A rather cheerful and friendly number which occupied me for 17.44, with no real hold-ups along the way. Perhaps a feature of this setter’s quirkiness is the rather high number of instances where capitals are a bit naughty – Sally, Don, Hazel, Mark, and Red Guards all stand out as being mildly misleading, but can be safely ignored. Some accessible bits of French, German and Japanese (take my word for it) play their part.
Definitions underlined in italics, [] indicates omitted letters, and everything else is either self-explanatory or is meant to be.
| Across | |
| 1 | Drink this periodically, not out to lunch (6) |
| TISANE – Poirot’s preferred beverage, a herbal infusion. Alternate letters of ThIs, then not out to lunch is SANE | |
| 4 | Puffed up old French president’s losing papers (7) |
| POMPOUS – Took me a while to remember George POMPIDOU. Keep the ’S, remove the ID papers. | |
| 9 | Changing name to Mark, a friend abroad shows taste (5) |
| UMAMI – Formally recognised as the fifth basic taste in 1985, alongside sweet, savoury, salty and bitter. A friend abroad, is UN AMI, change the N to an M[ark] | |
| 10 | Causing tears in uniform, adjusting clothing gently (9) |
| UPSETTING – U[niform] plus SETTING for adjusting cloths/surounds P for gently, in musical notation. | |
| 11 | Spiralling banking charge resident incurs now (9) |
| CURRENTLY – CURLY is spiralling, and a charge resident incurs may be RENT. Banking is the inclusion indicator. | |
| 12 | No experts in computer usage put in place (5) |
| LAITY – Computer usage is the ubiquitous IT, and place gives LAY, which receives it. | |
| 13 | Deal, for example, with fashion houses (4) |
| TOWN – Deal is touted as a very pleasant seaside town in Kent. Fashion’s TON gives house room to W[ith]. | |
| 14 | Perhaps Parisian dives in sea, swimming with mittens (10) |
| ESTAMINETS – Small bar/cafés in France, perhaps a bit mean to call them dives. An anagram (swimming) of SEA and MITTENS. Has appeared several times, most recently just under a year ago in 28700 | |
| 18 | Moving picture frame for resident amid handiwork hassle (5,5) |
| DIRTY HARRY – Clint Eastwood, 1971. The outside letters of R[esiden]T inside DIY for handiwork, followed by HARRY for hassle. | |
| 20 | Poet showing how ode to London could start? (4) |
| OWEN – War poet Wilfred Owen. London was christened the Great WEN, a cyst or boil on the face of the earth, by ruralist William Cobbett in the 1820s. So a (rather disparaging) ode to LONDON might start “O WEN!” | |
| 23 | Clear out house to the west of mine (3,2) |
| HOP IT – As a command. HO[use] is placed to the west of PIT for mine. | |
| 24 | Hounds running with horse somewhere in Canada (6,3) |
| HUDSON BAY – An anagram (running) of HOUNDS plus BAY, a reddish brown horse. | |
| 25 | Message from caller failing to entertain old man, we hear (9) |
| VOICEMAIL – Failing is VICE, insert O[ld] and add a heard version of male for man, which gives MAIL | |
| 26 | Where Riviera tourists may go, wanting energy boost (5) |
| TONIC – Riviera tourists might go TO NICE. Remove the E[nergy] and concatenate. | |
| 27 | US gun outside London attraction was a revolver? (7) |
| ROTATED – Varieties of US slang for gun include ROD. The London attraction is the TATE, either the -Britain or the -Modern. One envelops the other. | |
| 28 | Picked up books on tragic figure (6) |
| LEARNT – Books are the perennial N[ew] T[estament] and the preceding tragic figure is (king) LEAR. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Wildly taunt Red Guards caught short (9) |
| TRUNCATED – An anagram (wildly) of TAUNT RED “guards” C[aught] | |
| 2 | In two different ways, fight bird (7) |
| SPARROW – Both SPAR and ROW can mean fight. | |
| 3 | Fixed home up, installing a light (6) |
| NAILED – Careful separating needed. Home is IN, which is reversed with A installed. The LED for light follows | |
| 4 | Meat-filled snack in final section of reference work? (5) |
| PASTY – The last section of a reference work will be PAST (section) Y | |
| 5 | Maybe steely marine’s outside, of great stature and in charge (8) |
| METALLIC – The outside letters of M[arin]E plus TALL for of great stature, plus I[n] C[harge] | |
| 6 | Wheel — one damaged side’s eaten by rust, say (7) |
| OXIDISE – One of these days I’ll remember that by is times is X, but until then I’ll puzzle my way through wordplay that doesn’t quite work. Wheel provides the shape of O, the one is I, and damaged side gives you the anagram DISE. Put them together, and insert that X. | |
| 7 | Express carrying goods far from firm (5) |
| SAGGY – Express is SAY, insert two G[oods] | |
| 8 | Set off and shot round borders of Savoie area (3,2,3) |
| PUT TO SEA – Shot is PUTT (on the green), round give O as wheel does above, the borders of SavoiE and A[rea] complete the set. | |
| 15 | Dog in show put on lead, barking with energy (8) |
| AIREDALE – Show is AIR, add an anagram (barking) of LEAD and E{nergy] | |
| 16 | Alexander VIII of Germany in wind-powered vehicle (4,5) |
| SAND YACHT – A rather Scottish influenced Alexander the eighth might be SANDY ACHT in Germany. My favourite clue. | |
| 17 | Obscure way kid’s snubbing Oscar and Hazel, say, over time (8) |
| BYSTREET – Chambers has it hyphenated, I have it as invented especially for this puzzle, but it’s BOY’S, kid’s, without the O[scar], and TREE indicated by hazel as an example, plus T[ime] | |
| 19 | On long tours I put a new coat on (7) |
| REPAINT – RE is on (the subject of) the PANT for long surrounds I. | |
| 21 | Chuck out to interrupt Don in on-line event (7) |
| WEBINAR – Chuck out is BIN, which interrupts WEAR for don. | |
| 22 | Kind heart of friend for Sally (6) |
| SORTIE – Kind is SORT, and the middle, heart of frIEnd gives you the rest. | |
| 23 | Loiter in van in Hertford with some deliveries (5) |
| HOVER – Van is a (slightly archaic?) way of saying the front of, in this case H[ertford] and some deliveries (six, usually) is an OVER in cricket. | |
| 24 | Challenging nurses over secret supply (5) |
| HOARD – Challenging is HARD, and O[ver] is “nursed”. | |
39 minutes. One or two parsings delayed me e.g. ‘banking’ re CURRETLY was a distraction. OXIDISE was another one.
NHO BYSTREET, making its first appearance at TfTT althouh ‘byway’ as in ‘highways and byways’ is familiar enough. Maybe the rhyming is responsible for that.
36 minutes, starting with TISANE and finishing with VOICEMAIL, then DIRTY HARRY and finally the NHO BYSTREETS. Enjoyed quite a few along the way. Glad I knew UMAMI from hanging out with foodie friends!
Yes, very enjoyable. I appreciated having a lesser-seen way of cluing P for “piano” in the musical sense.
There was a clue very similar to the one for PASTY in Monday’s QC.
26:54
I was so little confident in some of my many biffs that I submitted off leaderboard; which turned out to be a good thing, as I’d overlooked a typo (TISAND). I never did parse OXIDISE and BYSTREET (which I would have definitely hyphenated). Even with YACHT, it took me a long time to twig to 16d; I’ll give it my COD.
13.00
Major biff-fest today, with 25% of the answers (UPSETTING, CURRENTLY, DIRTY HARRY, VOICEMAIL, OXIDISE, AIREDALE, SAND YACHT and WEBINAR) going in more or less unparsed.
COD (of those parsed) POMPOUS
LOI BYSTREET
31.53, the last 6 or 7 minutes spent puzzling out the WP for TISANE, BYSTREET, SORTIE and LOI LEARNT. Enjoyable and pitched at a level of difficulty that suits me. Needed Z’s first-rate blog to have PASTY, CURRENTLY, OXIDISE and VOICEMAIL explained.
From Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts:
The festival was over, the boys were all planning for a fall
The cabaret was quiet except for the drilling in the wall
The curfew had been lifted and the gambling wheel shut down
Anyone with any sense had already left TOWN
He was standing in the doorway, looking like the Jack of Hearts
41 minutes with LOI the unheard-of BYSTREET. I hadn’t heard of UMAMI either but then I’ve no taste. COD to SAND YACHT, rightly banned from St Annes beach after a fatal accident. They were terrifying. I never quite settled to this, but there were several good clues. Thank you Z and setter.
20’15”, few issues, though didn’t fully parse OXIDISE.
Enjoyed SAND YACHT.
I felt lucky too with DIRTY HARRY, much misquoted.
I agree that BYSTREET seems made up – byways as mentioned by jack; and ‘by road’ signs can be seen on minor roads warning you than a turning will only bring you back to the road (so please avoid the village / hamlet).
COD to OWEN, requiring knowledge of poet, poetry and London, and the vocative case.
Thanks z and setter
DNF. Had everything sorted in 27 minutes but then completely mystified by 17 dn which I found impossibly obscure. Took me another five minutes after reading the solution to finally twig!
Thanks blogger for explaining.
15:44. I struggled to finish, finding several clues tricky to parse – namely those for OWEN, BYSTREET, CURRENTLY and OXIDISE. Before OWEN came to me I wondered if there was a poet called SWAN and was tempted just to biff this. For OXIDISE I thought that “side” could be XI and the definition was likely “eaten by rust, say”, which caused much confusion in parsing. It was only when I decided that the definition could be “rust, say” that I decided to biff OXIDISE. A very deceptive surface.
I was held up at the end of an otherwise enjoyable puzzle by the NHO BYSTREET (which the spell check on here doesn’t recognise), and OXIDISE, which quite frankly didn’t work for me on more than one level. If we accept that “wheel” is a fair means of clueing the letter O, I don’t see the hyphen as “times” at all. And surely “eaten by rust” is the past tense, and leads to OXIDISED? Quite spoiled it for me I’m afraid.
FOI POMPOUS
LOI OXIDISE
COD VOICEMAIL *
TIME 13:01
* VOICEMAIL is an abomination, and I disconnected it from my phone on the day I got it. If you ring me and I don’t answer, I’m either tied up with pressing matters, or I’m ghosting you. Send me a text!
Phil, as per Z’s blog, the definition is just “rust, say”. X is clued by “by”, as in times.
Ah – I get it now. Thanks!
47:05
FOI: TRUNCATED
LOI: TISANE
Much fun to be had, although I struggled with BYSTREET and ESTAMINETS. In my copy of Cobbett’s ‘Rural Rides’, there is an entry in the Place Index that reads: “‘Wen’ – see London, C’s contempt for”.
Thank you, Zabadak and the setter.
I parsed 4d to be PAST Y = Z , being the final section of the reference work AtoZ ?
12:57 and I see I’m in some good company with BYSTREET as my LOI. Agree that it looks like a made-up word (I realise they’re all made-up but most words aren’t so blatant about it).
Would never have known ESTAMINETS without years of experience on this site. Think my French vocabulary has mushroomed to at least eleven words now. Wait, that’s onze isn’t it? Make it twelve.
Thanks Z and setter.
That’s a douze-y!
About 20 minutes.
Didn’t parse OXIDISE; not really familiar with TISANE so I relied on the wordplay and checkers; like Pootle above I considered Swan for 20a before thinking of OWEN; and in my ignorance I would have said HUDSON BAY was in the USA, but no matter.
Thanks Zabadak and setter.
FOI Saggy
LOI Owen
COD Dirty Harry
Besides Hudson Bay in Canada, explorer Henry Hudson gave his name to the Hudson River in the United States.
28 mins spent ages on LOI NAILED, convinced light was the definition and it was A inside fixed home reversed. Also biffed DIRTY DOZEN earlier until I realised it didn’t work.
Solved on paper and no exact time but it felt like a long one.
I slowed myself by confidently entering LAND YACHT which is how I know the contraptions but that obviously doesn’t work with the cryptic and I eventually altered my thinking.
Otherwise OXIDISE took a while to piece together and my poor grasp of French didn’t help with the unknown ESTAMINETS.
My decision to have a stab at the championships for the first time now looks like a foolhardy one.
Thanks to both.
Another Land Yacht initially, thinking something something something about the famous Alexander in a German Lande. Or something. Sense soon prevailed, fortunately. NHO sand yacht, before today.
16:08. Held up by the unknown BYSTREET but LOI was NAILED. Thanks for the parsing of OXIDISE which I puzzled over. I liked the tasty friend. Thanks Z and setter.
This took an hour alongside a Full English.
I had to randomly select the answer to 20a between OWEN and SWAN and went for the right one, but had no idea about WEN meaning London.
PAST Y annoyed me, such a strange clue and rubbish cryptic definition.
COD was LEARNT: just a neat, nicely written clue with a clean surface reading. More of these please.
I’m probably missing something but what’s wrong with “meat-filled snack” as a definition for PASTY?
On edit: Sorry, I had read your post as “rubbish definition”. As opposed to “rubbish cryptic definition” which is another matter entirely.
Edited – nothing wrong with the definition, but the cryptic part is awful.
Ah, so I wasn’t seeing things! Thanks.
As an aside I thought there was some sort of indicator to show when a post has been edited. Must be thinking of the olden days when we were on LiveJournal.
No problem. As is typical, I noticed my error immediately after posting. I almost convinced myself PIE CE was the answer (with the CE coming from the final section of reference, and the definition being work).
49m 58s
Thanks, Zabadak. Like you, SAND YACHT was my favourite clue. They occasionally appear on my local beach.
31:57
Very enjoyable. Bystreet was challenging.
Thanks, Z.
FOI was TISANE. I struggled to justify PASTY, so thanks to Z for clarifying that. LEARNT was LOI but I then spent a short while parsing OXIDISE before submitting. Happily I then saw BY=X. BYSTREET caused mobile eyebrows. Liked DIRTY HARRY and SAND YACHT. 22:10. Thanks setter and Z.
NHO ton=fashion, and NHO BYSTREET, so got bored at 30 mins and threw in the towel. PASTY was just way too clever. A silly one today IMHO.
No less than six examples of the noun-to-verb misdirection in container indicators:
10A clothing
11A banking
13A houses
1D guards
19D tours
24D nurses
37:49
Didn’t find this too easy, but persevered with as answers popped up with reasonable regularity – some bits I just didn’t get:
OXIDISE – could not see how to parse this – seeing the by = X would have helped!
HUDSON BAY – if I’d known it was in Canada, it might have been a write-in
RO(TATE)D – didn’t know this US word for gun
PANT for ‘long’ seemed a bit off
BYSTREET – setter thinking ‘darn it, what can I shoehorn into these checkers?’ – a poor finish to a decent grid
I liked SANDY ACHT most.
Thanks Z and setter
“As pants the hart for cooling streams when heated in the chase”
Well yes – but the hart would literally be panting from exhaustion rather than merely longing for water like a man stranded in the desert.
The M&S knickers version of the same Psalm:
As the deer pants for the waters
So my soul longs after you…
New solver back again.
I found this one very very tricky, I recon I only solved about 50% of clues without assistance. There was a lot of use of the reveal button on this.
To go through all the tricky ones would take too long so I’ll focus on the really hard ones for me:
Tisane – NHO and not heard the expression “to be out for lunch”
Pompous – to say my knowledge of historic French presidents is lacking would be an understatement.
Umami – just very tricky, I also would have preferred them using Mike instead of Mark, so I was more clear I was reading the first bit correctly, but that’s a minor issue.
Town – never head of the place “Deal”, never head of Fashion being “Ton”.
Owen – NHO of London as “Wen”
Tonic – I could parse the wordplay but don’t know where famous Riviera are.
Pasty – just guessed this one, couldn’t understand the wordplay. Even reading this blog I still don’t get it.
Oxidise – “wheel – one” = Oxi is not at all easy. I don’t really think it is even justified. Where does the “times” come from in this phrase? I don’t think a dash can be a times symbol…
Hover – combination of archaic wordplay and cryptic cricket references. too much for me.
FOI: Estaminets (only because I used a anagram solver, NHO of this word)
LOI: given I DNF I think they all could as last one in.
COD: Metallic or Webinar (only because they were one of the few I could actually solve)
OXIDISE It’s not the dash, it’s “by” towards the end of the clue which is “eaten” by the rest of the wordplay. By becomes X in (for example) 4by2, or as in multiplied by in maths.
If you read the comments, many of the successful solvers learned these words from crossword puzzles. About 15 years ago, it seemed like tisane and estaminet came up every day, along with Tiepolo and etagere.
In an alphabetically-ordered reference work (a dictionary, say), if you are PAST Y, then you are in the Zs, which is the final section.
Indeed so.
11:19, very enjoyable puzzle. It must make a setter’s day, possibly even year, when they realise that Alexander VIII of Germany can be expressed as SANDY ACHT.
33:28
Another BYSTREET LOI, having tried nut and doe for Hazel for a long while.
Lots to like and plenty of clever misdirection. Took an age to realise ‘now’ was the definition for example.
Thanks all
Much enjoyed, not too easy. All parsed in the end, which puts it at the perfect level – challenging, but no questions or MERs or obscurities.
COD probably Dirty Harry, but plenty to challenge it.
Another NHO BYSTREET, which would have been my LOI if I’d entered it, which I didn’t. The rest was fine, liked OXIDISE and ESTAMINET but others were clever.
24:10 – fuss-free solve, though I agree “dive” is a bit harsh to describe the average blameless estaminet. Also wasn’t convinced the assembly instructions for OXIDISE were entirely watertight, but I didn’t spend much time agonising over it.
I really enjoyed this puzzle – the oxidise clue was worthy of Mephisto, and who couldn’t like Alexander VIII? I had to finally biff pompous before I remembered Pompidou – those were the days, with the Concorde, the high-speed train, and Pierre Boulez at the Pompidou center. It’s very strange that such very modern things are are now completely obsolete! Well, anyway….
Time: 31 minutes
DNF, having convinced myself I was looking for an NHO sort of light, so invented the NAITES(??), where ‘fixed’ was SET. Dear me. There’s always tomorrow…
Botheration; “dives at sea” ten letters and, as they are not always, ever?, dives i assumed it was the anagrist (?) and wasted ten mins. Lesson learned assume nothing
Late to the party, as I was interrupted by a golf date. Around 45 mins I would guess.
My last two in were WEBINAR & LEARNT.
I bunged in BYSTREET earlier on having never heard of it.
I liked SAND YACHT, POMPOUS & DIRTY HARRY, still one of my favourite CE films.
Thanks Z and setter.
Well I finished with all correct in 42.16, but I half expected to find that I had something wrong. It seems I had correctly parsed OWEN, but it seemed a bit weak to me, and I did consider SWAN as a possibility. The other answer that had me worried was BYSTREET, for all the reasons others have outlined above. Gratifying to get there in the end however.
Steeped in Jane Austen and been doing the Times crossword for years but never heard of “ton” in this sense.
You need to read some Georgette Heyer!
Or watch Bridgerton!
Olivia R – we miss you!
What’s wrong with the OXIDISE clue? I thought it was very good, so long as wheel = O is OK, which I think it is. There were lots of containment clues, many of them misleading nouns-verbs, as has been pointed out, which took a bit of getting used to. Alexander VIII was great fun I thought. 51 minutes, split into two sessions: does that make one slower? Probably not, clutching at straws.
COD to SAND YACHT.
Finished in 7m 43s with ESTAMINETS seeming just about the most plausible of the anagrams.
Really enjoyed this one even though I had to reveal BYSTREET (NHO) and OWEN (knew the poet but NHO Wen). The whole puzzle felt just slightly above my level which is perfect for practice. Only know ESTAMINETS from crosswords. Couldn’t parse the X in OXIDISE – when will I remember that by can mean X! Found NAILED exceedingly tricky. Like others COD to SAND YACHT which made me smile. Many thanks for the informative blog.
Defeated by not knowing TISANE, ESTAMINETS and BYSTREET
I liked OXIDISE, but SAND YAcHT was a corker!
51:53, Let down by ESTAMINETS, was busy looking for synonyms for mittens… gah. COD clearly to SAND YACHT. Thanks!
8:54. No problems today. Nice to have a puzzle in which all the answers are defined by synonyms (I’m not bitter).
I thought ‘in final section of reference work’ was excellent, and ‘Alexander VIII of Germany’ wonderful.
As a regular visitor to Canada I’m aware of The Hudson’s Bay Company so was a little bit surprised to see it without the S. When referring to the bay itself it seems HUDSON is more common though.
34:12 with two pink squares – I had put SWAN for 20a
An enjoyable puzzle with some very clever clueing. NHO BYSTREET, but the clueing left little option. It took a while to unscramble 14ac as alternative anagrist was available. I have only seen the word before in T. S. Eliot’s Gerontion, with the reference to a house owner who had been ‘Spawned in some estaminet in Antwerp’, in a context which suggests the establishment was not entirely respectable.
FOI – OWEN
LOI – BYSTREET
COD – ESTAMINET
Thanks to Zabadak and other contributors.
50:23. Really chewy. It has all been said above but I will just add that I was delighted with PAST Y after PAST A from Pedro’s QC last Monday: Italian food not found in opening section of the dictionary. Thanks to setter and blogger
23.50
Late entry
Lots of clever and enjoyable stuff here as others have said. TISANE also always associated with Hercule P for me.
COD to TOWN as my parents were living in DEAL when I was born. A bit more bouji now methinks
Thanks all
A rather laboured 45.45. I just had trouble getting on with the setter’s style.
Apart from BYSTREET (what?) this was a superb crossword, and I wish it had taken more time to solve than however long it did. The image of his fictional teutonic majesty scooting along the beach to the mournful accompaniment of Wilfred Owen’s improbable address to the capital was priceless. Many thanks to the setter and Z.