Oh no! It’s a Nimrod today! This should be a serious challenge!
… and it certainly was!
It tends to take us a while to get into the right mindset for a Nimrod, but the perseverance is always worth it!
We have, of course, to look for a theme in a Nimrod puzzle, and initially we thought we might be looking for significant English geographical features, having solved 4d/16ac fairly early on, and then finding the previously unheard-of waterfall at 22/7ac. The definition in 26/27 led us to another waterfall which we also had to check. We then realised that we had SCOUT, SPOUT and SNOUT symmetrically disposed in the grid, which prompted STOUT at 7d and SHOUT at 21d. An ingenious grid-fill (as we expected!) with five two-word rhyming entries highlighted in the grid below.
There are two clues that we have had difficulty explaining in the traditional manner, as they do not follow any of the ‘normal’ clue-types – 2d and 17d. We’d be interested in other solvers’ thoughts on these.
Thanks to Nimrod for stirring up the old grey matter today!
T (first letter or ‘head’ of technology) W (with) I (one) STAND OUT (project) round or ‘keeping’ SH (peace!)
TO N (last letter or ‘right’ of Caliban) in or ‘concealed by’ ACE (expert)
MO (modus operandi – ‘typical method’) USER (‘one exploits’)
DIN (row) with ORAL (not written) outside or ‘about’
STRAIN (press) round or ‘grasping’ IKEA (furniture store) and a reversal (‘after review’) of GRAB (snap up)
A reversal (‘over’) of NO (‘I refuse’) BE (live)
DO (party) RY (railway – ‘line’) – we had to check this – Ellen DeGeneres was the voice of Dory in the Disney/Pixar film ‘Saving Dory’
A clue-as-definition: an anagram (‘divers’) of IN SOS AIDES in or ‘probing’ CASE (subject of inquiry) – CAISSON DISEASE is decompression sickness, suffered by divers if they have to surface too quickly, perhaps in SOS situations
An anagram (‘ground’) of EUCALYPTUS TO – we had never heard of this waterfall – it’s apparently the highest ‘cascade’ waterfall in England above ground (not into a pothole)
L (‘letter indicating a new driver’) IS + ON (attached to) after B (last letter or ‘rear’ of cab)
An anagram (‘doctors’) of AND CONSULT OUR – another waterfall we had never heard of – this one the ‘longest’ cataract in England
CO (company – ‘business’) + an anagram (‘worked around’) of INCLUSIONS and YET
An anagram (‘there might be’) of ARRESTS OK could be STARKERS with O (‘nothing on’)
O O (rings) round or ‘fastening’ TT (‘on the wagon’) – we had to check this – a reference to Nicolaus Otto, a German Engineer associated with the early development of the internal combustion engine
A SCOUT (‘one of Akela’s lads’ – ‘Akela’ being a popular name for a Scout Leader) who goes the extra mile, would be KINDER – a ‘high point’ in the Peak District
STAND (endure) + RD (road – ‘way’) in or ‘taken by’ AVERSION (hatred)
ONE (a) LINER (cosmetic)
An anagram (‘order’) of TWO, S (last or ‘end’ letter of pints) and BURTON
Pairs of letters (‘couples’) in BAr neCK CHianti whAT
A clue-as-definition: Manx cats are TAILLESS – taking the last letter or ‘tail’ from Manx leaves us with ‘man’ – a man has no tail, but might, if he were, say, a jazz fan be referred to as a ‘cat’
A reversal (‘about’) of ALAS (‘it’s regrettable’) + a reversal (‘escalating’) of YR (your)
Y (last letter or ‘east side’ of city) ON D (dee)
Another Nimrod toughie. I hammered my way eventually to a largely complete grid: beaten by DORY – nowhere near spotting the parse and the definition was a total mystery to me; the nho CAISSON DISEASE – so much for the old maxim of ‘difficult word/easy clue’; and the nho CAULDRON SNOUT (I did get the other nho waterfall but via an anagram solver, I’m afraid). I do not understand how the anagrind in CAULDRON SNOUT works: ‘doctor’ as an imperative anagrind before the fodder is familiar but the only intransitive meaning of the word is ‘to act as a doctor’ so how does [fodder] doctors work?
Thanks both
PM @1, doctor is transitive here too. Take the clue as a whole: solution fodder doctors. I.e. an object a subject acts on (although the solution here being given as a phrase ‘I run …’, which can’t be an object, rather spoils it). It’s the same as many hidden word clues, eg Cake Bob unwillingly eats.
Crikey. Thanks, James.
I didn’t think I was going to finish this after the first pass only revealed one entry. Like PM I eventually battered my way through but had to come here for the parsing of BACKCHAT which I knew was in the wordplay somewhere but just couldn’t see it. KINDER SCOUT was a sweet clue but grated just a touch as Akelas run a cub pack not scouts, I suppose their full name is cub scouts so I should just belt up and go away.
Thanks for the workout Nimrod and B&J for a helpful blog
Well, that’s two hours of my life I’ll not see again. All for SALARY and YOND
glad I didn’t have to blog this … well done! I’d never have got DORY
I allow myself to use the check button, anagram solvers and word finders with this setter, which meant I was able to complete and enjoy this. I thought the use of “divers” as an anagrind and part of a cad was particularly clever. Does it count as a Jorum, when you learn a new fact from the wordplay, rather than a new word? As discovering that Ellen DeGeneres voiced Dory. [I tried to make LNER work before I got any crossers.]
I consider myself a pretty good solver, but this was well and truly beyond me. It doesn’t help that it’s very British, but at this point I can’t use that as an excuse. I was simply defeated.
I stared at this for what seemed like forever and only got OTTO and YOND. I recognised that I needed an anagram of “Eucalyptus to” and resorted to an anagram finder which gave me one possible solution that I was grateful to find from Google existed and fitted the rest of the clue. After that I was able to make steady (but slow) progress, helped by the S_OUT theme, and only resorted to the reveal button to kick start the final two entries.
In retrospect I think it was fun but I wouldn’t have wanted to be the blogger.
I loved the way he snuck Twist and Shout in with the beauty of nature
Hard work! The sort of crossword that makes me feel ignorant, as I plug in unknown words I can’t parse. I saw the 5 rhyming words but can’t see why they are there.
After an hour, I’d got three answers, so I put it to one side and watched Starfleet Academy instead. I did not have the enthusiasm to come back to it.