Independent 10,523 by Tyrus

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We solved the last Tyrus at the end of May which we said was ‘a pleasant solve’.

We wish that we could have said the same again today. Our least favourite was 18ac followed by 21ac. Also, we didn’t like the extra complexity of finding the alternate letters and then rearranging them before adding another word missing its middle letter in 19ac either.

Gosh, we sound really grumpy today but these few clues which we just couldn’t get our heads around seemed to detract our attention away from the other clues which were fine, especially 7d. Sorry Tyrus – we are still looking forward to solving more of your puzzles.

 

image of grid

ACROSS
9  Is it so surprising America’s involved? (5)
IOTAS

An anagram of IT SO (anagrind is ‘surprising’) around or ‘involving’ A (America). Iota is the Greek letter equivalent of I.

10  I’m surprised Mike’s old crosswords mentioned something like ‘shag’ (9)
CORMORANT

COR (I’m surprised) M (Mike as in the phonetic alphabet) O (old) RANT (cross words – a lift and separate is required, hence the use of ‘mentioned’)

11  End up arresting head of state in Communist China (7)
DRESDEN

An anagram of END (anagrind is ‘up’) around or ‘arresting’ S (first letter or ‘head’ of state) in RED (Communist)

12  Dejected having to put up with setter? (7)
HANGDOG

HANG (put up) DOG (setter)

13  City with not much to spend on grass after European ban? He’s a 22! (9)
ECCENTRIC

EC (city) CENT (not much to spend) RICe (grass) without or ‘banning’ E (European)

15  Guy quits declining small rise (5)
MOUND

MOribUND (declining) missing RIB (guy, as in to make fun of)

16  England manager has thing for winger (5,10)
GREEN WOODPECKER

GREENWOOD (Former England manager Ron Greenwood) PECKER (thing and pecker are both used euphemistically for penis). THING = PECKER took some finding – it was not in Chambers or Collins but we found it eventually in the Oxford Dictionary of English.

18  Dark horses leaving town (5)
SABLE

Our LOI and we are pretty sure that this is StABLE (horses) with T (town) leaving. However, it just doesn’t feel right – the clue reads more readily as the ‘horses’ leaving the ‘town’, rather than the other way round. We spent ages looking for a town ending in SABLE or SSABLE preferably, as ‘horses’ was in the plural.

19  Bloodsucking vampire occasionally travelling from the east is heartless (9)
PARASITIC

An anagram of A P R (alternate or ‘occasional’ letters in vAmPiRe) – anagrind is ‘travelling’ + ASIaTIC (eastern) missing middle letter or ‘heartless’

20  Bill’s wearing dressing-gown crossing bottom of street? (7)
ROADBED

AD (bill) with ROBED (wearing dressing gown) outside or ‘crossing’

21  A successor to 13, 1’s drink (7)
BACARDI

This feels a little clumsy if we have parsed it correctly – B (successor to A in the alphabet) A CARD (eccentric – 13ac) I. The difficulty is that you need A CARD but the clue has just 13 – eccentric (not ‘a 13’). We cannot see any way that the first A in the clue appears after the initial B in the answer.

23  President about to make a mistake with one state – it‘s not normal (9)
ABERRANCE

ABE (president  - Abe Lincoln) outside or ‘about’ ERR (to make a mistake) A (one) NC (state as in North Carolina)

24  Back being serious (5)
STERN

Double definition

DOWN
1  Corporation dating from the 40s? (6-3,6)
MIDDLE-AGE SPREAD

A cryptic definition with 40s defining ‘middle age’ although the Oxford English Dictionary has middle age between about 45 to 65 and the US census has it from 55 to 65. Chambers, our ‘go to’ dictionary just says between youth and old age, variously reckoned to suit the reckoner. So, maybe Tyrus felt he was middle-aged in his 40s!

2  Hopefully he won’t drop litter (9-6)
STRETCHER-BEARER

A cryptic definition with LITTER = STRETCHER

3  Thought money off did apply (4)
USED

mUSED (thought) without M (money)

4  A rise? No! (Sadly that describes the first element of crossword setting) (8)
SCENARIO

An anagram of A RISE NO (anagrind is ‘sadly’ which we don’t remember seeing before) around or ‘describing’ C (first letter or ‘element’ of crossword)

5  Choir resolved to keep quiet concerning legendary musician (6)
ORPHIC

An anagram of CHOIR (anagrind is ‘resolved’) around or ‘keeping’ P (quiet). The legendary musician was ORPHEUS.

6  Dead getting fed to dogs? Replies here (3,7)
BOX NUMBERS

NUMB (dead) inside or ‘getting fed to’ BOXERS (dogs)

7  Horrid tales suck? They could be moving (4-4,7)
HARD-LUCK STORIES

A play on the fact that the answer is an anagram of HORRID TALES SUCK – with ‘they could be moving’ as the anagram indicator – a great clue

8  Female’s stopped putting up with rutting males coming round (Duke of York’s information?) (5,10)
STAGE DIRECTIONS

DI (female) inside ERECTION (putting up) all inside STAGS (rutting males). The Duke of York’s is a theatre in the West End

14  In five short months women finally getting married (and they’re not in the club) (3-7)
NON-MEMBERS

Inside or ‘in’ NOvEMBERS (months – missing V or ‘five short’) you have N (last or ‘final’ letter of women) and M (married)

17  Bad rules – fancy they’ll be around for some time (8)
DURABLES

An anagram of BAD RULES – anagrind is ‘fancy’

19  Longed to promote journalist (stickler for accuracy) (6)
PEDANT

PANTED with ED (journalist) moving up or being ‘promoted’

22  Comes across holding up bag (4)
CASE

Hidden and reversed  (‘holding up’) in comES ACross

 

17 comments on “Independent 10,523 by Tyrus”

  1. 18ac is just (Duns)table. I found the long clues impenetrable but liked the Woodpecker, as a footie fan.

  4. Well I thought this was bloody marvellous. There was a stage when I thought I might not even get started (foi was STERN) but it all fell with a lot of head scratching. Had no problem with S(T)ABLE. It’s just the yoda speak that is so common in cryptics. I admit I am known to complain about this at times.

    I did have a similar concern about BACARDI. I wondered if “a” could equate to “to” in any sense.

    Thanks to Tyrus and Bertandjoyce.

  5. Well, I’m with B&J in the grumpy team. Although I got the answers, I struggled to parse half the across clues and had to come here for confirmation.  Re Bacardi, I could only think that ‘a’ = ‘arrives’ = ‘to’.  But thanks Tyrus for the challenge and B&J for the blog.

  6. With the grumpers. Too many unparsed guesses.

    Used = did apply?

    i admit my problem with 18ac was compounded by my ignorance as I’ve never heard of sable as a colour, my bad.

  7. Thanks Tyrus and BnJ

    I loved it! Tricky as ever, but I didn’t find it as hard as his graun Vlad this week.

    EricW @ 6: Eventually I used/did apply my brain…

  8. I really liked this too, so thanks to Tyrus & B&J. Insofar as I understand it, Eimi isn’t a fan of the lift and separate device so I think “crosswords mentioned” in 10a gives a homophone indicator for RANT

  9. I am too in the not-grumpy camp, even if I found this crossword less inspiring than Thursday’s Vlad.
    I didn’t find 18ac (SABLE) a problem at all, had to think immediately of T = ‘town’.
    On the other hand, I did not see how 15ac (MOUND) worked.
    Now I see (and I also understand why I didn’t see it), so thanks for B&J’s explanation.
    Like others, and for the same reason, I didn’t like 21ac very much and I had to think deeply to justify 19ac’s PARASITIC.
    That said, a good crossword in which the four long ones fell in place rather quickly (which helped to get the thing done and dusted).
    Many thanks to Bertandjoyce & Tyrus.

  10. We’re with B&J on this.  We solved it all but a lot of answers were entered on an “it can’t be anything else” basis and consequently unparsed.  But we liked CORMORANT, ORPHIC and BOX NUMBERS.

    Thanks, though, to setter and bloggers.

  11. I didn’t parse everything but that’s because I raced through it.  Seemed rather light and frothy for Tyrus/Vlad.  Enjoyed IOTAS, CORMORANT, GREEN WOODPECKER particularly.

    Dunstable was my best guess too, poor Dunstable, but glad there’s a sensible explanation.

    Thanks Tyrus, B&J

  13. Sorry Tyrus, but that explanation for 21 doesn’t work for me. Equating an adjective to a noun seems a no-no to me. “He is an eccentric” is ok. Nevertheless, it is common for surfaces to include an indefinite article that is ignored in the solution so why not the other way around? Don’t care for it myself though.

  14. Didn’t parse bacardi myself but don’t have a problem with it nor with sable. 

    I used to be more picky about where the ‘leaving’ came in such clues but the order used here has become so common that I’ve grown to accept it.

    I couldn’t parse mound or parasitic though they were both obviously correct so perhaps a bit over-complicated?

    Thanks to S&B

  15. Think we’ll have to disagree, Hovis. If they’re interchangeable, as in the example I gave, then I don’t see a problem. Cryptic crosswords don’t have to be  predictable.

    Thanks for your earlier comment anyway.

     

  16. My only (tiny) quibble is that this was slightly capped by his Vlad earlier in the week and the great Elgar. This is a very very minor quibble as these are two of my favourite setters.I love the battle they present and always feel that they want you to get it to be in on the joke or whatever but you have to work for it. Oh- and i failed on IOTAS I lazily wrote in ICTUS because I like the word. No other excuse.

    Thanks all. the world is more bearable with your input.

  17. Thanks to Bertandjoyce and Tyrus

    I had “eccentric” as “a card”, but it was “A successor” for “b” which confused me.

    Successor to a 13, 1’s drink

    seems the right way around

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