Another tour de force from Anax, I thought. Quite a challenge, of course, but I was pleased to be able to finish this one, even if it did take all week.
The characteristic smooth surfaces are very much in evidence. I didn’t spot anything thematic, though a few clues refer to solutions to other clues, meaning the puzzle revealed itself progessively.
There’s one minor query at 19 across, where the final bit of the wordplay escapes me.
| Across | ||
| 1 | SWAMPY | Protester forces police to cut power (6) |
| MP in SWAY. Adoptive name of one Daniel Hooper, who was briefly famous for sitting in tunnels and trees for various causes. | ||
| 4 | IMPROPER | Naughty brat one gets a line on? (8) |
| IMP + ROPER. | ||
| 10 | FRANKFURT AM MAIN | Open tram – I’m a fancy in delightful German city (9,2,4) |
| FRANK + ((TRAM I‘M A)* in FUN). I looked it up, and Frankfurt does indeed have trams, which is nice. | ||
| 11 | RINSE | Around noon, get up to bathe (5) |
| N in RISE. | ||
| 12 | BY FORCE | Under duress, see you keeping on side of Conservative (2,5) |
| (FOR + C) in BYE. | ||
| 14 | PIT | Hollow as marrow, mostly (3) |
| PIT[h]. | ||
| 15 | VATICAN CITY | See it both ways through opening (7,4) |
| (IT< and also IT) in VACANCY. | ||
| 17 | RUN INTO DEBT | Go overdrawn – brill! (3,4,4) |
| Reverse cryptic: R in BILL. | ||
| 18 | HEN | Not cock of the north (3) |
| Hidden in [t]HE N[orth]. | ||
| 19 | SIROCCO | Teacher heads for one child, for one looking after duster (7) |
| SIR + O[ne] + C[hild] +…well, I’m not sure where we get the CO from. | ||
| 21 | DROLL | Comical figure crossing river (5) |
| R in DOLL. | ||
| 23 | WHISTLE STOP TOUR | So as to avoid chasing game, choose our quick-fire round? (7-4,4) |
| WHIST + LEST + OPT + OUR. | ||
| 24 | TOLERATE | Bear left – time to fill cart (8) |
| (L + ERA) in TOTE. | ||
| 25 | CHARGE | There’s a lot of this in lightning storm (6) |
| Two definitions, I guess. Think of storming into a room. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | SAFARI PARK | 8 20 after it, nothing in reserve (6,4) |
| SA + FA + RIP + ARK. | ||
| 2 | AGAINST ONE’S WILL | 12 over 14 11 (7,4,4) |
| AGAIN + STONE (“pit”) + SWILL (“rinse”). | ||
| 3 | PEKOE | Tea, nothing dog will drink (5) |
| 0 in PEKE. | ||
| 5 | MOTIF | Love and sex turned into male/female theme (5) |
| (0 + IT<) in (M + F). | ||
| 6 | REMBRANDT | Band make time for artist (9) |
| REM + BRAND + T. | ||
| 7 | PEACE WITH HONOUR | To which European converted Chamberlain’s mistake? (5,4,6) |
| (TO WHICH EUROPEAN)*. Great anagram, and a term used in a speech by Neville Chamberlain in the run-up to WWII. | ||
| 8 | REND | Romeo’s dying to cause tears (4) |
| R + END. | ||
| 9 | SUBBUTEO | Game reserve’s American buzzard (8) |
| SUB + BUTEO. If QI is to be believed (your mileage may vary), the game takes its name from the bird. | ||
| 13 | BY AND LARGE | Mostly grey, a bland hybrid (2,3,5) |
| (GREY A BLAND)*. | ||
| 15 | VENERATOR | Time in passage with men I respect (9) |
| (ERA in VENT) + OR. | ||
| 16 | CHEROOTS | Beginning to slice 20 short cigars (8) |
| ROOT in CHES[t]. | ||
| 20 | CHEST | A case of Switzerland is in France (5) |
| CH + EST. | ||
| 21 | DEPTH | ENT, say, hospital’s sort of 25? (5) |
| DEPT + H. | ||
| 22 | TWIT | Rick‘s abandoned son Charlie (4) |
| TWI[s]T. Last one in, and another one that I had to confirm, but “rick” is “twist” as in a sprain. | ||
* = anagram; < = reversed; [] = removed; underlined = definition
19ac I could only assume the CO came from c/o (care of)?
It’s a favourite pub quiz question – when the trademark name ‘hobby’ was refused the inventor substituted the Latin name for the bird, the hobby. I didn’t know ‘buteo’ by itself was used in the US for one of their species.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subbuteo
Really enjoyed this crossword, and thanks for the blog.
Many thanks for the triff blog Simon.
Gah! Disappointed with myself re 9D. I’m usually pretty solid when it comes to this sort of thing, just didn’t suspect for a moment that the bird and the game could be related – should have checked!
Not for me, this one!
I had Commanding Officer for CO / “one looking after” in 19ac.
Excellent puzzle, notwithstanding a ‘still couldn’t parse’ 1d as my LOI when made obvious by the crossers… Only just twigged on the SA and FA components to be honest. Thanks Anax and Simon for the blog.
I played Subbuteo when I was a boy but never thought to find out where the name came from, and I actually think it’s a better name than “Hobby”. I made the assumption that there had to be a buzzard called a “buteo” from the wordplay and was pleased when Chambers confirmed it post-solve. I finished in the SE with DROLL after the DEPTH/CHARGE crossers. 1dn and 2nd were clever but I entered them from definition and checkers without bothering to parse them.
A fine puzzle. I thought for a while that I wasn’t going to get there and confess to having to search for German cities. I’d never heard that Frankfurt had a surname before.
I thought 15A was particularly nice (well, I do now – not so much during the several fruitless hours staring at it).
Good to see Swampy popping up. That must be a true mark of immortality, becoming a crossword clue.
I went with the ‘care of’ interpretation of CO in 19A – addressed to the person looking after, rather than the recipient themselves.
@7 – Frankfurt am Main is used to distinguish it from Frankfurt an der Oder which is a town in Brandenburg, part of the old East Germany. It’s much like we would use Newcastle upon Tyne to distinguish it from Newcastle-under-Lyme.
Another really imaginative box of tricks from Anax, for which many thanks.
I notice ERA is used twice – in 15d as “time in” and in 24 “time to fill” which I assume is as a result of spinning several plates at once?
Speaking of Frankfurt, I live in Germany and get bombarded with ads for hotel deals. I saw something for €65 per night in Mainhattan the other day which caught my eye until I spotted the “i”. They do love a joke here.
Good spot, baerchen. I’d like to say it happened on edit, but it didn’t. It was the spinning plates wot did it.
Thanks Anax and Simon. Good stuff, both.
Another complete waste of time,ink & space. In the i newspaper in 2019. What are these people who put this in a daily paper trying to achieve? I wish a survey of what.% of perspective puzzle solvers actually finished this. The probability of this missive reaching the the people who keep regurgitating these virtually impossible puzzles is pretty slim, but I keep plodding on, is it not possible to have two cryptic crosswords one for the super brains & one for us mere mortals .
It’s great to get this off ones chest.
Dear Tortoise, read through the blog above, learn the tricks, and then you too can feel like a super brain without necessarily being one!
I wouldn’t your cyber-breath, Cornick. TTVM has posted several comments in the same discourteous vein on 225 about Indy crosswords after they’ve appeared in the i. Assuming he’s for real, he obviously believes that Indy setters should provide super-easy puzzles for the benefit of weak solvers who attempt the puzzles in the i 4 years later. He’s entitled to express his opinion of course, even if he is talking rubbish!