Time: 28:48
Slim pickings on the left hand side, but quite quickly broke into the right and finished back where I started in the NW. As usual when I achieve a time I’m happy with, I had several lucky flashes of inspiration (okay, biffs) that then had to be reverse engineered.
Definitions underlined.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | At heart, racist rotter, a chirpy sort (6) |
| CICADA – middle of (at heart) raCIst + CAD (rotter) + A. | |
| 4 | Cherished memory of Dame Melba, for the most part vague (8) |
| EMBALMED – anagram of (vague) DAME with MELBa (missing the last letter, for the most part). | |
| 9 | Actors, say, contend to appear in El Jueves every so often (7) |
| LUVVIES – VIE (contend) contained by (to appear in) every other letter from eL jUeVeS. | |
| 11 | Dynasty, rejecting outsiders, pushed around sultanate (7) |
| ROMANOV – dROVe (pushed) minus (rejecting) the outermost letters), containing (around) OMAN (sultanate, at time of writing). | |
| 12 | On the counter, old tin containing hot snack (5) |
| NACHO – reversal of (on the counter) O (old) and CAN (tin), all containing H (hot). | |
| 13 | Loathsome brother, an eccentric (9) |
| ABHORRENT – anagram of (eccentric) BROTHER AN. | |
| 14 | Guide had initially tracked changes in latitude (4,3,3) |
| LEAD THE WAY – anagram of (…changes) HAD with the first (initially) of Tracked, all inside (in) LEEWAY (latitude). | |
| 16 | Go from Italian city having no time for lunch? (4) |
| TURN – TURiN (Italian city) lacking the (having no) ‘i’, or 1 (PM, time for lunch). | |
| 19 | Periodically, revolutionary Tory member’s to make progress with Labour? (4) |
| YOMP – reversal of (revolutionary) alternate letters from (periodically) tOrY, then MP (member). | |
| 20 | Nothing at all about resolute article confronting church’s assertion (10) |
| AFFIRMANCE – FA (nothing at all) reversed (about), then FIRM (resolute) + AN (article) + CE (church). | |
| 22 | Personal ID carbon copies taken by state puppet (9) |
| PINOCCHIO – PIN (personal ID), then CC (carbon copies) contained by (taken by) OHIO (state). | |
| 23 | Gaudiness is ugly, essentially obscuring entrance to luxury hotel (5) |
| GLITZ – middle letters from (essentially) uGLy replacing (obscuring) the first letter of (entrance to) rITZ (luxury hotel). | |
| 25 | Decay picked up below domed building (7) |
| ROTUNDA – ROT (decay), then what sounds like (picked up) “under” (below). | |
| 26 | Forceful detectives arresting a great number of people from the east (7) |
| DYNAMIC – CID (detectives) containing (arresting) MANY (a great number of people), all reversed (from the east). | |
| 27 | Before closure of factory, riot act crushed ruthless behaviour (8) |
| ATROCITY – anagram of (crushed) RIOT ACT before last (closure) of factorY. | |
| 28 | Without stopping, acted as deputy for counsel (6) |
| ADVICE – minus (without) it’s filling (stopping) ActeD, + VICE (as deputy). | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Cab owner originally caught in isolated rank (9) |
| COLONELCY – first of (originally) Cab and Owner, then C (caught) contained by (in) LONELY (isolated). | |
| 2 | Several ancient cardinals from the city (5) |
| CIVIC – several Roman numerals (ancient cardinals). | |
| 3 | Capital Radio presenter on current stint before one (8) |
| DJIBOUTI – DJ (radio presenter) + I (current) + BOUT (stint) + I (one). | |
| 5 | Growth of bizarre oldish grammar (5,8) |
| MARSH MARIGOLD – anagram of (bizarre) OLDISH GRAMMAR. | |
| 6 | Approvingly regard face of murderer in a grave (6) |
| ADMIRE – first letter from (face of) Murderer, contained by (in) A + DIRE (grave). | |
| 7 | Model maiden, one of five flanking former queen (9) |
| MANNEQUIN – M (maiden) and QUIN (-tuplet, one of five), containing (flanking) ANNE (former queen). | |
| 8 | Half of select military unit packs range of light bedding (5) |
| DUVET – half of DETail (select military unit) containing (packs) UV (ultraviolet, range of light). | |
| 10 | Terribly hot aftertaste is really quite hot! (5-2-3-3) |
| STATE-OF-THE-ART – anagram of (terribly) HOT AFTERTASTE. | |
| 15 | Church holds up a cross on which one might stand? (9) |
| AXMINSTER – MINSTER (church) underneath (holds up) A and X (cross). A famous type of carpet. | |
| 17 | New school taking on one from Sorbonne and unknown English philosopher (9) |
| NIETZSCHE – N (new) and SCH (school), containing all of (taking on) I (one) + ET (from Sorbonne, and) + Z (unknown), then E (English). | |
| 18 | Assumed wise men should stop in east before ending in yard (8) |
| IMAGINED – MAGI (wise men) contained by (should stop) IN + E (east), then the last of (ending in) yarD. | |
| 21 | Picturesque canals on vacation served up pleasant cycling (6) |
| SCENIC – outermost letters of (on vacation) CanalS reversed (served up), then NICE (pleasant) with the last letter moving to the front (cycling). | |
| 22 | Coat dad wrapped round chest (5) |
| PARKA – PA (dad) containing (wrapped round) ARK (chest). | |
| 24 | Lines from sexually adventurous author’s confession? (5) |
| IAMBI – “I am bi” (-sexual). | |
64:47
First ever Friday solve.
LOI MANNEQUIN, where I was stuck on ER for former queen and either fingers/toes for “one of five”. Didn’t register the pangram until complete.
Stuck with EARTHBORN for too long, couldn’t believe there could be another anagram.
I tried to make OTTOMAN work being a sultanate and a dynasty, and has OMAN in it.
COD IAMBI
Before the demise of Her recently late Majesty, ‘former Queen’ commonly referred to ANNE.
Congrats on First Friday
26:51. I had FA (we can say that now) idea about 1dn which appeared to be an impossible word until I separated the COLONEL from the CY. Also held up a bit on NIETZSCHE, one of those names where you know all the letters but can’t recall what order they go in.
I thought there was an error with DJIBOUTI, not having been aware of the city. Should be an easy one to remember for a future quiz night (but I won’t).
All good tough Friday fare. Thanks William and setter.
54 minutes is not far off double my target time, but what a joy it was to solve this puzzle following on from the frustrations of today’s QC. I thoroughly enjoyed the ride.
I think my only unknown was ’embalm – to preserve or cherish the memory of’ as listed by Collins, but the answer was easy enough to spot once I had all the checkers in place. I also figured out that ‘vague’ must be an anagrind which I also don’t recall seeing before. It’s on the Chambers list but I can’t quite see in what sense it works as such.
I missed the parsing of DUVET too, so thanks for that, Will.
Pleased to get around in 35.14, and learned a lot today. You can have one NACHO, for instance, and YOMP is a word. Also, despite their ugliness, both AFFIRMANCE and COLONELCY have been allowed into the English language. Some toughies here but overall a little less challenging than the average Friday, thanks William.
From Tombstone Blues:
The hysterical bride in the penny arcade
Screaming she moans, I’ve just been made
Then sends out for the doctor who pulls down the shade
Says My ADVICE is to not let the boys in
YOMP was used by the British forces in the Falklands who had to Yomp the 80 km from their landing grounds to Port Stanley after all their helicopters were sunk en route to the Islands. Never heard it before, or much since.
24:35 which is lightning for me on a Friday. Shot through the right before slowly teasing out the left.
Always had the capital as DJIBOUTI City but can see both are acceptable.
Is Bi really more sexually adventurous than any other sexuality? I appreciate you have a larger pool to choose from.
COLONELCY LOI which was a NHO but obvious what it meant.
Had to use the wordplay to spell NIETZSCHE despite it being my immediate thought.
Found memories of Birmingham’s ROTUNDA from my childhood in the city.
MARSH MARIGOLD needed all the checking letters.
COD MANNEQUIN
Thanks blogger and setter
Not too hard for a Friday, I thought, once I had managed to work out how to spell NIETZSCHE.
For a minute or two I had COLONNADE for 1dn, until YOMP emerged.
I saw the UV in DUVET but never bothered to parse the DET.
Another pangram i see – now!
For the fifth week in succession (!) our Editor has managed to stack the xwords in order of difficulty from Monday to Friday, according to the Snitch. Impressive.
19:36. finishing with YOMP and COLONELCY. I liked STATE-OF-THE-ART best for the neat surface. Thanks William and setter.
23.45
Tricky Friday, but not unmanageably so. Had to write the letters to six clues under the grid in order to parse them, but still ended with two biffs.
My COD DJIBOUTI reminded me of the game I used to play with my bro and sis following the pattern of “My wife’s gone to the West Indies”: the winner was “My wife came into my pub last night with her friends, all shouting and screaming about their favourite Spanish actor”.
“Javier Bardem?”
“No, I just told them to keep the noise down.”
LOI TURN
I’d hate to hear the losing ones!
Nah, that’s actually not bad. Always been a fan of the tortured homophone.
I don’t keep track but suspect today’s 18:18 is my fastest for a Friday with only LEAD THE WAY holding out at the end due to failure to spot LEEWAY. COLONELCY is not a word I think I have ever encountered before. I will confess to using the spellchecker to confirm NIETZSCHE – as someone else has already said, one of those words where you’re never 100% sure on the ordering of the letters. Lovely anagrams for both EMBALMED and MARSH MARIGOLD.
Thanks to setter and blogger
Fell at the last which is really annoying as seeing the answers, COLONELCY & YOMP, I can’t even say they are NHOs! I just couldn’t get them.
I enjoyed the rest, particularly the nice chewy anagrams and MANNEQUIN, PINOCCHIO & GLITZ.
Thanks william and setter.
Ditto
Here eventually with COLONELCY and AFFIRMANCE more in hope than expectation. I’ve just remembered a riddle from my sojourn in Birmingham fifty years ago. What’s wrote under the Rotunda? New Street. Does that still work?
An earnest puzzle. Thank you William and setter.
Sorry BW, lost on me…
i think tht road sign fo New Sreet was undet the Rotunda. This was when it was all new in the sixties.
21.15, spotting the pangram only after the Scrabble™ biggies were already present. But a certain amount of added credit to the setter for cluing NIETZSCHE in such a way that the rascal could be entered with confidence.
I know COLONELCY is a word (probably from Sharpe) but I draw the line at AFFIRMANCE, which looks like the sort of word Shakespeare might have invented to fill a three-syllable space when the word he really wanted used four. I bet he’d put the stress on the first syllable too, just to make the pentameter work.
YOMP because I’m old enough to remember the Falklands.
I took time to work out the wordplay on DUVET to be sure, but forgot to do the same for ROMANOV. Our setter seems to like stripping words to their bare bones.
Decent Friday workout.
About 25 minutes.
– Didn’t work out which word ‘pushed’ was giving in the clue for ROMANOV
– Can’t recall seeing YOMP before so had to trust the the wordplay
– Tried to justify COLONNADE for 1d before LEAD THE WAY forced a rethink to get COLONELCY
– Needed all the checkers to get MARSH MARIGOLD
– Didn’t figure out how to get the ‘det’ of DUVET
Thanks William and setter.
FOI Nacho
LOI Yomp
COD Lead the way
15’16”, a good week. As noted, ugly words are in evidence. IAMBI seems Guardian-like.
Thanks william and setter.
WOE after a painful 39 mins. My error was a careless ADVIsE but it was the NW that was the killer caused by a confident FOI URBAN at 2d. The rest of that corner was tricky anyway so it took ages to unpick.
Found much of the wordplay impenetrable so did alot of biffing and anagram solving e.g. MARSH MARIGOLD from the 2nd A alone.
Mixed week for me, 2 in my top 10, UNRIP(!) then this. Oh well, thanks to William and setters all.
32.06 without aids, a pleasing outcome for a still demanding but not brutal Friday puzzle. LOI LUVVIES due to my failing eyesight – I thought the clue included “El Jeeves” and I couldn’t for the life of me work out what Bertie Wooster’s valet was doing in Spanish translation.
Thanks William and setter.
40:26. Thought this to be more approachable compared with recent Friday offerings. Some went in quickly, but others less so “colonelcy”, “affirmance” and the dreaded plant reference marsh marigold, where I was fixated on putting in March something-or-other-after-it, for a long time, and not seeing the anagram.
Another pangram.
29:27 Delighted to have finIshed this tricky puzzle in just under 30 minutes. Embalming, for me, always conjures up the chemical aspect of the process, so that threw me for a while. Didn’t know COLONELCY. or AFFIRMANCE. I liked ROTUNDA,GLITZ and MANNEQUIN.
Thanks to William and the setter
Finished in an astonishing (for me) time of 32 mins. Easy Friday, apparently. Only I have to admit that there was a lot of biffing; I had no idea what was going on with LEAD THE WAY or DUVET, though they were obv correct. Only knew YOMP because I remember the Falklands War, and AFFIRMANCE went in with head thoroughly scratched. Wordplay at least was generous. Loved AXMINSTER.
For quite some time it all seemed pretty easy and I wondered rather stupidly if I was getting better at these things in my old age, but that didn’t last long. There were some ugly words that I couldn’t believe existed and the spelling of NIETZSCHE challenged me. It didn’t seem that EMBALMED at 4ac was really a verb meaning ‘cherished memory’, but there it is in Collins in those precise words. Liked the TURN clue since of course it misled me into trying to think of al Italian city from which to take go and t.
12:53. I gradually lost momentum on this one, and finished very slowly on the last few. I loved it though: a wordplay puzzle, very little biffing and reverse-engineering. And challenging in spite of an absence of obscurities. Although I didn’t know this meaning of EMBALMED.
Like galspray I can confidently tell you which letters make up NIETZSCHE but not the order they go in.
I’m just old enough to remember the Falklands but YOMP is also a word I have used and heard many times since. It’s the most appropriate word for what you do when you’re on a Scottish moor.
My thanks to william_j_s and setter.
Quite tricky I thought.
14a Lead the way biffed. Not parsable to me.
19a Yomp added to Cheating Machine.
2d Civic. I unfortunately tried Civil which also works but obstructs the nachos at 12a.
5d Marsh marigold, don’t know why but it leapt out at me. I wasn’t even sure I HHO it.
Was pleased to”solve” this in under twenty eight minutes, but was dismayed to see a pink square due to ADVISE. I didn’t really understand the parsing and biffed it from definition. My bad. Curses!!! Thanks setter and William.
I surprised myself by completing this Friday offering in 35 minutes, and surprised myself even more by finding it was all correct. Could not parse 14ac, having been misled into looking for a more extensive anagram, but decided LEAD THE WAY had to be right to complete the pangram with the ‘w’. Enjoyed the military flavour with COLONELCY, YOMP, and the element of DETAIL. Not the abhorrent atrocity one tends to expect on a Friday.
FOI – LUVVIES
LOI – MANNEQUIN
COD – IAMBI
Thanks to william and other contributors.
I didn’t finish without help but I got a long way for a Friday with only 5 I couldn’t get. Couldn’t get past affirming for 20A which of course didn’t fit. Stumped by LEAD THE WAY. Guessed the first two words but couldn’t work out the last.
41:30. mostly on the wavelength but some quite weird wordplay making things difficult. TURN was a bit of a stretch I thought. otherwise a lovely puzzle.
Having at last finished a Friday, and in a reasonable time, bit disappointed to hear that many of you found it easy. Still, it’s progress.
Is COLONELCY the ugliest word ever to appear in a crossword? Sounds like an unpleasant operation.
Felt a bit like Eric Morecambe for the philosopher in 17d-I’m putting in all the right letters, but not necessarily in the right order..
40:12, couldn’t parse LEAD THE WAY but having looked at the blog I should have been able to manage it. As ever, pleased to have got to the end.
Thank you for the blog!
26.01
Maybe should have been quicker as the LHS went in like a Quickie (though not today’s!) including COLONELCY second in but got bogged down on the other side, struggling with the EMBALMED anagram; the parsing for AFFIRMANCE and how to spell NIETZSCHE.
Excellent puzzle. Thanks setter and William.
34 mins exactly, but should have been quite a bit quicker, as I didn’t think this was massively hard. I misspelled NIETZSCHE, which made GLITZ and DYNAMIC very difficult. I eventually figured out the latter, and my mistake, which led to a number of answers. The other hold up was ROMANOV/EMBALMED/DUVET – embalmed is a bit questionable for me, even if it’s in the dictionary! But a great puzzle overall.
36:59, finishing in the NE corner with MANNEQUIN, ROMANOV and EMBALMED. I had the same problem as Merlin of being stuck on ER for “former Queen.”
I can’t remember if I have completed the crossword on five consecutive weekdays before, so I will claim it as a first.
Thanks William and setter