Independent 10,635 by Atrica

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Hard work, but on the whole very pleasing. There were lots of nice clues, but I came unstuck in the SE corner; some of the clues there were terribly hard. Otherwise I enjoyed this.

I think this is about yoga. Amongst the answers there are many yoga positions (I know of the warrior position, the tree position and the mountain position, as well of course as the lotus position) but there are probably several more with names that I don’t know.

Definitions in maroon, underlined. Anagram indicators in italics.

ACROSS
1 POPPING Going off and very quietly supplanting good person in assignment (7)
pp replaces st in posting — a posting is an assignment but I’m not sure which sense of going off is meant — disappearing as in ‘I’m just popping to the shops before they close’ or ‘the bubble wrap was popping’
5 TAPSTER Spatter around liquid dispenser (7)
(Spatter)* — a tapster is said by Collins to be a rare term for a barman, but the West African term for a person who taps palm trees to collect and sell palm wine is I suspect rather rarer
9 GOOSE-STEP Nitwit taking action in German march? (5-4)
goose step — the goose is a nitwit and the step is the action
10 CAMEL Brown arrived late without a note (5)
came l{a te} — camel the fawn colour
11 ORGASM Climactic moment from Borg, as McEnroe discovered (6)
Hidden in BORG, AS McEnroe — climactic comes from climax, not from climate
12 HALF-MOON Partly visible satellite found by doctor, perhaps, if not working (4-4)
Not comfortable here I’m afraid: MO is half of the word ‘moon’, as is ON, which = ‘working’. but how it hangs together I’m not quite sure; possibly if you take ‘on’ from ‘moon’ you get MO, and the fact that ‘on’ is half of ‘moon’ has nothing to do with it…
14 PEACOCK Exercise a fowl to produce a more beautiful bird (7)
PE a cock
15 TREE Among others, General Sherman‘s oddly targeted (4)
t{a}r{g}e{t}e{d} — what has this to do with General Sherman? Well, as I never knew but discovered, General Sherman is a tree, so GS is an example (hence ‘among others’) of a tree
19 HERO Male lead is husband, I’m thinking, with nothing on (4)
h er 0
20 WARRIOR Fighter shot arrow, possessing boundless grit (7)
*(arrow) round {g}ri{t} — I had HARRIER for a while, entered with a shrug and a guess that a harer was a weird word for a shot arrow
24 TRIANGLE Make a botch of altering instrument (8)
*(altering) — watchers of Countdown will be particularly aware that altering, alerting, relating, triangle and integral are all anagrams of each other — and one other: what?
25 UNWISE Questions in hearing after multinational group’s badly advised (6)
UN “whys”
27 LOTUS Seated posture many adopting uncomfortably at first (5)
lot(u{ncomfortably})s — the Lotus Position in yoga, something I find quite impossible
28 NUISANCES “Suggestions welcome!”, I said initially, leading to problems (9)
nu(I s{aid})ances — you have to disregard the punctuation (something I often fail to do, partly because I tend to feel it isn’t fair game, particularly when I’ve struggled with a clue) and read it as ‘Suggestions’ welcome [ie contain] (I s)
29 ESCAPER In the East End, he’s bound to find the one that got away (7)
{h}e’s caper — to caper is to bound
30 HANUMAN Origins of Agni and Nandi (part human Indian god) (7)
h(A{gni} N{andi})uman — they part the word ‘human’, ie they fit into it — this god, who I had to find in my list of Indian gods
DOWN
1 PIGEON Animal needing a long time to become a proficient flyer (6)
pig eon
2 PLOUGH Seven stars break ground (6)
2 defs — there are seven stars in The Plough (the constellation), nothing to do with 7dn
3 IDEAS MEN They’re brilliant but I’m dense, confused about answer (5,3)
(I’m dense)* round a
4 GATE Carriage, they say, for spectators … (4)
“gait”
5 TAP DANCERS … and carpets ruined their performance (3,7)
(and carpets)* — a sort of &lit., because carpets would ruin the performance of a tap dancer
6 PACIFY Calm provided in fast-moving surroundings (6)
pac(if)y — if = provided — calm a verb
7 TAMBOURS Drums peculiar to rumbas (8)
*(to rumbas) — this is about the tambour, which it seems is rather a vague term
8 RELENTED Entered left by mistake and threw in the towel (8)
(Entered L)* — I’m not quite happy with relent = throw in the towel: the first implies slackening the pressure but still being in control, whereas the latter implies giving up — perhaps there are more overlapping meanings somewhere
13 OCEAN LINER Perhaps Indian makeup for Queen Mary? (5,5)
ocean (Indian, for example) liner (eyeliner)
16 WHITE LIE While it circulates before start of election, it’s not true (5,3)
(While it)* e{lection}
17 ARTISTIC Creative painter, returning to attic after losing head, is found inside (8)
(RA)rev. {a}t(is)tic — ‘to’ in the sense ‘next to’ — Don Manley in his Crossword Manual accepts this (quoting a clue that used this device and won an Azed clue-setting competition, so Azed obviously approves also), but I always feel it is a bit stretched
18 MOUNTAIN Significant relief when donkey, say, gets a home (8)
mount a in — the relief is what you get on a relief map — a donkey is an example of a mount
21 ENDS UP Finds oneself in a headstand? (4,2)
‘Ends up’ is a fanciful description of being in a headstand
22 SITCOM Pose can start with sacred sound in The Good Life, perhaps (6)
sit c{an} om — ref. the 70s sitcom The Good Life
23 NELSON England’s highest military man? (6)
CD, presumably referring to Nelson’s Column — I wouldn’t have called Nelson a military man: Collins says that ‘military’ means ‘relating to the armed forces of a country’ but then says ‘relating to or belonging to the army, rather than to the navy or the air force’ so it hedges its bets; its main definition is ‘of or relating to the armed forces (esp the army)’ so perhaps Atrica just about gets away with it
26 FISH Oscar, for example, having a temperature, always lost (4)
f{ever}ish — an Oscar is a species of fish, something I didn’t know, so couldn’t get this

 

24 comments on “Independent 10,635 by Atrica”

  1. Yes, I found the SE hard, entering FISH and HANUMAN from wordplay and not getting NELSON despite an alphabet trawl. I couldn’t really understand HALF-MOON either and missed the theme. I liked the misdirection of the punctuation in NUISANCES, even if it fooled me for a start.

    Didn’t know about the GENERAL SHERMAN giant sequoia; v. interesting Wikipedia article.

    Thanks to Atrica and John (and thanks for the TRIANGLE challenge – I think I might have it, but it sounds a bit iffy)

  3. Didn’t have any issue with HALF-MOON. It cryptically gives MO or ON and Atrica then tells us it’s not the latter. Thanks for parsing TREE. I wrote this in from the wordplay but would never have thought General Sherman was a tree. NUISANCES was nice once I spotted it and got FISH without knowing the fish in question. HANUMAN was an easy write-in for me. Thanks all.

  4. Thanks to Atrica and to John.

    Plenty to enjoy here, with 5d particularly clever.

    Agree with others that the SE corner was hardest, never having heard of the Oscar FISH or of HANUMAN, but got both from the wordplay.  NELSON was our last one, with an appreciative groan when we realised what was meant.

    If the theme is indeed yoga positions, then it’s enjoyable to speculate which other answers might be thematic.  Is there a goose-step position, for example, or a tap dancers position?

  5. New to the blog and a relative newbie to this crossword. I found today’s quite fun, it was rather advantageous knowing the name of the sequoia! Very enjoyable game and I have to say my favourite answer was NELSON. I did have a wee chuckle at that.
    Thanks to Atrica and John

  6. Thanks Atrica, John

    Same problems in the SE, otherwise comfortable enough.  Thought TAP DANCERS and MOUNTAIN were very good. Failed on NELSON, despite, like WordPlodder, going through the alphabet.  I couldn’t rid myself of the distraction of pErSoN, which would have been fine for ‘..man?’ and might have had some cunning trick in it for the rest.

    I don’t see that UNWISE = badly advised

     

  7. I’m in the ‘hard SE’ club.  DNF as couldn’t see ‘fish’ at all at 28D.  Some rather dodgy clues, including 12A, which I still don’t get, and 23D.  Whether you regard naval as military or not, and I don’t see why not, I’ll bet there are higher (in altitude) statues of military men in England – suggestions please!  But thanks anyway to Atrica for the tease and John for the blog.

  9. Tatrasman @7

    Nelson’s column is 52m and Trafalgar Square’s altitude is 10m, but you’ll need to go much higher; there’s a statue of Nelson in the Bull Ring in Birmingham at about 130m altitude.

  10. Yoga poses: camel, half moon, tree, hero, warrior, triangle, lotus, pigeon, plough, gate, mountain, fish. Not sure about peacock. Like others, I had trouble with the South East corner, and didn’t parse nuisances or even get Nelson. Fun trying, though. Thanks to Atrica and John.

  12. Definitely a challenge in the SE corner. Ours was a DNF as OSCAR did not come up in Chambers as a fish. We guessed at TREE and NUISANCES. HANUMAN needed a few checks along the way.

    We missed the YOGA theme too, so not a good day today.

    Thanks to Atrica and John.

  13. I’ll acknowledge the same challenges as everyone else and the same raised eyebrow with regard to ‘military’ and struggle with HALF MOON.  And yoga is not a field with which I have any familiarity so the theme passed over my head.  Over and above that, I thought ORGASM cunningly hidden in an enjoyable surface; I thought WHITE LIE nicely topical, again with a lovely surface; PEACOCK is very smooth; OCEAN LINER is a nice use of the Indian = Ocean trick; TRIANGLE  may be a chestnut but it was nicely clued and ARTISTIC/TAP DANCERS are both very neat with surfaces that tie in nicely to the answer.  As a relatively recent joiner of the Indy fan club, one thing that has consistently stood out is the way the compilers manage to create delightful surfaces that reflect upon the solution as well as giving the wordplay and definition.  I’d say I notice it more often with the Indy than with my other regular, The Guardian.

    I’m not particularly worried about political correctness but do live with two very PC and ‘right on’ teenagers whose influence must be seeping in.  I suspect GOOSE STEP might have been better defined as ‘old’ German march and that IDEAS MEN could be criticised as gender biased.  They’re both OK with me but setters and editors have to walk through minefields when it comes to ensuring complete PC.

    Thanks Atrica and John

  14. Our impression was of two crosswords – a generally accessible one and a separate toughie in the SE corner.  For 26dn we thought Oscar Fish might be a person’s name and were surprised on googling it to discover the actual FISH.  We did vaguely remember the name of the TREE, though.  HUNAMAN we got from wordplay not having heard of it before, and needless to say we missed the theme.  We liked the surface of 11ac but favourite was PEACOCK.

    Thanks, Atrica and John.

  15. PostMark reminded me that I should have commented on the wonderful inclusion for ORGASM. This was my favourite today.

  18. Thank very much to everyone who commented!  I should have clued Nelson as “England’s most elevated admiral” perhaps.  There’s also a DANCER’s pose in yoga (a very difficult balance on one leg, for those interested).

  19. PostMark @15. Certainly wasn’t that excited 🙂 I tend to find predictive text more of a nuisance than a help.

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