Time: 28:58
Something of a struggle for me, this one, with entries scattered randomly round the grid, rather than steadily solving from 1ac onwards.
There’s quite a bit of food and drink in here, but not enough to suggest it’s a theme. Something of a question mark for me over 27ac: perhaps people more accustomed to chemistry can be enlightening.
Probably for the only time ever, I’ve tried a rather different style of blogging: I hope it still conveys my reasoning in intelligible form.
Definitions are underlined in bold italics, and letters to be excluded are placed in [], but for the sake of scansion, still pronounced. The definitions, on the other hand, stand outside: they would really mess up the scansion!
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Blair cracked boring, licentious jokes (8) |
| RIBALDRY – An anagram (that’s cracked) of (Tony?) BLAIR
And DRY (as dust) is boring, innit, yeah? |
|
| 5 | Always a cool head in charge, step back (3,3) |
| ICE CAP – Initials of In Charge must be IC
Plus PACE from step is put “reversingly” |
|
| 10 | High tide: newt now swimming in famous picture (4,4,3,4) |
| GONE WITH THE WIND – “Swimming” HIGH TIDE NEWT NOW l An anagram: the film stars Vivian Leigh |
|
| 11 | Ideal university best in surrounding area (7) |
| UTOPIAN – More’s “No Place”: University, just U
Best, TOP and A[rea] in IN will do. |
|
| 12 | Goddess, saint and Magi from the East, not West (7) |
| NEMESIS – Backwards, (from the east) put S[aint] attached to
The Magi, WISE MEN less their W |
|
| 13 | Religious rite snake vocally encourages? (8) |
| ASPERGES – A shortish Latin service prior to Mass
It sounds like URGES (encourages) after ASP |
|
| 15 | Inferior cricketer leaves B&B with a side (5) |
| RAITA – Take two Bs from a RABBIT (a rubbish
Cricketer), add A, and there’s your side (dish) |
|
| 18 | Year one sits periodically for artist (5) |
| ERNST – ‘Twas Max who did diverse artistic bits
Odds (periodic’ly) from yEaR oNe SiTs |
|
| 20 | Thunder from returning beak judge welcomes (8) |
| RESONATE – Your beak, or NOSE (returning) backwards writ
And RATE for judge (the verb) encloses it. |
|
| 23 | Way to get to grips with spinach dish (7) |
| LASAGNE – The way you want’s a LANE, it holds
The SAG or spinach tight within its folds |
|
| 25 | Maidens popular with killer in holiday island (7) |
| MINORCA – Maidens gives just M and popular, IN
And ORCA is a killer (whale), all in |
|
| 26 | Pathetic people causing stir outside Globe are in control (4,3,8) |
| WEAR THE TROUSERS – Pathetic people causing stir are WET
ROUSERS, then EARTH for globe’s the word inset |
|
| 27 | Stand on lab bench or counter (6) |
| RETORT – A double definition, though I thought
The lab one was a flask (stand?!) of a sort The second, a reply to statements made, Is fine exactly as it is displayed. |
|
| 28 | Fine fabric green: nothing better (8) |
| CASHMERE – CASH is your green(s), especially US
And MERE is nothing better, nothing less. |
|
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Kid not allowed spicy food (6) |
| RAGOUT – A kind of seasoned stew, here kid’s to RAG
And OUT for not allowed you on it tag |
|
| 2 | One missed among orders taken by good French dramatist (3,6) |
| BEN JONSON – Orders is ENJOINS, remove the I or one
And place in BON, that’s “good” as spoken in Verdun |
|
| 3 | Prison sentence involving bird for criminal? (7) |
| LOWLIFE – A prison sentence might be LIFE if long
Insert an OWL for bird, you won’t be wrong. |
|
| 4 | Hurried round to shop (3,2) |
| RAT ON – Put RAN for hurried round the TO, then split
For shop, a verb to drop one in – um – it |
|
| 6 | One shrieking denied son milk substitute (7) |
| CREAMER – I never got this powdered stuff dissolved
It’s SCREAMER less a S[on], no more involved. |
|
| 7 | Carpenter put power in lives, overseen by church (5) |
| CHIPS – Not Karen, then. It’s P[ower] in lives, that’s IS
With CH[urch] above, that simply does the biz. |
|
| 8 | Operate bike going round established base (8) |
| PEDESTAL – You PEDAL it to operate a bike
EST[ablished] goes inside, smooth as you like. |
|
| 9 | Constriction sets in so badly (8) |
| STENOSIS – A medic’s term for narrowing of flow,
A (badly) anagram of SETS IN SO. |
|
| 14 | Worker at Versailles possibly planting forest in Germany (8) |
| GARDENER – There’s gardens at Versailles all fine to see
The forest ARDEN’s set in GER[many]. |
|
| 16 | Barge in Bury rent free (9) |
| INTERFERE – To bury is INTER, then “rent” tells us
To make an anagram of FREE and plus. |
|
| 17 | Bull almost hit cow? (8) |
| BELLOWER – I guess a bellower’s a bull, so now
Add BEL[t] for hit cut short to LOWER (cow). |
|
| 19 | Faster animal embracing hard time (7) |
| TIGHTER – Fast can mean tight, or fixed et al
Put H[ard] and T[ime] in TIGER (animal). |
|
| 21 | Previously unrivalled thing in Rome not so great? (7) |
| NONSUCH – In Latin Rome “not” can translate to NON
So great (in English!) SUCH goes thereupon. |
|
| 22 | Problem steamship coming into sound (6) |
| HASSLE – A crossword steamship’s usually SS
Put HALE for sound or healthy round it, yes? |
|
| 24 | Upright female in small fedora? (5) |
| SHAFT – A column rather than the entrance to a pit
S[mall] HAT (fedora), F[emale] enters it. |
|
| 25 | Yacht sanctuary keeps out November seas (5) |
| MARIA – MARINA’s where I keep my yacht (not true!)
N for November disappears from view. |
|
Usual Thursday for me where I missed a couple and didn’t get the parsing of WEAR THE TROUSERS and RETORT, though I had the answer as ‘counter’. Failed to see NONSUCH. Liked INTERFERE when I saw what was going on. Didn’t know a bull was a BELLOWER but the wordplay gave the answer. Thought the clue for GARDENER was very good.
Well done Z, don’t know how you managed to finish the puzzle and compose the blog and still get it out in good time.
Thanks.
It’s Thursday btw 🙂
Thanks.
I didn’t have much trouble with the top half, and would have been even faster if I’d read constriction instead of construction – stenosis is the obvious biff for that. The bottom was tough. Nonsuch is more often spelt nonesuch, and was wondering if maria is actually the correct plural of mare – turns out it is. I had actually thought of bellow-, but I couldn’t get it to parse and abandoned the idea, only to see lower = cow about 15 minute later.
Verlaine had an superb time on this puzzle: just under four minutes. If this were the grand final puzzle, he would probably have won as the contestant most on the wavelength.
Time: 39:14
P.S. If you don’t believe I give the bloggers maximum freedom, you do now!
I loved the rhyming blog!
As an ex lab chemist, a retort for me is a piece of glassware. The stands were called retort stands – because a retort could be clamped to one.
Failed on the puzzle (RETORT just wouldn’t come to mind) but loved the blog. Nice one Z.
I am not sure that i have ever heard of a rubbish cricketer being a rabbit
Nor do i get why seas = maria?
Maria is Latin, but is most notably used for “seas” on the moon.
Rabbit for a poor cricketer is a fairly well established nickname, probably because at the crease they are “like a rabbit caught in the headlights”. You may like to know that an even worse cricketer is a ferret, because “he goes in after the rabbits”.
We had a RABBIT (poor sportsman) in the wordplay for a clue to RABBI in Monday’s QC and there were quite a few comments about it then.
A very long solve but interrupted by a nap. The top half was easier than the lower half, I found. NHO NONSUCH without an E.
Just as well we did, or I would never have understood this clue!
Immortalised by Maurice Tate’s remark to his teammate when Jack White dismissed Bradman: “Hey Whitey, that’s my rabbit”.
DNF… like Vinyl the top half went straight in even with a couple of NHOs, but stuck on the bottom row and a few of its downs. Retort finally went in with a shrug – a flask not a stand, bellower in with a shrug, maria likewise finally thinking moon. But I had INTERJECT for 16dn – RENT* (free) in INJECT for BURY which had caused less of a shrug than the others though I see now has one too many letters. So CASHMERE was impossible. Oh, well.
Edit… loved the blog in rhyming couplets of (mostly) iambic pentameter.
All done in just under an hour…or so I thought. I had put in the letters for 9d thinking I’d go back and check it later but then forgot and I ended up with stonesis instead of stenosis. More care needed.
I too thought a retort was a flask. NHO asperges but wordplay was clear.
Thanks Zabadak and setter.
Ye Gods! what Toils the weary Mind sustain,
When Task and Talent strive with equal Pain.
Full ninety Minutes fled in anxious Care,
With helpful Aids to combat deep Despair;
Though INTERFERE lay veil’d in misty Night,
No Ray of Meaning struck my aching Sight.
Six Terms unknown, by Fame nor Learning bred,
Like Phantoms rose to check the Path I tread;
Yet Patience won—the stubborn Page gave way,
And Perseverance brought the Light of Day.
How sweet the Triumph, and how vast the Gain,
To view great z’s Account in Language plain!
Conclave elects Merlin for Pope by acclamation!
Respect. We need more blogs like this one, and Z’s of course, much harder than it looks.
I can’t speak for z, but this was a pretty simple prompt into Google Gemini.
Here’s the output from Gemini when I asked it to compose Pope-style doggerel from the answers:
An Essay on the Modern Knave
While RIBALDRY and RAGOUT fill the plate,
The GARDENER fears STENOSIS at the gate.
In dreams UTOPIAN, where CASHMERE flows,
MARIA dabs the RAITA on her clothes.
No LOWLIFE now shall INTERFERE or RAT ON,
Or find a PEDESTAL to sit his hat on.
BEN JONSON might RESONATE with wit,
But ERNST in a MINORCA sun-trap bit.
“I WEAR THE TROUSERS!” cries the BELLOWER loud,
In TIGHTER coat than fits a NONSUCH crowd.
The ICE CAP melts; the HASSLE brings a RETORT,
As CHIPS and CREAMER are the ASPERGES’ sport.
The LASAGNE is GONE WITH THE WIND, I fear,
As NEMESIS concludes the doggerel here.
Thank you so much for the laugh Merlin (and I suppose we should acknowledge Gemini too!)
Golly, impressive blog, Z. I shall not be copying it!
I thought this slightly easier than yesterdays, but that might be because I was blogging yesterdays. The Snitch currently says it is marginally harder..
Stand = retort just looks like an error, to me. A retort is a container. I didn’t understand SUCH = “So great” either. But it’s in Collins, and I suppose it works in, eg, “You’ve been such a help.”
There is such a thing as a retort stand, which explains why I had the same mistaken belief as (apparently) setter. Certainly made the clue rather easier!
Agree on retort – a retort stand holds a retort.
Yes, I just assumed this meaning of retort would be found in some big dictionary, but apparently that is not the case. The editor should have caught this.
Edited: the clue has been changed after the puzzle was published. I printed my copy at about 9 EDT, which is 2 BST.
31 minutes but with an erroneous RETURN. I didn’t know the lab definition. A few went in unparsed so I was probably lucky to only have the one error.
Thanks blogger (it was needed today) and setter.
Apologies for the error in the first definition for RETORT. I hope it didn’t hold anyone up unduly.
We will be updating the clue to read: Chemist obtains liquids from this counter (6)
It gave me pink squares, I’m afraid. But I didn’t finish anyway, so no harm.
Nice to see an apology when it was a blatant error, thanks Jason. I too was a chemist once.
DNF again with BELLOWER, ASPERGES and GARDENER missing. I accept I should have seen GARDENER. WEAR THE TROUSERS WAS A BIFF on an otherwise impossible clue, as was CASHMERE. I don’t think in dollars. And I didn’t need reminding of my developing STENOSIS. Not a good day .
14’49” on this Ascension Day. Nice to see ASPERGES. I did get ‘O’level chemistry but clearly never understood the meaning of RETORT, which went straight in.
Thanks z and setter.
48 mins. Started at a sprint with RIBALDRY, crawled over the line in the SE with LOI RAITA and sulking about “rabbit” as GK.
There were a few I made hard work of incl GARDENER and PEDESTAL but only 2 NHOs: ASPERGES and STENOSIS and no complaints there.
Not sure SNITCH is telling the whole story with so few correct finishers, there was quite alot of gristle in this.
Thanks to setter and Zabadak, most entertaining.
Lovely to see the outbreak of iambic pentameter. Pope, indeed! (And a delightful contribution from Merlin). I’m another who happily entered RETORT and moved on so some slack given to setter for that one. At 3 seconds under 25 minutes, this was not as tricky as Thursday can be but still a good workout with ICE CAP, NEMESIS, RAGOUT, CREAMER, INTERFERE and TIGHTER my faves.
Thanks to setter and blogger.
9:43, but with INTERCEDE. I assumed CEDE must be a technical term for leasing something without charge and was perfectly happy with the result. Ah well.
For me this was a mixture of wild biffing (no idea about the parsing of WEAR THE TROUSERS) and construction from wordplay (er, INTERCEDE!). My knowledge of what a RETORT is and isn’t was sufficiently vague that I didn’t think twice about it.
Lovely blog, z.
DNF. Top half went in very quickly. But, failed on RETORT, and never saw CASHMERE or NONSUCH.
I have a problem with MERE = nothing better. I can’t think of an instance in which “mere” and “nothing better” are interchangeable, but I’m happy to be put right. Mere is an adjective only, whereas “nothing better” (without “than”) is not an adjective, it is a noun.
I had “RETURN” instead of RETORT, thinking it was some cryptic reference to the political concept of returning a (Lab party) candidate who stands for election.
NHO ASPERGES.
I agree on MERE: I had the same thought when solving but forgot to mention it.
Easier than yesterday for me with a 25′ finish. Didn’t parse BEN J as I didn’t see “enjoins”, but crossers got me there. Also didn’t know MARIA in that sense, but easily constructed. INTER-cede and – vene both came to mind before I saw the obvious “free” rent apart. I enjoyed TIGHTER.
Thanks Zabadak and setter
My thanks to Zabadak and setter.
Congrats on all the rhymes.
The SW defeated me. I had a few other problemettes.
12a Nemesis, had to be but biffed. I wanted it to be Pegasus who isn’t a goddess but does contain SAGE backwards. But then the magi are plural….
13a Asperges, I HHO asperge the verb and aspersions but this is only distantly related: the verb also means to scatter liquid or dust and the rite involves splashing the congregation apparently. I would take an umbrella if compelled to take part.
15a Raita; it took an age to subtract B&B from rabbit as clearly my brain went AWOL.
23a Lasagne DNF.
26a Wear… took some parsing.
27a Retort DNF. I can’t get to a flask from “stand” as others.
2d Ben J took some parsing too.
7d Chips. I have never heard this; chippy yes, chips no. But this def is in wiktionary so can’t complain (much).
9d NHO Stenosis, but no other combo fitted and used the anagrist.
21d Nonsuch. I DNK it could have an E in the middle. HMS Nonsuch didn’t.
25d Maria seems to be Latin, as noted above.
29:24 Struggled with this and, as with yesterday’s, I was clearly not on the setters wavelength,
Not very keen on CASHMERE but I liked RIBALDRY and ASPERGES (a Jesuit schooling occasionally comes in useful).
Thanks to the setter and to Zabadak for the delightful blog
B and I decided to have a go at this one as it was my birthday with ¾ of a century on the planet. After two sessions over a couple of hours we had all but 21d NONSUCH and 26ac WEAR THE TROUSERS.
On reflection, I liked 12ac NEMISIS, 20ac RESONATE and 3d LOWLIFE.
Others have covered most of my beefs, but have to say that I played a lot of cricket and NHO ‘rabbit’ (but liked the ‘ferret’). Maybe it’s a UK thing.
Also ‘wet rousers’ ? and ‘such’ for ‘so great’ ?
Had to research 13ac ASPERGES to fit what the clue gave us, and also 12ac.
Thought this was a ‘little much’ if anyone has seen ‘the spy who dumped me’.
But this is probably normal for Thursday now, so thank you setter.
Thank you also to poets/appreciators Zabadak and Merlin.
PS At one point we had all the top half and only one clue in the bottom half.
Happy birthday Mayfair!
Many happy ones! Mine’s less than a year away.
Not nearly so easy as Verlaine found it. My list of things to check for their meaning or things I just didn’t understand has seldom been so long. Michael Flanders, in leading up to a song about the difficulty of communicating with scientists, refers to a rude RETORT, which I don’t think was seen by the audience, because they didn’t laugh. But that helped me with 27ac. And I knew the joke about the ferret and the rabbits so that helped with that clue — the word ‘rabbit’ only applied in my mind to golfers but I was reminded. Very clever blog (10ac??) and a lovely reply from Merlin.
It seems today I’m out of wit
My brain is clearly full of rot
Eight answers short, thoughts back-to-front
I’m feeling like a silly fool
A DNF – I’m out of luck!
Oh well, who really gives a damn?
I’m sorry I couldn’t make mine rhyme, but thank you for the wonderful blog!
Strong candidate for biggest laugh of the day!
May the spirit of Monty Python be with U.
DNF in 37.35
I had the revised clue for RETORT but could make nothing of it and bunged in ROTARY. Not the greatest clue that but liked the rest, and eventually nailed it after seeing the TROUSERS answer.
The true star though today is the awesome blog. Wowsers! Incredible! At last, an appropriate use of the exclamation mark!
Nice blog Z(ee)! From CHIPS to BEN JONSON in 31:16 for me. Took ages to see ENJO(i)NS. Never did parse WEAR THE TROUSERS. NONSUCH was a hit and hope! Clue for RETORT had changed by the time I prised my eyes open, and I remembered the flask. Thanks setter and Z.
Seems I was on form today, and would have crept in under 20 minutes had I not so persistently ignored the word FEMALE in the SHAFT clue, repeatedly trying to think of four-letter words for hat (I had STILE for UPRIGHT confidently in until the TROUSERS clue put that to rest). Very much liked it, with a couple of queries resolved by Z’s delightful blog.
DNF, but enjoyed the blog. Best tftt ever.
Very pleased with myself today: 37’ 41”, no cheats. NHO rabbit either, and couldn’t parse a few. But hey.
I finished this in 42 minutes but did not enjoy it that much. Too many clues biffed with just a partial understanding of the parsing, for instance 17dn, and 19dn, and NHO of CASH for GREEN, or ASPERGES as a religious thing, only as French for asparagus.
FOI – ERNST
LOI – HASSLE
COD – GARDENER
Thanks to Zabadak and other contributors.
DNF
Some of this beyond my ken
Dramatist = JONSON, BEN?
The changed clue improved not my sport
Chemist’s stand = RETORT?
And this? I failed to see the light
A SHAFT is also an upright?
Ninja-turtled NONSUCH, mark!
Near Cheam exists a so-named park
With 27, I went round the houses
Failed to parse though, WEAR THE TROUSERS
One final clue left me nigh on baffled
I wondered was it all worth the HASSLE
Thanks Z and setter
30-odd minutes for the puzzle, which plays second fiddle today to Zed’s tour de force.
Save for a brief struggle with STENOSIS (NHO) and ASPERGES (VHO), I shot through the top half in no time at all, but then made very heavy weather of the rest – 34 mins. On seeing ‘Way’ and ‘spinach’ in 23A I thoughtlessly put in PASSAGE, even though I was actually eating a bowl of LASAGNE at the time. I remembered from O-level chemistry that RETORT had something to do with labs. I thought a CREAMER was a small jug but the wordplay was straightforward. Despite Blogger’s explanation, I cannot see how MERE in 28A = ‘nothing better’, but thank you Blogger for explaining NONSUCH. I was beautifully bamboozled by INTERFERE, thinking I was looking for an anag of ‘rent’ to complete the word. First in was RIBALDRY and last TIGHTER. My favourite three clues: to RAGOUT, BELLOWER and MARIA. Thank you Blogger (great to see rhymes in Times for The Times) and Setter.
Thank you Z for the super blog,
Too tough today for this simple frog,
The setter here is such a meano,
I’ll now sit down with a glass of vino!
Z
Brilliant rhyming blog.
Thanks
Close but no cigar after approx an hour of intermittent solving. I failed on RETORT, knowing that knowledge of a bit of lab equipment was required, but was sadly lacking. I opted for an optimistic RETURN, but wasn’t surprised to see it was wrong. My LOI was BEN JONSON, but I didn’t have a clue how it was parsed. The relationship of MARIA and seas was also a head scratcher.
About half an hour.
– Never knew that NEMESIS was a goddess
– Trusted the wordplay for the unknown ASPERGES
– Biffed WEAR THE TROUSERS with no idea how it worked
– Didn’t know that RETORT is a piece of lab equipment, and I spent ages deciding between RETORT and RETURN before fortunately guessing the right one
– Had no idea how MARIA equated to seas, but the wordplay and checkers left no other option
Thanks Zabadak and setter.
FOI Ernst
LOI Retort
COD Ribaldry
All done and dusted in about 40 minutes, although I didn’t know STENOSIS. Could it have been STONESIS? Luckily I plumped for the one that sounded more plausible 😅 ASPERGES and greens for cash were also unknowns, and as I said above, if we hadn’t had rabbit in the quickie the other day, I would never have understood RAITA. At 16d, I tried to free the rent for the anagram, until the eponymous PDM!
Many thanks for a very clever and entertaining blog Zabadak, and thanks too to the setter, for an enjoyable tussle.
48:55. well that was a tricky Thursday… a lot of words that weren’t very familiar (STENOSIS, ASPERGES) as well as some people that don’t immediately spring to mind like Ernst and Ben Jonson. maybe they should, but they didn’t. couple that with some serious misdirection in the wordplay and you have a hard puzzle.
bravo on the rhyming blog, luckily they didn’t have the word Orange as an answer….
Two short again- the Bull and the trousers did for me.
Top half went in nicely though.
It felt a bit like yesterday’s for level of difficulty.
Great blog Z. Thanks Setter.
Great blog, Z. I failed on CASHMERE and wasn’t sure about NONSUCH. I had MARES for seas which made life difficult at 28a.
The blog has been up now for plenty time,
But no one’s asked how “like” and “Leigh” can rhyme.
Well it was only my first draft!
20:30. Quite tricky! LOI CASHMERE. DNK ASPERGES, that a RAGOUT was spicy or that Versailles was famous for its gardens not just its palace, or that a shaft should necessarily be vertical. Whatevs. No problem with the original clue for RETORT (which is what I saw when I solved before 9 this morning) which I knew of only as an abbreviation of RETORT STAND. COD to RAT ON, but the amazing rhyming blog is the memorable bit of the day. Well done! And no I don’t think I will be trying to emulate it. Thank-you rhyming king Z and setter.
A rabbit isn’t a poor cricketer but a poor batter, usually a (good) bowler batting 10 or 11.
Solved in the paper so had the original 27a, which I had no problem with having remembered retort stand from O level days; less sure I’d have solved it from the revised clue.
Very late in the day now but rereading and savouring z8’s marvellous blog reminded me of this exchange, a slightly scary 12 years ago.
https://timesforthetimes.co.uk/times-crossword-25919-madrid-913-761-500
Wow, that’s amazing!
What I don’t get after all these years is why my title referenced the telephone number of the Royal Palace of El Pardo. But hey, we were on fire that day!
I wince when I see my misspelling of Spenser though!
Wow thank you
29.57 but after the last two days failing by one clue, it was nice to finish. Be interested to see what the snitch is.
Loved the blog, well worth a look.
Reminds me of a Rupert (Bear) book.
High (and well-worked) praise indeed!
You’re welcome, though maybe just this time
I’ll write in prose and not in rhy…
Oh bother.
BEN JONSON and RETORT eluded me; ASPERGES, NONSUCH, CASHMERE – slippery! But many a Thursday’s treated me much worse without the compensating blog in verse.
Bravo Z! and thanks setter.
I got a D in chemistry so was perfectly happy with RETORT = stand
DNF though, went with ASPERGIS rather than ASPERGES. To be fair, an urging asp could sound like either.
A belated thank you for explaining those to me
Beaten by interfere- never considered rent was the anagram indicator of free!
Found this really tough going- with CASHMERE and BELLOWER going in with a shrug along with the poet. Very much off the wavelength here!