A Puzzle by Chalicea
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The puzzle is available by clicking on the above grid.
Chalicea is not a setter of difficult crosswords, but with this one, she appears to have taken straightforward to a whole new level. Did you spot the nine physicists who form the theme?
Across
6a One who changes direction with unscrupulously faithful follower (7)
WHEELER: The abbreviation for With and an unscrupulously faithful follower of a party boss
7a A German pistol student dropped, boring thing! (5)
AUGER: A (from the clue) and a German pistol without (dropped) the abbreviation for student
9a English novelist's French friends? (4)
AMIS: The surname of two English novelists - presumably Chalicea was only thinking of one of them is the same as the French word for friends
10a Sailors do this to the hatches, curiously downbeat attentions at heart (6,4)
BATTEN DOWN: An anagram (curiously) of DOWNBEAT followed by the ‘heart’ of atteNTions
11a Type of shelter for Danish story-teller we hear (8)
ANDERSON: This type of air-raid shelter sounds like (we hear) the name of a Danish story-teller
13a Sucker, fellow who counts votes (6)
TELLER: Double definition
15a Twist empty, insignificant words (4)
WIND: And another. Here it depends how you pronounce the second letter of the solution
17a Somewhat sore, belligerent insurrectionist (5)
REBEL: Hidden in the second and third words of the clue
18a Good antique riches (4)
GOLD: The abbreviation for Good and a synonym for antique
19a Country with gold four-wheeled carriage (6)
LANDAU: A country and the chemical symbol for gold (pity this was the solution to the preceding clue)
20a For this Scottish maker of ales oddly barley was principally the easy recipe (8)
BREWSTER: A Scottish name for a maker of ales – the odd letters of BaRlEy WaS and the principal letters of The Easy and Recipe
23a Dislike of foreign things - one American phone box destroyed (10)
XENOPHOBIA: An anagram (destroyed) of I (Roman numeral for one) A (American) and PHONE BOX
26a Bird is admitting ambiguous sexual identity (4)
IBIS: IS (from the clue) ‘admitting’ and an adjective relating to ambiguous sexual identity
27a Inexperienced solver - no good! (5)
YOUNG: How Chalicea would refer to us as a solver followed by the abbreviation for No Good
28a Begin again painting, after inactivity (7)
RESTART: Painting goes after a period of inactivity
Down
1d Terrible scare reached a conclusion - rose again (10)
REASCENDED: An anagram (terrible) of SCARE followed by a simple way of saying reached a conclusion
2d Provides proof one was not at crime scene; bail is arranged (6)
ALIBIS: An anagram (arranged) of BAIL IS - the solution being part of a verb that relates to the definition of the clue
3d Jog back to right (4)
TROT: A reversal (back) of TO (from the clue) and an abbreviation for right
4d Dad learnt in a fashion befitting of a father (8)
PARENTAL: Another word for dad and an anagram (in a fashion) of LEARNT –The anagram fodder can produce a different (but related) word but if you use that one, you can't solve 13a!
5d Very old French impressionist briefly turned up (4)
AGED: A reversal (turned up) of almost all of the name of a French impressionist artist
6d Beginning of wandering state for old girl (5)
WOMAN: The ‘beginning’ of Wandering and a Middle East state
8d Unfair treatment of immature soft wood (3,4)
RAW DEAL: A synonym for immature and a type of soft wood
12d Person of great wealth, the head, entertains a bishop (5)
NABOB: An informal term for the head ‘entertains’ A (from the clue) and the chess abbreviation for Bishop
14d Worried climatologists, not most inordinately related to planning (10)
LOGISTICAL: An anagram (worried) of CLImAtoLOGIstS without MOST
16d Fatuously in an English fenland city (7)
INANELY: The second and third words of the clue followed by an English fenland city beloved of crossword setters everywhere
17d Approximate time for dietary fibre (8)
ROUGHAGE: A synonym for approximate and a period of time
21d Coral snake on alert, essentially, to glide away (6)
ELAPSE: A genus of snakes including the coral snake on the ‘essential’ letter of alErt
22d Partly unpredictable official proclamation (5)
EDICT: Hidden (partly) in the second word of the clue
24d Work of ordinary moggie mostly (4)
OPUS: The abbreviation for Ordinary and most of a moggie
25d Brought into existence a dry chalk bed, it's said (4)
BORN: A homophone (it is said) of a dry chalk bed liable to flooding
Oh what fun! There was hardly enough time for the first caffeine of the day to cool down to a drinkable temperature.
Smiles for 26a, 8d, and 16d.
Thanks to Chalicea and CS(?)
Nationally published setter so most definitely me!
Very mild but certainly enjoyable. Favourite: 7a – I’m guessing that many younger solvers won’t know the German pistol. If on the back page of the DT: 1.5*/3* – good Monday puzzle.
Very jolly, thanks to Chalicea. But I can’t be the only one who initially picked the wrong option in 4d, surely?
Nope
Phew, I’m honoured to be in such distinguished company. It certainly made 13a tricky for a while!
Count me in!
Moi aussi.
Agreed. And thanks, Chalicea.
We also chose the incorrect answer for 4d until we could get no further with 13a! We found 16 members of the theme (with the help of Google). We also thought there may be a pangram but a couple of letters short. Great fun though, thank you Chalicea and in advance CS. Favourite was 27a – made us laugh!
A pleasant, mostly gentle puzzle from Chalicea; but as always with this setter there are a few bits of wordplay or answers unfamiliar to me and requiring some (r)e-search. The dry chalk bed and coral snake were two such unknowns, and both 6a and 13a appear to require, for me at least, an unusual use of English. After reading the previous comments, maybe my 4d is the wrong choice – I didn’t spot the more obvious (?) alternative. However, I’m sticking with what I have and hope my 13a is OK – CS will make everything clear tomorrow
Clues I most enjoyed were 27a, 4d (despite, or maybe because of the potential ambiguity, but mostly because I liked the surface reading) and 14d.
Many thanks, Chalicea, and I will offer my appreciation to CS tomorrow after she has dotted the ‘i’s and crossed the ‘t’s for me…
A very enjoyable puzzle, thank you Chalicea. You can wait years for a German handgun to come along, and then two come along together in different cryptics on the same day! Those early teenage years reading Sven Hassel were not entirely waster after all … I could not parse 21a though “it could only be”, but otherwise a gentle afternoon stroll.
Thanks also in advance to CS
I had never heard of the snake in 21d before, but the first 5 letters of the answer is in the BRB.
Remember devouring Sven Hassel books at boarding school
Goodness me, Mustafa G, I have not been reminded of Sven Hassel since I was a teenager when I borrowed the collection from a pal. Fairly gritty stuff if I remember correctly. Funny how the gun has excited a few comments; tbh, I’m not sure I could name any other German gun but that one.
I’m really worried now that a theme has been mentioned – haven’t got a clue where that’s concerned.
Enjoyed the puzzle regardless and my top three were 26a plus 8&17d.
Thanks to Chalicea for the puzzle – I shall look forward to the enlightenment from CS!
Of course – the theme in Chalicea’s puzzles! I had forgotten to look for it, but there it is – or should I say, there they are! Now I know I have the right answer to 13a!!! Thanks for the nudge, Jane
We also initially picked the wrong alternative for 4d and needed confirmation of our guess for the 21d creature.
A sheer delight to solve as we know we can always expect from this setter.
Thanks Chalicea.
Late to tackle this today, but I really enjoyed it with, as usual with this setter, a couple of BRB checks needed for words unknown to me.
My only query relates to 2d. The answer is plural but doesn’t the definition lead to a singular answer?
Many thanks to Chalicea and in advance to CS.
I’m going to keep this one for tomorrow just in case Dada’s playing silly *******!
I’m really happy that you enjoyed this and apologise for the potential ambiguity in 4d. It wasn’t a deliberate red herring. Rabbit Dave, look in Chambers and you’ll see that there is a verbal sense for 2d. One who ‘provides that proof’ needs the third person singular. CS or Mr K would certainly have picked it up had it been a mistaken plural but it is a sneaky use of the word with S – sorry!
I am, as always, looking forward to CSs comments and illustrations tomorrow and glad that CS is well again.
Arrgh! It never occurred to me that alibi could ever be used as a verb. It seems that almost any noun can be verbed nowadays
My old English teacher will be turning in his grave…
Great puzzle, though. Many thanks.
It’s funny how different minds work; not only did no alternative occur to me on solving 4d but I can’t spot whatever solution everyone else seems to have come up with! A nice gentle puzzle, Chalicea, for which many thanks.
An anagram of the answer (letters 3,5&6) which was fine until you got to 13a.
Oh, yes. How remarkable. I must have encountered that anagram before but don’t recall so doing. Thx
Lovely puzzle as per. Made slightly harder work of it than I ought to have but I’ll blame that on having one eye on the PGA golf (Rory failing to take advantage of a succession of majestic drives on the front 9 but he’s just perked up on the back). The snake & the dry chalk bed both new to me. 11a was my favourite as it brought back memories of playing in one as a child – an elderly friend of the family had one at the bottom of her large garden.
Thanks to Chalicea & in advance to Sue.
Enjoyed this puzzle, even though a few tricky parts in there.
Several definitions that I did not know as well.
Favourites 10a, 11a, 20a, 23a &17d
Thanks to Chalicea & CS
I thought there might be a theme and wondered if it was writers (misled by 9ac) – didn’t think of those scientists but, then, I was a mere chemist. I got 13ac OK but was then puzzled by guessing the wrong answer for 4dn till the penny dropped.
Lovely puzzle. Thanks, Chalicea and CS.
Thanks for your review, CS, which removed any uncertainties I might have had. The terms representing ‘faithful follower’ and ‘sucker’ were unfamiliar to me, but the theme had already given me confidence in my 13a. I did identify the 9 ghosts haunting the grid, but needed e-assitance on all but Max Born.
Thanks again to Chalicea.
Many thanks for the review, CS. No longer surprised that I didn’t spot the theme, physicists feature quite highly on the list of people I know little about! I’m intrigued to learn how Hilton found 16 of them in the grid!