A temporary glitch in the blogging calendar has given me my one shot. My first opportunity to blog the big one.
Not that there’s much to be said. It seemed to be around average difficulty, with nothing too obscure or controversial and I haven’t spotted any tricky themes or ninas. Just the expected high-quality Times crossword fare.
As usual the more interesting insights will come via the comments, so please don’t hold back!
(In the clues, definitions are underlined and anagram indicators are in bold italics. In the explanations (ABC)* indicates an anagram of abc. Deletions and other devices are indicated accordingly, I hope).
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Father’s behind packing case filled with earth (9) |
| PROCREATE – PRO (behind) + CRATE (packing case) “filled with” E (earth) | |
| 6 | Pulled in by severe current, pop up again? (5) |
| RECUR – Hidden in (pulled in by) seveRE CURrent | |
| 9 | Novel issued again following delays (3,3,4,5) |
| PUT OUT MORE FLAGS – PUT OUT (issued) + MORE (again) + F (following) + LAGS (delays) | |
| 10 | Material broadcast in resort (6) |
| REPAIR – REP (material) + AIR (broadcast)
The definitions overlap in the sense of to go somewhere often or in large numbers. As in “it is little I repair to the matches of the Southron folk”. (Incidentally I’ll be repairing to the matches of the Westron folk on Friday and Saturday, for those that worship). |
|
| 11 | Hard feeding budgie? It might grab you! (8) |
| THRILLER – H (hard) “feeding” TRILLER (budgie?) | |
| 13 | Turning aside cast in Cold Feet (10) |
| DEFLECTION – (IN COLD FEET)* | |
| 14 | Wine’s seen better days — case chucked away (4) |
| ASTI – Took me a while to see exactly what was having its case chucked away. |
|
| 16 | Penny leaving store takes in old London area (4) |
| SOHO – P (penny) leaving SHO |
|
| 17 | Rugby side welcomes more cultivated people working with Pride? (4-6) |
| LION-TAMERS – LIONS (rugby side) “welcomes” TAMER (more cultivated)
The surface may be a reasonable description of how The Game They Play In Heaven once saw itself. Maybe not so much these days. |
|
| 19 | Obscenity one’s always banned in lies about Widnes (8) |
| LEWDNESS – I (one) missing twice (always banned) in L |
|
| 20 | Revolutionary prison in Low Country (6) |
| MONACO – NAC [CAN (prison) reversed (revolutionary)] in MOO (low)
I’ve been tricked many times by low = moo, but “nobody beats Vitas Gerulaitis seventeen times in a row”. |
|
| 23 | Withdrawn sort given toil, upset, faced with therapist (9,6) |
| SHRINKING VIOLET – (GIVEN TOIL)* after (faced with) SHRINK (therapist) | |
| 24 | Thus perform mass in wicked place (5) |
| SODOM – SO (thus) + DO (perform) + M (mass) | |
| 25 | Passing tennis shot after cunning returns (9) |
| TRANSIENT – (TENNIS)* after TRA [ART (cunning) reversed (returns)] | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Musician played quietly in supporting part (5) |
| PIPER – P (played quietly) in PIER (supporting part) | |
| 2 | Were Peary and Henson first to be so delighted? (2,3,2,3,5) |
| ON TOP OF THE WORLD – Double def, the first one cryptic
Some historians now believe that Peary’s lesser-known offsider Henson may have been first to reach the North Pole. In any case he paid an awful price, losing eight of his lower extremities to frostbite. (He later joined the American Automobile Association after hearing they provided two free tows a year). |
|
| 3 | Back together about eleven in Manchester or Leeds? (8) |
| REUNITED – RE (about) + UNITED (eleven in Manchester or Leeds?)
There are a couple of association football teams known as Manchester United and Leeds United (we do the research so that you don’t have to). |
|
| 4 | Always embracing jolly host (4) |
| ARMY – AY (always) “embracing” RM (Royal Marine, or “jolly”) | |
| 5 | Stuck here or travelling back from Mars? (10) |
| EARTHBOUND – Double definition
Bound to earth, bound for earth. Funny old language. |
|
| 6 | Fibres are cut up with doubled force by climbing sloth (6) |
| RAFFIA – RA [AR On edit, after a few comments: Ai is another name for the three-toed sloth. |
|
| 7 | Criminal case legal hurdle for statesman (7,2,6) |
| CHARLES DE GAULLE – (CASE LEGAL HURDLE)*
Confession time. I assembled this into what seemed a plausible diplomatic term CHARGES DE ?????? and had just about settled on CHARGES DE LAULLE until La Penelope descended with a thud. |
|
| 8 | Checks taxes — not for the first time? (9) |
| RESTRAINS – RE (not for the first time) STRAINS (taxes) | |
| 12 | Strict regime? Family perish in street after a time (6,4) |
| ATKINS DIET – KIN (family) + SDIET [DIE (perish) in ST (street)] after A + T (time) | |
| 13 | One close to spies in Washington misses leaks (9) |
| DISCLOSES – I (one) + S [last letter of (“close to”) spieS in DC (Washington) + LOSES (misses) | |
| 15 | Sends up a perch to be used in cooked dishes (8) |
| PARODIES – A + ROD (perch) in PIES (cooked dishes)
Does anyone else recall reciting stuff about rods, poles and perches on a daily basis without having a clue (then or now) about what any of them actually meant? |
|
| 18 | An old Shakespearean corporal’s assumed name (6) |
| ANONYM – AN + O (old) + NYM (Shakespearean corporal)
Corporal Nym appears in The Merry Wives of Windsor and Henry V. Must have had a good agent. |
|
| 21 | Maybe G8 leaders to end talks after month? (5) |
| OCTET – ET [first letters of (leaders to) End Talks] after OCT (month)
G8 being literally a “group of eight” or octet. |
|
| 22 | American good with academician in Asian location (4) |
| AGRA – A (American) + G (good) + RA (academician)
A Royal Academician to be precise. |
|
23:21
DNK AI, which helped make RAFFIA my LOI. Also dnk that ANONYM could mean ‘pseudonym’.
I’m almost certain that I’ve only encountered the ai round these parts. Not that that’s any guarantee of remembering it of course.
Guess I have to brush up my Shakespeare, but I got ANONYM anyway! Having “close” in the clue to… DISCLOSES induced momentary doubt.
I was so far off the wavelength with this. PUT OUT MORE FLAGS rings a very distant bell but couldn’t see it. I biffed ASSOCIATE for 13d as I saw spies and thought ah, CIA and with ‘one’ as the first word of the clue gave me an ‘a’ to start with and thought the definition was ‘one close’. Missed PROCREATE and how does ‘e’ = earth? On the bright side, I did spot ASTI straight away as well as LEWDNESS, TRANSIENT, MONACO and PIPER. DE GAULLE was my first in, seeing it immediately. Clever clues but too good for me today.
Great blog G and I remember the Vitas quote as I heard it recently somewhere.
Surely the best sporting quote of all time? But I admit to quoting it way too often.
Never heard “ nobody beats Vitas Gerulaitis seventeen times in a row”, just looked it up, he said it after finally beating Connors. I still remember his Wimbledon semifinal against Borg, who did, in fact beat him 17 times in a row.
I could use that quote with my crosswords sometimes!
I assume you mean the Ashes on Fri and Sat. I’ll be glued to the tv for the duration.
Yes we’re going to the first two days. Looking at the respective batting line-ups, that might be all that’s required.
E = Earth in a plug
Thanks… says the electronics bloke.
e for the earth connection when wiring a plug, etc.
54:45
LOI RAFFIA, which I still don’t get. Why is AI=sloth? And what about E=Earth? Is that because it’s on a British plug, that’s a bit of a stretch.
Didn’t really understand REPAIR, is that “rep” as in a comedians material? And repair=resort is far from obvious.
NHO ANONYM, or Nym for that matter.
I also went down the route of Charges d’Affaires, Chef de Mission etc.
Saw MOO quickly, but I had M for month at the start of what should have been OCTET, so I reversed MOO as well. OCANOM didn’t look right, though.
Most encyclopaedias use the formulation that Peary is “usually credited” with being first to the North Pole. His mileage on his last few days were extremely high for someone at that stage, and his only accomplice couldn’t check his calculations. I guess we’ll never know.
REP was in one of the crosswords last week as part of the clue. A material similar to corduroy.
“Ai” is the name of the three-toed sloth.
It’s in Collins!
And so is “rep”: “a silk, wool, rayon, or cotton fabric with a transversely corded surface.”
REPAIR: “to have recourse (to) for help, etc” (Collins definition 2)
RESORT: “to have recourse (to) for help, use, etc” (definition 1)
The first example given in Collins for “e” as an abbreviation is… “earth.”
Thanks Guy. I’ve added a clarification to the blog re “ai”.
As mentioned I’m sure we’ve encountered it here before. And I’m even more sure that “rep” for material has come up numerous times.
BTW, your linking of REPAIR to RESORT differs from mine, so there may be multiple paths to the solution.
Oxford Languages (the “Google dictionary”) has:
RESORT: a place that is frequented for holidays or recreation or for a particular purpose.
REPAIR: a place which is frequently visited or occupied.
What does it have at that link for the verbs? Obviously, the noun & verb defs are related. But the verb definitions I showed are virtually identical to each other.
Nothing as conclusive as your example in the “recourse” sense. But it does have this:
verb, REPAIR: go to (a place), especially in company.
verb, RESORT: go often or in large numbers to.
As I said, multiple paths.
The absence there of the words “recourse” or “help” seems to miss what “resort to” has always meant to me!
I don’t think I have your source in my armamentarium. Can you provide the link?
…
Never mind, I found it! 😉
Rep is in Chambers as Repertory which would work for “material” as you suggest, although perhaps for actors rather than comedians. That was how I parsed the clue anyway.
Enjoyed the blog as much as the crossword. The dig at rugby union was good but the Henson joke so groanworthy that it must go into the pantheon alongside VG and his hair.
Where have you been all this time?
Um, 26:23 for the puzzle, so well outside target.
Funnily enough I almost reached out to you last week as I was scheduled for a 24-hour stopover in HK on my way back from Kathmandu.
In the end it didn’t happen as I had to dump Cathay Pacific for Singapore Airlines. Maybe next time.
Welcome any time
I’m surprised no one has commented on the Waugh novel, one of his most vicious satires, in which Basil Seal once again takes center stage – there’s nothing like wartime for such an outrageous rogue. I nearly wrote in The Sun Also Rises, but it didn’t really fit the cryptic. I did do a lot of biffing – reunited, shrinking violet, lion-tamers. I couldn’t parse Asti, but four-letter wines are highly like to be exactly that.
Time: 30:01
The Hemingway was my first thought too. At least I’ve read that one!
I didn’t bother with the cryptic and in it went. Must have lost 11 minutes or so over that.
The Waugh novel is one my favourites and certainly one of his best, on a par with the Men at Arms trilogy .
47 minutes having missed that DEFLECTION is an anagram and EARTHBOUND a DD. Fortunately I had read the novel. It always amuses me when commenters remark that commonplace devices such as abbreviations are a bit of a stretch!
Forgot to add thanks to Galspray for stepping in. I had overlooked that normally I would have been on blogging duty today.
Absolute pleasure Jack. We look forward to your imminent return.
Hear, hear..
About 20 minutes (my laptop crashed halfway through and I had to start again). Nothing too tricky and a few gems, but being hyper-pedantic I felt that “Father” rather than “Father’s” would have been better for 1ac.
FOI ON TOP OF THE WORLD
LOI RAFFIA
COD LION TAMERS
Thanks G and setter
Pedantry is always welcome around here Inver. But in this case, “father” is in fact the definition, as indicated by the underlining in the blog (the apostrophe and the ‘s’ are not underlined).
You need to read the clue as Father (PROCREATE) is… and then the wordplay.
Belated thanks for that Galspray – it does now make (more) sense.
About half an hour.
– Thought the definition for 1a was at the end of the clue for a long time, so I was trying to fit R (‘father’s behind’) into a word meaning ‘case’ until I had enough checkers to figure out PROCREATE
– Pieced together the words for PUT OUT MORE FLAGS, and then the novel rang the vaguest of bells
– Had no idea who Peary and Henson were for ON TOP OF THE WORLD (a phrase that puts the wonderful Carpenters song in my head)
– Dredged up RAFFIA from somewhere, having parsed the first four letters but with no idea how the ‘ia’ part worked… I need to remember the ai sloth
– Had to trust there was a Corporal Nym to get ANONYM, a word I don’t recall seeing before
Thanks galspray and setter.
FOI Recur
LOI Raffia
COD Discloses
34 mins. Very much one for the regular. Remembered Rep and vaguely RM. Of the NHOs Nym was no problem but Ai caused some delay. Also the explorers and novel rang only very distant bells. Solved by cryptic skills rather than GK which is rewarding. Thanks galspray and setter.
37 minutes. Having boasted yesterday about my studies having given me a wide knowledge base, I had no idea who Peary was or how the Muppets related to the clue at 2d, and I needed all crossers to biff the answer. But I was most uncertain about PROCREATE for father, reckoning it takes two to tango. I entered these two last. I read the Evelyn Waugh some sixty years ago and could still remember the title. Otherwise I was happy. Thank you G and setter.
PS O my Hornby and my Barlow long ago. O my Washbrook and my Statham long ago.
15.25, with 1a the last in, which doesn’t usually speed things up. PUT OUT MORE FLAGS was in a puzzle I blogged in May, and a month ago in a Jumbo, so it more or less fell in. I forgot to parse. Indeed, I felt the long ones were very kind today, or perhaps I was just lucky with the blind guesswork. I did pause over ASTI to work out what the missing letters might be, and only twigged when I realised it was two words. But I’ve only just realised who the rugby side are.
Round here, the “patriotic” drapery epidemic has been fairly extreme, but whoever they are they need to heed Waugh’s instruction: most of the things, being cheap imports, are looking very tatty.
Decent blog, G, though I had to look up Westron folk to see whether they were in my pantheon. Not Middle Earth, then?!
Heh. Westron was just my attempt to reframe the Thompson poem in a Perth Oval (not the WACA!) setting.
I don’t think West Aussies would mind being called Westron folk. In fact anything without the word “east” in it would be fine.
Ah, right. I completely missed the cultural references, and discovered the Westron Folk as a company of music enthusiasts who meet in Weston-super-Mare, incredibly on Fridays and Saturdays (sic). Not the same thing at all!
The first time I repaired to Old Trafford was when my Dad took me to watch Lancashire v The Australians in 1953. I’ve mentioned Washbrook and Statham in my post. In the interests of balance, I perhaps should mention that bowling for the Aussies were Lindwall and Miller. Sadly, I was too young ever to see Bradman.
Ah, but you saw Miller. You were blessed.
ARMY and REPAIR were first 2 in. RAFFIA went in, but I had no idea where IA came from, so I waited for crossers to confirm. A bit of a slog through the rest of it until I was stuck with the country at 20a. As I’d biffed MOTET for 21d, this was a long time coming, but I eventually saw my mistake and OCTET and MONACO were last 2 in. 31:04. Thanks setter and Galspray.
20.39
Great puzzle; amusing blog. Knew it had to be RAFFIA but the parsing eluded me so thanks Galspray. Hopefully not the last time you appear mid-week.
8:59. No dramas. Nice to see you G, thanks for the amusing blog. I love the tennis quote, new to me. We’ll gloss over the gag at 2dn.
NHO Peary and Henson.
The clue for ASTI doesn’t work for me: ‘past it’ and ‘seen better days’ are not synonymous.
You wait ten years for PUT OUT MORE FLAGS to appear, and then three come along at once.
We all have a well-stocked repertoire of Dad jokes K. I don’t get to use them as much any more.
But more importantly, and I know I’m going to regret this, how is “past it” not a perfect synonym for “seen better days”?
One is something you are, the other is something you have. Or to put it another way, one is an adjective, the other is a verb.
Ah, I see your point. Think you’re being a bit picky though.
“How would you describe Australia’s current pace attack?”
“Past it”
“Seen better days”
Close enough for me.
LOL!
If it’s overly picky to say that a verb and an adjective can’t be synonyms then guilty as charged!
Does the ‘s in the clue fix the problem here?
I don’t thinks so. You can read it as part of the indication for PAST IT, but ‘has seen better days’ is still not an adjective.
39:20
Not really on the wavelength with some biffing evident. However, having read all of Waugh’s output many years ago, managed to bung in 9a from two checkers.
Stuff I missed:
LION TAMERS – no idea what was going on here apart from the definition
SHRINKING VIOLET – bifd – didn’t bother to parse
ON TOP OF THE WORLD – NHO Peary and Henson
ANONYM – not heard of the corporal
AI – sure I’ve heard of this before, but wouldn’t have been able to say what one is
Thanks G and setter
Ha, I have never heard of Ai as a sloth but came across the answer thinking that using AI causes sloth. Loved Lion Tamers! Lazy brain caused marshbound instead of Earthbound, causing impossibility for procreate! Also could not remember if it was Put out more (or one’s) Flags. Got it in the end! Totally fun morning, though, and blog is as ever, (free tows) delightful, thanks Cx
37:51 so quite a bit above usual Tuesday difficulty from my experience. I got all the 15 letter clues on the first visit which made me disappointed with my time but quite a few of the shorter ones I found on the chewier side. Also having that earworm of a Carpenter’s song in my head didn’t help.
Couldn’t quite get my head around about what was being used in LEWDNESS, I could see a Widnes with a missing I in there. Seems obvious after reading the blog.
Liked EARTHBOUND
Thanks blogger and setter
Enjoyed this a lot, particularly the literary touches.
The budgie took a while to land- rhyming slang? Adam Faith character? Smugglers?
Knew Ai from Scrabble days long ago. LION TAMERS and SHRINKING VIOLET raised a smile as did the, new to me, Gerulaitis quote.
Thanks to the setter and to Galspray for the deightful blog.
Steady solve today. Ai and the Waugh novel remembered from recent crosswords. Surprisingly.
Nice blog Gallers..
Ps: pretty sure Peary cheated.
All entered without any particular problems (I entered REUNITED without understanding, thinking that Manchester and Leeds referred to universities, and I wondered what Ted was doing there) but spent some minutes on my LOI PROCREATE, which was a very good clue with several plausible ways of leading one down the wrong track. 31 minutes.
Took two attempts to finish most of this. To begin with I put ‘okay’ for 14A, which would have been a good answer if the clue was slightly different(‘Seen better days – wine’s case chucked away’, with (T)OKAY(S) being the route to the answer). Then I miswrote ‘CHARLES DE GAULLE’ making ASTI impossible anyway. I also inexplicably failed to think of PARODIES or the ‘flags’ part of 9A (though VHO the book due to a previous appearance in one (or more?) of these crosswords).
25 – with much spent staring blankly at the eminently guessable REPAIR, the material having slipped my mind, and RAFFIA, the two-lettered sloth having never, to the best of my recollection, made it even that far.
Regarding rods, poles and perches, yes I DO remember this obscure unit of length as a kid. Five-and-a-half yards. Apparently useless, but I got the calculator out and discovered for the first time 75 years late that there are 320 to a mile, or 40 to a furlong. I suspect that therein once lay its utility, probably in measuring out farmland. (I seem to recall being told at school around the same time that ‘furlong’ comes from ‘furrow-long’.)
Thank you for that. I knew the rod length, but NHO perches and poles.
Annoyingly, rods are a unit of area, as well as of length. My allotment was 6 1/2 rods..
Four rods, poles or perches make a chain, which is the length of a cricket pitch. And a furlong times a chain equals an acre, a day’s ploughing.
My thanks to galspray and setter.
Fairly straightforward but it took me a while.
POI 9a Put out more flags, for me an xword only phrase; I think it has come up before. I might promise to read it some time, but I know I won’t.
14a (P)Asti(t) was worth a laugh.
20a Monaco, I was delayed by trying to force in Macau aka Macao, but neither is long enough and anyway not enough (any) Os.
2d On top of the world, DNK Peary and Henson but the enumeration was a giveaway. Looked them up and added both to Cheating Machine, but doubt that Henson will crop up in any more xwords as he was “only” the valet.
5d Earthbound, COD.
6d Raffia, why is AI sloth? Doh! The ai three-toed sloths, had forgotten them, so biffed.
15d Parodies. Yes, four rods, poles, or perches = 1 chain. They were on the back of my arithmetic workbook along with furlongs and so forth.
What a nice surprise to wake up and see your byline Galspray! I thought this might be a cakewalk but got stuck being unable to see what was going on with the budgie. Got so far as to wonder if it was some reference to the Sarah Ferguson literary oeuvre. Yikes.
41:18. LOI THRILLER. I thought LEWDNESS was clever. COD EARTHBOUND.
Rods are still around. My allotment is 5 rods, and the local council calculate my annual rent from that. It’s a bit odd as I think of rods as a measure of length, rather than area, but there we go
This went straight in, 10 or 12 mins. POMF not my favourite Waugh, though he is my favourite writer. Enjoyed the references to Francis L Thompson, author of The Hound of Heaven as well as At Lords.
I haven’t seen “jolly” for RM for a long time, in fact I thought that compilers had abandoned it.
RAFFIA was a bit laboured.
14:57. Nice puzzle… and blog. I liked the tennis clue best. Thanks Galspray and setter.
43 mins, but with some interruptions, and all parsed OK. Remembered Nym (along with, I think, Pistol). I think we had PUT OUT MORE FLAGS not long ago; it’s one of my favourites too. LOI THRILLER. A very amusing puzzle!
An enjoyable solve but really needed the blog – thanks galspray. NHO ai, nor jolly for RM, and DNK reference to Peary and Henson. Grateful for comments re: REPAIR. Another day of learning. What’s not to like.
An entertaining puzzle, all done in 40 minutes after a prolonged delay in the NW corner. A slight flinch at 13dn as I am not keen on clues like this where the answer repeats part of the clue. Otherwise no issues. I am a fan of Waugh though I have not yet got around to reading POMF. It reminds me of the story of an exchange of telegrams between Waugh and his editor when the great man was a correspondent reporting on a war in Abyssinia:
– WHY UNNEWS
– UNNEWS GOODNEWS
– UNNEWS UNJOB
– UPSTICK JOB ASSWISE
Maybe it’s apocryphal but who knows?
FOI – ASTI
LOI – PROCREATE
COD – ATKINS DIET
Thanks to Galspray and other contributors.
I attempted this after lunch in a pub in Paddington.
Failed to get PROCREATE, RAFFIA and THRILLER. And I don’t think I would have got those in any case.
Enjoyed the puzzle otherwise.
And nice to hear from you Galspray.
Are you worried about the ageing Aussie pace attack or is there a demon youngster in reserve?
David
Nice puzzle. Nice blog.
Nice that all the bits of slightly arcane vocabulary were known, in its entirety (excepting the rod/perch one), past puzzles.
Only one I didn’t know was Put Out More Flags. Never heard of it. But figured it out from all the checkers. A tad over 40 minutes, but eating dinner at the same time!
17’48” wrecked by a mistype -grrrr.