We tend to think of Kairos as an Independent on Sunday setter, but he has appeared more recently in weekday slots, and here he is on a Tuesday – with a theme?
Our first reaction was one of surprise at the large number of clues (36) and the solver-unfriendly grid – four central entries each with a single connection to four mini-crosswords in each corner. This certainly hampered the solve, as did the new words (to us) at 10ac, 14ac and 24d, and the rather too devious wordplay at 15d.
Having got stuck part-way through the puzzle, we realised that there was a theme based around 29/7’s 23s, which helped us complete the grid. When we found 12 thematic entries – the author himself and five titles – we forgave Kairos the unfriendly grid.
JUT (project) round or ‘involving’ LIE (story)
BRASS (lip) HAT (bowler)
R (republican) AZOReS (islands) without or ‘losing’ ‘e’ (base)
ALAS (sadly) round or ‘swallowing’ CAT (pet) R (rook, in chess) – a new word for us
Hidden in (‘some’) priSON Guards
Double definition
ABBA is a palindrome (‘either way’) – another new word for us
IS (internal security) SUE (prosecute)
BUSk (play) without the last letter or ‘cut short’ after NIM (game)
BETa-RAY (form of radiation) without ‘a’ (atomic)
LEV (Leviticus) ON (about) all reversed or ‘reviewed’
Triple definition
NArKED (in a huff) with the ‘r’ (rector) omitted or ‘departing’
Double definition
ONE (a) LINER (ship)
COG (cheat) + CAN (Canadian) reversed or ‘returning’
An anagram of I FELT DIY – anagrind is ‘training is required’. On entering FIDELITY, Joyce immediately thought of the novel HIGH FIDELITY but had forgotten who it was written by. It was only when we were stuck and began looking for a theme that it clicked. We were then able to find HIGH.
RT (right) in SKIS (runners)
JC (Julius Caesar) round or ‘capturing’ an anagram of RUSSIA – anagrind is ‘in revolt’
An anagram of SINS and ZEAL – anagrind is ‘wantonly’
Cryptic definition
LI (Light Infantry – ‘soldiers’) in REC (playground)
S (second) LAM (strike)
RN (Royal Navy – ‘sailors’) in HO (house) BY (next to)
An anagram of SANCTUs without the last letter or ‘finish’ – anagrind is ‘composed’
W (women) INNER (intimate) – a reference to Michael Winner
FEVriER (French – the language in Mali – for February – a month) without RI (Republic of Indonesia) – this one really baffled us, and, having sorted it out, it really seems unnecessarily complicated. We only solved it because we had PITCH elsewhere in the grid already.
Double definition
MAY (could) HE (one male) M (another male)
An anagram of VINTNER (anagrind is ‘drunken’) round or ‘welcoming’ D (daughter)
KICKS (recoils) after FLY (surreptitious) – we had to check that this is a Rugby manoeuvre
SH (be quiet) R (run) OFF (away) – another new word which we determined from the wordplay, but really didn’t think could exist – but there it is in Chambers!
A G (good) RED (wine) round or ‘including’ E (first letter or ‘hint’ of earthiness)
Hidden in VolkswAGEN Trucks
L (Liberal) RIG (doctor) reversed or ‘raised’
BOO (jeer) K (king)
Crikey, that was tough, with a few new words for me in 10a, 33a, & 24d. As usual I didn’t manage spot the theme.
I needed to “phone a friend” to understand the parsing of 27a. I took the answer to 33a to be CONNAC which I discovered is a French commune, where CON = cheat.
Many thanks to Kairos and to B&J.
The central block of words beat me so thanks for the enlightening blog. I didn’t know 10a or 24d either but they fell with nice clues and cross checking letters. It’s always disappointing not to finish, especially as I half spotted the theme, but I enjoyed what I could do.
Thanks to Kairos and Bertandjoyce
yes… Bertandjoyce nailed the overall feeling I had also… most unfriendly grid for me so hard work all the way.. never considered a captain to be in the top brass category of the military but i guess it might apply to navy?.. and I’ve always associated Winner with film direction but no doubt he’s produced a couple also.. on the bright side nice to see the light infanry getting a shout over their RE, RA, n TA colleagues! i certainly enjoyed 1dn, 20dn, and 9ac was neat.. having had an ‘OO’ gauge in my youth 7dn was also a pleasure! Never saw the theme…
thanks Bertandjoyce.. and Kairos
All good fun, and very satisfying to pick out the novels – thanks Kairos!
A few unknown words, largely the same as B+J. 27a was our last one in, completing _A_E_ only after consulting a list of the relevant novels.
A couple of extra points:- we didn’t know the meaning of fly = surreptitious and, despite watching a lot of rugby, hadn’t heard the term fly kick (more usually a fly hack, I think?)
Also, never having heard cog = cheat, we confidently entered CONNAC for 33a. From Wikipedia: “Connac is a commune in the Aveyron department in southern France.”
Thanks to B+J for blogging.
Too many unknowns for me. I also wondered about CONNAC but a quick check in Chambers revealed that “cog” can also mean “cheat”. Coincidentally, in the last Monk crossword, PeeDee mentioned that ALCATRAS was a type of bird so I knew that one. The theme was lost on me but must be a big help for those in the know.
I was put off from the start by calling a 14 year old female a lady
Never heard of a game called NIM (I’m used to RU). or COG for cheat.I expect such obscurities in barred puzzles but I’m not on the look out of a Tuesday
FEVER wordplay was rather devious again I guess this can be excused as once you see HORNBY, then NICK and FIDELITY the setter must have thought is would make it too ,easy if he didnt “Joycify” a few clues(sorry, just made that word up)
But boring it wasnt ALCATRAS was rather good.
Thanks Kairos and B&J
A DNF for me as I just could not see 27A. Just about managed to get everything else, despite flying on a wing and a prayer as there were so many unusual words that i needed to check but couldn’t as my mobile phone was playing up. So didn’t really enjoy it, sadly, but thanks anyway to Kairos and B&J – how you see these abstruse themes is beyond me!
Thanks Kairos and BnJ
Another CONNAC here. I think that’s one of those cases where there are two equally valid solutions which both meet the definition and wordplay, and there’s no means of determining which was intended. The addition of something like ‘boozy’ might have clarified things.
Completely missed the theme of course, but it served as a prompt to learn more about NICK HORNBY, about whom I was shamefully ignorant and who I was very interested to read about.
Yes, this was quite hard even apart from not spotting the theme. I ended up putting ‘sly’ for FLY in 21d so a DNF. I didn’t know the ‘Indian banker’ but did as I was instructed by the wordplay.
The ‘French commune’ was also new. As DavidO @4 and Simon S @8 point out, I think it is at least as plausibly CONNAC, without having to invoke the unusual ‘cog’ for ‘cheat’; it’s apparently a commune in the south of France, centred around Milau.
Thanks to Kairos for such a stiff work-out and to B&J
Another CONNAC here and all the words mentioned by others were new to me as well. The theme meant nothing to me so no help forthcoming from that quarter but I did learn something new in that the 10a bird group includes Brown Pelicans and there was a colony of same that lived on the notorious island prior to its becoming a prison facility.
Thanks to Kairos for the challenge and to B&J for spotting the theme and bringing us the review.
Well we got there in the end but it was a struggle. We hadn’t a clue as to the theme so that was no help and the user-unfriendliness of the grid was compounded by the four five-letter entries not only having less than 50% checking but in two of them the checking letters being vowels. Sorry, Kairos, but this was definitely a lemon as far as we were concerned. Thanks, though to B&J for the explanations.
Yup, another CONNAC for the same reasons. And, like Bertandjoyce, I didn’t think SHROFF could be a word so pressed Reveal. Which is really irritating. Got FEVER but only because I convinced myself the French month is Fevier and removed I(ndonesia)!! What a twit.
I didn’t spot the theme which is a shame as I have read some of the books and it is cleverly used. Could we add NOVEL to the theme? (And, in the clueing, we also have Jesus referencing Nipple, Jesus and Will (Shakespeare) referencing Shakespeare wrote for Money. Lastly MAYHEM could possibly reference Otherwise Pandemonium)
IMHO the puzzle was worth the entrance money for LAZINESS alone which I think is a stunning clue. What a surface. Those for ALCATRAS and JURASSIC were close behind.
Thanks Kairos and B&J
Too many obscurities for me to really get into this one. Nim? Shroff? Fly? Abba, when not a Scandinavian group? Dnf, so respect to those who did, and big respect to Bertandjoyce and Kairos.
Well, I finished it, with a little cheating. I did spot the theme and looked up Hornby to see what else he’s written which helped.
I knew ABBA both from school RE lessons and the title of a book by Anthony Burgess.
I thought I’d looked in Chambers for SHROFF and didn’t find it so I looked on Wikipedia and found it’s a common Indian name. There really was an Indian banker called Ardeshir Darabshaw Shroff (1899-1965).
Getting up to Azed levels of obscurity.
I happened to watch the film of Juliet Naked at the weekend so thought of Nick Hornby almost as soon as I got 1 ac. That was a big help, with the linked titles joining up the grid.
I’m yet another CONNAC – would normally have thought it too obscure, but in the company of SHROFF, ALCATRAS and ABBA it seemed reasonable.
Thanks to B&J and Kairos