DNF after 39 minutes.
A rollercoaster of crossword-solving emotions today. After a very slow start, I got into the devious mind of the setter, but then slowed to a complete stop and then cheated to the finish. I had just never heard of, nor could work out from checkers, the (very) last clue. Never mind – I had plenty of fun along the way, and actually enjoyed this more than some puzzles I fully complete in less time.
I hope Jeremy is enjoying his well-earned break, and that you enjoyed (maybe solved?) this excellent Friday tester.
Definitions underlined.
| Across | |
| 1 | Rob from Norfolk town gathers groups of friends together (10) |
| DISPOSSESS – DISS (Norfolk town) containing (gathers) POSSES (groups of friends together). Strewth! | |
| 6 | European chap transmitted message out of America (4) |
| EMIL – E-MaIL (transmitted message) removing (out of) A (America). | |
| 9 | Pet cuckoo is tame, welcoming return of experts (7,3) |
| SIAMESE CAT – anagram of (cuckoo) IS TAME, containing (welcoming) the reversal (return) of ACES (experts). | |
| 10 | Cutting edge of Romany XV? (4) |
| CHIV – CHI (X, |
|
| 12 | Way of overcoming pain through separating object and subject (4,4,6) |
| MIND OVER MATTER – OVER (through) in the middle of (separating) MIND (object, as in dissent) and MATTER (subject). | |
| 14 | If upheld, such an appeal would lead to dismissal (6) |
| HOWZAT – I’m going to go for cryptic definition, since I cannot see any wordplay, and guessed this only from the overall cricketing reference. Advice welcome. | |
| 15 | Prime minister going round each and every London street (4,4) |
| PALL MALL – PM (Prime Minister) containing (going round) ALL (each), then ALL (every). | |
| 17 | Built-in from dollar, get nickels back (8) |
| INTEGRAL – hidden in (from) the reversal of (back) dolLAR GET NIckels. | |
| 19 | Get onto English Evangelist about bishop (6) |
| EMBARK – E (English), then MARK (evangelist) containing (about) B (Bishop). | |
| 22 | Enthusiastic earl drinks in fine writer’s advice on strategy (4,5,5) |
| KNOW THINE ENEMY – KEEN (enthusiastic) + E (earl), contains (drinks) NOW (in) and THIN (fine), then MY (writer’s). I happen to be good at guessing multi-word phrases from checkers, which is lucky, since this one was a [insert expletive] to parse. | |
| 24 | Others take forcible control of broadcast (4) |
| REST – sounds like (broadcast) “wrest” (take forcible control of). | |
| 25 | Innovative type charged with taking a look around (10) |
| PIONEERING – PEERING (taking a look) containing (around) ION (type charged). | |
| 26 | DJ who promoted many series of changes on radio (4) |
| PEEL – sounds like (on radio) “peal” (series of changes). In campanology, or change ringing, a ‘change’ is one permutation of the order of bells sounding. Thus, a series of changes could be a peal (but in the bell ringing world, a series of changes could equally be a ‘touch’ (some small number of changes) or a ‘quarter peal’ (1260 changes), with the term ‘peal’ being reserved for 5040 unique changes; please excuse the campanological pedantry). | |
| 27 | Warned not to pay, might chap be in danger at work? (10) |
| GARNISHEED – IS HE (might chap be?) contained by (in) an anagram of (at work) DANGER. This is the one that got me – I had never heard of the noun ‘garnishment’ in this context, never mind the convoluted past tense verbal form. Even with every checker and some time to spare, I gave up. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Cast down — just a little (4) |
| DASH – double definition. | |
| 2 | One encapsulated by rolling waves lapping edge of shore? (3,4) |
| SEA VIEW – I (one) contained (encapsulated) by an anagram of (rolling) WAVES, |
|
| 3 | Blasts of air finished game (12) |
| OVERDRAUGHTS – OVER (finished) + DRAUGHTS (game). NHO but easily guessable when you see the answer. | |
| 4 | Silence present helpers largely set aside (6) |
| SHELVE – SH (silence) + ELVEs (present helpers, at Christmas time) minus the last letter (largely). | |
| 5 | With following wind in last flight (8) |
| STAIRWAY – W (with) after (following) AIR (wind), all contained by (in) STAY (last). | |
| 7 | Masters receiving mortarboard for one sage (7) |
| MAHATMA – MA and MA (Masters) containing (receiving) HAT (mortarboard for one). | |
| 8 | Being parasitic, one is a success by accident (5,5) |
| LIVER FLUKE – LIVER (one who lives, is a success) + FLUKE (accident). | |
| 11 | Puts forward screening method: acceptable protocol for consumption? (5,7) |
| TABLE MANNERS – TABLES (puts forward) containing (screening) MANNER (method). | |
| 13 | Securely seal straitjacket? (6-4) |
| SHRINK-WRAP – cryptic hint: something a psychologist (shrink) might wrap a patient in… maybe… in the past. In the past, right? | |
| 16 | Black mineral providing the exterior for a great hall (8) |
| BASILICA – B (black) and SILICA (mineral) containing (providing the exterior for) A. | |
| 18 | Piggy at last escapes extremely secure pens (7) |
| TOOTSIE – final letter of (at last) escapeS, which TOO (extremely) and TIE (secure) contains (pens). As in, this little piggy… | |
| 20 | Crown dependency close to nuclear area turning on cabinet (7) |
| ARMOIRE – IOM (Isle of Man, crown dependency) + last of (close to) nucleaR + A (area), all reversed (turning), then RE (on). | |
| 21 | As Charles is no good at all, stop (4,2) |
| REIN IN – REIgNINg (as Charles is) minus all the letters ‘g’ (no good at all). | |
| 23 | Old impressionist wanting last piece mounted (4) |
| AGED – DEGAs (impressionist) minus (wanting) the last letter (last piece) and reversed (mounted). | |
DNF on 74% after an hour or so. Most of that in 30 mins including the whole top half, was beginning to wonder why the average time was so high. Now I know. Came back to it at lunchtime to no avail. Congrats to anyone finishing that one.
I did put SHIV. I thought XV = 15 = I and V romanised. Desperation. Could not justify the SH.
COD PEEL for giving me Teenage Kicks as my morning earworm and thanks to william and setter.
I didn’t ken John Peel, but found him with the bell-ringers. But I got done in by the shiv after slogging through the obstacle course of this very enjoyable puzzle. Another fiendish Friday.
46mins, with pink dripping from the shiv wound.
Got CHIV but resorted to aids for GARNISHEED so a DNF here really. Still enjoyable, though. Always nice to see John Peel make an appearance!
I threw the towel in after a couple of hours, on and off and started revealing the last few, all in the SE corner.
I think there are a couple in there that I could / should have got, but i don’t see how I would have ever got GARNISHEED given that I got to that last so had all the checkers and stared at it for a few minutes and still didn’t see it. Glad to see I was not alone in that one!
Somehow I knew CHIV but the parsing escaped me, even though I’m pretty familiar with the Greek alphabet having studied Maths at university.
43.00
Some very poor clues. “In” doesn’t mean NOW, XV doesn’t mean CHI + V. SHRINK-WRAP doesn’t seal securely. HOWZAT?
I did not solve 27a even though I obtained the odd garnishee order.
Like one or two others, oh no, sorry, like most others, DNF. This is just ridiculous. If I wanted to do the mephisto I would, but I don’t.
Most of the south unanswered. In my book, TOOTSIE is a foot and piggy is a toe! Since when can an ION be “type”. As for GARNISHEED, I give up.
LIVER FLUKE? Are you kidding me.
Disgruntled from Provence.
Well done William for the blog.
👍
I wanted to say this earlier, but I agree totally with you RdeP, a tootsie is a foot, and not a toe! Also dislike now for in, and the requirement to know the Romany alphabet and to me at least, unknown DJ. FOI PALL MALL ( probably the easiest clue there!), and then a series of reveals to help me on my way. Did get KNOW THINE ENEMY though, of which I’m proud, and LIVER FLUKE and OVERDRAUGHTS, but not much else. Roll on Monday!
44:35 but…
Wrestled with this one through to the last few but needed aids for the impenetrable CHIV – NHO either the answer nor that x=chi – and the unlikely GARNISHEED. Having said that, was pleased with LIVER FLUKE, but failed to fully parse both TOOTSIE and KNOW THINE ENEMY.
Thanks William and setter
Threw in the towel after just over an hour with about two thirds completed. I was tempted to persevere as I have done so often lately with a poor time in prospect, but I just had a feeling this was beyond me. Having now revealed the answers I’m glad I stopped, saving me from further punishment! I would never have got CHIV in a month of Sundays.
Another who struggled with this, and left it unfinished as DK garnisheed. Thought some clues were really good and some – such as howzat, rein in, tootsie (foot not toe), Emil, were pretty poor. I knew X = chi and V is V, thought that was why it was “Romany” as in Roman-like, Uxbridge dic, never seen shiv spelt chiv though. Also NHO of a disc jockey called John Peel although the bell ringing part was obvious. I assume he is on BBC radio 1 or 2, the only station I ever listen to of BBC is 4 at eight in the mornings. The rest of the day if at home or in car is Classic FM or CDs ripped to mp3. Hearing aids double well as bluetooth headphones!
Well blogged William, glad it wasn’t me, I’d have been a bit critical although we bloggers are supposed to be polite to setters.
👍
👍👍
The late John Peel was very well known for his promotion of upcoming bands in the 70s and 80s before hosting a BBC R4 Saturday morning show for several years. Smack bang in the middle-aged peak demographic predominant here and not even a liver.
Otherwise 👍
1 hour 38 mins. Very hard. Changed shiv to CHIV at a late stage, after checking CHI with Google. No other cheating! Fortunately had heard of garnishee orders.
When I wa young (many years ago) I was taught to say ‘owzat’ not ‘howzat’. Has something changed?
The relatively few number of anagrams made this particularly difficult and the blindingly obvious answer to 14a ( Howzat) struck a very bizarre note given the general level of difficulty of the rest of the clues.
Never want to see the word GARNISHEED ever again.
Failed on 7. CHIV and 6 in the bottom half. I feel that if I’d got KNOW THINE ENEMY it would have helped with the others there, but then GARNISHEED is miles above my pay grade – whether warned off or not. Your blog is really appreciated – thanks.
Not sure about 27A. A Garnishee order (now called a third party debt order) is an order that a person who owes a debt to A should pay it to B instead. The debt is then said to be “garnished” – never come across the form “garnisheed”.
In Glasgow a small knife is known a chib, which I thought was derived from CHIV (though not sure it is). Anyway that’s how I got there and then saw the chi-v construction from knowledge of chi-squared (X) distribution. Despite the crosser still didn’t get LIVER, never mind the cabinet and the garnishy thing.
Much of the rest seemed reasonably accessible.
Thanks William and setter
Well, thought I was doing pretty well, then “garnisheed” WTF? Never in a thousand years, even with all the crossers. Almost enough to make one give up completely.
I don’t know how long I took, as I again left the timer running to take a call, but definitely well over 30 minutes.
It was the SE corner held me up, partly through some stupid guesswork like thinking 21 would end KIN(G), partly through being very slow to get BASILICA which really wasn’t hard, and finally on 27ac thinking it must be GARNxSxxED which I held on to till FINALLY getting ERIOMRA and then from somewhere, probably some victorian novel I read 50 years ago or whatever, GARNISHEED was ringing a bell and then I saw the IS HE aspect and that was that.
btw I thought CHI was greeky rather than romany but I’m sure the setter knows better.
Thanks setter for a fun Friday evening challenge! And of course today’s blogger
After a good run this week I wasn’t surprised to have to give up on this one. Top half was OK although a bit of a slog but found the bottom half was mostly a mystery so thanks for explaining the rest of the answers. Still don’t quite follow the reasoning for CHIV but will file it away as an obscure Crossword word.
I got there in the end with geological timescales required to get GARNISHEED. I also put in SHIV initially, but then I saw how the wordplay worked and assumed there must be a never-heard-of alternate spelling CHIV. For Americans without knowledge of British deejays from decades ago, nor cricketing appeals, I’m guessing those were challenging too, although having grown up in Britain I was familiar with John Peel (later in life more as a journalist) and played enough cricket (hated it) as a kid that I have all the knowledge needed for crosswords (such as fielding positions). In the CHIV clue, Romany refers to the knife not the XV which is a combination of CHI (upper case Greek CHI is written X) and, err, V as V. I loved this crossword and felt pleased to finish it.
I’d have done better if someone had not told me about the SNITCH cruising along at 265 at about the time I started. Not that I panicked or choked: I panicked and choked.
I did spend some time wondering if there was a way I could reconicile Howazt and “If” to make it a standard two-part clue, but if there is I couldn’t figure it out.
Thanks, and a tip of the old Stetson to Wm
Gave up with armoire basilica pioneering and garnisheed left and another shiv-er.
A garnishee order (now a third party debt order) is sought by a creditor against a third party who owes money to the creditor’s debtor. This third party is the garnishee. And far from being warned not to pay they are ordered to pay the creditor. So I think this definition is wrong
I enjoyed the puzzle though my 9/9 streak has ended. Also lost my 1354 Wordle streak last week but life moves on 😁
Which Vulcan was it that compiled this monster?
GARNISHEED was one of many words I considered for 27 across and rejected for being obvious nonsense. Bad clue. Otherwise got them all except for CHIV — I went with SHIV.
I was busy yesterday and only had time for some of the crossword, finished (?!) this morning with an aid or two in just over an hour. Not so far as I could see super-difficult, and at the time there were some I couldn’t parse; my inability to see now = in, quite OK in my opinion (“very ‘now'”/ “very ‘in'”), stopped me from understanding about KNOWING THINE ENEMY, but not from shrugging and thinking it was probably right. As I didn’t do with TOOTSIE, having thought it was the answer and then rejected it; well it couldn’t be, could it; CHECK and there it is. Goodness knows why, although obvious now.
good grief. romany blade/Greek numeral, DJ only heard in UK, legal term misused. I’m glad I surrendered after 30 minutes.
Bravo blogger.
As above reply to RosedeProvence.