Dalibor’s rather unusual contribution to the party can be found here: Dalibor @ York 2016
In case one still likes to have a go, do not read any further yet from this point onward.
Dalibor is not your guide for Le Tour de York, I’m afraid.
That said, turning 6d and 7d into an ellipsis, gave this puzzle at least some kind of connection to this great city.
There was an advance warning that several clues were faulty.
It turned out to be that all the (full) anagram clues, no less than 11 in total, were lacking the indicator.
But that was only half the story.
Coincidentally (but probably deliberately), in all these clues the anagram fodder was also a well-known anagram indicator.
Therefore, with some imagination, one might say that in each of these clues the anagram fodder was its own anagrind.
The completed grid, highlighting the ‘faulty’ clues, is added at the end of the blog.
Definitions are underlined wherever possible and/or appropriate.
| Across | ||
| 1 | PARSED | Spread analysed in detail (6) |
| (SPREAD)* | ||
| 5 | BOOKWORM | Philistine drinks fine wine for a start, then takes motorway grub (8) |
| BOOR (philistine) around {OK (fine) + W[ine]}, then + M (motorway) | ||
| 9 | MONROVIA | Perhaps Matt’s classic way to acquire capital (8) |
| MONRO (Matt, the crooner Matt Monro) + VIA (‘classic’ way, e.g. in Rome) Monrovia is the capital of Liberia. Matt Monro (1930-1985): The Man with the Golden Voice . |
||
| 10 | EDIRNE | Turkish city rejected space travel (6) |
| EN (space) + RIDE (travel), together reversed [rejected] A university city, once called Adrianopolis. |
||
| 11 | BOMBARDIER | Revolutionary mob joins local girl to meet the Queen’s officer (10) |
| Reversal [revolutionary] of MOB + BAR (local) + DI (girl) + ER (the Queen) | ||
| 12 | EXIT | Three seconds away from 20’s departure (4) |
| SEXISTS (the solution at 20d) minus S (second), actually all three of them | ||
| 13 | SABOTEUR | Backstreet in Paris leading to Belgium when one has bad intentions (8) |
| RUE (street in Paris, i.e. in French) + TO + B (Belgium) + AS (when), together reversed [back] One has to split ‘back/street’. Let us not forget what happened about a year ago in Paris. |
||
| 16 | HOORAY | One jumping around in bed makes you cheer (6) |
| Reversal [around] of ROO (one jumping) inside HAY (bed) | ||
| 17 | SUPERB | Great Championship game having wise guy sent off (6) |
| SUPERBOWL (Championship game) minus OWL (wise guy) | ||
| 19 | MASSENET | He composed religious work, ultimately gone down the toilet (8) |
| MASS (religious work) + the final letters [ultimately] of “gone down the toilet” Jules Massenet, French composer (1842-1912), best known for his opera Manon and the violin piece Meditation (from Thais). |
||
| 21 | DEUS | God used …. (4) |
| (USED)* Perhaps the ideal clue to find out what was going on in this puzzle? |
||
| 22 | ANNEXATION | …. an old friend to invade country for takeover (10) |
| AN + {EX (old friend) inside NATION (country)} | ||
| 25 | CARNAL | Sexual abuser finally arrested in the tube (6) |
| [abuse]R inside CANAL ((the) tube) | ||
| 26 | RESCALES | Changes 52% to 48%? Careless! (8) |
| (CARELESS)* | ||
| 27 | KNEE-DEEP | Want to occupy fort to a certain extent (4-4) |
| NEED (want) inside KEEP (fort) | ||
| 28 | SIENNA | She‘s a shade insane (6) |
| (INSANE)* An additional definition as a bonus. |
||
| Down | ||
| 2 | AB OVO | Not freezing if energy’s lost from the beginning (2,3) |
| ABOVE 0 (not freezing) minus E (energy) | ||
| 3 | SHRUB | Daphne, maybe you should not talk Polish (5) |
| SH (you should not talk) + RUB (polish) | ||
| 4 | DIVERSE | Revised, therefore not the same (7) |
| (REVISED)* | ||
| 5 | BRAZIER | Bizarre to find a barbecue in America (7) |
| (BIZARRE)* | ||
| 6 | ON EARTH | Another answer to the question ‘Where are we?’ …. (2,5) |
| (ANOTHER)* | ||
| 7 | WHITE ROSE | …. York! Symbolically – otherwise, for a glass or two? (5,4) |
| (OTHERWISE)* or, alternatively, WHITE (one glass of wine) + ROSE (another one) | ||
| 8 | RUNCINATE | Uncertain how a leaf can be (9) |
| (UNCERTAIN)* That’s five in a row! ‘Runcinate’ means: having incised margins with the lobes or teeth pointing toward the base like e.g. dandelion leaves. If that’s too vague: ![]() |
||
| 14 | ACUTE PAIN | Note: sweetbread in France will cause severe discomfort (5,4) |
| A (note) + CUTE (sweet) + PAIN (bread in France, i.e. in French) Once more, we have to split a word: sweet/bread. |
||
| 15 | OBEISANCE | New Order is brilliant, overwhelming – respect! (9) |
| N (new) with {OBE (order) + IS ACE (is brilliant)} around it For those who don’t know, New Order is an English band once called Joy Division when Ian Curtis (1956-1980) was still part of it and with us. |
||
| 18 | BRAILLE | Liberal system of writing (7) |
| (LIBERAL)* | ||
| 19 | MANTRAP | Rampant sex loving woman (7) |
| (RAMPANT)* | ||
| 20 | SEXISTS | Sweden is discriminating people (7) |
| S (Sweden) + EXISTS (is) | ||
| 23 | TRACE | Mark‘s feathery scarf banned from annual event on the Thames (5) |
| BOAT RACE (annual event on theThames) minus BOA (feathery scarf) | ||
| 24 | ODEON | Cinema screening Episode 1 in full? On the contrary (5) |
| Hidden solution [screening, but then the other way round]: Episode One | ||


15d to Dalibor!
Brilliant puzzle – the anagrind anagrams are excellent, and you managed to get the York event into the puzzle at the same time!
Thanks to Sil for the blog – and all the others!
Another good get-together at the Fox and Roman, so thanks to John as well!
what a great idea; chapeau to Dalibor.
Thanks to all for a really enjoyable weekend,
regards, Rob
Fantastic puzzle, and great fun to solve. Thanks Dalibor (and Sil for the blog, of course).