Independent 11,411 by Nimrod

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Our Tuesday challenge comes from Nimrod this week.

I use the word “challenge” advisedly, because Nimrod is known for setting rather tricky puzzles, and I took a while to get anywhere with this one. But it’s Tuesday so I was hoping there would be a helpful theme – and indeed there is, hinted at by a couple of Australian references in the down clues. It’s a tribute to the Australian comedian Barry HUMPHRIES, who died a couple of weeks ago. Two characters he created take centre stage: DAME EDNA EVERAGE, the self-declared HOUSEWIFE AND SUPERSTAR (with her catch-phrase HELLO POSSUMS); and SIR LES PATTERSON, the distinctly uncultured Australian CULTURAL ATTACHE. Some of these words have been broken up to fit into the grid, but they’re all there. Just a shame Nimrod couldn’t fit in the gladioli . . .

With all of the thematic entries, I suspect Nimrod may have painted himself into a corner for the rest of the grid-fill, because there are some very obscure words here: 6a is an interesting word but one I doubt I’ll use again, and I had to guess and check a few others. He’s also used some rather complex constructions and questionable indicators, so it was harder than I’d normally expect for an Indy puzzle, but still enjoyable. Apart from the thematic entries, I liked the reversed POT PAL in 11a and the very succinct (if slightly alarming) surface of 18d. Thanks Nimrod, and RIP Barry.

Definitions are underlined; BOLD UPPERCASE indicates letters used in the wordplay; square brackets [ ] indicate omitted letters.

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
6 THWARTWISE
Across this base are old women stalking with spears (10)
ART (an old form of “are” = are old) + W (women), after (stalking) W (with): all that inserted in (. . . spears = sticks into) THIS + E (e = base of natural logarithms in mathematics).

An old word for sideways or crosswise.
9 LIEU
Misleading act leads to university place (4)
LIE (an act of misleading someone) + U (abbreviation for university).

French for place, but also used in English “in lieu of . . .”.
10 CULTURAL
Aesthetic selection includes a course on reflection (8)
CULL (selection = cutting down to a smaller number), including A + RUT (a fixed course) reversed (on reflection).
11 LAPTOP
Who’s sharing spliff with one retired PC? (6)
A friend sharing a spliff (cannabis cigarette) might be one’s POT PAL.

PC can stand for many things, but here we need “personal computer”, for example a laptop.
13 ETON
Change that makes bare barn a place of education (4)
To make BARE into BARN you need to change E TO N.

Short name for the Berkshire public school Eton College.
14 ENCORES
Among those receiving not a morsel of food, starving Oliver calls for more (7)
[f]ENCES (slang for people who receive stolen goods) without the first letter (a morsel) of F[ood], with O[live]R (starving = empty = inner letters removed) inserted (among . . .).

Calls from the audience at the end of a concert when they want to hear more music.
16 DURER
Pressure to abandon ship? Take painter (5)
DURE[ss] (pressure = coercion), without SS (abbreviation for steamship), then R (take, in old-fashioned prescriptions = abbreviation for the Latin recipe).

Albrecht Dürer, German Renaissance artist.
19 DAME EDNA EVERAGE
Corrupt hosts need a comic – possibly 5’s 7 31 12 25 1 (4,4,7)
DAMAGE (corrupt, as a verb), containing (hosting) an anagram (comic = funny) of NEED A and then EVER (possibly? – perhaps they’re roughly equivalent in “I couldn’t ever do that”).

Character created by 5d Barry HUMPHRIES: the lady referred to herself as “housewife and superstar”, which is the sum of 7d, 31a, 12d, 25d and 1d.
22 MAN UP
Rashford & co “soft”? Grow a pair! (3,2)
MAN U (short for Manchester United Football Club, which features Marcus Rashford among others) + P (p = abbreviation for Italian piano = soft, in musical notation).

Grow a pair (of testicles) = man up = slang expressions addressed to someone who is perceived not to be “acting like a man”.
24 TURN-UPS
Features of trousers which are surprisingly lucky (4-3)
Double definition. Upward folds at the bottom of trouser legs; or as in “a turn-up for the books” = a lucky surprise.
26 ONCE
When to articulate wishes in some parts? (4)
Homophone (to articulate) in some accents (in some parts = regions) of WANTS (as a noun = wishes). I think it works in a South African accent, for example, but there may be others.

As in “I’ll get back to you once / when I’ve finished.”
28 T V HOST
So many cross-dressers, say, Norton or Ross? (1,1,4)
TV = abbreviation for transvestite, now more usually called a cross-dresser. So a large number (a host) of them would be a TV HOST . . .

. . . but the more usual interpretation would be “the host of a programme on television”, such as Graham Norton or Jonathan Ross.
29 ROSEHIPS
Spooner’s water-pipe is reopening fruits of the garden (8)
Spoonerism of HOSE RIPS (water-pipe is tearing = re-opening).

Fruits of a rose bush.
31 WIFE
Man’s one female for keeping! (4)
WE (man = the human race?) containing (…’s = has, for keeping) I (one in Roman numerals) + F (abbreviation for female).

Clue-as-definition: wife = the one woman that a man marries “for keeps”.
32 PHONMETERS
The person unfortunately carrying master’s measuring equipment (10)
Anagram (unfortunately) of THE PERSON, containing (carrying) M (abbreviation for master).

No, me neither. Collins online tells me it’s a variant of “phonometer” = a device for measuring how loud sounds are.
DOWN
1 STAR
It’s irritating, the rise of this luminary (4)
STAR reversed (the rise of = upwards in a down clue) becomes RATS!, an expression indicating irritation.
2 SIR LES PATTERSON
5’s 10 8 who riles press, no worries, drinking Australia dry (3,3,9)
Anagram (. . . worries, as a verb = bothers, though the grammar seems the wrong way round) of RILES PRESS NO, containing (drinking) A (abbreviation for Australia) + TT (abbreviation for teetotal = dry).

Character created by 5d Barry HUMPHRIES: the Australian CULTURAL ATTACHE (10a 8d).
3 HELLO
Cobber will ring to say G’day (5)
HE’LL (Cobber will; cobber = Australian slang for a male friend, or just used as an alternative to “he” for a man generally) + O (a ring shape).
4 WISTERIA
Plant of purple hue is in need of water, I fancy (8)
IS inserted into an anagram (fancy) of WATER I. I think this could just as well have been “is in water, I fancy”; “need of” is, well, needless.
5 HUMPHRIES
Our Barry Cryer’s regulars want his instead, following hunch (9)
[c]R[y]E[r] with alternate letters missing (regulars wanting), replaced with the letters of HIS; all after HUMP (hunch as in hunchback).

The late comedian Barry Humphries, the theme of this crossword.
7 HOUSE
In hall, I’ve won husband that’s ineffectual? (5)
H (abbreviation for husband) + O (zero) USE (no use = ineffectual).

A call in a bingo hall, indicating that the caller has a completed (winning) card.
8 ATTACHE
American college dons attending specific case (7)
A (abbreviation for American) + C (abbreviation for college), inserted into (dons, as a verb = puts on) AT (attending, as in “will you be at the party?” + THE (definite article, indicating a specific thing).

Short for attache case = briefcase.
12 AND
On top of which, orang-utan’s back in trailer (3)
Last letter (back) of [orang-uta]N in AD (short for advertisement = trailer).
15 RUDE
Harsh dictator’s cross (4)
Homophone (dictator’s) of ROOD (an old word for a cross, especially one in a church).
17 ADAMSTOWN
Little capital put away in a blast (9)
STOW (put away) in A + DAMN (blast = expletive expressing annoyance).

Not familiar to me, but a logical enough name to guess. It’s the capital of the Pitcairn Islands in the Pacific Ocean, with a population of somewhere around 50, so “little” seems fair enough.
18 OVER
Balls up (4)
Double definition. In cricket, a sequence of balls bowled by the same player; or as in “the game’s up” = finished.
20 MANSHIFT
Work done, assuming male hasn’t fiddled around (8)
IF (assuming), with M (male) + an anagram (fiddled) of HASN’T around it.

Extended definition: the amount of work that one person can be expected to achieve in one shift.
21 ROUGH IT
In a cycle of depression, I muddle through (5,2)
I inserted into TROUGH (depression), with the initial T moved round (in a cycle) to the end.

Muddle through = rough it = do what you can in less-than-ideal circumstances.
23 POS
Oh, I forgot to tell you about Chambers (3)
O (oh = phonetic spelling of the letter O), with PS (abbreviation for postscript = a late addition to a letter = “I forgot to tell you . . .” around (about) it.

Plural of PO, slang for a chamber-pot, which is sometimes called a “chamber” for short.
25 SUPER
The compiling team turned up a great! (5)
US (personal pronoun as used by the team of people compiling crosswords) reversed (turned up, in a down clue), then PER (as in once per day / once a day).
27 N-TYPE
Somewhat jaunty persona of certain conductors (1-4)
Hidden answer (somewhat) in [jau]NTY PE[rsona].

Another guess-and-check: it’s a specific type of electrical semiconductor.
30 SUMS
Dubious adopting primer for mental arithmetic (4)
SUS (short for suspicious = dubious), containing (adopting) the first letter (primer?) of M[ental].

15 comments on “Independent 11,411 by Nimrod”

  1. Thanks, Nimrod for the very challenging and enjoyable puzzle.
    Thanks, Quirister for the excellent blog (must have been some work).

    I have to list more than 50% of the solutions as my favourites.

    WIFE
    I parsed it the same way (man=the human race=WE) as in the blog.

    HELLO
    The greeting ‘G’day cobbers!’ justifies the use of ‘cobber’ in the clue, I guess.

    ever=possibly? (DAME EDNA EVERAGE)
    from collinsdictionary.com
    in any possible case; by any chance; at all (often used to intensify or emphasize a phrase or an emotional reaction as surprise or impatience)
    How did you ever manage to do it?
    If the band ever plays again, we will dance
    (The example given in the blog seems apt).

  2. This took a long, long time and it would have been even longer had it not been for the theme. Three new words/terms as mentioned in the blog, but the hardest two clues for me were ADAMSTOWN, which I eventually could parse even though I had no idea about the Pitcairn Islands bit and my last in THWARTWISE, an unheard of (but plausible) word for which the parsing was particularly difficult. Hard to pick the best clue out of so many good ones but I’ll go for MAN UP.

    As always with Nimrod, I missed a few bits of parsing such as TV for ‘cross-dressers’ at 28a but overall I was happy to finish with the grid filled correctly.

    Thanks to Nimrod for the tribute to Barry Humphries and to Quirister for such a great job in sorting everything out and for explaining things so clearly

  3. Spotted the theme except for failing to link up HELLO POS SUMS – d’oh.
    Very jazzy wordplay but managed to finish – more by determination than anything else.
    Needed the blog for the parsing in more than a few places,
    Thanks Nimrod & Quirister

  4. I got POS and SUMS but failed to put them together with HELLO
    A delightful tribute
    Thanks JH and Quirister

  5. Always a treat to get a Nimrod crossword and this was a fine tribute to Mr 5d

    Many thanks to Nimrod and Quirister

  6. Just when you start thinking that after a few years of solving, maybe you’re getting the hang of this cryptic thing, along comes Nimrod to put you in your place. I admire my fellow solvers for whom this level of difficulty is “a treat”, and am particularly thankful for Quirster’s detailed blogging today, as the answer and parsing alone would not explain some of them.

  8. I enjoyed it immensely and, like KVA @1, find it impossible to pick favourites from such a great set of clues. Can’t say I found it easy though – and as per WordPlodder @2, it probably would have taken me a lot longer than it did if I hadn’t twigged the theme early.

    copmus @4 – as soon as I got POS, I was alert to looking for SUMS but it was only when I finished that I spotted HELLO as well.

    Thanks, Nimrod and Quirister.

  9. Thanks both. Way out of my league with this, needing lots of help, and whilst the theme is close enough to general knowledge, so eventually aiding a partial solve, the main character always made me cringe to a point of determined avoidance, but one man’s poison….Time enough for the proverbial darkened room before I attempt something potentially equally frustrating and watch my team in the Champions League

  10. A dnf because while attempting on my phone I (not having the fingers of a concert violinist) accidentally hit ‘reveal puzzle’ instead of ‘reveal word’ and there it was: complete in all it’s glory. But a swift review revealed that I wasn’t going to be a winner anyway.
    Nice to see a tribute to Barry Humphries who often made me laugh.
    And quirister I don’t know how you do it. Tvm

  11. Didn’t enjoy that at all for all the reasons Quirister hinted at. Does anyone think “wants” and “once” are homonyms. Not even close for me.

  13. Reading Oren’s comment@6 made us both laugh. We solved about 4 clues over lunch and a few more during a tea break but we have only just finished the puzzle after a rather late meal.

    Was it enjoyable? Yes, at a pinch. Did we think of it as a treat? No, but but we were pleased to finish it although we used the check button quite a lot.

    Annoyed that we missed linking POS and SUMS – could we blame it on the fact that neither of us was a fan of Barry Humphries? Perhaps not!

    Thanks Quirister and John.

  15. I needed the theme to get started, and I quickly figured out it was Barry Humphries because Serpent/Basilisk referenced his death in the FT’s end-of-month news puzzle for April. With that going for me, I still limped to the finish, as ever amazed by Nimrod’s inventive clueing. I missed a couple of details, so am grateful to Quirster for explaining them all so well, such as H O USE for an ineffectual husband and hall being a bingo hall. Very amusing.

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