Take Your Partners by Nimrod
Each Take Your Partners clue leads to one member of a titular duo; solvers must enter its partner in one of the silver spaces. Wordplay in each of these clues leads to the answer plus one extra letter; the extra letters spell a foreign word hinting at the theme. TYP clues are listed in alphabetical order of their solutions, NB not those of their partners. In the initially-filled grid, solvers must change two letters in symmetrically disposed cells (forming new words) and highlight in a straight line a relevant nickname. All numbered clues are normal.
OK, so it’s York S&B weekend and it’s my week to blog. The York do is organised by a certain John Henderson who must be best mates with this Nimrod guy as Nimrod always seems to provide The Inquisitor for that weekend.
As we all know, Nimrod’s puzzles tend to rate at 11 on the traditional difficulty scale of one to ten and this was no exception. Having said that, I set about solving the “normal” clues with a good deal of early success. The two shaded entries in the middle of the grid looked intriguing and for a good while, I thought that the down one would be PINKY or PERKY (as in Pinky and Perky) but that idea didn’t last too long.
Eventually I had the majority of the grid filled (though south-east corner was stubborn) and I’d only solved two of the TYP clues and one of them was pure guesswork.
Then, I was stuck. What do you do when you’re stuck? Ignore it for a day-or-two and try to guilt trip it into surrendering or simply outstare the grid? I went for the latter option and then WALTZ RING jumped out of the middle row. Now, of course, I found myself trying desperately to get rid of the earworm of “Waltzring Matilda.”
I wasn’t entirely sure of it but given that the preamble tells us to replace two symmetrically disposed letters, THSWALTZRING becomes THE WALTZ KING.
Now I had some ammunition and I went in search of works by Johann Baptist Strauss II who was, indeed, known as The Waltz King.
Thus we find:
Wiener Blut (Viennese Blood)
An der schönen blauen Donau (Blue Danube)
Der Karneval in Rom (Roman Carnival)
Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka (Chit-Chat Polka)
Kaiser-Walzer (Emperor Waltz)
Der Zigeunerbaron (Gypsy Baron)
Künstlerleben (Artists’ Life)
Eine Nacht in Venedig (Venice Night)
Morgenblätter (Morning Papers)
Frühlingsstimmen (Voices of Spring)
Which can (mostly) be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compositions_by_Johann_Strauss_II and detailed in the following table:
| Take Your Partners | Answer | Partner | Extra | Wordplay | |
| • Excessive supply behind black horse (5) | BLOOD | VIENNA | F |
Black+FLOOD (supply) | |
| • In religious calendar the sixth bishop to be turned down (4) | BLUE | DANUBE | L |
ELUL (sixth month of ecclesiastical civil year)+Bishop rev: turned | |
| • Occasion to celebrate review of facilities during competition (8) | CARNIVAL | ROMAN | E |
LAV (facilities)+IN RACE (during competition) rev: in review | |
| • No gentleman will accept lift primarily to gossip (8) | CHIT-CHAT | POLKA | D |
CAD (no gentleman) around HITCH (lift)+T[o] (primarily) | |
| • Sovereign fellow enters the Church from the rear (7) | EMPEROR | WALTZ | E |
ROME (the church) around PEER (fellow) all rev: from the rear | |
| • Unconventional college servants getting younger (5) | GYPSY | BARON | R |
GYPS (college servants)+YoungeR | |
| • Possibly online video about career (4) | LIFE | ARTISTS | M |
E-FILM (could be an online video) rev: about | |
| • Coming in the hour of darkness (5) | NIGHT | VENICE | A |
NIGH (coming)+AT (in) | |
| • They are poor ID credentials (6) | PAPERS | MORNING | U |
PAUPERS (they are poor) | |
| • Low-down groups of criminals appear (6) | SPRING | VOICES | S |
SP (lowdown)+RINGS (groups of criminals) |
I haven’t done any dancing since school and that was mostly limited to Scottish Country Dancing but I seem to remember “Take Your Partners” as being a standard way to begin ballroom dances (waltzes and polkas among them). I used to “watch” Come Dancing with my mother in the 1970s but I’ve never seen the current day “Strictly Come Dancing” and I intend to keep it that way.
The last thing is that the extra letters in the TYP clues spell FLEDERMAUS (the bat), an operetta by our mate, Johann and can be found here.
Anyway, I think that’s everything done-and-dusted so thanks to Nimrod for giving me more than a week’s entertainment. Thanks also to duncashiell and HolyGhost for helping with some tricky parsing
| Across | Entry | Wordplay | ||
| 9 Did judge cut and run away from core suspect? (9) | ACCOUNTED | CUT AND CO[r]E (minus Run; anag: suspect) | ||
| 10 As college knows, compiler’s circling feature on map (8) | ISOCHASM | I’M (compiler is) around SO (as) College HAS (knows) | ||
| 12 In school, one’s head spoke softly (5) | COOED | COED (school) around O[ne’s] (head) | ||
| 13 Burmese spirit less apparent to the West (7) | KARENNI | KA (spirit)+INNER (less apparent; rev: to the west) | ||
| 14 Old-fashioned village cordiality taking day off (7) | ENDSHIP | [fri]ENDSHIP (cordiality) minus FRIday | ||
| 16 Ready for old Peruvian reporter in comic strips (4) | INTI | [t]INTI[n] (reporter in comic; minus first/last letters) | ||
| 18 That’s shameful of old Oscar, usurping his successor in exploit (7, 2 words) | OUT UPON | [p]UT UPON (exploit) with Papa replaced by Oscar (Papa is after Oscar in NATO alphabet) |
||
| 20 Various sounds from this, that and the other, though not thinking 30s (4) | ETHS | I’m not entirely happy with this. It seems to be trying to draw a distinction between the way “th” is sounded (this, that and the other though) and (thinking thirties) but I don’t see/hear any difference | ||
| 22 Band resound – drummer’s lost it! (4) | RING | This seems to be a sort of cryptic double/triple definition. RING[o] STARR was, of course, famously the drummer with The Beatles and he loses his O (ring) |
||
| 23 Belt resembling shortened hood (7) | BASHLIK | BASH (belt)+LIK[e] (resembling; shortened) | ||
| 26 Old African appetiser has heart fluttering (4) | MZEE | MEZE (appetiser) with middle two letters (heart) swapped | ||
| 27 Hurt capturing Asterix, perhaps, almost left in Cannes (7, 2 words) | À GAUCHE | ACHE (hurt) around GAU[l] (Asterix; almost) Asterix the Gaul |
||
| 28 The Communist system likely to restrict soldier (7) | APPARAT | APT (likely) around PARA (soldier) | ||
| 30 School sent a container that’s antique (5) | STEAN | SENT A (anag: school) I’m not sure I’ve seen school as an anagrind before but I guess it works |
||
| 32 Land revenue system, crude fiddle instituted by old taxmen upon retirement (8) | RYOTWARI | IR (Inland Revenue: old taxmen) around RAW (crude)+TOY (fiddle) all rev: upon retirement | ||
| 33 According to speculation I go and see about cutting the start of Advent (9) | IDEOLOGIC | I GO LO (see) all rev: about inside I (one: first) DECember (start of Advent) | ||
| Down | ||||
| 1 In which eventuality things even getting salvaged from diffusion (4, 2 words) | IF SO | [d]I[f]F[u]S[i]O[n] (even letters) | ||
| 2 Most delightful it is across the Channel, after turning in (6) | NICEST | IN (rev: turning)+C’EST (it is in French: across the channel) | ||
| 3 Order registration plate to be seized by motoring company? (7) | ACARIDA | CAR ID (possible name for a registration plate) inside AA (motoring company) | ||
| 4 Registering E-numbers is too much for this inexperienced guy! (6) | INGENU | registerING E NUmbers (hidden: is too much) | ||
| 5 Shake potty, upsetting it (4) | STUN | NUTS (potty; anag: upsetting it) | ||
| 6 Wrought iron in batches of under a dozen – threes (8) | TERNIONS | TENS (batches under a dozen) around IRON (anag: wrought) | ||
| 7 With son’s promotion, draw contempt of old people (6) | SDEIGN | DE[s]IGN (draw) with Son raised | ||
| 8 Gadgets tailed dogs in different directions (7) | DOODAHS | DO[g] (tailed)+SHADO[w] (tailed) one goes forwards and one goes backwards | ||
| 11 Outside hotel, book a carriage (7) | BRITZKA | BooK around RITZ (hotel)+A | ||
| 15 Wiseacre enthralled by the woman’s mistakes (7) | HOWLERS | OWL (wiseacre) inside HERS (that womman’s) | ||
| 17 Breaking well, did pack rush past! (8) | STAMPEDO | SO (well) around TAMPED (did pack) | ||
| 19 Leap day child lost in space (7) | PISCEAN | IN SPACE (anag: lost) A leap day child is one born on February 29th |
||
| 21 One Christian finally putting it about like Richard Parker? (7) | TIGROID | DIOR (one Christian)+[puttin]G (finally)+IT all rev: about Ref: Christian Dior. Richard Parker is the tiger in Life of Pi |
||
| 23 False gods bleat, the writer’s closing line (6) | BAALIM | BAA (bleat)+Line+I’M (the writer is) | ||
| 24 Directly confronting punk drummer (6) | HEADON | (double def) Topper Headon drummer from The Clash |
||
| 25 I won’t start to use up poet’s escape (6) | OUTWIN | I WON’T+U[se] (start) (anag: up) | ||
| 29 Numbers between 2 and 4 take bridge support (4) | PIER | PI (3.14.159)+E (2.71828)+R (take) | ||
| 31 Graceful horse, but not one taken from the ground (4) | ARAB | BAR+A (one) rev: from the ground |
I think this is my tenth Inquisitor by this setter, and it went pretty much the same way as my first two in 2018(!): I got a long way with it but could not quite complete it. I finished with one numbered clue (13a) and three ‘TYP’ clues unsolved, but I still managed to get all the unclued entries, including three guesses that turned out to be correct. I decided at first to leave the last instruction as I did not know what to look for, but the setter’s kindness in placing the nickname centre stage, as it were (subject to the two changes), made that decision irrelevant.
Despite not having completed this puzzle, I enjoyed solving the numbered clues (except for 13a), and the theme was an interesting one as well as being right up my street.
Thanks to Nimrod and kenmac.
I struggled with this, and my Googling thumbs finally gave out with little progress made on either the TYP clues or the bottom half of the grid. I spotted WALTZ and POLKA so had an inkling that there was a dance-related theme, but went down so many blind alleys that I ran out of steam. Definitely the wallflower on this occasion. Thanks to Ken for laying it all out.
Oof. Indeed an 11/10 as expected; I’m generally OK with that except I felt that the TYP clues were too hard. Even once I had the Theme and knew the words I was looking for, I still couldn’t parse CARNIVAL CHITCHAT or SPRING, and I think I only had a single one before that.
The theme was interesting, not sure if anyone else spotted that it was Strauss’ 200th birthday that Saturday?
Being Austrian it slightly pained me to look for anglicised translations of his often beautiful titles, although it did make me listen to the Tritsch Tratsch Polka, always a joy! Why doesn’t anyone compose stuff like that any more?
Grudging thanks to Nimrod and ungrudging thanks to Ken 🙂
Similar to Arnold above, I really struggled with the TYP clues – I don’t think I managed to solve a single one actually, despite getting the theme via some googling (and noting the significance of the date) and then correctly figuring that the second one would equate to BLUE. One issue for me with the TYP clues was that I wasn’t sure whether or not there was a definition included. It’s common in this sort of puzzle for a thematic set like that to be undefined and I felt that the blurb was rather ambiguous on that score.
Overall I was pleased to fill ~75% of the grid and work out the endgame. Having looked at those I didn’t solve, I doubt that I would have completed it anytime soon!
Unlike everyone above, I found this pretty straightforward, which isn’t where I normally expect to be on an Inquisitor that others find tough. The TYP clues were greatly helped by being listed in alphabetical order, and while it took a bit of time for Google to establish what might link Gypsy, Chit-Chat, Vienna, Polka and Blood, once Johann Strauss had emerged ;the main problem was hunting down which of many possible words had been picked to precede Waltz or Polka, since JS wrote huge numbers of both. I don’t share Ken’s concerns about ETHS; for me, there’s a clear difference between the th sounds in think and that, and the Chambers pronunciation guide seems to agree – but perhaps this is a question of regional speech variations, or lack of them. Well done to Arnold for clocking the JS 200th birthday, which never occurred to me, and thanks to Nimrod and Ken.
I needed help from my crossword-buddy to get this one over the line. He had found it quite manageable, much as Sagittarius @5 did.
When I’m really stuck, I often forget to check for significant anniversaries, and this time I reached almost the end before I realised that it was the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birthday. A pity.
Ken: regarding ETHS at 20a: for the unvoiced “th” as in “thin”, the air goes around your tongue and through your teeth (a gentle hiss); for the voiced “th”, as in “this”, the tongue is slightly lower where it touches the teeth and you can feel a vibration in your mouth. At least that’s what it’s like for me.
I can only echo Arnold (recently revealed as Austrian) @3, “(slightly grudging) thanks to Nimrod and (non-grudging) thanks to Ken”.
Like others, I failed to solve most of the TYP clues, and having seen how some of them parse, I don’t feel too bad about it. They are very difficult bearing in mind there are no crossers to assist. Still managed to complete the grid and rumble the theme though.