A very pleasing puzzle from Gila for the Monday Indy slot. Carefully constructed and with one or two nice touches.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
cad clue as definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed
definitions are underlined
Across
1 Viruses caught by elderly people
COLDS
A charade of C for the cricketing ‘caught’ and OLDS. I’ve never heard OLDS used in this way, nor would I ever use it myself. OLDIES, certainly.
4 Enticed a sober journalist to drink right before work
ATTRACTED
A insertion of R and ACT in A TT and ED.
9 Give approval to chap to go out with someone
MANDATE
A charade of MAN and DATE. Neat clue.
10 The place to see lots of fighting around the capital of Ukraine
AUCTION
An insertion of U for the first letter of ‘Ukraine’ in ACTION.
11 Be critical about inventor
LIAR
A reversal of RAIL.
12 A doctor and nurse have a row to provide a kind of internal release?
ADRENALINE
A charade of A, DR, EN for [enrolled] ‘nurse’, A and LINE. ADRENALINE, or ADRENALIN, is the hormone which, when released under stimulus, is responsible for the ‘fight-or-flight’ response.
14 Blockade, for example, is about to surround Spain
SIEGE
A reversal of E for ‘Spain’ in EG and IS.
15 Aid Merkel organised is fantastic
DREAMLIKE
(AID MERKEL)*
16 Violin (undated) picked up by a Central Asian prince somewhere in Russia
ASTRAKHAN
An insertion of STRA[D] in A KHAN for the Russian city on the Volga.
20 Singer who had hits with Mick Fleetwood‘s scores
NICKS
A dd. If you didn’t know that Stevie NICKS was one of Mick Fleetwood’s partners in Fleetwood Mac (in more ways than one, if you know the band’s history), then you would have to rely on the second definition. Which is the beauty of cryptic crosswords: you always get two bites at the cherry.
22 Crazy reason for moving from place to place
LOCOMOTIVE
A charade of LOCO and MOTIVE.
23 British holidaymaker initially admits Los Angeles is dull
BLAH
An insertion of LA in B and H. Gila is being kind to us, since s/he could have just said ‘city’ instead of specifying the Californian one. American English slang, according to dictionaries. ‘That Gila puzzle in the Indy the other day was a bit blah.’
26 One leaving the country, essentially fleeing awful regime
EMIGREE
A charade of E for the middle letter of ‘fleEing’ and (REGIME)*
27 Can paper almost appear to curl?
LOO ROLL
A charade of LOO[M] and ROLL, relying on the fact that ‘can’ is a slang word for ‘toilet’.
28 Reimagine Let It Go, or another famous musical work
RIGOLETTO
(LET IT GO OR)* Let It Go is a musical work, from the Disney animation Frozen. Rigoletto is, I would imagine, considered the more famous of the two.
29 What makes up 50% of lamé thread?
THEME
Half of ‘lamé’ is THE ME, innit?
Down
1 Warplane arrived, then left
CAMEL
A charade of CAME and L gives you the [SOPWITH] CAMEL, which I remember making from an Airfix kit a very long time ago.
2 Stock of unopened Merlot perhaps hidden by beer, mostly
LINEAGE
Gila is asking you to shorten two words, with ‘unopened’ and ‘mostly’ the instructions to do so. It’s [W]INE in LAGE[R]. The insertion indicator is ‘hidden’.
3 Hands over change
SWAP
A reversal of PAWS.
4 Changed what happened at noon?
AMENDED
This has been around the block a bit, but hey-ho. A dd cum cd, because at 1200, AM ENDED.
5 Swing – not fully erected said to move very gradually
TRAPEZE
Because it’s a down clue, it’s PART for ‘not fully’ inverted, followed by EZE for a homophone (‘said’) of EASE.
6 Applauding at first, children laugh when entertained by funny magician
ACCLAIMING
An insertion of C and L for the first letters of ‘children’ and ‘laugh’ in (MAGICIAN)* The anagrind is ‘funny’ and the insertion indicator is ‘entertained by’.
7 City, stupidly, is built with no university institution
TBILISI
(IS B[U]ILT)* plus I for ‘institution’.
8 Senses muddled after study – it’s a symptom of being thick!
DENSENESS
A charade of DEN and (SENSES)*
13 Reckless married lad is a fluttery sort
RED ADMIRAL
(MARRIED LAD)*
14 Little amount of alcohol used to make trifle?
SMALL BEER
A cd cum dd.
17 Drivers finally escaping from being jammed, indicating right
TICKING
[S]TICKING, with ‘drivers finally’ telling it’s an S you need to remove.
18 Doctor hates having returned to position of responsibility
HOT SEAT
An insertion of TO reversed in (HATES)*
19 New look for composer
NOVELLO
A charade of NOVEL and LO! gives you the Welsh composer who wrote Rose of England (and much more, of course).
21 Italian food from an area of The Golden State?
CALZONE
The folded pizza is a charade of CAL and ZONE. California, or CAL, is known as The Golden State.
24 Very healthy wraps cut into two pieces
HALVE
An insertion of V for ‘very’ in HALE for ‘healthy’. HALE is a word you only ever really hear as part of HALE AND HEARTY.
25 Painful disease it’s good to have dismissed
GOUT
A charade of G and OUT.
Many thanks to Gila for this morning’s Indy puzzle.
A slight omission in 28a – OR is part of the anagram fodder. Nice and gentle as befits the Monday slot and 2 days a row for Pierre. Shame no butterfly link for 13d, but that would really be spoiling us. Thanks to S&B.
Thanks, Paul. Blog amended.
An ease into the week, without too many traps, though took far too long to get SWAP for which I’m afraid needed an alphabet trawl.
29a can also be parsed as the letters T H E M E being 50% of the letters going to make up the words ‘lamé thread’. Good clue.
Unfavourite word of the day: BLAH. No problems with OLDS rather than ‘oldies’, although I normally use the term for ‘parents’, ie mine!
Thanks to Gila and Pierre.
Interesting thought about THEME, WordPlodder, but that would leave us without a definition, wouldn’t it?
Hello Pierre,
I parsed it as an &lit (or whatever term we’re meant to use these days) with the whole clue as the def. Sort of works anyway though your THE ME parsing is probably what was intended.
I think you might have started one there, WordPlodder. If you have, then let’s call it a cad (clue as definition). I did like the clue though – cleverly misleading.
It’s hard to remember but I think I found this a little trickier than the few previous Gilas I’ve done.
Have to admit that NICKS was a guess-and-check and I couldn’t quite manage to work out the end of ASTRAKHAN.
I like the THEMÉ. Also to my taste was HALVE, for the surface (maybe I’m just hungry: I liked CALZONE too). My favourites are ATTRACTED – I’m always impressed when a compiler manages to fit so many elements together so seamlessly – and LOO ROLL, which gave an amusing [spend a] penny drop when the definition unfurled.
Thanks to Gila and Pierre.
First attempt at a Gila puzzle and I marked it as being ‘different’. Whether that’s a good or a bad thing, only time will tell!
Definitely an ‘umm’ marked alongside the elderly people – generational thing perhaps?
Top two for me were 22&27a.
Thanks to Gila and to Pierre for bringing us two in a row.
No major problems with this puzzle, although like others, I did raise an eyebrow at OLDS for the aged. Took me a while to see THE ME. That was my LOI after GOUT finally surfaced. Like the NICKS clue. Thanks Gila and Pierre.
I didn’t see THE ME.
I thought this was a lovely Monday puzzle with very well constructed clues. particularly liked DREAMLIKE, NICKS, EMIGREE, SMALL BEER, CALZONE, HALVE, LOO ROLL.
Many thanks Gila and Pierre
A puzzle that grew on us having initially failed to get very much apart from COLDS (and being doubtful about it). Then the 12ac got going and we finished without help apart from checking the spelling of TBILISI (put what you think it is into Google and the correct spelling comes back). Liked CALZONE and SMALL BEER (but it’ll be lasagne and a nice Italian red for us tonight).
Thanks, Gila and Pierre.
Thanks Gila, Pierre
All good, liked HALVE, DENSENESS, Let It Go/RIGOLETTO, ACCLAIMING, LOO ROLL. Haven’t seen AM-ENDED before so liked that too. I had LOO[k] ROLL (appear curly/look curly), but whatevs.
Many thanks to everyone who has taken time to comment. They are much appreciated. And to Pierre for the excellent blog. Apologies for the lack of bird link opportunity!
And, yep, the intention with THEME was as blogged, i.e. half of lamé is THE M E 🙂
Cheers
Ali/Gila