DNF. Got almost all of these in a very reasonable 25 minutes or so, but got stuck on the last three for an eternity. Eventually made a guess on one, which was wrong (I hadn’t heard of the actual answer), and had to look up the other in the dictionary. Ah well!
EDIT: Forgot to mention, there’s definitely something going on in the unches! Some of it clearly meaningful, but if there’s a deeper meaning I couldn’t figure it out.
Across | |
1 | Gentleman recalled favourite cover of taboo Italian folk song (8) |
RISPETTO – SIR reversed + PET + T{abo}O | |
9 | Fish / move with difficulty (8) |
FLOUNDER – double definition | |
10 | Kindle hits back — book’s ending no longer available (5,3) |
SPARK OFF – RAPS reversed + {boo}K + OFF | |
11 | Data visualisation, mine involving exceptional reach (3,5) |
PIE CHART – PIT around anagram of REACH | |
12 | Grotesquely morph image copy (10) |
MIMEOGRAPH – anagram of MORPH IMAGE | |
14 | Fruit from Italian region peeled (4) |
UGLI – {p}UGLI{a} | |
15 | I got picked up — not a pretty sight (7) |
EYESORE – homophone of I SAW (got) | |
17 | Retreat in theory periodically affords virtue (7) |
HONESTY – NEST in {t}H{e}O{r}Y | |
21 | Cross, Times pursues copper stifling resistance (4) |
CRUX – X (times) after CU around R | |
22 | Philosopher from Prussia upset about a load of rubbish (10) |
ARISTIPPUS – anagram of PRUSSIA around TIP (load of rubbish) | |
23 | Plants in pretty urn, lilacs, at regular intervals (8) |
PETUNIAS – every other letter of PRETTY URN LILACS | |
25 | What may help to keep beehive upright? (8) |
HAIRGRIP – cryptic definition
I saw the cryptic meaning immediately, as I’m sure many did. But I’ve never heard of a HAIRGRIP, and my best guess was HAIRGRID — which isn’t a thing, but would certainly keep someone’s do in order… |
|
26 | Managed US pop goddess, old hand in Mexico (8) |
RANCHERO – RAN + CHER + O | |
27 | Over-60s righted a wrong (5,3) |
THIRD AGE – anagram of RIGHTED A |
Down | |
2 | Little devil, one obtaining exemption from punishment (8) |
IMPUNITY – IMP + UNITY | |
3 | Freshwater fish edges either side of river birds (8) |
PERCHERS – PERCHES around R (either side of river)
This was the other one I couldn’t get. My 8 year old son said, after the fact, “That’s obvious. Perch is a fish.”. |
|
4 | Did appropriate introductions to Treasury obtain approval? (4) |
TOOK – first letters of TREASURE OBTAIN + OK (approval?) | |
5 | Hostile verbal animosity when it’s usually calm? (3-4) |
OFF-PEAK – OFF (hostile) + homophone of PIQUE (animosity)
Don’t quite get ‘hostile’ = OFF… |
|
6 | Complaint made by others about revised rota (4,6) |
SORE THROAT – anagram of OTHERS + anagram of ROTA | |
7 | Fish eating seaweed that’s hypothetically perfect? (5,3) |
IDEAL GAS – IDES around ALGA | |
8 | Tip from informer stopping criminal that’s out of line (8) |
GRATUITY – RAT in GUI{l}TY | |
13 | Is gendarme worried, as Vichy France may have been? (10) |
GERMANISED – anagram of IS GENDARME | |
15 | They get free case of Soave over and above pickled cooking ingredients (8) |
ESCAPERS – S{oav}E reversed + CAPERS | |
16 | Surviving extremely unusual punches, jubilant in victory (8) |
EXULTANT – U{nusua}L in (punches) EXTANT (surviving) | |
18 | Wiped out by joke penned by eg top journo (8) |
EXPUNGED – X (by) PUN (joke) in EG ED (top journo) | |
19 | Pathetic ragged child got back clothes after having run away (8) |
TOUCHING – GOT reversed around (clothes) U{r}CHIN | |
20 | Somebody quiet bores intolerant individual (3,4) |
BIG SHOT – SH in BIGOT | |
24 | Top-level racing judge, one in a state (4) |
FIJI – FI + J + I |
Starstruck, the SNITCH algorithm accidentally recorded my time as 25 minutes. Looks like it didn’t pass the Turing test this week…
Sorry, Jeremy. My fault entirely for not picking up your very clear “DNF”. Good to know that humans still have the edge sometimes 🙂
Fixed this for this crossword and will try to check the logic for next time.
Thanks for the blog.
It sticks in my mind from a long time ago that one of our setters was (is?) an F1 fan, so I’m well pleased when I correctly spot an auto racing allusion straight away. I had to think about a few of the synonyms in addition to the Off/Hostile pair jeremy mentions.
Around 55 minutes with one error EXULTING for EXULTANT
Thanks Jeremy
Never heard of ARISTIPPUS. Cheated for that one… and looked in Chambers first, where that word is a noun, “An embodiment of self-indulgence,” derived from Aristippos, with an O, not a U, “the founder of the Cyrenaic school of philosophy (c.435–c.356BC).” But Collins has this as the philosopher’s name.
Not knowing what an UGLI is, I had to look up a list of Italian regions to find which one could be trimmed to fit. That also gave me the NHO IDEAL GAS. The philosopher finally fell into place via close study of the anagrist for a 35.33 finish. For a while I too feared I was in DNF territory but I narrowly escaped, thanks Jeremy.
From Like A Rolling Stone:
You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
Ain’t it hard when you discovered that
He really wasn’t where it’s at
After he TOOK from you everything he could steal
How does it feel?
38 minutes, which considering it contained three unknowns, was rather pleasing and the sign of a well-clued puzzle as they were all deducible from wordplay.
The words in question were RISPETTO (NHO and making its first appearance in the TfTT era), MIMEOGRAPH (NHO. It appeared once in a Jumbo 7 years ago, well before I started solving them regularly), and ARISTIPPUS (NHO, and another first time out).
THIRD AGE was not difficult although I didn’t get the reference and having since looked it up I never heard of it despite apparently being in mine for the past 17 years.
14ac had to be UGLI, but even after looking up a map of Italian regions I was unable to see the wordplay as it wasn’t shown. I have now found it on a list as the Italian name for Apulia – also NHO.
Is there not a U3A (University of the third age) local to you jackkt?
Oh dear I took 47 minutes, I had all but two in 36 minutes, then GRATUITY and LOI TOUCHING took me another 11 minutes. I was very stupid not to see the u(r) chin, I was obsessed with Gavroche for some reason (which makes no sense at all with hindsight). Only got Gratuity by pencilling in rat and then an alphabet trawl got me to g.
I thought that was a good puzzle which I was pleased to finish albeit slowly.
I probably needed to warm up with some other puzzles and coffee first, as I normally do!
Thanks setter and Jeremy
Borderline DNF, about 30 minutes interrupted by breakfast, got home only with external aids – found GRATUITY difficult and PERCHERS a little too contrived but GERMANISED was excellent. Thanks J and setter.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I Took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
(The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost)
After 30 mins, the best I could come up with for my LOI was Perchers. So it was right, apparently. Pity about that one.
Ta setter and PJ
I thought this was a bit weak, and needed a question mark at least. But it turns out that PERCHER is a specific term for ‘a bird having feet adapted for perching’ (Collins). Which makes it OK in my book.
41 minutes with LOI FIJI. Motorsport for me is an oxymoron. I didn’t expect ARISTIPPUS to be right. I’d entered a confident CURT until EXULTANT revealed CRUX. COD to IDEAL GAS. Quite tricky. Thank you Jeremy and setter,
Me too on curt … and then couldn’t get exultant 🙄
Very surprised to finish this correctly. Nho RISPETTO, a dispiriting first clue; ni at all about TOUCHING or GRATUITY; is PERCHERS a word? – maybe clue humans as walkers; and as for the philosopher, whose thoughts must have escaped my attention even though I’m in my third age….
Did you know that Florence Nightingale popularised the pie chart?
19’07”, thanks jeremy and setter.
Out to ‘unch. Very clever Mr/Miss/Mrs setter. And me who’s always moaning about them, today I get them in spades. At least the setter was kind enough to announce them everywhere! I know it’s Friday, but three fish, really? 48 mins.
A few NHO’s today, RISPETTO, (know the word but not this meaning), MIMEOGRAPH, IDEAL GAS and, of course, the philosopher. I always thought ARISTIPPUS was a well bred cat!
Good fun this one.
Thanks Jeremy and setter.
Another DNF. Defeated by PERCHERS, TOUCHING and ARISTOPPUS.
COD: GRATUITY
A most rewarding 44 mins at least 10 of which on the tricky PERCHERS and inexplicably GRATUITY. Just didnt think of that meaning of Tip.
I lacked the GK in Italian or philosophy but everything was fairly clued and I found easier than yesterday.
Excellent puzzle, thanks both.
28:31
I thought I was on for a really good time at one point, only to struggle on the last few. The subtle difference between a HAIRCLIP and a HAIRGRIP cost me the best part of 5 minutes alone (the C never looked right though) but correcting my ways lead to the last two of EXPUNGED and ARISTIPPUS.
A very enjoyable solve and some nice clues therein. Thanks to both.
Struggled today – is PERCHES the plural of PERCH? Doesn’t sound right to me
Wiktionary has:
perch (plural perches or perch)
1) Any of the three species of spiny-finned freshwater fish in the genus Perca…. etc
percher (plural perchers)
1) One that perches.
2) A bird that is perching or that regularly perches.
3) Any of various tropical and temperate dragonflies of the genus Diplacodes.
Nice one today, up my street it seems given the problems some have had. Not keen on “perchers” clue. Nho Aristippus but it didn’t matter.
My local village has a UTA, university of the third age. I keep well clear of it.
I’ve long since given up on the idea of F1 as being a sport. These days it is a pure entertainment show. Like gladiators.
I both loved and hated the appearance of those ‘double UNCHes’: very clever construction. Though I wish I had noticed what was going on whilst solving!
I spent ages looking for a “clever construction” and was about to submit a complaint! Very good.
Done in just over 30 minutes with more abandonment and subsequent cheating than usual, including ARISTIPPUS and RISPETTO.
I agree with those above about the four double UNCHes. Very clever and witty. It probably led to a few of the odd words in this one. Overall I enjoyed it.
Pleased with my 24.26 for this determinedly Fridayish puzzle, clearly designed to have solvers you-whatting while their morning RISPETTO coffee got cold.
Back in the day, the TLS was notorious for cluing Greek philosophers with ambiguous -us/-os endings so you all can be grateful that ARISTIPPUS was clearly marked even if he fails to appear in the standard Introduction to Western Philosophy (I checked).
It seems I’m not alone in struggling with GRATUITY: it’s really hard not to read “tip from informer” as I.
And I’m not convinced that the plural of PERCH is PERCHES – Chambers remains coy (koi?) on the subject. Rudd, pike, salmon, trout and many others all look odd with -S plurals.
A robust challenge met with gritted teeth.
The OED allows you the choice of perches or perch for the plural; but it prefers perches. The word is derived from the French word perche, so ..
However in the clue it is only perch, +R in E(dge)S
That sort of makes sense but where’s the instruction to take only the edges of edges?
There isn’t one. I think +J has the construction right.
About 50′ with a guess for the gentleman in LOI RISPETTO. NHO of the philosopher but crossers made it straightforward. IDEAL GAS stirred a memory of school physics and a quite grumpy teacher. Tough but fair, though I share some of the concerns over PERCHERS. Must have some fish for dinner today. Thanks Jeremy and setter.
11.19 for another enjoyably chewy Friday, if a bit less dastardly than the last few weeks.
My NHOS: RISPETTO, ARISTIPPUS, PERCHERS, and IDEAL GAS. I was relatively sure of each from the wordplay, although I did briefly wonder if the former could be something like SIRPOTTO. My parents attend the local U3A, so that one made sense. My first guess for 25a was HAIRCLIP, but I wasn’t wedded to it, which is just as well.
I didn’t spot the clever grid device (I never do), but it seems like the sort of thing the new editor used to include in his puzzles elsewhere.
Thanks both.
DNF, and on 24d Fiji despite being a F1 fan. Bother.
NHO 1a Rispetto, the 22a philosopher (of course), and don’t ever use 3d perchers for passerine birds. And never parsed Touching at 19d.
The philosopher isn’t in the Python list and therefore should not be allowed!
Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table
David Hume could out-consume
Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel
There’s nothing Nietzsche couldn’t teach ya
’bout the raising of the wrist
Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed
John Stuart Mill, of his own free will
On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill
Plato, they say, could stick it away
Half a crate of whiskey every day
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle
Hobbes was fond of his dram
And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart
“I drink, therefore I am.”
Schopenhauer could be added to the list, since in some versions the Pythons sang that “David Hume could outconsume Schopenhauer and Hegel.”
Oh, thanks! I’ll amend my file.
Struggled with RISPETTO, ARISTIPPUS and PERCHERS, all for different reasons, and was reduced to looking them up, but otherwise it was all pleasant and accessible. Never noticed anything while solving. Now I must go back to the tablet and look at the grid. 49 minutes. The THIRD AGE entry put me in mind of the University of the Third Age, a silly name. Amazing how many people haven’t heard of this wonderful organisation.
[later] Ah yes, very clever and clearly why some of the words were a bit odd. But there would be a slight improvement (some would say very slight) with PIU MOSSO at 1ac, then MARCHERS and SNOW/SLOT etc.
13:30 My kind of puzzle. Some nice obscure vocab and biff-resistant clueing. I think (as with other fish / fishes) the s- plural is often used when speaking of different species of fish (I can envisage someone claiming that “British rivers contain three different perches”). As a smug classicist it was disconcerting not to have been familiar with the works of Aristippus (note to everyone – classical Greek names in -os always (?) filtered down to English with the Latin -us ending), and RISPETTO was almost unknown as well. Luckily the clues were very fair and there was no room for ambiguity. What on earth are hairgrips called in places where that word isn’t used? COD to (P)UGLI(A)
I was going nicely, but having got down to my last half dozen clues in around 8 minutes I began to FLOUNDER. NHO of ARISTIPPUS or RISPETTO, and took them on trust along with my LOI which didn’t make much sense to me despite knowing the fish.
FOI RISPETTO (despite the NHO, though I almost took it out again later)
LOI PERCHERS (sigh!)
COD UGLI
TIME 14:25
35:03. Some quite tricky clues, but mostly the harder words had generous wordplay. nice to have some write-ins amongst the harder ones, really helps avoid getting totally stuck!
I semi-biffed ARISTOT… oh no! NHO ARISTIPPUS but seemed to be the only logical answer. I biffed GRATUITY. PERCHERS was quite clever I thought.
thanks both!
I wasted a lot of time early in the solve on what was eventually my LOI, PERCHERS. I still expected to get pink squares when I submitted, but lo and behold, it was correct. ARISTIPPUS was another entered with crossed fingers, but it did lead to TOUCHING so in it stayed. RISPETTO was assembled from the wordplay with IMPUNITY more or less confirming the SIR bit for gent. FLOUNDER took much longer than it should have, but finally allowed me to subsitute RAT for I in 8d and come up with GRATUITY. TOOK was FOI. A bit of a challenge! 37:49. Thanks setter and Jeremy.
I think perchers come from
Perch and then edges (e and s) around r(iver).
Perchers being birds
39 minutes with a typo – THIRD AGR. Four NHOs invented correctly – RISPETTO, PERCHERS, UGLI and the philosopher, so surprised to be only one letter wrong.
Had a crack at this over several sittings and very pleased to DNF by only two (URCHIN and FIJI) both of which I should have solved. Several unknowns, all already mentioned, but felt clueing was kind. Had to double-check the parsing of OFF-PEAK 🙄 otherwise all seemed to make sense. Many thanks all.
DNF, defeated by TOUCHING. I parsed the ‘got’ bit, but thought the definition was ‘Pathetic ragged child’, with ‘tog’ surrounding a word meaning ‘after’ with the R removed.
– NHO RISPETTO or MIMEOGRAPH but the wordplay was fairly kind in both cases
– Didn’t know the Italian region but thought of UGLI and reasoned there had to be a _ugli_ region somewhere in Italy
– NHO ARISTIPPUS
– Took forever to get PERCHERS because I thought we needed RR somewhere in the middle (assuming that ‘either’ in the clue meant ‘both’)
– Didn’t know there’s a concept called an IDEAL GAS
Thanks Jeremy and setter.
COD Gratuity
The same difficulties as others with PERCHERS and UGLI. Knew ARISTIPPUS, fortunately. DNK RISPETTO, but it was fairly clued with non-obscure refs (unlike yesterday’s totter). A good puzzle, I thought. Testing, but not unfair/piss-taking.
Can somebody please enlighten me about the clever unches device? I have looked and looked but can’t see it. 🙁
The word UNCH appears in the double unches, which are the sets of four unchecked squares in each corner of the grid.
Can somebody explain the “unches” reference please. Thanks.
See above.
18:50. I thought this was great, very little biffing permitted, some nice unfamiliar words very fairly clued. As mentioned above I thought my LOI PERCHERS was a bit dodgy but it’s a specific word for a type of bird, rather than the generic term (akin to ‘standers’ for humans) I thought it was when I solved it.
Would you use a hairgrip in a beehive? I thought it was just tons of hairspray.
This took me the best part of an hour and I peeped in the dictionary to check that UGLI really existed. I’d never heard of Puglia so that was no help. Thought this was an okay puzzle for a Friday but nothing that really stood out.
So pleased to complete in 26 mins unfortunately I had EXULTING which didn’t work when I put it in but put it down anyway
That’s what I got wrong too. I should have checked as I entered my LOI (GRATUITY).
46:47
Despite being familiar with U3A, I took ages to untangle THIRD AGE, and at one point wondered if TIRED HAG could possibly be the answer. Took longer to get FIJI than I should. LOI was GRATUITY. NHO ARISTIPPUS – I agree with Andyf that it fails the Monty Python test.
Thanks Jeremy and setter
Tired hag! Haha, brilliant. I must say, I do feel like it at times!
36:10. Pleased and relieved to have finished, including successfully constructing the NHOs RISPETTO and ARISTIPPUS. LOI GRATUITY, one of many impressive pieces of wordplay
This was hard work, and I enlisted Mr Ego for his ‘database’ (biffing) expertise. Nevertheless, it took us an age, with many strange and NHO entries – RISPETTO, GERMANISED, IDEAL GAS, the unlikely philosopher, to name but a few. I thought the Off/Off crosser (10a/5d) was a bit off, TBH. I had a fairly confident HAIRPINS for 25a – corrected when the fiendish EXPUNGED was finally untangled. LOI was GRATUITY – a biff, since I was still thinking of ‘the tip of informer’ until the PDM. Wouldn’t want one of these more than once a week, though pleased to complete.
DNF, defeated by ARISTIPPUS, RISPETTO and PERCHERS but they are clued fairly so no complaints, it was a tidy puzzle. I had CURT for 21ac for a while before the penny dropped. Thanks for the blog!
38 mins but a couple of sticking points. The first was going for curt before realising it should have been crux. Similarly I had ideal age for what seemed like an age till I finally saw that honesty had to be the virtue and I got ideal gas. Given the reference to honesty for full disclosure I snuck a peek at a map of Italy to get ugli and gratuity was my LOI.
Good puzzle. Thanks setter and blogger.
I found this exceptionally difficult. Solved it in two tranches so can’t give a time. Wasn’t happy with PERCHERS at the time as I didn’t realise the fish had a plural. Surprised anyone could think this was easier than yesterday’s! Hadn’t spotted unch thing, but I never do spot these grid jokes. Can’t see the wood for the trees I suppose!
I had to leave this unfinished overnight. Finally solved GRATUITY first thing this morning, but hadn’t checked the puzzle over, and had a careless mistake with exulting for EXULTANT. Don’t think I’d have made that mistake on paper.
Had to cheat for PERCHERS, so a technical DNF at 51’18”.