I needed an hour for this, but even then one of my answers had been bunged in solely from the definition, and it was tentative as I had no idea what the rest of the clue was about. Apart from two long answers, around three-quarters of the grid had been completed within my target half-hour, but then I ran into major problems with the fourth quarter (the SE) which stumped me completely for what seemed like forever. Eventually the anagram at 16dn gave way and one by one the remaining answers slowly fell into place.
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 | Cat losing seconds repeatedly chasing shy rodent (5) |
| COYPU | |
| COY (shy), PU{ss} (cat) [losing seconds repeatedly] | |
| 4 | Plan to squander and run off (9) |
| BLUEPRINT | |
| BLUE (squander), PRINT (run off) | |
| 9 | Home with trees arranged in small group (9) |
| THREESOME | |
| Anagram [arranged] of HOME TREES | |
| 10 | Atmosphere about street is bustling (5) |
| ASTIR | |
| AIR (atmosphere) containing [about] ST (street) | |
| 11 | Live with success around German city (6) |
| LUBECK | |
| LUCK (success) containing [around] BE (live). I nearly died of food poisoning there in 1989. | |
| 12 | Change the appearance of flag, not new (8) |
| REDESIGN | |
| RED E{n}SIGN (flag) [not new]. It’s the flag of the British Merchant Navy. | |
| 14 | Dismantle vehicle for the purpose of working a series of panels (5,7) |
| STRIP CARTOON | |
| STRIP (dismantle), CAR (vehicle), TO (for the purpose of), ON (working). ‘Panel’ is the technical term it seems. | |
| 17 | Brief result I brought about? Far from it (12) |
| FILIBUSTERER | |
| Anagram [brought about] of BRIEF RESULT I. I think most if not all of the clue is the definition. To filibuster is to obstruct (often legislation) by employing delaying tactics. This was one of the long answers that contributed to my difficulties although I know the word well. | |
| 20 | Victorian work is old anthem entirely unfinished (8) |
| IOLANTHE | |
| I{s} + OL{d} + ANTHE{m} [entirely – all – unfinished]. Not the most helpful of definitions but the wordplay was useful in identifying the well-known comic opera by Gilbert & Sullivan | |
| 21 | Perhaps dredge river in front of submarine dock (6) |
| DEEPEN | |
| DEE (river), PEN (submarine dock). Another clue that held me up. I knew there is a special word for submarine moorings but was unable to remember it until the checkers arrived. | |
| 23 | Something that may give one a lift from doctor on Thursday (5) |
| THUMB | |
| THU (Thursday), MB (doctor). ‘Give’ seems intended to mislead here. | |
| 24 | Balance arm is caught in edges of one (9) |
| EQUIPOISE | |
| EQUIP (arm – supply), then IS contained by [caught in] O{n}E [edges]. Another word that took me ages to construct from wordplay. It’s not one I’m particularly familiar with although I remember TV advertisements for ‘equipoise lamps’. | |
| 25 | At one time included, quoted in vain (9) |
| CONCEITED | |
| CITED (quoted) with ONCE (at one time) included | |
| 26 | Delightful one for the king in lodge (5) |
| SWEET | |
| This was my LOI. Although I had thought of ‘sweet’ as a possible answer quite early in the proceedings, at that stage I had no checkers and was unable to parse the remainder of the clue so I held off writing it in, convinced there had to be an alternative word for ‘delightful’ that would make everything fall into place. But gradually the checkers arrived and SWEET it had to be so I bunged it in and stopped the clock. Having confirmed by revealing the answer that it was correct and I wasn’t wasting my time I then continued trying to parse it. Here’s my conclusion:
WE (one for the king) contained by [in] SET (lodge). As Wiki has it, “the royal we, majestic plural, or royal plural, is the use of a plural pronoun…by a single person who is a monarch or holds a high office to refer to themselves.” It’s actually a way of avoiding saying ‘I’ which ‘one’ in the clue already has covered, so I’m not entirely convinced it works unless we’re supposed to reason that ‘one = I = royal we’ – but perhaps I’m overthinking it. The most memorable use by a non-royal came from Margaret Thatcher on the birth of her first grandchild when she issued a press release announcing “We have become a grandmother”. As with many statements by Maggie, this led to adverse comments. I took some convincing that ‘lodge = set’ but it’s in my thesaurus in the 6th and final tranche of meanings so I suppose it’s ok. |
|
| Down |
|
| 1 | Note girl is after hairstyle that’s refined (3-5) |
| CUT-GLASS | |
| CUT (hairstyle), G (note), LASS (girl). This is used figuratively in the expression ‘cut-glass accent‘ to describe a manner of speaking that’s characterized by excessively careful enunciation. | |
| 2 | Rhea, perhaps under three feet, captive in the US (8) |
| YARDBIRD | |
| YARD (three feet), BIRD (rhea, perhaps). I knew this only from the nickname of the saxophonist Charlie Parker and there was an English pop group called The Yardbirds. I see it has several meanings in the USA, one being ‘convict’ which matches the definition here. | |
| 3 | Cube confused with exponential? Unlikely to be called out (15) |
| UNEXCEPTIONABLE | |
| Anagram [confused] of CUBE EXPONENTIAL. I got this from the anagram but was not sure what exactly it means. SOED obliges with ‘perfectly satisfactory or adequate’, so ‘unlikely to be called out’ or challenged. | |
| 4 | Float to purchase a container for oxygen (4) |
| BUOY | |
| BUY (purchase) containing [a container for] O (oxygen) | |
| 5 | Odd time almost completely quiet (10) |
| UNEVENTFUL | |
| UNEVEN (odd), T (time), FUL{l} (completely) [almost] | |
| 6 | Film a sheep running under tree on old homestead (6,2,3,4) |
| PLANET OF THE APES | |
| PLANE (tree), TOFT (old homestead), then anagram [running] of A SHEEP. This was another answer that gave me major problems as it was one of my last clues solved and its long absence deprived me of checkers to help with four words in the troublesome SE corner. I realised when writing the blog that I had failed to account for T OF T but fortunately the SOED came to my assistance with this entry: toft – a homestead, the site of a house and its outbuildings. Freq. in toft and croft, an entire holding, consisting of the homestead and attached plot of arable land. OE. I never ever ‘eard of it! | |
| 7 | Know instinctively northern dweller accepts temperature (6) |
| INTUIT | |
| INUIT (northern dweller) contains [accepts] T (temperature) | |
| 8 | Seat of power good for European crowd (6) |
| THRONG | |
| THRON{e} (seat of power) becomes THRONG when G (good) stands in for E (European) | |
| 13 | British worker embracing to some extent chaps in exile (10) |
| BANISHMENT | |
| B (British), ANT (worker) containing [embracing] ISH (to some extent – suffix) + MEN (chaps) | |
| 15 | Lead with buffet covered in fruit (8) |
| GRAPHITE | |
| HIT (buffet) contained by [covered in] GRAPE (fruit). Graphite is used for making pencil ‘lead’ so the clue works colloquially, but no doubt there will be the usual objections. | |
| 16 | Division of church in ten parts roughly (8) |
| TRANSEPT | |
| Anagram [roughly] of TEN PARTS. It crosses the nave to make the cruciform in a church. This was the breakthrough answer that eventually took me out of the doldrums. I’ve no idea why I needed so long to work it out. | |
| 18 | Mexican, note, cross with detective (6) |
| MIXTEC | |
| MI (note – music), X (cross), TEC (detective). I feel I should be ashamed to admit that I didn’t know this word, but this would seem to be its first appearance in the TfTT era. | |
| 19 | Adviser to Charlemagne Gauls caution regularly (6) |
| ALCUIN | |
| {g}A{u}L{s} C{a}U{t}I{o}N [regularly]. This was Alcuin of York (735-804) scholar, clergyman, poet, and teacher. I didn’t know about his association with Charlemagne but I was aware of him from the age of about 7 when I attended a prep school named in his honour. | |
| 22 | Kitty’s daughter chasing light-hearted pleasure (4) |
| FUND | |
| FUN (light-hearted pleasure), D (daughter) | |
Identical with Tim above. That darned triplet of clues! I haven’t heard Charles describe himself as ‘we’ yet, so maybe it’s another king. I’d associate it more with Queen Victoria. 31 mins.
10m 18s, so I might be the only person who found this one easier than yesterday’s – but still on the tricky side, particularly GRAPHITE / SWEET / DEEPEN.
Some tricky vocab today, such as TOFT (although I biffed it and didn’t see that until coming here) & the unknown MIXTEC.
Much harder than yesterday’s walk in the park, and I was pleased to complete it – on another day, I might not have. Like Jackkt, I was particularly held up by the SE corner and, again like Jackkt, my LOI was sweet; it did occur to me before I had all the checkers, but I couldn’t immediately parse it, even though it occurred to me that ‘lodge’ might provide SET; my main problem, as ever, was the looseness of the synonym sweet/delightful; once I had all the checkers, I decided it must be sweet and then the penny dropped with the parsing.
I entered MIXTEC with little confidence; I know that a few of the old Central American peoples have names ending in ‘tec’ but had never heard of the Mixtecs -but at least I could parse it.
I could not parse BLUEPRINT at all, not the ‘blue’ part anyway; so I have looked it up since reading Jackkt’s blog above. I guess this is another case where I am just too young (66) to be aware of the usage concerned; I actually struggled to believe it.
Another defeated on the hour mark by GRAPHITE and SWEET. On checking the answers I note that I carelessly put in ALCUON at 19dn, and I would have been really mad with myself if that had been my only failure.
Struggled on for 67 minutes then gave up on LOI, REDESIGN and looked it up. Slapped forehead moment. Sumbitted off leaderboard and found I got the rest correct. Sheesh! 67:17 before throwing in the towel. thanks setter and Jack.
Didn’t know a lot of this including blue=blow and toft (so didn’t get blueprint which led to not getting Planet of the Apes). Guessed Mixtec, assumed Alcuin was right and failed completely on sweet. Overall not my best day.
31:16
Drifted through this without too much trouble. Good puzzle. Mixtec from wp.
Thanks, jack.
55’19”
Finished exhausted; try over a shorter trip(?)
As has been highlighted, the mediant could have been been a leading-note (ti), so I was fortunate there.
By sheer good luck the rest were fully justified; I once, with a three-iron, hit a shot from the western into the eastern hemisphere at Meridian GC,
TOFT, Cambridgeshire, and looked into the odd place-name.
Fine work from both setter and Jack; thanks to both. I’ll now fail to relax with the cricket.
Well, that’ll teach me to complain that yesterday’s was too easy! I thought this was going to be too when the NW corner went straight in but then I ground to a halt. Technical DNF as I checked MIXTEC was a thing before entering. Like others, NHO TOFT, but didn’t really need to and couldn’t parse SWEET. Nearly 20 minutes, which is slow by my standards.
42:49
Some uneducated guessing for MIXTEC (good job I thought of MI first rather than TI) and ALCUIN both built from cryptic.
Heard of anglepoise lamps so not a great jump to follow the cryptic and come up with EQUIPOISE from both of the E checkers. With the P in place and figuring that if the third word of 6d was THE and the last six letters of the answer were an anagram of A SHEEP, I hit on THE APES, and consequently saw PLANE (didn’t think too much about TOFT!).
Didn’t realise that FILIBUSTER could have a further ER on the end of it, but that was all I could make of the anagrist. Liked DEEPEN once I’d thought of PEN (had thought of DEE very early on, but was thinking ‘dock’ might be to DE-tail or something similar). Couldn’t make head nor tail of LOI SWEET.
Thanks setter and Jack
I got into PLANET OF THE APES the same way. Sometimes a partial parsing is all you need.
35’21” with ten minutes on REDESIGN at the end. Couldn’t get a -TION ending out of my mind. Surprised Snitch so high. Thought it was just me being thick.
11 is my lucky number, my birthday is 11/11, and my finishing time has me 11th on the leaderboard. I biffed furiously through this, and nearly entered “tixtec” for the unknown Mexican. My LOI was 100% hit and hope….as was SWEET which was in the “got to be right but how does it work?” category.
FOI COYPU
LOI EQUIPOISE
COD FILIBUSTERER
TIME (ahem) 11:11
The other being what … the killing of Hamilton?
Happy to finish this in 30 minutes, no problems with MIXTEC, or TOFT. Eventually managed to understand SWEET before popping it in. Nice puzzle.
Thanks for another comprehensive blog Jack. I struggled immensely with this and gave up after around 45 mins with 6 or 7 still unsolved. I suppose I might have done better if I’d spelt BUOY correctly, but probably not. I also infuriatingly dismissed ?????? of the sape, ?????? of the seap and ?????? of the peas before the penny eventually dropped after BLUEPRINT went in.
I’ve never been to Lübeck but I did see some coypu in Germany a few years ago. Quite cute creatures with very large orange teeth.
Well done for parsing SWEET, I gave up, defeated. Could only guess MIXTEC, TOFT & ALCUIN from the wordplay due to my own general knowledge failures. Knew PEN from those that I think still exist in Bordeaux. But a good puzzle I think. Thanks for the blog!
I thought this was going to be the easy one of the week, as I raced through the entire left-hand side in double-quick time, checking upwards at one point to see if I’d printed the quickie by mistake! Then, apart from 3 clues, the right-hand side remained blank until I got home and enlisted the help of the master anagram solver, Mr Ego, for the ridiculous FILIBUSTERER. Finally, BLUEPRINT came to me, only because I suddenly remembered finding ‘blue’ here a year or so ago, having never heard of it before. That gave me the ‘plane’ tree for the film and at last the SE corner began to fill out. LOI the annoyingly obvious SWEET, which we parsed when it couldn’t be anything else, having already thought of ‘set’ for lodge. MIXTEC was unknown, as was preppy ALCUIN, but it couldn’t be anything else. What a strange mixture of a puzzle!
Not a Monday puzzle NOR a Tuesday puzzle, I would say. My clock says 1:22:42, but actually only two words were missing when I took a break after an hour: GRAPHITE (after my mind cleared and I believed GRAPEs would be the only fruit that fit the crossing letters) and then finally SWEET, correctly parsed once it was clear there would be no I to replace by R or K. Most of the rest was, well, tolerable, despite unknowns like BLUE for squander and MIXTEC. I’m very glad Jack survived Lübeck.
About 33 minutes. A strange puzzle, with some horrible words, and seemingly not to enable any sort of nina or theme. Thought MIXTEC very unfortunate – a complete NHO for me (and it seems many others), with ambiguous wordplay, making it a test of your knowledge of native Mexican peoples. Bit much for a daily, that.
Thanks both.
I guessed correctly on Mixtec, remembered Blue, and liked Sweet – though I wondered if King should be capitalized in that context. Otherwise I was glad I had an on-and-off mental committment day, so could put down and come back as needed.
I’d certainly never capitalize, when it’s not part of a name, “king,” “president,” “pope,” anything like that, but somehow some people think that’s all right. Today, as it happens, I caught a typo at the eleventh hour before the pages went to the printer (I just happened to see it as I prepared the Web edition): “Egypt in the time of the Pharaohs.” The page was redone to uncapitalize “pharaohs.”
I am glad to see I am not alone in my never-ending campaign to rid the world of the scourge of over-capitalisation, which usually occurs in reference to something the writer regards as Very Important.
In this case I thought that both the phrasing of the clue and also the implied use of “we” for “I” or “one” as a characteristic of the English Royals specifically referes to Charles and not to some random king, and as a consequence must be capitalized.
Makes no difference to mine (and The Nation‘s, and The New York Times’…) style. “King Charles asked where his teddy bear was. The king was told that he forgot it at the breakfast table.”
I was thinking that that usage (both the wording of the clue, and also the usage of “we” for “one”, “I”, or “me” by the English Royals) refers to a specific King, Charles, andnot some random king.
Same difficulties as many others, especially with SWEET, REDESIGN ; but to my shame NHO LUBECK either. Also NHO ALCUIN or MIXTEC, but following the cryptic allowed for them to be solved. I too had a bit of trouble with the film, not realising an anagram of sheep was needed, and looking for a tup/ram/ewe in there somewhere! Finally figured it out though, after the plane tree hove into view. No problem with IOLANTHE ( having played a small part in a school production of it), nor with EQUIPOISE , which is a lovely word IMHO. Oh and I had a problem with BUOY, which I invariably spell wrongly!