That was hard work. Quite apart from the fact that many of the clues referred to a not particularly easy answer and so there was an extra slowness at the start, it was difficult. Or so I thought at the time.
But it was good.
Definitions underlined and in maroon.
| Across | ||
| 1 | CATAPULT | Animal carrying bug: extremely unusual weapon (8) |
| ca(tap u{nusua}l)t — bug as in espionage | ||
| 6 | SELFIE | 21 of someone’s head – Life magazine’s ultimate shot (6) |
| s{omeone} ((Life) {magazin}e)* — ‘shot’ the anagram indicator | ||
| 9 | ICLOUD | One could possibly keep 21s here? (6) |
| (1 could)* — one can keep photos in the iCloud | ||
| 10 | PRATFALL | Embarrassing mistake by friend, describing bad fart by lecturer (8) |
| p(ratf)al l, the ratf being (fart)* | ||
| 11 | Popular male to sign 21s here (9) | |
| in stag Ram — photos are on Instagram | ||
| 13 | E-CASH | He’s worried about chat, regularly the basis of online exchanges (1-4) |
| c{h}a{t} in (he’s)* — there I was thinking that e-cash was a recent thing, and Google tells me that it was conceived in 1983 and founded in 1995 | ||
| 15 | See 28 | |
| 17 | FLICKR | Where to see 21s of film star’s bottom (6) |
| Flick {sta}r | ||
| 18 | NAGGED | Went on a horse, say, in northeast Germany (6) |
| N(a GG)E D — GG being “gee-gee” | ||
| 19 | SILENT | Mum is receding fast (6) |
| (is)rev. Lent | ||
| 21/20 | PHOTO FINISH | Start to place leading horse? With this, initially too tricky to reach conclusion (5,6) |
| p{lace} h (too)* finish — &lit. — the gateway clue, which wasn’t all that easy to solve because of the ‘With this, initially’, which is I suppose there to make the &lit. read better | ||
| 22 | Where one might find 21s from teen’s trip out (9) | |
| (teen’s trip)* — Pinterest is not something I’d heard of: it was obviously an anagram but even with all the checkers there, it was not clear what the answer was | ||
| 25 | PAGANINI | Italian barman and female, seen through one window, both having retired … (8) |
| (1 (Nina) gap)rev. — barman in the sense composer | ||
| 26 | CLOSED | … to 20 day shortly (6) |
| finish d — ‘to’ as in ‘the door was to’ | ||
| 28/15 | FRENCH POLISH | 20 with a tongue rub (6,6) |
| French [= a tongue, a language] polish — Hob isn’t doing the inelegant thing which seems to have been largely superseded nowadays thank goodness, of using ‘with’ as a link-word; what he is saying is “with [a word for] tongue comes [a word for] rub” | ||
| 29 | HILLSIDE | Devilish ills I denied, through which some fell? (8) |
| Hidden in DevilisH ILLS I DEnied — ‘fell’ as in ‘The Yorkshire Fells’ | ||
| Down | ||
| 2 | ARC | Something used to weld car after crash (3) |
| (car)* | ||
| 3 | ABORT | In advance of time, a tedious person is briefed to 20 prematurely (5) |
| a bor{e} t — briefed in the sense (?) cut short | ||
| 4 | UNDIGESTED | Genius playing with teddy? That’s not unknown, but not fully understood (10) |
| (Genius teddy – y)* | ||
| 5 | TOP HAT | Supply a cropped 21, with tenor in musical (3,3) |
| (a phot{o})* t — heaven | ||
| 6 | SNAP | 21‘s unexpected? Same here! (4) |
| 3 defs | ||
| 7 | LIFE CYCLE | Round of changes we meet in magazine series (4,5) |
| Life [= magazine, by chance the one referred to in 6ac (or is it a nudge from Hob since the magazine has long closed?)] cycle [= series] | ||
| 8 | ILLUSTRATES | Shows bad American characteristics in broadcast (11) |
| ill US “traits” | ||
| 12 | NIP IN THE AIR | Chill out with one drink he found in Iran, surprisingly (3,2,3,3) |
| (1 pint he) in (Iran)* — a chill out-of-doors — but what about the ‘with’ this time? Just OK if it’s [definition] with [wordplay] but not if it’s [wordplay] with [definition]? | ||
| 14 | ELLIPTICAL | Oval ball turns up in film arts institute lost (10) |
| E(llip)T ICA l — the llip being (pill)rev.; the ICA being the Institute of Contemporary Arts | ||
| 16 | LIGHT RAIN | Hard, trailing around in drizzle? (5,4) |
| (H trailing)* | ||
| 20 | See 21 | |
| 23 | ROOTS | Sources for ethnic music in TV series (5) |
| 2 defs, one of them referring to this, or perhaps to its 2016 remake | ||
| 24 | FISH | Swimmer, 20, after leaving home (4) |
| f{in}ish | ||
| 27 | END | 20 in 16D (3) |
| Hidden in sixteEN Down, nothing to do with LIGHT RAIN, which I was looking at for a long time | ||
*anagram
Very enjoyable. 26 made me think.
I usually struggle and fail with Hob so this was a pleasant change. My favourites were PRATFALL and UNDIGESTED both for their humorous surfaces. Failed to get CLOSED. Initially, I put in SCORED, score for 20 + D for day, as it related to the previous clue (PAGANINI) but the word ‘to’ didn’t fit in. I didn’t fully parse ELLIPTICAL either, so not a total success. Thanks all.
Ah, that probably makes more sense than my own unpicking of 27d…
20 in 16D
[Finish in 16]D
[Last letter of the answer to clue 16] + D
[Last letter of LIGHT RAIN] + D
[N] + D
[EN] + D
…which was plain exhausting.
The hardest of today’s cryptics – I’m not really a fan of crosswords where you have to solve something which is then linked to lots of other clues. 18a made me smile when the d’oh moment struck
Thanks to Hob and John.
Very slow going today, eventually got the gateway pair when with only the L and S crossers in 16dn we thought POLISH might be the ‘tongue’ part, then we realised it had to be the ‘rub’, with the ‘tongue’ being 28ac and obviously FRENCH. From that we deduced 21dn had to be FINISH, from which PHOTO at 20ac followed on. Then the various locations for photos became clear. (Incidentally, I think ‘possibly’ is the anagrind in 9ac, not part of the definition.)
But we still needed wordfinder help for PAGANINI and ELLIPTICAL – we failed to interpret ‘barman’ as ‘musician’ in the former and took ‘elliptical ball’ as a reference to Rugby (Union) instead of ‘lifting and separating’. And LOI was END, biffed without understanding it.
But thanks, Hob and John
Wasnt familiar with FLICKR-otherwise an interesting and challenging puzzle.Thanks to Hob and John
This stretched my (grumpy old man’s) knowledge of the digital world to the full. I had four clues related to the theme before I got the key clue which I thought would be related and then wasn’t. Ingenious. ‘TO’ as def for ‘CLOSED’ was a highlight, even though – irritatingly – I’d seen it before somewhere.
Great puzzle, thanks to both
Oops! “… only the L and S crossers in 16dn …” – that should be “… only the L and S crossers in 15ac (from 16dn and 4dn) …”. Moral: Check comment before completing captcha.
Save for an oasis of Dac, this week has been brutal on the poor Hoskinsian solving noggin (and there’s a Saturday Serpent yet to come!). John sums up my feelings on this one in his opening preamble. I’m to befrazzled to pick a fave clue (and I did this last night, mind!) so I’ll just say thanks to Hob for the fun and torture and to John for the enlightenment and go for (another) a long lie down.
Took ages to get the gateway clue, LOsI at the umpteenth visit were the crossing 7D and 17A. Not very technologically with it, but had heard at least vaguely of the various IT usages.
Some great clueing and very enjoyable puzzle.
Thanks to Hob and John.
I hardly ever solve Indy puzzles together with my ‘cryptic’ partner.
This one, however, we did tackle as a couple.
And boy (or, girl), this was good!
Very nice workout of the dual theme.
The social media answers became clear at an early stage, although FLICKR (17ac) had to wait quite a while.
Probably because of the three consonants at the end.
Just like Hovis – and for the same reason – I tried to make SCORED work at 26ac and, eventually, needed some time to unravel the real answer.
Clever definition, ‘to’ …
The other one that needed more than average time to parse was ELLIPTICAL (14d).
That said, we were not completely convinced by ‘pill’ = ‘ball’.
We had no dictionary or whatever ‘thing’ at hand to check, only a cup of red berry tea (she) and a glass of Leffe Blonde (me).
Hard? Dunno.
Satisfying? Absolutely.
We hadn’t heard of PRATFALL (10ac) and thought LIGHT RAIN (16d) would be a perfect candidate for a Spoonerism.
Many thanks to Hob for another inspiring (or, dare I say, spirited) crossword.
And to John for not giving up.
I started this late and it seemed like I was getting all the unthemed clues without getting a single one of themed clues. Took me ages to get the gateway clue, but once I did it fell out, although I had to look at a list of photo storage sites on Wikipedia to remind myself of FLICKR.