DNF after 39 minutes.
A rollercoaster of crossword-solving emotions today. After a very slow start, I got into the devious mind of the setter, but then slowed to a complete stop and then cheated to the finish. I had just never heard of, nor could work out from checkers, the (very) last clue. Never mind – I had plenty of fun along the way, and actually enjoyed this more than some puzzles I fully complete in less time.
I hope Jeremy is enjoying his well-earned break, and that you enjoyed (maybe solved?) this excellent Friday tester.
Definitions underlined.
| Across | |
| 1 | Rob from Norfolk town gathers groups of friends together (10) |
| DISPOSSESS – DISS (Norfolk town) containing (gathers) POSSES (groups of friends together). Strewth! | |
| 6 | European chap transmitted message out of America (4) |
| EMIL – E-MaIL (transmitted message) removing (out of) A (America). | |
| 9 | Pet cuckoo is tame, welcoming return of experts (7,3) |
| SIAMESE CAT – anagram of (cuckoo) IS TAME, containing (welcoming) the reversal (return) of ACES (experts). | |
| 10 | Cutting edge of Romany XV? (4) |
| CHIV – CHI (X, |
|
| 12 | Way of overcoming pain through separating object and subject (4,4,6) |
| MIND OVER MATTER – OVER (through) in the middle of (separating) MIND (object, as in dissent) and MATTER (subject). | |
| 14 | If upheld, such an appeal would lead to dismissal (6) |
| HOWZAT – I’m going to go for cryptic definition, since I cannot see any wordplay, and guessed this only from the overall cricketing reference. Advice welcome. | |
| 15 | Prime minister going round each and every London street (4,4) |
| PALL MALL – PM (Prime Minister) containing (going round) ALL (each), then ALL (every). | |
| 17 | Built-in from dollar, get nickels back (8) |
| INTEGRAL – hidden in (from) the reversal of (back) dolLAR GET NIckels. | |
| 19 | Get onto English Evangelist about bishop (6) |
| EMBARK – E (English), then MARK (evangelist) containing (about) B (Bishop). | |
| 22 | Enthusiastic earl drinks in fine writer’s advice on strategy (4,5,5) |
| KNOW THINE ENEMY – KEEN (enthusiastic) + E (earl), contains (drinks) NOW (in) and THIN (fine), then MY (writer’s). I happen to be good at guessing multi-word phrases from checkers, which is lucky, since this one was a [insert expletive] to parse. | |
| 24 | Others take forcible control of broadcast (4) |
| REST – sounds like (broadcast) “wrest” (take forcible control of). | |
| 25 | Innovative type charged with taking a look around (10) |
| PIONEERING – PEERING (taking a look) containing (around) ION (type charged). | |
| 26 | DJ who promoted many series of changes on radio (4) |
| PEEL – sounds like (on radio) “peal” (series of changes). In campanology, or change ringing, a ‘change’ is one permutation of the order of bells sounding. Thus, a series of changes could be a peal (but in the bell ringing world, a series of changes could equally be a ‘touch’ (some small number of changes) or a ‘quarter peal’ (1260 changes), with the term ‘peal’ being reserved for 5040 unique changes; please excuse the campanological pedantry). | |
| 27 | Warned not to pay, might chap be in danger at work? (10) |
| GARNISHEED – IS HE (might chap be?) contained by (in) an anagram of (at work) DANGER. This is the one that got me – I had never heard of the noun ‘garnishment’ in this context, never mind the convoluted past tense verbal form. Even with every checker and some time to spare, I gave up. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Cast down — just a little (4) |
| DASH – double definition. | |
| 2 | One encapsulated by rolling waves lapping edge of shore? (3,4) |
| SEA VIEW – I (one) contained (encapsulated) by an anagram of (rolling) WAVES, |
|
| 3 | Blasts of air finished game (12) |
| OVERDRAUGHTS – OVER (finished) + DRAUGHTS (game). NHO but easily guessable when you see the answer. | |
| 4 | Silence present helpers largely set aside (6) |
| SHELVE – SH (silence) + ELVEs (present helpers, at Christmas time) minus the last letter (largely). | |
| 5 | With following wind in last flight (8) |
| STAIRWAY – W (with) after (following) AIR (wind), all contained by (in) STAY (last). | |
| 7 | Masters receiving mortarboard for one sage (7) |
| MAHATMA – MA and MA (Masters) containing (receiving) HAT (mortarboard for one). | |
| 8 | Being parasitic, one is a success by accident (5,5) |
| LIVER FLUKE – LIVER (one who lives, is a success) + FLUKE (accident). | |
| 11 | Puts forward screening method: acceptable protocol for consumption? (5,7) |
| TABLE MANNERS – TABLES (puts forward) containing (screening) MANNER (method). | |
| 13 | Securely seal straitjacket? (6-4) |
| SHRINK-WRAP – cryptic hint: something a psychologist (shrink) might wrap a patient in… maybe… in the past. In the past, right? | |
| 16 | Black mineral providing the exterior for a great hall (8) |
| BASILICA – B (black) and SILICA (mineral) containing (providing the exterior for) A. | |
| 18 | Piggy at last escapes extremely secure pens (7) |
| TOOTSIE – final letter of (at last) escapeS, which TOO (extremely) and TIE (secure) contains (pens). As in, this little piggy… | |
| 20 | Crown dependency close to nuclear area turning on cabinet (7) |
| ARMOIRE – IOM (Isle of Man, crown dependency) + last of (close to) nucleaR + A (area), all reversed (turning), then RE (on). | |
| 21 | As Charles is no good at all, stop (4,2) |
| REIN IN – REIgNINg (as Charles is) minus all the letters ‘g’ (no good at all). | |
| 23 | Old impressionist wanting last piece mounted (4) |
| AGED – DEGAs (impressionist) minus (wanting) the last letter (last piece) and reversed (mounted). | |
After my long moan earlier in the week I’m reluctant to say much about this one other than I had so many answers not fully understood that when the clock was approaching an hour and I still had 6 clues unsolved I decided to throw in the towel and use aids to finish them off.
I shall however make a point about 6ac. I’d never heard of the knife. Chambers Wizard offered up CHIV and SHIV as the only words that fitted, but they are alternative spellings so something was needed to decide between them. Of course I looked to wordplay but to me it’s utterly impenetrable and even after reading the blog I would need further research to understand it. The combination of obscurity and ambiguity makes this a rotten clue in my book.
I knew “shiv” and wrote that in first. Collins defines “shiv” as an alternative to CHIV.
Me too
Hear hear
Very hard. I gave up at 45′ and used aids to get the last two, TOOTSIE and (of course) GARNISHEED. Then when submitting I saw that the biffed SHIV was wrong and assumed it must be CHIV without knowing why. (I’ve still never worked out how to see the answers, or why they don’t work, on Crossword Club. Maybe it’s my browser.) After reading the blog, I see that the word ‘Romany’ was ingenious deception – although on reflection, wouldn’t something like ‘Hellenistic’ have been better? [edit: this may have been the wrong parsing; see discussion below]
Nonetheless, as usual with these Friday puzzles, it’s fun to nearly complete them and to wallow in the obscure vocabulary and difficult wordplay. I really liked KNOW THINE ENEMY, particularly as it’s hard to think of other famous pieces of advice on strategy. ‘Never fight on your enemy’s territory’ is the one that usually comes to mind – although I’m sure there are plenty if you go into specific sports or games (‘keep your hands up’, for example.)
DISS (a tiny town) was a bit of a gimme as I briefly lived there. Nice to see it make an appearance. The Mere is lovely. PEEL is arguably regionally related, as we took the day off to go to John Peel’s funeral (in Bury, I believe – I’m sure a certain more eminent colleague here can confirm or deny!) and appeared on BBC Look East as know-nothing teenagers. I think my quote was “we’re just really going to miss him” – I’d listened to his show maybe once ever. Thanks setter and William!
Nobody’s mentioned him yet, but I assume PEEL is John Peel, the DJ.
Yes, I think it has to be.
do you ken John Peel with his coat so grey, he’s a very funny fellow, some folks say..I will leave you to research the rest should you feel so inclined.
“Peel’s view halloo would awaken the dead, Or a fox from his lair in the morning”. One of the first songs I can remember singing at school as a six-or seven-year-old- “Do ye ken John Peel?”
I had an experience virtually identical to William’s (though I knew about garnished wages). I, too, enjoyed it very much.
Way out of my league today but liked many that I managed to solve. SIAMESE CAT was my FOI which led me into a false sense that it might not be that difficult. Tried unsuccessfully to parse the centre of KNOW THINE ENEMY and failed. Is the ‘in’ meaning ‘now’ in the sense of ‘hip’?
Thanks William and setter.
I think in 10across ‘of Romany’ needs to be underlined, since CHIV is a Romany word for a blade.
I took a lot longer than William before I threw in the towel on this, not getting CHIV, which I should have, or GARNISHEED, which, I suppose, I could have.
Little known Classical words, botanical words and zoological words crop up, so I guess legal words are fair enough. They’re all so ugly, though!
So just X=chi then?
Pressed reveal after 40 mins with pioneering, rein in, basilica, garnisheed and chiv unsolved.
Should have seen rein in but as to the others I would never have got garnisheed, basilica was possible but I opted for the less well known oriental version Jatidyet! and having opted for eyeopening rather than pioneering, that completely stuffed me.
Certainly knew the slang shiv for a cutter but not chiv.
Think it’s a bit unfair to require a knowledge of Romany to solve a clue. As dr shred commented.
113 minutes. Another embarrassingly slow time but that’s how it was. Funnily enough, my only unknown, CHIV, went in pretty early; like ulaca, I parsed it as CHI (X) and V (V) with ‘Cutting edge of Romany’ as the def. All eventually in and parsed except for the IOM (reversed) bit in ARMOIRE. KNOW THINE ENEMY, GARNISHEED and even TABLE MANNERS all took ages. I couldn’t see anything more in HOWZAT than a cryptic def. SEA VIEW was my COD too.
Sort of enjoyable, but not every day please!
There’s no such a thing as an embarrassingly slow time for a puzzle like this! My Snitch was over 500 a few weeks ago, and over 400 today…
Hmm, tricky tricky tricky, and not entirely fair imo. Not keen on CHIV and didn’t even try to parse 22ac.
As for 27ac, I did get it after a while but not sure about the definition. In my banking career I came across them occasionally, not sure I properly understood them then even.
There were several other clues I didn’t much like; didn’t really enjoy this I’m afraid. Nice to see John Peel though, quite my favourite DJ.
Better as a DJ than in his last posting as host of Home Truths, right?
48:30, with relief that I forced myself to return to parse then correct the better-known (to me) shiv to CHIV, after finally digging out the bottom half. I agree with others that ‘of Romany’ is needed for the def, and was aided by knowing CHAV is of Romany origin, and the Romanian footballer Christian Chivu.
I found the top half quite straightforward, but the bottom half was a different matter altogether. GARNISHEED looked implausible, but eventually had to be, and I never did parse ARMOIRE. For quite a while I was looking for the name of a Crown dependency with AR then a 5-letter cabinet (eek). I’m normally quite good at multi-word answers, but that ability deserted me for an age on KNOW THINE ENEMY and SHRINK-WRAP, which would’ve unlocked things much quicker.
Enjoyable, challenging, and fair puzzle. Thanks both.
Another SHIV (among I suspect a dozen or so), but that was the least of my problems. NHO the DJ and could make nothing of the clue. Plus 3 or 4 from the bottom half that I never got before throwing my towel in, with great force. I’m with Jerry, except for the John Peel part.
This was too hard for me. I eventually filled in all but one (PIONEERING) but that was a hollow victory because even when I got the right answers I couldn’t figure out the parsing for several until enlightened by William so thanks for that. At least the Dylan ref was easy.
From Like A Rolling Stone:
You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a SIAMESE CAT
Ain’t it hard when you discovered that
He really wasn’t where it’s at
After he took from you everything he could steal?
How does it feel…
Way too tough for me. Gave up with around half a dozen unsolved.
2d is WAVES and I lapping (drinking in) the last edge of shore (E), not the first.
Ah yes – thanks!
You’re welcome, and thanks as always for the blog – a bit of tough one to unpick!
Similar to others. Ni about CHIV (chav? Romany?) ‘Shiv’ is slang for a knife, I know…..
Also never heard of GARNISHEED.
So dnf after 35′
DNF and I don’t think I can blame yesterday’s positive Covid test for that. I was missing CHIV, ARMOIRE, REIN IN and GARNISHEED. I also wrongly biffed LOVER FLUKE for someone who got lucky. I really didn’t know where this puzzle was at and the guy carrying the Siamese cat on his shoulder didn’t know either. COD to TOOTSIE and earworm of the day to Al Jolson. Well done William and thank you setter for adding to the surreal thoughts this wretched virus is putting through my head.
Hope you recover quickly BW.
Yes, ditto. My last bout of the Mylie Cyrus was a real shocker.
That virus has developed more moves since Hannah Montana.
1 hour 20 and some more but all green squares in the end. Feel a bit deflated as about a quarter of it was solved from definitions and checking letters. Quite a lot I didn’t understand so needed a good read of the blog.
COD MAHATMA
Thanks blogger (especially on puzzles like this) and setter
Pretty pleased to be 96% complete, with only GARNISHHED absent. I even looked it up it the Crossword Solver, and saw it, and assumed it was a typo (its user generated content after all).
Also needed my Crossword Dictionary for a Great Hall, then immediately slapped forehead on seeing BASILICA.
Also had SHIV not CHIV, and used an aid for PIONEERING. Not bad with the Snitch approaching 200.
I still don’t get CHIV, is the CHI supposed to be X? I thought it always had curly arms even in Uppercase. I did know that CHAV was Romany, so was OK with ending a word with V.
Both XI and CHI can be X – presumably a result of translating across different alphabets.
DNF , but I enjoyed it nevertheless. Shiv rather than chiv obviously, with the latter not a word I have heard of due to my lack of knowledge of the Romany dialect!
Not sure I like the conflation of now and in.
Guessed armoire, but did not parse.
COD to shrink-wrap, because it made me smile.
Thanks William and Setter..
25.54, which apparently is a stellar time today. Not that I parsed everything, certainly not to my satisfaction. Even on a blogging day, I would have passed on KNOW THINE ENEMY and appealed for help (HOWZAT?!) and I am unconvinced by “one is a success” for LIVER. GARNISHEED eventually from definition only. I did get to CHIV by proper parsing, but have sympathy for SHIVers. Straightjacket to SHRINK-WRAP is a bit of a jump, even if Chambers gives “fits tightly” as part of its definition for the latter.
FWIW, I had ARMOIRE as Crown: ER dependency IOM and [nuclea]R A[rea] all reversed, but I can see how the on: RE comes into play.
Too much blatant obfuscation for my liking.
I thought it was ‘one is’ = LIVER (to be = to live), and ‘success by accident’ is FLUKE.
Yes, that’s more like it. Shows how blindsided I’ve been by this one.
I parsed LIVER FLUKE as “one is” for LIVER and “success by accident” for FLUKE
Sorry Jamie, I should have read on before commenting 🙂
DNF. I had all but 5 after 13 minutes, although I had an unparsed SHIV instead of the unknown CHIV. After 30 minutes I ran out of steam and resorted to my WordWeb wordfinder to find BASILICA, PIONEERING, GARNISHEED and LOI REIN IN. I never parsed KNOW THINE ENEMY. NOW for “in”? I still don’t get that. Entertaining puzzle, though. Thanks William and devious setter.
It’s very now/trendy/happening/in (I did not parse it in-flight!)
That’s four people who have questioned the use of now for in.
Any help with that guys?
I see my Query overlapped with the one above. Thanks for the help with that, though still not entirely convinced it works.
I personally find it OK on reflection, and also thought it helpful/acceptable while solving/parsing. Wiktionary has clear synonymy as the second of just three definitions; I’ll take that.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/now
Then I will too. Thanks Doc.
It’s very “in”, it’s very “now”. Rather slangy but fine IMO.
DNF after 45 minutes with 3 missing. CHIV, BASILICA (should’ve got that one!) and GARNISHEED. Submitted off leaderboard to check the rest. They were correct. Too obscure in places to enjoy. Just a slog. Thanks William.
My thanks to william_j_s and setter.
I suppose this might have increased my vocab, but what are the chances I will remember the NHOs next week?
DNF 10a NHO Chiv, which I see is relevant to barrelmaking so as a keen beer drinker I might have heard of it, but no. I biffed shiv without any understanding, indeed I still don’t see why Romany is in the wordplay, and can find no ref to Greek characters. AFAIK shiv=chiv (esp Scotland, Romani not mentioned) and chiv is a coopering tool. Chiv added to Cheating Machine.
DNF 17a Integral. I’m bad at hiddens, and this was backwards.
DNF 22a Know thine enemy. Couldn’t see it.
DNF NHO 27a Garnisheed. Added to CM. Was already in CM but not inflected.
NHO 3d Overdraught in that sense. Biffable though.
COD 4d ShElve(s) Ho ho!
DNF 18d HHO Tootsie. Overly complicated IMHO.
DNF NHO 20d Armoire, AFAIK but it sounds just a little bit familiar.
Oh well another Friday….
I initially had ‘drop’ for 1dn , which certainly works for the second definition, perhaps less well for the first. As a result I was flummoxed by 9ac for a while though could see it was probably a type of cat.
A few easy clues and the harder clues were indeed witty and original.
I was on drop as well.
I totally flopped todays puzzle! …Gave up after the hour mark still needing 7 clues.
Not so much as stuck but bogged down in mud too deep to wade through! I just couldn’t understand so many clues.
this took me ages. I tried hard to fit in OGOY..old Goya and wondered if Americans (sorry guys) were a bit lazy in their spelling of email (emil) before the penny dropped. I also wondered if there is an opaleye cat before I decided it was dash not drop!
MER at the cryptic grammar for DISPOSSESS – I would prefer “Rob from Norfolk town gathering groups of friends together.”
DNF after 60
Rarely say this but glad I gave up. Getting EMIL would have helped but not sure I would have got the LIVER bit of the parasite. Surely that first word needs to be a bit more clearly clued, not least as it crosses with CHIV which I suspect you need to know as a word to have any chance of solving. Harrumph!
Should have got AGED (clever clue, as I was looking for completely the wrong thing) PIONEERING and GARNISHEED but an hour is my limit and the checking letters were very unhelpful.
So an obscurity or two too many but liked KNOW THINE ENEMY and a few others.
Thanks William and setter
Ps Having watched CtC I now get the “liver” thing. Too clever for moi! Apologies to JH
DNF, beaten by EMIL, CHIV (I had zero chance of getting that), GARNISHEED (likewise as a NHO), LIVER FLUKE and ARMOIRE (I thought of it but couldn’t parse it).
– Needed the checkers to get KNOW THINE ENEMY
– Could DASH potentially be a triple definition with the “—” as well?
– Didn’t parse STAIRWAY
– Hadn’t thought of a BASILICA as a great hall before, more as a big church
Thanks William and setter.
COD Pioneering
DNF
Gave up on GARNISHEED and wrong on SHIV. Not much fun.
DNF – threw in the towel at an hour but a very fine puzzle as far as I got, and even more so now I understand the four or five I didn’t.
Gave in after 45 minutes with ARMOIRE and GARNISHEED still unsolved, TOOTSIE still unparsed and unable to decide between CHIV and SHIV. The last of these being, in my opinion, a very poor clue.
Some good stuff elsewhere, e.g. INTEGRAL, SIAMESE CAT. TABLE MANNERS, but not a lot of fun over all.
Thanks to William and the setter
DNF on 74% after an hour or so. Most of that in 30 mins including the whole top half, was beginning to wonder why the average time was so high. Now I know. Came back to it at lunchtime to no avail. Congrats to anyone finishing that one.
I did put SHIV. I thought XV = 15 = I and V romanised. Desperation. Could not justify the SH.
COD PEEL for giving me Teenage Kicks as my morning earworm and thanks to william and setter.
I didn’t ken John Peel, but found him with the bell-ringers. But I got done in by the shiv after slogging through the obstacle course of this very enjoyable puzzle. Another fiendish Friday.
46mins, with pink dripping from the shiv wound.
Got CHIV but resorted to aids for GARNISHEED so a DNF here really. Still enjoyable, though. Always nice to see John Peel make an appearance!
I threw the towel in after a couple of hours, on and off and started revealing the last few, all in the SE corner.
I think there are a couple in there that I could / should have got, but i don’t see how I would have ever got GARNISHEED given that I got to that last so had all the checkers and stared at it for a few minutes and still didn’t see it. Glad to see I was not alone in that one!
Somehow I knew CHIV but the parsing escaped me, even though I’m pretty familiar with the Greek alphabet having studied Maths at university.
43.00
Some very poor clues. “In” doesn’t mean NOW, XV doesn’t mean CHI + V. SHRINK-WRAP doesn’t seal securely. HOWZAT?
I did not solve 27a even though I obtained the odd garnishee order.
Like one or two others, oh no, sorry, like most others, DNF. This is just ridiculous. If I wanted to do the mephisto I would, but I don’t.
Most of the south unanswered. In my book, TOOTSIE is a foot and piggy is a toe! Since when can an ION be “type”. As for GARNISHEED, I give up.
LIVER FLUKE? Are you kidding me.
Disgruntled from Provence.
Well done William for the blog.
👍
I wanted to say this earlier, but I agree totally with you RdeP, a tootsie is a foot, and not a toe! Also dislike now for in, and the requirement to know the Romany alphabet and to me at least, unknown DJ. FOI PALL MALL ( probably the easiest clue there!), and then a series of reveals to help me on my way. Did get KNOW THINE ENEMY though, of which I’m proud, and LIVER FLUKE and OVERDRAUGHTS, but not much else. Roll on Monday!
44:35 but…
Wrestled with this one through to the last few but needed aids for the impenetrable CHIV – NHO either the answer nor that x=chi – and the unlikely GARNISHEED. Having said that, was pleased with LIVER FLUKE, but failed to fully parse both TOOTSIE and KNOW THINE ENEMY.
Thanks William and setter
Threw in the towel after just over an hour with about two thirds completed. I was tempted to persevere as I have done so often lately with a poor time in prospect, but I just had a feeling this was beyond me. Having now revealed the answers I’m glad I stopped, saving me from further punishment! I would never have got CHIV in a month of Sundays.
Another who struggled with this, and left it unfinished as DK garnisheed. Thought some clues were really good and some – such as howzat, rein in, tootsie (foot not toe), Emil, were pretty poor. I knew X = chi and V is V, thought that was why it was “Romany” as in Roman-like, Uxbridge dic, never seen shiv spelt chiv though. Also NHO of a disc jockey called John Peel although the bell ringing part was obvious. I assume he is on BBC radio 1 or 2, the only station I ever listen to of BBC is 4 at eight in the mornings. The rest of the day if at home or in car is Classic FM or CDs ripped to mp3. Hearing aids double well as bluetooth headphones!
Well blogged William, glad it wasn’t me, I’d have been a bit critical although we bloggers are supposed to be polite to setters.
👍
👍👍
The late John Peel was very well known for his promotion of upcoming bands in the 70s and 80s before hosting a BBC R4 Saturday morning show for several years. Smack bang in the middle-aged peak demographic predominant here and not even a liver.
Otherwise 👍
1 hour 38 mins. Very hard. Changed shiv to CHIV at a late stage, after checking CHI with Google. No other cheating! Fortunately had heard of garnishee orders.
When I wa young (many years ago) I was taught to say ‘owzat’ not ‘howzat’. Has something changed?
The relatively few number of anagrams made this particularly difficult and the blindingly obvious answer to 14a ( Howzat) struck a very bizarre note given the general level of difficulty of the rest of the clues.
Never want to see the word GARNISHEED ever again.
Failed on 7. CHIV and 6 in the bottom half. I feel that if I’d got KNOW THINE ENEMY it would have helped with the others there, but then GARNISHEED is miles above my pay grade – whether warned off or not. Your blog is really appreciated – thanks.
Not sure about 27A. A Garnishee order (now called a third party debt order) is an order that a person who owes a debt to A should pay it to B instead. The debt is then said to be “garnished” – never come across the form “garnisheed”.
In Glasgow a small knife is known a chib, which I thought was derived from CHIV (though not sure it is). Anyway that’s how I got there and then saw the chi-v construction from knowledge of chi-squared (X) distribution. Despite the crosser still didn’t get LIVER, never mind the cabinet and the garnishy thing.
Much of the rest seemed reasonably accessible.
Thanks William and setter
Well, thought I was doing pretty well, then “garnisheed” WTF? Never in a thousand years, even with all the crossers. Almost enough to make one give up completely.
I don’t know how long I took, as I again left the timer running to take a call, but definitely well over 30 minutes.
It was the SE corner held me up, partly through some stupid guesswork like thinking 21 would end KIN(G), partly through being very slow to get BASILICA which really wasn’t hard, and finally on 27ac thinking it must be GARNxSxxED which I held on to till FINALLY getting ERIOMRA and then from somewhere, probably some victorian novel I read 50 years ago or whatever, GARNISHEED was ringing a bell and then I saw the IS HE aspect and that was that.
btw I thought CHI was greeky rather than romany but I’m sure the setter knows better.
Thanks setter for a fun Friday evening challenge! And of course today’s blogger
After a good run this week I wasn’t surprised to have to give up on this one. Top half was OK although a bit of a slog but found the bottom half was mostly a mystery so thanks for explaining the rest of the answers. Still don’t quite follow the reasoning for CHIV but will file it away as an obscure Crossword word.
I got there in the end with geological timescales required to get GARNISHEED. I also put in SHIV initially, but then I saw how the wordplay worked and assumed there must be a never-heard-of alternate spelling CHIV. For Americans without knowledge of British deejays from decades ago, nor cricketing appeals, I’m guessing those were challenging too, although having grown up in Britain I was familiar with John Peel (later in life more as a journalist) and played enough cricket (hated it) as a kid that I have all the knowledge needed for crosswords (such as fielding positions). In the CHIV clue, Romany refers to the knife not the XV which is a combination of CHI (upper case Greek CHI is written X) and, err, V as V. I loved this crossword and felt pleased to finish it.