| Across |
| 1 |
New team doctor, a philosophical type (13) |
|
METAPHYSICIAN – anagram* of TEAM PHYSICIAN |
| 8 |
Eyesore some tomfool Yankee erected first of all (4) |
|
STYE – initial letters of words 2 to 5 |
| 9 |
Charmingly interacting with lady dropping leaflet, for example (10) |
|
ENGAGINGLY – ENGAGING (interacting) L[ad]Y (a leaflet can de an ad) |
| 10 |
Burning torch an essayist coated in iron and gold (8) |
|
FLAMBEAU – [Charles] LAMB (pen name Elia) in FE AU |
| 11 |
Buzz brought about by short time in farm (6) |
|
THRILL – HR in TILL |
| 13 |
Lower level press employee returning pastries with hesitation (10) |
|
SUBSTRATUM – SUB TARTS reversed UM |
| 16 |
Intelligence organisation originally in North America (4) |
|
NOUS – O[rganisation in N US |
| 17 |
Opposed to article leading to mother’s ruin (4) |
|
AGIN – A GIN (mother’s ruin is a nickname for gin – see Hogarth’s engravings) |
| 18 |
Vague implication reportedly losing force (10) |
|
DIMINUENDO – DIM (vague) INUENDO (sounds like innuendo) |
| 20 |
Boarding vessel, choose the best oars (6) |
|
SCULLS – CULL in SS |
| 22 |
Dull headgear ultimately — old, it may be felt (8) |
|
SOMBRERO – SOMBRE [headgea]R O |
| 24 |
Member of order such a train transported (10) |
|
CARTHUSIAN – SUCH A TRAIN; a Catholic religious order founded in the 11th century and named after the Chartreuse Mountains near Grenoble; Marie Henri Beyle (or Stendhal, as he called himself, along with a thousand other aliases) was born in Grenoble and wrote a novel called La Chartreuse de Parme, in which he situated Parma on the wrong side of the Po. I have read much of this witty man’s voluminous writings and can recommend everything apart from this book (apart from the description of the Battle of Waterloo at the beginning) and his treatise on On Love. But be careful – he is addictive. |
| 26 |
Animal shelter situated at end of forest (4) |
|
SETT – SET [fores]T |
| 27 |
Ongoing struggle, administering East Sussex town! (7,6) |
|
RUNNING BATTLE – a pretty unchallenging double definition |
11:12 – I think I might have broken 10mins for this if I hadn’t had to do it on an iphone, painstakingly mistyping and retyping almost every answer. Nice to see Monday back to normal.
07:25, occasionally distracted by Joe Root, who really is in the mood this morning, and probably would have knocked this off in three or four minutes with his wrong writing hand. Pleasantly Mondayish, anyway.
I’m with our blogger on this one. A fairly easy Monday offering, all done in 16 minutes (possibly a PB never to be repeated). A mer at the use of INIGO as an architect. Would we accept a first name such as CHRISTOPHER or NORMAN as an architect without more?
FOI – STYE
LOI – SETT
COD – METALLURGIC
Thanks to ulaca and other contributors.
No, but who else famous is called Inigo? You wouldn’t clue him as Jones, after all, would you?
The only other Inigo I know is the wonderfully named Inigo Jollifant, a prominent character in the much-filmed JB Priestley novel The Good Companions. He was played by John Gielgud in the original 1933 film.
Inigo Pipkin – the proprietor and puppet-maker from a 1970s children’s UK TV programme, known as ‘Inigo Pipkin’ and later ‘Pipkins’ following the death of the actor who played him. His creations included Octavia (an ostrich), Topov (a monkey), Pig (a….. um, pig), Tortoise (guess) and Hartley Hare (a sneaky hare)
You mean, as opposed to all the other Inigos?
It’s not a big issue, but I just feel if you wanted to identify him as the architect of a building you would say it was designed by Inigo Jones, not just Inigo. It is not like Italian artists who are readily identified by their first names, like Dante or Raphael.
Relieved to find a true Mondayish puzzle on the correct day! No problems except LOI, DIMINUENDO, which seems to have given some trouble to many of us. I kicked myself when I got it, as I always seem to have trouble with the ones I should get straight away – (musical terms, cricket and writers, fwiw). Anyway, that pushed my time up quite a bit, but would be my COD.
Not that easy but still completed over a lunchtime with LOI CARTHUSIAN returning to the anagram fodder after an initially fruitless stab. SCULLS and SINGLETON were late in.
Was puzzled by SOMBRERO.
David
Disappointingly easy, I thought, too many clues where the definition leapt out at first glance. Only tiny holdup was having originally put metaphysicist at 1ac which meant I had to stop and think when I got to 7d.
All complete with PREFERRED my LOI, like others pausing due to the unexpected bit. Still there was some serious words there to dissect using the well written clues so thanks to the setter and to the blogger.
28’48”
Woefully one-paced closing stages.
There were sufficient chestnuts here to remind me of a fortnight of meandering la vallée du Célé, very close to the neck-of-the-woods of that puzzle-cracker par excellence, Champollion.
Despite my DIM. stumbling in the latter stages I enjoyed this lots; thank-you setter and Ulaca.
Bravo George and Mudge, and any other record-breakers I’ve missed.
A nice combination of complicated words and straight-forward enough cryptics. The only bit I didn’t like was the product placement.
Thanks, ulaca. Getting from Carthusian to a review of Stendahl’s works is an impressive series of Only Connect intellectual leaps.
Don’t know the time as I fell asleep solving this. Nothing too tricky.
The setter probably didn’t want to read that …
I found this plenty easy, polishing it off before going to bed earlier than usual after karaoke. LOI SOMBRERO, for which the definition was somewhat hard to see.
Gave it a go due to the blog heading and it snitching at 64. Did worse on it than the two from last week that snitched at 76 and 78. Had 9 left on this one plus one wrong SUBSTRATer, 4-5 left on those. So it goes. NHO MONOMANIA, AGIN, DIMINUENDO and probably not CARTHUSIAN. Should have got RUNNING-BATTLE, SUBSTRATUM and maybe SINGLETON.
7’45” which must be a PB, or nearly. So yes, easy. Biffed like crazy when I saw I might be in for a record. Re. Stendhal, I’ve tried him in French and found both the Charterhouse of Parma and the Red and the Black just too painful. Endless scenes with nothing happening, and character motivation impossible to understand. Like Ulaca, I exclude the battle scene at the beginning of the Charterhouse, which gives a totally false impression that the rest is going to be readable.
A doddle. Thanks for the blog!
30 minutes exactly and it was indeed very easy. DIMINUENDO was my LOI, METAPHYSICIAN my FOI, not much more to say. We have an English neighbour and good friend who is in Debrett’s Peerage and we have been to Battle to see where her ancestors immigrated illegally (but they got away with it).
Not so easy for me, Ulaca! If only I’d seen the split between the “new team” and the “doctor”, all would have flowed much more easily…(doctor being one of those words where you never know whether it’s a solving prompt or a person). STYE (regular nasties in my childhood), FLAMBEAU and most of the other short answers went in quite quickly, but for some reason couldn’t get THRILL, despite having T- – ILL early on! Liked RUNNING BATTLE and SAUDI (sorry Paul). Not my finest hour (literally).