A good Tuesday challenge from Wire today – this is his 7th Indy puzzle to date and the 2nd we have had the pleasure of blogging.
There is a theme running through the puzzle relating to Sir Ernest Shackleton’s fateful expedition to attempt to cross Antarctica in 1914, with references in some of the clues as well as in the grid. Sir Robert Scott also appears – he was not with Shackleton in 1914, but Shackleton was 3rd officer on Scott’s ‘Discovery’ expedition in 1901 – 04.
We have only highlighted SHACKLETON, ENDURANCE (his ship, which was famously crushed by the ice and thwarted the expedition, which became a monumental feat of ENDURANCE) and SCOTT, but one could interpret DERRING-DO, GROG and DRESS CODE as being related to the spirit of the age. There are also references to Antarctica generally in 7d, 20d and 26d.
We had the fantastic exerience of visiting South Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsula in 2016 and were able to marvel at the incredible survival of the entire crew of the Endurance, which was entirely due to Shackleton’s determination to survive in the most atrocious circumstances. We drank a toast to ‘The Boss’ at his graveside in South Georgia – he was a truly remarkable man.
Across
1 Special reporter pretended to be a heroic figure (10)
SHACKLETON
S (special) HACK (reporter) LET ON (pretended)
6 Dog circles large seal (4)
PLUG
PUG (dog) round or ‘circling’ L (large)
10 Huge expanse of green returning near banks of Amazon (5)
OCEAN
ECO (green) reversed or ‘returning’ + A N (first and last letters or ‘banks’ of ‘Amazon’)
11 Brave acts the German drummer displayed across Germany (7-2)
DERRING-DO
DER (German for ‘the’) RINGO (drummer) round or ‘displayed across’ D (Germany)
12 Gordon perhaps stripped here. Exposure doesn’t bother him (7)
FLASHER
FLASH (Flash Gordon – comic book hero) + hERe without the first and last letters or ‘stripped’
13 Bit of wood borders northern slope (5)
SLANT
SLAT (bit of wood) round or ‘bordering’ N (northern)
15 Make sense of bill presented by Irish politicians (3,2)
ADD UP
AD (bill, as in poster) DUP (Democratic Unionist Party – Irish politicians)
17 Twisted crime has two cardinals hiding in closed shelter (6,3)
NISSEN HUT
SIN (crime) reversed or ‘twisted’ + E and N (east and north – ‘two cardinals’) ‘hiding’ in SHUT (closed)
19 Revenge potentially consuming one from royal family tree (9)
EVERGREEN
An anagram of REVENGE (anagrind is ‘potentially’) round or ‘consuming’ ER (the queen – ‘one from royal family’)
21 Joker’s come back extremely kinky. Awkward! (5)
GAWKY
WAG (joker) reversed or ‘coming back’ + K Y (first and last or ‘extreme’ letters of ‘kinky’)
22 Trekkers courageously holding search in detail (5)
SCOUR
Hidden or ‘held’ in ‘trekkerS COURageously’
24 Stress = (2 x 10) ÷ s + n (7)
TENSION
TEN (one 10) IO (another ten) round or ‘divided by’ S + N
27 Attractive person caught behind nurse (4,5)
LOOK AFTER
LOOKER (attractive person) round or ‘catching’ AFT (behind)
28 Change of heart in those who flock for arduous hike (5)
SHLEP
SHeEP (‘those who flock’) with the middle letter or ‘heart’ changed from ‘e’ to L
29 Glacial erosion carved out geological feature (4)
GLEN
GlaciaL ErosioN with the middle letters of both words omitted or ‘carved out’
30 Outburst gets rat scurrying around bunk (5,5)
GREAT SCOTT
An anagram of GETS RAT (anagrind is ‘scurrying’) round COT (bunk)
Down
1 Spineless sorts of creatures trapping injured wolf (10)
SNOWFLAKES
SNAKES (creatures) round or ‘trapping’ an anagram of WOLF (anagrind is ‘injured’)
2 A great number of years to set up venue (5)
ARENA
AN ERA (great number of years) reversed or ‘set up’
3 Affinity with a great number below decks? (7)
KINSHIP
K (1000 – a great number) IN SHIP (‘below decks’)
4 Nun cared about English patient suffering (9)
ENDURANCE
An anagram of NUN CARED (anagrind is ‘about’) + E (English)
5 Good getting into minerals to generate huge figures (5)
OGRES
G (good) in ORES (minerals)
7 Gentle scatter across top of horizon might be aurora australis (5,4)
LIGHT SHOW
LIGHT (gentle) SOW (scatter) round or ‘across’ H (first letter or ‘top’ of ‘horizon’)
8 Drink from boozing.org.uk sent back (4)
GROG
Hidden (‘from’) and reversed (‘sent back’) in ‘boozinG.ORG.uk’
9 As leaving, draw sailor (6)
PIRATE
asPIRATE (‘draw’) with the ‘as’ omitted or ‘leaving’
14 Phrase about ‘time’ expressed: it’s not moving in the slightest (7,3)
STAYING PUT
SAYING (phrase) round T (time) PUT (expressed)
16 Guidelines to store fish in unfinished cabinet (5,4)
DRESS CODE
COD (fish) ‘stored’ in DRESSEr (cabinet) without thelast letter or ‘unfinished’
18 Places to recover lost Asian artifacts (short on information) (9)
SANITARIA
An anagram of ASIAN ARTIfacts without or ‘short on’ ‘facts’ (information) – anagrind is ‘lost’. This had us fooled for a while as we thought the answer was ‘SanitOria’ (the ‘o’ is not checked), but we couldn’t parse it. We’d never come across the ‘a’ version before and spent some time trying to figure out a word for ‘artifacts’ with the letters TORI or ITOR plus a word meaning ‘information’ – needless to say we failed.
20 Scold fool on opening parts of Antarctic tour (2,2,2)
GO ON AT
GOON (fool) + A T (first letters or ‘opening parts’ of Antarctic Tour)
21 Wilder sibling’s creation? (7)
GENESIS
GENE (Gene Wilder – film actor) SIS (sibling)
23 It goes around or ascends hill (5)
ROTOR
OR reversed or ‘ascending’ TOR (hill)
25 Stacked blocks in gale alternating one ring with another (5)
IGLOO
‘Alternate’ letters of In GaLe’ + O (one ring) O (another)
26 Lose spirit with what Amundsen planted (4)
FLAG
Double definition
Very good theme and quite a challenge, even though I hesitate to use the word, thinking of SHACKLETON and the challenges he had to face. I was on the lookout for SCOTT, but still managed to miss the not very challenging 30a.
I’m envious you’ve been down to South Georgia, one place I’d love to get to. Visiting Shackleton’s grave would be a real highlight and the scenery and wildlife look absolutely magnificent
Thanks to Wire and to B&J
Nice!
A very nice themed challenge, thank you to Wire and B&J
Just looking at 24a put the fear of god into me so it was left well alone until all the checkers were in place and I could just work from the definition. How stupid do I feel now!
The definition of ‘spineless’ was new to me – rather like it!
Many thanks to Wire and to B&J for the blog.
Yes, we liked this, and saw the theme (post-solve, of course). We twigged 24ac at once – mainly because there was a similar ‘mathematical’ clue in a puzzle not long ago, though we can’t remember what it was or who the setter was. Favourites were FLASHER, NISSEN HUT and the aforementioned TENSION.
Thanks, Wire and B&J.
I thought I wasn’t making much headway through this and then suddenly I realised I had only one clue left to solve. Alas, I fell at the final hurdle and totally failed to get 30ac, tentatively guessing GREAT SHOUT.