At 20.43, I didn’t find this easy, especially working out all the wordplay as one should when preparing a blog. There’s still a couple of bits, however, where my working out is a bit sketchy.
While it’s not a pun, as such, I think the middle column must be deliberate. I hope the GK needed is well enough known to solvers, though the “Suffolk village” is perhaps better known for a different neighbouring construction, which I can tell you from personal experience does not warm the adjacent North Sea as much (or at all) as you might hope or expect.
Definitions underlined in italics, omitted [letters] usually shown thus and otherwise intended to be self-explanatory.
| Across | |
| 1 | Trader Mike in predicament with church spreading bombast (5,8) |
| SCRAP MERCHANT – Place NATO’s M[ike] inside SCRAPE for predicament, then let CH[urch] spread open RANT for bombast. | |
| 8 | Nimble mole checking run (4) |
| SPRY – Mole interpreted as SPY, with R[un] checked inside. “Checked” can work both ways as either inside or outside. | |
| 9 | Post-defeat, again rallying Germany about call involving press (10) |
| REGROUPING – GER[many] backwards (about) then RING for call with OUP (Oxford University Press) inserted. | |
| 10 | Coveted property pair has left in excellent Suffolk village (8) |
| SIZEWELL – I’m saying coveted property is PRIZE, remove the P[ai]R and insert into SWELL for excellent. Sizewell is, these days, better known for its nuclear reactors, currently working up to version C. | |
| 11 | Tries ecstasy, the ultimate transport for some? (6) |
| HEARSE – Macabre humour here. Tries give HEARS, and ecstasy supplies the E. | |
| 13 | Notorious meal in most unsuitable boozer (4,6) |
| LAST SUPPER – An odd definition for Christ’s last Passover. Commemorated as the Lord’s Supper in the Free Church version of the Anglican Eucharist and the Catholic Mass. I propose LAST for most unsuitable (that’s the last place I’d want to be seen in) and SUPPER as one who sups, perhaps a more decorous version of boozer. | |
| 16 | Leaving hotel, family lying about identity (4) |
| SELF – My last in, because I couldn’t see how SHELF had anything to do with family. It does when you turn it round (lying about). Remove the H[otel] | |
| 17 | Initially Sweep, a dog, snubbed Sooty? This could be so (4) |
| SMUT – The first letter of Sooty, plus MUTT cut short (snubbed). The reference is to to Harry Corbett’s glove puppets, Sweep the dog and Sooty, a sort of bear that did magic tricks. Innocent days of TV. | |
| 18 | Vulgar, lawless half of crowd’s rioting (5-5) |
| LOWER CLASS – A non-pejorative “vulgar”. An anagram (rioting) of LAWLESS and half of CROwd’s | |
| 20 | Bears receiving treats every so often as bait (6) |
| HARASS – Bears is just HAS. Insert the even letters of tReAtS. That meaning of bait. | |
| 22 | Gradually winch me aloft, but not to the full extent (8) |
| INCHMEAL – Not a word I remember seeing, though it cropped up in this parish twice in 2014, in August and September. Hidden (not to the full extent) in wINCH ME ALoft. | |
| 24 | RIP, weightlifter? Sentimental stuff (4-6) |
| TEAR JERKER – De-capitalise RIP for TEAR, and add the mildly Uxbridge JERKER for weightlifter. | |
| 26 | Live next-door to new unknown engineer (4) |
| BENZ – Live is BE, add N[ew] and Z for your unknown (alongside X and Y) | |
| 27 | UK business magnate having previously made rare volatile crystalline product (8,5) |
| DEMERARA SUGAR – Proper spelling test, even with the letters supplied in anagram form (volatile) as MADE RARE. The business magnate is Sir Alan SUGAR, he of the Amstrad PCW and the weird Em@iler. And, of course “The Apprentice”. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Complaint from south Taipei came unexpectedly (11) |
| SEPTICAEMIA – An anagram (unexpectedly) of S[outh] TAIPEI CAME. | |
| 2 | Verse in song of praise briefly adopted by army corps (5) |
| RHYME – Song of praise HYMN, but cut short. The R[oyal] E[ngineers] the army corps that takes in the letters. | |
| 3 | Seemingly ceaseless repeat Rumpole regularly broadcast (9) |
| PERPETUAL – An anagram (broadcast) of REPEAT with the even letters of rUmPoLe. Current reruns are on Great! TV. | |
| 4 | European going on vacation with only half of blasted drink (3,4) |
| EGG FLIP – E[puropean] plus and emptied out G[oin]G plus half of FLIPping, a minced version of blasted. | |
| 5 | Clergy unwilling to be led by agnostic’s conclusion (5) |
| CLOTH – Unwilling is LOTH, the last letter of agnostiC supplies the C. | |
| 6 | Complain bitterly about being shown up following software evaluation (9) |
| APPRAISAL – You need to derive AS from being, reverse it (shown up) and place it in RAIL for complain bitterly. Put APP for software ahead of the construction. | |
| 7 | Cask enthusiast rolled over (3) |
| TUN – A reverse (rolled over) of NUT for enthusiast. | |
| 12 | Novel form of alarm sirens (5,6) |
| SILAS MARNER -George Elliot’s tale of redemption through human relationship. An anagram (form of) of ALARM SIRENS | |
| 14 | Four-letter word, eg “tart”, deplorably supported by beastly male (9) |
| TETRAGRAM – An anagram (deplorably) of EG TART, with RAM for beastly male beneath. | |
| 15 | Trots round public leisure area with yellow covers? (2-7) |
| RE RECORDS -The numeration looks odd: I’d expect a hyphen or no gap at all. Anyway, it’s REDS for Trots(kyites) around REC for public leisure area, and OR (heraldic) yellow. | |
| 19 | Perhaps one who quickly moves a tiny distance (7) |
| WHISKER – Double definition, neither of them hairy. | |
| 21 | Delivered fine cut (5) |
| SHEAR – Aural wordplay (delivered) of SHEER from fine. | |
| 23 | Fighter protects revolutionary British gangland boss, say (2,3) |
| MR BIG -Fighter is MIG, and BR[itish] reversed fills in the required letters. | |
| 25 | Journalist bagging last of lion’s share (3) |
| END – Journalist is, of course, ED, and the inserted last letter of lioN completes. Surprisingly, Chambers’ first definition of end is “the last point or portion”, so share is reasonable. | |
21:01 almost all parsed, so clearly on the wavelength for once today. I had an incorrect MER at ‘flesh’ for ‘family’ until I thought of ‘flesh of my flesh’. SEPTICAEMIA took the longest – never fun when you can’t see an anagram. Obviously it’s always British, but somehow it felt more British than usual today, with ‘flipping’, ‘Sugar’ (though clued generously) and ‘Sizewell’ presumably all being difficult without the knowledge. Thanks setter and Zabadak. (Why Uxbridge?)
Insomnia-slowed 33.41. “Uxbridge” refers to a slot called The Uxbridge English Dictionary (itself a parody of Oxbridge) in the Radio 4 comedy panel game, “I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue” in which contestants provide witty redefinitions, usually based on aural wordplay, of common words (eg “Norway” = “an emphatic “no” in Newcastle”). Uxbridge is in the western fringes of London and its other main claim to fame is that malefactors arrested at Heathrow Airport often make their first appearance at the Magistrates’ Court there.
Thanks Z and setter.
I see, thanks!
In the Rumpole series that court is where the fledgling barristers try out their forensic skill, if any. And it’s the title of the earldom of the Paget family member who lost a leg at Waterloo. Bet you needed to know that!
Not sure about the Uxbridge references
In weightlifting one of the disciplines is the “clean and jerk” so a weightlifter is a “jerker”.
Not too hard. My LOI was SMUT, partially since I was being too clever and assumed “might be so” was a reference to a musical note. Despite living in the US for 40 years, I am old enough to have watched Sooty and Sweep (not that you need to have heard of them to solve the clue), and I knew SIZEWELL was where the nuclear power stations are, and guessed it was also a village.
I don’t understand the reference to the enumeration of RE-RECORD since the enumeration *does* have a hyphen, Oh, just noticed that in the grid it shows wrongly as a word break.
My print of the puzzle has a hyphen which also shows when viewed online in solving mode.
Too hard for me to finish. I had all but three answers in 40 minutes, but then hit a wall.
My chief contender for 16ac was SELF but couldn’t get a handle on the wordplay so it didn’t go in. Eventually I used ‘Check word’ to confirm it was correct but was none the wiser as to why.
I had 3dn as PERENNIAL but wasn’t able to parse it. Eventually a crosser supplied by LAST SUPPER put paid to that idea. PERPETUAL came to me after I had used aids to get SIZEWELL. I needed the blog for the wordplay of the Suffolk village that I didn’t even know was one, and also for APPRAISAL.
Before all that I had a very enjoyable 40 minute solve; just a shame that I then screwed up.
Never would’ve guessed SIZEWELL. Didn’t know the UK magnate either, but had heard of the SUGAR. “Portion” can be found in a primary definition for “end,” but “share” cannot be found in any definition of END.
I have occasionally heard gangsters on tv ask, when presented with a possible job, “What’s my end?”
Knew it was SEPTICAEMIA but never would have known how to spell it. Also failed on REGROUPING, SILAS MARNER and SIZEWELL. Everything else was good fun. Liked BENZ and SELF.
Thanks Z and setter.
16.20
Biffed SCRAP MERCHANT and DEMERARA SUGAR, guessed INCHMEAL ans SIZEWELL, otherwise parsed all.
My favourite Sooty & Sweep character was Ramsbottom, the Yorkshire snake. “I come down ‘ere for a bit of peace and quiet, all I get is a clack full of rusty ‘ooks.” You had to be there.
COD SILAS MARNER
LOI SELF
I think it’s FLESH for kin then removed H and reverse to get SELF
You are correct, of course. I was being unusually economical with my comment!
A pleasant wander through vintage TV and the Suffolk countryside .. this is what the Times crossword should be all about 🙂
Not sure what you are getting at with RE-RECORDS, Z. It has a hyphen, wherever you look ..
Just to clear things up: the clue itself IS marked as (2-7) but the entry is set with the space, which is what threw me. My entry above, culled directly from the club site with my still-working blog creator, shows it with the space.
12:39 but failed the spelling test – serves me right for solving purely on line and anagramming in my head I guess – pen and paper and good old fashioned writing would have avoided the trap I suspect.
MER for me at 15d, in my eyes a re-recording and a cover are different things, but I guess it will do
Fell afoul of the DEMERARA spelling, so a DNF in about 34. Had no idea about SIZEWELL and used the check function to confirm my guess. An enjoyable puzzle but some of the clueing was very tough, starting with 1ac SCRAP MERCHANT and continuing with SELF, SHEAR etc etc. I didn’t mind END because I’ve heard various MR BIGS in Brit crime shows asking ‘wot’s our end?’ when discussing the distribution of the proceeds of crime. Thank you Z.
From Mississippi:
All my powers of expression, and thoughts so sublime
Could never do you justice in reason or RHYME
Only one thing, that I done wrong
I stayed in Mississippi a day too long
70 minutes with EGG FLIP and APPRAISAL total biffs. I remember enjoying SILAS MARNER when I read it many a long year ago. My knowledge of Suffolk villages fortunately isn’t vast, mainly consisting of those you drive through on the way to Sizewell. I mainly did that when it was just the magnox station without further letters attached. It took me a while to realise that I didn’t need remember any other villages. This was quite hard, I thought, and I nearly jacked it in a couple of times. COD to HEARSE. LOI INCHMEAL. Thank you Z and setter.
DNF with SIZEWELL and the NHO Egg drink missing after 28 mins or so. The only place I could confidently name in Suffolk is Ipswich but have HO the power station obvs. Glad I gave up because yet again I had the vowels wrong in DEMaReRA.
Despite all that I did enjoy most of it, a stiff test with satisfying PDMs. Thanks both.
Loved the appearance of SIZEWELL, which dominates views along the beaches of Suffolk for a long way. Have been there many times, visiting Minsmere, Thorpeness, Leiston etc.
Remembered to check DEMERARA. Oddly enough, in one of our Christmas efforts a few years ago I had referenced Alan SUGAR the person – my clue was rejected as too obscure.
17’33”, thanks z and setter.
Just under half an hour.
– Didn’t parse SCRAP MERCHANT
– Only knew of SIZEWELL from its nuclear reactor and would have struggled to tell you where it is
– Agree with Paul Johnson above about SELF
– Can’t recall coming across INCHMEAL before, though I do know piecemeal
– Would have struggled to spell SEPTICAEMIA without the checkers
– Not familiar with EGG FLIP as a drink
– Dredged up SILAS MARNER from somewhere (probably one of these puzzles)
– Wasn’t sure about that definition of END, though I note the explanation
Thanks Zabadak and setter.
FOI Tun
LOI Silas Marner
COD Appraisal
17:26. Failed to parse APPRAISAL and SIZEWELL and NHO INCHMEAL. The new nuclear reactor building programme is bringing huge disruption to that part of the county, but it is needed. You can get an excellent and highly educational tour of Sizewell ‘B’. The redundancy and safety elements of the design are very impressive. Thanks Z and setter.
Given the pace of development in renewable and storage technology I’m not sure that’s how things will look by the time it’s finished.
24:41
I was glad for the checkers in order to correctly spell SEPTICAEMIA, and EGG FLIP, INCHMEAL and SIZEWELL were unknowns, but otherwise this was a steady if not fast solve.
A decent test so thanks to both.
9:49, with a major chunk of that at the end staring in increasing desperation at 10ac. I somehow thought of SIZEWELL eventually in spite of having no idea where it is, and reverse-engineered the wordplay.
Otherwise this was a bit of a biff-fest, it would have taken me far longer if I had bothered to parse some of these clues. I did count the vowels carefully for SEPTICAEMIA.
13ac always reminds me of this gag seen on social media:
Judas: ready for the last supper tonight Jesus?
Jesus: yes, looking forward… sorry the what?
Judas: oh just supper, you know, supper with the lads.
But the story has it that Jesus had foreknowledge (though he did briefly get cold feet in Gethsemane), and mentioned to his assembled posse that there was, verily, a snake among them.
I apologise for the lack of exhaustive scriptural research behind my silly little joke 😛
Well defeated today.
Couldn’t get beyond Egg Nog for the drink, or Diss for the village, even though I think it is in Norfolk. Supper=boozer was not one I’ve seen before, and the definition of END as share seems very odd.
I fiddled with those vowels quite a bit to make SEPTICAEMIA fit.
COD HEARSE
Pleasant romp somewhat marred by my carelessly putting SHEER instead of SHEAR. Shame, as my 9:18 would have been quite respectable. I must remember to be more careful next Saturday. COD to HEARSE for me too!
All done in 25 minutes, without seeing how SELF worked, so thank you Z. Local knowledge here all familiar stuff. NHO INCHMEAL but guessed it was a thing like PIECEMEAL.
Difficult, I thought. Took me 50 mins, much of it spent on the NHO EGG FLIP, which I eventually guessed, and the tricky SIZEWELL – which I wrote in without fully understanding how it worked. Thanks for the explanation. Liked HEARSE and SELF, though the latter took some head-scratching before the penny dropped. Very glad to complete this one at all.
This puzzle was a real stinker! APPRAISAL had me stumped for ages, and SIZEWELL? Good grief, I had to peek! But I did enjoy SILAS MARNER and the EGG FLIP, even if I had to guess the last one. The clue for END made me chuckle – share is certainly one way to look at it! Thanks for the laugh, Z and setter. Now, if youll excuse me, I think Ill stick to solving puzzles where the answers are less obscure than a Suffolk village.grow a garden calculator
RHYME was FOI and after 40 minutes I was left with the Suffolk village. I’d got as far as (pr)IZE, and had -IZE-E-L, but was breezeblocked until I looked up Suffolk villages and found SIZEWELL. I was then able to reverse engineer the parsing. 42:09 with a little bit of help. Thanks setter and Z.
I got it all done relatively quickly for a (recent) Thursday, all except SIZEWELL, which escaped me. On reading the blog, I’m glad I gave up after about 5 minutes of head scratching, making no inroads into the wordplay despite all crossers, as the wordplay was too obscure for me (I gave it a couple of minutes of trying and failing to parse before I came here).
Of course, I then realised I had spelled DEMERARA wrong in addition to failing on the the Suffolk village, despite the letters being provided, its pronounciation making me sure it was DEMERERA. Silly boy.
57 minutes. For some reason whenever I try to get the crossword on the site I’m invited to subscribe. Already a subscriber? Log in. So I do, and I just get back to that page. Again and again. A chap at The Times set me up with a backdoor version, which gets me a puzzle (OK but it has no Check or Pause buttons), but he said he’d get their tech people to sort it out. No evidence of this. Didn’t like share = end in 25dn. That Chambers definition surely means “the last point or the last portion”.
See Collins (‘a share or part his end of the bargain’) or ODE (‘a part or person’s share of an activity: you’re going to honour your end of the deal’).
Thanks, yes, ‘end of the bargain/share of the bargain’ makes it quite OK. I hadn’t thought of that. The Chambers definition in the blog is unconvincing.
I’m getting similar error if I try to use the Crossword Club. It wants me to log in then goes to a blank page . I’d rather use the club version as it’s not the new annoying layout.
47 minutes. The tough ones as mentioned above, including seeing the SEPTICAEMIA anagram and working out the parsing of SIZEWELL. At least I remembered INCHMEAL and managed to spell DEMERARA correctly this time.
I wondered about END for ‘share’ as well. The best example that I could find is in the Collins entry for END: sense 7 has “a share or part” and gives the example ‘his end of the bargain‘.
Sorry – I see keriothe has beaten me to it.
I remembered Silas Marner but thought it was Thomas Hardy. Is it a miserable book ?
No it’s quite enjoyable and also, for a George Eliot, short. Better yet is the 1980s tv adaptation with Ben Kingsley.
Didn’t see it, but Kingsley an excellent bit of casting. All I remember from the book is “Eppie in de toalhole” when little Euphemia gets herself covered in coal dust.
I was pretty pleased with myself for finishing this even if it did take 62.45 to do so. However my delight was tempered somewhat when I saw that I had inserted BENY as a supposed obscure engineer for 26ac. How on earth did I not think of BENZ!
SIZEWELL went in unparsed in the confidence that I knew it was located in Suffolk, and I was glad there were enough checkers in the right place to enable me to spell SEPTICAEMIA.
An EGG FLIP, to a recipe of his own devising, would be what Jeeves would give Wooster after a night out.
I put in APPRAISAL and SIZEWELL without being able parse them, and resorted to aids for REGROUPING. Was pleased with myself for working out EGG FLIP. Took over half an hour.
The big ship sails on the alley-alley-oh….. Down in Demerara
I live within 3 miles of Sizewell but failed to solve the clue, despite being surrounded by its various works – building of roads, park and rides, logistics management centre (whatever that is) etc. Completed everything else – even inchmeal of which I have never heard. Very annoying.
Thanks for the blog.
Same! Five miles down the coast and I failed to get it. Are we too close, perhaps?
27:07
For a Snitch of 108, finished well inside my target time of 39 minutes. Not heard of INCHMEAL, avoided coming a cropper with SHEER vs SHEAR, wasn’t sure of LAST SUPPER though the enumeration meant it was the first thing I thought of.
As for LOI SIZEWELL, I had an inkling it was somewhere in that region, but apart from Ipswich, Southwold and Palgrave (a mile over the border from Diss), I’m not sure I could name too many other places in Suffolk. Anyway, failed to parse, and bunged it in due to the absence of any other contenders.
Thanks Z and setter
Why Palgrave? It’s not particularly noteworthy. Just because you cut through it to get from the A143 to Diss?
My great-grandfather was born at The Lion Inn, Palgrave, his father being the innkeeper – no longer exists, now a private house called Lyon House. Around 1878, the family moved to The Railway Tavern, Diss – also no longer exists, now just flats – around 1.5 miles away.
Felixstowe, the UK’s largest container port.
Lowestoft, Aldeburgh. Walberswick, home to Clement Freud
Bury
And half of Newmarket.
1a Scrap Merchant; I didn’t think rant=bombast, but I suppose they overlap a lot.
9a Regrouping biffed. That was a bit recherche.
16a Self. I put this in as a guess. Still don’t understand it. I don’t think flesh=kin works for me… ON EDIT got it! You have to know one of the Abrahamic faiths, Genesis, creation of Eve who is “bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh”. Too closely related to have children really IMHO….
22a NHO Inchmeal.
27a Demerara; Sir Alan is now The Lord Sugar, fwiw. Not sure of the convention here; he hasn’t lost his knighthood so Sir Alan isn’t wrong but isn’t his best handle.
14d NHO Tetragram.
21d Shear, corrected from an initial sheEr.
Thanks to Zabadak & setter.
I had CANT for bombast for a long time…
55 minutes. Glad that I persevered with the NW corner that held me up.
11A TRIES for HEARS as in Court action. I can now decide on INCHMEAL or PIECEMEAL for parsimony.
16A has more resonance with later usage “they’re my own flesh and blood” for “family” than with “flesh of my flesh”, but you could also argue that SHE comes from SHELF : perhaps the setter found another identity. Perhaps. Would explain F(amily) and L(ying), then FL t’ other way about, making LF. Take out the hotel from SHE, et voilà! SELF.
20A clever clue, as we are regaled in the meeja with photos of bears catching salmon and preparing for hibernation.
Never been to Sizewell, but swam off Hinkley Point in the Bristol Channel three months ago, where we were joined by a curious seal! Couldn’t parse APPRAISAL or SELF, but put them in because I could see no alternative. Thanks for explaining. Have read SILAS MARNER, but annoyingly I can’t recall the plot. 21’39”.
P.S. I see my WITCH is exactly 100. Which means that my solving time corresponds perfectly with the SNITCH and I am definitely not a neutrino.
A slow finish in 41:24, but all of them parsed for once.
EGG FLIP and SIZEWELL were my last two in. I visited SIZEWELL A power station in the early 80s, and set off the radiation detectors on exit, with the luminous dial on a watch that I was wearing. I think the settlement nearby is more of a hamlet than a village, being part of the parish of Leiston.
Thanks Z and setter
Nothing wrong with describing The Last Supper as notorious. I mean it was hardly a celebration was it? Judas Iscariot took bread in the knowledge that he would betray Jesus, as did Peter who would later deny knowing him.
Jesus predicted both and still sat down with them. And knowing this, he made no attempt to avert his fate ie the supper was a prelude to self-sacrifice and martyrdom.
As septicaemia is nearly always an emergency, describing it as a mere ‘complaint’ seems a bit of an understatement?
‘Clean and jerk’ is a discipline in weightlifting, so I think the question mark in the clue just makes ‘jerker’ whimsical slang for a weightlifter. Or am I missing something more obvious?
23.12. Pleased to see smut, appraisal and self prove correct. Dear blogger, thanks for the explanations.
DNF. SIZEWELL, eh? Obviously heard of the nuclear thingy; but also know the politics of UK where all nasty things are far from London, so assumed Sizewell was way up north of Liverpool on the Irish Sea, or maybe in Wales or Scotland (like the Poll Tax was). Failed also on SMUT where I had a typo in SEPTICAEMIA without noticing. Knew SOOTY was a sock puppet, but thought he was a dog. NHO SWEEP.
Otherwise liked the puzzle, I enjoy off-beat definitions like “notorious meal”, “ultimate transport”, jerker for weightlifter. HEARSE gets my COD.
As isla3 above, I really enjoyed the off-beat humorous definitions, and fared better on this than I expected to, mainly by a lot of happy biffing. Words like INCHMEAL and SIZEWELL were both NHOs, but the short clues I fared better in. A satisfying romp, a tick for me, even though I was forced to cheat a couple of times just to “move on”. COD HEARSE.
NHO Sizewell or its nuclear connection, so DNF.
I watched Sooty occasionally but the song … don’t recall it at all. Sooty was silent so who sang it?
COD re records, made easier by a hyphen in the treeware.
many thanks to setter and blogger