Time taken: 11:41. Ground to a halt for a while and had to bring out some paper to work on some longer answers and anagrams.
After a few obvious write-ins, there were a lot of clues that required closer scrutiny – the early solving times are a bit of a mix, maybe some will be right on the wavelength and zoom right through this. I liked the clues that required some teasing.
How did you get along?
| Across | |
| 1 | Way to enter pool bar after drink (7,4) |
| SWALLOW DIVE – a DIVE bar after SWALLOW(drink) | |
| 7 | Ace academic fellow departs (3) |
| PRO – PROF(academic) minus F(fellow) | |
| 9 | Surprise case for detective after detective sergeant found wrapped in pancake! (9) |
| BLINDSIDE – the external letters of DetectivE after DS(detective sergeant) inside BLINI(pancake) | |
| 10 | Fold petition, last letter in post (5) |
| PLEAT – PLEA(petition) and the last letter in posT | |
| 11 | Skedaddle, one having left by means of quadruped (7) |
| VAMOOSE – remove I(one) form VIA(by means of), then MOOSE(quadruped) | |
| 12 | Empty contents of water-heater plugged into plug (4,3) |
| TURN OUT – URN(water-heater) inside TOUT(plug) | |
| 13 | Stick point on rolled gold (5) |
| LODGE – E(point of the compass) after an anagram of GOLD | |
| 15 | Gauge, equally positive? (9) |
| ASCERTAIN – AS(equally), CERTAIN(positive) | |
| 17 | Commonwealth country accepts almost everyone (9) |
| AUSTRALIA – AUSTRIA(country) containing ALL(everyone) minus the last letter | |
| 19 | Bodies twisting, on being dumped (5) |
| TORSI – TORSION(twisting) minus ON | |
| 20 | Hip-dislocating joke? (3-4) |
| LEG-PULL – cryptic double definition | |
| 22 | Effective description (7) |
| TELLING -regular double definition | |
| 24 | I’m off to accept current crown (5) |
| TIARA – TA-RA(I’m off) containing I(current) | |
| 25 | Religious celebration isn’t specified after content removed in report (6,3) |
| SAINTS DAY – AIN’T(isn’t) then the external letters of SpecifieD inside SAY(report) | |
| 27 | Before becoming Mrs, Miss wants date (3) |
| NEE – NEED(miss) minus D(date) | |
| 28 | Crime set somewhere in Manhattan, once (7,4) |
| BATTERY PARK – BATTERY(crime) and PARK(set oneself down). The official name of the park at the southern tip of Manhattan was changed to The Battery in 2015. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Cover transport up (3) |
| SUB – BUS(transport) reversed | |
| 2 | A team order in fact that’s generally accepted (5) |
| AXIOM – A, XI(team), OM(order) | |
| 3 | Criminal trial’s conclusion: a possible spy? (7) |
| LADRONE – the last letter of triaL, A, then DRONE(possible spy) | |
| 4 | Civil service in scrap, I don’t understand the lot of them! (9) |
| WHITEHALL – WHIT(scrap), EH(I don’t understand), ALL(the lot of them). Although this is pretty straightforward, it was my last in. | |
| 5 | Still I run into trap (5) |
| INERT – I, then R(run) inside NET(trap) | |
| 6 | Mood after abdication of leader or king (7) |
| EMPEROR – TEMPER(mood) minus the first letter, then OR | |
| 7 | Use raptor to regenerate its predecessor? (9) |
| PTEROSAUR – anagram of USE,RAPTOR | |
| 8 | Very fine, though unsettled (11) |
| OUTSTANDING – double definition | |
| 11 | Very coarse lingual art? (6,5) |
| VULGAR LATIN – V(very) and an anagram of LINGUAL ART for an all-in-one | |
| 14 | Appoint court to arrest online firm’s board? (9) |
| DESIGNATE – DATE(court) containing an E-SIGN, which may be a board for an online firm | |
| 16 | Ocean silt scattered — along this? (9) |
| COASTLINE – anagram of OCEAN,SILT | |
| 18 | Cake brought into focus iced with topping of really sour food (7) |
| RHUBARB – BAR(cake of soap) inside HUB(focus), all under the first letter of Really | |
| 19 | Author recounted tale where delta and river drained (7) |
| TOLSTOY – TOLD STORY(recounted tale) minus D(delta) and R(river) | |
| 21 | Virtuoso’s vocal register (5) |
| LISZT – homophone of LIST(register) | |
| 23 | Individuals fleeing country — for another? (5) |
| INDIA – remove ONES(individuals) from INDONESIA(country) | |
| 26 | Animal jaw (3) |
| YAK – double definition | |
43:41, but everything put into perspective by ****************.
Around 40 minutes which is fast for me. I found it reasonably straightforward. FOI AUSTRALIA where I live and where I have to choose constantly from Austria and Australia in lists with AL the difference. I just felt so relaxed and many were close to write-ins.
Thanks G
This felt like Friday on a Thursday. It was tough to get started, and you can’t biff if you don’t have any crossers. Could 18 down be roulade? It fits, but it doesn’t parse. Fortunately, I finally saw Liszt, which led to Battery Park and rhubarb. This left the difficult swallow dive/Whitehall crossing. I had never heard of a swallow dive, and put it in with trepidation, but it did turn out to be correct.
Time: 56:58
I found this tough, and was put off by seeing a few of the good leaderboard times halfway through. I agree with glh that it had the feel of something you could have zipped through, though. In the event I finished WOE at 27:45, with an unparsed SHALLOW SIDE. I was thinking of SWALLOW a few times but didn’t know SWALLOW DIVE. Oh well.
TORSI also held me up for a long time – kept thinking CORPI as somehow coming from SCORPION. Not sure why urn is water-heater but will look up.
as in tea urn?
Totally fun, but a couple of hours!! I loved vamoose! Excellent fun, thx, Cx
Yeah, makes sense.
Didn’t know LADRONE so a DNF in about 45, having found this hard but fair. Quite a few – TORSI, SWALLOW DIVE, VAMOOSE, VULGAR LATIN – took a lot of work but produced a satisfying solve in the end. Thanks glh.
From Outlaw Blues:
I wish I was on some AUSTRALIAn mountain range
Oh, I wish I was on some Australian mountain range
I got no reason to be there, but I imagine it would be some kind of change
Very good. Alternatively, from Brownsville Girl:
“You know, it’s funny how things never TURN OUT the way you had ’em planned.”
Which is very true.
I failed to parse SWALLOW DIVE, and succumbed to the improbable SHALLOW SIDE. No point finishing the thing in just over 11 mins if you make a stupid mistake like that!
Exactly the same mistake there, but I had others too!
34 minutes. I kept wanting to put in SEA for ‘drink’ at 1a, but once I was over that, I didn’t find this too bad, though was held up by the parsing of ALL SAINTS and didn’t know what ‘once’ was doing in the def for BATTERY PARK. Missed the cleverness of VULGAR LATIN.
Favourite was the surface for PTEROSAUR; an example of evolution in reverse.
Over two sessions completed all but 3d LADRONE. However did not know much about the parsing of many. Quite tough, clever and unfair in places.
Thought 7d PTEROSAUR an excellent clue as even the silent ‘P’ could be deduced from the clue, crossers and assuming it was prehistoric: ‘SAUR’. Also excellent and probably my COD is 19d TOLSTOY for deception with clarity and interesting process. Also thought 19ac TORSI pretty good, although it may depend on one’s background GK.
Did not like 14d DESIGNATE because of E-SIGN, 29ac BATTERY PARK for construction and meaning of ‘set’, 25ac SAINTS DAY for AINT without a hint, and MERs for 13ac LODGE as ‘stick’. Thought 17ac AUSTRALIA pretty weak.
Apologies for any crossings, I will read.
Thank you glh (despite being a blur) and setter for the challenge.
53 minutes, and I wrote ‘tricky but very enjoyable’ on my copy. I also noted that I was never in any doubt that I would finish it.
Like Bletchers I wondered why ‘once’ in 28ac and when I read the explanation I thought the clue was being overly fussy as I’m sure the name BATTERY PARK will continue to be used for many decades to come whatever the ideas of the powers that be. It’s not as though the place itself no longer exists. Another thought that occurred to me is that I never heard of Battery Park before it was referred to in news reports of 9/11 and its aftermath, the anniversary of which is today.
Fans of American musicals may have heard of Battery Park from the famous song New York, New York from On the Town….
New York, New York, it’s a wonderful town!
The Bronx is up and the Battery’s down
I’ve heard that line since I was a child but never understood it back then.
There is a ‘martini effect’ when diving so I confidently had ‘martini dive’ at 1ac though it fits none of the crossing clues. This held me up for a while.
Couldn’t quite see why ‘cover’ defines ‘sub’, presumably it’s as in ‘subvent’ ie ‘cover the cost of’?
I thought Sub as in Substitute
Yes of course, thanks
I thought of “will you sub me for the entry cost?” which I suppose might be subsidise or a ref to a subscription fee.
I thought of “will you sub me for the entry cost?”
Yes, ‘sub’ in this sense was essentially my original thought. I thought short for ‘subvent’ but that’s hardly in common usage so short for ‘subsidise’ is much more likely. Though maybe depends on context whether a gift or a loan is intended?
I think it is ambiguous, so it means subsidise. but implies “I’ll pay you back”, so it has to be the subscription in that case. In general the payback never happens IMO. NHO subvent, Wiktionary thinks that is Hong Kong only meaning subsidise.
Re ‘subvent’, the noun form ‘subvention’ is in more common albeit still formal usage. ‘A grant of money, especially from a government’ is one definition from an online source. The right sort of meaning but I agree not likely to be the origin of ‘sub’!
29 minutes. I wanted to praise the lovely 4D here especially. LADRONE was the NHO for me but with all the current news in Eastern Europe it wasn’t hard to pick out DRONE as part of the answer.
Hard but satisfying work only to fail with TORTI having twigged Torsion then misspelt it. Makes a lot more sense now.
33 mins is not bad though. NHO LADRONE and BRIBERY PARK held me up until LISZT put me right.
COD PTEROSAUR but many honourable mentions. Thanks glh and setter.
38.31. Had all but the SW corner sorted in around 30 mins but then hit a brick wall. Pressed the pause button, took a shower and returned to the fray. After another 2-3 mins getting nowhere , I put the latin bit of 11 dn in and got nee. That convinced me about vulgar latin( didn’t see the anagram at all) , finally twigged leg pull, followed by designate and LOI Liszt.
Amazing what a short break can do. I enjoyed this . Thx setter and blogger- in comparative terms, your ground to a halt was massively shorter than my completed time. Respect!
Just over half an hour.
– Took a while to get SWALLOW DIVE, even with all the checkers, because SHALLOW SIDE was very tempting
– Dimly remembered the blini pancake to get BLINDSIDE
– Completely failed to parse SAINTS DAY, as I thought ‘isn’t specified after content removed’ was giving ‘a[n]y’ so I couldn’t account for the rest of it
– Hadn’t heard of BATTERY PARK, and only got near it once I’d thought of RHUBARB (which I also couldn’t parse) rather than ROULADE for 18d
– Was helped by knowledge of Spanish for LADRONE (‘un ladrón’)
– Didn’t even attempt to parse WHITEHALL as it was an obvious biff from the checkers and definition
– I assume there’s an equivalence somewhere that justifies EMPEROR meaning king
– Missed that VULGAR LATIN was an all-in-one
– For 19d, I thought of TOLKIEN and tried to make that work before I thought of TOLSTOY
Tricky, but fun. Thanks glh and setter.
FOI Pro
LOI Battery Park
COD Pterosaur
38 minutes. FOI SWALLOW DIVE, known but never attempted. Struggled with the AXIOM / VAMOOSE crossers until some checkers started to appear. I don’t think I ever knew a pterodactyl is a PTEROSAUR, but it had to be. LADRONE was more tricky and went in with fingers crossed. I enjoyed VAMOOSE and YAK
Well beaten today.
Did get the unlikely looking PTEROSAUR early. Top fact: “helicopter” comes from helio (spiral) and pter (wing), not heli + copter.
E-SIGN is universally used for an electronic signature. Not sure what the setter was thinking of with “board”. Tech clues are often a bid of a miss in these puzzles.
Had ASIDE, not AXIOM. But would never have got the NHO LADRONE. Missed a few others, including PRO.
Liked this one, a steady solve in 24 minutes, ending with guessed LADRONE which I had to check was correct. I liked WHITEHALL best but lots of other good ones.
More error 500 attempts before I got logged in. What’s going on?
Close to the hour mark. I struggled with this one. Couldn’t see how RHUBARB worked until I came here. I shoved in ROULADE being a cake that fitted the checking letters I had. Wasn’t corrected until BATTERY PARK finally came to me. I was slightly confused by the once not realising it had had a rebranding.
LOI LADRONE which was a NHO and was surprised to see was right.
SWALLOW DIVE took an age as well having not used that phrase since my much younger days.
COD: VAMOOSE
Thanks blogger and setter. The blog was needed today.
25.38. I thought this was not quite as hard as I made it, initially failing with anything but the top two 3-letter answers. But the PTEROSAUR, with the spelling helpfully encouraged, opened things up, and though I feared not knowing somewhere that was once called something in Manhattan, even that fell, once I realised that the author wasn’t an unparsable TOLKEIN but the clever TOLSTOY.
Felt to be a struggle, but with plenty of rewarding moments.
I had Tolkien stuck in my head for a long time as well until I saw the right answer.
Steady solve, no undue problems, ladrone nho but bunged it in anyway. With those checkers, what else fits? Not a good clue imo for more reasons than one.
14:06, held up for a long time at the end on LODGE, LADRONE and DESIGNATE. No excuse for LODGE, but I don’t like the vague ‘spy, perhaps’ for DRONE (especially in the context of a rather obscure answer) or E-SIGN, which I don’t think works at all. Very much ‘I suppose so if you insist’ rather than Eureka!
I didn’t know that BATTERY PARK was no longer called that so was a bit surprised by ‘once’.
Error 500 has just eaten my carefully sculpted comments. You’ll have to do without them. 39 minutes, LADRONE-less. Thank you George and setter.
33 – felt tough, particularly in the SE, where a biffed Tolkien made SAINTS DAY and BATTERY PARK impossible for a time.
Had all but RHUBARB, where ROULADE kept butting in and being rejected as it wouldn’t parse, and BATTERY PARK which I didn’t know, in around 25 minutes. RHUBARB eventually occurred to me and I saw BATTERY as the crime and chose PARK over WALK, as closest to set. Felt well adrift while working on those two. They took me to 41:27. Thanks setter and George.
Thanks glh and setter.
Hard in places, deffo Tricky Thursday.
COD 9a Blindside, I liked the blini.
18d Rhubarb, biffed. Complicated or what?
19d Tolstoy, I wondered how to make Tolkien work for ages. Doh!
21d Liszt, apart from being as p****d as Brahms he really was a virtuoso.
Lots of 500 errors.
35 minutes. Toyed with Battery Bank but, fortunately, decided Battery Park was more likely. I also guessed Ladrone from knowing the Spanish ladron. My COD to Vamoose.
Pleasant crossword but eventually I found it so hard that I used aids and took 74 minutes. BATTERY PARK a complete unknown: that bit from the song ‘New York, New York’ was vaguely familiar but I never understood it. Eventually I guessed that this was the answer. In the AUSTRALIA clue my sense was that the setter had made a mistake by getting ‘country’ to do double duty, but realised that one has to see Australia as a commonwealth, which in its full name it is.
Thanks for explaining that as I had thought the same
About 35′ post golf. Should have been quicker but not helped by biffing “corpi” for “bodies” until I decided to try and parse it (after failing to get the author), and only then did Torsi become obvious. Didn’t understand the “once” for Battery Park till I came here. LADRONE a VHO, but really a biff with all the checkers and wordplay.
Thanks George and setter.
(Edit; I luckily copied this before posting. 500 error lost the original one)
45:26
Got quite stuck halfway through this, with much of the LHS complete, but not much on the RHS, except PTEROSAUR and PRO. The key for me was getting COASTLINE and LISZT in quick succession followed by BATTERY PARK – I don’t think I would have known of this if I hadn’t been to New York (it’s where the ferry from Manhattan to the Statue of Liberty runs from). And so, the bottom half filled itself in, though I didn’t parse TOLSTOY. I was finally left with 8d, 4d, 15a, 6d, 1a, 3d (heard the word but knew not what it meant), 10a solved in that order.
Thanks G and setter
A nice, challenging puzzle, but not so hard as to be unsolvable. Had most of the top half before any of the lower went in, but in the end I was left with just RHUBARB and BATTERY PARK, the latter of which rang a faint bell and parsed, meaning my bifd ROULADE required a rethink, but went in quickly with the B ending.
Always frustrating when you fail to finish as a result of a lack of knowledge, in my case LADRONE and BATTERY PARK simply beyond my ken. Roll on Friday..
My sentiments exactly and with respect to the same solutions.