See if you can spy the theme.
This was an excellent themed offering from Chalmie, who managed to get in a lot of references to spies and spying. A little general knowledge would definitely help in solving the puzzle which used a good range of clueing devices to entertain us. Some of the parsings were not immediately obvious, but I think I have parsed everything to my satisfaction.
If I was being picky, there are a couple of superfluous words in some of the clues, e.g. “an” in 4dn and “a” in 19dn, but that would be being pedantic.
Thanks, Chalmie.
| Across | ||
| 1 | ALDRICH AMES | Nearly all titled women entertaining wealthy American spy (7,4) |
| [nearly] AL(l) DAMES (“titled women”) entertaining RICH (“wealthy”)
Aldrich Ames is a former CIA agent who was also an agent of the KGB. |
||
| 7 | SUP | Meal without a drink (3) |
| SUP(per) (“meal”) without PER (“a”) | ||
| 9 | POSED | Sat and thought, erasing previous answer (5) |
| (sup)POSED (“thought”, erasing SUP (previous answer, i.e 7ac) | ||
| 10 | PESSIMIST | One has little hope for “Spies” – terrible film (9) |
| *(spies) + MIST (“film”) | ||
| 11 | RE-EXAMINE | Engineers cut back on explosive and have another look (2-7) |
| RE (Royal “Engineers”) + <=AXE (“cut” back) on MINE (“explosive”) | ||
| 12 | TRENT | Rector apparently camping at religious council (5) |
| R (rector) in TENT (if you’re in a tent you’re camping)
The Council of Trent between 1545 and 1563 in Trent (or Trento, in northern Italy), was the 19th ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. and has been described as the embodiment of the Counter-Reformation. |
||
| 13 | TANAGER | Beat one maturing bird (7) |
| TAN (“beat”) + AGER (“one maturing”) | ||
| 15 | MOLE | Spy additional line for resistance (4) |
| MO(R>L)E (“additional” with L (line) instead of [for] R (resistance)) | ||
| 18 | SEES | Oddly skewers spies (4) |
| [oddly] S(k)E(w)E(r)S | ||
| 20 | FRAGILE | Delicate dossier about fund- raising at university (7) |
| FILE (“dossier”) about RAG (“fund-raising at unoversity”) | ||
| 23 | HALLO | Gloria accepts sovereign’s greeting (5) |
| HALO (“gloria”) accepts L (pound, so “sovereign”) | ||
| 24 | NEWSAGENT | Replacement spy kidnaps small merchant (9) |
| NEW AGENT (“replacement spy”) kidnaps S (small) | ||
| 26 | LAST TRUMP | Endure president at final judgment (4,5) |
| LAST (“endure”) + TRUMP (“president”) | ||
| 27 | ODOUR | Smell moving back round to head of river in Portugal (5) |
| DUORO (“river in Portugal”) with O (“round”) moved to the head | ||
| 28 | YET | Still, every memorable event ends (3) |
| (ever)Y (memorabl)E (even)T [ends] | ||
| 29 | FELIX LEITER | Lift exile ordered by Her Majesty for American spy (5,6) |
| *(lift exile) by E.R. (“Her Majesty”)
Felix Leiter was an American spy in Bond movies (appearing in 10 of them) |
||
| Down | ||
| 1 | ASPERITY | Sharpness of spy I rate poorly (8) |
| *(spy i rate) | ||
| 2 | DISCERNS | Circle makes money getting rid of American spies (8) |
| DISC (“circle”) + E(a)RNS (“makes money”) getting rid of A | ||
| 3 | INDIA | Paper mannequin, diamond rings (5) |
| Hidden in [rings] “mannquIN DIAmond”
India paper is very thin paper, typically used in the printing of Bibles. |
||
| 4 | HAPPIER | More pleased with software that’s installed inside an hour (7) |
| APP (“softeare”) + I.E. (“that is”) inside HR (“hour”) | ||
| 5 | MISTERM | Give wrong title for Judi Dench as head spy (7) |
| Judi Dench would not be MISTER M in the Bond movies… | ||
| 6 | SCINTILLA | We hear of someone cultivating greed – maybe just a little bit (9) |
| Homophone of [we hear] SIN TILLER (“someone cultivating greed, maybe”) | ||
| 7 | SMILEY | Emoticon spy (6) |
| Double definition.
George Smiley was a spy in several John Le Carré novels. |
||
| 8 | POTATO | Books covering over vegetable (6) |
| <=OT ATOP (“books” i.e. Old Testament + “covering”, over) | ||
| 14 | GREW OUT OF | Got too old for 4 – we got smashed! (4,3,2) |
| *(four we got) | ||
| 16 | HIRED OUT | Let increased uncertainty be heard (5,3) |
| Homophone of HIGHER DOUBT (“increased uncertainty”) | ||
| 17 | LECTURER | Academic tempting one to circumvent European court (8) |
| LURER (“tempting one”) to circumvent E (European) Ct. (court) | ||
| 19 | SENSUAL | Being given to fleshly pleasures puts non-smoking university in a fix (7) |
| NS (non-smoking) + U (university) in SEAL (“fix”) | ||
| 20 | FOWLPOX | Poultry farmer’s problem is predator eating bird quietly (7) |
| FOX (“predator”) eating OWL (“bird”) + P (quietly) | ||
| 21 | PHILBY | Acid lake busy dissolving American spy (6) |
| PH1 (“acid”) + L (lake) + B(us)Y [dissolving US]
Kim Philby was a British agent (one of the Cambridge Five) who was also an KGB agent. |
||
| 22 | CLOSET | Hidden nearby, a slice of toast (6) |
| CLOSE (“nearby”) + [a slice of] T(oast) | ||
| 25 | AROSE | Happened to briefly see Carol naked earlier (5) |
| [briefly] SE(e) with (c)ARO)l) [naked] earlier | ||
*anagram
Nice! (Michael)* (not sure which of his anagrams) recently mentioned he was going to produce some puzzles with a theme word(s) (spy/spies here) having multiple meanings and, at least once, appearing in anagram fodder (as in 10a). I shall enjoy them while they last.
Lots of words I didn’t know. Shan’t embarrass myself by listing them. But the clueing was so concise that I never really doubted I had the correct answer.
Wonder if the juxtaposition of TRUMP and ODOUR was deliberate.
Thanks to Chalmie and loonapick.
I mentioned that I was fond of compiling such puzzles, and have often sent them to the FT. My next FT puzzle has a different quirk, but I shall no doubt return to the thesaurus-bashing soon.
10a TRENT reminded me of the detective novel ‘Trent’s Last Case’ by E. C. Bentley that I read years ago and enjoyed. As the title suggests, he is a sleuth.
Wouldn’t moving the O at the end of DUORO to the front produce ODUOR rather than ODOUR? Other than my confusion on that score I enjoyed this crossword. Thank you to the setter and blogger.
@Peter If the river was called “Duoro”, that would be a valid point. But since the river is the Douro, your quibble is with the blogger, not the puzzle.
Some good variations on the spy theme. I was glad that I remembered FELIX LEITER from a recent appearance in a Bond themed puzzle, but ALDRICH AMES had to go in from the wordplay. I liked the ‘Emoticon spy’ at 7d.
Of the non-themed clues, I didn’t know INDIA paper or the ‘river in Portugal’ (either spelling!) although wordplay and definition respectively were helpful. SCINTILLA has appeared a few times recently in various places so the ‘little bit’ definition at the end of the clue for 6d was a giveaway.
Thanks to Chalmie – I look forward to your next FT ‘quirk’ – and to loonapick.
I think loonapick may be mixing up the spelling of the Portuguese DOURO with its Spanish extension, the DUERO.
@Chalmie 5 – Ah, there we go. I hadn’t heard of the river so didn’t notice the error. Apologies.
Thanks Chalmie for taxing my brain since I know little about spies, real or imagined. I was able to parse all of them except SMILEY but it was a laborious process. Thanks Loonapick, otherwise, I would not have known about INDIA paper.
Nice one,Chalmie, my only mistake was SIP at 7a.
Dreadful self-indulgent obscure clueing. And poor clueing. This has just made annoyed me. 3dn = India? FFS…
Doesn’t the poster at 11 break at least one of the site rules? Not the first time either.
Thanks Chalmie and loonapick
Found this one quite challenging with quite a number of unknown actual / fictional spies and a few other new terms (INDIA paper, TANAGER and FOWLPOX). Knew the DOURO river, so that was an early entry – as was George ’emoticon’ at 7d.
Struggled with the parsing of a few of them, in particular HALLO (where I initially had HELLO until I eventually found the ‘gloria’ – HALO definition) and MOLE (that I didn’t see at all in the end until coming here – strange usually pick up those letter substitution ones).
Finished in the NE corner with that MOLE and MISTERM (where it was clear early on where M was involved – got stuck in the line of thinking that M IS someone rather than MISTER M of the only female version of the head of MI6).
Took longer than normal but thoroughly enjoyed it.