Independent crossword 9578 by Poins

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Is June 24th a special day? Well I’m sure it is to some people – so happy birthday to them.

To be honest, I didn’t realise there was anything particularly special about 24th June until I solved 17/24 which showed the hidden connection. The clues referred to in the clue having answers of SNUG, FLUTE, QUINCE, BOTTOM, SNOUT and STARVELING. These are all characters in Shakespeare’s a Midsummer Night’s dream – and all are the artisans rather than the aristocrats. Hence the answer to the two entries of ARTISAN CAST.
As to the date, I’d always assumed Midsummer aligned with the equinox but thanks to the power of the internet and the plethora of information on wikipedia “June 24, Midsummer Day, the feast of St. John the Baptist, is one of the quarter days in England.” Hence the connection to today and the play “a Midsummer Night’s dream”

Thanks for the education Poins and the clues.

I’ve assumed a misprint in the version I’ve seen of 22ac.

DD Double definition; * Anagram; Rev. Reverse; Underline definition

Across

8 Put a favourable slant on knight abandoning inflexible old maid (8)

Spin (Put a favourable slant) + stern (inflexible) – n (knight) = SPINSTER

9 An instruction to play loudly on one instrument or another (5)

F (An instruction to play loudly) + lute (instrument) = FLUTE

10 Telling tales? Not unknown for Heather (4)

Lying (telling tales?) – y (unknown) = LING

11 Unmistakable when plumbing the depths again (10)

DD RESOUNDING

12 Question replacement of nice fruit tree (6)

Qu(question) + (nice)* = QUINCE

14 Claim benefit (8)

DD INTEREST

15 Wind making the German bad-tempered earlier (7)

Mean (bad-tempered) + der (German) = MEANDER

17/24 What 2, 9, 12, 22D, 25 and 3+10 make of royal canasta and its melding (7,4)

(r + canasta + its)* = ARTISAN CAST

20 I repeatedly push to become what I want to be (3,5)

Ego (I) + I (repeatedly) + deal (push) = EGO IDEAL

22 Harry‘s good at German (6)

I think there is a ‘not’ missing Bad (not good?) + Ger (German) = BADGER

23 Liable but not certain to happen when Gordonstoun’s head stops exercising self-restraint (10)

Continent (exercising self-restraint) around g (Gordonstoun’s head) = CONTINGENT

24 See 17

CAST

25 Not allowed on tin of tobacco (5)

Sn (tin) + out (not allowed) = SNOUT

26 Abandons getting animated when it’s played in court (4,4)

Drops (abandons) + hot (animated) = DROP SHOT

Down

1 Fitness update’s modified to include it (8)

(update + it)* = APTITUDE

2 Comfortable with arms raised (4)

Rev. guns (arms) = SNUG

3 Extremes of violence seen after deserters from the south die from lack of food (6)

Rev. rats (deserters) + ve (Extremes of violence) = STARVE

4 Unpleasant for funny guy to admit it’s over (7)

Rev. its in card (funny guy) = DRASTIC

5 Subsequently catching Greek god edging away in a nervous state (8)

After (subsequently) around pluto (Gree god) – edging po = AFLUTTER

6 Mozart for example becomes less than courteous in pursuit of women (10)

W(women) + under kind (less than courteous) = WUNDERKIND

7 Songbird heard somewhere in Brittany (6)

Homonym of Wren = RENNES

13 Memoirs for instance showing no one voiced disagreement right away (10)

Homonym (None (no one)) + friction (disagreement) – r (right) = NON-FICTION

16 Inert yet misrepresented for a very long time (8)

(inert yet)* = ETERNITY

18 A form of hatred (8)

A version (form) = AVERSION

19 Previously finding almost everything immediately available (7)

All – l (almost everything) + ready (immediately available) = ALREADY

21 A couple of grey river birds (6)

Gr (couple of grey) + ouse (river) = GROUSE

22 Race nicked by Pole coming from behind (6)

Boom (pole) around TT (race) = BOTTOM

24 Subject of investigation for instance within the church (4)

As (for instance) in CE (church) = CASE

11 comments on “Independent crossword 9578 by Poins”

  1. Thank you for the blog, twenceslas. I assumed that the ” bad” for “good” in 22ac was an allusion to the slang expression. A nice, relaxed solve & I always enjoy being reminded of one of my favourite plays.

    Thank you, Poins.

  2. Failed miserably on this one. Most of the right half passed me by. Annoyed that I missed AVERSION having seen similar clues in the past. Should have got DROP SHOT, but was stuck on the idea that it was an anagram of abandons and probably some obscure legal expression-wrong court altogether. With regards to 5d, which I did get, I always thought Pluto was Roman (planets being named after Roman gods, even though no longer a planet in this case) with Hades being the Greek equivalent. Is this a mistake? I also took bad in 22a to mean good (like wicked also does for example).

  3. Hovis – Pluto is the Greek god of the underworld.
    As to bad meaning good – in american slang perhaps, but as this is not indicated in the clue it is questionable in my opinion.

  4. Thanks twencelas@2, I stand corrected. This seems to be a common mistake made in many texts. I always found it interesting that Earth is the only planet in the solar system not named after a roman god/goddess. It’s also a bit odd that we tend to use the proper names for the moons of other planets and for other stars but rarely use Luna and Sol for our own, using generic terms moon and sun.

  5. Nice stuff today, I thought. Not that I had too much of a chance to savour it as, like Hovis @2, I also suffered a heavy defeat at the hands of The Major and retired from the field with about half in (though admittedly the engagement took place at a later than normal hour last night and I was some way past my normal levels of canned crossword solving inspiration).

    Honours today go to the theming – annoyed with myself I didn’t spot it as would’ve helped, I think – so thanks to Poins for the puzzle and to Twencelas for the enlightenment. BTW, as it happens it is my silver-haired mother’s birthday today so a prescient opening blog line was that up there for me.

  6. First time I’ve tackled a Poins puzzle and have to report that I failed miserably with the ‘bottom’ half. Enjoyed the part I could do but it obviously wasn’t enough to reveal the theme.

    As is apparently true for Hoskins, 24th June will always be a special day for me as I’m reliably informed by my son-in-law that my first grandchild is likely to be entering this world within the next three/four hours!

    Thanks to Poins for the challenge and to Twencelas for showing me what I should have done!

  7. I suspected 17/24 and the clues it referred to might have some relevance to the date, and a quick look at 2 and 9 soon gave the game away, although I had to refer to the play as I couldn’t remember SNOUT either as the character or as a type of tobacco. And it took a while to see the parsing of BOTTOM. So having stuck all the themed answers in I thought ‘great, this will be a doddle’ only to grind to a halt staring at vast swathes of blank squares. But it all gradually came together with occasional reference to Chambers for confirmation, as with the slang meaning of ‘bad’.

    So a satisfying solve in the end, and some great clues to appreciate. Favourites were RENNES and GROUSE.

    Just one minor quibble in that I would have enumerated 13dn as (3-7) – as twencelas has in fact written it in the blog.

    Thanks, Poins and twencelas.

  8. Jane @6 – Congratulations! You’ll have to get the little one trained up on crosswords as soon as possible and, who knows, today could see the coming of a future crossword champion solver or setter. 🙂

  9. A hard Saturday workout, as expected, and only twigged the theme after solving the anagram – only knew some of the characters. But then, if the 21st is the start of summer and today is mid-summer, I suppose next Tuesday is the end of it.
    Another minor quibble re 13d, here in leafy Surrey ‘non’ isn’t a homonym of ‘none’, not even for the local Man U fans that Eccles rightly alluded to the other day. Nun is more like it.
    Thanks to S&B

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