Oof, that was a toughie. After my first pass through the acrosses, I had filled in exactly six squares. At my normal target time of 15:00 I had well under half the grid filled in. I ended up finishing in 29:23, but I used aids so that makes this a technical DNF for those that keep score. Personally, once they get as hard as I found this, I say “go for it” on the aids.
There was some general knowledge that I didn’t have (one of the two poets and the historical Greek port), some that I kinda-sorta had (I did know “awn” for a bristle, but “awned” was new to me), and some clues that just sent me in entirely the wrong direction.
I think this is the hardest puzzle I’ve been the blogger for. I’m pretty pleased that I finished, but that was one heck of a challenge. I really hope that I’m not the only one to feel this way!
Definitions underlined, synonyms in round brackets, wordplay in square brackets and deletions in strikethrough. Anagram indicators italicised in the clue, anagram fodder indicated like (this)*.
| Across | |
| 1 | Trouble involving Republican poet’s fellowship (11) |
| BROTHERHOOD – BOTHER (trouble) including R for Republican, plus HOOD, a poet.
As I expect many other people have also found, “Hood Poet” is the fourth studio album by American rapper Polo G. (Wikipedia) However, I’m reasonably sure that Orpheus was referring to Thomas Hood (1799-1845). Nope, I’d never heard of him either. |
|
| 8 | Function a northern group originally held in shelter (7) |
| TANGENT – first letters [originally] of A Northern Group in TENT (shelter).
That’s the tangent function from trigonometry: opposite over adjacent according to SOHCAHTOA, which has never quite left my head. |
|
| 9 | Giant bird primarily attacking nestlings (5) |
| TITAN – TIT (bird) + first letters of [primarily] Attacking Nestlings. | |
| 10 | A fat file I arranged to band together (9) |
| AFFILIATE – (A fat file I)* | |
| 12 | End of a motorway going west (3) |
| AIM – A + M1 (motorway), reversed [going west].
Only the motorway is reversed. I too wondered if “IMA” was a word. |
|
| 13 | Easy-going girl touring eastern part of UK (6) |
| GENIAL – GAL (girl) around [touring] both E (eastern) and NI (Northern Ireland – part of UK).
Very sneaky! |
|
| 15 | In Kent, oddly, it’s a young animal (6) |
| KITTEN – (Kent)* including IT.
For the longest time, I was convinced – convinced, I tell you – that this couldn’t possibly be KITTEN because it was clearly an anagram of “in Kent”. I felt so smug about all the people who would just be bunging in KITTEN without properly counting the letters. What is it they say about pride and falls? |
|
| 17 | A long time in Berkshire college — wasting time! (3) |
| EON – E |
|
| 18 | Acerbic worker, say, beside dyke (9) |
| TRENCHANT – ANT (worker, say) next to [beside] TRENCH (dyke).
To be honest, I’d always thought of dykes as the opposite of trenches: they are built up while trenches are dug down. Turn on “safe search” before checking. 🙂 |
|
| 20 | Outstanding old air force formation (5) |
| OWING – O (old) + WING (air force formation).
I nearly convinced myself that a VERT was the name for one of those fancy flying formations in displays done by the likes of the Red Arrows. |
|
| 22 | Slowly father enters Greek port (7) |
| LEPANTO – LENTO (slowly, from music) with PA (father) included [enters].
I had faintly heard of the Battle of Lepanto. But Lepanto as a port – nope. Didn’t help that it doesn’t appear in Wikipedia’s “List of Greek ports” page either. |
|
| 23 | Brassed off retired man made noise like pig crossing lake (11) |
| DISGRUNTLED – SID (random man) reversed [retired] + GRUNTED (made noise like pig) including [crossing] L for Lake. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | A couple of females propping up bar in Scottish town (5) |
| BANFF – F for female twice, under [propping up] BAN (bar).
That’s the verb sense of ‘bar’. I wasn’t 100% sure there was a Scottish town called Banff, but I reasoned that the Banff in Canada could well be named after another instance. And so it was. |
|
| 2 | Negotiated about broken plate (9) |
| OVERLEAPT – OVER (about) + (PLATE)*
Hmm. I’m OK with “over” being a synonym for “about”. “Let’s talk about it” and “let’s talk it over” mean the same thing – the word order shifts, but I think that works. Where I have a problem with this clue is that I have never heard of the word. If I had avoided something by jumping over it, I would have “leapt over the [fallen chair, whatever]”. I can’t imagine a circumstance where I would use the word “overleapt”, even though it’s obvious what it means. |
|
| 3 | Hired assassin decapitated poet (3,3) |
| HIT MAN – Walt American poet (1819 – 1892). I had heard of him, but the answer was biffed and then parsed. |
|
| 4 | Rubbish right outside entrance to oratory (3) |
| ROT – RT (right) containing [outside] the first letter of [entrance to] Oratory.
Rt for “right” persists in “The Rt Hon <insert random MP here>”. |
|
| 5 | Reject not in group performing play (7) |
| OUTCAST – OUT (not in) + CAST (group performing play).
This is such a neat clue. |
|
| 6 | Rule broken by English knight in branch of church (12) |
| DENOMINATION – DOMINATION (rule) containing [broken by] E for English and N for knight (as in chess notation). | |
| 7 | Complete control of admiral finally entering unfamiliar cargo area (12) |
| STRANGLEHOLD – last letter of admiraL [finally] inside [entering] STRANGE (unfamiliar) HOLD (cargo area).
Another beauty of a clue. Sadly, by the time I got to this stage, the bludgeoning was beginning to tell and I didn’t appreciate it at the time. |
|
| 11 | Doctor copies friend of bishop (9) |
| EPISCOPAL – (COPIES)* + PAL (friend). | |
| 14 | Directions restricting a girl’s nursemaids (7) |
| NANNIES – N |
|
| 16 | Possibly Irving’s capital? (6) |
| BERLIN – double definition. Irving Berlin, songwriter.
I couldn’t get past Washington Irving for the longest time: Washington is even a capital! |
|
| 19 | A western fellow — bristly (5) |
| AWNED – A + W + NED (fellow).
An awn is a spiky seed, like many grasses have, designed specifically to get caught in socks. |
|
| 21 | Set up newspaper? Something fishy here (3) |
| GAR – RAG (newspaper) reversed [set up].
A gar is a type of fish in North America, long and skinny with sharp teeth. I think the word “here” is superfluous, but there could be something clever going on that I’ve just missed. |
|
12.19. A very good crossword but a real toughie, another that pushed the outside of the QC envelope to an extreme degree. Looking back at it the clues seem much more benign than they were when approached from the other direction. Not sure at all about OVERLEAPT, I know we use ‘negotiate’ in the sense of racing drivers negotiating tight turns etc, but does that mean the problems are leapt over? Anyway there were some very good clues here but a lot of 15×15-style WP. Thanks to Orpheus and to the Doof for the great work on the blog, a tough day.
The sources I looked at give the example of leaping over a stream, so negotiating a stream.
Oh right. I guess so, but still…
Very happy you’ve condoned the use of the check function because OVERLEAPT was never going to come for me. I didn’t even get the about/over reference. Fortunately, I saw what was going on with KITTEN once DENOMINATION went in. HOOD rang a faint bell for the poet so BROTHERHOOD it had to be, but fellowship was a kind literal. Liked DISGRUNTLED which is how I was feeling after thirty minutes. COD to the same.
Thanks D and setter.
I did feel slow in solving this, so our blogger is not alone. When Banff was my FOI, I knew I was in for a bit of a struggle. I nearly put castoff instead of outcast, which would have messed up my solve, but fortunately I looked at the cryptic and thought again. Overleapt? Well, what else could it be – always believe the cryptic. My LOI was the chestnut Berlin, so I did not exactly distinguish myself.
Time: 11:03
14 minutes. I can’t believe that BERLIN was also my LOI – one of the greatest songsmiths in the history of American song and musical theatre!
I agree with what others have said about OVERLEAPT and would add that clueing LEPANTO as a Greek port rather than with reference to the battle that its name is most widely known for seems a little perverse. The reason it doesn’t appear in the Wikipedia list of Greek ports is because the Greeks don’t call it Lepanto (the Venetian name for it) they call it Návpaktos.
Spent 24m struggling through this only to find I’d entered LaPeNTO which doesn’t parse but I was so pleased with myself for seeing’lento’ and ‘pa’ that I didn’t check the order I whacked in the spare letters. Drat. Too hard to be fun but I suppose I learned a bit more about crosswords.
I struggled with Lepanto and Awned – it didn’t help that the only Irving I could think of was Irving (Irvine?) Welsh which got Cardiff in my head!
So pleased to come here and find that our 39.05 with aids was justified, thanks Doofers!
Spent a long time looking at the wrong ends of clues before so many PDMs – eventually. NHO awned but eventually trusted the word play and hit the check button. Lepanto was the same.
Thanks Orpheus and Doofers for a tough job and the parsing of domination, our LOI, that when we saw it was bunged in to get the finish.
Didn’t find it as hard as some but there were a couple of very tricky clues in this and I pressed submit with fingers crossed.
Like Doofers, I think of dykes rising from the ground and trenches going into them so was slightly surprised by the wordplay for TRENCHANT but trench is the first definition of dyke in Chambers so my eyebrow has been firmly put back into place.
A good work out which I finished in 8.41, starting with TANGENT and finishing with OVERLEAPT, a horrible looking word which I’ll be happy not to see again.
Thanks to Doofers
Oh… Nope. Non. Nyet. Nein. 아니요. Không. いいえ.
😭
Sorry I don’t have anything more constructive, this was just a disaster for me.
Is that a No from you Tina?
I’m putting her down as a “maybe”
Why, is that like the sixth definition of ‘no’ in chambers or something 😉
Both the second and sixth definition of “maybe” on Urban Dictionary are “no” …
For real i would do better at these crosswords if they used urban dictionary instead of chambers
😂🤣💀
14:31 but…
…managed somehow to type DENOMONATION! I guess there is an upside in that having failed to finish successfully, my time (worst of the month, by far) will not have any impact on my Quitch average for the month – but I will know, oh yes, I will know…
Indeed, I am quite surprised that today’s Quitch is only at 119 at the moment – the puzzle seemed harder than that. I didn’t know LEPANTO; thought and re-thought about OVERLEAPT; made a pig’s ear of DISGRUNTLED (repeatedly banging my head against a brick wall trying to shoehorn OINKED into the mix) and finally took an age to see STRANGLEHOLD. I was another whose first thought on seeing Irving, was “Washington”…
Already looking forward to tomorrow’s puzzle!
Thanks for the great blog for a tough puzzle Doofers, and Orpheus for the chewiest challenge
No time as I was interrupted by a phone call but it would have been around 18 minutes I think, so I join (almost) everyone else in finding this very hard. NHO the poets Whitman (perhaps should have) or Hood (more excusable IMO). NHO the word OVERLEAPT, or AWNED. Only heard of LEPANTO as a battle. So (adopts brightest “glass half full” attitude) Orpheus certainly offered lots of learning opportunities today. But I am glad they are not all like this -13A it was not!
Many thanks Doofers for the blog, a tour de force in most arduous circumstances.
Cedric
28:28
All my own work but another “Not One for the Beginners” rating. Very pleased to complete it though.
It is much discussed recently about The Times now allowing living people to try and appeal to new solvers. How about they just make sure these puzzles are more approachable in general?!?
E.g. don’t involve words like OVERLEAPT, LEPANTO, AWNED not because they’re words I’ve NHO but because the constructions are also difficult (over=about, lento=slowly, NED=fellow).
Or expecting us to know dead people like HOOD and WHITMAN (oh, so I wasn’t losing S).
Or fishes like the GAR and RAF formations like WINGs.
And definitely not putting two church-related answers in the same puzzle.
#rantends
Not just you Doofers! I also found this tough despite starting off really well with BROTHERHOOD. I really didn’t like the word OVERLEAPT but from the checkers and wordplay it had to be. I’d never heard of the battle/port of LEPANTO so I looked it up before submitting. HIT MAN was biffed and I only knew of BANFF in Canada. My LOI was GENIAL in 14:02.
It was a bit harder than usual but I didn’t think it was *that* hard. And I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect solvers to have sufficient general knowledge to have heard of Walt Whitman (one of the greatest and most influential American poets), and to know the common words EPISCOPAL and DENOMINATION. The GAR fish comes up all the time, because it’s so useful for setters. OVERLEAPT was pretty hideous though.
I got my Irvings and my Irvines mixed up, so my journey towards LOI BERLIN involved stopping at stations marked “Andy” (great Scottish fly half), “Welsh” (like Andy R) and even “Steve” (the Australian chap killed by a stingray, who turns out to have been Irwin anyway 🥴).
Got there in the end for 09:04 and a Reasonable Day.
Many thanks Orpheus and Doofers.
And here I am, thinking Andy Irvine is an Irish folk musician….
I was thinking of Sandy, climbing companion of Mallory whose boot was recently found on Everest.
Andy Irvine was a Scottish fullback who did have a couple of games on the wing for the Lions as JPR was the fullback
Oh yes of course, full back not fly half. Thanks!
I found it hard. Maybe I was crossworded out, as I had a bash at the championship final puzzle this morning (1 clue left after 20 mins, but the club site won’t let me back into the puzzle for some reason). EDIT: Completed, but WOE – same as our blogger and finalist, which give a little comfort! Won’t be troubling the scorers though.
The long ones round the edges were slow in coming, which really didn’t help, but OVERLEAPT was my LOI.
Nice one Orpheus, and thanks to Doofers.
9:26
Couldn’t do more than half this – relieved to see I’m not alone. But just to remind you: Banff is not only a town but also one of the traditional Scottish counties, Banffshire. Thank you, Doofers, for all your hard work.
Difficult but fair, and a really enjoyable crossword. Not keen on OVERLEAPT as a word, but it was obvious. 17 mins is twice my average, but time well spent!
11:38 (Scottish invasion of England repelled at the Battle of the Standard)
I found this tricky but not especially so. Held up by AWNED and the LHO LEPANTPO (I briefly wondered if LAPARGO existed before I had the checkers in place).
OVERLEAPT was my LOI.
Thanks Doofers and Orpheus
23 across sums it up perfectly!!
Hacked and thrashed my way through this to the welcoming portals of the SCC, with recourse to the word check button when I was groping my way through some of the parsings. As a QC only solver this felt very 15×15, with, as previously commented upon, some obscurer vocabulary.
A sense of achievement in scraping home, but for me a bit too much struggle to enjoy it much. Cleverly constructed, no complaints, and well done Doof for that blog.
I was sure it was going to be a dnf but I got there by hoping that awned might mean bristly and that Lapento was a place. Overleapt is indefensible in my view. Definitely not a quickie – thanks all though!
Very hard indeed and had to resort to aids to finish, like our blogger. NHO LEPANTO, OVERLEAPT or AWNED. Too much of a struggle to make it enjoyable.
Had to resort to an alphabet trawl for LOI GENIAL (which I then couldn’t parse for some unknown reason – thanks D). A couple of new words meant I had to trust the wordplay (LEPANTO, AWNED). BANFF was a VHO. Generally lots of biffing then parsing. I often find the QCs a bit of a struggle so to me this one didn’t actually seem more challenging than usual 😂 I also like to learn a new word or two so absolutely no complaints there, particularly as the wordplay was very clear. Nice one Orpheus and thanks again to D for the informative blog.
I was a bit disappointed to find I’d just missed my target again at 10.32, but having read the comments above and the times posted, I think I should be quite satisfied. I worked out a possible cryptic definition for OVERLEAPT quickly enough, but couldn’t bring myself to put it in for a while thinking I was missing something. When all checkers were in place it couldn’t of course have been anything else. A strange word though.
Dnf…
Ouch – another tough one. After 30 mins had everything apart from 2dn “Overleapt” and 19dn “Awned”. Oddly enough, I did construct “Overleapt”, but didn’t think it was a word and definitely didn’t associate it with “negotiate”. In the end, I was never going to get 19dn as I put in, what I thought was, the Greek port of “Lapargo” for 22ac. Never heard of Walt Whitman for 3dn, but the answer was fairly obvious.
FOI – 4dn “Rot”
LOI – dnf
COD – 7dn “Stranglehold”
Thanks as usual!
DNF.
Another disaster for me. Third of the week. Am I just not up to it or are these setters just too devious ?
I have managed to complete some of these puzzles previously. Sometimes 3 or 4 in a week.
But lately they have been a level too high for me.
Very depressing.
IMHO, this was a stinker. I used aids for a couple. Fortunately, AWN for bristle (on a seed) has come up before. I go along with the general trend of comments here about the unusual words.
This was a struggle! Surely no one would ever use OVERLEAPT but rather ‘leapt over’. NHO LEPANTO. Dyke led easily to trench, several small waterways on the Broads are named as such, eg Upton Dyke. Here in Lincolnshire we have a village called Dyke.
Had to look up biffed OVERLEAPT to confirm, so really DNF x 1. Why does Overleapt mean negotiated? Otherwise got there after a long, long struggle. Solved LEPANTO early on because of the poem (Don John of Austria) or battle or whatever was there in the depths of what’s left of my brain.
I was slow on all the long clues, but when pennies finally dropped, they did help.
Early solves included AFFILIATE, BERLIN, KITTEN. NHO GAR but biffed, along with AWNED. Liked TRENCHANT, OWING. Am surprised there have been no complaints about EON (that place Again).
Thanks for much needed blog, Doofers.
Must have spent an hour on this one, on and off.
. . .Negotiated/got round/got over/Overleapt ?
Thanks, Invariant. Not common usage though.
. . .we had a few of those today ☺
I (eventually) misparsed 1a Brotherhood by ignoring Mr Hood and thinking this was the Pre-Raphaelite B, which did include some poets. MER at the time as they are mainly artists, now explained, thanks Doof. HHO Thos Hood. It was obstructing me, so I ignored the top and went for everything else, which I didn’t find particularly hard.
17a Eton, I thought it was in Bucks, but it escaped along with Slough (no loss; “come friendly bombs and land on Slough”). It is in the U A of Windsor & Maidenhead, but within the ceremonial county of Berks.
POI 22a Lepanto, unfindable in Greece as it is now Nafpaktos, on the Gulf of Corinth. Lepanto was its Venetian name. It also had an Ottoman name which was extant at the time of the battle, so not sure why it is B of Lepanto except that the Roman/Venetian/etc side won.
23a Disgruntled WOD.
2d Overleap; thought I ought to check, and it was in my Cheating Machine. I don’t think I put it there so it must be a word. I wouldn’t use it though.
3d HHO Walt w-Hitman, but only in crosswordland.
My trusty crowbar had to come on early today to cover a head injury assessment (it was certainly hurting) and then moaned about having to stay on until no side. And what a struggle it turned out to be. As well as the Kitten parsing hold up, I became convinced that Oinked had to be shoehorned into 23ac, for the simple reason that by then Squealed wouldn’t fit. . .🙄 Hood and Whitman were known, but Banff went in with fingers crossed only once Brotherhood was in place. Very satisfying to finish, but this was hardly a QC. Invariant
I didn’t find this was as difficult as some others did but I was held up for 3-4 minutes by the STRANGLEHOLD/GENIAL crossing. There were also 2 or 3 that I biffed and parsed after the event. I had heard of Hood and Whitman as poets although they didn’t spring readily to mind. I had also heard of Lepanto but couldn’t have told you it was a port. Agree with all the negative comments at OVERLEAPT, which I refrained from entering until the crossers made it impossible to ignore any longer. Finally finished in 22 minutes – not as bad as it might have been!
FOI – 8ac TANGENT
LOI – 13ac GENIAL
COD – 18ac TRENCHANT
Thanks to Orpheus and Doofers
Definitely trickier than average. BROTHERHOOD went straight in, but the rest was a tussle. Eventually crawled over the line with OVERLEAPT(???) at 10:47. Thanks Orpheus and Doofers.
In good company with thoughts re OVERLEAPT. NHO LEPANTO or the poet HOOD and needed to look up both. Knew Banff only in Canada. Vaguely remember seeing AWN before. Thanks Doof for the reminder of the mathematical functions – never understood how they could possibly be useful in real life!
14:27
Stuck on trenchant and overleapt. Couldn’t parse hit man.
COD outcast.
So tricky so fun! Learning more every time and lots of kicking myself too! Must brush up on music terms🎶
14:14 Finally resigned myself to OVERLEAPT by thinking of horses at steeplechase jumps. The U.S. nuclear plant worker, Homer Simpson, was no fan of Walt Whitman- “Damn you, Walt Whitman! I! Hate! You! Walt! Freaking! Whitman! ‘Leaves of Grass’, my ass!”
Ah, now looked up Thomas Hood.
‘I remember, I remember
The house where I was born
The little window’…..etc.
I decided to give the QC a break yesterday (thereby ending my streak of approx. 1,300 consecutive puzzles), because it’s no longer a QC and I simply can’t justify the length of time it’s been taking me recently. However, I foolishly tried again today with renewed enthusiasm … but Orpheus has successfully killed that stone dead again.
Outcome = A 40+ minute DNF with 3 clues unsolved (OVERLEAPT, AWNED and LEPANTO). I don’t want to come here for a weird vocabulary/GK test, so I will take a slightly longer break this time.
Many thanks to Doofers, of course.
Oh don’t stay away for too long SRC – we’ll miss you! BTW MrB went to York to see Steve Hackett (again) last week – thoroughly enjoyed it.
Don’t worry, Mme B! I won’t disappear for too long. I probably just need to step off the treadmill every now and again.
BTW, I had a go at the competition 15×15 (my first ever 15×15!) and, if you’re interested, have posted my comments after the blog.
Mrs R and I went to see Steve H in Portsmouth at the beginning of this month. The Lamb is possibly my favourite Genesis album and the whole band was brilliant. A fantastic evening! I hope Mr B enjoyed it.
Best wishes from the namby-pamby South.
MrB says greetings from the proper North – I think the Geordie is getting confused after his trip to York! We’re very definitely in the East Midlands, which is the far north for a lot of southerners, it has to be said 😂
Perhaps a rest is as good as a change, and you’ll come back soon all guns blazing!
It took me 48 minutes to do the biggie today, with two letters wrong – I don’t think I’ll be troubling the championship any time soon. I haven’t seen your comments yet – I’ll look out for them later.
When I was still quite new to this game, I suggested, after what I thought was a particularly tricky puzzle, that the Editor didn’t seem to be doing much to weed out obscure clues. I was (gently) rebuked by RR and assured that he actually did quite a lot of weeding. I think that has become all too apparent since his untimely death.
Disaster,although with explanation, some clues should have been more accessible
32.12 That was tricky! STRANGLEHOLD, GENIAL, NANNIES and OVERLEAPT really held me up at the end. I’ve seen AWN a couple of times now but I’d NHO LEPANTO or GAR. Thanks Doofers and Orpheus.
Trench is not a synonym of dyke, which sums up today’s effort.
A trench is a ditch and a dyke is a ditch.
Thought I’d been slow (30 minutes) but see I was in good company. Had to guess overleapt and awned: never heard of either – because nothing else fitted!
15:12. similar comments around the general knowledge, getting stuck in the SE corner. AWNs I should probably know but didn’t, and LEPANTO had passed me by. luckily I couldn’t find a way to fit anything into my initial guess, which was LAPARGO.
thanks both!
I’ve definitely been quite erratic over the last week or so – a few quickish ones but most days it’s been more than quarter of an hour, so I was relieved to finish this in 14:07. It started well, but I really got breezeblocked with my last three – DISGRUNTLED, TRENCHANT and OVERLEAPT.
I had the GK, but it took time to excavate it 😅 I have never knowingly read a poem by either Thomas Hood or Walt Whitman – perhaps I should! As an ex-pat Windsorian, I knew that the school moved into Berkshire after the much-disputed boundary changes of the early 70s. Funnily enough, I live very close to the M1 now and rather liked the mis-direction 😉
Of course, I was sure that the pig’s noise was Oink, but I didn’t believe OVERLEAPT was a word either.
All the same, I didn’t think it was too bad – just tricky in parts.
FOI Banff LOI Overleapt COD Affiliate
Thanks Orpheus and Doofers – excellent blog.
I recommend Whitman. Crossing Brooklyn Ferry or When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed are good starts.
I’ll search them out – many thanks 😊 And well done on your excellent time today! All three Pennies (thruppence in old money) seem to have done well today, under the circumstances 😅
Quel joli prénom! someone French once remarked to me, going a long way toward reconciling me to my name. Yay us.
Yes, I have a bit of a love / hate relationship with the full version, but my husband really likes the name, and only calls me by that!
Dear Penny,
While you engage in some proper, high-brow research on Walt Whitman’s poetry you could ‘involve’ Mr B by getting him to listen to Song Of Myself, by Nightwish. It’s the final track on their Imaginaerum album from a few years ago and is inspired by Whitman’s poem of the same title and ends with a spoken poem written by Tuomas Holopainen of Nightwish.
I seem to have recovered from whatever ailed me the last few days, enjoying the company of Ned, Sid, and Annie for 15 and a half minutes, a decent time for me. So many good clues and great surfaces! I enjoyed the imagery of BANFF, I imagined a painting by Edward Hopper. TITAN also tickled me. OVERLEAPT was very crafty, I felt pleased with myself when it went right in. I was stupid about BERLIN, KITTEN, and GENIAL to make up for that.
Today I learned that a dyke is both a wall and a ditch.
Thanks Orpheus and Doof!
Can someone tell me where / when I should have come across the Greek port of LEPANTO? Not from Wikipedia! Is the QC really about obscure GK?
In a 15×15 you aren’t expected to have heard of every place or word but have to derive them from the wordplay.
My view is it’s okay to have the occasional NHO in a QC but it does need to be easily clued. Perhaps a hidden word or indisputable anagram. Or very simple word play which “Slowly father enters” isn’t.
While I did eventually manage to recall LENTO from previous puzzles it’s doesn’t come up regularly enough for me to feel comfortable with this one as a QC-level clue.
Pretty happy at having this done and (almost – didn’t stop to look for SID in 23a) fully parsed in 12:22 because at one point it seemed that POI 7d and LOI GENIAL might be our UNDOING. For OVERLEAPT we trusted to the wordplay, I can’t imagine myself ever using the word. LEPANTO went in from memory of the battle once we had sufficient checkers: I assumed there was a corresponding port just as I assumed that Hood was a poet. Thanks to Orpheus and Doofers.
Too tough for me, I’m afraid. It struck me that this was a mini 15×15, which solvers who do both would find to be reasonable. My level of solving and time available means I am looking for an enjoyable QC I can usually finish in around 20 to 25 minutes.
Poets are not my strong point, so with HIT MAN I tried putting various letters at the start. With Whitman I remembered Slim Whitman who topped the UK charts in 1955 with his song Rose Marie. As a balladeer I guessed he could be classed as a poet. Mr Hood has passed me by completely.
Do you by any chance play the concertina?
No, but I do build bridges.
Yeah, same guy I understand. Brilliant.
Big DNF, with OVERLEAPT, GENIAL and DENOMINATION beating me. I had heard f (battle of) LEPANTO and Whitman.
Crikey! With about one third solved, I escaped to our local golf course with a grandson: some strong hitting (by him) refreshed me and returning home I attacked with renewed vigour. But sadly a dnf: never would have got OVERLEAPT and missed OWING and GAR. Set up newspaper seemed to indicate SUN but couldn’t reconcile with fishy. And like some others, I equated reject with CASTOFF until the crossers scotched that one. An hour? Seemed longer. Thanks Orpheus and Doofers