It is a long time since I last crossed swords with Tyrus as a blogger; indeed, my only previous encounter with him was back in January 2011, with a controversial puzzle themed around the series of The Apprentice that was showing at the time.
To what extent I was struck by a bout of blogger’s nerves today, I don’t know. Suffice it to say that I had a real struggle to solve this one, and actually cheated on the website to find the answers to the last six (!!) clues in order to be able to write the blog at all.
Some of the missing words I should have got, and I kicked myself when I saw the solutions: for example, the French expression at 6, but I had wrongly entered HOME CINEMA at 15 and was thus completely thrown off the scent.
However, I don’t think I would ever have arrived at some of the others unaided, e.g. 18, since I did not know that derivation of “blind” and am not sure of my parsing of the wordplay in any case. Furthermore, I didn’t know the spelling at 23, although I notice that Google offers the spelling without the “e” at the end as an alternative to the more common spelling that Tyrus has used. We live and learn.
Overall, I found this towards the tougher end of the Indy spectrum, despite there not being the added element of complexity that a theme/Nina can provide. There are a couple of examples of trickier wordplay, with the order of the elements of wordplay not following the strict order of their appearance in the solution, e.g. at 6 and 13, and then there’s the queen at 19; all these serve to crank up the difficulty level that bit further.
My favourite clue today, for its silky smooth surface, was one of the simplest to solve, namely 14. As a Yorkshireman, I was immediately reminded of the Brontës and of Branwell’s rowdy behaviour in The (Black) Bull in Haworth …
*(…) indicates an anagram
| Across | ||||
| 1 | ALLEGATION | ALL (=quite) + <n>EGATION (=denial; “pointless” means letter “N” (=north) is dropped) | ||
| 7 | SHMO | Hidden (“in”) in “flaSH MOtor”; a shmo is a stupid, boring person, a fool in US slang | ||
| 9 | GAPES | *(PAGES); “foxed” is anagram indicator | ||
| 10 | ABSTRACT | Double definition; the reference is to US painter Mark Rothko (1903-70) | ||
| 11 | NOT A HAPPY CAMPER | Cryptic definition: “one’s intent “on separating”, i.e. when the word “in-tent” is split in two, bringing in the idea of tents, camping, etc | ||
| 12 | IDEA | A-IDE (=assistant); “head’s last” means first letter goes to end of word | ||
| 13 | GO TO PIECES | GOT + O (=over, i.e. on cricket scorecard) + PIECES (=men, i.e. in chess) | ||
| 15 | HOME VIDEOS | Cryptic definition: “in films”, i.e. ones made/watched at home, not on general release | ||
| 18 | RUSE | R (=side, i.e. right) + USE (=good, as in That’s no use/good); a blind is an action that serves to deceive or conceal the truth, hence ruse, dodge | ||
| 20 | YOU’VE GOT ME THERE | O (=old) in *(ROGUE THEY’VE MET); “dodgy” is anagram indicator | ||
| 23 | SURINAME | I (=one) in SURNAME (=family handle, where handle is name in slang) | ||
| 24 | ONION | O<pi>NION (=feeling); “letter (=pi, in Greek alphabet) unnecessary” means letters “pi” are dropped; onion is a slang word for the head | ||
| 25 | EDGE | <w>EDGE (=club Donald uses, i.e. UK golfer Luke Donald); “whiskey (=W, in radio communications) from” means letter “w” is dropped; to steal, edge, is to move furtively, gradually | ||
| 26 | EVEN-HANDED | *(HAVE + <give>N) in ENDED (=over); “finally” means last letter only; “police”, doubtless as verb, appears to be anagram indicator | ||
| Down | ||||
| 2 | LOGWOOD | W (=women) in [LO (=look) + GOOD (=nice); logwood is a tropical American tree | ||
| 3 | ESPLANADE | PLA (ALP=mountain; “climbing” indicates vertical reversal) in *(NEEDS A); “relaxing” is anagram indicator | ||
| 4 | AT SEA | AT (TA=part-timers in uniform, i.e. Territorial Army; “upset” indicates vertical reversal) + homophone (“told”) of “see” (=get, i.e. understand) | ||
| 5 | IN A SPOT | *(TO SPAIN); “after trip” is anagram indicator | ||
| 6 | N’EST-CE PAS | NEST (=home) + *(SPACE); “to relax” is anagram indicator; n’est-ce pas? means right? isn’t it? in French, hence “abroad, right?” | ||
| 7 | SCRAM | S CRAM (=former runner, i.e. UK middle-distance runner Steve Cram) | ||
| 8 | MACHETE | *(THE) in MACE (=staff); “wrong” is anagram indicator | ||
| 13 | GOING RATE | GO (=work, i.e. function) in INGRATE (=he lacks appreciation); the going rate is “what it’s worth” | ||
| 14 | EARTH SIGN | *(NIGHTS ARE); “rowdy” is anagram indicator; Taurus (=the Bull) is one the 3 earth signs of the Zodiac, along with Virgo and Capricorn | ||
| 16 | OROTUND | ROT (=rubbish) in <w>OUND (hurt; “heading off” means first letter dropped) | ||
| 17 | EXTREME | Homophone of “Exe (=river) stream (=flow)” | ||
| 19 | STRANGE | AN (=one) in *(R (=Queen) + GETS); “merry” is anagram indicator | ||
| 21 | VOICE | O (=Ohio) in VICE (=failing) | ||
| 22 | EPOCH | EPOC (COPE=get by; “looking up” indicates vertical reversal) + H (=horse) | ||
Tough stuff indeed, didn’t get the wordplay in RUSE and only got about 7 on the train before giving up and reading the paper before finally finishing over lunch, police as anagram indicator is a new one on me.
Thanks and well done RR and Tyrus.
Thanks RatkojaRiku
I’m another that found this hard going but I had no problems with ‘police’ as an anagram indicator in 26ac since one of its definitions is “to put, or keep, in order”.
I got a bit stuck on this, and didn’t have time to go back and grapple with it.
I am not impressed by the so-called ‘homonym’ at 17d; ‘extreme’ is not pronounced with an S in it. And I do have problems with ‘police’ as an anagram indicator — surely what it’s doing to make an anagram is the opposite of putting or keeping in order?
But there are, of course, some very fine clues.
I see nothing wrong with “police” as an anagrind. Surely it is putting into order letters that were not incorrectly ordered – that seems fine to me.
#4 should of course read “not correctly ordered” – sorry!!
I thought the ‘extreme’ homophone was very clever. I intend to try and slip it into a script – “The Exe stream is quite extreme, today”. I can’t imagine any actor I know splitting the sounds without impersonating Noel Coward, so I’d give it my vote. I got stumped by five clues which I couldn’t parse – they all eventually fell except for 26 – that ‘given in’ = ‘handed’ was just too good for me. I even got RUSE sorted but I wasn’t convinced. Good to see you agree with me and indeed thanks for the rest of the blog and to the setter for some good puzzling.
Oh, hang on – I couldn’t get why it was ONION either.
We are rather pleased to know that others had the same sort of solving experience as us. We started this at lunchtime because we are out this evening and are we glad we did!
We couldn’t solve 15ac but kicked ourselves when we searched electronically in Chambers. There were some rather obscure and devious definitions (at least they were to us!) and gave up on 18ac. We thought it must be EDGE but missed the link to steal/move furtively.
Thanks RR – we can sympathise with you having to blog this one!
Thanks Tyrus – this was one devilish solve!
Well, I finished this eventually, with liberal use of the ‘check’ button, but I’d say it was one of the toughest puzzles I’ve attempted in the Indy in the four or so years since I started doing it regularly. Normally when I get going, the rest comes through having some crossing letters; but I was still staring at my last answers. Nowt wrong with it; just hard.
Favourite clue has to be SCRAM, because the bonny lad is a Sunderland supporter. And if you want rowdy nights in The Bull, then drop in to the pub in Ambridge when the Grundy brothers are both there at the same time.
Thanks to Tyrus, and thanks and commiserations to RR.
I thought I was having one of those days, only managing to get half a dozen answers. Usually when that happens, I come here and people are complaining it was too easy. Glad I wasn’t the only one having problems today.
Thanks for the blog and comments. Sorry (again) to those who found it too hard.
Primarily a G-man I came back to this late for something crunchy to chew on – if that’s possible. Certainly got that.
Thought this was the best I’ve done so far this week – plenty going on but certainly tough. Got there in the end except for the parsing of 26a.
Will look out for you again T.
Many thanks both.
Thanks for the blog, RatkojaRiku.
I also found this difficult, and failed to solve 5 clues: 22d, 18a, 26a, 12a, 15a.
Of the ones that I solved, I could not parse 7d, 11a, 4d, 13a, 16d, 13d, 25a, 24a.
New words for me were LOGWOOD & OROTUND. Obviously I had never heard of Luke Donald or Steve Cram either, so they are new to me after reading this blog.
My favourite clues (of the ones that I actually solved) were 17d, 20a, 23a, 14d.
Thanks RatkojaRiku and Tyrus. I enjoyed this a lot but I didn’t finish it as I didn’t think beyond HOME MOVIES for 15a. As ever with Tyrus, some wonderfully succinct and neat clues with great surfaces. My favourites were 20a, 14d (I struggled on this anagram for ages), 23a and I loved 2d for the surface although I suppose if it weren’t a cryptic clue but a genuine statement then it would be “tree-hugging women”, but it’s still brilliant.
I don’t see what’s wrong with ‘police’ as an anagram indicator: it’s in Chambers Crossword Dictionary’s list of anagram indicators.
As a verb it means ‘to keep in order’. Nevertheless, it is incredibly annoying to have a blog that doesn’t include the clues!