Time taken: 11:03, with at least four minutes head-scratching over 1 down!
Not quite tricky Thursday, and I think my adventures trying to dredge up the religious figure will put me outside of the NITCH. There’s some clever clues here, and some very nice misdirection in the definitions.
How did you get along?
| Across | |
| 1 | Loudmouth baronet trapping fish with bait (8) |
| BRAGGART – BT(baronet) containing GAR(fish) and RAG(bait, tease) | |
| 5 | US city rents in recession increase continually (6) |
| SPIRAL – LA(US city) and RIPS(rents) all reversed. Something my housemates do on their phones all day | |
| 10 | Unsettled Irish cannot leave: hard to evade conscription! (8,7) |
| NATIONAL SERVICE – anagram of IRISH,CANNOT,LEAVE minus H(hard) | |
| 11 | Inside a belly’s endlessly delicious fruit (7) |
| APRICOT – A POT belly containing RICH(delicious) minus the last letter | |
| 12 | Criminal bagging top-quality earthenware (7) |
| FAIENCE – FENCE(criminal) containing A1(top quality) | |
| 13 | Greek character involved in slight makes Cretan cross (8) |
| MINOTAUR – TAU(Greek character) inside MINOR(slight). The Minotaur was a cross between an immortal human and a bull. | |
| 15 | Bounder’s place over in North America (5) |
| NYALA – LAY(place) reversed inside NA(North America) | |
| 18 | King getting into Great British bitter (5) |
| ACERB – R(king) inside ACE(great), B(British) | |
| 20 | Bones in head extremely logical, each round (8) |
| PATELLAE – PATE(head) then the outermost letters of LogicaL, and EA(each) reversed | |
| 23 | Old boy back to fill face with duck and game (7) |
| DIABOLO – OB(old boy) reversed inside DIAL(face) and O(duck). That thing with the ropes and the sticks and the two-headed top you have probably seen unshowered people play with in the park | |
| 25 | Sense of grievance private soldier voiced (7) |
| RANCOUR – sounds like RANKER(private soldier) | |
| 26 | Secret fear at the end trapped in credit fraud (10,5) |
| CONFIDENCE TRICK – CONFIDENCE(secret), then the last letter of feaR inside TICK(credit) | |
| 27 | Imitation gem left in delicate shade (6) |
| PASTEL – PASTE(imitation gem) then L(left) | |
| 28 | Commander vacillating over Norwegian sector (8) |
| GOVERNOR – a very well hidden clue – inside vacillatinG OVER NORwegian | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Preacher: no point looking toward Heaven? (6) |
| BUNYAN – NAY(no) and NUB(point) all reversed. John, of A Pilgrim’s Progress. Agonized over BINYAN, BONYAN, BENYAN and all sorts of other possibilities. | |
| 2 | Medium interest in following sentence? (9) |
| AFTERLIFE – AFTER(following), LIFE(sentence). My favorite clue of the day. | |
| 3 | Try to cage rook that hurt amusing brother (7) |
| GROUCHO – GO(try) containing R(rook) and OUCH(that hurt). Reference to the Marx brother. Duck Soup is my favorite. | |
| 4 | Cook in oven or pan (5) |
| ROAST – Double definition | |
| 6 | A person is fitted with one in old age (7) |
| PERMIAN – PER(a) MAN(person) containing I(one) | |
| 7 | What to do when in power shower we hear? (5) |
| REIGN – sounds like RAIN(shower) | |
| 8 | Story by Bavarian? Not right for loyal servant (8) |
| LIEGEMAN – LIE(story) next to GERMAN(Bavarian) minus R(right) | |
| 9 | Bring trouble upon oneself when tackle catches pro (3,3,2) |
| ASK FOR IT – AS(when), KIT(tackle) containing FOR(pro) | |
| 14 | For Lily a special house key (8) |
| ASPHODEL – A, SP(special), HO(house), DEL(delete key) | |
| 16 | Turkish area in grip of national rioting (9) |
| ANATOLIAN – A(area) inside an anagram of NATIONAL | |
| 17 | Applause? I contribute to it, ousting Liberal in contest (8) |
| HANDICAP – HAND(applause), then I CLAP(I contribute to it) minus L(Liberal) | |
| 19 | New union member’s restraining order for dullard (7) |
| BROMIDE – BRIDE(new union member) containing OM(Order of Merit) | |
| 21 | Crescent shape clear in old stringed instrument (7) |
| LUNETTE – NET(clear) inside LUTE(old stringed instrument) | |
| 22 | Go-between crushed spirit of resistance (6) |
| BROKER – BROKE(crushed spirit of), R(resistance) | |
| 24 | Virgin martyr gets on train finally coming in (5) |
| AGNES – AGES(gets on) containing the last letter of traiN. Another religious figure I was fuzzy on, but the wordplay left no other possibility | |
| 25 | Senior academic mostly giving one side of story? (5) |
| RECTO – RECTOR(senior academic) minus the last letter. The right hand side of the story. | |
Something of a 27-minute disaster, with ‘braggard’ for BRAGGART and ‘Persian’ for PERMIAN. My lack of interest in dinosaurs found me out.
Enjoyed the puzzle, though. COD to BUNYAN. Sorry! More my era and area.
Sorry, have made the same comment before seeing yours
Permian Park has a nice alliterative ring to it. Sadly the dinosaurs didn’t evolve until much later.
As I said, no interest!
Frustrated by misremembering the definition answer to 1ac as braggard, which is unsurprisingly impossible to construe from the cryptic
Took forever on this. LOI AFTERLIFE, which I put in without understanding. Also never got APRICOT, and didn’t know BROMIDE=dullard (in Collins, not in ODE). NATIONAL SERVICE was an impressive anagram.
Around 90 minutes total with breaks. I needed the breaks since I often read indicators literally, words in groups when they should be taken singly and words singly when they should be grouped. I kept reading “bones in head” where it should have been bones. I kept splitting “imitation” and “gem” as well as “virgin” and “martyr”. FOI SPIRAL then BRAGGART (needed T on end for baronet abbrev BT. Is braggard a word?) LOI and COD RECTO.
Thanks G.
No. I probably invented it by analogy with, say, laggard. If you haven’t seen it written down for an aeon, you might convince yourself. I did!
Well braggard is in Wiktionary as “Uncommon form of braggart”. Doesn’t seem to be in Chambers nor my 1979 version of Collins.
I really liked this! Some fresh vocabulary here.
FAIENCE brings to mind Serge Gainsbourg’s early “Le Poinçonneur des Lilas” (translated in recent years by The Rakes as “Just a Man With a Job”)… about a fellow whose (obsolete, thank goodness!) station in life consisted of punching holes in métro tickets. “Et sous mon ciel de FAÏENCE / Je n’vois briller que les correspondences.” (I regularly do this song in karaoke.)
I know DIABOLO from Proust, who often depicts Albertine playing with one.
BUNYAN was a late answer, but I knew the author of Pilgrim’s Progress was a man of the cloth.
And I learned that BROMIDE is a “dullard.” I’ve been to the Dead Sea, which has the highest BROMIDE content of any large body of water on Earth. At the planet’s lowest point! It was one of the high points, actually, of my 2010 trip to Israel (where I’m not eager to return).
49 minutes. Not easy as so many of the clues required close attention in order to construct the answers, but patience was rewarded. If I knew PERMIAN I had forgotten it. FAIENCE looked wrong but had to be right. I knew ASPHODEL existed but thought it was a device used for sprinkling holy water; I’m sure that’s something beginning ‘asp’.
Asperge or aspergill (or aspergillum). Used “Look up” in Chambers.
Thanks. Aspergill is the one I had in mind, the most easy to confuse with asphodel.
A goupillon, in fact. My French teacher, Mr Temple, taught us that in 1971. No idea why! 🙂
aspergillium
24:19. I found lots to like today. I particularly liked the power shower clue, but my COD was GOVERNOR as it was so well hidden to my eyes – in the end I got it from definition and then had to go back and find it.
Too hard for me, I threw in the towel at 50 with AFTERLIFE and PERMIAN (NHO) unsolved. There was a lot of tough stuff here, including an antelope AND a plant AND a fruit and some seriously obscure words and devious wordplay. I probably should have cheated, thanks g.
From Angelina (with thanks to BW):
Beat a path of retreat up them SPIRAL staircases
Pass the tree of smoke, pass the angel with four faces
Begging God for mercy and weeping in unholy places
Angelina
My apologies for lack of service from the SNITCH today. Some of the backend needs to be replaced with updated software versions.
13:19, but after patting myself on the back for avoiding PERSIAN and BRAGGARD I failed to notice my CONFICENCE TRICK.
Drat.
17.00
I knew PERMIAN only from a recent puzzle elsewhere; FAIENCE and NYALA from the recesses of memory. Nice definitions for MINOTAUR and GROUCHO, not so keen on that for AFTERLIFE.
LOI RECTO
COD HANDICAP
DNF
Defeated within the time available by PERMIAN and the RECTO / GOVERNOR combination. But lots to like.
Thank you, glh and the setter
(Is the snitch link broken in the RH margin? Sending support for caffeine in case it is a problem at that end)
As Billy Fury sang, so near yet so far away. He who would valiant be. Having finally cracked the NW with BUNYAN and APRICOT, the NE was beyond me despite entering FAIENCE not even in hope. NYALA and LIEGEMAN beat me, although both words were familiar. I’ll labour night and day. To be a pillock! Hard but fair. Thank you George and setter.
63m 48s
Regardless of what others may say, I found that ‘proper ‘ard’.
PERMIAN, AGNES,NYALA,LIEGEMAN,FAIENCE, LUNETTE and DIABOLO all stretched the limits of my vocabulary.
19:52 but my smugness at what I thought a good time was undone by a couple of silly errors.
I genuinely thought BRAGGARD was the correct spelling so I didn’t give that much thought. I also entered AFTERTIME early on, thinking I’d go back to work it out later. More fool me.
Otherwise I was all parsed and very confident when I hit submit. Yet another to put down to experience…
An enjoyable solve though so thanks to both.
DNF, relieved to find that I’m in esteemed company with ‘braggard’ and ‘Persian’.
– Relied on wordplay for the unknown FAIENCE
– Didn’t know what kind of game DIABOLO is
– Not familiar with paste as an imitation gem for PASTEL
– Have heard of John BUNYAN but didn’t understand how the clue worked, as I didn’t separate ‘no’ and ‘point’ so thought ‘no point’ was telling us to remove N, E, W or S
– Didn’t know BROMIDE as dullard, that exact meaning of RECTO or that AGNES was a virgin martyr
Thanks glh and setter.
COD Governor, just because of how well-hidden it was
7m 54s, with the last three being the unknown crossers of FAIENCE & PERMIAN, and finally GOVERNOR which I threw in without much hope, having been unable to parse it. What an outstandingly well-hidden answer!
Some excellent stuff in this one, my preferred puzzle of the week thus far.
As GLH says, some wonderful misdirection here and there, with ‘Cretan cross’ and ‘medium interest’ at the top end of that.
Two things: first, I note that the first definition in Chambers for NUB is ‘point or gist’, whilst in Collins (British English section) it is relegated to number three. I knew the Pilgrim’s Progress fellow anyway, but nonetheless enjoyed the clue. (Was it really 1678? It seems like only yesterday.) Second, I see we had SP indicated by ‘special’ today, as we did in yesterday’s QC. Those London buses, eh?
Thanks setter for a nice diversion, and to GLH for illustrious works.
32:32
Very enjoyable. Felt I was punching above my weight most of the time. NYALA , ASPHODEL and PERMIAN all retrieved from the “words learnt from crosswords” box. A new meaning for BROMIDE. Applause for MINOTAUR, AGNES and BROKER but BUNYAN was COD.
Thanks to George and the setter.
53:18
Good puzzle – really enjoyed it.
Thanks, g.
15:55 on a particularly unpleasant Victoria Line.
Tricky but satisfying, I thought – especially the crossing NHOs FAIENCE and PERMIAN, which went in on the strength of FEAINCE looking even more unlikely. BUNYAN was also a puff-out-my-cheeks moment, with a faint memory of the author taking me away from BINYAN.
I think this is the third puzzle in a row where I’ve really had to skip around to get started. I then struggled a bit in the SE, until RANCOUR appeared from the mist. My LOI was GOVERNOR, which was very well-hidden, although I wasn’t keen on just ‘sector’ as an indicator.
Thanks both.
11:08, feeling pleased as I went along to have pulled out some quite obscure words which, a la Donald Rumsfeld, I didn’t know I knew. As always with such clues, kudos to the GOVERNOR hiding in plain sight until the very end, and some generally entertaining wordplay.
Enjoyed this, albeit for about 60′. CODs to GROUCHO and AFTERLIFE. A few NHOs but wordplay was generally helpful. Couldn’t get “nib” (point, reversed) out of my head for 1dn but persevered and nub=point eventually came, after which BUNYAN made sense. I was always unshowered when playing in the park… Thanks George and setter.
Much joy from this one, more than yesterday anyway. Some great clues, 40 minutes, delayed at the end by P*R*I*N and couldn’t justify PERSIAN or PORTION then saw the ‘old age’ wasn’t human and the penny dropped. I think AFTERLIFE is my CoD, although BUNYAN was close. I knew BROMIDE was a drug for dulling down, but had not seen that use of it before. Thanks George as ever.
Wonder if person will ever mean woman. Will it always be man?
Too hard for me, but hope to learn from this blog. Many thanks glh.
I know of one setter who makes a point of putting in either non-gendered terms or introducing female identifying terms for professions or the like. Unfortunately the string -MAN- is much more common in crosswords than -WOMAN-. Maybe the next time we have a clue for WORKMAN it could be clued as K,M inside WOMAN.
Artificer, person covering some distance (7)
Got there in the end, although I had to stop about half way through to clear my mind of circular thoughts; when I picked it up again, the rest went in fairly quickly. I often have to do this, and it nearly always works. Makes a nonsense of timings though.
There were no NHOs in the answers, but I wasn’t too confident about BROMIDE; obviously, it parsed and I was aware of bromide meaning something dull, but not somebody dull.
LOI was BUNYAN; took a while for him to spring to mind but, once he did, it clearly parsed.
I wasn’t sure either about the parsing of APRICOT; I guessed that “RIC” was “rich” minus the “h” but still hesitated because rich food, to me, is not necessarily “delicious” – not usually in fact. I like synonyms to be precise; I really should know better by now.
Think of rich and delicious being interchangeable in terms of gossip.
BRAGGART went in first followed by ROAST. A fair old workout followed that before I arrived at 28a and spent an age trying to find a word for sector beginning CO. I eventually removed the C and looked for a word for commander instead. GOVERNOR seemed to fit, but I couldn’t make sense of the wordplay. Finally I saw the hidden. Doh! That allowed me to get LOI, BROKER. Earlier on I’d had to use aids to get the NHO PERMIAN, where I knew PERSION or PERSIAN wasn’t going to do the trick. 30:57. Thanks setter and George.
Too good for me, with the lily, earthenware and Nyala all new to me.
Will try again tomorrow.
As ever, a witty blog from George.
Terrific puzzle in the sense of a real contest: nothing was easy, but nothing was impossible. Just about avoiding the Slough of Despond and the looming Giant Despair on the way to the Celestial City. Time and again it was a case of “Do you see yonder wicket-gate?” “No.” “Do you see yonder shining light?” “I think I do.” Then I made progress.
Tell you what, has there ever been such a comprehensively hidden “hidden”?
Oh, 17.39, which I believe I’m rather proud of.
I like that definition of good crossword. 35.24 for me, with a sense of achievement.
Wonderful to see a crossword with so many good points. It cannot be coincidence that NATIONAL SERVICE and BROMIDE are both in today – the myth (?) having been that bromide was put in the tea to reduce lust, a story that permeated through to my boarding school, the tea being variable.
I love the Pilgrim’s Progress, but am still only halfway through as there are so many allusions / biblical references on every page. BUNYAN was POI.
LOI was MINOTAUR, despite having been to Crete earlier this year. COD to GOVERNOR.
20’04”, thanks george and setter.
Once again fell at the last, with BUNYAN unsolved on the hour.
Some good stuff though and I was pleased to have worked out some unknowns via the wp. LUNETTE (here, another name for a loo seat!) ASPHODEL, BROMIDE (that meaning of it), DIABOLO, & PERMIAN.
I liked the two long clues.
Thanks G and setter.
Nice one. No unknowns. I always like it when 1a goes in straight away. After that it was an enjoyable and steady solve – though not particularly fast. 44 minutes.
27.55 so my times are getting worse by the day. I had no idea why 1 dn was Bunyan, apart from his proselytising but pleased to see I was right. Divine intervention?
Last ones in , not in order, were asphodel- v neatly clued, permian, patellae and spiral. Liked minotaur, liegeman and bromide. All in all a clever quiz which I v much enjoyed.
Thx setter and blogger- particularly for explaining Bunyan.
31:30 – plenty to think about, with PERMIAN and NYALA – one of the many exotic creatures you glimpse only in the boundless savannas of crossword land – holding out to the end.
Hard for me, slooooow work, but got there in the end. LOI Permian at 6d. Recognised the word, not a clue as to how old it is.
Knew 12a Faience from King Tut’s mask (the blue bits I think) but didn’t know how to spell it until I read the clue. The nyala at 15a I had forgotten, that well known inhabitant of crosswordland and somewhere else that is hot. 7d Reign took me too long. And the 28a Governor was WELL hidden as others have noted.
Good show, compliments all round (setter & blogger.)
Way above my current level so pleased to complete about 2/3 today. Loved some of the misdirection which fooled me totally of course (MINOTAUR – brilliant, and PATELLAE). New words for me included FAIENCE and ASPHODEL, both built from wordplay. Also tried PERSIAN but knew it didn’t really work. So enjoyable and another good day of learning. Many thanks all, especially glh.
My finishing time was reasonable at 37.58, but unfortunately with two errors. I had ASPHOMED for 14dn which was annoying as I’ve correctly solved ASPHODEL before, but I just couldn’t bring it to mind this time round. PERSIAN was also put in with hope more than confidence, and it came as no surprise to find it was wrong. On the plus side BUNYAN didn’t present too many difficulties, but overall a feeling of disappointment at not finishing a good puzzle.
23:28
Much more enjoyable than Wednesday’s- maybe a wavelengthy thing. After the first minute or so, I had nothing, before the dribble became a flood, at least until the final seven or eight. RANCOUR, BROKER, RECTO and GOVERNOR all entered in quick succession, then FAIENCE (had to trust in its existence), NYALA and PERMIAN (guessed from the cryptic with all checkers in place), which left BUNYAN which I may yet get around to reading.
Thanks G and setter
DNF with PERSIAN. Thought that ‘fitted’ might indicate an anagram of ‘is’.
Great puzzle with great cryptic definitions, Cretan Cross being my favourite.
Only gripe is that maybe the PERMIAN, FAIENCE, NYALA junction was a bit unfair. I’d never heard of any of them!
A fantastic crossword, which I completed in 24’39”. CRETAN CROSS for MINOTAUR was brilliant. 6 down too, which had me thinking there must be a misprint – because the answer had to be PENSION … or PORTION … or PERSIAN. Superb surface. I suppose NYALAs must be like REEBOKs (which we had recently) and SPRINGBOKs in their bounding skills. Note to self: don’t assume all bounders are from Oz.
Nyala are rather larger than either reebok or springbok. Jumping ability is not one of their main characteristics in the way that it is for, say, an impala (or kangaroo) so “Bounder” as a definition seems somewhat vague.
DNF – beaten by 1d.
COD to MINOTAUR.
Ditto on both points.
45 minutes, plodding through it all but eventually only entering ‘AFTERLIFE’ because of ‘life’: I was stupidly thinking that interest in following = after, which of course is silly because of the parts of speech, and not being able to see why medium = afterlife.
36:36. LOI PERMIAN where I was thinking about PERSIAN but couldn’t make sense of it, then just as desperation set in I thought of PERMIAN as an old age and put in it without really understanding the rest of the clue.
Funnily enough I got BUNYAN / NAY NUB pretty much instantaneously, I was probably about 80% of the way though in 20 minutes, but then the rest proved sticky. MINOTAUR I was thinking, but why is a minotaur a cretan cross, then it was oohhhh! Yes a good puzzle, that’s the kind of clue I really like.
Many thanks setter and blogger
Many people seem to have liked this, and I did too very much, though it took me an hour and I was close to giving up with AFTERLIFE, ASPHODEL and MINOTAUR left to do. What I liked most about this puzzle is that it was full of words I don’t actually know, or know very scarcely, but which nevertheless came to mind eventually in a convincing manner. And like yesterday’s puzzle, it had very oblique definitions (“medium interest”, for example). Hard to say which would be my COD, perhaps AFTERLIFE or REIGN.
mauefw under 8 minutes? really?
😮
Yes! Hard to believe when 8 minutes equates to about 15 seconds per clue. We gave up after an hour!
Oh the joys of lateral not literal thinking…..oblique clues are always satisfying to solve.
Knew faience as I recall many years ago being so disappointed on learning how much Egyptian “turquoise” wasn’t.
Missed 1d, drat.
Thanks setter. And blogger.
Very much enjoyed: FOI REIGN, but very much beaten by this excellent puzzle which overstretched my ability and GK, unfortunately. As others, NHO NYALA, PERMIAN nor DIABOLO as a game, didn’t get BUNYAN nor BRAGGART. Was pleased to get NATIONAL SERVICE and PATELLAE straight away, and saw GOVERNOR quickly. The rest was very challenging, especially as I confidently entered ACRID instead of ACERB, disallowing me to get BROMIDE and AFTERLIFE. Never thought I’d a senior academic as a RECTOR.