Independent 9,964 – Peter

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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.
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).
24/9 WELL HEELED Spring cured so-called rich (4,6)
WELL (spring) + a homophone [so-called] of HEALED (cured)

 

6 comments on “Independent 9,964 – Peter”

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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

  6. 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.

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