A bit easier than last week’s Nimrod I think but there were still a few I didn’t understand. I’m obviously not tuned in to the Nimrodian frequency at the moment but that didn’t stop me enjoying this.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 10 | CHECK – what you say in chess when your opponent’s king can be taken. |
| 11 | (TOWN)* in DR<, END – the surface reading of this clue was pretty good, considering the complexity of all of the wordplay elements. |
| 12 | DUO – not sure how this works. I’m guessing that “couple playing” is the definition. |
| 13 | OP in(SORTS MORE)* – never come across this before, or “freebooter” in fact. I got it by establishing that it had to be something-trooper. |
| 17 | STRIKING THROUGH – very cleverly hidden definition of (I think) “impressive over, the reverse of character forming?” as it cons you into thinking that “over” is related to cricket. |
| 20 | (EX)PENSIVENESS – I had this filled in but have literally only just worked this out. “First wife not given” is EX missing. |
| 25 | hidden in “noT AS SOuthey” |
| Down | |
| 3 | (MONK IS O)* – from Longfellow’s “The Song of Hiawatha” (http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/song-03.html) apparently. This was the last one I filled in and I had N?K?M?S so it was just a case of guessing where the vowels went. NIKOMOS and NOKIMOS were both very tempting so in the end I googled all three to see which one it was. I like to call this “research” rather than plain old cheating. |
| 5 | NEW,ST,HEAT(ER)* – another new one to me but I guessed that the Birmingham reference had to be something to do with Birmingham New St station and NEWS THEATRE seemed plausible enough. |
| 6 | R in INTO,IT – more cleverness here. INTO and IT (SA = Sex Appeal) are bordering R(uns). |
| 8 | ORDER OF THE BOOT – don’t really know why though. There’s something going on with “Beth too” but the rest is a mystery. |
| 9 | (SUCH A DO AIR TYPE)* – seemed to take forever to parse this clever anagram. Is it a real &lit though? I’ll say no but others may disagree. |
| 16 | (ELSE A QUID)* |
| 18 | (IN SHARK)* |
| 21 | AU in URN (going up) |
I spent an enjoyable Sunday afternoon having a go at this.
12a – I saw this as U=’up reduced’ in DO=function
17a – I thought this was good fun – I think STRIKING THROUGH is defined three times 1. ‘Facing bowler’=STRIKING, ‘from beginning to end’=THROUGH. 2. Impressive=STRIKING over=THROUGH. 3. Reverse of character forming= STRIKING THROUGH e.g. written words.
8a – Cashier means ‘to dismiss, esp. from the armed forces’ – I had to look this up, but I knew what to get the ORDER OF THE BOOT meant and thought “Beth too” was an example of wordpay in the clue i.e. ‘order of the boot’ => (theboot)* = Beth too.
I found this very tough, very Nimrod. Thanks for those explanations of DUO and PENSIVENESS. I did solve it correctly as I did every Nimrod in 2006. It took me ages to get I DONT MIND IF I DO. This is a catch phrase going back to the Tommy Handley ITMA wartime radio programme. Guessed ICE UP correctly but do not fully understand. Re 8 down, did get this. “Order of” is the anagram indicator. Liked 14 down “Area of academic knowledge” SCIENCE PARK.