A jolly romp of a puzzle this Wednesday, which I solved in 16 minutes with the top left corner last to be completed. Four straightforward anagrams and a barely hidden word gave me an easy start, and oddly enough, 1d and 1a were my last to be put in. Your feedback is welcomed on 19a.
Definitions underlined in bold, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, anagrinds in italics, [deleted letters in square brackets].
| Across | |
| 1 | Golf club‘s tip wet (7) |
| NIBLICK – NIB = tip, LICK = wet, as a verb. Even as a golfer, I had to dredge my memory for this name for an old type of golf club which was used for getting the ball out of a hole or bad spot. | |
| 5 | A writer, some soldiers, and so on (7) |
| SASSOON – S.A.S. = some soldiers, and SO ON. | |
| 9 | A small amount of cremating bungled (9) |
| CENTIGRAM – (CREMATING)*. Ten milligrams, as you would expect. | |
| 10 | Style of note female swapped with Charlie (5) |
| ECLAT – E FLAT being a musical note, replace F by C. | |
| 11 | Large creature to return carrying? Cry audibly (8,5) |
| HUMPBACK WHALE – to HUMP BACK = to return carrying, WHALE sounds like WAIL. | |
| 13 | Kill American, then relax close to balcony — that’s cold (3,5) |
| ICE LOLLY – ICE = U.S. slang for kill, LOLL to relax, Y the end of balcony. | |
| 15 | Turns down occasionally yummy Asian food (3,3) |
| DIM SUM -DIMS = turns down, e.g. a light; y U M M y. | |
| 17 | China object to a pet exercising (6) |
| TEAPOT – (TO A PET)*. | |
| 19 | Crawling on this is a result of poor judgement? (3,5) |
| ALL FOURS – I’ve underlined the whole of this clue, because I think it must be a cryptic definition of some sort, but neither I nor Mrs P can see why crawling on all fours can be this. How else can you crawl, but on all fours? Explanations below, please. | |
| 22 | Novel liquid’s cool and blue (9,4) |
| WATERSHIP DOWN – WATER’S (liquid’s) HIP (cool) DOWN (blue). | |
| 25 | Dog ignoring bone initially getting good score on course (5) |
| EAGLE – a BEAGLE dog loses its initial B from bone. A score of 2 under par on one hole, like hen’s teeth in my case. | |
| 26 | Shopkeeper, say, and master criminal (9) |
| TRADESMAN – (AND MASTER)*. | |
| 27 | Affair of cat eating a box of ingredients (7) |
| LIAISON – LION (cat) has A I[ngredient]S inserted. | |
| 28 | Spooner’s dratted pig is shamefaced (7) |
| HANGDOG – Rev. Spooner would have said DANG HOG. Well, his American cousin might have said DANG, I doubt he would have done so. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Arrest New York basketball player for speaking (4) |
| NICK – I know very little about basketball, but I did know the New York team is called the KNICKS, which sounds like nicks. Something to do with knickerbockers and Dutch settlers, I believe. | |
| 2 | Article on short page supporting Bob’s first Wailer? (7) |
| BANSHEE – B (Bob) AN (article) SHEE[T] = short page. | |
| 3 | When in France, me and a lady picked up a turn of phrase (5) |
| IDIOM – MOI (me in French) DI (a lady) “picked up” i.e. reversed. | |
| 4 | Fork out to cover party game (8) |
| KORFBALL – (FORK)* then BALL = party. It’s a kind of netball / basketball for mixed teams. | |
| 5 | Fool to be awful when entertaining His Majesty (6) |
| SHMUCK – SUCK = be awful, with HM inserted. From Yiddish, I see, literally meaning penis. So use with care. | |
| 6 | Not straight with southern part of London over smell (9) |
| SKEWWHIFF -S (southern) KEW (part of London) WHIFF (smell). I wrote it in and it looked odd with two Ws together, but it is so spelt; is there another word in English with two Ws consecutively? | |
| 7 | City uncovered more lists (7) |
| ORLEANS – OR = more “uncovered”, [M]OR[E]; LEANS = lists. Pleasant city near Paris. | |
| 8 | Lowest part of engine thermostat (10) |
| NETHERMOST – here it is, hidden as above. | |
| 12 | A&E, say, with request to lab perhaps that’s unnecessary? (5,5) |
| FIFTH WHEEL – musically, from A to E is a fifth interval; W (with) HEEL instruction given to your labrador retriever. | |
| 14 | Old and stern? Not so much, and not smelly! (9) |
| ODOURLESS – O (old) DOUR (stern) LESS (not so much). | |
| 16 | Upset friends a little, being careless (8) |
| SLAPDASH – PALS reversed (upset) then DASH = a little. | |
| 18 | Island worker on one other island briefly (7) |
| ANTIGUA – ANT (worker) I (one) GUA[M] = other island briefly. | |
| 20 | Mundane novel is anonymous (7) |
| UNNAMED – (MUNDANE)*. | |
| 21 | Outlaw seen outside shack somewhere in Asia (6) |
| BHUTAN – BAN (outlaw) with HUT inserted. I’ve been to a lot of countries but not Bhutan, and it’s not high on my bucket list at this point. They have a nice dragon on their flag, though. | |
| 23 | Poem about old theatre (5) |
| ODEON – ODE (poem) ON (about). | |
| 24 | Make out small drink containing eggs (4) |
| SNOG – S for small, NOG as in egg nog. When I practised snogging in my youth (happy memories) I’d never have called it “making out”, I suspect this is an Americanism. | |
19.11, and feeling very lucky not to have pinks. Only after submitting did I remember the NY Knicks, and I still wonder whether they ever refer to one of them as a Knick. My admiration for the FIFTH WHEEL clue soared when I realised how it worked, though isn’t the fifth wheel in anything other than a Reliant Robin the one with the nut behind it? Rather handy for not hitting things.
Chambers has SKEW-WHIFF, our light doesn’t.
I’ve just binge watched Wolf Hall, and it seems quite a bit of it involved people on ALL FOURS because they had displeased Henry and needed to confess their perceived poor judgement. Not really perhaps a solution to the conundrum: perhaps the setter was anticipating the result of the rest of us scoring the clue out of ten and being remarkably consistent.
Knick is commonly used to refer to a single member of the Knicks, e.g. “Once a Knick, always a Knick” is sewn on the inside of the team jerseys.
For those who watched Succession, Logan Roy’s ‘game’ of boar on the floor was also an example of forcing people to crawl on all fours. The objective being to find the person who had exhibited poor judgement by betraying him.
Easier to chop their heads off, if they are kneeling… I’ve only read the books, because the TV series apparently couldn’t afford any lighting. But it is not until book 3 that the hero is made to kneel ..
08:54, and mostly entertaining. Devotees of Half Man Half Biscuit – a recurring motif on this blog – will be familiar with the song Joy In Leeuwarden, a celebratory song about the European korfball championships being awarded to the city (in fact, I note that our resident HMHB correspondent has already updated the relevant forum, fast work). It took me a while to work out why ALL FOURS was correct, before I reached the same conclusion as others – I’m sure it’s meant to suggest, say, the Strictly Come Dancing judges holding up a row of 4s, which is bad, but there are plenty of occasions where scoring 4 is perfectly respectable, good even, so it’s not cut and dried in the way you like a definition to be, even a playfully cryptic one…
34.49 – just pleased to not have a DNF today, as I’ve been rather SLAPDASH lately
Fair flew through this to begin with – then got stuck in the top right, with my LOI being the hidden NETHERMOST. Palm and forehead collided.
Otherwise same as everyone else with FIFTH, ALL FOURS etc.
16:53
All the bottom half of the grid was completed before I was able to crack the top half, with the exception of FIFTH WHEEL. I had the WHEEL, but the first word eluded me until the end – it not being an expression I’d heard of and furthermore being unable to parse the A&E bit (why do I never get the musical ones???) NIBLICK rang a very faint bell, though I didn’t like ‘lick’ for ‘wet’, and never heard of ‘Knicks’ or KORFBALL, so the 1D, 1A, 4D combination nearly did for me. I would also spell SHMUCK with a second-letter C, but it was obvious. Another who found the hidden very late in the day and took far too long to work out CENTIGRAM. Relieved to find all correct in the end.
26:11. Usual unknowns and half-remembereds as others. I thought of the legal meaning of ALL FOURS but I couldn’t immediately see it made sense and on further reflection I don’t think it does. The row of 4/10s looks to be the right parsing but it is a bit of a stretch.
I thought my LOI FIFTH WHEEL could be wrong so thanks for the explanation.
Surprised how many were familiar with NIBLICK but that probably says something about the typical profile of our bloggers. If you didn’t know that one then KORFBALL would have caught out more people I suspect.
I’m pretty sure I’ve mostly encountered NIBLICK in crosswords, so this may not say anything about people here beyond the very obvious!
Anyone who plays golf has probably owned Niblick brand golf shoes at some point.
19:04, but carelessly entered KORKBALL when mis-assembling the anagrist for fork. Drat! Thanks setter and Pip.
17 mins, but much time at the end trying to decide between FIFTH and SIXTH, nothing else making any sense. Had been hoping for PB.
I managed to complete this in 38 minutes, but would have been a lot quicker had I not gone astray in the NW corner, with FOOTBALL my first answer for 4dn, for the same reason as jackkt and others. Once I had sorted that out, the rest fell into place. I knew NIBLICK because many years ago I had a card game about golf which must have dated back to the days when golfers wore plus fours, and which featured niblicks, mashies, and no doubt other long forgotten clubs. You were allowed to stymie opponents by getting your own ball between their ball and the hole. I didn’t fully understand the ALL FOURS clue, but prefer the judging out of ten explanation to the legal one, which seems a bit of a stretch.
FOI – ICE LOLLY
LOI – NICK
COD – NETHERMOST
Thanks to piquet and other contributors.
Kicking myself for a DNF, because I didn’t write in ‘FIFTH WHEEL’, because I couldn’t begin to parse it. Nine times out of ten I would simply have written it in, because I couldn’t see what else it could be, but I convinced myself it couldn’t be right. I know a fair bit of musical theory and on another day it might have occurred to me that from A to E is a fifth, but my mind was running on different rails; dogs didn’t enter my head either.
I had no such hesitation about entering ‘ALL FOURS’, even though I couldn’t parse that either. Having read the comments above about the possible parsing, I’ve come to the conclusion that it is just a dismal clue.
19:06
Slow start – just ICE LOLLY and WATERSHIP DOWN entered on first pass of acrosses. Picked up speed particularly in the lower half, before picking my way more carefully around the top.
I initially wanted 12d to be THIRD WHEEL (like a gooseberry when two others are on a date) but ICE LOLLY obvs correct so had to think again.
No problem with KORFBALL – one year at school saw our gym master try out a new game with his students every other week – this was one of them.
LOIs SASSOON and SHMUCK.
Interesting discussion on speed-filling above – I can touch-type reasonably well but will try to incorporate some of those suggestions and see what difference it makes.
Is “All Fours” possibly a reference to ice-skating? One would get a poor score from the judges for slipping over onto all fours.
Didn’t cheat (for a change).
The top was hard and the bottom had a lot of gimmes.
I did enter NICK for 1d, without a clue of how it worked (apart from nick=arrest), so a BIFD. Nearly wrote NYCK. Am surprised that The Knicks is known by anyone not a basketball buff, and we don’t have a lot of them in the UK. The only US sports things I expect to need are Babe Ruth, Mohamed Ali, The Brickyard, and maybe the Superbowl.
I didn’t enter KORFBALL for 4d as I simply refused to believe it exists. Was sad that my original FOOTBALL didn’t work.
Not sure about fifth wheel; there are at least three reasons why fifth wheels are useful; spare tyre, artic trucks, and a gadget used by the motoring press attached to the car under test as (obv) they don’t trust the speedo to give them the actual speed. So they have a light wheel attached to the back bumper which displays an accurate reading. However no problem with it.
I know (or thought I knew) nothing at all about Basketball but out of curiosity I looked at a list of NBA teams and was surprised by how many I knew: Celtics, Nets, Knicks, Raptors, Bulls, Heat, Magic, Lakers. Goodness knows how I acquired this latent knowledge!
Quick today, but I didn’t enjoy it much. All rather 16dn, I thought. The tiresome Americanisms …
I did know korfball, though I’ve never played it or seen it played.
Four is either a poor score or a very good one, depending. So 19ac totally lost on me.
The most curious name is the Utah Jazz. The team originated in New Orleans where Jazz as a nickname was totally appropriate. The franchise was transferred to Salt Lake City but for some reason kept the same name, even though it hardly suited the new, strait-laced, conservative, Mormon-based setting!
20’37” with no real hold-ups. Not keen on ALL FOURS, although it dropped in easily enough as I had all the checkers in place before getting there. My Czech colleagues talked of the FIFTH WHEEL rather than the spare wheel, though I don’t know if that was a direct translation from Czech. They also used it as a colloquialism for anything (or anyone) which or who was unnecessary or not contributing to the situation. ‘Honza’s a bit of a fifth wheel’ would mean that, as a team member, he wasn’t pulling his weight, usually through laziness but sometimes through inability. With that memory and some rudimentary musical knowledge, it fell into place with no delay.
This clumsy luddite’s attempt turned into an utter fiasco, due to my being SLAPDAAH (sic).
Fifth wheel went in at 25′, at which point I was informed that I was “unlucky, not quite right yet”.
Given these things are supposed to be so ruddy clever, surely it could have told me slapdaah wasn’t a word.
However, I am now done with poking at a screen with this silly dibber. After ten minutes of fruitless poking I discovered a printable version* buried under an envelope labelled e-mail (did that wretched paper-clip come up with that inspired bit of iconography).
Should have gone to Radio Rentals ……
…… as I did in the early 90s, and, after one evening of algebra and Microsoft Works 3.1 (?), Ladbrokes, Market Hill, Cambridge became the first to have computerised shop accounts with a 100% bugless system. Bugless because I’d done it myself.
2023 and look at the plight of the postmasters and mistresses; AI ? No, we’ve gone backwards.
Broke down final furlong (vet reported lost shoe, jockey claimed his mount had insisted on going back to look for it)
42′ 35”
* Slight hitch: No printer, but having a childish love of symmetry (Palladio makes me go weak at the knees), I will enjoy drawing the grids.
Seduced by those who claim this was easier than the QC, I had a go for the first time. After an hour I managed just four (DIMSUM, TEAPOT, UNNAMED, SNOG), so I am definitely nowhere near this league. I won’t presume to trespass on this territory again for some time!
You know you’ll get better with practice. I did. It wasn’t so long ago I couldn’t get more than a handful every day. But keeping at it does help, and reading this blog every day also made a huge difference for me. So do trespass, if only to read and understand to begin with. I believe the only requirement of the blog is a desire to do the Times Crossword. So you’re already welcome!
David
I started doing them in my early teens, and it was years, or felt like it, before I actually finished one…
Just have a look every day and do the ones you can. Then come hear to read about the others. Don’t be tempted to cheat or use aids. It matters not if the grid remains incomplete…
I think it helps if you print it out rather than try to do it online. You get a more holistic view of the clues and the grid. Might be just me..
And welcome! Let us know how you get on
You’re both very kind….. – just wanted to assure you that I wouldn’t dream of trying it online; I only ever look at the printed newspaper. I think I’m just not yet ready – I’ll stick to the QC for a while longer yet! It was really nostalgia that was the impulse: memories of my childhood, sitting in the back of the car listening to my parents doing the Times crossword together despite one driving. They would always finish it, and only now I am discovering the contorted thought processes they must have been going through. Can’t think why they didn’t crash……
Greetings to you both
Finished pretty quickly for me. An hour or so but I never time myself. Thought 12 dn a horrible clue and biffed the answer from the crossers and the definition. The fifth interval is A to E not a A&E and we normally give an order to a dog not a request.
As a relative newcomer tot the 15 X 15 I find I get nearly all the clues from the definition and work out the parsing later !
Any words I sent in the direction of my brother’s unruly Jack Russels were uttered with the feeling that they were a forlorn plea !
34.33 My third quickest ever. I thought “and master criminal” was a lovely anagram. I initially chucked in ODOURFREE without noticing that it’s not a word and clashed with EAGLE. Some mistakes only happen online. This held up LIAISON and LOI FIFTH WHEEL made no sense to me so thanks for the explanation.
Got FIFTH WHEEL as it was the only thing that fitted. Didn’t understand the A&E musical bit. Have heard of a third wheel, though, the same as a gooseberry. Surprised so many are moaning they’ve never heard of KORFBALL. Was very popular in the 90s, maybe still is. Otherwise all okay, for a 32 minutes completion time.
I know that if you want to strike up a conversation with a stranger in New York you’re supposed to say ‘how about them Knicks, eh?’ So I got 1 down easily enough, even though I couldn’t have said offhand whether the Knicks play baseball or basketball.
It’s not a particularly inspired clue, I admit, but I don’t get all this moaning about Americanisms. It seems a bit petty, especially on a day when there were no less than TWO golfing words! Bah!!
Enjoyable 26 minutes. I thought NETHERMOST was particularly well-hidden.
I finished the Big Boy Puzzle!! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
A 22:10 miracle. Off to buy a lottery ticket.
Templar
Beaten at the fifth- decided on ninth! No idea at the musical term or the straight bit so was up against it. Shame as I had enjoyed the rest of it.
Gave up, knew I wasn’t going to get 1d or 4d. Should have got 1ac but didn’t get that either. Couldn’t make sensor of ALL FOURS even though it was easily biffable and never heard of FIFTH WHEEL although it was also easy enough to guess. Do we really need DANG, SCHMUCK and (sounds like) KNICK in this crossword? Hope tomorrow’s better.
There’s an expression in French – la cinquième roue du carosse (coach) – which helped with 12d. Guessed KORFBALL and was not happy with ALL FOURS. 80 seems very low for the Snitch. I came in at 24’31”.
I too am still confused by “all fours” I originally put ” fly paper” which struck me as more logical, but getting 20 down put me in my place.
1st try of my big boy trousers, and quite surprised how far I got.
47 mins. Penultimate was SHMUCK but the HM meant no agonising over spelling. Last FIFTH WHEEL but no idea why except maybe akin to stabilisers on a bike being unnecessary when you get your balance but they’d be third and fourth wheels!?