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. | |
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.
Would have been sub-ten but for misspelling micrometer, which held me up for a couple of mins. Liked Schillings.
28:55
LOI was ISOGON. I was not convinced it was a real word, and did an alphabet trawl looking for alternatives.
I had most of the left side done very quickly, but then got stuck. Lots of jobs to do today, driving to and from Stroud, so only had more thinking time late this afternoon. The break did me good, and I finished the right side quite quickly. Had to cross my fingers over LIEF and ISOGON.
13 minutes. Biffed Isle of Man and got isogon from wordplay, having never heard of it. I’m a fan of Four Quartets but East Coker is not as good as Little Gidding!
10.38 including a typo check for once
What Pootle and Keriothe said about the puzzle and Martin John D and others said about LIEF which has reminded to check out The Notes and the Words again – some lovely songs on there
There’s an unaccounted for ‘a’ in the clue for 3D
11’57”
A very quick time by my standards spoke to an easy puzzle. Several BHO words but all generously clued.
12:54 and still outside the top 100! Stuck on LOI ISOGON, but otherwise plain sailing. Many thanks V.
DNF. All except for ISOGON in 35 minutes and I gave up after 45. The rest was fine. Thanks vinyl1.
I had no idea about LIEF, as some others I have only heard the word in Fairport Convention’s album title. In the semiconductor industry, MICROMETRES are far too large for anything these days and we are all about nanometres (or nanometers normally).