An enjoyable and well-constructed puzzle from Gila to start us off on our Independent crossword journey this week. Either he was being trickier than normal, or I was being a bear of little brain this morning. We’re about to find out.
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 Gamer isn’t prepared for being on Twitch?
STREAMING
(GAMER ISNT)* with ‘prepared’ as the anagrind. Twitch is a US streaming service, don’t you know, which is a subsidiary of Amazon.
6 Start of Mail think piece was gloomy
MOPED
A charade of M for the initial letter of ‘Mail’ and OPED. Collins has:
op-ed (n) a page of a newspaper where varying opinions are expressed by columnists, commentators, etc
It’s short for op(posite) ed(itorial page), where it is usually to be found.
9 Exam covering part of a regular course
ORBITAL
An insertion of BIT in ORAL. The insertion indicator is ‘covering’.
10 Pilot’s bag presented to FBI agent
WINGMAN
A charade of WIN and GMAN. ‘She bagged/won the medal for the egg-and-spoon race.’ G-MAN is US slang for an FBI agent and is short for ‘government man’.
11 Work up to the end of April
TILL
A charade of TIL and L for the last letter of April.
12 It carries fuel, or holds fixed intake line
OIL TANKER
An insertion of (INTAKE)* and L in OR. The anagrind is ‘fixed’ and the insertion indicator is ‘holds’.
14 Suggestion: sparkling wine to accompany an array of appetisers
ANTIPASTI
A charade of AN, TIP and ASTI.
16 Departs shortly before poet
DANTE
A charade of D and ANTE. ‘Shortly’ could, I guess, refer to either of the particles: D is an abbreviation for ‘departs’ and ANTE is in this context a prefix, in words like antecede, ante-natal or antediluvian. Mebbes more likely the former.
17 Simple job collecting river waste
DROSS
An insertion of R in DOSS. The insertion indicator is ‘collecting’.
19 Country somewhere in Europe visited by nearly everybody
AUSTRALIA
An insertion of AL[L] in AUSTRIA. The insertion indicator is ‘visited by’.
21 Rookies oddly need nothing ahead of battles, we’re told
NEOPHYTES
A charade of NE for the odd letters of ‘need’, O and PHYTES, a homophone (‘we’re told’) of FIGHTS.
24 Constant stand-out feature provides prominence
CUSP
A charade of C for the speed of light, a ‘constant’, and USP for ‘unique selling point’.
26 Family holidaying mostly on old Pacific island
OKINAWA
A charade of O, KIN and AWA[Y]. Okinawa island is the largest of Japan’s Okinawa prefecture.
27 Makeshift bar located next to clothes shop
STOPGAP
A charade of STOP and GAP, the clothing chain.
28 Group from Number 10 doing a volte-face
NONET
A charade of NO and TEN reversed.
29 Fresh meal frequently eaten by accomplished farm worker
DAIRYMAID
An insertion of AIRY and MA for the odd letters of ‘meal’ in DID. The insertion indicator is ‘eaten by’.
Down
1 Contemptible person fails to be denied an opening
SNOT
You have to consider IS NOT as a replacement for ‘fails to be’, then remove the first letter. Might not be my first word of choice for a contemptible person, but there are plenty to choose from and many of them are four-lettered.
2 Beirut – Lebanon’s capital – newly redeveloped
REBUILT
(BEIRUT L)* with ‘newly’ as the anagrind.
3 Stakes used to secure run for animals
ANTELOPES
Another outing for ANTE, this time in its betting sense. An insertion of LOPE in ANTES. The insertion indicator is ‘to secure’.
4 I initially Google where to go for cool accommodation
IGLOO
A charade of I, G for the initial letter of ‘Google’ and LOO.
5 Energy was, like, set to be lost
GO WALKIES
A charade of GO and (WAS LIKE)* with ‘set’ as the anagrind.
6 Publication featuring new American and Japanese art
MANGA
An insertion of N in MAG followed by A. The insertion indicator is ‘featuring’.
7 Fruit and potential source of water given to family
PUMPKIN
A charade of PUMP and KIN. Botanically, a PUMPKIN is a fruit because it’s the product of a seed-bearing structure of a flowering plant. Ditto tomatoes and cucumbers.
8 What might you have at the end of a wild night? A broken bed, possibly
DONER KEBAB
(A BROKEN BED)* Gila is referring to the fact that after a serious night out on the ale, the DONER KEBAB is often the fast-food option of choice for many folk, possibly because they are too rat-arsed to realise or remember what goes into making them.
13 Part of London prison housing two men finally considered reformed
CAMDEN TOWN
An insertion of (TWO MEN D)* in CAN. When I lived in North London, briefly and many moons ago, it was considered cool and trendy, and apparently it is still.
15 ID device in vehicles set up by club?
SMART CARD
A charade of TRAMS reversed and CARD, of which ‘club’ is one variety.
16 List of people about to be welcomed by awful politician
DIRECTORY
An insertion of C for circa or ‘about’ in DIRE and TORY. The insertion indicator is ‘to be welcomed by’.
18 Stock option essentially shunned by Scotsman and Englishman?
OXONIAN
This took me forever to see. A charade of OX, O[PTIO]N and IAN, the ubiquitous ‘Scotsman’. A person from Oxfordshire, the solution being harder to tease out because of the abbreviation of the county to ‘Oxon’. Cf SALOPIAN.
20 Food obsessive flipped about spinach in an Indian recipe?
LASAGNA
An insertion of SAG in ANAL reversed. The reversal indicator is ‘flipped’; the insertion indicator is ‘about’; and SAG is a less common spelling of SAAG for the Indian ‘spinach’.
22 Newspaper mogul lacks guts, ultimately, and compassion
HEART
Gila is inviting you to remove S for the last letter of ‘guts’ from William Randolph Hearst, so it’s HEAR[S]T.
23 Food from the States transported by boat, mainly
SUSHI
An insertion of US in SHI[P]. The insertion indicator is ‘transported by’.
25 Small sweet potato
SPUD
A charade of S and PUD.
Many thanks to Gila for today’s puzzle.
Gila in difficult mode. I had most trouble with OXONIAN too, partly because I invented the word “degs” for ‘Simple job’ at 17a and thought 18d might be “Etonian” instead. In the end I couldn’t get SNOT – yuk – putting in an unparsed SOOK. Had no idea of the significance of ‘Twitch?’ at 1a and didn’t know the Indian ‘spinach’ at 20d. Favourite was the surface for 22d.
A challenging one to get started on a new solving week.
Thanks to Gila and Pierre
Another who failed on SNOT. I had ANTEATERS (antes around ate=used r for run) until ANTIPASTI put me right. An agreeable challenge. Thanks, both.
Thanks Pierre and Gila. Out of respect for WordPlodder, I’m not going to say this was easy, but I did rather breeze through it… except for SNOT and DANTE, both of which took me as long to solve as the rest of the puzzle put together. Fair clues though. Loved DONER KEBAB – great anagram.
WP @1 – Twitch is a streaming platform where you can watch people playing computer games. Apparently, they can make a *lot* of money from it. Welcome to the 21st century… You can also watch people live solving crosswords, which I suspect is rather less lucrative. I’ve had the pleasure of watching people solve some of my amateur efforts and it’s genuinely fascinating.
[Thanks for the info about Twitch, Widdersbel @3. Now you mention it, I think you can watch some of the speedsters at Times for The Times solving the crossword on Twitch, presumably in a parallel universe. I’ll give one of your crosswords on MyCrossword a go sometime – just don’t expect a live stream of the event though!]
I’d be too embarrassed to admit how many slip-ups and unparsed answers attended my ‘solve’ of this one! Not to worry, it was an interesting exercise.
Thanks to Gila and most certainly to Pierre for the much needed review.
Well, we got most of this, but we just couldn’t work out 1dn – we thought of ‘slob’ or ‘snob’ and even wondered if ‘opening’ was the defionition giving ‘slot’. And the only poet we could think of to fir the D and N in 16ac was an unparsed Donne.
We also had a different parsing of OXONIAN – we took ‘stock option’ to indicate OXO (an option if you want beef stock) and ‘essentially shunned’ to indicate the middle N in ‘shunned’, followed by Crosswordland’s resident Scotsman. But the parsing in the blog is clearly the correct one.
We weren’t happy with 11ac, either. Presumably ‘til’ is an alternative to ‘until’ but neither Chambers nor Collins supports this, having only TILL – which in its other meaning is the answer to the clue anyway.
But there was plenty to enjoy. GO WALKIES was our favourite.
Thanks, Gila and Pierre.
Glad I’m not the only one fail to see 1D then, the wordplay seems obvious enough in hindsight but I doubt I’d have thought of SNOT for the def part, Thanks Gila and the ever reliable Pierre.- wot no bird link? I did notice 1A is a near anagram of Instagram which I nearly threw in unthinking to start.
Thanks Gila, Pierre
To sook, slob, and snob I’d add spod as a potential contemptible person (certainly a contemned person in my experience, and so contemptible at least to some). I didn’t get SNOT either, and found 11a odd like allan_c, but otherwise plain sailing and I enjoyed the kebab anagram particularly.
I prefer allan_c’s parsing of Oxonian. And a snot is new to me too.
Many thanks to Pierre for the write-up and to all who’ve commented.
allan_c has has the intended parsing of OXONIAN correct: OXO as the ‘stock option’ + {shu}N{ned} + IAN.
I never even thought to look up whether or not ‘TIL is in the dictionary, and I’m surprised that it’s not as I would argue that it’s more common (in spoken English at least) than UNTIL. Hey ho.
‘til is in SOED, which gives till as the oldest term, then until, and ‘til only arriving in mid 20th C.