Something of a novelty for me, this – a Nimrod puzzle where I understood everything (almost). Original choice of theme too; it’s not National Anteater Day or something is it?
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 9 | EMANATE – which is MANATEE with the final E moved to the beginning; indicated in the wordplay by “circling”. |
| 9 | CURT,(tr)A(in),IN – had to check with Google that this was right before filling it in – sure enough, Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case was the last Poirot novel. |
| 11 | BODE,GAS – I knew the word but thought it was a bar of some sort. |
| 12 | EC,(HAD IN)* – this was new to me but I had E?H????, which was enough to find the answer. I guessed that “City” might be EC (the postcode for the City of London) – Chambers did the rest. |
| 13 | hidden reversed in “pecuLIAR Territory” – the reversal element is indicated by the answer at 15A. |
| 14 | W,CH in O,O,DUCK – “How much wood would a WOODCHUCK chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?” Another name for the 20A. |
| 15 | MAKING A COMEBACK – a reference to Groundhog Day (I’m guessing it’s a ref to the film rather than the actual day itself, which seems to be about predicting the weather). |
| 20 | GROUNDHOG – “hound grog”, as Spooner would say. |
| 24 | hidden in the full version of ET: “extRA TERrestrial”. |
| 25 | TB in A,NEAR |
| 26 | NAHUATL – another new word but fairly easy to get from the wordplay. It was either going to be (A HUT L)*,N,A or N,A (A HUTL)* – I had N?H???? filled in so I checked the NAH… entries in Chambers (there weren’t very many). |
| 28 | DRIVE-IN – I don’t really get this. I suppose it’s a cryptic definition but I’m struggling to see why. |
| 29 | U in G,S – potentially a tough clue, for such a short word. “Practical Cat” gave it away for me because I knew that GUS was one of the cats in T.S.Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. “All may see” = U (a ref to the film classification) and “Pinafore etc” refers to the works of Gilbert and Sullivan. |
| Down | |
| 1 | (AMBIVERT)* |
| 2 | AA,RD,V,ARK – super clue. Can you believe that my first thought when I looked at this one was “”Motor mechanics”? That’ll be RAC then – AA doesn’t appear in a word that I know of”. D’oh! |
| 3 | (LONG)* in PAIN – somehow, I knew PANGOLIN, but don’t ask me how. Probably from another crossword, as I’m unlikely ever to have used it in real-life. |
| 5 | ECCE HOMO – I know this is right but I can’t get the wordplay. The full clue is: “Religious representation, flash imitation outside church, mounted“. |
| 6 | PHI in ORC |
| 7 | hidden in “ApriL AND AUgust” |
| 8 | MAS in (h)UNK – very nicely done. |
| 17 | (GRAPHITE)* – I don’t think I’ve heard of one of these but it wasn’t too tricky to get from the wordplay. |
| 19 | (spelun)KER,L in PUNK |
| 20 | LASS in G(u)Y – I did wonder what “now” was doing in the clue but I think it’s supposed to indicate “instead of” – that is, LASS instead of U. |
| 22 | NEE,D(e)ED – NEE indicates a married woman’s maiden name. |
| 23 | G (AND SO)* – a clue that Cyclops would have been proud of. The setter I mean, not a mythological one-eyed giant. |
ECCE HOMO Mo = flash (a moment) with CE in ECHO on top i.e. mounted.
Of course it is – don’t know how I missed that. Thanks NMS.