A top quality puzzle, I thought, not difficult but with some tortuous wordplay and a bit of general knowledge needed. 23 minutes.
Definitions underlined in bold, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, anagrinds in italics, [deleted letters in square brackets].
| Across | |
| 1 | Stop off, stopping off in remote region (7) |
| OUTPOST – I’m not sure exactly how to explain this wordplay. POST is an anagram of STOP, so take the OFF away from STOP OFF and rearrange the remaining STOP I suppose. | |
| 5 | Writer backing leading group, penning volume with twisted end (7) |
| NABOKOV -VAN reversed = NAV (‘backing leading group’), insert BOKO = BOOK (volume) with twisted end. Chap who wrote Lolita in 1955 and no doubt some other stuff. | |
| 9 | Paper’s checked by acting Head of News, one writing legal documents (9) |
| DRAFTSMAN – FT’S (paper’s) inside DRAMA then N[ews]. | |
| 10 | City’s a large African city, not the capital (5) |
| URBAN – [D]URBAN I presume. Durban is the seventeenth largest city in Africa, with about 4 million population. Quite large. | |
| 11 | You shouldn’t have weed in lake (5) |
| TAHOE -TA ! (you shouldn’t have, thanks!), HOE (weed the garden). Lake Tahoe is on the border between California and Nevada, I have some friends who live on the California side. | |
| 12 | Making houses the French study with IT (1-8) |
| E-LEARNING – EARNING (making), insert LE (the in French). | |
| 14 | Match organiser arranged one boring game, struggling without funds, right? (8,6) |
| MARRIAGE BROKER – (GAME)* gives MAGE, insert both ARR[anged] I; BROKE = without funds, R[ight]. | |
| 17 | Where drinkers go after getting a round in? (10,4) |
| NINETEENTH HOLE – golf related cryptic definition. | |
| 21 | Assistant referee’s helper books oddly trim Italian star (9) |
| PAVAROTTI – PA (assistant) VAR (referee’s helper), OT (books), T[r]I[m]. | |
| 23 | Receive poor grade in a prestigious university (5) |
| ADMIT – D (poor grade) inside A MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which is a research university). | |
| 24 | Kind of stew with sage I put in another place (5) |
| IRISH – a RISHI is a Sanskrit sage, move the I. No Sunak jokes please. | |
| 25 | Most anxious European saved by a nap in Spain, mostly (9) |
| UNEASIEST – E inside UNA SIEST[a]. | |
| 26 | Spooner’s ideal skin colour gets international agreement (4,3) |
| TEST BAN – Spooner would have said BEST TAN. | |
| 27 | Is she extremely disruptive, tucking into drink? (7) |
| LADETTE – D[estructiv]E inside LATTE a coffee drink. Could be an &lit. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Crank party up with timeless tune (6) |
| ODDITY – OD (DO reversed) DIT[T]Y = time-less tune. | |
| 2 | Tube train less popular? Long to board it (7) |
| TRACHEA – TRA[in] = train, less in; insert ACHE = long. | |
| 3 | Not upset, ambassador and leftist in a row (2,3,4) |
| ON THE TROT – ON T = (NOT)*, HE (ambassador), TROT = leftist. | |
| 4 | Disposition of soldiers in eastern desert after work, for a while (11) |
| TEMPERAMENT – TEMP (work for a while), E[astern], MEN inside RAT = desert. | |
| 5 | Element of renunciation for devoted person (3) |
| NUN – hidden word, slightly. | |
| 6 | Racier English Britpop band covers (5) |
| BLUER – E inside BLUR a Britpop band. | |
| 7 | Film-maker from this country, flipping good egg (7) |
| KUBRICK – UK reversed, BRICK = good egg. Stanley Kubrick’s last film was Eyes Wide Shut, previewed days before he died. It’s one of my top movies along with 2001: A Space Odyssey, Spartacus, Lolita, and more. Best director ever, IMO. | |
| 8 | Very popular track containing say A sharp (8) |
| VINEGARY – V[ery], IN (popular), EG (say), RY (track) with A inserted. | |
| 13 | Shocking swimmer’s return, on swallowing frozen water by lake (8,3) |
| ELECTRIC EEL – ELECT = return, RE (on), insert ICE, add L. | |
| 15 | Ran through Kent area? Tried again to tour it (9) |
| REHEARSED – REHEARD = tried again, in court; insert SE = Kent area. | |
| 16 | Well preserved Plotinus works (8) |
| UNSPOILT – (PLOTINUS)*. | |
| 18 | They may dig verse included in blues (7) |
| NAVVIES – NAVIES (blues) has V inserted. Navvies dug the canals, or ‘navigations’. | |
| 19 | Keen to get hold of book displaying brilliance (7) |
| LAMBENT – insert B for book into LAMENT = keen. | |
| 20 | A day to support Saint David, for example (6) |
| STATUE – ST (saint) A TUE[sday]. | |
| 22 | Run with Jack after what reduction in speed? (5) |
| REHAB – R (run) EH? (what?), AB (Jack Tar, Able Seaman). | |
| 25 | Uniform put on group who serve hot drink in this (3) |
| URN – U (uniform), RN (group who serve). | |
37 minutes.
I had the wordplay at 1ac as:
Anagram [off] of STOP contained by [stopping] OUT (off).
I took far too long over the long answers MARRIAGE BROKER and NINETEENTH HOLE, both of which should have been easy, and their absence until late in the proceedings slowed progress elsewhere in the grid. Nevertheless the quality of clues was high and I thoroughly enjoyed the solve with most of the answers coming from wordplay.
I see that I hurried past OUTPOST without really trying to parse, and I must thank Jackkt.
I also neglected to fully parse MARRIAGE BROKER.
I’ve always thought of LAMBENT in the sense of the first two Merriam-Webster definitions, of “playing lightly on or over a surface: FLICKERING” or “softly bright or radiant,” rather than the third, which fits here. (I think it’s the LAMB part that gets me.)
I have all but one of the Kubrick films Pip mentioned, and some others (in digital form, on hard drives). He really went his own way.
REHAB was one of my last few in, and the definition seems to me rather… adventurous. Bravo, setter.
10:28, really enjoyed this one throughout. Didn’t know NAVVIES. DRAFTSMAN my LOI as I waited for the parse, and I think my favourite. I agree with Jack about OUTPOST.
Thanks both.
12:28. A steady solve today, not getting stuck on anything but with many clues requiring some thought. I think we might have had a Britpop reference recently, and both then and now I instinctively thought of it as a modern reference. Then I stopped and thought that Britpop was about 30 years ago!
We did indeed, and the resulting discussion here was so fascinating, learned, witty and generally just cool that it was quoted by Mick Hodgkin in the newspaper 😉
Of course! I actually discussed it with Mick when we met up at The George.
I totally blanked in the NW corner with 6 clues not solved. On reading Pip’s usual excellent blog I have to conclude that OUTPOST and NHO DRAFTSMAN would still have eluded me had I paused and come back later – but I have no excuse as regards ODDITY or ON THE TROT.
27:21
A few struggles with the challenging wordplay:
OUTPOST was messy, though parsed as per Jack above
MARRIAGE BROKER – from checkers, but did see the BROKER part when revisiting the wordplay – missed the rest
UNEASIEST – bunged in from all checkers with no clue as to how it was constructed – on reflection, this is very good
ELECTRIC EEL – another convolution
I liked STATUE
Thanks P and setter
9:30. Not too hard but required some concentration. Good stuff.
18:19 but I can’t spell NABOKOV
Generally smooth sailing but I forgot to return to try to parse the spelling of our Russian friend and was rewarded with a pink square.
As per our blogger, the answers were straightforward enough once a checker or two was in place but the wordplay was very clever in places.
Thanks to both.
11:50, not helped by initially entering EIGHTEENTH HOLE. Quite a cultural NE corner. I liked “You shouldn’t have” as indicator of TA. I once fell into Lake Tahoe from the upper hull of a windsurfing catamaran (not as much fun as it sounds).
The young Pavarotti
Was terribly spotty
His appearance in ‘Lakme’
Was disfigured by acne.
LOI OUPOST
COD BLUER
I do like a good Clerihew!
For me, the Clerihew is a very silly form of verse – just four lines, not scanning, how easy can that be? So I offer my own:
Proust
used
to
spend all his afternoons and evenings writing A la recherche du temps perdu
41 minutes with LOI E-LEARNING. I might have known BLUR but I’m not getting that modern. I was on the Oasis side of the fence anyway. I was still a middle-aged man back then. Quite a tough but rewarding puzzle. I just about had all the knowledge. COD to VINEGARY. Thank you Pip and setter.
14′ but misspelled NABOKOV. The many write-ins – MARRIAGE BROKER, ELECTRIC EEL, NINETEENTH HOLE, E-LEARNING – once again made me impatient, must slow down.
Thanks pip and setter.
About 20 minutes.
Agree with jackkt’s parsing of OUTPOST, and for NABOKOV I think it’s ‘boko’ (i.e. book with the last two letters ‘twisted’) inside ‘van’ reversed.
Relied on the wordplay for LAMBENT; didn’t fully parse DRAFTSMAN (somehow missed acting=drama); didn’t parse MARRIAGE BROKER; and forgot Rishi as the sage for IRISH.
Thanks setter and blogger.
FOI Outpost
LOI Lambent
COD Tahoe
NABOKOV – that’s exactly what I said in the blog, Chris.
Not quite – you’ve got ‘obok’ there, which wouldn’t fit.
Ah, sorry, my typo. I meant what you wrote!
41m 32s
Thanks, Pip, especially for NABOKOV, TEMPERAMENT and TAHOE.
Mention of KUBRICK reminded me of the movie ‘Colour me Kubrick’ a ‘truish’ story about a conman who impersonated the great director. It starred John Malkovich.
I thought this was an excellent challenge but it was hard, and I was happy to get home in under 40. 1dn ODDITY was FOI and LOs were TRACHEA and TAHOE. Some of these were very demanding (for those who didn’t know about Rishi, for instance) and I’m grateful to Nelson for explaining quite a few, including NABAKOV. I’m still not fully on board with OUTPOST. Kubrick was a great director although I saw A Clockwork Orange a while ago and the years had not been kind.
From Tombstone Blues:
The ghost of Belle Starr, she hands down her wits
To Jezebel the NUN she violently knits
A bald wig for Jack the Ripper, who sits
At the head of the Chamber of Commerce
DNF Too many difficult clues coming together. Started well with NINETEENTH HOLE and ELECTRIC EEL as write-ins. Got the centre out but it stopped there. A lot of time spent with wrong definitions.
8D word play seems wrong. Say should be after popular for it to work out. The clue wording puts EG+A inside RY.
I think the wordplay works, but not quite as stated above. “Very popular track” = V IN RY “containing” EG A.
15.18, not quite parsing everything but as one with Jackkt on OUTPOST and with ChrisLutton for the minor emendation on NABOKOV.
Mildly distracted by the leaky surface for TAHOE, and by the (prescient?) football commentary at 14a: “Match organiser arranged one boring game….” Perhaps England will get more exciting when they actually have to score.
39 minutes, so I was very off the pace today, I was held up at the end by NABOKOV, KUBRICK and VINEGARY.
I think half I was slow this morning, half it was definitely a good challenging puzzle today.
Thanks setter and blogger
13:17
Loved this. The clue for TAHOE was very funny. I biffed TEMPERAMENT and ELECTRIC EEL.
KensoGhost I think the wordplay at 8dn is fine: (v in ry) round (eg A). And I agree with Jack about the parsing of OUTPOST, although out = off seems a bit weak, also with ChrisLutton about it being (boko) in the NABOKOV clue. 39 minutes. In rushing to be in under 40 minutes I biffed TAHOE and MARRIAGE BROKER because that’s what they obviously were, only parsing them afterwards. ‘Ta’ = ‘you shouldn’t have’ strikes me as a bit extreme. If someone picks up my golf tee after a drive and hands it to me, I hardly say ‘you shouldn’t have’.
‘Out / off’ seems okay to me and in more than one sense. For example ‘Turn the lights off / out when you leave the room’, ‘The ship is 10 miles off / out’.
Yes you’re right, but I’m not keen on one preposition or adverb being replaced by another, since there is a reason for the different words. Irrational really, since I’m quite happy with noun and adjective equivalents.
Liked TAHOE, biffed NABOKOV, OUTPOST and LOI TEMPERAMENT. Everything else understood. Thanks for the explanations Piquet (and others).
16:47
Smooth 25′ or so. OUTPOST only half parsed, and TEST BAN one of the few times I got a spoonerism pretty quickly. Enjoyed TRACHEA. Like LindsayO I was interested to watch Clockwork Orange again for the first time since I saw it on its release when I was 14. Oh my it was awful. Thanks Piquet and setter
29:31
Pleased to come in under 30’ for a top quality puzzle: thanks setter.
LOI LAMBENT, NHO but had to be.
Also thanks to Pip and others for the explanations of 1a, 5a, 7d and 14a, all biffed.
25 mins, but had no idea how OUTPOST and DRAFTSMAN worked, so tx for that.
Several biffs inc NABOKOV and UNEASIEST.
DNF. Froze in the NE corner, never thought of Kubrick which should have kick-started me but didn’t, and cheated for NABOKOV, then the rest OK.
On many occasions I got part way there, for instance with 11a TAHOE I thought of “ta” for “you shouldn’t have” immediately, but then stopped thinking for 20 mins whilst I went off elsewhere.
The long ones I generally failed to parse.
Can’t spell PAVeROTTI, so he took an age and wasn’t in Cheating Machine, not sure why not. I did think of VAR eventually (always reluctant to contemplate footie) but thinking he had too few As I stopped thinking and moved on.
Actually got a Spoonerism from just the (pencilled) N! Unheard-of for me.
22d REHAB seemed like cheating but it surely isn’t, just clever and unusual.
I found this a good challenge – not easy, but all very gettable with a bit of thought. Finished in just under 45 mins. Liked REHAB , NAVVIES and TEST BAN, though they tested me and took up the best part of half my time.
My LOI was TAHOE, which is a bit embarrassing since it is less than two hours drive from my home. But LAMBENT was my downfall, since I’d never heard of it and I put LAMBERT which is a unit of brightness, and seemed close enough to “brilliance”. Of course I couldn’t see how the wordplay worked, but that went for several other clues too so I just assumed it worked in some way I had not fully discovered. Fun crossword.
I enjoyed this one. I initially put NABUKOV at 5a then reread the clue and changed it to NABOKOV. FOI was ON THE TROT followed by ODDITY. Next came OUTPOST which I parsed as Jack did. DRAFTSMAN seemed likely for 9a but I didn’t put it in until I had all the crossers. Then I managed to parse it. Surprisingly, BLUR popped straight to mind at 6d. VINEGARY prompted the removal of the posited NIB at the front of 5a and the arrival of the aforementioned NABOKOV, after which KUBRICK hove into view. The SW was the last area to succumb and IRISH was LOI. 16:51. Thanks setter and Pip.
10:10
Mostly enjoyable, though I thought the compiler strayed towards prolixity on occasion. However, that is forgivable when you come across a beautiful clue like 2D TRACHEA, my favourite today. I concur with Guy’s comments regarding LAMBENT: the figurative use was new to me too.
No golf today so I had time to look at this over and after lunch. Struggled at first but it all came together pretty quickly (for me) once I had some letters. NINETEENTH HOLE was a gimme; should have been there now.
LOI was OUTPOST which I struggled to parse; the anagram of STOP was clear and then OUT =OFF as per Jackkt. POI TEMPERAMENT- another hard one to parse.
Very enjoyable puzzle. COD to TAHOE.
David
40 mins, and I’m pleased with that.
Had to take a break before seeing NAVVIES then NINETEENTH HOLE and the rest of the SE.
AEGIS (ISAGE)* has been the answer to a couple of recent clues, so I thought it might be a stew.
Lots of potential words seemed OK to follow OUT at 1A, took time to get OUTPOST.
17:20 – Neatly put-together puzzle solved in a somewhat messier fashion. Never parsed OUTPOST – having bunged in a similarly unparsed OUTBACK – until the crossers sorted me out, so thanks for the explanation, which was less convoluted than seemed likely at first glance.
Finished most of it fairly quickly but had a few left in the SE, including the NHO ‘lambent’, surely more obscure than ‘Rishi’? I misspelt NABOKOV as ‘Nabakov’, so that was another wrong one, which I couldn’t parse. I didn’t quite understand PAVAROTTI till I looked at the blog either , as I thought ‘Varpaotti’ would make more sense but the parsing seems obvious now I’ve looked at the explanation.
Thought I’d finished with all correct and only one unparsed in 36.43, only to discover that, like quite a few others, I thought it was NABUKOV. I didn’t take the hint that because I couldn’t parse it, it must be wrong, but I was so convinced that I’d seen it spelt in this way it must be right.
I’ve been logged out again today (that’s every day since the weekend). Why is it when they change something, it always gives one grief?
41 mins with LOI the NHO LAMBENT once I finally saw the keen/lament bit.
I liked the two long clues and the Spoonerism.
Thanks Pip and setter.
28:27
For me this was the most enjoyable puzzle for a long time – mainly because of the witty surfaces.
Tahoe was COD. Nabokov loved puzzles and I think he would have liked his own clue.
Thanks to Pip and the setter.
37:46
Vaguely remembered LAMBENT as the sort of word used by Derek Jewell on his radio 3 programme in the late seventies. “Verily it is a lambent benison” comes to mind.
Just over 24 mins for me – felt like longer, sitting on a very delayed train home from London. FOI and COD NINETEENTH HOLE. Didn’t understand OUTPOST so grateful for explanations
It looks like I was the only one who went down the (L)USAKA route at 10a. It made the NE corner somewhat trickier than it was!
I forgive YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE for TA, because it allowed the wonderful double-meaning of WEED. Never parsed NABOKOV because I presumed the VOLUME was V. But it couldn’t have been anything else with those checkers. Can’t remember where I first heard of Lake Tahoe. The Godfather? Near Las Vegas, no? 23’44”.
I first read of Lake Tahoe in one of Mark Twain’s books (“Roughing It”?). He was mighty impressed with its beauty. I’ll visit it one day, after I win the lottery…
Excellent puzzle today, with lots of twisting and very witty clues. Almost no unknowns (maybe LAMBENT and ON THE TROT) and the wordplay was always clear, but that didn’t make the puzzle easy and I took 40 minutes for it. Clues I liked especially were DRAFTSMAN (with DRAMA for “acting”), TAHOE with its wonderful surface reading, TRACHEA, VINEGARY and STATUE. A very enjoyable and refreshing solve.
23 more or less
Late entry so just recording my time. Nice puzzle and nice blog
Logged out again, I’m getting fed up with this., and, yes. I do ALWAYS hit the « remember me » button, though God knows why it’s there, ‘cos it doesn’t!
Anyway, I have to say brilliant blog Z. I laughed like at a drain at some of your comments. Much more entertaining than the crossie, IMHO.
No time as I started at eight o’clock this morning and have just finished, having a day full of … you know what!
PRO-AM is not just for golfers, I once won a pro-am tennis tournament at Hurlingham with John Lloyd as my partner. We beat some good guys on the way through and he was very charming.
Thanks again Z and setter.