure it regularly. I can’t remember the exact line but it was something along the lines of: ‘My thing has grown by 2cm. Good job – I may be needing it soon.’ I would never have parsed that in a million years, so well done to those who did.
Pierre! Oh! That Mole! That Thing!
And I’ve read all the books!
Where’s my tape measure? Oh! Forget it!
Very enjoyable debut. Too many fun clues too pick a fave from so I’ll just say cheers and welcome aboard to Beet (roll on the next one), and thanks to Pierre for the blog.
Having got hold of the pdf this morning I then had to go out unexpectedly so didn’t get round to solving till this afternoon – typical!
But it was well worth the wait for a great crossword – plenty of thought required but no external help.
I thought at first that 10ac might be ‘hum’ (what you might get from loudspeakers if there’s no music – hence the ?, and the noise of someone clearing their throat to attract attention) but when 2dn could only be RUPEE that was soon disposed of.
Difficult to pick out favourites but I liked EIGHT for its simplicity. DIPHTHONG was a bit cheeky (!) I thought (hot pants? – incandescent, surely!) Others I liked included POMPADOUR and PREGNANT PAUSE.
Thanks, Beet and Pierre.
I’m only doing one puzzle a day at the moment, but today’s selection wasn’t a difficult choice!
Having been in a supremely grumpy mood this morning it may have been a good thing I didn’t do this then. (I took a quick peek and instantly pronounced the answer to 1a LIFE …)
(I can also see that that waiting with – not for! – bated – not baited! – breath clearly starved my little brain of the oxygen it needs to be able to avoid such silly slips.)
Anyway, once I’d returned from being out in the real world (quite a strange day really, which involved watching pigeons and rats fight – don’t ask!), this was the perfect way to unwind.
As I knew it would be, this was a brilliant puzzle and I can’t possibly choose favourite clues and stay in single figures (any list I came up with would certainly have to lose a little to get down to the hourglass figure). I did smile at 5d because that one will be for Mr Beet, who has recently received such an honour. Sweet!
Thanks to Beet for the fun, to the knights and knightesses in shining armour for making the puzzle available, and to Pierre for the analysis.
A very classy debut. I really enjoyed this. Thank you Beet
Irritating that The Site wasn’t up for this magnificent debut. Enjoyed all of it but APHRODITE wins the pomme d’or by a short head. More – many more – please.
I’d done about 2/3 before my dodgy computer decided it’d had enough of the Indy website, so I missed the pleasure of solving APHRODITE, POMPADOUR (favourite) AND JUST SO STORIES. Fresh and funny.
A cracker of a debut, and well worth the wait today. Fun, inventive clueing across the board. A very warm welcome to Beet and thanks to Pierre for the write-up
Really enjoyed this one Beet. Can’t decide whether APHRODITE or POMPADOUR was my favourite and there are plenty of others in the running too. Congratulations.
A great crossword and so pleasing to see Beet’s progress from a Rookie on Big Dave’s site to here. Congratulations Beet and welcome.
Setter here. Thanks very much to Pierre for the review, with contributions from Sue, Eccles and Michael chipping in on 13a, 18a and 11a. All spot on.
You’ve all been very kind, which I’m putting down to you all wanting to be nice to the first timer, plus the sunshine putting everyone in a good mood.
Please can I do a quick thank you to everyone involved in Big Dave’s Rookie Corner, which is where I cut my teeth – all the regular commenters there who have been so encouraging, my lovely test solvers, Kairos for his gentle guidance to all the Rookies, and of course the man himself Big Dave.
A terrific debut – I can’t remember a recent puzzle I’ve enjoyed more. As James says, fresh and funny. Aphrodite winning an Apple iPad and the Presidential arse were particularly splendid moments.
Delightful. Fresh and funny indeed with some of the best surfaces I’ve seen anywhere. I compared you to Anarche once and you’ve reminded me of her again – although maybe Anarche on a relatively accessible day!
Great debut Beet. I only just got round to ding this one.
A laugh a minute – plus good solving satisfaction.
Thanks to Pierre for the blog – and the helpers too – I missed parsing the same ones.
doing – not ding
Only just finished this but had to add to the chorus of praise – a very promising debut.
Thanks to Beet and Pierre
We have only just found time to complete the puzzle. We couldn’t parse a few – including 18ac so many thanks for the explanations. We needed Pierre’s more in depth description so thanks to him for that and the rest of the blog.
Some clever references which made the whole thing more enjoyable.
Well done Beet and welcome to the Indy. We look forward to the next one.