Independent 12,304 by Kairos

I've blogged Kairos before and I found the previous puzzle quite gentle. This was a little harder in places but had a lot very commendable clues.

I struggled with the parsing of a couple of them. In 2D, I was puzzled by "pass" for "change" but, after checking it out, I can see how they can be synonyms. Some of the other definitions, such as "colony" for "group", were fairly indirect as well and wouldn't be the first words which came to mind. Some of the surface definitions were very smooth – I liked 24A, 20D and 21D, for example.

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1	DEPOT	Drank heavily back in warehouse (5)
		Toped<(=drank heavily)
4	HIDES	Skins from litchi desserts (5)
		Hidden in litchi desserts
7	JOY	Gatsby maybe has love for American happiness (3)
		Jay (first name of Gatsby) with o(=love) replacing A{merican}
9	VISTA	Prospect first seen in Virginia (5)
		Ist(=first) in Va(=postal abbrev for Virginia)
10	SAG	Talk about Indian vegetable (3)
		Gas<(=talk). Def refers to the Indian word for spinach.
11	ATTIC	Greek attorney’s originally in court (5)
		Att[orney] + i{n} c{ourt}
12	SMOOTHEST	Lady’s way about debate that’s most urbane (9)
		(She(=lady) + st{reet}(=way)) around moot(=an old word for debate)
13	ELECT	English allow Conservative to enter vote (5)
		E{nglish} (let(=allow) around C{onservative})
14	ONEROUS	Oscar’s on edge but not very tiresome (7)
		O{scar} + ner[v]ous(=on edge with v{ery} removed)
16	LARD	Boy eats last of butter fat (4)
		Lad(=boy) around [butte]r
19	BEAD	Leaders of British Empire attending debutante ball (4)
		Initial letters of B[ritish] E[mpire] a[ttending] d[ebutante]
21	NOWHERE	Presents in Limbo (7)
		Now + here(=words for present)
24	OMAHA	Award by group in Nebraskan city (5)
		OM(=order of merit) + A-ha(=Norwegian pop group)
25	CAVALCADE	Noel Coward play about Glen arresting villain (9)
		Ca(=about) + (vale(=glen) around cad(=villain))
27	ONSET	Cognoscenti regularly avoided attack (5)
		Even letters of cognoscenti
28	DAL	Artist – one lacking pulse (3)
		Dal[i]
29	CARGO	Load carried by French snail? (5)
		Hidden in escargot(=French word for snail)
30	YEW	The old Welsh conifer (3)
		Ye(="the" in old English) + W{elsh}
31	RUSTY	Bluey’s friend is out of condition (5)
		DD. Rusty seems to be a dog from the Australian TV series Bluey.
32	LORRY	See posh car shunting into railway truck (5)
		Seems to be Lo(=see) + R(=posh car) in r{ailwa}y. I would have expected posh car to be RR for Rolls Royce, so I don't know if this is an alternative abbreviation or refers to some other posh car.
DOWN
1	DIVISION	Detective’s dream department (8)
		D{etective} I{nspector} + vision(=dream)
2	PASSOVER	Change part of play in religious festival (8)
		Pass(=change e.g. to pass from joy to sadness) + over(=part of play in cricket)
3	TRACT	Reportedly followed theological issue? (5)
		Hom of tracked
4	HOSTESS	War criminal cuddles East German hospitality worker (7)
		Hess(=Rudolf Hess, Nazi war criminal) around ost(=East in German)
5	DIGITAL	Like Italian gangster’s choice of camera? (7)
		Dig(=like, as in "I dig it") + It{alian} + Al {Capone}
6	SCARECROW	Outstanding figure in their field (9)
		CD
7	JET SET	West Side gang returning note for high fliers (3,3)
		Jets(=one of the gangs in West Side Story) + te<(=musical note from doh-re-mi)
8	YACHTS	Rope raised holding chain for boats (6)
		Stay<(=rope used in boating) around ch{ain}
15	OPERA STAR	Arrest OAP dancing with Bryn Terfel? (5,4)
		(Arrest OAP)*
17	REPAIRER	One going to mechanic? (8)
		DD. To repair to somewhere is to go somewhere and a mechanic usually does repair work.
18	CEREMONY	Church and state introducing more organised ritual (8)
		(CE(=Church of England) + N{ew} Y{ork}) around more*
20	DECADES	Immoral books hidden by society for years and years (7)
		Decadent(=immoral) with the NT(=books of the New Testament) replaced by s{ociety}
21	NOVELTY	Creativity of work on limits of theology (7)
		Novel(=work, as in work of fiction) + t[heolog]y
22	COLONY	Waste processing facility’s supported by Yankee group (6)
		Colon(=waste processing facility in the body) + y{ankee}(=y in the phonetic alphabet)
23	WARSAW	“Keep Calm and Carry On”, say, in capital city! (6)
		CD/DD. "Keep Calm and Carry On" would be an example of a trite war-time saying i.e. a war saw.
26	LOCAL	Presumably healthy place to drink (5)
		Lo cal(=abbrev of low calorie, so presumably healthy)

6 comments on “Independent 12,304 by Kairos”

ilippu

#1 - Mon 16th Mar 26, 16:20

Thanks Kairos and NealH.
Found this to be tricky in places.
Liked 20d, 21d.

Re 32a LORRY, I am guessing that ‘shunting into’ indicates that RR and
RY are tightly coupled, making the extra R unnecessary!
ilippu

#2 - Mon 16th Mar 26, 16:32

The word ‘shunt’ is associated with railway.
TFO

#3 - Mon 16th Mar 26, 16:45

Thanks both. Favourite was WARSAW. Amusing to have an Aussie cartoon character alongside The Great Gatsby and Coward’s CAVALCADE – all unknowns for me., but discoverable without the varied GK. I’ll take some further persuading in PASSOVER that ‘change’ equates to ‘pass’ on its own, rather than pass from or to, but doubtless there is a convincing example.
Rabbit Dave

#4 - Mon 16th Mar 26, 16:55

I didn’t find this as tough as some Kairos puzzles, but I did enjoy the solve with NOWHERE, REPAIRER and WARSAW my top picks.

I parsed LORRY as illipu did – RR + RY “shunted” together to give RRY.

Thanks to Kairos and to Neal.
Tony Santucci

#5 - Mon 16th Mar 26, 17:34

Thanks Kairos for a great set of clues with my top picks being NOWHERE (LOI), HOSTESS, DIGITAL, DECADES, and COLONY. I guess ‘pass’ can mean ‘change’ e.g. ‘ice passed from solid to liquid’ or ‘ice changed from solid to liquid’ . Thanks NealH for the blog.
Humbug

#6 - Mon 16th Mar 26, 18:13

Nice to see the three-letter group not being REM for a change 🙂
I thought that there might be a theme when I saw SAG and DAL, but apparently not.
I would normally spell them SAAG and DHAL but there are always alternatives, especially when it’s not English anyway

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6 comments on “Independent 12,304 by Kairos”

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