29:32
Nothing too scary in here, with the long across answers holding out satisfyingly until the end. The stone monument was a half-guess for me; the tea and glasses I know only from this blog.
Definitions underlined.
| Across | |
| 1 | Speaking out, you spill the beans on drugs (5) |
| USING – sounds like “you” + SING (spill the beans). | |
| 4 | One keeps stocking up pubs, periodically interrupting consumer (9) |
| SUSPENDER – every other letter from pUbS inside SPENDER (consumer). | |
| 9 | Fixed this person’s shoe worn by Bill in America (9) |
| IMMUTABLE – I’M (this person’s), then MULE (shoe) worn by TAB (bill in America). | |
| 10 | Like Sprite? A German drinks litres loudly (5) |
| ELFIN – EIN (‘a’ in German) containing L (litres) and F (loudly). | |
| 11 | Think e.g. ham sandwiches fine? This makes me despair (4-3,6) |
| FEEL-BAD FACTOR – FEEL (think) + BAD ACTOR (e.g. ham) containing F (fine). | |
| 14 | Ways for Edith Piaf to show regrets (4) |
| RUES – ‘roads’ (ways) in French (for Edith Piaf). | |
| 15 | Love to slip in appreciative remark for soldiers (5,5) |
| OTHER RANKS – O (love), then ERR (to slip) inside THANKS (appreciative remark). | |
| 18 | Fail to see sign introduced by European delegates (10) |
| EMISSARIES – MISS (fail to see) + ARIES (sign), with E (European) at the start. | |
| 19 | Queen once performed last in Glasto (4) |
| DIDO – DID (performed) + last of glastO. | |
| 21 | After some green tea, pressure group attempted coup (9,4) |
| GUNPOWDER PLOT – GUNPOWDER (green tea) + P (pressure) + LOT (group). | |
| 24 | Old lady carries you across the Channel in fact (5) |
| DATUM – DAM (mother, old lady) containing TU (‘you’ in French). | |
| 25 | Hedonist not half like Mr Wooster around noon (9) |
| LIBERTINE – half of LIke + BERTIE (Mr.Wooster) containing N (noon). | |
| 27 | Glasses upset — ten Grolsch bottles overturned (9) |
| LORGNETTE – reverse hidden in upsET TEN GROLsch. | |
| 28 | Seek someone the church approves of for a date (5) |
| TRYST – TRY (seek) + ST (someone the church approves of). | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Ignorant, as police may be about how investigation ends (10) |
| UNINFORMED – UNIFORMED (as police may be) containing last of investigatioN. | |
| 2 | Upright character recalled writing practice (3) |
| ISM – I (upright letter, character) + MS (manuscript, writing) reversed. | |
| 3 | “Great” millionaire happy to save high-street bank (6) |
| GATSBY – GAY (happy) containing TSB (high street bank). | |
| 4 | Bottom pinched by admirer, one checking for dodgy characters? (9) |
| SUBEDITOR – BED (bottom) contained by SUITOR (admirer). | |
| 5 | Why don’t we put up a stone monument? (5) |
| STELA – LETS (why don’t we) reversed + A. Slab-like ancient monument. | |
| 6 | Participants in equestrian competitions never set off (8) |
| EVENTERS – anagram of NEVER SET. | |
| 7 | Criminal relented, if receiving answer showing respect (11) |
| DEFERENTIAL – anagram of RELENTED IF containing A. | |
| 8 | Possibly magical symbol that has left Potter unexcited? (4) |
| RUNE – hidden in potteR UNExcited. | |
| 12 | Making smooth arts broadcast, Sky’s brilliant feature (7,4) |
| EVENING STAR – EVENING (making smooth) + an anagram of ARTS. | |
| 13 | Agree to keep frames of Monet and Rothko around in collection (10) |
| ASSORTMENT – ASSENT (agree), keeping the outermost letters of MoneT and RothkO reversed. | |
| 16 | English chaps are dilettantes, only half-heartedly open to improvement (9) |
| EMENDABLE – E (English) + MEN (chaps) + DABbLE (are dilettantes, with only half of its middle letters). | |
| 17 | On same ground, a header from Newcastle United (2,3,3) |
| AS ONE MAN – anagram of ON SAME + A + first of Newcastle. | |
| 20 | Boring rhubarb — this can make fruit crumble (3,3) |
| DRY ROT – DRY (boring) + ROT (rhubarb). | |
| 22 | Young flier heading skyward without impediment (5) |
| OWLET – W/O (without) reversed + LET (impediment). | |
| 23 | Learner sinking in swimming pool one’s adored (4) |
| IDOL – LIDO (swimming pool), with L (learner) lower down in the word. | |
| 26 | Yours truly drained cloudy bitter (3) |
| ICY – I (yours truly) + outermost letters from CloudY. | |
OK, that really was the hardest this week, a respectable Friday, right?
FOI 1A!
SUBEDITOR was my POI, despite my being one, with SUSPENDERS being last.
I liked this! It was clever enough to keep me guessing for a while, despite there being nothing very unusual in the vocabulary—though I did wonder if FEEL-BAD FACTOR has dictionary status… FEEL-BAD tout court is in Collins and Dictionary.com as an adjective.
The blog has informed me that I basically biffed GATSBY (didn’t know the bank, but didn’t even think about it).
An easy Friday. I was expecting it to be tougher after Thursday’s stinker.
17 minutes, with the last few puzzling over LOI 8d: R-N-. Beatrice or Harry Potter? Snooker player?An alpha trawl yielded RING and RUNE as possibilities for magical symbols, but I couldn’t see the parsing until the doh moment I realised it was a hidden!
I also found this less difficult than I had been expecting, 24.36 for me. Some really nice clues here, and thanks to William for explaining how several – ISM, OTHER RANKS (never saw the err) and loi GATSBY worked. NHO TSB and thought there was something dodgy going on involving st for high street and B for bank and was all set to be annoyed. Ha!
A rare complete of the biggie for me and in a one-go 33 mins too, about which I am very happy, especially having struggled to get anywhere near finishing yesterday’s grid, the blog for which made me feel overawed with admiration for those who seemed to breeze through it.
Biffed ISM and LORGNETTE and guessed/half remembered STELA, then really enjoyed the PDM for my LOI FEEL-BAD FACTOR.
Thanks setter and WJS
Posts like this are a great encouragement to regular head-scratching DNFers like me! You are not alone and neither am I. Around 35m for me but very pleased to have completed unaided.
I did not find this so easy, although it should have been. At least eventers was a write-in, but I struggled with Gunpowder Plot, an obvious biff, couldn’t see deferential for the longest time, and nearly put in pilot instead of owlet. Uninformed is one of my favorite typos, since it lends itself to sly digs at officialdom. Stela is more usually spelt stele, which I biffed and then corrected.
Time: 41 minutes
Very biffable; hadn’t heard of a “feel-bad factor”, but suppose there must be one.
I can think of several.
I thought I was heading for a rare sub-15 minute finish but hit a brick wall in the NW quarter with 5 answers missing. USING at 1ac was the one that eventually got things moving again and I crawled home to complete the grid in 24 minutes.
The other missing answers had been UNINFORMED, FEEL-BAD FACTOR , GATSBY and my LOI, IMMUTABLE. The factor is in Chambers but this is the first I heard of it although ‘feel-good factor’ has been commonplace for some time now. According to my AI assistant who sadly cannot always be relied upon, ‘feel-good factor’ first appeared in an article in The Guardian in 1976 but was given a new lease of life in the 1980s in the speeches of Tony Blair and his gang.
NHO DRY ROT as a disease for fruit, only of timber but now understand that the causal funguses are similar but not the same.
LORGNETTE was a great reverse hidden that I didn’t spot until afterwards as the answer was easily biffable from ‘glasses’ with help from enumeration and a couple of checkers.
15’10”, no issues. FEEL-BAD FACTOR is horrific (if it exists).
Thanks william and setter.
15:23, which must be a Friday pb for me, although achieved by a good deal of biffery. NHO FEEL-BAD FACTOR, which is one I biffed and parsed post-submission, but if GOOD, why not BAD? (But why GOOD?) MER at ISM=practice. Like Guy, DNK TSB, and like him didn’t care. Like Vinyl, I’ve always written/read it STELE, but we’ve had STELA here a couple of times. LORGNETTE is another I biffed, typically of me missing the hidden but thinking I saw the anagrist for an anagram; saw the hidden post-sub. Enjoyed this a lot–some great surfaces–but would have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t been rushing to catch a train.
What happened to Magoo?
When Mark posts a time like this it’s invariably because he solved the puzzle live on the ‘Cracking the Cryptic’ channel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLSD_svoQL8
He might be forgiven for submitting off-leaderboard!
23 minutes. I agree with RobR above about FEEL-BAD FACTOR, even if it is in the dictionaries. Several biffed including LORGNETTE for which I missed the reverse hidden. I didn’t know GUNPOWDER for ‘green tea’ and for GATSBY had forgotten TSB, like LindsayO thinking that B for ‘bank’ was odd.
It was good to see OTHER RANKS being given due recognition at last as an answer in its own right, rather than just as the usual OR making up the letters of another answer. Nice and simple, but I liked Edith Piaf’s appearance in the wordplay for RUES.
I didn’t like Edith Piaf’s mention as it tricked me into entering RIEN and spoiled what would have been a good time of 20min for me. 🙁
I was fine until my LOI, where it was a toss-up between RING and RUNE. I didn’t see the hidden (happens all the time, I missed CARDIFF ARMS PARK once) and plumped for RING since neither choice worked as something to do with Harry Potter (since I’ve not read the books nor seen the movies so I didn’t expect to have any idea). So DNF,
Quick today, with no hold-ups to speak of.
I liked 4dn, especially as subeditors appear to be in short supply these days.
Of subeditors, I’m afraid there’s quite an ample supply, just a lack of demand.
You only have to read the British papers to realise that!
Including The Times..
She took me to her Elfin grot,
And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.
(La Belle Dame sans Merci, Keats)
25 mins pre-brekker. Just my cup of tea. Nice wordplay and it is clear that effort has gone in to produce some lovely surfaces. Good stuff.
Ta setter and WJS
47 mins but with ring for 8d.
Don’t really get dry rot/crumble unless fruit just means wood?
COD Elfin
Please see my comment above re DRY ROT.
Ah ok thanks Jack.
12:53. This felt like something of a respite after yesterday’s struggle. The only slight hold up I had was initially putting in ICING at 1A. The parsing of “I SING” worked and with ice being slang for a particular type of drug I thought that maybe if you took that drug you were “icing”. It seems far more dubious with hindsight!
41 mins with LOsI DRY ROT/TRYST.
Good fun and a fair challenge with some excellent surfaces as has been mentioned. DNK the stone (biffed) or FEEL-BAD FACTOR, but, hey, it had to be. GUNPOWDER for green tea was another first.
I liked ASSORTMENT & LORGNETTE (my French grandmother used to use one!).
Thanks William and setter.
28 minutes with LOI STELA. COD to GATSBY. Banking at the TSB could perhaps have given the show away that he wasn’t all he seemed. Like others, I’ve never heard of a FEEL-BAD FACTOR. Not solving the crossword before coming here is one though.Today, I feel fine. Thank you William and setter.
15:19. Another who had heard of only FEEL-GOOD FACTOR and was surprised to find the opposite was also a term. My LOI the spotting of BAD ACTOR for ham was a pleasant PDM to finish with… we see it often enough the other way round. DNK DRY ROT could apply to fruit…. my bit of education from the crossword for today. Thanks William and setter.
31:37, which is slightly faster than average for me, and most enjoyable it was. Chapeau to the artful setter: I love seeing witty, elegant surfaces like these (especially COD 17d, with 5d and many others close behind). NHO a feel-bad factor and don’t really want to again. I thought only one hidden was allowed per grid in the cryptic?
One hidden and one reversed hidden seems okay to me!🙂
20 minutes. Didn’t know (or had forgotten) mule as a shoe for IMMUTABLE and tried to justify ‘immovable’ until GATSBY set me straight; spotted the hidden LORGNETTE quickly without knowing the word; biffed RUNE as I completely missed the hidden; and hadn’t come across FEEL-BAD FACTOR before, but it was nicely clued and it makes sense as a term.
Thanks setter and blogger.
FOI As one man
LOI Ism
COD Other ranks
Delighted to finish this with no holdups after a tricky week.
8:58
My first two in were USING and SUSPENDER which set things up nicely for a fast solve. I biffed a few, including GUNPOWDER PLOT and OWLET, with my only real hesitation being over FEEL-BAD FACTOR where I struggled to see how FEEL BAD equated to THINK. Duh.
I liked the way unlikely looking wordplay elements TSB and OR/TM yielded GATSBY and ASSORTMENT.
Brilliant clues today, each a credible “normal” stretch of English telling a micro-story. I found everything to the right of the centre line much more amenable than the left, and while FEEL-BAD FACTOR is the logical opposite, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it in the wild. Is it a thing?
LORGNETTE a completely invisible hidden, until it wasn’t. 21.22.
Unfortunately I left the timer running in the background, so no time for me today, but I think around 25 minutes. “Feel bad factor” new to me too. Got gatsby without understanding the construction, is tsb still a thing? LOI was the subeditor, before that immutable, before that gatsby.
Thanks setter and blogger, good fun today
Steve
TSB has been a separate bank again since 2013, when the European Commission ordered a break-up of Lloyds’s UK branch network. I don’t think that what was spun off bore any relation to what had originally been TSB but they brought the brand out of retirement.
Ah right, I do vaguely remember about this now, was it Santander who bought it maybe…
About 45′ for this one with a lot of headscratching. NHO LORGNETTE, so needed all the checkers to see the reverse hidden. IMMUTABLE baffled me as I tried to understand where “in America” came into play – I never now think of “tab” being American (though I know it is). A few other biffs, eg NHO GUNPOWDER = green tea, though PLOT gave me the answer. Thanks William and setter. And I was auto logged in today after a few weeks of daily logging in, happy bunny..
Quite easy for a Friday I thought.
FEEL BAD FACTOR LOI, took a surprising amount of time, even with all those crossers. Lots of very good clues, but that long reverse hidden for LORGNETTE wins my COD. A puzzle in my goldilocks zone.
20:39
20 minutes or so door-to-door with only a few hold-ups on the way.
I’m always thankful for an easier Friday puzzle as I spend Thursday nights doing my bit to prop up the pub trade.
An enjoyable solve nonetheless so thanks to both setter and blogger.
Some ingenious clues here. I managed to delay myself by trying to make 5d STUPA – after all, it is a stone monument, and it includes PUT up. Other than that, of course, it doesn’t work, but it took me some time to see what would work.
7:38. No real problems today, although I slowed down a bit in the NW.
MER at FEEL-BAD FACTOR but it’s in ODE as well as Chambers.
Surprised to learn that GUNPOWDER tea is green.
I wondered what Friday would have in store after a bad week for me, so a blessed relief. No need for any aids and no real difficulties. Parsed everything ok except RUNE as I failed to see it was a ‘hidden’, but it had to be right.
Incidentally, not having seen the ‘hidden’ I hesitated even with RUNE, as I was unaware of any magical association. AFAIC, it’s just an old Nordic or German character. But Chambers does confirm this.