My memories of that holiday at the “Sunny Beach” resort on the Black Sea are vivid, not least because of the Borg-McEnroe tiebreaker we watched in the hotel lounge and even more so for the fact that I was head-butted in a restaurant down the road after being overcharged for a plate of chips I decided to order when I was feeling peckish late one evening.
I forget how much I was quibbling over, but it was likely to have been of the order of several of the little fellows at 17 down (stotinki, as they are pluralised in the Latin script). (A stotinka – a hundredth of a lev – is about half a euro cent.)
So Bulgaria is one of the nine EU countries which wisely opted out of the euro. Your starter for ten: which are the other eight? (Answer at the end of this entry.*)
ACROSS
1. CROW – C (‘about’ = Latin ‘circa’) + ROW.
3. CRISPBREAD – CRISP (‘fresh’ as in weather reports) + BREAD (‘dough’). My last in.
9. OLD MAID – barely cryptic and a write-in if you remember the card game.
11. MAGICAL – MAGI (as in the three wise men) + CAL[l].
12. SWITCH OFF – not tremenjously cryptic, either; the definition is ‘stop paying attention’ and ‘turn away’ the wordplay, which needs to be lifted and separated – if you’re really, well, paying attention.
13. NORMAL – NORMA[l]; the other day, in a Concise, I mixed up my Berlinis (the composer of the opera Norma) with my Berninis (the sculptor/architect). I’m better with music than art. On edit: …but not so good as I thought I was – the composer is Bellini! A nod of the head to my Monday confrère
14. ONE-HIT WONDER – forget your Nenas and Carl Douglases, for me there is only one of the breed, the marvellously named Randy Van Warmer. (Even if he doesn’t make any of the Wikipedia lists, and had other hits, he fits the bill for me.)
18. IN A COLD SWEAT – my original thought was ‘muck’, but maybe that is just a reflection on my mental state at a time when I’m wallowing in nostalgia by catching a few Carry Ons on YouTube. It’s an anagram* of NOW A CITADELS.
21. CLEAR – C (musical note) + [Edward] LEAR.
22. IMPRUDENT – IMPUDENT about R (Latin ‘rex’, of course).
24. OVERDUE – another refugee from Quickie land: OVER + DUE.
25. UNKNOWN – if I was asked to open a book on clue most likely to be biffed (‘bunged in from the definition’), I would give it to this one, using my actuarial skills to reckon that most solvers already have the K by the time they get to this one. For the record, it’s NUN* + OWN (‘at once’) around K (English ‘king’, naturellement). On edit: Or, to be precise, NUN* around K + NOW. Thanks to the sharp-eyed Galspray.
26. SILVERSIDE – long, in an easy (apart from one clue) puzzle, therefore also highly biffable: it’s LIVERS* in SIDE.
27. FETA – hidden there somewhere.
DOWNS
1. CROSSBOW – BOW below CROSS (‘bridge’ as a verb).
2. OLD-TIMER – a not especially challenging double definition. (I used to say that this type of clue was aimed at Australian solvers, before I was told off, so I will say that this type of clue is aimed at some Australian solvers.)
4. RODEO – another ‘Australian’ (note the use of inverted commas to show jocular intent) clue: RODE + O.
5. SEMIFINAL – IF in SEMINAL. Perhaps we should call this one ‘Antipodean’, lest I be thought to be ignoring my mother’s land across the Tasman.
6. BEGINNERS LUCK – IN + N[orthern] + GREEK + CLUBS*. The literal is ‘unexpected success for novice’. In case you are wondering, ODO (Oxford Dictionaries Online) has ‘North or Northern’ for ‘N’. On reflection, I probably lose a lot of money and have to give up my nascent actuarial career, as this one has ‘Biff me!’ written all over it.
7. ESCORT – C (‘chapter’) in E + SORT.
8. DOLLAR – ALL in ROD all reversed.
10. AUCTION BRIDGE – ‘a [card] game’; this time BRIDGE is wearing its ‘join’ hat (as in ‘bridge different cultures’), while ‘lots’ go to (and hopefully from) an AUCTION.
15. WACKINESS – WINE + CASKS*.
16. PENELOPE – a rather straightforward charade (i.e., A + B) of PEN + ELOPE.
17. STOTINKA – TIN (‘money’) in ST + OK + A.
19. ACTORS – [f]ACTORS.
20. REVEAL – ‘show’; A in REVEL. ODO has pushing the boat out as being lavish in one’s spending or celebrations.
23. POUND – double definition: Ezra and a place for containing or confining.
* Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Sweden and the UK.
I think the opera the Berlinis wrote was probably Porgy and Bess….
BRISKBREAD? BRASHBREAD?…nothing made sense. It was becoming the crossword equivalent of allowing Monty Panesar and James Anderson to bat for a draw at Cardiff. I had convinced myself that I was looking for some fiendishly obscure UK biscuit name (Garibaldi, anyone?), when all I needed to do was to keep my head and bowl at the top of off stump.
After half an hour I used a helper to get the should-have-been-blindingly-obvious CRISPBREAD.
Defeated. No excuses. Thanks setter and Ulaca.
Той не можа да довърши кръстословицата затова му nutted!
🙂
30 minutes but never got the coinage.
STOTINKA was was the final nail in that particular coffin. I got it from wordplay but was not confident when I reached for the dictionary to check. It came up once before, as recently as November 2014, but on that occasion the wordplay was of no help so I cheated, as I note did our esteemed blogger whose holiday in Bulgaria did not come to his aid as it did today: http://times-xwd-times.livejournal.com/1214434.html. It was clued as “Foreign bread’s awful smell that’s bound to appeal initially”.
26 minutes.
I had not come across ONE-HIT WONDER Randy van Warmer! Any relation to Hertz van Rental?
CRISPBREAD went in easier then imagined and A MUCK SWEAT was an early possibility.
Verlaine should be done in under five.
horryd Shanghai
It was either going to be STOTINKA or STATINIA – thankfully I plumped for the right one. And like Galspray CRISPBREAD had me stumped for a good 5 minutes before the proverbial Bulgarian restaurant moment.
Ulaca, your list is not quite right in that only the UK and Denmark have an opt-out from the euro. For all other countries joining the single currency is a condition of membership of the EU. However for those who aren’t desperate to join, the obligation is conveniently lacking any sort of deadline. Meanwhile the Danes take advantage of their opt-out by pegging the krone to the euro anyway.
Surely the ultimate 14ac is the prescient genius who actually named his hit The One And Only?
Edited at 2015-12-14 08:42 am (UTC)
Perfectly serviceable, just didn’t last very long, like much in modern life. Another good crossover for Quick solvers, I imagine.
Edited at 2015-12-14 10:01 am (UTC)
Confess I biffed 6d.
Nice blog.
I’ve never heard of Randy Van Warmer but I’ll have a listen to his one hit later if I remember. I’m not sure what my favourite is; perhaps Down Under by Men At Work? Given the time of year an honourable mention to Jonah Louis and Stop The Cavalry.
My vote goes to Plastic Bertrand.
The stand out not-in-the-comfort-zone clue was obviously STOTINKA, which as well as being fringe GK, was by far the most complexly clued.
My congratulations to Ulaca for creating a blog that was an order of magnitude more entertaining than its subject
STOTINKA was not a problem for me because the wordplay was pretty clear. I think I’ll use it as a nickname for my friends’ two-year-old son Lev.
Thanks to ulaca and all the amusing commenters.
Edited at 2015-12-14 03:14 pm (UTC)
* Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Sweden and the UK.
I think most of those countries are on the Euro enlargement programme.
One or two have hardly been in the EU that long …
I wrote in STOTINKA as an interim measure until I thought of something more plausible, but then forgot to discorrect it and was pleasantly surprised to find it to be right. I did half-remember a NHO the operatic Norma, but got it from wordplay.
Edited at 2015-12-14 09:50 pm (UTC)
Despite my usual ignorance of foodie matters, I’d actually heard of CRISPBREAD, since I recall a 1960s (?) TV advert in which the punchline was “We think you will be liking these crispbreads” (or something of the sort) delivered in a charming Scandinavian accent by an attractive blonde young Scandinavian woman.
A pleasant, straightforward start to the week.
That could be the only time I’ve come across the word CRISPBREAD, but then, as I say, foodie matters are not my strong suit.