Independent 7,019 by Dac

by

*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, cd=cryptic definition, dd=double definition.

Wednesdays have become distinctly tougher this year. Several unfamiliar terms and some challenging clueing meant that this one really put up a fight. I’m not sure of my reasoning for a few of these answers, to be honest.

Across
1 COCK – dd.
3 JAMAICA INN – J + A + (CAIN “thrown into” MAIN).
9 MONO – MO + NO? “Record” seems weak as a def for MONO, so I think I’m missing something here.
10 INDIAN FILE – (IN FIELD IN A)*. Not a term I had heard, I must admit. It seems to mean “single file”.
12 TECHNOPHOBES – (THE PHONE COS + B[-roadband])*.
15 PIECE – PIE + CE.
16 ROCK TRIPE – TRIP “in” ROCKE[-t]. Also a new term for me. Rock tripe is “an edible arctic lichen of various kinds” according to Chambers.
18 SYCOPHANT – (TONY’S CHAP)*.
19 ORDER – dd.
20 TRADESCANTIA – TRADE + SCANT + AI<.
24 PARANORMAL – ((RAN + O) “going through” PARMA) “at” L.
25 ARID – (A RID[-e]).
26 ON THE LEVEL – dd.
27 MEAN – dd.
Down
1 COME TO PASS – dd.
2 CONSCIENCE – CON + SCIENCE.
4 ANNAPURNA – (PA “inhaling” URN).
5 AMIGO – [-mi]AMI GO[-od].
6 CONVENTIONAL – CONVENT + IONA + L.
7 IBIS – I “ahead of” BI[-rd]S.
8 NOEL – NO[-v]EL.
11 INTEMPERANCE – (TEMPERA “inside” INN) + CE.
13 PIED-A-TERRE – DATE “found in” PIERRE.
14 BEAR GARDEN – (BE[-e] + ARRANGED)*. Another new term, meaning “a turbulent assembly”.
17 CITY STATE – STATE “supporting” (IT’s “invasion of” CY). The clue seems to need another “say”, to me, Rome being merely an example of a city state. Maybe the surface is good enough to trump that.
21 DIRGE – G “put in” DIRE &lit.
22 UP TO – [-corr]UPT O[-rganisation].
23 TROT – T[-u]R[-f] O[-u]T.

6 comments on “Independent 7,019 by Dac”

  1. Thanks for the post on this fun puzzle. I like your use of the abbr tag for standard abbreviations – I might use that myself…

    9a: Chambers gives one of the noun definitions of “mono” as “a monaural gramophone record”.

  2. It IS good to learn new terms when solving daily crosswords even when you’ve been involved with them for decades — ones in all the dictionaries but which you haven’t met before. ROCK TRIPE was new to me It is a lovely example of a clue that leads you fairly and squarely to the answer. Last one I filled in, with much pleasure!

  3. Depends on how it’s done.

    I didn’t know John Tradescant’s plant (clued, with skill and consideration, to be solved easily) but apart from that it would appear that even my light brush with education had these entries covered.

  5. Excellent I thought, but a couple of quibbles, or at any rate queries:
    10ac: I’m not quite sure that ‘line’ adequately defines ‘Indian file’, which is really ‘in a line’. The ‘in a’ is needed for the wordplay.
    16ac: Just because rock tripe is edible how does this mean that it is needed for survival?

  6. Rock tripe “… is edible … and has been used as a food source in extreme cases when other food sources are unavailable, such as by early American northern explorers … ” – Wikipedia

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