My first ever blog and what a privilege to be taking over the reins from Piquet and sharing the Wednesday slot with Jerry. When I started coming to this site some years ago now, it never crossed my mind that I might be among such illustrious company. I have always particularly enjoyed Piquet’s midweek offerings so a huge personal thank you to him from me, which I am sure is shared by everyone.
A nice puzzle to get me started, with a liberal sprinkling of alcoholic beverages to whet our appetites, and a boozy dessert thrown in for good measure. I completed it in 18.10.
Across
1 Greeting small child going round southeastern US park (8)
YOSEMITE – YO plus MITE around SE.
5 Attempt sales pitch but not one offering truthful words (6)
GOSPEL – GO plus SP(I)EL.
9 Drink supplier losing first account to stock good brandy (8)
ARMAGNAC – (B)ARMAN plus AC around G.
Apparently the oldest brandy recorded (known since at least 1310) to be distilled in the world, distinguished from cognac by traditionally using column, rather than pot, stills.
10 Grape variety in sheer endless quantity (6)
MERLOT – MER(E) plus LOT.
I can’t immediately think of a sentence where MERE and SHEER can be transposed but both have the sense of “plain” or “simple”.
More booze. Apparently the name comes from a diminutive of merle, the French name for the blackbird on account of its colour.
12 Temperature right in part of cooker to produce strong vibration (5)
THROB – T plus H(R)OB.
13 Metal ores transformed into rubbery material (9)
ELASTOMER – anagram, transformed, of (METAL ORES).
Didn’t know this but it was guessable.
14 Hide legal document about rejected studio employee (12)
SCREENWRITER – SCREEN plus WRIT plus a reversal, rejected, of RE [about].
18 Withdrawal scheme? Continue to accept half of it and assess limits to generosity (4,8)
EXIT STRATEGY – EXIST around T [half of it] plus RATE [assess] plus GY [limits to generosity].
21 Fix one’s habitual response about area of instrumental technique (9)
PIANISTIC – PIN plus IS [one’s] plus TIC [habitual response] all around A [area].
I stared at P_A_ISTIC for a bit, struggling to see what fitted.
23 Twelve letters left in key (5)
ATOLL – A TO L [first twelve letters of the alphabet] plus L.
24 Dried fruit is kept in bucket? (6)
RAISIN – RAIN around IS. As in “bucket down”.
25 Source welcoming British science backing AI-related science? (8)
ROBOTICS – ROOT around B plus a reversal, backing, of SCI.
26 Sinister expression of discomfort in French article (6)
LOUCHE – OUCH in LE.
27 German thinker dismissing pound currency having dismissed English dominance (8)
HEGEMONY – HEGE(L) plus MON(E)Y.
Down
1 Bridge player in a couple of years will be insubstantial (6)
YEASTY – EAST [bridge player] in Y and Y [a couple of years].
Not sure I have come across this word before in the context of “insubstantial” but it is in the dictionaries, makes sense, and the word play is generous.
2 Brother wrapped in considerable melancholy (6)
SOMBRE – BR in SOME.
3 Millions, say, back US spreading its wealth (9)
MEGABUCKS – M plus EG plus an anagram, spreading, of (BACK US).
Clever surface and construction.
4 Setter scared to broadcast ways to create crosswords? (5,7)
TRADE SECRETS – anagram, to broadcast, of (SETTER SCARED).
6 Open deliveries on time (5)
OVERT – OVER plus T.
An escapee from the Quickie.
7 Knowledgeable person with way to retain big sporting event, though cut by 50 per cent (8)
POLYMATH – PATH [way] around OLYM [50% of Olympics].
8 Well-read intelligent bloke finally replacing book in collection of books (8)
LITERARY – This is LIBRARY [collection of books] with the B [book] being replaced by TE [final letters of intelligent bloke].
11 Get policeman active in attractive location? (8,4)
MAGNETIC POLE – anagram, active, of (GET POLICEMAN). Great anagram fodder.
15 Complex procedure to arrange graduate function (9)
RIGMAROLE – RIG plus MA plus ROLE.
16 Civil agency worker having exam (8)
TEMPORAL – TEMP plus ORAL.
17 I initially recognise British novelist in trade union? That’s sweet (8)
TIRAMISU – I plus R [initially recognise] plus AMIS [British novelist] all contained in TU.
Kingsley or Martin, take your pick. Lucky Jim remains one of the funniest books I can remember reading, though dated to the point of being pre-historic now I imagine.
19 Cocktail — there’s a certain charm about it (6)
MOJITO – MOJO around IT.
Our third trip to the bar. Rum, lime, soda and mint for those fancying a mid-week cocktail.
20 Surreptitious cuddling remains vulgar (6)
FLASHY – FLY around ASH [remains as in a fire].
“Remains” meaning ASH was one of the first “crosswordy” things I learned from this blog.
22 Digital assistant upset with hard language (5)
IRISH – a reversal, upset, of SIRI plus H.
Excellent, clear blog.
Quite liked MOJITO but not at breakfast.
37 minutes with no great trouble other than wondering exactly why 8d was LITERATE until SCREENWRITER told me it wasn’t.
I’ve recently read Lucky Jim for the first time and I’d say it’s still extremely readable, and that people are right about it containing one of the best descriptions of a hangover in history.
Note entirely convinced by the literal at 4 – assumed it must refer to the possibility that to gossip (to trade secrets) may lead to arguments (cross words), rather than the usual meaning of the phrase relating to inside knowledge of a commercial variety. But if so, cross words (two words rather than one, crosswords) would seem more appropriate. I’m a bit confused here
I just took it as a reference to the multifarious arcane conventions that you have to learn about to set or solve this things.
Think it’s a sort of and-lit with an anagram thrown in because of the question mark ie a setter might be wary of divulging methods (‘setter scared’).
But I admit it’s fanciful.
15:44 … anything around 15 minutes is excellent for me!
Really like ATOLL and TRADE SECRETS on this gentle Wednesday. Thanks Dvynys and setter.
46 mins on train into London. I didn’t get trade secrets either.
Thanks Dvynys and setter.
19.20. Quicker than my usual Wednesday but maybe that’s a lesson that I should do the crossword before rather than after four hours on the golf course and a couple of drinks to follow. LOI pianistic.
8:18, with a pause at the end over 10ac MERLOT, where I couldn’t see the wordplay. All became clear once I realised the clue said ‘quantity’ and not ‘quality’.
Welcome and thank you for the excellent blog, Dvynys, and thanks to PK for the many of the same. I would stick to blogging over cocktail mixing though: your MOJITO sounds a bit sour 😉
Firstly, I would like to welcome our new blogger, who has provided a most excellent blog.
I was rather off-track in this puzzle. I could not see the rather obvious pianistic, thought A to M was 12 letters, and was not at all sure about yeasty. On the other hand, I did like megabucks and elastomer. Merlot was my LOI, an obvious biff.
Time: 31:55
39 mins and plenty of meaty anagrams for me to get my teeth into. Liked all the booze questions too. You can add RAISIN as well, as it’s French for grape. Very vinous.
I got lucky with FOI, YOSEMITE, as I have been there. Great place.
Thanks and bienvenue to our new blogger, D, great job.
The map software tells me it is 3 hours drive to Yosemite. I used to live in Provence, where getting there would be a bit more involved.
It was in my “retauranteur” days and I was visiting the Napa Valley. We popped over to Yosemite for a few days, as you do!
WOE. Was bowling along nicely until the ATOLL / FLASHY combi where the former took an age despite being 2 old tricks in 1 clue and thus ruled out TRASHY. I resorted to SLASHY which may not be a word but I still think SLY is better than FLY for surreptitious.
Not keen on YEASTY = insubstantial either, my cider yeast is quite scary but I’m sure a dictionary has it.
ELASTOMER cropped up in Countdown recently which is quite a feat.
Many thanks to new blogger.
DNF, with SLASHY rather than FLASHY as I never thought that ‘surreptitious’ might be ‘fly’ rather than ‘sly’.
– Biffed EXIT STRATEGY once a few checkers were in place
– MER over LOUCHE=sinister, though I imagine there’s enough overlap in some sense
– Never come across that meaning of YEASTY before but the wordplay was kind
Thanks for a great first blog, Dvynys, and thanks setter.
COD Elastomer
I see there are a few errors on the Leaderboard – maybe it was SLASHY/FLASHY? I also initially MERed at LOUCHE but it’s very clear in the dictionary so I wondered whether I’ve been slightly awry in my understanding of the word.
27:02 after a few days off (super busy with work) only to have put in CCREENWRITER. As it was a genuine typo I will take it as a victory.
YEASTY such a horrible word but obvious from the word play.
ATOLL I saw the trick straight away but confess to counting on my fingers
Really liked MEGABUCKS.
Welcome to our new blogger and thanks to the setter. I quite enjoyed this one.
Under half an hour (just) but my MOHO wasn’t working; one pink square for MOHITO. I enjoyed the simple RAISIN, COD to TRADE SECRETS
31 minutes with LOI PIANISTIC. COD to TIRAMISU. Two of my favourite authors in a pudding I can take or leave. Welcome Dvynys, great first blog. Thank you to you and setter.
Welcome aboard, Dvynys. Nice blog.
Quick today, though pianistic not a word I often use .. nor yeasty with that particular definition; very proud of my breadmaking skills, nothing insubstantial there!
Missing the SE corner after 45 mins, and ran out of time. Now I see I should really have got them all. Wasn’t mad about YEASTY or MERLOT, but they were obvious enough.
18.07. Annoyed at not seeing the wordplay for MEGABUCKS, too much time trying to “back” and “spread” sundry other bits of the clue. Maybe I’ve been doing these things too long. It also took me time to realise MAGNETIC POLE was an anagram: there just seemed to be too many letters.
I very nearly had SLASHY, held off by wondering why it would be vulgar.
The current walking dictionary heading the Countdown rankings was kind enough to put ELASTOMER into play, which helped. He’s not a setter, is he?
Congratulations to Dvynys on a fine debut. Fun, isn’t it?!
I know this is not the best place but has anyone else noticed the missing right hand line of the grid when it’s printed out?
Yes. I wondered if it was something I’d done.
It’s been there (or rather not been there) since Day 1 of the Times revamp.
Despite the comments by most here, the order I got the answers was ATOLL then FLASHY then YEASTY so no problems with those. POLYMATH was the LOI for a 26:33 finish.
Good work, Dvynys, and thanks for the nice obit. I’m another who wondered between SLASHY and FLASHY, with SLY not FLY meaning surreptitious but FLASHY closer to the definition. The rest was straightforward in 20 minutes.
Welcome to Dvynys and thanks to them and setter.
Tolerably easy puzzle which I enjoyed.
9a Armanac biffed, never saw the barman. Doh! Was confused that Drink was part of the def, but no. Tricky. DNK that it is older than cognac; it always sounds like the younger brother.
10a Merlot, DNK the blackbird story.
21a Pianistic, didn’t believe in the word so looked it up.
27a Hegemony. Thank goodness for the philosopher’s song, never let me down yet.
8d Literary biffed, failed to incorporate library so thanks to Dvynys.
20d Flashy, I too wrote slashy but fortunately sanity returned and after a bit of thought “fly” came to mind.
53 minutes with one resort to aids, so a technical DNF. HEGEMONY was the one that did for me. DNK the required meanings of LOUCHE and YEASTY.
19 minutes. Not as many NHO’s or unparsed as yesterday, but there were still a few I was unconfident about, including MERE(E) for ‘sheer’, YEASTY for ‘insubstantial’ and LOUCHE, which I thought meant attractively rakish rather than ‘sinister’.
A big thanks to Dvynys for the debut blog.
It struck me that TRADE SECRETS did no service to crossword-solving or setting. It implies that to set crosswords you need to have some body of knowledge that is hidden from the average punter, whereas in fact one should be showing the punter how anyone can learn how they work. I had slashy and used the check facility because I was too lazy to confirm it in a dictionary, and YEASTY seemed odd although no doubt it can be justified. Otherwise a pleasant crossword, just right for someone like me. 40 minutes.
There’s an art to balancing clue types, choosing the words/phrases themselves to create a satisfying grid, and so on. And of course an art to striking the balance between surface and wordplay, which isn’t necessary to solve them. Effective techniques to approach those might reasonably constitute trade secrets.
Re TRADE SECRETS-you expressed it better than me.
46.24
Great start, D. Thank you! The influence of Larkin is strong in Lucky Jim. LJ is like Larkin’s Jill in some ways.
Another who didn’t question that SLY was what was needed for surreptitious in 20d. I think because being SLY necessitates being surreptitious whereas being FLY doesn’t, so it’s a much more satisfying equivalent. I considered whether SLASHY might somehow mean vulgar but rejected it and settled for SLUMMY, thinking that UMM might mean remains somehow. That gave me ROBOTISM for 25, which I couldn’t completely parse. This all seemed a bit unsatisfactory (and with the benefit of hindsight a bit silly) but the best I could do given my assumption that SLY was too obviously right to be wrong.
ARMAGNAC was FOI. A biffed SCRIPTWRITER held TRADE SECRETS and MAGNETIC POLE up briefly. First thought for 20d was SLASHY, but FLASHY made more sense. ROBOTICS was LOI. 22:51. Thanks setter and Dvynys. Great first blog! Thanks to Pip for all the blogs past.
Nice puzzle, great blog.
Thanks Dvynys
Great blog, Dvynys. And a great crossword, except for 20d, which was the one, of course, that tripped me up. I put SLASHY without checking, as sly was so obviously surreptitious and fly isn’t really. But other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge, going initially wrong on one or two before working round to the correct solution. I briefly considered PLAYISTIC until I decided that ply wasn’t fix. ELASTOMER became obvious with crossers and I spent some time on GIGABYTES before gradually correcting that into MEGABUCKS! Liked EXIT STRATEGY, ATOLL and MAGNETIC POLE a lot.
Thanks to Pip for your tireless blogging to date and I hope we’ll see you at next summer’s get-together at The George.
I saw YOSEMITE right away, but progress after that was steady rather than spectacular, aided by the long anagrams. All done in 30 minutes. No issues.
FOI – YOSEMITE
LOI – ROBOTICS
COD – ATOLL
Thanks (and welcome) to Dvynys and thanks to other contributors.
Great blog, but the crossword was a slog.
Too many dubious synonyms…fly for surreptitious : civil for TEMPORAL and LOUCHE for sinister. Agree with others on the bizarre TRADE SECRETS.
Welcome to blogging Dvynys! A fine example.
A return to some kind of form for me, having missed out on the top 100 for the last couple of puzzles, with times well into the 20’s for puzzles not rated much more difficult than this one by SNITCH.
LOI was MEGABUCKS. Tried SLASHY as did Waldo and others above, but I swapped out the initial letter even though not sure FLY = surreptitious. No real problems apart from that.
16:13
Clean solve in 1 hour.
Held up by misspelling ARMANGAC.
LOI PIANISTIC, an early bif of Pizzicato didn’t go anywhere.
No problems despite NHO PIANISTIC, YEASTY (in that sense). I also thought LOUCHE was some sort of disreputable seduction adjective. I never thought of SLY, so FLASHY went straight in. Nice steady solve for a third day in a row. Maybe we are in for something touch tomorrow or Friday.
Relatively speedy 32.43 for me, with only my LOI HEGEMONY holding me up to any great extent. I worked out YEASTY quickly enough, but didn’t insert it until all the crossers were in place. Never come across that expression before. Wasn’t quite sure of the parsing of MERLOT either, but it couldn’t be anything else. A good puzzle and blog from Dvynys, well done!
Welcome Twin, great blog. Thanks to Pip for all the previous ones. About 10 minutes, no dramas. I justified FLY from the expression “on the fly” which I think has a suggestion of surreptitiousness.
Another SLASHY here, never even considered the alternative.
26:43
All but four before starting work this morning. Finished just now with the tricky SE corner.
Nice blogging Dvynys and thanks setter
Super blog Thank you. Very enjoyable puzzle. Liked the boozy theme, too!
Stared at 4d thinking ‘trade insults’ for ways to create cross words!
My dad was evacuated from Dunkirk in 1940. They were sustained by copious quantities of Armagnac which they were told by the locals was “like cider” and drank by the pint!! Lovely stuff.
Didn’t get TRADE SECRETS and still don’t. 28’50” – thanks to all
Nice puzzle, super blog – thanks setter and Dvynys, much enjoyed
Echoing the recommendations for Lucky Jim. I don’t often laugh out loud while reading, but that got me going.
Yes, a good one this!
A minor query since I’m not sure I parsed 3D the same (which you conclude satisfies “its wealth”):
“Millions, say, back US spreading its wealth (9)”
I took it to satisfy *millions*…
…since MA (back US/AM) spreading/by EG + BUCKS (its (back-referencing US) wealth) 🤷♂️
Many thanks for the write up! 👏