Bluebird sets the Saturday challenge this week
…and it was quite a challenge in places, with some ‘inventive’ definitions – eg 19ac, 27ac, 3d, 14d and 21d. That said, there are great surfaces throughout, and two NINAS – Simone in the top row and Bawden at the bottom.
Inclusion of the 60s supergroup in 2d brought back memories – we saw them live several times and got engaged after their farewell concert at the Albert Hall in November 1968.
D (day) I E (id est – ‘that is’)
GRILLE (grate) D (last letter or ‘piece’ of bread) after CHAR (tea) – we had to check this spelling as we would normally expect it to be CHA
DEfECTIVE (broken) with the ‘f’ (one end of foot) replaced by T (the other end of foot)
BACk missing the last letter or ‘no back’ + a reversal (‘back’) of NO
Hidden (‘from’) in greengrocerS WE’D Established
NUMBER (anaesthetist – one who numbs) + TO round or ‘injecting’ W (whiskey in the phonetic alphabet)
An anagram (‘barking’) of HABiTAT with the ‘i’ exchanged for M (money)
ICK (‘that’s horrible’) round or ‘admitting’ ERIN (girl)
M (1,000) in an anagram (‘drunk’) of BEERS I’VE
hAUNT (‘local’) missing the first letter or ‘taking top off’ + Y (first letter or ‘beginning’ to yodel)
DON (academic) following E and N (east and north – ‘points on the compass’)
HE (this man) IS (exists) in ATTIC (‘higher place’)
A clue-as-definition: R (right) in or ‘claimed by’ an anagram (‘errant’) of AGEING, S, I, O and E (first letters or “heads’ of state in old England)
Second letters of dOlph lUndgren’s sTrip-search
SEAT (bottom) BELT (smack)
ICE (murder) CREAM (rock group from the 60s)
An anagram (‘to play’) of TRIO MEANT and E (2nd, 3rd or 8th letter in Beethoven) – we’re not convinced that a marionette could be described as an ‘instrument’ – however Chambers Thesaurus gives ‘instrument’ as a ‘contraption’, ‘device’ or ‘mechanism’ which could just about include a puppet?
Hidden in (‘extract from’) OthellO GREen-eyed
NILE (‘flower’ – something that flows) round or ‘full of’ B B (bees)
L (50 in Roman numerals) ICI (‘here’ in French, as spoken by Vanessa Paradis) in or ‘clothed by’ ET (‘and’ in French)
DO (carry out) DO repeated + S (last letter or ‘termination’ of birds)
NO (number) CK (Calvin Klein – ‘label’) ‘attached’ to DUN (brown)
An anagram (‘liberal’) of AIMED + N (new) HEAD (leader) – Why choose ‘constituency’ as the definition for Maidenhead? Are we missing something?
BiKERS (motorcycle gang) with the ‘i’ (one) replaced or ‘knocked out’ by US (American)
EX (late) AM (morning) IN fEEt missing the first and last letters or ‘bare’
A clue-as-definition: G (key) ‘entering’ IN IT I (Bluebird – the setter) ON (working)
A reversal (‘picked up’) of BIRD (flyer) I’M (one’s)
NAN (grandma) in or ‘piercing’ BAA (bleat)
ACHT (German for ‘eight’ – crew in rowing) after or ‘supporting’ Y (last letter or ‘stern’ of ferry)
A VW (car) with O (nothing) inside
Thanks Bluebird and B&J!
Enjoyed the puzzle and the blog!
COTD: IGNITION
Other top faves: DETECTIVE, SEIGNIORAGE, ELICIT and SEMIBREVE.
Several great surfaces as well.
EXAMINEE
Should we read the ‘in the morning’ as AM (rather than the ‘morning’ alone)?
ICE CREAM
I think the def is ‘Rendition of Tutti Frutti?’ with ‘rendition’ in the sense of ‘interpretation’.
A mixed bag for me.
I couldn’t parse DUNNOCK. I was puzzled by MARIONETTE as ‘instrument’ and by the ‘giant’ gorilla. I missed the Nina, and am none the wiser now it has been pointed out.
On the other hand, I thought SEMIBREVE was absolutely brilliant.
Thanks to Bluebird and B&J.
DP@2 Nicely arranged by Bluebird, Nina is the Christian name of Simone ( singer ) and Bawden ( writer ).
Ah! Thanks for the illumination Flea. Nina Simone should have clued me in but don’t know the writer.
14d MAIDENHEAD was Theresa May’s constituency – now represented by Liberal Democrat Joshua Reynolds.
Took a while to twig that there were two Ninas, and not an Australian teacher of Japanese. 🙂
Thanks B & B&J
Although I finished it, there were too many answers that I didn’t quite understand, so didn’t really enjoy this one. I assume 21D is a reference to King Kong. Maidenhead was Theresa May’s constituency – does that help? Thanks Bluebird and B&J.
MARIONETTE was the only real eyebrow raiser in this nice puzzle from Bluebird. At a stretch, a puppet is certainly a description that might be used of a political leader who is under the control of another – a quisling – and, hence, an instrument. But it’s a bit cheeky to then apply that to the solution in question.
Everything else went in smoothly and I enjoyed the invention in BACON, the neat substitution in BATH MAT, the def for SEMIBREVE, the &lit SEIGNIORAGE, the use of the French indicators in ELICIT and the neatly assembled IGNITION. Not sure why ‘giant’ appears in BANANA.
Thanks Bluebird and B&J
Donkey (rather than King) Kong?
There was lots to like here, and faves were DETECTIVE, BACON, SEMIBREVE, SEIGNIORAGE, ELICIT, EXAMINEE and IGNITION.
I was held up for a while, thinking ELICIT was CLOSET meaning a place to keep clothes… but couldn’t make it work despite the ET at the end, yet struggled to dismiss the idea!
On the other hand, I had to cheat on marionette – for me the definition is a stretch – and I completely missed the wordplay for bath mat for some reason.
I too fail to see why the gorilla is giant, given the answer; indeed I had spent a moment trying to think of actresses with NAN in their names… alas no room then for Fay Wray.
Oh and Maidenhead went over my head, too, though I knew it rang a particular bell for some reason! Perhaps something like “Liberal aimed to join antepenultimate of outgoing leaders shortly in constituency” would be more pertinent 😉
Oh and Maidenhead went over my head, too, though I knew it rang a particular bell for some reason! Perhaps something like “Liberal aimed to join penultimate of outgoing leaders shortly in constituency” would have be more pertinent – prior to the election, at least 😉
Flea@3. Thanks for the elucidation. Bit of a facepalm moment here, as I did think of Nina Simone, but failed to make the connection………
I suppose Donald Campbell’s Bluebird car wouldn’t have needed an IGNITION key. Shame.
Thanks Bluebird and thanks B&J. Did you imagine in 1968 that one day you’d be explaining cryptic crosswords to the masses?
Thanks Bluebird for the very many excellent clues including SEMIBREVE, ATHEISTIC, NIBBLE, DODOS, BUSKERS, and BANANA. I enjoyed the creativity of the surfaces particularly. I revealed the NHO DUNNOCK and SEIGIORAGE; I guessed MAIDENHEAD but was unaware of the clue’s background and the NINA’s went over my head. Thanks B&J for the blog.
Pete HA3 – further to your comment about whether we ever imagined we’d be explaining cryptic crosswords to the masses. No we didn’t but we were students at the time and we often included parsings of Azed clues in our regular weekly letters to each other.
Bertandjoyce, what a lovely story. I remember writing letters, but crossword puzzles were way beyond me until decades later.
Was at the first set of that Cream concert up in the Gods – cheapest seats