Solving time: 18:40
Very slow, but better than yesterday! There was no huge delay for the last two answers (2 and 11), so I’m fairly sure this will simply be tough for everyone. Barring a tad of general knowledge at 13, all the difficulty is in the wordplay and some very good bits of disguise, and it was tricky to find a clue to leave out of this report, which is probably the slowest to type up for ages (even with all the wordplays already noted on paper). 28, 4, 6, 11 went in without full understanding of the clue. There are at least three clues with prison-related surface meanings, and a couple that relate or could relate to tennis tournaments.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | A BAND(ON)’S HIP – I wonder if some will grumble about a tricky def. here – I’m letting it pass as I solved the clue and didn’t think anything was awry when doing so. |
| 7 | ClInG- CIG=cigarette=”smoke” (n.) – two Brit. informal usages, of which ‘cig’ is rather surprisingly not in COED. |
| 9 | SKIN-TIGHT – (thinks it,G=good)* – “pressing the flesh” is a very good deceptive def. |
| 10 | A,R,TIE – “rug in the van” = R which is in the front=van of “rug”. And “guy rope” needs separating to find the def. |
| 11 | BELT OUT = “to do a lusty performance of” – Ring=BELT, unacceptable=OUT. Contrary to the surface, a bit of lust in Wagner’s Ring is almost compulsory today – the chance of Siegmund not ending up on top of Sieglinde at the end of Valkyrie Act 1 is almost nil and naked Rhinemaidens are three a pfennig (sorry). This (see c. 5:00) is about as subtle as it gets. |
| 12 | P,REST ON = “prolong holiday”, with “east of” indicating the charade order. Preston, one of our youngest “cities” in terms of official city status, is not very far from 28A. Or rather, 40-odd miles up the M61 means nothing to southerners like me. |
| 13 | REMUS – 2 defs. – “US relative who did accounts” is Uncle Remus, and “Partner in City foundation” is the twin of Romulus. First def slightly cheeky for just REMUS, but the word “relative” makes things clear. |
| 15 | LIQUOR,ICE (vb.) = “finish off cake”. |
| 17 | KIN=family,G.(Co.)B.,R=(electrical) resistance,A |
| 19 | S(W)EEP – this uses “A stopped by B” to indicate B in A – the more acceptable choice for me – stop=”block or close up”. Corrected after seeing Mark T’s comment |
| 20 | UP TEMPO = (poem put)*. “quickly in play” is another tricky def., with the solver having to establish that it’s the musical kind of “play”. |
| 22 | INTEGER – reverse hidden in “Yorkshire get nicked”. Prison-related surface, like 19. |
| 24 | KURDS = UK rev., RD’S = “street’s”. Cheeky indication of the abbreviation but road and street are synonyms. |
| 25 | TRICOLOUR = “trickler”, as long as you say it fairly quickly. Brief delay here as “oriflamme” happens to have 9 letters too, and came to mind first. |
| 28 | OLD=veteran,TR=”right back”,A,F=fine,FORD = cross (a river). The elusive def. “where” is excused by this being a semi &lit – the whole clue is the real def. (Old Trafford being where Manchester United play). |
| Down | |
| 1 | (b)ASS – “one easily had” is another very clever def. |
| 2 | AXIAL – A=article,I in rev. of LAX=loose |
| 3 | DOT COMS = concerns = as in “going concern”. CT in (S=singular,MOOD) rev. |
| 4 | NIGH=to hand,TCLU=”new cult”,B=book. |
| 5 | H=horse,O,TUP=ram |
| 6 | PLACE=spot,BO = rev. of OB=old boy=”pupil once”. |
| 7 | CUT IT=succeed,FINE=perfectly well (COED has a suitable adverb definition) |
| 8 | GREEN=raw,KEEPER=”conservative chap”. “tender of course” is the def. Strange frisson from writing GREEN when the Greens are not Conservatives and the trad Conservative colour is blue. |
| 11 | B(A, RE=touching,KN.=knots)UCKLE) |
| 14 | MO(NIT)ORED – Collins has the required noun meaning of “stupid” to match nit. “cuts” is an insertion indicator, and “connected to bank” describes a moored boat. |
| 16 | QUA=as,LIF(I)ER – heat is the def., and we’re back in clink in the surface reading. |
| 18 | COMES TO – 2 defs, one being hits as in “he will hit town tomorrow night” – the Collins sample phrase. |
| 19 | SETS OFF = triggers. A successful underdog at Winbledon might be said to |
| 21 | “OCT. AD” = “Autumn promotion”. There are 8 quarter-finalists now that we’re in sports tournaments rather than jail. |
| 23 | GOO=treacle=cloying sentimentality,DO=cook. Good-O is a dated British (and Australian in Collins) exclamation of approval |
| 26 | R,OD=overdose=”take too much”. |
Had loads of trouble with 24, probably because “used for” isn’t a link (I think) I’ve seen before. I tinkered with “karts” for a while. And maybe because of the dubious homophone, fell for “tricolore” at 25. (Trickler today, tickler yesterday?) If I have a COD, it’s 6 (PLACEBO) for the sheer amount of work that must have gone into making the surface work. Hats off!
I was going to query “nit” = “stupid” but Peter confirms that Collins (to which I have no access at the moment) says it’s okay. However I don’t see how “desert” can possibly = “abandon ship” and I think the wordplay in 19d is just plain daft. I saw the possible answer straight away with no checking letters in place but would never have worked out the reasoning despite being a huge tennis fan.
That said, some of this puzzle was very clever indeed and certainly couldn’t be described as boring.
The latter include: 24ac (I don’t think Kurds are a “race”); 10ac – has anyone ever met a man called ARTIE?; 1ac and 19ac for the reasons Jack says, and 25ac where the homophone doesn’t work for me (although Chambers gives a pronunciation which seems to work, although “trickler” doesn’t exist in Chambers or COED (I expect to be told it is in Collins! – or perhaps it doesn’t need actually to exist anyway).
Lots of clever cryptic definitions though – I liked 9ac, 8dn and 28 ac.
Well Simon and Garfunkel are touring Oz shortly.
Tom B.
I’m sure any serviceman who has had to ABANDON SHIP will resent the definition in 1ac, but I think there’s a colloquial usage that fits the intransitive sense of “desert” (though I don’t have access to dictionaries here). Now that I’ve been told how 19dn (SETS OFF) works, I don’t like it.
A small correction to Peter’s blog for 19ac: it’s “A stopped by B”. (For a moment there I thought we disagreed on the acceptable direction of stopping!)
Clue of the Day: 9ac (SKIN-TIGHT).
I don’t know that Frank Zappa album – the only one I have is almost entirely instrumental, except for a brief burst of Captain Beefheart.
Tom B.
Why do people writing the solutions to Times crosswords invariably leave some solutions out? Or fail to explain what they assume is obvious? Yesterday the solutions to 2 and 12 down were omitted. Why?
Surely the purpose of this site is to give people who haven’t solved a crossword the answers and explain how they are derived … not to brag about finishing on the tube “between Marble Arch and Tottenham Court Road” in some time so short it wasn’t worth doing. I’m sure it takes some of you longer to write in and tell the world how wonderful you are than it does to complete the crossword. Why bother if you’ve done it?
Let’s have complete and comprehensive blogs, not bragging.
TIMES: The blog is called “Times for The Times” which, to a degree, suggests why many contributors say how long it took to complete a puzzle.
Not everyone posts their times, but those who do give a helpful indication of the overall difficulty level of a puzzle. I’ve had the great pleasure of meeting many of this blog’s contributors and I can assure you that bragging just ain’t in their natures.
1. I have neglected daily puzzles for several years, and would like to get better at them. Posting my times (whatever they are) makes a daily timed puzzle feel more like a commitment. I have a competitive interest in this because, like several others here, I will be taking part in the Times crossword championship in October. (That’s not a brag either – I try to encourage others to do the same, because it’s a good opportunity to meet other solvers.)
2. I find it interesting to see how hard others found a given puzzle, as indicated by the time they took compared to what I know to be their typical times. It would be selfish not to provide similar information myself if I had it to hand. That’s not to say that I think everyone should post times – quite the reverse, in fact, because I don’t think everyone should time themselves. There was some discussion about this a couple of weeks ago here (just over halfway down).
Setting crosswords is keeping me so busy at the moment my opportunities to solve the daily puzzle are increasingly rare, but I love this place and it would be great to be able to chip in and help with clues which are causing confusion.
Personally, I’m convinced that the purpose of this site is to have rambling, tangential and surprising conversations about anything and nothing, sometimes even vaguely relevant to the day’s crossword. But this Biddlecombe chap keeps trying to make it a bit more structured than that (I have no idea who he is – he just turned up one day and we can’t seem to get rid of him).
answers in the blog is that it gives the Times the opportunity to make a bit more money from callers who phone in for answers. That seems like a silly reason, considering that the blogs cover more than 90% of the answers. Is that an agreement with the Times, or is it merely the decision of the originator of this website?
In addition, I believe the majority of this site’s readers have little or no interest in other people’s solving times. That would be of interest only to the handful of people who regularly enter puzzle contests, where speed is an important factor.
Leaving some of the clues unblogged requires us all to think a little more. It’s analagous with what teachers sometimes call the “learning zone” where you present material just beyond the comfort level.
As a number of people have already pointed out, if you want a particular clue explained, just ask, if that’s not too much trouble.
This blog is provided by enthusiastic volunteers who give up a lot of time to make it available to you. If you want it to be something other than what it is, by all means raise the issue (though how you presume to know what the “majority of this site’s readers” want I can’t imagine – I think you mean “what I want”, in which case, say so). Otherwise, feel free to start another blog.
Carole H., Fermo, Italy
Everything else is explained in places mentioned in the new “Information for new readers” posting I set up today (in an attempt to reduce repeated discussion of the same old stuff). If you don’t care about the times, just ignore the bits like “About 20 mins.” – they’re a pretty small part of most posts and comments.
There don’t seem to be any run of the mill clues here. They’re either absolutely brilliant or terrible with nothing in-between. I loved it all except the stinkers that have already been identified: desert=abandon ship, I don’t think so; the Kurds are an ethnic group within a race; the homophone doesn’t work for me because I pronounce the word as the French do; and SETS OFF is crass. One personal doubt to add to the list: the use of “escaping” in 22A INTEGER?
OLD TRAFFORD is exceptional but probably very difficult for overseas solvers because of obscurity.
All other than ARTIE entered with one error BALL OUT for BELT OUT.
Not much pleasure as I had question marks against no less than 8 of the answers.
Humbled by this so no bragging today.
Thanks Peter as ever for enlightenment. I expect there are a few out there glad this was not their turn.
Difficulty increased by initially writing in ‘tricoleur’ without thinking it through. I guess there are a few dubious clues, but they’re outweighed for me by some very clever stuff – END and OLD TRAFFORD are both gems.
Since it was the last one I understood, I’ll blog my COD (Clue Of the Day), 27a, as my good deed for the day:
27a END – last letters of “the moon elated”, indicated by “finally”. Definition – “Be over”.
Unfortunately, I had one wrong – I hadn’t been satisfied with ‘karts’ for 24, and should have gone back to it.
I think we were all lucky that there were enough easy clues to get started and have some crossing letters, or this might have proved very tough indeed.
I saw ‘abandon ship, ‘hot up’, ‘placebo’, and ‘cut it fine’ almost immediately, I was stuck for a while in the middle, but the rather simple ‘Remus’ and ‘king cobra’ open up the left side beautifully.
It took me a long time to see the cryptics for ‘integer’ and ‘Old Trafford’ after I put them in. I saw ‘tricolour’ as almost a joke homophone, with ‘to some ears’ meaning to hardly anyone.
‘Qualifier’ proved very tricky, because I saw ‘lifer’ but attempted to attach it to the wrong ‘i’. Only when I got ‘qua’ did enlightenment hit.
Like Peter, I was left with ‘axial’ and ‘belt out’ – as well as ‘Artie’. Alphabet traversal was required for ‘belt out’ and ‘axial’, but proved useless for ‘Artie’. Sometimes there’s nothing like a break to make you see it.
COD was a tie between 22, the best-concealed hidden word I’ve ever seen, and 16, with it beautifully hidden literal.
Sometimes after that brief break, I understand several clues that I did not grasp before.
This is excellent news for me, ross, as I thought I might be alone in this!
Given the checking letters the answer was obvious to me so I didn’t bother to explore the niceties of the clue. Old Trafford? Hampden Park? My ignorance of the beautiful game knows no bounds.
In 28A my train of thought was as follows….With O and D it was clearly OLD and the surface suggested TRAFFORD at which point it was “clear” to me that the veteran was “OLD FART” with the right hand part backwards and this touched (met) FORD meaning a “fine place to cross” as opposed to the swollen banks elsewhere.
The question I was going to ask the more experienced solvers (before the more sensible version was blogged) was at what level of potential crudeness do the setters stop at. I have several times seen the word TOSSPOT as a solution and thought it a bit risque, but wondered if there were any other anecdotes to be had on this subject.
For the rather ungrateful anonymous above, mine was a rather ploddy and bitty 45 minutes….
Risque stuff does get used, and is sometimes rather stronger than setters would have dared to try 20-odd years ago. But even then, the odd bit of smut crept in by way of the “filth in your mind” technique used by Max Miller and his successors. Much sniggering at a Times Championship final some time around 1980 from this Brian Greer gem: In which three couples get together for sex (5).
If you like your puzzles blue, you should head straight for Private Eye’s prize crossword.
A few leaps of faith… wasn’t sure on REMUS, TRICOLOUR came with a grimace, OLD TRAFFORD from part wordplay and figuring it had to be a sporting venue from the surface, NIGHTCLUB without seeing full wordplay.
I have never before profferred a COD, but this has to be it today.
Tom B.
Tom B.
No problem with BELT OUT, but ARTIE eluded me.
Impressed to learn that some of us can distinguish a race from an ethnic group.
The quaint “trickler” pronunciation is quite prevalent on the Beeb (more often referring to the Irish flag).
All in all, I thought there were some very clever & deceptive clues here.
GOD (groan of the day) has to be GOOD-O!
Slightly surprised at the reaction to the def in 1 ac, also at the bafflement about ARTIE but maybe because that was my dad’s name and commonly used as a term of affection by my mum!
I was well aware that TRICKLER/TRICOLOUR was a dodgy homophone, but I’m always slightly baffled that our sense of fun seems to desert us when it comes to homophones 🙂
All comments are fascinating and most welcome, and I must especially pick out that by mctext: the clue to PLACEBO did indeed take flippin’ ages to polish off!!