Amazingly, this is our 500th blog on 225! It’s Dalibor today and we knew we were in for a bit of a challenge.
This was an enjoyable Saturday work-out, including some new words (for us), unusual definitions, crafty misdirections and several proper nouns – just what we expect from Dalibor!
We half-expect to find a theme in a Dalibor puzzle, but we can’t see anything significant here unless the Spanish Islands at 11ac and 28ac are part of something bigger? Coincidentally, we were supposed to be in the 11ac today, but had to cancel for medical reasons well in advance of the coronavirus scare. It now looks as though we’ll be at home for some considerable time – at least crosswords will continue as usual!
MAE (Mae West, actress) S (south) + nORTh without the first and last letters or ‘banks’, reversed or ‘after recession’
An anagram of GARETH MALONE – anagrind is ‘new’
D (departs) ANTE (before) with TUBE (train) reversed or ‘westbound’ inside
An anagram of SYRIAN SCANDAL – anagrind is ‘affected’
N (Newton) AT HANd (soon) without the ‘d’ (day)
STATIoN (Waterloo maybe) without ‘o’ (nothing) after A (absolute) + E (last letter or end of Bonaparte). At is the chemical symbol for Astatine
An anagram of SYSTem without the ‘e’ (European) and ‘m’ (money) – anagrind is ‘must be modified’ – after ANAL (obsessive)
BUS (coach) ON I (international) – we had never heard of this composer
If you take ‘a host’ away from ‘hIs taRTUFo’ you have an anagram of FRUIT – anagrind is COCKTAIL
UNIted (first half of Manchester side) V (against) + an anagram of REAL’S – anagrind is ‘awful’
I (logo for Apple IT products, as in i-pad etc) BIZ (business – enterprise) A (ace)
BOTH ERS (Queen Elizabeth I – ER I and Elizabeth II – ERII)
H (hospital) in pENzANCE (Cornish town) without ‘p’ (parking) and ‘z’ (zone)
MOAN (complain) round HIC (Latin for ‘this’)
sEXTINg (sending naughty messages) without the first and last letters or ‘endlessly’ + C (about) T (time)
R (runs) after TILE (hat) – we had to check this – a ’tiler’ is apparently a freemasons’ doorkeeper
I (first letter or ‘leader’ of Islamic) in jORDAN (Asian country) without the ‘j’ (Japan)
MOBILE (phone) round or ‘confiscating’ IS
NEHrU (old Indian statesman) without ‘r’ (right) round or ‘installing’ TANYA (woman) Thanks Benington.
GONGS (percussion instruments) HI (welcome) – a new word for us
Hidden or ‘blocked’ in afteR HEAthrow
A (one) N N (two names)
AS it WERE (so to speak) with ‘it’ replaced by YOU
Alternate letters (‘every now and then’) of iN rUiNs
STATISTicS (dealing with data) without or ‘sacking’ I C (first letters or ‘leads’ to ‘insight Cummings’)
A F (female) FLIC (French slang for a police officer) T (last letter or ‘close’ to ‘abhorrent’)
RAT (desert) I (island) with O O (discs) outside or ‘about’ + N (noon)
FAMILLE (French for ‘family’) with ‘ill’ (evil) moving to the front or ‘arising’ (in a down clue)
An anagram of pOLICE without the ‘p’ (positive) – anagrind is ‘about’ – round or ‘possessing’ L (large)
Hidden in (some) liKE IT Hot
NUMBer (piece of music) without or ‘rejecting’ ER (queen)
Thought the last Dalibor was one of the highlights of the year so was looking forward to this tussle. I wasn’t disappointed.
A few new terms for me. Didn’t know the “doorkeeper” meaning of “tiler”, the composer “Busoni” or the “Chinese rock” “gongshi” but solved them all from wordplay.
Unfortunately, I failed in the bottom left with both NUMB & BOTHERS. No excuse. Pleased to parse ORATION (lovely clue).
Great surfaces and some wonderful anagrams “Gareth Malone”, “Syrian scandal”. Superb stuff throughout.
Thanks to Dalibor and congrats to Bertandjoyce on their milestone.
Loved Gareth Malone (he and Paris Hilton would make a great couple) and Desert Island Discs. Pretty tricky towards the end, but all the GK was within my comfort zone, except that based on the slightly odd grid I suspect some sort of musical theme that is outside it.
thanks Dalibor, B&J
This was a real struggle, needed an extended breakfast to complete. Except that I didn’t, because I couldn’t see Bothers at all and put Betters, for no other (better?) reason than Bet can be short for Elizabeth. Slight quibble with Canary Islands, which is geologically part of the African (not European) tectonic plate – part of the EU maybe but not Europe. Much enjoyed anyway, so thanks Dalibor and B&J.
I really enjoyed this thanks to Dalibor and to B&J – congratulations on the milestone! The grid screams “hidden mischief” but I can’t spot it, although I did notice that the letter pairing “an” appears a lot. Or at least that’s how it seems. Greetings from a locked-down Black Forest city, nice weekend all
Challenging yet accessible (admittedly with one or two entered from wordplay) at the same time. I liked BOTH ERS and COLLIE. Good to see the elemental ‘At’ making another appearance as well.
Thanks, and congrats to B&J on your 500th, and to Dalibor
Thanks to Dalibor and B&J.
Woman in 6d should be TANYA?
New setter to me. Thanks to Dalibor for a truly outstanding puzzle! I failed on 26 and 29 in the lower left corner but both clues were excellent. I’m happy to have gotten that close to completion.
Lovely crossword if a bit challenging. 15ac was our favourite; we saw the ‘At’ and thought ‘Aha, could the answer be ASTATINE?’ So we pencilled it in and saw the parsing as we did so. Something similar happened with DEBUTANTE.
GONGSHI was new to us; we worked it out from the wordplay but couldn’t find it in Chambers so had to google for confirmation – and we had to refer to Chambers to confirm that meaning of TILER. But we did know BUSONI, although it took a while for the penny to drop.
We liked the ‘reverse engineering’ in the clue for 24ac.
Thanks, Dalibor and B&J
I fell in love with BUSONI’s piano concerto when I heard it on the radio when I was at university nearly fifty years ago, and it’s been a favourite ever since, so I was a bit annoyed as to how long it took me to get 20ac. (His opera Doktor Faust is rather good, too.)
I got stuck in the end on BOTHERS and NUMB and had to use the cheat button.
I’m glad I wasn’t the only one to fail on NUMB & BOTHERS. I felt on hindsight that I should have seen them but feel better about it now 🙂
Another fail here on NUMB and BOTHERS. Grr! – but at least I’m in good company. Otherwise a slow and satisfying solve for me, with a few unknowns going in from wordplay. Really enjoyed it.
Many thanks to Dalibor and B&J – 500 blogs is some milestone, well done!
Many thanks for all the kind words.
To clear things up, this is indeed an unusual grid. The reason is this: I wrote the bulk of this puzzle in 2013. It turned out to be that my original grid was full of double unches with at the same time entries that were less than 50% checked. I decided to partially change the grid myself in order to keep as many original clues as possible. In the end, I had to rewrite half of the puzzle which I started doing after a 5 year pause ….
Really good puzzle with inventive clueing and great surfaces. Particularly liked the two Elizabeths, Gareth Malone, the infamous French family and the thought of Dominic Cummings getting sacked.
Only just got around to this. Took me a while. I thought the hiddens at 8d and 25d were particularly nice. I also really liked gareth malone and the syrian scandal. At had me foxed way too long and the penny dropped with quite a clunk. I also spent ages wondering why texting was naughty.
many thanks, kept me busy while waiting for mother’s day dinner. Teenage son’s cooking, so it will be a bit late (~9:30) – bless him
I am in good company, Hovis and Kitty failing on numb and bothers. Hoped against hope there d be an obscure rag called bether so it could be Beth and ER. Both ERs is so clever as is the rest of the puzzle. Dalibor is right up there with the best of them now.