A medium-difficulty puzzle from Hob today; indeed for a Tuesday this was perhaps a quite easy one. Apart from my very minor quibble in 23dn the clues are good, particularly 16ac, 6dn, 11dn and 14dn. Basil Fawlty told the American in ‘Waldorf Salad’ that he was always talking about bottoms; in the same vein I might say that there is rather a lot of sex here.
If you read clockwise round the perimeter starting with the D of 8ac, you can read deoxyribonucleic acid and then NA, the letter before the N being a D, so this is very close to deoxribonucleic acid DNA; but it isn’t; is there something special about the overlap? My suspicion is that there is something a little more going on than just this.
| Across | ||
| 7 | CURRENT |
Dog gets musical present (7)
cur Rent |
| 8 | HALYARD |
Alloy regularly found in tough rope (7)
A{l}l{o}y in hard |
| 9 | ITEM |
Couple having sex repulsed this writer (4)
it [= sex] me(rev.) |
| 10 | LUDICROUS |
It’s laughable how iCloud’s URL almost got hacked (9)
(iCloud’s UR{L})* — I blithely wrote in ‘ridiculous’ and then realised that I had written on a black square |
| 12 | HELIX |
What reverses 59 and, in turn, is double this (5)
(eh?)rev. LIX — ref the double helix, |
| 13 | FAIL-SAFE |
Fellow Scotswoman has iron that’s unlikely to go wrong (4-4)
f Ailsa fe |
| 15 | ENID |
Aim to include one film about children’s writer (4)
en(1)d — Enid was a film about Enid Blyton |
| 16 | CRICK |
Use of mouse with wrong hand causes muscle spasm (5)
click with r instead of l (right/left) |
| 17 | BIRO |
British painter hasn’t married Hungarian inventor (4)
B {M}iro — Laszlo Biro |
| 18 | LAY WASTE |
Destroy note, always rewritten beforehand (3,5)
(always)* te |
| 20 | ABOVE |
Too respectable to hum during prayer (5)
a(BO)ve — the prayer is an ave, the hum in the bad smell sense is body odour; the ‘to’ is a link-word — it doesn’t make ‘hum’ an infinitive — ‘above’ = ‘too respectable’ as in “I am above all this nonsense”, although really there should be a ‘for’, unless someone can think of two sentences where they match perfectly |
| 21 | ENTERITIS |
Record the other island’s disease (9)
enter it i’s — it for sexual activity makes a second appearance |
| 22 | CRUX |
Essential point of a tenth vineyard? (4)
cru X — fancifully the tenth vineyard is cru ten, or cru X |
| 24 | CAVORTS |
Actor taking 5 off before start of sex romps (7)
(actor V)* s{ex} — nice misdirection in the wordplay because 5 is NYLONS, which fits the surface |
| 25 | TROLLEY |
Travelling food supplier returned, still going round pitch (7)
(yet)rev. round roll |
| Down | ||
| 1 | AUNT |
Relative of Nahum oddly left out by bible books (4)
{N}a{h}u{m} NT — if the letters are oddly left out, you keep the even ones |
| 2 | CRUMBLED |
About to get found out, broke up (8)
c rumbled |
| 3 | INFLUX |
Large number of people entering new complaint of aches and pains in backside? (6)
(n flu) in (XI)rev. — backside is really back side, something not everyone is happy with, although I don’t mind it so long as I know that’s the sort of thng you’re going to get |
| 4 | DABCHICK |
Detective takes cab, going out with hot bird (8)
d((cab)* h)ick — ‘takes’ the inclusion indicator |
| 5 | NYLONS |
Only son, legless, trips over end of garden hose (6)
({On}ly son)* round {garde}n — ‘legless’ isn’t the anagram indicator (‘trips’ is) — it’s a cricket reference — leg = on |
| 6 | ARMS |
Arsenal content, after repelling most Spurs’ headers (4)
‘content’ a noun in the definition and a verb in the surface — a{fter} r{epelling} m{ost} S{purs} |
| 11 | DIFFIDENT |
Reserved other papers for emergency room (9)
other = different; remove ER {= emergency room] and replace by ID [= papers] |
| 12 | HENNA |
Dye used in kitchen, naturally (5)
Hidden in kitcHEN, NAturally |
| 14 | FORTE |
Bent piece of cutlery shortly before time to eat starter (5)
for{k} t e{at} — ‘bent’ a noun, as in something one is good at — nice clue with a neat surface |
| 16 | CASTRATO |
A guitar in care of male singer (8)
(a strat) in c/o — something that has mercifully been outlawed |
| 17 | BROCCOLI |
Film producer, a member of the Greens (8)
Almost two definitions, referring to Cubby Broccoli and also to the vegetable |
| 19 | WATSON |
Doctor present upset nurses when taking temperature (6)
(now) rev. around [= nurses] a(t)s — ref Dr Watson, Sherlock Holmes’s sidekick |
| 20 | ABSORB |
Take in type of blood brothers set-up (6)
AB [= type of blood] (bros)rev. |
| 21 | ESAU |
An elder twin brother of one’s 1 (4)
1 is AUNT, so it’s hidden in onE’S AUnt — Esau and Jacob were Isaac’s twin sons and Esau was the older one — the inclusion indicator (a bit weak for some perhaps) is ‘of’ |
| 23 | USER |
Trick cycling drug addict (4)
‘ruse’ cycling in that the r goes round to the far end; but until one has checkers there is no knowing that the answer is USER not RUSE — some people are happy with this and say that you’ve just got to wait until the checkers come, but I don’t like it |
Thanks Hob and John
One of my infrequent attempts at the Indy. The DNA helix theme is continued with Watson and Crick, two of the co-discoverers of the double helix.
btw the guitar = strat – refers to the Fender Stratocaster, one of the most famous electric guitars.
@2 muffin: I just about knew that, but I thought the readers of this site would be far more familiar with it than I am, so didn’t think it was necessary to amplify. Perhaps I should have done.
For 12a, ‘…and, in turn, is double this’ in the wordplay = the letters of ‘and’ reversed = DNA, a double helix of course.
Good fun and nice to be able to ID the Nina (plus its discoverers) for once.
Thanks to John and Hob.
I thought there was some very inventive cluing in this puzzle and I thoroughly enjoyed the solve. Although the grid screamed nina I didn’t see it, and I didn’t see the WATSON & CRICK theme either despite the inclusion of HELIX (and double in the clue for it). It just goes to show how much I sometimes tune out previous clues and answers when I go on to the next one. ESAU was my LOI and I confess that I didn’t parse it so thanks for that John.
I found this tough but eventually soluble, except for “forte” which eluded me. I was put off at 16A not understanding whether the answer should be “crick” or “click” (or perhaps even clamp or cramp), and 23D not understanding whether I shoul denter “user” or “ruse”.
My guess is that you should start reading the nina from the first letter of 4 down, rather than the end of 8 across, so you get “DNA – deoxyribonucleic acid”, and the one-letter overlap doesn’t jar any more.
If you read the Nina from 4D and when you get to 3D you turn right down the centre column you get the missing letter and a bit of a helix.
Thanks Hob and John.
I enjoyed this, but found the parsing hard going. The musical Rent was new to me.
I kept hopefully looking for a reference to Rosalind Franklin.
Cookie @9
…………or Maurice Wilkins
Thanks to blogger & setter.
In 20a I think it works better if ‘to’ is part of the definition – “Too respectable to” = above & then the wordplay as you have it.
Did this incredibly quickly, saw DEOX in the grid and twigged the nina, Crick and Watson straight away, I guess most wouldn’t have though.
We’ve had this before that spotting the ghost theme/nina can blow the puzzle to bits, mind you I’ve failed to see most of Phi’s recently.
Thanks Hob & John, mercifully for me and the rest of you I’ve no blog this week 🙂
We finished this reasonably quickly but it was getting late so we didn’t spend too long looking for a nina or theme. We kicked ourselves when we came here!
Thanks Hob – we’ll try harder next time. Thanks to John for the blog.
Found this of a higher degree of difficulty than others did, but nonetheless a very enjoyable challenge.
24A the definition is simply “romps”; “start of sex” provides the “s” for the final letter of the answer.
5D, although it makes no substantive difference, I think it must be (Only s{on})* rather than as suggested, as if not there is more than one “on” to choose from for removal. Therefore the words “only” and “son” should be read disjunctively.
Thanks to Hob and John.
sidey@8 – Should you read this please put me out of my mystery. What and where is this “bit of a helix” I encounter on my trip down the middle column?
A thoroughly enjoyable crossword I thought. To get an all round circular (and entertaining) Nina without recourse to abstruse words is pretty cool in my book! Huge thanks to Hob and continued respect to John for his kind industry.