Time taken: 12:38. Not quite ready to declare this Tricky Thursday yet, as some of the early times are very fast indeed.
I made a real mess of the bottom half of this grid, having to break out the pen and paper to try to decipher the last few including the dreaded alphabet trawl when nothing came to mind for 20 across and 21 down, which turned out to be my last two in.
The top half went in very quickly, and the definition for the reference clue along with checking letters meant I had it before getting the reference, so I think there’s less sting in the tail than with the last few Thursdays.
How did you get along?
| Across | |
| 1 | Blockheads, Nirvana, but no Utopia? (5,8) |
| FOOLS PARADISE – FOOLS(blockheads) and PARADISE(Nirvana) | |
| 8 | Picked up empty vessel (4) |
| VEIN – homophone of VAIN(empty) | |
| 9 | Altar in USA misused in pagan celebration (10) |
| SATURNALIA – anagram of ALTAR,IN,USA | |
| 10 | Obstruct detective seeing difficulty (5-3) |
| CROSS EYE – CROSS(obstruct), EYE(detective) | |
| 11 | Brief ascent and short cut for peak (6) |
| CLIMAX – CLIMB(ascent) minus the last letter and AXE(cut) minus the last letter | |
| 13 | Male feature very soft in water (5,5) |
| ADAMS APPLE – PP(very soft) inside ADAM’S ALE(water) | |
| 16 | 4/7 of 19 is a very small amount (4) |
| IOTA – The answer to 19 is RIOT ACT, so four of those seven letters are IOTA | |
| 17 | Monkey leaving penny for rook (4) |
| SCAM – SCAMP(monkey) minus P(penny) | |
| 18 | Aggrieved writer receiving completed book (4,4,2) |
| HARD DONE BY – the writer is Thomas HARDY, inside DONE(completed) and B(book) | |
| 20 | Stroll taking in lake and land (6) |
| CLINCH – CINCH(stroll, easy task) containing L(lake) | |
| 22 | Sometimes switch positions (3,3,2) |
| OFF AND ON – the positions of a switch are OFF AND ON | |
| 24 | Aggressive force one first to unleash any bombs (2-4-4) |
| IN YOUR FACE -anagram of FORCE, I(one), the first letter of Unleash and ANY | |
| 26 | Blank verse coming to the head of classical poet (4) |
| VOID – V(verse) moved to the front of OVID(classical poet) | |
| 27 | Government staff housed within veils false assertions (13) |
| MISSTATEMENTS – STATE(government), MEN(staff) inside MISTS(veils) | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Release activist: destructive element in cells? (4,7) |
| FREE RADICAL – FREE(release), RADICAL(activist) | |
| 2 | Remarks from Napoleon perhaps in breaking sanctions? (5) |
| OINKS – IN inside OKS(sanctions). Reference to Napoleon the pig from Animal Farm | |
| 3 | Lowlander beats retreats in military band (9) |
| SASSENACH -CANES(beats) reversed inside SASH(military band) | |
| 4 | Solution on page — time for second port (7) |
| ANTWERP – ANSWER(solution) and P(page) with T(time) replacing the S(second) | |
| 5 | Sport among spooks upset Goldfinger? (5) |
| AURIC – RU(sport) inside CIA(spooks) all reversed. The first name of the character in the James Bond novel and movie. | |
| 6 | At home mum dropped from excitement or exhaustion (9) |
| INANITION – IN(at home), then remove MA(mum) from ANIMATION(excitement) | |
| 7 | For Torquemada, the One Priest (3) |
| ELI – EL(the in Spanish), I(one) | |
| 12 | American converted bitcoin — it’s for drugs (11) |
| ANTIBIOTICS – A(American) then an anagram of BITCOIN,IT’S | |
| 14 | Motorway sign, in our opinion, of great importance (9) |
| MOMENTOUS – M(motorway), OMEN(sign), TO US(in our opinion) | |
| 15 | Female mentored about last lesson before Christmas? (3,2,4) |
| END OF TERM – anagram of F(female), MENTORED. Referring to the last class of a school semester | |
| 19 | What might be read as warning to mob? (4,3) |
| RIOT ACT – cryptic definition | |
| 21 | Saint in distress in wood (5) |
| HURST – S(saint) inside HURT(distress) – my last in | |
| 23 | Actor considering using name for good (5) |
| NIVEN – GIVEN(considering) with N(name) replacing G(good). Referring to the actor David who I’m sure made lots of good movies, but I always remember as being the suave jewel thief and bane of Peter Sellers’ existence in The Pink Panther | |
| 25 | Game taking up 30 seconds? (3) |
| NIM – MIN(half of MINUTE, 30 seconds) reversed. A clue paying a visit from Mephistoland, tune in Sunday when I decode that puzzle. | |
This went in pretty quickly in general, but CLINCH, HURST and SASSENACH took a minute. POI NIVEN, LOI VOID.
I solved all but four clues in half-an hour, and all I could manage by 40 minutes. I gave up and used aids for CLINCH and INANINTION. The first involved two somewhat stretched definitions in my view, and the second with all its vowel checkers didn’t give me enough to work with.
I was pleased to know HURST as woodland however.
Woke up in middle of night, so decided to work on this. Almost gave up before I started being unable to access Crossword Club and only getting the online page with difficulty.
Anyway about 40 mins with a few unknowns. NHO NIM but had to be half a minute. LOI NHO HURST from wordplay, similarly INANITION. Stared for a while at VEIN. oh that vain… Now won’t get back to sleep with a Blockheads/Nirvana mixed tape in my head.
Thanks George and setter
9:02, with a similar blockage at the end over CINCH and HURST. I’m not quite convinced by ‘stroll’ for CINCH. They sort of mean the same thing but I don’t think they’re substitutable. The two examples given in ODE for example: ‘home league wins achieved at a stroll’, ‘Carlow’s lazy stroll in the sun to victory’.
I didn’t parse IOTA so thanks for clearing that one up George.
Today’s crossword was/not a bit of a stroll/cinch?
A stroll/walk in the park, yes, but I personally don’t recognise ‘stroll’ on its own as a standard usage.
Had to give up with Hurst and Clinch. NHO Hurst but will try and remember.
Surely a very rare reference to Todd Rundgren’s Utopia in 1A.
They can both be nouns though?
They both are nouns – nouns with slightly different meanings!
29.41. LOsI were CINCH and HURST, and I still have no idea what the latter means. I liked the NIVEN/VOID duo which also came very late, thanks G.
From The Wicked Messenger:
There was a wicked messenger
From ELI he did come
With a mind that multiplied the smallest matter
When questioned who had sent for him
He answered with his thumb
For his tongue it could not speak, but only flatter
I didn’t know HURST either. Chambers defines it as “a wood, a grove” or “a sandbank” and the first of those clearly works in the clue. The spelling of CINCH always catches me out, I expect it be spelt with an ‘s’ but the use as “something easy” I’m pretty familiar with as in “it was a cinch” although Chambers has a host of other meanings.
I struggled to realise that a vessel could be a blood vessel and so VEIN was my LOI.
A respectable 43:06 by my standards.
48:02 Couple of Aids at the end needed for a synonym of empty (VAIN) and words to precede EYE. Was stuck on BRASS EYE, and never heard of CROSS EYE, apart from cross eyed of course,
Knew NIM, as we studied it in Maths at school, in a discussion about algorithms.
NHO ADAMS ALE, or INANITION, which still looks like an odd word. Fairly clued, though.
NHO HURST, but it’s in plenty of place names. Was last in, with CLINCH.
Held up by the only vaguely known Saturnalia, and completely unknown inanition. Also resorted to aids for clinch and hurst. One of my last in was my favourite: 1ac. An average time for me of 36:40.
Pleasant stroll/cinch to complete, this. Vaguely knew inanition, but not really what it meant. Looking it up now, it doesn’t sound fun.
Here in Kent there are hursts around everywhere: Chainhurst, Lamberhurst, Staplehurst, Wadhurst etc etc. It just means a grove of trees.
‘A pleasant cinch’?
Point made, but “This crossword was a stroll/cinch to complete” seemed close enough to me. But I’m easily pleased.
I don’t recognise ‘this crossword was a stroll to complete’ as English. Maybe just me!
21:35 which is a bit quicker than expected. When I see lots of hyphenated or three-word clues I often think ‘great, biff city!’ but then the difficulty of the entire puzzle tends to reveal itself anyway. I think today had a higher-than-usual quotient of needing to use the wordplay to get to the answer, as with NIM or INANITION. Had BETA BLOCKER for a while which was stupid of me. Mainly happy to have recalled CINCH, though, which always seems a weird word that I haven’t heard used in real life, and I believe is also spelt SYNCH. [edit: this looks to be wrong.]
DNF. I was good and lost in a FOOL”S PARADISE, thinking this was easy but then I reached the last three. Eventually I got IN YOUR FACE but CLINCH didn’t occur to me and so I had no chance of seeing HURST. COD to OINKS. Thank you George and setter.
Would have been a sub-10′ today, but a double alphabet trawl was necessary for VEIN.
Knew HURST as there is such in the local park, as well as being in many place names as mentioned.
I do a lot of family history, and INANITION frequently appears on death certificates of babies, who fought for their lives against malnourishment and poverty.
11’11”, thanks george and setter.
30.20. LOI was INANITION which I had never heard of and hope never to see again. Quite a few sticky little ones like VEIN and SCAM made this harder than it should have been, but I was wary having had two DNFs this week from carelessness. Good challenge on a Thursday all told. Thanks George and setter both. COD to NIVEN!
INANITION was how Charlotte Bronte describes Jane Eyre’s state after running away from Rochester and wandering on the moors. Just read obituaries of Claudia Cardinale so NIVEN’s Pink Panther came to mind quickly.
I mainly remember Niven from “A Matter of Life & Death,” a rather interesting film I thought (Stairway to Heaven, in the US).
One of the all time great films, all the more so because it was suggested by HM Government to ease relations between the Americans and the Brits during and after the latter stages of WWII
Thanks for the reminder Jerry. It used to be on late night tv – haven’t seen it in ages.
I took fell foul of CINCH & HURST. Also hadn’t heard of INANITION but the word play meant it couldn’t be anything else.
DNF with a punt of BRASS EYE. One can be brassed off, as I am having been obstructed by this clue. I have no problem seeing it now thanks to TftT.
32 mins of high quality stuff. Particularly liked OINKS, AURIC, IOTA, SASSENACH and plenty more besides.
These errors are ruining my average. Thanks glh and setter.
14:11. Three minutes at the end getting, you’ve guessed it, the crossing CLINCH and HURST. I liked OINKS best. Thanks George and setter.
24:02
I made a real hash of FOOLS PARADISE amongst others and again I felt a bit off-message throughout. INANITION and HURST were the only unknowns so crossers were needed for those and VEIN took a few trawls through the alphabet.
A bit of a challenge for me but looking back there was nothing too daunting.
Thanks to both.
Everything bar the NHO HURST in 24 mins. Stared at it for a while. Gave up.
13.26, so in a rare somewhere-near-George position, suggesting that it was a CINCH for me, which I suppose it was. The only slow entries were VEIN (naturally, with the wide range of vessels available) and CROSS EYE, which didn’t feel quite right, expecting the D on the end. I invented INANITION from the wordplay and assumed it was real.
Purists might argue that Nirvana and PARADISE aren’t really the same thing, and SATURNALIA is Roman, not pagan. But then this is Crosswordland.
The Saturnalia long predated Christianity in Rome, so ‘pagan’ is surely fair? Rather hard to describe polytheistic early Rome as anything other?
Good puzzle. CLINCH and HURST the last two in. Pleased to have been able to retrieve INANITION from the mental attic Mistyping ENS for END left me looking for a book title. HERO SENT BY? Probably not.
David Niven’s memoir The Moon’s A Balloon is very funny.
Thanks to George and the setter
All done in 15 minutes except the CLINCH / HURST crossers, for which I decided to be stumped and came here for enlightenment. Should have seen HURST as JerryW says it’s the end of the names of places.
NIVEN quickly recalled from times in late 70s or early 80s when we (the ad agency) were paying him mega bucks for advertising Maxwell House coffee. We had to have another celeb also “in the can” in case Mr Niven suddenly became the late Mr Niven.
OINKS was good once the penny dropped.
My thanks to glh and setter.
OK not VERY tricky Thursday, but not a doddle IMO.
LOsI 20a Clinch and 21d Hurst, like glh. I was unaware that you don’t get a cinch on a British saddle, only a Mexican one; it is called a girth here. HHO Hurst, but it didn’t spring to mind.
Failed to parse 15d End of term, and 24a In your face.
2d Oinks. Can we guess the identity of the setter here?
3d Sassenach, DNK it could mean a Lowland Scot.
6d Inanition. Not a word I would be confident in using, indeed I looked it up to be sure.
Too many bunged in unparsed with fingers crossed for this to be particularly satisfying for me today, and, contrary to what several comments here suggest, not at all straightforward. But I felt much the same about the puzzle in The Guardian today, so perhaps it’s just me having one of those mornings. Time, then, to do something else!
34 mins with one genuine typo INANITION somehow typed in with an M. Like others struggled with CLINCH and HURST (my original answer STRUT seemed a bit weak) but enjoyed the moment it clicked. Certainly not a cinch of a clue.
Just the lowlander and unheard of pagan festival caused the other problems on what would otherwise have been a reasonably straightforward solve.
Quite enjoyed this one. I wonder if it was by my favourite QC setter Oink given 2 down. My COD as well.
Thanks blogger and setter
29:24
Decent progress mainly down the RHS for the first 15 minutes, but slowed considerably after that – OINKS (very good) and RADICAL gave CROSS, SCAM, VEIN and (eventually) CLINCH. But then, I was stuck along the bottom. Guessed at the unknown game (in my Unix-heavy world, NIM is the Network Installation Manager), which in turn, gave IN YOUR FACE and helped with MISSTATEMENTS. HURST was then a write-in, before finishing with VOID and NIVEN – solved together, having had OVID pencilled in for a while, based on the I checker.
Thanks G and setter
19.54 with a typo.
Having been free of them for a while, the typo is back. Annoying here as, stuck the S in __RST and HURST jumped out, then alpha trawled to the clever CLINCH. INANITION NHO but looked like it had to be.
Liked it. Thanks George and Setter
23 minutes. Fewer uncertainties than yesterday. LOI was CLINCH; my take on CINCH for ‘stroll’ was that it is in the “sort of works” category as several others have said. I found the SE corner quite hard, needing to see what was going on with VOID before being able to get NIVEN. IOTA was good, even if I didn’t rely on the wordplay and lazily solved from the def and crossing letters alone.
Almost completed in around 17 mins but gave up with VEIN unsolved and OINKS was the LOI (of those I did). I’d say the RHS was easier than the LHS but unlike some here I’d declare the top right (NW) to be the hardest part.
vein = (blood) vessel comes up now and again, and took me a few goes to get to remember..
20 minutes give or take a few. Pretty straightforward on the whole – HURST, my surname, a write-in, natch.
Like others, defeated by CLINCH and HURST. I’d forgotten about saint being just S, and CINCH for stroll is a bit dodgy, as stated above
From VEIN to NIVEN in 29:42 with a big hold up in the SW at the CLINCH/HURST junction. Thanks setter and George.
Two goes needed.
– Took a very long alphabet trawl to get VEIN (I always forget that meaning of vessel)
– Relied on the wordplay to get AURIC as I didn’t know it was Goldfinger’s first name
– Slowed myself down by putting in SATIN for 21d, thinking it was an anagram of saint (with ‘distressed’ as the anagrind) and being aware of satinwood. It wasn’t until I realised 24a had to be IN-YOUR-FACE that I rethought, though even then I had to trust the wordplay as I didn’t know that’s what HURST means
– Had to trust that NIM is a game
Thanks glh and setter.
FOI Off and on
LOI Vein
COD Saturnalia
Back to not finishing, due to HURST (NHO) and CLINCH. The only thing I could think of to fit where HURST belonged was “burnt”, which I fleetingly thought might be justifiable in the most gruesome way. Lots of fun was had solving FOOLS PARADISE by talking nonsense to myself (idiot’s delight, anyone?). Several NHOs for me, CROSS EYE (cross-eyed, yes), Adam’s ale for two. IN YOUR FACE was a long time unraveling, all the more satisfying for that. Favorite surface was ANTWERP. But OINKS my very, very favorite clue.
Thanks setter and glh.
Made a mess of VEIN and VOID, overhasty.
Some excellent clues. My late friend Alan Hurst used to say: “Hurst. Anglo-Saxon. Wood on a hill”.
Like many others, CLINCH and VEIN required much time and many alphabet trawls, though luckily remembered HURST from previous puzzles. NHO inanition, or Utopia the band, presuming it is one. Liked the simple ones for the provoked thoughts: AURIC and CLIMAX, but COD to FREE RADICAL.
P.S. And know the simple tactic of the deterministic NIM, a game as pointless as noughts and crosses.
Oh, and Big Thanks and much kudos to John in Bury for his sterling efforts in migrating the site to fix the 500 problems.
More gin for that man!
11:25 so a rare quicker-than-George for me, although it could have been so much better it I hadn’t misread 26A and put in OVID, which added a couple of minutes at least. Also struggled with IN YOUR FACE and HURST.
NB when I first came here today I got an error whenever I clicked on any link:
Too Many Requests
The user has sent too many requests in a given amount of time.
This was from the first one I clicked. I came back an hour later and it was all ok again.
Yes I got that message too. Put me in my place.
I don’t see how 19dn is cryptic. The police literally used to read out the riot act, which is where the expression comes from.
You’ve beaten me to it!
It’s not cryptic in any sense. The Riot Act was read to a mob, serving a legal purpose by authorising more forceful action if not complied with. An ‘or else’ if you like. It was read at Peterloo in 1819, bizarrely in order to disperse a crowd of educated men, women and children dressed in their Sunday best, shouting hurty things and distributing pamphlets. Bigly.
Perhaps the setter thinks the modern incarnation of ‘reading the riot act’ à la Sir Alex Ferguson in his pomp at half-time, is the real definition?
The clue is (mildly) cryptic in the sense that ‘read’ in the surface reading means ‘interpreted’.
did anyone else go for “satin” , asin satinwood, as the answer to21 down, until the crossers appeared.
I did! I put it straight in and didn’t reconsider until IN-YOUR-FACE forced me to.
27. 39. Guessed hurst, thinking it might be something to do with a forest. Just in time remembered from a previous puzzle vein being a blood vessel. Similar process with oinks and animal farm.
All in all, pretty stodgy solve for me but at least I finished.
No problems really, except that in the AURIC clue I was fixated on ‘Sport among (spooks) upset’ when it was ‘(Sport among spooks) upset’ and I wondered for quite a while what the sport ur was. 28 minutes.
After accessing the site yesterday with no problems I had trouble around lunchtime and thought oh dear. But just now I got in with no trouble so perhaps it was my machine (new, with Windows 11 and I’m not coping perfectly with it all).
31:25. It seems that I am excellent company in having my last two in as CLINCH and the unknown HURST.
Thanks glh and setter
Adding my name to fans of The Moon’s a Balloon, Niven’s autobiography. Also worth seeing Separate Tables, from the Terence Rattigan play, for which I think he won an Oscar. VOID was COD for me. 20’45”
Had a pal called Alan Hurst who lived in Oldhurst, near Woodhurst, and still did not get it! Sometimes it just won’t come will it? Just realised the tautology of Woodhurst.
28:04. Quite tricky towards the end with NHO HURST, and CLINCH being hard to spot.
I needed aids to get Hurst. NHO plus I must remember that Saint can be S as well as ST.
My COD to Momentous.
Same problems with CLINCH and HURST (NHO) as others, but I also couldn’t get MISSTATEMENTS ( what a very ugly,unnecessary word!). So that was my downfall, the SW corner. Up the top, put OINKS , VEIN and AURIC in fairly quickly (OINKS my COD). Thought HARD DONE BY was cleverly constructed, as were the other phrases. Oh, failed on INANITION ( even though I had all the right letters) as it just didn’t seem like a word. No problem with RIOT ACT, nor ADAMS APPLE, but was especially pleased to get VEIN in “off the bat”.
Biffed nim, I’d forgotten it apparently as I’ve added it to CM.
DNF as clinch eluded me and NHO hurst, was toying with copse for a while.
I ,too, enjoyed Niven’s autobiography, but the part where he sits in a car outside a high school with another actor, checking out (aka ogling) girls as they leave is far from amusing.
Many thanks to setter and blogger.