Solving time: 37 minutes
Considering the answers include some unknown words, a few that are less than familiar and there’s also some really devious wordplay, I might have expected my solving time to be way over 37 minutes. But the setter has also been kind, scattering enough easy clues around the grid to help to restore momentum when things were starting to flag a little. Overall I found this a very enjoyable experience.
As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions and substitutions are in curly brackets} and [anagrinds, containment, reversal and other indicators in square ones]. “Aural wordplay” is in quotation marks. I usually omit all reference to juxtaposition indicators unless there is a specific point that requires clarification.
 Across |
|
| 1 | Killer taking men from island (4) |
| ORCA | |
| {Men}ORCA (island – aka Minorca) [taking men from…]. Killer whale. | |
| 3 | Far from just tie, reportedly jumper too (3,7) |
| NOT CRICKET | |
| Aural wordplay [reportedly] NOT / “knot” [tie], then CRICKET [jumper] | |
| 9 | Rue this getting edited — it’s far from smooth (7) |
| HIRSUTE | |
| Anagram [getting edited] of RUE THIS | |
| 11 | Elementary particle London college discovered in gas (7) |
| NUCLEON | |
| UCL (London college – University College London) contained by [discovered in] NEON (gas). The imposing frontage in Gower Street has featured in many a film and TV drama series. | |
| 12 | Sporting league led by duke (9) |
| DALLIANCE | |
| D (duke), ALLIANCE (league). I wasn’t sure of the definition here, but Chambers has both as ‘amorous behaviour’. | |
| 13 | Recall working with current Human Resources for money? (5) |
| RHINO | |
| ON (working) + I (current) + HR (Human Resources) reversed [recall] | |
| 14 | Stories involving foal, bees and asps? (6,6) |
| AESOPS FABLES | |
| Anagram [involving] FOAL BEES ASPS | |
| 18 | Globe recanted with changes for Romeo perhaps (6,6) |
| BALLET DANCER | |
| BALL (globe), anagram [with changes] of RECANTED. I don’t get the definition here unless it’s simply referring to the ballet Romeo and Juliet by Prokofiev in which, obviously, Romeo is portrayed by a ballet dancer. Perhaps I’m missing something that’s obvious to others? |
|
| 21 | Erica for PM (5) |
| HEATH | |
| Two meanings, the family of plants and the former UK Prime Minister, Edward Heath. | |
| 22 | Tut … was so heartlessly given a penalty on quiet motorway (9) |
| MUMMIFIED | |
| MUM (quiet), M1 (motorway), FI{n}ED (given a penalty) [heartlessly] | |
| 24 | Time of revolution, men circling court, roubles regularly stolen (7) |
| OCTOBER | |
| OR (men – Other Ranks), containing [circling] CT (court) + {r}O{u}B{l}E{s} [regularly stolen]. The 1917 revolution in Russia. | |
| 25 | Small lady’s grip drops hot buffet (7) |
| SANDBAG | |
| S (small), {h}ANDBAG (lady’s grip) [drops hot]. Gemini provides the link: Both buffet and sandbag act as a receptacle or barrier designed to contain and mitigate a large quantity or force e.g. floodwater, an explosion. | |
| 26 | Strange clue grasped by inventor over sugar compound (10) |
| NUCLEOSIDE | |
| Anagram [strange] of CLUE contained [grasped] by EDISON (inventor) reversed [over]. NHO this and it’s making its TfTT debut today. | |
| 27 | Remedy of blood in ER when heart’s failing (4) |
| HEAL | |
| HE{m}AL (of blood, in ER) [when heart’s failing]. Somewhat obscure wordplay that took me ages to figure out. The preferred English spelling according to the dictionaries is ‘haemal’ but that wouldn’t work so we need ‘in ER’ (the US equivalent of our A&E) to indicate the American spelling ‘hemal’. | |
| Down |
|
| 1 | Snake — concealed one in old rubbish (8) |
| OPHIDIAN | |
| HID (concealed) + I (one) contained by [in] O (old) + PAN (rubbish – criticise heavily). I met this in a Jumbo last year. | |
| 2 | Irresponsible not running a motor limiting energy (8) |
| CARELESS | |
| CARLESS (not running a motor) containing [limiting] E (energy) | |
| 4 | No Scottish company put up the drink (5) |
| OCEAN | |
| NAE (No, Scottish) + CO (company) reversed [put up]. We had the Scottish ‘Nae’ only last week. | |
| 5 | Web app destroyed en bloc in computer-aided testing (9) |
| CANCELBOT | |
| Anagram [destroyed] of EN BLOC contained by [in] CAT (computer-aided testing). NHO these computer terms but the wordplay was kind enough. POD: a program that searches for and deletes specified mailings from internet newsgroups. | |
| 6 | Former S American people losing area share imprisonment (13) |
| INCARCERATION | |
| INCA (former S American), R{a}CE (people) [losing area], RATION (share). I biffed the answer and worked back from there. | |
| 7 | What retainers do: go back to be accepted by family (4,2) |
| KEEP IN | |
| PEE (go) reversed [back] contained [to be accepted] by KIN (family) | |
| 8 | Sinew is key in part of joint (6) |
| TENDON | |
| D (key – music) contained by [in] TENON (part of joint) | |
| 10 | University member, all very skilful and trustworthy (13) |
| UNIMPEACHABLE | |
| UNI (university), MP (member), EACH (all), ABLE (very skilful) | |
| 15 | Top grade of seabird circling loch kilometres south (4,5) |
| FULL MARKS | |
| FULMAR (seabird) containing [circling] L (loch), then K (kilometres), S (south). The bird made one appearance as an answer here 7 years ago. | |
| 16 | Pen with second cygnet initially seen on river (8) |
| SCRIBBLE | |
| S (second), C{ygnet} [initially], RIBBLE (river). The river runs through North Yorkshire and Lancashire. | |
| 17 | What might prompt island girl to be extravagant (8) |
| PRODIGAL | |
| PROD (what might prompt), I (island), GAL (girl). Perhaps best known from the Biblical parable. | |
| 19 | Confused hour trapped in urban environment (6) |
| THROWN | |
| HR (hour) contained by [trapped in] TOWN (urban environment) | |
| 20 | Indian dish, cold, very cold (6) |
| BALTIC | |
| BALTI (Indian dish), C (cold) | |
| 23 | Pondered topping what the entertainer did (5) |
| MUSED | |
| {a}MUSED (what the entertainer did) [topping – remove the first letter] | |
Around 70 minutes for an enjoyable puzzle. I got into a bit muddled when I entered AESOPS FABLES in 18ac instead of 14ac. I finally sorted it out. I think DALLIANCE for sporting is a bit of a stretch. BALLET DANCER must refer to the ballet since it is “Romeo perhaps”.
Thanks Jack
Perhaps “the drink” might be more appropriate for OCEAN
Quite right on ‘the drink’. I had underlined both on my print-out. Now amended. Ta.
Like you I found DALLIANCE a bit odd, but then I remembered Larkin’s poem “For Sidney Bechet” in which he mentions New Orleans ladies of negotiable affections as “Sporting-house girls like circus tigers (priced/Far above rubies…”
15:17. Didn’t know Ribble, NUCLEOSIDE, CANCELBOT, FULMAR or the strange spelling of Menorca, so there was plenty to keep the brain cells ticking over.
Thanks setter and thanks Jack, especially for HEAL where I had no idea what role the ER was playing.
I thought this was a brilliant puzzle, with some very fine clues. Fortunately, I had heard of a fulmar, and know what a cancelbot does. It was the River Ribble that I had never heard of, but the crossing letters gave little alternative. I was left with heal, the evident answer, but I didn’t have a clue how the cryptic worked.
Time: 27:32
Buffet and SANDBAG might more easily be vague synonyms for to badger or bully, IMO. Unfortunately I threw in SERVICE instead, which fitted perfectly well, I thought. That delayed things somewhat!
After Ian Botham’s destruction of Australia at Headingly in 1981, Richie Benaud commented that “Kim Hughes ( Aussie captain) looked as if he had been sandbagged”. So buffet and sandbag = thump hard.
30′ with a couple of educated constructions for the compound and the Web app (which once solved, rang a bell). I took SANDBAG as a verb, to deliver a blow, as in to buffet. A few unparsed, including HEAL. Enjoyable puzzle. Thanks Jackkt and setter.
43.07 but cheated via the check function on OPHIDIAN (tried tat and can before getting to pan) and CANCELBOT where I was all at sea trying to get something to form around an anagram of en bloc. That was quite the obscure wordplay for HEAL. Otherwise what Galspray said, thanks Jack.
From Tombstone Blues:
The geometry of innocence flesh on the bone
Causes Galileo’s math book to get THROWN
At Delilah who’s sitting worthlessly alone
But the tears on her cheeks are from laughter
I stuck with tat sadly and the unlikely OtHIDIat. I could have done with a crossing letter to help me out with the unfamiliar snake.
Me too….hiss
Wow, slightly surprised to get all green on that. Found it a bit of a challenge in parts with a lot of NHOs. I guess that it was still solvable is the sign of a well constructed puzzle.
ORCA and HEAL were the last two in although I had the idea for quite a while I just couldn’t parse. Both seemed fairly straightforward in hindsight.
OPHIDIAN I have only ever encountered as an adjective.
How was Romeo a BALLET DANCER? My general knowledge failed me but I was very confident in the wordplay. If it is from the balllet Romeo & Juliet I’m not sure I like it. Like the blogger I feel like I’m missing something.
NUCLEOSIDE is also new to me. It looks like a real word though. Again I was confident in the wordplay.
Ribble was a NHO but then I just biffed it after I got the SC.
NHO CANCELBOT but a very ‘Ronseal’ word. I can guess what it does.
FOI HIRSUTE
COD: MUMMIFIED and OCTOBER
Thanks setter and blogger
Nucleosides are the sugar parts of molecules such as DNA. The As, Gs, Ts, and Cs you see in genetic codes are nucleotides (with a t), and nucleosides are the part of the nucleotide that differs between these letters.
Also, nucleostrides are of course explosive Australian trousers.
21:59
I love that Erica for HEATH and RHINO for money have become chestnuts for me these days. Lovely puzzle. COD to MUMMIFIED
Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood
And the mussel pooled and the heron
Priested shore
The morning beckon
(Poem in October, Dylan Thomas)
30 ish mins pre-brekker, with some spent trying, and failing, to fathom how Heal works.
Ta setter and J
43 minutes, ending slowly. LOI HEAL a despairing biff. Penultimate FULL MARKS also biffed, with the bird vaguely recollected perhaps and the crossers more kind. I did manage to construct NUCLEOSIDE quite early looking for a subatomic particle but my lack of knowledge of the life sciences showed today. OPHIDIAN needed the crossers too. ROMEO as ballet was a bit disconcerting. COD to MUMMIFIED . Thank you Jack and setter.
Spent so long trying and failing to parse HEAL that I forgot to proof read and finished with a careless typo at 7d. KEEP IM. Drat! Otherwise 29,02 WOE. NHO CANCELBOT or NUCLEOSIDE, but the wordplay was kind. No problem with Romeo being defined as a BALLET DANCER. It’s the title role in a ballet! Thanks setter and Jack.
My quibble is that the artist dances the part. It’s a bit like Roger Thornhill being defined as a film actor, when Cary Grant plays the part.
Ah, ok I see your issue, but I can’t get too exercised by it. We’ve had to make bigger lateral leaps of imagination to land en pointe 🙂
Exactly my thoughts, ulaca!
Great puzzle. 37mins. Maybe I was just in a better mood today but after a slow start this one really clicked.
FOI OPHIDIAN remembered from Ophiopogon, an overrated garden plant which set the tone. Not many quick biffs but nothing too hard. A real Goldilocks puzzle.
COD: NOT CRICKET
Thanks for the parsing of HEAL which eluded me and to setter too.
No idea at the time re HEAL, thanks jack.
I agree with Bob above that SANDBAG and buffet both mean to assail or attack. I remember the TV series The Sandbaggers; one is buffeted by the wind; and the misnamed AI hasn’t found this. Also, I couldn’t find the quoted definition of ‘buffet’ in Chambers, although a similar one is under ‘buffer’. I hate AI.
10’45” thanks jack and setter.
39m 25s
So, we reach the wilder shores of crosswording with CANCELBOT, NUCLEOSIDE and NUCLEON! But all fairly clued.
Thanks, Jack, particularly for ORCA, DALLIANCE, MUMMIFIED, NUCLEOSIDE and HEAL.
I like it when A-Level Geography proves useful 60 years after the event. That’s how I knew the River RIBBLE.
ORCA was clever. I thought the ‘MEN’ in the clue were OR for a while so I was looking for an island to remove them from.
I knew it because I’ve visited the Ribblehead Viaduct. That’s an impressive construction on the Settle to Carlisle Railway!
Splendid crossword, which needed a few biffs to complete (esp HEAL), so thanks, Jack! I agree with you about BALLET DANCER, most odd. Home and hosed in 32:15, COD MUMMIFIED, among several good ones.
I parsed HEAL as HEMATOLOGICAL, clearly without a much bigger heart. This was most likely because of a dilated cardiomyopathy being responsible for the heart failure.
Tough going for a Tuesday. 37mins
Had no idea what was going on with HEAL, and I’d never have parsed it without help. DNK NUCLEOSIDE and wouldn’t have ever got that either. The rest was just the right side of challenging.
A tough one and I ran out of time today. Some pretty esoteric stuff here. NUCLEON, NUCLEOSIDE, HE(m)Al, Sadly, I was off with a cold the day we did science at Balliol.
I liked CANCELBOT and OPHIDIAN mainly because I knew them.
Thanks to Jack and the setter
Beaten by trying TAT for the rubbish snake and I’m not sure HEAL is fair. Disappointed but thanks as ever to the blogger.
9:36. Steady solve today. NHO CANCELBOT, the river Ribble only rang a faint bell.
I’m not keen on 18ac. Hamlet is a Danish prince, not an actor.
Agree with others that it’s SANDBAG as defined in Collins as ‘to hit with or as if with a sandbag’.
22.30, so you can see I didn’t fly though this. Romeo Nureyev was my last in after I had invented (as far as I’m concerned) the app, which clearly isn’t working on Facebook at present. I’m also more Agatha Christie than Canute for SANDBAG: AI clearly has a way to go.
I struggled at least as much with the definition, remedy, of HEAL as with the wordplay, thinking too much of the noun version.
Not for the first time, I see we are required to PEE backwards, a practise I have yet to master.
24.59 with a typo
Pretty much what John D said. Dithered mightily over the second and last letters of the snake but had a typo anyway.
Liked it, particularly MUMMIFIED which though obvious where it was going caused a smile.
Thanks Jackkt and setter
A trickyish one. Nearly finished in good time but I was stumped by a few in the SW, so DNF. I’m surprised nobody’s admitting to putting ‘carefree’ instead of CARELESS yet, it just about works as an answer and was my first effort for 2D before I saw the error of my ways. I didn’t much like HEATH rather than ‘heather’ for ‘Erica’ either.
24a POI October Revolution occurred in November 1917. But the calendar has since changed.
25a Sandbag; As others I thought the relevant sandbag was a weapon designed to K.O. without killing, literally a small bag filled with sand. Mrs T used a handbag to the same effect; that could have been incorporated into the clue perhaps.
NHO 26a Nucleoside, but the clue was kind, Edison is the go-to inventor.
27a Heal biffed. NHO Hemal AFAIK. Thought all along that ER was our late Queen, even though I am familiar with the US Emergency Room. Hemal & haemal added to Cheating Machine.
NHO 1d Ophidian AFAIK, but gettable.
NHO 5d Cancelbot, but gettable with crossers. NHO CAT as computer-aided testing either, but I used a software tool called CAT, so no prob.
6d Incarceration biffed as I missed the RaCE part.
7d Keep In biffed, then a PDM when I saw the PEE going backwards.
Thanks to jackkt and setter.
31 – cleverly constructed clues eventually eased me through the tangle of unknowns, but not very quickly.
41:31
HEAL my LOI, unparsed.
NHO CANCELBOT.
Initially tried NEUTRON before deciding that UTR was not a London College. I have given lectures on the UCL MSc in Radiation Physics, so it should have come to mind more quickly.
Thanks Jack and setter
I can’t see that there’s any problem with ROMEO. He is a title character of the ballet Romeo and Juliet so is a ballet dancer. Much of this was straightforward enough but I got bogged down towards the end with those difficult words whose meaning I didn’t know and used aids a bit. I even used an aid for PRODIGAL, such an easy clue and goodness knows why I was stuck on it. 52 minutes.
Two goes needed.
– Having learned that Erica is heather from these crosswords, I wasn’t 100% sure that it can also be just HEATH (though the clue left little option), but it seems both are fine
– Constructed the unknown NUCLEOSIDE from wordplay
– Didn’t see how HEAL worked
– NHO the fulmar bird, but FULL MARKS had to be right
Thanks Jack and setter.
FOI Rhino
LOI Nucleoside
COD Mummified
37 mins with a nap in the middle. Having NHO HEMAL or HAEMAL, biffing was the only solution. Some very nice clues and CANCELBOT had to be despite NHO either.
My continuing brain freeze resulted in another DNF, the NHO CANCELBOT & HEAL causing my downfall.
I thought Romeo for BALLET DANCER was a bit of a stretch. I liked the anagram for AESOPS FABLES though.
Thanks Jack and setter.
At 20:38 I felt like I made heavy weather of this, mainly due to the scattering of unusual words and LCK (less common knowledge).
A nice puzzle finished in 38.44 but unfortunately with one wrong. Defeated by 1dn where because I couldn’t think of a suitable alternative to tat for rubbish, and ended up with the unlikely looking OTHIDIAT. I should really have thought of pan but there you are. My unease with the look of the word turned out to be well founded. I also failed to parse HEAL, but after an alphabet trawl decided there was no obvious alternative.
22:00
Not entirely sure that I saw every piece of wordplay, but seem to have been on the setter’s wavelength today. Stuff missed:
NOT CRICKET – didn’t notice the homophone for tie
DALLIANCE – didn’t know that meaning of the word
BALLET DANCER – same as others, why Romeo?
SANDBAG – I took this in its verbal sense
NUCLEOSIDE – NHO but after discarding Newton as the possible scientist, the D checker, added to the N C and E checkers, helped me to guess EDISON
HEAL – no idea what was going on here
OPHIDIAN – NHO – saw the HIDI to add to the O and A checkers and guessed the rest
CANCELBOT – NHO
As well as living not far from Preston, through which the River RIBBLE runs, I have also been to the impressive Ribblehead Viaduct
Thanks Jack and setter
24.54. A bit slower than I would have liked but just back from golf. Two birdies and four pars but the rest not so hot.
Guessed heal which I will now look up and remembered ophidian from another crossword not so long ago. Enjoyable puzzle. Now for some zzzzzz….
14.07, some biffs. Cancelbot was new to me but parsed it. HEAL I didn’t understand so tx for explanation.
An enjoyable exercise, all done in 39 minutes, though HEAL was written in with a shrug and a hope. No problem with ROMEO the dancer. If the sugar plum fairy can be a dancer, why not Romeo? Some of the scientific terms were beyond my GK but were fairly clued. Good to see the lavatorial vibe is still with us in 7dn, even if we now have to do it uphill.
FOI – ORCA
LOI – BALTIC
COD – MUMMIFIED
Thanks to jackkt and other contributors
31 minutes but with a cat sitting on me determined to stay between me and the phone.
NUCLEOSIDE and THROWN were my last ones in.
Enjoyable and not too hard puzzle
Thanks setter and blogger
Fun crossword. Even the words I NHO went in from generous wordplay. I ended up with HEAL and had no idea how the clue worked but it was the only word I could fit that meant remedy, so I put it in, crossed my fingers, and hit submit. Happy to be all green. Before I had enough checkers to put in BALLET DANCER I was sure that the answer was something to do with the phonetic alphabet (where Romeo is R) but that was not the right idea.
Happy with my 18’43” because there were some tricky clues in there. HEAL was LOI, and I spent a good couple of minutes checking there wasn’t some other -E-L word meaning REMEDY. So easily could have been. I’ve been caught out too many times putting in the most obvious answer, then finding out there was another equally obvious. Always with the small words. NHO CANCELBOT but it seemed the only possible solution. Many thanks to all.
I took BUFFET and SANDBAG to be both as verbs, both meaning “to pack stuff around something to stop ingress of something”, or to generally keep something in reserve as in “I sandbagged on the climb in the first 5k because I knew if I was still close to him in the last 2k I’d get him”, and then thought nothing more of it. Then I came to the blog and (a) saw the Richie Benaud comment and realised that fitted very well and (b) realised that I had carelessly, in my head, justified my parsing using the verb sense of BUFFER. Not sure now if I misread the clue or just showed my age…
36′ but…
… I stopped before trying the little en bloc anagram, set within its own little nasty three letter
abbreviation creating an ugly word; fittingly for an ugly thing.
The reason I continue to do these puzzles is to distract me from the fact that it is software such as this that renders me jobless. I really don’t need to be reminded of it.
Perhaps this will be deleted … QED