Time: 30:12
Hello from Loch Lomond, from where I’m typing this on my phone, so apologies in advance for any garbled, fat-thumbed nonsense that has escaped my review.
This was about as straightforward as Fridays come, with lots of addition-type wordplay and common vocabulary (for the most part). I still had plenty of fun separating the definitions from the misdirection, and parsing the last couple that I did not see right away. Happy Easter weekend to all.
Definitions underlined.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Set time for golfer’s play (4) |
| PUTT – PUT (set) + T (time). | |
| 3 | Standard complaint about one’s diet? (10) |
| PARLIAMENT -PAR (standard) + LAMENT (complaint) containing (about) I (one). Japan’s legislature, for example, is a ‘diet’. | |
| 10 | Decorator may want this very hot container of tea? (6,3) |
| PIPING BAG – PIPING (very hot) + BAG (container of tea). | |
| 11 | Crew welcoming company for wine (5) |
| MACON – MAN (to crew) containing (welcoming) CO (company). A firm summer favourite. | |
| 12 | In plain language cake includes bun ultimately (2,5) |
| EN CLAIR – ECLAIR (cake) contains (includes) the last of buN. | |
| 13 | Dispute imports are nearly qualifying for this? (6) |
| TARIFF – TIFF (dispute) containing (imports) nearly all of ARe. | |
| 15 | What’s compulsory for some padre’s offering? (8,7) |
| MILITARY SERVICE – double definition. | |
| 18 | Something people always want to raise being flags? (6,9) |
| LIVING STANDARDS – LIVING (being) + STANDARDS (flags). | |
| 21 | Mind supporter at home games ignoring Lions? (6) |
| BRAINS – BRA (supporter, don’t remember seeing this chestnut for a while) + IN (at home) + gameS after deleting (ignoring) ‘game’ (for Example, big game, lions?). | |
| 23 | Charlie is unaccompanied going around Luxor sculptures (7) |
| COLOSSI – C (Charlie), then IS + SOLO (unaccompanied) reversed (going around). | |
| 26 | Clear fluid left larva without nitrogen (5) |
| LYMPH – L (left) + nYMPH (larva) after deleting (without) ‘n’ (nitrogen). | |
| 27 | Adroit lie ruined newspaper piece (9) |
| EDITORIAL – anagram of (ruined) ADROIT LIE. | |
| 28 | Church refuting circulating scientific article based on spin (10) |
| CENTRIFUGE – CE (Church of England), then an anagram of (circulating) REFUTING. | |
| 29 | Less intelligent individuals wanting lecturer’s explanatory lists (4) |
| KEYS – donKEYS (less intelligent individuals) deleting (wanting) ‘don’ (lecturer). | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | What transforms output from plant and energy for each factory (10) |
| PEPPERMILL – PEP (energy) + PER (for each) + MILL. | |
| 2 | Subject to irrational concerns to begin with (5) |
| TOPIC – TO + PI (irrational number) + first of (to begin with) Concerns. | |
| 4 | Light racing rigs, which can appear on beaches? (9) |
| AMBERGRIS – AMBER (traffic light) + an anagram of (racing) RIGS. Some emanating fluid from a sperm whale that can wash up on the beach, and be used in industry (for producing fragrances). | |
| 5 | Run away on the level (5) |
| LEGIT – LEG IT (run away). | |
| 6 | Lover’s private message conveyed by broadcaster? (7) |
| ADMIRER – DM (direct message, private message) contained (conveyed) by AIRER (broadcaster). | |
| 7 | Stripped-down Tesco bid to get in India’s head chef (9) |
| ESCOFFIER – central letters from (stripped-down) tESCo + OFFER (bid) containing (to get in) the first of (head) I (India). Auguste Escoffier, French chef, and the staunchest roadblock in my solve. | |
| 8 | Fashion good for Chinese society (4) |
| TONG – TON (fashion) + G (good). | |
| 9 | It can’t possibly sound (6) |
| INTACT – anagram of (possibly) IT CAN’T. | |
| 14 | Palace as erected under king in Seville that’s demolished (10) |
| VERSAILLES – reversal of (erected) AS after (under) R (king), all contained by (in) an anagram of (that’s demolished) SEVILLE. Not that you needed to work all that out to bung the answer in. | |
| 16 | Stable worker’s irritable having cut pony’s hair (9) |
| LIVERYMAN – LIVERY (irritable) + MANe (pony’s hair) missing its last (cut). | |
| 17 | Stiffening wound round supporting structure (9) |
| STARCHING – STING (wound) containing (round) ARCH (supporting structure). | |
| 19 | Not one of the pair I found in Underground? (7) |
| NEITHER – I contained by (in) NETHER (underground?). | |
| 20 | Shapeless lump of a model getting little work (6) |
| DOLLOP – DOLL (model) + OP (abbreviation of (little) opus (work)). | |
| 22 | Bundle of dynamite perhaps not quite secure outside? (5) |
| SHEAF – HE (high explosive, dynamite perhaps) contained by (with… outside) SAFe (secure) missing the last letter (not quite). | |
| 24 | Horse and what may be bet on it, mostly before end of race (5) |
| SHIRE – SHIRt (what one might bet on it, from the idiom “bet one’s shirt on”, meaning to make a large and consequential bet), deleting the last (mostly), then the last letter (end) of racE. | |
| 25 | British pass up League of Nations? (4) |
| BLOC – B (British) + reversal of (up) COL (pass, of the mountain variety). | |
I really liked this one and thought it was a bit chewy but it is Friday, after all. I made two silly mistakes that messed up my print-out big time, but was too far in to do a fresh print. Bunged in ‘national’ instead of MILITARY SERVICE and ‘higher’ instead of LIVING STANDARDS, My own silly fault as I didn’t parse either. Eventually saw my errors and kicked myself.
Saw ESCOFFIER right away from the helpful ‘stripped-down Tesco’ and ‘bid’. VERSAILLES came from the checkers and parsed afterwards. Liked PARLIAMENT but initially thought it was poor, thinking it was simply ‘ailment’ with the first three letters reversed before seeing it was ‘lament’ with ‘I’ inserted. Guessed LIVERYMAN after thinking the stable worker would be ‘lad’, but with more checkers the answer came but not sure I knew that meaning of livery. AMBERGRIS was known but wasn’t sure about ‘racing’ as the anagrind, have we had that before?
PIPING BAG, CENTRIFUGE, COLOSSI, BRAINS, DOLLOP, STARCHING, all good. Sadly, I failed on LYMPH but had great fun with the rest. COD to BRAINS.
Thanks William and setter.
Yes not too hard, been an easy week, I await tomorrow’s with trepidation. KEYS last in, the donkeys took time to occur to me. And I have never knowingly used a piping bag.
In 4dn, is “spent” a typo for Sperm, William?
Yes – cheers.
Important, to put your sperms in their right place …
steady….
Not sure why but my friend and I decided to do this one. Usually now stick to Saturday’s. And lo and behold it turned out to be Good Friday not F-ing Friday.
LOsI were 22d SHEAF and 29ac KEYS – did not know HE for High Explosive and did not see ‘donkeys’, but picked answers from meanings.
Quite a few to really admire, including: 10ac PIPING BAG and 5d LEGIT. Honorable mention for 15ac MILITARY SERVICE. There were no really arcane references – although a few could be considered reasonable fair play in the Times context.
Had to research wine to fit clue for 11ac MACON and DM for unknown messaging. Saw ‘ton’ for ‘fashion’ in 8d TONG, an unwelcome chestnut.
This setter (or this puzzle) exhibited more than a few cryptic meanings which made it interesting. Took quite a while – but we are tortoises.
Found this in the spirit of good Times Cryptic – tough at times but entertaining.
Thank you setter and william_j_s.
50 mins so fine for a Friday. Like Jerry, LOI KEYS took up five minutes trying to find the « don ».
I liked PIPING BAG & LIVING STANDARDS.
Thanks William and setter.
Just under half an hour, with the last 10 minutes spent on KEYS. I eventually got it after an extensive alphabet trawl, but I still completely misunderstood it as I thought ‘lecturer’s’ in the clue was a homophone indicator.
– For 23a I was fixated on ‘unaccompanied’ giving ‘sole’ rather than ‘solo’, but thankfully realised in time to put COLOSSI rather than a nonsensical CELOSSI
– Didn’t know nymph as larva, but the checkers meant LYMPH had to be
– Not familiar with livery meaning irritable for LIVERYMAN
Thanks William and setter.
FOI Macon
LOI Keys
COD Colossi
Usually more ‘liverish’ ?
LOI LYMPH a stab in the dark. As with other physicists of my age and acquaintance, there was no room in the school syllabus for any biology.. I needed all crossers for COLOSSI. I knew Rhodes had one but I thought Luxor specialised in Pharaoh’s tombs. Decent puzzle. Thank you William and setter.
Isn’t colossi just a generic reference to the likes of the Sphinx and those big things where the tombs usually are – or were you kidding ?
If you have a blood cancer, you will very soon find out all about lymph glands and lymphomas, BW!
I also stymied myself by bunging in NATIONAL SERVICE but eventually connected my misgivings about not having parsed it with my lack of ability to get anything that crossed it, finally finishing in 57 minutes. KEYS also took me a long time.
22:27 with the LYMPH and LIVERYMAN pairing being the main trouble. BRAINS LOI but only because I held off because I couldn’t account for the S. Never did fully parse until I read the blog. I guess there’s a first encounter with every chestnut.
I had NATIONAL SERVICE and HIGHER STANDARDS in at one point but with so much to correct them I can’t say that slowed me down.
COD PIPING BAG
Thanks blogger and setter
49 minutes, but I might have been nearer my half-hour target had I not bunged in NATIONAL SERVICE at 15ac, and even after I’d realised it had to be wrong (16dn starting with T?V seemed unlikely) I was slow to come up with an alternative to NATIONAL. Very enjoyable though, and set at a good level for a weekday puzzle IMHO.
The ‘padre’ alerted me that something else was going on with 15ac.
DNF and DN enjoy. Lots of cleverness and some good PDMs but off-wavelength on just about every clue. “Ton” started my livery mood and I eventually gave up with the impenetrable from all directions KEYS missing. Only 45 mins but that was more than enough.
Not unexpected given the week to date and tomorrow is another day. Thanks William and setter.
Sorry to hear you did not enjoy.
Just shows how individual background (wavelength) can affect puzzle response.
The contrast in style with yesterday is so stark it may be deliberate. I would say it boils down to 2 things: Verbosity and Modernity.
Verbosity is often debated here and is a matter of taste. Some of today’s worked for me, the definition for CENTRIFUGE was excellent but OTOH I found PEPPERMINT poor and KEYS … ’nuff said.
I have re-read every clue and I don’t think there is single word/concept in there that could not have been 50 years ago (Tesco?). No NHO except DM and ESCOFFIER was FOI but also Starching, Livery, Military Service. Timeless or dated? Tariffs and centrifuges are at least topical.
Objectively it was a good puzzle, just me being grumpy.
DNF. I don’t think I’d have got KEYS if I had spent another hour on it. I was nowhere near any of the element of the clue! Good puzzle, with a nice range of references from DMs to liverymen.
Interesting to see that many, including the clearly very experienced, had trouble with 29ac. My friend offered KEYS to fit crossers using fallacious reasoning, but it almost fit a potential meaning in the clue, so in desperation I put it in. Both the ‘donkeys’ and ‘don’ were stretchy.
Same here. Everything got and parsed save KEYS. I thought lecturer was a homonym indicator.
I thought it was L! That’s a Chambers-only abbreviation though so not sure you’d see it in the daily puzzle.
I don’t think the clue is unfair, I just couldn’t see the other elements of the clue and I don’t think I ever would have.
53 minutes. Badly breezeblocked by KEYS at the end which I bunged in with little idea, like keriothe above mis-parsing most bits of the wordplay. An enjoyable puzzle which was otherwise accessible and free of obscurities, though I also missed the DM in ADMIRER.
Didn’t and wouldn’t have got KEYS and sort of made TANG work (being a chinese dynasty and you can “tan” leather to “fashion’ it…hmmm).
Otherwise gettable for a Friday and some enjoyable stuff such as PARLIAMENT and CENTRIFUGE.
Thanks William and setter
Just under half an hour, but I crashed and burned on the chestnut at 5d. Can’t believe I put LIGHT instead of LEGIT! Apart from that, KEYS was LOI as I suddenly saw DON for lecturer. An enjoyable puzzle apart from my silly error. Thanks setter and William.
Snap, on both counts!
25.40 for a 20 minute puzzle. KEYS is just brutal: I was stuck with a comparative (less intelligent) and a L[ecturer] and any number of possibilities for “lists” – hears, wants, menus, tournaments, keels over, plus a few archaisms. Chambers tells me there are 170 ways to fill in the checkers, almost as many as ?A?E. I suppose if I had twigged DON for lecturer earlier it might have fallen quicker.
It left me slightly livery after enjoying the rest of an otherwise fine set of clues. ESCOFFIER possibly gave an advantage to geriatric solvers, though I doubt many of us were alive when he was cooking. I was fortunate with MILITARY SERVICE because I already had the M from a just-in-time corrected PEPPERMINT – a mint is factory of sorts.
Congratulations to william for creating a near flawless blog on a mobile – I’ve found just trying to put corrections in that way is nightmarish enough!
Escoffier accepted with gratitude by the aged. But perhaps not only geriatrics who should know of this seminal french chef.
Morning Z. I got ESCOFFIER straight away when I got the C. I am quite old but hopefully not geriatric yet! I’ve got that to look forward to!!!!!
40 – I seem to have found this chewier than most with KEYS taking up a full 10 minutes of solving time. I though the device to give the final S of BRAINS was clunkily out of place and hardly worth it for what little it did for the surface.
A pleasant surprise for a Friday, meaning I was able to finish it in under an hour – in fact 40 minutes after scratching my head for a long time on 29ac until the DON disconnection gave me the required PDM. All the clues were manageable and did not need convoluted reverse engineering, so a perfect puzzle for me.
FOI – PUTT
LOI – KEYS
COD – PARLIAMENT
Thanks to william and other contributors.
A very enjoyable 28′ so a faster than usual Friday for me.
Only NHO was “DM” but ADMIRER couldn’t be anything else other than ARMORER with all the crossers!
About 12 minutes. That’s not my time, it’s how long it took to get KEYS. Deletion clues can be brutal, especially with unhelpful checkers. But a very nice puzzle. Thanks blogger and setter.
30:01 so JUST outside the half hour target.
Held up by several minutes at the end by AMBERGRIS. I was probably lucky to get the (don)keys very quickly though, it’s the kind of thing I could easily have got stuck on, so swings and roundabouts.
Anyway a rather pleasant week as puzzles go.
Thanks setter and blogger
I found _E_S at the end for the last clue quite impossible and gave up after ages and pressed Reveal. The trouble was that I was fixated on lecturer being L (it is in Chambers, after all, although possibly in few other places, unless you accept Colllins’ cop-out ‘… used as an abbreviation for words beginning with l …’) and could think of nothing. The closest I could get was PEBS, which is no good for multiple reasons. Chambers hasn’t heard of the PIPING BAG so I Googled it. Otherwise pleasant enough and a nice change from those incredibly difficult Fridays.
Like everyone else, I ended up stuck on keys, and nearly put light instead of legit as well. But at least I got military service and living standards without any fuss. Yes, I was trying to remove an L from something. In one sense, a don is the opposite of a lecturer on the academic totem pole, but on the other hand, a don does give lectures. It didn’t matter, because I never parsed keys, just put it in as the evident answer.
Time: 44:23
Another solver stumped by KEYS. My mis-thought was that lecturer was a new (at least to me) homophone indicator.
Defeated by… Keys. ‘Escoffier’ was an answer on The Chase yesterday, and came up on Rick Stein’s programme an hour or so later – so that was a serendipitous write-in.
I really liked this one – enough to chew on but also some kind ones. It did take until 27a to get started though 😅 A massive PDM at 29a when I realised I needed a synonym for lecturer, and I didn’t parse ADMIRER, but otherwise all good. MILITARY SERVICE and PIPING BAG got ticks.
30 minutes FOI Editorial LOI Admirer COD Colossi
Thanks setter and William
Managed to be on wavelength today and all done in 25 minutes. Like everyone else I stared at KEYS for a long time until I started to work thru words containing DON. Also like many others I had NATIONAL instead of MILITARY until peppermill came to hand.
Ton for fashion is a new one on me – or at least I’m certain it will have occurred during my 9 years of crosswording and I didn’t know it the other times as well – let’s see if it sticks this time.
Thanks William and setter
DNF. Failed on KEYS, despite an alphabet trawl. Even after revealing the answer, I couldn’t parse it, though now it makes sense. But on the whole, I prefer a puzzle where I can get all the answers bar one to one where I can only get around half a dozen in total. I thought LEGIT was excellent, and it fooled me for ages. Liked ESCOFFIER too, though don’t consider myself quite geriatric yet. I also liked PIPING BAG, which came to me with P-P in place. I had a confident PEPPERMINT, since while I didn’t fully understand the definition, it parsed perfectly well, so it took LIVING STANDARDS to change my view on that. EN CLAIR NHO, but a couple of crossers suggested the answer – though I was expecting Latin rather than French. Generally good fun, but with a disappointing end…
I thought I’d had a lost weekend and it was Monday already. After 16 mins all answers were in save the dreaded KEYS, which took a further nine mins. I assumed L had to be subtracted from something; it was the belated thought that ‘explanatory lists’ might be KEYS that saved the day. ESCOFFIER named two of his inventions after my late godmother’s granny. Thank you Blogger for explaining ADMIRER: DM is new to me. Appropriately, first in was PUTT and last KEYS. Favourite three clues: to EDITORIAL, DOLLOP and SHIRE. Thank you Setter and Blogger.
Funnily enough got KEYS without too much trouble, but failed on LYMPH (didn’t know NYMPH = embryos), AMBERGRIS (only vaguely heard of, and assumed there must be some sailing term for light rigs that I didn’t know) and TONG, thinking TANG worked!
Looks like I got a bit lucky today to finish up in 21:31 and only have about a minute of that on KEYS: I had the L for lecturer as something to be removed, and I had KEELS for lists, and then I somehow fudged the two together, rather ignoring how that could possibly work given the clue. But it got me close enough, if nowhere near parsing it. Also no real idea what was going on with MILITARY SERVICE, as I’d forgotten what a PADRE gets up to. Very nice puzzle to finish off a gentle week – thanks to setter and William.
KEYS was my LOI (after SHIRE). Guessed what “don” was doing but still needed to trawl the ABCs. I whizzed thru most of this, but the SE slowed me at the end. Was certainly expecting something harder!
TANG is just a straight-up better answer for this clue than TONG. Change my mind.
OK. It does not parse!
And no definition either: .. tang = chinese society? No, Tan = fashion? No …
Found this hard being a newbie and enjoying a steep learning curve. DNF after an hour as I am minimising time spent on these puzzles.
Didn’t know 10a , 11a, 15a, 18a, 23a, 26a and 1d, 4d(heard of this but didn’t connect), 7d, 14d (didn’t connect with palace), again with 16d, and 25d.
Hopefully ingrained in my grey cells.
Thanks. William
It’s PEPPERMILL isn’t it ? (also see rv1 and alto ego above).
I have been doing these for some years and it’s definitely the first time I have ever completed correctly all the Mon-Fri cryptics so I’m quite pleased with myself, although a glance at the SNITCHES this week gives me a good idea why this was possible.
Eventually managed to parse my, and nearly everyone else’s LOI, KEYS
Quite liked “games ignoring Lions” when I twigged what was required.
FOI PUTT
COD BLOC
That is very good work, congratulations! Well done.
The next stage, is to expect to solve every clue, even if the word itself is new to you, or you look at it and nothing springs to mind.
All experienced solvers can do this, even those of us who can’t change a light bulb.
My only advice is, do 1/2 hour or so and then put it to one side, come back later and do another 1/2 hour if need be. Answers will come; and then, spend just a minute or two to think about why they have come now, and not the first time? There are reaons, it is not just fate.
Thanks Jerry. I’ll take your advice although you may notice that I never say how long it takes me. That’s something else I need to work on.
Congratulations on achieving what I have failed at so far. I’ve been all correct on 4/5 several times, but never all of them Mon-Fri. I might never do it, as they seem to be getting trickier.
Thanks. I see that you only failed with KEYS (my LOI after a lot of pondering). Very frustrating.
I’m very aware that the SNITCH is a good indication of the likelihood of my completing the puzzles. The sum of the SNITCH’s this week was about as low as it gets.
34:36
Last five minutes or so on KEYS! Everything else was easier to come up with, though initially bunged in NATIONAL SERVICE. Didn’t fully parse BRAINS either, missing the game reference to Lions. ESCOFFIER vaguely heard of, and enjoyed AMBERGRIS – I have wondered who on earth came up with the idea of using it in fragrances!
Thanks William and setter
I gave up without either Keys or Shire, Keys for the obvious reason, Shire because it’s one of those words I know when I read it but don’t have on my mental list of horses. Everywhere else I enjoyed all of this.
Done in 58 mins, KEYS last one in, toyed with donkeys, monkeys, lackeys all being less intelligent …
Having looked at the comments, I don’t feel too bad about failing to get KEYS. Otherwise all correct, but I’m grateful for the explanation of ADMIRER, which I failed to parse.
The quest for an all correct Mon-Fri continues!
52 minutes (or 50 plus proofreading), but truly quite straightforward for a Friday. My LOI was also KEYS, which I solved by leaving the room, sitting down to watch my sister-in-law’s cat sleeping in her sitting room, until my brain had calmed down enough to revisit its less well-lit corners. That strategy always works (and of course the lecturer was not L, which at first gave me DOTS from DOLTS, but DON (not the one commuting between Florida and Washington)). Nice puzzle, nothing nearly impossible like recent Fridays.
36’25” in two goes ending Tuesday. Held up for a long time by AMBERGRIS, KEYS and BRAINS. But got there in the end. Many thanks.