I found this to be a puzzle of easy to medium difficulty, finishing in 11:04. After my first pass through the acrosses, I had only missed three, which is very good for me. The downs put up a bit more resistance, but everything went in correctly in the end.
I think today’s living person definitely passes the fame test and will still be known when this puzzle is printed in a book and rediscovered in 10, 20 or 30 years.
COD to LEGALESE for the completely misleading and very smooth surface.
Definitions underlined, synonyms in round brackets, wordplay in square brackets and deletions in strikethrough. Anagram indicators italicised in the clue, anagram fodder indicated like (this)*.
| Across | |
| 7 | Boy eating duck in no time at all (4) |
| SOON – O [duck – from cricket] inside SON (boy). | |
| 8 | FBI lease renewed? It’s possible (8) |
| FEASIBLE – (FBI LEASE)* | |
| 9 | Actor a little wooden, ironically (2,4) |
| DE NIRO – Hidden in [a little] wooDEN IROnically. | |
| 10 | One disposing of wine collection, did you hear? (6) |
| SELLER – Homophone [did you hear?] of “cellar” (wine collection).
I could make arguments either way for whether “of” is part of the definition or not. |
|
| 11 | Lock up silver in church (4) |
| CAGE – AG (chemical symbol for silver) in CE (Church (of England)). | |
| 12 | Northern hauliers St Nicholas employs? (8) |
| REINDEER – Cryptic definition. | |
| 15 | Criminal alleges ecstasy’s the talk of the bar? (8) |
| LEGALESE – (ALLEGES)* + E Lovely clue. |
|
| 17 | Check nothing will get you a ban (4) |
| VETO – VET (check) + O (nothing). | |
| 18 | A minor thoroughfare overseas (6) |
| ABROAD – A B-road.
For those not up on UK road nomenclature, B-roads are the third classification of roads, after motorways and A-roads. |
|
| 21 | Official cast regularly fails (6) |
| FORMAL – FORM (cast, as in plaster cast) + every other letter [regularly] of f A i L s. | |
| 22 | Daily argument (8) |
| DOMESTIC – double definition, although I think both are pretty archaic and ready to be retired. | |
| 23 | Husband leaving comfortable position in French city (4) |
| NICE – H for husband leaving NIC |
|
| Down | |
| 1 | Unfortunately Rome date not up to much (8) |
| MODERATE – (ROME DATE)* | |
| 2 | Encourage awareness, might one say? (6) |
| INCITE – Homophone [might one say] of “insight” (awareness).
I realised as I typed the explanation that “insight” is a single word that can mean “awareness”. I had been going to tell you all that I didn’t really like “in sight” to mean “awareness” and that the crossers led me to conside ENTICE as well. But now the penny has fallen, I like this clue a lot. |
|
| 3 | Foreign Office back on track? Absolutely (2,6) |
| OF COURSE – FO (Foreign Office), reversed [back] followed by [on] COURSE (track, as in racing). | |
| 4 | Be successful while away (4) |
| PASS – double definition, the first as in exams, the second as in time. | |
| 5 | Asked to pay but sick in bed (6) |
| BILLED – ILL (sick) in BED (er, bed). | |
| 6 | Navy almost making escape (4) |
| FLEE – FLEE I had this one backwards to start with and tried to figure out how BLUE was a shortened version of something meaning “escape”. |
|
| 13 | All but fifteen caught out (2,6) |
| IN EFFECT – (FIFTEEN + C)*
C for caught is from cricket, that useful game’s second appearance in this puzzle. |
|
| 14 | Transport lobby (8) |
| ENTRANCE – another double definition, the first as in “transport with delight” and the second being a room in a building. | |
| 16 | United with daughter, made amends (6) |
| ATONED – AT ONE (united) with D for daughter.
With A_O as the start, my brain smugly told me “oh, I know this one!.” But would it tell me? Not for ages. So strange when that happens. |
|
| 17 | An old vicar retiring in Italian city (6) |
| VERONA – AN + O for old + REV (vicar), all reversed [retiring]. | |
| 19 | Express disapproval of bishop? That would be a mistake (4) |
| BOOB – BOO (express disapproval) + B for bishop [chess]. | |
| 20 | Turning up a little information (4) |
| DATA – A TAD (a little), reversed [turning up].
Is this phrase used in the UK now? When I left, 30 years ago, I’m pretty sure this would have been considered a vile Americanism. Maybe it still is! |
|
LOI FORMAL took me a while. ODE says that A TAD dates from the 1940s, and doesn’t mark it as US or UK; most of its corpus examples are British. 6:42.
ENTICE for INCITE! Second time this week I’ve bunged in an answer knowing it didn’t parse. Must try harder. Everything else was pretty straightforward with a few chestnuts, ENTRANCE, DOMESTIC, CAGE and ABROAD to name some. NHO BOOB in that sense but have heard of BOOBOO, thought it was just slang for breast, but after looking it up I see it’s also slang for a mistake. Enjoyable after what I thought was a punishing 15×15, for me anyway.
Thanks D and setter.
Made a mess of this, getting confused by INCITE and missing SOON totally, so a DNF in about 10. I liked a lot of these, especially LEGALESE, thanks to Pipsqueak and the Doof.
DNF
Could not see BOOB, stuck on Bug and Bish for “mistake”. And went through the alphabet looking for the double def “daily argument”. I had thought of cleaner, char etc. These are both pretty archaic, and the second is somewhat offensive, calls to mind 70s cop shows were they would diagnose “just a domestic”.
Tough one all round. I had “cast regularly” so the ending of AT scuppered FORMAL for a long time. Also criminal=con, when it was an anagram indicator in LEGALESE, good clue, that.
And we had the same answer last Thursday clued as: ‘argument concerning family servant’ and was a triple definition. How quickly we forget.
I was too hasty and didn’t think enough and put BLUE at 6d and unlike our blogger I never took it out. So DNF today.
Moi Aussie!
Tu es Australien(ne)?
Perish the thought!
Hi Pi! No we Aussi’s can spel. 😛
😂
Fair breezed through in 12.14 encountering similar travails as those who have already commented to slow me down towards the end. I also went with BLUE but not really liking it and meaning to go back at the end. Alas my sleep deprived brain forgot and I hastily hit submit to receive two pink squares. I guess that is what the pencil function is for.
LOI: INCITE – as for our blogger I was trying to make the homophone work as two words but now get it.
COD: LEGALESE
Back to bed now, wish I’d waited till I got up properly.
Cheers Doof I’m always impressed that whatever the time of day the blog is always up.
I had filled the grid with 10 minutes on the clock but was dissatisfied for lack of parsing re BLUE at 6dn so I returned to it for a second look. Having decided it couldn’t be accounted for I removed the unchecked letters and tried again, and then I spotted FLEE{t}, so 12 minutes.
Reindeer clues seem to have arrived early in Crosswordland this year!
Like Doof also spent quite a while trying to get ‘blue’ to parse for “almost making escape” before alphabet trawling my way to FLEET. Also held up by DE NIRO – can’t believe I didn’t think of him sooner for the ‘actor’ – and PASS and by LEGALESE which needed all the checkers. Then mucked it up by typing RaINDEER – and in an across clue too – which I really can’t explain but I can remember enjoying the PDM for ‘northern hauliers’! So not all green in 12.45
The top went in pretty quickly but slowed down by the bottom and particularly the SE. A quick dive into the thesaurus gave us formal which unlocked the rest in 21.08
As Kevin says, we had domestic last week which I remembered only after the penny dropped four our LOI. We too had blue for a while.
Cod to boob for the surface and smile.
Thanks Pipsqueak and Doofers.
Mainly straightforward despite not being able to get ‘load’ out of my head at 7a and toying with ‘blue’ at 6d. However got a bit bogged down at the end where FORMAL, IN EFFECT and DOMESTIC (despite it’s recent appearance) put up a fight.
Finished in 7.29.
Thanks to Doofers
16min COD De Niro for fabulous surface; I would most definitely assume that anyone calling De Niro wooden was being ironic.
Thanks Pip for an enjoyable puzzle and Doof for the insight-ful blog.
To be fair, he’s dialled in some of his most recent films.
Adverts too these days. He’s probably still paying for the last divorce and he became a father again last year. Got to keep those pennies rolling in.
😂
I was slow to see DE NIRO because I assumed it was going to be a POMO joke about Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree.
I’m not normally Mr Wokey but I really don’t like defining DOMESTIC as merely “argument”. It trivialises domestic violence, which is where this originates (Collins sense 6: “(esp in police use) an incident of violence in the home, esp between partners”). Otherwise a very good puzzle.
All done in 07:42 which is pretty good given that as I was starting a woman sat down next to me on the train, opened a Tupperware box and proceeded to scoff a really stinky homemade breakfast. Yuk. 1.2K and a Smelly Day.
Many thanks Doof and Pip.
Sorry about your stink but aren’t we lucky to live in a generation that doesn’t have to put up with smokers sitting beside us!
5:06. Like Paul and others above I put in an unparsed BLUE in for 6D and only fixed it when I came back at the end. It took me a while to spot that IN EFFECT was an anagram, leading to my LOI FORMAL. Nice puzzle. Thanks Pipsqueak and Doofers.
Just under the SCC mark, with the SW giving me the most trouble, although FORMAL also held me up for some time. Several others today where I found it difficult to work out where the definition lay. LEGALESE should be a write-in for Templar, but nearly too good for me until the PDM.
Panic set in on reading 9A, and 2,4 required,as I can never bring to mind names of actors easily, but fortunately it was already there for me! I had assumed it was going to be a very short first name abbreviation for the first so was already off down the wrong line.
Several others that shouldn’t have delayed me still did, BOOB, ATONED and, doh! ABROAD where the answer seemed obvious but for a while I couldn’t see how BROAD was a minor thoroughfare – and now I am sure I’ve seen it before.
Nice puzzle, nice blog.
It was! 😄
Enjoyed this one but for 2d biffed ENLIVE as t’internet said it was a word, oh dear. All OK otherwise.
Liked lots including VETO, DATA, REINDEER. COD LEGALESE. Put Bish at first for 19d, but had to change to the US expression BOOB. (no schoolboy jokes, please).
Anyway a NICE puzzle, thanks Doofers.
I like BISH as an alternative answer! Haven’t heard or seen that used for many a day.
I used to say it all the time. In fact I bished up 2d today, come to think of it.
US expression? I first encountered it here. ODE marks it (Brit.).
Interesting. I hear it often on US TV shows, but in UK it mainly means breast (slang) these days.
Curious. I never hear it used for “mistake”. I wonder if they’re actually saying “booboo”?
That must be it🙂
A fast enough solve until the SW, where I stumbled over DOMESTIC (despite its recent appearance) and then needed an alphabet trawl for ATONED. Not one that came easily because “at one” is pronounced so differently from “atone”, but a right D’oh moment when I finally got it for a finish just under under 10 minutes.
Slight MER at SOON = no time at all; soon implies to me that whatever it is (lunchtime, Christmas, my next big birthday) will happen before too long, not that it will happen in no time, ie instantly.
Many thanks Doofers for the blog
Cedric
Nice to see the new rule observed once again.
Yes A B-ROAD has been, shall we say travelled before.
10 minutes, for anyone counting.
A feeling of deja vu at 23a, having done today’s Wordle earlier.
The anagram in 1d needed pen and paper to solve.
INCITE was my LOI, to finish in 8:18
Thanks Doofers and Pipsqueak
Ah, now I know why niche came to mind so readily! I got it in 3
13:55. That was after correcting ENTICE to INCITE as was feeling somewhat impatience with the portcullis grid and having already had to figure out PASS, DOMESTIC without help on the starter letter. Knew it was probably wrong as the clue had EN-COURAGE and ENTRANCE elsewhere in the puzzle.
I like Pipsqueak’s clueing but maybe felt like today’s puzzle was asking a bit too much of me in places.
Struggled with DE NIRO for ages and with FORMAL and PASS. A bit of brain fog I fear.
16 mins…
A steady solve for the top of the grid, but it seemed to get harder the further I went down. Some good clues though, including 12ac “Reindeer” and 15ac “Legalese”. Only slight doubt was 4dn “Pass” – couldn’t see what else it could be, but wasn’t totally sure about the second definition.
FOI – 7ac “Soon”
LOI – 14dn “Entrance”
COD – 9ac “De Niro”
Thanks as usual!
as in the idiom ‘to while away time’. I took a while to get there too!
Bunged in both BLUE and ENTICE, knowing that they didnt really parse but without the motivation to do an alphabet trawl.
COD was DE NIRO, who is anything but. So the clue works really well.
My sentiments too
5:22
On the ball today – thought of FLEE{t} at 6d straight away so didn’t have to think at all about BLUE. Spent a few moments at the end coming up with PASS and LOI INCITE. I too, liked the LEGALESE clue.
Thanks Doofenschmirtz and Pipsqueak
Steady and enjoyable solve – thanks all! I don’t really understand ‘while away’ for pass – nothing to do with passing away is it???
No – you might do a crossword to pass (= while away) the time. I think “pass” also works as a transitive verb?
Thank you – I was a bit slow wasn’t I 🙂
But surely it’s ‘wile away time’?
Apparently wile is cunning – Collins does give it as ‘while away’ – to pass time
By pure coincidence I just had an e-mail from a colleague, as follows:
“I have found a good recording of the work and will while away a train ride to Cardiff and I’ll be in touch on Monday.”
Well, are we both wrong? Over to you!
Am I missing something – he seems to be agreeing with you and Collins 🙂
According to some of the usual sources both ‘while away’ and ‘wile away’ are possible. Collins on-line has ‘wile’ as an American listing. SOED doesn’t make that distinction or have them as alternative spellings under one heading, but has them separately with ‘while away’ as mid-17th century and ‘wile away’ as late 18th century.
I treated myself to a new hardback Collins which makes no mention of wile in this sense. Annoying that there is this disparity and a bit irritating that we don’t have a standard reference for this puzzle!
Just to clarify, the spelling ‘wile’ is not used in the crossword and was only raised in the discussion by The Slug, so there’s no contradiction in the puzzle.
The Times sources words and meanings principally from Collins (the printed edition and/or the online British English entries at the Collins site), also the Oxford Dictionary of English. Although I’ve never seen it confirmed officially, they also use Chambers. You should find pretty much all you need in one, other or all of the above.
The spelling ‘wile’ is to be found at Collins online but it’s clearly marked as ‘American English’ sourced from Webster’s New World College Dictionary.
Thanks for your trouble in replying! Actually I accepted Martinu’s explanation. It was only looking at Slug’s query which made me look at Collins more closely, so my main beef is with Collins rather than the setter.
Thanks. The problem is really with Collins online for displaying three different sources on the same page. It would be better if they had separate tabs for Collins (British English), Websters (American English) and Cobuild for foreign speakers of English..
Stared at 13 and 21 for ever but would never have got IN EFFECT (difficult) or FORMAL (not the same thing as official). MER at “no time at all” = SOON (thank you, Cedric!), and failed to parse united = at one, of course. Thank you, Doofers.
Oh dear, managed to change ENTICE, but only to ENCITE – stupid.
It would have been a much quicker finish if I hadn’t spent so long on 21ac. I initially biffed FORMAT taking the ‘regularly’ direction from the wrong word, however I returned to it prior to completion and FORMAL was inserted. This took well over a minute to sort out taking my time out to 8.49. I was so preoccupied with this clue that I forgot to return to the unparsed BLUE. So unfortunately a DNF for me.
08:46
Couldn’t see in effect = all but.
Liked legalese, reindeer, and billed.
4.33
Quick one here. Don’t know why. Actually thought this was an excellent puzzle. Had to think about a few but the w/p was very clear and some of the surfaces were very smooth and in some cases topical (BOOB).
Thanks Doof and Pipsqueak
5:41
Slight delay sorting out FIFTEEN C, hence L2I, FORMAL and DOMESTIC (again).
Thanks all