Looks like Dalibor is on the setting cycle that makes his puzzles land on my day to blog again …
… and I certainly don’t mind that.
Two thirds of the way into this I was hoping to spot a theme to help with the last few, but no joy.
There are a few football related inferences in the clues – if there is more going on in that line it probably passed me by.
I was so pleased to get 1A’s anagram as the first clue in. I had to persevere and definitely spent longer fiddling with the letters of “Don’t insinuate” than would normally when attempting a first clue, indeed it was the definition that really pushed me to see NATIONS and get off to a flying start with lots of lovely first letters.
The rest wasn’t quite so quick: Despite having those first letters I only filled-in one of those first 7 down lights at that point.
Then the long answer at the bottom of the grid caught my eye – there’s a name I know I thought, and with the general knowledge of Mark K’s band that was a sitting duck.
So with some letters for all the down answers the rest of the grid got filled in steadily.
I annoyed myself by writing NORN in for 8, which screwed up 1 Down – I was looking at U?O?O?N for ages – and that’s with knowing full well that Nico sand with Velvet Underground.
Once that was out of the way all that was left was 16 which was also subject to self-inflicted difficulties – I had written in OBVIATING instead of OBVIATION for 6d – thus I was looking at ?U?S?G ?A? perplexed till I realised something had to give.
It was ages before thinking Hudson Bay – I hardly think of it as a “Sea” given that it appears almost totally enclosed on a map – and even when it was obviously the answer, the wordplay had to be reversed engineered: H and BAY as “Horses” – very sneaky.
Anyway. All good fun. Thanks Dalibor
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | UNITED NATIONS | Don’t insinuate foolishly it has more than 200 members (6,7) (DON’T INSINUATE)* AInd: Foolishly |
| 8 | FINN | Fellow in Norway? No! (4) F[ellow] IN N[orway]. Semi-&-lit. Early on I wrote in NORN from NOR[way] N[o] – doesn’t quite work does it |
| 9 | DE BEAUVOIR | French writer about to leave goodbye message after rejecting English plot (2,8) AU [re]VOIR (RE (about) leaving AU REVOIR (goodbye message)), after (E[nglish] BED (plot)) all reversed |
| 10 | DOCTOR | Liam Fox, for one, defined by day and month Remain lost (6) D[efined] OCTO[be]R (BE (remain) leaving OCTOBER (month)). Almost unbelievable definition. |
| 11 | DICTATOR | John Thomas Murphy said to be one like Stalin (8) Homophone: “Dick” (John Thomas) “Tater” (Murphy) |
| 12 | IN NO SENSE | Being simple-minded when always wanting sun instead of cold? Not at all (2,2,5) INNOCENCE (being simple-minded) swapping all C[old] for S[un] |
| 14 | DIRT | In hindsight, time to remove obscene stuff … (4) (T[ime] RID(to remove))< all reversed (in hindsight) |
| 15 | CATO | … with which this elder statesman could become the one at No 11 (4) (CATO + DIRT)* make DICTATOR Lovely use of the ellipsis between clues. |
| 16 | HUDSON BAY | Sea horses adopting awful sound (6,3) H and BAY (Horses) around (adopting) SOUND* AInd: awful. Last one in that gave me by far the most trouble |
| 20 | GRAFFITI | It’s written on the wall: “old tennis star, well-trained one” (8) GRAF (old tennis star, Stephi G) FIT (well-trained) I (one) |
| 21 | UNCLES | US government expels a thousand moneylenders (6) UNCLE S[am] A M (a thousand) removed from UNCLE SAM (US government) |
| 23 | CLEAN SHEET | No score against Chelsea playing with ten (5,5) (CHELSEA TEN)* AInd: playing The clue describes exactly what happened to Birmingham City Women last Sunday 21st Oct |
| 24 | PISA | Very good headers from Sergio Agüero for City (4) PI (very good) S[ergio] A[güero] Sergio Agüero is a footballer who indeed plays for [Manchester] City <Wiki> |
| 25 | IN DIRE STRAITS | Having difficulties like Mark Knopfler once (2,4,7) Double Def. |
| Down | ||
| 1 | UNICORN | Legendary one, woman who joined Velvet Underground, cremated? (7) NICO (woman who join Velvet Underground) inside URN (cremated) Nico joined Velvet Underground for their first album <Wiki> |
| 2 | INNIT | Place to spend the night having sex – know what I mean? (5) INN (place to spend the night) IT (sex). Slang |
| 3 | ENDORSE | Nationalist party overwhelmed by Irish support (7) N[ationalist] and DO (party) inside ERSE (Irish) |
| 4 | NOBODY’S BUSINESS | Company without ownership is something extraordinary (7,8) Double Definition |
| 5 | THATCH | It may cover the roof of the little church over there (6) TH[e] (the, little) CH[urch] around (over) AT (there) |
| 6 | OBVIATION | Preventing old boy replacing leader of aircraft industry (9) AVIATION (aircraft industry) swap first letter A for OB (Old Boy) I wrote in OBVIATING, which I would argue fits the clue too, until crossing 16a was found |
| 7 | SPIT OUT | Tips for a clue writer? Tell! (4,3) Reverse clue: TIPS is an anagram (OUT) of SPIT |
| 13 | OUT OF HAND | Immediately beyond control (3,2,4) Unsure about wordplay here <Edit> It’s a Double Def. See comment 3 Apparently out of hand can mean immediately |
| 15 | CORELLI | Composer‘s heartsick, partly upset after breaking up? (7) CORE (heart) ILL< (sick, reversed) |
| 17 | SPUTTER | S Club 7 (7) S PUTTER (club) (Definition is 7 referring to 7’s answer SPIT OUT) |
| 18 | ASEPSIS | Records in unchanged clean condition (7) EPS (records) in AS IS (unchanged) |
| 19 | BIG SUR | Rock climbing mostly safe here in California (3,3) GIB> (Rock, climbing) SUR[e] (Safe, mostly) |
| 22 | CAPRI | Maize removed from Goat Island (5) CAPRI[corn] (CAPRICORN (goat) remove CORN (maize)) |
Thanks beermagnet and Dalibor.
Re 12across: You’ve got a typo. My quibble is that “being simple-minded” equates to “innocent”, not “innocence”.
Re 6down: Similarly, as you say, “preventing” equates to “obviating”, not “obviation”.
My@1,
I suppose one sense of “preventing” is as a noun, though “the preventing of …” sounds much more awkward than “the prevention of …”
Loved the challenge. Lots of answers worked out and then checked via google, e.g. Nico in Velvet Underground.
You have a typo in 12a – should be INNOCENCE swapping all C’s for S’s. Liked this clue when I finally twigged but, to me, “innocence” can mean “simple mindedness” rather than “being simple minded”. Maybe somebody can clarify.
According to Chambers, “out of hand” can mean “immediately” (new to me), so 13d is a double definition.
Favourites include the great anagram at 1a and the nicely constructed 17d.
Felt the construction for 15d was a bit OTT. To expand on the blog: you take ‘heartsick’ and break in two (after breaking up) heart + sick giving CORE + ILL. Then ‘partly upset’ means just reverse last bit.
Thanks to Dalibor and beermagnet.
We crossed, scchua, on ‘innocence’.
I should add that I was a bit sceptical on HUDSON BAY as ‘sea’ but liked the clue nonetheless. I also should admit that I failed to parse UNCLES. Tried inserting AK, AG, AM but never got to putting the latter at the end. Drat!
I don’t mind a bit of general knowledge in a clue (even if it requires learning something new and interesting), but 25a and 1d called for such un-general knowledge that there was no way to make sense of them without looking up the decidedly uninteresting questions of who the hell Mark Knopfler was and who was in Velvet Underground, at which point the solutions were all too obvious.
Otherwise, well constructed and enjoyable clues.
Typo in 12A fixed – along with several others I now notice.
Thanks Dalibor and beermagnet
Re 12, while they may not be interchangeable in a sentence *, I think that ‘innocence’ is a reasonable definition of ‘being simple-minded’.
* though actually they may be: cf “In his innocence, he…” with “In his being simple-minded, he…”.
Simon@7. You make a good argument I think.
No – 5 down comes from “that church” – (someone may have already picked this up).
Very enjoyable stuff. A good Saturday challenge, but right on my wavelength. I particularly liked NOBODY’S BUSINESS, INNIT and the fact that I spent two-thirds of my solve wondering if the answer to 17D was going to be a synonym for toilet!
Many thanks to S&B
Thank you Geoff – Re 5D – Fixed
Gila: What has 17D got to do with toilets?
Re Gila@10 Where you thinking S club was ‘shitter’? Hah, never occurred to me.
Pretty challenging, I thought, and very, very good.
For the second day in a row I had to go into London in the afternoon and took a printout with me to do on the train, and both days I finished it before I got to Waterloo, only today I had made a tentative start before setting off and finished it just as the train was entering Waterloo, so I guess today’s was harder.
Ian@5: I have almost no interest in pop music but I’d heard of both Nico and Mark Knopfler. 25ac was a write-in for me.
Very enjoyable with loads of nice clues.
Very good, S Club 7 alone worth the price of admission. Also enjoyed the CATO/DIRT combo, UNCLES, CLEAN SHEET, BIG SUR, HUDSON BAY, THATCH, CORELLI and FINN. On the pop GK – 25a transparent, 1d who?
Thanks Dalibor, beermagnet
Spent an age on this but was pleased in the end to fall short by only one: BIG SUR, which was unfamiliar.
Very much enjoyed the challenge. Too much brilliance to list. Thanks Dalibor and beermagnet.
Gila@10’s interpretation occurred to me before i got the answer! I thought this was very clever and a bit difficult as a consequence. took me while. I’m not a big fan of cross-references, but i thought they were extremely well done here hnjmuik,lo.p;/+{}. A step up in difficulty from Dalibor’s debut.
Thank you Dalibor for the challenge. A technically perfect puzzle (of course), and looking forward to more
And thank you beermagnet