Norway has given the world Ibsen, Hamsun, Amundsen, Roald Dahl’s parents, Munch, A-Ha. Estonia has given the world… Dave Benton and Tanel, 2001’s Eurovision champions.
I’m in Tallinn, Estonia at the moment and am hoping that something Eurovision-related makes it into the crossword this week.
Let me know if that’s the case, and if someone can send over a blank and completed crossword to me via email, I’ll post it up here (Jonathan, who usually sends the crosswords to me, is off travelling Europe too).
Update: RobT and Robin each provided the goods so that here we could have DA’s handiwork:
If you can leave your email I can make it happen…
Thanks RobT.
My email address is in the right-hand sidebar.
I really liked Tallinn. My Estonian vocabulary peaked at about 3 words, including hello and thank you, but has now dropped back to just one. “Milimailikas” (almost certainly misspelled). It means “jellyfish” and is also the name of a cocktail they serve in some old-skewl bar in the old town centre. It involves vodka and tabasco sauce and some other spirit. The tabasco floats between the two spirits looking like nasty jellyfish tentacles. Goes well with pickles, accordion music and Baltic girls.
I hope I found you, AS. Sorry if it doesn’t look like what you wee exepcting…I remembered very late!
Where the heck is Gayle?
Way back in my misspent youth I read that Estonia’s #1 export was models, and planned to go there. But by the time I had enough money to go I also had a wife who was sceptical of my reasons for going ;)
@Rupert: so you didn’t import your wife from Tallinn over the internet, then…?
@RobT: Nope. Maybe the next one :)
Thanks RobT and Robin, you’ve both sent me lovely crossies.
RC, I haven’t found milimailikas, but I did find the Depeche Mode bar, which is truly incredible. I don’t even like the band and I was impressed.
And Tallinn most definitely is the place with the greatest ratio of tourists not speaking English that I’ve been to. I’m truly shocked at how little English I hear around me despite being in the very touristy old town.
Hi RobT- back on deck. Yesterday at hydro and replacing a faulty mobile phone. But not an iPhone. .. although maybe I should have got one given the ‘wordsmashing’ Apps mentioned last week. BTW – in presurgery cull of printed text at home found Marcus Clarke’s “For the term of …..” Should have got that clue, eh? Bought secondhand from “Kevin’s Book Nook” – true story – but no 5D : )
Nice one – lovely mini-themes in 19a/27a and in 5d, 12d, 2d, 9a, 25d and 14d. Also liked 8d, 17a and 18a. Not so happy with 18d and 24a – too obscure for my liking – had to google, and I didn’t find the ‘squeeze’ reference in 1d quite right. Perhaps it’s just me?
@GB – see the other thread.
Thanks Rupert, it was just me! Add 1d to my favourites.
Sashimi doesn’t have a “u”normally & the spelling shown doesn’t match my understanding of the clue (anagram of is amis & h for hot). Does anyone have thoughts on “for the brain” – seems redundant to me
Just for surface reading I suppose but a little clumsy by DA standards?
Fish is supposedly brain food. I assumed DA was alluding to this.
Yes, it is sashimi; the sushimi in the completed grid is a typo.
June 10 – 12
Sashimi for breakfast? Might need it this morning.
Going dotty trying to read DA. Not 4 – eyed? But don’t have 8D yet.
Got 8D. Now have to work out how to apply it.
Gayle, I managed to work out what the dots were without 8D (which I haven’t solved yet – work is getting in the way!). There’s a pattern in the lengths of the dotted clues versus the number of squares available in the grid, and all the dotted answers have something in common. 28A and 14D were the ones that showed me the way.
Beyond that, there are some cracking clues in this one. I’ve had to slap my head a couple of times.
Hurry up, AS, and get us our spoiler thread! I think 11A has a misprint.
Rupert, does my first comment apply to the pattern?
8D think animated matriarch , permitted reversal
Apologies for the typo, well spotted JK. It should read SASHIMI.
AS is probably asleep on snowed in and out of range up in the Arctic.
Think I’m on the downhill run now. See you at the bottom.
Sorry, Gayle, I’m drawing a blank on animated matriarchs. I have a pre-teen daughter, so my animation consumption is skewed more to princesses. I’ll apply some thought to it over lunch.
OK, hadn’t thought of that show, or even as her as a matriarch. But assuming I have the right one, yes, the dots are as in 8Ds.
It appears I had 10A wrong, which probably didn’t help.
Good clues. Like 17D. Gotta go to hydro pool now. Back lunchtime.
16D and 23D have wonderful wordplays