Times 29145 – up to scratch

A nicely composed puzzle, this week, with a good sprinkling of wit and nothing to complain about. Not difficult – it took me around 15 minutes – but enjoyable. And I discovered real flea circuses did exist, which was news to me.

Definitions underlined in bold, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, anagrinds in italics, DD = double definition, [deleted letters in square brackets].

Across
1 Horribly scary operation in Italian port (8)
SYRACUSE – (SCARY)*, USE = operation. Ancient city in Sicily, well worth a visit.
5 Nice name for Englishman? (6)
ROSBIF – Cryptic, what the French allegedly call the Brits, although in 12 years living there I never heard or saw it except perhaps in print in Le Canard enchaîné.
8 Came down after the others, quite subdued (10)
RESTRAINED – REST (the others), RAINED (came down).
9 Jack recorded feature of most churches (4)
NAVE – sounds like KNAVE as in playing cards.
10 Rebuke circus performer demanding your attention (1,4,2,4,3)
A FLEA IN ONES EAR – flea circuses were once a real thing, I learnt, and one in your ear in reality would demand attention.
11 Person choosing an e-reader? (7)
ELECTOR – an E-LECTOR would be an e-reader.
13 Long passage about west in hopeless situation (7)
SCREWED – SCREED with W inserted.
15 Extreme anger with Charlie ousted by Tory leader (7)
INTENSE – INCENSE (anger) exchanges C for T.
18 Partner mostly had an effect, taking everything into account (3,4)
ALL TOLD – ALL[Y], TOLD = had an effect.
21 What’s certain to provoke road rage at roundabout? Rubbish! (1,3,3,2,1,4)
A RED RAG TO A BULL – (ROAD RAGE AT)*, BULL = rubbish.
22 Get up and wash (4)
WAKE – DD, one the wash of a boat. Very neat.
23 Dominance of ANC ends badly with a disheartened citizenry (10)
ASCENDANCY – (ANC ENDS A)*, C[itizenr]Y.
24 Knackered after sex? (4,2)
PAST IT – ‘IT’ being sex.
25 Contribution from developer, a Tory wheeler-dealer (8)
OPERATOR – hidden word.
Down
1 Emerge as champion on board? (7)
SURFACE – SURF ACE = a whizz on a surfboard.
2 Tough Listener, I suspect (9)
RESILIENT – (LISTENER I)*.
3 Fruit that’s popular, they say (7)
CURRANT – sounds like CURRENT = popular.
4 Revolver quietly acquired by criminal (7)
SPINNER – SINNER with P inserted.
5 Revolutionary writer is correct (3-6)
RED-PENCIL – RED = revolutionary, PENCIL = writer.
6 Unaffected, almost as before (7)
SINCERE – SINC[E] = almost as, ERE = before.
7 Counter the way a poet writes? (7)
INVERSE – a poet writes IN VERSE.
12 Devout old maid perhaps clutching book (9)
OBSERVANT – O[ld], SERVANT = maid perhaps, insert B for book.
14 Mystery wound with thin cracks (9)
WHODUNNIT – (WOUND THIN)*. Seen before.
16 Falls back once more, encountering artillery (7)
NIAGARA – AGAIN reversed = NIAGA, add RA. Seen before.
17 As for one English pope … off with his head! (7)
ELEMENT – As being the symbol for arsenic, element 33; E for English, CLEMENT a pope loses his head.
18 A quarter on dope in Belgian city (7)
ANTWERP – A, N[orth], TWERP a dope.
19 Hero worshipper cutting top off poisonous plant (7)
LEANDER – OLEANDER the plant loses its O.
20 Flatten philosopher, foremost of French left (7)
DELAYER –  DE (of, French), L[eft], AYER the philosopher A J Ayer.

 

79 comments on “Times 29145 – up to scratch”

  1. Flatten meaning layer does not occur in the dictionaries I consult before getting out of bed!

    On edit. Got it. Flatten as in delayer an organisation. Half an hour after my first post! I see Amoeba beat me to it.

  2. I managed to go through every clue once without seeing one answer jump out at me. But slowly they started to come. I thought 10a was ‘a word in one’s ear, but obviously it didn’t parse. Had to cheat on that one. Everything seemed difficult but it all made sense in the end. COD to WAKE.
    Thanks P.

    But wait…I just remembered I got ROSBIF straight away. Yay!

    1. From “Death of a Clown “ ( The Kinks, this time Dave Davies)
      The trainer of insects is crouched on his knees
      And frantically looking for runaway fleas

  3. 15:57
    I’d resolved never to be tricked by ‘As’ again,, and that resolution went the way of most of my resolutions; but I did finally get it. What really slowed me down were POI DELAYER & LOI WAKE. Never come across DELAYER, and even when I’d worked out the wordplay couldn’t imagine how it could mean ‘flatten’; but I put it in, fearing the worst. With WAKE, I stuck on LAVE for the longest time, even though I could of course make nothing of it; enlightenment came only after what seemed like ages.

    1. With you on WAKE – LAVE seemed the only option that made half sense. Enlightenment came at the end of a very long alphabet trawl!

  4. 6.08, with a bit of luck that I’ve come across A J Ayer before (only in crosswords) and was quick to spot the right word to fit the disheartening _A_E double definition.

    DELAYERING is apparently the flattening of an organisational structure, than than an object.

    I rather liked ’roundabout’ as an anagram indicator.

    Thanks both.

  5. Around 35 minutes except for ROSBIF which I would never have got with all aids available. Very difficult for an Australian. Even if I had seen Nice for French I would never have got it. Something like ROSBIF needs some wordplay since I would never have known it as a word. It looks like a jumble of meaningless letters. Apart from that FOI A FLEA IN ONES EAR. LOI ELEMENT,
    Thanks Piquet

  6. 33 minutes with LOI WAKE. I don’t usually get up straight away. I jusr took DELAYER as meaning to take layers off, literally or metaphorically. COD to ROSBIF, what I was told in my first year at grammar school that the French called the English. They never have, but I’ve been called worse. Enjoyable puzzle. Thank you Pip and setter.

  7. Not bad, a few short in NE, getting ROSBIF would have helped, but I was miles from it, and an alphabet trawl would never have worked.

    Got the philosopher AYER, but did not see how “foremost” worked. DNK LEANDERs love for Hero, but fluked it anyway, thinking of Lysander in Midsummer Nights Dream. Pleased to get ELEMENT by thinking of popes’ names.

    Didn’t see the anagram for RED RAG TO A BULL, so that was another slow one. Usually clues with lots of short words are easy, but not today.

    COD WHODUNNIT

  8. Dnf 14′ but no WAKE, even after two double alphabet trawls.

    Always thought it was the blue pencil that corrected? Maybe that’s just editing. Ni at all re DELAYER, and didn’t parse SINCERE.

    Thanks pip and setter.

  9. 36 minutes as far as I could go, but despite several alphabet trawls I was unable to find anything to fit 5ac. Having seen the answer I remembered hearing that the French are said to refer to the English by alluding to our national dish of roast beef but I didn’t know they spelt it ROSBIF. Not complaining, but just observing that it’s one of those clues that there’s no second way to the answer if you don’t happen to know the slightly obscure reference and bastardised spelling.

    Other than that I had no idea how ‘flatten / DELAYER’ worked, so thanks for explaining that.

    My first thought at 10ac was A WORD rather than A FLEA, but having seen why the second was preferable I then hesitated between ONE’S and YOUR and waited for a checker to confirm which. I know the Times crossword convention, but YOUR seemed to fit better with the wording of the clue even though it would have meant YOUR appearing in both clue and answer.

    I knew of SYRACUSE only from the title of the Rodgers and Hart musical The Boys From Syracuse but as I know nothing of the show I’d always assumed it was somewhere in America. I’ve now confirmed it’s based on The Comedy of Errors. The only two famous songs to come out of it betray nothing of this, This Can’t Be Love and Falling In Love With Love.

      1. So there is an American connection after all! I now think I was vaguely aware of the New York connection and all these years had assumed that was the SYRACUSE referred to in the title of the show.

        1. The US is crawling with cities named after Old World ones: Syracuse, Athens, Rome, Ithaca, Memphis, Cairo, …

          1. Yes, there is amazing reuse of EU/UK names. Washington, a town in Co. Durham. York, etc. etc. But I do prefer the authentic US names… like Radiator Springs 🙂

  10. 37 mins and my L2I were also DELAYER & WAKE which I went back too after bunging in WAVE but not being happy with it. Alphabet trawl took me then to WAKE.

    I wondered if people would be a confounded by “Les rosbifs”, pretty esoteric and not very helpful clueing to get one there.

    This time I did rember the ELEMENT for once, phew.

    Thank s pip and setter.

  11. About 20 minutes.

    – Had heard of SYRACUSE without knowing it was in Italy
    – No problem with ROSBIF, though if you haven’t heard of the term it’s more or less impossible to get
    – Glad I went back and checked the anagrist for ASCENDANCY, as I’d originally put ASCENDENCY
    – Had no idea how DELAYER worked as I didn’t know (or had forgotten) Ayer the philosopher – I assumed there was a philosopher called Deflayer and the clue was telling us to remove F (foremost of French)

    Thanks piquet and setter.

    FOI Elector
    LOI Delayer
    COD Niagara

  12. Just under 40 mins. Several delayers but no walls hit.
    I particularly enjoyed the long multi-worders which open up lots of crossers to get started.
    Thanks both.

  13. 7:23 with a mild panic at the end seeing a DD and _A_E in the grid. Clues like that can take 5 seconds or 5 minutes.
    It wouldn’t have occurred to me if I were the setter or editor but based on reactions so far it seems a shame that the clue for ROSBIF didn’t have some wordplay.

  14. ROSBIF is very old fashioned now. Even 30 years ago it was a word you read rather than heard in France. Most unfair on solvers with little or no French cultural awareness, I thought. Liked SCREWED.

  15. I have highly mobile eyebrows on the subject of 20d Delayer. Firstly and most egregiously I couldn’t see how delayer=flatten. Oh all right then. Humph. But even worse this Ayer chap isn’t in the Python’s Philosopher’s song, and since we haven’t had him for at least a week I had completely forgotten about him.
    Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells

  16. Mostly straightforward today, no problems with rosbif or delayer, but _A_E took a while, it has a most discouraging number of possibilities that make even an alphabet trawl difficult. Got there in the end, fortunately.

  17. An enjoyable 26:38 on the train crossing the border at Berwick. Having read philosophy and lived in France helped with DELAYER and the delightful FOI ROSBIF, but like a few others I struggled with the deceptively simple LOI WAKE. Thanks Piquet and setter.

  18. After 21 mins just had ROSBIF and WAKE uncompleted. In the end I got WAKE but didn’t see why and had to come here for ROSBIF

  19. 22.09, with a large quantity spent on the 160 (Chambers) possibilities for _A_E with LAVE seeming the most likely. “Get up” is really mean for WAKE – in my bed it’s not at all the same thing (!) and might just as well mean clothing or the more obscure commit to memory. And wash/WAKE is OK once you hit on it, but isn’t an easy connection.
    AS for DE(-)LAYER, what’s foremost doing in the clue? It doesn’t easily mean “put DE and L first” – foremost of French is F.
    So pace our esteemed blogger, I’m saying there are grounds for complaint, and I have a certain sympathy for those not familiar with Richard Sharpe who struggled with ROSBIF, more often encountered in the plural. Mind you it does provide an instance of Chambers’ dry with “A contemptuous term applied by the French to any person who has the misfortune to be British”.

    1. It worked for me when I re-punctuated to imagine a comma or, better, a colon after foremost. Sort of the opposite of ignoring the punctuation.

    2. Reminds me of the quote attributed to GBS: ‘patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it’.

  20. Two in particular delayed me; I used aids on them and didn’t regret it afterwards: ROSBIF struck me as very unfair without any wordplay to help those who aren’t familiar with the term, which is so rare as far as I’m concerned that even though I saw the Nice trick it was at the very back of my memory. And — sorry to all those who have been enthusiastic about the clue — wake doesn’t mean get up. Nice clue if it did, but it doesn’t. 41 minutes.

      1. Made me smile.

        I was aware of it and it went in once I had one of the checkers, but I have never heard a Frenchman say it and have only seen it in one book, ‘Au Bon Beurre’ by Jean Dutourd, which was written in the 1950s.

        I have seen it in older books, but used for roast beef, i.e. the stuff we eat, not as a slang term for the English.

        The more common French slang term for us is “Les Angliches”

  21. About 30′, ROSBIF a write-in but I understand others’ concerns; though isn’t that always problem with older usages? I had A FLEA IN “YOUR” EAR, not noticing the duplication in the clue, so that held me up a bit. Happy to have seen the AS trick. I’m sure there’s a toughie to come. Thanks Piquet and setter

  22. 28 minutes. I knew the term ROSBIF and having spotted the ‘Nice’ trick was able to get it with the help of crossing letters. The one that held me up (and apparently a few other commenters too) was the unwelcome sight of _A_E for a double def at 22a. I got to M for the first letter in an alphabet trawl until WAKE leapt out at me, so at least I was saved the N to Z bit.

    An old one but still disguised well in the surface and the ‘As for one’ def for ELEMENT was my favourite.

  23. Completely off the WAVElength for this one. Struggled most of the way through and after 37 minutes still had 22a to go. All I could come up with was LAVE and after looking up its definitions couldn’t see how it could mean wash, so looked up defintions of WASH and was presented with the WAKE of a boat. I agree with the contingent who wake but don’t get up. I’m in bed typing this, and it was my third puzzle of the day. 38:18 but with a little bit of help. Thanks setter and Pip.

  24. Defeated by WAKE (just couldn’t see it!), and/or failure (yet again!) to recognise the cunningly disguised ‘As for one’. I’m sure I’d’ve got the other if I’d spotted either one of these.
    I don’t think I’ve ever remembered ‘As’ as a chemical element, despite its regular reappearance. Heigh-ho. Enjoyable despite the DNF.
    (Late addition: I suspect that ROSBIFs are what Brits THINK the French call us. A trawl through a database of French and Belgian newspapers during the years 2016-2020 might settle the argument.)

  25. Did this so long ago I remember very little, except that DELAYER remains a mystery. About 32, I too missed As for too long but enjoyed the puzzle.

    From Talkin’ World War III Blues:
    I was feeling kinda lonesome and blue
    I needed somebody to talk to
    So I called up the OPERATOR of time
    Just to hear a voice of some kind
    “When you hear the beep it will be three o’clock”
    She said that for over an hour
    And I hung up

  26. 30:07

    Delayed too long with DELAYER (NHO the philosopher, a frequent theme, time to learn a few), ROSBIF and WAKE – most of the rest was OK and an enforced absence with 80% done saw several entered quickly on my return. SYRACUSE known to me mainly as the venue of a filmed concert by Prince, though my daughter has recently visited Sicily and passed through the Italian port.

    Thanks P and setter

  27. All good. I found the bottom half trickier than the top.

    DELAYER was last one in, done purely from wordplay/checkers – I couldn’t quite believe there was such a word, not meaning “flatten” anyway, so I was quite relieved to find here that it was correct.

    I liked the ELEMENT clue; I saw the answer from the English/beheaded pope wordplay, but couldn’t see how the clue led to element – then I remembered that As is the chemical symbol for arsenic.

    “Nothing to complain about”? I always find something to complain about; in this instance the tedious use of ‘sex’ = ‘IT’ – second biggest pet hate after good = ‘PI’.

    In all seriousness though, an enjoyable puzzle, so thanks to setter and to ‘Piquet’.

  28. DELAYER in from definition and DEL, NHO the philosopher. As fooled me again, must remember those elements! I seem to be in a minority of one, having never heard RED PENCIL = correct.

    WAKE was my LOI, have written in and removed LAVE several times before seeing wake=wash.

    16:04

    1. LAVE isn’t a good answer, because it doesn’t mean ‘get up’ at all. WAKE is at least in the neighbourhood!

  29. I’m on team Rosbif is a first glance write-in, and on team Wake took a long time because of the rise definition and because of how attractive Lave seemed.

  30. No problems. When a clue begins with Nice, think French. If it begins with As think arsenic. I got the first straight away but wrestled with the second until the penny dropped with a clang. I read Language Truth and Logic ( by Ayer) years ago but can’t remember any of it now.

  31. 15:37
    Good fun.

    ELEMENT took an age. I always fall for it. MER for WAKE.

    For some reason I decide that the “Nice” answer was MILORD but the I of ROSBIF put me right. When I lived in Paris the automatic response of a local bar owner, whenever English food was mentioned, was “Aha! Rosbif et marmalade!” I always wondered if he thought they were eaten together. Maybe they are, somewhere.

    Thanks to Pip and the setter

  32. I was actually referred to as a ‘rosbif’ in the 2000s when one old French bloke was jabbering away to his friend about us when we were on holiday. They were very old though, so perhaps the term is extinct now. Way to hard for me in general though and I also only thought of the archaic/obsolete term ‘lave’ for wash instead of WAKE – itself a term from the French.

  33. It took me a long time to get going with this one, not helped by a couple of self-inflicted misdirections, starting with A WORD IN YOUR EAR at 10ac, and trying to manipulate HADRIAN into 17dn. Eventually everything became clear and I breasted the tape in 36 minutes. No problem with ROSBIF or WAKE, which seemed to me within the bounds of setter’s licence.
    FOI – ASCENDANCY
    LOI – ROSBIF
    COD – ROSBIF
    Thanks to piquet and other contributors.

  34. This would have been a normal time for me, but for the ages I spent on the alphabet trawl for -A-E. I wanted to put LAVE, but knew it would be wrong. Someone ought to enlighten me as to how one can do a double alphabet trawl in 3 or 4 minutes, as evidenced by the finish times! Even if one is lucky enough to begin at the right end of the alphabet… DELAYER was unknown, but made sense at least. LOI PAST IT, occurring to me immediately after the pesky WAKE.

  35. 18.50 with LOI an unparsed delayer. Liked element, syracuse and rosbif particularly.

    Thx setter and blogger.

  36. Liked this better than the last two, as it was a bit harder.
    And yes, I was going to say, I’m familiar with rosbif from Le Canard enchaîné, but it was a bit of a surprise to see it here…

  37. Mon Dieu! Beaten by ROSBIF despite having the word in my memory banks and knowing the “Nice” trick. It is just such a totally unlikely combination of letters

  38. Took me about 20 minutes until “delayer”, which took me an age – finally parsed it but could not see how it could be a verb! Toyed with “lave” as well but then remembered the wake/wash from a ship.

  39. 21.21

    Excellent puzzle. Even liked WAKE though the same panic set in as for Keriothe (3x slower again of course 🙂).

    ELEMENT also v good. Got from wordplay and then the penny dropped.

    Thanks Setter/Pip

    Ps Totally stumped on why DELAYER was correct till coming here but knew the w/p.

  40. 46’20”
    The old plater was clearly exhausted after two Epsom Dashes.

    A word of warning re Pips’s tip on visiting SYRACUSE ; rumour has it that if they think your boat’s dodgy a Greek nutcase who’s good at sums will burn it using witchcraft and mirrors, if he’s not busy throwing people asking awkward questions about root 2 down wells.
    Hats off to the setter for misleading me at every opportunity and thank you Pip.

  41. Ten minutes on all bar one; then six minutes on ROSBIF. I saw the NICE-French thing straightaway, but somehow failed to take the necessary next step. The combination of letters R-S-I- had me going mad. RUSKIN? ROSSIE? Got there in the end, but congrats to setter for a sneaky one. 16’39”. I mnight add that though ROSBIF is old-fashioned, and certainly isn’t used in everyday language to refer to Englishmen, it’s still universally known and appears regularly in a humorous fashion in the media.

  42. Only just finished, but all correct. Got the ROSBIF clue, as it’s often mentioned when discussing England v France in the rugby (which we will lose this year I fear).
    Took an age to write in DELAYER, as I didn’t really understand it, but had all the checking letters.
    Nice puzzle. Thanks Pip and Setter.

  43. Held up for ages by putting in COAT at 22a. A better answer IMHO as it is both an item of clothing (get-up) and a wash in the paint sense (e.g. whitewash). Those who get up simultaneously with waking deprive themselves of one of life’s harmless pleasures.

  44. 31:04 but missed ROSBIF although
    I got Nice = French straight away.
    COD was WAKE, although my initial answer was WEAR, as in clothing (get up); and synonyms for disbelief (that argument does not wash… I don’t wear that) . it made sense at the time but I found WAKE in the end.
    Nice puzzle!

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