34:31. I can’t quite tell the difficulty level here because I began this puzzle while waking up from a nap. Everything seemed a bit blurry at the beginning, but most of it was clear by the end.
| Across | |
| 1 | One venomous corner not half welcomed by the Kop (8) |
| SCORPION – COR{ner} in SPION (the Kop)
This is a reference to Spion Kop, a football stand in Liverpool, as far as I can tell. (Which is in itself a reference a hill in South Africa, on which was fought a battle in the Second Boer War.) In any case, the answer was clear. |
|
| 5 | Legendary footballers having brief time with our team (6) |
| FAMOUS – FA (footballers) + MO (brief time) + US (our team) | |
| 10 | Stress of old pants etc being a bit short (9) |
| UNDERLINE – UNDERLINE{n} (old pants etc)
Here ‘old’ refers to the fact that this term is archaic. |
|
| 11 | Articles about poet initially bewildered (2,3) |
| AT SEA – A A (articles) around T.S.E. (T.S. Eliot, initially) | |
| 12 | Follow story as told (4) |
| TAIL – homophone of TALE (story) | |
| 13 | Showing amazing foresight, a present not to be criticised (4,5) |
| GIFT HORSE – anagram of FORESIGHT
What an amazingly fooling clue. I’m embarrassed to have been held up by it for so long. Is it a chestnut? (No pun intended.) |
|
| 15 | Where it is polite to cough, if late (10) |
| BEHINDHAND – BEHIND HAND (where it is polite to cough) | |
| 17 | A little animal in the country (4) |
| MALI – hidden (a little) in ANIMAL IN | |
| 19 | Seizure regularly downed a biblical figure (4) |
| EZRA – {s}E{i}Z{u}R{e} + A | |
| 20 | Expression of surprise about colleague Leon maybe being clumsy (10) |
| AMATEURISH – AH (expression of surprise) around MATE (colleague) + URIS (Leon maybe) | |
| 22 | Superior forehand smashes outrageous (7-2) |
| UNHEARD-OF – U (superior) + anagram of FOREHAND | |
| 24 | Spy, English — or Flemish? (4) |
| BOND, James Bond
A reference to the fact that Bond is English, but that he is a creation of Ian Fleming, hence “Flemish?”. |
|
| 26 | Universal at first to suffer loss of smell (5) |
| OSMIC – COSMIC (universal) with first letter removed (at first to suffer loss)
Did not know this word. |
|
| 27 | Land in built-up area — it hurt duke to divide that (5,4) |
| TOUCH DOWN – TOWN (built-up area) around OUCH (it hurt) + D (duke)
This fooled me for a long time because I thought ‘it hurt’ = OW. |
|
| 28 | Not popular, one demanding hospital post (6) |
| SISTER – INSISTER (one demanding) without IN (popular) | |
| 29 | Character transported returning from game involving good group of women (8) |
| MAGWITCH – MATCH (game) around G (good) + W.I. (group of women)
I have read Great Expectations and quite liked it, but I’m not sure what the reference is here. I know Magwitch was a criminal who escaped, so perhaps the ‘transported’ is a reference to the imprisonment and ‘returning’ is a a reference to the escaping. |
|
| Down | |
| 1 | Market is very British (4) |
| SOUK – SO (very) + UK (British)
A market in Muslim countries. |
|
| 2 | Most half-hearted moving around, but he keeps rolling (3,6,6) |
| OLD FATHER THAMES – anagram of MOST HALF-HEARTED | |
| 3 | Herb’s wallet nearly getting dropped on road (8) |
| PURSLANE – PURS{e} (wallet) + LANE (road) | |
| 4 | Down; unable to fly with this? (5) |
| OWING – you can’t fly with O (zero) WING | |
| 6 | Zero interest each year closing course (6) |
| APATHY – A (each) + Y (year) around PATH (course)
I really thought this was going to be a dessert! |
|
| 7 | Comment on letters for military checkpoint (11,4) |
| OBSERVATION POST – OBSERVATION (comment) + POST (letters)
Took me forever to figure out OBSERVATION, sadly. Wanted RESERVATION for awhile, which made no sense. |
|
| 8 | Great changes in view left to those eg in the circle (5,5) |
| STAGE RIGHT – anagram of GREAT in SIGHT (view) | |
| 9 | Hitch as part of sail lands on shorebird (4,4) |
| REEF KNOT – REEF (part of sail) + KNOT (shorebird) | |
| 14 | Ingratiating European put out by old uniform in funeral ceremony (10) |
| OBSEQUIOUS – E (European) replaced by O (old) + U (uniform) in OBSEQUIES (funeral ceremony) | |
| 16 | Indicate tune of one song half-heartedly — it is rather wet (8) |
| HUMIDITY – HUM (indicate tune of) I (one) DIT{t}Y (song) | |
| 18 | Elephant keeps quiet, with a series of gestures (8) |
| DUMBSHOW – DUMBO (elephant) around SH (quiet) + W (with) | |
| 21 | Clumsy cowboy endlessly on tablet (6) |
| GAUCHE – GAUCH{o} (cowboy) + E (tablet)
This is a chestnut (no pun intended), but I forgot about it until I’d gotten it. |
|
| 23 | A young deer we hear leading all the animals around (5) |
| FAUNA – A, with homophone of FAWN (young dear) coming first | |
| 25 | In crush, losing top part of foot (4) |
| INCH – {p}INCH (crush)
I think I have this right? |
|
Loved 13a GIFT HORSE=(foresight*) and 27a TOWN round OUCH Duke.
Thanks for 28a (in)SISTER, that went right over my head.
27:06
A fine puzzle. To me it seemed very similar to yesterday’s, both in the level of difficulty and the witty and ingenious cluing. BEHINDHAND and MAGWITCH are both excellent.
I was a bit sniffy about Flemish , thinking it referred to the author, but the brickwork explanation makes it very neat. Things got a lot easier when I finally moved on from Jumbo to Dumbo.
Thanks to Jeremy and the setter.
SOUK and SCORPION got me off to a quickish start and I made reasonable progress until I arrived in the SE corner, where my last 3, MAGWITCH, DUMBSHOW and finally BOND, took at least 10 minutes between them. I spent ages with BULL and COW before chancing on DUMBO. I didn’t know the brickwork, but assumed English and Flemish BONDs could perhaps be something, as is Basildon. 34:58. Thanks setter and Jeremy.
Surely an observation post and a military checkpoint are two quite different things, aren’t they? And a reef knot isn’t a hitch!
I think ‘checkpoint’ is a misdirection; you’re meant to understand it as a point from which you ‘check’/oversee stuff… ie an observation post.
Fair enough! Thanks
My brother-in-law was a bricklayer, so had heard of Flemish and English bonds. Spoin Kop was also known to me in both senses (battle and footbal stands). Neverthless I found this difficult, over 60 mins and glad to be able to complete it. Never heard of BEHINDHAND and biffed SISTER and OBSEQUIOUS without being able to parse. Not quite as enjoyable as yesterday’s but I’m always happy to complete on a Friday!
I gave up on yesterday’s but found today’s a little more forgiving. Unfortunate 2 error/single pink square for SISTOR(?!)/GAUCHO. No idea how that happened, especially as I got SISTER first. One which would not have happened on paper.
I sped up from a very slow start in the top left as I gradually got more crossers, as is often the case with these more difficult puzzles.
37:04 but a technical DNF.
61:51
Almost a bridge too far for me – got to around 70% in 40 minutes then a grinding halt for 10 more before a flurry of activity to get home.
A good quiz question is ‘In which football stadium would you find the Bill Shankly Kop?’ – answer is not as obvious as it might seem…
A few notes:
BOND – only got this with checkers, didn’t even consider that Flemish might relate to Fleming, or have a clue that English and Flemish were both types of brickwork. Only vaguely recall that BOND is Scottish (only read one of the books, but have seen Skyfall).
OSMIC – guessed once all checkers in
OBSEQUIOUS – not much idea what was going on here. After a long time, finally came up with ‘if U think Q’ and the answer popped into my head. On reflection, kind of think I may have heard of the funeral ceremony, but it’s a bizarre word
PURSLANE – NHO, bunged in from cryptic
REEF KNOT – know little about sails and not much about birds, so this was a punt on the first checker only…
DUMBSHOW – NHO – I too was tempted by JUMBSHOW…
Thanks for the unravellings
Interrupted solve but around the 30m mark today. Enjoyable puzzle overall, probably because I knew all of the necessary vocabulary for once and pleasingly few question marks in the clues! I did like the bond clue, with the different possibilities for ‘Flemish’, also gifthorse and behindhand. Thank you, setter and blogger, particularly for explaining sister.
No time recorded for this as there were two major interruptions, but certainly over the hour I would have thought.
There has been a lot of discussion about brickwork bonding so far, and with my background BOND as the answer came to me instantly.
You rarely see either English or Flemish bond used in the UK, certainly not in recent times, mainly due to cost constraint. Nearly all modern buildings are constructed using stretcher bond, which enables brickies to construct a wall more swiftly than alternatives. An English bond has alternating courses of stretchers and headers and a Flemish bond is the slightly more complicated provision of alternative stretcher and header to each course. If you visit Holland or Belgium the houses not surprisingly use Flemish bond, and very attractive it is too!
22:25. I found this very hard, and didn’t greatly enjoy it. Just a bit too much gratuitous obscurity and archaism for my taste. Some very good individual clues though.
I assumed BOND was just a whimsical reference to Fleming. The brickwork thing is clearly the intended parsing but I expect the setter also wanted to make the other link.
The clue for REEF KNOT is one of those slightly unsatisfactory clues where the meaning in the answer and wordplay are the same, since a REEF in a sail is the result of reefing with reef knots.
I thought it was great.
Perhaps when you are my age, you will feel the same as I do K about these “gratuitously obscure” clues, and welcome them a bit more .. I claim no great talents but only osmic was new to me.. something to look forward to, perhaps?
I can only speak for myself, of course, but one of the delights of cryptic crosswords for me is how they can teach you new words through wordplay with known elements.
I certainly agree with K that a clue is a disappointing when the ingredients of the wordplay are identical or near-identical with the answer. For the same reason we wouldn’t like the clue itself to contain words or parts of words that appear in the answer.
I didn’t have a problem with “reef knot” myself, thinking that “hitch as part of sail” was a very fair and quite inventive definition..
It would indeed be a fair and inventive definition, if it were the definition…
I enjoy learning new words as well – and I love Mephisto for this reason – but in the daily puzzles I think you can have too much of a good thing. This is entirely a matter of taste of course and I don’t expect others to agree!
Sometimes hiding part of the answer in plain sight in wordplay is highly pleasing e.g. the BY in GATSBY the antihero last week.
I too thought it was great, mainly because most of the clues that some extremely talented solvers had NHO (like URIS, GAUCHO, MAGWITCH) came to me instantly, and also because it was finished within the hour with only 2 NHOs: SPION (know next-to-nothing about football) and OSMIC, which was easy to work out. So a great boost to my confidence after yesterday’s debacle, where the page was dotted with question marks everywhere and was a definitive fail. Held up by 1a though, as ‘slowworm’ seemed like a reasonable answer and I was fixated on a snake, and NHO ‘spion’. As an octogenarian female expat, I felt a soupçon of hope…
I managed to finish this and greatly enjoyed the challenge.
GK was kind to me mainly. Spion Kop from football and Magwitch from recent reading of Dickens. I can’t recall reading any at school. He’s a great writer but it’s hard work for the modern reader. Very rewarding.
Wasn’t able to parse Bond.
LOI AMATEURISH. Where’s Trotsky when he’s needed?
David
33’7”
Early pace, stayed on gamely under pressure.
The stewards will be suspicious after yesterday’s dismal showing.
The Snitchmeister has this at exactly a gross, so I’m cock-a-hoop to be under par. Couple of semi-biffs and I should have known Uris as Trinity is within my ken, and, as a regular visitor to Norwich and its Flemish quarter, I ought to have been aware of the brickwork.
Two cracking puzzles in two days; We’re spoilt!
Thank you Jeremy and a Bravo! for the setter.
I believe that ‘Flemish’ in the clue for 24ac refers to ‘Flemish bond’ a form of brickwork patterning.
As was pointed out much earlier in the day, and discussed at some length…
Some clever clues with difficult to uncover definitions. I wasn’t so sure British and UK(ish) are the same thing. Poor NI. Still a bit of a headache all around.
The FA aren’t footballers. They are football administrators.
66:29. 0 errors. for some reason this felt easier than yesterday’s. some pretty unusual words but very enjoyable. NHO of Spion Kop, but then I don’t follow the Association Football that much… thanks Jeremy and setter.
Fleming Bond is a type of bricklaying. Hence a bond between bricks I imagine
An hour and ten minutes (with a break) for a puzzle which I found very hard, but very enjoyable. Actually, usually I complain about an overdose of obscurities in a puzzle, but each clue in this one actually did have two paths to the answer, one of them accessible even if the other one was not. So I am pleased at having managed to thread my way through.
As for the Flemish BOND, I really can’t imagine that it refers to bricklaying even if this is a common term — the question mark indicates that the clue is a bit tongue-in-cheek, so I think it really refers to the author’s name, which is how I understood it when solving.
I think that would leave the English bit of the clue flapping in the breeze unless Bond was being clued as an English spy – possible, but controversial for the reasons mentioned above, and arguably inelegant. As discussed above, English and Flemish bond are the two principal forms of historical brickwork and are almost invariably mentioned together in architectural descriptions. The Fleming/Flemish nexus looks more to me like a happy serendipity that sealed the deal for the setter. But who knows – apart from the obvious person?
‘The Fleming/Flemish nexus looks more to me like a happy serendipity that sealed the deal for the setter’
This is what I tried to say in an earlier comment by you put it much better than me!
470 mins but I haven’t found a way to stop the clock when I go away for a meal, a snooze and a walk. MER at REEF KNOT, as I feel that a reef is something you do to a sail rather than a part of it, and someone has already commented that there is a technical difference between a knot (won’t come undone without untying) and a hitch (which will). But much to enjoy here. OK with MAGWITCH, I always remember the Sunday Dickens adaptations on the BBC when I was a child, and how in the first episode of Great Expectations Magwitch rises up out of the foggy Essex marshes and grabs Pip, terrifying him and me.
Chambers: “A portion of a sail that may be rolled or folded up”
On the club site, pause is under the cogwheel at top right.
Defeated by OSMIC and PARSLANE but knew the BONDs and Spion Kop. For the first (and no doubt last) time I gained some benefit from being forced to read Great Expectations for O Level.
41.48
Very late entry so I can scrawl away without any danger of anyone reading.
Started last night and just got stuck after half an hour as the difficulty needed something other than a v tired brain. Now on holiday in Uppsala with the cathedral out of our window and time to finish off yesterday’s effort. As usual quite a few flew in on the restart so I’ll take the above time
Also totally flummoxed by GIFT HORSE to the extent of actually being quite cross about the obscurity – only to find out it was an anagram. Setter 1/0 Dvynys
Not a massive fan of Dickens. Bleak House one of the few I’ve read and it needed three goes to get past page 83. But to be fair it was worth the effort and I rate it v highly
As for the Kop only in these pages could there seem to be more familiarity with obscure brickwork than one of the most famous stadiums in the world. Long may it continue!
Thanks Jeremy and Setter
47 mins. A usual plod on a Friday but no complaints. Lots of well constructed clues requiring quite an effort for me. Really enjoyed the challenge. Many examples but my COD was gift horse.
Hopefully, I will catch up on further puzzles by Monday.