[If you’re attending York S&B please see comments 32&33] - here
A riveting challenge from WANDERER today.
A nina runs along the sides of the grid – although the significance is lost on me. I was thinking about the wildfires in the US but probably something more to it ..
Needed help with a couple of clues – Thanks to Geoff for help with 18a.
FF: 10 DD: 10
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | HYPHEN | Essentially upper-class, Harry wants a car with extremely posh English name (6) |
| HY ( HarrY, wants A RR ( car, Rolls Royce ), i.e. lacking the letters ARR ) PosH ( extremely, end characters ) E ( english ) N ( name ); referring to the ‘-‘ in the middle of upper–class | ||
| 5 | FEVERISH | Putting out fire, he’s briefly very hot and bothered? (8) |
| [ FIRE HE’S V (very ) ]* | ||
| 9 | OUTRUN | Exceed two terms of cricket (6) |
| OUT RUN ( two terms of cricket ) | ||
| 10 | ROLE PLAY | Represent another year, poll must be ordered (4,4) |
| [ YEAR POLL ]* | ||
| 11 | SHANGHAI | Long nap interrupted by new haircut needed in Asian port (8) |
| [ SHAG ( long nap ) containing N ( new ) ] HAIr ( cut , without last letter ) | ||
| 12 | CANARD | Unfounded rumour of bird having tail cut off by daughter (6) |
| CANARy ( bird, without last letter ) D ( daughter ) | ||
| 13 | ECRU | Colour found in some crustaceans (4) |
| hidden in “.. somE CRUstaceans”; i had filled ‘rust’ in initially before 3d made it impossible | ||
| 15 | OUTSIDER | Not a favourite Camus character? (8) |
| cryptic def; camus reference to his work, l’etranger – the stranger | ||
| 18 | ROSSLARE | In error, after docking, wrong ship left American port (8) |
| [ ERROr (docked i.e. without last letter]* around [ SS ( ship ) L ( left ) A ( american) ] | ||
| 19 | PLEA | Gather tenor’s ignored request (4) |
| PLEAt ( gather, without T – tenor ) | ||
| 21 | EUROPE | Currency predicament? Even initially, Scotland’s in and out of it after Brexit (6) |
| EURO ( currency ) P E ( first letters of ‘..Predicament Even..’ ) | ||
| 23 | BAVARIAN | German camel act replaced by foremost of Austrian ventriloquists, arguably (8) |
| BactRIAN ( camel , with ACT replaced by AVA [ foremost letters of “..Austrian Ventriloquists Arguably” ] ) | ||
| 25 | ETHEREAL | Heavenly number? Transcendental one also, when halved (8) |
| ETHER ( number ) |
||
| 26 | SQUINT | Visual defect, second one of five, with fifth in sight (6) |
| S ( second ) QUIN ( one of five ) T ( fifth letter of sighT ) | ||
| 27 | LETHARGY | Greatly upset about heroin causing torpor (8) |
| [ GREATLY ]* around H ( Heroin ) | ||
| 28 | AMENDS | What happens just before PM starts making changes for the better (6) |
| cryptic def; read as AM ENDS ( what happens before pm starts ) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 2 | YOUTH | Some try out hobbies in teenage years (5) |
| hidden in “..trY OUT Hobbies..” | ||
| 3 | HARANGUES | Managed to feature in former Tory leader’s rants (9) |
| RAN ( managed ) in HAGUE’S ( former tory leader’s, william hague ) | ||
| 4 | NINTHS | Beethoven’s Choral Symphony’s jazzy chords? (6) |
| double def; referring to beethoven’s symphony no.9 and common chord formations in jazz | ||
| 5 | FIRE IN ONES BELLY | Ardour lost briefly, lose nine (4,2,4,5) |
| [ BRIEFLY LOSE NINE ]* | ||
| 6 | VELOCITY | Rate as third of five or seven? (8) |
| cryptic def; expansion of V ( third letter of fiVe or seVen ) | ||
| 7 | RIPEN | Mature writer, following religious instruction (5) |
| PEN ( writer ) after RI ( Religious Instruction ) | ||
| 8 | SEA BREEZE | Cocktail? That’s the drink, with a piece of cake! (3,6) |
| SEA ( the drink ) BREEZE ( piece of cake ) | ||
| 14 | CROQUETTE | Savoury roll with a brew, shortly after game (9) |
| CROQUET ( game ) TEa ( brew, shortly ) | ||
| 16 | IMPORTUNE | Plead with umpire: “Not out!” (9) |
| [ UMPIRE NOT ]* | ||
| 17 | CAPE FEAR | Point game’s official raised about a thriller (4,4) |
| CAPE ( point ) [ FER ( reverse of REF, game official ) around A ] – 1962 movie starring gregory peck, remade in 1991 by martin scorcese | ||
| 20 | AVESTA | A Roman goddess appearing in sacred texts (6) |
| A VESTA ( roman goddess, of hearth and household ) – needed help solving this | ||
| 22 | OBEAH | Old boy? He turned up, bearing a kind of charm (5) |
| [ OB ( Old Boy ) EH ( reverse of HE ) ] containing A | ||
| 24 | AWNED | Wife seduced by a young hooligan with a beard? (5) |
| W ( wife ) in [ A NED ( young hooligan ) ] – referring to spikes such as on the ears of barley | ||
25a is ETHER + e (transcendental number) + half of ALso
Andrew@1 – You are of course, right. Thanks for the help. I have made the edit.
Regards,
TL
I liked this, but it took a bit of working out, especially my last in ROSSLARE, difficult parsing and not exactly the first ‘port’ that comes to mind – thank goodness for the Nina (whatever it means) which gave me one more crosser to help. I parsed 25a as Andrew @1. Didn’t know NINTHS, or SEA BREEZE as a ‘Cocktail’.
HYPHEN was a very good variation on the “punctuation mark as def” clue genre, and I enjoyed the surface for BAVARIAN.
Thanks to Wanderer and Turbolegs
Sheesh! 18a has to be one of the most convoluted and obscure clues I have seen. Congrats to those who solved it (not me) but a thumbs down from me. Didn’t parse 15a either (and another clue I disliked).
The rest went in smoothly making an enjoyable solve over all. Thanks all.
Phew! – that was tough but all the more enjoyable and satisfying for that.
18ac was my last one in and earned the biggest tick, I think. Others were for 1ac, HYPHEN (I love that kind of clue), 11ac SHANGHAI, !”ac CANARD, 23ac BAVARIAN, for the construction and the amusing surface, 28ac AMENDS and 3dn HARANGUES, again, for the surface.
Going through the clues in order, I initially entered STRANGER for 15ac but 16dn (another great surface) put paid to that.
Many thanks to Wanderer for lots of fun and to Turbolegs for a great blog.
Wordplodder@3 – Take a look here
All – Thanks for stopping by, and for the regards.
Regards,
TL
Thanks for the link, Turbolegs. Certainly, “everything you need to know about…” and more.
I’m still not sure what this specific Nina means. Maybe Wanderer might drop in later to explain.
Thanks again.
Started off on a good run-rate, but the brakes were put on by the SE corner. 28d brought a big smile to my face (these are the kind of clues I like best), but still was a DNF due to 18a.
Didn’t know the word, and it was too late in the PM for figuring out the wordplay.
Thanks Wanderer for the enjoyable puzzle, and thanks Turbolegs for the blog.
It was the SW corner that stymied me as I didn’t know OBEAH. FIRE IN THE BELLY and BAVARIAN were favourites. I too had initially pencilled in ‘rust’ and ‘stranger’ though another look at the wordplay for the latter clearly suggested OUTSIDER. I always forget this second translation as I’ve only read Camus in ‘version originale’. And I was thus amused that CANARD, ‘d’ replacing ‘y’, is still a bird (quack quack).
Thanks to Wanderer and Turbolegs.
Could not solve 18a and 20d. Result of the latter I entered “BACTRIAN” for the camel in 23a and parsed it a ‘ACT” (ventriloquist perhaps) in ‘BRIAN” (unknown source). Thanks Turbolegs for the enlightenment and Wanderer for a fun puzzle.
I am still trying to figure out what the significance of the Nina is. Does anybody have Wanderer on speed dial ? 🙂
Sorry, can’t help with the Ninas but have just a minor point for the blog. ‘Sea’ (drink) @12d needs the definite article. Compare ‘in drink’? with ‘in the drink’????
Thanks to Turbolegs for the blog, and to others for your comments.
There was nothing very deep and meaningful intended with the Nina. It was sparked off by the two H’s in the black squares, which suggested to me fire HYDRANTS (which are signposted with an H symbol), which led to me to including FIRE IN ONE’S BELLY centrally, and then think that a HOSE REEL might be needed along with the HYDRANTS, if the fire were to spread towards the left and right.
All a bit of harmless nonsense really, but (if spotted) such a Nina can sometimes help with getting solutions in a tricky enough puzzle.
Wanderer – Thanks for the delightful challenge. Love the elaboration on the nina.
Regards,
TL
Worked on this in fits and starts over breakfast and lunch — one of the tougher Wanderers but except for ROSSLARE I eventually finished this, albeit without understanding all the parsing. Favourites were the simple PLEA, the twisted BAVARIAN, AMENDS, and CAPE FEAR. Thanks to both.
Diane@12 – Thanks for the input. I have made the edit.
Regards,
TL
Thanks to Turbolegs and Wanderer
You had it right the first time – (the) drink = (the) sea.
That clue, and others, had too many surplus words for me:
Cocktail drink with a piece of cake.
16d def is “plead with”
Thanks Wanderer and Turbolegs
A good challenge to finish the week with a number of clues taking a while to get the word and some others which took a bit of time to understand the word play once the word had fallen from the definition.
Struggled with the ‘German camel’ initially, until the BACTRIAN dropped and could work back from the two-bumper to the southern German. Liked the ‘cocktail’ at 8d with its amusing surface and the neat word play. Wrote in SHANGHAI quite early but was a post solve unravelling of the construction – had to check that SHAG could actually mean ‘nap’ before seeing the need to separate the ‘haircut’.
Finished with a couple of new terms in NINTHS (as in the ‘jazz chords’) and ROSSLARE (which I could only get with a word finder – after dismissing CONSTATE). Didn’t spot the nina until looking afterwards and wondered if it would have helped with that Irish port if the R had of been there.
Thought at first 18a might be PISSTAKE. Now that I see the answer, it may as well have been. Clumsy clueing, obscure result.