Time taken: 14:34
I had a hard time getting a foothold in this puzzle, with several of the long answers being the last ones to fall. Of the other early solvers, it seems some put in very slick times and some are slower than others, so it may be a puzzle that rewards those who spot the unusual phrases quickly.
How did yule get along?
| Across | |
| 1 | Club offering card on initiation of members (4) |
| MACE – ACE(card) after the first letter of Members | |
| 3 | A card game that’s driven by force? (5,5) |
| BLACK MARIA – double definition – although Collins only lists the police car. Chambers has BLACK MARIA defined as another name for Hearts. Maybe a change of dictionaries with the new regime? This one held me up for a while, because the car came quickly but I did not know the game | |
| 9 | Old man’s bandaged up in a series of grunts (7) |
| OINKING – O(old), KING(a man in chess) containing IN | |
| 11 | Greatest area around funny bone (7) |
| MAXILLA – MAX(greatest), A(area) surrounding ILL(funny, as in “My tummy feels a little funny”) | |
| 12 | Feeding time, Thursday Eve so dissimilar? (6,7) |
| SHROVE TUESDAY – anagram of THURSDAY,EVE,SO. I think in the US as well as Australia it is called Pancake Tuesday | |
| 14 | Gas lit behind unit for a physicist (5) |
| RADON – ON(lit) after RAD(unit for a physicist) | |
| 15 | Rearrange final seed drills from end to end (9) |
| ENFILADES – anagram of FINAL,SEED, a military drill | |
| 17 | Country always extremely desperate, put a lid on that! (4,5) |
| CAPE VERDE – EVER(always) and the external letters of DesperatE, coming after CAP(put a lid on) | |
| 19 | Journey beyond southern river (5) |
| STOUR – TOUR(journey) after S(southern) | |
| 21 | Bound to get scared, youth (6,7) |
| SPRING CHICKEN – SPRING(bound) and CHICKEN(scared) | |
| 24 | Table bearing a fowl (7) |
| ROASTER – ROSTER(table) containing A | |
| 25 | English are besieging capital in Dakar — defend yourself! (2,5) |
| EN GARDE – ENG(English), ARE containing the first letter in Dakar | |
| 26 | Dope cheers for ordinary folk (5,5) |
| GRASS ROOTS – GRASS(dope), ROOTS(cheers, supports) | |
| 27 | Discarded Franglais newspaper? (4) |
| LEFT – A Franglais newspaper could be LE FT | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Deranged, idles on wagon (10) |
| MOONSTRUCK – MOONS(idles) on TRUCK(wagon) | |
| 2 | Bolshevik after money, focused (7) |
| CENTRED – RED(Bolshevik) after CENT(money) | |
| 4 | Good hearts in reality broken a good, good way (5-4) |
| LIGHT-YEAR – G(good) and H(hearts) inside an anagram of REALITY | |
| 5 | Reach to grab last of Roquefort, French cheese (5) |
| COMTE – COME(reach) containing the last letter of RoqueforT | |
| 6 | Double-edged sword evidently sparkling, sabre originally encased in assortment of flashy jewels? (5,8) |
| MIXED BLESSING – first letters of Evidently Sparkling Sabre inside MIXED BLING(assortment of flashy jewels) | |
| 7 | Place in orchestral part for broadcast (7) |
| RELAYED – LAY(place) inside REED(a part of the orchestra) | |
| 8 | In Malay, a housemaid (4) |
| AYAH – hidden inside malAY A Housemaid | |
| 10 | White lies? Seemingly not! (2,4,7) |
| IN VINO VERITAS – cryptic definition based on white being a wine and lies being the opposite of the truth | |
| 13 | Biting insect circling chain on bike, finally (10) |
| ASTRINGENT – ANT(insect) surrounding STRING(chain) and the last letter of bikE | |
| 16 | Number of vessels filled with melted ices, most soft (9) |
| FLEECIEST – FLEET(number of vessels) surrounding an anagram of ICES | |
| 18 | Noodle in quantity of butter with a sauce (7) |
| PASSATA – ASS(noodle) inside a PAT of butter, then A | |
| 20 | Source of oval fruit, case of timber in that? (3,4) |
| OAK TREE – first letter of Ovale, then AKEE(fruit) containing the external letters in TimbeR | |
| 22 | Firstly, North ably redistributes cards, our dealer (5) |
| NARCO – first letters of North Ably Redistributes Cards Our | |
| 23 | Jumper, possibly, back on top of girl (4) |
| FROG – FRO(back) and the first letter of Girl | |
10:27. On the wavelength again today, it would appear, helped by having all the knowledge. AKEE (usually spelled with a C and served with saltfish) is familiar as a staple of the Jamaican street food (along with jerk chicken and curry goat) we used to eat in the long-distant days when the Notting Hill Carnival was fun.
The complete opposite of yesterday with very little jumping straight out at me and a lot of time spent ploughing laboriously through the wordplay. No time, thanks to an interruption, but 25+ for sure.
I found this tricky, and scraped over the line in 39:18 with RELAYED.
This physicist stopped using the RAD as a unit in the mid eighties when we switched to SI units, although for many years my older colleagues got round this by quoting doses in cGy, since the rad is one hundredth of a Gray.
Thanks glh and setter
47:54. Tough going. Some hard clues – MIXED BLESSINGS, LIGHT YEAR, IN VINO VERITAS, etc – that needed to be worked through, plus the unknown card game and the barely known ENFILADES.
Thrown by AYAH, which I sort of knew but it looked as if it had to be ALAY from the wordplay. But it’s an &lit?
It felt good to finish all OK
As someone who takes at least an hour every day, I really enjoyed this puzzle, and delighted to get to the end with all correct. Nothing obscure, but some really tricky clues that exercised the grey matter. NHO akee, but biffed oak tree and came here to find out what I’d missed. Totally in awe of anyone who can solve this in 15 minutes! Thanks blogger and setter…
Just crept in under the hour at 58.54, having doubted at one time I would be able to finish. Having said that it was technically a DNF as I put in IN VINI VERITAS, the significance of the ‘white’ in the clue sailing straight over my head. I also initially put in ROOSTER at 24ac, which was nothing but carelessness as I had correctly parsed the correct answer. PASSATA automatically corrected it fortunately.
I liked this crossword, must have been about 20 mins.
Black Maria is also known as Scabby Queen. I thought series of grunts was going to be Platoon, but it was oinking, getting another outing after that occasion a couple of weeks ago.
Shrove Tuesday – an unusual case of one day of the week providing anagrammed letters for another.
Never seen Ackee spelt Akee before.
Spring Chicken is good.
23:40
Rather enjoyed this although I did share the view that ENFILADES is rather obscure to clue with an anagram. I thought a few other permutations seemed plausible.
Thanks blogger and setter
I imagined there was an obscure tree called an ‘Ack tree’ because I only know the main spelling. ENFILADES is a ludicrously obscure word, far more so than ‘ackee’ in my book. I’ve only tried ackee once though and that was more than enough!
Acker and saltfish is the National Dish of Jamaica- although some might vote for curried goat, rice and peas, or jerk chicken.
I think what I actually ate was okra as part of an Antiguan ‘Pepper Pot’ tbh now that I think about it, though I certainly have heard of ackee and am aware of its status as part of Jamaica’s national dish.
Going, for me, well in three sittings until only 23d and 24 ac left. Had double vision on “back” in 23 d, reversed ast (astern?) then dyslexed it to sta to get stag. Only correcting from here to frog allowed me to get 24. Doh
That was tough, and I agree with Pootle that the unusual pharases was a good part of the toughness. I knew enfilade, only knew the Chicago Police Van and not the Hearts-like game, and learned that Ackee/Akee is different to the very very hip Acai. I’d never heard “pancake day” until I lived in England; some US places it’s Fat Tuesday.
Fat Tuesday. Of course. A straight translation of Mardi Gras – all the same day. Trust us to have pancakes when other people are having carnivals
Tough one. Got less than a third, and the decision to start pressing Reveal was the right one. Annoyed to have missed BLACK MARIA, as I knew the card game, but didn’t see the “force” referring to police.
Also didn’t enter the first four letters of MOONSTRUCK as I didn’t know mooning as idling.
40.41 so a very unspectacular effort. I knew trouble was brewing when I had barely one across clue solved after the first pass. Eventually the long anagrams got me moving but about as fast as treacle.
The NW proved particularly annoying but got them all with LOI oinking. I think that was a solution in a puzzle a couple of months ago which just about remained in my consciousness.
Must do better tomorrow.
Well, it certainly was a tricky one ; and I’m happy to see that there were quite a few who struggled, as I did. I have to admit to a couple of ‘reveals’ just to keep up some semblance of momentum, but I still took too long – not over the more obvious ones like OAK TREE (but had not heard of akee ),
and ENFILADES (which rang a faint bell), but over ones that should have come more easily ( I had the TUESDAY part of 12 Across but had forgotten that name for Pancake Day! Felt sure that if I’d had more time to invest, I would have done better.