Hi everyone. A few hold-outs (the 11s and LOI 18a) prevented this from being a super-quick one, but I was still pretty zippy by my standards. Whether your solve progressed along similar lines may depend on how you like anagrams: there are only a couple here. I’m this* at anagrams so they tend to slow me down, but if you found yourself inexplicably struggling today that might be the explication.
14a and 20a inspired the message in the blog title. I’m not the kind of kitty who catches birds or anything else. I’m more likely to be buttering up the 22a cook in hope of a coffee or prowling the 7d passage in hope of something stronger. I was impressed by some great surfaces here, very neatly constructed. A big 1a and thanks to Joker!
Definitions are underlined in the clues below. In the explanations, most quoted indicators are in italics, specified [deletions] are in square brackets, and I’ve capitalised and emboldened letters which appear in the ANSWER. For clarity, I omit most link words and some juxtaposition indicators.
| Across | |
| 1a | Round of applause for worker (4) |
| HAND — Two definitions | |
| 4a | Very great deprivation when cutting fuel (8) |
| COLOSSAL — LOSS (deprivation) when going into (cutting) COAL (fuel) | |
| 8a | Tons following great British author, one married twice (8) |
| BIGAMIST — T (tons) after (following) BIG (great) and AMIS (British author – either Martin or Kingsley will do) | |
| 9a | No more than fair (4) |
| JUST — Double definition | |
| 10a | Copy after gent’s beginning to yawn (4) |
| GAPE — APE (copy) after Gent’s first letter (beginning) | |
| 11a | Make merry getting fifty on merry-go-round (8) |
| CAROUSEL — CAROUSE (make merry) with the addition of L (fifty) (getting fifty on) | |
| 12a | Distressed brides scattered remains (6) |
| DEBRIS — An anagram of (distressed) BRIDES | |
| 14a | Bird left in trap (6) |
| LINNET — L (left) + IN + NET (trap) | |
| 16a | Limit a conurbation’s ability to house people? (8) |
| CAPACITY — CAP (limit) + A + CITY (conurbation) | |
| 18a | Mountain, say, separated from sierra (4) |
| PEAK — [s]PEAK (say) without (separated from) S (sierra) | |
| 19a | What’s reported to be total dump (4) |
| HOLE — This sounds like (what’s reported to be) WHOLE (total) | |
| 20a | One killing animal — a small offence (8) |
| ASSASSIN — ASS (animal) + A + S (small) + SIN (offence) | |
| 22a | Buttering up cook carrying coffee (8) |
| FLATTERY — FRY (cook) holding (carrying) LATTE (coffee) | |
| 23a | Army vehicle’s to fail completely (4) |
| TANK — Two definitions, the second slang | |
| Down | |
| 2d | Give inspiration to a friend from Belfast region? (7) |
| ANIMATE — A NI (Northern Ireland) MATE (a friend from Belfast region?) | |
| 3d | Duck duties requiring a keen enthusiasm to begin with (5) |
| DRAKE — Initial letters of (… to begin with) Duties Requiring A Keen Enthusiasm | |
| 4d | Charlie greeting a character from Athens (3) |
| CHI — C (Charlie) + HI (greeting) | |
| 5d | Capacity for Americans to join together precisely (9) |
| LITERALLY — LITER (capacity for Americans) + ALLY (to join together) | |
| 6d | Temporary stay during Thurso journey (7) |
| SOJOURN — The answer is found in (during) ThurSO JOURNey | |
| 7d | Is ale brewed in passage? (5) |
| AISLE — IS ALE anagrammed (brewed) | |
| 11d | Character I confine to college as reprimand (9) |
| CASTIGATE — CAST (character) + I + GATE (confine to college) | |
| 13d | Chemical substance is concerning spy (7) |
| REAGENT — RE (concerning) + AGENT (spy) | |
| 15d | Number one story lifting high spirits (7) |
| ELATION — NO (number) I (one) TALE (story) all reversed (lifting) | |
| 17d | A fee for passing island (5) |
| ATOLL — A + TOLL (fee for passing) | |
| 18d | Put forward idea initially in correspondence (5) |
| POSIT — The first letter of (… initially) Idea in POST (correspondence) | |
| 21d | Retiring in quiet year (3) |
| SHY — SH (quiet) + Y (year) | |
Seven on the first pass of acrosses and then good work on the downs left not too much mopping up. Ended up with a COLOSSAL (well hidden definition), LITERALLY and LINNET to finish. All green in 12.13 for good start to the crosswording week. Needed Kitty to explain the two anagram indicators for DEBRIS – shouldn’t have separated ‘scattered’ from ‘remains’ – thanks!
A bad start to the week caused by a fat-fingered “sojuurn”. For the record I cleared this up in 3:38, about 20 seconds of which was occasioned by lingering over the parsing of LOI PEAK. COD FLATTERY. Thanks Joker and Kitty.
eek found that v tricky, for some reason Monday often seems much harder than tues/weds. A DNF with lots missing – CASTIGATE, LITERALLY, BIGAMIST… just a few of those left behind.
Thanks for the blog
A speedy start but a slow struggle at the end with eg PEAK, COLOSSAL,LITERALLY and CAPACITY. I’ve seen CAP A CITY before but only remembered it afterwards. I liked BIGAMIST. Time 13:20
Fairly gentle for me until left with LINNET, COD (for the PDM) LITERALLY and COLOSSAL which all required a bit of thought.
Finished in 6.47.
Thanks to Joker for the enjoyable start to the week and Kitty for the blog.
10 minutes. I’m probably being dim (it’s still early) but I can’t see how character = CAST at 11 dn.
That gave us a MER too
Yes. A bit odd. Can you say “the cast of a man” to mean his character? The clue doesn’t work if you think of the cast of characters in a play
The ODE defines cast as, among other things, “the character of something”, as in “a philosophical cast of mind”.
6.37, a lot of fun, top half went in quickly but more puzzling required beneath the equator. Thanks Joker and Kitty. So THAT’S what was happening with PEAK!
Ooh we were nicely on the Joker wavelength today, finishing well under target at 18.14. As is often the case with such clever clueing, our time would have been less but for taking to time to savour several of the really good ones. COD among many goes to flattery but honourable mentions to animate and drake.
Gate was NHO for me as confine to college but gave Mrs RH the opportunity to point out my lack of reading the right books😀
Thanks Kitty for the blog and the obvious parsing of capacity, we were hung up trying to get something meaning people inside city.
Thanks Joker, always a pleasure.
I was missing multiple parts of the clue for CASTIGATE and nho of any of the British authors unfortunately
I gave up in the end, leaving LITERALLY and CAPACITY though they did look quite doable on reflection. COLOSSAL was tricky without checkers
Although I finished this in a reasonable time I BIFD CASTIGATE not seeing the parsing also CAPACITY as I couldn’t see past ‘Limit’ as the definition.
No problems with the rest.
I found this quite hard, taking 14:13. I see others were much faster, so maybe I’m having a bad day 😉
Just snuck in under the four minutes for an enjoyable solve. Liked DEBRIS for the multiple potential anagram indicators.
Thanks Joker, and thanks Kitty for the excellent blog. Had a nice chuckle at your anagram comment.
Thanks Kitty for parsing PEAK. Slightly surprised to see CAPACITY in both clue and answer. Enjoyable start to the week.
Yes tricky today almost gave up on liter ally and cast 1 gate where the synonyms were imho a bit too obscure 30 min
Thanks Kitty for the blog and Joker for some excellent surfaces.
12 minutes for a nice puzzle to start the week. Took a moment to see how the wordplay for LITERALLY worked (doesn’t America anyway use gallons not litres/liters, however spelt?), and the same slight query over cast for character as others. PEAK was my LOI, but largely because I left off tackling it to the end in the hope that inspiration would strike – which it did, in the process garnering my COD for the clever wordplay and surface.
Many thanks Kitty for the blog.
Cedric
I quite agree, not even proper gallons… If it had been Canadians, that would have worked, they use liters and kilometers.
A slow start, then speeded up for a sub-ten minute finish. L2I were SOJOURN (I was stuck on the fact that a Lands End to John O Groats journey will probably involve Thurso, so took a while to spot the obvious hidden) , and JUST.
Thanks Kitty and Joker
All went well until the last 10 minutes on the COLOSSAL LITERALLY crossover. Finally biffed both then parsed for a 40m finish. Must remember ‘cutting’ as an insertion word rather than just removing a word or letter.
Very nice QC and blog.
10:15
Would have been sub 10 but spent time trying to parse CASTIGATE as not sure about which vowel went in that middle spot. Had forgotten about GATE for “confine to college”, only ever heard about in Billy Bunter, along with “construe”, “the Remove” and “Yaroo!”.
Not too much else caused much trouble.
COD AISLE
A very well crafted puzzle from The Joker as usual, and I was pleased to finish this under target at 8.32. Like Jackkt puzzled over CAST for Character, but the answer couldn’t be anything else. Started on the down clues rather than my more usual across/down order, and I think this paid dividends.
9:00
Held up by castigate, I thought of the word but couldn’t parse not knowing cast = character and gate = confine to college.
COD Debris for the dark surface.
All was going well until my last four which took some time to unravel. LOsI were CAPACITY, LITERALLY, CAROUSEL and then an unparsed CASTIGATE. COD to LINNET 8:09
Oh, I’ve just seen the snitch for Friday’s QC. I’m now rather glad I was in a field at a yoga festival with no signal. Something to look forward to later!
Completed. Only just, and with help from Pumpa.
Have to say I really do not enjoy Joker QCs and today was no exception. His QCs rarely entertain me or motivate me to continue.
26:17
My verdict: 🤡👎
Pumpa’s verdict: 🐱
Yes. Where are the jokes?
Tried and tried but gave up on five. CAPACITY just too difficult; HOLE required just that particular PDM; thought the army vehicle likely to be TANK but NHO that = fail (my Collins says “to defeat heavily”, not quite the same thing), and decided it couldn’t be due to ‘s after vehicle – what’s that doing there?
Downs: got CASTIGATE but don’t see how [one] character can be equated with CAST.
But no excuses (except discouragement) for failing ATOLL and POSIT.
5.46
Back in the saddle after some time off the grid and nice to return to the familiarity of doing these things
No great problems here but liked the puzzle and blog
Welcome back!
Not a bad start to the week for me, must be improving! LOI ELATION, COD COLOSSAL. All finished on just the one cup of coffee…. I prefer to measure my completions thus way rather than by clock watching. Eliot may have used coffee spoons, cups are more my style.
Cups are better, more cupacious!
Oh dear, I spent a few minutes worrying about the parsing of what I thought was LOI PEAK and forgot I’d left out 10a GAPE. Must use a darker pencil.
Otherwise plenty of biffs today.
FOI LINNET then everything gradually fell into place , but unparsed or not parsed properly, eg CASTIGATE, LITERALLY, BIGAMIST.
Liked many inc CAPACITY, ASSASSIN, SHY, COLOSSAL.
Thanks vm, Kitty.
I have no idea what goes on in my brain (other than not much) when it comes to four letter answers. They are either dispatched pretty quickly: Hand, Just, Gape, Tank, or induce almost total word blindness. Peak 🙄 and Hole🙄🙄 gnawed away throughout today’s solve and were still stubbornly loitering out of sight with everything else in place. Sub-20 completely up the spout, and in fact I was quite lucky to grab one of the last few seats at the back. CoD to 11d, Castigate, for the novel use of character. Invariant
Failed to parse the (s)Peak, so thanks to Kitty as well as Joker. I was wondering how P(eak) was next to S(ierra), what happened to Q & R … oh dear!
A rare visit to sub 5 territory for me. From HAND to LINNET in 4:50. Thanks Joker and Kitty.
8 minutes. This went in without too much difficulty though I admit to having biffed BIGAMIST and entering CAST for ‘Character’ with a shrug. Talking of 11d, there’s another term from the boarding school lexicon in the 15×15 today. COD today for the clever PEAK.
Thanks to Kitty for the usual entertaining blog and to Joker
I usually struggle with Joker puzzles, but this one was OK. Experienced solvers will have seen the clues for colossal, assassin, and flattery before, although carousel seems to be new. I was a bit surprised to see capacity as part of another clue (5d), when it could have easily been avoided.
Time: 6:32
13 min utes all parsed. That counts as a fine start to the week for the first time for several weeks. I initially struggled with the acrosses but the downs came to my rescue and allowed me to polish off the stragglers in short order.
FOI – 1ac HAND
LOI – 5dn LITERALLY
COD – 22ac FLATTERY
Thanks to Joker and to Kitty
10.39 This was quite chewy in parts but I didn’t get properly stuck anywhere. HOLE was LOI. Thanks Kitty and Joker.
I always enjoy Joker – tough but fair.
I’m this* at anagrams too Kitty 🤣
Brain not quite at the races today.
7:07
“Not quite at the races …” for that time? Reminds me of the Formula 1 pitstop mechanic who observed that he was “all fingers and thumbs today, took me 3 seconds to change that wheel”.
😀
I know it seems quick, but my WITCH score is the 13th worst today at 136. Given my average time and the puzzle difficulty, I “should” have been in the mid 5’s to hit par. I blame the delicious riesling I was drinking last night.
Relatively straightforward -I always like Joker, hat to biff LITERALLY, and leave it up to Kitty to parse
I thought I would be in under the 4 minute mark, but about 15 seconds on LOI HOLE put me at four minutes exactly. Just couldn’t see it for some reason.
COD for BIGAMIST.
Good surfaces, enjoyable puzzle, many thanks to Kitty and Joker.
Held up by parsing of CASTIGATE (couldn’t), and PDMs for COLOSSAL and CAPACITY. COD to PEAK as I found it a challenge to sort out. Thanks kitty.
I found the top half to be fairly straightforward, but the lower half to be more testing. However, gradually it all came together in the end. A good challenge, well pitched, I thought – unlike last week’s final 2 horrors.
13:28. got held up with CAPACITY, CASTIGATE and COLOSSAL. otherwise all clues went well. COD goes to BIGAMIST. thanks to kitty and joker!
10:21 LOI LITERALLY, COD PEAK. (PEAKE/PIQUE appeared recently in a 15×15 puzzle).
Well, I knew I wasn’t really awake but I did it anyway, so no surprise that this pretty straightforward puzzle took me 23:32 to finish. Three slow solves in a row to send me on my travel adventure with no QC other than on my phone (the horror!)
How in the heck HAND was not my FOI I can’t say, except that I am very dull today indeed. The pennies were dropping, but through molasses or something. Pleasant solve, except for the frustration of having to troll for the LITER in LITERALLY (we are still using quarts for most things here in us-land), and not being able to parse PEAK, so it went in, came out, went in, came out, went in and stayed. I think it helped for SOJOURN that I never heard of Thurso so had no associations with it that needed to be ignored.
Loved CASTIGATE which I thought was the only tricky parse other than PEAK. DNK GATE for “confine to college” but imagined it as something in Tom Brown’s Schooldays or such 🙂 and decided it was plausible.
Thanks for the entertainment, Joker and Kitty!
An enjoyable puzzle. Not super-quick for us either but comfortably faster than our average at 11:20. Thanks, Kitty and Joker.
21 minutes.
A struggle (as usual).
Thanks for the blog.
13:46 here, held up by the COLOSSAL / LITERALLY intersection. Nice puzzle, liked ATOLL a lot, although it’s probably a chestnut.
Thanks to Joker & Kitty.
Finished but needed Kitty to parse PEAK. Thanks Kitty and Joker.
A lovely puzzle today. Really enjoyed the clues and started marking the ones I liked best and had to whittle these down to just three. Got stuck on my L2I (Peak/Hole) but crossed my fingers and was vindicated.
FOI 2a Colossal
LOI 19a Hole
COD’s 8a Bigamist/20a Assassin/22a Flattery
Stumbled across a newish pretty seriously Italian coffee shop in Newport Pagnell and savoured the coffee & pastries and the puzzle together for a fast (for me) solve.
Ooh do tell where, you may guess by our handle that we’re not far away😀
Finished with peak as the last one in. Enjoy Joker’s puzzles
A slow steady solve in two sittings. Thought I wasn’t going to make it then I suddenly saw my LOI ASSASSIN!
COD Buttering up cook carrying coffee – I’d do that too!
Great puzzle-lovely variety of clues and lots to make me 😊.
Thanks Joker and Kitty
Steady solve over breakfast, not troubling the SCC.