Short of time and beset by tech hassles, both with home broadband and in the blogosphere, I solved this in a grump. My mood was not improved by discovering that Wurm has dished up a mini 15×15; either that or my solving abilities deserted me. IT anxieties meant constant breaking off and no accurate time, because the timer kept ticking while I was fiddling around. Well into the red zone though. Hope you had more fun than I did!
PS Starstruck is a legend and saved this blogger’s bacon. Three cheers for him; do buy him a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/xwdsnitch
Definitions underlined in bold.
| Across | |
| 7 | Some asparagus in Italian sauce (4) |
| RAGU – hidden [some] inside “asparagus”. | |
| 8 | Go and fish the American way? (8) |
| TURNPIKE – TURN [go] + PIKE [fish]. Collins says that TURNPIKE means a toll road in the US, which (I suppose) is why Wurm said “American” way, but since historically it meant exactly the same here (there are dozens of roads called Turnpike Lane in Britain) I thought that an unhelpful definition. | |
| 9 | Leans back to welcome Irish character (6) |
| SPIRIT – TIPS is “leans”, reverse it [back] for SPIT, insert IR [to welcome Irish]. Character as in team spirit, not the punctuation mark I was initially looking for. | |
| 10 | Putting on these vegetables (6) |
| GREENS – double definition; for the first one you have to say “putting” (as in golf) not “putting” (as in placing). Very clever; COD from me. | |
| 11 | Give worker assistance (4) |
| HAND – the lesser spotted triple definition. | |
| 12 | Assassin in Edinburgh, not British, shot (5,3) |
| HIRED GUN – anagram [shot] of Edinburgh without the B [not British]. | |
| 15 | Saint with God for eternal youth (5,3) |
| PETER PAN – PETER is a saint; PAN is a God. | |
| 17 | Number one Republican in dark film genre (4) |
| NOIR – NO I [number one] + R [Republican]. | |
| 18 | Commercial break without purpose (6) |
| ADRIFT – AD [commercial] + RIFT [break]. | |
| 21 | Zoom lens? Way to capture insect by river (6) |
| WEBCAM – a somewhat elliptical cryptic definition. If you use the app Zoom for video calls, you use a WEBCAM to do so. Therefore it could be called a “Zoom” lens … The wordplay is WEB [way to capture insect] + CAM [river]. This was hard and took me a long time. | |
| 22 | Legendary menace fouled Man U trio (8) |
| MINOTAUR – anagram [fouled] of “Man U trio”. Nice definition. | |
| 23 | Non-rigid airship lacking in breadth (4) |
| LIMP – a BLIMP is an airship; remove the B [lacking in breadth – I’m guessing that somewhere “B” is used as an abbreviation for “breadth” but I’m past caring so look it up yourselves]. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Swerve over Channel in Spitfire? (8) |
| WARPLANE – WARP [swerve] + LANE [channel]. A definition by example, hence the question mark. I would have thought “warplane” an Americanism but the dictionaries say no. | |
| 2 | Set free, smelling awful (6) |
| PUTRID -PUT [set, as in “set that down over there”] + RID [free]. | |
| 3 | Chaotic putsch involving sex swindle (6-2) |
| STITCH-UP – anagram [chaotic] of “putsch” containing IT [sex]. The usual suspects may now clear their throats and deliver their well-rehearsed sermons on how young people don’t use “it” for “sex” these days, even though they do. | |
| 4 | Clothing as seen on TV? (4) |
| DRAG – I’m not sure I’m parsing this correctly, because if I am then I find it rather crass. Anyway, I think that what this is getting at is that TV is an outdated abbreviation for “transvestite”, which is itself an outdated word not really used in polite discourse these days, and transvestites wear DRAG. The 1970s called, they want their clue back. | |
| 5 | Mushroom pâté? (6) |
| SPREAD – if something “mushrooms” then it spreads; pâté is a type of spread. | |
| 6 | Almost broke cover (4) |
| SKIN – SKIN{t}. | |
| 13 | Infection grown badly in lip (8) |
| RINGWORM – anagram [badly] of “grown” inside RIM [lip]. Apparently RINGWORM isn’t actually a worm, it’s a fungal infection. | |
| 14 | On warpath fix weapon American bears (2,2,4) |
| UP IN ARMS – PIN [fix] + ARM [weapon] carried by US [America bears]. Terrible, clunky surface. | |
| 16 | Redo it with changes this boss may require? (6) |
| EDITOR – anagram [with changes] of “redo it”. Very neat. | |
| 17 | Extra wealthy person? Completely! (2,4) |
| NO BALL – an extra in cricket terminology. NOB [wealthy person] + ALL [completely]. | |
| 19 | Pathetic sort died: requiescat in pace (4) |
| DRIP – D [died] + RIP. | |
| 20 | Oxygen in small amount one disliked (4) |
| TOAD – O [oxygen] inside [in] TAD [small amount]. | |
I found this very tough, although I wasn’t in the right frame of mind perhaps, after discovering BT had accidentally cancelled my broadband account after acting on an instruction from another party I had no dealings with. In the end I didn’t even complete the grid after failing with what would have been my LOI WEBCAM. I threw in the towel at 20 minutes with the last seven or eight staring blankly at W-B-A-. In retrospect I can’t believe I didn’t think of it, even though it’s not the easiest of clues.
Yes, this one was tough! Failed to get RINGWORM and WEBCAM and SPREAD. The rest took me 40 minutes or so ( with an interruption). That said, PETER PAN was clever and economical and NO BALL as an extra was fun! TURNPIKE took me the longest. Turn as in your turn, or your go: the minutes passed…
Thanks Wurm and Templar: the blog was helpful and informative. I’m keeping out of the warp and weft debate and tbh I biffed WARP as a swerve, thinking of a time warp.
30.08 That was hard. The bottom half (save WEBCAM and NO BALL) wasn’t too bad but I had to grind out the top half. LOI was a toss up between DRAG and PROG. Having forgotten the slang I was lucky with my guess. Thanks Templar and Wurm.
31:21 to struggle home after much guesswork, head scratching and moaning. Very hard indeed for a QC. DRAG, WEBCAM, PUTRID, LIMP, WARPLANE all took absolute ages to get. Grrrrrr.
Oof, another tough day! The Wiggly One back to his usual tricks 😅
As usual, I got to my last few (HAND, WARPLANE and NO BALL) but very slowly and couldn’t see what was going on. Had to go to a U3A meeting, so abandoned it after about 20 minutes. On my return I got the first two quite quickly although I biffed WARPLANE, but I just couldn’t work out NO BALL – all I could see was NO BULL, which seemed unlikely 😅 To me a nob isn’t necessarily a rich person, just a posh one (short for noble presumably?)
Not easy and like Templar, I started getting a bit fed up towards the end, but I did like GREENS, SPREAD and EDITOR. My first thought at 22a was Dennis before checking the number of letters.
DNF in 22 minutes with a 2 1/2 hour break
FOI Ragu POI Warplane COD Minotaur
Thanks Wurm and Templar – hope the rest of the day improved 😊
Fell at the last hurdle after 27 minutes. Had difficulty with rather more clues than we would have expected (e.g. WARPLANE and SPREAD.) NO BALL and WEBCAM held us up for a long time but were great clues. The penny finally having dropped we thought we were through (in about twice our par time!) but no, 4d remained uncompleted. We’d dismissed DRAG early on because it seemed to bear no relation to TV and in desperation bunged in PROG hoping that it might be clothing worn by a Prog rock fan. Incidentally, we were held up a lot in the NW by having reasonably confidently put in DOLE (out = give, arguably temporary support to a would be worker) at 11a. Only revisited it when we saw WARPLANE as a possibility, which unlocked HAND and PUTRID. MERs like others and additionally mushroom / spread, the former implying, to me, something more exponential than mere spreading. Congratulations to those who completed this in an average sort of time. Thanks all.
I don’t often comment, but wanted to say l enjoyed this struggle enormously. many cods which made me laugh, greens, Peter pan, nob all, and I’m afraid to say, drag.
enjoyed the blog too, but thanks to Wurm.
DNF (my 3rd in a row)! This time with 50 minutes on the clock and six clues unsolved – WARPLANE (despite getting as far as _A_PLANE), TURNPIKE, DRAG, SPREAD, NO BALL and WEBCAM. What a week!
How did Wurm so completely misjudged his clues? Did he sub-contract his task to someone else? How did it get past the editing filter? I don’t suppose we’ll ever know.
Many thanks to Templar for the blog.
I found this absolutely atrocious. I solved precisely 11 clues over a very long time before pressing “reveal” repeatedly. Much too hard for a QC IMNVHO.
(One of the few I did get was DRAG — but only because I parsed it as “there’s a lot of drag on TV these days”, doh…)
This wasn’t much fun. DNF in the SE but should have got No Ball from ‘extra’ if nothing else. My main sympathies and admiration go to Templar for completing the blog… I guess he didn’t have much option but with such a stinker, plus the tech issues, I think he deserves a stiff drink!
Well, four days this week so far, a no-fail, a half-fail, a two-fail, and today a three-fail. Like most of us, found this hard work. Tried but couldn’t remember Blimp, ignored Extra (cricket) never thought of Nob and gave up, and capture insect in a web what about butterfly net … ah, spider web. No complaints but this was QC A** level, I think.
Another nightmare. 40 min DNF.
Put PROG for DRAG and couldn’t get WEBCAM or NO BALL.
I am totally useless. I’m not posting tomorrow as I’m sick of the humiliation.
Over 2 hours so far this week and 2 DNFs. Feel free to have a good laugh at how bad I am.
3/5 of 15 x 15 complete. More misery.
Don’t reply. I’m not reading any comments today as there’s really no point. I can’t do these puzzles and never will.
12:12 which is slow for me on the QC but this seemed more like a Monday 15×15 at times with some tricky literals and some tougher than usual wordplay (do we often see anagrams within other words in the QC?). Was a good puzzle though with COD DRAG but many other ones could be noted.
DRIP I solved by taking the first letters and I was going to grumble about the lack of an indicator. Glad I gave the blog a read before commenting.
Cheers blogger and setter.
DNF. Failed on WEBCAM, WARPLANE, and HAND( for some reason I preferred HELP).
26:57 here, with a major “what, really?” reaction to TV. Very surprised that was published.
Thanks to Templar and Wurm.
Much too hard for me despite getting drag instantly, as I can remember a similar clue on Cracking the Cryptic where TV meant transvestite.
Also DNG and grumpy.
Funny Friday; I completed the SF sudoku in 11 minutes and a bit, but am stuck on the fiendish 😟
Also DNF and grumpy.
Funny Friday; I completed the SF sudoku in 11 minutes and a bit, but am stuck on the fiendish 😟