Lots to like here. How did you get on?
A rather sluggish 23:19 for me, attributable mainly, I think, to my limited skills. But life’s a bit like that, isn’t it?
| Across | |
| 1 | Highland service provided carnet for exchange student (6,7) |
| MASSIF CENTRAL – MASS (service) IF (provided) anagram* of CARNET L (student) | |
| 9 | Tool for gripping shellfish, pointed at the front (5) |
| CLAMP – CLAM P~ | |
| 10 | Undertones performed like this – drunk, one failing to sing? (5,4) |
| SOTTO VOCE – SOT (drunk/drunkard) TO VO |
|
| 11 | Note bold soirée uncovered everything for performance (10) |
| REPERTOIRE – RE PERT |
|
| 12 | Resigned from the French newspaper (4) |
| LEFT – LE FT | |
| 14 | Back in Birmingham’s first beat club (7) |
| NIBLICK – IN reversed B~ LICK (beat, as in ‘the Proteas licked the Green and Yellows’); back in the day before, very sensibly, someone named them the 1-9 irons, wedge etc, we had all sorts of weird clubs, including the niblick and the mashie niblick. | |
| 16 | Told fibs about first-class head of state that’s acted as intermediary (7) |
| LIAISED – AI S~ in LIED | |
| 17 | Endless merry-go-round of US party (7) |
| CAROUSE – CAROUSE |
|
| 19 | Comedy act, very new, excites (5,2) |
| TURNS ON – TURN SO N | |
| 20 | Hairy chap selecting news value periodically? (4) |
| ESAU – Not a word wasted, even if many are repeated. Are repeated. |
|
| 21 | Bachelor studies brilliant, featuring university accompaniment to main course (5,5) |
| BREAD SAUCE – B READS U in ACE | |
| 24 | One swimming in lochs if drowsy must turn around (9) |
| SWORDFISH – hidden reverse | |
| 25 | Header disallowed in dismal game featuring dozens of cards (5) |
| OMBRE – sOMBRE; from my brief scan of the Wikipedia page, this game was/is typically played with 40 or 52 cards | |
| 26 | Greece: my next island hopping escape (9,4) |
| EMERGENCY EXIT – GREECE MY NEXT I*; strangely enough, we travel to Kos at the end of the week to spend time with friends, followed by a hop to Astypalea | |
| Down | |
| 1 | One has ice cream prepared in a dish (8,6) |
| MACARONI CHEESE – ONE HAS ICE CREAM* | |
| 2 | Bank starts to suspend card and refuse payment (5) |
| SCARP – S~ C~ A~ R~ P~; a steep slope, or escarpment | |
| 3 | Immune to influence, Victor props up dodgy prime debt instruments (10) |
| IMPERVIOUS – PRIME* V IOUS (debt instruments) | |
| 4 | Mama who sang clubs wearing fine, long robe (7) |
| CASSOCK – [Mama] CASS C (clubs) in OK (fine); I wore a scarlet one when I was an angelic treble at prep school, sometimes with my rugby shorts underneath | |
| 5 | Unspoilt ancient city in old SA province (7) |
| NATURAL – UR in NATAL | |
| 6 | Criminal’s caught out swindler (4) |
| ROOK – |
|
| 7 | English soccer team at home in The Den? (9) |
| LIONESSES – cryptic definition; it’s a toss-up whether the England women’s or men’s team is more of an underachiever | |
| 8 | Wearing kit, Italian club set to play Partisan side (6,8) |
| VESTED INTEREST – VESTED (wearing kit) INTER[nazionale] SET* | |
| 13 | Yes, heartless blond Conservative admits “made up fantasy” (5,5) |
| FAIRY STORY – YeS in FAIR TORY | |
| 15 | Song from pub singer King famously (9) |
| BARCAROLE – BAR CAROLE [King]; it’s too late, baby… | |
| 18 | Having a job, longing to spend yen (7) |
| EARNING – |
|
| 19 | Conference side failing to finish attack (5-2) |
| TEACH-IN – TEA |
|
| hi22 | Peacekeepers fight to get out? (5) |
| UNBOX – UN BOX | |
| 23 | Move gradually along ridge, letting go of line (4) |
| EDGE – |
|
All good for me apart from two. SOTTO VOCE a really hard clue, but with a great definition: I’m not sure the band was ever all that outrageous on the booze front, but punks and new-wavers all tarred with a similar brush maybe. Then SWORDFISH pricked up my pedant’s ears, as I felt it would be better with ‘turning around’ rather than what was used. It’s the ‘in’ plus ‘must turn’ you see. Okay, okay.
The Lionesses underachievers? WHAAAT? They are the European Champions, poised to defend their title this year. As for the men, well, yes. 1966 was a very long time ago.
Came in at just under the hour. On the wavelength and a fair Monday puzzle. Had to Google the Teach In Eurovision reference that was mentioned – Ding-a-Dong apparently. I was 7 years old then. Thanks to all.
anyone for Massif Cantrel?
As ever I am amazed by my own ignorance. I just could not see scarp! Thanks for 1 down; last week I made macaroni cheese followed by ice cream never suspecting it would come in so handty today.
About 35minutes, a lot of time spent trying to convince myself that a TEACH IN could reasonably classed as conference. Finally realised that there was no alternative.
Otherwise a gentle start to the week. Pleased to see the NIBLICK come out of the bag as I have been trying to convince myself partner that a detailed knowledge of golf and particularly the various clubs is needed for these puzzles.
29:33. Got all but 3 done in 15 mins and thought I might get a PB, but OMBRE, TEACH-IN and TURNS ON had other ideas. lovely puzzle even if it did mean staring at the remaining few clues for far too long… thank you!
Having made a mess of 1ac in the QC by biffing an answer that was pretty daft, I then proceeded to make a mess of 1ac here by writing in the answer to 1dn MACARONI CHEESE and then running out space for the final letter. Fortunately I was able to solve the first half dozen down clues, and MASSIF CENTRAL was then written over the previous insertion. The rest of the crossword was solved at a nice steady pace, finishing in 26.42, well inside my target. The only clue that I hesitated on was TEACH IN, where I wasn’t sure whether CHIN really fitted the bill as a synonym of ‘attack’.
This was a puzzle of two halves, with the bottom half, for me, proving tougher than the top half. All done in 25 minutes, but eight minutes were lost on the last two answers in the SW, 24ac and 19dn. Like others I registered a MER on CONFERENCE= TEACH-IN, but no doubt it will have support in some dictionary or other. I also wasted more time than I should on 15dn by trying to get BEN E (King) recognised at the beginning, rather than CAROLE at the end. On the tough side for a Monday, I thought, but enjoyable none the less.
FOI – LEFT
LOI – TEACH-IN
COD – VESTED INTEREST
Thanks to ulaca and other contributors.
Not too hard as long as you are old enough to remember Carole King and The Mamas and the Papas. I guess those answers are gettable even if you have no clue who they were/are (Carole is still alive aged 83). I just looked and Mama Cass died aged 32 in a room in Harry Neilson’s flat…and Keith Moon died in the same room also aged 32. That’s a bit like all the musicians who died aged 27: Jim Morrison, Amy Winehouse, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix…and many more.
Without any checking letters, I entered RUMMY (CRUMMY – C) instead of OMBRE, which I felt was a perfectly sound answer in all respects. Apart from when it came to solving the rest of the grid, that is.
SWORDFISH, and I thought I was getting better at spotting reversed hiddens!
The word play made my constant worry about the spelling of LIAISED evaporate.
At last I might now remember that MASSIF CENTRAL doesn’t have a terminal “e”
COD to SOTTO VOCE now it has been so kindly parsed.
Thanks ulaca and setter for a nicely non-average Monday puzzle
Swordfish must be one of the best ever hidden words, very smooth!
Nice crossword, 25′ for me. I didn’t know that ESAU was particularly hirsute, but I do now, and thanks for the Alan Bennett pointer! TEACH-in went in with a shrug, NHO OMBRE but it was well-clued (well, the sombre bit anyway, not sure about the dozens of cards), and COD SOTTO VOCE.
21:15 – much fumbled and mistyped on an iphone. I remembered NIBLICK from previous puzzles, never having knowingly encountered one in real life.
Found this rather trickier than most here, with the football references, the confusing NHO TEACH-IN and LOI OMBRE, barely remembered as having come across in a historical novel after an alphabet trawl. Certainly I would never equate sombre with dismal so that didn’t help. SWORDFISH was excellent and I liked MASSIF CENTRAL and EMERGENCY EXIT, but on the whole I didn’t like the preponderence of ‘subtract a letter’ clues.
The Lionesses are the current European champions, and were World Cup finalists in 2023. Their problems at the moment are in transitioning from the old guard to the new. The question of under-achievement or not, doesn’t really enter the equation. Yet.
The men have reached the last two European finals, and were World Cup quarter-finalists in 2022. They achieve roughly par for their rating, but the deluded public whipped up by the tabloid press sets an unrealistic bar, believing that the same team should perform equally as well, if not better than they did two years previously. Unfortunately the game moves on and it takes us a while to catch up.
Enjoyable puzzle. Some tricky wordplay and vocab but all gettable with a little thought. 25 mins: a smidge quicker than my average time.
Interesting to look at others’ experiences, because it seems my time is par for the course but the clues I found hard are different.
I took 26:52, having got all but the last 3 in about 17 minutes. But then I came to a screeching halt on 6dn, 19ac and 19dn. After many minutes, I finally thought of inter for the italian team, which gave me 6dn. Then 19ac I thought of “so n” at the end and got turns on. And finally the NHO teach-in.
Thanks setter and blogger
Late entry and 6 minutes slower than my twin. Too much roast chicken; crumble and wine will be my excuse 🙂
Like others TEACH IN and TURNS ON struggled to arrive and I had the mombled ORBID for the card game for quite a while. Oh dear.
Liked MACARONI CHEESE. Just as well I didn’t have that as well.
31 minutes. Delayed by (pen and paper) inserting BROWN SAUCE (lazy parsing, or non-parsing, thinking vaguely of a “brown study”) before realising that the third letter of 19D couldn’t possibly be a W and parsing the clue properly. A very nice crossword, slightly more adventurous than the usual Monday fare.
First daily 15×15 after several months of QCs (and a few weekend “let’s check the SNITCH for an easy one from this week”) and was fairly happy with it – had to biff a few, but was able to parse all but OMBRE and TEACH-IN, where I kept thinking back to schooldays and what seemed to be endless teachers’ conferences they’d always be away for.
COD MASSIF CENTRAL, lovely memories of summer holidays there. Thanks setter and ulaca (particularly for the Alan Bennett link!)
Fairly quick; held up by not knowing the LIONESSES, nor the TEACH-IN ( really?), and the choices for types of sauces took a while; but thought the reverse hidden was brilliant , and enjoyed the whole puzzle without too much strife.