A bit of a tricky puzzle from one of our trickier setters.
Plenty of head-scratching along the way in this excellent puzzle from Lupa, from the concision of 1ac all the way to my LOI, the bunged-in-with-a shrug TIMESERVER: a word that failed to ring even the faintest of bells; thankfully the wordplay was more generous than it might have been.
Other tricky things along the way. There were a lot of everyday words requiring less-than-obvious synonyms, which always makes for good PDMs and a very enjoyable solve. A passing knowledge of Roman emperors would only have been of minor help.
I crept home in 8:02, a minute slower than yesterday and several minutes slower than earlier in the week. Lovely stuff – many thanks to Lupa!
| Across | |
| 1 | Son assumed unknown naivety (10) |
| SIMPLICITY – S(on) IMPLICIT (assumed) Y (unknown in maths) | |
| 7 | Ring English beauty (5) |
| BELLE – BELL (ring/call/phone) E(nglish) | |
| 8 | Most liberal pals met after disturbance (7) |
| AMPLEST – anagram (after disturbance) of PALS MET. Bit of an ungainly word. | |
| 10 | Sat inert, shocked about new brief (9) |
| TRANSIENT – anagram (shocked) of SAT INERT about N(ew) | |
| 12 | Result initially sent us mad (3) |
| SUM – “initially” Sent Us Mad | |
| 13 | Provide part of meatloaf for dinner (6) |
| AFFORD – “part of” meatloAF FOR Dinner | |
| 15 | Allows benefits (6) |
| GRANTS – double definition | |
| 16 | Writer referring to tiny amount charged (3) |
| ION – I (writer) ON (referring to, on = RE, etc) | |
| 17 | Go-between taking time for Marcus Aurelius? (9) |
| MEDITATOR – MEDIATOR (go-between) taking T(ime). Roman Emperor and Stoic philosopher, whose work Meditations is “considered by many commentators to be one of the greatest works of philosophy” (cited in Wiki). I actually bought this a couple of years ago but never got round to opening it. I should take this as inspiration to do so.. | |
| 20 | Harsh fight with sunburn (7) |
| SPARTAN – SPAR (fight) with TAN (sunburn) | |
| 22 | Demolish last of sponge pudding (5) |
| BOMBE – BOMB (demolish) E (“last” of spongE) | |
| 23 | Term shortened on approval twelve months in the past (10) |
| YESTERYEAR – TER |
|
| Down | |
| 1 | Lass confused by a dance (5) |
| SALSA – anagram (confused) of LASS by A | |
| 2 | Turmoil from distressed mom’s alert (9) |
| MAELSTROM – anagram (distressed) of MOMS ALERT | |
| 3 | Moderate backing Liberal contract (5) |
| LEASE – EASE (moderate) backing L(iberal) | |
| 4 | Impose an upper limit on 50 per cent of cars parking (3) |
| CAP – “50% of” CA |
|
| 5 | Senator engineered betrayal (7) |
| TREASON – anagram (engineered) of SENATOR | |
| 6 | Part of paper for those who’ve passed? (10) |
| OBITUARIES – cryptic definition: a play on the word “passed”, as in DEAD, in the cryptic reading | |
| 9 | Waiter under sentence? His views are fickle (10) |
| TIMESERVER – SERVER (waiter) under TIME (sentence, as in prison). A word going back to the 16C: there is a rare, obsolete positive sense of “A person who adapts his or her conduct to what is proper and appropriate for the time and place” (OED); very much more frequent, and still current, is the negative sense, “A person who out of self-interest adapts his or her conduct or views to suit prevailing circumstances.” You can see why the positive connotation lost this battle; the word doesn’t exactly smack of sincerity. | |
| 11 | Change present record player (9) |
| TURNTABLE – TURN (change) TABLE (present) | |
| 14 | Ostentatious display of food for supporter? (7) |
| FANFARE – cryptic hint: food for a supporter could be FARE for a FAN | |
| 18 | Benefactor’s name in entrance (5) |
| DONOR – N(ame) in DOOR (entrance). The ‘s is simply possessive in the surface reading; in the cryptic, it is a link between the definition and wordplay, so “Benefactor IS [as in: equals] name in entrance” | |
| 19 | Less adventurous rogue back with me on board (5) |
| TAMER – RAT (rogue) “back” = reversed, with ME “on board” | |
| 21 | Stutter hiding note of disapproval (3) |
| TUT – hidden in sTUTter | |
10:44. Lots to enjoy- FANFARE, MEDITATOR, TURNTABLE, YESTERYEAR, and MAELSTROM especially for me.
Should that be MEDITATOR not MEDIDATOR?
struggled a lot with this one – 40 mins, but this may be due to due to doing it while I cant sleep
I did find this a little tough, and struggled to get a footing. You would think a guy like me would see turntable right away, but no. I couldn’t even see the anagram of pals met, even after taking out the -est. If you did DCE in a previous life, you will have an entirely different idea of a timeserver.
Time: 8:26
DCE timeserver turned to be one of the less rewarding google rabbit holes I’ve gone down thanks to this blog!
On a just about related note – The Rubber-Keyed Wonder on Amazon Prime about Clive Sinclair and his ZX Sprectrum is excellent.
You have to know how to throw in a few additional keywords to get the right results:
“The OSF Time Service, or Distributed Time Service (DTS), was a component of the Open Software Foundation (OSF) Distributed Computing Environment (DCE) responsible for synchronizing the clocks of machines within a DCE network to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). It provided services that enabled applications to compare time ranges and schedule network events, ensuring accuracy and consistency across the distributed system.”
And yes, there was a timeserver that told all the other machines on the network what time it is.
Your DCE hasn’t made it into Wiktionary. Just thought I’ld let you know.
I thought everyone lazily used tic & toc from the US navy. (Not sure, might have been tick & tock. They aren’t there any more. You could just “ping” them and read the timestamp in the response.)
11.46, quite a challenge. LOsI SIMPLICITY/LEASE. Nice puzzle, thanks to Lupa and roly.
Took me 2.06 to get my first solution in (by which time Verlaine was within in a minute of finishing) – SUM, followed immediately by AFFORD but then nothing until I started the downs. They were more forgiving and I had a fast middle until left with TURNTABLE, GRANTS, YESTERYEAR, BOMBE and finally MEDITATOR. Didn’t know Marus A did meditation but once I realised moderator’s only benefit was that it fitted there wasn’t anywhere else to go. Quite pleased with 17.33 – I shall look within to try to heal that lack of ambition.
Another DNF here. These used to be extremely rare for me but there have been 2 in the latest batch of 5 QCs. I started well but the environs of the SE grid stopped me in my tracks.
The one that did for me was 17ac as apart for being vaguely Roman I didn’t know who Marcus Aurelius was (real or fictional?) but even if I had I would also have needed to know him as a MEDITATOR – a supplementary piece of GK that might be a little more than should be required of the general QC solver. It didn’t help that MODERATOR also fitted the grid – a word that might occur to one having seen ‘go-between’ in the clue.
‘Present / TABLE’ was a bit of a stretch but at least the answer to that clue was obvious enough.
I fell for MODERATOR without thinking how to parse it properly – my mistake!
Sympathy but Marcus Aurelius was one of the greatest of all Roman emperors, as well as the only one still in print.. Basic GK, to me.
7:15 for me so well within my par time I must have been firmly on Lupas wavelength.
Hade vaguely heard of TIMESERVER never knew the emperor was a well known MEDITATOR but wordplay and crossers helped. Liked OBITUARIES even though I imagine it’s quite common. LOI was SPARTAN.
Thanks Roly.
Biffed middleman for go-between causing lots of problems. TURNTABLE made me think again and saw MEDITATOR but had no idea about the book. Took a while to see BOMBE. Liked YESTERYEAR. TIMESERVER from the wordplay but no idea of its meaning. Fun crossword with some tricky clues.
Thanks Roly and setter.
Enjoyable puzzle finished in 23.35. Had bits of meditator and timeserver more than once but didn’t follow through until right at the end. Liked obituaries which thankfully we saw straight away and was very helpful.
Thanks Lupa and Roly
14:45 Yesteryear with the half-parsed hope that it fitted the definition ‘twelve months in the past’ and Timeserver from wordplay without a scooby. Archaic seems to be cropping up a lot atm…just saying.
Ta RAL
36:41 (average: 35, target: 39)
I was very pleased to hit my target on this one. After 25 mins I had only really finished the NW corner with the occasional easy one also dotted around. I really enjoyed the following 11 mins unpicking all the assumptions I had been making. Genuinely thought I wasn’t going to finish though.
MEDITATOR wasn’t a write-in, but I had studied Latin at school and even though I haven’t read it it did come up in discussion. It seems often that I’m thankful to my Latin teachers for the occasional QC answer.
Thanks Roly and Lupa for a great puzzle.
I agree. At last my seven years of school Latin are starting
to pay off, except Marcus A was not mentioned.
Top quality but decidely tricky in places, particularly the SE corner.
TIMESERVER went in with a shrug from the wordplay and I took too long to work out what Marcus Aurelius was doing as I am familiar with his work.
Started with BELLE and finished with BOMBE in 10.12 with lots of PDMs to enjoy along the way.
Thanks to rolytoly and Lupa
I found this tough, taking 13:56 but needing a few word searches to get there. I was another who started with MODERATOR for 17A; this made 11D impossible and accounted for much of my troubles until I undid it and found that MEDITATOR also fitted, though the parsing was beyond me – I was quite pleased that I knew Marcus A was a Roman emperor, but that he was also an author I did not know. OBITUARIES also slow to emerge; I was convinced it started with Abstract (as part of a paper) and it fitted the first the checkers. All in all a struggle.
Many thanks Roly for the blog.
A slow solve, finishing in 14:41.
LOI was MEDITATOR, after TURNTABLE forced a rethink of MODERATOR. Not familiar with the work of Marcus Aurelius, so took on trust that he was into meditation.
Thanks Rolytoly and Lupa
On the basis that The Times has been trying to get down wiv da kidz, I assumed Marcus Aurelius was going to be a reference to Gladiator. If only I’d known it was Lupa today.
Other hold ups were OBITUARIES (“passed” for died is not in my idiolect), BOMBE and LOI TURNTABLE. All done in 08:34 for an OKish Day. Many thanks Lupa and roly.
I’m with you on that; I never say “passed” (w/wo “away”) I say DIED. Euphemisms have their place but not for death.
Oh no, *especially* for death. Passed on, fell asleep, departed this life, up with the angels … endless permutations, there are.
Much too difficult, especially TURNTABLE. Is provide = AFFORD? NHO Meditations but Mrs M laughs at me. NHO BOMBE either. Neither of us have HO TIMESERVER. Enjoyed SIMPLICITY and OBITUARIES though.
I think I’ve heard of it in such terms as – They ‘Afford / Provide’ a service. But not 100% sure.🤔
From proverbs chapter 22;
[of the sayings of the wise]
They will afford pleasure if you keep them in your heart
and have all of them ready on your lips.
Could this be referring to the wise sayings of Marcus Aurelius I wonder?
Meaning, I think, that these sayings will provide pleasure.
It’s actually more ‘provide with’, grammatically. It afforded me/provided me with much amusement, for instance.
5:33. On the tricky side. Lean pickings on the across clues, FOI SUM, but the downs got me going. Like Vinyl I was held up by the ‘pals met’ anagram. LOI LEASE. I had no idea about Marcus Aurelius and meditation, so thanks for the elucidation, Roly… and for the crossword, Lupa.
Finished in 25 minutes, and really enjoyed it. COD goes to YESTERYEAR, mainly just because I love the word. Despite first thinking of newspapers and the dead for 6d, it still took me too long to put the two together and get OBITUARIES 😆. Thanks for the blog 😁
I found this pretty tough, and as I only had two answers for the across clues on the first pass, I thought I would finish way outside target. I did however manage to pick up speed once a decent number of the down clues were solved, and in the end finished in a fairly creditable 10.28. TIMESERVER and MEDITATOR caused me the most problems, and I was relieved to see they were correct.
Nine so definitely tricky for me.
Sum, afford, yesteryear,
Salsa, obituaries,
Ion, transient, turntable, tut.
A person serving out their time could be described as a time server but I’ve never heard it used that way.
1ac was a bit too subtle for me as a 1ac in a QC.
Thanks both
A steady solve in 20:35 with no real holdups apart from biffing MEDITATOR – not aware of anything to do with Marcus Aurelius, sadly.
Some of us ‘creep’ rather more slowly than our esteemed blogger. I crept home in 26 mins (quite a bit slower than my previous Lupa QC) but I enjoyed the challenge of this tough puzzle. Once again, the SNITCH seems low to me.
I won’t attempt to summarise my progress but I enjoyed many PDMs along the way.
Thanks to Roly for a couple of more rigorous parsings than my own.
From SALSA to GRANTS in 7:08. Started with the downs when 1a didn’t yield at first. It did turn up as soon as I’d got the 5 top row downs though. TIMESERVER and TURNTABLE needed some effort. MEDITATOR jumped out from the word play and seemed to suit Marcus Aurelius from my vague memories of Ancient Rome. Knew the BOMBE from visits to Bletchley Park. Thanks Lupa and Roly.
19:54 but got an error with FANBASE. Spent ages on alphabet trawls for GRANTS.
Liked OBITUARIES, when did “passed” become the universal euphemism for “died”? Hear it all the time now.
I was born in Bray, and the Vicar of Bray is seen as the ultimate TIMESERVER, changing his opinions as the monarchy changed around him.
The irony is that it has overtly religious overtones (“passing over to the other side”) in a world which is increasingly secular. Atheists don’t “pass over” to anything when they die.
I intend to simply pass away.
Small world, Merlin – my family has lots of connections with Bray! Matches and despatches but not hatches 😅
I pulled stumps at 30mins, short by four in the SE. An unparsed Moderator made the record player impossible (has Lupa never heard of ‘lift and separate’😉) and with Grants and Bombe caught up in the mess. I really don’t know how the Editor let some of these clues through in the first place, but if it doesn’t kill you. . . CoD to Obituaries for the pdm. Invariant
7:23
I didn’t find this overly tricky – saw AMPLEST quickly, enjoyed IMPLICIT being part of SIMPLICITY (never noticed before), and well aware of the term TIMESERVER – apologies to any civil servants out there, but I met several TIMESERVERs during my five year stint in Overseas Development after leaving school. Lucky too, that I have a box set of Penguin’s Great Ideas – twenty books on cerebral stuff, including Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations – never read it, mind….
Thanks Roly and Lupa
I thought this was a fair puzzle, although a DNF for me (obituaries despite realising that passed implied something like this). In my defense I’ve been up most of the night with my father-in-law in ED who had a small stroke. Would’ve been about 12 minutes if I’d got it! F-in law doing better this morning thankfully
Not happy news. Our real worlds don’t collide in this arena… however, each is real nevertheless. Good to hear of improvement, hope it continues.
Too rich for me, I’m afraid – I threw in the towel after about 20 minutes with seven unsolved. Worst performance in quite a long time.
Thank you for the blog!
Oh, happier day for us – well out of the SCC.
Very much enjoyed. : )
Marcus A long favoured by self… on the note of where one goes post life, he, IMHO, had quite a good take:
As we may die at any time, we ought to pay attention to how we behave and what we think. But really, death is nothing to fear because the gods will not thrust you into evil. If there were no gods, death would make no difference anyway.
His words : Since it is possible that thou mayest depart from life this very moment, regulate every act and thought accordingly. But to go away from among men, if there are gods, is not a thing to be afraid of, for the gods will not involve thee in evil; but if indeed they do not exist, or if they have no concern about human affairs, what is it to me to live in a universe devoid of gods or devoid of Providence?
During my Marcus A. days I was also very partial to Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet… ‘said a sheet of snow-white paper…’
I blame and thank it for my colourful life : )
There is an entertaining parody by one Kelloggs Allbran called ‘The Profit’ 😉
Thank you for this. And in lazily searching ‘ Kell All the Para’ I found, in addition to Kehlog Albran ‘The Profit’, another site, ‘The Profit Paradox – by Jan Eeckhout. Also interesting!
DNF. I gave up after 47 minutes with both ION and OBITUARIES unsolved. My attempts at those two only got as far as pen (writer), tin (money) and abstract_s (part of paper), so I was nowhere near solving them, really.
Too many things (wordplay, synonyms, etc) about this puzzle stretched me to the outer limits of my crosswording capability and, as a result, I found the whole thing more of a grind than a fun interlude in the day. Sorry Lupa, but this one was rather too elitist for me. Please bear in mind the great unwashed among us next time.
Many thanks to Roly for the blog.