29:56, perhaps a bit overblown, as the puzzle felt a bit gentler than the time suggests. I’m sitting here at a restaurant with two fellow NYC puzzlers, solving while sipping a martini and chatting idly. I really enjoyed this puzzle, although my tablemate just grimaced at 26 down, for what that’s worth.
| Across | |
| 1 | Measure across diameter using compasses (5) |
| WIDTH – WITH (using) around (compasses) D (diameter) | |
| 4 | Rat with cat coming over is first to disappear (2,7) |
| GO MISSING – SING (rat) with MOG (cat) reversed (coming over) IS first | |
| 9 | Of course you recover after turning brown (9) |
| NATURALLY – U (you) RALLY (recover) after reversing (turning) TAN (brown) | |
| 10 | Sudden blaze reported [in] particular faculty (5) |
| FLAIR – homophone of (reported) FLARE (sudden blaze) | |
| 11 | Funny wee fellow turning ten in October has run ahead (6,7) |
| RONNIE CORBETT – anagram of (turning) TEN IN OCTOBER has R (run) first (ahead) | |
| 14 | Eat seconds of infected food and keep it down (4) |
| NOSH – second letters (seconds) of INFECTED FOOD + (and) SH (keep it down) | |
| 15 | Dud brew inn concocted, considerably overblown? (10) |
| WINDBURNED – anagram of (concocted) DUD BREW INN | |
| 18 | Keep gambling habit on winning this? (5,5) |
| STRIP POKER – cryptic definition
Hopefully not a nun’s habit — naughty naughty. |
|
| 19 | Partners’ concern [when] video changes hands? (4) |
| FIRM – FILM (video) with L turned to R (changes hands) | |
| 21 | National Theatre distributes egg sandwiches, one nearly filling expert? (6,7) |
| DENTAL SURGEON – DEALS (distributes) URGE (egg) around (sandwiches) NT (National Theatre) + ON{e} (one nearly) | |
| 24 | Implement for easing locks one used for different purposes (5) |
| COMBI – COMB (implement for easing locks) I (one) | |
| 25 | Henry half-way along on a rope within touching distance (9) |
| REACHABLE – H (Henry) in the middle of (half-way along) RE (on) A CABLE (rope) | |
| 27 | Authentically Asian spiciness reflected eastern style (9) |
| DESIGNATE – DESI (authentically Asian) + TANG (spiciness) reversed (reflected) + E (eastern)
Chambers defines DESI as ‘authentically Asian’. |
|
| 28 | Encouragement for one horse coming from the rear (5) |
| NUDGE – EG (for one) DUN (horse) reversed (coming from the rear) | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Sinister case of woman developing chill (10) |
| WINTRINESS – SINISTER + W{oma}N (case of woman) anagrammed (developing) | |
| 2 | Complete time period, say (3) |
| DOT – DO (complete) T (time) | |
| 3 | Awful [in] hospital, but possibly free (6) |
| HORRID – H (hospital) OR (but possibly) RID (free) | |
| 4 | Illegal act I condemn involves kicking superstar (9) |
| GALACTICO – hidden in (involves) ILLEGAL ACT I CONDEMN
Did not know this term. |
|
| 5 | Local chief agreed men should have married first (5) |
| MAYOR – AY (agreed) OR (men) with (should have) M (married) first | |
| 6 | Break down resistance [of] son frequently in court (6,2) |
| SOFTEN UP – S (son) OFTEN (frequently) UP (in court) | |
| 7 | Under canvas, you’d say one’s not on it? (11) |
| INATTENTIVE – homophone of (you’d say) IN A TENT (under canvas) + I’VE (one’s)
I’VE = one’s is what precipitated the eyebrow raise. |
|
| 8 | Bind grating that’s twisted in the middle (4) |
| GIRD – GRID (grating) with middle letters reversed (that’s twisted in the middle) | |
| 12 | Forecaster covering crazy techniques up with common sense (11) |
| NOSTRADAMUS – covering MAD (crazy) ART (techniques) reversed (up) with NOUS (common sense) | |
| 13 | Notice a homo sapiens evolves, losing half its ancestry? (4,3,3) |
| ADAM AND EVE – AD (notice) A MAN (homo sapiens) DEVE{lops} (evolves, losing half) | |
| 16 | Career over, walk [in] remote regions (4,5) |
| DEEP SPACE – SPEED (career) reversed (over) PACE (walk)
I had DEEP SOUTH for awhile, which slowed me down! |
|
| 17 | Stretch tallest man on board [for] punishment (8) |
| SPANKING – SPAN (stretch) KING (tallest man on board)
Probably my favorite of the bunch. |
|
| 20 | Bar closing for April, stagger home — poor kid (6) |
| URCHIN – without (bar) last letter of (closing for) APRIL, LURCH (stagger) + IN (home) | |
| 22 | Courts cutting a hearing short (5) |
| ATRIA – A TRIAL (hearing) without the last letter (cutting short) | |
| 23 | Fast cloud [in which] odd bits of ash could drop (4) |
| SCUD – remove (could drop) odd numbered letters (odd bits) of ASH COULD | |
| 26 | Tape with name cut off (3) |
| BAD – BAND (tape) with N (name) removed (cut) | |
Around 50 minutes. Like yesterday I started seeing answers quickly. Loved RONNIE CORBETT, DENTAL SURGEON, STRIP POKER, DEEP SPACE and more. A really enjoyable puzzle.
Thanks Jeremy and setter
Could kick myself for missing the hidden GALACTICO, knew it was ‘galact something’ and that we were looking for a soccer player, would you ADAM AND EVE it! Thought this was fun. SCUD went in from the wordplay but didn’t know the cloud meaning. Liked the poker-playing nun for STRIP POKER. DENTAL SURGEON went in from ‘filling’ in the clue and parsed later. Liked the wordplay for URCHIN. Thought RONNIE CORBETT was good. Lots to like today, COD to INATTENTIVE.
Thanks Jeremy and setter.
Done, with very slow time > 1 hour, and needed aids at the end to see WIDTH and WINTRINESS.
Eventually got RONNIE CORBETT, and a late change from CORBERT, but the “wee” had me look for a Scottish person, and RAB. C. NESBITT looked quite close!
Tough to parse NOSTRADAMUS, but eventually saw the MAD ARTS.
Never did parse GO MISSING or DESIGNATE (NHO DESI), and GALACTICO jumped out from the checkers before I saw the hidden. I though the “kicking superstar” either meant remove ACE from an anagram, or PELE in the answer somewhere.
COD WINDBURNED
Ronnie Corbett was Scottish!
Well that makes it a lot better clue!
Very happy to have finally finished this in 47:21, although I submitted off-leaderboard.
Interesting to see how far biffs can get you even with a high SNITCH puzzle. Although with both WINDBURNED and WINTRINESS I was playing around with the letters in the grid for a while. Biffing certainly didn’t help with DESIGNATE for some reason, so I was relieved when I finally thought of TANG.
I don’t think there was much specialist knowledge required or helpful for this one – DESI would have been it, but it didn’t come to mind. Oh and I suppose if my mum hadn’t told me how funny Ronnie Corbett was, I would barely have heard of him.
Thanks all!
55 minutes. Tough but enjoyable, only marred a little at the end by not understanding the definition of DESIGNATE, nor if the answer was correct, the wordplay as I NHO DESI. It went in as the only word I could think of that fitted and I discovered afterwards that it’s the only word that does.
Also I didn’t know GALACTICO as I avoid football like the plague and only spotted it as a hidden answer when all the checkers were in.
WINDBURNED took forever to emerge and the parsing of DENTAL SURGEON came only after I had stopped the clock.
Pleased to finish this in a few sessions (interrupted not by getting stuck but driving to get a new car battery and then a smog check). LOI was SCUD where I took it on trust that it meant a fast clooud since I know of clouds “scudding” across the sky. Didn’t notice how the wordplay worked, I just bunged it in as my LOI. Took far too long to realize RONNIE CORBETT was an anagram, WINTRINESS too. I had no idea about GALACTICO, just assumed he must be some karate expert superhero, but for once I spotted the hidden early without having to kick myself. I knew of DESI meaning an India, but did not know that it meant an “authentic Asian” which seems like it would equally apply to, say, a Thai or Japanese person.
Galactico can mean any highly paid footballer but specifically Los Galacticos are Real Madrid ..just a fairly useless piece of general knowledge!
Not useless in this context. There was a famous Real Madrid team in the sixties that had Pushkas and Di Stefano in what was a very good team.
As lifetime player and fan I had NHO Galacticos – which may also have a connection to that team.
Apologies if this is spam to you.
Finished in 35 minutes, slowed down a bit by a cat determined to come between me and the phone (I’ll feed him in a minute).
NHO GALACTICO (I thought he must be a comic book hero till coming here), but otherwise fairly straightforward albeit on the harder side imo.
Thanks setter and blogger
This took me nearly an hour over two sessions and I found it seriously hard in places, though no less enjoyable for that. Without J’s sterling blog I would still have no idea about DENTAL SURGEON, REACHABLE, DESIGNATE (still don’t get the def) and URCHIN, all of which I merrily biffed.
From One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later):
I didn’t mean to treat you so BAD
You shouldn’t take it so personal
I didn’t mean to make you so sad
You just happened to be there, that’s all
Or what about from Talkin’ World War III Blues?:
Well, I spied me a girl and before she could leave
“Let’s go and play ADAM AND EVE”
I took her by the hand and my heart it was thumpin’
When she said, “Hey man, you crazy or sumpin’
You see what happened last time they started”
But of course Sooner or Later was one of my first real loves.
Excellent crossword.
Not the hardest Friday offering but certainly one of the most enjoyable. I would have been on for a quick (for me) time but had to stop half way because the little one got up early wanting something to eat. Funnily enough I did crumpets after the QC discussion yesterday. Just under 30 minutes would be my estimated time.
Only hiccup was entering the wrong element of the homophone which blocked GIRD longer than it should have.
I knew DESI being a fan of Bollywood which made that clue a write in.
Got GALACTICO before spotting it was a hidden and RONNIE CORBETT before spotting the anagram.
I don’t think there was a poor or average clue in this but ADAM AND EVE was COD.
Thanks blogger and setter
57m 40s.
Didn’t know DESI meant ‘authentically asian’.
At first glance I thought I would take forever to finish this but it all went in eventually.
With 16d, Jeremy, perhaps you were thinking of ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ when you thought of DEEP SOUTH!?
Phew! That was close! I only spotted I had typed NostrOdamus at the last second!
Thanks, Jeremy and thanks, setter.
15:57
Having seen the SNITCH before starting, I was expecting another Friday struggle but instead flew through with just a brief delay in the SE. Helped by seeing several of the more oblique definitions very quickly. Good fun.
33.19, held up by the diabolically clever DESIGNATE, concern over whether SCUD was a noun if it wasn’t a missile, and failing to spot the hidden GALACTICO.
I also spent too long wondering what urinary infection our setter had in mind with “funny wee”: those of us of a certain age worry about such things!
Otherwise most of this fell into place with proper ATTENTIVEness to identifying definitions such as “off”.
Hardly got started on this one.
Thank you to plusjeremy for confirming our good decision in finally pull stumps.
There were some good clues revealed by his analysis , but crossers were needed first.
For some of the clues (eg. 21ac) the surface reading does not appear to work, and structures throughout were either too arcane or the synonyms or references too abstract to be enjoyable.
Enough said really.
I could go into detail but no-one is likely to want that.
Didn’t much enjoy this one, didn’t know why DESI meant Asian, or that COMBI was a stand-alone word, so these were my LOI as guesses. NOSTRADAMUS and DEEP SPACE went in first. 35 minutes.
Odd one, this. I ‘saw’ a lot of the answers before I even tried to parse them.
Got stuck in the southeast corner, so a total of 51 minutes. About 30 minutes for the rest.
Enjoyable puzzle.
54:26
Good puzzle!
Thanks, pj.
Less challenging than many a Friday offering, but still a good work out and very enjoyable. Held up by not seeing WINTRINESS for ages, despite having all the letters and crossers written out. NHO Desi for authentically Asian and NHO GALACTICO. STRIP POKER, DENTAL SURGEON and REACHABLE all turned up in sudden PDMs and raised smiles. DOT was FOI and DEEP SPACE LOI. I initially biffed DOWN UNDER when I got the D from WINDBURNED, so apologies to our Antipodean friends! 35:44. Thanks setter and Jeremy.
Felt like I was head-banging on this one all the way through. Threw in the towel on the hour with DESIGNATE missing. Didn’t enjoy any of it, unsure why.
Carelessly put ‘orphan’ instead of ‘urchin’, ruining an otherwise fun and breezy puzzle
At least urchin is more like a classic name for a poor child that guttersnipe (recently).
23:42
Gosh – I am surprised that the Snitch is at 142 currently, as I found this pretty comfortable, with only a few less than straightforward parts. No problem with COMBI as a standalone – many houses in the UK at least, have COMBI boilers (both a water heater and a central heating system). Glossed over DESI – it’s somewhere in the back of my mind – as the rest of the clue seemed to work OK. GALACTICO should be well-known to anyone that follows European football. Liked NOSTRADAMUS and my last three in – a tentative HORRID, followed by WINTRINESS (having finally seen the anagram), and WIDTH.
Thanks PJ and setter
DNF, defeated by COMBI (thought ‘locks’ would refer to hair but never thought of comb), DESIGNATE (didn’t know desi=authentically Asian) and SCUD (have never really known what that word means).
– Only parsed RONNIE CORBETT once I’d entered it from the checkers
– NHO WINDBURNED but it was the only word that would realistically fit
– No problem with GALACTICOS – as Clare Betteridge says above, they’re associated with Real Madrid in the early/mid 2000s, David Beckham, Zinedine Zidane and Luis Figo being prime examples
Thanks Jeremy and setter.
COD Nostradamus
24:20. Done in the pleasant surroundings of the Stowmarket beer festival with some local Drinkstone Bitter. A bit slow but a steady enough solve with plenty of PDMs. Thanks Jeremy and setter.
33 mins here.
Nothing was really a NHO and it was just my old nemesis ‘lots of long words’ that stretched it out for me. Really liked ADAM AND EVE – COD.
DNF due to SCUD, DESIGNATE, COMBI, NUDGE.
Otherwise, I think this may be the furthest I’ve got with a Friday. Not sure if I’ve solved a full one before.
Only a little slower than my average time and currently in the top 100 so I must have found it easier than others. Didn’t know DESI.
Thanks Setter and Jeremy
Back to the cricket / work …
A better effort than my WITCH will tell you.
V much enjoyed this, and steadily worked my way round the grid. Liked the hidden GALACTICO, I knew DESI and DESIGNATE gets my COD. DEEP SPACE was my LOI.
24:39
51:27. Time well spent on this super crossword. I didn’t know GALACTICO, but saw the hidden, or DESI, but it had to be. I liked lots including SPANKING and URCHIN
41:54. Challenging one. vocab not too much of a stretch but wordplay was often a challenge. thanks!
Not keen on this one, not sure why.
Some poor surfaces.
DNF in 66:46 today. Frustrated: less so because although our wild guess at GALÁCTICO was correct we completely missed the hidden. More so by our LOI BID (no idea which of the bad / bed etc to pick) which was within our ability but we just failed to see it. Correctly guessed (by chance) DESIGNATE from the checkers but without understanding why because we’ve never come across Desi. RONNIE CORBETT was late coming but worth the smile. Some of our usual checking elsewhere but within our norm for the 15 x 15. Thanks, Jeremy and setter.
10 across could have been either flair or flare from the clue. Poor.
Sunday evening solve, as per usual for me for Friday crosswords. Far too long on LOI DESIGNATE and POI DENTAL SURGEON. 38’52”