DNF: 49:32 with one cheat and one error.
A cracking puzzle in which my first thought for a lot of the clues turned out to be mistaken – I really enjoyed being led up the garden path! I slowed down over several well-hidden definitions, before coming to a complete halt at 9dn. After pressing the reveal button on that one, I kicked myself for not having done so sooner, and then kicked myself again for having entered CURe at 19ac. Drat!
Definitions underlined.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Grace’s headdress Ruth completely defaced? (8) |
| URBANITY – tURBAN (headdress) + pITY (ruth) after removing the first letter from both (completely defaced). | |
| 5 | English queen and king pressed by conceited young man in rally (4,2) |
| PERK UP – E (English) + R (regina, queen) + K (king), all contained (pressed) by PUP (conceited young man). I can’t find support for this definition of PUP in Chambers, so assume it will be found elsewhere. | |
| 10 | Former Welsh international regularly turned out (9) |
| ERSTWHILE – an anagram of (out) WELSH + I (international) + every other letter from (regularly) TuRnEd. | |
| 11 | Youngster breaks small piece of aerial apparatus (5) |
| SCUBA – CUB (youngster) contained by (breaks) S (small) and the first letter from (piece of) Aerial. | |
| 12 | Old president, Democrat, presumably lying in the past (4) |
| ABED – ABE (Lincoln, old president) + D (democrat). Archaic term for lying in bed. | |
| 13 | Herald’s warning to Russell? (9) |
| FORETOKEN – FORE (warning in golf) + TO + KEN (Russell, film director). | |
| 15 | Shared what could now be two pounds? (5-5) |
| FIFTY-FIFTY – L and L (two pounds) read as Roman numerals. | |
| 17 | Property paper withdrawn, for the most part (4) |
| SEMI – tIMES (paper) reversed (withdrawn), minus its first letter (for the most part). | |
| 19 | Check dog bite at the very least (4) |
| CURB – CUR (dog) + the first letter from (at the very least) Bite. I took the most wrong least bit. | |
| 20 | Part of game introduced by gambler’s spouse (6,4) |
| BETTER HALF – HALF (part of game) after (introduced by) BETTER (gambler). | |
| 22 | Lost power dividing parties in opposition with member of secret society (9) |
| ODDFELLOW – FELL (lost power) contained by (dividing) OD and DO (mirror images of (in opposition) parties) + W (with). | |
| 24 | Considerable case for theory about primitive instincts (4) |
| TIDY – outermost letters from (case for) TheorY containing (about) ID (primitive instincts). As in ‘a tidy sum’. | |
| 26 | Agent ditching lead performer (5) |
| ACTOR – fACTOR (agent) minus (ditching) its first (lead). | |
| 27 | Line of males runs through plan, failing to reach conclusion (5,4) |
| SPEAR SIDE – SPEARS (runs through) + IDEa (plan) minus its last (failing to reach conclusion). The male line of descent (the corresponding female side is the spindle or distaff, I have learnt). | |
| 28 | Performing well, northern lad’s cracking try from the back (2,4) |
| ON SONG – N (northern) + SON (lad), all contained by (cracking) the reversal of (from the back) GO (try). | |
| 29 | Aloof, as must a bare-faced Poirot have been? (8) |
| DETACHED – DE-TACHED (without moustache). | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Addict’s bum steer ignored every so often (4) |
| USER – every other letter from (ignored every so often) bUm StEeR. | |
| 2 | Consumer guidance from road-test — beef with BSE condemned (4-6,5) |
| BEST-BEFORE DATES – anagram of (condemned) ROAD-TEST BEEF + BSE. | |
| 3 | Currently, negative votes over mass cuts (8) |
| NOWADAYS – N (negative) + AYS (votes), into which O (over) and WAD (mass) are inserted (cuts). | |
| 4 | One who takes unlimited throws in paper round (5) |
| THIEF – sHIEs (throws) without the outermost letters (unlimited) contained by (in) reversed (round) FT (paper). | |
| 6 | Fake fivers a Tzigane checks (6) |
| ERSATZ – hidden in (…checks) fivERS A TZigane. | |
| 7 | Blow joint cash in weekend on vacation abroad (7,8) |
| KNUCKLE SANDWICH – KNUCKLE (joint) then an anagram of (abroad) CASH IN + first and last of (on vacation) WeekenD. | |
| 8 | Suitors showing clear disputes (10) |
| PLAINTIFFS – PLAIN (clear) + TIFFS (disputes). Those who bring suits in court. | |
| 9 | American spin mostly defends eg circumstantially awarded degree? (8) |
| AEGROTAT – A (American) and ROTATe (spin) minus the last (mostly), all containing (defends) EG. I could not guess it even with all the checkers. It’s the name for a degree awarded to someone who was certified as ill at the time of the exams, or the medical note granted to prove this). | |
| 14 | Fan fuss following a heartless lie (10) |
| AFICIONADO – ADO (fuss) after (following) A + FICtION (lie) without is central letter (heartless). | |
| 16 | Impracticality of documents attached to hacked emails (8) |
| IDEALISM – ID (documents) + an anagram of (hacked) EMAILS. | |
| 18 | Brief analysis raised Yorkshire river standards (8) |
| CRITERIA – the abbreviation (brief) CRIT (criticism, analysis), then a reversal of (raised) AIRE (river in Yorkshire). I did not know this abbreviation. | |
| 21 | PM involved in event that’s on track (6) |
| KEIRIN – KEIR (Starmer, PM) + IN. A guess for me – it’s a form of cycle racing that originated in Japan. | |
| 23 | Women’s present question (5) |
| WHERE – W (women’s) + HERE (present). | |
| 25 | Old hat, stovepipe, finally packed away by old man (4) |
| DEAD – last of (finally) stovepipE contained (packed away) by DAD (old man). | |
I had negative votes=nays
Me too. Positive votes would be ayes…
DNF in 30 with, you guessed it, AEGROTAT outstanding. I had some of the required elements but dismissed A-E-G as being too unlikely to be bothered pursuing. Some of the other cryptics (KNUCKLE SANDWICH, for instance, and ERSTWHILE) were well beyond me so thank you William. A terrific puzzle with some dire obscurities, a couple of fearsome definitional stretches and an old-timey feel in some of the vocab. Not sure if I’ll use the expression ‘old hat’ to refer to my late father-in-law…
From Tears of Rage:
Tears of rage, tears of grief
Why am I always the one who must be the THIEF?
Come to me now you know I’m
So alone
And life is brief
It was KEIRIN that finally did for me. Above my pay grade, I’m afraid.
Around 60 minutes for a steady solve. Baffled by KEIRIN for while since I didn’t expect the answer to be related to cycling which I know well. The competing riders draw for position and line up at the start up the banking of the track. The motor cycle comes past at 30kph and the riders must follow in a line behind it in their correct positions. The motor cycle picks up speed each lap until its final lap where it is moving at 50 kph when it moves off leaving the riders to race over the last 3 laps of 250metres. Finishing speeds of more than 70 kph can be achieved. Generally there are heats, semifinals and a final. Eliminated riders get the chance to go forward in repechages.
An excellent puzzle that I was pleased to finish in 13.56. KEIRIN known from half-watching the Olympics, although I couldn’t tell you much about it. The NHO AEGROTAT looked a very unlikely set of letters, but it was the only place the cryptic was taking me, so I trusted the setter and was duly rewarded.
Thanks blogger and setter.
Again with the ‘shies’! I was going to give up on this after an hour but decided to struggle on. I eventually had all but the NHO AEGROTAT, SPEAR SIDE and FORETOKEN. Still enjoyed it and derived some pleasure from assembling some of the Ikea clues, especially URBANITY and ERSTWHILE. COD to PLAINTIFFS.
Thanks William and setter.
Resorted to aids for FORETOKEN (though I had the FORE), SPEAR SIDE (NHO) and, rather oddly CRITERIA where I was missing one of the checkers via the intersection with the line of males.
Also rather oddly I managed to construct two more NHOs, KEIRIN and AEGROTAT both of which looked unlikely so as I was an hour in by then I afforded myself the luxury of checking they existed before moving on.
There was a lot to enjoy here but I was too tired to continue the battle indefinitely.
Enjoyed this, not easy though. Once seen, KEIRIN is easy to remember because of the little put-put gurney bike Kensoghost mentions. Aegrotat I have only previously met in crosswords.. several times in Mephistos and once in the daily cryptic in 2021. Spear side nho, though distaff I knew.
Snitch at the time of writing is 125 which seems about right, and indicates that Jason has graded the degrees of difficulty this week pretty well. Furthermore we have had only one crossword graded over 200 all this year, and that was early in January. So it would seem appeals to ease up on the difficulty have been listened to.
DNF
NHO AEGROTAT, no idea what the clue was getting at, and not the faintest idea of how to fill in the unches. I knew KEIRIN, of course, as a Japanese word meaning bike race, didn’t know it was in English (not in ODE or my English/Japanese dictionary)–I’m totally uninterested in all kinds of racing, but bicycle racing perhaps more totally than any other. NHO SPEAR SIDE, but guessed it might complement distaff side and biffed it, w/o parsing. The only Russell I could think of was Bertrand, until finally I thought of FORETOKEN and remembered Ken.
DNF, AEGROTAT, KEIRIN, the SANDWICH bit of 7d and SPEAR SIDE all did for me. Too tough. If I want Mephisto type clues, i’ll do the Mephisto, but I don’t.
Thanks william.
DNF, defeated by KEIRIN.
– Never figured out the anagrist for ERSTWHILE
– Didn’t understand FIFTY-FIFTY
– Had to trust the wordplay for the unfamiliar SPEAR SIDE
– Likewise for the unlikely-looking AEGROTAT
Thanks William and setter.
COD Detached (maybe others have seen it before, but I liked it)
Had ‘knuckle’ quite quickly but ‘sandwich’ needed more time and checkers than it should have. I now think I’ve heard ‘keirin’ spoken on TV sports without being able to make it out properly so essentially guessed from the cryptic. ‘Aegrotat’ was the normal term back in the seventies for ‘mitigating circumstances’
DNF. I gave up on this with three unsolved, and not the first idea about any of them. I should have got SEMI: I had been looking for a word meaning ‘paper’ that I could reverse into I?E??, it didn’t occur to me to reverse it and then take the last letter off. However I don’t think I’d ever have got KEIRIN (NHO, didn’t occur to me to look for first names of PMs) and SPEAR SIDE (no idea whatsoever) so I’m glad I didn’t spend more time on it. I did manage to construct the weird-looking AEGROTAT!
Technical DNF in just under 40 minutes as I needed aids for the last few answers. AEGROTAT curiously wasn’t one of them, but I was sorry to find on checking the OED that there appears to be no connection with “grotty”. I was helped in reaching the required CRITERIA by a mnemonic from O-Level Geography circa 1973 which lists major rivers of Yorkshire in North to South order: SUNWAC (Swale, Ure, Nidd, Wharfe, Aire, Calder). Thank you Mr Kerley and Mr Chaffey; and thank you William and setter, too good for me today.
I’ve walked along every one of those rivers… Swale and Swaledale, my favourite
You are as you no doubt know in very good company: Auden called it
“…that dale of all Yorkshire’s the loveliest
Where off its fell-side helter-skelter, Kisdon Beck
Jumps into Swale with a boyish shouting…”
I don’t remember the boyish shouting.. probably too knackered, doing the Pennine Way, but still, nice to know it’s not just me ..
Stopped after 25′ without KEIRIN, although I’m a fan of road cycling, and without SPEAR SIDE, despite having researched family histories for ten years.
Knew AEGROTAT only from one of the authors of ‘1066 and all that’. It’s a pity that an accessible crossword seems to have breezeblocked so many solvers.
Thanks william and setter.
Just over the hour but with a careless typo in the bike race. Surprised myself as I was on the point of resignation more than once, very pleased I persisted. SPEAR SIDE was one of those answers the source of which I cannot recall, similarly KNUCKLE SANDWICH.
COD WHERE. LOI ERSTWHILE.
Thanks to setter and william.
35 minutes. A few tricky words. After working out AEGROTAT from the wordplay I recognised it as a (cruci)word I’d come across before though I didn’t have a clue what it meant. Funnily enough I looked up SPEAR SIDE a few days ago for some reason and read about the “spindle side” mentioned by William; one to remember for the future.
KEIRIN was my LOI (thanks for the explanation KensoGhost); I didn’t quite have to do a “PM trawl” but I did consider Pitt, Peel, Home et al before finally thinking of the first name of the present incumbent.
17.39, almost needing oxygen on the leaderboard at the moment. Probably indicates that I missed a lot of the subtleties of this one, to my loss, I think. But at least I managed to spot ELSEWHERE before submitting, and changed accordingly.
The minimalist in me briefly pondered the idea of an AEGROTAT so as to avoid the hard work by throwing a sickie. The Poirot AFICIONADO in me coupled with my delight in awful puns elected DETACHED as CoD. Perhaps if I’d paid more attention to the other clever bits submitted by our setter, it might not have been!
Thanks William for taking the time to do it properly.
52 mins and happy just to finish such a puzzle.
LOI SPEAR SIDE on finally spotting SPEARS. I was similarly stumped by Distaff recently. Talking of stumping the only Russells I could think of were Jack and Bertrand.
Misspelling AFICIaNADO held up POI ODDFELLOW needing a reparse.
HO KEIRIN fortunately, part of the incessantly dull track cycling at the Olympics.
HHGTTG uses “Conceited little megapuppy”. Restaurant at the end of the Universe actually, just got the book out to check.
COD to DETACHED. Thanks to William and setter.
All but KIERIN in around 45 minutes.
I was watching a bit of an IPL match last night, and was delighted to find Ian Bishop is a fan of the Spoonerism. Referring to the large number of teams above Bombay in the table, he referred to the ‘joglam!’
Failed on AEGROTAT, which I would never have constructed and KEIRIN which I should have seen and I had heard of. Bit of a silly format following a Deliveroo driver before actually racing… nevertheless I was concentrating too much on concocting 19th century PMs.
Shame since I got through much of this quite quickly for a Friday.
Thanks William and setter
All very good and some of those I didn’t understand were anagrams that were so well-concealed that parsing them was too much for me. Never understood NOWADAYS but I agree with several who say it’s nays. AEGROTAT and KEIRIN weren’t problems since somehow I know the words, but had never heard of SPEAR SIDE.
My thanks to william_j_s and setter.
Quite hard today but not very hard for a Friday.
10a Erstwhile biffed when all crossers in.
12a Abed, COD I think for the PDM.
13a Foretoken, understandably I was unable to force Bertrand in there.
27a Spear Side. NHO, but I have because it is in my Cheating Machine, and I must have added it after a previous encounter. I had however completely forgotten what it meant and looked it up.
3d Nowadays biffed.
7d Knuckle S biffed.
9d Aegrotat NHO, probably, cheated.
21d Keirin, NHO, cheated, added to CM.
About an hour on paper, then did have to check “shear side”, “oddfellow” (couldn’t parse it), “knuckle sandwich” had me on the ropes (as it were), oh, and the crowd-fave “aegrotat” , NHO, or is that NFI, thanks william and setter
DNF.
Thanks, W.
Feeling a bit smug this morning as, wonders never cease, AEGROTAT went straight in. It was often said that this degree in Oxford was seen as superior to a third class one, so there was always suspicion that the justification for this was less than convincing.
Unfortunately I was then screwed by 17a when I put Deli in for the far more obvious SEMI.
Having to check Wiki’s “List of Rivers in Such-and-such” is never the sign of a particularly smooth solve, although at least AIRE had the decency to be first: that was around the 40 min mark, and I limped on for another fruitless couple of minutes before clicking on the answers for AEGROTAT, KIERIN and SPEAR SIDE, with the conclusion that I should have done so sooner. Thanks William for the unravelling.
Goodness, there are so many rivers with short names in the UK!
As an American, I’m happy to be comfortable with excitingly-named places based on indigenous North American and Pacific languages (TAHOE, ERIE, KALAMAZOO, OAHU, TALAHASSEE, TAHQUAMENON FALLS, etc) but the old Celtic and Norse names for rivers in Great Britain continue to stymie my solves. I’d better get some flash cards to review!
Mostly not to hard, but DNF, on AEGROTAT, SPEARSIDE and KIERIN. AEGROTAT might have been seen before – 2021 mentioned above. SPEAR SIDE nho. KEIR meh! still not totally accustomed to live people. KEIRIN I know well, big cycling fan, but road not track. Saw Tadej Pogacar win Milan San Remo a couple of weeks ago after a big crash 30 km out, with 2 major climbs to come and down a minute or more. Impossible! Had to get lucky in the sprint, though. Saw him lose Paris Roubaix a few days ago, outrode everyone execpt Wout van Aert and didn’t get lucky in the sprint, beaten by a better sprinter. Vingegaard in form, so Tadej might only come second in the Tour this year.
Thought the puzzle was a bit forced, trying too hard, so enjoyed it a bit less than others did.
Pogacar will win the Tour, I feel.
DNF in 35, with KEIRIN the obvious reason for my smattering of pinks. NHO this event – I had assumed it was the PM that was unknown rather the sport, so I was already in shrug mode. Oh well.
DNF, after using aids for AEGROSTAT, then finding them no help for SPEAR SIDE and throwing in STEER WIDE, hoping that the clue had something to do with male cattle stampeding on a wide line around a bend. Are steers male, or is it heifers?
Inability to tell steers from heifers is a drawback in a number of fields, crosswords not the least 😉
DNF
Down to the last five in around 26 minutes, but struggled to justify IDEALISM (even though I could see how it worked – just didn’t equate it with ‘impracticality’) and FIFTY FIFTY (the answer seemed obvious but didn’t think of the Ls as pounds). Even with those in place, CRITERIA wasn’t obvious – never heard of CRIT as an abbrev of criticism or analysis and would struggle to name any Yorkshire rivers – but couldn’t think of anything else. AEGROTAT? No chance with that – an unlikely combination of letters for something I’d never heard of.
Which left SPEAR SIDE. I didn’t solve the cryptic, but more to the point, in more than forty years studying genealogy, I have never come across this term.
Thanks William
41:10 – delighted to finish this with several fingers-crossed answers – KEIRIN and SPEAR SIDE among them. Particularly surprised to find the former was correct.
About an hour (done in two sessions), and I thought I had managed to finish, only to find two annoying mistakes. I joined William in putting in CURE, and most annoyingly put in KEIRON convinced that it was spelt that way. I’ve watched many a KEIRIN at the Olympics marvelling at the speed the cyclists manage to attain. I even managed to work out AEGROTAT even though it seemed rather an unlikely looking word. Frustrating …..
DNF – failed on SPEAR SIDE. Couldn’t parse it even with the answer revealed.
NHO AEGROTAT but as others have said, the cryptic made it gettable. Not so with SPEAR SIDE.
NHO Aire but managed to figure it out.
I loved large parts of this, but I think the number of DNFs here amongst experienced solvers shows that there were just a few too many obscurities for it to be really fun. Put AEGROTAT and SPEAR SIDE in the Mephisto and it would have been brilliant.
COD to Knuckle
I had all bar 3 after 30 minutes and after about another 20 minutes I managed to assemble AEGROTAT and KEIR-N, but needed Google to decide between I,O, or U for the penultimate letter. I had an idea that 27a was to do with lines of descent, but could only manage STEER SIDE, so 2 pink squares. Thanks setter and William.
Most of this was a steady solve, but I just couldn’t see KEIRIN (although I’ve heard the word and seen the event when the Olympics are on), SPEAR SIDE ( and we recently had DISTAFF SIDE, and of course the dreaded AEGROTAT (NHO).
So a bit disappointing really, and a bit of a contrast to yesterday’s, which had a more familiar vocabulary and yet was a tough solve.
Persevered for 1hr 15 at which point I DNF with KEIRIN AEGROTAT and SPEAR SIDE os. Also had URBANITE for 1ac which was a bit careless. I shall try and drop AEGROTAT into casual conversation.
Surprised so many hadn’t heard of SPEAR SIDE, we had DISTAFF in 29509, a mere 10 days ago, and blogger Ulaca said then that spear was the male equivalent, so it went straight in for me. I really liked this one, reasonably chewy but I never got stuck. AEGROTAT no problem (I was at university in the 70s too) and KEIRIN VHO. COD URBANITY. About 14 min.
I obviously need to read ulaca’s blogs more carefully! Strangely I have know about the distaff side for a long time (because of crosswords) but didn’t know (or perhaps had just forgotten) the male equivalent.
A Friday fast one today – 27 mins. No unfamiliar answers, though FORETOKEN has barely featured in my life. Ingenious clues. First in was USER and last KEIRIN; as soon as I read the clue I knew it was going to be a cycle race and that I knew the answer, but it took ages to dredge it from my memory. My favourite two clues: to DETACHED and PLAINTIFFS (for several years now they have been called ‘claimants’ in English law). Thank you Setter and Blogger.
aegrotat is the Latin for he,or she, is sick
Solved on breaks during a drive home from holiday so no time but this seems like one I would not have recorded a great time on.
The NHo of AEGROTAT was LOI after I spent the last hour of the drive trying to think of something better but failing. Very surprised to see all green squares.
Didn’t parse any of CRITERIA.
A lot to like in this puzzle though and wish I could have enjoyed it in one sitting.
Thanks blogger and setter
SPEAR SIDE also took some considerable thought.
Enjoyable puzzle all somehow completed bar “aegrotat”, “oddfellow”, “spear side” and “keirin”.
Know the latter reasonably well from the Olympics but nothing from the first three and good to learn something new.
“Detached” is an excellent clue among many good ones.
Thanks to our blogger for sorting out the unknowns and to our setter for a fine end-of-the-week challenge.
Don’t think AEGROTAT, KEIRIN, or SPEAR SIDE belong in a mainline puzzle, to be honest. Rest of the grid took me around 20-25 minutes, but the last two I just stared at blankly for another 20 before giving up. I also think using “involved in” to clue IN is really poor form – should have either been just “in” without involved (plaintext) or “involved with” to clue IN.