Fab puzzle from Gaff. It is a shame that I was very late starting this blog and I didn’t have much time to sit around and appreciate the quality, but it stood out regardless. Thanks Gaff.
The “number” theme in the clues is musical numbers by Elvis Presley.
| Across | ||
| 8 | UNCHAINED MELODY | A number released air (9,6) |
| UNCHAINED (released) MELODY (air) | ||
| 10, 15 | DEVIL IN DISGUISE | Number seven Luigi’s “Did I foul?” (5,2,8) |
| anagram (foul) of SEVEN LUIGIS DID I – musical number | ||
| 11 | INTRUDERS | Unwelcome elements in unstirred mixture (9) |
| anagram of UNSTIRRED | ||
| 12 | STREAKIER | Harder to predict having more lines (9) |
| double/cryptic definition | ||
| 14 | NIDRI | Holiday destination in Ionian I’d risk (5) |
| found inside ioniaN ID RIsk – town in Greece | ||
| 16 | ON TOP OF THE WORLD | A great place for polar bears? (2,3,2,3,5) |
| cryptic def | ||
| 19 | SCRAP | Patsy takes credit for discard (5) |
| CR (credit) in SAP (patsy) | ||
| 21 | ALPINISTS | Secure in cream of society’s climbers (9) |
| PIN (secure) in A-LIST | ||
| 23 | HONEYCOMB | Sharpen by turning round semi-combat drill (9) |
| HONE (sharpen) then BY reversed (turning) containing (round) COMbat (half of) | ||
| 25 | HAIKU | Starts to harness an idealistic karma understandably (5) |
| first letters (starts) of Harness An Idealistic Karma Understandably. Presumably the definition is &lit, but if so then it is too cunning for me to understand. | ||
| 26 | SUSPICIOUS MINDS | Notes brains, after Stallone’s first American movie, are number (10,5) |
| IOUS (notes) MINDS (brains) following Stallone (first letter of) US (american) PIC (movie) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | See 24 | |
| 2 | TAIL LAMP | Register strength of current round a warning light (4,4) |
| TILL (cash register) AMP (strength of electrical current) contains (round) A | ||
| 3 | ANTI | Not consenting to finish off caper (4) |
| ANTIc (caper) missing finishing letter | ||
| 4 | EDITORSHIP | Tories confused about bad end to joint press office (10) |
| anagram of TORIES containing baD (end of) then HIP )joint) | ||
| 5, 6 | RETURN TO SENDER | Number ten to surrender abjectly (6,2,6) |
| anagram (abjectly) of TEN TO SURRENDER – a musical number | ||
| 7 | EYES | Number following Spanish studies (4) |
| Spanish Eyes is an Elvis number. My first attempt was CONS: C (Roman numeral, number) ON (following) S (Spanish) | ||
| 9 | COVER | Top version of number (5) |
| double definition | ||
| 13 | INFRASONIC | Low frequency of cairns in wild (10) |
| anagram (wild) OF CAIRNS WILD | ||
| 15 | See 10 | |
| 17 | TARTNESS | Wretched transients lost in acidity (8) |
| anagram of TRANSIENTS missing IN | ||
| 18 | WENT HOME | More, over half, covering the final after City returned to own ground (4,4) |
| I can’t quite explain this. My best effort is: MOre reversed and halved inside THE after WEN (London, the Great Wen) | ||
| 20 | PHYSIC | Medicine is singular subject (6) |
| PHYSICs (subject) missing S (cryptically made singular) | ||
| 22 | SCION | Loses heart with civic leaders over issue (5) |
| loSes (middle letter, heart of) with CIvic (leading letters of) and ON (over) | ||
| 23 | HOST | Crush server with anchor (4) |
| triple definition | ||
| 24 , 1 | BLUE SUEDE SHOES | A number of the audience whistled and affected alarms (4,5,5) |
| BLUE SUEDE SHOES sounds like (of the audience) blew swayed shoos (whistled, effected and alarms) | ||
definitions are underlined
I write these posts to help people get started with cryptic crosswords. If there is something here you do not understand ask a question; there are probably others wondering the same thing.
Fab is the word, PeeDee. Nothing short of a triumph to have got so many songs in (never mind the fact that I had never heard of most of them – it is helpful living with someone who knows about these things.
Gaff never fails to deliver in spades.
Thanks PeeDee.
18d is THOM[as] (over half of Thomas More) above (covering ) [th]E after WEN (London)
Thanks to PeeDee and to Sil for parsing 18d. Clear in retrospect but just couldn’t see it. Liked this for the most part. Can’t see STREAKIER as meaning ‘harder to predict’ and don’t like either the blew or the shoos part of 24/1 but that’s probably just me. Thanks to Gaff for the workout.
25A – the clue is itself in haiku form being 17 syllables long
12A. Having nothing better to do – apparantly another ‘American’ meaning of STREAKY is ‘variable in quality’.
Great spot Timothy @4.
My first run at 4d EDITORSHIP had me absent-mindedly anagramming ‘Tories’ ‘end’ and ‘(join)t’ to get ROSE-TINTED! I am an idiot.
SUSPICIOUS MINDS and RETURN TO SENDER were superb. Thanks to Gaff & PeeDee.
Well spotted indeed, Timothy.
If this was what Gaff intended then it’s certainly an original definition, something that is always appreciated.
The construction was crystal clear as was the answer but is the clue being 17 syllables long enough to be a fair definition?
Personally, the surface of the clue is way above my head and I still cannot see any link with ‘haiku’.
Michael @6, you’re an idiot?
In my opinion, ‘end to joint’ is better crossword language than ‘bad end’.
However, I know that Gaff is happy with it just as he is with ‘civic leaders’ for CI and ‘the final’ for E.
And, more important, you may expect these things in his puzzles – anticipation, anticipation. 🙂
Overall, I found the grid construction admirable.
Six songs (‘numbers’) mainly spread around the ‘outskirts’ of the grid.
What I did find a bit odd was the choice of Unchained Melody and Spanish Eyes.
They’re both not really typical Elvis songs.
The first one is a song made famous by the Righteous Brothers.
Spanish Eyes is the vocal version of Bert Kaempfert’s Moon over Naples sent into the charts by Al Martino.
That said, to Gaff’s defence, both songs were recorded by Elvis too.
Actually, some apparently described his 1977 performace of Unchained Melody as ‘the last great moment of his career’.
A few months later he was dead.
Enjoyable puzzle from Gaff.
Perhaps, I liked the simple but very apt double definition in 9d most.
I’d never heard of Nidri but a bit of googling confirms that it is indeed a holiday destination.
Not my kind of holiday, so that’s probably why.
“Anniversary” puzzle. Elvis died (or not) August 16th 1977.
Great puzzle – took me a while to crack the theme but the first song (together with the preamble) gave the others away.
I saw Return to Sender (the film) five times at the Chorlton-cum-Hardy Eldorado – 1/6d a time. Like John Lennon I thought it looked like he had a good job – unlike him I didn’t act on that thought.
The cinema is long since gone (flats and a KFC now) – likewise Elvis and Lennon – OTOH I’m still here.
Essoldo – not Eldorado
Thanks Gaff and PeeDee
A busy week and only really got to the last few puzzles of it over the weekend. This one was a gem which did take a good while into it to uncover the theme – not helped by the first couple of ‘numbers’ out being UNCHAINED MELODY and SPANISH EYES which I would never have linked to Elvis.
A lot of anagrams to help with the long answers but also a couple of the clues that I was totally befuddled with the parsing – WENT HOME (just didn’t see Thomas More and have never heard of that reference to London before) and the very tricky &lit definition for HAIKU. Had ON TOP OF THE WORLD as a sort of interlinked double definition – ‘A great place’ and ‘place for polar bears’.