Times 29183 – in which I give over and drown

Author   william_j_sPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

DNF

This might be the hardest crossword I have ever attempted to blog – more of an exercise in using aids (or eventually resorting to the reveal button) then working backwards. I did manage to solve most of the top half, but steadily ran out of steam. Once I resigned myself to this fate, I found the process entertaining, and I have learnt a lot of largely useless stuff – my idea of a good night in.

I have italicised the explanations for clues I failed to solve unaided, and still need some help deciphering parts. Definitions underlined as usual.

Across
1 Intense interest grips crossword compiler of some renown (5)
FAMED – FAD (intense interest) containing (grips) ME (crossword compiler).
4 Seize money from Cape Town banks using small keys found on me (4,5)
BABY GRAND – BAG (seize) + RAND (money from Cape Town), containing (banks) BY (using).
9 Still it produces German beers UK ale lovers put in report (3,6)
BOX CAMERA – sounds like (put in report) “bocks” (German beers) + “CAMRA” (Campaign for Real Ale, UK ale lovers).
10 Shooting a plus score for the round, he’s out of the Open (5)
OVERT – OVER (shooting a plus score for the round), then subtract ‘he’ from The.
11 Left kill to accept title of Man Hunter (6)
NIMROD – reversal of (left) DO IN (kill), containing (to accept) MR (title of man). A biblical character that I know only from Elgar.
12 Produce notes making separate contributions to new degree (8)
ENGENDER – N + N (notes) separately inserted into (making separate contributions to) an anagram of DEGREE.
14 Acting with caution around Sicily’s Madam White (10)
CHARDONNAY – CHARY (acting with caution) containing (around) DONNA (‘woman’ in Italian, Sicily’s Madam).
16 Winning shot from majestic Djokovic? (4)
SERB – ‘up’ (winning) subtracted from (shot from) SupERB (majestic). Referring to tennis player Novak.
19 Enthusiastic about tagging along without wife (4)
INTO – IN TOw (tagging along) minus (without) ‘w’ (wife).
20 Go round and round offensive bow maker (7,3)
WINDSOR TIE – WIND (go round and round) + SORTIE (offensive).
22 Perennial lover of lassie hidden in long grass (8)
MARJORAM – JO (Scots term for ‘a beloved one’, lover of lassie) contained by (hidden in) MARRAM (long grass). Nothing to do with neckerchief-wearing collies , then).
23 Passenger’s vacuous reaction to cold city (6)
PRAGUE – middle letters removed from (vacuous) PassengeR, then AGUE (reaction to cold).
26 Works by Van Gogh? Old Man captured in pieces (5)
APART – PA (old man) contained by (captured) ART (works by Van Gogh?)
27 Most unusual assignment for knights to receive is not for commoners (9)
QUAINTEST – QUEST (assignment for knights) containing (to receive) AINT (is not, for commoners).
28 Student of poor classes, one out of place in stream (9)
STEINBECK – maybe an anagram (one out of place) of SET (class) + IN + BECK (stream). But I’m put off by the pluralisation of ‘classes’. What am I missing? Edit, see Kenso below: anagram of (out of place) SET (classes, one), then the rest. Further edit, via Galspray: def includes ‘classes’; I (one) from SiTE (place), then the rest. 
29 Laid bare, as Man is blind (5)
SWEAR – aS WE ARe (as Man is), minus the outermost letters (laid bare).
Down
1 Chance to leave impression following lie about mathematician (9)
FIBONACCI – ACCIdent (chance) subtracting (to leave) ‘dent’ (impression), after FIB (lie) and ON (about).
2 Gun man saying Rebecca used him? (5)
MAXIM – a type of machine gun, and a character from Daphne du Maurier’s novel. I knew neither, but had all the checkers.
3 Ice fields on which bases are established (8)
DIAMONDS – cryptic hint. The name of a baseball field on which the bases are laid out.
4 Signal page with buzzer first (4)
BEEP – P (page) after BEE (buzzer).
5 Old Peruvian liquor encapsulates “mind-numbing diversion” (5,5)
BRAIN CANDY – INCAN (old Peruvian), which BRANDY (liquor) contains (encapsulates). Another I did not know, but successfully pieced together.
6 Fouled up on sticky diet? (6)
GOOFED – one on a ‘sticky diet’ would be GOO-FED.
7 Up to about five hundred crews embrace change (9)
AMENDMENT – AT (up to) containing (about), MEN + MEN (crews) which contain (embrace) D (five hundred).
8 Put off weightwatcher wanting the tiniest serving of ice-cream (5)
DETER – DiETER (weightwatcher) missing (wanting) the first letter (tiniest serving) of ‘ice-cream’.
13 During dramatic interval, dance old mum’s parts (10)
ANTIMASQUE – ANTIQUE (old) which MA’S (mum’s) parts (splits). A comic or grotesque sequence or dance in a play performed before a more elegant or moralising part (a masque) to emphasise the contrast.
15 Appear like Lent with a sad tear? (9)
ALTERNATE – anagram of LENT + A + TEAR. I think this might be hinting at a reverse cryptic – alternate (anagram) LENT with A and sad (anagrammed) TEAR. But, if correct, I still don’t know where the definition is. Edit, thanks again to Galspray: LENT appears in A+TEAR* alternately, in the word ALTERNATE. So this is a reverse cryptic &lit!? He explains better in the comments…
17 Exploit with energy drink lands someone in the Tower (9)
BEEFEATER – FEAT (exploit) + E (energy), which BEER (drink) lands (contains).
18 Bones makes call tracking old vessel’s location (8)
MOORINGS – MO (Medical Officer, “bones”), then RINGS (makes call) after (tracking) O (old).
21 This’ll be spicy, let’s wait up (3,3)
WON TON – NOT NOW (let’s wait) reversed (up).
22 Designs ways to express average income (5)
MEANS – triple definition.
24 Grounds for clergyman and poet occupying single bed (5)
GLEBE – hidden in (occupying) sinGLE BEd. I saw this immediately as a possible answer for ‘grounds for clergyman’, but though the poet was part of the wordplay so could not parse it at all! A piece of land providing income to a parish church, and a churchyard generally in poetry.
25 A time to abandon assault course (4)
TACK – ‘a’ and ‘t’ (time) subtracted from (to abandon) atTACK.

112 comments on “Times 29183 – in which I give over and drown”

  1. DN Start Got 3 or 4 answers after 90 minutes so for me impossible.
    Thanks William
    Interesting that “Crossword Genius” got them all correct but had no idea of the wordplay for majority.

  2. Tough indeed! A couple of guesses from checkers, and I had no idea what was happening at 29a where I wrongly plumped for SHEER. I think it was about double my average time.

    1. Also plumped for SHEER as last one in after a 90 minute slog, dithering between SWEAR and SHEER without being able to parse either until the pink squares, and then seeing immediately how the former worked!
      A fine challenge from the setter, but decreasing the time for other things today.

  3. I really struggled to parse all the clues today. The devious complexity of some of them detracted from the pleasure of completion for me. For 28ac I read it as a set (of classes) with one letter (e) out of place. Thanks for the blog.

  4. “classes one” is set, anagrind is “out of place”
    Isn’t 15 dn an &lit ; the whole clue is both the definition and the wordplay

    2. A baby grand has short strings not small keys. Not the same as a toy piano. Impossible puzzle for me.

      1. Exactly. That puzzled me too. One of the things along the way that made me start to doubt the validity of some of the clues, although on reflection I think that’s the only one that’s at fault.

        3. Apart from a sortie isn’t an offensive and won ton (sic) isn’t that spicy. And quaintest does not mean strangest.
          And that’s just from the few clues that made any sense. A complete waste of time.

    3. This would be an indirect anagram, generally a no-no. I think galspray has it.

  5. DNF, after a couple of hours I gave up. It turns out I messed up and put CASABLANCA at 14A instead of CHARDONNAY. CA=around and Sicily’s Madame White being SIGNORA (SA) BLANCA. Of course, white in Italisan is BIANCO so this was totally wrong. And I was unsure why CASABLANCA the movie was “acting with caution”. So that messed up a lot of the top of the grid. And I just ground to a halt, although I did get SWEAR with no problem, which others seemed to have trouble with.

    I will definitely watch tomorrow to see how Simon gets on on “Cracking the Cryptic”!

  6. Managed to solve the top half eventually but by then I was too knackered. I wouldn’t have started if I hadn’t seen FIBONACCI, MAXIM and NIMROD straightaway. Missed out on MARJORAM, STEINBECK, SWEAR, ANTIMASQUE, ALTERNATE and WON TON. Well done William. You win, setter.

  7. Gave up after an hour and a half with quite a few left in the bottom half. I might, being charitable to myself, have got there in the end as I had most of the required knowledge, but it could easily have taken me another hour and a half…

  8. 130 minutes with aids to find 5 or 6 answers, plus I used Reveal along the way to check some I thought were right but I was unable to parse. By that stage I wasn’t prepared to proceed whilst having possibly wrong checkers in the grid. Other answers didn’t need checking as I was sure they were correct but I was unable to make sense of the wordplay.

    The parsing of 22ac was not helped by Lassie’s companion having been called Joe which raised questions as to what happened to the E. The Scottish ‘Jo’ thing rang a faint bell eventually.

    All in all quite a miserable experience which I did not need. And I feel sympathy for poor William who seems to get lumbered with this sort of puzzle (though not quite as tough as this one) week after week. I almost feel guilty (note almost!) for switching from the Friday slot some years ago.

  9. 61:36 after threatening to throw in the towel on numerous occasions. Glad I stuck with it, but cripes, what a workout.

    ALTERNATE is a tough parse. I think it’s a play on the “alternate” letters of “alternate”. ie A then LENT with TRAE (“sad” tear) interspersed. With maybe “appear like” also meaning to act as an alternate for someone / something. Hoping somebody can take this and polish it up a bit!

    Thanks William and (I guess) setter.

      1. Sawbill

        Well done and thanks to you and to William.

        I was nowhere in 30 minutes.

  10. Ay caramba! 47.27 and still well up the board. Extremely difficult, but extremely satisfying to finish just as my train pulled into Oxford as I suddenly saw ALTERNATE. Glad I didn’t have to parse it, I just saw it fitted and was an anagram of LENTATEAR.

    A superb puzzle that I’ll enjoy watching Simon Anthony battle with later.

    Thanks setter, blogger, and editor.

  11. I can’t see the point of attempting this one. I’ve been making mistakes all week.
    For the mythical average Times solver on the 8.10 to Waterloo, this is unlikely to be solved by morning coffee or afternoon tea.
    If the crossword editor likes these, maybe they should be reserved for bank holidays?
    Last Friday’s was perfect: fairly tough, witty and beautifully clued. More of those please!
    I shall probably watch Simon Anthony do this one on his YouTube channel a bit later.

    1. Interesting to hear that I am the mythical Times solver… allowing for the fact that I don’t always get the 8.10 and I get off at Vauxhall!

      1. I imagine someone in a bowler hat, black jacket and striped trousers, getting on the train at Petersfield, and doing the last clue, just before Waterloo.
        Well done. I only got two clues on my first two passes, and realised I had more urgent things to do.

    2. I’ve been making the same point for a while. But I’m coming from the historical ‘Reggie Perrin’ viewpoint that the average solver on the old 8.10 to Waterloo would unlikely have had the required number of dictionaries stuffed into an extra large briefcase. Therefore I imagine it must have been perfectly possible to solve without recourse to a dictionary. But barely a day goes by now where Chambers isn’t consulted. Or is it Collins? Or even Merriam-Webster? If I broke my own rules and engaged in a dictionary trawl, I’d metaphorically be drowning in a sea of definitions.
      I’ve been doing The Times crossword for 40 years now (not quite old enough for the 70’s), and the late 80’s and early 90’s were definitely the last golden age in terms of economy, precision and lack of ambiguity. We also didn’t get cavalier parsing indicators such as the ‘left’ in this puzzle, and the other nonsense that’s going on here.
      The place for this type of puzzle is the monthly special. Or indeed the mephisto, excepting that this puzzle isn’t quite Scottish enough with only one Scottish clue.

  12. Four clues wrong or not done, 55′ in two chunks. With hindsight, had heard of a WINDSOR knot, but not a tie. Liked GOOFED. Knew MASQUE as a play but not ANTIMASQUE. Seem to remember liking WON TON soup. Ni re parsing of ALTERNATE. And still don’t get how SWEAR = blind, although ‘effing and blinding’ is a phrase I might have used in the past.

    Thanks william and setter for your efforts. Sorry to say I think one should be expected/ allowed to use aids in this type of puzzle.

    1. Hi Rob. Not sure that you need this, apologies if not, but LENT takes the aLtErNaTe positions in the required word, among A plus the anagram (of ‘tear’). So ‘appear like lent in (etc)’ is the definition. &lit I suppose, as the whole clue is the def: as to extraneous words, I can’t decide.

  13. Another DNF.

    The SW proved my downfall with MARJORAM, ANTIMASQUE, WON TON, and STEINBECK refusing to yield.

    A great crossword though so in failure I doff my cap to the setter, and well done William for piecing that all together.

  14. Impossible for me without liberal use of checkers. Eventually managed it. Not especially enjoyable and I too (as a pianist) was annoyed with 4a.

  15. All correct and even parsed, but it took me so long I bottled out of buggering up my NITCH. I should be ashamed….

    1. I fear a lot of us do that, thereby demonstrating Goodhart’s law – “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” We therefore shouldn’t take the SNITCH too seriously.
      I went over one hour. There’s no way I’m submitting that, it would wreck my average 😀

      1. Today it was all about basking in the feeling of completing a true toughie. One day, perhaps, I will be man enough to submit a 150-minute solve on the leaderboard. One day.

  16. Hard but very good. Except for BABY GRAND, which seems to have a poor definition. (Stretto pianos do have narrower keys, but they’re not necessarily going to be baby grands, as far as I know.)

    I couldn’t finish this on the first sitting, ran out of time, had to do some actual work. Came back for the kill, if you can call it that. Tough stuff. I’ll bet this is from either John Henderson or the remaining Richard Rogan stock (and long may that last).

    Ta WJS and setter.

      1. It is indeed a Henderson, as I strongly suspected during the solve. I’m usually terrible at guessing the setter, but normally spot him, and sometimes John Halpern.

  17. Let me start with WINDSOR TIE. It’s not a bow, now is it? It’s a (classic) knot. ALTERNATE is a way too clever mess of a clue. Yes, in the end, it’s the letters of LENT alternating in an anagram of A TEAR, but I don’t think the grammar works: for me, it was a smudged entry based on bits of the clue forming a recognisable word. FIBONACCI was another can’t-be -anything-else entry, “chance to leave impression” is an unkind way round to produce ACCI.
    And then how am I supposed to know MARJORAM is a perennial or MARRAM is a kind of grass (and I do do Mephisto and the Monthly!). And what’s small keys doing in BABY GRAND? To deduce AS WE ARE before denuding is bordering on unfair, like having to find letters not in the clue before anagramming.
    You’ll gather I’m not impressed – I think this was tough for the sake of it with several clues not really working and even just wrong. Sympathy for our noble blogger and credits to those who have manfully defended our setter’s efforts.
    Incidentally, sorry for allowing my 50.50 to appear on the leaderboard – not achieved without aids.

    1. Thanks for reminding me I was going have a moan about WINDSOR TIE too, since it doesn’t exist. As you say, it’s a knot.

        2. Seems a WINDSOR TIE is different from a (very familiar to me, in my muscle memory) Windsor knot (full or half).

          1. Indeed. I’d never heard of it.
            I was always taught that a full Windsor was naff, and have always tied what I thought was a half. I learned recently that it is actually something else, I can’t remember what.

            1. I was doing the same thing some years ago, for ties too short for a full Windsor (whose symmetry I appreciate). A half Windsor can be pulled off in one motion just like a full, but my improvised or mislearned variation could not. You couldn’t see the difference. There’s very likely a name for it.

  18. I feel a bit better after my DNF reading the other comments. A lot went in unparsed (STEINBECK, DIAMONDS, NIMROD, MARJORAM and others) but I felt confident on them.

    Unfortunately after ten minutes I couldn’t get the NHO: ANTIMASQUE and STEER instead of SWEAR after much linguistic gymnastics to make it fit a definition.

    Very tough and a few eye-rolls from me. Well done to those who completed it.

    Like BOX CAMERA just for my love of both German Beers and real ale. Shame I couldn’t toast a finish.

  19. I thought SWEAR was brilliant, but ‘genius’ is very much a matter of taste, I grant you. MARJORAM was gettable and I’m sure we’ve had MARRAM before. (Otherwise, i wouldn’t know it.) The Yoda-speak in FIBONACCI to give ACCI made me smile. (I promise, I’m not being deliberately contrary!) [This was intended as a response to Zed.]

    And now Galspray’s explanation of my last in, ALTERNATE, tips that into genius territory for me too.

    A true Friday test, BABY GRAND, notwithstanding. Even there, I will cut the setter slack, as I dumbed out by putting in ‘baby piano’ for a long time. All time was long in this puzzle for me.

    1. Surely Jo is lassie, not lover of lassie? Laddie or Jimmy (as in “see you, Jimmy”) would be a lover of lassie – that clue seems wrong to me.
      Even with marram ringing a faint bell and guessing marjoram was a perennial I *KNEW* marjoram was not the correct answer.
      I DNF even using aids on the last 5- WON TONs aren’t spicy in this part of the world, only in Chambers; ANTIMASQUE is NHO; ALTERNATE saw the anagram but had no idea about the clue so didn’t enter it; STEINBECK beat me, though guessed beck might be the ending.
      Not a huge fan.

        1. Thank-you. Every day’s a school day. Clearly I’m not Scottish… always assumed Jo was the girl’s name.

  20. This one beat me up. Threw in the towel with about half the grid unfilled.

    Just wondering if there is a bit more going on with the WINDSOR TIE clue. I think that to make the windsor knot, one has to wrap the tie around twice, to which ’round and round’ is maybe a nod. Also, my late grandfather used to hate the windsor knot and those who applied it, so maybe this setter also has an issue with it, hence ‘offensive’.
    Or maybe my brain is completely fried and I need a lie down.

    1. I started to think that too, but then decided that it either made the word “man” superfluous or required “gun man” to be Maxim.

        3. I thought 4 then decided 3, cos 2 & 4 would be the same: a random bloke’s name.
          Also wondered if 22 down was a quadruple – but couldn’t fudge “to express average” as means.

          1. I had the 4th one as “Rebecca used him”, which isn’t just a random bloke’s name. But agree that “man” for Maxim is pretty flimsy, so it could be a triple with the first one being “gun man”.

  22. 78:30 (including a long phone call in the middle) yet still in the top 30! Seems to have broken the SNITCH, not surprisingly. I imagine this was set to be as hard as possible, and I must say I found some of the clues over-convoluted. I can see how ALTERNATE works, but for a successful &lit surely there needs to be some semantic link with the surface reading, i.e. some connection between ALTERNATE and Lent. Maybe I’m missing something. I was surprised to see the claim that baby grands have small keys but it seems this was an error on the setter’s part. More of a slog than an enjoyable excursion for me, but no harm in that once in a while. COD to GOOFED.

  23. 26:22. Like jackkt I started mistrusting some of this based on what seemed to me dodgy at the time:
    > BABY GRANDs don’t have small keys
    > WON TONs are not necessarily (or even usually in my experience) spicy
    > ‘Left’ to indicate ‘going left’
    > ‘Madame’ for DONNA (thinking the latter implied more nobility than the former, but on reflection I think it’s fine)
    > Clues where you have to think of a term before applying wordplay treatment, which always strikes me as a bit too close to the indirect anagram for comfort (SupERB, aS WE ARe, ACCIdent)
    > It’s a WINDSOR KNOT, not TIE (actually it’s both)
    > Dodgy wordplay for STEINBECK and ALTERNATE (actually fine, thanks galspray)
    As you can see this was mostly solver error.
    A very difficult puzzle which I was pleased to get through unscathed.

  24. DNF with the dramatic interval a Rumsfeldian ‘known unknown’ at the end of fairly grim slog.
    It’s never a good sign when I start counting the words in clues and three of the first four acrosses got into double figures. If ever there was a puzzle that should have been saved for a Saturday this was it.

    1. Or a bank holiday, but it’s more of a club monthly level of difficulty.

  25. 18:28. Hardest in a while. All seemed to work out in the end but it did just seem to be hard for the sake of it. LOI WON TON (3,3) which held me up as only know it as WONTON (6).

  26. I have a quibble with the clue for WON TON, having eating a ton of the things in one of their native habitats. The pork in the dumplings may contain a bit of spice, as most savoury dishes will, but the whole thing isn’t necessarily spicy as such. Maybe in Szechuan, but everything is spicy there!

  27. 73,58 with liberal use of aids. Managed less than 50% on my own. Did solve the NW section apart from CHARDONNAY without help. BEEP, DETER and NIMROD were FOsI after 10 minutes or so. Although I got SWEAR from blind and crossers, I couldn’t parse it, and now it’s explained, I’m not a fan. Thanks setter and William.

  29. Only solved 2 clues before gave up and clicked the reveal button for every single clue just to try and reverse parse them. Even with the answers I could only parse about half of them and some made me upset, I’m looking at you “WON TON”. If I listed all the words that were new to me, or new meanings to words, I’d be listing half the grid.

    Relieved to see it wasn’t just me being terrible but a very very difficult one.

  30. Didn’t so much DNF as hardly started.
    I did think I spotted the rare Quad Def: 2d Maxim: gun, man’s name, saying, then the character from the book?

  31. DNF. Gave up the ghost at 50 minutes with just over half sorted. Even after opening up the grid, I struggled with steinbeck and swear which I’ll now check out on the blog. Never heard of antimasque though I thought masque might feature. Kicked myself over Chardonnay- which I really liked and alternate was a puzzle even if I can now recognise the anagram.

    Some days one is just not worthy.

  32. 84.26, but many unparsed. Pleased to finish, mind somewhat numbed by the effort, so BRAIN CANDY indeed.

  33. 45:52, so I guess I’m happy a) to have finished b) inside an hour. I don’t know, there is a certain satisfaction in completing a really challenging puzzle, but when there are so many things I didn’t really understand at the time, it might be an exaggeration to say I thoroughly enjoyed the process.

  34. DNF… wow that was hard.

    – Same quibble as others over BABY GRAND
    – Didn’t know bocks=German beers, but the X from MAXIM made BOX CAMERA obvious
    – Took much longer than I should have done to realise that ‘White’ in the definition for CHARDONNAY might be indicating wine, despite having thought of donna by that point. Eventually I dragged up chary from somewhere and the penny dropped
    – Didn’t figure out the wordplay for SERB
    – Always forget Jo=loved one and marram as long grass, so had no chance with MARJORAM
    – Needed a trawl of European cities to get PRAGUE, even having figured out the PR bit
    – Thought of STEINBECK but didn’t know he was a student of the poor and couldn’t parse the first bit of it (for what it’s worth, I agree with galspray’s parsing now that I’ve seen it)
    – Put SHEER rather than SWEAR as again I had no idea what was going on
    – Didn’t parse the ‘acci’ part of FIBONACCI
    – Biffed AMENDMENT
    – Eventually constructed the unknown ANTIMASQUE from wordplay – the Q from QUAINTEST really should have pushed me towards antique far sooner than it did
    – Didn’t see how ALTERNATE worked
    – Not familiar with WON TON, and ‘not now’ never occurred to me
    – Only got GLEBE because I realised there hadn’t been any hidden clues yet and went looking for one

    Kudos to anyone who completed this one (and even more to anyone who understood all the clues). Thanks William and setter.

    COD Overt

  35. I suppose that most of my objections to this were my own incompetence and words not being in Chambers (WINDSOR TIE, BRAIN CANDY, and perhaps others) but in Collins, but BABY GRAND and ‘left’ as a reversal indicator still rankle. There were some marvellous clues, like th Djokovic one and ALTERNATE, but it was quite incredibly difficult and I wanted to look at the SNITCH, which looks to me as if the fact that it’s at about 2000 has broken it, because I can’t get there. However, in view of the fact that people haven’t posted their times apparently out of vanity, it’s probably only at 116 and seems a bit meaningless.

  36. The whole NW, plus a couple here and there went in in a quick five minutes and I was thinking “Aha!”. And then. Some of the following pain was offset by learning about the Windsor Tie and Antimasque. More of the pain was assuaged by throwing in the towel when I’d run out of time to work on it. But I’m always glad to see baseball (real Opening Day next week!) and golf get a little publicity. Thanks, Wm.

    PS – by the time I got there, it appears that this tester had broken SNITCH. Wow.

    1. Now, now, Paul, you know we had Opening Day in Japan a few days ago- as much as we both grind our teeth about it!

  37. This reminded me of the days when every cryptic took several hours over a weekend with liberal use of reference books (real paper ones).
    No cheats today but used the Pause option and 3 or 4 sessions before giving up with 5 or 6 missing on 2 hours.
    Should have got CHARDONNAY having thought of DONNA but SWEAR was unreasonably contrived and agree with the WINDSOR complaints whatever the dictionary says.
    MARJORAM will be known to many gardeners but to omit “Herb” from the definition seems deliberately mean.
    Thanks for such a tough blog.

  38. After a poor performance in the QC, and reading the comments posted about the difficulty of the biggie, I decided to look in and see just how many I could get. I managed a grand total of ten in twenty minutes, and decided it was way beyond my capabilities. After checking the answers I can indeed confirm what a good decision it was to save myself from further punishment.

  39. DNF because of WON TON despite thinking it might be something meaning “NO RUSH” or similar backwards. Agree with others there’s no guarantee of spice whatsoever in one so the definition is misleading, and the 3,3 instead of more common 6 signature only serves to make it even harder.

  40. DNF. Gave up after an hour with barely half done.

    I thought one or two (or three or four) were bordering on the unfair but equally one or two were touched with genius. Overall it was an entertaining exercise.

    Thanks to the setter and William ( and others who chipped in explanatory notes).

  41. The NW corner went in very quickly and I thought this was going to be a relatively straightforward puzzle. An hour later I had done very little more. Went out to play piano for a U3A group and came back to try to finish the puzzle. It took another 75 minutes and I was never able to parse the Jokovich clue or 29a, although I guessed correctly on both of them. I was confused by 28a. The answer was obvious from the crossing letters but writing about poor people doesn’t make him a “student of the poor”. I think I’m missing something here. A slog – but just finishing it gave me a warm glow….

  43. Sheer stubbornness and the liberal use of aids saw me collapse over the finishing line in what must have been, off and on, about two hours. We had a real toughie a few weeks back with a Snitch of about 216, the site appears to have buckled under the strain so I can’t check but I felt this was even harder.

  44. So hard, but fun, gave up half way thru to read you guys. I would never have arrived at Nimrod, Marjoram, Steinbeck, Swear, Box Camera, Antimasque, Windsor tie. I was trying to fit Timmy into Marjoram, but should have noticed that Lassie was not capitalised. really good fun! particularly enjoyed Chardonnay, Fibonacci and Quaintest. best Cx

  45. Top half ok, plus one or two more…… tried a reveal, but ended up revealing the lot. Thanks for the parsing. Life’s too short for puzzles like these.

  46. Well beyond me.
    Of course I didn’t finish.
    But I did get some.
    So I’m not too downhearted.
    Really.

  47. A true beast! Finished the top half and considered it a success. Strewth indeed!

    But COD (COY?) to SERB

    Amazing crossword.

  48. Had been pre-warned about this from the Quick site, so decided to see if I could get any at all… In the end I managed around 10 or so, with BEEP and BRAIN CANDY first in, NIMROD, — CAMERA, ENGENDER and most of the short 4 or 5 letter ones. Also chuffed to get WINDSOR TIE and STEINBECK, though I couldn’t parse it properly. I then watched Simon struggle more than me on quite a few of them on Cracking the Cryptic, so I don’t feel too bad.

  49. So I wasn’t the only one to find this hard!!
    1 hour 27 mins. Started off quick, 1ac and a few others were write ins, but this was a false sense of security. But I still wasn’t doing too badly till I came to the SW corner and there I came pretty much to a screaming halt. Had never heard of ANTIMASQUE, ALTERNATE was hard and I wasn’t 100% sure till I got the MARJORAM, when MARRAM for long grass took a while to come to mind. But my LOI was WON TON / NOT NOW which took me a good 10 minutes just now.
    Thanks setter, I think that was a good challenge in fact, and blogger

  50. I feared that this might be the one I wouldn’t finish, but got there in the end – although not all in one go. Mis-parsed Steinbeck. LOI Marjoram. Assumed Windsor tie must be the act of tying a Windsor knot! Very very difficult.

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