Solving time: 49 minutes. I found this very tricky and was not helped by having a partially incorrect answer at 1ac for most of the solve. I also finished with an error at 2dn which I shall come to later.
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.
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1 | Game bird caught in blurry photos (5-2-2) |
SHOOT-EM-UP | |
EMU (bird) contained by [caught in] anagram [blurry] of PHOTOS. I never heard of this computer game and my original careless interpretation of the wordplay led me to plump for SHOOT-IT-UP based around a different bird. This gave me problems solving 4dn which remained unresolved until I corrected it. |
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6 | Garlic mayonnaise: superior colloid used regularly (5) |
AIOLI | |
AI (superior), {c}O{l}L{o}I{d} [used regularly]. NHO ‘colloid’, but that was of no consequence here. | |
9 | Piece of pretentiousness by administrative subdivision (7) |
SIDEARM | |
SIDE (pretentiousness – conceit), ARM {administrative subdivision}. Fortunately I remember a saying that a person ‘has no side to him’, which always struck me as rather odd. ‘Piece’ as a gun or weapon may still survive in shooting for game birds (e.g. fowling piece) but it’s now chiefly American slang. | |
10 | Supposing irritable hosts swear (7) |
TESTIFY | |
TESTY (irritable) contains [hosts] IF (supposing) | |
11 | National spirit of Turkey articulated by Istanbul’s leader (5) |
IRAQI | |
I{stanbul’s) [leader], then aural wordplay [articulated] RAQI / “raki” [spirit of Turkey – distilled from grain and flavoured with aniseed or other aromatics) | |
12 | Sign on door of Lloyd’s underwriter with denture (9) |
NAMEPLATE | |
NAME (Lloyd’s underwriter), PLATE (denture). A “name” at Lloyd’s is a member of the Lloyd’s of London insurance market who underwrites insurance risks. | |
14 | Whit appointment curtailed and put back (3) |
TAD | |
DAT{e} (appointment) [curtailed] and reversed [put back]. Two words for a very small amount. | |
15 | Handsome Wenceslas perhaps embracing ladies? (4-7) |
GOOD-LOOKING | |
GOOD KING (Wenceslas perhaps) containing [embracing] LOO (ladies?) | |
17 | Spooner’s figurine of canine pet (11) |
MOLLYCODDLE | |
Spooner might have said “Collie” (canine) “model” (figurine). Probably best not to delve too deeply into the origins of this word. | |
19 | Good American English (3) |
USE | |
US (American), E (English). What use is that? | |
20 | Number one fan? (9) |
EGOMANIAC | |
A rather good cryptic. He’s a fan of Number One i.e. himself. | |
22 | Forbidden love on flying boat (5) |
TABOO | |
Anagram [flying] of BOAT, 0 (love – tennis score) | |
24 | Essentially unhappy bachelor, lost and disconcerted (7) |
ABASHED | |
{unh}A{ppy} [essentially], BA (Bachelor of Arts), SHED (lost) | |
26 | Incursions and raids on Barking (7) |
INROADS | |
Anagram [barking – mad] of RAIDS ON | |
27 | Cockney believed that female ancestor (5) |
ELDER | |
Aural wordplay [Cockney] {h}ELD (believed) + {h}ER (that female) | |
28 | Criminals dread following grand old monarch and son (9) |
GANGSTERS | |
G (grand), ANGST (dread), ER (old monarch), S (son) |
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1 | Japanese scoff, upsetting setters on docked vessel (5) |
SUSHI | |
US (setters) reversed [upsetting], SHI {p} (vessel) [docked]. Collins says ‘scoff’ meaning food (or to eat food) is a variant of ‘scaff’, related to Afrikaans, Dutch schoft quarter of the day, one of the four daily meals. I associate it only with Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School. | |
2 | Veteran audibly shuffled cards (3,4) |
OLD MAID | |
OLD (veteran}, then aural wordplay [audibly]: MAID / “made” (shuffled). I have no idea in what context ‘made’ means ‘shuffled’ but it’s in Chambers Crossword Dictionary. Only one way though, and it’s not in my thesaurus. FWIW, I put OLD HAND here based on ‘veteran’ as the definition and ‘hand’ as ‘shuffled cards’, but I wasn’t satisfied with it. | |
3 | Drink alone in a flirtatious way (9) |
TEASINGLY | |
TEA (drink), SINGLY (alone) | |
4 | Passing reminder of internet phenomenon on broken monitor (7,4) |
MEMENTO MORI | |
MEME (internet phenomenon), anagram [broken] of MONITOR. A reminder of death. A meme is something such as a video, picture, or phrase that a lot of people send to each other on the internet. | |
5 | |
PUT | |
Another one I’m not entirely sure about. My best take is: TUP (mate with stock option – male sheep, ram ) reversed [up]. It’s awkward syntax, ‘option’ seems odd and I’m not very happy with ‘fixed / PUT’ as the main definition. ‘Fixed up / PUT’ might be a little better, but then there’d be no reversal indicator.
Later Edit: TUP (mate) reversed [fixed up] Thanks to Kevin G and others for putting me right on this one. Collins has: put – also called: put option stock exchange – an option to sell a stated amount of securities at a specified price during a specified limited period. It’s No. 20 in their list of 20 meanings, and needless to say I never heard of it. |
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6 | Some propose arresting revolutionary fabulist (5) |
AESOP | |
Hidden [some] and reversed [revolutionary] in {pro}POSE A{rresting} | |
7 | Art school led by Boris, boundlessly imaginative at first (7) |
ORIGAMI | |
{B}ORI{s} [boundlessly], GAM (school), I{maginative} [at first] | |
8 | I see rising dons prone to imprecision in prestigious universities (3,6) |
IVY LEAGUE | |
I, then ELY (see) reversed [rising] contained by [dons] VAGUE (prone to imprecision) | |
13 | Curse mass beer delivery (11) |
MALEDICTION | |
M (mass), ALE (beer), DICTION (delivery) | |
14 | Restrained method of painting walls of temple (9) |
TEMPERATE | |
TEMPERA (method of painting), T{empl}E [walls of…] | |
16 | Public fury over introduction of stealth taxes (9) |
OVERTIRES | |
OVERT (public), IRE (fury), S{tealth} [introduction of…] | |
18 | US writer from South interrupting fat cat (7) |
LEOPARD | |
POE (US writer) reversed [from South] contained by [interrupting] LARD (fat) | |
19 | Argue angrily about doctor’s offence (7) |
UMBRAGE | |
Anagram [angrily] of ARGUE containing [about] MB (doctor) | |
21 | Despise officer losing heart after minor injury (5) |
ABHOR | |
ABH (minor injury), O{ffice}R [losing heart]. It shows how far we have fallen when assault occasioning Actual Bodily Harm is clued in The Times crossword as causing a ‘minor injury’, but I suppose it’s a matter of degree and Grievous Bodily Harm (GBH) is reserved for more serious injuries. Which reminds me of one of my bugbears that many newsreaders and commenters on current affairs insist on referring to Grevious (sic) Bodily Harm. | |
23 | Crustless toast on income support in refuge (5) |
OASIS | |
{t}OAS{t} [crustless], IS (income support). At least we were spared the pop group! | |
25 | Taunt policeman with face of granite (3) |
DIG | |
DI (policeman), G{ranite} [face of…] |
‘put’ is a stock option: ODE put (N2): short for put option. I suppose then ‘fixed up’ reverses TUP ‘mate with’.
Many thanks. I have amended the blog entry.
I read ‘mate with stock’ as the indication for TUP. It works either way but I think this is slightly better because 1) it aligns more exactly with the Collins definition of TUP (‘to cause (a ram) to mate with a ewe, or (of a ram) to mate with (a ewe)) and 2) a stock option is only one of many kinds of option so this would be an unindicated DBE.
21:47 WOE
Like just about everyone else, I put in OLD HAND, which seemed a lot better than OLD MAID (which I could make nothing of), except it leaves ‘audibly’ unaccounted for. ‘made’=shuffled is new to me; but it is in ODE (sv ‘make’ def 9). DNK SHOOT-EM-UP. I biffed IVY LEAGUE, my parsing getting as far as I + V(ide) and then giving up.
In pretentious bridge circles you do not shuffle the pack you make it
Another old hand here with OLD HAND (with a shrug).
I see now that “to shuffle (cards)” is definition number… 24 for “make” in Chambers.
…
Ah, it’s also in Collins, def. 25b.
Yes, just below the Shakespearean 23rd definition (to mean shutting a door). We’re deep in the weeds here 🙂
Weirdly the 39th definition is ‘do’.
Regular cribbage or bridge players would know the expression “who’s make is it?” when asking who’s turn it is to shuffle.
I have played cribbage since childhood, taught by old hands, and often in local crib leagues, but I have never heard ‘make’ for ‘shuffle’ before today. I wonder if it’s a regional thing. I have always lived in SE England.
I was taught in London when learning bridge that the dealer’s partner has to “make” one deck while the other is being dealt. It didn’t stop me putting OLD HAND though!
Around 60 minutes. FOI DIG then SHOOT-EM-up, MEMENTO MORI, GOOD-LOOKING, IVY LEAGUE. I was going quickly and thought I might break my best of 35 minutes. I was soon brought down to earth. Slowed to a crawl in SW corner but real problems came in the NW corner where I initially had FIREARM, IRANI and OLD HAND. I corrected the first by biffing SUSHI. I had to use aids to find raki leading to IRAQI but OLD HAND which fitted but looked wrong took ages until I looked up card games and found OLD MAID.
Thanks Jack
I had OLD HAND too, but will live with it as an error.
I knew PUT as a stock option, and just now confirmed that TUP as a verb could be “fixed up mate”, I suppose.
Thanks! Found myself on the wavelength with this one, which made it all the more annoying that I submitted with OLD HAND. Feels only slightly better that I don’t know OLD MAID.
DNF. When I saw all the errors on the leaderboard I assumed everyone had the same mistake as I did with IRANI. Turned out to be just slack parsing by me and forgetting to check before submitting.
OLD MAID’s one of those things that’s toddler-level GK in some places but obviously NHO in others. Still it was entered with a shrug as shuffled=made was slightly bewildering.
21:45 otherwise. Not one’s most distinguished effort. Thanks Jack and setter.
I had the GK for OLD MAID and remember playing it as a child with a special pack of cards depicting a frightening old woman. I had even considered it as a possibility for the answer but dismissed it because I didn’t know ‘shuffled / made’ and ‘cards’ seemed rather too loose a definition. ‘Veteran / OLD HAND’ however was just too tempting despite its shortcomings in other respects.
But “cards” does not mean “a particular game of cards”
OLD HAND – nuff said!
Same doubts/hesitations/head scratching as everyone else. I did it in about 30 and was pleased with that and pleased to finish. Some of these were beyond me and were entered as guesses, eg the Lloyd’s NAME ref and ABH. Thanks Jack for explanations, I couldn’t figure out SIDEARM either.
From All Along The Watchtower:
There must be some way out of here, said the joker to the thief
There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief
Businessmen they drink my wine, plowmen DIG my earth
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth
9.55
Didn’t think of OLD HAND, thankfully – OLD MAID came to me upon reading the clue, but I waited to enter it as I wasn’t sure about ‘shuffled’ for ‘made’. I’d like to think I’d have gone for the just-about-parseable OLD MAID rather than the unparseable (but better synonym) OLD HAND, but my record on 50/50s suggests it would’ve been a close thing.
SIDEARM was a mystery until it became clear it was all that would fit, and the penny duly dropped, although that sense of ‘side’, like ‘name’ elsewhere, was new to me.
I also started with SHOOT-IT-UP on the basis of the wrong bird, before correcting to the more familiar version later. It’s a genre of game, rather than a specific title.
Thanks both.
21:16 with 1 error.
An almost identical experience as Galspray, with IRANI being the cause of my downfall. No excuses and I’ll accept my medicine.
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate
(Sonnet 18)
Well I struggled in one particular area. 35 mins mid-brekker with an unparsed Old Hand – which is a shame – as for a good while I had 14ac as JOT. ‘Appointment curtailed =JO(b) and ‘put back’=(pu)T. When I eventually switched to TAD, Old hand was a write in. Hilarious.
Ta setter and J
Yep, well, another OLD HAND here. Quite a few loose clues today and several unparsed including, TUP, SIDEARM, ABASHED & ELDER, so thanks Jack for the explanations.
DNK SHOOT-EM-UP but once I’d put PUT in, which I knew from dabbling on the stock market years ago, the last word had to be UP , which led me to the bird.
Thanks Jack and setter.
This old hand didn’t make it without a few pinks 🙁
I rather liked this and got round in what for me was a brisk 24:23, despite straying up the same OLD HAND blind alley as many others. FOI AIOLI (which I make often); particularly enjoyed EGOMANIAC and MOLLYCODDLE, although I thought at first it might be one of these modern -doodle hybrids. Thanks J and setter.
24 minutes but with an OLD HAND. Started slowly then went through it like a knnife through butter. I knew I was bound to have made a mistake somewhere.COD to TEASINGLY. Thank you Jack and setter.
35:12 but OLD HAND
Thank you, jackkt and the setter
9:28 but another OLD HAND. I wasn’t happy with it but I couldn’t think of anything else. The card game is only vaguely familiar to me from past appearances here, and I would never have thought of, or I think accepted, ‘made’ for ‘shuffled.’ Harrumph.
12.00 (with OLD MAID, grudgingly).
Nice to see our old friend AESOP back.
Quite a few entries ending in I (in keeping with 20ac).
LOI IRAQI
COD GOOD-LOOKING
DNF, defeated by IRAQI and OLD MAID, where I put ‘Irani’ and ‘Old hand’ respectively. At least I’m not the only one.
– Not familiar with side=pretentiousness for SIDEARM
– Didn’t understand the ‘name’ part of NAMEPLATE
– Guessed the right vowel for PUT, with no idea what was going on with the stock option
Thanks Jack and setter.
COD Shoot-em-up
Fail. Caught out by the same one as many others. I never could parse it properly but I doubt I would have been able to parse OLD MAID either. TUP was also only partially parsed and I had no idea of the finance sense of PUT.
Well done to our setter.
DNF. Another OLD HAND here.
I was heading for a sub 10 minute time with two still unsolved. I had OLD MAID as one answer but couldn’t parse it and it took me 5 more mins to come up with SIDEARM – at which point I spotted OLD HAND which I preferred.
Bleh!
9:32, but with the popular Old Hand. NHO OLD MAID or SHOOT-EM-UP. I need to get out less…..
In my vocabulary, Shoot-em-up is a particular kind of video game, not one particular one. Another example of improper usage of a very oblique reference in this puzzle.
No idea about ‘made’ = ‘shuffled,’ but OLD MAID was the better option, based solely on the homophone indicator. There’s no homophone in OLD HAND.
There isn’t but there could be: if ‘olled’ or similar were a word meaning ‘shuffled’ then OLD HAND would work just fine. It doesn’t seem very likely but then neither does ‘made’!
If my auntie had the appropriate undercarriage …..
But, as a fellow Mephisto + solver, if you have to rummage through twenty-odd definitions of ‘make’ until you come to ‘shuffle’, I agree that this is a bit too obscure for daily cryptics. I was lucky, in that OLD MAID was the first thing to come to mind.
Yes of course, I’m not suggesting it’s a valid answer, but sometimes when you’re solving you don’t know what you don’t know!
This reminded me of a Sunday which are rarely to my taste and in the end I just got annoyed with it. Bunged in PUT, IRANI and OLD HAND not really caring if they were right or not. There will be another one tomorrow.
Thanks for clearing up all the unknowns.
28 mins.
I just thought it was about sheep.
Old maid – dodgy clue.
Thanks, jack.
9a Iraqi; raqi is not in my dictionary as English, although raki is. MER. However the nationality Iraki is, as Hungarian or something. Not sure whether to add Raqi as a spelling for Raki in the Cheating Machine or not. I can’t feel that Raqi is correct. Although it is fair to say that transliteration from Arabic is impossible; not so transliteration from Turkish which uses the Latin alphabet (since the 1920s.)
17a Mollycoddle; I was tempted by Pollydoodle, which would work if it was a word meaning pet.
28a Gangsters, failed to parse.
2d Old Maid; “it is your turn to make the cards”, meaning shuffle and deal, is often said at the bridge table in my experience. And I played Old Maid a lot as a child.
7d Origami, forgot about gam=school AGAIN!
RAKI is indeed the spirit – ‘raqi’ is a homophone of it.
As indicated by ‘articulated.’
Alas I don’t think this is a homophone. If my memory from a summer spent travelling around Turkey half a century ago is correct, the Turkish spirit raki (which has no dot on the i) is pronounced rack-uh, i without a dot being the indefinite vowel/schwa.
An acquired taste, raki is sometimes called aslan sütü or lion’s milk, because the aniseed (as in ouzo) gives it a milky appearance when water is added.
Thanks Lurchio.
It does go milky but to me tastes of paraffin, whereas I like ouzo.
I gather from Google:
“What is a raqi? The term ‘Raaqi’ is used for an Islamic ‘Spiritual healer’ or exorcist and refers to someone who has knowledge of Islam, of Ruqya treatment through education and experience, and performs ruqya treatment for individuals with ailments who are unable to perform ruqya upon themselves (self ruqya).”
But I’m not much the wiser, still unsure what if anything to add to the Cheating Machine.
37 minutes, but even if I’d thought of OLD MAID I’d probably still have kept OLD HAND in as more likely, as I wouldn’t have been able to fully understand either option.
No problems apart from the “old hand” trap. I am familiar with put options but gave then up some time ago since they invariably lost me money.
It’s not often you make a mistake and still get into the top fifty…
Completed, but with a different error to others : TESTILY.
GOOD LOOKING appeared two weeks ago in the QC with the same parsing, I remember as I blogged that day.
Why is GAM=school?
30 mins, so decent time for me.
Both GAM & SCHOOL are collective nouns for a group of whales.
Thanks
Fairly straightforward today except yet another old hand here … just too tempting.
Both “piece” and “sidearm” are US usages. I would call it a pistol. What with that, ivy league etc I suspect our US setter here.
Since Jackkt said best not to delve into the origins of mollycoddle I immediately did.. but it turns out that the etymology is innocuous, theough rather unclear.
‘Stock option’ is also an Americanism: Brits say ‘share option’.
Old Hand. Pee po belly bum drawers!
DNF. Just couldn’t get on the wavelength. Hate Spoonerisms, and I also had OLD HAND.
This is one the new editor should have a look at in light of all the comments from experience “old hands”.
31,26 but with OLD HAND. Thanks Jack.
Fortunately this one contained quite a few references I knew; “making” a deck of cards, “tup” for mating a ram (my farmer neighbour uses the word), all about PUT options (I have won and lost on those) and the Turkish version of ouzo. It meant I polished it off in 15 minutes, with ORIGAMI a biff as I’d forgotten what a GAM was. Thanks jackkt, and experiment with put options at your own risk!
It seems practically everyone fell foul of old maid/hand. I certainly did and was unaware of the make-shuffle connection. 40 minutes with no major problems except this one, but was unsure why ABH was a minor injury.
To go with Jack’s grevious irritation, Jeremy Paxman could never pronounce meteorological properly: meet-reological; which he had to occasionally on UC.
14.40 with put LOI. I opted for the tup connection but had no idea of the other context. Went for abhor though I didn’t parse it. Nothing too tricky otherwise.
Correction I was another old hand. That’s exceedingly tricky as old hand fits so well- doubly with veteran and hand with cards. Can we have a stewards inquiry?
Unless you can account for the words ‘audibly shuffled’ in the clue I think it would be a hopeless case!
15:12 with an error, as I must declare my membership of the OLD HAND club, although it seems a bit crowded and there may not be room for all of us. It didn’t feel brilliant at the time, but even if OLD MAID had occurred to me, I wouldn’t have thought that was any better, to be honest,so I guess we all move on and never speak of this again.
26 mins. To start with, I thought this was going to be Mondayesque, but things just got harder and harder. My biffed MALEFACTION didn’t help with MOLLYCODDLE and at the end I was left with P-T which could have been anything with that clue.
Some very controversial clueing today!
11:51
I put in a not-fully-parsed OLD MAID at 2d based on “cards” intending to go back to it but thankfully forgot and submitted without revisiting. My other hasty stabs, IRAQI and TUP, also paid off, somehow.
GAM for school never forgotten after a nasty experience at the championships.
O Ophod! O Madro!
Quite. 😒
7:23. Tricky but no hold ups, and managed to dodge the OLD MAID/OLD HAND trap.
Got lucky, knew most of the references. Old maid from playing cards as a kid – woulda called it Rickety Kate, but google tells me that’s different. A strong MER at shuffled. Never thought of old hand, which was fortuitous. Couldn’t parse ABASHED – bachelor is always B, not BA. Couldn’t parse ABHOR, ABH is an NHO. Lucky guesses. Otherwise no problems, and breezed through it – on the wavelength when almost everyone else seemingly wasn’t.
21:50 but…..Even if OLD MAID, which I knew, had come to mind, I would still have preferred OLD HAND. Some crossword homophones require quite a stretch of the imagination and old seemed just as unlikely to be one for shuffled as maid did.
Fun, same time, but had put wrong too. Thought pet as in what you do when fixed up with someone and that you coul chood\se a pet from the stock animals on a farm! Way off!
44 minutes, but I, too, am an OLD HAND, but obviously not enough of one. For me, OLD sounded like the past tense of some obscure verb and so might mean “shuffled”, and HAND would be the cards. As for OLD MAID, that would be a game of cards, but not just cards.
I had another mistake: IRAKI (which looked good because it would actually be the German spelling), having missed the “articulated” in the definition.
Before submitting, I was sure I would have a mistake and it would be SIDEARM. So at least that was OK. I thought EGOMANIAC was rather good.
Struggling to understand how the snitch for today is only 90 ( i.e. ‘easier’) when so many commentators here ( myself included) got at least one of the clues wrong in the NW corner. Does this mean that a lower number of snitchers than usual got the whole puzzle correct?
The Snitch calculation excludes entries with errors – it’s best thought of as a calculation of the difficulty that successful solvers encountered.
If I’m reading the information right, 48 reference solvers successfully completed the puzzle (so their times form part of the Snitch calculation), but 59 did not (so their times do not).
I suspect the Snitch is misleadingly low due to the low number of people who correctly completed this. I also had ‘Old hand’ and ‘Irani’
22.01.
Played Old Maid as a child, you pick a card from your neighbour’s hand, if it makes a pair you put these two cards to one side. At the end there’s one card left: the Old Maid!
I think “make” to mean shuffle is more common in Scotland.
Only problem I had was SIDEARM.
Oh dear – three errors.
1) Old Hand. – I’m in good company.
2) Tempurate – I thought Tempura instead of Tempera.
3) Which led to Unomaniac – clearly a fan of No.1.
Error no.2 is excruciating. Slightly strange feel to this crossword, I thought, but I did like Gangsters and Good Looking.