Silvanus taskes over the mid-week slot today – this is his third Indy puzzle and the first for us to blog.
We found it as enjoyable as the previous two offerings – although we felt that a couple of clues (21ac and 8d) did not quite reach the standard of the rest. Having said that, there was a lot to enjoy – a reasonable amount of head-scratching and some smooth surfaces which we always appreciate – all in all, a good Wednesday challenge. And it’s a pangram!
| Across | ||
| 1 | Stupid of setter having nothing to offer solvers? (8) | |
| CLUELESS | A setter with no clues (CLUELESS) would have nothing to offer solvers | |
| 6 | Scientist caught replacing black box (6) | |
| COFFIN | ||
| 9 | Cycling briefly towards Indonesia’s capital in swimwear (6) | |
| BIKINI | BIKIN |
|
| 10 | Method followed by bagpiper regularly gets instructor scratching head (8) | |
| APPROACH | Alternate or ‘regular’ letters of bAgPiPeR + |
|
| 11 | Important businesswoman‘s card placed in front of worker (5,3) | |
| QUEEN BEE | QUEEN (card) BEE (worker) | |
| 12 | Film-maker does not broadcast in Glasgow (6) | |
| DISNEY | A homophone (‘broadcast’) of DIZ NE (‘does not’ spoken with a Glasgow accent) | |
| 13 | Israeli male misbehaving outside Calais terminal – do the French stand for it? (12) | |
| MARSEILLAISE | An anagram of ISRAELI MALE (anagrind is ‘misbehaving’) round S (last or ‘terminal’ letter of Calais) | |
| 16 | Alan Bennett perhaps I rank more shy by mistake (12) | |
| YORKSHIREMAN | An anagram of I RANK MORE SHY – anagrind is ‘by mistake’ | |
| 19 | New po-faced Welsh Assembly member is ousted (6) | |
| UNUSED | UN |
|
| 21 | Those standing hope it will be comfortable for them (8) | |
| MAJORITY | A cryptic definition – candidates (‘those standing’) in an election might hope for a ‘comfortable’ MAJORITY | |
| 23 | Image of princess generates formal vote in Parliament (8) | |
| DIVISION | An image of princess Di might be referred to as a DI VISION | |
| 24 | Overrun of report attacked in speech (6) | |
| INVADE | A homophone (‘report’) of INVEIGHED (attacked in speech) | |
| 25 | Rage she felt now and then towards empty house (6) | |
| SEETHE | Alternate letters (‘now and then’) of ShE fElT + H |
|
| 26 | Exercise sanction when only outside-halves are showing effort (8) | |
| EXERTION | The ‘outside halves’ of EXERcise and sancTION | |
| Down | ||
| 2 | Face being lifted out of bed, incapacitated (4,2) | |
| LAID UP | DIAL (face) reversed or ‘lifted’ UP (out of bed) | |
| 3 | Suppress certain novel ideas (5) | |
| ELIDE | Hidden in or ‘certain’ part of novEL IDEas | |
| 4 | Bride hung around festival location (9) | |
| EDINBURGH | An anagram of BRIDE HUNG – anagrind is ‘around’ | |
| 5 | Cat seems out to adopt independent attitude initially (7) | |
| SIAMESE | An anagram of SEEMS (anagrind is ‘out’) round or ‘adopting’ first or ‘initial’ letters of Independent Attitude | |
| 6 | Young archer‘s tooth surgeon at first extracted (5) | |
| CUPID | CU |
|
| 7 | Jellied eggs man undersells, left out for restaurant originally (9) | |
| FROGSPAWN | PAWN (man) under F |
|
| 8 | Where a batsman starts to advance (8) | |
| INCREASE | In cricket, a batsman stands at or IN (?) the CREASE | |
| 13 | Substitute meat with fish soup, kilo being consumed (9) | |
| MAKESHIFT | An anagram of MEAT and FISH (anagrind is ‘soup’) round or ‘consuming’ K (kilo) | |
| 14 | Fruit drink derived from broadleaf tree sap? (4,5) | |
| LIME JUICE | LIME (broadleaf tree) JUICE (sap) | |
| 15 | Reduce extent of Northern Irish territory (8) | |
| DOWNSIZE | The SIZE (extent) of DOWN (Northern Irish county) | |
| 17 | Love Italian church building from Cremona (7) | |
| ROMANCE | Two sets of wordplay for this one – ROMAN (Italian) CE (church), or an anagram of CREMONA – anagrind is ‘from’ | |
| 18 | Thoughtful American sacked 12 possibly (6) | |
| STUDIO | STUDIO |
|
| 20 | Impulse to take to the road (5) | |
| DRIVE | Double definition | |
| 22 | Interest obtained from French bank over time (5) | |
| RIVET | RIVE (French for ‘bank’) T (time) | |
I enjoyed this. Some nice friendly anagrams helped me to make a good start and then I found I was required to think quite a bit more.
For 26a I first typed in exsesaon …
I think I may be betraying my terrible ignorance when I confess I didn’t know that meaning of 23a. Well I wasn’t going to be able to hide the truth forever.
Having seen that 6a was unlikely to end -ist I got held up trying to think of a name of a particular scientist. Facepalm moment (I believe they are called tea trays round these parts) when I got that one.
I smiled at the jellied eggs, but being a sciencey kitty with a “plain clothes goth” past, my favourites have to be 6a and 5d.
Many thanks to Silvanus and to Bertandjoyce.
Fairly straightforward except for the SE quadrant. A few tough clues there I thought. Pleased when I got invade which then helped me finish. For 6d, I think ‘young-looking’ is preferable to ‘young’.
Very pleasing puzzle from Silvanus. Enough entries to get you started, and then it was a question of chipping away until it was a filled grid.
I was okay with MAJORITY; just a straightforward cd. Less keen on INCREASE. A batsman in cricket may well be described as ‘standing back in his crease’, but IN CREASE on its own is a bit iffy.
Nothing that distracted from a good Wednesday puzzle, though. I thought RIVET was a particularly good clue with a lovely surface.
Thanks to all three.
Silvanus worth another visit.Liked the pangram-and the connect between 18 and 12 which was last in.Dont know if I like it(12 that is) or not.
Enjoyable puzzle that I found easy to medium in toughness – though I was having a bit of an off day yesterday. Got beat by 24a & 22d (I’m a cunning linguist, Jim, not a linguist!). Fave clue was 5d as the surface brought a smile so thanks to Silvanus for the puzzle and to B&J for the blog.
An (ex-) cricketer speaks. No probs with INCREASE – it went straight in – because a batsman has to stand within the ‘crease’ or else he’ll quite rightly get stumped if the ball is in play. The ‘crease’ is not just the line but the safe area thereby described in front of the wicket.
Nor did I have a bother with 21, or rather I thought it was a jolly good clue and was deceived in the first pass, so fair play. (I’m always impressed by Bert&Joyce’s parsing, they’re clearly a lot quicker than me and were so this time but that’s not the point).
But I did think that ‘lime juice’ was hardly cryptic at all and I was quite grumpy about it. Just saying. It’s odd how clues strike different solvers.
@7Grant Baynham, quite agree about INCREASE, also LIME JUICE – exactly what I thought when entering it.
Overall a pretty good puzzle, eventually gave up on COFFIN/FROGSPAWN intersection. Liked the apt anagrams at 13A and 16.
Thanks to Silvanus and Bertandjoyce
Setter here, many thanks to all who tackled the puzzle and especially those that took the trouble to leave comments, much appreciated.
A late start but then a quick finish – everything went in smoothly in just two passes. An excellent crossword for beginners/improvers, imho.
12ac reminded me of the Scots joke about one of President T—p’s predecessors being the Disneyland president – “he disnae ken what’s happening”; perhaps it should be revived for the present incumbent.
Lots to like here; INVADE and RIVET among my favourites.
Thanks, Silvanus and B&J
I agree with the comments @6 and @7 above: INCREASE is fine; am rather less keen on the clue to LIME JUICE. But there was much to enjoy here and I especially appreciated the Glaswegian in 12a.
Thanks to Silvanus and Bertandjoyce.
Sorry for omitting to thank Bertandjoyce in my earlier comment, please accept my apologies.
An excellent crossword for beginners/improvers, imho [allan_c@9]
I found this crossword as hard as Nutmeg and Aardvark together.
Where does that leave me? 🙁
A bad day? Not on Silvanus’ wavelength?
I actually liked this crossword very much.
Not sure whether RIVET (22d) is fully fair, even though especially appreciated by some of the commenters.
I am a European (yes, I am!) but I have never heard of that French word for ‘bank’.
Not in English dictionaries either – I got it, though!
My CoD: INCREASE (8d), closely followed by MAJORITY (21ac).
No, only joking.
Many thanks to Silvanus and the inimitable B&J.
Only just found out that you were here today, Silvanus.
Puzzle now printed out – pleasant time ahead.
@12 Sil van den Hoek – “la rive gauche” = the left bank, of the Seine where the artists etc all lived (maybe still do), most famously in Montmartre, is where it’s most commonly heard by the non-French.
Enjoyed that, thank you Silvanus.
Wasn’t sure why you offered two ways of getting the answer for 17d?
The intersecting 24a/22d were the last to fall and I did check with the BRB for definitions of 3d.
Top three for me were 12&21a plus 15d.
Well done, Silvanus and thanks to B&J for the review.
Rather late to this but quite agree with Grant Baynham@6 and gwep@7 about INCREASE and LIME JUICE. Lots of good stuff here; however, I did wonder about 24ac (nobody has mentioned it so far). OK we need a homophone indicator; ‘of report’ is one; but also ‘in speech’ is one. So why are there two?
It’s never too late Wil Ransome@16. Chambers has INVEIGH as “to make an attack in speech or writing” – we needed to check this one when we solved it.
Well thank you for replying, B&J, but my point was that there are two homophone indicators, and why are there two?
And this is really late.
Sorry Wil – there is in our opinion only one homophone indicator (report) as ‘in speech’ is part of the definition for INVEIGHED as stated in Chambers.