Wow – this was a toughie from Hob – but that is what we have come to expect. We might have found it a little easier if we had been familiar with the thematic hints in several of the clues.
Having checked one or two of the titles appearing in the clues, we realised that the author was going to appear in the nina in the left and right columns – that definitely helped with some of the later entries. Apart from ‘A Clockwork Orange’ we haven’t read much of Anthony Burgess’ work, and we’d already solved 14d, 24d and 21ac without realising their relevance.
There is some really original and ingenious wordplay in many clues, although we felt some were perhaps somewhat over-complicated by the incorporation of thematic references. This was however balanced by some pretty straightforward clues in amongst the trickier ones. All in all a serious Saturday challenge!
| Across | ||
| 8 | Group of bishops in “Carmen”? (4) | |
| ABBA | BB (two bishops) in AA (Automobile Association – ‘car men’) | |
| 9 | Dress sailor kept in box (5) | |
| HABIT | AB (sailor) in HIT (box) | |
| 10 | Beat group featuring one in 13 (4) | |
| CLUB | A CLUB is one of a group of thirteen cards in a pack | |
| 11 | Small number live in part of India where there’s a bar for some (2-2,4) | |
| NO-GO-AREA | NO (‘small’ number) ARE (live) in GOA (part of India) | |
| 12 | Location of toilet, say, on motorway (6) | |
| MILIEU | As indicated by ‘say’, this seems to be a homophone (well….it could be if you use the anglicised pronunciation as in ‘in lieu of’) of LOO (toilet) after MI (motorway) | |
| 13 | Top 3, after second goes second (1-5) | |
| T-SHIRT | THIRST (3down) with the ‘s’ (second) moved to the 2nd place in the word | |
| 14 | Tweet briefly meeting with support, making one more cheerful (8) | |
| CHIRPIER | CHIR |
|
| 15 | Esther reported leaving Hungarian family confused (4) | |
| HAZY | ||
| 17 | African politician orchestrating “The Brides of Enderby”? Heads must roll! (5) | |
| OBOTE | An anagram of the first letters or ‘heads’ of ‘Orchestrating The Brides Of Enderby’) – anagrind is ‘must roll’. A first reference to an Anthony Burgess’ creation, although as far as we are aware, he didn’t write a book with this title | |
| 18 | John covers right angle in regular 21D offering (4) | |
| BLOG | BOG (John – toilet) round or ‘covering’ L (right angle) | |
| 19 | Hit silo with hammer, causing unwanted pollution (3,5) | |
| OIL SLICK | An anagram of SILO (anagrind is ‘hit’) LICK (hammer) | |
| 21 | House doctor gone, without “The Right to an Answer” (6) | |
| ORANGE | An anagram of GONE (anagrind is ‘doctor’) round or ‘without’ R (right) A (answer) – a reference to one of Anthony Burgess’ books | |
| 23 | Vessel rejected by the French cruise port (6) | |
| NAPLES | PAN (vessel) reversed or ‘rejected’ LES (‘the’ in French) | |
| 24 | Cunning wife is penning verse (8) | |
| WILINESS | W (wife) IS round or ‘penning’ LINES (verse) | |
| 25 | “Big Bang” material Hoyle must have covered (4) | |
| YLEM | Hidden in or ‘covered’ by HoYLE Must | |
| 26 | Where a shroud features in Act 1 (5) | |
| TURIN | TURN (act) with I ‘featuring’ inside | |
| 27 | Wrong short story writer (4) | |
| AMIS | AMIS |
|
| Down | ||
| 1 | ENT? Reserves an appointment 21D, perhaps (1-5) | |
| E-BOOKS | There doesn’t seem to be a definition for this one, but there are two sets of wordplay: E + BOOKS (NT – New Testament), or BOOKS (reserves an appointment) with the E– in front denoting something done ‘online’ (21 down) perhaps. The definition is perhaps tied up in the clue to 21d? | |
| 2 | Most of “Malayan trilogy” content’s gone for short time after Rioja’s drunk (8) | |
| MAJORITY | M |
|
| 3 | Way below half of 13 yen (6) | |
| THIRST | ST (street – ‘way’) after or ‘below’ half of THIR |
|
| 4 | Enclosed rhyme has father running up and down (4) | |
| ABBA | At first, this had us completely foxed – we couldn’t believe that there would be two separate clues with the same answer (see 8ac). However when we’d discovered the Anthony Burgess theme, we found that he had written a book entitled ‘Abba Abba’, convincing us that it must be ABBA – which is apparently a biblical word for ‘father’ and a palindrome, thus fitting with the definition. Googling ‘enclosed rhyme’ revealed that ABBA is a form of notation for a rhyme scheme where the first and fourth lines of a poem rhyme (A), as do the second and third lines (B) – we learn something every day! | |
| 5 | Allegedly poisonous stuff about Thomas Paine (8) | |
| PTOMAINE | TOM (Thomas) with PAINE round the outside or ‘about’ | |
| 6 | Long tiring journey in train – taking out glasses, starts on “Earthly Powers” (6) | |
| SCHLEP | SCH |
|
| 7 | Criminal group seem ultimately lacking in conscience (8) | |
| SUPEREGO | An anagram of GROUP SEE |
|
| 14 | Notice left in lift (5) | |
| CLOCK | L (left) in COCK (lift, as in cocking a leg) | |
| 16 | Calm bay I negotiated without falling out? (8) | |
| AMICABLY | An anagram of CALM BAY I – anagrind is ‘negotiated’ | |
| 17 | Redundancy in book 10 before it’s ordered “Enderby’s End” (8) | |
| OTIOSITY | OT (Old Testament – ‘book’, or should that be ‘books’?) IO (ten) + an anagram of ITS (anagrind is ‘ordered’) + Y (last letter or ‘end’ of ‘Enderby’ – another Anthony Burgess title | |
| 18 | Sexually ambivalent article Irish woman is contracted to write twice a year (8) | |
| BIANNUAL | BI (sexually ambivalent) AN (article) NUAL |
|
| 20 | Fantastic melons in August (6) | |
| SOLEMN | An anagram of MELONS – anagrind is ‘fantastic’ | |
| 21 | OUP got into 1 here? (6) | |
| ONLINE | ||
| 22 | Scandal in “The Doctor is Sick”? Shaking of heads all round (6) | |
| GOSSIP | First letters or ‘heads’ of ‘Is Sick Shaking Of’ reversed or ‘round’ in GP (doctor) – another Anthony Burgess title | |
| 24 | Go and see topless women first (4) | |
| WORK | ||
I found this pretty tricky, and really needed the Nina. The double ABBA joins REBEL REBEL (x2) in a fairly rare collectors corner, I think.
Many thanks to Hob and B&J
21d is nil< (0 up) in one.
This was nasty indeed. The nina sort of saved me but I was unaware that he’d written something with that Scandinavian quartet twice mentioned.
I will put Hob into the challenging category-OK ax the other two puzzles today didn’t take up too much time.
Thanks Hob and bravely blogged.(I’ve never read a word of his!!)
Thanks to Mike @ 2 – how did we miss this? Blog amended accordingly!
Challenging puzzle that was as tough as hob-nailed boots for me. The various cross-grid refs and misdirections led me up the garden path as did many other clues. Nina and theming helped, though I didn’t quite complete. Still in a bit of a daze so I’m off for a lie down, but not before saying thanks to Hob for the toughie and bravo to B&J for working all the workings out.
Beaten by this, as my first in was BASH at 25 Ac, 2 defs big bang, material Hoyle must have covered, assumed to be a refence to Hoyle as teh definitive source of material on card games. No way backfrom there.
SLAM, not bash – sorry
Thanks Hob and BnJ
This was definitely tricky.
At 14 I had CHIPPIER – same parsing but removing a different letter: it depends whether you read ‘briefly’ as removing the last letter or a single letter, I guess. Both CHIRPIER and CHIPPIER have pretty much the same meaning in my book.
25ac was one of my first ones in, and knowing that Stockhausen wrote a piece called YLEM I wondered if there was going to be a Stockhausen theme. But I then quickly realised that the theme was the birthday boy, one hundred years old on Saturday. I then guessed the Nina.
I’ve read quite a few of Burgess’s books and re-read Earthly Powers just last month, but that didn’t help and I quickly got stuck before going out for the evening. When I got back I put on a CD of Burgess’s guitar quartets for inspiration, but was unable to complete the bottom right corner. Very tough.
Beaten by this one. The grid suggested there was a nina but I was looking for one that ran all the way round so missed it till I looked up the solution – not that it would have helped much.
Some nice clues, though; HAZY and OTIOSITY were my favourites
Heigh-ho, let’s see what Hypnos has got for us today.