42:15
Very clever clues and well-hidden definitions made this a stand-out puzzle for me. I am a bit disappointed with my time, since there is more than usual scientific vocabulary (which I like) and I think I found it harder than the setter intended. I got nowhere in the top half to begin with, and having broken in to the bottom half, never really got flowing. Not helped by a silly typo in 16dn, my second-to-LOI was 28ac, followed swiftly by the BIFD 24dn (which I will now try to parse).
I’ll certainly check the SNITCH later, and watch Simon’s video solve, to confirm that this was indeed a belter deserving of a better solver.
Pre-publish edit: 18ac was also not fully understood by yours truly while solving, turned out to be harder for me to understand than 24dn, and still may not be parsed by the time you get that far…
Definitions underlined.
| Across | |
| 1 | Cardinal, no Saint, needing drink (6) |
| THIRTY – THIRsTY (needing drink) without the ‘s’ (no saint). Cardinal meaning any whole number, I think. | |
| 4 | Plant’s beginning to hold strike with fear for marine plant (7) |
| SEAWEED – SEED (plant’s beginning) containing (to hold) AWE (strike with fear). | |
| 9 | Knock back roll filled with cold ham? (5) |
| ACTOR – ROTA (roll) reversed (knock back) containing (filled with) C (cold). | |
| 10 | In the trunk area, red blazer is snug, restricting one in everything (4,5) |
| TAIL LIGHT – TIGHT (snug), containing (restricting) all of I (one) in ALL (everything). What a definition, which managed to lead me down many garden paths (last letter, ‘a’, containment, etc.). | |
| 11 | Home sewer burst in an unidentified location (9) |
| SOMEWHERE – anagram of (burst) HOME SEWER. Easy but lovely surface. | |
| 12 | Scored opening runs into covers (5) |
| INTRO – R (runs) which INTO contains (covers). | |
| 13 | Like to ogle cut sandwiches and a piece of cake (4) |
| EASY – AS (like) which EYe (to ogle) missing its last (cut) contains (sandwiches). Brutally good. | |
| 14 | Traditional gear was in the van — the person driving starts off jerkily (10) |
| LEDERHOSEN – LED (was in the van(guard)) + an anagram of (jerkily) tHE and pERSON missing their first letters (driving starts off). Beautifully good. | |
| 18 | My photo turned out grainier with a mobile imaging technique (10) |
| TOMOGRAPHY – anagram of (mobile) MY PHOTO with first and last of (turned out) GranieR and A. I could see MYPHOTO*, but finding the rest of the fodder took longer than I would care to admit! | |
| 20 | Mathematical expressions only half written down in class (4) |
| FORM – half of FORMulas (mathematical expressions). | |
| 23 | Entrance to house new for one delivering gift? (5) |
| DONOR – DOOR (entrance) containing (to house) N (new). | |
| 24 | Mass evacuation following company disturbance (9) |
| COMMOTION – M (mass) + MOTION (evacuation), all after (following) CO (company). Is this meant to be scatological, or is there a meaning I’ve missed? | |
| 25 | Film buff’s second contender to collect for example Oscar (9) |
| MOVIEGOER – MO (moment, second) + VIER (contender), containing (to collect) EG (for example) and O (oscar). | |
| 26 | Computer modeller and designer (5) |
| QUANT – double definition, the second unknown to me. 1) Quantitative Analyst, 2) Mary Quant, quite recently deceased, fashion designer. | |
| 27 | South African nurses nitpick on emptying small potty (7) |
| BONKERS – BOER (South African) containing (nurses) NitpicK (first and last, on emptying), then S (small). | |
| 28 | Riot in court compound is initiated by judge (6) |
| JESTER – ESTER (compound) after (in initiated by) J (judge). Easier when you’re not staring at _E_T_N for some reason. You are spoiling us now, setter. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Short-term tenant in trouble with IRS (9) |
| TRANSIENT – anagram of (in trouble) TENANT with IRS. | |
| 2 | What acts as a connection is time — hours add up (7) |
| ISTHMUS – IS + T (time) + H (hours) + reversal of (up) SUM (add). Connecting two pieces of land. | |
| 3 | Cast can read out loud (6) |
| THROWN – sounds like (read aloud) “throne” (toilet, can). | |
| 4 | Inside measurement is key for collar (5) |
| SEIZE – put E (key) inside SIZE (measurement). Foolishly, I spelt this one wrongly at first, too. | |
| 5 | Exhausted learner coming in to land very well (3,5) |
| ALL RIGHT – first and last of (exhausted) LearneR contained in (coming in) ALIGHT (to land). | |
| 6 | Female workers implicated in Watergate scandal (7) |
| ERGATES – hidden in watERGATE Scandal. I had considered this might be a hidden answer, but dismissed it on the grounds of it not feeling like a word, and if it were, the unexciting only-one-letter-from-the-second-bit-ness. A female worker ant that I will now commit to memory (ha!). | |
| 7 | Extremist papers served up the same thing (5) |
| DITTO – OTT (over the top, extremist) + ID (papers), all reversed (served up). | |
| 8 | Court in support over proposed US constitutional amendment and the like (2,6) |
| ET CETERA – CT (court) in TEE (support), all reversed (over), then ERA (Equal Rights Amendment, proposed US constitutional amendment, NHO). | |
| 15 | One quickly passes on first show of Edinburgh fringe after parking takes an age (8) |
| EPHEMERA – first letter (first show) of Edinburgh + HEM (fringe) after P (parking) + ERA (an age). | |
| 16 | One proposing to get married in a prominent landmark south of New Orleans initially (9) |
| NOMINATOR – M (married) + IN + A + TOR (prominent landmark), all beneath (south of) the first letters of (initially) New and Orleans. | |
| 17 | Distress caused by brief violent behaviour one evening (8) |
| AGGRIEVE – AGGRo (violent behaviour) minus it’s last letter (brief) + I (one) + EVE (evening). | |
| 19 | It could drive many people mad missing out on promotion, challenging in vain (7) |
| MINIVAN – Mad after deleting (missing out on) ‘ad’ (promotion), then an anagram of (challenging) IN VAIN. | |
| 21 | This could cause rustiness in old worker, say, after eleven days (7) |
| OXIDANT – O (old), with ANT (worker say) after XI (eleven) + D (days). | |
| 22 | Force European to stand in for a year in an English resort (6) |
| TORQUE – Swap in E (European) for A Y (a year) in TORQUay (an English resort). | |
| 23 | Contrary lad concluding early medical discharge (5) |
| DEMOB – reverse all of (contrary) BOy (lad) without its last (concluding early) and MED (medical). | |
| 24 | Put out daughter’s head of cabbage in rubbish (5) |
| CROSS – the ‘d’ (daughter) in dROSS (rubbish) is (instead) the first letter (head) of Cabbage. | |
DNF after grinding out many answers, but the BONKERS/CROSS nexus got me. I should have seen the first but got tied up with Bantu even though I’d identified potty (meaning nuts) as the likely definition. Thereafter I’d probably have biffed CROSS but without parsing as I didn’t see the “put out” definition. Like some others I didn’t enjoy the verbosity. Thanks William and setter.
34:28 with a random pink square for ALL RIGHY.
Mostly smoothish but with CROSS (the clue is not that well written), TORQUE and QUANT (didn’t know the first meaning) delaying the finish. ERGATES unknown too but everything else fine
Thanks William and setter
DNF, defeated by the combination of QUANT and TORQUE – if I’d known the former I would almost certainly have got the latter, but as happened to me earlier this week on a more international scale, my geographical trawl of English resorts didn’t get as far as Torquay.
– Bamboozled by EASY – the only bit of the wordplay I got was like=as
– Had no idea where the ‘gra’ in TOMOGRAPHY came from, and can’t recall seeing ‘turned out’ to mean ‘take the first and last letter’ before
– Didn’t parse CROSS
– NHO ERGATES so relied on wordplay
– Wasn’t sure about where the final ‘era’ of ET CETERA came from
– Didn’t see how DEMOB worked at all
Tough stuff. Thanks William and setter.
COD Bonkers
My blog wasn’t at all clear: ‘turned out’ for ‘emptied’ rather than the more directive ‘take first/last’, though I’m sure you have cottoned that already.
I started quickly, spotting the anagram at 1 dn. Put in INSTANTER (fair enough?) and then realised 1 ac must be THIRTY. It all went downhill from there, with a bit too much YodaSpeak for my liking. Way too clever for me.
58:32. A tough one. Fingers crossed for several that went in on the strength of some of the parsing, maybe, but not nailed down. like CROSS. Good to finish
63:56 I started too early in the morning, and my brain wasn’t quite working yet. I also spent far too long looking at LEDERHOSEN, and thinking it must be something mediaeval like cotehardie.
I also loved BONKERS as it was fun to pull it together from the generous wordplay.
Challenging throughout but nothing unfair. Thanks Setter and William.
A bit verbose, so quite a lot was biffed. Some gems in there too though I thought. TAIL LIGHT, MOVIEGOER for example.
22:25
I’d like to join the “some very clever clues but too many Americanisms club”, like many others I’m also in the NHO ERGATES club.
DNF but only three clues short- TORQUAY and QUANT being the ones. I also spelt DONOR with an E.
Very tough, but I am starting to feel more confident in tackling the tougher ones.
Thanks William and Setter. Some very good clues here.
Very tough. Agree with others about the stodginess of some of the clues. NHO EPHEMERA as singular noun, but then I am no entomologist. I lost track of the time it took to complete, but it was good to see the lavatorial setter is alive and well.
FOI – SOMEWHERE
LOI – CROSS
COD – COMMOTION
Thanks to william and other contributors.
35 minutes. I rather enjoyed this one, especially the whimsical definitions such as ‘riot in court’ for JESTER and ‘red blazer’ for TAIL LIGHT. I don’t mind a bit of verbiage. Having said that I did biff quite a few of them. Nice end to the week. Thanks to setter and today’s blogger.
43 minutes, but not my favourite. In parts it seemed very easy, after several across clues, mostly on the left-hand side, went in right away. Maybe it was on my wavelength, for I understood a lot of the trickier wordplay without having to think too hard about it. The only clues I felt a bit unsure about were CROSS and DEMOB, whose workings I just didn’t see although the answer couldn’t be anything else. On my scale of appreciation this would be middle of the range and very easy for a Friday.
Incidentally, I did wonder about all the Americanisms in it, ERA and “trunk area” instead of “boot”. The vocabulary doesn’t bother me, since I am American, but what is it doing in a British puzzle?
Doing this a day late but just wanted to thank William for sorting out some of the rather tricky parsing (ET CETERA, TOMOGRAPHY). I think I had a pretty good stab at this, needing to reveal only three along the way, all of which I could have solved with a bit more perseverance (LEDERHOSEN, TORQUE, DEMOB). I’m not so bothered by the Americanisms as many of these terms have migrated across the pond and now form part of our (British) usage. Many thanks all.
Thanks Fabian. And you’re welcome, of course. I worked on TOMOGRAPHY for about 15 minutes after solving, persevering only for the blog, and comments such as yours.
Some fantastic clues. Especially loved RIOT IN COURT. 30 something