I found this very hard in places. I took 1 hour but used aids for my last one in and later found an error at 1dn.
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.
 Across |
|
|---|---|
| 1 | Be on mobile phone with old person preferring old-style landline? (8) |
| NEOPHOBE – Anagram [mobile] of PHONE O (old), then BE | |
| 5 | Nick mostly outside playing piece of music (6) |
| SONATA – S~ATA{n} (Nick – the devil) [mostly] containing [outside] ON (playing) | |
| 9 | Upright character enthralled by visits to nymph (8) |
| CALLISTO – I (upright character) contained [enthralled] by CALL~S (visits), TO | |
| 10 | Tried hard with slow movement, but one’s dropped out (3,1,2) |
| HAD A GO – H (hard), ADAG{i}O (slow movement) [one’s dropped out] | |
| 12 | Drunken wager in hotel bar? (8,4) |
| WATERING HOLE – Anagram [drunken] of WAGER IN HOTEL. One of many British euphemisms for a pub – a little more elegant than boozer! |
|
| 15 | Old star, no good in Oxford college (5) |
| ORIEL – O (old), RI{g}EL (star) [no good] | |
| 16 | Plan a chemist worked out for carbon capture (9) |
| SCHEMATIC – Anagram [worked out) of A CHEMIST containing [for…capture] C (carbon). I checked that although ‘schematic’ is more usually an adjective it can also be a noun. | |
| 18 | Walk round area with power to get vote (5,4) |
| STRAW POLL – STR~OLL (walk) containing [round] A (area) + W (with) + P (power). | |
| 19 | The Parisian fellow is deceived (3,2) |
| LED ON – LE (‘the’ Parisian), DON (fellow) | |
| 20 | A dear cat isn’t to be disturbed in garden plant (12) |
| TRADESCANTIA – Anagram [ to be disturbed] of A DEAR CAT ISN’T. I waited for all the checkers and then added the remaining anagrist to make something plausible. This has come up here on a couple of previous occasions but I can’t say I remembered it. | |
| 24 | Each baked item has excellent crust (6) |
| APIECE – PIE (baked item) contained by [has…crust] A~CE (excellent) | |
| 25 | Three characters in succession ’arass traitor? (8) |
| DEFECTOR – D E F (three characters in succession), {h}ECTOR (‘arass) | |
| 26 | Socialist sets on opponents at the table (6) |
| ENGELS – E N (opponents at the table – East and North at bridge), GELS (sets) | |
| 27 | Funny show inadequate, now sadly a disappointment (8) |
| COMEDOWN – COMED{y} (funny show) [inadequate], anagram [sadly] of NOW | |
| Down |
|
|---|---|
| 1 | Something groovy — a hit on the radio (4) |
| NOCK – Aural wordplay [on the radio]: “knock” (hit). I had NICK. I wasn’t happy with my answer but it was all I could find to fit the checkers that satisfied at least part of the clue. Collins defines NOCK as: 1. a notch on an arrow that fits on the bowstring, 2. either of the grooves at each end of a bow that hold the bowstring. If I ever knew this I had forgotten it. | |
| 2 | City workers’ industrial action has no limits (4) |
| OSLO – {g}O SLO{w} (workers’ industrial action) [has no limits] | |
| 3 | One due to inherit fantastic wealth including a lot of land (4-2-3) |
| HEIR-AT-LAW – Anagram [fantastic] of WEALTH containing [including] IRA{n} (land) [a lot of…]. This rang a faint bell. | |
| 4 | First sign of bitterness, say, with strong drink’s flavouring (12) |
| BUTTERSCOTCH – B{itterness} [first sign of…], UTTER (say), SCOTCH (strong drink). My AI assistant advises: The flavour originated in Doncaster, England, in the early 19th century. The most widely accepted history traces it back to Samuel Parkinson, a confectioner who began selling “Doncaster Butterscotch” in 1817. It became so popular that it eventually received a Royal Warrant from Queen Victoria in 1851. | |
| 6 | Mammal round mountains endlessly (5) |
| ORANG – O (round), RANG{e} (mountains) [endlessly] | |
| 7 | Like a diet of alien, with a pungent spice (10) |
| ASAFOETIDA – AS (like), anagram [alien] of A DIET OF, then A. This would have been my last one in but I knew I wouldn’t know the word so I cut my losses and reached for the Word Wizard. It has appeared before in a Sunday Times puzzle and 3 Jumbos, most recently in 2024, but I didn’t recognise it. |
|
| 8 | Teenager maybe soaring, having received financial help (10) |
| ADOLESCENT – A~SCENT (soaring) containing [having received] DOLE (financial help) | |
| 11 | Artist, male, one facing challenge rendered circle (12) |
| MICHELANGELO – M (male), I (one), anagram [rendered] of CHALLENGE, then O (circle) | |
| 13 | Put artist into mob to negotiate effectively (5-5) |
| HORSE-TRADE – SET (put) + RA (artist) contained by [into] HOR~DE (mob) | |
| 14 | Left one quiet Berkshire town getting message silently (3-7) |
| LIP-READING – L (left), I (one), P (quiet), READING (Berkshire town) | |
| 17 | Little creature struggled to walk, beginning to meander off in distance (9) |
| MILLIPEDE – LI{m}PED (struggled to walk) [beginning to meander off] contained by [in] MIL~E (distance) | |
| 21 | Old learner heard to get top grades? (5) |
| EXCEL – Aural wordplay [heard]: “Ex” (old), “L” (learner) | |
| 22 | Emperor, someone very funny cycling around (4) |
| OTHO – HO/OT (someone very funny} cycling around becomes the Roman Emperor OTHO | |
| 23 | Measure of certain fish caught and smuggled (4) |
| CRAN – C (caught), RAN (smuggled). Collins: a unit of capacity used for measuring fresh herring, equal to 37.5 gallons. A word I learnt from crosswords many decades ago. | |
Amazingly, I solved this correctly without aids. I did a fair amount of biffing, including asafoetida, although I really couldn’t tell you what it is. The vowel placement in tradescantia was easy enough, but the T and the D could easily have been wrong. Nock? Not a clue, but the cryptic was clear. I did have a bit of trouble with Oslo, but having considered slowdown, go-slow was not too far away.
Time: 21:36
DNF
like Jack, I put in NICK faute de mieux, although looking at the definitions now, I think I vaguely knew NOCK; not that I’d ever have thought of it. I also put in NERO (one-r cycled), which of course put paid to DEFECTOR. Biffed TRADESCANTIA (knew the person, dnk the eponymous plant) and ASAFOETIDA (thought it was a herb).
I had NERO at first too (cycling “oner”). DEFECTOR betrayed my error.
Ditto.
17:03. Thank goodness we’ve moved on from obscurities like WATUSI to familiar everyday words like ASAFOETIDA and TRADESCENTIA! Think I’ll celebrate with a CRAN of herring.
Good challenge today, liked OSLO. Thanks setter and Jack.
Funny isn’t it! I had no problem with those two – I’ve got a cupboard full of spices and have had tradescantias as houseplants! But the little ones – CRAN, OTHO and NOCK – were complete unknowns 😅
On edit:
I should read all the way before commenting – I see others have said the same thing!
I had never heard of NOCK, my POI—before I worked out the NHO TRADESCANTIA. Two plants clued by anagrams, damn!—but I knew the other one. CRAN as a measure of herring was a NHO too; Collins says the origin is unknown, but there is a French word spelled the same that seems related to “measure,” via “notch.”
I believe that a flick knife is known in French as a “couteau à cran d’arrêt”, presumably because the locking mechanism includes a notch.
So the puzzle is top-and-tailed with two different words meaning “notch”. If only we knew!
Serious question: Is there some Cryptic Tournament of Champions coming up soon over there across the pond? I’m not used to seeing this much gobbledygook on Monday and Tuesday until September.
DNF in thirty minutes.
I prefer ‘Employer of barmaid, one with large bust.’ for WATERING HOLE
Superb David. One of yours?
How I wish! It was a Dean M from memory but others may know.
It certainly looks like something from a louche Sunday. Excellent!
Brilliant!
Liked this one. I wouldn’t recognise a tradescantia, not a native species, but i did know the word. Similarly asafoetida, an ingredient of Worcester sauce. No, it was the little words that held me up, nock, Otho (nho) and cran. Good stuff.
22.34 but held up in the NW corner where I needed aids for BUTTERSCOTCH and NEOPHOBE (both LOI and COD). Pleasing and elegant puzzle.
Thanks J and setter.
DNF doing the old Eric Morecambe with all the right letters in the wrong places for the spice and the flower. Like others I had NICK as no other alternative came to mind, and I had OTTO (“toot”? nah…) though I did know him as a Holy Roman Emperor.
Thought I did well with everything else but without the GK it was too much of a lottery for me.
Thanks Jackkt and setter
Nope. 44 minutes but with what I thought was a plausible TRADEACANTIS at 20. Bah.
49 minutes. Two hard ones to start the week. I somehow knew TRADESCANTIA and ASAFOETIDA but the ‘Emperor’ OTHO was an NHO, for which I went down the same route as Kevin and Guy with an initial NERO. The four-letter words were no write-ins; I recognised CRAN from previous appearances but submitted NOCK with fingers crossed, not being certain if the last letter was a K or an H.
Same as Jack and others, an incorrect NICK and an aided ASAFOETIDA. I think unknown emperors should be banned from cycling but I did get him. I’ve usually grown TRADESCANTIA indoors. COD to LIP-READING. Thank you Jack and setter.
DNF, with an incorrect NICK, a stupid ORIOL (got the bird and the college mixed up, and had forgotten the star), TRATESCANDIA (guessed the middle T and the D wrongly) and an invented ITWO rather than the unknown OTHO (‘someone very funny’ could be ‘wit’, it sounds like he could have been an African emperor).
– Took ages to construct the unfamiliar HEIR-AT-LAW, and even when I got it I initially thought the land in question was Eire, until looking at the anagrist helped me realise it was Iran
– Can’t recall seeing ORANG without ‘utan’ very often
– Would have misspelled MICHELANGELO were it not for the checkers, anagrist and enumeration
– Had no idea how MILLIPEDE worked
– Trusted the wordplay for the unfamiliar CRAN
Not a good day for me, but thanks Jack and setter.
COD Watering hole
I am getting the impression that the Times has no interest in appealing to young people. This is such a frustrating crossword. There are about 10 pieces of obscure knowledge which I don’t have and/or vocabulary that someone born after 1990 would never use. I don’t think I know anyone my age who could have finished this. Is that the target?
NOCK is very obscure, and clued by a homophone of a word which has about 20 synonyms. TRADESCANTIA is a complete unknown, even though I like gardening. Nobody young refers to someone funny as a ‘hoot’ (my mum does…).
I completed this in 29:37, but had two errors. I misspelled TRADESCENTIA (E rather than A), and I guessed the emperor might be Otto. There was a Holy Roman Emperor called Otto, and Toto (cycling) seems like a clown. I found it therefore a bit unfair, into the bargain.
So I’m afraid this doesn’t meet my criteria for fun.
I’m 58 and I feel like that sometimes.
Hear hear….feels like everyday is Friday at the moment.
I hear you. I can live with obscure words when they’re at least clued helpfully, but I agree that the NHO NOCK wasn’t (and I’m 58). CRAN is so weird/obscure that no amount of helpful clueing would ever have helped me. I knew of emperor OTHO, but there are so many emperors it could have been that the cycling clue with a host-of-possibilities synonym was profoundly unhelpful. The only silver lining I can offer is that garden plants, at least, tend to become part of many people’s world as they get older and move out of cities/apartments into homes with some outside space. There’s a better time coming.
An encouraging response, thanks!
I also agree. I like one obscurity, or even two. I like to learn. But, particularly outside of Fridays, surely they must be clued helpfully and non-ambiguously.
The ‘cycling’ device is highly dubious in my mind. The Ximenean rules, as I understand it, forbid an anagram of a clued word. Cycling is a (form of) anagram of a clued word. It is also lacking in interest: you have to use the word ‘cycling’ or ‘cycle’, whereas with anagrams at least there is the fun of choosing an anagrind.
In this case, the clue had ‘around’ in addition to the ‘cycling’, which I interpreted as being an additional activity…
I agree the cycling thing is just an annoying way to include an anagram of an unspecified word, especially when its two or three letters being cycled. Possibly should have seen “hoot” I’m 68 and I do have a friend who uses it though it was not common even when I was young!
The “Ximenean rules” are not rules at all, just McNutt’s views about what he thought fair and what not. We have made a straitjacket of them, wrongly imo and probably in his, too.
I’m not sure I qualify as young anymore (mid 30s) and some of the vocabulary today was beyond the pale, but I’m surprised by the difficulty people seem to have had with NOCK. I’m sure I’ve heard “nock an arrow” or variants like “nock, draw, loose!” many a time.
30 mins. Much more enjoyable today, the NHOs being somehow less intrusive. CRAN and OTHO were fairly clued, VHO NOCK and the legalese. Also NHO NEOPHOBE but that was great fun.
As boltonW says TRADESCANTIA is better known in the UK as a houseplant but there are hardy species.
ASAFOETIDA means foul wind and is aptly named, avoid it.
Good puzzle that could have been even better with Sawbill’s WATERING HOLE clue. Thanks jackkt and setter.
Gave up on the hour with 5 unanswered. I’ll let you guess which ones. Not enjoyable, too many unknowns clued as anagrams or bicycles!
Ta jack.
Pleased to have got through this without aids, in about half an hour, only to find a DNF I had OTTO not OTHO. Thinking TOTO the clown (sort of) recycled. Seems as good to me as the NHO emperor, there were a few OTTOs who were emperors. The spelling of ASAFOETIDA took a bit of thought although I knew the smelly spice. And knew what a NOCK was. The plant was a plump-for once all the checkers were there.
Fully agree on OTTO – I think that’s an unfair clue. I had VHO OTTO and TOTO, but not OTHO and HOOT would never occur to me.
Until recently I felt I was making a good fist of progressing to the 15×15 from the QC. Thursdays and Fridays were always a disaster, but the rest of the week’s crosswords were very rewarding. Has there been a change in editorial policy? The last few weeks have been quite dispiriting.
What I find dispiriting is to spend over an hour to get a handful of clues, coming on here to try to learn and improve – only to be made to feel thick a two short planks by all the “easy one today” comments. But yes, my attempts at the crossword over recent weeks have got poorer and poorer. (I don’t even bother looking at the Thursday and Friday 15×15 ones anymore.)
21.22. So age has its benefits, apparently, though I would suggest doing the Mephisto on a regular basis might also be an asset. Age also means that recondite plants have to be recovered from the mists of a faltering memory. It can also mean that you think CALLIOPE was the nymph and MICHELANGELO has another A.
OTHO was my tentative entry after OTTO failed; anyone after I CLAVDIVS is rather hazy.
I’ve archered, so NOCK was not an issue.
Is there anything of current significance in having a dismembered Iran as part of a clue? Perhaps our setter was intending Iraq to avoid controversy. I have to admit that having discarded hEIR[E]-at-law, I didn’t properly check.
Sympathies, Jack, on enduring such a grid laden with pitfalls.
Not if you’re Italian… Michele a common name, knock off the last vowel if double-barrel it.
34:00 Tough but worth the effort. Both NOCK or HEIR AT LAW new to me. TRADESCANTIA and ASAFOETIDA have been gleaned from crosswords past and CRAN from a pub quiz. COD NEOPHOBE (shared with Sawbill’s WATERING HOLE)
Thaks to Jack and the setter
Finished in about 50 minutes but only with aid for the spice. Once found, it did seem as though it should have been somewhere in what remains of my memory but was definitely beyond recall. NOCK was ok by me. CALLISTO was a bit of a BIFF, as was OTHO.
Surprised that the Snitch was not higher. Agree that the general standard has been more challenging of late.
Thanks to setter and Jack.
Had NERO, then OTTO — before finally deciding that “He’s a TOOT” is not current English, whereas “He’s a HOOT” is. CRAN does indeed mean NOTCH in French. That’s got to be intentional — the NOCK/CRAN pairing. Loved 1 across. Many thanks. All done in 20’38”.
Somehow I knew all the tricky words like ASAFOETIDA and TRADESCANTIA, and the short ones that could easily have tripped me up were all more or less OK. I knew NOCK because I once knew someone with that surname and found it in a dictionary. CRAN was known through crosswords. OSLO came fairly quickly after I’d decided that Trik wasn’t a city. So an unusually smooth solve.
My thanks to jackkt and setter.
I found it V hard, cheating quite a lot and still not finishing.
10a Had a go, DNF, added to Cheating Machine. In retrospect this is good.
16a Schematic. As a noun I don’t equate it with plan, but it could be a working drawing at a push.
20a Tradescantia. Mum was fond of these but I didn’t know how to spell them. Had always assumed tradIscantHia because that’s how she said it.
1d Nock. Mum and Dad both did archery a bit, so easy given n?c?.
2d Olso, clever.
7d NHO Asafoetida. Not pleased to find this. Cheated of course.
22d Otho must have come up before because he is in C.M. and I would have said NHO but clearly just forgotten.
27:30 – tough. CRAN unknown and ASAFOE-thingy finally anagrammed into submission towards the end. Seems to be an unusually tricky start to the week.
DNF. Mostly easy, until 4 final unknowns. CRAN clued easily, Considered NICK for NOCK in a cricketing sense – he’s nicked it/he’s hit it, so he’s out – but that was same spelling not a homophone so it had to be an obscurity. Guessed T and D correctly in the NHO (forgotten!) plant. But then failed on OTHO – he was a hoot, maybe a toot as well? Don’t know my Roman emperors but guessed there were more than one or two from Germanic areas called Otto. Oh, well.
Otho was the second emperor after the death of Nero in the year of 4 emperors, 69 AD from memory: Galba, Otho, Vitellius and Vespasian. I don’t think he was German at all, they were still very much considered barbarians then.
Tricky one but nearly finished before noon… except for 22d – why always a 4 letter word?
MICHAELANGELO was too long so pretty obvious to lose thefirst A – not in the anagrist anyway.
ASAFOETIDA – no problem – use it when Friday night is Curry Night.
CALLISTO BIFD and cryptic worked out in reverse.
TRADESCANTIA – that’s what OneLook is for!
NOCK – to nock an arrow is familiar.
CRAN – got from cryptic but had no idea it was a word. How many herring?
OTHO – NHO – had to come here for him.
Thanks setter and Jack for the new vocab.
I enjoyed this, all done in 32 minutes, so about average. Fortunately the required horticultural and historical GK was not too off-putting, and even the problematic clues (1dn, 23dn) could be worked out. So I thought it a fair exercise.
FOI – HAD A GO
LOI – OTHO
COD – WATERING HOLE (however clued!)
Thanks to jackkt and other contributors.
Tough going. Knew CRAN from Ewan MacColl’s Shoals Of Herring song. NERO held up DEFECTOR for a long time, then OTTO almost replaced him untill I saw HOOT. Checked that OTHO existed. Decided 1d had to be NOCK, and checked the second definition. Assembled TRADESCANTIA and checked it existed, as it could just as easily have been TRATESCANDIA. Assembled ASAFOETIDA somehow, using FOETID for pungent to justify it, then checked it existed. Managed to assemble and parse the rest of it on my own. A bit of a chore to be honest. 46:11. Thanks setter and Jack.
Needed aids for those two long anagram plants. It was the two short ones OTHO and CRAN that did for me. Perhaps if I had cracked DEFECTOR I might have stood a chance. But thought the letters would be “bee cee dee “ or some such.
New NOCK from the verb.
No problems with this today. I also knew Cran from the song “Shoals of herring,”, “100 cran of the silver darlings”.
My only issue was equating soaring with ascent. This requires soaring to be a noun I think? Seems an odd one to me.
COD to Sawbill for a real gem.
47 minutes LOI ASAFOETIDA when I was looking where to put the F and seemed to have too many vowels, then saw FOETID and thought, that makes sense for something smelly and also vaguely remembered it from before. Last but one TRADESCANTIA almost became TRADESCENTIA till I counted the 3 As.
A bit of a battle but looking in here I don’t feel so bad any more!
Thanks Jack and setter