A typical offering from WANDERER, and always a pleasure to solve. Quite liked the symmetry of the clues including the 10,4s and 4,10s running on the edges.
Wondering if I am missing a nina here ..
FF: 8 DD: 8
| Across | ||
| 1, 6 | OPERATIONS ROOM | Control centre in a theatre? (10,4) |
| cryptic clue | ||
| 9 | ENDEMIC | Out of unmarried men, half caught disease spreading locally (7) |
| IED MEN* (half of unmarrIED MEN, out – anagrind) C (caught) | ||
| 10 | HOME RUN | Poet, a Parisian that’s touched all the bases (4,3) |
| charaade of HOMER (poet) UN (french for one, a ) | ||
| 12 | GRAND TOTAL | Hotel perfect for summer’s end? (5,5) |
| GRAND (hotel) TOTAL (perfect) | ||
| 13 | MPH | A way of measuring speed on motorway politician has just opened (3) |
| starting letters pf “..Motorway Politican Has..” | ||
| 15 | NUDISM | Greek character, female, writing about having nothing on (6) |
| NU (greek character) DI (female) SM (writing = MS, manuscript, reversed) | ||
| 16 | DEVIANTS | Police sent aid, arresting five perverts (8) |
| SENT AID* containing V (five) | ||
| 18 | VETERANS | People with long experience of surgeon having knocked back gin? (8) |
| VET (surgeon) ERANS (reverse of SNARE = gin) | ||
| 20 | GAUCHE | Nancy’s left? That’s awkward (6) |
| french for LEFT (nancy is a city in france) | ||
| 23 | RAN | Directed a film adaptation of King Lear (3) |
| double def, i found out latter refers to a japanese movie which was akira kurosawa’s take on king lear. | ||
| 24 | THEATRICAL | OTT article – hat, perhaps (10) |
| ARTICLE HAT* | ||
| 26 | IMMURES | Walls in igloo’s first high summer (7) |
| I (Igloo, first letter) [SUMMER]* | ||
| 27 | DENARII | Study artist backed with eleven silver coins once (7) |
| DEN (study) AR (reverse of RA – artist) II (eleven) | ||
| 28, 29 | YOUR EXCELLENCY | Solver’s software left in French city after vacation, so called ambassador? (4,10) |
| YOUR (solver’s) EXCEL (software) L (left) EN (in, french) CY (CitY, vacated i.e. without inner letters) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1, 14 | OPEN UNIVERSITY | Complete selection of courses here (4,10) |
| completion of the abbreviation OU in “..cOUrses..” | ||
| 2 | ENDURED | Stood to finish texting your editor (7) |
| END (finish) UR (sms text for your) ED (editor) | ||
| 3 | ADMINISTRATOR | Small guitar pocketed by bent road manager (13) |
| [MINI (small) STRAT (guitar) ] in ROAD* | ||
| 4 | INCITE | Stir up egg on visible broadcast (6) |
| two def (rather than double def, both meaning the same thing) – sounds like IN SIGHT (visible) | ||
| 5 | NO-HITTER | Scoreless game given a bashing in the Observer (2-6) |
| HIT (bashing) in NOTER (observer) | ||
| 7 | OARSMAN | Chap involved in row in Arab country about topless bars (7) |
| OMAN (arab country) around bARS (topless) | ||
| 8, 25 | MANCHESTER CITY | Side order of synthetic cream (10,4) |
| SYNTHETIC CREAM* | ||
| 11 | MULTINATIONAL | Apple perhaps put out an ultimatum? No hesitation, and no half-lies (13) |
| [AN ULTIMATum (no hesitation) NO LIes (half of)]* | ||
| 14 | See 1 | |
| 17 | INTERSEX | Bury relations between male and female (8) |
| INTER (bury) SEX (relations) | ||
| 19 | TINAMOU | Bird caught in a mousetrap! (7) |
| semi &lit; liked it .. hidden in “…caughT IN A MOUsetrap” | ||
| 21 | CHAGRIN | Series about Greek annoyance following humiliation (7) |
| CHAIN (series) around GR (greek) | ||
| 22 | STODGE | For one that’s short, Dorothy’s lifted heavy stuff (6) |
| reverse of E.G (for one, short form) DOT’S (dorothy’s) | ||
| 25 | See 8 | |
*anagram
8d made my day.Great surface and misdirection.1/14 pretty neat too.
Thanks all.
Thanks, Turbolegs.
As copmus says, the puzzle was worth it for 8dn alone – what a gem! And I thought 11dn was pretty good, too.
I was beaten by the film in 23ac and I didn’t know the expression at 5dn [but I see it’s from baseball, so that’s no surprise] so I didn’t actually finish today.
I’ve said more than once that I admire the way Wanderer’s composite clues run on in the grid – four examples today and, as Turbolegs says, symmetrical, too. Very impressive.
Many thanks, as ever to Wanderer – I really enjoyed it.
Thanks to both setter & blogger.
Though I’m sure that your parsing of 9ac is what was intended, I parsed it as: from (out of) (M)EN (unmarried men) + DEMI (half) + C (caught) = ENDEMIC, which also works, I think.
I also parsed 9ac as Shikasta. Usual good stuff from Wanderer. Thanks TL.
Thanks Wanderer and Turbolegs
I parsed 9 in the same way as shikasta @ 3.
Thanks to Wanderer for a most enjoyable puzzle and to Turbolegs for the blog. As mentioned already, 8d was a gem.
Is it a coincidence that NO-HITTER and HOME RUN intersect??? Probably not, but I’m afraid a no-hitter is rarely, if ever, a “scoreless game”. In fact there have been very few ties in baseball, and even fewer scoreless ties; the game normally doesn’t end until one side scores more runs than the other. The side that achieves no hits may not score but the other side usually does.
A no-hitter is defined as a completed game in which a side that bats at least nine innings does not record a hit. A perfect game is a completed game in which no-one from a side that has batted at least 9 innings reaches base. A pitcher that throws a no-hitter can lose a game through a series of walks or errors that result in one or more runs – he is still credited with a no-hitter, but incurs a loss; this, too, is quite rare.
Interesting to see this alternative take on 9a. I parsed it the same way as Turbolegs but both work even though in very different ways. Wonder which Wanderer intended?
Nice crossword as ever from Wanderer.
I got the four round the perimeter early on which made it all a bit easier.
As others said, the anagram at 8d,25 is marvellous (as is the answer, in my opinion).
The trick at 1d,14 is one that Wanderer has used before on at least a couple of occasions.
One gets used to this setter – not in my Top 10 of devious compilers anymore.
The clue at 11d (MULTINATIONAL) I didn’t like very much, somewhat over-constructed.
Also, ‘Apple’ in the definition is the same as ‘Apple’ in the surface, am I right? – felt like a missed chance.
On the positive side, 7d (OARSMAN) was a clear favourite.
Thanks for your detailed blog, Turbolegs.
However, I do not see why 19d (TINAMOU) is a semi-&lit.
‘Caught’ is just doing double duty here (as part of the fodder, whilst also being the indicator), a bit disappointing.
It didn’t spoil the fun!
Certainly not.
Oh, ps, I am on the shikasta side as to 9ac.
But I agree that the other parsing works just about as well.
That said, (a) one has to see ‘unmarried men’ as a unity, and (b) one needs an anagram indicator which will surely not be ‘out’ [as ‘of’ would become dubious].
However, one could say that the answer can be made ‘out of’ what follows and that would make sense.
Two possible parsings, interesting indeed.
My intuition tells me that shikasta‘s idea is to be preferred.
Not because it was what I thought too but it comes across as a bit more ‘pure’, more in line with Wanderer’s style of clueing.
I might be wrong.
Nice to see this puzzle get the attention it deserves. Thanks to all for stopping by. Indeed, it was quite interesting to see 9ac be parsed in 2 very different ways. Hallmark of a wickedly inventive clue perhaps?
Sil@8 – Ref 19d, I wasn’t sure what to term the clue actually. My opinion is that the containment indicator extends beyond ‘..caught..’ to ‘..caught in..’ and even “…caught in a ..”. I construed “..caught in a..” to be a significant self-referential part of the clue and hence dubbed it a semi &lit. Not sure if I have articulated this well enough …
While 1d wasn’t particularly tough, I thought the surface was very elegant.
Thanks Wanderer and Turbolegs
Nice puzzle that I did over a number of shortish sessions. Am another who enjoyed the long dual-words around the perimeter of the crossword. It was MANCHESTER CITY that gave the most trouble to work out (simply genius anagram) and didn’t see the OU in ‘courses’ as the direct definition for 1d. Had to really think about the parsing of VETERANS and sorting out the wordplay for MULTINATIONAL.
Had come up against the RAN adaptation of King Lear quite recently, so that didn’t cause too many issues.
GRAND TOTAL was my last one in and struggled to see GRAND as a synonym for a hotel – guess that it is just because that there are many hotels that are called the ‘Grand’ !!!