This didn’t put up very much resistance, coming in at four and a half minutes for me. Some nice surfaces, especially 1dn. We also have a theme, one which I didn’t spot because I had never heard of its subject. I suspect solvers who have small-to-medium-sized children might have a better chance. I will reveal all in the comments later, if no-one beats me to it.
| Across | |
| 1 | Having it covered in meat sauce is something serious! (7) |
| GRAVITY – IT inside GRAVY | |
| 5 | Lessens force: everything’s to follow (5) |
| FALLS – F + ALL’S | |
| 8 | Inscrutability of the writer’s pen, capturing queen (7) |
| MYSTERY – MY (the writer’s) STY (pen) outside ER | |
| 9 | Inside bag, heroin for cabin (5) |
| SHACK – SACK with H inside | |
| 10 | Be present when old police company returns (5) |
| OCCUR – RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary, now replaced with PCNI) +CO all backwards | |
| 12 | Hospital department with frozen treats is alluring! (7) |
| ENTICES – ENT + ICES | |
| 14 | Laurel, maybe with daughter’s bears (6) |
| STANDS – STAN (Laurel) + D’S | |
| 15 | Ladle disturbed red pip (6) |
| DIPPER – anagram (‘disturbed’) of RED PIP | |
| 18 | Harassed clients obtaining design template (7) |
| STENCIL – anagram (‘harassed’) of CLIENTS | |
| 19 | Meeting of clergy into heresy, no doubt (5) |
| SYNOD – hidden word: hereSY NO Doubt | |
| 20 | Lass, married, murdered brother (5) |
| MABEL – M + ABEL | |
| 22 | Implied meaning of chaos, with time (7) |
| MESSAGE – MESS + AGE | |
| 24 | Longs to regularly display options: easy! (5) |
| PINES – alternate letters of oPtIoNs EaSy | |
| 25 | Letters beginning each numbered clue offer Des’s excuse, duly disguised (7) |
| ENCODED – first letters of Each Numbered Clue Offer Des’s Excuse Duly | |
| Down | |
| 1 | New lambs go for frolics (7) |
| GAMBOLS – anagram (‘new’) of LAMBS GO | |
| 2 | Wild sea coast gripping one’s companion (9) |
| ASSOCIATE – anagram (‘wild’) of SEA COAST with I inside | |
| 3 | Fury evident in one note (3) |
| IRE – I + RE (do re mi etc) | |
| 4 | Went up and down with two Yankees carrying old dictionary (2-4) |
| YO-YOED – Y for yankee (NATO alphabet) twice, with O inside, then OED (Oxford English Dictionary) | |
| 5 | Vehicle’s uncontrolled movements: search follows (9) |
| FISHTAILS – FISH (search) + TAILS (follows) | |
| 6 | We’ll drive, finally, over a meadow (3) |
| LEA – last letters of we’lL drivE + A | |
| 7 | Vacant kasbah toured by British spies and worshippers (5) |
| SIKHS – KH is kasbah ‘vacated’, with SIS (Secret Intelligence Service aka MI6) outside. | |
| 11 | Hopeless clue Idris mocks (9) |
| RIDICULES – anagram (‘hopeless’) of CLUE IDRIS | |
| 13 | As a beggar maybe, better to get home help (3,2,4) |
| CAP IN HAND – CAP (better) + IN (home) + HAND (help) | |
| 16 | Teacher after wine and ginger (7) |
| REDHEAD -RED + HEAD | |
| 17 | Burning meat few, in short, can eat (6) |
| FLAMBE – meat is LAMB, surrounded (‘eaten’) by FE[W] | |
| 18 | Assess, briefly, maths problem at college (3,2) |
| SUM UP – self explanatory | |
| 21 | Scrap book, fashionable (3) |
| BIN – B + IN | |
| 23 | Hemmed in by strangers, I complain so! (3) |
| SIC – hidden word: strangerS I Complain | |
DNF. Foiled by FALLS and FISHTAILS. I had palls for the former thinking “The excitement palls(lessens?) quickly”. Oh well, must carry on. I also thought bit for BIN at first as “it” suggested fashionable in some way. Another misapprehension was thinking “ladle r” was the anagrist not “red pip “. Did enjoy both MESSAGE and MYSTERY though, which helped massage my misery!
Snuck in at 19 mins…
Like many, I got held up with 5dn “Fishtails”, which made me wonder whether 5ac “Falls” was correct (as I thought falls = lessens, whilst correct, felt a little clunky). I also didn’t know SIS was another name for MI6.
My first thought when I put in 1dn “Gambols” was of the cartoon strip from many a year ago, so I wondered whether the theme, that was alluded to above, was something to do with that or cartoon strips in general. It turns out it was even more esoteric.
FOI – 3dn “Ire”
LOI – 5dn “Fishtails”
COD – 12ac “Entices”
Thanks as usual!
Clock came in at 30:04 but was interrupted by a colleague so probably nearer 20 mins.
Fishtails and Flambe took a bit of working out.
Enjoyable workout, though completely missed the theme as had never heard of it.
Thanks to Des.
Skidded to a halt with LOI FISHTAILS. 9:07
A slow but steady solve until I stuck on FISHTAILS. Disappointing. NHO in regard to car skidding.
Liked many inc STANDS which made me smile when the penny finally dropped. Also liked GRAVITY, SIKHS, SIC, REDHEAD.
FOsI LEA, SUM UP, SYNOD.
LOsI NW corner.
Thanks vm, Curarist. (NHO Gravity Falls either!)
I could be wrong, but I think fishtailing is more of a problem with lorries, or perhaps cars pulling trailers, where the load swings violently from side to side.
Oh, I see, thanks.
17/28.
Given this had loads of tricky stuff – as comments show – that’s pretty good, and (from memory) a much better statistic than you’ve posted lately!
21.56 FISHTAILS wasn’t a problem but I ground to a halt after ten minutes with about eight clues left in the NW and SE. After another ten minutes I realised that the Laurel was Stan and everything else took a couple more minutes. I’m not sure that the problem was. ASSOCIATE and MESSAGE should have been very obvious.
I wasn’t on Des’s wavelength at all today. A technical DNF with aids needed for FISHTAILS and – annoyingly – MYSTERY, which I should have spotted. I didn’t spot FISH=SEARCH even after finding the answer. I’ve never heard of the TV show, but didn’t think the puzzle strayed into clumsiness because of the theme. Fwiw: 23:31, after staring at my last two for 5 minutes.
Thanks to Des and Curarist.
Slow again today, failed on 5d fishtails, we had no idea of the meaning. Also 22a, where we has mistake for an answer. Better than yesterday but a poor end to the week.
Needed help to get FISHTAILS and dallied over SMACK (slang for heroin) but couldn’t parse it, so stuck SHACK in, guessing that H was for heroin. Otherwise a fairly mild offering. GRAVITY FALLS? NHO.
Late start (away for a family celebration) but I was driven nearly 2 mins over target by FISHTAILS – a tough one. Most of it was fine but one or two pennies were a bit slow to drop and I did biff a couple.
Thanks, both. John M.
Later: I finished the biggie! It took me between 90 minutes and 2 hours, with a two hour gap for my art appreciation group, but it’s done, with everything pretty much parsed and no help from aids or husband either 😅
5:49 this morning.
A little slower than normal with too much time spent on LOI 5d “fishtails”. Once I saw how the clue was structured and despite 5 crossers being in place, I had a mental block trying to remember the word that often applies to artics in this context and eventually,once “jacknife” came to mind I realised it was totally unhelpful.
COD 1 ac “gravity”.
Weekly total time was 25:20, so just above my long term average and target. Much narrower range than last week.
Thanks to Des and Curarist
I’m getting nowhere with the QC. A dreadful performance today, finishing just under the hour mark. Held up badly by 7dn (after initially putting ENTICED for 12ac) and then taking forever to work out FISHTAILS. How do I go from 16 mins on Monday to this?
I completed all 5 QCs this week, but take very little pleasure in that. Four finishes at 30 mins or worse is desperately disappointing. I appreciate that improvement comes slowly, but I am going backwards if anything. 🙁
Thanks for the blog Curarist and best wishes to everyone for the weekend.
Don’t despair! I thought this week was tricky – each day was slower. At least you finished each puzzle 👍 Here’s to next week being better!
Thanks Penny 😀
Chin up, Gary- you beat me 5-4 in finishes. Enjoy your weekend!
Thanks curryowen😊
I agree with Penny about it having got harder this week.
But in a learning process, progress is rarely straight upwards. It’s often 2-steps forward, 1 step back or a series of plateaus and then a leap forward.
Always pulling for you mate 👍 Have a good weekend
Thanks L-Plates – and you!
Cheers, Gary 😊
A bit late in the day… sorry. But I have it on good authority (i.e. the setter himself) that “…this week’s Nina is not at all quick but very cryptic ” and “The theme goes a lot further than anyone spotted. I didn’t think anyone would spot it, and I’m not sure whether to let on!”
So who CAN spot it? I’m looking at the answers “MESSAGE and ENCODED” as a potential hint, but I’m maybe barking up the wrong tree.
That I can see no-one has actually detailed what is in plain sight. From a quick read of Wikipedia we have…
Top row – GRAVITY FALLS
3rd row – MYSTERY SHACK
5th row – OCCURENCES (OCCUR – ENtiCES)
7th row – STAN (the great-uncle), DIPPER (the surname)
11th row – MABEL (the girl)
13th row – PINES (the boy)
As for MESSAGE ENCODED, it seems the end credits had some ciphered messages include … https://gravityfalls.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_cryptograms
I tried putting the unches through Caesar and Atbash but didn’t get anything.
I’m noting the 9th row of STENCIL / SYNOD is the one row of the grid with nothing related going on. But that may just be a consequence of having to fit some down words in with everything else that’s going on.
I think the instruction is to use the first letters of the clues not the answers to find the excuse. In Atbash this gives SORRY SOOS NO ROOM DUDE DES.
Good spot.
That would also some of the queried defs – particularly the above-mentioned occur=be present, but I also found myself slowed by ladle=dipper, message=implied meaning along the way. And others have questioned falls=lessen.
I should share the email I got from Des when he saw we had solved it….
“Well done! I didn’t necessarily expect anyone to spot it. I was watching the entire two series with my son during August 2021 and when it came to thinking of a Nina it was an obvious choice. And then, well you have to include an ENCODED MESSAGE. Wouldn’t be right otherwise 🙂“
👍
For a full explanation see here.
Well done. I was trying to work out what had to be encrypted and you beat me to it. And thanks #50 for pointing to the cryptographs site. And thank-you Des for the extra fun!
So… Quick Cryptic number 2354… And the clock stopped at exactly 23.54! What are the chances, eh?
Police Service of Northern Ireland, or PSNI, replaced the RUC.
It is correctly clued as old police, a typical way of indicating something from the past.
Failed on FISHTAILS which I thought was a bit much for a QC. Also could not decide between PALLS and FALLS both of which would have worked.
A mixture of very easy clues and some real testers today.
Oh dear. How was your overall week #5?
Thanks #50. It as 4-1 to the setters this week but two puzzles were only one clue away from finishing so not disheartened. I learn something new every week and the blog adds to the pleasure.
I see you had a quick solve week.
I’m in full agreement about FISHTAILS – the vast majority struggled here and many seemed to solve only with an alphabet trawl. I also considered PALLS for a while.
Let’s put this week behind us and look forward to the next!
DNF
Fishtails!
Never got fishtails because I though(and still think) that Palls was a much better answer than Falls.