Time taken: 12:45
Had to look closely at a lot of wordplay here, there’s some unfamiliar and unusual terms, fortunately the wordplay is unambiguous (that doesn’t mean it is easy).
There’s also a bit of general knowledge that could go a long way, and some terrific misdirection in the definitions. Rather a nice puzzle, all round.
How did you get along?
| Across | |
| 1 | Hash in bowl on floor? (4,9) |
| DOGS BREAKFAST – double definition, the second a little cryptic | |
| 8 | Biblical character James authorises arrests (4) |
| ESAU – hidden inside JamES AUthorises | |
| 9 | European region, 75 per cent in want, unfortunately (9) |
| NORWEGIAN – anagram of REGION and 75% of WANt | |
| 10 | Big rock in castle rolled back, charger not initially gaining access (3-1-4) |
| KOH-I-NOOR – ROOK(castle) reversed, containing RHINO(charger) minus the first letter. I suspect the definition saves this from being a biff. | |
| 11 | Hard in dark for rescuer at sea? (6) |
| DINGHY – H(hard) inside DINGY(dark) | |
| 13 | Unstoppable force in prison, criminal anger, note (10) |
| JUGGERNAUT – JUG(prison) then an anagram of ANGER, and UT(note) | |
| 16 | Graduate on cover of exam book (4) |
| EMMA -MA(graduate) after the external letters in ExaM | |
| 17 | Concern for international relations, maybe, all kicking off (4) |
| FIRM – first letters of For International Relations Maybe | |
| 18 | Listener redundant in the end after I’m introduced to film — silent movie star? (4,6) |
| MIME ARTIST – EAR(listener) and the last letter of redundanT after I’M, all inside MIST(film( | |
| 20 | Open University hit by opponents (6) |
| UNWRAP – U(university), then RAP(hit) after N and W (opponents at bridge) | |
| 22 | Credit claimed by priest for amending decree (8) |
| RESCRIPT – CR(credit) inside an anagram of PRIEST. Got this from wordplay | |
| 24 | Card issuer printed banking instruction firstly: sign alongside it (9) |
| LIBRARIAN – RAN(printed) containing the first letter of Instruction, all after LIBRA(sign) | |
| 25 | Gather I’m from another planet! (4) |
| MEET – “I’m from another planet” could be “ME, E.T” | |
| 26 | Award gold medallist the first clue? (8,5) |
| VICTORIA CROSS – VICTOR(gold medallist), then the first clue is 1 ACROSS | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Given instigation of divorce, could the answer be — this? (11) |
| DISSOLUTION – first letter of Divorse, then IS SOLUTION? (could the answer be?) | |
| 2 | I moved earth toward heaven to inspire Barcelona, ultimately — did I? (5) |
| GAUDI – I, DUG(moved earth) reversed, containing the last letter in BarcelonA. Referring to the Modernist architect Antoni Gaudi | |
| 3 | Beat this good French Olympian spirit (5,4) |
| BONGO DRUM – BON(good, in French), GOD(Olympian), RUM(spirit) | |
| 4 | European river in Piedmont city almost bordering a kingdom of Italy (7) |
| ETRURIA -needed the wordplay to piece this together, E(European), then R(river) inside TURIN(Piedmont city) minus the last letter, finally A | |
| 5 | Imperative in conference to make a bloomer, say? (5) |
| KNEAD – homophone of NEED(imperative) | |
| 6 | Lamenting being in a muddle — what might set one straight? (9) |
| ALIGNMENT – anagram of LAMENTING | |
| 7 | Brown belt (3) |
| TAN – double definition | |
| 12 | Party girls embracing OAP, I’m so embarrassed man! (4,7) |
| HOMO SAPIENS – HENS(attendees at a hen party) containing an anagram of OAP,I’M,SO | |
| 14 | Adhesive with which I stick a vessel up on top of cupboard (3,6) |
| GUM ARABIC – I, BAR(stick), A, MUG(vessel) all reversed, then the first letter of Cupboard | |
| 15 | Very fast twitch has hurried boy through (9) |
| TRANSONIC – TIC(twitch) containing RAN(hurried), SON(boy) | |
| 19 | Alcoholic drink with guile secreted in pocket (7) |
| MARTINI – ART(guile) inside MINI(pocket-sized). I like mine straight up with a twist | |
| 21 | Gallery’s bill for frames (5) |
| PRADO – AD(bill) inside PRO(for) | |
| 23 | Gallant, first person donning jumper (5) |
| ROMEO – ME(first person) inside ROO(jumper) | |
| 24 | European doffs cap for John (3) |
| LAV – SLAV(European) minus the first letter | |
DNK the diamond for KOH-I-NOOR and never would have worked it out from the wordplay. Also bunged in ‘unstop’ for UNWRAP which made GUM ARABIC impossible until I saw my mistake. Thought VICTORIA CROSS was very clever to include ‘the first clue’. Liked JUGGERNAUT but always forget that ‘ut’ was the original ‘do’. RESCRIPT for ‘decree’ was an unknown but with checkers it couldn’t be anything else. Saw GAUDI straight off but didn’t get the parsing as I thought ‘ultimately did I’ was the DI. Had a mer at MIME ARTIST but I suppose in the days of silent movies they were all mime artists. So many great clues and I was pleased to only have one or two missing. COD to MARTINI.
Thanks George and setter.
I only knew RESCRIPT because of the Meiji emperor’s Rescript on Education, which schoolchildren were required to memorize.
Never heard of it, but after looking it up it seems to be a mix of Chinese (Confucian) and Japanese values.
I would have thought of Emperor Hirohito’s Imperial Rescript.
This took forever. Failed to parse KOH-I-NOOR (def + enumeration), ETRURIA, HOMO SAPIENS. MIME ARTIST, when I finally got it, struck me as rather green-painty.
DNF, I didn’t know ETRURIA, and did not know which cities were in Piedmont so unable to work it out from the cryptic.
Some of this was right at the edge of my knowledge – for example, I knew Koh-I-Noor was something, but not what, and I NHO Gaudi. I used the cryptic on both of these, to good effect. Bloomer as bread is also not obvious to overseas solvers – you need to think of flour instead of flower. Etruria is another one that may not be known to all.
Time: 58:12
48 minutes. I thought this was tricky as well. RESCRIPT was the only NHO, but there were few write-ins and I was slow to pick up KOH-I-NOOR and HOMO SAPIENS despite the helpful enumeration and crossers.
I parsed DOGS BREAKFAST as a clue as definition, with ‘Hash’ in the sense of a “stew” (food) but the double def parsing clearly works and to me the clue fits into the “cryptic def cum double def” category, even if the category doesn’t really exist!
Thanks George and setter
A touch under 40 mins for me. Took ages to get beyond disconnected answers GAUDI and DINGHY and VICTORIA CROSS. Was able to get ETRURIA from the word-play only and KOH I NOOR was my last in, after finally twigging the word play was referring to the chess piece when for ages I had “fort” stuck in my mind. Thought HOMO SAPIENS one of the best hidden directs in a long time. Thanks to George for customary pithy explanations and to setter.
Steady solve today, and no actual unknowns… been to Barcelona, seen the Koh-i-noor (a dull lump), heard of Etruria. Rescript the most unfamiliar word but the answer was clear.
21.46 with LOI juggernaut. Most on the ball I’ve been this week. Hopefully, I’ll be similarly in tune tomorrow.
An hour and a bit to finally give up on the unknown kingdom clued by a city I had at least heard of, though sadly didn’t know was in Piedmont. From the start I knew that clue might be a problem but hoped things would become clearer with crossers. They didn’t.
I had heard of the Etruscans, having looked things up, but I didn’t know where they were from or what their kingdom was called.
About an hour (just as well I woke early..) but really glad to finish what I found to be a very tough puzzle. Slowly solved bits and pieces to start with, but only got really moving when “I saw ESAU” which allowed me to biff GAUDI which gave me DOGS BREAKFAST.
The rest came only less slowly.
Thanks George for the necessary parsings and setter.
I probably need to be a little circumspect, because I suspect this is one of the competition puzzles and therefore might be forgiven for being more difficult.
Having seen the blog, we might have got a few more clues if we had been able to get more of a critical mass going.
Of those we got, we rather liked 1ac DINGHY and 16ac EMMA, and after coming here 3d BONGO DRUM is clever and amusing once the ‘olympian’ to GOD jump is made. The degree of complication in some clues was the problem for us, and some elements were questionable.
For example, in 20ac UNWRAP I was playing with U and ‘un’ words but why one would necessarily chose bridge opponents and those particular two (?) – are they the nominal leaders, and then why RAP would be ‘the’ synonym for ‘hit’.
Another example (by no means the only one), in 26ac VICTORIA CROSS (which occurred in a recent puzzle), why would one necessarily call a ‘gold medallist’ a VICTOR, and using the ‘first clue’ in that way unless one guessed the ‘award’ – and this is more than an award.
We did guess 1ac DOGS BREAKFAST but still not sure how that works. Which is to say nothing of some of the GK required.
Lastly, 24d LAV clue was effectively ‘toilet humour’ using both British and US slang?!
I know I am not popular for saying such things, but one should be honest.
Thank you glh.
15.50
On the enjoyable side of tricky, I thought.
Luckily I was sitting under a poster of GAUDI buildings as I worked my way across.
LOI MEET
COD VICTORIA CROSS
29’33” and a bit of a struggle. Those long meaty clues are daunting. Twice I was diverted by false trails. For KOH-I-NOOR, after I had the ‘I’, I had a vague notion of a Scottish phrase DOCH-I-DOOR or the like, which I imagined meant something to do with knocking on doors and getting ACCESS. And then on HOMO SAPIENS, I had DEBS in mind for the party girls and thought the whole thing might be an expression of wonder (MAN! – the exclamation marked encouraged the delusion). Finally saw error of my way. Good tough puzzle. Many thanks.
PS. It’s DOCH-AN-DORIS and means a parting drink! So totally wrong tree barked.
FYI strictly ‘deoch an dorais’ in modern Scottish Gaelic orthography (literally a drink-at-the-door or in English equivalent one-for-the-road) but frequently – as in a lively pub in Partick (west Glasgow) – ‘deoch an dorus’…
But it’s even in English dictionaries (I’m surprised to find) with various spellings including deoch-an-doruis and yes, as you gave it, doch-an-doris.
I’m not keen on the latter spelling bc it really won’t help people say ‘deoch’ at all right…
And the Dictionary of the Scots Language (DSL) with more spellings that you could wish for!
https://dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/deochandorus
🤷♂️
32:37; fairly satisfied with that. Really enjoyable puzzle.
KOH-I-NOOR certainly required much pondering. Weirdly, I think I would have got it quicker had it been clued as one word. I’m embarrassed to admit that I considered rook = castle a few times but immediately dismissed them as being two different pieces! Blame that on brain fog after 4 days of flu. Also couldn’t think of any chargers, foolishly. Finally, I had spent ages convinced that I was looking for some sort of Celtic name of a famous rock – I think vaguely influenced by Dolgellau, although dôl = ‘water-meadow’ according to Wikipedia. [edit: I see Leskoffer thought similarly!]
GAUDI was a write-in, as I believe the Sagrada Familia was in the news this or last week for having been further extended (upwards).
WOE in 34 mins. After getting so much tricky stuff right it was most disappointing to fail on a lazy KNEED. Phonetic fingers strike again.
Several unparsed but not too much obscurity so biffing was possible.
NHO RESCRIPT or UT = Note. In what context?
Fortunately I know of ETRURIA, it’s in Stoke.
Thanks glh and setter
ut, re, mi is a variant (possibly archaic, not sure) of do, re, mi. Comes up in renaissance tunes!
Thank you. It’s certainly more archaic than me.
Thank you
Yes I knew ETRURIA as something to do with pottery in Staffordshire, only now does it occur to me that it was the home of the Etruscans. Nho RESCRIPT. LOI GAUDI, DOG’S BREAKFAST having taken a while.
COD to VICTORIA CROSS, an answer suitable for a clue-writing competition.
20’01”, thanks george and setter.
Half an hour or so.
– Forgot ‘ut’ as a note, but by then I had all the checkers for JUGGERNAUT and could parse the rest so it had to be
– Not familiar with RESCRIPT but got there from wordplay
– Biffed LIBRARIAN and GAUDI from the checkers
– Didn’t parse BONGO DRUM as I failed to see that ‘Olympian’ was giving ‘God’
Thanks glh and setter.
FOI Lav
LOI Juggernaut
COD Prado
24.38, but I stared for ages at KNEED (sic) wondering how a bloomer came into it, finally remembered the bread but ended up with a double homophone with no definition recognised. The top section as a whole took most of my time.
It is a double use of the homophone ?
Is that unusual ?
DNF in SE, missing the MIME ARTIST perform the TRANSONIC RESCRIPT. I enjoyed it apart from the SE. Didn’t know UT either despite my surname, but there wasn’t anything else it could be. ETRURIA would have come in quicker if Stoke had been mentioned. Too tough for me. Thank you George and setter.
40 mins – don’t see how KOH-I-NOOR is gettable if you haven’t heard of it before, really, with RHINO as ‘charger not initially’ being a tough parse.
GUM ARABIC’s was another parsing that I wouldn’t like to meet in a dark alley on a cold winter’s night. Some very tricky bits indeed, but enjoyable enough for the most part. VICTORIA CROSS brought a smile. Thanks blogger and setter.
Yes, re the diamond clue, I did think an inverted rook from chess was involved, but would not have picked the rhino as the charger in a month of Sundays.
I believe that’s called a DBE (definition by example) on here? I’m not a fan either, but as it seems to have stopped attracting negative comment, I assume it’s now allowed. Some DBEs are signposted with a ‘?’, a ‘maybe’, a ‘possibly’ or a ‘say’. Which helps, but not all of them are indicated thus. And apparently there’s no requirement for the setter to do so.
Got through it, but it took over an hour. Like pulling teeth. And it’s not even Friday yet.
Thanks, g.
From ESAU to HOMO SAPIENS in 39:37. Strewth! Knew the diamond, NHO RESCRIPT. Forgot UT but it didn’t matter. Thanks setter and George.
Slightly tricky, but no real problems. Guessed we were looking for the Etrsucans’ unknown home and that the city was Torino/Turin, never heard of rescript but it mostly went in at reasonable speed. As Dr. Shred mentions the Sagrada Familia was in the news a few days ago as it’s now the tallest church in the world, I think. Liked Victoria Cross and dissolution most of all.
23:41. Tricky, but a great puzzle. I have ticks beside MEET, VICTORIA CROSS and DISSOLUTION. I’m another who didn’t know RESCRIPT. Held up for ages on 10A thinking the Big rock had to be GIB until I saw that castle had to be ROOK. LOI JUGGERNAUT took a while to see too. Thanks George and setter.
72 minutes, with several parsings only understood here. But many nice clues, especially the VICTORIA CROSS one. We’ve had the rook/castle complaint before from aggrieved chessplayers, but our hands are tied by the dictionaries.
I thought this was a cracking puzzle. Did pretty well, considering the difficulty, until running out of steam with the last two or three: I had the headless rhino charging the wrong way to give KON-I-HOOR, which I was thinking was an island somewhere exotic, until Wiki doubly corrected me when I checked mid-solve (so I suppose a DNF if you’re being very picky. Which I’m not.); JUGGERNAUT took a lot of teasing from the tip of my tongue; and then there was far too much staring required for what I learn is the only word to fit DIS_O_U_ION. After all that, pleased to have (DN)Finished in 27:52. Much enjoyed – many thanks setter and George.
Found this hard after optimistically setting aside half hour to do it this morning. Had to come back to it during my lunch break in a probably combined time of just under an hour.
KOH-I-NOOR and ETRURIA known to me but couldn’t list them off the top of my head if you had me listing gemstones and kingdoms so I had to rely on the word play to access that part of my brain.
I was a bit unsure about my me, ET? parsing so glad the blog confirmed. JUGGERNAUT was the only other one I needed the blog for.
Thanks blogger and setter.
Pleased to finish this toughie with all correct in 61.15, and even managed to parse it all as I went with the exception of not knowing UT for note. I found the lower half easier than the top half, and as a former architect should have thought of Gaudi instantly at the mere mention of Barcelona, but it took a while for the penny to drop.
36 mins and a messy page as the silent movie actress Mimi Hearst slowly yielded to MIME ARTIST. NHO UT, RESCRIPT or TRANSONIC. Couldn’t parse the clue for GAUDI, the RHINO in the diamond and a couple of others that I don’t recall. Lovely stuff.
The presence of VICTORIA helped to prompt a recollection of the diamond as a “jewel in the crown”. Like those other rocks the Elgin Marbles it seems unlikely to be given back.
Unlike the marbles, it is claimed by no less than four different countries.. and it was granted to Britain by treaty. So no, not going back. Not until funds get very low, anyhow ..
Tough, I thought. Had to put the pencil down after 3o odd mins this morning to go and play golf. 6 were left, all in the E/SE.
Upon my return I quickly saw KNEAD which opened up DINGHY, HOMO SAPIENS, MEET, ROMEO and finally The NHO RESCRIPT. Really pleased to finish today.
I liked DOGS BREAKFAST, KOH-I-NOR (which I did know) and JUGGERNAUT.
Thanks George and setter. Would be nice to know if this was a championship puzzle.
36:24. Mostly a smooth solve until I got to the SW corner. PRADO, LIBRARIAN and UNWRAP too some unpicking… Really enjoyed this one.
25.38
A fine puzzle though not fully parsed I have to admit so thanks George. I got stuck with about half done and just thought of someone famous connected with Barcelona. That unlocked 1a and all the checkers helped me clean up. Never knew about the Staffordshire Etruria until pitching for some work there back in the day, then listening to a Great Lives on Wedgwood.
Returning after a hiatus, partly because I wanted more after today’s quickie, and I certainly got more, taking 52:19 (about my average) to finish. Weirdly, GAUDI was my first in, while thinking, gosh, that’s not very helpful, is it?! That gave me DOG’S BREAKFAST, which helped a lot. Obscurities were GUM ARABIC, TRANSONIC, KNEAD (I keep forgetting that “bloomer” can be a loaf of bread), and the NHO RESCRIPT, my last one in. Fortunately for me, I just re-read The Moonstone, so KOH-I-NOOR was pretty close to the mental surface; I never would have thought of “rhino” but “rook” was enough to justify it. I am a fan of BONGO DRUM.
Thanks setter and glh.
Found this very tough going today. Completed in 49 largely head scratching minutes. Wordplay very fair throughout but Etruria took some digging out and I completely missed the definition on Homo Sapiens, my last one in. Loved Gaudi, COD
Thx G and setter
I found this one tough to start, with only four clues falling on the first pass, but once I’d twigged DOG’S BREAKFAST most things began to drop into place. A DNF as JUGGERNAUT had to be revealed – I’ve never come across UT as a note before, even in half a century’s love of music. I liked VICTORIA CROSS once I got it. Thanks to setter and blogger, as ever.
Transonic and Rescript were the only two word I wasn’t familiar with, so good on the setter for clear construction directions.
I think I’ve read all the comments above and I don’t think anyone has yet made the obligatory observation that, except to casual observers, castle is a move and rook is a piece, and etc. etc. Now that that is taken care of the blog is complete, and I’m off for another cup of tea.
Did anyone notice that today’s NYT crossword also has the answer LAV clued by the synonym JOHN and also in the south-west corner?
44 mins. I twigged what 1ac was about early on but couldn’t decide between PIGS or DOGS until I got 1dn as both can mean a hash. I guess a pig’s breakfast would be in a trough not a bowl.
All-in-all pleased to finish after a very unfruitful early morning pass. Clearly the intervening DIY plumbing activated the little grey cells.
53:26, sharing many of the difficulties discussed above. I knew the KOH-I-NOOR diamond, and I’m a bit surprised so many people didn’t, but that’s just how it goes. I made it extra hard for myself by putting in DISPOSITION instead of DISSOLUTION, which made JUGGERNAUT (but nothing else) impossible until the re-think, and spelling NORWEGIAN wrong at first which held me up with ALIGNMENT. I liked GAUDI and VICTORIA CROSS
Wow, what a wonderful puzzle! And I promise I was thinking that even when I was fairly sure I wouldn’t be able to finish it. However, clue after clue came with penny-dropping delights – I didn’t care how long it was likely to be, but I reckon over an hour, with dropping in and out during the day’s activities. The SE corner was the hardest to break into, not knowing either TRANSONIC or RESCRIPT. Luckily, I finally twigged that the latter was an anagram and it fell into place. KOH-I-NOOR was well known, but I was unable to parse the charger part of it. I nearly came a cropper with the ‘sign’ for 24a – seeing A-I–, I had written LIBRARIES, before realising LIBRA, not Aries, was the sign referred to! LOI was HOMO SAPIENS, with too many other brilliant clues to single out. With reference to above comments, I’m pretty sure the championship puzzles are only published on Wednesdays, but more of this setter, please!
We were awarded VICTORIA CROSS on Tuesday (29,378, 13A). Was today’s clue riffing from Tuesday’s? More familiar with RESCRIPT as “re-writing a script” than as a decree, and the clue does have “amended”. Who knows but we may be treated to PALIMPSEST at some point. The setter on very good form today.
A tough but pleasant solve, all done in 38 minutes after a minor hold-up in the SE corner. NHO RESCRIPT, UT as a note, or TRANSONIC (where I would have expected TRANSSONIC – cf. TRANSSEXUAL) but there was no arguing with the clueing.
FOI – DOGS BREAKFAST
LOI – MEET
COD – DOGS BREAKFAST
Thanks to george and other contributors.
44 mins for me. Definitely made hard work of it but slowly ground my way through. LOI 10a – racked my brains thinking about various mountains until the penny dropped. Did not get the charger until reading the blog.
Beaten by the diamond- do Rhinos charge? Any more than elephants? Bears? Feel there was an easier way to clue that especially as with 3 “o”s there was ambiguity as to where the Rook ended and the headless charger started. Otherwise all correct. I’ll hope for better tomorrow. Thanks to the blogger for their efforts.
I would have been first to post but continued to get “Not Acceptable” server errors for over 3 hours