Solving time: 43 minute
I found this an interesting puzzle with a few tricky answers but all of them deducible from wordplay. Meanwhile, some of the answers were easy enough but the wordplay took some working out. How did you do?
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]. “Aural wordplay” is in quotation marks. I usually omit all reference to juxtaposition indicators unless there is a specific point that requires clarification.
 Across |
|
| 1 | Tranquil hiding place for illegal substance (4) |
| ACID | |
| {pl}ACID (tranquil) [hiding ‘place’] | |
| 4 | People’s way of speaking about English port (10) |
| FOLKESTONE | |
| FOLK’S (people’s) + TONE (way of speaking) containing [about] E (English) | |
| 9 | The audience’s left with great playing in prospect (5,5) |
| STAGE RIGHT | |
| Anagram [playing] of GREAT contained by [in] SIGHT (prospect) | |
| 10 | Cycling around African country’s capital city (4) |
| LIMA | |
| MALI (African country) when ‘cycling around’ becomes LIMA. There were some comments and doubts expressed about ‘cycling’ clues last week so it may be worth posting again the advice on how to approach them as suggested here by Shabbo earlier this year. I have found it very helpful: When you see “cycling”, write the letters of the word in a circle and then start from each letter in turn travelling clockwise until you find the solution. This illustrates how to get from MALI to LIMA in today’s simple 4-letter example. I’ve inserted a line to indicate the new starting point:
There’s a somewhat trickier variation on the ‘cycling’ device in a clue in today’s QC by Izetti. My comment there refers. For the TfTT Glossary entry on Cycling clues click here. |
|
| 11 | Spelling expert loses face about unknown, archaic letter (6) |
| IZZARD | |
| {w}IZARD (spelling expert) [loses face] containing [about] Z (unknown). ‘Izzard’ is an archaic term for the letter Z. | |
| 12 | Grace needing tablet, say, breaking arm (8) |
| ELEGANCE | |
| E (tablet), then EG (say) contained by [breaking] LANCE (arm – weapon) | |
| 14 | Extremists in innermost Nicaragua backing Contra (4) |
| ANTI | |
| I{nnermos}T + N{icaragu}A [extremists] reversed [backing] | |
| 15 | Doctor isn’t admitting mislaying coat? (5,5) |
| GLOSS PAINT | |
| GP (doctor) + AIN’T (isn’t) containing [admitting] LOSS (mislaying). I wondered about parts of speech here but Collins has: loss – the act or an instance of losing, which I guess could also be the act or an instance of mislaying. | |
| 17 | Desire unity, eschewing European lack of morals (10) |
| WANTONNESS | |
| WANT (desire), ON{e}NESS (unity) [eschewing European] | |
| 20 | Note right back is in good shape (4) |
| TRIM | |
| MI (note) + RT (right) reversed [back] | |
| 21 | Navigator in five ice-bound vessels heading west (8) |
| VESPUCCI | |
| V (five), then CUPS (vessels) contained by ICE [ice-bound] reversed [heading west]. Wiki: Amerigo Vespucci, Italian explorer, assistant of Christopher Columbus and after whom the American continent was named. | |
| 23 | Partly explain a rule about astronomers’ inspiration (6) |
| URANIA | |
| Hidden [partly] and reversed [about] in {expl}AIN A RU{le}. The Greek Muse of Astronomy. I didn’t know this but the answer was obvious. | |
| 24 | Return of one shut in cooler, an innocent person (4) |
| NAIF | |
| I (one) contained by [shut in] FAN (cooler) reversed [return of…] | |
| 25 | Discipline husband, as well as fool to start with (4,2,4) |
| TAKE IN HAND | |
| TAKE IN (fool), H (husband), AND (as well as) | |
| 26 | Daydreamer in novel relates holding out nuts (5-5) |
| LOTUS-EATER | |
| Anagram [novel] of RELATES containing [holding] anagram [nuts] of OUT | |
| 27 | Runner over a long distance has zero energy (4) |
| NILE | |
| NIL (zero), E (energy). A devious definition made for a lot of brainwork here where very little should have been necessary. | |
| Down |
|
| 2 | One captured by Cezanne with kit off in famous picture (7,4) |
| CITIZEN KANE | |
| I (one) contained [captured by] anagram [off] of CEZANNE KIT | |
| 3 | Stubborn so-and-so admits to last of drug running (9) |
| DOGMATIST | |
| Anagram [running] of ADMITS TO {dru}G [last of…] | |
| 4 | One holding wood let go of rebounding golf ball (7) |
| FIREDOG | |
| FIRED (let go of – sacked), then O (ball) + G (golf – NATO alphabet) reversed [rebounding]. Firedogs are decorative metal stands used to support logs in an open fire. | |
| 5 | Set up bank, receiving warning over mostly bad grounds for dismissal (3,6,6) |
| LEG BEFORE WICKET | |
| GEL (set) reversed [up], BET (bank) containing [receiving) FORE (warning – golf), + WICKE{d} (bad) [mostly]. One of the means by which a batsman can be ‘out’ or ‘dismissed’ in cricket. I’m not entirely convinced that ‘bet’ and ‘bank’ are synonymous but I suppose if you bet on something happening you are banking on it although that may be foolish. | |
| 6 | Poles clutching box, say, after English courses (7) |
| ENTREES | |
| E (English), N + S (poles) containing [clutching] TREE (box, say) | |
| 7 | New moon’s seen first, under gold stars (5) |
| ORION | |
| OR (gold), IO (moon of Jupiter), N (new). The juxtaposition indicators ‘seen first’ and ‘under’ took some working through to arrive at the constellation. | |
| 8 | Fabled sinner hiding diamonds beneath a skirt (5) |
| EVADE | |
| EVE (fabled sinner) containing [hiding] A + D (diamonds) | |
| 13 | Mood in state capitals of Alabama and Louisiana (11) |
| CONDITIONAL | |
| CONDITION (state – good or bad perhaps), A{labama} + L{ouisiana} [capitals] | |
| 16 | Cut stellar Muslim ruler woolly fabric (9) |
| ASTRAKHAN | |
| ASTRA{l} (stellar) [cut], KHAN (Muslim ruler). A Homburg hat and a coat with an astrakhan collar were favoured by Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock, and that’s where I first heard the word. It’s the dark furry fleece of very young lambs from Astrakhan. | |
| 18 | From Nike etc., fancy clothing accessory (7) |
| NECKTIE | |
| Anagram [fancy] of NIKE ETC | |
| 19 | Comparatively spicy dish tucked into by this person (7) |
| SAUCIER | |
| I (this person) contained [tucked into] SAUCER (dish) | |
| 21 | Grasping an indefinite number of meat sandwiches (5) |
| VENAL | |
| VEAL (meat) contains [sandwiches] N (an indefinite number) | |
| 22 | Satirist succeeded, loudly welcomed by Wilde? (5) |
| SWIFT | |
| S (succeeded), then F (loudly) contained [welcomed] by WIT (Wilde?) | |
13:15 – I found this one tricky, though I biffed LEG BEFORE WICKET and GLOSS PAINT. On the other hand, needed the wordplay for FOLKESTONE, and was relieved when that turned out to be correct. A lot of the short answers needed to be coaxed out of the wordplay, LIMA, TRIM and ACID in particular.
About 90 minutes. Quite hard for me. FOI LEG BEFORE WICKET I was thinking about cricket at the time and simply put it in. Took significant time getting crossers to confirm. LOI ACID. Got bogged down with 2D trying to relate it to Cezanne. As usual it looks a lot easier with the blog.
Thanks Jack for the parsing.
I found this difficult, not surprisingly. I was a bit taken aback when I despairingly biffed Vespucci, and then saw it was totally correct from the parsing. Other than that, it was a genuine slog, as I took the wrong end of every clue. I thought that gloss paint might be green paint, just to show us, but sanity prevailed. Naturally, I found the cricket clue tough, but eventually biffed it as the only possible answer. My LOI was Lima, as I dithered between Pisa and Riga – is Sapi an African capital? How about Gari? Then I saw Lima, and realized capital went with city.
Time: 56 minutes.
Yikes, that was hard. After 53 I hit the reveal button to get ACID (which in turn gave me DOGMATIST) so that’s my second DNF in a row. CITIZEN KANE came very late because I was trying to think of the name of a painting, doh! There was quite a bit of obscurity here, including IZZARD, VESPUCCI and URANIA. I was able to biff LBW, fortunately, because the wordplay is about as convoluted as wordplay gets. My heart goes out to our American friends. Thanks to Jack for his much-needed blog.
From You Ain’t Going Nowhere:
Clouds so SWIFT, rain won’t lift
Gate won’t close, the railings froze
Get your mind off wintertime
You ain’t going nowhere
Well, as I said, I did biff LBW. I have never viewed any cricket, live or on TV, so there you go!
I’ll be interested to see how others go. The enumeration makes it eminently biffable for cricket followers with a couple of crossers but someone trying to solve from wordplay is in for a world of pain I suspect.
I bifd it from the K and the second E of BEFORE. It took longer to parse, however!
DNF after a half-hour or so; couldn’t get past RIGA, which clearly was wrong. DNK IZZARD, which took a long time. Bifffed ELEGANCE, VESPUCCI (known to any Murcan), ACID, LOTUS-EATER, SWIFT, DOGMATIST, parsed post-submission. Biffed LBW, never parsed.
18:52. Tricky bugger! As George observes, if you’re relying on wordplay for four-letter words you’re dealing with a puzzle that requires a bit of focus.
Jerry observed something along these lines the other day, but I’m pretty certain that ‘cycling’ must have been explicitly sanctioned in these puzzles at some point in the last few years. I’ve been familiar with the device for a long time, having seen it in the Graun and other places that allow ‘first hand’ to indicate H (the horror!), but not until relatively recently in the Times. Just an observation: I have no objection to it.
I’m not sure that FIREDOGs are purely decorative. You always need air under whatever you’re trying to set alight to get a fire going, so I’ve always assumed that’s what they’re for. Not that I’ve ever owned or used one.
Not purely decorative, but I think the idea is that firedogs have decorative features as opposed to standard grates which don’t.
Perhaps. I see that your description tallies exactly with the Collins definition, and we don’t argue with the dictionaries!
It would tally exactly because I pasted it in as an afterthought for people who may not know what firedogs are. I usually credit sources when I do this but overlooked it here.
DNF after a very long time, eventually failing on the NHO (but in retrospect gettable from WP) IZZARD. I found this to be very hard, scratching around to get a start until I biffed LEG BEFORE WICKET, mainly from the enumeration, followed by VENAL and then VESPUCCI, which like vinyl1 I biffed then found that it fitted the wordplay.
A bit too much like hard work today. Still, Setter – 1 Solver – 0, so well done to him or her and thanks to Jack for the blog.
I didn’t find this easy. I was delayed a little since a ten-letter port starting F-E and ending O-E was “obviously” FELIXSTOWE (now the biggest port in Britain). But that made 6D a 6-letter word starting with X, and I soon realized it was ENTREE. Amazing that both FOLKESTONE and FELIXSTOWE have such similar checkers. Luckily I managed to drag VESPUCCI and URANIA up from the depths of barely remembered words. But got there in the end in about 45 minutes. LOI was the obvious-in-retrospect TRIM.
Sorry, but America was NOT named after Amerigo Vespucci. This is a common and persistent myth. Even before Columbus, the first Western person (in modern times) to step on the mainland of America was John Cabot, at Newfoundland in his ship The Matthew in 1497 (a year before Columbus). And his Bristolian sponsor? Richard ap Americ. Doesn’t it make more sense to name a New Found Land after your benefactor? Disputed I know, but far more likely that distorting someone’s Christian name.
Cracking puzzle by the way.
The library of Congress seems pretty clear about it:
https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2016/07/how-did-america-get-its-name/
So does Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naming_of_the_Americas .. which also names the Bristolian as Amerike.. so some adjustment seems needed, whichever.
I found this difficult, taking about 26 minutes… and ending up with a typo. C’est la vie.
Enjoyed this one, rather on the harder side I thought. No unknowns, except that use of Eddie Izzard’s surname.
Horrible puzzle. I lost patience early in the proceedings after my third or fourth biff.
FOI STAGE RIGHT
LOI ACID
COD no nomination
TIME 17:29
2dn is a superb clue, top class… as is Vespucci
Well, I quite enjoyed this one. Tough but fair I thought. I managed to parse everything for once! 46 mins.
The only IZZARD I know is Eddie! Several clues deserved a bit of work, I saw the NHO URANIA but wasn’t sure until I had some crossers. That gave me LOI SAUCIER. DNK VESPUCCI either, but again the wp was helpful. LBW biffed from enumeration.
I liked STAGE RIGHT & GLOSS PAINT.
Thanks Jack and setter
51 tortuous minutes. LOI URANIA. I have wondered where Eddie IZZARD got his name from. COD to ASTRAKHAN. Thank you setter and Jack for the elucidation.
Tough Tuesday, eventually finishing in 21’36”. Dnk IZZARD, but it seemed more likely than OTITER, my first thought. I also wondered about Felixstowe, FOLKESTONE being my LOI. LBW was a write-in (can you name all the other ways of being out?- there’s ten more).
Talking of cycling, the Vuelta starts on Saturday.
Thanks jack and setter.
…I know that a batsman can be timed out…taking too long to get to the wicket…
…and I’m not going to tell you of my first (and last) effort at serious cricket…I was out for a duck, without facing the bowler…
I took 42 minutes but thought this was a very good puzzle.
LOI was FOLKESTONE and I needed EVADE before I finally got that.
It was the cunning presentation of many of the clues which made this puzzle hard I think. I really enjoyed it.
Thanks setter and Jack
15:41. I started with a confidently biffed LEG BEFORE WICKET and then continued with other confident biffs such as TAKE TO TASK and URANUS. Thus it took some backpedaling for me to complete this puzzle.
I have a feeling I’ve seen IZZARD somewhere recently but a search of this site suggests it isn’t in the puzzles blogged here. Maybe a Listener.
About 25 minutes.
Didn’t know that IZZARD was an old letter, and for a while I had the ichthus symbol in mind (not being sure how to spell it and thinking that maybe (w)itch would work somehow) before CITIZEN KANE set me straight; had to trust that URANIA was some kind of muse; had heard of FIREDOG without knowing exactly what it does; and entered VENAL with a bit of a shrug as I didn’t see how it equated to grasping.
Thanks Jack and setter.
FOI Anti
LOI Gloss paint
COD Citizen Kane
Tough 50+ mins over a few visits. As indicated quite a few biffs before working out wordplay (or in some cases not, eg LOIs ACID and DOGMATIST). Delighted to work out IZZARD from wordplay and LIMA came quickly as my mind went straight to Mali for the 4 lettered African country. Enjoyed ASTRAKHAN. Thanks Jackkt and setter.
In retrospect, WIZARD for spelling expert is entirely obvious, but that’s retrospect for you. Just as well the answer was too archaic for Shakespeare: “thou whoreson izzard, thou unnecessary letter” doesn’t work as well and is possibly actionable.
I struggled to 21.30 with this: even LBW didn’t offer itself on a plate and, what with various stellar celebrities being prominently sacked, cricket wasn’t springing readily to mind.
Should have spotted KANE sooner, but with Cezanne prominent, thinking of that sort of picture was ahint the door.
Blundered around, got there in the end.
21.00
Tricky indeed! Surprising how many comedians have surnames that sound like letters (Aisling Bea, Jack Dee, Dustin Gee, Roy Jay, Peter Kay, Eddie IZZARD).
LOI EVADE
COD CITIZEN KANE
DNF
All went well until I was left with 4A and 6D.
It had to be FELIXSTOWE. How could it be otherwise – even though it made 4D a little tricky!
Thank you to jackkt and the setter.
Really enjoyed that. Tough top half, bottom easier. Like others the only Izzard I know is Eddie, also NHO Urania. Only unparsed one was LOI (pl)ACID.
COD has to be Citizen Kane, but it had stiff competition.
DNF. Brain not functioning today. 2d, Cheating Machine failed to find Citizen Kane as I entered 64 as the numeration instead of 74, so it wouldn’t find it would it? I was well bamboozled by the clever “kit off” and was looking for a famous Nude for a while.
3d Dogmatist, missed the anag. Doh.
4d Firedog, in my ingle the dogs hold the grate rather than the logs but then the grate is superfluous if you only burn logs, so it will do.
5d LBW, COD. Took ages for the PDM, and even then only half-parsed.
DNK 11a Izzard, which Wiktionary says is not obsolete in Scotland.
NHO 23a Urania, but I must have done as someone here recommended remembering all the Graces (OOPS, Muses!), so I read them… and forgot again almost immediately.
Excellent crossword, although I took 80 minutes over it and eventually biffed ACID. The answers were so straightforward once understood, which is the mark of a good set of clues I think. Only IZZARD, a NHO, entered because it had to be. Jack’s Shabbo-inspired method is very nice, but why not just write (or imagine) MALIMALI and look at it?
I agree that method is neat, Wil, when one has grasped the concept, but I prefer Shabbo’s method for those still learning and developing their solving skills because it illustrates the idea of ‘cycling’
49:18. That was quite tricky, with ACID and DOGMATSIST my last ones in. I liked it as a puzzle though, nothing felt unfair. NHO IZZARD (other than the comedian), but it was nice and clear from the wordplay. URANIA another of those muses I keep promising to learn the names of… thanks jakkt and setter!
30 mins. Took ages to get going, but slowly but surely everything fell into place. It turned out that I’d missed some of the easier clues earlier. My main struggle was with FIREDOG and FOLKESTONE, and the LOI was Mr Lilliput himself.
To add to yesterday’s comment, there’s a nice cryptic clue at the beginning of Susie Dent’s new book
14:43 with ~30 sec of that spent laughing at CITIZEN KANE, superb stuff.
Many, many thanks.
Got through it, but it was like pulling teeth.
Thanks, jack.
Hard but fair. Spent 10′ trying to find an acceptable spelling of “Phoenicians” for 4a, convinced that a “people” who had “phonics” and an “e” in their name could hardly not be the answer.
36.31 after spending some time trying to choose between ICED and ACID, both featuring an illegal drug, but the extra D in iced gave pause, despite it being a possible synonym for tranquil, then the penny dropped.
Quite a workout today! ACID and NILE were very late entries, in fact NILE was LOI and ACID POI. Simple when you see them, but not easy to see. Liked STAGE RIGHT and GLOSS PAINT. NHO IZZARD as a letter but managed to deduce wizard from spelling expert. LBW came early and was a big help. Only bothered to parse the SET=GEL upside down part of the clue. Only got VESPUCCI after Cezanne got his kit on, which was really late in the proceedings. TAKE TO TASK was quickly dismissed when no husband was apparent. FOLKESTONE was another late entry. ANTI was FOI. 24:58. Thanks setter and Jack.
C40 mins – no exact time as I broke off after 30 mins of headscratching over the NE corner and resumed later. The longest holdouts were FOLKESTONE and FIREDOG, neither of which seemed (in restrospect, natch) to merit the hard work I made of them.
I found the wordplay very very tight and precise throughout, and also very well hidden. I don’t think I could have got Trim or Acid without a crosser. nice blog, jack
Quite a workout with the Quickie being a not-particularly-easy Izetti! However, it gave me my first answer in TRIM, which made me wonder if he set this as well…? LIMA was also very quick since Mali was the first African country I thought of. I’d completely forgotten about VESPUCCI, so it was fortunate that the wordplay was pretty clear, and I’d NHO or not remembered URANIA, so ditto, as I started off 19d with SALTIER. Definitely not heard of IZZARD except in the Eddie version, so that was a bit of a punt on the unknown, which could have been Y. LOI was EVADE, and before that ACID was a PDM that finally gave me the 2d picture, which I’d been trying to solve by removing the ‘clothes/kit’ i.e. outer letters of Cezanne, rather than the whole anagram. Great fun, however, and thanks to Jackkt for the parsing of 4d, which I never worked out properly.
44:18
Enjoyed the view somewhat rather than bolting through. Bottom half more gettable than top half (though no idea why mood = CONDITIONAL).
Once I’d got the second G in STAGE RIGHT, I fixed 17a (where I had had a pencilled G) which in turn gave CITIZEN KANE, IZZARD and FIREDOG. Finally left with ACID and EVADE both of which were much easier once all checkers in.
Thanks Jack and setter
It’s referring to the grammatical mood – i.e. “the use of different verb forms to indicte the purpose of a sentence”. Conditional, along with imperative, subjunctive etc.
Thank you for this explanation, I’ve added another note to my crossword dictionary, aka cheat book. I wish I could say it is rarely used.
Too hard today! Never heard of IZZARD or URANIA. Couldn’t get anything in the NW corner at all or the cricketing reference 🙁
So thanks for explaining my missing answers.
24’53”. Superb puzzle, with some fantastic surfaces — viz. 2 down. Very much enjoyed the work-out. Thank you.
PLUTO yesterday. ORION and URANIA today. Lovely!
33.45 but a couple of answers I wasn’t sure about. Acid because I didn’t see the PL connection and izzard which I hadn’t seen before.
Most of the rest was reasonably straightforward but dogmatist took a while. Liked stage right and gloss paint.
Thanks blogger for the explanations and setter for a challenging crossword.
Challenging is an understatement for this (would-be) solver. Obviously off my game this morning as I searched around the grid for a foothold, but Alas! found nothing, so started with a Look-Up…CITIZEN KANE – what a good clue, and my COD. All the rest too hard for my rather distracted brain to tackle, so gave up too easily what would have been a very enjoyable but tough solve on any other day.