A surprise appearance from Knut whose puzzle can be found in the post directly above this one.
If still interested, go there first before reading any further.
Three years ago our beloved setter made a contribution to the York do as Margrave, this time he uses his familiar Indy pseudonym.
As expected, this was another excellent puzzle – with a few references to the S&B’s organiser and more generally to Yorkshire (or should I say Sheffield?).
When Knut submitted the puzzle for blogging, he said that it was perhaps ‘libertarian’ at places.
Well, I don’t care – I liked it.
At the end of the blog one can find the completed grid in which the solutions that refer to John Henderson are highlighted in colour.
| Across | ||
| 1 | TAILSPIN | Attempts to find donkey when cycling spiral out of control (8) |
| If you ‘cycle’ PIN TAILS (attempts to find donkey), you’ll get indeed TAILSPIN The wordplay is obviously built around the children’s game Pin the Tail on the Donkey. |
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| 5 | SPARSE | Struggling at first to justify answer to clue for “meagre” (6) |
| S[truggling] + PARSE (to justify answer to clue) | ||
| 10 | PEPPERONI | Coach for city laid on beer & sausage (9) |
| PEP (coach for city, Man City boss Pep Guardiola) + PERONI (beer) The Grammar Police would like to see ‘City’ instead of ‘city’, whereas Liverpool fans surely prefer the use of lower case …. Peroni (Nastro Azzuro) was first brewed in Vigevago, Italy, in 1846 by Francesco Peroni. Since 2016 the Peroni brand is owned by the Japanese brewing giant Asahi. |
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| 11 | NAOMI | I complain about Campbell (5) |
| Reversal [about] of: I + MOAN (complain) Here she is. |
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| 12 | MAT | Get into a tangle, missing umlauts frequently (3) |
| Alternate letters deleted [missing frequently]: umlaut | ||
| 13 | FLUFFIER | Like Alan Freeman after putting on a fleece? (8) |
| Sort of cryptic definition Alan Freeman was an Australian/British DJ who was nicknamed ‘Fluff’. |
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| 14 | EPSOM | Mopes about the place, having the downs (5) |
| Anagram [around] of MOPES The answer referring to Epsom Downs. |
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| 16 | EXTREME | Outrageous feature of Teletext; remember? (7) |
| Hidden answer [feature of]: Teletext remember | ||
| 17 | DERWENT | Experienced peacekeepers ducked in river (7) |
| UNDERWENT (experienced minus UN (peacekeepers) There are a few Derwents in the UK (and in Australia). I’ll just pick the River Derwent in Yorkshire (because we were in York, weren’t we?). |
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| 19 | DECIDER | 12.1 to the Americans; for Germans, the big game (7) |
| DECI (12.1 tot he Americans) + DER (the, for Germans) The first bit of the wordplay needs perhaps some clarification: in the US, “12.1” might mean “December 1” (which then leads to Dec1). |
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| 21 | ACCEPTS | Takes part in revolting, basest peccadillos (7) |
| Hidden [part] in “basest peccadillos”, which then should be reversed [revolting] | ||
| 22 | RHEIN | Hot, eastern current in Fleet River (5) |
| H (hot) + E (eastern) + I (current), together inside RN (fleet, Royal Navy) Most of the – what we call – Rhine flows through Germany, so why not choose the German word for this river? |
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| 24 | LAMB CHOP | Sock puppet left a “curtains for Tottenham” note, upsetting Poch (4,4) |
| L (left) + A + [Tottenha]M + B (note, in music), followed by an anagram [upsetting] of POCH For those who are not into football, ‘Poch’ is short for Mauricio Pochettino, coach of Tottenham Hotspur. |
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| 25 | ICI | Old chemical firm at the heart of toxin (3) |
| The middle letters of: RICIN (Collins: a highly toxic protein, a lectin, derived from castor-oil seeds: used in experimental cancer therapy) ICI stands for: Imperial Chemical Industries. |
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| 27 | OUGHT | Should have engaged the enemy leaving France (5) |
| FOUGHT (engaged the enemy) minus F (France) | ||
| 28 | STOCKPILE | Hoard Calvin Klein pants, tops I nicked when touring (9) |
| The first letters [tops] of Calvin Klein pants, followed by I, all of this together inside STOLE (nicked) | ||
| 29 | STRIDE | Muck about in Swanage on vacation in March (6) |
| Reversal [about] of DIRT (muck), put inside S[wanag]E | ||
| 30 | SEASONED | John and Jane finally tuck into surf & turf with salt and pepper (8) |
| [Joh]N + [Jan]E, together inside {SEA (surf) + SOD (turf)} | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | TOPS | Beats what’s needed, having 461 on the board (4) |
| Double definition The second one is about Darts. A player needs 501 to win a leg and therefore, if ‘having 461 on the board’ needs another 40. That can be done, for example, by throwing a ‘double top’ (= 2 x 20). |
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| 2 | IMPOLITIC | FT setter, drunk, grabbing Mountie in command – that’s unwise! (9) |
| IO (FT setter, one of 4 pseudonyms in this crossword) + LIT (drunk), together around MP (Mountie, (Royal Canadian) Mounted Police), and finally + IC (in command) | ||
| 3 | SHEFFIELD UNITED | Fluent side; if he’d got Messi, I gather they could be world-beaters! (9,6) |
| Anagram of FLUENT SIDE IF HE’D with the indicator being ‘got messy’ (a homophone of ‘got Messi’) And the definition? Wishful thinking …. ! [but true, they’re doing well, The Blades] |
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| 4 | IDOLISE | I indeed tell fibs about Sabbath worship (7) |
| I DO LIE (I indeed tell fibs) around S (Sabbath) | ||
| 6 | PONTEFRACT CAKES | I hear the Pope stacked shelves in patisserie producing Yorkshire delicacies (10,5) |
| Homophone [I hear] of: PONTIFF (the Pope) RACKED CAKES (stacked shelves in patisserie) | ||
| 7 | ROOTS | Test batsman, opener from Sheffield, gets set (5) |
| ROOT (Test batsman, cricketer Joe Root) + S[heffield] | ||
| 8 | ENIGMATIST | Abusing gin at times… (10) |
| Anagram [abusing] of GIN AT TIME No definition here. |
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| 9 | NIMROD | …some martini, Mr. O’Donnell? (6) |
| Hidden answer [some]: martini Mr O Donnell No definition here either but, as this is an ellipsis, you could see this as “one defining the other”. |
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| 15,20 | HENDERSON’S RELISH | Mine host’s evident gusto for Sheffield’s bottled nectar (10,6) |
| HENDERSON’S (mine host’s, of John who hosted the S&B meeting) + RELISH (evident gusto) Knut likes his Sheffield, doesn’t he? What Wikipedia has to say about Henderson’s Relish. There’s an interesting line in this article: “The comedian Tom Wrigglesworth said of Henderson’s Relish that while outsiders think the condiment is Sheffield’s answer to Worcestershire sauce, Sheffielders think it is the answer to everything.” |
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| 18 | EXPLOSION | Working to support former US Speaker giving up ecstasy, blow (9) |
| EX (former) + {PELOSI (US Speaker (of the House of Representatives), Nancy Pelosi) minus E (ecstasy)}, followed by ON (working) | ||
| 20 | See 15 | |
| 21 | ARMHOLE | Mahler, furious about nothing, puts his fist right through it! (7) |
| Anagram [furious] of MAHLER around O (nothing) As to the definition: perhaps I should have underlined less, or more. It is a bit loose anyway, in my opinion. [but that suits me well because my arm will then fit in easily] |
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| 23 | ELGAR | Deals go awry, every now and again (5) |
| Regularly taken letters [every now and again] of: Deals go awry Pseudonym #4 (not further defined). |
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| 26 | LEWD | Wife wearing light blue (4) |
| W (wife) inside LED (light, Light-emitting diode) I can appreciate a simple, neat and elegant clue (such as this one). |
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The only one we finished during the day (the others are a treat in store) and very satisfying. Once we got ENIGMATIST closely followed by NIMROD we were on the lookoput for other references, which certainly helped.
Thanks. Knut and Sil – and Thanks to John H for organising it all again.
Thanks again to John and Jane from Jennifer and me.
I only vaguely knew about Peroni beer.
A fine puzzle, so thanks to Knut.
I too managed most of this on the day. 17a defeated me, despite living in Yorkshire and knowing the Derwent I assumed the river was the Dart around some acronym of amilitary force. I couldn’t parse it and
bunged in DARKEST!
Loved spotting the references to John, IO being last to fall.
6d a great clue. My first attempt at setting a puzzle (Rookie 283 at big dave’s) included a clue for Yorkshire Mixture. I may have to pinch Knut’s clue for another day.
Thanks for a great weekend.
This was a real treat, as I don’t get much time for crosswords apart from my regular ones (the Inquisitor most weekends and two or three Guardian dailies a week).
I was doing well and then got stuck in the SW corner, for the simple reason that I had never heard of that thematic relish and there was nothing in the clue to help me build the name (except for RELISH). I did the right thing – I cheated – and with that assistance I rattled off the remaining clues, using all the ideas I had bottled up from them. (I got the names Enigmatist and Nimrod but didn’t suspect anything at 15d as well).
I particularly liked the clues for ARMHOLE (can a clue like this for that word be improved upon?), PONTEFRACT CAKES, SEASONED (for John and Jane, yes, but more for surf and turf) and TAILSPIN. I didn’t quite understand the clue for SHEFFIELD UNITED, but all is now clear (‘I gather’). PEPPERONI was neat too (and I knew the names of the coach and the beer). FLUFFIER was my last in (I had forgotten all about that DJ).
Thanks to Knut for the puzzle and to Sil for an excellent blog. Sorry I couldn’t be at the event on the day. (I’ve been tackling the four puzzles in parallel and still have one to finish.)
Having missed the event, we tackled Knut’s enjoyable contribution this lunchtime.
We managed to fill the grid fairly quickly, especially once we recognised the references to yesterday’s host. We had to make a bit of a guess at the parsing of 1ac and 25ac (which we eventually decided must be as explained by Sil) and had not realised John’s evident connection with Sheffield – is it just United, or is it his home city?
Thanks to Knut and Sil, and of course to John, whose brilliant IQ we relished yesterday.
Bertandjoyce, I think I said “Knut likes his Sheffield, doesn’t he?”. See?
Very enjoyable as always
Thanks to Knut and Sil
I LOVE 1 down!!