OK – it’s a Nimrod – and it has five 15-letter solutions, two 12s, two 11s and a couple of 10s…stiff upper lip and press on…
Rather than attacking the 3s and 4s, I worked through the clues in order and chanced upon that impressive ‘bower’, JACQUELINE DU PRÉ. One long one down, four to go!
The good thing about these long entries is that once you get one it gives lots of crossers, and so it continued with BRANDY ALEXANDER and POISON-PEN LETTER.
In the (nearly) end, and after some mental turmoil, I had an almost full grid via the wonderful BANANA SKINS, UNISEX, ZIT and TOFFEE-NOSED.
Although I got 6D TRAINS UP early on, I took far too long to get 1D CLAPHAM JUNCTION, despite the fact that I used to live near it and go through it most working days on my trains ‘up’ to Waterloo…and back down again. I had initially taken UP to mean ‘oop North’, and pencilled in Watford Junction, maybe subconsciously thinking of the Watford Gap services, the mythical divide between North and South up the M1?…
And last of all was 23A – surely ‘something’ BLUE. My initial guess was FEELIN’ BLUE, which Mr Go-ogle tells me is a song (tone?) by Credence Clearwater Revival. But something about that apostrophe didn’t quite feel right, or the parsing, and in the end a simple pattern search on my Chambers app gave me BERLIN BLUE – a much better ‘tone’…
Got there in the end – and a pangram, to boot!
Many superlatives could be lavished here – surface readings such as 1A with current US political overtones; 13A reflecting Brexit ANXIETY; the anagram of POISON-PEN LETTER; the ‘separated’ STEP/FATHERS. Also the grid construction, with the interweaving of so many long entries…
I think my favourite surface read was 5D, which reflects many of my Quixotic attempts at the Listener!
My only possible quibble (or lack of parsing) might be 3D with ‘stubble’ as ‘remnants’…I guess a field of stubble is the remnants of a crop, but Chambers doesn’t seem to link the two, except maybe via ‘stump’…discuss.
Update: explained by Hovis in comment below
Thanks to Nimrod, and I hope this was equally well appreciated all round – and that I have it all covered down below…so to speak.
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
|
| 8A | LANGUOROUS | Reluctant to hurry up the wall along our American borders (10) | reluctant to hurry / LANGOURO (anag, i.e. up the wall, of ALONG + OUR), plus (bordered by?) US (American) |
|
| 9A | ARVO | Of popular vote, over a third for Australian PM (4) | Australian PM (afternoon, not prime minister!) / hidden word, ARVO makes up over a third of the letters of ‘populAR VOte’ |
|
| 10A | PAS | Stepfathers, once separated? (3) | double defn. / separating ‘stepfathers’ can give step (PAS, ballet) and fathers (PAS, pa, plural) |
|
| 11A | BANANA SKINS | Covers dispensed with to give more chances for slips? (6,5) | &lit-ish/CD / BANANA SKINS are covers (of bananas) which, when dispensed with carelessly, can increase the chance of a ‘slip’…! |
|
| 13A | ANXIETY | Next, I negotiated in style with going concern (7) | concern / ( |
|
| 14A | NIELSEN | Breaking news, one more Danish composer (7) | Danish composer (Carl) / N_N (news, or multiple Ns) around (broken into by) I (one) + ELSE (more, other) |
|
| 15A | JACQUELINE DU PRE | Judge with some land admits that Parisian secured impressive bower (10,2,3) | impressive bower (virtuoso cellist) / J (judge) + AC_RE (some land) around (admitting) QUE (that, in French, i.e. Parisian) + LINED UP (secured) |
|
| 17A | NEST BOX | New order for 2 half-cuts of meat and 10 eggs to be delivered here? (4,3) | eggs to be delivered here? / NEST BO (T-BONES, or cuts of meat, cut in half and re-ordered) + X (10, ten, Roman numeral) |
|
| 18A | NEEDFUL | Required, once head of Hull, to make every second count (7) | required / every second letter of ‘oNcE hEaD oF hUlL’ |
|
| 20A | TOFFEE-NOSED | Sweetsmelling superior? (6-5) | superior / TOFFEE (sweet) + NOSED (smelling) |
|
| 21A | ZIT | Strings player cancelling her top spot (3) | spot / |
|
| 22A | OWED | Outstanding poetry recital (4) | outstanding / homophone, i.e. recital – OWED (outstanding debt) sounds like ODE (poetry) |
|
| 23A | BERLIN BLUE | The tone of “Oh! How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning”? (6,4) | tone (as in colour/shade) / ‘Oh How I hate to Get Up in the Morning’ is a musical number by Irving Berlin, hence a BERLIN BLUE! (Given that the archetypal ‘blues’ song starts with ‘I woke up this morning…<guitar riff>got out of bed…’) |
|
| Down | ||||
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
|
| 1D | CLAPHAM JUNCTION | Stop [for 6?] to give a hand with hock joint preparation? (7,8) | stop (for 6 – trains ‘up’, i.e. to London) / CLAP (give a hand) + HAM (hock joint) + J (joint) + UNCTION (preparation) |
|
| 2D | UNISEX | Inversely, almae maters like St Hilda’s now, but not St Trinian’s! (6) | like St Hilda’s now, but not St Trinians / almae maters might be EX-UNIS (universities), which inverted could make UNISEX |
|
| 3D | HUBBLE-BUBBLE | Take off pair of stone fragments; replace with hard, black pipe (6-6) | pipe (hookah) / |
|
| 4D | BRANDY ALEXANDER | Having intermittent doses of X-ray radiation finally prepared Ellington for one drink (6,9) | drink / B_AND_ _LE_A_DER (Duke Ellington, band leader) interrupted (dosed) intermittently by the letters of X-RAY and N (final letter of radiatioN) |
|
| 5D | TURN IN ON ONESELF | Fun originally with Listener? Accepting failure, withdraw (4,2,2,7) | withdraw (socially) / TURN I_NESELF (anag, i.e. originally, of FUN and LISTENER, around (accepting) N ON O (non-no, failure) |
|
| 6D | TRAINS UP | On the job, coaches shot out in a spurt (6,2) | on the job, coaches / anag, i.e. shot out, of IN A SPURT |
|
| 7D | POISON-PEN LETTER | Open note – lets rip foully (6-3,6) | &lit? – open (anonymous) note / anag, i.e. foully, of OPEN NOTE LETS RIP |
|
| 12D | SPEED READING | Second go, in fear of what scanner will do (5,7) | what scanner (of text) will do / S (second) + PEE (go) + D_READING (in fear of) |
|
| 16D | COST-FREE | Mobilise forces and get rid of good for nothing (4-4) | for nothing / anag, i.e. mobilise, of FORCES + ( |
|
| 19D | FIZZLE | Evidence of snoozing in line, military failure (6) | failure (damp squib) / FI_LE (military line) around ZZ (evidence of snoozing!) |
|
Too hard for me by far. Finished but with a few unparsed. I had tentatively parsed 3d as RUBBLE RUBBLE as “stone fragments” with pair (of R’s) taken off and replaced by H(ard) and B(lack).
Held up a while from entering scot-free for 16d.
Thanks to Nimrod and to mc_rapper67.
Thanks, Hovis – taking Rs (Latin, recipe, or ‘take’) off from a pair of stone fragments (RUBBLEs) makes much more sense – will update accordingly…I am un-quibbled!
I can see now how SCOT-FREE might materialise – luckily I already had the C from Ms Du Pré, to lead me the right way…
This was at the more doable end of Mr H’s spectrum if such a thing exists.
Well it does as the letter count for “bower” pretty much gave that away (not to mention that she’s a huge favourite of mine)
I loved the double letters-I loved it all and thanks also for blog.
PS this was available earlier than Bremdan’s Prize in the Graun and I must say they made a fine pair (or odd couple?)
Thanks Nimrod and MCR
I thought this was a tremendous puzzle, which took a lot of winkling out.
As I think copmus is pointing out, given who the setter is, the inclusion of nine double letters and two repeated pairs of letters in 11 & 5 is unlikely to be accidental.
Ah yes. R = take. Not the first time I’ve missed that. Thanks for explaining my explanation.
I’m sure I’ve got things I really ought to be doing this morning, but when I saw it was a Nimrod, solving the Indy just had to take precedence over everything else.
I noticed the pangram and the double letters and repeated letters
Thanks to Nimrod for a splendid treat of a crossword and to mc_rapper for the blog
Thanks Nimrod, mc_rapper67
‘fraid I guessed Feelin’ Blue to get myself over the line – disqualified for leaving lane, perhaps. Didn’t realise that was a real song, and only know Prussian Blue, which is apparently same thing. Looked up Leiden Blue first (lied in blue?).
I spent a little while thinking 9A was INXS, popular vote, third for Australian, is PM pop music?
Otherwise ok, though didn’t crack T-bones, ex-unis, ‘up the wall’ (had reluctant to hurry up as def., also confounded by misleading/unfair ‘borders’), and the whole B_AND_ _LE_A_DER thing, so thanks for clearing all those up.
BANANA SKINS, ARVO, TURN IN ON ONESELF favourites.
There doesn’t seem to me to be an unusual number of double anythings.
Is the wordplay fodder for 21A actually ZITHERIST (“Strings player”), with the -IST standing for 1st or “top”?
Thanks for all the comments and feedback…
– I had noticed a few double letters – TOFFEE, HUBBLE BUBBLE, FIZZLE – and repeats – NO NO and NA NA, (BANANA also contains AN AN!), as well as AND and AND in BRANDY ALEXANDER – but I didn’t mention it in the blog as there was so much else going on and, as James says, they didn’t seem an exceptional set of occurrences, unless one knows the setter is prone to such things…
– James at #7 – I also had a note/question mark next to ‘borders’, but decided that bordering could also mean abutting, rather than surrounding(?)
– Ant at #8 – yes that makes more sense, rather than top referring to the head – will update accordingly – I was assuming that just like there can be a person who is ‘first violin’, so a person playing a zither might just be a zither!…
Too much on the hard side for me. Finished it, but only with massive cheating.
Too hard for me I’m afraid. Eventually got all except 23a but had no idea of the parsing of about a quarter of them. So thanks for the elucidation,mcr and thanks (I think) to Nimrod.
Curiously, I’ve just completed the Guardian prize crossword fairly quickly. I usually don’t finish that on a Saturday.
Can’t say I’m keen on FUN ORIGINALLY WITH LISTENER to mean an anagram of FUN and LISTENER but given that I solved precisely none on my first read through I was more than pleased to finish this at all!
Typically complex Nimrod clueing but precise as ever – many thanks
We struggled with this over 3 days and eventually gave up with it about half finished. We thought about ARVO for 9ac but didn’t see how an Estonian composer (Arvo Pärt) fitted the clue (he didn’t, of course). And talking of composers the clue for NIELSEN was almost identical to Alberich’s in Friday’s FT.
Thanks(?), Nimrod and mc_rapper67
Been doing this off and on since printing it on Saturday. Inquisitor kept me busy on Saturday and Sunday, and then the Genius (also by JH, which I finished AND fully parsed) on Monday. I had 4d, 5d, and 17a correct but not fully parsed. Spotted the pangram early on but it didn’t help. Only 23 clues, quite a feat.