Independent 11,491 by Salty

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Another new Indy setter for us today – welcome Salty!

What a great introduction – an excellent Thursday work-out, with a solver-friendly grid, no unusual words and some neat surfaces.

We did wonder about the definitions at 25ac (rather vague?) and 5d (for solvers who are younger than us!), but it was all good fun.

We’re looking forward to the next one.

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1. Pay attention: the 12th letter is X (6)
LISTEN

L (12th letter in the alphabet) IS TEN (X in Roman numerals)

5. Does this protect pig’s head? I don’t care! (2,4)
SO WHAT

A SOW HAT would protect a female pig’s head

8. Attractive female avoided making an impression (7)
ETCHING

fETCHING (attractive) missing or ‘avoiding’ the ‘f’ (female)

9. Perfect self-image inspiring Mahler’s last movement (7)
ALLEGRO

ALL (perfect) EGO (self-image) rounder ‘inspiring’ R (last letter of Mahler)

11. Stuff something warming from Vietnam inside coat (9)
UPHOLSTER

PHO (Vietnamese noodle soup – ‘something warming’) in ULSTER (coat)

12. Live tracks – what’s essential to Rolling Stone? (5)
BERYL

BE (live) RY (railway – ‘tracks’) L (middle or ‘essential’ letter of rolling)

13. Tiny part or larger part of anatomy (4)
ATOM

The four letters of ATOM make up the larger part of anATOMy

14. Where to buy feathers cheap? (10)
DOWNMARKET

You might buy DOWN (feathers) at a MARKET

18. Native potting house plant (10)
INSEMINATE

INNATE (native) round or ‘potting’ SEMI (house)

19. Cocktail you are delivered by standing order (4)
SOUR

U R (sounds like – ‘delivered’ – ‘you are’) after SO (standing order)

21. Regressive playwright striking woman’s bottom (5)
NADIR

A reversal (‘regressive’) of sheRIDAN (playwright) missing or ‘striking’ ‘she’ (woman)

23. Medicine dealer‘s file on girl’s case of bilharzia (9)
HERBALIST

LIST (file) after or ‘on’ HER (girl) B A (first and last letters or ‘case’ of bilharzia)

24. Largely against boarding train without a torch (7)
LANTERN

ANTi (against) missing the last letter or ‘largely’ in or ‘boarding LEaRN (train) without the ‘a’

25. Distribute coal in small dispensers (7)
OILCANS

An anagram (‘distribute’) of COAL IN + S (small)

26. Left newlywed’s belly needing larger dress size? (6)
PORTLY

PORT (left) LY (middle letters or ‘belly’ of newlywed)

27. Most skilful when cycling, unlikely to fall over (6)
STABLE

ABLEST (most skilful) with the last two letters moved to the the front or ‘cycling’

DOWN
2. Intriguing calls from Member of Parliament in support of old people (2,7)
IN CAHOOTS

HOOTS (calls from an owl – a ‘Member of Parliament’ – the collective noun for owls) after or ‘supporting’ INCA (‘old people’ – as in the native South Americans)

3. Toy gun used to hold up Tesco, primarily (6)
TRIFLE

RIFLE (gun) after or ‘holding up’ T (first or ‘primary’ letter of Tesco)

4. German drilling near built-up area – this goes on late (9)
NIGHTGOWN

G (German) in or ‘drilling’ NIGH (near) TOWN (built-up area)

5. Where I saw mouse and rat is demolished (5)
STAIR

An anagram (‘demolished’) of RAT IS – this must be a reference to the children’s novelty song ‘A Windmill in Old Amsterdam’ (now an annoying ear worm!) which somehow reached no 23 in the singles charts in 1965. The chorus goes ‘I saw a mouse! Where? There on the stair!’……We won’t go on to mention the clogs!

6. Said Reading inmate once stole king’s game (4,4)
WILD BOAR

A homophone (‘said’) of WILDE (Oscar Wilde – once a famous inmate of Reading Gaol) + BOA (stole, as in the neckwear) R (rex – king)

7. Put out a football team with no wingers? (5)
ANGER

rANGERs (football team) without the first and last letters or ‘wingers’

8. Exercising caution with deal could be enlightening (11)
EDUCATIONAL

An anagram (‘exercising’) of CAUTION and DEAL

10. Old book well-read son renders illegible (11)
OBLITERATES

O (old) B (book) LITERATE (well-read) S (son)

15. Disreputable hunter mostly spearing other people (9)
NOTORIOUS

ORIOn (hunter) missing the last letter or ‘mostly’ in or ‘spearing’ NOT US (‘other people’)

16. Clever clogs translated Low Latin term for Greek crowns (4-2-3)
KNOW-IT-ALL

An anagram (‘translated’) of LOW LATIN after or ‘crowned’ by K (last letter or ‘term’ of Greek)

17. Most fly south a month before trial (8)
SMARTEST

S (south) MAR (March – month) TEST (trial)

20. Set aside last of meat from bone for regional dish (6)
PAELLA

PAtELLA (bone – the kneecap) with the ‘t’ (‘last’ letter of meat) omitted or ‘set aside’

22. Dog in uproar? Beat it! (5)
DINGO

DIN (uproar) GO (beat it!)

23. Practical clothing for horseplay (5)
HANDY

H AND Y (first and last letters or ‘clothing’ of horseplay)

 

26 comments on “Independent 11,491 by Salty”

  1. …(Where on the STAIR?) | Right there! A little mouse with clogs on | Well I declare! | Going clip-clippety-clop on the STAIR | Oh yeah!’

  2. Thanks, Salty and B&J!
    An excellent work-out as you say.

    ALLEGRO
    Nice extended def (referring to Gustav Mahler).
    Also, we can think of Margaret Mahler while on the subject of ego.

  3. Excellent. Needed help with NADIR and LANTERN. Thanks B&J. I liked ALLEGRO even though Mahler’s 9th is not fast, HANDY for the wordplay and PORTLY. New setter, old tricks. Much appreciated. Thanks, Salty.

  5. A very good crossword with lots of ‘friends’ of the long time crossword solver with a ear worm to boot

    Many thanks to Salty and B&J

  6. Thanks and welcome to Salty – I look forward to many more puzzles as good as this one. And thanks B&J for the blog.

  8. Welcome Salty. I enjoyed teasing out WILD BOAR. Strangely DINGO is also an anagram of “dog in”, so I got to the right answer through the wrong parsing.

  9. Fabulous debut which I enjoyed from top to bottom. Tightly clued, imaginatively crafted and plenty of smiles. I shall look forward to seeing more of this setter.

    Favourites amongst many that I ticked include SO WHAT, DOWNMARKET, INSEMINATE, IN CAHOOTS, DISREPUTABLE, PAELLA and HORSEPLAY.

    Thanks Salty and B&J

  10. Thanks Salty and BnJ

    There’s a post on twitter that Salty is known to us as widdersbel – congratulations!

  14. Widdersbel – in the Tramp blog @7:
    ‘Belly seems a perfectly good middles indicator to me – in the sense of eg the belly of a ship.’ 🙂

  15. Many thanks to bertandjoyce for a super blog and to everyone else who has taken the time to solve and comment. Very much appreciated. Glad it has gone down well.

    Simon S @10 – rumbled! 🙂

    FrankieG @14 – funny the way these things work – I’d written this one not long before that Tramp puzzle came out so of course I was going to stick up for him! Might have changed my clue if his had proved unpopular though. 😉

  16. Well done on your Indy debut, Widdersbel, I remember your Rookie Corner contributions and this is certainly a step up for you.
    Tops for me today were LISTEN & DOWN MARKET and it would seem I’m not alone in the ear worm department!

    Thanks for the puzzle and thanks to B&J for the review and the nudge with a couple of parsings.

  17. Thanks both. Very much the mixture of levels of difficulty I prefer. B&J’s introduction mentions a couple perhaps less accessible to ‘younger viewers’ so to speak….to which I’d add NIGHTGOWN….to which I’d add time is the gift that keeps giving for crossword setters, as old and new are all at their disposal – I did mean to mention yesterday that seeing May clued as PM rather than ex PM surprised me, but it probably shouldn’t have

  18. Congrats to Salty. Very enjoyable with lots of fun clues. Standouts for me were the surface for PORTLY and the difficult to spot ‘Most fly’ def for SMARTEST. Look forward to more.

    Thanks to Salty in your new Fifteensquared guise and to B&J

  19. Congrats to Salty, about time too. Excellent, no-nonsense puzzle.
    Salty’s an interesting word. Collins has ‘(esp of humour) sharp; piquant’ but it’s often used critically these days in a way that I don’t quite understand (eg here by Nick Kyrgios), but which must be related to Collins alternative def ‘bitter, resentful’.

  22. Thanks Salty and Bertandjoyce.
    Anothet new setter?! Got to it late, but completely blown away!
    Welcome, Salty!
    Needed parsing for STAIR and WILD BOAR.
    The rest went in swimmingly, with a lot of chuckles…..have ten smilies around the grid.
    That ‘s one great debut.

  23. Congrats on the debut widdersbel! Thoroughly enjoyed, though the playwright and and the mouse were both unknowns to me.
    Podium probably SO WHAT, UPHOLSTER and WILD BOAR, though plenty to pick from.
    Looking forward to more!

  26. Didn’t do this puzzle but noticed the blog for a new setter, so had a look. Congratulations to Widdersbel on a long-overdue debut in the nationals (unless he’s appeared somewhere else under a different pseudonym?).

    Re ‘salty’ I only knew it (apart from the obvious literal meaning) in the phrase ‘salty language’, which I’ve always understood as ‘language of the kind you might expect from sailors’. M-W confirms:

    “Since sailors had a reputation for colorful language, ‘salty’ soon came to refer to crude speech”

    https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/salty-meaning

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