The last time I blogged a Kairos puzzle I was a bit grumpy about it, but I thought this was a terrific offering. Tough in places, though. However, any chance to mention the Soup Dragon in a blog is always welcome.
What I like about Kairos’ crosswords are the surface readings. I know not everyone cares about them, but for me that’s a big part of the setter’s art: to produce a meaningful sentence that takes you in completely the wrong direction.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) missing
definitions are underlined
Across
1 Writer‘s aim to follow party
BALLPOINT
A charade of BALL and POINT.
6 Duck out of backing European TV station
EVADE
A reversal of E and DAVE. Those without satellite TV will have no idea that DAVE is a TV channel; but it is, showing mostly comedy repeats.
9 Kid having to go with Kay to charity fundraiser
RAG WEEK
The University fundraiser is RAG for ‘kid’ in its verbal sense, WEE for ‘to go’, and K for ‘Kay’, the letter.
10 Potful regularly downed by river god
NEPTUNE
An insertion of PTU for the odd letters of ‘potful’ in NENE, the river that flows through Peterborough.
11 Stops pair leaving for proceedings
EVENTS
[PR]EVENTS
12 Sailors pay attention to knots
HEARTIES
‘Aaaar, me hearties …’ A charade of HEAR and TIES.
14 A little bolt
DASH
A dd, which it took me for ever to see.
15 Worker possibly following vocal townsman to get food
BEEFBURGER
A charade of a ‘worker’ BEE, F for ‘following’ and BURGER for ‘vocal townsman’. Not quite sure why BURGERS are ‘vocal’. I spent far too long trying to fit CRYER in somewhere.
18 Settlement in Low Countries lacking WC after rebuilding
RESOLUTION
(LO[WC]OUNTRIES)*
20 Aural content of notice
OTIC
Hidden in nOTICe.
23 Keep Finn busy with tool
PENKNIFE
(KEEP FINN)*
24 Fate of Christopher touring Suriname
KISMET
An insertion of SME, the international car vehicle registration for Suriname, in KIT, a shortened version of ‘Christopher’. Did Nelson say ‘Kiss me, Hardy’ or ‘Kismet, Hardy’? The fact that Hardy kissed him twice suggests the former.
26 The best dung is something used by gardeners
TOPSOIL
A charade of TOP and SOIL.
27 Mug containing fizzy drink swapped for root vegetable
CASSAVA
It’s ASS in CAVA and ‘swapped’ is telling you to do the opposite of what the first four words are indicating.
28 Subsequently vow to leave besotted admirer
LATER
[I DO]LATER. The ‘vow’ is of the wedding variety, although in fact people who want to love, honour and obey say ‘I will’.
29 Benchmark police staff
YARDSTICK
A charade of (Scotland) YARD and STICK.
Down
1 Server‘s death in truck
BARTENDER
An insertion of END in BARTER. My SOED gives for TRUCK: ‘Exchange one thing for another. Middle English. Now rare’ So that’s where the BARTER is coming from. I’m guessing – and someone will no doubt confirm for us – that this is the origin of the phrase ‘I’ll have no truck with him.’
2 Female leaves those selling recorders
LOGGERS
[F]LOGGERS
3 Forty days in Paraguay is more than enough
PLENTY
The surface is an excellent one, although a slur on the good people of Paraguay. It’s LENT in PY for ‘Paraguay’. The ‘forty days’ is referring to the Christian season of LENT, which we are more than halfway through today. It reflects on the forty days that, according to the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus spent in the desert, fasting and being poked in the eye with a sharp stick by the Devil.
4 Black piano key is oddly missing
INKY
The even letters of pIaNo KeY.
5 Offer to pay for starter?
TENDERFOOT
A charade of TENDER and FOOT (the bill). American English for ‘a novice, a newcomer’.
6 Premium rent to acquire old store
EMPORIUM
An insertion of O in (PREMIUM)* The anagrind is ‘rent’, as in ‘And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in two from the top to the bottom.’ (Matthew 27:51)
7 Insulting American taking children to distant school
ABUSING
A charade of A and BUSING. Kairos is referring to the present participle in American English of ‘to bus’, in other words to ferry children to school. If we used the term in British English, then I think we’d (well, certainly I’d) write BUSSING. But then Americans go TRAVELING, don’t they?
8 Cockney Countdown presenter’s large jugs
EWERS
Nick [H]EWERS is the current presenter of Countdown, and Cockneys drop their aitches, allegedly. Of course he personally doesn’t have large jugs, because he’s a man. I’ll leave the surface to your imagination and remind you that the setter is a man of the cloth.
13 Hidden weakness in lacy toffee concoction
FEET OF CLAY
(IN LACY TOFFEE)*
16 Two lines in a circuit
RACETRACK
A charade of RACE and TRACK. The RACE bit is referring to the ‘lineage’ definition of ‘line’; the TRACK bit is referring to a railway.
17 What may be dropped is heard to make a noise
CLANGOUR
A homophone of CLANGER, which you could drop. Don’t you just love the Soup Dragon?
19 Galileo maybe first saw this tropical beach
SUNSPOT
A dd. And Galileo Galilei did indeed first write about SUNSPOTS, having taken delivery of his telescope.
21 Victim panics shackling those getting a beating?
TIMPANI
Hidden in vicTIM PANIcs.
22 Boots replacing foremost of chemists with very big retail outlets
KIOSKS
This setter can write some good surfaces. ‘Boots’ is KICKS; take the first letter of ‘chemists’ out of that and replace it with OS for ‘very big’ or ‘outsize’ and you’ve got a ‘retail outlet’.
23 Quietly picking up dead part of flower
PETAL
A charade of P and a reversal of LATE.
25 Almost frighten Cliff
SCAR
SCAR[E]
Many thanks to Kairos for a fine start to the Indy week.
Thanks for the clear crossword and blog.
Re 24, what Nleson said and what Hardy heard are not necessarily the same.
Dave is broadcast on regular (Freeview) television, for what it’s worth (not much).
And likewise what I thought I typed and what I posted. Nelson.
Thanks Pierre
I think the “vocal townsman” is a homophone indicator, as the usual spelling of the townsman in English is BURGHER, from BURGH, a variant of BOROUGH.
btw Nelson had other words to say after the contentious kismet/kiss me – see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Nelson,_1st_Viscount_Nelson#Nelson_is_hit
Thanks Kairos and Pierre.
DASH took a long time for the penny to drop. Like muffin I assumed ‘vocal’ to be a homophone indicator.
I had not heard of the fizzy drink ‘cava’, only of ‘kava’, nor of the river NENE.
I did like YARDSTICK and CLANGOUR
And I took a vocal townsman to be an F. (Loud) burger. So many ways to decode but as Pierre says, a very satisfying puzzle. Thanks to both.
I’ve long lurked here and rarely posted, but there are too few comments on The Independent crossword nowadays, so I’d better hold my end up and post some more. I have to say that I found Kairos’s puzzle absolutely splendid. Tougher than most, but each answer, once discovered, was very clearly clued. I did laugh at 3D, which was nearly my last, for using “40 days” to mean “lent”, which I’ve not seen before. However, my last entry, “sunspots”, was perhaps a misdirection too far. I knew sunspot observation to be ancient, and thought of some forgotten moon of Jupiter because of the Galileo comment. Galileo wasn’t even the first to look a them with a telescope, according to Wikipedia. But, splendid stuff!
Welcome, Emrys, and thank you for your comment. Always nice to have new contributors on the Indy thread, because as you say, it can sometimes be a lonely place. Interesting link as well. And a reminder for everyone on that subject: don’t forget to go out and look (carefully) at the partial solar eclipse on Friday at around 0930.
I struggled with the kiosk/cassava crossers. Even though I correctly worked out the parsing for cassava, I unfortunately got cola in my head for the fizzy drink. Not being much into wine, I was never likely to think of cava.
Nice work Kairos and Pierre. I quite agree with you about surfaces and these are very good, although I thought the lacy toffee was a bit odd. I searched but couldn’t find anything about the Soup Dragon.
At my age I doubt if I’m getting any faster, but I did this one quite quickly for me and didn’t feel it was tough.
Small point Pierre, he’s Nick Hewer. Also I didn’t like busing and wouldn’t be at all surprised if most Americans call it bussing.
Thanks, Pierre. A nice point in your preamble about surfaces. 1ac was a case in point, but also 22dn in the way it made me (if no-one else) think of very large retail outlets rather than very small ones which is what kiosks usually are.
And thanks to Kairos, too.
If you enter Soup Dragon + Clangers into a search engine, Wil, you’ll see what I was on about.
Sorry Pierre, I’m being very dim. I did enter the things you suggested and got a whole lot of stuff that involved children’s toys, a group, a classic TV series, … but what this has to do with the crossword I can’t see at all.
see 17d. the soup dragon was in “the clangers”