Independent 10,084 by Italicus

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Apart from one or two grumbles detailed below, this was all pleasantly done. Several good clues, such as 24ac. I need help on the parsing of 20ac, which is quite beyond me, but otherwise it all seemed reasonably easy.

Definitions in maroon, underlined. Anagram indicators in italics.

Nothing that I can see here.

Across
1 PANEL DISCUSSION Fury about broadcast includes Question Time, perhaps (5,10)
pa*(includes)ssion
9 REVVING Increasing power of engine, one’s excluded from rallying (7)
rev{1)ving — but to be pedantic if one’s excluded from rallying then it should be revvng, so the clue should read ‘…’ the first one’s excluded from rallying’ for the wordplay to be correct, but of course the surface would suffer
10 ACERBIC Tip of red pen used by card sharp (7)
r{ed} Bic, after Ace
11 HINDU Religious type joins church in Dublin (5)
Hidden in churcH IN DUblin
12 TOLERABLE Mediocre line in Lear to be rewritten (9)
l in (Lear to be)*
13 NISSEN HUT Soldiers’ lodgings in Northern Ireland closed? About three-quarters (6,3)
NI s(S E N)hut — the three quarters are S, E, N — and does three-quarters = three quarters? Some would say no.
15 HIDER Greeting communist revolutionary; one who’s on the run? (5)
Hi (red)rev. — a rubbish word, but it can eventually be found in Collins as a derived form of ‘hide’ in British
16 GERMY An abandoned part of Europe, crawling with bugs (5)
Germ{an}y
18 INNER TUBE Crossing Tiber with nun, cardinal produces rubber ring (5,4)
*(Tiber nun) E — E = east, the cardinal point
20 NEVERMORE Message delivered by raven is not to be repeated (9)
What on earth is this all about? Is it some literary reference or something?  The definition’s OK but what message? What raven? [Yes indeed it is a literary reference — in Edgar Allan Poe’s poem The Raven keeps saying ‘Nevermore’.  Thanks Gaufrid and Dansar.]
23 OPTIC Measure introduced to stop bottlenecks? (5)
CD — an optic, not evidently used much nowadays, is one of those bulbous glass things below inverted bottles in pubs which enabled them to get the correct measure
24 STERNAL Starts to remove needle lodged within half-inch of breastbone (7)
ste(r{emove} n{eedle})al — half-inch (= pinch) is Cockney Rhyming Slang for steal
25 BURRITO Food, back massage and joint in Brazilian city (7)
(rub)rev. Ri(T)o — T-joint
26 SMALL-MINDEDNESS South precinct was troubled by lawman’s petty attitude (5-10)
S mall minded [= was troubled by] Ness [Eliot Ness]
Down
1 PARTHENOGENESIS Reformed pioneers sang about the virgin birth (15)
the in *(pioneers sang)
2 NOVENAS Prayers left out of book on Spanish saint’s upbringing (7)
nove{l} (San)rev.
3 LEISURELY Laid-back learner initially exasperated instructor, no doubt (9)
L e{xasperated} i{nstructor} surely
4 INGOT Old pub, it’s said, was furnished with metal bar (5)
“inn” got [= was furnished with]
5 CHARLATAN Phoney map outlines the French-Algerian borders (9)
char(la)t A{lgeria}n — but, as in 13ac, does French-Algerian = French Algerian?
6 SNEER Knight taken in by soothsayer’s superior look (5)
s(N)eer — knight in chess, N because of K = king
7 IMBIBED International tech company set up foundation for drunk (7)
I (IBM)rev. bed
8 NUCLEAR REACTORS New clue: carrots are alternative sources of energy (7,8)
(n clue carrots are)*
14 HOI POLLOI Home Office suppresses independent survey on Love Island and Plebs (3,6)
HO I poll 0 i.
15 HARBOURED Deborah, wandering around ancient city, found shelter (9)
(Deborah)* round Ur
17 RIVIERA Nice surroundings (7)
CD, relying on the French town Nice looking like the English word
19 UNTWINE Separate organisation has duplicate key (7)
UN twin E
21 RENAL Initially, radiology expert noted acute lesions of the kidneys (5)
First letters
22 EMBED Journalist claiming award is fix (5)
e(MBE)d.

*anagram

19 comments on “Independent 10,084 by Italicus”

  1. Thanks John.

    20ac is a reference to a poem, “The Raven”, written by Edgar Allan Poe in which the raven repeatedly says NEVERMORE. See here.

  3. I’ll go along with John’s preamble.   I enjoyed most of this but a few clues / answers were very obscure, at least to me, e.g.: 20a; the lawman in 26a; and the answer to 2d.  But I got there in the end with only minimal electronic assistance.

    Thanks to Italicus and to John.

  5. Good, steady solve with the long ‘uns falling with a few crossers.

    I didn’t know about The Raven either. I quite liked REVVING, despite the issue highlighted above. I’m not concerned about having to ignore hyphens; seems par for the course of a cryptic.

    LOI was BURRITO with me looking for a Brazilian city called BUR????, and it wasn’t Burnley either, doh!

    Thanks Italicus and John.

     

  6. I was possibly lucky in that I knew the obscurities – but that’s quite often the case when crossword solving .   I’ve been trying to fit ‘nevermore quoth the raven’ into a conversation all morning without success so far

    Thanks to Italicus and John

  7. No complaints from me though I was as mystified by the ‘raven’ reference as our blogger. The only repeated NEVERMORE (or as it turns out ‘never more’) I could dimly bring to mind from schoolboy poetry was ‘Never more Miranda, Never more’ which I now see is from ‘Tarantella’ by Hilaire Belloc.

    I liked the reminder of Eliot Ness (played by Robert Stack in the old B&W TV series), OPTIC and BURRITO – very healthy I’m sure. I don’t think I’ve come across ‘to HARBOUR’ as an intransitive verb before.

    Thanks to Italicus and John

  8. Nice to see Italicus back on parade.   I enjoyed this one with the exception of 15&16a which caused a bit of tooth-sucking!

    Top places went to 10&20a plus 5d.

    Thanks to Italicus and to John for the blog.

  10. It wasn’t a hindrance to solving but shouldn’t 23a measurer? Or is OPTIC used as a kind of measure in physics or elsewhere.

  12. I remember “measure” meaning “something that measures” once came up in discussion some time back. Definition 8 in Chambers, for example, says this and gives as an example something of known volume for measuring capacity.

  13. Thank you Rabbit Dave and Hovis, that covers it.

    It occurs to me now that a measuring tape is called a tape MEASURE, not MEASURER

  14. Like crypticsue, we were possibly lucky in that we knew the obscurities.  No real problems but we weren’t too impressed with HIDER and GERMY; we suspect the setter may have painted him/herself into a corner with very few words to fit the crossers in those two places.

    But a very enjoyable puzzle; we particularly liked STERNAL and NUCLEAR REACTORS for their surfaces.

    Thanks, Italicus and John.

  15. A steady solve. I knew the raven but not the lawman and that couldn’t be anything else really. Only hold up was my own fault, absent mindedly putting Nissan hut. Must have been influenced by recent news. Thanks both.

  16. Got held up with 5d because the word French appeared twice in the clue.
    2nd time today I’ve seen three-quarters in a clue, the other time it was without the hyphen. Also, I’m old enough to remember The Untouchables.

  17. If I’ve ever met Ness, I’ve forgotten him.  Fished out NOVENAS from somewhere, but wouldn’t have without the aid of wordplay and checkers.  Was surprised that The Raven isn’t more widely known – but it’s nice to have a change from the usual situation of finding yet another thing I don’t know that everyone else seems to!

    Noticed the border issue in CHARLATAN, which took me longer to get across that it should have, and am also wondering a little about joins as a hidden/embed indicator (11a).  Is it that the answer joins the relevant words together because it straddles them?

    My favourites were ACERBIC and BURRITO.

    Thanks Italicus and John.

  18. Probably a little late to post this but, Kitty @17, I took ‘joins’ in 11a like in ‘joins a club’ I.e. becomes part of the club.

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