A few unusual words held me up here, especially the apt 3d.
Still, I very much liked this with a little present in the grid from Breadman adding to the enjoyment. I’ve hidden it behind the button below:
Eventually finished in 14:04 after a couple of typos added to the delay of getting the crossing 3d and 11a, my last two in.
Definitions underlined in bold, deletions indicated by strikethrough.
| Across | |
| 1 | Body of police that represents the Piccadilly Tube network? (4,4,4) |
| THIN BLUE LINE – cryptic hint: the Picadilly Tube line is shown as a THIN (dark) BLUE LINE on the well-known London tube map. | |
| 8 | Piece of information nowadays withdrawn by corporation (5) |
| DATUM – AD (‘nowadays withdrawn’=’nowadays’ reversed) TUM (‘corporation’)
AD for “anno domini”. I’ve yet to see CE for ‘nowadays’ in crossword land, but I’m sure it’s on its way. Talking of crossword land, is TUM ever used in this sense in the real world? |
|
| 9 | Huge chaps in semi relocating (7) |
| IMMENSE – MEN (‘chaps’) contained in (‘in’) anagram (‘relocating’) of SEMI | |
| 10 | Manage rugby session finally (3) |
| RUN – RU (‘rugby’=short for “rugby union”) N (‘session finally’=last letter of ‘sessioN‘) | |
| 11 | Left darkness extremely quickly (9) |
| OVERNIGHT – OVER (‘Left’) NIGHT (‘darkness’)
As an adverb, as in “Following the release of “Gone with the Wind”, Vivien Leigh became a sensation overnight”. Reverse the last two words, and the sentence would still make sense with OVERNIGHT as an adjective. |
|
| 13 | Style of hair right in bubbly character (5) |
| FRIZZ – R (‘right’) contained in (‘in’) FIZZ (‘bubbly character’) | |
| 14 | Distrust that Parisian railway (5) |
| QUERY – QUE (‘that Parisian’=the word ‘that’ in French) RY (‘railway’) | |
| 16 | Docker, English, travelled with animal doctors westwards (9) |
| STEVEDORE – E (‘English’) RODE (‘travelled’) VETS (‘animal doctors’) all reversed (‘westwards’ in an across clue)
What would be called a “longshoreman” in the US. The OED tells me the word comes from the Spanish estivador, agent-noun from estivar to stow a cargo. Of interest the US can claim ownership, as the first recorded quotation (as “stowadores”) is from the Massachusetts Spy in 1788 and then as “stevedore” in the first edition of Webster in 1828. |
|
| 17 | Odd bits of speech dry (3) |
| SEC – Odd-numbered (‘Odd’) letters of ‘SpEeCh’)
After seeing SEC many times in crosswords over the years, I finally got around to looking up whether it was the adjective or the noun (related to dry wine) being referred to. Collins, Chambers and the ODE only list the adjectival sense. |
|
| 19 | Boffin‘s breakfast food? Loaf (7) |
| EGGHEAD – EGG (‘breakfast food?’) HEAD (‘Loaf’)
‘Loaf’ as Cockney rhyming slang for HEAD = loaf of bread |
|
| 21 | Sort of crossing unoccupied zone with female support (5) |
| ZEBRA – ZE (‘unoccupied zone’=first and last letters of ‘ZonE‘) with BRA (‘female support’) | |
| 22 | Football team‘s notoriety Len broadcast (6,6) |
| LEYTON ORIENT – Anagram (‘broadcast’) of NOTORIETY LEN | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Royal family‘s impromptu do retainer conceals (5) |
| TUDOR – Hidden (‘conceals’) in ‘imprompTU DO Retainer’) | |
| 2 | Fashionable figures the writer’s detailed (9) |
| INTENSIVE – IN (‘Fashionable’) TENS (‘figures’) IVE (‘the writer’s’)
‘The writer’s’ = the writer has = I have = I’ve. |
|
| 3 | Confusion of woody grass unknown element topped (13) |
| BAMBOOZLEMENT – BAMBOO (‘woody grass’) Z (‘unknown’) Very appropriate as I was, well, bamboozled by this one, being unable to shift “bemusement” when I had the crossing B and M. |
|
| 4 | Academic institutions (former) applicable to male or female (6) |
| UNISEX – UNIS (‘Academic institutions’) EX (‘(former)’) | |
| 5 | Kitchen device imbecile partner ruined initially (5,8) |
| LEMON SQUEEZER – LEMON (‘imbecile’) SQUEEZE (‘partner’) R (‘ruined initially’=first letter of ‘Ruined’)
Guilty on multiple occasions. Great surface and I liked SQUEEZE for ‘partner’; I can only hazard a guess as to whether this is ‘applicable to male or female’. A LEMON to me is more a “dud” than an ‘imbecile’, but close enough and my COD. |
|
| 6 | Relative‘s Indian side dish (3) |
| NAN – Double definition | |
| 7 | Knowledge test for elite classes (6) |
| GENTRY – GEN (‘knowledge’) TRY (‘test’)
The Scottish equivalent is “kentry”. |
|
| 12 | Possible to find out good arrangement of sublease (9) |
| GUESSABLE – G (‘good’) and anagram (‘arrangement of’) SUBLEASE
As some otherwise unsolvable answers are in a crossword puzzle. I think ‘Possible to work out’ would have been closer to the mark, but maybe I’m stuck on how GUESSABLE applies specifically to coming up with a crossword answer. |
|
| 13 | Agitated American son seized by FBI agent (6) |
| FUSSED – US (‘American’) S (‘son’) contained in (‘seized by’) FED (‘FBI agent’) | |
| 15 | Country road below zero in winter month (6) |
| JORDAN – RD (‘road’) under (‘below’) O (‘zero’) contained in (‘in’) JAN (‘winter month’=abbreviation for January)
No, nothing to do with the John Dever song as I first thought. |
|
| 18 | Plan church sculpture? (5) |
| CHART – CH (‘church’) ART (‘sculpture?’)
The question mark as ‘sculpture’ is an example of ART. |
|
| 20 | My half of horse (3) |
| GEE – Half of GEE-GEE (‘horse’)
‘My’ as an exclamation. My first thought was: is there a horse breed called a “cor-cor”? |
|
Well, this was hard for me – NHO Leyton Orient, which is a rather tough answer for US solvers. I had dismissed Orient as a possible answer, but when I saw Leyton there was little choice. Bamboozlement, OTOH, was a write in. I didn’t get the cryptic for thin blue line, either, just biffed it.
Time: 11:53
I agree this is tough for US solvers, but I’m sure Leyton Orient is one of the staple football teams that often graces crossword land – so I guess it’s one of those ones to commit to memory.
For the first time the Nina or whatever it is called, helped me out by giving me the z for FRIZZ
I technically dnf cos I got to 12 min with only LEYTON ORIENT to go and I wrote out the anagram fodder and went ‘ah whatevs’ and gave up. I nho of that team but I like to think I would have gotten close.
Hope the tooth is ok. Mouthguard at night is a must for some of us.
The tooth is not ok! They tried to put a crown on today and I broke it just by biting!
JAWS OF STEEL!
(thank you for asking that’s so nice of you! ♥️)
Hang in there Tina. I know how depressing that can be.
BTW, as another Aussie i had exactly the same experience with the football team 🤣
Anyone not from the UK could be excused for not knowing Leyton Orient, who (apart from playing at various times in their history as Clapton Orient or just Orient) have never risen to any great height (just one season in the top league, some 60 years ago) and never won a major honour. But they are the second oldest football club in London.
Everything I know about the lower leagues of English football I have learnt from Welcome to Wrexham. Unfortunately for me Leyton Orient aren’t quite so low down the leagues as Wrexham!
Oh bad luck. Hope they can refix.
“Overnight sensation” is actually the more common phrase. It’s the name of at least two songs and one album… I don’t remember ever seeing LEMON for “imbecile” before, but a LEMON SQUEEZER is one of my few kitchen utensils, as it is needed to make the occasional sidecar.
10.26. I was held up by the footy team because I had a vague memory of one ending in ORIENT but thought it was London, and tried to reverse-engineer the clue to make that work. Having 1ac as FOI was helpful. I too was bamboozled by 3dn for most of the journey until FRIZZ came along. Stevedores? Longshoremen? In Oz they’re wharfies. Thanks BR and Breadman, not sure what the point is regarding the central rare-letter cluster but hey…
I enjoyed this puzzle, and finished faster than average. I had also NHO LEYTON ORIENT but couldn’t find anything more promising.
Quite a satisfying solve with lots of clues that took unraveling.
I thought I’d been clever to notice the Nina and was trying to use the pangram to my advantage, which of course wasn’t as useful as I thought!
10 minutes. I didn’t notice the central cluster but the presence of the less common letters registered and I checked in vain for a pangram.
CE has come up before clued by ‘common era’, and in one puzzle blogged by me in December 2021 we even had BCE clued by ‘times past’ which I found eventually stands for ‘before the common era’ i.e. BC. I thought that was a bit much for Quick Cryptic wordplay. Traditionalists can console themselves by knowing that CE can also stand for ‘Christian era’. I’ve also seen ‘current era’.
I’d never heard of the expression THIN BLUE LINE before it was used as the title of a TV sitcom set in a police station starring Rowan Atkinson and written by Ben Elton.
I can’t think when I last saw ‘BC’ or ‘AD’; ages ago, anyway.
Both still in common usage here. Don’t know about in crosswords though.
I always notice whether a TV historian or archaeologist says BC or BCE. About 50/50 at the moment. I still say BC or AD, of course.
As one of the millions of non-Christians who don’t see ‘Christ’ or ‘Domini’ as appropriate terms for Jesus, I say CE and BCE, of course.
Fair enough.🙂
I see what you did there.
This was very hard for me and I threw in the towel after 30 minutes with BAMBOOZLEMENT, FUSSED and DATUM left, by which time I’d given up the will. So another DNF for me.
Great mix of clues in this one and lots of less common meanings of common words made an enjoyable 28.10 for us. Lots of PDMs and a MER that fizz = bubbly character rather than just Bubbly?
COD to thin blue line, nice surface and always great when 1a is FOI. LOI was intensive which took a few goes as we were looking for the K in a pangram having not noticed the absence of the W and P 🤔
We did comment this would be tough for non-UK folk
Thanks Breadman and BR for the blog and extra info including the passive of I’ve
I read the words ‘bubbly character’ as in ‘This wine has a bubbly character’—ie it has a FIZZ. So it worked OK for me,
Yes, that’s exactly how I read it too.
I agree with you, fizz or bubbly are very common nicknames for champagne, I have never seen or heard anyone describe a wine as having a bubbly character – it is either sparkling or not (without getting into the realms of petillant which still wouldn’t be described as having a bubbly character).
Whizzed through this one, but noted that some of the GK might be tricky for non UK solvers.
On first reading I couldn’t make head or tail of 1a so looked at 1d and the ‘t’ from TUDOR quickly led to COD THIN BLUE LINE and I was off and running.
A top to bottom solve finishing with JORDAN in 5.58.
Thanks to BR
A spritely early 15 mins for me, prior to another day of making tea for builders and offering helpful advice…
My brother in law will be ecstatic to know that his beloved football team have risen to the giddy heights of being a crossword answer, although I will point out to him that it is the Championship level QC rather than the Premier 15×15! Why anyone, anywhere in the world, would not have heard of them will in itself be a puzzle to him.
Otherwise, a steady solve down the grid, much assisted by the long ones dropping into place without any great delays.
45 minute finish for me in one sitting and fully parsed apart from DATUM. I’ve seen TUM before for Corporation and must add it to my list of ‘only in crossword land’ uses. Thanks for the blog.
COD to ZEBRA and I’m impressed with Breadman for fitting in three Zs
6:17. Nice puzzle. I enjoyed the trick with the JWXZ that we’ve seen before from this setter. Breadman is becoming a favourite setter for me. The long downs took a while to see until I had the checkers from that. LOI OVERNIGHT. A walking friend of mine supports Leyton Orient, but I still needed to see the ORIENT first. Thanks Breadman and BR.
This was like wading through treacle for me, but I got there in the end (25 mins). Knowing nothing about football, LEYTON ORIENT took ages, but there was a spectral memory of the name deep in the recesses of my mind – I must have overheard someone mentioning it sometime.
As a child, I heard a reference to UNISEX, and assumed it was a county somewhere in England. I had heard of Essex, Wessex, Middlesex, Sussex, so it seemed logical. Curiously, there seems to be no Nossex. Perhaps the county died out due to lack of reproduction….?
Happy Tuesday all. Pi 💜
😂
Having doctored many an undergraduate in my professional lifetime I can tell you that it’s an area within every English county except Wiltshire, Rutland and Herefordshire
Wasnt there a play, or musical, called “No Sex, Please, We’re British”?
Yes there was a play with that title. I think it was on in London in the early 1970s.
1971-1986 in the West End, I think, and held the record as longest running comedy in the UK. It transferred to Broadway and flopped there, closing after 16 performances. There was also a film starring Ronnie Corbett which was awful. For many years it was the comedy equivalent of The Mousetrap, a show that coach parties and undiscerning tourists simply had to see.
Unisex, notable as the setting for many 19th-century classic novels.
12:57, another fast one. THIN BLUE LINE was banged in from enumeration giving 6 initial letters.
Predictably I shall moan about TUM=corporation. One of my top ten peeves (I have more). My=COR is on the list, but I couldn’t think of a breed of horse starting with “cor”, eventually twigged that it was “GEE” today. Would love to see CRIPES or CRIKEY in there.
I saw the “high scrabble letters” device, as we just had it a few weeks ago.
COD JORDAN.
19:00 (Keir Hardie elected MP for Merthyr Tydfil)
Pride comes before a fall. After yesterday’s sub-10 I suffered from OVERNIGHT BAMBOOZLEMENT and narrowly escaped the SCC. I had forgotten that bamboo was a grass. LOI was GENTRY.
Thanks BR and Breadman
As someone with an online shopping problem, I saw “extremely quickly” = OVERNIGHT in delivery speed terms.
Cracking puzzle – three Zs!
All done in 07:20 for a Very Good Day.
Many thanks Breaders and Bletchers.
Templar
13:23
I had OVERNIGHT = “extremely quickly” in the sense when you send a parcel overnight to ensure it arrives quickly. Edit – I see Templar posted the same while I was typing
Needed the Z to get FRIZZ/BAMOOZLEMENT pairing although with the Z already in LEMON-SQUEEZER, I was tempted by putting a Y there.
STEVEDORE – I really wanted to spell with A in the middle but doublechecked the parsing.
LEYTON-ORIENT – one of those teams which always used to inhabit the lower divisions and therefore only managed perhaps one sticker in the Panini albums of my youth. Think boxing supremo Barry Hearn took them over a while back.
🤝
i did enjoy this so thanks Breadman and Bletchley Reject. I thought it was a very odd mix though. Both lemon and squeeze were dodgy for me. In both cases these are very obscure uses imo, but it looked like there could only be one answer. I felt sorry for our US friends who might have struggled with Leyton Orient and the Thin Blue Line but as a minor sop I think its only Americans who say gee!
Do not usually post but have been following you all with interest for some time. Close to a PB with 11.36 for me which I was very pleased with. So much I had to share! I even saw the NINA and was searching for the Q.
Decent time for this tricky one. Come back often!
Well done! Do keep posting.
Well done! Welcome to this merry band and do keep posting 😊
8:50
Got to the bottom of the first pass of acrosses with half-a-dozen written in, only then remembering that it was a QC! Took a while to get each of LEYTON ORIENT (the last football team you’d think of, and I’m a Londoner! – well done setter 🙂 ) and THIN BLUE LINE – I had it in mind that the Piccadilly was perhaps more purply, but clearly mistaken. Plus, like Jack, I’d not heard the phrase before the Rowan Atkinson comedy was broadcast. Needed the Z from FRIZZ to see BAMBOOZLEMENT.
Thanks Breadman and Bletch
So quick with THIN BLUE LINE FOI, and then LEMON SQUEEZER, but finally was completely BAMBOOZled by 3d so DNF. What a pity. I shd have put the puzzle aside and come back to it. Once I revealed 3d, I got OVERNIGHT.
Liked many inc FRIZZ, TUDOR, UNISEX, JORDAN, GEE (a late PDM). I even got the football team.
Thanks vm, BR.
For once 1a went straight in and I was off and running. Finished in 10 minutes with LOI FUSSED.
I have watched football at Leyton Orient’s ground so that was easy.
My only hold-up was a reckless biff of BEWILDERMENT at 3d; of course it doesn’t fit but it takes a while to correct when you solve on paper as I do.
I enjoyed this. Did not see or look for a theme.
COD to OVERNIGHT.
David
I used to drive past Leyton Orient every day, and have a die-hard fan amongst my friends so for me it was a welcome sight. Play up you Os!
Lovely. Really enjoyed this. Thin blue line, Bamboozlement and Lemon Squeezer opened it up nicely. Had to biff Datum and Tum still confuses me. Thanks Breadman and Bletchley.
DNF.
Might as well not bother with one as hard as this.
Very disheartening.
Very nasty.
Harder than average, Gordon, but stick with it, they do eventually get easier.
A bit of a teaser from Breadman, so I was happy to cross the line after 18 ins. My last pair, Bamboolement and Overnight, were all set to shepherd me into the SCC before I suddenly saw Bamboo as the woody grass. I always thought frizzy hair was regarded as a defect rather than a style, but then as a bald-headed male I’ll take anything that’s on offer. CoD to 5d, Lemon Squeezer, the parsing of which initially seemed impossible, but has since improved to merely dubious (lemon/imbecile). Invariant
Bamboozlement surely? 😉
Touché
DNF as I used my cheating machine for Leyton Orient, and was V surprised to find that it was in the machine. Can’t think what would have made me put it in as I hate footie, but maybe it occurred in another puzzle?
A quick time by my standards of 13 minutes for this one. Couldn’t parse DATUM and the 2 long down answers were only partially parsed as they were obvious from the crossers. No problem with LEYTON ORIENT as I have been to their ground a couple of times.
FOI & COD – 1ac THIN BLUE LINE
LOI – 7dn GENTRY
Thanks to Breadman and BR
Am I the only person that thinks 1ac is a rubbish clue? Unlike many commenting, I have heard of the “Thin Blue Line” referring to the police, it may be UK specific but definitely a phrase.
However, using “that represents the Piccadilly Tube network” is awful. Firstly, I don’t know why it is “thin”? Yes, it is a blue line, perhaps it is a thin blue line, but actually, as somebody else already commented, I’ve always thought of it as a dark blue, maybe purple, colour. If you just wanted a thin blue line, then the Victoria Line is certainly that. Secondly, and this is the clincher for me, nobody calls the Piccadilly Line the “Piccadilly Tube Network”. There is a good reason for this: it is a line, never written as “Piccadilly Tube Line” (although it is certainly a line on “the tube”) and it is DEFINITELY not a network, tube or otherwise.
Well I for one agree with all your points – indeed there was a version of the famous underground map a few years ago where the tube lines were shown as thick lines, the thin lines being reserved for national rail lines. And I do love a good grumble. But perhaps only a Londoner would notice the various faux pas?
Spot on with your last point, Cedric. . .
Respectfully, I beg to differ! I thought it was a great clue.
Of course nobody calls it “the Piccadilly Tube network”, but if Breadman had written “the Piccadilly Line”, part of the answer would have been in plain sight in the clue, which is a crossword no-no. And actually, with two western termini at Uxbridge and Heathrow, it’s no more a line than it is a network, although I concede neither term fits well – it’s more of a pitchfork with one curly prong!
Of course it’s a THIN blue line. It’s about 1mm wide on the paper version of the tube map and <1cm wide on the massive maps on station walls. If that’s not thin, I don’t know what is!
Sure, the Victoria Line would probably have worked as well, but the Piccadilly is definitely blue too and, for what it’s worth, is far closer to the colour of a police uniform than the Victoria Line.
I found this fairly gentle today. THIN BLUE LINE was a gimme and helped the grid enormously. BAMBOOZLEMENT was biffed then parsed. Knew the football team but thought spelling was Leighton (like Leighton Buzzard) so wondered about another ‘orient’ team for a while. Spotted the unusual letters but typically not the theme. Really liked LEMON SQUEEZER with the now rather quaint cryptic. Slowish to work out JORDAN, trying the wordplay with Dec to start with – doh. Enjoyable. Thanks Breadman and BR.
14:34
Held up for at least 5 mins by gentry, overnight, and bamboozlement. Had night but took a while to see over = left, and same for bamboo = woody grass.
COD/WOD Bamboozlement.
5.50 So not too far away from my target time.
Leyton Orient a write in for me obviously.
Inexplicably Jordan was my last one in despite in retrospect being very easy. Breadman had me thinking in the wrong direction, which is a testament to his art.
Seemed harder at first than it turned out to be. Once QUERY and ZEBRA were in, I thought there was a NINA here, and so it proved. Last few in were GEE, EGGHEAD and FUSSED. Pleased to finish relatively quickly, as I often find Breadman’s puzzles very difficult.
Just outside of target today at 10.24, but I’m happy with the time as I think this was a fairly tough test. I was Bamboozled by 3dn for some time but got there in the end, and this enabled me to get my LOI OVERNIGHT. I felt a few would be foxed by LEYTON ORIENT, but as my team have played them a number of times in recent years, it was a write in for me.
12 minutes for me, with a fair amount of Bamboozlement (great word) over that clue – I wonder if there is a name for a clue that aptly describes itself. That was my POI, and led to LOI Overnight, where I was slow to connect Left and Over and even slower to connect Overnight with Extremely quickly. Still not entirely convinced that it’s a great clue.
Otherwise a good mix of clues, though I thought as I was doing it (and as others have also noted), a number of UK-specific (even London-specific) surfaces may have stretched those from further afield.
Many thanks BR for the blog.
Cedric
Very pleased with myself this week: 14 minutes yesterday and thirteen today, which is as quick as I ever get. Enjoyed today’s clues. Thank you Breadman.
8.31
Benefitted from briefly being a Leyton Orient supporter in the mid seventies when they narrowly missed out on promotion to the First Division and reached the FA Cup semifinal.
That (the missed promotion) would have been the 1973-74 season, and I remember it well as my boss at the time was a director of the club, so we all followed their fortunes vicariously. It all hinged on the last game, where a win would have been enough. Sadly they drew 1-1, and the atmosphere in the office the following Monday was glum indeed.
10:03. Main holdups were remembering what a boffin was and trying to see how cor fit in the horse clue. Also I always think the French that is ce, cette, or ces rather than QUE, which I first think of as what or which. Enjoyed BR’s informative blog.
The very first definition for “que” in Wiktionnaire—and not only it—is equivalent to “that” (Complémenteur pour introduire une proposition subordonnée complétive), with the examples Mais tu sais que tu mens (“But you know that you lie”) and Il est clair que nous ne sommes pas parfaits (“It is clear that we are not perfect”).
Merci, Guy, c’est bien clair aussi que je ne suis pas parfait!
After a slightly hesitant start I got going well and an SCC escape (uncommon for me) was a possibility. Unfortunately, the SW corner put up just enough resistance to scupper that thought and I crossed the line in 21 minutes. The stickiest and therefore last clues in were FUSSED, EGGHEAD, GEE and JORDAN.
It was great to see BABOOZLEMENT, LEMON SQUEEZER and LEYTON ORIENT making an appearance. Not so sure about the other long clue, THIN BLUE LINE.
Many thanks to Breadman and BR.
I’m not sure why I knew of LEYTON ORIENT as I avoid anything football related but I did. FRIZZ made me laugh…..it’s a style I don’t care for and I spend a lot of money smoothing out my frizz. My only real problems with the QC were the overlapping clues of BAMBOOZLEMENT(struggled on BAMBOO), OVERNIGHT(my LOI) and UNISEX(overthinking the clue). 8:03
I’ve been trying to solve these puzzles for several years now and have also enjoyed the solutions and comments in the blogs, but this is the first time I’ve plucked up the courage to comment. I found this one challenging but not impossible and came home in 20.55. Many thanks to BR, Breadman and all of you who keep me entertained with your input. From my hazy memory of GCE French, I thought que was “what”.
Great to hear from you Brown Bear, the more commenters the merrier!
Well done on your success today 😊 Keep posting!
Very enjoyable puzzle today. 1a ‘thin blue line’ made me laugh, and 1d hidden Royal family seemed appropriate clue following todays news.
Finished in aprox 30 mins (not quick enough to actually bother timing myself). Missing a P & W so wasn’t a NINA. Does that mean anything or more likely Breadman changed his mind about getting all 26 letters in?
Query & Zebra both clues of the day for me
A pretty straightforward solve for us, being Brits. 1a went in almost straight away but with a MER over network as James B said above. Hesitated only briefly over LEYTON ORIENT because I first heard it in my head as Luton before starting to type but that clearly didn’t fit. LEMON as imbecile seemed odd but all done in 12:15 with LOI GENTRY. Thanks, all, for crossword, blog and the usual entertaining discussion.
7.27
I like my footie but even I struggled with LEYTON ORIENT until I had a few checkers despite it being famous for the second word of its name. And some of the longer ones were biffed in rather than worked out, so with some obscure GK and tricky wordplay I can see why some will find this one toughish.
Liked GUESSABLE
Thanks Breadman and BR
8.19 (When I first submitted my solution the clock was on 8.11 but the site froze and I had to submit again.) Quick today. Most of the clues didn’t go in on first reading but I didn’t get stuck anywhere. BAMBOOZLEMENT, FRIZZ and INTENSIVE were the last three. I’ve just noticed that the Quitch is registering my times now, and they are all over the place. Thanks BR and Breadman.
35 mins…
I found this tough, and spent quite a considerable amount of time on 8ac “Datum”, 3dn “Bamboozlement” (I kept thinking befuddlement, betwizzlement and various other combos) and 11ac “Overnight” (is this really extremely quickly, when you can now get same day delivery?).
However, a lot of the clues were enjoyable and I particularly liked 16ac “Stevedore”, 20ac “Gee” and my COD 5dn “Lemon Squeezer”. Didn’t think 1ac “Thin Blue Line” was a great clue.
FOI – 1dn “Tudor”
LOI – 3dn “Bamboozlement”
COD – 5dn “Lemon Squeezer”
Thanks as usual!
My mother in law lives in Leytonstone, one stop from Leyton, and I see Orient’s ground from the A12 whenever we drive over that way.
I was bamboozled by BAMBOOZLEMENT and OVERNIGHT to some extent, but my LOI was FUSSED after FRIZZ. LEMON SQUEEZER COD.
6:27
I agree about the French for ‘that’ not being ‘que’. I thought ‘ce, cette, ce la’ etc
See my reply to curryowen above.
I see there’s no need to expatiate on how hard this was for me as a non-Brit. Ironically I took ages to think of THIN BLUE LINE because I imagined it was too “American” to be in this puzzle. (Also my knowledge of the London underground is close to zero.)
The puzzle took forever and I felt like a first-time solver again. I hope I won’t again forget the obnoxious corporation/tum code! Favorite today was GUESSABLE, without which property many a clue would never have been filled in.
From NAN to JORDAN in 9:00. Thanks Breadman and BR.
15 minutes for me today. A v enjoyable puzzle with lots of guessable answers to check with the wordplay