There’s a Nina here which I refer to after the clue explanations. Solving time, 36 mins.
* = anagram < = reversed
ACROSS
1 VIR(A)GO The clue wording at first suggested the other way around i.e that the answer would be a sign, but I think it’s permissible.
5 WI (SH BO) NE Nimrodian touch here, for sure.
9 L OUR Not prophetic re the paper, I hope
10 SPILL I (KIN)S
11 ADMIRATION Clue splits at I/wonder i(one) in (at random I)*
12 RAPT Hidden reversal
13 D RAT
14 LIGHT METER cf might litre
16 IDOLATROUS (louis d’or at)*
18 COL (mountain pass i.e. up) A
20 MYNA “miner” down under = underground, nothing to do with Oz
22 L (E.G. P) ULLING good play with ‘composing’
24 INTERTIDAL (inertia ltd)*
25 BRIO Hidden reversal
26 READIEST (steadier)*
27 TURN-ON in cryptic terms turn = reverse ‘on’ gives ‘no’
DOWN
2 IN ORDER Double definition Brothers (religious)
3 AIR P (IS TO) L (April)* is to = will
4 OSSIA (Oasis)* A musical direction for alternative
5 WAITING FOR GODOT Samuel Beckett play (Don’t go to war if GI)*
Seeing this early on from the enumeration, letter count in the clue, and the definition ‘show’ helped me with this puzzle.
6 SPLE(h) NITIS (Sit-in elps)<
7 BAKER Alternate letters of Blackberry
8 NON (UP)LE (Lennon)* less one of its ns i.e. nameless
14 LITTLE TOE Excellent cryptic definition – counting on toes
15 EX C (A LIB) UR
17 DO (YEN) NE done = over
19 LENT (I G) O A freckle from a 1960s song where Jennifer E rhymes with freckles
21 A HEAD
23 UN (L) IT
NINA: WAITING FOR GODOT in the centre column, two characters from it, VLADIMIR and ESTRAGON in the outermost columns. When there were about 5 letters of each, I saw this, which helped me finish the puzzle.
Good stuff. I spotted Vladimir and Estragon after I’d done the puzzle, then waited in vain for Pozzo to show up.
Re 19 dn, the song’s from the Scaffold’s Lily the Pink – for those who don’t know it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lily_the_Pink_(song) or even http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x8D4T–0v4
In the clue to BAKER, “every now and again” cannot, in my opinion, be an indicator for alternate letters. It means “irregularly”. What is needed is a word meaning “regularly”.
Also don’t particularly like “show” as a definition for “Waiting for Godot”. I was thinking of a musical… WFG is about the last play I would think of as a “show”…
It’s at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, it must be a show now!
I think I can accommodate Mr Al Streatfield’s comments and say that I enjopyed this hard puzzle. Good to have a ‘Nina’ as we so often find in The Indy, and it really helped me today.
Al, you did make me smile, conjuring up your image of an all-singing, all-dancing Beckett production. Perhaps some theatre group, somewhere, someday, will find a way tro do it!
Sadly, 14 down defeated me when I put “little one” instead of “little toe”. Little one=tot seemed reasonable and, as I’m a computer programmer, counters are often sequences which increment in ones. In retrospect, perhaps that’s why the “very” was there. It was doubly annoying because I thought of “ltd and interia” as the anagram for 24 across but it didn’t work because of the o. Maybe one day I’ll complete a Nimrod without messing something up…
Many thanks, Nimrod, for an excellent crossword, made more readily soluble (but not easy) by the presence of the Nina.
Nightmare for me. I also managed to enter LITTLE ONE and I even misspelt METER as METRE (even though at the time I had the right spelling in my head!) On top of that I couldn’t work out the anagram to Oasis since OSSIA is new on me. And I missed the Nina. Bah!
Regarding Al’s first comment, I did consider the non-existent singular ACKER as a potential solution, blACKbERry, thinking it very Araucarian!
OSSIA is one of about five words (others are SPLENITIS, SPILLIKINS, NONUPLE and LENTIGO) that I wouldn’t use in a daily on the grounds that they are too obscure in this context.
Who are “Richard” and (the rather misprint-prone) “Shirley”?
Doesn’t “Name (required)” mean more than first names, which look in these cases like an attempt at disguise…?