As soon as we saw it was Bannsider today, we knew we were in for a tricky challenge – and we were right!
The theme was fairly obvious (and predictable!) from the first two clues and we were really impressed by the number of thematic references there were in both the clues and the solutions – two of the twelve Doctors featured in the clues, along with the Tardis, and five other Doctors appeared in the solutions (one reading across two answers), along with the Daleks. The 50th anniversary also featured in today’s Inquisitor, although in a rather different guise!
It was obviously necessary to include some unusual words in order to accommodate the thematic answers, but these were clued very fairly, so no complaints! However the parsing of some of the clues was very tricky and we’re still not sure about 27ac. Can anyone help us out?
| Across | ||
| 1 | Doctor fifty today: one is right to show support | |
| SOLIDARITY | An anagram of L (fifty) TODAY I (one) IS R (right) – anagrind is ‘doctor’ – nothing to do with the theme! | |
| 6 | Hardly a sound from Tom Baker, running out of energy | |
| BARK | An anagram of BAK |
|
| 10 | Player to come from supermarket with hat | |
| CAPALDI | CAP (hat) + ALDI (supermarket). The ‘player’ is Peter Capaldi, the |
|
| 11 | Ex-player – forward – petite for a Scot | |
| PERTWEE | PERT (forward) + WEE (Scots word for small or ‘petite’). Jon Pertwee was the 3rd Doctor Who | |
| 12 | Only watch, perhaps from behind sofa? | |
| TAKE A BACK SEAT | Cryptic definition – with a reference to the Doctor Who theme. If you ‘only watch’ you TAKE A BACK SEAT, and if you were behind the sofa (where many children were reputed to be when they watched the scarier sequences in the early days of Doctor Who), you could also be said to be ‘taking a back seat’, although we have to say this doesn’t quite work as an alternative definition. | |
| 13/23 | Philosophy of millions following Tardis, with love for returning doctor | |
| TAOISM | M (millions) following TA |
|
| 14 | Long-running programme no longer fronted by singular senior citizen | |
| OAP | ||
| 16 | Thirty-four too few for thieves to hide in? They’ve got to watch it! | |
| VIEWERS | This took a bit of parsing, but we think it is: VI (six) EWERS – in the story of Ali Baba and the forty thieves, the thieves hide in oil jars or ewers – if there were only six ewers, there would be thirty-four too few! | |
| 18 | Learned not to show first repeat | |
| ITERATE | ||
| 20 | Spur from the right drug: genuine bottles | |
| EGG | Hidden or ‘bottled’ backwards (from the right) in druG GEnuine | |
| 23 | See 13 | |
| See 13 | ||
| 25 | Simultaneously, a multiple repeat of European plays with Matt Smith | |
| AT THE SAME TIME | An anagram of A + E + E + E (European, repeated) + MATT SMITH – anagrind is ‘plays’. Matt Smith was the 11th Doctor Who | |
| 27 | Ex-player’s lawyer, one following FA in Bordeaux? | |
| DAVISON | Peter Davison was the 5th Doctor Who, but we’re really stuck on parsing this one! We think the ‘lawyer’ is DA, but we can’t figure out the VISON. Our French is pretty limited, but we have discovered that ‘vison’ is French for mink and FA can stand for ‘Fur Affinity’ – but this all seems far too obscure – are we missing something right under our noses? Yes it was ! Thanks Gaufrid – see comment 1 for the correct parsing. | |
| 28 | Ex-player’s explosive defending a shade hard to escape | |
| TENNANT | TNT (explosive) around or ‘defending’ |
|
| 29 | England’s number one broadcasting centre | |
| HART | A homonym (‘broadcasting’) of HEART (centre). Joe Hart is an England goalkeeper, or ‘number one’ | |
| 30 | Old song in French recalled German one in list | |
| NELLIE DEAN | EN (‘in’ in French) reversed or ‘recalled’ + LIED (German song) in LEAN (list). Connecting this to the solution to 29ac gives us HARTNELL – William Hartnell was the 1st Doctor Who | |
| Down | ||
| 1 | Fitting place to strike visitor from another world | |
| SOCKET | SOCK (strike) + ET (visitor from another world) | |
| 2 | Rock for hammering on planet, so roughly | |
| LAPSTONE | An anagram of PLANET SO – anagrind is ‘roughly’ | |
| 3 | Major adversary of alcoholics, having run out getting beer in | |
| DALEKS | D |
|
| 4 | Artist at home came up to find US folk singer | |
| RAINA ROSE | RA (artist) + IN (at home) + AROSE (came up). We’d never come across this singer before – perhaps we’re the wrong generation, or maybe she’s not that well known in the UK anyway? | |
| 5 | Plant genus in acidity phase | |
| TYPHA | Hidden in acidiTY PHAse. Another word we’d not come across before. | |
| 7 | Periodically, empty aircraft flew above the cybermen’s bases | |
| ATWEEN | A |
|
| 8 | Throw out watch, secretly upset, if it fails to? | |
| KEEP TIME | EMIT (throw out) PEEK (watch secretly) reversed or ‘upset’ – if a watch fails to keep time, you might want to throw it out! | |
| 9 | Sci-fi fan tense over survey for radio | |
| TREKKIE | T (tense) + a homonym (‘for radio’) of RECCE (survey). A reference to a fan of the other big Sci-Fi TV series that started in the 60s | |
| 15 | Doctor turned up, overwhelming one in a frenzy of colour | |
| PIGMENTAL | GP (doctor) reversed or ‘turned up’ round or ‘overwhelming’ I (one) + MENTAL (in a frenzy) | |
| 16 | In short, hadn’t a gun when mounting platform under cover | |
| VERANDAH | HADN |
|
| 17 | Writers of old English causing damage | |
| EXPENSE | EX PENS (‘writers of old’) + E (English) | |
| 19 | Distance between areas is right, note | |
| ALIENATE | LIEN (right) between A and A (areas) + TE (note) | |
| 21 | Old bit of Netherlands jail, holding centre for perverts | |
| STIVER | STIR (jail) round or ‘holding’ perVErts (middle letters or ‘centre’) | |
| 22 | One with devoted admirer about to descend on church? | |
| FIANCE | Cryptic definition – I (one) with FAN (devoted admirer) outside or ‘about’ ‘descending’ (it’s a down clue!) on CE (church). | |
| 24 | Creature that flies from neighbouring planet losing acceleration nearer ground | |
| MARTIN | MARTI |
|
| 26 | Cannon-fire oddly missed: girl instructed to get gun | |
| ANNIE | cAnNoN-fIrE with alternate (‘odd’) letters omitted or ‘missed’ – referring to the musical ‘Annie Get Your Gun’ | |
Thanks Bertandjoyce
27ac is DA (lawyer) SO (one following FA {in the sol-fa system}) in VIN (Bordeaux)
I think Bannsider’s precision should be noted – CAPALDI is actually ‘player to come’ while all the others are ‘ex-players’.
Thanks Gaufrid for the explanation – it was staring us in the face!
Thanks Phi – neither of us know much about Doctor Who. Bert found a wiki list of Doctors and it stated that Peter Capaldi had a non-speaking cameo appearance in The Day of the Doctor on 23rd November when the crossword was published. However, as you say he is the ‘new’ Doctor Who! We’ll change the blog to reflect this!
As someone who remembers watching the first episode of Doctor Who and has been a fan ever since, I still found this a bit of a struggle, but did complete it eventually. But I totally missed William Hartnell’s appearance in grid. Thanks for pointing that out!
A very enjoyable anniversary puzzle. As has been said, the unfamiliar answers such as TYPHA, STIVER, ATWEEN and RAINA ROSE were fairly clued so no grumbles from me. SOLIDARITY was my LOI after I realised that 2nd had to be LAPSTONE rather than my initial guess from the anagram fodder of “alpstone”.
Count me as another who didn’t spot HARTNELL hidden in the bottom row.
This was a super contribution to the weekend celebrations for Doctor Who’s 50th which did feel a slightly easy solve, given the theme, for a Bannsider Saturday Prize Cryptic.
Last in was HART which which baffled me for ages as (John) HURT appeared to be the obvious choice until, after some considerable head scratching, I spotted the NELL at 30A!
Thanks to Bertandjoyce for the blog and to Bannsider for his tribute.
The theme did make for a user-friendly Bannsider but I did like the way the non-themed clues were of the usually head-scratch inducing quality. I also liked the ‘player to come’
Thanks to Bannsider and to B&J too.
Thank you very much to setter and bloggers. Hart+ Nell was a good spot and I’m glad that the Daleks, my favourite baddies, got a guernsey. I think “gun” in 16d is a verb, as in to “gun it” referring to a car, meaning to (over) REV the engine.
My problem with this was i couldn’t read it. Come on Indy there’s lots of white space, use it! Bigger fonts please. Bah humbug seriously this was too damn small in the dead tree version.
Can’t say I understand why there’s all this fuss about the celebrated doctor, but at least it makes one sufficiently aware to be able to complete the puzzle. I liked the mix of references between clues and answers. Raina Rose was a lucky guess, confirmed here
I’ve not been exterminated, merely lurking (behind the sofa?) for the past fortnight, having missed a few days’ puzzles and been catching up.
Nerdy boys thing, Allan.
The submit calcs are getting more interesting Gaufrid: will we get algebra soon?
Thanks for the blog Bertandjoyce.
I apologise for the obscure vocab in this: it was set at quite short notice and as it was I discarded several grids before settling reluctantly for this final version.
One small point about 12 across – a “behind sofa” is meant to be a reference to a “back seat” (I actually watched from behind the door back in the day – the sofa was far too close!). The modern Doctor Who is quite intriguing: mostly completely unintelligible to me and I can’t help feeling that the 50th anniversary edition was a triumph of over-plotting and over-complication. But maybe I’m just getting old 🙂