Independent No. 10,601 by Nimrod

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Well I expect this kept you all amused for 10 minutes or so …

… plus many hours of hair pulling madness.

I daren’t add up how long this has taken me.
This has got to be the toughest puzzle I have ever blogged.  Because of that I can’t say it was enjoyable, especially with the sword of Damocles of having to blog it.
Of course I resorted to frantic dictionary search and googling, and calling on extra brains to help.  This blog would not be what it is without Gaufrid’s help – so thank you very much Geoff.

I had just two answers written in after the first pass.  Then I slowed down.
Each answer had to be teased out and confirmed.  For goodness sake I was driven to googling a list of Texas cities to spot one that might match the clue and the (3,6) letter count at 10. It meant I found the more accessible clues harder than they really were.  I kicked myself on a few when I finally saw them, such as 23 Denture.

If there is a theme going on here it passed me by in my befuddled state

Across
5 RESERVE Spare let? You’ll have to book (7)
… and the very first clue left me wondering even after finally deciding it must be RESERVE from the crossing letters and the definition “book”.  I could not see rest of the wordply.  I thought there could be some double definition going on here as Spare is synonymous with Reserve too – but Gaufrid has explained the middle of the clue which is quite nice:  “Let? You’ll have to” Re-Serve as in tennis
7 LION CUB Over in pound you see Number One Son going about with pride? (4,3)
U C (you see) NO I (Number One) all reversed (over) inside LB (pound).  First one in.  I was very happy to get this early on – leading to false hope
10 SAN ANGELO Texan city well in which Gabriel is trapped? (3,6)
I certainly had to check this was a city in Texas
AN ANGEL (Gabriel) inside SO (well)
until G pointed this out I had it as
ANGEL (Gabriel) inside SANO (well: “Sano” is Latin for “Healthy”).
11 BANAL Flat B from the rear? (5)
B ANAL (from the rear)
12/15 THE ANSWER IS A LEMON Q: Is it Beer Monday or Wine Tuesday that is unsatisfactory? (3,6,2,1,5)
The first part of the clue is a question leading, cryptically, to an answer to be read as “The answer is ALE MON”
What a groaner.
16 LEU What successful European banks (3)
&Lit. Hidden inside: successfuL EUropean.  Another early success
17/18 NO IFS BUTS OR MAYBES Bob says misfortune is catastrophic – and you can’t argue (2,3,4,2,6)
(BOB SAYS MISFORTUNE)* AInd: is catastrophic.  I was staring at this for soooo loooong
The phrase looked alien even when I had mostly teased it out from the anagram fodder and crossing letters.
I know the saying as “No ifs. No buts. No maybes”
21 ASCUS Parse clues, highlighting every other cell (5)
[p]A[r]S[e] C[l]U[e]S
I will leave it up to Wikipedia to tell you what cell(s) Ascus is/are
22 TARANTINO Film director breaking into a frenzied bombast (9)
RANT (bombast) inside (breaking) (INTO A)* AInd: frenzied.
23 DENTURE Neurotic retuned set on bedside table? (7)
(RETUNED)* AInd: Neurotic
24 UPTIGHT Irritated, flying three sheets to the wind (7)
UP (flying) TIGHT (three sheets to the wind)
Down
1 FRENCH ONION SOUP Starter #2 from menu missing in order: phone inn, of course! (6,5,4)
(PHONE INN OF COURSE – E )* AInd: in order.  E being removed (missing) is from [m]E[nu] (#2 in menu)
2 VEGETABLE MATTER Bring round supporter of piping casserole; in turn, no meat remains! (9,6)
Another where credit goes to G for unravelling the clue
GET (Bring) inside (round) TABLEMAT (supported of piping casserole) all inside VEER (turn)
3 BLOOMSBURY GROUP Tavern hosting sex-party and massages, low life’s beginning to upset local modernists (10,5)
PUB (Tavern) around (hosting) ORGY, RUBS, MOO and L[ife] (sex-party, massages, low, and Life’s beginning) All reversed (upset)
Favourite clue for the wordplay which actually led me to the answer.
4 DOUBLE INDEMNITY Done by trains with “unlimited” return after unplanned departure in USA (6,9)
(DONE BY + UNLIMITED)* AInd: trains with.   I am only presuming the second half of the clue beginning “return” is the definition.
Please can someone who knows about insurance espec. in USA enlighten us as to what it all means
5/20 RISE TO IT Enigmatic trio admitting Nimrod made puzzles bite (4,2,2)
(TRIO)* AInd: Enigmatic,  around (admitting) I SET (Nimrod made puzzles)
8 CANNIKIN Small tin dog nearly holds relations up (8)
CANIN[e] (dog, nearly) around (holds) KIN< (relations, up).  Last one in.
I know no-one twee enough to refer to a small tin as a “cannikin” <shudder>
9 BEL PAESE Bed shortly – sleep will be fitful having eaten a cheese (3,5)
BE[d] (bed, shortly) (SLEEP + A)* AInd: fitful
13 CLUBLAND Hit London’s West End, not forgetting Soho? (8)
CLUB (Hit) L[ondon] (London’s west end) AND (not forgetting).
Not so many clubs left in Soho.  The snooty clubs in Pall Mall and St James’s are still going strong no doubt.
14 EMOTICON Going upstairs I think I have a sad face? (8)
TO ME< could be (I think, going upstairs) I CON (I have)
19/6 SINGSONG Crossings on grand overpasses going up and down, we hear (8)
Hidden in crosSINGS ON Grand

 

19 comments on “Independent No. 10,601 by Nimrod”

  1. All i can say is wow, what a stinker and I’ve blogged a few Nimrods. Well done BM and Geoff for completing this which took me a week to get less than half.

  2. Definitely a stinker – a real tough one that took several sessions to complete (and I nearly gave up more than once).  I wouldn’t have wanted to blog it  so well done to beermagnet and Gaufrid

  3. Re 4d: Collins has “US and Canadian (in life assurance policies) a clause providing for the payment of double the policy’s face value in the event of the policyholder’s accidental death” so the “return” is the payment in such cases

  4. Wow! I actually finished this and parsed everything but needed to check a few of my guesses were correct. Reckon I would normally do around 3 crosswords in the time it took to finish this. I was all the way down to BEL PAESE before starting so wasn’t expecting to complete. All said, I did quite enjoy it. Any theme or nina is lost on me though.
    Minor error in blog for 8d, CANINE not CANNINE.

  5. gruesome process of solving  for me.. retrospectively it kind of adds up as always… except dog is spelt CANINE…. really started to distrust everything after that…. great work on the brave blog thanks!

     

  6. Glad I avoided this one — I’ve looked at some of the blog and it looks pretty good, just terribly difficult.

    In DOUBLE INDEMNITY the ‘trains’ is I think a refererence to the (magnificent, although I haven’t seen it for years) film of that name, which involves the pretence of death following falling off a train.

  9. I preferred solving to having to blog it so many thanks to beermagnet and Gaufrid.

    Great puzzle.And thanks Nimrod.You aint gone soft round the manor, Guv!

  10. Hooray! My very first Nimrod ever both solved and parsed, even if it did take what seemed like forever and a day. Very hard work, but finishing with everything in was sufficient reward.

    Thanks to Nimrod and beermagnet

  11. We got it all in the end but no satisfaction when we couldn’t parse half the clues. So thanks for the blog although most of it is obscure even now (leu? Wine Tuesday?). Didn’t enjoy.

  12. Glad it wasn’t just me.  Gave up after getting four clues in four hours.  Life’s too short.  So I looked at the cryptic in this week’s New Scientist  and did finish that in about ten minutes, which was more satisfying.

  13. “Return” = payment (from insurance) after “unplanned departure” = accidental death, apparently.

    thought I’d try the Indy crossword today for a change from the Guardian. Glad I’m not the only one who found it tortuous…

  14. Thanks to beermagnet and Nimrod

    14d I realise it’s probably a typo, but just in case – “to me” = “I think”

    I was sure I’d come across the entry at 12/15 before and eventually found it in an Enigmatist from Feb 2010

     

  15. Just got round to this tonight after struggling with Serpent this afternoon. Had trouble with quite a few, but got it completed with just 2d unparsed. No excuses, should have seen table mat. I think I was just relieved to have finished it.
    Well done Beermagnet and thanks for the tussle Nimrod.

  16. We knew it would be a toughie as soon as we saw it was by Nimrod.  But we were determined to finish, which we did – with extensive help from dictionary, thesaurus, wordfinder, anagram solver and Google, plus the occasional inspiration.  And, there were several that we couldn’t parse.

    We liked LION CUB, UPTIGHT and BEL PAESE.  ASCUS was a new word for us (even though one of us studied botany many moons ago).

    Thanks, Nimrod and beermagnet.

  17. My experience was a bit of a mixture of those commenting above.
    As ever, I would say, this was very hard and, at first sight, looked impenetrable.
    Kudos to those who can solve a crossword like this in one sitting, let alone without having to use external resources.

    I am not a great fan of these long clues which are often part of Nimrod’s repertoire.
    As the grid can stay too empty for too long.
    Usually, my way of dealing with all this is “first guess then parse later”.
    And so, 7 out of 10 times I can solve the puzzle faultlessly but end up with, at least, a handful clues unparsed.
    Today, I could actually parse everything except 2dn (and, apparently, I wasn’t the only one).
    Which gave me the feeling that this crossword was ‘easier’ than the average Nimrod, if there is such a thing.
    Was it?

    Many thanks to beermagnet (or should it be ‘commiserations’?) and to Nimrod (for the fun? yes, fun!).

  18. Our experience was much the same as others. We had to tackle the puzzle in two sessions with a good night’s sleep in between. There was a lot of guesswork followed by checking and reverse-parsing, but hats off to Nimrod for continuing to come up with ingenious (and infuriating) clues to so many long answers.
    We’re glad we weren’t blogging this one!
    Congratulations to beermagnet (and Gaufrid) and thanks to Nimrod for yet another challenge to the old grey matter.

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