29:10
Many thanks to Jeremy for covering my recent absence. I was apprehensive about getting back into the saddle, and sympathise with those for whom Friday’s are the harbinger of frustrating (or worse, fruitless) efforts. So it is a great pleasure to introduce a puzzle of mid-difficulty for a change!
I certainly found the bottom half harder than the top, but with enough of a start and only a few head-scratches, I was home and dry. LOsI 19ac and 21dn parsed after the fact.
Happy bank holiday weekend to all those who get one.
Definitions underlined.
| Across | |
| 1 | Concerning when brackets support nothing (7) |
| APROPOS – AS (when) contains (brackets) PROP (support) with O (nothing). | |
| 5 | Confines of dim space suspect flees (7) |
| DECAMPS – anagram of (suspect) outermost letters of (confines of) DiM + SPACE. | |
| 9 | Cheap floor (9) |
| KNOCKDOWN – double definition? The second reading as two words. | |
| 10 | Married at traditional place for ceremony, shunning close island (5) |
| MALTA – M (married) + ALTAr (traditional place for ceremony), minus the last (shunning close). | |
| 11 | Became opposed to sour commander in street (6,7) |
| TURNED AGAINST – TURNED (sour) + AGA (commander) + IN + ST (street). | |
| 13 | In general room trapped by enemy, presumably (8) |
| NORMALLY – RM (room) contained (trapped) by NO ALLY (enemy, presumably). | |
| 15 | Avoiding the sides, slid one’s oars straight (6) |
| LINEAR – take the first and last letters from (avoiding the sides) sLId oNEs oARs. | |
| 17 | Air conditioning enveloping church, it turned very cold (6) |
| ARCTIC – AC (air conditioning) containing (enveloping) all of RC (church) + IT reversed (turned). | |
| 19 | Olympian put in fencing work (8) |
| POSEIDON – POSE (put) + IN containing (fencing) DO (work). | |
| 22 | One furnishing shop reportedly is fraudulent type (13) |
| COUNTERFEITER – sounds like (reportedly) “counter fitter” (one furnishing shop). | |
| 25 | Fool contributing to recurrent deltoid injury (5) |
| IDIOT – hidden in (contributing to) the reversal of (recurrent) delTOID Injury. | |
| 26 | Spread with great range avoided by him includes second-rate rice dish (9) |
| JAMBALAYA – JAM (spread) + himALAYA (great range) minus (avoided by) ‘him’, containing (includes) B (second-rate). | |
| 27 | Craft festival with delay returning (7) |
| GALLEON – NOEL (festival) + LAG (delay) reversed (returning). | |
| 28 | Reporter’s displaying gallantry on a regular basis (7) |
| NIGHTLY – sounds like (reporter’s) “knightly” (displaying gallantry). | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Ancient symbol seen in an evacuated kasbah (4) |
| ANKH – AN + outermost letters from (evacuated) KasbaH. | |
| 2 | Bird coming from tor rose to fly around (7) |
| ROOSTER – anagram of (to fly around) TOR ROSE. | |
| 3 | Correct boards for every game (5) |
| POKER – OK (correct) contained by (boards) PER (for every). | |
| 4 | Scheming nurses adore surgeon ultimately, not orderly (8) |
| SLOVENLY – SLY (scheming) contains (nurses) all of LOVE (adore) + the last of (ultimately) surgeoN. | |
| 5 | Dismissal of servant with duke for month (6) |
| DENIAL – mENIAL (of servant) with D (duke) replacing (for) ‘m’ (month). | |
| 6 | Animal in village initially charges to appear aggressive (9) |
| COMBATIVE – BAT (animal) + the first letters from (initially) In Village, all contained by (charges) COME (to appear). | |
| 7 | Smorgasbord — mass dash for one on counter (7) |
| MELANGE – M (mass) + ÉLAN (dash) + reversal of (on counter) EG (for one). | |
| 8 | Sprinkling substance in grass (10) |
| SMATTERING – MATTER (substance) contained by (in) SING (grass). | |
| 12 | Odd graduate caught hunting wild bears (10) |
| UNMATCHING – anagram of (wild) C (caught) + HUNTING, contains (bears) MA (graduate). | |
| 14 | The Spanish children did read regularly about polymath (9) |
| ARISTOTLE – EL (‘the’, in Spanish) + TOTS (children) + regular letters from dId ReAd, all reversed (about). | |
| 16 | Scary being among last in mine by explosive (8) |
| BOGEYMAN – anagram of (explosive) AMONG + last of minE + BY | |
| 18 | Very important vineyard of non-professional in retirement (7) |
| CRUCIAL – CRU (vineyard) + reversal of (in retirement) LAIC (of non-professional). | |
| 20 | Stepped up to cover fellow sleeping (7) |
| DORMANT – reversal of (up) TROD (stepped) containing (to cover) MAN (fellow). | |
| 21 | Hard-working person’s code causing damage, unexpectedly (6) |
| TROJAN – double definition, the second referring to a type of computer virus. | |
| 23 | Beat pounding with good guitar sound? (5) |
| TWANG – TAN (beat) containing (pounding) W (with), then G (good). | |
| 24 | Type of rodent, it leaves hollow (4) |
| CAVY – ‘it’ is deleted from (leaves) CAVitY (hollow). | |
My thanks to william_j_s and setter.
As Fridays go, not hard but sadly DNF: 12d and 24d.
19a Poseidon biffed.
26a Jambalaya NHO. I expect I said that last time as well. I have added the plural into Cheating Machine, so probably it came up a while ago.
DNF 24d Cavy, have very much heard of but didn’t think of it. I had a book called “pet rabbits and cavies” when I was a child in the ’50s.
Started off in the NW and thought this might be very easy for a Friday puzzle, but things got knottier further down. CAVY needed a bit of working out, although I was reasonably confident that I’d heard of the rodent once it came to mind. But it was the COMBATIVE/POSEIDON crossing that really held me up, in fact I put the puzzle down for a while and went back to it. When I did I saw COMBATIVE almost immediately and POSEIDON quickly followed once I had the final checking letter.
47:42
I thought this was quite hard rather than mid-difficulty. Made reasonable progress for the first twenty-five minutes or so, but struggled with NE corner, probably through having ESCAPES (could see anagram of SPACE but obvs didn’t know what to do with the ES) at 5a for some time, and UNMATCHING which I could not see for ages despite having all of the checkers and writing out the remaining letters. No problem with POSEIDON, though I spent a while justifying the wordplay.
Thanks William and setter
That was scary, the BOGEYMAN almost got me; I must have spent about five minutes on this my LOI before I finally got the swine! I was delighted to finish this with all correct, and only one unparsed, POSEIDON. I thought of the possible answer relatively quickly fortunately, otherwise I would have been stumped. Tougher than average as far as I was concerned as my time of 57.43 reflects.
50 minutes. NW went in quite smoothly but I slowed down in the SE.
Initially entered Jambolaya and was looking at Twong for quite a while until the penny dropped and Twang went in as my LOI.
Thanks for the blog.
Could not justify COUNTERFEITER because I pronounce it ‘counter-feeter’ so did not understand the wordplay.
36 mins held up due to a typo in UNMATCHED making me think 22A started with a T, grrr.
LOI – TROJAN. COD to TWANG
39:55
Biffed POSEIDON. Last two in were NIGHTLY and BOGEYMAN.
I wasted time on 5d, when I had the N and A checkers, trying to make the MANKAD dismissal fit the wordplay.
Thanks William and setter
It seems a while since I had a look at The Times crossword, so glad to get through a Friday puzzle in a shade over 30 mins. LOI was the NHO CAVY, which succumbed to a not very long alphabet trawl. Otherwise no great problems, though I had to think hard about the damaging code. Thanks to setter and our blogger, as ever.
41:39, LOI CAVY which I got via cavity and think I might have vaguely heard of, but never would have known unaided.
Definitely not as hard as I made it! Not my week overall
Thanks setter and blogger
I guess I was lucky to think of the right kind of Olympian first, and then only after having some crossers.
I liked the No Ally foe.
Thanks Wm. You too, setter
Funny that so many of us got stuck over POSEIDON. It took me eight minutes and an overnight pause to see it. Yet he’s one of the best-known Olympian gods! 24’42”
Well I forgot POSEIDON too: was thinking of current sportsmen. I had other problems with GALLEON and CAVY ( a close relative of the more popular hamster, I believe); and TROJAN (didn’t equate hardworking with it). But really enjoyed many other clues : CODs to NIGHTLY, JAMBALAYA, APROPOS and KNOCKDOWN.
Thanks to setter and blogger
Very late to this but thought to share my thoughts on the puzzle after reading the blog to check my work.
Took three sittings and a total of 74 minutes to get it finished. Was surprised that so many people had trouble with POSEIDON, it was a mid-solve entry, but did have to check the POSE / put definition. My hold-up was BOGEYMAN (initially had it but then changed to BOGIEMAN using the wrong anagram material – had last letter of ‘among’ instead of ‘mine’ – eventually changed back when COUNTERFIETER was obviously misspelt).
First in was ANKH with SLOVENLY and UNMATCHED the last couple in.