Time: 50 minutes. Not the easiest of Tuesday puzzles be everything was gettable and most of the clues were varied and interesting.
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 Caret 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 | Straight entertainers with stuffing knocked out by a funny show (2,2,5) |
| AS IT COMES – A, SITCOM (funny show), E{ntertainer}S [with stuffing knocked out]. Liquor may be taken straight / as it comes / with nothing added. | |
| 6 | Split blades (5) |
| GRASS – Two meanings, the first as ‘inform on’ | |
| 9 | Percussion ensemble with something to play, short track (7) |
| GAMELAN – GAME (something to play), LAN{e} (track – path) [short]. ODE: gamelan – a traditional instrumental ensemble in Java and Bali, including many bronze percussion instruments. | |
| 10 | Parallel eating habits originally related to nutrition (7) |
| TROPHIC – TROP⁁IC (parallel) containing [eating] H{abits} [originally]. Tropic – the parallel of latitude 23°26ʹ north (tropic of Cancer) or south (tropic of Capricorn) of the equator. Trophic – relating to feeding and nutrition – I don’t recall meeting this before. | |
| 11 | Beat time, having raised orchestral baton first of all (5) |
| THROB – T{ime} + H{aving} + R{aised} + O{rchestral} + B {aton} [first of all] | |
| 12 | I go in nest, after flying about, for feeding (9) |
| INGESTION – Anagram [after flying about] of I GO IN NEST | |
| 14 | Sweet or savoury dish, mixed type (3) |
| PIE – Two meanings. I thought the second was to do with piebald horses or magpies being of two colours, but Chambers has simply: pie – confusedly mixed type (printing). | |
| 15 | Heavenly body gave interns breaks (7,4) |
| EVENING STAR – Anagram [breaks] of GAVE INTERNS | |
| 17 | One drink, Australian opening port, nothing special (1,4,1,5) |
| A DIME A DOZEN – I (one) + MEAD (drink) + OZ (Australian) contained by [opening] AD⁁EN (port) | |
| 19 | Only a handful I’m relieved to hear? (3) |
| FEW – Aural wordplay [to hear]: “phew” (I’m relieved) | |
| 20 | Drink separately in fun (9) |
| TEASINGLY – TEA (drink), SINGLY (separately) | |
| 22 | Camel leaving river with antelope (5) |
| ELAND – {Cam}EL (leaving river – R. Cam), AND (with) | |
| 24 | Queen rejected by girl, possibly put out again? (7) |
| REISSUE – ER (Queen) reversed [rejected], ISSUE (girl, possibly – offspring generally) | |
| 26 | Demanding individual, one no longer taking a part? (7) |
| EXACTOR – EX-ACTOR (one no longer taking a part) | |
| 27 | Raised mark on back of hand resided (5) |
| DWELT – {han}D [back of…], WELT (raised mark) | |
| 28 | High jinks in Equus, perhaps (9) |
| HORSEPLAY – HORSE PLAY (Equus, perhaps). Equus is a play by Peter Shaffer, about a psychiatrist who attempts to treat a young man who has a pathological religious fascination with horses. | |
| Down |
|
|---|---|
| 1 | Answer that’s not filled in, understood in secret language (5) |
| ARGOT – A{nswe}R [that’s not filled in], GOT (understood) | |
| 2 | Dip very short tongue? (7) |
| IMMERSE – 1 MM (very short – 1 millimetre), ERSE (tongue) | |
| 3 | Suit hosting party concerned with vegetarian food (9) |
| CALABRESE – CA⁁SE (law suit) containing [hosting] LAB (political party) + RE (concerned with) | |
| 4 | Newsworthy story best friend chewed over here? (3,5,3) |
| MAN BITES DOG -A cryptic hint referring to the adage that a man’s best friend is his dog. The definition refers to the idea that ‘dog bites man’ is no news whereas ‘man bites dog’ would be newsworthy. | |
| 5 | Sponge cakes go flat in the end (3) |
| SOT – {cake}S + {g}O + {fla}T [in the end]. Both are terms for a heavy drinker. | |
| 6 | I’m disgusted by 24 six-packs? (5) |
| GROSS – Two meanings. 24 x 6 = 144 (a gross). | |
| 7 | Infidel witnessing robbery? (7) |
| ATHEIST – AT HEIST (witnessing robbery) | |
| 8 | Part of scrum down, score after collapse (6,3) |
| SECOND ROW – Anagram [after collapse] of DOWN SCORE | |
| 13 | Beastly thing and gruesome display for the audience (7,4) |
| GRIZZLY BEAR – Aural wordplay [for the audience]: GRIZZLY / “grisly”(gruesome) + BEAR / “bare” (display – expose). Edited. | |
| 14 | Lit up — as ceilings, perhaps? (9) |
| PLASTERED – Two meanings | |
| 16 | Drink large rum and energy drink (6,3) |
| GINGER ALE – GIN (drink), anagram [rum] of LARGE, then E (energy) | |
| 18 | Picture this writer and soldier in shock (7) |
| IMAGINE – I (this writer), then GI (soldier) contained by [in] MA⁁NE (shock – hair) |
|
| 19 | Complex pattern generated by craft adrift on American lake (7) |
| FRACTAL – Anagram [adrift] of CRAFT, then A (American), L (lake). Collins: In geometry, a fractal is a shape made up of parts that are the same shape as itself and are of smaller and smaller sizes. Not a word I knew. It has made two previous appearances here, 15 and 16 years ago when I also didn’t know it. | |
| 21 | Introduce class who are popular? (5) |
| INSET – IN (popular), SET (class) | |
| 23 | Hat raised, lifted with courtesy, ultimately (5) |
| DERBY – BRED (raised) reversed [lifted], {courtes}Y [ultimately]. American for a bowler hat. | |
| 25 | Old letter delivered in time, thankfully (3) |
| ETH – Hidden [delivered in] {tim}E TH{ankfully}. A character in the runic alphabet aka ‘edh’. | |
Enjoyed this but never would have thought of CALABRESE as a vegetarian food and didn’t know it was a type of broccoli. GAMELIN was a NHO. Didn’t know ARGOT as a secret language, but the wordplay was clear. Was thinking A DIME A DOZEN would be ‘something a penny’ before the dime dropped! Thought ELAND was very good. Didn’t know the play ‘Equus’ but saw the answer from it looking something like ‘equine’. Knew FRACTAL from ‘fractal imaging’ which I learned about years ago. COD to PLASTERED.
Thanks Jack and setter.
Bookended: Trophic was my FOI, and I thought: “Ah. One of those puzzles”.
Calabrese and Gamelan were my last two in – requiring aids – and I thought “Yep. One of those puzzles”.
Some nice bits in between, and I’m with Quadrophonic in thinking Eland was the nicest of them.
Yes, it looks like a Tricky Thursday puzzle has snuck into the Tuesday slot. Most of it was not too bad, but I found trophic, as it comes, gross, reissue, and grass to be pretty tough. These holdouts took a long time and a lot of thinking to see.
Time: 45:38
Tricky. A few short. Got GAMELAN but had it as GAMALEN, with GAM{e}. For a long time I had KITCHEN, as slang for the percussion in an orchestra, learnt from crosswords.
Also had PEA, thought it was a triple def and I was seeing two of the three def, sweet pea and savoury dish.
AS IT COMES wouldn’t come for ages, and then couldn’t see case = suit for CALABRESE.
NHO TROPHIC but FRACTAL was no problem, seemed to be everywhere in the 90s. Chaos theory was supposed to explain geography, economics and even got a mention in Jurassic Park. Home PCs were just powerful enough to display them as screensavers too.
COD ATHEIST
Chewy enough, indeed, winding up with the nutritious TROPHIC (right above INGESTION) and CALABRESE. (Not to mention the assaulted pet.)
12:45, lucky solve. Had assumed CALABRESE was a kind of salad with mozzarella cheese or something. [edit: checking later, I see I was thinking of ‘Caprese’, so a fortuitous botched recall!] Had to do Equus in Year 10. Weird play. Got some GAMELAN lessons in Bali a couple of years ago, wonderful sounds. GRASS took the longest, despite having thought of it earlier, as NHO ‘split’ in that sense.
25 minutes, but it all counted for nothing, as I couldn’t remember GAMELAN (which we had no so long ago), and put in the perfectly parsable ‘gamelin’ (track and line being synonymous in train contexts).
All done in about a halfa, with many of the same problems cited above. Jack I think the GRIZZY BEAR clue is (for the audience) ‘grisly bare’.
From OUTLAW BLUES:
Well, I wish I was on some Australian mountain range
I wish I was on some Australian mountain range
I got no reason to be there, but I IMAGINE it would be some kind of change
Thanks. You’re quite right about ‘grisly’, Lyndsay, now amended. Apparently it’s a common mistake to confuse the two unrelated spellings as the ODE has a special note to that effect. I’m sure I knew, but didn’t think carefully enough.
Got up early, so brain very clear, flew through this in 14′ exactly.
Would have been 11′, but GRASS/GROSS took a while, along with the nho TROPHIC.
I love FRACTALs. Try this https://youtu.be/OCtJ1KOpd_o?si=97WWA0XRyJfOq-fA
Thanks jack and setter.
Exactly. Grass, gross, trophic slowed me down too.
About 21 mins.
Not too hard, TROPHIC the only unknown for me.
Always find references to the evening star a trifle irritating, since it isn’t one.
The EVENING STAR (Venus) is only about 2 light-minutes away; the nearest star is over 4 light-years away. That’s a 6-order-of-magnitude gap.
Shooting star is even worse. A shooting star is no more than 100 miles away; a real star is 25 trillion miles away. There are 12 orders of magnitude between them. The order of magnitude mistake is more than an order of magnitude.
FYI. The nearest star, Sol, is only about 8 light minutes away.🤔
DNF with GAMELAN ,TROPHIC and CALABRESE all missing. COD to MAN BITES DOG. A decent challenge, too decent for me. Thank you Jack and setter.
A 40 minute WOE. I’d forgotten how to spell GAMELAN which I entered as GAMELIN. Otherwise a few difficult ones in CALABRESE and my LOI TROPHIC, neither of which I parsed properly. I liked HORSEPLAY.
GAMELAN I regard as an unfair clue (yes I am bitter that I got it wrong). It’s a very obscure word which I’d never heard of clues ambiguously. Gamelin perfectly fits the wordplay with just the slight problem that it isn’t actually a word😂
Same here!
Gave up with the GRASS/GROSS duo finally doing for me after struggling for ages with the unknowns, GAMELAN, TROPHIC & FRACTAL, all three escapees from the Mephisto I would say. A number unparsed too, so pretty dismal really.
I did like SECOND ROW & A DIME A DOZEN.
Thanks Jack for the explanations.
I was slow to get started with only a couple of the early downs yielding solutions but then it all unfolded in a bit of a rush in the south enabling me to return to those early clues with a wealth of crossers. All of which were needed for AS IT COMES which was LOI after just over 20 minutes. Faves inc THROB, A DIME A DOZEN, SECOND ROW, GINGER ALE, FRACTAL and DERBY.
I had another version of GRIZZLY BEAR with ‘gruesome’ = ‘grisly’ followed by ‘display’ = BEAR with the homophone only actually applying to the first of those.
Thanks to setter and blogger
10:15, with nearly half of that time staring blankly at the two 6s. I don’t recognise ‘split’ for GRASS and would not have been able to tell you that 144 was a GROSS. Got there in the end via the alternative routes.
I only discovered very recently that the GRIZZLY BEAR is not, as I had always thought, a distinct species: it’s just what they call brown bears in some places.
And I discovered fairly recently that grizzlies and polars are so closely related they can interbreed giving pizzlies and grolars.
The mind boggles. What about a boar with a donkey? A Shih Tzu with a poodle? A titmouse with a cockatoo??!!
AFAIK the Shih Tzu & poodle would work, and the others not. I believe all the wolf family can interbreed, although grossly differing sizes might threaten the mother.
There are, amazingly, tigons and ligers (lion/tiger crosses) as well as pizzlies etc. I think on the bird front doves and pigeons are close enough, but the titmouse & cockatoo at a guess would not work.
Donkeys do interbreed with horses to get mules, so close enough but only for 1 generation as mules are (almost?) always sterile.
I was referring to the names that such crosses might produce, not the viability of the congress!
Many thanks as always. I come here to check my parsing or to find the parsing of a clue I do not understand.
Today, I do not understand why the word “here” appears in the clue:
Newsworthy story best friend chewed over here?
If someone can explain for me, it will be appreciated.
I take it to mean ‘Here, in the answer you are looking for’. It’s a fairly common device, a variation on what I think of as riddle-type clue.
Thanks.
DNF, back in OWL club with GAMELIN rather than GAMELAN as I thought ‘track’ was giving ‘line’ (and I may have got it mixed up with the French WW2 general Gamelin).
– Not familiar with the mixed type meaning of PIE
– Biffed A DIME A DOZEN
– Didn’t fully understand REISSUE as I thought ‘girl’ was giving ‘Sue’, so I couldn’t account for the ‘is’
– Also didn’t get the ‘imm’ part of IMMERSE
Thanks Jack and setter.
COD Ginger ale
Pied piper. In the fairy tale he was a vagrant with a coat made up of coloured patches.
Yes, but not here. This pie refers to a drawer full of mixed type that has to be sorted out. It is a word often found in Mephisto.
Very nice puzzle with some interesting answers and ingenious wordplay – it would have been 24 mins but for CALIBRESE (I’ve heard of CALABRESE, knew it was some type of veg, but not how to spell it, so plumped for the wrong ‘party’). Not heard of TROPHIC and only vaguely heard of FRACTAL without knowing what it means. I found the NW corner tough and puzzled over AS IT COMES, GAMELAN and IMMERSE for quite a few mins. First in was INGESTION and last IMMERSE. My favourite four clues: to INGESTION, HORSEPLAY, SOT and GINGER ALE. Thank you Setter and Blogger.
DNF. Enjoyably chewy for 30 mins up to last correct one CALABRESE but the NHO GAMELAN + IMMERSE did for me. Opted for play = GIVE and INVERSE with VERy in it so W2E.
Enjoyed the Sponge/SOT and PLASTERED drinking theme but COD to HORSEPLAY.
Thanks to jackkt and setter.
21:50 – not easy, and harder than a typical Tuesday but I loved this puzzle.
GRASS, GROSS, TROPHIC were the slowest and last clues to fall. NHO: TROPHIC.
GROSS = 144 appears in Lord of the Rings, as the number of hobbits Bilbo invites to his birthday party, being the sum of his age and Frodo’s (111+33).
COD to MAN BITES DOG, but there were a lot to like.
Doh! Having congratulated myself on checking that it was CALAB rather than CALIB, Ii cheerfuly entered GAMELIN. An enjoyably tricky puzzle nevertheless.
Thanks to Jack and the setter
Stuck for a long time in top right : GROSS, GRASS, TROPHIC. Got there eventually only to find I’d messed up with GAMELIN instead of GAMELAN. As has been noted above, the parsing works for both, and I’d never heard of either! Except there’s a French WW1 general called GAMELIN, which must have subtly influenced my choice. Otherwise 29’34”.
I think that maybe the only flaw in this puzzle is that the wordplay in two clues give plausible alternatives to those of us (such as myself) who do not know how to spell the answer: GAMELIN or GAMELAN, CALIBRESE or CALABRESE? Luckily I knew GAMELAN as I have a recording of Michael Tippett’s Triple Concerto.
Enjoyed this and got round in 23.25. FOI GAMELAN (I’ve heard one in action and it’s quite an experience; I also knew the near homophone French general). LOI TROPHIC.
Re HORSEPLAY, my father was a Chief Petty Officer in the Royal Navy and was responsible among other things for disciplining errant sailors. Although in other respects a robust Tory, he once remarked that “when the officers do it, it’s high jinks; when the lads do it, it’s a riot.”
Thanks Jack and setter.
My thanks to jackkt and setter.
Much of it was easy with the honourable exception of the NW corner.
1a As it comes, I never saw the ES from EntertainerS so was foxed. I think I had given up by now. I thought it might be Sit Comedies with the DIE knocked out.
9a Gamelan, NHO, confused it with Gamin.
11a Throb, DNF as I had written 3d CALbreeEsE giving me t?r?r, so no chance.
10a Trophic, VHO.
14a Pie, possibly very VHO in this sense. From Wiktionary:
pie (letterpress typography) Alternative form of pi (“metal type that has been spilled, mixed together, or disordered”).
24a Reissue, got RE and girl SUE but missed IS. Doh!
Other than that I had fun.
29.15. “FEW”! Hard going today, held up hugely like others by a confident KITCHEN, even though I had no idea how a short track was CHEN. I was resigned to waiting for Jack to tell me. AS IT COMES also was a late entry, desperately trying for some comedy show No No Something (from the Vicar of Dibley, perhaps). Mostly downhill from there, failing to parse A DIME A DOZEN and wondering where the IS in RE SUE came from. ETA was my best bet on an old letter, something to do with Time of Arrival. That made the clever HORSEPLAY impossible, and I was trying to think of one of those horse jumpy things in dressage, only coming up with cabriolet, which isn’t one.
In short (unusual for me) thoroughly banjaxed by this setter, eventually bludgeoning my way over the line with the unlikely CALABRESE, which Tesco only offers in the form of seeds. And no, I didn’t know TROPHIC either.
Finished this in 45 mins, but only got the NHOs GAMELAN, ETH and TROPHIC by following wordplay with crossed fingers. Also NHO ‘sponge’ or ‘pie’ in those meanings, so entered both with extreme hesitation. Didn’t enjoy it.
23 mins. Very enjoyable puzzle. Got stuck in the NW corner for a while but argot gave me the key and the rest followed quickly.
I thought my failure with CALiBRESE was unique, but eventually I found that some people did the same thing. I saw the girl in 24ac as Sue and then couldn’t account for the ‘is’. NHO TROPHIC. Otherwise not too bad a performance for me on a nice crossword.
Really enjoyed this challenge and all completed bar five in the north-west.
Not knowing “gamelan”, not really knowing “Calabrese” and being a million miles from “man bites dog” gave too much to do.
Thanks for parsing “a dime a dozen” where I had oz in Aden and wondering how one drink was “a dime”. I like “eland” now the parsing has been kindly explained here.
“Fractal” and “trophic” were today’s other unknowns but helpfully found the wordplay clear.
Many thanks to both our setter and blogger.
Hmm. “I’m disgusted by” is not a definition of GROSS. My last one to fill in.If I’d put that in a Magpie, I think Jason would have rejected it!
Maybe, but it’s just ‘I’m disgusted’. It all depends if you cut the setter slack for the two different ways of expressing the sentiment: one a phrase, the other an exclamation.
I’m still wondering where we’re asked to multiply 6 by 24?
Over 40 minutes which for me is the upper end of difficulty. Saying that though the bottom half went in smoothly with most of the top half needing a good and often painful think.
NHO GAMELAN which went in last.
The vegetarian food held out for a while. VHO – I’m not strong on culinary stuff.
MAN BITES DOG far too long not spotting it was a CD. Although dog bites man seems to be in the news far too often lately.
Many others caused grief but I won’t list them all.
COD AS IT COMES
Thanks blogger and setter
No time after a number of interruptions but it wouldn’t have been quick.
In any case fell at the gamelin hurdle, given I’d seen the word before (now realise it a name) and it parsed but NHO the actual solution.
Seemed to be a lot of drinks/drinking references, I suspect the setter knows his/her audience…
Enjoyed the MAN BITES DOG reference.
Thanks Jack and setter
Started with THROB, then went south and worked my way back to the NW, which held out for ages. IMMERSE came first, then I wrestled with CYMBALS and TIMPANI with no progress. Eventually AS IT COMES turned up and CALABRESE emerged. ARGOT then arrived and 9a had to be GAMEL–. As first word of 4d could easily be MAN, I thought of LANE for track and the NHO GAMELAN went in. So glad I didn’t think of LINE for track! Further cogitation was necessary before BITES went between MAN and DOG. A sluggish 35:55 with at least 10 of those spent in the NW. Thanks setter and Jack.
Having teased out the unlikely GAMELAN and TROPHIC from wordplay, I came a cropper at the even more unlikely variety of broccoli.
Any one else confused by 27a? I had LIVED for ages – Devil backwards, being a mark on the back of the hand thought to be sign of the devil?
No, just a sign of D.J.TRUMP.
(Then again?)
🤔
I’ve found these puzzles reasonably easygoing of late, but, if I’ve become complacent, this one brought me down to earth somewhat.
NHO TROPHIC or FRACTAL, although both were parsed without too much trouble. I also parsed AS IT COMES, ARGOT, IMMERSE, and CALABRESE only after completion, but still had to come here to understand A DIME A DOZEN and ELAND. Obviously I didn’t enjoy it much, and, while I know many here would be happy with the time I returned, by my recent standards it’s poor.
FOI THROB
LOI GRASS
COD DERBY
TIME 12:18
I was another to find this very tricky, and very much trickier than the same-as-yesterday 83 on the snitch suggested pre-solve: I was under 15 yesterday and over 33 today, with a long hold-up in the NE and two mistakes at GAMELIN and CALIBRESE, along with various unparsed clues along the way. All good though – it wouldn’t be a wavelength if it didn’t swing both ways. Thanks setter and Jack.
31:43
Didn’t overly enjoy this as had several pencilled in only – REISSUE and its offshoots ETH and INSET (for introduce). A few not parsed – A DIME A DOZEN (was looking at the wrong AD for ADEN) – and a big shrug for MAN BITES DOG, which while I’ve heard the phrase, I didn’t think was particularly well clued. Oh, and I didn’t know that CALABRESE was vegetarian – every day’s a schoolday etc.
Thanks Jack and setter
In spite of the Snitch and some of the commentary this was mysteriously easier for me than yesterday’s, though I didn’t time it (got distracted and left the timer running). Loved AS IT COMES. Nice to see GAMELAN here, it’s lovely music. MAN BITES DOG was great, but I don’t understand the “over here” part of the clue. Thanks setter and Jack.
DNF. Could not get Gamelan or Argot although they should have been gettable from word play.
Man Bites Dog is a very disturbing french film.
1 mm is over 6*10 to the power 31 planck units so pretty incredibly big in my book.
I’m not happy with 22 across “Camel leaving river with antelope (5)”. Surely the clue should read “River leaving camel with antelope”? I know that makes the surface reading gibberish, but it’s technically more accurate.
Otherwise, no problems with any of the answer words, including GAMELAN, TROPHIC, ARGOT, etc.
I suppose the idea is that the camel is supposed to “leave” the river behind and continue on its merry way without it. If you “leave” your umbrella on a rainy day, you’ll regret it!
This was a struggle — DNF thanks to the first four Across clues. I got a bit depressed because for some reason I thought I was doing the QC 🫣
32:01. I liked this one – mostly a smooth solve but the last few (GRASS, TROPHIC) took a bit of mulling over. I didn’t have any snags with GAMELAN fortunately as crosswordese percussion instruments are nearly as scary to me as fish, plants and fabrics.
A couple went in unparsed from checkers – GAMELAN and PIE – but enjoyable and mildly stretching. 31’26”, which seemed surprisingly quick as I really thought I’d struggled in places.
I found this fairly straightforward; I think because my GK is better than my cryptic solving skills, and so I parsed several post-insertion. It surprises me when far more erudite and accomplished solvers have trouble with a word like “trophic”, which I recall from o-level biology as in “phototropism”. Similarly with Gamelan and calabrese which were both known to me. I have to admit to feeling quite smug that some struggled, as I have been concerned that my remaining marble was on its way – I found yesterdays more difficult, and often find the quick cryptic hard.
31:30, with last one in CALABRESE – the least enjoyable form of broccoli. Far better to stick with the purple sprouting variety.
Luckily I knew GAMELAN, having heard one played on several occasions at the West Road concert hall in Cambridge.
COD to GROSS. I wasted time thinking this may be a cross reference clue, before thinking to multiply the numbers to get the answer.
Thanks Jack and setter
Another GAMELiN here, and so, in the OWL club once again.
I think FRACTALs are important in geometry and physics, TROPHIC is all to do with hormones in animals and plants, and I’ve come across all of these at some stage.
1ac was a great clue.
Tough puzzle!