30 minutes, more or less. I solved this puzzle on the regular Times site (not the Crossword Club), so it wouldn’t accept my puzzle as correct. After checking every answer I finally used the Check Puzzle feature and discovered my “mistake”.
All this aside, I thought this was a delightful puzzle. Some fabulous definitions.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Polish ambassador mostly utilised dispatch boxes (5) |
| SHEEN – SEN{t} (mostly utilised dispatch) around (boxes) HE (ambassador) | |
| 4 | One’s returned reptile with it? (9) |
| MICROCHIP – I’M (one’s) reversed + CROC (reptile) + HIP (with it)
Returned to its owner, is what’s meant. But do people put microchips in reptiles?! I’ve heard of them in dogs. |
|
| 9 | One regularly spending years in struggle (9) |
| GUERRILLA – I (one) REGULARLY – (spending) Y (years) anagrammed (in struggle) | |
| 10 | Alarm having time set by mistake (5) |
| ERROR – TERROR (alarm) – T (having time set by) | |
| 11 | Wife’s supplanted by female in artfully better clothes (6) |
| OUTFIT – W (wife) replaced (‘s supplanted) by F (female) in OUTWIT (artfully better) | |
| 12 | Flying ace heading by into base (8) |
| AVIATION – A (ace) + (heading) VIA (by) + INTO anagrammed (base) | |
| 14 | Urban housing that hurts duke[’s] land (5,4) |
| TOUCH DOWN – TOWN (urban) around (housing) OUCH (that hurts) D (duke) | |
| 16 | One end of support, far up from foot (5) |
| THIGH – last letter (one end) of SUPPORT + HIGH (far up from foot) | |
| 17 | Refugee perhaps cutting a couple of tons of fabric (5) |
| EXILE – removing two Ts from (cutting a couple of tons of) TEXTILE | |
| 19 | Festival’s framing reproduction piece in Sunflowers tribute (9) |
| TESTAMENT – TET (festival) around (‘s framing) STAMEN (reproduction piece in sunflowers) | |
| 21 | Left cutting fork out by remaining ham (8) |
| OVERPLAY – L (left) in (cutting) PAY (fork out) next to (by) OVER (remaining) | |
| 22 | Redacted communique because it’s province of Nato telecoms (6) |
| QUEBEC – hidden in (redacted) COMMUNIQUE BECAUSE
Not only a province but a letter in the radio alphabet. |
|
| 25 | Edition that is covering return of American head of state (5) |
| ISSUE – IE (that is) around (covering) reversal of (return of) US (American) + first letter (head) of STATE | |
| 26 | Earl’s against parishioner delivering a pound of pickings (9) |
| ELECTORAL – E (earl) + (‘s against) LECTOR (parishioner delivering) + A L (pound) | |
| 27 | Reaction of terrified swallow after cutting its wings (4,5) |
| COLD SWEAT – EAT (swallow) after COLD (cutting) + first and last letter of SWALLOW (its wings) | |
| 28 | Avid Conservative opposed to Labour changing sides (5) |
| CRAZY – C (conservative) LAZY (opposed to labour) with L replaced by R (changing sides) | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | I got a dozen fish snapping and caught two of them? (4,2,3,6) |
| SIGN OF THE ZODIAC – I GOT A DOZEN FISH anagrammed (snapping) + (and) C (caught)
A reference to Pisces. |
|
| 2 | Opening of exhibition in Paris one limits to Corot [and] Degas? (5) |
| EJECT – first letter (opening) of EXHIBITION + JE (in Paris[,] one) + first and last of (limits to) COROT
This one took me awhile. ‘Je’ is French for ‘I’, but of course we have the “Royal one” here or whatever you call it. I also understood to read it as ‘de-gas’, but I had assumed that this meant ‘remove gas from’, as opposed to — ahem — ‘emit gas’. |
|
| 3 | City with no affluent quarters (7) |
| NORWICH – NO RICH (affluent) around (quarters) W (with) | |
| 4 | Fur-clad creature’s first in line for New Jersey production (4) |
| MILK – MINK (fur-clad creature) has (‘s) first letter of (first in) LINE instead of (for) N (new) | |
| 5 | Flag-waving grand opening engaging six university cops (10) |
| CHAUVINIST (CHAUVINISM) – CHASM (grand opening) around (engaging) [ UNI (university) cops (around) VI (six) ]
Right? I’m sure it will be fixed before long. |
|
| 6 | Effective old treasure coffers bolted (7) |
| OPERANT – O (old) PET (treasure) around (coffers) RAN (bolted) | |
| 7 | Killer in plot to pick up woman next door (9) |
| HERBICIDE – homophone of (to pick up) HER (woman) BESIDE (next door)
Got a groan from me, which means this is a good homophone. |
|
| 8 | Play the clarinet with fiddle as a diversion (15) |
| PARENTHETICALLY – PLAY THE CLARINET anagrammed (with fiddle) | |
| 13 | Break black-stemmed pair of tennis racket heads (10) |
| CONTRAVENE – CON (racket) + (heads) RAVEN (black) in (-stemmed) first two letters (pair) of TENNIS | |
| 15 | Catholic doctor unravels source of infection (9) |
| UNIVERSAL – anagram of (doctor) UNRAVELS + first letter (source) of INFECTION | |
| 18 | CEO briefly engaged in sex on casting couch (7) |
| EXPRESS – PRES (CEO briefly) in (engaged in) SEX anagrammed (on casting)
A clue for the times! |
|
| 20 | Answer short cry from swimmer guards note in the water (7) |
| AQUATIC – A (answer) QUAC{k} (short cry from swimmer) around (guards) TI (note) | |
| 23 | Take naked massage after raising garment (5) |
| BURKA – remove first and last from (naked) TAKE + RUB (massage) reversed (after raising) | |
| 24 | Small black gags [could be] funny (4) |
| JEST – JET (black) around (gags) S (small) | |
Thanks setter and Jeremy
This took 106 minutes across five sessions and over two days, but was surprised that it wasn’t as hard for me as the Snitch rating marked it. Having said that there were three that I couldn’t parse – GUERRILLA, CONTRAVENE and COLD SWEAT and did make more use of electronic aid than normal. Spotted the pangram but not the double pangram post solve – it would have been handy knowing about that to take some of the doubt away from writing in EJECT (after trying to justify EVENT for way too long).
A lot of clues that were very satisfying to answer and parse. Even the ‘controversial’ MICROCHIP (which I thought was a very good clue) made sense when ‘returned’ refers to the reptile being put back into the wild rather than given back to an owner like a microchipped pet.
Finished with QUEBEC, JEST and then back to that EJECT as the last one in.