Solving time: 43 minutes as far as I went, but this was a technical DNF as I was unable to solve 24dn.
I must admit to being mildly disappointed that having noticed the puzzle number is 29,000 I was expecting something special to mark the occasion but unless I have missed it (perfectly possible, in which case apologies to the setter) there’s nothing. Having said that, this was an enjoyable solve with sound wordplay and some very good surfaces.
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 | Picked up flight goggles (6) |
| STARES | |
| Aural wordplay [picked up]: “stairs” (flight) | |
| 4 | Cloaked in secrecy, cleptomaniacs avoid waste (7) |
| RECYCLE | |
| Hidden [cloaked] in {sec}RECY CLE{ptomaniacs}. C instead of the more usual K rather drew attention to what was going on. | |
| 9 | Doddering in top position (5) |
| POINT | |
| Anagram [doddering] of IN TOP. It’s a fielding position in cricket and maybe in other sports too. | |
| 10 | Nasty moment, turning up topless (4,5) |
| NEAR THING | |
| {u}NEARTHING (turning up) [topless] | |
| 11 | Very old retired sailors embraced by rowers instantly (9) |
| OVERNIGHT | |
| V (very) + O (old) reversed [retired], then RN (sailors – Royal Navy) contained [embraced] by EIGHT (rowers) | |
| 12 | Layer cake unfilled for this reason (5) |
| HENCE | |
| HEN (layer), C{ak}E [unfilled] | |
| 13 | Scrap part of audiotape (4) |
| IOTA | |
| Hidden in [part of] {aud}IOTA{pe} | |
| 14 | Problem with immorality in China (3,7) |
| TEA SERVICE | |
| TEASER (problem), VICE (immorality) | |
| 18 | DNA allotted to one and all of similar age (10) |
| GENERATION | |
| GENE RATION (DNA allotted to one) | |
| 20 | Kid around with international artist (4) |
| DALI | |
| LAD (kid) reversed [around], I (international) | |
| 23 | Thick-skinned creature uttered sardonic refusal (5) |
| RHINO | |
| Aural wordplay [uttered]: RHI / “wry” (sardonic), NO (refusal) | |
| 24 | Well-bred sanctimonious boy’s surrounded by sin (9) |
| PEDIGREED | |
| PI (sanctimonious) has ED (boy) enclosed [surrounded] , GREED (deadly sin) | |
| 25 | Make unholy din, mostly meaningless (9) |
| DISHALLOW | |
| DI{n} [mostly], SHALLOW (meaningless). A new one on me (and TfTT) but with checkers in place the answer was obvious. | |
| 26 | Judge on island is up in arms (5) |
| IRATE | |
| I (island), RATE (judge) | |
| 27 | Destroyed ten rats and rabbits (7) |
| NATTERS | |
| Anagram [destroyed] of TEN RATS. ‘Rabbit and pork’ abbreviated to ‘rabbit’ is CRS for ‘talk’. | |
| 28 | Beat anxiety (6) |
| STRESS | |
| Two meanings | |
| Down |
||
| 1 | What if Oscar and son stop drinking? (9) | |
| SUPPOSING | ||
| O (Oscar – phonetic alphabet) + S (son) contained by [stop] SUPPING (drinking) | ||
| 2 | Nourishment in fruit eaten by insect (7) | |
| ALIMENT | ||
| LIME (fruit ) contained [eaten] by ANT (insect). As in the alimentary canal in the human body. | ||
| 3 | Put out content of texts sent over day (6) | |
| EXTEND | ||
| {t{EXT{s} + {s}EN{t} [content of …], D (day) | ||
| 4 | Bunk covering a small carpet (5) | |
| ROAST | ||
| ROT (bunk) containing [covering] A + S (small). Severely reprimand. | ||
| 5 | Spooner’s closed tribunal perhaps suspended (3,5) | |
| CUT SHORT | ||
| “Shut Court” (closed / tribunal perhaps) as Spooner might have said | ||
| 6 | Companion is initially opposed to wine (7) | |
| CHIANTI | ||
| CH (Companion of Honour), I{s} [initially], ANTI (opposed to) | ||
| 7 | Score each golfer regularly wants (5) | |
| EAGLE | ||
| EA (each), G{o}L{f}E{r}[regularly] | ||
| 8 | Cosy as can be, propose to drink half case of Chambertin (8) | |
| SNUGGEST | ||
| SUGGEST (propose) containing [to drink] |
||
| 15 | Start to smoke dope and relax (4,4) | |
| SLOW DOWN | ||
| S{moke] [start to…], LOWDOWN (dope – inside info, gen) | ||
| 16 | Sinners actively serve idol (9) | |
| EVILDOERS | ||
| Anagram [actively] of SERVE IDOL | ||
| 17 | Claim Yorkshire town lacks aspiration (8) | |
| ARROGATE | ||
| {h}ARROGATE (Yorkshire town) [lacks aspiration]. Appropriate, assume or lay claim to. | ||
| 19 | Punch criminal in Tesla (4,3) | |
| NAIL SET | ||
| Anagram [criminal] of IN TESLA. I think this has come up before but I only vaguely remembered it. Collins: in American English, a tool used in driving the head of a nail below, or level with, a wood surface. | ||
| 21 | Film outstanding gallery (7) | |
| ACETATE | ||
| ACE (outstanding), TATE (gallery). Fortunately this came up recently in a tricky clue and stuck in my mind. | ||
| 22 | Discriminating introduction to alcoholic spirit (6) | |
| AGEIST | ||
| A{lcoholic} [introduction], GEIST (spirit). SOED: Geist – the spirit of an individual or a group. We often see it in Zeitgeist. | ||
| 23 | Liquid and/or gas (5) | |
| RADON | ||
| Anagram [liquid] of AND OR | ||
| 24 | Last to leave Slavonic city state (5) | |
| POLIS | ||
| POLIS{h} (Slavonic) [last to leave]. Apparently Polis was a city state of ancient Greece but I didn’t know that and the wordplay was too vague to be of help to me so I abandoned ship and looked it up. I see the connection with metropolis now, but too late. | ||
10:44 – POLIS was my last in too, and I had the fingers crossed as it sounded familiar. Made a very slow start on this one, but picked up speed after a third or fourth read through most clues. I really liked the clues for TEA SERVICE, SUPPOSING and SLOW DOWN.
11:50. I didn’t have any major problems with this but I found it quite chewy. No absolute unknowns although I’m not sure I’ve come across DISHALLOW before and I wouldn’t have been able to tell you exactly what a NAIL SET is.
15:04
‘Polis’ is a generic term, not a proper noun, meaning ‘city state’; Sparta was a polis, as was Corinth, etc. I was put off by ‘Slavonic’ (rather than ‘Slavic’) and wasted some time trying to remember which group of Slavs were Slavonic. (They all were.) Never come across DISHALLOW. (One could easily be misled into mispronouncing it.) I also wasted time at 15d, taking ‘start to smoke dope’=S+POT. We’ve had NAIL SET before; ODE doesn’t have it other than as an ‘also called’ under ‘nail punch’. DNK where Harrowgate is.
Neither did I, but there’s one in Philly and one in Darlington, apparently.
Wiki says it’s in North Yorkshire but was in the West Riding; can they do that?
You DNK where Harrogate is because there’s no ‘w’ in it! ‘arrowgate’?
It’s pronounced Harrogut, ie with a schwa.
And it used to be in the West Riding until someone decided that the historic Ridings of Yorkshire were a bit anachronistic. Mer.
Yes. Slavic would be the correct term here. As it is, the surface doesn’t make any sense.
About 90 minute. Very slow going but nothing particularly difficult. There are few easy clues together so it took me quite a while making early progress. Solving finally progressed quicker. I had problems with SLOW DOWN and finally DISHALLOW and LOI POLIS
Thanks Jack for the parsing.
I put radon in without seeing the anagram and later found in Wikipedia “Radon can also occur in ground water, such as spring waters and hot springs” and this satisfied me as to liquid still without seeing the anagram.
I thought this was going to be quite gentle having started with the first few in the top half without any problems but then became quite stuck. Some tricky wordplay such as ‘half case of Chambertin’ to give ‘n’. I suppose ‘drink last of Chambertin’ would’ve been too easy. Fell into the trap of thinking I was looking for a Slavonic city instead of simply Slavonic. Dishallow does indeed seem a strange word and it’s easy to read it as dish-allow instead of dis-hallow. Is ‘overnight’ really instantly? Tea Service threw me but I had a feeling I was looking for something like that. COD to ‘Generation’.
Thanks setter and Jack.
I wondered about instantly for OVERNIGHT but ODE has it.
The penny just dropped! Overnight success. Thanks Jack.
A tale of two diagonals. NW much easier than SE, until DALI and ACETATE broke it open. LOI POLIS for me too, but the link to METROPOLIS made it look right.
I didn’t have a much difficulty as others. Polis is the stock classical Greek word for city – aha, so now you have to know Greek as well as French, German, and Spanish. Nail set did not give me any difficulty – I’m always misplacing mine, but after buying replacements I now have two or three lurking in various tool chests. I biffed quite a few, including the incorrect cool down, which prevented me from getting tea service for a while until I saw what the problem was.
Time: 18 minutes
Top-notch puzzle, completed in 20 minutes. Another POLIS brining up the rear, as I was looking for an actual one and couldn’t get much further than Sparta, Athens, Thebes, Corinth and Singapore!
I thought Times crosswords were not meant to have more than one hidden clue? This seems to have two
It’s certainly a convention unless one is reversed. Not sure how strictly applied it is, but perhaps the lack of the firm hand of an editor caused it to be overlooked today.
16:17. I started quickly today but finished slowly, grinding to a halt with several unsolved in the bottom half. EVILDOERS proved tricky as I just couldn’t see the anagram even with several letters in place. I have a definite blind spot for compound words, though I doubt that is unusual. My penultimate, PEDIGREED, also took some time to arrive – an ending of E_D looked odd for a past tense. Finally like others I finished with POLIS.
Did all but one clue in ten minutes, then could not get AGEIST. It seems odd that 29000 isn’t more challenging.
Thanks jack and setter.
DNF. I made generally heavy weather of this, which wasn’t helped by deciding early on that there must be a Slavonic town called Walesa which I should have heard of (and which was clearly where Lech Walesa’s name derived from) and therefore the state must be WALES. Bad day today, also failed to finish the QC.
An enjoyable but challenging solve in 37.25. NAIL SET? It’s always been a punch around here. Good to see the two-under-par bird of prey getting another go after rounding out yesterday’s QC (and eluding me). It seemed appropriate that AGEIST featured as Joe Biden was ceremoniously punted in Chicago. I was struck by the separate references to sin, sinners, unholy, sanctimonious and immorality. Thanks Jack, I never figured out NEAR THING.
From Crash On The Levee (Down In The Flood):
Crash on the levee, mama, water’s gonna overflow
Swamp’s gonna rise and no boat’s gonna row
Now, you can train on down to Williams POINT
You can bust your feet, you can rock this joint
But oh mama, ain’t you gonna miss your best friend now?
You’re gonna have to find yourself another best friend somehow
Your punch has appeared in these parts before as a nail set; it is marked by Wiktionary as Murcan.
I meant round here in Oz, should have been clearer!
16.50, with all but the SE done in under ten before hitting a series of walls. The delay did, at least, ensure I didn’t invent the artist GARI.
POLIS my LOI too, but the word rang a bell, probably from polity. Prior to that, I had considered WALES under the same logic as Riche.
Thanks both.
47 minutes with everything parsed, although I’ve no idea what a NAIL SET is. I thought this a very good puzzle with COD TO TEA SERVICE by a short head from POLIS. Thank you Jack and setter.
Very enjoyable, but another DNF after 30 minutes, being unable to solve POLIS.
Thank you, jackkt and the setter.
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
(The Eagle, Tennyson)
Well I thought this was pretty special – some very neat, inventive and well constructed clues. For example: turning up topless, layer cake unfilled, problem with immorality, start to smoke dope. All very good stuff.
As well as some chestnutty gimmes to help us along. Not keen on Nail Set, Dishallow or Pedigreed – but needs must.
Ta setter and J
…”needs must”…Quite. It is not always easy to fit the words.
13:05. DNK NAIL SET, DISHALLOW or POLIS so just trusted the wordplay for those. LOI AGEIST. I liked the deceptive “layer cake” and “Liquid and/or gas”. Thanks Jackkt and setter.
DNF, another who failed to work out POLIS. Oh well.
I do agree that “drink half a case of Chambertin “ much as it would be nice, is a convoluted way to arrive at an “n”.
I liked TEA SERVICE.
Thanks Jack and setter.
DNF. I had half of the puzzle completed inside 3 minutes, but then sank into a mire from which I simply couldn’t escape. I lost a lot of time over the Spoonerism due to biffing “since” instead of HENCE (a really stupid error), but was eventually beaten by NHO POLIS and PEDIGREED. Thanks to Jack for unravelling the messy case of Chambertin, though it didn’t matter when I resigned after 17 minutes.
About 20 minutes.
Like Riche and Amoeba above, I put ‘Wales’ for 24d, thinking of Lech Walesa and didn’t go back to it until PEDIGREED forced a rethink – even then I had to trust the wordplay for POLIS; not familiar with a NAIL SET but the checkers left no other option; was tempted to put ‘peaky’ for 9a before I thought of POINT; and can’t recall coming across ARROGATE before.
Thanks Jack and setter.
FOI Stares
LOI Polis
COD Tea service
I found this very easy finishing in 18:03. LOI was AGEIST, where I spent too long looking for a synonym for tasteful.
I needed POLIS to get PEDIGREED in fact, I knew it had to be -is[h]
Thanks setter and Jack.
DNF, starting quite briskly, almost Mondayish, until I came to a halt in the bottom section. DISHALLOW and ARROGATE didn’t come to me. POLIS was nice, once I stopped looking for cities to drop the end off and I’ve now come round to seeing “pi” meaning pious. Thanks Jackkt and setter
Classical education made POLIS easy, but had trouble with others. Gave up on the half hour with AGEIST missing…. and I don’t think I’d ever have seen it, given that I’d NHO ‘geist’.
14.59 for me, so clearly I didn’t find any sand to run into, though the 24s and 22 trio at the bottom took some sorting out. My favourite probably has to be TEA SERVICE for the immaculate surface in the clue.
50:35
Quite difficult. Glad to just get through it.
Thanks, jack.
Super crossword. Thanks setter and Jack.
11:09, highly enjoyable. Thanks to setter & blogger
As often seems to have been the case recently, the first clues went in very quickly by my standards and I was expecting to finish in well under 30 minutes. Then I became utterly bogged down in the POLIS/ACETATE/PEDIGREED area and took about 55 minutes with aids to get these, silly really because ACETATE was quite easy and I was misled by AIR … , also couldn’t of course make ‘average’ work. POLIS a fair cop, excellent clue. Surely POINT is just a straight synonym of ‘position’, as in ‘I found myself at a tricky point/position …’
“POLIS a fair cop” gets a thumbs up 😉
Taggart was more grey than fair, but he certainly claimed to be the ‘Polis’. 😃
STARES initiated the rapid completion of the NW, appart from SNUGGEST, which arrived a lot later. The NE also populated quickly apart from CUT SHORT and NEAR THING. PEDIGREED, POLIS and DISHALLOW took much longer to unravel. I regularly used to use punches for removing and reinserting pins holding gears and things onto shafts in the days when computer accessories had more mechanical parts, but hadn’t heard them referred to as NAILS SETs. Wasn’t a big leap of faith to get there though. POLIS from wordplay and checkers. LOI was TEA SERVICE. 18:52. Thanks setter and Jack.
18:25 – delayed at the end staring at the crossers for AGEIST, having pursued the wrong type of “discriminating” into various dusty and vacant corners.
Oh dear! DNF. Essayed 1a SpaceX being homophone-ish of specs, goggles.
10a (u)Near-thing took me ages after the biff to parse. I could see earthing ok but took ages to make it negative.
14a LOL TeaserVice.
23d Radon, BIFD, never saw the anagram AGAIN, even tho’ I had spotted the 9a Point anag.
25a DNK/NHO Dishallow, added to Cheating Machine, so first time out for me.
24d LOI POI Polis(h); from Wiki is a Western Slavonic language along with Czech & Slovak etc, so DBE I suppose. I’ve never thought of Polish as Slavonic, but then I suppose that is because I never thought at all.
A good puzzle.
Polis is not such an unknown word – think Metropolis (Mother City) and Neapolis (New City – Naples – from which Neapolitan).
Having never posted before, just thought my bizarre parsing of polis might amuse: I dredged up Theopolis as a possible Slavonik city, (it isn’t), then removed ‘the last’ ie ‘the o(mega)’ to give polis. You can see why I took ages to complete!
😊
Similar to the blogger- all done bar POLIS- didn’t have the required knowledge for either end of the clue so had to come here for enlightenment. My run of correct solutions comes to an end!
No time to report as through necessity done in three sittings, but estimated at 45\50 minutes. All was fine until I got to 24dn, where like others an answer wasn’t quickly apparent. Using the word play I did think of POLIS[h], but wasn’t sure if this was strictly a description of Slavonic. Not being able to think of an alternative,in went POLIS but I certainly expected it to be wrong. Happy days! It was right after all.
FOI STARES and LOI the VHO ‘NAIL SET’ for an 18:58 finish, so not too tricky today. ‘Tripoli’ also has its root in the Greek word ‘polis’.
27’50”
Smartly away, stayed on well….
…. which was a surprise, as, whilst not getting through a half case of Chambertin, I did get through a couple of quarts of strong ale yesterday evening. In my paper copy only the Chambertin required a second line and to produce such concise clues while retaining the the smoothness of surface is quite an achievement.
Thank you Jack and setter, all very enjoyable.
how can anybody (@GLH)post such a fast time having read the clues several times?surely reading many times would take that long?..just curious .
This was football to me; a game of two halves. Half done in four mins which sprinting for me. Then DNF by four clues. Shrug and move on the Wednesday.
I thought this was very good, with some wonderful surface readings (“start to smoke dope”, for example). But it was a DNF, since I couldn’t see AGEIST and after being hit with POLIS and ARROGATE, I assumed that AGLINT was just an unfamiliat word meaning “discriminating” (perhaps the OED might want to take it up — it sounds quite reasonable). Strangely enough, the really hard bits didn’t put me off. Oh well, tomorrow’s another day.
33:52. all fairly straightforward, and thought I was on for a sub 20 PB, until the last two AGEIST and PEDIGREED, which kept me going for a very long time (15 minutes!). kicking myself a bit for not spotting either sooner! thanks Jack and Setter!
82m 16s but beaten by 24d.
To my mind ‘Slavonic’ does not lead one towards ‘Polis(h)’. Certainly ‘Slavonia’ is somewhere else in Europe and it was Dvořák who wrote the Slavonic Dances. He wasn’t Polish.
I have to agree with MartinP1 on this. I did think of Polish, but just thought ‘well, it’s not Slavonic’, so DNF. Shame, as the rest of the puzzle was clever and challenging, but great fun with several PDMs.
I hesitated before assuming Polish to be the unfinished element, doubting, like yourself that it was a Slavonic language. However, thanks to the Times CC, I now know that it is one of a group of Indo-European languages including Russian, Ukranian, Czech etc.
21.47.
As others have said: great fun and super-smart cluing. But lack of GK did for me in the end: no POLIS, PEDIGREED, AGEIST or DISHALLOW ( the latter despite having DIS?ALLOW for a long time!). Liked STARES very much ( because it went straight in) , also TEA SERVICE a keeper for my book of “best ever clues” and CUT SHORT. More of this setter please, editor.