I am standing in for Piquet today, and will be blogging every alternate Wednesday, for a while. Fortunately, a fairly benign offering to start things off with. No unknowns, tidy surface readings, a good effort I thought.
I use the standard conventions like underlining the definition, CD for cryptic definition, DD for a double one, *(anargam) and so forth. Nho = “not heard of” and in case of need the Glossary is always handy
| Across | |
| 1 | Unacceptable behaviour of naughty pupils (3,4) |
| BAD FORM – a DD, the second a jocular one. I hope. | |
| 5 | Builder of bridges in hostel for dossers (7) |
| TELFORD – hidden, as above. Thomas Telford, one of the great engineers. Amongst many other projects he built a road viaduct across the Loose valley, just a mile from where I live. Built it around 1828, and still in use today. | |
| 9 | Crossing middle of hall, led by tango dancers (9) |
| TRAVERSAL – T (tango, NATO alphabet) + RAVERS, dancers, + (h)AL(l) | |
| 10 | Second pet clipped in repeated pattern (5) |
| MOTIF – MO (a second) + TIF(f), a pet | |
| 11 | Workers’ movement wasted inordinate sum (5,8) |
| TRADE UNIONISM – *(INORDINATE SUM) | |
| 13 | Regularly spurned fiancé’s kiss, bold and clumsy (8) |
| INEXPERT – (f)I(a)N(c)E + X + PERT, bold | |
| 15 | Cases of urban resistance suggest trouble (6) |
| UNREST – U(rba)N + R(esistanc)E + S(ugges)T | |
| 17 | Former leading lady posed with unknown substitute (6) |
| ERSATZ – ER, (our late queen) + SAT (posed) + Z, an unknown. German for false, the opposite of ECHT, real. | |
| 19 | Rabble crushing arthropod’s shell and tail (8) |
| SHADOWER – A(rthropo)D in SHOWER, a rabble | |
| 22 | Chicanery in spades, with repeated string-pulling? (5,8) |
| SHARP PRACTICE – S(pades) + HARP PRACTICE, ie pulling strings | |
| 25 | Audibly slap Italian painter (5) |
| LIPPI – LIPP, sounds like lip, + I(talian). But why lip = slap is not clear to me. Several Italian Renaissence painters were called Lippi.
On edit: Lippi sounds like “Lippy,” short for lipstick, see comments! |
|
| 26 | Doctor and a colleague checking one’s ready for theatre (9) |
| DRAMATISE – DR + I’S in MATE, a colleague | |
| 27 | Quiet because eating seconds of blancmange and jelly (7) |
| SILENCE – (b)L(ancmange) + (j)E(lly), in SINCE, because | |
| 28 | Spy on me, travelling in Bolivia and Colombia? (7) |
| EPONYMS – *(SPY ON ME). An eponym is a word derived from someone’s name. In this case the someones would be Simon Bolivar and Christopher Columbus. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Wound some quiet Iberians up (4) |
| BITE – a reverse hidden, as above. What (eg) mosquitos do. | |
| 2 | One conscripted after cycling into Delaware (7) |
| DRAFTEE – RAFTE (after, cycling) in DE, Delaware. See cycling in the glossary, if unclear. | |
| 3 | Building work is on time (5) |
| OPERA – OP (work) + ERA. Slightly terse definition, I thought. | |
| 4 | Gathers wrong military intelligence on cutters (8) |
| MISHEARS – MI + SHEARS, cutters. | |
| 5 | Gift of story books (6) |
| TALENT – TALE (story) + NT, books, ie the new testament. | |
| 6 | Mocked and hit setter in school (9) |
| LAMPOONED – LAM (hit) + ONE, our setter, in POD, school | |
| 7 | Not a member of away team (7) |
| OUTSIDE – OUT (away) + SIDE (team) | |
| 8 | Injurious to reputation of someone brilliant and loving (10) |
| DEFAMATORY – DEF (brilliant, apparently) + AMATORY, loving. Def, a slang hip-hop term according to Collins. | |
| 12 | Indigestion remedy averts ills abroad (5,5) |
| LIVER SALTS – *(AVERTS ILLS). Not a medicine I’ve ever used. Andrews little liver pills, rings a vague bell | |
| 14 | Quietly point out dodgy financial contract (3,6) |
| PUT OPTION – P (quietly) + *(POINT OUT). | |
| 16 | Hunting of cheetahs condemned (3,5) |
| THE CHASE – *(CHEETAHS) | |
| 18 | Trophy wife fell at last for surgeon’s knife (7) |
| SCALPEL – SCALP (trophy) + (wif)E (fel)L | |
| 20 | Climbing tree, foul inside and full of beetles (7) |
| WEEVILY – EVIL (foul) inside YEW rev. Hornblower used to tap his ship’s biscuits on the table before eating them, to dislodge the weevils… | |
| 21 | Show resentment while supporting brother (6) |
| BRIDLE – BR(other) + IDLE, while as in while away time. | |
| 23 | Idealised representation of Shakespearean villain gripping millions (5) |
| IMAGO – M in IAGO, the baddie in Othello. | |
| 24 | Movie stars both turned out to be trouble (4) |
| MESS – M(ovi)E S(tar)S. | |
I think Lippy is short for lipstick
Very much on the wavelength with this. No holdups except taking half an hour to get a readable printout. Slap is the theatre name for makeup so just a homophone (audibly) of lippy (lipstick) with Italian painter being the definition. COD to MISHEARS.
Thanks Jerry and setter.
27 minutes with one error LAPPI for LIPPI as I didn’t know the painter and I missed the lipstick / slap reference. NHO PUT OPTION.
I hated every minute of my solve as the new grid and font size are so tiny. I suppose I shall have to resort to copy-and-pasting into Word and increasing the size there. So much for progress!
Cannot find the way to put in word breaks.
Probably depends what hardware you’re using. On my iPad, clicking on the cog-wheel at top right then scrolling to the bottom of the menu offers a toggle-switch to turn word-breaks on or off.
I use a Mac, and log in via the CClub – it’s at (I’ve put spaces in so it will print)
https: // www . thetimes . com / puzzleclub / crosswordclub /
There is a gear in the top right of the puzzle, and the word break setting is in the pop-up
DNF
34′, but couldn’t figure out MESS. No idea about ‘slap’, not knowing ‘lippy’–ta Bruce. I believe ERSATZ is German for ‘substitute’, although it’s come to mean ‘fake’ in English.
Morning Jerry. 12:15 for me. Pretty straightforward. Don’t think I knew TELFORD, but I hope he was able to tighten up that valley for you.
I’m probably the only one here who never stopped to think about the naming of Colombia and Bolivia so that was my piece of learning for today.
Finished with thirty seconds or so of panic over LIPPI until the penny dropped.
Blitzed through the first 3/4 at really *way*-below PB pace, only to be completely flummoxed by LIVER SALTS and INEXPERT. Seconds turned to minutes, which turned to 15 minutes.
No holdups for me. I even saw “lippy” even though I’d never heard of LIPPI, so I was confident at that one. Couldn’t see how the wordplay worked for BAMBOOZLE at a glance so I decided to come back to it later but forgot. Telford’s most famous bridge is probably the one to Anglesey, the world’s first suspension bridge, also still in use I think.
I’m assuming BAMBOOZLE is an autocorrected LAMPOONED. Otherwise that’s a lot of pinks!
Indeed! I did put the right answer in and I was all green, but had a senior moment when typing my comment.
I biffed Lippi thanks to Browning, but couldn’t see why – then I considered the possible meanings of slap – aha! I had only vaguely heard of Telford, but I’m tired of missing hiddens, so in he went.
Time: 37:10
I’m a full-time computer programmer, so generally not scared of the paperless option, but one of the reasons I like to print out the crossword is to get *away* from computers for a while, and relax on my sofa with a distraction-free pen and paper rather than staring at a screen.
I did enjoy the crossword this morning, but I was definitely hampered by the tiny text and even tinier grid which made the solve a lot more of a chore. I don’t have my time to share as I was so annoyed by the quality of the printout that I forgot to start my timer!
Same here and only started solving online after retiring.
If the Club version changes to that new version I was planning to revert to paper but it sounds like even that is broken.
You can fiddle with the scaling to alter the text size, but not too much or the puzzle starts falling over the edge!
Faced with this problem at midnight last night, I found it easiest to copy and paste into a word document to get everything into a manageable size…
26:11. Struggled a bit to see BRIDLE and LIPPI. Eventually got there and thought the latter was quite neat. The rest of the puzzle went in fairly easily until the SE corner where I found the wordplay tougher.
The Crossword Club seems to be missing from the website and the app today… ain’t technology marvellous!
19:22*
I’ve taken to doing the Quick Crossword as a warm-up of late and I duly worked my way through it and as usual submitted off grid as I don’t try to do it quickly and I allow myself to get distracted. I thought it was a bit harder today and I was surprised it took me the best part of 20 minutes. It was only when I clicked on the full puzzle that I realised my error.
No problems today, aside from not being totally sure how DEFAMATORY worked and only remembering LIPPI when I saw the cryptic.
Thanks to both.
Agree no crossword clue, very annoying, and a tiny grid and clues once I’d finally worked out how to print it by sending myself an email), all of which ruined the enjoyment.
Guessed LIPPI &MESS, luckily.
Bievenue Jerry, ta for the blog.
This took me longer than it should have. Held up by BRIDLE and WEEVILY, though very much liked the latter when I saw it. Not mad about ‘pert’ for ‘bold’, but at least the answer was obvious.
9.20
Bit of a canter-through, only held up by MESS at the end. I liked “Former leading lady” for ER.
WEEVILY reminded me of the scene in ‘Master and Commander’ where Jack Aubrey advises Maturin to choose the lesser of two.
COD SHARP PRACTICE
LOI MESS
One of Jack Aubrey’s best – and he remembered the punchline.
Whizzed through this until the last two in the SE. I spent a couple of minutes on EPONYMS, and only then did I see WEEVILY. 15 minutes. COD to SHARP PRACTICE. Today’s ear worm, Gracie Fields taking her harp to a party and nobody asking her to play. Thank you Jerry and setter.
Complete, no aids, time about 45 mins.
LOI LIPPI a total guess. MOTIF not understood as NHO Tiff=pet. I thought MOTET was just as likely, same patterns repeat throughout the piece.
First came across ERSATZ in The Colditz Story where the POWs complained about the Ersatz coffee.
My Primary School was named after Thomas TELFORD. Same idea as Brunel University.
OPERA=building seems pretty unfair. And setter=one not very obvious, unless the setter is the King.
The Venn diagram of people who know about LIVER SALTS and use the slang DEF must be vanishingly small.
COD EPONYMS
Yes I like to think I’m VENNerable these days. I know (but don’t use) DEF and from early childhood recall Andrews LIVER SALTS from my parents’ bathroom cupboard where they came in tablet form. I’d no idea what they were for but found that if you put one in water the result was a nice fizzy drink.
Well, fizzy anyway!
I’ve just realised from what you said that I never parsed DEFAMATORY. But like Olivia, I was keen on Andrews Liver Salts in water as a child – the only fizzy drink we had access to, as I wasn’t allowed my great aunt’s Lucozade!
If the bottom’s falling out of your world take Andrews, and let the world fall out of your bottom …
About 15 minutes.
– Completely missed that TELFORD was a hidden
– Have heard of Marcello LIPPI the football manager, so assumed there was a painter of that name too
– NHO PUT OPTION but it was the only realistic option with the checkers in place
Thanks Jerry and setter.
FOI Bite
LOI Liver salts
COD Dramatise
25 mins is a decent time for me but it felt like quite hard work, not on this setters wavelength. Thanks Jerry and setter.
P.S. The usual Club option was missing on the puzzles page at time of writing but one can be found in the list of links in the page footer.
44:50 was held up by TRAVERSAL, ERSATZ and MESS but time is good by my standards.
Straight down the middle of the fairway in 24.39. Needed Jerry’s help to understand EPONYMS (I mean, who knew?) and the ER part of ERSATZ. I knew Fra Filippo Lippi but thought slap was greasepaint, so that took a while. LOsI BRIDLE and MESS.
From Gates of Eden:
At times I think there are no words
But these to tell what’s true
And there are no truths OUTSIDE the Gates of Eden
MESS – ‘turned out’ is a bit of a stretch to indicate first and last letters only.
BRIDLE – clue would actually have been improved in accuracy by inserting ‘away’ after ‘while’. I don’t think ‘while’ on its own indicates ‘idle’.
Yes, I thought that was not great.
Agreed about ‘idle’ = ‘while’.
12’43” in tiny font. Agree re terse OPERA. Knew ERSATZ from WW2 stories of ersatz coffee being burnt acorns. LIPPI LOI.
Thanks jerry and setter, and all those working on the sites.
11:22. No dramas. LOI ERSATZ. I was slightly taken aback for the vague definition for OPERA, but I see it is OK. I’m another who doesn’t like the small print format. Thanks Jerry and setter.
Can anyone help me with TIFF = PET?
They both mean a spat, a minor quarrel …
thanks – never heard pet in that context before
Chambers has ” 2. a display of irritation, a pet, a huff” under tiff^1
New to me as well
That meaning of PET is one I only see in crosswordland.
You would see plenty of it in historical fiction, eg G Heyer.
13.28
Also liked WEEVILY, both for the word, and the same evocation of that marvellous series of books. (Maybe it is time for a re-read).
Solved on the normal puzzle site rather than the Club page and (as mentioned on the QC blog) I find it much quicker but sympathies for everyone struggling with the changes.
40 mins.
Entertaining puzzle.
Thanks, Jerry.
I’m another who is not impressed by the smaller grid and the tiny font size. It was alright before so why change it?
15.52 A straight through solve held up by MESS at the end, convinced the movie was ET and the stars something else. “Turned out” as an emptying indicator is perfectly OK, but I think might be an innovation.
My grandfather used to mix Andrews Liver Salts into orange squash for us kids as ersatz fizzy orange. Cheap, cheerful and probably harmless!
Sorry Z Replied above before reading the rest of the comments. Similar Andrews experience.
One error (LAPPI) after a slow stagger over the line struggling with the SE corner. The word WEEVILY just not coming to mind despite spotting the climbing tree early. Struggled with SHARP PRACTICE thinking it had to be something PLUCKING before BRIDLE fell.
I have found this the hardest of the week so far which seems to go against the consensus.
Biffed in SCALPEL as well before removing it thinking the literal wouldn’t be that kind. Scalp=trophy finally clicked though.
COD to DRAMATISE
Thanks blogger and setter
Similar experience: struggled all the way through this – definitely not on the setter’s wavelength. Quite a few lookups, but they didn’t help much. Think I’m distracted, as this is my worst performance in months.
An unusually fast solve, 26 minutes, with no problems really.
Shall not be posting for a day or two while I change computers.