Mostly very enjoyable but I was 40 minutes in and missing two letters from the grid when I realised I was looking for an answer I probably wouldn’t know, so I cut my losses and used aids to finish things off.
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 | Appropriate how birds returned (6) |
| ASSUME – AS (how) then EMUS (birds) reversed [returned] | |
| 4 | What’s Oscar carried back in preserve bottle? (8) |
| JEROBOAM – O (Oscar) + BORE (carried) reversed [back] contained by [in] J~AM (preserve). Roughly 4 normal bottles. | |
| 10 | Creature natural at jumping (9) |
| TARANTULA – Anagram [jumping] of NATURAL AT | |
| 11 | City lover from Scotland surrounded by noise (5) |
| DIJON – JO (lover from Scotland) contained [surrounded] by DI~N (noise) | |
| 12 | Food processor gives diet out by leaflet (9,5) |
| DIGESTIVE TRACT – Anagram [out] of GIVES DIET, then TRACT (leaflet) | |
| 14 | Pottery line coming in handy (5) |
| DELFT – L (line) contained by [coming in] DEFT (handy). Been there, bought some pottery. | |
| 16 | Dingy tee I transformed with this? (3-6) |
| TIE-DYEING – Anagram [ transformed] of DINGY TEE I | |
| 18 | Debacle minutes after agent for change nearly admits Conservative (9) |
| CATACLYSM – CATA~LYS{t} (agent for change) [nearly] contains [admits] C (Conservative), then M (minutes) | |
| 20 | Give birth with assistance (5) |
| WHELP – W (with), HELP (assistance) | |
| 21 | The giving of second award for sketch, perhaps (14) |
| REPRESENTATION – RE-PRESENTATION (the giving of second award) | |
| 25 | Hatred banning leader from platform (5) |
| ODIUM – {p}ODIUM (platform) [banning leader from…] | |
| 26 | Desire to cease cooking wheat in chef’s creation (5,4) |
| DEATH WISH – Anagram [cooking] of WHEAT contained by [in] D~ISH (chef’s creation) | |
| 27 | Intend to stuff, say, great vegetable (8) |
| EGGPLANT – PLAN (intend) contained by [to stuff] EG (say) + G~T (great) | |
| 28 | Garment belonging to Glaswegian bachelor smells (6) |
| BREEKS – B (bachelor), REEKS (smells) – trousers / breeches | |
| Down |
|
|---|---|
| 1 | Learner without instruction went to work under car (10) |
| AUTODIDACT – AUTO (car), DID ACT (went to work) | |
| 2 | Tiny excerpt from Pilgrim’s Progress (5) |
| SPROG – Hidden in [excerpt from] {Pilgrim’}S PROG{ress}. ‘Tiny’ is a noun here. | |
| 3 | Disapproves of alien attitude (7) |
| MINDSET – MINDS (disapproves of), ET (alien) | |
| 5 | Eliminate onset of Americanisation in language (5) |
| ERASE – A{mericanisation} [ onset of…] contained by [in] ER~SE (language) | |
| 6 | Controlled German article seized by French airport (7) |
| ORDERLY – DER (German article) contained [seized] by OR~LY (French airport) | |
| 7 | Fair goal (9) |
| OBJECTIVE – Two meanings | |
| 8 | Times piece introduces language of island race (4) |
| MANX – MAN (chess piece), X (times) | |
| 9 | Internal lake splits dock in an odd way (8) |
| QUAINTLY – INT (internal) + L (lake) contained by [splits] QUA~Y (dock) | |
| 13 | Plant cookware in stove so (10) |
| AGAPANTHUS – PAN (cookware) contained by [in] AGA (stove) ~THUS (so). Aka: African lily. | |
| 15 | Latvian band including English characters (9) |
| LETTERING – LETT (Latvian) ~ RING (band) containing [including] E (English) | |
| 17 | Cooked mean melt with this? (8) |
| EMMENTAL – Anagram [cooked] of MEAN MELT. Cheese. | |
| 19 | Artist dressed in light brown or dark brown (7) |
| CARAMEL – RA (artist) contained by [dressed in] CA~MEL (light brown) | |
| 20 | Erode article, erode all round (7) |
| WEATHER – WEA~R (erode) containing [all round] THE (article) | |
| 22 | American transporter used van failing to start (5) |
| SEDAN – {u}SED + {v}AN [failing to start]. US word for a saloon car. | |
| 23 | Organic compound one is digging up? (5) |
| IMINE – I MINE (one is digging up). As mentioned in the intro I realised I wouldn’t know this word so I’m glad I gave up on it and used aids. ‘Is’ is superfluous to the wordplay and led me to believe the answer would contain an S, which proved a distraction. But for that I might just have stood a chance of spotting how the clue worked and arriving the correct solution. | |
| 24 | Pizza shunned by California region (4) |
| ZONE – {Cal}ZONE (pizza) [shunned by California] | |
Same problem as Jack with IMINE, not a word I knew and was convinced the answer would contain an ‘S’. Also failed to see BREEKS, another NHO and missed what now seems like a simple piece of wordplay for the answer. I liked this and thought a lot of the clues quite misleading – in a good way. DEATH WISH for one where I thought it would be an anagram of ‘wheat and chef’ at first. Liked JEROBOAM and CATACLYSM. Thought AUTODIDACT was very good and took most of the crossers for me to see it. Liked DELFT. COD to MANX.
Thanks Jack and setter.
Somehow, AGAPANTHUS was constructed from wordplay, early on, much more quickly than I was able to think of IMINE, my LOI. POI JEROBOAM.
Fortunately, I did eventually parse imine, and entered it as a likely organic compound. I was uncertain how to spell jeroboam, and had to wait for the crossers. On the other hand, I biffed autodidact, death wish, and cataclysm. My LOI was zone, and I puzzled over the cryptic for a while before suddenly seeing what was going on.
Time: 23:38
‘One is digging up’ translates to I MINE quite neatly, if you think of ‘one’ as a pronoun that can in formal contexts replace ‘I’. Imagine King Charles speaking, for instance.
That said, I had to look it up too!
I’ve reached a milestone with this puzzle, not a personal best time by a long shot, but the first time finishing a 15×15 with everything parsed. (Not that I knew IMINE, of course not, but the wordplay suddenly came into view.)
45 minutes of enjoyment and a real sense of accomplishment, what could be better? Why am I awake, it’s way past my bedtime. Good night. Thanks to setter and jack.
Well done! Beat me – I gave up on IMINE
50:27 but had to look up IMINE. I was looking at words for like (=dig), reversed.
COD DELFT
35 minutes but failed on the NHO IMINE. I had heard of IMIDE as a chemical term probably also from one of these crosswords, so in it went and of course it didn’t parse. Spotted the pangram which helped greatly with JEROBOAM and MANX. COD to ZONE.
Yes, IMIDE seemed familiar to me too (not that I have any idea what it is) and I see it appeared here only about 6 weeks ago on February 11th in Times cryptic 29463.
9:17, of which at least 4 minutes spent trawling the alphabet for IMINE. I nearly gave up. I don’t think ‘is’ is superfluous: indeed I don’t think the clue works without it, because it requires ‘digging up’ to indicate MINE. As u says you have to take the whole phrase together.
I’ll get in before Jerry to point out the Americanism at 27ac 😉
I think it still might get mentioned in dispatches…
Yes. The clue requires ‘is’. But ‘one digs up’ would also have worked and misled us nicely, while being slightly more concise.
My there are a lot of EMUS about these days. Anyway I too failed at IMINE, throwing in the towel at 23.12. An enjoyable puzzle, thanks to Jack for the parsing of JEROBOAM and MANX (oh, chess piece, doh!).
From You’re A Big Girl Now:
A change in the WEATHER is known to be extreme
But what’s the sense of changing horses in midstream?
I’m going out of my mind, oh, with a pain that stops and starts
Like a corkscrew to my heart
Ever since we’ve been apart
I want to see TARANTULA clued some day with a reference to Dylan’s first book (which is a hoot).
34 minutes. A relief from yesterday’s which for some reason I found difficult. Still, even with our old friends the EMUS I had some problems thinking of AS for ‘how’ at 1a and much later I needed the checked letters for AUTODIDACT. The extended non-cryptic defs for TARANTULA and EMMENTAL bought a smile and I thought WEATHER was clever.
IMINE was new though seemed the most likely answer from the wordplay. The OED def, probably a dumbed down version from some weighty Chemistry tome, is completely incomprehensible to me and will remain so!
A rare completion before going to the first tee. About 22′ so easier than yesterday but also not as interesting I thought.
As a Glaswegian (well almost) and married to a Jo, I still get caught out with the Scottish lover, its NHO apart from here (and don’t quote Burns, it would help me!). Also I’ve never called my trousers BREEKS, though I have heard it obviously.
Another “appropriate” today and the Flower built from parts. Fairly straightforward.
Thanks Jack and setter.
I cleared last winter’s rotted-down leaves from my AGAPANTHUS at the weekend, revealing the new year’s growth beneath. I’m told that leaving last year’s mess on top until Spring works as frost protection, and that’s my excuse for being lazy about it.
Anyway, it certainly helped with this puzzle, as did noting the pangram possibility just before considering JEROBOAM. Fairly straightforward solve spreading top-to-bottom, left-to-right to finish with IMINE, which seemed reasonable given that I’d heard of “amine”. 39m.
22:36. I’m enjoying this week a lot more than last.
We had IMIDE recently so IMINE makes sense, I know of Amines and Amides and the parsing fitted. There were a few that seemed recently familiar leading to more biffing, e.g. AGAPANTHUS and WEATHER.
Particular faves were JEROBOAM and CATACLYSM.
Thanks jackkt and setter.
I thought this crossword straightforward, with some easy clues but also a couple of quite tricky ones, IMINE I’m looking at you here. I’m generally comfy with science-related clues but like BletchlyReject, I don’t even understand the Collins definition never mind the OED’s.
I’ve had a JEROBOAM once or twice.. one needs a lot of friends around when one opens it.
As for EGGPLANT, yes as a vegetable it is generally seen as a foreign word for aubergine, but the setter is on firm ground as Collins does not have that as a specifically US usage: “Eggplant: A tropical Old World solanaceous plant, Solanum melongena … also called: aubergine.” And nor does the OED, which has several quotes back to 1752.
So the setter gets off Scot-free, this time.
Interesting: apparently this is one of those cases where our American cousins can claim to be preserving an older usage than us. There’s no doubt that it’s a US (and Austalian/NZ) usage today though. You never see the word ‘eggplant’ in a UK supermarket, or the word ‘aubergine’ in a North American one.
Oo’ neez frenz? Hic!😀🍾🥂
A double fail in the SE. 1963 A level Chemistry didn’t have any imines in the syllabus that I can remember. And in Lancashire we had breeches but no BREEKS. We’d have called them pants anyway, similarly to Americans. Otherwise, an enjoyable crossword. COD jointly to AUTODIDACT and AGAPANTHUS. When all else fails, read the instructions. Thank you Jack and setter.
I was doing well and on my way to a sub 20 minute finish until the extreme SE. The penny dropped on BREEKS – I had been expecting a more obscure bit of local language about which I could complain but that word is hardly outre. And then I ran into a brick wall with IMINE and threw in the towel after a couple of fruitless minutes. For me, a tough construction for a nho but I can see the parse is fair enough.
Particular faves WHELP, BREEKS and LETTERING.
Thanks to setter and blogger
DNF, defeated by the unknown IMINE.
– Expected an indication of US usage for EGGPLANT, but clearly that’s not necessary as JerryW explains above
– Trusted the wordplay for the unknown BREEKS
– Not familiar with camel=light brown, though CARAMEL was obvious from the checkers
Thanks Jack and setter.
COD Emmental
Gave up. Defeated by IMINE, DIJON and OBJECTIVE. IMINE just didn’t look like a possible chemical compound so I didn’t persist with the parsing. NHO JO in that sense so, although I thought the city was DIJON, lost heart despite suspecting a pangram which supported the inclusion of a J. Took too long to recognise BREEKS despite having worn them in a past life. Misspelled JEROBOAM too. Bit of a dim day for me.
Thanks to setter and jackkt.
Really dim! Just realised we already had the J in the bottle.
All correct and 54:09 on The App’s timer.
I didn’t know Latvian could be LETT, so thanks for explaining that. I’ve seen IMINE in a barred puzzle somewhere.
Thank you Jack and Setter.
Two nice puzzles so far this week.
I was helped by remembering Cole Porter: ‘Lithuanians and Letts do it …’
50 mins but with a bunged in LOI, IMIDE, not knowing the other word. Drat.
In Champagne, the JEROBOAM is considered the optimum size for ageing the fizzy stuff!
No probs with the plant, but BREEKS (NHO) was my POI.
Thanks jack and setter.
Yes .. but then they would say that, wouldn’t they! £400 for a jeroboam of NV Veuve Clicquot, or £3,500 for vintage Dom Perignon..
You’d probably get one in ALDI for a tenner.😀
One wrong in 24 mins. I went with IMIDE for the unknown organic compound.
COD: MINDSET
Thanks to jack and our setter.
I enjoyed this gentle puzzle although I could only guess at JO and BREEKS. Remembered IMINE from its previous appearance. I remember much muttering when Keely Hodgkinson (unfamiliar to most of us) appeared in a previous puzzle but it seems she has the last laugh appearing alongside the crossword today (at least in the printed paper) and still winning. Thanks for the blog.
More like a Monday than a Tuesday, for me, 19 minutes all done and enjoyed. As a once-chemist I knew what an IMINE was, and liked BREEKS when the penny dropped. JO ffor a Scottish lover was NHO but not many cities are DI**N. ODIUM is becoming a chestnut.
10:55 Nice puzzle, and a pangram too. LOI LETTERING. No problem with IMINE which last appeared in TfTT in a Monthly Club Special I blogged, but has also sometimes been seen in the words for Polygon. Lots of lovely clues. I liked MINDSET, EMMENTAL, WEATHER and SEDAN best. Thanks Jackkt and setter
Didn’t understand how LETTERING worked (given I’d NHO ‘lett’), but at least it was clear. Finished all bar IMINE in 32 mins. DNK it, and not interested in guessing weird words unless they’re blindingly obvious.
thanks setter and blogger.
good puzzle.
1a i guessed astern and thought i was clever. for 28a i essayed briefs.
cheated for 23d imine, entered without getting the dictionary out. but otherwise all ok including surprising myself with write-ins for agapanthus and autodidact.
Had done everything except IMINE in 12 minutes. Six minutes later I gave up and used an aid. So technicial DNF. Otherwise 18.07.
I think if the clue had been ‘…one digs up’ instead of ‘one is digging up’ that would have been slightly fairer for a generally unfamiliar word without changing how the cryptic works.
15.42. Spotted the pangram when JEROBOAM turned up, suggesting the Q before U in QUAINTLY. Probably accounts for the setter plumping for ZONE, BREEKS and MANX.
While I sympathise with the NHO IMINE fellowship, having worked on the basis that “one is” usually gives I’M for a while, IMINE is common enough in the esoteric crosswords, and the -INE ending is quite likely for organic compounds. Perhaps that explains why our Stinks chemists didn’t know it?
On my local market, the fruit and veg man had a defiant OBERJEAN’S (complete with apostrophe) so I won’t be drawn into the American or not debate.
I was pleased to get both the AUTODIDACT and AGAPANTHUS oddities without hesitation.
Cheers, Jack.
Gave up on imine (like many others).
Thanks, jack.
Very enjoyable puzzle all correctly completed today.
Jo/breeks were taken on trust; don’t use whelp as a verb; and wouldn’t use tiny as a noun but appreciate all correct.
Someone minding poor little ET raised a smile.
Thanks for the excellent blog and to our setter for a fun solve.
Despite spending around four minutes on LOI, IMINE, I finished in under twenty minutes. Sadly an early fat fingered entry in the NW meant it was all in vain. AUTPDIDACT. $%^&(U&”$$!! Thanks setter and Jack.
I love your mistake. The very thing a self-taught person might write!
😁
Defeated by JEROBOAM in 25:07. I keep saying I am going to learn the bottle sizes as it’s not the first time I have been defeated by them. Not helped by trying to fit a Z in having missed it was already in ZONE. Most of my drinks come from a can or pump.
Enjoyed the anagrams in this one. They were a big help as I struggled to get started.
Thanks blogger and setter.
13:50 – didn’t know IMINE of course, but the cryptic was decisive and it sounded likely enough. Ditto for the Lett component of 15d
For once the pangram helped me, as it only lacked a K when I started thinking about it, so BREEKS became easy. But the I?I?E answer defeated me and I used electronic aids. Unfortunately the first one on the list which was an organic compound or something was imide, so I entered that with no understanding. Lesson: think about the wordplay, which in this case was fairly simple. I think Letts and Latvians aren’t quite the same but close enough and often equivalent in crosswords.
And in dictionaries. Collins: “LETT: another name for a Latvian.”
What can I say, IMINE in early with a Meh! and only one crosser. Unknown, prepared to rub it out, but it sounded likely. Otherwise much to like in a relatively easy puzzle, some brilliant long definitions again, as noted above. Liked autodidact and tarantula, Jo well-known from past puzzles, agapanthus in the front yard, never really sure what aubergines are, if they’re eggplants or zucchinis. I know they’re not capsicums 😉 Tie-Dyeing gets COD ahead of digestive tract and death wish.
Eggplant = aubergine, zucchini = courgettes.
A pretty steady solve without being too pacy, gave me a finishing time of 33.50. I was relieved to find IMINE was correct having trusted the cryptic direction, ignoring the alternative answer of IMIDE which sounded more compoundish. Initially misspelt JEROBOAM but ORDERLY put me right.
24.29 on the GWR from Taunton to Paddington, had to look up IMINE but otherwise managed to avoid the carefully set traps. Having a Manx born wife of Scottish ancestry helped with MANX, DIJON and BREEKS.
Thanks Jack and setter.
I did rather well until the final four clues, which took about 10 minutes. But: all complete, no cheat, in just over 30 mins.
Can someone explain why JO = lover from Scotland? I thought of DIJON but that didn’t seem to make sense, so I kept looking, for minutes and minutes. Eventually I saw OBJECTIVE (not hard, why did that take so long) which confirmed DIJON.
I also figured IMINE quite quickly based on previous IMIDE or similar.
I think this is one of those ‘easy enough for those who’ve been completing the Times for years’ crosswords. For the less experienced committed solver, there are quite a few tricky points here.
I’m indebted to the Dictionaries of the Scots Language: ‘A sweetheart, a lover; gen. male, but sometimes applied to women’ (also, Joe)
It does pop up occasionally.
20:09 but…
Kind of think I’d seen IMIDE here before, but couldn’t justify it. I’m not surprised that there is such a word as IMINE but didn’t know it and consequently checked for its existence before submission. Otherwise, it was a pretty smooth solve, even getting the plant without any issue. I learned that JO is short for JOY, a Scottish equivalent of dear or darling.
Thanks Jack and setter
NHO IMINE but parsed it fairly quickly. That apart, this enjoyable puzzle threw up few causes to furrow my brow – which was already furrowed by the time it took to access the puzzle via the Times app, which seems to get slower by the day. Clearing the cache did no good at all.
I biffed QUAINTLY but parsed it later.
FOI TARANTULA
LOI AUTODIDACT
COD DEATH WISH
TIME 9:20
AUTODIDACT would have been a write-in for students of Jean Paul Sartre. For once the pangram helped with MANX , but two Scottish references maybe one too many?
Why? The Times is a British, not just English, paper and last time I looked Scotland was still part of Britain. We get plenty of US and other non-British references.
I remember Sartre’s snide commentary on the character in Nausea, and also feeling when I first read it that it was unfair (and a sign of Sartre’s social class) for him to tar every AUTODIDACT with the same brush. The term was actually used recently as an encomium to yours truly when The Nation (where I’ve worked for well-nigh 40 years) published a crossword in honor of my recent momentous birthday.
I was also surprised that anyone here found the term a bit odd. And they probably graduated college too.
16 mins today, spurred on by the rapid solving of AGAPANTHUS (in our garden) and TIE-DYEING (set given as 8th birthday present to a requesting granddaughter on Sunday – daughter not overjoyed!). Didn’t know IMINE and originally entered AMINE uneasily but later reckoned that 21A would probably end in TION and switched to the wordplay-compliant IMINE. First one in was TARANTULA and last REPRESENTATION. Favourite clue: to CARAMEL. Thank you Setter and Blogger.
Pleased to sort several unks from the wordplay, but that pleasure did not extend to Imine, which needed a dictionary. A definite World Atlas flavour to the top – Both a Dutch and a French city, Manx, plus German verbiage. I didn’t know that nounal use of “tiny”, and while the clue was clear, I still don’t like that nounal usage of “tiny”. Thanks setter, and jack
About 14 minutes, 4 or 5 of them on IMINE. I saw quite quickly how it was going to parse but mine for digging up took a while to come to mind. COD TARANTULA.
17:44 but had to look up my LOI, IMINE. Despite an A-level in chemistry plus more chemistry as part of my undergraduate degree, the compound was not in my vocabulary.
COD to TARANTULA.
Thanks Jack and setter
Once I had all the checkers in, I wanted to put in REHOBOAM (also a bottle), before I realised that it just wouldn’t parse properly. Soon switched to JEROBOAM.
JO (as in DIJON) should be familiar as a Scottish sweetheart to Scrabble players, one of the only two valid two-letter words with a J.
I created the plausible ‘iride’ as a salt of iridium but apparently the real word for that is ‘iridate’. Otherwise fairly quick and easy FOI TARANTULA, LOI ERASE and done, bar 23D, in around 19 mins.
I appear to be in the majority here, for once, in not knowing or being able to piece together I-I-E, despite an alphabet trawl involving Ds and Ss, mostly, and assuming the rest of you would be throwing it in and moving on, but apart from Piquet and those who’ve come across it in previous crosswords it seems to be entirely unknown. Certainly looking up ‘organic compounds’ helped not a bit and I duly gave up and used aids. I feel much the same about chemicals as Astro Nowt does about birds. Rest of the crossword was great! COD to TARANTULA for the neat ‘and lit’.
18.37
Also hesitated at the end but followed the same logic as Zabadak to plump for IMINE over IMIDE. That was tricky almost to the point of being annoying but loved the rest of it.
Thanks Jackkt and setter.