I found this one to be of medium difficulty, which is confirmed by my time of 14:39, just below my average time. Annoyingly, though, I had a careless typo in 3d which gave me the Dreaded Pink Square after submitting.
I also lost some time while doing this solve on my phone by managing to press something that caused the entire keyboard to vanish from the display. Why would you have a feature like that? It’s like having a “Detach wings” button in an aeroplane. I still haven’t the foggiest idea how I did that to myself.
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 | |
| 1 | Cold, strangely barren American city (8) |
| CANBERRA – C for cold + (barren)* + A for American.
I don’t recall seeing A as an abbreviation for American before, but it must be in dozens of acronyms, including ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange). So that’s fair enough. I didn’t get this until I had both the C and the N, and then I spotted how it had to work. I had initially assumed that “American” was going to give US, so the letter count didn’t work for the anagram, even though “strangely” is such a common indicator. |
|
| 5 | Partly aloof or moody appearance (4) |
| FORM – Hidden in [partly] alooF OR Moody. | |
| 9 | A book published on the topic of … (5) |
| ABOUT – A + B for book + OUT (published). | |
| 10 | Extremely divisive newspaper reviews cause unhappiness (7) |
| DEPRESS – First and last letters [extremely] of D |
|
| 11 | Senior officer’s colleague is cut off (12) |
| DISASSOCIATE – DI’S (Detective Inspector’s, senior officer’s), ASSOCIATE (colleague).
Ah, “cut off” as a verb, not as an adjective, then. |
|
| 13 | Right editor with very good tabloid (3-3) |
| RED-TOP – R for right, ED for editor, TOP (very good).
So called because the name of the paper (The Sun, The Star, The Mirror etc) would appear in a big red box at the top of the front page. |
|
| 15 | A person who dresses smartly also (2,4) |
| AS WELL – A double definition, but you have to move where the space appears: the first version is “A SWELL”. | |
| 17 | Pantomime element of opera with element of ballet? (4,3,5) |
| SONG AND DANCE – SONG (element of opera) AND (with) DANCE (element of ballet). | |
| 20 | Disgusting stink about histrionic display (7) |
| OBSCENE – BO (body odour, stink), reversed [about] + SCENE (histrionic display). | |
| 21 | Decorating job is somewhat cosmetic, in general (5) |
| ICING – hidden in [somewhat] cosmetIC IN General. | |
| 22 | Small dogs ultimately aren’t so annoyingly boisterous (4) |
| TOYS – last letters [ultimately] of the last four words. | |
| 23 | Artist using only reds, weirdly (8) |
| REYNOLDS – (only reds)*
Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) was a leading portrait artist of his day. But his greatest contribution to Crosswordland is surely being one of the founders of the Royal Academy of Art, which gives us the convention that “RA” can mean “artist”. Well done Sir Joshua. |
|
| Down | |
| 1 | Network supporting 100 people in a group (4) |
| CLAN – LAN (Local Area Network) holding up [supporting] C (Roman numeral for 100).
We had LAN in yesterday’s puzzle too. |
|
| 2 | One chap standing up to welcome old woman (5) |
| NAOMI – I (one) + MAN, all reversed [standing up] and then including [to welcome] an O for old. | |
| 3 | Estimated bonus accompanying top deal, possibly (12) |
| EXTRAPOLATED – EXTRA (bonus) + (top deal)*.
Not EXTTAPOLATED. Grrr. |
|
| 4 | Peppery veg is excellent — kinda! (6) |
| RADISH – RAD-ISH
I’ve always assumed that RAD for excellent is an abbreviation of radical, but have been too lazy to look up until now (it is). It has definite overtones of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure for me. |
|
| 6 | Insurance policy excluding first item is too old (7) |
| OVERAGE – |
|
| 7 | Minute details excitedly given out in the wrong way (8) |
| MISDEALT – M for minute (the time interval, not the size) + (details)* | |
| 8 | Somewhere that’s out of this world to an escapist, somehow (5,7) |
| SPACE STATION – (to an escapist)* | |
| 12 | Our cat’s unusually taking hours to fall asleep (5,3) |
| CRASH OUT – (our cats)* including H for hours. | |
| 14 | Dismally empty, filthy house (7) |
| DYNASTY – first and last letters [empty] of D |
|
| 16 | Stick plug in this spot (6) |
| ADHERE – AD (advertisement, plug) + HERE (in this spot). | |
| 18 | Take it easy, initially coming home sick (5) |
| CHILL – first letters [initially] of C |
|
| 19 | Anglers regularly departing for a long time (4) |
| AGES – Every other letter [regularly departing] of A n G l E r S | |
There were some easy ones, but some were more difficult. The space station, misdealt, and Sir Joshua held me up a bit. Of course, looking back, nothing is that hard.
Time: 9:40
The definition at 10ac needs to include ‘cause’.
Thank you, yes. Updated.
10.13, no particular problems but the long ones held me up to varying degrees. Not having been brought up in the tradition I always get wary at the word ‘panto’, but this time I thought I nailed it when I got the ‘and’ so went for Puss and Boots. This was not just wrong but not even a thing. Thanks to Jalna and the Doof, especially for figuring out OBSCENE which I biffed and forgot about.
Hardest for a while for me. DISASSOCIATE took a lot of effort to think of the police, identifying networks to get CLAN and EXTRAPOLATED took a while too. Managed my third neighbouring letter typo in a row when I entered the unknown REYNOLDS as ‘Reynoldd’ and so mucked up AGED too. So one pink square, two errors and 18.47 on the clock.
12:44 and no problems
10 minutes. I didn’t know RAD even if it has come up before.
Another breeze block day! Nearly all done in a little over 20 then spent until 28.10 looking at disassociate, half of which we had mate at the end for colleague!
NHO rad for excellent but had to be.
Spent too much time looking for a word meaning cold that was an anagram of barren and NY or LA. Saw Canberra at some point but dismissed it as Australian city, nicely done Jalna.
Thanks Doofers
DNK RAD so completely misparsed it on the basis of RAD = Radiator IS and H for Hot which made kinda sense, but thanks to the blog I feel better now.
Wondered about Sing and Dance before plumping for Song. Have seen A for America(n) a few times and remembered RED TOP easily dismissing RED hot as it didn’t parse either.
All doable and soon had the top half done with a bit of scrabbling in the lower half to finish pretty much on par with 21 mins and my usual corner seat in the club.
Thanks Jalna and Doofers
PS Entry to RA is free, a nice café and well worth it to pop in if you are in Piccadilly with a little time to spare.
I’m a Friend of the RA. Indeed, it is lovely but not all exhibitions are free. See website.
Similarly, there is a smallish free-to-enter exhibition space and a nice cafe at RIBA in Portland Place – we popped in recently for an interesting exhibition called ‘ Difficult Sites’ about buildings in exactly those, including one where I volunteer! I would definitely go there again, and recommend it to anyone interested in architecture.
After a brisk start at the top this turned into a bit of a slog with DISASSOCIATE and EXTRAPOLATE causing particular problems.
Started with CANBERRA and finished with CLAN in 11.19 with RADISH and RED TOP being the stand out clues for me.
Thanks to Doofers and Jalna
Pretty straightforward apart from EXTRAPOLATED and completed in a faster than average 18:22.
I needed a second sitting to finish this off, with Disassociate, Extrapolated and Obscene the three hold-outs from the first round. All three fell in that order, with the wrong end of clue (yet again!) Obscene confirming this to be a standing room only solve. Never heard of Rad for excellent either. Invariant
A good QC from Jalna. I found this to be much more approachable (and fun) than most of his recent puzzles and enjoyed it in a relaxed way. I was quite prepared to ignore the clock on my iPad solve but, as it turns out, it only took me a few seconds longer than our esteemed blogger. Perhaps it helped that I slept well last night…..
I had to leave gaps on my first pass (as always) but, given crossers, was able to return and see all the answers. Some very nice clues and some clever tricks. I was pleased to have an early PDM with the ‘American city’ and liked DYNASTY and DISASSOCIATE.
Like most people, I had to biff RADish. NHO rad in this context.
Thanks to Jalna and to Doofers.
Some odd things happening on the TFT website this morning. I wanted to make a small edit but the edit feature is not there.
Note. It has returned to normal -just a glitch, I suppose. It has been flaky for some time, though.
I’d say the entire Times app is flaky since the update. I’m finding it quite impossible to use, and revert to the online print edition. One wonders who on earth passed it as usable 😱
Never finished a Jalna before but in just under an hour managed this one. The two long ones held me up longest; LOI DISASSOCIATE. NHO excellent = RAD, surely obscure. Thank you for the background to this, Doofers – but not sure why radical should = excellent either? Ah, Collins says it’s US slang, no wonder NHO.
Yes: learnt network = LAN yesterday and it stood me in good stead today!
Rad = excellent is in just about every Californian YouTube influencer’s vlog these days. Check out Clint’s Reptiles.
Thanks … but in my book the US is a different country and has its own culture quite separate from ours.
7.18
Held up a bit by EXTRAPOLATED and not seeing REYNOLDS very quickly. Liked DYNASTY.
Thanks Doofers and Jalna
Some excellent clues, including DYNASTY, as someone has already noted. Good puzzle but definitely at the harder end of the spectrum. DISASSOCIATE and EXTRAPOLATED were LOIs. 14:47.
12:36
LOI DISASSOCIATE, held up by trying all the ranks of army and navy officers before finally thinking of detective inspectors.
Familiar with rad=excellent, even though in my working life rad either meant cGy or radiographer.
Thanks Doofers and Jalna
Chewy I thought, with several biffs – I join many it seems in getting RADISH without knowing Rad = excellent, and DISASSOCIATE also held me up as I didn’t see DI for “senior officer”. Excellent lift-and-separate in the clue for CANBERRA – oh, so not a US city at all. 12:33 when the clock stopped which slightly surprised me as it felt slower as I was doing it.
Many thanks Doofers for the blog.
19:93, made quite a mess of this, mainly by being slow to see SONG AND DANCE.
I don’t buy A=American. Has it been seen in the wild? And its presence in other initialisms like USA, or ASCII doesn’t count.
I liked RADISH, something not very radical.
I’m getting used to A for American – it crops up a fair bit in crossroads and has to be considered after US and AM. The other day we had W for Welsh, which threw me, although we get E for English often enough.
And E for European, let’s not forget!
Thank you for raising this. I too wondered whether to suggest a MER at that but preferred to concentrate my MER on that rubbishy US slang!
Actually RADISH is quite literally a radical, isn’t it?
Interesting time, Merlin! Are you using a different time measurement system? 😜
It’s how I keep out of the SCC. The 20th minute actually has 100 seconds.
(Just a typo, should be 19:03)
😂
Took me a while to get going today. NHO rad meaning excellent, but RADISH obvious with the checkers. Late PDMs with OBSCENE and CANBERRA. COD DYNASTY. Thanks Doofers for the blog.
Liked this a lot, particularly RADISH, which caused a smile and helped with 1a, where the anagram took a while to work out, even with the initial C. Thought DYNASTY and OBSCENE good also.
From CANBERRA to CRASH OUT in 7:54. Thanks Jalna and Doofers.
21m, but seemed longer as the grid looked very sparse for quite some time. MISDEALT took a while as I don’t use pen/paper for anagrams (too lazy), and I needed crossers for the penny to drop.
Pi ❤️
The perfect level for me, in that I completed it but not a write in. So a two cups of coffee day. CANBERRA had to be the city, the use of American was a good diversion. COD DYNASTY, LOI OBSCENE.
A similar standard of difficulty to yesterday in my opinion, and my time of 10.44 reflects that, being just outside my target. The two long anagrams at 11ac and 3dn took a lot of unravelling, and they were my final two before stopping the clock. I hesitated a little at RADISH as I didn’t understand the RAD being ‘excellent’.
Time:
16:42
All went in okay until OBSCENE held me up at the end
Nice QC from Jalna I thought. All green in 8.34. Held up slightly trying to make ROCKET work for the peppery veg.
LOI DISASSOCIATE which I needed all the crossers for at which point it became obvious.
Cheers Doofens
11:51. A nice mix of hard and not-so-hard clues. I thought OVERAGE looked odd as one word, but it’s perfectly OK according to the dictionaries; I still prefer it meaning a surplus. MISDEALT was a hard anagram. I liked RADISH. Another good’un from Jalna. Thanks Doofers for the blog
Very nice steady stroll. Held up for a while trawling the armed forces ranks and thinking of every pantomime I have ever heard of. Broad smiles at the insomniac cat, and the “detach wings” button. I have worked on several major projects that appeared to have one of those being pressed. Thanks Jalna and Doofers
9:51
After an average amount of acrosses went in on the first pass, I struggled on the downs. The bottom half filled itself in more easily until I was left with 7d, 3d and 11a, solved at length in that order – took far too long to solve 7d’s anagram! Then had to work hard even harder to tease out the final two answers…
Thanks Doofers and Jalna
Not quite a BTB (beat the blogger) day for me at 14:51 Been Doofed I’d say.
Well that was approaching totally radical dood with chill in there too. Extrapolated obscene in the end but didn’t make a song and dance about it.
I also couldn’t see past the legal and financial meaning of overage for a minute but got there in the end.
I enjoyed it so thanks Jalna and Doofers
Awesome wordplay there my guy.
The hide keyboard button is next to the Z. Selecting any cell in the grid will bring it back.
Pretty hard. Took ages before admitting defeat, DNF DISASSOCIATE. Don’t know why I didn’t think of police officer. I was mulling over military ranks. And I misbiffed Overdue instead of OVERAGE, carelessly failing to parse.
Also slow on EXTRAPOLATE (not a word I use every day), REYNOLDS, CHILL, OBSCENE, DYNASTY.
Liked FOI CANBERRA (lived there once, so a favourite city), AS WELL, SONG AND DANCE, ADHERE.
Lucky we had LAN this week. Like others, NHO rad=excellent but RADISH guessable.
Many thanks, Doofers.
11.55, and too much slang for my taste.
Nicely-judged for difficulty, I felt
Liked EXTRAPOLATED, SONG AND DANCE
NHO RAD but radish had to be the answer. Enjoyed the puzzle. Thanks Jalna and Doofers
Very pleased to finish unscathed in a time of 21 minutes or thereabouts – especially after yesterday’s assault course from Wurm.
CANBERRA went in only faintly to start with, as it was a while before I realised I should lift and separate ‘American’ and ‘city’ in the clue. I had NHO the artist REYNOLDS (didn’t he produce high quality tubing for bicycle frames), nor had I come across RAD for ‘excellent’ (bizarre!).
Many thanks to Doofers and Jalna.
Not as bizarre as “sick” or “bad”. https://youtu.be/7CscPTI8fwA
Or well sick – definitely an oxymoron 🤣 Funnily enough, there’s a street in a nearby village called Wellsic Lane – apparently it’s Saxon for water course, but I’m not sure the bruvs would recognise that usage!
Wow, well sick. Even better than the American one.
6.33 I started quickly but slowed up, largely because I was careless and also credit to the setter. So one across was obviously an anagram of C and barren, except of course I didn’t realise immediately that I needed an extra letter, so I didn’t put in Canberra until the penny dropped.
Similarly, the solution to estimated had to come from an anagram of bonus, top and deal, but of course he didn’t.
I didn’t know rad, But I’m sure we’ve had it before.
COD to dynasty, just pipping the crafty Misdealt.
I found this reasonably straightforward and finished in 21.05. A big improvement on yesterday’s 50 minutes DNF. Yet the QSnitch is currently similar at 107/109.
COD to OBSCENE. BO always takes me back to the old TV advert where a ‘friend’ whispers BO to some poor soul whose life changes when he discovers the wonders of Lifebuoy Soap.
Thanks very much Jalna and Doofers.
Found this harder than yesterday mainly because of my struggle with Extrapolated and Disassociate. Feel there should have been some more indicator about Detective Inspector being the senior officer. Aren’t there all kinds of senior officers in this world?
Note for Doof – The vanishing keyboard display feature makes sense if you are using a physical keyboard like me on my iPad.
All done in 11:57. Nothing too hard, the long ones of disassociate and extrapolation were the last to go in. Obscene also took me a while, wasn’t sure which end was the definition. Nice puzzle.
30 mins…
I found this pretty tough, and it was a bit of a crawl to get to the end. Luckily 8dn “Space Station” has cropped up before, so it went in fairly quickly. Didn’t know the artist Joshua Reynolds, but I did know the actor Ryan Reynolds – so used that instead 😀
FOI – 5ac “Form”
LOI – 15ac “As Well”
COD – 20ac “Obscene”
Thanks as usual!
6.37 I’m having an unnaturally good week. A couple of other clues needed a second visit but MISDEALT was the only real hold up. Thanks Doofers and Jalna.
REYNOLDS provoked a lot of head-scratching, but I got there in the end in 15:51.
I enjoyed CANBERRA a lot. In my youth I occasionally looked at cryptic crosswords to try to derive the rules from first principles (and failed miserably). Clues like this one would drive me bananas, with Canberra clearly not being an American city.
Thank you for the blog!
I managed 13 after much musing.
I was looking for an American city….
Missed toys.
So crates from Bill and Ted still makes me chuckle.
Finished in just under 25 minutes with a bit of head scratching. LOI was ABOUT – couldn’t parse it but it couldn’t have been anything else!
Thanks Jalna and Doofers
I gave up at 30 minutes (my normal cut off time) with DISASSOCIATE and REYNOLDS left to go. Didn’t parse OBSCENE, NAOMI or RADISH – like a lot of others NHO rad meaning excellent.
FOI – 5ac FORM
LOI – DNF
COD – 7dn MISDEALT
Thanks to Jalna and Doofers
About on the money for us at 13:09. LOI was DISASSOCIATE for which we needed all the checkers: DI’S didn’t spring to mind until after seeing the solution. Thanks, Doofers and Jalna.
If there was a wrong way to attack any of these clues, I was sure to try it first, and lucky to finish in 26:33, or indeed to finish at all. Many fine clues, liked TOYS (I love small dogs and defend their reputation fiercely, grrr), DYNASTY, CRASH OUT (I love cats too), and RADISH. Did not know RED-TOP but trusted the clue. SONG AND DANCE went in with hope; pantomimes are a continual stumbling block in these puzzles.
Thanks to Jalna for the head scratching and Doof for the entertaining blog.
12:48. CRASH OUT, DYNASTY, RADISH, OBSCENE, and ABOUT were favourites.
Definitely a two cup of coffee day for me. Had to have a good think about nearly all the clues. LOI OBSCENE. Remembered ‘rad’ from a previous crossword and also just sort of knew this word so no problems with RADISH. DISASSOCIATE, EXTRAPOLATED and MISDEALT took a while to work out. Very nice coffee time. Thanks D and Jalna.