Greetings from sunny Phuket!
I’m taking a Lunar New Year break, so this will be a concise blog. Please fill in any gaps.
17:20
Across | |
1 | Disgusted about angry speech, finally bought sheathed weapon (10) |
SWORDSTICK – WORDS |
|
6 | Collection of letters from such a keen swimmer (4) |
HAKE – hidden | |
10 | Means to follow bombed thoroughfare (7) |
HIGHWAY – HIGH (bombed – on drugs) WAY (means) | |
11 | Gain fame at last, plugging a food flavouring (7) |
ACHIEVE – |
|
12 | Marsupial with crooked legs caught bird (9) |
BANDICOOT – BANDI (sounds like ‘bandy’) COOT (bird) | |
13 | Discredit military engineers only (5) |
REBUT – RE BUT (‘only’, as in ‘to name but two’) | |
14 | Fundamental reason for full stop? (5) |
POINT – double definition (DD) | |
15 | Film medic with wee tot in upper-class area (9) |
DOCUDRAMA – DOC DRAM in U (upper-class) A (area) | |
17 | Fragmentary report of dinner organised by UN? (9) |
PIECEMEAL – sounds like a ‘peace meal’; bit weak, this | |
20 | Long period of time before November (5) |
YEARN – YEAR N | |
21 | Coarse person turning dried grass over and over (5) |
YAHOO – HAY reversed O O | |
23 | Royals use this material to trouble fool surrounded by silence (9) |
SAILCLOTH – AIL (to trouble) CLOT in SH; a royal is a type of sail; sailcloth is a material of which it might be made | |
25 | Boring part in exam going over repetitive course (7) |
ORBITAL – BIT (boring part, i.e. tool) in ORAL (exam); ‘going over’ seems to be intensifying ‘in’ rather than indicating reversal; on the other hand, as fvi, Dvynys and K point out, ‘orbital’ is here being used in its basic adjectival sense, so ‘going over’ is part of the definition. Great effort, team! | |
26 | Sign in EU country mostly welcoming immigrants primarily? (7) |
INITIAL – IN (‘in’ from the clue) I |
|
27 | US lawyer given thanks for information (4) |
DATA – DA TA | |
28 | Make censorious remarks in main broadcast commercial (10) |
ANIMADVERT – anagram* of MAIN ADVERT (commercial) |
Down | |
1 | Respectful way to address male relative keeping a hotel (5) |
SAHIB – A H in SIB[ling] | |
2 | Material in publication unknown in east (9) |
ORGANZINE – ORGAN Z (unknown) IN E | |
3 | Where a dentist may look dispirited? (4-2-3-5) |
DOWN-IN-THE-MOUTH – DD with a hint of whimsy | |
4 | Sort of gland your old French king ultimately had (7) |
THYROID – THY (old form of ‘your’) ROI (‘king’ in French) |
|
5 | Confused church article relating to the ear (7) |
CHAOTIC – CH A OTIC | |
7 | Great Head of Repton, but initially bitter (5) |
ACERB – ACE R |
|
8 | Problem with vision England’s first coach conceals very well (9) |
EYESTRAIN – YES (very well) in E |
|
9 | One who’ll go far perhaps rebuked about line supporting rash study misguidedly (9,5) |
THURSDAYS CHILD – RASH STUDY* L (line) in CHID (rebuked); in the rhyme, Thursday’s child ‘has far to go’ | |
14 | But not your present setter’s formative years! (9) |
PUPPYHOOD – cryptic definition, riffing on two meanings of ‘setter’ – one a dog, the other a crossword compiler | |
16 | Dissect a cat in an island quarter (9) |
ANATOMISE – A TOM in AN (from the clue) I (island) SE (south-east, thus ‘quarter’) | |
18 | Greek character’s record on pit administration ultimately (7) |
EPSILON – EP (record) SILO (pit) |
|
19 | Odd claim involving one’s secularity (7) |
LAICISM – IS (one is > I’s >IS) in CLAIM* | |
22 | Clothing worn by sisters in hospital to some extent (5) |
HABIT – H A BIT | |
24 | Slave’s extremely horrible fate (5) |
HELOT – H |
13.13
I felt a bit sluggish through this, not helped by struggling with SWORDSTICK even with all the crossers. I can never remember the nursery rhyme (apparently I work hard for my living), although I eventually figured out the answer from crossers then saw how the definition worked.
‘Sheathed’ is part of the definition in SWORDSTICK.
Thanks both – enjoy the Lunar New Year.
Thanks
Animadvert did for me as it is not a word I know and I went for inamadvert.
Thankfully, I guessed right for the unknown to be Z in organzine, also a word I am not familiar with.
Around 40 minutes FOI DOWN IN THE MOUTH. Couldn’t remember rhyme and had SATURDAYS CHILD initially. Other than that it was fairly uneventful.
Thanks U – enjoy yourself.
11’08”, no issues.
Thanks ulaca and setter.
Slower than I should have been at 40 mins but held up by the unknown ANIMADVERT. Finally saw the last bit, guessed ANIM and then checked it! Otherwise, fairly straightforward Monday fodder.
DNK royal was a sail, but the answer was obvious with the crossers in, thankfully.
I liked BANDICOOT.
Thanks U, have a good holiday, and setter.
34 minutes, taking a long time deciding where to put the x,y or z in ORGANZINE. Simon and Garfunkel didn’t have Emily wear any of that. COD to THURSDAY’S CHILD. This was more difficult to finish than start. Thank you U and setter.
7:15 but with a silly mistake.
Often when solving I will bung in the answer once I think I have spotted the definition and one or two elements of wordplay without working out the rest. This results in quite a lot of errors, usually when I think I can spell something, but often as today when I think I know a word that turns out not to exist. If I say that I remembered ORGANDIE from past appearances and failed to account for the ‘unknown’, you can probably guess the rest.
At some point you’d think I would learn a lesson from this.
I empathise (3 x slower of course!)
Just under half an hour, finishing with a very uncertain ANIMADVERT.
– Not familiar with bombed=high for HIGHWAY
– Ninja-turtled BANDICOOT from the Crash Bandicoot video games (I couldn’t have told you that it’s a marsupial)
– Had to assume that ‘royal’ can be a type of sail once I’d figured out the wordplay for SAILCLOTH
– Didn’t know ORGANZINE but pieced it together from wordplay – Z seemed by far the most likely of the various options for ‘unknown’
– Nearly biffed ‘long in the tooth’ for 3d, even though it obviously doesn’t make sense, before thinking of DOWN-IN-THE-MOUTH
– Needed the wordplay to get THURSDAYS CHILD as I don’t know the full nursery rhyme
– Took a while to realise that 16d wasn’t an anagram (at first I thought ‘dissect’ was the anagrind) and get ANATOMISE
Thanks ulaca and setter.
FOI Hake
LOI Animadvert
COD Bandicoot
35 mins. Quite tough with several NHOs and some only vaguely.
I read “going over” as part of the definition in ORBITAL with “in” serving as the containment.
FOI SAHIB
LOI the NHO ANIMADVERT
COD THURSDAYS CHILD
Thanks both
I guess it may be intended this way, but not all orbital roads are elevated, so I’ll leave the parsing as is. On edit: dumbness afflicted me: post changed now
May get the reward of a fly-by poster!
Interestingly, I have just read Ballard’s ‘Crash’, in which orbitals feature quite a bit, though not as much as binnacles – usually imprinted on someone’s face…
FWIW I agree with rv1: I don’t think ‘going over’ indicates elevation here, it means ‘tracing’, and ORBITAL is an adjective.
15:59
No major issues today but I had to be careful piecing together a few of the answers such as the unknown ANIMADVERT. Like Amoeba I also took a while over SWORDSTICK, ditto for ANATOMISE and ORGANZINE.
Nice to kick off the week with a green grid so thanks to both.
21.37
On ORBITAL is the “going over” referring to the repetitive nature of the course rather than the height?
Thought this was going to be quick but there were enough DNKs to bog me down (eg ANIMADVERT) whilst a typo crosser meant the easiesh ACHIEVE was actually my LOI.
Liked PUPPYHOOD.
Thanks Ulaca/setter
18:18 so a fairly smooth start to the week, held up by ORGANZINE (NHO but worked out).
FOI 1d Sirah, soon to be corrected by Bandicoot to Sahib.
SOI 1a Swordstick.
2d NHO Organzine, (nor has the spellchecker here,) but HHO organza and punted correctly.
15.40, so a steady solve with enough clues to require careful thought to make it interesting. Like others, I dithered about which day of the week occasioned long distances, eventually paying attention to the anagram. It must be particularly galling to the current gender absolutists in the US to hear that it’s the child born on the Sabbath that’s born good and gay.
My enthusiasm for combined answers today produced what anyone who’s ever chaired a Church council will know all about: CHAOTIC LAICISM.
Thanks to Ulaca for a concise blog, and 恭贺新禧!
利是逗來!
29 minutes. One minor point, u, ‘material’ needs including in the definition of SAILCLOTH.
Thanks
Monday fare, 18 minutes, ORGANZINE unknown but guessed from organza, liked PUPPYHOOD. the hidden HAKE was my LOI.
Off to a quick start but the aforementioned NHOs did for me.
15 – nothing controversial. I seem to know ORGANZINE from a crossword somewhere and somewhen. I have certainly never encountered the word in real life. Sounds like the sort of thing the Bridgerton modiste would recommend to her more matronly clients.
Nothing too hard, although I felt PUPPYHOOD was a bit weak and wondered if there was something more. ORGANZINE nho but since organza is a material I think and because of bombazine (the grandmother in Giles cartoons wore this) it looked likely. 37 minutes.
Around 30 with a couple of cheeky checks, LOsI were ANATOMISE and ANIMADVERT which I must remember to use in a sentence soon. Thanks U.
From (with a nod to the excellent A Complete Unknown) It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue:
The HIGHWAY is for gamblers, better use your sense
Take what you have gathered from coincidence
The empty-handed painter from your streets
Is drawing crazy patterns on your sheets
This sky, too, is folding under you
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue
14:02 except I put BENDICOOT instead of BANDICOOT, ha ha!!
Still a nice easy start to the week
Thanks setter and blogger
23:33
Pleased to find LOI and NHO 28a was correct. Very nice puzzle, thanks setter and Ulaca.
I didn’t find this difficult, as I knew animadvert, and had heard of organza, so organzine was not difficult to guess. Unfortunately for the setter, it’s a type of thread, not a material, but evidently nobody has the knowledge for that to matter – I had to look it up. I wasn’t sure about the significance of royal, but sailcloth was the evident answer.
Time: 19:32
It’s also the fabric made from the threads.
According to Collins organzine can mean the material made of the threads.
Suffered a little with this even though it’s a Monday! Biffed puppyhood inexplicably for nappyhood and cannot understand how i failed to get eyestrain and achieve which both seem so easy when presented with the answers. Guessed correctly the other hard ones, lucky! But fun, thanks all! Carolyn
23:20
Finishing this in a fast (for me) time makes up for failing on the QC.
ANIMADVERT unknown, but successfully built from the wordplay. ORGANZINE dredged from the depths of my memory, probably from a previous crossword.
LOI was PIECEMEAL.
Thanks Ulaca and setter
No real problems with this one finishing in 34.55, although I did hesitate with the unlikely looking ANIMADVERT before deciding there wasn’t a sensible alternative. My only problem was self inflicted where I solved 24dn HELOT, and then proceeded to write the answer down in 22dn, which unfortunately began and ended with the same letters. It took me a while to realise what I had done, and time was lost trying to solve clues with the wrong crossers.
First all correct puzzle of the day with silly errors in the Concise and QC. I had to be careful about the wordplay to get the unknown ORGANZINE, althoug I did know organza. ANIMADVERT rang a bell from previous puzzles. DOWN IN THE MOUTH was a helpful write in. HAKE and ACERB were last 2 in. 17:59. Thanks setter and U.
20.50. PUPPYHOOD slowed me down.
Iago says “as acerb as the coloquintida” (me neither).
Typical Monday job.
A fail on ANIMADVERT and POINT (I binged in PRINT). All but five clues were easy. I struggled with PUPPYHOOD too.
nHO HELOT.
Thanks Ulaca and Setter
Generally quite easy, with just a few holding me up. No problem with ANIMADVERT – encountered here before, but BANDICOOT took a while to sink in as did SWORDSTICK and my LOI ANATOMISE. I wanted to put BOMBAZINE for 2d, but it didn’t parse. I had heard of organza, so it was a logical step to go for ORGANZINE, which did parse! A gentle day, reward for Friday’s monster, which I didn’t finish, but enjoyed watching Simon Anthony agonise over for more than an hour on Cracking The Cryptic!
Largely uneventful in all kinds of ways, though PUPPYHOOD and BANDICOOT stood out somewhat. Didn’t take too long, around 25 minutes.
Thanks Ulaca and THAT setter.
Mondayish until it wasn’t. SAILCLOTH and ANIMADVERT took some time at the end.
15:40
A sluggish 38:25. The vocab was mostly OK but lots of it seemed to be lodged in rather out-of-the-way places in my brain. I did at least remember ROYAL from a Saturday cryptic earlier this month: “a very high mast on a sailing ship” so thank you jackkt for telling us that then
Found this more straightforward in a lot of ways than today’s QC, revealing only LOI ANIMADVERT which was unknown. Didn’t know royal=sail (and clue for SAILCLOTH now makes sense). Liked BANDICOOT and PIECEMEAL. Many thanks U and setter.
Got all but 3 answers in 24 mins, so not too bad. 11A, 17A and 14D were the hardest (ie. the ones I failed to get). HAKE was FOI and HIGHWAY was LOI (though the -way bit was obvious on first reading)
35 minutes slowed down by Helot and Initial at the end. HHO Animadvert and could guess Organzine. Nice puzzle.
30:07. I thought this was a good challenge – I had some doubts about ANIMADVERT but it seemed to be the only thing that would fit. ORGANZINE was another NHO. so some tricky vocabulary but otherwise the cluing seemed fair. great puzzle, thanks both
35’05”
Seemed distracted, perhaps should be tried in blinkers.
Too many pauses for smiles to trouble the leaders, but, as I was enjoying it, this didn’t bother me. The widest grin was prompted by THURSDAY’S CHILD defeating me for so long; no excuses because I am one such. Far to go in what sense? It’s the most gnomic of the prophecies, and one I’ve often pondered over.
My uncle sent me a book containing a formula by Gauss that I carry on a postcard; a perpetual calender which will give you the day of the week for any day falling within the 16th and 27th centuries, making it far more comprehensive than the pleasing little brass object that was my Christmas present once.
Great fun; a thank you and a biscuit for the setters and Ulaca.
Although the Latin derivation of animadvert gives a clear sense of its meaning, it still looks very odd and have never seen it in print or heard it in speech.
So that did for me.
Quite a few unknowns but it didn’t stop me guessing them all correctly so at least my biffing is improving.
FOI HAKE
LOI ANIMADVERT
COD PIECEMEAL
The right kind of puzzle to go with a close and exciting gridiron football match on TV. I was thinking we’ve had Organzine before, but maybe it was just Organda. Either way I remembered enough to get me past what could have been a difficult NHO.
新年快乐 Ulaca (and no, I didn’t know that – I also didn’t, and still don’t, know how to spell it in English)
身體 健 康!
I’ll paraphrase a wise blogger: “That’s all Chinese to me!” (Though not to Mr Google).
The thyroid is a gland. There’s no ‘sort of’ about it.
Nah it’s fine
21:55
NHO ANIMADVERT but everything else was ok. Happen to be reading Gulliver’s Travels right now in which Yahoos feature.
Thanks U and setter
Raced through until I ground to a complete halt where most others did. I thought I had dropped off to sleep and had woken up on Friday for those two clues.
Reasonably straightforward but not insultingly easy Monday puzzle. ‘Let them anatomise Regan,’says King Lear when he is wondering how hard hearts are made.
Latin studies from long ago taught me that ANIMADVERTERE meant to notice, pay attention to. So I was surprised at this other sense, of criticising. But I see now in Latin too, that is the word’s secondary meaning. All done in 14’37”. Thanks.
30 mins. Quite a long time for a Monday puzzle! Held up by ANIMADVERT.
47 minutes, but still quite easy and a bit boring. The wordplay works, of course, but the surface readings are a bit contrived, pretty much all of them. The only clue which gave me more than a moment of trouble was BANDICOOT. I biffed it right away, but when I couldn’t parse it I changed it to BANDIROOT (ROO for the marsupial, BANDIT around it for the “crooked legs”). But that wasn’t very convincing and besides, I thought BANDICOOT really was a word and BANDIROOT certainly wasn’t, and then I finally understood how the wordplay worked. So I did finish correctly.
Just before the witching hour. 17.03 with second last animadvert which I just about dredged up from memory and LOI anatomise. Good puzzle , lots of twists and turns but very fair.
20.11.Some redemption after a miserably slow time on the Quick.