Independent 10,823/Bluth

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I blogged Bluth’s Monday crossword last month and said that I could do with some more like that. My wish has been granted. I thought this was another delightful puzzle from this setter, with carefully constructed surfaces, clear wordplay and a nice variety of subject matter.

 

Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
cad clue as definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed

definitions are underlined

Across

1 Trade in continent
POTTY-TRAINED
A rat to start with (reverse anagram thingy). You could clue ‘trade-in’ as POTTY TRAINED, since TRADE IN is (TRAINED)* and ‘potty’ is an anagrind.

10 In seconds, posh wine is protected
INSURED
A charade of IN, S, U for crossword-speak ‘posh’ and RED.

11 Farmer, say, succeeded spreading manure
SURNAME
A charade of S and (MANURE)* The anagrind is ‘spreading’ and the abbreviation comes from kings and queens and stuff.

12 Join revolution before the French
COUPLE
A charade of two French words: COUP and LE. The first one we’ve purloined for use in English to give the definition that Bluth uses. In French it’s got shedloads of meanings, at least one of which you definitely wouldn’t want to use over tea with the vicar; and it’s also used in lots of phrases. My favourite is coup de foudre, which literally means ‘lightning strike’, but is also how the French express ‘love at first sight’.

13 Some articles say I stalked writer
ESSAYIST
Hidden in articlES SAY I STalked.

15 Offal soup’s first, then we film sitcom
SWEETBREAD
A charade of S for the initial letter of ‘soup’, WE, ET for the ‘film’ and BREAD for the Carla Lane sitcom which was very popular in the late 1980s. Sweetbreads are mistakenly thought to be testicles; in fact they are either the thymus or pancreas, usually taken from calves or lambs. If you insist on eating bollocks, one of our US contributors can give you the lowdown on Rocky Mountain Oysters.

16 Film villain has nothing on corona
HALO
A charade of HAL and O. More films: this clue is referencing 2001: A Space Odyssey, where Hal was the outwardly sycophantic but ultimately sinister computer.

Dave: Open the pod bay doors, Hal
Hal: I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that

18 Pert, following kiss
FLIP
A charade of F and LIP. I wasn’t familiar with the pert/FLIP correspondence, but Collins confirms it (in the sense of ‘flippant’).

20 Narrow escape when bird bites husband and dog runs free
TOUCH AND GO
An insertion of H in TOUCAN and (DOG)* The insertion indicator is ‘bites’ and the anagrind is ‘runs free’.

23 Appreciate fashionable pleat
INCREASE
A charade of IN and CREASE.

24 Work from Poet Laureate: four letters, having eight rhymes
PLOUGH
I will fess up to having to cheat to see what this was: I couldn’t get it, even with all the crossing letters. A charade of PL and OUGH. The latter four letters, as the clue indicates in a non-cryptic way, have eight separate pronunciations (they could be described as ‘rhymes’, but they’d have to be eye-rhymes). They are found in:

Tough
Though
Through
Thorough
Thought
Cough
Plough
Lough

For a ninth, and a bonus point, you can add hiccough. The above are different sounds in British English. Most of my American friends wouldn’t pronounce ‘thorough’ the way I do, and likely they wouldn’t send their children to Loughborough University, because they wouldn’t be certain how to pronounce it (for the record, American friends on this thread, it’s Luff-bra). But they would, very sensibly, spell the answer to this clue as PLOW.

26 Most of his meat not on this uncovered grill
HIBACHI
An unknown word to me, but one I was happy to construct from the wordplay and a crosser or two. A charade of HI[S], BAC[ON] and [T]HI[S]

27 Cruel chums stripped man naked in pub
INHUMAN
An insertion of [C]HUM[S] and [M]A[N] in INN. ‘Uncovered’, ‘stripped’ and ‘naked’ as removal indicators in the space of two consecutive clues. Just saying.

28 The gutless star karate chopped raw meat
STEAK TARTARE
(T[H]E STAR KARATE)* with ‘chopped’ as the anagrind.

Down

2 Cubs cycling through Oregon drug complex
OBSCURE
An insertion of (CUBS)* in OR followed be E. The anagrind is ‘cycling’.

3 Time Telstar broadcast what Hollywood produces?
TARTLETS
(T TELSTAR)* Please tell me that I wasn’t the only solver to carelessly slap in STARLETS. It wasn’t Tinseltown at all, but Paul Hollywood, the baker and sleb.

4 Third eye oddly substantial
TIDY
The odd letters of ThIrD eYe. The two adjectives are most often synonymous when followed by the noun ‘sum’.

5 First to replace middle of song in poet, Owen’s sort of rhyme gets help
ASSISTANCE
Assonance, as anyone who’s watched Educating Rita will know, is a resemblance of sound between two nearby stressed vowels, and Wilfred Owen was known for it; it occurs with the short e sound in the title of his most famous poem, Dulce et Decorum Est. Bluth is asking you to replace the ON (the ‘middle of song’) in ASSONANCE with IST for ‘first’, which gives you your answer. (According to Rita, it meant ‘getting the rhyme wrong’.)

6 In part, Dubya wrong about country
NORWAY
Hidden reversed in DubYA WRONg.

7 Singer and model paired over a beer
DUA LIPA
A charade of DUAL and IPA for Indian Pale Ale, or ‘beer’. I am not really her target audience but she’s been in the news in the last few days for winning something, so I got this one straight away.

8 I see cop baffled before robber returns carrying scrap of gold and silver
PIECES OF EIGHT
A charade of (I SEE COP)* and G for the first letter of ‘gold’ inserted into THIEF, all reversed. The anagrind is ‘baffled’; the insertion indicator is ‘carrying’; the reversal indicator is ‘returns’.

9 Not much in clothes shop – changed into thong
NEXT TO NOTHING
A charade of NEXT (the clothes shop) and (INTO THONG)*

14 Rod‘s witchcraft?
BROOMSTICK
A cd cum dd. You need to lift and separate ‘witchcraft’; then it could be described as a method of transport for the sorceress.

17 Suffers hard in test for promotion
MAILSHOT
An insertion of AILS and H in MOT for the annual test that vehicles in the UK have to undergo.

19 Incomplete arrest following one northern copper’s nightmare
INCUBUS
A charade of I, N, CU and BUS[T] I only knew this word as a male demon, but Collins gives it as ‘nightmare’ (and marks it as archaic).

21 Best in The Beatles, once?
DRUMMER
A cd. Before Ringo, the drummer in The Beatles was Pete Best.

22 Right key starts to unlock everything – salvation!
RESCUE
A charade of R, ESC for the keyboard ‘key’, and UE for the initial letters of ‘unlock’ and ‘everything’.

25 Pass is in Virginia
VISA
An insertion of IS in VA.

Many thanks to Bluth for this morning’s puzzle, and happy summer solstice to all.

25 comments on “Independent 10,823/Bluth”

  1. No, you weren’t the only person to put STARLETS in 3d!

    Another enjoyable crossword from Bluth – I particularly liked 3d (once I’d worked out the correct Hollywood connection) and 14d. I wonder if the usual suspect will have a problem with the anagram-thingy that is 1a?

    Thanks to Bluth and Pierre

  2. Bluth’s misdirection is always amazing – HALO being the obvious one this morning (it’s hard to see past the virus for Corona these days) but also the fantastic BROOMSTICK play on craft

    I doubt it makes you feel any better Pierre but I too walked into the Starlets (with a side order of Starlett to make it parse!) trap before I saw yet further clever misdirection

    DNF as ever but I think I got a very enjoyable 80% before needing help:
    Reverse Anagrams and I will never be friends (making all the North tricky)
    Assonance / Poets not for me, plus HIBACHI and PLOUGH (thanks for explaining Pierre!) plus a few others

    I was pleased I remembered U=Posh. I am getting there thanks to the contributors here!

    DUA LIPA probably my favourite but lots of candidates

    Thanks a lot to Bluth for the mental workout and for Pierre for the explanations! (No link to a Toucan though? Do you only do this for answers and not part of the question?)

  3. Yes, Tombsy – the answer has to be the bird, the whole bird and nothing but the bird. Them’s the rules, I’m afraid.

  4. Thanks for the blog, Pierre.

    In 5D, my intention with the phrase ‘poet Owen’s sort of rhyme’ was – more simply, I think – that ASSONANCE is the sort of rhyme demonstrated by the words ‘poet Owen’. So no knowledge of Wilfred Owen’s oeuvre was required. (Indeed, next to none is possessed by this setter)

  5. Lots of joy here.. couldn’t quite believe I was spelling out HIBACHI… but there is was.. I actually dismissed STARLETS as not enough Ts but then failed miserably with 1ac altho wondering about the significance of continent .. obvious now… never actually watched 2001 so had to guess that… really, really liked 14dn, 15ac, n overall favourite 24ac.. just for the sheer joy of the English language..
    Thanks Bluth n Pierre

  6. I’ll resist the urge to once again put up a link to the poem ‘cat’ by Tolkein which exhibits great use of assonance. I’ll simply quote my favourite lines:
    The giant lion with iron
    Claws in paw
    And huge ruthless tooth
    In gory jaw.

  7. Well, I put SLOUGH at 24A,: it doesn’t quite work, but seems almost as good, since this was the title of a poem by poet laureate John Betjeman. Also I couldn’t see FLIP at 18A, and put FAIR (i.e an air kiss). So a DNF for me, but I reckon that’s 9 out of 10 for trying! I guessed PIECES OF EIGHT before even reading the clue. HIBACHI was new to me. Thanks Bluth and Pierre.

  8. Never heard of the singer.I’m still playng Highway 61 on the Tannoys.
    Theres a poet called CLOUGH(not Brian)
    Otherwise nice to have some twists and turns on a Monday
    So thanks to previous poster!

  9. Though the wordplay is clear (in retrospect), I thought it a bit much to clue an obscure figure (I have no idea who or what a DUA LIPA is, and she hasn’t figured in any news I’ve seen) with unusual and unguessable names. Everything else was tickety-boo. Thanks, Bluth, and Pierre for the blog.

  10. Morning Bluth. You’ve obviously passed your exam in Lucking Out, then, because when I furtled online to see if Wilfred was famous for assonance, there were several sites that gave examples. To be fair, it is a pretty common device. But thanks for clarifying.

  11. Ian SW3 @9 – I see your point but I think one man’s Wilfred Owen is another man’s Dua Lipa? She is muti-award winning (Grammy and Brits) so I would contest no more obscure than the composers and poets that often grace crosswords (and have me reaching for google)

    As a side note I have a Pavlovian response to hearing the name “Dua Lipa” which is to say it back in a cod-Geordie accent , the vowel sounds are excellent! ( you are all trying it now…)

  12. Enjoyed this from start to finish. Too many ticks to mention. Thanks to Bluth and to Pierre for a very entertaining and informative blog. 21d reminded me of John Lennon’s response when asked if Ringo was the best drummer in the world. “He’s not even the best drummer in the Beatles”

  14. Another first rate puzzle from Bluth, and another case of me getting quite a lot right quickly then scratching my head on the ones left. Yet another reverse anagram I failed to notice – I think I need to put notes “If you can’t parse it think reverse anagram!” all over the house 🙂

    It was a great pleasure to solve 26A having never heard of it. 15A, 8D and 14D all favourites.

  15. 1a was an ideal cracker to open with, not that I could see it for ages.

    Bluth @13, the article’s right about Lennon never having said it, and wrong about saying Lewisohn thinks it was Jasper Carrott who came up with it in 1983.
    It’s from a 1981 episode of Radio Active. The gag was written by the late Geoffrey Perkins.

  17. ^ Good to have it in your armoury for dinner parties (although the invitations do start to dry up afterwards!).

    Here’s the audio proof from Lewisohn’s Twitter account:

  19. My first Bluth – which I was encouraged to do by Pierre’s opening remarks that can be seen here before going into the blog – and what a treat it was. I like puzzles with contemporary references outside my particular interests (Pierre’s “nice variety”) – so it was great to see DUA LIPA as a solution, and she did get plenty of coverage for her success at the Brit Awards. Apparently she’s also an active philanthropist and campaigner on issues she cares about.
    I also had STARLETS (I even managed to cross out all the letters of the fodder!) and with HOUSE rather than POTTY trained was happy with it until even word search couldn’t come up with an I_S_A_D word. I got the reverse anagram bit of TRAINED and was struggling to see how HOUSE worked with it but let it go.
    Thanks to Bluth for the puzzle and contributing to the thread, and to Pierre for the great blog.

  20. Oh, but, Bluth @ 13 I wasn’t agreeing with John Lennon. Who, it turns out, never said it, so thanks to you and Blorenge @15. Always good to know the right provenance if you’re going to start quoting!

  21. Thanks Pierre and the Bluth. Re lugaberuga my family who live there say luff-ber-err but heh what do they know they’ve only been there 40 years. Did wonder during the solve whether Next still exist, lots of shops/chains seem to have gone under recently

  22. Belated thanks Pierre, very pleased with myself when PLOUGH became clear but couldn’t see what was going on in BROOMSTICK, now have a higher opinion of the clue. Great and challenging puzzle, HIBACHI a new word but clued clearly (though not straightforwardly) and fairly, the mark of quality in my opinion, thanks Bluth.

  23. American person here. I just solved this puzzle today, Wednesday, so it’s a bit late to ask this, but I’m curious: If ‘Lough’ is pronounced ‘Luff,’ how does that differ from the sound of ‘ough’ in ‘tough’? Thanks!

  24. Morning Dorothy. Lough is an Irish variant of the Scottish Loch, as in Loch Ness, and is pronounced the same – which, properly, is with a guttural ‘ch’ sound at the end. You will hear it pronounced like ‘lock’, however. They do have different meanings, apparently, although both refer to bodies of water.

    But in the Midlands town, the ‘lough’ is pronounced as ‘luff’. This ending is a nightmare for learners of English. There’s a bird called the chough, but it’s pronounced chuff.

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