71:52. Yes, I finished it. Yes, I napped for a bit in the middle of it. This didn’t quite feel worth the effort to me, if I’m being honest. The words at the end that tripped me up were not particularly satisfying when I finally found them. I have the sense that if I’d had a bit more knowledge, this one might not have been quite so difficult.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Cover up in shower? Not after nurses turn round (6) |
| BROLLY – BY (not after) around (nurses) ROLL (turn round)
I just didn’t know this word, which made it nearly impossible. (I think it took me 15 minutes.) BY for ‘not after’ was quite hard to find, although if you think of due dates, it’s quite clear. Of course, ‘turn round’ is exceedingly misleading if you don’t know the word (and maybe even if you do). |
|
| 4 | Twit copying antique with pine, mostly (8) |
| REPROACH – REPRO (copying antique) + (with) ACH{e} (pine, mostly)
I did not know the term REPRO, nor the requisite meaning of TWIT, so this was another that took me ages. |
|
| 10 | Flatter track takes very little time (5-4) |
| SWEET-TALK – STALK (track) around (takes) WEE (very little) T (time) | |
| 11 | Come by five, do you mean? (5) |
| VISIT – V (five) IS IT (do you mean?)
An easy starter! |
|
| 12 | Concerning sight [as] head of office IT struggles with PC (5) |
| OPTIC – first letter (head) of OFFICE + IT anagrammed (struggles) with PC | |
| 13 | Moderate movement also opposed to one referendum option (9) |
| ANDANTINO – AND (also) ANTi (opposed to) I (one) NO (referendum option)
If this wasn’t a write-in, you haven’t done enough crossword puzzles. 😛 |
|
| 15 | Live singer with a costume representative of her country (12) |
| AMBASSADRESS – AM (live) BASS (singer) + (with) A DRESS (costume)
This took me quite some time because I am too conditioned for ‘live’ = BE. |
|
| 19 | Are cold kissers coming inside only when it’s dark? (5,7) |
| SOLAR ECLIPSE – ARE C (cold) LIPS (kissers) in (coming inside) SOLE (only) | |
| 22 | Friend taking minute to finish piano exam out of time (9) |
| ATEMPORAL – MATE (friend) with M moved to the end (taking minute to finish) + P (piano) ORAL (exam) | |
| 24 | Couple taken with second sight of Florence? (5) |
| DUOMO – DUO (couple) + (taken with) MO (second) | |
| 25 | Urge removal of line from silly speech (5) |
| DRIVE – remove L (line) from DRIVEL (silly speech) | |
| 26 | Turn bench back in street exposed to blasts (9) |
| WINDSWEPT – WIND (turn) + PEW (bench) reversed (back) in ST (street) | |
| 27 | See Dogma remade [as] massive hit (8) |
| MEGADOSE – anagram (remade) of SEE DOGMA | |
| 28 | Tsar’s like, roughly level after revolution (6) |
| CAESAR – CA (roughly) + RASE (level) reversed (after revolution)
‘Tsar’ and ‘Caesar’ are, of course, two words for the same kind of salad. |
|
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | See boss bungle work (6) |
| BISHOP – BISH (bungle) OP (work)
This is perhaps the only clue of the puzzle which delights me. |
|
| 2 | Crooked old mater — which strongly suggests criminal is mum (6) |
| OMERTÀ – anagram of (crooked) O (old) MATER
Code of silence in the mafia. |
|
| 3 | One missing initially, admitted to Electra with some upheaval? (9) |
| LATECOMER – first letters of (initially) ONE MISSING in (admitted to) ELECTRA anagrammed (with some upheaval)
This is a very good clue. It does not delight me, but it is very good. |
|
| 5 | A lot of sharp turns, I’m afraid (3) |
| EEK – KEE{n} (a lot of ‘sharp’) reversed (turns) | |
| 6 | Any number after dance party are starving (5) |
| RAVEN – N (any number) after RAVE (dance party) | |
| 7 | Summits welcoming American patronage (8) |
| AUSPICES – APICES (summits) around (welcoming) US (American)
My mathematical research deals with ‘apices’ of a certain sort. |
|
| 8 | Steamy in here, but you must wear socks (8) |
| HOTHOUSE – THO (but) U (you) in (must wear) HOSE (socks) | |
| 9 | State coach for Turkish leader who’s out to lunch? (10) |
| MADAGASCAR – MAD AGA’S CAR
This is also quite good. |
|
| 14 | Photos I had mounted cover the inside of school (10) |
| DISCIPLINE – PICS (photos) I’D (I had) reversed (mounted) LINE (cover the inside of)
This definition of LINE is very good. |
|
| 16 | Arab robe ad has misrepresented with superior beauty (9) |
| DISHDASHA – AD HAS (anagrammed) under (with superior) DISH (beauty) | |
| 17 | Embankment architect lengthened with cob? (5,3) |
| ASWAN DAM – ADAM (architect) around (lengthened with) SWAN (cob?)
Is this a reference to Robert Adam? He seems fairly famous but gosh this seems obscure. |
|
| 18 | Fugitive[’s] attempt to escape upset good egg (8) |
| FLEETING – FLEE (attempt to escape) + reversal of (upset) G (good) NIT (egg)
I would not normally describe FLEE as ‘attempt to escape’, but rather just ‘escape’. |
|
| 20 | Many academics divided by gender-neutral pronoun (6) |
| DOZENS – DONS (academics) around (divided by) ZE (gender-neutral pronoun)
Living somewhere between HE and SHE on the phonetic spectrum, one presumes. |
|
| 21 | Sailor in the doldrums relatively OK for tobacco? (3-3) |
| LOW-TAR – LOW (in the doldrums) TAR (sailor) | |
| 23 | Pretend authority raised undue spending limits (5) |
| PSEUD – hidden (limits) reversed (raised) in UNDUE SPENDING | |
| 26 | In Republican’s absence, conflicts happened (3) |
| WAS – WARS (conflicts) – R (in Republican’s absence) | |
I thought the general reaction would be that this wasn’t the expected Friday toughie.
Though if they had all been like the last few I got… DISHDASHA took some guesswork, and that gave me CAESAR, and then I went back to the top for another go at REPROACH. My conviction was firm that it had to end in ACH, but the relevant meaning of “twit” eluded me for the longest time. The answer is the only word that fits the crossers!
But then there was ZE, in DOZENS, which I’ve certainly never encountered before. It’s not in Merriam-Webster, the American dictionary. Guess it must be more familiar to folks in the UK.
Ze was invented by an American author and remains unusual in blighty too, but it appears in the OED and in Collins (although not in Chambers).
The Anglo-Saxon atwitan means exactly that – reproach. It is made up of the intensifier at- and twitan, which means to blame. The word got garbled in the Middle English period, and its sense weakened.
DNF in around 70 minutes, with DISHDASHA (the closest I got was ‘dolldasha’) and, obviously, SOLAR ECLIPSE missing. Rather enjoyed the torture, though, with REPROACH ticking all the boxes for me. BROLLY made me smile. Lots of other top-class clues too.
The execrable ZE known from crosswords, where it was added a few years ago.
77 minutes. Not unreasonably hard, for a Friday anyway but I was just too slow in getting the relatively easy ones like OMERTÀ and even BISHOP. Didn’t parse ATEMPORAL and HOTHOUSE properly and completely missed the PSEUD reversed hidden. My thought about ANDANTINO while solving was ‘opposed to’ as a positional indicator and ANTI NO as ‘one referendum option’; looks a bit dodgy now and there’s still that extra ‘one’ to account for.
BROLLY very familiar as a word, even if we never have to use one here anymore. Had forgotten the relevant sense of ‘twit’ for my LOI REPROACH and didn’t initially consider ‘fugitive’ as an adjective. Maybe Jeremy is pulling our leg but I’ve NHO ‘Tsar’ as a salad and thought the similarity with CAESAR is just that they are both leaders.
Thanks to Jeremy and setter
TSAR and “Caesar” are essentially the same word. The Russian is a translation of the Latin.
But there’s no such thing as a Tsar salad. Or rather there is, but it just seems to be a little-used term for a Russian salad, which isn’t remotely the same as a Caesar salad. I think +J is joking!
I biffed Kaiser and although annoyed with myself for not persevering I don’t feel so daft after seeing your comments and then discovering the word has the same Roman origin.
It helps to know that a Roman of the 1st century A.D. would pronounce Caesar as ‘kaisar’.
I studied Latin with a fellow who wrote his Harvard PhD thesis on Roman pronunciation, and you’d better believe that we learned to pronounce it correctly.
Too much time spent on this already without spending more commenting on it.
Ditto!
21:57. I thought it was very hard, also thought it was absolutely brilliant. Great surfaces and witty wordplay throughout.
Cover up, flatter track, sharp turns, concerning sight…just a few examples.
Bravo setter and thanks for the blog Jeremy.
Collins online cites an American dictionary for the definition of FLEE as “to run away or try to escape from.”
We missed the hidden, putting in PLEAD instead, figuring LEA for authority and given the number of unknown words already encountered I was happy to conclude there was some way DP could mean undue spending. Ah well, happy to get the rest on a tough puzzle. I particularly liked DOZENS and LOW-TAR.
Yes, I found it in Collins. Not in Merriam-Webster!
I didn’t think this was as hard as some Fridays, though not easy, and I enjoyed it. If you haven’t heard of a (quintessentially English) brolly, or of repro you may find it harder, I guess! With dishdasha I was luckier, having relatives living in Doha where they are ubiquitous. My only nho was RASE, which I have never seen spelt other than RAZE.
As for flee, the OED’s main definition is “to take flight; to try to escape or seek safety by flight.” But neither Chambers nor Collins says as much except as Guy mentions, above.
I enjoyed this. Just enough difficulty to be able to solve in the time I had before moving on to other things and I learnt new words and definitions – ze, reproach, dishdasha and fugitive.
Whilst solving, I thought latecomer was a particularly poor clue being an anagram of Electra and some with the first letters missing but that is not what the clue was telling one to do! Many thanks to Jeremy for explaining it and my apologies to the setter.
52 mins. A few genuine stinkers but more that I felt were just my own slow wittedness: LATECOMER, SWEET TALK, DISCIPLINE.
Must have been 8-10 mins on LOI REPROACH. After ages trying YEAR(n)… I wondered if it might be some new term for retweeting. Not so but the RE worked.
COD: MADAGASCAR. A spark of humour to go with the plentiful cleverness.
Thanks to Jeremy and setter.
After a bit of a slog to teach the last two, I eventually entered FLEETING reluctantly but had no idea about the Arab or his/ her robe, whichever of the two it was. COD to the ASWAN DAM, greatly assisted by this being Robert Adam benefit week in crosswordland. A decent challenge otherwise. Thank you Jeremy and setter.
17:29. A tricky but very satisfying solve, I thought. I got badly stuck at the end with AUSPICES (‘apices’ isn’t exactly obvious) and REPROACH. I have never come across this meaning of ‘twit’ and ‘copying antique’ is obvious once you see it but very much not obvious up to that point.
28.02. Recent Fridays have taken me beyond 30, even 40, so I suppose this must count as more benign, but I liked it a lot, not least because of the genuinely funny MAD AGA’S CAR. I feared it would be a state I’d never heard of, and nearly attempted CAR AGA GAGA, so there was relief mixed with the giggle.
DISHDASHA I happily guessed, along with ZE, which might also have been a French article for those who know Mam’zelle Dupont of Malory Towers.
We were fortunate in having ADAM just a couple of days ago, though I spotted him only once the ASWAN DAM had been entered.
Great stuff, and well tackled PJ!
DNF.
Managed about 75 % of this and thought there were some excellent clues but decided, rightly as it turned out, that the rest were way above my paygrade. One learns, one learns.
Thanks to Jeremy and the setter
My first time using this site and I thought the comment for 13A was harsh and not very welcoming to those looking for hints. The irony also is that the hinter appears to be in error as the opposed gives ANTI including the I and the one referendum option is the NO. Perhaps the clue wasn’t such a write in.
Welcome, KhunNick. In a former life I was a musician and teacher and I’ve certainly done thousands and thousands of crosswords (including blogging more than 1000 here) but ANDANTINO wasn’t a write-in for me. I parsed the clue as you did.
Hi KhunNick. My comment was not meant as a referendum on solvers’ abilities. It just happens to be that ANDANTINO has come up many, many times before. With lots of attendant comment in these pages.
I was flummoxed by (nho) dishdasha even when I had the last 5/9ths. But for me not the worst of the fiendish Fridays and it had more than its fair share of cleverly disguised definitions. These are more pleasing than clues which depend on tortuous cryptic constructions.
21:11
Tricky, as we’ve come to expect, but not as hard as recent Fridays, for me at least.
My main panic was at 3d where the presence of Electra in the clue had me thinking this was going to be an &Lit with the answer being some nonsense made-up mythology character I hadn’t heard of.
Good puzzle, thanks setter and +J
Finished as the hour came up. Surprised to, frankly – this is supposed to be harder than yesterday’s, which utterly defeated me. The answers came pretty easily today. Only SOLAR ECLIPSE and REPROACH really held me up.
28’51”, having been ready to concede until it all came together. Nho DISHDASHA, liked the mention of ZE, thought MEGADOSE a stupid word. COD to BROLLY.
Thanks jeremy and setter.
Crept in under the 40 minute mark, with a hefty delay at the end on BROLLY, BISHOP and AUSPICES, in that order – earlier on I’d had an unparsable, variant spelling of APENINES, before VISIT put paid to that. Mistake of the day however was DASHDASHA, where DASH = beauty seemed unquestionable while solving, but that didn’t spoil a most enjoyable puzzle. Many thanks to setter and Jeremy (never did see the BY bit in brolly).
My thanks to plusjeremy and setter.
Hmmm, steamy Friday. Congrats to plusjeremy, I DNF, got stuck a lot.
4a Reproach, no.
19a Solar Eclipse. I failed to parse this and going on it being dark plumped for Lunar eclipse which stopped 17 & 18d until I cheated.
9d Madagascar, COD. I’ll always call this country mad aga’s car in future.
16d Dishdasha NHO, but I HHO dishdash and checked dishdasha and dishdashi which both are acceptable versions.
28a Caesar, didn’t get, which prevented 21d Low Tar. Rase (Raze) is the only antiphone I wot of, being the antonym and homophone of Raise.
8d Hothouse, biffed, seeing neither Thou nor Hose.
Oh well maybe Monday will be doable.
40:40 – Convinced myself I had heard of DISHDASHA, never managed to parse BROLLY and spent much of the time staring forlornly at a gappy SW corner. One of those toughies that keeps feeding out just enough of the lifeline to keep you engaged. Lovely stuff.
Two goes needed to solve what I thought was a very high-quality and entertaining puzzle.
– Didn’t know the ‘twit’ meaning of REPROACH but pieced it together from wordplay
– Not familiar with ‘rase’ (like others, I’d expect to see ‘raze’) as used in CAESAR
– Only vaguely remembered RAVEN meaning to be starving, though the word ‘ravenous’ makes it clear
– NHO DISHDASHA but got there from wordplay as it sounded plausible
Thanks Jeremy and setter.
FOI Was
LOI + COD Madagascar (with honourable mentions to OPTIC for its surface, BISHOP and LOW-TAR)
Although at first, with one or two fairly easy clues, I thought the new policy of easing up on the Friday crosswords was beginning, it soon became clear that it hasn’t yet begun. Some very nice clues despite my incredibly long time, but a few things irritated me: low for in the doldrums at 21dn; attempt to escape instead of just escape at 18ac; vague definition (caesar/tsar) at 28ac; by for not after, and roll for turn round, at 1ac. Many if not all of these can no doubt be justified by the dictionaries, but it did make it especially hard, even without the NHO DISHDASHA.
Incidentally I’m not having the ‘Too many requests’ message nowadays. Is it too soon to thank all those who have been working to get rid of it?
As ever, I felt that I’d been too slow, once I’d got all the answers! REPROACH took me ages – even though I saw REPRO straight away, I didn’t think of twit as a verb till about 10 minutes later. I was also very slow on DUOMO, LOW-TAR and CAESAR for some reason.
But I thought this was generally beautiful, and pretty fair, cluing and, apart from DISHDASHA (NHO, very unusual), only reasonably fair general knowledge required.
COD to BROLLY for me. Great definition and a well-known word to the English at least.
I’m rather sorry to read the negative responses to what I thought was an unusually elegant and satisfying crossword! I say that because we have had a lot of crosswords lately that are tortuous without delivering that moment of delight when the answer comes. This was the opposite for me – full of smiles and moments of insight. Thank you, setter.
I don’t see any negative responses other than my own! People seem to have liked this one a lot more than me, and found it milder than I did. I usually like puzzles others find torturous (or tortuous), just not this one.
42:41 with the SE accounting for most that time. I though this might be a speedy one with the NW and long answers filled in within minutes. As the blogger aludes to ANDANTINO biffed from crossword rather than musical experience.
Adam has come up recently (last few days?) so that helped with the dam.
DISHDASHA went in with fingers crossed.
Annoyingly DOZEN was the last one in convinced ‘one’ had to be the pronoun. Ze new to me and not in my version of Chambers.
COD LOW-TAR although the relative health benefits of these ‘light’ cigarettes is non-existent and they are just as harmful as regular ones.
I think the blogger was perhaps a bit harsh on this. I thought it was a good Friday puzzle.
Thanks blogger and setter
I solved this, but cheated a little on dishdasha, checking Chambers to see if the word really existed after putting it in – I had not realized the positional meaning of superior. This was the key that gave me Caesar, which as we have said is the same word as tsar and kaiser. I had already gotten low-tar, a brilliant and elusive clue – I thought it was going to be some obscure kind of tobacco. Reproach was my last one in, and I struggled even though I knew the root meaning of twit (coming from atwitan). Then, suddenly, I saw it.
The rest of the puzzle was not that difficult, but those last four took me about twenty minutes.
Time: 61:22
67:30
Had seen the Snitch (157) before starting so knew this would be a slog, however made reasonable progress throughout with no really long pauses until the very end. Comments:
BROLLY – required all checkers before the scales fell from my eyes
REPROACH – decided halfway through that this had to be the other meaning of Twit, if only I could think of a word that described it. Once I’d thought of the unconvincing AUSPICES, saw ACH and the right word popped up.
SWEET TALK – stuck for ages with this until OMERTA finally sorted itself out from its anagrist.
ANDANTINO – seen enough times in Crosswordland
AMBASSADRESS – another here who was fixated on BE rather than AM
SOLAR ECLIPSE – delighted with getting this from just two checkers
MEGADOSE – an unlikely answer
CAESAR – fortunately knew that CAESAR, Tsar and Kaiser are all from the same source.
ASWAN DAM – thankful that ADAM was somewhere amongst these puzzles just this week
FLEETING – I didn’t think this was great, possibly because I’ve never heard of Fugitive defining FLEETING
EEK – failed to parse – needed this blog
DISHDASHA – another Crosswordland word – NHO elsewhere
AUSPICES – failed to equate this with definition of patronage
DOZENS – NHO ZE as a pronoun, and never likely to use it
Thanks PJ for the blog, and to the setter for the puzzle
I had 3 clues left, that I was really struggling with, when the Argos delivery van arrived with the replacement for the damaged section of the divan base they brought yesterday, so I paused the puzzle, built the rest of the bed and moved myself back from the spare room I’ve been inhabiting for the last couple of weeks while my bedroom was getting decorated. Quite a while later I came back to the puzzle and REPROACH, AUSPICES and MADAGASCAR magically appeared in a few minutes. NHO that meaning of twit. The subconscious is a wonderful thing! Back in what seems like an earlier life, BISHOP and BROLLY were first 2 in, and the rest of the puzzle was a challenge, but it never felt like I wouldn’t solve it eventually. DISHDASHA forsooth!! 57:18. Thanks setter and Jeremy.
Unlike Jeremy I did enjoy this one though it was an almighty struggle especially in the NE. Unfortunately andantino was not a write in for me and I groaned mightily when I saw it. Ditto low tar that was so simple but I could not see it for ever. Loved so many clues today especially bishop, Madagascar and latecomer.
60 minutes and a few seconds – or just over 6 magoos which doesn’t sound as bad.
Thx Jeremy and setter