Solving time: 32 minutes for all but one clue which I was unable to solve without using aids, so technically this was a DNF for me.
As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions and substitutions are in curly brackets} and [anagrinds, containment, reversal and other indicators in square ones]. I usually omit all reference to positional indicators unless there is a specific point that requires clarification.
Across |
|
1 | Painter‘s predicament entertaining bishop at home (7) |
HOLBEIN : HOLE (predicament) containing [entertaining] B (bishop), then IN (at home). Perhaps most famous for his portraits of Henry VIII. | |
5 | Coach finally accepted by team member, a fretful type (7) |
WHINGER : {coac}H (finally) contained [accepted] by WINGER (team member). If only whinging were an Olympic sport! | |
9 | Barrier built by day, in the morning (3) |
DAM : D (day), AM (in the morning) | |
10 | A club dream, surprisingly, securing new lampholder (11) |
CANDELABRUM : Anagram [surprisingly] of A CLUB DREAM, containing [securing] N (new). There may have been a distinction to be drawn back in the day but in usage the singular (as here) is now interchangeable with the plural ‘candelabra’. The piano player who cried all the way to the bank (and later bought the bank) had a lavishly be-ringed hand in reviving interest in the word in the 1950s and beyond. | |
11 | Heightened way deliveries come up to scratch (8) |
OVERPASS : OVER (deliveries – 6 balls in cricket), PASS (come up to scratch – standard). More usually called a flyover, in the UK at least. | |
12 | One moving slowly with large account book (6) |
LEDGER : L (large), EDGER (one moving slowly) | |
15 | Public placard‘s function, according to report (4) |
SIGN : Sounds like (according to report) “sine” (function – trigonometry) | |
16 | Fellow pupil taking tea on train (10) |
SCHOOLMATE : SCHOOL (train), MATE (tea). A on B = BA. ‘Tea’ only loosely, as maté is an infusion of the leaves of a South American shrub. | |
18 | Agree to adopt vessel unknown by European primate (10) |
CHIMPANZEE : CHIME (agree) contains [to adopt] PAN (vessel) + Z (unknown), then E (European) | |
19 | Girl detailed to go (4) |
WEND : WEND{y} (girl) [de-tailed]. I thought the ploughman in Grey’s Elegy wends his weary way, but on checking I am reminded that he plods. | |
22 | Mistakes made by brats wasting time (6) |
ERRORS : {t}ERRORS (brats) [wasting time – t] | |
23 | Tub-thumping fellow carrying old 15 awkwardly (8) |
JINGOISM : JIM (fellow) containing [carrying] anagram [awkwardly] of O (old) SIGN (15 Across). Bellicose chauvinism. It comes from ‘By Jingo’ which has its origins in the words of a patriotic Music Hall song popularised by G H MacDermottt towards the end of the 19th century. Gun the gunboats! | |
25 | Rescue electronic organ used in social event? (11) |
DELIVERANCE : E (electronic) + LIVER (organ) contained by [used in] DANCE (social event) | |
27 | Trap bringing about mother’s ruin (3) |
GIN : Two meanings | |
28 | Part of defence of scorer facing bowler? (7) |
RAVELIN : RAVEL (scorer – composer), IN (facing bowler?). More cricket. During play two batsmen are ‘in’ but only one of them at a time is facing the bowler, hence the question mark. Ravelin is an outlying section of fortifications. | |
29 | Support staff kept back in quarters (7) |
ENDORSE : ROD (staff) reversed [kept back] in E N S E (a random selection of quarters of the compass) |
Down | |
1 | Frightful-looking refuges with no end of want (7) |
HIDEOUS : HIDEOU{t}S (refuges) [with no end of want – t]. When it came to parsing it didn’t help that I kept reading ‘refuges’ as ‘refugees’. | |
2 | Awfully grim realm, ultimately quite suitable for a vulture (11) |
LAMMERGEIER : Anagram [awfully] of GRIM REALM {quit}E {suitabl}E [ultimately]. SOED defines this as: a long-winged, long-tailed vulture, Gypaetus barbatus, inhabiting lofty mountains in southern Europe, Asia, and Africa. Also called bearded vulture. An utterly unfair invasion of the grid by an obscure foreign word clued as an anagram. It has appeared only once before, in a Club Monthly with an alternative spelling, and that’s exactly where it belongs – if indeed it has to appear at all. An awfuly grim clue that completely spoiled this puzzle for me. | |
3 | Run away from mischievous prank, avoiding publicity (6) |
ESCAPE : ESCAP{ad}E (mischievous prank) [avoiding publicity – ad] | |
4 | Granny, initially out and back in practically no time! (10) |
NANOSECOND : NAN (granny), O{ut} [initially], SECOND (back – support) | |
5 | Little kid’s first few days (4) |
WEEK : WEE (little – northern British), K{id} [‘s first] | |
6 | Allies in a tizzy about sailor’s girl (8) |
ISABELLA : Anagram [in a tizzy] of ALLIES containing [about] AB (sailor) | |
7 | Fish swimming around? Only a little (3) |
GAR : Hidden in [only a little] {swimmin}G AR{round} | |
8 | Shame about son taken in to a greater extent (7) |
REMORSE : RE (about), then S (son) contained by [taken in] MORE (to a greater extent) | |
13 | Unsmiling Australian working in churchyard (11) |
GRAVEDIGGER : GRAVE (unsmiling), DIGGER (Australian). &lit or semi. | |
14 | Arrive and eat, squeezing in French entertainer (10) |
COMEDIENNE : COME (arrive), then DINE (eat) containing [squeezing] EN (in, French). Presumably another word we’re not supposed to use any more. | |
17 | Acclaim paper regularly imported into a cricket ground (8) |
APPROVAL : P{a}P{e}R [regularly] contained by [imported into] A + OVAL (cricket ground) | |
18 | Male theologian trapped in vehicle? Hard cheese! (7) |
CHEDDAR : HE (male) + DD (theologian) contained by [trapped in] CAR (vehicle). ‘Hard cheese’ is UK slang for ‘bad luck’ and the expression derives from cheese that is old, dried up and indigestible. Cheddar in good condition is firm rather than hard (like parmesan) but may be classified as hard to distinguish it from the soft continental cheeses. | |
20 | Catholic dignitary in India meeting English schoolmaster (7) |
DOMINIE : DOM (Catholic dignitary), IN, I (India – NATO alphabet), E (English). A nice misdirection here as the use of ‘dominie’ with reference to a schoolteacher is now almost exclusively Scottish. | |
21 | A deadly sin? Absolutely (6) |
AGREED : A, GREED (deadly sin) | |
24 | Single man’s club (4) |
IRON : I (single), RON (man) | |
26 | Most of tax ready in Sofia (3) |
LEV : LEV{y} (tax) [most of…]. The last three clues seem to be somewhat perfuctory as if the setter was running out of time. It’s not an uncommon trait, and worth remembering by solvers who find themselves stuck or making slow progress – take a look at the final Down clues as you may find some easy pickings to get you going again. |
I was helped by being able to put HOLBEIN in right away. One of my earliest memories was reading the liner notes to a recording of Liszt’s Totentanz, which was inspired by Holbein’s engravings.
Jack, a few blog notes: Didn’t know the term ‘flyover’! Thanks! I think you meant SCHOOL (train).
I agree with your comment about the final few Down clues and hence it’s where I usually start.
Thanks to setter and Jack
I was particularly glad to get JINGOISM and DOMINIE after some thought.
Edited at 2021-03-23 08:13 am (UTC)
In most cases* the number of solvers who get it right usually provides a good sample of solvers for the SNITCH calculation. I suspect that the presence of some traps will slow them down a bit to reflect the difficulty of the crossword. And, as you say, simpler seems better to me.
*The exception, of course, is when there’s an error in the solution and there are no correct solvers.
As a separate point, should every puzzle blog have a link to your excellent snitch site at the top? Wonder how many people like me took ages to know it existed.
I too read refuges as refugees, but I biffed hideous once I had all the checkers. I was definitely on the wavelength tonight.
Eventually got RAVELIN, JINGOISM and DOMINIE but thanks for the decrypt, Jack. Thanks also for HIDEOUS and GAR. Didn’t spot the containment in GAR.
Doesn’t LAMMERGEIER pop up in Monty Python somewhere?
COD to DELIVERANCE. I did like e-liver for ‘electronic organ’
Edited at 2021-03-23 05:57 am (UTC)
And after all that irritation I couldn’t even count my As and Es properly and ended up with ISABELLE.
One to forget all round.
Edited at 2021-03-23 07:59 am (UTC)
What a pity. I liked the first 15 mins and was thinking how well clued it was, even (NHO) Ravelin.
But then came the three that needed too much Unravelin’.
Thanks setter and great blog J.
You’ve inspired a most HIDEOUS verse
When you reach your end
To your corpse birds will WEND
And you won’t be needing a hearse
Excarnation is this setter’s fate
Forget GRAVEDIGGERs when you are “late”
Being eaten by (completely and utterly obscure foreign bearded) vultures
Is not part of most cultures
Not now….but Hell’s patient…..we’ll wait
Edited at 2021-03-23 08:15 pm (UTC)
Among a good few contenders for COD I’m plumping for Jingoism. “Oh we don’t want to fight but by jingo if we do, we’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, we’ve got the money too! “ Hopefully, it won’t come to that over vaccines.
Thanks setter and blogger.
On the other hand, the LAMMERGEIER was ok by me, I knew the bird and that its spelling was a bit, well, random, but only had to work out in which order to put the two Es at the end.
15.08 start to finish, subsequently entertained by excellent blogging: thanks, Jack!
It then became known as the Rimmeradler, or Rimmereagle ‘Gypaetus barbatus rimmeri’ It is only found among the tallest peaks of the Eastern hemisphere: the Pyrenees, Mount Everest, the European Alps, the Ethiopian Highlands, the Atlas and Drakensberg Mountains and the islands of Corsica and Crete.
‘The Roman Pliny gave one of the first descriptions of the lammergeier’s signature behavior: breaking bones and hard shelled turtles by dropping them on rocks from high in the air. According to Pliny, Aeschylus was supposed to have been killed by a missile dropped by a lammergeier that mistook his bald head for a rock.’
Reminds me also that virtually all French words ending in -AGE are masculine, apart from a small subset that can be recited by students (RAGE, CAGE, IMAGE etc). Then we discovered that SAXIFRAGE is also feminine in French.
RAVELIN was guessable given the cryptic, DOMINIE was harder — had a notion that it could be that but no idea really — and LAMMERGEIER was impossible even with all of the checkers. I cheated for both of these last two, so a technical DNF.
Nothing wrong with 2dn LAMMERGEIER as it was my FOI. Being a bit of a culture-vulture I have recently been reading a new-ish title ‘Lammergeier’ – ‘a literary magazine focused on the intersection of the beautiful and grotesque.’ Right up my ginnel!
LOI 8dn REMORSE
COD 19ac WEND – Wendy the invention of J. M. Barrie and the most middle-class English gals’s names.
WOD 2dn apart, 18dn CHEDDAR but only from The Gorge.
I am supplied with Wyke Extra Mature in Shanghai….(sorry) gorgeous.
This morning I went to the new downtown IKEA in Pusi – absolute crap!
I only managed to buy one Swedish Kilner jar (for lime pickle) and six wine glasses (more pickling?); no bookshelves nor much else until April – perhaps! Covid19 to blame apparently.
Why isn’t the new more lethal variant being updated to Covid21?
Time 27 minutes and no passes.
Edited at 2021-03-23 09:42 am (UTC)
FOI 1D: HIDEOUS
Failed to solve:
19A: WEND
23A: JINGOISM
20D: DOMINIE
Everything went in like a dream and after 18 minutes I had 3 to solve.
Alas, after an hour, I remained in the same position! I was obsessed with Tub-thumping being some shorter variant on LIONISING (with ‘sing’ for ‘sign’) and DOMINIE was a NHO.
Thank you, jackkt `and the setter.
The rest was also jolly good except for DOMINIE which I didn’t know and didn’t think looked right even when the word play suggested it. That and WENDy took much of the time.
30 minutes.
Jerry will know it too, as LAMMERGEYER (sic) appeared on his watch in 2012 and he mentioned he knew it only with the EIE spelling.
Spelling it correctly is rather another matter..
Edited at 2021-03-23 11:18 am (UTC)
Edited at 2021-03-23 12:59 pm (UTC)
DOMINIE better known to an aeroplane tragic like me as a De Havilland biplane than as a schoolmaster, but gettable after WEND gave the D.
All green in 26’56”
Definitely a mixed bag today with some QC escapees but some elegant clues as well. Enjoyed hideous and Holbein.
28:00 otherwise
Thanks J and setter
Deliverance, Gravedigger and Chimpanzee were the pick for me. Good fun.
Thanks to blogger and setter.
My main complaint, though, was GRAVEDIGGER, for the same reason that wilransome gave above. It just doesn’t work, and I’m not generous enough to regard it as a semi-&lit – it strikes me as the kind of thing the Guardian would be OK with but very surprised to see it make it into the Times.
Apologies, all very grumpy. On the plus side, WEEK was a nice, tidy clue, and GAR was a well-disguised hidden.
I do normally manage to finish the 15sq if I attempt it even though it often takes me an hour or so. Some crumbs of comfort from getting as far as I did today but I’m back to the QC tomorrow. I know my place!
Edited at 2021-03-23 04:38 pm (UTC)