[If you’re attending York S&B please see comments 32&33] - here
Phi’s usual sound and pleasant crossword. I found this slightly harder than usual for him, which explains the rather late posting. Also there were a few parsings which only became clear once I actually wrote up the blog.
All the loose ends round the outside suggest a Nina, but apparently not. No doubt there is something subtle and for me quite undiscoverable.
Definitions underlined. At least so far as I can see.
Across
8 State party with most importance (6)
DOMAIN
do main — the connection between state and domain seemed vague and I still can’t think of sentences where they are interchangeable
9 Song describing drunk with no means of escape (8)
AIRTIGHT
air [= song] tight [= describing drunk]
10 Stock, filthy, no end of obscenity (4)
GRIM
grim{{obscenit}y} but the definition? Presumably ‘Stock’, but how stock = grim I can’t see
11 Article found in messy clutter? Not keen (9)
RELUCTANT
an in (clutter)*
12 Energy? Having lots to go round, not seeing a waste (8)
EFFLUENT
e {a}ffluent — if you are affluent you have lots of money to spread around
15 Wine shop to promise openings for guzzling alcohol (6)
BODEGA
bode g{uzzling} a{lcohol} — a wine shop is always apparently a bodega
16 What’s acceptable in the old-fashioned form of slavery? (4)
YOKE
y(OK)e — ye is the in an old-fashioned way
17 Put down book bound in yarn (5)
TABLE
ta(b)le
18 Frenchmen avoiding warm, damp soil (4)
CLAY
cla{m m}y — I found this hard because clay isn’t necessarily warm and damp, then realised that the warmth and dampness are not part of the definition
19 One joining endless procession on return (6)
UNITER
(retinu{e})rev.
21 Had nukes, but deployed simpler weapon (5-3)
SKEAN-DHU
(Had nukes)* — a skean-dhu is a small knife used in highland dress and, for some reason usually with this spelling, in crosswords
23 English taking steps to limit recurrence of hoax? That’s worthwhile (9)
ESTIMABLE
E stile containing (bam)rev.
25 Satisfied Independent retracted news report (4)
ITEM
(met I)rev.
27 This poem may be anagrammed by Beelzebub (8)
MEPHISTO
(This poem)* — referring to the crossword setter Beelzebub
28 Blood constituent: contaminated sample mostly A (6)
PLASMA
(sampl{e})* A
Down
1 Pseud’s heartless gush (4)
POUR
Po{se}ur
2 Version of Mary Luke redrafted showing Jewish garb (8)
YARMULKE
(Mary)* (Luke)* — a yarmulke
3 Heading off to search for aromatic plant? Not so (6)
UNTRUE
{h}unt rue
4 Name leaving Red Devils, looking initially to be one of the Hammers? (4)
MAUL
Ma{n} U l{ooking} — a maul is amongst other things a type of hammer
5 Small room with centre upended to host King’s trial (8)
CRUCIBLE
The small room is a cubicle; reverse the centre of that to get cucible; surround r [=king]
6 Western point of Cornwall not initially very good (6)
WIZARD
W {L}izard — very outdated lingo: I remember as a small boy in the 1950s using the word and being uncomfortable with the dreadfulness of it
7 Still showing some signs of development? (10)
PHOTOGRAPH
CD — nowadays not many photographs are actually developed, but Phi has used a question mark
13 Struggled and sank, going round Lake (10)
FLOUNDERED
f(l)oundered
14 Objection raised over arsenic in brass? (5)
TUBAS
(but)rev. as
17 One male in tailored suit – sweet (8)
TIRAMISU
(1 ram) in (suit)*
18 Unpleasant consumer channel retaining some point (8)
CANNIBAL
can(nib)al
20 Irritable and tense during college year (6)
TETCHY
te(t)ch y
22 Immune from former lover’s lure (though hiding head) (6)
EXEMPT
ex {t}empt
24 Be critical of money in period of prosperity (4)
BOOM
boo m
26 TV puppet captured in couple of models? (4)
ELMO
Hidden in modEL MOdel — the TV puppet was new to me, but is on Sesame Street
*anagram
Definitely harder than usual, took quite a while to see any on first pass.
Beelzebub, mephisto? Is Phi looking to extend his franchises 🙂 Thanks John.
I found it harder than usual too. Thanks to John and Phi.
Count me as another who found this on the tricky side. I got there in the end with GRIM my LOI from the wordplay alone and I still have no idea how grim=stock. The closest I can get from my Chambers is grim=unappealing and stock=banal, but they’re hardly synonymous.
I also managed to get CRUCIBLE right from the checkers alone. I’d forgotten crucible=trial and I couldn’t see the wordplay, so hardly my finest ever bit of solving.
As far as a nina is concerned, I can see YUM in the unches on all four sides, and with CANNIBAL the answer to 18dn shortly after Luis Suarez’s latest shenanigans it is prescient if nothing else.
All comments above came to me as well. Thanks for the pleasure, though.
Extra fun for me: my grandson can’t say Ls yet so – – lizard is always wizard for him.
I think AndyB might just be onto something … how on earth did Phi write this one so quickly after the ignorant, cheating animal that is Suarez sunk his teeth into an Italian (and it wasn’t TIRAMISU).
I certainly 13dn on this, not helped by a couple of wild guesses that were spectacularly wrong. I thought of GRIM for 10ac, but just couldn’t fit it into the definition. I also got the gist of 1dn but didn’t get the answer as I couldn’t spell “poseur”. (Foghot know there was a ‘u’ in it.)
How on earth did I manage to type “forgot” as “foghot” in my previous post?
You may wish to recall that I am more interested in Flanders & Swann than football. Though I concede it’s a neat coincidence.
Poor Phi must be getting fed up with our inability to detect his ninas, so as the worst nina-spotter in the world, now that he has given us the hint, I will record for posterity that it’s referring to THE RELUCTANT CANNIBAL by Flanders and Swann.
It includes the line:
a chorus of yums ran around the table …
… which is exactly what is happening in his puzzle.
So the Suarez theme will have to be a secondary nina, but Phi definitely intended it, since the song also includes the lines:
Don’t eat people
Eating people is bad
Don’t eat people
Eating people is wrong
So there you go.
PS re GRIM. Eimi queried this, I mentioned it was meant to be ‘stark’, and the process of getting it to the paper seems to have neglected to make the change.
We found this tricky as well and needed electronic help and the blog!
Thanks to S&B.
I often save Phi’s puzzles to enjoy with my Saturday morning coffee. On this occasion I did find the outer unches yummy but the puzzle less so (parsing of 10ac defeated me early which may have affected my mood)
On reflection, and with Phi’s explanations, a pretty good puzzle in fact.
Of course, one doesn’t need to know compilers’ names to see the connection between Beelzebub and Mephisto[pheles] (Milton will do…)
Thanks to Phi and to John.
Malcolm Bradbury nicked ‘eating people is wrong’ for the title of one of his novels.
My favourite bit from the Flanders and Swann song is where the reluctant cannibal is told a few facts of life.
People have always eaten people.
What else is there to eat?
If the juju had meant us not to eat people,
He wouldn’t have made us out of meat.