A puzzle that will certainly be quicker to blog than it was to solve. I can never easily get my head around Nimrod (or Enigmatist) puzzles, and this one was no exception. I found this pretty tough going and needed help towards the end. Some great clues, but one or two with a few uncertainties.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | MAIDEN FLIGHT – Not overly difficut, though I wasn’t sure whether VOYAGE could also be a possibility |
| 9 | DELIRIUM TREMENS – (S,UNTRIED MERLIN)* – I’ve never seen S to mean ‘some’ before, assuming that this is correct. |
| 10 | THERAPEUTICS – (CAPTURES THE,I)* – Again, crafty anagram fodder which took me a while to spot |
| 12 | AVOCATION – O (Love) replacing A (one) in A VACATION |
| 13 | BRIBE – RIB in BE – ‘Rib’ is a facetious term for ‘wife’, presumably relating to Adam and Eve |
| 15/17/21 | PRIME MINISTERS QUESTION TIME – I only got this once I had all the checking letters for QUESTION. 6pm to 9pm is PRIME TIME, and ‘do you take this woman’ would be a minister’s question at a wedding! A very good clue, but not easy |
| 23 | ANTIPERSPIRANTS – (SPARE PARTS IN TIN)* |
| Down | |
| 2 | AVER – [-t]AVER[-n] |
| 3 | DEISTIC – (EDICT IS)* – I didn’t help myself by putting DEICIST in here initially |
| 4 | NOISETTE – One of the uncertainties. A ‘noisette’ is ‘rolled meat’ but how we get there from ‘first class article with no stuffing’ I don’t know |
| 5 | LUMBAGO – [-p]LUMBAGO – PLUMBAGO is graphite, which allows for the excellent ‘pencil-filler has no lead’ |
| 6 | GARNET – GAR,NET – ‘Net’ as an adjective can mean ‘final or conclusive’ |
| 7 | TEMPTER – T in TEMPER – Not sure why/how T means ‘cross’, other than that it’s shaped a bit like one! |
| 8 | SNACK BAR – (SANK CRABS)* |
| 11 | OVERTURNS – OVERT,URNS |
| 14 | FILIPINO – I,LIP in FINO (a dry sherry) |
| 18 | IONISES – [-l]IONISES |
| 20 | LINEAR – Hidden in dubLIN EARlier |
| 22 | STYE – Y in (SET)* |
4D Suggestion: First = No. 1 ; class = SET ; article with no stuffing = T[h]E
9ac is an anagram of SOME UNTRIED MERLIN, with NO edited out.
I found it difficult too. HARD SHOULDER at 24ac was the first one I got; then worked slowly up from there.
I thought 6dn was good too, I read net as the fishes place of no return.
Tough but good. AVOCATION was new to me, as was PLUMBAGO. Loved that, though, and PMQs.
I tried to make 2dn (b)OOZE(r) (“I’m ever so ‘umble, he oozed/declared”) but it wouldn’t wash.
TEMPTER I think T cross is a tau cross. Was slowed by writing in VOYAGE and got the PMQT only at the very end. Hard, but not as hard as some by Nimrod, I thought.
Shouldn’t the answer to 20 be: “As the crow flies, helping to get to Dublin earlier” be LINEARLY, not LINEAR?
Didn’t like MAIDEN FLIGHT because, as NMS Indy says, there was no way of cryptically distinguishing FLIGHT from VOYAGE
It’s MAIDEN FLIGHT not MAIDEN VOYAGE as Virgin is an airline not a shipping company.
Re comment 6, I’d not really have a difficulty where the matter is resolved by crossing letters, esp with a cryptic definition. Re 7, there are also Virgin trains, I think, so I think it did not absolutely have to be ‘flight’
Re: 7. VOYAGE can apply to any form of transport, so is definitely an alternative to FLIGHT. Like Nmsindy I put in VOYAGE without thinking it might be wrong. This is precisely why such a cryptic definition is so inadequate, in my opinion.
16 down. Popular piece of music, up-and-coming one receives network coverage.Is the ans.MESSIAH? If so can anyone please explain.