Independent 11,872 by Italicus

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Firstly, apologies for posting the wrong blog this morning. I use the Drury's website to do the puzzle but, unfortunately if you open an Indy puzzle in advance of the date there and it hasn't yet been uploaded, rather than tell you it's not there it just shows you an old puzzle. Normally, I check that it's the right puzzle but on this occasion I forgot and just dived in.

Thankfully, the correct puzzle wasn't too difficult and I could knock it off fairly quickly. That's not to say it was a bad puzzle – there were loads of good clues.

Even I couldn't fail to pick up on the theme of this one. Many of the solutions reference the Gunfight at the OK Corral. It's well worth watching the documentary on Netflix about this, if you have Netflix. The story is far more interesting and complicated than is portrayed in the many film versions.

ACROSS
1 REAPPOINT
Gather Mark put back into job (9)

Reap(=gather in harvest sense) + point(=mark on a map, say)
6 RIDE
Fairground attraction regularly exhibited reindeer (4)

Odd letters of reindeer
8 TRAIN SET
Works out limits of elegant plaything (5,3)

Trains(=works out) + e[legan]t
9 MISUSE
Ill-treat young lady touring university quarter (6)

(Miss(=young lady) around U{niversity}) + E(=quarter on the compass)
10 ALCOVE
Fellow follows heart in fall recess (6)

Cove(=fellow) after [f]al[l]
11 UNSOILED
Delusion about being immaculate (8)

Delusion*
12 STRAND
Rushes back across north shore (6)

Darts<(=rushes) around N{orth}
15 HOOLIGAN
Rowdy husband demolishing an igloo (8)

H{usband} + (an igloo)*
16 VENDETTA
Surgeon admitting death leads to terribly acrimonious feud (8)

(Vet{inary surgeon} around end(=death)) + t[erribly] a[crimonious]
19 ESCROW
Extremely envious about line in legal arrangement (6)

E[nviou]s + c{irca}(=about) + row(=line). Escrow is a legal arrangement for holding money with a third party until some milestone has been reached.
21 WET NURSE
Ewe turns out to be alternative source of milk (3,5)

(Ewe turns)*
22 CORRAL
Pen Charlie essentially twirled in exam (6)

C{harlie}(=phonetic alphabet) + (twi]r[led]) in oral(=exam)
24 DOCILE
Submissive female catches chill, periodically (6)

Doe around chill
25 GUNFIGHT
German ill-equipped to comprehend Ghana’s armed struggle (8)

G{erman} + (unfit around GH, which is the 2 letter ISO code for Ghana)
26 WEST
They say it was wild in Marlowe’s time (4)

Hidden in "Marlowe's time"
27 TARTAREAN
Infernal substance 17 removes with electronic article (9)

Tartar(=a substance removed by a dentist) + e{lectronic} + an(=indefinite article)
DOWN
1 RURAL
Bucolic painting male replaced with rhino’s head (5)

Mural with m{ale} replaced by r[hino]
2 ARIZONA
Song about endless territory in battleground state (7)

Aria around zon[e]. In this context, the town of Tombstone was located in Arizona.
3 POSSE
Crew of old ship engaged in exercise (5)

(O{ld} SS(=ship)) in PE.
4 IN TRUTH
Really popular bible book bolstering theist’s conclusion (2,5)

In(=popular i.e. the "in" thing) + (Ruth(=bible book) after [theis]t)
5 TOMBSTONE
Ace abandons struggling Boston team? It’s a grave sign! (9)

(Boston te[a]m)*
6 ROSSINI
Composer from Berlin is sorely upset (7)

Hidden, rev in "Berlini is sorely"
7 DESPERADO
Daughter read Poe’s moving letters for brigand (9)

D{aughter} + (read Poe's)*
13 THEREFORE
Consequently, those people are in favour of being heard (9)

Hom of "They're for"
14 DETERGENT
Bird raised in hollow is cleaner (9)

Egret< in dent
17 DENTIST
Professional study on temperature is supported by model (7)

Den(=study) + t{emperature} + is + T(=model T Ford). Doc Holliday was, of course, a dentist originally.
18 AVENGER
Consumed by fury, discontented vigilante becomes agent of retribution (7)

V[igilant]e in anger(=fury)
20 CARBINE
Arm mangled in brace (7)

(In brace)*. The def refers to arm in the sense of weapon, although it's nearly always used in the plural, presumably because something like "he was brandishing an arm" would be confusing and weird.
22 CONGA
Criminal leads government a merry dance (5)

Con(=convict i.e. criminal) + g{overnment} + a
23 ASHEN
White layer beneath exposed mass (5)

Hen under [m]as[s]

11 comments on “Independent 11,872 by Italicus”

  1. A gentle theme – I had GUNFIGHT, CORRAL, TOMBSTONE, ARIZONA as core constituents and DESPERADO, POSSE, CARBINE and WEST as tangential. I did not know Doc Holliday was a DENTIST. Did I miss any others? I guess RIDE is relevant but do not recollect whether either a VENDETTA or an AVENGER was involved.

    Thanks Italicus and NealH

  2. PostMark.

    Yes, those are very much relevant. According to the Netflix documentary, much of what transpired after the gunfight was a vendetta between Wyatt Earp and the Cowboy gang under their leader Ike Clanton. After the assassination of his brother, Wyatt saw himself as an avenger and set out to track down all the Cowboy gang.

  3. Just had another look at the Netflix series and noticed that one of the episodes is entitled “The Vendetta Ride”, so the compiler has obviously been watching it as well.

  4. [Episode 5 of 6 is “The VENDETTA RIDE”] (edit pipped by NealH@3)
    Especially liked 22d CONGA for its ‘lift and separate’ of the idiom “… ; lead someone a (merry) dance” from its usual meaning “to keep someone involved unnecessarily in a series of perplexities and vexations ; …” and using it to mean just a dance people only do when they’re merry,
    I’m quoting from Chambers (’93)’s dance entry, because oed.com, amazingly, appears not to have heard of the phrase. So well done, Chambers, for once.
    OneLook.com returns only Wiktionary’s merry dance “(idiomatic) A useless waste of time resulting from a deception”, citing ”
    2023 March 5, Phil McNulty, “Liverpool 7-0 Manchester United”, in BBC Sport‎:
    Argentine defender Martinez, normally so reliable and combative, was taken apart, especially when Salah led him a merry dance to set up Gakpo to settle the game with Liverpool’s third five minutes after half-time.”

  5. An intelligent puzzle, with some elegant wordplays.
    Nearly a Goldilocks, ( 100% all the right stuff ), bar CORRAL, which I felt was a tiny bit weak.
    ASHEN is, for me, simply a great example of brevity and craftiness.
    WET NURSE is a cracker.

    I will be the only poster who did NOT spot the theme.
    How is that possible? I’m an idiot, that’s how.
    It’s beautifully played into the solutions, superb setting.

    Big thanks, Italicus + NealH

  6. Thanks both. I also missed the theme, but don’t feel idiotic any more than I did with Tyrus on Saturday when I had never heard of about a fifth of the answers – further excuses include that I don’t know much about the GUNFIGHT, I have not been watching the Netflix series, oh, and it’s Monday, a day to expect neither a theme nor the brain to be in gear, but happy at least to fully solve.

  7. Thanks NealH, for the blog. I did indeed watch the Netflix series and like you learned a lot of new things about it. I had never heard of the Cowboy War or the Vendetta Ride before. For those of you who missed the theme, I wouldn’t feel too bad about it; neither of my two test-solvers picked up on it! Hope it was a fun solve regardless. Until next time

  8. Wonder if this puzzle should have appeared two days ago.
    October 26, 1881 was the day the Gunfight at O.K. Corral actually took place.

  9. Thanks Neal and italicus, yes it was an easy grid fill not that’s a bad thing. I’ve had the same problem several times Neal when the puzzle is four years old but managed to catch it in time.

  10. Yes, an easy solve.

    I didn’t spot the theme. I was not aware of the Netflix series. However, I recently watched Wynonna Earp: Vengeance, a follow-up to the supernatural series Wynonna Earp, about a modern day descendant of Wyatt Earp who has inherited his gun and uses it to fight demons. Doc Holiday is a character in the series having spent a century in a well, and is the father of Wynonna’s child. Great fun.

  11. Didn’t get the theme either, altho I’ve been fascinated by Westerns since early childhood n seen various versions of the Gunfight… didn’t spoil the solve which embellished a very pleasant Monday, warmer n sunnier than it deserves to be at this stage of the year.. no complaints on either score…
    Thanks Italicus and NealH

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