Good morning, and today we have a puzzle by Alex that I found quite challenging in places, with some of the long anagrams especially needing careful thought. But it was the short 4-letter clues at 5A and 19D that held me up the most and get my joint CODs.
All done in 13:38 in the end though, and much enjoyed on reflection. Thank you Alex! How did everyone else get on?
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (abc)* indicates an anagram of abc, ~ marks insertion points and strike-through-text shows deletions.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Cure song about bum (8) |
| SCROUNGE – (cure song)*, with the anagram indicator being “about”.
And I got off to a less than auspicious start here, misreading “bum” as “burn” and trying (and of course failing) to find an anagram meaning something like scorch. |
|
| 5 | Insect that flies in October perhaps, but not November (4) |
| MOTH – MONTH (ie October perhaps, a definition by example), with the N deleted (“not November”).
I suspect better solvers than me will say that this is a fairly straightforward clue and solve it without any trouble, but I needed both checkers to get this and it was a nice PDM when I saw the answer. Add the very smooth surface and the clue is one of my two CODs. |
|
| 9 | Wine waiter’s last out of bed (5) |
| ASTIR – ASTI (an Italian wine) + R (waiteR‘s last, ie last letter).
I read this clue all the wrong way at first and was looking for a wine constructed by taking R out of a 6-letter word for a bed. |
|
| 10 | Terrace paver and artisan partially construct (7) |
| VERANDA – A hidden, in paVER AND Artisan, with the hidden indicator being “partially”, and the word construct at the end mainly I think to provide a more meaningful surface.
Terrace is a standard synonym for Veranda in all the reference books, and I am fairly sure this is what Alex has in mind, though for me, the essence of a veranda is that it is (a) attached to the side of a house and (b) covered, neither of which are implied by the word terrace. |
|
| 11 | Arrest convoy breaking up extension? (12) |
| CONSERVATORY – (arrest convoy)*, with the anagram indicator being “breaking up”. | |
| 13 | Update electrical fittings in vacant residence with great resentment (6) |
| REWIRE – RE (vacant ResidencE, ie the first and last letters) + W (with) + IRE (great resentment).
This resonated greatly with me, as some time ago I had to have my house completely rewired (the wiring was circa 1950s and failing frequently). It firstly caused considerable inconvenience (in retrospect I should have simply vacated the residence and gone to live somewhere else while it was being done), and secondly made a huge mess (a complete redecoration was required once the rewiring was done, to my great resentment). Though in passing, a slight MER at the definition, as is not Ire more anger than resentment? To me, Ire is hot and of the moment, whereas Resentment is colder and builds over an extended period of time. |
|
| 15 | Postpone start having event looking very edgy to start with (6) |
| SHELVE – Formed from the first letters of Start Having Event Looking Very Edgy, given by “to start with”.
A slightly odd clue, with the word “start” repeated in it, which led me briefly to think that the first start was the wordplay and the words I was taking the first letters from started with Having. |
|
| 17 | Roam splendid, meandering paradise (8,4) |
| PROMISED LAND – (roam splendid)*, with the anagram indicator being “meandering”. | |
| 20 | Agent allowed drug is satiated (7) |
| REPLETE – REP (agent) + LET (allowed) + E (drug).
E as a drug is a standard piece of Crosswordlandese, being the common abbreviation for Ecstasy, which in turn is the lay or street name of the synthetic drug known formally as 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine. One can see why the formal scientific name is not widely used! |
|
| 21 | Auction includes black fur (5) |
| SABLE – SA~LE (auction) including B (black). | |
| 22 | Detective inspector tips off right gossip (4) |
| DIRT – DI (detective inspector) + RT (tips off, ie first and last letters of, RighT).
I was momentarily confused here by “tips off”, as I though that meant take the tips of and discard them, leaving me with IGH. Which naturally I could make nothing of. |
|
| 23 | Operator eating head of tuna fish (8) |
| STURGEON – S~URGEON (operator) with T (head of Tuna) inserted. Surgeon here as one who operates in a medical operating theatre. | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Secure marine mammal (4) |
| SEAL – A DD, the only straightforward one in today’s puzzle, though 19D below is also a form of DD. | |
| 2 | Proportion in calibrations (5) |
| RATIO – A hidden, in calibRATIOns, the hidden indicator being the simple “in”. | |
| 3 | Immoderate disturbance before spat? (12) |
| UNRESTRAINED – UNREST (disturbance) + RAINED (spat).
This took me some time, as Spat and Rained did not immediately come to mind as synonyms, and I went down various rabbit-holes of Spat as small fight. But one can talk of light rain as “it’s spitting”, so presumably after the light rain has stopped, one can say “it spat”. |
|
| 4 | Run first part of game past head of network (6) |
| GOVERN – G (first part of, ie first letter of, Game) + OVER (past) + N (head of, ie first letter of, Network). | |
| 6 | Member of parliament admitting northern Indian state’s self-inflicted damage (3,4) |
| OWN GOAL – OW~L (member of parliament) with N (northern) + GOA (an Indian state) inserted, given by “admitting”.
We need to lift-and-separate northern from Indian state here, as Goa, India’s 28th state (and smallest by area), is actually in the south west of the country. It was a Portuguese colony from the early 16th century and was retained by Portugal when India achieved independence in 1947, much to Delhi’s dismay. Years of negotiation followed with no resolution, until India took matters into their own hands and invaded in 1961, forcibly throwing the Portuguese out and incorporating the territory into India. The state retains many Portuguese colonial buildings and habits, including cheap and plentiful wine, which along with its beaches form the basis of its thriving tourist industry today. |
|
| 7 | Large and solid vase they destroyed (5-3) |
| HEAVY-SET – (vase they)*, with the anagram indicator being “destroyed”. | |
| 8 | Unruly early bathers get test for alcohol (12) |
| BREATHALYSER – (early bathers)*, with the anagram indicator being “unruly”.
You would need to be of a certain age (at least 60) and with an interest in Rugby League to make the connection, but for me this brought back memories of Eddie Waring, a much-loved (and much-mimicked) BBC Rugby League commentator in the 1970s whose best known catchphrases included “he’s going for an early bath” for someone sent off. And that’s bath as in hath, not as in hearth. |
|
| 12 | Willing public relations executive initially cut (8) |
| PREPARED – PR (public relations) + E (Executive initially, ie first letter of) + PARED (cut). Or alternatively, the indicator “initially” could be applied to all of Public Relations Executive.
Prepared here as in “I’m prepared/willing to do this”. |
|
| 14 | Fabrication of top of woollen jumper (7) |
| WHOPPER – W (top of, ie first letter of, Woollen) + HOPPER (jumper). Whopper as in lie, falsehood here, not as in huge. | |
| 16 | Deprived fellow in French cap (6) |
| BEREFT – BERE~T (French cap) with F (abbreviation for fellow) inserted, the insertion indicator being “in”.
I think F as an abbreviation for Fellow is common enough to not need any further indication that one is taking the first letter of the word – for example FRGS for Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and similar for other learned bodies. |
|
| 18 | Illustrious new medal worn by learner (5) |
| NOBLE – N (new) + OB~E (medal) around L (learner), the surrounding indicator being “worn by”. | |
| 19 | Vessel’s instrument indicating wind direction on radio (4) |
| VEIN – A sort of DD, with the first definition being a slightly unusual way of referring to a vein in one’s body and the second being a homophone (indicated by “on radio”), as VEIN sounds like (weather) VANE.
For a 4-letter clue this took me a very long time, as I could not see how the wordplay worked at all. A real PDM when I got the answer and a second when I (subsequently) worked out the parsing, and for that double “D’oh” it is my joint COD. |
|
Well, definitely not an easy quickie today, as our blogger says. I share his comments re ‘ire’ in REWIRE. I needed checkers to see SCROUNGE, particularly the ‘s’ from SEAL, and agree it’s sometimes hard to distinguish ‘rm’ from ‘m’, in fact, I used my loupe to confirm. VEIN should have been a write-in but was looking for the wrong sort of vessel. Bifd OWN GOAL and didn’t spot the collective noun at the time. DIRT was another taking more time than it should. PREPARED another that had me thinking as I assumed that ‘pr’ was, well, just PR and that I needed an executive minus the first letter. Managed to finish eventually without aids.
Cedric, absolutely brilliant description of your home being rewired and managing to include all of the clue’s phrases within, ‘great resentment’ and ‘vacated the residence’. I wonder if the setter had also had his residence rewired and suffered the same experience!
Thanks to both.
I do enjoy solving the more difficult Quickies, where I really have to think about the clues. This was one of those, and while moth and vane were indeed write-ins for me, I struggled with clues like promised land, bereft, sturgeon, and unrestrained. These clues were not really that hard. I did have to count the vowels for breathalyser in order to get the correct spelling.
Time: 15:26
12 minutes. No problems but a little time was lost double-checking the spelling of BREATHALYSER and registering half a MER each on ‘spat/RAINED’ and ‘great resentment/IRE’ before deciding that on balance they were both okay.
interesting addition of the90 Jack🤔
How very odd! Corrected now, anyway.
At first I couldn’t do this at all and then I just wrote them in one after the other. Either it was a lot easier in the bottom half or I needed to wake up!
SEAL and SCROUNGE were a decent start but then I hit the buffers, unable to see MOTH, UNRESTRAINED, GOVERN, WHOPPER or PREPARED. Six minutes deep the grid was very empty. Then STURGEON was a gimme and suddenly they all fell in from the bottom up.
Finished in 10:26 for a Rewarding Day. I thought that was a terrific puzzle and enjoyed it very much. Many thanks Alex and Cedric.
That took a while, and I kicked myself when STURGEON finally hove into view.
@Cedric – Wonderful blog as ever. I think (blood) vessel for VEIN is fairly standard usage.
Pi ❤️
Entertaining but tricky and it wasn’t a good day to misplace my anagram hat.
Like our blogger, I wasn’t sure whether the definition in 1a was bum or burn so, with a couple of checkers in place, I just tried anagraming the fodder until a likely word appeared.
Pipped to the post by Templar this morning as I finished with BEREFT in 10.29
Thanks to Cedric and Alex
All bar two in 45 minutes. NHO astir but once the R was revealed (I had asti) unrestrained was a write in with all the crossers. Close but no cigar.
With 19d I went with VE from vessel and IN from instrument having got the E and the N from crossers.
Thanks C and A
17.30 Joining those who had a slow start – many minutes and the grid remained sparse indeed, then off we went (albeit slowly) before grinding to a halt, taking a good two minutes to wind up the last couple (ASTIR, UNRESTRAINED).
Delightful, as always, blog from Mr C S. Share the MER re ‘IRE’, though cannot quite imagine ‘spat’ for a post rain comment – ‘was spitting earlier’ sits more comfortably.
COD for us was OWN GOAL. Loved it.
Great QC. Thank you Alex – and of course, Cedric S.
Enjoyable. To me an example of why having many individual setters provides constant refreshment – definitely some slightly different thought processes going on here ! All seemed fair – only slight “ meh” over terrace for veranda – not the same in my book. MOTH was a neat twist, which pleasingly didn’t trip me at all. Enjoyed WHOPPER
Thanks to both.
Tough but an interesting challenge with some clever clues. LOI were RESTRAINED and WHOPPER. I liked BEREFT and STURGEON.
At least I avoided the SCC – 19.40
Thanks to both.
Seemed to be on the setter’s wavelength with all except two finished in 20 minutes but it took another 7 to work out UNRESTRAINED and LOI SCROUNGE – the 3 consonants at the start made it harder to guess.
The only one I could not parse was OWN GOAL and had to stare at Cedric’s explanation before the penny finally dropped. Great clue.
Thanks to Alex for a very enjoyable puzzle and Cedric for the usual first class blog.
Also initially misread burn for bum and tried to work scorch into the answer. Annoyed with myself as could not see VEIN, but otherwise no problems with many very satisfying solves. Thanks Cedric for entertaining blog.
Well, after consecutive SCC sejourns it’s a 12:05 this morning. Troubled only by govern and scrounge, which reminds me somewhat of the challenges faced by those in NHS senior leadership roles…
Ta CAA
Burns or bums?
Easy to discern with this font.
rns and ms is a regular misread. Times should amend display.
Why is OWL a member of parliament
I believe Parliament is the collective noun for owls.🙂
It refers to the collective name for a group of owls, which is “a parliament of owls”. So – in Crosswordland at least – one member of the said parliament is an owl.
Thank you … that puzzled me too. What’s the answer?
@cedric ‘E’ is often called ‘Mandy’ a derivation of the often used abbreviation MDMA
I had no idea – but then I lead a sheltered life. It is a not inappropriate name for something that has the potential to ruin anyone coming into contact with it.
Try telling that to my ex-wife, Mandy.
PS I am left wondering whether you have ever drunk alcohol, Cedric. What are your thoughts on ‘Stella’, ‘Margarita’ and ‘Jack’, I wonder?
Perhaps the most enjoyable QC of the week for me, though I found it to be tricky in places.
I don’ have an accurate time for this one as I closed the puzzle down thinking it would remember where I was and my timing. It didn’t. It usually does. So my timing is an approximation.
My last answer was 3d. It took me so long to get this one even with all the checkers in.
First Lap: 7
Answered (no help): 23
Answered (help): 1
Time: 30 minutes approximately.
27 mins…
After a couple of days of being away and having to rush, it’s a good job I had some time to think this morning. Another toughie I thought. Still not sure about “scrounge” = “bum” (I’m guessing they’re in the context of a verb). Lots of big anagrams and great potential to misspell something.
FOI – 1dn “Seal”
LOI – 3dn “Unrestrained”
COD – 5ac “Moth”
Thanks as usual!
‘Can I bum a cigarette off you,’ people used to say.
Yep – I do remember that as a saying, now that you mention it. Although, as someone who didn’t smoke, I was rarely asked.
Slow to get started and needed a hint or two to finish. LOI PDM VEIN. Also slow on CONSERVATORY. Needed CCD for STURGEON (good clue) and BEREFT.
I saw the hidden VERANDA early on but agree they are quite different from terraces. I think of Verandas in the wooden colonial style but nowadays it seems they can be metal and glass canopies.
Liked MOTH, SEAL, SCROUNGE, and WHOPPER, among others.
Thanks vm, Cedric. Great blog.
I made a total mess of this but I enjoyed Cedric’s fond recollection of the great Eddie Waring. Happy days. 😊
Yes,indeed. Happy memories of the much missed Eddie.
His other famous quote was ‘The poor poor lad’ when Don Fox missed a crucial kick in front of the posts for Wakefield Trinity in the Rugby League Cup Final.
Thanks Cedric for an entertaining blog, particularly the info re Goa, which I didn’t know.
👍
Also immortalised in the chorus line “Tell Eddie Waring, there ain’t no salvation” in the number 1 smash hit Chain Reaction, sung by Diana Ross but cheekily written by the Bee Gees, who were huge League fans.
Nice from Alex – I was on wavelength and finished all green in 8:24 . Thanks for blog Cedric. Have a good weekend all – sun is shining in SE London and lawn already mowed.
A marathon 36:44 to finish a very challenging puzzle. I was another to misread BURN for BUM, hence taking ages to finally see SCROUNGE. Stuggled with several and needed the odd alphabet trawl to see the light. LOI VEIN. Phew.
Quite difficult but a pleasent chug through. I don’t think willing and prepared are very close in meaning, you can be 100% one and 0% the other either way round. Close enough for crosswordland though. Thanks Alex and Cedric.
“I am willing/prepared to tidy my bedroom if …”
Said no teenager ever …
My point entirely, I am sure WW1 troops were well prepared to “go over the top”, and did so because the alternative was to be shot by your own side, I very much doubt if they were willing. On the other hand I am completely willing to stroll down to my local for a pint, even if I am completely un-prepared. The two can co-incide in a bribed teenager, but dont have to at all.
I think you are confusing two different meanings of prepared.
Chambers:
prepared adj 1 (usually be prepared to do something) said of a person: to be willing and able • I’m not prepared to lend any more. 2 (usually prepared for something) expecting it or ready for it • We were prepared for the worst.
Collins:
prepared
1. adjective B2
If you are prepared to do something, you are willing to do it if necessary.
All done in 6.51 – that is a whole ten minutes less than yesterday. The SNITCHES for the two puzzles are 138 and 134, but I think there is no comparison between their true difficulties, yesterday’s being far harder with various NHOs and complex clues. None such today.
The only clues which caused any major hold up here were WHOPPER (POI) and BEREFT (LOI).
COD to BREATHALYSER. Terrific puzzle all round.
22:45
Better than yesterday’s 30-something. Started with the acrosses, after about 5 or so passes, went back and started with the downs and immediately got FOI SEAL and was off. Fell into the same traps as others (trying to find a wine for 9A, misread bum as burn for 1A etc) but made steady progress until the SW corner slowed me right down. LOI DIRT as had been playing with dish (as in dish the gossip) then 14D went in and all done. I won’t make the same joke as early this week with COD being STURGEON (doesn’t quite work and is not true) as 5A MOTH was very clever.
Thanks Alex and Cedric.
13:58. I found this much easier than yesterday’s, and only needed to think a little bit about VEIN. Still, a whole week without a time under 10 minutes is not a fantastic performance from me, and I hope to be a bit in the groove next week. Stats for my week:
Monday: 18:27
Tuesday: 18:06
Wednesday: 17:36
Thursday: 25:35
Friday: DNF (all bar one in 31:00)
Saturday: 13:58
Thanks Teazel and Cedric.
Thought I’d finished in 23 mins, but only on reading the blog realised I didn’t go back to 19d, so a dnf. Rats. Liked the owl variant, spent too long looking for a synomym for director that ended “epared”.
FOI moth
LOI Dnf
COD Whopper
Thanks Alex and Cederic
28:21 and a comedy of errors today. You name it, I did it wrong. Probably 5 or 10 minutes were spent in the northwest corner before I realized I had somehow changed SEAL to SESL. After fixing that I still had the wrong end of the clue for ASTIR for a while. CONSERVATORY for “extension” made no sense whatever to me. I guess a small greenhouse attached to a house might be a “conservatory” (to me this is a large ish detached building), and such an addition (in my dialect) might an “extension” of the house. Or so I reasoned, ultimately. Was I supposed to know F for “fellow”? And so on. And on.
On the other hand I loved the way SCROUNGE rearranged itself from the unpromising-looking “cure song”, and the unruly early bathers were great.
Thanks to Alex for the workout and to Cedric for the chatty blogging.
Yes, people do have an extension to their house in the form of a conservatory – an upmarket greenhouse you can sit in. Imo, they are often too hot or too cold. Also you need to be a good gardener!
13.44 Mostly very quick until the last three. When I finally got SCROUNGE, GOVERN and UNRESTRAINED went straight in. I enjoyed the puzzle but the font in the crossword club annoyed me for the second time in three days. Thanks Cedric and Alex.
I too was among those who misread bum for burn. Once I’d figured out the anagram, I googled ‘scrounge burn’ and AI overview told me “A friction burn (or scrounge burn/rug burn) is a superficial skin abrasion”. That satisfied me until I read the correct parsing here. I then asked Google if a friction burn was also known as a scrounge burn and got the answer: “A friction burn is not formally or commonly known as a scrounge burn”, with no suggestion that it might be a little-known variant. Just goes to show you can’t always trust AI.
I am in one sense relieved that I was not alone in misreading bum as burn. But the fact that so many others have as well suggests a real problem. One perhaps our crossword editor Jason and puzzles editor Mick might wish to think about? I’m sure not much can be done with the font in the printed paper, but the font online and in the app might be more open to change?
Agree with that. Also to be considered by this site as your opening sentence has the same issue!
18:52 for me, enjoyed it a lot. COD to STURGEON: “oh, that sort of operator!”
Thanks to Alex and Cedric.
14:33 for the solve. Bit of a struggle over on the LHS where I couldn’t unravel SCROUNGE and placeholder it with a potential C for “clam” rather than SEAL. The intricacies of PREPARED and REWIRE both passed me by insolve but knew they were correct.
Having also done the Cryptic Quintagram this morning, I continue to believe that is set by the same person as the QC. What I note is that for both puzzles it was easy to know what was expected, the challenge was whether you could find the right synonym, unravel the anagram or whatever.
Noting today’s time is my 2nd 14:33 of the week and I also had a 11:33. This reminds me I need to go do what I am going to call the “Second Hand challenge”. How many QCs will I have to complete to tick off all sixty seconds. It’s a bit like the Panini sticker albums of my youth, easy to get loads of the free slots early and then hard to find the last few. Unfortunately no swapsies available and I won’t be gaming the clock.
Thanks to Cedric for an excellent blog (as always) and Alex for a good but challenging QC.
This is an absolutely classic problem in statistics, often known as the Coupon Collector’s problem. See here: https://medium.com/data-science/coupon-collectors-problem-a-probability-masterpiece-1d5aed4af439.
The rather surprising answer is that you need about 281 goes on average (provided you don’t have DNFs) to get every second from 00 to 59. That is less than a year’s worth of QCs at 6 a week.
Thanks Cedric I knew there would be a proper name for it.
FWIW my current QC stats are that I’ve ticked off 42 of 60 timeslots from 80 completions. Which seems so tantalising close already but as you know it’s going to slow.
Thank you Cedric for the link.
I skim read and realised that I’d forgotten all the stats I learned from two Maths A levels and a Physics degree. But fascinating – proving that apparently simple problems may have far from simple solutions!
Those who have opened 300 boxes of cereal and are still short 2 or 3 coupons will probably just buy them on eBay!
This is how statistics work in the real world.
Cedric, Many thanks for this link. I’d no idea of the complexities that a harmless QC can introduce you to. In my teenage youth, Heinz ran a “57” advertising campaign on the London Underground, with a different one of their varieties displayed in each carriage. On our journeys to and from school, we jumped out at each station to run to the next carriage to try to collect all 57 ads. It certainly enlivened the daily commute.
I found this much trickier than yesterday…and not so much fun either
FOI 13a Rewire
LOI 23a Sturgeon – not helped by having Nobel for 18d!
COD 6d Own Goal
22:07
Struggled with last few, especially WHOPPER and LOI DIRT.
This week has been a bit of a grim slog but I least I managed to finish this one, even if I needed 19:43 to do it. For once I’m looking forward to a day off tomorrow, but I will enjoy tackling Sawbill’s weekend entertainment instead.
Thank you for the blog!
15:00
Miles off the pace with this challenge, and solving a day late – too much noise at home maybe? Comforted slightly by the Quitch of 132 but still, took a while to see answers that might be gimmes on another day. Crossed the line in the end, but perhaps one to forget.
Thanks Cedric for the always-entertaining blog, and to Alex for the puzzle
DNF. Tackled a day late and I wish I’d never started. I gave up after 72 minutes – a ridiculously long time for a QC, even for me – with just 19d (_E_N) to solve. My repeated alphabet trawls unearthed a total of 15 words to fit the space but, unfortunately, VEIN was conspicuous by its absence.
Why do some setters find tailoring their clueing to suit their target customer so difficult when others have no problems at all in doing so? Or do they have widely differing views on who their target customer is?
Many thanks to Cedric for the blog.
22:11