Solving time: 40 minutes
I didn’t enjoy this much as there were too many classical references, some bordering on the obscure when they didn’t need to be. There are also two totally obscure words in clues that you won’t find in any standard dictionary.
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 | AC/DC featured in newspaper piece by E Bloom (9) |
COLUMBINE | |
BI (AC/DC) contained by [featured in] COLUMN (newspaper piece), E. Also known as aquilegia. | |
6 | Loiner’s locale has the advantage we hear (5) |
LEEDS | |
Aural wordplay [we hear] “leads” (has the advantage). Wiki advises that ‘Loiner’ is a demonym describing the citizens of Leeds. A fact so obscure that it’s not in any of the usual sources and has never appeared here before. The origin is disputed, again according to Wiki. | |
9 | Cassandra’s edging away from Balearic island ward? (5) |
MINOR | |
MINOR{ca} (Balearic island) [C{assandr}A’s edging away]. A ward is a minor for whom a guardian has been appointed, as in the expression ‘ward of court’. I note the setter has chosen a classical Greek name beginning with C when a Spanish one such as Cristina or Carmen would have been more appropriate. | |
10 | Pie-eyed guy’s precarious course (9) |
TIGHTROPE | |
TIGHT (pie-eyed – drunk), ROPE (guy) | |
11 | In love’s absence does couple hit rock bottom? (7) |
DESPAIR | |
D{o}ES [in love’s absence], PAIR (couple) | |
12 | Refusal to welcome Liberal is recalled in letter (7) |
EPSILON | |
NOPE (refusal) containing L (Liberal) + IS, all reversed [recalled]. The fifth letter (Ε, ε) of the Greek alphabet. | |
13 | Writer’s pleasure: this writer’s off to tour Lake District initially (7,7) |
WILLIAM GOLDING | |
WILL (pleasure), I AM GOING (this writer’s off) containing [to tour] L (lake) + D{istrict} [initially]. Lord of he Flies is perhaps his most famous work. | |
17 | Keeping a pretty busy axe shaped the battle record (6,8) |
BAYEUX TAPESTRY | |
Anagram [shaped] of PRETTY BUSY AXE containing [keeping] A. A record of the Battle of Hastings. | |
21 | Long article about Astyanax’s origin, Greek in Homer (7) |
ACHAEAN | |
ACHE (long) + AN (article) containing [about] A{styanax’s [origin]. Greek stuff in abundance. I got to the answer by following the wordplay but without having any idea what the rest of the clue was about . My AI assistant informs me that in Homer’s works, the term “Achaean” is used to refer to the Greeks collectively who besieged Troy. Astyanax was the son of Hector, Crown Prince of Troy. | |
23 | Many a witch’s death here in question (2,5) |
AT STAKE | |
A cryptic hint precedes the literal here, although I’m not totally convinced that the literal works. | |
25 | Different approach needed for penning year books (9) |
APOCRYPHA | |
Anagram [different] of APPROACH containing [penning] Y (year). Often religious texts that are not part of main Hebrew scriptures or New Testament. This comes to us via Latin from the original Greek apokruphos meaning hidden. | |
26 | Knight occupying space in which scutarius fought (5) |
ARENA | |
N (Knight – chess) contained by [occupying] AREA (space). A scutarius was a type of gladiator. More obscurity, this time of Latin origin. Another word in a clue that you won’t find in any standard dictionary although it has a page in Wiki. Totally unnecessary. | |
27 | For one buried in fenland see mournful poem (5) |
ELEGY | |
EG (for one) contained by [buried in] ELY (fenland see – cathedral city in Cambridgeshire) | |
28 | Good person with talk on a certain singer (9) |
STONECHAT | |
ST (good person – saint), ONE (a certain), CHAT (talk). A bird of the thrush family. |
Down | |
1 | Jest involving me now crushed in disappointment (8) |
COMEDOWN | |
COD (jest – hoax, parody) containing [involving] ME, then anagram [crushed] of NOW | |
2 | Joins course for coastal drivers? (5) |
LINKS | |
Two meanings. The cryptic definition refers to golf courses by the sea | |
3 | Soldier serving at sea must consume fish spread (9) |
MARGARINE | |
MARINE (soldier serving at sea) contains [must consume] GAR (fish) | |
4 | Temporary home — call to accommodate one (7) |
INTERIM | |
IN (home), TERM (call) contains [to accommodate] I (one) | |
5 | Artist, composer and author lacking answer (2,5) |
EL GRECO | |
ELG{a}R (composer) [lacking answer], ECO (author – Umberto) | |
6 | Sacred flower for all to see in quite a bunch (5) |
LOTUS | |
U (for all to see – film classification), contained by [in] LOTS (quite a bunch) | |
7 | Disease rampant on the way in alien world (9) |
EXOPLANET | |
POX (disease) reversed [rampant] + LANE (way) contained by [in] ET (alien). A planet which orbits a star outside the solar system. I didn’t know this although it has come up on a couple of previous occasions 7 or 8 years ago. | |
8 | Warm reddish-brown colour new in Italian walled city (6) |
SIENNA | |
N (new) contained by [in] SIENA (Italian walled city). NHO the city so this went in with fingers crossed. The pigment is naturally yellow but becomes reddish brown after roasting and is sometimes referred to as ‘burnt sienna’. | |
14 | Abhorrent to Holmes, criminally hiding ace (9) |
LOATHSOME | |
Anagram [criminally] of TO HOLMES containing [hiding] A (ace) | |
15 | Velocity’s elevated rate in starless region (4,5) |
DEEP SPACE | |
SPEED (velocity) reversed [elevated], PACE (rate) | |
16 | Given similar roles, produce manuscript when entering court (8) |
TYPECAST | |
TYPE (produce manuscript), then AS (when) contained by [entering] CT (court) | |
18 | Ten work with nurse filling hopper (7) |
XENOPUS | |
EN (nurse) contained by [filling] X (ten) + OPUS (work). NHO this African frog. Or hadn’t when it turned up previously in June 2022. SOED says this is of Latin origin but it looks more like Greek to me. Either way I’ve had enough of both today. | |
19 | Plain person, perhaps Scarlett carries old man around (7) |
ARAPAHO | |
O’HARA (perhaps Scarlett in Gone With The Wind) contains [carries] PA (old man), all reversed [ around]. I know some of the native American tribes from watching Westerns in which they were disrespectfully referred to as ‘injuns’. | |
20 | Kind of chop academician fed to a shrew? (6) |
KARATE | |
RA (Royal Academician) contained by [fed to] KATE (a shrew). Take your pick of Shakespeare’s The Taming of The Shrew or Cole Porter’s musical Kiss Me, Kate. I know which I’d rather sit through. | |
22 | Almost beheaded — before dawn? (5) |
EARLY | |
{n}EARLY (almost) [beheaded] | |
24 | Measure of acidity in beer for Phoenician character? (5) |
ALEPH | |
ALE + PH (measure of acidity in beer). The first letter of the Hebrew, Phoenician, and other Semitic alphabets. I’d have known it immediately from Hebrew but perhaps that would have been too straightforward for this setter’s taste. |
I managed to find my way through this despite never having heard of the frog, nor some of the words in the clues (most of which you only needed a letter from). I had DARK SPACE (which makes no sense) for a time, which made BAYEUX TAPESTRY impossible and, even with the X, still not a write-in. So yes, too much classical stuff, Latin, and Greek for me too.
I didn’t mind this so much, but it wasn’t my job to do it quickly and blog everything. One of the two most obscure things to me was “loiner,” and I am somewhat relieved to find that it baffled even our erudite UK resident blogger. Got that one from the wordplay—then looked it up. Like the frog—LOI.
‘Loiner’ isn’t even in Chamber’s Slang Dictiionary which runs to nearly 1500 pages.
I, perhaps instinctively, went straight to Google rather than directly to any dictionary.
Yet it doesn’t appear to be something recent. The article on Wiki advises that ‘The Loiners’ was the historical nickname of one of the Leeds rugby teams, changed in 1995 to ‘The Rhinos’.
It is in the OED, with the earliest quotation being from 1950. But it is not in Chambers or Collins, so I’m a bit surprised to see it in a Times crossword..
Peter said recently, that he’s suspicious of words that only appear in multi-volume dictionaries, and I share his misgivings. Leaving Mephisto and perhaps Club Monthlies aside, surely there are sufficient words in the standard sources to meet the requirements of a regular weekday or weekend puzzle.
Noteworthy too perhaps that two of the three citations are from the same book!
The OED entry is very poor. There are ample records going back to the 1830s. It seems to have been a somewhat disparaging name for oiks from certain parts of the city.
36:40
NHO LOINER, unsurprisingly, so I looked it up; once again my E-J dictionary came through. I’ll be interested to see who knew the word. Somehow sort of recognized XENOPUS once I reluctantly put it in. Reluctantly because it seemed to make 17ac impossible; it took me a long time to twig (POI). DNK ‘scutarius’, with ‘fought’, suggested gladiators, and that (plus checkers) gave me ARENA. What was the setter trying to prove?
Indeed, what was the setter trying to prove? Exactly my thoughts on completing this. It was doable (I note my solving time was slightly faster than one of our resident Mephisto bloggers who is used to dealing with obscurity for the sake of obscurity) but where was the wit, and what was the enjoyment in trudging through this having to guess at things all over the place? I think we’ve had this setter before, often on a Friday when Verlaine was on blogging duty. It’s certainly more suitable for a solver of his erudition than for me.
Who was the compiler aiming at with this vicious and annoying piece of work? Faced with this one, tyro solvers will be put off the Times cryptic for the rest of their lives!
Not only did I know LOINER but coincidentally I looked up its derivation yesterday. ESP?
Well, Achaean is the stock word for Greek in Homer, xenopus would mean strange foot in Greek, so is likely enough, and a scutarius probably has some sort of shield. Leeds is an obvious biff, so in it goes.
Time: 47 minutes
37:31 This was very much a Dinsdale Piranha puzzle for me, cruel but fair. But I guess we all need our heads nailed to the floor occasionally.
So many unknowns / barely knowns (XENOPUS, STONECHAT, BAYEUX TAPESTRY, EXOPLANET, AECHEAN, ALEPH), not to mention loiner and scutarius in the clues. I was eventually able to submit with confidence, so no complaints about the clueing. Just wish this had come up on a leisurely weekend rather than a busy Tuesday.
One comment, I was slightly befuddled by the “keeping” in 17ac. It makes the wordplay a bit clunky and I think the surface works perfectly well without it.
Thanks setter and Jack, particularly for the parsing of EL GRECO which I just couldn’t see.
I agree that ‘keeping ‘ was not needed, perhaps another case of the setter making things more complicated than was needed? Rather unusually there are only four anagram clues here, one of them comprising the last three letters of a longer word and the other three, like this one, involving an enclosed single letter. Omitting ‘keeping’ would have turned this into a pure anagram which would have added some variety to the types of clue.
13:31. I quite enjoyed this puzzle. I don’t mind obscurities as long as they don’t make a clue unfathomable. That said, the LEEDS answer had to be got entirely from the cryptic. Like everyone else I’ve not heard of Loiner – maybe the setter could have gone with Leodensian?
XENOPUS also had to be a partial educated guess as I’m not familiar with, or didn’t remember EN for nurse. However never having heard of any word beginning XANO, XINO, XONO, XUNO or XYNO gave me confidence (and a subsequent look at Chambers confirms there are no such words!).
Agree there were some wilful obscurities (LOINER in particular), but I had to chuckle at the array of classical references, and in the end I greatly enjoyed the experience.
I didn’t bother to finish this. I am sure this setter has all of the skills to be a great setter but not unless they rein it in. Perhaps one of the editors could have a quiet word? Thanks Jack.
I’m not sure the editor gets involved much these days?
I’d like to complain about today’s user font. But seeing as it would probably take about a month to get a reply (if at all), we’ll have probably gone through several more by then.
I might be in the minority but I really enjoyed this puzzle, and found it much easier than yesterday’s. Also NHO Loiner but LEEDS was my FOI. When putting it in I felt that it had to be right because the clue fitted so neatly, and throughout the wordplay seemed fair and precise enough to more than compensate for any obscure references.
The one clue I wasn’t quite sure about was ALEPH which seemed immediately promising with ‘beer’ and ‘measure of acidity’ in the clue, but the wording ‘measure of acidity in beer’ made me waste time trying to fit other answers around ‘ALPHE’. ‘Measure of acidity of beer’ would have saved me some time, although I guess the actual cluing is fair enough.
38:25 (1 error)
FOI: EL GRECO
LOI: APARAHO (error)
Frustrating to have managed to derive so many from wordplay alone only to fail at the LOI – and then recall the word! Or perhaps, by then my luck had run out.
Thank you to jackkt and the setter.
Quite a workout, and not that enjoyable I’m sorry to say. Too much obscurity for its own sake, requiring too many tentative guesses vaguely influenced by WP and eventually confirmed (or not) by the cheat button. I won’t repeat what everyone has already said but it’s a shame that too many unsatisfactory clues overshadowed the many good parts of this puzzle. Got there in the end, and after taking 40 minutes out in the middle to go and buy a bottle of wine which I think I’m going to need my time was about 53. Gold Star effort from Jack.
From Tangled Up In Blue:
EARLY one morning the sun was shining, I was layin’ in bed
Wond’rin’ if she’d changed at all, if her hair was still red
Her folks they said our lives together sure was gonna be rough
They never did like Mama’s homemade dress, Papa’s bankbook wasn’t big enough
And I was standin’ on the side of the road, rain falling on my shoes
Heading out for the East Coast, Lord knows I’ve paid some dues gettin’ through
Tangled up in blue
51 minutes with LOI LEEDS.This Lanky lad hadn’t heard of LOINER despite a substantial Yorkie inheritance. I found this tough, enjoyed in only a perverse way in clues like the unknown ARAPAHO. COD to EL GRECO. Thank you Jack and setter.
Hmm, well I come from Sheffield where we seldom mentioned Leeds at all, so not surprising that Loiner was a nho I suppose. Still, it was an easy clue, wasn’t it?
Nho xenopus either, but again, it had to be.
Overall I quite liked this one, obscurities seldom bother me. Just learning opp0rtunities, right? 🙂
I’m with you Jerry. I enjoy learning new things from the crossword (which I do most days) as long as the obscurity doesn’t make the clues too difficult. Of course my opinion would be different had I failed.
Around 80 minutes Very hard but I enjoyed more for being able to work them all out. FOI LOTUS LOI ARAPAHO. Managed parsing in retrospect for most but didn’t have a clue about EXOPLANET. I took it as an alien world. Both disease and rampant are anagram indicators which sent me looking both ways without considering reversal up.
Thanks Jack.
DNF. Like our blogger, I didn’t enjoy this one. Too many obscurities.
Thanks Jack for unraveling it.
15:33. NHO LOINER and constructed the only vaguely remembered ACHAEAN and XENOPUS from the wordplay. DNK scutarius either. A bit too much wilful obscurity for a 15×15 for my liking. Thanks setter and Jackkt.
9:10. A curious puzzle, which I found quite straightforward in spite of the frankly ridiculous obscurity. ‘Scutarius’ seems there just to show off, and indicating an obscurity like XENOPUS with arcane crossword code (EN) suggests to me that this setter perhaps needs to get out a bit more.
34:52
I found this a struggle. The unknown XENOPUS wasn’t helped by forgetting EN for nurse, I couldn’t work out why the obvious COMEDOWN worked so dithered in adding it, COLUMBINE was unknown and Bi for AC/DC took a while, and LIONER was another total unknown which required all of the checkers.
I didn’t help myself by confidently entering TACKS for 2D.
One to put down to experience.
Thanks to both.
25ish minutes, with an error on the unknown and ambiguous ARAPAHO. Didn’t mind the clearly-clued obscurities, but that one was rather rough, neat wordplay aside.
Thanks both.
I was helped on ARAPAHO by Ian Drury:
In the wilds of Borneo
And the vineyards of Bordeaux
Eskimo, Arapaho
Move their body to and fro
Yes! And wasn’t there some awful pop song with puppets that had Arapaho in it, too?
Yes – the Chicken Song by Spitting Image (though the official lyrics spell it Arapahoe). Both were number ones.
Once again proof, if you need more, that good knowledge of John Wayne movies will get you through the crossword with more smiles and less annoyance than good knowledge of pop songs. (PS, before scrutarius attacks me – Dylan is not ‘pop’ in this sense).
I am often helped because all the roads in my village are named after Indian tribes. I’m on Sioux Lane, but Arapaho is the next one up.
jackkt – a xenopus is a toad, not a frog – ‘formerly used in pregnancy testing’!
I enjoyed the crossword, although DNF as, not being a classicist, I carelessly biffed achaeon :¬(
Thanks to jackkt and setter.
Happy to read any citation to the contrary, but every source I have consulted says it’s a tongueless frog of which the ‘clawed frog’ is one variety.
Whether a frog or a toad, Xenopus is a swimmer and not the hopper that the clue suggests.
Don’t toads hop , or frogs ? Where does leapfrog come from?
Wiki says the Xenopus is a strong swimmer but is ‘barely able to hop’.
Suggests the setter was smart enough to know the word but not the creature then.
Xenopus turns out to be a genus. One species, Xenopus laevis, is lethargic as described. But others, such as Xenopus tropicalis, are active and have no trouble hopping … perhaps the setter is smarter than we thought
I used to work with Xenopus Laevis, and its back legs have clawed toes. It is commonly referred to as “the African clawed toed frog” which is confusing as the toed sounds like toad but it is indeed a frog.
I found the puzzle hard but I enjoyed it nonetheless – maybe a bit of a glutton for punishment.
I just want to say that I liked it, in case the setter reads these comments. I didn’t know scutarius but was aware that a scutum was a Roman shield (and a constellation.)
I am sure he/ she will. As a very young girl spouse’s much older colleagues punctuated the day with the ‘quality’ crisswords. Solvers were expected then to have a much higher literacy – and general knowledge – than is expected today, I am told.
I suppose the question for setters is, “where do we stop?”
I quite enjoyed, for example and for the record, the ‘sword-play’ in ARENA. I had to use the aid on several of the others. All part of life’s rich pattern….
Classical education helped with ACHAEAN and the scutarius ref, but obv like many I’d NHO XENOPUS or ARAPAHO and had to check both with aids. Loiner was also a mystery, though I guessed it, and I had no idea what was going on with EXOPLANET, though it could be nothing else. All in all, this seemed like it was being wilfully esoteric but without any wit to leaven the pain. Finished in 48 mins, but without enjoyment.
From MINOR and EL GRECO to XENOPUS in 27:26. Loiner, scutarius, ACHAEAN and XENOPUS were unknown. Knew ARAPAHO somehow, and thought of O’Hara straight away. Guessed at LEEDS from wordplay and crossers. Thanks setter and Jack.
21.29. Curiously, I enjoyed this one more and more as I went through it and the weirdness and obscurity piled up, like pushing through a Mephisto or an MCS but without having to look things up. It gave the illusion of being in the inner circle of some gnostic group where you were privy to the arcane knowledge. In fact, it was really an illusion – for the most part the obscurities didn’t really obscure much, and you could get on with solving the clues more or less in the normal way.
That said, I didn’t know Loiner and assumed his locale from the rest of the clue, remembered the ARAPAHO (like CentralLine) from his noted proficiency with a rhythm stick, and ACHAEAN from Battle Beyond the Stars. Got the frog once I got its crossing N, though I concede that’s a proper Mephisto contribution.
10:27 As a smug classicist I always enjoy the more obscure puzzles, so no issues with scutarii or Achaeans. I think the inclusion of the rather recondite aquatic frog was more than justified by the need to fit in with the beautifully clued BAYEUX TAPESTRY, which was my COD. No, I had no idea that the good folk of Leeds were known as loiners, but it was obvious from the wordplay and is a very interesting fact. Thanks, setter!
As I mentioned, the Greek meaning of the frog is rather obvious if you have any sort of vocabulary.
76m 50s
Pleased that I managed this without aids, albeit in a very slow time. By ‘aids’, I mean something like Word Wizard. It’s not ‘cheating’ in my view, to look up words like ‘scutarius’ and ‘loiner’.
If you like renaissance art, Jack, Siena has some good examples such as the three frescoes by Ambrogio Lorenzetti depicting the Allegory of Good and Bad Government.
DNF
Too tough for me. Gave up with nothing in 7d or 19d despite all checkers in place and OHARAPA written down.
No complaints though, learned a lot.
Thanks all.
I’d started to lose the will to live by the 10 minute mark, and put it aside. My main problem was not seeing BAYEUX TAPESTRY, and even then it took me ages to spot LOI EXOPLANET. And to cap it all I earned a pink square after 17:13 with “Achaeon”. At least my SNITCH rating wasn’t compromised. The Loiner was my FOI (my natural mother was from Leeds). COD to LINKS.
I rarely comment (but look at the blog every day) but given the « marmite » nature of this puzzle, just wanted to add my vote to those who enjoyed this puzzle. The fun was being ignorant of many of the references, but still getting all the clues from the cryptics and then looking stuff up afterwards.
Had to cheat or I would still be at it. I don’t mind obscurities as long as you can get there; mind you I wouldn’t have got 6a Leeds without the L?E?S crossers. NHO Loiner.
NHO 18d Xenopus but I have because I’ve edited it in the Cheating Machine. I think I remember a Gerald Durrel mention of a scratchy frog, and another with “hairs” on its flank. Something like the “Bafut Beagles” or another similar cash-earner for the naturalist who didn’t apparently enjoy writing but needed the money for his zoo. Good book for someone who doesn’t enjoy writing.
NHO 19d Arapaho… have I?
I feel we’ve had a 7d Exoplanet recently? I knew what it meant so I must have looked it up sometime.
I guess you read the same biography of the Durrells that wife lent me recently? I had no idea that Gerry was such a fibber!
But highly entertaining books all of them, the biog. and Gerald’s books too ..
55 minutes, with everything eventually understood, although not without plenty of dictionaries and Wikipedia to confirm. Yes I agree the setter was using arcane knowledge just for the sake of it, but all the clues were I think fair. Except for the BAYEUX TAPESTRY one, where ‘Keeping’ seems to me to be totally unnecessary, gratuitously misleading, and the clue would be better without it.
24 mins – some of the obscurities seemed wilful, though once solved ACHAEAN and XENOPUS, at least, tugged at some distant memory. LEEDS and scutarius would have been less easy to forgive if the cryptics and crossers hadn’t made them near write-ins.
DNF. I gave up after an hour without XENOPUS and without a few others in the bottom right corner that weren’t the hardest ones in the puzzle but I’d had enough. Not my cup of tea
I am going to chime in on the side of those who enjoyed this puzzle. I have always found that part of the charm of the Times Crossword is its classical and old world bent and consequently I enjoyed today’s puzzle immensely.
And, like Riche above, I found it much easier than yeterday’s which, despite having a much lower SNITCH, I really struggled with.
Ignorance of Classics references is not an admirable quality.
Agreed, but nor is apparent obsession with them.
DNF, defeated by ARAPAHO – I didn’t think of the required meaning of ‘plain’, and Scarlett O’Hara didn’t occur to me.
– COLUMBINE was a partial guess. Can someone explain how AC/DC gives ‘bi’?
– Didn’t know Loiner meaning someone from LEEDS, but got it from the wordplay
– Had to trust the wordplay for ACHAEAN and STONECHAT
– Misparsed COMEDOWN as I thought ‘me now’ was together as the anagrist, not that it really matters
– Had forgotten EN as nurse for XENOPUS
Tough stuff. Thanks Jack and setter.
COD Loathsome
AC/DC is slang for bisexual.
Thanks! There was me thinking some complicated electrical knowledge was required…
An unusual second comment from me, having read the above which is both interesting and entertaining …
– I like crosswords containing “obscurities” because they play to my main (only?) strength, which is a vast lifetime accumulation of random facts and knowledge which would otherwise be classed as pretty useless.
– to me it seems entirely fair that solvers should be expected to have glanced at the Iliad and/or the Odyssey at some point, this is The Times after all, when Achaean could not fail to have impinged.
– Loiner, obscure, fair enough but it was still a really easy clue wasn’t it? Leads/Leads … c’mon.
– Xenopus, OK but once we know it begins with X what else could it be?
I know that all you modern Ximenean solvers out there seem to want ultimate precision.. my advice is to buy a copy of PB’s new book “100 years of the Sunday Times Crossword” and see how it used to be. The crosswords of the 40s and 50s will make your hair stand on end. It will surely help you to loosen up and not pontificate over trifles ..
Entirely fair that solvers should have glanced at the Iliad or odyssey at some point. Really? Sorry did not realise that I had to study classics to take out my subscription
You didn’t. Only to solve the UK’s senior, and best, cryptic crossword ..
I think you might be getting teary-eyed at the old version of The Times when your average reader would have almost certainly had a knowledge of the classics, and a good proportion would have attempted the crossword. The Crossword Club these days is lucky to get 250/entries, and the forum is virtually non-existent.
It’s rather optimistic to expect the same erudition in its modern incarnation, where the serious stuff has to compete with vacuous interviews featuring z list celebrities and where the photos contained therein are basically fashion shoots. In the main header, Times2, Luxury and Travel all come before Puzzles. A sign of the times I suppose.
Contrary to your thoughts, my main gripe with the crossword these days is that it’s rarely precise enough-eg the xenopus doesn’t really hop does it?
Well, on the other hand, we have over 1000 subscribers, and many more lurkers. We’re getting a huge number of page views – this blog alone has more than 1500 page views.
The poet Tony Harrison (born in Leeds) published a collection called ‘The Loiners’ way back. Heard him read from it. That’s how I knew the word. (Incidentally, I was shocked to read on a wikipedia ‘stub’ – if that’s the word I’m looking for – that Harrison ‘Died: 1989’. Fortunately the full article contradicts, indeed disproves, this.) Just under 10 mins for me, a distant Classical education still proving its worth.
I finished this is 24:42
Ended up on a 50/50 chance between XENOPUS and XONOPUS and decided to go for the former, which was lucky since I could imagine ON being Ordinary Nurse but didn’t like the sound of Xonopus (if it had been an M, I could have imagined a Monopus being a one-legged octopus hopping around)
So now I just learned was a Xenopus is, and that EN = Enrolled Nurse
Also NHO Loiner but there the clue made it obvious
Thanks Jack and setter
You don’t need to know any Greek, to know that thousands of words begin “xeno,” and not a single one “xono,” unless you go far beyond collins et all. Xenophobe, eg
24.33
Don’t mind the obscurities if they’re fairly clued which I thought these were mainly though demerit for cluing one obscurity (XENOPUS) with an obscure abbreviation (EN).
I loved the recent “modern” puzzle and am firmly in the “let’s not make these things aimed at 50 year olds who went to grammar schools did classics and play cricket” (= me btw). If that means a whole range of interests being covered I’m happy. Anyway, Jerry, have you read the clickbait nonsense permeating this rag nowadays? 🙂 If it weren’t for the puzzles I’d be somewhere else long ago!
Thanks all
The current editor used to be editor of the Sun and clearly has a brief to make the two papers indistinguishable. I hope for better, one day..
The light dawneth…
I very much agree with you here. I would add that there can also be a pernicious class element to this, because the kind of ‘general knowledge’ reflected in some of these references is in fact a very specific kind of knowledge that is much more likely to be possessed by people of a certain age who happened to go to a certain sort of school.
At the same time there is of course intrinsic merit in knowing about Homer, so it’s all a question of balance.
And like you I’d have canceled my subscription to the Times years ago if it weren’t for the crossword!
And Michael Atherton’s wonderful prose.
Let’s not forget Steve James either!
I share the bloggers pain here. A DNF for me – at times I genuinely thought this may be a puzzle from the past with so much classical stuff there purely for the sake of it. And I don’t know for sure, not being up with current trends but wouldn’t AC/DC and Bi be somewhat offensive terms these days? Very odd kind of puzzle that I don’t want to repeat in a hurry.
Thx J and our obscurantist setter
Amazed that the snitch rated this nightmare as ‘moderate’ I found this very difficult and as someone who was born in Leeds , my ignorance of the word loiner just added insult to injury.
Less of this please.
Definitely a Marmite puzzle. I like Marmite. XENOPUS rang vague bells as a historic footnote in pregnancy testing before the HCG assays came in. And I remember aged about 10 playing in my school orchestra as we scraped our way through a dirgy piece called ‘Arapahoe Warriors’ which I suspect has long been cancelled. And seeing a STONECHAT is always a treat, though since its song sounds like two pebbles being struck together (whence the name) I’m not sure I’d call it a singer.
34’55”
Testing going, but persevered and stayed on gamely.
The 132 correct submissions the Snitchmeister has collected attest to this being eminently solvable.
Struggled through, albeit not very quickly, completed the grid and then had lots to look up and learn about, and so was very pleased.
Many thanks to the setter and Jack; all very enjoyable.
58:28. Some weird and wonderful words there – doable but on the verge of turning into a Mephisto. I enjoyed it despite NHO Loiner. I also loved the juxtaposition of ACHAEAN and XENOPUS against BI being a synonym for AC/DC.
I think the format has slightly upset some of the solvers above, but I would vote for more like this, provided we can stick to Chambers in future (there’s plenty in there to work with).
thanks Jack and Setter.
I didn’t read classics, but I did have all the GK just exactly at the tip of my fingertips (excluding of course the toad and Loiner), so I LOVED this puzzle because, like Z above, it made me feel clever and also made me think for a couple minutes that my knowledge of trivia was paying dividends.
With the kindest meaning intended though, the exact best part today was reading between the lines in jack’s blog as he moved from one clue to the next getting crankier and crankier and crankier. A bit like watching a good Lear, pushed by a relentless world, descend into madness.
Very well done, setter, and thanks for persevering, jack.
It isn’t a toad, it’s definitely a frog.
Don’t believe everything you read in the papers …
OED:
A toad of the African genus Xenopus, which has claws on its digits and which was formerly used in pregnancy testing, as it produces eggs when injected with the urine of a pregnant woman; a clawed toad.
1955
Drs. Emil Witsch and C. Y. Chang..told..that they were able to change male Xenopus toads into egg-laying females..under the influence of a female hormone, estradiol.
Science News Letter 17 September 179/3
Another smug classicist here who quite enjoyed this. 21’53”. Of course I didn’t know LOINER, but now I do. Isn’t that part of the fun? Now I can drop LOINER into conversations and be regarded as even more of an insufferable show-off than I am already. Checked XENOPUS before entering, but I’d have put it in anyway, honestly sir. Having read most of Golding, I regard him as a true great. Didn’t he pop up a year or two ago? I seem to remember saying that the last chapter in Lord of the Flies is one hell of an ending. Many thanks.
My slowest ever yesterday and now my worst fail for years. Tomorrow, there’s always tomorrow.
DEEP SPACE and EXOPLANET!!
It isn’t my birthday, you know.
26.20. I had to rely on word play for several of the answers, but, thankfully, I got them right. I was helped with the ‘EN’ element of the frog/toad clue by having been married to a nurse for almost 50 years, though the designation ‘EN’ became obsolete many years ago, and my beloved was a State Registered Nurse (SRN).
Did this last night after a three hour drive in biblical rain only to be rewarded with an unknown frog. Haven’t got any first born so looks like I’ll have averted the worst plague but boils and a few others I’ve forgotten will no doubt follow.
Loiners was a lucky guess and I’m still a bit tetchy about the cluing of xenopus. I’ve never encountered EN for a nurse. Is this an American usage as in the UK the two categories of nurses I’ve encountered are SEN and SRN with the S standing for State?
I suppose it’s possible that in the US the state would be dropped so as to avoid the possible connotation of Socialised Healthcare!