Time: 19:09. Most of this was pretty standard fair, a mix of well signalled anagrams and a lot of first, last, containing and contents letters, plus a couple of soundalikes. The placenames aren’t too outrageous and anyway are blessed with accessible wordplay, but there are a couple of individual names that might prompt letters to the Editor.
Definitions underlined in bold italics, and I am a prolific user of [] to indicate omitted and unwanted letters.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Fool cancelled radical playwright (7) |
| BERKOFF – Stephen Berkoff, whose theatre style has been described as “in-yer-face”. Appropriately, the fool you need is a BERK, derived from cockney rhyming slang even I can’t be induced to repeat here. Just OFF for cancelled. | |
| 5 | Court order briefly introduced to silence chatterbox (6) |
| GASBAG – ASB is short for Anti Social Behaviour, and an ASBO is a court order (still) in Scotland and N. Ireland to curb such excesses. Here it appears without the O (briefly) stuck into GAG for silence. | |
| 8 | Being sixteen, boisterous and extremely carefree (9) |
| EXISTENCE – An anagram (boisterous) of SIXTEEN plus the extremes of C[arefre]E. Probably should be subject to an ASBO. | |
| 9 | Superficially deals with captains (5) |
| SKIPS – A straight double definition. | |
| 11 | Public secret initially suppressed (5) |
| OVERT – Remove the initial letter of [C]OVERT | |
| 12 | First couple from Hungary trapped in rioting Italian republic (9) |
| LITHUANIA – The first two letters of HU[ngary] contained by an anagram of ITALIAN. | |
| 13 | Die in hot water? (8) |
| BATHCUBE – Die as in a six sided object: a cryptic definition. | |
| 15 | Drunken idiots rolling over floor (6) |
| STINKO – Idiots become NITS, are reversed (rolled over) and attached to KO for floor. Very Wodehousian. | |
| 17 | Flier takes part in viva voce tests (6) |
| AVOCET – Hidden (not very well!) in vivA VOCE Tests | |
| 19 | Snake-like, unusually hypnotic (8) |
| PYTHONIC – An anagram (unusually) of HYPNOTIC. | |
| 22 | Goethe upset with man working as a solicitor? (2,3,4) |
| ON THE GAME – An anagram (upset) of GOETHE and MAN. Solicitor in this sense as one who proffers “a good time, sailor”. | |
| 23 | Uncovered disparagements in, say, King’s promotional description (5) |
| BLURB – That’s be [s]LUR[s] for the first couple of words, and the particular King you need for the surroundings is BB, legendary Blues singer. | |
| 24 | Car manufacturer endorses backing Russian agreement (5) |
| SKODA – No longer the butt of so many jokes, since now owned by VW. Endorses gives OKS, to be reversed (backing). I hope you all know that Russian for yes is DA (Да) | |
| 25 | Narrow-minded Jack stops fighting in case (9) |
| SECTARIAN – The sailor is a TAR, which “stops”, fills in an anagram (fighting) of IN CASE. | |
| 26 | Bloom’s colour about to be hidden by grass (6) |
| HEYDAY – After a brief and fruitless foray through Ulysses, I got to this through the wordplay, DYE for colour reversed and hidden by HAY for grass. Think the first bloom of youth, analogous to Salad Days. | |
| 27 | Foretell old Brit will consume wine (7) |
| PREDICT – The old Brit is a PICT, consuming a generic RED wine. | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Raccoon’s been shot south of British national park (6,7) |
| BRECON BEACONS – An anagram (shot) of RACOONS BEEN tacked onto B[ritish]. | |
| 2 | Intend to wear ripped clothing (7) |
| RAIMENT – AIM for intend inside RENT for ripped. | |
| 3 | Group table depleted in a month (5) |
| OCTET – Don’t think I’ve seen depleted as an indication of gutting before, but it is indeed T[abl]E inside OCT[ober] (pick any one from 12). | |
| 4 | At first, factoids and numbers suit organised admirers (3,5) |
| FAN CLUBS – The first letters of F[actoids] A[nd] N[umbers] plus the blackberry shaped card suit. | |
| 5 | Male races in run for lowly quarter? (6) |
| GHETTO – Male is HE, races TT (Tourist Trophy, most notably on the Isle of Man). GO for run provides the outer covering. | |
| 6 | Hairy beast crouching in small out-of-bounds dacha (9) |
| SASQUATCH – AKA Bigfoot. I think you can get away with a crouching for SQUAT, set inside S[mall] and [d]ACH[a], (out of bounds). | |
| 7 | French city soon collects six grand (7) |
| AVIGNON – Soon translates to ANON, and six (in Latin) VI with G[rand] is inserted. | |
| 10 | Selected MPs secretly follow case surrounding TV (6,7) |
| SHADOW CABINET – Secretly follow is SHADOW, and CABINET is the case that used to surround our cathode ray TV if we were fairly posh, a bit like this. | |
| 14 | Old county Conservative getting even afterwards (9) |
| CLEVELAND – Now split between County Durham and North Yorkshire. C[onservative] gets LEVEL for even, AND afterwards… I guess it works. | |
| 16 | Jockey announced “great success” after losing round in sporting event (5,3) |
| RYDER CUP – A biennial event involving a lot of shouting and abuse. Aural wordplay turns jockey into RYDER, and a great success is a COUP, remove the round letter. | |
| 18 | Public company starts to manufacture excellent product (7) |
| OUTCOME – Public: OUT, CO[mpany] and the starts of M[anufacture] and E[xcellent]. | |
| 20 | Report of bad general situation for molluscs (7) |
| NAUTILI – Slightly tricky for me, because I would pronounce it “naughtily”, but apparently it’s more correct if pronounced as suggested in the aural wordplay (report of) as “naughty lie”, the lie being a general situation. | |
| 21 | Radio astronomer’s source of celestial observations early in year? (6) |
| JANSKY – who has “a unit in radio astronomy measuring the power received at the telescope from a cosmic radio source 10−26Wm−2Hz−1″named after him. New to me. But early in the year his source for such stuff would be a JAN SKY. His compatriot, FEBSKY, doesn’t fit the crossers. | |
| 23 | One way to join equid when cycling (5) |
| BRAZE – And for those of you that don’t like cycling clues, this one’s a ZE/BRA | |
37:08
Submitted off leaderboard, as I used aids. NHO BERKOFF, CLEVELAND, BRECON BEACONS, JANSKY, BLAZE, ON THE GAME.
Didn’t enjoy this at all, especially after yesterday’s corker of a cryptic. It felt like it was set by two setters, lots of gimmes with simple wordplay combined with things like JANSKY, BRECON BEACONS and CLEVELAND, all NHOs and don’t like the ‘and/afterwards’ thing. Too good for me at the end of the day.
This had been going very well until I reached the lower part of the grid where I suddenly found myself stuck on a bunch of clues.
I eventually managed to come up with plausible answers to the troublesome ones in the SE although I’d never heard of BRAZE, and couldn’t explain the wordplay of BLURB and NAUTILI. That was because I never heard of BB King and I didn’t manage to translate NAUTILI into “naughty” (bad) “lie” (general situation).
The troublesome two in the SW did for me however and with 40 minutes on the clock I decided throw in the towel and visit Word Wizard. I suspected 21dn would begin with JAN and it turned out I was right about that, but JANSKY was unknown to me and as I was missing the Y-checker I was never going to come up with him. The arrival of that Y could have helped me with the remaining absentee HEYDEY but having already resorted to aids I wasn’t in the mood to begin an alphabet trawl at that late stage.
These problems aside, I really enjoyed the rest of the puzzle.
I’m astonished you haven’t heard of BB King, j. Arguably the most famous blues guitarist of all time, whose 26ac was in the 50s and 60s.
BB King is in my cheating machine, so you probably HHO.
51 minutes. Very slow, but with so many NHO’s (as mentioned by commenters above), only vaguely knowns and uncertainties (eg a BATHCUBE as a thing, CLEVELAND as an ‘Old county’) I wasn’t too unhappy. Seeing the likely pangram came to the rescue again for the Z in BRAZE, my LOI and one of the NHO’s and as for EPERGNE on Tuesday, watching low-brow TV helped with SASQUATCH.
Favourite was the misleading botanical surface for HEYDAY.
Had a go this one and got there, mostly fully parsed – but it took some time.
Had to look up 1ac BERKOFF, 21d JANSKY and 1d BRECON BEACONS to fit clues.
Rather admired 22ac ON THE GAME for the tricky solicitor reference.
Not so much with 13ac BATHCUBE and 14d CLEVELAND.
Is that a golf reference perhaps in 20d NAUTILI ?
LOI 25ac SECTARIAN.
Thank you setter for a difficult – but at least doable – Thursday.
On reflection having read some posts by others I respect, maybe this one just suited my friend and myself. And of course, technically, we cheated.
Thank you, branch.
Errr… Zabadak not branch.
32.55 but I feel very happy just to have finished – this was a frisky Thursday offering in my book. I only managed to get JANSKY because I was thinking of the pangram and my LOI – HEYDAY – had me chewing over it for what seemed like days. Very good clue or just me being dim?
Failed at Jansky, Heydey and sectarian, was delighted by Blurb, and Brecon Beacons, all good fun, thanks all, Cx
A bit of a mixed bag but helped by having Brecon Beacons as a write in down the lefthand side.
CoD to BLURB.
This is mine for my novel, Jan the Dutchman, out April.
“Terry Bailey was on holiday in The Gambia, enjoying his retirement from MI6 when he spotted someone in a car. He was convinced that it was Jan the Dutchman, a drug overlord linked to a Colombian cartel. This was a shock to him as Jan was dead. Terry should know; he had killed him.
Only one other person knew he had done this: Michaela ‘Mike’ Kingdom, a CIA analyst based in London.
It was Jan who had orchestrated the ambush in Holland seven years ago that had killed her husband, Dylan, and severely injured her.
Was Terry tilting at windmills, Dutch windmills, or was Jan really alive and now after revenge?
When he told Mike, it reopened wounds long healed.
She knew it was a race to find her nemesis, but where was she to start? All she knew for certain was that he wasn’t called Jan and he wasn’t a Dutchman, but apart from that, it should be straightforward, shouldn’t it?”
A racing start turned into a car crash and I failed to finish with JANSKY completely unknown, CLEVELAND unknown as a county, and HEYDAY very difficult to find if you’ve only got a single “E” in it.
Much harder to finish than start. I assumed BRAZE was a method of fusing two solids together. To me, someone’s heyday is when they are at their best. My avatar’s would be in the mid fifties. I just bunged in BATHCUBE. I was struggling to think of a playwright ending in F before the Brecon Beacons gave me the B. Thank you Z and setter.
Loved JANSKY
Hated AVOCET
The birds are making a comeback and it’s not pheasant….I mean pleasant….aaaargh!!
I’m not a pheasant plucker….
Do you hate birds
(which seems inconceivable),
or just bird words
(which is more believable)?
Cute
A tricky one in places. FOI was OVERT, followed by OCTET and a fairly rapid population of the NW corner, apart from BATHCUBE, which came much later. Despite having lived in CLEVELAND/Teesside/North Yorkshire/Langbaurgh, since 1974 without moving house, it still took a while for the penny to drop. The other hold ups were all in the bottom half. BRAZE, SECTARIAN, an unparsed BLURB, HEYDAY and finally JANSKY. 28:13. Thanks setter and Z.
12:17, with a bit of a panic at the end staring at the clues for CLEVELAND, HEYDAY and JANSKY without much clue as to what was going on. I eventually considered JANSUN, which seemed very unlikely, and then JANSKY, which also seemed unlikely but at least possible. Eventually CLEVELAND just popped into my head from somewhere. I didn’t know that it was an old county but it is at least the name of a place (a city in Ohio, but who’s quibbling?) which was enough.
It has come up a couple times as US President – which I always thought was obscure for non-US solvers. Learning today that there was once a county, and that the Ohio city is well known, made me think for the first time that anyone who doesn’t know the late 19th centurty Presidents by heart might stand a chance, if there were a couple crossers, when he is clued
Certainly a tad trickier as befits the day but things sped up after a slow start and were going well. Until the SW corner where I ran into real problems. Spotting the likely pangram helped with BRAZE and the nho JANSKY but HEYDAY took an eternity as I just didn’t think of DYE and had spent far too long considering REED, RED and the possible abbreviations for ‘about’ – none of which were needed! But that all added up to a 26 minute solve.
In SASQUATCH, I don’t believe SQUAT needs to be ‘a crouching’: Chambers gives ‘crouching’ as the adjectival definition.
Thanks to setter and blogger
Not mad keen on this, either, but maybe that was just because there was so much stuff I’d never heard of (the pesky scientist, the soldering thing) or had only vaguely heard of (Berkoff, Sasquatch). I thought the BATHCUBE clue was rather weak.
I knew of BB King but couldn’t tell you he was a guitarist, let alone, of a blues persuasion. I think I had him confused him with Ben E King, who, I notice, died just two weeks before him.
I was tickled by the Goethe clue. I reckon he would have been up for a bit of how’s your father after a day full of polymathy.
32:45
2 errors after 2 total guesses in JANSUN and REDDEN despite not managing to crowbar REED in there. Shame because up to there this had been the quickest and most enjoyable puzzle this week. Spoiled at the last.
Thanks setter and Zabadak.
There is just so much here I haven’t heard of: BERKOFF, BATHCUBE, STINKO, CLEVELAND (as an (ex) county), JANSKY, BRAZE. Within the clues there was BB King as well.
HEYDAY for ‘bloom’ is obscure to me.
For these reasons, I took ages to get the bottom left corner sorted out, and to get the BLURB/BRAZE crossing pair.
That made this slow for me: all green in 30:12. Snitch seems to be broken (can others see it?), but I thought this was really quite hard given the number of unknowns. However, morning scores look quite fast.
Oh dear, another DNF although I did enjoy this one and had it almost all correct in 20 minutes. JANSKY rang a faint bell and the wordplay seemed okay. My error was caused by the NHO playwright (I dislike plays nearly as much as poetry) and had inserted BARDOLF as being a Shakespearian fool who fitted the checkers. NHO STINKO either but assumed it was Australian or similar. Otherwise a cracker, well blogged Z.
Took a long time, but I finished it, so pleased with that. Some tricky stuff in here.
Thanks, Z.
Several quite easy clues but one or two that I used aids for and after looking them up didn’t feel any regret at having done so, as often happens. Would never have got JANSKY or SASQUATCH, both of which I’d NHO. I even thought SASQUATCH was a mistake because I coined (?) a word ‘asquat’ and forgot about the ‘small’. Didn’t know BERKOFF was radical. Never equated bloom and HEYDAY.
Another DNF, best guess was JANSUN which left the unparsabsle REDDEN. Don’t think I’d have ever equated BLOOM and HEYDAY, even though they’re the same. Didn’t know SQUAT could be adjectival for crouching. Missed BB King, well known, and even as a non-Brit no trouble with Cleveland, Brecon Beacons or Berkoff. So 30 very enjoyably and mostly simple clues, and 2 impossibilities. Liked the bathcube and Skoda – drove a rent-a-car Skoda once, nice car. Good to see Astronowt back on form re: birds and astronomical things.
It’s the other way round – ‘crouching’ is nounal.
Skodas used to be AWFUL before VW started working with them after the wall came down.
Why does a Skoda have a heated rear screen?
To keep your hands warm while you are pushing it.
What do you call a convertible Skoda?
A skip!
Too hard for me. Missing BATHCUBE, SASQUATCH, BRAZE, JANSKY… all NHOs. HEYDAY just too difficult for my lowly IQ. A hard fall back down to earth after yesterday.
I must be one of the few people who have heard of JANSKY and I can even tell you his first name without cheating (Karl) simply because my Anglo-American classmate’s claim to fame when I was at school was that Karl JANSKY was his great uncle! I didn’t get it though and I had 8 clues missing in total, so quite a tricky one.
As noted by our esteemed blogger, Jansky has a specific scientific unit named after him – I guess that’s appropriate for one of the pioneers in the field of radio astronomy.
I sympathise with the majority here, as outside the field he’d legitimately be described as obscure.
The composers and artists who sometimes appear in the grid cause me comparable issues.
Fun puzzle all completed bar “skips”, Jansky” and “braze”. The first is reasonably easy and the others are unknowns.
Didn’t really understand “afterwards” in “Cleveland” and a few synonyms I wouldn’t use interchangeably (“heyday”/”bloom” and “crouching”/”squat”).
Thanks to our setter and blogger.
I was puzzled by this but one of the definitions of ‘and’ in Collins is ‘afterwards’, and it gives the example ‘we pay the man and go through that door’. I can’t say I’m convinced but the setter is off the hook!
Glad not just me (which I usually assume is the case)!
Oh! Thanks for that. The otherwise excellent blog didn’t spell it out for a dumbo like me.
That’s partly because I use Chambers and emerged with something of a fudge!
Quite a few missed. Not even an aid looking up 6 letter flowers was gonna help with HEYDAY. I had HUE for my colour. Never knew JANSKY, toyed with Jan/Feb/Mar but thought “source of” was a device for the initial letter of subsequent words.
Liked BATH CUBE, after passing on Tubs and Robe.
STINKO surely hasn’t been heard in decades. Along with Tight, Squiffy and Blotto I guess.
Should’ve got JANSKY as I have an interest in such matters (as well as a modest Physics degree), but didn’t. Most annoying, as I was toying with the JAN bit. Also failed on HEYDAY.
An early Skoda joke to lighten the day.
Q: How do you double the value of a Skoda?
A: Fill it up with petrol.
I read 20d’s ‘report of bad general’ as sounding like ‘naughty [Robert E.] Lee’.
I quite like that and it does give my preferred lee sound, but it makes “situation” hard to account for.
The answer to British national park as BRECON BEACONS is officially out of date as it has been renamed Bandai Brycheiniog by the Welsh Assembly, anxious as ever to protect the Welsh language heritage. Only about 30 miles north of where I live, if you asked anyone in my neck of the woods where Bandai Brycheiniog was situated, they wouldn’t have a clue; Brecon Beacons yes.
I answered this puzzle fairly rapidly until I got to the lower section where two clues defeated me. I’ve never heard of JANSKY, and as I failed to parse it put in RAMSAY with little hope that it was correct. I was also defeated by BRAZE, and the wheels came off when I was directed to parse it by cycling. Thirty enjoyable minutes nevertheless.
Bannau not Bandai
Failed to notice it had been auto corrected twice. Even my computer rejects the name! I certainly typed in Bannau.
26:40 but…
…a good puzzle bar the impossible crossers – needed aids for the final two. If you don’t know of NHO JANSKY, it’s a long shot to parse his name from the clue. Without the final Y, getting HEYDAY is ten times harder. The rest was enjoyable even though I missed a few bits:
BLURB – failed to parse, though I am familiar with BB King – not sure I’d call him the greatest blues guitarist ever though – always seemed like a one-trick pony to me
HEYDAY – one of the two I needed help with
CLEVELAND – not sure I would have known of this if I hadn’t had a holiday friend years ago whose address was in this county. Still couldn’t justify the AND…
JANSKY – NHO. I wonder how many have.
Liked SASQUATCH and STINKO – sounds like the next great TV detective pairing
Thanks Z and setter
Sped through this at first, even with an incorrect (in multiple ways Bath Bomb) and then slowed down in the bottom half before getting interrupted. Came back and slowly entered the last few of finishing on HEYDAY after a less than certain JANSKY. Probably just over 30 minutes in total over a morning and afternoon session. One of those crosswords of two halves.
COD STINKO
Thanks blogger and setter.
NHO Mr JANSKY and had the same problem of pronunciation as our blogger for NAUTILI, so a 25 minute DNF for me. Consolation came from racing through The Guardian’s offering from Paul, a setter whom I generally find impenetrable.
30 mins and great relief after a run of DNFs. A few NHOs notably JANSKY and STINKO but they were obvs from the wordplay. Couldn’t parse BATHCUBE without the blog. Are they still a thing?
Beaten by JANSKY, HEYDEY and BRAZE. I liked NAUTILI, ON THE GAME and (COD) BATHCUBE. “Fighting” seems a bit of a stretch for an anagram indicator.
Thanks to Zabadak and the setter
My thanks to Zabadak and setter.
Quite doable but I failed nonetheless.
1a VVHO Berkoff; I punted Bercoff and had to look him up. I had forgotten the CRS origin of berk. Just as well really as I have been known to use the term.
9a Skips. I have never abbreviated skipper to skip, but others do I know. I would have said that skipping something isn’t dealing with it, even superficially, but.
15a Stinko, Mrs Andyf says she doesn’t know the term, nor stocious, which surprised me. She is like me a baby boomer.
19a NHO pythonic, but easy to assume it exists. HHO Pythonic but that is not related to normal snakes and I had forgotten that the Delphic Oracle needed a snake.
23a Blurb. NHO BB King, I just assumed we were to use 1 & 2 Kings from the Bible as 2 B(ooks.) I now see though that he is in Cheating Machine, so I HHO and forgotten.
26a Heyday, DNF.
3d Octet, didn’t see T(abl)E so biffed.
14d Cleveland, was totally foxed until I saw keriothe’s explanation above, and still a bit confused.
6d Sasquatch biffed.
21d NHO Jansky, DNF. Guessed Jansco.
23d Braze, enjoyed the cycling zebra. Astonished that anyone NHO this term.
I turned off the clock at 47 mins, having failed to crack BRAZE, which I’ve never met either in crosswords or real life. Also never met SASQUATCH or JANSKY (I was relieved to get the unstraightforward wordplay for the latter) and did not know CLEVELAND used to be a county. Thanks, Blogger, for explaining BLURB. First one in was EXISTENCE closely followed by BRECON BEACONS. My favourite two clues were to BATHCUBE and STINKO. Thank you Setter and Blogger.
What a strange offering- some p**s easy clues offset by some stinkos. Is ‘die in hot water’ the daftest clue of the week?
It depends whether your mind takes you to missionaries and cannibals or not.
I threw in the towel with Heyday and Jansky (whom I should have known) unfinished, and I had to squint at Skips which to me means “didn’t deal with any at all”. Otherwise I made some lucky guesses for the national park and the Berk.
And, very nice to have Astro_nowt back to expressing a proper horror of bird names.