This is my second Bluejacket blog: he’s been an Independent setter for about a year.
I enjoyed this, though I have to admit that our setter seems to know more about Victorian novels than I do, so I had to do some guessing and checking in 13a and 17a. (I’m afraid the surface of 14a might be applied to some of those I’ve read.) I liked the “interfering sod”, the resort that for once wasn’t an anagram indicator, and the surface of 15d (which I think has happened a few times recently). Thanks Bluejacket for the fun.
Definitions are underlined; BOLD UPPERCASE indicates letters used in the wordplay; square brackets [ ] indicate omitted letters.
| ACROSS | ||
| 9 | OLEANDERS |
Shrubs from Avon’s source spreading over banks (9)
|
| First letter (source) of A[von], inserted into (spreading = separating) O (abbreviation for over, in cricket scoring) + LENDERS (banks = money-lenders). | ||
| 10 | OVINE |
Sheepish climber gets oxygen first (5)
|
| VINE (climbing plant), with O (chemical symbol for oxygen) first.
Ovine = concerned with or resembling sheep. |
||
| 11 | EWE |
One fleeced by second person over the phone (3)
|
| Sound-alike (over the phone) of YOU (the second person, grammatically).
An animal with a fleece. |
||
| 12 | IN DUE COURSE |
Unicode sure to break eventually (2,3,6)
|
| Anagram (to break) of UNICODE SURE. | ||
| 13 | AITCH |
The Scarlet Letter, with long introduction from Hawthorne (5)
|
| A (in the novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the lead character is forced to wear a scarlet letter A, for Adulterer, as punishment) + ITCH (long, as a verb = yearn).
Word representing the letter H (as spoken out loud) = the introductory letter of H[awthorne]. |
||
| 14 | EPITOMISE |
To sum up, most of epic is boring to me (9)
|
| EPI[c] without the last letter (most of . . .), then IS inserted into (boring) TO ME.
Epitomise = to be a classic example of something = to sum it up. |
||
| 17 | RUPERT OF HENTZAU |
Trouper, playing loud man at National Theatre, leads in Zenda as “unconquered” villain (6,2,7)
|
| Anagram (playing) of TROUPER, then F (f = abbreviation for Italian forte = musical term for loud) + HE (a man) + NT (abbreviation for the National Theatre in London) + leading letters of Z[enda] A[s] U[nconquered].
I haven’t read the novel The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope so I wasn’t aware of this particular villain; it seems he also appears as the title character of a sequel. But after I’d got a few crossers, the “trouper playing” and the slightly contrived set of initial letters made it possible to guess and check. |
||
| 20 | WORKSHEET |
Week wrestling with short set of exercises (9)
|
| Anagram (wrestling) of WEEK + SHORT.
Exercises as in homework, presumably. |
||
| 22 | CERES |
Asteroid captured by space researchers (5)
|
| Hidden answer (captured by . . .) in [spa]CE RES[earchers].
The first asteroid to be discovered, in the belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter; it’s big enough that it’s now classified as a dwarf planet. Named after the Roman goddess of agriculture. |
||
| 24 | BULLET TRAIN |
Quick transport announcement about shortened tram (6,5)
|
| BULLETIN (announcement), around TRA[m] without the last letter (shortened).
Shinkansen high-speed railway trains in Japan, or similar systems elsewhere. |
||
| 26 | TAR |
Pitch of backing singer (3)
|
| RAT (singer = slang for an informer), reversed (backing).
Pitch = tar = black sticky resin, traditionally used for waterproofing. |
||
| 27 | ISSUE |
Header omitted from paper edition (5)
|
| [t]ISSUE (a type of thin paper) without the first letter (header). | ||
| 28 | CREAM SODA |
Drink loads in closing bars (5,4)
|
| REAMS (quantities of paper, or loosely equivalent to “loads” = large quantities in general), inserted into CODA (a final section of a piece of music = the closing bars of the piece).
Sweet vanilla-flavoured fizzy drink (or similar), if you like that sort of thing. |
||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | BONE MARROW |
Blood cells’ origin is one male interred in burial mound (4,6)
|
| ONE + M (abbreviation for male) inserted into BARROW (an ancient burial mound). | ||
| 2 | RESENT |
Feel bitter about pressure to avoid attending (6)
|
| [p]RESENT (attending = at an event) without P (abbreviation for pressure). | ||
| 3 | ENCIPHER |
His Excellency probes Byzantine prince in disguise (8)
|
| HE (abbreviation for His Excellency, title for an ambassador or other high-ranking official) inserted into (probing) an anagram (Byzantine = complicated) of PRINCE.
Encipher = to put into a coded form = to disguise. |
||
| 4 | MEDDLESOME |
Interfering sod led mobile to block online content (10)
|
| Anagram (mobile) of SOD LED, inserted into (blocking) MEME (a frequently-used image or phrase on the Internet = online content). | ||
| 5 | ISLE |
Told I’m going to offshore location (4)
|
| Sound-alike (told) of I’LL (I will = I’m going to).
Island = offshore location. |
||
| 6 | ROCOCO |
Directed Up or another Pixar movie in elaborate style (6)
|
| OR reversed (directed up = upwards in a down clue), then COCO (the title of a Pixar Animation Studios film, as is Up). | ||
| 7 | BIARRITZ |
French resort business to stock bara brith without crusts (8)
|
| BIZ (informal shortening of business, as in showbiz), containing (to stock) [b]AR[a] [b]RIT[h] without the outer letters (crusts). For those not familiar with Welsh cooking, bara brith is a loaf containing dried fruit: the name translates as “speckled bread”.
Resort city in south-west France, near the Spanish border. |
||
| 8 | CEDE |
Reported grain yield (4)
|
| Sound-alike (reported) of SEED (grain). | ||
| 15 | IN HOT WATER |
Facing repercussions, won’t air the broadcast (2,3,5)
|
| Anagram (broadcast = scattered) of WON’T AIR THE.
In hot water = slang for in trouble, expecting criticism or punishment. |
||
| 16 | EQUESTRIAN |
Rider‘s request to cycle in surrounding area (10)
|
| REQUEST with the letters “cycling” so tht the R goes to the end, followed by IN surrounding A (abbreviation for area).
A horse-rider, especially one competing in riding events. Or the definition could be “rider’s” = relating to horse-riding = equestrian as an adjective. |
||
| 18 | PARALYSE |
Soldier at base, tackling onset of shellshock, gets to demobilise? (8)
|
| PARA (short for paratrooper = a soldier trained in parachuting) + LYE (a strongly alkaline substance = base, in chemical terminology), containing (tackling) the first letter (onset) of S[hellshock].
A question-mark for a loose definition: paralyse = stop someone or something from moving = the opposite of mobilise. |
||
| 19 | NICKNAME |
Arrest man, reflecting on drug’s designation (8)
|
| NICK (slang for arrest, as in “you’re nicked!”) + MAN reversed (reflecting) + E (slang abbreviation for the drug ecstasy). | ||
| 21 | SPEWED |
Poured out barrel containing whiskey (6)
|
| SPEED (barrel, as a verb = travel very fast) containing W (Whiskey in the radio alphabet, which officially uses the American / Irish spelling of the word rather than the Scottish “whisky”). | ||
| 23 | RETOOL |
Replace gear thief lifted (6)
|
| LOOTER (someone who steals goods during wartime or unrest = thief) reversed (lifted = upwards in a down clue). | ||
| 24 | BAIT |
What tempts bishop with boundless faith? (4)
|
| B (abbreviation for bishop) + [f]AIT[h] without the end letters (boundless). | ||
| 25 | TACO |
I appreciate that company’s Mexican food (4)
|
| TA (slang for thank you = I appreciate that) + CO (abbreviation for company). |
Lucky for me I know the scarlet letter thanks to the cinematic masterpiece that is Easy A.
I’m sure the Rupert chap has appeared in the Indy Saturday GK puzzle, so just had to pick away at letters for the third word.
Even with a streaming cold all fell nicely into place except the parsing of 9a where I got hung up on LEAN for banks.
Thanks both.
I find Bluejacket a setter that I have to wrestle with, but it’s an enjoyable tussle, and par for the course today. I was terribly slow, but got there in the end.
OLEANDERS the biggest culprit, and thoroughly annoying, as I have a Greek oleander hedge – beautiful, but nasty.
Very fair quibble from Ms.Q, that demob is a mis-cue, in 18(d); I took it as a cute device, a bit like “discover” for removing the outer letters….but that’s a wordplay, not a definition. Can a clue legitimately consist of two cryptic wordplays without a definition, as such?
Excellent puzzle, and ( as ever ) blog.
Thumbs up, BJ & Ms.Q
Thanks both. I also lacked the GK to have a reasonable chance of completing unaided, so Acheh went in before it had to be AITCH with said letter at the end misleading me, and lye within PARALYSE clued unhelpfully as ‘base’ (rather than railway station in the Black Country) left that one unparsed. As for RUPERT OF WHERESHISFACE if he doesn’t wear yellow checked trousers then I neither know of him nor want to.
Very reasonable @3! 🐻 Although I like to imagine Hentzau would wear yellow checked trousers too, if only to be annoying.
Thank you all for the nice comments and to Quirister for the great run-down blog.
“Once again he turned to wave his hand, and then the gloom of thickets swallowed him and he was lost from our sight. Thus he vanished—reckless and wary, graceful and graceless, handsome, debonair, vile, and unconquered.”