Morning, everyone. Lots to enjoy in this little offering out there today. Nothing too difficult, nothing needing a good rub in the groin area, just one of those puzzles that some people will finish in twenny tuu minutes, others in less than twenny tuu minutes and yet others in more than twenny tuu minutes. There may also be people of course who don’t get round to finishing it at all, but that’s cricket.
All in all, a pretty marvellous effort in the cruciverbal arena.
15:36
| Across | |
| 1 | Liquid food originally consumed on river at Amiens (8) |
| CONSOMME – C ON SOMME | |
| 5 | Practical joker hiding small gemstone (6) |
| JASPER – S in JAPER | |
| 9 | Member of royal family embracing love endlessly in field? (8) |
| PROVINCE – |
|
| 10 | How is domination showing sound judgement? (6) |
| WISDOM – hidden | |
| 12 | Stop say leaving Hebridean island (5) |
| COLON – COLON |
|
| 13 | Irish Protestant’s rank in Arabian sultanate (9) |
| ORANGEMAN – RANGE (rank [vb], as in ‘He is ranged among the greats’) in OMAN | |
| 14 | Passion for dance born unexpectedly in a male alto (12) |
| BALLETOMANIA – B (born) anagram* of IN A MALE ALTO | |
| 18 | Violent robber faced with affectionate type’s confusion (6-6) |
| HUGGER-MUGGER – HUGGER (affectionate type) on MUGGER (violent robber) | |
| 21 | Lightweight fabric: part of army issue, it’s said (9) |
| PARAMATTA – PARA (part of army – apparently, para can mean an airborne unit as well as a member of such a unit) MATTA (sounds like matter); not to be confused with Parramatta, about 15 miles west of Sydney. When I passed through in 1978, I saw dozens of used car dealerships. When I used to do Richie Benaud as part of my after-dinner act at sports clubs, I gave him a wife, Raelene, from Parramatta, largely because you can say Parramatta in a particularly Richie-esque way. Quite extraordinary that. On edit: PARAMATTA the fabric is named after the place in Oz – it just lost an R. The place name is a corruption of the Darug appellation Baramada or Burramatta, which means eel place. There is a Parramatta Eels rugby league club. | |
| 23 | Graze, except around entrance to holding (5) |
| SHAVE – H~ in SAVE (except, as in ‘All came save Richie – extraordinary that’) | |
| 24 | Take in, as a joke, so to speak (6) |
| INGEST – sounds like in jest | |
| 25 | Attractive porcelain introduced by daily (8) |
| CHARMING – CHAR (daily, that is, cleaning lady) MING (China ware) | |
| 26 | String-player’s catalogue, including youthful recordings to begin with (6) |
| LYRIST – Y~ R~ (initial letters of words 5 & 6) in LIST (catalogue) | |
| 27 | Dowdy char, possibly, possessing strange power (8) |
| FRUMPISH – RUM (strange) P (power) in FISH (char, possibly); only a pedant would call a woman frumpish, no? Incidentally, I’ve never heard/seen either used to describe a man, though I’ve heard women use it of other women. From the Dutch word meaning ‘wrinkled’ originally. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Male bird swallowing extremely primitive Russian coin (6) |
| COPECK – P~E in COCK | |
| 2 | New dog failing to start pasta strip (6) |
| NOODLE – N |
|
| 3 | Determine position of old gallery containing nothing from France (9) |
| ORIENTATE – RIEN (non, je ne regret rien…) in O TATE | |
| 4 | Odd crime, to claim localised atmospheric conditions (12) |
| MICROCLIMATE – CRIME TO CLAIM* | |
| 6 | Copying narrow brooch in silver case (5) |
| APING – PIN in AG | |
| 7 | Bar ignores the writer’s feature on building (8) |
| PEDIMENT – |
|
| 8 | Italian home entertaining a native of Bucharest, perhaps (8) |
| ROMANIAN – ROMAN (Italian) A in IN (home entertaining a, i.e., put the letter A in the word IN) | |
| 11 | Map-maker and former president in possession of round plot (12) |
| CARTOGRAPHER – O GRAPH in CARTER (peanut farmer turned POTUS, famous for the words ‘I believe’, delivered with a smile and a Southern twang); on PLOT meaning GRAPH, the closest I can get is this definition in Collins: ‘a plan, map, diagram, or other graphic representation, as of land, a building, etc’ | |
| 15 | Great conductor crossing lake, initially missing whirlpool (9) |
| MAELSTROM – L in MAESTRO then M~; in Hong Kong, anyone who can hold a baton for 90 minutes without dropping it is called a maestro | |
| 16 | Sales assistant, unusually posh, left gear set up (8) |
| SHOPGIRL – POSH* reversal of L RIG | |
| 17 | Seaweed product a fish used repeatedly (4-4) |
| AGAR-AGAR – A GAR followed by A GAR; seven species of gar are still extant in eastern North America and in the Caribbean. Predominantly found in freshwater, members of one species are sometimes found in the sea. Apparently, they also hitch rides in sewers when the mood takes them. | |
| 19 | Island’s greeting welcomed by French film director (6) |
| TAHITI – HI in TATI; if you are interested in watching one Tati film, check Playtime out. | |
| 20 | Dimension one may measure in the fall? (6) |
| LENGTH – I have to confess to not getting this; the best I can do is to note that if something falls, it will typically cover a measurable distance, or length. On edit (there’s already an interesting discussion below): Collins (online entry 36 for ‘fall’) has ‘the distance that something falls’, which covers it, I think. On re-edit: then again, to measure one’s length is a phrase meaning to fall (never heard of it), so that’s what the setter must be getting at. | |
| 22 | Lawgiver primarily educated in Stirling? (5) |
| MOSES – E~ in MOSS (Stirling Moss was a charismatic racing driver of the 1950s and 60s, who never won the F1 world drivers championship) | |
23 minutes for all but one answer for which I resorted to aids, so this counts as a DNF.
The missing word was the NHO PARAMATTA making its first ever appearance in the TfTT era. For such an obscure answer I thought the wordplay might have been a bit more helpful.
I got COLON from checkers and ‘mark’. The wordplay was taken on trust. Although I consider my knowledge of Scottish islands to be above the average I don’t recall coming across COLONSAY.
‘Graph’ can be a verb meaning to plot or trace on a graph, so the definition in the clue is fine.
[Edit: Okay, to save someone else the bother, here’s what I wrote about COLONSAY when it appeared in a QC last year: “I got the Hebridean island from wordplay and didn’t recognise COLONSAY although I’d consider myself pretty good on Scottish islands, particularly off the west coast. It came up once before 3 years ago almost to the day.”]
Midway through solving, I encountered a strange glitch on the website – I put a letter in, but it didn’t move to the next square, and if I manually moved to another key (using cursor or arrow keys), the letter I had just entered vanished.
I eventually gave up and reset the grid, only for the same problem to happen in an entirely different part (and much quicker through the solve), at which point I threw in the towel altogether. As such, I will never know if I would’ve correctly guessed PARAMATTA!
Has anyone else had the same issue, and/or got any ideas to fix it?
I clear cache before going to the club site.
Thanks, I’ll try that
Yes, I’ve been having the same problem on all crosswords and cryptograms. Found I could do the crosswords in the club, now the problem spreads!
Clearing the cache alone didn’t help, but clearing all cookies and data seems to have.
That means I’ve been logged out of any other website I was logged in to, which is a pain, so hopefully it’s not something I need to do too regularly!
I’ve found over the years that having the Crossword Club in a Private window (or whatever the equivalent name is on your browser of choice – I use Firefox on a Mac) seems to keep these cookie/data/cache problems to a minimum. No idea what to do if you’re using the app, though.
Thank you. I use Firefox on Windows – logging in each time through a private window would be a faff, although I would do it if needed.
Is the length of a curtain called its fall? Had the PARA in faintly but not the MATTA, so a DNF. I’d sorted BALLETOMANIA. My vintage, but I don’t suppose a cop pulling up a speeding motorist today asks if he thinks he’s STIRLING MOSS. COD to PEDIMENT. Thank you U and setter.
“…nothing too difficult…” ha!
NHO PARAMATTA, neither has GOOGLE, Bing or Copilot. They both tell me it should be spelt PARRAMATTA. Someone will no doubt tell me it’s in Chambers or OED though.
Despite my misgivings about the clue (see above) PARAMATTA and PARRAMATTA are in all the usual sources, Collins, Chambers and the Oxfords. It originated in Australia, apparently. Search engines are not the most useful means of verifying words and meanings as they find misspellings and other dodgy info. Collins is currently the best completely free source of words likely to appear in Times crosswords.
11.40. A bit different to last week’s offering. All went swimmingly till I reached the juncture of frumpish and length.
Hopefully, back on form.
22 mins for this lovely Monday offering. Merely nice and chewy if you’ve come across AGAR-AGAR and HUGGER-MUGGER before around these parts? PARAMATTA was a matta of ‘trust the wordplay’ in my case. Never did parse LENGTH so that had me all aquiver when I pressed the button. A week of no pinks here we come?
COD to BALLETOMANIA, which only went in once I saw it was the fixation meaning I was looking for, not musical notation ( play this section …. passionately?)
Thanks setter and blogger!
37 minutes but 16 of them on PEDIMENT/JASPER. I became fixated it ended MINE (the writer’s) and then made a futile attempt to find a four letter word for ‘bar ignore’. Really should have twigged earlier but I’m on holiday so I will forgive my brain.
Didn’t know PARAMATTA but got it from the word play so it was possible.
BALLETOMANIA new to me but obvious what it means.
Don’t think I’ve ever come across HUGGER MUGGER before either but again the wordplay was kind.
ROMANIAN caused me pause for thought after a surely not that easy, it must be a trap moment
I solved LENGTH as a cryptic definition with fall being the length of a curtain (I think).
COD: CARTOGRAPHER
Thanks blogger and setter
I’d also never heard of it but paramatta cloth was apparently named from the town (Parramatta) near which it was apparently first made. The Google source for this does not explain the loss of one ‘r’.
Fall over = measure one’s length, old piece of verbiage
Thanks. That would make sense of the clue which didn’t mean anything to me. Never heard of it, but it’s in the dictionaries (not the Collins app though).
14:47
No real problems until I panicked when I reached the last two and thought I didn’t know the French for 0, nor the Hebridean island. I eventually filled in the blanks so no, I regret nothing.
A more Mondayish fare than of late and an entertaining solve so thanks to both.
Same as jack above, no idea at all re PARAMATTA, now know it’s a place in Australia. Bit obscure really.
Also agree with Tim above, one measures one’s LENGTH on the floor when fallen over, or more likely knocked down. I was held up by putting in ‘height’ – one falls from a height, it is a dimension and I had two crossers.
So a dnf, otherwise 12′.
Thanks ulaca and setter.
Did exactly the same with Height, D’oh!
I found that fall is an archaic Scottish measure of length (18 feet). But fall is also used in expressions such as ‘the fall of her hair’ which means its length. When solving I was thinking of the length of curtains, but on reflection I think that’s called the drop.
20 mins. A QC with 1 absolute stinker thrown in. PARAMATTA took at least 5 mins and was submitted with a WTH. Thought I was on for a pb until that. NHO BALLETOMANIA but it had to be.
COD LENGTH but also liked HUGGER MUGGER.
Thanks both.
DNF, failing on the unknown PARAMATTA
– Didn’t know Colonsay, but COLON had to be
– Wondered about rank=range for ORANGEMAN, but the explanation makes sense
– Couldn’t have told you what a PEDIMENT is
Thanks ulaca and setter.
COD Shave
LENGTH: Chambers gives “measure one’s length – To fall or be thrown down at full length.” I was quite familiar with the expression.
14 minutes. The one I found most difficult was the NHO PARAMATTA which seemed a reasonable guess from crossers and wordplay. I also had no idea that Richie was Parramatta’s most famous cricketing son (followed closely, at least in Australia, by Doug Walters). LENGTH was also a mystery, but the def helped and it has now been explained by Tim et al.
As a motor racing fan, favourite was the ‘Lawgiver primarily educated in Stirling’.
Richie was born in Penrith – a little further west.
And Dougie Dougie came from Dungog…
Was going well until the last, where only FRUMPIST would work. This is a made up word for a man who has a thing for crones. I had to engineer it because HEIGHT looked solid as a dimension, and height=fall as in measuring a waterfall or an acqueduct.
I had HAWAII, where the Japanese film director Shikegi Awai fits nicely into HI. I thought this was pretty unlucky.
In tribute to Richie, and his tu tu tu fir tu (222 for 2), I recently predicted that 12345 (123 for 5) would happen soon, which did occur in the last Test when Jadeja was out in the first innings. Aussie commentators can also look for 54321, (5 for 321).Simply marvellous.
I started out with HEIGHT also, but luckily realised the char had to be a fish and changed the dimension. I think this clue is dodgy.
15:07 with LOI (surprise surprise) PARAMATTA. The PARA bit was a fair bet but MATTA for issue was really a lucky strike, I hit it and hoped!
Thanks setter and blogger
Couldn’t HEIGHT be the dimension measured in the fall? Odd clue, for me.
11.02 Pretty much straight through, though time lost trying to remove EG or AS or anything but actually SAY from the Hebridean island. PARAMATTA from somewhere appropriately in the outback of the mind. And yes, HEIGHT until the FISH insisted on being there and I remembered measuring one’s length, which I occasionally manage these days, so far without serious injury.
Me too, until I remembered the phrase “measured his length” from my youth, in the context of “a shot rang out, and the sentry measured his length on the ground!”
Dimensions. Hmm. SPACE, TIME, SPACETIME, LENGTH, BREADTH, WIDTH, DEPTH… HEIGHT! Of course! Obviously the dimension required! But then the even more obvious FRUMPISH revealed itself. So HEIGHT had to change to LENGTH although I couldn’t see why, but I did think it likely that there was a meaning that I just didn’t know and so it proved. As usual there was reason in the apparent madness and as ever I am grateful for the occasionally educative nature of crosswords in microexpanding my vocabulary one lexicosliver at a time.
Thanks setter for an enjoyable Monday and thanks ulaca for an entertaining blog particularly with the Benaud reference. Yes, I can just about hear a voice from beyond the grave pronouncing PARRAMATTA!
25 minutes so very surprised to see such a low snitch score. Took a good while to get PARAMATTA, but I had also confidently entered height for the dimension, until I saw char = fish forced a rethink. Glad to have started the week correctly, unlike last week!
Thanks to setter and blogger.
All fairly straightforward except the Aussie town/fabric which gives me a DNF on day one. As others have said, not the easiest clueing for such an obscurity. Didn’t parse (a still don’t tbh) LENGTH except for the broad sense of falling.. HEIGHT fits the clue better in my opinion, though not the crossers obviously!! Thanks Ulaca and setter
Easy Monday for once, 13 minutes with no hold-ups, guessed the LOI PARAMATTA which even Mrs piquet hadn’t heard of. Knew where COLONSAY was, as I was in Mull last year. No whisky distillery on Colonsay, but just a well regarded gin distillery, so not worth a visit for me.
An unexpected PB of 7.50, straight through from CONSOMME to PARAMATTA. I fear this has to be filed under the heading “blind pig finds occasional truffle”.
Thanks U and setter.
NHO PARAMATTA but chanced it to finish (for once) in about 25 minutes. Pleased to renew acquaintance with AGAR AGAR which used to appear quite frequently as I recall.
A pleasant start to the week. Thanks to setter and ulaca.
I agree with the apparent consensus that this was an enjoyable but fairly straightforward puzzle but for one clue. I did piece together the likely solution to PARAMATTA after a couple minutes and was relieved to find it correct, but have some sympathy with those suggesting that the wordplay for such an osbscure word could have been more helpful. It doesn’t help that for rhotic speakers matta and matter are not homophones.
The problem with an easier puzzle with one difficult clue can be that solvers end up feeling that they haven’t had much of a challenge but didn’t get the satisfaction of completion either, the worst of both worlds.
8:04 WOE. I bunged in an unparsed PARAMETRA for the unknown fabric and would never have thought of “matter” for “issue”. I was another who didn’t know that “fall” can mean “length”. Otherwise a fun puzzle. Thanks U and setter.
I think the key in the clue is “measure” as a verb: this from Chambers: measure one’s length:
to fall or be thrown down at full length
LENGTH was a mystery at the time and I entered it from checkers and the apparent definition. ‘Measure one’s length’ seems to explain the wordplay. PARAMATTA and COLONsay at the very back of my mind. Otherwise no problem really, 27 minutes.
Started with NOODLE and finished the NW before moving on. Darted around the grid a bit after that, with PARAMATTA totally unknown, and going in a a wing and a prayer. ROMANIAN gave JASPER and PEDIMENT to complete the NE and I was left with a few in the SE corner. I confidently entered HEIGHT, which is what you fall from, at 20d, and was flummoxed when 27a had to be FRUMPISH, as height was so obviously correct. “Is the grid wrong?” I asked myself. Eventually I remembered going full length as falling and sanity was restored. 17:47 with 3 or 4 minutes wasted on LOI, LENGTH. Thanks setter and U.