S&B 2024 – Dalibor

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Dalibor, aka Sil van den Hoek, a doyen of this site, has sent a puzzle for the delectation and delight of the S&B 2024 crowd, even though he won’t be able to join the festivities…much missed… (For anyone who wasn’t there but would like to try the puzzle before reading the blog, it should be at this link here)

(I have to admit that I have blogged four Dalibor puzzles in the past (2019 – 2021), when I was on the Indy Saturday puzzle roster, without knowing at the time that Dalibor <-> Sil, but my ignorance is my loss…and I have been on the end of many a Sil-van-ian comment on my other blogs!)

This one doesn’t disappoint – no obvious Nina or theme, but many interesting clues, including a ‘double wordplay’ from the off, at 7A/28A SUNSET. The surface read of 27A IRAQI is almost Cyclops-ean, the one at 5D is wonderfully optimistic, and the ‘something missing in the garden’ for 8D NOSHED/NO SHED raised an eyebrow and twinged a smile-ette…

20A/1A was a tough parse, and a gentle reminder that ‘Saint Theresa’, as she seems to have become recently, was once one of the hardest-nosed ‘nasty-party’ Conservative Home Secretaries that there have been – maybe she has stayed still, whilst the rest of the party has Boris/Liz/Suella/Kemi/Jenreich-swerved to the right around her.

I think my favourite clue is a toss-up between the exotic ‘small monkey’ on the ‘border of Colombia’ for Lake TITICACA at 16D and the succinctness of 22D HEIGHT / Henry VIII.

 

 

Anyway, enough waffling – my thanks to Dalibor/Sil for another chance to cross-words,, and I hope all is clear below…

(The last entry 25D ADIEU is rather poignant – let’s hope this is just ‘au revoir’…)

 

Across
Clue No Solution Clue (definition underlined)

Logic/parsing
1A ENVIRONMENT See 20 (11)

see 20A
7A SUN(SET) & 28 To an extent news on TV is sometimes unsettling but at the end of the day it can be worth watching (6)

double wordplay – SUN (to some extent a newspaper!) + SET (TV); hidden word, i.e. to an extent, in ‘sometimeS UNSETtling’
9A COLIC One who believes losing at home is a painful thing (5)

C(ATH)OLIC – one who believes, losing AT and H (home)
10A MEGALITHS Unusually, this game involves large stones (9)

MEGA_ITHS (anag, i.e. unusually, of THIS GAME) around (involving) L (large)

[‘large’ could be doing double duty here, as megaliths are large stones!]
11A SATURABLE Planet’s interior, covered in black, capable of fully absorbing water (9)

S_ABLE (black, heraldry) around (S)ATUR(N) (the interior letters of Saturn)
12A TRADE Rejected job in applied arts (5)

reversed hidden word, i.e. rejected and in, in appliED ARTs’
13A MALARIA Recalled hit song “Fever“? (7)

MAL (lam, hit, recalled) + ARIA (song)
15A LULU Opera singer from Scotland (4)

double defn. – LULU is an opera, by Alban Berg; and LULU (born ‘Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie’) is a singer from Scotland
18A SWAP 12 feet to the left (4)

PAWS, or feet, to the left, or reversed, = SWAP (trade, 12 A)
20A HOSTILE (ENVIRONMENT) & 1 Policy of Home Office taking steps against tough guys breaking e-books (7,11)

HO (Home Office) + STILE (steps) + EN_T (E, electronic, NT, New Testament, or some books!) around (broken into by) V (versus, against) + IRON (tough) + MEN (guys)…Phew!

[”Home Office’ doing double duty, as the ‘hostile environment policy’ was pursued by them under Theresa May]
23A AZERI In language, almost nothing’s limited by controversial technology (5)

A_I (controversial technology) around (limiting) ZER(O) (almost zero, or nothing)
24A TOSCANINI Old maestro gets penny off Italian sandwich after cost reviewed (9)

TOSC (anag, i.e. reviewed, of COST) + (P)ANINI (Italian sandwich, with P – penny – off!)
26A NIGHTLIFE Spooner’s take on late entertainment: brilliant Bowie perhaps (9)

the Rev. Spooner might mangle NIGHTLIFE (late entertainment) as LIGHT (brilliant) + KNIFE (Bowie, example of a knife)
27A IRAQI I will repeatedly protect naked drag queen from Basra? (5)

I_I (I, repeatedly) around (protecting) (D)RA(G) (drag, naked, with outer letters removed) + Q (queen)
28A SET See 7 (3)

see 7A
29A NOT A SAUSAGE Baroque sonata requiring practice to produce zip (3,1,7)

NOT A SA (anag, i.e. baroque, of SONATA) + USAGE (practice)
Down
Clue No Solution Clue (definition underlined)

Logic/parsing
1D EXCUSE ME Polite way to interrupt a dance (6,2)

double defn – ‘EXCUSE ME’ is a polite way to interrupt; and an EXCUSE ME is a type of dance
2D VOLATILE There you are, I removed a piece in Scrabble that’s changeable (8)

VO(I)LA (there you are, removing I) + TILE (a piece in Scrabble)
3D RACER One in a posh car, Lewis Hamilton? (5)

R_R (Rolls Royce, posh car) around ACE (one)
4D NAMIBIA Country‘s war in Asia with India half based on prejudice (7)

NAM (abbreviation of Vietnam, and often used to refer to the Vietnam War) + I (India) + BIA(SED) (half of biased, or based on prejudice)
5D EGG CELL Potential start of a new life for one finally leaving prison (3,4)

EG (exempli gratia, for example, for one) + G (final letter of leavinG) + CELL (prison)
6D TELL TALES Epic stories about Swiss hero? Just gossip (4,5)

Epic stories (tales) about William Tell (Swiss hero) might be TELL TALES!
7D SATRAP Constituents upset about a dictatorial type (6)

S_TRAP (parts, constituents, upset, or set up!) around A
8D NOSHED Had something missing in the garden (6)

If your shed (something in the garden) is missing, then you have NO SHED!
14D REWRITTEN Winter term endlessly revised – indeed! (9)

anag, i.e. revised, of WINTER TER(M) – endlessly

[revised also doing double duty – as anagrind, and part of definition]
16D TITICACA Small monkey in South America, on the borders of Colombia, around lake in Peru (8)

TIT (small South American monkey) + CA (border, or outer letters, of ColombiA) + CA (circa, around)
17D FEMININE Iron Maiden’s popular in Spain, being girlish (8)

FE (iron, chemical symbol) + M (maiden, cricket notation) + IN (popular) + IN + E (Espana, Spain)
19D PATRIOT Nationalist Irishman’s entertaining piece of music (7)

PA_T (stereotypical Irishman, Patrick/Paddy) around (entertaining) TRIO (piece of music)
20D HOSTESS Notorious Nazi’s arrested East German nightclub employee (7)

H_ESS (notorious Nazi, Rudolph Hess) around (arresting) OST (East, in German)
21D JAUNTS Pleasure trips with Japanese family members (6)

J (Japanese) + AUNTS (family members)
22D HEIGHT Stature of Henry VIII (6)

H (henry, SI unit of inductance) + EIGHT (VIII)
25D ADIEU Stop working in a university for so long (5)

A + U (university), around DIE (stop working)

3 comments on “S&B 2024 – Dalibor”

  1. This was my first puzzle in York yesterday, and I found it very enjoyable. Thanks to Sil (sorry you couldn’t be there) and MC

  2. Many thanks ,Mike,for blogging my York puzzle!
    Very much appreciated, in particular for having been able to include a pdf of the crossword itself in your preamble.
    I hope you and everyone else had a lovely time. Unfortunately I had to give it a miss again.
    It’s now almost three years ago that I had my stroke and I still cannot stand on my feet, let alone walk.
    I would like to say one more thing, about the puzzle.
    7/28 is just a simple hidden, any other possible parsing was not intended.
    I would never clue SUN as ‘news’ because for me publications like The Sun and also The Daily Mail are not proper newspapers (I could say a lot more but let’s leave it there).
    Moreover, if your SUN is A and SET is B, then in an across clue ‘A on B’ should preferably be ‘BA’ and not ‘AB’ (although setters do it, I know).
    I have never written a clue as long as this one and I promise I will never do it again.
    Best wishes, Sil

  3. I have solved and enjoyed Dalibor’s puzzles from previous S&B events, and this one was a suitably entertaining sequel.

    MALARIA, SWAP, HEIGHT and ADIEU were my favourite clues, and TOSCANINI came quickly as I encountered that maestro in a puzzle only yesterday.

    I failed to solve LULU and NOSHED, unfortunately, but I really should have got them.

    Thanks to Sil and mc_rapper.

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