I made a bit of a Horlicks of this, my excuse being that I was solving with my fat fingers on my tiny iPhone. If anyone can think of any more plausible excuses, I’d be grateful to hear them.
19:29
| Across | |
| 1 | Deceive graduate (male) left to divide drink (9) |
| BAMBOOZLE – BA M L in BOOZE | |
| 6 | Search leader of Oxford jazz group (5) |
| COMBO -COMB O~ | |
| 9 | Essential article finally adorning wild horse (7) |
| MUSTANG – MUST AN ~G | |
| 10 | Bone takeaways originally included in Spanish dish (7) |
| PATELLA – T~ in PAELLA | |
| 11 | The old answer? Yes, long ago! (3) |
| YEA – YE (as in pseudo Middle-English ‘Ye Olde Worlde Cafe’) A | |
| 12 | Endless translation of Latin verse by head of Greek (11) |
| EVERLASTING – anagram* of LATIN VERSE + G~ | |
| 14 | Find fault with a course for listeners (6) |
| ATTACK – A + sounds like TACK (course for a yacht) | |
| 15 | Partner of this man destroyed temple (8) |
| HELPMEET – HE TEMPLE*; I had ‘helpmate’ initially, like almost everyone, I guess | |
| 17 | Figure from Rhode Island in complicated situation (8) |
| TRIANGLE – RI in TANGLE | |
| 19 | French native in British college (6) |
| BRETON – BR ETON | |
| 22 | Character that’s equal to the piano tuner? (11) |
| TEMPERAMENT – Pianos are usually tuned to a modified version of the system called equal temperament. Think Bach’s collection of preludes and fugues ‘The Well-Tempered Clavier.’ | |
| 23 | Cut duties, withdrawing the first and last (3) |
| AXE – |
|
| 25 | Set aside a sparkler ultimately like a ring (7) |
| ANNULAR – ANNUL A ~R | |
| 27 | Blooming American interrupting Highland dance! (7) |
| FLAMING – AM in FLING; both words are intensifiers, which had their heyday in the 60s and 70s. Too blooming right! | |
| 28 | Part of novel Egyptians lament (5) |
| ELEGY -hidden | |
| 29 | Persian prophet from wizard place brought back chicken for cooking (9) |
| ZOROASTER – OZ reversed ROASTER | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Uneven politician blocking purchase (5) |
| BUMPY – MP in BUY | |
| 2 | Accountants in thin fog given unsuitable roles (7) |
| MISCAST – CAS in MIST | |
| 3 | State of being shot: awful lapse once involving church (11) |
| OPALESCENCE – CE in LAPSE ONCE*; shot here means streaked with colour | |
| 4 | Chime cut short in unknown bishop’s capital (6) |
| ZAGREB – AGRE |
|
| 5 | English story plugging box, an ornamental shrub (7) (8) |
| ESPALIER – E LIE in SPAR | |
| 6 | Reduced share of profit (3) |
| CUT – double definition | |
| 7 | Beginning of aggression is feeding man’s anguish (7) |
| MALAISE – A~ IS in MALE | |
| 8 | Primate of old contacted sick aunt (5-4) |
| ORANG-UTAN – O RANG AUNT* | |
| 13 | Marvellous rise of a pastry dish’s overlying layers (11) |
| SUPERSTRATA – SUPER + A TART’S reversed | |
| 14 | High-level current worker? One introducing business (9) |
| ANTITRADE – ANT I TRADE; if there are trade [winds], there must be ANTITRADES | |
| 16 | Present-day tennis star securing entrance to this old US prison (8) |
| ALCATRAZ – T~ in ALCARAZ, the heir to Nadal, who just won the French Open | |
| 18 | The writer’s workforce, at first so exceptionally huge (7) |
| IMMENSE – I’M MEN S~ E~ | |
| 20 | Asian garments taken in by abstemious imperial supporter (7) |
| TSARIST – SARIS in TT | |
| 21 | One who succeeds, keeping extremely fine young beast (6) |
| HEIFER -F |
|
| 24 | Keen always for poets to collect silver (5) |
| EAGER – AG in E’ER | |
| 26 | Nonprofessional drama lacking introduction (3) |
| LAY – |
|
No problems with this, apart from wondering what on earth the piano tuner was up to. Expect some quick times today. Alcaraz fresh in the memory after yesterday’s stellar performance!
14:03
Like Jerry, I had no idea what was going on with TEMPERAMENT. I knew there was a hot new Spanish tennis player, but couldn’t have told you his name; but I knew the prison, which was enough. All in all, a fairly ho-hum puzzle.
11’05”, and I felt I should have got BAMBOOZLE and EVERLASTING much earlier. Knew TEMPERAMENT (I can explain the Pythagorean comma). ATTACK was POI (bit of a strong synonym for ‘criticise’), which led to LOI ANTITRADE. Nho the tennis player, would like to see some well-known cyclists.
I was once in ZAGREB airport, in 1981, waiting for a transfer bus, and we peeked round a curtain and saw the bus, and headed towards it – to be stopped by an official, who told us we couldn’t do that, and that Zagreb airport had very tight security. Ten minutes later, the security was lifted as the same man pulled back the curtain. Those were innocent days.
Thanks ulaca and setter.
P. S. I’m still trying to work out the Varney reference
Too flaming right, you are!
17.07, a rare sub-20 which was accompanied by a PB in the Quickie, so not a bad day all told. Same same re TEMPERAMENT and ANTITRADES also threw me, but I followed the cryptic and it came up green so all good.
From Tangled Up In Blue:
I had a job in the great north woods
Working as a cook for a spell
But I never did like it all that much
And one day the AXE just fell
So I drifted down to New Orleans
Where I happened to be employed
Working for a while on a fishing boat
Right outside of Delacroix…
All managed tho antitrade was guessed, had no idea that there were antitrade winds and would not have guessed apart from your pointer, thanks, good fun, Cx
Like your reference to Stephen Lewis of ‘On the Buses’ fame which I assume is linked to 27a, FLAMING. He also said “I ‘ate you Butler” and “I’ll ‘ave you Butler”, fun times.
Had no idea what was going on with the piano in TEMPERAMENT. NHO HELPMEET but the checkers provided the answer. Liked ESPALIER and ZOROASTER. COD to ALCATRAZ in recognition of yesterday’s stunning performance by the young Spaniard..
Thanks U and setter.
21 minutes with LOI ANTITRADE. I was also detained by OPALESCENCE and HELPMEET having set off like a house on fire. TEMPERAMENT was a write-in from crossers but I had no idea what the piano tuner was doing there. COD to ZOROASTER. Rod Laver yesterday was more my time, or perhaps Ken Rosewall. Thank you U and setter.
Didn’t Bach compose the Well Tempered Clavier? I remember listening to the Well Tempered Synthesiser by Walter Carlos( before he became Wendy). Blew my mind man….
Biffed ALCATRAZ (can’t do with tennis), and TEMPERAMENT. NHO LOI. All of which made my time disappointing for a Monday.
FOI BAMBOOZLE
LOI ANTI TRADE
COD ATTACK
TIME 8:14
About 15 minutes.
– More familiar with helpmate rather than HELPMEET but the E checkers and anagrist made it clear
– MER over annul=set aside for ANNULAR
– Got OPALESCENCE without being sure of the definition
– Relied on wordplay for ANTITRADE (I never remember the different types of winds)
Thanks ulaca and setter.
FOI Cut
LOI Antitrade
COD Flaming
A rather easy puzzle for me, but maybe not so for less experienced solvers. I finished in 22 minutes but it would have been a rare sub-20 but for a delay at the end over HELPMEET which is a little outside the vocabulary required for the rest of the puzzle.
I keep forgetting the name Alcaraz but fortunately just before I started on the puzzle I had been looking at the latest ATP rankings following the conclusion of the French Open. I was the checking the progress of my best pal’s young cousin in the rankings and was chuffed to find that he is now No 4 in the world, one higher than Djokovic! I was sorry not to see the final but it was only on a channel that I am not prepared to pay for.
I assume you mean Jack Draper. He’s doing extremely well. Great to see a Brit in the top ten again, it’s been a while……
Indeed. I read that the main court at Queens is now the Andy Murray Arena.
That’s news to me but why not? When I lived in London I went religiously to Queen’s every year. Great venue.
The inauguration and renaming is taking place at Queens today in the presence of Andy Murray. It’s the first day of the Women’s Championship which have not been held since 1973. The Men’s Tournament begins next Monday.
👍
I think a below par performance for me. ANTITRADES, HELPMEET, TEMPERMENT and ALCATRAZ (I tend to skip the back pages) all solved but I was reluctant to commit which meant I was unnecessarily considering other things for the crossing answers.
Liked ORANG-UTAN. The hyphen never looks quite right though despite it coming up many times.
Thanks blogger for explaining about piano tuning and thanks to the setter as well.
A rather lethargic 25.45. FOI COMBO; LOI (and NHO) ANTITRADE; couldn’t work out why ESPALIER had both (7) and (8) after it.
Thanks U and setter.
(7) (8) Probably just the setter hedging his bets…
Neat.
19.40 which was disappointing as I was looking at a sub ten till I got stuck in the bottom left quarter. Last ones in antitrade and triangle.
More Horlicks here at 30:30. I fell for pretty much every possible misdirection having FLUSING in for a while, mispelling HIEFER and EAGRE. Report card: Could do better.
The only genuinely tricky one was TEMPERAMENT which I biffed quickly enough but needed to come here for the explanation.
Liked HELPMEET which is charmingly old-fashioned.
Thanks ulaca and setter.
I hated it and it stopped me completing the puzzle. Which century does it belong to?
Given my reading matter anywhere from Cadfael to Flashman
15:29. NHO Antitrade or Helpmeet, those meanings of Temperament and shot and I was confused by the (7) (8) issue. So I was pleasantly surprised to escape without at least one pink square.
Very timely appearance for ALCARAZ. It can’t be long before we witness the joyful appearance of his repenting vanquished opponent.
13.12, a little slowed by believing I had to justify TEMPERAMENT before submitting. In the end, I didn’t, forgetting my Bach and his clavier. I was also a bit suspicious of ANTITRADES, and even when I sussed the wind connection I wasn’t convinced of the “high level” – wouldn’t have been much use to the tea clippers after hanging around in the doldrums.
I believe the original HELPMEET was two words – it’s KJV English. I doubt if it turns up much elsewhere.
An odd Monday crosswords with those fringe words, and what I think is a rather dodgy definition: isn’t ESPALIER a way of training fruit trees to a framework? “Shrub” seems a poor match, plus I hate the word. Too many nobody’s ever heard of.
The first words in the Collins definition are ‘an ornamental shrub’, which I guess gets the setter off the hook!
4:52. Easy today, in spite of a few slightly odd words.
Going well until ANTITRADE which I had NHO and couldn’t summon the energy to grapple with so DNF in about 20 minutes.
Otherwise a very accessible puzzle – had heard of the tennis player but not sure how, didn’t really understand TEMPERAMENT, thought ESPALIER was a pruning format rather than a shrub as such and to me MALAISE does not really comprehend anguish but hohum.
Ta setter and ulaca.
27m 44s Like others I had to come here to understand TEMPERAMENT. The pianist (Sir) Andras Schiff once played the whole of Book 1 of The Well-Tempered Clavier at the Proms. He may also have played Book 2 but I don’t know. In any event that is a prodigious feat of memory.
Never heard of ‘ANTITRADE’ and I did A-Level Geography…but that was over 60 years ago.
I was going to have a ‘mer’ at ESPALIER as I thought it meant the trellis the shrub grows on but Collins has put me straight.
38 mins. Luckily the « French » was shown on French tv so I saw, and very much enjoyed, the match. ALCATRAZ therefore no problem. However, I was very unsure about ANTITRADE & HELPMEET, my L2I and looked them up. Otherwise pretty straightforward.
Thanks U and setter.
Going very well but couldn’t finish off ANTITRADES and TEMPERAMENT.
Thanks to ulaca and setter.
Mainly straightforward but I NHO 14d Antitrade, so I looked it up. Obvious once I read the dictionary, but until then I wasn’t connecting High-level and current, so I couldn’t parse it and I didn’t really believe in the word either.
15a Helpmeet, I cheerfully wrote in helpmate, but the last letter was T from the ape at 8d, so I had to look at the anagrist. Helpmeet seemed very odd, but I have a very vague memory of it.
22a Temperament. I know nothing about music so I was a bit foxed. Thanks for the blog ulaca.
16d Alcatraz. I didn’t quite believe in Alcaraz as a name, but there Carlos was in the photo above the Xword!
Orang Utan, Malay/Indonesian for man/person is Orang, forest is Hutan, so man of the forest orang utan, and we made it into orangutans.
13:26 continuing my run of getting stymied by an intersecting pair, in this case the double unknown ANTITRADE and the piano reference in TEMPERAMENT. Seems I was not alone.
7:38. Held up only by HELPMEET and my LOI the unknown ANTITRADE, derived from the wordplay. Thanks Ulaca and setter.
14,31 but with a fat fingered OTANG UTAN. Drat! BAMBOOZLE was FOI. ANTITRADE from wordpaly. TEMPERAMENT was LOI, but I knew the Well Tempered reference when I saw what was required. Thanks setter and U.
17:53
Monday, Monday. Hadn’t caught up on reports of yesterdays tennis so ALCATRAZ was biffed, as was TEMPERAMENT. Everything esle was fairly straightforward. I liked HELPMEET and ZOROASTER.
Thaks to ulaca and the setter.
Rarely for me more or less a write-in everywhere until I came to ANTITRADE, which I entered from wordplay, missing the wind connection: I thought it was something about business that I didn’t understand. 21 minutes.
Most of this a fast write-in until left with 18a and 14d, NHO either word. Alcatraz was easy as have been there (as a tourist not an inmate) and watched all 5½ hours of Carlos Alcaraz beating Sinner yesterday (and England beating WI at T20 cricket on laptop at the same time!)
16:30 – very straightforward with the very guessable ANTITRADE the only unknown.
LOI HELPMEET. FOI BAMBOOZLE — which I was by TEMPERAMENT, which I just couldn’t see, and is brilliantly clued — COD in fact. DNK ANTITRADE (despite being an ex-yachtie).
18:52. FOI BAMBOOZLE, nice word. Last two in ANTITRADE then TEMPERAMENT without knowing the piano-tuning thing. Some tricky words in a quick puzzle
11.53
No problems (knew HELPMEET) until that crossing pair. Had to be TEMPERAMENT even though no idea what was going on and then laboriously constructed ANTITRADE.
9:13
Two PBs in a day for me! Possibly only my third or fourth sub-10 – took HELPMEET on trust, kind of thinking I’d heard of it before. Everything else flew in, until the final two – TEMPERAMENT which I got from all but the first checker plus the definition, and finally ANTITRADE, once the T of 22a had put paid to it ending -IMATE. Happy Mondays!
Thanks U and setter
This was very easy, with only two at all difficult words in helpmeet and antitrade. I saw antitrade at once, but waited for the checkers to put it in. Helpmeet was forced by already having orangutan. I biffed espalier without noticing the enumeration problem – espaliers, etageres, and estaminets used to be very popular in crosswords.
Time: 14:56
Me too for a bad TEMPERAMENT. I can’t really claim to have biffed it either, as it was obvious from checkers and definition. Easy everywhere else, even tame, but it all worked for me.
If you get the paper, as I do, there is a big picture of Alcaraz on his back having won, just above the crossword.
That must be a first surely? News and crossword clue in sync.
As to the puzzle I solved it quickly until I hit three problem clues.
Failed on HELPMEET, ANTITRADE and TEMPERAMENT.
David
I posted the same about the picture in the paper version! indeed a coincidence
13:45
Plain sailing until LOI, NHO, ANTITRADE, but fairly clued with the checkers.
COD SUPERSTRATA.
Thanks all
A bit of a vocabulary widener today – new words at 15A, 22A (in the sense of the clue), 29A, 5D, 13D and 14D, enjoyed 1A once I’d got it.
NHO HELPMEET, though put it in eventually and it was right.
Biffed TEMPERAMENT with no idea at all what was going on.
NHO ANTITRADE though once I saw the explanation here I thought I’d maybe seen it in a crossword before.
After having cheated on antitrade, I gave up and pressed reveal on HEIFER, which I’d like to think I would have got had I cared enough, i.e. hadn’t invalidated any time.
All in all a little disappointed after my PB on the QC this morning and having read a few people on that blog flagging this puzzle up as a possible PB.
Yep – similar story here James. My QC was a PB (albeit corrections needed), this was over twice as long as my 15×15 PB. Appreciate people over there said this was a possible PB with the best of intentions but no – the vocab/GK here is something I will only learn if I do these regularly
the paper version of the Times had a picture of Alcaraz just above the crossword. searching my mind for current day tennis stars and old US prisons I had a quick break to reset my mind. Reading the caption to the picture and it fell into place. what a coincidence given that this crossword was allocates to today well in advance of the French Open
Took ages to get TEMPERAMENT and ANTITRADE, but all straightforward enough for a Monday morning on the terrace of my American friends’ home wondering if I may perhaps have over-exploited their generous hospitality with the wines and multiple digestifs at last evening’s dinner. And of course I didn’t – this morning’s mellow feeling must be attributable to other causes. Put me down for 31 minutes including moments of semi-consciousness.
Whizzed through this in about 20 minutes, but shamefully entered Zorbaster instead of Zoroaster. No excuses.
Espalier was easy to get but surely it’s the trellis on which an ornamental shrub is supported, not the plant itself?
I also thought “attack” a weak definition of “find fault with.”
Oh well, DNF, defeated by TEMPERAMENT, which I have never heard of in that context, and ANTITRADE, equally NHO; maybe I would have got it if not for the ? after “worker”, which put me on the wrong track, looking for some clever cryptic rather than the bog standard “worker” = ANT, “current” = I
word play.
A pleasant Monday jog, completed in 28 minutes, of which 6 minutes were spent trying to unravel 22ac and 14 dn in the SW corner. Many of the clues would have been at home in the QC, but others were more testing. No complaints. I thought at one point that we might be on course for a pangram, but it was not to be.
FOI – COMBO
LOI – ANTITRADES
COD – ZAGREB
Thanks to ulaca and other contributors.
A pretty nippy 18.36 for me, but with fingers crossed on quite a few answers. ANTITRADE and HELPMEET were carefully constructed from the clueing without the confidence of being right, and even though ESPALIER was almost certain to be right, I always thought the word described some sort of climbing frame or trellis.
Pianos are usually tuned to strictly equal temperament (as well as can be done, since that is based on an irrational number, the twelfth root of two), and it is not clear how close Bach’s own “well temperament” came to that, there having been different “well-temperaments” that reduced the dissonances encountered in the popular “mean-tone” tuning, though the intention was the same as in ET: to make music consonant in all keys on an instrument that has only twelve tones to the octave, necessitating the sacrifice of harmonic fine-tuning to this practical consideration. But the possibility of modulating between keys in a song is certainly the loveliest aspect of the music it makes possible.
Most of this was very easy indeed. I ended with ANTITRADE, finally learning that it is not a description of the apparent tariff policies of the… reigning American president. Another kind of wind!
Only my third ever sub ten min. Pb is 7:57. Took three mins to think of Helpmeet. Dragged up from a tongue-in-cheek passing reference in AS Byatt’s Possesion. Lots in that book.
HELPMEET was a mondegreen arising from a typo in the original King James Bible. Eve was a help meet (ie suitable) for Adam, but the gap between the words was omitted. Later people started saying and spelling the word as ‘helpmate’.
Autotrade was surely not possible, so ANTITRADE it had to be.
48mins. Reached the last three of TEMPERAMENT, ANNULAR and ANTITRADES just past the half hour mark. Thanks for the explanation of what antitrades are. Think I was a bit thick in places because I mentioned correct components to answers which I didn’t put together until later but even so, this really highlighted the gulf between the QC and the 15×15 for me personally.