Some pre-festive fun and frivolity from Nestor…
I think I quite enjoyed this at the time, but with the extended submission date (and my usual last-minute blogging), not to mention all the actual festive fun and frivolity in between, my memory of the solving process is a little hazy!
There is a TURKEY, 99 (atomic number of Einsteinium) RED BALLOONS, and a JESTER - perfect ingredients for a Christmas party – and a MULBERRY FIG, which I had never heard of before, but it sounds like it might rival the Brussels sprouts for wind generation…if you know what I mean. However, I couldn’t see any full-blown theme or hidden Nina – unless it is the reference to ’99 Red Balloons’, by Nena, from the charts in 1983?…
Some nice surface readings – I enjoyed the clue at 12A for EINSTEINIUM.
I didn’t help myself by lazily putting ITERATION instead of ITERATIVE at 25A, which made the French scientist at 21D quite hard to track down.
LOI was ADA – a three letter woman’s name A?A was always likely to be ADA or AVA, but it took me a while to work out the reference to the ‘notes’ in Quai d‘Orsay.
Thanks to Nestor, and a belated Merry Xmas and HNY to you all.
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
|
| 1A | SPLINTER GROUPS | Knitting aid Roger foolishly raises results in unravelling party? (8,6) | results in unravelling (political) party? / SPLINT (aid for bone to ‘knit’ back together) + ER GRO (anag, i.e. foolishly, of ROGER) + UPS (raises) |
|
| 10A | AGENT | Delegate who’d become 14ish in mother’s embrace (5) | Delegate / if AGENT is ’embraced’ by M_A (mother) it becomes MAGENTA, which is 14-ish (red-ish) |
|
| 11A | TYPHOIDAL | Storm dropping on island youth after return of fever (9) | of fever / TYPHO(ON) (strom, dropping on) + I (island) + DAL (lad, or youth, returned) |
|
| 12A | EINSTEINIUM | I – I’m unsure on dodgy nineties’ Es (11) | Es (chemical symbol for Einsteinium, atomic number 99) / EINSTEIN (anag, i.e. dodgy, of NINETIES) + I + UM (I’m unsure) |
|
| 14A | RED | Trot about at back of Goodwood (3) | Trot(skyite) / RE (about, with reference to) + D (‘back’ letter of ‘GoodwooD’) |
|
| 15A | TURKEY | Western Asian finishes in the Fosbury flop (6) | flop / TURK (Western Asian) + EY (finishing letters of ‘thE’ and ‘FosburY’) |
|
| 17A | BALLOONS | Dances round circle, running, and gets puffed out? (8) | gets puffed out / BALL_S (dances) around O (circle) + ON (running) |
|
| 19A | PROBLEMS | For a bad mark, skipping first of integrals and hard maths exercises (8) | maths exercises / PRO (for) + BLEM(I)S(H) (bad mark, dropping I – first letter of ‘Integrals’ – and H – hard) |
|
| 20A | JESTER | Judge punished terse fool in court (6) | fool, in court / J (judge) + ESTER (anag, i.e. punished, of TERSE) |
|
| 22A | TOE | Lowest digit starts from those in 318 (3) | lowest (bodily) digit / first letters (starts) of Three, One and Eight – 318 |
|
| 23A | ECTOMORPHIC | Foster retrospective holds the lead in chic ahead of the rest of small build? (11) | small (of light build) / E_TOMORP (promote, or foster, retrospectively), around (holding) C (leading letter of ‘Chic’) + HIC (the rest of ‘cHIC’) |
|
| 25A | ITERATIVE | Current time, time, time, the writer’s repeating (9) | repeating / I (current) + T (time) + ERA (time) + T (time) + IVE (I’ve, from the writer’s point tof view) |
|
| 27A | FLAKE | Drily crack joke, ultimately prolonging criticism (5) | Drily crack / FLAK (criticism) elongated with E (ultimate letter of ‘jokE’) |
|
| 28A | GO TO ANY LENGTHS | Do whatever it takes in game without duration limits? (2,2,3,7) | Do whatever it takes / GO (game) + TO ANY LENGTHS (without duration limits) |
|
| Down | ||||
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
|
| 2D | PAEAN | Slate bearing each hymn (5) | Hymn (of praise) / PA_N (slate, criticise) around (bearing) EA (each) |
|
| 3D | INTO THE BLUE | Seconds away from playing net, use lob hit skyward (4,3,4) | skyward / anag (i.e. playing) of NET U(S)E LOB HIT, wihout S (seconds) |
|
| 4A | TITBIT | Bird took the bait, a tasty morsel (6) | a tasty morsel / TIT (bird) + BIT (took the bait) |
|
| 5D | REPRISAL | Pro-Israel moves disregarding old counter-attack (8) | counter-attack / anag (i.e. moves) of PR(O)-ISRAEL, without (disregarding) O (old) |
|
| 6D | ROO | A developer in another’s pocket becomes such a bounder (3) | &lit-ish/double defn.? / a baby (kanga)roo, technically a joey?, develops in the pouch (pocket), and then bounds around on its own! |
|
| 7A | UNDERFOOT | Maybe don’t pay bills for everyone that’s downtrodden (9) | &lit-ish/double defn.? / if you don’t ‘foot the bill’ for everyone, you could be said to ‘under foot’? |
|
| 8A | SELF-DESTRUCTED | Served up food, dipped winged insects, and no one at all went to pieces (4-10) | went to pieces / D(I)ET (food) + CURTS(I)ED (dipped) + FL(I)ES (winged insects) – all ‘served up’ with I (one) removed throughout = SELF DESTRUCT |
|
| 9D | TALENT-SPOTTING | Search for stars and erratic planets in addition (6-8) | search for starts / T_OTTING (addition, adding up) around ALENT SP (anag, i.e. erratic, of PLANETS) |
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| 13D | MULBERRY FIG | Sycamore’s firmer, bulgy nuts (8,3) | Sycamore / anag (i.e. nuts) of FIRMER BULGY |
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| 16D | ROOSEVELT | Late President and First Lady left in resting place (9) | Late president (of USA) / ROO_ST (resting place) around EVE (first lady, in biblical terms) + L (left) |
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| 18D | SMUTTILY | Foxy exterior to mongrel, one with lecherous intent (8) | with lecherous intent / S_LY (foxy) around (exterior to) MUTT (mongrel) + I (one) |
|
| 21D | AMPERE | French physicist affected by impedance, perhaps, avoiding extremes (6) | French physicist / (H)AMPERE(D) – affected by ‘impedance’, avoiding extreme letters |
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| 24D | HEATH | Doubling of height is about to worry area of low growth (5) | area of low growth / H + H (doubling of H – height) around EAT (worry) |
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| 26D | ADA | Woman’s only notes from Quai d’Orsay (3) | Woman(‘s name) / The letters A, D and A are the only (musical) notes in the sequence ‘Quai d’Orsay’ |
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