Independent 10114 / Nimrod

20 comments on “Independent 10114 / Nimrod”

1. Great blog Dunc. Thanks for parsing of MANITOU, PRELATIZE and ECMEMA(I was thinking MAZE not being a frequenter of Greek Taverna)

   Thought QUAILING ,TEETOTAL amd CANZONE were brilliant

   It was tough even by Nimrod standards and nowhere near a clean solve for me (loads of check button)

   But as usual with N, when its done and dusted you say-what was wrong with any of that- I think writing in general is the order in which the words go.JH being a master. When’s the first novel coming out?

2. Nimrod at his most beastly – my piece of paper has neat writing, untidy writing, different colour pen use, and Tippex and I still couldn’t finish it.  So thank you to Duncan for his assistance with my outstanding entries

   However, to make up for the fact that I lost the battle, can I point out that if you look at the down solutions, there are creatures to be found in the end letters of one word and the start of the one below, although I’m not sure what sort of creature I’ve found between 7d and 20d, and I’ve no idea what goes between 6d an 16d.   The across rows reveal a PERTH PINT but I’m not sure what one of them is either

   Thanks to Nimrod for a proper battle of a crossword – I’m still trying to work out why you are here on a Thursday?

3. @2 crypticsue

   Thanks for identifying what I have missed.  If you add in the PEDESTRIAN, crossing between IMPEDES and TRIANON, all the animals / birds relate to PEDESTRIAN crossings -TOUCAN, ZEBRA, PELICAN and PUFFIN.  A bit more research tells me that a  PEGASUS crossing is apparently designed especially for horse riders.  Finally, there is the LEVEL crossing.

4. There is a nina on types of crossings. TOUCAN, ZEBRA, PELICAN, PEGASUS, PEDESTRIAN, LEVEL hidden in the down columns.

5. Sorry, didn’t notice this was already mentioned.

6. Should add many thanks to Duncan for explaining it all. Didn’t get ELEVE or TWEEPS both unknown words for me. Several other words I had to look up but worked out correctly.

   I parsed 19d slightly differently. Given that it is Nimrod, I felt that, rather than USA for America, it was probably US with the A coming from “are” as in the unit of area.

7. @Duncan and Hovis – D’oh –  that’s the trouble with Mr H’s crosswords, he mangles the poor old brain so much, you can’t see the perfectly obvious

8. Thanks crypticsue and dunc for the hidden gems-thats the thing-you can be exhausted from the struggle-easier if its s straightforward nina which can assist the solve but no Mr Nice Guy today.’E’s got is reputation roun the manor to think of, guv.

9. Thanks to duncan and Nimrod

   I have 15a as:

   OVERCAST = SUNLESS, presumably (i.e it is possible to presume it represents) IS (‘S)UNLESS, then OVERCAST (overthrow) IF NOT – NOT IF = UNLESS

    

10. Am I alone in not understanding any of the explanations of 15a? Attempted this on my day off following a day at the races, and will go back to work tomorrow for a rest!

     

11. Thanks Nimrod, Duncan

    DNF (tweeps, + a couple I shouldn’t have given up on), but I mostly found it quite ‘normal’.

    @Dansar: eh?

    fwiw, I had sunless = overcast, then [s]unless was removing S[un] (overcast, presumably)

12. I think James’s reading for 15a makes sense. Overcast overcast becoming sunless sunless, i.e. (s)unless with ‘presumably’ thrown in to confuse us even more. I hope Nimrod will clarify.

13. Hovis @12

    I initially had that parsing too but I rejected it for three reasons

    None of my dictionaries have S as an abbreviation for SUN (perhaps it’s in Chambers)

    PRESUMABLY seems redundant and a bit unfair to just “bung in”

    I can’t think of any phrase where UNLESS can be replaced by IF NOT, (perhaps others can)

     

    With any most setters I would reject my own parsing as too contorted, not if it’s Nimrod, (unless it’s Nimrod)

14. If not correct, the parsing needs to be changed? Sort of works for me.

    I admit when solving (?) the puzzle, I just took ‘overcast presumably’ to mean ‘having (one) too many letters’ but wasn’t overly convinced.

15. Me @13 delete “any in the last sentence”

    Hovis @14

    Thank you

    When I first read your post I thought “of course, why didn’t I think of that”, but the more I thought about, it didn’t feel quite right.

    I think it’s because the “not” belongs to “correct”, rather than to “if”. This becomes clear if we change “not correct” to “wrong”.

    Like you, I hope Nimrod will clarify, but he didn’t in the case of a similar lack of consensus on 23 Feb so I won’t hold my breath.

     

16. A cricket team during a match would be fielding unless/if not batting.

17. Too much for me.  After about an hour I’d done the bottom left corner.  After that I more or less ground to a halt.  No fun at all.  I don’t find Azed this hard.

18. Almost there.  We struggled in the NE corner, eventually got SUNLESS and (from crossing letters and definition but couldn’t parse) IMPEDES.  That left us with 9ac and 6dn and we thought 9ac could be ‘twerps’ (a wally being a twerp, but again couldn’t parse) but never thought of 6dn being a French word – all a wordfinder came up with was ‘exeme’ – an archaic form of ‘exempt’.

    But we felt quite chuffed to get QUAILING, ECZEMA and CANZONE.  Failed to spot the nina, of course.

    As to Nimrod dropping in to clarify, I think you’ll find he has a policy of not commenting on blogs.

    Thanks, Nimrod and Duncan.

19. As other have (almost) said, impossibly difficult.  Next time, maybe.

    24D I thought the definition was I (the call sign for India), an anagram of “ad in i”, with the italicising  of “i” a distraction.

    Thanks to Nimrod and duncanshiell.

20. Managed about two thirds of this but I am not at all surprised that the rest wete beyond us

    Thanks to Nimrod and full marks to Duncan for solving the b****r

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