I can’t really give a time for this, as I made the mistake of doing it on the newspaper site rather than the club, on a notebook computer, wrestling with manoeuvring around the grid and the “skip filled squares” option which I failed to turn off. Combined with my already pathetic keyboard skills, most entries took several goes to put into place.
But I thought (through the frustrations) this was quite gentle, with only one clue, the one about tortillas, defying resolution for any length of time and my last in. I make mine with egg and potato!
My definitions are underlined in bold italics, and most omitted letters are shown in []. Everything else is either self explanatory or I could have written it better.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Small island dividing two areas where pandas are native (4) |
| ASIA – S[mall] I[sland] set between A[rea] and A[rea]. China might want to say it’s only their bit of Asia, but a simple enough starter. | |
| 4 | Saw ideal ground, certainly by one side of the wicket (4,4,2) |
| LAID EYES ON – An anagram (ground) of IDEAL, then YES for certainly and ON for the cricket side to the right of a right hand batsman as he stands at the wicket. | |
| 9 | Job for the summer? (10) |
| ARITHMETIC – Someone who sums is doing the job of arithmetic. I initially tried MATHEMATIC, but to be correct it would need an S on the end or just the first four letters for Americans. | |
| 10 | Something cheesy as basis for tortilla (4) |
| CORN – My last in, where the first definition plays on corny and cheesy as (more or less) synonyms for old hat, hackneyed. I’m reliably informed that a tortilla wrap is made with maize flour. | |
| 11 | Boring place for remote workers? (3,3) |
| OIL RIG – Just a cryptic definition, relying on the assumption that oil rigs are far out to sea. | |
| 12 | First canal location is found close to Kuwait (8) |
| EARLIEST – You have a canal in your EAR, which is also for this purpose found, i.e. LIES by the last letter of KuwaiT. | |
| 14 | Tiny piece, mostly lacking in colour (4) |
| WHIT – Lacking in colour is WHITE; remove the last letter. | |
| 15 | Superficial knowledge is ultimately making a difference (10) |
| SMATTERING – The ultimate letter of is is S, add MATTERING for making a difference. | |
| 17 | Food taken unlawfully, for instance, by gang’s leader (7,3) |
| POACHED EGG – Taken unlawfully POACHED, for example EG and the first letter (leader) of Gang. | |
| 20 | State time to get the ball rolling? (4) |
| PUTT – I PUT it to you… plus T[ime] | |
| 21 | Australian Football League, say, in an excited state (8) |
| AFLUTTER – Take the initials AFL, and add UTTER for say. I believe the AFL plays Aussie Rules, the other game being Soccer to an Ocker | |
| 23 | Type of card penned by a very old, retired writer (6) |
| ASIMOV – The type of card is the diddy one you have in your mobile, a SIM. “Pen” it between A and a reversed V[ery] O[ld]. Asimov is a bit more than retired. | |
| 24 | Epic spinach arancini for starters (4) |
| SAGA – SAG is spinach in Indian cookery, to which you add the first letter of Arancini, the delicious Sicilian fried risotto balls (the ones I had in Rome were both cheap and delicious). I think you have to ignore the plural starters. | |
| 25 | Developed work at The New York Times had to be screened by lead journalist (10) |
| ELABORATED – “At the New York Times” only indicates that we need the American spelling of LABO[U]R, work. Had gives ATE (I had two delicious arancini), and both sections are wrapped (screened) in our beloved ED, the head journalist. | |
| 26 | Singer who’s high? Good heavens, totally! (10) |
| ALTOGETHER – A singer who’s high is an ALTO, then good heavens is intended as an approximation of (ooh) GET HER! Other than they are both expressions indicating incredulity, there’s not much going for the equivalence. I’ve just realised it’s also G[ood] ETHER, which is obviously better. | |
| 27 | Group dismissing article about scandalous gossip (4) |
| DIRT – Take the A article out of TRIAD then reverse it (about). | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 2 | Wandering aristocrat picked up without hesitation (8,3) |
| STRAIGHT OFF – Aural wordplay (picked up), in which wandering STRAY, and TOFF aristocrat provide the sound of our entry. | |
| 3 | Escapade involving cart travelling from way down south (9) |
| ANTARCTIC – ANTIC for escapade contains an anagram (travelling) of CART. | |
| 4 | City known for porcelain fabrications featuring cat (7) |
| LIMOGES – Fabrications are LIES, insert a MOG for cat. | |
| 5 | Almost immediately, he is there with Batman, oddly (2,3,4,6) |
| IN THE SAME BREATH – An anagram (oddly) of HE IS THERE and BATMAN. | |
| 6 | Scrap right inside bar (7) |
| EXCERPT – Perhaps one of the less likely meanings of scrap. R[ight] is inserted into EXCEPT for bar. “All the clues were fine except/bar this one”. | |
| 7 | Effed and blinded with painful bites (5) |
| SWORE – The word SORE for painful consumes W[ith]. | |
| 8 | Composition’s instruction to exclude snare? (5) |
| NONET – Or NO NET, go without a snare. | |
| 13 | One demanding coercive measures — ones certain to be overturned (11) |
| SANCTIONEER – An anagram (overturned) of ONES CERTAIN. I didn’t know this precise noun, but the anagram doesn’t allow anything else. | |
| 16 | Republican dying to eclipse Italian’s first lecture (9) |
| REPRIMAND – Unparsed until now: R[epublican] END for dying, takes in (eclipses) PRIMA, Italian for first as in prima donna. | |
| 18 | Limit of money initially invested in former plant (7) |
| EXTREME – The initial M of money placed in former EX and TREE for the most generic of plants. | |
| 19 | Star quality of extremely genteel loved one (7) |
| GLAMOUR – The extremes (either end) of GenteeL plus AMOUR for loved one. | |
| 21 | A Welsh team periodically turned up, and lost (2,3) |
| AT SEA – The alternate letters of A WElShTeAm reversed (turned up). | |
| 22 | Run away for real (5) |
| LEGIT – Lets call this a DD, the first being two words, LEG IT. | |
I was held up at the end with REPRIMAND since I couldn’t fit any other word but could not make the wordplay work (I didn’t have PUTT at that point). I didn’t think of PRIMA even though it was staring me in the face. Then I had to do an alphabet trawl to get PUTT anyway, since I wasn’t sure what was going on with getting the ball rolling.
I’m not sure an ALTO counts as high. It’s too high for a male tenor and low for a woman.
BTW Tortillas can be made with either corn/maize or flour (wheat). As it happens, I had an enchilada for lunch, leftover from the dinner I made last night.
I wouldn’t call 22 a DD, since the enumeration is (5), not (3,2), but a cryptic hint.
Rememberd SAG as spinach from somewhere, but it’s not in Collins, only “saag,” with no variant given. It is in Chambers, though.
Palak is spinach, sag is just any old greens.
A very enjoyable solve that took me 45 minutes. REPRIMAND went in as my LOI because it fitted and then I saw the definition, but the wordplay evaded me. I share misgivings over ALTO as high.
Well, the word means “high.” Such terms are relative. I vividly remember from my childhood a guy who sang the alti parts in church (from our hymnal with shaped notes), higher than the other fellows.
Not quick but enjoyed the challenge, failing to parse REPRIMAND (thanks, Zed) and finishing with CORN.
46 minutes
Surely we have a TACO as well as a tortilla, in that the sanctioneer is always overturned?
27:18
Hah!
85% done, but with gaps in SE. Really should have got SANCTIONEER, saw the anagram and had some checkers.
REPRIMAND was tough, I had Italian’s first as just I, and was looking for a longer word for dying (there are loads) to contain it. Is PRIMA really a foreign word we are expected to know?
COD CORN
40 minutes. I spent some time at the end on REPRIMAND, eventually working out the parsing before submitting. I’ve never come across SANCTIONEER before but nothing else fitted for the def given the crossers and anagram fodder.
Favourites were the surface for PUTT (a few slow pro golfers could indeed do with a gee up ‘to get the ball rolling’) and the appearance of our football code in AFLUTTER.
19.25
A somewhat less Tricky Thursday than of late, with only REPRIMAND biffed. Another outing for SMATTERING.
I read all ASIMOV’s books as a teenager, as I assume did my musical hero Nigel Blackwell, whose most recent album with Half Man Half Biscuit was called (for reasons still undetermined) ‘All Asimov and No Fresh Air’.
COD STRAIGHT OFF
LOI REPRIMAND
Some comfort to see I wasn’t the only one to find this difficult. 39.56. The group including reprimand and sanctioneer had me close to tearing my hair out!
Steady middle-of-the-road solve today, no undue problems but not a gimme.
Took the ingredients of a tortilla on trust, but corn is quite big in the Americas, isn’t it? No problem seeing alto as high, as Guy says it is what the word literally means.I wondered for a moment if 3dn was ARTHRITIC (it fits!) but thought better of it quite quickly. Nice to see Isaac Asimov, read all of his books as a youth.
Nho sanctioneer and I don’t see it becoming part of my everyday vocab.
LOI ASIMOV once I decided SANCTIONEER had to be a word. I don’t want to be one when I grow up. COD to DIRT, not to be dished with the rest of the girls. A good puzzle. Thank you Z and setter.
Oh dear, what a mess. 16:35 but with a stupid spelling mistake. I thought of MATHEMATICS first and somehow it corrupted my brain’s circuits and I wrote ARITHMATIC.
This was after struggling hugely in the SE corner with EARLIEST (failing to lift and separate ‘first canal location’), SANCTIONEER (odd word), REPRIMAND (saw it as a possibility quite early but couldn’t parse it), PUTT and DIRT (no idea why).
Tomorrow is another day!
15 minutes or so.
– Slowed myself down by bunging in CALCULATOR for 9a, until STRAIGHT OFF set me, er, straight and I got ARITHMETIC once a few more checkers were in place
– Does SMATTERING on its own mean ‘superficial knowledge’? To me it just means a small amount of something
– Failed to parse ALTOGETHER beyond the alto bit
– Didn’t know that LIMOGES is famous for its porcelain, but the cluing was kind
– REPRIMAND went in with a shrug as I thought ‘Italian’s first’ was giving I
Thanks Zabadak and setter.
FOI Asia
LOI Reprimand
COD Putt
I thought the same about SMATTERING but the usual dictionaries confirm it, and I actually recognise it in phrases like ‘he had a smattering of French’.
In retrospect it was very gentle, some real old chestnuts like SMATTERING, LEGIT and EXCERPT. But nevertheless was slow, way off the wavelength. Took a long time to see the foreign word SAG but saw the other PRIMA immediately. Prefer English. First guess for 9ac was mathematician, which didn’t fit, so pencilled in accountant, which did. In the end ARITHMETIC was LOI, after PUTT.
MER at corn tortillas, and remote oil rigs.
DNF. Gave up on 45 with PUTT, DIRT and REPRIMAND missing. Considered REPRIMAND but couldn’t get past I from Italian and even with that pencilled in the other 2 wouldn’t come.
Enjoyed it for about 30 mins, esp. the Stray Toff and of course ASIMOV but that SE corner was beyond me. Thanks setter and Zabadak.
13d “One demanding coercive measures” was a “constrainer” until I looked more closely
Where were you the other day, when we had Perseid, Pegasus, and (stretching it) teleport?
18:24 which anything below 20 minutes on a late week puzzle is good for me. It would have been amongst my best times but for LOI PUTT which was really a case of listing every word that fitted until any matched either end of the clue, as well as indecision about REPRIMAND
I had REPRIMAND in from the R and D before deleting. It finally returned to the grid unparsed as a result of not coming to better if any alternatives.
COD to ELABORATED
Thanks blogger (I went straight to REPRIMAND) and setter.
Started off at a gallop with ASIA, LAID EYES ON, NONET, ARITHMETIC and a few more, but then got well and truly bogged down about two thirds of the way through. Spotted CORN towards the end, but struggled for ages with POI, REPRIMAND and LOI, PUTT. Never did parse REPRIMAND, so thanks to Z for that. 39:16. Thanks setter and Z.
Same as others, fairly easy except for NHO SANCTIONEER (although is in Collins) and didn’t parse REPRIMAND, expecting I for Italian’s first. Didn’t much like DIRT. Should have seen PUTT quicker, very good. 23 minutes.
My thanks to Zabadak and setter.
Slow, fast, stop was my experience with half a dozen holding out in the SE, eventually got 3 of them.
20a Putt, never occurred to me.
24a Saga biffed. Forgot sag=spinach and don’t think the clue is entirely fair.
27a Dirt, never thought of a triad.
13d Sanctioneer, NHO, not in Cheating Machine, added. Is in Chambers cheater.
16d Reprimand biffed (eventually).
22d Leg it, ho ho.
On holiday and too many beverages last night made this slower than it should have been at just under 40′. Also not helped by confidently writing in Accountant at 9ac (in fact still not overly happy with ARITHMETIC as a “job” or even doing the job of summing). I was happy with “get her” for good heavens and didn’t look for alternatives.
Like some others I didn’t parse REPRIMAND and nor did I see the reversed Triad.
Thanks Zabadak and setter
I too am a bit uncertain about arithmetic as a job.
Job in the sense of task: your job today is to add up all the numbers?
I get the intention, I just don’t think it particularly works, for me anyway
On and off solve, got there in the end but struggled with ARITHMETIC and REPRIMAND. Nearly left biff sCattering in but then managed the parsing. Thanks for the blog.
DNF – gave up around the 40 minute mark with a half-guessed REPRIMAND, which I tried to make work by seeing how I could substitute the first vowel of Roman with an I, and PUTT and ASIMOV – both very gettable when you see the answer – reproachfully blank.
It seemed that the WHIT clue at 14ac was wrong, because I was thinking of white as a colour. Like black, I don’t suppose it really is although people often call them colours. For PUTT at 20ac I was uncomfortable with state = put; only half-convinced by the example in the blog. Z at 16dn the definition isn’t underlined, obvious though it is. REPRIMAND a mystery (like others I was hung up on I = Italian’s first) although it makes sense now. Prima as in Prima Donna should be clear to us.
Finished just under the hour, with a well scratched head. Tough going, I thought. Never did parse REPRIMAND, like others, but at least I got it right. Had ACCOUNTANT for the summer job, which gave me problems with the NW until I realised it was wrong. Can’t imagine that DIRT can be anything other than reverse-parsed, given that assuming or guessing ‘triad’ for ‘set’ is exceedingly unlikely. That said, it was a fair clue. LIMOGES is a write-in if you know it’s famous for porcelain. Enjoyed the stray toff.
19:46
COD: POACHED EGG
Thanks to Z and our setter.
An interrupted solve, somewhere around the half-hour. Another lowly ACCOUNTANT, reduced to trifling summing, until LIMOGES put paid to that. Less forgivable was my (not-quite-100% confident) entry of CODDLED EGGS, being sufficiently pleased to have remembered the word that it was easy to imagine that coddling could also mean stealing. REPRIMAND entered and removed a couple of times, and remained unparsed despite a post-solve stare, so thanks to Z and setter for a fine blog and puzzle.
I’m an alto and I’m low.
A very UNPROLIFIC (only the second time I’ve seen that word) first five mins. Then STRAIGHT OFF opened things up – it took me 24 mins. No real problems; I’ve not met SANCTIONEER (good word) before and it took me a little while post-solving working out the wordplay for REPRIMAND. My favourite clues were to LAID EYES ON (great wordplay) and ALTOGETHER (v funny). An enjoyable puzzle. Thank you to Setter and Blogger.
An ‘excerpt’ isn’t necessarily small. It can easily be quite large and still remain an excerpt. Not sure this synonym is acceptably Ximenean.
About 11 minutes, a couple of them trying and completely failing to parse REPRIMAND, glad to see I wasn’t alone. COD to ASIMOV because I loved the Foundation and robot books.