Time: 36:02
A backward solve for me, right to left, which I think I found slightly more difficult than the SNITCH currently suggests. Of course, it’s all fair (and understandable now it’s filled), but the setter certainly found several garden paths down which I was more than happy to wander.
P.S. Apologies for the strange avatar. I have no idea where my frog has gone, nor how to change it back.
Definitions underlined.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Peripheral second function (5) |
| MOUSE – MO (moment, second) + USE (function). A peripheral device for a computer. | |
| 4 | Doctor using computer for appearances’ sake? (9) |
| PHOTOSHOP – cryptic definition. | |
| 9 | Mark left after mending a bolt (7) |
| SCARPER – SCAR (mark left after mending) + PER (a). | |
| 10 | Rock carries with top-of-the-range audio equipment (7) |
| TWEETER – TEETER (move unsteadily, rock) containing (carries) W (with). A type of speaker that plays high frequency (top of the range) sounds. | |
| 11 | Record played very recently with a blue note (14) |
| DISCONSOLATELY – DISC (record) + ON (played) + SO (very) + LATELY (recently). | |
| 14 | Knowing Meo cracks on century, pots made with relief (5,4) |
| CAMEO WARE – AWARE (knowing) containing MEO (which MEO cracks), all after (on) C (century). Pottery with patterns in relief for decoration. | |
| 15 | Exhibition with animals was mounted close to zoo (5) |
| RODEO – RODE (was mounted) + last of (close to) zoO. | |
| 16 | Lost articles including Eliot’s earliest letters (2,3) |
| AT SEA – A and A (articles) containing (including) the initials (earliest letters) of Thomas Stearns Eliot (Eliot). | |
| 18 | Driver toying with limits of Audi TT, vroom! (9) |
| MOTIVATOR – anagram of (toying with) the first and last (limits) of AudI, TT, and VROOM. | |
| 21 | Unlikely to go up if nothing but Jack Daniel’s in apartment (5-9) |
| FLAME-RETARDANT – MERE (if nothing but) + TAR (sailor, jack) + DAN (Daniel), all contained by (in) FLAT (apartment). | |
| 23 | Unexpected stress exchanging pound on holiday (7) |
| OFFBEAT – swap the order of (exchanging) BEAT (pound) and OFF (on holiday). | |
| 25 | Present red wine usually after you’ve finished eating fish (7) |
| PORTRAY – PORT (red wine usually after you’ve finished eating) + RAY (fish). | |
| 26 | Pontoon moved over there in case of tide (6-3) |
| TWENTY-ONE – WENT (moved) + YON (over there), all in the outermost letters (case) of TidE. The card game. | |
| 27 | Pass on popular music (5) |
| INDIE – DIE (pass) on IN (popular). | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Spymaster would like to be told false identity (4) |
| MASK – M (at MI5, spymaster) + ASK (would like to be told). | |
| 2 | Queen with uniform on that’s dubious decaying material (7) |
| URANIUM – RANI (queen) with the first U (uniform), then UM (that’s dubious). | |
| 3 | Bargain for pontificate? Cough up (11) |
| EXPECTORATE – EXPECT (bargain for) + ORATE (pontificate). | |
| 4 | Notorious school, one governed under pressure, has closed early (7) |
| PIRANHA – I (one) + RAN (governed), all under P (pressure), then HAs without the last letter (closed early). | |
| 5 | Result showing discrepancy? Surely not (7) |
| OUTCOME – OUT (discrepancy) + COME (as in, ‘come on!’, surely not). | |
| 6 | Feel obliged to love The Times? (3) |
| OWE – O (love) + WE (The Times). | |
| 7 | Man likely to go overboard who the admiral has impounded (7) |
| HOTHEAD – hidden in (has impounded) wHO THE ADmiral. | |
| 8 | Do attendees stay with groper on the loose? (10) |
| PARTYGOERS – anagram of (on the loose) STAY with GROPER. | |
| 12 | Roman later achieved success thanks to Parisian spending millions (11) |
| ARRIVEDERCI – ARRIVED (achieved success) + mERCI (Parisian ‘thanks’) missing the ‘m’ (spending millions). Italian for ‘see you later’. | |
| 13 | Facing the Pacific, perhaps on craft one customised (10) |
| OCEANFRONT – anagram of (customised) ON CRAFT ONE. | |
| 17 | Take people into Santa’s workforce to the north? (7) |
| SNAFFLE – ELF FANS (people into Santa’s workforce) reversed (to the north). | |
| 18 | Lively team’s run out great player (7) |
| MAESTRO – anagram of (lively) TEAMS, then RO (run out, cricket scoring). | |
| 19 | Tramp eats mostly ripe bananas (7) |
| TRAIPSE – anagram of (bananas) EATS with most of RIPe. | |
| 20 | Thief’s opening hardened safe in university office (7) |
| TENURED – first letter of (…’s opening) Thief, then ENURED (hardened). | |
| 22 | A little butchery business from behind cowshed (4) |
| BYRE – reverse (from behind) hidden (a little) in butchERY Business. | |
| 24 | American’s scarf warm but not hot (3) |
| EAT – hEAT (warm) minus (but not) the ‘h’ (hot). US slang for eat. | |
So many great clues and misdirections in this. PHOTOSHOP was very clever I thought. FLAME RETARDANT went in when I finally twigged to ‘unlikely to go up’ but the parsing came very slowly. Liked TWENTY ONE with ‘yon’ for ‘over there’. ARRIVEDERCI for Roman ‘later’, very good. EXPECTORATE and DISCONSOLATELY went in pretty quickly to give lots of checkers. I put SNAFFLE in but took a while to parse. I thought OFFBEAT might have been ‘overeat’ early on, being something to do with putting on pounds over the holidays, but snaffle put paid to that. And, I thought SCARF was just how the Americas might pronounce ‘scoff’ as I didn’t know its other meaning for ‘eat’. DNF as I couldn’t see TENURED.
Thanks William and setter.
Finished! Don’t know how I did, but I did. In about 50. Needless to say I found this tough going but gradually succeeded in penetrating the impenetrable. A terrific challenge, for me at least, thanks William.
From I Was Young When I Left Home:
When I pay the debt I OWE
To the commissary store
I will pawn my watch and chain and go home
Go home, Lord Lord Lord
I will pawn my watch and chain and go home
This took me an hour but I (nearly) always felt I was going to get there eventually so I was pleased to finish without resorting to aids. I had unfinished business in every quarter as I progressed around the grid and at the end had to return to each in turn to sort out the stragglers. MOUSE, URANIUM and MASK were my last three in.
I failed to parse EAT (NHO the American ‘scarf’) and SNAFFLE where I was indignant at Santa’s helpers being ELFS until I read Will’s blog and realised my error.
For outcome, can ‘come’ on it’s own mean surely not? I can bring to mind ‘come on’ and ‘come now’ but not just ‘come’.
Me too. The dictionary says:
Expressive of encouragement, protest or reproof (often in phrases come come or come now).
13.30
Untricky Friday: no biffs! Putting in TWEETER inevitably had me worrying that I might get flutter on my bottom.
LOI SNAFFLE (and COD, once I read the explanation above).
Quite benign for a Friday.. I liked the elf fans.
Mention of tweeters reminds me of Flanders & Swann’s High Fidelity:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fJmmDkvQyc
21:13. LOI OFFBEAT. SNAFFLE put in with a shrug not seeing “people into” for FANS. Some great clues. SCARPER, TWENTY-ONE and PHOTOSHOP were my favourites. Thanks William and setter.
35 minutes, the last 10 of which were spent staring at T_E_T_R for 10a, thinking of TWEETER but not somehow not seeing rock=teeter, until eventually the penny dropped (not being entirely familiar with it as an audio device didn’t help).
– Got MOUSE without seeing the definition of ‘peripheral’ as a noun (thought it referred to a shy person who would be on the periphery of social gatherings!)
– Relied on the wordplay for the unknown CAMEO WARE
– Spent ages trying to get ‘elves’ in some form into 17d before rethinking and getting SNAFFLE
– Didn’t know there’s a word ‘enured’ meaning ‘hardened’ (inured, yes, but not enured), but TENURED had to be
Thanks William and setter.
FOI Owe
LOI Tweeter
COD Flame-retardant
Just for you! You want woofers and tweeters?
Love that sketch (I now always hear the word gramophone in the way Rowan Atkinson says it), but had forgotten the tweeters bit. Thanks!
Please explain abbreviations FOI, LOI and COD. TIA
FOI – First one in
LOI – Last one in
COD – Clue of the day
There’s a glossary here: https://timesforthetimes.co.uk/glossary
DNF after an hour. I was still missing OFFBEAT and SNAFFLE. I’d biffed EAT but I’m not much the wiser as to why. COD to TENURED, the last one I managed. ARRIVEDERCI, Roma, from last week’ hols. A toughie. Thank you William and setter.
36 mins. High quality Friday puzzle even if it was a little gentler than some.
For L2I I guessed SNAFFLE giving me OFFBEAT then tried SNAMFLE before sussing the parsing and putting it back.
HO Scurf, not Scarf but what’s a vowel sound between friends.
Too many great clues to list but liked INDIE simply because I liked Indie. Thanks to William and Setter.
Returning to see if my post worked I noticed nobody has mentioned the snooker theme in 14a. Too obvious? Or maybe generational like TWEETER.
Hmm, good (s)pot! Wasn’t there a player called Tony Meo?
Exactly. Of course we didn’t need to know that to solve it but I’m sure that’s what the setter meant.
30:56
Clever stuff. COD: PARTYGOERS
Thanks to William and our setter.
Apparently significantly harder than yesterday’s, says the SNITCH, yet I romped through it in 22 mins (but couldn’t do more than five clues yesterday). I’m a weirdo, seemingly. Only MOUSE and CAMEO WARE gave any trouble, but crossers put both beyond doubt.
32:13 I found this quite a bit more straight forward than yesterday although I wasn’t 100% confident when pressing submit. CAMEO WARE and EXPECTORATE (which feel like words I should know but don’t) holding me up. Century and MEO cracks convinced me it had to be COMES something.
Couldn’t see how SNAFFLE worked which led to me considering whether the setter had used the plural ELFS. Certainly a facepalm moment when reading it in the blog.
Also I didn’t parse TWEETER which I knew was some audio equipment but no idea of its function.
As a former TENURED academic before redundancy I have a slight quibble with that definition but liked the clue.
COD the notorious school of PIRANHAs
Thanks blogger and setter
Just over the half hour but with 2 careless spelling mistakes due to not reading the clues properly. FLAME RETARDeNT and ARRiVaDERCI. Eeejit! Thanks setter and William.
Missed the SNAFFLE parsing, having decided that it was OK to have elfs not elves because Susie Dent would accept it on Countdown. Much that was very devious but enjoyable and I biffed several and used the Check button, which I shouldn’t have done, and came here for the explanations. 55 minutes.
I’ve noticed that few people now have avatars, just those grey things. Mine had gone and so I re-logged in, remembering to tick the remember me button, which has always recovered it, but not now.
I am hoping the avatar loss is temporary .. lack of communication between this site and Gravatar.com. Wait and see, my advice.
My solves this week were all within five minutes of each other, a bit unusual given the snitch variation, although I see I’m not alone in finding yesterday’s a comparative struggle. 21:12 today which I’ll happily take thanks to a little flurry at the end. Several unparsed mysteries remained post-solve: OUTCOME, OFFBEAT and SNAFFLE, along with whatever a TWEETER was and that spelling of INURE. Very much liked it – thanks setter and William for the unravelling.
51:24. I haven’t been doing too well with the hard ones lately so (a) I’m pleased to have finished this one and (b) it can’t have been as hard as some.
Lots to enjoy. I only got as far as ELFS(?) with SNAFFLE but it had to be. I liked PORTRAY, where most of the clue was needed for PORT, and the very neat TWENTY-ONE
27.15. Loved it! When I was a nipper at Beginners’ Sunday School, we used too sing the offering in to “hear the pennies dropping, listen how they fall”. That was petty much the experience throughout this. Unusually for me, I’ll pick out the CD PHOTOSHOP as one such, and add the ELF FANS and the complex FLAME RETARDANT as stand-outs in the genre.
It’s what Fridays are for, tricky but fun.
One of my wavelength days looking at other folk’s times, got through in 19:37, finishing with PORTRAY.
If only I could spell – I had put FLAME RETARDeNT (which now I’ve written it out, just looks wrong) and because I couldn’t parse the clue very easily, I left it. Bah!
DNF
24:30 – no complaints, though I suspect I made harder work of things than necessary.
Wonderful puzzle. So many clues went in on a biff and a prayer so thx William for the parsing. So much elegant cluing to enjoy here but chapeau to the elf fans and flame retardant.
Thx William and setter
Compared with some recent Fridays, this was decidedly approachable – though not quite as straightforward as the initial write-in for MOUSE promised … DISCONSOLATELY, ARRIVEDERCI, FLAME RETARDANT and EXPECTORATE were my faves. A shade under 35 minutes my time.
I think this is a good crossword . Not easy but fewer odd words than say yesterday. Took me a while but at least only in the SCC not VSCC.. thanks setter and blogger
Major interruptions today so no time to report, but certainly near sixty minutes I would say. An enjoyable puzzle where the gloss was taken off by my careless SCAMPER for 9ac. As it was my LOI, I didn’t bother to parse it properly thinking it was SCAR wrapped around something. Annoying to get something so straightforward wrong.
34:25
Decent solve with many enjoyable misdirections – PHOTOSHOP was a favourite – like one of those Christmas hampers where you find something else delightful below every wodge of raffia and in every corner. Had to think twice how to spell ARRIVEDERCI. Always a pleasure when everything is fully parsed as well.
Thanks William and setter
Never a good sign when you can’t get 1a. Why is a mouse peripheral ?- I would have thought it was central to controlling the screen.
Not my best day…
Central in importance for most computer users, maybe, but peripheral in terms of connected to the central device peripherally?
Still an attachment. The keyboard and the monitor are peripherals also, as is the printer ..
Just over an hour, but what a delight this puzzle was! A good cryptic clue will hide the literal definition as well as possible and the usual way to do that is to keep it (or even definitions in the wordplay) small and unnoticed. But this puzzle, on many occasions, did just the opposite, with concise wordplay and long descriptive phrases as definitions. It worked very well and all of the best clues were like that: PHOTOSHOP, SCARPER, and my COD, SNAFFLE (which I only solved after giving up on putting the V of ELVES anywhere). A real treat for a Friday.
26:06. I think I was on the wavelength for this one – a fair amount of educated bidding and parsing after the fact going on. didn’t get the full parsing of FLAME RETARDANT until the blog. thanks for the generous cluing of ARRIVEDERCI otherwise that could have been a trip hazard. loved the ingenious hiding of the definitions e.g. do attendees. great puzzle
A dual effort with Mr Ego, having done at most half on my own. We got there in the end, but like several others, I misspelt RETARDeNT. Unlike them, I parsed it carefully, as I couldn’t decide if it was that or RESISTANT. I figured that DEN referred to Daniel in the lions’ den, missing the obvious Dan. DISCONSOLATELY, apart from the first 4 letters, was very late going in – I wanted to put ‘discolouration’ – and CAMEO WARE took a long time over the second word. All in all, it was a wrestling match, with a lot of time working out the parsing of those we did get. The last two in were OFFBEAT and SNAFFLE, where I lost the will to actually work out the parsing anyway, so thanks for the explanation, which I now realise is quite clever – not ELFS at all! PIRANHA resisted for ages, and was brilliant, as was ARRIVEDERCI.
DNF, defeated by SNAFFLE/OFFBEAT, couldn’t get ELVES out of my head.
Elf fans. Partygoers. Flame Retardandt. Very elegantly done, setter.
Please explain abbreviations :- FOI, LOI and COD. TIA.
See the glossary, linked above.
I just want to see if my avatar will come up.
…
Actually, you could just read the previous reply to you when you asked the same queston, above.
(?!)
And my avatar did come up.
Done on Sunday evening in 28’07”. Some wonderful clues. BARGAIN FOR PONTIFICATE is great. Had to presume SCARF meant EAT because I’d never come across that before. I was a FLAME RESISTANT for a while, but luckily couldn’t parse so kept in back of my mind that I might have to adapt. Good to see an outing for that ghastly corporate jargon usage DRIVER. Many thanks.