Thanks Punk, this was fun! There were fewer clues to solve than usual but there were some long answers that took a bit of head scratching to sort out.
(Thanks and apologies to the pedantic K’s D!)
We hadn’t heard of 21ac but it was easy to guess once we had a few crossing letters. We’d not come across ‘looking to God’ before to indicate that the letters had to be written upwards but the imagery is clear enough.
Our favourite which was our last one in, has to be 20/2 for its simplicity.
| Across | ||
| 1 | Ill-judged comment seeing four lads mass brawling, a couple in custody | |
| FAMOUS LAST WORDS | An anagram of FOUR LADS MASS (anagrind is ‘brawling’) around TWO (pair) or in ‘custody’ | |
| 5 | Male lead, huge star for thriller | |
| MARNIE | M (male) + ARNIE (star as in Arnie Schwarzenegger). We presume the ‘huge’ is connected to his body building rather than his popularity! The ‘thriller’ relates to the 1964 Hitchcock movie of the same name. Until we checked we hadn’t remembered that it starred Sean Connery. | |
| 10 | Half a ton lining belly, award then given for greed | |
| GLUTTONY | L (50 as in half a ton – 100) inside or ‘lining’ GUT (belly) + TONY (award) | |
| 11 | B for access to ‘beer’? | |
| BOTTLE-OPENER | A play on the fact that B is the initial letter or ‘OPENER’ to BOTTLE which if it held beer would give you access to the contents! | |
| 13 | Steer into empty carts with cart one steers | |
| COXSWAIN | OX (steer) inside or ‘into’ C |
|
| 14 | Calm – very different when cut | |
| SOOTHE | SO (very) + OTHE |
|
| 15 | Chap bagging target primarily an assassin | |
| HIT MAN | HIM (chap) around or ‘bagging’ T (Target initially or ‘primarily’) + AN | |
| 17 | River ebbing in calm passage | |
| ALLEYWAY | WYE (river) reversed or ‘ebbing’ inside ALLAY (calm) | |
| 19 | Domi? | |
| HALFWAY HOUSE | A play on the fact that if you stop halfway in DOMI |
|
| 21 | Appropriate Yorkshire town in East London? | |
| ARROGATE | East Londoners have a reputation for dropping their Hs so |
|
| 22 | Design again – bloody twice! | |
| REDRAW | RED (bloody) + RAW (bloody) | |
| 23 | Across raiments crept intricate woven design | |
| AXMINSTER CARPETS | A + X (cross) + anagram of RAIMENTS CREPT (anagrind is ‘intricate’). We had the answer but it took a moment to realise that you had to ‘lift and separate’ the first word! | |
| Down | ||
| 2 | See 20 down | |
| 3 | Book that may be moving? | |
| OMNIBUS | Double definition and a play on the fact that an OMNIBUS may be moving as long as it is not in a traffic jam or broken down!…. or a book! | |
| 4 | Love is delightful and cool, then many sad twists | |
| SWEET FANNY ADAMS | SWEET (delightful) + FAN (cool) + anagram of MANY SAD (anagrind is ‘twists’) | |
| 5 | African elephant’s second, an Indian claims | |
| ANGOLAN | AN + GOAN (Indian) around or ‘claiming’ L (second letter of eLephant) | |
| 6 | European city art needing clue that’s cryptic, a little creative mind? | |
| TOULOUSE LAUTREC | TOULOUSE (European city) + an anagram of ART and CLUE (anagrind is ‘cryptic’). The ‘little’ refers to the fact that the artist was 1.37m tall. | |
| 7 | Active period with no capital? I should go under | |
| ON THE GO | ||
| 8 | D for dumbass? | |
| DUNDERHEAD | A play on the fact that D is the initial letter or ‘HEAD’ of DUNDER | |
| 12 | Make pattern to clothe popular lady power-dressing? | |
| DOMINATRIX | DO (make) + MATRIX (pattern) around or ‘clothing’ IN (popular). This clue brought back memories for Joyce of college days learning how to use MATRICES to solve all those problems that you could solve in other ways! We won’t mention what images it conjured up for Bert! | |
| 16 | Close family is old, one half of family looking to God? | |
| MAFIOSI | IS + O (old) + I (one) + FAM (half of FAMily) written upwards or ‘looking to God’! | |
| 18 | Blinking eyelid needs rubbing at first, one concedes | |
| YIELDER | Anagram of EYELID + R (initial letter of Rubbing or ‘at first’) anagrind is ‘blinking’ | |
| 20/2 | Type of meal – | |
| TAKEAWAY | Our last one in! We laughed when we realised the answer. We couldn’t believe that we missed the – (minus or ‘TAKE AWAY’ sign) | |
You are right, it was a fun puzzle. Liked all of it, really. Some folk might not have appreciated DUNDERHEAD or BOTTLE-OPENER, but I thought they were inventive and fair. Well done for parsing ON THE GO – couldn’t see it at all. ‘Looking to God’ as a reversal indicator? Clear enough if you believe in all that mumbo-jumbo. And TAKE AWAY was my last one in too – I’d clocked the dash/hyphen but couldn’t get beyond that to see that it was a subtraction sign.
Thanks to Punk.
[And just in case my reputation as a pedant on this thread is fading, I think you’ll find in your preamble that it’s ‘fewer clues’ rather than ‘less clues’. Five minutes each on the naughty step, please, both of you (separately, of course).]
Oh, and thanks for blogging …
I thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle.
I’m getting used to some of the devices that Punk uses here and in the Guardian, so 11ac, 19ac and 8dn didn’t present as much of a problem as they once would have done.
Count me as another whose LOI was TAKEAWAY, and the DOMINATRIX clue raised a smile.
Three Mr Halpern puzzles in two days makes for a very happy solver. Lots to like in this one including the splendid d’oh moment that is that little tiny dash at the end of 20/2
Thanks to him for the fun and to B&J too for their part in it.
Bloggers don’t seem to acknowledge the existence of “backwards clues”. For instance, 8 down only makes sense if you take the light as a “clue” (dunder head) and the first part of the clue as the “answer” (D) to that “clue”.
Personally I thought b and d we’re rather as hackneyed as gegs. Re k’s d if crossword nuts can’t be pedants and libertarians at the same as verbalising nouns and nounalising verbs where would we be. Thanks b&j and punk.
Quite a lot of help needed to finish this one – and the help of the blog to parse quite a few. Didn’t think to split ‘across’ into ‘a’ and ‘cross’ which held me up on 23ac.
But thanks to setter and bloggers.
Nice puzzle by Punk – more Guardian than Independent today, in my opinion.
B for ‘Bottle-opener’ was a write-in as Mr H used it as an example of ‘this type of clue’ [not so very long ago he had a puzzle full of it] in one his lectures on crosswords.
In this category I found 8d a bit unfortunate as (according to Mrs Bradford) Dummelhead fits the clue too, though not the grid of course.
That said, a lot to admire – a bit more adventurous than the average Punk.
That said (revisited), a minus sign is surely longer than what was printed here. I have a GCSE maths book lying next to me and found confirmation for that.
Thanks to the ever clever Mr H.
And B&J too!