Times 29207 – a wound not left to heal

Author   william_j_sPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

63:36

After several weeks of throwing in the towel / cheating, I determined to stick this one out to the end, though finishing and parsing it was brutish. There were quite a few guesses and half-parsed answers, but I got there eventually. Another very tricky Friday toughie.

Following a misfire in the NE corner and some concerted effort to solve 1ac, I thought things would start to unravel. Unfortunately not: I picked them off all round the grid over 3 sessions, reversed my way into a couple, and shrugged the last few in (especially 15dn).

What a cracker though! Lovely misleading surfaces and well-hidden elements, certainly a challenge, and a bit to learn along the way.

Definitions underlined.

Across
1 Raise fewer arguments after convincing demonstration (6,6)
OBJECT LESSON – OBJECT LESS (raise fewer arguments) + ON (after). A bit of a crossword-y synonym.
8 Most like a picnic meal, the rest of the afternoon free of shackles (7)
EASIEST – tEA (meal) + SIESTa (the rest of the afternoon), minus the first and last letters of the combo (free of shackles). Most certainly reverse engineered from a guess by me.
9 A doubter, but not one initially coming clean (7)
ASEPTIC – A + ScEPTIC (doubter), minus (but not) one of its letters ‘c’ (initially coming).
11 Ring HQ about confiscating Resistance weapon (7)
TORPEDO – O (ring) + DEPOT (HQ) all reversed (about), containing (confiscating) R (resistance).
12 Imposter dropping soft soap? (7)
SHAMPOO – SHAM (imposter) + POO (dropping).
13 Real Madrid and Barcelona? Not for them the 1-1? (5)
EVENS – elEVENS (Real Madrid and/or Barcelona, football teams), minus (not) ‘el’ (for them, spaniards, ‘the’). One-to-one odds being even returns.
14 Gradually categorising Burns this way? (2,7)
BY DEGREES – cryptic hint, referring to first and second, etc. degree burns.
16 Light during day charges pointer? (3,6)
BOW WINDOW – IN (during) + D (day) contained by (charges) BOWWOW (dog, pointer?). I had ‘bay’ for a while, not being totally familiar with the spelling of ‘bowwow’ which still looks odd.
19 Who dispatches present? (5)
OFFER – double definition.
21 Suitable support found in Apple’s first operating system (7)
APROPOS – PROP (support), contained by (found in) the first of Apple + OS (operating system).
23 Some juicy gossip gripped parting garden visitors (7)
TITBITS – BIT (gripped) contained by (parting) TITS (garden visitors).
24 Recruit Don’s neighbour to guard large amount (7)
DRAFTEE – DEE (Don’s neighbour, rivers in Aberdeen) containing (to guard) RAFT (large amount). I have Ulaca to thank again for teaching me this riparian GK, which appeared in a recent puzzle I blogged and got wrong.
25 Indicate corruption of old Commonwealth realm (7)
OBELIZE – O (old) + BELIZE (Commonwealth realm). Despite the helpful wordplay, I still entered ‘obelise’ in the first instance. The practice of adding an obelus to manuscripts in places where the text is suspected of being a bit dodgy. Unknown to me, of course.†
26 I will not work for retiring food transporter (12)
DESSERTSPOON – NO (I will not) + OP (work) all STRESSED (italicised), then reversed (retiring). Two words in my world.
Down
1 Keep returning unwrapped porcelain box (7)
OBSERVE – sÈVRES (porcelain, of fame) + BOx, together missing the first and last letters (unwrapped), and reversed (returning). As 8ac above, quite difficult to unravel, especially if you are not au fait with the porcelain-manufacturing commune. You have to get to definition 26 in Chambers to find ‘keep’ = ‘observe’, as in celebrate, but I’m happy with ‘keep’ = ‘tend’ = ‘supervise’, etc. A last-minute guess for me.
2 American Lord is mocking physical exercise drills (7)
JEEPERS – PE (physical exercise) contained by (drills) JEERS (mocking). US expression of surprise.
3 Disc that fastens to cycle snatched by phoney cleaner (6,3)
COTTON BUD – BU-TTON (disc the fastens) becomes TTON-BU (to cycle), contained (snatched) by COD (phoney). Solved by cycling through synonyms for phoney, sham, etc. and working backwards.
4 See promotional material a lot (5)
LOADS – LO (see) + ADS (promotional material).
5 Matter this woman put on report (7)
SHEBANG – SHE (this woman) + BANG (report).
6 By 8 o’clock, let up cast to replace player (7)
OCTUPLE – anagram of (cast) O’Clock LET UP, once you remove (replace) ‘lock’ (player, of rugby). I think.
7 It’ll deflect water if turned off, so it’s said (12)
WEATHERBOARD – thanks to Jackkt for parsing this one: sounds like (so it’s said) “whether” (if) and “bored” (turned off).
10 On set of shelves put something one may have to bear weight of TV (5-7)
CROSS-DRESSER – DRESSER (set of shelves) on CROSS (something one may have to bear weight of). It’s devilishly difficult to split the clue in the right place, and I was completely derailed by my certainty that ‘TV’ could only stand for one thing. But it can also stand for ‘transvestite’. The cleverness of ‘cross one must bear’ was slightly tempered for me by a dresser being clued as ‘set of shelves’. It’s so much more than that.
15 In doldrums after losing house, have to come out (4,5)
DOWN TOOLS – DOLdrumS minus (losing) ‘drum’ (slang for house, apparently), contains (in…) OWN (have) + TO. Come out, as in strike from work. I originally put DOWN from ‘in doldrums’ and then biffed / guessed the rest. Perhaps I’ve got this parsing wrong; the way I have it seems too obscure…
17 Conflicts wear out nurses very much (7)
WARFARE – anagram of (out) WEAR containing (nurses) FAR (very much).
18 Left abandoned, one naturally sticks with Trump’s state force (7)
IMPETUS – minus (abandoned) letter ‘l’ (left) from lIMPET (one naturally sticks) + US (Trump’s state).
19 Busy, having to cancel opening, say: “May I?” (2,3,2)
ON THE GO –  remove the first letter from (cancel opening) mONTH (say, May) + EGO (I).
20 Perhaps Leeuwarder is enthralled by the Rev. Paisley? (7)
FRISIAN – IS contained (enthralled) by FR (Father, Reverend) IAN (Paisley). A Leeuwarder is a native of that city of Friesland, NL. My only point of reference here is the breed of cattle, and left to my own devices I would have spelled it ‘Friesian’.
22 Very fine cut on the ear (5)
SHEER – sounds like (on the ear) “shear” (cut).

105 comments on “Times 29207 – a wound not left to heal”

  1. Once again we are faced with a Friday beast! I think I needed the best part of 10 minutes before I found an answer I could write in with confidence. When I finished I had 75 minutes on the clock, at least 6 answers not fully parsed and I was too tired to go back and review them. By this morning it was easier just to look at William’s blog in order to clear them up, so many thanks, Will, for your noble efforts.

    I’m not going to go through my travails in detail. I do however have one suggestion for an alternative parsing which I think may be what the setter intended. At 7dn I had WEATHERBOARD defined as “It’ll deflect water” with aural wordplay [so it’s said] “whether” (if), “bored” (turned off).

  2. Gave it the full hour, cracking the NE first after about 20m, SW towards the end – but what a slog! I actually LOLed when I solved DESSERTSPOON.

    Felt a bit ashamed at throwing in the towel with 6 clues to go + (as it transpired) one wrong biff …until I saw the SNITCH. Toughest puzzle I’ve ever seriously attempted – 60m fail.

  4. Having reached an age when every moment is precious, I decided not to endure further fruitless endeavour and quit after 45 minutes.

    Totally bewildered but I did like bow window.

    1. “Daddy wouldn’t buy me a BOW-WOW, a BOW-WOW.
      (repeat)
      ….I’ve got a little cat and I’m very fond of that, but I’d rather have a BOW-WOW,WOW,WOW, WOW,WOW….” (Apparently)

  5. Definitely a toughie.
    Knew about Frisia from Erskine Childers’ “The Riddle of the Sands.”
    Religious festivals tend to be kept/observed.
    Failed to parse “down tools” but I think your parsing is correct, William.

      1. My father liked it which is why I read it. I enjoyed it, but I see it rather more as a history book than an actual novel… a vanished world, in several ways.

      2. What a lovely puzzle. Thanks setter and William.

        In the discussion ‘The Riddle of the Sands’ has come up. As a child I was a voracious reader and found a copy of this book when helping my father clear out one of his rented properties after a tenant had left. I thought it looked interesting and pocketed it but with the length of the rest of my reading list I just never got round to it.

        Several people here have voiced appreciation of it and on looking for a decent Kindle version there seems to be a caution that the published maps are pretty essential to an understanding of the story and that these are not rendered successfully in some of the Kindle editions. Can anyone point me to a good Kindle edition?

        Enjoying sawbill’s ‘Mongoose and Cobra’ mentioned the other day which came free with my Kindle Unlimited or Amazon Prime or whatever it’s called and this membership also offers me several versions of this book for under a pound. But is it worth forking out more for a faithful reproduction of the topography? If so can anyone recommend a good Kindle edition?

  6. It would be easier to say which ones I actually got without cheating. It did make your comments compulsive reading though, William. I’m trying to remember the Carry On film when the men, including Charles Hawtrey and Kenneth Williams, had been captured by a tribe of insatiable women. Unable to take any more, I think it was Sid James who gave the instruction to DOWN TOOLS. A brilliant puzzle, setter, but could you be a bit less so next time? Well done, William. Put me down as a DNF.

  7. What a brute! Took two goes, with a long gap in between for recovery. Some really convoluted wordplay – got most of it but not down tools, didn’t know drum; and guessed MEAL and A SIESTA were both missing first and last. Liked it a lot. Real and Barca get COD… I was convinced Real Madrid would be a lift and separate.

      1. I suspect you’re right… two synonyms meal/tea and rest/siesta; and no A or AN in the clue to give A siesta.

    2. I don’t think there’s anything to clue A SIESTA rather than just SIESTA, so I favour Will’s parsing.

          1. Ditto here on (f)eas(t) (s)iest(a)
            Unusual to have two or more ways to parse the clue but only one meaning, which is just fine. Not like when there are two possible answers.

            1. The comments rolled over to a second page. Look for the ‘Newer comments’ link top or bottom of the first page.

              1. I can see another entry from Paul in that overspill but not that one – in any case it was showing in my email as a ‘reply’. Thanks though!

  8. 75 minutes with liberal use of aids and not fully parsed so a technical DNF. Definitely one up to the setter, congratulations, and thanks to William.

  9. Pleased to have solved at least some of these legitimately.
    Surprised by how many guesses turned out to be correct.
    Persisted for 85 minutes because I felt it was doing me good.
    OBELIZE apart, striking how accessible the answers now seem on reflection – indicating the setter’s art?
    Thanks to setter and blogger.

  10. Finished! 26’11”, with OBELIZE and DOWN TOOLS unparsed. Only got WEATHERBOARD because we had it the other day.

    Really liked this puzzle.

    A family story says that my great-grandfather, who played pub piano to scrape a living, wrote ‘Daddy wouldn’t buy me a BOW-WOW’, and sold it for a pittance.

    Thanks william and setter.

  11. 19:21. This was very hard, and I found some of it gratuitously obscure and/or over-engineered. The ‘cycling’ in 3dn for instance is a particularly convoluted example of a device I dislike at the best of times; ‘after losing house’ as a bit ridiculous as a way of indicating the removal of DRUM; OBELIZE is a rather obscure term so asking us to come up with a specific place out of dozens is a bit mean; etc etc. Objectively I have to admire the cleverness of this puzzle but it grated a bit. In a way this helped though: it made me determined not to be defeated by the b******!

    1. I originally wrote something very similar to your first sentence but deleted it thinking it was probably just me. But now you’ve said it I’m encouraged to say I agree with you. ‘Showing off’ is another phrase that comes to mind.

      1. Obviously a matter of taste, and to be fair there is a certain grim satisfaction in wrestling a puzzle like this into submission!

          2. Well indeed, having said this grated I obviously had to go and try the Io puzzle in the FT mentioned by BletchleyReject below. It’s even harder! Masochistic is certainly the word, enjoyment I’m less sure about…

  12. 110 minutes. Glad that I stuck with this, although the NHO OBELIZE was entered from wordplay and COTTON BUD went in from the def. Some v. tough parsing for lots of other clues. Favourites were the misleading defs for EASIEST and CROSS-DRESSER.

    Sorry for almost single-handedly skewing the SNITCH which will return to more sensible levels once I’m excluded.

    Thanks to William for a great effort in sorting this out and to our setter

    1. There are currently two other solvers with higher NITCHES – over 300! I’ve managed similar before, on puzzles by this setter…

        1. I am pretty certain this is a Henderson, yep – from style, and he’s doing about one Times a month. I know for a fact his was the beast a few weeks ago as I saw him that day in Oxford, so the timing also works.

          1. Thanks. I often think that I recognise his style but of course there’s no way of being sure.

          2. Yes, I guessed that the setter was John Henderson. If you want to try another one of his, have a go at the Io in yesterday’s FT. Very clever, but way too good for me.

  13. Gave up on the hour with most of the lower half not done. The unheard ofs I was never going to get. Life’s too short!

    Thanks William for working it all out.

  14. The clue to ON THE GO wins my prize for possibly the most tortuous clue I’ve seen (that’s a compliment): “Busy having to cancel opening, say: ‘May I?'”

  15. I don’t think I have ever reverse-engineered so many answers in a single puzzle before and there were still gaps in my parsing you could drive a bus through. I resorted to the check button a couple of times so a DNF. Too hard to be much fun but at least the editor chose to schedule it on a bank holiday.

  16. The late Reverend Paisley would not have tolerated being addressed as Father. Unlike Roman Catholics and Anglocatholics he would have taken the teaching of Jesus seriously (call no-one father).

    2. He took everything seriously. If he had a sense of humour it is news to me. All that about turning the other cheek and suffering little children passed him by.
      Where I used to live, Hoylake, is the spot where William of Orange set off for the Battle of the Boyne. To this day, all the Orangemen come over from Ireland once a year and march up the high street in commemoration; and a more grim, humourless lot you will never see. Even the children. It used to send shivers up my spine.

      1. I might have agreed with him about a few things but I always thought he was long on truth but short on grace! only impressions mind – never met him.

  17. Blimey, that was hard.

    DNF, defeated in the end by OBJECT LESSON (got the second word, not the first), OBSERVE (not familiar with the porcelain), JEEPERS (was baffled by ‘American Lord’) and OBELIZE (NHO, and didn’t know Belize was in the C0mmonwealth).

    – Like isla3, thought 13a would require us to separate Real and Madrid for a while
    – Didn’t parse BOW WINDOW
    – Thought of the Russian Don river and the Yorkshire Don river before the Scottish one for DRAFTEE
    – Only partially figured out how DESSERTSPOON worked (got ‘no op’ backwards, but didn’t pick up on what the italics were indicating)
    – Biffed COTTON BUD with a shrug, only getting the ‘cod’ part
    – Didn’t fully parse OCTUPLE – does ‘replace’ in the clue really mean ‘remove’? If so, I’m not sure how that’s justified – surely to replace something you need to put something else there in its stead
    – Biffed DOWN TOOLS and would never have worked out the parsing… drum=house is something I need to remember

    Kudos to those who completed this. Thanks William and setter.

    COD Draftee

      1. Ah OK, I misunderstood William’s explanation as meaning the ‘oc’ was part of the anagrist.

        Thanks!

        1. I admit my explanation is not as Keriothe’s but unclear, it’s just wrong. I will update when I’m back at home. And thanks K!

    2. BELIZE used to be British Honduras( hinting at how it’s a Commonwealth member).

  18. Perhaps the hardest crossword to solve and parse in history and with the highest snitch (currently over 200). No pure anagrams (though they were involved in the wordplay for OCTUPLE and WARFARE) or hidden words. I only got 4 without cheating, it would’ve been 5 but I put ‘sonic’ (which kinda sorta works as an answer) instead of SHEER.

    1. It’s only the third hardest of the year, remarkably – we had a 260 Snitch a few weeks ago, and a 213 in January. But prior to that, the last time a weekday puzzle had a 200+ Snitch was in 2018, I think.

  20. Very tough in parts. Some never solved; I’m not as determined as our blogger. Cheated throughout.
    11a Torpedo. Missed the depot and was in the dark.
    25a ObeliZe amended from the more usual British spelling after reading the clue properly. Mark you Morse always used Zs….
    26a Desserttspoon; IKEA strikes again. Happy with one word though.
    2d Jeepers. Put off by the American Lord; I thought it was the sort of word Wooster used. I don’t use it though.
    3d Cotton Bud. Jeepers! Hadn’t a clue on this. I did see the Cod, but. It was complex, well done william_j_s.
    6d Octuple ditto.
    10d Cross Dresser. Had to look up TV for transvestite.
    17d Warfare. Drum=house is police slang; “to spin his drum” = execute search warrant on his home. But I didn’t parse this and it was LOI only 1 word fit.
    The town is LeeuwardeN, the R is a native. Frisian not = Friesian. Too technical for me to see the difference, but the languages and districts don’t have the E normally, but may. The cows do… usually. I’m sure we all needed this tedious detail!
    Thanks william_j_s & setter.

    1. In Germany and Holland Frisia seems to be Friesland, with the “e”. No “e”, however, in the Danish segment. The Romans called the tribe Frisii so we are justified in leaving the “e”out in English!

    2. Since Morse worked, and Colin Dexter set for, The Telegraph, it would be interesting to know if the Telegraph Style Guide prefers ‘z’ to Morse’s “uneducated” ‘s’

  21. Biff City with many unparsed even though “It has to be that” was my cry on several occasions. LOADS and SHEBANG sat all by themselves for a good 15 minutes, then BY DEGREES arrived and led to CROSS DRESSER. ON THE GO went in and out until DOWN TOOLS and TITBITS made it inevitable, but I stil couldn’t parse it. OBELIZE was LOI. Liked BOW WOW for pointer. Would never have managed to parse COTTON BUD in a million years. Scraped in under the hour at 59:32. Thanks setter and William, especially William!

  22. 52:30 – the aforementioned grim satisfaction much in evidence as the SE corner and OBELIZE finally fell. A triumph of brute force and persistence over skill, but a solve is a solve.

  23. Gladly my cross-eyed bear
    Solved in 32.06 either side of some excellently presented Good Friday reflections and hymns. The lower section, especially the innovative DESSERT SPOON and the frankly impossible Fr Ian meriting special comment. Like Putin’ on the Ritz, both a B’stard and a cracker.

  24. Gave up after 65 minutes with a few still unsolved. On checking the blog, there are some there which I would never have got from the wordplay – OBSERVE (not a porcelain expert), OBELIZE and the second part of 15d – I had DOWN but thought that was enough for In Doldrums. ON THE GO was frighteningly hard as well. Though I didn’t get it in flight, I like DESSERTSPOON. One to forget.

    Thanks William for your Trojan efforts

  25. After 15 mins I’d got loads. Sorry, make that LOADS. But with something of a hangover and no intention of doing much else today I persevered and staggered over the line in 96 mins.
    Thought OC was short for O’Clock in OCTUPLE, wrote off the player.
    Expected an E in FRISIAN but there wasn’t room.
    Lots of reverse engineering as others have said but satisfying to complete, thanks setter and blogger.

  26. 26A my favourite today in this toughie. I really like that sort of thing, here the use of italics, not relying entirely on words to produce the answer.

    Thanks William, 51 minutes for me, and happy holidays to all.

  27. Got nowhere on this. All I can say is it can be a tough gig being a Friday blogger…

  28. Obelize? Oh perlease! Gave up after an hour with five still to do. After the first half dozen or so I was pathetically grateful for each additional answer painfully achieved. A masterpiece of lexical gymnastics but I’m quite happy just doing a gentle jog these days.

    Thanks to Wiliam and the setter

  29. 19:53 Pretty tough, as others have said, but very enjoyable. I particularly liked the use of italics in 26ac and the delicious incongruity of giving Paisley a Catholic title! I didn’t manage to parse ON THE GO or CROSS-DRESSER while solving but I found there was limited opportunity for biffing given the intricacy of the clueing. Great puzzle. COD to EASIEST, whichever way one wishes to parse it!

  30. Coming here late I have only scanned the preceding comments but gather I am not alone in finding it tough as hell. I think JEEPERS encapsulated it for me, both for the sentiment and for the devilish cleverness of the clueing. Despite the fact that I thought DESSERTSPOON was two words, that is seriously brilliant clueing. But there were many others that were a torture to unravel and a joy to crack. Great puzzle, thanks William (tough gig today). 56.07 which I thought was pretty good considering.

    From Where Are You Tonight?
    I fought with my twin, that enemy within
    Til both of us fell by the way
    Horseplay and disease is killing me BY DEGREES
    While the law looks the other way

  31. Incredibly difficult and after a time I gave up and used all aids freely, because there were so many that I wouldn’t have got any other way. But no complaints and DESSERTSPOON is a great clue, although some dictionaries prefer two words, and so do I. My ‘time’ of 83 minutes is meaningless.

  32. Well, that was quite the puzzle. Took an hour ending with OBELIZE as a wordplay guess. Didn’t parse DOWN TOOLS either, but I did finally understand all the rest. I suppose our setter wanted us to join the suffering on Good Friday. Regards.

  33. Many thanks to William for parsing this. A DNF after an hour with torpedo evens easiest and observe still unfilled.

    One very minor eyebrow raise from me of Depot as HQ. Can’t remember seeing it in crosswordland before and to my mind a depot is a storage facility and not HQ but that’s just me being bitter as I never thought of it.

    Thx William and setter

    1. I recall from reading many years ago that the 9th Battalion DLI had their Depot in Gateshead where they were rooted. Known as the “Gateshead Gurkhas” for their prowess in war and the resemblance of their dress uniform to that of the Gurkha regiment.

  34. 56 minutes, many unparsed, so surprised to be all green. Penultimate guess was OBSERVED, which gave crossers for my ultimate guess, EVENS. Kicking myself for failing to parse the latter.

  35. 88 minutes and a few words I just didn’t know like OBELIZE (but luckily Belize is quite familiar) and some which I couldn’t quite parse like OCTUPLET and also the BUTTON aspect of cotton bud. i was very slow up until about one hour when I had only about half done, then suddenly my brain got in the swing or something and I was (relatively) fast with the rest and my LOI was EVENS and that was an Oooohhhh moment.
    Just right for a holiday challenge 🙂
    Many thanks setter and blogger

  36. 54.27

    Very pleased to do this with just a very cheeky check on OBELIZE before submitting. As Simon would say “I’m not going to change it” and what’s good for him…

    All parsed apart from DOWN TOOLS and COTTON BUD. I don’t know how familiar “drum” is for “house” but assuming “not very” that was definitely in the “too complicated” category. Loved the rest of it though especially EVENS. That was superb.

    We always thanks the bloggers but jeepers William you really do earn your corn. Congratulations.

  37. Time off the scale.
    I got through this blighter purely by staring it down clue by clue. It took forever. Even to reverse engineer some of the answers took a long time. Very glad to finish it. LOI obelize.
    Thanks, w.

  38. Whew! 67 mins and an OBJECT LESSON in not giving up. Quite a few clues where I pencilled in answers which were wrong, thereby making other clues impossible to get.
    As others, COD DESSERTSPOON

  40. ‘Imposter’ didn’t look right to me, and neither Chambers not the Oxford Concise has it. So I was distracted trying to work out what the point of it was. Turns out it was not so much an error as an Americanism, so still I ask: why?

    1. Not sure where you are looking, Jeffrey, but impostor (also imposter) is in both dictionaries you mention plus Collins without any qualification about ‘imposter’ being American.

      1. But if it’s not American, that doesn’t really address why ‘imposter’ is in there at all? Just saying ‘it’s in the dictionary’ is a form of self-fulfilment or one of those circular arguments.
        If dictionaries ‘record’, one might wonder where they recorded ‘imposter’ from, or whether someone has just alighted on a spelling mistake somewhere and it’s accidentally passed into the lexicon in that form?
        Because as everyone knows, the word is ‘impostor’

      2. In the full OED it is only defined as the guy who puts tax on things; you have to look for impostor to see that there is an ‘er’ version of the sham

  41. This was brutal but doable. I spent all day on it . I was travelling so there was not much else to do. Really proud of myself when putting in the final word only to realise I had put in SHEAR instead of SHEER on the first pass.

    I did like that. A few went in unparsed and I was lucky that WEATHERBOARD(ing) came up recently because I would never have got to that homophone. That opened up a lot of the grid.

    Could have biffed DESSERTSPOON earlier but didn’t have a clue how many words it was. I would never have got it from the wordplay so that was the first thing I went to when opening the blog.

    COTTON BUD and DRAFTEE favourites today.

    Apart from the silly error quite happy to have got through that correctly.

  42. 88 mins. All parsed correctly within the time, except EASIEST – I freed ‘meal’ from its shackles, omitting to notice that an ‘s’ was unaccounted for – and DRAFTEE: was OK with the raft but stupidly didn’t think of the rivers! Didn’t like spelling of ‘impostor’ (sic). Viciously good puzzle!

  43. Very relieved to see the comments above! I only attempt the 15×15 about once per week and foolishly thought I’d give it a go today. I managed to solve 4 clues that I could parse and another 4 that I couldn’t, then ‘solved’ alongside the blog, for which, many thanks. I laughed out loud when I saw cross-dresser – brilliant! Highly educational but I have a very long way to go before I’m anywhere near being able to solve one of these. I particularly liked OBELIZE and DESSERTSPOON for the misdirection. Loved this puzzle. One day… Many thanks for the blog.

  44. 33:45. JEEPERS! I took a while to reach the level of concentration needed to solve this but got there in the end all parsed, which felt like quite an achievement. Some great clues. I liked BOW WINDOW best but LOI DESSERTSPOON and CROSS DRESSER are also worth a mention in dispatches. Deletion of “drum” for “house” is a bit hard, even for an MCS, though. Thanks William and devious setter.

  45. Phew – very tough – about 80 minutes in all.
    I agree with everything Keriothe said above – especially wrt “Down Tools”.
    I saw Don’s neighbour as a river but couldn’t get Volga out of my mind until I saw Dee right at the very end – I presume that’s the Scottish Dee and that there’s a Don in Scotland as well as in Yorkshire and Russia – I’ll have to get my Atlas out.

    1. A Don River in Ontario, Canada too, which flows down through Toronto. I assume English not Russian settlers named it!

  46. 143:36. what a monster! quite a bit of heavy engineering in the clues. much of it very clever but my goodness it took a while … maybe a good thing for a dreich BH!

  47. Persevered and solved in a marathon 443 minutes ( with breaks)
    Couldn’t parse Bow window,on the go, evens and cotton bud but guessed right in the end. Thanks for explanations.
    LOI Evens
    COD Dessertspoon

  48. Gave up after 80 minutes, but gave it a good go. I had eight remaining after about 60 minutes and so it remained until I decided enough was enough. I did however have ON THE GO, but didn’t write it in because I couldn’t parse it. Having seen the answers I’m fairly sure I wouldn’t have made it, with OBELIZE and the parsing of DOWN TOOLS being two good reasons why.

  49. That was a CORKER!
    Only managed to get my hard copy after midday and then ran into the solvers nightmare!
    Mostly solved but many many thanks for quite a lot of parsing by the great and good.
    If Easter is important to you, all the very best wishes, if not, still the very best wishes.
    Eating some local buffalo burgers with chilli and frizzled spring onions. Sam Blunkett’s Australian Shiraz (Naked Wines) is better than gravy

  50. Gave up with a few left in the SE corner. I thought of DOWN TOOLS but couldn’t see how the wordplay worked and couldn’t get any of the across clues that intersected it. I never saw how EVENS worked, too clever for me, plus like others I was certain that “Real Madrid” was an obvious lift & separate and so I was convinced I was looking for something meaning “real”. SO DNF for me.

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