Independent 10,506 by Harold

by

I've not come across Harold before and I found this a strange mixture of very easy clues and clues that I really struggled with.

3D was one of those annoying CD type clues for which you spend ages trying to work out some non-existent wordplay (in this case the middle words did have the right number of letters to be an anagram). There were also a couple of entries I simply didn't know (15 and 21), which always tends to make it more difficult, even if the clue is relatively simple. My favourite clue was probably the terse 27. There are a couple of parsings I'm not sure about.

ACROSS
1 LIGHTHOUSE Flasher shocking South Leigh (10)
 

(South Leigh)*
6 CLUB One used to strike for green card (4)
 

DD – playing card and golf club
9 IMPERATIVE Don’t say it’s obligatory (10)
 

DD – Don’t is an example of an imperative (indicated by “say”).
10 GNAT One in flight from warring nations (4)
 

Hidden in warring nations
12 DISCONSOLATE Feeling low, listening to CD after midnight (12)
 

Sort of DD with second part being "disc on so late".
15 LANDGRAVE Old High German, Latin and French accent (9)
 

L{atin} and grave(=grave accent e.g. è). This was apparently a title given to some German princes.
17 CLEAN Completely knock barnacle off bar (5)
 

[Bar]nacle* – used in the sense of "He's clean through".
18 SHAKO Item worn cycling has approval in review (5)
 

Has "cycled" with the S moved to the front + OK< – French military hat
19 SENORITAS Misses could make assertion (9)
 

Assertion*
20 PARTNERSHIPS Transshipper working in more than one business (12)
 

Transhipper*
24 IVER Independent clergyman retired somewhere in South Bucks (4)
 

I{ndependent} + Rev< – village/parish in S Bucks.
25 UNILATERAL One-sided police lie naturally, but not extremely libellously (10)
 

(Lie natural[ly])*
26 TASK Volunteers risked having cover blown twice in assignment (4)
 

TA (Territorial Army, old name for the Army Reserve) + [ri]sk[ed] (two lots of leading and trailing letters removed)
27 DETACHMENT Unit of separation (10)
 

DD (military unit)
DOWN
1 LAID Spread in papers supporting City (4)
 

ID after LA
2 GAPS Goalpost periodically breaks (4)
 

Odd letters of goalpost
3 TURNING POINT Critical time in record centre (7,5)
 

CD/DD relating to the centre of a gramophone record, which is a hole which is fitted over the spindle to allow it to turn.
4 OPTIC It may appear in bars of musical work as prelude to movement (5)
 

Op (short form of opus) + tic. Bars obviously referring to drinking rather than music.
5 SEVENTEEN Noticed something happening internally at this age (9)
 

Event in seen
7 LINEAMENTS Features of ill-meant boring punishment at school (10)
 

Meant* in lines(=punishment at school)
8 BITTERNESS Pungency of beer associated with head? (10)
 

Bitter + ness (a headland)
11 CONCERT PITCH Standard of programme notes at Symphony Hall? (7,5)
 

Not sure on this. Might just be a CD.
13 FLASHPOINT Dangerous place to expose tip (10)
 

Flash(=expose) = point(=tip)
14 UNFAIRNESS Injustice displayed by brunette? (10)
 

CD/DD – brunette would not have fair hair
16 ASSURANCE Idiot you texted operated cellphone lacking core security (9)
 

Ass + U(=you in texting) + ran + c[ellphon]e
21 HALMA Game on board requiring woman to chase husband (5)
 

H{usband} + Alma
22 URGE Desire purification – but not at first (4)
 

[P]urge
23 FLAT Plain paper covering almost everything up (4)
 

FT around al[l]<

18 comments on “Independent 10,506 by Harold”

  1. Thanks, Neal. “Don’t!” is an example (say) of an imperative, as a part of speech. I think you are right about CONCERT PITCH.

  2. In 9a, “Don’t” is an imperative, grammatically speaking.

    Several new words for me: LINEAMENTS, HALMA, LANDGRAVE & IVER. All easily get table from the clue, although my initial guess for 21d was “hella’’.

    Thanks to Harold and Neal.

  3. Obviously, “gettable”, not “get table”. I’m often amazed how word correction programs can get it so wrong at times.

  4. Thanks Harold and NealH for the blog. I’m the least tech person on God’s green earth but I vaguely think Concert, Symphony and programme aren’t in 11d by accident. Some very tricky CD-type clues here held me up after a lightning start

  5. I found this a bit of a mixed bag both in terms of enjoyment and difficulty.

    LINEAMENTS and LANDGRAVE were new to me, but I still have a much loved, very old HALMA set in the loft.

    Is “police” really an anagram indicator?  And I was disappointed to see my usual bugbear of a vague male, or in this case, female name as part of the wordplay for 21a.

    My favourite was DISCONSOLATE.

    Thanks to Harold and to Neal.

  6. Many thanks for the blog, NealH = I needed your clarification for one or two.     Found it quite an easy, accessible and enjoyable, puzzle – favourites DISCONSOLATE and IMPERATIVE.    Was also very grateful the South Bucks location had a giveaway clue.      Many thanks to Harold, esp if it is an Indy debut.

  7. I too found this very enjoyable, just the right level for me, with the difficult clues being gettable by means of the easier crossing ones. Halma was on the tip of my tongue for ages before dragging it out from my memory.  I had to check Shako in the dictionary but had heard of it. Landgrave was an old rank of nobility in the Holy Roman Empire, approximately equal to the more common margrave and British marquess, so somewhere between duke and count. Thanks Harold and NealH.

  8. Welcome to Harold. There were some easy ones, but the hard ones more than tipped the balance to making this quite a challenge. I’d never heard of HALMA and plumped for ‘hella’ after an alphabet trawl; you may (not!) be interested to know there were about 10 possible four-letter women’s names fitting the crossers which could have worked, in theory anyway.

    I did like DETACHMENT (after trying ‘apartment’ first) and the crosswordy LANDGRAVE.

    I look forward to more from Harold. Thanks to him/her and NealH

  9. Hi again Harold and welcome to the ranks of compilers who get financial recompense for their efforts!

    Found this one to be something of a mixed bag and must admit that I didn’t know the 21d board game.  I suspect that we’ve seen 12a similarly clued before today.

    My personal favourite was DETACHMENT – very nicely thought out.

    Thank you for the puzzle, hope we see you again.   Thanks also to Neal for the review.

  10. As others have said, a mixture of the easy and the more tricky, but we got there, with nothing we didn’t know.

    In the old German nobility a Graf (anglicised to grave) was the equivalent of a count.  There were several ‘types’ of them; musicians will have heard of the Margrave of Brandenburg to whom Bach dedicated his six Brandenburg Concertos.

    We were a bit surprised to find that Iver is still in Buckinghamshire; we thought it had been absorbed, like nearby Slough, into Berkshire (although Slough is now a unitary authority).

    We had some niggles.  Shako, we thought, should have had an indication of definition by example, and to be pedantic the TA (volunteers in 26ac) is now the Army Reserve so the clue should have read ‘Old volunteers …’ – but we liked the ‘cover blown twice’ bit.

    Favourite was SENORITAS.

    Thanks, Harold and NealH

  11. A most enjoyable puzzle, with, as others have noted, a nice mix of of a few head-scratchers and some not too tough.

    This was, I thought, excellently clued throughout and an impressive debut.

    Thanks to Harold and NealH.

  12. Very enjoyable solve, HALMA, LANDGRAVE and SHAKO all new words to me. IMPERATIVE and DISCONSOLATE were favourites.

    @Rabbit Dave I can only think that police as an anagrind would be something like “imposing/ensuring proper order”

  13. My experience is pretty much the same as the consensus here: all pretty sound, with some tricky CDs to tease out (which I find less annoying than our blogger).  Another addition to the Indy stable, so welcome to Harold from me as well.

    I gave up on HALMA.

    Thanks to S&B.

  14. Thank you to Neal for the blog and to all those who have provided comments.  This is indeed the first crossword of mine to be published in a daily paper, and I am so pleased that some solvers found it to be an enjoyable and challenging puzzle.  I should like to take this opportunity to give full credit and thanks to Serpent, who has very patiently guided me towards producing clues that attempt to conform with Ximenean principles and provided me with much encouragement.  I am also very grateful to my small group of test solvers who have gently and helpfully pointed out areas where I could make useful improvements.  I do hope to be able appear here again before long.

  15. First word of the first clue – Flasher. Is Harold our Harry in disguise, I wondered? No, but a lot of fun to be had. We’ve been spoiled of late with the new bloods, Lineament the only new word for me, Disconsolate and Unfairness my CoDs.
    Thanks to S&B.

  16. What a good debut! By the way, I saw 11d as an elegant and lit – all the notes played in a programme at Symphony Hall will be at concert pitch which is the standard tuning for an orchestral performance…at least I think so…..

  18. Welcome to the Indy, Harold.

    Like Kathryn’s Dad, we agree mostly with what everyone else has been saying.

    Thanks NealH.

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