Independent 11,501 by Angel

by

Angel fills the Tuesday slot this week – our first blog of a puzzle by this setter. We started off at a rate of knots starting in the NW corner and working anti-clockwise until we ground to a halt in the NE section. No idea why after having solved the clues.

We were on the lookout for a theme as it is Tuesday. Thankfully, after we slowed down we worked out the message in the perimeter unches which helped us finish. A quick google revealed that it was a quote by Jorge Luis Borges (born 24th Aug 1899). He was an Argentine short story writer, essayist, poet and translator. He also worked as a librarian and in 1955 he was appointed Director of the National Public Library in Argentina, by which time he was completely blind.

Thanks Angel – especially for the SNOOPY clue at 19ac. We are looking forward to introducing our grandchildren to the strip cartoon.

Bert is now off walking the Mont Blanc Circuit. As it’s Joyce writing the blog this week – I’m hoping that I won’t have to ‘phone a friend’ if I get stuck on our next two blogs. It could get rather expensive.

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
8. Backswing veers off course (4)
YAWS

A ‘lift and separate’ – a reversal (back) of SWAY (swing)

9. Turning on Labour, he is righteous (10)
HONOURABLE

An anagram (‘turning’) of ON LABOUR HE

10. Crown decay, according to Spooner, is inflamed (3-3)
RED-HOT

A Spoonerism of HEAD (crown) ROT (decay)

11. Plate, cup of tea or other domestic product? (8)
HOMEBREW

HOME (plate as in baseball) BREW (cup of tea)

12. Media organisation in account of scholar (8)
ACADEMIC

An anagram (‘organisation’) of MEDIA in ACC (account)

14. Nightmare visions of trendy club ejecting liberal single (6)
INCUBI

IN (trendy) ClUB without or ‘ejecting’ the ‘l’ (liberal) + I (single)

16. Decry reactionary attitudes in literary debuts (4)
RAIL

First letters or ‘debuts’ of Reactionary Attitudes In Literary

17. Called after old Unseen University librarian, perhaps (5)
ORANG

RANG (called) after O (old). The library at the Unseen University features in some of the Discworld series of books written by Terry Pratchett. It was a storehouse for magical tomes and references. It was staffed by the librarian, an orangutan.

18. Students following board of education signal for end of class (4)
BELL

LL (students) following BE (board of education)

19. Bodleian initially set against Big Bird and Snoopy, for example (6)
BEAGLE

B (first or ‘initial’ letter of Bodleian) EAGLE (big bird). Lovely to be reminded of one of all-time favourite cartoon characters.

21. Alongside the main writings, archivist’s last spoken test (8)
LITTORAL

LIT (writings) T (last letter of archivist) ORAL (spoken test)

23. One facing endless dubious unemployment (8)
IDLENESS

I (one) and an anagram (‘dubious’) of ENDLESS

26. Biscuit mix (6)
HOBNOB

Double definition

27. Desperate measure in most remote seaside town: … (4,6)
LAST RESORT

A cryptic definition – LAST (the most remote) RESORT (seaside town)

28. … ice cream eaten by frozen ocean, looking west (4)
CONE

Hidden (‘eaten by’) and reversed (‘looking west’) in frozEN OCean

DOWN
1. Scrapheap represented end of line for stationery business (10)
PAPERCHASE

An anagram (‘represented’) of SCRAPHEAP + E (last letter or ‘end’ of line) Paperchase is a chain of stores selling stationery.

2. Awkward lad hopes for Lily (8)
ASPHODEL

An anagram (‘awkward’) of LAD HOPES

3. Beat and thrash – try fetishism regularly (6)
RHYTHM

Regular letters in thRasH trY feTisHisM

4. Life symbolically observed during bank holidays (4)
ANKH

Hidden or ‘observed’ in bANK Holidays

5. Idiot, gin-addled, faking a pass (8)
DUMMYING

DUMMY (idiot) and an anagram (‘addled’) of GIN

6. Setter is writer, stressed in a particular way (6)
IAMBIC

I AM (setter is) BIC (writer)

7. Fruit late being picked up (4)
SLOE

Homophone (‘being picked up’) of SLOW (late)

13. Both sides of council protecting inexperienced creep (5)
CRAWL

CouncilL (first and last letters or ‘both sides’) around or ‘protecting’ RAW (inexperienced)

15. Toxic perennial characters from Twilight and Doctor Who (10)
BELLADONNA

BELLA and DONNA are characters from Twilight and Doctor Who respectively

17. Not blinking surprised! (4-4)
OPEN-EYED

Double definition

18. Consequences of disappointment and retreat (8)
BLOWBACK

BLOW (disappointment) BACK (retreat)

20. Giles initially redeployed to the restricted section (6)
GHETTO

G (first or ‘initial’ letter of Giles) and an anagram (‘redeployed’) of TO THE

22. Somewhere volcanic featuring in Utah itinerary (6)
TAHITI

Hidden (‘featuring’) in uTAH ITInerary

24. On reflection, note editor not likely to borrow audiobooks? (4)
DEAF

A reversal (‘on reflection’) of FA (note) ED (editor)

25. Conclusions of Borges, Eco, Szabo, Ranganathan or anon (4)
SOON

Last letters or ‘conclusions’ to borgeS ecO szabO RanganathaN

 

31 comments on “Independent 11,501 by Angel”

  1. Thanks, Angel and B&J!
    A very enjoyable puzzle.
    A high-quality neat blog.

    IAMBIC
    The def makes sense as it is.
    Just wondering if ‘particular way’ fits in the IAMBIC category?
    If so, that will be an embellishment.

  2. Very nice indeed. I did not recognise the quotation but I did see it gradually coming into view and it helped with a couple at the end. Well done to the setter on avoiding too many unusual words – neither BELLADONNA nor PAPERCHASE seemed that outrageous even though the latter may be unknown to overseas solvers. ASPHODEL rang a vague bell but did need an anagram solver eventually. I very much liked INCUBI, BEAGLE (possibly COTD), HOBNOB, ANKH, DUMMYING (podium) and DEAF along with the aforementioned PAPERCHASE (podium) and BELLADONNA.

    A delightful puzzle, not too difficult but with a sense of fun, some nice references to ‘real world’ and nods to popular culture. I am not so well up on Twilight and Dr Who but Pratchett was a fave.

    Thanks Angel and the indefatigable Joyce. Does Bert have any idea where he lost his pen?

  3. Very nice puzzle. Thanks, Angel and Joyce. Particularly liked the clever definition for LITTORAL. Pratchett is a closed book to me (well, not entirely – I read a couple of the series some years ago) so the ORANG reference was a mystery but the library reference in the clue does give a pleasing kind of symmetry with the perimeter quote. And I do like a puzzle with a broad range of cultural references.

  5. Thanks both. In quite a hurry today, so this was ideal, and the Nina helped me to finish – I did cheat momentarily only getting ASPHODEL on my third guess, but I am no gardener unless I have a saw in my hand. Didn’t know of the ORANG librarian, but it creates an amusing image, and knew the Donna section of BELLADONNA only, but that was all that was needed to confirm

  8. FrankieG@6
    IAMBIC
    Thanks for the link.
    As I don’t understand stressed & unstressed syllables well, wanted you
    to help me confirm if ‘a particular way’ or ‘particular way’ follows such an alternate stressed-unstressed pattern of syllables.
    I mean the syllables in these words ‘particular way’.

    Just looking for something additional in the clue.

    Does my question not make sense?

  9. KVa @8: FrankieG’s comment @6 does explain it well but, if you want to see iambic pentameter in action, here’s a link to Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock which I recall studying at school.

  10. PostMark@9
    Thanks.
    Let me simplify my request:
    Please educate me by showing the sequence of stresses on the syllables in
    the phrase ‘a particular way’ (a par-ti-cu-lar way: which ones are stressed
    and which are not?)

  12. Hmm. I suspect you might be trying to read more into it that the setter intended, KVa. But who am I to know? I don’t think there is any particular stress I employ when enunciating ‘a particular way’, other than a slightly stronger emphasis on the ‘t’ of the ‘tic’ in the middle. The rest of the phrase is pretty much evenly stressed.

  13. This may be helpful too:

    There are many two-syllable words in English whose meaning and class change with a change in stress. The word present, for example is a two-syllable word. If we stress the first syllable, it is a noun (gift) or an adjective (opposite of absent). But if we stress the second syllable, it becomes a verb (to offer). More examples: the words export, import, contract and object can all be nouns or verbs depending on whether the stress is on the first or second syllable.

  14. Widders – we crossed. Yes, of course, there is stress on the ‘w’ of ‘way’ – though, having tried it a few times, marginally less, I would argue, than on that middle-ish ‘t’. Oh, the happy minutiae of life … 😀

  15. KVa@8 – Yes, your question makes sense. An iamb is one particular way of stressing the syllables in poetry.
    Others are available – Disyllables: trochee (DUM da) – spondee (DUM DUM) — Trisyllables: tribrach (da da da) – dactyl (DUM da da) – anapaest (da da DUM)
    They’re all very particular about where the stress goes or doesn’t go. There is “something additional in the clue”.

  19. Thanks, Widdersbel, PostMark and Joyce.

    PostMark@12
    Exactly. Tried to see if these 5 syllables fitted the ‘da dum da dum da’ sequence.
    If they did, that would have been some extra fun, I thought.

    Just something not related to this clue or the puzzle:
    Many of my English and American friends have told me that I often stress
    the wrong syllables or leave some syllables unstressed when they need
    to be stressed. 🙂

    Trying to learn…

  20. The above discussion triggered this memory:
    There was a puzzle quite some time ago (more than a year maybe) in which a large number of the solutions were homographs like object, second, contract and produce. I am trying to locate that puzzle.

  21. Thanks Joyce and all!

    Can confirm that no iambs were harmed (or deliberately used) in the making of 6d. Although I have clued an entire puzzle in rhyming couplets before.

    Re PAPERCHASE, the surface didn’t have the extra resonance when I first clued it, but it did turn out to be sadly prophetic…

  26. Ankh had me looking for More and Pork, especially after ORANG, but it turned out that Terry Pratchett was incidental to the actual theme. Thanks, both.

  27. Good to see Angel back for her first puzzle this year and nice of her to pop in. Solved as far as filling the grid went but I had no idea about ORANG and BELLADONNA. The subtleties of IAMBIC went way over my head as well. I’ve just looked it up and now see what FrankieG @4 and Angel @21 are referring to for PAPERCHASE. The hard to spot def for LITTORAL was my favourite.

    Well done to FrankieG for linking the peripheral Nina to more than the ORANG clue.

    Thanks to Angel and B&J

  28. KVa@25 – …and I learned that the word I was looking for to describe the “theme” was homograph.

  29. Made heavy weather of this – lack of the required GK didn’t help either!
    Tops for me were LAST RESORT, DUMMYING & SLOE.

    Thanks to Angel for the challenge and to B&J for the review – hope Bert enjoys his ‘walk’, sounds somewhat arduous to me!

  31. Capital “i“s and lower case “L“s can often be confused – I had to put them the wrong way round, just then, or they’d’ve looked the same.
    A case in point: iatrophobia is the fear of doctors, but Google Latrophobia and you’ll find myriad results, mostly from medical sources.
    The non-word Latrophobia even turned up in the script for an episode of the now-defunct Holby City – which presumably had medical advisors.
    Thanks A (R) & J (of B&J)

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