i Cryptic Crossword 4016 by Phi

Difficulty rating (out of 5): ⌛⌛

I’m tempted to give this only a one ⌛ rating because although I took a while to work through it I’m not at my best, mentally or physically, at present and I suspect others wiil have found this a bit of a doddle especially with the punning CD at 8ac to get started. On the other hand not everyone may be au fait with the espressions at 6/7 and 9/12 so I’ll take the advice of 14ac about the rating. Was there a theme? Nothing obvious unless Phi just wanted an opportunity to incorporate those two expressions.

One or two parsings took me a while to see – ERITREA for example; ‘flag material’ = ‘bunting’? D’oh! Otherwise this was a steady solve with no real difficulties. Some solvers object to ‘woman’, ‘man’ etc as definitions by example for personal names but in the case of NAOMI the cluing was clear enough.

Nothing really stood out as a CoD so I’ll leave you with a reminder that New Year is fast approaching in that this was Phi’s second appearance in 2020, with the original 15^2 blog to be found at http://www.fifteensquared.net/2020/01/10/independent-10372-phi/

i Cryptic Crossword 4010 by Wire

Difficulty rating (out of 5): ⌛⌛

Some of the commenters on 15^2 found this challenging although the blogger merely described it as ‘enjoyable’. Certainly some of the clues needed a bit of thought, particularly in parsing, but I worked through at a steady pace and got everything without assistance. It was helpful that I was able to spot and unscramble the anagram at 16ac quickly, which gave a toehold on several down clues. Fortunately, too, I spotted that in 5dn I was looking for a synonym for ‘playwright’ and not the name of one.

There could be some eyebrows raised by 24ac, LILLE being in France, not Flemish-speaking Belgium but apparently that city is in an area of France historically known as Flanders – and the original railway station there is now officially named Lille-Flandres.

Nothing really stood out as CoD; I liked the reference to a different Boris in 21dn and the astronomical reference in 23dn but – although some solvers don’t like ‘maybe’ as an anagrind – they were pipped at the post by 12ac: ‘Cat returns to eat lion, maybe seen by satellite (7)’.

All the answers as usual on 15^2 – go to http://www.fifteensquared.net/2019/12/22/independent-on-sunday-1556-wire

i Cryptic Crossword 4004 by Flitwick

Difficulty rating (out of 5): ⌛⌛

This appears to be only the fifth appearance by Flitwick in the i; his previous four have averaged two egg-timers for difficulty and I’ll go with that for this one. It might indeed have rated only one except for a few clues which took me a while to work out; on the other hand that could be because I’m not quite on the ball this morning.

Looking at the completed grid there’s nothing really abstruse or unusual. Possibly the acronym for Hong Kong might be unfamiliar, there’s a trio of unindicated Americanisms (at 12ac, 15 & 25dn) and ‘about’ appears to be doing double duty in 20dn. A bit of lateral thinking was called for in 28ac, and it was nice to see that overworked carthorse given a rest in 24ac.

All in all a pleasant Wednesday solving experience. CoD for me was 21dn: “Butcher’s good and pointy implement (6)”.

The original 15^2 review can be found at http://www.fifteensquared.net/2019/12/04/independent-10341-flitwick/

i Cryptic Crossword 3998 by Vigo

Difficulty rating (out of 5): ⌛

Well, there’s not much doubt about that ⌛. I solved this at a leisurely pace over breakfast but had I not been simultaneously occupied with scrambled eggs, toast and coffee I guess I would have rattled through it in next to no time.

This was originally a Monday puzzle in the tradition of easy Mondays, with Pierre as the blogger on 15^2 available to make everything plain even for rookie solvers – not that they should have many problems with a Vigo puzzle. Plus two of the answers were birds giving Pierre the opportunity for his ‘obligatory’ bird links.

There’s really not much to add. A gentle reminder that some mammals are entirely aquatic might be appropriate for anyone momentarily puzzled by 17dn, otherwise it was all straightforward enough. I liked the two anagrams at 10ac and especially 23ac, but it’s difficult to nominate a CoD; I’ll go for 8dn, the surface of which might be seen as topical now, given current concern about the state of Britain’s waterways, but back in 2019 had few such connotations: ‘Rising brown river is untreated (7)’.

The 15^2 blog can be found at http://www.fifteensquared.net/2019/12/02/independent-10339-vigo/ with Pierre’s bird links still there, although the second one doesn’t produce the expected image; you could try https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Oceanografic_Scarlet_Ibis_02.jpg instead.

i Cryptic Crossword 3992 by Dutch

Difficulty rating (out of 5): ⌛⌛⌛

I made a slow start on this and thought at one stage I would need e-help, but I did eventually get it all unaided. It didn’t help that I initially had ‘reheat’ (for ‘fire’ as a verb) at 12ac which stymied me for 3dn and 13dn – had I spotted the nina I would have seen my mistake earlier.

Elsewhere there were no paticular problems. It took me a while to get SMALLHOLDINGS (where the surface of the clue raised a smile), and I was a bit hesitant over ‘SHERIF’ as I would have spelt it with an A, but Chambers gives both spellings. My last two in were 4dn and 9ac (spotting the nina would have helped there, too). Nice to see that ‘scandal’ in 4dn wasn’t used to clue ‘gate’.

As a chemist I appreciated the chemical symbol in 1dn and I thought the clue for 23ac was particularly neat. My nomination for CoD, though, goes to 24ac: ‘Tilt toes to fit this? (8)’

All the answers and explanations can be found at http://www.fifteensquared.net/2019/11/28/independent-10336-dutch/

i Cryptic Crossword 3986 by Wire

Difficulty rating (out of 5): ⌛⌛⌛

Wire’s early puzzles tended to be rated ⌛⌛, but more recently have been ⌛⌛⌛, with the most recent one getting four egg-timers. This one, though, I found not too difficult, but it took me longer than some Wednesday puzzles so I’ll stick with the ⌛⌛⌛ rating.

Having said that, it’s difficult in retrospect to see where any problems lay and I think it’s simply that I was a bit slow to see what was going on in some of the clues. And I may have been diverted by topical issues – for instance I wanted to put an unparsed ‘Leach’ at 12ac following the publicity for a new ITV series about the early life of Cary Grant (aka Archibald Leach) who might possibly be descibed as a (British) film maker.

The two long answers were a help, particularly 1dn which was a bit of a write-in although it took a few moments to find the right synonym for ‘craze’ in 6dn. Fortuitously, too, 14ac is still topical, and helped with 5dn which I couldn’t parse – I had forgotten about the pistol in question.

Clues I liked included 10ac and 13/23, but my CoD is 22ac: ‘Food section with zero fish on promotion (4,5)’. At first I thought it might be some sort of deli counter, but the actual answer came as a pleasant surprise when the fish turned out not to be the ubiquitous ‘ide’ of Crosswordland.

Fifteensquared, as usual, has all the answers, to be found today at http://www.fifteensquared.net/2019/11/20/independent-10329-by-wire/.

i Cryptic Crossword 3980 by Dill

Difficulty rating (out of 5): ⌛⌛

As far as I can ascertain this was only Dill’s second appearance in the Indy and thus is only her second in the i. A bit easier, I thought, than the earlier one, certainly no more than two egg-timers, possibly only one, as I fairly breezed through it in just two passes. There was a theme to it, although I only realised that from the fifteensquared blog and even there it was left to the commenters to spot it.

The completed grid was also almost a pangram, with only J missing. In fact one wonders if 11ac might originally have been intended to be ‘ejected’ but was changed for some reason; as it is I find ‘because’ in the clue makes it a bit clunky.

Interestingly, LOOFA (14dn) has cropped up twice in the last fortnight, in the Indy and the Guardian, although, as the fifteensquared blogger for the latter points out, a loofa is actually a type of gourd rather than a (natural) sponge.

Elsewhere it was all pretty straightforward. Clues based on the idea of ‘soldiers’ to dip into a boiled egg are a bit of a crossword staple but I’ve no complaint about 6dn which raised a smile. And anyone brought up on imperial weights and measures would have had little difficulty spotting that 17ac was not a cross-reference to another clue.

Along with those just mentioned I liked BEDSTEAD and STERLING, but my vote for CoD goes to 31ac: ‘Tiny bit edgy intitially, like half the men on board (5)’.

For all the answers, with explanations and a key to the theme go to http://www.fifteensquared.net/2019/10/27/independent-on-sunday-1548-dill/

i Cryptic Crossword 3974 by Filbert

Difficulty rating (out of 5): ⌛⌛⌛

Filbert appeared in the Indy earlier this week and in his blog on fifteensquared Pierre wrote, “A delightful puzzle from Filbert. He is setter whose difficulty level can vary, I find, but this one was tractable, and notable for its fine surface readings throughout.” A comment which could just as easily apply to this puzzle from Filbert. Despite the general opinion on fifteensquared back in 2019 being that it was quite difficult I found this one tractable, certainly no more than ⌛⌛⌛ for difficulty, maybe only ⌛⌛.

The only real head-scratcher was 14ac where LIE was a bit of a guess, the situation being the lie of the land as seen by a golfer – man with iron (=club) – and a lie (untruth) being balls (nonsense). It did cross my mind that the man with iron might be Lee, a well-known golfer, but then ‘balls’ didn’t make sense (pun intentional).

For the rest it was all plain sailing in NAVIGABLE waters. The undesirable corporation in 20ac might be a bit of a chestnut and other solvers may be more familiar than I am with the name of Noel Fielding. Otherwise there was nothing controversial and there were some fine surfaces, for example in MIAOW and MADEIRA, although I did think 26ac was a bit too contrived. Others I liked were ELF (how handy setters must find it that the German and Spanish words for ‘eleven’ are spelt like English words) and VANUATU. However, my FAVOURITE was just that with its allusion to Ol’ Blue-eyes in his younger days.

As ever, fifteensquared provides all the answers, which can be found today at http://www.fifteensquared.net/2019/11/06/independent-10-317-filbert/

i Cryptic Crossword 3968 by Tees

Difficulty rating (out of 5): ⌛⌛

Expressions such as ‘typical’, ‘solid’, ‘pleasant enough’, ‘not too difficult’ and so on can easily sound patronising or condescending, but they could all apply to this fine example of Tees’ mastery of sound cluing with nothing flashy about it. There was admittedly some less common GK required, such as the Bulgarian currency in 5dn and the people of Dagestan in 17dn – although the answer to the latter could be got without that specific information.

Elsewhere it was all pretty straightforward with a fairly obvious anagram to get one started at 9/6 (with an updated clue to boot). There was another neat anagram in the slightly risqué 18dn, not that that should cause more than a wry smile or a slightly raised eyebrow. Today’s clues also provide plenty to savour, such as the two rivers in 4dn, the different type of dressing in 16ac and the French city in 26ac. There was, though, some headscratching required – for me, anyway – such as with my LOI, 23dn. And a bit of ornithology might help in understanding what is my CoD, 10ac: ‘young head-turner hotel worker holds back (5)’.

On fifteensquared a lack of comments is often seen as the mark of a quality puzzle, and in this case there were a mere half dozen, as you can see at http://www.fifteensquared.net/2019/10/28/independent-10309-by-tees/

i Cryptic Crossword 3962 by Knut

Difficulty rating (out of 5): ⌛⌛

Being a reprint of a Tuesday puzzle there was a theme to this, but it wasn’t essential to solving the puzzle. Just as well, really, as being a bit under the weather I didn’t consider the possibility of a theme, let alone look for it. If you want to look for it start with 18ac/20ac.

But back to the puzzle. This was quite gentle and well within this setter’s ⌛⌛ average rating.

Nothing really obscure, although UNIPAROUS might be unfamiliar to some, and the American usage ENGLISH HORN (for cor anglais) wasn’t indicated. 23ac was a bit unsatisfactory with ‘upper’ in the clue leading to UPPED as the answer and I’m surprised the clue wasn’t edited for the reprint.

There was plenty to like, though. The idea of the Rev Spooner slipping something into one’s drink had me making sure 20dn hadn’t been adulterated, the interdependence of 2dn and 25dn was a neat idea, and there was a trap for the unwary in the ‘8’ in the clue for 6dn.

As for CoD, there were a few possibilities, including 10ac and 2dn, but I’ll go for 4dn: ‘Gold, over a ton in hard currency creating supercilliousness (7)’.

For Bert & Joyce’s blog and a rundown on the theme go to http://www.fifteensquared.net/2019/10/22/independent-10304-by-knut/