I thought this was quite fun, not too demanding with with a few interesting words; twenty minutes saw it done. I didn’t know the meaning of 1d although the wordplay was clear. I thought the “city driving” clue was a bit odd, but maybe I’m just a traditionalist where striking balls into holes is concerned. We had a couple of words for fool to play with. I seem to remember “wally” meaning a stupid person, is supposed to have originated from the Woodstock concert, when someone lost their dog and went around everywhere shouting “where’s Wally?”. Can this be true?
Definitions underlined in bold, (ABC)* indicating anagram of Abc, anagrind in italics, [deletions].
| Across | |
| 1 | Hit edges of hedgerow during approach (6) |
| THWACK – insert HW (edges of hedgerow) into TACK = approach, as in “try another tack” perhaps. | |
| 4 | Racing tip from Ascot — bet on it! (8) |
| AFLUTTER – A[SCOT], FLUTTER a lighthearted bet. | |
| 10 | Friend, one of five picking up a final piece of ocean litter (9) |
| PALANQUIN – PAL = friend, A QUIN = one of five, insert [OCEA]N. One of those things with two poles and a central piece on which top people were carried around in India and the Far East. | |
| 11 | Dictator’s committee dug deep? (5) |
| BORED -sounds like (“dictator’s”) BOARD. | |
| 12 | Sample from federal period (3) |
| ERA – hidden as above. | |
| 13 | Fabled loner working to become chemist (6,5) |
| ALFRED NOBEL – (FABLED LONER)*. Swedish chap who invented dynamite and gelignite, filed another 354 patents and spoke 6 languages. “Chemist” is a understatement. | |
| 14 | Dance introduces dated pieces that need arranging? (6) |
| JIGSAW – JIG = dance, SAW = dated, as in “I saw Annie last night”. | |
| 16 | Idiot has cheap wine and beer regularly (7) |
| PLONKER -PLONK = cheap wine, b E e R. | |
| 19 | X-rated opening cut from mafia film excerpt (7) |
| OBSCENE – [M]OB, SCENE excerpt from a film. | |
| 20 | Case of importation business being weak (6) |
| INFIRM – IN = “case” of ImportatioN, FIRM = business. | |
| 22 | Ocean swimmers not coming back on board after short race (11) |
| ZOOPLANKTON – ZOO[M] = short race, PLANK = board, NOT reversed. | |
| 25 | Come again, though only occasionally (3) |
| HUH – alternate letters of t H o U g H. Huh? What did you say? | |
| 26 | Girl hasn’t finished drink (5) |
| LASSI -LASSI[E]. Indian yoghurt based drink, cool with curry. | |
| 27 | Made men stagger awkwardly carrying new spades (9) |
| GANGSTERS – (STAGGER N S)*. A “made man” is a gangster who obeys the Mafia boss. | |
| 28 | Medicine with smudged date on it (8) |
| ANTIDOTE – (DATE ON IT)*. | |
| 29 | Palace in cathedral city diocese (6) |
| ELYSÉE -ELY a small cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, SEE = diocese. Presidential palace in Paris. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Word of advice: put on favourite scarf (6) |
| TIPPET – TIP = word of advice, PET = favourite. Long piece of cloth worn on the shoulders or hanging off the sleeves. I had to look it up. | |
| 2 | Fools adopting a billion animals (9) |
| WALLABIES – WALLIES = fools, insert A B[ILLION]. See intro above. | |
| 3 | Lowly worker grabs knight before a line dance (5) |
| CONGA – COG = lowly worker, A, insert N for knight. | |
| 5 | Picture that’s been digitally rendered? (6,8) |
| FINGER PAINTING – slightly cryptic definition. | |
| 6 | Driving in the city, perhaps, with not entirely sophisticated car (5,4) |
| URBAN GOLF -URBAN[E] = sophisticated, not entirely; [VW] GOLF is a make of car. Apparently there is actually a game called urban golf in which people compete with golf clubs and a ball (often not a real golf ball) around the streets. I thought it might mean that driving a car wildly in a city was akin to a golf game because of obstacles and other hazards, but that would be more like urban Russian Roulette. | |
| 7 | Extremely tough mug for pound (5) |
| THROB -T[oug]H, ROB = mug. As in “my heart was pounding”. | |
| 8 | Warning: treadle right out of skew! (3,5) |
| RED ALERT – (TREADLE R)*. | |
| 9 | Savage gunfight was key in commemorative evening (3,6,5) |
| GUY FAWKES NIGHT – (GUNFIGHT WAS KEY)*. November 5th, in England and Wales, presumably not elsewhere. | |
| 15 | What leaders of building industry near Dubai do to entrance? (9) |
| SPELLBIND -The initial letters of Building Industry Near Dubai spell BIND. | |
| 17 | King and queen with leader’s headgear (9) |
| KERCHIEFS – K, ER, CHIEF’S = leader’s. | |
| 18 | Follow up on unknown trouble with a movie (8) |
| GODZILLA -DOG = follow, reversed (up) = GOD, Z (unknown) ILL (trouble) A. Never watched it. | |
| 21 | Caught with speed ? it’s pure (6) |
| CHASTE – C for caught, HASTE = speed. | |
| 23 | Inception director may be found here (5) |
| ONSET – a film director can be found ON SET. | |
| 24 | Name a sailor briefly associated with Hooters? (5) |
| NASAL – N (name) A SAL[T]. | |
A pleasant stroll with a few unknowns generously clued. LOI JIGSAW was biffed, saw the jig but didn’t see saw as dated, so thanks for that. Only other holdup was the first 3 letters of ZOOPLANKTON which just wouldn’t come out of the depths of memory, until Godzilla stepped in.
WOD Thwack.
Lots of nice off-beat definitions, but COD to ONSET.
Failed to get ZOOPLANKTON and GODZILLA. Put in TIPPET without knowing the word. Liked ELYSEE and AFLUTTER, also HUH( although I think I say and write it with an “n” before the final “h”). COD to SPELLBIND.
19:34
Could have been a bit faster if I had put in BORED instead of BOARD; wasted time on 7d until I realized my mistake. I also made the error of assuming that _N_TON would be -INGTON, making ZOOPLANKTON my LOI, after GODZILLA. A brain freeze delayed my extricating GUY FAWKES from memory. DNK PLONKER, NHO URBAN GOLF. I sort of knew TIPPET; I bet they wore them in Georgette Heyer novels.
TIPPET – Heyer – quite right.
This one went down easy for 13:51. I got lucky with wavelength on the first few clues.
Final holdup was WALLABEES, which prevented JIGSAW.
Note for blogger: Technically, I think PALANQUIN should be (A + N) in (PAL + QUIN)
I cruised at a steady 55 through this very enjoyable offering.
FOI 1ac THWACK
LOI 24ac LASSI but not directly from Lancashire!
COD 28ac ELYSEE
WOD 16ac PLONKER from ‘Only Fools and Horses’, ‘Rodney you plonker’ as said by Del Boy, on a weekly basis. (It also has undertones of referring to the male pudenda. So smelling salts at the ready!)
I note that 9dn GUY FAWKES NIGHT (Bonfire Night) is definitely celebrated across the UK and perhaps also in New Zealand. But MartinP might be able to comment on the latter?
A marked improvement on yesterday’s offering!
I believe it still is, Horryd, but I live a hermitical life out here in the sticks so fun and frivolities pass me by!
I am in New Plymouth and I think I can recall a few fireworks last November.
I’m in the eastern BoP and I just don’t recall any fireworks. Maybe my 75 year-old memory is failing? I’ve only just discovered that you can only buy fireworks for a few days prior to Guy Fawkes Night.
My time says 43m 15s but at least 7-8 mins of that was thanks to the lady from Porlock who called regarding natural dog food….
I enjoyed that. It was worth it just for 15d: SPELLBIND. In #26019 11Feb15 we had “Where to expect fourth queue for “Spellbound” (9): A: Entranced.
NHO URBAN GOLF nor of a TIPPET.
Near where we used to live in La Belle France, i.e. way out in the wilds, while out walking our dogs at the time I came across a massive clearing in a forest. In the middle were all sorts of bunkers. This turned out to be an explosives store for the NOBEL Company. Fortunately, nothing ever went bang
You enjoyed the natural dog food for just 15d? The hermitical life obviously suits you, Martin!
😀
28 minutes. I’d forgotten TIPPET and only barely recognised LASSI. I agree that URBAN GOLF was a bit strange and not something I’d heard of before. KERCHIEFS looked familiar and I see we had it only last Friday.
We used to have GUY FAWKES NIGHT here in Australia up until the late 60’s/early 70’s I would guess, maybe a little later. Concerns about grass and bushfires in the country put a stop to it as well as the slow drift away from the “Mother Country” and its customs.
52 minutes. Considering the number of unknowns or forgottens* here I did rather well in the top half and SE corner, but I came to a grinding halt with most of the SW missing and lost 10-15 minutes before I got myself going again.
*Unknowns or forgottens were PALANQUIN, ZOOPLANKTON (eventually I spotted PLANKTON but had to struggle all over again for the ZOO bit), LASSI, GANGSTERS as ‘made men’, TIPPET and URBAN GOLF. I’d have struggled with KERCHIEFS as ‘headgear’ too if it hadn’t come up here last Friday.
Average time. I enjoyed the surfaces. COD to AFLUTTER (which is timely).
I didn’t do this puzzle but I looooooove that Spellbind clue. How delightful
SPELLBIND’s a clue fit for a king
I concur with Tina Dearing
Bad with letters I was
I’m a space-nut because
Initially I Never Got spell ING
😂😂
Very good! 😂
12:01. I spent time today seeing mobsters where there were none and not seeing them where there were some. When I had the O at the start of OBSCENE I thought I was going to have to do something with ODFATHER or OODFELLAS for “opening cut from mafia film”. Whereas for GANGSTERS I thought the made men were going to be something like parvenus.
The bored/board homophone has left me with an Iggy Pop ear worm “I’m bored. I’m the chairman of the bored”.
Somewhat the ANTIDOTE to yesterday’s offering, in that I not only finished, but finished in under 16 minutes. Not a PB but not far off. I was listening to a podcast interview with local landscape architect Wendy Tippett the other day, which perhaps made 1d a bit more plausible; apart from that, the ZOO bit of ZOOPLANKTON and the form of golf were the only unknowns.
FOI 1a THWACK LOI 26a LASSI WOD PALANQUIN, remembered, I think, from She, but as always I could be wrong…
Almost the entire RHS complete before I got going on the left (hate it when that happens – it feels like a disturbance in my kozmik karma). PALANQUIN and TIPPET were only vaguely known to me, but THWACK fully unlocked the NW, then OBSCENE (which I failed to solve on another recent puzzle) and GODZILLA did the same for the SW. KK restored, I finished up with the excellent COD SPELLBIND, and finally JIGSAW.
After numerous DNFs recently, great to get a solid completion submitted with high confidence in 40:30 – thanks P and setter
34 minutes with LOI ZOOPLANKTON once GODZILLA finally loomed over the horizon. I’d got an unparsed ECOPLANKTON in mind up until then. COD to SPELLBIND with an honourable mention to ONSET. Decent puzzle. Thank you Pip and setter.
7:35. I knew most of the funny words today, which helped. I’ve even played URBAN GOLF, in spite of not being much of a golfer, but was still a bit surprised to see it here. I wouldn’t have said it was a particularly well-established activity. We’ll have Padel next. Even TIPPET seemed vaguely familiar once I’d constructed it from wordplay, and the ins and outs of KERCHIEFS (including etymology) are familiar after their recent appearance.
Bit of a mixture today with some going in easily and others needing more thought
LOI jigsaw was biffed as i didn’t get saw as date
DNK urban golf but not difficult to figure out and check in the dictionary
Good to see Delboy reference
33 mins which is about average for me
15:34 DNK TIPPET or URBAN GOLF, but that’s what we have wordplay for. I liked the funny words and pangram, but the clue for AFLUTTER best. Thanks Pip and setter.
38 mins. Pleased with that as there were some tricky clues that have all been mentioned. I particularly liked URBAN GOLF (never played it though), JIGSAW and SPELLBIND.
Thanks PK and setter.
28 mins. Liked GODZILLA, PLONKER, SPELLBIND (v clever). Would have been much quicker, but got held up by URBAN GOLF, which was new to me.
No-one expects….
15.27, so more of a stroll than yesterday’s, but very enjoyable, especially the delightful SPELLBIND, the Inquisition’s “treadle right out of skew”, the lovely jubbly PLONKER and the Trekkie RED ALERT. Popular culture that really is popular at least with me. Add Michael TIPPET (unattributed) and my grandson’s favourite GODZILLA and a chemist that everyone’s heard of to further delight the solver. Close to a pangram (again) missing v and x.
I didn’t know the “made men” reference: perhaps it’s in a bit of popular culture I’m less familiar with: The Godfather trilogy, perhaps?
A delightful blog to match, for which thanks.
The killing of a made man and the consequences of doing so are of major importance in the plot of Goodfellas. The term probably crops up in the Sopranos too.
Oooh! The Sopranos!
I thought as much! Neither of those are in the popular bit of my culture!
27 minutes. Like others, I didn’t get the first part of ZOOPLANKTON until I’d figured out GODZILLA. Relied on the wordplay for the unknown TIPPET, PALANQUIN and LASSI and didn’t make the connection between ‘made men’ and GANGSTERS, though it couldn’t have been anything else. Straightforward enough otherwise, with some lovely clues. Thanks setter and blogger.
FOI Huh
LOI Lassi
CODs Spellbind / Finger painting
10:07
I should have dipped under 10′ but a hastily semi-biffed MINED for BORED (I thought there might be a figurative meaning that tied mind and committee together) slowed me down on URBAN GOLF and THROB.
I haven’t yet done any of the dailies since Wednesday so I didn’t immediately get KERCHIEFS ( I thought it might be something HEADS), had to trust the cryptic for NHO TIPPET and only knew that PALANQUIN was a word because it must have come up here before.
COD to the excellent SPELLBIND.
Pleased to finish as guessed lassi.
COD spellbind. Although prefer Abu Dhabi, less building work!
Totally gobsmacked that Urban Golf is a thing.
Would have spent much longer on kerchief if we hadn’t had it so recently.
Slightly surprised by the PLONKER, and THWACK.
NHO Lassi, but gettable.
Andyf
Good fun with only GODZILLA and ZOOPPLANKTON furrowing the forehead. I liked both THWACK and PLONKER, but JIGSAW was COD.
Thanks to Piquet and the setter
I visualized URBAN GOLF as something you’d play on a course in Dubai with a backdrop that looks like the Emerald City in the Wizard of Oz. DNK it was a street game. Like Z I was sure there was going to be a pangram. I’d heard that November 5th was being overshadowed by Halloween in the UK which would be a pity if so – I used to love the smell of cordite over London when I was a kid. Our fireworks are coming up on July 4th. 15.04
No one does penny for the guy any more. It’s all trick or treat now. The country’s gone to the dogs.
penny for the guy is somewhat deflationary – how many treats (i.e. usually sweets) can one get for a penny these days?
URBAN GOLF as I’ve played it isn’t a street game: it’s played on simulators. You hit the ball into a canvas screen with a virtual course projected onto it, and motion sensors somehow work out where your ball would have gone. I don’t know if this is what the setter intended.
18:32 – TIPPET was a guess, albeit a confident one after the checkers went in. ZOOPLANKTON slotted straight in after GODZILLA became obvious, but apart from those three not much to slow things down. A very good mix of obscure gettables, half obscure rememberables, and easy biffables.
09:05, nice puzzle you got here, be a shame if something happened to it. Definite flavour of the Italian-American underworld, which fed into the way my brain was working after solving today’s Wordle. Mangetout, Rodney, mangetout.
My attempt at a PB backfired because in my haste I didn’t parse PALANQUIN and typed PALENQUIN, which was how I thought it was spelt.
However a very enjoyable romp.
A 30 min PB!! Woohoo!! I’m off to play some rural golf now.
I’d heard of Michael Tippet, but was unaware he could be wrapped around one’s shoulders. The wordplay, however was clear. My LOI, LASSI, was another unknown where I could see the wordplay, but waited for all the checkers. Loved SPELLBIND, which was my POI. The SW held me up most. It was finally opened up by a guess at GOD for follow up, leading to ZILLA and ZOOPLANKTON. Didn’t know GANGSTERS as made men. 19:45. Thanks setter and Pip.
Will someone please explain NHO?
NEVER HEARD OF which applies to so many of my answers
Thanks. Unfortunately I am in the same boat. I am at an all time personal record. I have actually completed eight in a row. Even if one took me a couple of days.
See the Glossary (link to right of page) for clarification of other NHO terms (see what I did there?) you’ll encounter on here.
The Glossary is also in the Help menu now – very top right!
So it is, thanks!
I played golf for over 40 years, but never heard of URBAN GOLF. No doubt I would have been pretty average at that too!
Got there in the end thanks to working out the cryptic formation which in turn gave me 4ac my LOI. Timed at 42.47 so just within my target. Never heard of TIPPET or ZOOPLANKTON, but again worked out it couldn’t reasonably be anything else.
21:30
Fairly speedy well-below-the-snitch effort. Nothing too difficult to parse, a few semi-unknowns:
TIPPET – vaguely heard of but parsing kind
PALANQUIN – ditto
ZOOPLANKTON – I too wondered which three letters would prefix the last eight. Thanks to GODZILLA for making it easier
GANGSTERS = made men – not heard of that yet, but still only in season 1 of The Sopranos and haven’t seen Goodfellas
URBAN GOLF – not hard to believe that such a thing exists
KERCHIEFS – thank heavens it came up very recently
16.49
Excellent puzzle
Not sure why – probably as it has GODZILLA as one of the answers. SW was my final quadrant. I needed the A from ANTIDOTE to see the film after which the first three letters of the PLANKTON and the rest of the quarter yielded its secrets
Liked the “Made men” definition
Thanks Piquet and setter
Thought this was going to be as tough as yesterday’s. In the end finished in spot on 20 mins. Lots of good clues of which my favourites were godzilla, aflutter, lassi and my COD urban golf. LOI onset.
Thx setter and blogger.
First finish of the week with lassi LOI. Nice enjoyable solve, about 22 minutes
Thanks setter and blogger.
This felt difficult, but actually everything went in smoothly, starting with THWACK straight off (the HW being clear right away). It took me 36 minutes to finish, with URBAN GOLF as my penultimate answer and AFLUTTER my LOI. For URBAN GOLF I kept thinking it might be something like CABIN GOLF, with visions of executives in the City putting in their offices as one often sees in films. But an alphabet trawl helped there. COD to SPELLBIND, definitely.
Re URBAN GOLF you reminded me of the briefless elderly member of Rumpole’s chambers putting into the waste paper basket in the clerk’s room. (There are less polite ways of putting it).
LOI URBAN GOLF despite being a regular golfer . I managed to reject a number of words which just did not parse.
Prior to that GODZILLA.
DNK TIPPET.
David
Didn’t really get to this till this afternoon, but it was no chore. NHO TIPPET (so I looked it up too). COD SPELLBIND—nice trick!
19’31”. Cruising till I hit bottom left, where it seemed every answer had to be dug out. Once I had Godzilla, I knew I was ok but it still took some work. Not sure I share general elation about the clue for spellbind. It’s neat, but the “leaders of” trick was a bit hoary.
SPELLBIND
Well, if that were all there was to it…
17.17. Cushty. COD Spellbind. T’rific.
Held up by being convinced that the HW was the centre of some word like PATHWAY for approach. Which led me to a bad start, and a bit of a slow grind thereafter. Loved GUY FAWKES NIGHT ( glorious memories!) and SPELLBIND of course- but never did work out AFLUTTER. As a SOPRANOS and a GOODFELLAS fan, made men and gangsters were synonymous.