The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/29983.
A new compiler, and a welcome puzzle with a broad range of references. The top and bottom rows read “Today and tomorrow”.
| ACROSS | ||
| 9 | ESPERANTO |
2 sat wagging tongue (9)
|
| An anagram (‘wagging’) of OPENER (‘2’ – the answer to 2D) plus ‘sat’. | ||
| 10 | NAIRA |
West African rhino has Unitarian retreating (5)
|
| A hidden (‘has’ with an unusual but possible word order) reversed (‘retreating’) answer in ‘UnitARIAN‘. ‘Rhino’ as money – it is the Nigerian currency. | ||
| 11 | DENIM |
Material taken from ground from the east (5)
|
| A reversal (‘from the east’ in an across light)of MINED (‘taken from the ground’). | ||
| 12 | EDELWEISS |
White flower displayed by Wise when playing with Leeds (9)
|
| An anagram (‘when playing’) of ‘Wise’ plus (‘with’) ‘Leeds’. | ||
| 13 | BAROQUE |
Extravagantly ornate vessel loaded with cargo at the back (7)
|
| An envelope (‘loaded with’) of O (‘cargO at the back’) in BARQUE (sailing ‘vessel’). | ||
| 14 | INSISTS |
Popular sibling without hesitation beginning to suggest demands (7)
|
| A charade of IN (‘popular’) plud SIST[er] (‘sibling’) minus ER (‘without hesitation’) plus S (‘beginning to Suggest’). | ||
| 17 | IMBUE |
Hat is miserable, lacking will ultimately to inspire (5)
|
| A charade of I’M (‘Hat is’) plus B[l]UE (‘miserable’) minus the L (‘lacking wilL ultimately’). | ||
| 19 | FEE |
Regularly offered payment (3)
|
| Alternate letters (‘regularly’) of ‘oFfErEd’. | ||
| 20 | EGYPT |
Torture admitted by alien nation (5)
|
| An envelope (‘admitted by’) of GYP (‘torture’ as extreme pain) in ET (‘alien’). | ||
| 21 | PIRANHA |
Quiet country hotel, first-class fish (7)
|
| A charade of P (piano, ‘quiet’) plus IRAN (‘country’) plus H (‘hotel’) plus A (‘first-class’). | ||
| 22 | CRUMBLE |
Last slice of Arctic roll for pud (7)
|
| A charade of C (‘last slice of arctiC‘) plus RUMBLE (‘roll’). | ||
| 24 | GREEN BEAN |
Inexperienced head that’s likely to get chopped (5,4)
|
| A charade of GREEN (‘inexperienced’) plus BEAN (‘head’). | ||
| 26 | ATLAS |
Broad-shouldered bloke getting time off finally (5)
|
| A subtraction: AT LAS[t] (‘finally’) minus the second T (‘getting tiem off’). | ||
| 28 | SOLAR |
Former garret, very large area, right? (5)
|
| A charade of So (‘very’) plus L (‘large’) plus A (‘area’) plus R (‘right’). | ||
| 29 | CHOCOLATE |
Teach cool new Topic? (9)
|
| An anagram (‘new’) of ‘teach cool’, with indication by example, Topic being a discontinued brand name of a chocolate bar. | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | TEND |
Watch over third of Penelope Cruz covers (4)
|
| An envelope (‘covers’) of N (‘third of PeNelope’) in TED (‘Cruz’, American politician). | ||
| 2 | OPENER |
Batter, work Frenchman over (6)
|
| A charade of OP (‘work’) plus ENER, a reversal (‘over’) of RENÉ (‘Frenchman’). | ||
| 3 | DRAMA QUEEN |
Run out of tent seized by darn crazy hysteric (5,5)
|
| An envelope (‘seized by’) of MA[r]QUEE (‘tent’) mnus the R (‘run out of’) in DRAN, an anagram (‘crazy’) of ‘darn’. | ||
| 4 | ANNEXE |
Military standard unveiled by East Wing (6)
|
| Over to you: I cannot see the wordplay. | ||
| 5 | YOSEMITE |
The Times: Oysters Turned Up Outside Sam’s Home (8)
|
| A hidden (‘outside’) reversed (‘turned up’) answer in ‘thE TIMES OYsters’. Yosemite Sam is a character in Loony Tunes cartoon films. | ||
| 6 | ANEW |
A congested city rises again (4)
|
| A charade of ‘a’ plus NEW, a reversal (‘rises’ in a down light) of WEN (‘congested city’ – London has been called The Great Wen). | ||
| 7 | NIJINSKY |
Judi exhausted, carried by terribly skinny chap in tights (8)
|
| An envelope (‘carried by’) of JI (‘JudI exhausted’) in NINSKY, an anagram (‘terribly’) of ‘skinny’., for the Russian ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky. | ||
| 8 | DAIS |
Welshman’s platform (4)
|
| DAI’S. | ||
| 13 | BLIMP |
Low character, Liberal, one probing British parliamentarian (5)
|
| An envelope (‘probing’) of L (‘Liberal’) plus I (‘one’) in B (‘British’) plus MP (‘parliamentarian’). The ‘Low character’ being Colonel Blimp, a cartoon character created by David Low. | ||
| 15 | SPECULATOR |
Vegas’s last crook gambler (10)
|
| A charade of S (‘VegaS‘s last’) plus PECULATOR (someone who steals entrusted funds, ‘crook’). | ||
| 16 | SATIE |
French barman posed, tied, naked (5)
|
| A charade of SAT (‘posed’) plus IE (‘tIEd naked’), for the French composer (‘barman’) Erik Satie. | ||
| 18 | BORDELLO |
Nick rolled over, rolled over topless in brothel (8)
|
| A charade of BOR, a reversal (the first ‘rolled over’) of ROB (‘nick’) plus DELLO, a reversal (‘over’) of ‘[r]olled’ minus its first letter (‘topless’). | ||
| 19 | FLAMENCO |
Corporal perhaps put on fine, shiny material for dance (8)
|
| A charade of F (‘fine’) plus LAMÉ (‘shiny material’) plus NCO (non-commissioned officer, ‘corporal perhaps’) | ||
| 22 | CONDOR |
Republican supporting Tory Party high flier (6)
|
| A charade of CON (‘Tory’) plus DO (‘party’) plus R (‘Republican’). | ||
| 23 | BILBAO |
£1 filled Chinese bun pintxos sold here (6)
|
| An envelope (‘filled’) of ILB (1lb ‘£1’ – although both are derived from the Latin libra, lb is usually used for the pound weight, whereas £ is the pound sterling) in BAO (‘Chinese bun’). Bilbao is a city in the Basque Autonomous Communuty, and ‘pintxos’ are bar snacks served in that area. | ||
| 24 | GUST |
Stomach punched by second blow (4)
|
| An envelope (‘punched by’) of S (‘second’) in GUT (‘stomach’). | ||
| 25 | NORM |
Average type, and not married (4)
|
| A charade of NOR (‘and not’) plus M (‘married’). | ||
| 27 | SMEW |
For starters, some marinated eel with duck (4)
|
| First letters (‘for startrs’) of Some Marinated Eel With’. |
Nice puzzle. Had to come here for the wordplay in TEND – should have seen it.
Liked CONDOR.
In BORDELLO, I think the logic is wrong. “rolled over topless” says you take “rolled”, turn it over, then take off the top – which is now the “d”, not the “r”. Or am I missing something?
Of course I missed the nina, which is cute, but what does it have to do with anything?
I read 4d as a charade of ANNE (an ‘unveiled’ banner (?)), X (‘by’) and E (‘East’). Not entirely sure about this, though. Happy to be corrected! As for the nina, will wait and see if the same setter appears in tomorrow’s prize puzzle.
Thx Pete. Ditto Mogwai @2 re 4d, it works fine. Nice puzzle, welcome Hat [I knew a Hat, short for Harriet, fond memories…] The nina helped with Yosemite and Bolbao. Dnk Blimp’s author, but no matter.
I came to find the parsing for ANNEXE, only to see it puzzled PeterO as well. I think Mogwai@2 has it right: well done. Everything else went in OK. Thanks, Hat for a fun crossie, and PeterO for an excellent blog.
Some nice clues but a few too many obscurities for my taste. Never heard of rhino for money, the topic bar, Colonel Blimp (or David Low, for that matter), smew, Naslav Vijinski or pintxos.
Thanks Hat for the entertainment. I enjoyed clues like NIJINSKY, SATIE, BORDELLO, and GUST. I failed with the nho NAIRA and couldn’t parse EGYPT but overall this slipped in easily. Thanks PeterO for the blog.
[ Happy Birthday AlanC for tomorrow , have a great day and get your kicks on the route to your prime . I have requisitioned a helicopter from the fire-fighting team on the moors , it will hover over your house when you have your cake , do not be alarmed .
By complete coincidence it is our Vinyl Wedding Anniversary tomorrow . ]
For a puzzle with as many obscure definitions as this one I shocked myself by finishing it relatively quickly. I wouldn’t say I loved it, but it definitely was interesting.
I do not see how our blogger’s ‘unusual but possible word order’ for NAIRA works. And I’d have accepted ‘one pound’ in BILBAO to equal I LB but to use the £ sign to signal the weight seems out of order.
Plenty to enjoy here, such as EGYPT, ATLAS and SATIE, with DRAMA QUEEN being my fave for the surface and the puzzler about what tent might be. So thanks (and welcome?) to Hat.
I share PostMark@9’s surprise at £ for LB though, as well being unconvinced by the hiddens indicators for NAIRA (I didn’t spot the joke and assumed it really was an animal) and YOSEMITE (the cause of my DNF). In the former case I’m baffled, and in the latter I just don’t buy it; CAME contains AM but it’s not outside it, for example.
On the other hand I’m OK with BORDELLO, re Dr. WhatsOn@1. A topless person doing a headstand doesn’t become trouserless instead; the adjectives can be taken to be commutative in the cryptic reading (as indeed in the plain reading), I feel.
Thanks both
Nice balanced puzzle with a mix of difficulty. A rare occasion I spotted the Nina and it helped me complete the puzzle.quite a few synonyms I didn’t know but I could fill in the blanks.
ATLAS and the nicely hidden YOSEMITE amongst the favourites today.
Thanks Hat and PeterO. I guess we will be seeing Hat again tomorrow.
I’m with Desmodeus@5. Never knew rhino meant money or that David Low created Colonel Blimp. Nho NAIRA or wen. Disliked £1 for ilb , and thought torture was pushing it as a synonym for gyp.
Just about scraped to the finish but have to put it down as dnf. Not my favourite.
Didn’t spot the nina, but then I never do.
Enjoyable puzzle with a wide variety of interesting words. I rarely spot Ninas, but I did this time, just before the end, which gave me my LOI – YOSEMITE.
I also parsed ANNEXE as Mogwai @2, but otherwise echo all of AP’s comments @10.
One little pedantic botanical quibble: the small flowers of the EDELWEISS are actually yellow. The much more striking (greyish) white structures surrounding them are bracts. I blame Oscar Hammerstein II.
Thanks to Hat and PeterO
I share the reservations about LB for £ in 23, mainly because it took me a while to remember BILBAO after googling ‘pintxos’. I had tried to use ‘LI’ initially. ‘Tongue’ for ESPERANTO also didn’t seem quite right as an invented language which hasn’t really succeeded in its aim. Perhaps unfortunately English is more of a universal language. Missed the ninas of course. Thanks to Hat and PeterO
Plenty of obscure definitions and dictionary checking. The only one I failed to parse was, ANEW, not being able to find the reference to the big WEN, until I checked here. Recently, Frenchman RENE and Welsh woman SIAN seem to have been popping up frequently. Maybe they could be retired for a while.
Thanks to setter and blogger.
Thanks Hat and PeterO
Entertaining, though quite a lot of Googling needed. A DNF – I missed TEND, though I might have seen it if I seen the Nina, heard of Ted Cruz (and not having miscounted that the third of Penelope was E!)
Favourite DRAMA QUEEN.
[NAIRA has come up in crosswords before, so rang a bell – RHINO for money is fairly frequent. It reminds me of the old joke:
“Which is the richest animal in Africa?”
“The rhinoceros – it has piles of money”
(You have to distort the pronunciation of “ceros” rather!)]
Thanks to Hat and PeterO. I think some GK is reasonable to expect, including foreign currencies like NAIRA and food, like pintxos, but a wartime cartoonist and his creation is, I think, a little too obscure. Needed to reveal YOSEMITE which is annoying but shows how well hidden it was. Maybe if I’d seen the Nina …
brian-with-an-eye
There’s a very well thought of film called “The life and death of Colonel Blimp“. Yes, it too dates from wartime, but it still shown on TV from time to time.
[Your handle reminds me of a letter in today’s Guardian. There has been discussion for some days about having to spell out your name. Today an Yvonne relates being asked, when on the phone to a company:
“What’s your initial?”
“Y”
“We need it for our records”]
Thoroughly enjoyable with some cunningly hidden definitions. Favourites included SATIE, DRAMA QUEEN, YOSEMITE and CHOCOLATE – more please!
Thanks Hat and PeterO.
Very nice. Got stuck on YOSEMITE and BILBAO until I noticed TODAY AND TOMORROW. Couldn’t parse ANNEXE – thanks for that.
I failed to solve 1d, 4d, 5d (Sam’s home = Yosemite? I never heard of this Sam!). I am not familiar with this setter and took ages to get on their wavelength. I didn’t notice the Nina until I read the btl comments at the Guardian after I finished/gave up – not helped by the fact that I failed 1,4,5d!
Favourites: SATIE, OPENER, ANEW, DRAMA QUEEN.
New for me: SMEW = duck; SOLAR = upper chamber in a medieval house; TOPIC = chocolate bar; PECULATOR; GYP = pain (20ac); NIJINSKY.
Needed some online help to work out what Chinese buns are called (BAO) and also what pintxos are (for 23d).
I parse 4d in the same way as Mogwai@2.
V. good. Must be me then; seems as though SOLAR for ‘Former garret’ is familiar to everyone else. This sense of SOLAR is admittedly in the ODE but isn’t in Collins and is noted as archaic in Chambers.
Otherwise not too many problems, including dimly remembering NAIRA, although I share the comments above re BILBAO. BLIMP no problem given the film classic (Powell & Pressburger) mentioned by muffin @19. Good to have the Nina to finish things off.
Thanks to PeterO and thanks and welcome to Hat
I thought this was a refreshing debut and enjoyed the Nina, which assisted with the top row of answers. Like PostMark, I thought the £ sign was a bit off, although the clue was fair. EDELWEISS is referencing Dennis Wise, who actually managed rather than played with Leeds. I couldn’t parse ANNEXE so thanks to Mogwai @2. Likes for BAROQUE, PIRANHA, CHOCOLATE, DRAMA QUEEN, YOSEMITE,BLIMP and NIJINSKY for the apt surface.
[Thank you for the birthday greetings Roz, I shall be tearing it up at Millwall tomorrow with my sprog and fellow KPR fans. Happy 16th to you both and I hope you’ll be back soon with your pithy contributions.]
Enjoyed this despite the presence of some well-worn crossword cliches (ET, BARMAN, WEN) and some archaic obscurities (SOLAR, RHINO, PECULATOR)
I liked the visual homophone in BILBAO and also had ticks for ANNEXE, DRAMA QUEEN & FLAMENCO
Cheers P&H
Protase@13 re EDELWEISS, indeed the same confusion arises in the case of the bougainvillea; the actual flowers are small and unassuming, while it’s the bracts which are the showstoppers (most commonly purple-pink). Mine is gorgeous when it can be bothered, but alas it doesn’t get enough sun.
Wordplodder@23, SOLAR is familiar to those of us who’ve traipsed offspring around ruined castles. Like others I thought £ for LB was a bit of a stretch though having enjoyed pintxos in Bilbao and San Sebastián it didn’t hold me up and I can heartily recommend the Basque Country for a foodie holiday. WEN for London was new to me despite having lived there. Favourite NIJINSKY. Last in was YOSEMITE as being two sandwiches short of a pangram I was trying to squeeze in a Z and a V. Thanks Hat and PeterO.
An enjoyable crossword with a pleasingly broad range of cultural references: cartoon characters by Loony Tunes and David Low (both of which inclusions tickled me immeasurably, even though I’m more familiar with the P&P film than Low’s wartime work) plus SATIE, ATLAS and BAROQUE for those who prefer more highbrow elements in their crosswords. (And no Spooner, which is always a good thing.)
Hello Hat, nice to meet you. I like the way your mind works.
I didn’t spot the Nina – but then I rarely do – so thank you PeterO for that and for explaining TEND.
I had to look up pintxos, after which BILBAO was a write-in; I’m another who has no problem with £ being used as “L” – that’s what the symbol is, after all.
I came here to find out about ANNEXE:
Mogwai’s explanation makes sense.
I agree with Protase about EDELWEISS. That blasted film has left its mark: all these years later I still can’t see a group of nuns without expecting them to trill about Maria.
As others have speculated, maybe Hat will return tomoz. If not, I look forward to my next encounter with her/him.
An impressive first appearance from a new setter, although I share the criticisms of £=LB.
I’m too young to have ever seen a Colonel Blimp cartoon, but have heard the expression ‘a Colonel Blimp character’. It even has it’s own Chambers definition – ‘an incurably conservative elderly military officer, as Colonel Blimp of the cartoonist David Low, or any other person of similar views’.
Someone care to fill me in on what a nina is, please and thank you?
Iain @30
It’s a message included in the grid. See here
Wellbeck @28
The problem isn’t £ for L; it’s £ for LB. It requires another step – changing pound sterling to pound weight.
Hi Iain@30, a nina is a “bonus” word or words hidden, usually but not exclusively, in the outside rows. If you look at the top and bottom rows they spell out “today and tomorrow”. The “white” squares are often known as lights in crossword land.
Nin(j)aed by Muffin.
I had a slightly different take on 10a. If we split Unitarian into two words, the currency “has Unit Arian retreating” = “its monetary unit is ARIAN backwards”. A little contrived, but I think it might work better than the awkward inclusion.
Muffin @31: yes, I get that – but £ is still an L. And “pound” can be former UK money or an imperial measure of weight.
I’ve come across far wider stretches in crosswordland, to say nothing of meaningless and never-used phrases in “spoonerism” clues, loose colloquial understandings of precise scientific terms, and words that actually sound completely different if said with certain accents.
PS Quirister – your take on NAIRA works for me!
Fantastic debut, enjoyable and challenging throughout. Thanks Hat and for the parsing of “annexe” which I couldn’t see. Highlights for me BORDELLO and ATLAS.
I agree on the parsing of ANNEXE, though it took a while to spot. Muffin@17: rhino=money may pop up in crosswords, but I’ve never once seen it used in real life, unlike yesterday’s ‘nicker’.
I didn’t notice the LB issue but both £ and LB are derived from ‘libra’ I suppose it might just pass.
A nice debut with a good range of techniques. Nothing overly difficult although I squirmed when I realised which Cruz was being referred to.
I liked the West African rhino and had no problem with £ = lb.
BORDELLO was a highlight.
Thanks Hat and PerterO
Very neat and enjoyable puzzle with a mix of difficulty that bodes well for the future. Completely stumped by YOSEMITE (after BAG END, etc wouldn’t fit) because all the crossers were vowels, until a comment on the G alerted me to the nina and I reached for the tea tray. Favourites were CONDOR, PIRANHA and ATLAS. Minor quibble: to nick is to steal, not to rob. Thanks to Hat and PeterO.
Scribbler @38: I agree with your quibble about nick and rob, but we have had this debate before on a number of occasions, so I guess it just gets a free pass now.
Mostly very good, but I’m another who didn’t like the £/lb eqivalence in BILBAO.
Unlike several commenters above, I actually solved ANNEXE from the wordplay before the definition confirmed it was correct – one of my favourites along with NIJINSKY, EXPERANTO and some others.
I think ‘rob’, like ‘nick’, can be slang for ‘steal’, and BORDELLO was another favourite.
Thanks both.
Wellbeck@34, I’m not sure; £ -> one meaning of pound/libra -> another meaning of pound/libra -> LB is a pretty darned wide stretch to me! That level of indirection is usually verboten.It would be a bit like clueing “and” as “w” due to both being equivalent (in different senses) to twith”.
Good point Beaulieu@40, “rob” can indeed be used like that (where the object of the verb is the thing stolen rather than the person or place which suffers the loss).
Hats off to this debut puzzle. Strange how times move on, and NIJINSKY makes me think first of that great classic winning colt rather than the famous ballet dancer. And as for the CONDOR… Not many years ago when visiting the very well kept animal collection at Lotherton Hall near Leeds, I was very excited to come across an enormous enclosure that had been constructed for their female Andean Condor. Only to view a vast empty space and a notice on the outside that said Babs had been recently relocated to Harewood House.
And this naming of bred in the purple racehorses after famous people, I was at Newmarket races yesterday to see a thoroughbred called Amadeus Mozart run, though the jockey was unable to get a proper out of him on this occasion…
[ AlanC@24 enjoy your cultural outing . It is actually our 33+1/3 years anniversary , I invented it in December because 33 does not even have a traditional gift , I am expecting a very special album tomorrow . It is a long time and I have not received a single Red Cross Parcel or even one letter from Amnesty International .
I will back in May , with a new plan to keep my screen time low . ]
I hadn’t heard of the big WEN or that meaning of SOLAR. It unnerves me when there is obscure trivia around andthings I can’t parse, because I worry I won’t finish. So, it took me forever to parse TEND but I was relieved when I did.
All in all, I thought this was very good. I was delighted to write BAROQUE straight in and liked PIRANHA, DRAMA QUEEN and NIJINSKY. (I used to love a Topic!)
Welcome Hat, thanks to PeterO and everyone else.
Nice puzzle, very tightly clued. The nina did help getting some missing answers. I am on the side of quibblers in the pound debate: I can’t think of any written phrase (as we talk about abbreviations) where 1 lb and £1 could be used interchangeably. Having said that, because of an otherwise insufficient number of letters LB had to be tried… Thanks Hat and PeterO!
Fairly straightforward. Annexe was a write in. ANNE was obvious.
NIJINSKY reminded me of my early Horse Racing bets. I bet on a horse with that name on its 11th race after it had won 10 races in a row. The poor animal fell and broke it’s leg and was put down.
A “wen” originally was a swelling on the face. Cobbett likened London to it, as a swelling on the face of England (a great one, at that!)
Thanks and welcome Hat, and Peter for the excellent blog.
This is my perennial plea for the setter’s name to be displayed when doing the crossword on an iPad from the Guardian app. It isn’t, and without it (especially with a new setter) 17A is pretty impenetrable. I know that I can find the setter’s name via other routes, but those are unneeded extra steps.
A high quality debut.
Well you would expect it to be good – it’s not really a debut at all. Hat, I am reliably informed, has some other illustrious pseudonyms.
Knut, Julius, Magnus…
Quirster@33 Yes – that works a lot better for me for naira. Very nice puzzle.
Not sure on getting Hat for the prize – could be ‘here today and gone tomorrow’ … .
[ronald@42 – the Hawk Conservancy Trust near Andover does displays of flying birds which sometimes swoop low over visitors. They used to have (and may still have) Andean Condors. It’s quite an experience having one of those zoom past a few feet above your head! A recommended day out.]
Quirister @33 I wondered about splitting Unitarian as well but ‘has’ would still read awkwardly ‘…rhino’s unit…’ would be my way of phrasing it for that parsing.
I have the same £1/lb and YOSEMITE quibbles as others.
I liked Topic bars once but I didn’t know they were still made until 2021.
It’s always fascinating to read about the various likes and dislikes of fellow solvers. I thought the pounds were brilliant and not that different from homophones or other cryptic techniques. I got tend quickly, missed the Nina and Yosemite (duh!), but thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle.
10A I find quite unsatisfactory. I still don’t know how “rhino” equals money – in what country is that slang in use? I also don’t regard the currency of Nigeria as being GK that the average Guardian solver could be expected to know. That left me with only the crossers and guessing from “retreating” that there might be a reversed hidden word, and NAIRA being the only fit, which google confirmed satisfied the “West African” part of the definition.
I’m not sure that even counts as solving.
A bit of a curate’s egg for me. I got everything, but like others had to google to verify some unfamiliar GK. Am I alone in never having heard of SMEW?
Fortunately I know too little about botany to have been thrown by EDELWEISS.
ARIAN is just another word for “Unitarian”, so it’s just a reversal, no hiding going on. A few too many eyebrow raises to be completely convincing but good fun, thanks Hat & PeterO.
There’s been quite a bit of discussion of NAIRA. It was my first one in, aided, no doubt, by an unusual experience. Some years ago I found a very fat woman’s purse in a hotel room in a New York suburb. (The purse was fat; I don’t know about the woman.) It contained the present-day equivalent of about £2500 in five currencies, about a third of which was in Nigerian naira. There was no obvious way of contacting the owner and I didn’t trust the hotel staff to deal with it. So I took it to the local police station, a place instantly recognisable from many movies. I left my details but never heard anything. I’ve often wondered what happened to all that cash…
Mitz@49, thanks for confirming. We’re told by Rob that “Hat” was, quote, “one of my less offensive nicknames at school”.
Jay@58
Indeed – Hattie Jacques – inevitable really!
After getting 13 and 18 wondered if there might be a Stranglers theme but maybe just a coincidence…
I enjoyed that, perhaps because I had the necessary GK. I think we’re more likely to approve of a puzzle when we finish it, and think it a bit of a stretch when we don’t.
I’m another not liking the £/lb equivalence. Lots of words share a Latin root but have very different meanings – eg venue, revenue.
I’m appalled by the idea of creatures like Andean CONDORS being held in captivity.
Thanks to setter and blogger.
Thanks to Hat and PeterO. Not a comment, only a question: how does hat is = I’M in 17?
Didn’t quite finish: foiled by 5d (I think I’d have got Sam from Yosemite, but not the other way round).
I’m familiar with rhino/rino/ryno for money, though I haven’t often encountered it in the wild. Jonathon Green says: “ety. unknown; one suggestion, that it refers to the rhinoceros, then a fabulous creature ‘worth its weight in gold’, implies a certain lexicographical desperation[.]”
[The Cassell Dictionary of Slang, 1998]
aemmmnostt @62 – Hat is the setter, so hat is = I am.
aemmmnostt@62, since Hat is today’s setter, he has used “Hat is” to mean “Your setter is” – or equivalently from his perspective “I AM” (or I’M). Similarly, mentions of “solver” often translate to “YOU”.
Puzzles in the Guardian use this device a lot. Boatman in particular, and Methuselah in the Independent, often have several clues which include their moniker, some of which should be interpreted in the way described, and others should be interpreted literally. Part of the fun with them is not knowing which!
This works well on the Guardian website because the setter’s name appears at the top of the puzzle. It’s frustrating on the Indy website (and apparently, according to some commenters here, in the Guardian app) because it doesn’t and you have to jump through hoops to find it (which you must, because the device is commonly used!)
Thanks, and a warm welcome, to Hat. And thanks to PeterO for an excellent blog.
After a long but enjoyable tussle, all I had left to complete were the three missing letters
in 23down, B – L – A –.
Easy, you might think. But …
1. I hadn’t spotted the nina to give me a final O
2. I didn’t know that a bao was a Chinese bun
3. I could see that £ = L (pound in money), but not that £ = LB (pound in weight)
4. I’d never heard of pintxos
5. I could see a Q, an X, a J and a K, so the obvious pangram needed a Z
6. So B – L – A –, plus a Z, could only be BALZAC. Completely unparsed, of course, but what else could it be?
So, in an answer requiring only six letters, I made six separate mistakes. For me, a new record.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, teacher sent me to the back of the class.
@@64 & 65. Ah, of course. All tree, no forest me. Thank you.
“The £ (pound sign) is a stylized Latin letter “L” representing libra, the basic Roman unit of weight (libra pondo), which meant “pound weight” or “scales”. It signifies the British pound sterling (£), denoting a pound weight of silver. The horizontal stroke indicates an abbreviation, in common use by 1694.”
Another school day for me 🙂
Slightly miffed by equating £ and lb, but only slightly. Otherwise an enjoyable solve.
Bodycheetah @68
Goodness! What would a pound weight of silver be worth now?
An inflation calculator suggests a pound in 1694 would be about £170, whereas a pound of silver would cost about £880
Why the capitalisation in 5d?
TomC @71
I suppose it’s intended to read like a newspaper headline – in The Times, perhaps? I haven’t seen a copy since I retired from teaching, so I don’t know if they still use caps in their headlines.
Fine debut. Using a poetic reading makes NAIRA work for me. I also raised an eyebrow at the 2-step process £ = pound = lb, but commenters’ additional information has convinced me.
Missed the Nina (of course). Faves: DENIM, EDELWEISS and the craftily hidden YOSEMITE, my LOI.
Congratulations, Hat!! Long overdue. And thanks, PeterO.
Mitz @ 49 . Thank you. So Rob Jacques, (and his various hats), has finally got his gig in the Guardian. That explains a lot about today’s cryptic. Good to see his rightful place on a Friday. Looking forward to tomorrow.
About half of this one went in fairly quickly, and the rest took some doing, with the help of the three Ds: Dictonary and DuckDuck. LOI 5d YOSEMITE was an unexpected and delightful surprise (“When I say whoa, I mean WHOA!!”). Other favourites: 21a PIRANHA (nice charade), 22a CRUMBLE (yum), 6d ANEW (surface), 7d NIJINSKY (“chap in tights”), 24d GUST, 25d NORM
NHO 28a SOLAR for “garret”, and 29a “Topic” CHOCOLATE. Also confused by 4d ANNEXE, so thank you Mogwai@2. I knew the 13d Colonel BLIMP character from the movie, but not “Low”
Many thanks for the enjoyable puzzle Hat, and welcome! And thanks PeterO for the fine blog
Why is site policy 3 never applied to comments such as #7 and #43?
I’ve always thought of a SOLAR as the exclusive upstairs room that the lady retreated to after feasting, so rather more salubrious than a traditional garret!
Solved a significant number of these from the definitions rather than the wordplay which helped a lot. Knew of the chinese bun and grasped the IL so got BILBAO quite quickly. The Rhino/Naira clue defeated me and having looked it up, none of the definitions of the origin were entirely convincing. One that made the most sense was Rhino Horn = Corn as Cockney Rhyming Slang but unsure if this was in vogue when it was first used. As an aside and totally coincidental, arian is Welsh for money.
Missed the Nina which would have helped with TEND. Overall a very enjoyable solve for a Friday, definitely a DNF even though I got to the end. Lots of failed Biffs and word searches.
Chapeau Hat and thanks to PeterO for the blog.
Why the odd capitalization in 5dn?
Frankie the Cat @79
This has been asked before. See mine @72.
FtC @79. 5dn capitalisation.
I read it as The Times, newspaper capitalised, followed by colon, then the title of the article Oysters …..
Crossing muffin.
DaveEllsion @76. That was rather churlish, both comments were enclosed in square brackets which used to be the accepted norm for off topic comments, so easy to bypass. ROZ and AlanC are both very regular posters here, why shouldn’t a birthday greeting be allowed?
I needed a crossings checker to get ANNEXE, but parsed it as described earlier.
This was pretty much typical Friday fare, I think. I don’t see any important rule having been broken by either setter or anyone else.
Cheers all.
I see AlanC’s comment is now in moderation. This is very sad. He has always been a voice of inclusion and bonhomie. It was his birthday. The chat between Roz and him, as was said earlier, was in square brackets.
It looks like the nina TODAY AND TOMORROW refers to the next day’s prize crossword having the same grid layout.
Say no more!
Great debut grid from Hat. Lots to enjoy and a few quibbles like £ == LB that others have mentioned. Lots to like but my absolute favourite was SATIE being a French barman. Thanks PeterO for the explanations and to Hat.
Rich @86. I don’t know how Hat could have had any idea as to what the grid would be for the next day. That would be up to the editor. How I read the Nina, and of course I could be wrong, is that was Hat’s celebration of being brought into the Guardian stable. Not just ”today”, ie a one-off, but we’ll see him again. I hope so.
I can’t find any reference that equates GYP with TORTURE, or with pain for that matter. Never heard it said, or read it either. Can someone enlighten my colonial mind?
23dn brought back fond memories of Pintxos Tapas Bar in Montreal – thanks for that 🙂
MightyQ @89
“My back is giving me gyp” is not an uncommon expression in Lancashire.
Iain@30,
The term “Nina” with crosswords means a hidden message. No idea why it’s called that but there it is.
In this case it is referring to that phrase “TODAY AND TOMORROW” that you can see in the picture of the grid above highlighted in colour at the top and bottom rows of the grid.
Hope that clears it up for you. Happy puzzling.
Thx paddymelon @85, I’ve enjoyed all the years of harmless banter but I won’t be back. Too much pomposity in the end.
[Yes, there is that AlanC @92, but please take a moment to reconsider, we would miss you. Enjoy your birthday weekend.
Can’t close the square brackets. Some of my keys on the laptop don’t work, like various parts of me. Hope I don’t get into trouble too. 🙂 )
[ Please do not leave over this AlanC@92 or I will feel terribly guilty , I am partly to blame although I only had good intentions . As noted by PDM , your cheerful bonhomie is a great counterweight to other things on here .
I aim to be with you May 4th ( Yoda speak ) and I want to see your name at Number 1 ]
[AlanC – Don’t let the bullies win! I notice that the policies no longer say anything about square brackets, unfortunately. ]
Perhaps its time for a refresh of the debate we had almost six years ago when the Guardian Cryptic blog first became weigthed down with off topic comment. The Comment Guidelines devised at that time were intended to clarify that the policy was not “post what you like as long as you put square brackets round it”. Instead we were asked that “before posting a comment please consider whether what you intend to say (or have already written) adds value by being relevant to the discussion and/or of possible interest to others”.
What was said at comment 76 seems perfectly reasonable in this context. Where is the place for banter (harmless or otherwise) unrelated to the crossword in this framework?
I think what some are missing about 10a is that the Arian heresy denied the Trinity.