A witty entertaining puzzle from Alberich, where several times, the parsing took longer than the solving. 🙂 Thanks Alberich.
Mini nina running along the sides – I made the Beethoven and Fidelio connect, but are there others?
FF:9 DD:9
| Across | ||
| 1 | ENCASH | Realise son needs hospital after return of skin disease (6) |
| Â | [S (son) H (hospital)] after ENCA (skin disease = ACNE, reversed) | |
| 4 | PARSEE | A standard to meet for ancient believer (6) |
| Â | PAR (standard) SEE (meet) | |
| 8 | GALLERY | For one, Tate & Lyle sugar sadly lacks American backing (7) |
| Â | LYLE suGAR* (without SU : american = US, reversed) | |
| 9 | FIDELIO | Priest feeds dog? That’s 15’s work! (7) |
| Â | ELI (priest) in FIDO (dog, italian dog known for its loyalty); 15d is BEETHOVEN, which in the movie is the name of a St Bernard. | |
| 11 | RESPONSIVE | Answering mobile in vespers embodies oafishness, for a start (10) |
| Â | IN VESPERS* containing O (starting letter of Oafishness) | |
| 12 | PUMP | Flop down, removing left shoe (4) |
| Â | PlUMP (flop down, without L for left) | |
| 13 | DROVE | Crowd drifted back to front (5) |
| Â | ROVED (drifted, with last letter D moving to the first) | |
| 14 | LIBERATE | Deliberately mislead about book’s cost to deliver (8) |
| Â | [LIE (deliberately mislead) about B (book)] RATE (cost) | |
| 16 | ASPIRING | Drug’s finally looking hopeful (8) |
| Â | ASPIRIN (drug) G (lookinG, finally) | |
| 18 | ETHIC | And this for Caesar is a moral code (5) |
| Â | ET (and, latin) HIC (this, latin) [caeser reference for latin] | |
| 20 | NOSH | Why ark isn’t shark food? (4) |
| Â | cryptic clue; ark isnt shark because there is NO SH. | |
| 21 | HEADHUNTER | Try to keep nut he’d pickled? He would (10) |
| Â | HEAR (try) containing NUT HE’D* | |
| 23 | DETROIT | Nancy’s right to tour outskirts of elegant US city (7) |
| Â | DROIT (french for right, Nancy refers to capital of Meurthe-et-Moselle) around ET (outskirts of EleganT) | |
| 24 | OVERSEA | Broadcast direct across the waves (7) |
| Â | sounds like OVERSEE (direct) | |
| 25 | TOTTER | Rock adder? (6) |
| Â | cryptic clue; to tot is to add, thus totter could be an adder. | |
| 26 | ANODES | Chain fences ring more than one terminal (6) |
| Â | ANDES (chain) containing O (ring) | |
| Down | ||
| 1 | ERASE | Delete parts of folder, as example? (5) |
| Â | Hidden in :..foldER AS Example?” | |
| 2 | CALYPSO | Shortly phone agent about love ballad (7) |
| Â | CALl (phone, shortly) YPS (agent = SPY, reversed) O (love) | |
| 3 | SERENGETI | Wild tiger seen here in Africa? (9) |
| Â | TIGER SEEN* – there are no tigers in the serengeti | |
| 5 | ALIVE | Quick answer reflected ill (5) |
| Â | A LIVE (ill = EVIL, reversed) | |
| 6 | SWEEPER | Special person lamenting footballer (7) |
| Â | S (special) WEEPER (person lamenting) | |
| 7 | ENIGMATIC | “Unexpected item in bagging area” keeps good customers primarily puzzling (9) |
| Â | { [ITEM IN* containing A (area) ] containing G (good) } C (Customers, primarly) | |
| 10 | MILLIGRAM | A small quantity from factory I spread around (9) |
| Â | MILL (factory) I GRAM (spread = MARG, short for margarine, reversed) | |
| 13 | DISHONEST | Lovely old home? Not true (9) |
| Â | DISH (lovely) O (old) NEST (home) | |
| 15 | BEETHOVEN | Busy person by hot stove grabs time for 90s comedy film (9) |
| Â | [BEE (busy person) H (hot) OVEN (stove) ] containing T (time) | |
| 17 | INHERIT | To be left in the lurch at heart upset nursing unit (7) |
| Â | IN [THE R (luRch, at heart)* containing I (unit – 1) ] | |
| 19 | HUNDRED | Century of barbarian terror one overlooked (7) |
| Â | HUN (barbarian) DREaD (terror, without A – one) | |
| 21 | HEINE | Poet, male, penning article in German (5) |
| Â | HE (male) containing EIN (german for A, article) – heinrich heine was a german poet. | |
| 22 | EVENS | Quits rugby game, blowing top (5) |
| Â | sEVENS (rugby game, without first letter) | |
*anagram
I did like FIDELIO
Thanks, Turbolegs.
Some really ingenious clues. For a few minutes I was deliberately misled in 14ac, trying to make something of deliberately.
Like copmus, I really liked FIDELIO – and BEETHOVEN, GALLERY and several more.
I can’t see any more operas – I missed the Nina – but I know Alberich likes to include them whenever he can.
Many thanks, Alberich – I really enjoyed it.
Great if you know there was 90s comedy film called Beethoven…
…frustrating if you don’t.
Enjoyable stuff, especially after the headache doing today’s Guardian. LOI was NOSH. Good clue. For ages I was trying to parse Noah as the answer before the penny dropped.
Not that it matters for the puzzle, but by most definitions of Grand Opera, Fidelio isn’t one; for example, it includes some spoken dialogue, and is on a relatively small scale. Still nice, though.
(I wondered if ENIGMATIC EVENS down the 14th column might be a clue to something
Thanks Alberich and Turbolegs
A typically fun puzzle from this setter.
Got caught up a bit at 6d, trying to construct something from S + an anagram of ‘person’ for way too long – it even matched all of the crossing letters !
Finished in the SW corner with HEINE, DISHONEST (cleverly disguised noun usage of ‘lovely’) and ASPIRING (simple in hindsight but just didn’t see it earlier) as the last few in and missed the nina down the sides which is not unusual.