For me, another of those 80 – 20 puzzles, most of it quickly done and few stragglers taking longer than the eighty per cent. Nothing unknown, though apart from the cut of meat which IMO would be better called H-bone, to relate to T-bone. 25 minutes done and parsed. The dentist got my CoD.
Definitions underlined in bold, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, anagrinds in italics, [deleted letters in square brackets].
| Across | |
| 1 | Copper, mildly indecent, in church office (6) |
| CURACY – CU (Cu, copper), RACY mildly indecent. | |
| 4 | Clear direction given twice for person with exclusive right (8) |
| PATENTEE – PATENT = clear, E E a direction twice. I thought this was DESIGNEE at first, but no. | |
| 10 | In a canine expert, see member of Christian group (9) |
| ADVENTIST – an expert on your canines is A DENTIST, ha, ha, insert V = vide, see Latin. | |
| 11 | Southern Italian explorer giving up cape for shoe (5) |
| SABOT – I didn’t know (or had forgotten) that John Cabot was Italian, but knew he was an explorer. Change his C for cape to S for southern. | |
| 12 | General prepared to expatiate (7) |
| ENLARGE – (GENERAL)*. Yes, that’s what expatiate means. | |
| 13 | Case of composer about to retire (7) |
| HOLSTER – Gustav HOLST, RE reversed. | |
| 14 | Constant horseplay oldies partially backed (5) |
| LOYAL -reversed hidden. | |
| 15 | Trick poet with writing fluid (8) |
| HOODWINK – Thomas HOOD, W[ith], INK. | |
| 18 | Cadge rugs, once refurbished (8) |
| SCROUNGE – (RUGS ONCE)*. | |
| 20 | Woman originally involved with Descartes? (5) |
| IRENE – I[nvolved], René was Descartes first name. | |
| 23 | Feature of birds boy attendant spotted round Angus’s chimney (7) |
| PLUMAGE – PAGE has LUM, Scottish word for chimney, inserted. | |
| 25 | Draw game? He painted frescoes (7) |
| TIEPOLO – TIE = draw, POLO is a game. Venetian painter who did frescoes among other things. | |
| 26 | Broadcast poets preclude by legal rule (5) |
| ESTOP – (POETS)*. I’m not a lawyer, but I’d come across this one. | |
| 27 | Inclination to adopt very English raising agent (9) |
| LEAVENING – LEANING (inclination) has V E inserted. | |
| 28 | Split up before crossing river for formal flower garden (8) |
| PARTERRE – PART = split up, ERE = before, insert R for river. | |
| 29 | Impression made by this writer’s agreement (6) |
| IMPACT – I’M (this writer is), PACT = agreement. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Long-legged insect big bird observed on rush (5,3) |
| CRANE FLY – a CRANE is a big bird, and FLY = rush. Another name is Daddy Long-legs. | |
| 2 | In Rhode Island differ about origin of literary competition (7) |
| RIVALRY – RI (Rhode Island), VARY (differ), insert L from Literary. | |
| 3 | Singer caught on time, one leaving Venetian island (9) |
| CONTRALTO – C[aught], ON, T[ime], R[I]ALTO. | |
| 5 | Doctor Wood supports a craving for a cut of beef (9,5) |
| AITCHBONE STEAK – this was my LOI, as it is a cut of meat with which I am not familiar. I have heard of T-bone. I parsed it thus, after having all the checkers and guessing it; A, ITCH (craving), BONES (doctor), TEAK (wood). I suspected it might be an American thing, but apparently it’s an old UK butchers cut and the aitchbone is the hip bone of a cow. See e.g. https://www.grasmere-farm.co.uk/shop/beef/21-day-dry-aged-aitchbone-joint-from-native-breed-beef/ |
|
| 6 | Supporter, sly type, deserted by wife (5) |
| EASEL – WEASEL loses its W. | |
| 7 | Asian giant importing British energy (7) |
| TIBETAN – TITAN a giant has B E inserted. | |
| 8 | Complete set of books embraced by European republic (6) |
| ENTIRE – the NT is inserted into EIRE which is mistakenly believed to be the official Irish name for the Republic of Ireland. (It’s actually the Irish for the whole 32-county island, but the stamps do say “Eire”.) It’s properly called, Poblacht na hÉireann, which won’t fit on a stamp. | |
| 9 | Academic’s weakness initially leaving gold around part of church (4-10) |
| VICE-CHANCELLOR – VICE (weakness), L (initially leaving), OR (gold), insert CHANCEL part of a church. | |
| 16 | You and I grin broadly, imbibing wallop in tree? (9) |
| WHITEBEAM – WE BEAM = you and I grin broadly, insert HIT for wallop. I’ve got a big one in my garden, the leaves are currently turning a nice red colour. | |
| 17 | Begged to figure among those looked for (8) |
| BESOUGHT – those BEing SOUGHT would be those looked for. | |
| 19 | Jumble left in small sailing boat (7) |
| CLUTTER – L inside CUTTER. | |
| 21 | Hurried over, primarily incensed about explicit art (7) |
| EROTICA – TORE (hurried) reversed, I[ncensed], CA = about. | |
| 22 | Raise castle’s running costs (6) |
| UPKEEP – UP = raise, KEEP = a castle. | |
| 24 | Porter, possibly, carrying very soft fruit (5) |
| APPLE – Porter a sort of ALE, insert PP for very soft. | |
32 minutes for all but PATENTEE which required another 6 making 38 in total. Many answers went straight in but one that delayed me along the way was HOLSTER where I wasted time trying to make ‘case of composer / CR’.
I suppose IRENE is an improvement on yesterday’s random female name, MAVIS, and I was at least pleased she was defined as ‘woman’ rather than ‘girl’.
At last TIEPOLO seems to have stuck in my brain although I suspect the wordplay never varies much when he turns up. I don’t think ‘mint’ has been used in one of his clues yet, which would make a welcome change.
Rather annoyingly, some people pronounce AITCHBONE as “Haitchbone”.
I never heard of WHITEBEAM until a couple of weeks ago when a tree surgeon advised that’s the one that dominates my front garden. Previously I had thought it was a hornbeam but that was just a best guess from my own inexpert research.
Nice puzzle I thought, and at 36.08 it was, for me, no pushover. I started well with CURACY and finished with the NHO tree. Like Jack I was trying to get CR into HOLSTER and the steak, which I have only heard of via these puzzles, was a very late entry. Thanks piquet. Sometimes (like now) I have a great notion to play a Leadbelly record…
From Like A Rolling Stone (somewhat loosely, but hey)
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hangin’ out
Now you don’t talk so loud
Now you don’t seem so proud
About having to be SCROUNGING for your next meal
‘…scrounging around for…’, unless I’ve misheard, or it was a live version.
Must’ve been one of his live variations.
On the hit record—
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwOfCgkyEj0
—and in the official lyrics on his website, it’s just “About having to be scrounging for your next meal.”
This always goes over very well when I do it in karaoke. Finally, someone made a backup track for that—I’ve wanted one for years.
I guessed Lindsay would pick that song for this!
It’s the astoundingly great live version with The Band on ‘Before the Flood’. It scans better 🙂
One of the many wonders of this blog is the way we all participate while being scattered around the globe in different time zones, so I wake up in Oz to find the question has been posed and answered without me having to lift a finger! That is a great version on BTF, I’m now going to go and listen to it again, but there’s something remarkable about the original Highway 61 version that simply refuses to die even after 60-odd years. I’m going to listen to that too.
Oh, and also, I am deeply impressed by the idea of performing this one in karaoke Guy. It sounds like everyone is having more fun than me! I hope the backing track incorporates the spirit of Al K and Michael B.
20:49
And another C_R; I think I needed the L_T before I saw the light. I also took ‘Woman initially’=W, another time-waster. I biffed CONTRALTO, VICE-CHANCELLOR (the enumeration should have givven me this earlier) , parsing post-submission. DNK AITCHBONE STEAK (LOI), and it took me a long time to fill in __STEAK. DNK the tree.
Saw the dentist straight away in 10A but thought I had to add ‘LO’ for see. Eventually saw it. Another fooled by case of composer=CR. NHO Lum/chimney. SABOT for shoe comes up regularly so no problems with that, but I didn’t know the explorer. As for the steak, it rings a bell. NHO the tree but got it from the wordplay. NHO and never got BESOUGHT.
Thanks piquet and setter.
Scottish good wishes, esp at New Year include “Lang may yer lum reek” meaning may the fire keep going. Good way to remember a cruciverbalist’s fave.
Thanks. I had to google reek in Scottish as I was unaware it meant smoke.
Edinburgh (Embra to Glaswegians) used to be known as Auld Reekie, probably until the Clean Air Act.
22 minutes with LOI the unknown AITCHBONE needing all crossers and then the parsing. The STEAK had been on the plate getting cold for some time. COD to ADVENTIST. I only know the SEVENTH DAY variety and not too much about them. Otherwise I found this pretty straightforward. Thank you Pip and setter.
Enjoyed this puzzle. FOI HOODWINK then CONTRALTO, SCROUNGE and VICE-CHANCELLOR. After about an hour I had all but the NE corner. Unfortunately I had ENTRECOTE STEAK which fitted the NW crossers and it took another 30 minutes of fruitless search for me to realise it must be wrong. From the wordplay I realised it had to end in BONE and start with A. I was then able to rapidly complete the puzzle.
Thanks Piquet
11.10 (not helped by initially entering TIEPOLO at 23 instead of 25ac)
Biffed the two long downs.
One can imagine Magoo grinding his teeth at RIVALRY appearing so close to the big day – coincidence, surely?
LOI PATENTEE
COD ADVENTIST
(Like a long-legged fly upon the stream
His mind moves upon silence.)
Yeats
30 mins with brekker. Neat and tidy and a nice balance of trickiness with generosity.
Ta setter and Pip
Would have been quick today, except for confidently entering entrecote steak, for obscure reasons, and that took some time to un ravel/mat.
I had ENTRECOTE until PATENTEE turned up.
6:32. I found this easy but needed the wordplay for most of the clues, which made for a fun solve.
According to Wikipedia the Constitution of Ireland, adopted in 1937, says that “the name of the State is Éire, or, in the English language, Ireland”.
The Wikipedia articles on Ireland and Republic of Ireland are somewhat contradictory on this one. While living in Ireland for 15 years I received quite a lot of flak from Irish people (some of them politicians and lawyers) for the British use of Eire as the name for their country. I think the 1937 Constitution wasn’t restricted to the 26 counties, it was idealistically referring to all 32 including the North, which, as the whole island, would be “Eire”. But it’s not a big deal, unless you’re Irish and feel it is!
Probably a subject best avoided!
If you are Irish, I expect you definitely feel it is ..
9:27
I had all the knowledge bar the steak, which was my LOI, but once PATENTEE fell in it was straightforward enough to construct. An enjoyable one.
Thanks both.
10:28. Held up at the end for a couple of minutes by AITCHBONE and PATENTEE. Neat crossword. Thanks Pip and setter.
15’45”, with the nho AITCHBONE LOI (I don’t eat meat).
I have heard of the Scots phrase of endearment (?) ‘long may your LUM reek’.
BESOUGHT is one of those odd English words, the present tense being ‘beseech’.
Thanks pip and setter.
More exactly, ‘Lang may yer lum reek.’ More of a good luck/health thing, than endearment.
Odd also that while beseech becomes besought we have seek becoming
sought. I wonder if the ch or the k was the older form.
Mostly straightforward and had all but two clues finished at the 20 min mark. The two NHOs, WHITEBEAM and TIEPOLO, took another 10 mins and went in on wordplay with crossed fingers.
43m 42s
3d CONTRALTO reminds me of the lovely Kathleen Ferrier and ‘What is life’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQuahSdTvU4
Any reminder of the finest voice in history is welcome!
I love her voice but, for me, Gundula Janowitz is the Queen!
Ah. The finest singer of Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs, to be sure
….with the Berlin Philharmonic under Von Karajan. The fourth and last song, ‘Im Abendrot’, is what I want played at my funeral.
Agreed, though in my case it’s Beim Schlafengehen.
Sorry, but that’s got to be Jessye Norman! Wet sponges at dawn for any dissenters.
My grandfather (who was a concert standard pianist) could not stand her, and called her “That warbling woman.” He claimed that she could not hold a steady note, an assertion that the link does seem to provide some little support for .. does seem to be a minority view though 🙂
I must admit I don’t particularly care for her “Oh, for the wings of a dove”.
About 15 minutes.
– Didn’t know John Cabot but SABOT was clear enough
– I’m sure Thomas Hood must have come up before, but I didn’t remember him for HOODWINK
– Likewise unfamiliar with TIEPOLO so relied on wordplay there
– ESTOP was dredged up from somewhere, combined with helpful cluing
– Not sure I could have told you what exactly a PARTERRE is
– Thinking of T-Bone helped me get AITCHBONE STEAK
– Haven’t heard of the WHITEBEAM tree but again the wordplay helped
Thanks piquet and setter.
FOI Tibetan
LOI Patentee
COD Aitchbone steak
13.39. I steamed through this by my standards. I enjoyed the mix of clues.
22:47
No major hold-ups aside from the unknown AITCHBONE STEAK but I have no beef with the setter as it was generously clued. TIEPOLO and WHITEBEAM were the other unknowns. BESOUGHT also took a while to reveal itself.
Three of those at the championships and I might, just might, fulfil my goal of finishing the 3 within the hour.
Thanks to both.
16 minutes, near as makes no odds. Like Jackkt I was held up at the end by PATENTEE for no reason I could figure, but once I got Porterhouse Blue out of my mind the steak helped.
My many excursions to the top of the Cabot Tower in Bristol meant his name was easy to remember, and, grudgingly, so was his nationality. Case of composer CR never occurred to me, thankfully, perhaps because I got “about to retire” ER instead. Thinking of a five letter composer took longer than it should.
Pleasant puzzle, if short on giggles.
I nearly fell off my chair when I cracked this on my phone in 12 minutes while waiting for my computer to update. (Still only on 28%!)
I usually struggle to complete the 15×15 at all, and when I do, 45 minutes is a good time for me, but today everything just fell into place. I shall now spend the day wrapped in a warm blanket of smugness.
7.12, so an improvement over the last couple of days – is this lulling us into a false sense of security for Saturday?
I eat a lot of steak, and had still never heard of an AITCHBONE, making that for me, like many, LOI. Also didn’t parse BESOUGHT but was confident enough, EROTICA also biffed
All in all, quite fun I thought – like Keriothe found it easy but not so easy that the wordplay didn’t make a difference.
20a Irene, was very tempted by Renew, but the wordplay didn’t go there.
17d Besought. Wasn’t happy that this was the right answer. I don’t get the wordplay at all, so I’m left with a strait single def; begged=besought.
POI 19d a Cutter is usually equipped with a sail but they are almost always used as large rowing boats; or in the case of the Customs, Navy and coastguard it is a motor boat.
I too got held up by RENEW, when clearly the wordplay didn’t support it, which in turn held up BESOUGHT. Hey Ho.
Monday’s puzzle 48 hours late. Two straight passes.
FOI CURACY
LOI HOLSTER
COD TIBETAN
TIME 6:49
Nice to finish one this week. 31 mins.
Another reminded of Bristol and booze cruises on the Matthew, the replica of Cabots ship. That and Irene (goodnight Irene), adopted song of Bristol Rovers FC.
20:40
Thought I was heading for a PB with three to go, but that held out for ages due to my obduracy.
Couldn’t get C_R out of my head, which made the unknown beef tricky. They fell at about 18’, but I had LOI PARTERRE beginning PIR (rip up) for a further 3’ until the P D’ed.
Thanks all.
28:15 – another in a run of puzzles I have struggled with although only the steak was unknown and the cluing seemed fairly straightforward.
22 mins. I concur with the 80.20 rule as I had most of this done in 6 mins. As a veggie and an art philistine, I had NHO those two, but they were eventually gettable from the cryptics. LOI PATENTEE.
A very quick solve for me finishing in 17.15. With slightly less than fifteen minutes expended I had just two to get. A further two minutes plus were needed for PARTERRE and finally PATENTEE.
Much of this was very easy and I was on for a sub-30 time, but then I became stranded with four to go: AITCHBONE STEAK was difficult since I’d hardly heard of it and entrecote fitted the checkers, which I entered with a shrug in the hope that the parsing would miraculously appear, so that held me up. The case of the composer was a problem because if it was cr (obviously) then what was the definition, so it had to be an impossible & lit. Again I went on a wild goose chase with PATENTEE, thinking the clue led to rideride or something like that. Couldn’t see TIBETAN. So 45 minutes eventually.
Very straightforward. I had never heard of whitebeam and aitchbone, so had to use the cryptics. Fortunately, Tiepolo used to appear quite frequently, so he was a write-in. I count 15 appearances over the years, with four in 2009-11. Tiepolo, etagere, and estaminet were what you needed to solve the puzzle back then. Erotica was my LOI, and I was annoyed at having to work the cryptic rather than just write it in.
Time: 19:22
A week’s holiday must have done my brain some good as I cleared all the hurdles on this one in 20 minutes. I had heard of the H-BONE but had not realised until today that it was a steak. I was held up for a little while in the NE until the penny dropped for PATENTEE, which opened up the nearby clues.
FOI – CURACY
LOI – HOLSTER
COD – ADVENTIST
Thanks to piquet and other contributors.
Really enjoyed this puzzle.
Many solvers seem to have quite raced through it, but it took me 45 minutes, slowed down by the Steak, Patentee and Holster.
I solved this steadily, but had a long delay over the last three: TIEPOLO, PATENTEE and BESOUGHT (I didn’t understand how it worked).
Eventually all correct. Nonfat fingered OWLs today.
Thanks for the blog, Pip. Thank you , Setter.
DNF with NHO steak which I failed to construct. NHO the “frescoist” but did piece that together. Thanks Piquet and setter
22:42
Pretty plain sailing through gasman’s multiple interruptions knocking train of thought. NHO AITCHBONE, WHITEBEAM nor ESTOP but all fairly clued. I too finished with PATENTEE and ENTIRE.
Thanks P and setter
All very quickly filled and parsed, with a certain amount of biffing, until LOI PATENTEE, which I could not see, and had to leave therefore until after lunch for another look. I’d assumed it was a legal term, like ESTOP, which I’m familiar with only from crosswords (it’s another of those like estaminet that was very prevalent a few years back). However, when the missing bit became patent, I realised it wasn’t legalese in fact. I’d not heard of WHITEBEAM, but the cryptic was kind and, like Z, I’d already worked out the ER ending of HOLSTER, so with the L and T in place the composer became obvious. That gave me enough to work out what steak we were looking for (I think I’d imagined it was written H-bone, like T-). All in all, a very encouraging Wednesday.
piquet
11a Parsing is: S (southern) (C)abot
deletion not substitution -he came from Northern Italy
Crept in just under 30 after struggling with AITCHBONE and PATENTEE. Feel I should have been quicker. Here’s Leadbelly singing the much-covered Goodnight Irene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT-OuWmXDsY
35:37. Quite pleased with that having made poor efforts over the past few days. I’m not going to add much that hasn’t been said already. Nice puzzle with the NHOs helpfully clued. thanks both!
26.01
Struggled to see PATENTEE – once that fell the others in the NE followed. Like others, bamboozled by the parsing of HOLSTER but all fair stuff
Thanks Pip and setter
Pleased to beat my brother Dvynys today and by some margin. In a pub in Kings Street in Bristol so perhaps the Cabot clue inspired me!
DNF. An unparsed entrecôte steak made PATENTEE and HOLSTER impossible, but I couldn’t bring the AITCHBONE to mind. A pity, as it’s COD for me. A fine puzzle, even so, and thanks to our blogger for the enlightenment.
Easiest of the week so far, for me. AITCHBONE was antepenultimate one in, think I’ve seen it before, and WHITEBEAM last, both strictly from wordplay.
Not easy for me, so I was pleased to finish this.
LOI PATENTEE after a long trawl. Thinking of OVERT =Clear got me to Patent.
That was after constructing AITCHBONE- NHO but nicely clued I thought.
A long time, but worth it.
David
I had the same problem as many others, filling in everything and grinding to a halt on PATENTEE which I could not see. I gave up and came back for another look in the morning and saw it immediately. So I got there in the end but no real time. I have heard of AITCHBONE but could not tell you anything about it, so that didn’t cause me any difficulty. Fun crossword and very fair wordplay.
Newbie here. When are the answers to the Saturday crossword published ? And when if at all do you guys give parsed explanations of those puzzles?
The following Saturday, on both counts 😊
Hi, and welcome, Mary. The answers and blogs for Saturday puzzles appear on the Saturday a week after publication.
On-line entries for the competition close at the end of Wednesday, so you can check your solution and look at the answers from Thursday.
30:36
Stuck on PATENTEE for a long time at the end.
WHITEBEAM and AITCHBONE both took a lot of working out.
17.13 just a slight hold up in the NE with aitchbone my LOI.
Didn’t get around to this until turned midnight as I travelled from Teesside to Somerset yesterday to visit my daughter, and she whisked me off to an Open Mic at the Cider Barn near Cheddar, half an hour after my 7 hour journey. The last 30 miles to Cheddar from a few miles north of the M5 Weston junction took the best part of 90 minutes in lashing rain and took in a plethora of road works and traffic queues. Disappointing after sailing past Birmingham earlier. Anyway propping my eyes open I started with CURACY and made rapid progress in the LHS but got well bogged down on the RHS. ENTRECOTE STEAK held things up until PATENTEE arrived. WHITEBEAM was NHO, and held up by my over engineered RENIE until reason prevailed and IRENE dropped by. BESOUGHT was LOI and I’m still struggling to get my head around the wordplay. 26:47. Thanks setter and Pip.
Same problems as others: AITCHBONE, PATENTEE and in my case BESOUGHT holding up what would have been a quick solve for me. TIEPOLO also held me up, I’m ashamed to say. Liked VICE CHANCELLOR and IRENE, ( when I changed it from RENEW). Nice neat puzzle – not too many laughs though.