Time taken: 11:36
I’m going to declare this one Tricky Thursday even though there are few completions at the time of writing. There’s some unusual phrases, not a lot of obvious definitions and only one or two places I saw that things could be biffed.
How did you get along?
| Across | |
| 1 | Manifest impatience that I bet wrongly on winner (5,2,3,3) |
| CHAMP AT THE BIT – anagram of THAT,I,BET after CHAMP (winner) | |
| 8 | Extensive note put in record (4) |
| LONG – N (note) inside LOG (record) | |
| 9 | A member of corps on dock finally dropped in the shade (10) |
| AQUAMARINE – A then MARINE (member of corps) after QUAY (dock) minus the last letter | |
| 10 | Came across entertaining American lounge singer (4,4) |
| MEAT LOAF – MET (came across), containing A (American), then LOAF (lounge). Clever surface. | |
| 11 | That woman, married, proved old-fashioned (6) |
| SHEWED – SHE (that woman), WED (married) | |
| 13 | Rewritten document is about politician with feeblest case (10) |
| PALIMPSEST – double container! IS surrounding MP (politician) all inside PALEST (feeblest) | |
| 16 | Leave to be sick, but not very (4) |
| OMIT – VOMIT (be sick) minus V (very). There were two vomits walking down the street. One started crying. The other asked if he was OK, and the first said “Sorry, I get emotional, I was brought up here”. | |
| 17 | This blocks sibilant in front of mouth? (4) |
| LISP – S (sibilant) inside LIP (front of mouth) | |
| 18 | Show of green largely amid crop (10) |
| RIVERDANCE – VERDANT (green) minus the last letter inside RICE (crop) | |
| 20 | Allot gold “star” (6) |
| METEOR – METE (allot), OR (gold). Did myself no favours by entering CAST,OR here originally | |
| 22 | Not so good to contribute to a little light teasing (8) |
| RAILLERY – ILLER (not so good) inside RAY (a little light) | |
| 24 | Return of service plus extra run covering great area (3,3,4) |
| FAR AND WIDE – RAF (service) reversed, then AND (plus), WIDE (extra run in cricket) | |
| 26 | Stick by hot tub (4) |
| BATH – BAT (stick) then H (hot) | |
| 27 | Donning hat, set out for Brief Encounter (3-5,5) |
| ONE NIGHT STAND – anagram of DONNING,HAT,SET | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Helpful craftsman, local, scratching head (11) |
| COOPERATIVE – COOPER (craftsman) then NATIVE (local) minus the first letter | |
| 2 | Dread carnage, on and off street (5) |
| ANGST – alternating letters in cArNaGe, then ST (street) | |
| 3 | Look with difficulty round a small publisher, in this? (9) |
| PEASOUPER – PEER (look with difficulty) surrounding A, S (small), OUP (Oxford University Press, publisher) | |
| 4 | More than one fine lady at first clothed in real delicacy (7) |
| TRUFFLE – two F’s (fine), and the first letter of Lady inside TRUE (real) | |
| 5 | Carries items on back of camel (5) |
| HUMPS – the only double definition in this crossword! | |
| 6 | City pub Charlie alone wrecked (9) |
| BARCELONA – BAR (pub), C (Charlie), and an anagram of ALONE | |
| 7 | One full of alcohol perhaps is expelled from Arab city (3) |
| TUN – remove IS from TUNIS (Arab city) | |
| 12 | Saver confused with deceit is gutted (11) |
| EVISCERATED – anagram of SAVER and DECEIT | |
| 14 | Naughty lad on cocaine initially had to swear (9) |
| IMPRECATE – IMP (naughty lad), RE (on), the first letter of Cocaine and ATE (had) | |
| 15 | Being late, celebrity cycling round has something to eat (9) |
| TARDINESS – STAR (celebrity) cycling surrounding DINES (has something to eat) | |
| 19 | Disappear, having run in for coat (7) |
| VARNISH – VANISH (disappear) containing R (run) | |
| 21 | Minute hands, in relation to face? (5) |
| RADII – cryptic definition, based on the minute hand of a clock being the radius of the face | |
| 23 | Scales not fully calibrated (5) |
| LIBRA – hidden inside caLIBRAted | |
| 25 | Answer the same as before? Bother! (3) |
| ADO – A (answer), DO (ditto, the same as before) | |
I found this straightforward, it went quite fast but I was also making soup so I don’t have a time. I was amused to see MEAT LOAF turning up in The Times. I derived IMPRECATE from wordplay. I knew the word but not really what it meant. It took me some time to see how RAILLERY, my LOI, worked. I assumed ILL was “not so good” which left the confusing RAERY to account for. Eventually the penny dropped and I realized it was ILLER and everything fell into place. 36 mins including making the soup, probably 20-25 mins of actual solving.
I remember watching “Paradise by the dashboard light” on the old grey whistle test many years ago, and a truly stunning sight it was. Loved Meatloaf ever since ..
I did find this tricky at first, but towards the end I sped up considerably. I never parsed Riverdance, so thanks for that. My chief problem was taking so long to see the should-have-been-obvious champ at the bit. Once I had that, Barcelona and humps were obvious, and I eventually got cooperative as well. Radii was my LOI, a mysterious clue that suddenly became clear.
Time: 48:11
Good stuff this, better than yesterday’s. Nice to see Meatloaf!
And Riverdance caused quite a stir too, when it first appeared at Eurovision…
32:59
I spent far too much time following wrong hunches: that ‘front of mouth’ was M, that ‘deceit is gutted=DT, that ‘rewritten document’=(document)*. I also biffed BADINAGE at 22ac and CHAFE AT THE BIT, wasting more time before correcting them.
I hit a wall about half way through and should have put the puzzle aside for completion later, however I soldiered on and eventually completed all but one word. The missing answer was PALIMPSEST which I vaguely remember coming up before but I would never have constructed it from the wordplay on offer despite getting as far as ?A?IMPSEST.
I enjoyed the solve when I wasn’t completely stuck and took some satisfaction from the tricky clues I did manage to unravel.
The difficulty with PALIMPSEST is that while quite a lot of people in England know the brass-rubbing meaning, fewer know the re-used vellum etc. The clue is not entirely accurate, the writing is completely different.
If this doesn’t have a SNITCH over 100, I’m quitting forever.
I can appreciate your pain. Today, it seemed to me like not so much “how did I find it so difficult?”, more “how did other people find it so easy?!”
Super puzzle. I was fortunate to have the required GK, which helped with the last two, PALIMPSEST and PEASOUPER.
20:59
Has anyone else had troubles with A2z word finder recently
I occasionally use it as an aid if really stuck
Now the crossword click through takes one to a site that doesn’t work
Are there any other suggestions?
It’s gone bananas. Can’t make out what one has to do. I cheat by using https://www.crosswordsolver.org/
For word-finders that you can put crossing letters with ?s for unknown letters, the Chambers website has one: here. Also one look, but that seems to be a Wiki-type thing full of typos and misspellings and non-words.
Yes, the Chamber’s one is called Word Wizard.
A nice 34m, following whatever felt like the easiest path, which led me from FOI 1a down the right-hand-side then back across to finish with IMPRECATE and LISP.
Not bad after wrenching myself out of bed for a washing machine repair appointment that came with a window of 6:30-8:30. I guess Hoover think their customers are all up with the dawn chorus…
I woke up at 5:30 and remembered I hadn’t posted my Granddaughter’s birthday card for tomorrow. Cue dash downstairs, write card, put stamp on it and hot foot it to the post box. Luckily there’s a collection at 9am. Then I had a shower, went back to bed and woke up at 10am!
The SNITCH has picked up your time as 6:30, not 34:00, so the AI over there needs a tune-up. No wonder the rating is so low!
Shot through most of this in 25 mins having quickly seen the two long answers, but ground to halt with PALIMPSEST, RIVERDANCE & IMPRECATE. Eventually worked them out for 31 mins.
I liked FAR AND WIDE.
Thanks G and setter.
16.44 which is fast for me and a pleasingly high parse to biff ratio. Last three bricks in the wall were the NE trio HUMPS, AQUAMARINE and my COD PEASOUPER.
Thanks G and setter.
16:04. Really enjoyed this one, which didn’t seem all that tricky although I think I got really lucky with RIVERDANCE as ‘verdant’ was somehow the first green that popped into the old bonce.
28 minutes. I don’t know exactly what a PALIMPSEST is but I recognised the word and IMPRECATE was another one that I would not have been confident about without being given the ‘to swear’ def. I liked the misleading ‘American lounge singer’ at 10a which didn’t exactly suggest the correct answer and the ‘Show of green’ at 18a which did.
Favourites were LISP and Trevor Howard donning his hat for a ONE-NIGHT STAND.
PALIMPSEST has two usual meanings, either a piece of brass redesigned to be a different person (as in church plaques), or material that is written on that is re-used after deleting the original writing. Modern techniques can make out the original.
I’m not sure if I had the right general knowledge but I managed to finish while still unsure what IMPRECATE and PALIMPSEST meant. I’ve looked them up now. LOI was the clever RADII. Tricky in places but any puzzle that combines MEATLOAF with RIVERDANCE is worth the effort. Thank you George and setter.
Tricky or ticky?
33:36. Some slightly obscure words today which I liked. SHEWED reminded me of Jane Austen, and PALIMPSEST reminded me of a visit yonks ago to Richmond Castle where the word was carefully and helpfully explained. as a 10-year old I didn’t think it would ever be that useful but how wrong I was. I didn’t find it too hard and enjoyed the solve throughout.
14’18”, flew through this somehow. Delayed as couldn’t see the CO-OP COOP equivalence. COD to RIVERDANCE. Have remarked on PALIMPSEST above.
Thanks george and setter.
16.45
Very enjoyable, especially the accurate word numbering of MEAT LOAF (two) and RIVERDANCE (one).
No biffs, for a change.
COD CHAMP AT THE BIT
LOI LISP (tried to make it SLIP at first)
Very nice constructions throughout – all very fair and accurate and with some delightful surfaces. All present and correct in 26 minutes though RIVERDANCE was not fully parsed: crossers suggested RICE and it was clearly containing VER(t) – but that somehow prevented me from spotting VERDAN(t)! Doh.
As one or two other commenters above, PALIMPSEST is one of those words I’ve come across – almost certainly in a puzzle – but could not precisely define. MEAT LOAF, LISP, HUMPS, ONE-NIGHT STAND and COOPERATIVE my faves today.
Thanks to setter and blogger
I started off working with VER(t) for RIVERDANCE.
12 minutes, so I was clearly on the wavelength today.
– A day will come when I remember what PALIMPSEST means… but it is not this day
– Wanted 22a to be RIBALDRY before I worked out RAILLERY (helped by it having occurred recently)
– Couldn’t have told you what IMPRECATE means, but the wordplay was helpful
Thanks glh and setter.
FOI Long
LOI Humps
COD One-night stand
26 mins. Most enjoyable and pitched perfectly for me.
FOI 1ac to set off at a sprint but slowed in the SW where I had to work through the wordplay for PALIMPSEST and IMPRECATE, both VHO but meanings unknown/forgotten as for other posters. LOI LISP.
Not my sport but I believe a cricket stick is called a “bat”.
Enjoyed MEAT LOAF but COD RADII, clever.
Great puzzle, thanks both.
Tough but fair, 30.33 for me. Same stumbling blocks as many others, but being convinced that the things on a camel were LUMPS, then BUMPS, also did not help. Thanks G, very helpful blog.
From Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right:
I’m walking down that LONG lonesome road, babe
Where I’m bound, I can’t tell
But goodbye’s too good a word gal, so I’ll just say fare thee well
I ain’t saying you treated me unkind, you could have done better but I don’t mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time
But don’t think twice, it’s all right
Very difficult, because NHO PALIMPSEST. I worked out how the clue roughly worked, but without knowing the word this proved impossible. The cryptic is ambiguous: I had BASIMPREST, which parses equally well, and sounds equally plausible. I looked it up before submitting.
RIVERDANCE and PEASOUPER are also very hard, even though I had figured the cryptic – I have heard of these but they don’t readily occur to the below-Boomer generations. MEAT LOAF on the other hand was easy enough.
M(ajor)ER at METEOR, which isn’t a star.
So, I went through all but 6 clues in about 15 minutes, and then spent a fairly unrewarding 30 minutes trying to get TARDINESS, IMPRECATE, METEOR, RIVERDANCE, PEASOUPER, and PALIMPSEST.
Therefore: part fun, part too much hard work. I would much prefer an easier clue for NHOs like PALIMPSEST.
not a star but commonly called a shooting star. so not a lie.
Riverdance dates from 1994 which makes it Millennial and counts as recent even to a Gen X whippersnapper like me.
16.34. Any day when I get within 5 minutes of Georges time is worthy of note: I liked this puzzle for flattering the solver (at least this this one) that he’s cleverer and more knowledgeable that the truth probably allows. So PALIMPSEST, IMPRECATE and EVISCERATED entered properly spelt, parsed and understood, and RADII’s cryptic definition spotted even though most clocks I know have only one minute hand.
Is it that clock, George, that gives the Ticky title to your fine blog? At least you can be congratulated on spotting that CASTOR was a load of POLLUX.
On the hour, all green, but needed a dictionary for IMPRECATE. I had HISS, rather than LISP. Knew PALIMPSEST having read The Archimedes Codex, about a work of Archimedes which had been found faintly inscribed on the vellum under a medieval prayer book.
CASTOR was a better answer than METEOR, which are not stars. Not even the quote marks should allow the large mathematical error. A meteor is about 4.8 trillion times nearer than a star. (100 km vs 50 light years for Castor, say)
Defeated by AQUAMARINE. Got it into my head that we were looking for something like *ADUMBRANT, which, I now see, doesn’t even fit. ‘Whenever you see an unclaimed U,/ Always suspect a Q.’ If that isn’t an age-old adage, it ought to be.
A meteor is often called a shooting star, so it passes muster with its question mark.
About 35′ on a very early flight from Glasgow, trying to avoid dozing off (and the resulting stiff neck..).
About 3/4 went in pretty easily I thought, including both the 14 letter ac clues, all offering plenty of crossers for the stickier ones.
For whatever reason I chose lips instead of LISP making IMPRECATE impossible until I saw the (what should have been obvious) “imp”. PALIMPSEST is known to me only from crosswordland, and I had no memory of its meaning. I did eventually constructed it as my LOI.
Thanks George and setter.
24:16
Currently reading Jane Austen’s Emma which has plenty of examples of SHEWED. Had three left at 16 minutes, but took a while to see that CAST OR was probably not right (CASTOR is actually six stars not one, plus the “definition” was in quotes). That enabled IMPRECATE (couldn’t have told you what it meant beforehand), and the much-easier-with-the-correct-checkers COOPERATIVE, giving the final checker for Mr Loaf – saw him live in 1988 at the Hammersmith Odeon/Apollo/whatever it was known as then – very impressive.
Thanks G and setter
Another good one this week, 25 minutes ending with IMPRECATE and correcting CASTOR to METEOR as the E required. Nothing NHO, and I liked (V)OMIT and PEASOUPER.
DNF I was actually around about my PB time so was finding it straightforward (I do find longer answers much easier) but hit a brick wall with the NHO PALIMPSEST. I figured out the wordplay but just couldn’t bring ‘palest’ to mind. Threw in the towel after 10 minutes on that clue and entered some garbage guess.
Wasn’t sure about “star” for METEOR but Chambers has shooting star as a meteor (informal) so I guess I can accept it.
COD RIVERDANCE
Thanks blogger and setter
40 mins, but on the wavelength throughout. IMPRECATE/PALIMPSEST held me up for too long, but the penny eventually dropped. No unknowns, which helped.
No particular problems, even getting PALIMPSEST when it seemed to be the only word that fitted the checkers and I reckoned a rewritten document probably filled the bill. Fairly steady progress throughout. I wasn’t bothered by the “star” definition, since it has inverted commas and is a shooting star.
Faster than average solve, and no annoying one or two words holding me up at the end, so not tricky at all. PALIMSEST remembered as vellum and writing from past puzzles, IMPRECATE vaguely known, no other unknowns, even meteor as a shooting star just about acceptable. LISP was obvious but unparsed… was S an abbreviation for sibilance, or an example, or was it “sibilance in front” which blocked lip=mouth in the nounal sense of trash-talk? Wasn’t sure, but the answer was clear. Liked AQUAMARINE and COOPERATIVE.
41.16. Thought this was going to be comparatively easy until it wasn’t. Struggled with the interconnecting peasouper (COD) , raillery, tardiness and lastly riverdance. Is that really one word?
No doubt someone can tell me.
12:15 – fast for me and seemed very straightforward at the time thanks to well-signposted definitions, but on review some of the cryptics were quite involved.
From TUN to RIVERDANCE in 14:07. Even remembered what a PALIMPSEST is! Puzzled over LISP for a while. Liked PEASOUPER. Thanks setter and George.
23:36. Blimey, talk about off-wavelength! I found that extremely hard, and my WITCH is currently at 238!
I can’t say I enjoyed it much: there were too many clues which I solved almost without reference to the clue: just working out a word that would fit the checkers and then reverse-engineering the wordplay.
I don’t understand the clue for LISP. It appears to require S to be an abbreviation for ‘sibilant’, which as far as I can tell it isn’t.
45:13, as usual just happy to have got to the end with only mild bruising.
Thank you for the blog!