37:48
Quite a few references to ‘surrender’ today, so I take that as an offer of a truce. It was certainly more like a gentlemanly duel than all out war.
Definitions underlined.
| Across | |
| 1 | Miserable, bitter line recalled Milton’s work (7) |
| LYCIDAS – SAD (miserable) + ICY (bitter) + L (line), all reversed (recalled). DNK, and not the first of his that comes to mind, I would suppose. | |
| 5 | Acknowledge authenticity of scholarship? (5) |
| GRANT – double definition. | |
| 9 | Old climber related to Jacob? (5) |
| OVINE – O (old) + VINE (climber). | |
| 10 | Inconvenience of salary yet to be paid to auditor (9) |
| INCOMMODE – sounds like (to auditor) “income owed” (salary yet to be paid). | |
| 11 | Chicken soup aroused greed? (7) |
| POUSSIN – anagram of (aroused) SOUP, then SIN (greed?). | |
| 12 | Word that describes central part in English and French (7) |
| EPITHET – PITH (central part) contained by (in) E (English) + ET (and, in French). | |
| 13 | Regulator initially blocks licence to supply E (10) |
| ELECTRONIC – first of (initially) Regulator) contained by (blocks) an anagram of (supply) LICENCE TO. | |
| 15 | High-flier with interest in school fostered by governess (4) |
| ERNE – hidden in (fostered by) govERNEss. | |
| 18 | Circulation of trouble-free newspaper led by senior journalist (4) |
| EDDY – remove ‘ail’ from (trouble-free) DailY (newspaper), preceded (led) by ED (editor, senior journalist). | |
| 20 | Take issue with Remain coming to the fore (10) |
| STANDPOINT – POINT (issue) with STAND (remain) at the front (to the fore). | |
| 23 | Go before pressure leads to really embarrassing surrender (7) |
| PRECEDE – P (pressure) in front of the first letters of (leads to) Really and Embarrassing, then CEDE (surrender). | |
| 24 | Congress backs reckless offer to surrender (7) |
| FORFEIT – IT (sex, congress) after (backs) an anagram of (reckless) OFFER. | |
| 25 | Plant bottom on silly individual (9) |
| GOOSEFOOT – FOOT (bottom) on GOOSE (silly individual). | |
| 26 | Decree this country’s European borders American (5) |
| UKASE – UK’S (this country’s) + E (European), contains (borders) A (American). I tried ‘ukame’ first, but thankfully saw more sense. An edict from Tsarist Russia, apparently, NHO. | |
| 27 | Piece played without practice session? (5) |
| NONET – NO NET (without practice session). A piece of music for nine performers. Not just the group themselves, then. | |
| 28 | Makes time to welcome earl demanding serious attention (7) |
| EARNEST – EARNS (makes) + T (time) containing (to welcome) E (earl). | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Position certainly lowering one’s spare time (7) |
| LEISURE – LIE (position) + SURE (certainly) moving the letter “I” (one) further down (lowering). | |
| 2 | Sore toe treated with cream initially and antiseptic (8) |
| CREOSOTE – anagram of SORE TOE. | |
| 3 | Trap caught shape-shifting individuals (5) |
| DJINN – sounds like (caught) “gin” (trap). Shape-shifting spirits from Muslim mythology. | |
| 4 | Leakage of confidential item carrying charge (9) |
| SECRETION – SECRET (confidential item) + ION (item carrying charge). | |
| 5 | In chess, perhaps, manoeuvre ultimately surrendering piece? (6) |
| GAMBIT – |
|
| 6 | One more for each, except this woman (7) |
| ANOTHER – A (for each) + NOT HER (except this woman). | |
| 7 | Article based on paper is plagiarism? (5) |
| THEFT – THE (article) on FT (paper). | |
| 8 | Mock article fitting for Men Only (8) |
| CODPIECE – COD (mock) + PIECE (article). | |
| 14 | Disneyland’s precisely where spectacles may be seen (2,3,4) |
| ON THE NOSE – where one wears one’s spectacles, and ‘precisely’ in the USA (I certainly use this phrase too, but think ‘on the nail’ is more common over here). I will leave others to comment on the aptness of this description of the great, proud nation of freedom and democracy. | |
| 16 | Qualified in final boxing championship (8) |
| ENTITLED – END (final) containing (boxing) TITLE (championship). | |
| 17 | American university about to receive fresh opening (8) |
| APERTURE – A (American) + U (university) + RE (about), containing (to receive) PERT (fresh). | |
| 19 | Had to take ecstasy to get calmer (3,4) |
| DIE DOWN – DID (had) containing (to take) E (ecstasy), then OWN (get). | |
| 21 | Vague legislation no longer supporting case for intervention (7) |
| INEXACT – EX-ACT (legislation no longer) underneath (supporting) the first and last letters of (case for) InterventioN. | |
| 22 | What is curbed by supreme command? (6) |
| BEHEST – EH (what) contained (is curbed) by BEST (supreme). | |
| 23 | Note head of Greek god captivates heathen (5) |
| PAGAN – A (note) + first (head) of Greek, which PAN (god) contains (captivates). | |
| 24 | Whistleblower checking books raised a stink (5) |
| FETOR – REF (whistleblower) containing (checks) OT (books), all reversed (raised). | |
I needed 67 minutes for this and came close to surrendering over the last clue standing (3dn) when DJINN suddenly presented itself as an alternative to DEIGN, the only word that had fitted up until then but was obviously wrong.
CREOSOTE as an antiseptic rather than wood preservative was new to me.
I would never have considered ON THE NOSE an Americanism but Brewer’s says it is, also that in Australia it means evil-smelling. Once again I felt the US indicator was unnecessary and ‘Disneyland’ more of a distraction than a help, which of course may have been the setter’s intention.
NHO GOOSEFOOT making its first appearance here today. UKASE rang a faint bell after constructing it from wordplay and last came up in January. LYCIDAS made one appearance 7 years ago and I didn’t know it then either
Several other clues seem easy in retrospect but I struggled to solve them.
Ditto re CREOSOTE.
‘Lycidas’ was an elegy, written, as Dr Johnson famously said, in the form of a ‘pastoral, easy, vulgar, and therefore disgusting’…
Having lived in Australia, I can vouch for your Aussie description of ‘on the nose’, Jack. Apart from a physical bad smell it also means, for example, behaviour that is not deemed acceptable.
I didn’t know FETOR but it seemed plausible since I did know FETID of course. UKASE definitely one I had a vague feeling I had seen before. And like everyone else I’d never heard of GOOSEFOOT. About 50 minutes but at least it was all green unlike yesterday where I had a careless error. I’m not sure I could have told you anything about LYCIDAS such as who wrote it, but the wordplay was kind. But basically a steady (and enjoyable) solve.
At last he rose, and twitch’d his mantle blue:
To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.
(Lycidas)
People will be familiar with the last line at least (although often misquoted as ‘fields’).
Struggled today and quit after 40 mins with a few left in the SE.
Ta setter and W.
Thanks for the reminder of the source for pastures new Myrtilus. Alevel English is a very long time ago and I’d thought it must be Paradise Lost. Should have known GOOSEwort was wrong.
75 minutes. LYCIDAS was the last thing I needed after spending most of yesterday toiling with a BROTEAS TLS stinker. It was a toss-up between FETOR and FOTER, with FETID assumed to be in the same territory. Crossers eventually made me plump for STANDPOINT but I still don’t really get it. I’ve seen UKASE recently, fortunately. Anything to lower the tone, COD to CODPIECE, of course. Thank you William and setter.
Steady solve but held up in SE corner. Once I got STANDPOINT and then ENTITLED I had problems dealing with the wordplay and definition of 28ac. Fortunately I saw FETID didn’t work and recalled FETOR and biffed EARNEST.
Thanks William.
I don’t really understand how ERNE is “High-flier with interest in school ” rather than “High-flier “.
I think they eat fish.
You just pipped me!
ERNE is a sea eagle so it preys on fish that go round in schools.
A tough puzzle with some extremely tricky wordplay which I am indebted to William for figuring out. I’m talking about LEISURE, DJINN, ELECTRONIC, ON THE NOSE and more besides. DNK a lot, including OVINE/Jacob, CREOSOTE/antiseptic and FETOR. Knew LYCIDAS and UKASE but only vaguely, they took an age to be dredged up. Pleased to get home in 39.31.
Oh! Bob! Um…Love and THEFT
(That’s it, great album, shame it’s not an actual song…)
Ideas, anyone?
Couldn’t let you have your first Dylan blank, Lindsay! I’d like to think I got this from memory, but I confess I needed to search online…
From Slow Train:
I had a woman down in Alabama
She was a backwoods girl, but she sure was realistic
She said, “Boy, without a doubt, have to quit your mess and straighten out
You could DIE DOWN here, be just another accident statistic”
There’s a slow, slow train comin’ up around the bend
Oh it’s not the first! But well done D, great get.
But that’s not the same DIE DOWN.
I pity the poor immiGRANT ??
Next time I’m desperate I will definitely remember that!
Stopped after 30′, without LYCIDAS and DJINN. But good fun.
Thanks willam and setter.
On the train to Kings Cross, took a fair chunk of the stretch between Berwick and Newcastle (about 35 minutes). Less brutal than some recent Friday puzzles but I had to go all the way down to UKASE before finding my first foothold. Thereafter “careful, calm deliberation/Disentangles every knot…” with particular pleasure in the aural clues DJINN and INCOMMODE and only STANDPOINT questionable, until I read the parsing.
Thanks W and setter.
Failed on the last. NHO DJINN would never have guessed the D was silent so I would not have got there if I had all week. I didn’t even submit a guess and hit reveal.
UKASE and FETOR also new to me but the word play was much kinder.
I had POSTURE instead of LEISURE for a while but corrected once I pulled LYCIDAS out of the dusty corners of my memory.
I also wasn’t sure what Disneyland was doing. I can never remember which one is in France and which is in the USA or that the phrase is an Americanism so it wouldn’t have helped anyway. I had incorrectly guessed it was a triple definition with some Disney reference I didn’t get.
Liked: ANOTHER, STANDPOINT and FORFEIT.
Thanks blogger and setter
I don’t have a mechanism for remembering that the Paris (and Tokyo) park is called Disneyland, but in the USA LA has DisneyLAnd and Orlando has DisneywORld.
DNF, defeated by DJINN (I thought of gin, but didn’t take the next step and work out the homophone).
– Relied on wordplay to construct the unknown LYCIDAS and FETOR
– Still not sure how GRANT=scholarship
– Got EPITHET from the checkers without parsing it
– Remembered UKASE from previous crosswords
– Didn’t know CREOSOTE is an antisceptic
– Wasn’t sure what the Disneyland reference was doing in ON THE NOSE
Thanks William and setter.
COD Codpiece
I thought this a good, solid Friday crossword, hard but not impossibly so. A class act this, with good surface readings to boot.
Thank you setter! And William of course
Is a secretion the same as a leakage? I tend to think of it as more the opposite, though I see Collins disagrees as ever ..
50 mins and submitted with fingers crossed.
Made harder work of it by biffing LACONIC at 1ac, the Milton work being NHO along with UKASE, GOOSEFOOT, FETOR and that meaning of CREOSOTE. I remember applying this antiseptic to an oil tank as a kid, perhaps it had sustained an injury.
Very careful parsing was the key to this one, hard but fair.
Thanks both.
Had to cheat my way through this, I was a long way from completing it on my own. I hastily put in ‘on the head’ for 14D as though it was was reference to ‘hitting the nail on the head’ but of course it doesn’t really work. I agree the ‘Disneyland’ bit seemed unnecessary.
I agree with JerryW. This was an excellent crossword. I struggled and came in at over 40 minutes. Lots of NHO words, but the clues were tough but fair. Hats off to the setter!
I DNF after 68 minutes because of guessing FUTOR for FETOR, but I had got myself in a losing frame of mind by then, since REF should have been obvious. I spell FOETID not FETID or I would have got there I think.
After 40 mins I had all except the NW and 24 ac and dn. But then I convinced myself that there was some kind of poetic term a DICADAS and this slowed me down a lot. I finally got LEISURE though and then L and ICY backwards were evident, and I struggled through the rest of the NW being very annoyed with myself for not getting DJINN and CODPIECE quicker, as I think on a better day they should have been easy clues.
Anyway as mentioned above then I fell at the final hurdle!
Thanks setter and blogger
Steve
PS had also NHO Goosefoot, which is an alternative name for arrowhead apparently
47.52. Not quick but it felt like an achievement to finish. Despite the extending time I managed to stop myself cheating! FOI took a time Erne and I wasn’t convinced it was right till much later. LOI Ovine. That corner gave me real grief but seeing piece for article opened it up. Was thinking I was looking for a relation of Jacob and of course it was when I saw Ovine.
Didn’t parse electronic so pleased to get that as I was with Lycidas which was a NHO.
Great puzzle and I’ll now take a look at other entries above which I hope will show I wasn’t the only one to find this tough.
DNF, many blanks. Greatly disheartened.
1a Lycidas, NHO, but I recognised the fresh woods and pastures new quote from Myrtilus.
9a Ovine, meaning of sheep. There is a breed of sheep called Jacobs, very pretty too. Was this what was intended?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_sheep
I thought 5d was parsed as chess perhaps (GAMe) ultimately surrendering (that would be the E) then piece=bit, so Gambit??
14a On the nose, I thought this very weak especially as it isn’t to my mind in any way associated with America. Anyway there is a Disneyland Europe somewhere miles away from Paris but called D Paris. On the nose just means “precisely.” We use on the nail too, but that is about prompt payment.
24d NHO fetor, HHO fetid so I should have guessed but didn’t. Had lost heart by then.
Thanks to William and setter.
Correct on Jacob, so named because Jacob conned his father in law out of a substantial herd by breeding the two-tone variety. Genesis 30, 31.
All these years I’ve misremembered the story then Z. All the fault of Alan Bennett. I’d envisioned Jacob the smoothie putting on a sheepskin toupee to fool Isaac into disinheriting the hairy Esau. Tricky lot those OT types.
First class crossword so thanks compiler, and William. I learnt here why ‘interest in school’ was in the erne clue so again thanks to those who enlightened me. No time really, but probably about an hour.
I wonder if 5 down is an &lit: GAM(-E) + BIT?
That’s also how I understood it.
Correct – the clue tells you to take out the last letter of manoeuvre from game, then add a bit.
Another DNF, but at least a Friday one. Done by the NHO DJINN, though I was looking at “gin” variants, and also the very good CODPIECE. A couple of educated biffs with NHO FETOR (fetid again) and UKASE (which I’d heard of but didn’t know the meaning… is there an acronym for that?). Enjoyed it though. Thanks William and setter.
This is how I construed it, making it a very clever all-in-one.
Now that’s how to do an enjoyable Friday test piece! Quite a bit of GK stretching for sure, with LYCIDAS, UKASE and the fact that DJINN is a plural (the singular is djinni, which seems the wrong way round). But nothing was completely unreachable, and I got through in 27.55, a good workout.
CODPIECE made me laugh once I saw it as my last entry, and of course it made me laugh, like any schoolboy, when I saw at on Henry VIII’s armour at the Tower.
Thanks to William for clearing up both GRANT and STANDPOINT: I didn’t quite make the definition connections but guessed right. I’m with others on GAMBIT as an &lit.
Beaten by the unknowns GOOSEFOOT and UKASE, but pleased to construct some other NHOs (FETOR, LYCIDAS) from wordplay. Not a fiendish Friday, but still not easy.
Got off to a reasonable start in the NW with OVINE, LEISURE and POUSSIN. Eventually had 6 left to do which stretched me over the half hour. Of these, ELCTRONIC arrived first closely followed by CODPIECE and EDDY. Then DIE DOWN materialised and GOOSEFOOT followed, leaving LOI, the unknown FETOR, to be assembled. 36:12. Thanks setter and William.
48:40. Hard work, but more doable than some Fridays. Pleased to finish even with some gaps in the parsing (eg STANDPOINT and the school of fish). I parsed 19dn DIE DOWN as DID OWN (had) containing (to take) E (ecstasy). LOI and COD CODPIECE. Many thanks blogger and setter
Struggled through in 2 hours plus but only by dint of much sharp practice.
Annoyed that I had heard of DJINN but missed the homophone.
NHO FETOR or LYCIDAS but dredged up UKASE from the seabed of my crossword-only vocab.
BEHEST had me stumped for a while, shameful but by then I was on the ropes and hoping the bout would be stopped.
Thanks to setter and william_js.
I finished eventually, but this was tough. I did not know poussin, goosefoot, and fetor, and djinn did not come to mind for a long time. Oddly, my LOI was erne – have we had a hidden yet? You would think I would remember Lycidas, having passed the Yale English Lit PhD oral, but that was a long time ago and it is no longer a write-in. On the other hand, ukase and ovine were simple.
Time: 53:38
Only me that plumped for GOOSEROOT then? It may be wrong but at least it parses!
A shame because I felt I had done well to wrestle this one into submission in just over 20 minutes.
Root would indeed work better than FOOT for ‘bottom’ but no such plant sadly.
54:10 – slowed to a crawl for the final toughies – same as everyone else’s. CODPIECE was a highlight, among many.
UKASE not exclusively Tsarist. Putin issues plenty of them
Lots of clues where I wasn’t quite sure but pretty sure so put the apparent answer in and came here for elucidation. Luckily all my guesses were correct and I took 44 minutes, with LYCIDAS stupidly spelt as Licydas. Many of the same problems as have been mentioned. Very uncomfortable with 5ac GRANT and can’t really see the two synonyms. Never really understood 5dn GAMBIT, but the &lit. explanation seems better.
DNF in 42
Bunged in a wrong letter in LYCIDAS hoping ICA was some sort of beer, and in desperation gave up with DEIGN knowing it couldn’t be right. Also much delayed in the SW but finally constructed the plausible GOOSEFOOT followed by FETOR
Tough stuff but great for a Friday
Thanks William/setter
Quite a few where I had no idea where to start, but getting one crosser opened things up. One help was seeing early on that the clueing was extremely precise. Thx Wm, more thx setter
DNF. Ukame 🙁
Thanks, w.
Tough but fair. An enjoyable exercise, all done in 51 minutes. It would have been quicker had I not been held up for too long on my POI and LOI at 22dn and 8dn. I was amused to find that CREOSOTE is an antiseptic. I remember happy afternoons many years ago splashing it on my garden shed and getting quite high on the smell before they banned it, probably because it was toxic. The green stuff I have to use now is nothing like as exciting. No problem with the association of GRANT and SCHOLARSHIP. In my student days they were virtual synonyms.
FOI – EPITHET
LOI – CODPIECE
COD – LYCIDAS
Thanks to william and other contributors.
30:14
Excellent Friday puzzle. For once all the GK referencesfell kindly for me – I’ve even read LYCIDAS.
Never realised that about CREOSOTE and I needed to come here to fully understand GAMBIT. COD CODPIECE.
Thaks to William and the setter
14.16. Lycidas a fave of mine. “Fame is the spur” is another quote beside “tomorrow etc”.
The Djinn of All Deserts gives the Camel his hump in the Just So Stories (in the World So New and All).
Ukase used to crop up a lot in crosswords, haven’t seen it for a while.
Fair bit of biffing involved today, so was quite surprised it turned out all right. Thanks for helping me parse Erne and electronic and others.
I liked Codpiece.
19d I think the parsing is HAD = DID OWN with E in the middle and GET being part of the definition. Around 15 minutes so quite chewy by my standards though I had all the required GK. had to construct LYCIDAS from the wordplay but it rang a distant bell when I got there.
Agree on 19d.
I don’t think “no net” matches “without practice session,” as you’d want a net during an acrobatic performance, not before, but that had to be the answer…
Guy, I think it’s a cricket thing. Net is a piece of ground at a cricket pitch used for batting and bowling practice.
Thanks. I never would have imagined such a thing…
I don’t quite get the blogger’s take on 19d. I took it as simply DID OWN for ‘had’ containing E, with ‘get calmer’ the definition.
I think that is right.
36:50, on the wavelength for the most part but struggled to insert my CODPIECE until the end.
Had a look at this, but way beyond me. Managed 5 clues in half an hour before abandoning. Never heard of 4 of the answers!
Pedantic point : creosote takes the C from start of cream.
Like Jack, I took an hour and seven minutes. I found some clues a bit strange, but the wordplay was always sufficient to finally tickle out the right answer, even ones I didn’t really know (LYCIDAS and FETOR, for example). Good puzzle! This setter seems to use A as an abbreviation for “American” quite a lot, but is that in any dictionary?
Yes, A = America and American are in Chambers and Collins, but not in the Oxfords.
About 90 minutes. Regarding STANDPOINT , I can’t see how it means ‘take issue with’ . I thought that standpoint was somebody’s position on an issue, thus ‘……looking at it from my own standpoint…..’ . Can anybody explain?
The definition is just ‘take’ – a view, an opinion on something, a standpoint.
An issue is a point, a matter of concern.
To remain is to stand.
I’ve never quite understood how ‘check’ works as a container indicator (24D ‘Whistleblower checking books raised a stink (5)’ )
Of course, ‘to check’ can have the sense of ‘to impede’, but that’s not enough to suggest containment or holding or surrounding.
Chambers offers the following:
3. To restrain or hinder
7. To nip, pinch, crush, as by biting or crushing
I don’t think number 3 works. It’s just another way of saying ‘impede’. It doesn’t necessarily imply containment, which a container indicator necessarily should.
Number 7 is too obscure. Indicators should be held to a higher standard than definitions. They should be clear, common-sense instructions, not reliant on interpretations vaguely justified by an entry deep in some dictionary.
Half glass full kind of day, either a pat on the back for finishing correctly after 90 minutes or an eye roll at how long I took to spot all the, now obvious, formats.
COD to EDDY. I removed ail from Mail early on but took a while to realise the whole paper was riddled with trouble.
The expression ‘on the nail’ originates from Bristol, where metal pedestals outside the covered market in the central harbour, which were called ‘the nails’, were struck on conclusion of a deal between merchants. So also ‘hit the nail on the head’. Disneyland is referenced presumably because the American expression has lost some of the original meaning and a variation is used over the pond.
If you’re in the mood for trivia, Bristol’s harbour, which stretches from the Severn estuary into the heart of the city, was tidal until a complex system of locks and dams was constructed at the turn of the (19. Ships would keel over at low tide so anything that wasn’t tied down caused havoc rolling around. ‘Ship shape and Bristol fashion’ has come to mean orderly and secure.
You’re welcome. I mean it might come up in a crossword one day?
Thanks both.
Thanks for the information!
Interesting to see this morning that Jason Crampton, our new(ish) crossword editor says this was one of his. A good one, I thought.
He also nearly-but-not-quite-apologises for cluster/clutter the day before.
Finished this Friday puzzle on Monday morning – tough, but I got there in the end.
At least I’m in good company, not having finished this without look-ups! NHO LYCIDAS, FETOR, UKASE, so I wasn’t going anywhere fast. At least I got DJINN , INCOMMODE and several other ‘sticky’ ones without help, but overall an unsatisfactory performance from me. Liked ANOTHER and POUSSIN.