Time: 35:31. I don’t think I know how to explain that time, which makes the puzzle look harder than I think it was, but let’s put it down to the excitement of Christmas, an incipient cold and (shall we say) crafty definitions throwing me well off the scent. I was hoping to make all kinds of Christmassy comments in my write up, but in truth there don’t seem to be any concessions to a seasonal theme. So I’ll content myself with extending warm Yuletide greetings to all solvers, however you fit your puzzling in between the presents, the visitors, the crackers, the eating, drinking and making merry and perhaps the occasional nod to the new-born founder of the feast.
Definitions underlined in italics, deletions and such in [square brackets] and a cavalier approach to everything else.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Organic coal and Big Oil in conflict (10) |
| BIOLOGICAL – A gentle introduction, an anagram (in conflict) of COAL and BIG OIL, with a nod to the current US energy policy, hardly pro-biology. | |
| 7 | Possibly inappropriate part of speech has moved you (3-1) |
| NON-U – Words or actions avoided by posh people, a category invented by Alan Ross but popularised by Nancy Mitford. Just NOUN, the part of speech, with its “yoU” moved. | |
| 9 | Capital of America [?] to celebrate short Scottish singer (8) |
| HONOLULU – A bit mean, you’re looking for A Capital of America. Arguably “of America” is doing double duty, because HONO[R] is the short form of the US version of celebrate. LULU is the Scottish singer, who happens to be 5ft 1in, so arguably, again, also short. | |
| 10 | A bit left in Sprite? (6) |
| FAIRLY – Way too slow on this one just L[eft] within the sprite FAIRY. And I watched Hook yesterday. | |
| 11 | Converts plug by fitting sulphur (6) |
| ADAPTS – Plug is an AD, fitting is APT, and the symbol for S[ulphur] | |
| 13 | Single part rejected by composer (8) |
| BACHELOR – A reverse of ROLE for part tacked on to the composer BACH. | |
| 14 | Shooting the wrong way in football match, perhaps getting sack (8,4) |
| FRIENDLY FIRE – A football match not in a competitive framework is a FRIENDLY, and FIRE comes from sack. | |
| 17 | A patient asks about Bangladesh before sovereignty (4,8) |
| EAST PAKISTAN – An anagram (about) of A PATIENT ASKS for the earlier name of Bangladesh. | |
| 20 | French chapter replacing intro to holy book, accepting that’s how it was written? (8) |
| CORSICAN – So, the holy book is the KORAN, where the first letter is replaced by C[hapter] and SIC, “that’s how it was written” is inserted. Corsica is French territory, of course (Napoleon et al) but as a language it is not French. | |
| 21 | What could give old man wage reduction (3,3) |
| PAY CUT – One of those reverse cryptics, where PAY CUT would give you PA, your old man. | |
| 22 | Better to skip last performance without rehearsal (6) |
| IMPROV – Just couldn’t call it to mind, despite having the V in place. IMPROV[e]. | |
| 23 | Confident United supporter backing attack (8) |
| UNAFRAID – U[nited] plus supporter, FAN reversed, plus RAID for attack. | |
| 25 | Observed fish under discussion (4) |
| EYED – EYED, aural wordplay (under discussion) of IDE, a freshwater fish like a chub. | |
| 26 | Doubly hard to follow small creature in practice (3-7) |
| RUN-THROUGH – Two versions of hard, H[ard] and ROUGH, set after RUNT, the smallest of a litter. | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 2 | Where takeaway choices may be ordained (2,6) |
| IN ORDERS – I’m not wholly convinced by this DD: ordained persons are IN holy ORDERS, and I don’t think it really works without the holy. Your takeaway choices would be in orders you direct to your chippie (other cuisines are available). | |
| 3 | Capable of concealing sign (3) |
| LEO – Simply hidden (concealing) in capabLE Of. | |
| 4 | Boasting about American genius (5) |
| GAUSS – You can find references to Carl Friedrich Gauss as a genius, but I’d prefer if he were identified as a mathematician. It’s US, American, tucked into GAS for boasting | |
| 5 | Cyprus harbours endless grievance, likely to fall apart (7) |
| CRUMBLY – CY is the IVR for Cyprus: I think you can make a case for RUMBL[E] as the endless grievance, but I expect the setter was thinking of GRUMBLE with both ends missing. | |
| 6 | Deploy mouse over cold stuff (4-5) |
| LEFT-CLICK – The select button on my mouse. LEFT as in left over, plus C[old] plus LICK from stuff, both informal versions of beat soundly. | |
| 7 | Lionesses struggling with empty locality still (11) |
| NOISELESSLY – An anagram (struggling) of LIONESSES with L[ocalit]Y emptied. | |
| 8 | Charles de Gaulle’s refusal to store more, mostly in hold (6) |
| NELSON – De Gaulle’s refusal is NON, most famously when blocking the UK wish to join the (then) EEC. ELS[e], for more, fills to give the wrestling hold. | |
| 12 | Pressure on firm getting into traditional drink determined in advance (11) |
| PREMEASURED – P[ressure] RE (on) SURE for firm, the last inserted into MEAD, a traditional (I suppose) drink still available in Tescos | |
| 15 | Defender of literature chewed cud with voters (4,5) |
| DUST COVER – A cod definition, and an anagram (chewed) of CUD with VOTERS. | |
| 16 | Welcoming South American playing old instrument (8) |
| SALUTING – S[outh] A[merican] with LUTING, a verbal form for playing the lute. | |
| 18 | Swan trap snaring head of unusual bird (7) |
| PENGUIN – Possibly from the Welsh pen: head, and gwyn: white. maybe not. Here it’s PEN for swan and GIN, trap, absorbing Unusual’s head. | |
| 19 | Produce Times comic from 1930s (6) |
| FORMBY – Produce leads to FORM and Times (preferably without the capital!) generates BY. George, with his little ukulele in his hand. | |
| 21 | Steal fruit, expending energy for nothing (5) |
| POACH – Replace the E in PEACH with O for nothing. | |
| 24 | P for Pythagoras? (3) |
| RHO – So not Pi but the Greek letter that looks like a P. | |
30:41
Slow start (FOI PAY CUT), and continued slowly. I biffed HONOLULU; dnk the singer (or that she was Scottish) and wasn’t sure about HONO (hadn’t thought that America went with celebrate). I surprised myself by remembering FORMBY, who I only knew of from here.
32 minutes. Not off to a good start, initially picking the wrong def for 1a, but then went elsewhere in the grid and the answers slowly began going in. Most of the subtleties of HONOLULU escaped me though I did know Lulu was Scottish and that she wasn’t tall. I liked the Napoleon-less CORSICAN, GAUSS and LEFT-CLICK but wasn’t so keen on LUTING for ‘playing old instrument’. I was about to submit with an unconfident PAY OUT for 21a and thought I would need an alphabet trawl before inspiration struck.
Merry Christmas to all and thanks to Zabadak and setter
Antepenultimate one in: CORSICAN, POI FORMBY, LOI (at last!) PREMEASURED.
Anyone with a scientific unit named after them is a genius in my book.
I think I first heard of George FORMBY when one of the Beatles mentioned him.
Celebrating with lights and festivities in the dead of winter as the days begin to grow longer is an ancient, virtually universal tradition in which I am happy to participate. “Through the years, we all will be together, if the fates allow…”
I lost track of my solving time which hadn’t been too bad but this was a DNF anyway so it doesn’t really matter. I was stumped by 3d GAUSS. I had considered the wordplay US inside GAS but didn’t recognise it as a word or name and thought ‘boast / GAS’ would be a bit of a stretch so it didn’t go in and I used Reveal.
GAUSS has appeared here as an answer only once before, in a Jumbo last October described by me as the easiest Jumbo ever. I didn’t refer to the clue at the time because it was so straightforward, a hidden answer, with GAUSS defined as ‘unit’ which I naturally took on trust without considering why it was so named.
I wondered why the setter had mentioned the 1930s in the definition of George Formby as he had a very long career and was still topping bills and appearing on TV up to the late 1950s (I remember that well!) but revisiting the clue it has ‘comic from 1930s’ and that’s correct for the decade in which his solo career really took off.
17:37. Good fun except for the slight letdown of ‘ordained’ in clue sharing a root with ‘ORDERS’. I wonder if the most likely place to encounter ‘Gauss[ian]’ overall is in describing normal distributions (bell curves). Just another day here in a country that doesn’t celebrate Christmas, but season’s greetings and much mirth to all once again!
Slightly harder than usual I thought, for reasons mostly already mentioned.. or perhaps just the Christmas refreshments kicking in.. once again, Happy Winteryule to all.
Mead is a truly disgusting drink …
My take on 4D was that it was GUSS (exalted, venerable) around A (American) – though I had to look the word up. I suppose it works both ways, though GA(US)S is better.
I didn’t know that meaning of GUSS, presumably as a contracted form of the proper name August. As a public service, I recommend not looking GUSS up in the Urban Dictionary.
Have just done that and as my surname is Guss, that’s very disturbing, almost as disturbing as when I was told what it colloquially means in German, where I think the name is from originally.
Enjoyed this today, thought HONOLULU worked very cleverly – I biffed it straight away as wee Marie Lawrie jumped instantly to mind as a short Scottish singer.
Thanks Z for the sterling work blogging on Christmas Day, thx setter for a nice, not too taxing puzzle and a merry Christmas to everyone in this marvellous community.
I recommend not looking anything up in the Urban Dictionary.
27:22. I was mostly finished in 18 minutes, but the last 5 took 9 minutes more, finishing with CORSICAN which took me a while to see even when I’d thought of the Koran, and PREMEASURED which need and alphabet trawl. I liked PAY CUT when I eventually spotted how it worked and thought RHO a bit sneaky. Thanks Z and setter and Merry Christmas to all here.
18:56. I found this easy enough to start with BIOLOGICAL going straight in, but rather harder to finish with the likes of IN ORDERS, GAUSS and LEFT CLICK holding me up. Although I managed RHO, I wasn’t overly keen on the assumption that the solver knows the Greek alphabet!
Merry Christmas All 🎅🎄🥳
32.14 so not exactly a Xmas present but enjoyable nonetheless.
May I politely request the blogger amend the word used in their explanation of 2D as it is widely considered an unacceptable slur.
You can, but any local Chinese takeaway is a chinkie and is undoubtably affectionate rather than offensive. Chambers makes the same distinction. We have a similar problem at Spurs…
So you recognise this is problematic but you’re still happy to use it here. You can defend it with whatever authority will back you but it does indeed remain problematic. Curious to know what the room at large thinks but I’m sure everyone’s busy today of all days.
Here in Connecticut, you buy your beer and wine at the packie. This causes a lot of confusion for Brits who hear it and think it is a racist slur, but it is actually the package store. There is an amusing Reddit thread about this, you could look it up.
While I agree in principal that what matters is the intent with which a word is used, this is tricky to convey in print.
Please don’t get us cancelled, I like it here.
I think you mean in principle.
Empirically it still feels horrible inasmuch as we don’t exist in isolation of our own thoughts but have to engage with the rest of the world. So it would be neighbourly if you could remove it
I agree – any affectionate connotation is in the dim and distant past. It was a marker of a racist character in Peep Show about 20 years ago!
Does anyone object to “chippie”? I don’t want to change it again!
Not at all and thank you!
A kindly act, thank you
Far and away the weakness sketch in the whole series, as I have a mind of my own I shall not let myself be told what to think or say by either Mitchell or Webb!
I thought this was going to be easy when I got away to a flying start in the NW corner, but then it suddenly wasn’t.
I had to back out “phi” at 24D (I know the letters but not most of the order in which they appear, or their English equivalent), and I had a 3 minute word search before my LOI appeared.
I couldn’t parse PAY CUT and had to come here – thanks Z!
FOI BIOLOGICAL
LOI PREMEASURED
COD RUN THROUGH
TIME 16:09
Much of this went in reasonably easily but I was stuck with PAY CUT and also with LOI, LEFT CLICK (my excuse being I use a Mac so have not left clicked on a mouse in decades!). I’m happy to give the setter some support around false capitalisation of the T in Times in 19d: an acceptable mislead in my book though, of course, not in t’other direction. Same trick was used with Sprite in 10a, FAIRLY.
Faves today, BACHELOR, FRIENDLY FIRE and UNAFRAID.
Thanks to setter and blogger and a Merry Christmas to all.
25 mins. Slightly off-beat style disguised a puzzle that feels in hindsight like a sub-20.
LOI GAUSS, a bit vague.
Remembered P = Rho via the similarish Cyrillic CCCP = SSSR learned during the 1980 Olympics.
Thanks and while I’m in that era let me wish you a Wombling Merry Christmas.
58:13 but dozed off for 15 minutes of that.
Very chewy COD LEFT CLICK.
Thanks to Zabadak and the setter.
Merry Christmas one and all.
Less than happy with still = noiselessly, since something can easily be noiseless without being still. I’m sure you can think of examples — an efficient runner, a microwave, … Otherwise a pleasant crossword that will be lost on people who buy the paper. 49 minutes.
14:02. I enjoyed this one a lot, some very nice clues and just the right level of difficulty for today.
Collins gives ‘in orders’ as an alternative to ‘in holy orders’ so the setter is off the hook.
Happy Christmas again to everyone here and special thanks to z8 for doing Christmas duty.
Nice steady solve for Christmas Eve evening (for me in California). Having lived in the south of France, I can tell you that any Corsican would object to Corsica being described as “a French territory” as opposed to part of France. They hate it on the island if you say you are going back to France since you are already in France. By the way, Gauss was also a genius astronomer. There is a lovely story of the Mathematics department wanting to name a street at Berkeley after Gauss, but the astronomy department was on the same street so they needed to agree. The maths department sends an emissary to the astronomy department to see if there is an issue. The astronomy professor says “wait, Gauss was a mathematician too?” You can Google “gauss way berkeley” to see where it is and the two departments are indeed the only two departments on it (actually space sciencen not astronomy)
I really struggled with this when I started at the top, but when I tried the bottom half it went in quickly. Yes, I know the Greek alphabet very well, it is covered on the first day of baby Greek. Formby is more of a challenge for US solvers, but it seemed likely. I had a lot left in the top half, but getting one resulted in a cascade. I was left with Honolulu/Gauss, and nearly gave up, but the I saw the capital.
Time: 50:01
Some tricky stuff here after a quick start with BIOLOGICAL. Various familial interruptions bringing festive cheer added to the solving time, but no complaints about that. The SW held out longest, with EYED, FORMBY, CORSICAN and MEASURED last 4 in. 33:12. Thanks setter and Z.
All is calm, all is bright, and all is completed. Merry Christmas all.
19.06, always much slower on line, especially as you can’t see the whole grid at once. I prefer my pen and paper 🙁. Merry Christmas to everyone here and thank you for providing one of my favourite bits of the day. I tried to post the last bit yesterday but was bounced out by Too Many Requests.
19:11 but handicapped by a full Christmas dinner and a glass (and a bit) of red. So I think I could have shaved a few minutes off that if I had realised the Times do a Xmas crossword and had done it in my usual morning slot before the little one wakes up.
No problem with GAUSS with statistics being a large part of my job.
Also an umm around IN ORDERS but what else could it be?
Over complicated the PAY CUT parsing which I should have just bunged in from definition.
SALUTING LOI after I lifted and separated when I didn’t need to which makes a nice change atleast.
COD LEFT CLICK
Also gone from a sub-20 being a rare achievement to getting three in a row.
Thanks setter and blogger for the Xmas shift.
47:52
Only completing today as Xmas Day has far too many interruptions – expecting outlaws stealing more of my time this afternoon. Hopefully, will get a decent chunk of time tomorrow. Nevertheless, I wasn’t really at the races with this one – slow off the mark with several, though I did eventually finish in a flurry/with a flourish.
Thanks Z and setter