Maybe just because I had to solve this one in a hurry for the blog, but I can’t say I enjoyed it; some unsatisfactory definitions and rather ugly surfaces spoiled the fun. Perhaps it was just my humour. I hope you liked it better than I did.
Definitions: underlined in bold, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, anagrinds in italics, DD = double definition, [deleted letters in square brackets].
| Across | |
| 1 | Notice restricting South American oil producer (6) |
| SESAME – See (notice) insert S[outh] AM[erican]. | |
| 4 | Hours playing instrument around centre of Turkish port (4,4) |
| HONG KONG – H[ours], ON (playing), GONG (instrument), insert [tur]K[ish]. | |
| 10 | For Degas, what encapsulates a rehearsal for dance (9) |
| QUADRILLE – QUE (French for what, which) encapsulates A DRILL. | |
| 11 | Struggle to cut into circular decoration (5) |
| AWARD – WAR (struggle) inside AD (circular). Is an ad a circular? A bit loose, I thought. | |
| 12 | Self-confidence of son and I leaving US city (3) |
| EGO – SAN DIEGO loses S AND I. Took me a while to see this parsing although I had ego written in. | |
| 13 | Cut securing debutant’s fourth six? Score is three, officially (11) |
| TRIUMVIRATE – TRIM (cut), insert U (fourth letter of debutant), VI (six) RATE (score). | |
| 14 | Sway having injected drug using needle (6) |
| SEWING – SWING = sway, insert E the ever useful drug in these cases. | |
| 16 | Baffling murder requiring input of Met’s chief skin specialist? (7) |
| DRUMMER – (MURDER M)*, the M from M[et]. It’s a bit of a leap to get from someone who drums to “skin specialist” but as drums have drum skins I suppose it could be tolerated. Just. | |
| 19 | Turned up, squeezing in behind a table (7) |
| PLATEAU – UP turned = PU, insert LATE (behind), A. Table Mountain, perhaps, it’s flat on top. | |
| 20 | Ancient silver? Journalist has look around inside (3-3) |
| AGE-OLD – AG (silver), ED (journalist), insert LO reversed. Where LO = look. | |
| 22 | Where one might eat breakfast in bed later, possibly around noon? (6,5) |
| DINNER TABLE – (IN BED LATER)* with N inserted. Why one would eat breakfast at the dinner table seems strange, the breakfast seems superfluous to me, but has to be in the definition else it has no place in the clue. | |
| 25 | Runs away from active spot (3) |
| SPY – SPRY loses R. | |
| 26 | Cloth piece at back (5) |
| MANTA – MAN a piece in chess, AT reversed. Apparently a manta is a square cloth in Mexico or USA, I didn’t know that, did you? | |
| 27 | I wondered about cover for retirement? (9) |
| EIDERDOWN – (I WONDERED)*. Does anyone use eiderdowns now, rather than duvets? They don’t sell them in Dunelm. | |
| 28 | Reprimand hound that’s biting its wound (8) |
| CHASTISE – CHASE (hound) with (ITS)* inserted. | |
| 29 | Lacking hat, female goes inside (6) |
| BEREFT – BERET a hat, insert F for female. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Follow-up question university dons understand less to begin with (6) |
| SEQUEL – SEE (understand) with Q U (question university) inserted, L the beginning of less. | |
| 2 | Very quiet period — senior citizen’s absorbed in TV show (4,5) |
| SOAP OPERA – SO (very) ERA (period) A POP gets inserted. why doesn’t it read “a senior citizen’s”? There is no A indicated for A POP. EDIT it’s not POP, it’s OAP, see amoeba’s comment below. | |
| 3 | Earn millions twirling flag (5) |
| MERIT – M[illions], TIRE (flag) reversed. | |
| 5 | No way out initially — really stiff around side of mechanism (4,2,4,4) |
| OVER MY DEAD BODY – O[ut], VERY DEAD BODY = really stiff, insert M from Mechanism. | |
| 6 | Thanks key Republican point of view in speech (9) |
| GRATITUDE – G (a key), R (Republican), ATITUDE sounds like attitude. | |
| 7 | One having tomahawk for protection? (5) |
| OMAHA – hidden word, but where is the definition indicating a city in Nebraska? The tribe? The language? ONE could be anything. | |
| 8 | Guards regularly, for example, set up test kit (8) |
| GADGETRY – G[u]A[r]D[s]. EG reversed, TRY = test. | |
| 9 | Displaying target on ship’s structural support (6,8) |
| FLYING BUTTRESS – flying = displaying, as for a flag; BUTT = target; RE = on, SS = steamship. | |
| 15 | Lacking finesse, fielder dismisses opener, and shortly before tea, it’s reported (9) |
| INELEGANT – [f]INE LEG = a fielding position in cricket; AN[d], T. | |
| 17 | I’m standing up in case somebody makes significant point (9) |
| MILESTONE – I’M reversed; LEST = in case; ONE = somebody. | |
| 18 | Sea goes around island in vast wave (8) |
| EPIDEMIC – MED (sea) reversed > DEM, insert into EPIC = vast, also insert I for island. An epidemic is a bit more that a wave, isn’t it? | |
| 21 | Young bird small seal caught (6) |
| CYGNET – sounds like signet as in signet ring. | |
| 23 | Fighter, during the first month, ultimately going over the top (5) |
| NINJA – IN JAN being “in the first month, move the N to the front (last letter going over the top). | |
| 24 | Strange start to episode one in Last of the Summer Wine (5) |
| EERIE -E[pisode], I inside [th]E [summe]R [win]E. | |
SOAP OPERA is OAP inside SO (very) + P + ERA 🙂
OMAHA is an extended definition, as a member of the tribe presumably might use a tomahawk for protection.
50 minutes. Enjoyable enough but I didn’t understand EGO and OMAHA , or nknow the required meaning of MANTA.
I liked FLYING BUTTRESS which I biffed and enjoyed working out why later.
Ego from Diego – d and I omitted
Perhaps should have been daughter and I! No, should have been ‘me’
Self-confidence of son and I leaving US city
All good in about 35, needing Nelson’s help to figure out CYGNET and being similarly puzzled by OMAHA. But I was happy with the sneaky skin-specialist def for DRUMMER, and speaking of which:
From Yea! Heavy And A Bottle Of Bread:
Now, pull that DRUMMER out from behind that bottle
Bring me my pipe, we’re gonna shake it
Slap that drummer with a pie that smells
Take me down to California, baby
I was getting ready to ride into Omaha on a horse, out to the country club and the golf course.
Surely you are making that up, BW?!
‘I shall be free N0 10’ from Another Side of Bob Dylan
That song might have got the nod if I’d had any idea why OMAHA was the answer…
30:24
I actually quite enjoyed this, with no real hold-ups. Not heard of a MANTA and wasn’t absolutely sure about OMAHA, but the checkers and wordplay made them both clear answers. However, I too baulked slightly over having breakfast at the DINNER TABLE, but the ‘breakfast in bed’ string must have been too good for the setter to resist. OVER MY DEAD BODY took 5 checkers to see. I enjoyed GADGETRY and BEREFT the most.
Thanks P and setter
‘skins’ is slang for drums (ODE sv skin 4)
We get “kitchen”, which I think refers to the rhythm section in a band, in these puzzles now and then. So “skins” seemed semi-logical.
Yes. Drummers are, in slang, described as ‘being on skins’.
17:30. Sorry you didn’t enjoy it Pip. Probably down to a mildly irksome period for bloggers at the moment, but hang in there!
I thought it was pretty good, particularly EIDERDOWN and the PDM for the parsing of the otherwise-obvious EGO. (Segio? Esgio? Egsoi? Ah!!!!).
NHO MANTA and intended to go back and re-consider it but forgot. No harm done though.
Thanks setter and Pip.
Well I quite enjoyed this, a steady solve, such a shame you weren’t keen Pip, if this indeed should turn out to be your swansong as the title suggests..
Manta seems to have several meanings I wasn’t aware of, including this one.
I liked the stiff 5dn.
I now see it’s not but at time of solving I thought MANTA might be related to a “mantua-maker”=dressmaker as in Georgette Heyer.
28:42 (accidentally submitted off-grid)
I never quite got to grips with this one and I felt off-message throughout, finishing well off my 20 minute target. In hindsight there was nothing too difficult but the setter definitely wins this round with some clever wordplay.
Thanks to both.
55 mins, pretty slow today. I couldn’t seem to get started, after a quick SOAP OOERA, EGO & SEWING, I ground to a halt. HONG KONG opened up the NE and a steady solve to the South from there. Last two in EPIDEMIC & the unknown MANTA.
The jury is out as to wether I enjoyed this or not, hmmmm. Tricky.
Having been a drummer many moons ago the « skins » didn’t present a problem for me.
Thanks unhappy Pip and setter.
15:58
After a flying start I found this quite chewy in places. A fair bit of lifting and separating needed to tease out definitions. I thought ‘skin specialist’ was a bit daft.
41:25
Slow today on a train heading to Yorkshire and all fingers and thumbs on the phone, so I was pleased not to score a silly pink square.
Struggled to parse OMAHA and EGO but enjoyed much, particularly EERIE.
Thank you, piquet and the setter.
I have to say I liked this, if only for the pleasure of working out some of the tricky wordplay such as FLYING BUTTRESS and QUADRILLE among others. Same thoughts as others for DINNER TABLE. Liked TRIUMVIRATE. Missed HONG KONG. Didn’t parse EGO. Saw the hidden OMAHA and just assumed there was a native tribe with that name who used tomahawks. COD to OVER MY DEAD BODY.
Thanks P and setter.
QUE is ‘that’, not ‘what’. QUOI means ‘what’. Just saying.
I don’t get OMAHA either
“Que?” That’ll be the lesser known Manuel Degas.
It’s both. ‘Que veux-tu?’ is a grammatical French phrase.
Qu’est-ce que tu veux? Que as both ‘what’ and ‘that’.
Indeed. That’s the example I thought of first but then I thought ‘que veux-tu’ was a more direct and obvious case.
Indeed 2 meanings although ‘what’ is a rather minority meaning they tend mostly to avoid. they probably wouldn’t say Que veux-tu?. they’d much more likely say tu veux quoi??
Yes. They repeat this mistake quite a bit. ‘Pas’ = ‘no’ is another that crops up from time to time.
I’m equally baffled by ‘Omaha’.
It’s not a mistake.
31 mins and mostly enjoyable I thought. Slightly convoluted construction in places but some neatly tricky definitions.
NHO MANTA but it seemed reasonable that OMAHA was a tribe. QUADRILLE only known from the lobsters in Lewis Carroll.
COD DRUMMER for the groan it elicited when the penny dropped.
Thanks piquet and setter.
Did this in the garage reception area while my car is serviced as I wait. Same problems as others but nothing insuperable. COD to inelegant. Thank you Pip and setter.
39 minutes. Quite enjoyable even if I didn’t understand DRUMMER, couldn’t parse OVER MY DEAD BODY, had NHO MANTA and after umming and ahhing for several minutes decided to take OMAHA on trust as my LOI. I liked working out the parsing of TRIUMVIRATE and FLYING BUTTRESS. Fortunate to finish with the grid filled correctly, something I wasn’t expecting with all the bits I couldn’t be sure of.
24.47, so chewy for me, with doubts, like everyone else, about MANTA (it’s fish!) and OMAHA (it’s where Lady Fanny comes from). One of those where partly parsed was enough for an entry – TRIUMVIRATE and OVER MY…needed piquet’s valiant dedication to work through, but that did mean I initially had ENDOWMENT at 27 for another kind of retirement cover and ENTERS for 29 goes inside ([H]EN at least to start with).
PS The new host for the site is lightning fast, at least for me.
First day on new site as I forgot to keep the link. Thanks for all the work JohnInterred, and indeed the bloggers who keep all this going, and have educated me over the last couple of years.
Anyway enough of all this puffery. About 25′ which could have been much less had I not entered “signet” for the young swan, meaning that I could not see SPY (or any other word to fit “S_I” combo). Eventually remembered the proper spelling for the bird.
Thanks Piquet and setter. (sorry I found it quite enjoyable…)
Was delayed for some time by having AEGIS at 7d…. which I thought clever, until it obv wasn’t right (and would have been IMO a better clue/answer if it had been). DNK the skin/drum connection, but clue and anagram could only have one answer. NHO of MANTA, but hey. Liked EGO and INELEGANT, once I’d figured them out.
52 minutes with the observations/quibbles documented above
Well this is the first this week that I really enjoyed: hard to say why but probably as i solved it more quiickly. 24 mins is mid-range for me. Thanks setters and hard slogging bloggers one and all.
11:28. I liked this one. Failed to parse EGO, so thanks for that Pip.
The phrase ‘such and such on skins’ in reference to a drummer is familiar to me from somewhere, so no problems there.
‘Breakfast’ in 22ac is needed for the surface (breakfast in bed), and in my house at least what we call the ‘dinner (or dining) table’ isn’t reserved for dinner. Not sure I’ve ever eaten breakfast at it but I’ve certainly done lunch.
What’s the difference between an eiderdown and a duvet? I’ve always used the terms interchangeably.
OMAHA is &Lit.
There were no such things as duvets when I was a lad. Indeed, I think they were first sold as continental quilts in the UK..
We always used to call them quilts when I was a kid, now you mention it. More often duvets now. But it’s all the same thing as far as I’m concerned!
Traditionally an eiderdown was a separate item of bedding that gave extra warmth and was used as the topmost layer, placed over blankets and sheets and counterpanes. Duvets / continental quilts replaced all of these above the person in the bed.
Duvets never really caught on in the US. I think people still like the old-style pair of sheets with quilt/comforter on top with a blanket layer in the middle for cold weather. I like being “tucked in” – it’s soothing.
Didn’t the counterpane go over the eiderdown?
Yes!
I think I’ve seen it both ways. Was a counterpane the same as a bedspread? I think of Candlewick bedspreads as going under the eiderdown. So long ago though!
I think that, in our house, normally the bedspread went under the eiderdown in the winter months. As spring came, the eiderdown was dispensed with, and, in summer, flannelette sheets and the candlewick bedspread were replaced by cotton sheets. All blankets were removed too, leaving only a single cotton sheet as covering. Such a summer didn’t happen every year! But when tucked up in a fully made-up bed in winter, I was a snug as a bug in a rug.
I only have the one table, which I generally call a ‘dining table’, and it serves for all meals. I accepted DINNER TABLE unquestioningly as an alternative term and didn’t blink at the idea that one might take breakfast, elevenses, luncheon, tea or supper there if one either chose or had no option. With the exception of a raised eyebrow at OMAHA, I had no quibbles and, unlike our blogger, I rather enjoyed the 25 mins spent with this one. Each to his or her own, I guess. (And I especially liked our skin specialist: the clue brought immediately to mind the great Buddy Rich, for whom, in my view, the term could have been invented.)
I thought ‘breakfast’ was probably meant to indicate the anagram, as in ‘dog’s breakfast’. I didn’t spot the anagram for ages as it was otherwise unclued.
The anagram is indicated by ‘possibly’.
My thanks to piquet and setter.
I thought it was middle-of-the-road difficulty, and I enjoyed it.
4a Hong Kong. Resisted a temptation to look at a map of Turkey which would have been a waste of time.
12a Ego, had to be. Then suddenly San Diego hit me between the eyes.
16a Drummer immediately pencilled in lightly and confirmed by everything fitting.
NHO 26a Manta, cheated. I would not have put it in without all the crossers.
LOI 29a Bereft. The beret would not come to me.
5d Over my dead body. Biffed. It’s clever isn’t it? Shame it went over my head. Would have been COD if I had seen it.
COD 17d Milestone.
Approaching the hour mark in what felt like a tougher than usual Friday puzzle. Probably not helped by getting FLYING BUTTRESS last. All correct though.
I have got to admit to only half parsing some of them. I don’t know if I could have worked them out but I was flagging a bit so thought I would be lazy and rely on the blog. At least it got a good read today.
Liked HONG KONG
Thanks blogger and setter
The skin specialist is in my opinion very good. It simply requires one to know that sense of ‘skins’, which isn’t particularly obscure. OMAHA seemed odd and like Piquet I was bewildered about the definition, but as an &lit. the clue is fine I think in retrospect. 42 minutes.
It seems to be impossible to get into the SNITCH. If I try it just produces an endless wait, which I suspect would lead nowhere if I had the patience not to return to the site.
I tried again with the Snitch and went off to have lunch. When I came back it was OK and there was a different page from the normal: a complete statistical breakdown of everything, making it look very complicated. Perhaps that’s why it took so long to arrive. I know nothing, of course, but it looks as if something is pointing to the page one can bring up if one wants all this statistical stuff, but not to the simple old page.
18:20 – a couple of reasonably confident guesses – OMAHA, MANTA – and EGO entered without seeing the parsing. Generally quite chewy, I thought.
After a slow start, I found I liked this more and more as I went on, with GADGETRY and FLYING BUTTRESS being the pick of the crop for me. MANTA was a new word but straightforward.
Thanks to Pip and the setter.
Two goes needed.
– Didn’t know that skins can mean drums, so the clue for MURDER is better than I thought when solving
– Relied on wordplay for the unknown MANTA
– Didn’t fully appreciate what was going on with OMAHA
– Nearly bunged in FLYING FORTRESS before thinking about it some more and realising that while a fort isn’t a target, a butt is
Thanks piquet and setter.
FOI Ego
LOI Epidemic
COD Over my dead body
DNF due to biffing QUATRAINE which made it impossible to see FLYING BUTTRESS. If I’d done them the other way around I might have been all right, dang it. Really liked BEREFT and TRIUMVIRATE.
I enjoyed this, probably because I was clearly on the wavelength.
No real issues, but I share P’s question mark re ad meaning circular.
COD To drummer as it made me smile.
41:29. Sorry piquet, I really enjoyed this one, but I can understand why it must have been frustrating if you were in a hurry. I was able to take the time to enjoy all the necessary worrying-away at some tricky parsing. EGO almost seemed a waste of good wordplay to use it with such an obvious definition, but I still liked it and GADGETRY, INELEGANT,MILESTONE, HONG KONG and more. LOIs CYGNET and SPY
About half an hour, but in two bits. Delayed very much in NE. But no issues.
Thanks pip and setter.
34ish minutes with many unparsed. I’m confused by being unable to access the blog since last Friday, but being able to access it today, with comments referring to a new site. I’m logging into timesforthetimes.co.uk as before from Australia. Is there a new address?
Ha, not been paying attention, have we!
The old site got overloaded and kept throwing errors; so our webmaster has moved us all across to a new host. The url is ours so has moved with us but the site itself is new …
I am sorry to disagree with our blogger, but I also enjoyed this. All done in 50 minutes, including a post-prandial nap. For some reason I was in the mood to wrestle with some of the less obvious clues and appreciated the setter’s artistry. Eiderdown is still a thing. James Rebanks (of Lakeland sheep-farming fame) wrote a fascinating book fairly recently (The Place of Tides) about a visit to the islands off the coast of Norway. Here he worked with the dedicated women who built nests for the migrating eider ducks and collected the down from them. And I eat breakfast every day at my dining table, so no problem there.
FOI – QUADRILLE
LOI – MERIT
COD – DRUMMER
Thanks to piquet and other contributors.
Eiderdowns are indeed made of eider down! 49 mins but all parsed, although NHO MANTA or fine leg. Thought the breakfast clue was perfectly acceptable.
Stuffed with, I mean, rather than made of!
About an hour as I forgot to stop the clock during a phone call. Shouldn’t have taken that long on reflection.
Nothing to add to the above in terms of comment.
Thanks to piquet and setter.
1:03 but WOE, forgot to go back and try to parse one last time and left a DEFECT in my solution. Once again quite a few that I failed to parse, others that I stared at for a long time in order to parse, and a despairing OMAHA to finish. I liked FLYING BUTTRESS.
Thanks setter and piquet.
Presumably MANTA has something to do with MANTILLA? (Apologies if this has already been raised).
Agree with Piquet – I didn’t enjoy it either.Did like TRIUMVIRATE though once I’d worked out the numbers.
Several clues short.
On a tour of Salisbury cathedral today, the guide pointed out the FLYING BUTTRESS. Still didn’t go back to look at my answer of FLYING FORTRESS.
From what I recall manta is Spanish for cloak, presumably made of cloth.
Manta ray : cloak like fish.
Aha! I should’ve remembered that!
45:00 estimated. quite tough, with some interesting vocabulary required. I did enjoy the challenge though as had a flight and this was a good way to break it up. I wish the Times could sort out the app ….
I liked this very much! Especially since when I first looked at it, having arrived home late from an evening on the town with two pals, it looked quite formidable. And then I saw Pip’s intro! But after a good night’s sleep and getting some work out of the way, I settled down to this and finished it rather quickly (for me, anyway). Seems that charades are the last thing I look for, and there are a lot here. My LOI was the heretofore unknown MANTA. (I also didn’t know “fine leg”—of course.) Biffed the two longest ones, parsed later.
I don’t think many people have, separately, a breakfast table, a lunch table and a dinner table. So of course you eat all your meals at one table (I don’t have a table at all!). Thought that clue was fine. (And that Pip was really in a bad mood!)
It occurred to me that the BREAKFAST reference in the DINNER TABLE clue may have been a deliberate red herring, suggesting things BRIDAL. It so happened that the letters for BRIDAL were there in the anagram, and there was a six-letter word to kick the answer off. So worked my old brain, in any case. Took a while to appreciate that there was no good use for the other five letters. Ninjas, I believe, were first introduced to popular western culture by James Clavell’s 1970’s novel Shogun. Apparently the book led to a huge increase in Japanese studies in the US . 21’06”. Many thanks.
Ninja featured prominently in Australian 1960s tv: “Shintaro the samurai ” and a couple of other shows, which I occasionally watched . I was always baffled by their ability to jump backwards up onto tiny ledges or roofs, the reversed film trick was outside my ken when I had yet to reach my tweens. I’m a fairly voracious reader but Shogun was an unknown until the 1980s. I still can’t reconcile the misuse of names of the main protagonists. Toranaga and Ieyasu.
I’ve not followed cricket since the shameful ball tape cheating, so resorted to CM for the fielder, biffed the manta.
unlike our blogger I enjoyed this workout. Why a swan song ? he’ll be missed, always a pleasure to read, and much appreciated.
I thought the skins clue must be derma-something… but I got there eventually.
From SESAME to INELEGANT, which was held up by a biffed DINING TABLE, in 29:07. The SW and NE were blank for ages. Found this quite tough, then OVER MY DEAD BODY and FLYING BUTTRESS opened it up. Thanks setter and Pip.