69:30
Too good and complicated for me; I even struggled to motivate myself in the parsing. I hope it’s just grumpiness brought on by tiredness. Roll on the holidays.
Definitions underlined.
| Across | |
| 1 | Sailor, half frozen, stumped by subzero conditions (4,5) |
| JACK FROST – JACK (sailor) + half of FROzen + ST (stumped). | |
| 6 | Putting down my name, sign for holiday place in Italy (5) |
| CAPRI – CAPRIcorn (sign) minus (putting down) ‘cor’ (my) and ‘n’ (name). | |
| 9 | One reluctant to change light in the kitchen is ringing friend endlessly (7) |
| LUDDITE – LITE (low in calories, light in the kitchen) surrounding (ringing) bUDDy (friend) without its ends. | |
| 10 | Heading west, sailor’s leading series of races in Uruguay’s River Plate (7) |
| RISOTTO – reversal of (heading west) OS (Ordinary Seaman, sailor), before TT (IoM Tourist Trophy, series of races), all inside RIO (Uraguay’s river). | |
| 11 | Edge chipped off delicate china (3) |
| PAL – delete the last letter of (edge chipped off) PALe (subtle, delicate). | |
| 12 | Game twin kids play without delay on a regular basis (11) |
| TIDDLYWINKS – anagram of (play) TWIN KIDS, surrounding (without) DeLaY (on a regular basis). | |
| 14 | One’s skill in quiz crystal clear (6) |
| QUARTZ – replace I (one) with ART in QUiZ, for a clear crystal. | |
| 15 | One keeps back shock career, not allowed to be spoken about (8) |
| HAIRBAND – homophones of (spoken about) “hare” (career) and “banned” (not allowed). | |
| 17 | Stick around outside public house, or I can be transported (8) |
| EUPHORIC – CUE (stick) reversed (around), surrounding (outside) all of PH (public house) and OR I. | |
| 19 | Fizzy drink overflowing in round dish (6) |
| ADONIS – SODA (fizzy drink) surrounding (overflowing) IN, all reversed (round). | |
| 22 | Nothing like a century to reverse form (3,1,7) |
| NOT A SAUSAGE – AS A TON (like a century) reversed, then USAGE (form). | |
| 23 | It’s time for stag do on river (3) |
| RUT – UT (an earlier syllable for ‘do’, from the musical scale) on R (river). | |
| 25 | Inches in front of drone — a new animal (7) |
| INHUMAN – IN (inches) + HUM (drone) + A + N (new). | |
| 27 | Casual firing range warning? (3-4) |
| POT-SHOT – POT’S HOT (a warning one might hear at the oven (range)). | |
| 28 | Daughter leaving very much in advance (5) |
| EARLY – ‘d’ (daughter) from dEARLY (very much). | |
| 29 | Shorter of two chords from Iron Maiden hit is on American guitar (5,4) |
| MINOR AXIS – anagram of (hit) IRON + M (maiden), then IS on AX (American spelling of ‘axe'(guitar)). I think. I don’t pretend to understand the musicology reference. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Judge in court keeping legatee’s case cordial? (5) |
| JULEP – J (judge), then UP (in court) containing the first and last (case) of LegateE. A cocktail (or cordial?) from the American south. I only vaguely remembered the mint version from The Great Gatsby. | |
| 2 | Smart chap holding hat raised is mark of a soft-spoken character (7) |
| CEDILLA – ALEC (smart chap) containing LID (hat), all reversed (raised). | |
| 3 | Playing with wind trio, flautist out of time (11) |
| FLIRTATIOUS – anagram of (wind) TRIO FLAUTISt, minus ‘t’ (out of time). | |
| 4 | Go too far with party in the wake of several balls (6) |
| OVERDO – DO (party) after (in the wake of) OVER (several balls). | |
| 5 | St Anton native perhaps has to limit year on slope (8) |
| TYROLEAN – TO containing (limit?) YR (year) then LEAN (slope). The grammar of this does not work for me, so I suspect I’ve got the parsing wrong… Native of a place in Bavaria. | |
| 6 | Socialist shortly gets up and leaves (3) |
| COS – SOCialist (very shortly) reversed (gets up). | |
| 7 | One may be found in bed, knocking back excellent fruitcake after workout (7) |
| PETUNIA – reversal of (knocking back) AI (excellent) and NUT (fruitcake), all after PE (physical education, workout). | |
| 8 | Cromwell’s cavalry — mounted men breaking guts (9) |
| IRONSIDES – reversal of (mounted) OR (other ranks, men), contained by (breaking) INSIDES (guts). | |
| 13 | Learner leaving two-barrelled shot gun in the outback? (5-6) |
| WORLD-BEATER – anagram of (shot) TWO-BARREL(l)ED minus one ‘l’ (learner leaving). Presumably an Australian gun? | |
| 14 | Squeeze in to tank having larger dimensions than normal (5-4) |
| QUEEN-SIZE – anagram of (to tank) SQUEEZE IN. | |
| 16 | Consume uranium in energy plant (8) |
| VIBURNUM – BURN (consume) + U (uranium), all contained by (in) VIM (energy). | |
| 18 | One aiming to sell diamond surrounds this sportsman (7) |
| PITCHER – cryptic hint, a diamond surrounds the pitcher in baseball. | |
| 20 | Area right between west end of nave and entrance (7) |
| NARTHEX – &lit. A (area) + RT (right), all contained by (between) the first letter (west end) of Nave and HEX (entrance). All is forgiven, setter; this is what I buy The Times for. Superb. | |
| 21 | Moderate results from having booster jab study (6) |
| DAMPEN – AMP (booster) contained by (having it jab) DEN (study). | |
| 24 | Totally casual kicks hampering tango (5) |
| TOTES – TOES (kicks) containing (hampering) T (tango). | |
| 26 | Part of spring vegetable uprooted (3) |
| MAY – reversal of YAM (vegetable). | |
22:34
Thought this was an early Xmas cracker. One to put the biff-meisters to flight (as indeed I see it has, on perusing the leaderboard). I do wish there were more like this, requiring a bit more than just spotting a word that fits then cursorily matching a definition. Loved the classical nods, the well-hidden definitions, and well-constructed surfaces. Chapeau to the setter! SNITCH currently at 180: is that a record?
I wonder what Bruce Dickinson would make of this one. He’d approve of MINOR AXIS and DAMPEN, but I reckon he’d take issue with HAIRBAND! (If you know, you know.)
97 minutes. I don’t normally attempt the harder puzzles so I was delighted to finish this with no aids. On the first pass I only solved three in the top half but the bottom row went straight in and I worked back up from there. NARTHEX was remembered from the Concise last week. At 27a I had GET-SHOT for ages which works except, it now occurs to me, for the hyphen. By the end I was confident of all the answers except the last two, RUT and RISOTTO. I didn’t spot the pangram. Thanks William.
Over an hour, and one pink square, which was not one I had expected and could have been avoided if I could have been bothered to check the anagrist. In truth, I was so fed up with the puzzle that I was not too concerned. I’m pleased for those who enjoyed it. I wish that ‘totes’ in the sense required here could be consigned to the lexical wastebin where it deserves to be.
Really liked that puzzle. Took 59 minutes but with one really stupid and annoying mistake, EUPHORIA instead of EUPHORIC.
LOI WORLD-BEATER after finally getting ADONIS, those two really held me up at the end. Had no clue how WORLD BEATER worked though.
Many Thanks setter and blogger
RE: WORLD-BEATER, having played a lot of cricket with a lot of Australians, I can confirm that “Gun” is a slang word referring to the best player in a given context. For example, “I’ve played against him before, he’s a gun.” So my assumption (I wrote it in before parsing) was that “in the Outback” was the setter’s way of telling us it is Ozzie slang.
Surprised by the reaction to “totes”. In tonight’s edition of Richard Osman’s House of Games, one of the rounds happened to be Totes Emoji, in which answers like names of TV shows are clued entirely by a sequence of emojis. The titles of the rounds are sometimes jokey puns rather than descriptions as accurate as that, but the idea that Times crossword solvers don’t understand something intended for a mass audience is a bit strange. (And elsewhere, there are suggestions that this meaning of “totes” is at least a decade old.)
To the extent that the cryptic crossword is a showcase for the English language, I feel that our modern language should be reflected in the puzzle. Of course that means more than simply throwing in this or that contemporary actor or passing linguistic fancy. Setters and editors must have the good taste to find words and references that are at once new, but which feel like they’ve nevertheless found a permanent home in our language. TOTES passes this test with flying colors, for me. I’m glad to see it, and others like it, in the puzzle.
I agree with this, and would counter that there’s no place for NARTHEX, a word only familiar to a dwindling bunch of churchgoers in an increasingly secular country.
But then, I DNF’d on this one so it’s sour grapes, I expect!
Funny, I didn’t find this to be difficult at all, although at the end I spent about 15 minutes trying to figure out why POT-SHOT and DAMPEN should be right, and couldn’t convince myself of either. Sometimes a puzzle’s up your alley. MINOR AXIS I know from teaching high school math, NARTHEX I know from being a church organist, UT I know as a musician, etc.
Thanks, william, for the great blog and helping me parse those last two!
54:15 but with 2 errors having guessed NORTHEX with no real idea what the wordplay is doing, along with a fat-fingered pink square elsewhere.
Nuclear reactors do not burn. Except at Chernobyl
70’43” in two sessions. A real toughie. LOI and COD NARTHEX