Times 29099

Author   william_j_sPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

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).

87 comments on “Times 29099”

  1. Managed the top half, but most of the bottom beat me. Gave up at 45 mins knowing I was going nowhere. At least half a dozen I’d simply never have got.

  2. That was difficult. DNF, defeated by the SE corner. NHO NARTHEX, and the wordplay not helping me. Got the MINOR bit of 29, and biffed the AXIS. ‘AX’ for ‘guitar’? New one on me! NHO UT for the note.
    Brain-meltingly enjoyable nonetheless.

  3. Typos in the quick and concise. Two good things – firstly I finished, secondly there were no typos.

    Only a few biffs – RUT(LOI), DAMPEN and NARTHEX. WORLD BEATER the opposite of a biff – got the wordplay, but not the definition.

    V hard as everyone else has said, and a chastener after a relatively easy week.

    38:24

  4. DNF . I found three quarters of this reasonably straightforward but the SE a completely different story. The unknown NARTHEX was never going to appear from the word play.

  5. DNF and still not really sure I understand some of the parsings after reading the blog.

    the existence of UT is why I don’t play Scrabble any more, harrumph.

  6. Wow, what a beast that was. Challenging all the way but I got particularly stuck in the SE to finish. Very pleased to have got through unscathed. It almost atones for all the other silly failures over the last couple of weeks.

    There are a mere 78 correct solutions so far on the Crossword Club leaderboard, certainly exceptional for this time in the afternoon.

    Oh, and the funny thing, NARTHEX was in the Concise just 11 days ago, and yet I didn’t manage to remember it. I wonder if it worked out better for anyone else?

    1. Ah, I was wondering where I’d seen NARTHEX before. I didn’t know it 11 days ago, and didn’t get it today.

  7. DNF. Some great clues, I particularly liked dampen.
    I wasn’t impressed with rut, neither as the definition nor with the inclusion of “ut” defined as
    “syllable used for the first note in the diatonic scale in an early solmization system and later replaced by do”. Really? Should I now research and remember that whole early scale?
    No need to comment on world beater, as so many people have already done so.

    On second thoughts, perhaps the “it” in the clue for rut refers to sex?

  8. I was reasonably pleased to finish this with one mistake, which I’m blaming on tiredness. I persuaded myself there might be a dish called an ADINES, which I derived from ADES (as in orangeade or lemonade, drink) round IN. Looking back, I should obviously have seen the implausibility of this, especially since ADONIS probably wasn’t among the half-dozen or so most difficult clues in the puzzle, but my stamina had gone and I just wanted an answer.

  9. Well, I finished, and was all green, but with several things I didn’t understand like the outback gun. NARTHEX was a guess so I was happy it was right. Never heard of VIBURNUM but assembled from the Ikea parts. I couldn’t parse my LOI DAMPEN but was confident it was right. Definitely a workout.

  10. Well that was something else. Delighted to complete in 49:50 and to find that was less than 5 Verlaines. Came here with so many unparaed – RUT, NOT A SAUSAGE, CAPRI. Once I had IRONSIDES, Capri had to be Capri but i could not for the life of me justify putting it in until I had all the checkers. NHO NARTHEX or VIBURNUM but submitted with crossed fingers in the hope that I’d followed the wordplay correctly.
    BTW do we have a pangram?

    Thx William ( for dedication above and beyond) and setter for your brilliance

  11. 42.09

    I came across (the superb) NARTHEX very recently – must have been in an old one (I’m slowly churning through from 2010) or a concise, which massively helped.

    I did really like this though it’s never ideal when you biff a few without any understanding of the parsing – here’s looking at you CAPRI RUT and RISOTTO

    Simon’s video is going to be sooo long. A little side bet on how many times he says “brutal” 🙂 (If you are reading this Simon your vids are absolutely cracking entertainment – thanks a bunch for doing them).

  12. DNF with RUT and TOTES remaining. I couldn’t believe there was an UT even though I knew it was allowed in Scrabble. But TOTES? Step too far…

  13. 61:13

    Once I’d spotted that IRON M was an anagram, bits of the SE fell onto place – VIM for energy gave VIBURNUM; TOTES was totally bunged in, along with RUT – didn’t know the do = UT thing; didn’t quite get the parsing for NOT A SAUSAGE but that appeared to be the obvious answer – that in turn gave DAMPEN. Glad to have seen NARTHEX somewhere lately.

    Thanks William and setter

  14. Eventually got narthex from the wordplay; had never heard of it. Very clever! Didn’t understand world-beater – thanks for the explanations. Amazingly, having failed maths O-level twice and then given up, I realised at once that 29 would be about geometry rather than music, but it still took me ages to get the answer through wordplay. A brilliant puzzle which took me well over an hour, at a conservative estimate – stopped timing myself while grappling with south-east corner!

  15. Gave up after 70 minutes with just N_r_h_x remaining. I could see it began Nar…. but otherwise perplexed as NHO Narthex and have just now cottoned on to Hex= entrance.
    Ut=do also new to me.
    Toughie today.

  16. DNF. I’ve been travelling this week and unable to do the puzzles, so I had the slightly disconcerting experience today of getting a PB on Wednesday’s and then completely failing on this one. I gave up after about 25 minutes with 7 clues unsolved. Looking at the answers I’m glad I did: I don’t think I’d ever have got there and the attempt would have been torture.

  17. Another DNF here, just out of my league I think. I started off promisingly enough with the top half going in relatively quickly. The bottom section was more problematic however, but the sw corner eventually got sorted. About 40 minutes had elapsed with the se corner looking pretty blank. Pretty blank also describes my countenance from then on as I came to a grinding halt. I pulled stumps at about 60 minutes, and on going to the site and seeing the answers, am fairly confident I did the right thing.

  18. Due to a day on the spanners replacing and removing a wrongly ordered headlamp unit for my car, (it needed an adaptive Xenon lighting unit and I ordered a standard one, drat!) and cobbling the old one back together so I have a drivable car, I didn’t get around to this puzzle until well into the evening. It took me 47:21 and I was astonished to be 77th on the Leaderboard. The NW went in easily apart from FLIRTATIOUS and TYROLEAN which arrived much later. Nothing else materialised until TOTES and MINOR AXIS gave me a foothold down under. The rest of the puzzle was ground out through gritted teeth, and LOI VIBURNUM almost had me reaching for aids, but inspiration struck at the last minute. Jeez that was tough! Thanks (I think) setter and well played William! So pleased I didn’t try to fit this in before I ventured into the toolbox!

  19. 137′-ish
    Started slowly, got slower, and slower…..

    ….but finished, exhausted, but with all parsed. The gun/world beater equivalence seemed feasible for the outback and, when I arrived inevitably at the portico, I convinced myself that as narthex would only work as an outstanding &lit. it must be the only way to complete such a beautifully crafted puzzle.
    Bravissimo to the setter, William and all who managed to see this one out !

  20. 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.)

  21. 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.

  22. 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.

  23. 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

  24. 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.

  25. 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.)

    1. 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.

      1. 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!

  26. 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!

  27. 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.

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