Time: DNF in 36:41
Not my finest half-hour. I had thought I was struggling most with the SW, but it turns out that a reasonable mistake near the top scuppered me in my haste to finish.
I had ‘put’ as the first part of 12ac, and bunged ‘prejudice’ in as LOI at 2dn without properly checking the checkers (!). Having sort of guessed my answer to 10ac earlier, none of this seemed to matter, but I ended up with a mess of red squares (well, crossed out squares).
In my opinion, hardest of the week but solvable with more patience than I had today.
Definitions underlined.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Lay down fancy red carpet for collecting Oscar (4-6) |
| TAPE-RECORD – anagram of (fancy) RED CARPET containing (for collecting) O (Oscar). My FoI, despite the lateral definition. | |
| 6 | Fly back from China in 747? (4) |
| TANG – GNAT (fly) reversed (back). I’m making a big assumption here, as I’m too lazy to check what happened in China in the 8th century AD. | |
| 10 | Thoughtlessly move mother to an inferior place (7) |
| MAUNDER – MA (mother) + UNDER (an inferior place). NHO. I had ‘meander’ in my head so didn’t spot that I changed this answer with my last entry. As an aside, I don’t like the way I get the result as soon as I type my last letter, and don’t get the chance to check. | |
| 11 | Trouble saving on the back of downturn in digital business (4,3) |
| NAIL BAR – AIL (trouble) + BAR (saving) after the last letter (back) of downturN. I still enjoy this sort of definition, even if we’re spoiled by a surfeit of them. | |
| 12 | Idolised son took off after school with new Tesla (3,2,1,8) |
| SET ON A PEDESTAL – S (son), then APED (took off) after ETON (school), then an anagram of (new) TESLA. I solved this clue from the back with the anagram and enumeration. Well, I say solved. I have always said “put on a…” | |
| 14 | Pieces of paper to hold together with pages? (9) |
| CLIPPINGS – CLIP (to hold) plus (together with) PINGS (pages). | |
| 17 | Put out powder for addict (5) |
| SNUFF – double definition. | |
| 19 | Fragment of tune Ed Sheeran really could use (5) |
| NEEDS – hidden in (fragment of) tuNE ED Sheeran. | |
| 20 | Food shown to be overheated apparently sent back (9) |
| PROVENDER – PROVEN (shown to be) + RED (overheated, apparently) reversed. | |
| 21 | If Peter is caught near silly point, that’s not really the end of the world (4,10) |
| CAPE FINISTERRE – anagram of (silly) IF PETER IS C (caught) NEAR. So good. A cape in Spain whose name literally means ‘end of the world’ or ‘land’s end’, but is obviously not. Fantastic surface too. COD. | |
| 26 | Earth moves earlier for a seasoned lover (7) |
| AMATEUR – ‘E’ (Earth) moves forward (earlier) in A + MATURE (seasoned). BIFD by me. Literally someone who does for the love of it, not because they’re particularly good at it – a bit close to the bone given my struggle to parse this one. | |
| 27 | Caretaker well set up for sailing eastern parts (7) |
| INTERIM – IN TRIM (well set up for sailing), parted by E (eastern). | |
| 28 | So which bit of news comes first? (4) |
| THEN – THE ‘N’ is the bit of ‘news’ that comes first. | |
| 29 | Without arms, striped coats remain hot (10) |
| BAREHANDED – BANDED (striped), containing (coats) ARE (remain) + H (hot). | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Pet? You shouldn’t have one (4) |
| TAME – TA (you shouldn’t have) + ME (one). | |
| 2 | Make poor value bandages more expensive in A&E (9) |
| PAUPERIZE – PRIZE (value) containing (bandages) all of UP (more expensive) inside A+E. I suppose if the cost of something is up, it is more expensive, but this was too much for me. The less said about cost/price the better. | |
| 3 | Half of extremists love receiving equipment (5) |
| RADIO – half of RADIcals (extremists) + O (love). | |
| 4 | Suspect Puritan behind Christian Union’s dramatic rise? (7,2) |
| CURTAIN UP – anagram of (suspect) after CU (Christian Union). Dramatic, as in, at the theatre. | |
| 5 | Queen published terms for rogue bee (5) |
| RANEE – RAN (published) plus the last letters (terms) of roguE and beE. A Hindi word for ‘queen’. | |
| 7 | Bad actor with no aspiration and little range (5) |
| AMBIT – hAM (bad actor) without the ‘h’ (with no aspiration) + BIT (little). | |
| 8 | Republican waving red flag or Democrat? (6,4) |
| GERALD FORD – anagram of (waving) RED FLAG OR D (democrat). | |
| 9 | Vermin get it after new guy given contract (8) |
| LICENSEE – LICE (vermin), then SEE (get it) after N (new). | |
| 13 | Picture destroyer’s current helm officer commanding, “Carry on” (10) |
| ICONOCLAST – I (current) + CON (helm) + OC (officer commanding) + LAST (carry on). The verb ‘con’ for ‘steer’ or ‘helm’ was new to me. | |
| 15 | Notice of vacancy perhaps sent for nothing (4-4) |
| POST-FREE – ‘there is a POST FREE’ is perhaps a notice of a vacancy. Free from the usual postage charge. | |
| 16 | Timber structure in the back full of returned merchandise, mostly (5,4) |
| SCOTS PINE – SPINE (structure in the back) containing (full of) STOCk (merchandise, mostly) reversed (returned). | |
| 18 | Eg zombies eating Roger missing characters that are even fresher? (9) |
| UNDERGRAD – UNDEAD (e.g. zombies) containing (eating) RoGeR (missing the even letters). Fresher (or Freshman, in the US) is a first year undergraduate. | |
| 22 | What you might take across country with power above? (5) |
| PLANE – LANE (what you might take across country) with P (power) above. &lit. | |
| 23 | Work for the Met, maybe cycling around manor (5) |
| NORMA – the letters from MANOR cycling). MANOR > ANORM > NORMA. A work which might be shown in the NY Met(ropolitan Opera House). | |
| 24 | Capsized craft supports mate once on top (5) |
| EXTRA – reversal of (capsized) ART underneath (supports) EX (mate once). | |
| 25 | Surrounded by morning papers (4) |
| AMID – AM (morning) + ID (papers). | |
I thought yesterday’s was harder! I at least managed to finish this on the night (here) when it came out. Haha. TANG is my COD.
Not at all easy – I got to TIME for 1D with Oet? Being Pacific Eastern Time and TIME being a landlord’s call for “you shouldn’t have one” – wrong again, not for the first time & wont be the last! Chris
43:03. There was definitely some wordplay I needed the blog for today. TAME was a guess based on ‘pet’ – didn’t get wordplay at all. DNK that LICE were ‘vermin’, so spent ages trying to make MICE work. PAUPERIZE took ages and I was worried about the Z, as I assume it’s not standard British English. I wasn’t sure why SNUFF is ‘powder for addict’ as opposed to just ‘powder’ – surely some use snuff irregularly. Glad I noticed fairly swiftly that it should be SET rather than PUT ON A PEDESTAL, although, like William, had never heard the former. Overall, the kind of puzzle that makes you pleased with yourself for finishing, which is a good feeling!
TANG was a fantastic clue.
Thanks setter and William.
With you dr.shred on the lice and the Z, and the more common usage PUT ON A PEDESTAL.
45′ maybe
like Guy, I thought this was easier than yesterday’s; but not easy. I finished it, anyway, although with an S at PAUPERIZE.. Like Dr Shred, I spent too much time on mice before finally thinking of lice. I don’t know if anything momentous happened in China in 747, but the TANG dynasty was running things then. Lovely clue, my COD. I also liked INTERIM. I liked the puzzle, for that matter.
A very enjoyable puzzle that I felt I made heavy weather of in some places, although perhaps not seeing the Snitch.
TANG was my COD as well.
William – if you have access to the Crossword Club, I’d suggest solving there. It doesn’t tell you if you’re correct or not the moment you enter the final letter, so you can check your answers and, if preferred, submit off-leaderboard.
Happy to have managed to solve a very tricky puzzle but fluffed PAUPERIZE as pauperiSe despite having correctly parsed the clue. Bah!
37.56 but a technical DNF as I used cheats on the last few holdouts. That said I found it overall tough but fair with some really witty clues.
FOI SET ON A PEDESTAL
LOI PLANE
COD UNDERGRAD
Thanks William and setter
TANG was excellent
Abandoned after the hour.The SW of ICONOCLAST, AMATEUR and THEN remained impenetrable and probably would have for evermore. I had battled through the rest and I liked TANG. Thank you William and setter.
Ditto, exactement!
DNF, defeated by TANG. I thought of it and saw the connection to gnat, but never moved away from thinking of 747 as the plane.
– Relied on wordplay for the unfamiliar MAUNDER
– Am also more familiar with ‘put on a pedestal’ rather than SET ON A PEDESTAL, but ‘put on’ wouldn’t parse and I eventually saw what we needed
– Being pedantic, I think the definition for CAPE FINISTERRE includes ‘point, that’s’
– We’ve had Rani before, but have we had RANEE?
– Haven’t seen con=helm before as used in ICONOCLAST… yet another meaning of con we need to be aware of! And I think ‘officer commanding’ is giving OC rather than CO, otherwise the letter order doesn’t work
Thanks William and setter.
COD Tang
Thanks Chris. Fixed.
27:28 – a large part of it being held up in the SW by a confidently-thrown-in NOTE at 28A (So = a note, what starts NEWS? NOT E. Yes, I know now…..)
Good to see PLANE appearing (which is what put me in the right direction eventually) having spent a fair amount of time thinking of a 3 letter word that wasn’t JET to go with the A at 6A before that particularly penny worked its way through the mechanism. Good misdirection there setter!
12A also held me up for a bit with a thrown in PUT on a pedestal. Then finally looked at the anagrist again when PAUPERISE came to mind – before then realising they wanted a Z not an S.
All in all a slow week, here’s hoping for a slightly easier ride from Monday….
Like Kevin G., I messed up the PAUPERIZE with an S. Didn’t parse. Only self to blame. Very enjoyable and meaty puzzle . I always thought it was PUT on a pedestal, but maybe I’m influenced by the Stones song Tops: “Every man has the same come-on: I’ll make you a star, I’ll take you a million miles from all this, Put you on a pedestal”. TANG – great clue. Ditto GERALD FORD and UNDERGRAD. 24’34” if only I’d taken time to parse.
37:37. Anyone else have (musical) NOTE (NOT E) for 28A? It gave me no end of trouble getting finished, having it in until ICONOCLAST scuppered it. I never knew what “Cape Finisterre” meant. Great clue now I see it explained. Good stuff overall. Thank-you William and setter.
DNF. Couldn’t make head or tale of 6ac. On the one hand it’s really annoying to be defeated by such an excellent clue, on the other I’m quite glad because I had PAUPERISE anyway.
Superb puzzle, I enjoyed it enormously until the end and TANG is good enough to mitigate any sense of bitterness at being beaten fair and square (the worst way to be beaten 😉 ).
34.377, surprisingly high on the leaderboard and a fair chunk of it due to agonising over TANG where I saw GNAT backwards but was obsessed with “back from China”=A and couldn’t pair the ?date with the dynasty. Also worried about the Z in PAUPERIZE, because that’s usually US spelling, though isn’t there an Oxbridge debate about that? Struggled with the spelling of FINISTERRE – now apparently FitzRoy – until I realised why “not the end of the world”. Missed the pages/PINGS bit, but didn’t worry about that!
I did like THE N: I obviously must prefer simple clever clues to clever clever clues like TANG.
Well blogged, William and sympathies with the struggles.
The OUP favours -ize, which has a long history in British English – longer I think than -ise. Shakespeare mostly used -ize I believe.
Yes but he also referred to himself as SHAGSBUR on occasion!
38:13 Found this much tougher than yesterday. Almost gave up before LICENSEE suddenly popped into my head. Needed William to explain RANEE as “terms” was new to me. Lots of excellent clues but TANG was pick of the bunch.
Thanks to William and the setter
Plenty to enjoy here but I had many unexplained bits and pieces that all seem so obvious having read the blog. I think all of my MERs have been covered by others, but I still maintain I never heard anyone say SET (rather than PUT) ON A PEDESTAL, even though I’m sure SET is a variant and possibly even the original.
Sadly, like a couple of other contributors, I put PAUPERISE despite having parsed the clue correctly. I’m simply not a fan of the Oxford -ize convention and tend to ignore it at every turn.
Collins has ‘set’ as the principal version, and says ‘put’ is American English! Not my experience at all.
I wonder what’s in Brewer’s. I don’t have access to my copy at the moment.
Brewer’s has – Pedestal. To set on a pedestal.
DNF having never heard of the queen and focusing on a bee which doesn’t return to the hive (if there is such a thing). Plus LICENSEE eluded me; checkers not helpful, mice in my head, lice are vermin? Guy with a contract seemed a stretch for me too.
Other clueing very good if chewy, l did have meander but knew it didn’t work and MAUNDER appeared somehow.
Thanks William and setter
My thanks to william_j_s and setter.
DNF, big time. I found this a bit annoying as when I had got a clue I was often uncertain it was right; usually it was but the feeling wasn’t good.
6a Tang. I wanted it to be gnat but was so transfixed by the Jumbo and the back from China being “a” that I missed the reversal to Tang.
12a Set on a… was rather green painty but is in Wiktionary along with the more usual Put on.
14a Clippings biffed. Actually it was better than I thought at the time as I didn’t see pages=pings.
29a Barehanded biffed.
1d Tame. Um, I put it in because nothing else would fit. I missed one=me.
5d Ranee biffed, didn’t see terms=last letters.
22d Plane, it was a guess.
23d Norma, a cycling clue that I got for a change.
1hr 7 mins. This was straightforward until it wasn’t. The left hand side giving me the biggest headache.
Ten minutes of no progress before I let the unparsed MEANDER go and corrected it. PINGS finally came for pages allowing CLIPPINGS and finally finished on the unparsed ICONOCLAST after most the solve time being convinced it ended CRAFT.
I think minor things slowed me down here. I would also PUT rather than SET ON A PEDESTAL. The Z in PAUPERIZE. NORMA fits the word play but couldn’t think of a police or weather related definition (oh it was neither).
The blog needed a good read today plenty half or unparsed.
The GERALD FORD anagram was pretty neat.
Thanks blogger and setter
I fear that Fridays are generally out of my league but was delighted to end up with a filled grid and a full set of parses today. TANG is simply outstanding. I wonder just how many Google searches were done this morning in the vain hope that a JAET or a JEAT would turn out to be a nho insect species that’s not in the dictionary? I am another who would probably PUT on a pedestal but SET was very fairly clued and I squirmed when entering the Z in PAUPERIZE but, again, the cluing made the correct answer very clear. I wasn’t trying to be quick and was very satisfied with c45 minutes.
FOI: CURTAIN UP
LOI: AMATEUR
COTD: TANG, naturally, though UNDERGRAD ran it close
Stopped after 28′ without LICENSEE, fixated on mice and then nits.
Liked THEN, TANG and CAPE FINISTERRE, which I only knew through the shipping forecast as it was replaced by Fitzroy. Hesitated over PAUPERIZE ( and now see my spellchecker wants to change it), but got it right.
Thanks william and setter.
74:30 Quite slow today – held up by RANEE (which I thought was very clever and for a while was looking for a NHO for a rogue bee… – i am sure there are some weird bee terms out there). AMATEUR took a while as well. I think it was the hardest of the week by a bit – but also I felt very much off the wavelength as opposed to the last couple of days. Very enjoyable.
Foiled by 9d. I struggled for an hour and then decided, sod it, there must be some vermin I’d never heard of, NICERSEE. Never thought of lice, just mice. Eejit! In my defence it parses: N(ew) ICER (one given contract) SEE (get it). Parsed the rest apart from TAME and AMATEUR. Thanks setter and William.
It seems that nowadays day after day we have difficult crosswords and I take over an hour, although looking at the SNITCH figures I see that isn’t always the case — really only Wednesday – Friday apparently, and even then … In this one there were some very nice clues (TANG and CAPE FINISTERRE in particular), the first of which utterly defeated me, but at least I got the other one fairly quickly. There were two about which I was uncomfortable: tame = pet in 1dn (OK I suppose, but thin); BAREHANDED = without arms in 29ac?
He fought barehanded. ie without weapons, or “arms”.
Yes, quite right. Wrong arms.
It’s just a flesh wound!
Yuk, wasn’t really feeling this, although that might be mood (and solving ability) dependent. Gave up at the 45 minute mark with 6 to go, mostly in the south. I still have last Friday’s to do as well.. think I’ll save that one for a bit. Some great stuff of course, and TANG is a thing of beauty – nice just to come here and admire some of the intricacies courtesy of William’s excellent blog.
Found this trickier than yesterdays.
Anyone unfamiliar with con = helm is clearly not a Trekkie. “You have the con, Mr Sulu” etc ..
Today I learnt what Finisterre means!
I normally put rather than set but it really doesn’t parse if so.
TANG was annoyingly good. Clear COD!
Con – yes, this was my reference too!
Definitely harder for me than yesterdays which I at least finished. Gave up after two sittings with (as mentioned above in reply to BW), ICONOCLAST, AMATEUR & THEN all unanswered.
I did like TANG.
Thanks william and setter.
Lovely puzzle that I really struggled with but fought my way through in 40 mins only to fail on pauperize. I put pauperise then thought it doesn’t parse so went for pauperice, never thinking of the damn z form of the word that I continue to regard as American English although I know it is acceptable either way and all the debates about the history but to my 67 year old mind it’s still flipping wrong😂
Thx William and setter
Nearly half an hour, which is very slow for me – and with PAUPERISE to boot, despite having parsed it correctly. Glad to see I wasn’t the only one. I seem to have lost my mojo this week, it’s the third in a row I’ve struggled with. LOI TAME, which went in with a shrug, completely failed to parse it. TANG was indeed glorious and the CAPE was a cracking anagram.
Realised PUT ON… didn’t work but sadly changed to SAT ON… so still couldn’t get 2d. I was several others short so it didn’t really matter. COD: TANG.
Another PAUPERISE here, with only myself to blame but it did feel mean to throw this in amongst all the other tricky solves which I did manage to pick apart, even SET in favour of PUT. I agree with TANG being COD (also my LOI) … the date masquerading as a plane was inspired. Loving these Friday challenges, they make the subscription seem all the more worthwhile.
DNF . Started this one late today as I had a lens replacement in one eye this morning. Can’t really blame that though, as I was never going to get Iconocast even with all the checkers. I have just never thought of it in that way.
Tang went in on reading, so didn’t perhaps fully appreciate it at the time.
I looked at plane for a long time, and when I eventually saw it, it was my COD
Thanks, William and setter for an excellent puzzle and blog.
Another enjoyable day of learning. Revealed about 6 or 7. Fairly happy with that as it seemed hard today. NHO MAUNDER or RANEE (or terms for end letters for that matter). Thought TANG was excellent, even though it was one of my ‘reveals’. Needed the blog big-time. Many thanks William.
Iconoclast – can you have commanding officer (CO) and officer commanding (OC) as abbreviations in crosswords ? Didn’t know that
DNF after 90 mins spread over the day. Turns out RANEE and AMATEUR were correct after all so a kind of moral victory.
Tried not only Put On but also UNHERALDED and MICENSEE, is that a word?
Did enjoy UNDERGRAD and CAPE F but some of it is so long ago I’ve forgotten now. Thanks as always.
Thought this was a breeze today, finished in bang on 30 minutes. Usually take a lot longer on a Friday. Surprised that so many spelled PAUPERISE with an S!
Having seen from the precis when looking at the Quickie blog that this was deemed harder than yesterday, I was very unhopeful of finishing, but nevertheless, managed to get through it eventually. I have to confess to a couple of checks on answers I’d put in, being unsure if they were correct – ICONOCLAST was one, and PLANE the other, which I have to say I thought particularly lame. However, TANG really wipes out any possible gripe about the clues – it was terrific misdirection and fooled me for ages. THEN was another PDM. CAPE FINISTERRE and SET ON A PEDESTAL were early solves and probably made the solution possible, with the number of crossers they supplied. I thought of PAUPERIZE, initially with an S, but parsing made it clear it had to have a Z. I’ve fallen into that trap before, by not parsing correctly. I also liked AMATEUR and PROVENDER and the anagram for GERALD FORD.
34.10
I thought this was a superb puzzle with some outstanding surfaces. TANG was brilliant and I liked TAME GERALD FORD and several others as well. Helped by not worrying about parsing (TAME and TANG where I saw a reversal of gnat and bunged it in still slightly unsure what 747 was all about!); and by seeing the CAPE and GERALD FORD quickly. The PUT/SET thing was confusing but I was confident on PAUPERIZE and even checked that the z was right.
Thanks William and setter.
I spent an hour and solved 17. CAPE FINISTERRE was so great, I got it finally after toying with the Scilly Isles and Land’s End, and was very pleased with my American self. I also loved ICONOCLAST.
Thanks setter and Willliam.
DNF. After 50m I still failed to get AMATEUR, RANEE or LICENSEE.
Thanks William and setter
41:18
Plenty of umming and ahhing over TAME and TANG. PAUPERIZE was fiendish to untangle, especially as I had PUT ON A PEDESTAL for ages until I went over the wordplay more thoroughly. Liked CAPE FINISTERRE and UNDERGRAD. Finished with LICENSEE after a considerable think.
Thanks W and setter
It seems I was in good company for this, as I had to cheat on a few just to keep going: TAME, ICONOCLAST (DNK meaning of) and SCOTS PINE . TANG was excellent, but I just assumed it was a dynasty date, and had to come here to understand PINGS for pages. Luckily my sister lives on CAPE FINISTERRE, otherwise I might not have got it, (don’t ask me why). Great fun, superb cluing.