To adapt a well-worn and topical football cliché, Nimrod would probably be the first name on the Indy (or any other) crossword editor’s ‘team sheet’…and to quote the Monty Python team in their (admittedly not very politically correct) ‘Gumby’ sketch: ‘My brain hurts!…My brain hurts!…’
Normally a puzzle with several longer/linked/cross-referenced clues will roll over on its back and let you tickle its tummy once a few of these yield…but this one grizzled and growled and bared its teeth to draw a bit of blood as I wrestled it to its conclusion.
After a steady start down along the lower reaches – AJAX, NOSH, EJECT and YO-HO-HO – and then along the top – TWAIN, WELLINGTON, AMENDMENT – I managed to get 1D – THE WHOLE. So this links to a few other clues, and 25A and D (ONE and OTHER) all seemed to be connected… I didn’t help myself by lazily putting DOWN TURN for 14/25 (with the remains holder, URN in the wrong place and the wrong way round). Once that was corrected I managed to get NOT GREATER THAN and THE SUM OF ITS PARTS, to go with THE WHOLE.
So far, so good – the theme of unity, one-ness and wholeness was shining through. But it was still a struggle to fill the rest of the grid – some clever clueing, surface readings and diversions. It was only when writing up the blog that I realised I hadn’t actually parsed the wordplay for ‘THE SUM OF ITS PARTS’, I had just written it in to complete the phrase. After much staring and trying to work out what ‘2-7’s associates’ could be, I realised that they could all be prefixed numerically/fractionally (this PDM came when I saw ‘half-wellington’ in the Chambers entry for wellington)…and not only that, the numbers relate to their positions as well – half, third, fourth, etc. Mind-numbingly brilliant, but not necessarily needed to solve 30/20, as the phrase in its entirety should be widely known.
Last one in was GESTALT – a tad Cyclops-ian/Paul-esque with references to ‘small pricks and large pricks’, even though ‘needle’ was there to try and de-smut the clue with medical connotations! Again here I (eventually) got the entry from the letter pattern, and then reverse-parsed it, with GET AT for ‘needle’.
To use another sporting cliché, 6D FORM may be temporary, but class is 15A PERMANENT, and there aren’t many more classy setters around at the moment than NIMROD/ELGAR/ENIGMATIST… I’m sure there may be other subtleties that I haven’t spotted, or mistakes below, but I am happy to stop here and walk away for a lie down!
Just finally, two examples to prove and disprove the long phrase – the England Euro 2016 team was a ‘whole’ that was decidedly less than the sum of its overpaid and mollycoddled prats, sorry, parts…but after Friday’s match the Welsh team are the complete opposites, proof that discipline, hard graft and teamwork, with a sprinkling of stardust, can produce something that is decidedly greater than the sum of its parts. (And that was written by an Englishman, before you ask…)
(The only minor niggle in my mind is that I can’t quite justify ‘fell’ at 13A as an indicator for ’emptying’ VarsitY to get the VY of IVY…maybe someone can enlighten me?)
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
|
| 8A | HYENA | At last, laugh long – with a natural laugher! (5) | laugher / H (last letter of laugH) + YEN (long, or longing) + A (note, natural?) |
|
| 9A | SUMMONER | Officer of the law working in July and August? (8) | officer of the law / SUMM_ER (July and August) around ON (working) |
|
| 10A | AWOL | One pack member whose tail’s gone missing (4) | missing / A (one) + WOL(F) – member of a pack, missing tail |
|
| 11A | TWAIN | Mark Two now quite outdated (5) | (double defn.) / Mark TWAIN, author; and TWAIN archaic for two |
|
| 12A | MOVE | Not on it, you’re still second quintet to reach base (4) | (if you are) not on it (the move), you’re still / MO (second) + V (five, quintet) + E (logarithm, base) |
|
| 13A | IVY | Institute Varsity’s fell climber (3) | climber / I (Institute) + VY (VarsitY, emptied, or fell?) |
|
| 14/24A | DOWNRUSH | Cash has won and remains holder, reversing plummet in rankings? (8) | plummet in rankings / DO_SH (cash) around W (won) + NRU (urn, remains holder, reversed) |
|
| 15A | PERMANENT | Durable players carrying an inside forward (9) | durable / PER_T (forward), around M_EN (players), itself around (carrying) AN |
|
| 18A | GESTALT | 1 needle, small pricks and large pricks (7) | the whole (1D) / GE_TA_T (needle, upset) around (pricked by) S (small) and L (large) |
|
| 19A | SNOTTIE | Outrageous tin that’s secreting reefer (7) | reefer (sailor) / SN (Sn, chemical symbol for tin) + IE (that’s, that is), around (secreting) OTT (outrageous, over the top) |
|
| 21A | LYONNAISE | One way to do spuds when cooking online, say? (9) | one way to do spuds / anag, i.e. cooking, of ONLINE SAY |
|
| 24A | RUSH | See 14 (4) | See 14 / See 14 |
|
| 25A | ONE | Unity is this 14 (3) | (indirect double defn.-ish! Definition by example?) / Unity can mean the number ONE; and ‘this 14’ (one + down) is ‘the whole’, which can also mean unity |
|
| 26A | THAN | See 16 (4) | See 16 / See 16 |
|
| 28A | RELET | Landlord’s due line out of home for new lease extension (5) | lease extension / RE(N)T (amount due to landlord), with L(IN)E (line, without IN, home) replacing N (new) |
|
| 29A | AJAX | Jack’s enthralled by Carmen, perhaps, and by Greek hero (4) | Greek hero / A_A (Automobile Association, ‘car men’), around (enthralling) J (jack), plus X (by, multiplied by) |
|
| 30/20A | THE SUM OF ITS PARTS | 1 is 25D 26 this, as 2-7’s associates together confirm (3,3,2,3,5) | 1 (THE WHOLE) is 25D 26 (OTHER THAN) ‘this’ / Although it was almost a write-in, the parsing took a while to not quite get there…too clever by half!…The answers to clues 2 to 7 can be associated with fractions associated with their positions – 2. half-wellington, 3. third-party, 4. fourth estate, 5. fifth amendment, 6. sixth-form, 7. seventh heaven! Er…so, the whole (1) is ‘other than’ the sum of 2-7’s associates, a half, a third, a quarter, a fifth, a sixth, a seventh, added ‘together’ (approx. 1.59285!)? |
|
| 31A | EJECT | Throw out canine occupying rear of the plane (5) | throw out / E (rear of thE) + JE_T (plane) around (occupied by) C (canine) |
|
| Down | ||||
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
|
| 1D | THE WHOLE | Cut through hotel, breaking everything (3,5) | everything / T_HOLE (anag, i.e. breaking, of HOTEL) around HEW (cut) |
|
| 2D | WELLINGTON | Navy-bottomed bathrobe material that’s reduced to boot (10) | boot / (TO)WELLING(TO) (towelling, bathrobe material, with ‘to’ reduced to the bottom) + N (Navy) |
|
| 3D | PARTY | Group of people a little left out (5) | group of people / PART(L)Y – a little, leaving out L – left |
|
| 4D | ESTATE | You shouldn’t have jested about uncovering all the possessions (6) | all the possessions / (J)ES_TE(D) (jested, uncovered), around TA (thanks, you shouldn’t have) |
|
| 5D | AMENDMENT | When PM starts getting people tense, change (9) | change / AM END (the end of the morning, AM, so the start of the afternoon, PM) + MEN (people) + T (tense) |
|
| 6D | FORM | Fashion cuts to suit the compiler (4) | fashion / FOR M(E) (to suit the compiler/setter, cut short) |
|
| 7D | HEAVEN | In part what A Couple of Swells walked up Somewhere over the Rainbow? (6) | somewhere over the rainbow? / hidden hidden word – i.e. in part: in the song ‘A couple of swells’, they (Fred Astaire & Judy Garland) walked ‘up tHE AVENue’ |
|
| 16/26D | NOT GREATER THAN | Up to no good in deal with Tehran, sadly (3,7,4) | up to / NO (no) + T_REAT (deal with) around G (good), plus ER THAN (anag, i.e. sadly, of TEHRAN) |
|
| 17D | ALLA PRIMA | Representation of pillar boxes a master painting technique (4,5) | painting technique / ALL_PRI (anag, i.e. representation, of PILLAR) around (boxing) A, plus MA (Master of Arts, degree) |
|
| 20D | ITS PARTS | See 30 (3,5) | See 30 / See 30 |
|
| 22D | YO-HO-HO | I’m here seizing special from Soho hotel that makes the old refrain from salt (2-2-2) | refrain from old salt (sailor) / Y_O (interjection, ‘I’m here!’), around OHO (Soho without S – special) + H (hotel) |
|
| 23D | SPLIFF | Joint Scots and Irish flowers, identically trimmed (6) | joint / two rivers (flowers), the SP(EY) in Scotland and LIFF(EY) in Ireland, both ‘trimmed’ by removing EY from the end |
|
| 25D | OTHER | 25A or the ____? (5) | (Definition by example? Charade?) / 25A is ONE, so complete the phrase ‘One or the … OTHER’? |
|
| 27D | NOSH | “Scran”? Nope, not a word (4) | scran (food, provisions) / NO (nope) + SH (interjection – silence, not a word) |
|
Thanks mc
Regarding 13ac, one of the definitions of ‘fell’ in Chambers, as I’ve recently found out, is ‘skin’ (noun) so ‘varsity’s fell/skin’ would give V[arsit]Y.
Beautifully set and skilfully blogged: I didn’t get anywhere near that final twist and was only too pleased to have finished the puzzle at all. Many thanks to both.
(The on-line puzzle crashed completely today on iPad and I can never get at the grid thru’ fifteensquared, so solved this on PeeDee’s site. The Indy, honestly. Just when they’ve finally started printing the setter’s name and all.)
Thanks, Gaufrid – I can see it now…4th entry under fell, in my current e-versions of Chambers, and going all the way back to my battered old 1988 pre-10th edition…must look closer!…
Grant – thanks for your kind words. As we both found, it wasn’t necessary to get that final ‘twist’ to complete the puzzle – I would never have spotted it if I hadn’t had to try and explain it for the blog! (Sorry to hear you have had problems with the Indy site – I access it on a PC and don’t seem to have issues. I’m not sure how you would ‘get at the grid’ from 15×15 – I thought this site was purely a post-publication blog, rather than a puzzle distributor?… But I’m not involved with the organisation of the Indy site or this one, so I will leave any comment to others!…)
Thanks for the blog but really this was fiendish. First time we have had to cheat for months, and several clues I wouldn’t have got ever (snottie, heven, move). I could really have done with a confidence booster after this dreadful week, this one just made me more depressed. I know I should appreciate a challenge but I wasn’t in the mood to enjoy this one.
Very clever, I suspect this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic_series_(mathematics) may be involved.
Ouch…now my brain hurts even more after trying to follow that article!…
Eric – yes, a depressing week, although my mood was lightened by seeing both Boris and then ‘et tu’ Gové being right-royally shafted in the Shakespearean comedic tragedy that has been the Tory party this week. The only catch is that we probably end up with Theresa ‘Maggie’ May instead… Meanwhile Mr Cor-bean continues his hilarious knock-about antics on the other side of the house…you couldn’t make it up!…
Great and necessary blog- sometimes he is just way too clever for me. The Whole and sum of its parts made sense but in context of the blog bearing in mind the England and Wales team there’s an added extra.
I got the answers but missed the connection with third party, fourth estate etc- and I hadnt heard of “half Wellington”
I also hadnt heard of SNOTTIE- apparently a slow driver who looks like he might be blowing his nose but is in fact mashed as the result of a SPLIFF.
Finally thanks for parsing of MOVE- mo=second and v=quintet fine- but log to the base e…..long time since my science days
I did better on the VICTORIA themed IO which was dazzling so it is good to be humbled by the best setter in the manor.
A cruel man but fair.Thanks again for blog.
Could not even get this to open in the App. Anyone else have that problem ?
G.
Lots of wordfinder help required but I still didn’t get 18ac, and totally failed to understand why the whole was other than the sum of its parts. But I’m reminded of the Michael Flanders monologue ‘By Air’ when he refers an apparent difference between the weight of luggage as separate pieces and together – “the only instance I know where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts!”
A splendid test of the cryptic grey matter, thank you Nimrod and mc_rapper too.
My boss who hails from Sunderland particularly liked 27d.
Stunna.
Firstly, we use a crossword app produced by Stand Alone Inc called ‘Crosswords’. The app is free but for a very small amount you can subscribe to the Indy (and others). It does not cope well however with linked clues.
It was very helpful tonight as we used the check option for many of the answers! As you write in each letter it is either black (correct) or red (wrong!). Our brains are hurting although we did finish it.
Congratulations to mc_rapper67 for spotting the themes – especially the 1/2, 1/3 etc. Glad we weren’t blogging this one!
Another win for Nimrod …… the b****r.