Time: 18 minutes
No music today, this was an outdoor deck solve, finished an hour before the thunderstorms came through. It certainly didn’t take long; this has got to be the easiest puzzle ever for those who have the general knowledge to solve these things. Even if you don’t know a bit or two, biffing is certainly possible. I wrote in advocates, regardant, tontine, Artemis, demigod, and just now; of course, they would be easy enough to parse, but I saved that for the blog.
The times so far are looking pretty good, although a couple of solvers had an error – one I can easily imagine.
| Across | |
| 1 | Recommends a party including very small titbits? (9) |
| ADVOCATES – A D(V)O + CATES. | |
| 6 | During course of day one gets quiet, blanked out? (5) |
| WIPED – W(I,P)ED. | |
| 9 | Financial scheme sound for saving money (7) |
| TONTINE – TON(TIN)E. | |
| 10 | Platform where you see some hero’s trumpeted (7) |
| ROSTRUM – Hidden in [he]RO’S TRUM[peted]. | |
| 11 | Plan to have the French national symbol (5) |
| MAPLE – MAP + LE. The symbol is actually a maple leaf. | |
| 13 | Robin maybe turning glitzy, acting like a football player? (9) |
| DRIBBLING – BIRD backwards + BLING. | |
| 14 | Tiger seen moving? Not here, where lions are! (9) |
| SERENGETI – Anagram of TIGER SEEN. | |
| 16 | Moderate leader being upturned — uncivilized! (4) |
| WILD – (-m,+W)ILD. You will have to rely on the word order, where the literal is clearly set off from the rest of the clue. | |
| 18 | Son swamped by stream of water? It’s fun (4) |
| JEST – JE(S)T. | |
| 19 | Ending in danger, say, a road worker looking back (9) |
| REGARDANT – [dange]R + E.G. + A + RD + ANT. A write-in if you know heraldry. | |
| 22 | What able person is up to with little hesitation, being a scorer? (9) |
| SCRATCHER – SCRATCH + ER, if you are up to scratch, you will spot the literal literal. | |
| 24 | Affect part of London (5) |
| ACTON – ACT ON. | |
| 25 | Is duck invading old Greek region offensive? (7) |
| NOISOME – NO(IS,O)ME. Nome is a bit of a Mephisto word, not often seen in the regular cryptic. | |
| 26 | There’s flooding with river unwanted in Cambridge college (7) |
| DOWNING – D[r]OWNING. Many solvers will probably try to remove an R from a Cambridge college. | |
| 28 | Wife, healthy swimmer with lots of blubber! (5) |
| WHALE – W + HALE. | |
| 29 | Dry bed at start of evening — somehow it may help child rest? (5,4) |
| TEDDY BEAR – Anagram of DRY BED AT + E[vening]. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Goddess with skill is luring them in (7) |
| ARTEMIS – ART (‘EM) IS. | |
| 2 | The vehicle in front (3) |
| VAN – Very simple double definition. | |
| 3 | South Americans in church on island (is like Pisa’s tower) (8) |
| CHILEANS – CH + I + LEANS. | |
| 4 | Shift doctor’s ending with nurse around (5) |
| TREND – T([docto]R)END. | |
| 5 | Son doing physical exercises — overdoing them? (9) |
| STRAINING – S + TRAINING. | |
| 6 | Plant one graduate noticed shooting up (6) |
| WASABI – I B.A. SAW, upside-down. | |
| 7 | Trip captain organised for one to join in? (11) |
| PARTICIPANT – Anagram of TRIP CAPTAIN. | |
| 8 | Beast, this writer’s editor, set up as no mere mortal! (7) |
| DEMIGOD – DOG + I’M + ED, upside-down. | |
| 12 | What makes airport seek new economic model? (11) |
| PERESTROIKA – Anagram of AIRPORT SEEK. | |
| 15 | Most jovial, but with husband descending to become most crude (9) |
| EARTHIEST – HEARTIEST with the H moving down. | |
| 17 | Sibling gaining promotion with style in NY location (8) |
| BROADWAY – BRO + AD + WAY. | |
| 18 | Fair number wanting bit of work recently (4,3) |
| JUST NOW – JUST + NO + W[ork]. | |
| 20 | Bird gets brown with time, right? (7) |
| TANAGER – TAN + AGE + R. | |
| 21 | Struggled to get supper finally into oven (6) |
| STROVE – ST(R)OVE. | |
| 23 | Looking embarrassed, I had performed again (5) |
| REDID – RED + I’D. | |
| 27 | Regularly fierce, showing strong emotion (3) |
| IRE – [f]I[e]R[c]E. | |
Quick today, nho cates or nome, though I have a nasty feeling I have nho nome at least once before ..
Going for an under-ten but didn’t make it thanks to STRAINING and TONTINE. I wouldn’ t have known TONTINE at all had it not been for its appearing here before. So doing Times crosswords does come in handy. For doing Times crosswords! I liked the TIGERS SEEN anagram, and the upsidedown M. 12’13”. SNITCH says it’s one of the easiest ever. Easy certainly – but not to that extent I wouldn’t have thought. Not with TONTINE and CATES (nho).
Very easy except for TONTINE, which took a while to work out, so 38 minutes in all. WILD would be my COD and nothing else was really memorable except for the various obscurities I had to accept on faith (NOME, CATES, TONTINE of course, REGARDANT).
A new record for us today on the combination of the QC and 15 with 8:40 and 28:19 individually. NHO CATES, NOME or REGARDANT but the wordplay and/or checkers were sufficient to get us there. TANAGER and TONTINE I knew though the latter was LOI and needed a bit of dredging up. Thanks to both setters and bloggers.
Easy enough. I biffed ADVOCATES, taking it on trust that CATES were a thing. I also biffed NOISOME assuming NOME must be a region of Greece I’ve never heard of. My Dad went to DOWNING college so that one was especially easy. I vaguely knew of TONTINE and TANAGER but the wordplay for both was clear. I liked the W M inversion thing for changing MILD into WILD.