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. | |
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.