Music: Tchaikovsky, Nutcracker Suite, Levine/Chicago
Time: 14:54
This did not feel like an easy Monday at first, as I struggled to get started in the grid. After five minutes, I only had a few answers here and there. But once I had a sufficient quorum of crossing letters, I started to speed up dramatically. Yes, I biffed one answer after another, often not even fully reading the clue, but just putting in the only English word that fit.
Across | |
1 | Feature of building computer programs, we hear (4) |
APSE – Sounds like APPS. | |
4 | Good humour always at home in the course of game (10) |
CHEERINESS – CH(EER IN)ESS, a biff. | |
9 | Looked at team showing anger maybe after trick (10) |
CONSIDERED – CON + SIDE RED. not fully parsed while solving. | |
10 | Capital this person’s invested in American city (4) |
LIMA – L.(I’M)A. | |
11 | Left in Calais, unable to communicate successfully? (6) |
GAUCHE – Double definition, one a bit dubious. | |
12 | Competes in race that’s most laborious (8) |
HEAVIEST – HEA(VIES)T. | |
14 | Pitch made by one favouring war? (4) |
HAWK – Double definition. | |
15 | What’s carried by ship is scary — discarded loot (10) |
SCHILLINGS – S(CHILLING)S. Discarded in the sense of no longer used. | |
17 | Small unit that could make mice tremor (10) |
MICROMETRE – Anagram of MICE TREMOR, giving .001 of a millimetre, a length seldom required in casual talk. | |
20 | Irishman bringing post around (4) |
LIAM – MAIL backwards. I was tempted to biff Sean, but held off. | |
21 | One drafted in — being cute, I end getting redeployed (8) |
INDUCTEE – Anagram of CUTE, I END. Leaving out the IN would have helped the clue, as that suggests the answer. | |
23 | Figure is round and not totally lifeless (6) |
ISOGON – IS O + GON[e]. | |
24 | Meeting female, give false account willingly (4) |
LIEF – LIE + F. | |
25 | British journeys frenetic, needing introduction of one female attendant (10) |
BRIDESMAID – B RIDES MA(I)D. | |
26 | Insignificant person to enforce delay upon being picked up (10) |
MAKEWEIGHT – sounds like MAKE WAIT. | |
27 | Numbers given hotel grub (4) |
NOSH – NOS + H. |
Down | |
2 | Form of impropriety when academic leads a country (11) |
PROFANATION – PROF + A NATION. | |
3 | Poet’s village festival entertaining a hundred folk regularly (4,5) |
EAST COKER – EAST(C + [f]O[l]K)ER. | |
4 | King, say, upset, being taken in by bounders and scroungers (7) |
CADGERS – CAD(R, E.G upside-down)S. | |
5 | Momentous things are threat somehow (5-10) |
EARTH-SHATTERING – Anagram of THINGS ARE THREAT. | |
6 | Flighty type narrated story in auditorium (7) |
REDTAIL – Sounds like READ TALE. | |
7 | Old priest with the heartless description of the chosen people (5) |
ELITE – ELI + T[h]E. | |
8 | Barely sufficient examination taking minimal time (5) |
SCANT – SCAN + T. | |
13 | Unexpected gains with politicians — those endorsing proposal? (11) |
SIGNATORIES – Anagram of GAINS + TORIES. | |
16 | A three-legged race location (4,2,3) |
ISLE OF MAN – Cryptic definition, alluding to the triskele and the Tourist Trophy races. | |
18 | Greek character leading board not necessarily permanent (7) |
MUTABLE – MU + TABLE. | |
19 | Identity needed to enter sporting occasion? That is obvious (7) |
EVIDENT – EV(ID)ENT. | |
21 | African country set up to accommodate second religion (5) |
ISLAM – MAL(S)I upside-down. | |
22 | Part of ship storing bit of rotten rubbish (5) |
DRECK – D(R[ortten]ECK. |
I worked the 15-letter anagram first and proceeded at a steady clip… till the very end, when I was hung up for an unaccountable amount of time on ISOGON. I remembered Eliot’s “Four Quartets” readily enough but NHO of MAKEWEIGHT.
15:30
Nothing to scare the proverbials. LOI SCHILLINGS took a while as I tried to think of an SCH__ S word. DNK ISOGON, but didn’t need to.
7:55 – I needed wordplay for LIEF and PROFANATION. My last in was HAWK, that took a lot of starting and mental dictionary-trawling to think of possibilities for ?A?K.
40 mins with a reveal needed for end of CHEERINESS, couldn’t think of a game that fitted, and was stuck on CHEERINGLY.
Also needed help on EAST COKER, as thought I was looking for a poet and a village festival, and Easter isn’t a village festival. I went with ELSA COKER, with an unknown festival of Elser. Ezra Pound was an early biff for the poet.
NHO SCHILLINGS, RED TAIL, ISOGON, LIEF.
ISOGON sounds like a word that can be constructed and understood, if never actually used. The Wikipedia page shows that it is not just regular polygons that are isogons, and makes this clarification: The pseudorhombicuboctahedron – is not isogonal.
COD MAKEWEIGHT
GAUCHE looks odd, “unable to communicate”?
I think it’s OK as a definition by example, in that if you’re socially awkward a way in which that might be manifested is that you might not be able to communicate successfully with someone you felt drawn to…
I agree but it is a poor clue IMHO in that ignoring all that, if you can translate “left” into French you are there. The rest of the clue is a MAKEWEIGHT, just put in to make the clue very mildly cryptic. If it had been “marine port” in Calais some obfuscation could have been introduced.
I can’t translate left into French – actually I could, but it took like hours to remember. Even so, I thought it was a terrible clue – not a double definition but a single definition twice, so not cryptic at all. Gauche the English word from gauche the French word means exactly the same thing… not smooth and natural (for want of a better definition). In both languages. Apart from that, a fine Times Crossword, with the added bonus of no live obscure people, and no other obscurities.
No obscurities except LEIF, which I wanted to be FAIN… female at the start.
I’ve never heard of a Red Tail either, but then I’ve never been birdwatching in North America.
Considering there were so many things unknown to me I was pleased to finish in 25 minutes, 5 minutes within my target time, and without resorting to aids. I guess that qualifies it as an example of a good cryptic puzzle, but not the sort I’d want to experience too often.
My NHOs were:
ISOGON, which has appeared here in a couple of Jumbos in 2021 and 2022, but otherwise only in Mephistos.
LIEF, making its first appearance as an answer although it has been needed for understanding wordplay.
PROFANATION, another first time out although in 2015 it was used in a clue to define ‘sacrilege’.
EAST COKER, returning on its third outing after a gap of 9 years.
REDTAIL, making its debut.
I tend to agree with Merlin about GAUCHE as I can’t find a definition in any of the usual sources that mentions an inability to communicate. Nor in my thesaurus.
No problem with SCHILLINGS as I have holidayed in Austria many a time.
Oh, Austrian SCHILLINGS now I see the “discarded loot”. Very clever.
But a bit loose-and insulting-to call it ‘loot’ considering it was the official currency. Makes it sound like Austria was some kind of rogue state engaged in piracy.
Just under 40 minutes. Solution flowed fairly quickly for me. NHO EAST COKER or SCHILLINGS but first had clear wordplay and second was biffed.
Thanks Vinyll
DNF, inventing the ‘isomor’…
7:42. I felt like I was close to PB territory here but I got stuck at the end on SCHILLINGS which seemed to me a much trickier clue than the rest. Although there were several unknowns – LIEF, PROFANATION, ISOGON and EAST COKER – the wordplay was generous. Like Merlin when I had the initial E of EAST COKER I tried to make Ezra Pound work.
31m 09s
For 23ac I considered ISOCOL. ‘Not totally lifeless’ equating to COL(D).
No problem with SCHILLINGS. My mother was Austrian and I visited the ‘rellos’ plenty of times in the pre-Euro days.
I had only ever come across LIEF before in the title of a Fairport Convention album: ‘Liege and Lief’
I’ve only seen LIEF in the phrase ‘would as lief …’ as in ODE’s “He would just as lief eat a pincushion.” ODE marks it as (archaic), but it looks to be dialectal (one of ODE’s corpus examples is Irish English from a weblog).
Failed to get ISOGON but should have, I had the ISO part and obviously (to me now) most figures end in GON. Without that it was a pretty quick time, and when I gave up after wasting some minutes getting nowhere it was just over 18. Some nice clues and I liked the Four Quartets ref, thank V.
From You Changed My Life:
It all seemed so proper, it all seemed so ELITE
Eating that absolute garbage while being so discreet
I also should have guessed the end of the word for “a figure”, but entered the non-existent ISOPOD instead. Ho hum.
28 minutes. Some unfamiliar words in LIEF, ISOGON and PROFANATION, the ‘unable to communicate successfully?’ def for GAUCHE and the unknown EAST COKER reference, all of which held me up. ISLE OF MAN was my favourite.
8.03, with a few pangs of concern given the unknowns but the wordplay was all very accommodating.
Thanks both.
“In my beginning is my end.” LOI LIEF. It nearly works but Eliot put no reversal indicator I can see for the last two letters. 24 minutes. PROFANATION, SCHILLINGS, ISOGON and DRECK were also less than assured but amazingly all was well. I enjoyed this but if one of those had been wrong, I wouldn’t have. Thank you V and setter.
I kill where I please because it is all mine.
There is no sophistry in my body:
My manners are tearing off heads
(Hawk Roosting, Ted Hughes)
15 mins pre-brekker. Very gentle, I thought. My last two in were the Lief/Dreck crossers where I was left wondering – why pick those crazy words when there are so many more options. Lilo/Dalek would have been fun.
Ta setter and V
Once again, we left-handers have these perjorative terms perpetuated: “gauche” to add to “sinister” and “maladroit”, not to mention “corrie fisted”, “cuddy wifter” and “cack handed”. Huh! There ought to be a law against it.
Having said that, good puzzle by the way.
Thanks for all those terms. I shall add them to my arsenal…
I suppose Southpaw isn’t insulting then?
No, but Mollie Dooker in Australia is.
It must be hard being left out all the time.
😂
😂
A former colleague of mine set himself the task of memorising The Four Quartets. All the more remarkable as he was a Hong Kong Chinese.
I asked him when he’d finished if he could tell me what they meant. Like the rest of Eliot’s verse, they went right over my head.
Could he?
He left the company and I lost touch with him.
There must be a poem in there somewhere.
Quick today, and no unknowns although ISO_O_ took a little thought. Also 25ac was clearly an anagram, wasn’t it? No..
I found this easy to start with, until it wasn’t. Most done I 30 mins then gtound to a halt with a raft of unknowns. EAST COKER, DRECK & MAKEWEIGHT all beat me. ISOGON at least was guessed right. Bah.
Thanks vinyl and setter.
14.39, a well above average performance by my modest standards. My wife is from Port Erin which helped with ISLE OF MAN; like some others I struggled with ISOGON but in general a friendly start to the week.
Just over 15 minutes.
– Didn’t realise the definition for SCHILLINGS was referring to money and assumed it was some nautical term
– Not massively confident about ISOGON
– Even less confident about the unknown LIEF
– For 25a, tried to make an anagram of B + *frenetic with an I inserted, before the checkers pointed me towards BRIDESMAID
– Not familiar with EAST COKER but the wordplay was kind
Thanks vinyl and setter.
FOI Apse
LOI Lief
COD Isle of Man
Yes, Schillings sounds very Patrick O’ Brien.
Best for a long time (under 15 mins) even though held up for a short while by MICROMETER before correcting and trusting to luck with NHO LIEF at the end.
Thank you, vinyl1 and the setter
6:23. What Pootle said. In fact about 25% of my solving time was taken up by 15ac. No problems otherwise.
23a DNF NHO Isogon. Not in Cheating Machine. Added. And although it was solvable I never thought of GONe. (I should have because it isn’t difficult.) I essayed Isopod, but couldn’t parse and it is far from lifeless anyway.
24a Lief archaic, but in CM. But I didn’t add liefer, liefest nor liever as they are also archaic. At least lief is in Shakespear, but I don’t know about the comparatives.
6d NHO Redtail, and that’s because it refers to a HHO red-tailed hawk.
22d NHO Dreck AFAIK, although something about it suggested it might exist. Discovered it is Yiddish.
25a Bridesmaid, very clear instructions meant I started writing while still reading the clue, and not knowing where it was going.
12.46. I was surprised to see DRECK. as the only other place I’ve seen it (at least with the right sort of meaning) is in Heinlein as a kind of exclamation. Nothing else made waves, as I sailed past GAUCHE without a second thought and ISOGON fell easily enough. Yes, LIEF from Fairport Convention, but also Heinlein again, I think from Glory Road.
SCHILLING with that coy definition my last and slowest in.
10:23. My best time since joining the SNITCH. I was heading towards comfortably breaking the 10 minute barrier but got delayed by SCHILLINGS and ISOGON. Relieved with no pink suare for the latter, LIEF and DRECK.
19:40
Would have been quicker but for a clumsy METER. Four or five clues guessed without any certainty from parsing, but got lucky.
Thanks all.
In thirty years of mathematics education I never used the word ISOGON, possibly because explanations could get complicated (see Merlin above). But if I had to explain it, the Greek roots of the word are ‘same angle’, so, as well as regular polygons, ISOGONs include rectangles. I hope that helps.
I do like this forum. Where else could we discuss Heinlein, Eliot and mathematics all at once?
Did this puzzle in 9’28”, thanks vinyl and setter.
Much of this very easy. Finished in 32 mins, 10 of which were spent poring over the NHO – and ultimately, guessed because it fitted the clue – DRECK. One of those crossword-y words, no doubt, that are entirely unknown in any other sphere. I shall of course instantly forget it and be baffled anew the next time it crops up.
About 25′ after a slow start and a couple of early errors. Apps rather than APSE and micrometer (which is the thing I used as an apprentice to measure MICROMETRES). LIEF from Fairport and DRECK only after solving MAKEWEIGHT. Enjoyed SCHILLINGS and constructed the NHO town. Thanks Vinyl and setter
APSE was FOI and I join the throng who were held up by LOI, SCHILLINGS, and knew LIEF from FC. 22:37. Thanks setter and Vinyl.
13.48Cruising to a sub ten or so I thought till I got stuck in the NE corner. Nho schillings in ships before and took a punt on lief.
It’s CHILLING in ships.
Or in ship, to be precise.
38.43 and all green which is good by my standards albeit a few entered on a wing and a prayer.
I knew of EAST COKER despite never having read any Eliot. I agree that GAUCHE rather pushed the envelope, but otherwise I found this very Mondayish.
FOI APSE
LOI ISOGON
COD MAKE WEIGHT
TIME 6:04
13:10 – only ISOGON (isodea, until the second O made it obvious) gave much pause. Nice to see some less familiar words and references in a fairly easy puzzle.
21 minutes. Several words which seemed strange (ISOGON, REDTAIL, PROFANATION) but were easily enough got from the wordplay and they seemed plausible. I wasn’t sure about APSE, since I’d thought it applied specifically to a church; building seems a rather thin way to define church. Can’t really understand the fuss over GAUCHE: how else do you define it (apart from Left in Calais)? Perhaps ‘unable to communicate easily’ might have been marginally better, but …
“But if you mouth it, as many of our
players do, I had as lief the town crier spoke my lines.”
(Part of Hamlet’s advice to the players.
Act III Scene 2.)
20:24. A fun puzzle with some unfamiliar words. ISOGON and REDTAIL felt as if I knew them, but I couldn’t have drawn a picture. I liked SCHILLINGS
Distinctly under par versus the snitch. I think a demonstration of how much I rely on biff then parse. If the words are unknown, I can get stuck very easily as I try to decode the wordplay. e.g. IS + O was no problem, but ?O? to GON(e) took a very long time.
LOI ISOGON.
14:09
6:52. As above, SCHILLINGS took a while. And I wasn’t helped by putting APPS for APSE which slowed me down. Nice start for Monday.
All well until the LIEF, DRECK, MAKE interchange, all unknown, giving me a touch of the hesitations….
Thanks V
3m 55s. Nice puzzle, finishing on ISOGON, which I probably came across in my geometry studies once upon a time, but I wouldn’t want to sit an exam on it now.
23:57 – fairly gentle today. I had to take a look at ISOGON a few times before committing. NHO DRECK but had to think quite hard about other nautical terms that would fit as it seemed a bit strange. EAST COKER also didn’t resonate – I didn’t realise that it was the name of a poem. Weirdly, given some fairly arcane words it was pretty quick to fill in after a slow start.
thanks both!
In response to a few comments about red tail birds.
I assumed they were African American pilots in WW2.
24 mins, a lot of NHO’s. As above, I know LIEF from Fairport Convention. My MICROMETER caused me some delay, and LOI CHEERINESS where I had a bit of a mare over an easy clue.
Would have been about 17 minutes, but, for some reason, one letter I had entered on my iPad was changed, resulting in a pink square and unrecorded time. Not the first time this has happened.
Don’t know if anyone has already mentioned it, but the parsing of Dreck should be D(R[otten])ECK.
Well, I nearly got to the end of the blog without making a dumb mistake!
Now corrected.
36’05”
Out of the stalls smartly enough, woefully one-paced thereafter.
Arriving to lunch with Enrico’s family, I was surprised to see a framed Manx flag, but half of the background was yellow. His father, who turned out to be Sicilian, hence the flag, served up a delicious pasta dish that was jet black; I cannot recall whether the colouring came from squid or cuttlefish (seppia).
I loved the word play for that one, and many of the others, bar 1a, which has become irksomely ubiquitous. Like Rob above, despite being keen but only a dilettante in geometry, I’ve never had an occasion to use the term isogon. The village made me think of Eliot, but got the poem wrong.
Thank you setter and Vinyl.
Nicely under target at 27.35 including about two minutes trying to figure out 14ac with -A-K. Did an alphabet trawl but somehow managed to disregard using the first letter H. In the end opted for TALK pretty much knowing it had no chance of being right. So in racing terms fell at the last when well clear of the field (that is to say metaphorically speaking my target time, not my fellow solvers!).
Very pleasant solve- was lucky the word play led my NHO LIEF and DRECK, or EAST COKER to be correct.
Thanks to the blogger and setter.
30 minutes. I would have been faster but entered Micrometer initially which ensured that Evident was not evident. (Glad to see I wasn’t the only one).
I also enjoyed the Fairport Convention connection – I’m going to see them in February.
Are there any original members left? By now, their grandchildren should be performing!
Simon Nicol is still with them (a founder member from 1967) and Dave Pegg and Dave Mattacks joined the band in 1969 – I did have to check this on Wikipedia.
Nobody has been with the band all the way through – members dropped out for periods – but Simon Nicol is close to ever-present.
They are not youngsters these days, but still a great band, and well worth seeing live. They still run their annual festival at Cropredy in Oxfordshire.
I remember seeing Simon Nicol and Dave Swarbrick performing as a duo at a pub in Chatham, many years ago. Late 1970s.
Swarbrick’s ability was mesmerising, not least being able to light, smoke and extinguish a cigarette without once stopping playing his violin ..
A great loss when Swarbs died – and we also lost Gerry Conway this year who played drums with Fairport and Fotheringay.