Independent 9094 by Alchemi

by

A plain crossword from Alchemi this morning, nowt wrong with that.

Nothing too scary but the swinging places and 1/9 references held me up for a bit.

Thanks Alchemi, quite enjoyed that.

Unfortunately my new job means that I’m having to give up the Guardian blogs for now so thanks to Gaufrid for stepping in.

Across

1 Silences a couple of musicians with backing group (5)
MUTES

A couple of MU(sicians) & SET reversed

4 Man of property right to replace last bit of spread containing evidence of cat (9)
HOMEOWNER

HONE(y) with R replacing the Y with MEOW inside it

9 UN man thanks a thousand small egg producers (7)
BANTAMS

BAN (ki moon, UN gen sec) & TA & M (thousand) & S(mall)

10 Joiner that’s born in Chelsea, say (3,4)

TIE BEAM

I.E. & B(orn) all in TEAM (chelsea say)

11 Male koala in space excited by way to find out the time (3,1,9)
ASK A POLICEMAN

[M(ale) KOALA IN SPACE]* excited

14 Signals given to embattled soldiers at last (4)
NODS

Last letters of giveN tO embattleD soldierS

15 One filling boxes containing drug medium and advanced medical device (9)
PACEMAKER

[E(drug) M(edium) A(dvanced)] in PACKER

18 Surprisingly tie horse to Republican thinker (9)
THEORISER

[TIE HORSE]* surprisingly & R(epublican)

19 Man putting on weight to get sharper (4)
WHET

HE inside W(eigh)T

21 Swinging places Algerians busily put rugs round (8,5)

MARGINAL SEATS

Last one in by quite a way, nicely misleading definition Alchemi. ALGERIANS* busily in MATS (rugs)

24 Chose to tackle large drunk (7)
PICKLED

L(arge) in PICKED

26 Commercial featuring graduate about to run away (7)

ABSCOND

BSC (a graduate) & ON (about) all in AD(vert)

27 Gut and trim fish – note tails are required? (5,4)
DRESS CODE

DRESS (gut and trim in cookery) COD & E (a note)

28 Herb your old people don’t finish (5)
THYME

THY & ME(n)

Down

1 Crowds second qualified surgeon (4)
MOBS

MO (second) & B.S. (Bachelor of Surgery)

2 10-day struggle to acquire new clothes somewhere around Newcastle (4,3,4)
TYNE AND WEAR

N(ew) in [TEN DAY]* struggling & WEAR (clothes)

3 Quiet boat comes on school of fish (6)
SHARKS

SH & ARK & S(chool)

4 Is optimistic about 1/9 of gardening equipment (9)
HOSEPIPES

SEP(tember) 1st inside HOPES. 1/9 quite misleading leading to naughty word under breath.

5 A short time on the phone gets a place to stay (5)
MOTEL

MO & TEL(ephone)

6 Beat more than a million inside church (8)
OVERCAME

OVER (more than) & [A M(illion)] in C.E.

7 Born partly bioengineered (3)
NEE

Hidden answer

8 Pay rises in Newmarket are numerous (10)
REMUNERATE

Hidden reversed answer

12 Spooner’s fish question to be very significant (4,7)

MAKE HISTORY

Spoonerism of HAKE MYSTERY

13 Espionage equipment made it open accidentally (3-4,3)

ONE-TIME PAD

[MADE IT OPEN]* accidentally

16 Sparkle you finally leave in the middle (9)
CORUSCATE

[(yo)U & SCAT! – leave] in CORE

17 Things the French stuffed under truck (8)
ARTICLES

ARTIC (lorry) & LES (the french)

20 Bark from this black when prepared (6)
BASSET

As in Fred Basset, B(lack) & AS & SET

22 No time to check over sound system (5)
AUDIO

T(ime) from AUDI(t) & O(ver)

23 Side to move carefully (4)

EDGE

Double def straight out of Rufus’s handbook. An old hackneyed clue from an old hack setter. [Long running joke for those new to my blogs of Alchemi crosswords :-)]

25 Restore to health, missing hand signal (3)
CUE

Right hand removed from CU(r)E

completed grid

9 comments on “Independent 9094 by Alchemi”

  1. Well judged flashling, and thanks to Alchemi for a satisfying start to the week.

    Anyone not familiar with one-time pads should read the wonderful Between Silk and Cyanide by Leo Marks.

    Good luck with the new job flashling. Being of an advanced age, I can just remember what work is (but not why I did it). 🙂

  2. Thanks, flashling, for the blog and best wishes for the new job. 4dn had me mystified as I assumed ‘gardening equipment’ had to be ‘lifted and separated’ and ‘1/9’ meant just one letter of ‘gardening’ was used. A real facepalm moment when I saw the blog. Grrr! AUDIO had me baffled, too.

    Hadn’t heard of ONE-TIME PAD but guessed it and then confirmed by googling. Thanks for the reference, Conrad. I don’t know if my age is advanced as yours (I’m not quite there for a free TV licence yet) but I still know what work is – I just don’t get paid for it. And thinking of that I’d better sign off and get on with some.

    Thanks, too, to Alchemi.

  3. Another quick solve, although 4dn was so obvious from the crossing letters that I didn’t stop to parse it and when I went back to it, I could see the “hopes” part but not the rest. Thanks for the explanation.

    I discovered only recently that that old music hall song Ask a Policeman is a reference to policemen of the day relieving drunks of their pocket watches when discovering them passed out in the street. That’s why, “Every memberof the force, has a watch and chain, of course.”

  4. All the best flashling, I too remember work in the distant past.

    Thanks for the 1/9 explanation. I won’t do my anti Americanisms rant but it’s definitely worth a very rude word.

  5. Thanks flashling for the usual grudging load of rubbish from the world’s worst blogger about the world’s worst setter. 🙂

    I’d be interested to know why sidey felt like doing an anti-Americanisms rant when I used the normal English way of specifying a date.

  6. Thanks, flashling and Alchemi. You two should kiss and make up, you know. It’s bad karma to have negative thoughts on 225.

    I liked this, but got seriously stuck on my last two, the intersecting ONE-TIME PAD and DRESS CODE. The former is something I’d never heard of and DRESS CODE for ‘tails are required’ is not my favourite ever Alchemi definition.

    MARGINAL SEATS was good when I finally saw it, and that was where my bad word occurred today. Oh, and 2dn is faulty: the last word should have been ‘Sunderland’ rather than ‘N*******e’.

  7. Thanks all, just one query… 20d in the dead tree edition is a completely different clue… ‘British pack animal and French dog.’ ????

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