Times 29111 – ill met and proud

52:34

I never got a foothold in any quarter, so flitted around the grid until getting 9ac on the second pass opened things up a bit. Solid, and quite difficult, so I was happy to finish all green despite initially resenting the effort required.

Definitions underlined.

Across
1 Drop male conservative in disgrace (7)
MODICUM – M (male) then C (conservative) contained by ODIUM (disgrace).
5 Summit briefly going into recess brings calm (7)
APPEASE – PEAk (summit) minus the last letter (briefly), contained by APSE (recess, in a church).
9 Hard financial promises introduced by political party ignoring unions initially (9)
LABORIOUS – IOUS (financial promises) after (introduced by) LABOuR (political party) minus the ‘u’ (first letter of unions).
10 Fish egg’s first to hatch (5)
SHADE – SHAD (fish) + first of Egg. Hatch, as in cross with pencil lines.
11 Exercise machine that could get boring (5)
DRILL – cryptic hint / double definition.
12 Observer of speech by Taoiseach possibly clinging to power in Ireland (3-6)
LIP-READER – LEADER (Taoiseach, possibly) containing (clinging to) all of P (power) inside IR (Ireland).
13 Staff appreciate this band appearing in fundraiser for further education (6,7)
FRINGE BENEFIT – RING (band) contained by FE BENEFIT (fundraiser for further education).
17 Subordinate who fails to meet binding targets? (13)
UNDERSTRAPPER – cryptic hint, one who ‘straps’ less than expected. This had crossed my mind as a possibility that fit the checkers, but have never heard of this word, so it went in with a shrug.
21 Key figure in report of Nessie apparently (9)
LOCKSMITH – sounds like “loch’s myth” (Nessie apparently).
24 Abdicate, wanting son to be king? (5)
REIGN – REsIGN (abdicate) minus (wanting) ‘s’ (son). Wonderful stuff.
25 Several men who serve general purpose (5)
TENOR – TEN (several) + OR (men who serve).
26 Harry essentially severed connections with English (9)
PERSECUTE – PER SE (essentially) + CUT (severed connections) + E (English).
27 Leader of Parliament set about stopping corruption and dissent (7)
PROTEST – first of Parliament + anagram of (about) SET, all containing (stopping) ROT (corruption).
28 Extremely stubborn Democrat snubbed public support (7)
DOUREST – D (democrat) + nearly all of (snubbed) OUt (public) + REST (support). Not the first definition of ‘dour’ that came to my mind, but it’s the first in Chambers.
Down
1 Prime minister getting a grip on adolescent disorder (6)
MALADY – MAY (Teresa, former PM) containing LAD (adolescent).
2 Gathered information about campaign from lawyer involved in Act (9)
DEBRIEFED – BRIEF (lawyer) contained by DEED (act).
3 Innate evil shown up in man behind bars (7)
CORELLI – CORE (innate) then ILL (evil) reversed. Italian composer, nice definition.
4 According to Spooner, fool could take on another role (9)
MOONLIGHT – spoonerism of “loon might” (fool could).
5 First in series of affectations upset teller of tales (5)
AESOP – POSE A (first in series of poses, affectations) reversed.
6 Idiot put up flyer in Bay Area? (7)
PASTERN – SAP (idiot) reversed, then TERN (flyer). Part of the lower limb of a horse (Bay Area?) equivalent to the fingers/toes of other mammals.
7 Publicity campaign plugs gift (5)
AWARD – AD (publicity) containing WAR (campaign).
8 Deplore what determines senior manager’s salary (8)
EXECRATE – EXEC RATE (what determines senior manager’s salary).
14 Graduate admitting agitated state talked nonsense (9)
BLATHERED – BED (B.Ed, graduate in education) containing LATHER (agitated state). I spent too long anagramming ‘state’.
15 Home runs must be set up in subsequent fixtures? (9)
FURNITURE – IN (home) + R (runs) all reversed (set up) and contained by FUTURE (subsequent).
16 Period where one might find training difficult? (4,4)
FULL STOPI think this cryptic hint refers to a weight-lifting move which requires more than the usual amount of effort. Thanks Ulaca (see comments); one might find it difficult to board a train at a full (or crowded) stop (or station).
18 Group of potential soldiers in detachment (7)
RESERVE – double definition.
19 Standard approach exposed vulgar new arrival (7)
PARVENU – PAR (standard) + aVENUe (approach) without the first and last letters (exposed).
20 Take in group from failing establishment (6)
INGEST – hidden in failING ESTablishment.
22 Pious platitudes on love in some poet’s work (5)
CANTO – CANT (pious platitudes) on O (love). Medieval poetic form.
23 University dons involved with part that’s used in programme (5)
INPUT – U (university) contained by (dons) IN (involved with) and PT (part).

72 comments on “Times 29111 – ill met and proud”

  1. I think the reference in 16 down is to a train station being crowded, with subsequent ramifications for boarding.

  2. Another solve ending in disaster this morning (my QC comment refers). And once again I ran out of steam on two intersecting answers so I used aids for SHADE. I would have recognised the fish if I’d been parsing from the answer, but the definition ‘hatch’ was not enough to get me there. Having entered that, the S completed the set of checkers at 6dn and I came up with POSTERN as a word that fitted although I didn’t know what it meant. A dictionary referral proved it wrong and I wasn’t happy with SOP as ‘idiot’ but then I spotted SAP as a better fit which led me to PASTERN although again I didn’t know what it meant.

    Elsewhere I also failed at 28ac. I had considered DOUREST but missed the wordplay and the definition didn’t seem to fit. I note what Will says about Chambers but I never heard of dour meaning stubborn. According to SOED it’s Scottish / N. English.

    I was very perturbed that at 16dn checkers prevented “Period when one might find training difficult” from being RUSH HOUR and I took a while to convince myself that something was not amiss.

    1. You’re in distinguished company by not knowing what “pastern” means. Dr Johnson famously misdefined it as “the knee of a horse” and, when asked by a lady how the error had occurred, responded “Ignorance, Madam, sheer ignorance.”

  3. Too tough for me. Couldn’t think of a suitable fish (shad only vaguely known and the required meaning of hatch eluded me) so an incompletion in around the hour.

    Some nice stuff in a suitably stiff Friday challenge.

  4. DNF
    Didn’t get SHADE or PASTERN. I knew the fish, of course, but didn’t think of it in my perfunctory-as-usual alphabet trawl; knew ‘hatch’, too, but never would have thought of it. I thought of ‘pastern’, but then I also thought of ‘postern’ (and ‘protean’, and…), and ‘Bay Area’ (my home) had me fooled. Wondered about ‘dour’, like Jack never having seen it with that meaning. Biffed FRINGE BENEFIT, DNK FE.
    ON EDIT: Just looked at the SNITCH, and feel better now about the DNF.

  5. 24.00
    Not keen on “hatch” for SHADE, ditto “snubbed” for shortened (though I suppose it works for firearms).
    NHO UNDERSTRAPPER, vaguely aware of PASTERN from my days as dogsbody for a horsey daughter.
    LOI DOUREST
    COD LOCKSMITH.

  6. Finished in about two and a half hours, the final hour working on the SW corner. I got out LIP READER and FRINGE BENEFIT without any idea of the parsing. SHADE fell in easily since I quickly remembered cross-hatching. I knew PASTERN was a part of the lower leg of a horse but still took a while to see how Bay Area fitted in as I kept thinking of bay windows.
    Thanks William

  7. 70m 25s. That were proper ‘ard! I was pleased to complete this without recourse to aids.
    My two LOI were SHADE and PASTERN. I had never heard of the latter.
    I did enjoy LOCKSMITH, CORELLI (listening to some of his music as I type) and AESOP.
    I think ulaca is right about FULL STOP.
    Thank you, William.

  8. 34:19. A lot of time spent in the SW corner where I had RUSH HOUR for 16D. Eventually a trawl of SMITHS got me to LOCKSMITH which unlocked things. That clue doesn’t work for me as I pronounce LOCH properly and it grates whenever I hear it pronounced ‘lock’. Even when I saw FULL STOP I still couldn’t parse it. Some very tricky definitions, e.g. “man behind bars” for a composer, “hatch” for SHADE and “bay area” for PASTERN (I had to check what the word meant having derived it from the wordplay). Thanks for parsing PARVENU and DOUREST for me, WIlliam and for the rest of the blog, and setter for the tricky challenge.

  9. Too hard for me. Couldn’t get PASTERN or DOUREST.
    In 15 ac surely FURNITURE is the very opposite of fixtures, namely fittings.

    1. I wondered about that and thought the setter might be alluding to the ‘part of the furniture’ idiom – the allusiveness being indicated by the question mark.

    2. Too tricksy for me with the twice-removed definitions (Bay Area and the implied railway platform) unknown words (pastern, understrapper) and the dodgy homophone which does not work at all up here in Scotland. Resorted to aids and completed dourly (in al senses) in just over an hour, submitting off leader board. Thanks for untangling the knots, William.

  10. More perspiration than inspiration, and recourse to aids, got me across the line in about 45 minutes. One or two clues at the very easy end of the spectrum (eg DRILL, REIGN); the bulk of them towards the harder end, some I still don’t fully understand (FULL STOP). Moments of light relief few and far between, but I liked UNDERSTRAPPER. Thanks William and setter.

    1. It relies on the alleged American English use of ‘train’ as an intransitive verb (see Collins), as in ‘They trained to Baton Rouge.’

      The rather awkward ‘where’ in the clue is needed to reference a heaving platform.

      1. Thanks, that does make it clearer. I suppose “training” in this sense is a bit like “bussing”, and since that word suggests to me Elizabethan kissing rather than the 23 from Trinity to Morningside, I’m perhaps not on the right wavelength.

  11. Very pleased to finish accurately this morning, after a couple of DNFs this week. Nho PASTERN, thought it was something to do with windows; CORELLI took a long time, although I used to work in a Corelli Road; and DOUREST was LOI, unsure about definition.

    And I was staggered to discover that Nessie isn’t real……

    22’58”, thanks william and setter.

  12. DNF. The PASTERN/SHADE crosser defeated. me. Pity , because my other “did not really knows”turned out to be right. I tell a lie. I didn’t know UNDERSTRAPPER at all. At least I heard the mandolin if not the composer. COD to PARVENU.Thank you William and setter.

  13. Well, there you go. Where else can you learn neologisms that you’re never going to use like UNDERSTRAPPER? Where else can you be transported briefly to the States where a FULL STOP is a period and training is something you do at a railroad station, and not something you do with a rifle (or perhaps, being America, you can do both at once).
    And where else can you find absolute gems like the perfect REIGN? Highbrow/lowbrow clues where the composer and the bloke with the mandolin are evoked by the same answer? Clues which eschew the obvious schoolboy humour of DEBRIEFED (a MODICUM of decorum). And clues inserted solely to annoy the Scots and their Nessie?
    A proper Times and a proper time of 23.08. Cheers, setter and well blogged, Will!

        1. Just dropping by to say that we Americans do NOT “train” when we ride on a train. We “take the train”. When we board a train we either “entrain” or just simply “get on” the train. Some dictionary may attribute the usage to us Americans, but it is never used as such here. Regards to all.
          And by the way, I DNF after 40 minutes. I had to look up D_U_E_T since “dour” doesn’t equate to “ stubborn” to me.

          1. Not satisfied with mangling the English language on this side of the pond, Collins now seems to have taken to putting bemused Americans to rights as well. It’s the risk that comes with allowing ‘big beast’ dictionaries to modify the English language without challenging their credibility.
            As for ‘dour’, I’m with you totally. But equally, you have the allegedly omniscient Chambers to thank for that nonsense.
            Even allowing for the dodgy definition, ‘dourest’ the superlative form isn’t indicated in the clue either. If the superlative was required then the clue should have read ‘most’ or ‘the most’.
            So we have obscure definitions accompanied by incorrect parsing. Increasingly for The Times these days, the twin horns of the Devil.

              1. Two Americans on this thread would seem to disagree with you if we’re taking ‘train’ as an example.
                And if Collins is primarily an English dictionary, why would it ‘reflect’ a random alleged American usage?

  14. I battled to the end of this in 50 minutes and to be honest almost gave up because I didn’t enjoy it at all. LOI PASTERN which I googled first to see if the word existed, I did the same with UNDERSTRAPPER another unknown word, though a bit more guessable maybe.
    Maybe I was just having an off day.
    Thanks setter and blogger

      1. I’m afraid they didn’t all, Mudge! I am not a competent solver ( in terms of completing the daily TftTs) but at least I entered both UNDERSTRAPPER and PASTERN with some certainty, having had a childhood enhanced by horses – lucky me!

  15. DNF at 57 mins with SKATE instead of SHADE.

    NHO this other meaning of shade, and with so many fish in the sea was never likely to look elsewhere even when I knew SKATE didn’t parse. Harumph harumph harumph.

    COD to FRINGE BENEFIT which had me going for simply ages, though.

  16. All the same things as have been mentioned: UNDERSTRAPPER, PASTERN, FULL STOP parsing. Didn’t like INPUT because of ‘involved with’ = ‘in’, which seemed doubtful, but did like the man behind bars. 77 minutes, which was almost without using aids, but I did use one or two lists towards the end. Think I’ve seen the clue for EXECRATE before.

  17. 22:53 Lovely puzzle apart from the execrable non-homophone (why is it that so many folk can’t be arsed to pronounce the CH properly?). No problem with pasterns or hatching, though UNDERSTRAPPER was new to me. It’s hard to think of furniture that would qualify as fixtures (kitchen units?), so I’m not sure what the setter was thinking of there. COD to REIGN.

    1. But in Standard British English it is (or can be, and is for most people) ‘lock.’ Proper doesn’t come into it. Some Scottish speakers roll their Rs, while others, as far as I am aware, don’t. Both ways of doing it are equally proper.

      1. Technically of course you’re right – there’s no such thing as “correct pronunciation”. But the word “loch” is only found in Scotland and is only pronounced by people in Scotland in one particular way, so it would only take a modicum of effort to appease the locals and use the orthodox (Scottish) pronunciation! Also, if cruising the Caledonian Canal it would not be good to get your locks and your lochs mixed up! Sorry, just a bugbear of mine…

        1. There seem to be seven lochs in Canada, four in Nova Scotia alone. They appear in the United States, Greenland and the Falklands too. However the fact that lochs exist outside Scotland doesn’t negate your point about how the word should be pronounced!

          1. I should have said that the word “loch” is only used toponymically by people of Scottish heritage! I would put money on those foreigh lochs having been named by Scots explorers, emigrants or imperial administrators. And I bet no one bothered to ask the Greenlanders what the fjord was actually called!

        2. Okay, next time I’m in Scotland I will put aside my embarrassment at sounding pretentious and pronounce it as the locals do! At least Scots is not like German, in which I had to sing Mozart’s version of Handel’s Messiah last week. Their ‘ch’ is a veritable b*stard to get right!

  18. DNF in 30

    Felt I was making heavy weather of this so gave up on SHADE after a perfunctory alpha trawl with the dreaded S_A_E. Didn’t think of that sort of thing ”hatch” so might not have got it with another 30 mins. But now seeing everyone else’s comments, should have made a bit more effort.

    Thanks all

  19. A fail in just under an hour with POSTERN at 6d. Annoying, as I think I’ve made exactly the same mistake in the past and it would have been satisfying to have solved a difficult one.

  20. I have a time of 24:56 but this is totally misleading. I quickly realised it was above my pay grade and used a number of aids just to get it over with. I can appreciate the cleverness but can’t say I enjoyed it, apart from LOCKSMITH and LIP READER.

    Thanks to William and the setter

  21. DNF, defeated by SHADE and DOUREST.

    – NHO UNDERSTRAPPER
    – Biffed PERSECUTE once I had enough letters
    – Didn’t spot what ‘man behind bars’ was getting at for CORELLI
    – Never parsed AESOP
    – Hadn’t heard of PASTERN as part of a horse, and was just glad I plumped for A rather than O despite ‘postern’ seeming marginally more likely
    – Didn’t parse FULL STOP

    Thanks William and setter.

    COD Resign

  22. had 2 sessions at this one with walking dog in fog between. All finished except the same crossers as most above, PASTERN / SHADE, and the same reservations about DOUREST. And as j-i says, LOCH is not a homophone for lock. The other 86.6 per cent of the clues were excellent. Well blogged william_j_s and I agree “to train” is not a verb in that sense.

  23. 48 minutes, but with SHAPE for SHADE. Didn’t know the required meaning of hatch and would never have equated it to shade. You can however shape/hatch a plot. Just a shame a shap isn’t a fish, even though I’ve driven through the town. Yet again, most time spent in the SW where FULL STOP finally opened it up. A bit of a slog rather than a pleasure. Thanks setter and William.

  24. 38.11, but somehow all green (plus an entertainingly high personal NITCH/WITCH).

    Having said that, there was nothing horribly obscure, just some tricky cluing. And although it was hard, I was in the mood for a challenge, not least because it’s an excuse to get some time to myself in an otherwise very hectic household.

    SHADE was my LOI. I just about thought of the fish, and just about thought ‘hatch’ could be something like what it turns out to be. I held myself up for some time in that corner with TINTERN instead of PASTERN. I’ve seen PASTERN in puzzles before, although did waver a bit between O and A before deciding SAP was more of an idiot than SOP.

    Thanks both.

  25. DNF for me as I was totally convinced 16dn just had to be RUSH HOUR. Although I returned to it I couldn’t think of an alternative, so the sw corner looked a little bare. Perhaps it would have helped if I got LOCKSMITH but I didn’t.

  26. DNF. Christmas, bah humbug. I found this « trés » 9ac. 16d would have been a great clue for RAIL STRIKE, sadly it wasn’t.

    Well done William and thanks.

  27. 34’20”
    Very testing going, fortunate to get a clear run, stayed on gamely.

    Having dabbled in pen and wash and studied countless yearlings with Grandpa George, HATCH and PASTERN didn’t pose any problems. I’m sure I’ve seen an understrapper in a grid before, but that may be going back to the early 90s. Also, de-TRAIN rang a bell, possibly from a novel; it sounds like something that might have appeared in military orders in the 40s.
    I thought my Nitch of ninety-four might get me somewhere near the frame but couldn’t believe the Snitch. The Italian came to mind quickly as Radio 3 have played his Christmas Concerto at least three times in the last fortnight.
    Many thanks to William and the setter for a great challenge that happened to fall within my ken.

  28. DNF, naturally. Way above my pay grade but much enjoyed and lots of learning. MOONLIGHT made me smile (one of the few I did get!). Many thanks for the blog.

  29. 60.28, and grateful to have no pink squares. Somehow, I had all the required vocabulary, but it took a lot of time and effort to extract it from my aging memory.Tough, but ultimately very satisfying.

  30. This took me ages and I still don’t understand ‘dourest’! I put it in because it had to be the answer, but why ‘snubbed’? Does that simply indicate the missing ‘t’ in ‘out’?

    1. The fifth (and final) definition of “snub” in Chambers is “to cut or break short”, so it’s telling you to cut the last letter

  31. Well, I very much enjoyed all the clever parsing and defining when Wm’s fine blog showed me the answers I hadn’t been able to get. And there were quite a few more of those than just Pastern and Dourest.

  32. Started last night when tired, only got a smattering of clues. This morning solved CORELLI from the cryptic, then PASTERN from the cryptic – bay area, indeed. Then SHADE went straight in, and I realised what a fiendish puzzle it was. FULL STOP not parsed, but otherwise loved it (not being a Scottish-speaker).

  33. Failed on PASTERN, putting in POSTERN, without understanding quite why, but NHO the former. Also SHADE, which I would have got if I’d thought of the correct sense of hatch. I did end up with DOUREST, as the only alternative I could think of, but like many, do not equate it with stubborn, just gloomy or overcast. Glad to see I’m in good company.

  34. 34.11 in two bites. The second proceeding rather more quickly. Didn’t know pastern but assumed it related to horses. That made shade much easier on realising the hatch wasn’t as in incubate or plan. Liked moonlight, not particularly difficult but it just appealed.

    Thx setter and blogger

  35. DNF, too tricky for me. Writing RUSH HoUR for FULL STOP held me back.

    Pastern is the word which Samuel Johnson defined incorrectly in his Dictionary. When asked why, he replied, “Ignorance, pure ignorance”.

  36. I got there in the end. About 45 minutes. With reservations about DOUREST.
    I got CORELLI quite easily because “evil” in the clue made me think “Devil”. Then I saw “bars” which is a frequent link to a musical answer. One of Corelli’s best known compositions is “The Devil’s Trill Sonata”. So thinking of him even before I parsed the clue properly…. Now I’m wondering if the reference to evil/devil was intended or whether it was just a happy coincidence.

  37. I had to sleep on this overnight – Shade and Pastern came to me at about 3 in the morning. So no recorded time but it would be very long.
    Two clues I did like – Modicum and Execrate.
    Four clues I didn’t like – Input, Tenor, Dourest, Full Stop.

  38. DNF as resorted to aids for the fish and bird.
    MER at reserve as “potential “ soldiers, here they are soldiers serving part time.
    Thanks for a good workout setter, and appreciation for the blog, especially the explanation of full stop.

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