Independent 8,696 by Hob

by

For a long time — in fact until I actually did the blog — I thought that this was themed around 14ac 21dn and was prepared to apologise for my ignorance of his works. but it became clear that in fact the theme was more general. Hob has fitted in many answers with a link to the theme and I have probably missed some of them.

All very cleverly done and apart from my very occasional doubts, which are probably unjustified anyway, a pleasant crossword.

Across

7 A head of Joyce, eighth element in false claim for pottery (8)
MAJOLICA
(a J{oyce} O) in (claim)* — I’m a bit vague about all this but oxygen has atomic number 8 — of course Joyce was Irish

9 Derivation of gold nib’s core to first writings of Goldsmith, Irish novelist (6)
ORIGIN
or {n}i{b} G{oldsmith} I{rish} n{ovelist}

10 Gambon’s place for Bible readings (4)
AMBO
Hidden in GAMBOn, the inclusion indicator the mere apostrophe, something that always seems inadequate yet is fairly common — an ambo is an early Christian raised reading-desk or pulpit — Sir Michael Gambon is Irish-born

11 Sort of reggae cruise ships possibly book (9)
DUBLINERS
dub [as in dub reggae, of course — haven’t you heard of dub reggae?] liners — this book

12 Light up part of back lounge (Mulligan’s) (6)
ILLUME
Reverse hidden in loungE (MULLIgan’s)

14 Writer of Danish plays about a king or queen (8)
SHERIDAN
ER in (Danish)* — ER could be the present queen or a king Edward — Richard Brinsley Sheridan — another Irish writer

15 What could be read by checkout operator initially? (7)
BARCODE
(read b{y} c{heckout} o{perator})* — a very nice &lit. — is there an Irish link here? — so far as I can see barcodes originated in America

17 Three in one college (7)
TRINITY
2 defs — various colleges, but one of them is Trinity College Dublin

20 Turn off main road around lake, before a teen is sick (8)
ALIENATE
A(l)1 (a teen)*

22 Castrate old fart, primarily a musician (6)
GELDOF
Geld o f{art} — Bob Geldof is Irish

23 Worried if the girl becomes more giddy (9)
FLIGHTIER
(if the girl)*

24 GB sticker hated across Welsh borders (4)
SHAW
s{ticker} h{ated} a{cross} W{elsh} — George Bernard Shaw, known widely as GBS, was Irish — not sure how borders = initial letters

25 21’s false leg’s beginning to go hairy? (6)
UNSAFE
21’s is LeFanu’s, and leg’s begining is l, which goes — you make an anagram of this, indicated by ‘false’

26 Me cycling topless upset driver, of course (8)
MCGINLEY
(Me {c}ycling)* — the definition refers to Paul McGinley, the Irish captain of this year’s European Ryder Cup (golf) team

Down

1 Vampire seen in castle toured by Prince’s second wife (8)
CARMILLA
Ca(r)milla — Prince Charles’s second wife is Camilla and r = castle as in chess, a crossword convention that always annoys chess players, as it’s like calling a knight a horse — Carmilla was one of the works of Sheridan Le Fanu

2 Rock star has head turned by ego, ultimately (4)
BONO
(nob)rev. {eg}o — Bono is Irish

3 Number one daughter is into Wilde, surprisingly (6)
WIDDLE
d in (Wilde)* — Oscar Wilde was Irish

4 Note the writer’s point, perhaps writing to bully (8)
DOMINEER
do [note] mine [the writer] e [ast] r — one of the three Rs, reading, writing and arithmetic

5 Oddly GIs eat lemons regularly, without one getting the pips? (4,6)
TIME SIGNAL
(GIs eat l{e}m{o}n)* round 1

6 Setter beset by Grandma’s unwholesome atmosphere (6)
MIASMA
M(I)a’s ma — but it could be Pa’s ma so perhaps a qualifier was necessary

8 Surprise attack by American president (6)
AMBUSH
Am Bush

13 Mischievously left “ass” in clue for 14 21’s relative (5,5)
UNCLE SILAS
(l ass in clue)* — this is one of Sheridan Le Fanu’s works

16 Final resting place in end plot (8)
DEATHBED
death [= end] bed [= plot]

18 Body parts depicted by artist after outrageously hot, rampant sex (8)
THORAXES
(hot)* RA (sex)*

19 He mounted mule, having caught one to follow horse (6)
HELIUM
((mule)rev. round 1) following h — He is the chemical symbol for helium

21 In sauna, felt up writer (2,4)
LE FANU
Reverse hidden in saUNA FELt — this writer, Irish of course

22 Sort of reggae briefly incorporating a type of dance music? (6)
GARAGE
a in (regga{e})*

24 Dramatist uttered squeal (4)
SING
“Synge” — yet another Irishman

*anagram

16 comments on “Independent 8,696 by Hob”

  1. I didn’t realise that so many of the ‘names’ in this crossword were all 11as.

    A very enjoyable puzzle which I found not as difficult as previous Hob offerings. Thanks to him and to John.

  4. I saw MAJOLICA and BONO straight away and thought this was going to be an “easy” Hob, but progress was much slower after that. There was plenty to like in this puzzle, including the different uses of “sort of reggae” in 11ac and 22dn. The SE quadrant was the last to fall with the HELIUM/MCGINLEY crossers my last ones in.

  5. Despite my distant Irish ancestry (one 2x great grandfather) I failed to twig the theme. But I liked the chemical references (O and H) although I thought 19dn was a bit sneaky asking us to work out horse = h = hydrogen.

    Thanks, Hob and John

  6. allan_c@5 – there’s nothing about hydrogen in the wordplay for HELIUM. The H at the start of the answer is the “horse” in the clue and is a pretty standard abbreviation in crosswordland.

  8. Andy @6. You’re right, of course. I was thinking, chemically, that the definition was “one to follow horse” as helium is the second element, immediately after hydrogen in the periodic table” and didn’t check the parsing or I would have realised that with only one ‘e’ my way of parsing it doesn’t work.

  9. In horse racing, the universal abbreviations are c=colt, f=filly, g=gelding, m=mare; r=rig; h=horse. So we don’t need to read heroin into every use of the single letter “h”.

  10. Nice tough Thursday fun, got the Irish/Dublin link early but didn’t know Le Fanu, not going to apologise for that. 1a seems a bit odd, the surface makes no sense to me and Hob seems to have been rather good elsewhere.

  11. Thanks, John.

    I did enjoy this one, although I failed to get MCGINLEY. Hardly surprising, because he’s a golfer, and my views on/interest in golf are pretty well known in these parts. I liked WIDDLE and THORAXES in particular, but that’s just my puerile sense of humour.

    I agree with you, John, about ‘borders’ for first letter indication, although it just about works. But I don’t see your problem with the apostrophe s as the inclusion indicator for 10ac. It reads as ‘Gambon has’ and ‘has’ for ‘contains’ is hardly controversial: ‘the periodic table has/contains 98 naturally occuring elements’. Ma’s ma is fine for MIASMA, so I don’t think a qualifier is needed. And R for ‘rook’ is standard chess notation, so I don’t see what there is to be annoyed about. When the king and rook move at the same time, it’s called ‘castling’, isn’t it?

    Nice theme interwoven into the clues – well done, Hob.

  12. K’s D @11: You are obviously quite at liberty to have no interest in golf, but I wonder about your views on the game. Yes it was true some years ago that it was very much a matter of upper-middle class men in their own little world. But in the past twenty years this world has expanded and almost all golf clubs nowadays have women members on an equal footing with men (yes I know there are some high-profile clubs whose attitudes are to say the least misogynistic, but even these clubs are reluctantly moving with the times). And as for the class thing, the days when people said things like “He’s not the right sort of chap to be a member” are long gone. The social mix at most golf clubs is wide.

    And it’s a breath of fresh air to enjoy watching and playing a game where it’s not about seeing what you can get away with without the ref/umpire noticing. Some people would hardly believe it but the vast majority of golfers call fouls on themselves if appropriate. Bobby Jones, a long time ago, is reported to have said “you might as well praise me for not robbing banks”. So that’s why I had no particular trouble with the McGinley clue.

    As for Ma’s ma, isn’t this a definition by example? Surely a strict Ximenean would say “Ma’s ma, perhaps”, or some such. And of course r = rook is standard chess notation and rook = castle is in the dictionaries: I was just saying that some chess players get annoyed when people use the word castle when they ‘should’ say rook.

  13. Despite having just returned from a trip to Dublin, I found this exceedingly tough, and had to cheat heavily to get the bottom right corner.

    As it happens, I was at a science fiction convention in Dublin, and as well as having several guests of honour, it had 14/21 as its ghost of honour, so I knew today was his bicentenary. (Haven’t read anything by him, but after hearing several talks about him, I’m going to.)

  14. Well count us as another 2 non-golfers who had to guess at the solution to 26ac and then google the name to check it.

    A great puzzle from Hob – we didn’t notice the Dubliners theme but then we weren’t really looking as it was getting late!

    We only knew 21d from today’s google home page.

    Thanks to S & B.

  15. Nice puzzle. Great fun seeing all those Irish (all Dublin?) connections just keep coming. Massive respect, and thanks, to Hob.
    I parsed 1ac as did John which is more precise than DavidS@2
    Many thanks to John (and again to Hob)

  16. I think pretty much everyone mentioned in the puzzle was born in Dublin – with exception of maybe Goldsmith though he studied there. Mulligan’s in 12A is a famous Dublin pub also. Thanks John and Hob.

Comments are closed.