45 minutes, but a technical DNF. Much of this was straightforward and I had all but four answers within my half-hour target but I had to grind out three of the remainder and look up the fourth.
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 now use a tilde sign ~ to indicate an insertion point in containment clues. I usually omit all reference to juxtaposition indicators unless there is a specific point that requires clarification.
 Across |
|
| 1 | Wine added to menu at a fancy gastropub perhaps (11) |
| PORTMANTEAU | |
| PORT (wine), anagram [fancy] of MENU AT A. Gastropub is an example of a portmanteau word, i.e. one which blends the sounds and meanings of two others, in this case ‘gastronomy’ (relating to good food) and ‘pub’. | |
| 7 | Venomous sort, privileged American leaving wife (3) |
| ASP | |
| {W}ASP (privileged American) [leaving wife]. Let’s move on … | |
| 9 | Guru a bad actor backing Sunak? (9) |
| MAHARISHI | |
| A + HAM (bad actor) reversed [backing], RISHI (Sunak – former PM) | |
| 10 | Some constables sit around smoking in van (5) |
| POSSE | |
| POS~E (sit) containing [around] S{moking} [in van – upfront] | |
| 11 | Writer backtracks during sport discussion online (7) |
| WEBINAR | |
| NIB (writer) reversed [backtracks] contained by [during] WE~AR (sport) | |
| 12 | Leak stopper ready to check a computer network (7) |
| SEALANT | |
| SE~T (ready) contains [to check – as in ‘hold in check’ ) A + LAN (computer network) | |
| 13 | Romeo recovered from relationship with wanderer (5) |
| ROVER | |
| R (Romeo – phonetic alphabet), OVER (recovered from relationship with) | |
| 15 | Head coach wasting time — trivial problem (2-7) |
| NO-BRAINER | |
| NOB (head), {t}RAINER (coach) [wasting time – t] | |
| 17 | One wearing this, also tattered, and repellent pants? (9) |
| HALITOSIS | |
| I (one) contained by [wearing] anagram [tattered] of THIS ALSO. And breathe out… | |
| 19 | Sound wheel on German vehicle? (5) |
| AUDIO | |
| AUDI (German vehicle), O (wheel) | |
| 20 | Suspension of legal action established many new cases (7) |
| AMNESTY | |
| Anagram [new] of MAN~Y contains [cases] EST (established) | |
| 22 | Used head in familiar address (3,4) |
| OLD BEAN | |
| OLD (used), BEAN (head). A variant of ‘old boy’, ‘old chap’ etc. | |
| 24 | Caught fierce Siberian beast in its habitat? (5) |
| TAIGA | |
| Oral wordplay [caught] TAIGA (its habitat) / “tiger” (fierce Siberian beast). Taiga is the swampy coniferous forest of high northern latitudes, especially that between the tundra and steppes of Siberia. I didn’t know that tigers live there but they do, sometimes referred to as the Siberian tiger, or more commonly, the Amur tiger. The definition refers back. | |
| 25 | Disaffected by article aide lent out (9) |
| ALIENATED | |
| A (indefinite article} contained by anagram [out] of AIDE LENT | |
| 27 | Female finally able to avoid boomerangs (3) |
| DOE | |
| {abl}E + {t}O + {avoi}D [finally] is reversed [boomerangs]. A female deer, but not how the musical note is spelt. | |
| 28 | What might be Cox’s first offence? (6,5) |
| EATING APPLE | |
| Two definitions of sorts. Cox (more fully, Cox’s orange pippin) is a classic English eating apple (as opposed to cooking apple). According to some accounts of life in Garden of Eden, Eve committed the first recorded sin / offence by eating an apple, although the Bible only mentions ‘forbidden fruit’ and ‘fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil’. | |
| Down |
|
| 1 | Dog and Duck opening in the afternoon (3) |
| POM | |
| 0 (duck – nil / zero) contained by [opening] P~M (in the afternoon). Pomeranian. | |
| 2 | Alcohol treatment centre male in pub recalled? (5) |
| REHAB | |
| HE (male) contained by [in] BA~R (pub) all reversed [recalled] | |
| 3 | Seafarer, one carried by a British fleet into French sea (7) |
| MARINER | |
| I (one) contained [carried] by A + R~N (British fleet – Royal Navy) all contained by [into] M~ER (French for ‘sea’) | |
| 4 | Sinners go crazy for in-your-face jewellery (4-5) |
| NOSE-RINGS | |
| Anagram [crazy] of SINNERS GO | |
| 5 | Greek fellow travelled by ship to north, avoiding delta (5) |
| ELIAS | |
| SAILE{d} (travelled by ship) [avoiding delta – d] reversed [to the north]. Elias is the Greek name for the biblical prophet Elijah who is a significant figure in Greek Orthodox Christianity and culture. | |
| 6 | City University wing housing ministerial aide (7) |
| UPPSALA | |
| U (university) ~ ALA (wing) containing [housing] PPS (ministerial aid – Parliamentary Private Secretary). This was the one that did for me. I didn’t know the Swedish city although it has come up before with more user-friendly wordplay. I also didn’t know ALA as a wing-like structure in botany and zoology, so I was stymied whichever way I approached the clue. | |
| 7 | A bishop in disgrace made Lenten observance? (9) |
| ABSTAINED | |
| A, B (bishop), STAINED (in disgrace). In Christianity it’s a custom to deprive oneself of something usually pleasurable during Lent. | |
| 8 | Legendary ruler runs into trouble with gents across the pond? (7,4) |
| PRESTER JOHN | |
| R (runs – cricket) contained by [into] PESTER (trouble), JOHN (gents across the pond). Another that gave me trouble but I got there eventually. A mythical king of the Orient from the time of the crusades. He’s come up here three times before, most recently in 2017. | |
| 11 | Sympathetic what with dreamer being devastated (4-7) |
| WARM-HEARTED | |
| Anagram [being devastated] of WHAT DREAMER | |
| 14 | One secretly adored servant enclosing note, in love at last (9) |
| VALENTINE | |
| VALE~T (servant) containing [enclosing] N (note), then IN, {lov}E [at last] | |
| 16 | Croatian neighbour welcoming to New Englander (9) |
| BOSTONIAN | |
| BOS~NIAN (Croatian neighbour) containing [welcoming] TO | |
| 18 | With a will the nation gives up heroin (7) |
| TESTATE | |
| T{h}E + STATE (nation) [gives up heroin – h] | |
| 19 | Norse work returned and revised for supplements (7) |
| ADDENDA | |
| EDDA (Norse work) reversed [returned], anagram [revised] of AND. I knew EDDA from previous puzzles. |
|
| 21 | Arsenic brought in still something bakers use? (5) |
| YEAST | |
| AS (Arsenic) contained by [brought in] YE~T (still) | |
| 23 | Finish your food warm, not hot (3,2) |
| EAT UP | |
| {h}EAT UP (warm) [not hot]. For once a setter has spared us the sound of Bow bells! | |
| 26 | What may colour out-of-body experience somewhat (3) |
| DYE | |
| Hidden in [somewhat] {out-of-bo}DY E{xperience} | |
8:06 but my LOI was “valrntine”.
COD HALITOSIS
Quick again today, and no unknowns bar Elias.
Uppsala has the oldest university in Scandinavia, which (fortunately) a good friend of mine attended.
I liked the repellent pants
19:37
Blundered and bludgeoned my way through this, with the usual selection of missed bits:
(W)ASP = privileged American. NHO
OLD BEAN – needed the JOHN to get the second word
EATING APPLE – missed the first offence reference
VALENTINE – missed the VALENT part
UPPSALA – thought of this early on, with the first and last checkers in place, but not much idea what was going on. Eventually settled on the not-entirely-correct PS = permanent secretary to partially justify the answer. Not heard of ALA = wing. Oh, and I thought UPPSALA was perhaps in India…. Anyway, needed this to see POSSE and SEALANT which in turn gave all the checkers for my LOI…
PRESTER JOHN – NHO
Thanks Jack and setter
Aliform is to wing as Cuneiform is to wedge
Came up in a quiz I did decades ago, and I never forgot!!
Generally found this easy apart from UPPSALA. On the basis of vaguely having heard of the city (although unclear as to spelling) and also of ALAR (but not ALA) in connection with wings, and PPS as possibly some kind of private secretary I put in the correct answer, although not with a great deal of confidence.
Straightforward (nicely so), but like others, I was completely stymied by UPPSALA, and in my case therefore POSSE. So a DNF in 18 mins, as it were. HALITOSIS made me smile!
Much enjoyed, thanks setter and Jack
15:20 – only sticking point was the AUDIO/ADDENDA crossing, fruitlessly trying to make “radio” (rad=German bicycle or wheel) work somehow.
14:18, Tuesday is the new Monday I thought. Only really held up by LOI TAIGA and before that UPPSALA / POSSE (as others, I see)
Thanks setter and blogger
Similar experience to our blogger. Ground out TAIGA and ADDENDA but failed on UPPSALA. Thanks for the explanation.
About 22′ which is quickish for me. I had the GK for TAIGA but had to work out the NHO (I think) mythical ruler. UPPSALA wasn’t parsed but I knew the city from the checkers. Much of this was QC I think, apart from the couple of difficult GK answers. Thanks Jack and setter.
Enjoyed this despite a typo. Applause for HALITOSIS.
This morning I was talking to a French friend who has just returned from a holiday to Sweden, including a visit to UPPSALA. Later in our conversation he asked me if people in England still said “old chap” I said not and also mentioned “OLD BEAN” and “old boy”. Almost eerie.
Thanks to Jack and the setter
Probably a PB, since I just wrote them all in, all my biffs correct as it turned out.
Pester John is mentioned in Much Ado About Nothing I think.
Eating Apple was brilliant.
The QC blog said this was not too hard and I finished it in one sitting after lunch.
LOI the NHO PRESTER JOHN, although my brain seemed to find it vaguely familiar once parsed.
Managed to deduce UPPSALA from U and PPS; did not know the wing bit.
Overall very enjoyable.
David
A DNF due to PRESTER JOHN (NHO), AUDIO, ADDENDA and OLD BEAN. ABSTAINED and POSSE took some time too. I thought of UPPSALA long before I put it in as I couldn’t parse it, I was also trying to think of the Argentine city beginning with ‘u’ (after a Google search after giving up, I realised I was trying to think of ‘Ushuaia’.
18:53
I knew of the University of UPPSALA, saw the PPS, but never heard of ALA.
COD to HALITOSIS.
Thanks Jack and setter
12.10. At one stage hoped for a rare sub 10. Fingers just not fast enough.
Enjoyed especially portmanteau.
Particularly liked the involvement of university in the clue, as UPPSALA is in fact a famous university town, a sort of Swedish ‘Oxbridge’, and seems to be mother to a disproportionate number of obscure academic theses.
I found most of this fairly straightforward until I got to the ne corner. Just over twenty minutes with just four to get, and then a further twenty plus to complete in 41.22. Fortunately UPPSALA was known to me , but only because my wife lived there for a year in her teens before we met. My main problem was putting in BROTHER JOHN which parsed so beautifully I didn’t give it another thought. When I eventually thought of ASP, I then vaguely remembered hearing of PRESTER JOHN. Pleased to finish with all correct and only the ALA section of UPPSALA unparsed.
Reached my hour time limit and bunged in UPPSALA thinking it can’t be double-P for a place I’ve vaguely heard of to go with an unparsed POSSE. Consequently I was amazed to see the “Congratulations” message rather than “Unlucky”. Managed to parse POSSE after solve but UPPSALA was beyond me as I don’t know PPS or ALA.
NHO PRESTER-JOHN. And TAIGA came up in the QC one Saturday probably almost two years ago and it suddenly popped to mind. EDDA also a word I once saw in a QC but bifd-then-parsed.
No problem with (w)ASP – I think they are mentioned in Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities – and stands for White Anglo-Saxon Protestant if that isn’t a backronym. Probably I put out a few boxes of Cox’s apples in my days on the fruit & veg at Tesco.
Bit slower than Jackkt today – who is usually my reference point. Did yesterday’s puzzle in 39mins this mornimg where he’d taken 38. I had 7-8 left at the 30-min mark so definitely him on that front.
Nice to see two famous Old English elegies, the Wanderer and the Seafarer, and the Norse Edda and Prester John all appearing in the same puzzle. Favourite clue definitely the Eating Apple, however. Thanks to both Setter and Blogger.
Could have been in the running for an under-tenner but I mistyped the end of ABSTAINED and spent two or three minutes looking vainly for a word that fitted A-E-O. Otherwise all seemed quite straightforward and I finished on 13’06”.
Love ‘old bean’ as an old-fashioned Woosterish greeting. I find ‘buddy’ is a popular one nowadays. ‘Pal’ seems to have a threatening Glaswegian overtone, as in ‘Do you want to say that again, pal?’
Thoroughly enjoyable, despite some of it being out of my reach. NHO PRESTER JOHN (unlikely first name) and TAIGA didn’t surface from the recesses of my mind. For some reason put PASSÉ instead of POSSE, and couldn’t come up with the second word in NO BRAINER . Liked BOSTONIAN, HALITOSIS, MAHARISHI, EATING APPLE and WEBINAR ( which was a guess).
Thanks setter and Jack
Continuing the slow progress on these Times puzzles and found one that was closer to my normal solving time with 44 minutes. Had heard of UPPSALA (but initially thought that it only had one P – had to look up the unknown PPS to confirm things – did know abut ALA as a wing). Knew PRESTER JOHN only as the John Buchan novel and had to look up the ‘legendary king’. Was also across TAIGA, although had to check the pronunciation to confirm that the Siberian tiger came into play.
Had a wry smile with the ‘repellent pants’ definition of HALITOSIS.
Finished in the SE corner with ADDENDA and ALIENATED.