FOI was 5ac I think after I really wanted 1ac to be HIGH JUMP; much later to come were the likes of 20ac where I was sure the final X was leading me towards a bit of Latin terminology. (It seemed like there was quite a bit of boxing and punching in this crossword by the way, I hope the setter isn’t working out his sublimated aggression on us!) LOI 21dn, which reminded me that I only just learned, at the London meetup last weekend, that “bird” as in “time” is Cockney rhyming slang, “bird lime”, well I never! A few clues parsed after the fact, including the obviously very biffable Cumbrian town, the trickily phrased 2dn, and 11ac where I’m ashamed to say I somehow thought INCH was what was being clued by “punch”, at time of entry. Thanks so much to the setter for a great and and almost physically punishing workout!
ACROSS
1 Bound to appear at the bar: do this, however? (4,4)
JUMP BAIL – JUMP [bound], to appear at BAIL [the bar], semi-&lit.
5 Pool players might place balls in silence (6)
SPLOSH – PL. O’S [place | balls] in SH [silence]
Definition as in, “people playing at a pool might do this”
10 24 boxes from the East I received (5)
ROGER – R and R (the answer to 24ac) “boxes” EGO [I] read from east to west.
Received and understood.
11 Reel after receiving punch, drawing back (9)
FLINCHING – FLING [reel] after receiving CHIN [punch]
12 Rule on MBE for bungling old statesman (9)
MELBOURNE – (RULE ON MBE*) [“for bungling”]
Our Whig Prime Minister in the 1830s.
13 Baby carriers: the odd ones leaving auntie frail (5)
UTERI – {a}U{n}T{i}E {f}R{a}I{l}, with every odd-numbered character removed
14 Pop back with train set (7)
APPOINT – PA [pop] reversed + POINT [train (a gun, e.g.)]
Set can notoriously mean more things than any other word in the language; I’m sure it can be substituted for appoint in some sentence somewhere.
16 We appreciate that protective coats needed for this race (6)
TATARS – TA TARS [we appreciate that | protective coats]
18 Worthwhile American English teaching outside of university (6)
USEFUL – US EFL [American | English teaching] “outside of” U [university]
20 One protected from early knockout punch — a bit of a bloomer (7)
SEEDBOX – SEED BOX [one protected from early knockout (in tennis, e.g.) | punch]
Bloomer as in a flower (as in a plant not as in a river) not as in a mistake, obviously.
22 Ruler: a timeless measuring device (5)
AMEER – A ME{t}ER [a | measuring device, minus T for time]
23 Grind chickpeas, retaining one tiny amount (9)
MILLIGRAM – MILL GRAM [grind | chickpeas] “retaining” I [one]
25 Clubs getting even with president once (9)
CLEVELAND – C [clubs] getting LEVEL AND [even | with]
Grover Cleveland, 22nd and 24th President (D) of the United States in the 1890s.
CANAL – CANA L [where water miraculously turned (into wine, by Jesus) | left]
26 Ditch where water miraculously turned left (5)
27 Most careless and neglectful, ultimately fell by the wayside? (6)
LAXEST – {neglectfu}L + AXE [fell] by ST. [by the wayside?]
28 A measure of anxiety when confronted with memory (8)
ANGSTROM – ANGST [anxiety] when confronted with ROM [(computer) memory]
DOWN
1 Book’s initially happy end — before Jack turned up (8)
JEREMIAH – reverse all of: H{appy} + AIM ERE J [end | before | Jack]
Second book of the Prophets in the Old Testament.
2 Grand for cast to gather briefly around emperor (5)
MOGUL – G [grand] for MOUL{d} [cast … “briefly”] to “gather”
3 Sailors opening four wine bars transformed southern town (6-2-7)
BARROW-IN-FURNESS – R.N. [sailors] “opening” (FOUR WINE BARS*) [“transformed”] + S [southern]
4 News hotel’s unfinished: expecting trouble! (2,3,2)
IN FOR IT – INFO RIT{z} [news | hotel (“is unfinished”)]
6 Restore equilibrium, perhaps, as able musician should, quickly (4,2,3,6)
PICK UP THE PIECES – double definition
7 There were no survivors, except revolutionary in uniform (5,4)
OLIVE DRAB – O LIVED = ZERO LIVED [there were no survivors] + reversed BAR [except, “revolutionary”]
8 Hamper in corner, by couple (6)
HOGTIE – HOG [corner (e.g. the market)] by TIE [couple (v.)]
9 Turn off after upsetting, lacklustre video displays (6)
DIVERT – hidden reversed in {lacklus}TRE VID{eo}
15 Fresh ad sexed up ballet sequence (3,2,4)
PAS DE DEUX – (AD SEXED UP*) [“fresh”]
17 English flower on minute purple illustration (8)
EXEMPLUM – EXE [English flower (as in river)] on M [minute] + PLUM [purple]
19 Here one might pick up saddle for one’s lower back? (6)
LUMBAR – homophone of LUMBER [saddle (v.)]
20 What healthy dish could have? This one would have had sultanas (7)
SALADIN – a healthy dish “could have SALAD IN”. Sultanas can be the female counterpart of a sultan, as well as found in food.
21 Usual place for bird, not quite a box (6)
PARCEL – PAR CEL{l} [usual | place for bird, in the time in prison sense, “not quite” i.e. missing its last letter]
24 Leisure time organised by medic (1,3,1)
R AND R – RAN [organised] by DR. [medic]
Brilliant puzzle. Mostly I liked: seedbox and COD to Saladin.
Thanks clever setter and V.
If I’d had enough time left, I might well have double-checked for dodgy answers and corrected my mistake. Ho hum.
Off to Iona today. Having seen it so often in crosswordland, nice to see it in real life…
Was unable to parse USEFUL as having used the E for English I couldn’t see why FL would stand for ‘teaching’. I never thought EFL together.
Like our blogger I have not managed to think of a context where ‘set’ means APPOINT but I’m sure somebody else will oblige before long.
There’s a fun NINA in today’s QC if anyone wants to try it. The setter’s name should be a clue!
Edited at 2018-09-07 07:37 am (UTC)
[On edit: Ah! but I suppose the adjective “protective” falsifies my hypothesis. But then again, isn’t a [countable noun] ‘tar’ another term for an oilskin, such as old salty sea-dogs wear?]
Edited at 2018-09-07 10:30 am (UTC)
Hmm. Sort me out on this…
‘appoint’ either; and thanks to V for explaining the ‘seed’ bit of 20ac as I just didn’t make the connection with tennis etc. Sign of a good clue perhaps.
Edited at 2018-09-07 08:01 am (UTC)
34 minutes and never really felt in control, especially with TEAR UP THE SCALES (no, me neither) refusing to leave my mind, making most of the Eastern side even harder than it already was.
Good job I wasn’t doing it on paper, there would have been far to many crossings out to make sense of anything.
Ho hum, I suppose after a record time on Monday something like this was always going to be just round the corner.
There are some rather nice read throughs in this one: USEFUL SEEDBOX, CLEVELAND CANAL (is there one?) and my favourite bizarre image, JUMP BAIL SPLOSH. I’d quite like to see the MOGUL PAS DE DEUX at Covent Garden: it might even DIVERT SALADIN, though how he could have been diverted from battling long enough to have sultanas (and resultant offspring) is beyond me.
Appoint for SET troubled me only in the “other people are going to query this but it seems OK to me” sense. I’m grateful to Tringmardo for providing a perfect example so I don’t need to try.
Edited at 2018-09-07 07:59 am (UTC)
A fine puzzle which I wiped out in 20:26 with a couple of biffs and the odd shrug.
FOI UTERI – absolute respect to Verlaine for opening up with SPLOSH !
Glared at the Guardian clue at 10A, especially as I couldn’t immediately solve 24D.
Does “wayside” equate to “street” ? Didn’t hold me up, but provoked a Gallic gesture.
Biffed FLINCHING due to the “inch = punch” failing alluded to in the blog, and LOI SEEDBOX where the seeded player totally passed me by. A post-finish Google tells me that it’s a high speed remote server, though not of the tennis variety !
I also Googled “EFL” to be advised that it’s the English Football League (home to Aston Villa and Bolton Wanderers these days), but further searching threw up TEFL – teaching English as a foreign language. It’s all Greek to me.
COD SALADIN
Edited at 2018-09-07 04:36 pm (UTC)
I didn’t know GRAM as a legume, and suppose a dish might have a salad in it (the king of salads, the niçoise?), rather than having one on the side
Not sure I’ve come across ‘gram’ before: I was trying to fit ‘chana’ in.
Set/POINT: what tringmardo says.
As an alternative I had the short cast as MOULT without the T, I think that just about works?
Actually, I do have a quibble with 25a… surely ‘president twice’?
“In recent years, the associations of race with the ideologies and theories that grew out of the work of 19th-century anthropologists and physiologists has led to the use of the word race itself becoming problematic. Although still used in general contexts, it is now often replaced by other words which are less emotionally charged, such as people(s) or community”.
Being an insensitive sort, I would not have twigged that, and would not have any problem in race/TATARS, though perhaps tribe might have been better.
The snag is, of course, that following a moratorium, the setter would have problems leading us up the garden path, or in the context of this clue, down the wrong track.
Personally, I am keen to recognise only one race, the human one, and despise every move from race to racism, but I’m not at all sure I could sign up to a petition banning the use of “race” as a building block in crossword clues.
Edited at 2018-09-07 01:11 pm (UTC)
Edited at 2018-09-07 02:37 pm (UTC)
DNF, which is not unusual for me, but enjoyed this thoroughly,
Thanks to setter and V
Nobody mentioned it, so I must be missing something. Please could you explain why ‘seedbox’ is a definition of a bit of a bloomer? A seedbox isn’t a bit of a flower: it’s the thing which the flower is put in so as to grow, so far as I can see.
Managed to finish this time so must be improving!!