A pretty straightforward puzzle with some nice witty surfaces. I was delayed with my final two as I’d mis-spelt 18a until I twigged 11d was an anagram. 19 minutes or so.
Definitions underlined in bold, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, anagrinds in italics, DD = double definition, [deleted letters in square brackets].
| Across | |
| 1 | Outside study almost provoke disturbance (8) |
| INCIDENT – INCIT[e] with DEN inserted. | |
| 5 | A year short, late with one’s time machine (6) |
| TARDIS – TARD[y], I’S. | |
| 9 | Military order that would be safer with a guard in place? (4,4) |
| OPEN FIRE – DD, second definition a suggestion. | |
| 10 | Cold place on the borders of Kamchatka, unfortunately (6) |
| ALASKA – ALAS (unfortunately) K[amchatk]A. | |
| 12 | From back of cupboard, finished port (5) |
| DOVER – [cupboar]D, OVER = finished. | |
| 13 | Tricks criminal with tattoos? (9) |
| HOODWINKS – HOOD (criminal), W[ith], INKS = tattoos. | |
| 14 | Guess cupboards hold two types of blood medication (4-8) |
| BETA-BLOCKERS -BET (guess), LOCKERS (cupboards) insert A, B two types of blood. | |
| 18 | In such logic alteration is suspect (12) |
| ARISTOTELIAN – (ALTERATION IS)*. Nice anagram clue. At first I spelt it Aristotleian but 11d forced a rethink. | |
| 21 | First off, candelabra cast little light at night (9) |
| ALDEBARAN – ( ANDELABRA)*, the C taken off for the anagrist. One of the brighter stars, alpha tauri. Also a track from an Enya album, I remembered, I’m an Enya addict while driving. | |
| 23 | Had in mind average temperature (5) |
| MEANT – MEAN = average, T. | |
| 24 | Unwelcoming, cold flat? No (6) |
| CHILLY – C[old], HILLY = flat, no. | |
| 25 | Local rules initially inhibiting genius abandoning popular province (8) |
| LEINSTER – L, R (local rules initially), insert EINSTEIN without the IN = popular. One of four provinces in the island of Ireland. | |
| 26 | Fold down corner of party outfit (3-3) |
| DOG-EAR – DO GEAR = party outfit. | |
| 27 | English football club lets in reserve turning handle for access? (8) |
| USERNAME – E (English) MAN U (football club), insert RES[erve], reverse it all. A bit convoluted. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Tragic heroine was younger it seems without Romeo (6) |
| ISOLDE – if she IS OLDER, she was younger, lose the R for Romeo. | |
| 2 | Cause a split at start of Caribbean holiday (6) |
| CLEAVE – C[aribbean], LEAVE = holiday. | |
| 3 | Stay to remove mould? (9) |
| DEFERMENT – if you could DE-FERMENT something, you could be removing mould. | |
| 4 | They may shake the trees and not the plants (5-7) |
| NORTH-EASTERS – NOR (and not) THE ASTERS (plants). | |
| 6 | Let wife off to roll around in the mud (5) |
| ALLOW – [w]ALLOW. | |
| 7 | Bring to light calamity, as leaving for home (8) |
| DISINTER -DISASTER = calamity, replace AS by IN. | |
| 8 | Most scattered in criminal trespass (8) |
| SPARSEST – (TRESPASS)*. | |
| 11 | Lord’s men fall out in book (4,8) |
| MOLL FLANDERS – (LORDS MEN FALL)*. Took me a while to clock this was an anagram, but getting *O*L at the first word helped. | |
| 15 | Care of a large ship involves months for worker down below (4,5) |
| COAL MINER – CO (c/o, care of), A, LINER (large ship), insert M. | |
| 16 | Criminal holding long spear poised (8) |
| BALANCED – BAD (criminal), insert LANCE a long spear. | |
| 17 | Setting fire to warm underwear, half consumed (8) |
| KINDLING – KIND, (warm, as in kind-hearted perhaps), LING[erie]. | |
| 19 | Incantation contributing to human transformation (6) |
| MANTRA – hidden word. | |
| 20 | Eat very small dinner finally cooked, or take nothing (6) |
| STARVE – (EAT V S R)*, the R from the end of dinner. | |
| 22 | Scientific establishment set up most of tool for cutting wood (5) |
| BALSA – LAB reversed, SA[w]. | |
37 minutes with the intersecting pair ARISTOTELIAN and KINDLING responsible for missing my half-hour target.
The other clue that had delayed me earlier was ALDEBARAN which I constructed from anagrist whilst missing the D-checker. It rang the faintest of bells and it has indeed appeared several times before, including two puzzles I blogged myself 10 and 15 years ago.
I thought ALDEBARAN was a bit unfair, because if you haven’t heard of it the placement of the vowels is pure guesswork. Even if you have heard of it you might not feel completely certain!
I agree with you as so often on this type of clue. I didn’t make the point today only because on this occasion I vaguely recognised the word when I considered the options.
Yes it’s my pet hate also
About 25 minutes. Mostly pretty straightforward after I’d given up trying to squeeze a 13 letter word – “translational” – into the space meant for 12 letter ARISTOTELIAN. LOI STARVE whose parsing completely escaped me until enlightened by the blog. Thanks P and setter.
7:50. Nice puzzle. I had to be careful with the spelling in a couple of places: ARISTOTELIAN (count the vowels) and ALDEBARAN. I was reasonably confident of the vowel placement in the star but not certain so my all-green grid was a relief.
A minor point of personal preference but in 9ac I would underline both definitions, since both meanings of OPEN FIRE are recognisable terms you will find in the dictionary.
24:27
I biffed HOODWINKS (winks=tattoos?), BETA-B, & USERNAME, parsed them post-submission. I saw, or thought I saw (lords men fall)* right off, but could make nothing of it until, like Pip, I got M L. As Pip says, some nice witty surfaces. What Keriothe said about ALDEBARAN. I never notice this problem when it isn’t a problem for me, and it wasn’t, but K could well have left out the ‘a bit’ in his comment.
Hi Kevin, I think P has blogged it correctly as W (with) + INKS (tats); seems to make sense. 🙂
Right, that’s how I parsed it–post-submission. My parenthetical question was where I was when I biffed it.
🙂
I did notice, knew I didn’t know the word, mentally grumbled, but got it right (and it seems v few errors on the leaderboard).
After a bit of post-solve headscratching, I think it was a very vague memory of Alderaan from Star Wars that tipped my subconscious off.
Nice puzzle but done under difficult conditions with distractions (OK I was watching TV, there’s an election on here in Oz) and finished in about 40 I’d guess. Never figured STARVE so thank you piquet. I’ve known ALDEBARAN since it was name-checked by The Stones in 2000 Light Years From Home. One day I must get across the counties/provinces of Ireland.
From As I Went Out One Morning:
As I went out one morning, to breathe the air around Tom Paine
I spied the fairest damsel that ever did walk in chains
I offered her my hand, she took me by the arm
I knew that very instant she MEANT to do me harm
23:55
Neat puzzle – enjoyed solving it.
Thanks, p.
14’35”, slowest in NW.
Like others also had to check / recheck ARISTOTELIAN. Liked MOLL FLANDERS.
Thanks pip and setter.
39 minutes, detained at the end by STARVE and LOI LEINSTER. I needed MOLL FLANDERS to spell ARISTOTELIAN for me. Stupid spelling! I’ve seen ALDEBARAN somewhere before. In the sky perhaps? COD to OPEN FIRE. Thank you Pip and setter.
35′ before going to bed which is unusual. Much fell into place but but LOI ALDEBARAN was just a matter of luckily playing all the notes in the right order.
POI NOR-THE-ASTERS was almost biffed as north-eastern but seeing the clue required a plural I then saw the wordplay. However didn’t quite geddit, living in East Anglia I think of NE winds as bone chilling, but not tree shakers. Westerlies are surely the stronger winds, so it didn’t really work for me.
Thanks Piquet and setter.
Edit: Checked and see the NOR’EASTER is a wind off the NE US coast. Aren’t we boycotting the US yet :)?
35 mins and all good fun.
I knew ALDEBARAN from its appearances in HHGTTG. “If you have to take me apart to get there, then I don’t want to go”. I agree that the vowel placings here are a bit tricksy.
Thanks both.
51 mins and pretty tricky in parts I thought, especially the two already mentioned, ARISTOTELIAN & ALDERBARAN (NHO) my LOI.
I liked USERNAME.
Thanks pip and setter.
Nothing too hard, a fairly steady solve. I was pleased I got the vowels in the right place for ALDEBARAN since I don’t know the name well and other alternatives are pretty plausible. LOI was STARVE.
Just under 20 minutes.
– ALDEBARAN rang enough of a bell for me to get it, though I understand the criticism as the vowels could go anywhere if you don’t know it
– Is ‘Fold down corner’ being used as a verb phrase for DOG-EAR? If so I’m not sure I’ve come across dog-ear as a verb before
– Had heard of MOLL FLANDERS without knowing it’s the name of a book
Thanks piquet and setter.
FOI Allow
LOI North-easters
COD Aristotelian
Yes, re dog-ear. I don’t think I’ve come across it as a verb before either, but it seemed perfectly plausible and it’s in Collins.
29.15. I got bogged down in the incident/ isolde junction and leinster/ username clues.
No complaints a good test and I really liked Isolde and Leinster. Thx setter and blogger.
ALDEBARAN was a nice surprise. The cave paintings at Lascaux suggest that we’ve been telling stories about “The eye of the bull” for about 20,000 years!
27:38. LOI ARISTOTELIAN, where I had to write out and play with the letters. COD the handle for access USERNAME
49m 14s
Thanks, Pip, especially for LEINSTER. I did like 9ac: OPEN FIRE. Very nice clue.
Sure I’m being dim, but couldn’t see why ‘was younger it seems’ = ‘is older’? Are we meant to infer ‘… now’? Went in with puzzlement. Also beaten at the last by USERNAME, which now seems absurdly obvious.
If he (was younger) then now he (is older)
Sorry, just seen Zs comment below
I found this odd, solveable but I didn’t understand lots of the clues.
25a Leinster. Biffed, didn’t have a clue how it worked.
27a Username. Biffed, didn’t have a clue how it worked.
4d North-Easters. Biffed, didn’t have a clue how it worked.
20d Starve. Biffed, didn’t have a clue how it worked.
Thanks piquet and setter.
16:04. Nice puzzle. I wasted some time trying to make 4D EARTH TREMORS and never did manage to parse the correct answer NORTH-EASTERS. LOI LEINSTER. I liked USERNAME. Thanks Pip and setter.
Pleased to get in at just under 20 minutes, as my start was really slow and my finish – on USERNAME – even slower. I was reasonably sure that I was looking for a four-letter football club, reversed or not, and had forgotten (or refused to remember) that football clubs here are always either Arsenal or Manchester United, though City makes an occasional appearance. Even our naughtier setters probably wouldn’t shorten Arsenal to a four letter version. Eventually twigged the clever “handle for access”.
I quite liked ISOLDE, having toyed with CARMEN, even if it was stating the bleedin’ obvious: every one of of us was younger before, is now older. That’s just the way time works, even if you have a TARDIS.
Properly amusing blog, Piquet!
I’m not sure time always does work like that if you have a Tardis. Every time River Song meets the Doctor, he is younger than on the previous meeting, with interesting consequences such as him not recognising his own wife.
It could have been a quick one but frustratingly held up by the anagrams. I wasn’t seeing ARISTOTELIAN (never sure if this is a NHO because whilst I’ve probably never used it or could get it solely from a definition I was confident the word existed once I saw it), ALDEBARAN was a NHO but it was clear what was needed from the word play. I waited for the crossers and thankfully chose correctly.
Hesitated on NORTH-EASTER, KINDLING (consumed made me want to put a word inside another) and STARVE all of which I had only half-parsed. Thankfully, they came to me as I was trying to crack the anagrams.
COD: BETA-BLOCKERS
3/3 this week but feel I may have used up most of my luck.
26.49
A bit sluggish here but all fair apart from ALDEBARAN which was a guess.
DEFERMENT made me smile when coming here as I had no idea how MENT could mean the mould one was DEFERing. One of those where I just put in the obvious answer assuming (correctly) that I was being bit dense
Made rather heavy weather of this as usual, taking 54 minutes. Nothing really very difficult it seemed, although I got utterly bogged down in the 1ac/1dn area. And I wasn’t sure or happy about 3dn, since mould = ferment seems to be rather a stretch.
Collins defines ‘ferment’ as a noun meaning ‘any agent or substance, such as a bacterium, mould, yeast, or enzyme, that causes fermentation’.
14:20 – same thought about DOG-EAR used as a verb as others and my Chambers (app) only suggests dog’s-ear as having a verb form, which doesn’t make a lot of sense if I have read it correctly. A bit surprised to see ALDEBARAN caused some difficulty in this learned group; one of the better known stars, I would have thought.
Just under 37 minutes, so hardest of the week so far for me, but couldn’t really identify what was so tricky about it!
I offer no apology for not knowing the star, with ‘all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order’. Another who couldn’t see how 1d works. If she IS OLDE(r) how does the heroine ‘seem younger’? All fair otherwise. Liked COAL MINER for its neat surface concealing the wordplay in plain sight.
26:42
Took a while to get going but plenty to enjoy once up and running. There was only one I didn’t entirely understand while in flight – LOI NORTH-EASTERS which I bunged in because it fit, and I’ve seen it here before a few times. Only understood the wordplay after the fact. ALDEBARAN dredged up from some dark corner of the mind, don’t know why I knew it. I thought LEINSTER and USERNAME, both of which held me up towards the end, were excellent once the penny dropped.
Thanks P and setter
Good puzzle. Got lucky with ALDEBARAN and needed Pip to explain STARVE. I lked USER NAME and the sneaky DISINTER.
Thanks to Pip and the setter
DOVER was FOI. Needed the crossers and pen and paper to come up with ARISTOTELIAN. Knew the star and how it was pronounced, so no problem with placing the vowels. Took a while to rearrange the fodder into MOLL FLANDERS. BETA BLOCKERS and DEFERMENT arrived thanks to her. Liked COAL MINER. LOI after a puzzled pause, was USERNAME. 27:28. Thanks setter and Pip.
This was a puzzle where I had to use the cryptics to get the answer, so I parsed as I went. You’re not going to fool me on star names, and I know Aristotle as Ἀριστοτέλης, so no problem there. I was left at the end with username, which I suddenly saw and then was able to to parse.
Time: 37:11
I really liked this one! Best so far this week. I especially liked ALDEBARAN, especially since it took me a minute to see it. Seemed to be on the wavelength most of the way. Was happy to think of my POI, LEINSTER, and LOI was SERVE, which wasn’t particularly easy.
My LOI was STARVE, not SERVE (of course). Bit of a time lapse between solving this and seeing the blog.
40:48
I used google to check the spelling of ARISTOTELIAN, so technically a DNF.
DEFERMENT and NORTH EASTERS were my final two in, neither fully understood. Many thanks piquet for making sense of them.
Got off to a quick start. This is usually a bad sign and so it proved today as I ground to a halt half way through and stagnated for a while. Then 1ac and 4dn revealed themselves, and I crossed the line in 45 minutes. ALDEBARAN was familiar from the wonderful charts of the night sky which appear in The Times, with a brief commentary, towards the end of each month. No issues, just a bit slow and tired today. I blame bracing walks round St Mary’s on the Isles of Scilly.
FOI – DOVER
LOI – USERNAME
COD – BETA-BLOCKERS
Thanks to piquet and other contributors.
No golf today so had time to look at this. Finished it eventually, hoping my vowel placement in ALDEBARAN was correct- it was! I don’t recall seeing this word before but I’m hopeless at remembering stars. NORTH EASTERS and KINDLING preceded the LOI.
Enjoyable puzzle. I was up late last night trying to parse HEAL.
I liked DOG-EAR and others.
David
Always a bit depressing when the blogger describes a puzzle as ‘straightforward’ when I find it is anything but….
I shouldn’t worry. It seems to me sometimes that piquet describes every puzzle as straightforward, willy-nilly 🙂
oh no I don’t. only the straightforward ones,😃
Like many stars, ALDEBARAN is originally an Arabic word. It means The Follower. Got the song NORTH TO ALASKA by country-rockabilly star Johnny Horton as an earworm now. “Where the river is winding, big nuggets they’re finding.” Later done by pub rock group The Winkies. Great song. Must see film. John Wayne. 16’45”.
Could (a) fold down corner not be treated as a noun, for DOG-EAR?
Could someone please tell me what LOI means in crossword parlance? From the context in which it appears, it seems to mean stumped.
Last One In. There is a glossary if you search around at the top of the page which has most of the unique to TfTT acronyns and phrases
Thank you, Paul.in.London. I’ve been doing the Times puzzles for years, but new to TfTT.
I came here expecting there to be a long discussion of the “on” locator in across clues viz. ‘alas’ being “on” ‘ka’ as different to the usual ‘ka’ being “on” ‘alas’. No luck with that.
I also came expecting others to have had the same difficulty with letter order in the star, and I’m not disappointed there.
I’ve rarely heard the word Dog-Ear as a noun or an adjective, and almost always as a verb. For fans of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe:
“He [Wolfe] finished a paragraph and, since it was close to dinnertime, inserted his bookmark and put the book down. He never dog-ears a book that gets a place on the shelves. Many a time I have seen him use the bookmark part way and then begin dog-earing.”
Had more difficulty than most, of course, but really liked the clever cluing and the ones I did (genuinely) get, eg most of the easier ones, like DOVER and TARDIS, and others like HOODWINKS, DISINTER ( which is a strange word) and OPEN FIRE. Missed half of NORTH EASTERN (couldn’t think of a flower to fit) and was completely perplexed by STARVE. Also missed INCIDENT, as I stuck to my original ACCIDENT, which disallowed me from getting ISOLDE ( another clever clue. All up, a strenuous workout, but an enjoyable fail.