Haven’t see Tyrus for a bit, so this should be fun.
Tyrus is no stranger to the themed puzzle, and the grid certainly looks ripe for a Nina.
Not that I seemed to spot a great deal emerging in the perimeter at first. On the other hand, there’s a suspicious number of mentions of the word “fool” in the clues. Interesting choice for a theme, but I’m sure it’s nothing personal.
Aha, there are a good number of horses too. So the penny drops. Finally the perimeter reveals BATMAN AND ROBIN and CHANDELIER, recalling two of the most famous scenes from the classic sitcom Only Fools and Horses.
In fact there’s a impressive amount of thematic material squeezed in there, so bravo and many thanks to Tyrus for an enjoyable and reasonably challenging puzzle.
| Across | ||
| 8 | AYR | Some say run Grand National here (3) |
| Hidden in [s]AY R[un]. A slight double-take here, but it turns out Ayr is the venue of the Scottish Grand National. | ||
| 9 | ERODE | Undermine what ‘orseman did (5) |
| ‘E RODE. Nice. | ||
| 10 | DELI | Who had a 17, 21, 1 in store? (4) |
| DEL Trotter + I. The I comes from the 1, so that isn’t a pointer to another clue. Another famous scene, of course. | ||
| 11 | ALIBIS | Unprepared – is daughter going to make excuses? (6) |
| A[d] LIB IS. | ||
| 12 | ERLANGEN | General attacked north German town (8) |
| GENERAL* + N. | ||
| 13 | MUTAGENS | Man U get beaten by Spurs at last! They will make changes (8) |
| (MAN U GET)* + [spur]S. | ||
| 16 | STATIC | So full of crap still (6) |
| TAT in SIC. | ||
| 17 | FALL THROUGH | Not happen after some months in Hollywood discussing cast (4,7) |
| FALL + homophone of “threw”. | ||
| 21 | THE BAR | Illness partly stopping judge – he may be one of them (3,3) |
| TB interleaved with HEAR. | ||
| 23 | MADRASAH | School in Chennai that’s good (8) |
| MADRAS + AH. | ||
| 24 | ARROGANT | Superior skill overcomes Josh’s predecessor (8) |
| ROGAN in ART. Ref to rogan josh. | ||
| 26 | AGATHA | Christie‘s originally gave auctioneer table – I’ve got it outside (6) |
| AHA around (G[ave] + A[uctioneer] + T[able]). | ||
| 28 | BERK | Fool hit kerb (4) |
| KERB*. | ||
| 29 | RELIC | One remains responsible for relative in van (5) |
| REL + IC. | ||
| 30 | ECO | Green author (3) |
| Two definitions. Reference to Umberto Eco. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | NAIL GUN | Breaking news: trouble – boss number 5 sacked (hammer replacement) (4,3) |
| (AIL + GU[v]) in (N + N). | ||
| 2 | ARAB | All but one mounted horse (4) |
| (BAR + A)<. | ||
| 3 | NEWSREEL | Dirty looks when Henry resigns over topical film (8) |
| (LEERS W[h]EN)<. | ||
| 4 | DOPE | Take some exercise, fool! (4) |
| DO P.E. | ||
| 5 | REALMS | Referring to help for poor areas (6) |
| RE + ALMS. | ||
| 6 | ODONTALGIA | Change to diagonal a pain (10) |
| Anagram of (TO DIAGONAL). Meaning toothache. | ||
| 7 | BLUE TIT | Flier‘s down – fool! (4,3) |
| BLUE + TIT. | ||
| 14 | ALANBROOKE | Army chief, ennobled like Newton, ruined? Nothing in it (10) |
| A LA + N + (0 in BROKE). That’s a new one for me, but it’s the interestingly-named Alan Brooke, 1st Viscount Alanbrooke. | ||
| 15 | SOHAM | Pretend to keep old place in Cambridgeshire (5) |
| O in SHAM. | ||
| 18 | ORDNANCE | Cannon, maybe, or canon? One needs deleting (8) |
| ORD[i]NANCE. Can’t believe I haven’t seen this done before. | ||
| 19 | CHARGER | What it costs to run horse (7) |
| CHARGE + R. | ||
| 20 | FASHION | Make OFAH situation extremely funny – one’s captivated (7) |
| I in (OFAH S[ituatio]N)*. Reference to OFAH. Must admit I didn’t recognise the abbreviation at first, not having spotted the theme by that point, but that doesn’t prevent solving. | ||
| 22 | RUAIRI | Sport initially on Sky beginning to irritate Irishman (6) |
| RU + AIR + I[rritate]. | ||
| 25 | TALL | High score – 80 percent (4) |
| TALL[y]. | ||
| 27 | ACED | Gave good service to one department (4) |
| ACE + D. | ||
* = anagram; < = reversed; [] = removed; underlined = definition; Hover to expand abbreviations
Ho ho. I enjoyed this tremendously, not least because the theme (which I had initially assumed to be plain-vanilla equestrian) only revealed itself slowly, indeed only when I saw the BATMAN Nina bit. The Bürger of the quiet little backwater of Erlangen willl be well chuffed! O’zapft is!
Cheers Tyrus and Simon
Not so sure about the fun what with my German geography and puzzlement of spelling of Irish names.So I was starting to feel a bit of a tit, a dope and a berk but not a dill(which 10 looked like for a tiny bit)
On my second sitting I saw the nina creeping up which helped finish but it was still a slog.
But no complaints. Saturday puzzles sometimes prove a bit easy so nice to have a three course meal.
Now I’ll read the blog!
Thanks for blog-doh” OFAH!
Very clever stuff. Mostly enjoyed it but felt there were too many (to me) obscurities – never heard of ERLANGEN, MADRASAH, ALANBROOKE, SOHAM or RUAIRI although the latter two were easy to guess. Pretty sure I’ve met ODONTALGIA before – guessed it from the anagram fodder and checked it was correct. Failed to parse either ALIBIS or THE BAR, so thanks Simon for the explanations.
In conclusion, great crossword but too hard for me to complete without a deal of cheating.
That was very hard work for me – six new ‘things’ that had to be looked up and three bits of parsing (1,2&3d) for which I needed Simon’s help.
Managed to completely miss the Ninas, despite having registered the OFAH references in the puzzle – I always forget to look for them, even when the grid is shouting out their presence!
Plenty to chuckle over – 9&24a plus 4&7d were the best for me.
Thanks to Tyrus for the reminder of Del boy and to Simon for expertly piecing together the jigsaw.
Thanks Tyrus, Simon
I don’t think I would have finished without Batman and Robin’s help, and I didn’t get the chandelier/OFAH connection until googling afterwards. Never seen much of it, but I’ve enjoyed filling in a few gaps via youtube. Clever, tricky clues.
This proved quite a slog and we only finished with recourse to googling OFAH, plus a wordfinder and anagram solver. We only saw the nina, of course, once we’d finished but I doubt it would have helped.
But having got the theme I remembered commenting once before that I’d only ever seen the odd five minutes (and that by accident) of OFAH. And searching fifteensquared I not only tracked down that comment – on the inclusion of ‘cushty’ in a Tyrus puzzle in July 2012 – but found that Tyrus had also given us an OFAH-themed puzzle back in January 2010. So it would seem that OFAH is a favourite with Tyrus.
Back to today’s puzzle, though. We can’t say that ERLANGEN and ALANBROOKE were likely to come readily to mind, though their inclusion was probably dictated by the nina. On the other hand there was plenty to like, including MUTAGENS and FALL THROUGH, and particularly MADRASAH (once we realised it was that spelling) and AGATHA.
Thanks, Tyruws and Simon
Late to the party so I’ll sum up in a few words. Tough, clever, brilliant, succinct, fun. Cheers to The Mighty T for the pleasure and pain and to SH for the enlightenment.
Thanks to Simon for the blog and to others for their comments.
Best sitcom ever IMHO, though it should have finished when they sold the watch. ‘This time next year we’ll be billionaires,’ was the perfect ending.
I agree with what Hoskins said. I found it harder than the usual offerings from this setter but really enjoyable.
Pity I saw the the anagram at 13 as augments which certainly is changes…