Independent 8,950 by Alchemi

by

Monday and it is my week to do the Indy, unlike last week when I posted only to see I’d been beaten to it…

Alchemi or his various anagram alter egos often has a themed crossword, this one however is lost on me if it is.

Some clever clues but unusually for Alchemi some of the surfaces are a little weak to me.

Anyone seen the new on-line version? No java errors but you don’t get today’s (or at least I don’t) and the setter doesn’t seem to be credited.

 

To see the grid please click link to completed grid

Across

1 This docket banning party inside clumps of dense vegetation (8)
THICKETS

DO (party) removed from [THIS (do)CKET]* clumped although to be honest it’s barely an anagram

6 Russian ready to prepare for firing during exercise? Just the opposite! (6)
COPECK

As in hundredths of a Rouble, PE in COCK

9 Go to town in ramshackle triplane (3,3)
LET RIP

Hidden answer

10 Mothers worried about energy come to logical conclusions (8)
THEOREMS

E(nergy) in MOTHERS* worried

11 Large quantity of money I found in dry stream bed (4)
WADI

WAD & I

12 Eradicating disease later than one of Pooh’s friends can (7,3)
ROOTING OUT

ROO (Pooh’s friend) & TIN (can) & GOUT

14 Tree almost got animal agitated (8)
MAGNOLIA

[GO(t) ANIMAL]* agitated

16 Woman heads for Luton’s only intelligent solicitor (4)
LOIS

L(uton’s) O(nly) I(ntelligent) S(olicitor). Do hope Luton’s legal eagles are not going to go for their pound of flesh…

18 Leading couples in West Iran get a flow regulator (4)
WEIR

WE(st) & IR(an)

19 The way the Marines slosh gin around is quite scary (8)
ALARMING

A-LA (the way of) & R(oyal) M(arines) & GIN* sloshed

21 Machinery for clearing roads immediately power is supplied in Berkshire town (10)
SNOWPLOUGH

NOW & P(ower) in “friendly bombs” SLOUGH

22 Writing points that would be important if they were his (4)
NIBS

The VIP would be HIS NIBS

24 Hot nuclear reaction produces peppermint tea? (8)
INFUSION

? for def by example I guess, IN (hot) & FUSION. The surface makes no sense whatsoever though.

26 Turn over books received by judge (6)
ROTATE

O(ld) T(estament) in RATE

27 I suggest that we should put lives before small pieces of territory (6)
ISLETS

I & S(mall) & LETS

28 Bad language after the pubs’ closing is a bit boring (8)
SWEARING

(pub)S & WEARING

Down

2 Killer longing to intervene between Hungary and Austria (5)
HYENA

YEN inside H(ungary) & A(ustria)

3 Flyer‘s hand baggage announcement beginning to cause argument (7,4)
CARRION CROW

Sounds like CARRY ON & start of C(ause) & ROW

4 Skilfully clearing lobby after getting 10p to stop plane possibly going up (8)
EXPERTLY

X (ten) & P(ence) both in TREE (plane possibly) reversed (going up) & a cleared out L(obb)Y

5 Theologian arranging to quash Satanism (2,6,7)
ST THOMAS AQUINAS

[TO QUASH SATANISM]* is arranged

6 Believe adaptation will give support to King Charles (6)
CREDIT

C.R. & EDIT -an adaptation

7,25 Read supreme organisation eliminated millions (6)
PERUSE

M(illions) removed from SUPRE(m)E* organised

25 See 7 down
8 Left-winger working to replace street service (9)
COMMUNION

ON replacing ST(reet) in COMMUNIST

13 Venomous lizard constructed in smart Lego (4,7)
GILA MONSTER

[IN SMART LEGO]* constructed

15 Range of Italy‘s active writer figures (9)
APENNINES

A(ctive) & PEN & NINES

17 Saying piece of gymnastic apparatus is something found in the woodshed (8)
SAWHORSE

SAW (saying) & HORSE

20 Maps covering India’s wide open spaces (6)
PLAINS

I(ndia) in PLANS

23 Stick to stopping Prohibition (5)
BATON

TO inside BAN

11 comments on “Independent 8,950 by Alchemi”

  1. I nice gentle start to the week. 13D was unknown to me but was clear enough from the cross-checkers and anagram fodder. I couldn’t parse 27A and don’t think the blog is correct either. I now see it as IS (lives) before LETS (I suggest) and “small” is part of the definition.

    Thanks to Alchemi and flashling.

  3. Monday is traditionally the least testing weekday Indy, though that has not always been the case lately. Nevertheless, this was the easiest weekday Indy I’ve encountered. No disrespect to Alchemi, who can produce some excellent toughies (what is that website of his again?).

    I parsed 27A as LET’S preceded by IS (lives) and the definition as “small pieces of territory”.

    Thanks to Alchemi and flashling.

  4. Thanks to the world’s worst blogger from the world’s worst setter. 🙂 (This is a private joke.)

    1a is simpler than you’ve made it: it’s simply doCKET in THIS: I quite liked using “This” to indicate THIS, given that it usually means something more devious.

    My website is http://www.alchemipuzzles.com, and you can always click on my name when I post here to get to it. I uploaded another small batch last week: when I finish another 10 puzzles, I put the unpublished ones from the next 10 in the back catalogue, so having finished doing 290, I uploaded the ones to 180.

    The editor of the Indy is permanently keen to get easy puzzles for Mondays. I don’t have a lot of control over how easy or difficult a puzzle will be: when I specifically set out to compose a tough puzzle, it’s almost de rigueur for my test solver to say “That was a nice easy one”, and vice versa if I try and make it easy. So I’ve given up trying. This one came back from test as “rather like Chifonie” and as easy as pie, so I immediately bunged it off to Eimi as a Monday candidate.

  5. One additional little point. My wife is a devotee of Mystery Science Theater 3000, which features terrible old science fiction movies being watched and commentated on by a human and a couple of toy robots gleefuly pointing out the plot holes and appalling special effects. She saw this grid while I was clueing it and commented that she really wanted to see the MST3K version of “5d and the 13d”.

  6. All straightforward as one expects on a Monday. I’d never heard of GILA MONSTER but like Howard @1 I managed to work it out. Quite some time since I’ve encountered the 7/25 device of clueing a complete word split into two separate unrelated words; some people don’t like it but I find it OK now and then.

    Thanks, Alchemi and flashling.

  7. Alchemi, you and your wife are definitely on our wavelength. What a lovely prospect!
    Many thanks for a most interesting challenge that we solved in record time. So it was easy, but good to get it filled in while the coffee is still warm.
    Thanks also flashling for a most helpful explanatory blog.

  9. I thought that this was a delightful puzzle from Alchemi. Yes, it was straightforward enough, but it was nicely constructed with a variety of devices. Just right for a Monday (although as gwep says, it’s recently not always been the ‘easy’ one). I especially liked ROOTING OUT (but then I’m always a sucker for a WtP clue) and thought that the surface for ALARMING was very good (although to get the ING I think we need ‘slosh gin around’ as the anagrind).

    I got fixated on the lizard being something MONITOR, although of course the anagram fodder wouldn’t allow that, so I should have disabused myself of that idea much sooner.

    Thanks for blogging, flashling. Now go sleep.

  10. As easy as a Chifonie?
    Perhaps, but there it stops.
    There’s enough depth in the clueing here to call this puzzle a good crossword, despite some finding it too easy to be completely ‘top’.

    I don’t think I have to blame myself for not finding WADI (11ac).
    And while I parsed the very neat 1ac the same way as Alchemi himself, I needed more explanation for 12ac and 22ac.

    The only thing I underlined on my hard copy, complete with a question mark, is 3d (CARRION CROW).
    ‘ … hand baggage announcement …’ is surely meant to be a homophone (‘announcement’) of ‘hand baggage’.
    Within the airport surface ‘carry-on’ is an adjective while ‘hand baggage’ isn’t.
    So, I am happy to hear more about this.
    By the way, I think ‘hand luggage’ would have been better as that is what they call it on airports.

    One more thing.
    24ac: “The surface makes no sense whatsoever though”.
    Some solvers have their LOL moment with smut & lavatories & body parts.
    Most of the time, I am not one of them.
    I rather appreciate a surface like 24ac’s, absurd and with an imagery so unreal that it makes me smile.
    Did I say unreal? Perhaps, it does happen in the sci-fi world of Alchemi’s wife. 🙂

    Many thanks to Flashling and to Alchemi.

  11. Thanks to all those who’ve been less grumpy than Flashling today.

    @Sil: I’ve certainly heard “carry-on” used as a noun at airports and on TV ads. On the other hand, I’m glad that at least you share my predilection for the absurd.

    But I’m also a fan of Chifonie: I rather admire people who can produce easy puzzles with that kind of elegance on a regular basis, because I certainly can’t, and they’re much more fun than another barrel-load of CDs, which is a clue form I seriously dislike.

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