Time taken: 14:19.
I enjoyed this, but it was a struggle! There’s a lot of arcane knowledge here, Orwell-derived terms, an area of London I only remember from a cheesy movie, music, flowers and a character from Fawlty Towers!
On the other hand, this is my first completion this week, having managed to bung in silly typos on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, so I’m relieved to see the all-green grid.
How did you get along?
| Across | |
| 1 | Will’s gift follows Lorraine’s from official body (8) |
| DELEGACY – LEGACY(what you might get from a will) after DE(“from” in French) | |
| 5 | FC Espanyol’s wingers or chap from Barcelona? (6) |
| MANUEL – MAN U(FC, football club), then the external letters in EspanyoL. Que? | |
| 9 | I appreciate that golf game (3) |
| TAG – TA(I appreciate that), G(golf) | |
| 10 | Problem for schools is forgiven, oddly? Hard to stop it (11) |
| OVERFISHING – anagram of IS,FORGIVEN containing H(hard) | |
| 12 | Upfront in struggling with pros and cons here (4,6) |
| OPEN PRISON – OPEN(upfront), then an anagram of IN and PROS | |
| 13 | A number in West Side Story save its opening song (4) |
| ARIA – The number in West Side Story is MARIA, remove the first letter | |
| 15 | Area with great resources but not one sign of McDonald’s (6) |
| ARCHES – A(area) and RICHES(great resources) minus I(one) | |
| 16 | Playmaker during sports day showed contempt (7) |
| PSHAWED – George Bernard SHAW(playmaker) inside PE(sports), D(day) | |
| 18 | Knight shot on horse in Italian battle (7) |
| MARENGO – N(knight in chess), GO(shot) after MARE(horse) | |
| 20 | Misfortunes always in poetry? Too right! (3,3) |
| ILL SAY – ILLS(misfortunes) and AY(always in poetry) | |
| 23 | Number ones from Simple Minds, say, after Rolling Stones (4) |
| GEMS – first letters in Simple, Minds and EG(say) all reversed | |
| 24 | Kid’s caught with booze in part of music practice (5,5) |
| MINOR SCALE – MINOR’S(kid’s), C(caught) and ALE(booze) | |
| 26 | Capital area healthy nurses can gate-crash on vacation (7,4) |
| NOTTING HILL – NOT ILL(healthy) containing TIN(can) and the external letters of Gate-crasH | |
| 27 | India isn’t seen in state that surprises me (3) |
| OHO – remove I(india) from the state of OHIO | |
| 28 | Cutting funding from the west, I see Liberal making bloomer (6) |
| DAHLIA – AID(funding) reversed containing AH(I see), L(liberal) | |
| 29 | Gave off energy, keeping Anne’s successor in pain (8) |
| AGGRIEVE – anagram of GAVE, then E(energy) containing GRI(George Rex Imperator – King George I, successor to Queen Anne). Got this from the definition and worked out the wordplay for the blog. There’s comments that this should be GR and I separately, apologies to my long gone namesake king. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Unwanted, half-hearted, pitiable Edward’s upset (2,4) |
| DE TROP – POOR(pitiable) missing one of the middle letters, and TED(Edward) all reversed | |
| 2 | Little drained river filled by good hose? (7) |
| LEGWEAR – the exterior letters of LittlE, and WEAR(river) containing G(good) | |
| 3 | Shocking pink ought to get blocked by Head of Rugby making uniform decisions (10) |
| GROUPTHINK – anagram of PINK, OUGHT containing the first letter in Rugby | |
| 4 | Councillor corrects officer, with call for analysis before making advance (6,7) |
| CREDIT SCORING – CR(councillor), EDITS(corrects), CO(officer) and RING(call) | |
| 6 | Slip out of large alcove (4) |
| APSE – LAPSE(slip) minus L(large) | |
| 7 | Unusually long feature film’s rating dispute entertaining writer? (7) |
| UNIBROW – U(film’s rating), and ROW(dispute) containing NIB(writer) | |
| 8 | People kept inside houses pull up those making slow progress (8) |
| LAGGARDS – LAGS(people kept inside) containing DRAG(pull) reversed | |
| 11 | Complaint affecting consumer goods — opinion broadcast loudly at first (4,9) |
| FOOD POISONING – anagram of GOODS,OPINION after F(loudly) | |
| 14 | Merchant ship carrying boulders periodically (10) |
| WHOLESALER – WHALER(ship) containing alternating letters in bOuLdErS | |
| 17 | Fancied precious metal parts one dug up (8) |
| IMAGINED – AG(silver, precious metal) inside I(one), MINED(dug up) | |
| 19 | Gag about parent sporting tie lacking originality (7) |
| REMATCH – RETCH(gag) surrounding MA(parent) | |
| 21 | Allied countries in a French article in France, say (7) |
| ANATOLE – NATO(allied countries) inside A, LE(French article). Referring to the writer of Thais, ANATOLE France | |
| 22 | Favour European up to now (6) |
| BEFORE – BE FOR(favour), E(European) | |
| 25 | Note gets repeated in soprano’s part (4) |
| MIMI – MI(note) repeated. Referring to the soprano character in La Boheme | |
I had most of the GK, but still never really got out of second gear. Never heard of CREDIT SCORING per se, and liked OVERFISHING.
COD though must go to PSHAWED, which took me back a few years to when I decided to read a Dorothy Sayers mystery. She liked to write this type of thing, plus Scottish dialectal words, all the while going into mind-numbing detail about train timetables in Dumfriesshire. Pity. I rather like her translation of Dante, though it’s a bit like admitting to being a Trump supporter among the literati.
38:53
You must have read Five Red Herrings which is by far and away her worst novel. Try Strong Poison or Murder Must Advertise or The Nine Tailors instead. I don’t remember her ever writing ‘pshaw’ though.
Yes, I did. Actually, because someone (possibly here) recommended it. I am interested in her partly because of her friendship with CS Lewis, who was a champion of her work and person.
How about the Notting Hillbillies – there’s a Ninja Turtle for you! I needed all the help I could get in this one, with all the prisoners and food poisoning. I also unfortunately biffed Lepanto for the Italian battle, and didn’t erase it for 10 minutes. Dahlia was my LOI, and I couldn’t parse it, but it was definitely the only flower or word that fit. I did parse it after stopping the clock.
Time: 45:30
DNF Spent ages with three incorrect answers. I really got nowhere. To me it was far more than tricky.
Thanks G
Got there, slowly. I did like the “pros and cons” at 12ac!
That was quite a punish, I was greatly relieved when I’LL SAY finally revealed itself just past the hour and I was successfully home. It seemed to take an age to make much headway and a lot of the longer answers – GROUPTHINK, FOOD POISONING, OVERFISHING, CREDIT SCORING – had to be painstakingly extracted letter by letter. There were some weird things here, like UNIBROW, DE TROP, OHO, I’LL SAY and PSHAWED, but in the end concentration was rewarded. Thanks G, hope that’s this week’s toughie out of the way.
From Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat:
I see you got a new boyfriend
You know I never seen him BEFORE
I saw him making love to you
You forgot to close the garage door
You might think he loves you for your money but
I know what he really loves you for
It’s your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat
53 minutes. DAHLIA parsed post-solve. ANATOLE from wordplay, but I didn’t get the definition as I NHO Anatole France. At 29ac I assumed GR I as in ER II and moved on.
Your parsing of GR I (King George I) rather than George Rex Imperator must be right, George I wasn’t emperor, Victoria was first monarch to have that title.
Well imperatrix anyway;-)
Thanks. The thing that occurred to me was as the first King George would his royal cipher have been GR I or simply GR? I seem to remember a trick quiz question about Elizabeth Tudor not becoming Elizabeth I until 1952 when Elizabeth II succeeded to the throne.
I find it really interesting that if you read work by him say Revolt of the Angels and say Demian by Hesse, there‘s a real shared consciousness there. It‘s obviously centered round WW1 but it’s still weird.
“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal loaves of bread.”- Anatole France
Big DNF in 30 minutes but this was a clever and entertaining crossword. Merchant ship was great but COD to the pros and cons. Thanks setter and George
12.06
Really enjoyed this one, with GROUPTHINK, CREDIT SCORING, OPEN PRISON, WHOLESALER and UNIBROW my picks for their well-hidden defs. I didn’t know Anatole France either.
Thanks both.
At the round earth’s imagin’d corners, blow
Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise
(John Donne)
30 mins pre-brekker which left me feeling smugly knowledgeable. Not that keen on Unibrow or Pshawed. LOI Dahlia.
Ta setter and G
I particularly liked UNIBROW. Partly because I’ve sort-of heard of it, but more because I was playing around with bits of wordplay and ventured U PEN ROW and U POE ROW an U NIB ROW, and none of them were words. Except one of them was! Seemed so unlikely.
I found that very very hard. Got in just under the hour! Perhaps it is just one of those days, but I struggled.
66m 02s
Not surprised the snitch is at 158. Thought this was hard. Like vinyl I started with Lepanto.
Thanks, George, especially for ANATOLE (France).
51 minutes with LOI the unheard of UNIBROW. I had heard of M. France, but I couldn’t remember in what context. A grainy news item from the fifties maybe. COD to OPEN PRISON. A tricky puzzle, nearly too tricky for me. Thank you George and setter.
Not so quick today, reassuring to see others found it hard as well.
Having had Wellington’s horse Copenhagen recently, nice to see Napoleon’s horse Marengo today. He lived until he was 38 and his skeleton is on display at the National Army museum in Chelsea. Most of it, anyway, one of his hooves is in the Household Cavalry museum in Knightsbridge barracks, where I have seen it…
27’25” for this challenge. Seemed to make progress by tiny steps. Liked PSHAWED, GROUPTHINK, OPEN PRISON. Knew Napoleon’s horse, named for the battle. AGGRIEVE POI, and as jack says above, Anne’s successor was George I, who wasn’t an emperor but was an elector for the Holy Roman Empire. COD to UNIBROW, in a wide field. And, of course, ANATOLE was LOI.
Thanks george and setter.
DNF, defeated by UNIBROW where I invented ‘ubicrow’.
– Dimly remembered PSHAWED from somewhere
– NHO ANATOLE France but got there from wordplay
Thanks glh and setter.
COD Open prison
28.45
Very entertaining, though the unexpected word-grouping of some of the definitions meant I had to write out the putative answers to seven clues before I could parse them.
NHO DELEGACY, guessed CREDIT SCORING, forgot all about ANATOLE France.
Singing along with Bellowhead’s ‘Fire MARENGO’ last week helped in the SW corner.
LOI REMATCH
COD OPEN PRISON
I’m going to see Bellowhead tomorrow.:)
Brilliant, enjoy!
43 mins. Apart from the NHO MIMI and ANATOLE which were easily constructable, it seemed to suit me and I was surprised to see such high times. Have worked in credit scoring and MARENGO known via Stephen Fry in Warhorses of Letters on Radio4.
Kiss, Kiss, Hoofprint.
30:34. Tricky Thursday indeed. Cracking crossword which gave me plenty of head scratching. DNK the official body or the French author but both derived from the wordplay. LOI BEFORE not seeing the BE FOR for ages. I liked MANUEL, OPEN PRISON, ILL SAY, MINOR SCALE, NOTTING HILL and FOOD POISONING best. Thanks George and setter.
27:45. I particularly enjoy crosswords where you have to use the wordplay to derive answers where the answer is unfamiliar and/or the definition is hard to spot. This was kind of the opposite of that: I had all the knowledge but it was ultimately a game of spot the definition, and in many cases I didn’t bother untangling the often convoluted or abstruse wordplay. So I didn’t have much fun, but there’s no doubting that this is a very clever crossword!
30: 20
I really enjoyed this puzzle which had some very witty cluing.
It helped that there’s a Boulevard ANATOLE France just round the corner from our house.
COD PSHAWED as Shaw himself was quite fond of pshawing.
Thanks to George and the setter.
Tough going and a DNF as I just couldn’t come up with anything for 25dn that made sense to me and I had run out of steam by then.
All parsed other than DELEGACY I just didn’t think of a region in France. Several NHOs relying on the cryptics MARENGO, DE TROP, UNIBROW and DAHLIA which I do know but needed the wordplay to unravel.
A smiley face against OVERFISHING ah that type of school.
25:09, though with 2 typos. No problem with the GK but some very clever and convoluted clueing, which is fine occasionally. I particularly liked OPEN PRISON.
About half an hour.
Cutting funding from the west … Shouldn’t it be from the east?
That said, I really liked this, and I was surprised to see the snitch so high.
Anatole reminded me of Aunt Dahlia’s chef!
Thanks, g.
The Anatole-Dahlia connection hadn’t occurred to me, but what fun if it was intentional! This took me 58 minutes, but I was ok with the parsing and had heard of everything and everyone for once. Loved all the hidden defs. A really good crossword.
Yes, a very nice puzzle. I did have a quick look for any other PGW refs but couldn’t see any 😊
Clever stuff indeed, and I think I’ve come down just on the approving side after 33.67.
An oddity in this for me was ANATOLE. Recently we had a “poet in France” clued in a TLS with A?A?O?, which I couldn’t work out, until one of those waking moments in the middle of the night when I misremembered Anatol – without the E. Turns out there is another poet in France that fits, but Anatole kind of stuck and was ready for me today.
I did think ARIA was a little unfair, requiring you to remember an actual song from WSS. At least it wasn’t Officer Krupke.
I don’t quite agree; Maria is the ONLY song I remember the name of from WSS. All the others might have been excellent but NOT MEMORABLE.
I’d nominate “Tonight”, and of course “Somewhere”, as covered by the memorable P J Proby.
42:35
I loved this. Nearly every clue was solved with a satisfying PDM. Very clever cluing without obscurities – ideal in my book.
Finished with the MANUEL/UNIBROW pair taking several minutes.
Thanks all.
That’s two in a week where the SNITCH has been over 150. No complaints though; it was just very hard, with some nice well-concealed definitions. 73 minutes, with amazement that anyone can do these things in around ten. DAHLIA a problem because I can never spell it confidently: I’m never sure where the h goes. I remember it (wrongly) because I imagine it was named after a Mr Dhal, but evidently it wasn’t and in any case Dahl is the more likely spelling. Had never heard of UNIBROW and had to look it up to see that it existed. Aids for AGGRIEVE, whose mysteries were too much.
Phew, tough going! Got a few starters, TAG, LEGWEAR, LAGGARD and APSE before having to really concentrate. Then settled in for the slog. MINOR SCALE and CREDIT SCORING were breakthrough moments which got me moving after becoming becalmed. Eventually GROUPTHINK emerged from the anagrist after POI, DELEGACY, went in. 44:28. Thanks setter and George.
44 – glad to limp over the finish line eventually. An enjoyable challenge, although the finished result was an unusually messy palimpsest of crossings out, question marks and over-written answers.
42’30”
Testing going, fortunate to get a clear run.
As was the case on Tuesday, I was fortunate that all fell within my ken.
There is so much to like here that I cannot put my finger on a favourite.
Elegant, clever and witty; well done setter and thank you George.
45 minutes. Wasn’t sure if the soprano was Mimi or Titi (I suppose it would be Tete?) but fortunately opted for the correct one.
Lots of great clues, I’ll choose Manuel for my COD.
13.51. Tricky but good. I agree that the DAHLIA clue above ought to be east but I didn’t notice when solving.
About 75 mins for me but having struggled through it a great confidence booster. Perhaps complacent from a diet of QC this was an example of trusting the process and most/allof the clues were (as proven by the fact I got there in the end) solvable.
FOI : MANUEL I was pretty pleased but that looks like a bit of a gimme in the end.
LOI: a correct punt on NHO ANATOLE
COD: I’ll award to UNIBROW despite only ever having heard of a monobrow (see the Oasis Brothers)
MIMI or TITI? TITI or MIMI? Eeny, meeny, miny, moe…
Wow, what a challenge that was. A great relief to have solved it somehow, if a little over the hour.
I really enjoyed the appearance of MANUEL from Fawlty Towers and the McDonald’s ARCHES, and in the same crossword as MIMI and ANATOLE France. What a mixture. That’s what I like to see in the Times Crossword.
Excellent crossword I thought.
However, two people have queried the Dahlia clue, thinking that aid should be from the east if it is reversed, not the west. I think we may have discussed this idea previously, but I can’t remember how it was resolved. Can anyone pick up this point for us?
I chalked it up to “to” and “from” being used interchangeably in crosswords. Any directional word in a clue either means the letter of the direction or the answer is going in an unusual direction.
39:21
Decidedly chewy with only one bit of unknown GK (NHO ANATOLE France) and would have called a UNIBROW a monobrow. Otherwise, teasing out the answers from some clever wordplay was very rewarding.
Thanks G and setter
Unibrow – I got this word in todays Countdown, solely because it had been in the Times crossword. Neither the contestants nor the Dictionary Corner could make it past Brown.
I only got a few clues on first trawl. Went to the gym. Still struggling. Had a look at first few lines of George’s preamble and immediately realised MANUEL was the FC clue answer. Struggled through the rest, but needed aids for WHOLESALER and BEFORE (kicked myself). I still got MIMI wrong- Titi anyone?
A plea to the crossword editor: could these 150 plus SNITCH monsters be sparingly used? I still remember last Friday’s horror show. If I am ever to get an all correct week, I need a gently rising SNITCH to about 120. Those weeks rarely seem to happen.
Anyway, off to the QC for some therapy.
Excellent crossword: I suspect a new hand and hope it will come to rule the roost. Tbis is sharp in the right way – a change. I got there in about an hour. joekobi
35.05
Same thoughts/experience as Mike H. Like others, although some of the w/p was a bit convoluted, there were some fine moments (pros and cons) and overall excellent fare.
I have been doing this crossword for about fifty years, and am always content with a sub-twenty minute time – even if the answers were dictated, I could not write them in as quickly as some solve and complete it – but surely am not alone in finding that my tolerance, patience, forbearance, call it what you will, is challenged by a lot of current cluing. I’m as fond of obscure words, esoterica and archaisms as anyone else, having endured a formidably old-fashioned education and grounding in the classics, latin, literature, history – yes, learnt about the battle of Marengo at age nine and read Louisa Alcott about then too – but eg Hodgkinson, Ed Sheeran, McDonald’s arches, yes I solved these from the clues but give me strength. And yesterday’s Pensacola, which to me could have equally been Pinsacola, Pensasoda or Pinsasoda, exemplified a lack of rigour that seems on the increase. My recollection is that one could always find the answer from the elements of the clue – Pensacola? Most definitely not. It won’t stop me doing the crossword though and I feel better for having voiced my irritation. This site has given great pleasure over the years too and my thanks to current contributors (I miss some of the former names though) and daily bloggers
Agree 100%.
Late to this after golfing. Then spent just under my allotted hour getting to the end with LOI DE TROP, which I’d heard somewhere but without knowing the meaning (till I checked afterwards..). Everything seemed to take time to come to materialise, mostly biffing and parsing rather than parsing first. Enjoyed PSHAWED and GROUPTHINK but all a bit of a struggle. Thanks George and setter. (I’m finding I have to log in each day after a week of not contributing, penance?).
Amazingly 7d Unibrow was absent from Cheating Machine, so added. I thought I came across it in Brick Lane by Monica Ali, but that might have been Indian monobrow. Ditto 24a Minor (and major) scales and Credit Scoring.
Groupthink, pshaw (and -s -ed -ing,) oho, Ill Say and overfishing however were already in, somewhat to my surprise.
Wasn’t confident that groupthink was in 1984, this is from Wiktionary:
“Coined by William H. Whyte (I NHO this man) in 1952, from group + think, modelled on earlier doublethink from Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.”
Failed to parse LOI 22d Before. Doh! Slaps forehead.
HHO Anatole France but knew absolutely nothing at all about him, nor do I know where I heard of him, and Mrs Andyf was unaware of any Anatoles at all.
Loved 5a Manuel. Took an age to remember his name, which annoyed me, but of course the wordplay was a gimme even though I had forgotten. It is ridiculous that “chap from Barcelona” instantly triggers memories of Fawlty Towers from half a century ago-ish.
Not only that, ‘groupthink’ doesn’t quite mean ‘uniform’. If one takes uniform to mean ‘in line with other decisions by the same or similar groups’, then a decision could be quite ‘non-uniform’, but it could still be the result of the same groupthink.
It’s the group that’s uniform, not the decision.
56 minutes exactly. Very hard and very good. I ended up in a sparsely populated north-west corner, finally finishing with POI GROUPTHINK and LOI the NHO DELEGACY. Very satisfying to finish
Sometimes I suppose things just click. I can’t say I found this tough at all and managed it in 24’50”, so very surprised to see the SNITCH at 153. On another day I’ll doubtless grind to a halt with a SNITCH in the green zone (and it won’t be for the first time).
What is ‘oho’ supposed to mean then? I’ve never heard it spoken by anyone at all, let alone in surprise.
If relevance to current usage was a sine qua requirement then wouldn’t that exclude a large number of words? Of course the Editor could try to modernise the puzzle by introducing words that folks use or people they know but …
I blooming enjoyed this. Took me an hour and 10 minutes, but once I realised I was breaking no PBs I dug in and enjoyed each head scratching clue. Had to rely on word play for a quite a few – but always delighted when I get to a NHO through word play alone. Lots of contenders for COD but in the end 12ac for its elegance.
Thanks George and Setter
All good, except I put in GIGI! 31’15” and I was feeling pleased with myself until the dreaded pinks appeared. Stupid mistake. UNIBROW makes me think of Count Olaf, the baddy in the Lemony Snicket books which I am reading with my son. He had one. BARCELONA was a bit misleading because I was expecting a Catalan name. A lovely puzzle, thanks.
I usually give up if I am heading towards taking an hour, but I persevered with this, and crossed the line after just over an hour and a half. LOI was BEFORE.
I took a long time to see AGGRIEVE, and share the doubts of others about the I, which at best would be retrospective after GR II became king.
In IMAGINED I wasted time trying to fit OR into an anagram of “one dug”.
Thanks George and setter
I was just not going to give up this one. Took me 72 mins in two goes. Knew all except Freda’s eyebrow and dont recognise 4 down as an action but guessed that’s what was needed. Thats my slowest finish in years but enjoyed the challenge thanks.
Very late getting to this today, and progress at times was terribly slow. I had numerous distractions going on at the same time, so perhaps my concentration wasn’t what was required. No time recorded due to stop go, but I would estimate about an hour and a half. I’m glad I persevered though as I finished with all correct and parsed.