ParkSolve time undefined. Good run (beautiful day for it) but the solve was interrupted so I’m not sure how long it took. Felt like it was on the slow side though.
Nothing to really bang on about today. Will just say thanks Corelli and hand it over to you lot for your thoughts. How did you find it?
(On edit: Jack informs us in the comments that Corelli is one of Richard Rogan’s pseudonyms. Sadly I knew very little about Richard until after his untimely passing, but it seems he was quite an extraordinary person who has left a delightful legacy).
(In the clues, definitions are underlined and anagram indicators are in bold italics.
In the explanations (ABC)* indicates an anagram of abc. Deletions and other devices are indicated accordingly, I hope).
| Across | |
| 1 | Breathing aids, no less, when swimming around outside of rock (8) |
| SNORKELS – (NO LESS)* around RK (outside of RocK) | |
| 6 | It hurts removing penny from purse! (4) |
| OUCH – P (penny) removed from |
|
| 8 | Remain a year on street (4) |
| STAY – A + Y (year) on ST (street) | |
| 9 | No longer anxious, if somehow ever idle (8) |
| RELIEVED – (EVER IDLE)* | |
| 10 | Large amount coming in to replenish a small fleet (8) |
| FLOTILLA – LOT (large amount) in FILL (replenish) + A | |
| 12 | Spy name attached to ancient vessel (4) |
| NARK – N (name) + ARK (ancient vessel)
More of an informer than a spy but I guess spying is part of the gig. |
|
| 13 | Behold desire to be rather mean (6) |
| LOWISH – LO (behold) + WISH (desire)
Not the most obvious of synonyms, but we have mean = “poor in quality or appearance” and low = “considered to be inferior in quality or refinement”. Or maybe mean = “of low birth or social class” works better, although that’s marked as “dated” in the reference I consulted. |
|
| 16 | Ace was crossing road to get prizes (6) |
| AWARDS – A (Ace) +WAS “crossing” RD (road) | |
| 17 | Musical instrument’s endless beauty (4) |
| BELL – BELL |
|
| 18 | Bob and Carol crossing small mountain (8) |
| SHILLING – SING (carol) “crossing” HILL (small mountain)
I’m just old enough to remember pounds, shillings and pence in Australia. My brothers and I always got “two bob” between us from my grandfather if we arrived with our top buttons done up. It’s just occurred to me now how peculiar that was. |
|
| 21 | Some stirring dialogue: one way to tell Times from Sun! (4,4) |
| RING DIAL – Hidden (some) in (stirRING DIALogue)
I hadn’t heard of this device for telling the time, but there are some lovely examples on display at the British Museum apparently. |
|
| 22 | Advance unaccompanied, according to report (4) |
| LOAN – Homophone (according to report) of LONE (unaccompanied)
Not the first occurrence of this homophone in Crosswordland. And probably not the last. |
|
| 23 | Fresh, right after exercising (4) |
| PERT – RT (right) after PE (exercising) | |
| 24 | Place for plants: you no longer would have means to water them outside (8) |
| HOTHOUSE – THOU (you no longer) with HOSE (means to water them) outside.
“Them” being the aforementioned plants, making this a slightly self-referential clue. |
|
| Down | |
| 2 | Lana is confused about time of birth (5) |
| NATAL – (LANA)* “about” T (time) | |
| 3 | Beam from top of roof, indeed (3) |
| RAY – R [top (first letter) of Roof] + AY (indeed) | |
| 4 | Register put up in hall, or nearby (5) |
| ENROL – Reverse hidden (put up in) in (halL OR NEarby) | |
| 5 | Cake ingredient for ruler’s wife (7) |
| SULTANA – Double definition | |
| 6 | Land alone prepared for absolutely everyone (3,3,3) |
| ONE AND ALL – (LAND ALONE)* | |
| 7 | Loudly applauded old guerrilla, European socialist (7) |
| CHEERED – CHE (old guerilla) + E (European) + RED (socialist)
If the Guevara estate got royalties every time old Che pops up in a crossword they’d be the richest family in South America. Not that Che would approve of that. |
|
| 11 | Glower when tense, harbouring a mild disease (9) |
| TAILLIGHT – TIGHT (tense) “harbouring” A + ILL (mild disease)
A glower as in something that glows. |
|
| 14 | A single broadcast recalled in the past (3-4) |
| ONE-TIME – ONE (a single) + TIME [EMIT (broadcast) recalled (reversed)] | |
| 15 | Is in possession of the chap’s hard drug (7) |
| HASHISH – HAS (is in possession of) + HIS (the chap’s) + H (hard) | |
| 19 | Popular period for renting property in bay (5) |
| INLET – IN (popular) + LET (period for renting property) | |
| 20 | Approaches RN sea exercises (5) |
| NEARS – (RN SEA)* | |
| 22 | Clue not regularly seen as sign (3) |
| LEO – Regularly seen (every second letter) of (cLuE nOt)
Leo being a sign of the Zodiac, if you’re into that sort of thing. |
|
Corelli was Richard Rogan, so as one might expect there’s more to the puzzle than immediately apparent.
Thanks Jack, I didn’t realise that. Still looking for that “more to the puzzle” bit, but I’m always the last to see these things.
Ah, I see some Scottish towns…
But am I missing something in Row 9?
Other than a town just out of Glasgow?
Ah, it’s not one that I’m aware of. Knowing of RR’s interests away from puzzles I’m now wondering if there’s a football connection too. All the towns have or had football clubs named after them although 3 or 4 are now labelled ‘former FC’.
Nor me. Got the rest – what a clever theme – but Row 9 still eludes me. Perhaps later we might be told once everyone else has had a chance to get it?
On edit – found it, via Google Maps. But never heard of it …
Apparently Sir Matt Busby was born there which is a strong football connection.
On the gentle side, although I NHO RING DIAL; still not sure what it is. I assume, G, tht you remember a time before decimal currency? 6:36.
Thanks Kevin. Rapidly becoming old enough to make more of these silly mistakes as well.
12.35, of which half was spent on PERT, TAILLIGHT and LOI BELL. Most were parsed as I went though I struggled with LOWISH and never noticed the intricacies of the biffed HOTHOUSE until G explained. Good weekend to all.
I biffed a lot of this, FLOTILLA and HOTHOUSE eg
But I couldn’t biff LOWISH and I just gave up in the end.
The rest of it was smooth sailing though! About ten min for the rest.
13 minutes. I’m not sure now why I needed more than my old target of 10 minutes as most answers went in after one reading of the clue.
Ah, I remember now, it was RING DIAL, unknown to me and to Collins and the standard Oxfords. It’s in Chambers as two words and the two-volume SOED with a hyphen. I guess Richard had backed himself into a corner with that one.
15:25
Bit of a struggle in the SW finishing with BELL at the end. Noting that we had the reverse version of LOAN/lone clue yesterday. And the HOTHOUSE clue came up a couple of months ago in same format HOSE-THOU format. Will have to look up details when I get back from parkrun.
Edit: HOTHOUSE came up more recently than I realised 2nd October (#2797) when Joker brought us You once brought inside garden watering pipe — here? As I recall we had the alternative checkers -O-H-U-E which seemed to make it tougher to unravel.
Parksolve time of 38:30
What LindsayO said but in double the time.
All going smoothly with all but those 3 done in about 12 mins. Then another 12 mins of head scratching and thesaurus hunting until taillight final illuminated us. I had spotted the glower device early on and had the crossers for potentially finishing light but ….
Must remember right can be rt as well as just r!
Fairly gentle apart from the SW sector which needed some thought – especially the unknown timepiece and the surprisingly elusive musical instrument.
Started with SNORKELS and finished with BELL in 7.29
Thanks to galspray and RR
Ring Dial just seemed far too obvious for me so it ended up being LOI, 15D would me my COD
15:06
A very fast start, then got stuck on the SW corner. I saw the hidden RING DIAL, but could not make sense of it (NHO the time telling device), and after several recent errors caused by entering “solutions” that I could not parse, I held back on this until the crossing letters confirmed it must be the answer.
LOI was TAILLIGHT.
Thanks Galspray and RR
Well who would have known Alloa play Arbroath at 3pm today…
Lovely surfaces and gentle humour from the maestro. I found the post championship eulogies touching, so thank you to all who have brought RR to our attention. I’m still smiling at PIN number (4,3)
And still the back catalogue of RR’s masterpieces delivers. A most enjoyable puzzle, which took me 11 minutes. It would have been rather less, but I hesitated quite a bit over RING DIAL, a phrase/object I did not know but now I look it up, a really clever clue in its references to the Times and the Sun. Not just my LOI but also COD – just edging out HASHISH which is another very clever clue.
I also hesitated over BELL, which I completely got the wrong way round at first, thinking I was taking the last letter off a 5-letter musical instrument to make a beauty. CELL fitted both that, being an abbreviated Cello, and the checkers but I simply could not make it mean beauty so thought again, and eventually the penny dropped.
SNORKELS was one of a number of clues which took far longer to parse than biff, as was HOTHOUSE – I thought I had remembered seeing the latter recently so thank you New Driver for confirming.
Many thanks Galspray for the blog
Cedric
20 mins but needed to use synonym cheat for nark.
Really enjoyable, even though I missed the theme.
Thanks for the blog.
11.57 was on course for a fast one but like others got held up in SW corner. LOI BELL
DNF TAIL LIGHT, BELL and PERT. Admittedly should have got the last one.
Not altogether easy, imo. NHO RING DIAL but biffed.
Liked FLOTILLA, SHILLING, LEO, HASHISH.
Seem to be a lot of Ls. Perhaps CoreLLi Liked them.
Thanks vm, Galspray. Why does ILL mean mild disease?
I wondered about “mild” too, but turns out noun definition 10 for ILL in Collins is ‘a mild disease’.
Oh, how strange, but thanks.
Can someone please explain Ring Dial. It was a clear hidden but what does it mean and how does it connect with the rest of the clue. I feel I am being very thick here.
Apparently, it’s a type of sundial. Hence you tell the time using the sun. Definitely NHO for me. Here’s an example: https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/rmgc-object-10573
Thank you
9:04
First/top half pretty fast, second/bottom half not so much, having to tease out some of the answers – HASHISH, SHILLING and INLET might have been quicker, LOWISH and RING DIAL slightly unusual, and finally ONE-TIME and TAILLIGHT needed the parsing hat to be firmly on to be sure of the answer.
Didn’t know (or had forgotten) that Corelli was RR and therefore wasn’t looking for a nina, but can see all of the Scottish towns now – very clever. Given his multiple pseudonyms, I wonder what criteria he used for choosing the appropriate one for each puzzle…
Thanks G
21:30 LOI TAILLIGHT
Spent too long on Bob and Carol. I know a couple with that name, so particularly hard to left and separate. Great clue.
Now that RR has sadly passed, perhaps the editor could start using his real name, rather than these pen names. Then we could give him credit and admire his output.
Finally figured out the Scottish towns, how anyone sees this, or can design a puzzle this way beats me. Respect.
I am giving myself an award as regards the theme (which, as usual, I failed to spot while solving).
Kelso, Ayr, Lanark, Wishaw, Bellshill, Alloa, and Perth are the full set. I did initially suspect race courses, but only Kelso, Ayr, and Perth are current, while Lanark no longer exists, and as far as I know the other three never did.
The puzzle itself was straightforward enough once I took RING DIAL on trust, and only my LOI remained after the second pass
FOI SNORKELS
LOI BELL
COD PERT
TIME 4:32
Lots biffed then parsed today, apart from TAILLIGHT which I didn’t understand – of course, a GLOW-ER. Still marvel at my ability to take everything at face value 😂 Liked LOWISH as it held me up the most. Didn’t know what a RING DIAL was but seemed to fit. On the gentler side for me today but enjoyable nonetheless. Never spot or even try to spot a theme but always interesting to hear about it from you clever people out there. Thanks G.
Plett + 10 seconds for 1.2K and a Decent Day. Got stuck on PERT, TAILLIGHT and LOI BELL. I did like FLOTILLA. Thanks gallers.
Struggled with the TAILLIGHT BELL crossing but otherwise straightforward as long as the brain stayed on full alert.
Thanks for pointing out the Scottish towns which was very clever but still needed a couple of passes to find AYR.
RR much missed.
DNF after half an hour. I completed most of it in 8 minutes. Then BELL and ONE TIME took ages but LOWISH and TAILLIGHT just wouldn’t come. I was completely stuck on the staring glower. Thanks galspray.
19:46 and yet it all seemed so simple (doesn’t it always!) It didn’t help that I had SNORKle for a while, and decided the last letter of 23A was R, which misled me into seeking a disease for 11D. I would have done better to guess the first two letters of 23A as PE but I’m yet to internalize this bit of crosswordese.
NHO RING DIAL, though I once brought a tiny one home from France as a gift to a friend, and remember puzzling out how to use it. Cute clue. Liked HASHISH; COD HOTHOUSE.
Thanks to Corelli (it was good to have this memento) and galspray!
14:37. Like several others NHO RING DIAL, pondered CELL, and was unable to see the right glower until after putting in TAILLIGHT.
Have to say I’m a little surprised you didn’t realise a ring dial is a pocket dial which you can find indirectly mentioned in Act II, Scene 7 of Shakespeare’s As You Like It 😉
And then he drew a dial from his poke,
And looking on it with lack-lustre eye
Says very wisely, “it is ten o’clock.”
PS well done on your time
How did I miss that?!
Dnf…
Struggled with this – particularly the SW corner that I left with a number of blanks. As noted above, 13ac “Lowish” didn’t seem obvious, and I made the mistake of lobbing off the ends of musical instruments to find a synonym of beauty rather than the other way around.
FOI – 3dn “Ray”
LOI – Dnf
COD – 24ac “Hothouse”
Thanks as usual!
Quite slow, being misdirected a few times, especially with LOI BELL – just didn’t associate a bell with being a musical instrument. Duh. TAILLIGHT also took a long time, even having spotted T???LIGHT.
Didn’t spot the Scottish towns as I was going along, maybe one day I’ll spot a Nina or a theme.
8:46
On the slow side at 14:43 with the last three in being LOWISH, BELL and TAILLIGHT though I can’t remember the exact order now. Kudos to all those were able to spot the theme! Thanks galspray and belated respect to Richard Rogan.
A masterclass, this just shows how excellent a setter was RR. Started off so well with the top all done then began to fall apart in the south.
FOI 1a Snorkels
LOI 13a Lowish
CODs 18s Shilling and 14d Onetime.
Eventually we’ll run out of these classy puzzles, and won’t that be a sad day.
RING DIAL is such a brilliant clue, like a veiled insult at another paper without actually being so. Easily my COD
21:05
Came unstuck in the SW corner with TAILLIGHT, BELL, ONE TIME and LOI PERT all causing problems.
As always, failed to spot the Nina until I came here.
Parksolve 53 mins.
How does the Times notify you if you win a Waterstones voucher? I told my mom I’d take her to the UK if we ever win.
I can’t speak for everyone, and the policy might well have since changed, but I found mine under my pillow.
You see your name in the weekly winners list published on a Monday in the Crossword Club. And then, if you’re lucky, you get a letter through the post with your voucher within a week or two, although, in my experience, sometimes the prizes can take several weeks to arrive.
Thanks!
27:10 with no errors. .Not one of my better times as I struggled with most of the lower half. FOI – RELIEVED, LOI – BELL, COD – HASHISH. Thanks Galspray and the late Richard Rogan.