35:31
A charming and relatively straightforward end to a fairly easy week. I did not know the joint, the port, or the final synonym in 6ac but they were quite guessable.
Definitions underlined.
| Across | |
| 1 | Groom at function stops one fighting (9) |
| COMBATANT – COMB (groom) + TAN (function) contained by (stops) AT. | |
| 6 | Force pig out and wipe floor with cloth (5) |
| STUFF – quadruple definition, and my vote for COD. | |
| 9 | “Problem” in musical involving doctor’s instrument (7) |
| MARIMBA – MARIA (problem in musical, Sound of Music) contianing (involving) MB (doctor). | |
| 10 | Pressurised bitter king, say, to live with queen (3,4) |
| KEG BEER – K (king) + EG (say) + BE (to live) + ER (queen). | |
| 11 | Putting new handle on a fine vase, maybe, after chip initially noted (10) |
| NICKNAMING – A + MING (fine vase, maybe), all after NICK (chip) + the first letter of (initially) Noted. | |
| 12 | None were in a hurry to see this port? (4) |
| ORAN – O (none) + RAN (were in a hurry). Algerian port. | |
| 14 | Papers over the cracks, finally, in case of protests (5) |
| PRESS – last letters fom (finally) oveR thE crackS, in the first and last letters (case) of ProtestS. | |
| 15 | Reason to corner rodent (9) |
| GROUNDHOG – GROUND (reason) + HOG (corner). | |
| 16 | Conviction for smuggling when found with head of Rodin sculpture (3-6) |
| BAS-RELIEF – BELIEF (conviction) containing (smuggling) AS (when) and first (head) of Rodin. | |
| 18 | Date of exit? (2,3) |
| GO OUT – double definition. | |
| 20 | Putting hotel on this island on reflection would be capital (4) |
| IONA – adding ‘h’ (hotel) to this answer reversed (on reflection) would give hANOI (capital, of Vietnam). | |
| 21 | Hideous new and expensive metal chairs (10) |
| NAUSEATING – N (new) + AU (gold, expensive metal) + SEATING (chairs). | |
| 25 | Figure — small one — in blazer (7) |
| INFERNO – INFER (figure) + NO (abbreviation for (small) ‘number’ (figure). | |
| 26 | Office work that’s attractive, with time off later (7) |
| TEMPING – TEMPtING (attractive) minus the second (off later) ‘t’ (time). | |
| 27 | Perennial coming together of solver historically and setter (5) |
| THYME – THY (‘of you’, of solver, historically) + ME (setter). | |
| 28 | Means to end abuse of power: need exit (9) |
| EXPEDIENT – anagram (abuse) of P (power) with NEED EXIT. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Spice combined with meat taken from sink (5) |
| CUMIN – CUM (combined with) + central letters of (meat from) sINk. | |
| 2 | Wonder how far one might go to keep up estate? (7) |
| MIRACLE – MILE (how for one might go) containing (to keep) reversal of (up) CAR (estate?). | |
| 3 | Rebuked, I’d nod, trembling with shame (10) |
| ADMONISHED – anagram of (trembling) I’D NOD with SHAME. | |
| 4 | Apprehension as the marines do it? (5) |
| ALARM – À LA RM, in the manner of the Royal Marines. | |
| 5 | Mimicry becoming fashionable (6,3) |
| TAKING OFF – double definition. | |
| 6 | Palm raised, ace admitted to blunders (4) |
| SAGO – reversal of (raised) OGS (own goals, blunders) containing A (ace admitted). | |
| 7 | Find uniform tight, and ticklish on the outside (7) |
| UNEARTH – U (uniform) + NEAR (tight) + outermost letters of (on the outside) TicklisH. | |
| 8 | Dictator’s engaged in chivalrous combat for several days (9) |
| FORTNIGHT – sounds like (dictator’s) “fought knight” (engaged in chivalrous combat). | |
| 13 | Grandmama is so taken with niece, ultimately! (10) |
| ANAGRAMMED – GRANDMAMA is anagrammed (so taken) with the last letter from (ultimately) niecE. | |
| 14 | Local allowed to retain second agent for promotions (9) |
| PUBLICIST – PUB (local) + LICIT (allowed) containing (to retain) S (second). | |
| 15 | Primary objective involves appeal to act independently (2,2,5) |
| GO IT ALONE – GOAL ONE (primary objective) contains (involves) IT (appeal). | |
| 17 | Hospital doctor’s beginning career as bloodsucker! (7) |
| SANDFLY – SAN (hospital) + first of (…’s beginning) Doctor + FLY (career). | |
| 19 | Opening in Oregon, assuming to finish off there? (7) |
| ORIFICE – OR (Oregon) + IF (assuming) + ICE (to finish off, or kill, in American slang). | |
| 22 | Exercise to postpone retirement? (3,2) |
| SIT UP – cryptic hint. To stay (or sit) up after bedtime. | |
| 23 | Joint concert on the books (5) |
| GIGOT – GIG (concert) + OT (Old Testament, books). A French word for a leg (or joint) of mutton. | |
| 24 | Instructions for cutting cheese (4) |
| BRIE – BRIEf (instructions) without the final letter (for cutting). | |
Hah. I couldn’t parse FORTNIGHT, though it was the obvious answer. “Fought” and “fort” sound utterly different when I say them. LOI STUFF.
So much to like here. I’m not sure which was more difficult – coming up with the answers or trying to figure out the parsing. Took a while to see Fought Knight for FORTNIGHT, but a lot longer to come up with the parsing for CUMIN as I was thrown by ‘meat taken from the sink’ but saw it eventually and was my last to parse. Really liked ALARM, ANAGRAMMED, THYME, KEG BEER and NAUSEATING. I think I learned lots from this puzzle. COD to the four STUFFs.
Thanks William.
I had all but 3½ answers within 34 minutes but then hit a wall and needed another 15 to find the remainder.
For some unknown reason I couldn’t think of CUMIN as the spice at 1dn and the wordplay was no help – in fact I just realised I never did work out the wordplay even after the event as CUM for ‘combined with’ would never have occurred to me. The answer came with the arrival of the N-checker when I finally thought of NICK to go with NAMING at 11ac.
The other delay was the SAGO/STUFF intersection. I had considered STUFF at 6ac but was looking for a wordplay construction and didn’t consider multi-definitions until the S-checker arrived and made in the answer inevitable. The breakthrough in that corner came when I thought of OG as ‘blunder’.
A fine final puzzle from Richard Rogan – RIP.
23.40
RIP Richard
A fine crossword this, towards the more straightforward end of Richard’s range. And look at those surface readings! There isn’t one that isn’t totally natural.
I had trouble getting publicity out of my mind, and publicist in.
Very nice crossword, vale RR. I liked many clues here, including CUMIN (not sure how I got it, so thanks William), ANAGRAMMED, KEG BEER and the rather brilliant NAUSEATING which was too good for me, so a DNF in about 40.
From Idiot Wind:
Someone’s got it in for me, they’re planting stories in the PRESS
Whoever it is I wish they’d cut it out quick, but when they will I can only guess
They say I shot a man named Gray and took his wife to Italy
She inherited a million bucks and when she died it came to me
I can’t help it if I’m lucky
Great song – or at least a song with very vivid memories of listening to it at Uni whilst contemplating g/f issues!
Fine puzzle from a fine man. 40 minutes with LOIs the STUFF/SAGO intersection. I didn’t know the Palm so needed the own goals. COD to MARIMBA. Thank you William.
19:49, having got completely stuck for several minutes at the end on NAUSEATING and ORIFICE.
An excellent puzzle. RIP RR.
What a lovely puzzle. Thank you William for the parsing of FORTNIGHT which seems so obvious now it’s been explained. Sadly I can’t thank the setter for his part in helping me rediscover the joy of cryptic crosswords after a 30 year break.
Thank you, William.
A glass will be raised in thanks to Richard this evening.
An utterly stupid DNF. I’d correctly solved THYME, but then smacked in “publicity” without noticing I’d resultingly turned it into “yhyme”. Two pink squares. For the record I’d taken 11:40, and COD to MARIMBA.
29.49
The spice and the instrument breezeblocked me at the end. “…combined with meat from sink” completely bamboozled me (in a tip of the hat to the setter sort of way) and I always forget the Maria thing. Nice one.
Just under half an hour.
– Didn’t parse COMBATANT
– Was confused by ‘small one’ in the clue for 25a, but it had to be INFERNO
– Biffed CUMIN
– Tried to justify PUBLICITY for 14d but couldn’t account for the Y – eventually I realised the definition was the last three words rather than just the last word
A lovely puzzle – thank you Richard, and RIP. And thanks William!
FOI Taking off
LOI + COD Nauseating
Jack recently replied to a comment that perhaps the setter’s name should be given with the Times crossword by saying that knowing the name may affect the way you attack a particular crossword. I agree totally as, when I saw RR’s name on this one, I instantly had a brain freeze and nothing went in for 8 minutes!
Finally the excellent KEG BEER came along and I finished in 49 mins. I’m another who clumsily entered PUBLICITY until THYME showed up.
Some great stuff here. I particularly enjoyed KEG BEER, NAUSEATING, GIGOT & ANAGRAMMED. Very clever.
Thanks William and RIP RR.
52m 01s
Thanks William, especially for BRIE, ORIFICE and CUMIN.
Still don’t see how STUFF means ‘wipe floor with cloth’
FORTNIGHT reminded me of the old word SENNIGHT , meaning a week, which I first came across in Geraldine Brooks’ novel ‘Caleb’s Crossing’ about the first native American to attend Harvard. I wonder if SENNIGHT has ever appeared in the cryptic?
I did like IONA….the clue. Never been to the place.
It’s ’wipe floor with’ (as in defeat heavily) and ‘cloth’ (as in fabric).
👍
I had no idea that this was a Rogan but I now understand why I was so enchanted by some of the clues. Solving with biro and newspaper during a ‘while you wait’ car check I blundered at the end with SAGA for 6d. I discovered that AGS can refer to palm trees and imagined that saga might have some far fetched meaning of blunders, as in ‘quite a saga’ when something has gone wrong. The comma after ‘Palm raised, …’ deceived me.
About 40 mins but I wasn’t going to give up on this one. Beautifully crafted and not a single answer where I thought how is that arrived at?
LOI sago and COD to nauseating.
On reflection, I particularly liked the self-referential elements of the clues in e.g. ORIFICE and INFERNO. Quite a tricky device, and probably responsible for me feeling like I needed to keep up the momentum or else I’d grind to a complete halt.
Really, really nice.
21:47
I too was intimidated at first by seeing the setter’s name and on a Friday to boot. The NW corner seemed to confirm my fears but the rest came together smoothly enough. I returned to the beginning and chiselled the last five out but they probably accounted for over half my time. A fitting postscript to a fine career.
DNF. I knew OXIDISE was wrong but couldn’t make head nor tail of it. ORIFICE makes much more sense, thanks for explaining that. And CUMIN.
Far from straightforward I thought but thats how it should be.
So much to enjoy its hard to pick a COD but I liked “Putting new handle on”.
I was completely off the wavelength and gave up at 45 mins with a third of the answers missing. Not sure what was wrong with me, because none of the ones I couldn’t see are very difficult.
a final chance to enjoy Richard’s work with another great crossword
RIP Richard, sadly gone but never forgotten
Great puzzle, fast time ( with only STUFF and the nho of SAGO holding me up) but feel a bit of a fraud. Quite a few went in fully unparsed. FORTNIGHT, BRIE, CUMIN come immediately to mind.
Liked ANAGRAMMED. It must have been done before but that was new to me.
Cheers blogger and setter.
I have been doing cryptics for less than a year so I missed a good deal of RR’s work but I understand he was instrumental for the QCs which was one of the stepping stones on the rather steep learning curve of cryptic crosswords. May he rest in peace.
18:56
A fitting finale from a great craftsman.
The two that held me up for a while at the end were CUMIN and the brilliant MARIMBA.
40 mins.
Lovely puzzle and tribute to the setter.
Thanks, w.
36.49, so not on my Easy Street. A lot of my delay came in the SW corner, where starting with a nearly parsed PAMPHLETS, I moved on to a possible MID-RELIEF and a desperate, bloodsucking DRACULA. When INFERNO presented itself in a rather unconvincing way, the corner resolved itself and let me work on the missing bits in the NW, eschewing CHILI because I couldn’t find the sink, and guessing MARIMBA before solving the problem bit. NAUSEATING my last in.
Rich fare, of course, and thanks to william for confirming the correct bits of my guesswork while simultaneously deflating my pride at solving a much trickier one than “relatively straightforward” suggests.
Apologies, Z! I think I meant relative to the recently lapsed run of hour-plus / DNFs. For what it’s worth, while a sub-40 might be frustratingly pedestrian for the likes of your good self, it’s about as good as it gets for me.
I was another PAMPHLETS. If RR had this tempting alternative in mind then further kudos.
Every one a winner here. 34m of pure pleasure. I confess to not knowing who Richard Rogan was, but he was clearly a setter of the highest calibre.
He was the Times Crossword Editor – and a very good setter – until his sudden and untimely death last year.
The RR obituary from The Times:
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/obituaries/article/richard-rogan-obituary-innovative-crossword-editor-of-the-times-2mh3nh392
Thanks to both Vinyl and Amoeba.
A lovely puzzle from a master wordsmith. I did this in 28,11, but cocked up SACDFLY by biffing an unparsed INCH for the island. As soon as I saw the 3 pink squares, I saw IONA. Drat! RIP Richard and thanks William.
About 30 minutes – I had 37 minutes on the clock, but (in case anyone from the Times reads this) *** Every time I went out from the app and went back to it, the clock was still running but all my answers had disappeared***
The new app constantly forgets my work, not only the xword but the other puzzles which I have completed just disappear. The old app, this never happened.
Anyway… rant over … a good puzzle with LOI SAGO when I finally thought of OG for own goal.
Thanks in absentia to the wonderful Mr Rogan, and today’s blogger
About 40 mins while being distracted by grandkids (in a fun way…). Enjoyed the puzzle, set at a nice level for me. Didn’t see the setters name but being a relative newcomer I don’t have the history that most of the guys on here have. Obviously Mr Rogan is missed and held in high regard. Thanks William.
29:50
A very enjoyable last puzzle from RR.
NHO ORAN. COD to IONA.
Held up by putting in PUBLICITY, which made me waste time on an YE*ME alphabet trawl before finally seeing THYME. Hesitated over STUFF, as I failed to separate the third and fourth definitions, and wondered why “wipe the floor with cloth” equalled stuff. Thanks William for making sense of it.
22:26 – a very smooth puzzle with some lovely touches. CUMIN was the only one that was unparsed and I am not sure I would ever have worked it out however long I looked at it.
Very pleasant crossword, a fitting memorial. The only thing I was unsure of was how STUFF = force. Probably someone will explain. 44 minutes.
I was thinking along the lines of ‘stuff something into a box’.
And, maybe out of fashion now but stuffing (the type inside your turkey, etc) is also called forcemeat.
Yes, a lovely puzzle, humorous, very sharp, entirely accurate…a work of art and a template. (In 27 the ‘of’ probably just goes with ‘you’ (i.e. ‘your’).)
Thank thee.
29:34
Much enjoyed, though missed the quadruple defs for 6a and failed to parse FORTNIGHT. Didn’t know ORAN either, but nowhere else to go once committed to 8d. Tentative DRACULA quickly dispelled by INFERNO. Otherwise, very approachable, each answer providing another letter to make the next more solvable.
Thanks William and for the final time, RR
Completely off the wavelength for this floor wiping. Barely half finished. COD MARIMBA. Back to the workshop for some more woodworking.
This was indeed mild for a Friday. Being able to get a few easy ones early on is very helpful – Oran, unearth, Iona, thyme, sit up, press. Bas relief was a nice biff from the enumeration. For me, the combatant/marimba/cumin area was the most difficult. I never parsed cumin, but it’s definitely the only spice that starts with C and ends with N.
Time: 35:13
As this was RR’s last 15×15, I thought I’d drop by today and pay my respects.
Of course, under normal circumstances, we wouldn’t have a clue who the setter was – except for those of you who recognise compilers’ styles. I’m not one of them!
But I wanted to savour every moment and take my time. I did enjoy this and finished in 46 minutes. Am I right in thinking that ORAN was one of RR’s pseudonyms in the quickie?
FOI Keg beer LOI Combatant COD hard to choose – Nauseating and Miracle both got ticks, but they were first among equals in my view
Thanks William for the blog, and – for one last time- huge thanks and RIP to Richard R
I was ‘STUFFed’ (3rd sense) by SAGO (didn’t know it is a palm), and also by the NICK part of 11 ac. Nonetheless a thoroughly enjoyable close to the week.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a ‘quadruple-definition’ clue before. Are there any precedents?
The most recent example I can find is from a Quicky in January, also by Richard Rogan: https://timesforthetimes.co.uk/35502-2
I seem to remember a quintuple definition from one of the Sunday Times setters – almost certainly Dean Mayer, but I can’t remember the clue, alas.
This took me 45 minutes, but turned out to be a DNF, as I bashed PUBLICITY into 14dn. Unlike others who did this, I did not see the error of my ways and ended up having to invent YEYME for 27ac, a combination of YEY, a rare alternative form of YE, and ME. A yeyme is of course a rare perennial plant (I wish). A shame I could not do total justice to a fine puzzle.
FOI – ORAN
LOI – NAUSEATING
COD – BAS-RELIEF
Thanks to william and other contributors.
We get to remember Richard twice in the one week! 12:52 with the last few minutes spent trying to unpick NAUSEATING and then kicking myself when I finally saw it.
I too decided to enjoy Richard’s last puzzle. It took me quite a while. LOI ORIFICE.
When ORAN (which I knew as a port) popped up, I thought this might be one of Richard’s obscure ninas. But I cannot find one.
Oran Kearney was for a long time the manager of Coleraine FC, the club Richard supported.
A most enjoyable puzzle.
He is much missed.
David
40:21. A relief to have a fairly straightforward one to finish the week (compared to some). Nothing too scary in there, and agree a charming puzzle!
40 mins, which seems almost par for the course today. But took an extra couple of mins to parse FORTNIGHT and NAUSEATING. Got there in the end! COD MARIMBA. Great puzzle.
An excellent puzzle and a fitting final contribution from RR. As it was a milestone puzzle, I was determined to finish even though I ground to a halt in the nw corner. I’m glad I persevered, even though it took me a minute over the hour to achieve an all correct finish.
I didnt realise it was an RR puzzle. Does it say so in the paper?
I enjoyed it. Did NE and SW corners first, and the rest on various stops between Cambridge and Cirencester- the half term roads were busy- Morton in Marsh and Stow on the Wold particularly so.
Great clues. Fridays always seem the most rigorously clued, whatever the level of difficulty.
All correct.
Yes, below the clues “This is the last Times Cryptic compiled by the late Richard Rogan”
Ah! I did it on the app, and didn’t notice any extra info.
Found that tough – big step up from the QC – especially with a RR puzzle (who I was rarely on wavelength with) and a Friday. First 28mins I had only 5 answers then I got BAS-RELIEF which unlocked the SW corner. Essentially gave up at 45mins with about 20/32 and checked my way to the final answers. Glad to have it a try as it was last chance ever. Thanks to RR for all the puzzles over the years
48:36. Late today, and a bit slow. Like some others, I think I was intimidated by the occasion and by Mick Hodgkin’s promise of “a characteristically fiendish Cryptic on Friday”. But I wasn’t going to give up on it. SAGO gave me more trouble than anything else, and so did LOI ORIFICE. I particularly liked ALARM, which made me laugh, and ANAGRAMMED and NAUSEATING. Super crossword