This seemed to be a puzzle with a kind of mid-Atlantic flavour, it required you to know the acronym for the UK university admissions system and ideally to have some exposure to American television programs, as well as a bit of French and a bit of chemistry. It took me more than my average 20 minutes, nearer forty, mainly because of the 1a – 4d crossers, my LOI.
Definitions underlined in bold, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, anagrinds in italics, DD = double definition, [deleted letters in square brackets].
| Across | |
| 1 | Shell stuffed with fish and duck (7) |
| POCHARD – POD (shell) with CHAR (a fish) inserted. Pochards are quite common ducks, although not a kind you hear referred to every day. | |
| 5 | Draw somersaulting relative next to ring (6) |
| APPEAL – PA reversed, PEAL = ring. | |
| 8 | Wearing end to attacks by earnest rebel (9) |
| INSURGENT – IN (by) URGENT (earnest) with S from end of attacks, inserted. I’m trying to think of examples where IN = by. EDIT it’s IN = wearing, as pointed out by jackkt below. | |
| 9 | Cold decoy’s sucking lolly (5) |
| LUCRE – C inside LURE = decoy. | |
| 11 | Old soldier sure about crossing river (5) |
| SEPOY – YES (sure) reversed with the River Po inserted. | |
| 12 | Plant in main island almost meeting fuel total (9) |
| SARGASSUM – SAR[K], GAS (fuel) SUM (total). Sargassum being the weed which floats “in main” in the Sargasso Sea. | |
| 13 | Relate funny turn for trusted friend (5,3) |
| ALTER EGO – (RELATE)*, GO = turn. | |
| 15 | Poorly splits bit of fish substitute (4-2) |
| FILL-IN – ILL inside FIN. | |
| 17 | Stalin’s police chief on centre of quiet peninsula (6) |
| IBERIA – [qu]I[et], BERIA Stalin’s nasty policeman. | |
| 19 | Prudish character simpers dreadfully around knight (8) |
| PRIMNESS – (SIMPERS)* with N inserted. | |
| 22 | Cowboy losing ring inside of herd: that is clumsiness (9) |
| GAUCHERIE – GAUCH[o], [h]ER[d], IE – that is. | |
| 23 | University class on religion that goes over bishop’s head (5) |
| MITRE – MIT that university again, RE = class on religion. | |
| 24 | Point on back of dry riser? (5) |
| YEAST – [dr]Y, EAST a compass point. | |
| 25 | Pictures from envelopes turned heads (9) |
| SEASCAPES – S.A.E.s = stamped addressed envelopes, “turned” = SEAS, CAPES = heads geographically. | |
| 26 | Former province began to break up ending in downfall (6) |
| BENGAL – (BEGAN)*, [downfal]L. | |
| 27 | Hit craft to the left circling key vehicle on track (7) |
| TRAMCAR – RAM = hit, ART = craft, reverse all and insert C a key in music. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | With leader demoted, nation cheers royal with great care (13) |
| PAINSTAKINGLY – SPAIN demotes its S to give PAINS, TA = cheers, KINGLY = royal. | |
| 2 | This French saint gets upset over collection of filth (7) |
| CESSPIT – CE (this in French) S (saint) SPIT = TIPS reversed, tips = gets upset. | |
| 3 | Collection artist mounted on beam (5) |
| ARRAY – RA reversed, RAY = beam. | |
| 4 | Sport in city Den’s abandoned: wise man! (8) |
| DRESSAGE – DRESDEN a German city loses its DEN, SAGE a wise man. This took me longest, I couldn’t think of a city with DEN at the front or end for ages, although I had the SAGE part early on, and dressage was not an obvious kind of sport to me; it’s in the Olympics so it is an equestrian sport. | |
| 5 | Hard propping up area towards the rear (6) |
| ASTERN – A, STERN = hard. | |
| 6 | Part of gospel man is making test of memory (9) |
| PELMANISM – hidden word. | |
| 7 | Charge city’s former university admissions body retrospectively (7) |
| ACCUSAL – all reversed, LA’S, UCCA. | |
| 10 | Poet is beneath hosting Society writers led by editor Mike (6,7) |
| EDMUND SPENSER – ED[itor], M[ike], UNDER with S[ociety], PENS, inserted. I’d heard of him because I remembered he was Spenser not Spencer. | |
| 14 | Wealthy male curbing European seat of power (9) |
| REICHSTAG – RICH, STAG, insert E. | |
| 16 | Item made by man at cafe traveller partly recalled (8) |
| ARTEFACT – hidden reversed as above. | |
| 18 | Bird delayed rival successfully (7) |
| EMULATE – EMU a bird, LATE delayed. | |
| 20 | Bare Trojan hero on film out of position (7) |
| ECTOPIC – [h]ECTO[r], PIC = film. As in an ectopic pregnancy, I believe. | |
| 21 | Saddo caught lifting antiseptic (6) |
| CRESOL – reversed, LOSER, C[aught]. Cresols are methyl phenols which are very harmful to skin or if inhaled, I wouldn’t call them antiseptics for human use but they are powerful disinfectants for inanimate objects. | |
| 23 | Second half of dance perhaps for Joe in LA (5) |
| MOCHA – I could see MO = second and CHA (cha) is the dance part, but I had no idea who or what Mocha Joe was; apparently a character in an American TV series and a brand of coffee in US as well. Are we expected to watch trivial American TV programmes? | |
This wasn’t easy but I found it a very enjoyable challenge with some excellent clues and interesting wordplay. Sadly after about 40 minutes I fell at the last hurdle, the completely unknown CRESOL making its first appearance here today and never before seen, even in a Mephisto. My LOI had been MOCHA arrived at via wordplay, and then I remembered the Mocha Joe coffee thing has appeared once before.
Piquet I think at 8ac it’s IN = wearing, then S (end of attacks) + urgent. 44.13 for me but like Jack I HNI about CRESOL so DNF. Didn’t know saddo either, and equating that to loser seems a little cruel. Otherwise a very good puzzle with some real challenges, including the envelope, the unknown uni admissions system and the coffee which eluded me for ages.
From Things Have Changed:
Gonna get low down, gonna fly high
All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie
I’m in love with a woman who don’t even APPEAL to me
Joe is a commonly used term for coffee in the US, as in “cup of joe”, which is included in Collins.
DNF Couldn’t finish even with aids. Brain not working. I’d look at a clue and then the grid and not remember where the clue was so I had to search. Too many with answers I could not parse.
Thanks Piquet
There are examples where “in” and “by” are interchangeable (at a pinch) but they are adverbial rather than prepositional: “in/by doing this, you displease me”.
Joe is more likely to be used to coffee in the Midwest or the NE than in LA, but the clue wasn’t hard for me – I put in the answer confidently. Cresol, on the other hand, was hard, and saddo is an expression that gives me difficulty, but I finally called to mind the UK meaning. Pelmanism was both hard and easy; I saw the hidden, knew it was a word, but had no idea what it meant. In general, I seemed to be on the wavelength, and the answers flowed.
Time: 25:02
52m 18s
Good puzzle. I liked SEPOY and ACCUSED. I wonder how many non-UK solvers will know UCCA.
Thanks, Pip, particularly for CESSPIT, DRESSAGE and MOCHA. The last one was a puree guess.
This took me ages, partly because I had something on my mind that kept me from concentrating on the work at hand; but I managed to complete it in around 40′. Several DNKs didn’t help matters: PELMANISM, UCCA, ECTOPIC, CRESOL. I spent some time thinking of a prudish character–Mrs Grundy? Miss Prism? I knew Joe, of course, or rather joe; but I’ve never heard it.
18’23”, with at least five minutes on ECTOPIC / TRAMCAR. Knew ‘cup of Joe’, MOCHA an excellent clue. Tried for ages to fit UCAS in 7d, before remembering it was UCCA when I first filled it in, in 1972. Nho of CRESOL or SARGASSUM, both painstakingly (sic) constructed from wordplay.
I’ve never read any Spenser, but fans of Azed and of the Listener will know that his spellings are essential to successful puzzle completion.
Thanks pip and setter.
The Faerie Queene is not often read nowadays, but it is one of the great works of 16th-century literature. I studied Spenser with Bart Giamatti at Yale.
I read it at university, and loved it. My actual ‘study’ of Spenser was, like almost everyone else, limited to a single week.
I had to work through it at school over several months I think, and remember it as very beautiful, but probably will never return to it to reread. His Epithalamion and Prothalamion were very good too.
46 minutes but with a biffed MECCA for MOCHA. Never having heard of Joe, I thought of the ballrooms and Eric/ Julia Morley. I hadn’t heard of CRESOL either but that unconvincingly fell out of the cryptic. I couldn’t have told you what a SEPOY was but I had heard of one. I did know BERIA and UCCA though. As with the Morleys, they were more in my range. An enjoyable puzzle. Should I, could I, have known Joe? Thank you Pip and setter.
Another who did not quite finish in 45 minutes.
SEPOY and PELMANISM were both just about remembered but BERIA, although heard of, had slipped away. And CRESOL, of course, was both NHO and not constructed.
We do seem to be drifting westward lately , what with YES for sure, Joe and TRAMCAR, though none proved problematic.
Thanks as ever.
15:04 Good to finish without a dreaded typo. Haven’t we had Joe for coffee previously? If not I have no idea how I know it.
Thanks Pip and setter.
Really struggled with the SE corner and a few others not helped by three guesses from partial parses in SKYSCAPES, SERRANIUM and TEAMCAR. Also had a long case of blindness to the hidden ARTEFACT which would have been a huge help. It was a bit of a grind to spot them.
Shames as the left side flew in.
Curb Your Enthusiasm is one of the handful of TV shows I watch so was happy with MOCHA based on that although accepting that probably wasn’t what the setter was intending. Is that a TMNT? I like to convince myself it’s highbrow viewing.
COD; PAINSTAKINGLY
Thanks blogger and setter
12:15. A couple of unknowns in this – CRESOL, PELMANISM – but those weren’t the clues that slowed me down. The SE corner was hardest to crack for me. I did know ‘joe’ for coffee.
I wondered briefly what a TRAPCAR was before reconsidering.
43 mins but took a good 15 to get much of a foothold. This felt like picking up a different paper entirely when away from home and no Times available. After adjusting to the setters style most of the familiar techniques are all there but somehow alien and distinctly American.
Some of the vocab was vaguely HO (PELMANISM) or only known from Crossword land: BERIA, we had Creosote as an antiseptic recently.
COD to the poet bacause I’m feeling pleased with myself for parsing properly and changing my original EDMOND.
Interesting, thanks piquet and setter.
On days like today, with a word that most don’t know, is the SNITCH a true reflection on the difficulty of the puzzle? Does/can the SNITCH take account of all the reference solvers who DNF?
I have often thought that but while I’m sure the equation could be changed the biggest problem would be that the new scores would then be incompatible with all the history. It would need to be a new measure alongside the existing one.
How would you take account of it? The difficulty level in the SNITCH is based on time so you’d have to come up with some sort of arbitrary time penalty for an error.
Maybe just an indication of the proportion of reference solvers who DNF? If this is above a certain threshold then the SNITCH is suspect.
Lost the will to live on the hour and gave up with five clues unanswered. Too tricky for me.
Thanks pip for working it all out.
DNF beaten by CRESOL. Some tricky vocabulary and GK made for a good test. The parsing of the first part of SEASCAPES was an embarrassingly long time coming.
23A MITRE flouts the long-established Times convention that “A on B” means BA.
The parsing is UNIVERSITY (MIT) + CLASS ON RELIGION (RE)
I see – thanks
I put ‘pichard’ instead of POCHARD as I’d only vaguely heard of the duck and forgot the pronunciation and spelling, parsing it as ‘pilchard’ without the ‘l’ and also put the unparsed and wrong ‘tractor’ instead of TRAMCAR making ECTOPIC impossible. I’d say the snitch is fair as it took a bit longer than average to (nearly) finish.
Belatedly continuing the Eric Bogle conversation from yesterday, ‘Plastic Paddy’ is a great song of his, it’s very funny and the first instance I can find of the phrase ‘Plastic Paddy’ appearing in print (so I added it as a citation to Wiktionary a while ago).
23.34, submitting with fingers crossed having entered the unlikely SARGASSUM and ACCUSAL, both of which probably only appear in crosswords. Mocha Joe has never, and probably never will be, on my TV screen – I can cope with being told I’m missing a great series. On the other hand, I’m familiar with a cup of Joe from crosswords and (probably) US WWII films, though it would never have been MOCHA, surely? It was always that corrosive stay-awake juice with no milk, let alone chocolate.
I’m another who remembers UCCA forms: I think I got the fourth on my list of six.
EDMUND SPENSER, of course, from his endless entries in Mephisto when the setters need a dodgy spelling to fill a gap.
I rather enjoyed this tussle with trickiness.
On the contrary I’m sure Mephisto setters use ordinary words only as a last resort when nothing obscure, archaic, Scottish or Spenserian will fit.
🤣
29:29 Very tricky and very enjoyable.
I’m another who took UCAS to be the university admissions body and I took “began to break” to indicate the B at the beginning of BENGAL, missing the anagram for a long time. No prblem with Joe for Coffee
COD PAINSTAKINGLY.
Thanks to Pip and the setter
DNF. Easy in parts and impossible in others. NHOs include 23d Mocha Joe and 21d Cresol. Carelessly biffed 22a Gauch(ness)erie, so didn’t see 16d Artefact.
HHO 11a Sepoy, I read a series of books by John Masters about the British Raj. HHO 6d Pelmanism; Mum & I played a card memory game called that when I was a child. HHO Lavrentiy Beria in 17a and UCCA in 7d.
Thanks piquet & setter.
Was pleased to finish this, albeit in just under the hour. DNK POCHARD or CRESOL, though clues were quite generous on each. I’m not crazy about urgent=earnest, but INSURGENT wasn’t a difficult one to get with a few crossers. The moment I see ‘Joe’ in these puzzles I’m immediately looking for something to do with coffee, so MOCHA wasn’t difficult. Liked DRESSAGE and ECTOPIC.
32.36
Slow going but never completely stumped. CRESOL NHO but the w/p was clear. PELMANISM was easy here as it was something my grandmother told/taught me. Nice to see its appearance. Also NHO Joe for coffee but do now. Liked 1D once I pieced it together.
Thanks Piquet/Setter
26:15
I really enjoyed this, though there were plenty of ‘is that a real thing?’ moments, but the clueing was very fair and led even to the unlikeliest answers. Stuff I didn’t know:
POCHARD – plucked from the memory banks though might not have known it was a duck
SEPOY – sure I’ve seen this before around these parts
SARGASSUM – built from three cryptics – perhaps vaguely heard of, but maybe because I’ve heard of Sargasso Sea
GAUCHERIE – spent a short while wondering what the last four letters might be
CRESOL – NHO but the wordplay led this way
PELMANISM – LOI from all checkers, spotting the hidden, but NHO what it is
MOCHA – took all three checkers to remember Joe is coffee in the USA
EDMUND SPENSER – didn’t know his first name…. until now!
I liked SEASCAPES and ECTOPIC.
Thanks P and setter
35.40 – most of the aforementioned difficulties in the SE, with the eminently gettable SEASCAPES – making one of its regular appearances with its familiar cluing – proving unaccountably knotty.
Slow to get under way and it was only after a while that I stopped feeling that I was uncomfortably picking at random clues. Eventually OK but slow and the SE corner held me up at the end. MOCHA/JOE completely unknown, as was CRESOL although I could have got it from wordplay. This took me to over an hour.
Tricky, but finished correctly, while waiting for car to be serviced. Pelmanism and Mocha entered with fingers crossed.
I found the NW and SW easier, but I must have been on the Wavelength , despite a poor night’s sleep.
Thanks Pip and Setter
Two goes needed, and eventually completed with several unknowns.
– Relied on wordplay for the unknown POCHARD
– Didn’t know ALTER EGO as a trusted friend
– Failed to parse TRAMCAR and was sorely tempted by TRACTOR for a long time
– NHO PELMANISM
– Too young to have gone through UCCA to get to university and wasn’t familiar with it, so I held off on ACCUSAL (thinking there might be another legal term) until the checkers made it inevitable
– Don’t know my Trojan heroes but eventually dredged up Hector from somewhere to get ECTOPIC
– Didn’t know CRESOL but the wordplay was kind
– There’s a chain of cafes called Joe and the Juice, so I’m familiar with joe=coffee for MOCHA
Thanks piquet and setter.
FOI Yeast
LOI Astern
COD Seascapes
I remember seeing what I think may have been the very first Joe and the Juice in Copenhagen many years ago and thinking “what a ridiculous concept, that will never catch on.”
No real problems except one, but quite a few guesses – CRESOL easily created from wordplay, ACCUSAL and its constituent components a mystery, JOE forgotten, PELMANISM NHO, and no idea of SPENSER’s first name. He’s well-known from looking in Chambers (and nowhere else) for non-words in clues and answers that have a single citation in the history of the universe: SPENSER. Sargasso known and sargassum parsed easily, so no problem. My brainfart was TRAPCAR , assumed to be something sent out on an F1 track, maybe. Unlike K above it was LOI so no interest in thinking any further for something better.
Got there in the end with some of the same difficulties and guesses as others. SARGASSUM was a guess based on the cryptic and the Sargasso sea. PELMANISM was a word I’d seen but was unsure of the meaning, CRESOL unknown. I have read Spenser, much of the Fairie Queen and some other bits and pieces including Prothalamion whose beautiful repeated line “Sweet Thames run softly, till I end my song” is “sampled” by Eliot in The Waste Land.
From ARRAY to CRESOL in 24:56 with much fevered cogitation in between. BENGAL took ages to see, but finally allowed me to construct CRESOL. Had the KINGLY bit of 1d for ages before PAINSTA arrived. SARGASSUM was vaguely remembered after assembly. Vaguely recalled JO as coffee. Had moments when I thought I was out of ideas, but clung on and survived. Thanks setter and Pip.
34 minutes, I was held up terribly by having written in SNAPSHOTS for 25ac and then being totally unable to finish the SE. I rhought of (H)ecto(r) at 20dn but that seemed to be ruled out by the O of snapshot. After maybe 5 minutes or more of mental wandering, I went back to a possible ECTO and finally got ECTOPIC, and getting rid of SNAPSHOT freed up the rest. LOI was MOCHA which I didn’t understand and put in with fingers crossed.
So that’s my story for today…
Thanks setter and blogger
PS I’m old enough to remember UCCA!
In answer to esteemed blogger piquet’s last question, judging by recent offerings, we are expected to have a detailed knowledge of American slang, TV shows, presidents, states (their abbreviations and capitals), advertising slogans, obscure lakes and other geographical features, baseball etc. etc.
Lakes, if American, are almost invariably Great; of this short list of five, ERIE I think comes up more than the other four combined.
Got right on the wavelength for this one, and relatively breezed through it, even with the unknowns. Contrast with a similarly SNITCHED puzzle on Friday where I gave up 5 short after well over half an hour.
LOI was BENGAL, and I think the only semi-biff was CESSPIT. Edit: I also didn’t see SAES for envelopes.
18:49
Cresol, pelmanism , mocha and sepoy were write-ins for me but struggled with some of the rest. Still, managed to finish in just under two hours.
Wrote CROSEL by mistake — aaarrgggh. Otherwise 22’23”.
As children, we played the card game “pairs” but our parents and grandparents called it “pelmanism”
34 mins, thought of CRESOL but rejected it as NHO. MOCHA far too obscure for me.
DNF. NHO pochard, sargassum (though should’ve been able to guess from ‘Sargasso’), cresol, ‘tips’ meaning get upset. Biffed INSURGENT as INSURRECT. It had to be MOCHA but no inkling of the coffee connection. Also failed to parse S.A.E.S for envelopes (though I did get the answer). Well, my excuse is that I’m 80 years old today, and I’m definitely slowing up. But I’m still learning.
I don’t mind unknown words when they can be confirmed by clear clueing which was the case here. My usual plodding 40ish minutes. I don’t know how the speed merchants do it. It takes me at least ten minutes just to type it even if I knew every answer instantly. I wish!
53:59
I spent ages trying to fit UCAS into 7d – eventually remembered that it was UCCA back in my youth. I think it changed in the early 90s, so this felt like a clue designed only for UK solvers of a certain age.
I took a while to spot BENGAL, after wondering for a while if the BELGAE were a province of the Roman Empire as well as being a tribe, conveniently 1st declension for the benefit of learners of Latin.
CRESOL was my LOI.
Thanks piquet and setter
52:51. quite pleased to have finished this one intact. I thought the hidden was very clever and saved me having to guess how to spell it – I’d never seen it written down before. CRESOL was NHO but seemed clear enough from the wordplay. Some weird and wonderful vocabulary was dredged up from somewhere to cope with the demands of this excellent puzzle! thank you both.
Strangely enough, I found this fairly easy (solved in an untypical 35 minutes), despite many unknowns like POCHARD, SEPOY only vaguely remembered, SARGASSUM, CRESOL, for all of which the wordplay was kind. But there were many clues I didn’t like because the surface readings were rather pointless: “wearing end to attacks”? “point on back of dry riser”? The wordplay works, but many clues sound a bit contrived.