We have a puzzle from Nimrod today making one of his few forays into the world of Independent crosswords. He is, of course, a prolific setter in other publications under a variety of Elgar-themed pseudonyms and he is the editor of the Inquisitor series of barred crosswords.
I think this is a puzzle that will give commenters plenty of scope, as I struggled a bit with identifying the exact definitions in some clues, as well as puzzling over some of the wordplay. In the end, I think I have got most of it sussed, but not all.
Tuesday is theme day in the Independent and today we have many variants of the five letters ENOST, although that combination isn’t one of them. In rows 2 and 14 we have four real word anagrams of the letters – ONSET, STONE, TONES and STENO. In the unchecked letters in rows 1 and 15 we have OSNET and OTNES.
I think there are three other real words and phrases we could have had – ETONS, NOTES and SET ON. I am guessing that TOO and ETC, the three letter entries in rows 2 and 14, were put in the grid to cover the extra possibilities. I say TOO, for row 2, but I did look at TWO for a while, thinking it might have followed the letters ONE in ONSET but I couldn’t make it work. On the other hand I can’t see the wordplay for TOO either. I suppose THO is another possibility.
I’m a bit of a literary philistine, so I had to do a bit of research to fully understand the clues for ICHABOD and TOMB, which I explain in the detailed table below.
CLAYMORE was obviously the entry at 13 across, but it took longer than it should to realise that the Spoonerism was MAKE LAW.
NIELLOED is a word I have come across in Inquisitor puzzles, so I was reasonably comfortable with that clue. The M8 is a road I have driven quite often so EMANATE was almost a write-in.
The parsing of STIR-FRIED took me a while to identify in full.
For me. this puzzle was difficult, but I expect others found it less so.
| No | Detail |
| Across | |
| 6 | Start working with film crew, maybe … (5)
ONSET (beginning; start) ON SET (working with the crew ON a film SET) double definition ONSET |
| 8 | … unnecessarily, as Countdown is finally going (3)
TOO (to a greater extent than is required, desirable or suitable; unnecessarily) I can’t see the wordplay here. I think it might relate to the entry, ONSET, at 6 across, but if we take out the letters N and S (last letters of [finally] AS or IS and COUNTDOWN) we are left with OET, which I can’t link to TOO see comments 1 and 2 for the correct way to parse this |
| 9 | Could this be Jade Jagger? (5)
STONE (Jade is a hard ornamental STONE) STONE (Mick Jagger [born 1943] is a Rolling STONE [rock band]) double definition STONE |
| 11 | Potato cakes a local one scoffs (7)
TAUNTER (one who jibes, jeers or scoffs) TATER (informal word for potato) containing (cakes) UN (a dialect [local] term for ‘one’) TA (UN) TER |
| 12 | Horse I see, and a nearly dead man astride it? (7)
ICHABOD (archaic term meaning ‘ the glory has departed’, but I think the clue is a reference to the horse that is ridden by ICHABOD Crane [he is astride the horse] in the novel Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving [1783 – 1859]. In the book, Crane is put into a sate of stasis [nearly dead]) ([I + C {see is the pronunciation for the letter C}] + [A + BODY {corpse; dead man} excluding the final letter [nearly] Y) containing (astride it) H (heroin; horse) I C (H) A BOD |
| 13 | Spooner’s legitimate highland blade (8)
CLAYMORE (large sword formerly used by the Scottish Highlanders; highland blade) CLAYMORE (Reverend Spooner might pronounce this as MAKE LAW (make lawful; legitimate) CLAYMORE |
| 14 | Caught warning signal: good for driver if it’s adverse ahead (6)
CAMBER (an adverse CAMBER is a road design feature that involves the road surface sloping away from the inside of a bend, being higher on the inside of the bend than on the outside. Adverse CAMBER is the opposite to what a road user would expect) C (caught) + AMBER (colour of a warning signal, which will be useful to make a driver realise that there is a hazard such as an adverse CAMBER ahead) C AMBER |
| 17 | Sad Menuhin resigns after prelude to botched tune (5,2,8)
BRING ME SUNSHINE (name of a song written in 1966 and often sung by the comedy duo Morecambe and Wise) B (first letter of [prelude to] BOTCHED) + an anagram of (sad) MENUHIN RESIGNS B RING ME SUNSHINE* |
| 19 | It’s imported by "doppelganger" in German (6)
RINGER (reference ‘dead RINGER‘ [a person or thing almost identical to some other person or thing; the German word for such a person would be doppelganger) RINGER (hidden word in [it’s imported by] DOPPELGANGER IN GERMAN) RINGER |
| 20 | Behold engraver’s primary filling so intricately lined? (8)
NIELLOED (descriptive of metal ornamented by engraving, and filling up the lines with a black compound; lined) (LO [behold] + E [first letter of {primary} ENGRAVER]) contained in (filling) an anagram of (intricately) LINED NIEL (LO E) D* |
| 24 | Ham slices with dips in a source of magic for kids (1,1,5)
C S LEWIS (C S LEWIS [1898 – 1963] is the author of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, a book that is ‘a source of magic’ for many children) W (with) contained in (dips in) an anagram of (ham; clumsy actor) SLICES C S LE (W) IS* |
| 26 | Articulated parts of Glasgow-Edinburgh link give out (7)
EMANATE (emit; give out) EMANATE (sounds like [articulated] the constituent parts of M8 [EM {M} AN {and} ATE {eight}], the motorway from Edinburgh to Glasgow) EM AN ATE |
| 27 | Hats off to our new editor scrutinising styles (5)
TONES (styles) TONES (first letters of [hats] taken from [off] each of TO, OUR, NEW, EDITOR and SCRUTINISING) TONES |
| 28 | More of which you can guess we tick at prime locations (3)
ETC (something in addition you can guess because we are not telling you; more of) ETC (letters 2, 3 and 5 [the first three prime numbers] of WE TICK) ETC |
| 29 | Tips on shorthand typing I’ll return? (5)
STENO (stenographer; shorthand typist who can presumably give you tips about the subject) ST (first letters of [tips of] each of SHORTHAND and TYPING) + ONE (I) reversed (return) ST ENO< |
| Down | |
| 1 | It’s uncool when rowdy steals a kiss (10)
OSCULATION (kiss) Anagram of (when rowdy) IT’S UNCOOL containing (stealing) A OSCUL (A) TION* |
| 2 | Like fast food? Perhaps given porridge to eat at first riles one (4-5)
STIR-FRIED (descriptive of some fast food dishes) (STIR [prison – porridge is a slang term for serving a prison sentence] + FED [given something to eat] – so STIR FED can be defined as ‘given porridge’) containing (to eat) (R [initial letter of {at first} RILES] + I [Roman numeral for one]) STIR F (R I) ED |
| 3 | Fly out of bounds, doomed (2-3)
NO-WIN (descriptive of a situation in which one is bound to lose or fail whatever one does; a doomed situation) KNOWING (cunning; fly) excluding the outer letters [out of bounds] K and G) NO-WIN |
| 4 | Bolt, not wanting to do qualifiers, forfeits (8)
ESCHEATS (property that falls to the feudal lord or to the state for lack of an heir or by forfeiture; forfeits) ESCAPE (run away; bolt) excluding (not wanting) APE (mimic; do [an impression of]) + HEATS (qualifying rounds that Usain Bolt often had to undertake to reach a sprint final) ESC HEATS |
| 5 | Target of Harry F remains here (4)
TOMB (location of a corpse [human remains]) TOM B (Reference the bully Harry Flashman and his persecution of TOM Brown in the semi-autobiographical novel TOM Brown’s Schooldays by Thomas Hughes [1822 – 1896]) TOM B |
| 6 | Out of it you may get short of light (5)
OPTIC (an eye; without one you may be short of light) OPTIC (descriptive of light) double definition OPTIC see comment 3 for the correct way to parse this |
| 7 | Assembled a collection of old books about cult object (5)
TOTEM (an object, species of animal or plant, or natural phenomenon symbolizing a clan, family, etc, often having ritual associations; cult object) (MET [assembled, at a meeting] + OT [Old Testament; collection of old books]) all reversed (about) (TO TEM)< |
| 10 | Last at ‘Aydock OK? (7)
ENDORSE (validate; give an OK to) END (finish; last) + ‘ORSE (pronunciation of HORSE by someone who says Haydock Park racecourse as ‘Aydock) END ORSE |
| 15 | Rivers’ "Spanners" with abstracted depth for pop art (10)
BRICOLAGES ([works of] art) BRIDGES (‘spanners’ of rivers for instance) with the D [depth] removed [abstracted] and replaced by [for] COLA [fizzy drink; pop] to form BRICOLAGES BRI (COLA) GES |
| 16 | Inside of freshwater fish eggs glow (9)
LUMINESCE (glow) MINES (eggs can be defined as bombs or MINES) contained in (inside of) LUCE (freshwater fish) LU (MINES) CE |
| 17 | Soup initiatives for starving children put around pound bags (7)
BORSCHT (Russian and Polish beetroot soup) THROB (beat; pound) reversed (put around) and containing (bags) SC (first letters of [initiatives for] each of STARVING and CHILDREN) BOR (SC) HT< |
| 18 | Batting gets worse, and run out is a disaster (4,4)
GOES WEST (is destroyed; is a disaster) Anagram of (batting) GETS WORSE excluding (out) R GOES WEST* |
| 21 | Dictated northern city guides (5)
LEADS (guides) LEADS (sounds like [dictated] LEEDS [northern English city] – as a Southampton fan, having lived there for over 20 years, I was very happy with the result against LEEDS on Sunday) LEADS |
| 22 | One part of me subconsciously turns on another man (5)
DIEGO (man’s name) ID (one of the three parts of the [subconscious] personality) reversed (turns) + EGO (the I or self, that which is conscious and thinks) DI< EGO |
| 23 | Suggesting a chicken pasty (5)
ASHEN (pasty) AS (like; suggesting) + HEN (adult chicken) AS HEN |
| 25 |
Basic covering zips up (4) LINO (floor [base, basic] covering) (O [character representing zero; zip] + NIL [another representation of zero or zip], together giving zips) all reversed (up; down entry) (LIN O)< |
(
8a … “to zero” is as a countdown is finally going?
TOO
Countdown goes finally TO 0!
For 6d, I had a DD. Optic is “out of it you may get short (as in a drink)” etc. Thanks for filling in my many gaps Duncan.
Ditto
cranberryfez @ 1
KVa @ 2
Hovis @ 3
Thank you all for your parsings which make a lot of sense. TO zero, I should have seen. I had forgotten about an optic being used to deliver spirits out of a larger bottle in a bar.
Strewth! Way beyond this solver’s limited abilities. Half a dozen unknown solutions, some synonyms/instructions I was nowhere near interpreting and some fiendish constructions. I am not remotely surprised to see the two solvers who have already commented and suspect they did not find it as difficult as our blogger or as impossible as me. It will be interesting to see where other commenters come on the scale.
Thanks (I think) Nimrod and duncan
A nice surprise for a Tuesday morning, not least because we haven’t had a Nimrod for a very long time
Spotting the ONSET variations early on did help a lot, my main problems coming from the nielloed bricolages. I agree with Hovis about the parsing of 6d
Many thanks to Nimrod and Duncan
I am happy to call out when I think puzzles are a bit too easy – so I feel able to say this was a bit too hard. Used up all my crossword time (guardian untouched and nearly time for work) and a good handful plonked in unparsed. Will go through Duncan’s blog and sort out my guesses.
Thanks Nimrod and Duncan
Thanks for dropping by Nimrod and thanks Duncan for a superb blog. I’m in the same category as PM@6 in relation to my ability to solve the puzzle without difficulty but that doesn’t dull my appreciation of it, especially after Duncan’s helpful elucidation. After it has been explained I think TOO is a favourite and I like the one about the ‘orse’s aris. Come again Nimrod.
PostMark@6
I am not remotely surprised to see the two solvers who have already commented and suspect they did not find it as difficult as our blogger or as impossible as me.
I am not one of those two solvers for sure. Had to google quite a bit.
NIELLOED
Was it intended as an &lit clue? With the ‘behold’ in place, it reads more like an extended def than &lit.
The def is more than the underlined ‘lined’, I think.
RINGER
This seems like an &lit clue.
If we take ‘imported’ to mean ‘meant/conveyed’, the whole clue works as the def.
And the wordplay as explained in the blog involves the whole clue as well.
ICHABOD
Agree with the blog.
ETC
Def: More of which you can guess?
I really enjoyed this puzzle. Not seen a Nimrod for ages and wasn’t disappointed by it. I loved being in the shade, the french collage but especially the also ran at Aydock and the Spanish Señor. I also saw the ONSET anagrams but only when I had finished. So the brain must still be working at my advanced years. Thank you.
This was way beyond me , the toughest crossword I have encountered in years , my solve score was a pathetic 76%
You lot must be very clever , alternatively I may be a bit thick.
I think you’re being too hard on yourself, Liverpool Chris. Several posters have admitted not being able to finish. Personally, I missed NIELLOED, BRICOLAGES, TOO & NO WIN. Also had to check ESCHEATS was a word.
Good to see Nimrod back in the Indy. Definitely a tough puzzle, but easier if you spotted that ERIC MORECAMBE and ERNIE WISE are hidden in the grid in the across rows above and below BRING ME SUNSHINE, which the duo famously sang (as the blog points out). M&W also had a sketch in which Morecambe tells Andre Previn he’s been playing “all the right NOTES but not necessarily in the right order”, so that explains the anagrammed entries. Thanks for clearing up a couple of parsings for me, Duncan. Hope to see Nimrod back again soon.
Thanks Nimrod and DS
An extra twist to 9A is that Mick Jagger has a daughter named Jade.
(Apologies if anyone has already mentioned this, I’m on an ipad in bright sunshine and the screen is very reflective, so quite hard to read.)
For 12a, I think it is the ‘I’ that must be underlined. The headless horseman (nearly dead man) is astride the horse, Ichabod is the person who sees him.
Charlie @14 – Ernie was actually ERNIE WISEMAN as shown in the grid
James@16
ICHABOD
Sounds better.
With the ‘I’ as the def and the whole clue as the extended def, maybe.
Aargh! So annoyed that I didn’t spot the hidden ERIC MORECAMBE & ERNIE WISE(MAN). Doubt it would have helped me get the unknown NIELLOED though. Thanks Charlie.
This was very, very tough, but ultimately very rewarding.
There is a another STONE anagram in the middle vertical, which I only spotted when piecing together NIELLOED (I took ‘so’ to be the def).
I didn’t at all see Eric and Ernie, however – brilliant.
Thanks both.
This is a puzzle that just keeps on giving.
Thanks for all the comments about additional features in the grid. I have updated the graphic to show ERIC MORECAMBE, ERNIE WISEMAN and the anagram down the middle vertical. I haven’t tried to mix colours where cells contribute to two different features; I think it’s clear enough.
Eric Morecambe’s birth surname was Bartholomew, but I think getting that into the grid would be a step too far even for Nimrod, but I have looked at all the cells with a B to see if anything is radiating out from there.
Great tribute to Eric and Ernie and the Andre Previn sketch. Thanks to Nimrod and DS
This was a puzzle I could never have done on paper but working online with ‘help’ does extend the entertainment to those of us who struggle. ‘Inclusivity’ they call it.
Thanks to bloggers also.
… and today is 40th anniversary of Eric Morecambe’s death.
Firstly, many thanks to Duncan for standing in for us while we are in the Outer Hebrides.
The weather today was wet and windy so we decided to delay the last leg of our walk until tomorrow. This meant that we had time to sit and have a pint in Lochmaddy whilst struggling with Nimrod’s puzzle.
We noticed the anagrams which helped with our LOI but we needed a considerable amount of guessing, checking and searching on our Chamber’s app. We still couldn’t parse several so came straight here for enlightenment.
We completely missed ERIC and ERNIE, the central NINA and hence the significance of the NOTES. We thought that with Nimrod setting, there should be more to find – we should have looked longer before coming here.
Many, many thanks to Duncan and a round of applause to Nimrod.
Thanks duncanshiell and Nimrod.
Brilliant stuff!
Got the different NOTES but I didn’t spot ERIC MORECAMBE & ERNIE WISE(MAN).
9a is a ‘lift and separate’ of Mick’s daughter Jade Jagger (as Simon S@15 has said) to get two kinds of STONE.
17a – The premise of the M&W sketch was that Menuhin would play, conducted by Andrew Preview. Eric had to fill in, when Yehudi cancelled.
Had to search “Harry F*” on OneLook.com to interpret 5d TOM B. D’oh!
Knew 15d BRICOLAGES from French DIY shops (almost the same in Spanish: BRICOLAJE), but not as a term in Art. (a TILT – row 7)
Used Ham as a verb for 24a. Had 26a as EMANATE = M ‘n’ 8 (like Rock ‘n’ Roll)
Loi 3d: Knowing KNO-WING had to start with an ‘N’ helped, when I’d finally noticed all the NOTES, “not necessarily in the right order”,
but completely missed the the hidden ERIC MORECAMBE & ERNIE WISEMAN. Duh! – Nice One, Charlie@14! 😉
Loved the puzzle – Thanks N&ds
I found this very difficult indeed and (rarely for me) gave up a bit after halfway. I came to this site for enlightenment (thank you Duncanshiel) when there were only eight comments and refrained from adding another along the the lines of the puzzle being far too hard for the outcome. Now I see the M&W references (which in the light of 17A I looked for but missed…..) I’m glad I was circumspect.
What a brilliant piece of setting! (Thank you and Bravo, Nimrod!)
Still too hard though……
Thanks both. Noting the number of comments here, I suspect this is a level of challenge some solvers crave. For me, it created far more frustration and anger than enjoyment, and even seeing the full explanations here, I did not regard it as an even contest. I would tackle a Nimrod again, but with no great expectations. At least the comedy duo were welcome – as Eric might ask me ‘What do you think of it so far?”
Probably one of the toughest grids I’ve seen for a long time (possibly ever). Admitted defeat after over an hour having solved eight clues.
Thanks Duncan. I take my hat off to you
A bit of a slog but we got there with quite a bit of help from the internet. LOI 20A.
Spotted the NOTES variations, which helped, but didn’t realise the significance until we came here.
Typical Nimrod!
But clearly lovingly crafted and brought back some fine memories.
Thanks to setter and blogger.
Very clever but no fun for us. Just too many unknown words and obscure parsings (ham in the clue for CS Lewis seems extremely odd). Hats off to those who could solve this but I’ll be giving this setter a miss in future.
Count me as someone who was defeated by this. Got about nine or ten answers after an hour. Not to my liking.
Someone was commenting a few days back that the Independent blog doesn’t get enough comments – well, we now know the solution; a blisteringly tough crossword with a Nina, theme, , sub-theme, repeated 5 letters in multiple answer, and all as a tribute to a much loved entertainer whose anniversary it is!
Nimrod – you’ve cracked it; 33 comments! Thanks and congratulations on possibly the most complex and many-layered puzzle I have ever come across.
Way above my pay grade… altho pleasantly surprised at what I did get unaided, surprisingly longer than those I didn’t have any clue about whatsoever.. for me Ichabod was a step too far as was Nielloed, and there was a lot of wordsearching going on, for quite a few others… but the elegance of DIEGO was impressive and I had to laugh at M and 8..
I did the 17ac tune fairly smartly n thought “here we go” but no hint of Eric or Ernie emerged.. if Duncan hadn’t highlighted them I’d still be looking.. and I still fail to see how one could spot the variations on STONE except retrospectively.. ah well there is always tomorrow
Thanks Nimrod n duncansheill (for a really clear blog, bravo)
Well beyond my abilities but I really enjoyed the bits I could do. Super blog, and the thematic entries are very clever, I must say.
Coming to this late. I found the puzzle extremely difficult, with a combination of opaque clues, obscure vocab and convoluted parsing all contributing to that. But the fill is brilliant, a thing of beauty. It reminds me of Kite’s chess-themed Prize puzzle in the Guardian a few months ago, which was similarly difficult and high concept.
I couldn’t stand puzzles like this on any sort of regular basis. I’ll file it under “Memorable” and leave it at that.