Brunel’s second puzzle for the Independent, as far as I can tell; I hope there are many more to come.
We have some fairly straightforward clues to get started, but also some more challenging ones. A few untidy corners (perhaps a superfluous word in 11a, questionable indicators in 9d and 26d, pushing the boundaries a bit with the wordplay in 14d) but lots to enjoy. A couple of ingenious anagrams, and some very good surfaces: 10a scores on both counts (and with 18d might suggest that the setter isn’t a fan of our current PM). Thanks Brunel for all of this.
Definitions are underlined; BOLD UPPERCASE indicates letters used in the wordplay; square brackets [ ] indicate omitted letters.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | HARD CORE |
Type of rock providing road-building material (4,4)
|
| Double definition. Heavy rock/punk music; or a mixture of broken stone, recycled concrete etc used as a base for road surfaces. | ||
| 5 | BOMBAY |
Old city‘s endless conflict in past (6)
|
| [c]OMBA[t] (conflict), without the end letters (endless), in BY (past, as in “gone by”).
Old name for what is now Mumbai, India. |
||
| 10 | ASCEND THE THRONE |
Assume power, having deviously enchanted others (6,3,6)
|
| Anagram (deviously) of ENCHANTED OTHERS. | ||
| 11 | STOLIDNESS |
Showing uninterested state, is told off by head (10)
|
| Anagram (off) of IS TOLD, by NESS (head = headland = a cliff jutting out into the sea).
Stolid = not displaying emotion, so perhaps appearing uninterested. I don’t think “showing” works as part of the definition, though it’s needed for the surface. |
||
| 13 | FEED |
Charge department for meal (4)
|
| FEE (charge = money to be paid) + D (abbreviation for department). | ||
| 15 | PAIRING |
Secretary to call by one or two, working jointly (7)
|
| PA (personal assistant = secretary), then RING (call = telephone) by I (one in Roman numerals). | ||
| 17 | IMPLIED |
One’s worked diligently, it’s inferred? The opposite! (7)
|
| I’M (one’s, using “one” as a slightly formal version of “I” for talking about yourself) + PLIED (worked diligently, as in “ply your trade”).
A good definition for pedants like me who get annoyed at the misuse of “infer”. To imply is to suggest something without saying it; to infer is to understand something that isn’t said. So you hear what I say, but you infer what I imply. |
||
| 18 | OMICRON |
Skip introduction to funny little man, a foreign character (7)
|
| [c]OMIC (funny), skipping the first letter (introduction), then RON (short version of the man’s name Ronald, hence “little man”).
The Greek letter O, specifically a short vowel as opposed to a long one (omega). |
||
| 19 | RESKILL |
Sappers taking seconds to destroy train again (7)
|
| RE (Royal Engineers = Army engineering corps, known as Sappers) + S (short for seconds) + KILL (destroy).
To learn (or teach) new skills. The sort of word used in HR departments, but I can’t say I like it. |
||
| 21 | IPAD |
Knock back some speed, a pill or a tablet (4)
|
| Hidden answer (some . . .), reversed (knocked back), in [spee]D A PI[ll].
iPad = tablet computer, specifically one made by Apple. |
||
| 22 | PLUPERFECT |
With advantage finally evaporating, finish becomes tense (10)
|
| PLU[s] (advantage), with the last letter dropped (finally evaporating), then PERFECT (as a verb, with the stress on the second syllable = finish).
Grammatical tense, used when writing/speaking in the past tense about something that was already in the past then; for example “She had gone before they arrived”. |
||
| 25 | INSTRUMENT PANEL |
Annulment priest must adapt for control board (10,5)
|
| Anagram (must adapt) of ANNULMENT PRIEST. | ||
| 27 | NINEPINS |
Square cut turns game (8)
|
| NINE (square = 3 squared), then SNIP (cut) reversed (turns).
Traditional game, related to skittles and a precursor of tenpin bowling. |
||
| 28 | MEMBER |
Clubman recalled dropping couples outside (6)
|
| [re]MEMBER[ed] (recalled), with a couple of letters dropped from each end (outside).
Clubman as in a member of a gentlemen’s club. |
||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | HEATS UP |
Gets warmer food in hotel that’s dearer (5,2)
|
| EATS (colloquial term for food), inserted into H (hotel in the radio alphabet) + UP (dearer = more expensive, as in “coffee has gone up again”). | ||
| 2 | ROC |
Ogre with head lowered, seeing gigantic bird (3)
|
| ORC (ogre, popularised – if that’s the right word – by Tolkien but appearing in mythology much earlier), with its first letter (head) moved along one place (lowered, reading downwards in a down clue).
Another mythical creature: a giant bird. |
||
| 3 | CENTILITRE |
Small volume‘s middle covering international literature (10)
|
| CENTRE (middle), containing (covering) I (international) + LIT (short for literature).
10 millilitres, or a couple of teaspoonfuls. |
||
| 4 | RAT ON |
Betray Resistance straightaway when abandoned by Church (3,2)
|
| R (scientific symbol for electrical resistance) + AT ON[ce] (straightaway) without the CE (Church of England). | ||
| 6 | OTHO |
Emperor Moth beginning to fly over (4)
|
| [m]OTH, with the first letter (beginning) flying away, and O (over, in cricket scoring).
Roman emperor, but only for a few months: AD 69 was called the Year of the Four Emperors, because there was a fight for the title, and Otho was one of the losers. Lovely surface too: yes, there is a moth called an emperor moth, and (unsurprisingly) it can fly. |
||
| 7 | BIOMEDICINE |
Bone broken by Lorenzo, say, requiring adoption of current stress-related science (11)
|
| BONE containing (broken by) MEDICI (for example Lorenzo de’ Medici), and also containing (requiring adoption of) I (scientific symbol for electrical current).
The definition of “biomedicine” appears to be a matter of opinion. It can mean “study of the effects of environmental stress on human beings, especially during space travel”, which our setter seems to intend. It can also mean “biological and physiological science applied to medical practice” (in other words, conventional medicine), or “the study of herbal remedies”. Or presumably whatever else some internet “expert” wants it to mean. |
||
| 8 | YIELDED |
Did Lee collapse after Confederacy finally surrendered? (7)
|
| Anagram (collapse) of DID LEE, after the last letter (finally) of [confederac]Y. The surface refers to General Robert E. Lee, leader of the Confederate States army in the American Civil War. | ||
| 9 | FEISTIER |
I set fire ablaze, being more spirited (8)
|
| Anagram (ablaze?) of I SET FIRE. | ||
| 12 | ORIGINAL SIN |
Failing internally, ill orang is stricken in consequence of eating wrong fruit (8,3)
|
| Anagram (stricken) of I[l]L (failing internally = middle letter dropped) + ORANG IS.
As in the Garden of Eden; if you take the Malay meaning of “orang” as “human being”, the whole thing becomes a clue-as-definition. |
||
| 14 | APOSTROPHE |
Mark small extract from Eugene O’Neill (10)
|
| Symbol appearing in the name of Eugene O’Neill (US playwright). I’m not sure it’s quite fair to call that a “small extract”; the same phrase could just as well indicate any individual letter (or group of letters) in the name, but there would be complaints if a setter tried that. Unless the whole thing is intended as a cryptic definition, rather than definition+wordplay?
Mark as in punctuation mark. |
||
| 16 | GENTLEMEN |
Kind manner, one not evident in blokes (9)
|
| GENTLE (kind) + M[i]EN (manner) without the I (one in Roman numerals).
Gentleman = bloke? I suppose a gentleman calls men gentlemen, and a bloke calls them blokes. |
||
| 18 | OPINION |
BoJo’s right wing view (7)
|
| Right-hand letter of [boj]O + PINION (wing). | ||
| 20 | LITTLER |
Periodically claim total I earn will get reduced (7)
|
| Alternate letters (periodically) of [c]L[a]I[m] T[o]T[a]L [i] E[a]R[n]. | ||
| 23 | PINK |
Flower that may be potted? (4)
|
| Double definition. A flower (related to the carnation), which is indeed pink; or a snooker ball that may be potted to score 6 points. | ||
| 24 | WRAP |
Cover charge for audience (4)
|
| Homophone (for audience) of RAP (slang for a criminal charge). | ||
| 26 | NAB |
Arrest of Briton abroad (3)
|
| Hidden answer (though “of” seems a slightly weak indicator for that) of [brito]N AB[road]. |
I really enjoyed Brunel’s first offering some months ago, but I was disappointed with this one which I found to be a curate’s egg, mixing some excellent clues with a few rather iffy ones.
Thanks to Brunel and to Quirister.
I’m feeling a bit lazy but sad to see lack of comments as this as this seemed fine
I wonder if the funny little man Brunel had in mind @18ac was Ronnie Corbett??? I liked HARD CORE and the anagram for ASCEND THE THRONE; the cricketing surface for NINEPINS was good and I did like the assembly of OPINION – BoJo misled me for a while.
I was defeated by the same device twice! I missed the striking off of the end letters or both ‘combat’ and ‘remembered’ in BOMBAY and MEMBER so a DNF but that’s my mistake rather than any fault in the clueing. I wasn’t unhappy with either of the two indicators highlighted by our blogger and am happy to allow Brunel the extra word to make for a better surface in 11a. As for the APOSTROPHE, Nutmeg was praised back in April for a G puzzle where AMPERSAND was clued as Joiner employed in B&Q which seems comparable.
Thanks Brunel and Quirister
A bit harder than I was expecting for a Monday. I couldn’t parse 1a, not knowing the ‘road-building’ sense of HARD CORE and in addition to its many other meanings, I wasn’t aware that a PINK was a sort of ‘flower’. The ‘stress-related science’ also seemed a bit odd as I’m only familiar with the second meaning you describe. Only saw the ‘Old city’ near the end, with OTHO my last in. I had no problems with APOSTROPHE for ‘mark’.
Guilty as charged for “imply” v. “infer”. I’ll try to remember next time.
Thanks to Quirister and to Brunel
Regarding OMICRON, I studied, or was made to study Greek at school
OMICRON is pronounced as a short ‘O’, as in “NOT”, while OMEGA is pronounced as a long ‘O’, as in “DOTE”
So we have O-MICRON – a short ‘O’, and O-MEGA, a long ‘O’
Took me years to realise that…
Wasn’t sure what to expect with Brunel being such a spasmodic setter but this was fine although not exactly sparkling.
My favourite was GENTLEMEN with PINK coming up on the rails.
Thanks to Brunel and to Quirister for the review, particularly the explanation of 5a.
Found this difficult to finish. The ‘ beat me as did the old city, surely it’s not really old city as much as old British name for the city bah humbug. 🙂
A pleasant enough solve for a Monday. We did raise our eyebrows a bit at ‘ablaze’ for an angram indicator. We also took a while to get RESKILL – we were trying to fit ‘remodel’ (del = delete = destroy) but couldn’t make ‘mo’ into more than one second. OTHO came from wordplay, but we had to confirm by googling. As for Mumbai/BOMBAY, Wikipedia tells us the site has been inhabited for at least 2000 years so ‘old’ is an accurate description although we acknowledge that was not what ‘old’ refers to in the clue.
And the last sentence of the blog about BIOMEDICINE put us in mind of Humpty Dumpty – “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”
Thanks, Brunel and Quirister
Too tricksy by a long way for me to enjoy.. the list is endless as was the puzzle..
Thanks Brunel n Quirister