Bit of a quick last-minute post, so apologies for any typos or missed nuances. My first Phi blog, and I was a bit wary as I have enjoyed solving/attempting many difficult Independent cryptics and Inquisitors by Phi over the years.
In the end, it all seemed fairly straight-forward – good solid clueing and some nice misdirections/surface readings, but (IMHO) nothing beyond a mid-week Indy or Grauniad cryptic, rather than a fiendish Saturday prize puzzle – and I had done all except 1D in about 15 minutes…
1D – what can I say – not in my well-thumbed and broken-spined 1988 Chambers (8th edition?, paper and electronic), or in my 2006 Chambers (10th edition, paper and electronic) – or my Collins (not sure what years, but paper and electronic)… Perhaps it is in a newer version – 11 or 12? – of Chambers, and setters are on a (com)mission to include a few new words only in the latest edition, to encourage us to invest our hard earned pictures of the Queen? (Note to Editor: why not offer the latest Chambers – paper or electronic – as the prize for this puzzle?…)
Anyway, after much head scratching and pattern matching, I eventually twigged that the ‘prize’ was a ‘palm’ and found ‘face-palm‘ in Wikipedia – at which point I performed said action to my own forehead…DOH!.
| Across | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
| 1A | FACT | Truth drug not in view (4) | Truth / FACeT (aspect, or view) without E (drug, Ecstasy) |
| 3A | PANCREAS | Film across most of wrinkle in internal organ (8) | Internal organ / PAN (as in camera, panning across a scene) + CREAS (most of wrinkle, or crease) |
| 10A | CALGARY STAMPEDE | Showed annoyance in kinky lacy gear in Canadian show (7, 8 ) | Canadian show (annual rodeo in Calgary, Alberta) / anag (i.e. kinky) of LACY GEAR, containing STAMPED (showed annoyance) |
| 11A | PROMOTION | New job advert (9) | Double defn / PROMOTION = an advertisement, or attaining a new job |
| 12A | URGE | Strongly suggest, say, sport should be overhauled (4) | Strongly suggest / URGE = EG (say) + RU (sport, Rugby Union), then overhauled |
| 13A | LACUNAE | Gaps? Left a hint about new one (7) | Gaps / L (left) + A + CUE (hint), around N (new) + A (one) |
| 15A | ARIANE | Rocket, article into most of constellation (6) | Rocket (European Space Agency rocket launch vehicle) / ARIE (most of Aries) around AN (indefinite article) |
| 17A | SUPERB | Bird released in US sports event? Excellent (6) | Excellent / SUPERB = Super Bowl (American sports event) without OWL (bird, released) |
| 19A | SO THERE | Drunk’s arrived? Hard cheese! (2, 5) | Hard cheese (interjection, ‘bad luck’) / SOT (drunk) + HERE (arrived) |
| 20A | LIMO | Car fuel needing money invested, on reflection (4) | Car / LIMO = OIL (fuel) around M (money), then reflected |
| 21A | BAR MAGNET | Source of attraction in part of London probed by publication (3, 6) | Source of attraction / BARNET (London district) containing MAG (magazine, or publication) |
| 24A | PROXIMA CENTAURI | Star represented in American tour pix (7, 8 ) | Star (low magnitude red dwarf in Centaurus constellation) / anag (i.e. represented in) of AMERICAN TOUR PIX |
| 25A | DAMPENER | Mother to look round rear of cistern for wet blanket (8) | Wet blanket / DAM (mother), plus PEER (look) around N (last letter, or rear, of cistern) |
| 26A | LUNG | Part of body, note, located within ear (4) | Part of body / LUG (ear) containing N (note) |
| Down | |||
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
| 1D | FACEPALM | Reputation supported by award? One shows disbelief (8) | One shows disbelief (act of slapping one’s hand to the forehead on realisation of something obvious but not spotted) / FACE (reputation) + PALM (prize, as in Palm d’Or at Cannes Film Festival, or just a palm leaf as a token of victory) |
| 2D | CELLO | Location of fifteenth inmate’s instrument (5) | Instrument / &lit? If first prisoner was in Cell A, second in Cell B etc, then fifteenth would be in Cell O |
| 4D | ANTENNA | A new sport is ignored by a broadcaster (7) | Broadcaster / A + N (new) + TENN (tennis, sport, with ‘is’ ignored) + A |
| 5D | COMMUNIST PARTY | Political group, prats possibly, sheltered by body of people (9, 5) | Political group / anag (i.e. possibly) of PRATS in COMMUNITY (body of people) |
| 6D | EMERGENCE | Dirt beginning to collect, interrupting English lake’s appearance (9) | Appearance / GEN (info, or dirt) + C (first letter of collect) in E (English) + MERE (lake) |
| 7D | SUET | Fat? One’s the ultimate in disgrace in matching clothes (4) | Fat / SUET = SUIT (matching clothes) changing I (one) to E (last letter of disgrace) |
| 8D | LA DONNA E MOBILE | Duke’s aria laying out bloodline and a new name (2, 5, 1, 6) | Duke (of Mantua)’s aria (from Verdi’s Rigoletto) / anag (i.e. laying out) of BLOODLINE + A + N (new) + NAME |
| 9D | BY-LINE | No power in barmy story bearing new name at its top? (2-4) | &lit?, name across the top of a story/article / BY (barmy without ‘arm’, or power) + LIE (story) ‘bearing’ N (new) |
| 14D | CRUCIFORM | Caught Welshman in melée heading off crossways? (9) | Crossways (or cross-shaped)/ C (caught) + IFOR (Welshman) in CRUM (scrum, or melée, with first letter off) |
| 16D | KETTLING | King deciding to face guillotine, restraining unsettled populace (8) | (method of) restraining protesters/unsettled populace / K (king) + ETTLING (settling, or deciding, guillotined, i.e. losing its first letter) |
| 18D | BABBAGE | Graduate books a long time seeing historic scientist (7) | (historic) scientist (Charles Babbage) / BA (graduate, Bachelor of Arts) + BB (abbrev. for ‘books’) + AGE (a long time) |
| 19D | SORBET | Dessert’s spherical shape in gel (6) | Dessert / ORB (spherical shape) in SET (gel) |
| 22D | NAURU | Island shared between Argentina and Uruguay (5) | Island (in South Pacific), formerly known as Pleasant Island / hidden word in ArgentiNA (and) URUguay |
| 23D | SPUD | Secconds, dessert? Not this food (4) | &lit? (as potatoes, spuds, are not usually desserts!) / S (seconds) + PUD (dessert) |
Thanks, mc_rapper67, for the blog and phi for the puzzle. Facepalm also took me ages to discover but I eventually got there after recourse to Roget’s Thesaurus which gave me ‘face’ and ‘palm’, then googling led me to Wikipedia. btw this is the reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facepalm
CALGARY STAMPEDE was my first to go in; ‘Canadian show’ gave it without even unscrambling the anagram. Similarly ‘Duke’s aria’ for LA DONNA E MOBILE.
Not sure about the equivalence of SO THERE and ‘hard cheese’. I think of the former more as equivalent to ‘Yah, boo, sucks!’ Just a co-incidence but ‘hard cheese’ was an answer in Another Newspaper’s crossword the previous day.
Liked PANCREAS and BAR MAGNET.
Thanks, mc_rapper67 for the blog. I think my experience was similar to yours, I found most of it straightforward but then stalled in the upper left and lower right corners, since I also was unfamiliar with KETTLING and it took a while for me to work it out. With you, I had never encountered FACEPALM, which seems quite a useful word now that I know it. I also had to look up 8d, which I had parsed correctly but was in an area of knowledge I’m lacking.
Hours of solving yielded only 1a,1d,11a,17a & 18d.
1a was my first in and 1d was my second in.
Simply too hard for me.
15mins to all bar one is Olympic standard!
Don’t give up bamberger. You did as well as some of us if you got 1d, and it took me a while to get 11a. Keep reading the blogs and you’ll find your success rate improving as you see how the clues work. You do need to do a bit of second-guessing sometimes, though, to sort the clue into definition and wordplay etc.