Time taken: 10:37. I think this one is on the trickier side, as a lot of the early times are pretty close to mine, and I’m surprised. I went out tonight to celebrate a promotion, and then watched an abbreviated T20 match with a few more drinks before remembering that it was my turn to blog and I should really solve the puzzle.
I made really good time until the last four, which slowed me down forever, not helped by a confident incorrect answer originally at 1ac. Limped to a finish – how did you get along?
| Across | |
| 1 | Outline editor sent back, one putting pen to paper? (8) |
| DESCRIBE – ED(editor) reversed, then SCRIBE(one putting pen to paper). Did not help by cause by confidently entering DESIGNER for some unbeknownst reason. | |
| 5 | Sailor and Scotsman — such may be on the road (6) |
| TARMAC – TAR(sailor) and MAC(Scotsman) | |
| 9 | A half-hearted lord (3) |
| PER – PEER(lord) with one of the middle letters missing | |
| 10 | Harmonises different decorations (11) |
| COORDINATES – anagram of DECORATIONS | |
| 12 | Alert? No, one may surmise? (8,2) |
| SWITCHED ON – “no” would be a SWITCHED version of ON | |
| 13 | Pacific island’s tree-covered area (4) |
| GUAM – a GUM tree surrounding A(area) | |
| 15 | Idiot beginning to undermine church in that capacity (2,4) |
| AS SUCH – ASS(idiot), the first letter of Undermine and then CH(church). Fun clue! | |
| 16 | Fade away in barren land, becoming more sullen (7) |
| MOODIER – DIE(fade away) in MOOR(barren land) | |
| 18 | Time for a holiday, possibly close to sea and golf course (7) |
| AUGUSTA – AUGUST(time for a summer holiday, perhaps) then the last letter of seA. Golf course in Georgia best known for hosting the Masters | |
| 20 | Message from evangelist locked up after Bible study? (6) |
| REPENT – PENT(locked up) after RE(Bible study). I hear this a lot in the Southeastern US | |
| 23 | Member of crew cheated, taking in any number (4) |
| HAND – HAD(cheated) containing N(any number) | |
| 24 | Prepared, like one with hands in the till? (2,3,5) |
| AT THE READY – double definition, the second referring to READY meaning money | |
| 26 | Conflict mediator finally intervening between two parties? (11) |
| DISCORDANCE – last letter of mediatoR in between a DISCO party and a DANCE party | |
| 27 | Home said to be a place of refreshment (3) |
| INN – homophone of IN(home) | |
| 28 | Reluctant to talk about a couple of bishops being dishonourable (6) |
| SHABBY – SHY(reluctant to talk) surrounding A, and B,B(couple of bishops) | |
| 29 | American street artist and girl in bar (8) |
| ASTRAGAL – A(American), ST(street), RA(artist) and GAL(girl) | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Put down pillar with bottom disappearing in river (6) |
| DEPOSE – POST(pillar) minus the last letter inside DEE(river) | |
| 2 | Military actions with soldiers penetrating farm buildings (7) |
| SORTIES – OR(soldiers) inside STIES(farm buildings) | |
| 3 | Venue for a meeting of Arabs? (10) |
| RACECOURSE – cryptic definition based on an Arab being a type of horse | |
| 4 | Clue to her date being very upset? (13) |
| BROKENHEARTED – HER DATE could be BROKEN HEARTED | |
| 6 | Composer has hair trimmed at the edges (4) |
| ARNE – BARNET(hair) minus the external letters | |
| 7 | Floor coverings I placed around old city for festival (7) |
| MATSURI – MATS(floor coverings) and I surrounding UR(old city) | |
| 8 | Aromatic plant suffering with contrary female gardener (8) |
| COSTMARY – COST(suffering, monetary hardship) with MARY (Mary, quite contrary) | |
| 11 | Pessimistic folk command others to change (4-9) |
| DOOM-MERCHANTS – anagram of DOOM MERCHANTS | |
| 14 | Pass hotel employee pressing uniform for bookseller (10) |
| COLPORTEUR – COL(mountain pass) and PORTER(hotel employee) containing U(uniform) | |
| 17 | They are in cells at hospital protected by sets of rules (8) |
| CATHODES – AT, H(hospital) inside CODES(sets of rules). Electronic cells. | |
| 19 | Type of rap music filling Georgia with dread (7) |
| GANGSTA – GA(Georgia) containing ANGST(dread). I’ll leave it up to you to determine if music needs to be in the definition | |
| 21 | Possibly cosying up to one wanting love with a token of love (7) |
| NEARING – ONE mins O(love), than A,RING(token of love) | |
| 22 | Service manual? (6) |
| HYMNAL – cryptic definition | |
| 25 | Company doctor’s card (4) |
| COMB – CO(company), MB(doctor) | |
I had to treat this one like a Mephisto, where I used the wordplay to get unknown words. Well, actually, I knew astragal and colporteur are words, but not what they mean – it was matsuri that I did not know at all. But I ended up stuck in the depose/sorties/racecourse/brokenhearted/describe/switched on corner, with little to show after ten minutes. Then, as usual, I got one answer and they all came in a rush.
Time: 45:47
why is bible study RE? Religious education?
Exactly. Sometimes also RI for Religious Instruction.
Mrs rv has A Level RE which she does not like me referring to as her Scripture Knowledge prize
Or RS for Religious Studies.
I had all three of those, at the various schools I attended, and paid attention in none of them… 🙂
This took me ages but I persevered and managed to finish, learning a few new words along the way. COSTMARY was one I’d never heard of or forgotten but after finally remembering ‘Mary the contrary’ and seeing the cost/suffering hint in it went. MATSURI was another NHO but knowing the ancient city from many cryptics and the rest of the wordplay, it came. ASTRAGAL was another, although it does ring a bell, but got from the wordplay. Absolutely loved BROKENHEARTED when it finally fell. HYMNAL held out for a long time. COLPORTEUR another NHO but again just followed the wordplay. Liked DOOM MERCHANTS, George, you’ve got the wrong anagrist for this, should be ‘command others’. AUGUSTA and GANGSTA, both brilliant. COD to RACECOURSE for the Arab meeting, fooled me for some time.
Thanks George and setter.
26:20
Like Vinyl, I ‘knew’ ASTRAGAL & COLPORTEUR, but not what they mean. Also COSTMARY (MARY came right away; COST took a while). I knew MATSURI, of course, though I was quite surprised to find it here; dnk that it was used in English (ODE for some reason defines it as ‘a solemn festival …’; why ‘solemn’ I have no idea. It’s not in my English-Japanese dictionary). I liked PER and BROKENHEARTED.
I looked it up in Wikipedia – I had no idea the Japanese were into festivals in such a big way. Good for them! They don’t sound very solemn..
Around 45 minutes. I found this the easiest Thursday for some time possibly since I remembered past answers like COLPORTEUR, DOOM MERCHANTS, GUAM, GANGSTA, AT THE READY, ARNE, SORTIES.
Saw HYMNAL immediately and NHO MATSURI had very clear wordplay. I seem to remember RACECOURSE and Arabs from the past. I missed some of the parsing but it was just one of my clear thinking days after a four day DNF Tuesday to Friday last week..
Thanks G
‘Easiest’…shouldn’t that be ‘least difficult’?
I biffed HIPPODROME for 3dn!
DNF as I used aids to finish this off. Far too many NHOs for me COSTMARY, MATSURI, ASTRAGAL I managed to assemble. COLPORTUER (got the PORTUER component) and HYMNAL (which I know so no excuses) ultimately defeated me though.
I am also guilty of confidently writing in DESIGNER at 1ac before BROKEN HEARTED put an end to it.
Quite enjoyed this though. Liked DISCORDANCE and AUGUSTA.
First fail of the week.
Thanks blogger and setter
35 mins but I did have to check the NHO COSTMARY. Pretty enjoyable on the whole with some nice meaty anagrams.
I particularly liked BROKENHEARTED, SWITCHED ON & DOOM MERCHANTS.
Thanks g and setter.
25 mins and turned out easier than expected, with generously clued unknowns COSTMARY, ASTRAGAL and COLPORTEUR. Really enjoyed this one actually 🙂
Around 45 minutes but I needed aids for COSTMARY where the only ‘female gardener’ that seemed likely in a crossword might have been ‘Eve on the basis that she lived in one. Anyway I didn’t know the word, or thought I didn’t, but a quick scan of the TfTT archive suggests that its only previous appearance was in a Quick Cryptic in 2019. Other than that it has been mentioned in despatches a few times when the answer to the clue was its alternative name ‘alecost’.
ASTRAGAL, COLPORTEUR and MATSURI went in from wordplay only, but looked somewhat unlikely as words so I checked them in a dictionary before moving on. I sometimes persuade myself to relax competition rules if I am having a hard time of it.
Mostly very enjoyable and I liked image of the composer having a haircut.
DNF, HYMNAL and COSTMARY were too much for me this bleary morning. Congratulations on the promotion!
I too struggled with ASTRAGAL, MATSURI, COSTMARY and CATHODES, and by the time I got to COLPORTEUR I assumed that anything goes. For once I got the A/PER thing, albeit as LOI after quite a lot of head-scratching. 39.42 for me, very enjoyable, thanks G.
From As I Went Out One Morning:
As I went out one morning, to breathe the air around Tom Paine
I spied the fairest damsel that ever did walk in chains
I offered her my HAND, she took me by the arm
I knew that very instant she meant to do me harm
“Anything goes”. Very good!
Oh yes, and thought of you last night while seeing ‘Girl From The North Country’ for a third time.
A stage version or movie? I’ve got to get into this, haven’t so far, I hear the stage show has been fabulous and I’ll track down the film
I haven’t seen the film but I’ve seen it three times on the stage. Once at the Gielgud Theatre I believe in early 2020, once at the suburban theatre in Wimbledon and then again last night at the Old Vic (where I believe it had its original première). Yes it is very good although as a diehard Dylanite I tend to find myself waiting for the next bit of music and wondering why the last bit was so short and feeling that the acting is sort of getting in the way a bit! But that’s just me being Mr Grumpy. Yes I would say it is well worth going to see it and forming your own opinion.
32 mins. Same NHOs as everyone, constructed from wordplay and submitted with everything crossed. Why is card COMB?
There felt like a lot of chestnuts to start with: ARNE, GUAM, Arab = horse but then I hit the GANGSTA, DISCO combi and all was forgiven. Most enjoyable in the end.
Don’t know how you can do this after a few drinks but thanks. And to setter.
I think it is to do with carding wool, which you do with a comb. Both verbs here.
“Card” means to comb wool, flax and so on before spinning, as well as being an instrument that does so.
Tricky stuff, DNF after three good finishes this week. It was REMARK (mark=evangelist) that finally saw me off, leaving three unsolvable in the SE. ASTRAGAL was NHO, so things were already tough in that corner. And I had GEL for girl, so would have been a frustrating pink anyway. NHO COLPORTEUR.
Also went with DESIGNER but backtracked that one. DEFILE, DERIDE, DEBASE all looked possible until I finally decided post=column. Uneasy about AT THE READY, until crossers appeared as although it’s a clever clue I never hear “ready” in the singular: either “readies” or “ready money”.
ARNE, MATSURI and COSTMARY was a triple intersection of NHOs.
COD The intersecting reverse cryptics of BROKEN HEARTED and SWITCHED ON. But the straight anagram of DECORATIONS/COORDINATES was impressive and new to me.
Another good one I thought, despite the stretchy vocab. And a confident DESIGNER, like George. Impressed to find that co-ordinates and decorations are anagrams. Also liked switched on.
Do arabs race? I thought that was mainly throroughbreds, at least in the UK.
I can’t think of colporteur without humming “night and day” ..
And only a city dweller would think of moorland as barren…
For some reason I thought… aren’t all thoroughbreds descended from Arabs. There’s that huge conglomerate Godolphin, named after one of the original Arab racers? Or something? Google google: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godolphin_Arabian
So? We are descended from chimps, but… no thoroughbred is 100% arab.
Did that sound as if I had a clue about horses? Treat them with extreme caution, is all I know. They have no brake pedal.
More accurately we have a common ancestor with chimps. More interestingly all living Europeans are descended from Charlemagne.
Yes, purebred Arabs race. The races are sometimes tagged on to the end of a normal race meeting.
DNF, with DEBASE rather than DEPOSE which meant I couldn’t get PER.
– Is there any need for the question marks in the clues for DESCRIBE and DISCORDANCE?
– Had heard of ASTRAGAL without knowing it’s a bar
– Relied on wordplay for the unknown MATSURI and COSTMARY (where I nearly bunged in CASHMERE)
– Couldn’t have told you that a COLPORTEUR sells books
– MER over HYMNAL, because you need more than a hymnal to lead/follow a service
Thanks glh and setter.
COD Shabby
Yes, I jotted down DEFILE, DERIDE, DEBASE with FILe, RIDge, and BASe all looking possible.
DNF. Ran out of time but doubt if I would have got COSTMARY ASTRAGAL/HYMNAL unaided
Pleased to remember that ARABS often means horses but mustn’t forget that farm buildings aren’t always barns. COD BROKEN HEARTED.
Thanks to George and the setter
Same as many others: Too many NHOs for me. Should have got HYMNAL, so kicking myself over that, but also missing ARNE. Guessed the others correctly, following wordplay and crossing fingers – ASTRAGAL, MATSURI, COSTMARY, COLPORTEUR – but any of them could have gone awry. Don’t mind one or two unknowns, but this felt a bit OTT. Liked BROKENHEARTED.
Started quickly but then slowed down a lot. Several NHOs – ASTRAGAL, MATSURI, COLPORTEUR, COSTMARY but able to (eventually) construct from the cryptics. Had REMARK for a while before realising that did not account for all the clue (“locked up”).
Had to rely on wordplay for the unknowns, COLPORTEUR, COSTMARY, MATSURI and ASTRAGAL, but it was quite fair. The reversing ED was my first entry to the grid, followed by PER and DEPOSE. SCRIBE came a lot later, but I wasn’t side tracked by signer. AUGUSTA wa LOI. 22:58. Thanks setter and George, and congrats on your promotion.
15:38 trusting to the wordplay and crossed fingers for the four unknowns otherwise fairly straightforward.
Although this started off looking a bit too easy, it transpired to be tough but rewarding – so we persevered and got there with the majority parsed.
For one of the poster new comers from yesterday, we also take hours.
As already indicated by others, this was very fairly clued eg. 29ac ASTRAGAL, 14d COLPORTEUR, and 7d MATSURI all determined from parsing the clues and looking up those unknowns.
Yesterday’s warning on reverse anagrams indicated the DATES fate in 4d.
Once twigged that the contrary gardener was Mary, 8d was on the way.
On the other hand had to look up both ‘composers’ and ‘hair’ in to get the fodder to make the answer in 6d.
Thought HYMNAL 22d a brilliant clue. Also liked 26ac and 15ac.
Like at least one other, had to come here to understand RE in 20ac.
Only slight MER was 26ac with ‘shy’ for reluctant to talk.
Thank you setter and glh. (I’m gwh in real life BTW)
50:35. I found this pretty hard – BROKEN HEARTED was too clever for me to parse (shouldn’t it be two words or at least have the hyphen a la DOOM-MERCHANTS?). NHO COLPORTEUR. Very enjoyable solve though.
BTW was there one other item in this puzzle that ODE showed as hyphenated?
Or was that the one I noticed?
DNF
Couldn’t justify cost = suffering despite considering it for a while; eventually went for case = suffering with, as in a case of the flu. Didn’t have a lot of confidence in that either. I still don’t really think cost is all that great as a synonym for suffering, but there it is.
Thanks, g.
I had the same thought but one of the definitions in Collins is ‘suffering or sacrifice; loss; penalty’ so I guess we have to allow it, begrudgingly in my case. Suffering and sacrifice are completely different things to my mind so I find this an unhelpfully vague definition. As if something was defined as ‘an aardvark or a motorcycle’
Thanks, k. I should’ve checked Collins. It is a bit vague, as you say, but I guess if it’s listed that’s it 🙂
Well I think the news that Collins (or any other) is God, (to use Mark Twain) has been greatly exaggerated.
Well of course not, but since the meanings of words are always ambiguous, contested and constantly changing I think we should give the benefit of any doubt to the setter if one of the usual dictionaries supports them.
This response might be a little late due to time diff and need to sleep.
But, I disagree. In ODE I trust to some extent, but to give the benefit of the doubt based solely on mention in one (lesser) dictionary alone, is not acceptable in my (less than humble?) opinion.
I think Collins is an excellent dictionary. But if we’re into the realm of personal opinions on which of the leading dictionaries merits our ‘trust’ then I fear we’ve lost a little perspective.
My perspective on this is that a decision (if in fact actually required) on whether a particular synonym deserves respect should not be based on one source but a balance of evidence.
Always bearing in mind of course that what we are engaged in is an intellectual entertainment.
BTW, if U still ‘have Ur ears on’, pls feel free to have the last word – as, on this site, I am confident it will be to the point and polite.
FWIW, the online ODE (aka Premium ODE) lists synonyms underneath its definitions and the entries for ‘cost’ include ‘suffering’. Chambers mentions ‘suffered’ twice under ‘cost’ but the way the definition is phrased doesn’t lead to ‘suffering’ appearing as such.
The entry in Collins has been discussed already, so one way or another all three of the official sources for Times crosswords would seem to have this covered.
s
Rose for Rosemary had me doing mental gymnastics to try and justify rose=suffering.
Me too! I think I had *vaguely* heard of COSTMARY somewhere, and once I had the C in place, eventually convinced myself ‘cost’ might be ‘suffering’, at least in a dictionary.
10:25. No major problems today. Some of the funny words were vaguely familiar: COLPORTEUR from French, ASTRAGAL and COSTMARY from past puzzles, probably Mephisto. MATSURI a complete unknown but the wordplay was helpful.
40 minutes with LOI CATHODES. COLPORTEUR, ASTRAGAL and MATSURI were all semi-constructed and at best part known. COD to HYMNAL. I was musing in church on Sunday about what the differences between Hymns Ancient and Modern and the Church Hymnal were. Nowadays the words are put up on a large screen, but sometimes modernised, which is annoying as I try to remember them without looking.
I enjoyed this puzzle. Thank you George and setter.
A few largely unknown words which could be assembled from wordplay, as should be the case (although the CDs went in without knowing for sure). 34 minutes, good clues I thought, particularly BROKENHEARTED, but I did know ARNE (he is thought to have composed God Save the King/Queen, but to my knowledge not certain).
Never heard that before, but he certainly wrote the music for Rule Britannia.
Well done Will, totally defeated me. A dnf. Never heard of astragal, colporteur, costmary or Matsuri. I got only the last of those from the wordplay. I thought Thomas Arne wrote Rule Britannia, not the national anthem?
Your reply worried me slightly, as did Jack’s. I wondered if I had it wrong. But Googling tells me that some versions are anon., arranged by Arne, and others quite unequivocally say that he wrote God Save the …
Arne certainly made an arrangement that was performed publicly in 1745, but the tune is thought to be somewhat older than that, possibly based on a keyboard piece by John Bull who died in 1628. Thomas Ravenscroft, Henry Purcell and Henry Carey are other candidates in the frame.
National Anthem, not the same now it is so watered down… no more
“Lord, grant that Marshal Wade
May by thy mighty aid
Victory bring;
May he sedition hush,
and like a torrent rush
Rebellious Scots to crush!
God save the King! ”
..etc
The SE corner was the trickiest, with HYMNAL the last one in for some reason and lots of tricky vocab throughout the crossword. Did anyone else put ‘coshmary’ thinking it must refer to Mary being ‘under the cosh’?
Dnf – defeated by COSTMARY, plumping, since Mr Long Term Lurker asks, for the equally unlikely COSHMARY.
Great minds think alike!
27 mins but a lot of use of my scrabble dictionary at the end. ASTRAGAL, COLPORTEUR and COSTMARY in particular.
A DNF for me today – too many unknowns. Generous cluing got me matsuri, asteagal and colporteur but cost for suffering defeated me – castmary anyone? – and NHO hymnal.
Thx George and setter
17.11, marred by a unnoticed typo. When I lived in Bourton-on-the-Water, I knew a COLPORTEUR, whose occasional forays into street preaching were prone to interruption by local youths who administered involuntary baptism in the local river. His missus was of the more ferocious kind who refused to believe anyone could ever properly REPENT.
ASTRAGAL I entered with no idea how it was a bar, and the Japanese festival I’ve yet to experience.
Congratulations, George on actually producing a blog under the prevailing conditions!
Wikipedia tells us that an astragal, being a type of moulding, is not the same as a ‘sash/glazing/muntin bar’ (AKA ‘muntin’, though apparently only in the US) but is somehow often confused with it. I’m not sure why that would be the case though, as the bars separating panes of glass in windows are definitely not mouldings!
Against the grain, found it not too hard. Wavelength! Only one actual NHO, ASTRAGAL which was a guess as LOI, but things like COSTMARY and COLPORTEUR come up often enough they eventually stick (I don’t do Mephistos; must have been dailies). Didn’t fall into any bear traps, didn’t hit any breeze blocks, just worked my way through. Recognised what BROKEN-HEARTED and SWITCHED ON were going to look like long before solving them.
Pleasant puzzle.
DNF
Suffering = under the cosh, thus MARY UNDER THE COSH.
Fun to (not) do puzzle, thanks all.
Well, similar experience to yesterday though rather slower at 38:53 and we made liberal use of the ‘check’ function for the deducible but NHOs MATSURI, ASTRAGAL, COLPORTEUR and COSTMARY, as well as ARNE and HYMNAL which I was pretty confident of but wanted some reassurance on. Our last two were DEPOSE and SWITCHED ON. The latter had been suggested earlier by Mrs T but we couldn’t see how it worked (thank you, George!). It went in finally once we saw that DEPOSE would work with the crossing S. A satisfying challenge with a decent balance of learning. Liked RACECOURSE and BROKEN HEARTED with its similar structure to yesterday’s FORBIDDEN GROUND. Thank you, setter.
26:09
Didn’t find this too bad even if there were some things I’d never heard of – admittedly I checked for the existence of each of these before submitting: COSTMARY (nothing surprises me about the bananas names that plants are given), MATSURI, COLPORTEUR, ASTRAGAL. Some I just didn’t understand whilst in flight, so thanks G for the illumination – AT THE READY pencilled in with no checkers from definition, COMB. LOI was SORTIES.
Thanks also to the setter
This was a slow slog for me through lunchtime and dipping in and out in between meetings in the afternoon.
NHO ASTRAGAL, MATSURI, COSTMARY, COLPORTEUR, but eventually worked them out. Also NHO COMB and CARD being synonymous (looked it up after it went in and turned green). So I was very pleased to solve this without cheating, albeit in over 2 hours 20 minutes.
Definite COD for BROKENHEARTED. Lovely clue.
Thanks setter and thanks for the blog.
40 mins. Should have let myself recover from golf in the sun before tackling this. As a result had to take a break after 30 mins of slog. Just picked up where I left off and flew through the remainder in 10 mins.
Astragal was new to me as was matsuri. Lots of anagrams. Managed to remember Colporteur .
I successfully completed this at the same time as watching Wimbledon on the tv, so no time to report. I certainly found it tough, so wouldn’t have got much change out of an hour if I’d given it my full attention. Many answers I’ve never come across such as COSTMARY and MATSURI, but I trusted the clueing to get me there. I even managed to convince myself that 12ac was STITCHED UP, before DOOM MERCHANTS allowed me to reassess and get me SWITCHED ON!
In France, COLPORTEUR means any kind of door-to-door salesman, and in Paris you still see signs in the hallways of blocks of flats saying “INTERDICTION AUX COLPORTEURS”. Did this in 25’43”, after guessing several of the more obscure answers. LOI COSTMARY which I admit I checked before entering. Quite a tough one.
I enjoyed this, though it took a bit longer than I would like, at 48 minutes. I was held up for longer than I should have been in the NW corner, and also by 8dn, where I eventually plumped for the NHO COSTMARY rather than the equally NHO COSHMARY, arguing that a cosh was the cause of suffering rather than the suffering itself. I had a distant memory of an astragalos as a Greek word for a bone in the foot (used for playing dice) so I had no hesitation about ASTRAGAL, even though its meaning as a bar was new to me. I am now wise to the use of Arabs in crosswords to refer to horses, even if I am completely ignorant on the intricacies of horseracing. COLPORTEUR (but not its meaning) was recalled from previous crosswords. Generally good fun.
FOI – TARMAC
LOI – COSTMARY
COD – BROKENHEARTED
Thanks to george and other contributors.
I took just under half an hour and found this rather easy! Which is not to say I had ever heard of the AUGUSTA golf course, ASTRAGAL, MATSURI or COSTMARY, but the wordplay and the crossing letters were kind enough. The only question I had while solving was whether COSTMARY could be right. MARY, Mary, quite contrary was a giveaway and TARMAC made ROSEMARY impossible, so I thought it might be CASEMARY before deciding that a case, in medicine, might be a particular patient but not his suffering. Fortunately COST… did seem to fit better. Only when I had finished did I realize how many words in the answers I actually didn’t know.
I took exactly 45 minutes and my last 3 in were COSTMARY, ASTRAGAL and COLPORTEUR, 2 of which (Costmary and Colporteur) were completely new to me, while Astragal I knew the word but thought it meant a moulding round the top of a pillar. So I counted myself lucky to finish unscathed! There were some clever misdirections in the clues as well.
Thanks setter and blogger
Same unknowns as others but all gettable from the wordplay so no complaints. No recorded time but probably around 30 mins. 4/4 correctly completed puzzles for me this week so keeping my fingers crossed for a doable puzzle tomorrow and a very rare for me full set. Thanks setter and George