Two Maize puzzles in a row on my 5-weekly shift – I must have done something good in a previous life…
This seemed a little lighter and fluffier than Indy 9811, especially once the nIna jumped out at me…not sure if it is marking a significant event/anniversary?…
Some fun and games along the way – 3D (appropriately located!) was short and sweet; 6D more complex and visual/visceral; 19D maybe an image one doesn’t want to linger on!
About half-way through I realised that the left and right columns consisted only of ‘I’s, complementing 1A and 8A, which helped close a few things out.
My notes don’t record a LOI, but the last couple parsed for the blog were IMPOSTOR and CALAMARI – uncertainty over whether the ‘old’ in 21A was part of the wordplay and/or definition; and similarly ‘seafood’ in 22A. These aren’t quibbles – both clues seem to work fine, just my brain that didn’t!. (However, should NON-INFLAMMATORY be hyphenated as 3-12? My Chambers only seems to have NON-INFLAMMABLE.)
All in all, a pleasant diversion, and maybe something significant being celebrated? I believe the demise of the paper INDEPENDENT, and the Phoenix-like segue of the Inquisitor to ‘THE I’, was in March 2016, so a month late on that anniversary? Maybe it is a nod to the Independent/i’s method of prize crossword submission, where you could phone/text a (premium rate) number and simply state how many time the letter I appeared in the solution…(did anybody ever use that method?…I guess they must have made money out of it?!…)
Thanks again to Maize – see you again in another 5 weeks?…
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
|
| 1A | INDEPENDENT | Freelance writer retained by editor during shift to the right (11) | freelance / IND_ENT (shift to the right) around (during) E_D (editor), itself around (retaining) PEN (wriiter) |
|
| 8A | THE I | Organ of holy man stolen from believer (3,1) | organ (newspaper) / THEI(ST) (believer, losing ST – saint, or holy man) |
|
| 9A | INCH | Move very slowly along island (4) | double defn. / to INCH can be to crawl along slowly; or an INCH can be a (small?) island |
|
| 10A | STOIC | Long-suffering wife’s second to enter incomplete family (5) | long-suffering / STO_C(K) (family, incomplete) around (entered b) I (second letter of wIfe) |
|
| 11A | AGOUTI | Rodent disease detected in a child’s stomach (6) | rodent / A + I (middle letter, or stomach, of chIld) around GOUT (disease) |
|
| 12A | INFRINGE | Cross the line and briefly gather round circle (8) | cross the line / INF_E(R) (gather, or deduce, short of a letter) around RING (circle) |
|
| 14A | SHANGHAI | Eastern port’s drop locks failing to close (8) | eastern port / S (the possessive ‘s from port’S) + HANG (drop) + HAI(R) (hair, or locks, missing last letter, or failing to close) |
|
| 15A | MAPLE | Power possessed by sex symbol of Canada? (5) | symbol of Canada / MA_LE (sex, or gender) around (possessing) P (power) |
|
| 17A | IAGO | Father Christmas almost thrown out of capital as a villain (4) | (Shakespearean) villain / (SANT)IAGO (capital city, losing SANT, most of Santa) |
|
| 18A | THAI | Siamese cat’s close by chair, scratching the covers (4) | Siamese / T (closing letter of caT) + (C)HAI(R) (cHAIr, losing its covering letters) |
|
| 19A | AMASS | American idiot’s rally (5) | rally / AM (American) + ASS (idiot) |
|
| 21A | IMPOSTOR | One Frenchman, following king, in pursuit of Old Pretender (8) | pretender (e.g. to a throne?) / I (one) + M (Monsieur, Frenchman) + POST (after, following) + O (old) + R (Rex, king) |
|
| 22A | CALAMARI | Seafood containing a bit of arm buried in the middle (8) | seafood (?although seafood is also part of the wordplay) / C_LAM (seafood) around (containing) A, plus A (first letter, or bit, of Arm) + RI (middle letters of buRIed) |
|
| 25A | ITALIC | Put in charge after half of hospital’s showing stress? (6) | showing stress (in a written passage) / (HOSP)ITAL (half of hospITAL) + IC (In Charge) |
|
| 26A | HOIST | Raise first person among many (5) | raise / H_OST (many, large crowd) around I (one, first person) |
|
| 27A | FOCI | Concerns of common people voiced by India (4) | concerns / FOC (homophone, sounds like FOLK, or common people) + I (India) |
|
| 28A | IRIS | Regular appearances of fibroids in circular body part (4) | circular body part / regular letters appearing in ‘fIbRoIdS’ |
|
| 29A | DON GIOVANNI | Ring bell at five past ten to cut short musical or opera (3,8) | opera / DON G (ring bell) + IO (ten, one followed by zero) + V (five) + ANNI(E) (musical, Annie, cut short) |
|
| Down | ||||
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
|
| 2D | NON-INFLAMMATORY | Sort of informal antonym that’s anything but provocative (15) | anything but provocative / anag, i.e. sort, of INFORMAL ANTONYM (should this be hyphenated as 3-12?) |
|
| 3D | ETHER | Three Mobile number (5) | number (as in ‘something that numbs’, anaesthetic) / anag, i.e. mobile, of THREE |
|
| 4D | ESSEN | Poles initially joined city to their west (5) | (German) city (to the west of Poland!) / ESSEN (German city) = ESS (phonetic pronounciation of S, or South pole) + EN (similar for N, North pole) |
|
| 5D | DIOCESE | See Elgar’s first and second resurrected, with name becoming current (7) | see (bishop’s office) / E (Elgar’s first letter) + SECO(N)(I)D (second, with I – current substituted for N – name) – all reversed (resurrected) |
|
| 6D | NICARAGUA | Jaguar, maybe eating wild iguana? On the contrary, they’re both here (9) | here (a country where you might see both igunas and jaguars) / NI_AGUA (anag, i.e. wild, of IGUANA) around (eating) CAR (Jaguar, maybe) |
|
| 7D | CENTRAL AMERICAN | Cryptically, it could be Mike and Heather from the previous clue? (7,8) | from the previous clue! / the CENTRAL letters of AMERICAN are M (Mike) and ERICA (heather), cryptically |
|
| 8D | THOUGHTS | Some brain activity, but ultimately not conscious (8) | some brain activity / THOUGH (but) + TS (ultimate letters of noT consciouS) |
|
| 13D | IRA | Girl undressed by alpha male (3) | male (man’s name) / (G)IR(L) (girl, undressed of its outer letters) + A (alpha) |
|
| 15D | MONOCLES | Spying aids of spies covering deception up (8) | spying aids / MO_LES (spies) around (covering) NOC (con, deception, reversed, or up) |
|
| 16D | PISTACHIO | 18 cops and 1 crazy nut (9) | nut / anag, i.e. crazy, of THAI (18A) + COPS + I |
|
| 19D | ARCHING | Bent over with large naked body part penetrating (7) | bent over / (L)AR_G(E) (large, naked, or stripped of its outer letters) around CHIN (body part) |
|
| 20D | SPA | Bath drain in which centre pops down (3) | bath (or Bath?!) / SAP (drain, tire out) with the central letter popping downwards gives SPA |
|
| 23D | LOTTO | Game of chance lets one take the other for starters (5) | game of chance / starting letters of ‘Lets One Take The Other’ |
|
| 24D | MAFIA | Top rate celebrity snubbed and upset the mob (5) | the mob / AI (top rate) + FAM(E) (celebrity, snubbed by last letter) – all upset, or reversed |
|
Superlatives fail me. One of the best crosswords I have ever done. Didn’t spot the I’s down each side, not to mention 1a and 8a, until after completion. Thought I might not finish without cheating given an opera at 29, not my forte, but fortunately I knew that one so managed to complete. Too many great clues to mention. I’m not one to deify people, but sometimes setters make it flipping difficult.
CALAMARI was, perhaps, a little weak. I took it as an &lit, but not a great one. There is a typo in blog for 11a, GOIT -> GOUT. Thanks to S&B.
Thanks, Hovis – typo corrected, and yes, I probably should have labelled CALAMARI as an &lit…although I am always wary of doing so as I often get shot down for it!
The animal Calamari is a type of squid, so it does have its arms/legs all pulled together/buried in the middle as it expands and contracts itself for propulsion, so the clue leans towards an &lit (?not a CD, as it has wordplay and definition as the whole thing?!)
The dish ‘calamari’ is made from the deep fried arms (or legs?) of squid (or octopus?).
Maybe if the clue had been ‘Dish of seafood containing a bit of arm buried in the middle (8)’ I wouldn’t have had to angst about it!
Yes, superb indeed, and for once I did spot the ‘I’s on the right (before I had anything down the left), which made it easier later. All this from the man with the quadruple pangram. Thanks to S&B.
Ah yes, the quadruple pangram…worth another look!
Paul A & mc_rapper67
You both seem to have forgotten his quintuple pangram on 1st Jan this year – Indy 9740. Even more of a feat!
Brilliant stuff. I found it significantly harder than previous Maize puzzles, and enjoyed it the more for that. MAPLE, NICARAGUA, CENTRAL AMERICAN my top picks.
Thanks Maize, mc_rapper67
I certainly found that a considerable challenge – that’s the only excuse I have to offer for not spotting all those ‘I’s’ as the solve progressed!
Perhaps the wording of the clue at 8d best describes my experience here……..
Many thanks to mcr whose help with a few bits of parsing was much needed and also thanks to Maize for another rewarding battle.
@James
It’s a funny old game this crossword lark, but I took one look at the grid, thought there’d have to be a reason for it, and spotted the “I” shtick very early on making this the easiest Maize I’ve done.
Still very enjoyable of course – thanks to S&B
A steady solve, with one or two answers we couldn’t parse – and we didn’t spot the nina till we’d finished. NICARAGUA was brilliant, we thought with AGOUTI (found mainly in Crosswordland) a close second for CoD.
Thanks, Maize and mc_rapper67.
I spotted the I’s for a change, with much of the right and most of the left still to do, which certainly helped complete the puzzle, especially as there were many I couldn’t parse, so thanks for all the explanations.
Thanks for another meticulous blog m c rapper, and to all the solvers who’ve commented.
This one had its origins in Dutch’s idea of a W shape of W’s in the grid, and sort of morphed into a pair of I’s and the fact that along with the crosswords here, my newspaper of choice is the i.
And yes, it would indeed be pretty neat if this were to appear one day as a Prize Crossword in the i, with more than the average number of I’s for competition entrants to tot up.
I say, what a good crossword. Didn’t get round to commenting yesterday but have to add my applause.
The Is have it? Well they certainly helped. I liked the nods to the INDEPENDNT and THE I, and also liked THOUGHTS. Simple brilliance at THREE. As for ARCHING … no further comment needed!
Thanks to Maize and mc_rapper67.
Thanks for all the comments/feedback – and apologies to Maize (and Gaufrid) for missing/forgetting the penta-pangram…I must have missed that amongst the purple haze of New Year’s Eve and subsequent hangover!…
mc_ and anyone else who missed it – Simon Anthony’s reaction to the quintuple on Cracking the Cryptic is well worth a watch.
Good stuff from Maize yet again. The repeated i’s made for a quick solve when eventually spotted, though I did find the RHS a little trickier than the rest. More please. 🙂
Well – late to the day but we had to leave a comment. Thankfully we noticed the i’s which enabled us to completed the grid. All good stuff as Jon_S has mentioned,
However, we must thank Kitty @14 for the link. We remembered the puzzle (but not the compiler) but we really enjoyed watching the video of the solve.
Thanks to Maize and also thanks to mc_rapper67 because we hadn’t sorted out all the parsings.