Time: 24.13
A few obscurities here, and even though a couple have very generous wordplay, one’s enjoyment of this puzzle might depend on not getting overly stuck on any of them. A bit of a mixed bag overall in terms of difficulty as there are a few escapees from the Quickie together with some nicely neat long anagrams.
This is my last blog for a while as I am off to Guatemala next week, but my eminent Wednesday co-blogger, Jerry, has very kindly offered to stand in for me until I am back. A big thank you to him. Hopefully it won’t be as “sunless” there as it has been here for most of the year so far.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Thus duck may be seen in Scottish river, indeed! (8) |
| FORSOOTH – Lots of Scottish rivers to choose from but here it is the lesser-used FORTH into which is inserted SO (thus) and O (duck). | |
| 5 | A new ship? Very much so! (3,3) |
| AND HOW – And lots of ships to consider. Here a DHOW is needed to add to A (in plain sight) and N (new). | |
| 9 | Bolt stand with three legs after first bit has fallen off (5) |
| RIVET – Yes, I thought RIPOD might be the answer before my hand slapped my forehead and the rather more obvious answer presented itself – TRIVET, without its first letter. | |
| 10 | A row about fellow taking diamonds or another precious stone (9) |
| ALMANDINE – NHO for me (or possibly forgotten), though no doubt it has appeared here before. There are also quite a few types of row in Crosswordland (tier, din, ado etc) so this was one of my LOIs before committing to LINE as the correct synonym for “row”. A (again in plain sight) comes first and then there are two insertions of MAN (fellow) within A + LINE and then D (diamonds) inside what you have constructed to that point (the D doesn’t come inside MAN so it isn’t a double sandwich).
The stone is an iron aluminium garnet of deep red colour, inclining to purple, and is Connecticut’s state gemstone. |
|
| 12 | A period of prosperity in which pound is seen to be blossoming (6) |
| ABLOOM – A third A in plain sight to which is added BOOM (period of prosperity) with L (pound) inserted. | |
| 13 | Act to save time, work unit being made clean (8) |
| DETERGED – I will save everyone the bother and pronounce this as a horrid word, barely, if ever, used in normal speech (not that that is a hindrance, of course). DEED (act) goes around (to save) a combination of T (time) plus ERG (work unit). The wordplay is very generous, but even so, I did slightly flinch when inserting it. | |
| 15 | A mystical style configured according to a plan (14) |
| SYSTEMATICALLY – An anagram (configured) of *(A MYSTICAL STYLE). | |
| 18 | Were indecisive priest and actor miscast? (14) |
| PROCRASTINATED – Another anagram (miscast), this time comprising *(PRIEST AND ACTOR). Quite liked this one. | |
| 22 | Pin never to be inserted the wrong way round in end-piece (8) |
| TREENAIL – Despite my devotion to the Aubrey-Maturin series of books by Patrick O’Brian, this term for a long wooden pin or nail to fasten the planks of a ship to its timbers, is most definitely a NHO. As with ALMANDINE, the wordplay is pretty generous (a reversal of NEER (never) inside TAIL (end-piece)) but even so there was a degree of finger-crossing when submitting. | |
| 23 | Awkward staff close to mutiny (6) |
| STICKY – STICK (staff) + Y (the last letter of mutiny). | |
| 25 | Is Parisian classified as “disaffected”? (9) |
| ESTRANGED – To the French word for “is” – EST – we add RANGED (classified). | |
| 27 | Show some incredible vitality (5) |
| EVITA – Hidden. Neat surface. | |
| 28 | Group in home counties — don’t cancel it (6) |
| SESTET – I struggled with this a bit, wanting “set” for “group” but I was looking at the wrong end of the clue for the definition. When I first started as a trainee lawyer, proof-reading was still a thing (we had a whole room of them) and STET to indicate that a strike-through should be ignored (in other words “don’t cancel it”), was part of the language. SE at the beginning (home counties) completes the clue.
As for the definition, I am more familiar with SEXTET but SESTET is an alternative spelling/version. |
|
| 29 | Pupil is needed for this crew? Certainly will be in it (8) |
| EYESIGHT – “Certainly” could be aye, ay, sure or similar but is YES around which goes EIGHT (crew).
There might be a time when “pupil” in a clue refers to someone in a classroom, but I won’t be holding my breath. |
|
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | French mathematician having love for English design (6) |
| FORMAT – This is a substitution clue where FERMAT (French mathematician) has its E (English) swapped for an O (love). | |
| 2 | Your bar set up for party fun? (7) |
| REVELRY – YR is an accepted abbreviation for “your” which adjoins LEVER (bar) before being reversed (up). | |
| 3 | Insect moving round on the parrot (11) |
| ORTHOPTERAN – Another NHO for me and this time – horror of horrors – clued as an anagram (moving round). Well done if you got this without any checkers. I needed all of them to get the letters of *(ON THE PARROT) in the most likely order.
Orthoptera is the cockroach order of insects, with firm forewings serving as covers to the fanwise folded hind-wings. |
|
| 4 | Spot revolutionary protecting a nasty person (4) |
| TOAD – This is a reversal (revolutionary) of TAD (spot, as in “a spot of tea”) around A (in plain sight for the fourth time).
On edit: Err, it would help if I peered a bit more closely at the clue! Thank you Kevin for pointing out the obvious – it’s DOT for “spot” reversed around A. |
|
| 6 | A sort of single person? Not a single person, we hear (3) |
| NUN – A homophone clue (we hear) on the basis that the answer and NONE (not a single person) sound the same. As it happens I do say them the same but I suspect not everyone does. | |
| 7 | Setter intended to fix locks? (4,3) |
| HAIR GEL – A bit like “pupil”, when one sees “locks” one rather assumes we are talking hairdos, not doors, and that is indeed the case here where the second part of this double definition clue has a cryptic hint trying to lead you in the wrong direction. | |
| 8 | “Sunless” periods, as you might surmise? (8) |
| WEEKDAYS – Well, we have certainly had plenty of sunless months in the UK in 2026 but here we need to think of “Sun” as being an abbreviation for “Sunday”, in this cryptic clue. Another one which benefited from existing checkers. | |
| 11 | Team is run to develop great players (7) |
| MAESTRI – An easy one. An anagram (to develop) of *(TEAM IS and R (run)) | |
| 14 | Attractive woman guys without maiden sing about on ship (11) |
| ENCHANTRESS – A woman who attracts rather than necessarily being beautiful. This is a charade clue where we add EN (men missing M for maiden) to CHANT (sing) to RE (about) to SS (ship). | |
| 16 | Disguising male in the role of ruler (7) |
| MASKING – M (male) plus AS KING (in the role of ruler). | |
| 17 | Son of Harry maybe watches (8) |
| SPOTTERS – You have to lift and separate between “son” and “of” in this clue. Son gives us S to which we add POTTER’S (of Harry maybe) and ignore the apostrophe. Can you believe it is so long since the original books and movies, that we are now to be treated to a TV series?
A watch can be a body of watchmen which is a reasonably synonym for our answer. |
|
| 19 | Greek avenger, old, remains full of energy (7) |
| ORESTES – If you remain somewhere I guess you can be said to be resting there, hence RESTS into which we insert E (energy) and place at the beginning O (old).
I suspect a NHO for a few but my Greek A-Level came up trumps here. The Oresteia is a trilogy of three plays by Aeschylus dealing with the revenge by ORESTES for his father, Agamemnon’s, murder. |
|
| 20 | Impression created by winsome female’s leaving (7) |
| ETCHING – FETCHING (winsome) loses its F (female). | |
| 21 | One of the oppressive types — those people heartlessly rage (6) |
| TYRANT – You can’t have an indirect anagram, but it appears asking us to convert “those people” to THEY and then taking the heart out of it to make TY, is okay. RANT (rage) completes the wordplay. | |
| 24 | Founder of religious sect recalled you once entertaining theologian (4) |
| EDDY – YE is what we once used for “you”. Reverse that and insert DD for our Doctor of Divinity theologian.
Sect sounds quite pejorative but in the dictionaries is simply defined as a subdivision of one of the main religious divisions of mankind. I don’t know how many this will be a NHO for but Mary Baker EDDY was well known to me as my grandmother subscribed to the Church of Christ, Scientist of which Mary Baker Eddy was the founder. I will let readers read and make up their own minds but I don’t think it would be unfair to say that “Scientist” is something of a misnomer. Whatever you think of their beliefs, the success and spread of the “subdivision” after the end of the 19th century was quite notable. |
|
| 26 | Name of murder victim shortened, one way or another! (3) |
| ABE – I’m not really sure which bit of this clue to underline. I bunged it in on the basis that I had A-E and ABEL was our well-known first murder victim. When writing this up I guess that we are also meant to think of Abraham Lincoln whose name was shortened in a different way. | |
TOAD is DOT reversed around A.
Thanks Kevin
Finished it off using aids for 3 or 4 clues. I started to lose interest when I found myself with answers I suspected were correct but I was unable to explain fully, ABE being one example – still don’t get it, btw. Also there were too many unknown answers for my liking:
ALMANDINE, making its first appearance in the TFTT era.
DETERGED. NHO this as a verb in any part of speech, and certainly this one has not appeared before
TREENAIL. A Mephisto and Club Monthly job only before today.
ORTHOPTERAN has appeared only in Jumbos, most recently in 2021
⬆️ wot Jack said. Thanks D.
DNF
NHO TREENAIL, and never would have got it. Never got SPOTTERS either; that Harry never occurred to me. My father’s mother was a Christian Scientist, which may explain his sister dying of tuberculosis. What’s the difference in pronunciation between ‘nun’ and ‘none’? SOED doesn’t show any.
It’s a totally different vowel sound in northern English.
I don’t know why I didn’t think of that (I assume you mean ‘nun’).
Yep
44 minutes, but unfortunately I followed the wordplay perfectly at 10a and 8d, as far as I can see, to come up with ADMANTIER and WORKDAYS, so finished with two wrong. Bah. Both seemed quite plausible.
Same 🙁
Well I’m glad I wasn’t the only one!
39.31 but TBH I almost exhausted the check function trying to fill in the blanks in the name of that annoying insect. I also don’t get ABE and I’m similarly puzzled by HAIR GEL. Which you presumably apply after the hair has been DETERGED (there it is, first and final use). I liked the long anagrams and FORMAT was my LOI, mathematicians – French or otherwise – not being my strongest suit.
From Highway 61 Revisited:
God said to Abraham, Kill me a son
ABE says Man, you must be puttin’ me on
God says No, Abe says What??!!??
God says You can do what you want Abe but
The next time you see me comin’ man, you better run
Abe says Where d’you want this killing done?
God says Out on Highway 61.
17’17”, pleased to be all correct. Struggled with the insect (must keep pen and paper to hand). Didn’t parse WEEKDAYS and only thought of Abel.
I’m also an Aubrey-Maturin fan and similarly have never heard of a TREENAIL.
It’s more than thirty years since Fermat’s Last Theorem was proved. Unfortunately, only about three people in the world can understand the proof.
And, pace the title, the sun is definitely out, hottest day of the year in the UK.
Thanks dvynys and setter.
The setter was on a loser with me once nun was used as a homophone for none. I did finish with a constructed ALMANDINE having finally relented and put in the offensive word. I didn’t much like WEEKDAYS and DETERGED either, unsure about both. I did like the FORSOOTH/FORMAT crosser though, and I knew of Mary Baker EDDY. A mixed bag, as you say. Thank you setter and Dvynys.
Happy with most of these obscurities but SESTET required help as I wasn’t sure of ABE, clue was very unclear. 20 mins but with a typo.
Nope, neer going to finish. Gave up with ORESTES ( not remembered or NHO) the odd SESTET (ditto) anf TREENAIL. I also had to check the letters for the insect seeing the anagrist early but not making any sense of it.
I had the two long clues in early and enjoyed that at least.
Thanks Dvynys and tricky setter.
Just over an hour, but needed aids to help with ALMANDINE. Was stuck on row=tier.
Got ORTHOPTERAN from guessing two Greek prefixes. Top fact, helico-pter means “spiral wing”, but both heli- and copter have been reworked as English prefix and suffix. Eg heli-skiing, turbo-copter.
Is SESTET a bowdlerised version of Sextet?
COD ABE. Both had their names and lives cut short. Very clever.
DNF missing 3 but glad to learn here that a couple of guesses were right.
I considered NEER but not the simpler TAIL part and forgot about the boy wizard. I considered an AP beginning for “son of” in a Welsh way.
However, I would never have got STET, might have biffed SEXTET if it had fitted but happy to stop when I did. Not in my comfort zone this one but that’s a good thing sometimes.
Thanks to setter and very well done Dvynys, this was v. tough.
DNF lost on the anagram lottery. I tried to be clever and start it with OPTHO (insects have lots of eyes right!?).
Glad just to fail on the one. anDHOW and ORESTES were also outside of my knowledge alongside TREENAIL. DETERGED also didn’t sit right in my head but it matched the wordplay.
WEEKDAYS in from the checking letters before the penny dropped.
Certainly agree with the mixed bag comment from the blogger.
COD FORSOOTH
Thanks blogger and setter
I didn’t know about Mrs Eddy, very interesting. A ‘science’ in those days might have meant little more than a body of knowledge but a good term to choose to enhance credibility.
I confess for a moment or two I confused it with the rather more sinister Scientology, where again the suggestion of ‘science’ would have been intended to confer an entirely spurious respectability.
Anyway makes a change from the usual crossword ‘eddy’
The ‘science’ in Scientology comes from its founder L.Ron Hubbard
a writer of Science Fiction and Science Fantasy! Nuff said.😀
(He had wanted to name it after his book Dianetics, but had lost the rights to the name in a court case.)
DNF, defeated by FORMAT. Didn’t know the mathematician, but still should have got it.
– Had to trust the wordplay for the unknown ALMANDINE
– Figured out DETERGED early on but couldn’t quite believe it existed as a word
– Not familiar with TREENAIL but it parsed and sounded plausible
– Couldn’t have told you that ORESTES was an avenger
– Had no idea who EDDY was
– ABE went in with a shrug
Thanks Dvynys and setter.
COD Almandine
Really good fun, tho i failed at SPOTTERS and thus SESTET. Managed a number by guessing such as ALMANDINE, FORMAT and EDDY, and loved the anagrams, great morning! Thanks all, Cx
24.25, lingering in the lower left corner because it wasn’t NEMESIS. DETERGED is a horror: I tried ASPERGED but couldn’t make it work. Other oddities in the grid fell out readily enough: I got ORTHOPTERA from the first O and the anagram fodder! Simpler ones like MAESTRI and STICKY resisted longer. SPOTTERS my last in
Cheers, Dvynys: have fun in Guatemala!
Completely becalmed in the SW corner, spotters for watch seems very harsh, but that wouldn’t have helped with the others.
I’ll try again tomorrow, thanks to the blogger for sorting this one out for me.
All correct, but missing the NHO and pretty bloody stupid TREENAIL… FFS.
Still don’t understand ABE, though it went in faute de mieux. NHO DETERGED, but fitted wordplay and seemed likely as a ‘thing’.
ABEL and ABE (ABRAHAM) Lincoln were both murdered, so ABE is short for either. Seems clear enough to me.
It took me a while to see that one is a shortening by truncation, the other by standard nick-name abbreviation, so one or the other.
Gave up (at the 30 minute mark) on TREENAIL, even with “reen” pencilled in and only 2 letters missing i couldn’t get it. It didn’t help that I wasn’t 100% confident about SPOTTERS. With hindsight, I should have got there. Had also NHO DETERGED, ALMANDINE and SESTET so was already feeling a bit discouraged I think!
24:13 – matching our esteemed blogger’s time to the second. Anagrammed my way through by playing scrabble with the three unknowns until something playable emerged but I was far from certain they were real words and rather pleased to find they were.
36:33, but I had SUSSEX instead of SESTET. my rationale was that the definition was a group in the home counties (iffy I know) but then Sus is short for sustain in music (i.e. don’t cancel) and Sex for it. Other than that I rather enjoyed it!
Another who found this a mixed bag, delightful clues like FORMAT, FORSOOTH and WEEKDAYS, just heard-ofs like ALMANDINE and the insect, not very happy ones like DETERGED (admittely it is in the dic) and NHO like TREENAIL, which latter made me a DNF. The long anagarms were good too.
Mostly very easy and pleasant except for the obscurities, which caused me to take far longer than I thought I would. TREENAIL held me up but my fault, I should have seen the fairly gentle wordplay. Also ORESTES was only vaguely known and I couldn’t have told you that he was an avenger. And Harry Potter wasn’t at the front of my mind, so 17dn was a mystery. Aren’t MAESTRI mainly conductors?
What’s the point of including words which even the dictionary flags as rare? I’m looking at you, DETERGED and SESTET. When 99.999% of people would use SEXTET instead, what’s achived by using such an obscure word when others would have fitted in the space?
Rant aside, have fun in Guatemala Dvynys. You can go walking on the volcano if you don’t mind burning hot lava falling down next to you, and Tikal is amazing.
Yes everyone would call it a sextet. But perhaps the intention is the group of the last six lines in a sonnet.
The answer to your question is ‘nothing’. It’s demoralising, and imo (for what it’s worth) they don’t belong in a Times crossword. You’d have to hope the setters do actually know these words, because it would be unfair otherwise to expect the solver to know them.
The crossword seems to have lost something since the old days, when it was often completed à la Reggie Perrin on the traditional commute into Waterloo, without a dictionary, and these obscurities made only a rare appearance, if any.
The curse of the internet I suppose, where nearly everybody has a dictionary on a device that fits in their bag, or pocket even.
Even then, I’m not convinced that a dictionary-trawl should be a requirement for solving the crossword even in these modern days.
Another toughie! TOAD and HAIRGEL were first 2 in. After that I picked up low hanging fruit wherever it appeared before settling in for the slog. The long anagrams came reasonably easily and provided much needed crossers. The SE seemed the most tractable section. Struggled in the other corners. Eventually a postulated WEEKDAYS led to AND HOW (I once had a night time trip with a steak dinner on a Dhow in the Indian Ocean off the Kenyan coast while holidaying in Mombassa, and finished up with the trots 🙁 ). ALMANDINE was my second effort after ADMANTIER was ruled out by WEEKDAYS. Down in the SW, I had no trouble with SESTET, but ORESTES and TREENAIL took a while. Back in the NW, REVELRY got things going and tripod gave way to tRIVET. Then I managed to rember FERMAT, and ostensible LOI FORSOOTH put right my bungled ARTHOPTERON. 33:14. Thanks setter and Dvynys. Enjoy your trip!
Too many unknowns for this to be enjoyed. While I managed to figure out some – ALMANDINE, EDDY for instance – I failed miserably with ORTHOPTERAN, TREENAIL and WEEKDAYS.
Thanks D
11:06 but with a careless SUSSEX with a similar half-formed logic to E Bradford above. I enjoyed this one.
A few unknowns today: ALMANDINE, DETERGED, EDDY. TREENAIL has appeared in Mephisto before but I had forgotten it.
I’d like to explain ABE to those who don’t understand it but I don’t understand what you don’t understand!
Abel becomes Abe by truncation, which is one way of shortening, Abraham becomes Abe by another way of shortening.
Well yes I know that, I’m just not sure which part of it people are struggling with.
Sorry, I misunderstood you, thinking you didn’t see the clue rather than that you didn’t see why others didn’t.
I had trouble with it at first because I could only see the Abe(l) and so didn’t understand what the “one way or another” meant. It took awhile for Lincoln, and the other shortening, to occur to me. I assume that is what others are finding confusing.
I still think the wording of the clue supports just one murder victim – Abel – whose name can be shortened in either of the two ways. Abraham Lincoln is an unnecessary distraction
Could be. Other than THE Abel, I’m not familiar with anyone of that name, and so am not familiar with Abe as a nickname for Abel.
I am on my allotment right now planting potatoes so a break is very welcome. If you Google “Abe nickname” the best bit is the AI overview which says:
Abe is primarily a nickname for Abraham or Abram, originating from Hebrew meaning “father of many nations”. It is famously associated with “Honest Abe” (U.S. President Abraham Lincoln) and is also used as a diminutive for names like Abel, abner or Absalom
I will grasp at this straw and the wording of the clue (singular). Abe.
That’s what his friends(?) called him
Think you’re wrong, as I can see only one way to shorten Abel to get ABE.
Oh. Now I really am outgunned. It’s so much neater though with just one murder victim. The two ways of shortening a name:
One – spelling – knock off the final letter of the word, as we do in crosswords
Two – pronunciation – knock off the final syllable, as we do in real life
Yes, they get you to the same place; “either way” as it says in the clue
But those are the same thing. The letter represents the sound; the sound represents the letter.
Kapietro – I think the second is how you get to a nickname – for example Dick could be a shortening of Richard. You get there through common usage, not through truncation. You get Abe from Abel via truncation. You get Abe from Abraham (ANOTHER WAY) via common usage.
A quiz for those still interested: how would Peter / Pete or Robert / Rob work?
I thought I’d solved it in 23 mins – but I had inexplicably entered TRENAIIL at 22A (I think I was intent on entering TRENAIL, which I knew, but messed up), which meant that my 3D insect, worked out from its wordplay, had its last two letters twisted. ALMANDINE went in at once, so I must have heard of it; not so EDDY, but its/her wordplay was clear. DETERGED is a word one surmised existed but hoped never to meet. First in was AND HOW, last TOAD, but only because I’d forgotten about the clue (I’m having a not so good day today) – its immediate predecessors were FORSOOTH and FORMAT. Notwithstanding I fluffed it, I enjoyed the puzzle. Favourite three clues: to STICKY, FORMAT and ENCHANTRESS. Thank you Setter and Blogger.
Damn the insect and in what part of the country is ‘nun’ pronounced the same as ‘none’? …and don’t get me started on TREENAIL.
Not a good day.
Collins has nʌn for “none” and for “nun” it has… nʌn.
It would seem that the most common, or “standard,” pronunciations of the words are identical.
I find it hard to imagine another way either would sound. (The vowel for both is a schwa in Merriam-Webster.) The comment, below, by Longtime Lurker, makes that clearer to me. But I don’t see any justification for calling the homophone “phony,” as Chris J does. I’ve had to remember differences between certain UK and US pronunciations to finish many of these.
In Tunbridge Wells, perhaps? It is how I pronounce them, and I go there often enough.
33:40. A remarkable experience, but I got there in the end. At 26dn, having found my murder victim – Abel – it never occurred to me that I might need another one. He can be shortened in two ways: by knocking off the last letter or by calling him Abe as his friends(?) would have done. I liked STICKY
What an odd crossword. So many words that I’d never heard of (or forgotten). ORTHOPTERAN was a hard anagram since I NHO and I didn’t have pen and paper to hand. I had checkers at the start of the clue so I guessed correctly that it started ORTHO so then it was a choice of whehter to end RNA or RAN. I opted for the wrong choice but that came clear when i got my LOI TREENAIL. Who knew DETERGED was a word, although obviously plausible? I felt pleased to finishe all ccorrect without aids in about an hour.
24:57 with just one error, the utterly hopeless SESTET in which I wouldn’t have gotten any part of the answer or wordplay even with the help of infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters. Outside of that, a very fun challenge with a lot of head-scratchers and corroboration needed.
I really liked the ones where having the esoteric GK made me feel clever, and I liked the ones where I figured out a known or even an unknown from the cluing. While the meaning was always clear, I found a number of the definitions just a little stretched or out of the ordinary. Thx, Dvynys.
DNF – that SW corner gave me such a headache that I actually started doing work instead!
Me too. Grim indeed.
DNF after 35 minutes, and did not really enjoy it. WR for NHOs in my case, with ALMANDINE, DETERGED, TREENAIL, SESTET, and ORTHOPTERAN all entered more in hope than expectation. Totally failed at 17dn, despite having all the crossers, and decided to call it a day. Fortunately NONE and NUN are homophones in my neck of the woods.
Thanks to Dvynys and other contributors.
On the subject of pronunciation, the only reason I’ve heard of TREENAIL is because I saw the wonderfully quirky pronunciation (trennel) in a dictionary a longtime ago and I’ve remembered the word ever since. Apparently the boringly prosaic ‘tree nail’ is also considered acceptable though. The issue of dodgy aural wordplay has come up before in the context of ‘one’ and probably ‘none’ too. For the most part, ‘none’ has a CUT vowel in the South and a LOT vowel in the North with a tremendous amount of variation in the Midlands, with many people using a PUT vowel (which Northerners sometimes do if they don’t use the LOT vowel). Lots of people use the LOT vowel for ‘none’ in East Anglia too. ‘Nun’ has the CUT vowel in the South and a PUT vowel in the North though that can go either way in much of the Midlands. I’m from Warwickshire and use the LOT vowel for ‘none’ and CUT vowel for ‘nun’ FWIW.
Thank you for so effectively seeing off that phony homophone!
Posting late, and expected my failure in the SW to be just me being an ignoramus. The TREENAIL, ORESTES and SESTET combination did for me.
It felt straightforward to start with NE and SE corners went in quickly), but there was a distinct Mephisto feel to much of the vocabulary elsewhere.
Many thanks Blogger and Setter
I finished most of this pretty quickly—must’ve seen ALMANDINE before (it’s not in Collins but is in Chambers)—but was stuck on TREENAIL for a while, before finally seeing SPOTTERS… and then pausing to parse it. My antepenultimate one in, with STET involved, I really should have gotten earlier!
It is in Collins:
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/almandine
Hmm. I think they must have just added it! 😀
Late to this. Glad to finish albeit a good 50′ which, unusually for me, contained a fair few NHOs constructed from wordplay including the stone, the pin, the group and the “scientist” lady. My usual modus operandi is to see the answer then confirm through wordplay. I might be catching on!
Thanks Dvynys and setter
Too many guesses to make this enjoyable and failed on 3 of my answers (which was better than I was expecting). Feeling a bit thick.
Far too much NHO for this to be enjoyable, particularly the intersecting set of NHOs in the SW.
I managed to figure out ORESTES, ALMANDINE and TREENAIL eventually, also considering ADMANTIER on the journey, but couldn’t figure SESTET, even though SE and STET were both in my mind. Also had ABE but no idea why.
Should have given up sooner and enjoyed something different!
First four solved were the four long ones. So, lots of checkers. Knew TREENAIL, familiar from Scrabble. Guessed ABE was Abe Lincoln, but didn’t understand the “one way or another” part. Got WEEKDAYS eventually, after first trying Tuesdays, awaydays, and holidays 😄 All finished in about 45 mins while having my tea.
Late here today because away in London. Last night went to see a frankly weird play about ABE Lincoln as a repressed homosexual and his alcoholic wife Mary. But 26dn I thought rather a clever clue and like Keriothe, perfectly clear. Abel or Abraham, take your pick.
Less happy about deterged, maybe it does exist, but it really shouldn’t.
I am a CSForesterphile and an O’Brianophobe. But hadn’t heard of treenail either. Still, got there.
I have nothing against obscure words. On the contrary, I think they are half the fun. Having said that, I still ballsed up the insect, with ORTHOPTERON. To me it sounds the more likely word, but I know the anagram doesn’t work. Otherwise I was slowed down at the end becaue I had HAIR OIL instead of GEL. Meant I had no place for my ERG. And a lot of ERGs were expended before I saw the light. Was it Merlin above who pointed out once before that HeliCOPTer should really be pronounced Helico-PTER. Or even -TER if we make the P silent as in Pterodactyl. Well, I am now predantically annoying friends and family with the new and corrected version.
Speaking of dropping letters, a thought. Might it be possible to initiate a new convention based on the modern-day dropping of the letter T? Gen Z mortality = morality. That kind of thing. Might be a useful new device.
27’33” with the mistake.
Er, am I the only person to have thought the answer to 4d was ‘Tiaz’ (an evil character from the StarWars series)? It parses perfectly if you use the American ‘zit’ for ‘spot’
Bad luck! I’m not sure that any Star Wars character, major or minor, has yet found its way into a Times cryptic, although Han Solo would work quite well in a clue.
A weird mixture of the Quick and the NHO, which included EDDY, ORTHOPTERAN, ALMANDINE, SESTET and TREE NAIL. (Oh, and DETERGED!) So I was quite chuffed to finish, including getting the two long anagrams early on, only to find that in 1d, which I had agonised over for ages, I’d gone for the wrong one and put FERMAT. Doubly annoying to find that I’m apparently the only person who even thought it could be either. Oh, well, at least I’d heard of him. Lots to like, though, and no problem with ABE, once I’d thought of the president.
Enjoyable until I hit a wall with about ten left. Many of these turn out to be what I would definitely class as obscure definitions, which makes me feel a little less frustrated. The wordplays were generally fair though ( and often downright clever). Onwards and upwards ! Many thanks to setter and blogger.
Tree nail – usually spelled as one word is still in use among us who work and restore old timber framed buildings