A prize Nimrod – just the thought of it is enough to chill the blood, let alone if you have to blog it.
If there are any errors or omissions you will all have to wait for a while as by the time this blog is published we will be without internet access and won’t be back on-line until near the end of the month. Many thanks to Gaufrid for standing in for us.
We expected it to be tricky and when we realised how many unusual words were appearing, we started looking for a theme. Discovering the perimeter nina helped to tidy up the various missing solutions that had previously eluded us. We wonder whether George Osborne or any of his banking friends tackled this puzzle – if so, doubtless the nina will mean nothing to them!
There was some very crafty wordplay, as expected from Nimrod, causing a lot of head-scratching, but that’s what we want from a Saturday Prize Puzzle.
| Across | ||
| 8 | I’ll step in once poor mother’s given eulogy (8) | |
| ENCOMIUM | I ‘stepping into’ an anagram of ONCE (anagrind is ‘poor’) MUM (mother) – the first of several unusual words – we had at least heard of this one! | |
| 9 | Missing the odd signature, any papers here? (2-4) | |
| IN-TRAY | Even letters (‘missing the odd’) in sIgNaTuRe AnY | |
| 10 | Conceited streak in one’s nature we’ve picked up (4) | |
| VAIN | Sounds like (‘picked up’) VEIN (streak in one’s nature) | |
| 11 | Fantastic deed involving Cretan Bull (4,6) | |
| DEAD CENTRE | An anagram of DEED and CRETAN – anagrind is ‘fantastic’ – we’re not quite sure about the use of ‘involving’ here, implying that there is an anagram of CRETAN inside an anagram of DEED, which is not the case. | |
| 12 | On a mission to get orders to 4 (3,3) | |
| OUT FOR | An anagram of TO FOUR – anagrind is ‘orders’ – it took us a while to tumble to the wordplay to this one | |
| 14 | Provincial old City Underground off limits with this? (8) | |
| SUBURBAN | This took a bit of parsing but we think it must be: something that would (fancifully) make going under an old City off limits would be a SUB UR BAN | |
| 15 | A possible pathway to the west, zilch in left sphere of vision (3,4) | |
| LEY LINE | NIL (zilch) reversed, or ‘to the west’, in L (left) EYE (sphere of vision) | |
| 17 | Spot Psammead’s name written backwards in blocks (7) | |
| LENTIGO | We had never heard of Psammead, so had to look it up when we could get nowhere with the parsing. Apparently, Psammead is ‘IT’ in E Nesbit’s trilogy of children’s books. So it’s IT (Psammead) N (name) reversed or ‘written backwards’ in LEGO (blocks) | |
| 20 | Boat en route from Buckfastleigh to Arundel (5-3) | |
| EIGHT-OAR | Hidden or ‘en route’ in BuckfasstlEIGH TO ARundel – we’d not come across this term for a boat before! | |
| 22 | Dislike being on Holmes’ tail? It’s elementary (6) | |
| SODIUM | ODIUM (dislike) after the last letter or ‘tail’ of HolmeS | |
| 23 | Risk other suffering, overstepping a very fine line (4,6) | |
| HAIR STROKE | An anagram of RISK OTHER (anagrind is ‘suffering’) round or ‘overstepping’ A | |
| 24 | Scots carry a lot out of Falmouth, bit by bit to get sent back (4) | |
| HUMF | FalMoUtH, with ‘a lot’ omitted or ‘out’ and reversed or ‘sent back’ – the ‘bit by bit’ indicates that the letters of the answer are separated, but if we’re being picky, this seems unnecessary – a new word for us, not being Scottish! | |
| 25 | Morning application: a short letter of credit accepted by corporation (6) | |
| TALCUM | A LC (abbreviation for ‘Letter of credit’) in or ‘accepted by’ TUM (corporation) – not sure about the definition here – surely talcum isn’t only applied in the morning? | |
| 26 | Order some soup and a sparkling wine (8) | |
| ESPUMOSO | An anagram of SOME SOUP – anagrind is ‘order’ – another new word for us! | |
| Down | ||
| 1 | An ecstasy pill? American injected disulfiram (8) | |
| ANTABUSE | AN + E (ecstasy) with TAB (pill) and US (American) ‘injected’. Both the definition and the solution are new to us – where do pharmacists get the names of new drugs from? | |
| 2 | Perhaps ladies name foolish person (4) | |
| LOON | LOO (‘Ladies’ perhaps) N (name) | |
| 3 | Heard she was seduced by swan songs? (6) | |
| LIEDER | Sounds like LEDA, who in Greek mythology was seduced (or raped?) by Zeus who disguised himself as a swan | |
| 4 | Diplomatic set-up, maybe, getting worried about Nazi force (7) | |
| EMBASSY | An anagram of MAYBE (anagrind is ‘getting worried’) around SS (Nazi force) | |
| 5 | Live NBC broadcast with interruption from Institute that may be overcome (8) | |
| VINCIBLE | An anagram of LIVE NBC (anagind is ‘broadcast’) around or ‘interrupted by’ I (Institute) | |
| 6 | I can do job on farm after years travelled (10) | |
| ITINERATED | I + TIN (can) TED (do job on farm- spread new-mown grass for drying) after ERA (years) | |
| 7 | Rope, tethered initially further up, causes singular admiration (6) | |
| LATRIA | LARIAT (rope) with the ‘T’ (first or ‘initial’ letter of ‘Tethered’) moved towards the front of the word (‘up’ in a down clue) – another new word to us | |
| 13 | Looking up poem suitable for singing, it’s hard to accept 50% of that is loaded (6,4) | |
| FILTHY RICH | IF (poem) reversed or ‘looking up’ + LYRIC (suitable for singing) H (hard), round or ‘accepting’ TH (50% of ‘that’) | |
| 16 | Little number – it turns Nimrod on before 12! (8) | |
| NOONTIME | NO (little number) + IT reversed or ‘turned’ + ME (Nimrod, the setter) with ON before | |
| 18 | After loss of one, point’s my lowest (8) | |
| GLUMMEST | This had us completely baffled until a light-bulb moment when writing up the blog: it’s GiST (point) with ‘I’ (one) omitted or ‘lost’ and replaced by LUMME (an expression of surprise, like ‘my’) – devilish cunning! | |
| 19 | Swearing private statement about compressing oxygen (7) | |
| TROOPER | REPORT (statement) reversed or ‘about’ round or ‘compressing’ O (oxygen) | |
| 21 | Italy’s not at all good at services (6) | |
| IBADAT | I (Italy) BAD (not at all good) AT – yet another new word! | |
| 22 | Bruce working on farm – and inside of cheese shop (6) | |
| SHEEPO | An anagram of chEEse (middle letters or ‘inside’) SHOP – anagrind is ‘working’ – working particularly hard as part of the definition as well! Another new word, this time from down under – did Nimrod have Monty Python in mind when compiling this clue? | |
| 24 | People who modernise dresses (4) | |
| HOMO | Hidden in or ‘dressed by’ wHO MOdernise | |
Ouch. Certainly worthy of a prize, though finishing it felt like prize enough.
I thought Nimrod was pushing the ‘craftiness’ of the wordplay to the limit – possibly beyond, with 11A and 18D in particular not seeming to work on a strict reading. Also, I was confused by the ‘swan’ in 3D, but that was down to my own tawdry mind, having interpreted the ‘she was seduced’ as ‘laid her’!
Arent you going to print the nina in case someone missed it?
Nina was to do with money love root evil that one. It was placed in a seemingly random order around the grid. Good lord did this take some work to solve.
I gave this more than my ‘three goes’ but gave up with 3 missing. The piece of paper didn’t go in the bin as I wanted to check the ones I hadn’t got.
Thanks to Nimrod for the defeat and thanks to B&J – one of those puzzles where two heads were obviously better than one.
Ridiculously hard puzzle. It was only when I got IBADAT and thought: “why hasn’t he used ISAIAH?” that the mists parted. The really annoying thing about himself’s puzzles is that I hate to throw them in the bin and tend to hose away biggish tranches of time on them.
Wouldn’t have it any other way.
Thanks to S&B. More like S&M this week.
There is a logical reason for the name “antabuse” – ie it’s purpose is to counter (ant{i}) the heavy abuse of alcohol; unlike those many pharmaceutical names sprinkled with v, z, x even xx, to convince consumers that there must be a cogent scientific reason for the peculiarity of the spelling.
9A “any” is not part of the definition, just part of the anagram fodder.
Had to make numerous visits to get close to finishing this one. Had not heard of IBADAT.
Thanks to Nimrod and Bertandjoyce.
Thanks to S&B. Agree with others – a really tough one, that in the end defeated me. But I enjoyed the struggle (as baerchen says, after S&B and B&J, is this S&M?).