This crossword from Wiglaf caused some difficulty, partly no doubt as a result of my lack of familiarity with its theme, but apart from one or two niggles everything seemed to be sound enough and generally I enjoyed it.
I trust that nothing has been given anything away above to the passing reader, but the theme is horror; 1ac was the author of various things that are no doubt embedded there somewhere and which I’ll leave to the interested solver; I have surely merely touched the surface, mentioning only the one or two clues that are obviously connected to this.
| Across | ||
| 1 | H P LOVECRAFT | He wrote saucy stuff with affection and skill (1,1,9) |
| HP [as in HP sauce] love craft | ||
| 7 | YES | Terms of Tommy Lee Jones’s agreement (3) |
| {Tomm}y {Le}e {Jone}s — this isn’t a meaning of term that is all that obvious; I first met it in an Azed competition; presumably it is short for something like ‘termini’ | ||
| 9 | NOSFERATU | Vampire free of Saturn after invasion of Earth (9) |
| (of Saturn)* round E | ||
| 10 | SKULL | Short creep with large head (5) |
| skul{k} l | ||
| 11 | BARTS | Black magic is only half used in hospital (5) |
| b art {i}s — this hospital — why the need for this complication? Surely arts and art both signify magic? | ||
| 12 | SAILOR HAT | It covers hair o’ salt at sea (6,3) |
| (hair o’ salt)* — &littish, but with these very artificial words a likely anagram | ||
| 13 | GALLOWS | Place for swinging girls with scanty clothing? The reverse (7) |
| gal(low)s — ie it is scanty with girls clothing, the reverse of what is said | ||
| 15 | GHOULS | Fiendish types in Slough on the rampage (6) |
| (Slough)* | ||
| 18 | INDEED | An Elizabethan magician is buried in India? That’s right (6) |
| In(Dee)d. — John Dee is the Elizabethan magician | ||
| 21 | ADAMANT | Unrelenting post-punk singer (7) |
| Adam Ant is the post-punk singer who I had thought, with my very scanty knowledge of pop music, had been earlier; so far as I can see from this article he was punk at the beginning of his career but his main career was later | ||
| 24 | LONG-RANGE | Farmhouse needing 50% of capital upfront, extending into the future (4-5) |
| Lon{don} grange | ||
| 26 | TYSON | Tony Soprano shot a fighter (5) |
| (Tony S)*, referring to Mike Tyson | ||
| 27 | DAGON | A new god? Wrong! It’s an ancient one (5) |
| (A n god)* | ||
| 28 | GROWING UP | Aging fan gets involved in combo (7,2) |
| gro(wing)up — wing = fan? I can see that you can fan yourself with your wing, but don’t know of any direct equivalent | ||
| 29 | SIN | Evil Clergyman at last is back (3) |
| ({Clergyma}n is)rev. | ||
| 30 | POLTERGEIST | 1980s film contracted Rod Steiger to play Tesla (11) |
| pol{e} (Steiger)* T — Chambers gives T = tesla as an SI unit — this film, remade in 2015 | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | HANDBAGS | Like a certain baroness, attacks witches hanging around with baron (8) |
| h(and B)ags — the reference is to Margaret Thatcher, but at the time she became well-known for her handbagging she wasn’t a baroness | ||
| 2 | LUSTRAL | Every five years, there’s passion with return of the French right (7) |
| lust (la R)rev. — a lustrum is a period of five years and lustral is the adjective from this | ||
| 3 | VEERS | Occasionally I’ve eyed Rose in slacks (5) |
| {I’}v{e} e{y}e{d} R{o}s{e} — but slacks = veers? OK yes there’s a sort of connection in that if something slackens then it has a tendency to veer off, but are they the same? | ||
| 4 | CHASSIS | Charles is snatching old Bob’s body (7) |
| Chas (s) is — old Bob = old bob, the old shilling | ||
| 5 | AMUSING | Witty article on reflection (7) |
| a musing [reflection, nothing to do with reversal] | ||
| 6 | TASSO | Italian poet has very big day coming up (5) |
| (OS Sat)rev. | ||
| 7 | YOUGHAL | One addressed German prince in Irish resort (7) |
| you G Hal — didn’t know the Irish resort but worked it out and then checked it | ||
| 8 | SALUTE | Welcome ending for Cthulhu in Weird Tales (6) |
| {Cthulh}u in (Tales)* — thematic material, as HP Lovecraft wrote for the horror magazine Weird Tales, and one of his famous short stories was The Call of Cthulhu | ||
| 14 | ODE | Lay person posing naked (3) |
| {m}ode{l} | ||
| 16 | OVA | Cells embedded in Slovakia (3) |
| Hidden in SlOVAkia | ||
| 17 | STAND PAT | Hold out what’s needed for Saint Patrick briefly? (5,3) |
| St Patrick briefly might be St Pat, ie St and Pat | ||
| 19 | NONAGON | 12 keeping Harry in shape (7) |
| no(nag)on — nothing to do with the clue 12ac, but midday | ||
| 20 | DONEGAL | Spread of Gaeldom after finally advancing here? (7) |
| (Gaeldon)* — Gaeldom with the final letter advancing one place in the alphabet | ||
| 21 | AWESOME | A Zamyatin novel not everyone finds dreadful (7) |
| A We some — fortunately there was no need to look far since Zamyatin’s most famous novel was We — he was another science fiction writer | ||
| 22 | ASSEGAI | Jenny and I secure revolutionary period weapon (7) |
| ass (ega) I, the ega being (age)rev. | ||
| 23 | GLADYS | Girl entering Lady Stoneheart’s house (6) |
| Hidden in enterinG LADY Stoneheart — houses always seems better English than house in such cases, but I gather that for the cryptic grammar it can be either | ||
| 25 | RUN-UP | Laid-back attempt at humour with original approach (3-2) |
| (pun ur)rev. — ur = original? surely it’s ur-, as Chambers has it, a prefix? Or is this being picky? | ||
| 26 | THING | Hammer Night horror (5) |
| (Night)* — more thematic material | ||
*anagram
I’ve read pretty much all HPL, published work, and I think the only specific Lovecraft references were 27, which is the title of a story and also of a very well done Spanish cinematic adaption, and the reference at 8.
I too had HANDBAGS at 1D, but I’m blowed if I can see any way of making the definintion phrase lead to either the noun or verb formations as the answer.
I missed a few in NW (bars, gallows, indeed & ode) and had not come across HP Lovecraft, but enjoyed the topical theme.
I thought Handbags = Like a certain Baroness, attacks (to give the verb)?
I liked NOSFERATU and AMUSING
Many thanks Wiglaf, great fun, and thank you John for the enlightenment
I liked the Halloween theme but pretty much agree with the blog-I found some of it a too overworked seeming as if setter wanted to defeat solver.
As opposed to say Enigmatist or Anax where they want you to arrive at the answer but you have to work for it then you laugh all the more when the penny drops.
Thanks John
Defo at the tougher end for me, but enjoyable nonetheless. Fave clue was the first one, nicely done as was the puzzle and the apt theme so thanks to The Wigster for the puzzle and to John for the blog.
Lacking both time and brains, I cheated the proverbial out of this, but found lots along the way to appreciate.
I think I’ve been spending too much time around the above commenter and his work as I could only think of one anagram for 27a, but it wasn’t going to be that.
Nice theme too. Thanks to Wiglaf and John.
We’d never heard of Zamyatin or John Dee and google had to come to the rescue there. But we were defeated by 14dn, having failed to lift and separate ‘lay person’. We agree with dutch’s parsing of 1dn, though.
A topical theme with quite a bit to enjoy, although we thought it a bit forced in places; for example ‘low’ didn’t immediately suggest itself as a synonym for ‘scanty’ in 13ac and we took ages to rumble the ‘advancing’ trick in 20dn. More appealing were NOSFERATU, LONG RANGE and ASSEGAI.
Thanks, Wiglaf and John.
Kitty @5 – lolorama!
This is the first Indie puzzle I’ve failed to complete without aids(not that I’ve done that many yet). I used the reveal function to add the odd letter to help rather than looking up the whole word. Didn’t get the S abbreviation for soprano. Didn’t know the Elizabethan magician and didn’t know the writer at 1a. I did get LOVECRAFT from the wordplay but got the HP from googling lovecraft. That did help me with Maggie’s attack mode as well. I also needed to confirm that YOUGHAL, TASSO and LUSTRAL existed after deriving them. So 98% without aids. A tough challenge. Thanks Wiglaf and John.
Kitty @ 5
What Hoskins said 🙂
I have only a passing knowledge of 1ac, having read a couple of collections a few years ago, but it turned out I didn’t need it. I found this of medium difficulty, completing it without aids but having to check 2 & 7dn. Also, I couldn’t parse 20dn, thanks for explaining that.
Well done Kitty@5 – that really raised a smile.
We’d never heard of 1ac or Zamyatin. Joyce has been trying to read a dystopian novel for her book group this month. She was so pleased when she couldn’t renew it after the three weeks loan period despite not having completed it. She hopes whoever requested it enjoys it more than she did. If you are worried that she didn’t find out the ending, she did read the last few pages before it was returned!
Back to the puzzle. It was a tricky solve and there were many we struggled to parse. Sorry Wiglaf, our lack of knowledge let us down – better luck next time perhaps! Good to meet you in York.
Thanks John.
I do not like Halloween at all, often call it Helloween.
But this puzzle, more or less built around it, I did enjoy very much.
True, there seems to be an overdose of GK but – at least, for me – it didn’t stand in the way.
Enough easy ones (eg 21ac, 25ac, 8d, 16d) to open up the grid.
There were quite a few clues with nice misdirections.
I particularly liked BART’S (11ac), GALLOWS (13ac), GROWING UP (28ac) and ODE (14d) [which was my LOI].
And a clue that keeps Harry in shape, well … 🙂
I do understand some of the mixed feelings above but it’s the style of clueing that I find very appealing.
I must have done all the other (Indy) Wiglafs but do not remember anymore what I thought of these.
Having said all this, I think 27ac is unfortunate.
The answer is truly obscure and could just as easily have been DOGAN – well, in my opinion.
Also not sure why Wiglaf went for this god as he could’ve gone for ‘dig in’.
Many thanks to the setter & John on this for New Yorkers very sad day of ‘celebration’.