Independent 7,372 by Dac

by

I found this one really quite challenging for a Wednesday, but there were some very good clues in there, and some impressive anagrams.

*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, cd=cryptic definition, dd=double definition.

Across
1 SCHLEP – dd. Quite tough, I thought. This is “donkey” as in “a clumsy, stupid, incompetent person”.
5 BUDAPEST – (U + PAD<) in BEST.
9 WEIMARANER – (MARINE WAR[far]E)*.
10 THEA – [po]THEA[ds].
11 MOSAIC – dd. As in “of Moses”.
13 UNCURBED – UN + CUR + BED.
14 PRETENTIOUS MOI – (T[alk] + SUPERIO[r] + TONE + I’M)*. Goodness me.
15 REPRESENTATIVE – PRESENT in [c]REATIVE.
18 MEGALITH – ME + GAL + IT + H. The def. was well-hidden here.
19 ELEVEN – LE[ague] in EVEN.
21 ETUI – [d]E[f]T [p]U[p]I[l].
22 CHUCK WAGON – CHUCK + WAG + ON.
24 PROMISEE – PRO + M + I SEE.
25 WIDNES – ID in NEWS*.
Down
2 CREDO – C[hoir] + RE + DO.
3 LIMEADE – hom. of “lie, made”.
4 PAR – RAP<.
5 BANQUETING HOUSE – B[ritish] + (ENOUGH ANTIQUES)*.
6 DIRECTORATE – (EC in DIRT) + ORATE.
7 PETARDS – DEPARTS*.
8 STEVEDORE – VETS< + (DO in ERE). Tilbury being a port in Essex.
12 CHESSPIECES – CHE (Guevara)’S + (CE in SPIES).
14 PRESENTER – PRE + SENT + ER.
16 REALISM – 1’S in REALM.
17 ICELAND – I + C + ELAND.
20 EMOTE – (E + TOME)<.
23 KEW – hom. of “queue”.

12 comments on “Independent 7,372 by Dac”

  1. Great blog, Simon. I too found this harder than usual for Dac, with the NW corner the hardest. Excellent puzzle, esp liked MOSAIC, UNCURBED, PRETENTIOUS MOI, MEGALITH (for the reason you say), CHESSPIECES.

  2. I thought this was challenging as well. Guessed at SCHLEP and MOSAIC in the NE corner without understanding the wordplay, so managed to finish it. Wanted to put in PRETENTIOUS? MOI? for 14ac straight away, but couldn’t understand the construction for a long time. The homophone indicator in 3dn was brilliantly concealed, and ETUI is one of those words – like others we’ve mentioned recently – that you probably only know through crosswords. Sound and enjoyable puzzle as always from Dac on a Wednesday.

    Thanks for blogging, Simon.

  3. Sorry, like nms, meant north-west corner. North-east was probably Freudian, resulting from tribal loyalty and disappointment at Mr Bent not being selected to miss penalties for England in South Africa.

  5. Tahnkyou Simon for your very detailed blog. What a good puzzle, and a great clue for MEGALITH.

  6. I am fairly easily entertained, but I found this forced, joyless and annoying. There were a few clues that seemed worth the effort (18ac), but most had me gritting my teeth. What or where is Tilbury or Widnes and who cares? Not ETUI again. PRETENTIOUS MOI leaps out of the surface, why even bother to go back and ungomble (I think that is the verb that was used recently) the anagram fodder. What is necessarily ‘glamorous’ about wives & girlfriends (WAG)?

    Worst of all was SCHLEP. One schleps a suitcase 5 metres from the cab to the hotel, not across country! And a ‘donkey’ is a huge stretch. That’s dfd – double failed definitions for me.

  7. OK I guessed schlep and mosaic from bits of the clues and crossing letters but still don’t really get them. I can see Amos and the -ic bit but still. Made me doubt credo for a long time.

  8. Bonsoir Colin and flashling. Not sure I’m at the stage in my solving career where I’m in a position to explain clues to others, but having been uncertain about SCHLEP I did look it up in Collins. As well as the ‘drag’ or ‘lug’ definition, there are two others: ‘a stupid person’ and ‘an arduous journey’. So ‘It’s in Collins/Chambers’ would no doubt be the setter’s defence (but I will support you in agreeing that it’s a bit obscure).

    Colin, without wanting to disparage the wives and girlfriends of our redoubtable footballers setting off – as we speak – for South Africa, their reputation is more for glamour and high maintenance than their ability to solve daily cryptics in less than half an hour …

  9. flashling, Mosaic means ‘of the prophet Moses’, Amos is not involved.

    Colin, UK towns are perfectly acceptable in UK crosswords although I doubt there’s been a stevedore at Tilbury for at least thirty years.

  10. Thanks all, I’d never come across mosaic meaning of moses, perhaps seeing Amos was a tad unlucky for me today. As for schlep fair enough, the lugging bit didn’t ring bells until you pointed it out.

  11. Thanks Simon.
    I thought this was a pretty tough,but fair crossword.
    11 and 18 across were personal favourites and like others I didn’t like 1 across at first.But,as Kathryn’s Dad points out,it is a given dictionary definition,which makes it fair to me.

  12. Did well with this.Liked 14a.5 years since this first appeared and as we know England were utter rubbish in SA 2010 and Brazil last year 2014.Tokyo Colin Widnes was my first clue in as I don’t live that far away! I’ll take them all day!

Comments are closed.