i Cryptic Crossword 4150 by Maize
May 25, 2024
Difficulty rating (out of five): ⏳⏳⏳⏳
Yes, Eimi has given me my own crossword to blog again – I think he must have a sense of humour.
Although it’s another toughie, given that it’s obscurity free and has a ‘waffle’ grid, I’m only going 4 for difficulty.
This one, as I mentioned in the comments back in the day, started after I saw an Eccles crossword with 10 Downing Street where ‘downing’ was used as a containment indicator. Unable to match that brilliance, I instead remembered the Stones song ’19th Nervous Breakdown’ which allows for an anagram of THNERVOUS plus something that could be put as an answer for 19. GILA goes with those letters to give VAULTING HORSE and the rest of the grid followed. No theme, just that to start things off in the setting department. Apologies that 4a has lost its topicality since 2020.
I remember this one as having had a clue tweeted by the editor, so let’s make that our CoD:
10d Setter put up with jiggling man breasts, right to show self-consciousness (13)
As for the comments on the other side, I hasten to add that although I find it hard to agree with them, I’ve only ever met one of the cruciverbal community face to face – the aforementioned Eccles for a convivial drink in ‘Ye Old Trip to Jerusalem’ in Nottingham – so I suppose they must be saying what they think. Now it only remains to persuade my wife that it was worth all those hours of not painting the bathroom ceiling!
John’s parsing is here: www.fifteensquared.net/2020/06/25/independent-10515-by-maize
Borodin
batarde
Saboteur
Denzo
flashling
jonofwales
Cornick
sprouthater
uiytjhgmj
willow1235
idothei 
Brilliant, Maize. Loved every minute of my solve. Thank you.
About ⏳️⏳️⏳️ for me. Needed to check GILA MONSTER on the Internet. That was my last in, followed by the parsing of VAULTING HORSE which I hadn’t been able to get before (for obvious reasons).
Wasn’t that good? Invention in every clue, you can see why the bathroom ceiling went unpainted for so long. 🙂 Just the two egg-timers required here, though I didn’t need to parse the likes of VAULTING HORSE given enough checking letters. I think it was only SHTICK at the close which caused any real issues.
A 2d puzzle and about four timers, but, sadly, a DNF as I failed to get the point of SHTICK even after 225. I also missed the cleverness of 4d although I had 19; I had the crossers for VAULTING, remembered the HORSE as something I might once have got over, and assumed that there was some connection to the Stones which would be a PDM when it later came to mind.
A slow start as I spent too long trying to fit in the obvious GI, but got moving when the equally obvious USSR came to mind. I don’t think I knew SNOW GEESE, but didn’t bother to look it up; I checked CABOT’s forename and the NHO lizard in Wikipedia. A great COD, but with just the B already in, I saw only the anagram fodder I was hungrily seeking and not the humour of the surface until the end.
I liked the reference to CRAM, though I had first thought of the other Steve as a more obvious rival, and my favourite was my LOI, the BEE FLIGHT, as Spoonerisms are so often my downfall. I don’t think anybody has mentioned a pangram; I noted Z,Q, X, K and V but only after solving the clues they were in, and didn’t check
Absolute cracker, thanks Maize! Just into ⏳⏳⏳⏳ here, would have been less but I was stuck with the last few until finally I twigged the utterly brilliant TWICE. the crossing 15a/12d also held me up until I realised I was missing an ‘X’. I guessed GILA rather than LIGA for the 🦎 , but checked it anyway. The only one I failed to parse was VAULTING HORSE, it went in fairly early on based on the crossers so I couldn’t immediately see the connection with 19.
Favourites for me were the aforementioned TWICE and ENERGY, also SHTICK which made me laugh.
Don’t know why this keeps happening to me, but I’ve just posted a comment which appears to have gone into a black hole/spam folder ☹️
I’ve just moved your comment, fncbloke. I can’t see any reason why it went into spam… 🤔
Thanks Saboteur, gremlins at work…
Apologies for the clutter, normal service resumed?
We had a fine time solving this. Thank you Maize! This was quite a challenging solve for us but so worthwhile for all the pdms. Other Nana is very pleased with herself for solving the brilliant 14d- I agreed! My response was to solve the Spoonerism- we’re usually bad at those! Finally 27d caused some difficulty and was our LOI. 8d would be our COD simply because it made us laugh. We were looking for a pangram from the start but it neither helped nor hindered the solve. Great fun and definitely a much better use of your time than painting the bathroom ceiling.
I didn’t find this too difficult, just a steady work through, although interruptions meant it took more than one session and I may have been subconsciously chewing over some of the clues during the intervals. I liked the VAULTING HORSE clue; it’s the sort of device that as a setter I like to include but the opportunity to do so only occurs once in a while (or a blue moon, even).