Time: 29:22
Music: Thelonius Monk, Underground
I would have to say that this puzzle is very, very good without being excessively tricky. Everything is completely fair, you just have to take what the setter says and run with it. I tried to speed up by putting in the easy answers and biffing the rest, but to no avail.
Top clues include airborne, aftermath, laptop, New Forest, time signal, enfeebled, Latvia, threepenny piece, and doorbell, my LOI. This is everything a Times puzzle should be, without the Guardian-like cryptics that seem to have invaded the Friday puzzles lately.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Cross about Scottish inventor being guest announcer (8) |
| DOORBELL – ROOD backwards + [Alexander Graham] BELL. I’ll admit, the literal got me. | |
| 5 | Computer part used in US city work (6) |
| LAPTOP – L.A. (PT) OP. | |
| 10 | Later events ruined that frame (9) |
| AFTERMATH – Anagram of THAT FRAME, for a word that should be fresh in everyone’s mind. | |
| 11 | Ocean feature ruined at the outset, covered in fuel (5) |
| CORAL – CO(R[uined])AL. | |
| 12 | Republican backing vote for quite some time? (4) |
| YEAR – YEA + R. | |
| 13 | What may indicate rest of Hampshire region? (3,6) |
| NEW FOREST – Reverse cryptic, where NEW FOREST might be used to clue REST OF. | |
| 15 | Completely exhausted, given ovation on departure? (7-3) |
| CLAPPED-OUT – CLAPPED + OUT. | |
| 17 | Hard avoiding the children in college (4) |
| TECH – T[h]E + CH. | |
| 19 | Nine capturing live goat (4) |
| IBEX – I(BE)X. | |
| 20 | Standard reference point? We align uneasily (4,6) |
| TIME SIGNAL – TIMES + anagram of ALIGN. | |
| 22 | Weakened terms in lease when payment ran out (9) |
| ENFEEBLED – [leas]E [whe]N + FEE + BLED. The use of term for last letter seems to have jumped from Mephisto into the daily. | |
| 24 | Petrol company’s hosting American Rolls (4) |
| BAPS – B(A)P’S, British Petroleum, a company I have owned several times. | |
| 26 | Soldiers excessively quiet when crossing furthest part of border (5) |
| TROOP – T([borde]R)OO P. | |
| 27 | Revised recent idea, not needing America to act as peacemaker (9) |
| INTERCEDE – Anagram of RECENT IDE[a]. | |
| 28 | Advanced source of entertainment I found in the French country (6) |
| LATVIA – L(A,TV,I)A. A complex cryptic with a lot of ways to go wrong. | |
| 29 | This reduced each example of criminal behaviour (8) |
| THIEVERY – THI[s] + EVERY. | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Shot 500 sheep (4) |
| DRAM – D + RAM. | |
| 2 | Film at sea, perhaps type to include river (2,3,10) |
| ON THE WATERFRONT – ON THE WATER + F(R)ONT. Undoubtedly biffed by many solvers. | |
| 3 | Data presentation showing reduction initially in pub opening hours (3,5) |
| BAR GRAPH – BAR G(R[eduction])AP + H | |
| 4 | Component of basic education adopted by spare master (5) |
| LEARN – LEA(R)N. | |
| 6 | TV host’s job curtailed after article (6) |
| ANCHOR – AN + CHOR[e]. | |
| 7 | Retired copper with personnel in support restrain New York man (10,5) |
| THREEPENNY PIECE – T(HR)EE + PEN + NY + PIECE. Those looking for CU backwards will be sadly disappointed. | |
| 8 | Sea creature: plan to net one going over western sound (5,5) |
| PILOT WHALE – P(I)LOT + W + HALE. The palin whale does not exist! | |
| 9 | Question posed in shock English musical number (4,4) |
| SHOW TUNE – S(HOW)TUN + E. | |
| 14 | Possibly flat account: the same, though not in charge (10) |
| ACCIDENTAL – ACC + IDENT[ic]AL. You’ll have to ask the chatbot if acc. is a valid abbreviation for account. It’s a flat in musical notation we’re talking about here. | |
| 16 | One’s boring regular practice took effect (5,3) |
| DRILL BIT – DRILL + BIT as a verb. | |
| 18 | Flying ace destined to be consumed by anger (8) |
| AIRBORNE – A IR(BORN)E. | |
| 21 | Upturn in illumination with Greek character here? (6) |
| DELPHI – LED upside-down + PHI. Since Delphi was the site of an oracle, presumably our Greek friend found the light here. | |
| 23 | Diver’s first above long drop (5) |
| DITCH – D[iver’s] + ITCH. One of the few easy clues in this puzzle. | |
| 25 | Refuse to accept study on undetermined quantity (4) |
| DENY – DEN + Y. Another of the same – the setter seems to have run out of novel ideas. | |
37 minutes. I’d always say BAR CHART rather than BAR GRAPH so I was caught up for a while over that one, especially as the wordplay wasn’t obvious. YEA for ‘vote’ seems odd too; I would have said AYE, as in the expression ‘the ayes have it’ which explains why YEAR was my LOI and I pondered so long over the intended wordplay.
I know what the blogger means re ‘flat’, but in the context of the clue the last place you would find an ACCIDENTAL is in a key signature.
Sorry, wasn’t thinking. It’s accidental because it modifies what is given in the key signature, right?
Sort of. It modifies the note that follows it and if that note is repeated within the. same bar.
24:20
I was moving along quite nicely for the first 15′ or so, then came to a halt with several in the NE to do. I got ‘New York man’ and biffed from that. DNK the NEW FOREST was in Hampshire; but of course I didn’t need to know. DNK PILOT WHALE; thought I knew of a pilot shark, which doesn’t seem to exist. As Vinyl says, an excellent puzzle; I especially liked NEW FOREST and TIME SIGNAL (took me a while to figure out who ‘we’ were).
I only knew the THREEPENNY PIECE as a ‘threepenny bit’ in my youth and was it really copper? I see from some research that it was made from a copper, zinc, nickel alloy, or is ‘copper’ simply referring to any loose change other than silver coins?
Really enjoyed this. Same thought re YEAR, can’t really see ‘yea’ as a vote. Thought DOORBELL was clever and saw it quickly. Sadly, I just couldn’t see ENFEEBLED and didn’t twig to the ‘term’ meaning so a DNF.
Thanks V and setter.
I had the same thoughts. ODE has ‘coppers’: brown coins of low value made of copper or bronze.
Further research confirms that the threepenny bit (1937-1971) comprised 79% copper, 20% zinc, and 1% nickel.
I think it’s okay as in that period it was common practice to subdivide coinage into ‘coppers’ and ‘silver’ although ‘silver’ coins minted post-1947 contained not a speck of silver and were 75% copper too.
Thank you.
Enjoyed this all except for the ‘retired copper’. I am old enough to remember the farthing, halfpenny and penny as ‘coppers’. The threepenny bit was ‘brass’ and everything above ‘silver’.
27 minutes. I liked being fooled by the ‘guest announcer’ def at the start and the ‘Flying ace’ def that wasn’t as my LOI. I first thought of THREEPENNY BIT rather than PIECE, remembering them in the Christmas pudding pre-decimalisation. I had to biff ON THE WATERFRONT and ENFEEBLED once I had a few crossers. Thanks for the ACCIDENTAL discussion even if musical notation terms are lost on me, try as I might to understand them.
Favourite was the DELPHI semi-&lit.
Rare early morning solve for me. Completed in 14’42”. Very much liked the definitions GUEST ANNOUNCER and RETIRED COPPER — though it did occur to me to wonder whether the coin actually was made of copper, and if it mattered if it wasn’t. Never seen TERM for last letter before, so ENFEEBLED went unparsed. I will remember that. 2 down most definitely biffed, after establishing the THE. Many thanks and happy 2026!
Yes I liked this too, straighforward but not too much so.
I still have a dozen mint threepenny bits tucked away somewhere, that my father occasionally stood on edge, one above the other, to see how many he could manage. Calling them coppers is OK, it is what we did though technically inaccurate, like silver.
Heard of accidentals, though would never be able to identify one in the wild.
15’34”, an interesting Monday puzzle. Agree with others that a 3d piece was always a threepenny bit.
Thanks vinyl and setter.
13:39. Lots to like here. THREEPENNY PIECE and TIME SIGNAL took me longest to parse. I liked CORAL and NEW FOREST best. Thanks Vinyl and setter.
25 minutes.
– Took ages to see what the ‘we’ was doing in the clue for TIME SIGNAL
– Spent too long trying to fit E (‘source of entertainment’) into 28a before realising that the definition was at the end of the clue and getting LATVIA
– Not familiar with the PILOT WHALE but the wordplay was kind
A very enjoyable puzzle to start the week. Thanks vinyl and setter.
FOI Dram
LOI Latvia
COD Doorbell
50 minutes. I get slower in my old age, and from now on I won’t be showing my time.. It was always called a threepenny bit of course, and there was an older silver version to be put in the Christmas pudding. I was always terrified of swallowing it having as a toddler done just that with a farthing. They were small. COD to SHOW TUNE. Good puzzle, Thank you V and setter.
Down South we used a sixpence, BW ..
37 minutes. Delayed by ACCIDENTAL and DOORBELL otherwise fair and fun start to the week.
COD THREEPENNY PIECE despite only ever referred to as a ‘bit’ and classified as copper in my locale. LOI DOORBELL.
Thanks to setter and vinyl1.
24:41. Tricky for a Monday, lots of well concealed definitions in clever surfaces. Having said that I rather like the humour in a CD and even Spoonerisms and homophones, a bit of everything ideally. A cryptic crossword would seem the ideal place for cryptics.
Think I saw a Threepenny bit once, odd shaped brassy looking things.
Thanks to Vinyl and setter.
Like BW, I feel I’m getting slower by the day. Best part of a hour for this with last three in, THREEPENNY PIECE, SHOW TUNE & TECH all taking an age. A real struggle for me.
I quite liked the quirky DOORBELL though.
Thanks V and setter.
Enjoyable puzzle, 29 minutes, thanks for parsing ENFEEBLED which I biffed. A MER at threepenny PIECE, as others say it was always a threepenny BIT and not counted as copper. Also tried BAR CHART for a while before getting CLAPPED OUT. I liked the DOORBELL definition once the onepenny piece dropped.
Minus 5 and snowy in Rutland, not the winter we expected.
25.29, agreeing this was a very good set of clues with enough misleading to slow things right down, like the BAR CHART that wasn’t and the SHOW TUNE that had neither Q nor Hair in it. And the guest announcer who wasn’t appearing on Pointless. And I couldn’t remember how to spell flying ace Lindbergh, which threatened to fill in the gaps.
I think we just have to accept that our setter today is too young to remember thrup’ny bits. Pennies, ha’pennies and farthings were copper, sixpences and up were silver, as were the threepennies until they turned yellow when I don’t think we cared enough about their metal content to classify them.
10:38. Interesting, very enjoyable puzzle.
I’m working my way through the works of George Orwell on audiobook at the moment, and I’m currently on Keep the Aspidistra Flying, in which the threepenny bit features prominently, so that came to mind more quickly than it might otherwise have done. It’s a curious and frankly not very good novel.
16:23. Nice, fair puzzle.
CODs – BAR GRAPH and AIRBORNE
Thanks to Vinyl and our setter.
22:28 Agree with others some great clues in this.
TIME SIGNAL last one in after also missing what the ‘we’ was doing. I just couldn’t get my mind to exclude it from the anagram fodder.
Also shoved in BAR CHART after seeing the bar and ‘r’ and then not fully parsing. Thankfully the intersecting clues were kind.
COD THREEPENNY PIECE. I can live with copper being any loose change even if Chambers doesn’t seem to support it. Although if you believe my dad it used to be his weekly wage.
Top start to the week. Cheers blogger and setter.
My thanks to vinyl1 and setter.
I enjoyed it, not too hard.
17a Tech, I biffed this. Thanks vinyl1.
2d On the W, yes, biffed.
7d Threepenny … piece. I thought piece was definitely more green paintish than bit.
Eleven after 20 minutes, 19 after further thought on the anagrams.
Thanks KO
I’m not sure if there is a name for my anagram technique. It relies on getting some crossers and then applying some lexigraphical logic to position the consonants if there are vowels which is usually the case or consonants if there are vowels. Spelling was never my strong suite. 🙂
I’m not old enough to have any major complaints or opinions about ‘threepenny piece/bit’ other than to say that in practice, if not in dictionaries, any type of ‘shrapnel’ can be a ‘copper’ (though normally the plural ‘coppers’ is encountered in the wild). I assume someone somewhere has at some point described archaic as well as modern coinage similarly. I also fell for ‘bar chart’ not only because it is a more frequently encountered synonym of BAR GRAPH that contains ‘bar’ and ‘r’ but because of the mental equivalence ‘presentation = talk = chat’ but it doesn’t work either as a synonym or from the wordplay on closer inspection.
17:54
Having erred on today’s gentle QC, pleased to make amends here. Quite a lot of biffing with all but TIME SIGNAL fully parsed before coming here – could not think of ‘we’ as TIMES. Liked THREEPENNY PIECE (just about old enough to remember them) and DOORBELL. LATVIA was much clearer once all of the checkers were accounted for. PILOT WHALE tentative initially until I understood the wordplay.
Thanks V and setter
35′ after a pretty quick start to the top half. Not musically literate so have only come across ACCIDENTAL in that sense here, and obviously had forgotten it… Nor did I parse NEW FOREST, but I know where it is! The use of “term” is new to me and not sure I like it, hence ENFEEBLED also not fully parsed. But I got there.
Thanks Vinyl and setter.
37:08 All green
My Biff of THE SOLENT for Hampshire area fitted my checkers but not the clue. Eventually saw the reverse cryptic, which I almost never do.
CURIOSITY PIECE fitted and started CU, and is usually something “retired”.
“Term” for last letter doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
Also fell for LATTER and LATEST (=advanced) by having the LATVIA clue backwards.
LOI TECH
PT for part? Maybe Pt Exch in newspaper classifieds.
At the risk of offending the more sensitive among you, in my outrageously misspent youth we would refer to a well-endowed young woman as having “a fine pair of threepennies”, and the coin was never a piece – nor, indeed, a copper.
I made a bit of a mess of this by following Jack’s lead with “bar chart”, and then making a complete Horlicks of entering CLAPPED OUT (which I’m beginning to reluctantly accept that I am). Consequently I took probably twice as long as I should have done. At least I avoided any pinks.
FOI AFTERMATH
LOI DRILL BIT
COD DOORBELL
TIME 12:38
24 across has a similar slang meaning. Coincidence?
16 mins – straightforward but entertaining with some misleading definitions to confuse things.
25.48 with a bit of a struggle. LOI airborne which would be my COD. Threepenny piece was an inspired guess and having finally got the construction I think maybe my COD should be changed.
I’m sure I’m more familiar with bar charts than graphs but I suppose they’re interchangeable.
48 minutes but like boltonwanderer I’m getting slower in my old age. However, until they are really dreadful, I’ll be posting my times in order to make people think how clever they are. An excellent crossword, with the definition of ‘doorbell’ a high point. But like several others, a MER at THREEPENNY PIECE not bit. It looked like someone who was filling the grid and leaving the long answers until last.
Term
‘Term’ to indicate the end of a word is used in Mephisto and similar puzzles because the first definition of the word in Chambers is ‘an end’. In that context words and meanings are valid if they’re in Chambers, end of discussion.
In the daily puzzles it’s customary to look beyond the eccentricities of Chambers and have some regard to the meanings of words as actually used. On that basis I can’t find any justification for it. The closest I can come is the OED, which defines ‘term’ as the ‘furthest or utmost limit (of something heading in a particular direction), end; esp. conclusion, cessation; end of duration or existence’. However it says that it’s ‘now rare’, and the most recent citation is from 1959: ‘if we do not recover this ability our culture will soon reach its term’. I’m not sure many people would say that these days.
In conclusion, hmm.
There is the expression “carry to term” in pregnancy… I would say that’s justification.
Yes I thought of that but it’s 1) unique to that particular situation and 2) very specifically a reference to time, so I don’t think it really works. Perhaps that’s what the setters/editors are thinking of though.
PS if you said ‘the term of the pregnancy’ I think it would be generally understood to mean ‘duration’, so even in this context it doesn’t mean ‘end’ other than in the context of the expression ‘to term’.
I’d always assumed that it was more an abbreviation than a word in its own right: short for termination.
Having retired in the wee hours after consuming a generous slug of Old Pultney 12yr old, my FOI was — DRAM. Then a DOORBELL rang and I created a BAR CHART which was only removed when it was CLAPPED OUT. That facilitated the arrival of YEAR. I saw THREEPENNY quickly, but had to be convinced I wasn’t looking for the OPERA before PIECE materialised. As others have pointed out, it was a BIT for those of us who used it. No problem with the copper description though. Liked AIRBORNE. LOI was LATVIA. 22:03. Thanks setter and Vinyl.
17.23
No hold ups; enjoyed it. BAR GAPH for “pub opening hours” was rather clever.
Thanks Vinyl and setter
I had a wry smile at having threepenny bits (pieces)and baps in the same puzzle.
About twenty minutes for all bar two, and then brain freeze set in. It took me nearly as long again before I managed to get TIME SIGNAL and finally AIRBORNE. Glad I persevered though even if the time wasn’t too clever at 39.45.
Like others remember the THREEPENNY PIECE, although always termed as a BIT, with a nostalgic affection. Although not worth a great deal, it was such a pleasing design, and so different from any other coin you had in your pocket.
Not too hard; solved in two sessions. The interruption was a visit to a kitchen showroom. There’s too much choice on the whole but then the colours are all this year’s, so in a while it will look out of date unless you choose white.
Anyway, I was held up at the end by 7d and 20a. I had biffed OPERA before reading the clue carefully, but I quickly thought of PIECE which did not jar as it did for some others; and I did not question it being described as copper. That unlocked BAPS etc. and LOI was TIME SIGNAL which I very much paused to parse- LINE and WIRE were in contention.
Excellent puzzle. COD to NEW FOREST.
David
This nice and easyish puzzle took me 21 mins. I seem to have met AFTERMATH two or three times recently. As regards THREEPENNY PIECE, I failed to understand the wordplay except for ‘man’. I liked the definition ‘Retired copper’ except I do not recall in pre-decimalisation days thinking of threepenny bits as ‘coppers’. My favourite two clues were to NEW FOREST and DELPHI. Thank you to Setter and Vinyl.
Much enjoyed – as Vinyl says, there isn’t too much biffable, which suits me as it’s not my strong suit. It was fun to follow the clear cryptic and end up with surprising answers, though I admit to post-parsing 7d after NY PIECE became a thing. I remember 3ds of course, but had no problem with them being described as pieces or coppers. Particularly liked DOORBELL, ACCIDENTAL and AIRBORNE. I read the ‘yea’ of YEAR as ‘vote for’ as opposed to just ‘vote’. Makes more sense that way. Nice to have a puzzle where there were no unknowns but also very few write-ins.
32 mins. Needed the blog for a couple of parsings.
re account – ac or acc? I worked in a UK bank and the abbreviation was always acc. When I started doing the Times crossword about 10 years ago I was surprised by the use of ac.