41:33 with one very silly error.
I could find no foothold in this excellent puzzle; it was like solving 30 individual clues rather than a coherent whole. I suspect it was no harder than average, but I lacked some knowledge that will be second nature to some solvers, and became panicked by some of the checked letters I had in the grid. To add insult to injury, I fouled up on 25ac at the end, despite being familiar (post facto) with at least one half of the clue.
Best wishes to all the competitors this weekend. Is it being streamed somewhere?
Definitions underlined.
| Across | |
| 1 | Where to see Etonians gain military award, right? (7) |
| WINDSOR – WIN (gain) + DSO (military medal) + R (right). Off to a good start, as I used to live there. | |
| 5 | Giving a wave to page, monarch and imperial family (7) |
| PERMING – P (page) + ER (monarch) + MING (imperial family). | |
| 9 | Experienced fellow feeling stymied has cracked, admitting pressure (11) |
| SYMPATHISED – anagram of (cracked) STYMIED HAS, containing P (pressure). | |
| 10 | Some corn whiskey dropped by Don (3) |
| EAR – wEAR (don) deleting the ‘w’ (whiskey). | |
| 11 | Eastern ascetic from China curtailed expression of triumph (6) |
| BUDDHA – BUDDy (china, mate, pal) with its last letter removed (curtailed) + HA (expression of triumph). | |
| 12 | What choirs do, covering eg Scarborough Fair (8) |
| SPORTING – SING (what choirs do) containing (covering) PORT (e.g. Scarborough). | |
| 14 | Drinkers seizing last of beer obtained capacious bags (5,8) |
| CARGO TROUSERS – CARAOUSER (drinkers) containing (seizing) both the last letter of beeR and GOT (obtained). ‘Bags’ as trousers only vaguely familiar to me. | |
| 17 | Damned academic’s way to make two lots of us fat? (6,7) |
| DOCTOR FAUSTUS – reverse cryptic. The answer (Marlowe’s damned academic) if read as an anagram (DOCTOR) gives us a way to make US US (two lots of ‘us’) + FAT. | |
| 21 | God accordingly defends old temple (8) |
| PANTHEON – PAN (god) + THEN (accordingly) containing (defends) O (old). | |
| 23 | Blair, when writing, wore out Liberals (6) |
| ORWELL – anagram of WORE then L + L (liberals). | |
| 25 | Princess in an opera, not a princess in an operetta (3) |
| IDA – aIDA (princess in an opera (of the same name, by Verdi)) minus the ‘a’. Princess in the G&S operetta. I have no idea why I put in IvA. | |
| 26 | Ale bottles on part of sink in standard sizes (4-1-6) |
| PRET-A-PORTER – PORTER (ale) contains (bottles), all of RE (on) + TAP (part of sink). ‘Ready to wear’ (off the shelf, in standard sizes). | |
| 27 | City with zero money deserted by one banking on thrift (7) |
| ECONOMY – EC (city, of London) + O (zero) + MoneY (deserted by, minus, ‘one’), containing (banking) ON. | |
| 28 | Were attractive books bound by European and decorated? (7) |
| ENTICED – NT (New Testament, books) contained by E (European) and ICED (decorated). | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Condiment is no longer somewhat timeless (6) |
| WASABI – WAS (is no longer) + A BIt (somewhat) without its ‘t’ (timeless). Fine by me. | |
| 2 | Return of police force? A day is not settled (7) |
| NOMADIC – reversal of CID (police force) + A + MON (day). | |
| 3 | American’s knockout has failed, punching morose drunk (9) |
| SMASHEROO – anagram of (failed) HAS, contained by an anagram of (drink) MOROSE. NHO, but surprisingly it is in my dictionary. | |
| 4 | Are you texting personnel in mining area? (4) |
| RUHR – RU (“are you” in text speak, texting). + HR (personnel). Coal mining area of Germany. | |
| 5 | Following delivery job with role outside in uniform (10) |
| POSTPARTUM – POST (job) + PART (role) + outermost letters from UniforM. | |
| 6 | Rolls filled by kiddies regularly for traveller (5) |
| RIDER – RR (Rolls Royce, Rolls) containing (filled by) regular letters from kIdDiEs. | |
| 7 | Individually specify setter on cryptic Times puzzle finally (7) |
| ITEMISE – I (setter) + an anagram of (cryptic) TIMES + last letter of puzzlE. | |
| 8 | General meaning to keep artillerymen back, and a good mechanic (8) |
| GARAGIST – GIST (general meaning) containing all of (to keep) RA (artillerymen) reversed + A + G (good). | |
| 13 | Capers perhaps in creamy dish, in book put on line (10) |
| TOMFOOLERY – FOOL (creamy dish) contained by TOME (book), then Ry (railway, line). | |
| 15 | Say Mark is with East German Max (9) |
| UTTERMOST – UTTER (say) + M (mark) + OST (East, in German). | |
| 16 | Showing versatility, fitting into a seedy establishment (8) |
| ADAPTIVE – APT (fitting) contained by A DIVE (seedy establishment). | |
| 18 | Division of a real firm accepting case of evasion over raised tax (7) |
| CENTAVO – CO (company, firm) containing all of the outermost letters (case) of EvasioN + reversal of (over) VAT (tax). Brazilian coinage. | |
| 19 | Doubting Thomas Cook’s opening putrid stores (7) |
| SCEPTIC – SEPTIC (putrid) contains (stores) the first of Cook. | |
| 20 | Ruddy duck free to shelter under fantail’s wings (6) |
| FLORID – O (zero, duck) + RID (free), all under the outermost letters of FantaiL. | |
| 22 | Big beast in fashion work turned up (5) |
| HIPPO – HIP (in fashion) + reversal of (turned up) OP (opus, work). | |
| 24 | The Four Tops in concert are gladly extemporising a set of bars (4) |
| CAGE – first letters of (the four tops in) Concert Are Gladly Extemporising. | |
I needed 37 minutes for this but it was something of an untidy solve as I had gaps remaining in every quarter that required several revisits to fill. The final hurdle was in the NE where the intersecting answers at 5dn and 12ac were missing. Of these, I rather surprised myself by finding POSTPARTUM first as it’s a lot more obscure than SPORTING but somehow I dredged it up from previous puzzles.
Generally I found this entertaining and inventive in places with some good surface readings.
I didn’t have much difficulty with this. In America, it’s CARGO PANTS, but I did see what “bags” intended immediately. Needed to remember the British spelling of SCEPTIC, am not sure I knew before that the regularly featured FOOL dessert is a particularly creamy one, and was, like William, a bit surprised to find a word like SMASHEROO.
It’s been a few years, come to think of it, since I’ve had WASABI. I quite like it, but the resto—my favorite—that had the salmon with it closed just months before the 2020 Covid lockdown. Sigh.
Nearly all the wasabi served in the US is horseradish dyed green. There was an article about this in the NY Times. Real wasabi is too expensive.
Well, then maybe I quite like horseradish dyed green!
CARGO TROUSERS/CARGO PANTS, I hadn’t heard of either (except here, where they would have gone in one leg and out the other). Had ‘buffoonery’ for a while, but all went pretty smoothly, which is gratifying after a horrid start to the week. 23:24.
19:54
Not especially speedy on championship eve, but I very much enjoyed this – some well-hidden definitions like POSTPARTUM and SYMPATHISED slowed me down. I also liked the Four Tops.
Thanks both – and hope to see some of you tomorrow, where I will be making up the numbers (and quite possibly a few words).
28:16
Off to a slow start (FOI 23ac), continued slow. DNK Scarborough is a port, which helped make SPORTING my LOI. Lots of great surfaces. COD maybe to IDA, or DOCTOR FAUSTUS.
There’s no way Scarborough is a port. A misleading clue!
What for Amoeba is not especially speedy is for me a good time, as I finished in 19:27 and felt pretty pleased with myself!
Thanks setter and blogger
Good luck to everyone taking part in the championships, I wish you a great time
Cargo TROUSERS? That really is hilarious. As far as the crossword goes, I thought it was terrific. Started well with WINDSOR and ended in 24.53 with PANTHEON. Wasted time with the damned doctor thinking the first part would be double. Struggled with SMASHEROO and I think TOMFOOLERY came to me as a vision. Thank you William.
From Up To Me:
The only decent thing I did when I worked as a postal clerk
Was to haul your picture down off the wall of the CAGE where I used to work
Was I a fool or not to try to protect your identity?
You looked a little burnt out my friend, I thought it might be up to me
Wow, L, that’s a deep cut!
A few years ago, I unearthed a forgotten trove of cassettes of my homemade music, on one of which was my rendition of Dylan songs, accompanying myself on my old, lost, gold Les Paul. There is a rendition of “Up to Me” based solely on the lyrics (at one stage of composition, anyway) found in a book—there was, when I did the song, no publicly available recording. I guessed at the melody (such as it was…). When the song was finally released, I found that I either had some kind of psychic connection with Dylan or… just maybe… the chord progression, tempo, etc. were not very hard for me to guess, being conversant with Dylan’s work to that point. I came very close, anyway.
You LOST a gold-top Les Paul? LOST it? Aaaauuuggghhh! But getting back to the issue at hand, that is fascinating and well done for figuring it out. I can’t quite recall how I know the song (maybe Biograph?) but I always thought it sounded like a closely related predecessor of Tangled up in Blue. Like Positively 4th Street and Rolling Stone. One of those lesser-known gems of which Bob has written about, oh, maybe 350?
Not just lost, but stolen.
I had a drum kit stolen once. It was a bit of a « bitsa » (lack of cash!) but I was heartbroken. You must have been too.
One of my mates was a DJ (old soul and funk stuff mostly) when we were students and he had all of his records stolen after a gig. They were practically and financially irreplaceable so it was effectively the end of his career!
That’s about as low as it gets, you have my deepest sympathy Guy.
15:45. I delayed my finish slightly by an erroneous half-biff of SMACKEROO. Fortunately I thought my LOI had to be BUDDHA so it didn’t take too long to put things right. I looked up SMASHEROO post-solve and Chambers has it as slang, but not US.
Good luck to fellow championship competitors, I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.
I wouldn’t identify it as US either – but it is the kind of word which shows up on a children’s TV show and gains currency with all the, say, 9 year olds, for a couple months, then disappears again.
The OED labels it ‘chiefly US’. The first citation is from Life in 1948, the most recent from the New Yorker in 1975.
Yeah – I saw that after I posted above. And with a Broadway Show reference, that makes sense. But I’ve not really heard it, other, as mentioned above, than as a temporary favourite phrase of 8-10 year olds. Maybe I need to read Variety and Playbill more often.
And a note to the editor: if we’re going to try to be a bit more current in some of our references so as to attract a younger crowd, it’s not clear to me that 1950s theatre slang is the right way forward.
25:10 with an error.
Not for the first time in my life I was a victim of TOMFOOLERY.
Excuses in early, I’m in a rush this morning but thought I’d try to squeeze in the Friday toughie. I lobbed in BUFFOONERY very early without much thought, changed the U to an O when I saw CARGO TROUSERS, and after getting the last couple I pressed submit without the most cursory of checks. C’est la vie.
Otherwise I found this reasonably straightforward, with no unknowns and all parsed pre-submit aside from the above clanger. Hopefully no such stupidity tomorrow.
Thanks to both.
Was this the face that launched a thousand ships
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
(The Tragical History of Dr. Fat Us Us)
30 mins with brekker. I liked it, especially Doctor Faustus.
Ta setter and W
Amazing quote! Marlowe I see. The line seemed familiar but I would never have guessed the origin.
You may know it from ‘Shakespeare in Love’, where it is repeated and repeated and ….
38.14. There used to be trousers called Oxford bags in the 1930s, lots of pleats at the waist and voluminous legs. Perhaps an early forerunner of cargo pants? And poor Paul Pennyfeather in Waugh’s Decline and Fall got sent down for indecency after being ‘debagged’ by the Bollinger Club. Thanks blogger and setter.
52 mins. Spent a lot of time unraveling some pretty complex clueing. None the worse for that though.
A number of clues went straight in, then the hard graft started. Finished with CARGO TROUSERS, SMASHEROO and SYMPATHISED once NOMADIC opened up the NW.
I liked DOCTOR FAUSTUS, GARAGIST & CAGE. Good fun.
Thanks William and setter. Good luck to all attempting the BIG test this weekend.
About 25 minutes. All parsed as well, which is unusual for me, though I didn’t read the clue for ECONOMY properly so wasn’t sure how it worked until after I’d put it in, and I couldn’t have told you that DOCTOR FAUSTUS was an academic.
Thanks William and setter.
FOI Ear
LOI Doctor Faustus
COD Perming
An enjoyable 25′ though I did biff SMAckEROO and bufFOOnERY early on. The latter was corrected quite quickly but the former ended up being LOI only after I saw BUDDHA. Nice puzzle, no problem with the trousers, just a longer version of the pants, but I did balk at GARAGIST… Thanks William and setter.
Strangely I also put SMACKEROO initially, though it doesn’t exist in Chambers.
Solved but no time to offer as I was interrupted by the arrival of son’s five month old golden retriever. She didn’t retrieve many answers. Said son and I have been dragged to a Wasabi restaurant by the women of the family so I did get that eventually. SMASHEROO was LOI, still shaking my head at GARAGIST. Never heard that before. COD to UTTERMOST. Thank you William and setter.
It’s clearly from the French « garagiste » but lacking its « e ». I agree it looks odd.
Confirmed by OED!
DNF Very hard Very little completed in 2hr.As usual after seeing blog they all look easy. Need the blog for so many
Thanks William
16:30 – much more straightforward for me than recent ones, in spite of struggling to make my intentions understood on an iPhone keyboard. Several of the biggies entered on definition, though it was fun untangling them post solve.
23:58. Nice puzzle.
Hope to see plenty of folk from here tomorrow.
A fine puzzle with plenty of clever and challenging cluing to slow you down.
It happens that I’m wearing CARGO TROUSERS (described by the vendor as pants) at this very moment, though the current pair are not particularly voluminous. It was, however my last in, as “trousers” also means bags or inn the sense of purloins and I couldn’t make either the grammar or the drinkers work. For a while I tried CAPRI until surroundings made it impossible.
Liked both the inventive Faustus and Four Tops clues in particular, and was pleased to see ORWELL clued by Blair as in that Lit Jumbo, Blair was surprisingly not he, but Tony.
I share the SCEPTIC view that Scarborough is not really a port: it does have a harbour with a few fishing boats but not really so you’d notice.
24.33’s worth of engaging tussle.
I assumed “capacious bags ” meant that there were many pockets, not that they were voluminous.
46:44
FOI: EAR
LOI: BUDDHA
Slow solve with a couple of distractions, but rewarding and nothing unknown.
For a long while I had the unparsed BUFFOONERY until CARGO TROUSERS appeared – and I reconsidered.
Good weekend wishes to all, especially to those competing tomorrow. I hope to say ‘hello’ to some there.
Thank you to william_j_s and the setter.
25a Had forgotten about GT&S’s Princess Ida, but she is in Cheating Machine so probably has come up before.
3d Smasheroo. Sounds Australian to me, but Wiktionary does not say so. I thought that it would be absent from CM, pleased to find it there (but plural absent, added.)
POI 8d Garagists, absent from CM, added. Favourite insult of Enzo Ferrari about England-based smaller F1 teams such as Lotus, McLaren, Brabham etc. Interesting that both Jack Brabham and Bruce McLaren were antipodean but had to base themselves in Europe (England) for F1. Jack remains the only driver to win the F1 World Championship in a car bearing his own name.
I thought this was very much at the easier end of the Times crossword spectrum, and came here expecting to see complaints from people wanting more of a challenge on a Friday. Only CARGO TROUSERS offered any resistance and only for a minute or two. I don’t normally time myself and am no speed merchant anyway, but I’d estimate this at around 15 mins which is fast for me.
5.57, good enough as they say but not much less than 2 Mohns.
Looking forward to seeing some of you (but not him!) tomorrow!
Do you know if we are expecting mohn tomorrow?
As an answer, GARAGIST is more pants than CARGO TROUSERS
LOL. Couldn’t agree more!
Oh woe is me or should that be mi? I banged in wasabi without thinking or attempting to parse the last three letters. Surely the many times I’ve had this in Japan it’s been spelt wasabe hasn’t it? Oh dear – first lesson I learnt from this community if you can’t parse it, it may well be worth another look.
Other than that error I managed 25 minutes for a very enjoyable puzzle. Thx William and setter
In 45 or so years in Japan, I’ve never seen wasabi spelled ‘wasabe’; of course, I’ve seldom seen it spelled at all.
I think it was false memory syndrome though it went in very confidently😊
SMASHEROO was LOI, and entered with some trepidation. Otherwise this was a steady solve with some very enjoyable clues. Challenging without being silly or insanely esoteric.
WINDSOR was FOI, then a fairly gentle workout with a couple of tricky bits. The NHO SMASHEROO only arrived after the Damned DOCTOR. TOMFOOLERY brought up the rear. 23:01. Thanks setter and William. Good luck to all the Championship entrants tomorrow!
Pleasant crossword. Because it’s Friday and because I made a slow start my fear was that it would be difficult, but it wasn’t really. Nice clues with clear and sometimes misleading wordplay, and eventually the wonderful SMASHEROO defeated me and I had to use aids for it. My clock stopped at 61 minutes, but I’d had one or two interruptions and I forgot to pause the timer, so probably about 53 minutes. GARAGIST seemed a dodgy word, but it’s there.
14′, steady solve, pleasant for a Friday.
Thanks william and setter.
20.04
Steady solve for me too, delayed in the NE by incorrectly biffing SYMPATHETIC but it didn’t feel right and it wasn’t
Thanks William and setter
39 mins, most done in 20. Probably delayed due to staring at the view over Lake Vyrnwy…..
About 20 mins.
Good, enjoyable puzzle.
Thanks, w.
I found this pretty tricky, as the literals can be well-hidden. I also misspelled sympathise, which prevented me from solving Ruhr until I solved it by itself, and realized my error. I had my doubts that garagist was a word, but once I parsed it I put it in. I struggled at the end with cargo trousers, thinking bags was a containment indicator.
Time: 36:37
40:46
A bit bitty. Left with holes all over the place which were filled slowly and eventually. If I’d known SMASHEROO I might have finished several minutes earlier, but couldn’t see it even from the anagrist with three checkers in place. Consequently the NW had to resolved via circuitous means. Mostly enjoyed…
Good luck tomorrow everyone who is taking part.
Thanks William and setter
9:07. I liked this one, an interesting selection of words.
Does anyone actually say CARGO TROUSERS? You can find them on sale under that name but in everyday conversation it’s invariably ‘pants’ in my experience.
I look forward to catching up with some of you tomorrow.
A lovely Friday puzzle – tricky enough to get me thinking hard and clever enough to provide many PDMs as I realised what the definitions were about and cracked the cryptics. Particularly smiled at the academic and BUDDHA and loved the clue for IDA, despite being one of my first in. Had some trouble with —-O TROUSERS, as I know them as pants, but once I thought of cargo, it parsed beautifully, so in it went. All in all, a very decent week. All the best to those brave souls laying themselves on the line for the competition – sad I can’t be there to watch.
This took me around 45 minutes – very enjoyable.
LOI – unsurprisingly, Smasheroo.
COD – Doctor Faustus
29:47
Wrote in an unparsed but had-to-be ECONOMY on 29’ to see if it would provide inspiration for 13d and it did.
I thought this was a very entertaining puzzle, thanks William and setter.
Good luck to those I met in the George in summer; I’m afraid I’m away this weekend and can’t follow.
39:42
Lots to enjoy on this crossword. NHO SMASHEROO.
LOI PERMING, where I got stuck on the idea that it would end with KING.
Thanks W and setter
23.17 with LOI smasheroo after realising I had thought buddah was real buddha. Great puzzle to finish the week . Thanks setter and blogger.
As seems usual, the most interesting puzzle of the week is Friday’s. Very smooth and deceptive surface readings and well disguised definitions, but all very fair.
I only did it in stages, as I was travelling and then visiting my mother.
I got stuck in the NW with NOMADIC and BUDDHA (I got my China and Corporation synonyms mixed up in my head). I had also biffed in Buffoonery which left me with Corfu Trousers at one stage.
Eventually got there.
Thank you William and setter
51.43 This felt hard. BUDDHA was biffed. SMASHEROO is ridiculous and GARAGIST was NHO. Like Jack I finished with POSTPARTUM and SPORTING. Thanks William.
I expected this to be difficult, but it wasn’t really, even though it took me just over 45 minutes. Some of the longer clues took me too long to unravel, meaning there were never enough crossers to give me a head of steam. But it was an enjoyable struggle.
FOI – EAR
LOI – SPORTING (not recognising Scarborough as a port)
COD – DOCTOR FAUSTUS
Thanks to william and other contributors.
It’s always nice to immediately get 1A, but then it got harder. My LOI was the cleverly disguised “following delivery” for POSTPARTUM. I was pretty sure it started POST but that was something to do with postal delivery, but eventually I saw the word from the checkers and then reversed engineered how the clue worked.
A delightful puzzle, not very hard (since I finished it in 50 minutes, i.e., under an hour), but with lots of elegantly misleading and witty clues and wonderful surface meanings (like the “page, monarch and imperial family”). I especially liked the well-concealed definition “experienced fellow feeling” for SYMPATHISED.
Yes a very enjoyable puzzle, even if not so easy for me. I failed to get the first half of the trousers, as I’ve only ever heard of them as cargo pants, and even then don’t think of them as particularly voluminous, but just overladen with pockets! DOCTOR FAUSTUS was another too clever for me, especially as I didn’t get him as an academic (D’oh!); but am very pleased to have gotten SYMPATHIZE as my FOI, and to have followed that with some pleasing PDMs. Good luck to all you brave souls who face the challenge tomorrow!