About an hour.
No precise time, as I was solving this in snatches, but just under an hour. I’d say this is the ‘perfect Friday crossword’ level.
Pretty much right to left for me, with some unknown vocab and fiendish wordplay on the latter, and this approach alone always makes things much slower and messier. I got the sporting show and bird before unravelling the wordplay and alternative (in my world) spelling respectively. Then found myself lacking a shade of grey and style of governance (my ignorance is eclectic). And I still need to tackle the parsing for 27ac, 3dn, and 22dn… let’s see if I can.
Definitions underlined.
| Across | |
| 1 | Polymath about to abandon snake markets (10) |
| PYTHAGORAS – ‘on’ (about) deleted from (to abandon) PYTHon (snake) + AGORAS (markets). Tough to solve cold, and deceptively simple once it’s written down. | |
| 6 | Napoleon’s rank Suchet ultimately took back (4) |
| ETAT – last of (ultimately) sucheT + ATE (took), all reversed (back). Rank, or state, in French. | |
| 10 | Words of warning with which the 2016 Games were diplomatically secured? (4,3) |
| RIOT ACT – RIO TACT. No wordplay, just cryptically hinted. If this were a pub quiz question I would have had a 1 in 23 chance, | |
| 11 | Stag fight in East London reported by Spooner (7) |
| ROEBUCK – Spoonerism of (as reported by Spooner) “bow ruck” (fight in East London). | |
| 12 | Bessie expanded Hazel Nuts with Bite (9) |
| ELIZABETH – anagram of (nuts) HAZEL with BITE. | |
| 13 | Every second of May, if only in Mayo (5) |
| AIOLI – Every other letter from mAy If OnLy In. I thought long and hard about where the definition would be if the answer were ‘afnna’. | |
| 14 | Cream that’s low on additives? (5) |
| ELITE – few E-numbers, E-LITE (low on additives). | |
| 15 | Officers provide recommendation for county (9) |
| TIPSTAFFS – TIP (provide recommendation) + STAFFS (county). Edge of my ken, but dragged up. | |
| 17 | His welcoming Henry with fine sporting show? (4,5) |
| HIGH FIVES – HIS containing (welcoming) all of H (Henry) + F (fine) inside (sporting) GIVE (show). Presumably an &lit that I’m not entirely getting? | |
| 20 | Play absconding lovers in Handel opera (5) |
| ELOPE – hidden in handEL OPEra. | |
| 21 | Pasty, at an appropriate time, and whiskey to go (5) |
| ASHEN – AS and wHEN (at an appropriate time) deleting (to go) ‘and’ and ‘w’ (whiskey). Writing this reminds me of the fabled sign-writer who was instructed to touch up the paint on the exterior of the Horse and Groom pub. He had to paint between the words ‘horse’ and ‘and’ and ‘and’ and ‘groom’. A sentence with 5 consecutive ‘ands’ yet still makes sense. | |
| 23 | Son with least money checks for reaction (4,5) |
| SKIN TESTS – S (son) after SKINTEST (with least money). | |
| 25 | Computer section after grant to back business flyer (7) |
| COLETIT – IT (computer section) after LET (grant), all after (to back) CO (company, business). ‘Coaltit’ in my book. | |
| 26 | Writer’s written about open country by fell (7) |
| POLEAXE – POE (writer) containing (written about) LEA (open country) with X (by). | |
| 27 | Fellow students heading off without looking at the score (4) |
| YEAR – bY EAR (without looking at the score) with its first removed (heading off). As in, ‘year group’. | |
| 28 | All but striking oil here? (6,4) |
| PRETTY WELL – PRETTY (striking) + WELL (oil here?). | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Shade of dark grey, essentially (5) |
| PERSE – cryptic hint, PER SE. | |
| 2 | Overly suggestive of Siam, porcelain’s reportedly phoney (3-6) |
| TWO-TIMING – sounds like (reportedly) “too Thai Ming” (overly suggestive of Siam porcelain). | |
| 3 | Quick as the sandpiper flies? (2,1,4,2,5) |
| AT A RATE OF KNOTS – cryptic hint, since apparently sandpiper=knot. | |
| 4 | Covertly displacing crown, won’t ambassador question groundless treason? (2,3,2) |
| ON THE QT – deleting the first of (displacing crown) wON’T + HE (His Excellency, ambassador) + Q (question) + Treason with ‘reason’ deleted (ground-less). From ‘ on the quiet’ or secretly. | |
| 5 | First of samples in song’s Led Zeppelin? (7) |
| AIRSHIP – first letter from Samples in AIR (song) with HIP (followed latest trend, led). I think. | |
| 7 | Runs with redirected tour around city (5) |
| TRURO – R (runs) with an anagram of (redirected) TOUR containing it (around). | |
| 8 | What kidnappers may do is disagree (4,5) |
| TAKE ISSUE – double definition. | |
| 9 | Go out of one’s mind, according to faculty? (14) |
| DEPARTMENTALLY – DEPART (go out) + MENTALLY (of one’s mind). | |
| 14 | Having engaged new principal, they adapted style of governance (9) |
| ETHNARCHY – anagram of (adapted) THEY containing (having engaged) N (new) + ARCH (principal). A governance system in which a single ruler holds power over an ethnically homogenous group. | |
| 16 | Choices for sweet couple with finale of Brief Encounter? (5,4) |
| FOOLS MATE – FOOLS (choice of sweets, desserts) + MATE (couple). A very brief (four moves) game of chess could end thus, but only if your opponent walks straight into it, which I am known to do. | |
| 18 | Caller, please confirm five gold rings (7) |
| VISITOR – IS IT? (please confirm) which V (five) and OR (gold) contains (rings). | |
| 19 | A little bit tense after members set up gym (7) |
| SNIPPET – T (tense) after all of PINS (members) reversed (set up) with PE (physical education, gym). | |
| 22 | Healing involved getting this woman in (5) |
| HELGA – I was guessing women’s names and had ‘Helen’ at first, until 27ac changed my mind. I think this is a reverse cryptic in which ‘this woman’ (HELGA) + ‘in’ is an anagram (involved) of ‘healing’. | |
| 24 | Very healthy, having shifted old bulge (5) |
| SWELL – So WELL (very healthy) deleting (having shifted) ‘o’ (old). | |
I also don’t have a solving time as I forgot to note when I started, but I’d estimate somewhere in the region of 80 minutes. There were a few gimmes along the way (AT A RATE OF KNOTS went straight in on reading the clue and was my FOI) but wrestling most of the answers out felt like a war of attrition.
I should have said this was actually a DNF as I was unable to come up with PYTHAGORAS as I was missing the first checker, so I used aids on that one. Then on PERSE which I had never heard of. Incidentally I don’t think it counts as a double definition as the second one (essentially) would take the enumeration (3,2). If the clue had been set that way round I might have stood a chance as PER SE has cropped up a number of times, including very recently.
21ac had to be ASHEN but I delayed putting it in as I couldn’t see the wordplay. Is “as when” actually an expression?
“Play absconding lovers” = ELOPE? Really? Again it had to be, and this time I wrote it in straightaway, albeit with a shrug.
The bird at 25 suggested itself early but the only spelling I know is COAL TIT which wouldn’t parse or fit the enumeration. The arrival of HELGA at 22dn made me consider the alternative spelling COLETIT, which I was surprised to find was valid, but I was right about the enumeration as all the usual sources have it as two words.
ETAT was a real battle, and only from wordplay as I didn’t understand the definition until reading the blog
FOOL’S MATE and POLEAXE were may last in before resorting to aids as above.
I’m ever grateful that I relinquished Friday blogging duties. Well done yet again., Will!
PER SE: indeed – will change the blog anon.
ASHEN: “as and when” is the phrase, it’s quite familiar, no? Delete {and w}.
Thanks for keeping me on the straight and narrow!
Thanks. I probably wouldn’t have noticed if I’d been able to solve the clue. And now that I’ve read your blog on ASHEN again I note I didn’t read it closely enough the first time!
l loved this despite not finishing and having to reveal quite a few. The wordplay in many was hard to figure out but when the answer emerged it was worth the slog. I especially liked AS(and w)HEN which meant I could get ‘wan’ out of my thinking. Didn’t spot the snake market. Took a while to get RIOT ACT after thinking ‘Rio’ would be the second of the two-word answer, in fact, I’d written tactrio on my copy and still not seen it. HIGH FIVES was parsed as our blogger but I’m struggling to see the definition. Liked PRETTY WELL for ‘all but’. (b)y ear, another great clue for YEAR. liked the wordplay for TWO-TIMING. Thought ELOPE didn’t measure up to the rest of the crossword. Didn’t parse the ‘hip’ part of AIRSHIP so thanks for that.
I think SKIN TESTS is simply S with (next to) SKINTEST, as ‘checks’ is already performing duty as part of the definition.
Great workout. Thanks William and setter.
Yes – silly me.
The apostrophe in the clue for 5d has been bugging me. What do you think about: S first of Samples followed by Hip=in, song’s Led (song has Led)= Air has led?
That was my parsing too.
And for old times’ sake “BLOODY BIRDS!!”
(K)not this time?
Much better!
A really excellent puzzle. Difficult and inventive, but in hindsight, nothing at all that’s out of bounds. (And I’m not only saying that because I eventually finished)
I particularly admired IS IT in VISITOR, and DEPARTMENTALLY, which I should’ve got sooner, but there’s something about these fiendish puzzles that can lead you to overthink. My last ones in were HELGA as I eventually worked out what was going on, and YEAR, where I’d convinced myself I was looking for some unknown musical term as the definition.
It took me 25 minutes plus change, yet at the time of writing I’m in the top 10 on the leaderboard.
Thanks both.
Well, that was a battle of two halves, appropriate really as it took 90 minutes. Not enough happened in the first half, and I was about to jack it in when PYTHAGORAS dawned on me. I only know him for his square hypotenuses, a single rather than polymath. Then the phrases started to show themselves. I haven’t said ON THE QT for many a long year but AT A RATE OF KNOTS is still a favourite. HIGH FIVES was a biff. LOI SNIPPET. COD RIOT ACT. Thank you William and setter.
Gave up after 30 minutes, half of which was spent alphabet-trawling for NHO PERSE. Fair enough, I don’t mind failing on a word I’ve never come across before – didn’t think of PER SE for “essentially”.
LOI (otherwise) POLEAXE
COD AIOLI
Gave up at 30 mins with only 11 clues solved. Knew it would take me hours that I don’t have.
Dnf after 53′, unable to get nho ETHNARCHY , nho COLETIT, and nho PERSE. Oh well.
I note that there are very few forum comments, and that the SNITCH is currently at 190.
Thanks william and setter.
34.28. A brilliant B’Stard of a grid, half the clues prompting a mental cry of “dam’ I’m still good at this!”
That said, I think the clue for HIGH FIVES strains grammar and the working of an &lit to the limit, rather too clever for its own good.
I’ve never seen COLETIT before, though I see Collins at least justifies it as one word. I’ve always assumed it’s COAL because of the colour of its head. The other colour in the grid, not recognised PER SE, was my only other unknown.
But hey, loads of (tight-lipped) smiles throughout this, enhanced by the arrival of the delicious HELGA (‘Allo ‘Allo) to complete the show.
Valiantly blogged, William!
DNF
FOOLS MATE in chess lasts 2 moves. White moves his king’s pawn forward one square. Black moves king’s pawn forward. Second move white moves his king’s bishop pawn forward 2 squares. Black gives checkmate with his queen.
So, a single (chess) move = one go each?
Black’s queen could only check the king as the king’s knight pawn can block the check and threaten the black queen too.
Indeed. The correct fool’s mate is: 1 f3 e6 2 g4 Qh4 mate.
Never seen it, in practice!
You are correct of course. I suddenly realised my error going to bed and was about to correct it this morning.
Wonderful puzzle. Makes me sorry 15×15 cryptic setters are anonymous. It would be nice to give credit.
Very hard, needed to walk the dogs half way through to reset. A few unknowns: PERSE, COLE (not coal) TIT, ETAT. Skin tests for allergies I’ve heard of, but not sure they’re a thing down here. Couldn’t parses AIRSHIP or YEAR, didn’t think of music. Not convinced by high fives. The clue for the town of Truro, known for its horrific murders, seems to have way too many words in it.
Otherwise brilliant stuff. Loved depart mentally, poleaxe and Pythagoras.
I just got back from the CITY of truro (including a visit to the cathedral) but just too knackered to finish this, so no 7d and lots more, and DNF.
DNF
Beaten by the unknown PERSE. Also held up for an age by the bird which I have always known as two words and COAL. Chambers (the only dictionary app I have on my ipad) agrees but does have COLE for the alternative spelling. A bit of a beast and with Elgar in the Telegraph Toughie slot not a day for the faint hearted.
I suspect this may also be a Henderson, if only on the basis that it was so bloody tough!
That’s also my suspicion.
If the eds won’t let him sign the puzzles, he’ll make sure you know who it is by the level of difficulty and clean cluing, no?
I found this tough. I had to come back to it so no solving time.
Didn’t have a clue about PYTHAGORAS but it fitted the crossers nicely. It does seem straightforward when you read it.
POLEAXEd by that clue and FOOLS MATE despite being a keen chess player. They were the last two in but I wasn’t giving up at that point. Not helped by getting fixated that the first F was clued by ‘end of brief’.
Liked HIGH FIVES even if the full definition is stretching it a tad.
One of the hardest I’ve completed without checks, reveals or quick peeks of the dictionary or Google . Thankfully there were a handful of gimmes which allowed for a decent foothold.
Cheers blogger and setter.
Well done! Wrestling a real toughie to the ground is a definite milestone (‘end of brief’ also threw me).
Oof! From AIRSHIP to FOOLS MATE in 55:22 with a lot of brain wrangling in between. Well blogged William! Thanks setter, I think! PER SE is a bit strange with 2 different enumerations!
DNF
Persevered for over an hour but left with PERSE and POLEAXE.
Tough and as John D says, very well blogged.
Thank goodness the SNITCH was so high, because that is some justification for the difficulty I had with this. Despite after some time freely using all aids, I still took about 90 minutes and didn’t even finish and Chambers was telling me that no matches were found for my FOOL’S MATE search (although it does give it when you look it up, very odd), nor for HELGA, which struck me as what Azed seems to be very keen on, the comp. anag., which I thought was ‘outlawed’ in a daily cryptic. And in 2dn it looks to me that ‘phoney’ is a pretty feeble definition for something that is really to do with one’s romantic attachments.
That’s certainly the context in which I’m familiar with it, but Chambers does give a more general definition of “one who deceives or double-crosses”
Interesting point about compound anagrams. Now that you mention it I have always had the same assumption but it’s a long time since I’ve thought about it.
26:54. Blimey, what a beast. One of those that you can admire greatly without really being able to say that you enjoyed the experience! I got through about half of it in reasonable time but the rest was an exercise in grinding perseverance.
DNF after two attempts
I was defeated by:
– PERSE (NHO the grey shade)
– ON THE QT (again NHO, and after constructing the first two words from wordplay I was baffled by what two-letter word ending in T might follow)
– FOOLS MATE (bunged in FOOLS DATE, not knowing the chess reference)
– HELGA (bunged in HILDA, utterly beaten by wordplay. Sour grapes, but is Helga a common English name?)
Other issues:
– Relied on wordplay for the unknown TIPSTAFFS and COLETIT
– Couldn’t parse HIGH FIVES as I missed show=give
– Had to trust that a sandpiper is a knot to get AT A RATE OF KNOTS
– Agree with Quadrophenia’s parsing of AIRSHIP (now it’s been explained!)
Thanks William and setter.
COD Ethnarchy
34:33 The toughest puzzle for ages. There were very few straightforward clues that went straight in (ROEBUCK, TAKE ISSUE, SNIPPET, ELOPE). As a keen birder I was somewhat surprised to discover that knots are a kind of sandpiper but I suppose they are similar waders and hang out in similar environments. I haven’t seen COLE-TIT (sic) since I got my very first bird book in about 1971 – it’s universally spelled “coal tit” these days, and I can’t quite work out why the COLE spelling continued to be applied to the bird centuries after it ceased being used for the black stuff we used to burn. The only bit of vocab I didn’t know was PERSE, which meant it was essential to get the polymath first, and that was slow in coming. I’m not convinced that aioli and mayonnaise are remotely the same thing but it’s a clever clue. COD to the nautical miles, with Led Zep in a close second place. Am I right in thinking this is a relatively new setter with a penchant for the devious and obscure, with a sprinkling of novel clueing devices? We’ve had a couple of similar ones recently, and I think it’s a breath of fresh air. Keep them coming!
Finished (eventually) but no time as I completed it in at least three bouts, with long recesses to recuperate. POLEAXE and PERSE (the latter a guess) were last to fall but nothing came particularly easily. About as difficult as a doable daily gets, I’d say.
Being retired I now have time to spend 100 mins over a couple of sessions but I did get there with no cheats. I should say “we” as Mrs rv contributed ROEBUCK. LOI PER SE from essentially.
NHO TIPSTAFFS or that meaning of ETAT and the alt spelling of COLETIT was rubbing salt in a bit but no complaints. For every Friday there is a Monday.
Thanks to William and setter.
I was hoping someone else would query TWO-TIMING = phoney. I’ve only ever heard of it as cheating on your partner. Phoney is more like sham or fake and is one of Holden Caulfield’s favouritee words for people he dislikes (aka pseuds).
Really enjoyed this even though I had a few that defeated me after a day of on-off attention between work calls (Perse, Poleaxe, Fools Mate and Snippet). Like jackkt, At A Rate Of Knotts was a write in to get me going and then clues dropped in regularly throughout the day until I dried up in the SE corner.
Thanks William and setter.
A proper handful. Took about 50 mins in two sessions. Glad to finish.
Thanks, w.
Well beaten by this, with 4 unsolved. NHO PERSE or FOOLS MATE. I don’t take an interest in the Olympics and had no idea where the 2016 games were held, so RIO TACT wasn’t going to come. I think I’d have got POLEAXE with a little more perseverance, but I’d run out of stamina by then.
Gave up after 40 mins and glad to see the SNITCH so high. COLETIT, POLEAXE, ETHNARCHY (should have seen ARCH), SNIPPET, YEAR & HELGA all missing. Good to get a kicking from a setter now and again. 🙂
DNF
One of my favourite ever puzzles – simply outstanding. I wrestled the bigger to the floor in 71 minutes only to mistype too instead of two, grrr.
Congratulations on the blog William – not an easy task today. I see our previous Friday master Verlaine took over 15 minutes – glory be.
COD Departmentally (I do love a good pun) or Pythagoras.
LOI with crossed fingers the NHO Perse.
Thx William and setter
Good news if it’s 1.5x my usual time and only 3x his! Taking into account S. J. Gould’s left bound. I personally long for the return of Verlaine. A once in a time solver’s solver and blogger’s blogger.
First of samples in song’s Led Zeppelin? (7)
What a perfect clue! I like the ones where the surface reading is fluent and meaningful, but completely irrelevant to how it should be read.
I found this extremely difficult, but in a good way as the setter always gave me a chance to work them out, unlike yesterday. I thought I had finished successfully but failed at 6ac as I missed the need for a French word. No time as I started yesterday and continued this morning without looking at the clock. I agree with Olivia Hugill about 2dn, but I liked the clue and the line between deceit and fraud may be a thin one.
FOI – ELIZABETH
LOI – HELGA
COD – Difficult to choose between PYTHAGORAS, SKIN TESTS, and FOOLS MATE. I found them all very clever clues which made me smile.
Thanks to william and other contributors.
Never quite managed to finished this, but at least I got ETHNARCHY, since I once read Xi Jinping described as the ruler of such, and looked it up to find the author was spot on.
I’m late to this puzzle, so hello from Saturday afternoon. So I took 49 minutes, which I thought was a bad time, but I see I’m not the only one who took a while.
Apart from COLETIT, where the clue was straightforward but I have only ever heard of a COAL TIT so I was very unsure, it was the SE that really showed me down at the end. POLEAXE was my LOI and even with every other letter and thinking about Poe the writer, it took ages to see it. FOOLS MATE was clever and it was getting that one which got me going again after a long pause. Then came SKIN TESTS, PRETTY WELL, and SNIPPET (also a toughie)
Thanks setter and blogger
71:12
Very pleased to finish this beast – I have been known to give up the ghost if nothing has been forthcoming for a very long time, but this puzzle seemed to be willing to give up its secrets extremely slowly. After ON THE QT went in, perhaps around the thirty minute mark, I was stuck for ages with twelve left to complete. YEAR and HELGA went first, before eventually dragging the intriguing TIPSTAFFS from the back of my mind – what other officers could begin T_P? – but it didn’t help that much. I guessed that the second word of 23a might be TESTS, which gave SWELL, and in turn, DEPARTMENTALLY, PRETTY WELL and the excellent FOOLS MATE. Attention turned to the top corner where suddenly markets = AGORAS, brilliant! Still had to think hard to come up with PYTH and understand it. Alpha trawl for 1d once that important first letter was in, and finally thinking that ‘essentially’ might be the definition (even though it wasn’t), made me think of PER SE – dusty bells tolled from deep in my mind… then finally to SKIN TESTS (very good), SNIPPET and fell = AXE and failing to parse the rest of it!
Great effort to decode all of this William, and hats off to the setter for an absolute masterpiece
Probably of no interest to anyone, but PYTHAGORAS turned up in the Telegraph 2 weeks ago with similar wordplay: ‘Philosopher against abandoning snakes outside market’. Probably not the same compiler, so an interesting coincidence. My search revealed it was coincidentally also at 1 across!
Gave up on Monday with two unsolved. Aids gave me Perse but couldn’t see Fool’s Mate.
Tough, tough puzzle – I did like “At a Rate of Knots” and “Departmentally”.
Got there in the end. 87’24”. POLEAXE and FOOL’S MATE really had me. Great stuff.
Too difficult for me, as I counted at least 4 NHOs, which didn’t help much after revealing! I did get 16 clues without help, but that’s not a good score out of 28. O the other hand, loved DEPARTMENTALLY, RIOT ACT and VISITOR. ( Tip to self: set aside a lot more time to Friday’s crossword).
Gordon Bennet, what a toughie, relieved by joy at solving Beth, knots, and many more. Glad to note I wasn’t the only one to give up early.
Perse must have appeared before, as it is in my cm, but noted as dark blue not grey. A search provides dark bluish grey, so now amended.
The efforts of setter and blogger are both admirable.