Grecian provides today’s Indy challenge.
We found this a very enjoyable puzzle.
As it is a Tuesday, we were looking for a theme throughout the solve, but could not find one until completing the blog…..when we realised that the ‘hobby’ at 16d/21d was the key.
We saw the film when it was released in 1996, but had forgotten the nicknames of the leading characters. An electronic search reminded us that the film was based on a book by Irvine 9ac, and was set in 11ac, about a group of 23d addicts, whose nicknames were 8d/18ac, 29d/18ac, 7d and 26d.
Thanks to Grecian for a reminder of a ground-breaking, critically acclaimed film.
WELS (catfish – a new one for us!) H (husband)
PLANET (world) REEf (bank) missing the ‘f’ (fine)
An anagram (‘corruption’) of DRUG BEHINd missing the last letter or ‘endless’
MAN (guy) E (last or ‘final’ letter of Ritchie) T (time)
An anagram (‘organisation’) of EUROPA round or ‘welcoming’ Q (Qatar)
A clue for ‘newt’ might be an anagram (‘OUT’) of WENT
A homophone (‘announced’) of LEITH (part of Edinburgh – 11ac) + E (ecstasy)
Hidden (held by) and reversed (back) in fALSE Teeth
An anagram (‘upset’) of ALICE round a reversal (return) of HT (height)
An anagram (‘wasted’) of HOURS round or ‘getting to grips with’ N (new) + N (number)
A reversal (‘backfiring’) of EROS (Cupid) + R (middle or ‘essential’ letter of arrow)
CASES (patients) round TRAT (Trattoria – Italian restaurant)
An anagram (‘vandalised’) of V, E (first and last letters or ‘case’ of vintage) and URINALS
MANC (an abbreviation for Mancunian – Liam Gallagher is a Mancunian) round or ‘touring’ I (India)
W (wife) in or ‘wearing’ TEE (T-shirt)
CT (court) round or ‘protecting’ an anagram (‘wild’) of ANIMAL
H (Henry) in CUB (baby)
SPAR (fight) E (middle letter or ‘heart’ of Diego) RIB (costa)
C (cocaine) + an anagram (‘moving’) of HE WAS
We had to check this one – MINA (Mina Harker was apparently a victim of Dracula in Bram Stoker’s book – which we have not read) in an anagram (‘high’) of STREET
RAN (worked) in FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office – ‘government department’)
RENT (let out) + a reversal (‘twisted’) of YOB (hooligan)
cOLLIE (dog) missing or ‘losing’ the first letter or ‘lead’ – another word we had to check, not being not skateboarding
An anagram (‘modelled’) of NUDE round or ‘astride’ ESCORT (car)
SPOT (mark) T (first or ‘initial’ letter of Twain) in TRAINING (working-out)
Galadriel, an elf, might finish a letter with YOURS, ELF
HEN (‘layer’) round or ‘hedging’ ROI (French for king)
O (old) C (Conservative) in or ‘overcome by’ LUST (passion)
Hidden and reversed (‘revolutionary characters’) in crowD UPSet
tRUMP (‘president’) missing the first letter or ‘leader’ or should it be ex-president?
S (first letter or ‘top’ of Stone) I (island) CK (Calvin Klein – ‘designer’)
I’m not sure if I have tackled a Grecian puzzle before, and I found this one good fun with a theme that even I managed to spot despite never having seen the film.
7d is out of date. The FCO no longer exists. It became the FCDO a couple of years ago.
I particularly liked MANET, WENT OUT, UNSHORN and YOURSELF.
Many thanks to Grecian and to B&J.
Very enjoyable puzzle, thanks, Grecian. Very tidy surfaces – love the skateboarding dog and the inventor with the troublesome gnashers.
And thanks for the blog, B&J. I completely failed to see the theme, even though I was primed to look for one with it being a Tuesday. Many years since I read Dracula, but I did manage to dig that one out from the memory banks.
Excellent. Enjoyed the anagrams with extra bits – especially EDINBURG (which didn’t add but subtract an extra bit). Liked ‘hen’ for layer and ‘cases’ for patients and liked that there was help from the crossers with this grid. Liked that the clues were concise. WENT OUT gets five stars. Encore!
Blimey! It never fails to amaze me that people spot these (to me anyway) obscure themes, and hats off to those who did. Some day there’ll be one that I’m the only commenter to recognise! At 13D my first idea was ‘oodle’ but a check to see if this was a skateboarding jump led me to OLLIE. Much enjoyed, so thanks Grecian and B&J.
Thanks, Grecian and B&J!
Enjoyed the puzzle and the blog.
PLANE TREE
I think ‘The London Plane (a tree/a grower)’ is indicated cryptically in the definition.
Thanks both. Much of the referenced general knowledge was absent for me, including LETHE and OLLIE but guessed those after also trying out ‘oodle’ for the latter. WENT OUT gets one-star for me, only as I entered ‘went off’ initially which delayed solving the key clue, which I then guessed might be the theme, although excepting HEROIN I could not confirm it
Found this one quite a tough nut and needless to say completely missed the theme, which meant nothing to me in any case!
Couple of new things learnt in the shape of the catfish and the skateboarding jump and my ticked clues were PLANE TREE, WENT OUT, UNSHORN & YOURSELF.
Thanks to Grecian and to B&J for the review and the homework they must do to find these themes!
Count us as another one who checked OODLE!
Jane@7 – it actually didn’t take us too long to uncover the theme. Joyce noticed TRAIN SPOTTING AND EDINBURGH and thought it may be the gateway to the theme. Bert who wrote up the blog, did the googling as we couldn’t remember anything else about the film ……. apart from the drugs.
Excellent, I really enjoyed this, concisely clued and with a nice contemporary feel to it in places.
I particularly liked CASTRATES (ouch) RENT BOY, YOURSELF and SICK.
Many thanks Grecian for a top puzzle and B&J for their usual excellent blog.
Do I win some kind of prize for having forgotten about Lethe?
We too initially had ‘went off’ instead of WENT OUT which held us up on 16/21 – and even then we needed a wordfinder for 27ac to discover that we were barking up the wrong tree, thinking the definition was ‘restaurant’. And we had to google Galadriel to discover she is an elf (in Lord of the Rings and other Tolkien works). Otherwise fairly straighforward. We thought the theme might be based on 16/21 since the setting was 11ac but we didn’t know any more about it. Our favourite was ETHICAL.
Thanks, Grecian and B&J.
Many thanks for the excellent blog B&J and also to everyone for the nice comments. Apologies that 15a had two valid solutions – that’s a bit annoying. The novel was published in 1993, so this was intended as a 30-year anniversary theme. Secretly hoping that Irvine Welsh has become a cruciverbalist!
Yes, first rate entertainment, thanks both setter and blogger. I’m another who thought ‘oodle’ sounds like a skateboard move.
On the subject of 15a, given the amount of jargon and shorthand that is used in this blog, shouldn’t there be a word for ‘a clue with two valid solutions’. It couldn’t be ACWTVS of course. Maybe CWUS (clue without unique solution. Or a Diclutome? No. I’m sure someone here could do better?
I initially wondered if a (b)eagle was a skate board move. Thanks Grecian and B&J got the theme but just failed to finish in the time I had today.