Solving time: 29:11
Took my time this morning. Just strolling through this, bit by bit, and writing down the parsings along the way. Needed a coffee to finish off in the top right. Suspect the speedsters will be out in force.
Across
1. JURIST. RIS{k} in JUT (project).
4. SPECIFIC. SIC (so) including PEC (muscle) and IF (condition).
10. LEVIATHAN. VIA, T (through, time) & H (hard) inside LEAN (efficient). Always worth going back to Hobbes.
11. ROUTE. Pronounced “root” (beginning) if you’re not a septic. I shall leave the Australian meaning of the latter unmentioned. See 9dn.
12. PORTMANTEAU. Anagram: men to part. & AU (gold).
14. RUT. Included reversed.
15. NAMASTE. ET is the alien. MAN is the fellow. Both of these reversed around AS (while). Pretty sure this cropped up on my watch at some time in the past. Something to do with ashrams and the like. Of which I know nought. (On second thoughts … it was here, a year and a bit ago.)
17. SLEEPY. LEE inside SPY (spot).
19. DURESS. U (united) inside DRESS (array).
21. COTERIE. C (about, circa), OT (rev. of TO), ERIE (Lake). The def. is “set”.
23. IDE{a}.
24. OPPROBRIOUS. OPUS (work) inc PRO (expert) & BRIO (vigour).
26. CARAT. Reverse AC (account), RAT.
27. O,VERB,LOW,N.
29. IMP,UNITY.
30. CAN,DID. To end our line of 3 straight charades.
Down
1. JALAPENO. JAPE (prank) inc A + L (large) & NO (drama).
2. R,AVER. With the R from “{poo}R”.
3. SKA. You just have to ASK, if in doubt.
5. PINCERS. PIN (fasten), anagram of SCRE{w}.
6. CAR | BURET | TOR. CAR (vehicle), anagram of BRUTE, TOR (hill).
7. FLUORSPAR. R (from “surveyoR”) inside RAP (criticism) & SOUL (being), F (fine) all reversed. No idea what it is but.
8. CRE(A)TE. Where “found” is a verb.
9. WHINGE. WING (fly) & E (east) inc H (height). Of English persons … no comment.
13. MISBEGOTTEN. S (second) BEG (appeal), OTT (excessive), all inside MIEN (appearance).
16. MOUSETRAP. MO (doctor), anagram of UPSET around RA (radium).
18. SEASONED. AS (since), ON (working), inside SEED (beginning).
20. SUPPORT. UP (ahead) in SPORT (game).
21. CLOSET. CT (court) inc LOSE (fail). “Cases” is the indicator.
22. LITCHI. {g}LITCH, 1.
25. OVOID. {manifest}O, VOID.
28. BOA{t}.
In the end I was left with ‘fluorspar’, and I was thinking that ‘criticism’ = ‘raps’, rather carelessly, making it difficult to see ‘soul’. Once that was straightened out, I still took another 5 minutes to see what the mineral must be.
You have some missing answers and wrong numbering around 24ac, mct.
Annoyed to find that the Quickie is still “Coming” i.e. unavailable though with a little rejigging of the url to yesterday’s puzzle I managed to get to today’s clues which are set by Grumpy (I know how he feels!). Unfortunately there was no grid and the answers were shown too so I averted my eyes and backed out of the screen pdq.
Edited at 2014-03-12 02:13 am (UTC)
FLUORSPAR was constructed from remembering feldspar (too short) and then dredging up the stuff where the O and U are the wrong way round, only on writing it in spotting soul=being.
Score several to the setter, I think.
I knew NAMASTE from the Cafe Spice Namaste, a good Indian restaurant on the East side of the City (at least it was good when I last went about 15 years ago).
It seems from my experience and other comments that The Times are showing their usual ineptitude when making technical changes.
FLUORSPAR (calcium fluoride) is/was used in making highquality lens and in the back of my mind from A Level chemistry gave fluorine its name.
Got held up a bit by wanting COTERIE to be “Ontario”, but there you go. Fortunate to have remembered the wretched SKA from a previous crossword, and also knew NAMASTE from the restaurant, so the “difficult” words proved within the bounds (just) of my GK. A good night’s sleep probably helped!
With a different wind, I can see that this one could have been quite tricky, so NAMASTE to the setter!
With the appearance of MISBEGOTTEN and OPPROBRIOUS in the same puzzle was the setter trying to tell us something?
All correct with FOI Boa and LOI Duress. Plain sailing until the last five – Misbegotten, Opprobrious, Impunity, Support and Duress – which all required careful thought and deduction from wordplay.
The Blue John Cavern in Derbyshire is famous for its fluorspar (fluorite).
FLUORSPAR wasn’t my last in, but it took me by far the longest. It’s very satisfying to solve this kind of unknown from wordplay. Like z8 I was helped by knowing feldspar: without that I don’t think I’d have got there.
NO for drama on 1d? NO=NOH as in Japanese dance theatre? Groan. Probably well known amongst you seasoned practitioners I suppose.
On area where I got a bit held up was in having forgotten how to spell lychee.
It was interesting to see jut again so soon after the jut/stick debate and to see jalapeno after yesterday’s not habanero.
LOI duress, only unknown opprobrious (which I obviously did need the wordplay for).
Was growing up in western Kenya when they started mining fluorspar here so it was familiar to me, not sure if they are still mining it. I continue to be amazed at how many Hindi words are in the English dictionary (if not in common English use). Fancy good old Namaste turning up. The equally popular Namaskar isn’t in the dictionary though, wonder why? Practically means the same thing and we use it just as often.
Nairobi Wallah
Collins says
ORIGIN: Sans namas obeisance, salutation, bow, and te, dative of tuam you, or kara doing
Yes, the etymology is Sanskrit, namas means bowing, etc, and te is the second person singular. You can see how namaskar is similar: I do bow whereas namaste is I bow to you. By the way you may have worked out that karma is from kara: kara, I do; karma, deed(s).
Also by the way meharban, which as far as I know is not in any dictionary, means thank you.
Nairobi Wallah.
Fluorspar shouldn’t be that obscure, [allan sidcup] – it’s the mineral that gave the name to “fluorescence”, since some crystals of it are. In much the same way, the sedimentary rock ‘negligite’, which crumbles under pressure, lends its name to the familiar medical term.
My LOI was DURESS, for which I had to trawl the alphabet, taking me up to about 40min.
Surprisingly brisk business here for a Thursday, and I am spoilt for choice as regards Accident of the Day. A very close runner-up goes to a six-foot gentleman [this is his height; I don’t mean that he comes from Norfolk] whose jaw was cracked by his 5ft girlfriend who swung at him with one of his judo trophies. They both seemed quite lighthearted about the whole thing, though he didn’t seem able to laugh about it.
Winner, though, was a young man trying to emulate a video demonstrating that, if you dip your hand first in water and then in petrol, you can set fire to it without burning yourself. You probably can, but not if you dip the cuff of your coat in the petrol as well.