14.41, as I took my time making sure everything was parsed and nothing was going to produce an unwanted pink. There’s one I’m not fully convinced by, which usually means I’ve missed something obvious – I’m sure, that being the case, wiser counsels will gently and kindlily put me straight.
I don’t think there’s anything particularly exciting here, but it’s decent, honest stuff and so long as you don’t get flummoxed by the rebel, there shouldn’t be anything too obscure. I fully expect to be corrected on that comment too.
Definitions underlined in italics, everything else hopefully plain enough, though I have reduced my use of [] because I thought it was making my blogs look a bit scruffy.
| Across | |
| 1 | Brazilian ready to follow team of stars (8) |
| SIDEREAL – The currency of Brazil is presumably the REAL. Place it after SIDE for team. | |
| 5 | Pieces invoking the name of great character (6) |
| GATSBY – We’re into Yankee gangsterspeak here, in which pieces and GATS are guns. I’m not sure of the BY bit: the best I can come up with at the moment is that “by AN Other” brings AN Other’s name to the fore. The “great” references F Scott Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby.
I like dr.shred’s invocation of “by George!” more than my attempt. Thanks! |
|
| 8 | Clearly show strong desire to break into retail somehow (10) |
| ILLUSTRATE – LUST for strong desire contained in an anagram (somehow) of RETAIL. | |
| 9 | Employee benefit for every last piece of work (4) |
| PERK – PER comes from for every, and the last piece of work is simply K. | |
| 10 | Dissertation about unknown number that is somewhere in the UK (3,3,8) |
| THE SIX COUNTIES – No extra points for naming all of the Northern Ireland counties, but it helps to know there’s 6 of them. THESIS for dissertation envelops unknown X, COUNT for a verbal number, and I.E. for that is | |
| 11 | At last obtain a garment I will wear, the ultimate in green (7) |
| NAIVEST – The last letter of obtaiN plus A VEST for a garment, “worn” by I. | |
| 13 | Of course, warning was rejected as expected (7) |
| FORESAW – FORE is a warning of (a golf) course, and was rejected gives you the SAW. | |
| 15 | Fine stonework in church choir finally covered by board (7) |
| TRACERY – CE is the standard abbreviation for the Anglican Church, add the last letter of choiR and place both inside TRAY for board. | |
| 18 | Trick’s missed in unreliable moment (7) |
| INSTANT – Think INCONSTANT for unreliable and leave out the tricky CON. | |
| 21 | It matters little I indicate after noon, provided I withdraw before the finish (14) |
| INSIGNIFICANCE – I, then SIGN for indicate follows N[oon]. Provided gives IF, I again, and CANCEL for withdraw loses its last letter. | |
| 22 | Mineral preserved by chemicals (4) |
| MICA – Hidden in cheMICAls. | |
| 23 | Empty room hottest, a result of breaking this (10) |
| THERMOSTAT – Somewhat &littish, an anagram (result of breaking) ROOM without its interior characters plus HOTTEST and A. If you prefer, you can just have “this” as the definition. | |
| 24 | Start to reel in touchy follower without restraint (6) |
| FREELY – First letter of Real in FEELY for touchy, and commonly seen in combination as touchy-feely, hence the “follower”. Unwise for cookery programme presenters these days. | |
| 25 | Order pig to be slaughtered for food (8) |
| PORRIDGE – An anagram (slaughtered!) of ORDER PIG | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Severely affected hand nurse holds (7) |
| SMITTEN – Hand is MITT, and SEN is a standard abbreviation for a State Enrolled Nurse. | |
| 2 | Remixed vocal edit for Life of Riley (5,4) |
| DOLCE VITA -An anagram (remixed) of VOCAL EDIT translates the Irish phrase into its equivalent in Italian. | |
| 3 | Uneasy setter’s supporting others (7) |
| RESTIVE – When you see “setter’s” it’s good to remember it might indicate me, I, I’m or in this case I’VE. In a down clue, it supports, is underneath, REST for others. | |
| 4 | Foolish time to start to climb up tree (7) |
| APRICOT – APR 1 is All Fools Day. Add TO and the first letter of Climb reversed (up in a down clue). | |
| 5 | Recruit in growth area giving up employment for navy (9) |
| GREENHORN – New and inexperienced. Growth area is GREENHOUSE. Replace USE for employment with R[oyal] N[avy] | |
| 6 | Cut heads on fish (7) |
| TOPSIDE – A choice cut or joint from a bovine bottom. Heads gives TOPS, and an IDE is a fish whose commonest habitat is the crossword. | |
| 7 | In pubs, one cheers brewer (7) |
| BARISTA – Put I for one in BARS for pubs, and add TA for cheers or thank you. No points for spotting that baristas brew coffee, not beer. | |
| 12 | Full of vitality, agent recruits a couple of hands (9) |
| SPRIGHTLY – An agent is a SPY, taking in RIGHT and L[eft] two hands differently presented. | |
| 14 | National Theatre’s welcoming days stopped developing (9) |
| STAGNATED – A bit of Yodaspeak. NAT for national is welcomed by STAGE, synecdoche (look it up) for theatre. | |
| 16 | Having more showers is way to control foul air rising (7) |
| RAINIER – A way to control is a REIN, and and anagram (foul) of AIR gives IAR. Put them together and reverse (rising) | |
| 17 | Roughly struck in the head, rebel falls (7) |
| CASCADE – Roughly is CA, struck in the head is just S. Jack CADE led a briefly successful rebellion against the government of the day in 1450, occupying the streets of London until his supporters turned to looting and rioting and were forcibly expelled by the outraged citizens. | |
| 18 | Conclude not a single blazing thing! (7) |
| INFERNO – Conclude gives you INFER (at least here, today) and not a single just gives NO. | |
| 19 | Help someone easily deceived by reporter (7) |
| SUCCOUR – From the hymn “Christ of the upward way”: “And leap at once with kind and helpful deed, To the sure succour of a soul in need.” We with a naughtier eye would nod sagely and hint that there’s no surer sucker than a soul in need. The same idea is going on here, the other way round, the sound of someone easily deceived, SUCKER (by reporter) producing our answer. |
|
| 20 | Frame that supports way over lake in part of forest (7) |
| TRESTLE – ST[reet] for way plus L[ake] within TREE, definitely part of a forest. | |
I enjoyed this well enough. LOI TRACERY. BY gave me brief pause, but “by” typically precedes the name of the author of a book, song, sonata, artwork… It can also mean “according to.”
Enjoyable, but I had to reveal some as just couldn’t see what was going on. THE SIX COUNTIES I was stuck on and was convinced it was ‘the big something’. Took a while to see ‘lust’ for ‘strong desire’ in ILLUSTRATE. Liked FORESAW, TRACERY, SMITTEN and BARISTA. COD to APRICOT for ‘foolish time’ when it finally dawned on me.
Thanks Z and setter.
Yes, we were toying with BIG also initially – from just the crossers.
I couldn’t get The Big Lebowski out of my head!
33:02
I had a lot of trouble with this one (just about the worst NITCH). Never figured out APRICOT, INSTANT, INSIGNIFICANCE, the S in CASCADE, the BY in GATSBY. (I thought it was CADE who proposes killing all the lawyers in 2Henry6, but it’s Dick the Butcher.)
I can’t help on the BY in GATSBY since I didn’t see a good way to make it work. I thought FEELY was simply “touchy follower” and the fact that they are somewhat synonyms was irrelevant. This was gentle compared to some recent Thursday puzzles.
“By George!” = invoking the name of George?
37 minutes. I didn’t know the significance of THE SIX COUNTIES and gave the parsing of RAINIER and STAGNATE a miss. I liked THERMOSTAT, the ‘great character’ def at 5a and the ‘touchy follower’ bit of the wordplay at 24a. The ‘trick’s missed’ at 18a was very apt until I saw what was going on just before submitting.
BTW, one of the terms in our glossary, first termed by a TfTT luminary (and a setter as well) makes an appearance in today’s FT crossword by Gurney.
I’ve struggled with a few recent Thursdays so was pleased to nail this one in a solid 28.56. Many thanks to Z for figuring out several that eluded me, like APRICOT, INSTANT and GREENHORN. Like others I was puzzled by the GATSBY clue and I was also slow to see tray = board, but I DID go to the trouble of deconstructing INSIGNIFICANCE. PORRIDGE again, eh? A bit like prison…
From As I Went Out One Morning:
As I went out one morning to breathe the air around Tom Paine
I spied the fairest damsel that ever did walk in chains
I offered her my hand, she took me by the arm
I knew that very INSTANT she meant to do me harm
43 minutes was a bit slow considering I had no queries other than the parsing of GATSBY. The answer had been a write-in with two of its checkers in place but I missed ‘pieces’ = GATS so never got to thinking about ‘invoking the name of’ = BY; I simply moved on.
Very enjoyable, and at least if Friday’s puzzle is the usual stinker it won’t be the second in a row.
Made heavy weather of this one and had to come here to confirm some informed guesses were all correct and to see why.
While cannot honestly say this one was enjoyable, admired the FOI 1ac SIDEREAL as being concise and clever. Also admired 4d APRICOT and 5ac GATSBY once we had the explanations.
10ac THE SIX COUNTIES was a detective story involving THESIS, X and a hope for COUNTIES – followed by a check that this applied to Nth Ireland.
For 17d ‘struck in the head’ to give ‘s’ in CASCADE a little unusual.
Thought parsing of 14d STAGNATED was more than a stretch.
The IVE does not really make sense in context in 3d.
Not as tough as some recent dailies though.
Apologies for any crossings with other posts – which I will read.
Thank you Zabadak and setter.
In the context of the clue, Setter’s = setter has, which translated to the first person becomes I have = I’VE. Lift and separate setter’s from what follows otherwise it’s tempting to read it as setter is supporting others and then the parsing doesn’t work.
Noted with thanks.
17:41. I was slowed by a fairly confident LOPSIDE. Heads and lops seemed fairly good synonyms and then I thought that in some sense cut could mean LOPSIDE. Of course in hindsight there’s no LOPSIDE, only lopsided but it made sense to me at the time!
I was lopsided for a while too.
Straightforward again today, thankfully and no queries.
I had trouble seeing what I needed six of. And BY as a name invoker, I can see what is meant.. a book by x, the by is invoking x’s name.
Another day, another daft error, putting the Latin for ‘sweet’ instead of the Italian. Blame Horace and Wilfred Owen.
Otherwise 16′, INSIGNIFICANCE took a while to confirm, BY no problem (as in George or God, as mentioned above).
I favour a return to old coffee ordering and find BARISTA an ugly word.
Thanks z and setter. And it’s me, RobR.
I’m with Tony Hancock and want my coffee without the froth.
17:43
I thought I was on for a sub 10 at one point, but as soon as that crossed my mind it fell to pieces. GATSBY, GREENHORN, and FORESAW were the main culprits.
All straightforward enough but a pleasant solve all the same.
Thanks to both.
With no crossers the ‘greenest’ was ‘naviest’, thinking, “That’s blue?” Just about managed to convince myself it referenced the Royal Navy, before sanity prevailed. Never fully figured out BY, but no other problems. Guessed it was Northern Ireland, liked THERMOSTAT most of all.
31 mins and my first finish this week with no dreaded pinks. Huzzah!
Came here to see the parsing of CASCADE – did not know the rebel sadly. Also wasn’t sure how FREELY worked but now I rather like as a COD. Thanks blogger and setter!
29 minutes, on par but I found this tricky and got lucky in places. COD to the great GATSBY, ‘in the name of’ for ‘by’ needing a moment’s thought. APRICOT had me thinking not about Gatsby but the colour of Warren Beatty’s scarf. There must have been some sort of link in my head. Enjoyable puzzle. Thank you Z and setter.
It was only after living in NY a while that I got the colour of that scarf because CSimon pronounces it APP-ricot rather than AY- pricot as I do. Met her eons ago when she “walked into the party” given by a friend who lived in her building. She’s very tall.
When she did that great outdoor concert at Martha’s Vineyard, I didn’t realise how tall she was. Then I saw her interviewed and her full five foot ten and a half inches became obvious. I bet she cut an imposing figure at the party.
I can’t resist my best ever piece of name dropping. “As I was chatting to John Paul Getty Junior, Imran Khan and Mick Jagger, while former England captain Peter May was getting me a drink…” Mick wasn’t wearing an apricot scarf either though.
You way out-drop me BW!
I was slow to get started, but the SE corner proved the most tractable, and the SW soon followed. Once I reached Ulster, the rest began to fall into place, until I had a brief hold-up over GATSBY, only then seeing how my LOI worked.
FOI FORESAW
LOI TOPSIDE *
COD ILLUSTRATE
TIME 12:34
* Unusual for FOI/LOI to be crossers.
Umm, I’m sure you know that the province of Ulster has 9 counties, 3 of them in the ROI.
1 silly error in FOI SIDERIAL thinking I knew the stellar term and not remembering how the currency was spelt.
Shame because that was a proper challenge, chewy enough but all doable in 31 enjoyable minutes which is a decent time for me.
Didn’t parse APRICOT or understand why 6 counties in particular so thanks for that and to setter.
DNF, back in OWL Club with SIDERIAL rather than SIDEREAL. It was my FOI and I just bunged in ‘rial’ without thinking about it, knowing that it’s also a currency. Gah.
– Didn’t know that TRACERY is fine stonework but the cluing and checkers helped
– Biffed INSIGNIFICANCE and THERMOSTAT
– Couldn’t parse APRICOT
Thanks Zabadak and setter.
COD Dolce vita
75 mins, but got it done. Probably my highest Snitch completed.
Was held up at the end by TOPSIDE, I had “coppice”=cut as something that fitted the checkers. A similar “what fits” approach also gave GAZEBO for GATSBY. Eventually got them, vaguely remembered that IDE, filed in my brain as “a crossword word never seen in real life”. Jack Cade is another.
Liked THE SIX COUNTIES.
Ha, clearly you don’t live in Kent! “Jack Cade’s Hole,” that he allegedly hid out in, is up the road from my house .. always raises a titter.
I thought I would give 15×15 ago. I often run into trouble on the QC so it was foolhardy, especially on a Thursday. I was pleased to get half way through this. Plenty of satisfying pdms both as I tried to solve the clues, and then when I read the helpful blog.
Lots to enjoy.
Of course, I missed the hidden as usual, and had to resort to a thesaurus.
Thanks Setter and Zabadak
New words/phrases today: synedoche, Jack Cade (though tbh he does ring a bell), Six Counties, gats. I hope there is no limit to the number of bookmarks the Chambers app lets me save…
Thanks Zabadak and setter.
I found this hard, tricky Thursday, with several unparsed, but finished eventually.
10a The 6 Counties added to Cheating Machine. I was foxed by _I_ between The and ______s, and when I thought of six the answer leapt out at me, especially given the unknown (number, a lucky coincidence).
18a Instant, biffed as I couldn’t bring inconstant to mind, DOH!
21a Insignificance biffed.
4d Saw April for the foolish time but there is no shortening instruction and I had CO to explain; the C could be start to climb, the T could be re-used time (not,) but whence the O? Biff.
Had THE SIX somethings for ages, but it took POI, APRICOT to provide the C before I got LOI COUNTIES. DOLCE VITA was FOI. Liked THERMOSTAT. 25:14. Thanks setter and Z.
15:56 Stuck for an age at the end on the 5/6 pair. GATSBY finally lobbed in with everything crossed -I see the parsing now but, for me, not a great clue.
SIDEREAL – Ooh lovely!!! 😀
Wow, this felt much harder than yesterday’s, though the SNITCH is – to me – surprisingly low.
DNF – missing GATSBY, which I don’t think I’d ever have got (NHO ‘gats’). DNK the fish, so had no idea of the parsing of TOPSIDE, neither could I figure out what was going on in STAGNATED or APRICOT, though both I successfully guessed. Just felt way off the wavelength, and beginning again to fear the encroachment of senility.
My erstwhile colleaugue referred to our boss from Belfast as “yer man o six counties” or i would have had no clue. Back to half hour from yesterdays almost pb of 7-55
A pleasant 30 minutes, moderately hard I thought, with GATSBY unparsed and a pause at IN[con]STANT where I was trying to get to it from INCONSISTENT. Thanks Z as usual.
32 mins, but submitted with trepidation because about 5 of the answers I couldn’t parse, eg NHO CADE and no idea about APRICOT.
22:05 with LOI GATSBY, and before that I was held up by having written LOPSIDE from an early pencilling in of LOP.
I think BY must equal INVOKING but only because everything else seems even less convincing!!!
Thanks setter and blogger
Decent puzzle. I liked SMITTEN, APRICOT, and THE SIX COUNTIES (use FAT DAD or FAT LAD as a mnemonic, depending on your view). Wonder if anyone ever uses NAIVEST in conversation.
Thanks to Zabadak and the setter.
Technically the phrase ‘invoking the name of’ describes the function of ‘by’ but it is not itself a definition, ie you couldn’t replace ‘by’ with that phrase. But I don’t mean to cavil, setters should be indulged in this sort of area.
Had to come back to this one so no time. I did not find it as straightforward as others. On reflection though I was just not reading a lot of the clues correctly so maybe my brain was not running to full capacity. They did fly in once I came back to it.
THE SIX COUNTIES took an age because the 6 of the 7 checking letters I had were all in dissertation so I became convinced it was an anagram.
APRICOT I have seen APRI as foolish time before so not excuse for why I took so long on this one.
TRACERY also new to me but seemed the most likely word
COD BARISTA
Thanks blogger and setter
Took me nearly an hour. I was very slow getting Stagnated and I had to come here for the parsing thereof, for which many thanks.
Nice puzzle overall – my CODs to the Counties and to the simply constructed Porridge.
Everything was going smoothly enough and I expected to finish in not much over 30 minutes, but then became so bogged down on COPPICE, APRICOT, THE SIX COUNTIES, GATSBY and TOPSIDE that at one point I was considering giving up. Couldn’t parse COPPICE, APRICOT seemed more a bush than a tree, although dictionaries show I’m wrong, THE SIX ____ seemed like Mount Rushmore or something like that, the by in GATSBY was unconvincing, TOPSIDE looked as if it started lop…, so 72 minutes, with all aids flying by the end.
Liked THE SIX COUNTIES for use of unknown number to become XCOUNT instead of the commonplace single letter X Y or Z.
LOI Topside because fixated on definition being fish rather than cut
39:24
Bad day part II. Fairly OK for the first 50%, fairly bad on the second 50%. Didn’t get STAGNATED and shrugged at THE SIX COUNTIES, which I am aware of, but didn’t know of as anything formal. Probably should have got DOLCE VITA more quickly which might have helped with the NW which was very slow.
Thanks Z and setter
Came late to this after golf. DNF, being a bit of a struggle for me, finally failing to find TRACERY. Otherwise OK, though should have been quicker, and a few not fully parsed, eg GATSBY. Thanks Zabadak and setter.
27:30
An enjoyable crossword.
TOPSIDE was my LOI.
I took a while to separate “unknown number” and was stuck for a while trying to think of somewhere beginning “the sin …”.
Thanks Z and setter
33:40 with some difficulty, although in retrospect not sure why; the mark of a good puzzle I suppose.
23:17
LOI APRICOT as the parsing was beyond me.
Very enjoyable puzzle I thought. Challenging clues, not challenging answers.
Thanks all.
My LOI was the NHO TRACERY, which I worked out from the wordplay. I also couldn’t parse GATSBY and realised on reading this that I’d made an error in my parsing of APRICOT.
I had, in my head, got “Foolish time to start” as APRI (April staring but not finishing), and correctly parsed “to start to climb up” as COT, without twigging that (a) I’d used “to start” twice and (b) my parsing was very weak given that (i) the foolish time is specifically the first day of April not the whole month and (ii) I’ve never seen “…to start” indicating the last letter should be removed rather than just indicating the first letter of that something.
So thanks for the parsings Z, and thanks to the setter for what I considered to be a challenging and enjoyable puzzle, but at least one I completed on the day of publication without cheating, unlike some recent Thursdays.
It took me a little short of the hour at 58.56 to complete this, but at least I finished with all correct. I found the lower half a good deal easier than the top, and struggled to parse quite a few. In the end it was only INSTANT and INSIGNIFICANCE that remained unparsed. I didn’t quite understand what THE SIX COUNTIES referred to as well, and even pondered if it may reference ‘the garden of England’.
You’ll know how far off the wavelength I was when I tell you I was preparing a blistering comment regarding the word for ultimate in green -Olivest – until I couldn’t think of any kind of 1d nurse to generate the O. Thanks, z, and one up to you, Mr or Ms setter
ps – the Olivest comment was pretty good, too.
Reached my last pair at the hour but couldn’t get TRACERY and CASCADE – neither of which was likely. Also had TOPSIDE wrong having put TOPPIKE – food & drink is my kryptonite so cuts of meat is easily missed. Other than that parsed almost all of those I got – just GATSBY, STAGNATED and TRESTLE problematic – the first with decent reason, the latter I should have figured out.
Wrong crossword!
Way off the wavelength for this one: GATSBY never occurred to me (gats=pieces), nor did TRACERY for fine stonework (still don’t understand the parsing). I lost patience with INSIGNIFICANCE after fiddling around with is and ifs etc, and did a look-up, so that got me started on some of the lower clues, a few of which were biffs (INSTANT, TRESTLE , CASCADE), but not all. Liked SPRIGHTLY ( because I got it) and INFERNO (ditto), but never did see PORRIDGE or FREELY . Setter 1: Solver 0.