Time: 19:38
Music: Tchaikovsky, Rococo Variations, Starker/Dorati/LSO
I thought this was going to be very difficult, as I struggled to find a clue I could solve. My second entry into the grid was wrong, so I was not off to a great start. However, I sped up a bit as I got a feel for the setter’s style, as there were some pretty fancy cryptics here. I came out OK, even thought I couldn’t parse bitcoin, and had never heard of the comedian, who seems like a blast from the past.
| Across | |
| 1 | Upper limit on wages that provides closure (5,3) |
| SCREW CAP – SCREW + CAP, a bit of a cryptic hint. | |
| 5 | Lizard Island drifting west in South American region (6) |
| IGUANA – GUIANA with the I moved forward. | |
| 10 | Beginning to learn novel mathematical premise (5) |
| LEMMA – L[earn] + EMMA, a popular novel among setters. | |
| 11 | Her escort worked in Kentish Town (9) |
| ROCHESTER – Anagram of HER ESCORT. | |
| 12 | American newsreel producer notes lacking passion (9) |
| APATHETIC – A + PATHE + TI + C, a Mephisto-like cryptic. | |
| 13 | “Matter closed” — Head of Police in command (5) |
| TOPIC – TO + P[olice] + I.C. | |
| 14 | Highly regarded opening pair in Adelaide bogged down (7) |
| ADMIRED – AD[elaide] + MIRED. | |
| 16 | Horrified — Reichstag has tartan curtains! (6) |
| AGHAST – Hidden in [Reichst]AG HAS T[artan]. | |
| 18 | Long stretches keeping 90 people out of prison (2-4) |
| EX-CONS – E(XC)ONS. The Romans probably didn’t use XC, but setters do. | |
| 20 | Digital cash tech firm trashed? (7) |
| BITCOIN – B(I.T. CO.)IN, i.e. in the bin. Most solvers will biff this one. | |
| 22 | Tree, very large, that is by river (5) |
| OSIER – O.S. + I.E. + R. A bit of a chestnut. | |
| 23 | Fantastic hour visiting West End theatre production’s not suitable for all (9) |
| WHIMSICAL – W(H)I + M[u]SICAL. W1 is the West End postcode. | |
| 25 | When jogging, a kilt must perform various functions (9) |
| MULTITASK – Anagram of A KILT MUST. | |
| 26 | Expert Head of Art Department (5) |
| ADEPT – A + DEPT. The urge to use ace may be strong – don’t try it. | |
| 27 | Quiet game golf — son expresses indifference (6) |
| SHRUGS – SH + R.U. + G + S. | |
| 28 | Roué moved into bachelor flat as part of slowing-down process (5,3) |
| BRAKE PAD – B (RAKE) PAD. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Save sailor on vacation (4,4) |
| SALT AWAY – SALT + AWAY, another cryptic hint. | |
| 2 | Airline backs peculiar measure (5) |
| RUMBA – RUM + B.A. A measure as in a dance rhythm. | |
| 3 | External cladding moulded to be hard wearing (15) |
| WEATHERBOARDING – Anagram of TO BE HARD WEARING. | |
| 4 | Angry alpha male finally rebuked (7) |
| AERATED – A + [mal]E + RATED. | |
| 6 | Shake water right off big fish (5,5,5) |
| GREAT WHITE SHARK – Anagram of SHAKE WATER RIGHT. | |
| 7 | New order of “pain”, “toast” or “bruschetta”? (9) |
| ANTIPASTO – Anagram of PAIN, TOAST. | |
| 8 | Jeer after bishop leaves drink (6) |
| ARRACK – [b]ARRACK. A drink of many spellings. | |
| 9 | American government agency controlling most of car plant (6) |
| ACACIA – A + CA[r] + C.I.A. | |
| 15 | Funny chap’s mum upset king outside factory (3,6) |
| MAX MILLER – MA + X(MILL)ER, rex upside-down. NHO, but the cryptic hands it to you. | |
| 17 | Fashionable apartment Enid vacated and blew up (8) |
| INFLATED – IN FLAT + E[ni]D. | |
| 19 | Very wide titfer. And? (2,4) |
| SO WHAT – SO + W + HAT. | |
| 20 | British daredevil more vigorous (7) |
| BRISKER – B + RISKER. | |
| 21 | Hoodlum regularly lost East Side’s premier detective (6) |
| HOLMES – H[o]O[d]L[u]M + E.S. | |
| 24 | Affordable energy fills crack (5) |
| CHEAP – CH(E)AP. Crack and chap as verbs. | |
6:46 – I flew through this, and I had to laugh at seeing MAX MILLER in the grid. A friend of mine in Melbourne had a HUGE collection of old comedy albums and in the 80s he made me some copies of Max Miller recordings that held up pretty well. He was a music hall comedian in the 1930s and was one of the first known to insult the audience as part of his act. I do admit to putting in BITCOIN without parsing.
19:15
This felt slow. DNK AERATED (LOI), and NHO the comedian, who I imagine will be unfamiliar to many non-Brits. I toyed with JOE for a while, until the X settled matters.
HOLMES: Isn’t the S “side’s premier”? E being east and just ‘detective’ being the definition.
Unfamiliar to plenty of Brits too, I’d imagine – he died over 60 years ago!
AERATED was the only thing that fit, but I haven’t found that definition in a dictionary. Chambers is closest, with “excite[ed] or perturb[ed].”
Guessed there must be a comedian by the name of 15D… when all crossers were in.
ODE has agitated, angry or over-excited. Collins has angry or agitated.
Around 35 minutes near my quickest. I have seen so many TV episodes involving the GREAT WHITE SHARK that this popped into my head and was my FOI. This quickly lead to most of the crossers. I was held up a bit on the NW corner since I initially rejected AERATED since it didn’t seem to me to mean “angry”. I got MAX MILLER since I had EX-CONS for the X inside MA MILLER. I took ER for king and couldn’t see how X fitted the wordplay.
Thanks V.
In 21dn whilst “side” is not listed under the abbreviation S in dictionaries I consulted or in Chambers Crossword Dictionary it is listed in a very much expanded list in Cryptic Crossword Cluefinder by Coleman. Holmes is listed “fictional”(Wikipedia, Wiktionary), “highly perceptible”(ODE). It’s a bit of a toss-up and I go with Kevin.
Isn’t CHEAP “affordable” in that E goes in CHAP (crack)?
I didn’t notice the errant underline under “crack” in the blog before Kevin flagged it, and you’re also righr about CHEAP.
I didn’t flag it; I also didn’t notice it.
Sorry, I confused that somehow with your correction regarding HOLMES.
Now corrected.
Thanks to vinyl I was able to appreciate a lot of cleverness in clues that I missed by biffing furiously on my way to 19.28, including BITCOIN, IGUANA and WHIMSICAL. Wasn’t sure about measure = dance and rated = rebuked, NHO LEMMA nor AERATED = angry and I doubt if screw has been used to mean wages since MAX MILLER (b.1894) was a boy. All that aside a fun puzzle.
From Roll On, John:
From the Liverpool docks to the red light Hamburg streets
Down in the quarry with the Quarrymen
Playing to the big crowds, playing to the CHEAP seats
Another day in the life on your way to your journey’s end
Shine your light, move it on
You burned so bright, roll on, John
8:06 despite having had very limited sleep. For some strange reason golf majors are not scheduled for the benefit of Perth viewers.
Lucky it was an easy puzzle, with just a bit of dithering at the end over AERATED. I would be in the tiny percentage of Australians (along with George amazingly) who are familiar with Max Miller’s work. Dad had a few of his records and presumably decided it was never too early for us kids to develop an inappropriate sense of humour. Pretty mild by today’s standards of course.
Thanks Vinyl and setter. Add me to the “didn’t parse 20A” list as well.
Hmmm, I made several attempts to post my comment above, but it kept being sent for moderation. After some trial and error the reason seems to have been the reference to the modern-day digital currency, which is why I have referred to it as 20A instead. (A pet hate BTW, when comments refer to clues by number, but never mind that for now).
Just mentioning it here in case anyone else has similar issues.
BITCOIN just testing.
No, even as TfTT admin my message was held up and I had to go in and approve it myself. I also found a message from Lindsay O awaiting approval and okayed it. I shall step up checks throughout the day in case other posts are left in limbo. I’d suggest posters type it as two words.
Thanks Jack, like Galspray I got the ‘awaiting moderation’ message and the second paragraph was joined to the first while in limbo. When I returned from an appointment I was pleased to see everything was as it should be…
It’s worth noting that even after approval, if you go in and make an amendment it will revert back to limbo. The best tactic today would be to split the offending word into two.
Apologies. “bitcoin” was put on our list of dodgy words to trigger a comment to be moderated after we got a lot of spam about it. I’ve removed it from the list for now.
Yes, spammers have been active. If you offer bitcoin for joining the Illuminati, you’ll definitely vanish into the ether.
Wait, I thought we were the illuminati?
22 minutes with AERATED as my LOI having returned to it over and again throughout the solve as I simply couldn’t think of a word to fit the checkers. Turns out ‘aurated’ is the only other one, but I never heard of that. I have no problem with ‘angry’ as the definition’.
MAX MILLER was fully active as a comedian right up to 1958 when he had a heart attack and did a few bits and pieces after until his death in 1963. His legacy lives on.
I didn’t know the meaning of LEMMA but the wordplay was helpful and I recognised the answer as one I have seen before. Apart from Mephistos it has appeared here a coujple of times, most recently in 2021 in QC set by Izetti.
Second fastest ever. Only held up by ARRACK which I have only ever encountered in crosswords and real life under alternate spellings.
Helped by getting the two long down anagrams quickly and being a fan of MAX MILLER.
BITCOIN biffed and it even took me a minute with the blog to understand it. Round of applause to anyone who got it from the word play.
APATHETIC also on the biff list but what else was it going to be?
A bit of a shrug with AERATED but it fitted the word play so well.
FOI: IGUANA
LOI: TOPIC
COD: WHIMSICAL
Thanks blogger and setter
Why is West End “WI”?
W1 is one of the main postal districts in London’s West End.
As the blog says, W1 is the postcode for London’s West End. Occasionally, other postcodes are seen (SW1, which is the postcode for Buckingham Palace & the Houses of Parliament, and we even had N10 for Muswell Hill a little while ago, although that was stretching it!).
EC for city gets a gallop from time to time
It’s the first part of the postcode of the area of London known as the West End, theatreland.
Actually of the major venues in ‘Theatreland’ only 9 or 10 are in W1. The majority (20+) are in WC2 plus at least 6 in SW1. All count as West End though.
I think that is because theatres expanded beyond the West End (which I would argue doesn’t include Covent Garden, where many theatres are), but theatres have become a (different) synonym for West End. Different, as in “West End” can mean “London Theatres in or vaguely close to the West End”, whereas “West End” is a fairly well defined geographical area. This is in the same way that “the City” means London’s financial district, which includes parts of Docklands, notably around Canary Wharf, which is very far from “the City” meaning the old walled part of London with the EC postcode.
So when you read “West End theatre production” in this clue, you have to separate “West End” (WI) from “theatre production” (musical) then there is no ambiguity about using the postcode as part of the parsing.
15:52
This all went rather swimmingly and I was in for a very fast time (for me) but then I ground to a halt with 2 to do. AERATED my last but one took a while, but it was the unknown ARRACK that took an age. In the end I was just relieved to finish.
Thanks to both.
Flew through this, with several not-bothered-to-be- parsed: BIT COIN, GREAT WHITE SHARK (terrorised Amity), IGUANA. No problem at all with AERATED, or indeed MAX MILLER, although I’m not familiar with his work. WEATHERBOARDING was LOI.
As a mathematician, was very pleased to see LEMMA.
9’03”, thanks vinyl and setter.
Pretty fast for me, 17.57. Would have been even faster if I hadn’t been asked to go out to the garden to check that the sweet peas we planted yesterday weren’t being nibbled by snails. AERATED gave me no problems as it was a word my mother used to calm people down, making her point by deliberate mispronunciation – “no need to get so airy-ated!”
Thanks V and setter
😂
17 minutes, enjoyable for not being taxing. COD to SALT AWAY. Thank you V and setter.
14.14 with a hold up at the top. Took a while to convince myself hold rake wasn’t right until it finally dawned on me that screw was a wage. Nice start to the week.
I thought this was a great crossword. Biffed a few including the digital currency but parsed afterwards. The two long ones were write-ins. My only hold-ups were SCREW CAP having not known screw for wages, and SALT AWAY, another NHO. Biffed WHIMSICAL and parsed later but took some time to see W1. Loved the mention of ‘titfer’ in SO WHAT and that gets my COD.
Thanks V and setter.
My wife ran off with the chap next-door. And, oh, I do miss him.
(One of Max’s repeatable ones)
20 mins pre-brekker. I liked it. Not sure I like Notes=Ti,C but I do quite like trashed=in Bin. Clever stuff.
Ta setter and V.
35:33 and still wasn’t sure why AERATED or SCREW CAP worked till I came here. SCREW for wages is right at the bottom of Chambers’ list of definitions at 16, and AERATED still feels a but much.
Alot more difficult than the leaderboard average suggests. 32 mins for me.
LOI AERATED, NHO and unparsed. Several others unparsed and grateful to vinyl for explaining. W1 for one.
NHO RUMBA in that context, SALT AWAY, Screw = wages, ARRACK and MAX MILLER all on the fringes of HO. Thought Guyana was spelt with a Y.
Combine all that with some clever clueing and you get a toughie.
COD BITCOIN. Thanks both.
Guyana is spelt so, it was British Guiana, but 2 countries to the East you’ll find French Guiana, which is still part of France. In between is Suriname which was Dutch Guiana. For O-level Geog in 1965 all 3 were still spelt Guiana. I shared a flat with someone from Guyana in the 1970s and was amazed that the spelling had changed. A very sparsely populated area, Guiana as a geography is all the coastal states from the mouth of the Amazon to the mouth of the Orinoco.
11:06, with a good five minutes scratching my head over 4dn. My main problem was convincing myself that ‘finally rebuked’ was giving us the D, which made the rest of the wordplay tricky. I considered AERATED early on but dismissed it because I couldn’t see a word that would serve as a definition.
NHO MAX MILLER but he was easy enough to construct from the wordplay.
I was confused at 5ac because I was sure it’s Guyana. It is, of course, but that’s the country not the region.
‘Cash’ is a strange definition for the digital currency. The whole point is that it isn’t!
Just under 20 minutes, not all understood.
– Took a long time to remember screw=wages to get SCREW CAP
– Only figured out how WHIMSICAL worked after I’d entered it
– Have never heard of SALT AWAY as an expression so it went in with a shrug
– Not familiar with the angry meaning of AERATED, or rated=rebuked (I guess it’s like berated?)
– NHO ARRACK so trusted the wordplay once I had the checkers
– Had forgotten that a titfer is a hat, but SO WHAT was helpfully clued
Thanks vinyl and setter.
FOI Rochester
LOI Salt away
COD Aghast
SCREW TOP (cos that’s what I know it as) took some undoing.
Take it you’re Scots. SCREW TOP is how we have it up here, though usually pronounced SCREW TAP. Would have been under 7 minutes, otherwise.
Screw top works perfectly too..and lost me a couple of minutes…but a big record 20m anyway.
28 mins so pretty easy. I had WEATHERPROOFING for a while, didnt see the anagram at first, which held me up a bit ‘til I saw OSIER, having followed the IKEA instructions (as one of our erstwhile bloggers used to say).
I liked the anagram for the SHARK. Me too on the COIN!
Thanks V and setter.
Fun puzzle. Lots of good clues. Liked SALT AWAY and the tech firm in the bin.
Rather blundered my way through this and threw in a Monday Typo for good measure. Didn’t help that my first effort at 6 was GUIANA – the clue also works that way but the URENT WHITE SHARK is a non-swimmer. Couldn’t see where the 1 in WH1MSICAL came from: West End should be T. I thought it a shame that WAINSCOTTING didn’t fit: it’s a much nicer word, and “we’ve been mentioned on telly!” Lost time on AERATED trying to come up with a male to fit between A[lpha] and [rebuke]D. Does anyone understand B*TCOIN? Not the clue, that’s OK, but the concept of creating wealth by chewing up scads of computer time at who knows what energy cost and then accepting it all belongs to the Musk/Trump tendency.
Doesn’t that require you to read ‘drifting west’ as ‘moving to the right’?
I was facing south at the time!
😂
28:39 with some head scratching required. LOI EX-CONS where I had OX-BOWS in my head (are they long stretches?) and couldn’t make it go away. Nice crossword
An uneventful 9:35
17:07 – a rare case of a solve fast enough that I can express it as a date (acts of union between England and Scotland).
I took a while to remember MAX MILLER, nearly choosing Ben Miller as the comedian.
I could not parse 20a, but very biffable.
COD to LEMMA.
Thanks Vinyl and setter
19 mins held up by SCREW CAP, was fixated on BAR instead. Several biffed!
12:16
Very fast today, though missed a few nuggets:
SCREW – forgotten that was a word for wages
LEMMA – NHO, but luckily, and with all checkers in place, the novel helped
WHIMSICAL – bunged in from checkers, didn’t bother parsing in flight
ARRACK – no surprise about the alternative spelling – I thought it had a single R
No probs with B(IT)(CO)IN – even managed to parse it. I knew the name of the comedian though not sure I’ve actually ever heard much of his work. ROCHESTER is probably the first place I think of when Kent is mentioned – spent a lot of time there with my first longterm girlfriend, back in the ’80s.
Thanks V and setter
29 minutes with one wrong because I bunged in ox-bows at 18ac, knowing that it was almost certainly wrong, in an effort to finish under 30 minutes. The I of the West End defeated me and I was vague about the parsing of BITCOIN, although all my errors of any sort were all quite avoidable. Otherwise a nice crossword. But I suppose I would say that because I found it fairly easy.
This felt like a proper Monday puzzle, and two top-to-bottom sallies saw it off safely. MAX MILLER (“The Cheeky Chappie”) was one of the most popular performers of his day, and I’ve seen many clips of him. His material was quite risqué at that time.
FOI IGUANA
LOI INFLATED
COD SCREW CAP
TIME 6:04
1a Screw; a bank sub-manager used this term for wage when approving a loan in 1974. I was a bit surprised at the time.
10a Lemma; this shows up very frequently in Wiktionary, with I believe a slightly different meaning. I’m none the wiser, but I guessed it immediately.
4d Aerated; happy it means angry but thought it was too slang-y for the Times. Usually used as aireyated, deliberately mispronounced, as Inverleith above pointed out.
HHO 15d Max Miller, but not sure why.
Thanks vinyl & setter.
25 mins.
No dramas.
Thanks, v.
16:20 – AERATED and RUMBA had me scratching around for alternatives for a while but otherwise an easy start to the week.
I found this comparatively easy and breezed through in 16 minutes, probably a PB. No issues, though I was a bit surprised to see Max Miller here (perhaps prompted subconsciously by a TV programme on Benny Hill yesterday evening). I am more familiar with OSIER as a twig rather than the whole tree, but it did not cause undue delay. Have to admit I did not parse BIT COIN till I came here.
FOI – LEMMA
LOI – HOLMES
COD – WHIMSICAL
Thanks to vinyl and other contributors.
Mostly fine, but held up by the crossing pair of TOPIC and ARRACK – couldn’t get one without the other and couldn’t see the definition of TOPIC until the C was in place. Furthermore, was held up with AERATED by having SCREW TOP (I’m not Scottish) – luckily, the alternative occurred to me and the answer fell into place immediately.
Can someone explain the TIC part of apathetic to me please? I thought it’d be the name of a producer without some notes but this page suggests TI for the producer (he is a producer) and C for ‘notes’ .. but that’s just one note..
PATHE is the newsreel producer, TI and C are the notes.
silly me, thanks
I think it’s TI (I drink with jam and bread) and C (as in, middle) giving you TIC, two notes, and the newsreel producer is PATHE after A for the septic tank…
20:44
Good fun. Only EX-CONS and WHIMSICAL slowing things down significantly. I’m another who tried to make sense of OX BOWS.
In the BBC Series THE FAST SHOW, Paul Whitehouse did a series of sketches based on a MAX MILLER character, though with an invented catchphrase “Where’s my washboard?”
Thanks to vinyl and the setter
22’10” with an absolute brain-freeze on AERATED (LOI) making up six or seven minutes. Don’t know what happened to make it so hard. Maybe it was the clever way the definition could have been either ANGRY or REBUKED. And I took the FINALLY to refer to the D of REBUKED, so I was looking hopelessly for a five-letter MALE -R-T-. It didn’t help that AERATED as ANGRY is quite obscure (not that there is anything wrong with obscure).
Couldn’t parse BITCOIN, and put in AIRATED against my better judgement. Otherwise all correct. I hadn’t heard of RUMBA described as a measure, and was only vaguely aware of LEMMA.
Thanks Setter and Vinyl.
A swift 17.47 for me with only the nw corner holding me up, and then only briefly. I had to rely on the clueing for ARRACK and LEMMA which were unknowns to me.
Max Miller was ahead of his time as a comedian I always thought, even though I’ve only seen the odd clip of him performing. If he had been performing in modern times, I suspect he would have adapted his act to be even more risque and controversial a la Frankie Boyle.
Would have been a record time for me but for ARRACK (NHO) which stumped me.
I seem to remember AERATED being pronounced AIR-E – ATED by my old Dad which rather helped with 4dn.
Thanks to setter and vinyl1.
12.46
Another SCREW TOP which mightily delayed AERATED but once I had the A it fell.
Slight shame about that (to me though others not apparently impacted) as otherwise they were a lovely set of consistently gentle-side clues.
Thanks all
Just over 17 minutes, with three of these getting aerated. No problems with that clue, I made it difficult by having screw top instead of screw cap.
I was aware of Max Miller, but although it was generously clued, I wonder if clues that refer to a comedian who died more than 60 years ago will encourage younger solvers.
23.11 Pretty quick for me. I started with very little in the top half but the bottom was easier and I worked back up finishing with ARRACK (long forgotten) and SALT AWAY. Thanks vinyl1.
35 mins, but all parsed including the digital cash. Like others, I remember people saying ‘airy-ated’! Knew LEMMA probably because of ‘dilemma’. ARRACK usually spelt ‘arak’ as I recall. ‘Miller’s the name, lady – there’ll never be another!’ Wasn’t that his catchphrase? Nice puzzle.
9:01 after a long day walking in the undulating Suffolk/Essex borders around the River Stour tracking down 3 dragons. Lovely crossword with several good PDMs, the last being post-solve when I parsed BITCOIN. Thanks Vinyl and setter.
13:14 and very annoyed with myself for not going at it harder, as I think it was my best chance of sub 10 minutes for a long time
Was slowed up by a minute or so by putting SCREW TOP at 1ac
Thanks setter and blogger
I zipped through this (for me) in about 15 minutes but couldn’t work out AERATED even after a painstaking alphabet trawl. Eventually I gave it up as a word I’ve never heard of and hit the check button. At that point I realised that SCREW TOP for 1ac was wrong. And there was me feeling smug about remembering that SCREW was an archaic term for wages… It took all of a nanosecond to get AERATED after I realised that the CAP fitted better.