What fun! A fine set of clues with some very slippery definitions and a broad range of languages, not just the normal French and occasional German. I can’t say I whizzed through: the whole thing took 20.18, with the Mick Jagger clue providing most of the delaying tactics, possibly only for me.
To keep us entertained/annoyed there are two Bible stories referenced, though you can get away without remembering your hours in Sunday School. There is one (French) word which only rang very faint bells, perhaps as one of those Arthurian mystical places, though it evidently isn’t.
Much enjoyed, which I hope is evident in my expositions below.
Definitions underlined in italics, letters to be lost enclosed in [], explanations otherwise given in eclectic form.
Across | |
1 | Cabinet door to be fixed: source latest info here (6,5) |
NOTICE BOARD – An anagram (to be fixed) of CABINET DOOR | |
7 | Godsend in a climate crisis? Days no longer starting gloomy (3) |
ARK – References the Noah story in a somewhat oblique way, open to discussion in so many ways, preferably not here. D for days no longer starts DARK. | |
9 | Address: perhaps Mick Jagger dropped round (9) |
HAILSTONE – Well, it’s dropped from the sky and it’s round. To address is to HAIL, and Mick Jagger is a (Rolling) STONE. | |
10 | Stunning woman left making confused sound (5) |
BABEL – Referencing the skyscraper myth in Genesis leading to the confusion (maybe from Hebrew בבל, BBL) of language. Stunning woman is (according to the setter, don’t blame me!) a BABE. Add L[eft] | |
11 | Salt brill — tons consumed (7) |
ACETATE – An ester of acetic acid, which must also be a salt. Brill(iant) transforms to ACE in slang which is probably years out of date. Add T[ons] and ATE for consumed. | |
12 | Artemis dances for eminent musicians (7) |
MAESTRI – An anagram (dances) of ARTEMIS | |
13 | Asian last character to remain in United Kingdom (5) |
UZBEK – Last character is, of course, Z, remain becomes BE, both contained in the UK. In 2021, there were around 4,000 such. | |
15 | Influential jazzman has power blowing hard (9) |
ARMSTRONG – Louis, presumably, though Neil played baritone horn at University. I think power gives ARM, as in military power, and blowing hard must then give STRONG, as referenced in the Beaufort scale. | |
17 | Popular movement to ostracise fwightful person? (9) |
BANDWAGON – Ho ho! Jonathan Woss is drafted in to give his pronunciation of D(W/R)AGON as a f(w/r)ightful person. Precede with BAN for ostracise. | |
19 | The writer is taken aback about periodically harsh language (5) |
MASAI – Spoken in the highlands of Kenya and Tanzania. “The writer is” translates to I AM, which is reversed (taken aback) surrounding the even letters of hArSh. | |
20 | Cherished houses close to Wimbledon decorated (7) |
ADORNED – ADORED from cherished takes in the last (close to) letter of WimbledoN | |
22 | Drunk revises inebriation (7) |
IVRESSE – An anagram (drunk) of REVISES. You might guess this is French. Well done! I’ve tried in vain to source its use in English: I suspect it’s in some some sort of florid poetry. Please feel free to advise! | |
24 | This writer is past final stage in development (5) |
IMAGO – Such as when a moth is actually a moth. The writer is: I’M (see above) and past: AGO. | |
25 | Italian score’s recently added for air (9) |
VENTILATE – Air as a verb. VENTI is Italian for 20 (a score) and LATE stands in for recently added. | |
27 | Born in Cambridge alongside Backs (3) |
NEE – The back letters of iN CambridgE alongsidE. For those unfamiliar with Cambridge, the Backs is/are the green areas behind some of the colleges and alongside the Cam affording rather splendid views. | |
28 | Destroy pests initially missed in old art gallery (11) |
EXTERMINATE – Pests are VERMIN, in this case without their initial V, contained in EX for old and TATE the representative gallery. |
Down | |
1 | Drama from Norwegian of humble beginnings (3) |
NOH – Japanese traditional theatre. The first letters of Norwegian Of Humble. | |
2 | Clan’s note welcoming supportive member (5) |
TRIBE – The note is TE (I drink with jam and bread) enclosing RIB, a supporting architectural structure. | |
3 | Horseman mounted donkey in turn to one side (7) |
COSSACK – From Russian. A reversed (mounted) donkey or ASS is inside COCK for turn to one side, as one might cock one’s head. | |
4 | Kylie having mare: bongo out of sync! (9) |
BOOMERANG – Kylie is First Nation Australian for our entry, an anagram (out of sync) of MARE BONGO. Nice surface referencing Charlene of Neighbours, later megastar chanteuse. | |
5 | Running across a motorway south of Lincoln? (5) |
ABEAM – It’s a down clue, so A M[otorway] is south of ABE Lincoln. | |
6 | Publisher of numerous titles retired, saddled with arrears (7) |
DEBRETT – Debrett’s Peerage and Baronetage lists every titled person in Britain. An abbreviated RET[ired] is surrounded by (saddled with) DEBT for arrears. The original John Debrett went bankrupt twice in his publishing career. | |
7 | Very unusual hole in one creature shot in Coleridge (9) |
ALBATROSS – DD, a 3 under par hole in one in golf, and the crossbow victim of the Ancient Mariner immortalised in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Rime (sic). | |
8 | Finding idle amusement when slaughter occurs? (7,4) |
KILLING TIME – An immediate second DD, the second whimsical. | |
11 | Outline a stupid speech where nothing’s deleted (11) |
ADUMBRATION – I thought more to do with shadowing, but Chambers gives “a faint outline”. It’s a stupid speech, A DUMB ORATION with (one of) its 0s deleted. | |
14 | Starts to venture overseas in spare time: travel well (3,6) |
BON VOYAGE – More French(!) but a well enough known expression. The first letters of V[enture] O[verseas] within BONY, spare, and AGE, time. | |
16 | When drunk sing Moon River for Catholic dignitary (9) |
MONSIGNOR – More Italian! An anagram (drunk, again!) of SING MOON R[iver]. | |
18 | Enchanting twins come to disavow origins? (7) |
WINSOME – All you do with this one is knock the first letters off [t]WINS and [c]OME. | |
19 | Drink Bond likes can ruin one’s clothing (7) |
MARTINI – Can is TIN, clothed by MAR for ruin and I for one. I like Kingsman Eggsy’s version: “With gin of course. Stirred for 10 seconds while glancing at an unopened bottle of vermouth.” | |
21 | Cover music composed for two that takes in verse (5) |
DUVET – French again (it’s not pronounced dove et). Music for two is DUET, insert V[erse] | |
23 | “Indian singer” is false answer (5) |
SHAMA – You might have to guess this Hindi song thrush, but it’s just SHAM, false plus A[nswer]. | |
26 | First person given audition gets attention (3) |
EYE – At the last our aural charade: eye sounds like I, first person. |
Entertaining (very) puzzle and blog. I think you’ll find l’ivresse in The Great Gatsby, a novel whose appeal I have never understood! I probably had to mark too many almost identical essays on the book!
14:48
I was surprised to see IVRESSE, but I see that it’s in Collins. 19d was a clever clue, but ‘drink Bond likes’ rather gives the game away. Auntie Mame, by the way, prefers them stirred, not shaken; shaking bruises the gin. NHO the Indian singer. HAILSTONE was my LOI: it took a while to come up with HAIL.
I forgot they use Collins. I looked in Chambers and it’s not there; there must be very few words indeed that Collins includes and Chambers does not.
It’s in my treeware Chambers.
And the app.
Don’t get me started (again) on the vagaries of dictionaries!
Excellent puzzle, and as some would say, not a tricky Thursday. That is, except for the NHO IVRESSE, had to look it up. Loved DUVET, MONSIGNOR and pretty much everything, but COD to ALBATROSS. And back to the lawnmower…
Thanks Z and setter.
39:29: clean solve, no aids.
IVRESSE was LOI, about the only way to get those letters in. Is it even English?
Don’t see Kylie=BOOMERANG. I know they are both Australian, is Boomerang slang for any Aussie?
Great phrasing: such as “dropped round” for HAILSTONE, “publisher of many titles” for DEBRETTS.
Is an ALBATROSS hole-in one even possible? That would be on a par 4.
COD DUVET
Kylie (I learned) is a particular kind of BOOMERANG, flat on one side and convex on the other.
Boomerang. Wiki has:
‘Minogue is of English and Welsh descent (though her surname is of Irish origin) and was named after the Nyungar word for “boomerang”.’ News to me, but the anagram wasn’t hard to spot.
Apparently so. From golf digest: Andrew Magee was a three-time All-American at Oklahoma and a four-time winner on the PGA Tour, but he’ll forever be known for the one-time thing he did more than two decades ago. That’s because Magee’s hole-in-one at the 2001 Phoenix Open remains the lone ace on a par 4 in PGA Tour history.
One of our seniors recently holed in one on the par 4 first hole – and there have been at least a couple of holes in one on a par five at another course in Devon (though this is helpfully downhill).
I was playing with my son and a friend of his at his local course. We were on the Par 5 17th and he was playing his second shot after a 300-yard odd drive. He hit a 3-wood to the green and then said “that’s going to be close” and indeed it was. I had witnessed an albatross.
They have quite a few short par fours these days, usually with a dog-leg or a blind tee shot over a mound, say, where modern players can easily reach the green in one.
Seve Ballesteros, assisted by a very strong tailwind, once missed a hole in one on a par five by about three inches. They’d have had to invent a new name – roc, possibly.
I believe this was in practice and not competition, but don’t know the details.
A hole in one at a par 5 is a ‘condor’
There’s a shortish par 4 on a golf course near me, where there is a plaque dedicated to a member who had a hole in one there many years ago – so yes it’s possible.
Club and ball technology have outgrown course distance to the point where many par 4s are driveable even on championship courses.
The 18th at St Andrews, at only 356 yards, is one such victim. But it defends itself in other ways such as the hidden dip in front of the green known as the Valley of Sin.
IVRESSE is “drunkenness,” a noun (which -esse indicates), not “drunk,” an adjective, which is ivre (or a noun, which is ivrogne). I would have seen it much sooner if it had been defined correctly. Both the Bond and the ALBATROSS clues hand the answer right to you. The definition of HAILSTONE was… creative, but you knew STONE had to be there (and STNE isn’t anything). Put DEBRETT in from wordplay, NHO (though it’s been around since 1769). ABEAM was a new one to me too. And yet my progress thru this was steady and sure—except for that moment of the setter’s ivresse.
But drunk isn’t the definition, it’s inebriation.
Well yes. Drunk is the anagram indicator. Inebriation is the (perfectly sound) definition.
Ah, of course. I actually knew that too, when I solved the puzzle. By the time the blog came out, I had somehow forgotten! It’s been a long day… It did take me longer than it should have to get that answer. So it was my own “moment of ivresse.”
Not only is the Albatross clue barely cryptic, it also manages to deliver a nonsensical surface.
I got IVRESSE from knowing Baudelaire’s poem ‘Le Bateau Ivre’ (the Drunken Boat). And what a lovely word it is too.
Yes, really enjoyed this, thanks setter and zabadak.
Magnifique poème, mais par Arthur Rimbaud.
Enivrez-vous
Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867).
Il faut être toujours ivre. Tout est là: c’est l’unique question.
Pour ne pas sentir l’horrible fardeau du Temps qui brise vos épaules et vous penche vers la terre, il faut vous enivrer sans trêve.
Mais de quoi? De vin, de poésie, ou de vertu, à votre guise. Mais enivrez-vous.
Et si quelquefois, sur les marches d’un palais, sur l’herbe verte d’un fossé, dans la solitude morne de votre chambre, vous vous réveillez, l’ivresse déjà diminuée ou disparue,
demandez au vent, à la vague, à l’étoile, à l’oiseau, à l’horloge, à tout ce qui fuit, à tout ce qui gémit, à tout ce qui roule, à tout ce qui chante, à tout ce qui parle, demandez quelle heure il est;
et le vent, la vague, l’étoile, l’oiseau, l’horloge, vous répondront: “Il est l’heure de s’enivrer !”
Pour n’être pas les esclaves martyrisés du Temps, enivrez-vous; enivrez-vous sans cesse ! De vin, de poésie ou de vertu, à votre guise.
Oh Dear, sorry! I went through quite a heavy time of reading Les Fleurs Du Mal etc. and thought I remembered it from there but I must have been taking on board some Rimbaud as well at the time. Just goes to show you should always check stuff before posting on this site! It was when my wife and I were in the first throes of romance and I used to read her French poetry. I remember I had Baudelaire but also probably an anthology of French poetry where things perhaps got a bit mixed up!
Anyway, thanks for putting me right. Impressive international erudition!
Sorry, I still haven’t managed to get to one of your Sunday blogs – but I will!
And thanks for the extra Baudelaire clip. Just beautiful.
As I went through it translating to English in my head (as I do because I never got to the level of thinking in French which I imagine you do) you realise you are demoting it from an ethereal realm to the pedestrian.
I decided, as a teenager, that I had to learn French because the attempts to translate Les Fleurs du Mal into English in the New Directions bilingual paperback were so dreadful. I said, “This can’t be what made Baudelaire famous!”
Understood. The gulf is enormous.
Talking of which there is a great production of Waiting For Godot currently running in the London West End which I saw the other week with Ben Whishaw (‘Q’ and ‘Paddington Bear’ among other credits).
What Beckett did with the ‘riddle of language’ just knocks me flat.
I was astonished by the difference between Proust in English and in French, the latter is beguiling, the former seems pretentious to me. That said, I only managed to read the first volume of his masterpiece. The inter library loan (ex National Library Canberra) expired before I could start the second, and then reading for uni mostly preoccupied my time.
Yeah, I couldn’t get into Proust via what has been the “standard” translation with the title from Shakespeare. It felt musty, fusty, dusty. But the original pulled me right in.
That’s lovely! I have no memory of it, though I fell in love with Les Fleurs du Mal and the French Romantics at university.
That’s not one of Les Fleurs but from the posthumously published Le Spleen de Paris or Petits poèmes en prose.
I did OK, but I couldn’t parse née and didn’t bother to parse Armstrong, my LOI. I really liked bandwagon, a very creative clue. I didn’t know shama, and only vaguely knew Masai, so the cryptics were most helpful there.
Time: 24:15
12:32 with much head-scratching before HAILSTONE and COSSACK went in. Very much enjoyed BANDWAGON, ADUMBRATION and KILLING TIME. There’s a lot to like here!
I know ivresse from French literature, bien sûr, but after reading the blog, I Googled just “ivresse Byron” and came up with this stanza from Don Juan:
Don Juan was presented, and his dress
And mien excited general admiration;
I don’t know which was more admir’d or less:
One monstrous diamond drew much observation,
Which Catherine in a moment of “ivresse”
(In love or brandy’s fervent fermentation)
Bestow’d upon him, as the public learn’d;
And, to say truth, it had been fairly earn’d.
They don’t write ’em like that anymore…
Well, to be fair, Bob comes close….. 🙂
A decent crossword overall, but ‘dropped round’ for hailstone was distinctly underwhelming. These kind of allusive definitions are brilliant when they work but they have to work. IVRESSE was a bit unnecessary too, I thought.
25:32
Enjoyable puzzle. Finished in about 50 minutes
Thanks Z
No idea about SHAMA but put it in anyway. Since I speak French IVRESSE was not too hard but I was surprised it counted as an English word. Completely stumped by BOOMERANG and the Kylie stuff, and totally defeated by ALBATROSS where I eventually just put in the only word I could fit, with no justification, which was AMBITIOUS. So four pink squares and a DNF for me.
32 minutes but with one look-up as my LOI, IVRESSE. I suspected it was an anagram of ‘revises’ but even with all the checkers in place I couldn’t make anything that looked like a real word. Had I known we were delving into pages of La Rousse I might have made a stab at it. A word that has made it to the TfTT archive on only two previous occasions, in a Mephisto and a Monthly Special.
Apart from that googly this was a very enjoyable puzzle.
Nope. Gave up on the hour with the doubly-unknown crossers of IVRESSE and SHAMA still to go.
‘God save thee, ancient Mariner!
From the fiends, that plague thee thus!—
Why look’st thou so?’—With my cross-bow
I shot the ALBATROSS.
30 mins with brekker (Fat Rascal, hoorah) left me with the, for me, ungettable (or maybe can’t-be-botherable) Ivresse/Shama crossers. Pity about those. I liked the rest.
Ta setter and Z
DNF – surprised to find IVRESSE was a word (and I wasn’t entirely certain of SHAMA either), but a silly mistake elsewhere scotched me.
Thanks both.
DNF – pretty much the same issues as Amoeba above! otherwise very enjoyable puzzle! Thank you both
Very entertaining, at one point I was really struggling but a late burst of speed brought me home in 21.15, with one lookup (SHAMA). Several excellent clues, my personal COD was BANDWAGON – which for me suggests not Jonathan Woss but Lord Brabazon (aka “Bwab”), who on arriving at the station to be told that his train to London had already gone, replied “Gorn? Then bwing another!” Thanks both
Loved this apart from the SE where I was shaken not stirred. I eventually ventured SHAMA and then IVRESSE from the anagram but the rest of the puzzle deserved a better finish. 29 minutes. Thank you Z and setter.
Many a clever clue in this enjoyable, pleasingly international romp.
Speaking of IVRESSE (a word I was actually rather glad to be introduced to, especially with a little trip over the channel on the Xmas horizon — wish me bon voyage if you like), I see that two ‘livers’ are mentioned here, JAGGER and MINOGUE. Always nice to have a spare, I suppose!
I was at it with this for 33 minutes, and I enjoyed every second of it. Great blog too, thanks Zabbers.
11.35
Stared at 22ac for ages before deciding there was only one possible anagram. NEE was too clever for me, also biffed VENTILATE, EXTERMINATE and BANDWAGON.
LOI IVRESSE
COD MONSIGNOR
I saw IVRESSE in a French ferry port café, a notice explaining that it was illegal.
Good puzzle, 12’41” with a typo.
Thanks z and setter.
It’s illegal for minors to be publicly drunk in France…signs are often seen..
About 15 minutes.
– Didn’t know ACETATE was a salt
– Biffed ARMSTRONG
– NHO IVRESSE but it was the only viable option given the checkers and wordplay
– Didn’t know a Kylie is a BOOMERANG
– Agree with Kevin that MARTINI was made very obvious by the definition
– Hadn’t heard of the SHAMA bird but the wordplay made it clear
Thanks Zabadak and setter.
FOI Noh
LOI Ivresse
COD Debrett
18:02 though with a stupid typo
Knew ivre in French so no problem with ivresse
LOI was HAILSTONE which took me a good minute of headscratching, the clue was cleverly phrased
Thanks blogger and setter
29:37
Ivresse an instant write in for me as a French teacher, but I do recognise that it’s a bit of a stretch to expect this sort of vocab to be widely known, and I was a bit surprised to see it. I guess its appearance in the English-language literary works others have quoted gives it a scintilla of legitimacy, though. Otherwise, an agreeable puzzle.
Thanks, Z.
2a Ark. Initially pencilled Eek, week not starting, but couldn’t see any Godsend.
22a NHO Ivresse. The only way to jam the remaining letters into the unches. I don’t like this clue, but only because I’m too ignorant to have the word in my vocab.
27a Nee biffed. Oh, those Backs.
28a Exterminate biffed.
4d Boomerang. Wiki has:
‘Minogue is of English and Welsh descent (though her surname is of Irish origin) and was named after the Nyungar word for “boomerang”.’ News to me, but the anagram wasn’t hard to spot.
23d NHO Shama. Just a bird then, and not from round these parts. I am not keen on this clue.
Apart from those 2 I enjoyed this puzzle.
I am reminded of an undistinguished England wicketkeeper nicknamed “The Ancient Mariner” because “he stoppeth one of three”.
Brilliant! Maybe that was super Jonners talking about his own skills behind the stumps, but not entirely sure.
I just finished up biffing NHO IVRESSE as the most likely formation of the anagrist, which then allowed me to biff the also NHO SHAMA. This was an entertaining puzzle up to then, but in the end I was “shaken, not stirred”.
FOI MAESTRI
LOI EXTERMINATE
COD COSSACK
TIME 9:13
Enjoyed this. I like crosswords with words/meanings I don’t know in them .. they are a learning opportunity 🙂
They are not so common these days but this one had three, all fortunately constructable from the wordplay: Kylie, shama, ivresse.
Am I the only person who knew before doing this crossword that ‘kylie’ was a type of boomerang, one that Mrs Minogue was named after (only for the Kardashian to then be named after her of course)? The obscure foreignism (IVRESSE) and ornithological word (SHAMA) defeated me but it’s always good to learn new words.
I’m happy to join the ranks of those with those with foreknowledge of the ever- returning Kylie, though why I possess that snippet I don’t know.
Shama is a ‘well-known’ female Indian vocalist in Bollywood.
Almost all the tricks employed in this fun puzzle. I wasn’t expecting both a first and a last letter clue but saw 1d in the end. Happy to let the setter educate me with the well indicated unknowns. Every day a school day…Is 7d not a triple definition?
Thanks Z
Gave up and entered the same two as others: IVRESSE and SHAMA as the only likely answers (though briefly considered then rejected SCAMA). A fantastic crossword, but they take the gloss off it, a bit. Surprised to be reminded (yes, known but forgotten) that a kylie was a boomerang. And I believe a boomerang that doesn’t have one convex face is called a stick.
Off to a quick start with NOTICE BOARD and its danglers, apart from COSSACK and BOOMERANG which needed more checkers before arriving. The SW caused some furrowing of the brow before ADUMBRATION allowed BANDWAGON and WINSOME to materialise. That left the SE corner where VENTILATE and EYE arrived leaving the SHAMA/IVRESSE pair. I was quite happy to accept SHAMA as a singer, but dithered over IVRESSE, finally accepting there was no other way the letters could be arranged. 20:35. Thanks setter and Z.
It’s 5 years since I left France but I still seem to be mentally translating everyday things for no reason, and I knew ivresse as quite a common word in France. The rest was straightforward except for SHAMA which I guessed from the wordplay. I didn’t remember a kylie was a boomerang but the anagram said it was. It came back to me. I also bunged in EAR at 26d and had to correct it. Unlike some above, I liked the hailstone definition. 20 minutes. Keep up the good work, Z.
29:29. Just under the half hour.
COD: BON VOYAGE
I remember the cover of the (Peter Green era) Fleetwood Mac album O Pious Bird of Good Omen featured a nun holding a stuffed ALBATROSS. We thought it was pretty funny. After a long day I got this out in 27.28, with some good luck around IVRESSE and SHAMA. Thanks Z.
From Hurricane:
Four in the morning and they haul Rubin in
Take him to the hospital and they bring him upstairs
The wounded man looks up through his one dying EYE
Says What’d you bring him in here for? He ain’t the guy
36 minutes but stupidly I failed to see sham so used aids for SHAMA, and had to look up to see that IVRESSE was really a word. Also used aids on TRIBE, not thinking that a rib was a supporting member, but it is I suppose. Isn’t an albatross simply a score of three under par on a single hole? Certainly Collins supports this. In which case it isn’t necessarily a hole in one. It could be a two on a par five, more likely I should have thought since top golfers tend to reach par fives in two.
You’re right about ALBATROSS but the clue specifies a hole in one, so it’s 3 under par on a par 4 hole.
24.36
In addition to the SHAMA/IVRESSE crossers, TRIBE and the first bit of STONE needed thinkage plus alpha trawl. The temptation to assume there were no other alternatives to HEAD were strong but I persevered.
19:40 – apart from an apparently shared suspicion that IVRESSE was a bit too French and a guess at SHAMA, fairly straightforward.
Either the puzzles have all been on the easy side this week, or I’m in good form; the former probably. Anyway, today followed suit with a finish for me in 26.32, which is well under my target time. I had to leave 22ac to be my LOI as I couldn’t convince myself that the letters required from the anagram formed a plausible word. When there’s a choice of placement I almost invariably put the remaining letters in the wrong place. Today I didn’t, Hooray 🥳
A fun crossword, all done in 22 minutes over a lunchtime pinta. No issues, except a suspicion that words from any European language now seem to be fair game. I have never heard VENTI used except in Italy; and I dragged up IVRESSE from O-level French (in the 60s) and had no idea it was an accepted English word. I wouldn’t of course argue with the dictionaries!
FOI – MAESTRI
LOI – ABEAM
COD – BANDWAGON
Thanks to Zabadak and other contributors.
24:45, with IVRESSE and SHAMA (both NHO) my last two in.
Entered NEE without parsing – needed the blog to see the obvious.
HAILSTONE my COD.
Thanks Z and setter
Fun puzzle. Dredged IVRESSE from somewhere, NHO SHAMA, but easy enough, DNK KYLIE = BOOMERANG. Same as everyone else really, perhaps I should just put an upward pointing arrow and my time!
15:00
25′ after golf. No sign of feathered friends of any kind in my round. Semi-confidently had Jagger as “head-stone” thinking that it might have something to do with address. Subsequently held me up until corrected. LOI NHO IVRESSE, a little unfair I think, but few other options given all checkers. Thanks Zabadak and setter.
50 mins so not quick but a lot to like. ABEAM, HAILSTONE, (TRS still one of the best ever bands imho), KILLING TIME, ARMSTRONG & MONSIGNOR all have a tick.
No probs with IVRESSE luckily, or perhaps not according to my doctor, and oddly, my LOI was ABEAM. Very clever clue.
NHO ABUMBRATION, but once the checkers were in it had to be.
Thanks Z and setter.
All correct again (after guessing the right inches for IVRESSE as my LOI). BANDWAGON and HAILSTONE were amusing.
Enjoyed the blog and the puzzle.
Onward to the quick cryptic!
I read French and German at university, so Margrave yesterday and ivresse today presented no problems. Unfortunately, my knowledge of Indian birds is sadly lacking.
Said the crusty old peer to the peeress
“You can’t accuse me of IVRESSE.
I may be a fou
But I’m never a saoul.”
But there’s no-one she’s like to believe less.
Well, you can do better I’m sure.
40 mins. Thanks setter and blogger.
24:10 but…
…as ‘O’ level French didn’t extend to the word at 22a, I found it a bit unfair and looked it up – foreign word as anagram and all that – didn’t know SHAMA either, but at least that had a more acceptable configuration of letters. I suspect there will be many casual solvers today that will cry foul. The rest was fair enough.
Thanks Z
31:40. DNK IVRESSE. It was the only possible resolution of the anagram, but it looked so unlikely I thought it might not be an anagram after all. So I looked it up to check. And there it was. And it gave me a simple stepping stone to the also unknown LOI SHAMA. I liked HAILSTONE
So many pleasurable clues in here – BANDWAGON edges MARTINI for my COD.
Approx 33’20” – timed at 43’20” on the site with a roughly 10 minute pause that, for some reason, didn’t pause the timer on exit.
I seem to be at odds with most commenters on this puzzle. No objections here about answers like IVRESSE, but strongly dislike BABE for ‘Stunning woman’ and the mocking use of speech impediments as wordplay.
For me, a mostly satisfying puzzle marred by two tone-deaf references.
Thanks to blogger, who also cocked a snook at one of these.