Ah, what a pleasant puzzle, with quite a few apt and witty surfaces! Bravo, setter. 20 minutes, ending with the little spot of fish.
Definitions underlined in bold, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, anagrinds in italics, DD = double definition, [deleted letters in square brackets].
| Across | |
| 1 | Tan forehead and backside in sun (5) |
| BROWN – BROW = forehead, [su]N. | |
| 4 | Where Leviticus comes with simple instructions (2,7) |
| BY NUMBERS – DD, as in the Bible, and IKEA instructions. | |
| 9 | Event to go in school diary regularly (6,3) |
| SPEECH DAY – PEE (to go, urinate) inside SCH[ool], D[i]A[r]Y. | |
| 10 | Ruckus about having a stolen muffler (5) |
| SCARF – FRACAS reversed with one of the As removed. | |
| 11 | As a result of embarrassing blunder, encourage unity with science fiction expert (3,2,4,4) |
| EGG ON ONES FACE – EGG ON = encourage, ONE = unity, SF ACE. | |
| 14 | What may contain ice cream and cold drink? (4) |
| CONE – I think this must be C for cold, ONE = a drink, as in “may I get you one?”. | |
| 15 | Put coat on dog, according to Spooner, and get to play more golf? (4,3,3) |
| MAKE THE CUT – Spooner was saying CAKE the MUTT. IF you make the cut, in a golf tournament, you get to play the last 2 days, otherwise you go home. | |
| 18 | Desire to act foolishly, at first, punching leg continually (5,5) |
| STAGE FEVER – STAGE (leg) EVER (continually) with F[oolishly] inserted. Nerves before going on stage. | |
| 19 | Opposed to insect being skinned (or insect being skinned twice) (4) |
| ANTI – One insect skinned being [m]ANTI[s], another = ANT with [be]I[ng = being skinned twice. I think that just about works. | |
| 21 | Cocksure cook I’ve confronted (4-9) |
| OVER-CONFIDENT – (IVE CONFRONTED)*. | |
| 24 | Story of Homer Simpson perhaps abandoning son and daughter on island (5) |
| ILIAD – LISA Simpson loses her S for son, > LIA, after I for island, add D for daughter. | |
| 25 | Channels providing news service aimed to reform (4,5) |
| MASS MEDIA – MASS = service, (AIMED)*. | |
| 27 | Complaint from old king wanting uniform? Yes (9) |
| ARTHRITIS – King ARTHUR loses his U, > ARTHR, IT IS meaning yes. | |
| 28 | Qualified to track small antelope (5) |
| SABLE – ah, how we love antelope clues. S for small, ABLE for qualified; a SABLE is a large African antelope, unsurprisingly it’s largely black coated. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Question: “And what have you included in support for hopeless organisation?” (6,4) |
| BASKET CASE – ASK (question), ETC (and so on = and what have you), inside BASE = support. | |
| 2 | Needing to be paid over the phone for poem (3) |
| ODE – sounds like OWED. | |
| 3 | Guilty party working around bit of California (6) |
| NOCENT – ON = working, reversed > NO, CENT a bit or coin in California. I thought nocent meant harmful, it does but also means guilty says Collins. | |
| 4 | President Trump originally consumed food using two teeth (9) |
| BIDENTATE – worth a chuckle, this one. President BIDEN, T for Trump, ATE = consumed food. | |
| 5 | English poet’s contradictory answers (5) |
| NOYES – NO, YES, contradictory indeed. A poet even I had heard of, although never read any of his stuff. Or any other poetry. | |
| 6 | Maybe walrus in Alaska is compelled to feel pain (8) |
| MUSTACHE – MUST (is compelled to) ACHE (feel pain). I think the ‘Alaska’ reference is to indicate an American spelling, as opposed to our moustache. | |
| 7 | European vehicle being reported in passing (11) |
| EVANESCENCE – E, VAN, ESCENSE sounds like ESSENCE = being. | |
| 8 | Second newspaper claiming love is “sentimental” (4) |
| SOFT – S for second, FT the newspaper, insert O for love. | |
| 12 | I got lineages disentangled? (11) |
| GENEALOGIST – (GOT LINEAGES)*. | |
| 13 | Erotic display in bar that Chas has entered (10) |
| STRIPTEASE – bar = STRIPE, insert TEAS = chas. I wrote in the answer then worked out the parsing. | |
| 16 | Immortalises model: see insert (9) |
| ETERNISES – (SEE INSERT)*. | |
| 17 | Possibly John Terry fed up on big night out after having head shaved (8) |
| DEFENDER – fed up = DEF, [b]ENDER. John Terry was a footballer. | |
| 20 | Drunk with problem somersaulting — an important indicator in test (6) |
| LITMUS – LIT = drunk, SUM reversed. | |
| 22 | Setter in bed shows heavenly body (5) |
| COMET – ME, the setter, inside COT = bed. | |
| 23 | Prima donna keen to go north (4) |
| DIVA – AVID = keen, reversed. | |
| 26 | Spot fish (3) |
| DAB – DD. | |
33 minutes but DNF as NOCENT, the last unknown factor in several clues in this puzzle, proved too much for me because the wordplay was also obscure.
I didn’t have a problem coming up with STAGE FEVER although it’s an expression I never heard of before today. Collins and the ODE don’t recognise it either, but it’s in Chambers who define it as ‘a passion to go on stage’ which fits the definition in the clue, and is nothing to do with nerves before going on. ‘Stage struck’ is the expression I know.
Other unknowns were John Terry , Lisa Simpson (I’ve never watched an episode of this), ETERNISES, the golf reference re MAKE THE CUT (although I knew the expression), NOYES and the meaning of EVANESCENCE, although I recognised the word having constructed it from wordplay.
I spotted the {m}ANTI{s} wordplay at 19ac but not the second part of it and I am not wholly convinced that it works, especially as it’s completely unnecessary. Duty bloggers may feel obliged to unravel it but why would anyone else bother?
The ‘one’ device at 14ac is dubious too. Pip’s example shows how it might work, but the clue has ‘drink’ not ‘a drink’ so the substitution fails. But aside from that I also don’t like it because ‘one/drink’ relies on a specific context not even hinted at in the clue, and in other contexts ‘one’ could be referring to almost anything.
One for the road, perhaps.
That can have meanings other than a drink too!
I agree about ‘one’, although Chambers supports it with the example “a quick one”, where the substitution does work.
that is also a meaning other than a drink!
We’ve had “one” for a drink more than once in recent (if vague) memory. I don’t think it’s been only on Sundays(?).
I think ‘ a cold one’ is a way of describing a beer, as in ‘ can I get you a cold one’. Think Australian lager adverts.
Liked this. Didn’t think of mantis as being the first insect to be skinned, clever. I thought STAGE FEVER was more like the clue says, ‘wanting to act’, whereas ‘stage fright’ would be nerves before going on stage. ILIAD was very good with ‘Homer Simpson’ throwing me a bit but not for long. Got SPEECH DAY from the wordplay but not familiar with it. Liked the surface for GENEALOGIST. Wasn’t keen on ‘cake the mut’ for ‘put coat on dog’. Didn’t know the black antelope version of the SABLE but biffed it. Liked MUSTACHE when I realised the Alaska reference was just to give the US spelling.
Thanks P and setter.
Fine puzzle! Nothing slowed me down much, though I’d NHO SPEECH DAY, and a couple words were almost in Mephisto territory (I’ve been whupping those lately, so what the hey—ha!). NOCENT must be regarded as guiltless and BIDENTATE says exactly what it means. Not sure I’d ever heard of the SABLE antelope, besides the little weasel, checked that.
SPEECH DAY may be restricted to public (i.e. private) schools and what’s left of grammar schools in the UK. My old school used to hold them in the Harrow School Speech Room, one of several of their facilities we had access to on occasion.
I remember numerous SPEECH DAYS at school, usually with a boring politician as guest speaker, and our daughter’s school (Malvern) had them too, so not all that long ago.
Pip, I think Jack is right. STAGE FEVER would be the state of being stage-struck (longing to act) and stage fright would be the fear of public performance. New to me.
the OED has two meanings, one an urge to act, one a bout of nerves before acting. But I’d never heard the expression in either context.
John Terry was a tall fierce defender, who after retirement became a scratch golfer. He is now immortalised in golfing circles by having a type of putt named after him : “A nasty six footer”.
🤣
When I was playing golf, it was his much smaller team mate Dennis Wise who was used to describe a nasty little five footer. He may have been small in stature, but he really lived up to that description using every dirty trick in the book.
I believe it was Fergie who remarked that Dennis Wise could start a fight in an empty room.
Neat crossword. Liked ‘Homer Simpson’ and ‘President Trump’.
18:44
That is my sort of puzzle. Not terribly difficult but there were some obscure words which were fairly clued, a good mixture of cluing devices, and some nice wordplay. Also for once I saw the Spoonerism straightaway as my brain generally turns to mush at the mere sight of his name.
Thanks to both.
45:32
LOI NOCENT and ETERNISES
COD BY NUMBERS.
Didn’t see ONE=drink. The Alaska thing threw me.And I though a “bit” was a nickel, not a cent?
Lift and separate needed for Homer Simpson and President Trump, great clues. I tried the same trick for John Terry, along with BLUE for fed up, and the colour he wore.
Same here with John Terry! LOO, LAV, CAN…
I learned from my elders a bit was 12 and a half cents, so two bits= 25 cents, 4 bits= 50 cents.
Me too. A bit is 12 1/2 cents. I was told that that’s because pieces of eight were so named because they were cut into eight bits when necessary. Then in the States dollars became a substitute for pieces of eight, so the bits became 12.5 cents
Rushing before setting off for work, I enjoyed the solve …but it turned into a bit of a biff-fest as I approached completion. Ended up looking at N-C-N- for 3d, then dredged up from the deepest recesses of my my memory, a phrase I learned in Latin class half a century ago: “Iudex damnatur cum nocens absolvitur”. Triumphantly banging in NOCENS, I was duly pinked. 25:40 fail
DNF. Was never going to get NOCENT. An unknown word to me with rather oblique wordplay.
The definition is ‘guilty party’, by the way, not ‘guilty’.
Thought we were in for an easy one with BROWN and ODE sitting up and begging but ultimately defeated by NOCENT (NHO but noted for future reference).
Vague memories of John Terry sufficient to justify word play.
DNK ETERNISES but fairly obvious and another NFFR).
Fair enough.
Thanks to setter and piquet.
Another non-NOCENT here, otherwise 16′.
My Dad and Nan came to a SPEECH DAY at my boarding school once (where I was awarded a prize), and afterwards announced they would never come again….
Thanks pip and setter.
Yup, another who had to look up the obscure NOCENT. I agree with Jack, the clue was not at all helpful.
I too liked the president and Homer Simpson. I also had STAGE FEVER as « the desire to act ».
Thanks pip and setter.
20 mins.
No dramas. Nocent deduced from innocent.
Thanks, p.
Oh yeah!
I’d never heard of a fish called a DAB and thought a SABLE was some kind of weasel, so DNF in about 35. Ho hum. Liked a lot of the clever clues here but needed piquet’s help to explain how quite a few worked, including BROWN, ILIAD and who John Terry was.
From Desolation Row:
They’re selling postcards of the hanging, they’re painting the passports BROWN
The beauty parlour’s filled with sailors, the circus is in town
Here comes the blind commissioner, they’ve got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker, the other is in his pants
And the riot squad they’re restless, they need somewhere to go
As Lady and I look out tonight from
Desolation Row
Argh!
DNF, defeated by DEFENDER, where I thought I was being clever by separating John and Terry. I reasoned that Terry can be shortened to Tel, reversed it (‘fed up’) to give ‘let’, and put it on ‘ender’ to give LETENDER, trusting that it was a word meaning lavatory.
– I’m sure it’s come up before, but how exactly does ‘one’ equal ‘unity’?
– Didn’t bother parsing ANTI
– Had to trust there’s a SABLE antelope
– Didn’t know NOYES the poet
A fun challenge even though I came up short. Thanks piquet and setter.
COD Bidentate
I distinctly remember a puzzle in which I hopelessly overengineered a clue for BARITONE. Like yours, it was quite an ingenious parse!
See the Collins entry for ‘unity’:
6. mathematics
a. the number or numeral one
12:54 for a mostly steady solve. LOI NOCENT which was unknown but I trusted the wordplay which I thought clear enough.
I too think of STAGE FEVER as excitement not fear. A sporting comparison would be ‘white line fever’ – the pumped up pre-match state as you run out on the pitch.
A poor first pass but I had quite a few answers spread across the grid so I was able to work myself out from multiple points for a reasonably quick time.
LOI: NOCENT which went in with a shrug. I did know the word but did not know this particular meaning.
Two other hold-ups SPEECH DAY I just wasn’t seeing despite some good crossers. Disappointed in myself as I was a regular participant at school. Not to reinforce any incorrect stereotypes of cryptic crossword solvers. I always get defeated by that definition of ‘to go’ despite having seen tens if not hundreds of times.
The other hold-ups up was an incorrect DOT. Well it sounded like it could be a fish. I had heard of SABLE as fur but was unaware it was from an antelope.
Always a thumbs up for a Simpsons reference so COD to ILIAD
Thanks setter and blogger.
The fur is from the Russian mustelid, the antelope is named for its predominent colour of dark brown/black.
Cheers, I probably should have checked rather than just assumed.
27 mins. Cracking puzzle. Several NHO or barely HO but all nicely clued and with a good dollop of humour. All parsed except ANTI and the purpose of Alaska.
Thanks both
Defeated by NOCENT. After thirty five minutes I’d managed the rest of the puzzle, but gave up on 3d after another 5 fruitless minutes and looked it up. Submitted off leaderboard and found the rest were correct. Thanks setter and Pip.
I recommend ‘The Highwayman’ by Alfred Noyes.
“The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding-
Riding – riding –
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn door.”
Nocent added belatedly to my vocabulary. Spooner clues always fill me with dread.
Aha! Brilliant! I remember that from god knows when, thank you Nicholas
Glad you enjoyed it!
22.10, diverted by a more than usually diverse avian feeding frenzy in the garden outside my window. And nearly diverted by trying to work out the second insect that would match **ANT**. No problem with NOCENT, partly because my blurred index of US coin names would produce CENT from bit anyway. Never thought “shave and a haircut two cents/bits” sounded unreasonable.
I’ve come across the poet NOYES courtesy of Mephisto and such, but the “English” threw me. Spanish, surely, appropriately pronounced? Well, apparently not, my apologies Albert.
I quite like the rather naughty flavour to this one – the now-conventional PEE for go, the setter’s heavenly body, the rather contorted nude sunbathing, the famously (but probably maligned) promiscuous John Terry having another big night out and the ecdysiast performance. Throw in the reference to the increasingly dysfunctional presidencies over the pond and the scope for inuendo and witty/half-witty humour is impressive.
Many hard words: NOCENT, NOYES, STAGE FEVER (nho), BIDENTATE, ETERNISES, all of which could be more or less worked out. I was another who tried to think of an insect ..ANT.. and the references to Lisa Simpson and John Terry seemed fairly obscure, the latter certainly so for non-UK solvers. 49 minutes, with STAGE FEVER looked up electronically: I’d never have got it. Liked MUSTACHE once I’d stopped trying to make mustelid (which I knew existed but not that it was a weasel) work.
DNF after 40 minutes with 3dn left and 24ac unparsed.
Far too many Americanisms and American references for my taste. Shouldn’t we in the UK be trying to cut down on American imports these days?
I also made the mistake of looking up the origin of BASKET CASE (US slang initially), which quite put me off my breakfast.
Piquet liked it; I had my reservations. I thought it curate’s egg. That was mainly for lack of GK, plus I missed some clever constructions…
… such as 9a Speech Day, biffed, missed the pee plus the sch for school.
… 11a Egg On and SF Ace missed, biffed.
18a NHO Stage Fever, but gettable and is in Wiktionary. “Don’t let your daughter on the stage Mrs Worthington.” Stage Struck was already in Cheating Machine, but that didn’t help.
19a Anti not fully parsed. I saw the mantis, but didn’t understand how the ant gained an I. I used CM for ??anti?? insects, but there weren’t any.
24a Iliad biffed. HHO Lisa Simpson but I wasn’t clever enough to construct the answer.
NHO 28a sable as antelope. I’ve probably said that before….
3d NHO nocent. In this meaning it is marked as obsolete in Wiktionary. I think we should have been given a hint. And why California? I guess half the world uses cents as small coins/bits.
COD 4d Biden T(rump) ate. NHO though. I like the Private Eye-like reference to those politicians we like to throw buns at.
5d Noyes, Ninja Turtled. HHO Anthony Noyes Corner at Monaco, it’s just after Rascasse, but NHO the poet. Now I find the corner is Noghes! Doh!
13d Striptease. Biffed, didn’t think of Chas=teas. DOH!
17d Defender. NHO John Terry, but gettable. I hate footie, and now I think of it I’m sure his name has entered my ear, but I deliberately forget anything anyone tells me about footie.
Thank you to piquet & setter.
A Mutant Ninja Turtle!
Lol!
DNF. Guessed NAYES for the unknown poet, on the basis that giving the answer “nay” would contradict someone, and its plural could be nayes.
LOI NOCENT, which is not a word I am familiar with.
My football knowledge is virtually non existent, so I had to take on trust that John Terry was a DEFENDER.
Thanks Piquet and setter
I solved this one, but parts were a struggle. I did know the UK answers, but I had difficulty with basket case, genealogist, and arthritis (which I have!). The most difficult part was the dab/sable crossing, but eventually I entered sable with a shrug – is there such an antelope? Who knows? But all correct.
Time: 37:59
I liked this a lot, except for my LOI NOCENT, which I was very surprised to get right, as I didn’t know the word, and didn’t really get the wordplay. I have heard of the word docent, so assumed that it could also start with an “N”.
16:33
34:21. I liked this one a lot. The harder vocab (hands up anyone who actually knew how to spell evanescence before this) made it a fun challenge. More like this please!
Almost finished quickly prior to my golf game (I didn’t make the cut…). Returned to complete, with LOI NOCENT being a “doh” moment once I derived it from innocent. Enjoyed the John Terry reference and clueing, albeit not a fan. Only came across EVANESCENCE from the Goth band. A couple of NHOs, the poet and the teeth, but wordplay was fine. Enjoyable puzzle, thanks Piquet and setter.
26:43
Some nice stuff here – BIDENTATE mixing the last two POTUSes, NOCENT as the opposite of inNOCENT, and DEFENDER (John Terry being possibly the greatest English defender of the past thirty years – and no, I do not support Chelsea) were my picks. But, there were some bits which didn’t seem quite as good – NHO STAGE FEVER, the convoluted ILIAD though I am well aware of the Simpsons, and SABLE which I thought was a marten. NHO NOYES either.
Thanks P and setter
13:50
COD: BIDENTATE
DNF due to not knowing nocent. No complaints, I should probably have got it now I see the parsing.
I didn’t parse ANTI, but now that it’s explained I really like it.
MER at cone.
COD to basket case.
Thanks P and setter.
27 mins. Struggled in the NW in the end, finally got the PEE bit only to leave me with N-C-N-. Enough has been said already!
Very enjoyable crossword completed over a leisurely late lunch. NHO nocent before but assumed it had to be the opposite of innocent.
Cracking puzzle – defeated by the NHO NOCENT where bit of California threw me off the scent completely. Also misspelt EVANESCENCE with a second s instead of a second c D’Oh.
No problem with CONE from my point of view – a cold one for a drink is a fairly common expression I think.
Two beautiful clues for ILIAD – biffable from story of Homer without knowledge of the series and the superb BIDENTATE.
Thx p and setter
Quite hard this, due to some pretty obscure vocab (to me at least) and, though one’s tempted to keep one’s mystax buttoned, I was not at all a fan of the Americanism.
Why are such things allowed? I mean moustaches AND Americanisms in UK puzzles?
Failed on NOCENT and the Spoonerism clue.
Liked the John Terry clue, but some like ILIAD and ANTI were biffed.
Not my cup of tea as a puzzle.
Thanks Pip
And Setter
Fell at the last fence where after 45 minutes was defeated by 3dn NOCENT. I put in NOCANT but obviously couldn’t parse it. I also couldn’t make out how CONE worked, and having seen people’s interpretations I’m still none the wiser really. I though 12dn GENEALOGIST was a great clue however.
Though ONE could be used to refer to anything where the context is already known (e.g. “Here are some fish fingers – would you like one?”), it has a specific meaning (mentioned in both Chambers and Collins) of a drink. They both use “a quick one” as their example, though of course that expression can have a completely different meaning unrelated to drinks (well …) or fish fingers.
This took me just over the hour but I did have a doze in the middle. It all started so well, with the first few across clues flying in, but then got progressively harder, the reverse of my usual experience. Agree with other commentators about the creeping Americanisation of the crossword, but I suppose it comes down to what we mean by the English language. Always like to see the lavatorial references, especially in an otherwise boring SPEECH DAY. I failed to parse some of the clues, so thanks for the explanations.
FOI – BROWN
LOI – BASKET CASE
COD – STRIPTEASE
Thanks to piquet and other contributors.
33.21 This felt tough. ETERNISES, NOYES and STAGE FEVER were unknown. NOCENT and BIDENTATE were, but only dimly. STRIPTEASE and LOI BASKET CASE were biffed. Thanks piquet.
Great fun. Especially liked the Simpson and Biden diversions. I once had to give a speech at speech day at my old school. When I were a lad there, the people giving the speeches were Nobel laureates! 14’25”
40 mins. Very nice puzzle. Loved 1d, 4d and 3d. I recall ‘Shave and a haircut, six bits’, which I think refers to nickels, but I also think ‘bit’ can be used loosely to denote any low-denomination US coin. Didn’t know SABLE was an antelope but it makes a change from the usual elands, okapis et al.
Add me to the list beaten by NOCENT- had no idea what word I might have been looking for there. Shame because I had enjoyed solving the rest!
Add me to the list of those who failed to get NOCENT. Some clever clues and I was pleased to get the rest eventually.
FOI OVER-CONFIDENT
COD SCARF