Independent Crossword 8471 by Tyrus (Saturday prize puzzle 07-12-2013)

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A second consecutive Tyrus blog for me

Certainly up to his usual high standard. The 14/16 double being the most elegant clue of a fine bunch.

Three homonyms in the puzzle 9ac, 12ac and 21dn – all perfectly fair.

18dn was perhaps the oddest – easy to see what the grid entry should be but requiring a little thought to understand why.

Overall I’d say the quality of the surfaces of all the clues marked this out as a quality puzzle. Nothing that made you think you were reading a crossword clue and not a natural sentence.

Many thanks Tyrus. Very enjoyable as always.

Key:

rev. reverse; * Anagram; _____ Definition

ACROSS

1 Lose firmness entertaining hot bird (4)

Sag (Lose firmness) around h (hot) = SHAG

4 No right to get Henry tied up (10)

No + rt (right) + h(Henry) + bound (tied) = NORTHBOUND

9 Picked up more money orders (6)

Homonym of a raise = ARRAYS

10 Be far too painful walking like this (8)

(be far too)* = BAREFOOT

11 About to be beaten in series that was no walk-over (5-3)

C (about) + lose (to be beaten) + run (series) = CLOSE-RUN

12 Letters read out too much (6)

Homonym X’s = EXCESS

13 Dope likely to get end away? (4)

In for (likely) = INFO (dope is a slang term for information)

14/16 Driving cheap Escort? Ah I’m sorry but… (2,5,3,2,1,7)

(cheap Escort? Ah I’m sorry)* = MY OTHER CAR IS A PORSCHE

19 Slate roof finally put on (4)

F (roof finally) + lay (put on) = FLAY

20 Warns prince – no first born succeeded (6)

Albert (prince) – b(first born) + s (succeeded) = ALERTS

22 Start off missing a penalty area tackle (8)

Launch 9start off) – a + box (penalty area) = LUNCHBOX

23 Wordplay? Setter’s keeping it very demanding (8)

Pun (word play) + I’ve (setter’s) around it = PUNITIVE

24 United improved after Rooney header knocked off (6)

Rallied (improved) – r (Rooney’s head) = ALLIED

25 Back at home wearing women’s clothes, being tacky (10)

Rev. (at) + w (women) + dress(clothes) around in (home)= TAWDRINESS

26 Senses delays are being ignored

Waits (delays) –a (are) = WITS

DOWN

2 Rule breaking got punished by teacher – that’s unfortunate (4,5)

Had lines(got punished by teacher) around r (rule) = HARD LINES

3 When Tesco customer (a little merry) stops to dance erotically, one finds it hard to concentrate (11, 4)

As (when) + shopper (Tesco customer) + m (a little merry) in Grind(dance erotically) =  GRASSHOPPER MIND

4 Tonic? Fondle from a chaste woman (7)

Pet (fondle) from No strumpet ( a chaste woman) = NOSTRUM

5 Colonel sobering up – one of many in Cambridge (8,7)

(Colonel sobering)* = ROBINSON COLLEGE

6 ‘Getting it up!’ – cheer randy old goat in castle location (7)

Rev. (Rah (cheer)) + lech (randy old goat) = HARLECH

7 Unavailable while at work with force? One should n’t be (7, 2, 3, 3)

Off (unavailable) + (while at + force)* = OFFICER OF THE LAW

8 Reasonable visiting numbers in out of the way places (5)

Ok (reasonable) in nos (numbers) = NOOKS

15 Man at home awoken when light dawned (3, 6)

(Man at home)* = AHA MOMENT

17 Captain is sorry about embracing scorer (7)

Rev. Hidden (captaIN IS SORry) = ROSSINI

18 At least this number affected in Neasden (7)

(Neasden)* = ENNEADS (meaning 9 so in the plural must be at least 18)

21 Driver reported making more noise (5)

Homonym Louder (making more noise) = LAUDA as in Nikki

15 comments on “Independent Crossword 8471 by Tyrus (Saturday prize puzzle 07-12-2013)”

  1. Thanks for the blog Twencelas. As you say, very enjoyable. I read 12 across as X + S, but I suppose it all depends on pronunciation.

  2. An excellent mental workout from Tyrus: tough at times, but so rewarding when light dawned.

    jmac’s explanation of 12 across agrees with mine. In 4 across I took RT to be the abbreviation of ‘right’, and in 7 down the anagram fodder should include A (one). In 25 across ‘being’ needs underlining, the solution being a noun.

    I’m grateful to twencelas for the explanation of 18 down (it rarely occurs to me to look at the number of the clue) and for the reminder that ‘are’ in 26 across is a metric unit.

  3. Looking again at 7 down, I see that I made A do double duty; does it perhaps represent @ (at), making the anagrind simply ‘work’ rather than ‘at work’?

  4. I’d convinced myself that 7dn must be OFFICER OF THE DAY which messed up the bottom right corner, not helped by not having an aha moment for 15dn.

    I agree with jmac about 12ac.

  5. Polly @3
    7a’s off + anag. of “while at + force”! Twencelas just missed out the “at” by mistake I think.
    (Perhaps surprisingly, both Ximenes and Azed approve(d) that kind of anagram indicator – “work” instead of “works”, which they also accept.)

  6. Thanks Herb – have just corrected 7dn
    Thanks Polly too – have amended 4ac.
    As to 12 ac X S or X’s – I believe either is valid.

  7. Did I misread the blog? It doesn’t look like Twencelas missed out the “at” in 7d – I thought he had. Sorry.

  9. I obviously went a bit mad too – sorry, folks. Blame it on seasonal stress. But ‘being’ in 25 across still needs to be underlined (tacky is an adjective, tawdriness a noun).

  10. I thought I had wandered into a Paul/Private Eye puzzle by mistake. Most enjoyable.

    I’m very firmly in the “X+S” camp for 12ac. The clue for 14ac/16ac was a great spot by Tyrus. My last four in were TAWDRINESS, NORTHBOUND, ARRAYS and NOSTRUM. The latter went in from definition alone so thanks for that twencelas.

  11. I really liked this, the rude surfaces – 1a made my wife gag in her drink when she read it, oh err missus, went down, umm very well. Quite hard, took a good couple but it came in the end.

    Thanks Tyrus, we owe you one 🙂

  12. Good stuff from Tyrus; some head-scratching required but solvable in the end.

    One minor quibble, about up = NORTHBOUND. Granted that by convention most maps have north at the top, in railway (and sometimes other) usage, “up” means towards some important place, often but not always London. So “up” can frequently be southbound. And of course there are now those upside-down maps for those less blessed with map-reading skills.

    Thanks, Tyrus and Twencelas

  13. allan_c – Chambers gives one of the definitions of up as “northward”.

    I live up north and I must admit that I would never say I was going up to London – may not be the accepted convention but from here it’s downhill all the way, in more senses than in a conventional map reading sense.

  14. 12A is indisputably X + S; nobody would pronounce X’s (if that is supposed to indicate more than one “X” why the apostrophe anyway?) as EXCESS.

  15. Many thanks to twencelas for another very nice blog and to others for their comments.

    I take allan_c’s point @12 but think the other usage would be more common – up north and down south.

    X + S was right for 12ac.

    Merry Christmas to all.

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