Solving time: 42 minutes
An enjoyable solve.
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 now use a tilde sign ~ to indicate an insertion point in containment clues. I usually omit all reference to juxtaposition indicators unless there is a specific point that requires clarification.
 Across |
|
| 1 | One telling stance about current balance (12) |
| COUNTERPOISE | |
| COUNTER (one telling), PO~SE (stance) containing [about] I (current). A teller may count out money in a bank, for example. | |
| 9 | Criminals backing plan involving a little force (5) |
| MAFIA | |
| AI~M (plan) reversed [backing] containing [involving] A + F (little force – i.e. an abbreviation) | |
| 10 | Area covered by scariest running and climbing route (9) |
| STAIRCASE | |
| A (area) contained [covered] by anagram [running] of SCARIEST | |
| 11 | Remains of animals dead inside tree in stream (8) |
| ROADKILL | |
| D (dead) contained by [inside] OA~K (tree), all contained by [in] R~ILL (stream) | |
| 12 | Reverse, still limiting velocity (6) |
| INVERT | |
| IN~ERT (still) containing [limiting] V (velocity) | |
| 13 | Greed for money I had to follow up in financial centre (8) |
| CUPIDITY | |
| UP + I’D (I had) contained by [in] C~ITY (financial centre). I didn’t know this meaning although I now find it has appeared a few times over the years, including a puzzle I blogged in 2012 where it was defined as ‘avarice’. I wondered what it had to do with the god Cupid and found in addition to his erotic duties he is the god of desire more generally, and his name derives from the Latin cupidus meaning ‘eagerly desirous’. | |
| 15 | Raised edge of tart gets half broken off (6) |
| FLANGE | |
| FLAN (tart), GE{ts} [half broken off]. I never knew exactly what this is, but ODE has: a projecting flat rim, collar, or rib on an object. | |
| 17 | Tough having part of transport network in decay (6) |
| ROBUST | |
| BUS (part of transport network) contained by [in] RO~T (decay) | |
| 18 | Pneumatic weaving machine, reportedly a family treasure (8) |
| HEIRLOOM | |
| Aural wordplay [reportedly]: HEIR LOOM / “air” loom (pneumatic weaving machine) | |
| 20 | Everything eaten by ruminant is green (6) |
| CALLOW | |
| ALL (everything) contained [eaten] by C~OW (ruminant) | |
| 21 | My kind (8) |
| GRACIOUS | |
| Two meanings – the first an exclamation | |
| 24 | Medley I purport to play, containing little old (9) |
| POTPOURRI | |
| Anagram [to play] of I PURPORT containing O (little old i.e. an abbreviation). Definition and answer both mean a mixture of various things. | |
| 25 | Do volunteer work in east (5) |
| OPINE | |
| OP (work), IN, E (east) | |
| 26 | Ancient relative emoting about boring member of religious community (12) |
| PRIMOGENITOR | |
| Anagram [about] of EMOTING contained by [boring] PRI~OR (member of religious community). | |
| Down |
|
| 1 | Fine fabric mostly appeared reddish-brown but with no finish (7) |
| CAMBRIC | |
| CAM{e} (appeared) [mostly], BRIC{k} (reddish-brown) [but with no finish]. The material is mentioned in the lyric of the traditional ballad Scarborough Fair – ‘Tell her to make me a cambric shirt…’ | |
| 2 | Palpably unfit, I worked out in calmness (14) |
| UNFLAPPABILITY | |
| Anagram [worked out] of PALPABLY UNFIT I | |
| 3 | Line of song (5) |
| TRACK | |
| Two meanings – railways and recordings | |
| 4 | Firm concerned with a feature of liquidation? (8) |
| RESOLUTE | |
| RE (concerned with), SOLUTE (a feature of liquidation). I didn’t know ‘solute’, which ODE defines as the minor component in a solution, dissolved in the liquid solvent. | |
| 5 | Not bothering with being right or wrong, am missing exam (4) |
| ORAL | |
| {am}ORAL (not bothering with being right or wrong) [‘am’ missing] | |
| 6 | Weird Romeo outside Lima is a potential killer (9) |
| STRANGLER | |
| STRANG~E (weird) + R (Romeo – phonetic alphabet) containing [outside] L (Lima – phonetic alphabet again] | |
| 7 | US expert in what’s excavated and moved to glean topsoil (14) |
| PALEONTOLOGIST | |
| Anagram [moved] of TO GLEAN TOPSOIL. ‘US’ indicates the American spelling of ‘palaeontologist’. | |
| 8 | Police force report does not include American character (6) |
| METTLE | |
| MET (Metropolitan police force), T{a}LE (report) [does not include American]. ‘Met’ refers specifically to London police where the title was changed from ‘force’ to ‘service’ over a period that began maybe 25-30 years ago. | |
| 14 | Is ace, say, following diamonds? Shame (9) |
| DISHONOUR | |
| D (diamonds – cards), IS, HONOUR (ace, say). In bridge, honour cards are ace, king, queen, jack and ten. | |
| 16 | Wanting most of income after end of May (8) |
| YEARNING | |
| {Ma}Y [end of…], EARNING{s} (income) [most of…] | |
| 17 | Something cooked and ready to eat around the city (6) |
| RECIPE | |
| R~IPE (ready to eat) containing [around] EC (the city area of London) | |
| 19 | Mob with European manipulator (7) |
| MASSEUR | |
| MASS (mob), EUR (European) | |
| 22 | Clever lads initially have comic (5) |
| CLOWN | |
| C{lever} + L{ads} [initially], OWN (have) | |
| 23 | I’m attached to outside of bowler? (4) |
| BRIM | |
| B{owler}R [outside of…], I’M. I might risk praising this as a rather fine &lit (but as always, subject to the approval of the &lit police!) | |
I finished with that mysterious object the FLANGE, but there were several more resonant words here. CAMBRIC from the song Jack thought of too, ROADKILL redolent (is the word!) of RFK Jr., MAFIA of his capo (don’t get me started…). PRIMOGENITOR doesn’t get out much anymore.
Have U read Legacy of Secrecy by Waldron and Hartmann? It is a ‘little much’ though.
No, I haven’t read a whole book about any of that since devouring Vincent Bugliosi’s thousand-page tome (and equal-size CD) Reclaiming History on its release, so many years ago. Some people are still trying to capitalize on conspiracy theories about the JFK assassination, but what’s come out from the release of the final 3 percent of the official documents is that the CIA was embarrassed by its failure to keep a close watch on Oswald in his final months.
P.S. RFK Jr. doesn’t remind me of his father, even—let alone his assassinated uncle. I’m sure Jackie’s hubby would never have dined on ROADKILL.
Did he eat it or just leave it in Central Park? I will readily believe he ate it…
Of course, the one thing he didn’t do was kill it.
Depends how stoned he was.
I missed the Jr – and did not know the roadkill story. The main thing the book I was referring to did was raise questions about the bona fides of all men in power – not just the current world leaders.
As steady solver with two holdups. I put GOODNESS in (instead of GRACIOUS) at 21a. Thinking about it I realized that GOODNESS is not a synonym of kind, but kindness. Then I noticed I had overtyped the last O of PALEONTOLOGIST. So I erased it and immediately got CLOWN, my LOI to finish. The other very minor holdup was at 5d where I figured “am missing exam” had to be “ex”. But that gave me a four-letter word ending in EX, and I couldn’t think of one that had anything to do with the rest of the clue. Again, time for a rethink. I managed to get the two long anagrams without writing out the letters, which I often can’t. I am surprised that everyone is bemused by FLANGE. What do you call the part of a railway wheel that sticks out beyond the main wheel to keep the train on the track?
I would call that ‘the part of a railway wheel that sticks out beyond the main wheel to keep the train on the track’.
😂 As would I.
In a different industry… the one I’m in… a flange is a flat face on the end of a pipe wherein a seal is installed and then the flange is joined to another flange to make a liquid-tight seal. No raised edges anywhere, everything is (almost-)micron flat.
That’s a raised edge – the end of a pipe would be at the same radius as the rest of the pipe, the flange raises (to a higher radius) the end. Just like the flange on a railway wheel.
Fair point.
I found this to be tricky in places, CUPIDITY, CAMBRIC and RESOLUTE had me flummoxed. Had thought it must be ‘resolute’ but didn’t know the meaning of ‘solute’. Thankfully, there were lots of easier clues to get some checkers. Didn’t know that meaning of CALLOW but it had to be. Saw GRACIOUS straight off. Liked CLOWN, MAFIA and FLANGE. COD to BRIM, I agree with Jack, it’s just an &lit and a very good one.
Thanks Jack and setter.
21:34; not too unhappy with that for this very enjoyable puzzle. Nothing went in unparsed today except for the ‘rill’ and ‘honour cards’, so thanks for that. A few definitions were unknown, such as CALLOW and CAMBRIC. COUNTERPOISE took a while to commit to though I thought of it early; this was because I wasn’t sure of its definition! No favourite surfaces today but the actual clues were fun to solve.
I was definitely not on the wavelength. I wanted to put rapacity even though I had the D from dishonour; I was surprised when I found that up was used to clue….up! I also had to write out all the letters from the long anagrams to get paleontologist and unflappability. But the answers that gave the most trouble were the innocuous-seeming track and mettle, which took up several minutes at the end.
Time: 31:43
There were definitely a bunch of potential options for 1ac, 13ac and 26ac. Only the crossers and the likely meaning to sort the wheat from the chaff.
CAMBRIC as fabric is well-known to the Georgette Heyer fan club. ROADKILL Stew (don’t ask) was I think the name of an amateur Washington DC band. They were really bad.
I take it you mean that in the Huey Lewis sense that “sometimes bad is bad”!
My pin-up from the 80s. Spot on!
51:39, no errors or aids.
I had COUNTERPOINT for a long time, but it didn’t feel right.
My Physics teacher taught us that even in an Express train, the outside of the flange at the bottom of each wheel is actually always moving backwards.
I’m another who only got CAMBRIC via Paul Simon. he loves a good fabric.
What I dream I had
Pressed in organdy
Clothed in crinoline of smoky Burgundy
Softer than the rain
COD BRIM
28 minutes. A bit like yesterday with a few less common words such as CAMBRIC (which I knew as writing paper rather than as a ‘Fine fabric’), COUNTERPOISE and PRIMOGENITOR among those that were more easily brought to mind. BRIM seems like an &lit to me and was my COD too.
A MER at RECIPE for ‘Something cooked’; surely you can have a salad recipe?
Yes, I wondered about ‘something cooked’ too but after a little research decided not to query it in my blog. Traditionally ‘cooking’ requires heat, but the term is sometimes used more broadly to describe food preparation without heat, especially when following a recipe. Not that I look to it as a font of wisdom, but as one example, the first explanation of ‘recipe’ in Collins Cobuild is: A recipe is a list of ingredients and a set of instructions that tell you how to cook something.
Incidentally, according to last Saturday’s newsletter there is supposed to be a new American-style crossword called ‘Ponder’ starting today, available online only, but I can find no trace of it. The second is scheduled for Friday and thereafter it will appear weekly.
Hi Jackkt, the Ponder launch has been delayed till tomorrow by a last-minute technical hitch, along with the new crossword and Sudoku designs on the website and apps. Let’s hope we make our next launch window and don’t explode on takeoff – it’s not rocket science, after all.
Thanks, Mick. I don’t expect the new puzzle to be for me, but I wish you well with it.
Previous experience is not exactly encouraging….
Plenty to chew on in this one, but fair and cleanly clued. Liked 101ac STAIRCASE, 12ac INVERT, and 5d ORAL. Had to look up for fodder for 1ac, 13ac and 26ac. Wasn’t clear which way 18ac was worded, but one way fitted. Good GRACIOUS for 21ac, and OPINE for ‘Do volunteer’?
LOI 8d METTLE which had us thinking. Clever but only mildly entertaining.
Apologies for any crossings and will read.
Thank you jackkt and setter.
DNF. That extends my weekday run of DNFs to 9/12. Sheesh! Today I went with a misspelt PALEANTOLOGIST. With hindsight I should have counted the vowels in the anagram fodder.
Not to rub it in, but I had PALEANTOLOGIST until I, um, counted the vowels in the anagram fodder.
I went a step further: I counted the vowels, put the answer in and then deleted each of the letters in the anagrist one by one to make absolutely sure. This is the kind of word I’m extremely good at misspelling and just occasionally I apply the lessons from my habitual mistakes.
Do you have paper and pen(cil) with you when you solve? I don’t which is a drawback with long anagrams. I suppose I could use a whiteboard app.
No, I don’t usually bother, partly because I’ve discovered that the method I describe isn’t much slower than writing the letters down and crossing them off.
PS: thinking about it I solve on my iPad so I could very easily replicate the paper and pencil method with my Apple Pen. But again my method is a bit more immediately available and hardly more trouble.
Ditto, dnf, didn’t count.
I knew I couldn’t spell it, so left the A/O blank and counted the vowels. It looked completely wrong with the O; but then I realised there is a modern idiocy know as the Paleo diet.
pootle so did I. I’m at a loss to now why a non American should know the correct spelling in this British paper!
16:18, which is just under 3 x Verlaine, so within my target range. Liked STAIRCASE.
Thanks Jack and setter.
Ca 20 mins. Pretty straightforward and very enjoyable for me. All clues very fair with just a nice amount of challenge.
COD to brim because it was clever and yet simple and brief.
Many thanks to Setter and Jack.
27 minutes but a PRECIOUS instead of GRACIOUS. It is a bit of an old chestnut so no real excuses.
PRIMOGENITOR otherwise last one in it finally coming to me once I wrote out every iteration of the letters of EMOTING.
COD ROADKILL
Thanks blogger and setter
23 mins
7d came easier once I twigged it wasn’t an expert on Americana we were meant to look for. Never heard of CAMBRIC but I felt happy with removing the K from ‘brick’. Wasn’t sure about CUPIDITY either but it went in on trusting the wordplay. COD STAIRCASE (climbing route!!). Nice Tuesday puzzle. Thanks blogger & setter.
Another who mucked up PALEONTOLOGIST and so lost a minute or two at the end searching for the ‘Unlucky!’ error on my way to 29.47. Enjoyable puzzle, thanks Jack for explaining what ‘honour’ was doing there. Did we need potential in the clue for STRANGLER?
From A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall:
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warning
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazing
Heard ten thousand whispering and nobody listening
Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughing
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter
Heard the sound of a CLOWN who cried in the alley
And it’s a hard…
Still as fresh as when I rushed home to play my newly-bought copy of Freewheelin’ in summer 1963.
And still as relevant today as it was all those years ago. “I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children” is a picture for our turbulent times.
44 mins. Wasn’t sure I was going to finish at one point as I had carelessly bunged in COUNTERPOINT and moved on. The NE remained empty until I worked hard on 6d and came up with the STRANGLER, changed POINT to POISE and STAIRCASE etc fell in to place. My last two, however, were GRACIOUS & CLOWN.
DNK CUPIDITY, worked out from wp, and our esteemed blogger helpfully explains all above.
I particularly enjoyed unraveling the two meaty anagrams for the long clues. Good fun.
Thanks Jack and setter.
20 mins. LOI track. A bit more on the ball today though I was slow to start. Only three across clues solved on first pass.
Enjoyable puzzle. Thanks to all involved.
A 1 pink DNF due to failing to check PALEANTOLOGIST. Shame because that was much more fun than yesterday and quicker at 23 mins.
Can’t say I noticed much science but CUPIDITY, COUNTERPOISE and Honour in that sense were NHOs.
Enjoyed LOI ROADKILL when it emerged.
Thanks both
Damn! I meant to remove that comment about science in the intro. In addition to FLANGE and SOLUTE my original draft contained a convoluted explanation of ‘little force’ in the MAFIA clue, but on reviewing it I realised the clue was perfectly straightforward. I’ve taken the comment out now.
23 minutes, very fast for me for a puzzle of this complexity, and that’s without knowing about honour cards. It must be the clarity that follows the Covid fog lifting, before the mist of senility redescends. COD to BRIM. Thank you Jack and setter.
Glad you’re ok BW.
Thank you, Olivia. My younger son marries on Saturday and we’re not missing that.
20 minutes.
– Was glad I didn’t biff COUNTERPOINT for 1a, as that would have stymied STRANGLER
– Trusted the wordplay for the unknown CUPIDITY
– Thought I had never come across CAMBRIC before, but clearly I haven’t been paying close enough attention to the lyrics of Scarborough Fair
– Hesitated slightly over DISHONOUR as I didn’t know the term ‘honour cards’
Thanks Jack and setter.
FOI Potpourri
LOI Mettle
COD Staircase
8:40, after taking great care over 7dn (see above).
23dn BRIM is excellent and definitely &Lit!
I was surprised to learn from the blog that the 10 is an honour card: I always thought it was just the picture cards and the ace. Having looked it up I learn that it depends on the game: in whist (which I have played) its the top four, in bridge (which I haven’t), it’s the top five.
At some point in the last few weeks this site has started logging me out systematically. Even when I return to the same session on the same browser having checked the ‘remember me’ box I have to log back in. Is this just me? I’m also now in the habit of copying the text of each comment in anticipation of the 500 error.
I’ve experienced no problems retaining my log-in.
Strange, I wonder what I’m doing wrong. This used to happen occasionally but now it’s literally every time. There’s clearly a time element to it because for this comment I’m still logged in. Hmm.
Strange. I don’t know what to suggest. I visit the site regularly throughout the day including very early and very late, and using any of 3 devices, PC, phone or tablet. Our resident techie is away at the moment but may look in.
Here’s a possibly silly thought from someone who amongst other things used to be a serious programmer: Is it because many people are staying logged in that the system is having troubles?
I got the 500 error for the first time today
It happens every so often with me and then corrects itself after 3 or 4 days. Annoyingly I don’t know I’m logged out until I try to comment.
A surprisingly speedy 23 minutes spoilt by a misspelled PALEONTOLOGIST!
As seems to be happening more frequently as I age, CUPIDITY sprang readily to mind but no idea where from. Not surprised by CAMBRIC though. Puzzled a while over RESOLUTE as I focussed on the financial side of solvency rather than the chemical. I was going to object to INVERT for reverse but I see Chambers has it in third place so another lesson learned there. Just as CHARIOTEER yesterday evoked Charlton Heston, Tony Curtis popped up for STRANGLER, rather disconcertingly.
Thanks to jackkt and setter.
Like Merlin, I had “counterpoint” as NHO COUNTERPOISE – which I biffed once STRANGLER kicked me in the shins.
FOI ROBUST (I was getting worried by then)
LOI COUNTERPOISE
COD FLANGE (but only because it made me chuckle for entirely the wrong reasons)
TIME 10:28
Quick today but liked it. I liked 20ac for the surface reading truism.
Flange, one of those words, like trunnion, acquired from having Meccano as a boy.
12.47, which today looks quick whereas 12.28 yesterday appeared to be slow. I’m fortunate that the clues which appear to have tripped others didn’t trouble me much.
A couple of evocations today: POTPOURRI is difficult to hear without a Paisley accent refusing it. And according to Gerald the Gorilla, a FLANGE is the collective noun for baboons, which I gather has now made it into the lexicon, if not into Chambers.
About 30′ with a couple of semi-biffs almost catching me out. “Revert” instead of INVERT was corrected by 6 down. Luckily I was unhappy enough with “precious” to give it another look (it didn’t really match either DD) and GRACIOUS came to mind quite quickly. Haven’t heard the word “solute” since doing my Higher Chemistry in Scotland. Didnt get the US reference for the bone-digger, I just followed the instructions.
Easy in parts, more difficult elsewhere but a nice balance.
Thanks Jack and setter.
27:06
The bottom half went in extremely quickly, the top half was a much more painstaking affair. For 7d, just went with the remaining letters available having initially entered OLOGIST. MAFIA took far too long to see, as did the anagrammatic STAIRCASE, but between them, they gave the footholds to complete the solve. L2I were ROADKILL and TRACK.
Notes:
COUNTER = One telling (doh!) unparsed
CUPIDITY – NHO
FLANGE – not sure I could have told you what it is
ace = HONOUR card – didn’t know this
SOLUTE – unknown but reasonably guessable
Thanks Jack and setter
22:24 – nothing too challenging, with PALEONTOLOGIST spelled correctly more by luck than judgement. I also wasn’t aware that it was a considered a US spelling of the word, though I suspect the distinction is largely observed only by dictionaries these days.
Way off the wavelength, struggled on the top half, and failed on RESOLUTE. Shoulda got it, but I’ve studied physics and chemistry and a solute is nothing to do with luiquidation (melting). IMHO.
As a side not, I don’t think we’ve ever had D clued by DEAD before? DIED certainly, but not dead? Who has a better memory than me, or better searching skills?
I did like BRIM.
I interpreted it as the solute on being dissolved in a solvent becomes a solution and so is made liquid. Sort of works in a punny way.
Thoroughly enjoyable – steady progress and a smile or two. For 10ac I was trying to find an unknown climbing term based on escarpment only to find it was the much more mundane staircase. Several took an effort to break down. Thanks setter and blogger.