An enjoyable puzzle from Dalibor today, with a few ‘might-have-been-topical’ clues?…(if it hadn’t have been for those pesky Covids…)…and some suspicious looking ‘unches’ around the perimeter…
There seemed to be a higher-than-average number of real words – and a couple of phrases…plus a slightly naughty (in setting terms, not risqué) double-definition.
Some steady progress through the across clues saw a place name (MANITOBA), a (pirate?) river (AARE), a NOBEL PRIZE and a composer (LIGETI) – all in the top half!
There are two phrases in the bottom half – BE IN PAIN was a bit of a contrived phrase, but a nice hidden word/surface reading. It took me a while (and a bit of Go-ogling) to work out that the END OF AN ERA on 31-Jan this year was Brexit Day (there had been so many false starts and dashed hopes – on both sides! – that I think I had blanked it out of my mind…)
More places – IOANNINA, LUGANO, ANGERS, the TAJ MAHAL – and people – Dwight EISENHOWER, Gertrude JEKYLL (nicely homophonically paired with HIDE/HYDE) followed.
There were several tennis references – I presume because this weekend would have been the Wimbledon final (or middle weekend)? MONICKER Seles vs. Steffi Graf in the 1992 final; that famous Spanish player André AGAS-SI(!); and Ms. ANNA Kournikova helping make up IOANNINA. (Trigger alert, and apologies for political incorrectness, but in my younger days – and her pomp – she was referred to as Anna Phwoar-nikova (;+>))
And some lovely surface readings – the romantic TAJ MAHAL evoked by Juliet and her ‘prince’; the Graceland ALBUM with its Southern African link to Lesotho; the Russian novelist ‘accommodating’ an Irish dancer in GO-GO GIRL; the ‘annoying’ French city of ANGERS; and the MCL of ALARM CLOCK represented as a ‘pointless’ 11:50! Hard to pick a favourite out of those.
And all just a Q, a V and an X short of being a pangram…
As for those perimeter cells – I did wonder whether we might have a phrase or quotation, and I wasn’t disappointed, as some of my favourite words/colours came in to view – MERLOT, SHIRAZ and MALBEC! GRILLO was new to me, but I am willing to give it a go!
My only gripe was with the Spanish references at 6D – where both parts of the double definition were fairly obscure and unguessable(?) Spanish meanings. Having said that, it would have been a fiddly word to anagrammise or parse cryptically otherwise, but I had to resort to a pattern matcher to complete the grid there.
My thanks to Dalibor – if you are a tennis fan then my commiserations that you weren’t able to enjoy the usual rain interruptions and perennial early British departures this year…
Hope all is clear cut below:
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
|
| 7A | MANITOBA | Boatman adrift around island somewhere across the pond (8) | somewhere across the pond (in Canada!) / MAN_TOBA (anag, i.e. adrift, of BOATMAN) around I (island) |
|
| 9A | AGLEAM | Bright composer, finishing early, to return before noon (6) | bright / AGLE (ELGA( |
|
| 10A | AARE | Informed women to get out of that Swiss river (4) | Swiss river / A( |
|
| 11A | NOBEL PRIZE | No voting system in Caribbean country should get an award (5,5) | an award / NO + BEL_IZE (Caribbean country) around PR (proportional representation, voting system) |
|
| 12A | LIGETI | Composer, I understand, residing in Long Island (6) | composer (Gyorgy) / L_I (Long Island) around I + GET (understand) |
|
| 14A | MONICKER | Name the woman soundly beaten by Steffi at Wimbledon in 1992 (8) | (nick)name / homophone, i.e soundly – MONICKER (name) sounds like MONICA (Seles, who was beaten – soundly, 6-2, 6-1 – by Steffi Graf in the 1992 Wimbledon Final!) |
|
| 15A | GASBAG | One constantly talking German when appropriate (6) | one constantly talking / G (German) + AS (when) + BAG (appropriate, take) |
|
| 16A | STROMA | Traveller on street finds tissue (6) | tissue / ST (street) + ROMA (traveller, gypsy) |
|
| 19A | BE IN PAIN | A series of Holbein paintings makes one feel severely uncomfortable (2,2,4) | feel severely uncomfortable / hidden word in, i.e. a series of (letters) of, ‘holBEIN PAINtings’ |
|
| 21A | JEKYLL | English landscape gardener who often joins 2 in conversation (6) | English landscape gardener (Gertrude) / homophone, i.e. in conversation, 2D HIDE sounds like HYDE, the famous alter ego of Dr JEKYLL! |
|
| 23A | END OF AN ERA | Nothing to add now, perhaps ring back later – 31 January 2020, say? (3,2,2,3) | 31 January 2020, say (Brexit Day) / END OF (nothing to add!) + AN ERA (arena, or ring, back) |
|
| 24A | GO-GO | & 24D Russian novelist accommodates grand Irish dancer (2-2,4) | dancer / GO GO_L (Russian novelist, Nikolai) around (accommodating) G (grand) + IR (Irish) |
|
| 25A | CURERS | Pimps not supporting those who make things better (6) | those who make things better / ( |
|
| 26A | SEAFRONT | S? Part of Scarborough or Southport? (8) | Part of Scarborough or Southport?/ S is the first, or FRONT, letter of SEA. (And Scarborough and Southport both feature SEAFRONTS – as well as starting with the letter S!) |
|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
|
| 1D | SAFARI | Being part of choir a fascinating, uplifting, wild experience (6) | wild experience / reversed, hidden word, i.e. ‘part of’ and ‘uplifting’, in ‘choIR A FAScinating’ |
|
| 2D | HIDE | Obscure papers concealed by ambassador (4) | obscure / H_E (His – or Her – Excellency, ambassador) around (concealing) ID (papers) |
|
| 3D | IOANNINA | I love Ms Kournikova investing in Greek city (8) | Greek city / I + O (zero, love) + ANN_A (Anna Kournikova, former Russian tennis star) around (investing) IN |
|
| 4D | RAGLAN | Garment made of piece of cloth that’s mostly light (6) | garment made of piece of cloth / RAG (cloth) + LAN( |
|
| 5D | ALARM CLOCK | It’ll wake me up like loud music around 11:50, which is totally pointless (5,5) | it’ll wake me up / ALA (a la, like) + R_OCK (loud music) around MCL (1150 in Roman numerals, i.e. 11:50 without the punctuation!) |
|
| 6D | ZARZUELA | Spanish operetta can be one’s dish (8) | double defn. / very specialised knowledge needed for this double definiton – ZARZUELA being both a form of Spanish operetta, and a fish and shellfish stew, or dish! |
|
| 8D | ALBUMS | Maybe copies of Graceland are worthless in Lesotho (6) | maybe copies of (Paul Simon’s) ‘Graceland’ / A (are) + L_S (Lesotho) around BUM (worthless) |
|
| 13D | EISENHOWER | Where one is struggling to become president (10) | president (Dwight D) / anag, i.e. struggling, of WHEN ONE IS |
|
| 15D | GREENBUG | Little sucker’s obsession with the environment (8) | little sucker / GREEN (environmental) + BUG (obsession) |
|
| 17D | TAJ MAHAL | Juliet married a prince after retreating at a mausoleum (3,5) | mausoleum / TA (at, retreating) + J (Juliet, phonetic alphabet) + M (married) + A + HAL (Shakesperian prince) |
|
| 18D | ANGERS | French city is annoying (6) | double defn. / different pronunciation on the G, but ANGERS can be both a French city and ‘is annoying’ |
|
| 20D | AGASSI | Heroic tale about, yes, Spanish tennis player (6) | tennis player (Andre) / AGAS (saga, heroic tale, about) + SI (yes, in Spanish) |
|
| 22D | LUGANO | See about US lawyer leaving African country for Swiss town (6) | Swiss town / L_O (lo, see!) around UGAN( |
|
| 24D | GIRL | See 24 Across (6) | see 24A / see 24A |
|
Well done McRapper. I failed to see the nina and did not finish, missing 10A and 25A, which I just couldn’t see. It didn’t help that Greenbug doesn’t appear in any of my dictionaries or wordlists, so I put an unparsed Greenfly. I thought the clue for 5D Alarm Clock was excellent. but that for 8D Albums very weak. Thanks to setter and blogger.
Wasn’t familiar with the ‘Swiss river’, ‘Composer’, ‘Greek city’ or ‘Little sucker’ so thank goodness for spotting the Nina early, helped by knowing the ZARZUELA double def. GRILLO was also a new wine to me.
I liked the ‘Spanish tennis player’ and the idea of the ‘Russian novelist’ with the ‘grand Irish dancer’, but favourite was the top notch (and original) SEAFRONT.
Thanks to Dalibor and mc_rapper67
A few tricky bits but we got it all, helped by the nina (though we hadn’t heard of the white before and had to google to confirm its existence – it’s not in Chambers). One or two others we had to confirm in Chambers or, in the case of AARE, the index of an atlas. And we can smugly say that ZARZUELA was no problem as we knew both meanings. We could’t see the parsing of CURERS but we did remember in 8dn that A is the abbreviation for ‘are’, the unit of area, as in ‘hectare’.
Some great clues, such as for NOBEL PRIZE, ALARM CLOCK and TAJ MAHAL.
Thanks, Dalibor and mc_rapper67.
Really tough and I had to cheat a bit at the end.
I’ve been familiar with the music of Gyorgy Ligeti since seeing 2001, A Space Odyssey for the first time in 1969. Even read a biography of him (and met the author). His son Lukas Ligeti is also a composer.
I knew the operetta meaning of ZARZUELA but not the dish. I’m reminded of a post I read somewhere where someone was talking about football fans playing vuvuzelas in the street, only they got the wrong word and said they were playing zarzuelas in the street, an amusing image.
Another toughie, another test of my GK which came up very short again. Composers, authors, rivers, towns, cities operettas, landscape gardeners, Brexit dates, all new to me. Apart from Elgar, heard of him, but I’m not generally a match for inversion/truncation levels of trickery (yet!). And Belize is in Central America and not generally considered part of the Caribbean, but is close enough I suppose. I’m not sure about 26A – wheres the connection between S and SEA? It seems the only way to answer is to first guess SEAFRONT from other part of the clue, but then S is at the front of SEAFRONT, not SEA on it’s own. Would it not be better clued as “C. Part of Scarborough or Southport?” with allusion to C being the front of the clue? Just thinking out loud. Thanks Dalibor and mc_rapper67.
Thanks for the various comments and feedback…
Tatrasman at #1 – GREENBUG isn’t in my eChambers – my usual/main reference – but it is in my Collins Android app, which is a useful back-up.
El_Gwero at #5 – yes, I did raise an eyebrow at Belize being a Caribbean country, but forgot to mention it in the blog! The aforementioned Collins app describes it as ‘a state in Central America, on the Caribbean Sea’, but the main Wikipedia entry for Belize calls it ‘a Caribbean country located on the northeastern coast of Central America’. I’m surprised no Belizeans have been in to edit that!
As for SEAFRONT – seems to have been a bit marmite-y…WordPlodder thought it ‘original’ and ‘top notch’, El_Gwero thought it worth a quibble. I’m leaning more towards the WordPlodder view, but thank heavens for different points of view and places like this where they can be expounded!… NB. I realised I had left a bit out of my parsing for this clue – have updated that now.
got to this late, a lot of nice clues, I liked NOBEL PRIZE, GASBAG, ALARM CLOCK & EISENHOWER in particular.
I’m not a great fan of GK, but I know Dalibor likes to include some references to life beyond just a puzzle, though it’s difficult to know what is genuinely GK for one person and obscure for another. I’m least keen on instances when both wordplay and definition include some GK, having said that, I managed to navigate this puzzle fairly readily, so I am quite grateful that Dalibor has made me feel less ignorant than i could easily be made out to be. I thought the NINA was very nice (not sure i would have remembered the swiss river otherwise), and i’m impressed mc_rapper found another NINA
Many thanks to those who commented and to mc_rapper67 in particular for a spot-on blog.
Spot-on because the blog catches the spirit in which this crossword was written perfectly well.
I like to make references to music, sport and politics but usually more in the clue surfaces than in the grid entries.
Unfortunately, this crossword was rather GK heavy and I knew I would get some stick for 6dn – promise to behave myself next time.
At least, the nina (being there for no deeper reason) might have been helpful.
Dalibor at #8 – thanks for your kind words, and for the insights into the specifics of this puzzle and your general modus operandi…
Looking back through the comments, it seems I’m the only one who didn’t know what a ZARZUELA was…and I was very amused by Dormouse’s tale of them being mixed up with vuvuzelas!
i’m not sure what is says about me, but i knew the dish, not the operetta