Hello again. This crossword I found quite hard, though now I come to do the blog I’m not absolutely sure why. It has a number of neat, clever clues and no more than the usual quota of unusual words. What did you think?
I use the standard conventions like underlining the definition, CD for cryptic definition, DD for a double one, *(anragam) and so forth. Nho = “not heard of” and in case of need the Glossary is always handy
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Covering page in proofreading mark (6) |
| CARPET – P(age) in CARET. There are different kinds of caret but the proofreading one is just an insertion marker. | |
| 5 | Silly play’s opening provided by cast (8) |
| PIFFLING – P(lay) IF (provided) + FLING, to cast. | |
| 9 | Mother of pearly king dropped into ocean travelling with us (8) |
| NACREOUS – R (rex, king) in *(OCEAN + US). Neat requirement for lift-and-separate, pearly kings being a thing hereabouts, in those East End haunts that setters like to frequent.. | |
| 10 | Start to tuck into sandwich and roly-poly (6) |
| ROTUND – T(uck) in ROUND, a sandwich. | |
| 11 | Visitor worried after run out in dangerous country (5,5) |
| ROGUE STATE – RO (run out, in cricket) + GUEST (visitor) + ATE (worried). Another neat clue. Collins defines a rogue state as “A state that conducts its policy in a dangerously unpredictable way, disregarding international law or diplomacy.” Hmm. | |
| 13 | Spots litter leader’s left (4) |
| RASH – (t)RASH, an American word for rubbish. Or litter. | |
| 14 | Lake bed holds solidified matter (4) |
| CLOT – L(ake) in COT, a bed. | |
| 15 | One miracle involved splendid ritual (10) |
| CEREMONIAL – *(ONE MIRACLE) | |
| 18 | Writer of short musical and rotten novel (10) |
| CHESTERTON – CHES(s), a musical, short, + *(ROTTEN). I’ve always thought that writing an entertaining musical about the game of chess is impressive work indeed. Must go and see it, some time | |
| 20 | Be confronted by heartless travesty (4) |
| FACE – FA(r)CE, a travesty. I would see face as meaning to confront, rather than be confronted by. Which would be “Faced with.” Why didn’t the setter just say “Confront?” | |
| 21 | Almost terrifying disfigurement (4) |
| SCAR – SCAR(y). I tend not to notice cluing techniques much, but I do seem to be lopping an awful lot of individual letters off words, here.. | |
| 23 | Discuss business while gobbling? (4,6) |
| TALK TURKEY – a CD I suppose. And another Americanism. | |
| 25 | Tremble when delivering note (6) |
| QUAVER – A DD. | |
| 26 | A couple of short marks, wrong and right: initially this makes sense (8) |
| ACROSTIC – A + CROS(s) + TIC(k). A neat clue, this. An acrostic is a puzzle or a verse where the initial letters of each word (or the last) spell out another word. They were all the rage, once upon a time. | |
| 28 | Most inscrutable spy’s heading under cover? (8) |
| BLANKEST – S(py) in BLANKET, a cover. | |
| 29 | Function in business without Latin (6) |
| COSINE – CO (business) + SINE, Latin for “without.” As in, for example a sine qua non. As for cosine, heavens didn’t we have this in my last blog? It’s something or other to do with hypoteneuses and adjacent sides. When I was 17 I knew all about them, but have never ever once had cause to refer to them since, until now anyhow, which says something about education. If only they had taught me how to get a doctor’s appointment instead… although to be fair that wasn’t difficult, in those days. | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 2 | Maidservant bearing a ring for religious leader (9) |
| AYATOLLAH – A TOLL (a ring) in AYAH, a maid or nursemaid, back in the days of the British Empire… | |
| 3 | Interest announced for every case (7) |
| PURSUIT – sounds like “PER SUIT,” for every (legal) case. | |
| 4 | Time without tea for so many? (A number) (3) |
| TWO – T(ime) + WO, without. A reference to the hit song “Tea For Two,” from the musical “No No, Nanette.” It reached no. 1 on the US Billboard 100 in January 1925, and stayed there for 11 weeks. Let nobody say we aren’t keeping up to date with the latest musical trends. To be fair, it was in the UK Charts as recently as 1958. | |
| 5 | Infatuation with a high-ranking Turk (5) |
| PASHA – PASH (an infatuation) + A. Pash turns up regularly .. eg twice last December, and once last month. | |
| 6 | Counterfeit sum taking people in is a bloomer (6-2-3) |
| FORGET-ME-NOT – FORGE (counterfeit) + MEN (people) in TOT, to sum. A plant even I can recognise, one of not very many such. | |
| 7 | Palace attendant’s first opening after noon (7) |
| LATERAN – LATER (after) + A(ttendant) + N(oon). A word I know, though not sure I knew it was a palace, where popes used to live. But Lateran Councils, I had heard of. | |
| 8 | Nobody is forgetting an old date (5) |
| NONES – NO-ONE’S, without an O(ld). The ninth day before the Ides each month. I knew the word as one of the divine offices, like matins and vespers. Both usages derive from the Latin for nine, nonus. | |
| 12 | Orchestrate unusually sweet composition (11) |
| SACHERTORTE – *(ORCHESTRATE). A kind of chocolate cake, oozing calories from every pore. Delish. | |
| 16 | Have high opinion of endless desert (3) |
| RAT – RAT(e). Another slightly confusing part of speech; don’t you have to rat on someone? | |
| 17 | Current work eliminating area’s gradual growth (9) |
| ACCRETION – AC (alternating current) + CRE(a)TION, a work without the A(rea). | |
| 19 | Made a great effort as stone cracked (7) |
| STRIVEN – ST(one) + RIVEN, cracked. Past participle of the verb to strive. | |
| 20 | Run out of fortress, free in wild areas (7) |
| FORESTS – *(FORTRESS), with one R(un) removed. | |
| 22 | Check address of page, an old peasant (5) |
| CHURL – CH(eck), as in chess notation, + URL, a web page address. Churlish turns up often enough, churl not so much. Basically an Anglo-Saxon farm labourer. | |
| 24 | Spring’s past, meadow pipit’s content to fly away (5) |
| LEAPT – LEA (meadow) + P(ipi)T. It is indeed the past participle of to LEAP or spring. | |
| 27 | This legendary bird rises into heavens! (3) |
| ROC – COR, rev. I think the wording indicates that if you raise ROC, cor/heavens is what you get. | |
Fleurs-de-lis? Ten? No biffing, please, it will just make your solve harder. There was some good stuff here in the clues for nones, sachertorte, and churl. I was left, as you might expect, with nacreous, which is easy enough to solve if you correctly identify the literal as mother-of-pearl-y. I did, eventually, but it took me a while.
Time: 31:42
Thought this was a great crossword. Slow to start in the top half so moved to the south and worked my way up. I’d bunged in ‘strived’ instead of STRIVEN at 19d, which made BLANKEST at 28a impossible until I saw my error. SACHERTORTE came with a few checkers in place. Didn’t know LATERAN but the wordplay was pretty kind, as was the clue for NACREOUS. Liked ROGUE STATE. Thought PIFFLING meant something more like paltry or trivial, as in a ‘piffling amount’. ROTUND was very good. AYATOLLAH was my last in. Many contenders but COD to the short but clever TWO.
Thanks Jerry and setter.
I think the definition of TALK TURKEY is “discuss” so business becomes TALK. TALK TURKEY does not have to be about business. It can simply mean to talk bluntly in relation to something.
Chambers gives
talk turkey (chiefly N American)
1. To talk bluntly
2. To talk business
Collins gives
talk turkey
informal chiefly US, Canadian To discuss frankly and practically
I got wiped out by SACHERTORTE where I had 4 crossers and the only word I could find was the original orChEsTratE
For TALK TURKEY I have definition as “discuss”
business while gobbling is
business is TALK
while gobbling is TURKEY
If this is wrong please explain why.
LOI NACREOUS… after TWO.
“We won’t have it known we own a telephone, dear!” Great song!
Sorry to be pedantic:
We won’t have it known, dear
That we own a telephone, dear
Sorry, but that’s not the way I learned it. Used to play on the piano from a Reader’s Digest collection. I looked up the lyric, though, and saw many arrangements have the two “dears.” But not all! Random example: https://open.spotify.com/track/2bDvhJxwyovjcuQlw00Nwo
There have been thousands of recordings of the song so it’s not surprising that alterations were made on occasion. Definitely “dear” x 2 originally though. I have a 1925 original cast recording.
I don’t understand Spotify. When I found that link, it took me to the lyrics. But now it says sign in to Spotify to see them. But when I did, they weren’t there.
The 1958 hit was “Tea For Two Cha Cha”, by the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra
Another puzzle that occupied me for more than an hour. No complaints though, as it was an enjoyable experience. NACREOUS felt like a real achievement to solve. LOI was LATERAN which I was going to claim as NHO until a search of the archive returned more than a dozen hits. Tea for Two is a classic song that hasn’t needed to be in the charts to survive for a century.
36 minutes. I didn’t know what it was or meant, but I’d come across LATERAN before which helped in the NE corner. Everything then pleasantly challenging until my last in at 28a. After changing ‘striven’ to STRIVED (like Quadrophenia) I could feel a serious case of the yips coming on for what was no gimme until BLANKEST fortunately occurred to me.
This is probably what Jerry meant, but I parsed TWO as one of those uncommon clues with two bits of wordplay – T (‘Time’) + WO (‘without’) as shown, then ‘tea for so many?’ as a cryptic hint – followed by the def ‘A number’, again as shown. Anyway it was my pick today, not least because it appeals to me that Shostakovich liked TEA FOR TWO enough to compose an arrangement for orchestra, the Tahiti Trot.
Did the hard work but banged in ‘quiver’ without thinking, otherwise 17′.
NACREOUS FOI, nice clue. AYATOLLAH LOI, thought I was seeking an ancient name.
Thanks jerry and setter.
I enjoyed NACREOUS and LEAPT. Clever.
13:55 for a fun puzzle. NHO SACHERTORTE, but a painstaking sifting of the anagrist allowed it to be entered with some confidence.
Jerry, you didn’t learn maths at school so that you could “do maths” later in life. It was to teach you how to approach problem-solving in a structured, logical way, adding layers of abstraction as you progressed to higher levels of complexity. Other means are available, but maths is the most reliable, as well as the most enjoyable!
Thanks setter and Jerry (and special thanks to their respective maths teachers) for the logically consistent puzzle and the well-structured, clearly-explained blog.
Ah, and there’s me thinking I had to learn maths because they just didn’t like me very much ..
Well said! And mathematics is the foundation of all the sciences and a fair few of the arts (not to mention logic and philosophy).
31.57, of which the last ten minutes were spent on my LOI ROGUE STATE which I found unaccountably hard. Like BletchleyReject and Quadrophenia (I’m in good company) I put “strived” instead of STRIVEN which made BLANKEST impossible until the penny dropped.
Thanks Jerry and setter, a clever puzzle expertly parsed.
30 minutes, which surprised me as it had seemed more difficult than that. The dredger was certainly needed for NACREOUS, LATERAN, CHURL and NONES but the wordplay was kind.
Thanks to setter and JerryW.
A slow 44:04 for me today. I found this extremely difficult, the reason being there are numerous NHOs. AYAH, PASH(A), LATERAN, NONES, NACREOUS, CHURL, SACHERTORTE (VHO). ACROSTIC was just a very hard clue (given it doesn’t only make sense initially), but it fell in the end.
Too much NHO and/or 1950s vocab for me to really enjoy this, though I’m glad I got through it, all-green, in the end. LOI PURSUIT. I am a lawyer, but I never refer to a case as a suit, and I barely even associate the words. Very 19th century. I suppose I’d better get used to it for crossword purposes. Maybe I’m just being slow this morning!
Beyond me. Gave up and looked at the solution after around 40 mins having completed about half of the answers. DNK nacreous and almost not lateran. Tough for a Wednesday, although perhaps it’s just me.
Not just you. I don’t understand how this has a SNITCH below 100. I think it must be because there are numerous very experienced/fast solvers who don’t bat an eyelid at certain relatively obscure cruciwords, and the wordplay wasn’t difficult enough to slow them down!
If you don’t finish, you don’t count! I suspect many of the slower solvers just never made it to the end.
Count me in this group as well. Stymied around halfway through this one.
It is always nice to see others manage to get on nicely and enjoy the puzzles I biff though, kudos to the finishers today!
13:41. Nice puzzle. LOI NACREOUS with a smile when I saw the parsing. Thank-you Jerry and setter.
LOI PURSUIT after I biffed CARPET. I’d no idea about the proofreading mark. But I have eaten SACHERTORTE at the Hotel Sacher. It was very chocolatey. I also STRIVED for too
long. COD to CHESTERTON, a nice PDM when he eventually showed up. This was a bit harder than it looked. Thank you Jerry and setter.
I shot through this one: 12 mins, my fastest in ages. I entered LATERAN diffidently; I knew it was a word and it fitted the wordplay. I was lucky to get SACHERTORTE immediately – I must have seen the anagram before. I wondered whether ‘(A number)’ in 4D was surplus to requirements. My first in was PIFFLING and last ACCRETION. My favourite two clues: to TALK TURKEY and ROC. Thank you Setter, for a brief moment of fun, and thank you, Blogger.
AYATOLLAH and ROGUE STATE. Was the setter trying to say something?
15:24, ending with NACREOUS.
16.33, all solved properly with no biffs, perhaps the mark of a good crossword. Pleasant to have an anagram involving orchestra that doesn’t involve a carthorse. I’ve been trying to remember the place where I sampled SACHETORTE, because I think it was quite iconic, but I don’t think it was Vienna. If I remember, I’ll let you know.
Are we veering ever closer to political commentary with the crossing of AYATOLLAH and ROGUE STATE? Let’s just say I appreciated Jerry’s “hmm” – and the rest of the chatty delivery.
There was also some mention of a RASH CLOT…
🙂
Doesn’t narrow the field down an awful lot, though.
Just under half an hour.
– Had to trust that a caret is a proofreading mark to get CARPET
– Didn’t know NACREOUS, but it was the only realistic option
– NHO round as a sandwich for ROTUND
– Took ages to get AYATOLLAH despite its current relevance and having the H at the end
– Only know NONES from these puzzles
Thanks Jerry and setter.
FOI Cosine
LOI Nacreous
COD Chesterton
Well, I made a complete cods of this. CANNIEST at 28ac didn’t help ( looking for a word from C-U-A!) and the NW beat me completely. Of course, when I read the blog it all became blindingly clear. Doh!
I suppose one has to admit it’s clever stuff but I didn’t enjoy it much. LEAPT was good though.
Thanks Jerry and setter.
30:56. Deceptively tricky, clever crossword.
COD: BLANKEST
Thanks to Jerry and our setter.
DNF. Gave up nearing the hour unsure of STRIVED/N and missing BLANKEST. When the fun stops, stop. I’ve been finding these more work and less play recently, it’s a sunny day, what am I doing indoors?
Liked CHURL and NACREOUS. Thanks to Jerry for sterling work as usual.
7:45 but with a stupid error: QUIVER. I had understood the clue completely so this must have been some kind of brain short-circuit. The perils of trying to go quickly.
I knew all the words today, which is no doubt the product of long-term overindulgence in crosswords. Words like AYAH become second nature and you become familiar with arcane words like NONES, never encountered in any other context.
Damn! I did the same thing. I must’ve only read the first part of the clue, as people say that voices “quiver” too.
Whoa, that was tough. Knew LATERAN, but NACREOUS was way beyond me. And how could I miss CARET when I use the very device in my blogs.
Sun is shining, closed it off after 30 mins, only 69% done.
Everything complete bar NACREOUS. DNK it and though I obv had all the letters of the anagram I just thought: Sod it, it’s a guess. And I hate guessing. If I wanted to do that, I’d do the quick crossword.
Struggled through this to only go and put QUIVER as my LOI for the DNF. It would have been my slowest for a while so would agree with the hard comment.
Couldn’t decide which way ROC went in until COSINE came. Is there some convention I am missing which makes it obvious? I’m guessing it’s the ‘this’ at the front.
Also misparsed COSINE as company’s (CO’S) line without the l.
Not my finest performance
COD ACROSTIC
Thanks blogger and setter.
Ha glad I wasn’t alone with QUIVER.
Yes it’s ‘this’ which determines the answer here but I think it’s a mater of cryptic grammar rather than convention. ‘This legendary bird’ = ‘the legendary bird shown here’ has to be a reference to the answer. Then ‘rises into heavens’ is a cryptic way of saying ‘turns into heavens when going up’.
I found this totally impenetrable until I got to LEAPT, after which TALK TURKEY went straight in and I assembled the thing from the bottom up. NACREOUS was a PDM and raised a smile. NONES and LATERAN were last 2 in, although I couldn’t have defined the latter. SACHERTORTE was a NHO, but TORTE was likely and there weren’t many ways of assembling the other letters with the checkers in. 26:48. Thanks setter and Jerry.
I wasn’t far off putting SUCHERTORTE (visually closer to ‘sugar’), but thankfully checked for a U!
LOI was BLANDEST, being chuffed to remember Roy Bland who was the fourth or fifth man. And forgetting to check the parsing not just the definition. But it was Anthony Blunt I was thinking of – Roy Bland was in MI6 along with George Smiley and Peter Guillam and Toby Esterhase. Oh, well.
Forgot to say, great puzzle, much enjoyed. Lots of parsing required. Sachertorte from previous Times offerings, CHURL’s meaning unknown but guessable, Lateran a hill in Rome… maybe one of the Pope’s houses is on it? Yes, google tells me. Like many others I’d STRIVED too much. No problem with NACREOUS, saw mother-of-pearl(y) and nacre popped into mind. Did like TWO, an easy 3-letter clue that made you think.
17:27
Challenging and entertaining. What’s not to like? I found it hard to get into a rhythm so found myself flitting around the grid, which meant I probably missed a few easier ones early doors.
My dad had a Peugeot the colour of which was NACRE (or something nacre / nacre something) and I looked up the meaning at the time and it has stuck.
Thanks Jerry
I’m pretty sure Richie Benaud had a nacre jacket, to go along with the cream, bone, white, off-white, ivory and beige. Quite extraordinary, that!
I also fell into the ‘strived’ trap and failed on BLANKEST and CHURL but relatively easy today, on a par with yesterday. ‘round=sandwich’ is strange, surely the only way this comes up is in the phrase ‘a round of sandwiches’? Is anyone else experiencing a strange ‘not acceptable’ error message btw? That message appeared on my screen when I tried to post this comment slightly earlier today.
27:05
Not too many problems with this, I found it a thought-provoking challenge. Had WADI in at 14a until PURSUIT made that impossible, and wasn’t quite sure of the parsing of NONES. Pleased to pluck SACHERTORTE from somewhere, and amused by the NACREOUS clue. LOI was BLANKEST.
Thanks Jerry and setter
26.31
Teased them all out eventually. Liked CHESTERTON. Great blog.
DNF not seeing PURSUIT and the homophone didn’t work for me. In Rome for a few days and it seems the LATERAN basilica is a 15 minute walk away, but then so is about a dozen others! Knew the Torte from Bake-Off and NACRE from crosswordland. Toughest so far this week for me.
Thanks Jerry and setter
Pleased with a personal quick time, 25 minutes. No words unknown. Saw NACREOUS straight off after seeing “mother of pearl…”. Knew the ORCHESTRATE anagram. Wanted to put CEORL in, but realised CHURL must be a variant. Thought the clues for TWO and ROC were a bit feeble. Otherwise all fine.
A pleasant – and ultimately successful exercise – all done in 25 minutes, after a short struggle in the NW corner. No issues. Good to have a puzzle that does not leave me puzzled!
FOI – PIFFLING
LOI – TWO
COD – BLANKEST
Thanks to Jerry and other contributors.
Some lovely stuff in there, especially the hidden PEARLY. I see I have seven versions of Tea for Two on I-tunes, including one from the exquisite Blossom Dearie. CARET I hadn’t heard of, but calculated from the Latin that it must mean IS LACKING. 17’35” all up.
I also found it harder than the SNITCH. I liked Nacreous (and, stood a chance at spelling it properly only because it was an anagram) and Acrosstic. thx, jerry
DNF
Submitted in 29:20, but with a pink square for a foolish PERSUIT.
ACROSTIC was my LOI.
Thanks Jerry and setter
The Latin for nine is ‘novem’. ‘nonus’ means ninth.
I managed everything except AYATOLLAH, in about 45 minutes. I should really have got that one too but fooled myself into believing that it was some obscure and ancient title that I didn’t know.
Anyway, I enjoyed it a lot. Thank you for the very informative blog!