A varied crossword from Cinephile with a few liberties thrown in to spark the usual heated debate ( ‘heated debate’ on the FT blog being a post with more than 2 comments).
I’m not sure if 4 down is my most or least favourite clue. It is either inspired or just plain rubbish, I can’t decide which!
Hold mouse over clue number to read the clue.
| Across | ||
| 1 | OVER THE TOP | OVERT (obvious) HE (man) TO Provide (first letter of) |
| 7, 9 | DOOR KNOB | DO (party) ORKNey (most letters of) OB (obit, date of death, died) – turn this to go into a room |
| 10 | GLENROTHES | New Philip ROTH inside GLEES (songs) – new town in Fife, Scotland, planned in 1942 originally as housing for miners in the local coalfield |
| 11 | ULSTER | RESULT* |
| 12 | PREDATOR | anagram of RAPTOR and EDited – an indirect anagram and no anagram indicator either, unless ‘edited’ is to be used both as indicator and part of the anagram, which is a bit naughty. |
| 13 | PARMESAN | (SPARE MAN)* – cheese typically used grated |
| 15 | TEST | Double definition – internation cricket match |
| 17 | AGOG | GO (to leave) inside AG (silver, chemical symbol) |
| 19 | LEAD ROLE | ROAD* (structure=anagram) inside LE LE (‘the’, the definite article in French, twice) |
| 22 | SUPEREGO | US reversed and PER (by) EG (say) O (love, zero tennis score) |
| 23 | EASTER | English ASTER (flower) |
| 25 | SOLICITUDE | SOLICIT (request) DUE* (anagram indicator ‘to excercise’) – definition is ‘care’ |
| 26, 27 | MOON BEAM | MO (doctor) ON BEAM (board) – I don’t think ‘board’ really means ‘beam’ (beyond them both being pieces of wood) but I can’t think of any other explanation |
| 28 | FINALISING | FINAL (last) I SING (it’s not over until the fat lady sings) |
| Down | ||
| 2 | VANILLA | AN (indefinite article) in VILLA (house) |
| 3 | ROBOT | ROB (nip, to steal) and TO reversed – definition is ‘programmed servant’ |
| 4 | HIGH-RISE | “HI G, RISE” could be an informal greeting to Mr Grey fom a very eminent person. Put Heroin (drug) inside and you get high-rise=skyscraping. Puts me in mind of the famous greeting “Yo, Blair” from George Bush. Is this really right, or can anyone do better? An ‘émminence grise’ is French expression for a powerful person who operates behind the scenes, so we get HI (greeting)+ Herion inside GRISE (‘grey’ when used with ’emminence’). Thanks to David A and Stuart for this. |
| 5 | THE SPINAL COLUMN | THESPIAN with ‘AN’ reversed (twisted tail) and Left on COLUMN (pillar) – the spinal column is like a pillar in one’s body. Selectively re-using ‘pillar’ like this is a bit too libertarian for my liking. |
| 6 | PORTER | Definition and cryptic definition |
| 7 | DETRACTOR | sounds like “the tractor” (maybe in a West-Indian accent? hmmm…) |
| 8 | ONEROUS | O (zero, nothing) NERO (Roman emperor) and US |
| 14 | MAGNESIUM | AGNES I (first) inside MUM (mother) – definition is ‘flammable element’ |
| 16 | HAREBELL | REBEL (insurgent) inside HAL (Prince Harry) – a small flower (something that blooms) |
| 18 | GLUCOSE | COS (lettuce) inside GLUE (something that sticks) |
| 20 | LIE DOWN | LIED (song) and OWN (to confess) |
| 21 | RELIEF | Double definition – ‘burden lifted’ and ‘new person on duty’ |
| 24 | SAMOS | Southern AMOS (Hebrew prophet) |
*anagram
I wonder if 4D is referring to the phrase “eminence grise”.
Re 4d – I believe it’s ‘Hi’ + H(eroin) (inside) ‘grise’, from –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminence_grise
Thanks PeeDee and congratulations to those who got GLENROTHES. I stared at it for ever, with all five crossing letters in place, but came nowhere close to seeing it. So a did-not-finish today.
Otherwise it seemed more straightforward than usual for Cinephile, with the clues for (among others) VANILLA, TEST and ULSTER requiring not too much effort. I liked LEAD ROLE and HIGH-RISE, which I interpreted as DavidA and Stuart.
Thanks PeeDee and Cinephile. I loved 28 – haven’t seen the “fat lady” device before. In 12, is “to” the anagram indicator (as in becomes, turns into)? I like the clue but I have to agree with you that its construction seems to be towards the libertarian end of the spectrum.
PeeDee, you might want to correct “gluecose”.