A rare puzzle by Jimmy, only the third one we have had one from him/her. The previous two (QC 2669 on 7 May and QC 2710 on 24 June) were both excellent puzzles towards the friendlier end of the spectrum, and this one continued in the same vein, taking me a below-average 11:10 with much to enjoy on the way.
Some very nice clues, some smooth surfaces and some straightforward indicators for the anagrams etc make this a very well constructed puzzle. I’d expect to see some fast times today: do tell us all how you got on.
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, deletions and [] other indicators.
| Across | |
| 1 | Eccentric afraid heir is light-headed? (4-6) |
| FAIR-HAIRED – (afraid heir)*, a nice anagram to get us going, with the indicator being “eccentric”. A small element of deception here, as light-headed does not have its usual meaning of “dizzy, faint” but refers to hair colour. | |
| 8 | You shouldn’t drop this group of baby mammals (6) |
| LITTER – A DD, with the second definition straightforward enough but the first one slightly cryptic. The RSPCA, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals would of course insist that one should not drop any baby mammals at all, ever. | |
| 9 | London attraction — a challenge for Scottish hillwalker? (3,3) |
| BIG BEN – The common Scottish place name component “ben” (as in Ben Nevis etc) is from the Gaelic “bheinn”, and means mountain or hill. So as well as being London’s iconic clock tower by the Houses of Parliament, a “big ben” would be a large mountain, and a challenge for anyone climbing it.
(And yes I do know that Big Ben is correctly the name for the massive bell in the Elizabeth Tower – weight nearly 14 tonnes apparently – not the tower itself. But in common usage the name usually refers to the whole tower, clock, bell and all). |
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| 10 | Big road filled by trendy car (4) |
| MINI – MI (the “big road” being the motorway M1, making a second appearance in the week after starring in Monday’s QC) with IN (trendy) inside it. | |
| 11 | Add explanations to article on revolutionary gallery (8) |
| ANNOTATE – AN (article) + NO (on reversed, ie “revolutionary”) + TATE (Crosswordland’s favourite art gallery). | |
| 12 | One who induced drooling with unfinished dessert (6) |
| PAVLOV – The dessert is a pavlova, from which the last letter is removed, indicated by “unfinished”, thus giving us PAVLOV.
Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) was a Russian scientist whose main area of study (for which he was awarded a Nobel prize) was the digestive system. He is best known for a small part of that study, where he noted that he could make dogs salivate or drool not at actual food but at the prospect or promise of it, a reflex response which became known as a Pavlovian reaction. |
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| 14 | Orator gutted by friend using speech (6) |
| ORALLY – O |
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| 16 | Nicked criminal freed after leaders of police ignored laws (8) |
| PILFERED – PIL (“leaders”, ie initial letters, of Police Ignored Laws) + FERED (anagram of “freed”, the indicator being “criminal”).
A very smooth surface, with images of criminals being nicked or arrested and then let go because the police did not follow proper procedures, and my COD. |
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| 18 | Go red in the face after bishop leaves drunk (4) |
| LUSH – BLUSH (go red in the face) with the B removed (“bishop leaves”). The link of Lush to Drunk plays not so much on the adjectival use of drunk for someone who has had too much to drink just this once, but on the noun sense of the word for someone who has too much to drink habitually. | |
| 20 | African country bordering a West African country (6) |
| MALAWI – MALI (an African country) with A W (a West) inside it.
This was my LOI as I took time to see “bordering” as an inclusion indicator rather than meaning one component of the clue was adjacent or next to another, but one can have a flower bed bordering a lawn and going all round it, so I think the clue works. |
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| 21 | Impoverished person’s urge to enter pub (6) |
| BEGGAR – EGG (urge, as in the sense Egg on = Urge on) included in BAR (pub), the inclusion indicator being “to enter”. | |
| 22 | Checked item on which kings and queens stand? (10) |
| CHESSBOARD – An all-in-one cryptic clue, the kings and queens being chess pieces here. | |
| Down | |
| 2 | Defence of boxer protecting middle of ribs (5) |
| ALIBI – ALI (Crosswordland’s favourite boxer) surrounding (ie protecting) IB (middle of rIBs). | |
| 3 | Damaged trailer is the result of faulty hearing? (7) |
| RETRIAL – (trailer)*, with the anagram indicator being “damaged”. If a hearing or trial is faulty the result could be that it needs to be redone, leading to a retrial. | |
| 4 | Song from musical in East London (3) |
| AIR – The musical is HAIR, from which the H is dropped when said by the archetypal Cockney resident of East London.
And it is not just Cockneys who drop their Hs. There was a famous and very distinguished 19th century barrister called Sir Arthur Channell who also dropped his Hs. In one trial, over the fate of a ship called the Helen, the judge became confused as to whether the ship involved was the Helen or the Ellen, as the papers said Helen but Sir Arthur kept referring to the Ellen. The lawyer on the other side, Sir Freddie Tresiger, gravely explained that “she was christened the Helen, m’lud, but she lost her ‘H’ in the chops of the Channell”. |
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| 5 | Outlaw to steal from home with US gangster (5,4) |
| ROBIN HOOD – ROB (steal) + IN (home) + HOOD (US gangster). | |
| 6 | Number like one thousand, primarily (5) |
| DIGIT – DIG (like) + I (one) + T (thousand, initially).
Our setters appear to have collectively decided that the use of “number” to mean an anaesthetic, as it has so often in these puzzles, was (although very clever) perhaps being slightly overdone, as this is the second time in just a few days that the word is being used in its more straightforward numerical sense: Orpheus had “A number, for example, visiting Bury” (answer Integer) on Monday. |
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| 7 | Pulse is fast on crossword setter over fifty (6) |
| LENTIL – LENT (Christian time of fasting) + I (ie how a crossword setter would refer to themselves) + L (fifty). I was very slow to see this one as with the first two checkers being -E-T, I was convinced for a long time that the answer started BEAT-. But it is the vegetable pulse not the musical or medical one that we are after here. | |
| 11 | Promote and devise art in a novel way (9) |
| ADVERTISE – (devise art)*, the anagram indicator being “in a novel way”. | |
| 13 | Beast in area north of Milan, camouflaged (6) |
| ANIMAL – A (area) above or on top of (“north of”, this being a down clue) NIMAL (anagram of Milan, the anagram indicator being “camouflaged”). | |
| 15 | Everybody, say, runs round pretty quickly (7) |
| ALLEGRO – A four part IKEA clue, the construction being ALL (everybody) + EG (say) + R (runs) + O (round). | |
| 17 | Spanish ruler’s cut old bread in Geneva (5) |
| FRANC – The Spanish ruler is FRANCO, from which O (old) is cut or deleted, giving the FRANC, the unit of currency (“bread” in US slang) in Geneva.
A trap for those who parsed FRANC as just “Franco cut, ie last letter lopped off”, as this leaves the word old in the wordplay with nothing to do, since unlike in France, Belgium or Luxembourg, where the Franc was indeed the “old bread” or old currency before the three countries adopted the Euro, Switzerland still uses the Franc to this day. |
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| 19 | Part of a flight coming from best airport (5) |
| STAIR – A hidden, in beST AIRport, with the indicator being “coming from”.
Oh that type of flight, and nothing to do with birds, aeroplanes or people fleeing. |
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| 21 | Coach needs player on the bench to turn up (3) |
| BUS – The player on the bench is a substitute or SUB, which is reversed (“turned up”) to give us our final answer. | |
A gentle one, all right, but with some nice clues. I wasted a bit of time at 13d, reading ‘breast’ for ‘beast’. Ironically enough, a mother animal ‘drops’ its litter. ‘Flight’ almost always means ‘stair’ here. 4:22.
9:28. RETRIAL was my favourite. Enjoyed the entertaining blog!
Thanks to Cedric for the explanation of 12A and 18A. However I am struggling to understand the CHOPS of the CHANNEL even if I chop off the last ‘ELL!!
It’s a pun I think: the “chops of the Channell” are either choppy water in the English Channel (which might damage a vessel), or the mouth of Sir Arthur Channell – think of the phrase ” a smack in the chops” for a blow to the mouth.
7 something, thank you Cedric and Jimmy, enjoyable puzzle. Ever since the Times site was upgraded completed puzzles disappear, either totally or in part, once you leave the site to, say, check a reference on google. In my case today I did the puzzle, went away for a couple of hours and when I returned everything had vanished, including my time. I wondered if others had the same problem…
This doesn’t happen for me, Lindsay – the completed puzzle stays that way, even after quitting the site and reloading (which I’ve just tried).
Super puzzle today, lots of smooth clues with misdirections. Thoroughly enjoyable 7 mins.
9 minutes. It was good to finish the week with two sub-10 solves after starting with a DNF on Monday and 17 minutes on Tuesday.
Enjoyed the puzzle, and love a Cedric run through, always entertaining.
Enjoyable crossword and nothing too difficult. Unfortunately, I had bifd’hair’ for the first word of 1a which made the anagram very tricky until I saw my error.
Pavlov’s Dog is also a band from decades ago that produced some great albums, notably ‘At the sound of the bell’ and ‘Pampered Menial’.
Thanks blogger and setter.
It was easy until it wasn’t. Bazballed the bulk of this in about 30mins before being stumped by FRANC and LENTIL. A fun start to a Saturday.
An enjoyable solve taking longer than it should have as we were suckered in to most of Jimmy’s misdirections. Spent a long time trying to find some medical term for deafness out or trailer and like Cedric fitting beat in for pulse.
In the end somewhere near 25 minutes with a gap in the middle, but what fun along the way. Definitely one where there was lots of enjoyment marvelling at the setters craft. It’s a tough choice today but COD to lentil for the very smooth surface and the clanging PDM
Thanks Cedric for the informative blog.
A strange solve as I was a bit fuzzy headed this morning and couldn’t make head or tail of the first half of the across clues. I switched to the last of the downs which seemed to wake my brain up and it turned out to be a very approachable puzzle.
Started with BUS and finished with FAIR HAIRED in 7.11.
Thanks to Cedric and Jimmy
“Baby when you call my name, I salivate like a PAVLOV dog” (The Rolling Stones : “Bitch”). Almost COD.
An easy puzzle, though I didn’t care much for “big road”, and the syntax of ORALLY is a little jarring (though not actually incorrect). Completed in two straight passes through the clues.
FOI FAIR-HAIRED
LOI ANNOTATE
COD BIG BEN
TIME 3:34
3:16. A gentle one indeed. Lots of neat clues – BUS was my favourite for the surface. Thanks Jimmy and Cedric.
15:46
Started fast but ended up slowing down. Some early morning fuzziness, annotate wouldn’t come as I thought it was only one N, writing out the anagrist for advertise I had the R in the wrong place, took a minute to get comfortable with Malawi as per Cedric etc etc.
LOI and COD retrial
12 mins…
What feels like a rare, straightforward Saturday QC, with some nice clues. Favourites included 6dn “Digit”, 9ac “Big Ben” and 17dn “Franc”.
Only hesitation was 18ac “Lush” where I wasn’t sure what the definition was getting at.
FOI – 1ac “Fair-Headed”
LOI – 22ac “Chessboard”
COD – 3dn “Retrial”
Thanks as usual!
Enjoyed this.
Some definitely needed some thought but gave great pleasure when the penny dropped.
Good time for us of 17 minutes.
10.53 Entertaining and mostly straightforward. I thought light-headed was an anagram indicator and then spent a while wondering how LOI FAIR HAIRED meant eccentric. D’oh! Thanks Cedric and Jimmy.
Held up by LENTIL and LOI MALAWI but no problems otherwise. Nicely misdirected by RETRIAL and FAIR-HAIRED. All in all very enjoyable. COD has to be PAVLOV. Thanks Cedric.
I was going to say all of that but you’ve saved me the bother, so thank you!
😃
Most enjoyable puzzle with plenty of clever misdirection.
Pulse fooled me as did ‘criminal’ as an anagrind and ‘retrial’ for faulty hearing was cleverly misleading.
After Big Ben I’m wondering if Jimmy could be a Scotsman.
Cedric’s blog was as enjoyable and informative as ever.
9:22
LOI and COD RETRIAL. I fell into the trap of trying to find an audiology problem rather than a judicial one.
Thanks Cedric and Jimmy
Pavlov was a nasty bit of work who also experimented on dogs by near-drowning them and throwing them down stairs. He may have experimented on orphan children too.
Anyway, nice puzzle over a Saturday coffee. COD to LENTIL, very good. All done in 07:13 for 1.6K or Plett +2, complete with matching fuzzy head.
Thanks to Jimmy and Cedric.
I tried my best to make nearly each clue more difficult than it turned out to be, and was deservedly ‘rewarded’ with a window seat for the Saturday mystery tour. . . Couldn’t even see Advertise without a helpful first letter, and as for the hearing defect at 3d, well, I’m beginning to feel I now qualify for hard of thinking. CoD to 16ac, Pilfered (in a strong field), for the surface. Invariant
Thankyou, Invariant, for coming up with a diagnosis for my condition: “hard of thinking”. It explains a lot of what goes on in the Random household.
I made hard work of this but eventually finished in 10:32. FOI, ALIBI, LOI, BUS. Took far too long to see RETRAIL, FAIR HAIRED and DIGIT. Thanks Jimmy and Cedric.
A similar pattern to yesterday – sprinting pace until crashing into a solid wall, inconveniently located just before the finish line. The first 20 clues went in in just 12 minutes (bordering on miraculous for me), but my last four occupied me for a further 23 minutes (a far too common occurrence).
Yesterday’s Trelawney resulted in an even more skewed pattern – 25 clues in 13 minutes, followed by a further 9 minutes for the one remaining clue. Why do the sub-5 minutes brigade never seem to hit the buffers like this? Their alphabet trawls turn up the answer in a trice compared to mine.
My four offending clues were ANIMAL, ORALLY, MALAWI and (my LOI) LENTIL.
Total time = 35 minutes.
Many thanks to Jimmy and Cedric.
6:30
Not too many in on the first pass of acrosses, but the downs made up for it, the solve progressing at a decent pace thereafter. Temporarily had SOMALI (African) at 20a until ANIMAL went in – MALAWI might not be an easily remembered African country for some, but having worked in overseas development early in my career, it was familiar to me. LENTIL became clear only when the final checker went in.
Another fine blog from Cedric – thank you for that – and a bang-on-par grid from Jimmy
Very entertaining with loads of lovely misdirection. DNF with 20a Malawi – best I could do was Quatari…
FOI 1a Fair Headed
LOI 20a …..
COD 5d Robin Hood for the misdirection
This was time well wasted, an enjoyable crossword as I do not tend to keep my time spent solving (this is not meant to offend anybody). thank you to the setter
A thankfully rare DNF for us, putting in ‘mental’ (slang for frenetic / pulse is fast) for 7d out of frustration after 15 minutes or so. It clearly didn’t parse properly (only ME for setter and the final L) but we just couldn’t see LENTIL, being stuck on the wrong type of pulse. Lovely clue though, COD for me. Thank you Cedric, loved your anecdote re Channel! Thanks also to Jimmy for an entertaining crossword to which I feel privileged to have been a victim.
Apart from the Spanish ruler Franco , this was friendly for a Saturday.
I had an enjoyable time doing this in 14:04, a fast time for me. FOI ALIBI, LOI ORALLY, COD PAVLOV. Tripped myself up by remembering driving north through Milan into Asiago and threw it in there, all pleased with myself in spite of the advice from my staff that if you can’t parse it it’s almost certainly wrong. Listened to the voice at last so no harm. Some fun to start the weekend, now off to a memorial service 🙁
Thanks to Jimmy and Cedric!
I liked this a lot, and a quick finish for me, so thanks Jimmy for a fun but not-too-challenging puzzle.