It is possible that my view of this one is coloured by the discovery that I’m never going to win a spelling bee, the apparent disability nullifying what may yet prove to be a relatively slow time of 16.36. Because I’m blogging, I paused a couple of times to make sure everything was in order, but for the most part this felt rather formulaic: put A into B, turn C and D round. But there is a “cycling” clue to annoy some purists, and that rara avis a quadruple definition to keep us entertained. I did wonder if the first half dozen or so across clues, with the third being split in two, was a sly comment on American politics, but I’m probably not allowed to say that.
Definitions underlined in italics, exclusions enclosed in square brackets, positional and other indications in round ones.
| Across | |
| 1 | Movie containing most unlikely material (7) |
| PLASTIC – Movie is the generic PIC, which contains as most unlikely the LAST thing you’d expect. | |
| 5 | I’m surprised about backing a real outsider (2-5) |
| NO-HOPER – As ever I was thrown by that innocent a which produces PER to follow OH! I’m surprised and ON for about, together reversed (backing). | |
| 9 | Head doctor’s article is, in part, absurd (9) |
| THERAPIST – I’m not sure why the definition is qualified by head, but it is. THE article is followed by an anagram (absurd) of PART containing IS. | |
| 10 | See doctor to check skin condition having left hospital (5) |
| GRASP – Doctor G[eneral] P[ractitioner] contains RASH without the H[ospital]. Check is the containment indicator. | |
| 11 | Gives legal validity to condition in each statute (13) |
| AUTHENTICATES – An anagram (condition) of IN EACH STATUTE | |
| 13 | Prove sacked assistant spent more than necessary (8) |
| OVERPAID – An anagram (sacked) of PROVE plus AID for assistant. | |
| 15 | Repeat what causes standards to deteriorate? (6) |
| PARROT – Just as potato rot causes spuds to deteriorate, so PAR ROT whimsically causes standards to deteriorate. | |
| 17 | Continue to signal large vessel (6) |
| FLAGON – Continue to signal is FLAG ON | |
| 19 | Sad individual is more sensitive about argument (8) |
| SORROWER – More sensitive SORER encloses ROW for argument | |
| 22 | Half of brilliant people agree little by little (13) |
| INCREMENTALLY – I think the likely required word for brilliant is INCREDIBLE, from which you take the first half and add MEN for people and TALLY for agree. | |
| 25 | Secures protection for digital assets? (5) |
| NAILS – Two definitions, the second humorous | |
| 26 | Model had style (9) |
| DESIGNATE – Model is DESIGN, and had translates to ATE and the definition is verbal, to name. | |
| 27 | He takes coats from people attending in rotation (7) |
| SHEARER – The dreaded cyclical clue. People in attendance are HEARERS. You don’t need to cycle far to get the S from the back to the front. | |
| 28 | Diminish what’s left of attention span (7) |
| ABRIDGE – On the left of attention is A, span is BRIDGE. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Hot tap turns this way (4) |
| PATH – Just take the first six letters of the clue, abbreviate HOT to H, and turn them round. | |
| 2 | Moderate state argued on a regular basis (7) |
| AVERAGE – State is AVER, add the odd letters of ArGuEd | |
| 3 | Former partner avoiding more sex is characteristic (5) |
| TRAIT – I think more sex suggests EXTRA IT (you know, thingy) from which you remove your former partner or EX | |
| 4 | Fanciful style captures timeless quality (8) |
| CHIMERIC – Style is CHIC, and the captured timeless quality is MERIT without its T[ime] | |
| 5 | Nod head at introduction to empress (6) |
| NUTATE – Perhaps not the most familiar word for nod. Get it from NUT for head, AT and the first letter of Empress. | |
| 6 | Beehive possibly preserves constant location for feeding young (4,5) |
| HIGH CHAIR – As illustrated by the early Dusty Springfield the beehive is unquestionably HIGH HAIR. Insert a C[onstant] where it does most good. | |
| 7 | Pressure someone enduring wall-to-wall coverage? (7) |
| PLASTER – P[ressure] plus LASTER for someone enduring. | |
| 8 | Trooper is last in company to turn 18 (10) |
| REPOSITORY – So clue 18 provides the definition. For the wordplay, it helps if you realise there’s no A in the anagram (to turn) of TROOPER IS plus the Y from the end of companY. I didn’t. On edit: great embarrassment: I can’t even correct it properly! | |
| 12 | Relationships restricting development of fiery young men (10) |
| BOYFRIENDS – Relationships are BONDS in which you restrict an anagram (development) of FIERY. | |
| 14 | Iron and gold boxes belonging to academic (9) |
| PROFESSOR – Iron gives PRESS, gold gives OR. The two contain OF for belonging to. | |
| 16 | Noble argument against valuable item being returned (8) |
| CONTESSA – Argument against is CON, valuable item is ASSET which you reverse. | |
| 18 | Author’s supporting chief source of historical information (7) |
| ARCHIVE – Our self referential setter says author’s when meaning I’VE, and supports (it’s a down clue) ARCH for chief as in rival. | |
| 20 | Irregular method to attract backing (7) |
| WAYWARD – Method is WAY, to attract is to DRAW, which is then reversed | |
| 21 | Youthful nurse put forward a proposal (6) |
| TENDER – Quad definition, though I only counted two when solving. | |
| 23 | Cross and belligerent to some extent (5) |
| LIGER – Male lion and female tiger love each other very much (in Africa?!) and produce this offspring, hidden, to some extent, inside belLIGERent. The other way round, it’s a tigon: the male participant aways comes first. | |
| 24 | Present judge to auditor (4) |
| HERE – To judge, hear, sounds like this. | |
Uh, that’s gotta be REPOSITORY…
It took me forever to get started on this, and it seemed harder than yesterday’s.
I never did manage to parse TRAIT.
Good parsing Z thank you. Typo in 8d – should be REPOSITORY, as in infamous Texas school book depository.
This took me ages. DNK NUTATE. Like Z, I guessed that -dible was the missing half of ‘brilliant’, although it took me a while to come up with it post hoc. For some reason I thought of TREPANIST at 9ac; the correct answer came to me immediately I saw the pink squares. (I’m guessing that ‘therapist’ here = shrink, hence ‘head’.) I wasted some time parsing PROFESSOR because I took ‘iron’ to be FE. I liked PROFESSOR & TRAIT.
TREPANIST was my guess for head doctor… came here to find out where the TRE and absurd came from i.e. too tired had no idea and no stamina to work out what was going on.
I was on the wavelength, so I didn’t waste a lot of time parsing. I biffed no hoper, therapist, authenticates, overpaid, trait, chimeric, and professor. I ended up stuck on shearer, but I couldn’t see the wordplay until I realized we were cycling without a cycle. I did like parrot and flagon, but these are both getting to be a bit chestnutty for experienced solvers.
Time: 23.21
43 minutes for all but DESIGNATE which I don’t think I would ever have thought of. I also missed the WP in SHEARER. I’m not sure that ‘cycling’ clues are yet well enough established for setters to be coming up alternative means of indicating them, unlike Spoonerism clues that don’t mention of the good doctor which I find more than welcome after a lifetime of panicking at the very sight of his name.
I thought of BACKPEDALLING as the ‘S’ went backwards!
I loved this, mainly because every day I’m always stumped by at least one clue and have to revert to aids. Not this time. I seemed to be on the right wavelength and one answer followed another, albeit leisurely, which is how I prefer to do my crosswords, and on paper.
SHEARER took a minute to figure out as I’ve never heard of hearers as attendees and I wasn’t sure ‘in rotation’ was the same as cycling. And, had a giggle as I thought of the shearers ‘fleecing’ the sheep, (taking their coats). Liked INCREMENTALLY and managed to biff it from the definition and figure out the wordplay later. Some crafty moves going on too like ‘left of attention’ for ‘a’, and ‘protection for digital assets’, very clever. SORROWER rang a distant bell and sure enough we had it on 26th September, also a Thursday.
All in all a fun cryptic after expecting Tricky Thursday. COD to HIGHCHAIR.
Thanks Z.
Quirky and enjoyable puzzle. Interrupted by a 21-second phone call.
31:05
A few liberties were taken with the language but in a playful enough way to make this a pleasant though not easy solve. I was lucky that various guesses came off and got me home in 23.25 which I thought was pretty good considering. Many thanks to Z for explaining several about which I had no idea, including PLASTIC, TRAIT, NO HOPER, THERAPIST and INCREMENTALLY where I am still not convinced about incredible = brilliant but never mind, it works for sports commentators.
From Ballad of a Thin Man:
You’ve been with the PROFESSORS and they’ve all liked your looks
With great lawyers you have discussed lepers and crooks
You’ve been through all of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s books
You’re very well read it’s well known
But something is happening but you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mr Jones?
👍
Most enjoyable solve in around 60 minutes. No difficult words, places or people. I knew NUTATE and crossers helped a smooth solve.
Thanks Z
In 9A doctor could be a surgeon who is not really a therapist whereas head doctor or shrink is certainly a therapist. Chambers thesaurus gives “head doctor” and “psychiatrist” as synonymous.
Definitely off my form today at over 40 minutes. I found it very tough to get going.
48m 49s
One for my little black book of memorable clues:
15ac: ‘Repeat what causes standards to deteriorate’: PARROT. I do like that!
Thank you, Z.
And a joyful Thanksgiving to all our Murcan friends!
15.04
I found this entertaining but quite tricky throughout, for no reason I can put my finger on. Given I thought of NO-HOPER straight away but couldn’t parse it until I had some confirmatory crossers, maybe I was just a bit off the boil.
Like Kevin I had TREPANIST – AN IS inside, um… Despite all the crossers working, for once I made myself reconsider (“Where’s the rest from, Amoeba? WHERE’S THE REST FROM???”) and found the parse. NHO NUTATE.
Thanks both.
Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his Grasp,
Or what’s a heaven for?
(Andrea del Sarto, Browning)
Well I was not quick today, taking 45 mins pre-brekker. I don’t know why. Even the excellent triple-def took a minute or two. Excellent challenge IMO.
Ta setter and Z.
29 minutes. COD to HIGH CHAIR. I first saw Mary O’Brien at Blackpool Hippodrome in 1960, fourth on the bill as a member of the Lana Sisters in Adam Faith’s summer show. A nice, steady solve. Thank you Z and setter.
Flew through this, by my standards. No issues, but no clue re SHEARER.
FLAGON was easier after ‘standards’ in the previous clue.
13’03”, thanks z and setter.
Still didn’t stop me trying to fit ‘dragon’ in!
Ah!, but “The pellet with the poison’s in the flagon with the dragon, the vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true. “
Great scene – just watched it on YT. Interestingly, the ‘witch’ calls them ‘chalish’ and ‘palish’, but the director seemed satisfied.
Thank you for reminding of that!
32 mins but with annoying typo again (three days in a row I think.
Not that it matters, but for NAILS I had the two definitions as “secures” and “protection for digital assets”. Nice clue.
NAILS: Yes, probably works better, but it felt OK when I was solving and when I wrote up my notes.
About 20 minutes.
– Like one or two others, I nearly put ‘trepanist’ for 9a before I worked out THERAPIST
– Didn’t parse SHEARER
– Relied on the wordplay for the unknown NUTATE
– Had no idea how PROFESSOR worked as I assumed ‘iron’ was giving FE
– Only saw three of the four definitions in TENDER – very clever
Thanks Zabadak and setter.
FOI Here
LOI Shearer
COD Repository (I don’t usually like cross-reference clues, but this one worked really well)
Took some time at 40′ or so. Bottom half was somehow especially chewy for me. NHO SORROWER though had to be after a trawl, DESIGNATE took a while (though it shouldn’t have) and NUTATE was a construction. I enjoyed BOYFRIENDS with the double use of “relationships “. Thanks Zabadak and setter.
36 mins. It felt quicker than that but then I’m convinced the 30 secs on Countdown is getting shorter. On wavelength and no annoying last one taking 10 mins at the end.
Trusted the wordplay on NUTATE, dislike SORROWER as a word.
Thanks for a most entertaining blog
16.01 spent largely following the instructions to get to fairly straightforward words, so I agree with Z that it had a rather mechanical feel. My second daily ritual after solving is ‘guess the SNITCH’ and I was almost spot on with 102 (103 when I looked).
Quite nuggety I found. Thanks for parsing NO-HOPER which I couldn’t understand even after I knew it was right. I think if you NUTATE you’re probably just assenting to something, but if you start titubating there may be something amiss. A leisurely 51 mins.
As a part-time designer of not-necessarily-toothed-gear gearboxes, nutate leapt out like a springbok on heat. Or something.
9:55. No major problems today. I have a mild dislike of ‘cycling’ clues but if anything I think that ‘in rotation’ is a clearer indication of the concept.
29:52
A satsfying puzzle. Started slowly but finished at a gallop.
I’m another who toyed with TREPANIST but couldn’t make it work. Cyclical clues usually make my head hurt but the crossers made it easy. Needed Z to explain TRAIT. COD HIGH CHAIR
Thanks to Zabadak and the setter.
DNF. 9a Therapist. I invented The Trepanist (which I find is the title of a novel, but absent from the dictionaries I consulted) but couldn’t parse it. Head doctor of course, so more apposite, in that way at least, than the correct answer.
11a Authenticates, of course it is an anag, DOH!
27a Shearer, was foxed by this, thanks Z. I am fairly OK with “cycling” letters but just didn’t notice it at all.
POI 5d Nutate; the Eng Lang does not need this word IMHO, but.
8d Repository. I don’t like cross-references, but here it helped, amazingly. And at 18d Archive I really thought there might be an author called Ive!
I failed to get REPOSITORY or GRASP and toyed with ‘retrot’ instead of PARROT for way to long but not too hard in general, took a while to get started though.
I’ll also reprise my role as occasional SNITCH snitch here – we have someone with a NITCH of 8 today, who has been posting a mix of regular and ridiculous times recently.
‘crosswords are cwite simple’
Sometimes he solves online, sometimes he solves on paper and types in his answers to see if they’re correct. He is completely unaware of both the SNITCH and the leaderboard, just likes to solve the puzzles. He’s never heard of the Times championships or Times for the Times.
He is offset by the fellow who starts solving at midnight, dozes off, and then wakes up and finishes.
Yes I’m sure there’s nothing suspect about this person’s behaviour but they probably shouldn’t be a reference solver for the SNITCH.
Ah, interesting, thanks. Maybe not the best candidate to track in that case (likewise the dozer-offer!)
I’m also a fan of the PAR-ROT. It’s been eating away at the Establishment in UK for decades now. However I (too) did NOT like the cycling clue: these should be banned, or at least be consigned to a cycling lane in some far distant puzzle far away from the qualities. And… no livers.
My final jab at this one (17 minutes) is that it is a tad or three too easy for a Thursday. Does this herald the demise of The Stinker? I hope not.
Thanks Zab and cyclist.
Not too hard for a Thursday, about twenty minutes, LOI GRASP. Nothing to argue about or even raise an eyebrow for. Nice blog Z.
Enjoyed that, a bit different. Even with one stupid error, and one unable to parse: looking at you, SHEARERS. Which nevertheless had to be.
I saw your quadruple definition as a triple definition. For me “put forward” and “proposal” are the same thing, even if different parts of speech: to propose is to put forward; a proposal is something put forward. But that’s just my pedantry.
Would have finished this faster than 42 mins, but I had MORES instead of TRAIT, which caused lots of problems until I realised it was wrong. DNK NUTATE, which went in as a guess.
Yes, I had MORES too and the resulting problems. I put it in thinking “that was an easy one” and just moved on and left it there
Three in a row inhave struggled with time-wise. Have been on this site months now and my times are not improving which seems odd with all your welcomed advice for which many thanks
60 mins but came up short on TENDER/DESIGNATE. A quad clue is as rare as a quad in cribbage and I was experimenting with various made up definitions for nurses, SEN, RN, SRN SEN etc.
I quite like the innovation of cycling clues, and SHEARER was good.
Happy to accept an unknown author Ive, having already accepted the NHOs LIGER and NUTATE. I though TRAIT was a weak clue, partly for IT=sex, which is on my list, like tum=corporation yesterday.
COD PARROT
34:30 – very much off the boil for what should have been an easier tussle. Some tricky parsing and some uncertainties – NUTATE and the therapist-as-shrink definition – but no show-stoppers.
24.12
I like a clue to amuse and EXTRA IT did it for me today. Liked the HIGH (C)HAIR too. Otherwise a fair bit of biffage.
Thought this was a great puzzle, with some excellent surface readings. Some of the clues must have taken ages to get right!
No idea of what was going on for far too many of these clues for far too long. In the end though, it was only DESIGNATE, INCREdible, and HIGH CHAIR which I needed Z’s excellent blog to explain.
Definitely NOT on wavelength today, but I seem to have finished well outside the top 100.
29:31
Where’s the rotation in the SHEARER clue? In hearers, the s moves to the front, which is I suppose a sort of rotation, but the rest of it doesn’t rotate, and I think the clue suggests that it does.
45 minutes and no major problems apart from general slowness. Couldn’t see why the setter included ‘head’ in 9ac. Three definitions or four? Either way, good clue.
Collins has ‘a person trained in the use of psychological methods for helping patients overcome psychological problems.’
5A – Why does a equal PER? As in “a la…”?
‘Miles per hour’ > ‘miles an hour’
The Times costs £2.80 a/per day.
Well just finished this in about 70 mins. A good puzzle. The only NHO was NUTATE. Lots of others were tricky for me but it’s one of those crosswords where , for us mere mortals relatively new to the game, if you trust in the process you get there in the end.
LOI was SHEARER – I saw it early but just couldn’t bring myself to put it in until all the checkers were in place having failed to parse.
I feel my perseverance is growing as there have been a few recently where knuckling down and figuring out the wordplay has yielded a completely correct grid.
33:57
Very enjoyable puzzle and blog.
Thanks all.
PATH was FOI, then I drew a blank until WAYWARD. Continued clockwise from SE finishing with PARROT, ha ha. Failed to parse TRAIT. NHO NUTATE. 25:16. Thanks setter and Z.
Too half very slow today but got bottom half quite quickly for 25 mins overall. Not a fan of cross reference clues but the turning 18 device was very neat I thought.
Thx z and setter
33’00”
Failed to quicken, but a good solid gallop throughout.
All parsed in the time, bar the authentication and the professor, which needed ironing out in retrospect. 28 was a gimme as I’d spent the morning pondering the relative merits of weak and strong twos in Acol. I came down on the the side of strong, but remain open to persuasion on this.
Liked this lots; thank you setter and Z.
23:37
On the quicker side for me, especially on a Thursday.
I’ve been reading the blog for a while, but this is a first comment. Thanks to all bloggers over the past few weeks for explaining the ones I fail to parse – today’s was NO-HOPER as I consistently miss PER when indicated by ‘a’.
Three sessions were required to finish this as grandpa duties intervened. No time recorded but certainly over an hour, that’s for sure. Wouldn’t put my LOI in DESIGNATE until I had parsed it, and that took over five minutes alone. Got there in the end, so very gratifying.
Another TREPANIST. Didn’t bother checking the anagram, seemed such a dead cert. More fool me. I wonder when was the last time the phrase LITTLE BY LITTLE could be used as a cryptic for ERIC. I’m sure I remember seeing it. Certainly occurred to me here. Apart from the howler, all good at 22’06”. Many thanks.
The lion and tiger would have to be loving each other in a zoo. I thought it was another nonsense word like “laster” but apparently such things have existed. I couldn’t fully parse TRAIT but otherwise OK. I don’t mind cycling clues but really does “hear” mean judge? I thought the judgement came after the hearing. And “young men”? Ho hum. Thanks for the blog!
8:12. Didn’t like SHEARER. Quite liked PARROT. Toyed with TREPANIST. Not a particularly tricky Thursday.
43:26
COD REPOSITORY.
LOI DESIGNATE.
Had to do this in several sittings, as I had quite a bit of travelling and a lunch to attend- and also found it a tough challenge.
I had to go to bed with AUTHENTICATES unsolved, but realised what it was as I awoke this morning. A very nice anagram, I thought.
A good Thursday challenge I thought.