Oh! What fun for a Saturday.
We really like it when Tyrus has a political slant to his puzzles. We noticed references throughout the clues to Trump, Vance and Musk but we had no idea what the ‘outsiders’ referred to until we had finished the puzzle. It is not in Chambers but KAKISTOCRACY is a government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a state.
Thanks Tyrus – a new word for us. We hope you don’t have any ambitions to travel to the USA – you may not be allowed in.
We hope you manage to make it to the S&B in Nottingham – we will buy you a drink.
NE (Tyneside?) GATE (scandal)
LISTER (15d – ‘categorist’) on a reversal (‘back’) of AI (road)
CAVE (beware) MANe (hair) missing last letter or ‘cut’
DAM (stop) ASK (appeal)
A reversal (‘on reflection’) of NoOKIe (sex) missing last letter or ‘a lot of’ and missing one of the Os (‘not as much love’)
TYRus (I’m – the setter is) missing or ‘leaving’ US (country) – a new word for us
A reversal (‘backing’) of AC (bill) + NADA (FA – nothing) – once we had the NINA, this made sense
RE (touching) conTRIBUTION (gift) missing ‘con’ (against) – another reference to the NINA
An anagram (‘reread’) of BY E (first letter or ‘head’ of Egg) and NOT.
DOGe (new government initiative – Elon Musk’s department) missing E (east) or ‘pointless’
F (loud) OK (right) about L (last or ‘ultimate’ letter of metal)
ICER (hit-man) inside or ’employed by’ CO (company)
TORT (wrong) around or ‘catching’ MEN (people)
ANN (woman) EX (old) IN (home) G (force)
TO (as far as) inside or ‘wearing’ SARI (dress) – another new word for us
TAKE (carry) around or ‘outside’ EA (each) C (cold)
An anagram (‘easily’) of CHARM TRIBE
fELON (Trump – Elon Musks’s boss at the time of writing is a convicted felon) missing ‘f’ (foxtrot in the phonetic alphabet)
mUSED (considered) without or ‘abandoning’ M (millions)
A play on the fact that David SEAMAN used to be an England goalkeeper
AC (bill) with VANCE (US vice president – one of the ‘outsiders’) – again, we needed the NINA to parse this one
A homophone (‘auditors’s) of INN (pub) and another homophone (‘sounded’) of SIGHED (sad)
RAID (attack) around or ‘involving’ B (Britain)
An anagram (‘suspect’) of COTTAGER IS
OFF (going) BE AT (attend)
Hidden (‘content to’) in shaRE SIGNal
SLATE (criticise) R (first letter or ‘leader’ in Russian) and S (first letter or ‘a little’ of Stressed)
TwEETER (like one on X) without or ‘banning’ W (women)
nOTICe (spot) missing first and last letters or ‘ignoring outsiders’ – the outsiders here has nothing to do with the NINA
A play on the fact that TOGO (land) can also be TO GO (for sale)
I was surprised when you wrote that Tyr was new to you. One of our weekdays, Tuesday (Tyr’s day), is named after him.
Vlad is my favourite Guardian setter but I’m not so keen on his Independent crosswords but that’s just because I’m not a follower of politics (or football) so no disrespect to the setter.
Searching on this site, I found out that Satori was the name of a setter but before my time.
I really enjoyed this – I love it when this setter decides to go to town and express his political feelings: a very amusing set of surface references as a result. I was beaten by the nina – I looked for one but KAKIS etc did not appear to be assembling a real word so I gave up on that and just took ‘outsiders’ to refer to Americans putting themselves into the role of least popular nation. I failed on TYR, even though I did know of that particular god – I ventured TOR as a possible version of THOR with T(IM)OR as the possible country but it felt a tad flimsy. I also made no sense at all of the entry I had to reveal – YENTOB – neither spotting that ‘reread’ was an anagram indicator nor correctly identifying which BBC Alan – Shearer, Sugar, Carr, Partridge were all considered but I totally forgot YENTOB.
Faves inc CANADA, RETRIBUTION, CICERO (though I await RD’s complaint about Americanisms), ANNEXING, HERMIT CRAB, ELON, TEETER, TOGO and the absolutely splendid RESIGN, my COTD.
Thanks Tyrus and B&J
I’m (deliberately) out-of-touch with world politics, which is easy, living on a little Greek island…. where “kakos” is used a lot, meaning “bad”. The extension “kakistos”, is “the worst”; but Tyrus defeated me with his Nina….even though I wrote it down! Kakistocracy is a new word for me, I love it, and I shall use it.
“Kak” was used a lot in Liverpool when I was a lad, such as, “that’s a load of kak”, meaning, ” a pile of cr*p”.
Ironic that ELON (3d) is connected to the US DOGE (22ac), an acronym, of course, but in Venetian, a “spiritual leader”; I will refrain from comment…..other than to note the central squares provide us with “RABID DOG”.
An extremely smart puzzle, ‘though it was a struggle to complete.
27(ac) [ANN EXING] is not my favourite: “woman”= any female name in the world; old=”ex”, rather than “former =ex”.
I can see the political context, though.
SEAMAN(5d) is a bit ho-hum.
Lots of much better stuff, honours go to CICERO, (24ac); and 2(d) HERMIT CRAB ( what a smooth clue).
All-in-all, flag raised, thanks Tyrus & BJ
Notable that Norse gods, eg Tyr, Wodin, Thor, gives us day-names, per the Vikings I guess. Like PM @2 I tried Tor [tho that would kill the lithp joke, punchline Thor but thatithfied]. But yes, a fun and topical puzzle, tho no thought to check for ninas. The only nho was the Beeb bloke. Thanks Tyrus and B&J.
It’s very rare for me to see a Nina in time for it to help solve, so I was pleased to do so today. Paul Mariner was also an England player, which improves the clue. Great puzzle.
I was having to reveal in order to continue, so I gave up and just read the blog, as I knew there would be lots of fun.
I guessed there was a perimeter Nina but I wouldn’t have spotted it, although I know that kakos is Greek for bad. I had the same experience with TYR as PostMark and ginf. (I have a five-year old great granddaughter named Freya, whose name was chosen months in advance but she did manage to be born on a Friday.)
I really only popped in to add to Hovis’s comment @1. I recognised SATORI as the pseudonym of a former setter (Taupi in the Guardian), who wrote super puzzles and sadly died too young. Here’s the obituary that John Henderson wrote for the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2009/aug/18/albie-fiore-obituary
Wonderful stuff.
I feel a new album title for Bruce Springsteen has been found.
[I’ve been working back through Taupi’s archive, very enjoyable]
Thanks both. Very tough with so many references to a Nina including a non-word based on opinion, but some great albeit tricky clues included. Needed plenty of time but only a little help, and guessed wrongly for TYR which was an unknown at the same time I’d not digested the setter’s name (is not in sight online) – my justification for Tor (assuming it is accepted as a God) was Timor removing ‘I’m”.
Excellent. Politically, couldn’t have put it better myself. Crosswordly, wonderful stuff. Thanks to Tyrus and B&J
After completing both puzzles in the financial times today, and lying in bed poorly with a cold, I came here in search of further entertainment.
All I found was misery.
It beat me hollow.
Gave up after about a third.
No fun at all for this solver.
Really enjoyed this. Found it pretty tough but the grid lent itself to a Nina and when I spotted what it might be, it was very helpful in unlocking ELON, CANADA, TOGO, YENTOB and ANNEXING, as well as giving me the confidence to enter IKON, the precise parsing for which I was grateful to see here.
Very satisfying to see the completed whole, the sentiments of which I must say I fully endorse.
Thoroughly defeated by this; the “reveal” button got a real workout. The living nightmare that is the current US administration is a fairly sad theme for a puzzle, so I can’t say I would have enjoyed this even if I had competently solved it. Good God almighty, I do these puzzles to escape the headlines, not to relive them!
Thanks to B&J for an excellent blog and to others who commented.
Speaking of any travel ambitions, don’t you think Trump can take a joke and laugh at himself? Hmm! Think we all know the answer to that one, don’t we?
See you at Nottingham.
I struggled to get on the wavelength for this one and yet despite that I made surprisingly fast progress through the majority of it, and accepted the need to reveal four (nho DAMASK and TYR, and just couldn’t tease out the interlinked OTIC and CICERO, the latter being quite hard IMO if you only have the I and E). Not bad for me, especially if Tyrus is Vlad!
I’m another for whom spotting a nina is a rare event, so I too was pleased to do so and to have it help (the E, the two As, and CANADA). I didn’t tease out KAKIS but I was on the lookout for something thanks to ADVANCE and DOG (my first hint and confirmation as to the “outsiders”), the promising grid shape, and later the equally promising ISTOCRACY.
Count me in for a dodgy TOR via TIMOR (FOI, pencilled) and it tickled me that the checkers turned out to be right. I can’t really follow the parsing of TYR, and personally I think deriving it from Tuesday is an impossible task if you’ve not already heard of it; the etymological chain is non-blatant even if straightforward. I accept that it’s something that one ought to know, though!
Other NHOs were SATORI and IKON with that spelling (only seen it that way as brand name and similar). Favourites were probably HERMIT CRAB and OFFBEAT.
Thanks to our bloggers and to Tyrus for the adventure.
The TDS is strong in this one
Sadly, Alan Yentob died today I just read
baerchen@17: I’ve just come here to say that.
I LOVED THIS but was forced here as Im leaving the country could be T(IM)OR but god is THOR but I also noticed one of the many Nordic gods is TYR-so thank for clarification
A day behind but had to come here to say I do look forward to Vlad/Tyrus puzzles and I do enjoy seeing him put the political boot in. I have to acknowledge that there are those who would rather have their puzzles topic-free.
I was impressed with the new-to-me word KAKISTOCRACY, which I spotted when it was half-formed and it helped a lot in suggesting edge-touching words. It sounds to me like a neologism (I too only knew of ‘kak’ slang) but I saw that it goes back to the 17th century!
Fab work Tyrus. I’d love to be able to buy you a beer at the York S&B but can’t be there, sadly.