No problems with this one today, although I needed all the checkers and the wordplay to get my LOI 25a. Do I hear Jimbo saying ‘vanilla’? A few people of note feature in the answers, so I suppose there is some GK needed, although the wordplay is clear enough. I’m not a lawyer (well, we’re all amateur lawyers) so the phrase at 14a was not a familiar one, but again the wordplay leaves little room for choice.
Not much more to say, on we go.
Across |
1 |
SPINET – S (son), PI (very good), NET (cricket practice); D one played. |
5 |
FLANDERS – F(ilm), (SNARLED)*, D Fleming here, where the Flemish people live. |
9 |
NINETEEN – D 20 – 1 (twenty minus one); take all the letters except the ‘tips’ or first ones, of oN wIN bET sEEN. |
10 |
BREACH – B(ritish), REACH = arrive at: D split. |
11 |
WALLER – W(ife), ALLER French verb to go, D jazzman, Thomas Wright “Fats” Waller. |
12 |
TERMINUS – TERM = period, IN = popular, US = the compilers, D last part. |
14 |
CHANCE-MEDLEY – CHANCE = coincidence, MEDLEY = mix-up: D fatal quarrel, a legal term used for a killing during a frenzied fight. |
17 |
NEW AMSTERDAM – (STAMMERED WAN)*, D early name for Manhattan given by Dutch settlers, although it had before that been named New Angoulême by the Italian explorer Giovanni Verrazzano. |
20 |
ANATHEMA – Hidden word in TIR(ANA THE MA)YOR, D detested person. The Greek ἀνάθεμα originally meant just “a dedicated thing”, then something dedicated to evil, and now just means something or someone to be disliked. |
22 |
COTTON – CON for Tory, insert OTT (over the top, too much); D material. |
23 |
CORTES – CO (firm, company), R(uns), TES(T); D conquistador, full name Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca, apparently. |
25 |
MATABELE – MATE = have union, around ABEL the first victim; D an African; inhabitant or language of what was Matabeleland and now part of Zimbabwe.
|
26 |
HERACLES – HE, RACES around L(ake); D hero to Greeks. |
27 |
DEEPEN – DEE for river, PEN for submarine dock; D extend. |
Down |
2 |
PRIMAL – PAL for comrade, around RIM for border; D most important. |
3 |
NEEDLECRAFT – NEEDLE = to vex, CRAFT = trade members; D fine working method. |
4 |
THE BROADS – (DEBTOR HAS)*, D wetlands area, a touristy bit of East Anglia, for our overseas solvers info. |
5 |
FANATIC – F = funny at first, ANTIC = old clown, insert A: D zealot. |
6 |
AMBER – CH leaves CHAMBER; D may have trapped insect; amber being fossilised resin, sometimes insects of prehistoric times can be seen trapped inside. |
7 |
DOE – DONE = finished, remove the N = some number; D female. |
8 |
RECOUPED – COUP = brilliant move, inside REED = grass; D made good. |
13 |
INDOMITABLE -(MILTON IDEA B)*, the B from book; D impossible to beat. |
15 |
MEDICATED – C = clubs inside MEDIATED = negotiated; D having received treatment. |
16 |
BEANPOLE – Double definition. |
18 |
ERASMUS – ERAS = times, MUS = sum reversed = raised amount; D humanist. |
19 |
GOALIE – Anagram of AGILE with O (ball) inserted; D &lit. |
21 |
EASEL – WEASEL = traitor, behead him; D support for artist. |
24 |
TEA – TEAT = milk dispenser, loses its end; D drink. |
I managed to undermine myself here. It seemed quite an erudite puzzle to me, with a lot of the knowledge either unknown or right at my limits — MATABELE, CORTES (whom I know as Cortez, and only, if I’m honest, from a Neil Young song), ERASMUS, HERACLES, SPINET, and, as it turns out, the unknown CHANCE-MEDLEY. This led me to assume that I was just looking for a couple of complete unknowns, or perhaps some Latin, rather than that I’d shot myself in the foot, so I didn’t go back and check my crossers.
Lesson learned, hopefully! Thanks for letting me off the hook.
Edited at 2016-09-07 08:18 am (UTC)
Thanks to setter and blogger.
Edited at 2016-09-07 11:07 am (UTC)
PGWodehouse said ” I received an anonymous letter containing the words, “You big stiff, it wasn’t Cortes, it was Balboa.” On the other hand, if Cortes was good enough for Keats, he is good enough for me. Besides, even if it was Balboa, the Pacific was open to being stared at about that time, and I see no reason why Cortes should not have had a look at it as well.
LOI CHANCE MEDLEY for which I had CHANCE early on but had to wait to the last to complete this unknown.
Didn’t know the MEDLEY bit. COD to 9a for its novelty. Usual half hour.
Till I have the possession of everything she touches
Till I step on the brake to get out of her clutches
Till I speak double dutch to a real double duchess
I liked this one, which certainly had that indefinable Timesiness that I require. DNK chance-medley but fortunately there was no real possibility of finding anything else suitable. I’d probably have put in chance-muddle given half a chance, so I’m glad I wasn’t. Like our flumpy friend I think I liked NINETEEN best CODwise, write-in though it was.
CHANCE-MEDLEY seemed pretty unlikely to me but I couldn’t come up with anything else.
Hard to find any modern uses of chance-medley, but there’s a notable one in a 1740 issue of The Champion (a.k.a. the Evening Advertiser) where Henry Fielding ‘tried’ the much derided poet laureate and infamous plagiarist (he sounded rather fun) Colley Cibber* for “Murder of the English Language”. In Fielding’s fantasy, the judge took pity and directed the jury to convict the hapless Cibber of the lesser charge of chance-medley. It seems to equate to “too daft to know better”.
Nice blog on the whole episode here: http://flavorwire.com/510067/275-years-ago-the-man-who-murdered-the-english-language
* Cibber was the arch Dunce in Pope’s The Dunciad.
COD ….19 (anyone remember Paul Hardcastle?)
Was it in the third round that McIlroy blew up in 2011?
Now I almost feel bad about the comment I made to keriothe in yesterday’s blog.
Chance Madden is a 19 year old pro-baseball rookie from the Lincoln School ‘Elites’ in Kentucky – RHP 1B – for those of you who are still with me.
He is sadly no relation of 14ac Chance Medley who I am fairly certain that Verlaine was out with, on the town in Welsh Wales, only last week.
So DNF – rest of it as per Jack.
FOI 20ac ANATHEMA COD 9ac NINETEEN (pity it wasn’t 19ac)
horryd Shanghai
Just froze with CHANCE-M_D_E_ in front of me. Never heard of it, but should have got it.
That’s two under for the week. Thanks setter and Pip.
So I went to the copy of the puzzle on the newspaper’s site and completed it in 14:41 (half par!) but can’t submit to leader board, so don’t know how it compares with others. (I had heard of 14ac from somewhere – perhaps one of the Sunday barred puzzles – so no hold-up there.)
Peter Biddlecombe, Sunday Times Crossword Editor
Playing on the Times site is rather like playing at an ultra exclusive club for golfers with no scruples: would sir like to play that shot again? Perhaps sir would like the ball replaced two feet to the right?
I did try CHANCE MUDDLE but, although it works perfectly fine with the wordplay it can’t be made to fit. Perhaps sir would like a complimentary drop? Muddle/mix-up might even be a better result outside of the 17th century setting.
Stout Cortes/z always springs to mind when any of our brilliant robotic explorers floats a swimming planet into our ken: previously unseen bits of Jupiter this week, and a planet next door at Proxima Centauri (no pics yet) and I too am silent upon a peak in Darien. We live in a genuinely wonderful age.
Edited at 2016-09-07 11:47 am (UTC)
John Mac
I figured what was going on at 9 early on but had the tips at the wrong end and was wondering if wibeseet was a word.
So one over and a 3 stroke penalty leaves me one over for the tournament and I might struggle to make it onto the course at all on Friday.
I’m guessing the setter is a fan of “Only Connect”: chance medley came up on the show a couple of weeks ago, and intrigued me enough to do quite a bit of reading online about the history of our criminal courts. (See oldbaileyonline dot org – fascinating.)
I didn’t like 1 across; it held me up for quite a while – the fact (?) that cricket practice is called netS was discussed here quite recently.
Thanks for the blog, Pip. I had never heard of CHANCE MEDLEY but I couldn’t see what else it could be. COD for me was NINETEEN. Très amusant. True Solving Time 49m 58s, the last 20 mins taken up with GOALIE and CHANCE MEDLEY.
I may have missed the recent net/nets discussion because I don’t recall it. However, as an ex-cricketer at club level I really don’t have a problem with the way it is used in 1ac. I would always refer to “having a net” when talking about my own practice, and would always say “the nets” when talking about the practice session as a whole.
17ac raised a smile because I am in the old version at the moment.
Edited at 2016-09-07 04:58 pm (UTC)
My reasoning for the clue’s difficulty? MEDLEY is associated with music and sport, but not with law (unless you are into that particular industry). Very anti-intuitive for the educated guesser.
Like Hydrochoos, I enjoyed 9ac. I also quite liked 11ac. And now I would quite like a large G&T.
No problem with CHANCE-MEDLEY, familiar from various crosswords over the years. I was racking my brains to think where I’d come across it recently, so my thanks to Adrian Bailey for pointing out that it was Only Connect.