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) | |
101 minutes. Yes, far longer than Jeremy but with exactly the same “error” parsed in exactly the same way. I thought I’d avoided the OWL mistake from Wednesday (? another JH one today) and was disappointed to see the M in pink. I don’t see how CHAUVINIST could fit the wordplay though
Some very tough ones and I couldn’t parse COLD SWEAT or CONTRAVENE. A double pangram was some reward for the hard graft and saved me an alphabet trawl for JEST. I liked the capitalised ‘Degas?’ def.
Thanks to Jeremy – I look forward to seeing if we’re right.
Was this another puzzle from the Championships?
No, much too difficult for that!
I did solve it, despite not being able to parse cold sweat, contravene, and operant. I wasn’t sure about microchip, either, despite the cryptic clearly pointing to the answer. There were really some great clues – the anagrams for sign of the zodiac and parenthetically were quite good, and enabled me to get a lot of checking letters either. I did nearly put mole instead of milk, looking for NJ to be replaced by L instead of just N.
Unfortunately, the scoring error has messed up the SNITCH for now. Fortunately, I use paper and pencil.
Time: 102:04
Well, hats off for solving in 30 minutes – I didn’t even get halfway in 30 minutes, which thankfully is rare nowadays, and so gave up. Very hard. Some of the devices (‘base’ as an anagrind? ‘-stemmed’?) were arcane indeed!
Got there but by no means easy, I thought. Some strange surface readings, and I don’t think 27ac quite works; but two stonking anagrams in 1 and 8dn make up for it. 8dn, a thing of beauty.
A mere 88 minutes, ending with the cunning QUEBEC. Thanks to Jeremy for the full parsing of COLD SWEAT and CONTRAVENE.
Got about half of it – having read the “microchip” parsing, I am glad I wasted no more time.
DNF in 30 minutes. I thought EJECT was a wonderful clue. MICROCHIP, while clever, doesn’t work for me.
22:54 but with two errors. After about 15 minutes I was not enjoying this so I started just bunging in answers based on checking letters and cursory identification of something that might serve as a definition. I was fully expecting pink squares and sure enough EVENT was wrong. And CHAUVINISM of course.
Apologies, I should have picked up the discrepancy between the answer generated by the clue for CHAUVINISM and the setter’s solution. Relevant files will be updated and the correct solution will appear in tomorrow’s paper edition.
DNF, with CHAUVINIST rather than CHAUVINISM.
– Completely missed the anagram involved in GUERRILLA
– Didn’t understand what ‘reproduction’ was doing in the clue for TESTAMENT (I get it now)
– Likewise with ‘delivering’ in the clue for ELECTORAL
– Didn’t parse EXPRESS
Tough but enjoyable. Thanks Jeremy and setter.
COD Sign of the Zodiac
Thanks plusjeremy and setter.
DNF, too hard for me. Got a few.
#Me too!
83 mins. Got so far that it was worth persevering and carefully parsed it all because after spending that much time a silly typo would have been annoying. 30 mins is a fantastic time.
Spectacularly well hidden definitions but not too much obscurity except the NHO Tet and like Jeremy, no idea how MICROCHIP works.
Enjoyable. FOI MILK after 10 mins. LOI OPERANT.
Thanks to Jeremy and setter.
Thankfully, CHAUVINISM has now been marked correct. I’d have been mortified if my 54 minutes of bloody-minded struggle had been welcomed by a pink. At the time of writing, there are 27 now-correct solvers on the leaderboard, which suggests a lot of DNFs or GUIDEs (Gave Up In Despair/Disgust Evidently). This was harder than anything I’ve ever seen outside MCS, and that is only hard because of the obscure vocab. I’m looking forward to a relaxing evening with the Listener. I’ll venture that MICROCHIP is the least convincing clue where the definition, assuming it’s an &lit, is deeply unhelpful. At the other end, COLD SWEAT is a relatively easy definition, but the wordplay is ridiculous: “swallow” after cutting its wings is WALLO, and here, as in several places, chapeau to PJ for persistence and inspired guesswork!
There was some good stuff here – the two long ones were fine anagrams and GUERRILLA a decent &lit – but too many clues were over-engineered to the point of obscurity. I know it’s supposed to be a contest between ourselves and the setter, but I felt I was fighting this one with a blindfold on. At least I finished!
PS I’ve just noticed that it’s not “cutting swallow’s wings”, but I still think the wordplay is hairy.
There are some great clues but some are a bit of a stretch and there are too many difficult ones, making it hard to get crossing letters and finish. I got 7 before giving up, so 3 more than in the recent tricky championship one, but I personally reckon that this one is even harder overall than even that (though the snitch can’t be relied on today due to the error). COD to either GUERRILLA, TESTAMENT or CONTRAVENE (none of which I got) but too tricky for me.
Not really a proper solve according to my usual standards, but at the moment I’m more interested in keeping myself entertained so I’m adapting to working on line accordingly by checking unparsed answers as I go. Sometimes individual letters too when the puzzle is as obscure as this one. Anyway I got through it eventually with only one outright cheat.
Is there a Pause function on the timer? If so, I haven’t managed to locate it.
Yes if you click on the cog symbol at the top right you should see a pause button, and you get the option to save the puzzle for later.
Thanks, I had tried that but found only an option to show or hide the timer.
Do you use the Crossword Club version? If not try that, it is better in several ways.
Ah, thanks, I’ve found Pause there now. I shall try solving in the Club tomorrow and see if it suits me better.
How long since the cricket finished? That’s how long I’ve taken. All recent pets have been microchipped but 4a remained an unparsed guess from crossers. I did half get the gist of TESTAMENT but CONTRAVENE was a biff, as were EXPRESS and ELECTORAL. COD to HERBICIDE. Thank you Jeremy and setter.
Just ticked over the hour.
HERBICIDE was the last one in after I got it stuck in my head that the girl next door was Alice.
Needed all the letters PARENTHETICALLY. Don’t think I have heard the word before but obvious what it meant.
Complete shrug of the shoulders with CONTRAVENE. Had to read the blog entry three times before I understood it.
Thought IT? (Information Technology) was clueing MICROCHIP. Surprised to learn like the blogger you can chip a reptile.
Some good ones in this but COD to NORWICH
Thanks blogger (needed today) and setter.
More suprised that you can lose, and have someone else find, a reptile pet.
I can readily imagine someone with a pet reptile losing it, and I can imagine someone finding it. It’s the returning part that seems rather unlikely to me.
Plus, I guess, for at least half of the kinds of reptile pets which might get both lost and found (I’m thinking giant tortoises or boas) unlikely you’d need
a chip to figure out who did the losing and wanting back.
Agonisingly difficult and I only finished after liberal use of electronic aids and also the check button, otherwise I would have just given up, so any time is meaningless. The MICROCHIP clue strikes me as absurd: who has a pet reptile, the only way so far as I can see how it can be explained? Why is ELECTORAL = of pickings? There were so many connections and definitions that I just would never have got that this was too much for me. But I must admit that much of it was very nice.
Finished in under 45′, unfortunate slip spelling PARENTHETICALLY, so a dnf.
Some wonderful clues, but OPERANT, COLD SWEAT not parsed. Got MICROCHIP but ni how the clue worked.
Really liked HERBICIDE.
Thanks jeremy and setter.
DNF, several missed, and didn’t understand some parsing until reading the blog. My only beef: this held me up and I reluctantly succumbed to the logic, and bunged in EJECT; but surely “…one in Paris…” would never be JE but ON?
I feel your pain but .. if the setter said one you would accept I .. and in Paris I is je. Sneaky though, agreed
DNF GUIDE (Thank you Zabadak). Some excellent clues but MICROCHIP and EJECT tell me I made the right decision.
Thanks to Jeremy and the setter
Not good enough for this one. Did well on the LHS but the RHS largely eluded me, even after a couple of visits. Once I started revealing answers there were still very few PDM moments, and reading Jeremy’s blog explains why!!
Thanks Jeremy and setter.
DNF again which for me underlines my conviction that since the changing of the guard at the Times crossword section they have become much, much harder. This really is Crossword club/Mephisto country and I for one can’t cope with. Instead of fun, it’s becoming a chore.
Excuse my rant folks but I’m beginning to give up.
Thanks for a brilliant blog PJ and well done for your excellent time. I’m going to bed!
Ps As for « one » =je= I really! First of all you have to make one=I then translate that into French. All that for just two letters…….
Totally agree – the level of difficulty is becoming offputting.
You’re absolutely right.
Couldn’t agree more!
DNF in 60
Couldn’t make head or tail of CHAUVINISM. There were others where the definition was ahem unhelpful (MICROCHIP) or the w/p was very convoluted (the aforementioned CHAUVINISM and CONTRAVENE which I bunged in not understanding). Shame as there were some beauties in here (thanks Jeremy for explaining the mystifying DEGAS).
Three beasts in a row. I found this as similarly difficult as Wednesday’s; yesterday’s more on my wavelength).
Thanks setter/Jeremy.
Ps looking at the parsing again “grand opening” for CHASM really is very tough to see/get so it ends up being one of those clues where you guess from the definition and back-engineer. Never ideal.
Pps watching Simon A solving/belabouring over this I should congratulate the setter on some wonderful clues. My fear is that these puzzles are judged more on the few incomprehensible ones than the majority of worldies.
I was just very pleased to finish this, which has helped gloss over my raised eyebrows as I did it. Some elaborate clueing with answers such as cold sweat, but probably fair.
Not really impressed with microchip though. Nor the use of jest for “could be funny” or maybe just “funny“.
Thanks PJ
I’m relieved to find that far more experienced solvers than me struggled with this. I’ve been doing the Times crossword (mainly on Saturdays, it’s true) for five years, and this is by some distance the hardest/most obscure/most infuriating puzzle I’ve come across.
After 45 minutes I’d solved five clues, so I put it aside and came back to it after lunch. I managed one more answer before I started Googling the longer clues in the hope of kick-starting something. But even with the answers to the two long clues down the sides and a couple more, I still couldn’t progress and gave up. I don’t even understand some of the ‘explanations’ given above.
Not an enjoyable experience, all told.
I did this in 2 sessions, having paused after 80 minutes to go and install the replacement multipoint locking mechanism in my daughter’s front door. The part arrived during that first session and was a replacement for the no longer available original, so involved a bit of adaptation. This necessitated a trip to the hardware shop for a hacksaw, to cut it to the correct length and some other adjustments. After a couple of hours I’d made a much better job of the door than I did with the puzzle. However, I thought I’d have another go and managed to complete the remaining 40% in another 28 minutes or so. There were a few I just couldn’t parse, and having read the blog I can see why. Willfully obtuse! I submitted offline and was amazed to see all green squares, so 148:35. All I can say is congratulations to Jeremy for doing it in 30 minutes. I am in awe!. I can’t find it in me to thank the setter for this torture. At least CHAUVINISM had been corrected by the time I finished.
Love this post ❤️ If I have any multipoint locking mechanisms needing replacement I’ll know who to contact for some advice 🙂
😀
First I used aids. Then I tried the “check” button. I was still a DNF.
For me, there were quite a few overly general or tangential definitions and wordplay synonyms, and a lot of the word order instructions needed very careful study.
Thx, Jeremy.
70 mins but DNF with a typo in PARENTHETICAL doh!
I had MINK instead of MILK which held me up for ages, and the rest of the grid was a rather unpleasant slog I’m afraid. Grit over wit. Well okay, HERBICIDE was quite good. And EJECT. CONTRAVENE now that I see how it works. Fair enough, this was way over my pay grade it seems 🙂
All correct in 1 hr 22 mins. That’s messed up my SNITCH.
Devilishly difficult but some brilliant clues. Two CODs (a pair of fish). Both the long anagrams.
Thanks to our blogger and setter.
MER at “pair of tennis” to mean the first two letters. Tough overall.
please reread the clue. it’s removing a couple of tons
After 3 beasts in a row, can we please have something a bit more accessible next week…..
Lost count of how long this took, and still had 3 errors. Some great clues, loved HERBICIDE, but would prefer puzzles like this one to be occasional events.
DNF. Threw in the towel after I had managed to solve just nine clues as it was clear I was never going to complete it. So I shall just join the GUIDEs.
Thanks to jeremy for the enlightenment.
Never had so many biffed answers which I couldn’t parse at all. Thanks to the blog for unraveling. There is a balance between “I would have got that if my brain had been working”, and “I would never have got that no matter how hard I thought about it”. This one had a lot of the latter.
Lost track of how long this took me. Horrendous! All parsed though. (Incidentally I’m one of the pen and paper brigade!)
I am very pleased that perseverance payed off and I really did manage to solve this puzzle correctly, and even more so that several very good solvers had times similar to my 110 minutes. Some of the clues were absolutely brilliant (CRAZY and MILK were my favourites), but it was a bit disconcerting that on many clues I couldn’t begin to understand the wordplay before biffing the answer and analysing it. And in a few, the surface meaning makes no sense at all and is not very convincing as a normal English sentence (“Left cutting fork out by remaining ham”?). Phew!
Too hard for me; I just think in a different way to the setter.
Microchip’s definition is a bit of a puzzler. In this part of the world they microchip great white sharks before returning them to the ocean, for live tracking purposes, giving automatic shark warning broadcasts on beaches.
Maybe they do similar with crocs – none round here, I don’t know. Or maybe scientists microchip them before returning them to the wild, for cunning scientific purposes?
I suppose that for the record, I should mention that this is a pangram!
90 minutes – gave up after an hour then took another half hour to polish it off over breakfast the next day. All correct and much to admire in the cluing, but several unparsed. Thanks for the explanations which were sorely needed.
After 90 minutes, I thought I’d finished this, despite having no idea how Contravene worked.
However, coming here, realised I had two wrong. Firstly having entered Chauvinist (is that correctly mistaken or mistakenly correct) and secondly I had Mole instead of Milk for which I have no excuse.
I agree with Dyvynys’s comment about back-engineering – think of a word that might fit and then work out why it’s the answer. I needed that approach a lot for this puzzle.
My favourite was my LOI – Herbicide.
Totally messed this up. Two mistakes: EMPRESS and MOLE. I think early on I convinced myself it was a lot harder than it probably was, leading me to agonise nover clues I would normally have got more quickly. But I also think some of the clueing was — as the French would say — “limite”. The anagrinds and definitions, I mean. Mind you, on the two I got wrong I was bang to rights.
Bet I win the last comment prize. I saw the Snitch and thought “no way”. Then I thought it might be fun to at least read every clue and see if I got anything. 45 minutes later I had done that and was rather pleased to have 8 solved. Would have got TOUCH DOWN too if I had allowed myself a second look, since “ouch” and D were obvious. Really enjoyed solving CHAUVINISM via a half-parse, half-biff, post-biff parse.
Thanks setter, and I’m in awe of all the finishers, and especially Jeremy, to whom thanks for all the parsings.
Kudos to Verlaine for posting a gob-smacking time of 51 seconds in the quick crossword. This is 6 seconds or over 10% faster than the fastest previous time I’ve ever seen of 57 seconds: it’s like Bob Beamon’s long jump in the Mexico City Olympics. Even touch-typing with warmed-up fingers you’d struggle to complete the grid in less time than that even if you someone dictated the answers to you. I doubt this feat will ever be surpassed or equalled …
I think that the MICROCHIP clue is possibly improved if one assumes that “one’s reversed” can mean SI as well as MI. SI = Silicon = what microchips are made of. Or I may be overthinking…
Thank you to all the parsers for the entertainment and elucidation over the years. We struggled for 45 minutes on this one and then got the dreaded pink square by misspelling parenthetically. Argh!
Very pleased to finally finish this one in 81 minutes , split into two long sessions. I nearly gave up after the first, but decided to persevere. This is the hardest I can remember over many years of solving. A couple went in unparsed ( CONTRAVENE and COLD SWEAT), and there were pleasing penny-drop moments like figuring out the ‘ JE ‘ in EJECT after toying with EDGAR and wondering if it could be Corot’s ( who’s he? ) first name as well as Degas.
Probably 3+ hours overall (bus and train rides, the odd late night). I loved this challenge. Realising it was shaping up to be a double pangram helped with the top left K and J. As a slower solver this was the perfect crossword to chew over. In the end just 27ac and 19ac (tet) unparsed. The ? after 4ac covers a joky surface implausibility.
A week of great entertainment. More of this calibre please.
NO more of this calibre, PLEASE!
Realised I had missed this one back in November – I checked the Snitch beforehand (244!!), so thought I did OK to get to seven left on the hour. However, having read the blog, think I would have struggled to get CHAUVINISM/T – did not know that ‘flag-waving’ was a definition for it.
Well done for parsing all of this, PJ