Time taken: 11:28. I don’t think this was that difficult, but I have been out of practice, spent a few days hiding from the cold at a friend’s place in Charleston where there was no internet, so haven’t done any of this week’s puzzles yet.
The grid is a pangram, though I spotted that too late for it to be of much help. I am also a little surprised to see indirect references to two living people in the grid.
How did you do?
| Across | |
| 1 | Stop Republican interrupting judge (5) |
| BREAK – R(republican) inside BEAK(judge) | |
| 4 | Heard not many resettled, renouncing right to be cleansed (9) |
| FUMIGATED – sounds like FEW(not many) then MIGRATED(resettled) minus R(right) | |
| 9 | Suddenly close being seen in public (9) |
| OVERNIGHT – NIGH(close) inside OVERT(public) | |
| 10 | Recalling battlefield doctor for mission? (5) |
| ALAMO – A LA(recalling), MO(medical officer, battlefield doctor) | |
| 11 | Round about twelve houses? (6) |
| ZODIAC – cryptic definition based on the representation usually being circular (as noted in comments, I missed that it is CA,1,DOZ all reversed) | |
| 12 | Secret sleepers kind at first in providing material (8) |
| MOLESKIN – MOLES(secret sleeper agents), the first letter of Kind, IN | |
| 14 | Old English county American feller soon takes in (5-5) |
| ANGLO-SAXON – GLOS(Gloucestershire, county), and AX(american feller) inside ANON(soon) | |
| 16 | Duke, as before, comes to court (4) |
| QUAD – D(duke) with QUA(as) first. Might have gotten this earlier if I saw the pangram possibility | |
| 19 | Vessel, cutter perhaps, leaving Dartmouth at last (4) |
| EWER – HEWER(cutter, perhaps) minus the last letter in dartmoutH | |
| 20 | An oversight, perhaps, Altman’s first western not getting Oscar (10) |
| ACCIDENTAL – first letter in Altman, then OCCIDENTAL(western) minus O(oscar). Fun clue – Robert Altman got an honorary Oscar, but never won one for directing | |
| 22 | Lover one’s ditched for a time finds comfortable pad (8) |
| MATTRESS – MISTRESS(lover) with I’S(ones) replaced by A,T(time) | |
| 23 | Person from mountainous territory: Alpine ground (6) |
| NEPALI – anagram of ALPINE | |
| 26 | Varnish Jack’s applied to a pot (5) |
| JAPAN – J(jack) and A, PAN(pot) | |
| 27 | Scotsman’s ecstasy coming into Hebridean isle’s elongated bay (6,3) |
| IONIAN SEA – IAN’S(Scotsman’s), E(ecstasy) inside IONA(Hebridean isle’s). My last one in | |
| 28 | Servants eschewing foxtrot fraternise improperly (9) |
| RETAINERS – remove F(foxtrot) from FRATERNISE, then jumble | |
| 29 | Partner no longer works, having returned bonus (5) |
| EXTRA – EX(partner no longer), then ART(works) reversed | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Crow about French XI, second in league for period (6,3) |
| BRONZE AGE – BRAG(crow) surrounding ONZE(11 in French), then the second letter in lEague | |
| 2 | News boss engaging people to perform his work? (5) |
| EMEND – ED(news boss) containing MEN(people) | |
| 3 | Brown keeps on about cloth used up for jumper (8) |
| KANGAROO -OAK(brown) containing ON, containing RAG(cloth), all reversed | |
| 4 | Stick-in-the-mud vaguely remembered losing a grand (4) |
| FOGY – FOGGY(vaguely remembered) minus a G(grand) | |
| 5 | Permit Oslo or Rome to slip badly as main city (10) |
| METROPOLIS – two wordplays – anagram of PERMIT,OSLO and anagram of ROME,TO,SLIP | |
| 6 | Tail of calling bird, firmly fixed in the mind? (6) |
| GRAVEN – last letter of callinG, then RAVEN(bird) | |
| 7 | Follow match in clothing worn for exercise (9) |
| TRACKSUIT – TRACK(follow), SUIT(match) | |
| 8 | Flood runs through at lower level (5) |
| DROWN – R(runs) inside DOWN(at lower level) | |
| 13 | Course includes bread and Irish cheese (10) |
| LANCASHIRE – LANE(course) containing CASH(money, bread) and IR(Irish) | |
| 15 | Declines travel east, then block books (4,2,3) |
| GOES TO POT – GO(travel), E(east) then STOP(block), OT(books) | |
| 17 | A country boy standing to embrace a spiritual leader (5,4) |
| DALAI LAMA – A, MALI(country), LAD(boy) all reversed containing A. I guess it is an office rather than a person. | |
| 18 | Close to mall, Dame Edna makes purchase (8) |
| LEVERAGE – last letter of malL, and Dame Edna EVERAGE(character created by still-alive Barry Humphries) | |
| 21 | Sultanate, British, and a French island (6) |
| BRUNEI – BR(British), UNE(a, in French), I(island) | |
| 22 | Weighty pack for climbing soldiers (5) |
| MAJOR – JAM(pack) reversed, then OR(soldiers) | |
| 24 | Ship loads drink that’s raised in strength (5) |
| ASSET – SS(ship) inside TEA(drink) | |
| 25 | With eschewing personal benefit, no energy for task (4) |
| ONUS – remove W(with) from OWN(personal), then USE(benefit) minus E(energy) | |
56:09 with one error, that as=QUA did for me. Saw the construction but could not see a three letter word that worked. Thought of SUED and FUND, went with the latter, for pinks. Knowing it was a pangram would have saved me.
ONUS was a complex parse, would never have seen that, so thanks, glh.
Not seen a double anagram (5d) before, very clever, especially with the balance of Rome and Oslo in the surface reading.
COD ZODIAC, which I fluked from DOZ = “about twelve”. Also thought “recalling battlefield” might be OMAHA reversed somehow, for AHAMO.
25:10
I biffed 20ac ACCIDENTAL, 3D KANGAROO, & 15d GOES TO POT, parsing post-submission (wondered about OAK=brown); and I demi-biffed 14ac ANGLO-SAXON (got GLOS after) and 13d LANCASHIRE (got LANE after). I never figured out POI ONUS. 16ac QUAD was a long time coming (LOI). Never thought of a pangram–never do–and didn’t think of the if-U-try-Q advice. Liked 5d METROPOLIS; I don’t think I’ve ever seen a double anagram clue before. COD maybe to 22ac MATTRESS.
I’ve seen double-anagram clues before. Probably here too.
Interesting mix of UK, US, and French GK: I’m betting all of us who can name three or four Alamo defenders without blinking (John Wayne doesn’t count) and think of it as a Mission rather than a battle right off have a tough time with Dame Edna’s surname, and vice versa. Onze and Qua aren’t in the same league, except to people like me who don’t have even rudimentary French.
I didn’t quickly see that some of the extra words (‘secret’ sleepers / firmly fixed ‘in the mind’) were part of making the definition specific, and not part of the wordplay.
Thanks, glh
Davy Crockett, James Bowie, and?
Travis would be the most famous of the others. Dickens was named in the song; Harrison led a large group.
The memorial stones in the Mission reveal that there were many British Nationals among the defenders.
At a (very) wild guess, I’ll go for Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, Billy the Kid, Jesse James and Wild Bill Hickok. From Kevin’s reply I see two of these are correct. Wonders will never cease.
I found it a bit tough.
Perhaps 11ac is: CA=round about + 1 DOZ(en)=12, all “round=backwards”?
that’s attractive, and clever, too
Yes, that’s how I parsed it as I was solving, a clever &lit.
That’s how I saw it.
I thought this was just slightly harder than average, with a few twists at the end. I biffed Anglo-Saxon and leverage, although I knew of Dame Edna I did not know her surname. I wanted to put Indian Sea, but I knew that wasn’t right, but eventually Iona came along. I was left with quad, which I eventually saw, and onus, of which I could make nothing.
Time: 34 minutes.
Everage is a somewhat strangled homophone of average, the character has evolved from a personification of the suburban housewife. Or should that be devolved?
28:52, making this the hardest puzzle I’ve completed in some time! I think it would have been far harder if some of the really tricky ones hadn’t been so biffable. ANGLO-SAXON, KANGAROO, and several others went straight in. Others I only half-parsed or parsed incorrectly, but still they had to be right. Very satisfying to go through the clues upon finishing and sort everything out. QUAD was my last in.
Way off the wavelength, but got there in the end. LOI QUAD with an alphabet trawl, even ignoring U then try Q rule, and even having noticed ZXVWJ early and saying to myself “Q is coming, it’ll be a pangram”.
No unknowns except perhaps that Iona was Hebridean. Alamo is clued as mission often enough to have stuck – but Davy Crockett is the only combatant I could have named. Been to San Antonio for work. Baking hot. Didn’t see the Alamo, did visit a nice subterranean river walk full of bars and restaurants.
Missed the parsing of the ROO, wondered how KAO was brown. Saw everything else including Ca 1 doz houses, which gets my COD. Nevertheless a slow solve, feeling a bit foggy.
No, none of them seemed hard, after I got them(!), but I’m in a low-energy phase tonight. My LOI was ONUS, which I entered with a shrug, as I couldn’t parse! And just realized that I neglected to parse KANGAROO or ANGLO-SAXON. Assumed ZODIAC was a CD (and the houses do go round every year), but see now that Bruce has solved it.
I particularly liked ACCIDENTAL (great surface) and the two-anagram METROPOLIS.
180 were challenged by Travis to die
By a line that he drew with his sword as the battle drew nigh
A man that crossed over the line was for glory
He that was left better fly
And over the line crossed 179
Who was the only non-combatant?
Was Flashman there? He would have slunk off.
Oh no, he would have been the first over the line, and then insisted on riding to get help …
45 minutes for all but GRAVEN which I gave up on and resorted to aids. I can’t say I enjoyed this much as there were too many answers arrived at that I wasn’t sure were correct and some where the wordplay proved elusive, e.g. ONUS and ZODIAC. I had blank squares in every quarter of the grid even at quite a late stage so I was forever having to go back to those clues.
47m 24s
Like yesterday, I enjoyed this puzzle. Thank you, George for sorting out my queries: KANGAROO, ZODIAC, ALAMO and ONUS.
I thought the GLOS in ANGLO-SAXON might stump some of our non-British solvers. I thoroughly enjoyed my year living in the part of the Cotswolds that’s in GLOS.
Like others I’m surprised at the double anagram in 5d. It was like cracking an egg and finding you have a double-yoker!
LOI: ZODIAC
COD: QUAD
Back in 1986 I saw Dame Edna on stage at the St Kilda Theatre in Melbourne. She/he was marvellous!
My one query is with 24d: The way I read it, the drink should have been inside the ship and not the other way round but I guess it can be read both ways.
And boy could (s)he launch a gladiolus! I saw her at The Regal (?) in Perth; she was throwing gladioli to people on the balcony towards the back of the theater.
Ah, yes, the gladioli! They were there in abundance. The friends I went with were VERY keen not to be late as they warned me (s)he picks on latecomers. Sure enough, one couple were late and were picked on for the entire first act. (It may have been a set-up, of course). The second act went off without incident but right at the end of the third act when (s)he was in full Dame Edna mode, just when the couple thought (s)he had forgotten them, (s)he went back to them! Marvellous!
Envy.
Barry Humphries is a wonderful, unique person. And a great ambassador for Australia, whatever some of his fellow countrymen might think..
He’s terrified of dying – he thinks all his old enemies and critics will rip him to shreds when he goes.
I love him, but he’s certainly cringeworthy. I’m also biased as my dad was proud of going to school alongside him.
If you see him again, reassure him that when he goes, that will be the very least of his worries. He should hope St Peter has a GSH..
Oh, he is indeed. And a great friend of the arts. Around twenty years ago, or so, he was responsible for bringing the Australian artist Clarice Beckett into the limelight after years of neglect.
Besides “Dame Edna” has a great pair of legs!
I saw her at Drury Lane 40 years ago this year. We were up in the gods where of course we were labelled and referred to throughout as ‘my paupers’ . It was too high up for the gladdies to reach us but she did her best hurling them from 20ft above the stage standing on a raised platform lift.
‘My paupers’! Love it!
I never had the good fortune to come across Dame Edna but used to enjoy Barry Mackenzie in Private Eye. Many of his cleverer phrases were often repeated by myself and friends. I think there was a movie or two also.
38 minutes with LOI a biffed ONUS. I’ve always spelt it as FOGEY so FOGY was POI. I didn’t parse ZODIAC either. COD to FUMIGATED. Tricky in places. Thank you George and setter.
Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
30 mins pre-brekker with LOI Onus after struggling to understand it. Part of the problem was the use of Eschewing, which in 28a has Fraternise eschewing its F, but in 25d has W eschewing Own. Make your mind up.
Ta setter and G.
I think one can overeschew
😁
First time I tried the online version . Found it hard not making hand written notes on the paper itself. Still. Save the planet and all that . Time taken 40.28
Sod the planet, I hate doing them online. With the printed version you can see the whole grid and put in answers wherever seems right. Somehow I can’t do that on screen, and as for anagrams …
70:21, a ridiculous amount of time to spend on a crossword but nonetheless I’m happy I persevered as I managed to untangle some mis-parsed clues. LANCASHIRE, IONIAN SEA, QUAD and ONUS took a lot of working through and hopefully have left an imprint!
Nice to see NEPALI clued without reference to China after a couple of recent appearances. Good point from Myrtilus on “eschew” – Chambers has it as either “shun” or “flee from” so both interpretations are justified but that definitely had me going for a while.
Thanks S&glh.
Lots of biffing and errors to boot. Not my finest hour (or even more). Hope for better tomorrow.
13:36. Like others, my LOI was an unparsed ONUS. I also failed to parse KANGAROO (OAK = brown? really?). A bit of a MER at ACCIDENTAL being clued as a noun (oversight), but otherwise a nice puzzle. I always enjoy finding a pangram. Thanks George and setter.
I also wondered about ‘oak/brown’ but I think it has come up before. SOED has OAK as a shade of brown like that of a young oak leaf. L19.
I’m a bit of a sucker, I am
For a neatly constructed pangram
COD heaven
Could be 5 or 11
My vote goes to the bi-anagram
I found this quite a struggle, finishing in just under the hour with last two, QUAD and IONIAN SEA taking a while to see. I enjoyed it though.
Like others, a number not properly parsed, so thanks blogger for all the explanations. Did not see the pangram either.
I liked MATTRESS, ACCIDENTAL, METROPOLIS and DALAÏ LAMA most.
Thanks G and setter
45 minutes. Pangram to the rescue for QUAD which I would have had difficulty getting otherwise. I didn’t know the E-less spelling of FOGY and didn’t recognise LANCASHIRE as a type of cheese. Most eventually parsed, including ONUS which was tough to work out, though I couldn’t see how ZODIAC worked. Loved the double anagram fodder METROPOLIS.
You aren’t missing much. Salty and dull. Stick to Wensleydale, my advice …
Not hard, 21 minutes, but thanks George for parsing ONUS. Enjoyed the double anagram. As others, expected an E in spelling FOGEY but bunged it in anyway. BRONZE FOI, FOGY LOI, CoD ZODIAC for its concise clueing.
There’s a great song about the Alamo – Stout And High by The Wagoneers.
And Donovan’s ‘Remember The Alamo’.
Unlike many here I found this the easiest of the week . Most done in 20 minutes, but it took a couple more to see QUAD and ONUS, and work out the wordplay to the latter. I didn’t particularly like ‘recalling’ for A LA (never seen it defined this way). Otherewise I thought the clues rather good. Quite a few answers could be biffed. Yesterday’s took me well over twice the time.
I should have thought it was fogey, but Chambers gives fogy as the main spelling. Collins doesn’t seem to me to make it clear. The Oxfords evidently favour fogy. Missed the nice wordplay for ZODIAC. Now that it’s been pointed out, I think (but could possibly be persuaded otherwise) that although the ACCIDENTAL clue is nice, it’s wrong and the first bit should have been somehow amended.
Some very clever clues here. Didn’t see the double anagram so couldn’t parse METROPOLIS, and likewise guessed ONUS (LOI) knowing the word play was quite convoluted. Saw the probability of a pangram so that helped with BREAK. Very good crossword. Thanks setter and blogger.
20:21. ONUS kept my time out of the late teens, but even though I couldn’t see any other possibility, I doggedly persisted in parsing it before stopping the clock. A rewarding solve in all.
Stupidly beaten by QUAD and more stupidly didn’t spot the chance of the pangram which I’m confident would have given it to me.
Very clever double anagram for METROPOLIS and great clueing for KANGAROO (neither of which yielded easily, mind)
Thanks glh and setter.
Found this easy for a Thursday. Biffed ONUS but parsed all the others. Fell foul of BRUNEI where I bunged in BRUNAI carelessly. So annoying as I know I did this in the past – it’s one of those words I always spell wrong. I’ll get it right next time. Missed out on a record time.
I was pleased to finish this in a time of 35.52, it seemed tougher than my time suggests (for me at least). As usual missed the Nina, although I didn’t require the assistance of knowing a complete alphabet had been used. The only two I failed to parse were KANGAROO and ONUS, so I’m grateful for the explanation.
I enjoyed reading the comments above reminiscing about Dame Edna, but my preference was for Barrie Humphrey’s other creation Sir Les Patterson, the Australian Cultural Attaché. One of his more memorable lines as Sir Les was ‘when you start chewing I’ll stop pushing!’ I won’t go into further explanation of the context for fear of offending the faint hearted, but very funny!
Oh dear. 28 mins but I missed the pangram and thereby the u=q rule and my LOI ASSET was one of the easiest of them all. At least it was all correct.
Just under an hour, DNF, I got stuck in the SE corner, and used an aid to list some Hebridean islands. That got me to the end, except for QUAD which I gave up on altogether. I particularly liked 4ac & 22ac, together with the fine double anagram. Thanks b & s
Liked this one, witty. Totally failed to spot the pangram as per usual.
Silly error with SUED instead of QUAD. Otherwise all correct. Thank you for explaining ONUS, ALAMO and the parsing of ANGLO SAXON, all of which I puzzled over. I was pleased to see how ZODIAC worked.
Interesting puzzle. The 110-115 snitch level seems to be more gettable these days for me.
Regards
Andrew
LANCASHIRE was a guess on the grounds that if it’s a county it’s probably also a cheese or a pig. I enjoyed mistress/MATTRESS and the double-anagram, not sure I’ve ever really seen OAK used as a synonym for brown though. QUAD was my last one in. Thanks for the blog.
A good puzzle, but it took me 68 minutes. Very hard work, I thought, so I was surprised at the Snitch. Well done, all you lot. LOI ONUS with no idea why, just clutching at the straw that “personal benefit” might be a bONUS
I thought so too!
BRONZE AGE got me off to a start, with an unparsed ONUS LOI. KANGAROO and ZODIAC were also unparsed. I spotted enough anagrist to solve METROPOLIS, but didn’t twig the double. Missed the pangram as usual. Liked MATTRESS and ANGLO SAXON. 25:14. Thanks setter and George.
Another troublesome puzzle, not helped by having the tv on in the background. 48.30 in the end but at least it was all done correctly.
A leisurely 45 minutes while listening to Solomon.
FOI: Nepali – this seems to be gaining in popularity as a crossword answer at present, as elemi and neophyte some years ago;
LOI: asset – had a blank spot on this till all the crossers were in;
COD: zodiac.
Nice to finish one this week. Like others I always thought FOGY had an E. Not sure how I got ONUS but it made sense at the time. LOI QUAD, which I still don’t understand (why is QUA = as?)
latin