A Puzzle by Cigogne
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The puzzle is available by clicking on the above grid.
As usual, the setter will be delighted to receive feedback from you, the solvers. We do ask that you remember that for most setters this is a new experience, so please only offer constructive criticism.
A review by Prolixic follows:
Welcome to our newest Rookie setter though it was clear that this was not their first crossword. There were lots of good clues with only a few minor technical issues with the wordplay. The commentometer reads as 3.5/30 or 11.7%.
Across
6a No-one inside chasing Polish clown (7)
BUFFOON: The inner letters (inside) of no-one after (chasing) a four letter word meaning to polish. Perhaps no-one’s inside would give a better cryptic reading of the clue as A inside does not grammatically mean the inside of A.
7a In each court, ten, to be precise (5)
EXACT: The abbreviations for each and court include (in) the Roman numeral for ten.
9a Picked up light-coloured bucket (4)
PAIL: A homophone (picked up) of pale (light-coloured).
10a I interrogate quieter son afresh (10)
QUESTIONER: An anagram (afresh) of QUIETER SON.
11a Instructors play with cats here (8)
TEACHERS: An anagram (play with) of CATS HERE.
13a Suggest University of Cambridge led by Roll (6)
SUBMIT: The name of the university in Cambridge, Massachusetts after (led by) a three-letter word for a type of bread roll.
15a Store roughly hewn out of 20a (4)
DELI: Remove (out) an anagram (roughly) of HEWN from the answer to 20a.
17a Former Labour leader‘s fight in outskirts of Bolton (5)
BROWN: A three-letter word for a fight or argument inside (in) the outer letters (outskirts) of Bolton.
18a Express one’s exasperation at myopia! (4)
SIGH: As myopia is short-sight, use this as the cryptic instruction. The structure of the clue definition AT wordplay does not work, “with myopia” would work.
19a Has the right to broadcast film festival (6)
CANNES: A homophone (broadcast) of can (has the right to).
20a Indian city expected elephant for Spooner (3,5)
NEW DELHI: A Spoonerism of due (expected) Nelly (elephant).
23a Composer‘s revolutionary art lives, essentially, in heaven (10)
STRAVINSKY: The S from composer’s followed by a reversal (revolutionary) of the ART from the clue, the middle letter (essentially) of lives, the in from the clue and a three-letter word meaning heaven. I don’t think that attaching the ‘s to the definition as part of the wordplay works. Having half of the solution taken from the words in the clue is not ideal.
26a Minor character in Dirty Dancing (4)
BABY: Double definition.
27a 6a starts to compere open mic (5)
COMIC: The initial letters (starts to) of compere open followed by the MIC from the clue.
28a Local Education Authority fine with rental bill (7)
LEAFLET: The abbreviation for local education authority followed by the abbreviation for fine and a three-letter word for a rental.
Down
1d Case involves fellows with first signs of life-threatening industrial disease (10)
AFFLICTION: A six-letter word for a legal case includes (involves) the abbreviation for fellow twice (as fellows indicates two) and the initial letters (first signs) of life-threatening industrial.
2d Turn to audience to speak (6)
TORQUE: A homophone (to audience) of talk (to speak). I think that the solution is the force created by a turning effect rather than turn on its own.
3d Finally ask, can we smoke joint? (4)
KNEE: The last letters (finally) of the second to fifth words of the clue.
4d Dump something from plane, it’s in distress over Ontario (8)
JETTISON: A three-letter word for a plane followed by an anagram (in distress) of ITS and a two-letter abbreviation for Ontario.
5d Prepare cold oat dish from Mexico (4)
TACO: An anagram (prepare) of C (cold) OAT.
6d Flash cropped jacket (5)
BLAZE: Remover the last letter (cropped) from a six-letter word for a jacket.
8d In Margate, Emin gets rich (7)
TEEMING: The answer is hidden in the second to fourth words of the clue.
12d Fleeced regularly during school run (5)
SHORN: The odd letters (regularly during) of the final two words of the clue.
14d Kebab stall served up game (10)
BASKETBALL: An anagram (served up) of KEBAB STALL.
16d In city, last one yielding (7)
ELASTIC: Inside the postal district for the City of London ad the LAST from the clue and the letter represented by one. There are too many clues where you take a word from the solution and include it in the solution. Here final one yielding would work. Try to avoid repeating wordplay indicator such as IN as an insertion indicator.
17d Make dirty money after drugs found in wood (8)
BESMIRCH: The abbreviation for money after a two-letter word for drugs all in a five-letter word for a type of wood. Another repetition of IN as an insertion indicator.
21d Pop out to interrupt street sex (6)
WAYLAY: A three-letter word for a street followed by a three-letter word (noun) meaning an act of sexual intercourse.
22d Sisters’ clothing addiction (5)
HABIT: Double definition.
24d Current setter’s crowning glory (4)
ACME: The abbreviation for alternating current followed by a two-letter word for the setter.
25d Primarily synthetic, occasionally leather underside of shoe (4)
SOLE: The initial letters (primarily) of the second to fourth words of the clue followed by the final letter (underside) of the last word of the clue.
We found this a competently put together pangram that was a real pleasure to solve. Lots of ticks on our pages but we’ll pick 18a as our favourite.
Thanks Cigogne.
Thanks Cigogne for an enjoyable challenge to round out my weekend of cruciverbalism, although I missed the pangram.
My knowledge of ‘Dirty Dancing’ is non-existent so, having decided what the 26a answer might be, I did have to e-verify it.
Smiles for 9a, 18a, 19a, 3d, and 22d.
Thanks again and thanks in advance to Prolixic.
That’s always been No.1 daughter’s favourite film so I’m fairly word perfect on it!
A most enjoyable pangram, thank you Cigogne
As a long-time myopic, my favourite clue just has to be 18a
Thanks in advance to Prolixic
Welcome to your debut in RC, Cigogne. I really enjoyed this pangram, which I very much doubt is your first ever cryptic puzzle. The clueing was accurate and commendably brief, with smooth surfaces throughout.
My only comment is that I don’t think that “lay” is a synonym of “sex” in 21d. It may well appear in a thesaurus somewhere but I can’t construct a sentence where the two are interchangeable.
I had a plethora of ticks on my page with 18a my favourite.
Many thanks, Cigogne, and well done. I suspect a low commentometer score awaits you. Thanks too in advance to Prolixic.
An enjoyable puzzle – thanks Cigogne.
It’s impressive to construct a pangram without any obscurities (although I too needed to verify the 26a character).
I liked 19a, 17d and 22d but my runaway favourite is 18a.
Thanks for the puzzle Cigogne – very nice. Took me a minute to twig how 18a was working, but very clever when I did. Thumbs up for 19a, 1d and 22d too.
A minor point, but 16d and 27a both involve just copying over big chunks of the clue, and with them intersecting I ended up solving them back-to-back, so that was a little unsatisfying. I get why 27a is like that, but there are definitely valid synonyms that could have been used for 16d.
Thanks in advance to Prolixic.
Welcome, Cigogne.
I’m aware that you’ve had quite a few puzzles published on the excellent MyCrossword site, so it is good to see you following a well-travelled path from there to Rookie Corner.
I found this puzzle very enjoyable to solve with good surfaces on the whole. My repetition radar did spot “in” being used four times as an insertion indicator, five if you include the 8d lurker as well. I would have preferred to see “no-one’s inside” in 6a and I do agree with Duncan’s point about 16d. Good as 18a is, I think a question mark rather than an exclamation mark at the end would have been better. My favourite clue was 22d.
Many thanks, Cigogne. More like this puzzle would be very welcome indeed.
Thank you for the comments so far. As Silvanus points out, this is not my first attempt at setting — I’ve posted a few on MyCrossword (my first one was posted in April this year).
I agree that the ‘synonym’ in 21d doesn’t really work, at least on that reading. I think I may have been aiming at a whimsical/CD for the whole thing, but then that should have been indicated by a QM (and even then, not sure it would work). Appending ‘act’ to the clue would, I think, make for a valid synonym, albeit at the expense of an uglier surface.
On Duncan’s point, I agree I could easily have used a synonym. I think maybe I was over-compensating for some clues being (too) hard to solve, and I was aiming for something a little easier here, but agreed that this one is not very satisfying and is easily fixed.
And thank you Silvanus for your suggestions — I try to keep an eye out for repetition, but ‘in’ slips through the net rather too easily. The suggestion for 6a would certainly be an improvement.
Welcome to the blog, Cigogne and thanks for the enjoyable puzzle.
Good to see you here, Cigogne, and congratulations on a fine Rookie Corner debut! Not a lot to add to others’ comments. My favourites were 19a, 6d, 14d and 17d. I enjoyed 18a too, but I’m not quite sure what “at” is doing other than padding the surface?
Thank you. That’s a fair point, not a great way of connecting Def and wordplay. The surface needs something – maybe ‘with’ would work better.
An extremely enjoyable debut from Cigogne, always a pleasure to get a puzzle from a setter who isn’t simply fixated on showing just how ‘clever’ he can be. A few rough edges as others have mentioned but nothing that needs more than the odd tweak so I think the commentometer will find little to give cause for complaint.
My own pick from the clues was 18,19&26a plus 22d.
Hope you’ll be back with another contribution very soon.
A light, very enjoyable, and competent pangram of a puzzle, thank you Cigogne. Generally good surface reads, some minor padding I thought, but you controlled the use of anagrams well and included a nice variety of clue types.
I was uncertain whether the first S in 23a may legitimately be taken from composer’s – as I can’t see where else it comes from; my other notes have all been expressed above. For me the highlights were 13a, 18a & 8d.
Many thanks once again, and in advance also to Prolixic
An enjoyable crossword with some ingenious cluing – a fitting debut in Rookie Corner and my guess is you’ll soon be moving on to NTSPP. I have a few isues, with 23ac, 2dn and 21dn, but I’ll wait to see if Prolixic’s comments resolve them.
Very nice. Not wild about 21d. The definition feels padded and the wordplay doesn’t quite work for me. Also not convinced by 2d – though I liked the idea. The rest looks pretty good though and I was amused by a number of the clues.
Thank you for the further comments. Yes, Mustafa, that first ‘s’ in 23a is a lift and separate at the apostrophe. I realise that may not be to everyone’s liking.
Interested to see queries about 2d, which I thought was ok as def — homophone indicator (to audience) — fodder (to speak), so I’ll be interested to see what comments it may provoke tomorrow.
In 21d, I chose a definition to reflect both ‘lying in wait’ and ‘attack/intercept’ per Collins, but maybe a shorter definition would have been better.
Many thanks for the review, Prolixic, a bit of food for thought for our setter but overall a very good score for a debut puzzle.
Thank you Prolixic for the review, all very fair. I was thinking 2d as a verb, to apply the force by turning. I will try to refine my repetition detectors, and to reduce the use of parts of the solution in a clue.
Thank you all for the valuable feedback.