We have come to expect the Thursday Indy puzzle to be tricky, and this offering from Tees was no exception.
We were not helped by the fact that no fewer than five of the across solutions were new words to us. So a fair bit of assistance in checking definitions was required, and once we had accepted one or two unfamiliar synonyms, it all worked out in the end.
| Across | ||
| 1 | Old hat Arab returned to gamekeeper Liz? | |
| BEHIND THE TIMES | SEMITE (Arab) reversed, or ‘returned’ after BETH (Liz) round or ‘keeping’ HIND (game) | |
| 8 | Society may conceal word origins | |
| ETYMA | Hidden or ‘concealed’ in sociETY MAy – the first word we haven’t come across before, but guessable from ‘etymology’etc. | |
| 9 | Learner in place with cunning Platonist | |
| PLUTARCH | L (learner) in PUT (place) + ARCH (cunning) | |
| 11 | Meals alcove described at first in letter’s content | |
| DINETTE | D (first letter of ‘described’) + IN + |
|
| 12 | Opener from Buddy Miles rocked hot spot | |
| BLEMISH | B (first letter or ‘opener’ of Buddy) + an anagram of MILES (anagrind is ‘rocked’) + H (hot) | |
| 13 | One’s married man abroad for porcelain | |
| IMARI | I (one) + MARI (French for husband or ‘married man’) – another new word to us | |
| 15 | Person in van Parsee had written off | |
| SPEARHEAD | An anagram of PARSEE HAD – anagrind is ‘written off’ | |
| 17 | Soothing pride fills last Henrician wife in charge | |
| PAREGORIC | EGO (pride) in or ‘filling’ PARR (Catherine Parr, last of Henry VIII’s wives) + IC (in charge) – third new word! | |
| 20 | Irish deny female in outfit’s not hot | |
| RENIG | ||
| 21 | River spirit comes to West Country | |
| NIGERIA | AIRE (river) + GIN (spirit) reversed or ‘to the West’ | |
| 23 | Lotus going to carry British drug-smuggler about | |
| NELUMBO | ON (going) round or ‘carrying’ B (British) MULE (drug-smuggler) all reversed or ‘about’ – 5th unusual word! | |
| 25 | Keen as surgeons can be? | |
| INCISIVE | Cryptic definition – surgeons make incisions, so they might be described as being INCISIVE | |
| 26 | Transform Scots town priest leaves | |
| RENEW | REN |
|
| 27 | Bird inserts a key given by rowing-club lovers | |
| HERO AND LEANDER | HERON (bird) round or ‘inserting’ A + D (key, in music) + LEANDER (rowing club) | |
| Down | ||
| 1 | Some fat daughters producing tears after complaint | |
| BEEF DRIPPING | D (daughters) + RIPPING (producing tears) after BEEF (complaint) | |
| 2 | Composer reportedly wasted having drained dozen | |
| HAYDN | Sounds like (‘reportedly’) HIGH (wasted) + D |
|
| 3 | End for electrician making circuit safe, or lucky escape | |
| NEAR THING | N (last letter or ‘end’ of ‘electrician’ + EARTHING (making circuit safe) | |
| 4 | Time without work for such tabloid models? | |
| TOPLESS | T (time) + OP-LESS (‘without work’) | |
| 5 | Good-natured question taken in EU on revolutionary island | |
| EQUABLE | Q (question) in EU + ELBA (island) reversed or ‘revolutionary’ | |
| 6 | Tees is a good one to dismiss over scan result | |
| IMAGE | I’M (‘Tees – as the setter – is) + A + G (good) + |
|
| 7 | Reshaped clue concept new and relevant to one geometer | |
| EUCLIDEAN | An anagram of CLUE (anagrind is ‘reshaped’) + IDEA (concept) + N (new). For non-mathematicians Euclid developed a form of geometry which is named after him. | |
| 10 | Wild military pack frog with two heads destroyed | |
| THE DOGS OF WAR | An anagram of FROG and TWO HEADS – anagrind is ‘destroyed’ | |
| 14 | Turn up in Scots island church – that shows hubris | |
| ARROGANCE | GO (turn) reversed or ‘up’ in ARRAN (Scots island) + CE (church) | |
| 16 | Superb setting for river and summit in alpine Arcadia | |
| RURAL AREA | RARE (superb) round or a ‘setting’ for URAL (river) + A (first letter or ‘summit’ of Alpine) | |
| 18 | Say Capone breaking rule’s put straight again | |
| REALIGN | AL (Capone, for example) in REIGN (rule) | |
| 19 | When lying in state requires shroud | |
| CONCEAL | ONCE (when) ‘lying’ in CAL (state – California) | |
| 22 | Money one may charge unwary tourist? | |
| RHINO | Cryptic definition – a RHINO may charge anyone, let alone an unwary tourist! | |
| 24 | Picked up intelligence with bombs planted | |
| MINED | Sounds like (‘picked up’) MIND (intelligence) | |
I enjoyed this puzzle, although I was glad of the clear wordplay for PAREGORIC, RENIG and ETYMA.
That would not be Robin van Parsee at 15a would it? 😀
I found ETYMA IMARI and RENIG hard, but the clues are very clear. But at least two have appeared before in Independent puzzles. Pasquale is still the king of obscure words, in any case. Favourite device ‘producing tears’.
No problems here apart from those toughies, except that I didn’t like the partial homophone at 2d.
Given how few rhinos there are left, it would be a very unlucky tourist who got charged by one. I thought this was a fairly standard Tees puzzle with a fair number of obscure references which made it trickier than it otherwise might have been. I found the bottom right corner particularly difficult – nelumbo was unknown, didn’t exactly know what Arcadia was and had never heard of renig. Thanks for explaining 1 across – that one lost me completely. You probably needed to know semite for Arab to get a handle on it.
DBE as well, but there is a QM.
I think the question mark in 1ac is not there for a ‘dbe’ but more for the implicit ‘gamekeeper’.
Thanks B&J for the blog and, in particular, providing me with the right parsing of that clue – I saw the Arab but there it stopped.
Help was also needed for explaining RURAL AREA which I had only partially right.
I am not religious but I assume that in 26ac the deleted FR stands for ‘Father’ rather than ‘friar’?
Not that anyone mentioned ‘friar’.
15ac made me smile for the reason hedgehoggy gave @2.
Tees must have done this deliberately, I guess?
20d (RENIG) was my LOI but only with help from Mrs Chambers.
Indeed some unusual words today but nothing to worry too much about.
A very doable quality puzzle from Tees, made easier for me after getting the whole perimeter very early on.
Thanks to setter and B&J.
I’ve been hedgehogged.
Cor tough in places, but gettable with work, thanks PB and b&j out donned the Don hear Teaser.
Thanks to B&J and all commenters.
I agree this one had some unusual words in it. I never normally indulge myself in that respect, but they sure were fun to clue. The ? in 1 across is intended to account for two liberties, to wit the whimsical ‘Gamekeeper Liz’ and the dbe that using Arab for ‘semite’ generates. I was determined, as you can imagine, not to add to the already tediously long list of dodgy puns about Rupert Murdoch.
Johnson said patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, someone else said it is sarcasm, I think it was Michael MacDonald-Cooper who said that it is the partial homophone.
Cheers
Tees.
Toughie, but I enjoyed it and finished eventually. Tees is always a careful cluer. Definitely some new words for my vocabulary as well.
Thanks all three.