DNF! This was very difficult. I have a mild case of COVID, which did mean I fell asleep for a few minutes while solving, but that’s hardly an excuse. I managed maybe half of the puzzle, but was thoroughly defeated here.
ACROSS
1 Spurning electronics, ponder cooler mechanical instrument (5,3)
MUSIC BOX – remove E from MUSE ICEBOX
5 Middle Easterner visiting nearby land borders to the west (6)
QATARI – IRAQ (nearby land) around (borders) AT (visiting) reversed
10 Oscar for supporting role (6-2-7)
SECOND-IN-COMMAND – O = Oscar is the second letter in COMMAND
11 Better half by England’s left back (7)
ESPOUSE – SPOUSE by first letter of ENGLAND
12 Make too much of old deficient border guards for example (7)
OVEREGG – O + VERG{e} around E.G.
13 Toffs seen to do this to win (5,3)
CARRY OFF – TOFFS carries the word OFF
15 Superman repelled untold number up to no good (5)
TITAN – reversed N (untold number) AT IT (up to no good)
18 Extremist united with 10 gunmen (5)
ULTRA – U + LT (10 = second-in-command) + RA
20 Protection when deburring metal is mandatory (8)
TALISMAN – hidden in METAL IS MANDATORY
Never seen ‘deburring’ used this way, but I suppose we’re shaving the words down.
23 Coverage of the sixties is what one’s following live (7)
BEEHIVE – EH (what) I’VE (one’s) after BE (live)
25 Old earl in loose gym clothes fell (7)
POLEAXE – P.E. (gym) around (clothes) O (old) + E (earl) in LAX (loose)
26 Handyman locating gemstones around rockfall at base (4,2,3,6)
JACK OF ALL TRADES – JADES (gemstones) around anagram (base) ROCKFALL AT
27 What criminal minds loathe when back on the outside? (3,3)
THE LAW – anagram of WHAT around (minds) outer letters of LOATHE reversed (when back)
28 Left in fog with head that may be cracked (8)
HAZELNUT – L in HAZE + NUT
DOWN
1 Title possibly adopted by male / film producer (6)
MISTER – double definition
Doesn’t MASTER work as well?
2 One sucking up liquid on sides of Cornish pasty (9)
SYCOPHANT – anagram (liquid) ON C{ornis}H PASTY
3 Unknown refused to challenge inferior to do best (7)
CONQUER – QUERY (challenge) – Y (unknown) under (inferior to) CON (do)
4 Volunteer thought cardinal collars irrational (5)
OPINE – ONE (cardinal) around PI
6 Starmer lost support of one member (7)
ARMREST – anagram
7 Time wide ace served with spin on the ball (5)
AWARE – ERA W A reversed
8 In need of one good charging space at front of line (8)
INDIGENT – I G in (charging) INDENT (space at front of line)
9 Round of drinking quietly stems short row, helping to cool one down? (8)
SCOOPFUL – O (round) OF around (drinking) P (quietly) in (stems) SCUL{l} (short row)
14 Noted readily available houses border sewer plants (2,3,3)
ON THE MAP – ON TAP (readily available) around (houses) HEM (border)
What is ‘sewer plants’ doing here?
16 Clear up place for cooking assorted red jams outside cafe (3,6)
TEA GARDEN – AGA (place for cooking) + anagram of (assorted) RED in (jams) NET (clear) reversed (up)
17 High flier’s project involving work over in Middle East (5,3)
JUMBO JET – JUT (project) around (involving) JOB reversed in ME
19 Largely barren region avoiding eastern America (7)
ARIZONA – ARI{d} (largely barren) ZON{e} (region avoiding eastern) + A
21 Gush about place to spend big (7)
SPLURGE – SURGE around PL
22 Limited accommodation? It’s capped by county (6)
BEDSIT – IT under BEDS
Hadn’t heard of this, a combined bedroom and sitting room. Sounds like every hotel.
24 Set me up with spot on the microphone? (5)
EMCEE – ME reversed + homophone of SEE (spot)
25 People abandoning foxtrot, entertained by dad dance (5)
{f}OLK (people abandoning foxtrot) in PA
In a recent interview Colin Thomas (Gemelo) thought that Ximenes said once that the worst thing about poor crosswords is picking up the paper the next day and seeing the answer and thinking, ‘Well, I thought the answer might be that but I still can’t work out why it would be.’ This crossword was full of such clues until I came here (congratulations Jeremy, coping with both this and Covid). Of course I found it ludicrously difficult (89 minutes, with goodness knows how much help from aids) but it did seem that some of the difficulty was gratuitous: why did the setter see the need for the sewer plants in ON THE MAP? The clue could surely have been made simpler; we could (and possibly should) have been told in the MUSIC BOX clue at 1ac that E was removed twice; in the SCOOPFUL clue how does in = stems? in THE LAW how does minds = surrounds? And endless tortuous but very clever wordplay.
I thought all the clues seemed fair.
To stem is to stop, check, dam, or plug.
To mind something is to take care of it, bringing it inside your walls, metaphorically.
I didn’t see anything in this puzzle out of the ordinary and I think I’ve upped my game by studying it!
I think we are told to remove two Es in the clue for MUSIC BOX, aren’t we? If ‘electronic’ gives E, then ‘electronics’ means two Es.
Yes I have to admit it. I missed that electonics was in the plural, and really the clues were fair I think. Just amazingly difficult.
55 mins.
LOI CONQUER, which I needed to come here to parse. Same went for ULTRA. I think once I got SECOND-IN-COMMAND and JACK-OF-ALL-TRADES the rest went in steadily, but there were two or three that stuck it out to the bitter end: POLEAXE and SCOOPFUL. COD to BEEHIVE. Loved it overall despite the trickiness – definitely more doable than some of the recent toughies!
Fortunately I looked at the Snitch before starting and thus was not too surprised at taking 45 minutes to look at every clue once, getting two fully parsed answers, one that I’m pretty sure of but can’t account for by one letter, and three guesses of varying degrees of likelihood. I might do some more later so not reading the blog yet.
Maybe next life.
Thanks setter and Jeremy.
Another biff orgy, wish I’d noticed it was a double pangram, then I’d have been more confident with Conquer and Qatari. Thanks for the parsing, of conquer, on the map (still not sure if it), scoopful (I was astonished to find that this was correct) and others. Quite enjoyed it though. Completed except for Qatari in about an hour.
Well, this felt really hard. I was happy just to have something to submit at 55′, but three errors (unsurprisingly, as I didn’t have the energy to check the parsing at that point):
CONFUTE for CONQUER
PILLAGE for POLEAXE
TAPER OFF for CARRY OFF
All I really learnt from today is that it’s satisfying to at least fill the grid, even when you think you can’t be bothered. Heroic blogging efforts! Thanks all.
Being a bit dim here. How can you blog the solution if you didn’t solve it?
You can just click “reveal grid” and then all you have to do is parse the thing… a rather tricky task today!
On the Times puzzle page you can reveal a letter, word, or the entire puzzle.
I had three left after 45ish minutes when I had to break off. On return, QATARI came quickly, which gave the second Q, and then I remembered the double pangram from a previous Friday Beast (I’m a bit behind on my Sundays, so it seems I’ve a bit of help now with one of them).
Very pleasing indeed, then, when the double pangram as good as handed me the answers for POLEAXE and THE LAW, as I doubt I’d have got them otherwise. Almost seemed like cheating! Still took nearly 10 minutes of counting letters to get there, although it did mean I came away with a much rosier opinion of the solve than some recent beasts where I’ve been a good bit quicker but completely and frustratingly breezeblocked on one or two.
All done in about half an hour, with only The Law unparsed. Agree that some of the clueing was tortuous, so was pleased to finish, particularly when I saw the Snitch.
Thanks to Jeremy for admitting he struggled- helps those of us who struggle on Fridays
Thought SCOOPFUL was an absolute joke- one of the worst clues I’ve ever come across!
I did this before going to a golf match but only found time to comment now. I thought it was quite hard but fair, although SCOOPFUL was a bit stretchy and some of the parsing was complicated. 30 minutes.
I thought of many synonyms for ‘Starmer’ but none of them are repeatable here! I exactly finished the lower half of this one and failed to get any of the top half here. Didn’t finish without massively cheating and quite a few unparsed. It seems fair though, apart from perhaps the weird ON THE MAP.
Gosh. Finished, but only just and after several prolonged breaks. I thought this was an excellent puzzle but glad they aren’t all like that. Life is just too short.
Mister – creates mist…?
Roundly defeated today. Revealed half a dozen or so after just over an hour was up and we could see little prospect of further progress. FWIW we had been very happy with MASTER for the reason ESPOUSEd by our blogger! Above our pay grade this one but onwards and upwards. Thanks all.
I spent an hour on this, in three bites, and then decided I had better things to do. DNF with ARIZONA and THE LAW outstanding. I don’t often find I lack the will to go on to finish a puzzle, but this was a rare exception. Too many answers where the parsing was too convoluted, and no sense of satisfaction even when the rationale for a clue revealed itself. Only slight inward smile at the political understatement in 6dn.
Thanks to jeremy and other contributors.
With Iraq at least 550 miles by road from Qatar, and 425 miles as the crow flies, the setter is clearly attempting to redefine the adjective ‘nearby’.
The ‘Cracking the Cryptic’ today shows this crossword being solved by Simon with some ease. He admired most of the clues and thought that it was the best (or one of the best) Times Cryptics he has had the pleasure to solve. Certainly one for an expert solver like him. But the solve is well worth a watch for those complaining. I certainly (as someone who solved slightly fewer than half the clues) learned masses from his solve.
Took less than 50 minutes to complete. NW yielded last, after the pangrammatic nature of the puzzle induced consideration of where the Ys might go.
This took me well over an hour. I got there in the end, but didn’t enjoy it. I don’t mind a chewy one, but this was pure gristle.
I ALMOST finished in under an hour but 1dn took me over the hour to 1:03:03. I was torn between MISTER and MASTER, I went for MISTER in the end but for wrong reasons which I won‘t bore you with!
Several clues which took me ages, like ESPOUSE and ARMREST, should have been easy but when a puzzle is hard, I tend to get mentally blocked on even easy clues. Some clues that others seem to have found hard, like the scoopful of ice cream, I did get quite fast though. I got 10ac by wondering why 10=LT in ULTRA, then realised it was a giveaway for 10ac. Really liked some of the clues and cod was for me was the toffs who carry off.
A battle but you don‘t want always same same old do you! And unlike some apparently I did enjoy it.
Thanks setter and blogger
PS and yes some of the parsing like Arizona was complex but when I got there I liked how it was an arid zone of america
49.10
I found this easier than some other Friday beasts, seeing SECOND IN COMMAND straightaway and JACK OF ALL TRADES shortly afterwards giving me plenty of checkers to work with. Mostly parsed as well. I liked some of the clues with their clever definitions and admired the skill of the setter but for my taste some of the w/p was too convoluted and the surfaces not always the smoothest. The comment about finding out the answer to a clue is what you thought but you had no idea how it worked is I agree a big red flag. SCOOPFUL almost fell into that category but it just looked like that’s what the setter was hinting at. Tbf I did work it out but it was one of those where you have to guess and post-engineer
Sorry, a bit of a ramble. Thanks setter but hats off to Jeremy as struggling with a puzzle you’re blogging when you’re a solid solver must be quite dispiriting.
Reading Jeremy’s intro on the homepage and taking a brief look at this late last night spooked me a bit but after settling down to this today, I loved it. It took a while, but I took my time. There were many I put in first from definition and at least one crosser (e.g., SYCOPHANT from the C) that it then wracked my brain to parse. The two 15-letter answers helped. I liked a lot the somewhat similar clues for SECOND-IN-COMMAND and CARRY OFF.
This took me about 90 minutes, with fairly liberal use of aids towards the end to finish it off. Very hard, but quite brilliant I thought. Spotting the double pangram helped pick off a few stragglers. The clues all seemed fair enough to me, with many of them being quite breathtakingly beautiful. ARMREST & THE LAW have to share my COD. SCOOPFUL was my LOI. Had to get all the way down to 26a before I found one I could do on the first pass!
A little surprised how many people didn’t enjoy it.
Just over an hour — with MASTER. Grr
Ps Having now listened to Simon’s CtC podcast I wanted to pop back to properly compliment the setter (in case he is still listening). Some of these clues were worldies – especially the &lits. Bravo indeed
Pps Arguably it remains a puzzle to hugely admire rather than hugely enjoy but one of these now again works for me.