Time: Off the scale, and I looked one up at the end because I knew I wouldn’t know it. I made very heavy weather of this puzzle and after 10 minutes had only two answers in.
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.
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, deletions and [] other indicators.
 Across |
|
|---|---|
| 1 | Writing surface of French king encircled by bar (7) |
| DESKTOP – DE (of in French), then K (king) contained [encircled] by S~TOP (bar). A very late arrival in the grid. | |
| 5 | Riot eliminating last American barrow (7) |
| TUMULUS – TUMUL{t} (riot) [eliminating last], US (American). I knew I was looking for another word meaning ‘burial mound’ but it took me while to dig it up from the depths of my mind. | |
| 9 | Humbled Conservative had a career? (9) |
| CHASTENED – C (Conservative), HASTENED (had a career?). I assume the question mark is to indicate there’s a bit of fun going on in the wordplay here. | |
| 10 | Fellow, running short, is after instant coffee (5) |
| MOCHA – MO (instant), CHA{p} (fellow) [running short] | |
| 11 | A bit of cork in my French wine (5) |
| MACON – A + C{ork} [bit of…] contained by [in] M~ON (my in French – same device as in 1ac) | |
| 12 | Indication of future performer turning in late, finishing early (5,4) |
| TAROT CARD – ACTOR (performer) reversed [turning] contained by [in] TA~RD{y} (late) [finishing early] | |
| 13 | Two London termini denied King’s top award (8,5) |
| VICTORIA CROSS – VICTORIA + {King’s} CROSS (two London termini) [denied King’s] | |
| 17 | Occasional story about bishop — elemental stuff? (8,5) |
| PERIODIC TABLE – PERIODIC (occasional), TA~LE (story} containing [about] B (bishop) | |
| 21 | Bird shelter driving out one dissolute male (9) |
| SHELDRAKE – SH{i}ELD (shelter) [driving out one], RAKE (dissolute male). Another late arrival. Eventually I remembered the bird and then reverse-engineered the wordplay . | |
| 24 | Alternative difficulty when deposing leader (5) |
| OTHER – {b}OTHER (difficulty) [when deposing leader]. A nice easy one! | |
| 25 | Opinion backing American Idol (5) |
| DOGMA – AM (American) + GOD (idol) reversed [backing] | |
| 26 | Try plain writing with a bit of charm? (9) |
| PROSECUTE – PROSE (plain writing), CUTE (with a bit of charm) | |
| 27 | Full set of documents returned after church addition to letter (7) |
| CEDILLA – CE (church), then ALL (full) + ID (set of documents) reversed [returned]. More French stuff, although the cedilla is also used in other languages. | |
| 28 | SF series about to introduce grand prison (7) |
| DUNGEON – DUN~E (SF series) + ON (about) containing [to introduce] G (grand). Never heard of it myself, but if you want to know more about the Dune SF franchise you can read all about it here. | |
| Down |
|
|---|---|
| 1 | Last month for every politician to leave (6) |
| DECAMP – DEC (last month), A (for every – per), MP (politician) | |
| 2 | Set about bringing in a completed upholstery item (4,5) |
| SEAT COVER – SE~T containing [bringing in] A, then C (about), OVER (completed) | |
| 3 | What’s helped to split it — an iceberg? (7) |
| TITANIC – The answer is hidden in {spli}T IT AN IC{eberg} but there’s no specific indication. Dare I risk suggesting the clue is &lit ? | |
| 4 | Italian bread counter popular, too much under glass (9) |
| PANETTONI – PANE (glass), then IN (popular) + OTT (too much) reversed [counter] | |
| 5 | Staff upset, chasing second person in French royal house (5) |
| TUDOR – TU (second person – you – in French) then ROD (staff) reversed [upset]. This is the third time the setter has used the ‘in French’ device in this puzzle. | |
| 6 | Copying piece of news picked up with microphone around (7) |
| MIMETIC – MI~C (microphone) containing [around] ITEM (piece of news) reversed [picked up] | |
| 7 | Synthetic source of confusion in constellation (5) |
| LYCRA – C{onfusion} [source of…] contained by [in] LY~RA (constellation). NHO or have forgotten the stars. | |
| 8 | Leading performer remains for classic song (8) |
| STARDUST – STAR (leading performer), DUST (remains). A classic song indeed, written by Hoagy Carmichael in 1927 with lyric added later by Mitchell Parish. It must have been recorded by hundreds of artistes, but here’s an instrumental version by a band also associated with the next answer. | |
| 14 | Jazz standard trendy with those people — love upcoming party (2,3,4) |
| IN THE MOOD – IN (trendy), THEM (those people), O (love) then DO (party) reversed [upcoming]. One tends to categorise this as ‘swing’ music, but an alternative name for that is ‘big band jazz’. | |
| 15 | Individual upset about hotel employment after work place welcoming everybody (4,5) |
| OPEN HOUSE – OP (work), then O~NE (individual) reversed [upset] containing [about] H (hotel), then USE (employment) | |
| 16 | Big story covering one bit of Earth at intervals (8) |
| EPISODIC – EP~IC (big story) containing [covering] I (one) + SOD (bit of earth) | |
| 18 | Eccentric person reduced chances to join dance (7) |
| ODDBALL – ODD{s} (chances) [reduced), BALL (dance) | |
| 19 | Be dismissive of rest of a branch of algebra (7) |
| BOOLEAN – BOO (be dismissive of), LEAN (rest). This was the one I looked up as I knew I didn’t know it. Turned out I’d heard the word but had no idea what it means or even the subject it relates to. | |
| 20 | Encourage operator to release last of numbers (4,2) |
| URGE ON – {s}URGEON (operator) [to release last of numbers] | |
| 22 | Moved slowly in a jam, losing lead position (5) |
| EDGED – {w}EDGED (in a jam) [losing lead position] | |
| 23 | Expression of surprise about recording considered the most powerful (5) |
| ALPHA – A~HA (expression of surprise) containing [about] LP (recording) | |
I, too, found the cluing difficult and needing a lot of construction. I had all the vocabulary, but had to dig deep to remember some of it. I never figured out what the ‘about’ was doing in Seat Cover, so thanks jack.
22:05
I biffed PANETTONE at 4d, which made PERIODIC hard to get; finally saw the problem. The setter seems fond of initial and final letters: 5ac, 10ac, 11ac, 12ac, 24ac, 20d, 22d. Jack, I think the underline for BOOLEAN should include ‘of a’.
DNF. NHO TUMULUS but knew I was looking for a word for a burial mound or barrow. Also didn’t see BOOLEAN and finally entered b?o?e?n into Chambers word wizard to be given ‘no words found’. Saw TAROT CARD from future in the clue and the checkers but never parsed. Was convinced that the addition to letter in CEDILLA would be ‘ps’ before checkers made it impossible. Bifd ‘offbeat’ instead of ODDBALL. Liked VICTORIA CROSS and PERIODIC TABLE. Also thought that STARDUST would end in ‘ash’ for remains. Managed to assemble PANETTONI correctly. Not a good day.
Thanks Jack and setter.
Just under an hour to complete a very enjoyable crossword. FOI VICTORIA CROSS was a write-in. Then came PERIODIC TABLE, IN THE MOOD, STARDUST. TITANIC was another write-in. Other than having to check the spelling of the bread everything followed smoothly. It seemed to be a lot from my youth and others I guessed from previous appearances in the Times Cryptic.
Thanks Jack and setter
I needed to solve this quickly and go to bed, but fortunately I was on the wavelength. I used a mixture of the cryptics and biffing. I knew tumulus, biffed macon, and saw Victoria Cross and periodic table almost at once. The SW was a bit tough, but biffing sheldrake really helped. My LOI was the obvious dogma.
Time: 16:28
25 something. Being lucky to know something about the relatively niche tumuli and Boolean algebra, I had hoped that this would count as a toughie (SNITCH-wise); alas, no!
“Opinion” seems a bit off for DOGMA, though Collins online has, from an American source, “ a positive, arrogant assertion of opinion.”
DNF, missing BOOLEAN and TUMULUS in 35. Was surprised to see a clue/answer that was almost identical to one in the QC, I’ve seen cross-over in the past but not on the same day as far as I recall. I enjoyed this even though it defeated me, thanks Jack.
From Tempest:
The chandeliers were swaying, from the balustrades above
The orchestra was playing songs of faded love
The watchman he lay dreaming, as the ballroom dancers twirled
He dreamed the TITANIC was sinking
Into the underworld
26 minutes. I was familiar with the term BOOLEAN algebra and solved most of the rest from the defs. I agree with Guy about DOGMA, which I’d thought of earlier but didn’t put in till I had the three checked letters as it seems something more than just an ‘opinion’. SHELDRAKE was LOI and I was beginning to get worried before realising it wasn’t a partial anagram. COD to CEDILLA; I read somewhere the French are very protective of it, even if it is used in other languages.
I thought so too but then thought of dogmatic which is given as a synonym for opinionated when I looked it up.
Completed this one but it was hard work and not entertaining.
The songs in 8d and 14d were appealing to persons of my general age group.
5ac TUMULUS was found as a synonym search for ‘barrow’ in Chambers – I was not aware of graveyard connection.
Otherwise, got it all correct but had to come here for skilled bloggers assistance for some parsings. Agree that 9ac still does not make sense although the answer fitted meaning and crossers. Some revealed as cleverness but not all.
My understanding is that ‘tu’ is the familiar or intimate form of ‘vous’ in French.
Boolean is of course the algebra of logic created surprisingly by a chap called ‘Bool”. Definitely did not like the clue construction/operation of 15d OPEN HOUSE.
Thought 13ac VICTORIA CROSS was obvious but a little clumsy.
Reluctant thanks to setter for challenge, but sincere thanks to Jackkt.
Apologies for any crossings, will read.
When you career along at speed you hasten?
That is more than a bit stretchy, surely?
Yep 🙂
That’s the way The Times crossword runs. I love things like “had a career” for went careering down the road.
Yes, well I will try to fit in (or kowtow) more in future ?! Not.
“Boole.” George Boole.
Yes, thank U.
Had forgotten he was spelled with ‘e’ – until several reminders by locals.
Hard work, with some tough ones got some easier ones missed (DESKTOP) even when I saw the word play (EDGED). Two guesses didn’t work out, in spite of fitting all 4 checkers : SLAPDASH, with its ending of ASH=remains, and SPORADIC which is a good fit for “at intervals”.
My maths degree doesn’t help much with vocab in these things, but was helpful today for BOOLEAN. And TUMULUS known from studying OS maps, (PH for “pub” also handy)
CHASTISED stopped PANETTONE, and NHO SHELDRAKE.
COD VICTORIA CROSS
I also found this hard, coming in at 49 minutes. Or rather I found a lot of it quite easy, but parts of it hard to penetrate, like TUMULUS, where I was thinking of TUMBREL, which is fairly barrowish, just in a very different way, CHASTENED, which I wanted to start CON…, and the simple SEAT COVER where I couldn’t seem to get SOFA out of my head.
As an old geek though, both BOOLEAN logic and the DUNE series are things I’ve been familiar with since childhood, though I never actually read any Frank Herbert myself, just saw other kids being drawn into an almost inevitable lifelong addiction. I shall content myself with the epic film series.
23ish. Not a record but fast for me. Solved tumulus almost immediately but didn’t trust it (as I didn’t know it) until had all the others done. Slightly delayed by biffing “standard” for 8d. Knew macon and boolean so neither slowed me down. 14d “(b)other” features in today’s Quick Cryptic, too.
Thanks to setter and Jackkt.
17.52. Rather better than yesterday. Some tricky entries- Pannatoni for one. I thought it ended in E. LOI mimetic preceded by tumulus and stardust.
Thx setter for a wide ranging mixture of clues.
Singular panettone ends in an E, plural panettoni in an I. You can just about read the clue as requiring a plural answer…
Panettoni is the plural. Had me stressed for a moment, as I knew the last letter was ‘i’.
21 minutes.This one played to my strengths with the only pause over SHELDRAKE. My Dad was shouting out a couple of the answers from the heavens, and from there actively discussed with me whether Glenn Miller could be considered Jazz. We’d settled on Big Band before reading Jack’s comments. Very enjoyable. Thank you Jack and setter.
37:00 bang on but found this one hard to get going. Once the two long acrosses went in it moved along at a more brisk pace. Most that time spent getting the final few in the NE and SW quadrants.
LOI SHELDRAKE which was annoying as I had previously thought of shelduck before realising it didn’t fit and went down the dead end of dissolute as an anagrind for male.
Thanks blogger and setter.
Only one problem today, a complete inability to spell PANNETONE, um, PANETTONE, no that can’t be right … etc. Nice to see a little algebra creep in, with Boolean.
13:10. Unlike others I didn’t find this hard. LOI SHELDRAKE and COD to the nice hidden TITANIC. Thanks Jackkt and setter.
DNF, back in OWL Club with TUMBLUS (thinking ‘tumble’ might equal ‘riot’ if you squint) rather than TUMULUS.
– Didn’t fully parse TAROT CARD
– Same MER as others over opinion=DOGMA
– Was glad of the ‘glass’ in the clue for PANETTONI to make sure I spelled it correctly
Thanks Jack and setter.
COD Macon
24 mins again but a lot less biffable than yesterday and more work.
Lots of false starts with CHASTISED, SPORADIC, TURMOIL and more.
Fortunately BOOLEAN is the first type of algebra that springs to my mind.
NHO that STARDUST and was thinking of Joni Mitchell but thats Woodstock.
Good solid workout, thanks jackkt and setter
15:31 so pretty much bang on average for me. BOOLEAN last in – my maths blind spot again. Like Kevin above I found myself keeping a running total of first and last letter deletions
6.21. Helped that I knew BOOLEAN and I’d seen TUMULUS before. Also couldn’t spell PANETTONI.
Just under 30 minutes to mark a pleasant return to routine and dryish land.
Nothing too taxing but I failed to parse TAROT CARD and missed the reference to Kings in the allusion to London termini but in both cases I could see no alternative answer.
COD to Hoagy Carmichael’s wonderful STARDUST.
Thanks to jackkt and setter.
A rare morning solve for me, and the improvement is gratifying! 12’38” – and I bet I’d have been nearer 20 if I’d left it till this evening. BOOLEAN I only know because we’ve had it before (from the Victorian era mathemetician George Boole, professor at Cork University). Wasted a bit of time trying to think of an American word for wheelbarrow, and wondering if TUMBRIL might do. Hoagy C. liked to pretend he dashed off STAR DUST while staring love-lorn at the moon on a hot summer night. In fact — according to the future WW2 journalist Ernie Pyle who knew him at the time — “I’d like to tell you about the evening he wrote it (at the Pyle family home), but he asked me not to, because he says the public likes to think these songs are conceived under moonlight amid roses and soft breezes.” Who cares? It’s the most gorgeous melody. “Sometimes I wonder why I spend a lonely night, dreaming of a song — and a melody haunts my reverie, and I am once again with you, when our love was new, and each kiss an inspiration ….”
An enjoyable and fairly easy offering, completed in 22:13. FOI OTHER and LOI URGE ON. COD probably BOOLEAN as it’s nice to have a mathematical clue for a change. Unusually there were no anagrams (but that’s not a criticism). Thanks both!
32:32. Quite tricky, but fair I thought. I biffed a lot of the answers. LOI I thought I was going to have to cheat but got there in the end with CEDILLA.
10:41 This one suited me for some reason – and no errors!
COD: MOCHA
Thanks to our blogger and setter
Strangely this one fell out quite easily for me, only MACON and STARDUST were guesses from the wordplay. I liked “had a career”. Thanks for the blog.
Half an hour to finish, having spelt it PANETTONE (panettoni is the plural?) so stuck for a while on PERIODIC. The SW corner took longest, looking for a 5 letter idol. No complaints.
9:00. No major hold-ups.
I had a bit of trouble with PANETTONI because 1) I can’t spell it (wanted to put two Ns), 2) I’m not used to seeing it in the plural (and the clue isn’t particularly helpful in pointing you in that direction) and 3) it’s not bread, it’s cake. AFAIC the definitional difference between the two is the presence or absence of eggs. But ODE defines it as ‘a rich Italian bread made with eggs’, so I give up.
I hate to be That Guy, jackkt, but you have heard of Dune, because you solved a puzzle in which it appeared a couple of weeks ago. We all do it of course, and now it’s my turn: I’ll say I’ve never heard of the song and someone can point out when it’s appeared here before.
A version of the song by Mel Torme: https://youtu.be/6CWzyP1HWyw?si=7Yvnxm4LchX1H0S1
I was wondering if one of my fellow foodies would pipe up about PANETTONI not being bread but cake. Around NY it starts being marketed this time of year as a sort of festive holiday goody you might give someone as a treat. And now you tell me it is bread after all K!
It’s very common here at this time of year too, and very popular in our household. I love the stuff, but it will always be a cake to me, no matter what ODE says!
17.35, which surprised me because I thought I’d been slow. STARDUST went in as a probable, because philistine that I am I couldn’t hum it. PANECOTTA was a close contender for a while, despite being disqualified under spelling, wordplay and unbreadliness. The unpromising D?S?T?P took a long time to fill in. TITANIC went in as a clumsy CD, though I eventually saw the hidden. I’d go with &lit. I was ok with TUMULUS and BOOLEAN, Sutton Hoo for one and SETI@home (I thought, wrongly) for the other.
I’ve actually read Dune, though I thought it lacked the whizz-bangery of Doc Smith and the hedonism of the later Heinlein.
I like the blog style, Jack, with the ~ and all. Any chance you could work in a CEDILLA?
I meant to say that I think TITANIC is intended as an &Lit but I can’t quite see how ‘what’s helped to’ works as a containment indicator.
Isn’t that where “split” comes in, though it’s part of the fodder? Or can we assume something like “what helps to [complete]”. What helps the collection of letters? TITANIC does.
By normal standards ‘split’ isn’t allowed to do double duty like this. So yes I guess you have to read it like that: TITANIC ‘has helped’ ‘to split it an iceberg’ in so far as you can’t write one without the other. Even then though, the word ‘to’ is a problem, because by the normal rules setters aren’t allowed to included extraneous words in the containment fodder. I’m just not sure it works.
From TITANIC to SHELDRAKE in 26:01. Knew BOOLEAN algebra from the Burroughs TC500 Logic Book. I used to repair these ubiquitous banking computers in the ’70s. Each machine came with a logic book which was in Boolean Algebra. With a lot of effort, you could convert the relevant section to a circuit diagram. ALPHA was delayed by a biffed CODICIL which I eventually revisited. Thanks setter and Jack.
We’ve had very similar clues for TITANIC in the past. Almost unavoidable for the setter, it’s so nice when you see it for the first time. DOGMA struck me as odd, in that opinion doesn’t seem quite right. I missed the ‘of’ in the BOOLEAN clue and so the clue struck me as faulty. Never understood DUNGEON. 37 minutes.
50 mins.
Tricky puzzle! Glad to get through it.
Thanks, jack.
13.35
Done on the computer rather than trying to fat finger my way around the moby, which might have helped. I don’t really think my GK is very good but maybe stuff sticks: BOOLEAN known from here and TUMULUS from having seen plenty of them over the years. STARDUST not known but had to be.
Thanks Jacket and setter.
My thanks to jackkt and setter.
Not too challenging but my progress was stuttering.
5a Tumulus, was delayed by being fixated on Tumbril which doesn’t work.
25a Dogma, I was reluctant to enter it. Then I thought a bit. Dogma is usually something religious that is said (erroneously) to be axiomatic in order to defend the faith. So not only is it opinion but is wrong inasmuch as alternative dogmas often contradict.
28a Dungeon, Dune rang no SF bells but it was a gimme with the crossers.
4d Panettoni NHO AFAIK but the wordplay was pretty generous.
6d NHO Mimetic AFAIK.
19d Boolean, one of the benefits of a career in IT is that one does get to know about George Boole. I’m astonished Boolean isn’t in the Chambers cheater, it’s in my Cheating Machine (of course.)
Boolean is in the search function of my version of Electric Chambers.
Ah, I only went to
https://chambers.co.uk/ and used the crossword ???xx??? function, which failed to find Boolean.
However just looking up Boolean gives this:
“No exact matches for Boolean, but the following may be helpful.
Boolean algebra noun a form of algebra, used to work out the logic for computer programs, that uses algebraic symbols and set theory to represent logic operations.”
I was pleasantly surprised to finish in 16.10, a relief after yesterday’s un-Mondayish ordeal.
FOI VICTORIA CROSS
LOI ODDBALL
COD CEDILLA
Thanks J and setter
19:20 – seemed about average difficulty, completed with about average hamfistedness. Confidently bunged tumbril in for TUMULUS, using my patent solving technique of ignoring the clue, revisited 4d half a dozen times attempting to spell PANETONNI and gave up trying to parse 2d. Got there in the end somehow and, as ever, grateful for the explanations here.
23:04
Pretty comfortable with most of this – only answer unparsed was DUNGEON (didn’t think of DUNE as SF neither having seen the films nor read the book). No trubs with BOOLEAN (lot of that in programming) and TUMULUS (often seen on Ordnance Survey maps). I was another guesser of SHELDRAKE, reverse-engineering the answer into the clue. Liked CEDILLA.
Thanks Jack and setter
27:16. Some straightforward, but others hard to penetrate. I liked TAROT CARD and CEDILLA
The only toughie for me was PANETTONI, as the alternative (plural?) spelling didn’t fit with the already filled in PERIODIC TABLE. But the cryptic clue demanded an I ending. BOOLEAN was a shoo-in as I have a software development background. CEDILLA was definitely COD for me.
Another solve at about 40′ split over a golf game, which again probably helped. LOI I looked at “Tumults” for a while but couldn’t parse it, as riot was singular. I’d heard of TUMULUS but didn’t know it’s meaning so I biffed and won a prize.
Similar questions as others, eg I had PERIODIC TABLE early on which made an obvious PANETTON(I) hard to swallow?? BOOLEAN easy enough from the maths of my engineering studies. The only STARDUST that came to mind was Ziggy, though I knew it wasn’t that..
Thanks Jack and setter.
Flying start, but ran into turbulence in the SW corner. I was another to enter “panettone”, only realizing my error at the PDM of PERIODIC TABLE.
FOI DESKTOP
LOI EPISODIC
COD SHELDRAKE
TIME 9:24
Re 24 across, cf. 2 down of the Quickie: ‘Additional fuss when leader is ousted.’
28 minutes. I spent ages trying to parse DESKTOP and SHELDRAKE. When I wrote them in the parsing became obvious. There’s a lesson there I continue not to learn. Thanks Jack.
I must have had lucky hits in the gk here as I wended my way through quite happily. SHELDRAKE was a hold-up at the end as I couldn’t get Lee for shelter out of my mind. Loi PROSECUTE was the other ‘sticker’ as procedure fitted and I tried and tried to make it work until, er, I didn’t. Thanks for an interesting blog.
Always appreciative when the blogger finds the going tough, so many thanks jackkt.
Bit of a grind, and as an Arts student there was zero chance of me getting BOOLEAN, even with all the crossers, but CEDILLA was definitely one remembered.
Another reminder of how we experience the same puzzles differently. I came away thinking this puzzle was on the easy side, and that I’d performed poorly in taking around my average time of 20 minutes or so. I only vaguely knew BOOLEAN but the cryptic got it out of the recesses of my memory. More common is the one I think is a toughie before I see it described as “fairly straightforward” by a number of solvers.
When I read Jackkt’s initial comment that he found this tough, I was expecting a hard workout and a slow time, so I was surprised to find the answers flowed quite readily enabling me to finish in a quickish time for me of 27.22. However, I nearly gave up on my LOI 19dn, where it was clearly going to be a term I’d never heard of. I probably spent at least a couple of minutes trying to construct an answer and finally managed BOOLEAN. I was quite surprised on checking the answers to find it was right!
Quite a range of experiences on this one, which is probably a good thing. I’m in the “reasonably straightforward” camp once I got going.
DNK my LOI but the clueing made it easy.
FOI VICTORIA CROSS
LOI MIMETIC
Liked PERIODIC TABLE