Phi’s typically good sound Friday offering. I found this on the hard side for him, although progress was steady enough and there were no long pauses while I failed to see the way forward.
Definitions underlined and in maroon.
My searching for Ninas, particularly with Phi, is usually simply a glance at the unchecked letters to see if there is a message there (not apparently) and one or two cursory little searches. In this case I found GORE straddling an unch in row 1, so perhaps there was some connection with the current events in America, but I could find no more. Which is not to say that you won’t be able to.
Now I look at it finally before posting, to check my typos, it appears that there are several references to computing: Babbage, Lovelace (Ada), troll, engine, Andromeda?, lap?, …
| Across | ||
| 1 | BINGO | Get rid of game of skill – here’s game of chance (5) |
| bin go | ||
| 4 | RESULTANT | Consequential worry about Eastern leader lacking force (9) |
| {f}re(sultan)t | ||
| 9 | BIGHEADED | Egocentric British, stupid to give up power (9) |
| B {p}igheaded | ||
| 10 | PADUA | Italian city apartment, one behind university (5) |
| pad u a | ||
| 11 | ADVENTURES | Religious commemoration sure to rearrange exciting events (10) |
| Advent (sure)* | ||
| 12 | LOAF | Idle fool on line (4) |
| l oaf | ||
| 14 | EASY OVER | How’d you like your eggs? (No problems ahead of deliveries) (4,4) |
| easy over — not a term I knew; Chambers says that it is ‘informal, esp US’ | ||
| 16 | UNREAL | Strange – not what you’d expect from a King – not good (6) |
| unre{g}al | ||
| 18 | ENGINE | English item of ordnance, excluding first machine (6) |
| Eng {m}ine | ||
| 19 | LOVELACE | British radio astronomer missing last line by excellent poet (8) |
| Lovel{l} ace — Ada? Certainly not Linda. This one | ||
| 22 | COCK | Prepare to shoot male (4) |
| 2 defs | ||
| 23 | CONNIVANCE | Collusion to study transport in French city (10) |
| con Ni(van)ce | ||
| 26 | TROLL | Unwanted commentator initially ready to probe numbers killed (5) |
| t(r)oll, the r coming from r{eady} | ||
| 27 | THRILLING | Sensational fact about stream (9) |
| th(rill)ing | ||
| 28 | DASHBOARD | Panel get on after a blow (9) |
| dash [= blow] board [= get on] | ||
| 29 | ENSUE | To follow European purpose round will engage Nationalist (5) |
| (E use)rev. round N — if you see the first E as the European you’ll have trouble with the parsing, as I did at first — ‘surely Phi wouldn’t have an indirect anagram?’ | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | BABBAGE | Victorian scientist in multiple books about a period in history (7) |
| b(a)bb age — I suppose he was a scientist, but this is not the first word that I’d think of to describe him | ||
| 2 | NEGEV | Semi-desert, say, occupying half of Nevada (5) |
| N(eg)ev{ada} | ||
| 3 | OCEAN-GOING | Ace at sea entering current appropriate for sea (5-5) |
| o(ace)*ngoing | ||
| 4 | RED QUEEN | Communist question not initially observed in powerful piece (3,5) |
| red qu {s}een — referring to the piece in chess. Red, not black or white? Through the Looking-Glass. | ||
| 5 | SYDNEY | Limits to security dishearten every Australian city (6) |
| s{ecurit}y d{ishearte}n e{ver}y | ||
| 6 | LAPP | European in China upset over pressure (4) |
| (pal)rev. p — china plate = mate in Cockney rhyming slang | ||
| 7 | ANDROMEDA | Maiden threatened, note, circled by a camel leaving tracks (9) |
| a (n) dromeda{ry} — threatened? | ||
| 8 | TEARFUL | Tense reprimand has you blubbing (7) |
| t earful | ||
| 13 | UNDERVALUE | Fail to appreciate university revue and upset about lecturer (10) |
| (u revue and)* round l | ||
| 15 | SAGACIOUS | Insightful story I used in company (American) (9) |
| saga (c(I)o. US) | ||
| 17 | CORNERED | Right to tuck into ice-cream and wine, with no real options available? (8) |
| co(r)ne red | ||
| 18 | EXCITED | Enthusiastic: sent message expressing first time touring Channel Islands (7) |
| {t}ex(CI)ted | ||
| 20 | EPERGNE | Electroplated strange green table decoration (7) |
| EP (green)* | ||
| 21 | PORTIA | Theatrical lawyer left one arraigned at the outset (6) |
| port I a{rraigned} | ||
| 24 | NAILS | Loves to embrace a symbol of hardness (5) |
| n(a)ils — ‘hard as nails’ | ||
| 25 | BLOB | Bowled by high ball, nothing scored? (4) |
| b lob | ||
*anagram
I am very familiar with eggs “over easy” but never the other way round as the wordplay indicated.Not in all my travels in America.
Otherwise very enjoyable.
This is strange: Chambers gives EASY OVER, but not (as far as I can see) the familiar OVER EASY (used in contrast to “sunny-side up”). This must be a mistake.
Thanks, John.
Phi on good form; I must have been in the zone, because this one went in nicely. Got held up with only a few.
I must admit that I put in EASY OVER from the clue and never thought that it was in fact OVER EASY. Strange.
Anyway, thanks to Phi and good weekend to all.
Thanks, Phi and John, I enjoyed it greatly. It also has one of the rare themes which I could identify on sight and with great smugness, having come across this in Blackwell’s.
Well I doff my hat to young Cyborg. A terrific spot that eluded me, having found Babbage and engine I vainly tried to shoehorn ‘difference’ into one of the 10 letter slots thinking I had a theme running.
LOVELACE defeated me but otherwise a challenging but satisfying experience.
Thanks to Phi and John
Did this on a train this afternoon and it went in fairly easily. Did spot the Babbage/Lovelace mini-theme, but I was once an expert on the Ada programming language.
I delayed putting in 14ac until I had some checking letters as I knew the term as OVER EASY but the word play suggesting EASY OVER, which I didn’t know either. (There’s a book by Jasper Fforde called The Big Over Easy.)
I too did this on a train this afternoon and it went in fairly easily. And spotted the Babbage/Lovelace connection, although I didn’t know about the book (and its author at 10ac, which might send one off on another theme hunt in view of 21dn).
Liked 23ac and 13dn simply because Phi has managed to use V as a crossing letter.
Thanks, Phi and John
I saw the connection between LOVELACE and BABBAGE, but didn’t know of the Sydney Padua book. BLOB (Binary Large OBject data type) may also be part of the computing theme.
Re 7dn ‘Maiden threatened …’, Andromeda was about to be eaten by a sea monster while chained to a rock, before being saved by Perseus.
True to the theme, I found quite a few clues needed to be left to ‘background tasking’ before the solutions fell into place.
Late addition for those who are still here. I did this on the way to an SF convention on Friday and today I saw someone wearing a Babbage and Lovelace tee-shirt. Apparently, Sydney Padua was a guest at an SF convention I was at last year, but I failed to notice the fact. (It was a big convention.)