For the second week in a row I am asked to stand in for Bertandjoyce.
Peter’s crossword is a friendly one but far from a write-in. The kind of puzzle one expects on a Wednesday.
When writing up the blog, I ‘discovered’ that there were quite a few charades and envelopes. In general, the mostly standard devices had nothing to frighten the horses [however, not everyone seems to agree today] but Peter did her best to use some less familiar (sub)definitions to keep the solver on its toes.
Good crossword, somewhere between Vigo and Dutch (as I see it), for which many thanks to Peter.
Definitions are underlined wherever possible and/or appropriate.
| Across | ||
| 8 | TURNPIKE | Go to staff barrier (8) |
| TURN (go) + PIKE (staff) | ||
| 9 | See 24 Down | |
| 10 | AKEE | Tree put back in Greek arboretum (4) |
| Hidden answer [in]: Greek arboretum, then reversed [put back] Never heard of this tree but easy to get from the wordplay (although, I first had to check whether ‘rake’ wasn’t one). It produces (edible) fruit and is very popular in the Caribbean. |
||
| 11 | NEW ORLEANS | Relatives welcoming role we developed for US city (3,7) |
| NANS (relatives) around an anagram [developed] of ROLE WE | ||
| 12 | WHERRY | Question about stray in boat (6) |
| WHY (question) around ERR (stray) There are a lot of questions but not many boats with ‘err’ in it. |
||
| 14 | ENTRAILS | Old nurses keeping track of body parts (8) |
| ENS (‘old’ nurses, plural of EN (Enrolled Nurse)) around TRAIL (track) | ||
| 15 | MESSIAH | Saviour of old Thailand briefly trapped in net (7) |
| SIA[m] (‘old’ Thailand, without the last letter) inside MESH (net) | ||
| 17 | ANCIENT | Auctioneer’s first new customer ignoring large antique (7) |
| A[uctioneer] + N (new) + {CLIENT (customer) minus L (large)} | ||
| 20 | GALILEAN | Middle-Easterner is related to Italian mathematician (8) |
| Double definition The first someone from Galilea, the second referring to the famous astronomer etc Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). |
||
| 22 | SENTRY | Watch posted on risky boundaries (6) |
| SENT (posted) + R[isk]Y | ||
| 23 | BLEAK HOUSE | Classic work: book associated with escape close to Scottish river (5,5) |
| B (book) + LEAK (escape) + [Scottis]H + OUSE (river) This classic Dickens novel . |
||
| 24/3 | WALT DISNEY | Method defining new director and silent film maker (4,6) |
| WAY (method) going around [defining] an anagram [new] of {D (director) + SILENT} That the film maker had to be Walt Disney was clear to me, parsing the clue was a different kettle of fish. Personally, I find the container indicator ‘defining‘ rather dubious. True, ‘to define’ can mean ‘to describe’, a verb that is well-known as an appropriate indicator. Yet, it feels like “if A=B and B=C then A=C” – something that is not always the case in crosswordland. Point taken, Simon @3 – still a bit strange that such a normal word doesn’t appear in any of the four indicator lists that are available to me. |
||
| 25 | LEVERS | Australian leaving several dodgy bars (6) |
| Anagram [dodgy] of {SEVERAL minus A (Australian)} | ||
| 26 | EGGPLANT | Grand scheme essential to get exotic fruit (8) |
| G (grand) + PLAN (scheme), together inside an anagram [exotic] of GET | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | BUCKSHEE | Spare money to get drugs (8) |
| BUCKS (money) + H,E,E (drugs, heroin & ecstacy) Luckily, I’d seen this word recently somewhere else. |
||
| 2 | ANTE | Writer leaving diamonds as down payment (4) |
| DANTE (writer) minus D (diamonds) Needed some crossers for this as the pool of writers is quite large. |
||
| 3 | See 24 Across | |
| 4 | SEAWEED | Sow eating cow’s food on the beach? (7) |
| SEED (sow) around AWE (cow) | ||
| 5 | SHERATON | Furniture maker adapted thrones to accommodate Camilla’s bottom (8) |
| Anagram [adapted] of THRONES, around [Camill]A | ||
| 6 | REVELATION | English verse found in account book (10) |
| E (English) + V (verse), together inside RELATION (account) It’s the last book of the New Testament. |
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| 7 | KERNEL | Germ found by American carer in barge (6) |
| RN (American carer, Registered Nurse) inside KEEL (barge) Peter decided not to use our marines for RN (which could have served the nautical surface). Had to check RN in this sense. |
||
| 13 | RUSTICATED | Utter cad is furious to be sent down from university (10) |
| Anagram [furious] of UTTER CAD IS | ||
| 16 | AMETHYST | Colour of tip of asparagus and thyme sprinkled on pastry filling (8) |
| A[sparagus] + anagram [sprinkled] of THYME + [pa]ST[ry] Is ‘pastry filling’ all right for just ST, or should it ideally be ASTR? |
||
| 18 | NURSLING | Transport turned up with something used to carry baby (8) |
| Reversal [turned up] of RUN (transport), followed by SLING (something used to carry) | ||
| 19 | ANNULET | Do away with edges of elegant heraldic device (7) |
| ANNUL (do away) + E[legan]T New word to me (‘a charge in the shape of a circle’) but no hold-ups here to enter that word. |
||
| 21 | ALLIES | Republican leaving mass meetings to supporters (6) |
| RALLIES (mass meetings) minus R (Republican) Clue that feels like a partner to 25ac. |
||
| 22 | SLEDGE | Goad batsman with beginnings of slight advantage (6) |
| SL[edge] + EDGE (advantage) As a non-cricketer (meaning: someone who only knows cricket terms from crosswords) this was new to me. Apart from that, I am not keen on ‘beginnings of’ for ‘take the first 2 letters of’ (but I’ve seen setters doing it before). |
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| 24/9 | WELL HEELED | Spring cured so-called rich (4,6) |
| WELL (spring) + a homophone [so-called] of HEALED (cured) | ||
Thanks Peter and Sil
I think ‘defining’ as containment indicator in 24/3 is OK: Chambers definition 5 is “To fix the bounds or limits of”, which WA…Y does in this instance.
Sorry, but didn’t particularly enjoy this. Maybe got out of the wrong side of bed this morning.
Took a while to decide which was going to be 24a and which 24d with the printout being all over the place (as per normal for the Independent). Since 24/3 appeared amongst the acrosses (as well as the downs), I figured this had to give WALT as 24a. As it turned out, it didn’t really matter.
AMETHYST reminded me of possibly the most amazing nina to ever appear. It was a Nimrod (Independent 9120 from Jan 2016). The left column gave TWO BIRDS, the right column gave ONE STONE and, if that weren’t enough, columns 3 & 7 gave REDSTART & FLAMINGO (two birds) and column 13 gave AMETHYST (one stone).
Thanks to Peter and Sil.
I was worried about SLEDGE but my glasses must have needed cleaning as I had misread it as GOOD batsman.Doh!
Hovis@2 I think I remember that Nimrod. He’s in a class of his own.
A bit harder than usual from Peter with four unknowns for me including 1d and the Caribbean tree, which I see from Wikipedia was originally from W. Africa and whose scientific name, Blighia sapida, comes from good old Captain Bligh. Also had a bit of trouble with Galileo being a ‘mathematician’ rather than an astronomer, but how wrong I was.
Maybe not a difficult clue, but I loved the surface for SHERATON.
Thanks to Sil and Peter
Didn’t enjoy this. Huge struggle with upper left corner.
Thanks Sil.
I really enjoyed the first couple of puzzles from Peter but not so much the ones that have followed. Perhaps there has been a reduction in humour concurrent with the ramping up of the difficulty level?
Favourite today was the simple SENTRY.
Thanks to Peter nevertheless and also to Sil for the blog.