Time: 42:26
Music: Saint-Saens Cello Concerto, Ma/Maazel
Yes, a bit of a shocker. It seems like there are more solvers with errors than usual, so it is very important to carefully follow the cryptics. I suspect this puzzle will have a NHO for nearly every solver, but it should be possible to come up with an all-correct grid if you are careful.
I started out with 1 across, and while I was able to solve it, I set my expectations up a level, and I was not wrong. I was only able to get a few around the edge of the grid, and had to work my way in. Donatello, Madison, and nurseryman came relatively early, and helped me get started. Then, in the middle of my solve, I suddenly saw a bunch of long answers – Cold Comfort Farm, no man’s land, throughout, transactor. But closing out this puzzle was not easy as I struggled with microlight, gonna, and table before seeing how they worked. Microlight had to be the answer, but I had to look it up after solving to see exactly what it was.
| 1 | Back at last, decided to watch Puss in Boots (4) |
| SHOD – Last letters of [decide]D [t]O [watc]H [pus}S backwards. A long clue for a short answer is usually something like this. | |
| 4 | Solo one takes up this credit, getting oil converted into power (10) |
| MICROLIGHT – MI(CR, anagram of OIL)GHT. I was thinking microphone, but couldn’t justify it. But it’s not a singer, it’s a flyer. | |
| 9 | Fruit badly stored in Moorish city (10) |
| GRANADILLA – GRANAD(ILL)A. I was saved by Dryden, giving me the correct spelling. I suspect many solvers biffed grenadilla. | |
| 10 | Fail to acknowledge name in advance (4) |
| SNUB – S(N)UB, as an advance payment. | |
| 11 | Hurry to get these fish on (6) |
| SKATES – A cryptic hint, alluding to get your skates on, meaning to hurry. | |
| 12 | Spy may take this and come east in disguise (4,4) |
| CODE NAME – Anagram of AND COME E. | |
| 14 | Does she give both hands to soldier? (4) |
| GIRL – G.I. + R + L. | |
| 15 | 1066 Pevensey event — no resistance in contested region (2-4-4) |
| NO-MANS-LAND – NO[r]MANS LAND, written as a headline from a newspaper in 1066. | |
| 17 | Completely dismissed in audition (10) |
| THROUGHOUT – Sounds like THREW OUT. | |
| 20 | Ask out loud for something to eat (4) |
| PREY – Sounds like PRAY. | |
| 21 | Leading celebrities plump for one who is no influencer (8) |
| FATALIST – FAT + A-LIST. | |
| 23 | Go by turns extremely expressionless and faint (6) |
| ELAPSE – E[xpressionles]S PALE, all backwards. | |
| 24 | During interval, women’s rude stare (4) |
| GAWP – GA(W)P. | |
| 25 | Negotiator gives drama lessons, except one (10) |
| TRANSACTOR – TRA[i]NS ACTOR. | |
| 26 | One in a growing business, a baby-minder? (10) |
| NURSERYMAN – Cryptic definition plus a cryptic hint. | |
| 27 | Hard work, scrubbing good skin (4) |
| RIND – [g]RIND. I hope no one was tempted to put raft. | |
| Down | |
| 2 | Speed along, changing his rank in sect (4,7) |
| HARE KRISHNA – HARE + anagram of HIS RANK. | |
| 3 | Chipper, contribute two pounds and nothing more (9) |
| DONATELLO – DONATE + L,L + O. A very clever literal, since presumably sculptors chip off bits of marble. | |
| 4 | President died in house abroad (7) |
| MADISON – MA(D)ISON. A great political thinker, reduced to a faddish girl’s name. | |
| 5 | Pass current format for new opening of major novel (4,7,4) |
| COLD COMFORT FARM – COL + D.C. + anagram of FORMAT FOR + M[ajor]. I suspect most solvers will biff. | |
| 6 | Give up, losing rating for working without pause (2,3,2) |
| ON AND ON – (-ab,+ON)ANDON, a very clever substitution clue. AB for naval rating, on for working. | |
| 7 | Intending to monitor bar area (5) |
| GONNA – GO[a]NNA. A Mephisto-grade cryptic. The Goanna lizards are also called monitors. | |
| 8 | Columns of data small computer doesn’t finish (5) |
| TABLE – TABLE[t]. I tried everything but the obvious in this clue, which you would expect to start with S. | |
| 13 | Improve hard lesson prepared for Felix (11) |
| MENDELSSOHN – MEND + anagram of H LESSON. Brilliant! | |
| 16 | Cavalryman engages a paid club entertainer (3,6) |
| LAP DANCER – L(A PD)ANCER. Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines, no doubt. | |
| 18 | Grand family of babies sparkle (7) |
| GLITTER – G + LITTER, one of the few easy ones. | |
| 19 | Serious offence requires time to think (7) |
| TREASON – T + REASON, a well-disguised chestnut. | |
| 21 | Force opposing exploiter of children (5) |
| FAGIN – F + AGIN. | |
| 22 | Keep in drawer (5) |
| TOWER – Double definition, with both definitions using secondary meanings. | |
DNF. Your suspicions are correct. GRENADILLA was the killer.
Another GRENADILLA here 😒
#me ‘n’ all
#metoo
DNF
I thought of GONNA, but couldn’t justify it. DNK MICROLIGHT, and couldn’t make anything of the clue. I did think of RAFT before RIND, oddly enough given that ‘graft’ isn’t in my dialect. COD MENDELSSOHN.
Too much for me first thing Monday morning. I get all the answers having read the blog but MENDELSSOHN, MICROLIGHT, and a few others beat me. Is PD an abbreviation for paid? NHO COLD COMFORT FARM. GONNA came easily, along with FAGIN, DONATELLO, HARE KRISHNA once I had the K. Luckily, I saw the reversal of the last letters for SHOD. COD to ON AND ON.
Thanks V and setter.
I can easily imagine the Accounts Department writing “PD” on an invoice! It’s in Chambers BTW.
And Collins.
Writing? You have a rubber stamp – wham!
I spent an initial 20 minutes with no clues solved. After a break I biffed FOI ON AND ON which led to some crossers. Progress was painfully slow and I finally finished about 3 hours later. For COLD COMFORT FARM I had a vague recollection and the spelling was easy. Getting the spelling right on others was quite difficult. The clue I had the most difficulty with was PREY. Initially I had PLEA (loud=l, food=pea) but I didn’t like it and left the clue to last where I finally looked at PREY. I still had some misgivings as prayer when I was young tended to be out loud. COD NO MAN’S LAND.
Thanks V
A worthy challenge! Got ’em all, LOI being GONNA, which I put in before parsing—but then remembered the name of the lizard! POI was MICROLIGHT. The thought of GRANADA kept an E out of that one for me. Took quite a while to see the parsing of ON AND ON, though it was the obvious answer. I think the clue for SKATES is very odd (just strap those fish to your feet and sail off across the ice!)—saw it long before I resigned myself to putting it in—and the one for FATALIST a bit of a stretch: “a ‘no’ influencer” indeed! Maybe I was reading too much into that. A FATALIST wouldn’t care if the answer were yes or no—whatever will be, will be! To Diderot’s Jacques the F., “tout ce qui nous arrive de bien et de mal ici-bas était écrit là-haut.” So they wouldn’t be giving anyone advice about what to do, I suppose…?
GONNA was hard. I wanted to put GUNNA, but it looks like that’s just an Aussie word. And, I did know no one spells GOANNA with a U.
Hurry – “get your skates on”
Another DNF, slipped on the fruit. Otherwise I enjoyed this tough but fair unMondayish work-out, special thanks to vinyl for explaining GONNA and untangling MICROLIGHT. Couldn’t figure out TABLE either, my mind had been conditioned to expect something more devious. No time due to interruptions, but I’d guess around 35.
From way back in the day:
Come mothers and fathers, THROUGHOUT the land
And don’t criticise what you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’
This one seemed a lot harder than it actually turned out for me as I finished in 38 minutes all correct on a puzzle I had wondered if I would ever finish at all.
My LOI was GONNA, not that I spent much time on it at that stage. With all the checkers in place GONNA was the only word that sprang to mind and it fitted a possible definition ‘going to’ so in it went. I doubt I would ever have seen the wordplay so I’m glad I didn’t pursue that after I had stopped the clock.
I wasn’t sure about ‘one who is no influencer / FATALIST’ but again I bunged it in and moved on, this time with certainty over the wordplay. Fortunately I knew MICROLIGHT as I’ve heard reports of people flying them.
Another GRENADILLA here, based on GRENADINE, which seemed passable logic as I wasn’t certain of the city. Not a generous clue, and overall not my favourite puzzle. I swear I was thinking that before the pink square appeared…
Thanks both.
14.05
Having grown up in Granadaland (and with a tendency to sing ‘At Long Last Love’ at the drop of a hat) I was able to mutter “Is it GRANADA I see?” for 9ac. On the other hand, I wouldn’t have been able to spell MENDELSSOHN without the crossers.
Biffed COLD COMFORT FARM.
LOI ELAPSE
COD FATALIST
45 minutes with LOI MICROLIGHT on a wing and a prayer, which sounds apt. I’d only just twigged GONNA. I really liked both NO MAN’S LAND and DONATELLO, with GAWP a personal favourite word too. This was never easy but I liked it. Thank you V and setter.
I’ve been to GRANADA, but still put GRENADILLA. No idea at all re GONNA. And I missed PREY, already having doubtful answers and being impatient.
I liked No MAN’S LAND and didn’t bother parsing COLD COMFORT FARM.
Thanks vinyl and setter.
DNF, another ‘Grenadilla’ here. A bit silly as I know the city is Granada, but I’d spent a long time on the clue, trying among other things to fit an anagram of ‘stored’ into a city, that when I finally had all the checkers I just bunged it in with the E.
– Had no idea how GONNA worked
– Constructed COLD COMFORT FARM from wordplay, though the novel must have been at the back of my mind somewhere
– Got HARE KRISHNA once I had the K and the A of the second word before I parsed it
Thanks vinyl and setter.
COD Shod
45m 45s
I liked this one! Especially NO(r)MANS LAND and SHOD.
But ‘chipper’ for Donatello?? Dear me! That’s like calling Michelangelo a painter & decorator.
Another one who started with (g)RAFT in 27ac
Fortunately I was aware of the difference between the Caribbean island and the Moorish city.
Thank you, Vinyl, especially for COLD COMFORT FARM, ON AND ON and GONNA.
Plenty of nasty things to be found in this woodshed. FOI and COD to 15ac after an hour or so of head scratching.
DNF. Just couldn’t see MICROLIGHT (which in turn precluded me from getting GONNA & TABLE) despite sort of seeing how it worked. What’s worse, is that one takes off every weekend from the end of my garden, so no excuses at all! Damn.
Mind you, I also had GRENADILLA despite, as others, knowing the city well.
Thanks vinyl for the blog and enlightenment.
I didn’t note my time on this one and I solved on paper, but it didn’t feel very quick, and I can’t say I really enjoyed it much. Maybe my opinion is coloured by being yet another GRENADILLA.
I’m going to have to buy more chalk at this rate.
Thanks to both.
26.03, with delight at NOrMANS LAND countered by revulsion for GONNA, two horribles in one clue. Just stopped myself submitting with HARI- (what’s the mata you?). I was OK with the definition for FATALIST: one who can’t or won’t do anything to change their future, but thought the word order was a bit iffy: there wasn’t really any reason to put FAT before A-LIST. I think I enjoyed this, perhaps in a slightly masochistic way. It was a “hard lesson prepared” for Monday coasters.
I think the word order for FATALIST works if you lift and separate the first two words: ‘celebrities’ on its own is giving ‘a-list’, and ‘leading’ is telling you to put ‘fat’ ahead of it.
I’ll cheerfully blog the Literary Jumbo No 1 (and only?) if wanted, though it might take a day or two.
Looking forward to doing it so a blog would be welcome.
If it takes a few days no problem, the crossword will probably take me that long.. 🙂
I’ll publish on Thursday around the same time as my normal blog, unless suggested otherwise.
Well I’ve been to Granada, and not to Grenada, so no problem there ..
Anyone not familiar with Cold Comfort Farm should look it up, it is a very fine novel.
The definition of MICROLIGHT was very sneaky but sadly wrong. There are many two seater models.
Actually you are right, my neighbour’s one is a TWO seater. Didn’t pick that up.
Indeed, my colleague from Coolgardie took me up in his microlight. A hang glider with an engine/propeller on the back.
Aaarrgh! DNF big time.
Didn’t like 7d Gonna, but it is in Cheating Machine.
Great puzzle for a Monday! Like @jerry I knew it was GRANADA not GRENADA, so no probs there. Couldn’t parse GONNA – DK the lizard – and biffed CC FARM and FELIX M so thanks for explaining the gritty bits vinyl1. CoD DONATELLO for me. Chipper!
A real bracer to start the week. Managed about half before deciding I was in over my head. Having read the comments, I should perhaps have persevered, but It was a pleasure to read the blog and realise how ingenious this was. COD NO MANS LAND. Wince of the day DONATELLO.
Thanks to vinyl and the setter
My combined jabs made me feel quite woosy over the weekend so I’d hoped for an easy one today. Prayers not answered, but did get through in 45′. GRANADILLA helped I think by a lack of GK, other than knowing the city, so no second thoughts. GONNA and ELAPSE bunged in without parsing (NHO the lizard and missed the backwards identifier). Looked at LOI 1ac for ages then after a trawl realised the definition was “in boots”, clever. Enjoyable if challenging for a Monday. though quite a few Mondays have been challenging lately! Thanks Vinyl and setter.
11:14, taken over the 10-minute mark by a failure to see what was going on with 1ac and hesitation over ON AND ON, where the answer seemed obvious but I was wary of biffing it for some reason. I liked this one, there are some brilliant clues in here.
1ac was my first in as I used the “back at last” device in an entry for the ST clue writing competition (although I didn’t get a mention from PB.)
Back at last, Ford’s Tobacco Road remade for the silver screen (7)
(1941 film directed by John Ford)
Very clever!
I actually said out loud “No, Grenada is in the Caribbean” and that spared me a DNF. Thanks due to Vinyl1 for parsing my LOI (I resisted “Genoa”) and also the biffed NO-MAN’S-LAND. I confess to considering “raft” but fortunately I dismissed it quickly.
When I spotted “Felix” it caused me to wonder if this puzzle was part of Richard Rogan’s legacy – because if so it’s a damn fine tribute to his skills, though I don’t see a Nina to back up my thoughts.
FOI GRANADILLA
LOI GONNA
COD THROUGHOUT
TIME 14:28
OWL club again- a careless HARI did for me (and I mentally queried it at the time). Got the fruit and GONNA (I’ve seen GOANNAS in Oz, but I didn’t understand the wordplay). I initially biffed GLAMOUR until that didn’t work.
It seemed a very closed off grid that didn’t help getting cross checking clues.
Thanks to blogger and setter. Tricky puzzle. It’s been a while since we’ve had an easy Monday.
Quite a lot of this went over my head.
I did get there in a decent time, but I was surprised to be all green. LOI was ELAPSE, there were a few biffs, GONNA & the novel spring to mind.
22:00
Re No MANS LAND, I hadn’t realised that today is actually the anniversary of the Battle of Hastings.
Aha! Me neither! 👍
25 mins. I thought the fruit was GRENADILLA, but as the Moorish city is GRANADA, no problem. Tricky for a Monday, no end of head scratching for 1a.
Bah it had to be microlight but they are not always solo flying and 6 down was to me a bit of a stretch but only two iffy clues is not so bad. Took me nearly an hour though. I CAN spell mendelthingy!
I was saved from GRENADILLA by knowing that Grenada is an island and Granada is a city, even though intuitively I’d have expected the fruit to have something to do with grenadine. I drew a blank for quite a while, with TOWER being my FOI. I made some progress in the SW and worked my way back up the grid from there. NO MANS LAND and MENDELSSOHN were the standout clues for me. SHOD was a very late entry. Spotted COL and M in the wordplay and then biffed COLD COMFORT FARM. MICROLIGHT was POI and GONNA was LOI, biffed from checkers and definition. No idea how the wordplay worked. Not really enamoured of this clue. 35:28. Thanks setter and Vinyl.
Another GRENADILLA.
I annoyingly avoided the more obvious traps but put in HARI KRISHNA a at 2 down. It’s how I remembered it was spelled and from subsequent googling it appears it sometimes is. It doesn’t quite fit the clue, of course, but I was thinking “speed along” = “hurry” rather than “hare”, and since hari sounds like hurry I thought it had something to do with the sound of the words even though there was no homophone indicator. Oh well.
I made the same mistake. Put down HARE and then changed it to HARI.
“Trust the word play, Andrew” I’ve said to myself many times!
No time to record as by necessity completed in three sessions, but somewhere in the region of 45-50 minutes I would have thought. After seeing Vinyl’s heads up that there were quite a few entries with mistakes, I took great care to parse everything as I went. Even so my effort at spelling MENDELSSOHN with all the correct letters at my disposal was lamentable, and it was only eventually correctly solving the acrossers to 20,23 and 25 that the correct spelling emerged. I didn’t manage to parse either ON AND ON or GONNA, but at least got them right. A really good test, and all the more enjoyable for that.
20 mins, roughly – done on paper for the first time in ages, as I was in the cafe at the John Radcliffe waiting for a consultation about my snazzy new DBS implant. Clues tricky, but handwriting gratifyingly legible 🙂
Thanks, v.
An absolutely magnificent crossword with so many superb clues – Donatello and code name, a brilliant disguised anagram my favourites. I had to try four different spellings of our German composer until I could make the SE work. Gonna gave me no problems as I am familiar with goannas after one attempted to share my sandwich on a hike in Manley a few years back. Unfortunately after all that I pink squared due to biffing and not parsing hari rather than Hare Krishna 😡
Thanks vinyl and setter
Hiking at Manly raised a MER, until I remembered the excellent North Head trails.
I left blanks at G-N-A thinking surely The Times wouldn’t countenance such a thing as gonna or gunna, should have twigged that type of monitor, the sharp clawed type which when startled will swarm up you if there’s no nearby refuge tree.
Enjoyed this, but failed to spot gonna.
I was a bit surprised that throughout should also mean completely, although they are listed in the usual sources as synonyms.
I just can’t immediately think of a sentence where one would be readily interchangeable with the other..
After getting caught in the downpour my clothes were soaked completely/ throughout.
35:24
Enjoyed Michael Portillo’s programmes on Andalusia not so long ago, so GRANAD(ILL)A was fairly fresh in my mind. Did less well justifying GONNA as I NHO the GOANNA lizard – only know of it as the monitor – and LAP DANCER – the answer was clear but the parsing not so much – that too is now obvious in retrospect. ON AND ON also caused my to furrow my brow. COLD COMFORT FARM bunged in from three checkers.
Thanks V and setter
Pleased to finish but it took me an hour – of which probably 15 minutes on LOI Elapse, inexplicably.
Spent some time trying to anagramatise(?) Fruit Badly into a Moroccan city .
Luckily for me, my father was a big fan of Cold Comfort Farm – I haven’t read it myself (yet).
Mondays are definitely getting tougher.
GRRR!ENADILLA (even though I, too, have been to GRANADA, but “grenadine” in the back of my head made me change it after entering the correct spelling). I’m very surprised that the rest of it was right. The wordplay for GONNA would have been absolutely beyond me, but I couldn’t think of anything better and I did actually parse MICROLIGHT (and after wondering what it was, I did guess correctly that it was an aircraft) and COLD COMFORT FARM, a novel I have never heard of. I think this puzzle really transcends the difficulty of an ordinary cryptic and I did not enjoy it, and not because of the silly spelling mistake.
I enjoyed this one even though I’m another GRENADILLA and couldn’t parse GONNA although it was the only possibility. One small grumble, 3ac made me smile but if the definition itself is tongue-in-cheek wouldn’t we usually get a question mark? Thanks for the blog.
Amazingly avoided all the traps and crossed the finishing line in 47 minutes. Nice thorny puzzle. A few went in with a shrug though.
I made several ham-fisted attempts at spelling MENDELSSOHN. Something similar happens when I try to play his music on the piano.
I think it just means son of Mendel, anyway if you think of it like that the spelling’s obvious
GONNA? OK, so it might be in the dictionary, but it’s not in any language I know. This sort of clue just annoys me and this puzzle went straight to the WPB when I saw it. See you tomorrow, folks.
😀
“Finished” in 30:47 so went over my half hour target (LOI ELAPSE) but then on top of that had gone for GRENADINE so DNF
GONNA took me a while as I couldn’t make sense of Genoa which seemed the only alternative, until I cottoned on
Also learnt today that Mendelssohn was a Felix.
Thanks setter and blogger
Parsed it all correctly – or would have done, if I hadn’t thought the Moorish city was Grenada… at least I wasn’t alone in that! One hour exactly.
63mins
Lot of biffing went on. Thank heavens for the check button!
NHO quite a few refs like Grenadilla, Pevensey and Goanna but you learn something every day.
LOI Prey which foxed me as I was thinking human food.
Very good puzzle. Thank you.
This was just like the Sunday puzzle only a bit easier. Same setter in my opinion.
Failed On MICROLIGHT annoyingly which stopped me seeing TABLE -which I should have got.
David
Wow, welcome to the week! Limped my way to a 40 min DNF, having bunged in GENOA in desperation (well it’s an area). Then it turned out that HARI was wrong too (I’d assumed that it was a dodgy homophone for “hurry” with an indicator I couldn’t spot … well I’m a stranger in these parts …).
Hey ho, another one tomorrow. Thanks for the explanations, vinyl.
GRENADILLA and HARI KRISHNA. Badly done.