Scorpion has the honour(?) of being the first Saturday Crossword available to solve on the Independent online site in the same manner as the usual daily puzzles on the day it is published.
This puzzle is maybe slightly easier than many Scorpions I have tackled, with a smattering of reasonably easy clues to get going but with a few humdingers that took me a long time to crack at the end. Indeed I only had a dozen or so unsolved by the time I’d tackled all the clues.
The grid lends itself to a theme and I was on the lookout for a perimeter message but gave up when too many consonant sequences effectively ruled that out…
But there was a theme, which I didn’t spot till there were only 4 clues to go, so it didn’t help with the final solving.
It is one of those themes that seems obvious in retrospect: Record Labels:
I can see: Stiff, Two Tone, Factory, Domino, and Creation
Are there any others?
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| 6 | FACTORY | Nothing originally conceived by politician works (7) FA (Nothing) C[onceived] TORY (politician) |
| 7 | TRACKED | Hunted down Chaka Khan’s earliest recordings in Rough Trade (7) C[haka] K[han] inside (TRADE)* AInd: rough. First one in. |
| 10 | NUDE | Part of Faye Dunaway’s back fully exposed (4) Reversed Hidden in FayE DUNaway |
| 11 | STIFF | After it’s over, females like a strong drink (5) IT’S< FF (females) |
| 12 | ENVY | Hollow victory on points for green-eyed monster (4) EN (points, of the compass) V[ictor]Y. Pretty obvious definition |
| 13 | DOMINO | Fats no good for performing tenor (6) DOMIN[g]O Ref: Placido D and Fats D |
| 15 | CHLORINE | Her coin assortment includes pound that’s added to the pool? (8) (HER COIN + L (pound))* AInd: assortment |
| 16 | SCAB | Rat created system of banks westwards (4) BACS< Bankers Automated Clearing Services. It is possibly above my pay grade to reveal I once worked for them at an unspecified location in Ealing |
| 18 | PSEUD | Fake cobbler, say, nails shoe vacuously (5) This wordplay took the longest to unravel: S[ho]E in inside PUD – a cobbler is apparently a type of pudding (never knowingly eaten). I also cannot possibly reveal that while at school I was a founder member of the short-lived Pseud’s Club |
| 19 | RAYS | Audibly demolish fish (4) Homophone: Raze. Plural fish |
| 20 | TENON SAW | Woodworker’s gear used to be not at all secure, looking back (5,3) All reversed: WAS (used to be) NO (not at all) NET (secure) |
| 21 | SUDDEN | Unexpected shiner covers side of eye having confronted dukes (6) DD (dukes) E (side of eye) inside SUN (shiner). One of the last entered due to the strange wordplay order |
| 23 | ET AL | Heavy music hacking off master and others (2,2) Heavy [m]ETAL |
| 24 | CORFU | Start of Channel Four broadcast somewhere in the Med (5) C[hannel] FOUR* AInd: broadcast |
| 25 | METZ | Encountered unknown European city (4) MET (Encountered) Z (unknown) |
| 26 | SOJOURN | Dwell for a time in London area, preferring joint to heroin regularly current (7) [c]U[r]R[e]N[t] after SOHO (London area) with the H (Heroin) swapped for J (Joint). Tricky. Had to get the answer from the definition and crossing letters then decode the wordplay |
| 27 | TWO-TONE | Child aged twelve months receives wide style of shoe?(3-4) TOT (child) ONE (aged twelve months) with W[ide] inside. The clue that revealed the theme |
| Down | ||
| 1 | CARUSO | Coach universally accepted by this opera singer (6) CAR (coach) U[niverserally] SO (accepted) |
| 2 | STYE | Pen name’s last used for complaint in The Observer? (4) STY (Pen) [nam]E |
| 3 | FRESCO | Innovative business eschewing husband’s artwork (6) FRESH CO (Innovative business) minus H[usband] |
| 4 | PROFILED | Did a short sketch of academic sending up food shop (8) PROF (academic) DELI< (fodd shop) reversed (sending up) |
| 5 | HEAVENLY | Wonderful cast showing effort, but missing Oscar (8) HEAVE (cast showing effort) [o]NLY (but, missing O[scar]) |
| 8 | CHERRY RED | That woman trains on in hundred degree shade (6,3) HER (that woman) RY (trains, railway) RE (on) all inside C (hundred) D (degree). Another pencilled in from the def way before the wordplay was deduced |
| 9 | KITCHENWARE | Field marshal briefly keeps combat gear in NAAFI? (11) WAR (combat) inside Lord KITCHENE[r]. Even after zeroing on on Lord K from the crossing letters ?I?C?… I was stuck not seeing the divide in the midst of “combat gear” ‘tween wordplay and def. |
| 14 | IMBROGLIO | Confusion caused by fuel gauge initially round motorway northwards (9) OIL (fuel) G[uage] ORB (round) MI (motorway) All reversed (northwards) |
| 17 | CREATION | Native American and Tibetan perhaps discussing the universe (8) Homophone: CREE (Native American) ASIAN (Tibetan perhaps) Homophone Indicator: discussing |
| 18 | POSTCARD | One describes trip to station with wit (8) Last one in. POST (station) CARD (wit). I found it hard to imagine the clue as anything other than with definition: wit |
| 21 | SQUAWK | There’s a loud protest, as wife’s stuck in middle of Ormskirk (6) QUA (why) W[ife] inside SK from [orm]SK[irk]. Chez beermagnet , there was certainly some loud squawking a couple of days ago when one of those feral green parakeets that inhabit this part of NW Surrey in large numbers managed to find its way down our chimney and after a couple of days into our lounge, where attempts to encourage it out the window resulted in Mrs BM getting her finger well and truly nipped by a sooty beak. |
| 22 | EXTANT | Ten soldiers trapped inside hospital section surviving (6) X (ten) TA (soldiers) inside ENT (hospital section) |
| 25 | MUTE | Demure eaters both essentially silent(4) [de]MU[re] [ea]TE[rs] |
Typo in 26A which is J for H in SOHO plus ENT.
Not so difficult as some Scorpions, liked the CARUSO/DOMINO crossers.
Thanks to Scorpion and beermagnet.
very enjoyable puzzle from Scorpion; not that difficult although SOJOURN took a while to unpick. TWO TONE gave me the theme; there’s CHERRY RED, HEAVENLY, NUDE, FRESCO labels too, probably others if one could be fagged….
Thanks to Scorpion and beermagnet
And there’s MUTE Records as well, the home of e.g. Depeche Mode.
Thanks to Scorpion for a very nice crossword (which mentioned one of my favourite records labels: Cherry Red).
Fine blog, beermagnet!
A typo in 21d (SQUAWK): QUA = ‘as’ (not ‘why’).
I wondered why Scorpion used ‘performing’ in 13ac, it doesn’t seem to play a role in this clue.
1d (CARUSO) I parsed slightly different: CAR + U (universally accepted) + SO (by this).
Most of it went in easily but I was hung up for a long time on the NW corner, mainly because I was thinking ‘politician’ in 6ac had to be MP and ‘Fats’ in 13ac had to be of the greasy sort. I did think of Fats Waller but forgot Fats Domino. When I eventually remembered him it all fell into place.
The theme passed me by but I did notice Scorpion has given us a pangram.
Thanks, Scorpion and beermagnet.
Thanks Scorpion and beermagnet. POSTCARD is also in the theme (home of Orange Juice etc).