Time: 28.27
Cher mes amis, for our final solve of the year, we have animals in abundance, with reptiles; sharks; pets and rather smaller many-legged creatures to go in our open-air Zoo. And appropriately for New Year’s Eve, beer and gin as well.
A couple of slightly offbeat spellings and maybe lesser well known varieties of protestor and turtle but otherwise an obscurity-free grid.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Small dog circling large seal (4) |
| PLUG – PUG around L. | |
| 4 | Island stocking much drink for venue hosting big game? (6,4) |
| SAFARI PARK – SARK around FAR + IPA.
FAR as in “Sunderland were to the chagrin of every true Toon supporter far better than Newcastle on the day”. Indian Pale Ale originated in the UK for export to India in the nineteenth century, with the higher hop content over other pale ales acting as a natural preservative for the long voyage. |
|
| 9 | Serving game or possibly swan in Lent (4,6) |
| LAWN TENNIS – (SWAN IN LENT)*.
Nice definition. |
|
| 10 | Put gold periodically in front of one cross (4) |
| UGLI – UGL in front of I.
A cross between an orange and a grapefruit, originating on Jamaica and also known as the Jamaican Tangelo, UGLI being a little easier to clue. |
|
| 11 | Interrupt primate delivering Mass at home (4,2) |
| CHIP IN – CHIMP minus M + IN. | |
| 12 | Beaming adult in row visiting Derby? (8) |
| RADIANCE – Double containment clue – A in DIN surrounded by RACE, of which the Derby is an example. | |
| 14 | Hunter from Med destination avoided by crew (4) |
| ORCA – MENORCA minus MEN.
Minorca maybe a bit more common in the UK. |
|
| 15 | Maidens poorly record nameless garden’s creatures (10) |
| MILLEPEDES – M + ILL + EP + EDE(N)S.
Another alternative spelling. Without the clear parsing we might have seen a few MILLIPEDES. |
|
| 17 | Endure visit arranged by tense protestor (10) |
| HACKTIVIST – HACK + (VISIT)* + T.
Not sure `I knew this, but the -TIVIST part needed something on the front of it and BEARTIVIST seemed less likely. We had T for tense a few months back and I thought it was the first time I had encountered it, but as it seems to have appeared a few times since then, it must be more common than I realised. |
|
| 20 | Rent out of bounds outlets (4) |
| TORE – (S)TORE(S). | |
| 21 | Panic about a lot of good cosmetic use (8) |
| SKINCARE – SCARE around KIN(D). | |
| 23 | Mark barrel carried by retired setter repeatedly (6) |
| EMBLEM – Two EMs around BL.
BL for barrel is a rare visitor but it is in the dictionaries. |
|
| 24 | Orderly exchange of partners in rear (4) |
| NEAT – SEAT with the S changed to a N.
Bridge partners changing places. |
|
| 25 | Wavering daughter boarding soon? (2,3,5) |
| IN TWO MINDS – D inside [boarding] IN TWO MINS, which might be a way of indicating “soon”.
Nice clue. |
|
| 26 | Inattentive fool with note picked up blankets (5-5) |
| CLOTH-EARED – CLOT + HEARD around [blankets] E [a musical note]. | |
| 27 | Withdrawn grouch regularly left project (4) |
| HURL – HUR + L. | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 2 | Poet catching the second reptile (11) |
| LEATHERBACK – LEAR is our poet, which surrounds THE. Add BACK for that type of second.
This turtle was slow to come, as it didn’t immediately spring to mind; crossword poets are a-plenty, and I couldn’t see beyond MO and S for second. |
|
| 3 | Crowd quiet on long thin dock platform (9) |
| GANGPLANK – GANG [crowd] + P + LANK [long, thin]. | |
| 4 | Character upset bearing back and front part of chest (7) |
| STERNUM – MU is our character. Reverse it and make it bear STERN. | |
| 5 | Amusing builder outside supermarket run for parlour boss? (7,8) |
| FUNERAL DIRECTOR – FUN + (ERECTOR around ALDI + R).
I look forward to seeing LIDL clued soon. Other supermarkets available. |
|
| 6 | What’s left on uniform team adopts (7) |
| RESIDUE – RE [on] + (SIDE around [adopts] U). | |
| 7 | Element of legalese possibly ignored by judge (5) |
| ARGON – JARGON without the J. | |
| 8 | Stick cut of reared beef in kitchen (5) |
| KNIFE – Reverse hidden.
KNIFE as a verb here, I think. |
|
| 13 | One vocally rouses singer broken by English article (11) |
| CHEERLEADER – Our singer is CHER which parts to include an E. Add LEADER for a newspaper article.
Tricky definition of article and one of our lesser spotted crossword warblers. |
|
| 16 | Cycling charts originally in study happily found (9) |
| ESTABLISH – TABLES cycles to become ESTABL. Then first letters as shown in red. | |
| 18 | Fancy English and French friend returning full of spirit (7) |
| IMAGINE – Reverse E + AMI and insert GIN. | |
| 19 | Means of access in cargo area below tug declared (7) |
| TOEHOLD – HOLD underneath a homophone of tow. | |
| 21 | Really pleasant belting out last bit of sound (5) |
| SONIC – SO NIC(E). | |
| 22 | Got around boring satellite state (5) |
| IDAHO – Reversal of HAD inside [boring] our favourite moon, IO. | |
Nice puzzle. I ended with HACKTIVIST, imagining it meant a Grub Street employee who wanted more money and cheaper drinks and fags.
I would love to see TESCO clued as ‘I grow cheap for supermarket?’
26:47
50 minutes but it’s a DNF as I had a letter missing from the NHO HACKTIVIST making its debut here today. I also had an error with TORN instead of TORE at 20ac. I was unable to parse my answer so I should really have returned to it at the end for a final check. Otherwise I enjoyed this.
My experience exactly
54:54 but with a red square for the very last letter entered. TORN. I had given up parsing TERN (RENT)*, and correctly deduced the device of omitting the first and last letter, thought there must be a word xTORNx, but couldn’t think of it. Now I know why.
Couldn’t parse RADIANCE, as didn’t know A=adult. Where’s that from, an ornithology book, a museum rate card or a magazine classification?
Not a fan of cycling clues, ESTABLISH took ages.
COD FUNERAL DIRECTOR
A for (accompanied by) adult most familiar from BBFC film classification.
This went out in 1982 when it was replaced by PG. Not surprising I didn’t recognise it.
65 minutes. Initially put in LEATHERNECK for 2d leading to an alphabet trawl with the wrong letters for the unknown ‘protestor’ at 17a. I then had doubts about ORCA, not seeing how ‘crew’ could give MIN, MAJ or MALL and not thinking of MEN. Anyway all eventually sorted out, if not completely parsed, at the expense of a >1 hour solve. A pity as this was a good one to wrap up the year.
An enjoyable crossword with only a couple of MERs en passant.
Thanks setter and dvynys.
A very happy and healthy New Year to everyone on this wonderful site.
30 minutes but too much haste resulting in two typos!
Biffed HACKTIVIST, a NHO but it made sense, sort of. Good to encounter CLOTH EARED again, feared it had fallen into desuetude. Thought LEATHERBACK was a snake but near enough for jazz. And forgot the alternative spelling of MINORCA but it had to be the serial killer whale.
COD SAFARI PARK. LOI HACKTIVIST, with trepidation.
Thanks to setter and dvynys.
Technically speaking you can’t BIFF an NHO
“cloth-eared bint” is an insult screamed by Basil at Polly in the dining room door episode.
12.30
One of those requiring a lot of biffing (SAFARI PARk, RADIANCE, SKINCARE, CLOTH-EARED, STERNUM, FUNERAL DIRECTOR, CHEERLEADER, ESTABLISH), raising the question when does crossword-solving become a guessing game?
LOI ORCA
COD IN TWO MINDS
When we are not very good at it? All those clues do have wordplay..
25 minutes or so.
– Took a while to parse SAFARI PARK even after I thought of it
– Didn’t know UGLI was a cross but got there from wordplay
– MER over CHIP IN, as ‘interrupt’ has a more negative connotation whereas ‘chip in’ feels more positive, in the sense of contributing something
– Didn’t know MILLEPEDES could be spelled like that
Thanks Dvynys and setter.
FOI Argon
LOI Cloth-eared
COD In two minds
Yes, my wife always chips in. I interrupt.
DNF with the unheard of HACKTIVIST having no chance. “You heard, you ain’t got cloth ears” is reverberating in my head and I can’t remember who said it. The only reference I can find on t’internet is in “A 101 Dalmatians” but that’s too late. I didn’t expect MILLIPEDES to be right. A tricky puzzle. Thank you Dvynys and setter.
PS I just found Bet Lynch saying it in an old episode of Coronation Street.
It’s also in “In Which We Serve” in one of the flashback pub scenes.
I think Basil Fawlty called Polly a “cloth-eared bint” on one occasion.
22:54 including at least 3 minutes at the end doing a double alphabet trawl to find the unknown HACKTIVIST. I didn’t have much joy to start with until I slowed down and engaged my thinking-cap properly. Nice puzzle. COD to the charade for the unusually spelt MILLEPEDES. Thank-you Dvynys and setter.
15’40”, pleasing to avoid all the traps: MILLEPEDES I already had the first E; TORE I actually parsed; worked out the nho HACKTIVIST. Didn’t parse SAFARI PARK, although knew the island. I once had a STERNUM X-ray after a car accident, the radiographer said it was a first for her. T for tense has been appearing in another broadsheet for some time.
Thanks dvynys and setter.
Blessings to everyone for the coming year.
Another DNF, drat. I just couldn’t see GANGPLANK, LEATHERBACK or HACKTIVIST (NHO). My only excuse is that, after the multitude of Xmas celebrations last week, my pea brain is befuddled!
I enjoyed many of the clues including SAFARI PARK, RADIANCE & CLOTH-EARED.
Thanks Dvynys and clever setter.
17.55 I liked this a lot, the cluing being clever and amusing without being wilfully obscure and annoying. Working “amusing ” into FUNERAL DIRECTOR delivered a gem, and the neologism (for me, at least) of the HACKTIVIST balanced CLOTH EARED, which I haven’t heard in many years.
I avoided TORN (just) and liked the CHEERLEADER once I twigged that the article was not one of the usual ones.
The TES constantly features one supermarket…
All the best for the New Year!
Crashed and burned on EMBLEM with a biffed EMINEM (I don’t know why either!), which, unnoticed by me, became EMBNEM when ESTABLISHED arrived. Drat! Otherwise twenty five minutes and a half. I took MILLIPEDES out beacause it didn’t parse, then was able to get RESIDUE and eventually decided it had to be MILLEPEDES. Thanks setter and Dvynys and Happy New Year to all.
I enjoyed this, for the reasons summarised by Zabadak. Not much biffing required as the NHOs HACKTIVIST and MILLEPEDES were manageable from the clear clueing. We have just been entertaining a couple of young grandchildren over the holiday period, so CLOTH-EARED came readily to mind. All done in 31 minutes.
FOI – PLUG
LOI – EMBLEM
COD – FUNERAL DIRECTOR
Thanks to Dvynys and other contributors.
Another who fell into the TORN trap, thinking RENT was an adjective like torn and TORE was past tense of a verb. Also NHO HACKTIVIST so only had the -TIVIST bit entered. Mrs P sometimes calls the dog (and me) cloth ears. GANGPLANK took me an age to see. An hour to DNF with a tedious shopping trip in the middle.
Quite a few I could have biffed, but I wanted to see how they worked — after all, that’s why we do crosswords; or me, at any rate — speed is irrelevant, not that that excuses my very slow solving. And in most cases I never did work them out and had to come here. 73 minutes.
Entirely agree! I took well over an hour but I do them for the pleasure of pitting my wits against the compiler. I do biff quite a lot, but often come here to understand the parsing. I found this one hard going with some overly convoluted cluing, so thank you dvyns today.
DNF at 28 – speedy until I hit the wall at HACKTIVIST and after trawling through the alphabet several times called it a day with two pesky letters to go.
21:58 but…
…needed help with the unknown HACKTIVIST. Not entirely happy with MILLIPEDES having an alternative spelling either – just because some that don’t know how to spell it, have chosen to spell it in a different way, doesn’t mean to say their spelling is correct – dog is spelt D-O-G, cat is spelt C-A-T, millipedes is spelt M-I-L-L-I-P-E-D-E-S.
Otherwise, it was an enjoyable solve, though I confess to not parsing the following:
SAFARI PARK – got the SARK bit
RADIANCE – no idea what was going on here
Thanks D and setter
Millepede is more logical I guess as mille means a thousand and milli means a thousandth.
Rather annoyed to have made very good progress through this, only to come completely unstuck on EMBLEM and ESTABLISH. About 18 minutes to get to there, and then a further 10 of failing to see anything other than EMINEM, meanwhile cursing my inability to solve those dratted “cycling” clues. So I gave up. Ah well, at least it gives me a couple of options for a New Year’s crossword-solving resolution. (Give up more readily, with a smile?) Cheers and Happy New Year!
WOE after 22 mins. Very enjoyable and pretty quick but typo in IN ToO MINDS. Was thinking of In Too Deep or similar and didn’t go back when the penny dropped. Drat. Great puzzle though and bang on my wavelength so not letting that spoil my mood.
COD to HACKTIVIST but also liked CLOTH EARED which was directed at me frequently in my youth.
Thanks to Dvynys and setter.
HACKTIVIST – Not only a ludicrously rare word, but appallingly defined.
Tough for the year end. I abhor cycling clues, when you have to cycle a synonym – seems like a step too far. Like everyone else I have never heard of HACKTIVIST and doubt whether it really exists. Did like SAFARI PARK and FUNERAL D. however.
Roll on 2026.
It took me 35 mins, not helped by my immediately entering CHANTICLEER for CHEERLEADER without studying the wordplay properly. I also carelessly entered TORN for TORE, when a few seconds more thought would have cracked it. I particularly liked the wordplay for FUNERAL DIRECTOR and IN TWO MINDS. I couldn’t work out the wordplay for SONIC. I haven’t met HACKTIVIST before, I shall look it up in a minute. Quite a hard but enjoyable puzzle, I thought. Thank you Setter and Dvynys.
50:15
Quite a tough one to finish the year. I liked it a lot. Too many amusing and ingenious clues to mention . HACKTAVIST a new word learnt and CLOTH-EARED an old insult remembered
Thaks to Dvynys and the setter
After 50 mins DNF as missed NHO HACKTIVIST. Glad to see I’m not alone. Loved IN TWO MINDS.
30 mins with hacktivist my LOI and NHO. Also bemused by toehold till I stopped trying to fit key in the answer. Enjoyed the puzzle and pleased to finish the year with a correct solution.
Happy New Year one and all and try to avoid the flu, it’s b”’g@#*’ our plans but there’s plenty of liquid refreshment at hand to ease our depression.
Pleased to finish what seemed to me a tough but enjoyable puzzle. Especially liked CLOTH EARED and IN TWO MINDS.
Sadly ended 2025 with DNF should have guessed Hackti…
Reviwing my year: I am getting quicker but now know I can get below ten mins only with backwind and downhill crosswords. Thanks to all who contribute and HNY!
Like quite a few others defeated by HACKTIVIST after fifty or so minutes. I don’t think I would have ever got there, so I’m glad I didn’t waste any more time on it. A good puzzle though.