Independent 6478 (21-07-07)/Nimrod - Ant-sy.
Posted by neildubya on July 27th, 2007
Something of a novelty for me, this - a Nimrod puzzle where I understood everything (almost). Original choice of theme too; it’s not National Anteater Day or something is it?
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 9 | EMANATE - which is MANATEE with the final E moved to the beginning; indicated in the wordplay by “circling”. |
| 9 | CURT,(tr)A(in),IN - had to check with Google that this was right before filling it in - sure enough, Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case was the last Poirot novel. |
| 11 | BODE,GAS - I knew the word but thought it was a bar of some sort. |
| 12 | EC,(HAD IN)* - this was new to me but I had E?H????, which was enough to find the answer. I guessed that “City” might be EC (the postcode for the City of London) - Chambers did the rest. |
| 13 | hidden reversed in “pecuLIAR Territory” - the reversal element is indicated by the answer at 15A. |
| 14 | W,CH in O,O,DUCK - “How much wood would a WOODCHUCK chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?” Another name for the 20A. |
| 15 | MAKING A COMEBACK - a reference to Groundhog Day (I’m guessing it’s a ref to the film rather than the actual day itself, which seems to be about predicting the weather). |
| 20 | GROUNDHOG - “hound grog”, as Spooner would say. |
| 24 | hidden in the full version of ET: “extRA TERrestrial”. |
| 25 | TB in A,NEAR |
| 26 | NAHUATL - another new word but fairly easy to get from the wordplay. It was either going to be (A HUT L)*,N,A or N,A (A HUTL)* - I had N?H???? filled in so I checked the NAH… entries in Chambers (there weren’t very many). |
| 28 | DRIVE-IN - I don’t really get this. I suppose it’s a cryptic definition but I’m struggling to see why. |
| 29 | U in G,S - potentially a tough clue, for such a short word. “Practical Cat” gave it away for me because I knew that GUS was one of the cats in T.S.Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. “All may see” = U (a ref to the film classification) and “Pinafore etc” refers to the works of Gilbert and Sullivan. |
| Down | |
| 1 | (AMBIVERT)* |
| 2 | AA,RD,V,ARK - super clue. Can you believe that my first thought when I looked at this one was “”Motor mechanics”? That’ll be RAC then - AA doesn’t appear in a word that I know of”. D’oh! |
| 3 | (LONG)* in PAIN - somehow, I knew PANGOLIN, but don’t ask me how. Probably from another crossword, as I’m unlikely ever to have used it in real-life. |
| 5 | ECCE HOMO - I know this is right but I can’t get the wordplay. The full clue is: “Religious representation, flash imitation outside church, mounted“. |
| 6 | PHI in ORC |
| 7 | hidden in “ApriL AND AUgust” |
| 8 | MAS in (h)UNK - very nicely done. |
| 17 | (GRAPHITE)* - I don’t think I’ve heard of one of these but it wasn’t too tricky to get from the wordplay. |
| 19 | (spelun)KER,L in PUNK |
| 20 | LASS in G(u)Y - I did wonder what “now” was doing in the clue but I think it’s supposed to indicate “instead of” - that is, LASS instead of U. |
| 22 | NEE,D(e)ED - NEE indicates a married woman’s maiden name. |
| 23 | G (AND SO)* - a clue that Cyclops would have been proud of. The setter I mean, not a mythological one-eyed giant. |
July 27th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
ECCE HOMO Mo = flash (a moment) with CE in ECHO on top i.e. mounted.
July 27th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
Of course it is - don’t know how I missed that. Thanks NMS.
August 6th, 2007 at 8:02 am
[...] in (UHLAN)* - NAHUATL. I only got this because it appeared in another Nimrod crossword from a couple of weeks [...]