Independent 10,505 by Nimrod

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Grey skies and precipitation – must be June. A tussle with Nimrod beckons.

If the setter’s name wasn’t enough to switch on the locked down grey cells, there are  lots of clues referring to other clues. Lots of really clever clues too. I did like 3 down and the simplicity of 20dn too.

The parsing of 2dn and 4dn elude me, which is quite a failure rate in a puzzle with so few clues. Thanks Crypticsue for 4dn (has been a long lock down in my defence)

Thanks Nimrod – a singular experience as always.

Key:

Underline – definition; * anagram; Rev. reversed; DD Double definition.

Across

1 See 12
FIRST

5/10/14 Waste no time cutting the odds! (5,6,6)
Cryptic definition EVERY SECOND COUNTS (i.e. none of the odds)

8 Pretentious – did you hear?  twinning this Israeli port with Luton? (5)
Homonym of [ highfalutin (pretentious) – Luton ] = HAIFA

9 See 12
FINGER

10 See 5
SECOND

11 See 27 Down
HAY

12/9/1 Express digital ordering exercise of questionable character?  (7,6,5)
A cryptic reference to Who wants to be a millionaire = FASTEST FINGER FIRST

14 See 5
COUNTS

16 Being besotted with dad’s ex, hit it off and ran abroad to conquer America (6,8)
(ex hit if off + ran)* around a (America) = FATHER FIXATION

19 I make an impression, busy trade and green produce (6,8)
mark (an impression) + (trade + green)* = MARKET GARDENER – anagram indicator is busy cw produce

21 Pact partners initially will pen concerning new union (6)
PP (partners initially) around [re (concerning) + n (new) + u (union)] = PRE-NUP

22 Once got issue rejected (4,3)
Rev. Saw (got) + emit (issue) = TIME WAS

25 Scottish port’s dry, Sassenachs might say? (3)
Homonym of air (dry) = AYR

26 See 24 Down
THE SUN

28 See 24 Down
SHINES

29 Blue backs mobbing our home scorer (5)
Rev. sad (blue) around uk (our home) = DUKAS

30 Very good point about bustles (2-3)
Rev. so (very good) + dot (point) = TO-DOS

31 The drink last in line nobody is able to swallow (5)
O (nobody) + can (is able) around e (last in line) = OCEAN

Down

1 He will do time for money, so at moonlight, move soap (11)
Flit (at moonlight move) + flatter (soap) swapping m (money) for t(time) = FLIMFLAMMER

2 Perhaps 26 28 – can it now put off storms? (5)
RAGES

3 That’s 1 Across here, oddly (5)
T (that’s first) + (here)* = THREE

4 In expedition hands down tools to do one bolt (9,6)
Lightning (in expedition) + strike (LIGHTNING STRIKE

5 Work ache, say? I take this seat? (4,5)
(easy say I)* + r (take) = EASY CHAIR

6 Select old ones like this Nimrod’s not once initially enjoyed (9)
ex(old) clues (ones like this)  + I’ve – e (not once initially enjoyed) = EXCLUSIVE

7 Not a year for upsetting that local (3)
Rev. [No (not a) + y (year)] = YON

15 Court action to hear witness – a new Statesman (11)
Homonym of tennis + see (witness) + a + n (new) = TENNESSEEAN

17 Sheriff’s 10 shot so darned uncompromising! (4-5)
H (Sheriff’s second) + (so darned)* = HARD-NOSED

18 With dad in tears, former partner makes business even bigger (2-7)
Rends (tears) around ex (former partner) and pa (dad) = RE-EXPANDS

20 Scotland’s last flower (3)
D (Scotland’s last) = DEE

23 Foremost of maestri so up and down with movement (5)
M (foremost of maestri) + os (so up) + so (so down) = MOSSO

24/26/28 We listen in hush, she is raving: an opportune time to … (5,3,3,6)
(We listen in hush, she)* = WHILE THE SUN SHINES

27/13/11 … retire?! (3,3,3)
Cryptic Reference to full expression partly shown in 24/26/28 ‘make hay while the sun shines’ = HIT THE HAY

29 comments on “Independent 10,505 by Nimrod”

  1. Nimrod in splendid form – a nice (and these days) rare treat

    I was hoping you were going to explain 2d, but 4d is surely LIGHTNING (expedition in the sense of with speed) STRIKE (hands down tools)

    Thanks to Nimrod for the very enjoyable stretch of the cryptic grey matter and to twencelas for the blog

    (Nimrod’s alter ego Enigmatist is in fine form in today’s Graun Prize too)

  2. Parsed 4d as crypticsue. Best I can do for 2d is RAG (perhaps THE SUN) + shinES with SH = “can it” and that leaves “in” = “now” which may work as “in fashion”.

  3. Should have made it clearer that SH & IN are removed (put off). 3 days in a row I have now struggled with the NW and failed today. Didn’t get FLIMFLAMMER and guessed 9a, 1a may be FINGER FIRST but failed on FASTEST. Only guessed FIRST because I had guessed 3d might be THREE.

    It may be worth mentioning to newcomers that R = “take” in 5d comes from the Latin “recipe” meaning “take”. I think doctors may still use it – setters certainly do.

  4. That put me in a really bad mood for the day. Far too many phrases I didn’t know so we ended up with half the crossword solved but unparsed. Fastest finger first, Dukas, flimflammed all unknown to me and I’d never have guessed you spelt Tennesseean with 2 e’s. I actually spotted the r for take this time though I hate it as a device. I know I should be impressed when some clues are so clever but somehow it spoils it when it’s so obscure. To be more constructive can anyone explain the overall definition for market gardener – I just can’t see it, nor why busy is in the clue.

  5. Ericw – Have updated 19ac – hopefully that explains it better.

    In my view the thing with Nimrod is he does push the boundaries, which I will always applaud, but you really have to be in the mood for his puzzles. I have had similar experiences to yourself.

  6. Ericw @4. Again, I’m not sure but I took the clue as a semi &lit. Effectively, “I” as the definition with extended wordplay and then “busy” as the anagram indicator so that an anagram of “trade + green” produce the solution.

  9. Thanks twencelas for the blog. i was scrambling around to find FLIMFLAMMER_ I hadnt heard of it and the usual word searchers were too stretched so it was a battle but an enjoyable one on a drizzly day in paradise.

    I had also never heard of FASTEST FINGER FIRST. Maybe an expat problem

    Got there in the end with the off shove,

    And thank Nimrod

  10. Enjoyable puzzle. Thanks, Nimrod. You wait ages for an Enigmatist crossword and then like London buses..

    Not a huge fan of 4 down in his Guardian prize from today but that’s for another day.

  11. Surprisingly, we solved this in one session although there were a few we couldn’t parse and we needed a wordfinder for FLIMFLAMMER.  3dn could only be THREE but we couldn’t parse it; we decided that ‘here oddly’ meant alternate letters of ‘here’, i.e. HR and that ‘Across’ meant inserting HR into TEE but of course we couldn’t see how ‘tee’ = ‘1’. Doh!

    Thanks, Nimrod and Twencelas.

  12. I didn’t enjoy this. Spent far too long on it and once again was defeated by the NW corner.  I’m not too fond of multiple clues at the best of times and my heart sank when I saw four triplets. Despite guessing Flimflammer I couldn’t see how it worked. But thanks anyway Nimrod for the mental exercise and Twencelas for the explanations.

  13. Thanks Nimrod, Twencelas

    Way harder than the one in the Guardian (thank goodness)

    I got them all eventually, but didn’t understand FLIMFLAMMER (don’t quite understand the mechanics still) LIGHTNING STRIKE or RAGES, thanks all for working them out.

    I think there are a few definitions wrongly marked in the blog:

    FLIMFLAMMER is a con artist so ‘I will do’ is definition

    THREE: the definition is 3 (the clue number)

    PRENUP: the pact is the prenup, but the whole clue is definition and wordplay

    MARKET GARDENER: like Hovis, I took just ‘I’ to be the definition, with ‘make an impression’ as MARK etc. but not sure about that.

  14. Weird goings-on in the online version, every time I put the “h”in13 down the damn thing crashed. Very strange….

  16. Thanks to twencelas and Nimrod

    19a I had the def – “I make produce” wrapping the wordplay. A novel device but I can find no other way to account for “produce”.

    4d “hands down tools to do one” = “strike”

    You normally conquer a country by invading, and I don’t what the Sassenachs are doing, but otherwise a welcome challenge.

  17. Fingal – on prescriptions, the doctor used to write R before putting whatever the drug was one had to take. Latin for ‘take,’ is recipe

  19. To amplify comments by Hovis and crypticsue, ‘take’, represented by R was actually an instruction to the pharmacist or his/her dispenser as to what ingredients to take to make up the medicine – in the days when they made up prescriptions rather than just reaching a box of tablets off the shelf.  Of course pharmacists these days have a much wider role in healthcare than just handing out pills.

  20. Dansar, I am a person that a word for make an impression and an anagram of trade and green produce. But why not your way

  21. Too much like hard work.  Difficult to follow all the multiple entry clues.  Top left totally defeated me.

  22. I did pretty well with the filling in, parsings was another matter however. But I enjoyed it, best I’ve ever done with a Nimrod. I think the grid helped hugely, and the multiple entry clues were something I hadn’t seen before, to this extent, I thought it was an interesting variation. I only got FLIMFLAMMER from it being a word Boris employs, together with soft soap, from where I managed to guess it from. It’s the first time I can ever recall him being useful for something. Thanks to Twencelas, Nimrod, and Hovis for anticipating and saving me a newbie’s question. And Binsie, the online puzzle was atrocious for me, half the clues wouldn’t appear properly on my mobile.

  23. I’ve now done both of The Great Man’s weekend offerings and I found this to be much the harder. Defeated by 12/9/1 and 1d, neither of which I would ever have solved. A few more unparsed, but I enjoyed those I was able to get, especially PRE-NUP, HAIFA and TENNESSEEAN.

    Thanks to Nimrod (as usual – I think!) and to twencelas for a great job in explaining everything

  24. El_Gwero and Binsie – you need to ask someone to buy you a subscription! Our son preferred the Indy puzzles but solved the Grauniad ones instead because he could not cope with the app and all the adverts. Because we also prefer the Indy crosswords, it has been very easy buying a Christmas present for him for the last few years!

  25. James, I don’t like my reading but it’s the only one I can come up with that uses all the words and provides a def.

    I like

    I cut out eating fancy herb produce (7)

    I cooked breakfast with no trans fats produce (5)

    I save one of the Earth’s knackered climates by changing produce (11,5)

    even less

    E&OE

  26. Ha ha, I like all of those, though isn’t the first inside out? I’m not sure why you’re saying why there’s no definition, though. The I indicates it’s a person, and the rest tells you what sort, even if the impression bit seems irrelevant.

  28. Thought I was going to finish a Nimrod, but failed on 1d because the two word finders I used couldn’t find it. Several unparsed, as per usual.

  29. I used “eating” in its “corroding/eating into” sense but I shouldn’t have because it detracts from my point which is –

    How much of the wordplay in one of these, what some call semi &lits, has to vaguely waft at the def for it to pass muster?

    1 almost a synonym

    2 in the ballpark but wrong part of speech

    3 none

    Also, strictly speaking, I think Nimrod’s and all of mine need “produces”

    “produce”  needs something like:

    I mutilate and roughly cut herb produce (7)

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