I found this quite tough. One of those puzzles where the clues seemed obvious only after I had found the answer. Thank you Artexlen for the challenge.
I will be out most of the day, leave a comment and I will get back to you later.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | WHITES | Flog reduced plonk to turn over wines (6) |
| WHIp (flog, reduced) then SET (plonk, put down) reversed (to turn over) | ||
| 5 | MATERNAL | Protective stuff, indefinite amount for India (8) |
| MATERiAL (stuff) with N (an indefinite amount) replacing (for) I (India) | ||
| 9 | BAGPIPER | Graduate doctor, one for each player (8) |
| BA (graduate) GP (doctor) I (one) PER (for each) | ||
| 10 | PROMPT | Encouragement from easy run in training (6) |
| ROMP (easy run) inside PT (training) | ||
| 11 | REPAIR | Maintenance concerning partner (6) |
| RE (concerning) PAIR (to partner, to put into couples) | ||
| 12 | IRRITATE | Mad keeping close to commuter, it gives you bug (8) |
| IRATE (mad) contains (keeping) commuteR (last letter, close to) IT | ||
| 13 | CALLING FORTH | Conjuring up job, auditor’s division (7,5) |
| CALLING (job) and FORTH sounds like (auditor’s) “fourth” ( a division, into four parts) | ||
| 17 | QUARTERSTAFF | Arm bits in Mississippi river (12) |
| QUARTERS (bits, US coins, in Mississippi perhaps) then TAFF (the River Taff in Wales) – Corby correctly points out that in US usage bits are not the same as quarters, and not even coins but just a notional amount | ||
| 20 | DIAMETER | Measurement weight-watcher gathers in the morning (8) |
| DIETER (weight-watcher) contains (gathers) AM (in the morning) | ||
| 23 | DOCKED | Diminished? Not in the main (6) |
| double definition – the main is the sea | ||
| 24 | GIRDER | Beam signal to say stop doctor retiring (6) |
| RED (signal to say stop) then RIG (doctor)all reversed (retiring) | ||
| 25 | UNABATED | Persistent university fellow returned to host club (8) |
| U (university) DEAN (fellow, of a university) reversed (returned) contains (to host) BAT (club) | ||
| 26 | STYLUSES | Tussle’s broken out being pierced by variable needles (8) |
| anagram (broken) of TUSSLE’S containing (being pierced by) Y (variable) | ||
| 27 | STEADY | Regularly set reward by firm (6) |
| every other letter (regularly) of SeT rEwArD bY | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 2 | HOAXES | House fires, fast ones (6) |
| HO (house) and AXES (fires) – from the expression to pull a fast one | ||
| 3 | TAP DANCER | Entertainer can depart after performing (3,6) |
| anagram (after performing) of CAN DEPART | ||
| 4 | SUPERGLUE | Policeman put on cases in general unwelcome binder (9) |
| SUPER (Superintendent, policeman) on outer letters (cases in) GeneraL UnwelcomE | ||
| 5 | MARTINI | Small bottles are historically for alcohol (7) |
| MINI (small) contains (bottles) ART (are, historical) | ||
| 6 | TAPER | Narrow stick originally rod (5) |
| TAPE (stick) then Rod (first letter, originally) | ||
| 7 | ROOST | Perch caught up in net, so organised (5) |
| found reversed inside (caught up in) neT SO ORganised | ||
| 8 | APPETITE | Lust of rapper – it’s cited to be completely endless (8) |
| rAPPEr iTs cITEd (all endless) | ||
| 14 | GUARDIANS | Upcoming support artist embraced by warm patrons (9) |
| AID (support) RA (royal Academician) reversed (upcoming) inside (embraced by) SNUG (warm) | ||
| 15 | OFFICIATE | Chair of old chemical company found in lot (9) |
| OF then ICI (old chemical company) inside FATE (lot) | ||
| 16 | PUGILIST | One fighting guilt is sadly under pressure (8) |
| anagram (sadly) of GUILT IS following (under) P (pressure) | ||
| 18 | SPROUTS | Veg succeeded for us, about time! (7) |
| S (succeeded) PRO (for) US contains (about) T (time) | ||
| 19 | BEHELD | Furniture cut by man with large saw (6) |
| BED (furniture) contains (cut by) HE (man) with L (large) | ||
| 21 | MODEL | Dummy and potty seldom deprived of son (5) |
| anagram (potty) of sELDOM missing S (son) | ||
| 22 | TARPS | Covers fish up (5) |
| SPRAT (fish) reversed (up) | ||
Wow! Thought this was brilliant.
A real struggle but I was determined to finish without cheats. Managed but probably spent more than an hour to complete. GIRDER took ages to parse because I got fixated on RD being the doctor retiring. MATERNAL & HOAXES were another two tricky ones for me.
No criticisms at all from me. Superb! Thanks to Artexlen and PeeDee.
Yup, stiff but rewarding after a 1st pass of the across clues gave a grand total of 2 in (DIAMETER & STEADY, just about the only 2 ‘gimmes’ today).
Ground to a final finish with WHITES & HOAXES in the top left, both hard-working little beauties.
Impressed that Hovis got there without help. I certainly didn’t.
CoD for me was QUARTERSTAFF, for its swinish misdirection.
Thanks again to both.
Bits are not US quarters. 1 quarter = 2 bits.
Thanks Corby, you a right there. I hadn’t noticed that.
To Coby @3:
Didn’t know that. So a ‘bit’ = 12.5 cents?
If so, I think the clue still works because I for one have never heard of a ‘bit’ in the singular, only in phrases like, ‘For two bits, I would’ etc or ‘A two-bit outfit’. So a ‘quarter’ always = ‘bits’, plural, several quarters as in the clue always being by def plural bits.
Please correct me!
Hi Grant – wouldn’t that be like saying pennies is a clue for shilling, because you can make the value of a shilling out of pennies?
Personally, I just took quarters to means bits as in fractions.
Hi Hovis, how does “in Mississippi” fit in with bits meaning fractions?
PeeDee. Yes, sorry about that. When I was solving I thought there may also be a river Taff in Mississippi but didn’t check. It does strike me as unlikely so I guess Grant’s explanation is the best so far but it is looking more like a mistake.
We really struggled with this but got there without help other than an occasional glance at a thesaurus. Some really tricky (i.e. fiendish) clues but we parsed everything except GIRDER and it all seemed fair looking back on it.
We thought DIAMETER was a bit &lit-ish and wondered if the addition of a question mark might have enhanced it.
We liked BAGPIPER, SUPERGLUE and PUGILIST.
Thanks, Artexlen and PeeDee
Maybe it’s me but Vlad’s crossword in the Guardian and this stumper by Artexlen were both DNF’s by more than a few clues. Thanks PeeDee for explai ning what I failed to see.
I, actually, thought that Vlad’s crossword wasn’t that difficult (but, yes, it was very good).
Certainly easier than Filbert’s toughie in the Indy and this one by Artexlen.
I’ve done a lot of his puzzles but somehow this crossword was really different.
Much harder (and much more devious) than he used to be.
I got there in the end but was surprised to see how long it took.
I liked it though, as I always like setters gearing up a bit.
Many thanks to PeeDee & Artexlen.
What does &lit mean?
Thanks Artexlen and PeeDee – I also found this tough going although the NE corner went in quite quickly. Re 17a, two bits = a quarter also came up in Chalmie FT 16531 927a) a few days ago: http://www.fifteensquared.net/2020/07/17/financial-times-16531-by-chalmie/
Sharon Bear @13: https://www.crosswordunclued.com/2008/08/and-literally-so.html#:~:text=%26lit%20is%20an%20unusual%20clue,entire%20clue%20is%20its%20definition
Thanks, Artexelen and PeeDee. Late responding – indeed very tough one! After struggling yesterday through about half of this, I had to look at blog to get four clues and the rest came, but many from crossers without parsing, so thanks for the blog.
I think a quarter was originally called “two bits” dating from colonial times when we used British money; a shilling = 12 pence (US “pennies”), so a “two-shilling bit” was a 24-pence coin; when 100 cents/dollar became standard, a quarter of a dollar was 25 pennies, close enough to the two-shilling bit, and the name stuck.
Thank you, Steve. I think that my favorite clue is an &lit: Risk a wet tumble = water ski.
Thanks Artexlen and PeeDee
This one spilt over from Wednesday to Thursday but didn’t get to finish off the parsing and final check through until this weekend. Certainly the toughest of the week in retrospect, but jeez it was a good ‘un.
Went down the same rabbit hole as hovis@1 with the returned DR in 24a and started / ended exactly as Grant@2. Struggled to parse QUARTERSTAFF for ages, initially looking for the River Taff in Mississippi until finally seeing what was really meant by the MS reference – the dictionary definition for ‘bits’ was ‘the value of an eighth of a dollar, spoken of only in units of two’ and the definition of a ‘quarter’ as ‘a quarter of a dollar’ – I assume more from a value perspective than a coin. If that is the case, then the clue would appear to work OK.
A really interesting range of devices used throughout to make this one of the best puzzles for the year in my opinion.