Independent 9570 / Nimrod

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A very tricky (some might say diabolical) Nimrod today that stretched my solving ability to its limit.

I didn’t expect to be blogging this one, otherwise I would have made notes during my solve, but the scheduled blogger has been held up due to work commitments. I therefore don’t have a record of the order in which I progressed through the clues or which ones caused me the most delay.

I was held up at the end by being unable to find an entry for 4dn but that was due to my having an unparsed DATARY (religious office) at 10ac. However, after a break, a fresh look at these two clues made me realise my error. The parsing of some of the clues is a little difficult to explain so if anything isn’t clear please say and I will try to expand the explanation.

A tough, but most enjoyable, workout so thanks Nimrod for the challenge.

Across
5 Now I have it accepted (money from hock) (3)
AHA – A (accepted) HA[m] (money from hock)

6 Statesman‘s a crusty sort, adopting son, perhaps – but not daughter (9)
CHURCHILL – CHURL (a crusty sort) around (adopting) CHIL[d] (son, perhaps – but not daughter)

9 Brooks’s direction waiving unneeded extras (2-6)
NO-FRILLS – N (direction {north}) OF RILLS (brooks’s)

10 …this report in religious office (6)
DENARY – sounds like (report in) ‘deanery’ (religious office)

11 “It’s rather rude, the way the swastika letter ends. Yours, H. Himmler & co.” (10)
EARTHINESS – [th]E [swastik]A [lette]R (the way the swastika letter ends) THINE (yours) SS (H. Himmler & co.)

14 Back home from what accommodates those cautioned VIPs (4)
NIBS – S[in]BIN (home from what accommodates those cautioned) reversed (back)

15 Potential for sauce you shouldn’t have noticed in rude P-words ordered by century (7,6)
CUSTARD POWDER – C (century) plus TA (you shouldn’t have) in (noticed in) an anagram (ordered) of RUDE P-WORDS

17 Approach that helps 8 with 11? (4)
NEAR – contained in (that helps) ‘lord byroN EARthiness’ (8 with 11)

19 Cryptic St. Station (10)
STANDPOINT – ST AND POINT (cryptic St.)

20 Stratford thesps on road taking a little breather (3-3)
AIRSAC – A1 (road) RSC (Stratford thesps) around (taking) A

22 For such protection, make Eve a cardinal (8)
TINPLATE – if you put SN (tin) around ‘Eve’ you get ‘seven’ (a cardinal {number})

24 Non-standard system of lines: what’s ETA of Spooner’s train? (4,5)
TAIL RHYME – the ‘ETA of Spooner’s train’ would be ‘rail time’

25 Did someone say “bitter” bread? (3)
RYE – sounds like (did someone say) ‘wry’ (bitter)

Down
1 Independent‘s gone for antagonist of Shakespeare (4)
IAGO – I (independent) AGO (gone)

2 After disturbance, go and arrest Stranglers in Chicago (8)
GARROTES – an anagram (after disturbance) of GO ARREST

3 Tart detailed swinging first of ill-advised punches (4)
ACID – I[ll-advised] (first of ill-advised) in (punches) ACD[c] (detailed swinging)

4 Diminutive but refined French leader of maverick party to set about government (6)
MIGNON – M[averick] (leader of maverick) IN ON (party to) around (set about) G (government)

6 Fresh victuals are picked out from rare refined plants (9)
CULTIVARS – an anagram (fresh) of VICTUALS R[are] (are picked out from rare)

7 Sunday: flat set for renovation – but not with any tenacity (13)
UNSTEADFASTLY – an anagram (for renovation) of SUNDAY FLAT SET

8 Old boy besotted with reading and writing? New Romantic! (4,5)
LORD BYRON – an anagram (besotted) of OLD BOY R R N (reading, writing {two of the three Rs} new)

12 Transmuter compiler’s set up in aluminium box (9)
ALCHEMIST – I’M (compiler’s) reversed (set up) in AL (aluminium) CHEST (box)

13 Two people after this trip not delighted to win the prize? (4,5)
SPOT DANCE – cryptic def. – from Chambers “a dance after which a prize is given to the couple spotlighted when the music stopped” so the prize winners would ‘not’ be ‘de-lighted’!

16 Time with nice car occupying the 8am-4pm period comedy? (8)
DROLLERY – DaY (time) with ROLLER (nice car) replacing (occupying) the middle letter (8am-4pm period is the middle 8 hours of a day)

18 This country‘s cultivating upper-class airs and graces at last (6)
RUSSIA – an anagram (cultivating) of U (upper-class) AIRS [grace]S (graces at last)

21 Choice of casing for chromium storage structure (4)
CORM – C OR M (choice of casing for chromium)

23 One mooring / stage (4)
TIER – double def.

28 comments on “Independent 9570 / Nimrod”

  1. This was a struggle! I got DENARY but remain uneasy about it because as far as I can see it’s an adjective, while the definition (10) is surely a noun. And I had never heard of SPOT DANCE and ended up typing in all sorts of four-letter words (starting with SLOW DANCE but including SHOW, SHOE, SHOT, SOOT, you name it). Since I wasn’t confident of DENARY I was slowed down by fears that perhaps that was where my error was. According to the Urban Dictionary, a SPOT DANCE is one in which someone wearing high heels is forced by them simply to dance on the spot because their movement is restricted. This of course didn’t click with the clue.

  2. Jason
    Both ten and denary can be either a noun or an adjective. From Chambers:
    denary
    adjective
    1. Containing or having as a basis the number ten
    2. Ten
    noun
    1. The number ten
    2. A group of ten

  3. Courageously blogged as always, Gaufrid. He certainly turned up the tuffometer. Looks like I wasnt alone floundering for a while.I thought I was off to a flying start with IAGO (who else?) and ALCHEMIST followed by RUSSIA and AIR SAC but that was just the paddling pool.And as I got into the deep end, the water got colder. I was hoping to be rewarded by my efforts and wrong turns by a big punch -line maybe a nina only to be reassured he was being a cruel man-and only just fair.

  4. Crikey! I have not been so soundly defeated in crossword land for many many years.

    Congratulations must go to Nimrod and particularly to Gaufrid for untangling it.

  5. Beaten again. Never get very far with this setter. Got around 2/3rds, so pretty pleased. Btw Gaufrid, there is a mistake in your answer to 12d (one I did get), it is I’M (compiler’s) reversed.

  6. Ooph – thanks for the challenge nimrod and congratulations to all who managed to complete this ( I did not). Thank you gaufrid for much-needed explanations.

  7. Hovis @5
    Thanks. That’s how I parsed 12dn when solving but then blundered when writing the post. Error now corrected.

  8. It is a good thing that the day job is particularly quiet this week so I was able to devote a considerable and possibly excessive amount of time to this beast of a brain-mangler. I didn’t get the right dance in 13d and relied on the alphabet and a dictionary to sort out 10a.

    I particularly liked the typically Hendersonian 19a. Thanks to him for the challenge and bravo to Gaufrid – not one I’d have wanted to sort out

  9. Very engaging stuff, I thought. Like Hovis @5 I got about two-thirds before retiring feeling suitably chuffed with meself. Honours today split between Nimrod’s neat tricks and out-and-out fiendishness and Gaufrid’s sterling efforts to reveal all the workings. Thanks to the former for the torture and fun and to the latter for the enlightenment.

  12. Got 10 or so clues but lost the will, gave up and used apps (show errors, reveal the odd letter) etc to get the answers. Still don’t understand where the ‘plate’ bit of 22a comes from

  13. Paul A @12
    If you TINPLATE something you plate/cover/coat it with (a layer of) tin, and to ‘make Eve a cardinal’ (ie seven) you need to plate/cover/coat Eve with Sn (the chemical symbol for tin). It’s a sort of cryptic wordplay rather than a cryptic definition.

  15. Thankfully we conpleted this on a crossword app where incorrect letters are red rather than black. This enabled us to confirm wild guesses which we then struggled to parse.

    One we didn’t manage was TINPLATE so thanks Gaufrid for sorting that one out.

    Thanks to Nimod for the devilment!

  16. Proper old skool Thursday fare, and bonkers difficult as always from Nimrod. I was pleased to solve about 10 clues but then ground to a halt and doubt I would have got many more. It’s all great stuff though.

    Thanks to Gaufrid for the explanations and to Mr H for a suitably humbling time

  17. Wordfinder and anagram solver to the fore! ALCHEMIST was my first one in, and unaided, but then much help required. Even then I failed on the DENARY/ACID crossers having put TENURE for 10ac thinking of a clergyman’s time in office as his tenure.

    And I initially had BALLSINESS (yes, it is a word and I just about convinced myself I could parse it) for 11ac, thinking of the words to Colonel Bogey – “Himmler was rather similar” and all that. But then I remembered this was Nimrod, not Punk.

    Some brilliant clues, though; I particularly liked STANDPOINT.

    So not one of my best days, but thanks, Nimrod and Gaufrid.

  18. Bloomin’ ‘eck. I did finish this but with all the help I could get. Worried me a bit until I saw that even Gaufrid struggled. TINPLATE I thought the height of my solving career: I was hoping nobody else had it.
    Stonking puzzle. Thanks to both.

  19. I cannot recall the day I last finished a Nimrod puzzle.
    That said, be aware that my memory has become more and more ‘short term’ in recent years.
    However, I got everything right today and I also enjoyed it very much.

    Not that I didn’t have any problems with the parsing of a couple of clues.
    One of them was 16d but it’s clear now.
    The other one was NIBS (14ac).
    Just looking at the definition, it could perhaps have been ‘nobs’.
    I chose to go for NIBS because of ‘Back homes’ pointing at a reversal of ‘in’.
    Unfortunately, I completely missed the point.
    Never heard of ‘sin bin’ despite being a teacher.
    Not in my system, never was.

    Don’t think I solved the lot without any kind of digital help.
    But mostly just to check whether my ideas were right.

    Finally, I would also like to say that I found this crossword more ‘accessible’ than many others of our beloved setter due to the lack of ‘long solutions’, clued like (2,3,4,6,10,8) or similar.

    Thanks Gaufrid, John and all who persevered and enjoyed (and appreciated) the challenge.

  20. Glad it wasn’t just me. I tried to do this on the Eurostar to Brussels this afternoon and got about half of it before giving up. And now I can’t find the printout I was working on, so I must have left it on the train, but I think I guessed 2dn GAROTERS, which probably didn’t help.

  21. I’m surprised no-one picked up on the Nina, since I don’t think I’d have finished without it.

    Around the left half we have AN ENIGMA and round the right is MYSTERY. I’m stumped as to where the riddle in the middle is, but it’s clearly about CHURCHILL’s description of RUSSIA.

  22. I actually saw NENA and I liked ’99 Luftballons’ way back in the 80s but that couldn’t be a NINA, could it?
    Well, Alchemi, we were too much doing something else (solving!!) to be looking out at the same time for a nina.
    And in this day and age, I frankly can neither be bothered about Churchill nor Russia.
    Well spotted, though.

  23. This was way out of my league and only managed to complete about half after struggling for several hours. Looking at the answers here, I doubt another few days would have been any more help. Anyway, coming down to earth every now and then is good for the…, well something!

    Thanks to Nimrod and Gaufrid

  24. @Sil – I’m not saying it wasn’t tough. It took me nearly 80 minutes, and it would have been a lot longer if I hadn’t spotted the nina because I was pretty much stuck on the RHS.

  25. There’s also a quasi-nina around the edges… It almost says “MYSTERY MAN / ENIGMA”, but not quite. Am I missing something?

  26. Having read the comments we realised two things:

    1. The nina does not say AN ENIGMA as the M and the A are the wrong way round. Bert remembered a quote before Joyce told him what Alchemi had said about Churchill. Churchill’s quote described RUSSIA as a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. The riddle is the puzzle where you now have A MYSTERY inside AN ENIGMA. We both had looked at the possibility during the solve but then found ourselves struggling with the parsings too much! Which brings us to….

    2. Having read Sil’s comment we completely missed the parsing for NIBS which we entered because of the IN reversal.

    Thanks again.

  28. A little bird (not an owl!) told us to look in the diagonal! What a riddle!

    Thanks Nimrod!

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