Solving time: 47 minutes
There were enough quite easy clues to get me started but I found myself bogged down on a number of others and there were several that had to wait until the blog for me to understand how they worked.
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 | City areas less urban, on reflection? Not entirely (8) |
| BRUSSELS | |
| Hidden [not entirely] and reversed [on reflection] in {area}S LESS URB{an} | |
| 9 | Rather stupid, introducing bit of lamb into fish course (8) |
| CLODDISH | |
| L{amb} [bit of] contained by [introducing…into] COD (fish) + DISH (course) | |
| 10 | Backed disturbances, but not over prison (4) |
| STIR | |
| RI{o}TS (disturbances) [but not over – ‘o’], reversed [backed] | |
| 11 | Shock? The man isn’t so shocked (12) |
| ASTONISHMENT | |
| Anagram [shocked] of THE MAN ISN’T SO | |
| 13 | Badger turned up around trail beside rear of pasture (6) |
| PLAGUE | |
| UP reversed [turned] containing [around] LAG (trail), then {pastur}E [rear of…] | |
| 14 | What remains strange about side playing United? (8) |
| RESIDUUM | |
| RUM (strange) containing anagram [playing] of SIDE + U (United). A more formal word for residue. In the TfTT era it has appeared once in a 15×15 in 2018 and once in a Mephisto. | |
| 15 | French writer recalled receiving money for working on newspaper? (7) |
| EDITING | |
| GIDE (French writer) reversed [recalled] containing [receiving] TIN (money). André Gide 1869-1951. | |
| 16 | Spineless individual, American, about to follow associate of Capone? (7) |
| MOLLUSC | |
| MOLL (associate of Capone – as in “gangster’s moll”), US (American), C (about). ‘Mollusc’ can also be used figuratively to mean a lazy or sluggish person. | |
| 20 | Decline farewell involving capital of Wales or place nearby? (4,4) |
| EBBW VALE | |
| EBB (decline) + VALE (farewell) containing [involving] W{ales} [capital of …]. The town in South Wales is about 30 miles from the capital, Cardiff. | |
| 22 | I run in circuits, going round curving course (6) |
| SPIRAL | |
| I +R (run) contained by [in] LAPS (circuits) reversed [going round] | |
| 23 | Enclosed line in revised copy — editor in charge covering everything (12) |
| ENCYCLOPEDIC | |
| ENC (enclosed), then L (line) contained by [in] anagram [revised] of COPY, then ED (editor), IC (in charge) | |
| 25 | Wind player ducks end of piece after interruption of ‘Bravo’ (4) |
| OBOE | |
| 00 (ducks) + {piec}E [end of], containing [after interruption of] B (bravo – NATO alphabet). In music circles it’s common practice to refer to ensemble players by the names of their instruments. | |
| 26 | The control securing source of music in electronic instrument (8) |
| THEREMIN | |
| THE, REIN (control) containing [securing] M{usic} [source of …]. You Tube has many examples of performances on this instrument. | |
| 27 | Contract returned before finale from star fiddler (8) |
| TINKERER | |
| KNIT (contract) reversed [returned], ERE (before – poetic), {sta}R [finale from …] | |
| Down |
|
| 2 | Newly organised soldiers also took charge (8) |
| RETOOLED | |
| RE (soldiers), TOO (also), LED (took charge). I wasn’t sure about the definition here, but Collins has it covered: to replace, re-equip, or rearrange the tools in a factory, etc. | |
| 3 | Direct approach secures answer immediately (12) |
| STRAIGHTAWAY | |
| STRAIGHT (direct) + WAY (approach) contains [secures] A (answer) | |
| 4 | Fatigue rising about heartless African from part of Africa (8) |
| ERITREAN | |
| TIRE (fatigue) reversed [rising], RE (about), A{frica}N [heartless] | |
| 5 | Unseemly argument, perhaps over railway setting? (7) |
| SCENERY | |
| SCENE (unseemly argument, perhaps), RY (railway) | |
| 6 | Gym apparatus? Lands with head lowered (6) |
| HORSES | |
| SHORES (lands) lowers its head (S) to become HORSES. This confused me for a while as I thought the S was to be lowered all the way which would have given us HORESS, but it only moves down to the fourth letter. | |
| 7 | Author has to support good play (4) |
| GIVE | |
| G (good), I’VE (author has). Flexibility, room for movement. | |
| 8 | Right hand agitated my itch connected with pulse? (8) |
| RHYTHMIC | |
| RH (right hand), anagram [agitated] of MY ITCH | |
| 12 | Having a reasonable salary suggests open-minded management primarily? (6-6) |
| MIDDLE-INCOME | |
| One of those reverse-type clues where the answer suggests the wordplay: The MIDDLE IN COME is O{pen-minded} + M{anagement} [primarily]. | |
| 15 | Hour after the Spanish occasion is a late one (8) |
| ELEVENTH | |
| EL (the, Spanish), EVENT (occasion), H (hour). The definition refers back to ‘hour’ at the beginning of the clue, and to the expression ‘at the eleventh hour’ meaning ‘at the last moment’. | |
| 17 | Rock face banning English, one in Scottish town (8) |
| OBSIDIAN | |
| SID{e} (face) [banning English] + I (one) contained by [in] OBAN (Scottish town). A hard, dark, glasslike volcanic rock. I’ve seen this in a puzzle very recently but haven’t been able to track it down. Maybe it wasn’t here. | |
| 18 | Film star’s horse in pride of place here? (8) |
| STALLONE | |
| STALL ONE (horse in pride of place here?). I was distracted by thinking wordplay was going to involve ‘stallion’. | |
| 19 | Snake here has more than half twisted (7) |
| SERPENT | |
| When PRES [more than half] of PRESENT (here) is reversed [twisted] the result is SERPENT. This is the parsing suggested by Quadrophenia in the first comment below. Many thanks for this, Q as I’m sure that is what the setter intended.
My original parsing was: SERPENT{ine} (twisted) [more than half]. I think at a glance it just about works but it doesn’t account for ‘here’, ‘is’ would be better than ‘has’ and as I went on to say, it’s a little vague on the deletion instructions. I would have expected ‘more than half’ of a 10-letter word to mean 6 letters rather than 7. This expectation is borne out in the new parsing with ‘more than half’ of PRESENT indicating 4 of 7 letters. |
|
| 21 | Impassioned sporting body elevated game (6) |
| AFLAME | |
| FA (sporting body – Football Association) reversed [elevated], LAME (game – gammy) | |
| 24 | Pitch marker almost split (4) |
| CLEF | |
| CLEF(t} (split) [almost]. In music, any of several symbols placed at the left end of a stave, indicating the pitch of the notes written on it. | |
19d. I think it’s PRESENT/here with pres (more than half) twisted/turned.
After yesterday’s walk in the park this felt like a real effort. I just wasn’t on the wavelength at all and it took some time to get a foothold. I fell for the ‘hour after the Spanish’ to mean ‘Elh’ and didn’t twig to the ‘OM’ being the MIDDLE IN COME. Missed AFLAME as NHO or forgotten the meaning of ‘lame’ for game. ERITREAN seems to be popping up quite a lot lately. RESIDUUM, really! OK. FOI, OBOE followed by STIR. EBBW VALE was a NHO but after looking it up I see it’s also a suburb in Queensland. COD to TINKERER. Feeling a bit CLODDISH myself after this.
Thanks Jack.
How do they pronounce it in Queensland? Come to think of it, how do they pronounce it in Wales?
Apparently Eh – boo – vayl.
More like ebber veil in English.
The W is a vowel pronounced oo in Welsh. Interesting that has been retained in Oz
I really liked this puzzle. I found it hard enough to be a significant challenge but I was still able to finish in 40.25. OK, with a little help from the check function. For a while it felt I was getting nowhere and I ended up solving it largely backwards, from the SW corner outwards and up. Thanks Jack, so THAT’S what was going on with lame/game, I just shrugged and moved on. Ditto MIDDLE INCOME and I’m still rather baffled by the snake.
From Romance in Durango:
The way is long but the end is near
Already the fiesta has begun
The face of God will appear
With his SERPENT eyes of OBSIDIAN
(I think we might assume this setter is joining in the fun re Dylan.)
I cheated for EBBW VALE, misread the clue for SERPENT (the most obvious way) and found it bad, felt pressed for time, so said what the hell and cheated more to finish up.
I once found a discarded copy of André Gide’s L’Immoraliste and read it, finding the protagonist rather unappetizing and the text terribly coy about the precise nature of this member of the colonist class’s relations with the local Arab boys (the Wikipedia entry is more explicit).
I looked up EBBW VALE, or rather looked for EBBW, didn’t find it in ODE but did in my E-J dictionary. Biffed MIDDLE-INCOME, never parsed. It took me a long time to figure out how OBOE worked, and another long time to see that GIDE was wrong and get GIVE..
Didnt have too much problem but right at the end stupidly biffed CLOWNISH for 9ac because I wanted to finish, just took a few seconds thought to see the COD DISH and “finish” in 27:33. Didn’t understand SERPENT and thanks to Q for explaining that.
Thanks setter and blogger
13.21, quite chewy, and with unhelpful double-unches. Maybe that’s this didn’t quite chime with me. I know ‘give’ for ‘play’ and ‘game’ for ‘lame’ can be justified, but both jar for some reason. I did like EBBW VALE.
The two pairs of CLODDISH/HORSES and RETOOLED/PLAGUE held me up at the end, a situation that always has me a little concerned, but not today.
Thanks to blogger, setter, and editor.
I liked this one, a steady solve, with a little bit of a blockage in the SE until Mr Capone’s associate twigged and it all fell into place.
Aaargh! How many times do I have to misspell THEREMIN before I finally remember it?
I thought there was some lovely wordplay in this puzzle, though. Did feel a bit sorry for the non-UK solvers when I saw EBBW VALE.
Therumin – clearly at least as many iterations as me!
Although I was sure that ther(e)min was the answer, I thought it was spelled ‘theramin’, but I could see that this didn’t parse, whereas ‘theremin’ did, so got it right; I don’t usually pay that much attention to parsing and on another day would have got it wrong.
Good puzzle this, completed in 20’35”, after being stuck in SE.
Liked STALLONE and MOLLUSC. Banged in MIDDLE INCOME, didn’t parse SERPENT. Good to see EBBW VALE.
Thanks jack and setter.
Like Billy Fury, I was so near yet so far away. Fatigue had set in and I couldn’t see AFLAME or TINKERER. I biffed MIDDLE-INCOME early. I also had GIDE for 7d as well as a component of 15a for a long time before GIVE hit me. COD to STALLONE, a sly one. Thank you Jack and setter.
I found this a challenge and had to work my way out from EBBW VALE. Having once worked in Cardiff and visiting the main station twice a weekday it was my first thought. Was this payback for yesterday?
STALLONE, MOLLUSC and MIDDLE-INCOME all going in fully unparsed (thanks for the blog). A mistake with RESIDUAL. NHO RESIDUUM so had to trust the word play to correct it.
Should have got STRAIGHTAWAY and BRUSSELS sooner but a joyful if slow solve.
COD: ELEVENTH
A humbling 50 mins only finishing with Mrs rv contributing HORSES leading to LOI the clunky CLODDISH.
Slow but steady up to there. Each time I thought of giving in a breakthrough arrived. Don’t understand KNIT = contract and NHO GIDE but otherwise all parsed.
Clever and challenging, thanks both.
For KNIT, Chambers gives “to contract (the brows etc)”. I vaguely thought of muscles while solving.
22.35 WOE
Even though I “checked” it I still ended up with RESIDIUM. Shame as I persevered in the southern regions after a swift start, not knowing the instrument so unsure of the precise arrangement of letters, assuming I was looking for an m in THE REIN. SERPENT took longer than it should have but that unlocked the TINKERER. LOI CLEF.
Also liked it. Tricky in places but not undoable.
Thanks Jackkt and setter
Fatigue also set in here, so I gave up with HORSES, SPIRAL, THEREMIN (NHO) OBSIDIAN, (NHO), STALLONE & TINKERER all unsolved. Bah.
I don’t enjoy this setter I’m afraid with all the missing letters, reversals, take away the letter you first thought of etc. Too complicated for me.
Thanks Jack for the hard work.
About half an hour.
– Took ages to see BRUSSELS, even after embarking on a mini-trawl of European cities. I only got it after I went away to do something else briefly, came back, realised it could be a hidden and found it
– Nearly put CLOWNISH for 9a before thinking of CLODDISH
– Didn’t know Gide the writer, but the clue for 15a pointed helpfully towards EDITING
– Wondered about the non-A spelling of ENCYCLOPEDIC, but no one else has commented on it so I assume it’s fine for British English
– Guessed that MIDDLE-INCOME was a reverse cryptic but didn’t see exactly how it worked
– Had no idea how SERPENT worked
– Didn’t know lame as a game, so AFLAME went in with a shrug
Thanks Jack and setter.
FOI Oboe
LOI Brussels
COD Astonishment
I was going to enter the same non-A comment (or even the trickiness of inserting Æ online) but I see Chambers has the AE for the books but just the E for the adjective. I could have sworn…
Collins has E for both, with AE as an alternate, in both British and American English.
Got there in 40 mins with aids, so am happy. PLAGUE AND RETOOLED were LOI.
I especially liked EBBW VALE and CLEF.
Thanks to setter and jackkt.
I had to cheat and look in the dictionary to see how knit=contract (it’s the ‘knit ones brow’ sense). All but 6 in the SE corner done in 30 minutes, a quite tricky DNF. I put ‘residual’ to begin with before RHYTHMIC gave me RESIDUUM.
Another who has forgotten how to spell THEREMIN, assuming RUN for control and the I from out of the everywhere into here.
I also struggled with my last in, STALLONE (dead pan if not dead?) with a valiant effort to justify STANHOPE, Bob Hope’s lesser known co-starring brother or possibly Stan Laurel and Bob Hope in an unlikely starring double act. The horse, of course, has pride of place because, well, it’s got to be in front of the cart, hasn’t it?
Some inventive cluing, especially cOMe, to keep me interested. My primary school teacher, Mr Ellis (we had men in those days) was very proud of EBBW VALE as his home town, and drilled the spelling into us at every opportunity.
Nearly 26 minutes, pinked.
If you mean by dead-pan that his face no longer can move, I see what you did there!
35 minutes although I had to come here to understand how Serpent and Middle Income worked. NHO Gide, either.
LOI was Theremin which emerged from some dark recess – occasionally, my RAM does work!
DNF after a real game of two halves. Left hand side went in very easily, almost like yesterday’s and, expecting the theme to continue, I came to a complete halt. RESIDUUM? Thanks Jackkt and setter
After battling for 41,42, I was rewarded with 2 pink squares. A careless THERAMIN and an even more careless RESIDEUM. All there in the wordplay if I’d only checked in more detail. Elsewhere I started with a MODEST INCOME before the gangster’s moll put me right. A toughie! Thanks setter and Jack.
About half an hour.
Quite tricky, but got through it. Entered obsidian without knowing what is was.
Thanks, jack.
15:05. A tricky one, with quite a few funny words. I couldn’t figure out the wordplay for SERPENT or MIDDLE INCOME (to be fair in the latter case I didn’t even try) so thanks for those.
EBBW VALE looks so unlikely that I must have come across it before, or I don’t think I’d have put it in.
About 20 or so minutes, I think (I solve on paper).
Interesting, to me anyway, that 8 of the solutions include double letters (9 if you allow ERER in 27).
Given 19 I did wonder if this was one of Jason’s?
38’10”
Very easy to go astray at Goodwood in the fog, fortunately didn’t.
Moriarty at work; devilish but fair.
Well done to setter, Jack and any who negotiated this without mishap.
19:04. Held up at the end by HORSES and GIVE (my LOI). Great puzzle. I failed to parse MIDDLE-INCOME and SERPENT, so thanks for explaining those Jackkt. Thanks Jackkt and setter.
I was pleased to complete this one in about 20 minutes. Like jackkt, I got off to a quick start as half of the clues were fairly gentle, but then I got a bit bogged down, especially in the NE corner.
LOI was GIVE. Luckily I am aware these days (thanks to this blog) that third person references in the clue to ‘writer’, ‘author’, ‘setter’ can point to first person references in the answer, and therefore “author has” can become, “I’ve” – but I think it’s a stupid convention and should be binned. How is anyone coming new to these puzzles meant to make that particular mental leap?
Hard.
DNF, 1a Brussels, Damn, another missed hidden! Doh!
22a Spiral. I was trying to find a way to make Palio (as in Siena) stretch to fit. No luck.
26a Theremin eluded me for a while. NHO except for all the other times it has been in the Xword.
2d Retooled. Cheated for this and didn’t like it, but have to accept that retooled can be newly organised. One to setter.
7d Give. Never did find that author called Ive, so biffed. Ive is not unknown as a surname, but none has made it into Wiki as an author. Two to setter.
12d Middle Income biffed. Three to setter. However looking in dictionaries I find “middle income trap” all over the place, but not without the trap. Odd.
19d Serpent. Stone me! Biffed. Four to setter.
21d Aflame. Took a long time for gammy/game leg to occur to me.
Thanks to setter & jackkt.
52:09. quite tricky, and I felt the wordplay a bit staid at times. nothing unfair though, and everything was successfully untangled in the end, with the NW corner finally succumbing…. thanks both!
All green but with several questions about parsing. Kicked myself for needing all the crossers to get BRUSSELS, my LOI. For a time I had GIDE at 7D since I was looking for a four-letter author starting with G but that was obviously wrong when he showed up in 15A so I rethought and got it right.
After the euphoria of yesterday’s PB, brought down to earth with a bump with this one. No time recorded as it was completed in three sessions, but certainly over the hour mark. No trouble with EBBW VALE as it is located about 20 miles from where I live. However the last two I put in were both incorrect which I suspected as I was unable to parse, CLOWNISH for 9ac and TENDERED for 27 ac.
As with some others, much if this was fairly straightforward but I became bogged down in the SE corner and had to abandon it for a while, as I was going out. When I came back home, MOLLUSC, TINKERER and STALLONE were write-ins. 59 minutes.
Michael Foot became MP for EBBW VALE after Aneurin Bevan died. That’s how I remembered it.
1hr15 but with RESIDiUM needing correction. The wordplay in the clue was clear but I just couldn’t convince myself to go with a UU.
That was a slog – only had 7 answers for the first 30mins and the rightside of the grid didn’t get going until 50mins when I finally unravelled ASTONISHMENT with only the A-T—–E–. Eventually bunged in AFLAME (LOI) when I got past trying to put the R&A instead of FA, decided it could be spelled with one F and realised why LAME=GAME (definitely not lamb!).
Probably got more enjoyment from wading through that and essentially finishing it – than the promised fast one yesterday which fell short of a PB. Very tired now.
Couldn’t parse SERPENT or MIDDLE-INCOME and NHO GIDE but had to be.
Thanks to Jackkt for the blog.
Great battle!
Not convinced by RETOOLED.
33’02” and certainly struggled in the second half, but given the tenor of remarks above, feel I did ok. Doing long anagrams like 11 across without pen and paper is cloddish. NHO THEREMIN but guessed it. Never worked out SERPENT but see now, thanks to blog.
I got off to a good start, with BRUSSELS and STIR going in STRAIGHTAWAY, but then it all became a bit of a blur. After 30 minutes I had completed the top half, but then needed a couple more sittings to sort out the bottom, and totally lost track of the total time. Certainly over the 60 minute mark. But it all came good in the end, though some of the answers had to be biffed. Thanks for the explanations here. I can’t quibble about any of the clues, but when the puzzle takes me this long it is not really an enjoyable experience.
FOI – BRUSSELS
LOI – STALLONE
COD – MOLLUSC
Thanks to jackkt and other contributors.
51.31 and quite the turnaround from yesterday. Always a struggle especially in the NE quadrant where my LOI was cloddish- bit a stinker that one.
COD the unfishy Stallone which I didn’t parse.
Not sure how you’d end up with CLODDISH, RESIDUUM, EBBW VALE & RETOOLED in your grid unless you really, really wanted them there, but these were certainly a bar to progress as I struggled through to a 45-minute finish. All fairly-clued of course. Except (for me) that RETOOLED definition. Lucky the cryptic was a doddle.
Thx jackkt & setter.
DNF in just over an hour, as I have never heard of the electronic instrument and had RUN for control, with MI coming from “music in”, to yield THERUMIN. Didn’t see the REIN in it. Some of the other clues were very good (and working in well-hidden ways), others were quite the opposite. Much better than yesterday’s, but still meh.
Well over an hour, but at least I parsed it all! I too remembered Ebbw Vale because of Michael Foot. A very clever and challenging puzzle.
36:28
Didn’t get around to this yesterday but much enjoyed today. No real issues except for the parsing of SERPENT. LOI STALLONE.
EBBW VALE recalled as Michael Foot’s constituency between 1960-1983 (having won the by-election on the death of Nye Bevan) at which point it was abolished.
Thanks Jack and setter
Early smugness for remembering Ebbw Vale, first encountered in Brisbane in 1977, and theremin, first heard in person in Genoa of all places, was extinguished by failing to spot Stallone and aflame.
COD mollusc, thanks for the workout and the blog.