Once again an enjoyable Wednesday puzzle, with some intricate wordplay. I liked the Faust clue and the Orwell reference. The long 5d was my first answer in and the state at 8a my last.
Definitions underlined in bold, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, anagrinds in italics, DD = double definition, [deleted letters in square brackets].
| Across | |
| 1 | Took soft toy as prize as usual (6) |
| WONTED -if I WON a TED I could take a soft toy. | |
| 5 | Vigorous, but not pound on piano? So inadequate (8) |
| PATHETIC – P [iano], ATH[L]ETIC | |
| 9 | Understanding about getting underwear in a state (8) |
| NEBRASKA – KEN (understanding) reversed with BRAS inserted, A. Needed some checkers to get this one although did expect BRA to come into it somewhere. | |
| 10 | Burden powerless tradesman (6) |
| LUMBER – a PLUMBER loses his P[ower]. | |
| 11 | Vape stuff on front of desk in small quantity (8) |
| DECIGRAM – D[esk], E-CIG (vape), RAM (stuff). Not a word often used, a tenth of a gram. Formed like centigram and milligram. | |
| 12 | Still a challenge to cross river (2,4) |
| AT REST – A TEST has R inserted. | |
| 13 | Not fancied or put forward? (8) |
| UNBACKED – if something was ‘un-backed’ it would be going forwards. | |
| 15 | Crack troops guarding European waters (4) |
| SEAS – E in SAS. | |
| 17 | Place in church programmes for audience (4) |
| APSE – sounds like APPS. | |
| 19 | Dull epic novel is extremely clear (8) |
| PELLUCID – (DULL EPIC)*. | |
| 20 | Complaint with joint (6) |
| WHINGE – W[ith], HINGE = joint. | |
| 21 | Holding metal, back to front, turned to beat thin layer (4,4) |
| GOLD LEAF – FLOG = beat, turned > GOLF, insert DLEA which is LEAD with the back moved to the front. | |
| 22 | Most fit a book in case (6) |
| ABLEST – A, B[ook], LEST = in case. | |
| 23 | Rank absence in court as a consequence (3,5) |
| CAB STAND – ABS[ence] inside CT, AND = in consequence. Never seen ABS as an abbreviation for absence before. | |
| 24 | Faust for one bewildered by sound of capital city (4,4) |
| LOST SOUL – LOST = bewildered, SOUL sounds like SEOUL. | |
| 25 | Series of prayers got up shortly with a line (6) |
| ROSARY – ROS[e], A, RY (a railway line) | |
| Down | |
| 2 | Egg with no alcohol in mixed-up state (8) |
| OMELETTE – O (egg) MELEE (mixed-up state) insert TT = no alcohol. Is the definition EGG or is it &lit? | |
| 3 | They’re regularly lacking finish (8) |
| TERMINUS – alternate letters of THEY’RE, MINUS = lacking. | |
| 4 | Attractive, but at risk of being stripped of knighthood? (9) |
| DESIRABLE – to be DE-SIR-ABLE could be such. | |
| 5 | Reasonable to be under pressure to damage a business dealing with drugs (15) |
| PHARMACOLOGICAL – P (pressure), HARM (damage) A, CO (business), LOGICAL (reasonable). | |
| 6 | Possessed article, having searched around (7) |
| HAUNTED – A inside HUNTED. | |
| 7 | Small computer at work on this? (8) |
| TABLETOP – double definition, or just a cryptic definition. | |
| 8 | Able to heal dog, indigenous breed, having removed lead (8) |
| CURATIVE – CUR (dog), [N]ATIVE. | |
| 14 | Famous weapon without distinction we’re told (9) |
| EXCALIBUR – EX (without) CALIBUR sounds like CALIBRE. | |
| 15 | Napoleon’s rival succeeded at present social event (8) |
| SNOWBALL – S (succeeded) NOW (at present) BALL (social event). As in ANIMAL FARM which I did for O level in 1963 and is still worth a read today. | |
| 16 | Longs to arrest evil hero (8) |
| ACHILLES – ILL inside ACHES. | |
| 17 | Fawns upon doctors delivering middle triplet (8) |
| ADULATES – ADULTERATES = doctors, remove the TER the middle three letters. | |
| 18 | Colourist checks source of red filter (8) |
| STRAINER – a STAINER could be a colourist, insert (check) R[ed]. | |
| 19 | Fix what you and me mount for hero (7) |
| PEGASUS – PEG (fix) AS (what) US (you and me). The mythical horse with wings. | |
Persistence you say? Right, how about 75 minutes over two sessions? Phew, this was tough!
My list of difficulties included WONTED, OMELETTE, NEBRASKA, DECIGRAM (NHO), PELLUCID (was going to say NHO but it was in a puzzle I blogged 8 years ago) , CABSTAND (NHO in the UK), ADULATES and CURATIVE.
It was enjoyable in a masochistic sort of way and I did feel satisfaction when completing it eventually without resorting to aids.
10.02 – I had very little on my first scan of the acrosses, but lots of the downs went in smoothly and the rest sorted itself out.
Having not liked the double unches yesterday, I barely noticed them here. Is there any significance to the two E-shapes (one reversed) in the grid?
Thanks setter, blogger, and editor.
TABLETOP: I read this as TABLET (small computer) at OP, with ‘this’ being the def.
So did I
Me too
Way out of my league today but what I did manage I enjoyed. Pretty much the same unknowns as Jack. 22a I tried to fit ‘ab’ inside ‘file’. to come up with ‘fabile’. Managed to see ROSARY straight away but the wordplay was also clear. CAB STAND also was unknown, I would call them taxi ranks. Thought NEBRASKA was clever. PHARMACOLOGICAL came when I saw ‘harm’ under pressure. COD to GOLD LEAF.
Thanks Piquet.
Hard but fair, and my 28.24 was quicker than it felt on the way through. I suppose OMELETTE is an &lit because otherwise egg is doing double duty, and also egg as a def does not equate to omelette. Wow that is some convoluted clue for GOLD LEAF. EXCALIBUR reminded me of Gough Whitlam’s remark to hapless Liberal opponent Billy McMahon, that he was ‘of a lesser calibre but a bigger bore.’ Thanks Nelson.
From Blowin’ in the Wind:
How many roads must a man walk down, before you call him a man?
How many SEAS must a white dove sail, before she sleeps in the sand?
And how many times must the cannonballs fly, before they’re forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind
19:09
No major hold-ups except for 1A which took me about 5 minutes and a few letters trawls to finally get what was probably a write-in for most. I knew it would be TED but those last two letters proved very stubborn indeed.
A very enjoyable solve from start to finish so thanks to both.
31 minutes with LOI STRAINER. COD to LOST SOUL although I’ve no idea if the homophone is good or terrible. I biffed CAB STAND, otherwise all understood. Thank you Pip and setter.
Breezeblocked by nho DECIGRAM, and ignorance of vaping. Dnf, otherwise 23′.
Liked WONTED and the complicated GOLD LEAF.
Thanks pip and setter.
37:54
Chewy. Gave up trying to parse gold leaf. Happy to get through it unscathed.
Thanks, p.
I don’t believe it, I did exactly the same as yesterday by biffing the last clue and getting the Unlucky message!! In this case it was 10ac where I in my haste put in CUMBER and of course a moment’s thought gave me P-LUMBER. Apart from that, finished in 26:30 and no real problems. Thanks blogger for the derivation of ADULATES, adulterates cut down, of course – always obvious when you’re told!!!
Pleasant puzzle with lots of variety, thanks setter and blogger
27:59
Needed that loo break after twenty-odd minutes when I had come to a bit of an impasse, picking up the remaining answers in the NW in fairly short order. But across the grid, there were several bits missed:
WONTED – didn’t know it meant ‘as usual’ but saw the TED possibility early then WONdered what might precede it.
NEBRASKA – duh! I was thinking of a singular BRA and couldn’t see what the S was doing there 🤪
GOLD LEAF – couldn’t make head nor tail of this convolution
ADULATES – couldn’t see what was going on here either
Liked DECIGRAM though.
Thanks P and setter
Same here with BRAS.
And me.
and me. And yet, when you think about it, a singular bra shouldn’t really be a thing, especially when you need pairs of other underwear items
25.26. You know you’re onto a good one when you get not one but two entries from the Uxbridge English Dictionary. DESIRABLE, which I tried manfully to make admirable, eliciting an actual yelp which might have been “come off it!”, but my hearing’s a bit dodgy.
That whole NW corner took maybe half of my time, as I gave up on getting any of it until I’d more or less cruised through the rest of the grid.
I take both OMELETTE (which I stared at for ages before seeing how it worked) and TABLETOP to be rather good &lit clues, though I suppose in the latter you can claim that “this” is the split-off-able definition.
Fine stuff throughout matched by an appreciative blog.
Amoeba – the E shape in the grid is for Edmund Akenhead, crossword editor in the 70s, who designed this grid and whimsically put his initial into it. Grids had been setter’s choice until then, so he created a fixed set of 25 with every light at least half cross-checked, not too many double unches or words with initial letter unchecked, and other desirable features we take for granted today (at least in the Times). We still use many of those original grids today, although the set was expanded by Brian Greer, then by Mike Laws, and then by me, into the 64 we now have. This, original, one is number 23. There are as far as I know no plans to allow setters to make up their own again.
Very interesting, thank you!
The crucial Akenhead feature is every light at least half cross-checked. Would be quite interesting to know how many possible such grids there are, though some might either be more difficult to populate or to solve (eg double unches)
Another DNF. Either these things are getting harder, or I’m getting dafter. No comments please…. A very tough challenge today.
After 1hr 15 mins I bunged in LOOTED at 1ac as l don’t know the word WONTED and just couldn’t see it. PELLUCID was another NHO but once I got the P the LUCID bit was obvious so EL just slotted in. I had GOLD LEAF but no idea why! I liked CAB STAND.
Thanks Pip and setter.
I’m having the same problem. Seem to be going backwards. Might have to go back to pen and paper
I did the same with 1a, not knowing the word WONTED. ( But PELLUCID came straight away, and I had to reverse engineer).
PELLUCID dragged from somewhere. DECIGRAM on trust. Almost missed the ‘mount for hero’ and time wasted on reversing letters.
Most enjoyable.
Thank you for parsing ADULATES.
Joseph Conrad often referred to water or air as pellucid(don’t remember seeing the word used elsewhere).
Then I shall look forward to coming across the word again soon. I have just picked up a copy of Lord Jim although what I really want to read is Heart of Darkness.
Made a good effort with NE & SW done quite quickly, then struggled and gave up with several still empty.
Didn’t parse GOLD LEAF (crikey, that’s hard) so couldn’t rule out GOLD FOIL.
COD SNOWBALL, oh, THAT Napoleon…
19:23 with around half of that in the NW corner where I finally bunged in OMELETTE with crossed fingers.
DNF on WONTED and OMELETTE. Was going along nicely with the rest done in under 30 mins. Had to leave it and come back to those two later but still no joy.
Tough but good fun. I enjoyed the Uxbridge puns and entry-level Classics.
Thanks both.
Fast start, answers were just falling after PHARMACOLOGICAL was got quickly. However, it was a slow finish. EXCALIBUR and CAB STAND took some thinking, followed by a groan and a giggle. OMELETTE also took an age to crack. WONTED was LOI but I think that was a bit of a brain freeze from me especially as the clue immediately bought up the image of someone winning a teddy bear on a fairground game.
DECIGRAM was in and out before e-cig for vape clicked.
Some great clues in this though. It gets a thumbs up from me. As well as the ones mentioned above I also liked DESIRABLE, SNOWBALL and UNBACKED.
ADULATES was the only one I couldn’t parse so huge thanks to the blogger.
Hard. Lots not parsed. Cheated a lot.
1a Wonted, DNF, cheated.
5a Pathetic, not a clue, biffed.
9a Nebraska entered thrice and erased twice.
13a Unbacked; had unpicked for too long. My answer is justifiable, maybe slightly worse than unbacked but that is pretty weak IMHO. Caused problems in SW, esp 4d Desirable, which is clever, I love Uxbridge.
21a Gold Leaf eminently biffable and very hard (couldn’t) to parse.
23a Cab Stand only present as one word in Cheating Machine which delayed me. Wiktionary agrees with CM it is one word.
24a Lost Seoul, I’m never sure how to pronounce it. I have a suspicion no Korean would confuse the two. Not that I mind dodgy homophones.
15d Snowball, couldn’t remember his name for ages. Thought Snowball was the faithful horse.
17d AdulTERates, unparseable for me, biffed.
19d Pegasus, misread the clue thinking I was looking for a hero as such, and discounted the obvious Pegasus, doh!
Thanks blogger and setter.
[səul], I believe, so not too homophonous with [sol].
15:23. Neat puzzle. I’m not sure I’ve seen DECIGRAM before. I liked DE SIRABLE. Like others, I parsed TABLETOP as TABLET + OP. DNK the Animal Farm character, but the wordplay was kind. Thanks Pip and setter.
SNOWBALL came to mind quickly as is was the answer to QUIZLE the other day. Whilst the question itself related to the sport of Yukigassen, the Animal Farm character provided one of the hints.
The question was something like “What is thrown in the sport of Yukigassen?”. I’m ashamed to say my first guess was dwarves.
I refuse to use emojis but if I did you would earn a laughing face for the second paragraph
10:56. I liked this one.
As others have noted 2dn OMELETTE is &Lit, because the whole clue is the wordplay, and 7dn TABLETOP isn’t, because it isn’t. The latter is a classic semi-&lit where the definition can be read technically (in the sense ‘everything that isn’t wordplay’) as ‘this’, but is also the whole clue.
Well under the half hour, quick for me, but WOE – I can’t spell EXCALIBeR. I still enjoyed it. I got off to a good start at 1ac realising that WON TED was a plausible word just as I had decided to leave it and move on (as is my wont). Three that I didn’t parse: OMELETTE, GOLD LEAF, and ADULATES. I liked TERMINUS and SNOWBALL
20:06
Rather tricky then. I was a bit frustrated that some elements, e.g. hinge and strainer, just didn’t come to mind as quickly as they should have.
Good puzzle though.
25 but with an error at 1ac. I don’t think I would have got wonted no matter how long I stared at it, having decided for some reason it must be a triple definition and that potted would just have to do.
DNF, defeated by GOLD LEAF, CAB STAND and ADULATES.
– Had all the checkers for DECIGRAM but took a long time to think of the right consonants, though to be fair I should have worked out vape=e-cig sooner
– The unknown PELLUCID went in because it was the most likely-looking option with the checkers
– Thought the ‘gold’ in GOLD LEAF was being clued by ‘metal’ so had no chance with the rest of the clue
– Couldn’t think of CAB STAND, in part because I didn’t know ‘abs’ is an abbreviation for absence (and I’m not sure I would have equated ‘and’ with ‘as a consequence’ either, though I kind of see it now)
– For ADULATES I wasted a lot of time worrying that there might be some literary triplets I needed to know about. Even once I guessed that part of the clue might be the instructions rather than the definition, I didn’t think of ‘adulterates’
– How does what=as for PEGASUS?
Thanks piquet and setter.
COD Desirable
Re what /as I though of it in something like “do what / as I say”.
That makes sense, thanks!
Very hard I thought, and I was surprised that the SNITCH is so low. Even after using an electronic aid for 1ac, I was confronted with 49 possibilities for _O_TED. ‘Looted’ failed, so did ‘ported’. Eventually I got there. I never understood GOLD LEAF and was confused by the fact that gold is a metal, as of course the setter, who produced an excellent crossword, intended. I was going to grumble about the fact that 9ac and 2dn both had ‘state’ in the clue until I discovered, again with aids, that OMELETTE wasn’t a US state. 64 minutes which don’t count because in desperation I was so helped.
19a was of particular interest to me. A couple of months ago, I had an entry for the Sunday Times clue-writing comp that used ‘novel’ in exactly the same way, i.e. as an adjectival anagrind masquerading, because of its position, as a noun. It was relegated to the also-rans, on the grounds that it was in an ‘unnatural’ position.
I was a bit nonplussed by this, given that over the years there have been various examples of clues using the same device in the same way. (Think ‘bananas’, ‘nuts’, ‘pants’ etc.) I suppose it was only a matter of time before ‘novel’ turned up.
28.59
Similar experience to Mike. Yes, chewy, but finally sufficiently masticated and swallowed. WONTED third last in followed by OMELETTE (vg) and the ECIG.
Thanks Pip and Setter
Fell at the final hurdle with WONTED after just short of an hour. I put in POSTED more in hope than anything, and wasn’t the least bit surprised to be wrong. Although I correctly put in ADULATES it was the other one I couldn’t parse. I even considered WANKLE for 20ac as an obscure term for a complaint. An enjoyable puzzle even if I annoyingly didn’t quite make it.
I too was WANKLE-curious
23 mins, but after staring at -O-TED for ages, with the clock ticking onward, I conceded defeat and consulted my Scrabble helper. Even so, I wasn’t so sure of TOOK =WON, but on reflection you can take a prize. I found the rest pretty easy, and PELLUCID couldn’t have been anything else.
Sunk without much trace.
Scuppered by WONTED (only knew ‘unwonted’) and OMELETTE (despite considering one for breakfast). And NHO DECIGRAM but biffed it anyway.
However I did remember SNOWBALL from O level Eng Lit, and clearly recalled PELLUCID from somewhere.
Another MTH.
13 mins, my best this week.
“Ev’n in our ashes live their wonted fires” (Elegy in a Country Churchyard).
A boy at school once used the word “pellucid” and was deservedly mocked for it. Pellucid Perry we called him.
Slow start, with FOsI SEAS, then AT REST. Gradually picked up pace until I was left with 1a, 2d, 4d, 7d, 9a and 10a. NEBRASKA and DESIRABLE led the charge in the NW with WONTED and OMELETTE following. TABLETOP came next and LUMBER finished the job. 22:51. Was surprised to find myself well inside the top 100 on the Leaderboard at this late hour. (Lunch with the ex colleagues in Malton earlier). Thanks setter and Pip.
DNF. Defeated in the NW corner. I had thought about WONTED and DECIGRAM, but couldn’t see how they worked.
I don’t feel so bad after seeing all the comments. Clearly a hard one.
Too tough for me, failed on DECIGRAM/OMELETTE. Had been at it for 30 mins by then which is about my limit. Full of admiration for PK’s deconstruction of GOLD LEAF, blimey! Thanks.
56 minutes, but I really liked this (or rather, warmed up to it as the time passed). It’s much better than the earlier puzzles this week, with tantalisingly misleading clues. I was never able to parse ADULATES, but I did manage the rest. PELLUCID was in my list of words I have heard of without knowing exactly what they mean, but of course the LUCID in it gives it away and it was recognizably an anagram. COD perhaps to DESIRABLE. DECIGRAM was biffed before realizing that ECIG should really be E-CIG as the vape. A fun and satisfying puzzle.
Gave up at the hour with seven to do and UNpiCKED turning out to be wrong. The NW was the main culprit with only NEBRASKA and the prize -TED showing up but don’t really know “wonted=as usual” so even when I’d unravelled the others I couldn’t see it. CAB-STAND and STRAINER also doing for me not helped by being unsure of the unparsed ADULATES. NEBRASKA the other unparsed today and NHO PELLUCID but fairly sure with the ending. Glad to see others found it a struggle in similar places.
38 minutes for me, mainly during the ad breaks in a re-run of Inspector Morse. Despite the leisurely time I quite enjoyed this, with several clues prompting a chuckle as the fog lifted. NHO CAB STAND, and GOLD LEAF resisted attempts to parse it though the crossers made it a certainty. All good fun.
FOI – LUMBER
LOI – CAB STAND
COD – DESIRABLE (Eviva the UED)
Thanks to piquet and other contributors.
My 18’02” is a good time, judging from remarks above. I didn’t find it that hard. Biffed plenty, but what’s new? DECIGRAM I recall from children’s maths lessons in France, where they learned not just of DECIGRAMS (tenths of a gram) but also DEKAGRAMS — or was it DECAGRAMS? — which are 10 grams. Not surprisingly they were confused.
GOLD LEAF was the one the setter had trouble clueing then? It took me forever to solve it, that’s for sure.
As for omelettes I don’t usually have them with alcohol.
52 minutes, fave clue probably SNOWBALL. Good book to read right now, I’d say.
Struggled on this on and off most of the day, but finally got within 2 clues of the finish. Sadly, that is where the journey ended, as I couldn’t get 1a – a case of failing to do the opposite of lift and separate, where, if I’d taken ‘took soft toy as prize’ as one phrase, I’d have got WON TED and solved the clue, but trying to make sense of either ‘took’ or ‘prize as usual’ as the definition was a non-starter. OMELETTE also defeated me, though Mr Ego got it as soon as he returned from work. Having said that, the rest were correct and all parsed, so I don’t feel too badly over what I consider a tough challenge with some great PDMs.
41 mins, so an improvement on yesterday’s time! FOI WONTED, LOI CAB STAND. All parsed OK. Agree with others that OMELETTE is an &lit and TABLETOP isn’t. A very satisfying puzzle.
54:26. worth the effort (and quite an effort!) a game of two halves for me, with most going in fairly smoothly but the NW corner really was a stretch. LOI WONTED. like others I gave up trying to parse GOLD LEAF. thanks for a great puzzle!
Too tough for me, but I biffed a few(and looked up a few) so got going again to a wobbly finish with the missing ADULATES, DECIGRAM -had forgotten E-CIG!- and WONTED ( nearest I got was unparsed LOOTED). Also had forgotten my Animal Farm, so never got past softball for that one.
Enjoyable fail, though.