Independent 12,000 by Maize

by

We were expecting an Eccles puzzle today so we were quite surprised to find the setter was Maize.

We then looked at the number of the puzzle and decided there must be a theme. In the end it turned out to be a NINA incorporating the letters of the alphabet in order. We spotted it after solving about 4 or 5 clues in the NW corner.

Despite having these letters around the perimeter there were still a few challenges. As we had the final letter in 14ac it was easy to spot the ‘scorer’, given the rather clunky surface.

Thanks Maize – you set yourself quite a challenging grid fill today.

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
8. ULEZ boundaries backed by prosperous financial centre (6)
ZURICH

A reversal (‘backed’) of first and last letters only or ‘boundaries’ of ULEZ + RICH (prosperous)

9. Admit Galatians includes old, embarrassing mistake (3,4)
OWN GOAL

OWN (admit) GAL (Galatians – abbreviation in the bible) around or ‘including’ O (old)

10. Fairly inexperienced solver, no good, is hopeless to begin with (8)
YOUNGISH

YOU (solver) NG (no good) IS H (first letter of hopeless or ‘to begin with’)

11. Devil-woman wantonly hit on one in fifties (6)
LILITH

An anagram (‘wantonly’) of HIT on I (one) in L L (fifties) – we had to check this one

12. Khan’s stately home – by a non-Tamil state of India (6)
XANADU

X (by) A tamilNADU (state of India missing Tamil)

14. Italian scorer scores pig hides in the middle (8)
RESPIGHI

Hidden (‘in the middle’) of scoRES PIG HIdes – we’d never heard of this composer

15. Foretell of conflicts undergoing polar shift (4)
WARN

WARs (conflicts) with S (south) changing to N (north) – a ‘polar shift’

17. Folded in half then turned back sides of origami paper (5)
FOLIO

FOLded (half only) then a reversal (‘turned back’) of OrigamI (first and last letters only or ‘sides’)

18. Holiday job initially involves a day trip to Saudi (4)
HADJ

Holiday Job (initial letters only) around or ‘involving’ A D (day)

20. Used Hoover Dam upper curve whilst overlooking river meanders (8)
VACUUMED

An anagram (‘meanders’) of DAM U (upper) and CUrVE missing or ‘overlooking’ ‘r’ (river)

22. Grizzly relative I knocked out first with attack on both sides (6)
KODIAK

I with KO’D (knocked out) first and then AttacK (first and last letters only or ‘on both sides’)

24. Doctor thrown into Russian river under cover of darkness (6)
UMBRAL

MB (doctor) inside or ‘thrown into’ URAL (Russian river)

25. Measure what one eats a bit at a time (8)
INCHMEAL

INCH (measure) MEAL (what one eats). A new word for us which we needed to check in Chambers.

27. Somewhat insult an Arab ruler’s wife (7)
SULTANA

Hidden (‘somewhat’) in inSULT AN Arab’s

28. Two characters making the case for Romeo having married by chance (6)
RANDOM

R AND O (the two letters at either end of Romeo or ‘making the case’) and M (married)

DOWN
1. Robots requiring gold to make all transistors and leads (8)
AUTOMATA

AU (gold) and first letters or ‘leads’ in To Make All Transistors And

2. 70s Jagger‘s sexually ambiguous rock sound (6)
BIANCA

BI (sexually ambiguous) + a homophone (‘sounds like’) of ANCHOR (rock)

3. Empty calabash, excellent for tea (4)
CHAI

CalabasH (missing the middle letters or ’empty’) AI (excellent)

4. Horse turf tipped to be ready (4)
DOSH

A reversal (‘tipped’) of H (horse) SOD (turf)

5. Rambling hikes along one of our national symbols? (7,3)
ENGLISH OAK

An anagram (‘rambling’) of HIKES ALONG

6. Tarot card ladies who meet by thorium gaslight? (4,4)
FOOL WITH

FOOL (Tarot card) WI (ladies who meet) TH (thorium)

7. Ugly exfoliating skin rash problem caused by bug? (6)
GLITCH

uGLy (middle letters only or ‘exfoliating skin’) ITCH (rash)

13. Foreign fabricator follows fellow feeding a French friend (10)
UNFAMILIAR

LIAR (fabricator) following F (fellow) inside UN (a in French) AMI (friend)

14. Got to retire delirious once free from obligations (5)
RILED

A reversal (‘retiring’) of DELIRious without or ‘free from’ IOUS (obligations)

16. Nervous society filled with tense people unable to take sides (8)
NEUTRALS

NEURAL (nervous) S (society) around or ‘filled with’ T (tense)

19. Full range of notes expressed in sad piano movement (8)
DIAPASON

An anagram (‘movement’) of SAD PIANO

21. Nearly a thousand missing outside (6)
ALMOST

A + M (thousand) with LOST (missing) outside

23. Fats make protein-building acid non-active (6)
DOMINO

DO (make) aMINO (protein building acid) without ‘a’ (active). The Fats is Fats Domino.

25. One country’s nationalist going to question another (4)
IRAQ

IRA (one country’s nationalist) Q (question)

26. Complain about BBC English (4)
CARP

CA (about) RP (Received pronunciation or BBC English)

 

27 comments on “Independent 12,000 by Maize”

  1. I found this grimly fiendish: I cannot say I found a single clue that was “easy”.
    Possibly the toughest puzzle, that I have managed to finish, and the solver’s task is not helped by the grid itself…unless and until you spot the NINA going round the outer squares.
    I spotted it very late in the day, which helped only with my last few solutions.
    Very clever stuff, but not what I would call fun. I sort of felt, that the challenge that the setter had given themself resulted in some strained wordplays/ solutions.
    Some ingenious wordplays, but , for me, 14(ac), RESPIGHI, sums it up: both wordplay and answer, a bit unloveable.

    Thnks, Maize & BJ

  2. Thanks Maize and BnJ

    I think this is Maize’s first puzzle since 2021.

    The debut in, I think, 2016 was a quadruple pangram. This is a pretty amazing way to come back after a break of over 4 years.

  3. Having tried to fill a grid a few times utilising this nina, and knowing others who have done same, I can vouch that this is NOT an easy task. Particularly starting in the top left which is so aesthetically pleasing. A remarkable achievement and not really that many really unusual words forced by said constraint – INCHMEAL and DIAPASON, the only two that I needed to check. Unlike ENBoll, as I tend to solve in numerical order, I spotted the theme after AUTOMATA and BIANCA with CHAI giving me the confidence to break my routine and nip across to ZURICH for absolute confirmation.

    For me, the vast majority of the constructions here were excellent; really thoughtful selection of indicators, fodder and word ordering that led me from one meaningful/believable surface to the next. Most of them being pretty succinct. Only RESPIGHI, VACUUMED and UNFAMILIAR seemed at all clunky to me. Unsurprisingly, I have many favourites – almost everything bar the three aforementioned. Cutting that list right down, I’d highlight YOUNGISH for the brilliant surface; WARN which feels uncannily prescient; HADJ for the def; UMBRAL for the rather dark image; RANDOM for its theatrical allusion; ENGLISH OAK and FOOL WITH delivering simply splendid surfaces; DOMINO for the def and CARP for its delightful simplicity. What a way to mark puzzle number 18,000.

    Thanks Maize and B&J

  5. Didn’t spot the nina until after I’d finished. Seen this nina before but still have to say it’s an a-Maize-ing achievement. Quite a lot of unknowns for me but all gettable. I’m sure I’ve seen Respighi in previous cryptics.

  7. Thanks Maize and B&J.

    BIANCA
    Someone, please help me understand ‘rock=anchor’ (I assumed this equivalence while
    solving the puzzle, but I didn’t get a dictionary confirmation for the same).

  8. KVa @7: rock = anchor = something you cling to for stability in difficult times: “he’s always been my rock”.

  10. I never look for Ninas, so I missed out on the fun (and potentially the help). I found this tricky in places and quite a bit of fun.

    RESPIGHI is best known for The Pines of Rome. My dad liked it when I was a kid, but I never really got into that one.

    The only place I’ve ever seen DIAPASON in the wild is in this famously opaque poem by Hart Crane. (If you don’t know him, he’s sort of the American version of Rimbaud.) We also have here a reminder of one of my other favorite poets, Coleridge:

    In XANADU did Kubla Khan
    A stately pleasure-dome decree,
    Where Alph, the sacred river ran,
    Through caverns measureless to man,
    Down to a sunless sea.
    [And that’s as much of it as I have by heart.]

  12. I was only thinking the other day that it’d been a while since we had a Maize, and I remember his quadruple pangram so was on the lookout for something like this, not that that diminished my enjoyment of the puzzle at all. ZURICH, LILITH and FOOL WITH my favourites today. Hopefully the next one won’t take another four years!

  15. RESPIGHI – Pines (and Fountains) of Rome, yes. But if you find those a bit bombastic, The Birds and the Ancient Airs and Dances might be more up your street. Very skilful and pleasing orchestrations of 16th to 18th Century pieces.

  16. Loved and admired this. Started with 8a and thought I might as well try the linked downs, even though I could see 9a all ready to go (I solve in purely random order), so the Nina leapt out. Great fun. And the sun’s shining. And a reminder of Alf, the sacred river.
    Thanks to Maize and BandJ

  18. Thanks to B&J for the blog and comments above, and to Eimi for welcoming me back for #12,000. It’s nice to be back and there are indeed more on the way…

    I really just did this out of curiosity as to whether or not the Nina had been done before, and would be interested to hear where PostMark or others might have met it.
    I think Respighi might be best known for ‘The Birds’ which was the theme tune of Going for a Song, then solvers might know Diapason from Dryden’s ‘A Song for St Cecelia’s Day’ – ‘The diapason closing full in man’. Inchmeal appears in Caliban’s curse on Prospero ‘make him by inchmeal a disease’.

  19. PostMark@3 – Thank you for pointing me towards this puzzle, which is a delight. It took me far too long to identify the theme, but I do tend to be incredibly blind to these things when solving. And I realise that you’ve called out those three clues as the only ones that seemed at all clunky, but I’d say in response that UNFAMILIAR has excellent alliteration, VACUUMED cleverly employed “meanders” as a verb presented as a noun, and anyone writing a clue for RESPIGHI has my deepest sympathy – a hidden was possibly the only way I was likely to solve it!

    Thanks B&J, and to Maize for a top-notch puzzle.

  20. Thanks flashling @ 14, I thought I remembered a quintuple, but didn’t have the patience to try to track it down.

    Maize @ 18 Knut had a sequential perimeter pangram in 11449 in June 2023, but it didn’t start at the top left.

    I vaguely remember at least one previous but non-sequential perimeter pangram (Picaroon?), and I also think there was one where the pangram was of the last letters of the solutions.

  21. Thanks Maize for a remarkable crossword. I second what PostMark @3 said. I saw what was happening when I had A,B,C,Y, and Z in place; filling in the remainder of the letters made this puzzle a bit easier for me. My favourites were UMBRAL, AUTOMATA, GLITCH, RILED, NEUTRALS, and DOMINO. I failed to parse VACUUMED. Thanks B&J for the blog.

  22. I really enjoyed that. I got the left half filled in but couldn’t break into the right half. I was then staring at the grid thinking there were so many odd words with weird starting letters. When the penny dropped and I spotted ZYX etc going down the left.

    Got to confess it was quite a bit easier once I went round and filled the perimeter. Can’t help but feel I did the hard side without the help though.

    Tough but fair clues. A lot to like but my favourites were DOMINO, RESPIGHI (a great hidden which fooled me), ZURICH and many others.

    Thanks B&J and Maize ( not sure I’ve done one of your grids before)

  24. This was a great challenge and, while I was busy congratulating myself on surmising that it was a pangram, it wasn’t until the last two were going in that I suddenly realised what was going on in the perimeter. So, not that smart of me, after all.

    Very clever, Maize. Thank you.

  27. This puzzle was recommended by PostMark and I was not disappointed, it was magnificent – a puzzle made for the praise “the grid’s the star!”. I too have attempted an A-Z edge Nina but only managed to get it to work by starting bottom left… and I recall a conversation with another setter who’d had the same experience and we concluded that to start top right was “too hard” – I’m absolutely delighted to have been proven wrong!

    Many thanks Maize and Bertandjoyce

Comments are closed.