Slightly tougher than this week’s offerings so far, I thought. I had problems in particular with 4a, 18a and 16d, and they pushed me to an above average 08:27. I hope you all made easier passage.
Definitions underlined in bold.
| Across | |
| 1 | Bump in salary follows employer’s third commendation (6) |
| PRAISE – RAISE [bump in salary] comes after [follows] P [employer’s third]. | |
| 4 | Visionary comic lacking an opening bit (6) |
| OCULAR – {j}OCULAR. My LOI by some distance. “Of or relating to the eye”, says Collins for OCULAR, but I’m struggling to see any support in the dictionaries for “visionary” meaning anything like that. It works as a whimsical definition, of course, but it’s not clued like that. I’m sure you can’t tell that I’m feeling bitter. | |
| 8 | Artificial Los Angeles street in picture (7) |
| PLASTIC – LA [Los Angeles] + ST [street] inside [in] PIC [picture]. | |
| 10 | Firm working to return some money (5) |
| NOTES – reversal [to return] of SET [firm] and ON [working]. I wasted a little time here trying to work in “co” for “firm”. | |
| 11 | Former City business bigwig (4) |
| EXEC – EX [former] + EC [City, as in London’s “East Central” postcode]. If a two letter city isn’t UR, it’s EC. | |
| 12 | Amphibian caught retreating over rocky ridge next to river (4,4) |
| TREE FROG – rather convoluted, this one. GOT [caught] is reversed [retreating] and goes around [over] REEF [rocky ridge] + R [next to river]. Did I get that by immaculate parsing, or by biffing and then furrowing my brow to see how the heck it worked? Reader, we will never know. | |
| 14 | Drill tries breaking concrete (9) |
| REHEARSAL – HEARS [tries] inside [breaking] REAL [concrete]. I was slow here because I didn’t count the letters and thought it was an anagram of “drill tries”. What a twerp. | |
| 18 | Men and girls cast for horror comedy film (8) |
| GREMLINS – anagram [cast] of “men + girls”. Having now looked it up, I do actually have a dim memory of this 1984 Spielberg flick but I couldn’t recall it while solving and got hung up on the idea that it would end in ING. So that was more delay. | |
| 20 | Obscene material ultimately has charm, you assert (4) |
| SMUT – last letters [ultimately] of “has charm you assert”. I think of SMUT more as being Donald McGill postcards than actual obscenity, but it’s fair. [On edit – to my amazement I now discover that McGill was successfully prosecuted for obscenity in 1954. What different times.] | |
| 22 | I kick up a fuss about Ruth’s mother-in-law (5) |
| NAOMI – reversal [about] of I MOAN [I kick up a fuss]. You remember NAOMI – she helped her widowed daughter-in-law (Ruth) snag a rich new husband (Boaz), then when the story gets written up they only go and call it the Book of Ruth, not the Book of Naomi. Outrage. She needed a better 16d. | |
| 23 | Distance for example a cart reversed (7) |
| YARDAGE – reversal [reversed] of EG [for example] A DRAY [a cart]. | |
| 24 | Big hammer finally smashes shelf (6) |
| SLEDGE – S [finally smashes] + LEDGE [shelf]. | |
| 25 | Find a way round with the help of … I don’t know! (6) |
| BYPASS – BY [with the help of – think Asterix the Gaul’s regular ejaculations “by Toutatis and Belenos!”] + PASS [I don’t know, as in a Mastermind contestant saying “pass”]. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Little dog with favourite doll (6) |
| PUPPET – PUP [little dog] + PET [favourite]. | |
| 2 | Also, for starters, pal, you are no expert (7) |
| AMATEUR – A [also for starters] + MATE [pal] + UR [you are in text-speak]. | |
| 3 | Mention on the radio for www.thetimes.com? (4) |
| SITE – homophone [on the radio] for “cite” [mention]. | |
| 5 | Have a discussion about old and new poetry (8) |
| CONVERSE – C [about] + O [old] + N [new] + VERSE [poetry]. | |
| 6 | Urgent mail periodically turned up at a future date (5) |
| LATER – reversal [turned up] of every other letter [periodically] in “urgent mail“. | |
| 7 | Terminate a contract — or extend it? (6) |
| RESIGN – if you RESIGN you terminate your contract, but if you RE-SIGN your contract you extend it, ho ho. | |
| 9 | Frolicking in cattery? It’s guaranteed! (9) |
| CERTAINTY – anagram [frolicking] of “in cattery”. | |
| 13 | Offering assistance to support wife giving birth (8) |
| WHELPING – HELPING [offering assistance] underneath [to support] W [wife]. | |
| 15 | Tibetan priest hosting lousy dance (7) |
| LAMBADA – LAMA [Tibetan priest] containing [hosting] BAD. | |
| 16 | Hollywood deal-makers are primarily males (6) |
| AGENTS – A [are primarily] + GENTS [males]. I was slow here, too, because I was looking for something specific to the film world. AGENTS are deal-makers in other industries (especially the sports world) so I think that this would perhaps have been better clued as a definition by example. | |
| 17 | Possible cause of fracture in small lock (6) |
| STRESS – S [small] + TRESS [lock (of hair)]. | |
| 19 | Undermine dedicated work led by emergency room (5) |
| ERODE – ODE [dedicated work – odes were traditionally addressed to someone or something] going behind [led by] ER [emergency room]. | |
| 21 | Highbrow shindig starting late? (4) |
| ARTY – a party is a “shindig”; omit the first letter [starting late] et voila. | |
Stuck on LOI OCULAR (yes, I was looking for a visionary too) for a rather long time. Didn’t parse TREE FROG or AMATEUR (dearie me). Rather liked the surface for LAMBADA. Many thanks Templar and Jalna.
14:31. This needed quite a lot of nutting out and I never was able to parse TREE FROG. Favourite was REHEARSAL; I went down the incorrect ‘Drill tries’ as anagram fodder route just like our blogger.
Thanks to Jalna and Templar
35 mins. Am pleased with that as I found it tough.
For me the SW was hardest – ARTY took an age, but BYPASS was LOI
Much to like in this.
Thanks Jalna and Templar
The clue for TREE FROG belonged in the biggie in my view – extremely convoluted, as Andy Pandy says, and I had to read Templar’s blog a couple of times to get it clear in my very cold brain!
In general I didn’t really get on very well with this one. It was the slowest for quite a while and yet, over on the other side, people who are much better than me found today’s 15×15 quite tricky, whereas I did it in about half an hour, although admittedly not everything was fully parsed. C’est la vie!
14:45 FOI Plastic LOI Resign COD Rehearsal
Thanks Jalna and Templar – lots to learn from you today 😊
17:07 to solve it, so not my finest hour, but a super entertaining puzzle, thank you Jalna. My failure to write in PRAISE at first sight was probably an ill omen, though it did go in just as I started to move on. There was a lot of figuring out to do, didn’t know the film but thankfully the crossers and wordplay got me there. FOI PRAISE, LOI SMUT (clearly I am not very bright today), COD AMATEUR, which probably cost me a good few seconds of laughing. I also enjoyed the frolicking cats.
I didn’t mind the jocular OCULAR although it took a long time to see even with my new bionic eyes.
Thanks Jalna and Templar, both very entertaining today.
8.20 I had the same difficulties as our blogger plus my LOI BYPASS. Thanks Templar and Jalna.
P.S. From the McGill link “he lost a foot in a school rugby accident”. It really was a different time.
. . .b1875, so an operation without x-rays on what might have been a quite badly broken ankle. His chances wouldn’t have been that good.
I thought this was an excellent QC. I loved the story telling in the clues with my favourites being LATER (delayed mail is a common occurrence in my village), REHEARSAL and BYPASS. I started with PRAISE and finished with ARTY in a respectable 7:28 Thanks Templar
DNF Disaster.
FOI NAOMI, but just could not get a grip today.
Thanks for vital blog, Templar.
Not sure why ‘Hollywood’ was mentioned.
Nice tester after the week’s more straightforward ones. LOI was TREE FROG because I refused to write it in until I had parsed it. Cuppa rather cool by the time I finished.
Thanks Jalna and Templar
15:08
Slowing in the SW and NE with the same clues as others.
Biffed TREE FROG and NAOMI, and EXEC went in with only the first half parsed (thanks Templar for the education on all three).
Another nice work out.
FOI: PLASTIC
LOI: RESIGN
COD: BYPASS
Thanks to Jalna and Templar
11:45, below my average. Only got three of the acrosses on my first pass, but found the downs more tractable. COD RESIGN.
Thanks to Jalna and Templar.
Defeated by OCULAR and ARTY today. The rest were all parsed but it took some time (no exact time but somewhere between 35 and 40 minutes. A tough one.
FOI – 1ac PRAISE
LOI – DNF
COD – 14ac REHEARSAL. Also liked STRESS.
Thanks to Jalna and Templar
Extremely tough! 52 minutes of hard graft, only to find I was DQ’d. I never saw 9d as an anagram and biffed CERTAINlY by mistake. Other unparsed clues included OCULAR, NOTES, TREE FROG and NAOMI (about whom I also DNK). I had also NHO the GREMLINS film.
Conclusion: This was some considerable distance above my level and probably served as payback for for my Monday (13 mins) and Tuesday (15 mins) jaunts.
Many thanks to Templar and Jalna.
6.24
Tricky. Liked OCULAR. Thanks Templar and Jalna.
Tackled this early doors while unable to sleep and made a pig’s ear of it. After thirteen minutes came up with a pink square through blearily misreading the anagrist for 9d and entering CERTAINLY. Eejit! I went back to sleep then, which is why I’m late posting. I blame the son-in-law’s birthday bash last night! Thanks Jalna and Templar.
I think we’ve had RESIGN before, which is annoying because I just couldn’t see it. Not at my best today. Managed the others eventually.
Ouch. Yesterday’s prediction was right. much harder today. A certain amount of biffing needed especially in the NE corner.
4/4 though 😀
We found this tough. 18:25. We most certainly got TREE FROG by biffing it and then taking time to work out the parsing. I don’t think I would have seen WHELPING without the help of Mrs T but RESIGN and OCULAR were our last two in. Relieved to get through really. Thanks all.
If we’re to terminate the contract or extend it, I RESIGN, this was hard. Did know it was mother-in-law but Esther would not go in, and I may have had help for NAOMI, perhaps. Luckily I couldn’t make that type of red crab that crawl across roads fit in, and when I saw TREE FROG I didn’t need to remember crabs are not amphibians. Dray is an old word reverse of YARD.
And finally. Done. Bizarrely I started this just past midnight and finished just before but will resist the temptation to start again. About 30mins with 23 hrs between for working, eating and a bit of not much of anything at all.
I enjoyed this puzzle and felt happy to solve it with plenty of filled spaces until LOI ARTY which took longer than it should have as I spent a spirit lifting half an hour in a gallery today.
Thanks Jalna for a kind puzzle and Temlar for the illustrated blog.
Good night all.