A bit of a tricky puzzle from one of our trickier setters.
Plenty of head-scratching along the way in this excellent puzzle from Lupa, from the concision of 1ac all the way to my LOI, the bunged-in-with-a shrug TIMESERVER: a word that failed to ring even the faintest of bells; thankfully the wordplay was more generous than it might have been.
Other tricky things along the way. There were a lot of everyday words requiring less-than-obvious synonyms, which always makes for good PDMs and a very enjoyable solve. A passing knowledge of Roman emperors would only have been of minor help.
I crept home in 8:02, a minute slower than yesterday and several minutes slower than earlier in the week. Lovely stuff – many thanks to Lupa!
| Across | |
| 1 | Son assumed unknown naivety (10) |
| SIMPLICITY – S(on) IMPLICIT (assumed) Y (unknown in maths) | |
| 7 | Ring English beauty (5) |
| BELLE – BELL (ring/call/phone) E(nglish) | |
| 8 | Most liberal pals met after disturbance (7) |
| AMPLEST – anagram (after disturbance) of PALS MET. Bit of an ungainly word. | |
| 10 | Sat inert, shocked about new brief (9) |
| TRANSIENT – anagram (shocked) of SAT INERT about N(ew) | |
| 12 | Result initially sent us mad (3) |
| SUM – “initially” Sent Us Mad | |
| 13 | Provide part of meatloaf for dinner (6) |
| AFFORD – “part of” meatloAF FOR Dinner | |
| 15 | Allows benefits (6) |
| GRANTS – double definition | |
| 16 | Writer referring to tiny amount charged (3) |
| ION – I (writer) ON (referring to, on = RE, etc) | |
| 17 | Go-between taking time for Marcus Aurelius? (9) |
| MEDITATOR – MEDIATOR (go-between) taking T(ime). Roman Emperor and Stoic philosopher, whose work Meditations is “considered by many commentators to be one of the greatest works of philosophy” (cited in Wiki). I actually bought this a couple of years ago but never got round to opening it. I should take this as inspiration to do so.. | |
| 20 | Harsh fight with sunburn (7) |
| SPARTAN – SPAR (fight) with TAN (sunburn) | |
| 22 | Demolish last of sponge pudding (5) |
| BOMBE – BOMB (demolish) E (“last” of spongE) | |
| 23 | Term shortened on approval twelve months in the past (10) |
| YESTERYEAR – TER |
|
| Down | |
| 1 | Lass confused by a dance (5) |
| SALSA – anagram (confused) of LASS by A | |
| 2 | Turmoil from distressed mom’s alert (9) |
| MAELSTROM – anagram (distressed) of MOMS ALERT | |
| 3 | Moderate backing Liberal contract (5) |
| LEASE – EASE (moderate) backing L(iberal) | |
| 4 | Impose an upper limit on 50 per cent of cars parking (3) |
| CAP – “50% of” CA |
|
| 5 | Senator engineered betrayal (7) |
| TREASON – anagram (engineered) of SENATOR | |
| 6 | Part of paper for those who’ve passed? (10) |
| OBITUARIES – cryptic definition: a play on the word “passed”, as in DEAD, in the cryptic reading | |
| 9 | Waiter under sentence? His views are fickle (10) |
| TIMESERVER – SERVER (waiter) under TIME (sentence, as in prison). A word going back to the 16C: there is a rare, obsolete positive sense of “A person who adapts his or her conduct to what is proper and appropriate for the time and place” (OED); very much more frequent, and still current, is the negative sense, “A person who out of self-interest adapts his or her conduct or views to suit prevailing circumstances.” You can see why the positive connotation lost this battle; the word doesn’t exactly smack of sincerity. | |
| 11 | Change present record player (9) |
| TURNTABLE – TURN (change) TABLE (present) | |
| 14 | Ostentatious display of food for supporter? (7) |
| FANFARE – cryptic hint: food for a supporter could be FARE for a FAN | |
| 18 | Benefactor’s name in entrance (5) |
| DONOR – N(ame) in DOOR (entrance). The ‘s is simply possessive in the surface reading; in the cryptic, it is a link between the definition and wordplay, so “Benefactor IS [as in: equals] name in entrance” | |
| 19 | Less adventurous rogue back with me on board (5) |
| TAMER – RAT (rogue) “back” = reversed, with ME “on board” | |
| 21 | Stutter hiding note of disapproval (3) |
| TUT – hidden in sTUTter | |
10 minutes. Didn’t understand the ‘Marcus Aurelius?’ reference and had NHO a TIMESERVER in that sense; as Merlin says, the Vicar of Bray comes to mind. The not so simple SIMPLICITY was my favourite followed by the OBITUARIES cryptic def.
Thanks to Lula and roly
12 minutes; LOI BOMBE.
I struggled with some of the definitions, mainly TIMESERVER, but it had to be.
I now know what Marcus Aurelius did but I worked out MEDITATOR from the cryptic.
Quite tricky in places but I liked it overall.
David
Not our finest hour at 17:04. We wondered about Gladiator but saw that wouldn’t parse. Neither did MODERATOR but some time later it at least fitted the checkers we then had. As others found, that delayed TURNTABLE. MEDIATOR then fell out but without understanding the connection to Marcus Aurelius. In another random movie reference, once we’d guessed at 22a from checkers the result vividly brought back my only knowledge of it, ‘La BOMBE Surprise’, in Diamonds are Forever. I like to think I have a breadth of culture. Only knew TIMESERVER as someone who sits out their remaining years at work but the wordplay was, again, clear. Thanks to all for blog, puzzle and comments.
If I hadn’t already had the M from Maelstrom I would have confidently put in gladIATOR at 17a. As it was I had to wait for all but one of the checkers to work out the answer was MEDITATOR. OBITUARIES also required a few checkers before the PDM. Like our blogger my LOI TIMESERVER went in with a shrug. 7:22 Thanks Roly
Quick, quick, slow, stop.
Managed the top but slow on some of the bottom half. Needed a hint for FANFARE which gave me LOI ION. Other late solves – MEDITATOR eventually (having had to rub out Middleman too and not being familiar with Marcus), TURNTABLE, BOMBE. Biffed TIMESERVER. Alphabet trawl for GRANTS.
Liked SPARTAN, COD OBITUARIES (luckily an early solve), SIMPLICITY (ditto).
Thanks vm, Roly.
12.12 That was quite tricky but I didn’t get stuck until LOI GRANTS, which took a couple of minutes. I did have a MER at “writer” for the first letter of ION. Thanks rolytoly and Lupa.
Glad to see I wasn’t the only one scratching my head at GRANTS but got there in the end. MEDITATOR and TIMESERVER were solely from wordplay, always nice to learn a thing or two..
In the old days (1960s) we referred to someone on the payroll who wasn’t really trying hard any more as “Oh, he/she’s just a timeserver”. That was when you got your final salary pension regardless of effort or results. Changed a bit since then.
Put in AMPLEST with misgivings and BOMBE was definitely a biff. Got YESTERYEAR from the checkers. But MODERATOR was my undoing so dnf after 18 minutes. Thanks Lupa and rolytoly.
Just a few meditations of my own…
I, like others, hadn’t heard of TIMESERVER in this sense but luckily Mr SR had. It’s always nice solving in a pair as we often have very different takes on things.
As well as a BOMBE Suprise in “Diamonds are Forever” there is also an equally ill-intentioned one in “Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?”, a great example of high camp imo.
(Small boast: I’ve cooked one too)
I got MA’s Meditations from one of my favourite books “Cold Comfort Farm”. Flora Poste finds them a great source of comfort and they are mentioned quite often.
And, of course, loved the memory of Tom Lehrer’s “We’ll All Go Together When We Go”:
Down by the old MAELSTROM,
There’ll be a storm before the calm.
Many thanks for all the work of Setter and blogger.
Dnf…
Struggled with this – especially the RHS, where 9dn “Timeserver”, 11dn “Turntable” and 22ac “Bombe” failed to materialise. Should have got the record player at least, but the others were a little obscure.
FOI – 1dn “Salsa”
LOI – Dnf
COD – 14dn “Fanfare”
Thanks as usual!
I had the opposite reaction to most commenters here, and quick for me 24:58, compared to my DNF average.
Perhaps easier on the American than the average Times puzzle? I hadn’t heard of TIMESERVER either, but initially passed on OBITUARIES as *too* obvious to count as a cryptic definition. That could go in a NYT puzzle without a question mark, I think. We are sadly always a little ahead on the euphemism treadmill, I suppose.
A lovely puzzle despite being a DNF. Gave up on 18 minutes, having spent 5 being totally unable to see the perfectly obvious GRANTS. Doh!
A struggle to solve clues where help not needed. A bit above our ability level.
5:05, all seemed OK; I really must eat a bombe one day so it becomes more than an abstract crossword concept for me. I thought it was a lovely puzzle, except for the obituaries clue which (as NC said) seemed barely cryptic.
21:00 here, well over par for me. I struggled to unravel the anagrams, even after pencilling in the EST of AMPLEST. Not my finest day. Liked SIMPLICITY and YESTERYEAR the most today.
Thanks to Lupa and rolytoly.
All good but one. We have lots of puddings in this house, no Bombes though, I think. I do remember Bombe Alaska because a friend had no oven so he wrapped it in silver foil and put it under the grill. Nothing happened, he was an engineer, we laughed. Very funny, answers on postcard, please!
Many thanks to Lupa and rolytoly.
17a Mediatator; isn’t it annoying when HHO but know absolutely nothing about for instance Marcus A?
23a Yesteryear biffed. Oh, so that’s how it works! I mis-parsed as def is twelve months in the past and ignored the rest.
9d Timeserver. Agree with rolytoly, thanks.
LOI Tamer, just couldn’t see it. DOH!
COD 6d Obituaries. Oh, that bit of the paper! That said I never use passed for dead, so took a bit longer.
9.50.
Too hard for me – I’ve been looking at 9d off and on all day, but going away and coming back again didn’t help this time 😣 TBH it was a bit too much of a struggle to enjoy. Some were pretty easy, others not so much.
No time to read everyone’s comments now so will come back later – it will be interesting to see what you all think.
DNF after about 25 minutes
Thanks though to Lupa and to Roly too
Not in the least bit enjoyable and once again not suitable for a QC in my humble opinion
Disagree! Each to their own I suppose but for me it wasn’t hard. And no GK required apart from one roman emperor.
Found this challenging and DNF.
To a yank, English rivers are bad enough, but English puddings live in a linguistic world of their own
Total nightmare.
28 minute DNF. Put METTERYEAR for 23ac. God knows why! Struggled hugely with rest of it for some reason.
After 2 days of something approaching decent, I am right back to my usual level of incompetence. Truly dreadful. The days when I regularly recorded 5 solves for the week are now just a distant memory. ☹️☹️☹️
2 short on 15 x 15 to compound the misery. Had one but couldn’t parse so didn’t put it in. Other one was perfectly gettable. Also noticed a spelling error so actually 3 short.
Any sense of enjoyment continues to elude me.
One of my most enjoyable QC’s, not the quickest but solved with plenty of patience and thought in the end.
A day late as life as life is getting in the way. I actually found this fairly straightforward and finished over coffee as usual. Some thought definitely involved but nothing too much. Just right for me. LOI AFFORD, biffed then very belatedly spotted the hidden 🙄 Thanks both.
Absolute GARBAGE!