Independent 11,400 by Bluth

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Bluth fills the mid-week slot today – we’re in for a fun challenge!

As anticipated, a great puzzle with excellent surfaces and some ingenious definitions – we particularly liked 18/19 ac.

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1. Classically attractive comedian going after film role (7-8)
PICTURE-POSTCARD

CARD (comedian) after or ‘supporting’ PICTURE (film) and POST (role)

9. Get wind of African country when making Mo Salah’s first international (7)
SIROCCO

moROCCO (African country) with ‘mo’ changed to S (first letter of Salah) I (international)

10. Discredited, forgetting I twice passed on Mastermind (7)
BRANDED

DiED (passed) without or ‘forgetting’ the ‘i’ after (‘on’) BRAiN (Mastermind) also missing the ‘i’ (‘forgetting I twice’)

11. English lawyer died first – leading to post-mortem (7)
DEBRIEF

E (English) BRIEF (lawyer) with D (died) first

13. Machine operator‘s senior going over packing area on time (7)
TREADLE

A reversal (‘going over’) of ELDER (senior) round or ‘packing’ A (area) after (‘on’ again) T (time)

14/15. Somehow he sees us double number (4,5,5)
BLUE SUEDE SHOES

An anagram (‘somehow’) of HE SEES US DOUBLE

18/20. Band that shows promise getting buzz after gig (10,4)
ENGAGEMENT RING

RING (buzz) after ENGAGEMENT (gig)

23. Difficult politician left former partner’s business at the outset (7)
COMPLEX

MP (politician) L (left) EX (former partner) with CO (company – ‘business’) first, or ‘at the outset’

24. Posh females splitting fish dish (7)
SOUFFLE

U (posh) FF (females) in or ‘splitting’ SOLE (fish)

25. Club having staff for event (7)
IRONMAN

IRON (club, in golf) MAN (staff)

27. Crooned revolutionary song – it’s punchy (7)
SANGRIA

SANG (crooned) + a reversal (‘revolutionary’) of AIR (song)

28. He helps to even up supply and exceed normal limits (4,3,8)
PUSH THE ENVELOPE

An anagram (‘supply’, in a supple manner) of HE HELPS TO EVEN UP

DOWN
1. Cast of soap with bold routine – ultimately, something you might see on Strictly? (4,5)
PASO DOBLE

An anagram (‘cast’) of SOAP and BOLD + E (last or ‘ultimate’ letter of routine)

2. Reindeer‘s sweet company when the temperature drops – and safe for all (7)
CARIBOU

hARIBO (sweet company) with the ‘h’ (hot’) changed to C (cold) – ‘dropping the temperature’ + U (universal – ‘safe for all’)

3. Union’s leader on nurses looking after heart of this poor child (6)
URCHIN

U (first letter or ‘leader’ of Union) RCN (Royal College of Nursing – ‘nurses’) round or ‘looking after’ HI (middle letters or ‘heart’ of ‘this’)

4. Orgies occasionally boosted self-esteem (3)
EGO

A reversal (‘boosted’) of the alternate (‘occasional’) letters of OrGiEs

5. Ring little brother up (3)
ORB

A reversal (‘up’) of BRO (abbreviation for ‘brother’)

6. Cross the Rubicon – initially reluctant (8)
TRAVERSE

T R (‘initial’ letters of the Rubicon) AVERSE (reluctant)

7. ‘Enhanced’ man did hen do – oddly missing half of toga (5,2)
ADDED TO

Even-numbered letters (‘oddly missing’) of mAn DiD hEn Do + TOga (first two letters or ‘half of’)

8. Get round as band do Auld Lang Syne last of all (5)
DODGE

Last letters of banD dO AulD LanG SynE

12. Florida mum’s upset over vote yielding defeat (7)
FLUMMOX

FL (Florida) + an anagram (‘upset’) of MUM + O (over) + X (vote)

13. Items papers used in place of hard news (7)
TIDINGS

ThINGS (items) with the ‘h’ (hard) replaced by ID (papers)

16. Exclude damaged Easter egg (9)
SEGREGATE

An anagram (‘damaged’) of EASTER EGG

17. It could be 18 Across to begin with – set it around motorway (3,5)
AGE LIMIT

A (first letter or ‘beginning’ of across) + GEL (set) IT round M1 (motorway)

19. Frisks group of doctors during strike in recession (7)
GAMBOLS

A reversal (‘in recession’) of BMA (British Medical Association – ‘group of doctors’) in or ‘during’ SLOG (strike)

21. No reason to start blaze (7)
INFERNO

NO with INFER (reason) in front or ‘to start’

22. One of five content to leave cheese and fruit (6)
QUINCE

QUIN (quintuplet – ‘one in five’) + CheesE (without the middle letters or ‘content to leave’)

23. Ape shot outside Malawi’s capital (5)
CHIMP

CHIP (shot – as in golf) round M (first letter or ‘capital’ of Malawi)

26. New phone company is born (3)
NEE

N (new) EE (phone company)

27. Child star on the radio (3)
SON

A homophone (‘on the radio’) of SUN (star)

14 comments on “Independent 11,400 by Bluth”

  1. Goodness me! Coming here after tackling Bluth’s alter ego in the G, I feel I spent quite a chunk of my early morning inside the mind of Mr Gorman! My head is buzzing as a result. As usual, tons of fun. I wonder whether the POSTCARD at the top and the ENVELOPE at the bottom was intended as symmetry; it certainly had that pleasing effect for me. Similarly, it was fun to encounter two of the medical professional bodies.

    I had particular ticks for SIROCCO, BRANDED, DEBRIEF, SOUFFLE, DODGE, FLUMMOX and INFERNO. And I agree with our bloggers’ choice of COTD for the lovely def of ENGAGEMENT RING.

    Thanks Bluth and B&J

  3. Lovely puzzle. Completely agree with the bloggers’ assessment – excellent surfaces and ingenious definitions. Definitely on Mr Gorman’s wavelength today because I breezed through this even quicker than the Fed one.

    Thanks, Bluth and Bert and Joyce.

    PM – a fun place to be!

  4. Excellent with super and inventive wordplay throughout.
    Definitely my fastest Bluth/Django solve so must have been at the lighter end of his spectrum.
    I’ve got ticks throughout the grid but I’ll highlight BRANDED lol, DEBRIEF, SANGRIA, ENGAGEMENT RING, INFERNO and CHIMP as particularly enjoyable.
    Many thanks to Bluth and B&J for a top puzzle and blog.

  5. Same experience as PostMark @1 and Widdersbel. We’ve been spoilt today.

    I really do have too many ticks to list today – so many super surfaces, cheeky misdirections and excellent anagrams.

    I agree with 18/20 being particularly good – I always admire composite clues that run on in the grid – and I do enjoy ‘substitution’ clues, like 9ac, 2dn and 13dn (and it seems DG does, too!)

    Huge thanks to Bluth and B&J for a brilliant start to the day.

  6. Fantastic crossword as already noted. The bottom half went in quickly for me but the top half took a while. Needed the blog’s assistance to parse CARIBOU. Never heard of the sweet company. I did see when googling UK film classifications that U excluded children under 4 years old whereas PG was safe for all. I enjoyed the clueing today. Particularly for URCHIN, AGE LIMIT and SOUFFLÉ and I thought the anagrams were first-class fun. Thanks Blyth and B&an.

  9. All the usual parsing challenges but great fun and a satisfying solve.

    It’s also a challenge to pick a favourite from such a good selection but I’ll settle for ENGAGEMENT RING.

    Many thanks to Bluth and B&J.

  10. Much as others have said. A real treat today with Bluth/Fed here and in the G and Basilisk in the FT. Lots of fun with a sprinkling of tough wordplay to make this satisfying to solve. Like Sofamore @6, I didn’t know, or rather had forgotten, the ‘sweet company’ at 2d, for which I had to rely on the def.

    As well as those clues already mentioned I liked the topical surfaces for 3d and 19d.

    Thanks to Bluth and B&J

  11. Thanks both. For me AGE LIMIT was the best of an excellent line-up. I have seen ‘boosted’ as a reversal indicator before, as it is used in EGO, but my dictionaries don’t confirm the synonym and I can’t think of a context

  13. Thanks Bluth. After a very slow start I managed to joyfully complete this. I second all the positive comments. Thanks B&J for the blog.

  14. Thanks Bertandjoyce and thanks all.

    There appears to be a ‘supporting’ in the parsing for 1ac that doesn’t appear in the clue. “Classically attractive comedian’s supporting film role” would work nicely in a down clue – but I don’t remember if I ever had the grid that way and flipped it for some reason part way through so I don’t know if the clue was ever worded that way in an earlier draft.

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