Another super Sunday puzzle from Filbert
There is, as ever, LOADS to admire in Filbert’s surfaces and concise cryptic logic. My personal CANDIDATEs for top clues this time round were the Italian walking back from Aldi, the vagrant who raced an ARCHDEACON, the BBC boss scrolling through Gary Lineker’s tweets and the golfing misdirection in WAFER. Top fave, I think, is squirming Caroline and the smutty COALMINER. Thanks to Filbert for the fun.
Moh’s Sunday morning cruciverbal hardness scale rating: Fluorite
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | COGENT |
Convincing suggestion for businessman? (6)
|
| Sort of reverse wordplay, in that a CO[mpany]-GENT is suggested by business-man | ||
| 4 | SHADOW |
Tail Miss Piggy had is splitting (6)
|
| Insertion (is splitting) of HAD inside SOW (Miss Piggy) | ||
| 9 | INORDINATE |
Extravagant old princess wearing fancy clothes (10)
|
| IN + ORNATE (wearing + fancy) around (clothes/is clothing) DI (old princess, you all remember the one). Rather cunning that “wearing” isn’t the insertion indicator | ||
| 10 | MUFF |
Warmer boob (4)
|
| Double definition. Though if I were being Pauly about it, I’d suggest ‘Boob warmer’ might be the better clue? Oh dear, I think I may be opening a can of worms with this… | ||
| 11 | KINDLE |
Reader loving literature superficially (6)
|
| KIND (loving) + LE (first and last letters – superficially – of literature) | ||
| 12 | GLOSSARY |
Specialised dictionary idiot brought over in triumph (8)
|
| Reversal (brought over) of ASS inside GLORY | ||
| 13 | MARCHESI |
Italian peers east regularly on walk back from Aldi (8)
|
| ES (east regularly) after (on) MARCH (walk) + I (back – last letter – of Aldi) | ||
| 15 | NOODLE |
Strip to plunge into boiling water? (6)
|
| Cryptic definition | ||
| 17 | BECALM |
Still covered with random lace, bride twirled (6)
|
| Hidden reversal (covered with… twirled) in randoM LACE Bride | ||
| 19 | GADGETRY |
BBC boss starts to examine tweets stored by Lineker’s devices (8)
|
| DG (director-general, BBC boss) + ET (first letters of/starts to “examine tweets”) inside (stored by) GARY (Lineker) | ||
| 21 | MARMOSET |
Planet invaded by second alien creature with tufty ears (8)
|
| Insertion (invaded by) of MO (second) inside MARS + ET, the eternal crossword alien | ||
| 23 | VOLLEY |
Fire‘s lovely after a ramble (6)
|
| Anagram (after a ramble) of LOVELY | ||
| 25 | GO ON |
Last member of 1950s radio comedy (2,2)
|
| Wordplay referring to members of the Goons, The Goon Show running on BBC radio from 1951-60 | ||
| 26 | ARCHDEACON |
Vagrant had race against senior minister (10)
|
| Anagram (vagrant – which is perhaps an unusual anagrind) of HAD RACE + CON (against) | ||
| 27 | TIRADE |
Harangue weary assistant on the phone (6)
|
| Soundalike (on the phone) of “tire aide” | ||
| 28 | CRISES |
Conservative is revolting in difficult moments (6)
|
| C (Conservative) + RISES (is revolting, as in uprising) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | CANDIDATE |
Examinee may go out taking papers (9)
|
| CAN (may) + DATE (go out) around (taking) ID (papers) | ||
| 2 | GORED |
Flush stuck (5)
|
| To flush is to GO RED | ||
| 3 | NAIVETE |
Negative jerks disregarding good quality of Forrest Gump? (7)
|
| Anagram (jerks) of NE[g]ATIVE (negative disregarding good) | ||
| 5 | HOEDOWN |
Did weed have an energetic dance? (7)
|
| HOED (did weed) + OWN (have) | ||
| 6 | DIME STORE |
Suburban property beginning to dry up, rent cheap place in NYC? (4,5)
|
| Reversal (up, in a down clue) of SEMI (suburban property) + D (beginning to dry) followed by TORE (rent) | ||
| 7 | WAFER |
Slice iron through rolling green (5)
|
| FE (chemical symbol for iron) inside (through) a reversal (rolling) of RAW (green) | ||
| 8 | LAUGHING STOCK |
Spooner’s providing canal-side labour for ridiculous figure (8,5)
|
| Spoonerism of “staffing lock” | ||
| 14 | COALMINER |
Caroline squirms letting Mike in, a smutty labourer (9)
|
| Anagram (squirms) of CAROLINE around (letting… in) M | ||
| 16 | LARCENOUS |
Thieving needs clear criminal intelligence (9)
|
| Anagram (criminal) of CLEAR + NOUS. Definition as an adjective | ||
| 18 | MUSTARD |
Earth going round sun which is yellow and hot (7)
|
| MUD (earth) around STAR. I have to admit that my first thought was CUSTARD, which is also yellow and (sometimes) hot, but I couldn’t quite make cud equate to earth… | ||
| 20 | DIVIDER |
Upsetting bloody film about India’s partition (7)
|
| Reversal (upsetting, in a down clue) of RED (bloody) + VID (video, film) around I (India) | ||
| 22 | ABORT |
Interrupt Kazakh journalist, giving answer up front (5)
|
| The “Kazakh journalist” is BORAT (comedic invention of Sacha Baron Cohen) with the A moved up front | ||
| 24 | LOADS |
See interruptions on YouTube much? (5)
|
| LO (see) + ADS (interruptions on YouTube. And other media) |
Great puzzle. Thanks Filbert.
Excellent blog. Thanks moh.
My faves: INORDINATE, NOODLE, DIME STORE, L STOCK and MUSTARD.
Lovely stuff. Like Vlad, I always think I’m going to fail miserably but slowly and surely end up finishing it (or, at least, mostly finishing).
21a reminds me of the well-known English phrase To craunch a marmoset. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, google it.
No doubt, another great puzzle from Filbert, but I made hard work of it.
NOODLE….15(ac); I got it, but I don’t get it….is it in fact “cryptic”?
I like both, 2(d) and 25(ac), but a bit “samey”? GO RED/ GO ON.
I’m not so keen on “old” princess, for Diana, but that’s a personal view, of course.
Oodles of smashing clues, lots of variety and witty surfaces, so…thumbs up, Fil and moh
My experience matches Hovis and ENB. I also made the culinary error of confusing Custard and Mustard. I would add HOEDOWN to the list of great clues.
Another one for CUSTARD until the penny dropped. Found this one hard, and needed help to keep going though once you see the blog it’s difficult to say why as all the clues are eminently doable and don’t require arcane knowledge. The surfaces are so smooth though, that it’s sometimes difficult to get a hold of them. The mark of an excellent setter. Thanks Filbert and MoH
Again, I can only ask why the Indy cryptics, get so few posts? This is the best puzzle, today.
From the stable which has, in my opinion,
the best setters, who serve up crackers every day.
It’s the riddle of the sphinx.
Thanks Filbert and moh.
Enjoyed it.
Typo in 26a?
Anagram of HAD RACE + CON (against)
Eek! You’re absolutely right, ilippu @7 – thank you, will correct it now.
And I don’t know why the Indy puzzles get so few comments, ENBoll& @6 (have you deleted the full points from your name, by the way? I feel sure they used to be there…), except that the Guardian puzzles always seem to attract far more interest than all the others put together. Which is, as you say, a shame when some of the others are so good.
I used to struggle to access the Indy puzzles because they were hidden behind quite aggressive adverts. Fifteen-second videos that refreshed every time I stayed away from the page for too long – on mobile anyway. I needed an adblocker for them to be anywhere close to bearable. (Ironically they now work better on my phone than the Guardian ones.)
It’s probably inertia, or overspill from the Guardian comments section, at work rather than my reason – but I might not be alone in that.