A Puzzle by Zebedee
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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.
Welcome back to Zebedee. This was a good crossword but there were quite a few technical errors that mean that the commentometer is still relatively high at 5 / 28 or 17.9%
Across
1a Mark edges of fibrous bands (6)
SCARFS: A four-letter word for a mark following surgery followed by the outer letters (edges) of fibrous.
4a Initially lacking helper, ordinary boring fan to start game (5,3)
BULLY OFF: A four-letter word for a helper without the first letter (initially lacking) and the abbreviation for ordinary all inside (boring) a four-letter word for a fan or expert.
9a Hooligans draft plans (6)
ROUGHS: Double definition.
10a Curse name and hate badly (8)
ANATHEMA: An anagram (badly) of NAME HATE. Sadly, the anagram does not work as the letters to be rearranged lack the third A and have an extra E.
12a Naked models wear thin (2,3,3)
IN THE RAW: An anagram (models) of WEAR THING. For the anagram indicator to work, it would need to be model.
13a Bury doctor’s sick note takes precedence (6)
ENTOMB: A two-letter abbreviation for a doctor preceded by (takes precedence) an anagram (sick) of NOTE. I think that takes needs to be taking for the cryptic grammar to work – doctor has sick note taking precedence, not doctor has sick note takes precedence.
15a One might be out of spirits following this (7,5)
ALCOHOL ABUSE: Cryptic definition (presumably because they have drunk all of it).
18a Lloyd Webber musical character given drip for energy in comeback is uttering abuse (12)
VITUPERATIVE: A five-letter name of a Lloyd Webber musical and a six-letter word for character with the final E (energy) replaced by IV (drip) all reversed (in comeback).
21a It’s self-evident that exposed member is misdemeanour ab initio (6)
TRUISM: The inner letters (exposed) of a five-letter word for a member followed by the IS from the clue and the first letter (ab initio) of misdemeanour.
22a Usual apple-picker has glance around yard (8)
EVERYDAY: The name of the first lady in Genesis (apple-picker) followed by a three-letter word for glance (a shaft of reflected light) around the abbreviation for yard.
24a Remove magnetic field recurrently after academician soothed (8)
ASSUAGED: A seven-letter word meaning remove magnetic field reversed (recurrently) after the abbreviation for academician.
25a Shepherd’s friend to depend on pass (6)
COLLIE: A three-letter word meaning to depend on after (on) a three-letter word for a mountain pass.
26a Drivers secure roughly half university positions (8)
ACADEMIA: The abbreviation for a motorists’ group around (secure) a two-letter abbreviation meaning roughly and a four-letter word meaning half. For the cryptic grammar to work, the clue needs to resolve to A secures / securing B to give C, not A secure B to give C. Here securing would work.
27a Jenny’s expecting gen A student (2,4)
IN FOAL: A four-letter word for gen or news followed by the A from the clue and the abbreviation for student.
Down
1d Continuing to be self-critical on vacation, taking test on old city (8)
SURVIVAL: The outer letters (on vacation) of self-critical around (taking) a four-letter word for an oral test after (on) the name of an old biblical city. In a down clue A on B means A above B, not A after B. Also, I wonder if the definition here requires a two-stage process of continuing to be meaning existence and existence being the synonym for the solution. Just because A = B and B = C, it does not mean that A = C.
2d Queen is in rehab – sudden movements follow water sports (8)
AQUATICS: A two-letter abbreviation for queen inside the abbreviation for alcoholics anonymous (rehab) followed by a four-letter word for sudden movements. Whilst as person in rehab might be a member of the group, I don’t think that the group itself is rehabilitation, it is a rehab group.
3d Cooked fish with cleaner heat using this measure (10,5)
FAHRENHEIT SCALE: An anagram (cooked) of FISH CLEANER HEAT.
5d Shameful nakedness reveals skeletal object (4)
ULNA: The answer is hidden (reveals) in the first two words of the clue.
6d Barnet depressed after the French accents go wild (3,4,4,4)
LET ONE’S HAIR DOWN: A four-letter word for barnet and a four-letter word meaning depressed after the French masculine singular for the and a five-letter word mean accents or hues. Watch for the repeated use of wordplay indicators. After was used as a positional indicator in 24a.
7d Old fool adopts English cat (6)
OCELOT: The abbreviation for old and a four-letter word for a fool includes (adopts) the abbreviation for English.
8d Female dog close to yielding (6)
FLABBY: The abbreviation for female and a three-letter contraction for a breed of dog followed by a two-letter word meaning close to.
11d Speak in French interminably above our room (7)
PARLOUR: The French word meaning to speak without the final letter (interminably) followed by the OUR from the clue.
14d Watch outside broadcast before start of point (7)
OBSERVE: The abbreviation for outside broadcast followed by what a tennis player will do at the start of a series of strokes to win the point.
16d Spicy dish of wine, pigeon, peas and eggs (8)
VINDALOO: The French word for wine followed by a three-letter word for pigeon peas and two-letters shaped like an egg. Watch the use of punctuation. I think that to turn pigeon peas to pigeon, peas is too misleading.
17d In excellent condition? I suppose so (4,4)
VERY WELL: Double definition.
19d Levels street with bulk of tar after lifting hard-core (6)
STRATA: The abbreviation for street and the first two letters (bulk) of tar after a reversal (lifting) of the inner letters (core) of hard. Another use of after as a positional indicator.
20d Land one in haste, as they say (6)
RUSSIA: A homophone (as they say) of rusher (one in haste)
23d At last, returning Nepali caught huge shaggy creature (4)
YETI: A reversal (returning) of the last letters (at last) of the fourth to seventh words of the clue.
An enjoyable solve that had us working hard in a few places and there are still some bits of parsing for us to get sorted.
Thanks Zebedee.
Thanks to Zebedee for an enjoyable puzzle.
I presume that 10a is meant to be an anagram but I can’t make it work.
I particularly liked 4a, 18a, 27a, 8d and 19d.
Very well done, Zebedee. I thought this was by far your best puzzle yet. I found it quite hard in places, but it proved to be a most enjoyable challenge with 18a my favourite. Now that you seem to have the basics in good order, please work on improving your surface reads as several don’t make much sense.
I learned a couple of new facts along the way: that, in 22a, “glance” can be a synonym of “ray”; and, in 16d, that “dal” (which I love!) is also called “pigeon pea”.
Like Gazza, I assumed that 10a was supposed to be an anagram but the fodder is incorrect. My only other specific comment relates to 13a, for which I think “taking” would be better than “takes”.
Many thanks, Zebedee. I look forward to your next submission.
!0a is an unfortunate oversight – oops
12a also doesn’t quite work for me, think the grammar is a bit wonky – the tense doesn’t seem right before the fodder
Entertaining to solve all the same, so thank you for the challenge
Sorry to all for 10a- missed by test solver and me!
Thanks for the feedback.
Welcome back, Zebedee.
As LbR rightly says, “models” in 12a should be “model” for the cryptic grammar (imperative) to work and “secure” in 26a ought to be “securing” really too. A pity about the 10a anagram error but I do have a lot of sympathy with you as it’s an easy one to miss. From a technical point of view little else seemed amiss, but RD is absolutely correct in saying that you need to improve the surface readings next time as more polish in that area would make a big difference.
Overall, this was a very good puzzle and I do think you are moving in the right direction, just cut out the niggling errors and make the surfaces smoother and you will be nearly there!
Many thanks, Zebedee.
Took me ages to solve this and couldn’t help thinking that it was perhaps a bit too clever for its own good. Please don’t misunderstand me, Zebedee, I certainly appreciate all the hard work that’s gone into compiling the puzzle but I’m not sure how much general appeal it will have. Perhaps you’re just pitching it at those who like a stiffer challenge?
Clues that particularly appealed to me were 9,13&27a plus 7,17&20d, all of which had decent surface reads.
Many thanks for the challenge.
I like the fact 10a was in a certain language.. Nice Touch I Thought.. but I didn’t get it of course.. So, atleast I know the ground rules – NOW!
Welcome to the blog, ChannelZ.
Yay me! What was that gravatar thing all about?
Thanks for the welcome, Gazza.
What did you think of the fact that:__
AI Overview
“Anatheme” is the French word for “anathema,”..
–> Thereby making the wordplay not too bad at all considering the first word was “Curse”, ..which could(even should!) be a super-mega-cryptic abstraction toward the idiom of, “Pardon-my-French”, meaning of course that it would be totally within the realms of sanity to infact use the French spelling of the word in question !
.. or is that playing a bit too loosely with the rules? I hope not, infact. As stated, I would give the problem setter a well deserved ‘Pardon’. Don’t you think a reader of The Telegraph might aswell?
Zebedee, I’ll certainly give you a “pardon” for 10a! Does that solve things?
AI Overview
“Anatheme” is the French word for “anathema,”..
Many thanks for the review, Prolixic. Looks as though Zebedee still has some work ahead of him in order to bring that commentometer score down but I’m sure it’s not beyond his capabilities.