Kairos fills the Tuesday slot this week.
We enjoyed this puzzle, although we had to check our last one in (6d).
Tuesday is usually theme day in the Indy. We have searched the completed grid, but cannot come up with a theme. We wondered whether 30ac might refer to 10ac George 30ac, but we can’t find any other 10acs in the grid – we’re probably missing something and barking up the wrong tree!
S (small) ASHES (trees)
An anagram (‘is restored’) of UPON BASE
DOT (mark) round or ‘in receipt of’ U (universal) B (first or ‘initial’ letter of benefits)
DEfECTIVE (bust) with the ‘f’ (fellow) replaced by T (time)
Hidden (‘some’) in finD IRKsome
A homophone (‘we hear’) of SOLE (fish)
TALe (story) without the last letter or ‘short’ ON (about)
An anagram (‘cooked’) of MASH IS + I (first letter or ‘bit’ of Imperial)
polDARK (‘Ross in Cornwall’ – from the Winston Graham books and TV series) without ‘pol’ (politician)
Double definition
TEAT (‘milk deliverer’) + a reversal (‘around’) of EMI (old record producer)
TRAILer (promotional film) without ‘er’ (hesitation)
ECce HOmo (‘Behold the Man’ – Pontius Pilate’s description of Jesus) with both words ‘cut in half’
First letters or ‘principals’ in Aladdin Play Second + E (last or ‘final’ letter in house)
An anagram (‘formation’) of MADE ROUGH
C (first letter or ‘launch’ of container) ARGO (ship – as in Jason and the Argonauts)
Double definition
coGENTLY (convincingly) without or ‘sacking’ ‘co’ (commanding officer)
SID (Sid Vicious, of the Sex Pistols) + an anagram (‘randomly’) of HIDES
SQUARE (plaza) ST (street)
A reversal (‘turning up’) of the alternate (‘odd’) letters in SaTiAtEd
UN (French for ‘a’) + a reversal (‘upset’) of LIT (literary)
THREAD (storyline) after PACK (put in) – a new word for us
bIBLE (book) with the first or ‘initial’ letter replaced by ED (editor – Kairos’ boss)
A (acting) + EIN (German for ‘a’) in or ‘among’ G G (two Germans)
DR (doctor – ‘medic’) OwNING (having) without the ‘w’ (week)
PLIGHT (promise) round or ‘installing’ I (one – ‘a’) LOT (shower). We were slightly hesitant that LOT and SHOWER were synonyms. Chambers does not have them as direct synonyms but has load and heap for shower.
D (‘penny once’ – pre-decimal currency) ITCHED (longed)
DIS (Pluto – Roman deity of the underworld) sharing the last or ‘final’ letter with SPIRIT (Psyche – Greek goddess of the soul)
An anagram (‘arranged’) of MERCY ONE
Hidden (‘piece of’) in sweET CHEStnut
SALON (room) round (‘storing’) M (1000 in Roman numerals)
EAT (worry) round R (rector) + O (nothing)
EACH (‘a’ as in per person) with the ‘e’ moved to the back, or ‘cycling’
Definitely a theme. Not H2G2.
Darn! I missed that, and I was just wondering about rereading the books, as well!
I could only recognise the bare minimum of the theme (3 answers), but looking it up later there are other references.
Nothing to do with the theme, but I found a few difficult ones here. I had no idea of the parsing for PILOT LIGHT, PLIGHT for ‘Promise’ escaping me and I didn’t see how LOT = ‘shower’; if Chambers has load and heap, I suppose it’s OK. Didn’t parse ECHO either and PACKTHREAD, my last in, was also new to me.
Favourite was the original ‘end of Eagle?’ for TALON.
Thanks to Kairos and B&J
It’s more 11a your looking for B&J.
A fun solve with a mixture of straightforward, medium difficulty and challenging clues. Only 6d was new to me. I do detest the use of 3d as a noun but that seems to be just me as most other folk don’t seem to mind it.
Very unusually I did spot the theme.
ECHO was my favourite.
Many thanks to Kairos and to B&J.
Thanks to the recent commenters. We had never heard of DIRK GENTLY the Holistic DETECTIVE. However we cannot find any other related entries. Can someone help please?
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul is the second book by Douglas Adams featuring private detective Dirk Gently, the first being Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency.
Adams had intended to follow it with a third such novel, The Salmon of Doubt, but he died before completing it.
Many thanks mw7000.
We are currently out walking and only Googled the Holistic Detective Agency!
No problem with the theme for me being a DNA fan. Thought of Dirk Gently as soon as I got DIRK which helped me get SOUL and DARK. Didn’t parse the latter (and had an unparsed ‘dire’ for a while). Needed a word fit to get the unknown PACKTHREAD. Thought the ‘having week off’ in 10d was brilliant.
Thanks both. Some assistance was needed at the end, mainly for parsing, notably for ECHO whereby all descriptions I was aware of or can find at hand refer to sound, not sight (image). Again, I’ll campaign that for DETECTIVE, police office would work better in the modern age, when TEATIME is no longer 4 o’clock, unless perhaps you are in the back yard of Number 10.
I think that’s the first time that spotting the theme actually hindered. I bunge AGENCY in for 8 down and searched in vain for holistic. Wild you Adam(s) and Eve it?
I seem to remember there was an eagle with fearsome TALONs in The Long Dark Teatime …
Thanks to all
Didn’t have a clue about the theme and, like RD, I hate the use of 3d as a noun, but all was forgiven when my favourite ‘Cornishman’ turned up in 16a.
6d was new to me and needed investigoogling but no other problems to report.
Thanks to Kairos and to B&J for the review.
I originally had SWEW in for 16a. (Ross) KE(MP) inside S(outh)W(est). I was sure it would turn out to be a word mean ‘left’ in heraldry or vexillology. Parses perfectly just wrong, wrong, wrong.
Thanks Bertandjoyce and Kairos.
Good one, somewhat educational for me –
Learnt about Ecce Homo and Poldark, but theme was beyond me.
Didn’t parse PILOT LIGHT.
favs: TEATIME, GENTLY, DRONING and DISPIRIT
Theme definitely helped me with this thiough I too tried to get AGENCY into 8D for a while.
Rabbit Dave @5 I detest the use of your 3rd word as a noun (except in its proper sense) as well as meet, invite etc but no-one seems to care much these days…
Thanks to Kairos and to B&J.
I shouldn’t try themed puzzles so I’ll take a break (going forward) (have I an option?) from Tuesday Independent offerings.
I have no problem with the equivalence of ‘shower’ and ‘a lot’ and have heard it used in reference to everything from idiots to, well it’s generally intended as a perjorative so politicians, clergy, public servants. Not meteorites though – that’s a different ‘shower’.
Oops- thanks B&J and Kairos.
Nah. Just keep doing them Alphalpha. Pain in the butt end when you know there is a ‘secret’ extra but themes regularly go over all our heads. Well, mine anyway.
I only spotted the theme as I was coming here. Never read the books, but I knew them vaguely. Also saw the short-lived TV series some years ago but can remember nothing about it.
Setter here!
My thanks to Bert and Joyce for sorting out the the fundamental interconnectedness of all things and to all who have commented.
Thanks Kairos and B&J. This was a fun way to wind down at the end of the evening. Completely oblivious to the theme while solving but it became blindingly obvious as soon as I saw the word theme in the preamble to the blog.
Alphalpha @17 – I like themes like this that don’t intrude on the solving (or should that be “the solve”?). Just pretend there isn’t a theme and don’t let it spoil your enjoyment.