An enjoyable and quite manageable Saturday outing from Eimi, which brightened up another train journey in a most welcome manner.
There’s a topical Nina in there too. Look away now if you want to go and track it down for yourselves.
Still here? It seems that around the perimeter we have the message “ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF WORD CROSSES”, a reference to the centenary of the crossword, which you can’t possibly not have heard about, and a reminder that the original name for the puzzle was indeed “word cross”.
| Across | ||
| 8 | SPRAY DRAIN | Means of getting water away and dry pirañas out (5-5) |
| (DRY PIRANAS)* | ||
| 9 | EVER | Toffees to lose weight? Possibly (4) |
| EVER[ton]. Everton Football Club are known as the Toffeemen, or Toffees for short | ||
| 10 | EN BLOC | Note old king’s coming back around in a group (2,4) |
| NB in COLE< | ||
| 11 | DIALOGUE | Au, i.e. gold, traded in exchange brought into play perhaps (8) |
| (AU IE GOLD)* | ||
| 12 | SIMONIAC | Spiritual trafficker depicted wrongly in mosiac (8) |
| (IN MOSAIC)* | ||
| 14 | RELIED | Banked with priest who’s overdrawn (6) |
| ELI in RED, thus “in the red” | ||
| 15 | SEVEN NATION ARMY | Song rewritten in monastery nave (5,6,4) |
| (IN MONASTERY NAVE)* | ||
| 18 | ORB WEB | Ingenious construction men we encountered in B&B (3,3) |
| OR + (WE in (B + B)) | ||
| 21 | FRETSOME | At liberty to hold the lion’s share back, but agitated (8) |
| MOST< in FREE | ||
| 22 | REFERRAL | Direction to specialist about badger finally found in the wild, … (8) |
| RE + ([badge]R in FERAL) | ||
| 23 | LAMINA | … creature’s return depicted in plate (6) |
| ANIMAL< | ||
| 25 | CEDE | Transfer back in late December (4) |
| [lat]E DEC[ember]< | ||
| 26 | ECO-WARRIOR | Activist involved in Rio race row (3-7) |
| (RIO RACE ROW)* | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | OPEN FIRE | Start shooting / where things may be hotting up (4,4) |
| double definition | ||
| 2 | NAIL | Nothing about Australian’s arrest (4) |
| A in NIL | ||
| 3 | EDUCTION | Development in teaching that’s not acceptable (8) |
| EDUC[a]TION | ||
| 4 | HARD ACT TO FOLLOW | Almost incomparable or almost incomprehensible, like any part of a Beckett play, some might say (4,3,2,6) |
| I think this parses as a double or even triple definition. I’m not sufficiently familiar enough with Samuel Beckett’s work to pass comment here | ||
| 5 | UNFAIR | Travelling entertainment not opening? Swizz! (6) |
| [f]UNFAIR | ||
| 6 | NEW ORLEANS | Salerno may be viewed thus as a port city in the south (3,7) |
| A nice reverse cryptic, in that SALERNO could be clued as “New Orleans”, with “new” as an anagrind | ||
| 7 | DEDUCE | Infer it’s what Italy had to do in 1943 (6) |
| DE–DUCE. Very nice. Mussolini was known as “Il Duce” and was arrested and removed from office in 1943 | ||
| 13 | OVERWEENER | Revere Owen perhaps as an arrogant person (9) |
| (REVERE OWEN)* | ||
| 16 | OVERLEAF | Reveal translation in Old French on the next page (8) |
| REVEAL* in OF | ||
| 17 | MEMENTOS | Heartlessly intended to get in some strange souvenirs (8) |
| ME[a]NT in SOME* | ||
| 19 | REELED | Wound up Miliband after dance (6) |
| REEL + ED Miliband | ||
| 20 | BORNEO | Suffered over island (5) |
| BORNE + O | ||
| 24 | MIRO | Artist with very little time to geet around Ireland (4) |
| IR in MO, the artist being Joan Miró, of course | ||
* = anagram; < = reversed; [] = removed; underlined = definition
I spotted a Nina! I think this may be a first. It helped me get 18ac, which I didn’t know, which in turn proved my first guess at 19dn, BALLED, was wrong.
On the other hand, 9ac defeated me. I have difficulty thinking of EVER meaning possibly although I see it’s in Chambers, and I’m sure I’d heard that Everton are known as the Toffees, it didn’t spring to mind last Saturday.
An enjoyable puzzle. I only saw the nina towards the end and it helped me with my last few answers, BORNEO, ORB WEB and REFERRAL.
A very user-friendly Nina in an enjoyable crossword – thanks to Eimi and Simon
Oops: since the deadline for sending in entries is 3 January, this solution shouldn’t have been published until next Saturday, should it?
Polly@4 – on the basis that the Independent has made the crossword available online, and all the relevant buttons are there for those solvers who need such aids, then there is surely nothing wrong with Simon publishing his blog when he did.
Andy B@5, I suppose that’s true, but to me it makes a nonsense of the idea of a prize crossword, since it’s now possible for any number of people to fill in their missing answers in the paper version and send in the completed grid. I’ve no axe to grind, as I do the puzzle (in the DTV) purely for my own pleasure; but I do remember that when I was a child competition entries usually had to be signed by an adult as being the entrant’s own unaided work!
Oops, didn’t spot the revised closing date, so thanks for the heads up. Though it is interesting that it was put online anyway.
Either way, I’ll take the post down for now.