Time: 35:02
Music: Prokofiev, Romeo and Juliet, Maazel/Cleveland
I was able to get many of the answers very quickly, as there are quite a few clues here we have seen before. Unfortunately, there are also some that require a little thought, and since my cryptic brain was falling asleep I had to struggle. The cinchona/austerest crossing gave particular difficulty, but Ivanhoe was also tough. There was a considerable period where I could see nothing, but after I got up to flip the record I saw several answers almost immediately – funny how that works. The early solvers have all done well, but I suspect the sting in the tail will catch out a few of the later ones.
| Across | |
| 1 | Style of construction of a brick house (6) |
| FABRIC – Hidden in [o]F A BRIC[k], with house as a verb indicating the hidden. | |
| 4 | Something easy to do with a tree (8) |
| CINCHONA – CINCH + ON + A. Not a well-known tree, so just follow the instructions. | |
| 10 | Area with an enclosure invaded by soldiers (7) |
| ACREAGE – A C(R.E.)AGE. The Royal Engineers, always getting into trouble. | |
| 11 | Makes boxes to accommodate drug (7) |
| CREATES – CR(E)ATES. Aha, a chestnut! | |
| 12 | Whistleblower stopped by English bank (4) |
| REEF – RE(E)F, another easy one. | |
| 13 | Underground organisation, as in secret moving? (10) |
| RESISTANCE – Anagram of AS IN SECRET. | |
| 15 | Replace wonderful children after daughter moves west (9) |
| SUPERSEDE – SUPER + SEED with the D moved one position west. | |
| 16 | Mean to shun male bore (5) |
| EAGRE – [m]EAGRE, a tidal bore, that is. A write-in for experienced solvers, otherwise likely to give trouble. | |
| 18 | Article containing argument for protective cover (5) |
| APRON – A(PRO)N. | |
| 19 | Despatched to restrict a crowd in religious ceremony (9) |
| SACRAMENT – S(A, CRAM)ENT. | |
| 21 | Word currently employed succeeded “limits” (10) |
| TERMINUSES – TERM IN USE + S. | |
| 23 | Restless desire barely fits companion (4) |
| ITCH – [f]IT[s] + CH, Companion of Honour. | |
| 26 | Millions stolen from Russian ruler in novel (7) |
| IVANHOE – IVAN, HO[m]E, a classic lift and separate clue where the solver is likely to overlook the significance of in. | |
| 27 | Model admires piece to be worn (7) |
| SIDEARM – Anagram of ADMIRES. | |
| 28 | Better rest up after match (8) |
| GAMESTER – GAME + anagram of REST. | |
| 29 | Show-off regrets work being sent back (6) |
| POSEUR – RUES OP backwards. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Talent to burn brightly for the audience (5) |
| FLAIR – Sounds like FLARE, another chestnut. | |
| 2 | Hobart’s one server of drinks (9) |
| BARKEEPER – [ho]BAR[t]. | |
| 3 | This writer’s embracing maiden — one making Friday call? (4) |
| IMAM – I (M) AM. | |
| 5 | Pitch trendy Conservative policy (7) |
| INCLINE – IN + C + LINE. | |
| 6 | Revolutionary wife, ace in crime, creating gossip (4,3,3) |
| CHEW THE FAT – CHE + W + THEF(A)T. | |
| 7 | Playwright with men leading the fashion (5) |
| ORTON – OR + TON, two crossword words that will never die because they are too useful. | |
| 8 | Most severe wind is across the Channel (9) |
| AUSTEREST – AUSTER + EST. | |
| 9 | Worship always in part of school curriculum? (6) |
| REVERE – R(EVER)E, i.e. Religious Education. | |
| 14 | Displays breakfast containers? (10) |
| BRANDISHES – BRAN DISHES, a chestnut that caught me out. | |
| 15 | Remarkably different bird, catching insect finally (9) |
| STARTLING – STAR(T)LING, a chestnut that did not catch me out. | |
| 17 | Dog wrecked tea garden (5,4) |
| GREAT DANE – Anagram of TEA GARDEN. | |
| 19 | Sleep in small cabin with study (4-3) |
| SHUT-EYE – S HUT + EYE. | |
| 20 | Go up, moving out in line (6) |
| CREASE – [in]CREASE. | |
| 22 | Lots of paper getting left in field (5) |
| REALM – REA(L)M. | |
| 24 | Woman receiving honour for successful hit in US (5) |
| HOMER – H(O.M.)ER. Equivalent to a boundary, but how many runs you get depends on how many baserunners there were, if any. | |
| 25 | Slimmed down after reducing starchy food (4) |
| EDDO – Hidden in [Slimm]ED DO[wn]. | |
I missed that “hobart’s” was a BARKEEPER since it is also a BARTENDER (“bart”-ender). That held me up for SUPERSEDE since I was foolishly thinking “what is a word like SUPERSEDE but with D as the third letter” plus assuming that D was the one that was moved west. Eventually I clicked. Never heard of CINCHONA. I had CINCH immediately but ON for “with” seems a bit vague. Anyway, finished in the end. I liked “is across the channel” for EST.
Deleted now that I’ve read a few more comments!
Bartender was my downfall too. I thought it was a pretty clever answer, but it held up supersede for far too long. Twigged eventually. A 10 minute job turned into a routine 25 minuter.
I parsed it as ‘something easy’ followed by ‘on a’ = ‘to do with a’.
You need to underline “starchy food” at 25D, especially as it is not that common a word.
Not on the.wavelength either and didn’t enjoy this one bit. Thought BAR inside of Hobart was pretty poor for BARKEEPER. Don’t get the ON in CINCHONA and never heard of the tree. Too many obscure clues and definitions in my opinion for a Monday.
Thanks Vinyl.
ON – to do with; re.
Mondayitis! I read the cinch as ‘something easy to do’. Thank you.
I had all but TERMINUSES, BRANDISHES and ACREAGE as I reached my half-hour target, but I needed another 16 minutes to plug the gaps and then wondered what my problem had been as they were all reasonably straightforward.
EDDO was the only true unknown, but as it was hidden it didn’t delay me.
CINCHONA wasn’t familiar but I followed instructions and was rewarded. Its most recent appearance as an answer was in a puzzle I blogged 5 years ago, but it was also part of a clue in a Jumbo I blogged more recently, and I mentioned it myself in another blog with reference to a clue to ‘tequila’.
14’44”, pleased to finish accurately. Nho EDDO, doubted AUSTER-, and only vaguely knew CINCHONA. LOI was ACREAGE after an alphabet trawl.
Challenging for a Monday, but I understand it’s a Bank Holiday in Scotland.
Thanks vinyl and setter.
DNF as I had to look up the tree. Tough Monday really, especially as I had BARTENDER for the longest time (well he does end in BART).
27:29
I made heavy weather with some of the easier clues but it was the unknown CINCHONA which cost me getting under my 20 minute target. Surprised to see 2 hidden clues in the same crossword, from my experience I normally expect 1 with perhaps another being a reverse hidden clue. Perhaps I’m just moaning because it took me too long to see the unknown EDDO. AUSTER and EAGRE were also new to me.
A decent challenge to start the week so thanks to both.
17:24 for an enjoyable if not very Monday-ish solve.
NHO or more likely don’t recall EDDO and CINCHONA, but I could hear Obi-wan whispering “trust the force” so in they went. IVANHOE, BRANDISHES, BARKEEPER and TERMINUSES also took time to unravel, all of them very much requiring the assistance of checkers.
Thanks Vinyl and setter.
Glad to see I’m not alone. I gave up needing 8 to finish.
50 minutes, with fingers crossed for CINCHONA and EDDO. I also was tending the bar until that notion was superseded. COD to BRANDISHES for the smile it brought. I also liked IVANHOE, both the clue and the memory of Roger Moore hamming it up even before The Saint and James Bond. Anyone else remember Dorothy Squires? Enjoyable but not that easy. Thank you V and setter.
“Anyone else remember Dorothy Squires?”
Me, Sir/Miss!
I served coffee and biscuits to her in her bedroom when I was working at a hotel in Wales during the school holidays in the mid 80s.
She was an old friend of the manager and was there to open the place after a makeover.
She was talking to someone about a “Rog” while I was there. I choose to believe it was THE Rog…
(“Rog” for shortened “Roger” looks wrong. “Rodge”…?)
Not sure they were still on friendly speaking terms by then. When Roger Moore lived a few doors away from me in the 1960s having set up home with Lisa, Dorothy arrived and chucked a brick through their window.
Gosh!
Maybe not THE Rog then…
Suppose she may still have been talking _about_ him though (so pathetic, my desire for a claim to fame 😄).
Well below my par time for a Monday at 39:43 but since I missed the hidden for the NHO EDDO and I couldn’t see how AUSTEREST worked despite wanting to put it in I think I was off form today. Although reading a few comments maybe it was harder than I thought.
CINCHONA (another nho) was last in without much conviction so I was pleased to see all pink squares.
I though there was a good mix of straightforward and more difficult clues in this.
Enjoyed HOMER and SIDEARM (although must have been done before)
Thanks blogger and setter
Edit: Also totally missed how IVANHOE worked and just assumed there was some Russian politician named Mivanhoe who I had not read about.
DNF. Gave up on the hour with 79% complete. I found this comparable to some of the other recent out-of-my-league offerings.
Amongst the missing were CINCHONA, AUSTEREST, TERMINUSES and BRANDISHES. Admittedly BARTENDER and a silly FLARE did not help.
Must be a wavelength thing if others found it OK, I found it STARTLING when I came here.
Thanks both.
36 minutes. Same experience as our blogger, except I didn’t see STARTLING straight away and was slow to spot RESISTANCE. I dutifully followed the wordplay for SUPERSEDE, even though I would have spelt it as SUPERCEDE which Oxford Dictionaries (and Merriam-Webster) tells me is an incorrect, though not uncommon, spelling; it’s not in Chambers or Collins.
A CINCH ON A Monday? Not for me.
I gave up and went for breakfast. Suitably refreshed, and having checked with my fellow diners that it really was Monday today, I came back to it an hour later and zapped it. I was fortunate to have no unknowns to contend with, and once I’d amended “bartender” to facilitate SUPERSEDE it seemed far less daunting.
Thanks to Vinyl1 for parsing BARKEEPER, which was my sole biff on correction. TERMINUSES? Always termini as far as I’m concerned!
FOI REEF
LOI CINCHONA
COD IVANHOE (parsed afterwards)
TIME 10:54
23.58, with interruptions working the same way that disc-turning did for V. Very few answers went in on first reading.
For BARTENDER/KEEPER I had a vague memory of one such Hobart in literature, probably Hemmingway, and possibly influenced by the entirely inapt Humbert Humbert. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how you get ’em.
Still trying to work out why I, and apparently half the assembled congregation, were sure it should be SUPERCEDE when it doesn’t exist. I put S with trepidation following the WP.
Two “hiddens” eh? How Times change! Speaking of which, did anyone else play around with Flemish for the “style of construction of a brick house”?
Hobart in Tasmania was what I thought of, wondering if there was only a single pub.
Flemish and Fletton
My thanks to vinyl1 and setter.
15a I can’t spell SuperCede, but fortunately the clue made that spelling not work as an answer, so I reluctantly corrected it. Supercede deleted from Cheating Machine.
21a POI Terminuses look wrong but Wiktionary has it as an option.
26a Ivanhoe. Biffed. I could see Home OK but didn’t connect it with “in”. Doh!
I had ‘on=with’ due to thinking that ‘on that having been done=with that having been done’ but the ‘to do with=on’ equivalence is a better explanation for how CINCHONA works. I had VHO the tree but I forgot why, it’s also called ‘quinquina’ and is the source of quinine and it’s named after the countess of Chinchón who was cured by its bark, so a historically and etymologically interesting and important word and tree. I remembered the spelling of SUPERSEDE and how that spelling came about but that still doesn’t explain the way that ‘precede’ and ‘proceed’ have differently spelt suffixes!
Also found it hard. Loved SIDEARM for the second meaning of piece. I was another Bartender, until I saw SUPERCEDE (sic) which a quick parse corrected. Dyslexically wrote in EAGER, knowing both MEAGRE and EAGRE, delaying AUSTEREST. Where I guessed AUSTER was a French wind c.f. scirocco, mistral et al, and “French” applied to the whole clue. CINCHONA vaguely recalled.
Two MERs:
The grammar in The Times is usually impeccable. 1ac must be “Style of construction of a brick houses” with the S on the end.
And what is “different” doing in 15dn? Remarkable by itself would work, but for me startling is remarkably unexpected, not remarkably different.
Agree re “of a brick houses.” I assume the logic is supposed to be “the words ‘of a brick’ house FABRIC”, but if you ask me the fodder should be treated as singular.
I thought that too, but then I saw it works if you treat ‘of a brick’ as three words, which house the answer.
Excellent! I didn’t see that, but it works.
Glad I didn’t think of BARTENDER. Had to tread carefully with EAGRE because I couldn’t remember if it was that or EAGER. I think I was being confused by AUGER, which also means BORE! (of a different kind). CHINCHONA I’d only vaguely heard of and had to sort-of-guess. 17’19” Many thanks.
33:43
Good start but a bit of a grind to finish. Some notes:
CINCHONA – Not sure I’ve heard of the tree – if I have, then it’s probably from around these parts. I saw CINCH but ‘with = ON’ puzzled me, so thanks for elaborating
SUPERSEDE – one of those words that you need to remember how to spell, like ‘desiccated’
IVANHOE – missed the ‘in = HO(M)E’ part
BARKEEPER – no idea what was going on here – bunged in from last three checkers (which could easily have led to INNKEEPER but saw FABRIC immediately after)
EDDO – NHO and LOI – entered with a shrug
AUSTEREST – AUSTER = wind? I never knew….
Thanks V and setter
With HOMER isn’t there also a nod to ‘The Simpsons’ being “a hit [of another kind] in US”?
That’s how I parsed it – no idea about other ‘homers’ – I suppose it’s baseball…
⚾️
Four Baggers, Dingers, Bombs, the Big Fly, and Taters all Go Yard.
Sad that The Rules of Baseball fail to include a useful glossary.
Tricky Monday! From FLAIR to the NHO CHICONA in 35:11. Biffed IVANHOE. NHO auster so AUSTEREST took a while. I’ve been burned by superCede in these puzzles so often that I’ve remembered it needs an S. Thanks setter and Vinyl.
I remembered the tree as a CINCH-something or other but didn’t have the wit to see the ON A bit. Since I had also forgotten the Auster wind, AUSTEREST wouldn’t come either; an unfortunate nexus from my point of view. Tough Monday.
23.15
Quick then like pulling teeth. FABRIC and EDDO both late entries, and little idea what was going on with BARKEEPER. Vaguely knew of the tree from somewhere.
Tricky but enjoyed it.
How these people can do crosswords quite efficiently when they’re watching something on television is beyond me. Today’s cricket was so absorbing that even though I wasn’t watching it but listening to it I couldn’t focus on the crossword so made very slow progress with it, 85 minutes. Got utterly stuck on ACREAGE, SUPERSEDE (although no problem with the spelling), IVANHOE and having a perfectly acceptable BARTENDER. In 21ac why the inverted commas?
[I had a lot of trouble posting this. Eventually I realised that it required me to give my name etc, something I don’t normally have to do.]
DNF, defeated by ACREAGE (the only word I could think of that would fit the checkers was AIRBASE).
– Didn’t know CINCHONA and was on the verge of putting CINCHOFA, thinking that ‘to do with’ was giving ‘of’, until I reconsidered as I was writing it in
– Was nowhere near getting IVANHOE until I got the I at the start from STARTLING
– Never come across GAMESTER before but the wordplay helped
– Didn’t parse CREASE
– NHO EDDO and took ages to see that it was a hidden
Thanks vinyl and setter.
COD Reef (easy, true, but a smooth surface)
13:27. Quite tricky for a Monday, and my last half-dozen or so took a long time. I did actually have the knowledge though, including the tree and the starchy food.
Not at the races. Exhausted after listening to the cricket, and a perfectly good BARTENDER held up the NE. In fact I think it’s better than Barkeeper.
NHO AUSTERE, EDDO, GAMESTER so was really struggling.
No one has mentioned it yet but CINCHONA is where we get quinine from.
Basically what everyone else has said – half to two thirds done quickly, albeit with a NHO EDDO and an unparsed CREASE, then hit a brick wall. BARTENDER held up SUPERSEDE forever (it ends in BART!) and NHO CHINCHONA. I would also say TERMINI, not TERMINUSES! Liked IVANHOE, SIDEARM and CHEW THE FAT.
All done and dusted in about 20 minutes, lucky to have the relevant GK.
For 3dn, I’d like to point out that a muezzin calls the faithful to prayer and an imam leads the salat.