Independent 10,772 by Mev – Fifteensquared

Another new setter today – welcome to the Independent and 225, Mev.

We’re always intrigued by coming across a new setter, and whilst overall we enjoyed the challenge, we found this to be quite a mixed bag of clues. Some, such as 5ac and 12ac, seemed very contrived whilst others, such as 21ac and 27d were very straightforward. Admittedly Mev has managed to include a reference to Earth Day (today) in the clue for 5ac.

We are not fans of cryptic definitions and 4d felt a little weak whilst we thought 26/6 worked quite well. Most of the clues had smooth surfaces including 30ac, 1d and 18d, but some, such as 23ac and 31ac, didn’t quite hit the mark in our opinion.

19d has to be our COD. We watched the film recently that was based on Arthur Ransome’s book. Very dated but Bert enjoyed being reminded of his childhood.

All in all, a bit of a curate’s egg of a puzzle, but we’re still looking forward to the next one.

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS

1. Ill-sounding Italian’s love for maple (8)

SYCAMORE

A homophone (‘sounding’) of SICK (ill) + AMORE (Italian for love)

5. Changed the heart of every cop at the end of Earth Day (6)

EDITED

E (the middle letter or ‘heart’ of every) DI (cop) T (last letter or ‘end’ of ‘at’) E (earth) D (day)

10. Defy small wretched insect (9)

DAMSELFLY

An anagram (‘wretched’) of DEFY SMALL

11. Climbers limited by heaviness (5)

VINES

Hidden in or ‘limited by’ heaVINESs

12. Old call turns stomach: “At last, charge over the top!” (7)

EXTREME

EX (old) TERM (call) with the middle letters or ‘stomach’ reversed or ‘turning’ + E (final or ‘last’ letter of charge)

13. Oceanic shocker (7)

TORPEDO

Cryptic definition – We had TSUNAMI first as we had the initial letter.

14. Insignificant lake (4)

MERE

Double definition

16. Visualising one mother and her ruin in Gabon (9)

IMAGINING

I (one) MA (mother) GIN (mother’s ruin) IN G (Gabon)

20. The gram we pulped into cereal foodstuff (9)

WHEATGERM

An anagram (‘pulped’) of THE GRAM WE

21. 3 “not hard” for Rowan? (4)

TREE

ThREE (3) missing H (hard)

23. Boggle at Herbie’s entertaining tanned skin (7)

LEATHER

Hidden (‘entertained by’) in boggLE AT HERbie

26/6. Worker under pressure 18 (4-3,5)

DEEP-SEA DIVER

Cryptic definition – 18d being ‘in the main’

28. Regularly mined boron rocks that create pigment (5)

OCHRE

Every ~~third~~ fourth letter (‘regularly mined’) in borOn roCks tHat cReatE Thanks Hovis.

29. One that might be red after dance with singer (9)

BALLADEER

A DEER (one that might be red) after BALL (dance)

30. Band has a Yankee swagger (6)

SASHAY

SASH (band) A Y (Yankee in the phonetic alphabet)

31. Instrument ray finds timber source (8)

HORNBEAM

HORN (instrument) BEAM (ray)

DOWN

1. Plants found by southern borders (6)

SEDGES

S (southern) EDGES (borders)

2. Colombia greeted traveller focused on sun (5)

COMET

CO (Columbia) MET (greeted)

3. French man always in exam to achieve highest level (2,7)

MT EVEREST

M (Monsieur – French man) + EVER (always) in TEST (exam)

4. Myself, for example (9)

REFLEXIVE

Cryptic definition

6. See 26 Across

7. Paranormal anti-green colour (9)

TANGERINE

An anagram (‘paranormal’) of ANTI-GREEN. We’ve not seen ‘paranormal’ as an anagram indicator before.

8. Criticise house then move (8)

DISLODGE

DIS (criticise) LODGE (house)

9. Stuff from pharmacy sterilised liquid-filled cavity (4)

CYST

Hidden in (‘stuff from’) pharmaCY STerilised

15. See Haley’s wavy facial hair (9)

EYELASHES

An anagram (‘wavy’) of SEE HALEY’S

17. Give guns to Rashid to bag large ordinary animal (9)

ARMADILLO

ARM (give guns to) ADIL (Rashid as in Adil Rashid, an English cricketer who plays for Yorkshire and England) around or ‘bagging’ L (large) + O (ordinary). We had to resort to an online search to confirm the parsing of this clue.

18. Mostly surrounded by water (2,3,4)

IN THE MAIN

Double definition

19. Takes in Amazons’ enemies? (8)

SWALLOWS

Double definition with the Swallows and Amazons referring to the classic Arthur Ransome series of children’s books from the 1930s and 40s.

22. Sheep climbing over another for grass (6)

MARRAM

RAM (sheep) reversed or ‘climbing’ over RAM (another sheep)

24. Scavenger’s expression of contempt about money (5)

HYENA

HA (expression of contempt) around or ‘about’ YEN (money)

25. Minimally restrictive interconnected bone structures (4)

RIBS

A sort of clue as definition – the initial letters (‘minimally’) of Restrictive Interconnected Bone Structures

27. European married in Home Counties (5)

SWEDE

WED (married) in SE (South-East – Home Counties)