When it comes to blogging there are certain setters that you know are going to cause you problems even before you’ve started solving the puzzle. Joyce was therefore very relieved when Bert offered to blog this one (Bert is supposed to be fully retired now although Joyce hasn’t really noticed much difference by the way!).
We hope that between us – Bert in completing the blog and Joyce in checking it through and writing this preamble – solvers will make sense of what we have managed to sort out. Unfortunately we still cannot parse 9ac so we would really welcome some comments. Any thoughts too about 16ac?
The solve was good fun and we liked the examples of the theme at 27. The long answer in 4/29/22/6/1d thankfully fell out fairly early on from the enumeration and a few checking letters although the parsing took much longer.
| Across | ||
| 1 | Jelly and Sara’s pistachio ice cream to sample when opening … (5) | |
| ASPIC | First letters or ‘openings’ of And Sara’s Pistachio Ice Cream | |
| 4/29/22/
6/1D |
… Sara’s Yuppie Wine Bar – not a bad job I’ve done (it was 27 asking him …) (2,7,8,1,4-2,2,1,7) | |
| HE COULDN’T ORGANISE A PISS-UP IN A BREWERY | How to explain this one?? It is based on an anagram of SARA’S YUPPIE WINE B |
|
| 9 | Take one OK game to subdue court favourite (9) | |
| RIGOLETTO | This one has us foxed – we seem to have all the components, but not necessarily in the right order! : R (take) I (one) LET (OK) GO (game) TO – but if ‘subdue’ is intended as a containment indicator, it’s not where it should be to put ‘go’ in front of ‘let’. Any thoughts out there? | |
| 10 | Not all the mail to be answered privately? (5) | |
| INTRA | INTRA |
|
| 11/8 | For revitalising, get a pot for a brew, then put one in? It’s 27 (10,6) | |
| WATERPROOF TEABAG | An anagram of GET A POT FOR A BREW with A (one) ‘put in’ – anagrind is ‘for revitalising’ | |
| 12 | Authenticate each plan (4) | |
| IDEA | ID (authenticate) EA (each) | |
| 14 | Moralist priest lost in valley submerged Land of Hope (9) | |
| RURITANIA | ||
| 16 | Rebuffed lover’s fine bulging pants (4) | |
| NAFF | FAN (lover) reversed or ‘rebuffed’ + F (fine). We’re not sure what part ‘bulging’ plays in the parsing. | |
| 19 | Awry, staggering out of 1D, this drunk? (4) | |
| BEER | ||
| 20 | Too big: integral, revolutionary (9) | |
| OVERLARGE | A case of ‘lift and separate’ – reversed and hidden ‘in’ ‘tEGRAL REVOlutionary’ – the latter doing double duty as a reversal instruction | |
| 22 | See 4 | |
| 24 | Disgruntled at times about the origin of Tunbridge Wells? 11 in another state (10) | |
| STEAMTIGHT | An anagram of AT TIMES – anagrind is ‘disgruntled’ + T (first letter of Tunbridge’) HG (Wells – the author) reversed or ‘about’ – the equivalent of ‘waterproof’ (11ac) when water is in a different state as steam. The clue makes use of THIS character. | |
| 27 | Reviewing the options you finally get given on Pointless? (2,3) | |
| NO USE | The gateway clue – the last or ‘final’ letters of thE optionS yoU and ON, all reversed or ‘reviewed’ | |
| 28 | See 13 Down | |
| 29 | See 4 | |
| 30 | It’s how society expresses itself, so stop being “retro” (5) | |
| EIDOS | SO DIE (stop) reversed or ‘retro’. We couldn’t find this in Chambers but were able to verify it on-line. | |
| Down | ||
| 1 | See 4 Across | |
| 2 | Ringing hot teenagers up for modelling this Sun exclusive? (4,5) | |
| PAGE THREE | A cryptic definition – an anagram of TEE |
|
| 3 | In pop art our works embellished in bars (10) | |
| COLORATURA | An anagram of ART OUR (anagrind is ‘works’) in COLA (‘pop’) | |
| 4 | I really can’t stand attending this woman’s tours (5) | |
| HATER | AT (attending) in or ‘toured by’ HER (this woman’s) | |
| 5/17 | Touch and go, declare a firm almost completely bust? It’s 27 (9,9) | |
| CHOCOLATE FIREGUARD | An anagram of TOUCH, GO DECLARE A FIR |
|
| 6 | See 4 Across | |
| 7 | Saw out of the ark (5) | |
| DATED | Double definition | |
| 8 | See 11 Across | |
| 13/28 | Occupying ground floor pad, oozed craft food? It’s 27 (10,9) | |
| INFLATABLE DARTBOARD | IN (occupying) FLAT A (ground floor pad – assuming that Flat B etc are upstairs) BLED (oozed) ART (craft) BOARD (food) | |
| 15 | Not killing time – extra working hours (9) | |
| NOONTIDES | NOT IDES (killing time, as in Julius Caesar’s assassination) round or ‘extra’ ON (working) | |
| 17 | See 5 | |
| 18 | Newspaper boss comes in to try uplifting Greek dish (8) | |
| KEFTEDES | FT ED (newspaper boss) in SEEK (try) reversed or ‘uplifted’. For anyone who has never come across this word before, we can thoroughly recommend Revithokeftedes – chickpea balls. Very cheap and easy to make and delicious, especially when they are eaten in a beach taverna in Greece. | |
| 21 | Accompanying second piano, a fan of dramatic voice (6) | |
| SPINTO | S (second) P (piano) INTO (a fan of) | |
| 23 | Wounded privates picked up German (5) | |
| STUNG | NUTS (privates) reversed or ‘picked up’ G (German) | |
| 25 | Gold being carried up to a vital transporter (5) | |
| AORTA | OR (gold) in or ’being carried’ by AT (up to) A …. at least we think that’s how you parse it! | |
| 26 | Paltry average (4) | |
| MEAN | Double definition | |
great fun from Nimrod, although a problem with the online enumeration once again added a layer of complexity which the puzzle scarcely needed.
Thanks to B&J for an excellent blog but I came here looking to unpick RIGOLETTO and to see why the pants were bulging, so no help from me, alas.
The online tool is for the most part excellent but it does not handle multiple entries well and I did get myself confused by trying to match “teapot” with “chocolate” at one point.
So who is Sara?
Diffrent strokes, as they say, but this didn’t float my boat. Once you’ve worked out (aka guessed) the long answer, the rest is pretty much a write-in. We came to the same conclusions as BandJ on rigoletto and naff – either egregious errors or super-witty surfaces depending on one’s view of the setter.
Chambers let me down on 30 (never heard of it) and I’d never heard of 18 but it was gettable .
I would say the “bulging” is that the F(ine) is sort of swelling out the rev of FAN.
He’s in a class of his own.
Phew that was a challenge!
I think 9 can be parsed as RI then LET (which, implied) GO TO subdue – that explains the plural verb.
I just assumed that “bulging” meant “filling” as in FAN has F filling.
I still don’t really understand where the HE COULDN’T fits in at 4 across etc. but I think B & J’s explanation is as close as we’re going to get.
Terrific stuff!
Well done cruciverbophile@4 – we are reliably informed that you are correct in your parsing of 9 and 16ac. Next time we get stuck on a Nimrod parsing, we know who to ask!
I seem only to come on here to ask for clarifications that are obvious to the rest of you. But why is r=take, ok=let,and try=seek?
No, you are not asking the obvious Eric@6. Bert had to check let=ok in Chambers Thesaurus. In Latin, (at this point Joyce breathes in heavily having studied German not Latin) r = recipe (Latin) take. Try=seek is under seek in Chambers Thesaurus.
I didn’t like this at all. After what seemed like hours I had only about four answers and finally ended up heavily cheating to get anything like a full grid.