Another HOB to solve and blog today – we are not complaining.
This was generally an enjoyable solve, as we have come to expect from Hob.
There is a perimeter nina referring to a football club and its location. As regular visitors to this site will be aware, we are not big football fans, so we have no idea of the significance of the nina. All we can establish is that the team is the only team from outside Scotland to play in the Scottish Professional Football League (thank you, Wikipedia!).
Perhaps Hob will drop by and let us know if there is more to it than that.
There were a couple of new words for us but thankfully the clueing was pretty straightforward.
Across
8 Reddening of skin due to very thematic content (8)
ERYTHEMA
Hidden ‘content’ in vERY THEMAtic
9 Innocent-looking child sat in front of Polish revolutionary (6)
CHERUB
CHE (revolutionary) in front of RUB (polish) – we’re not sure why ‘sat’ is included in the clue here
10 Article about a southern Irish town (4)
NAAS
AN (article) reversed or ‘about’ A S (southern) – we’d never come across this place before
11 Merchant ship’s officer has high-performance vehicle to run (10)
SUPERCARGO
SUPERCAR (high performance vehicle) GO (to run)
12 Land beside house in German forest (6)
GARDEN
G (German) ARDEN (forest)
14 Address of Rue Simon’s building? (8)
MONSIEUR
Anagram of RUE SIMON – anagrind is ‘building’
15 Springtime by the end of February, unusually (4,3)
LEAP DAY
LEAP (spring) DAY (time)
17 Hoped to get answer, like some churches? (7)
ASPIRED
A (answer) SPIRED (like some churches)
19 Mishandle a tiller, sadly leading to end of boat (3-5)
ILL-TREAT
An anagram of A TILLER (anagrind is ‘sadly’) T last letter or ‘end’ of boat
22 Change from GMT, when in China (6)
MUTATE
UT (Universal Time – another way of describing GMT) inside MATE (china as in the Cockney rhyming slang). UT was a new one on us.
23 Another setter was in tears after newspaper lost acceptance amongst the young and hip? (6,4)
STREET CRED
An anagram of SETTER – anagrind is ‘another’ – and CRiED (in tears) losing ‘i‘ (a newspaper)
24 Band’s first organ stand (4)
BEAR
B (first letter of band) EAR (organ)
25 Exodus of the giraffes (6)
HEGIRA
Hidden in (‘of’) tHE GIRAffe
26 Man rules out 8 and 13, say (8)
NUMERALS
An anagram of MAN RULES – anagrind is ‘out’ – at first, we wondered why Hob chose 8 and 13 – rather random numbers, but then we realised that the entries in the puzzle at those numbers are both illnesses – creating a potential misdirection
Down
1 Possible result of a drop in holiday time (8)
BREAKAGE
BREAK (holiday) AGE (time)
2 Some Greek characters wanting others beheaded (4)
ETAS
Two other Greek letters missing their first letters or ‘beheaded’ – zETAS and bETAS – possibly thETAS as well?
3 Sense in which “Señora” would be incorrect (6)
REASON
Anagram of SENORA – anagram is ‘incorrect’
4 No longer means to buy wife a male Manx cat (6)
WAMPUM
W (wife) A M (male) PUSs PUMa (cat without it’s last letter or like a Manx cat). WAMPUM were small cylindrical beads made from shells by North American Indians and used as money – another new word for us. Thanks Hovis@1.
5 Sports facilities providing very cold beverages, but no large cups (3,5)
ICE RINKS
ICEd dRINKS (cold beverages) without DD (large cups)
6 Twice caught one flirting with master artisan (10)
CERAMICIST
Anagram of CI, CI (twice caught one) and MASTER – anagrind is ‘flirting’
7 Raised female wildebeest in this country, as a form of self-defence (4,2)
KUNG FU
F (female) GNU (wildebeest) in UK (this country) all reversed or ‘raised’ as it is a down clue
13 Pie contaminated with dirt leads to angry hotel’s hurried complaint (10)
DIPHTHERIA
Anagram of PIE, DIRT and the first letters or ‘leads’ to Angry Hotel Hurried – anagrind is ‘contaminated’
16 Relating to chain of islands where male carries étui around (8)
ALEUTIAN
ALAN (male) around or carrying an anagram of ETUI – anagrind is ‘around’. There are no doubt some who would object to a random name like ALAN clued as ‘male’.
18 Internal organs of ten different birds (8)
ENTRAILS
An anagram of TEN – anagrind is ‘different’ and RAILS (birds)
20 Second coffee? Third of morning (6)
LATTER
LATTE (coffee) and R (third letter in ‘morning’)
21 Going to bed, leaving note: “Getting sleepy” (6)
TIRING
reTIRING (going to bed) with ‘re’ (note) leaving
22 Old woman with comic role as 14’s other half? (6)
MADAME
MA (old woman) DAME (comic role)
24 Sticky seedcase found in 50% of Mexican dishes (4)
BURR
50% of BURRitos (Mexican dishes)
*anagram
Enjoyed this for the most part. Don’t know why Hob chose the seemingly obscure NAAS when plenty of other word fit NA?S. Perhaps others know more.
Didn’t know WAMPUM either. (Mistake in blog – it is PUMa not PUSs.)
KUNG FU and SUPERCAR make my mind go back to childhood TV.
Thanks to Hob and Bertandjoyce.
Filled it in as it was the only”normal” puzzle today and didnt notice the nina which was in neon lights.
Then I’m not familiar with Hob.Or Berwick Rangers
Thanks all.
Well, I failed to spot the Nina, but I was aware of that odd fact about Berwick Rangers, although I’m not a football fan. (There’s also that old story that Berwick is still at war with Russia due to an omission in the cessation of hostilities in the Crimean War.)
Took a while to get started on this, but then it all fell out. NAAS I needed to google to confirm it existed.
We got there in the end with the help of the nina – we were struggling in the NW corner when we noticed RANGERS in the bottom unches and realised the top unches had to be BERWICK. We think, btw, that the rest of the nina may just refer to the location of Berwick on the English border(s). We visited Berwick a few years ago and thought how typically Scottish it looked.
No electronic help neded but we did look up NAAS in the index of an atlas and check WAMPUM in Chambers.
We thought the combination of 8, 13 and 26 was a great bit of misdirection – nice one, Hob! And we were pleased to find that ‘another setter’ in 23 wasn’t an unfair reference to another setter’s pseudonym.
Thanks, Hob and B&J.
Thanks B&J, and others for comments.
No general or topical reason at all for the Nina, but my mother was born in Berwick, so I have spent some time there in the past and tend to follow Berwick Rangers’ fortunes. They are having a particularly poor season, not helped by a 4-0 defeat today.
Seasonal greetings to all.
Excellent setting. Well done Hob.