Thank you to Fed. Definitions are underlined in the clues. And apologies for the late post.
There’s an ironic message in the grid’s border, reading clockwise.
7. Square joins very good partners for game (8)
NINEPINS : NINE(square of 3) plus(joins) PI(informal term for being pious in a sanctimonious way/very good) + N,S(abbrev. for “North” and “South” respectively, partners in the game of bridge).
9. Movie director in audio, principally to cover echoes for regional broadcaster (6)
ANGLIA : “Ang Lee”(Taiwanese movie director) with 1st letters, respectively, of(…, principally) “in audio” replacing(to cover) “ee”(twice the letter represented by “echo” in the phonetic alphabet).
Answer: … or Anglia Television, currently ITV Anglia, that broadcasts in the East England region.
10. Second to arrive in audition for film (4)
SCUM : S(abbrev. for “second”, the period of time) + homophone of(… in audition) “come”(to arrive/to reach here).
Answer: Film/layer of dirt or froth on the surface of a liquid.
11. Supervisors lost Carphone Warehouse business ultimately (10)
CHAPERONES : Anagram of(lost) CARPHONE + last letters, respectively, of(… ultimately) “Warehouse business”.
12. One posh schoolboy maybe ignoring Latin and Ancient Greek (6)
IONIAN : I(Roman numeral for “one”) + “Etonian”(past or present attendee of prestigious school, Eton College/posh schoolboy) minus(ignoring) “et”(Latin for “and”, as in “Et tu, Brute?”).
14. Enthusiastic about bomb starting attack (4,4)
TEAR INTO : INTO(very much interested in/enthusiastic about) placed after(… starting) TEAR(… bomb/a grenade containing tear gas).
15. What’s leading scientific personnel to accept a random number generator is less trustworthy (7)
SHADIER : 1st letter of(What’s leading) “scientific” + HR(abbrev. for “human resources”/personnel in an organisation, industry, etc.) containing(to accept) [A + DIE(singular form of “dice”/small cube that is rolled to give/generate a random number between 1 and 6 inclusive) ].
17. No. 1 for Doris Day after record label advance – one that’s almost divine (7)
DEMIGOD : 1st letter of(No. 1 for) “Doris” + { D(abbrev. for “day”) placed after(after) [ EMI(a British multinational record label/record company) + GO(to advance/proceed) ] }
Nice musical surface.
20. Switch is originally on lead attached to old radiator (8)
ISOLATOR : IS + 1st letters, respectively, of(originally) “on lead attached to old radiator”.
Answer: A switch that completely disconnects/connects electrical equipment from/to its power source.
22. Proclaim advice to look at another aspect of paper money – sort of? (6)
CRYPTO : CRY(to proclaim/announce loudly) + PTO(abbrev. for “please turn over”/advice to turn a page/an aspect of paper to look at another page).
Answer: Short for “crypto-currency”/digital money, sort of.
23. Trap somehow meant to get critical journalist (7,3)
HATCHET MAN : HATCH(a hinged or removable panel/door in a floor or ceiling/a trapdoor or, in short form, a trap) + anagram of(somehow) MEANT.
Answer: A person who writes fierce attacks/criticises others or their work.
24. Bearing in mind, oddly, that is filling (4)
MIEN : 1st and 3rd letters of(…, oddly) “mind” containing(… filling) IE(abbrev. for “id est”/that is).
25. Plan using diplomacy with jerk in timeshare arrangement (6)
TACTIC : [TAC{T]IC} ie. [TACT](diplomacy/sensitivity) + {TIC}(a jerk/an involuntary muscle spasm) with the 2 middle “T”(abbrev. for “time”)s combined into 1(-share arrangement).
26. Stolen sinks initiating court action? (4,4)
DROP SHOT : HOT(descriptive of things that have been stolen) placed after(… initiating) DROPS(sinks/moves to a lower level).
Defn: …, in a tennis court, that is.
Down
1. Reluctant after Renault retreated waterproof material (8)
OILCLOTH : LOTH(reluctant/unwilling) placed after(after) reversal of(… retreated) CLIO(a model of Renault cars).
2. Time group making roof for Alfa Romeo (4)
TERM : “team”(a group/a band of people working together) with 1st letter of(roof for, in a down clue) “Alfa” replaced by(making …) R(letter represented by “Romeo” in the phonetic alphabet).
Answer: A period of time.
3. Cairo’s new name cooler when abbreviated (3-3)
AIR-CON : Anagram of(…’s new) CAIRO + N(abbrev. for “name”).
Answer: Short for/abbreviated “air conditioner”, cooling equipment.
4. 2 benefit – one called after the other? (8)
NAMESAKE : NAME(to call/”term”, answer to 2 down) + SAKE(benefit/well-being).
5. Worthlessness of playing bingo, drunk in Italy on vacation (10)
IGNOBILITY : Anagram of(playing) BINGO + [ LIT(drunk/intoxicated) contained in(in) “Italy” minus its inner letters(on vacation) ].
6. Most pleasant French city street (6)
NICEST : NICE(French city) + ST(abbrev. for “street”).
8. Intelligence in Simon’s first writing without Garfunkel (6)
SMARTS : 1st letter of(…’s first) “Simon” + MS(abbrev. for “manuscript”/a book or document written by hand) containing(without) ART(Garfunkel, one half of the duet, Simon and Garfunkel).
13. Coarse idea client turned out (10)
INDELICATE : Anagram of(… turned out) IDEA CLIENT.
16. Establish European theatre with French wanting leadership (8)
ENTRENCH : E(abbrev. for “European”) + NT(abbrev. for the National Theatre) plus(with) “French” minus its 1st letter(wanting leadership).
18. Busy tabloid’s version of Boris Johnson’s comeback includes new article (2,3,3)
ON THE JOB : Reversal of(…’s comeback) BOJO(nickname/version of “Boris Johnson” much used in the press/tabloids) containing(includes) [N(abbrev. for “new”) + THE(article in grammar) ].
19. Part of snooker game, daughter set up (6)
FRAMED : FRAME(a single game of/part of snooker contest) + D(abbrev. for “daughter”).
Answer: Made to appear guilty as a result in fabricated or false evidence.
21. Numerical mark a student needs to get in (6)
SCALAR : SCAR(mark of an old wound) containing(… needs to get in) [ A + L(letter displayed by a student driver) ].
22. Is unable to scan notes – some bits are missing (6)
CANNOT : Hidden in(… – some bits are missing) “scan notes”.
24. Month before United contacts very serious player? (4)
MUSO : M(abbrev. for “month”) plus(before) U(abbrev. for “United”) plus(contacts) SO(very/extremely).
Answer: British slang for a player/musician who is serious/over-concerned with technique, or Australian slang for a seious/professional musician.
I found the parsing of some of these quite tortuous and I also wondered what overseas solvers would make of ANGLIA (I got the Ang Lee but couldn’t account for the final A. I thought audio meant sounds like, so thanks scchua) and SCUM. I really liked CHAPERONES, IONIAN, DEMIGOD, CRYPTO, HATCHET MAN, IGNOBILITY and ON THE JOB (Paul may have clued this differently). TEAR INTO seemed back to front. Great spot on the not a NINA!
Ta Fed & scchua.
I enjoyed this one very much – a curious mix of the very straightforward (I’m looking at you, NICEST) and the downright fiddly (ANGLIA, for one). I parsed the ‘tear’ in TEAR INTO as bombing/tearing along the road, but perhaps the grenade thing is better. Loved the nina that’s not a nina! Many thanks to Fed and scchua for the usual exemplary blog.
SCUM is also the name of a 1979 film set in a young offender’s institute, so that fits both ways.
Thanks Fed and scchua
I was a bit frustrated with myself on this one, as I wasn’t able to construct the answers from the wordplay, but in most cases the parsing was clear once I had guessed the answer. Not impressed by “bomb” for TEAR, though.
Favourite SHADIER for the random number generator – I had tried to work ERNIE into it.
[25 reminds me of the old David Beckham joke:
“They’re small and minty, and Victoria tells me that they’re less than a calorie each”
“I asked you to talk about tactics, David”.]
Tricky in places but enjoyable too. I even saw the Nina which I don’t always do – someone once set a crossword with “will Sue spot the Nina?” round the perimeter. I’m pleased to say I did
Thanks to Fed and scchua
AinD @3: that’s how I parsed it, hence wondered about overseas solvers.
Like AlanC@1, I thought some of these clues were pretty much of a stretch. In the end, I was defeated by MUSO, which, even as a musician (of sorts), I have never heard or read in my 64 years. As I read the clue at 14A, I can’t see how TEAR can be anything other than the ‘bomb along the road’ that MOH@2 suggests: certainly I can’t fit the tear gas idea into the clue as written. Thanks to our blogger and, occasional tortuousness notwithstanding, to our setter.
I didn’t parse TEAR INTO, and coming here I agree that a tear bomb is a bomb, but not sure a tear is a bomb. I think muffin@3 is saying the same thing.
Also, while a SCALAR is a number without a direction (unlike a vector, say), equating it to “numerical” alone just seems a bit weird. Might just be me.
Still, liked CRYPTO, SMARTS, IONIAN.
Surely to BOMB (as in to go fast) is to TEAR.
Jay@9 right!
Liked ANGLIA, ISOLATOR, CRYPTO, TERM and FRAMED.
TEAR INTO
Parsed it as Jay@9 (MoH@2 said the same thing first?)
Thanks Fed and scchua.
Yes Andy in Durham@3 – I thought of that film too – and 5 minutes later realised there was the other meaning of film
Gosh, some of this was tougher than some of Enigmatist’s clues yesterday. Some I just got from the definition without much idea about the parsing. I liked Simon and Garfunkel in SMARTS. (I think it’s been commented before that it’s interesting that “without” in a clue can mean either “including” or “not including”.)
I completely missed the Nina, which would seem to be a logical paradox along the lines of “All Cretans are liars” or “Ceci n’est pas une pipe”.
Thanks Fed and scchua.
fed is either brilliant or comes across as trying too hard to be clever.
but you dont get brilliancies in surfaces suchs as
“24 – entertaining TV show returning with Bauer essentially really old (7)”
or
“Orthodox teen maybe trained by orthodox teen (3,3,4,4)”
without risking being too clever by half 🙂
Brilliant!
I loved it, particularly CHAPERONES, DEMIGOD, IONIAN, SHADIER, MIEN, TACTIC, OILCLOTH.
I really look forward to Fed’s puzzles for the freshness off the cluing. I missed the Nina, though – don’t remember him (not) doing one before: perhaps that’s the point!
I parsed ‘tear’ as most others did.
Many thanks to Fed and scchua.
Thanks scchua and thanks all.
Thought, I’d pop in early to clear up any confusion regarding TEAR = BOMB
My intended parsing was the bombing/tearing along-the-road sense of things
per Chambers
Tear: to rush, move very quickly
Tear: To move very quickly, esp in a vehicle (informal)
That seems pretty watertight to me
Cheers!
Totally missed the self-denying NINA.
Very clever! (Made me SOL: Smile Out Loud)
Big wintry antipodean thanks to scchua and Fed.
Nice to complete a crossword after Paul and Enigmatist where my sum total of clues solved was 6!
Some ‘bung-ins’ where I found the parsing a bit elusive. 9a being a good example.
I liked IONIAN and ON THE JOB, the wordplay containing our erstwhile PM was appropriate.
Thanks both.
Like Andy In Durham @3 – I had SCUM as the film with Ray Winstone.
Tortuous indeed, AlanC@1, and I’ll put another letter in that and pronounce this torturous…
Only three solved on first pass. For me, two consecutive toughies in a row this week.
PI for pious and hence very good has come up here before, and I still don’t buy it. Not in my six decades on this planet have I encountered it outside of crosswordland. Nor is piety necessarily equivalent to goodness. Surely there is a better way to clue those two letters.
I’m also with those parsing TEAR as bomb in the sense of speed. I have never heard anybody say “tear bomb” for “tear gas”, which if anything is delivered in a “pellet”.
NHO MUSO, so that was a “bung and shrug”, nor the Renault Clio, but what else could it be?
The meaning of “timeshare arrangement” in 25A completely eluded me, I’m impressed by all those who found it even in hindsight.
Thanks scchua and Fed.
Loved TACTIC for the time share. SCUM was my FOI, without any thought of that movie I’ve never heard of. ON THE JOB was amusing – I had the first two words and was puzzling over the third when that nickname hit me with a clang. Thanks, Fed and scchua.
I missed the nina but it’s a compositional beauty, bravo Fed! This MUSO needed scchua🙏 to parse ANGLIA, nho SMARTS (LOI) but loved the clue, overall lots of parse-before-solve, my favourite type of crossword.
Brutal but Brilliant! At one point I wondered about a Bojo theme with ON THE JOB alluding to his interest in Ugandan affairs. Other possible themers; IGNOBILITY, DEMIGOD (self-styled), SHADIER, just the one TERM, INDELICATE …
Top ticks for CRYPTO, TACTIC & OILCLOTH
Cheers S&F
Couple of parses way over my head — Ang Lee with his echoes replaced, and die for random number generator (very cute), but yes Fed has slipped nicely into the cohort of compilers, very welcome.
Like Lord Jim @13, I found some of this trickier than yesterday’s Enigmatist. It certainly took me longer overall. That said, l was conscious of feeling less mentally alert during my insomniac solving slot, so the perception of difficulty may lie in part with me. Certainly, the prolix parsing of TEAM was quite baffling at 4 am, so thanks to scchua for that.
I’ve never heard of ANGLIA, of course, so had to reveal that one. (I’ve certainly heard of Ang Lee–it’s late June, so The Wedding Banquet and Brokeback Mountain both deserve special mention–but that didn’t help in this instance.) Otherwise, it all went smoothly. Not having heard of the movie SCUM either, I of course took it to be pond scum, as presumably intended.
(I note another day where doing the Quick first gives an instant cue for a clue in the Cryptic – in this case 12ac)
I think Jay@9 has the correct parsing of TEAR INTO. Trying to construct this from a putative abbreviation for tear gas bomb is not credible.
Most enjoyable solve of the week, even if it was a choppier course with quite a bit of misdirection. ANGLIA and NINEPINS a little on the esoteric side for my money, but I think they are outweighed by the quantity of elegant clues; IONIAN, HATCHET MAN and DEMIGOD being highlights.
I was wondering for too long how IGNOBILITY could possibly be an anagram of BINGO ITALY. Where is the A going? Surely not IGNOBALITY??
Nicely done with some tricky parsing in places. TACTIC I didn’t fully get until I came to the blog. Luckily ANGLIA was my local broadcaster growing up so it was my first thought and just worked backwards on the parsing.
Liked IONIAN and HATCHET MAN
And of course totally missed the Nina.
Cheers Scchua and Fed. You certainly had your work cut out explaining some of these. I also parsed tear as you rather than as Fed intended.
I really enjoyed this. I didn’t parse TERM till some time after “finishing” when I was picking some broad beans. AlanC@1 I like to speculate how other setter’s might approach clues too. I feel Paul might have gone for “audibly more typical of a film director” for ANGLIA.
Recent Paul and Enigmatists left me cold, yet commenters seemed to like them. Today I liked Fed’s offering, yet commenters are complaining. I shall beat my own path…
ASKIMET @33, I’m not sure there are that many complaints about this one – I certainly enjoyed it. But it’s par for the course for solvers to disagree on these things. It’d be very dull if we all thought the same way!
Askimet@33, I see very few complaints, there’s a positive thumbs up from you and the 225 community in general for today’s Fed 👏
Ignobility has 3is. One from bingo, one from Italy. Where does the 3rd come from?
Sandy @36. Scchua has explained how the clue works in his hint
Needed the check button to find and the blog to parse ANGLIA–AlanC@1, the broadcaster wasn’t so bad for me (at least it seemed plausible) but ANG LEE went right past me, I thought it was ANGLI(something meaning echoes). Also needed the comment explanation for bomb/tear and… well, I get it, but. For SCUM I thought “there’s probably a movie called that oh yeah the other sense of film.”
Jacob@21, I sympathize about PI; that came up with some of my British mutuals and none of them had ever heard it either!
Lovely Nina, or not, which I missed completely and which reminds me of an obscure computer game my internet pals were playing. They solved a tricky puzzle to reach an area encoding an elaborate cipher that decrypted to “THIS AREA HERRING COLOUR OF RED.”
Thanks Fed and scchua!
Excellent! Upticks for CRYPTO, TACTIC and IGNOBILITY. I very much like the way Fed puts clues together.
Thanks, F & s
Thanks for the blog , enjoyable set of clever clues , TACTIC a very nice idea and I like the PTO for CRYPTO , A SCALAR is a tensor of rank zero and can have direction , current for example .
Not scratched my head for a whole day now .
Unusually my husband started this, but didn’t get very far. So I finished it for him. I too thought of the movie for SCUM. My favourites included SHADIER, IGNOBILITY, IONIAN and CRYPTO. I had to look up SCALAR and am still none the wiser. Thanks Fed and scchua.
Thanks to both for the entertainment (and also to Roz).
TERM defeated me (and would again) but for all that a return to more oxygenated strata after the last couple.
I landed here some (now considerable) time back after encountering a letter to the Guardian complaining that the xwords were getting more difficult (and thereby learning that they were available online – whee!) It seems that this is again becoming the chorus. The problem is that unless a certain license is pretended towards the setter what we end up with can be uninspired stuff. A witty surface can be the salvation of a complex contrivance and I certainly will stick at a clue with a good surface for the enjoyment of (our old friend) the pdm. I think Fed has discharged the writ here. (I enjoyed the drunken bingo lovers on holiday…)
SandyAbsentia @36: the third ‘i’ comes from LIT (i.e meaning ‘drunk’).
Jacob @21 PI in this sense is in my idiolect – it doesn’t really mean pious, it means holier than thou. My mother used it regularly, as a descriptor of people she thought were trying too hard to look good. I’ve also read it in schoolgirl stories of a certain vintage – Angela Brazil or Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers.
matt w @38 that sounds like a geocache puzzle, complete with red herrings – sort of thing I also do.
Thank you to scchua and Fed for the blog and puzzle
Could not finish this. I failed to solve 9,12,14ac and 1,4,18d – thankfully, I had forgotten the nickname BoJo and I hope he will never make a comeback!
Of the ones I solved/guessed, I could not parse 25ac, 20ac, 2d, 5d
Favourites: DROP SHOT, MUSO.
michelle@45: Perish the thought.
Another good one from Fed; I especially liked the wordplay for 22a CRYPTO and the Simon and Garfunkel clue at 8d SMARTS.
BigNorm@7, I’ll see your 64 years and raise you another 13, and I too have never heard the word MUSO (24d), although I am certainly not one. (I don’t practise enough.)
Thanks Fed and scchua for the Fun and solving help.
This provided some challenging entertainment on a professionally soul destroying day. I really liked ANGLIA, TACTIC and DROP SHOT. I find that while Fed creates some novel, intricate clueing, he’s quite happy to use some classic cruciverbal contrivances like pi, ms and nt. Not a complaint, just an observation. This was excellent stuff.
(Unrelated: Did I see an SA = IT yesterday? *Shudder)
Thanks Fed, scchua and everyone else.
Agree with those that found this torturous. Many clues were difficult to parse without much sense of fun or lightness of touch. Yesterday’s Enigmatist was cheerfully playful by comparison!
It’s been pointed out to me that in my earlier comment I somehow managed to type the word, ‘tear’ twice when the second definition cited was actually for Bomb.
So for clarity, the definitions per Chambers are:
Tear: to rush, move very quickly
Bomb: To move very quickly, esp in a vehicle (informal)
Cheers!
MUSO. In Aussie English it’s a word used to describe the occupation, full-time, part-time, professional or amateur, usually neutral, not derogatory, if anything with a little respect, mostly pub bands, recording artists etc . However, I’ve never heard the term used to refer to more serious (?) musicians, eg classical, concert. The -o suffix in Aussie English is usually a diminutive or term of endearment.
MUSO came up as wordplay in Pangakupu Dec 24 and Vlad Mar 23 in clues for the same word OSMIUM. Vlad’s is a beauty: Heavy metal backing musician covering Iron Maiden’s originals (6) 🙂
I couldn’t agree more, paddymelon@51 – Vlad’s clue for OSMIUM is a gem, a perfect melding of surface and wordplay.
I know MUSO in a different sense , someone a bit obsessed with music , vinyl albums and the equipment to play them . I have been called it myself . When I was younger I would bump into fellow MUSOs when scouring the second-hand record shops once a week . Oxford had three and I would check the stock of each every Monday , I was lucky to be collecting vinyl at just the right time .
Too much that was unfamiliar here, so I gave up yesterday.
Never heard of “Ang Lee” so that was a pure guess.
I don’t equate TEAR with BOMB – sorry. So that was another write-in.
Completely failed with NAMESAKE. But can’t blame anyone but myself.
And never heard of MUSO. I tried MUSK but thought – surely not!
I wonder if Fed is picking up on a bit of Paul’s risqué stuff? In SCUM we have a very vulgar homophone of COME – and ON THE JOB has a secondary meaning, doesn’t it!
But much to like. TACTIC very clever, took me ages to parse. Also liked IONIAN, DEMIGOD, CRYPTO (after much puzzling); HATCHET MAN; IGNOBILITY.
Thanks to Fed and scchua.
Not that it matters, but I think I can count ten skittles in that illustration for NINEPINS. Not really surprising, seeing as the 10-pin version has long overtaken the 9-pin in popularity – probably due to Trans-Pond-ian influence!
Laccaria @54 I don’t expect everyone to have heard of Ang Lee – at the same time, he’s a hugely successful film director who’s directed massive blockbusters and won two Oscars – so I don’t think he can be considered obscure.
“I don’t equate tear with bomb – sorry”
You’re clearly not the only one who thinks this – but I really am confused that so many people find this hard to equate. Here’s a Guardian article from a year ago which uses the phrase “the next day, he saw a white Toyota Landcruiser tearing down the track into camp” .
And here’s a Guardian article from a couple of days ago in which someone uses the phrase “this guy just came bombing down the road”
I’m sure that we all understand those sentences and we would all understand them exactly the same if the words bombing and tearing were transposed.
“I wonder if Fed is picking up on a bit of Paul’s risqué stuff? In SCUM we have a very vulgar homophone of COME”
It’s only a vulgar homophone if you want it to be – as I’m sure anyone sitting in their kitchen-cum-dining room in Chorlton-cum-Hardy would attest!
“and ON THE JOB has a secondary meaning, doesn’t it!”
It does have a secondary meaning – but it wasn’t referred to in the clue so it’s your mind that has reached for and found it.
Thanks to Fed for searching through the Guardian for examples of tearing and bombing.
I wonder how many people here actually read the Guardian? I get the impression that most solvers do the crossword online – obviously those who are overseas plus those who live in remote areas, but probably loads more who never have the paper in their hands.
I feel like I’m one of a small number who actually buy and read the newspaper every day, and do the crossword in the paper without the benefit of a check button or a reveal option.
Fed@56: thanks for your feedback, always appreciate being corrected if I’m wrong about something!
SH@57: I gave up buying paper newspapers a long time ago: whether, as a consequence, I’ve ‘saved’ a few trees from the pulp-mill I don’t know – but I hope so. Recycling paper can only go so far…
But I do read the Grauniad online – some of it at least (and paid the subscription 🙂 ). I also post comments (under a different moniker) where they allow it – but occasionally fall foul of the moderators…
Laccaria, 58.
Yes, trying to judge what Katharine Viner considers acceptable in the Safe Space of Guardian comments can be a challenge, but most profanities seem OK when used re abstract nouns…but not all abstract nouns
I read the G on line, but print off the crossword using scrap paper if I have any. It’s more restful as a bedtime solve with a mug of tea than looking at a screen, and far better in a pub.
Thanks to one and all.
I have a Chromebook set up for me with four pictures to click on , this site , the BBC , JWST and Euclid . No other computer use and no mobile phone , I could not imagine doing the crosswords except in the paper .
Etu and Roz:
I should have made clear that I print the Grauniad crossword. Like others here I prefer pen-and-paper solving – so that I can scribble anagram attempts in the margins! But I also print the ‘Quick’ on the same sheet, for Mrs L to tackle when she’s in the mood. And on the other side of the paper I print the Sudoku.
You see, I’m doing my best to be economical!
“et tu, Brute”, is Greek.
Not only did I spot the Nina (a rare occurrence for me), but it actually helped me to complete the puzzle. I was stuck on ANGLIA and NAMESAKE, but those couple of letters nudged me to the finish.
I knew that 9ac had something to do with Ang Lee, but I couldn’t quite get the parsing. I also didn’t know about the broadcaster, but I did know that Anglia was the name of a region, so it was guessable with the crossers (including the one from the Nina).
[I found Lee’s Brokeback Mountain to be beautiful and heartbreaking, by the way. If you haven’t seen it, I strongly recommend it. It also feels remarkably American, for a film directed by someone who grew up so far away.]
Thanks to Fed for coming in to clarify the parsing of 14ac. I didn’t think of treating “tear” and “bomb” as verbs, but it makes perfect sense now.
HG@62 It might be to you but it’s Latin to the rest of us.
[Et tu Brute is assuredly Latin, but it’s widely thought that if Caesar actually did say something like this, he said καὶ σύ, τέκνον in Greek. Personally, I think he probably said this.]
Ted@65 [‘Even you child’ certainly has more force but since Classical historians weren’t shy of putting words in the mouths of their subjects we’ll never know. We can be sure of what Mr Williams said.]
Eight short of completion, opposite of yesterday’s Enigmatist. Enjoyable puzzle. Thanks for chiming in Fed! I do read the Guardian, online
What on earth is a nina in crossword world?
I’ve been doing cryptics to one extent or another for nearly 50 years and have never heard the word, other than as Spanish for a female child (with a tilde on the second n).
Brian Bollen @68 Check out the FAQs
A “nina” is a hidden message spelled out along the unchecked letters in a row or column. In this puzzle, the nina begins with the T at the beginning of 25a, and continues clockwise around the outer perimeter of the grid to spell THIS IS NOT A NINA SO DON’T BOTHER, the joke being that it is, of course, a nina