Times 29227 – An Other Monday?

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Time: 39:44

Music: Mahler, Symphony #3, Solti/CSO.

This was not quite a standard Monday puzzle, although the highly skilled solvers p0lished it off easily enough.   The answers were not obscure, but some of the cryptics required specific knowledge that not everyone might have.   I might have had a relatively decent time, but I got stuck in the NW on the same three that most of you probably got stuck on.   Well, maybe not – you may have gotten stuck on something that was a write-in for me.

Across
1 Superior aristocrat occupying singular times (6)
SNOBBY – S (NOB) BY.
4 Examination in science ultimately failing a student (8)
PHYSICAL –  PHYSIC[s] + A + L, one with L-plates.
9 King’s mistress about to be announced in court affair? (7)
NETBALL – NE(TBA)LL.   Nell Gwyn, the mistress of Charles II.
11 Idle though not at first inadequate (7)
LACKING – [s]LACKING.
12 Daphne, perhaps, in personnel aboard vessel (5)
SHRUB – S(HR)UB.   If you don’t know if Daphne is a nymph, an animal, or a plant, you’re in trouble.
13 Recalled origins when going around old part of theatre (5,4)
STAGE DOOR –   ROOTS backwards around AGED forwards.
14 50 per cent of Noel Coward is reconstituted from this writer (5,5)
OSCAR WILDE – Anagram [no]EL COWARD IS, a bit of an &lit, perhaps?
16 Secure network finally penetrated (4)
LAND – LAN + [penetrate]D, as land a contract.
19 Almost finished after master’s opening gambit (4)
MOVE –  M[aster] + OVE[r].
20 Source of oil, something disappointing provided by shop (5,5)
LEMON GRASS – LEMON + GRASS, in entirely different senses.
22 Carbon in rocks cracking ordinary eggshell? (9)
PORCELAIN – P(OR(C)E)LAIN, where eggshell is a definition by example.
23 Veteran fighter removing outer clothing (5)
OLDIE – [s]OLDIE[r], a chestnut I was slow to see.
25 Historic vestment rotated by 50 per cent? Not quite (7)
EPOCHAL –  COPE backwards + HAL[f].
26 Very expensive sport, I sense (7)
RUINOUS – RU + I + NOUS.
27 Suspicion I’d held back son in parade (8)
DISTRUST – I’D backwards + STRU(S)T.
28 Collection of religious texts disheartened holy men a lot at first (6)
HYMNAL – H[ol]Y M[e]N + A + L[ot].
Down
1 Smart dons modelled certain type of weather (9)
SANDSTORM – Anagram of SMART DONS.
2 Magical schoolboy without power to be animal (5)
OTTER – [p]OTTER, an escaped Quickie clue.
3 SF author beginning to recover, restricted by inferior implant (8)
BRADBURY – B(R[ecover])AD + BURY.   This would be quite difficult if you’ve never heard of him.
5 Secret term used in golf, also one in soccer? (4-3-6)
HOLE-AND-CORNER – HOLE AND CORNER, random terms from two different sports.
6 Stumped about pine shampoo container? (6)
SACHET – S(ACHE)T.    A cricket abbreviation for stumped.
7 Sausage and fruit with soft drink around? Cheers (9)
CHIPOLATA – C(HIP)OLA + TA.   Besides being in, hip is also a fruit in these puzzles.
8 Late arrival missing a good beer (5)
LAGER – LAG[g]ER.
10 Book not so much about revolutionary rebel’s aim (3,10)
LES MISERABLES – LES(anagram of REBEL’S AIM)S.   This one will be biffed by most solvers.
15 Cape state — definitely not American — offering lots of room (9)
CAVERNOUS – C + AVER + NO + US.
17 Distribution is adopted by pedlars on the move (9)
DISPERSAL –  Anagram of PEDLARS around IS.
18 I’m working with US soldier, reversing US city disgrace (8)
IGNOMINY – I’M ON + GI all backwards, + NY
21 Tense, ahead of number showing restraint (6)
TETHER – T + ETHER, the setter’s favorite number.
22 Pressure on guide to provide appeal (5)
PLEAD – P + LEAD.
24 Road up? Concede flood (5)
DROWN – RD upside-down + OWN.

54 comments on “Times 29227 – An Other Monday?”

  1. Lots of thinking required and some obscure terms, for me anyway. NHO HOLE AND CORNER for secret. Didn’t think of SNOBBY for superior and was trying to fit ‘Lord’ into the answer. Biffed OSCAR WILDE and LES MISERABLES from the definitions and checkers. Had STAGE DOOR but took a while to see the reversal of ‘roots’. Failed to see Nell Gwyn but got NETBALL from checkers. Liked the convoluted IGNOMINY. COD to CHIPOLATA.
    Thanks V and setter.

  2. Was going really quickly but slowed down a bit in the right half. I think that was totally due to the overconfidence that allowed me to become distracted. I biffed the Victor Hugo clue, while LEMON GRASS took a ridiculously long time to come. But I really don’t think I’d ever come across HOLE AND CORNER before.

  3. 39 minutes but I would have saved 5-10 minutes if I hadn’t carelessly written TETHEL at 21dn which gave me an incorrect checker when working on my LOI at 27ac. After toying with T,EIGHT as the restraint I had realised the answer was T,ETHER (oh, that sort of number!) so I have no idea where the L appeared from.

    Whilst it’s true that Coward’s style of writing was influenced to a degree by Wilde there are important differences, but I imagine the setter was pleased with his little dig in the surface reading.

  4. 32.35. That NETBALL is some clue, I’m glad it’s been explained. LOI SACHET took a while to figure out too, and I have cricket knowledge. Not sure a SANDSTORM is any kind of weather, the storm is but the sand is kind of coincidental. But all up a very enjoyable puzzle, thank you v.

    From Blind Willie McTell:
    Seen the arrow on the doorpost, sayin’ this LAND is condemned
    All the way from New Orleans, to Jerusalem
    Well I travelled through East Texas, where many martyrs fell
    And I know no-one can sing the blues like
    Blind Willie McTell

    1. Dark Was The Night, Cold Was the Ground” by Blind Willie Johnson, is featured on the Voyager Golden Record. One of the very few humans to have his work reach beyond the solar system.
      There’s a great West Wing episode on this.

  5. Usual Monday pace for me apart from getting bogged down with the crossing NETBALL, BRADBURY and SNOBBY. Really wanted to put in NETBALL from the crossers but could not make any sense of the clue despite having the required knowledge (cheers blogger). BRADBURY I wanted to manipulate HUBBARD given the crossers for an implant and SNOBBY was just Monday brain.

    HOLE AND CORNER new to me but what else could it be?

    COD: STAGE DOOR

  6. 26:22
    Never did figure out OSCAR, STAGE DOOR, & LAGER. I thought of NETBALL before I had any idea of how it worked, then remembered NELL; could not remember whose mistress she was, but didn’t need to. Biffed LES MISERABLES from the S of LES, parsed post-submission. EPOCHAL took me a long time to figure out how the rotation worked (‘chasuble’ led me to think of the non-existent ‘chalepo’).

  7. 29.54

    A struggle here taking far too long over some easy ones (PLEAD); having no idea of the parsing of others (LAGER) and not knowing a couple (HOLE AND CORNER and LEMON GRASS). All in all treacle-ish but fair.

    Thanks setter/Vinyl

  8. Flew through this with no holdups, but a typo. Bah. (Otherwise 10’23”)

    Really liked NETBALL.

    Thanks vinyl and setter.

  9. 37 minutes, but working on cumbersome laptop following the sad demise of my six year old iPad this weekend, which is still cycling round the Apple logo boot log-in loop, the right words but not necessarily in the right order. Last two in HOLE and CORNER randomly followed by LEMON GRASS with a shrug. I hate computers. Thank you V and setter.

  10. 24.30
    Wasn’t epecting a tricky Monday, but got there in the end. Had to write out EPOCHAL, CHIPOLATA, IGNOMINY and STAGE DOOR in order to parse them; didn’t bother with OSCAR WILDE as what else could it be?
    Coincidental that my LTI (last two in) depended on superior and inferior.
    COD LES MISERABLES

  11. Well, I can’t believe it. Flew through 3/4 of this in 30 mins then ground to a halt with EPOCHAL, TETHER & DISTRUST. all refusing to reveal themselves. In frustration, I gave up after a further 15 mins. Very disappointing as I’d worked hard to get some of the trickiest clues as mentioned above. Grrrrr.

    I too liked CHIPOLATA and OSCAR WILDE.

    Thanks V and tricky setter.

  12. DNF, defeated by the unknown BRADBURY (I couldn’t think of bury=implant)

    – Didn’t know Daphne is a SHRUB, and tried to justify SHREW for a while (as in The Taming Of, even though I know that was Kate) until I thought of sub as a vessel
    – Couldn’t parse PORCELAIN or EPOCHAL
    – Never come across HOLE-AND-CORNER
    – Was confused by CHIPOLATA as I thought the soft drink was cha, so I was left wondering whether ‘ipol’ was a fruit

    Not a great start to the week for me, but thanks vinyl and setter.

    COD Netball

  13. 9:18. Steady one. NHO Daphne, obviously, but it seemed perfectly feasible. I have come across HOLE AND CORNER, presumably in a past puzzle.
    Like LindsayO I wondered about ‘type of weather’. At what point does something blown by the wind (sand, leaves, a plastic bag?) cease to be part of the weather itself? More importantly, perhaps, who cares?

  14. 15:15. I tried in vain to make 1A Lord Snooty from The Beano. LOI HOLE-AND-CORNER which I only remembered when I found the word to fit ?o?n?r. Thank-you Vinyl and setter.

  15. DNF because I resorted to asking Mrs rv for the NHO HOLE AND CORNER and the gettable PORCELAIN. Does that count as use of aids? Marital aids maybe.
    I was painfully slow for some that should have been easy so probably just me being slow today. 43 mins for what its worth.
    Also had pink in EBORHAL. Got so used to obscure words recently I’m prepared to trust the wordplay and believe anything might be a word.
    Thanks for making all clear

  16. Yes, a sedate solve in 22.12, with nothing coming easily. I expected EPOCHAL to be some form of surplice with three letters reversed, but it was less complicated than that. Fine with Bradbury – one of my O-level texts, but set me wondering how extensive the Times SF writers list is.

  17. 16:21 with a lot of that spent on the NHO HOLE AND CORNER. Also took a long time to see DISTRUST and never did parse NETBALL, although I should have.

    Tougher than usual start to the week I thought, but all above board.

    Thanks Vinyl and setter.

  18. 30 minutes. I presumed it was Hole and Corner but I had to check it after the event.
    My COD vote to Netball.

  19. Hi new member here. Long time lurker. I really appreciate this forum. About an hour but DNF. NHO Hole and Corner. I would really have liked to have said I finished in 4:51. I was stumped on the 3D however until I saw RAY about half way down on the left. Coincidence?

  20. 25:50
    Like 5D this was a game of two halves. I started apace and then stared blankly at the remaining few for what felt like an eternity. I didn’t see LEMON for the longest time but when that fell it allowed the unknown HOLE-AND-CORNER to hove into view.

    A slightly frustrating solve but they always are when you’re not in the groove.

    Thanks to both.

  21. 16:08 which doesn’t look as bad as it felt at the time. The unknown HOLE-AND-CORNER was more hit-and-hope and SF isn’t my thing so the author took a while to dredge up.
    I confess I failed to fully parse either NETBALL or PORCELAIN once the definitions were clear. I always intend to go back at the end…

  22. I misremembered Bradbury as a San Francisco author rather than an LA one, clearly ‘SF’ was actually supposed to mean ‘Science Fiction’, but I got it quite quickly anyway. I have to disagree with people here, the NW corner was the easiest and the LHS was easier than the RHS in general (despite DISPERSAL being my FOI and PORCELAIN being my LOI). NHO HOLE-AND-CORNER and didn’t finish without much cheating in any case.

  25. Started with OTTER and puzzled over 1d as I was sure it was going to start with STORM, but I moved on and came back to it much later with pen and paper, at which point I saw SANDSTORM. Took a while to dredge Ray BRADBURY up from the depths. Needed the wordplay and help from crossers in the SW before PORCELAIN, EPOCHAL and DISTRUST emerged. HOLE AND CORNER and then LEMON GRASS were last 2 in. 21:05. Thanks setter and Vinyl.

  26. 10a Netball BIFD. HHO Ms Gwyn and thought of her immediately but never thought of TBA. Bother! Belated COD I think.
    13a Stage door BIFD.
    25a Epochal BIFD.
    5d Hole & corner. DNK this wasn’t a phrase used in golf and footie as I dislike both pastimes. Did know F has Cs, G has Hs and H&C=secret, so I should have appreciated the clue better.
    8d BIFD, DNK lagger=laggard.
    10d Les. Did write out and cross off the whole anagrist here.
    Thanks to vinyl and setter.

    1. Not a phrase used in golf and footie. The hole is where the ball goes into in golf and corners are when the attacking side is given a free kick from a corner.
      FOI sandstorm. I glanced at this clue before my seaside walk and came up with the answer under the cliffs.

  28. 37 minutes. Sounds like I’m in good company, having NHO HOLE-AND-CORNER. Not too many write-ins and I found the parsing of several difficult to tease out. Yes, I biffed LES MISERABLES while solving and only worked it out later. Favourite was the ‘court affair?’ def for NETBALL.

  29. DNF. Good effort but two short : the NHO HOLE AND CORNER, and PORCELAIN where I thought it started with PAR=ordinary.

    I’m getting better at these, saw number=ether quite quickly.

  30. It took me quite some time to get started and I thought this was going to be difficult, but eventually everything flowed, insofar as it ever does with me, and I finished in 27 minutes. Nothing controversial so far as I could see, but it struck me as a bit inelegant to have ’50 per cent’ twice, when surely the first clue could easily have been ‘Half of Noel Coward …’ or even ‘Half Noel Coward …’. But still a wonderful clue.

  31. A bit of googling reveals that HOLE-AND-CORNER has indeed come up a couple of times before: Cryptic 28821, January 2024 and Jumbo 1625, July 2023.

    1. I do not understand why the puzzles for a particular month seem to be presented on those pages in an absolutely random order. But I finally found 28821, and it’s one I got to late, unable to finish the night before and posting after it had garnered more than 100 comments… to say that I’d NHO HOLE-AND-CORNER.

    2. Thank you for confirming this. I had to resort to my much annotated xword dictionary for this answer, so concluded it must have appeared before.
      The lapse of time isn’t really great enough to excuse my lapse of memory.

  32. 40:42

    Not at the races today. NHO HOLE AND CORNER nor PORCELAIN = eggshell nor DAPHNE = shrub.

    DISTRUST, SACHET and LACKING all took an age to see. I didn’t understand LAGER nor NETBALL though both obvious from the checkers.

    One to forget.

    Thanks V and setter

  33. Quick today, and no unknowns. Happy Monday …
    Not a fan of chipolatas, except as a constituent of kidneys turbigo.

  34. Not quick and not slow, but very rarely for me 100% parsed, with a few – SHRUB, LEMON GRASS and BRADBURY going in from wordplay alone (I had heard of lemon grass as an ingredient, but never made the leap to a source of oil – where I was hung up on hydrocarbons).

    Goldilocks puzzle for me, SNITCH will tell you I did not do very well, but I reckon this is around my actual average time with some flat track bullying flattering my lengthy head scratching sessions and DNFs.

    20:17

  35. 26:55

    Not helped by writing the wrong half of Noel in the newspaper margin with ‘Coward is’ for the author anagram. CIRAN WOODS anyone?

    LOI HandC on a wing.

    Nice puzzle, thanks all.

  36. 38:56 but 3 errors. SHRUB and BRADBURY in particular, with CHIPOLATA also an issue due to my not knowing hip = fruit.

    NHO HOLE AND CORNER and very surprised after writing it in that LEMONGRASS etc actual fit with it, largely because HOLE AND CORNER sounds like exactly the type of *wrong* nonsense I put in when I don’t know the definition and guess from the wordplay.

    Done in 2 sittings. Second sitting went far more smoothly than could be expected, with even toughies like EPOCHAL going in smoothly. Not sure what happened.

  37. Disappointed not to finish, defeated after about thirty minutes by HOLE AND CORNER. I also discovered that EBORCHAL was incorrect.

  38. 35:23. I was help up in the NW corner, with my LOI being PHYSICAL. It is not the first time that I have been slow to see PHYSICS, despite it being the subject of my degrees, and the field I spent my entire career working in!
    NHO the expression HOLE AND CORNER.
    I recently read Fahrenheit 451. I’m not sure I would have spotted BRADBURY otherwise.
    COD to NETBALL.

    Thanks Vinyl and setter

  39. I just wasn’t getting anywhere fast so did a reveal (argggh) to get the NHO HOLE AND CORNER, and everything was reasonably plain sailing and indeed enjoyable after that (well ok, apart from the NHO LOI EPOCHAL). COD NETBALL.

    Thanks Vinyl and setter

  40. Not in the right frame of mind today. More than an hour and missed three. I didn’t know HOLE-AND-CORNER or eggshell as a type of PORCELAIN. I do know LEMON GRASS but still didn’t get it. Thanks vinyl1 for explaining it all.

  42. Probably about 10 mins today, pen and paper job. I’ve heard of hole and corner, but weak clue I thought. I used to like Ray Bradbury, but haven’t read him for 60 years. The Silver Locusts, Fahrenheit 451 etc.

    I liked NETBALL.

  43. 1 hour 3 mins. Oh my. HOLE-IN_CORNER? Brutal – lots of potential words for golf terms especially and that can’t be a well-known phrase???? That caused all sorts of hold ups in NE. Daphne as shrub is a new one for me to, but won’t be next time! PORCELAIN last in, need all the checkers to get it. Ugh !!

  44. Held up by the LAGGING – FLAGGING possibility in the top-right. Except it wasn’t really a possibility because the meanings weren’t quite right. Didn’t stop me pencilling it in. Never uttered or written the expression HOLE-AND-CORNER but I’m fairly sure we’ve seen it in a puzzle here. I didn’t see the Nell Gwynne connection. 23’42”

  45. Got the tricky NetBall from the wordplay, cold, but was glad of crossers to suggest a direction (or a biff) in a lot of the trickier ones. Hole-in-corner was just enough on the edge of memory to be one of the “crossers needed”, and it you’d asked me to define it I’d have been more in the furtive / ratlike area than in plain old secret, so I learned something.
    For the record, the only words I could think of which I’ve applied to both football and golf are “What the hell? I wanted you/it to go straight and instead you/it went WAY left”

  46. I seem to be the only person to put HALF AND CORNER. Had no idea what was going on with NETBALL but at least the guess was ok.

  47. 45:55 a slow one with several very tricky clues, all well described above. luckily I had a very delayed train to sit on and finish this otherwise I don’t think I would have!

  48. As one who still has her training wheels on for the cryptic, I find this forum extremely helpful. Thanks team! As a bonus, I get musement at times from the wit of some comments, from the clever Dylan allusions, and from the excuses some of the more competitive people feel they must add: “37 02 but I was eating my brekker and solving world poverty at the time so …”

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