Time taken: 12:59. When I’m trying to solve fast, I do everything in my mind and type it in, but this one had me scrabbling for a pen and paper to jot down notes and decipher anagrams quickly!
I expect there will be some heated discussion over the unusual words and some tricky grammar in the clues. I was relieved to see a few of my original hunches paid out and definitely relieved when this came back as all green squares. I’ve had quite a run of typos and a few days where I have put in a daft solution and did not check it.
Apologies for a few mistakes in the initial blog – I was not on my game last night – taught some late classes and didn’t get to the blog until my eyes were bleary.
How did you get along?
| Across | |
| 1 | Field study for second degree (6) |
| DOMAIN – I think this is a play on DO MA IN being an example of second degree murder. I was trying to make something out of DO = study and MA = second degree but then I can’t figure out where IN comes from. Except it is more like I’m going to DO my MA IN some field” | |
| 4 | Mince on side of skewers almost resembling kebab (8) |
| SHASHLIK – HASH (mince) next to the first letter of Skewers, then LIKE (resembling) minus the last letter | |
| 9 | Bottle among others set out near tonic (9) |
| CONTAINER – anagram of NEAR,TONIC | |
| 11 | Quiet American turned chart over (5) |
| REMAP – P (quiet) and AMER (American) all reversed | |
| 12 | Gold miners brought round mountain (5) |
| MUNRO – OR (gold) and NUM (National Union of Mineworkers) all reversed | |
| 13 | Let out of wrong toilet, he left — just as she appeared (2,3,4) |
| TO THE LIFE – anagram of TOILET,HE,LEFT minus LET. Not quite a compound anagram, since the string LET appears inside the set of letters. | |
| 14 | French teacher had me explain the merits of English (12) |
| MADEMOISELLE – MADE (had) MOI (me), SELL (explain the merits of), E (Englihs) | |
| 18 | Maths book concealing fiddle on test (12) |
| TRIGONOMETRY – TOME (book) containing RIG (fiddle) and ON, then TRY (test) | |
| 21 | Have larks avoided bitter berries? (3,6) |
| CUT CAPERS – CUT (avoided), CAPERS (bitter berries) | |
| 23 | Issue of immigrants aboard dinghies insoluble, on reflection (5) |
| NISEI – hidden reversed in dinghIES INsoluble | |
| 24 | Choice for suit perhaps set, hearts (5) |
| CLOTH – CLOT (set, congeal), then H (hearts) | |
| 25 | Lowest in society played bingo in case (9) |
| IGNOBLEST – anagram of BINGO then LEST (in case) | |
| 26 | Newspaper customer possibly wanting substance rather than ad catalogue (8) |
| REGISTER – READER (newspaper customer possibly) with GIST (substance) replacing AD | |
| 27 | Slide down deep hole? Never mind (4,2) |
| SKIP IT – SKI (slide down), PIT (steep hole) | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Levant PM unable to contact service to north (6) |
| DECAMP – PM, and ACED (was unable to hit the ball in a tennis serve) all reversed | |
| 2 | Million nuts that must be shelled tomorrow (6) |
| MANANA – M (million) then BANANAS (nuts) minus the external letters | |
| 3 | Very soon desert old lover (9) |
| INAMORATO -IN A MO (very soon), RAT (desert), O (old) | |
| 5 | Weed covering allotment alas, mown regularly for war hero (7,6) |
| HORATIO NELSON – HOE (weed) surrounding RATION (allotment), then alternating letters in aLaS mOwN | |
| 6 | Back in Wetherspoons, groom curtailed binge (5) |
| SPREE – the last letter of WetherspoonS, then PREEN (groom) minus the last letter | |
| 7 | Favour one side on march — without good reason, clearly (8) |
| LIMPIDLY – LIMP (favour one side on march), then IDLY (without good reason) | |
| 8 | Alarming colour after nap exercise class cured (8) |
| KIPPERED – RED (alarming colour) after KIP (nap) and PE (exercise class) | |
| 10 | Often I meet Rob running rather late (3,6,4) |
| NOT BEFORE TIME – anagram of OFTEN,I,MEET,ROB | |
| 15 | Well, well — divorced by British rugby player (9) |
| SPRINGBOK – SPRING (well) and OK (well) containing B (British) | |
| 16 | Racer with ordinary history shares concern, failing to finish (5,3) |
| STOCK CAR – STOCK (shares) then CARE (concern) minus the last letter | |
| 17 | Guerrillas struggle against leaders in the guard house (8) |
| VIETCONG -VIE (struggle), then CON (against) inside the first letters of The Guard | |
| 19 | Discarded bit of fruit upset bears when hibernating (6) |
| ASLEEP – PEEL (discarded bit of fruit) reversed under AS (when) | |
| 20 | Fiat 500 king much appreciated when taken in it (6) |
| DIKTAT – D (500), then K (king) and TA (much appreciated) inside IT | |
| 22 | What flipping idiot has bagged barbecue leftovers? (5) |
| ASHES – EH (what) reversed inside ASS (idiot) | |
That was hard with several words either i didn’t know like NISEI or. with a meaning I didn’t know (like DECAMP for Levant). Plus lots of tricky wordplay. My LOI SPREE too far too long since I couldn’t think of a word for Groom to take a letter off. But I got there in the end.
This was nearly a Friday-level puzzle. Fortunately, I knew some of it and could biff decamp and Nisei. I also biffed Horatio Nelson once I had some checkers. Not for time and to the life seemed a little strange – must be UK-isms. Like everyone, I struggled with shashlik, but finally constructed it from the cryptic. The setter didn’t say which side of skewers, but fortunately that didn’t cause trouble.
Time: 52:05
Quick note on the parsing of 25a IGNOBLEST – it’s BINGO* followed by LEST, meaning IN CASE (as I’m sure George realised)
Well beaten today. Never heard the expression TO THE LIFE, “to a tee” perhaps when describing a good portrait. Only ever heard NISEI as part of a divorce settlement, or LEVANT as part the Middle East, Lebanon specifically. Lots to learn today.
For my war hero that ended -LSON, I first went with Woodrow Wilson. Not quite as heroic, I’ll admit.
Ironically, his re-election campaign had the slogan, ‘He kept us out of war’.
I thought that was Decree NISI (Latin unless.)
I guess “DO MA IN” means, like, “I’m DOing my MA IN biomedical engineering”?
Too tough for me. Got close to two-thirds myself then had to come here.
Indeed. ‘Study’ is transitive, so DO MA IN engineering = study engineering for second degree.
Over here an MA is a Master of Arts, so you’d do it in something distinctly non-scientific. Fine arts or philosophy say, but certainly not medicine or engineering or science or any combination of them.
32:08. Yeah, that was tough. Many excellent clues but I particularly liked SPRINGBOK.
George, 5dn is HOE surrounding RATION, not HONE surrounding RATIO.
Like others I struggled throughout and my time, taken over two sessions, would have been off the scale if I had not lost track of it. But for all the unknown words and meanings I eventually managed to fill the grid correctly without resorting to aids, so there was a degree of satisfaction at the end that I had not been expecting once I realised how tough the puzzle was going to be.
Definitely Friday level difficulty, or perhaps I was off the setter’s wavelength. 29ish minutes with one mistake “dictat”, silly error given the presence of “k” in the cryptic.
I join you in the silly DICTAT club!
Me too. C for Charley. Silly.
Another over here!
Have we had AMER as an abbreviation for American before? It certainly got a MER ( major eyebrow raise in this case) from me.
Mt Munro seemed a bit obscure to be elevated to the heights of the Times Crossword, but it parsed and so went in with fingers crossed. Ah, on review I see it’s a Scottish mountain, not the small one in Tasmania.
If this was Thursday, I’m looking forward to a real stinker mañana.
48mins
‘Munro’ is a generic term for a Scottish mountain; ‘Any of the 277 mountains in Scotland that are at least 3000 feet high’ (ODE)
In Scotland a Munro is any separate mountain peak over 3000 feet high.
Here in the US, we have Mt Monroe, 5,372 feet. When I was young and foolish, I made it to the top.
Sorry for the late response. Re AMER for ‘American’, yes we have had it before, maybe 2-3 years ago. I tried to look for it but it’s more of a criticism of my laziness than of the usefulness of the site search facility that I couldn’t find it. As I remember there was much huffing and puffing at the time with several comments of the “A MER at AMER” variety.
It must have been on the top of my mind because it was used in Mephisto 3411 three weeks ago (GAMER was clued as G+AMER).
Before that, QC 2625 by Pedro, also G+AMER, March 2024.
Going back further Times 27483, October 2019 as part of the wordplay for ASTRONOMER.
27:01
I biffed a few, parsing post-submission, including HORATIO NELSON, where I biffed from the def and enumeration. I surprised myself by remembering MUNRO, a NHO when it appeared here some time ago. I believe the Academy has dropped the Mlle/Mme distinction and gone for Madame across the board (we should have done that with Mrs.). Does anybody else remember Oscar LEVANT? That’s what I first thought of when I only had the C.
Yes, I remember Oscar who always seemed to play supporting roles in great films. A favourite of mine is The Band Wagon (1953) in which he was third leading man, somewhat overshadowed by Fred Astaire and Jack Buchanan. He was a fine classical pianist too.
This one was well beyond my abilities, with several answers I’d not heard of but plenty of enjoyable clever constructions none-the-less. Doesn’t Mañana need an indicator for being a Spanish word? I don’t think I’ve heard it used in English ever.
Wiktionary has this:
“Adverb
mañana (not comparable)
1) (US, in Spanish-speaking contexts) Tomorrow.
2) (humorous) Some unspecified time in the future.
The plumber said he would come tomorrow. But I think he will probably be here mañana.”
I have used it for sense 2; I’m British.
Did have a go at this one on my own. The few that I understood or guessed, together with bloggers explanation indicates that this was beyond my skill. Also a few ‘naughty’ items.
Thanks to glh for info.
27.00
Tricky, yes, but not impossible – let’s see what MANANA brings.
“CUT some CAPERS, man – use your bladder! Play the fool, that’s what you’re here for!”
(‘The Wicker Man’)
LOI and COD DOMAIN
15:39. Tricky indeed, and I enjoyed this one. I generally enjoy a puzzle where I know all the words but still find it challenging. The only thing I don’t know here was this meaning of ‘levant’.
MA as “second degree” – if you get a BA from one of our older universities (the one you reach from Paddington) you have the option to upgrade to an MA without doing a stroke of extra work, simply by handing over a trivial amount of money to the authorities. My wife, an Edinburgh graduate, regards this as a bit of a cheat.
That said today’s puzzle was definitely PhD level, I took nearly an hour and used aids so a technical DNF.
Well done blogger and setter.
At Yale, they give you an MA if you are in the PhD program and don’t flunk out the first year.
If you use it in your name you’re supposed to put MA (Oxon) so everyone knows it isn’t a real one 😉
If you go on to a doctorate, which at Oxford is called a D.Phil, you can choose between being Bad Phil and Mad Phil. Sadly Dangerous to Know Phil isn’t an option.
if you move on to a fellowship of the institute of actuaries you can be MAFIA
Not quite Friday, but not far off it. As befits a Thursday I suppose.
Nho Nisei or that kind of decamping, but no other nhos or queries. I wouldn’t recognise a shashlik if I saw one, but I did know the word.
DNF despite spending more than the hour on it. I had all the knowledge apart from NISEI which I happily biffed. FOI was MUNRO, with TO THE LIFE, an expression I can use, and TRIGONOMETRY both in early. In the end, I was defeated in the NW by DOMAIN and DECAMP. A toughie. Thank you George and setter.
39 mins. Well it has been a very low SNITCH week to date.
Some NHOs but I enjoyed unravelling the wordplay. E.g. LOI SHASHLIK clued by Hash=Mince. Tough and as a vege, kebab shops are not a regular haunt.
I might have put a C in DIKTAT, a K in VIETCONG and spelt the mountain Monroe but all the information was on the task.
Hero of the Nile is a fine gooseberry variety which is a spurious reason to give Lord N COD.
Thanks George and setter.
PS I think in HN Weed = HOE and allotment = RATION
Extremely difficult. NHO NISEI, CUT CAPERS and ‘levant’. I ended up with an error because I put in DICTAT (C for Charles, not K for King). Did not know that DIKTAT is (apparently only) spelled with K. So that was particularly frustrating having managed to work everything else out in 49:03! Many of the ones I HHO are nonetheless obscure (e.g. INAMORATO, VIETCONG, STOCK CAR). I do think I enjoyed this, the enjoyment really only spoiled by the pink square…
26.27, so definitely on the challenging side. At least the setter gave us a choice of finishing times, MAÑANA, IN A MO and NOT BEFORE TIME in successive columns. Might have been deliberate?
This was more a matter of admiring rather than liking: the structure of REGISTER was clever, and there were excellent surfaces, particularly MLLE and ASHES.
I’m left wondering whether Mark Anthony ever completed his cataloguing of the conspirators, finishing with “this was the IGNOBLEST Roman of them all”. Otherwise it’s a crosswords only kind of word. I doubt if Susie Dent would allow it.
‘Ignoblest’ is in the Oxford Dictionary of English so she would be obliged to allow it.
59 minutes. Hard work with bits and pieces I couldn’t parse (DOMAIN and HORATIO NELSON) and some unfamiliar terms in TO THE LIFE and my LOI CUT CAPERS. Still, I liked this, even if it was quite tough and I didn’t find it too much of a slog, notwithstanding my slow time. Favourite was ‘Racer with ordinary history’ for STOCK CAR.
101 mins!!
I was glad to get through this beast and finish it.
Thanks, g.
A very careless DICTAT negated all my efforts, resulting in a muffled profane outburst. Otherwise all correct in thirty five and a half minutes. A bit of a tester. Thanks setter and George.
After about an hour (in 2 sessions interrupted by a visitor) I gave up on this with 1a / 1d unfilled and 11a also blank, I didn’t know that meaning of LEVANT or that AMER could be an abbr. for American. Is REMAP a real word? Also didn’t really see how DOMAIN works. NISEI was a guess from the reversal. I liked SPRINGBOK and DIKTAT although I did put in DICTAT at first stab before seeing the parsing. If this is Thursday, Friday could be a bit tricky.
Agree with (some) others a few too many unknowns to really enjoy it. Levant Latinly suggests lifting to me, but known only as eastern Med, so decamp was a guess (failed to see the tennis serve, completely aced by the setter). Shaslick (sic) known from childhood long before I ever heard of kebabs, but the I starter delayed limpidly. Not sure BAÑANAS are at all nutty. AMER never seen before. Ditto TO THE LIFE. NISEI and MUNRO remembered from previous puzzles.
Liked most of the puzzle, liked Horatio Nelson and springbok a lot.
It’s quite possible that you know this, but to be sure: “bananas” is a slang expression for “nutty” meaning “crazy.” Collins says “esp in the phrase go bananas.” Lord knows how that started!
46:52 for a devilish puzzle (points scored: 666). I’m very pleased to have finished it even though I had to consult the dictionary for the unknown meaning of “levant” needed here for 1dn. DECAMP then gave me enough confidence to write in LOI DOMAIN despite not quite parsing it.
I had a terrible time with SPREE. I noticed that the letters were all present in reverse order in the word Wetherspoons (ie they were “back in Wetherspoons”) and tried hard to interpret “groom curtailed” as an instruction to remove the unwanted ones. No luck. But it had to be SPREE.
I liked so much of this. The sneaky definition “chart over” for REMAP, SPRINGBOK, KIPPERED, STOCK CAR, etc
It is some comfort to believe that it’s not just us. The Setter too seems to be struggling with the vocabulary today. Capers are not berries. There is such a thing as a caperberry – which is a berry – but a caper is not. It is an unopened flower bud. But, hey, many thanks anyway
Way too hard for me.
Capers are flower buds not berries.
Quite. Nor are they bitter, at least not unless my taste buds are deceiving me. I only got this because nothing else fitted and I’d heard of ‘cutting capers’. A poor clue.
27:50 – tough for me. Never knowingly heard of NISEI but it had to be, and couldn’t make sense of DOMAIN despite a good post-solve ponder. Metagloria/Keriothe’s explanation seems right though I’m not sure the clue is up to the standard of the others.
By and large, and weirdly, I found this easier than the week’s earlier offerings – though I had no idea what was going on with DOMAIN or DECAMP (DNK that meaning of ‘Levant’, but guessed at it). Knew SHASHLIK, mercifully. Finished without aids, but hate to think how long it took me. Liked MADEMOISELLE and VIETCONG.
Bang on 33:00. I thought this was top notch, difficult in a very satisfactory way. I didn’t do much biffing, but was able to manage a foolish INAMORATA, which left me with some obscure branch of maths for a while, plausible given the mysterious equation of DECAMP with LEVANT (among other things). Lovely – thanks to setter and George.
My thanks to glh and setter.
Tricky indeed!
DNF, NE corner was the holdout.
1a Domain, not happy with this as I still don’t get it.
4a Shashlik, NHO, and wasn’t going to get it from wordplay.
11a Remap. Oh. I wasn’t confident here. Pencilled lightly
13a To the life. VHO, pencilled lightly. Odd clue IMHO. I now see it is in Wiktionary and I’ve added it to Cheating Machine (CM).
14a Mademoiselle. Part-parsed only.
23a Nisei. NHO. I followed the instructions but had to look it up.
26a Register biffed.
27a Skip it, added to CM.
1d Decamp; DNK Levant=abscond, and capital L mislead me.
3d Inamorato. Was worried as I thought it went EnamoraDA, but I guess that’s a) wrong and b) feminine and c) Catalan. Happily the instructions were clear.
5d Nelson biffed.
17d Viet Cong is how I spell it, but I see it can be one word.
Wow, this was tough today. 40 minutes of slow and steady solving. I sort of knew shashlik quite quickly but needed all the checkers for the spelling. Also Nisei I saw straight away but it’s not a word I’d come across so waited for the checkers. Last two in domain – a groan once the penny dropped – and decamp which I did not know that meaning of. Lots to like but particularly kippered, Vietcong and springbok.
Thx G and setter
Beg to differ, Grumpy! This is a good example of the distressing trend in Thursday and Friday puzzles — A) very difficult B) not very witty C) several “clever clever” (i.e. show off) answers (Shashlik??) (Levant?? when was that last used in English with this meaning?) D) several clues which even our revered blogger doesn’t seem any too clear of their construction (Domain, Remap — has Amer ever been used as an abbreviation for American?)
I remewhen the Times crossword used to be enjoyable…. 😖
I greatly enjoyed this one! Chacun à son goût
Annoyed about CAPERS which threw me completely as it is not, as already mentioned above, a berry.
Is the use of AMER for American, another example of a random abbreviation?
55:16 but…
…didn’t even occur to me that DICTAT should be spelled with a K rather than a C – I was thinking C for Charles. Urgh.
I really enjoyed this puzzle, with lots of great words and challenging but accessible clues. The only NHO was NISEI. Parsed everything else including DO MA IN i.e. do one’s second degree in .
Thanks G and setter
39 mins today, twice as long as my recent efforts. Nearly gave up, finding the NW corner insoluble, but eventually cracked CONTAINER, kicking myself for missing a simple anagram. There were no unfamiliar answers, though I had to dig deep for SHASHLIK. First one in was REGISTER and last was MANANA, which in English usage I take to mean ‘this year, next year, sometime …’. My favourite two clues were to MANANA and NOT BEFORE TIME. Although it was hard work, it was fun. Thank you to Setter and Blogger.
43:26 – definitely a harder Thursday, but I somehow got there. NHO CUT CAPERS nor the meaning of ‘levant’ here. DECAMP was also laudable for its clever tennis reference I thought.
1 hour 40 minutes, LOI MANANA.
That was tough, and I am very happy with my 27’49”. Even in the hardest clues, there were elements that set me on track. Like VIE in VIETCONG. Some excellent stuff. Many thanks.
Tough but entertaining and of course I only did about 80% of it in an hour or so. I’m heartened because I correctly parsed most of the clues, only failing to pull in the right words to complete the answer. Amazed to remember “levant” in that sense. Completely baffled by REMAP (a bitter pill indeed), NISEI, IGNOBLEST, SPRINGBOK (no surprise there), VIETCONG, and ASLEEP.
Thanks setter and George.
No time owing to interruptions but well over half an hour. MA is a first degree in Scotland (at least it was in Aberdeen 50 years ago) so DOMAIN held me up a bit. Too many obscure definitions for my taste on this one.
annoyed that I didn’t get mademoiselle .Never heard of Shashlik or decamp in that context. We live and learn!