There are several clues here that proved rather difficult. Rorschach has produced a crossword that is certainly good in parts, I remain to be convinced about some of it, but that is likely to be as much because of my misunderstanding as because of any lack of quality.
His theme is the day and he has done well to have so many clues that are related to it. For a week now I’ve heard bangs outside my window in the evenings. Why can’t people just hold themselves in check until the day comes? Guy Fawkes night is becoming Guy Fawkes week.
Definitions in italics.
Across
1 Earlier prototype of the C5, say? (6)
BEFORE
“B4”, which comes earlier than C5, one would expect
4 OOMPH?! That’s shocking! (6)
STATIC
Static gives you an electric shock, and 0 mph means that you are standing still, or static — why it’s 00 mph I can’t see apart from the surface help this gives
9 Concerning lack in French director’s cinematic style (4)
NOIR
This looks to me as if it’s ‘Concerning lack in French’, i.e. black in French, and cinematic style as in film noir, but I’m not at all sure since ‘concerning lack’ = black seems very vague — or is there some way in which b = concerning? — no it’s just come: all this is rubbish: it’s [Jean] Renoir minus re [= concerning]
10 Can we sleep around? That’s when you get everything going (5,5)
CLEAN SWEEP
(Can we sleep)* — when everything goes all is swept clean, although the usual usage of the term, in sport mainly I think, is itself metaphorical
11 Pack goods in carton before returning to pocket (3,3)
EGG SAC
gg [= goods] in (case)rev. — but I wonder if I’m missing something, since the carton before returning is ‘case’ — it’s only after returning that it becomes ‘esac’ yes I am, because you have to pack the goods in the carton and then reverse: the ‘before’ refers to the complete action that precedes it, not just, as I thought, the carton
12 Pictures crumbles that might appear on The Great British Bake Off (3,5)
PIE CRUST
(Pictures)*
13 Original sin recorded at the beginning of history (9)
PRIMAEVAL
“prime evil”
15 Card /giving you access to capital? (4)
VISA
2 defs — a Visa card and a visa used for travel
16 Drop /charge (4)
BOMB
2 defs I think — to bomb is to drop a bomb, and a bomb is a charge, but ‘drop’ and ‘drop charge’ are so similar that I’m not sure about this
17 Novelly structure society with Conservative policy? (9)
STORYLINE
How many initially read this as ‘novelty’? — certainly this was my first impression since ‘novelly’ is a very unusual word — s Tory line
21 Trendy TV drama aired on time without fail (8)
INERRANT
in [= trendy] ER [= TV drama] ran [= aired] t [= time] — personally I’m glad that the Indy crossword has (apparently) abandoned the idea of having ‘A on B’ in an across clue to mean ‘BA’, since it always seemed an unnecessary restriction — several times in recent crosswords the more relaxed view has been taken
22 This’ll make you an upstanding member in the Netherlands, perhaps? (6)
VIAGRA
Rude — viagra will cause the male member to be upstanding — but what’s this about the Netherlands? Something that in my innocence …? the nether lands — a rather clever CD
24 Sell iodine compound for application in sport (7,3)
LINSEED OIL
(Sell iodine)*, although cricket bats nowadays don’t I think ever see linseed oil
25 Eats shoots and leaves (4)
TEAS
(Eats)*, with ‘shoots’ as the anagram indicator — tea plants — the clue referring to the title of the successful book by Lynne Truss
26 Loss of capital in banking sector ultimately (6)
ENDING
{L}ending — although two things make me a bit doubtful: is ‘lending’ really = ‘banking sector’, and is ‘ultimately’ the same as ‘ending’ (i.e. can ‘ending’ be used as an adverb?)?
27 Seeing problem in Rorschach’s work having originally inserted answer (6)
MYOPIA
my [= Rorschach’s] op [= work] i{nserted} a{nswer} — good definition — myopia is a seeing problem
Down
1 He chops wood to place barrels on top like Guido Fawkes? (7)
BLOGGER
Guido Fawkes is a blogger — b [= barrels] logger
2 It’s said conspirator shed tools (5)
FORKS
“Fawkes” — shed tools: garden shed tools
3 Soldiers mounting revolution in attempt to save the world? (7)
RECYCLE
RE [= Royal Engineers] cycle [= revolution] — recycling is a small but important attempt to be green or to save the world
5 Firestarter caught in derailed plot by undercover characters… (6)
TINDER
Almost completely lost here — haven’t a clue what’s happening apart from the fact that tinder is a firestarter and the Gunpowder Plot was derailed and undercover characters took part in it Simply a hidden: caughT IN DERailed — very nice clue
6 …unfortunately he will rot at place of execution (5,4)
TOWER HILL
(he will rot)*
7 Barracks here where he laces explosive? (7)
CHELSEA
(he laces)* — Chelsea Barracks
8 Gunpowder plot? (3,10)
TEA PLANTATION
CD — a plot (of the flower bed type) that grows gunpowder (a variety of tea)
14 Remembered some dire criminal around the fifth of November (9)
MEMORISED
(some dire)* around {Nove}m{ber}
16 It burns primarily alight (7)
BONFIRE
b{urns} on fire [= alight] — almost an &lit. apart from the ‘It’
18 Written up 20 lines about V for Vendetta (7)
RIVALRY
((lair)rev. ry) around V — 20 is cavern (= lair)
19 Group in capital on November the fifth caught in a rain storm (7)
NIRVANA
N [= November] (a rain)* round v — Nirvana was a rock group, but there’s also Nirvana Capital, some financial organisation, so quite what’s happening I’m not sure and so the definition is simply ‘group’ and the capital on November is N
20 Incomplete nerve agent initially strewn about first underground chamber (6)
CAVERN
(nerv{e} a{gent})* and c [= about] comes first
23 Place first couple of Catherine Wheels to create fireworks display? (3,2)
ACT UP
(put Ca{therine})rev. — the reversal indicated by ‘Wheels’
Thanks, John, for the blog.
in 5dn, the ‘undercover characters’ are the hidden letters in caughT IN DERailed.
I’ll leave one of the lads to spell out 22ac. 😉
A super puzzle – full of sparklers and crackers. Many thanks, Rorschach – I enjoyed it immensely!
“Netherlands” = Nether lands = lower region.
An excellent puzzle that had more than just a feel of a Punk/Paul puzzle, both in terms of bawdiness and cluing devices (such as that used in 1ac).
In 19ac I took “capital” to refer to the letter “n” in November. RIVALRY was my LOI.
20A I suspect it’s just a typo above but the “C” is the “about”, not the “A”.
Rorshach has taken some risks that not everyone will get, but it is good. I mean that C4 comes before C5 say, and OOMPH is difficult to expalin for me, but there are some good ones like the TEA joke. It is the Indy November 5 theme puzzle. Well done John and Rorhscah.
I thought this was a really interesting take on the 5th November theme, with stuff woven into both the clues and the solutions.
Not that easy (and not helped by there being a north-south divide in the grid) but gettable with a bit of perseverance. BEFORE is witty, and I liked TEAS as well just for the surface (I want to have Lynne Truss’s babies).
VIAGRA is a good one too (but Eileen, you don’t usually skirt around matters carnal – what’s come over you this morning?)
Bravo, Rorschach. Looking forward to the next one.
An excellent puzzle. My favourites were 8D and the cheeky 22A. Defeated by the SE corner so many thanks for the blog’s help with this. Don’t think I’d have got INERRANT if I spent the rest of the week looking at it, though it’s a fair clue.
Bravo, Rorschach.
[K’s D, what can you mean? I didn’t want to hog all the clarifications! And I was preoccupied with Mr Darcy – see Redshank.]
Hi John
I think 11ac works if you read as an instruction to insert GG in CASE (giving CASGGE) and then reverse the whole thing to give EGG SAC.
Thanks John for the post and everyone for the nice comments. Glad it went down well – I really enjoy bonfire night so it was a really fun puzzle to set actually!
Just a couple of notes:
C5 being a reference to the Sinclair C5 – OOMPH being rightly surface motivated – the definition of CLEAN SWEEP being to sporting prowess (picking up everything going) – P Barton is correct (insert GG into CASE then reverse – again surface reasons) – 26ac is banking = lending and definition is “sector ultimately” – Eileen is of course right with TINDER with “plot by undercover characters” being the cryptic instruction – and yes capital of November = N.
These are of course, completely picky little corrections to a very extensive blog so thanks John.
No one will have spotted it but there are five Vs hidden in the grid. Because we can. If you haven’t seen V for Vendetta have a watch – it’s a cracker
#6 Prince Charles is always telling me not to name-drop, but I’ll let Lynne know when I see her tonight
That’s gone about six feet over my head, eimi. Bit like most of our shots on goal this season …
Great puzzle, perhaps even his best so far.
Yes, there were a lot of references to Today but, for me, it didn’t feel like a themed crossword. More like a normal crossword with added flavour.
As one who doesn’t possess a high quality antenna for cryptic definitions, I must admit that TEA PLANTATION (8d) was excellent.
There was more tea in 25ac and – surely unintendedly the last column contains ‘teas’ as well. From the letters in the first and last column one can almost make ‘Lipton tea’ ….. 🙂
I particularly liked some anagrams today.
10ac, 12ac (with a bit of a long-winded definition but OK) and the brilliant 6d (TOWER HILL).
16ac (BOMB) was my last one in. I find it actually quite a good double definition as the clue as a whole makes sense too: dropping charges against someone.
Andy B (@3) made a comparison with Paul/Punk. I agree that much of the clueing was in the same category, adventurous.
It took a while in 1ac for the penny to drop [even if I didn’t think of Sinclair]. My thoughts drifted away to another clue once (perhaps even by Rorschach himself, I don’t know anymore) that had ‘height’ as a follow-up to G7.
I saw the trick in 4ac rightaway and had no problems with the double-O.
Don’t worry, as one from the Netherlands, I don’t feel offended by 22ac although, in general, I do not like clues with this kind of laddish humour a la Paul very much. But it’s fine.
The fact that I had to think quite deeply about ‘capital on November’ for N (‘on’?) couldn’t change my opinion on this crossword.
Really good and very entertaining.
Another superb puzzle from Rorschach. Lots of inventive clues — my faves were 10a and 12a.
Thanks john and R just done this after the display. Fine stuff.
Thanks everyone for their help. I seem to have done rather a bad job with this one and will amend the blog, but there are so many to do that I’ll just say thank you Eileen@1, Andy B@3, and various others. It’ll make my task easier, although some would say that I jolly well deserve to have to amend the blog and dole out thanks to everyone individually with each clue that I change.
Once again we finished the puzzle this morning – we knew we should have started earlier!
As everyone says, inventive clueing, interesting references to the theme and lots of smiles.
Thanks Rorschach for the fun- sorry not to see you in Sheffield. Thanks John for the blog.
Only did this today – super puzzle. Too many great clues to pick a favourite from.