A good Wednesday workout, solved from the bottom up. After 15 minutes I had it all except 1a, 4a and 5d, managed to see two of those and eventually guessed or deduced 5d as it was a new word for me. Ottoman 19C rulers are not my speciality. I liked the way the setter has worked in two signs of the zodiac, almost a theme, and I learnt that profane can be a verb.
Definitions underlined in bold, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, anagrinds in italics, DD = double definition, [deleted letters in square brackets].
| Across | |
| 1 | Page to introduce work by a philosopher (6) |
| POPPER – P[age], OP, PER = by. Karl Popper, of whom I had vaguely heard but know nothing about his philosophy. | |
| 4 | Captain, man at sea for fish (8) |
| SKIPJACK – SKIP[per] = captain, JACK a sailor. As in skipjack tuna. | |
| 10 | Loves to keep very quiet with right music as appropriate (9) |
| OPPORTUNE – OO (loves), insert PP, R[ight], TUNE = music. | |
| 11 | Tour finally done with? Maybe not, for me (5) |
| ROVER – [tou]R, OVER = done with; cryptic definition. | |
| 12 | Experts in things old and quaint, broadcast stars (11) |
| ANTIQUARIES – (QUAINT)*, ARIES = constellation of stars. | |
| 14 | Large cask put back in butt (3) |
| NUT – TUN reversed. I can’t see nut as a synonym for butt in Collins but I can see it as the thick end of something so the kernel or nut? Or is NUT also a slang term for butt, bottom? EDIT people below suggest NUT = butt as in headbutt, I suppose it must be that. | |
| 15 | Make amends for former robber stifling resistance (7) |
| EXPIATE – a former robber being an EX PIRATE, delete the R. | |
| 17 | Anger about team suffering setback — no real cure, alas (6) |
| ELIXIR – RILE (anger) about XI (team) all reversed. | |
| 19 | A person like Macbeth, inadequate with first sign of death approaching (2,4) |
| AT HAND – Macbeth was A THANE, lose the end and add D[eath]. | |
| 21 | Church showing love for one cruel person (7) |
| MONSTER – MINSTER changes I to O. | |
| 23 | I hate that putting husband first is sign of affection (3) |
| HUG – UGH! = I hate that, the H for husband moved up. | |
| 24 | He’d not blurt out shocking revelation (11) |
| THUNDERBOLT – (HE’D NOT BLURT)*. | |
| 26 | Famous Russian square fell finally in Revolution (5) |
| LENIN – NINE (a square), [fel]L, all reversed (“in revolution”). | |
| 27 | Academic session, end of year: this person’s having examiner round (9) |
| TRIMESTER – TESTER (examiner) with [yea]R, I’M inserted. | |
| 29 | Criterion to remain in force — difficult for Cockney to follow (8) |
| STANDARD – STAND = remain in force, ‘ARD = Cockney-speak for hard. | |
| 30 | Beginning of spring with cross-country runners — they churn up the soil (6) |
| SHARES – S[pring], HARES. As in plough shares. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Showed great disrespect for academic article backing study (8) |
| PROFANED – PROF (academic) A (article) DEN reversed. | |
| 2 | Small hard seed, just the thing for bird (5) |
| PIPIT – PIP a small hard seed, IT just the thing. | |
| 3 | Loud sound perceived here could cause panic (3) |
| EAR – if you add F (loud) to EAR it makes FEAR which could cause panic. | |
| 5 | Viceroy, the man to come down following king (7) |
| KHEDIVE – I didn’t know this word, but deduced it from K*E*I*E and parsed it as K for king, HE = the man, DIVE = come down. Apparently the name of the Turkish viceroys in Egypt from 1867 to 1914, from the Turkish word meaning prince. | |
| 6 | Member of local community in city greeting one queen (11) |
| PARISHIONER – PARIS (city) HI (greeting) ONE R (queen). | |
| 7 | Notice archdeacon is grabbed by “dry” member of Christian sect (9) |
| ADVENTIST – AD (notice), VEN (archdeacon), IS inside TT. | |
| 8 | Greek character, dissolute type cut up in physical combat (6) |
| KARATE – all reversed, ETA, RAK[e]. | |
| 9 | Hint about bad person who has position in church ministry (6) |
| CURATE – CUE (hint) about RAT. | |
| 13 | Raving curtailed with police finally invading square in isolated position (11) |
| QUARANTINED – RANTIN[g] = raving, curtailed; insert into QUAD. This was easy as I saw it began with Q. | |
| 16 | Old man raised gun on island, a location in South America (9) |
| PATAGONIA – PA (old man) GAT (gun) reversed, ON I A. | |
| 18 | Catholic stars promoting American star (8) |
| ARCTURUS – RC (Catholic), TAURUS (stars), promote the A of Taurus to the front. The brightest star in the Northern hemisphere. | |
| 20 | Do “er” and “but” slip out when I speak? (7) |
| DOUBTER – (DO ER BUT)*. | |
| 21 | Mum — one worshipped endlessly — became successful (4,2) |
| MADE IT – MA (mum) DEIT[y]. | |
| 22 | Country’s hot spicy ingredients (6) |
| CHILES – double definition, one of the ways to spell chillies. | |
| 25 | Animal sheltering in hot territory (5) |
| OTTER – hidden word. | |
| 28 | What restricts movement ultimately in old character (3) |
| ETH – EH? = what? insert T the end of movement. | |
Very hard work for me. One hour, then aids used for my LOI the unknown ARCTURUS. Okay, it has come up before more than once, and even in a puzzle I blogged 12 years ago, but I still didn’t know it today and I probably won’t next time.
Also didn’t know POPPER but worked him out. Ditto KHEDIVE.
I’m dubious about NUT, which had been my first thought at 14ac but I didn’t put it in because I couldn’t fully justify it. Instead I plumped for TUB as a not very well concealed reverse-hidden until forced back to NUT by the checker supplied by ADVENTIST.
I think we have a grammatical mismatch in TRIMESTER, “this person’s / I’M”.
I think it just about works?
This person is having examiner round
I am having examiner round
A DNF for me – although I did get that one! And I also plumped for tub over nut.
I started with TUB too; I think it lasted until ADVENTIST.
I don’t see any problem with ‘this person’s’, cf. Alfie; I’d swear we’ve had this person’s=IVE.
I thought Popper was the man behind ‘chance favouring the prepared mind’ regarding scientific innovation but it turns out to be Pasteur. Being proven wrong consistently over the decades is beginning to get a bit wearing . Always heartening to see Arcturus ; if you follow the handle of the Big Saucepan you come to it
“Arc to ARCTURUS, then Speed on to Spica”
I know it as “Spike to Spica”.
I never got to the bottom of NUT either.
But I liked most of this well enough.
Used a word search to find KHEDIVE, though it’s probably come up here before.
Just realized that I never finished parsing ARCTURUS.
Nut means to head butt someone I think
I took ‘butt’ as to headbutt, or nut someone.
Yes, that was my thinking as well
+1 for the Glasgow kiss
28:06 WOE
I saw 22d as a choice between ‘country’s’=Chile’s and ‘hot spicy ingredients’=chilis, and made the wrong choice, forgetting how to spell the plural of chili. DNK that chiles was a possible spelling. I’m not sure if Popper is much read today, but he was influential in the philosophy of science. He argued that scientists don’t try to prove hypotheses, which as empirical claims are not provable, but rather try to falsify them. Also devoted some time to attacking pseudo-sciences like Marxism and psychoanalysis. Wittgenstein supposedly threatened him with a poker. I couldn’t figure out ARCTURUS.
A slight nuance on Popper’s ideas: it’s not that the scientists try to disprove their own theories — few of them do that, they’re only human — more that in their formulation they must be falsifiable inherently. It’s up to others to do the falsifying. A theory that is not empirically falsifiable doesn’t convey any new knowledge.
Good pace from the centre out but slowed towards the top and then the bottom. Biffed KHEDIVE without knowing the meaning. Biggest problem was at the bottom. Finally guessed ETH and knew ARCTURUS was able to get LOI SHARES.
Didn’t know KHEDIVE but parsed it from wordplay and checked it existed before writing it in. NHO POPPER but again got it from wordplay. I really liked the four long ones across nd down and managed to see them all pretty quickly but never knew there was an ‘I’ after the ‘H’ in PARISHIONER. Liked SHARES, ELIXIR and ARCTURUS, another NHO. COD to SKIPJACK.
Thanks PIQUET. (I think 1a is P introducing OP by PER/A for philosopher.)
I agree. Anyway that’s how I parsed it.
16.13, on the wavelength today.
FOI POPPER – that philosophy degree finally paying off after 40 years
LOI ARCTURUS
COD DOUBTER
Thanks P and setter
Like yeah, sure, KHEDIVE, give me a break. It was one unknown too many so a DNF in about half an hour. Oh I missed POPPER too, yet again forgetting that damn a = per device. Managed other unknowns such as ETH and ARCTURUS whose wordplay took us to a whole new level of obscure complexity (I thought the American part was the US at the end). Very good challenge, thank you piquet.
From One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later):
When you whispered in my EAR, and asked me if I was leaving with you or her
I didn’t realise just what I did hear, I didn’t realise how young you were
But sooner or later, one of us must know
You just did what you’re supposed to do
Sooner or later, one of us must know
That I really did try to get close to you
25:06
I raced around this one and then took an age on the last 4 or 5. KHEDIVE unknown but constructed from wordplay, similarly ARCTURUS and POPPER (which took far too long).
Nice to have finished a crossword as I’ve been well off form of late.
Thanks to both.
22.57 WOE
Even though I double checked it twice I still ended up putting in CHILIS having left the offending letter till last. Otherwise the Viceroy was there somewhere in the memory bank though the DIVE bit needed the ELIXIR. Needed the w/p to work out the As and Us in ARCTURUS. ETH was slower to come than it should have been but liked it when I saw it.
Thanks Piquet and setter
After getting the unknowns of POPPER (edit: after Googling I have actually encountered him quite a bit in the field of economics, he just didn’t twig as a philosopher), SKIPJACK, KHEDIVE I just couldn’t shine bright and get ARCTURUS. It feels like a word I should know but don’t.
This felt like a toughie. Seems atleast some of the comments agree. As with others I had TUB in for a bit before KARATE put the chop to that. I took it as NUT=headbutt.
COD: TRIMESTER
Thanks blogger (quite a few I didn’t fully parse today) and setter.
DNF in 35 minutes, towel thrown in on KHEDIVE.
ETH was just a lucky guess, having NHO it.
Apart from that, very enjoyable. Good to see the old pirate arise from Davy Jones’s locker.
Thanks to piquet and setter.
38:45
Hard to finish today, though did get KHEDIVE easily enough, and things sped up once ANTIQUARIES and PARISHIONER went in. Never heard of random philosopher POPPER nor ETH (though with SHARES entered, it couldn’t be much else). Didn’t care much for the alternative spelling of CHILES either.
Thanks P and setter.
Ridiculously came up with Khelife, which doesn’t work at all but i wondered if it was a regional spelling of Caliph. Should have tried again, went thru the alphabet trying to find a word for fall, but did not get dive!! Next time! Good fun tho, thanks all!
10:42. Fingers crossed for LOI and NHO KHEDIVE (thought there might be other options for ‘come down’) and CHILES (never seen this version but an alternative spelling for the food seemed more likely than an alternative spelling for the country).
One of the definitions of ‘nut’ in Collins is – literally – ‘to butt (someone) with the head’.
About 20 minutes.
– NHO SKIPJACK so relied on the wordplay
– Agree with those who parsed the butt as headbutt for NUT
– Needed an alphabet trawl to get KHEDIVE
Thanks piquet and setter.
FOI Elixir
LOI Arcturus
COD Profaned
DNF. Retired hurt on 40 mins with KHEDIVE/ELIXIR empty.
Decent puzzle, I enjoyed the challenge but it won.
Thanks both.
DNF. Another bottom up solve here except when I got the unheard of philosopher I gave up. Couldn’t get EAR either, which may have helped. I also looked up the NHO star. Shame because I was enjoying this one.
I too had NUT as in « headbutt. When I was at school there was a bully boy who had and enormous forehead and was known for going round headbutting kids. Charming chap.
Thanks pip and setter.
14.36, but with an inexplicable PIPET. I thought it looked wrong, knew IT was “just the thing” but still… Otherwise no particular problems, liking the use of er and but in the DOUBTER clue.
Still don’t think of Adrian CHILES as particularly hot and spicy.
DNF. Although POPPER went straight in as FOI, plenty of blanks left before I pulled stumps. Knew ARCTURUS, but KHEDIVE and ETH NHO.
Stuck at it for 45′. POPPER or Poppet until I saw the by/per. ETH only from crosswordland and KHEDIVE from wordplay (and then checked tbh). Didn’t know the alt spelling for CHILES, just thought it a clumsy clue for “country’s” as a homophone for spices. Didn’t see the nut=butt, though as a Glaswegian I should have! Thanks Piquet and setter.
As a fellow Glaswegian I am on your wavelength. I did think headbutt for nut, shame on you lol. Failed on Chliles too. And Monster, stuck with Minster. Ugh!
Thought this one was going to beat me, but battled on and finished it just under the hour. Never did parse KARATE or ARCTURUS, but I’d at least heard of both. Thought CHILES was pretty mean. Surprised the SNITCH was so low; I found this hard going.
Tricky one, NHO KHEDIVE and I went for TUB and foolishly put in ‘antiquarian’ and ‘debutor’ instead of ANTIQUARIES and DOUBTER
2 errors in 32 mins. One typo and having struggled to decipher ARCTURUS, I went with TAURUS being TAURAS and so ended up with ARCTURAS.
COD: LENIN
Tricky Wednesday.
1a (Karl) Popper, NHO, worked him out. I should have known him as my wife was at LSE where he was until 1969 (4 years before she went there.)
14a Nut. Nut as a verb to strike or butt with the head as others have said.
21a Monster, couldn’t decide between Minster & Monster; plumped correctly.
26a Lenin, I parsed (wrongly) as last letters of RussiaN squarE felL in revolution (reversed) and IN from the clue. That would have meant Russian doing double duty.
5d Khedive, HHO but didn’t know the details.
8d Karate, another mis-parsed as Kae from god knows where, not kappa obv, and Rat=dissolute (but not cut.)
22d Chiles. I correctly misspelled this as per the instructions. US regional spelling it says.
Thanks to piquet and setter.
Steady solve today with no unknowns, although I would never spell hot spicy things as “chiles.”
A it of a tussle at 34,17, but having correctly worked out POPPER and KHEDIVE, I messed up with CHILIS, even after revisiting it when STANDARD corrected my intial biff of CHILLI. Thanks setter and Pip.
Managed to finish without aids on doggy daycare Wednesday, but it did take 63 minutes and some heroic assumptions. DIVE was the only word I could think of to follow KHE. COD to ANTIQUARIES. Thank you Pip and setter.
I was uncomfortable with CHILES. No doubt the parsing that people have come up with is OK (I thought the definition was Country’s, very unsatisfactory) but still to call these things ingredients doesn’t seem right. They’re chillies and can be used as ingredients of various dishes, but to call them ingredients without saying what they’re ingredients of is surely no good.
Piquet, you have AN as the article in PROFANED at 1dn. Not just A?
Head butt I decided, as have several people. 41 minutes.
You’re right, I’ll edit.
15 minutes for this, helped by having a lot of the required knowledge.
Popper is my favourite philosopher. His magnum opus, The Open Society and Its Enemies, is a powerful attack on censorship, secrecy and totalitarianism.
His much shorter Poverty of Historicism was written around the same time as CS Lewis wrote his essay ‘Historicism.’ Both attach the view that history develops inexorably and necessarily according to certain principles towards a determinate end (as for example in the Marx’s dialectical materialism).
Or, to put it another way, that, by the use of our natural powers, we can discover an inner meaning in the historical process.
8:36 Got through it fairly quickly but not very satisfactory due to the amount of biffing that was possible if you knew the vocab (though I wasn’t aware of the CHILE spelling for the spice). On reflection some very good clueing. COD to EAR (is it technically an &lit.?)
Had to use a dictionary to satisfy myself about ETH. Thinking it might be the name of one of those pesky Hebrew letters, I then found it’s one of ours! I suppose that’s a technical DNF — but I did write it in before checking!
Unfortunately I chucked in MINSTER without reading the clue properly. I’m always quoting Popper’s paradox of intolerance. He used it to explain the rise of Hitler. I think it still has resonance today
18:21 – had all the necessary vocab though some of it required excavation. Biggest dither was over CHILES – couldn’t have been anything else and assumed it was a variant spelling of chilli, but wasn’t sure.
‘…it is obvious that even the most rational of men are in many respects highly irrational. Rationality is not a property of men, nor a fact about men. It is a task for men to achieve – a difficult and a severely limited task.’ (Popper in Knowledge and the Body-Mind Problem)
As true today as ever…
It turned out I did have nearly all the knowledge, and I had heard of Arcturus, khedive, eth, and Karl Popper, so they went in quickly. Chiles, OK, I have seen that spelling before, monster and elixir, a little tricky. It was actually ear and nut that I couldn’t explain, but they must be the answers.
Time: 16:50
DNF
KHEDIVE? After all that hard work.
WCOY.
Thanks Piquet
About one hour but persevered and finished all correct.
I think Elixir can be a real cure – not always magical/mythical?
Late getting to this today after granddad duties looking after a very lively seven year old. I managed to finish, but over target at 52.53, and fully expected to find a few would be wrong. But surprise surprise, everything was correct, even the unheard of KHEDIVE and POPPER.
36:30, but needed to check that CHILES was an acceptable spelling of chillies. Biffed my LOI ARCTURUS, but could not parse, as I was stuck on thinking catholic must mean wide, universal etc., rather than RC.
NHO KHEDIVE.
liked POPPER and ETH.
Thanks piquet and setter
26 min, pleased to have solved it, but a lot were biffed/half-biffed, so enjoyed the blog for all the parsing nuances. Thanks, Piquet, and setter.
I managed to finish this in 54:40 while eating dinner and watching Location, Location, Location. Pretty pleased with that. NHO KHEDIVE but it was my LOI so I managed to work it out. I have a sneaking suspicion I’ve seen it before. Knew all the other stuff, including Karl Popper (although I’ve never read him). I actually had the same 3 left at the end as piquet (though nowhere near as quickly) and got them in the same order.
My COD was EAR, I love a clue where the definition isn’t at one of the ends. Always takes me ages to see it.
56 minutes. I thought this was tough and I was pleased to complete it. The bottom half was mostly straightforward but I staggered around up top. Eventually I guessed the NHO KHEDIVE and followed it with ELIXIR to finish. ANTIQUARIES, EAR, NUT, CHILES and ARCTURUS were unparsed. Thanks piquet.
70 mins
I think khedive is fair play
FOI Quarantined
To nut someone was common parlance for headbutting when I was growing up
LOI Chiles as couldn’t believe at first you could spell it like that
COD LENIN
23:35, with LOI KHEDIVE, which I finally dragged out of the depths of my memory!
Thanks setter and blogger
Done a week later. 16’42”. I seem to have found it easier than most commentators did.
A lot to do today, so tried to rush through this, without much success. Got to the bottom before I saw anything, and then worked my way up, hampered by two unknowns: KHEDIVE and POPPER ( I’m ashamed to say). But overall not too many hurdles…liked ANTIQUARIES and THUNDERBOLT. Now for some serious housework!
Can someone please explain the connection of “I” to doubter?