The Independent on Sunday puzzle has historically had a reputation for being reasonably gentle, and it often still is. But not this week, for this solver at least.
Filbert is currently the most prolific setter for the Independent, popping up on various days of the week. His/her surfaces are always exemplary, and there isn’t a duff one here, but perhaps that results in some parsings that are more difficult to unpick. I struggled with a few today. That said, degree of difficulty is only one aspect of a puzzle, and there was much to admire here.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
cad clue as definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed
definitions are underlined
Across
1 Funny business with spades covered up by GI
JOCOSE
An insertion of CO and S in JOE. The insertion indicator is ‘covered up by’.
4 Beaten with a fine hypothetical question
WHAT-IF
(WITH A F)* with ‘beaten’ as the anagrind.
8 Mean alien leaves Earth, perhaps
PLAN
PLAN[ET] ‘Did you mean/plan that to happen?’
9 Daring to gain access with crowbar
ENTERPRISE
A charade of ENTER and PRISE.
11 Pile of wood set on fire, watched from behind chain
PYRENEES
A charade of PYRE and SEEN reversed.
12 Small pony manoeuvred around old beagle
SNOOPY
A charade of S and an insertion of O in (PONY)* gives you Charles Schultz’s famous dog and Charlie Brown’s canine companion. The insertion indicator is ‘around’ and the anagrind is ‘manoeuvred’.
13 Ogre’s inside a German cave
GROTTO
A charade of GR for the inside letters of oGRe and OTTO.
15 Love feeding wild animals? Work behind security screen
MONA LISA
An insertion of O in (ANIMALS)* with ‘wild’ as the anagrind and ‘feeding’ as the insertion indicator. The security screen has done sterling work recently protecting it from environmental activists.
17 Rise, to allow hosts sleep at last
GRADIENT
An insertion of DIE in GRANT. The insertion indicator is ‘hosts’.
19 Bump into muscly entomologist on vacation
BUFFET
A charade of BUFF and ET for the outside letters of ‘entomologist’.
21 Stubborn person cracks in response to charm
AMULET
An insertion of MULE in AT. The insertion indicator is ‘cracks’. There are some less obvious synonyms knocking about in this puzzle. The best I can do here is ‘He was shocked at/in response to her behaviour’.
23 Laughing, hail king amongst men outside the church
HILARITY
A charade of HI and an insertion of R for Rex or ‘king’ in LAITY.
25 Aviators perhaps serenaded young women
SUNGLASSES
A charade of SUNG and LASSES. Aviators is a brand of Ray-Ban sunnies.
26 Bare arse inscribed with record number of sit-ups, say
REPS
An insertion of EP for ‘record’ in RS for ‘arse’ without its outside letters. A term much-used by gym bunnies, although it would take an exceptional degree of obsession to have your personal best tattooed on your arse.
27 Car seat moved back for East European
ESTATE
A charade of (SEAT)*, T for the final letter of ‘East’ and E. The anagrind is ‘moved’.
28 Marc like marque?
BRANDY
A whimsical dd. Something like a marque might be said to be BRAND-Y.
Down
1 Very entertaining
JOLLY
A dd.
2 All inside have shelter
CONTENT
A charade of CON and TENT. ‘You’ve been had/conned.’
3 Second person died in warehouse — a docker
STEVEDORE
An insertion of EVE and D in STORE. The insertion indicator is ‘in’. EVE is the second person, since the Old Testament is massively patriarchal and Adam was always going to come first.
5 Rental contracts showing great detail
HIRES
A dd. You have to read the second definition as HI-RES.
6 Upset stomach Romeo fills with vegetable fat
TURMOIL
An insertion of the phonetic alphabet Romeo in TUM, followed by OIL. The insertion indicator is ‘fills’.
7 Spread silence by blocking F1 race at the finish
FISH PASTE
An insertion of SH and PAST in FI and E for the final letter of ‘race’. The insertion indicator is ‘blocking’.
10 Ashes? Try burning sticks
TEST MATCHES
A charade of TEST and MATCHES.
14 Bat on and on, a thousand overs to get through
REREMOUSE
This solver is never getting this without aids. A pretty obscure word for an IoS puzzle, I would posit. A charade of RE twice, M, O and USE.
16 Spray lube and rinse off
NEBULISER
(LUBE RINSE)* with ‘off’ as the anagrind.
18 Day on lake in rowing boat gives great pleasure
DELIGHT
A charade of D and L inserted into EIGHT. The insertion indicator is ‘in’.
20 Computer language with secure structure executed
FORTRAN
A charade of FORT and RAN. One of the early languages of programming.
22 Breakfast like small child eats
TOAST
An insertion of AS in TOT. The insertion indicator is ‘eats’ and a question mark to indicate definition by example would have been helpful.
24 Having had a few hints, unknown?
TIPSY
A charade of TIPS and Y.
Many thanks to Filbert for this Sunday’s puzzle.
TBH, I’ve been doing the Indy for quite a number of years now and was not particularly aware that the IoS was supposed to be easier. I know, Pierre, you have run into this problem before! Filbert is rarely easy so I fully expected a bit of a tussle. That said, Filbert rarely has a duff clue so I fully expected some sparkling clues. I got both.
Amongst the crackers, those that earned the biggest ticks inc JOCOSE, PYRENEES, MONA LISA, SUNGLASSES, ESTATE, TEST MATCHES,NEBULISER and DELIGHT. I’m not sure I understand the DBE query re TOAST: surely, as breakfast covers toast, it does not need one? If toast was being used to define breakfast, then toast would be the DBE and need a QM?
Thanks Filbert and Pierre
Thanks to Filbert and Pierre
Nice straight forward Sunday morning puzzle.
NHO Reremouse but gettable in the end
Got 14d REREMOUSE without aids – a jorum – then looked it up at oed.com. A variant of rearmouse, with a long multiply-italicised preliminary paragraph…
‘Now rare (archaic and English regional (south-western and midlands) and Welsh English in later use, or with reference to earlier texts)’
…for such a short definition: ‘1. Old English– A bat.’
…followed by pages of quotes, with α, β, and γ forms, and then – Surprise! – another definition, even more obscure:
‘2. 1598–1611† A flying fish (cf. sea-bat n. 1). More fully rearmouse of the sea. Obsolete. rare.’
Thanks F&P
I prefer parsing WHAT IF as (WITH A)* + F (fine).
Yes, that works better, Hovis.
PostMark, when I started blogging for Fifteensquared the Independent was still a dead-tree newspaper, and the IoS puzzle was always a prize, so (like the Everyman), we never used to publish the blog till a week later. I remember Eimi saying back then that he wanted to give less experienced solvers a chance to win the life-changing prize of a dictionary, so the puzzle was always easy-end. Perhaps that’s changed, although my sense is it’s still usually Mondayish, if that makes sense.
[That’s rather a nice approach and I can see why he would do it. It’s a bit before I got into the Indy. Not sure I particularly notice that Sunday puzzles are that much easier than others; mind you, one cannot rely on Monday puzzles being gentle either! I am now going to go and get my head around Sunday being Mondayish! (Reminds me of a comment from a retired friend, “It’s awful – you never get a day off!)]
Most entertaining so thanks both.
TEST MATCHES was just great and BRANDY tickled my fancy. FISH PASTE not so much – I don’t recall the ‘by’=’past’ equivalence before. It strikes me as very sneaky (by which I mean good) but I’m struggling to conjure an interchange in a sentence. ‘Days gone by’ and ‘days past’ only works if I squint my eyes a bit.
Alphalpha @8: he walked by/past the butcher’s? ‘Past’ is given as a definition of ‘by’ as a preposition in Chambers I think Filbert’s on safe ground?
I don’t usually look at who the setter is in the app version, but not surprised to find Filbert behind the fun today… it was a blank grid till I got halfway down, then DELIGHT, HIRES n FORTRAN followed (not swiftly) by the TIPSY TOAST BRANDY combination, n SUNGLASSES n the bare arse thing.. all of which says something about my Sunday mornings perhaps. Really enjoyed so many TURMOIL, PYRENEES, MONA LISA, AMULET, BUFFET.. tried to take ET out of Earth which had slowed down progress initially, but was swept away in the general enthusiasm on second perusal. All 1&2dn n a certain amount of 23ac..
Thanks Filbert n Pierre
This wasn’t without its problems for this solver but I did eventually piece it all together. Particularly liked PYRENEES, JOLLY, TEST MATCH & TIPSY.
Thanks to Filbert and to Pierre for the review – no birds for you again………..
PM@9: True for you. I was stuck in the temporal sense of past – time for my Homer Simpson impersonation (Mmmmm…beer… (not that one Doh!)).
Curiously, this relative novice found this puzzle pretty easy – a not-so-commonplace all in and parsed for me, albeit that reremouse was a jorum (given the crossers, it had to be some kind of flying mouse though 😉 )
Maybe I was inspired by the appearance of my home, the PYRENEES, whose lovely surface I particularly enjoyed, along with those for JOLLY, MONA LISA, GRADIENT, SUNGLASSES, TEST MATCHES, and TURMOIL.
Surely FORTRAN must be in the queue for retirement from crosswordland! I imagine it must be hard to recruit for, these days.
Is a dd in which the two answers have different “word splits” (HIRES) really a dd? I wonder if such a clue has another name.
Thanks both for the fun.
AP@13 – I first learned to program in FORTRAN almost fifty years ago. Imagine my surprise to learn from Wikipedia that the language has continued to evolve and is still in the top 10 languages used according to TIOBE, who track such things.
I have to say I often knock off the Azed on a Sunday and then get stuck on the Indy. This was the case this week. Probably says more about my style of solving rather than the difficulty of the puzzle.