Time taken: 20:21
I probably should have called in a sub for today. I had what I thought was going to be a small procedure yesterday and it has turned into a lot of pain, a slow recovery and a daze of painkillers. Add to that my computer being back for repairs for some Windows 11 bug that won’t let it boot up and me using a borrowed computer that took me enough tries to log on that I was put in a 20-minute penalty box by this site.
I thought near the end this might be a pangram (which helped me get 25 across) but there is no V.
Looking at early times I feel confident that this is Tricky Thursday and amazed that I managed to get through it at all under the circumstances. How did you get along?
| Across | |
| 1 | Justification OK for uprising (11) |
| GROUNDSWELL – GROUNDS (justification), WELL (OK, like I am not) | |
| 7 | What’s unknown on heads in France and England? (3) |
| FEZ – an all-in-one: Z (unknown) on the first letters of France and England | |
| 9 | Fabric missing hem, lower flag (9) |
| TRICOLOUR – TRICOT (a dress fabric) minus the last letter, then LOUR (lower) | |
| 10 | Block surrounding opening to exterior part of Cape Town property (5) |
| STOEP – STOP (block) surrounding the first letter of Exterior. A term paying us a visit from Mephistoland | |
| 11 | Accessory in relationship cut (3,4) |
| TIE CLIP – TIE (relationship), CLIP (cut) | |
| 12 | Fancy gear associated with leaders in administration primarily? (7) |
| REGALIA – REGAL (associated with leaders) then the first letters of In Administration | |
| 13 | Return setter’s first exceptional puzzle (5) |
| REBUS – reversal of the first letter of Setter then UBER (exceptional) | |
| 15 | Sauce label off, pretty much (4,5) |
| JUST ABOUT – JUS (sauce), TAB (label), OUT (off) | |
| 17 | Get upset with partner wearing fleece (4,1,4) |
| SHED A TEAR – DATE (partner) inside SHEAR (fleece) | |
| 19 | Honest family takes up crime in the end (5) |
| CLEAN – CLAN (family) containing the last letter of crimE | |
| 20 | Darling rejected by girl — gaffe! (7) |
| MISSTEP – PET (darling) reversed after MISS (girl) | |
| 22 | Hair in mixer? (7) |
| WHISKER – double definition | |
| 24 | Idea in force, briefly (5) |
| THEME – THE MET (force) minus the last letter | |
| 25 | Search patrols aren’t more odd, compared to others (9) |
| QUAINTEST – QUEST (search) containing AIN’T (aren’t). My second-last in, thinking that for the pangram there had to be a Q and V somewhere, found the Q | |
| 27 | She abandons one currency before backing — another? (3) |
| LEK – remove SHE from SHEKEL (currency) and reverse | |
| 28 | Signal file fascinating political speaker? (11) |
| SPELLBINDER – SPELL (signal, as in spell out your doom), then BINDER (file) | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Pick up sheep that’s rolled over (3) |
| GET – TEG (sheep) reversed | |
| 2 | Leather releasing hydrogen compound (5) |
| OXIDE – OX HIDE (leather) minus H (hydrogen) | |
| 3 | Edible strands rarely working when 1000 cut up (7) |
| NOODLES – SELDOM (rarely) and ON (working) minus M (1000), all reversed | |
| 4 | Top sandwich in America (6,3) |
| SLOPPY JOE – double definition. In the UK, it is a loose jumper, in the USA, it is a hot sandwich with ground meat and sauce | |
| 5 | Fluff stuck inside upright freezer or refrigerator (5) |
| ERROR – hidden reversed inside freezeR OR REfrigerator | |
| 6 | Italian food, while in wrap, irrelevant (7) |
| LASAGNA – AS (while) inside LAG (wrap a pipe with insulating material) then N/A (irrelevant) | |
| 7 | Free pay, easy! (9) |
| FOOTLOOSE – FOOT (pay for), LOOSE (easy) | |
| 8 | Fly: fly quicker shielding wings on extension (3,8) |
| ZIP FASTENER – ZIP (fly) then FASTER (quicker) surrounding the external letters of ExtensioN | |
| 11 | Whale, spirit heard in powerful music (6,5) |
| THRASH METAL – THRASH (whale or beat) then a homophone of METTLE (spirit) | |
| 14 | Complains tree is cut (9) |
| BEEFSTEAK – BEEFS (complains), then TEAK (tree) | |
| 16 | Wind blast, absurd (9) |
| SCREWBALL – SCREW (wind), then BALL (blast, fun event) | |
| 18 | Player with cavil originally splitting a hair (7) |
| ACTRESS – first letter of Cavil inside A, TRESS (hair) | |
| 19 | Jersey etc wrapped round new hat in red (7) |
| CHIANTI – CI (Channel Islands, Jersey etc) surrounding an anagram of HAT,IN | |
| 21 | Ill-feeling cut short card game (5) |
| PIQUE – PIQUET (card game) minus the last letter | |
| 23 | Mould close to moisture in rising damp (5) |
| KNEAD – last letter of moisturE inside DANK (damp) reversed | |
| 26 | Sea dog, animal sailing north (3) |
| TAR – RAT (animal) reversed | |
I agree this was tricky, and I took a long time to get going. I got zip fastener early on, but the other long answers were tough. I needed all the crossers to come up with groundswell and spellbinder. Even then, I didn’t have any of the four long ones in the middle that tie the puzzle together.
I would suggest another parsing for regalia – anagram of gear, plus the first letters of leaders in administration. That would make it &lit number two.
Time: 40:57
That’s how I parsed REGALIA too.
Too good again for me today. Probably managed about 60% of it before resorting to aids. Was pleased to see the parsing of NOODLES pretty quickly along with BEEFSTEAK, which provided some checkers. Bunged in THRASH for whale but NHO the music. I also parsed REGALIA as Vinyl above. Biffed SLOPPY JOE but I think I’ve heard of it somewhere.
Thanks George and setter.
Gosh that was hard. I was pleased just to finish in 52 but that doesn’t reflect the many occasions where I ‘resorted to aids’ (ie cheated) to make sense of impenetrable clues. I’m looking at LASAGNA, QUAINTEST and THRASH METAL in particular, but they had mates. A proper challenge, thanks George. Oh I’m with Vinyl too on REGALIA.
From I Shall Be Free:
Well the funniest woman I ever seen
Was the great-granddaughter of Mr CLEAN
She takes about fifteen baths a day
Wants me to grow a moustache on my face
She’s insane…
That was a blast! I did start slowly but soon quickened to a steady pace. When I dredged up TEG, I had the G and S so GROUNDSWELL from the definition, parsed as I wrote it in. There were a bunch like that. I enjoyed the wordplay anyway.
72 minutes. Always disappointing to take over an hour but I found this hard and it was some consolation to have completed it without errors. Several unparsed and STOEP only vaguely recognised, without knowing its meaning, as a South Africa term.
Lots of clues to like – as usual I’ll go for the two &lits as my favourites.
Thanks to George for doing the blog under such difficult circumstances – sorry to hear about your trials and tribulations and hope you (and your computer) are now on the mend.
80 minutes, but after the hour had passed I used aids 4 or 5 times to look up synonyms and something to go with THRASH at 11dn. I don’t recall ever coming across that meaning of whale before, and I’m thankful I have never knowingly heard any of the music being defined.
QUAINTEST, KNEAD and SCREWBALL were others that required some assistance. I probably should have persevered with all of them but I had run out of steam by that point. NHO TRICOT or STOEP but that didn’t delay me.