Straightforward, I thought, this one, with just one long word (14a) probably meat and drink to the literati among us, but it got a blank stare from me. The rest was pleasant enough and shouldn’t present any problems, unless you fall into the trap at 7d of biffing the singular instead of parsing to get the plural.
Definitions underlined in bold, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, anagrinds in italics
| Across | |
| 1 | Group of cottages in Perth or Penicuik? (6) |
| THORPE – hidden as above; name for a hamlet, mainly seen in the north of England in place names. Although Perth and Penicuik are both in Scotland, of course. | |
| 4 | Hymn is able to delight, though king has left (8) |
| CANTICLE – CAN TICKLE loses its K for king. | |
| 9 | Woman binding books, works of an explicit nature (7) |
| EROTICA – ERICA a woman with OT = Old Testament inside. | |
| 11 | Comparatively slender maidens visiting German city (7) |
| TRIMMER – TRIER, German city, with M M two maidens inside. | |
| 12 | Reportedly witnessed embarrassing display of emotion (5) |
| SCENE – sounds like “seen” = witnessed. | |
| 13 | Reverse old carriage out of sight of the house (9) |
| BACKSTAGE – BACK (reverse) STAGE = old carriage. House as in theatre. | |
| 14 | Airborne soldier’s girl adopting name of some French poets (10) |
| PARNASSIAN – PARA (airborne soldier) with N for name inserted, then SIAN a girl, from Wales perhaps. I had to guess it from checkers then look it up, as my ignorance of matters poetic is both deliberate and pretty complete. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parnassianism if you’re that way inclined. |
|
| 16 | Increase in cost of healthy exercise (4) |
| HIKE – double definition. | |
| 19 | Variable food leader spat out? That’s disgusting (4) |
| YUCK – Y (a variable) TUCK loses (spits out) the T. If asked, I’d have spelt it YUK but I see both are alive and kiking. | |
| 20 | Person like Linnaeus, one without cover crossing a lake (10) |
| NATURALIST – NATURIST – one without cover- with A L(ake) inserted. EDIT based on the feedback below, I am staggered by how many regular solvers were not aware of Linnaeus, the originator of the whole system of plant classification, although I did have to think for a moment to get from botanist to naturalist. | |
| 22 | Great month to introduce a star! (9) |
| SUPERNOVA – SUPER = great, NOV, A. | |
| 23 | Eg Hammerstein’s very big estate, perhaps (5) |
| OSCAR – OS (outsize) CAR (estate car). | |
| 25 | Escapologist’s dog losing direction in India (7) |
| HOUDINI – HOU(N)D = dog losing north, IN I(ndia). I’d need a while to think of another escapologist. | |
| 26 | Empress’s army penetrated by nerve gas (7) |
| TSARINA – TA (Territorial Army) with SARIN a nerve gas inside. | |
| 27 | Compliant, having the last word? Clever (8) |
| AMENABLE – AMEN = last word, ABLE = clever. | |
| 28 | Explosive device Aussie native kept in castle, perhaps (6) |
| MAROON – ROO (kangaroo) inside MAN (chess piece such as castle). | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Article on old Persian monarch’s religious system (9) |
| THEOSOPHY – THE (article) O(ld) SOPHY (or Soffi, Sofi, Sophie) the name for the monarch of Iran / Persian in the Safavid dynasty. Before it went pear shaped. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophy_(Safavid_Iran) | |
| 2 | Cricket side in wizard place initially enjoying bracing air (5) |
| OZONE – OZ (as in the Wizard of… ) ON (cricket side) E first of enjoying). Don’t get me started on how ozone is nothing to do with bracing air and seaside smells in reality, as all chemists know. Ozone is toxic, even at very low concentrations. | |
| 3 | Ancient drug injected into prudish woman (8) |
| PRIMEVAL – PRIM (prudish) VAL (a woman) has the drug of crosswordland, E, inserted. | |
| 5 | Clot aunt again dispersed, using this? (13) |
| ANTICOAGULANT – (CLOT AUNT AGAIN)*. About time we had an anagram. | |
| 6 | Limited number concealing onset of such longing (6) |
| THIRST – THIRT(Y) = limited number, insert S first letter of such. | |
| 7 | Bell towers river god observed on the Italian island (9) |
| CAMPANILI – CAM (river in Cambridge, barely a stream really) PAN (God) IL (“the” in Italian) I(sland). Go down a snake if you put in CAMPANILE without seeing the plural. | |
| 8 | One invited into Jane’s lofty dwelling (5) |
| EYRIE – Jane EYRE has I (one ) inserted. | |
| 10 | Senior diplomat’s fuss over retreat set up by American singer (13) |
| AMBASSADORIAL – AM(erican) BASS (singer) ADO (fuss) LAIR (retreat) reversed. | |
| 15 | Again experience strong emotion touring City area (9) |
| RECAPTURE – RAPTURE = strong emotion, insert EC = London City area. | |
| 17 | Host in French land given time for second run (9) |
| ENTERTAIN – EN (in in French) TERRAIN has a the second R changed to a T. | |
| 18 | Broad view of girl kept by dad and mum (8) |
| PANORAMA – NORA, a girl, is between PA and MA. | |
| 21 | A number of sailors in charge of a plant (6) |
| ARNICA – A, RN (sailors) IC (in charge) A. | |
| 22 | Unstressed vowel we analysed originally after school (5) |
| SCHWA – SCH = school, W A first letters of we analysed. | |
| 24 | Outstanding feature primarily of cotton twill fabric (5) |
| CHINO – CHIN (outstanding feature) O (primarily Of). | |
36 minutes, via puzzles rather than the club site. It alarmingly declared my successful completion as I entered the last letter. I guess it always does that. Lots of ladies today: Erica, Sian, Val and Nora, not to mention MM (two maidens) and Sophy
30:07. I sprinted away on this one with most of the NW corner going straight in, then slowed down, but ending with a time that is still quicker than average for me. NHO PARNASSIAN or SCHWA. The latter was very guessable, the former took a bit longer as I’ve only ever known one Sian so the name didn’t quickly come to mind. COD MAROON. Overall a very enjoyable puzzle, thanks s & b.
09:00 after waiting all morning to get in. Some things that weren’t known to me (the SOPHY, the PARNASSIANS, though that name seemed pretty likely if you know where the Muses dwell) and some that were – like our blogger, I am surprised at the unfamiliarity of people with Linnaeus, who featured heavily in my school science lessons (which stopped at O-levels). As well as his main work, Linnaeus also took his compatriot Celsius’s temperature scale and made the quite important tweak of putting the low numbers at the bottom and the high ones at the top. For whatever reason, Celsius created it with 0 as the boiling point and 100 as the freezing point, which seems slightly counter-intuitive…
I literally just came across your fact about Celsius in this new book “Beyond Measure: The Hidden History of Measurement”. Worth a read.
45 mins. Rather too many women’s names in the NW for my liking, but hey.
Sure I’m being dim, but are chess pieces commonly known as ‘men’? Wasn’t aware of this, so the NHO MAROON went in as a guess, ‘ROO’ being the likely Aussie native.
NHO of PARNASSIANS, but knew that Montparnasse in Paris is associated with artists so figured that must be it (turns out to be an oblique derivation, at least according to Wikipedia). Never heard of SCHWA, but it satisfied the clueing, so went in with a shrug. Found this puzzle vaguely irritating, but couldn’t tell you why.
I know next to nothing about chess but I’m quite used to the pieces being referred to as ‘men’ in crosswordland.
Chessmen is a common term, including among chessplayers
15:16
All very straightforward I thought. COD: SUPERNOVA.
I’m sure there used to be a public information film featuring maroons being discharged to summon lifeboat crews to station – one for the coastguard and two for the lifeboat was the tag line.
Glad to get into the site finally. I got a reply from the Times saying the outage is a known issue and they are working on it, but I had already started the puzzle by then. Whizzed thru this one, felt like a Monday even, but that may be partly because it’s not the tail end of the day. Lots of near-biffing, getting the wordplay as I wrote in the answers, like HOUDINI from the first word and the terminal I, SCHWA from the H and the definition. Didn’t remember SOPHY as a Persian potentate and MAROON as an explosive was a revelation.
Not at all straightforward for me, with an eventual DNF after ages. NHO Linnaeus, hence couldn’t see NATURALIST; PARNASSIAN says nothing to me at all; could not parse AMBASSADORIAL, though it’s clear enough on reading the blog; YUCK is just yuck, frankly – not a word, just a childish ejaculation which earned me a rap across the knuckles from my grandmother whenever I dared to utter it in her presence (and just being in a dictionary doesn’t change its character as far as I’m concerned). Overall unsatisfying, sadly. But another day will soon be with us.
Once I could actually get the site to load, I found this pretty easy and finished in just over 14 minutes. Couldn’t think who Linnaeus was at first, even though I knew the name, but once I had a few checkers it dropped in easily enough.
The only hold up was falling into a slightly different trap at 7d and writing “the” Spanish instead of “the” Italian, which led to some head scratching on 16a until I spotted my error and all was good.
Being a traditionalist, I fill in the grid in the printed version of The Times, so was not inconvenienced by IT problems. I thought this a fairly standard puzzle, taking me 22 minutes, which is as good as it ever gets for me. As often happens I was held up by some of the shorter answers, especially as my first thoughts on 16ac were JUMP and then RISE.
FOI – THORPE
LOI – HIKE
COD – MAROON (no problem with chessmen).
Thanks to piquet and other commentators.
Third fail of the week- CANTACLE!!! Wasn’t sure about tackle for delight but then I’m not sure I’d have thought tickle was delight either! It’s a shame because I’d managed all the other DNKs like MAROON and ARNICA, and dredged THEOSOPHY and PARNASSIAN. Maybe I’ll be luckier tomorrow !
DNF. Got off to a quick start, but not knowing a SOPHY, and not thinking of ARNICA (because I thought it was a mineral), I gave up. I should have persevered a bit longer, as AMBASSADORIAL did occur to me, but we have been decluttering the house, and I kept finding old A level papers, expired insurance documents etc etc.
Not my wavelength. I think of LINNAEUS as a taxonomist
16.19 despite the unknown- schwa. Parnassian came to me from somewhere , perhaps the mountain but the cluing was very helpful. Didn’t really know maroon but I think I’ve encountered it in a naval setting?
LOI hike, having almost put in rise on several occasions.
Thx setter and blogger.
19.11
Not much to add. Knew Linnaeus; didn’t know the poets which was my LOI and seemed a reasonable punt. Also changed cracy to sophy. Plenty of gentle ones and the harder ones were work-out-able. Nice puzzle; nice blog; lots of nice comments from all around the world it seems. Good night from Bath!
I was tickled by CANTICLE but had to guess SOPHY, THORPE, SCHWA and ARNICA from the wordplay. No problem with Linnaeus. It is nice to see I wasn’t alone in getting to PARNASSIAN incorrectly via the artistic associations of Montparnasse in Paris (it reminded me of the wonderful old black-and-white photo of a steam train that overran the buffers at Montparnasse Station and came through the station wall above the street level – sadly the station was replaced by a concrete box in the 1960’s). Thanks for the blog.
I have a copy of that photo hanging alongside my desk in my study. It never fails to give me a smile when I look at it, though I guess the driver was less entertained.
Unusually, I flew through this , and finished in about 35 minutes with hardly a backwards glance: all correct too. So my recent failures were all brought to nought, and confidence reigns again – Hoorah! It never fails to amaze me that puzzles that I find what some may call “Mondayish” are impenetrable to me, and vice versa. Had to guess at THORPE ( not difficult given the currency of the word in English villages – Scunthorpe, Maplethorpe, etc); PARNASSIAN (not much into poetry but knew the mountain), or MAROON as a bomb, but wordplay very clear.
Thank you setter for restoring my (ever-retreating) confidence!