24:17. I found this very difficult, for reasons I can’t now remember: it seemed mostly pretty straightforward when I came to write up the blog. It had a bit of a quirky feel to it, and I enjoyed the challenge. How did you get on?
Definitions are underlined, anagrams indicated like (TIHS)*, deletions like this, anagram indicators are in italics.
| Across | |
| 1 | Where a high-roller might get some air? |
| HALF-PIPE – CD. The ‘roller’ here is a skateboarder, who might jump out of the top (high) of one of these and hence ‘get some air’. | |
| 5 | Life peer stores a fencing tool |
| EPEE – contained in ‘life peer’. | |
| 8 | Does work end in tears? |
| ACTS – ACT (work e.g. as aspirin works/acts on a headache I think), |
|
| 9 | Dash not for nuts etc |
| AND SO FORTH – (DASH NOT FOR)*. | |
| 11 | Start to shoot in army engagement |
| ACTION – DD, one movie-related of course. | |
| 13 | Theoretical paper, second out for head of OU |
| NOTIONAL – NATIONAL with the A (second letter) replace by O |
|
| 14 | Digs records filled with ultimately good spirit |
| LODGINGS – LO( |
|
| 16 | Vegetable or flightless bird picked up in US port |
| PEORIA – sounds like ‘pea or rhea’. I hadn’t heard of this city in Illinois so this was a little bit of a hit and hope. It’s a river port on the Illinois River, the oldest European settlement in Illinois and named after a Native American tribe. | |
| 17 | Artist embraced by a plump statesman once |
| ARAFAT – A(RA), FAT. | |
| 19 | One hired to liquidate Berks home |
| ASSASSIN – ASS, ASS (two wallies), IN. | |
| 21 | Six-foot type of brute upset with Wag |
| WATER BUG – (BRUTE, WAG)*. | |
| 22 | Old Chancellor whose name has no L in bold |
| DARING – DAR |
|
| 23 | In need of a hit, so then pens Rocket Man? |
| STEPHENSON – (SO THEN PENS)*. A slightly unusual anagram indicator making for a very good surface referring to Elton John. | |
| 24 | Fruit requiring no introduction for everyone |
| EACH – |
|
| 26 | Rook heading to the king’s file gains a tempo |
| RATE – R(A), T |
|
| 27 | Singer, one with bag in a baby store? |
| BASSINET – BASS, I, NET. Brings back fond memories of a screaming daughter in one of these on a flight to Australia many years ago. I remember people were remarkably nice about it, and she stopped after a couple of hours anyway. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Hot writer loses head in drunken outburst? |
| HIC – H, |
|
| 2 | Remaining large on a diet? Not fine. |
| LASTING – L, |
|
| 3 | Announce aircraft manifest |
| PLAIN – sounds like ‘plane’. | |
| 4 | Particular types of undies worn by my boss |
| PEDANTS – P(ED)ANTS. Peter Biddlecombe, Mick Hodgkin or Ben Taylor? | |
| 6 | Unsalaried expert with U2 pilot? |
| PRO BONO – PRO (expert), BONO. ‘Pilot’ for a lead singer is a bit of whimsy signalled by the question mark. | |
| 7 | Deportation bonus Conservative ignored in speech |
| EXTRADITION – EXTRA, DI |
|
| 10 | One with beak in court splits over work |
| OCTOPUS – O(CT), OPUS. Not the first characteristic one thinks of! | |
| 12 | Church maestro I played with close to October? |
| CHOIRMASTER – CH, (MAESTRO I)*, |
|
| 15 | Memorable retro-fashion fit |
| NOTABLE – reversal of TON (fashion), ABLE. | |
| 18 | Shabby type that screens request apt for Spooner |
| FLEAPIT – spoonerism of ‘plea fit’. | |
| 19 | Imposing bit of architecture in US city |
| AUGUSTA – AUGUST, A |
|
| 20 | Bones in fish trainee at first overlooked |
| SURGEON – STURGEON with T |
|
| 22 | Number in tributes for the Drifters? |
| DUNES – DU(N)ES. A slightly odd definition in that the word ‘drift’ isn’t normally applied to sand but why not I guess. | |
| 25 | Nick’s direct route? Turn off and cross track, ditch and hollowed-out path. Go quickly and ignore lower canal section and detached dock. Make a sharp change in direction and pass through lit-up excavation for railway line and stop! |
| CUT – I’m not sure about all of them but I make this 17 definitions, surely a record! | |
HALF-PIPE was my LOI, by far, and not found unaided.
PEORIA known from an old expression in these parts…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_it_play_in_Peoria%3F
I found this difficult, too. DNK DARLING. No idea who the members of U2 were, but I had heard of BONO. Why is Wag capitalized? I hope Harry had fun putting 25d together; I saw ‘Nick’, C_T, and didn’t bother reading the clue. For PEORIA, see Guy’s link. I thought it a bit unfair to non-US solvers. It’s quite familiar to us, although I was misled by ‘port’, and indeed Harry may have chosen the word rather than ‘town’ or ‘city’ for that purpose.
‘File’ in chess is a row on the chessboard running from player to player, as opposed to ‘rank’, a row from left to right. Files are named from A-H, the king’s being E; ranks go from 1-8. (I believe the order is from White’s point of view. Someone who actually knows chess will no doubt correct me.) I believe ‘rank and file’ originates in the army.
Re BASSINET: Robert Benchley, on train travel, says there are two ways of traveling: first class or with children.
Wag is capitalised as it’s capitalised in Collins when it’s a backformed singular of Wags = wives and girlfriends, in a sporting context. (Not listed in Collins but I think it has been similarly capped).
Peoria is somewhere I’ve heard of, probably unlike several US cities with just over 100k people. I think it’s fair if unknown in a context where you can get the crossing answers and use the wordplay.
Thanks for the rank and file detail – the only other thing to say is that this meaning is in dictionaries. (Unlike “gains a tempo”, which needs to be understood for the surface reading only, and means something like doing something with one move fewer than you would expect)
Now you mention it, I do remember Wags coming up here once, but of course forgot it. I’m not clear on what the singular of ‘wives and girlfriends’ is; does Wag=wife and girlfriend? Lower case ‘wag’ would have worked fine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAGs
It’s a tabloid newspaper word, and always with at least a capital letter (as in The Sun):
“Arsenal star Kai Havertz marries stunning Wag Sophia Weber in lavish ceremony as he gets over Euro 2024 heartbreak”
or fully capitalized (as in The Daily Mail, Express, or this recent one from The Star):
“Jude Bellingham’s stunning model WAG Laura Celik Valk showed off her peachy bum on Instagram just hours after her boyfriend’s Euro final defeat.”
So, I think the surface of 21ac is trying to suggest a burly sportsman has had a row with his blonde girlfriend.
Lower case “wag” I think would mean a wit or humourist. So if there was no capital letter, the clue would suggest that our six foot brute was smarting over a disrespectful write-up of his latest slim volume of poetry in The Literary Review.
The official definition count for 25D is 19:
1 Nick
2 direct route
3 Turn off
4 cross
5 track (on a record)
6 ditch
7 hollowed-out path
8 Go quickly (23 b. – change film scene, in Collins)
9 ignore
10 lower = reduce
11 canal
12 section
13 detached
14 dock
15 Make a sharp change in direction
16 pass through
17 lit-up
18 excavation for railway line
19 stop!
Thanks. ‘Track on a record’ didn’t occur to me, but since Chambers has the definition ‘a cross-passage’, which seemed very close to ‘cross track’ I didn’t think about it a great deal. For ‘canal section’ I think I misread the Collins definition ‘a stretch of water, esp a canal’ as ‘a stretch of water, esp of a canal’.
Thanks. I thought that was a lot of fun!
54 minutes using aids for my LOI at 1ac. I had considered both HALF and PIPE as words that fitted the two parts of the answer but wouldn’t have known they could fit together as I never heard the term HALF-PIPE. I was reasonably sure of PIPE because of ‘air’ in the clue but was unable to find any justification for HALF.
I worked out the NHO PEORIA from wordplay and allowed myself the luxury of confirming it was correct before continuing. I don’t normally do that with Times puzzles but I was struggling a bit at that point.
Had no idea what was going on with RATE.
Enjoyed this, but got stuck with Hic and Acts which seem obvious now. NHO Peoria either but agree it was fair given there are only a few flightless birds that come up, so once you have the crossers it makes for a satisfying solve.
Enjoyed this very much. 1d and 8a were my last two. Very amusing! Knew nothing about U2 but vaguely heard of Bono and half-pipes.
I felt 16a was a bit unfair with alternative unches of I/E for the unknown city, although the pronunciation was indicated fairly. It’s academic, anyway, as I failed on LOI 8a, putting ACES rather than ACTS, though I can’t quite see why now. Perhaps I never got to T in the trawl? I’m not impressed with it as a clue, regardless. Nor with 26a, RATE, which I guessed at, since in my book rate and tempo aren’t the same thing, though there may be a scientific link that I don’t know of. I’ve never heard of HALF-PIPEs. Otherwise, a fairly challenging, but do-able workout.
There are cities in the US and other countries with an -IA ending rhyming with “rhea”. The only cities or towns I can think of ending in -EA are ones ending in SEA like Swansea, in which the sound is different.
One of the two defs for “tempo” in Collins is “rate or pace”.
Half-pipes aren’t just for skateboarding – there has been a half-pipe snowboarding event in the winter Olympics since 1998.
That I is not an unch though. I assume alto_ego is referring to the (perfectly feasible) possibility of PIORIA.
OK – though I’m sceptical about a ?IO- beginning being pronounced with the right sound (cf biology, lioness, pioneer, rioter, violin)
PEORIA isn’t an English name though so standard English pronunciation isn’t necessarily a good guide. The city was founded by French explorers who might have spelled it as they spell ‘piolet’. That’s also how they pronounce ‘biology’.
I don’t think the intentions of French explorers matter terribly much in present-day pronunciations. Detroit apparently originally had an acute accent on the e, and the sound of “Couer d’Alene” on its wiki page is seriously unFrench. (Samples tried from a wiki list of French-based US place names)
I think a solver in serious doubt could look up the two choices and confirm fairly quickly that “pioria” is only really a thing in Portuguese.
Well, yes, obviously, but my point was that a ‘pea’ homonym could be either pe or pi, and one can guess, but it requires looking up to be sure.
Sure but foreign names are not always anglicised in pronunciation: Louisville is not generally pronounced ‘Lewisville’.
And let’s not get started on Des Moines.
DNF, never heard of HALF PIPE and finally guessed HILL PIPE in desperation.
I had heard of PEORIA luckily
I agree that the clue for ACTS is a bit feeble and I hesitated putting it in for that reason
my interest in/knowledge of skateboarding is zero so I didn’t get half pipe. it was no help I failed to get hic or acts. l learnt from the Culture section today a piece of internet slang TL; DR, too long; didn’t read. that sums up my reaction to 25 dn’s clue.
I remember in the summer of 2001 the Californian band “OPM” had a lot of radio play (and a number 4 hit) in the UK with a song called “Heaven is a Halfpipe”. It had quite a catchy and memorable opening and chorus:
If I die before I wake
At least in heaven, I can skate
‘Cause right now on Earth, I can’t do jack
Without the man up on my back
The song seemed to describe the protagonist’s dreams of spending celestial eternity skateboarding and smoking marijuana -unmolested by police- alongside the founders of several major world religions. Unfortunately the conflation of these two activities in the lyrics meant that I assumed for a long time that a HALF-PIPE was some sort of smoking apparatus rather than a structure for skateboarding.
I can see from Wikipedia that “Aerials (or more commonly airs) are a type of skateboarding trick usually performed on half-pipes”. And indeed several of these (Method Air, Judo Air, Frontside Air, Christ Air) are mentioned in that song.
I couldn’t see why David bothered with the obscure PEORIA when there are several perfectly good ‘normal’ words fitting P_O_I_.
In 19ac why is an assassin hired? OK some assassins are hired, but is it a necessary condition of being an assassin to be hired? The person who tried to assassinate Trump recently wasn’t apparently hired. Nor was Lee Harvey Oswald.
37 or so
Quite pleased to finish this off unaided. Really stuck on the PIPE HIC (vg) and ACTS treble but teased them out. Then followed the instructions for PEORIA.
STEPHENSON was a cracking clue
Great blog as always
Thanks Keriothe and DM
23ac Surely the Rocket Man refers to George Stephenson, “The Father of Railways” and has nothing to do with Elton John. Stephenson’s Rocket won the Rainhill Trials in 1829.
It’s both – the surface reading is clearly referring to the Elton John song.
Thanks for the reply. I know Rocket Man is a song by Elton John but I’m afraid I still don’t see how that is relevant to the solution STEPHENSON. Never mind – I’m probably just being dense.
The definition in the clue is a reference to George Stephenson as you say. But the surface reading (with it’s reference to a ‘hit’ and ‘penning’) is designed to look like a reference to the Elton John song. It’s just a normal case of the surface reading having a different meaning to the definition.
Stephenson’s Rocket was the name of one of his early engines, therefore he is defined as the Rocket Man
Once again, too many look-ups to be a satisfying solve. NHO HALF-PIPE, PEORIA, DARLING, AUGUSTA – though I did manage the latter two. Thrown right off the scent by Berks in 22a, as hearing it in my head lead me to believe I was to look for something dog-related, not eejit-related. Plus I also don’t understand the reference to hiring. Liked the clues for SURGEON, STEPHENSON, AND SO FORTH, HIC. As ever, an ingenious puzzle from David.
Thanks David and keriothe
Took this one off to a cafe for brunch on Sunday and after 45 minutes had only a paltry 7 or 8 answers penned in. Brought it home and after another three sittings, was finally able to fill the grid (a total of 108 mins – so a tough solve for me). Even then, ACTS was entered with a prayer and seems that my rough parsing at the time was right. RATE only came to me when I did a post-solve review and twigged to the ‘king’ starting at E1 on the chessboard.
HALF-PIPE and PEORIA were both new terms. With the latter I parsed it as PEA around OR and I [T]I[T], a ‘flightless bird cos it had no wings !
Anyway, like others, I finished in the NW corner with that HALF-PIPE, HIC and ACTS – and was pleased on checking that it was all correct.