Time taken: 8:50. A scan of the early times suggest that this is a more difficult one and I might have gotten lucky with a few familiar phrases and musical terms.
There is one clue in here that I absolutely loved that I suspect will polarize the crowd – 10 across has a really clever reference gimmick. Plenty of crafty wordplay along the way too.
How did you get along?
| Across | |
| 1 | Look closely at uranium splitting by itself (6) |
| PERUSE – U(uranium) inside PER SE(by itself) | |
| 4 | Irritating underwear one has on right for gala (8) |
| ABRASIVE – since underwear can be plural, it is BRAS, then I’VE(one has) after the right hand side of galA | |
| 10 | Clue beginning with this spotted around competition? (9) |
| SEVENTEEN – SEEN(spotted) surrounding EVENT(competition). Take a look at the first word of 17 down for your solution. | |
| 11 | Rib much appreciated with green salad on the side (5) |
| COSTA – TA(much appreciated) with COS(green salad) beside | |
| 12 | Knock over house with good grounds as if compelled (14) |
| PATHOLOGICALLY – TAP(knock) reversed, then HO(house) and LOGICALLY(with good grounds) | |
| 14 | Early aviator misplaces west at 90 degrees (5) |
| RIGHT – the early aviator is Orville or Wilbur WRIGHT, remove the W(west) | |
| 16 | Notice explosive device in place mostly targeting character (2,7) |
| AD HOMINEM – AD(notice) then MINE(explosive device) inside HOME(place) minus the last letter | |
| 18 | Snare drum beaten ready for battle (5,4) |
| UNDER ARMS – anagram of SNARE DRUM | |
| 20 | Labour’s position on Conservative split (5) |
| CLEFT – LEFT(Labour’s position) next to C(conservative) | |
| 21 | Noble English king rather plump — illustration showing otherwise? (14) |
| COUNTEREXAMPLE – COUNT(noble), E(English), REX(king), AMPLE(rather plump). Fantastic charade! | |
| 25 | Advanced piece of footwear for cycling against the rules (5) |
| TABOO – A(advanced) and BOOT(piece of footwear) all cycled | |
| 26 | Sliding scales sliding as originally devised (9) |
| GLISSANDI – anagram of SLIDING,AS | |
| 27 | Youth on Vespa perhaps inspiring lady with steady speed (8) |
| MODERATO – MOD(youth on Vespa perhaps) then ERATO(inspiring lady) for a second musical term in a row | |
| 28 | Unwrapping sport shoes, free to run? (6) |
| UNCLOG – FUN(sport), CLOGS(shoes) with the external letters removed | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Show internet users normal stomach having just given birth (10) |
| POSTPARTUM – POST(show internet users, like I will be doing to this blog in a few minutes), PAR(normal), TUM(stomach) | |
| 2 | Fixing bush in hedge that’s lost its crown (5) |
| RIVET – PRIVET(bush in hedge) minus the first letter | |
| 3 | Clearly utter gluttony for one painful condition (4,3) |
| SING OUT – gluttony is a SIN and GOUT is a painful condition | |
| 5 | Mark employed by memsahib in disguise? (5) |
| BINDI – hidden inside memsahiB IN DIsguise | |
| 6 | Hail sprayed CalMac crossing west of Islay (7) |
| ACCLAIM – anagram of CALMAC containing the first letter of Islay | |
| 7 | Cushion you stand on the back of in church, showing disrespect (9) |
| INSOLENCE – INSOLE(cushion you stand on), then the last letter of iN, and CE(church) | |
| 8 | Most upset after low grade for this? (4) |
| EXAM – MAX(most) reversed after E(low grade) | |
| 9 | Stylish couch brought over mid-broadcast (8) |
| DEBONAIR – BED(couch) reversed over ON AIR(mid-broadcast) | |
| 13 | Small amount, small being significant (10) |
| SMATTERING – S(small), MATTERING(being significant) | |
| 15 | Holding diamonds, try to make 7 hearts? Let’s hope not (3,6) |
| GOD FORBID – D(diamonds) inside GO FOR BID(try to make 7 hearts in whist or bridge) | |
| 17 | This year’s silly craze (8) |
| HYSTERIA – anagram of THIS YEAR | |
| 19 | Report of private antipathy (7) |
| RANCOUR – sounds like RANKER(private) | |
| 20 | Shackles one must escape performing Piaf number? (7) |
| CHANSON – CHAINS(shackles) minus I(one), then ON(performing). Earlier this year I made it over to Paris and as part of my decomposing composers tour I visited Edith Piaf’s grave. Memorable place. | |
| 22 | American casualty contracted fungal disease (5) |
| ERGOT – ER(American casualty section in a hospital), GOT(contracted) | |
| 23 | Friendly correspondent eschews second page for discipline (5) |
| PENAL – PENPAL(friendly correspondent) minus the second P(page) | |
| 24 | People considered one article (4) |
| ITEM – double definition. I just noticed this is the only double definition in the puzzle! | |
I visited Piaf’s grave as well recently! Fully bedecked with floral displays – she is still much loved, but there were many other gravesites of interest at Pere Lachaise.
Agreed on Pere Lachaise being an interesting visit – I was particularly taken by the memorials to Chopin, Poulenc, Gertrude Stein and Georges Melies. Ran into someone from Sydney who was trying to do French immersion at a creperie by the metro station.
I visited Beethoven’s grave to find him sitting up with an eraser and deleting all his sheet music. ‘Ludwig’, I asked, ‘what are you doing?’
‘I’m decomposing’
Another brilliant puzzle I thought. I usually have lots of trouble with tricky Thursdays but I managed to get through this unscathed.
The two long acrosses didn’t take too long to figure out and I found the wordplay in most of the clues very helpful. MODERATO brought back memories of my youth but on a Lambretta instead of a Vespa, and that also made day three in a row we’ve had ‘erato’. Didn’t get the parsing for GOD FORBID. EXAM was very clever. UNCLOG went in but never heard of ‘fun clogs’. COD to ITEM.
Thanks George and setter.
A bit of a MER at that too. Clearly FUN and CLOGS are separate items from the lifted-and-separated SPORT and SHOES – “fun clogs” are not a thing. But as I say, a MER; not sure if I approve or not of the device taking two parts of the wordplay then excising the first and last letters of the combined bits. Probably not… as an engineer I believe strongly in precision of writing and thinking, and that’s maybe a step too far. Though plenty of clues in crosswords are a step too far, which often makes them funnier or more interesting.
I solved this quickly enough, but I didn’t parse: God forbid, pathologically, counterexample, ad hominum, and seventeen. If you get enough crossing letters, the answers for the long ones jump out. I did think postpartum was brilliant, and chanson was very clever.
Time: 23:10
Really liked this one as well. LOI UNCLOG and took me a while to confirm both def and wordplay in my head. 25:34.
What a fun crossword. I thought this was going to be really hard when the first across clue I got was MODERATO, but it turned out to be approachable once I got some checking letters. As already pointed out, the long ones were obvious once I had a few checkers, although I did make the effort to understand the wordplay. I was sure 7d, INSOLENCE, was going to be something to do with “insulting”. But luckily I saw INSOLE which put paid to that idea. I was sure 17D was going to have “slam” in it somehow, until I had enough checkers to make it clear it could not. Fun workout.
22m
Does anyone know what kind of error it is when you figure out what the answer is (in this case MODERATO) but then enter an incorrect answer anyway (MODERATE). Can’t really call it a typo when the E key’s here and the O is way over there. Is it just early-onset dementia?
I’d call this a frequency effect. Having typed MODERAT, there are competing probabilities for what comes next. E is more likely than O. Somehow this translated to the wrong word actually being typed (the subconscious checking mechanism didn’t jump into action – and obviously the conscious one didn’t either, otherwise you’d have known!). Where the actual locus of the error is is difficult to determine: could be totally nonlinguistic and just a function of frequent motor patterns (typing sequences)!
Early onset diamante, perhaps?
SEVENTEEN – what a belter! Quite pleased to finish in 22.24 without aids and (mostly) parsed.
FOI RIGHT
LOI RIVET
Many thanks G and setter.
46 minutes. Very enjoyable. I didn’t fully appreciate the wordplay in SEVENTEEN having missed the cross-reference, nor of GOD FORBID, but I’d like to think I would have worked out both if I’d been in blogger-on-duty mode.
UNCLOG was clever too, with ‘unwrapping’ needing to be applied to synonyms for ‘sport’ and ‘shoes’ taken together rather than individually. A kind of opposite of the more familiar ‘lift and separate’ device.
[Edit: When posting that, the screen hung for about 45 seconds before updating. I experienced similar problems navigating around the site through most of yesterday although the Home screen opened quickly enough on arriving at the start of each session. It would be useful to know if others have noticed this, or is it just me?]
In response to jackkt’s question do not appear to have any issues from Oz – both on box and now android.
Does seem a bit sluggish today…
Yes, slooooow response quite a lot yesterday and the day before. OK today.
Yes I have experienced similar sluggishness in the last few days.
(Appropriately enough when I posted that comment it froze completely for a couple of minutes and I had to refresh the page!)
Well and (mostly) fairly beaten again.
Liked 21ac COUNTEREXAMPLE when revealed here.
Even though could see the stretchy MOD for ‘youth on vespa’, did not twig to ERATO despite setters repeated daily insistence (And it being clear that MODERATE really didn’t cut the mustard – Doh!).
NHO these particular musical terms – also making GLISSANDI more difficult.
BINDI 5d and COSTA 11ac educational – hopefully will remember.
Re 10ac and 8d must also remember ‘this’ rarely applies within clue.
MER at ‘brought’ for inverting ‘BED’ in 9d (which we got).
Also not sure about PENAL 23d for ‘discipline’ (also got).
Thank you glh (under 10 mins . . . again?! – whatever drugs you’re taking, I want some) and setter.
In 9d, the inversion indication is “brought over”, perhaps not helped by the line break in between.
Unlike others I found this a struggle and probably didn’t deserve to get as far as I did (one DNF, EXAM) in about 45. I liked the arch devices like ‘youth on Vespa’ and ‘cushion you stand on’ once I’d figured them out but the wordplay for too many (eg PATHOLOGICALLY and SEVENTEEN) was beyond me. NHO COSTA and as far as I’m concerned BINDI is (i) a painful lawn prickle that is the bane of barefoot Aussie kids’ lives in summer or (ii) Steve Irwin’s daughter. Thanks glh.
From Highway 61 Revisited:
Now the fifth daughter on the twelfth night
Told the first father that things weren’t right
My complexion she said is much too white
He said come here and step into the light
He said hmm you’re RIGHT, let me tell the second mother this has been done
But the second mother was with the seventh son
And they were both out on Highway 61
Nice quote, but may I add an alternative from a favourite Dylan song:
I’ve been a moonshiner,
For SEVENTEEN long years,
I’ve spent all my money,
On whiskey and beer,
I go to some hollow,
And sit at my still
And if whiskey dont kill me,
Then I dont know what will
Though it does make you wonder why he was paying for his whiskey if he had a still…
Funnily enough I was thinking about Copper Kettle (which Bob did not write) and the line about not paying whiskey tax since SEVENTEEN 92 or whenever. I’m also now reminded of the great line in Nellie Moore, ‘they say whiskey’ll kill you but I don’t think it will…’
Excellent call Stavrolex, and I encourage, urge and beseech all those with similar insights to jump right in.
Tough but fair and fun to solve. Got 75% of the way through in 15 minutes, then came to a screeching halt in the Deep South, where things became fungal , musical, and Bridge-related.
As an American, I will always get a chuckle out of clues like 22D that seemingly give “Americans” an advantage, but then cross-reference back to some Britishism that even I, who have spent two months in England over the past two years, had never heard of (apparently, thankfully not!). Committing “casualty = emergency room” to memory.
TaG and setter.
A lot of enjoyable clues on this one, GOD FORBID and PATHOLOGICAL in particular, but I messed up on MODERATO having quickly spotted Mod and thinking Moderate worked for “steady speed” I moved on without figuring a proper parsing. Musical terms continue to be my kryptonite.
The time, although it doesn’t count with the error, was a speedy for us 33:34 at which I was slightly annoyed not to have managed to tap the button swiftly enough for a numerically pleasing 33:33.
That would have been ‘divinyl’?
52:53, no aids.
LOI EXAM, but GLISSANDO rather than the plural held up SMATTERING.
That SEVENTEEN clue was too clever for me. Really liked it.
ERATO again!
COD ITEM
Another victim of the MODERATE/O syndrome. How could anyone miss the ERATO allusion when she is fast becoming a fixture?
I have it down as comeuppance because I was too pleased with myself having got SEVENTEEN, POSTPARTUM and UNCLOG quite quickly- although the last two were a bit biffed TBH.
Oh well, tomorrow’s another Friday!
Thanks setter for good fun and glh for erudition.
I liked this one. 17dn is a clue of surpassing elegance.
Never quite parsed 10ac though it seems clear enough now. And the possibility of wearing more than one bra confused me a little in the clue above ..
Thanks for raising that. Something I wanted to get off my chest as well.
51 minutes with LOI ERGOT constructed rather than known. COD to SEVENTEEN. I found this tricky throughout but it remained logical. Thank you George and setter.
43 minutes. A good puzzle but an unsatisfying solve with too many, eg INSOLENCE and GOD FORBID, not properly parsed. One I could eventually parse was 27a where I changed the final E to an O just before submitting. SEVENTEEN was v. sneaky and I liked the ITEM double def.
21.20
I was starting to think I might suffer my third DNF within a week, but managed to get over the line with the brilliant 10ac.
I wouldn’t have known RIVET as a fixing bush, but the recent PERSE helped me to PERUSE.
LOI + COD SEVENTEEN
DNF. Turns out POSTPARGUT isn’t a thing! 🙂 Hanging my head in shame this week ….
I found this one hard to get into to but once I got momentum I made rapid progress and quite enjoyed a number of clues. Not sure if it was a new or less frequent setter but they seemed to have a unique style of clue writing.
Sadly defeated by a bunged in UNPLUG after failing to come up with anything. I think I could have got it with an alphabet trawl in hindsight.
Liked SEVENTEEN which was slightly ruined by me seeing it from the checking letters and then returning to 17d to check.
The long clues were all superb in this as well.
Thanks blogger and setter.
DNF.
I just couldn’t see ERGOT (which in hindsight is simple enough) and didn’t know the word. Ho Hum. Otherwise I enjoyed this solve and in particular SEVENTEEN which was easy enough to solve but had an entertaining surface.
Thanks to both.
About 25 minutes
– Didn’t quite parse UNCLOG
– NHO BINDI (or I’d forgotten it, as I imagine it’s come up in one of these puzzles before)
– Didn’t parse INSOLENCE as I didn’t see ‘cushion you stand on’=’insole’
– Biffed GOD FORBID once I had enough checkers
– Relied on wordplay for the unknown ERGOT
Thanks glh and setter.
FOI Taboo
LOI Ergot
COD Counterexample
After consecutive unforced errors, I was relieved to finish this one all green in 9.16, having torn myself away from the tempting MODERATE.
Thanks both.
My LOI proved to be one biff too many, but the two pink squares generated by “analog” allowed me to solve UNCLOG almost immediately. At least my downfall was genuine rather than being caused by yet another typo.
Finished wrongly after 13:19 with COD to PATHOLOGICALLY.
I changed ANALOG to UNCLOG at the last second before submitting. Sadly I had a pink elsewhere 🙁
33 mins, several of which spent justifying UNCLOG rather than Unplug or Analog. Are Fun Clogs a thing? If not its pretty random.
Otherwise much the same experience as Staticman1. I also like the added context in the hidden BINDI.
Thanks glh and setter
One error in an otherwise respectable 15 and change. And once again a setter opts for entirely the wrong brand of mod transport.
Just under 20 minutes for this excellent crossword which looks as if it was fun to blog. I might have spent quite a while on SEVENTEEN, not least because I was convinced that 17d started with HA (this year) which was mistaken in so many ways. Something a bit Listener-y about the combination, rather like when setters put in their name – this week Pandiculator – when they need you to input ME.
Fine clues throughout, and I’m almost inspired to purchase a pair of Fun Clogs: I’ll check with Amazon.
Congrats George not least for having this one to blog, but for an enviable time. I’ll have what you’re having!
DNF. COUNTEREXAMPLE, SMATTERING and UNCLOG missing at the 45-min mark, and I rather doubt I’d have seen them. Found this far harder than the ones earlier in the week, though the SNITCH is lower.
Tricky Thursday with several gimmes and some very vague ones. DNF; couldn’t work out 28a (f)UN CLOG(s) and wrote unplugs, not parsed of course, and careless. Quite a few biffs.
COD 27a Moderato which took a long time to solve (thought it began LAD) and to parse as I wondered if Erato and Vespa were related mythologically which they are not of course.
10a Seventeen biffed, never saw that 17d Hysteria begins “this”.
Many thanks to glh and setter.
7:23 Funny old thing, doing crosswords. I read that this was a difficult puzzle, and yet I found it by far the easiest this week (including my first DNF for several years), mainly because it was eminently biffable if you knew the vocab. I’m not usually a great fan of cross-references within puzzles but I loved the novel technique at 10ac. I don’t think ‘fun clogs’ have to be a thing for the clue to work: the question mark at the end shows that the setter is taking liberties by inventing this phrase. Anyway, COD to HYSTERIA for the smooth surface.
Fell victim to the MODERATE trap. It’s not even a real trap as the inspiring lady is obvious. Eejit! Otherwise PERUSE to UNCLOG in 20,34. Thanks setter and George.
Another MODERATE here. Didn’t get the clue but sailed on regardless. ERATO does seem to be rather a fixture
I missed the niceties of SEVENTEEN and INSOLENCE, although I entered them correctly without always knowing quite why. GLISSANDI I carelessly entered in the singular. Several people complain about the UNCLOGS clue referring to fun clogs, as if they should be things: why does this matter? Fun and Clogs are both clued OK. In charades one has elements within the answer clued as separate words and nobody seems to object: for example in 12ac we have (knock over) + house.
Good puzzle but a DNF as I had to use aids. Just couldn’t see ‘pathologically’ (I don’t really see it as a synonym for ‘as if compelled, tbh), which unlocked various NW crossers. Stupidly put in MODERATE, despite not being able to parse it correctly!
Third appearance of the Muse in as many days, though this time only part of the answer.
I was slow off the mark with this one, but recovered to finish in a respectable (for me) 41 minutes. Lots of music and Latin, so what’s not to like? There were a lot of clever clues, and my only MER was ‘as if compelled’ as the definition at 12ac. I spent too long trying to find an anagram out of ‘g’ and ‘as if compelled’ until the crossers showed I was on the wrong track.
Enjoyed.
FOI – UNDER ARMS
LOI -PATHOLOGICALLY
COD – SING OUT
Thanks to george and other contributors.
18:10 – very enjoyable. Don’t recall seeing the device used in 10ac before (SEVENTEEN) and the penny dropped only after completion.
ERATO-enough now.
Great puzzle but sadly undone by UNCLOG.
Can’t wait for tomorrow’s to see if the setter will achieve a snitch of over 300.
9:54. ERGOT my only unknown.
Lovely puzzle: 1dn and 17dn are little marvels, but there are several other great clues.
Great stuff today. 32 minutes.
At last I finish and in reasonable time for me too of 32 mins. Can we have some different daughters please?
Held up for a long time by a ridiculous mistake. I saw the anagram at 18 ac, then saw MARS — which had to be part of the answer, right? From there a short step to persuading myself that UNDER MARS was a poetic way of saying ‘preparing for war’. Never occurred to me that MARS and ARMS are anagrams, though that must be a crossword chestnut if ever there was one. So a very disappointing 33’43”.
I meant to ask, can someone explain 15dn for me? I understand that it’s something to do with Bridge but what does ‘try to make 7 hearts’ mean? Is there something particularly special about the number 7 or the suit hearts in this context, or is it just an example? I tried googling but haven’t found a comprehensible and satisfactory answer.
It’s a bid. If you were playing whist and thought you and your partner could win 7 tricks in hearts you would bid “7 hearts”. So trying to make it would be going for your bid.
Thank you. What does ‘7 tricks in hearts’ mean? Sorry for stupid basic questions but I know nothing about this and am just trying to understand!
I think I take from this that it’s a definition by example, i.e. there is nothing special about 7 or hearts and you might equally have bid 6 clubs or whatever.
Sorry I think I actually know this – a trick in hearts is when someone leads with hearts and you win the trick, correct?
I think it means seven tricks with hearts as trumps after contracting to make that by bidding 1H. One heart because you always add six to make any bid of one or above the majority of the thirteen tricks. A bid of 7H (another possible meaning) means winning all thirteen tricks.
Simples!
This is… not helpful 😂
One hour and nine minutes, after a long day featuring a pretty good lunch but that is a poor excuse! Never managed to parse the ‘bid’ in 15D, but will take our blogger’s word for it. I wonder if ‘erato’ will appear yet again tomorrow – must be a setters’ in-joke. Took me a while to parse 10A, but it was well worth the effort.
I found this very hard from start to finish, taking 44 minutes. LOI 24 dn which was a lucky stab in the dark really. Thanks blogger for the explanation, yes “people considered one” clever.
Very good puzzle which was probably a bit out of my league to be honest.
Thanks setter and blogger
Add me to the lists for both MODERATE and UNPLUG, but was pleased to get GOD FORBID quite early on.
25mins with LOI costa, which I did check. Now I see the explanation I reckon that’s a smart clue but not so much as seventeen.
24.45
Good stuff. Liked the bridge clue and SEVENTEEN.
Thanks George and setter
44:55
Not much enjoyed. Took ages to get going with just four clues solved after twenty minutes. After a long break, came back to it and made better progress, but still tons I didn’t get.
Thanks G
Took a while to get going, like Mike Harper above, but gimmes like RIVET and BINDI got me started, and I guessed correctly that COSTA had to be related to intercostal muscles, and the top half started to take shape. A silly spelling mistake at 12a PATHALOGICALLY held me up with 3d for a while (not many choices for A ?T), but I biffed AD HOMINEM, which started the lower half to appear with SMATTERING ( a clever clue ). The musical terms did not deter me, for once, but I was convinced that 27a started with LAD, so no hope there! My other boo-boo was UNCLOG, as I didn’t see the unwrapping’ technique of both sport and shoes. Nevertheless, a fun crossword, and COD to SEVENTEEN.