Guardian 27,960 – Nutmeg

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A delightful puzzle from Nutmeg; not difficult, but with elegant and witty clueing throughout, and some nicely concealed definitions.

I was helped by spotting the Nina early on: around the perimeter we have THURSDAY’S CHILD HAS FAR TO GO, from the traditional rhyme. I’m a Thursday’s child myself, and I’ve been to Australia, so it’s obviously completely true. Thanks to Nutmeg.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
7. ORDAINED Predestined, as curate was (8)
Double definition
9. URANIA Princess in the Emirates briefly inspiring sister (6)
RANI (Indian princess) in UA[E]. Urania was the Muse of astronomy, one of the (many) daughters of Zeus
10. GUSH Mawkishness from son in returning embrace (4)
S in reverse of HUG
11. SUGAR DADDY Rich patron from Benin found by police in south of France (5,5)
GARDA (Irish police) in SUD (French “south”) + DY (code for Benin, formerly Dahomey)
12. OLD MAN Pop group lodged in Cotswold mansion (3,3)
A “group” of letters hidden in cotswOLD MANsion, with the definition Pop = father
14. EXCLAVES Old grottos bordering lake cut off areas of country (8)
L in EX CAVES
15. SOLACE Very large card bringing comfort in hard times (6)
SO L[arge] + ACE
17. SLIDES Unobtrusive moves by Liberal in party succeeded (6)
L in SIDE (party) + S[ucceeded]
20. TOODLE-OO Besides catching plenty, Evans ultimately conceded bye (6-2)
OODLES less the last letter of evanS, in TOO
22. PARSEC Contrary forces rapidly covering a huge distance (6)
Hidden in reverse of forCES RAPidly
23. RED ADMIRAL Good-looking six-footer foolishly married short lady (3,7)
Anagram of MARRIED LAD[y]. Six-footer for insect is a regular setter’s trick
24. BACH Britten primarily a children’s composer? (4)
B[ritten] + A CH[ildren]
25. AFLAME A female halting, deeply aroused (6)
A F LAME (halt = to limp or be lame)
26. DISRAELI Prominent Victorian dancing ladies, one entertaining Queen (8)
R in LADIES* + I
Down
1. TROUBLES Pesters travellers on vacation touring Russian capital (8)
ROUBLE (Russian money = “capital”) in “vacated” T[raveller]S
2. HASH Cruel Romeo’s jilted Mary Jane (4)
HARSH less R – Mary Jane is slang for marijuana
3. UNISON Blameless conduct arising under universal agreement? (6)
U + reverse of NO SIN
4. RUBRICAL RC burial conducted as per official rites (8)
(RC BURIAL)* – coincidentally following RUBRIC in yesterday’s Imogen
5. SALAMANDER Monk with smoother cloak, allegedly survivor of fire (10)
LAMA (monk) in SANDER (a “smoother”) – salamanders were once believed to be able to survive and extinguish fire
6. DIDDLE Overcharge to spend a penny (old currency not new) (6)
PIDDLE (urinate, spend a penny) with the new penny P changed to the old D
8. DEGREE Level for one river entering north-western estuary (6)
EG (for one) + R in DEE (river & estuary in NW England)
13. MELODRAMAS Plays sensationalised madam’s role perhaps (10)
(MADAM’S ROLE)*
16. CREAM TEA Mark boards to form a West Country speciality (5,3)
M[ark] in (i.e. “boarding”) CREATE A
18. STEM CELL Curb coterie from which specialised units develop (4,4)
STEM (curb) + CELL (coterie)
19. TORRID Passionate little Dickensian changes ends (6)
[Little] DORRIT with the outer letters interchanged
21. ONE-OFF Special person leaving? (3-3)
ONE (person) + OFF (leaving, as in “I’m off”)
22. POLISH European buff (6)
Double definition
24. BEAD Drop live commercial (4)
BE (to live) + AD

45 comments on “Guardian 27,960 – Nutmeg”

  1. Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew

    Very nice. I didn’t know HASH/Mary Jane, or DY for Benin. I didn’t see the Nina, of course.

    There’s an extra in the surface of 20a. When I first took an interest in cricket, Godfrey Evans was the England wicketkeeper, who caught plenty but rarelly let a bye through!

    Two quibbles; surely UAE is already “Emirates briefly”, so there’s an E to get rid of. At first I had SIDLES for 17a – it fits the definition better.

  2. A DNF for me today courtesy of URANIA. I also needed Andrew’s assistance for the parsing of SUGAR DADDY, and I missed the Nina completely which is nothing new. Other than that a very enjoyable start to the day.

    Thanks to Nutmeg and Andrew.

  3. Ah! DY for Benin.  Should have checked that.  Thanks a lot Andrew.  Enjoyed the crossie and my husband spotted the nine before I did.

  5. Very enjoyable, and I was so happy that I could parse all of them.

    My favourites were TROUBLES, TORRID, RED ADMIRAL, TOODLE-OO, DIDDLE, SUGAR DADDY.

    New word for me today was PARSEC.

    Thanks Nutmeg and Andrew

    I did not see the nina!

    Muffin – UA is UAE briefly. 9ac works for me.

  6. Smooth as silk clues from the spice lady as ever, no ?s in the freo margin today, apart from hash being pressed Mary Jane pollen, not she herself. My Collins gives pre-ordain as synonym for predestine, but predestine as synonym for ordain, so no prob. Fewer obscurities than yesterday: dnk Dy for Dahomey re Benin; only dimly remembered the salamander fire myth; don’t think I’ve ever heard enclave’s opposite, and despite having looked up the muses over the years, only ever remember Erato and Calliope, but no bother given Nutmeg’s clarity. Gush as noun is neat, and yes yesterday’s rubric was a nice echo. Lovely puzzle, cruisy but not a write in. Thanks both.

  8. .. oh and forgot to check for ninas as usual (why Australia, Andrew?), and ta for the nice Evans extra, muffin.

  9. Good fun and I learned a few things…DY for Benin was one of those I had to google after solving but the lack of GK did not stop me getting the answer. A pity about “rubrical” but not sure I’d ever had seen it if not for yesterday’s puzzle. Many lovely clues here, and I though “diddle” and “torrid”, though straightforward, were highly imaginative. A clue doesn’t have to be impossibly hard to be fun.

    The Dee is a tricky one – I  am much more familiar with the one in the NE of the country, ie Aberdeenshire. But then I am a Wednesday’s child and have never travelled as far as Andrew (to whom, thank you for the clear explanations). Many thanks Nutmeg – a cracker!

  12. What Andrew said. This was fun. Favs TORRID and SALAMANDER. TsILT- DY = Benin and exclaves is a word. And, bonus, I spotted the nina- which helped me to finish. Thanks to Andrew for the blog and Nutmeg for the fun.

  14. Couldn’t parse DIDDLE; I know piddle = urinate, but did not know “spend a penny” as a phrase meaning the same thing, so couldn’t see how that part fit in.

  15. Thanks Andrew on 11. I had SUD and GARDA and knew Benin used to be Dahomey but my brain gave up then and instinct took over. Lovely puzzle and only saw the nina when Id just about finished.This and Monk on the same day put a smile on my face.

  16. Iroquois @14. Strictly speaking one would only spend a penny doing more “serious business” but heck-I cant remember that far back.

  19. I think I found this tougher than some others, however got there in the end. Last two were hash and Urania (toyed with Uranie for a while). Favourites were troubles, torrid, salamander and red admiral. Missed the nina completely (nothing unusual there) and needed to come here to clarify the parsing of sugar daddy. Thanks to Nutmeg for the challenge and Andrew for clarifying some parsing.

  20. Neither DIDDLE nor PIDDLE are in American English, nor is “spend a penny” for urination.  So that one can be chalked up as a Very British Clue.  I also didn’t get URANIA, though without that excuse, and I failed to parse SUGAR DADDY.

    Thanks to both blogger and setter.  Nutmeg is becoming one of my favorites.

  21. Very nice, saw the nina very early so that helped a lot, but not enough to parse SUGAR DADDY so thanks Andrew for that. I particularly liked OLD Man and ONE-OFF

     

    Many thanks Nutmeg

  22. mrpenny@20: as has been obliquely suggested by others, “spend a penny” comes from the days before the decimalisation of UK currency, when public lavatories had cubicle doors with a slot into which you had to put a penny in order to open them. So as copmus@16 points out, for urination, women but generally not men literally had to spend a penny.

  23. Well, it’s been a fine week, that’s for sure. Several days of top notch quality.

    I didn’t get the nina (I never do!). And I needed Andrew’s blog for the parsing of SUGAR DADDY & CREAM TEA (a write-in but couldn’t for the life of me work out the parsing). DIDDLE and TORRID were excellent I thought.

    Thanks N & A

  26. Mary Jane may be (chiefly American) slang for marijuana/hash, but in the Wharfedale area of Yorkshire Mary Jane is the name of a local beer – named in honour of the lady referred to in the song On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at.

    Thanks, Nutmeg and Andrew.

  27. Echoing what others have said, a fine puzzle. I didn’t know EXCLAVES, had forgotten URANIA, and needed help from Collins to get DIDDLE, but all fairly clued. My COD was TOODLE-OO for the cleverly disguised definition.

    Thanks to Nutmeg and Andrew.

  28. Even the unknown URANIA & EXCLAVES were gettable from wordplay. Thanks Nutmeg for quality crossie.

  29. EXCLAVES and RUBRICAL were new but not hard to get: SUGAR DADDY and CREAM TEA were easy to spot but far from easy to parse. Thanks to all those pointing out that spending a penny is necessary for women when it isn’t for men – and Nutmeg is a female setter.

  30. Too much going on to pick any one thing to comment about, so I will pick the NINA 🙂
    Why??? just because it is Thursday? Is Nutmeg a Thursday’s child? Is it her birthday? If so, happy birthday, Spice Lady!

    My dad was a Thursday’s child. He had been on business trips to far flung European countries in the 50s ans 60s, when it was fairly unusual. But the  evidence he always produced for the veracity of the saying was that he had been to Scunthorpe. ngaiolaurenson@13 may wish to note!

    Thanks Nutmeg, on form as usual, and Andrew ‘cos I needed a few things pointed out to me….

     

  31. … a town, Trismegistus, which, as someone here a while ago pointed out, you’d want to avoid if you were shy about Anglosaxon obscenities.

  32. Like muffin @1, I had SIDLES for 17a. The definition wants a noun, and in my experience SIDLE is only a verb, but some dictionaries do list it as a noun, so it works. I think I agree with muffin that SIDLES matches the definition better, but both are close enough, so I’d class it as an ambiguous clue. This doesn’t bother me — we do have crossers, after all — but I know some people prefer each clue to be unambiguous in isolation.

    Count me among those who completely missed the nina, and who didn’t know the code for Benin.

  34. Great puzzle, like many I missed DY as Dahomey = Benin. As often I bunged in a solution (ENCLAVES) without working the whole clue. I didn’t see the nina and think it is brilliant – it’s like an unexpected present to come here and find it.
    Thank you Nutmeg and Andrew.

  35. I bunged in ENCLAVES because it almost parsed. I’m ashamed to say that I’d forgotten EXCLAVES. HASH was LOI. I knew Mary Jane was slang but it’s surely almost archaic by now! I liked DIDDLE but how the non British contingent was supposed to get that I really don’t know.
    Yes,a nice puzzle but I thought it somewhat harder than some have said and,like Muffin, I would question UA rather than UAE for Emirates. NINA? Of course not!
    Thanks Nutmeg.

  36. Although I solved it without much trouble, IMO 11A really should have indicated that it was looking for an old/former/obsolete answer.

  39. jeceris@38: The nine muses of legend, who inspired various arts, were sisters, so Urania as one of the nine is an inspiring sister.

  40. The 9 Muses, who are all sisters, were each supposed to provide inspiration to practitioners of the appropriate Art or Science in Ancient Greece. So a historian might invoke Clio, a dancer Terpsichore, a star watcher or astrologer Urania, etc. Later poets, consciously aping their classical forebears, sometimes also appealed to a Muse when starting a lengthy work, and Milton plays on this by invoking a 10th “Heavenly” Muse at the start of Paradise Lost.

  42. Thanks for the responses, which somehow didn’t appear when I first looked, causing me to repeat the question.

  43. Harveyvan @37 But DY = Benin is not old, it is the international vehicle registration code for the country, derived from its former name, but still in use. So it’s no different than expecting us to write “E” for Spain or “CH” for Switzerland.

  44. Lovely puzzle Nutmeg! Even though managed to get two wrong as bunged ENCLAVES on grounds that clearly no such word EXCLAVES, must be a mistake, and also for some reason TOODLE-DO. Totally agree with Muffin about SIDLES, and I’m sure we’ve done the odd quick sidle (noun) in our past, usually into nearest bar…
    But such a relief after yesterday, when unlike others here I did (as in didn’t) LAST Thursday’s Paul, nooooo…. Many, many thanks Nutmeg and Andrew, lots more crosswords like this, please!

  45. [ If anyone’s still there, there is another fascinating (at least to me) example of EXCLAVES on the Belgian – German border. Under the Versailles Treaty, the Vennbahn railway was transferred to Belgium even though it ran through parts of what remained German territory, creating a series of odd little exclaves.
    The railway survived into the mid-2000s, by when it was used only by a few preserved steam trains. A splendid trip it was, across what passes for hill country in that part of the world. Alas, the railway has now been dismantled, though the trackbed remains Belgian territory.]

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