Well that was fun, though my time of 28.21 suggests I also found it challenging, which I did, especially getting going at all in the top half. But I liked it: the clues are for the most part inventive and smooth, with artfully concealed definitions as it should be.
Even some of the anagrams didn’t fall out easily for me, and we certainly took a Cook’s world tour in the variety of locations visited. The arty references may not be to everyone’s taste, and I’ll concede that the cluing for each is not that straightforward, but “a man’s reach must exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”.
Definitions underlined in italics, the rest to be deduced.
| Across | |
| 1 | Maybe encourage one to get groundbreaking single out (4-4) |
| HAND-PICK – If you hand someone a pick, you might be encouraging them to start chipping away at the concrete. | |
| 5 | Greeting for which parent, sadly, is not going forward (6) |
| SALAAM – سَلَام for those of you who can read Arabic, in full ٱلسَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ, as-salāmu ʿalaykum, peace be upon you. The way this works is you select MA as parent, ALAS for sadly, and then since she’s not going forward, she’s reversed. | |
| 9 | That is awfully harmful for a footballer (5,4) |
| SCRUM HALF – That’s the kind of football played by gentlemen with odd-shaped balls, and it’s the player who feeds the ball into the set scrum, picks it up when it’s worked to the back, and distributes it to the quick “threequarters”. That is becomes SC (Latin scilicet, namely) then add the anagram (awfully) of HARMFUL. | |
| 11 | Commentator’s staunch European (5) |
| CZECH – Staunch as in CHECK the flow, but as said by a commentator, so sounds like it. | |
| 12 | American or Caribbean music covered by a network (7) |
| ALASKAN – Caribbean music is SKA, rather like reggae, “covered” by A LAN, local area network. | |
| 13 | Switch to fiddle used by old composer (7) |
| RODRIGO – Joaquin, a Spanish composer. Switch is ROD (with which schoolmasters used to be allowed to beat impish pupils) fiddle gives you RIG, and add O(ld). Here’s John Williams playing his Concierto di Anranjuez | |
| 14 | Reducing money for American sailor after swindle (13) |
| CONCENTRATING – CON for swindle at the front, then money for American CENT, and sailor, RATING | |
| 16 | Tricks pair at bridge — opponents there? (6-7) |
| DOUBLE-CROSSES – Pair is DOUBLE, bridge is CROSS, and opponents at the game of Bridge are E(ast) and S(outh) | |
| 20 | Rum sort of jacket seen on graduate (7) |
| BACARDI – Bacardi® has it’s own entry in Chambers, being these days a generic term for rum, though other brands are available! Graduate BA, sort of jacket CARDI. | |
| 21 | Crescent, one French in character, largely (7) |
| LUNETTE – UN, one in French, in most of LETTEr for character. | |
| 23 | Owner of estate left thoroughfare, accepting fine (5) |
| LAIRD – L(eft) R(oa)D with AI for fine inserted. | |
| 24 | Part of Hampshire town’s free to redevelop (3,6) |
| NEW FOREST – An anagram (to redevelop) of TOWN’S FREE | |
| 25 | Is spread betting clean? Yes, every so often! (6) |
| SPLAYS – A neat lift and separate with an amusing twist. SP for betting (Starting Price), the alternate letters of cLeAn YeS. | |
| 26 | Maybe gather tight trousers for director (8) |
| TRUFFAUT – Once I’d remembered François, I used the word play to remind me how to spell him. RUFF is (maybe) to gather, and TAUT trousers, pockets or encloses it. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Husband in Soviet Union a cavalryman once (6) |
| HUSSAR – H(usband) then (Yodaspeak) A in USSR. | |
| 2 | Other parent presumably also missing opera (5) |
| NORMA – “Neither Pa NOR MA” are at the opera | |
| 3 | After quiz, family you could turn to late in the day? (7) |
| PUMPKIN – As the clock strikes midnight, and if you’re a coach, I suppose. To quiz is to PUMP for answers, family is KIN. | |
| 4 | Complicated for a technician, unleashing loud chemical process? (5,8) |
| CHAIN REACTION – An anagram (complicated) of FOR A TECHNICIAN with the loud F “unleashed”, let drop. | |
| 6 | Charity account artist set up for Greek department (7) |
| ARCADIA – Well, it’s an administrative district, at least. Charity is AID, AC(count) and RA for artist complete the set, which you then reverse (set up) | |
| 7 | I agree I must meet obligations to provide services (9) |
| AMENITIES – AMEN for I agree, I for -um – I, and TIES for obligations | |
| 8 | Game, if clumsy player turning up with girl, no good at golf (3-5) |
| MAH-JONGG – A clumsy player, especially an acting sort, is a HAM. Reverse it (turning up), add JO (as in March, Bland etc) for the girl, and N(o) G(ood) and NATO Golf. Originally Chinese game with illustrated tiles. | |
| 10 | Conflict in another case slow-witted hosts scaled down (5,5,3) |
| FIRST WORLD WAR – So the other case to lower is upper. Within sloW-WItted you have the common abbreviation for our conflict. | |
| 14 | Cold homeless waif stops to see old war leader (9) |
| CHURCHILL – A waif is an URCHIN, delete the IN for home, use the remains to stop CHILL, cold. | |
| 15 | Poor black lad sold nuts (8) |
| ODDBALLS – An anagram (poor) of B(lack) LAD SOLD. Took me a while to sort one end from the other. | |
| 17 | Sensationally, if clearly, making speed of light run! (7) |
| LURIDLY – Clearly, LUCIDLY, if the speed of light C becomes R(un) | |
| 18 | Car accessory that’s fixed on for us (7) |
| SUNROOF – An anagram (fixed) of ON FOR US, Almost an &lit. | |
| 19 | Three couples send rude message — and in French (6) |
| SEXTET – 3X2! Send rude message is the portmanteau SEXT, and in French is ET | |
| 22 | Letter: it’s likely to arrive after Thursday (5) |
| THETA – Likely to arrive ETA from Estimated Time of Arrival, dropped onto TH(ursday). | |
A very enjoyable steady solve. And pleasingly my third finish without aids this week. Spent far too long trying to see how -RATION could possibly mean ‘sailor’ before seeing -RATING (Doh!). Didn’t even try and parse WW1. Considered Seven Years until I got the F of -HALF. LOI AMENITIES.
Zabadak’s info about SALAAM prompts further observation: some linguists say that the translation as ‘peace’ could perhaps better be ‘submission’ or ‘resignation’ but I’m no Arabist. The word ‘Islam’ is from the same root and reflects this sense. (Submission to the will of Allah, presumably.)
Great puzzle, some really clever clues.
Can someone please explain RUFF=gather?
I rather assumed it as a verb linked to those Elizabethan collars that need to be gathered/pleated to achieve the look. Chambers has it as a verb meaning “to provide with a ruff”, which I reckon is close enough.
Gather as a noun: a pleat or fold in cloth, made by drawing threads through.
Yes, that’s how you would describe a ruff.
11:26, with some wrestling required. The tricky NE corner would have been even trickier had I not heard some Rodrigo on the radio only yesterday, and thought (as I always do) of Pete Postlethwaite in Brassed Off, where the band perform his “Concerto de Orange Juice”.
5m 34s for a fun puzzle, finishing on CHURCHILL after spending too long assuming it would be a foreign leader I hadn’t heard of. Both that and WWI biffed.
PUMPKIN is a nice idea but ‘you could turn to late in the day?’ is not a definition – even an extra ‘that’ might have helped a bit.
I read the structure of 3dn as ‘[thing] you could turn to late in the day’, where [thing] is the product of the wordplay.
Or to put it another way, if the clue read ‘vegetable you could turn to late in the day’ you wouldn’t, I think, object. ‘After quiz, family’ here plays the same role as the word ‘vegetable’: a kind of wordplay-synonym of PUMPKIN.
27:45
Tough goings-on today with plenty bifd/unparsed. I balked slightly filling in SCRUM HALF – seeing as the majority of the (hated-at-school) game is played with the hands, ‘footballer’ is a bit of a stretch…
– RODRIGO went in from three checkers, only known from the ‘Manuel & the Music of the Mountains’ UK chart single (No.3 in 1976)… – never knew about any of the other versions!
– Bunged in DOUBLE-CROSSES without fully checking the parsing until after completion.
– Thought 2d NORMA was a bizarre clue.
– Failed to parse LURIDLY and FIRST WORLD WAR – just bunged them in
Liked CZECH, TRUFFAUT and the carefully-built MAH-JONGG,
Rugger is literally Rugby Football.
31:16
I thought this was excellent. Thought I had ground to a halt at one point, with the NE still mostly empty.
Was thrown by the Greek ” department” and tried to ram ACADEME in for a while. MER at “turn to late in the day”. Failed completely to parse FIRST WORLD WAR .
A friend of mine would have had no problem with 20. When asked what she would like to drink the answer was invariably “a cardi coke”.
Thanks to Zabadak and the setter
47 mins and certainly the toughest this week. LOI RODRIGO once I had all the checkers and saw the RIG.
I am so glad our blogger remembered me! Unlike CORNEILLE the other day, TRUFFAUT went straight in today, phew. LUNETTE here is also the lav seat!
I liked HAND-PICKED, ODDBALLS and WWI.
Thanks Z and setter.
14:19. Not too tricky but some interesting twists and turns. I biffed FIRST WORLD WAR. Very happy I didn’t try to work it out!
Couldn’t properly parse 1a HAND-PICK, 25a SPLAYS, nowhere near on 10d WWI, 16a Double Crosses and Mah Jongg ditto. So, lucky to finish really. Actually I didn’t as I used aids. Not sure a (20a ba)CARDI is a jacket, but I see above it is OK.
Clever stuff, and enjoyable.
Zabadak, I’d like to compliment you on an especially excellent blog.
I enjoyed the crossword, too, even though I made slightly heavy weather of it.
Thanks! It’s one of my pleasures!
Totally failed to see ROD for switch, so eventually had to look up RODRIGO, as I’d also not got LOI, AMENITIES, which was held up by a careless DOUBLE-CROSSED. Once I had the I from RODRIGO, I revisited 16a and was then able to solve AMENITIES. 38:45 submitted off leaderboard. Thanks setter and Z.
Can anyone explain why ‘ai’ = ‘fine’ for 23a?
I think it refers to A1 rather than ai.
I think you’re supposed to read it as A1 (one, not I), since A1 is slang for fine/top class
11:00 Very enjoyable, though a high biff rate (about 50%), so most parsing done post-solve (by reading the blog!). I was very slow to see CZECH, which was my LOI. I don’t recall seeing any other spelling of MAH-JONGG, so was surprised to see that others expected something different. I’m afraid my knowledge of Rodrigo and Truffaut extends only to the extent that they are famous enough to be included in crosswords. I always thought “cardigan” was short for “cardigan jacket” but it seems I was wrong; I’ve never seen it spelled without an E on the end though. I agree with others that SPLAYS is a very good clue (and my COD today), though I have no idea what spread betting is – I once spent a very dull month doing matched betting in order to “earn” £500 or so, so I should probably know…
Looking at the times reported here, I’m rather chuffed at my own 29’15”, though admittedly with FIRST WORLD WAR unparsed having been biffed early on. Thanks to our blogger for the explanation which I got on the third reading. Very nice puzzle today with some great clues, of which DOUBLE CROSSES was my favourite.
A 37 minute struggle for me – especially the north east. Amen for I agree took forever to fall and I was unclear about Rod for switch or the spelling of the Chinese game thankfully the clueing was clear.
Elsewhere despite my love of the Elbow track of the same name lunette proved elusive. Never understood First World War clue so thanks very much for that.
Thxx Z and setter
Hardest of the week so far – dreading tomorrow! This really was at the limit of my ability and took a chunk of the afternoon – luckily, as I had things to be done in the morning. With only 3 entered initially, I was doubtful of finishing, but luckily some bifd answers parsed correctly, such as TRUFFAUT, whom I knew, but would never have got from the clue. LUNETTE was also fingers crossed, as I didn’t know that as being a crescent, nor did I know C was the speed of light, though I assumed it to be the case. Other unknowns – ARCADIA as a Greek area specifically, though here at least the clueing was generous, and the extra G on MAH-JONGG. CZECH only went in with the E of AMENITIES (a good one, that) and for some time I did wonder if MASALA was a greeting, as well as a course! LOI RODRIGO, despite knowing the composer – again, the clueing was quite opaque. Naturally, never parsed the very-late-in FIRST WORLD WAR! Many thanks, Zabadak, for the blog.
I struggled a little today with the QC when others seem to have found it fairly straightforward. Conversely, I was relative quick in solving this in 34.15, when other solvers who are speedier than me had slower times. Perhaps solving it later in the day suits me better for some reason, although the general consensus has always been that you’re at your sharpest in the morning. The only one that held me up to any degree was my LOI which was TRUFFAUT. I was grateful for the clear cryptic direction in spelling MAH JONGG, even though I have a set, although I haven’t played it for many years.
Setter should sit on the naughty step. Despite our government’s best efforts to reduce our Armed Forces, HUSSARS are still cavalrymen!
I’m slow this week. 46’46”. Aghast to see Snitch on only 100 or so. Thought we were way above that. Rodrigo brought back Manuel and the Music of the Mountains (aka band-leader Geoff Love) who had a chart hit in 1976 with an arrangement of the guitar concerto. Wiki tells us the single enjoyed the shortest ever period as number one. After a few hours it was relegated because of an error in calculation. Happy memories of Radio 1 in the good old days. Tough crossword. Many thanks.
Refreshing to see a French director other than Tati….
Lesser mortals like me found this tough. And it reinforced my rather unfair stereotype of crossword setters that they all went to (minor) public schools, played “rugger”, studied classics, and enjoy drinking real ale and listening to classical music
Must have been on the wavelength because I thought this was straightforward
Coincidentally my Mum returned an old Mah-Jongg set belonging to me and Dvynys a couple of weeks ago. I seem to recall enjoying the click-clack of the tiles but we were already chess and bridge nerds so there was little appetite to learn another game.
Truffaut rang a faint bell though if pushed I would have spelled it with a D at the end and interestingly my French speaking wife said the same
Had no idea of the parsing for WW1 but what else could it be …?
I have a soft spot for Rodrigo’s concerto de Aranjuez so that was a write in
Thanks setter and Zabadak
Time: 28 mins
DNF, by a lot, but I’m blaming it all on the sedative I had at the doc’s for a minor procedure.
I think we’ve had Bacardi = (generic) rum before; I remember it sticking a little because in the US it has not reached the Hoover Kleenex Xerox stage yet.
For some reason, didn’t find this particularly tough, for a Friday, all done in 22 minutes with SALAAM my LOI and WWI biffed not parsed. Nice anagrams. Very enjoyable.
39’04”
Found the going testing, stayed on well.
Liked this a lot; very knotty.
It must have been fifty years ago that Grandad first taught me how to build the walls of Mah-Jong(g) with NO GAPS ! It could be very dangerous if the dragons were to escape.
Very well done to both the setter and to Z for a very comprehensive explanation.
Bit of schadenfreude coming in here: happy to see others had difficulties with this toughie too! FIO HUSSARS, but then ground to a halt, as I wrongly guessed that 1a might start with high’ (as in hope) – which threw me off the track before I got moving at all. Then down as far as 23a to get my next three: LAIRD and LUNETTE and NEW FOREST, so worked on the South first and grindingly up to the rest. Had to cheat on a couple: WWI and CZECH ( the one European I didn’t check), but the rest was fair and gettable once I saw the literals. Liked SPLAYS , that I knew TRUFFAUT and had vaguely heard of RODRIGO, but defeated by MAH JONGG and SCRUM HALF – not being up on ball games. Well done setter and Z for unscrambling it all.
ラブドール 追加の隔離された膣（取り外し可能）と膣のダッチワイフで働いた方のどちらが良いですか？