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.
24:53 which felt like I was punching above my weight on this one. I see that it pushed Verlaine over the 13-minute mark so it’s safe to say that it was harder than a cat’s head.
Great puzzle though, with a number of clues that seemed totally impenetrable until they weren’t.
Thanks setter and thanks especially to George for going above and beyond.
Good crossword this, not easy but 15ac doable. Managed it without a 20ac. No unknowns, even the powerful music rang a vague bell.
I parsed REGALIA the same as Vinyl. Re the FEZ, evidently our setter is not a fan of Tommy Cooper..
To be fair to the setter Tommy hasn’t donned the fez for nearly 42 years!
Oof! That was a bit of a struggle with time coming in around the 35 minute mark. SLOPPY JOE nho in either sense and TRICOT also nho making LOI, TRICOLOUR, tricky until all the crossers were in place. Add to that the fact I couldn’t see why ‘political’ was in the def for SPELLBINDER – have we had one in recent times who meets that correct definition? Faves inc FEZ, REGALIA which I parsed as others above, REBUS, JUST ABOUT, OXIDE and SCREWBALL.
Thanks to setter and blogger