Time: 23:01
I did not find this as easy as a typical Monday. I did start quickly, but I was left at the end with a series of interconnected missing answers across the middle of my printout. I figured that if I could solve one, they would all rapidly fall, but the problem was solving one. I had biffed trophy case without really thinking too much, but that was erased pretty quickly
Upon going back to parse some of the clues, I had a MER or two at some of the liberties the setter took. Having recently been involved in our anniversary puzzle, I would definitely have sent some of them back for cleanup. Of course, John and I spent nearly 40 hours between us editing those clues, which is not possible if you have 10 puzzles a week to deal with.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | More than one flower is found among rocky cairns (8) |
| NARCISSI – Anagram of CAIRNS around IS. | |
| 5 | Surprise journey at an end (4,2) |
| TRIP UP – TRIP + UP, in entirely different senses | |
| 10 | Politician excited by trite manifestos (8,2,5) |
| MINISTER OF STATE – Anagram of TRITE MANIFESTOS. Well, the current Prime Minister…. | |
| 11 | Marine movement bound to change when ebbing (6,4) |
| SPRING TIDE – SPRING + EDIT backwards. | |
| 13 | Hide offended feeling, welcoming learner (4) |
| PELT – PE(L)T. | |
| 15 | Kept calm on bench, perhaps, following duke’s interruption (7) |
| SEDATED – SE(D)ATED. | |
| 17 | Reveal love captured by song writer (3,4) |
| LAY OPEN – LAY (O) PEN. | |
| 18 | Notes enthusiastic comment when tucking into wines (7) |
| RECORDS – RE(COR)DS. Is cor enthusiastic? Discuss. | |
| 19 | Cat in bag: hard to tolerate (7) |
| STOMACH – S(TOM)AC + H. | |
| 21 | Poll closing early, restricting Liberal in potential measure (4) |
| VOLT – VO(L)T[e]. | |
| 22 | Left back hardly gutted to secure rotating space for awards (6,4) |
| TROPHY ROOM – PORT backwards + H[ardl]Y + MOOR backwards. | |
| 25 | Harry Potter and the Banshee? It’s basically wrong (9,6) |
| SCHOOLBOY HOWLER – SCHOOLBOY + HOWLER, a pair of DBE, thus the question mark. | |
| 27 | American city cheers The Big Sleep? (6) |
| TACOMA – TA + COMA. | |
| 28 | Whingers upset American composer (8) |
| GERSHWIN – Anagram of WHINGERS. | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Note European confusion about one source of retribution from Greece (7) |
| NEMESIS – N + E + MES(I)S. | |
| 2 | I will avoid disaster in series of performances (3) |
| RUN – RU[i]N. | |
| 3 | Irrational behaviour keeping a river polluted? (10) |
| INSANITARY – INSANIT(A,R)Y. | |
| 4 | Newspaper arranged to entertain ambassador (5) |
| SHEET – S(H.E.)ET. | |
| 6 | Water damage — care to drop initial temperature? (4) |
| RUST – [t]RUST. Is care the same thing as trust? | |
| 7 | I only appear to move, though I may be given a roll (6,5) |
| PLAYER PIANO – Anagram of I ONLY APPEAR. | |
| 8 | Quietly stay asleep, say, in northern city (7) |
| PRESTON – P + REST ON. | |
| 9 | Leave daughter in reception, up where air passengers sit? (8) |
| GONDOLAS – GO + SALON upside-down containing D. | |
| 12 | A cut in childcare disturbed those leading Irish children’s movement in the 1970s (7,4) |
| RADICAL CHIC – Anagram of A + CHILDCAR[e] + I[rish] C[hildren]. I would say the cryptic is excessively busy for a daily puzzle. | |
| 14 | Limits to steady movement of sun and moon around year amounting to the same thing? (10) |
| SYNONYMOUS – S[tead]Y + anagram of SUN and MOON around Y. | |
| 16 | Detail of the French copy superior to English (8) |
| DESCRIBE – DES + CRIB + E. Detail as a verb, superior as a placement indicator. Copy and crib as verbs. | |
| 18 | Volume is evident in rising row? Consider again (7) |
| REVISIT – V + IS in TIER upside-down. | |
| 20 | Complete circuit in operation (4,3) |
| HOME RUN – HOME + RUN. Operation for run seems a bit strange. | |
| 23 | Receiver always under pressure before end of game (5) |
| PAYEE – P + AYE + [gam]E. | |
| 24 | Source of mildew following in place of mould (4) |
| FORM – FOR + M[ildew]. | |
| 26 | Down, barely moving, with second kept away (3) |
| LOW – [s]LOW, a Quickie clue. | |
50 minutes, which suggests I found this on the hard side but actually I only struggled with 4 or 5 clues, or parts of them e.g. TROPHY what? RADICAL what? SCHOOLBOY what if not ERROR? NHO TACOMA.
I knew HOME RUN as an expression but not what it consists of so the definition wasn’t helpful, and has been said RUN for operation seems a bit dodgy. I wasn’t very keen on surprise / TRIP UP either, or reception / SALON.
V, are we still having email communication problems? I wrote to you on Saturday sending via Gmail but heard nothing from you.
Not sure if anyone has mentioned this before me. Wasn’t there an operation Home Run in a military sense? Escaping POWs who made it back were described as completing Home Runs . Don’t know if that might be the reference.
I think that’s what successful escapes from Colditz were called. Well spotted!
Doesn’t the phrase ‘a dummy run’ suggest an operation?
I didn’t find this easy either (I rarely do) not helped by going with PEARLY PIANO (which I think does exist as a piano playing style) for the 7D, so couldn’t get PELT for 13A – got there eventually!
I found this very hard and finished in several hours with very heavy use of aids. The tangle of SCHOOLBOY HOWLER with SYNONYMOUS, RADICAL CHIC, TROPHY ROOM, PLAYER PIANO, HOME RUN and others continually got me off track.
Thanks V. How are GONDOLAS for air travellers?
(I am still being prevented from posting by “NOT ACCEPTABLE” server errors)
I think the basket underneath a hot-air ballon is called a gondola, but don’t know about the ‘sit’.
You are right. I was thinking of floating gondolas in Venice
You’d sit in the gondola beneath an airship. It’d be a long trip to remain standing! 2-4 days for a zeppelin to cross the Atlantic
I thought it referred to the gondolas found in ski resorts, where you sit hanging suspended in the air? I suppose the gondolas on zeppelins have seats and maybe large hot air balloons also do but I thought you usually stand in them.
I don’t thinking operation for ‘run’ quite works but otherwise I rather liked this puzzle.
The bit underneath an airship.
I should have got SCHOOLBOY HOWLER but I didn’t, so a DNF in about 40. Kenso I think the gondola is the bit that sits under a blimp where the passengers are. I found this tough going, thank you V.
From Shelter from the Storm:
’Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood
When blackness was a virtue and the road was full of mud
I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of FORM
Come in, she said, I’ll give you shelter from the storm
(I learn that Rolling Stone ranked this 66th on their list of 100 best Dylan songs…)
Sorry. Didn’t see your bit about gondola.
I see no problem with ‘cor’ as an expression of enthusiasm. Though I agree that trust = care seems iffy. Hopefully someone will explain?
She placed the jewels in my trust/care?
To me, ‘cor’ indicates surprise, not enthusiasm.
I think it can be both
Enthusiasm evinced by Kenneth Williams in any one of his Carry On characters.
A fund held in trust for a minor is ‘cared for’?
Saw the reversed moor/room in TROPHY ROOM but it took a little thinking to get the trophy bit. I thought this was a really good puzzle, a bit chewy here and there but lots of gimmes to aid the solve.
RADICAL CHIC was my LOI and didn’t really like the ‘cut in childcare’ to indicate a shortening of the word. Lots to like elsewhere though. COD to SCHOOLBOY HOWLER.
Thanks V and setter. Sorry V, there’s a ‘G’ missing in the anagrist for Gershwin.
The clue could have read ‘A childcare cut disturbed those leading Irish children’s movement in the 1970s’ – that’s me with my clue editor’s hat.
24:22 WOE
DNK SCHOOLBOY HOWLER, though I knew schoolboy and howler; all I could think of was ‘collar’. Same MERs as Vinyl; also at ‘sit’ in a GONDOLA. [ON EDIT: Sorry, I forgot about dirigibles; thanks LindsayO.] We’ve had Peoria, Kalamazoo, now Tacoma; next Waukegan? Poughkeepsie? RADICAL CHIC –a coinage of Tom Wolfe’s–wasn’t a movement.
Well, at least you probably understood the blog title!
16’47”. Had heard the phrase RADICAL CHIC, still no idea what it means. Hesitation over trust/care. When I had any trophies, a small shelf sufficed, so TROPHY ROOM took a while.
Thanks vinyl and setter.
12.05
Gentle start to the week, proud to see a reference to my home city (not TACOMA).
Great header for today’s blog, referring to TW’s ‘RADICAL CHIC and Mau-Mauing the Flak-Catchers’, with a nice bit of Vonnegut featured symmetrically opposite.
COD PRESTON
LOI RADICAL CHIC
25.39. A tricky Monday version. Most trouble with schoolboy howler- couldn’t get rid of the equally well used error, gondolas and player piano , till I got the O.
COD synonymous.
8:09. Trickier than usual for a Monday. Same MERs as others above but didn’t get in the way of solving. Liked PLAYER PIANO.
20.39
Also struggled but coming here was able to appreciate some great clues. Although some were longish I found it reasonably clear what I was supposed to do. My main problem was not knowing some of the words and not having my anagram hat on.
Liked SCHOOLBOY HOWLER (though only know it as an error).
Thanks Ulaca/setter.
9:16. What HoneyBadger said: MERs that didn’t get in the way.
And like KensoGhost I’ve been having trouble commenting here for the last week or so. It’s fine on my iPhone and iPad but on my laptop I always get the ‘Not Acceptable’ message. Anyone else having this problem?
33 minutes. A mixed bag of some gentle ones and a few un-Mondayish clues like RADICAL CHIC and TACOMA. Still trying to come up with a satisfactory example of RUN for ‘operation’ but there will be one out there.
Collins has ‘a period of time during which a machine, computer, etc, operates’ which is the closest I can get.
Thanks, yes I saw that as well as a similar entry in Chambers and wondered about it though can’t recall having heard of “run” having been used in that sense.
As the clue editor, I would have changed it to ‘Complete circuit in series’, which has a nice electrical-engineer vibe.
As in World Series?
DNF having given up and resorted to Mrs rv after about 45 and she cheated. When Monday is harder than Friday either the pitching is wrong or I am very off-wavelength. Judging from comments above it’s the latter.
NHO the 70s movement and misread the fodder so had RICH at the end. Even after correcting and with all the crossers the Schoolboy Error was never coming.
The top half was OK but grumpy start to the week. Thanks both.
22.36, competing against the most intrusive tinnitus I’ve ever experienced and some decidedly tricky clues, all of them mentioned above. HOME RUN didn’t bother me when I put it in (what else but RUN could it be?), but now that ya’ll mention it…
I was going to make a clever comment about the apposite placing of PRESTON and TACOMA, but PRESTON isn’t NE and I now know TACOMA is NW: I imagined it to be deep south.
Quite hard, compounded by my fingers having entered the lesser-known HIME RUN and so a technical DNF which I will ignore, though the crossword club will not!
Never heard of SCHOOLBOY HOWLER, though thankfully banshee was helpful in constructing. Most of what I thought has already been said.
20:15
24:57 but nearly 10 of that was on the LOI GONDOLAS. I was determined to get it though as didn’t want to start the week on a fail.
I found this one of those that seemed tough to break into but once a few answers were in it seemed to flow nicely (ignoring GONDOLAS).
Solved HOME RUN as a DD complete lap/ and Operation Home Run although Googling afterwards it was Project HOMERUN from the Cold War I incorrectly had in mind. There have been a few Operation Home Runs but I don’t think any of them are prominent enough to be in the Times crossword. Thanks blogger for the correction.
COD SYNONYMOUS
Thanks blogger and setter
I may be going against the grain here but this was one of the easier crosswords of late and I finished it in 15:45. I quickly thought of ‘gondola’ as a synonym for ‘basket’ of a hot air balloon and I’ve heard of Tacoma in Washington, there was a famous bridge collapse there and I remember it being mentioned when I was being taught about resonant frequencies many moons ago (I think during one of my Maths courses at Uni rather than at school IIRC). On the wavelength for this.
Here’s the bridge on film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XggxeuFDaDU
The Tacoma Narrow Bridge disaster! Remember it coming up in a physics lesson in the 1970s.
27.46 – off to a flyer with about two thirds done in ten minutes, then the path became steeper and craggier and I was grateful to finish without resort to aids.
FOI NARCISSI
LOI GONDOLAS (also my COD)
A typical Monday for me, 15 minutes, although I didn’t understand HOME RUN and still don’t unless Brenk1 has the right explanation (somewhat obscure though). GONDOLAS my LOI after I’d wondered about HOLDALLS as airline baggage then thought no that’s silly. Good puzzle.
In baseball, a home run is a hit–almost always over the outfield wall and thus out of play–where the batter runs around the bases and returns to home, scoring one run (or more, if there were runners on base).
My thanks to vinyl1 and setter.
I agree that some of the phrases are a bit odd. I maintain a Cheating Machine, so sometimes I wonder whether to add a phrase or not, but have now decided that Green Paint or not, if it was used in a Times puzzle then it goes in, but. So plenty of new phrases today then.
POI 27a HHO Tacoma, I’ve even seen a film of the ‘original bridge, nicknamed “Galloping Gertie”, which opened in July 1940 but collapsed possibly because of aeroelastic flutter four months later’ (Wikipedia). But I didn’t know it was a city, nor that it is in Washington.
12d HHO Radical Chic, but didn’t know what it was. Now I do. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/radical_chic
From NARCISSI to STOMACH in 18:04. I started at a gallop but was reined in after the first half dozen clues and had to concentrate much harder. LAY OPEN was the key to the last few, giving PLAYER PIANO, GONDOLAS and STOMACH in quick succession. Have heard of TACOMA but can’t remember why. Thanks setter and Vinyl.
Another woe here, beaten by SCHOOLBOY HOWLER and, for some perculiar reason, FORM. Just couldn’t see them. Oh well. I was on the hour anyway so definitely tough for me.
I quite liked the GONDOLAS.
Thanks G and setter.
13:10 – seemed very straightforward. Only PAYEE gave any difficulty, fixed as I was on finding a synonym for phone.
29 mins, so def not typical Monday. Stared long and hard at GONDOLAS not getting the balloon meaning, so Tx for that.
24:17
Heard of TACOMA, but no idea where it was, nor even in which country, before coming here. Didn’t get the HOME RUN operation, but the notion that it was a wartime operation sounds plausible. Another here that took a while to think of HOWLER.
Thanks V and setter
A very good puzzle with some excellent clueing. I found it to be of about average difficulty finishing in a reasonable 34.17. My LOI was SYNONYMOUS where I failed for a long time to pick up the anagram pointer, and was desperately trying to think of a phrase to cover movement of celestial bodies.
55 minutes on return from hols.LOI LAY OPEN. Wasn’t Molesworth famous for schoolboy howlers? HOME RUN was an unbiff. Preston’s status as a city over all the other Lancashire towns seems unfair given its residents’ support for the Jacobite uprising. Still, with that bus station, what can you expect?
I was thinking Jennings and Darbishire for the howler BW but you’re right, Molesworth is closer as any fule know.
Chiz, chiz ..
I thought HOME RUN was merely a cryptic definition of the electrical circuit in a house that powers a single power hungry appliance.
Regards.
Nice to see you, FfNY
Monday used to be very easy, but increasingly nowadays we are getting people saying that a Monday was not as easy as a typical Monday, which makes one wonder what a typical Monday is. I’m of the same opinion, and found much of this rather tricky. The HOME RUN was a bit of a mystery, indeed still is, and the GONDOLA likewise (salon = reception?). 43 minutes.
46 mins.
Steady solve – agreeable puzzle. Didn’t know minister of state was a term for current PM. Also unaware of Tacoma, but wordplay was easy.
Thanks, v.
21:05
I liked this a lot and thought there was some ingenious, if fairly liberal, cluing going on. Not sure I would call RADICAL CHIC a movement exactly – more a trend or a fashion. I liked GONDOLAS but COD PLAYER PIANO
Thanks to vinyl and the setter
No time due to various interruptions but not overly long. Like Lurker I remember seeing the TACOMA bridge in an engineering lecture. I had written in TurnUP and pop-OPEN which delayed me a bit. As almost everyone else I’d heard of SCHOOLBOY error, but not HOWLER, and HOME RUN made no sense (and didn’t like having “run” twice in Down solutions).
Thanks Vinyl and setter
Just think what TikTok could have done with that bridge footage.
DNF. I found this mostly straightforward but somehow failed to solve FORM and revealed LAY OPEN, which provided the crucial L for GONDOLAS. Incidentally when I typed the latter this emoji appeared 🚠 Didn’t parse TROPHY ROOM properly – thanks vinyl. Nice TW reminder. The Bonfire of the Vanities is my all-time fav novel. Many thanks all.
There used to be a splendid feature of the Bronx Zoo which had small aerial GONDOLAS aka cable cars which would give you a private ride over the various enclosures. They closed it 10plus years ago after some passengers got stuck suspended over the lions’ den.
17:59
COD: SPRING TIDE
Mostly a typical Monday, but LOI GONDOLAS took several minutes. As a child, had a lot of fun with my grandparents’ PLAYER PIANO, plenty of rolls to choose from. Liszt Dance of the Gnomes was our favourite.
About half an hour.
– Offended feeling=pet wasn’t completely obvious to me, so I waited for the checkers before putting in PELT
– Also less familiar with LAY OPEN to mean reveal – ‘lay bare’ more readily springs to mind
– Took a while to get SCHOOLBOY HOWLER as I don’t think I’ve ever seen those two words together – schoolboy error is what I’d be more likely to use
– Completely missed that PLAYER PIANO was an anagram
– Had no idea how HOME RUN worked
Thanks vinyl and setter.
FOI Run
LOI Radical chic
COD Sedated
34:52. I rather enjoyed this though I didn’t find it at all easy. Some clever cluing and good variety of clues. NHO Radical Chic.
I found this sufficiently Mondayish to finish fairly quickly on a workday, since I couldn’t tackle it last night. Would’ve gotten MINISTER OF STATE a little more quickly if I hadn’t assumed at first that “by” was part of the anagrist. But what is it doing there? “Excited” is the anagrind.
Had a Monday feel to me which is great and a little surprised that some regulars struggled a bit. Not that I’m quick mind you.
FOI NARCISSI
LOI GONDOLAS
COD SYNONYMOUS
Similar feeling. I was only held up by 3 in the SW corner, Tacoma, Form and Radical Chic (I couldn’t get radical left out of my brain for ages).
Circa 20mins.
Once my solve bumps into one questionable synonym everything breaks down.
Still, I’m always pleased to see a baseball reference, and it’s especially welcome right in the middle of the unbearably bleak period between the final out in the World Series and the day pitchers and catchers report for spring training, and the old four bagger is as good as any. Thank you, setter.
32:36, with RADICAL CHIC and TACOMA my last two in.
COD to PLAYER PIANO.
Thanks Vinyl and setter
30 minutes. No dramas apart from the strange Home Run. I’m wondering if my football team have included a large Trophy Room in their new stadium – plan for success?
When you hit a home run in baseball you complete the circuit by running around the bases. A complete circuit is a commonly used baseball term synonymous with home run. I don’t think escapes from occupied Europe come into it.
SCHOOLBOY HOWLER such a well known phrase in my family that it’s got its own abbreviation (“schooly”).
Steady solve with the last two (STOMACH and GONDOLAS) taking a bit of thought. All done in 26:53, which for me is a triumph. Had to look up just now why FORM is “mould” – absolute schooly!
Thanks V.
Glad others found this tricky as I usually like to get Mondays under my belt before facing more difficult ones later in the week. Unfortunately this didn’t get under any belt. No idea what PLAYER PIANO is inspite of it being clearly an anagram and whenever I see any reference to Harry Potter in a clue my brain freezes.
Went into this determined to get my average down (yes I know, pathetic) and thinking a Monday was the place to start. Got off to a flying start, but then it all went slo-mo. Bottom half tougher than top. In the end I finished on 23’31”, which when I see other times seems respectable. Hasn’t helped the average none. For TACOMA, I thank Steve Miller: I went from Phoenix, Arizona/ All the way to Tacoma/
Philadelphia, Atlanta, LA/ Northern California where the girls are warm/ So I could be with my sweet baby, yeah. From Keep on Rocking Me. Great song. Weirdly, I was thinking of that incredible undulating bridge film only the other day. I had no idea it was in TACOMA.
Also NARCISSISMA by Don Maclean mentions Tacoma
No undue problems today.. enjoyable, I thought, if somewhat US-centric. The dodgy definitions passed me completely by I’m afraid. They seem to be a regular feature these days.
I’ve not had any problems with comments being rejected but when I press submit, it sometimes takes an inordinate length of time to process..
I got the HOWLER bit long before the SCHOOLBOY so avoiding the problem others had. NHO RADICAL CHIC but got there in the end. LOI GONDOLAS as I don’t equate Salon with Reception. Enjoyed it overall.