My 17.32 suggests that on a blogging night, when I’m more careful and less likely to throw stuff in without thinking, I didn’t find this particularly tough. Indeed there’s nothing in here that I didn’t know, though one of the French words took some teasing out. As I point out below, a few bits are rather parochial or more likely shrouded in the mists of time, but they shouldn’t trouble solvers too much. I do feel there’s a plethora of single letter abbreviations and first/last letter wordplays, but perhaps not strongly enough to put money on it. It was hard to find anything particularly amusing or challengingly clever, so perhaps you might be amused to know that one of the politicians named in this piece has on his coat of arms not one but two full frontal naked (and defiantly ginger) men. Any complaints to the Head of the Heraldic Executive and the Judge of the Court of the Lord Lyon.
Definitions underlined in italics, omitted letters are contained withing [], everything else is hopefully clear as day.
| Across | |
| 1 | Empty diary to accommodate private sector event (6,5) |
| DINNER PARTY – Remove the contents of D[iar]Y and replace with INNER for private and PART for sector. | |
| 7 | Animal jumping two ducks on river (3) |
| ROO – From Down Under, of course. Two 0’s (a duck in cricket is a zero score) place on R[iver]. | |
| 9 | Agreeable notes written about clubs inside paved area (9) |
| SIMPATICO – The note to pluralise and then reverse (written about) is MI, then add C[lubs] inside PATIO, a paved area. Chambers says it’s “Sympathetic in the sense of congenial” and derives as you might expect from Italian and Spanish | |
| 10 | Carefully examining wingless bird (5) |
| ROBIN – Carefully examining gives PROBING: clip its PG wings. | |
| 11 | Piece involving divine persons in good works? (7) |
| ODDMENT – A divine is a D[octor of] D[ivinity], add MEN for persons and encase all in O[ld] T[estament], good works in the good book. | |
| 12 | Found daughter’s left carrying new cloak (7) |
| ENVELOP – To found is (perhaps a little loosely) to DEVELOP. Knock off the D[aughter] and insert N[ew]. | |
| 13 | Standard and prow removed from Darwin’s ship (5) |
| EAGLE – Darwin’s most famous ship was the BEAGLE, remove the front or prow and you have a standard carried by Roman and French armies. | |
| 15 | Feeling Irish Republic must shelter no undesirable (4,5) |
| BETE NOIRE – I think it’s a bit of a jump from feeling to BET, but one we have to make. Then EIRE the Irish Republic includes NO in plain sight. | |
| 17 | In a bizarre sense armed struggle brings enlightenment (9) |
| AWARENESS – Place WAR for armed conflict inside of an anagram (bizarre) of A SENSE. | |
| 19 | Knight stops magician creating beastly inflammation (5) |
| MANGE – N, a knight in chess notation, is contained in MAGE for magician. | |
| 20 | Resentment in club: first couple missing for days! (7) |
| DUDGEON – I think this is BLUDGEON for club with its first two (letters) missing and replaced by D(ays). Given the plural days, you can spend time puzzling how to replace two of something with Ds and end up with a U in the middle. | |
| 22 | Lovely, large shed for one working land (7) |
| PEASANT – A golden oldie, with PLEASANT shedding its L[arge] | |
| 24 | Great tragedy to miss out on overtime — anyone there? (5) |
| HELLO – The great tragedy of OTHELLO loses its O[ver]T[ime. | |
| 25 | Instrument to cut branches? Sharpen axes first (9) |
| XYLOPHONE – LOP is to cut (might as well be) branches. Add HONE for sharpen, then put the X and Y axes from a graph in first place. | |
| 27 | Is it Dalyell appearing in Just a Minute? (3) |
| TAM – Tam Dalyell was a Labour politician of independent mien, who appears for our benefit hidden in JusT A Minute, which is a long running radio panel game in which comedic contestants attempt to speak for 60 seconds without hesitation, repetition or deviation, with hilarious results (it says on the BBC website). Younger and expat members might find this a little arcane. | |
| 28 | Three-page note amended by Yankee offering medical treatment (4,7) |
| GENE THERAPY – An anagram of THREE-PAGE plus N[ote] and Y[ankee] | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Vicious, perhaps on the rise, an underworld figure (3) |
| DIS – SID Vicious was sometime member of the Sex Pistols iconic punk band, dead at 21 in 1979. Reversed (on the rise) he becomes an alternative name for Pluto, god of the underworld. | |
| 2 | All there in Glasgow for traveller? (5) |
| NOMAD – You need to produce your best Glasgow patois to realise that someone who is NO’ MAD is not insane. | |
| 3 | Stand from beginning of extra time: add time on (7) |
| ÉTAGÈRE – “A display stand with shelves for small objects or ornaments” (BRB). Ignoring accents, its the opening letters of E[xtra] T[ime] plus AGE for time and RE for on. | |
| 4 | Odd parts in Persian book in story fit to publish (9) |
| PRINTABLE – The odd letters of PeRsIoN, plus B[ook] contained in TALE for story. | |
| 5 | Right working for ambassador to collect flower (5) |
| RHONE – After R[ight] you allow H[is] E[xcelency] the ambassador to collect ON for working. | |
| 6 | Maintain returns to swell money for capital (7) |
| YEREVAN – To AVER is to maintain a statement to be true, reverse it a stick it into YEN for money. Yerevan is the capital (city) of Armenia. | |
| 7 | Rising hero seen pursuing bishop in lively dance (9) |
| REBELLION – Commonly in these things a hero is a LION, here placed after B[ishop] contained by a REEL characterised as a lively dance. | |
| 8 | Ubiquitous minestrone soup finally prepared (11) |
| OMNIPRESENT – A rather satisfying anagram (prepared) of MINESTRONE plus the last letter of [sou]P | |
| 11 | Clear riotous thousand mobbing author (4-3-4) |
| OPEN-AND-SHUT – An anagram (riotous) of THOUSAND “mobbing” PEN for author. | |
| 14 | One’s achievement having not missed a trick? (5,4) |
| GRAND SLAM – Barely cryptic. If you win all 13 tricks in Bridge it’s the result. | |
| 16 | Thrown stiletto catches Penny — one up for trial? (4,5) |
| TEST PILOT – A mildly whimsical definition, its answer springing from an anagram (thrown ) of STILETTO plus P[enny] | |
| 18 | Melody on radio extended by and by (7) |
| ERELONG – What sounds on a radio like air or melody is ERE. extended is LONG. | |
| 19 | Nosh very good that feeds the writer: pasty possibly (4,3) |
| MEAT PIE – (To) nosh is to EAT, PI is very good, both are held withing ME the writer. | |
| 21 | Nothing doing! (Tricky Dick) (5) |
| NIXON – I’m pretty sure it was the rhyming tricky Dickie, but never mind, whose celebrated mendacity seems pretty tame by current standards. Nothing gives NIX, and doing gives ON. | |
| 23 | Precious metals area in Greek shopping centre? (5) |
| AGORA – The precious metals are AG for silver and OR for gold. Add A[rea]. the result is an ancient Greek marketplace, among other things. | |
| 26 | Bank failing to open in cathedral city (3) |
| ELY – Not many 3 letter cathedral cities, but its RELY for bank (on) with no first letter. | |
45:48 mins no pinks. Only aid was to look up the NHO ETAGERE. Time was padded by simultaneous effort to try and get Olympic Opening ceremony tickets for €90 in another window.
FOI YEREVAN, by using the DY from 1a. Guessed RAVEN for ROBIN as it gave words starting REVOLUT… but had to backtrack as I couldn’t complete it.
Last two were ERELONG and DUDGEON. I tried both EARWORM and EARCORN for “melody on radio”. And the plural Days led me to believe DD was needed.
Didn’t really understand NOMAD, so thanks Zab, good to improve my Glaswegian. Is it the same as “nae mad”?
COD NIXON
I shall probably be corrected on this, but I think our setter was careful to select Glasgow for the Scottish accent. I have Billy Connoly’s voice in mind saying NO’ MAD. But also I think nae is more no than not, and nae mair sounds fine but nae mad doesn’t, quite.
I wouldn’t dare to correct you, Z. – except when you’re wrong, of course – but you’re right. NAE is NO, and NO is NOT, in general, though there may be some ‘literary’ or pretentious examples when this is nae the case. One regional variant for NOT would be NA’, as in the opening of A Drunk Man Looks At The Thistle.
About 15 years ago, etagere seemed to appear in every other puzzle, along with Tiepolo and Beerbohm Tree.
40 minutes. I’m pleased that at last I remembered that SIMPATICO is spelt with two I’s despite its similarity in meaning to ‘sympathetic’.
No problem with TAM for me, but I fear for our overseas solvers.
I had the same misgivings over ‘Tricky Dick’ rather than ‘Tricky Dicky’ at 21dn but an on-line source advises that the nickname originated in a Democratic Party ad leading up to the 1950 U.S. Senate election in California saying “Look at ‘Tricky Dick’ Nixon’s Republican Record”. The rhyming version must have come later because that’s how I remember it.
37 minutes but someone who did not know that Simpatico was spelt thus. I knew that Mys did not look right as reversed notes but foolishly took no action. Every day a school day.
Difficult but a steady 38:28, which I was pleased with until I realised I had AWAKENESS instead of AWARENESS for one error. The final 8 minutes were spent trying to piece together my NHO ETAGERE.
Good morning everyone! 20:52 today so a slightly better time than my average, which puts me in a good mood for the day 😉 No problems, though NHO the capital city (Armenia, thanks Zabadak)
Thanks setter and blogger.
I enjoyed minestrone soup … something I never thought that I would write. Thanks all.
Come on- pasta, tomatoes, beans- what’s not to like?
Er, Pasta, Tomatoes and Beans!🤢
28 minutes with LOI ETAGERE. COD to NOMAD. TAM was a write-in as the only Dalyell I know who was interested in the West Lothian question. I wouldn’t buy a used car from any politician. This puzzle played to my knowledge base and I found it a pleasure from beginning to end. Thank you Z and setter.
Struggled with a few of these – YEREVAN, DUDGEON, BETE NOIRE, and TAM went in with a shrug – but finished in 36.21. I have a 45 of Sid singing My Way, the B-side of No One Is Innocent featuring the vocals of Ronald Biggs with the drummer and guitarist of the Pistols: Ronnie Biggs was doing time, he turned and done a bunk…
An enjoyable puzzle and thank you Z, I didn’t even know Nixon had a coat of arms. Don’t actually get how feeling = bet but other than that all good.
From If You See Her, Say Hello:
If you see her say HELLO, she might be in Tangier
She left here last early spring and is living there I hear
Say for me that I’m all right, though things get kind of slow
She might think I’ve forgotten her, don’t tell her it isn’t so.
Tam Dalyell, despite his maverick left leaning politics, was an Eton and Cambridge educated baronet, the 11th to bear the title, and as such inherited his derivative of the family coat of arms. Nix for Nixon!
To describe Tam Dalyell as left-leaning is a bit of an exaggeration, though in today’s Labour Party he would be seen as a raging Trot.
I sang that at an Open Mic in the local pub last night. Great song!
You’re a braver man than I am, JD, but a great pub song indeed! I can imagine the rousing chorus on ‘god save Ronald Biggs!!!’
The main difference for me after yesterday’s disliked offering was that I did less biffing – just BETE NOIRE and YEREVAN – and was able to parse them immediately. I enjoyed this, and had all the required knowledge, though I had to dredge the old grey matter for my LOI.
FOI ROO
LOI ETAGERE
COD XYLOPHONE
TIME 10:40 (exactly twice as long as today’s fairly tough QC!)
Dnf this morning, impatience again. No chance with the nho étagère, and didn’t connect with the play.
Maybe bet = feeling is as in ‘I bet it’s hard’.
Thanks z and setter.
15:09, with at least three spent sorting out ETAGERE, where I assumed ‘on’ would be indicating position for far too long. The potential for ERA to be involved only added to my flailing.
Enjoyed this one, with minestrone soup a highlight.
Thanks both.
16.10
Biffed ENVELOP and XYLOPHONE, DNK YEREVAN but got there in the end.
“Feelin’ hungry, can’t see the reason, just ate a horse MEAT PIE” (not really).
LOI ETAGERE
COD OMNIPRESENT
19:37. I found this tough in parts, not least in my last two of YEREVAN and ETAGERE. I half knew both, though the vowels in YEREVAN could have been pretty much anything (my first instinct was YORAVIN) so parsing was required.
I wasn’t aware that Tam Dalyell was deceased though I now see he’s been gone a few years. Have we seen a living person appear since the rule change?
Has there been a rule change? The rule was put aside for that “yoof” crossword no. 1 the other week, but not seen anything apart from that..
Yes, it was announced in Mick Hodgkin’s weekly newsletter a couple of weeks or so ago.
I found it in his newsletter of June 29:
“In response to feedback we will now take a step that has been under consideration for some time and allow the mention of living people in Times crosswords. This is already the case in The Sunday Times and other puzzles such as the Listener (see, for example, Enigmatist’s brilliant puzzle themed on two contemporary singers, whose solution is published today). We will, however, exercise caution in avoiding topical references that could prove controversial.”
Dead people are less likely to sue if the clue should impugn their ‘good’ name… setters beware!
So it was! Yet again, I feel the world moving under my feet 🙂
And he is promising regular yoof crosswords too. Life moves on, I just hope this particular baby isn’t thrown out with the bathwater …
What Jerry said about living people. I’m only aware of the change for just that one ‘down with the kids’ puzzle.
About half an hour.
Didn’t see how ENVELOP worked, and I’m glad I got RHONE before then as otherwise I would probably have stuck ‘develop’ in; didn’t parse XYLOPHONE but the X from NIXON made it obvious (at first I thought ‘Sharpen axes first’ meant a word meaning sharpen with the first letter removed); didn’t know who TAM Dalyell was; and entered MEAT PIE with a shrug as I misparsed it, thinking ‘nosh’ was the definition.
Thanks Zabadak and setter.
FOI Roo
LOI Etagere
COD Omnipresent
Quick today, no nhos and no real hold ups. Etagere is a regular, last seen on 2nd April (as part of the clue) but I count 8 other appearances in the daily cryptic, plus two Mephistos.
Yerevan is where the great Tigran Petrosian came from, though I knew it as Erevan in those days..
I wonder how many readers have the slightest idea who he was? Now up to third weakest World Champion unless Ding does something unexpected
33 minutes. More gentle than yesterday anyway, although in the end I couldn’t parse DUDGEON. Glad to have remembered ETAGERE (probably helped by its multiple previous appearances, as pointed out by JerryW) and to have bothered to parse SIMPATICO, thus avoiding the potential spelling error.
37m 01s
I enjoyed this. Thank you, Z, for NOMAD and ODDMENT.
My COD was REBELLION for the misdirection as I was sure what I was looking for was a ‘lively dance’.
Couple of bits of trivia:
Gus DUDGEON was a record producer and responsible for Elton John’s early records. His best IMHO!
As I’m sure crosswordistes will know, HMS B(EAGLE) was commanded by Robert FitzRoy on Darwin’s ground-breaking voyage and he also founded the Met Office and has a shipping forecast area named after him (formerly Finisterre).
Gus was the engineer on a lot of fabulous mid-60s records, I’m thinking in particular of the great John Mayall who died just a couple of days ago aged 90, RIP
David Bowie’s tenth single (in various guises as solo performer or group member) and initial breakthrough hit, Space Oddity, was another Gus DUDGEON production. It would take a further six singles before Bowie truly broke into the mainstream with Starman….
Ooh! Didn’t know John Mayall had passed away! Thanks for the heads-up. Hope this means a tribute concert with luminaries like Clapton taking part.
Beaten by the NW corner when I gave up at 45 mins. Don’t think I’d have seen SIMPATICO or NOMAD however long I’d stared. Disappointed to have missed ODDMENT.
Still, liked the rest of this.
19:47 with a typo.
Found this generally straightforward with a couple of googlies to keep one on one’s toes. YEREVAN was new to me and I needed Zabadak to explain BETE NOIR. I liked NOMAD and TEST PILOT even though I managed to misspell the latter.
Thanks to Zabadak and the setter
Just under 60 minutes. Generally straightforward. Just moved steadily through it from start to finish. ELY clue has had almost an identical clue since I began Times Cryptics daily in early May.
Thanks Zabadak for clearing up the parsing.
22 mins. Clearly not one for those abroad, Dalyell could only be Tam or as I thought I remembered the detective with Pascoe, but on checking it was Dalziel, but the same pronunciation. As an aside, Reginald Hill was a mighty fine author and I recommend his other books.
DNF
Well, I guess we’re all different. I thought this was part fun and part annoying.
Had four missing in the NW and didn’t find the answers very satisfying.
Fine blog though, thanks.
9:00 I enjoyed that. I found it a bit harder than yesterday’s offering, though the SNITCH says it was easier. Looking back, I didn’t biff that many, which is good – just ENVELOP, REBELLION, OMNIPRESENT and OPEN-AND-SHUT I think. I liked the nod to Glaswegian English and the XY for graph axes (which always catches me out) , but COD has to be DUDGEON
7:03. Lots of biffing today.
A bit like jackkt I remembered that SIMPATICO/SYMPATICO has tripped me up in the past. Unlike him I didn’t remember which was right so I paid attention to the wordplay. This reminds me that I still don’t know for sure how to spell SYSIPHUS/SISYPHUS (spell check does!).
Not only does NIXON’s mendacity seem tame by today’s standards, his infamous assertion that ‘when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal, by definition’ is now officially the ‘law’ of the land!
All I needed to remember (and thankfully did) was that SIMPATICO begins differently from ‘sympathy’ which I don’t have trouble spelling.
Perhaps I’ll remember that next time! I need to come up with something similar for Sisyphus.
I’ve finally found peace with Sisyphus by just accepting that I’ll get it right 50% of the time until the end of my solving days.
34:12. A smooth solve until the last two in: YEREVAN, not known, and ETAGERE, which sounded vaguely familiar. So i’m surprised ETAGERE has appeared so often before. It must be very much like a whatnot
21.51 after a slow start. I thought there were some really tough clues mixed with the blindingly obvious, hello and Tam being examples of the latter. Still enjoyable though with dis and nomad being my CODs. Didn’t know etagere but well clued. Didn’t parse xylophone but Nixon sorted that out, or dudgeon and was relieved to see that was the right answer.
Thx setter and blogger.
29’25”
Another clear run, stayed on well….
… and sub-30 with all parsed en route. A nice start to my birthday, but feeling oldish; gatecrashed a Cambridge Union debate in the 80s on socialism being old hat. Tam D had a lot to say on that, needless to say.
This was a salad nicoise for me; just a little of everything I like most.
Thank you Z and setter; you’ve cheered me up no end.
Pretty straightforward, but I really enjoyed this. One or two stretches as pointed out in the blog, but nothing outlandish.
I was pleased not to throw in saxophone for 25 across, and that I remembered the correct spelling of simpatico.
Got off to a vicious start by turning Sid on his head, and after wandering into 2d attended the DINNER PARTY. Had to assemble YEREVAN from the recipe, having spotted AVER once ENVELOP arrived. Didn’t quite parse DUDGEON properly as I was working on cudgel as the club, but it was close enough with the crossers in place. TELEPHONE at 25a soon morphed into XYLOPHONE when I read the clue properly. ODDMENT and EAGLE gave me the final crossers for ETAGERE, which took around 3 minutes to untangle at the end. 21:00. Thanks setter and Z.
22:35
Late to the blog once again, but no major problems today. I did 1D first and it is always nice to get one from the off.
No unknowns, although my last two in (ETAGERE and DUDGEON) were on the limits of my knowledge.
A mixed bag I thought. Thanks to both.
I didn’t have much difficulty, as I knew etagere from puzzles of yore, and Yerevan as a rug-trading center. I did biff develop where envelop should go, but that was quickly corrected. I thought at first that dudgeon had something to do with cudgel, but then I saw how it worked. Simpatico I had messed up before, so no problem there.
Time: 25 minutes
24:26
Mostly OK, a few small bits needed clarification here, and a longer hold-up at the end for seen-before LOI ETAGERE.
Feeling = BET, huh? Meh!
YEREVAN – felt I’d heard of it, but needed all checkers to have any confidence in it
Thanks Z and setter
I was once Political Education Officer for a ward Labour Party and adopted a program of inviting MPs to address our Branch Meetings. Just fired off letters ‘care of House of Commons, SW1’. One of my targets was Tam. I was surprised to be woken at 7:30 am by the phone ringing and hearing a voice announcing ‘Tam Dalyell here!’ He duly addressed us eloquently on the West Lothian question. A thoroughly decent cove, I decided.
42 minutes, can’t see why I took so long because it seems easy enough now everything’s explained. I thought ‘event’ for ‘dinner party’ in 1ac was pretty feeble. Never understood ENVELOP (found = develop??) or DUDGEON. 1dn is unnecessarily ambiguous (to say the checkers determine it is in my opinion a cop-out). The setter could easily have had ‘an underworld figure’ at the front and then it would have been fine. Presumably OT = overtime (24ac). Otherwise The Times would have set a nasty precedent.
Sid/Dis was my first one in. What is the ambiguity here, Wil? The clue does make it quite clear which is to be reversed.
‘On the rise an underworld figure’ could indicate DIS written upwards.
I’m with jackkt on this though, I think using checkers to resolve ambiguity is fair game.
I can concede that, while maintaining, however, that a perfect clue needs no grid.
The clue: ‘Vicious, perhaps on the rise, an underworld figure’ can be read two ways, with a) the definition ‘Vicious, perhaps’, and the wordplay (Dis)rev., or b) the definition ‘an underworld figure’ and the wordplay (Sid)rev. a) leads to SID; b) leads to DIS. How is this not ambiguous?
All I know is that it was my foi, and I felt pretty confident about it. Overreliance on the punctuation maybe, dunno.. and the “empty Diary” for 1ac.. I looked at it again, and it just doesn’t sound right to me the other way round
On a rare note of disagreement, Wil, I see no problem with relying on checkers even if that applies here. Crossword puzzle clues are not intended to be solved in isolation, otherwise we wouldn’t need a grid.
40 minutes – enjoyable puzzle – my COD was Xylophone.
NHO Étagère but worked it out, fortunately.
I figured that there must be a TAM by that name. No problems, ultimately. My head needed scratching anyway.
41:17 – but 1 error
FOI ROO
LOI ETAGERE
Thoughtlessly bunged in SYMPATICO, so scored a pink square.
Thank you, Zabadak and the setter.
Excellent puzzle – pleased to have finally finished it by checking that YEREVAN was a capital city of somewhere! Some nice anagrams and a few clever clues. Biffed a few however so thanks for explaining how all the answers worked.
I can just about remember Tam Dalyell – quite a character. His old home House of the Binns is now looked after by the National Trust for Scotland and the grounds offer great views of the 3 Forth Bridges.
No problems except lazily putting in SYMPATICO. I lived in Edinburgh for many years during the Tam Dalyell era. I have spent a week in YEREVAN (Armenia is a wonderful place to visit) so that was an instant write-in. I have lived in France where étagères is just the common word for shelves. I think of ROO as being from Winnie the Pooh, but since stuffed toys don’t actually jump, that’s maybe pushing it. A lot easier than yesterday, to say the least.
And another recommendation from me for listening/watching Sid Vicious’s version of My Way. Frank Sinatra it is not. I don’t think I’m allowed to put a link in without getting sent to a penalty box, so just Google it.
Managed in a reasonable kind of time, a bit under my average, but a bit over what would be expected, though I maintain that my SNITCH average is flattered by non-recording of fails or times outside top 100.
ETAGERE LOI and vaguely remembered post construction. Luckily I know how to spell SIMPATICO.
17:47
All done in 29 minutes over an evening pint. Nothing to dislike. ETAGERE is a word which I have only seen in crosswords, like ELEMI and POTEEN. A Scottish acquaintance of mine answers questions about her health with the words NAE BAD, so I am with our Merlin on this one – but I still liked the clue.
FOI – ROO
LOI – ETAGERE
COD – NIXON
Thanks to Zabadak and other contributors.
Speaking of Beerbohm Tree — as someone did higher up — who knew he was Oliver Reed’s granddad? And Carol Reed’s father? I find I have new respect for the man. The surface of 15 across has a certain topicality given recent news from Eire. 20’27” all up.
I had marked today to do my tax return, which was confirmed by the lousy weather, so allowed myself a Quick crossword to start the day, but held off from this until it was submitted. Happily, a pleasant and largely undemanding workout for a Thursday, with a steady solve. Just one NHO, YEREVAN, where I managed to follow the direction, thanks to the crossing V. I failed to parse BETE NOIRE as I simply couldn’t equate bet with feeling. COD to XYLOPHONE, which I originally bifd as SAXOPHONE, but couldn’t parse. The delightful ‘tricky Dick’ gave me the alternative answer, which parses beautifully, once you think of ‘axis’ plural rather than axes. SIMPATICO was no problem for this Spanish speaker, but I’m embarrassed to admit how long it took me to work out the anagram for GENE THERAPY.
40:03
Slow going.
YEREVAN and ETAGERE both NHO. The latter was my LOI. Sounds from the comments as if ETAGERE is worth trying to remember for future crosswords.
Good to be reminded of Tam Dalyell. The West Lothian question has never received a satisfactory answer.
Excuse a question from a novice, but why does PI mean very good in 19D?
It’s abbreviated from pious, normally used in a derogatory sense.
Ah! Thanks.
Happy to announce improvement in my daily solving: still not completing , but getting closer…
So, only two wrong answers : misspelled SIMPATICO and , to my shame, created a dreadful-sounding instrument at 25a called a SALOPPERE! Archaic of course! Which naturally left Tricky Dicky hanging, so to speak. And I had no idea who Dalyell was, but the answer was obvious. Happy to have remembered BÊTE NOIRE, ETAGERE and DIS, and even happier to have worked out, with careful reading of the clues, NOMAD, YEREVAN, and finally the first word of DINNER PARTY. Fun crossword.