Happy Boxing Day y’all. I found some of this quite tough, possibly because I initially got 5D wrong and am unsure on a few others. Some nice clues though from a new-ish setter who is improving with every puzzle.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | A LEG UP – E.G,U (close to jungfrau) in ALP – This one looked a little odd with the indefinite article, but it’s a nice neat clue nonetheless |
| 5 | SOLSTICE – ITS rev. + C[-hristmas] in SOLE |
| 9 | ARPEGGIO – Odd letters of GiGlI in (OPERA)* |
| 10 | GIBBON – BO in (BING)* |
| 11 | TREKKER – T on “wrecker” |
| 12 | ACHE – H in ACE – ‘Excellent service’ for ACE is very nice |
| 14 | LEGO – Hidden in barnacLE GOose |
| 15 | NEAR MISS – NEAR,MISS |
| 18 | LEFT HALF – F in LETHAL + F |
| 19 | GAEL – Presumably a homophone of….. |
| 21 | GALE – CD |
| 23 | DELPHIC – P in DELHI + C[-apital] |
| 25 | SIDE-ON – D (end of road) in (ONE IS)* |
| 26 | ELEGANCE – Not too sure on this one. I think it’s LEG,A in EN + CE, but not sure why ‘parked’ would give LEG |
| 27 | INDY CARS – IN, RACY rev. in D[-alla]S |
| 28 | MIDDEN – D in (DENIM)* |
| Down | |
| 2 | LARK – L,ARK |
| 3 | GREATCOAT – CO in (REGATTA)* |
| 4 | PEG LEG – P,EG,L,EG – ref. Long John Silver. Nice clue |
| 5 | STOCKING FILLERS – For reasons I won’t go into, I initially thought that this was SHOPPING CENTRES. As it is, I still don’t get it. Either there’s a Nina which I’ve missed, or I’m being a thicko and missing something obvious! |
| 6 | LEG BREAK – ref. cricket and theatre |
| 7 | TIBIA – (1,A BIT)* |
| 8 | CLOTHES PEG – (THE PLC GOES)* – Clue of the puzzle for me. ‘On-line security’ is a killer definition |
| 13 | DELEGATION – LEG. in (DONE IT)* |
| 16 | MAGIC WAND – G for C in (MAD WICCAN)* |
| 17 | SARDINIA – R in (INDIAS)* |
| 20 | PHLEGM – (HELP)*,GM – Have never come across the ‘apathy’ meaning of this word before. I thought it was just mucous! |
| 22 | ELEGY – L (first of lyrics) in E.E (Cummings) + GY (Gray’s first and last) |
| 24 | ACRE – Hidden in virginiA CREeper |
Hi Ali
19a ‘one’ in the clue refers to 1a for which the answer is ‘a leg up’, ie *(ALEG)
21a as 19a
26a again ‘one’ refers to 1a so we have *(ALEG) in EN (space) CE (church)
13d similarly, *(ALEG) in *(DONE IT)
Sorry, can’t help with 5d as it has so far eluded me.
Hi both
Too much Christmas pudding? Isn’t a leg a stocking filler?
Happy Boxing Day!
5d After further consideration I can only conclude that the ‘cryptically distributed here’ refers to the fact that ‘leg’ (another stocking filler) appears in various places in the grid as part of eight answers.
Nice puzzle. I thought 5a was particularly neat.
I sort of get the Nina, but feel that I haven’t got the whole thing. LEG appears quite often, as does PEG a bit.
Also, 13dn bewilders me: it seems that Ali hasn’t quite explained it although I can’t do any better: he hasn’t mentioned the A (is this ‘abroad’?), and where’s the definition? Don’t understand 26ac or 19ac (OK it’s ‘gale’ and that sounds like ‘gael’, but how does it really fit together?).
I think the idea was that 1 across “One” was A LEG UP which in cryptic parlance is an anagram of “a leg” This was then used in 19 across, 21 across and 13 down for example.
Wil
Did you not read my comment #1 (and #3 for what it’s worth).
Have just returned from a day out on the best beach in NI at the foot of the Mourne Mountains, working off some excess.
Ta to you all for fretting over a pretty cheesy pun and 10 legs (2 broken), 3 pegs and a tibia. Ironically, I suggested that perhaps a more explicit reference to an otherwise opaquish theme would help, knowing this one was coming up. But my attempt in 5D (with extra refs to IA (One) has still bewildered. Sorry, must try better next time. (Baffling Geoff caused a smug grin, but only for about 20 mins.)
7 Command Act 2 needs to be restructured (8)
The above, for whatever it’s worth, was a clue of mine that stumped my solvers, at least momentarily.
2 here was a reference to the answer in that slot. Though this is quite a well-known device, many solvers just could not turn away from the term “Act 2” (in the dramatic sense).
Of course, if I had had two slots with the number 2 this would not have worked. But luckily in that particular grid I had only one slot with the number 2.
The other clue was
2 Fur? Um… it belongs to me (6)
We may not plan everything this way but sometimes as we are writing clues one after the other an idea like this might occur.
I’d be unhappy if the Indy were to dumb down and make themes more explicit. Like Nimrod’s ‘eve’ puzzle, I prefer themes left unstated to be deduced by the solver as the clues are worked through.
Geoff: Yes I did read your comments 1 and 3 and do understand why LEG appears all over the place, but my point was that I felt that perhaps there was a little more to it than that. Evidently not.