Bluth eases us into the Indy week. Although I’m not sure ‘eases’ is entirely the right choice of verb – I found this tricky in many places.
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 Your English bourbons lack our all round superiority
SNOBBERY
A reversal of YR, E and B[OUR]BONS. The removal indicator is ‘lack’ and the reversal indicator is ‘all round’.
5 On ABBA’s tour, oddly, Bjorn’s first to imbibe
ABSORB
The odd letters of ABBAS tOuR and B for the initial letter of ‘Bjorn’.
10 Fossil fuel finally found in most of the German state
RELIC
An insertion of L for the final letter of ‘fuel’ in REIC[H] The insertion indicator is ‘found in’ and the removal is indicated by ‘most of’. REICH is likely to be in most crossworders’ vocabulary because of references to the Third Reich.
11 Doctor protects a witness
SPECTATOR
(PROTECTS A)*
12 One pulls defender over, then it’s hard to cross
DRAUGHT OX
This was not obvious, to this solver at least. A reversal of GUARD, followed by H, TO and X.
13 Where Rugby Union needs to go to make it break out is silly
INEPT
Bluth is suggesting that you need to insert RU IN EPT to make it into the word ERUPT, which is ‘break out’.
,
14 Petition against becoming judge – it’s funny to some
IN-JOKE
The setter is inviting you to remove the V for ‘against’ from INVOKE and replace it with a J for ‘judge’.
15 Kind of chip in fossil I conserved
SILICON
Hidden in fosSIL I CONserved.
18 As nice cycling as taking runs to begin with
ARSENIC
A charade of R inserted into AS and (NICE)* The insertion indicator is ‘taking’; the anagrind is ‘cycling’; and ‘to begin with’ tells you the order of the particles. And of course the very well disguised answer is the chemical symbol.
20 New shelter, essentially, in case it’s bright
SUNLIT
An insertion of N and L for the middle letter of ‘shelter’ in SUIT.
22 Drone getting to grips with reasonably hot air
HOKUM
An insertion of OK in HUM. Can OK substitute directly for ‘reasonably’? I have to dash off and blog the Quiptic in Another Place, so will leave you to decide.
24 Try clever style of writing for introduction
PROSECUTE
A charade of PROSE and CUTE. ‘He was being cute when he wrote that clue.’
25 Disappointment as magician’s debut is defined by assorted bad quips
DAMP SQUIB
An insertion of M in (BAD QUIPS)* The initial letter indication is ‘debut’; the insertion indicator is ‘defined by’; the anagrind is ‘assorted’.
26 The man visiting pub returned here to dry out
REHAB
An insertion of HE in BAR, all reversed. The insertion indicator is ‘visiting’ and the reversal indicator is ‘returned’. Great surface.
27 Incite school rebellion
PUTSCH
A charade of PUT and SCH, although I am struggling to really define the first particle as ‘incite’.
28 Celebrity magazine dismissing mother in revealing daydream
STARGAZE
A charade of STAR and [MA]GAZ[IN]E.
Down
1 Cuts reversed, overshadowing Republican movement
STRIDE
An insertion of R in EDITS reversed. The insertion indicator is ‘overshadowing’ and the reversal indicator is, er, ‘reversed’.
2 Whistler’s Mother couldn’t exist without them to lubricate Father in discontented times
OIL PAINTS
A charade of OIL, PA, IN and T[IME]S.
3 It helps to set the mood in country, perhaps, with history
BACKGROUND MUSIC
A charade of BACKGROUND (for ‘history’) and MUSIC (of which ‘country’ is an example).
4 A little red setter almost eating Oscar award
ROSETTE
An insertion of O for the phonetic alphabet ‘Oscar’ in R for the first letter of ‘red’ and SETTE[R].
6 Train badly broken – dread not starting – is this a way to solve the problem?
BY TRIAL AND ERROR
A charade of (TRAIN BADLY)* and [T]ERROR.
7 Known about eccentric
OUTRÉ
A charade of OUT (‘the secret is out’) and RE. A word derived from the French verb outrer, to exaggerate. It’s also cognate with outrage, which is not – I discovered this morning – a compound of out and rage; but its modern use to imply anger, shock or indignation is a result of this belief.
8 Singer, but for one vocal inflection
BARITONE
A charade of BAR, I and TONE.
9 Copies cancelled over Persian king, once
XERXES
XER[O]XES. Xerox is a trademark. The company introduced the first photocopying machine in 1959 and I’m old enough to remember ‘Xerox’ being used as a verb or noun. ‘Can you xerox these for me?’ ‘Can you pass me those xeroxes, please?’ But unlike, say, ‘Hoover’, it never really lasted.
16 College students abandon dance supporting Hawaii’s state capital
CHIHUAHUA
A charade of C, HI for the state abbreviation and HU[L]A HU[L]A gives you the state capital of the Mexican state of the same name.
17 Robinson Crusoe was once this unsuccessful
WASHED UP
A dd.
19 Vacuous celebrity advertising American island
CYPRUS
A charade of C[ELEBRIT]Y, PR and US. It has been noted many times before (mainly, and reasonably, by people in the business) that PR and ‘advertising’ are two different things. But it’s a crossword staple now.
20 Project acquiring lead price comparison website
SHOPBOT
An insertion (‘acquiring’) of PB for the chemical symbol for ‘lead’ in SHOOT for a word I’d never heard of.
21 Weak model beefed up secretly
FEEBLE
Hidden reversed in modEL BEEFed.
23 Last bit of Kubrick film about politician is neat
KEMPT
A charade of K for the final letter of ‘Kubrick’ and MP inserted into ET, the setters’ favourite ‘film’. An interesting word in the sense that you only ever hear it in its negative sense, UNKEMPT.
Many thanks to Bluth for the start to the Indy week.
I recently mentioned that crossword setters are keeping the other half of orphaned negatives alive and we see this again with KEMPT.
I thought this looked like an attempted pangram but V is missing.
I also wondered about ‘reasonably’ and ‘ok’ and also ‘put’ and ‘incite’ but, given more time, may well convince myself they are ok.
In 18a, cycling doesn’t really denote an anagram as such but a cycling of the letters of NICE with E moving to the front.
Very tricky indeed, but good fun, and if you want clean Ximenean cluing then don’t try a Bluth.
I had the same quibbles but decided they were OK (well reasonably so 😉 ). If you put someone up to something, you incite them to said something.
I parsed KEMPT as MP in the last of full metal jacKET, but I think Pierre’s parsing is better.
Thanks Bluth and Pierre
Quite tricky for a Bluth, not to mention a Monday. The SE corner took an age to sort out, particularly as I’d never heard of 20d. I agree with Hovis about the ‘cyclig’ in 18a. 25a made me smile as my late mother-in-law always called them damp squibs and I had to concentrate really hard when writing the second word in the grid to resist the automatic pilot need to put a D!
Thanks to Bluth for the early in the week brain workout and to Pierre for the blog.
Nice to have something chewy to start the week off but this was a bit gristly in parts-I find Bluth rather erratic.
And i am no Ximean.
thanks Pierre and Bluth
I found this at the tougher end of Bluth’s scale but I enjoyed it on the whole. As usual with this setter, there were lots of smooth surfaces but a couple of dodgy ones too.
Like Pierre, I can’t equate “incite” with “put” in 27a and I was very surprised to see Xerox retained as a verb in Collins. Surely that use is dead as a dodo?
Thanks to Bluth and to Pierre.
Blah @2. Doesn’t your example for 27a show that “put up to” (not “put”) is synonymous with “incite”?
The clue for FEEBLE reminded me of Qaos’s ‘Mathematical symbol displayed on a blackboard (5) for NABLA, but perhaps I’m reading it wrong.
Having commented on Bluth’s previous mid-week outing that it was more suitable for a Monday, I thought this one would be right at home later in the week — which is to say no complaints and several smiles. I would welcome a more convincing theory for PUT, though.
Thanks, Bluth and Pierre.
Put = incite is definition 17 in the Chambers app. The best I can suggest is as in “bombs will put soldiers to flight”. Better suggestions always welcome.
I liked this though found it the hardest of today’s puzzles. I couldn’t get BA(LL) out of my head for ‘students abandon dance’ at 16d and so missed CHIHUAHUA which itself was an original ‘state capital’. ‘As’ for ARSENIC is a bit of a chestnut, but DRAUGHT OX was new to me too and was one of my last in. I was looking for a bovine creature for ‘neat’ at 23d, but obviously in the wrong place!
The OED has a couple of obsolete senses, but beyond Blah @2’s explanation, I can’t really help with PUT for ‘incite’ in contemporary use.
Thanks to Bluth and Pierre
Thanks Pierre.
Both ‘Put = Incite’ and ‘OK = Reasonably’ can be found in the Chambers crossword dictionary and as Hovis @9 says, Put = Incite is definition 17 in Chambers – which doesn’t elucidate on its definitions much, but perhaps ‘put the crowd into a frenzy’ might persuade some.
Everything was going reasonably – until I got to 22 across etc.
Cheers all
I found this one challenging, but got there eventually. Not far short of an hour before SHOPBOT led to SUNLIT. Liked XERXES, which also took a while. Raised an eyebrow at PUT for Incite, but shrugged and moved on. Thanks Bluth and Pierre.
Thank you Bluth for the fun and Pierre for getting me unstuck. My favourite was 9d’s copies.
I thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle; its level of difficulty was just right for me, and there were too many clever clues to single any out. I’m unfamiliar with SHOPBOT but the parsing was straightforward.
The inevitable freezing and crashing of the Independent website today occurred about 16 minutes in – anyone have 16 minutes in the sweep?
Crypticsue @3: I presume you meant to put ‘damp squids’? The pestilence that is autocorrect continues to torment us.
Thansk Pierre for making sense of a few of these eg XERXES – I had to look up Persian rulers and then tried to justify it by reversing Ex – Rex after S but of course got nowhere. I thought this was tough eg SHOPBOT appears to be a Canadian price comparison site, is it also a general term for such things? If not I’d say that is quite obscure too. But plenty of enjoyable eureka moments eg INEPT and DRAUGHT OX, thanks Bluth (also for popping in to explain further).
[Quizzy Bob:@ 14 – I did indeed mean squid – I’m getting as bad as she was!]
I’m another one who found this tough – got very few answers on first pass, but then getting 3 and 6D from a few crossers helped. Even so there were lots of places I had to resort to use of the reveal button.
Several clues I really liked though especially 2D.
@Crypticsue / @Quizzy Bob @16 – I nearly entered 25a as squid because in his TV day job Bluth did a routine about misheard phrases including catphrase, doggy dog world and bowl in a china shop. I thought it included damp squid, but having looked at the clip on his youtube channel it seems my brain had inserted that one of its own accord.
That’s funny, Sheepish, I had the same misremembered thought and enjoyed watching the routine again on YouTube. Had altogether forgotten his catchphrase of “maths”. How weird was that?