Independent on Sunday 1,319 by Poins

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Lovely surfaces this week from Poins. I must pay more attention to them in future. Quite a tough challenge too, with 9 down being my undoing.

I felt fortunate to remember Jeremy Bentham, perhaps not a household name, although I had mistakenly always assumed he was something to do with medicine rather than philosophy.

Across
1 FRACAS Father gets Henry to depart after account of noisy quarrel (6)
FR + AC + [h]AS.
4 CRUSADER What Simon de Montfort became whilst on the way back to stab vulgar king (8)
AS< in (RUDE + R).
10 ON THE GO Against an attempt to accommodate most of them when very busy (2,3,2)
THE[m] in (ON + GO).
11 STIPEND Put into ecstasy over hint of an allowance (7)
TIP in SEND.
12 NOIR An expression of disbelief at extremely inferior type of film (4)
NO + I[nferio]R.
13 IMPLACABLE Rogue politician suppressing the French is unable to be stopped (10)
LA in (IMP + Vince CABLE).
15 EQUITY First off, essential nurses resign from union (6)
QUIT in [k]EY. The actors’ union.
16 BENEATH At a lower level when badly beaten by Hearts (7)
BEATEN* + H.
20 BENTHAM The man misrepresented by Belgium’s top philosopher (7)
B[elgium] + (THE MAN)*. Jeremy Bentham is the philosopher whose head famously isn’t on display at University College London.
21 SOURCE Left-leaning novelist’s taking in an ancient city in spring (6)
UR in Umberto ECO‘S<.
24 BUTTONHOLE Detain in conversation about Bottom’s earlier awkward situation (10)
BUTT + ON + HOLE.
26 FINE A penalty for Nice (4)
Two definitions.
28 ODDBALL Left-over shot found in case (7)
ODD + BALL. “Case” as in “an odd or humorous character”
29 CYANIDE Greenish-blue fish beginning to emit poison (7)
CYAN + ID + E[mit].
30 BALLYRAG Badger‘s excellent colouring eventually captured by artist? Just the opposite (8)
RA in (BALLY + [colourin]G). Can “bally” mean “excellent”? Not according to Chambers, but perhaps other dictionaries have it. It seems feasible.
31 HARDLY Not quite daring to cross lake (6)
L in HARDY.
Down
1 FLOUNDER Fish left in sink (8)
L in FOUNDER.
2 ATTRIBUTE Characteristic of volunteers boosted by praise (9)
TA< + TRIBUTE.
3 AGES Composer’s about to leave for a long time (4)
John [c]AGE‘S.
5 RESOLVED Someone beaten up over a holy book endlessly becomes determined (8)
LOSER< + VED[a].
6 SWITCHED ON Changed before working with it (8,2)
SWITCHED + ON.
7 DWEEB Nerd starts to doubt whether erudition excites babes (5)
Initial letters from D[oubt] W[hether] E[rudition] E[xcites] B[abes].
8 RUDDER Somewhat bad-tempered during mounting of steering apparatus (6)
[bad-tempe]RED DUR[ing]<.
9 FORMS Make small beds for animals (5)
FORM + S. The bed of a hare, I learn. Didn’t get this one. I think the 40% checking did for me.
14 STATIONARY Fixed it as notary ordered (10)
(IT AS NOTARY)*.
17 TERRIFIED Frightened to make a mistake every time one’s introduced to a man (9)
(ERR + IF + I) in TED.
18 VALHALLA Not a soul leaves here when girl gets God upset (8)
VAL + ALLAH<.
19 SEVERELY Cut by the Spanish youngster originally in a very plain style (8)
SEVER + EL + Y[oungster].
22 ABSORB Take in muscles on brother’s back (6)
ABS + BRO<.
23 CLOCK Notice in time (5)
Two definitions.
25 TIDAL What a bore may be thinking at first about city girl (5)
T[hinking] + (LA + DI)<.
27 GAGA German military commander becomes distracted (4)
G + AGA.

 

* = anagram; < = reversed; [] = removed; underlined = definition; Hover to expand abbreviations

 

7 comments on “Independent on Sunday 1,319 by Poins”

  1. Quite a challenge indeed, Simon. I remember finding this very tricky, and if Poins’ name hadn’t been at the top of the puzzle I would never have attributed it to him. BENTHAM was outside my ken, but I did know the hare’s bed.

    The solution to 30ac is in fact BULLYRAG (which I’d never heard of) and BULLY is given as a definition of ‘excellent’, although mainly American English. I guess we’d use it in ‘Bully for you’.

    I had to look up Simon de Montfort, I’m afraid – he’s another one I hadn’t heard of. The parsing for CRUSADER is AS reversed in CRUDE plus R for ‘Rex’, btw.

    Thanks for blogging, Simon, and thanks to Poins for the puzzle. Easily the hardest of his I’ve done.

  2. This one totally defeated me. I got the left half eventually, but almost nothing on the right.

    I did know who Simon de Montfort was, but didn’t know he was a crusader, and checking I see the one I know, the one who revolted against Henry III and led to the forming of the first English parliament, was the son of the crusader.

  4. hashertu@3 = “if” can be synonymous with “every time”. Think of “if he sees a ghost he jumps” and “every time he sees a ghost he jumps”.

  5. I found this very tricky and I tripped up with “ballyrag” for the same reason Simon did, i.e. the feasibility of bally=excellent. As it happens “ballyrag” is an alternative spelling of BULLYRAG according to my Chambers, but I should have remembered bully=excellent because I watched Ken Burns’ “The Roosevelts” series earlier this year and Theodore used to say it a lot.

  6. This was tough! Thanks to Poins and Simon. 30 across is bully- rather than bally- rag – and so makes complete sense (though I didn’t get it without the cheat button…. ) Does the paper solution give ballyrag?

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