If you thought yesterday’s QC was tough, this was the hardest QC I’ve ever seen. By miles.
Not sure what Orpheus is trying to do here. Some of the clues and vocabulary are Mephisto level.
I could pick on several clues that I didn’t like, but I’ll just vent about EUCALYPTI. Most botanicals have Latin roots, and could provide endless obscurities for crosswords, do we have to look out for agapanthi, hydrangeae and chrysanthema?
Style guides now frown on creating new Latin plurals, especially for words like EUCALYPTUS which are really Greek and only became Latin to fit with Linnaean naming. Octopuses is such an example, with Octopi being a hypercorrection.
</rant>
This puzzle uses “sol” for a note. Douglas Adams noted that in the song “Doe a deer”, the line “La, a note to follow Sol” should be considered a placeholder. He imagined that Oscar Hammerstein just wrote “a note to follow Sol” and thought he would have another look at it later, but never got round to it.
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, deletions and [] other indicators.
| Across | |
| 1 | Child’s toy spooked Alice, unfortunately (12) |
| KALEIDOSCOPE – Anagram of (spooked alice)* | |
| 8 | Part of bedding of the French surgeon (5) |
| DUVET – DU (French for ‘of the’) + VET (surgeon)
This required quite a bit more knowledge of French Grammar than the usual Le, La, Un and Une. Think of “plat du jour”, plate of the day. |
|
| 9 | Girl using stake to secure mesh? (7) |
| ANNETTE – ANTE (stake, as in betting) containing NET (mesh)
I went into this one backwards, seeing Net, but then having to think about Lynette, Janette. |
|
| 10 | Slip up, with some improper response (3) |
| ERR – Contained in (“some) improper response | |
| 11 | Accuracy of intelligence, abandoning leading bishop! (9) |
| RIGHTNESS – [B]rightness (intelligence)
I had RIGHTEOUS here because it fitted the checkers. Had to go back to this. |
|
| 13 | Dance a doctor introduced to South America (5) |
| SAMBA – SA (South America) + A + MB (Doctor)
Always need to make sure to discount the Rumba when a 5 letter word for dance contains a doctor. |
|
| 14 | Laughing out loud with accountant in pub (5) |
| LOCAL – LOL contains CA (accountant) | |
| 16 | Spanish wine shop accommodating the French vocal style (9) |
| CANTILENA – CANTINA (Spanish wine shop) contains LE (the French)
NHO this word, and Cantina itself is pretty obscure. And finally, LA is just as much “the french” as LE, so Cantilana was perfectly acceptable. I’ve sung in choirs my whole life and never heard this word. “The plain-song or canto-fermo in old church music”(OED). So that’s all clear, then. |
|
| 17 | Beat young farm animal endlessly (3) |
| LAM – LAM[b} (Young farm animal)
Not sure about this, I’ve always used “lamp”. |
|
| 19 | A Liberal bar, one attracting a European state (7) |
| ALBANIA – A + L[iberal] + BAN (bar) + I + A | |
| 21 | Contribution from fashionable place (5) |
| INPUT – IN (fashionable) + PUT (place, as in the verb) | |
| 22 | Fine diamond, possibly, in English hair oil (12) |
| BRILLIANTINE – BRILLIANT (Diamond possibly) + IN + E[nglish]
Another pretty obscure word. And the unchecked initial letter made an F for fine very tempting. Although I do know that BRILLIANTINE was used as the French title for the film Grease in Quebec |
|
| Down | |
| 1 | King has advantage, a light anchor (5) |
| KEDGE – K[ing] + EDGE (advantage)
Never heard of this one either. |
|
| 2 | Member of City guild — a disagreeable chap? (9) |
| LIVERYMAN – Double def. I think this comes from “liverish” which means disagreeable, so maybe a Liveryman is really a Liverish-man. Another thumbs down from me, as dictionaries have no evidence that livery means disagreeable. | |
| 3 | Universal hospital doctor at Scottish island loch (13) |
| INTERNATIONAL – INTERN (hospital doctor) + AT + IONA (Scottish Island) + L[och] | |
| 4 | Piece of fruit in William III’s house (6) |
| ORANGE – Double Def. William III was from the Dutch House or Orange. | |
| 5 | Trick girl into scattering a lot of stars (13) |
| CONSTELLATION – CON (trick) + STELLA (girl) + TION an anagram (“scattering”) of “into” | |
| 6 | Take aim at earthenware vessel (3) |
| POT – Double Def, as in “take a pot at goal”. Not sure it works, as “take” is not part of the definition, there is no verb form of pot that means “take aim”. Clue works much better without “take”. | |
| 7 | Treacherous type initially without support (6) |
| WEASEL – W[ithout] + EASEL (support) | |
| 12 | Evergreen trees given faulty clue? A pity (9) |
| EUCALYPTI – Anagram (“faulty”) of (clue a pity)*
Never had a use for this word in the plural as I have exactly one in my garden. See preamble for a rant about Latin plurals of Greek words in English. |
|
| 13 | Note about spies in party, perhaps (6) |
| SOCIAL – SOL (note) about CIA (spies)
This is Social as a noun, such as “come to our Friday night Social”. Watch out for these notes, as they seem to have a variety of spellings (eg “so”) |
|
| 15 | Asian writer upset boxer (6) |
| NEPALI – NEP (pen=writer, reversed) + ALI
Pen for write, and Ali for boxer. Two crossword staples. |
|
| 18 | Episcopal headgear finally cast in mud (5) |
| MITRE -MIRE (mud) contains [cas]T | |
| 20 | Hanger-on starts to be unreasonably resolute (3) |
| BUR – Starting letters of be unreasonably resolute
I have always spelt this “burr”, and the OED has “bur” as an older spelling. |
|
I came to this very late and finished slowly but got there in the end. I share Merlin’s feelings and agree with many of the critical comments above.
Not a good puzzle, not an enjoyable experience, and not what I would call a QC.
Well done to those who reached (or bettered) there target times today. I didn’t.
This has been a poor week so far and I wonder why?
Perhaps it is down to tuning in on the wrong wavelength again? John M.
DNF
Two days in a row. Oh dear! A really strange one this. Lots of easy clues (ORANGE) interspersed with several NHO. Failed on SOCIAL / CANTILERA and LOCAL / WEASEL.
I agree that this was on the tough side with some difficult vocab. My only addition to the debate is whether the QC is too hard because it can’t be finished by everyone (as was suggested by some commentators). I normally finish the biggie but on occasions I’m beaten. I’m not sure that makes the 15×15 unacceptable- it just means it was hard (or maybe just a little bit hard!) . So I’m not sure a toughie QC now and again is a problem unless you take the view that it must always be gentle enough for X% of solvers to succeed. It’s a perfectly reasonable point of view but not I don’t think the only one
9 mins and some for me, so longer than normal
Compared to some recent QCs – and I say this as an SCC regular – I enjoyed this and found it hard but doable. Yes there were some words that were outside my GK, but I managed to work them out from the wordplay. Helped that I knew CANTINA. With my comprehensive school education, issues with Greek and Latin are way over my head, but EUCALYPTI wasn’t that hard to decipher.
Just managed to avoid the SCC, with a very pleasing 19 mins.
Perhaps I just got lucky today, but, for me, there have been many much harder challenges than this one.
Many thanks for the blog Merlin. Sorry it wasn’t to your liking, but I appreciate the work all you bloggers do to keep us informed and entertained. 😊
I’ve had to log in here to find the answers and explanations for another incomplete crossword. I am not a newbie – just not very bright but absolutely enjoy the cleverness of the clues and am in awe of the skill of the setters to construct such puzzles. It matters not to me how long it takes to solve but facing the challenge and accepting that today some I will ‘get’ and some I won’t. The excitement is in the unpredictability; the satisfaction is in the opportunity for progress.
Well I left it overnight at which point I decided to spell Kaleidoscope correctly which gave me International but then DNF with Liveryman, Social, Cantilena, Nepali and Brilliantine fails.
Orpheus up to his old tricks after some almost benign (for him) offerings.
Thanks Merlin
Thanks all
John
Having words as obscure as CANTILENA and BRILLIANTINE really discourages those of us with ordinary vocabularies. Obviously DNF. Might as well DBS if this is how they will be (that’s don’t bother starting, obvs)