Times 29135 – not for the faint of heart

DNF after 61:45

A very interesting, if challenging, puzzle, that I thought would be a lot easier after the top two across clues went in without much trouble. I probably would have thrown in the towel well before I did, pressing reveal on only my last two (18ac and 23ac), were it not for blogging rights.

I’m off to parse a few of these (and do a bit of googling) before a well-earned rest!

Edit: it was BIFFs at 14ac and 18ac that took the longest to parse…

Definitions underlined.

Across
1 Bird continues to nest in hide (6)
SISKIN – IS (continues) contained by (to nest in) SKIN (hide).
4 Swiss produce soldiers to probe meat supply line (8)
EMMENTAL – MEN (soldiers) contained by (to probe) an anagram of (supply) MEAT + L (line).
10 It’s just beginning to sell in markets (5,4)
FAIRS FAIR – first of Sell in FAIR and FAIR (markets).
11 Periodic suppression of kidnapping and — imminently — dropping litter (2,3)
IN PIG – every other letter from (periodic suppression of) kIdNaPpInG.
12 Heartless lad grabs single bunk (7)
BALONEY – first and last of (heartless) BoY (lad) contains (grabs) ALONE (single).
13 Warning from Spooner in the kitchen, where there’s great activity (7)
HOTSPOT – Spoonerism of “pot’s hot” (warning in the kitchen).
14 Rich, released from Further Education, revolutionised capacity (5)
LITREanagram of (revolutionised) feRTILE (rich), minus (released from) ‘f.e.’ (further education). fERTILe (rich) minus (released from) ‘f.e.’, then reversed (revolutionised). 
15 Medication program overlooked by office (8)
OINTMENT – ‘app’ (programme) removed from (overlooked by) appOINTMENT (office).
18 One for the road? This may stop me indulging (8)
SUPEREGO – my best guess: SUP ERE GO = drink before leaving = one for the road?
20 One on the wing that races linesman (5)
HOMER – double definition, the first referring to a homing pigeon.
23 Warring figure after some liquor (7)
MARSALA – MARS (warring figure) + A LA (after).
25 Don’s neighbour has called in disarray (7)
DERANGE – on solving, I thought this was something to do with rivers, but I can’t quite see it now. Perhaps they are ‘neighbours’ alphabetically? DEE (river in Wales, neighbour of River Don, river in Yorkshire), contains RANG (called). See first comment: DEE (neighbouring river to R. Don in Aberdeen), containing RANG (called). 
26 Organ donor has left for good (5)
LIVER – gIVER (donor) has L (left) instead of ‘g’ (good).
27 In the old days, duck cycled around historic county (9)
YORKSHIRE – contained by (in) YORE (the old days) is SHIR-K (duck) cycled around.
28 Fighter, being mountain-based, occupies lower ground (8)
TOREADOR – OREAD (being, mountain-based) contained by (occupies) TOR (hill, albeit on lower ground than a mountain).
29 A favourite car in business (6)
MINION – MINI (car) + ON (in business).
Down
1 Pains in rear from nasty infection for the duration of the game (8)
SOFTBALL – last of (in rear) painS + OF (from) + TB (tuberculosis, nasty infection) + ALL (for the duration of).
2 All but crack the central character in Peter Pan (7)
SKILLET – all but the last of SKILLEd (crack) + the central letter of peTer.
3 Possibly lying at home, seeing what’s before me (9)
INSINCERE – IN (at home) + SINCE (seeing) + RE (the note before ‘me’).
5 Notice several days in Spring fitting around Golf Society (8,6)
MARCHING ORDERS – MARCH (several days in spring) + IN ORDER (fitting) containing (around) G (golf) + S (society).
6 Be disparaging about women perhaps going topless (5)
EXIST – sEXIST (disparaging about women perhaps) without its top.
7 Part of Rashid’s armoury steals trophy from the ground (7)
TOPSPIN – NIPS (steals) + POT (trophy), all reversed (from the ground). Adil Rashid, England spin bowler.
8 Down south in remote lands (6)
LIGHTS – move S (south) down in S-LIGHT (remote).
9 I’m relaxed about that light approach and effort? (4,4,4,2)
EASY COME EASY GO – EASY (light) + COME (approach) + EASY (and light again) + GO (effort).
16 Looking to heaven, this writer’s inspiring leporine sage (9)
MAHARISHI – reversal of (looking to heaven) I AM (this writer’s), containing (inspiring) HARISH (like a hare, leporine).
17 Plant joint tenants outside of town (4,4)
TREE FERN – REEFER (joint) contained by (tenants) outermost letters of TowN.
19 Carrying very minute drops from impure liquid, runs towards source (7)
UPRIVER – anagram of (liquid) ImPURE minus (drops) the ‘m’ (minute), containing (carrying) V (very) + R (runs).
21 Not much covering one ousting Democrat from US (7)
MANKINI – MANKINd (us) with I (one) replacing (ousting) ‘d’ (democrat).
22 Up to carrying cross? It’ll repel evil (6)
AMULET – AT (up to) containing (carrying) MULE (cross).
24 Vessel that road carries north (5)
AORTA – reverse hidden in (… carries north) thAT ROAd.

93 comments on “Times 29135 – not for the faint of heart”

      1. The Don flows through softer, richer and more fertile farmland; the Dee is more typically Highland. Hence the Aberdeenshire couplet:
        “A mile of the Don’s worth twa of the Dee
        Except for salmon, stone and tree.”
        Just over an hour for me, well outside my comfort zone. Thanks William and setter.

  1. Well, that was a beast. I messed up two clues completely and didn’t get another four (two of which I had wrong crossers for from my incorrect solutions at 22A and 23D).

    I got 14A LITRE but couldn’t see why. While today’s puzzle was ingenious and laudably dastardly in many places, it feels that asking for an anagram of a word not actually in the clue is a bit… well, rich. I don’t mind the subtraction part of a synonym – we see this all the time – but I’m not a fan of imagining a synonym, subtracting (in this case) FE and muddling the rest.

    1. I think the correct parsing of 14A is fERTILe, minus the f and e, spun round (revolutionised); i.e. written backwards rather than anagrammed. You would be right to be a bit miffed if the Times was now allowing indirect anagrams as bona fide clues, although they do sail dangerously close to that wind from time to time.

      1. I was thinking about the indirect cycling at 27a – an indirect anagram is too much; reversing a word as here is OK; and I’m not which side of the line having to solve for ‘shirk’ and THEN cycle it falls.

  2. No time as my interface was playing up on my iPad and I had to complete on the puzzle site. Never ‘got’ SUPEREGO, but liked MARSALA when I saw it. Lots of head scratching, but good to see OREAD popping up again.

    I had no clue about the RASHID clue (despite knowing the bowler), and reckoned it must have something to do with tennis.

  3. After a promising start in the NE when everything still felt normal I quickly ran into problems and spent 90 minutes in total before the grid was complete. I wish I could lay claim to solving without aids but I used them 4 times, on 2 occasions just to get things moving again as nothing new had gone in for what seemed like ages.

    I’m not going to go through my failures but would mention that even after all that time and with the grid eventually filled there were still 4 or 5 answers I was unable to parse. Well done, William, for persevering, you certainly drew the short straw for blogging today!

  4. Failed miserably! I think I managed about half of this but I just couldn’t understand the wordplay in some. Still no idea how SUPEREGO works.
    Well done William.

    1. William had it right. One for the road could be a ‘drink before leaving’, or a SUP (drink) ERE GO (before leaving, a bit whimsically). Your SUPEREGO keeps you on the straight and narrow.

      1. Thanks. I just searched and noticed the last occurrence was on Saturday, 13/5/23, blogged by you. I hope I’ll remember next time!

  5. An hour and four minutes. I probably would have thrown the towel in, but I didn’t want to give up on two crosswords in a row and yesterday’s Guardian puzzle completely trounced me last night, being far harder than even this one.

    1. I’m relieved to see your comment, gothick. I had saved yesterday’s Guardian puzzle as I had other things to do, and I tackled it this morning after struggling with this one at bedtime last night. Normally I’m okay with Guardians set by Paul (known to us here as Mara) unless they’re themed on subjects of no interest to me, but yesterday’s wasn’t, it was just outrageously hard. I gave up with 4 answers in after 40 minutes and then revealed a couple of more but didn’t understand them. I really need a confidence booster now!

      1. I gave up after about 50 minutes with six answers in, so I think we had a very similar experience! Nice to know it wasn’t just me…

      2. You might like to give the Thursday (yesterday’s) puzzle in the FT by Gozo a try. A bit more tractable and…

  6. Definitely not on the wavelength of this very American puzzle and so gave up in disgust after 40 minutes or so with plenty unsolved and even more unparsed: the mental gymnastics required for SOFTBALL, LITRE and SUPEREGO were totally beyond me.

        1. ‘Skillet’ can refer to a particular type of frying pan rather than a general term for one, so not necessarily American and also we have the British spelling for LITRE but otherwise it is a bit Yankee, I agree.

  7. 18.48

    Despite my patchy record, I’m enjoying these real Friday toughies we’ve had of late. I loved this throughout – all very fair, even when the precise parsing escaped me (I knew the Dee and the Don were both rivers, which was sufficient).

    I spent a little bit of time figuring out LITRE at the end – deletion clues often detain me – although the main reason was to be as certain as I could be of avoiding a pink square in a cracking puzzle.

    Thanks both.

    EDIT Just seen the Snitch is currently running at 217, flaming Nora!

  8. I tend to do the crossword before I get out of bed, so I now have pressure sores. Hardest 15×15 I think I have ever done. All green after 1hr 10m

    I must confess my first thought for the spinner was Rashid Khan from Afghanistan. Sorry, Adil. Very unpatriotic of me

  9. Gave up on the hour with only half the grid completed. Completely beaten. I didn’t think you could have anagrams from synonyms?

    Bravo William for the parsing of this lot.

        1. Yes, but you can reverse/delete things from a synonym! Happens all the time. It’s only anagrams of synonyms that are verboten.

  10. DNF. Defeated at the last gasp after 45 minutes, with all but one answer entered and parsed, resorting to a wordfinder for my LOI MARSALA and then kicking myself – I had neglected to consider “liquor” might be the definition. A great workout with some wonderful wordplay. I liked SOFTBALL and INSINCERE best. Thank-you William and setter.

  11. I was thoroughly beaten up by this. To the extent that I threw in the towel on a couple of clues (eg AORTA) that were perfectly gettable. Tough day at the office.

  12. I wonder if I’m getting too old for this game. I stalled on at least three occasions and cheated to get going again. One of those was SUPEREGO, a word I knew well in my trendier past. Now only the id keeps marching on, as per Melanie. It was a fair and good crossword. I correctly biffed the MAHARISHI without needing to know LEPORINE, the one word perhaps I could have taken issue with. I just didn’t have the capacity. COD to HOMER. Thank you William and setter.

  13. DNF – in fact, for the first time in my 60 years of solving I thought “Why am I wasting my time doing this?”

  14. Gave up after 45 minutes realising this was way above my pay grade. Don’t usually mind this happening but I feel strangely irked by this puzzle.

    Thanks to William and the setter

  15. Only sheer bloody-mindedness go me through this in 54.46. In lots of places, the wordplay was so abstruse (for me, at least) that only by guessing and then wrestling with the verbiage could I enter with any confidence. A case in point: let’s say BALONEY. Definition looks like, and is, bunk – are we looking at absconding, bed, or Fordism? Heartless lad? Well that’s LD, isn’t it? Single? Lots of possibilities, alone an eventual try which sparks the answer, so you need to translate lad to boy before gutting it.
    I didn’t “get” SUPEREGO or SOFTBALL – bravo to william for cracking those. It’s a long way from “one for the road” to sup ere go; it works, but only after someone else suggests it!
    I look forward to the Listener this afternoon to restore my shattered faith!

  16. 88 mins on a day with not much else to do. If they were all easy enough for me to knock off in 30 mins the top solvers would get bored. Very hard but fair. Fairs fair.
    FOI EMMENTAL
    LOI MINION after reviewing MANKIND vs MANKINI
    COD TREEFERN. I will never read that the same way again
    Thank both

  17. Gave up with only a quarter done. Definitely out of my league. I even got one answer wrong where I fairly confidently put in TRADE FAIR for 10ac, so had I continued this would only have added to my troubles.

  18. Wow. After 20 mins I’d not got a single answer. Then looked at the SNITCH.
    I think the setter is taking the piss.

  19. 110 mins.
    Like Z, I was prepared to stare this one down, regardless of the time taken (I’m not working today). This was like pulling teeth from start to finish, but I’m pleased to have completed it.
    Thanks, w.

  20. Didn’t help my FOI was SWIFT instead of HOMER.
    Then thought mankind was an answer without seeing mankini
    Went well over the hour mark but got there in end
    Very clever puzzle
    LOI Marsala

  21. Very hard indeed, but I was only really expecting a SNITCH of around 150. Occasionally this was quite straightforward, but I lost count of the times I entered something with a shrug and then used the check button to confirm that it was really correct. Lots of things that really were at the limit I thought: is = continues at 1ac; released from Further Education meaning releasing FE at 14ac; sup ere go for drink before leaving at 18ac; and so on. But good to see a cricketer at 7dn: we see so many footballers etc in crosswords that this is a nice change. I lost count of my time after an hour, and used aids freely by the end.

  22. Well, what a challenge! Completed eventually, no time as I decided to have breakfast after 45′, then ran out of charge, but finally well over an hour.

    Really liked the mental gymnastics required: SKILLET, INSINCERE and particularly SUPEREGO. Didn’t parse SOFTBALL.

    Many thanks william and setter, it’s good to be reminded of one’s hubris from time to time.

  23. While I did finish this, sort of, I took too long with too many breaks to record a time. A good 90 minutes or so I’d say and I’m afraid I had to look up who Rashid was before 7d went in. However, I thought it was a cracking puzzle and well worth the anguish of a technical DNF.

  24. After 80-odd minutes I gave up on -U-E-E-O and looked it up. Event though I’d toyed with SUPER, I couldn’t make the jump to EGO as I didn’t know the definition of superego. Up to that point I’d managed to parse most of my answers, apart from 23a, which as it happened was wrong. I had MORGANA. Ah well, that’s over an hour of my life I won’t get back. Thanks setter and William.

  25. 70:27

    Crikey! Ridiculously hard. Two in from the first pass (IN PIG, LIVER). One more (EMMENTAL) from the second pass. Gradually built up a smattering around the grid and worked from there. But there was a ton of stuff I didn’t get at the time (so thanks William for blogging this beast!):

    Failed to parse:
    SUPEREGO – entered from definition
    HOMER – from definition (linesman) and two checkers – didn’t twig the homing pigeon idea
    DERANGE – assumed there must be a River Dee near the Don, but was thinking Sheffield rather than Aberdeen
    YORKSHIRE – bunged in from the Y and S checkers, but was thinking YE for ‘the old’
    TOREADOR – forgot about OREADs
    SOFTBALL – not a scooby, bunged in from first three checkers
    INSINCERE – from all checkers, saw IN but nowt else
    TOPSPIN – no idea who Rashid is
    LIGHTS – from definition only

    Liked MARCHING ORDERS and MANKINI. LOI was MINION

    Thanks also to the setter for this Friday treat!

  26. 83 minutes. Very hard and several I couldn’t parse so thanks to William (and others) for the explanations. Happy to have finished unaided and I don’t feel so bad about the unparsed ones given others found this so difficult; SNITCH 217 at time of posting.

    A good night’s sleep and then it’ll be time for something simple – today’s Elgar Toughie in the DT.

  27. 28:40, blimey pretty tough and not all parsed (SOFTBALL).
    Spent some time thinking this might be one of Richard’s stock but the appearance of the reference to Adil Rashid put the kibosh on that.
    Thanks to both.

  28. 38:51. Bloody hell. An extremely difficult puzzle compounded in my case by being well off the wavelength with a WITCH of 158. Like z8 I wrestled it into submission eventually by dint of sheer bloody-minded determination not to let the bastard defeat me. Also like z8 a lot of my solving effort consisted of identifying an often oblique definition and then reverse-engineering the convoluted and/or abstruse wordplay. The SE corner was the last redoubt to fall, and the point at which I came closest to throwing in the towel.
    I can’t honestly say I enjoyed this during the process but I’m glad to have solved it.

  29. Thanks to the setter for a marvellous challenge.

    Thanks also to William – a fine blog. (If you’re a perfectionist you might wish to account for the L in 4A.)

  30. Multiple goes needed, but I got there in the end.

    – NHO IN PIG but the wordplay was kind and it sounded plausible
    – Had no idea how LITRE or SUPEREGO worked
    – Got DERANGE without knowing the rivers in question were in Scotland
    – Had to trust that an Oread is mountain-based to get TOREADOR
    – Didn’t fully parse MARCHING ORDERS
    – Not familiar with ‘leporine’ but eventually saw MAHARISHI and guessed that it refers to hares
    – Took forever to crack the SE corner

    Very tough – as if we needed another indication of the difficulty level, there’s the fact that no one has yet complained about the Spoonerism clue! Thanks William and setter.

    FOI Emmental
    LOI Tree fern
    COD Baloney

  31. 13:57 and felt lucky to escape. Hard but I thought the clues were fair. Managed to get a couple of answers in each corner and then a lot of biffing.

  32. Total disaster. Gave up after 40 mins with no more than 10 solved. Only relief was to see they were at least correct . Totally off the wavelength today.

  33. DNF in an hour

    Two and a half of the easier (?) ones left in the SE (MINION; the FERN bit (though never seen tenants in that sense before) and MANKINI) after the hour. Gave it a few more minutes but the heart wasn’t in it.

    SUPEREGO was just a biff based on checkers. Don’t see how anyone could solve that from the w/p alone

    Overall I really like a toughie and I don’t think this was unsolvable, even though I didn’t!

  34. 146′
    Going bottomless, finished exhausted …

    However, no Biffs and all parsed, so I’m chalking this one up as a victory of sorts.
    Could not help thinking of that wonderful film title ” They shoot horses, don’t they”.
    Needed marsala to get over the line; having drunk the stuff, not seeing it earlier must have been down to sheer fatigue.
    Great attempt Mr. H, but you didn’t floor me this time, and Five Gold Stars for William.

  35. DNF

    Just a bit too hard sadly. Enjoyed a lot of it but gave up after 45’ with little in the SW (5 unsolved). Unfortunately someone mentioned on the QC blog that the snitch was that high, so I approached it with less perseverance than I might have.

    Well done on the blog William; really tough one.

  36. Tricky. Used ‘reveal’ on several occasions, and even with the correct answers I couldn’t make sense of the clues! No idea about who or what Rashid is/was. Just couldn’t fathom INSINCERE and AMULET, among others. Disappointed!

  37. Could someone please explain how 9d works? How does “and” give “light again” (or “easy”)? Thanks.

    1. It’s a pretty sneaky device. I think it says: light approach *and* light effort (without repeating the ‘light’ bit in the clue) = EASY (light) approach/COME *and* EASY (light) effort/GO.

  38. Managed about three quarters of this (in rather a long time) but many were biffed and not parsed. Thanks for sorting it all out William. Lots of learning today, not least OREAD, is=continues, and nips=steals 😄

  39. This was very hard but it is the first puzzle in AGES that I thought was worthy of being posted on a Friday. I even had to come to the blog to confirm what was happening with “SUPEREGO”… most amusing! Kudos to all involved.

    1. If they’d had three puzzles like this for the second round of the 2024 Crossword Championship, followed by an even harder one for the final, now THAT would have been a good day out.

  40. From the comments, I thought that I would find this completely impossible, but, in the end, I failed only on ‘marsala’, though I would not pretend that I had managed to parse all the other solutions.
    A really tough but enjoyable challenge.
    Nice to see a reappearance of Verlaine.

  41. A very hard puzzle, certainly. Just one point: SOFTBALL isn’t entirely American. From memories of living in Eastbourne, rather than any participation, I can tell you that there is or at least was a softball league in that part of Sussex, matching the baseball somewhere in Jane Austen’s works.

    1. I think SOFTBALL merits inclusion just because if ever there was a SOFTBALL puzzle, it wasn’t this grid!

  42. Got there in the end without aids … well maybe a couple of gentle nudges from brother Dvynys … and in the top 100. I’ll take that. Couldn’t parse several of course but bunged them in from the checkers and literals. I like a hard challenge so a thumbs up from me to the Setter.

  43. Managed to get IN-PIG and was so excited to build the LIVER clue that I put gIVER. Other than that I had the IN- of INSINCERE and the —V-R of UPRIVER. And that was it having taken 20+mins to read through.

    Then spent another 20mins trying to parse them and managed to do that for all but LITRE, SUPEREGO, OINTMENT and SOFTBALL plus the -RE of SINCERE. And allowing that there were some phrases like Ala=after I wasn’t sure about. I did at least have an inkling that the DEE and DON are near Aberdeen.

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