15:09. Every once in awhile, a puzzle comes along that is so good that you almost can’t believe somebody created it. Like a great piece of music you can listen to over and over again, or a gripping novel you can’t put down. For me, this was one of those puzzles. I would solve one clue and marvel at the witty wordplay — only to find the setter outdid themselves on the very next clue. All I can say is, bravo.
| Across | |
| 1 | Rush towards Rome? [It’s] warmer! (6) |
| FLEECE – FLEE CE (rush towards Rome)
Here Rome stands for “Roman Catholic Church”, as CE stands for “Church of England”. |
|
| 4 | British don’t have to fight — that need not be understood (5,3) |
| BLACK BOX – B (British) LACK (don’t have) BOX (to fight)
We refer to something as a black box if we only need to understand how to interface with it, rather than needing to understand how it works on the inside. |
|
| 10 | Signal folder [can provide] something enthralling (11) |
| SPELLBINDER – SPELL (signal) BINDER (folder)
As in “SPELL/signal doom”. |
|
| 11 | Pole, say, heading off, [finds] somewhere to go (3) |
| LAV – SLAV (Pole, say) without the first letter (heading off) | |
| 12 | Driver [from] west — heading that way? (7) |
| WAGONER – W (west) A GONER (heading that way?)
To ‘go west’ means to die. Of course the surface is lovely here (and maybe even counts as a semi-&lit) because covered WAGONERs in the United States rode west. I recall seeing a better version of this wordplay somewhere, which was something like “Six feet under, or heading that way? (4,3)”. |
|
| 14 | Description of sister we understand that’s universally unpopular? (7) |
| NUNLIKE – homophone of (we understand that’s) NONE LIKE (universally unpopular?) | |
| 15 | Surprisingly, many falling in with parking issue regulation (6,8) |
| FAMILY PLANNING – anagram of (surprisingly) MANY FALLING IN + (with) P (parking)
Fantastic definition. |
|
| 17 | Versatile accessory, awfully swanky, misfires (5,4,5) |
| SWISS ARMY KNIFE – anagram of (awfully) SWANKY MISFIRES | |
| 21 | Ex-prisoner [given] word of encouragement for keeping in trim (7) |
| PAROLEE – OLÉ (word of encouragement) in (for keeping in) PARE (trim) | |
| 22 | Most lean on one, matchless all round (7) |
| BONIEST – ON + I (one) with BEST (matchless) all around | |
| 23 | Such as refund returned periodically? (3) |
| DUE – every other letter of REFUND, reversed (returned periodically)
This is the noun form of DUE, as in “pay one’s dues”. |
|
| 24 | Drinking too much, perhaps, [and] sharing a bit? (11) |
| OVERLAPPING – OVER-LAPPING (drinking too much, perhaps) | |
| 26 | Wrongly declare one’s piece of data in note (8) |
| MISSTATE – I’S (one’s) STAT (piece of data) in ME (note) | |
| 27 | Handle number in retreat with minimum staff? (3-3) |
| ONE-MAN – NAME (handle) NO (number) reversed (in retreat) | |
| Down | |
| 1 | His few faults one loudly broaches? (8) |
| FISHWIFE – HIS FEW anagrammed (faults) with I (one) F (loudly = forte, in music) inside (broaches)
FISHWIFE is the referent of ‘one’ in this descriptive phrase. It’s a bit unfortunate that the clue also contains the pronoun ‘his’, because the clue could equally be referring to whoever ‘he’ is. |
|
| 2 | One who’s succeeded in broadcast once before (3) |
| ERE – homophone of (in broadcast) HEIR (one who’s succeeded)
ERE is a word for ‘before’ which is no longer used (hence ‘once’) |
|
| 3 | Officer, one refusing to fight on his own, left (7) |
| COLONEL – CO (one refusing to fight = conscientious objector) LONE (on his own) L (left) | |
| 5 | Boy phoning, ringing no Scottish [or] Italian number (2,5,1,6) |
| LA DONNA È MOBILE – LAD (boy) ON MOBILE (phoning) around (ringing) NAE (no [in] Scottish) | |
| 6 | It’s time unit [of] key personnel stood on two legs! (7) |
| CHRONON – C (key) HR (personnel) on (stood on) ON ON (two legs, in cricket)
This is the amount of time it takes for a photon to travel the diameter of an electron. |
|
| 7 | Maybe oligarch[’s] rage after charge for possessing island (11) |
| BILLIONAIRE – IRE (rage) after BILL (charge for) around (possessing) IONA (island)
I originally had BILL = ‘charge’ and “around” = ‘for possessing’. This nicer parsing was suggested by a mysterious text, possibly sent by the current Times Crossword champion. Edit: The walrus was Paul. |
|
| 8 | Seen in Roman square, a once leading British female missionary (6) |
| XAVIER – A in (seen in) XVI (Roman square = 16) + ER (once leading British female) | |
| 9 | Medical procedure welcome before finding work (3-11) |
| HIP-REPLACEMENT – HI (welcome) PRE (before) PLACEMENT (finding work) | |
| 13 | Officers in reserve prepared retreats after fighting (4,7) |
| GAME WARDENS – GAME (prepared) + DENS (retreats) after WAR (fighting)
Fantastic definition. I didn’t quite know ‘reserve’ = ‘preserve’, but then I thought of ‘reservation’. I don’t think of GAME so much as ‘prepared’, but more ‘willing’. |
|
| 16 | Something fashionably labelled might have had this shape (8) |
| HEPTAGON – HEP TAG ON (something fashionably labelled might have had this) | |
| 18 | Hit [and] stab in back (4-3) |
| SELL-OUT – SELL OUT (stab in back)
I was looking for a little more going on here, so this ended up being my last in. |
|
| 19 | What’s most important, [having] family doctor at home (7) |
| KINGPIN – KIN (family) GP (doctor) IN (at home) | |
| 20 | Working practice of French secretary upset primates (6) |
| APEDOM – MO (working practice = modus operandi) + DE (of [in] French) + PA (secretary), all reversed (upset) | |
| 25 | Doctrine generally somewhat clumsily recalled (3) |
| ISM – hidden in (somewhat) CLUMSILY reversed (recalled) | |
7m 49s and felt on the wavelength today.
I wouldn’t say I ‘fled’ the CE, but I grew up in the Church of England and now go to a Baptist church.
I had AIR at 2d for a bit, and tried HOME WARDENS at 13d before the crossers put me right in both cases.
Nice puzzle, with LOI being OVERLAPPING.
AIR at 2d held up FLEECE and SPELLBINDER until the FISHWIFE gave me a telling off and I saw the error of my ways. A HIP REPLACEMENT (possibly using a SWISS ARMY KNIFE?) led to FAMILY PLANNING. It took a while for the fickle lady to drop in, but she, together with the BILLIONAIRE, enabled the BLACK BOX, which allowed me to get LOI, XAVIER. I knew the missionary from childhood indoctrination, but also managed to spot the Roman 16. A most enjoyable half hour! 30:42. Thanks setter and Jeremy.
36:18
Less enthralled than our blogger – I didn’t know that was the title of ‘that’ tune – I had heard of both before but had not connected the two. Didn’t know who XAVIER is/was either. Had to really think about FLEECE and make sure it wasn’t FLEECY. GAME = prepared? Meh.
I did like FAMILY PLANNING and APEDOM.
Yes. I thought he was a bit over-lavish in his praise. It wasn’t THAT good. I needed bookmarks for some of the surfaces.
Tastes differ but I’m certainly not alone in how I felt about the puzzle! As you can see from my solving time, I was definitely in some sort of strange sympathy with the setter, which probably added to my enjoyment.
Fabulous puzzle and a satisfying 41 minute solve undone by poor (zero) knowledge of Italian and lazily thinking nay would suffice for Scottish no. I’m sure la Donna y mobile is a valid answer in some universe😂 some fabulous clues today, think I liked Wagoner best. Not sure about the unlike homophone, certainly not in Geordie land😊 Thanks Jeremy and setter.
I was wondering if I would be the only one with that mistake. Good to have company.
There are some linguistic knowledge snippets that can be useful for solving purposes. One example is the “sound of the second letter’s English name” rule for IE and EI in German words. Fritz Wunderlich’s version of “Wien, Wien, nur du allein” on Youtube is one demonstration, though you have to wait for the chorus.
For this answer, the handy snippet is that (quoting Wikipedia) :
in Italian, J, K, W, X and Y are not part of the proper alphabet, and appear only in loanwords (e.g. “jeans”, “weekend”),foreign names, and in a handful of native words […] which all derive from regional languages. [One example must be Juventus.]
I’m pretty sure some other Romance languages miss out similar sets of letters.
Alternative snippet: knowing the forms of “to be” in a few languages – “e” in La Donna … = “is”.
Can’t say I found it that fabulous. I’d have thought a kingpin was a person and ‘Who’s most important’ would have seen to that. I know some oligarchs these days may be billionaires but as put it’s a loose usage: ‘one of the governing few’ doesn’t have to be filthy rich. Didn’t know that meaning of ‘black box’ and was held up a long time at the end by that and St Francis X; annoying as have had a certain amount of the Roman influence in my life, no fleeing involved, and knew of him well. Certainly some gifted clues though. 40 minutes.
28:30 – Unaccountably – to judge from comments – found this much easier than yesterday’s, though I had one (FLEECE) unparsed at the end. Clever stuff, and plenty to review and savour post-solve.
Chuckled at ‘lad on nae mobile’. Up here, wherever you look, there’s ay a lad on a mobile. Woeful ignorance of Christian missionaries made XAVIER harder than it needed to be…I was looking for the square of 5, not 4, so trying to work XXV into the answer. Didn’t think Xerxes was a missionary, and life made harder by thinking the crosser gave “loo” as a place to go not LAV. Duh. Having sung Dream of Gerontius (which describes my afternoon nap) made the idea of rushing to Rome, like Newman, a bit easier. Pleased to finish at all, several visits so time not relevant.
47:05. Started well, then ground to a halt in the NW corner. L2I were FISHWIFE and FLEECE, the latter unparsed.
Times crosswords have kept Slavs well supplied with places to go today.
55.30 but most definitely a game of two halves. In my first crack had virtually nothing – and one of those was wrong- in 27 mins. Had a nap and returned in the hope that it wouldn’t stay like that. The long solutions got me on the path to salvation and I finished finally in the NE corner.
Black box was useful but I was guessing with Xavier, didn’t know chronon but it was ( when I finally worked out the cluing) pretty clear.
A terrific puzzle and one I was really pleased to solve.
Tough one, didn’t finish as had to go out after about an hour. Unfinished were XAVIER (didn’t know), BILLIONAIRE (put in M not B) , PAROLEE (would never have got), and didn’t like the BLACK BOX definition much. I’m sure it was a belter of a puzzle, but with Mrs P unwell, other duties arose and it was not given due attention.
This took me an hour, despite getting the lengthy “Hip Replacement” and “Swiss Army Knife” crossers quite quickly.
Unfortunately, I entered “Pentagon” instead of “Heptagon” – now I’m going to look up what a Heptagon is – I mentally went through the list of -agons – but, if it’s seven-sided, I had assumed Septagon. Never stop learning ( note to self!!).
I first registered what a HEPTAGON is when the 50p coin was released in 1969.
59 minutes plus a few chronons, but with PENTAGON. I always forget that a SEPTAGON is a HEPTAGON.
I thought LA DONNA E MOBILE was a great example of a clue that can be pieced together even if you don’t know the answer. (Of course like everyone else I know the tune, but not the title. Just been listening to Pavarotti singing it on YouTube. Terrific.)
I put WAY instead of LAV but it’s a bit of a stretch to envisage a ‘West pole’ to justify it. It took a while to get NUNLIKE but not because of the dodgy homophobe, which I expected. It’s questionable in the Midlands and East Anglia, not just the North – Olivia Coleman is from Norwich and she said in an interview that she had difficulty remembering to say ‘none’ as ‘nun’ when playing the Queen in ‘The Crown’.
Two goes needed, with a huge gap in the middle for a trip out. Only got XAVIER once the X from BLACK BOX was in place (and even then I didn’t parse it, as I wasn’t sure which square number was needed); bunged in FISHWIFE at the end from the checkers; had to hope CHRONON was right; and was slightly thrown by the ‘once’ in the clue for ERE, not seeing that it was indicating an archaism.
As others have said, a great crossword. Thanks setter and blogger.
FOI Ism
LOI Fishwife
COD Family planning
Initially I thought I’d hit on the third stinker in a fortnight (i.e. with the SNITCH well into the red, which generally means it’s time for me to take a day off), having popped in only nine letters on my first pass, but a cup of tea later and everything started to flow, starting with the four long clues. I paused for several CHRONONs and still missed the cricketing connection until coming here, which is pretty poor for a cricket lover like me, so thanks to our blogger for that explanation and the rest of his sterling work, and to today’s setter for a great puzzle.
After a long and steady fill, I was left with 4A, 14A, 6D and 8D. These refused, despite another hour or so of thinking, to reveal themselves, so came here for inspiration. And I would never have got the answers. Firstly, never heard of that meaning of BLACK BOX; secondly, never heard of CHRONON, despite thinking of the ON ON and HR; thirdly, never heard of XAVIER and fourthly, although I thought of NUNLIKE at the very start, I thought it was a homophone meaning unpopular. With this combination of unknowns, I didn’t stand a chance. Who knew that Xavier, as opposed to the 500 or so missionaries it might have been, was the one decided upon here? I suppose that if you knew what a ‘black box’ was supposed to mean and had an X for the start of the word, Xavier might spring to mind, for lack of any other names beginning with X. But it does seem to me that if 4A was lacking, then 6 and 8D would be unsolvable. Sour grapes, maybe? I see that Jackkt had the same difficulties with unknowns as I did, yet still got to the solution. (The rest of the crossword was fine, btw!)
NUNLIKE, “none like.” It’s what you thought it was.
DNF. That sorted out the men from the boys!
FLEECE and FISHWIFE not even bif’d.
A lot of the rest took geological time.
Proud to applaud the experts and especially the blog.
Setter do go on being as clever but with a hint of kindness?
Wikipedia says of Francis Xavier: “Known as the Apostle of the Indies, Apostle of the Far East, Apostle of China, and Apostle of Japan, he is considered to be one of the greatest missionaries since St Paul.(30,000 to 100,000 conversions)”.
Very enjoyable indeed, with many rather subtle clues. Surprisingly, after a week of pink square puzzles taking over an hour, I finished this correctly in 38 minutes, with APEDOM and PAROLEE as my LOI. My CODs would probably be LA DONNA E MOBILE and WAGONER for the beautiful and very amusing wordplay.
25.04
Late entry
Also liked it. Thinking cap needed for the last three but once XAVIER sprang to mind BLACK BOX and CHRONON fell (I’d stupidly pencilled in _ PRONON for that one which confused matters)
FISHWIFE was very good
Thanks setter and cracking time Jeremy – lovely to see
Great puzzle which I did Sunday night in 43’19”. Glad to finish. LOI XAVIER. Couldn’t help thinking of XAVIER as a first name, or part of the first name FRANCOIS-XAVIER. I see now it was indeed the second part of the missionary’s name, though referring to him as XAVIER still feels a bit odd. It was the town of his birth in Navarra.
Extraordinarily late entry due to hoarding 4 highest SNITCH puzzles from actual printed newspapers of the last month to take abroad.
FLEECE is defined both by RUSH (to fleece) and WARMER ( fleece as a noun) with
TOWARDS ROME ? as a cryptic suggestion of FLEE + CE
CHRONON just saw this word for the first time two days before picking up the puzzle
(Please don’t ask about my parsing, completely wild but it worked)
Most enjoyable puzzle and fast solve for me of about 90 or so mins (not including the time I spent once I put in ERE and stared blankly for quite some while)
Many thanks to the regular bloggers and commenters who make this so enjoyable and educative.
As most, really enjoyed this, mainly for the reason that I initially thought I wouldn’t crack a single clue – but FISHWIFE put paid to that, and I reverse-engineered that to understand that it didn’t refer to “his”. Instead it ended up being a surprisingly fast solve (for me!) in less than an hour, but with a couple of look-ups: PAROLEE, NUNLIKE and the NHO CHRONON – which all helped of course to solve others. I must have been “on the wavelength”, as clues like WAGONER and GAME WARDEN and even XAVIER came easily. Most enjoyed the Italian number ( for being so easy to deduce from the wordplay), FAMILY PLANNING(for the clever definition ), and ERE, which helped me get FLEECED. More like this please.