Drawing a Tyrus on blogging day can be a little daunting, though in this case I seemed to make steady progress from the start. Spotting the nina helped somewhat, of which more later.
There was some unfamiliar vocabulary in there: 14ac, 1dn, 7dn, 23dn spring to mind, though in each case the wordplay was fair and helpful, preventing any serious hold-ups.
Some nice stuff in there too. 26 across for example raised a smile when the penny dropped, even though this is far from the first time we’ve seen Nice, Nancy and so forth hidden in this way.
The grid pretty much screamed “nina” at us, what with all those unchecked squares, and so it transpired. That it didn’t start in the traditional top left confused me a little at first, but I got there. I’m not sure if the quotation has any specific relevance: the internet suggests it’s basically just a dodgy joke.
All the same, thanks to Tyrus for a pleasant Saturday solve and for going a little easier than usual on the blogger!
| Across | ||
| 8 | AIRLINER | Rail journeys home a little expensive – take alternative transport… (8) |
| RAIL* + IN + E[xpensive] + R. | ||
| 9 | ENTREE | …course there’s space on plane for one (6) |
| EN + TREE. Fairly sure I’ve seen more plane trees in crosswords than in real life. | ||
| 10 | YAPPER | Money passed over for a small dog? (6) |
| PAY< + PER. | ||
| 11 | BORDEAUX | Wine in crate, red, lacking body – it’s drunk in France (8) |
| (R[e]D + EAU) in BOX. | ||
| 12 | MEGABYTE | Maybe get broken into many bits (8) |
| Anagram of (MAYBE GET). | ||
| 14 | OCTROI | Month with French king is duty (6) |
OCT + ROI. Today I learned that an octroi is a local tax collected on various articles brought into a district for consumption. |
||
| 15 | OATH | Promise unwilling head’s not kept (4) |
| [l]OATH. | ||
| 17 | BRICK | Run into writer, Kelvin – a grand fellow (5) |
| (R in BIC) + K. | ||
| 18 | SODA | Pop a nasty piece of work at the start (4) |
| A with SOD at the start. | ||
| 19 | TANNIN | Can girl put in colouring ingredient? (6) |
| ANN put in TIN. | ||
| 21 | GOLD DISC | Record of achievement (4,4) |
| Cryptic definition, with a pun on “record”. | ||
| 24 | CRUSADER | Reads badly to vintage campaigner (8) |
| CRU + READS*. | ||
| 26 | TUVALU | Nice you largely rate Polynesian islands (6) |
| TU + VALU[e]. Took me a moment to spot that we’re looking for Nice in France. | ||
| 27 | IMPAIR | Look after current politician causing damage (6) |
| I + MP + AIR. | ||
| 28 | WHITENER | A short time after Easter, Frenchman returns cleaner (8) |
| WHIT + RENE<. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | RIVAGE | Ivy heard thunder around old shore (6) |
| IV with RAGE around it. | ||
| 2 | SLAPDASH | Sorry friends upset hotel being messy (8) |
| (SAD PALS)< + H. | ||
| 3 | ENERGY | Go green after trouble at start of year (6) |
| GREEN* + Y[ear]. | ||
| 4 | DRAB | Poor reader initially held up – “It’s boring”… (4) |
| (R[eader] held in BAD)<. | ||
| 5 | YEARBOOK | …yes, Rob’s struggling with fine school publication (8) |
| YEA + ROB* + OK. | ||
| 6 | STREET | Bum steer to statement’s conclusion, in a way (6) |
| STEER* + [statemen]T. | ||
| 7 | LEMUROID | Sadly I’m old and rue becoming primate (8) |
| Anagram of (I‘M OLD and RUE). | ||
| 13 | EYING | Watching leaders leaving, doing as instructed (5) |
| [ob]EYING. | ||
| 16 | ANAGRAMS | I sometimes employ them when animals are trapped (8) |
| (NAG + RAM) trapped in AS. | ||
| 17 | BENIDORM | Programme I turn over outside room (8) |
| (I in (BEND + O)) + RM. I hadn’t heard of the TV programme with this name, though it seemed plausible that there was one. That there have apparently been a whole 10 seasons of it that have completely failed to register in my awareness, let alone pique my interest tells me all I need to know about it. | ||
| 18 | SIDE VIEW | Profile of naughty wives I’d ultimately like to go through (4,4) |
| (I‘D + [lik]E) in WIVES*. | ||
| 20 | NASSAU | Saunas busted in capital (6) |
| Anagram of SAUNAS, and capital of the Bahamas. | ||
| 22 | LATVIA | Country going through after former finalist lost (6) |
| VIA after LAT[e]. | ||
| 23 | SALLEE | Look round the whole tree (6) |
| SEE round ALL. A variety of eucalyptus, the internet informs me. | ||
| 25 | ROWS | Gets worse – holds up banks (4) |
| Hidden and reversed in [get]S WOR[se]. | ||
* = anagram; < = reversed; [] = removed; underlined = definition; Hover to expand abbreviations; BOLD = letters forming part of entries.
I thought this was hugely funny, but then again I am a sucker for this kind of humour. The Nina was a great help to me too but I had the “music to my” section completed before the rest of it and couldn’t see why “ears” wouldn’t fit!
In addition to the v good Nina gag, I thought the clue for ANAGRAMS was brilliant, ditto MEGABYTE. Thanks to Tyrus and Simon for a great start to the day.
WHAT BAERCHEN SAID
Ditto
Didn’t know the 4 words you mention in your introduction nor did I know TUVALU. Didn’t spot the Nina but liked it. My favourite was MEGABYTE. I don’t fully understand the parsing for BENIDORM (knew the programme, but never watched it). Is ‘over’ doing double duty? I parsed it as BENID (I + BEND over) + O (over again) + RM (outside room). I’m sure somebody can tell me where I am going wrong.
Thanks to Tyrus and Simon.
Hovis @4
It’s I with BEND (turn) O (over) ‘outside’ it followed by RM (room).
Thanks Gaufrid.
Well done Simon, and thanks Jim for another belter.
Now anyone got a cure for my daily sex?
Very mixed feelings about this. We saw there was a nina but had to google to complete the quotation, which then helped us complete the grid. But the poor taste of the joke in the nina rather took the shine off things. And it didn’t help that the surface of the complete sentence spanning the clues to 8 and 9 doesn’t make sense; our first take on it was that course was an autocorrect for ’cause (= because). Sorry, Tyrus.
But thanks, Simon, for the blog.
Thanks to Simon for the blog and to others who commented.
Surface of 8/9 seems OK to me – course = of course.
Forgot to comment yesterday. I recall that I enjoyed it and did indeed learn a few new things. A DNF as I used a full-blown cheat (in the shape of a letter reveal iirc) to get me to BENIDORM.
The grid prompted me to look around a bit for a nina, but I still managed to miss her. Argh!
Thanks to Tyrus and Simon.