A traditional Sunday puzzle from Poins. Thank you.
| Across | ||
| 1 | DISPOSAL | Set out to accept concessions brought back from management (8) |
| LID (set out) contains (to accept) SOPS (concessions) all reversed (brought back) | ||
| 6 | JITTER | Act nervously when Jack Bishop leaves full of anger (6) |
| J (jack) then bITTER (full of anger) missing B (bishop) | ||
| 9 | UPKEEP | Board standing by increase in maintenance costs (6) |
| KEEP (board) following (standing by) UP (increase) | ||
| 10 | NAPOLEON | Game plan surprisingly holding over time (8) |
| anagram (surprisingly) of PLAN contains O (over) then EON (time) | ||
| 11 | ROUND ROBIN | Letter signed by many on all sides seen by 4’s partner (5,5) |
| ROUND (on all sides) with ROBIN (superhero Batman’s partner) | ||
| 12 | OPEN | Begin with Frank (4) |
| double definition | ||
| 13 | SPARSE | Boxes with fasteners essentially in short supply (6) |
| SPARS (boxes) with fastEners (essentially, middle letter of) | ||
| 15 | WELL DONE | Renovation of old newel is carried out successfully (4,4) |
| anagram (renovation) of OLD NEWEL | ||
| 18 | BULLY OFF | Opening of match factory at last after self-contradictory statement from head of finance (5,3) |
| factorY (last letter of) following BULL (self-contradictory statement) OF (from) and Finance (first letter, head of) | ||
| 20 | VERITY | Extremely gripping – it’s a fact (6) |
| VERY (extremely) containing (gripping) IT | ||
| 21 | IDEM | The same as marks primarily found on fish (4) |
| Marks (first letter of, primarily) on IDE (fish) | ||
| 23 | PEREMPTORY | Guardiola hedging about debut of Moroccan right-winger in final (10) |
| PEP (Pep Guardiola) contains (hedging) RE (about) Moroccan (debut, first letter of) then TORY (right-winger) | ||
| 25 | HARD CASH | Coin collection’s original solid silvery-grey boxes (4,4) |
| Collection (first letter of, original) HARD (solid) contains (…is boxed by) ASH (silvery-grey) | ||
| 26 | TELL ON | Legendary hero working in shop (4,2) |
| TELL (William Tell, legendary hero) and ON (working) | ||
| 27 | FALLEN | Name attached to oddly ignored offer to bury everyone killed in battle (6) |
| N (name) following (attached to) oFfEo (oddly ignored) containing (to bury) ALL (everyone) | ||
| 28 | REHEARSE | Try to stop soldiers seconds before earl gets run through (8) |
| HEAR (try, in court) inside (to stop, like a cork) RE (Royal Engineers, soldiers) and S (seconds) E (earl) | ||
| Down | ||
| 2 | IMPROMPTU | Poins is quick to respond to unionist’s extempore speech (9) |
| I’M (Poins is) PROMPT (quick to respond) with U (unionist) | ||
| 3 | PAEAN | Each god receives enthusiastic praise (5) |
| EA (each) inside (received by) PAN (god) | ||
| 4 | SUPERHERO | His Excellency held captive by crazy purser on old hulk for instance (9) |
| HE (His Excellency) inside (held captive by) anagram (crazy) of PURSER then O (old) – The Incredible Hulk | ||
| 5 | LONGBOW | Weapon having greater than average range seen on front of ship (7) |
| LONG (having greater than average range) seen on BOW (front of ship | ||
| 6 | JAPAN | Stuff mostly found on a container of varnish (5) |
| JAm (stuff, mostly) on PAN (a container) | ||
| 7 | TALL ORDER | Incredible to authorise an unreasonably difficult assignment (4,5) |
| TALL (incredible) with ORDER (to authorise) | ||
| 8 | EMOTE | Behave theatrically becoming faint right away (5) |
| rEMOTE (faint) when missing R (right) | ||
| 14 | ROLE MODEL | A poem by me about parting to move ahead is a good example to imitate (4,5) |
| ODE (a poem) following (by) ME reversed (about) inside (parting) ROLL (to move ahead) | ||
| 16 | LOVE MATCH | What Romeo and Juliet made of the vocal Mercutio’s initial rollicking (4,5) |
| anagram (rollicking) of THE VOCAL and Mercutio (initial letter of) | ||
| 17 | NOTORIOUS | Infamous denial by Conservative largely over promises to pay (9) |
| NO (denial) TORy (Conservative, largely) on IOUS (promises to pay) | ||
| 19 | FARTHER | Rex overwhelmed by dad becomes more distant (7) |
| R (rex) inside (overwhelmed by) FATHER (dad) | ||
| 22 | DRAMA | Play God ultimately obliterating half of a Palestinian city (5) |
| goD (last letter, ultimately) then RAMAllah (Palestinian city) half missing (obliterated) | ||
| 23 | PLAIN | No show flat? (5) |
| double definition | ||
| 24 | TULSA | Turned around drab Australian city (5) |
| SLUT (drab, slovenly woman) reversed (around) then A (Australian) | ||
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.
Can’t say I’m a fan of this setter, but I’m sure many will be. Clues like UPKEEP and TALL ORDER don’t work for me, clueing ‘keep’ by ‘board’ and ‘tall’ by ‘incredible’ when these are essentially their meanings in the answers. GK names such as PEP GUARDIOLA are also not welcomed by me. Didn’t know the term BULLY OFF so I did learn something. Not all bad I should add with NAPOLEON being my favourite. All in all, a pleasant, if not particularly enthralling, solve.
Hi Hovis – I know what you mean about Poins puzzles but I think he fits the Sunday slot very well. It hasn’t always been the case recently but over the years the Indy has had a tradition of a straightforward easy-ish puzzle for a Sunday. I think of it being like a Sunday lunch in the pub: the fare might be a traditional and predictable but that is the point of it. It remains popular because of that.
Thanks, PeeDee, for blogging.
Poins has a particular style (as of course do all setters) but I think his puzzles generally sit well in the IoS slot. When I first started attempting the IoS, quite a few years ago now, the editor mentioned on this blog that it was his intention to offer an easyish puzzle: his phrase, if I remember well, was ‘to give lesser mortals a chance to win a prize.’ That was back in the day when the Indy still was made of dead trees and it was indeed a Prize Puzzle. Indy puzzles will always have contemporary references, which I like, so PEP wasn’t a big deal for me.
Had to rediscover that SLUT and ‘drab’ were synonyms, otherwise it all fell out nicely.
We struggled with the NE corner and eventually resorted to a wordfinder to get JAPAN for 6dn which then unlocked 6ac and 8dn. We share Hovis’s reservations about 9ac and 7dn (incidentally Wiglaf used tall = incredible in yesterday’s puzzle) and also thought the clue for 6ac sacrificed precision for the sake of the surface – “when” is not really a satisfactory instruction in this instance to replace B with J.
But there was plenty to like and our favourites included NAPOLEON, SPARSE, IMPROMPTU and LONGBOW (the latter alerting us to having put ‘done well’ instead of WELL DONE).
Thanks, Poins and PeeDee.
Thanks Poins and PeeDee
allan_c @ 4: “when” isn’t a substitution indicator. It’s ‘when’, in the sense of ‘the position is’, then J (= Jack in cards, followed by ‘bitter’ with B (= Bishop in chess) removed (= leaves).
Simon S@5: I can’t see that even if ‘when’ means ‘the position is’ (which it doesn’t – not in my book, anyway) it makes the clue any more satisfactory. However, you interpret ‘when’, the clue is asking you to substitute J for B in ‘bitter’. Thinking about it the clue could just as well have been “Act nervously when Bishop leaves Jack in a state of anger” which is just as smooth a surface but also indicates clearly what the solver has to do. But we all have or own opinions and fifteensquared would be the poorer if we didn’t. The main thing is that we did decipher the clue and got the right answer in the end.
allan_c @ 6
Interesting viewpoint. ‘when’ as ‘the position is’: “I’ll do it when the time is right” isn’t a lot different from “I’ll do it when [the position is that] the time is right” in my book. And I still don’t think that it’s a substitution anyway: it’s an inclusion of J followed by BITTER with B leaving, which is different from a true substitution where, as an an example, RILE could become ROLE (oxygen for current, with better phrasing).
To each their own anyhow.
Although I don’t follow football, the name Pep Guardiola is always appearing in the Indie newsfeed. Well, I don’t follow the game with the spherical ball but I do have the Patriots/Steelers game on at the moment.
Allan, I agree with Simon that it’s not a substitution and that ‘when’ is just a link word.
Perhaps not the best of link words, true.
When as a link word indicates cause and effect: when you do this you get that. Works for me.