Times 29247 – more devious than a Baldrick plan.

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Amid some chestnuts there were several really obscure or tricky clues in this one. I’m not one to complain easily, but I do think some of the clues here, not least 26a, 28a and 3d, are stretching what’s fair to the limit. I needed help from Wikipedia to complete.
I’ll be interested to read the comments.

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

Across
1 Drink and hot dog after spending penny (5)
HOOCH – H[ot], [P]OOCH. My FOI.
4 Right after litigation, women damaged garden equipment (9)
LAWNMOWER – LAW, (WOMEN)*, R.
9 Made steady jockey stable lad (9)
BALLASTED – (STABLE LAD)*.
10 Fundamentalist thanks liberal (5)
TALIB – TA = thanks, LIB[eral].
11 In tent, turn back what culture may have produced (6)
YOGURT – GO (turn) reversed inside YURT.
12 Warped behaviour breaks contract (8)
DEFORMED – FORM (behaviour) inside DEED = contract.
14 No promises broken in garbled statement (10)
SPOONERISM – (NO PROMISES)*.  Nice one.
16 Rear is fine part of the body (4)
FARM – F[ine], ARM. As in rear animals.
19 Stop baseball team returning (4)
STEM – METS reversed. I believe the METS are a baseball team somewhere.
20 Well-versed expert hosts charming Democrat (10)
ACQUAINTED –  ACE with QUAINT inserted then D for Democrat.
22 Wife with better method of contraception (5,3)
DUTCH CAP – Dutch being slang for wife, CAP = better, beat. I’ve never worn one of these, I guess they’re no longer a thing.
23 Possibly ram Greek character (6)
LAMBDA – a LAMB DA or dad could be a ram!
26 Piece of music at last in 4/4 time (5)
NONET – I wrote in the answer then stared at the clue trying to see a parsing. The best I can offer is it’s a sort of hidden word clue, as 4/4 = ONE and IN ONE TIME includes nonet. If this is correct, it’s pretty devious.
27 Nobleman punches to avenge shiner (4,5)
REAR LIGHT – EARL inside RIGHT = avenge. Took me a while to see this one, a bit of a dodgy surface I thought.
28 Part of heel-bone sore when twisted a bit (4,5)
ROSE NOBLE –  I had no idea what was going on here, looking at the anagram fodder, (L BONE SORE)*, thinking it was something anatomical. But a search of ROSE NOBLE told me she/he was briefly a character in Doctor Who, a BBC TV program which I have avoided watching for all of its life (since 1963!). I think it’s unreasonable of our setter to expect us to know this and get it from a vague definition. There may be other real-life people called Rose Noble, none of whom seem to be famous, but ‘part’ indicates it’s not someone real.
29 Inhibit weightwatcher? Not I (5)
DETER – DIETER loses its I.
Down
1 Falcon is extremely tedious for keen birdwatchers, perhaps (9)
HOBBYISTS – HOBBY (kind of falcon) IS T[ediou]S.
2 Concerning prisoner in prison camp (5)
OFLAG – OF (concerning) LAG (prisoner).
3 Investigation about Duke’s representation of manhood (8)
HEADRING -D for Duke inside HEARING for investigation. I guessed this and had to look it up to check (and see if it was rude). Collins says “an African head decoration and symbol of maturity”, not specifically male, so again, Mr Setter, I am not impressed.
4 Dead   on time? No (4)
LATE – double definition.
5 Publication supporting club is source of disagreement (5,5)
WEDGE ISSUE – WEDGE a golf club, ISSUE a publication. Not a phrase I’ve ever used but it seems reasonably well known.
6 Procedure of drug overdose (6)
METHOD – METH a drug, OD and overdose.
7 Very parsimonious treasurer initially with good intentions (4-5)
WELL-MEANT – WELL = very, MEAN, T[reasurer].
8 Fanatical Scotsman regularly wild (5)
RABID – RAB a Scot as in Rabbie Burns, [W]I[L]D.
13 Break into building and suffer injury stealing clubs (5,1,4)
CRACK A CRIB – CRACK A RIB has C for clubs inserted. Again, not a phrase I have ever used, I’ve led a sheltered life it seems, but it’s not just modern-speak, it crops up in Conan Doyle’s novel in 1891 (I discovered).
15 Subtle meanings in obvious jokes (9)
OVERTONES – OVERT ONES = obvious jokes, at a stretch.
17 Irrational individual had misinterpreted boring question (3,6)
MAD HATTER – MATTER = question, insert (HAD)*. Not for the first time I need to point out, being a Lewis Carroll fan and pedant, that the character in AAIW was just the “hatter” and the March hare was probably mad. Not that it’s important.
18 Incapacitated, carried out clutching fur (8)
DISABLED – DID with SABLE = fur inserted.
21 Go pale, affected in crowded city (6)
WHITEN – HIT  = affected, inside WEN = crowded city, as in London described as “The Great Wen”.
22 Entrance to building opened by new benefactor (5)
DONOR – DOOR with N inserted.
24 What might be seen in jackboOTs? (5)
BIGOT – an &lit clue (I think!) where a big OT is seen in the word.
25 Beware   large hole in the ground (4)
CAVE – double definition, one Latin for beware, as in “cave canem”.

 

101 comments on “Times 29247 – more devious than a Baldrick plan.”

  1. I was doing well with this until I hit a wall after 25 minutes with 13dn, 20ac, 28ac and the second part of 5dn outstanding. After a while longer with no progress at all I started to use aids to nudge myself to a finish of sorts.

    Having looked up the answer I eventually spotted the parsing of ROSE NOBLE (NHO). The definition is ‘bit’ as ROSE NOBLE was an old coin first issued by Edward IV, and the wordplay is a hidden answer (part) reversed [twisted].

    The parsing at 26ac is {i}N [at last], ONE (4/4), T (time).

    My other NHOs were CRACK A CRIB, TALIB (though of course I knew Taliban, so I took it on trust), HEADRING and WEDGE ISSUE.

    LAMBDA was a write-in from the definition and available checkers but I had no idea how to account for DA. If Pip’s interpretation is correct (no doubt it is) I don’t think much of the clue.

      1. Not quite the same I think, Pip, although the difference is marginal. You described it as a sort of hidden word clue whereas my version is an Ikea clue consisting of three separate parts as indicated in my comment. It begins with a last letter and ends with an abbreviation.

        1. It’s just a straightforward reversed hidden, surely? Wordplay “Part of heel bone sore twisted”.

          1. Sorry, it’s not clear, Don, but I was replying to to piquet’s comment (That’s what I said) about 26a NONET. My position on the ‘heel-bone’ clue was in my first comment at the very top of the thread. Regards, J.

    3. You’re SO much better at crosswords than I do it’s impolite of me to quibble but, while I found today’s puzzle a proper stretch, I came to the conclusion that it was, to be honest, fair, if very difficult – I explained (to myself) that NONET is derived from “at last” in (= N), 4/4 (= ONE) & “time” (= T); ROSE NOBLE is reversed in the clue (heEL-BONE SORe) and was a coin (“a bit”) bearing an imprint if a rose; I knew HEADRING as worn by the Zulu male on/after reaching adulthood. I may well be wrong in these explanations but I was content, if tired!

      1. You’re not wrong about any of that, Chris, and I had the same parsings you have quoted. I didn’t actually know HEADRING, but worked it out and took the definition on trust. I needed aids for the NHO ROSE NOBLE but spotted the correct parsing after finding the answer.

  2. I was puzzled by Rose Noble. Research revealed the Dr Who role and its derivation from an ancient coin. Could “bit” refer to the coin, as in thruppenny bit?

  3. Completely agree with you on ROSE NOBLE, NONET and HEADRING – got them by aids and the OED and skipped through the rest in about 15 minutes, but feeling more irritated than satisfied. The point about the curate’s egg is that some parts of it were genuinely excellent (for me, BIGOT and SPOONERISM) but the parts which weren’t rather spoiled the whole experience. Thanks P

    1. I’ve always thought that the original point about the curate’s egg is exactly the opposite, i.e. it’s a euphemism for something that is completely awful, the joke being that you can’t really have a partially rotten egg. That’s not how it’s usually used, of course.

  4. Well pip, you are not alone. I managed to guess ROSE NOBLE correctly not knowing who or what it is/was. HEADRING another guess and as for CRACK A CRIB……. 39 mins.

    I did like SPOONERISM.

    Thanks Pip.

  5. Difficult and NHO Rose Noble. It is, however, not an anagram, but a ‘lift’ from heEL BONE SORe.

    2. Indeed, Jilly, as indicated in my comment above, the first of the day. Twisted can be an anagrind, but it’s not here as the setter had gone to a lot of trouble to construct a reverse hidden that certainly had me fooled until the very last moment after I had used aids to find the answer.

      1. I vaguely knew the coin, but didn’t see the reversal, so I thought that the “bit” was doing two jobs – as the definition and also as ‘take only part of heel’ into an anagram, with the take only part thing being more than a little loose. Jilly’s reversal changes my opinion from it being kind of a crumby clue to its being quite a nice little clue. thx J.

  6. DNF. There is clever and there is too clever. Some very good clues but my enjoyment turned to irritation in the end.

  8. 25.24 . Top left corner caused angst and until I finally worked out spoonerism I had catch a crab at 13 dn. Never heard of crack a crib as I was born in the 20 th century so that went in with no great expectation but pleasantly surprised.

    As with others never heard of headring- sounds like a very painful piercing! Worked out rose noble.

    Good puzzle.

  9. 34 minutes, surprised I’d finished. I constructed ROSE NOBLE from first principles without knowing who she was. The last time I watched Dr Who, he was played by William Hartnell, or did he make the late Queen’s dresses? LOI was CRACK A CRIB, also unknown. I vaguely remember the DUTCH CAP but I wasn’t dead sure that wasn’t a poisonous mushroom. It’s sometimes highly satisfying to get everything right without knowing why. Thank you Pip and setter.

  10. Finished in 36:11
    My LOI were OFLAG and HEADRING neither of which I had heard of, and it could have been ONLAG but OFLAG seemed more likely.
    Also couldn’t account for ROSE NOBLE or the DA part of LAMBDA, though I remember Rose from Doctor Who, she was played by Billie Piper, just didn’t know her last name
    Apart from that no problems really, though I see I was on the slow side today
    Thanks setter and blogger
    PS looking at the comments now, I’m sure Rose Noble refers to the coin (bit) and has nothing to do with Doctor Who, as explained by Jack

    1. Rose’s surname was Tyler, Donna’s surname was Noble – but a later non-binary character adopted the name ROSE NOBLE. I stopped watching Doctor Who after a few Jodie Whittaker episodes. After more than sixty years, I think Christopher Ecclestone was the best.

      2. I was amused to see that Rose Noble was a thing – as well as a name in Dr Who. I no longer watch the show but I remember Donna Noble. I think of her whenever our choir gets to the Dona Nobis section of the Mass. Like Rose Noble, a deliberate bit of fun maybe?

      3. For me there is no Who after David Tennant.
        Lots to add to the crossword dictionary aka cheat machine today, though I hope headring never reappears.

  11. Didn’t enjoy this at all. SHINER for rear light? Really! And ROSE NOBLE, I eventually saw the reverse hidden but had no clue as to the definition. WEDGE ISSUE a NHO along with DUTCH CAP. No idea what was going on with NONET or WHITEN. And CRACK A CRIB another NHO.
    Thanks Piquet.

  12. I’ve failed on OFLAG, having put in a perfectly reasonable (based on wordplay) ONLAG. The editor should have a look at this puzzle. It’s clever, but not terribly fair for the solver.

    1. The editor needs to look at several. Especially the American-flavoured ones which seem to be cropping up more frequently.
      The problem is that the editor probably hasn’t got the time to minutely dissect every puzzle beforehand, and therefore the quality or otherwise of a puzzle mostly only becomes apparent post-solve.
      However, and because I doubt they’re super-solvers either (ie they don’t test-solve every single puzzle pre-publication), I’d be surprised if the setter didn’t provide them with parsings to go with the answers.
      Which begs the question as to why they don’t pop up more often, either on here or on the forum, to settle any arguments?

      1. I was under the impression that solving the puzzles in advance to check for errors, typos and ambiguities is exactly what the editor is supposed to be doing.

  13. In 10A, LIB is clued by “liberal”, but “Lib” is an abbreviation for “Liberal”, not “liberal”.

    1. Good spot! You win the Pedant of the Day award, which for the avoidance of doubt is very much intended as a compliment 😉

  14. Finished in 16’14”, submitted unsure of nho HEADRING and similar trepidation re ROSE NOBLE (see my Whovian comment above).

    DUTCH CAP is surely a bit dated, WEDGE ISSUE sounds like nonsense jargon, CRACK A CRIB didn’t ring any bells. What pip said about MAD HATTER.

    I really liked LAMBDA.

    Thanks pip and setter

    1. WEDGE ISSUE was I think first used in American journalism and political science to define issues which parties exploit in order to differentiate themselves from their opponents. The antonym is BRIDGE ISSUE which (with equal cynicism) parties use in order to tempt opponents to defect.

  15. 13.03 – with a few NHOs…. LOI ROSE NOBLE had to be from checkers and the reverse hidden, but had no idea of the rest of it. Reading back though it does seem reasonably clear that “a bit” is the definition, so not sure why I missed that (not that it would have helped)
    NONET I had from “at last in” = N (iN at last), 4/4 = ONE, time = T
    CRACK A CRIB another one – definite crossed fingers on submission with that one
    HEADRING too – again, had to be

  16. It was a poor first pass (despite HOOCH inserted immediately) and thought this was going to be a slow solve but the pace did pick up as I got a few. Things like TALIB, CRACK A CRIB and HOBBYIST became a lot easier with a few letters checked.

    Not a clue about NONET so thanks for the explanation. There was only one word I knew for a piece of music that fitted so it didn’t cause too much trouble.

    Don’t have any problems with HEADRING – Chambers defines it as ‘ A palm-leaf hair ornament worn by some black S African men as a symbol of manhood’

    NHO ROSE NOBLE either the character or the coin. I would be surprised if anyone managed to put something else there given the clue.

    LOI (although I did have the thought much earlier but wanted to see if something better came): I’ve called a cervical cap many things but never a DUTCH CAP. I thought it was some cryptic reference to the head dress and the celibacy of traditional unmarried women. I was going to moan it needed a question mark as a minimum. Reminded me of my sex education lessons where the strong feminist teacher made repeated references to how you could tell a lot of contraception was invented by men. I don’t think she was a fan of them.

    COD: The anagram of SPOONERISM and the fact the setter resisted the urge to have another clue refer to it.

    Cheers blogger and setter.

    I seem to be going against the consensus but I quite enjoyed this but then I do enjoy some of the quirkier setters in the Guardian such as Paul.

  17. Too hard for me. Even with aids there were a few too many obscurities which, when revealed, I knew I’d never have finished. Thanks Piquet and setter

  18. 25 minutes or so, without the frustrations that others seem to have had.

    – Somehow can’t recall seeing TALIB before, even though I’ve obviously heard of the Taliban
    – Agree with Jack and others than NONET isn’t a hidden (otherwise ‘in’ would be doing double duty)
    – NHO ROSE NOBLE (either the coin or the character) but saw that it was a reverse hidden
    – Held off on HEADRING until the end as I’d never heard of it
    – Not familiar with CRACK A CRIB but the wordplay and checkers helped

    Thanks piquet and setter.

    FOI Late
    LOI Headring
    COD Spoonerism

  19. 12:24 despite several NHOs – ROSE NOBLE (fortunately I spotted the reverse hidden from the checkers), HEADRING, WEDGE ISSUE and CRACK A CRIB. I liked several of the clues – LAWNMOWER, LATE and COD NONET for the clever wordplay. Thanks Pip (especially for parsing the one I couldn’t – LAMBDA) and setter.

  20. After nearly an hour of battling it was particularly galling to find a pink in ONLAG. It parses.
    Too many other NHO to list (and to make it enjoyable) but it was a few HOs that took the longest in ACQUAINTED and the partials CAP and ISSUE.
    I rather enjoyed NONET and it gets my COD. Or SPOONERISM maybe.
    Thanks piquet and setter

  21. 15:25 but found it rather Guardian-like in places, which is not a compliment. I think previous editors might have sent a few clues back for a rethink.

    1. Agree. The editor should have suggested a bit of tightening up here

  22. 17.41, not bad for dealing with a setter determined to provoke mystification. I took the real weirdos on trust, declined to take time parsing NONET (what else?) and dropped into reverie involving Sean Connery in The First Great Train Robbery for CRACK A CRIB. In that film the producer was determined to include as much “authentic” Victorian criminal slang as possible, and I’m sure that’s what it is. Fagin’s gang uses it in Twist. DUTCH CAP has the same kind of heritage as French letter, I suspect. HEADRING could have been a teacher at Hogwarts for all I know.
    Is DA for dad found anywhere other than Cilla Black’s “Mucky Kid”? Still trying to work out what a Scouse sheep would look (and sound) like.
    This would have been a tricky puzzle under competition conditions, and most of us would have submitted with trepidation.

    2. Yes my mind wandered too Z. I had Achilles nursing his sore heel and sulking in his yurt under the walls of Troy. Georgette Heyer’s Regency slang could well include CRACKING A CRIB.

  23. 20.12 WOE

    Bucking the trend as I loved this. No idea what was going on with my LOI ROSE NOBLE but can’t complain when it was staring me in the face. Particularly liked SPOONERISM and LAMBDA (one of my clues of the year but maybe I’m more familiar with the DA bit having been brought up in Northern climes). NHO WEDGE ISSUE or HEADRING but the w/p was helpful. Maybe NONET is a bit convoluted but personally I’ll let the Setter have that one.

    Just failed on ONLAG which was annoying as I did know the correct answer.

    Tricky one to blog – thanks and good effort Piquet

    1. 9.29 I agree. Not sure most of the criticisms are valid. Mad hatters are a common thing regardless of what Mr Dodgson wrote in his books. Nobles are pretty well known coins (bits) so why not a rose one? It did vaguely ring a bell. Oflags will be familiar to anyone who has studied 20th Century history, and I’m surprised that folk have not come across dutch caps – probably showing my age here. I biffed quite a few (NONET, WEDGE ISSUE, etc.) and managed to work out HEADRING, though I’d never actually heard of it. Some excellent clueing, including the much-maligned ROSE NOBLE (it’s quite possible that the setter, like me, had never heard of the Dr Who character!), but COD to DUTCH CAP.

      1. I’m with you both. I thought all the novel devices were fine and I enjoyed unravelling the difficulties. Many thanks setter for an enjoyable challenge and pip for confirming my suspicions about the more obscure elements.

    2. Agree with Dvynys. I’m not a quick solver but 30 mins today with no major hold ups. Same mistake though. NHO headring rose noble talib crack a crib but the wordplay was straightforward which in my view makes the clues solvable and fair. Thanks setter!

    3. The Hooray! Was about to post the exact same response! I loved it because I finished it (in one, relatively short, sitting), despite having NHO a few of the answers (CRACK A CRIB, ROSE NOBLE, WEDGE ISSUE). I bunged them in with a shrug because, hell , I’m very used to answers not being things I’ve heard of! Also, far be it from me to contest Piquet on this, but Dutch caps were a ‘thing’ in the 50s and certainly weren’t worn by men, as they were supposed to fit snugly over the cervix; however, getting one there was quite the struggle! So, to sum up, this was my best attempt for several years – so that must make me an odd one too.

  24. 53:15
    Got through it, but it was a bit of a weird experience.
    Thanks, p.

  25. I found it difficult, and like others veered back and forth between “nice clue, that” and “WTF??”

  26. Same unknowns as a lot of us, but trusted the wordplay. Some big stretches though! Liked SPOONERISM and LAMBDA. Biffed NONET once the crossers were in. I saw the reverse hidden for ROSE NOBLE and recalled it as some sort of coin, no doubt from a previous puzzle somewhere. 25:21. Thanks setter and Pip.

  27. Could some kind soul tell me what the current SNITCH is? Like others, I can’t access it. Yes, a very quirky one today, but all done with one error (rosa noble) thinking ‘a’ bit into ‘bone sore’ twisted. Oh well.

  28. I agree with piquet that this had some hard stuff in. I cheated over all of the NHOs, partly because I was wondering whether to put them in the Cheating Machine or not. Anyway my thanks to piquet and setter.
    10a Talib (cap). Was unaware of this English word. It is also Pashto as singular of Taliban; I was unaware that Taliban was a plural, which in English it isn’t.
    DNF 19a, Stem. NHO the Mets.
    … Had to go away for dental appt. Just back.
    23a Lambda. I wondered whence the Da, thanks piquet.
    26a Nonet. If 4/4=ONE then I think the setter is straying into arithmetic in an English class.
    27a Rear Light. So right=avenge? Since when? You can right a wrong, but that isn’t avenging it.
    NHO 28a Rose Noble, but having sort of guessed it I found it in Wiktionary, to my surprise. C14 is a bit out of date methinks.
    1d, 2d, OK if tough. But NHO 3d Headring, from Wiktionary “A band of hair and grass worn on the head by married Zulu men. Synonym: isicoco” Very niche GK.
    NHO 5d Wedge issue.
    NHO 13d Crack a crib=housebreak.
    17d Mad hatter. Keep up the good work piquet!
    21d Whiten, HHO The Great Wen, but a tad devious.
    COD 24d BigOT.
    I did enjoy this Xword, so my criticisms aren’t denying it was a good workout.

  29. One positive consequence of my recent health issues is that it takes more than a crossword nowadays to get me upset. And actually, I quite liked this crossword. I knew of the coin (but none of the “parts,” irrelevant anyway) and happily biffed NONET and HEADRING. My last one in was LAMBDA, oddly as it is not exactly a difficult clue.

  30. Being stuck, I was dictionary-trawling ‘rose’ as it seemed likely from r-s-, and rose noble is in Chambers. Another look at the clue, and there it was, backwards.

  31. I’m with the majority, just too much. Headring a guess, Da no idea (I don’t speak Geordie, or Scouse. Or Scottish, except a few words of Aberdonian – Fit like, kwine? Foos yer doos?). Bigot doesn’t really work for me. L2I Rose Noble, finally spotting the reverse hidden but knowing neither def, and crack a crib remembering crib from sundry UK TV shows decades ago. On the plus side I did see and parse Nonet immediately.
    What’s going on with the SNITCH?

  32. I think the definition for ROSE NOBLE is ‘part’, the ‘bit’ signifies the hidden.

    1. Sorry, but that’s not right. The correct explanation is given in a number of answers posted above.

  33. 8:29. Another thumbs up here. I like deriving obscurities from wordplay and there was plenty of that here. I really liked it and have no complaints about any of the clues.
    I agree with jackkt on ROSE NOBLE and NONET.

  34. 32:34

    Mostly really enjoyed, but there was stuff I didn’t know…

    TALIB – heard of TALIBAN but not this, but the wordplay was clear
    STEM – I know very little about baseball, but guessed it would be something to do with a name reversal, so looked up a list of the most popular teams
    LAMBDA – not aware of DA being any sort of regular term for father
    NONET – parsed as Jack parsed it
    ROSE NOBLE – saw the possible reverse hidden but didn’t know what it could mean, but it did help once pencilled in
    OFLAG – a prison for officers, I learnt
    HEADRING – didn’t know it, taken on trust
    CRACK A CRIB – didn’t know the older references to CRIB, knew the term only from that JustEat advert starring Snoop Dogg (“Chicken wings to the CRIB I’m sittin’ in”) – is this the first time Snoop has been quoted in TftT?
    WEDGE ISSUE – not aware of the term, but easily formed from wordplay

    Liked METHOD, DISABLED and WELL-MEANT

    Thanks P and setter

  35. 19:56. I enjoyed this. Helped by the fact that I managed to solve it without any errors.

    COD: ROSE NOBLE. It takes some skill to compile a reverse hidden clue with a convincing surface reading, in my view – and I thought this was very clever. I’ve never heard of a Rose Noble before.

  36. Coming here late so have no idea about what everyone else has said, but there were some weird things here which I’m sure have already been canvassed. I’m talking about HEADRING, WHITEN, NONET (?) and ROSE NOBLE. Nevertheless I skipped through in a spritely 17.28, for me a notable solve.

    From Spirit on the Water:
    I’m pale as a ghost
    Holding a blossom on a STEM
    Have you ever seen a ghost?
    No, but you have heard of them

  37. I was pleased to finish this slightly under target at 43.22, only to discover I had the dreaded one wrong letter with ONLAG. Particularly annoying as I’ve heard of an OFLAG, and didn’t bother with an alphabet trawl which undoubtedly would have given me the correct answer. There were many answers I was unsure about as outlined by many above, but I trusted the cryptic clueing to get me there. Having seen the suggested parsing of LAMBDA which I couldn’t parse, I’m not impressed.

  38. All fine once I’d read the blog and comments! Some of the parsing too clever for me, but I biffed away merrily.

    ROSE NOBLE was my LOI when I spotted that the checkers and the clue had some overlap and the reverse hidden jumped out – I had no idea which end of the clue was the definition. NONET and LAMBDA required the blog too, and both fine in my very humble opinion even if I couldn’t see them immediately. BIGOT and SPOONERISM were very fine clues.

    Big thanks to Piquet and bravo to the setter.

    19:11

  39. 19 mins, surprised to find it all correct after biffing ROSE NOBLE, HEADRING, WEDGE ISSUE and having doubts about CRACK A CRIB. SPOONERISM was good.

  40. 28:25 – a lot of unknowns, particularly among the multi-word answers, although the cluing was mostly generous. Took a while to see the logic of NONET but couldn’t do the same for LAMBDA. BIGOT was ingenious.

  41. I was surprised to see so many eyebrows raised, as I didn’t notice anything much unusual while I was solving. Plenty of unknowns, but that’s par for the course for me.

    The only clue I felt was unfair was 2d OFLAG. Luckily, just in the nick of time, I somehow remembered that that was a word I’d seen before, and got it right, but otherwise I was definitely about to put ONLAG, as I would have thought anyone not knowing OFLAG would surely have done.

    Oh, and LAMBDA I didn’t fully parse. And on reflection, I think I’d best describe that as ‘unexpected for the Times’.

  42. Thought this was a bit crap. I got all but the NHOs OFLAG and CRACK A CRIB… but the clues weren’t the best IMHO. ‘Well versed’ is too big a stretch for ACQUAINTED, which to me denotes only a passing familiarity with something. And LAMB DA? Really?

    1. I thought the same for ACQUAINTED. Well-versed could be well-acquainted, but that’s not what we have here

  43. 35:25 but WOE. This was quite fun in a weird way for all the reasons above. But too many fingers crossed when pressing submit. I went with ONLAG, which parses perfectly well. Thanks to Mike Harper for OFLAG as a prison for officers; I’ll remember that now. I liked BIGOT and LAMBDA

  44. Completely agree with our blogger. And, on the basis that, if you can’t find something nice to say it’s better to hold your peace, I’ll leave it at that.

  45. Strange mix of reasonable and brutal. Any clue that has an 1963 actress (if I read above correctly) with no clue as to what she actually appeared in is ridiculous. Then something from 1891? Jeez. 40m for most then 40m more on those. Ugh. Still a good workout for the brain ; so thanks to all.

  46. I did enjoy this in a perverse sort of way, though I was sufficiently unsure of ONLAG to check it and find out it wasn’t a thing. All other clues were done without aids. DUTCH CAP was familiar as a contraceptive from my youth, though it took me ages to recall it, looking, as I was, for words with W in. ROSE NOBLE also rang a bell, though my initial thought was that it was a name for a harness bit. I worried about LAMBDA, which I couldn’t parse (d’oh!) and LOI NONET, where I couldn’t account for the first letter. NHO TALIB, HEADRING, WEDGE ISSUE, CRACL A CRIB or OFLAG so jolly pleased to finish all correct!

  47. Lots of quibbling about 28A which I found a quite good clue, but my LOI was 25D as sadly my Latin is non-existent. 14A was my COD.

  48. 44:18. I enjoyed the challenge here… surprised the SNITCH is as low as it is. ROSE NOBLE I took to be defined by ‘a bit’ hence a coin. Chambers has HEADRING as specifically male headwear FWIW. I thought shiner is a perfectly valid definition for light (if flower is allowed for a river then no issue with this). OFLAG was a new one to me… could just as easily have been ONLAG but guessed correctly. thanks both!

  49. I thoroughly enjoyed this.

    Creative, two or three obscurities, but all very generously clued.

    Lambda and Nonet both made me smile, bigot was brilliant, but getting rose noble (my COD) as a reversed clue in such a smooth surface was fantastic.

    Many thanks Setter.

    1. It’s a bit of a stretch from dictator’s foot apparel to bigotry though, albeit I can see it.
      It’s just a bit too loose for The Times.
      Even making some allowances, the clue even then is barely cryptic. In fact one might say it isn’t cryptic at all? It’s visually obvious.

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