Solving time: 1 hour with one wrong answer. I started out thinking this was going to be quite easy but became progressively bogged down and beset by liver problems.
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 | Supreme being in everything I see (5) |
| ALLAH | |
| ALL (everything), AH (I see!) | |
| 4 | Broker fast investing with silver (4,5) |
| LAND AGENT | |
| LENT (fast) containing [investing] AND (with) + AG (silver) | |
| 9 | Spy preserves relationship protecting European (5,4) |
| JAMES BOND | |
| JAMS (preserves) + BOND (relationship) containing [protecting] E (European) | |
| 10 | Fabulous flyer wearing Curie’s bloomers (5) |
| CROCI | |
| ROC (fabulous flyer) contained by [wearing] CI (Curie – unit of radioactivity). Didn’t know Ci. | |
| 11 | Wave beginning to enter wife’s wader (6) |
| CURLEW | |
| CURL (wave – hair), E{nter} [beginning], W (wife) | |
| 12 | Quibble about it being put in favourite pea soup? (8) |
| PETTIFOG | |
| IT reversed [about] contained by [being put in] PET (favourite) + FOG (pea soup). This word hasn’t appeared very often over the years but it had a recent outing in the QC on 2nd November. | |
| 14 | I’m in old city-state without proper approval (10) |
| IMPRIMATUR | |
| I’M + AT (in) + UR (old city-state) containing [without] PRIM (proper). I didn’t know this word defined by Collins as: sanction, authority, or approval, esp for something to be printed, but I arrived at it eventually via checkers and wordplay. | |
| 16 | French seen with old Mike, sometime Tube traveller? (4) |
| OVUM | |
| O (old), VU (French for ‘seen], M (Mike – NATO alphabet). A whimsical definition and somewhat loose assembly instructions. | |
| 19 | Large vessel’s cutter abandoning Plymouth at last (4) |
| EWER | |
| {h}EWER (cutter) [abandoning {Plymout}h at last] | |
| 20 | She runs house — assume good family’s taken in (10) |
| HODGKINSON | |
| HO (house) + DON (assume) containing [taken in] G (good) + KIN’S (family’s). Liver problems here for me. So somebody of this name recently won a gold medal in Paris and apparently we’re all supposed to know of her. I’m weary of this new rule already. | |
| 22 | Conservatives in Scot’s better room cheer up (8) |
| BRIGHTEN | |
| RIGHT (Conservatives) contained by [in] BEN (Scot’s better room). NHO this, but apparently “Ben” is a Scottish word meaning the best room or end of a house. | |
| 23 | Eagerly consume one New Hampshire beer (6) |
| INHALE | |
| I (one), NH (New Hampshire), ALE (beer). Another obscure meaning. According to Websters via Collins on-line ‘inhale’ can mean to consume rapidly or voraciously, and it gives the example to inhale one’s dinner. If somebody said that to me I’d imagine someone choking. I can’t find this meaning anywhere else. | |
| 26 | Second skin returning for a period, having dropped off (5) |
| SLEEP | |
| S (second), then PEEL (skin) reversed [returning] | |
| 27 | Performer possibly seen and heard (2,7) |
| ED SHEERAN | |
| Anagram [possibly] of SEEN HEARD. Oh FGS, another liver problem for me in the same grid! Never seen or heard here. | |
| 28 | Obstacle in shabby toilet makes one wee on foot (6,3) |
| LITTLE TOE | |
| LET (obstacle) contained by [in] anagram [shabby] of TOILET | |
| 29 | Conservationists engaging a certain ensemble (5) |
| NONET | |
| NT (conservationists – more like revisionists these days) containing [engaging] ONE (a certain) | |
| Down |
|
| 1 | Wasted perhaps, deejay on MDMA in voice (9) |
| ADJECTIVE | |
| DJ (deejay) + E (MDMA – ecstasy tablet) contained by [in] ACTIVE (voice – grammar) | |
| 2 | Creature in the wall at Avignon? (5) |
| LEMUR | |
| LE MUR (‘the wall’ at Avignon – in French) | |
| 3 | This year rioting shows wild emotionalism (8) |
| HYSTERIA | |
| Anagram [rioting] of THIS YEAR | |
| 4 | Can monster’s head seem ominously close? (4) |
| LOOM | |
| LOO (can – American WC), M{onster’s} [head] | |
| 5 | Ultimately swingeing cuts exposed twice — know what I mean? (5,5) |
| NUDGE NUDGE | |
| {swingein}G [ultimately] contained by [cuts] NUDE (exposed) x 2 [twice]. Probably a reference to the recurring character played by Eric Idle in Monty Python sketches whose catchphrases included ‘Nudge nudge’, ‘wink wink’, ‘say no more’, ‘know what I mean?’ | |
| 6 | Writer’s account embracing Pound hardly measured (6) |
| ALCOTT | |
| AC (account) containing [embracing] L (pound), then OTT (hardly measured – over the top]. Louisa May Alcott wrote Little Women. | |
| 7 | Handball game on TV — fee is to be revised (4,5) |
| ETON FIVES | |
| Anagram [to be revised] of ON TV FEE IS. An historic handball game played in a three-sided court. | |
| 8 | Difficult to ignore Yankee in Dacorum town (5) |
| TRING | |
| TR{y}ING (difficult) [to ignore Yankee – NATO alphabet]. Another obscurity, although this one I happen to know because I live close to Dacorum and worked there for 20 years prior to retirement. To quote Wiki: Dacorum is a local government district with borough status in Hertfordshire (It was created in 1974 by Grocer Heath’s government). The council is based in Hemel Hempstead. The borough also includes the towns of Berkhamsted and Tring and surrounding villages. The definition is designed to fox overseas solvers and a good many native Brits I shouldn’t wonder. | |
| 13 | Compo absorbing a shock endlessly in beguilement (10) |
| CAJOLEMENT | |
| CEMENT (compo) containing [absorbing] A + JOL{t} (shock) [endlessly]. I admit to using a dictionary for this one to look up ‘compo’ but only read as far as it being a building material. I then worked out ‘cement’ myself. Compo in the surface reading is probably intended as a reference to a character of that name in the unfunniest TV sitcom ever made called Last of the Summer Wine. Inexplicably it ran for 37 years with all 295 episodes written by its creator, Roy Clarke. | |
| 15 | Leader attentive appearing in papers? On the contrary! (9) |
| PRESIDENT | |
| PRESENT (attentive) contained by [appearing in] ID (papers) on the contrary becomes ID contained by [appearing in] PRESENT. As far as I can see, for this clue to work ‘attentive’ would need to mean ‘attending’ but I have been unable to find any evidence that it can. | |
| 17 | Pulse finally brisk in one obsessed with fiscal matters? (6,3) |
| MONKEY NUT | |
| {bris}K [finally] contained by [in] MONEY NUT (one obsessed with fiscal matters) | |
| 18 | Gladly, no longer said to be supporting small local party (4,4) |
| SINN FEIN | |
| S (small), INN (local), then aural wordplay [said] FEIN / “fain” (gladly, no longer – archaism). More obscurity, but I was helped by a question on The Chase last Friday (the TV quiz referred to in last Thursday’s 15×15): Is ‘Fain’ is an archaic word for (a) Gladly (b) Bitterly, or (c) Sadly? | |
| 21 | Oratory from HCE and ALP enigmatical (6) |
| CHAPEL | |
| Anagram [enigmatical] of HCE ALP. I tried to make sense of the surface without success, Late evening edit: My AI assistant Gemini came up with this which I posted in a comment below and it found favour with those who understand it: HCE and ALP are the initials of the central characters in James Joyce’s novel Finnegans Wake. HCE stands for Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker, while ALP stands for Anna Livia Plurabelle. They represent archetypal figures of the Everyman and the Earth Mother, respectively. This link posted by keriothe explains more, although sadly I have to admit that it’s all beyond me. |
|
| 22 | City of low morals to Lima’s north (5) |
| BASEL | |
| BASE (of low morals), L (Lima – NATO alphabet again). It’s in Switzerland and sometimes spelt Basle. ‘North’ is unnecessary as a placement indicator but it enhances the surface reading. | |
| 24 | Workwear article that covers behind (5) |
| APRON | |
| AN (article) containing [that covers] PRO (behind – in support of]. I had a wrong answer here which I won’t go into as it was stupid. | |
| 25 | Man being one to deceive not outwardly bonkers? (4) |
| ISLE | |
| {m}ISLE{ad} (deceive) [not outwardly bonkers – not mad) | |
Another enjoyable one. HODGKINSON was completely unknown to me but the wordplay helped. I agree, a living person from time to time as long as they are well known is acceptable, but two in the same crossword – not my cup of tea. Really liked ISLE, with ‘mad’ being taken away. Had APRON but it took me a while to see PRO/BEHIND, think I was looking for something completely different – nudge nudge, wink wink. Didn’t get CAJOLEMENT as I didn’t know the building material meaning of COMPO. COD to CURLEW. Jack, check overseas typo in Tring.
Thanks Jack and setter
Damned predictive text! Thanks.
Didn’t enjoy this at all.
I’m with you. NHO Hodgkinson, but nothing else would fit. Have heard of ED SHEERAN but wouldn’t know him from Adam. NHO Compo as a building material of any sort. MDMA (which has appeared either here or in The Guardian in recent days) means nothing to me. And I didn’t know CI as an abbreviation for Curie. All in all, unsatisfying. Oh, and a DNF by several yards.
Something under an hour, slowed down by lots of DNKs and NHOs: DNK CI=curie, Dacorum (but I did know TRING), ETON FIVES, BEN. NHO HODGKINSON, ED SHEERAN (guessed Shearen, looked him up). I’ll be curious to see how many people knew these two. I biffed ALCOTT, only got the OTT after submitting. I thought of ISLE once I saw ‘Man being one’, but couldn’t see how it worked; the penny dropped only after submitting. My COD.
My predictions re your curiosity Kevin:
HODGKINSON: Very few.
SHEERAN: Literally everybody!
Literally?
Yes!
I’d heard the name but had to look him up to make sure he wasn’t a footballer.
Btw I don’t live in the UK
Now that I realise who Hodgkinson is, I’ll concede that many of our UK solvers will be aware of her. But Olympic medal winners, other than the select few and the drug cheats, don’t usually achieve name-recognition status outside their own countries.
DNF. Similar experience to Jack. Got slower as I went on and was becalmed at the end with CROCI and ALCOTT. Sneaked a peek to get CROCI and was duly punished for that sin as I submitted with a fat-fingered LAMES BOND.
Thanks setter and Jack
I did solve this, and knew most of the knowledge – I’ve even heard of Tring! The top half was easy enough, but the fun started at the bottom. I thought little toe was really tricky, just biffed isle, and was surprised when cajolement actually worked. Furthermore, I had heard somehow of Ed Sheeran, without having any idea who he is. Hodgkinson? Simply a matter of following the cryptic; that must be it, and it was.
Time: 43:22
How can anyone possibly know all the weird cricket, horticultural, classical and musical terms used in the crossword, but not know Ed Sheeran? 🙂
Those terms you speak of have stood the test of centuries.
Ed Sheeran will be largely forgotten in 100 years.
Not like Beerbohm Tree, then…
It was a tussle. A few NHO, including the runner particularly, but it all came out in the end.
Jack, the Oxford on my iPad has “inhale” …
▪ [with object] North American English informal eat (food) greedily or rapidly:
later on I inhale a box of chocolate cookies while watching cable TV.
Thanks, Bruce. I’ve found it in the printed ODE now as the very last entry. No version of this is available to PC users now since Lexico merged with Dictionary.com.
It is available, but it’s only accessible on the same basis as the OED, which in my case means I can access it via my local library membership.
https://premium.oxforddictionaries.com/
Thanks, but my county (Central Beds) withdrew all access to Oxford online dictionaries some years ago.
Annoying! I hope Wandsworth doesn’t go the same way, I use them all the time.
I use my Surrey Libraries OED access all the time, in fact it’s the only thing I use my library card for, it would be £10/month without it.
Interesting – that must be a new option. When I checked a few years ago it was much more expensive than that.
I think it was Bill Clinton who admitted to having smoked cannabis but stressed that he didn’t inhale. Which in turn calls to mind the religious couple who were trying for a baby and who sought advice from the church elders on whether they could perform the act on a Sunday. After a long and agonised discussion they were told that they could, provided that they didn’t enjoy it.
A few short. I had heard of HODGKINSON, having attended Paris 2024, but thought it would be a NHO housekeeper from Dickens or some other literary work.
Didn’t get CAJOLEMENT, since did not know compo=cement. INHALE for gulp down is pretty common in England now, so no problem. But the Scottish BEN defeated me, so BRIGHTEN was my third missed clue.
Had to look up DACORUM, as I had TRICK{Y} for difficult.
If NUDGE NUDGE is GK based on one TV episode from 50 years ago, then surely ED SHEERAN is fair play.
Actually although there was only one extended Nudge Nudge sketch, the character and his catchphrases appeared in numerous later episodes in what may be described as ‘cameo’ appearances. The sketch was also in the film And Now for Something Completely Different (1971) still shown today and various Python concerts at least one of which (at Hollywood Bowl, 1982) was filmed and shown widely in cinemas and on TV. I’m not overly pleased by the Nudge Nudge reference myself as from my POV it’s another example of dumbing down of The Times crossword but it’s been part of the collective GK of the nation and many countries overseas for the past 50 years.
Yes and I think it’s fair to say that it’s entered the lexicon in its own right. There would be people using the expression without necessarily being aware of its Python roots, which strengthens its case for inclusion here.
In fact on further investigation it seems the expression appeared in print before the Python sketch, although I’m sure that was its springboard into popular usage.
On edit: But of course the “know what I mean” in the clue links it intrinsically with the MP sketch. I’m arguing with myself here (and losing) so I think I’ll stop now.
Say no more
I remember seeing the MP sketch when it first played, and it never occurred to me to think that ‘hint hint, nudge nudge’ was original with Idle; it certainly felt familiar to me.
Indeed, and referenced in Chambers under the entry for ‘nudge’
Worth also referencing Idle’s 7 Breakaway (the milk chocolate suggestive biscuit) TV adverts which ran during the ’70s and featured the ‘Nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more’ phrase. Unfortunately, YouTube does not appear to have these.
Spike Milligan contended that TRING was where they invented the bicycle bell, or something like that. I’m not sure how I got many of these, especially in just under 30 with several NHOs, and thought the leaps taken definition-wise were occasionally breath-taking. Many thanks to Jack for explaining why CAJOLEMENT, CROCI, PRESIDENT, IMPRIMATUR and CURLEW were correct. The unknown runner arrived as a vision when I added KIN for family to the G given by NUDGE and chanced my arm. Once I’d sorted the anagrist ED SHEERAN appeared in a rush because I could see no other names of two letters. Fairly tough but enjoyable.
From I Shall Be Free:
Well, my telephone rang and it would not stop
It’s PRESIDENT Kennedy calling me up
He said My friend Bob, what do we need to make the country grow?
I said My friend John, Brigitte Bardot…Anita Ekberg…Sophia Loren…
DNF after 3 hours. Missed ETON FIVES, OVUM, HODGKINSON. I have no idea who won gold for Australia
(apart from perhaps 2 swimmers) let alone the UK. Absolute killer.
Thanks Jack
13.44
Like Merlin, I was expecting some sort of unknown literary housekeeper for HODGKINSON, and don’t know the person. But if a literary character is reasonable to accept a solver to construct from fair wordplay, why not a current high-profile/successful athlete?
ED SHEERAN, on the other hand, is extremely famous, at least in the UK.
Thanks both.
A frustrating DNF. I didn’t know that compo was cement, I didn’t know that CAJOLEMENT meant beguilement, and I didn’t think of “jolt”. Add to that the vowel-only crossers and this one was just a step too far for me.
Thanks, Jack, especially for Ci. Having spent 60-some years before the Catholic mast, I knew IMPRIMATUR. It’s in the front of things like bibles and missals.
I’ve heard of ED SHEERAN but can confidently say I have never heard any of his songs.
NHO HODGKINSON.
I can confidently say that you have, unless you are in the habit of wearing earplugs whenever you are out in public.
He’s the reason sales of earplugs are shooting up, surely?
🤣🤣🤣
I can confidently assure you I haven’t. My high street isn’t in the habit of blaring music. I have heard a single Ed Sheeran song, but at my Aunt’s funeral. From that alone I know I’ve never heard any of his other work. I will also take this opportunity to state I’ve never heard a Tailor Swift song either, although I understand they are ‘famous’ too.
If you live somewhere where no shops, bars, cafés, taxis or waiting rooms ever have the radio playing in the background, all I can say is you are very lucky!
It’s called “the countryside” K. For anything like that I would have to journey into Maidstone, something I prefer to avoid.
I prefer to avoid hearing Ed Sheeran too, but it’s sometimes quite difficult.
What Jerry said, Keriothe, except in my case, read Whakatane or Opotiki, New Zealand for ‘Maidstone’.
PS….One thing that is difficult to avoid is the TV quiz show, The Chase. Fortunately I like it because it seems you can’t enter a doctor’s, dentist’s or hospital waiting room with a TV in it and it’s NOT playing an edition of The Chase.
I bet it’s difficult to avoid Ed Sheeran even in Opotiki!
I believe he likes NZ so I wouldn’t put it past him to turn up here!
He’s played in Auckland apparently so he may have been there already!
To give just one example, Sheeran released a Christmas song with Elton John in 2021. I don’t know about NZ but in the U.K. you’d have had to live the life of a hermit for the last three Christmas seasons to have avoided it!
I live in rural, coastal NZ, K, so am used to living like a hermit. The TV news tells me tonight that Coldplay, including the former Mr Paltrow, are in town for three concerts. No doubt I will get to here them over the airwaves.
My commiserations.
🤣🤣
That sounds like one of those old US Senate hearings conducted by Senator Joe “Reds under the Beds” McCarthy:
“Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?”
These days it’s a case of:
“Have you ever knowingly listened to an Ed Sheeran or a Taylor Swift record?”
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!
But westward, look, the land is bright!
(Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth, Arthur Hugh Clough)
Well it naught availeth me this morning. After 40 pre-brekker I threw in the towel – stuck on my last four: imprimatur, Cajolement (which I was never going to get) and the President/Brighten ones crossing them.
Ta setter and J
27:44. I knew I was in for a struggle when I got to 23A before I spotted an answer. DNK compo for CEMENT or Dacorum. I also took a while to see how “hardly measured” could mean OTT and remember the scottish “but and ben” architectural style. LOI SINN FEIN. Some good clues. I liked ADJECTIVE and ISLE best. Thanks Jackkt and setter (Is it perhaps Mr Grimshaw?)
Ha! Just before tackling this puzzle, I finished up the John Grimshaw Mephisto that I’ll be blogging on Saturday. Maybe this is why I didn’t find today’s cryptic all that difficult?
A puzzle riddled with lavatorial and drug references suggests David MacLean to me. I had to come here for the parsing of ISLE, and held up my LOI by a misspelt ‘imprimitur’. ED SHEERAN? I certainly know OF him, but, like Taylor Swift, I’ve never knowingly heard anything BY him. I knew the athlete, who’s from this neck of the woods and frequently features in the local news.
FOI JAMES BOND (the puzzle left me shaken, but not stirred)
LOI CAJOLEMENT
COD LITTLE TOE (I admit it triggered my schoolboy sense of humor)
TIME 13:56
“I certainly know OF him, but, like Taylor Swift, I’ve never knowingly heard anything BY him.”
Taylor Swift has definitely knowingly heard lots by him 😉
DNF
Frustrating, not least because the Down clues frequently disappeared from my iPad screen, requiring me to close and relaunch several times …. and I was unable to solve some of those that I could then read.
Thank you to jackkt and the setter.
Given some of the negativity here, I’d like to voice some support for the living person references. Ed Sheeran has been a mainstay on the music scene for about 10 years and is one of the two or three most famous musicians of the last decade. He’s sold more albums worldwide than Bruce Springsteen, Simon & Garfunkel and Eric Clapton. That may not be everyone’s area of interest but the great thing about the Times Crossword is that it does require some general knowledge and if you don’t know it you have to try and work it out from the wordplay . Occasionally the wordplay is ambiguous and you have to make a guess. If I complained about every obscure and unknown shrub that’s tripped me up because I got the A and E mixed up, you’d be very bored with me.
Keely Hodgkinson is less well known but she was a real highlight of the Summer Olympics and it was nice to see some recognition and to be reminded of that.
Times Crosswords vary a lot – sometimes they require knowledge of literature, culture, classics or shrubs -but the variety is part of what keeps them interesting and is what will make them interesting to new generations of solvers.
Hear hear!
Hard agree. Give me a Sheeran over an oread any time.
And it’s not like he does nothing else, like own part of Ipswich Town and sponsor their shirts. Talented fellow and a fine voice.
💯
Ed Sheeran has also written quite a few songs for others including Justin Bieber and Robbie Williams.
Ed Sheeran maybe.
But ???? Hodgkinson is ridiculous.
I can’t help but feel it is a colossal mistaken to attempt to appeal to younger solvers by including all these contemporary references. It’s also a bit patronising I think.
The sorts of young people who are likely to be attracted to the cryptic crossword are probably those who DO know something of Shakespeare, Dickens, etc.
The Times crossword risks losing its mystique by going down this route.
I certainly wasn’t suggesting less Dickens (or equivalent) or dumbing down at all. My argument was just for more variety, not swapping new for old.
I would also disagree with the idea of changing the style or loosening the restrictions just to appeal to new solvers. I was just commenting that I welcome the variety and I suspect that other potential solvers would too.
My Gen Z children and nephews / nieces would not agree with you Contrarian
Agreed. Incidentally, Hodgkinson‘s photograph has appeared in The Times in the last few days.
Well said Ed.
Completely agree. I’ve commented on similar lines below.
Totally agree.
15.45
Tricky, but enjoyable. We’re well into living persons country now, including Eric Idle, whose character in the NUDGE NUDGE sketch is apparently sometimes referred to as Arthur Nudge (Arthur Name in later cameo appearances). Elvis Presley seems to have been a fan of the sketch, calling his friends “squire” in reference to it.
LOI ALCOTT
COD LITTLE TOE
Q How can you tell a man has started wearing bifocals?
A His shoes are wet.
DNF, defeated by ALCOTT – I got as far as ‘Alc’, but couldn’t see ott=hardly measured.
– Didn’t know the CI unit for CROCI
– Couldn’t have told you what IMPRIMATUR is
– NHO that meaning of ‘ben’ for BRIGHTEN
– Not familiar with Dacorum but have heard of TRING and the wordplay was kind
– NHO compo=cement for CAJOLEMENT
– Didn’t see how ISLE worked
Tough stuff. Thanks Jack and setter.
COD Little toe (childish, but I liked it)
Ditto everything you said, CL. I realised quite early on that this one was a stinker, and didn’t get much further than L??? AGENT before throwing in the towel. A body knows when they’re out of their league.
17:58. I thought this was excellent, including the references to living people. Living in the UK and managing not to be aware of ED SHEERAN is an impressive, some might argue enviable, feat. I didn’t know the athlete but the wordplay was helpful.
Other unknowns were Ci, compo and Dacorum. And can anyone shed any light on the apparently nonsensical surface reading of 21dn?
Things I did know:
– BEN, from Mephisto (‘but and ben’)
– This meaning of ‘present’: Collins has ‘mentally alert; attentive’ but marks it as archaic, which is surprising to me as this usage is quite familiar
– This meaning of INHALE is also quite common in my experience
I had never thought being ‘impressive’ would be that easy….
I too thought 21D very strange. I can find no meaning for HCE as an abbreviation and ALP for Australian Labour party or Automated Language Processing don’t seem to have any relevance. Perhaps the setter can explain?
I took 21d to be written in headline-style telegraphese, omitting “is.”
(Which we don’t do where I work!)
I think of ‘cajolement’ as being very strong forceful persuasion (of someone to do something). ‘Beguilement’ is more akin to simply being charmed. So the connection seems a bit weak.
I’d suggest more people have heard of Ed Sheeran than Tring. Yes, the rules on referring to living persons have changed, but they’re preferable in my eyes to obscure characters from Greek mythology. Times change. The Times changes.
TRING, usually clued as Herts town has been a staple of the Times for years, whenever a setter has T?I?G to fill and can’t think of a clue for THING. For everything you need to know about the town, I recommend Aaron Agee’s “Tring”.
I’ve been to Tring on more than one occasion having worked in Buckinghamshire it’s not a huge journey.
As an American, I know of Tring only because it came up in one of Colin Watson’s murder mysteries.
The Times no livers policy was one of its USPs, to me, and why I subscribe to it rather than just do the freely available crosswords on other sites. Bringing it in line with those doesn’t really do much to incentive one to keep stumping up the fee every month ….
Reply to Mike C: 👏
Heaven help me, I sniggered at the “wee on foot” story, even though the loo references were beginning to get repetitive (that’s two of them!). The whole thing took just under 25 minutes, with Keely (I looked up her first name) and the crossing Nora Batty attraction my last in. I was distracted by one of those partial memories of Margaret Hodge, who might have run something in the House (Commons, or now Lords).
I don’t think the wordplay for OVUM works: there’s no indication that one goes inside the other two, and in this crossword VUOM might still be an answer. And what are we doing with two apparently random abbreviations to produce CHAPEL? Google says HCE is a Highly Compensated Employee, and offers American Labour Party or Alkaline Phosphatase (sic) for ALP.
With the vague “performer” as the definition, I tried the famous actor DE SHAREEN initially, before remembering that ED is the only contemporary crooner the Times is aware of: even Mephisto has namechecked him.
All in all, I’m surprised this got the other Ed’s IMPRIMATUR. Not to say I didn’t enjoy it in a good grief sort of way.
There’s no containment to be indicated. ‘French seen with old’ indicates O, VU, Mike=M is separate.
I sit chastened and corrected! With a touch of déjà vu.
I puzzled over that one a bit. O and M were obvious, then I thought ‘can I remember the participle of ver, in French, from a very long time ago. But luckily ‘dèjá vu’ came back to me.
I doubt this is relevant but I’ll throw it in anyway as supplied by my AI assistant:
HCE and ALP are the initials of the central characters in James Joyce’s novel “Finnegans Wake”. HCE stands for Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker, while ALP stands for Anna Livia Plurabelle. They represent archetypal figures of the Everyman and the Earth Mother, respectively.
Very relevant! I found this which confirms that this is clearly the intended reference:
https://thesuspendedsentence.com/hce-and-alp/
I saw this immediately, and, having just gotten around to this puzzle, was rather taken aback that it took so long for someone to mention it. Here Comes Everybody… who hadn’t a clue! Even a short article about Joyce’s great last work would most likely mention these initials, which repeat throughout the book as the first letters of many different strings but are always representative of the male and female sides of the dreaming psyche.
Good grief! I repeat my suggestion that John Grimshaw is our compiler today. His Mephistos have become increasingly abstruse and maybe that characteristic has spilled over into the crossword today.
Thanks for this, Keriothe, very interesting- almost makes me think I should attempt FW again!
Ah yes that‘s probably where these initials do come from – thanks Jack!
Interestingly, HCE is depicted in the Wake – insofar as it is possible to tell – as living in Chapelizod.
I think in a tough TLS, where I might
expect to do some research on such esoteric knowledge, I might have chased them down, but in a normal Times they just look arbitrary. Clever in one, but for most of us just weird in the other.
I took 40:55 being held up for a full 10 minutes at the end by Hodgkinson and Cajolement. NHO Hodgkinson, had it pencilled in but wasn‘t very sure, then was puzzling for ages over cajolement, not helped by the fact that cajole and beguile are in my opinion very far from being synonymous. Also DNK compo = cement, though I did guess it might be.
Thanks Jack and setter
17:35 That was very tough and very enjoyable. I don’t have a liver problem. While I didn’t know the athlete, the wordplay was easy enough to work out, and I accept that she’s probably very well known in the UK by those who like watching sport on the telly (not me). I’ve never come across compo cement and am probably unlikely to now, but I enjoyed the reference to LOTSW, and also the Monty Python one. A breath of fresh air all round, IMHO. COD to OVUM, as it made me smile, which not many clues do. LITTLE TOE was a close second.
DNF. That was a whole bunch of no fun. Too many NHO to bother listing.
No problems with either the excellent athlete or unbearably bland singer but 2 in one puzzle is excessive.
Thanks for explaining it all.
A difficult one that I had to cheat on half way through with several unparsed answers and unknowns. I couldn’t get ‘accent’, rather than ‘active’ out of my head for ‘voice’, so ADJECTIVE took far too long – I spent far too long thinking about ‘adjacent’ which doesn’t make sense from the wordplay and doesn’t even fit! Also, if people don’t know ‘fain’ can mean ‘happy’ or ‘happily’, I’d strongly recommend listening to the Lancashire folk group The Houghton Weavers sing ‘Sit Thi Deawn’ or ‘Howfen Wakes’ https://youtu.be/wLfjWHajHQg?si=ISYvKItNCwyvGGyR
DNF
Like so many others, I was never gonna get cajolement.
Thanks, jack.
About half an hour.
I did not find this an enjoyable solve, too much knowledge required in obscure areas I have zero interest in.
I completely agree. A big DNF after the alloted 45 minutes.
10a Croci. DNK Ci=Curie.
12a I didn’t know how to spell pettYfog, but finally solved the wordplay to correct it.
14a Imprimatur. Recognised the word but was v shaky on its definition.
16a Ovum, was a bit unsure that vu is a valid French word, but shrugged and moved on. Then thought of “deja vu” and was content.
20a NHO Hodgkinson. Thought I knew of a lymphoma of that name but it’s Hodgkin L. Liver maybe, but at least she looks fit in Wiki. Good job we didn’t have to construct her given name, Keely. It would look so unlikely as a given name I wouldn’t put it in.
22a BrightEN. NHO. Is this setter looking for especially obscure defs? Ben, the inner room of a 2 room Scots cottage.
23a Inhale. Wiktionary has “verb def 3 (transitive, figuratively) To eat very quickly.”
27a Ed Sheeran, Cheated and surprised to find him in Cheating Machine already. Don’t remember adding him. Mrs F is a fan, maybe that’s why he got added.
28a Little Toe. Loved the wee on foot.
6d Alcott. Already in C.M. Didn’t cheat here tho’.
8d Tring. Dacorum added to C.M. Pretty obscure IMHO.
13d Cajolement. I NHO that Compo either.
17d DNK Monkey Nut is a pulse.
22d Basel new spelling added to C.M.
24d Apron, never thought of THAT behind.
I had that spelling of Pettyfog in the QC last week, when it appeared. I thought it was based on “small” as in Petty Treason. But having got a pink square then, I avoided it today.
35 mins. Having been brought up in Berkhamsted I got Tring immediately but I did think it was a bit obscure. However CAJOLEMENT was very hard because even having all the helping letters, all those vowels weren’t much help. LOI ALCOTT, easy when you know how.
Well, I don’t feel so bad at finishing three short: didn’t get ALCOTT (despite reading about her a couple of weeks ago), CROCI (did the ROC actually fly?), or ISLE (one I should have got.
I needed inspiration from the dictionary to get ADJECTIVE (I could only think of “accent” for voice), and I wasn’t convinced about CAJOLEMENT as being “beguilement”. I always feel it has more of a coercive ring to it.
All in all, hard work.
Thank you to Jack and Setter.
The roc actually flew; or would have if it existed.
90 minutes. After struggling for an hour I decided I had to finish, whatever the time. Eventually got there but with several unparsed or half-understood, all of which have been mentioned above. I agree with the distinction between CAJOLEMENT and ‘beguilement’ made by several posters, though the dictionaries do lend some support to our setter.
Very tough, but enjoyable and worth the effort.
Resorted to aids for CAJOLEMENT and HODGKINSON after 46.08. The Australian meaning of COMPO was a mental block.
23:40 -I thought this was a lovely puzzle and enjoyed the rare reference to Finnegans Wake. The fact that chapel is an anagram of the two principal characters HCE and ALP wasn’t lost on Joyce. The word is associated throughout with their daughter Issie (aka the Isolde/Iseult in Dublin’s Chapelizod). Our setter is clearly a fan.
Eheu! Lackaday!
God… for the very first time i could not finish this puzzle!
So many obscure references and of course the abhorrent inclusion of a living person (isn’t remembering famous dead people hard enough) contrived to totally flummox me.
Note to Times Crossword editor … “Please, please, please repeal the inclusion of living people allowance. If its your intention to try and attract a younger solver base then perhaps not including words that are so archaic as to be totally obscure to the point of last been used in Tudor or Elizabethan times might be a good start”.
End of rant!
Oops! I know of Ed Sheeran – my wife is a big fan and I even have seen him in concert – but I went for SHEAREN instead. Not my fault if he spells his name wrong.
11:51. Not particularly enjoyable, a lot of obscurities. I see the Times as the classic puzzle. If solvers would like more reference to living people and cultural references then there are plenty in the Guardian and Independent cryptics.
And having said all that, my LOI was JAMES BOND, having decided it must be someone living I’d never heard of…
Haha! I had the same amazing mind-freeze. I was trying to remember if one of the moles was a “James”. Doh!
The odd thing is that I do The Guardian Puzzle everyday, yet apart from the occasional themed puzzle I hardly notice references to living people there. I’m not saying there aren’t any, but they manage to blend them in. At The Times they have novelty value for setters and so far the novelty shows no sign of wearing off.
Maybe, but this is a two-way street. The ongoing inclusion of living people here is also a new thing for solvers, many of whom don’t seem to have tired of the novelty of repeatedly complaining about it.
The good news for all the haters is that, now that the Ed Sheeran ‘seen and heard’ anagram has been done (as indeed it has been elsewhere, multiple times), you probably won’t see him again!
27: 53 but managed to mistype Mr Sheeren’s name.
I agree that one”liver” a puzzle is probably enough; apart from that I enjoyed this over all. Didn’t know HODGKINSON but it was generously clued. NHO DACORUM or CI. IMPRIMATUR was no problem as the word ( along with Nihil Obstat) appeared on various books at my RC school. HCE alone was was sufficient as a Joycean trigger. COD LITTLE TOE.
Thanks to Jack and the setter
DNF in 30
5 minutes on CAJOLEMENT at the end. Just too hard with those unhelpful checkers.
I’m a big fan of including more modern references. If it makes it trickier for some then as long as the w/p is clear I don’t see how that is different from the DNKs for others whether on sporting; geographical; literary or any other matter.
If you asked the 70m or so residents of the UK who has heard of Sheeran Hodgkinson and Alcott then I guess the %s might be 80% 40% and 0.01%. Yet we are genuinely saying the first two are obscure yet the third is not?
I’ll head for the sofa….
Agreed. Incidentally, Hodgkinson‘s photograph has appeared in The Times already this week.
Beaten by CAJOLEMENT and HODGKINSON. Prob should have got both with all the crossers, but inspiration deserted me. The latter seems a push, given that there is an almost infinite number of successful athletes who ‘run’… but hey, whatever.
Is there any chance we can get rid of the ‘liver’ ruling? How many of us who love cryptics want to have to follow contemporary pop culture in order not to have our fun spoiled ?
How many of us who love cryptics have to follow long dead historic culture/literature/music/film/plants/cricket in order not to have our fun spoiled?!
Whether living persons should be excluded is a separate question from whether pop culture figures should be. I see no reason to allow John Lennon while excluding Paul McCartney. And I see no reason to exclude Ed Sheeran (although I’d never heard of him) given that he’s evidently so well known.
I agree. I know of Sheeran, though I don’t consciously know any of his work, but we know the new rules so there’s no point bleating about his inclusion, at least in my opinion. And your Lennon and McCartney comment certainly has logic on its side. As I say to myself whenever I have a DNF, ‘try again tomorrow’. I recommend it as a stress-relieving approach.
Scraped through this with much head scratching, though SNITCH says it was approximately a par time given the high NITCH.
No problems with the world-beating athlete, or the inexplicably popular dreary songster, and as a “younger” solver with teenage kids, I perhaps get a bit of an advantage. LOI ALCOTT and POI CROCI were my hold ups – seeing ROC as the “fabulous flyer” unlocked it all. Didn’t really understand OTT = “hardly measured”, and still don’t, but dredged the author from somewhere.
27:54
If someone’s tone is measured, then it’s certainly not over-the-top. Therefore if you’re ‘hardly measured’, you might be OTT.
Thanks, and there was me thinking of rulers gathering dust…
Brain ache after a hard puzzle I think!
35:30
I had an almost identical experience to ChrisLutton except for ISLE which I did manage to parse. Can’t say I would have remembered the runner’s name if I hadn’t built it from the cryptic, but having seen the name, I remembered who she was, and her epic gold medal run at this summer’s Olympics. ED SHEERAN is, of course, far better known – not my cup of tea, but probably the most successful British singer/songwriter of the last ten years or so.
Thanks Jack and setter
Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall. No problem with my ALP or my liver and no detectable spleen. Keely Hodgkinson is a brave young lady who recovered from an acoustic neuroma in childhood which has left her deaf in one ear, to become a champion runner: chapeau, I say. I did always think cajoling was more a combination of arm-twisting and encouragement while beguilement was closer to seduction, but I’m happy to accept they are in the same general area of persuasion. When I was briefly in the Combined Cadet Force, a bit of compulsory military training visited on the young at my school about a thousand years ago, I remember having to eat something called Compo rations which included amongst other delicacies Biscuits Sweet and Biscuits Plain. They weren’t actually cement but they might as well have been.
Thanks setter and blogger. 58 mins.
Ed Sheeran, seriously? I come to the Times crossword to be free of such annoyances, not be reminded of them. What was wrong with the old rule? Not a fan at all.
I read the first few clues and immediately typed in ALLAH, — AGENT, JAMES BOND and CROCI. LEMUR, HYSTERIA, NUDGE NUDGE, LAND, LOOM and ALCOTT followed. Then things got a bit sticky. Having absolutely no idea where Dacorum was, and suspecting it might be in the USA, I put a tentative TRICK in, but eventually PETTIFOG scotched that and I saw T(y)RING. An RC upbringing made IMPRIMATUR gettable. Took a while to get past VUOM, but got there in due course. NHO the runner, but managed to assemble her once I had some crossers and added the S to KIN in family’S. I don’t consciously listen to Mr Ed, but am certainly aware of him, even knowing about his trouble with the neightbours. CALJOLEMENT was LOI after getting the O from HODGKINSON. I did know compo as cement but had been trying to shoehorn Last of the Summer Wine in somehow. 25:50, which, astonishingly, put me well up the Leaderboard even at this late hour in the afternoon. Thanks setter and Jack.
Seriously impressive time, John!
Thanks Hugh 🙂
36:28 which is not a bad time for me. The top half seemed straightforward, the bottom half less so. I managed to just barge through without knowing eg DACORUM, BEN, Ci, HCE and ALP. I knew there was a word like IMPRIMATUR but had to rely on the wordplay for the spelling with the confusing switch from “I’m in Ur” to “I’m at Ur”.
I spent a long time on 20ac before lifting and separating “She runs house” into “She runs” and the HO at the start of her name, and by then I had most of the rest. But DNK the runner. Did know the singer. I had to look up the meaning of compo to make sense of 13dn but then it was a short step to CEMENT and an alphabet trawl as far as J to get CAJOLEMENT, my LOI .
All in all, a bit of a scramble to get through. I enjoyed it though
A lot of grump today!
We have had imprimatur – watch out for nihil obstat