I think this is my fourth Saturday Indy Dalibor blog, spread out over the past couple of years, and the previous three all had Ninas/themes, one of which I failed to spot! Will there be one here?…and if so, will I spot it?…
…to which the answer is either ‘no’, or ‘yes’ and ‘no’!
On one of those previous blogs, Dalibor commented that: ‘I like to make references to music, sport and politics, but usually more in the clue surfaces than in the grid entries.‘ and that is certainly the case here – plus a bit of geography.
There are a few real nouns/some general knowledge in the solutions – with WESSEX, EAST ANGLIA, the GIRONDE and SWEDEN on the geography front, and LUDVWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (great anagram!) and ENGELS on the historical person front – but none of these is particularly obscure, and they are all gettable from wordplay/crossers.
Apart from the appearance of Ronald T Dump (aren’t we all over him by now…wasn’t it just a bad dream?), I particularly enjoyed 14D ‘CAPITAL IS T’ – very clever – and the surface read and great anagram (did I mention that already) for LVB at 28A. 18D, with the ‘NAMELESS’ travelling ‘salesmen’ was short and sweet – brevity = beauty in this case.
Also noteworthy was the UK/Europe juxtaposition in 23A and 24A – with the clue for SWEDEN referencing Cornwall, whilst that for EAST ANGLIA mentioned Europe.
As an IT bod, I enjoyed the appearance of the <NULL> answer at 3D and the Windows 10/W_X of WESSEX! The surface read of 3D is also eerily prescient, given the current ding-dong of UK/EU travel corridors and tit-for-tat traffic-lighting…it currently looks like a summer holiday in Gibraltar or South Georgia, if you don’t want to quarantine on your return!
Back to the elephant in the room – apart from a few topical references to football, as a nod to EURO 2020/1 (?) – i.e. Arsenal/Emirates; Leicester supporters; the ‘scorer’ LVB at a sporting event’ – I can’t for the life of me see any Nina or theme…I’m sure I will be enlightened below if other solvers can discern one?…
Many thanks to Dalibor for a pleasant solve…I trust all is clear below.
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
|
| 1A | WELL NIGH | All but the two of us will reject hot drink (4-4) | all but / WELL (we’ll, the two of us will) + NIGH (H – hot – plus GIN – drink, all rejected) |
|
| 5A | CAMPUS | Where students will be affected: United States! (6) | where students will be / CAMP (affected) + US (United States) |
|
| 10A | SIMILARLY | Spain excluded from distribution of air miles, Libya likewise (9) | likewise / SIMILAR (anag, i.e. distribution, of AIR MIL( |
|
| 11A | LASER | Queen of Hollywood, one providing light entertainment? (5) | one providing light entertainment / the queen (ER) of Hollywood (LA’s) could be LA’S ER (!) |
|
| 12A | ERNE | Bird nesting in northern Europe (4) | bird / hidden word, i.e. nesting, in ‘northERN Europe’ |
|
| 13A | ON THE WAY UP | Climbing out of bed after hot cavorting with a new lady at last (2,3,3,2) | climbing / ON THE WAY (anag, i.e. cavorting, of HOT + A NEW + Y (ladY, at last)) + UP (out of bed) |
|
| 15A | AT EASE | Relaxed about extra secure borders (2,4) | relaxed / bordering letters of ‘AbouT ExtrA SecurE’ |
|
| 16A | ENNOBLE | Anne Boleyn’s deprived of any special honour (7) | honour / anag, i.e. special, of ( |
|
| 19A | AIRLINE | Arsenal’s no 1 policy: to keep current manager ultimately in Emirates? (7) | Emirates? (Example of an airline, and also Arsenal’s shirt and stadium sponsor) / A (Arsenal’s no. 1 letter) + LINE (policy), around (keeping) I (electric current) + R (ultimate letter of manageR) |
|
| 21A | SWEDEN | Cornwall’s paradise for the country (6) | (a) country / a paradise (EDEN) in Cornwall (the South West) could be a SW EDEN! |
|
| 23A | EAST ANGLIA | Endless confusion in European part of the world, here in the UK? (4,6) | (somewhere) here in the UK / E (European) + AS_IA (part of the world), around TANGL( |
|
| 25A | THAI | In communication, ‘secure language’ (4) | language / homophone, i.e. in communication – THAI (a language) can sound like TIE (secure) |
|
| 27A | EMOJI | Record company describes Simpson as an icon (5) | an icon / EM_I (record company) around (describing) OJ (OJ Simpson, disgraced American footballer) |
|
| 28A | LUDWIG VAN | & 17 Sporting event having would-be scorer? (6,3,9) | scorer! / anag, i.e. sporting, of EVENT HAVING WOULD-BE |
|
| 29A | SLEUTH | He investigates lush type, heartless criminal (6) | he investigates / anag, i.e. criminal, of LUSH + TE (TypE, heartless) |
|
| 30A | EGOMANIA | Obsessive behaviour, say, to replace leader of country (8) | obsessive behaviour / ( |
|
| Down | ||||
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
|
| 1D | WESSEX | Old part of England being captivated by introduction of Windows 10 (6) | old part of England / W_X (W – introduction of Windows, X – ten, Roman numeral) around (captivating) ESSE (being) |
|
| 2D | LAMINATOR | Al Martino composed something for The Office (9) | something for the office / anag, i.e. composed, of AL MARTINO |
|
| 3D | NULL | Ban EU travel until, finally, non-existent (4) | non-existent / final letters of ‘baN eU traveL untiL’ |
|
| 4D | GIRONDE | Good press extremely desirable for wine department (7) | (French) wine department / G (good) + IRON (press) + DE (extreme letters of DesirablE) |
|
| 6D | ALLOWANCES | One not into unions receiving zero work benefits (10) | benefits / ALL( |
|
| 7D | PASTY | Unhealthy-looking food item (5) | double defn. / a PASTY can be a food item; and if someone looks a bit PASTY they might look unhealthy |
|
| 8D | STRIPPED | Top of Sca Fell is bare (8) | bare / S (top letter of Sca) + TRIPPED (fell) |
|
| 9D | LYCHEE | Washing liquid containing red fruit (6) | fruit / LY_E (washing liquid) around (containing) CHE (Che Guevara, Marxist revolutionary, or ‘red’) |
|
| 14D | CAPITALIST | What can be said of Trump or one like Trump? (10) | one like Trump? / one could say of the word ‘Trump’ that the CAPITAL (letter) IS T! |
|
| 17D | BEETHOVEN | See 28 Across (10) | see 28A / see 28A |
|
| 18D | NAMELESS | Unidentified travelling salesmen (8) | unidentified / anag, i.e. travelling, of SALESMEN |
|
| 20D | ENGELS | Essentially, Leicester supporters wanting a German left-winger (6) | German left-winger (politically!) / E (middle letter, or essence, of ‘leicEster’) + ( |
|
| 21D | SHINDIG | Second language German? That will cause a row (7) | a row / S (second) + HINDI (language) + G (German) |
|
| 22D | SIENNA | One called Frank is 13 and reddish-brown (6) | reddish-brown / ANNE (Anne Frank, example of someone called Frank!) + IS, reversed, or ‘on the way up’ (13A) = SIENNA |
|
| 24D | SCORE | Make scratches in roof of shopping centre (5) | make scratches in / S (first letter, or roof – in a Down clue! – of Shopping) + CORE (centre) |
|
| 26D | FIRM | Say yes to a female ditched in partnership (4) | partnership / ( |
|
Marvellous! Probably my fastest ever Dalibor solve.
For those who solve crosswords without taking much note of surface constructions, I recommend reading these clues again. Lots and lots of gems. The anagram for Ludwig Van Beethoven was superb and loved CAPITALIST once I parsed it, my loi.
I too loved the anagram at 28/17. I needed some outside help and failed to parse 13A and 14D. Much enjoyed anyway, so thanks Dalibor and McRapper.
Got 21D at the second attempt, having got S-Latin_G originally
With stevo67@3… but there were others.. like misreading 17/28 as the other way round.. that wreaked havoc… seemed to be blind to everything in the top R… amazed I finished tbh… liked 1ac when penny finally dropped n WESSEX, SWEDEN n GIRONDE… never heard of Angels as backers but had heard of Friedrich… so that ended up OK..
Thanks Dalibor n mc_rapper67
I liked this one lots: Sca Fell, the travelling salesmen (the sort of clue that had I written it would make me anxious about it appearing elsewhere before publication), LASER & SIMILARLY, particularly.
I didn’t like in communication for hom indicator, not specific enough.
I’m always on the lookout for a point of grammar in Dalibor puzzles, and today, hooray, I think I have spotted one. What about the ‘s in 16a? Adjectival indicator following ‘X is Y’ phrase must apply to the whole phrase. 😉
Thanks, Dalibor, mc_rapper67
Not much to add to what’s already been said, but to join in the praise for Ludwig Van Beethoven, one of the best of the month.
Agreed, the Beethoven clue was tremendous, and many other excellent constructions. I wish we could say that Mr. T was firmly in the past, though.
Agreed that the Beethoven clue was superb. We also liked EAST ANGLIA and ALLOWANCES. But we failed on 14dn; don’t know how ‘capitalist’ never occured to us – all we could think of was ‘maximalist’ with a maxim being ‘what can be said’ although (naturally) we couldn’t parse the rest of it.
Thanks, Dalibor and mc_rapper67.
Well, I could only get 14dn with a word search, and even with a search, couldn’t see the answer to 19ac – and when I saw the answer here it took me to work out what the definition was.
Agree with all of the above – STRIPPED my favourite for simplicity also EMOJI
Also enjoyed a composer Id heard of, and actually for once got it from scorer – however pleased with my smartness I convinced myself that the ‘unions’ in 6D was something to do with marriage so ran aground there!
DNF as ever but lots of fun along the way thankyou Dalibor and thanks mc_rapper67 especially for explaining CAPITALIST
Many thanks to everyone who took the time to comment.
Especially, to mc_rapper67, much appreciated.
Indeed, no theme or any other gimmick this time.
James @5: eimi asked me to delete the ‘s in 16ac, for exactly the reason you mention, which I did.
Yet, apparently, it slipped through the editor’s net in the final version ….
Alliacoll (and others), I promise I will not use Trump anymore in future puzzles but I needed someone with a T today.
Excellent puzzle with fresh and inventive clues. Can only echo the praise for LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN.
Wot Jim said.
Just to add for 21a that the Eden Project is indeed in Cornwall.
Thanks Dalibor and mcrapper67
Thanks for all the comments/feedback – especially Dalibor for popping in.
Dormouse at #9 – as a football-literate person (although not an Arsenal fan) I blithely assumed that everyone would recognise the link between the Emirates airline and Arsenal at 19A. Have updated the parsing to reflect this.