I don’t usually write in answers to clues until I more or less understand why they’re correct, not just from a definition and the spaces, but this time I found I had ‘biffed’ more than usual. Indeed it took me a while when writing the blog, to decipher some of the parsing. We have some clever clues here, I think the clue for FIENDISH should win an award.
Definitions underlined in bold, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, anagrinds in italics, [deleted letters in square brackets].
| Across | |
| 1 | Secure with rope, fitting reverse bar (7) |
| TAPROOM – MOOR (secure with rope), PAT (fitting), all reversed. | |
| 5 | Drama as American subject receives UK honour (7) |
| MACBETH – MATH (what Americans call mathematics or maths) with CBE (Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) inserted. | |
| 9 | Don’t be long invoicing, having quietly inserted flyer (9) |
| SPOONBILL – SOON (don’t be long), BILL (invoicing), insert P for quietly. A bird. | |
| 10 | Shrink from a certain stick-wielding official (5) |
| MACER – hidden clue. I assume a macer is a person who carries a mace. | |
| 11 | Ensuring an element of fashion in the offing? (7,2,4) |
| DRESSED TO KILL – witty cryptic, where “offing” means killing. | |
| 13 | Languishing? Nothing so weak, ultimately (8) |
| LOVESICK – LOVE (nothing in tennis), SIC (so in Latin) K (end of weak). | |
| 15 | Complex way to end call (4-2) |
| HANG-UP – double definition. | |
| 17 | Pricey fare, through having stopped taxi for one (6) |
| CAVIAR – VIA (Latin for through) inside CAR (taxi, for one). | |
| 19 | Capable of following unrecorded match (4,2,2) |
| LIVE UP TO – UP TO (capable of) after LIVE (unrecorded). | |
| 22 | Mum’s the word in strike planning! (13) |
| MASTERMINDING – MA’S (Mum’s) TERM (word) IN DING (strike). | |
| 25 | There’s nothing odd in priest’s idea to marry again (5) |
| RETIE – even letters as above. RE-TIE the knot perhaps. I’d expected a hyphen. | |
| 26 | Something for hair: a thing unwanted there, prohibited, we understand (5,4) |
| ALICE BAND – A, LICE (unwanted in hair), BAND (sounds like BANNED). | |
| 27 | One helping a non-drinker to crack open something unlikely (7) |
| ABETTER – A BEER with TT a non-drinker inserted. | |
| 28 | Camera accessory’s brief whizz, followed by echo (3,4) |
| HOT SHOE – a HOT SHOT is a whizz, delete the end letter and add E for echo. A hot shoe is the bracket on a camera with a connector to make the flash flash. I had one years ago. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | International news overlooking article from Paris (4) |
| TEST – LATEST = news, drop the LA. | |
| 2 | Short film and book with page appearing about Balkan city (7) |
| PLOVDIV – all reversed, VID[eo], VOL[ume}, P. I passed through Plovdiv once in 1969, in a Morris Minor convertible; it wasn’t much of a city, then, and oddly enough the excellent Bulgarian barman in our local pub comes from Plovdiv. He speaks highly of it. | |
| 3 | Oz couple dropping in as expected (5) |
| OUNCE – well, once I stopped thinking about Australians, the answer was clear, but as of now I can’t see how “couple dropping in as expected” gets us to OUNCE. It’s probably obvious to you, enlighten me! | |
| 4 | Postholder lacks aim somehow (8) |
| MAILSACK – (LACKS AIM)*. An anagram at last. | |
| 5 | Way to address peer’s illness: yen for an answer (2,4) |
| MY LADY – MALADY (illness) changes A to Y. | |
| 6 | Be old enough to succeed largely as a revolutionary (4,2,3) |
| COME OF AGE – COME OF[f] = succeed largely, E.G., A reversed. E.G meaning “as” I think. | |
| 7 | Bats in the MCG, lacking marks for artistic impression (7) |
| ETCHING – (IN THE CG)*, the M removed. | |
| 8 | Toilet and shower cheer up English port (10) |
| HARTLEPOOL – all reversed (up), LOO, PELT, RAH!. Seaside town of about 90,000 in Co. Durham, to which I have never been. | |
| 12 | Jet, one about to damage a police vehicle (5,5) |
| BLACK MARIA – BLACK (jet) MAR (damage), A, insert I (one). | |
| 14 | Coach departed — players also this way? (5,4) |
| STAGE LEFT – STAGE = coach, LEFT = departed. | |
| 16 | Very tricky cryptic finished (8) |
| FIENDISH – (FINISHED)*. Simple but brilliant, IMO. | |
| 18 | One called on jockey to hold place (7) |
| VISITEE – VIE (jockey) with SITE (place) inside. | |
| 20 | Animated pirate to stand up in support of boxer (7) |
| PUGWASH – Well, a PUG is a dog not unlike a boxer, or is PUG short for pugilist? Under that we have WASH = stand up, in the sense of “that won’t wash” meaning that doesn’t stand up. I remember watching Captain Pugwash cartoons in the early sixties, but apparently they went on until 1975. | |
| 21 | Spoil one’s twins (6) |
| IMPAIR – I’M (one is, one’s) PAIR (twins). | |
| 23 | What’s usually reduced to case of ignorance (2,3) |
| ID EST – usually shortened to i.e., I[gnoranc]E. | |
| 24 | Trailers for picking up cutting tool (4) |
| ADZE – sounds like ADS, advertisements. | |
I struggled with some of this and eventually gave up as the hour approached with five clues unsolved, and resorted to aids. The one I really should have got was STAGE LEFT. I had tried an alphabet trawl but there were simply too many possibilities for both components of the answer. It was even more annoying because I have seen ‘stage left’ or maybe ‘stage right’ in a puzzle within the last few days at The Guardian if not The Times.
I looked up TAPROOM and PLOVDIV (NHO) and was then able to write in TEST at 1dn and guess OUNCE at 3dn only because it fitted – I hadn’t spotted the abbreviation ‘Oz’ and have no more idea about the rest of the clue than our blogger has admitted.
Elsewhere I was pleased to work out HOT SHOE from wordplay without ever having heard of the camera accessory. I realise now I have an old camera that has one but didn’t know it had a name.
It was nice to be reminded of dear old Captain Pugwash who in the original TV format was very crudely animated. Wiki: In 1991 the Pugwash cartoonist John Ryan successfully sued the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian newspapers for inaccurately claiming that some Pugwash character names were double entendres.
So I hope we won’t compound the myth here.
Googling PUGWASH, I saw a number of entries claiming it had one or another obscene meanings, before I finally came to the captain.
once=as expected. u = union, couple. dropped in. Perhaps?
I know nothing of any animated Captain Pugwash, but back in April 1950 he was in my weekly copy of ‘The Eagle’, with PC 49 et al.!
Got the answer anyway….
After posting this I looked him up on the www. I had not realised that editor Marcus Morris had made the Captain “walk the plank”; apparently the humour was ‘too old’ for Eagle’s readers.
Much more fun than PLOVDIV, but the choice for seven letters ending in V is not great, and I liked LOVESICK.
I had the same query as you re 3 down.
I think ON CUE dropping a couple of letters further down the word gives us OUNCE, but I didn’t see it a the time. 46 minutes, with a *lot* of them spent in the NW corner.
Thank you Matt! I was baffled by the parsing.
Thanks, Matt! Now I can sleep tonight.
Bravo!
Marvellous. Well spotted Matt!
Great spot. Wouldn’t have seen this 🙂
Good spot!
Oh, I had thought it was than an Aussie would pronounce “announce” Inounce; drop the In?
10.49. I knew the city, for no reason I can think of (not even a famous football team!), didn’t know the camera part and it looked unlikely, but had to be. OUNCE also went in by definition alone, so thanks to gothick for figuring that one out.
According to the Snitch (currently at 134) this is the toughest puzzle we’ve had for several weeks, and in fact the only one over 120 in that time.
Thanks piquet & setter.
The parsing for OUNCE is perhaps a little too clever for its own good. PLOVDIV I had heard of, which made it simple enough with a few checkers. Enjoyable stuff, completed in 29 minutes.
The football club at Hartlepool had the honour of being called Hartlepools United in the Brian Clough era, if not for a little while after.
Funnily enough I just watched a film about Brian Clough on Tuesday night. When he was at Sunderland he turned up with Charley Hurley to open our school sports day one year. Hartlepools comes from the fact that there’s Hartlepool and West Hartlepool. I used to go fishing off the pier at West Hartlepool with my Dad as a youngster. Hartlepool also has a stock car racing track where you can go to get your hair filled with carbon particles! (assuming you have hair).
Never knew that was the reason for the plural. Thank you
🙂
Totally irrelevant but one of the lads in my year was described as coming from “British West Hartlepool”.
I was pleased to finish, getting there in about 35 with interruptions. The NW was particularly tricky and I took an age to get going, FOI HANG UP. I think Matt is correct about my LOI OUNCE. Generally I found this a slightly unsatisfying puzzle in that there were brilliant clues but also some clues that seemed to be trying too hard to be obscure for the sake of it, and a lot of biffing was required to make headway. Thanks Nelson, your insights were much appreciated.
From It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding):
Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men, and the fools
I got nothing ma
To LIVE UP TO
Frustrated at not getting the city, after doing all the hard work to get nho HOT SHOE, not parsing OUNCE, loving the memory of PUGWASH and the urban myths, recalling HARTLEPOOL as the monkeyhangers, and generally enjoying the puzzle.
Thanks pip and setter.
25:45
Some tricky stuff here which I seem to have stumbled through – was thinking that APT (fitting) might appear in 1a, PAT doesn’t seem quite as ‘fitting’ as a definition of…. er, ‘fitting’. No idea what was going on with either TEST or OUNCE, but pleased to have remembered PLOVDIV – no idea why I know of it, perhaps just one of those placenames that sticks because it is so odd to westerners. Didn’t see the parsing of COME OF AGE at the time though the enumeration was enough to pencil it in very firmly. Again, HOT SHOE is not a term I thought I knew, but it was in my head for some reason.
Thanks P (and Matt) for clearing up several loose ends.
23.30
Tricky indeed!
A few unexpected wordplays (“Shrink” for concealed, “couple dropping” for letters moved down, “as” for EG), but altogether enjoyable.
Assuming 22ac began with MOTHER, and having only the first and last checkers, I was prepared to be horrified by the answer, but all was well.
LOI OUNCE
COD FIENDISH
I think shrink suggests reducing the number of outer letters, so yes, in its way an alternative “hidden” indicator.
DNF
Not my finest hour. Never got TEST, got OUNCE only because I could think of no other word–never thought of oz., never got past Australia. NHO Captain PUGWASH; the only Pugwash I knew of was the site of the conferences. NHO HOT SHOE. I must have heard of PLOVDIV somewhere, as I finally thought of it after getting the -DIV (some time after, but). I agree with Pip about FIENDISH.
I was so pleased to get most of this in about an hour. Missed TAPROOM, OUNCE, PLOVDIV, and TEST. Initially entered MY LORD at 5d, failing to see malady. NHO MACER but assumed it was the mace-carrier. Loved DRESSED TO KILL.
Thanks setter and piquet.
Ounce was the only one my wife and I couldn’t parse so thanks to gothick for that and thanks to piquet for confirming the rest.
I enjoyed the puzzle but can anyone help with the use of bill to mean invoicing? For me, bill is invoice and billing is invoicing.
Thanks in advance.
I think it’s a case of not lifting and separating so ‘Don’t be long invoicing’ = SOON BILL.
Thanks Jack. I had the same query.
52 minutes with LOI the unknown HOT SHOE. Sounds like a dance. I had a massive advantage over everyone else as Bolton played Lokomotiv PLOVDIV in the 2005 UEFA Cup. And of course Hartlepool has an AGR nuclear power station I visited a couple of times as well as Jeff Stelling’s football team, although even he wouldn’t have come up with that cryptic. COD between DRESSED TO KILL and SPOONBILL. Tough, very tough. Thank you Pip and setter.
I biffed PLOVDIV strictly on the memory of their visit to Bolton. I finished this in 11:58 with checking (which wasn’t sufficiently diligent as I fell over with “ssage left”). COD COME OF AGE.
44 mins with the same queries and MERs as mentioned above. Thanks gothick for the OUNCE. Pretty tricky stuff. I thought for a moment we were on for a pangram, but no.
I liked HARTLEPOOL, DRESSED TO KILL, STAGE KEFT & PUGWASH, the latter well remembered from my youth.
Thanks pip and setter.
After 90 minutes I was still missing clues in all corners. I was determined to finish and it took another 30 minutes or so. FOI BLACK MARIA was a write in. LOI TEST. A lot of nice clues including DRESSED TO KILL, LOVESICK, MY LADY and SPOONBILL.
Thanks Piquet for the parsing as I had a number unparsed or parsed wrongly.
Ah! Hartlepool -home of my maternal ancestors. And although it’s totally not true about the story of hanging the monkey there, it doesn’t stop them celebrating the non-event (even the football mascot is called Hangus the Monkey).
So how did I do? Although a toughie, I completed it in 35 mins – hurrah! But with one typo – oh abject misery!
Thanks, Piquet, for explaining an awful lot of biffed answers.
Some lovely clues today.
I presume that FINISHED/FIENDISH comes up from time to time, but I’ve not seen it before and the clueing for it seemed very elegant. M-C-R made MACER seem a pretty safe guess, but even after staring at it for some time I completely failed to spot the hidden.
Although personally I’m not so enamoured with the clue for OUNCE – lovely definition, but it feels like one of the most challenging wordplays I’ve come across so far – even after seeing the explanation (thanks gothick) I kind of understand it, I think…
I took 45:06 and the last 15 minutes or so were spent on 1ac, 1dn and 3dn. I FINALLY cottoned on to what the Oz was in 3dn (though still didn’t understand the clue) and then TAPROOM and finally TEST were both obvious – with hindsight of course 😉
The funny thing was, I immediately thought of Captain Pugwash with the animated pirate clue, but I thought of Black Jake as the pirate and forgot that Pugwash was a pirate himself. So what should have been a write in, came finally much later.
Anyway very fun puzzle and thanks setter and blogger
PS I just googled Captain P and I had misremembered, his enemy was Cut-Throat Jake not Black Jake.
DNF
FOI: HANG-UP
LOI: OUNCE
Everything managed within 60 minutes except for the Balkan City (NHO), although my LOI was only based on OZ and I had not parsed COME OF AGE.
Thank you to piquet and the setter.
50m 26s but messed up 1d. Lured in by ‘International News’, I put TASS.
Thank you Pip for HOT SHOE and the WASH in PUGWASH and thank Gothick for OUNCE.
I did like DRESSED TO KILL and ID EST.
Sometimes, in my mind, I mix up PUGWASH and NOGGIN THE NOG.
I was super delighted just to finish this, though quite a few clues were unparsed. Agree that OUNCE is too clever by half; I could have looked at it for years without figuring out what was going on.
I biffed PUGWASH, and was amused by it, but quite how anybody who’s never watched old UK children’s TV could have got this – esp given that clueing was very ungenerous – I simply don’t know. Knew PLOVDIV, by chance, but again hardly an easy clue for a lesser known city… and the parsing for TEST was similarly difficult, to my mind. On another day, with less luck, I could have abandoned this with half a dozen missing answers.
31:22
Well that was tough going. As others there were a couple of unknowns (HOT SHOE, PLOVDIV) but I can only partly blame them for my travails. I missed the hidden word for MACER, I discovered a new bird called SPENDBILL, and I was very slow putting together TAPROOM, TEST, and OUNCE.
As per Deezzaa’s comment, I immediately associate Hartlepool with French monkeys, and regardless of the veracity of the story it is so wonderful I choose it to be absolute fact.
I thoroughly enjoyed the test so thanks to the setter and to piquet for filling in some blanks.
I finished in just over 35 minutes, which I thought was a bit of a disaster until I see lots of other people found it tricky too.
A great puzzle in my opinion, fiendish, dressed to kill, and ounce once I saw it.
27.28, so FIENDISH indeed. I completed with OUNCE (of course) unjustified, and COME OF AGE likewise, spending too long trying to work out how EGAFOEMOC could be created and reversed. I also manage to be satisfied with LIVE UP TO parsed as capable of following as the definition and LIVE as unrecorded and UP TO (somehow) as match (I had to squint a bit!). PLOVDIV is in my (short) lexicon of highly improbable place names, and indeed researching (Googling) its origins reveals that the place has had more names, often simultaneously, than God. Its current form seems to have evolved from a practice of throwing Scrabble letters in the air. Looks nice, though.
Thanks to Piquet and supporting cast for sorting everything out.
23:12 with a typo
A very ingenious puzzle and nice to see Captain Pugwash remembered. I needed to come here to understand OUNCE and MACER. ID EST featuring on consecutive days. DRESSED TO KILL was COD.
Felt smug at avoiding TASS but a clumsy VISETEE put me in my place.
Thanks to Pip and the setter.
67:40
Glad to get through this in one piece. Very tricky, with some convoluted and awkward clues. Like everyone else, I had to come here to find out how ounce worked.
Thanks, p.
16:55. Lots of fun. I’m another who failed to parse OUNCE, which was my LOI. I liked DRESSED TO KILL, RETIE and MASTERMINDING but my COD was the same as our blogger’s – FIENDISH. I was pleased to see HARTLEPOOL as a reminder of my Mum and Dad who lived in Hartlepool Rd for many years. Thanks Pip and setter.
MAILSACK was my FOI and allowed me to quickly get TAPROOM. After that I made surprisingly good progress. Eventually I was left with the unknown 2d which I managed to assemble from wordplay. 22:07. Thanks setter and Pip.
The Monkey hanging event had a song written about it, recorded by Vin Garbutt, which was followed up by local singer songwiter, Jez Lowe, with his own song called Simian Son(or the monkey’s revenge). You can see Jez singing it at Sunderland Folk Festival here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQwQ_nPhx-o
Here’s a link to Vin singing the original song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5TkJhRLyrc
I’m surprised no-one’s yet mentioned the fact that H’Angus the Monkey was also elected as mayor of Hartlepool in 2002.
For those so inclined, there’s a nice summary of that episode in the first half of this podcast: https://timharford.com/2023/10/cautionary-tales-double-header-a-monkey-for-mayor-a-screw-loose-at-17000-feet/
😀
An re-elected (twice). Apparently he made a pretty good job of it
FIENDISH puzzle sort of completed in 24 mins. I was certain that OUNCE, LIVE UP TO and ABETTER were correct, but had no idea why, so tx to our blogger! Now I see it, ABETTER my COD.
17:24. Very tricky but first class stuff. The HOT SHOE was my only unknown, and I had the most trouble with relatively common words like TAPROOM and OUNCE. Like everyone except gothick it seems I biffed that one after trying and failing to justify it from the wordplay.
I can never understand what a clue has to be in order to be too clever. It seems to me that if a clue is difficult then so long as it’s sound it’s fair game. The clue for OUNCE struck me as very clever, and very difficult but perfectly sound (although perhaps oz/oz. might raise a few eyebrows, probably not though). PLOVDIV a town I’d heard of somehow, possibly because of its long-ago match against Hartlepool. 70 minutes with no aids for once, but OUNCE just biffed and I simply couldn’t explain it. Seems I was in good company.
Couldn’t decode LACKS AIM at first, perhaps because this side of the pond we cal them mail-BAGS. Once in, I managed to work my way through steadily to completion, while not fully parsing all. It had to be TEST, OUNCE, PLOVDIV (and some others; and was delayed on the latter, forgetting that Bulgaria is also Balkan). Pleased I finished after learning of its official difficulty level. Good fun all round.
I found a lot of clues quite obscure, and not very witty.
35:47, with far too much unsupported biffing to be totally satisfying, because I do like to nail things down. Lots of great clues though, now that they have been explained. COD to DRESSED TO KILL.
Well done setter. Many thanks blogger and others
I gave up after an hour or so with four unsolved. Having now seen the answers I’m annoyed for not seeing TEST and even Oz for OUNCE, but TAPROOM and PLOVDIV may have been elusive even with the benefit of the other two in place. Enjoyable none the less.
DNF several in the SE, Live Up To (I had BIFD Free To Go,) Fiendish (COD) and Pugwash (thought of him but forgot his name.) I was too unsure of Hot Shoe to put it in because it is where you put the accessories, not itself an accessory, and Hot Shot hadn’t occurred to me.
Knew Plovdiv from cheapish wine before the collapse of the Russian Empire; I think it was sold artificially cheaply, or dumped, to support the rouble etc.
POI 20d (Captain) Pugwash; for many years the Eye had a cartoon strip of “Cap’n Bob” (Maxwell) sinking his ship every fortnight. Deliberately based on Cap’n Pugwash. Oddly prescient.
30.52
I dot around the grid; find a toehold and work from there. Normally works well but I missed the easy MAILSACK which might have helped with the tricky TAPROOM. Very slow on the police vehicle as well so overall it was a bit of a struggle so pleased to finish.
As a twin I’ll go for IMPAIR as my CoD
Interesting that we all get good and steamed up over indirect anagrams (which require you to figure out a word from the cluing, then anagram it) but we all like something almost as difficult to do (figure out a word from the cluing – such as ‘latest’ or ‘on cue’ – then manipulate the letters). Both gave me trouble, and I only figured Test out before I read Matt’s post. I had wondered if Black Maria was too much of an Americanism to be well known, but I guess not. thanks, pip, excellent blog today
Probably a personal record for biffs. 9 in total, including all the ones people have already mentioned. The discovery that MACER was a hidden was particularly galling!
Decent time (for me) for a difficult puzzle, though I have to say, I was very surprised to be all green.
23:14
Quite a lot of poor/vague clues/answers/parsings today. Not happy!
46 minutes after using aids for the Baltic city, but then a letter wrong as I had put in ABETTOR having overlooked the E in trying to parse it, and thinking that one of BER or BOR must be a thing.
Tough but fair, all done in 40 minutes. It would have been quicker if I had not decided at the start that 9ac was HURRICANE, since the first two syllables sound like ‘hurry’ (in voicing). So it took a while to sort that out since none of the down answers would fit. Then I was becalmed in the SW corner, until IMPAIR arrived to unravel the rest. Several answers were biffed, including OUNCE, which was an obvious candidate as I am old enough to be a lb and oz rather than a gram person, much to my sons’ disgust.
FOI – MACER
LOI – VISITEE
COD – DRESSED TO KILL
Thanks to piquet and other contributors.
43:52
I found this hard going, but got there in the end, with everything parsed except for PLOVDIV and my LOI, OUNCE. Thanks piquet for explaining the former, and to everybody who has suggested how the parsing of the latter might work.
PLOVDIV looks to me like a word that should be a Spoonerism.
Good fun even though it was another DNF in the NW corner – as I didn’t get TAPROOM I struggled to work out 2d and 3d. Couldn’t parse TEST or MACBETH but they were the obvious answers so thanks for the explanations.
Some nice clues especially 13a LOVESICK, 27a ABETTER and the clever 16d FIENDISH.
18.21 but I didn’t parse everything. Probably the closest I shall ever get to the solving times of the really quick guys.
Well I really enjoyed having a go at this but was well and truly put in my place. Got most of the bottom half but struggled with some at the top including TEST and SPOONBILL. Biffed several then struggled to parse. Many thanks for the much-needed blog. Really liked ALICE BAND. So much learning today!
DNF, defeated by TAPROOM (even though there’s a good one very close to us – I never considered that ‘bar’ would be the definition) and OUNCE (where for Oz I thought of Australia and The Wizard of, but never ounce).
Relied on wordplay for the unknown HOT SHOE; vaguely remembered PLOVDIV from the football team; didn’t know BLACK MARIA was a police vehicle; and thought of PUGWASH quite a long time before seeing how it worked, as I thought ‘to stand up’ was giving the ‘Pu’ at the start and then couldn’t parse the rest.
Thanks piquet and setter.
COD Dressed to kill
53:34. Like many others, a lot of biffing required. Some very clever setting going on and I balked at the clue for FIENDISH (COD) when I first saw it. Great fun though!
Needed aids to get PLOVDIV and misspelt ABETTER but I’d managed to parse OUNCE so still feeling quite pleased with myself.
39.37 and a bit of a struggle. LOI ounce which induced a long sigh. Taproom and test had made that corner particularly resistant.
Good puzzle, thanks setter and blogger.