Time taken: 12:55, but at least I got everything correct, having fallen into two extremely obvious traps earlier in the week.
I approached this one tired and only one martini in, so I wasn’t expecting to be lightning but practically nothing leaped out at me in a first read through from the clues and it really was a hunt and peck through the grid. Compared to early solvers I think I can be justified in calling this one Tricky Thursday, but at least there were no obvious traps set for me to fall into. Well at least none that I fell into.
How did you do?
| Across | |
| 1 | Fighting drained divorcees with joint custody (8) |
| WARDSHIP – WAR(fighting), the external letters of DivorceeS, then HIP(joint) | |
| 6 | Eg brilliant Arab abridged Talmudic text (6) |
| GEMARA – GEM(brilliant as a noun can mean a gemstone), then ARAB minus the last letter | |
| 9 | Good work to improve image of tech department (6) |
| PROFIT – the image of tech department could be the PR OF IT | |
| 10 | Academic opens early novel that can’t be written over (4-4) |
| READ-ONLY – DON(academic) inside an anagram of EARLY | |
| 11 | Passable tune piper’s son interrupts on the violin (4,2,8) |
| FAIR TO MIDDLING – AIR(tune) and TOM(Tom the piper’s son) inside FIDDLING(on the violin) | |
| 13 | This on road’s verges being cut? (4) |
| TREE – STREET(road) with the external letters removed | |
| 15 | English bully arrived and overturned Ireland’s green champion (3-7) |
| ECO-WARRIOR – E(English), COW(bully), ARR(arrived) and then a reversal of ROI(Republic of Ireland) | |
| 17 | Don’t eat then run — intake likely to rise (4,6) |
| FAST STREAM – FAST(don’t eat) and STREAM(run) | |
| 19 | Tender like husband after Francesca’s heart (4) |
| CASH – AS(like), H(husband) after the middle letter in franCesca | |
| 20 | Remarkable feat left eight men so shattered (5,9) |
| QUITE SOMETHING – QUIT(left) then an anagram of EIGHT,MEN,SO | |
| 23 | Spooner’s dreadful quartet escape in heated situation (4,4) |
| FIRE DOOR – Spoonerism of DIRE FOUR(dreadful quartet) | |
| 24 | 25 per cent off duke’s inferior brand (6) |
| MARQUE – remove the last quarter from MARQUESS(duke’s inferior) | |
| 25 | Mass begun by male or female bell-ringer, sometimes (6) |
| SEXTON – TON(mass) after SEX(male or female) | |
| 26 | Mischief-maker turned saintly to prepare for smack (6,2) |
| PUCKER UP – PUCK(mischief-maker) then PURE(saintly) reversed | |
| Down | |
| 2 | Tube attached to pump coming up through that road (5) |
| AORTA – hidden reversed in thAT ROAd | |
| 3 | Stay outside in desperate agitation (9) |
| DEFERMENT – the exterior letters in DesperatE, then FERMENT(agitation) | |
| 4 | Hail Tesla driven by club (3) |
| HIT – HI(hail), T(Tesla, the unit) | |
| 5 | Columnar entry helping mostly with entry of cents (7) |
| PORTICO – PORTION(helping) minus the last letter containing C(cents) | |
| 6 | Napoleonic forces, God help us, within range at sea (6,5) |
| GRANDE ARMEE -DEAR ME(God help us) inside an anagram of RANGE. Had to trust the wordplay here. | |
| 7 | Root vegetable I threaten to pull up (5) |
| MOOLI – I and LOOM(threaten to pull) all reversed. Possibly an escapee from Mephistoland here, I don’t recall MOOLI in a daily. | |
| 8 | Scrupulous engineers likely to start action without it? (9) |
| RELIGIOUS – RE(engineers) then LITIGIOUS(likely to start action) minus IT | |
| 12 | Very high, as lower jumping got? (4,3,4) |
| OVER THE MOON -double definition, the second one referring to Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon… | |
| 14 | Nearly influence sound of group singing Get Back (9) |
| REACQUIRE – remove the last letter of REACH(influence), then a homophone of CHOIR(group singing) | |
| 16 | Chaser o’er ground? (9) |
| RACEHORSE – anagram of CHASER,O’ER | |
| 18 | Full collection of awards saw boost to confidence (3-4) |
| EGO-TRIP – EGOT(a full collection of an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony award) and a RIP saw | |
| 21 | Still popular, Marc Bolan’s band briefly making comeback (5) |
| INERT – IN(popular) and T-REX(Marc Bolan’s band) reversed minus the last letter. Marc Bolan died in 1977 so this band might be a little new-fangled for the Times | |
| 22 | From report, immediately feel sorry for tiny country (5) |
| NAURU – homophone of NOW(immediately) and RUE(feel sorry for) | |
| 24 | Coat with supernatural powers saving US soldier (3) |
| MAC – MAGIC(with supernatural powers) minus GI(US soldier) | |
Took so long to do this I stopped timing. After a record slow start it was TREE that gave the most difficulty in the end, and I narrowly avoided inventing ORDE, the detritus left on roads when their bORDErs are cut.
Easier than yesterday’s, for me. Whipped through nearly all of it in 20 mins, held up only by SEXTON. My LOI, TREE, was simply a guess. I just couldn’t see the parsing at all, so thanks for that.
The cordwangler’s song comes to mind!
About 15 minutes, at least 5 of them spent on TREE which looked like the obvious answer but took me ages to parse, not a great clue imho. NHO GEMARA like others but at least the wordplay was kind. I seem to have come across EGOT a lot in the media recently so surprised it was unknown to many of you. COD PUCKER UP, nice to see mischief maker as something other than imp.
Definitely not on the wavelength today. 68% done in 1 hour with the last 15 minutes blank. Didn’t know GRANDE ARMEE, nor GEMARA, though have heard of MOOLI. TREE was pretty bad.
Thanks G
Thank you GLH. That’s all.
The 20a/14d interchange did for me as I fell into the trap of thinking ‘left’ was part of the anagram in 20a so both clues became impenetrable.
P.S. Mcguffin- this is not a criticism of the setter, but an admission of my failure.
After yesterday’s success this completely fixed me. The Gemara / Mooli crossing was impossible for me – NHO either and the wordplay did not help me. Should have got Sexton from wordplay even though I had no idea that bell ringing was a part of his duties. Liked Reacquire
Thx George and setter
68 mins. Not quite as hard as yesterday’s for me, but I took an age over TREE, and agree with others that the clue is a bit loose. NHO NAURU and initially wrote NOURU before checking with Google, so I suppose a technical DNF!
Tesco sell Mooli, like a huge white radish. I’m ok with Grande armee, but I hope the setters don’t overdo the foreign words. My calligraphic skills won’t be able to manage pictograms for instance.
Pucker up was good.
28 minutes with a break in the middle. A really enjoyable puzzle, with several excellent clues (my personal favourites being PUCKER UP, MARQUE and FAIR TO MIDDLING). NHO GEMARA but got it from wordplay.
Thanks g and setter.
45:54. FOI 1ac WARDSHIP then a tough challenge through to LOI SEXTON. I liked MAC and OVER THE MOON
37:38 I had NHO NAURU, MOOLI and finally GEMARA. MOOLI was easily guessable, NAURU less so and I wasn’t very confident, and finally GEMARA was a 50/50 between GEMARA and GEMARB, the former seemed the more plausible word, but ARB seemed more strictly correct for abridged arab. Anyway, guessed right. I see I am on the slow side today, I had hoped to be more mid-pack but obviously other people found this easier than I did.
Thanks setter and blogger
PS and now I know a marquess is less than a duke!
A fire door is not an escape.
A fire door is a fire-resistant internal barrier designed to stem the spread of a fire. They can be used for internal access but are equipped with door-closers to ensure they automatically close, and stay closed when not in use.
They might even be locked, so hardly an ‘escape’.
I should know by now that you don’t trust dictionaries, but nevertheless:
fire door
Oxford Dictionary of English:
1
a fire-resistant door to prevent the spread of fire.
1.1
a door to the outside of a building used only as an emergency exit.
Collins
1. a door made of noncombustible material, the purpose of which is to prevent a fire from spreading within a building
2. a similar door, leading to the outside of a building, that can be easily opened from inside; emergency exit
Chambers
a fire-resistant door to prevent the spread of fire within a building;
an emergency exit
Fair enough. But as a former H&S rep, I simply look at the legislation around fire doors which only defines it as the former. ‘Fire door’ has a legal definition with accompanying specifications. The legislation around fire exits is completely separate.
But hey, dictionaries are dictionaries aren’t they🤷♂️? Put it this way; you wouldn’t be citing Chambers or any other dictionary in any legal proceedings. But I accept that the definition has expanded through use to include ‘fire exit’.
Gosh this was hard…found it hard to get into and expected not to make much progress with it but was surprised to give up with only a few missing. Very confused by 3D as I was trying to “agitate” desperate to get an answer – and therefore missed out on PROFIT, TREE and REACQUIRE on the LH side.
Some good clues however – once I understood TOM as the piper’s son I got 11A and that helped with OVER THE MOON and QUITE SOMETHING.
Thanks again to setter and blogger and all of you who explain things!
Over the hour as I spent ages on Gemara/Mooli – both NHOs but I guessed correctly – it was a toss up between Mooli and Moodi and I thought the former sounded more likely.
Tricky Thursday indeed.
Does anyone remember The Fair to Middling a children’s book by Arthur Calder Marshall? I loved it as a child but can’t recall much about it now.
GLH did you really take about 13 minutes on a difficulty crossword like this?
This works out at the rate of 4 clues solved per minute / 15 seconds per clue.
I took around 60 minutes so you seem to be five times faster than me!
I wouldn’t worry too much about relative solving times – the original goal of this blog was to compare solving times. The snitch site is pretty useful if you want to do a comparison. It says that my average solving time is 9:06, so this is slower than my usual time. I’m a quick reader and typer, so 15 seconds to read, parse and enter doesn’t sound unreasonable. On a blog night there is a little more pressure to solve quickly, since I have to solve it all and get it written up before people start asking “where is the blog”.
This RACEHORSE started off at a gallop, then slowed to a canter, a trot, and a then a very slow, out-of puff walk. NHO GEMARA, MOOLI, nor indeed GRANDE ARMEE, but by that time…
Helped at first by the long ones, but FOI PORTICO, and then ECO-WARRIOR. Never did get TREE, nor the full FIRE DOOR, ( even knew I was looking for a rhyme with four after the fire!) but by this time my confidence had waned and I didn’t try hard enough. Very much liked RACEHORSE.
Sorry, but where I come from Nauru is pronounced Nah-Ru, not Now-Ru. If you listen to someone from Nauru you should be able to guess where I come from.