One of those puzzles with 80% straightforward clues and a residual 20% that needed more thought, for me. I liked the “stops vehicle” and the three clues with a Latin American theme. 23 minutes.
Definitions underlined in bold, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, anagrinds in italics.
| Across | |
| 1 | Weapon, stick, prodding pig, fight ensuing (3,3,5) |
| BOW AND ARROW – WAND (stick) inside BOAR (pig) then ROW = fight. | |
| 7 | When speaking, cover up blame (3) |
| RAP – sounds like WRAP = cover up. | |
| 9 | Racists converted by an official in church (9) |
| SACRISTAN – (RACISTS AN)*. | |
| 10 | Unusual formation of geese in winter season (5) |
| NOVEL – NOEL the winter season required, insert V being how geese fly in formation. | |
| 11 | Liquid food: go to include a little bread? (3,4) |
| PEA SOUP – PEP = go, insert A SOU for a little bread / money. | |
| 12 | Clown, possible cause of platform’s disintegration? (7) |
| PIERROT – Ha ha, PIER ROT could cause its collapse. | |
| 13 | Exposed features good for jab (5) |
| NUDGE – insert G into NUDE = exposed. Features here means it’s showing inside. | |
| 15 | Mexican drink in story — the hard stuff? (9) |
| LIMESCALE – I went astray here, until sorting out 7d, and put in LIMESTONE having LIE for story and inventing the Mexican momble-drink MESTON. But it needed an A not an O so it’s MESCAL (a drink made from agaves, more often spelt mezcal) inside LIE. | |
| 17 | Change about two degrees — where a degree was gained? (4,5) |
| ALMA MATER – insert MA MA (two degrees) into ALTER = change. | |
| 19 | Peasant in bondage, ending in thrall (5) |
| YOKEL – YOKE = bondage, L at the end of thrall. | |
| 20 | Marriage of two OT characters meeting resistance, calm (7) |
| RELIEVE -R (resistance), ELI, EVE our OT characters. Calm as a verb. | |
| 22 | Entering slump, unfortunate nick brings dismissal (7) |
| SACKING – (NICK)* inside SAG for slump. | |
| 24 | Person welcomed by good book group (5) |
| NONET – ONE = person, inside N T = good book. A group of nine e.g. musicians. | |
| 25 | Seeing difficulty certainly, retinue on message in the end (9) |
| EYESTRAIN – E (message in the end), YES (certainly) TRAIN (retinue). | |
| 27 | Statement dismissing the relative (3) |
| SIS – THESIS meaning statement, loses THE. | |
| 28 | Unpaid fine (11) |
| OUTSTANDING -double definition. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Stops vehicle, arrest seen shortly (3) |
| BUS – arrest = BUST, so shortly = BUS. A vehicle which stops at stops. | |
| 2 | Ritual worship where smaller branches worked together in discussion? (5). |
| WICCA – it sounds like (“in discussion”) WICKER work made of small branches worked together. I’d vaguely heard of it as a Pagan / witchcraft thing but had to check whether it was spelt Wicca or Wicka. | |
| 3 | Offensive rumour fuelled by opprobrium in the extreme (7) |
| NOISOME – NOISE = rumour (sort of) with O M the ends of opprobrium inserted. | |
| 4 | Unthinking state of one in story chasing car (9) |
| AUTOPILOT – AUTO (car) PLOT (story) insert I (one). No mention of George, for once. | |
| 5 | Race leads to winning approach (3-2) |
| RUN-UP – RUN = race, UP = winning. | |
| 6 | Unsuccessful fellow finally getting out more, it’s suggested? (7) |
| WINLESS – W (fellow finally) IN LESS so getting out more. | |
| 7 | Water’s edge in rip, standing fences beginning to break (9) |
| RIVERBANK – RIVE means to rip or split; RANK = standing, insert B the beginning to break. | |
| 8 | Cut off, either stop or start flow of current? (4,3,4) |
| PULL THE PLUG – well I can see how pulling the plug would stop the current flowing, but not sure in what scenario it would start it. Does it equate to pulling the switch? Electricians please assist. | |
| 11 | A battle scene circled by boats in South American city (5,6) |
| PUNTA ARENAS – A, ARENA (battle scene) inside PUNTS = boats. I knew of this distant city at the chilly end of Chile; “Gateway to Antarctica”. | |
| 14 | Drop fish stew ingredients? (9) |
| DUMPLINGS – DUMP = drop, LINGS = fish. Isn’t the plural of ling, ling? Like trout or cod? | |
| 16 | Ground rent a mess, a mess! (5-4) |
| MARES-NEST – (RENT A MESS)*. | |
| 18 | Conductor: capricious star, me, leader of orchestra (7) |
| MAESTRO – (STAR ME)*, O(rchestra). | |
| 19 | Currency in which dude invested somewhere in Mexico (7) |
| YUCATAN – insert CAT = dude, into YUAN the currency of China. | |
| 21 | Standing joke ultimately on ecclesiastic, or not (5) |
| ERECT -E (end of joke), RECT(or). | |
| 23 | Asian starts off in response, answering questions instantly (5) |
| IRAQI – initial letters as shown above, unless you’re watching in the black theme. | |
| 26 | Equine badger! (3) |
| NAG -double definition. | |
PULL THE PLUG – when you’re in the bath and you might notice a “current” start to flow
Ah yes, how dense of me, I was hung up on electrical plugs.
25:13
Rather the same 80/20 feeling as Pip. POI 7d WINLESS (I needed the N from NOVEL) and LOI 15ac LIMESCALE especially took some time, but I also had trouble with NOVEL, RELIEVE, PEA SOUP, inter alia. I didn’t think about it until Pip raised the question, but pulling the plug e.g. to empty the bathtub would start the flow. I also had a bit of a MER at LINGS. I also liked the definition of BUS.
On LINGS, I also paused but thought of sharks, rays, minnows etc.
Wiktionary has LINGS as a valid alternartive.
Andyf
I think PULL THE PLUG is in the bathtub to get water moving down and out. Took well over an hour,really enjoyed NUDGE, PIERROT and WINLESS. Thanks for blog- lots of help to understand needed.
27:04. Got some of the longer stuff right away but had a difficult time with the short answers: BUS and RAP eluded me until close to the end. PUNTA ARENAS was my last one in, after rejecting PUNTA FRONTS as being unlikely. Never heard of the place, though.
It is an interesting city: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punta_Arenas
Amongst other things, it is unique in having its own time zone
Nearest friendly (ie not Argentinian) city to the Falkland Islands. Only knew it from postings to Mount Pleasant.
On the other hand, I think Ushuaia makes a very acceptable alternative expletive, as in:
“Oh, Ushuaia!”
Tough puzzle, I’d put it more 50-50 easy-hard. A real struggle all the way around, the clues were like dense fog. Or my brain was. In the end no unknowns except the exact spelling of wicca – guessed right – and that Pierrot is a clown. Embarrassingly missed the significance of stops to bus, wondered if BUs were on a church organ next to vox celeste.
COD limescale
NHO LIMESCALE, cheated a bit.
Not particularly easy!
My kettle is always full of the stuff.
Ours too!
45m 59s
One of those days when the fires underneath my vocabulary generator stubbornly refused to light. In the end I became reliant on clues I could solve providing me with enough checking letters.
7d: my first thought was something along the lines of ‘riparian’ but not enough letters there.
10ac: With the way the clue was worded, ‘skein’ suggested itself straightaway, as I expect was meant to happen.
1ac: BOW AND ARROW: Well timed! TVNZ+ has just started screening ‘Sherwood’. Saw the first episode last night.
LIMESCALE reminded me of Lymeswold, a not very successful British cheese.
Favourite clues today: BOW AND ARROW, PEA SOUP and BUS. “Stops vehicle” was very clever and made me think this might be a Dean Mayer puzzle. He is very good at being succinct. (Anyone remember ‘likes eating?’?)
Thanks, Pip!
You can’t get much more succinct than ‘To? (4,3)’. (I’m pretty sure this was Dean.)
Ha!
Still haven’t gotten this… Crossing letters?
Me neither, Guy. I pondered it for a while so I too have asked Kevin for the solution.
OK, I give up! What’s the solution, Kevin?!
Manx cat.
Now that is clever! Typical Dean. I doubt I would ever have got that, certainly not without any checker. That goes in my little black book in the list of clever clues.
Thanks, Kevin.
Oh, wow, and I remember that one now!
That is definitely a wow!
48 minutes with two errors on unknowns: WICKA for WICCA where either is possible if one doesn’t know it, and PUNTA ARINGS for PUNTA ARENAS where I was working along the right lines with wordplay but should have noticed my version left one of the middle A’s unaccounted for.
Another unknown was YUCATAN which I worked out eventually having spent a lot of time trying to fit YEN as the currency.
Given the hardness of the water around here I had no problem with LIMESCALE although I had not heard of MESCAL.
Completed in my usual time. COD to LIMESCALE (for not being tequila). Liked BUS.
An asteroid hit YUCATAN
(A mishap or just part of God’s plan?)
The whole Earth was fried
And the dinosaurs died
Then the rise of the mammals and man
DNF in an hour, with my inability to think of anything other than BARGE for 13a even though it felt wrong not helping in the SW, where I’d also never heard of PUNTA ARENAS, failed to think of calm as a verb and missed out on the DUMPLINGS.
Enjoyed this puzzle a lot – it felt challenging but fair, my most satisfying solve for quite some time. Starting off with SACRISTAN (pretty sure I learned that word here) I progressed haphazardly around the grid, feeling like I was biffing quite a lot, but immediately solving as soon as I’d typed ‘em in. I guess I’m beginning to earn my stripes as an experienced solver, because OUTSTANDING tasted like pure chestnut.
The travels of my youth helped me out with POI PUNTA ARENAS, followed by the immediately-obvious NONET – I typo-checked, and submitted with very high confidence…
…only to find I’d boobed with WICKA – and actually I knew the correct spelling, just hadn’t thought it through. Even so, I had tremendous fun in 38:12 – thanks P and setter.
Who killed Cock Robin?
30 mins pre-brekker with the last 5 on Nonet and then inventing Arenas.
Not keen on “or not” to remove “or”.
But I liked the Dumplings.
Thanks setter and Pip.
There’s a great joke that asks ‘If the answer is Cock Robin, what’s the question?’…. but I fear the punchline is too naughty for this forum.
I dunno, this forums pretty broadminded, often necessary with ST puzzles. I believe the question has something to do with Batman: I can guarantee that some members have already worked out their own more or less grubby suggestions.
29 minutes with LOI LIMESCALE. COD to WINLESS. I needed all crossers for PUNTA ARENAS. This was a bit trickier than it looked. Thank you Pip and setter.
53 mins and a bit of a struggle. Seems par for the course at the moment. LOI the rather ugly WINLESS , having finally worked out LIMESCALE. a good clue that. I have had Mescal in LA, powerful stuff. Apparently each agave plant needs seven years growth before they can use it to make the amber liquid. Hence the price!
I too liked BUS.
Thanks Pip and setter.
I liked this and started off fast and then ground to a halt on 15a and 13a because I had a typo on 11d
31 min is ok for me
14:08. Fun puzzle. I too had LIMESTONE at first for 15A, but RIVERBANK sorted that. LOI the NHO PUNTA ARENAS with fingers-crossed and a MER at A ARENA. COD to SACKING for the great cricketing surface. Thanks Pip and setter.
No silly typos today (yesterday had two) so pleased with 7:48 for somewhat tricksy puzzle that kinda played into my hands as knew of PUNTA ARENAS, MESCAL and WICCA where many others seem to have got rather unstuck. Admired “Stops vehicle” as def for BUS, and several other smiles along the way. Many thanks to setter and blogger.
I liked this one; respectable surfaces, some witty clues and just the right level of hardness.
Unlike Myrtilus I like the “or not” in 21dn. I knew Punta Arenas because of its southernmost status; and getting it early helped fill the rest of the grid. I always start a grid by looking at the ones along the top and down the left side, in the (usually vain) hope of an orderly left>right, top>bottom solve.
16 minutes. Didn’t parse NOVEL or RIVERBANK, had to trust that the unfamiliar MARES-NEST was right once all the checkers were in place, and ninja-turtled PUNTA ARENAS because it was once on Top Gear. Straightforward enough otherwise.
FOI Nag
LOI Mares-nest
COD Sacristan
40:12. A nice one. The tricky proportion was particularly good. But I spent too long trying to force yen and cat into the name of that place in Mexico I thought I knew how to spell. COD DUMPLINGS (Collins gives us a choice of ling or lings for more than one of the fish)
41 mins but had to look up the spelling of Wicca, so officially a DNF. Really enjoyed this one – took about 10 minutes to get my first answer in and was not on the wavelength, but that resulted in a lot of Ah-ha moments and smiles when I returned with a few checkers.
Was distracted a bit by two helicopters repeatedly picking up payloads of water from the lake next to us here in the Algarve to fight a nearby bushfire. Air thick with smoke. 😬
At first pass I put in only two answers and thought this was going to be a really tough one. But they started to come, and was very pleased to finish in 45 mins. I thought ‘statement’ for ‘thesis’ was a bit iffy, and had NHO MARE’S NEST, though it could be nothing else. Liked NOISOME, YUCATAN, BUS and WICCA.
28:29
No big issues here apart from recalling PUNTA ARENAS – everything else reasonably straightforward, just took a while to get around.
Liked PEA SOUP, LIMESCALE and YUCATAN
12:43, pleased to have unravelled everything; and glad I wasn’t the only one who needed the conflicting down clue to tell me I was right to doubt the existence of that oh-so-tempting MESTON.
Not familiar with MESCAL the drink but I knew of “mescaline” which was the dope Aldous Huxley was writing about in Doors Of Perception (see group Doors). Our water is full of minerals that leave a hard crusty deposit if you don’t remove them and we keep a solution called CLR (calcium, lime, rust) for that purpose so no problem with the hard stuff. Some people have water softeners. I know you’re fascinated. Good puzzle. 20.08
A very enjoyable puzzle. I also suspect Dean Mayer – there is no clue longer than 8 words, and that’s his trademark.
FOI RAP
LOI PUNTA ARENAS (NHO)
COD BUS (it had to be really)
TIME 13:29
Actually, since you’ve mentioned it, I have counted them. There are in fact 4 clues of nine words (17ac, 25ac 2d and 7d) and 11d has 10. Sorry.
All was going fine until I hit a brick wall with about four to go, including the South American city, of which I’d never heard, although I should have thought of ‘punts’ and hence PUNTA something, which would have made my Pears Cyclopedia search a bit shorter. I did know WICCA but disapprove of it for the reason Jack mentioned. For a while wanted the group to be an octet. 48 minutes.
24 mins. Slight hold up where the only word that fitted my letters was TIMESCALE which didn’t fit the def and what is a IMESC anyway? PUNTA ARENAS the place I have always meant to visit but never did, despite visiting Chile twice. LOI ERECT missed the dodgy ‘or not’ bit and chucked it in.
Whizzed through this in 26m but came to a juddering dnf halt at 11d when the unseen scene met the unknown town.
Went through this at a good pace finishing in 34.20. Never heard of PINTA ARENAS and even briefly flirted with the equally unlikely sounding PINTA FRONTS before coming to my senses. Finally discovered it was a DNF as I stupidly put in YACATAN, in spite of having a memory of YUCATAN being a World Cup venue some years ago.
29 minutes. Bereft of any inspiration to start, but then slowly got going. Loved the PIER ROT and the not immediately obvious ‘South American city’. If Tehuelche is out there, I’m sure he’ll be able to tell us more about it. I only wish I’d been there myself.
Maybe a crossword staple, but when do you ever hear NOISOME casually dropped into everyday conversation?
Good fun. I agree with the 50: 50 easy: hard comment. Started at a fair old pace, but gradually slowed to a crawl.
PEA SOUP and DUMPLINGS made it quite toothsome, but I had to check that Punta Arenas actually existed . Nice to be reminded of The Wicker Man, a favourite film.
COD WINLESS
Thanks to Pip and the setter
I saw The Wicker Man on TV 40 or so years ago, and always thought it to be schlocky horror – but went to see a big-screen showing of an actual celluloid print 2 or 3 years ago …wow!
5* knockout movie, totally brilliant. (And my male companion coulnd’t stop droolinjg over Brit Ekland)
Well Britt Ekland does end up seducing the young fellow, to the sound of locals intoning ‘Gently Johnny’ in the bar downstairs. Memorable stuff!
The film was seriously hacked about and then restored or partially restored so I don’t know that there’s a definitive final cut, but my recollection is that it was rather the point that she didn’t manage to seduce him and if she had he would have been unsuitable for the final sacrifice
DNF. I’ve never heard the city and got fixated on the location of a specific battle. Particularly annoying to fail on this one as it’s a perfectly fair clue and I thought this was an excellent puzzle. 12ish minutes to that point.
Admirers of Bertie Wooster will know that the PIERROT is the boring costume you absolutely don’t want to be stuck with at a fancy dress ball. Sinbad the sailor with ginger whiskers is much more the thing, or a policeman’s uniform in a pinch.
Yes I thought of the dorky PIERROT costume too. Another ok one was the pirate (was it Nick the Novice or Dr. Thud?) with the eye patch, the hook and the stuffed parrot.
We had SINGSPIEL on Monday which I confused with SPRECHSTIMME … of which Pierrot Lunaire is a prime example and one of my favourite pieces by Arnold Schönberg.
I like Bartók and have tried hard to like Schönberg’s music, mainly the violin concerto (I am a fan of violin concertos), but can’t seem to get past luke warm. Tried this (thanks for YouTube link) but definitely not my favourite.
Too hard for me- didn’t get the city – had punta but nothing else and discount NT as I thought that would have been clued as books!
My wait for the first correct solve of the week continues!
Doing The Times cryptic most days now after a break of months. Seem to be coming in at 30-40 minutes most days. So, pleased with that. Last answer in today was SIS
27’57”. Punta Arenas one of the last in. I was all ready for it to be one of those clues where the south in south American is a lure, and it’s a north American city beginning with S. Like Santa something. Got there in the end , dredging up a memory of the Falklands war, when the Chileans provided covert help from Punto Arenas, did they not? Something happened there anyway. Nudge was great.
23.12. I needed a moment to get my bearings on this one and the SW was a bit of a struggle. Nice puzzle though.
25 minutes with distractions and time to dredge PUNTA ARENAS from wordplay and memory.
30 minutes for all but the NHO(or not remembered) PUNTA ARENAS. I managed to come up with PUNTS, but couldn’t stretch to the ARENA, so looked it up. All in vain anyway as I’d managed to fat-finger DUMOLINGS. 33:40 WOE and a look up. Thanks setter and Pip.
I had to look up PUNTA ARENAS since I’d never heard of it. I tried fitting all the short battles I knew in (er…mons) to no avail. Also put WICKA, which was silly because I actually do know it is WICCA.
15 mins but didn’t check wicca or wicka and paid the price. Couldn’t do this puzzle or Thursday’s on the day , so a rare treat with three to attempt today.