I haven’t blogged a Tyrus for quite some time, I think, and this was good fun.
After a brisk start I became a bit stuck in the lower right corner, and had to cheat a bit to finish things off.
That there is a Nina was pretty clearly signposted at 10 across. CLUE TO NINA* gives NUCLEATION, and starting with the first letter of the entry, the perimeter reads “Not applicable outside home”. Which you could read as a clue to the word “Nina”, being IN in NA. I’m not sure whether the word “nucleation” has any further relevance, or was just a convenient anagram.
| Across | ||
| 6 | OBJECTOR | Target men? I don’t agree (8) |
| OBJECT + OR. | ||
| 8 | OCELLI | Affected collie’s eyes (6) |
| Anagram of (COLLIE). | ||
| 10 | NUCLEATION | (Starting here) clue to Nina maybe suggests a scientific process (10) |
| Anagram of (CLUE TO NINA). | ||
| 11 | FLIC | French busy making short film (4) |
| FLIC[k]. Informal name for a French police officer. | ||
| 12 | EMBATTLE | Let me go out, grab club and prepare for fight (8) |
| BAT in (LET ME)*. | ||
| 14 | ACEDIA | Expert help over lethargy (6) |
| ACE + AID<. A new word for me, but very fairly clued. | ||
| 15 | MESS-UPS | ‘Drinks on me!’ (First of several errors) (4-3) |
| ME + S[everal] + SUPS. | ||
| 17 | PEDICAB | English tart reclining in lead vehicle for hire (7) |
| (E + ACID<) in Pb. | ||
| 20 | OARING | Rowing over an item of jewellery (6) |
| O + A RING. | ||
| 22 | INTEGRAL | Big-time writer releasing book – comeback essential (8) |
| (LARGE + T + NI[b], all reversed. | ||
| 24 | HERA | Divine female getting hard time (4) |
| H + TIME. Hera is “the goddess of women and marriage in Greek mythology and religion”. | ||
| 25 | NATURALISE | A bit of trouble fitting in – Lauren is struggling to adapt to new surroundings (10) |
| (A + T[rouble]) in (LAUREN IS)*. | ||
| 27 | EILEEN | Woman the writer’s inclined to pick up (6) |
| Homophone of “I lean”. Hello, Eileen! | ||
| 28 | NINTENDO | No plan to stop big player in games (8) |
| NO in INTEND. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | TEAL | Rob’s chucking snowballs at head – duck! (4) |
| [s]TEAL. | ||
| 2 | AT LAST | Finally in town at foot of mountains (2,4) |
| ATLAS + T. I don’t recall seeing T for “town” before, and I don’t see it in Chambers, but it seems quite plausible. I’m now also told it is in the COED, so I’m perfectly happy with it. | ||
| 3 | PRAISED | Applauded the end of Trump in relief (7) |
| [trum]P + RAISED. | ||
| 4 | POUNDAGE | Weight having hit maturity (8) |
| POUND + AGE. | ||
| 5 | LEAFLETING | Sack agent nearly filled delivering notices (10) |
| Anagram of (AGENT + FILLE[d]). | ||
| 7 | BRUMMIE | Citizen of Belgium sounded strange (7) |
| B + sounds like “rummy”. | ||
| 9 | LUIGI | Italian soldier under him at Crécy (5) |
| LUI + GI. | ||
| 13 | AESTIVATED | Spent the summer in east with Dave – it bombed (10) |
| Anagram of (EAST + DAVE IT). Nice word. | ||
| 16 | PAGANINI | Trendy pair are opening up to musician (8) |
| (IN + IN + A + GAP). Italian violinist Niccolò Paganini. | ||
| 18 | AMASSED | A shot on table, drunkard finally gathered (7) |
| A + MASSÉ + [drunkar]D. I hadn’t heard of a “massé”, but the entry seemed clear, and it turns out it is a type of shot in snooker. The curious may wish to have a look a Jimmy White demonstrating the shot. | ||
| 19 | PISTONS | Engine drivers, after crash, stop in seconds (7) |
| (STOP IN)* + S. | ||
| 21 | AZERI | National craze rightfully adopted (5) |
| Hidden in [cr]AZE RI[ghtfully], and a national of Azerbaijan. | ||
| 23 | TYRANT | Authoritarian type regularly stays talking crosswords (6) |
| [s]T[a]Y[s] + RANT. It took a moment to spot, but you need to think of a RANT as “[the] talking [of] cross words”. | ||
| 26 | LIEU | Go into dock after robbing President’s place in France (4) |
| LIE U[p]. I hadn’t come across this nautical term, which didn’t help. | ||
* = anagram; < = reversed; [] = removed; underlined = definition; Hover to expand abbreviations
Wow! Even the easy ones were tough.
A far cry from Vlad in the Grain.Completely legit though.And nice to sew TYRANT.
Thanks all.
Lovely puzzle; saw the Nina early but twigging it took a fair bit longer! Thanks to Tyrus & Simon.
@copmus
New keyboard?
🙂
As usual with Tyrus, first thought was I’m never going to finish this. Then a few clues dribbled in and I spotted what the Nina was going to be. Finishing a Tyrus puzzle brings a warm glow of achievement. LOI was LEAFLETING, had to parse it afterwards and that took a while as well. Not aware UK police referred to as “busies” so took ages to fill in FLIC, though it had to be that. Missed the parsing of rant in 23D so thanks to Simon Harding for parsing that and all the other super clues.
Minor typos 24A H + ERA. 28A INTEND in NO. 16D All reversed (“up”).
Thanks Tyrus, come again soon.
Wow indeed @1Compus – a brilliant and very tough puzzle that had me on and off the ropes, punch-drunk and loving every minute of it. A long and enjoyable solve with plenty of concise, funny, misdirective and clever clues plus a clever (and helpful, for I don’t reckon I’d of completed without it) nina. No particular clue of the day as there were so many good ‘uns, just respect for a superb puzzle that kept me engaged for hours. Many thanks to Tyrus for the both the fun and the torture and also thanks to SH for the blog.
I am another one who enjoyed this crossword tremendously.
That said, I don’t think I could ever have finished it without the (obvious but very helpful) nina.
Only thing I needed to check was the snooker shot (in 18d).
Just like Nimrod and Anax, we do not see The Old Heroes very often in the Independent nowadays.
Tyrus made Vlad look like a mainstream setter today. 🙂
This was the real thing! (Wow, #3)
Many thanks to J & S.
I found it difficult to get a toe-hold but got there in the end. Re Gwep My first in was FLIC which shows the individual nature of solver experience. Confused myself by thinking 22 ac was internal (some sort of riff on eternal) but once that was sorted, and spotting the Nina, all fell into place. Thanks S & B.
Customary superb puzzle from Tyrus. Great idea for the Nina. My favourite clue was for NINTENDO which happened to be one of the last two in for me. Thanks to setter and blogger.
Many thanks to Simon for the blog and to others who commented. Didn’t expect it to be quite so tough.
I made two problems for myself with this. Firstly, I was convinced 15ac was PISS-UPS and I was trying to work out the significance of “Not applicable outside hope.”
Secondly, on the print-out of the puzzle I made this morning, it looked like the third word in 10ac was “due” so that was just about the last one I got.
A good mental workout that needed more than one session. But no significant outside help required; only checking in Chambers that one or two words that I’d got from their clues actually existed. But the nina helped enormously with the SW corner. CoD was my first one in – FLIC.
Thanks, Tyrus and Simon.