QC 2915 by Pedro

Author   MerlinPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Seemed gentle to me, at 10:33. How did everyone get on?

Definitions underlined in bold , synonyms in (parentheses) (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, other wordplay in [square brackets] and deletions in {curly} brackets.

Across
1 Initially runs off with politician for sexual high jinks (4)
ROMP – R{uns} + O{ff} + MP

This is a classic tabloid headline, when a politician is exposed partaking in “sexual high jinks”.

R and O are just the initial letters of Runs Off, nothing more. Perhaps a bit confusing as R for runs is a common cricket abbreviation, so “runs initially off” would perhaps work better.
4 Teacher with good ability to listen produces mortarboard? (8)
HEADGEAR – HEAD (teacher) + G{ood} + EAR (ability to listen)

Mortarboard has a question mark, indicating it is an example of HEADGEAR.
8 Inclination to write slogan for supporters? (8)
PENCHANT – PEN (write) + CHANT (slogan for supporters)
9 Distinctive character not entirely perceived by the ears (4)
AURA – AURA{L} (perceived by the ears)

In English ORAL and AURAL are the same aurally. This caused confusion when my French O-level consisted of an Oral test and an Aural test.
10 Happy to host loose group of stars (6)
GALAXY – GAY (Happy) contains LAX (loose)

The phrase “group of” is doing a lot of work here, a typical galaxy contains about 100 billion stars.
11 Corrupt French nobleman interrupting witness (6)
SEDUCE – DUC (French nobleman) inside SEE (witness)

This is “corrupt” as a verb, with subtle slippage to an adjective in the clue.
12 Daughter in Mile End disrupted grand district for conservative constituency? (6,7)
MIDDLE ENGLAND – (D MILE END)* + G{rand} + LAND (district)

I had to write out the anagrist after solving to make sure I had all the right bits, as when solving I thought “district” was part of the definition.

MIDDLE ENGLAND is a “socio-political term used to describe a segment of the English population, typically middle-class or lower-middle-class individuals who hold traditional, conservative views.” Usually attributed to Margaret Thatcher, who copied it from Richard Nixon’s “Middle America”.
16 Religious leader is hot in dance (6)
BISHOP – IS + H{ot} inside BOP (dance)
17 Perform joke, mostly in stage turn (6)
ACQUIT – QUI{P} (joke) inside ACT (stage turn)
19 Golden circle not quite 50% round (4)
HALO – HAL{f} (50%) +O (round)
20 Coffee: French are to urge termination of Americano (8)
ESPRESSO – ES (French for “are”) + PRESS (urge) + american{O}
21 Disclosure about Royal Society is a setback (8)
REVERSAL – REVEAL (disclosure) contains R{oyal} S{ociety}

Since “Disclosure” is a noun, we need “reveal” as a noun for this to work. It is used by magicians, and comedians for the final revelation of something previously kept from an audience.
22 Fix right level (4)
TIER – TIE (fix) + R{ight}
Down
2 Some jobshare politicians turned up for work (5)
OPERA – hidden [some] reversal [turned up] in jobshare politicians
3 Carefully select spinach cooked in stew (4,3,6)
PICK AND CHOOSE – (SPINACH COOKED)* [in stew]

Tricky, as “cooked” is often also used as an anagram indicator.
4 Exciting expression of joy spread by promotional item (5)
HEADY – HEY (expression of joy) contains AD (promotional item)

I would define HEY as something said to get someone’s attention. Although interjections can be used in lots of ways, if the vowel is elongated to “haaaaaaay!” then that sounds like joyful surprise.
5 Craftsperson taking sides, ousting leader (7)
ARTISAN – p{ARTISAN} (taking sides)
6 Flowery garden on quilt redesigned (13)
GRANDILOQUENT – (GARDEN ON QUILT)* [redesigned]

I think this is one of those autological words, like sesquipedalian, which describe themselves.

Fans of symbolic logic may look up Grelling’s paradox when considering self-referential adjectives.
7 A keen follower receiving rice mostly from Nigeria, say (7)
AFRICAN – A FAN (keen follower) contains RIC{e}
10 Male supporting generally empty exercise venue (3)
GYM – G{enerall}Y [empty] + M{ale}

The word Gymnasium comes from the Greek for naked, and is used for a high school in Germany, which can cause confusion when a German graduate applies for a job by boasting of his three years at a Gymnsaium.
13 Ape? One friend cages it (7)
IMITATE – I(One) + MATE (frient) contains[cages] IT
14 Times journalists backing English state (7)
EXPRESS – X [times, as in multiplication sign] + PRESS (journalists) preceded by E{nglish}
15 Dorothy cuddled Toto right at the end (3)
DOT – {cuddle}D {Tot}O {righ}T
17 Secretary upset friend in shock (5)
APPAL – AP = PA (secretary) reversed [upset] + PAL (friend)
18 End of report missing from paper edition (5)
ISSUE – TISSUE (paper) – {repor}T

75 comments on “QC 2915 by Pedro”

  1. Oof, this American made an error with 1A because I didn’t know that ‘O’ could be an abbreviation for ‘Off’. Instead, I read the clue as “take the initial letters of ‘Run off with politician'” and decided that ROWP must be some British slang I didn’t know. ::facepalm::

    What’s the connection between ‘Off’ and ‘O’? Is it more cricket scoring that I need to learn? 🙂

  2. Here in Oz we’re not fazed by cricket terminology but I don’t know where/how O = off either. (Oh…just saw vinyl’s note.) Otherwise a nice puzzle from Pedro, 9.03, thanks Merlin.

          1. I’m sure you’re right, I just used I as it seemed to render better in this font than 1 🙂

  3. Quicker than yesterday but I still found this hard. Only two on the first pass of acrosses – ROMP and ESPRESSO meant a lot of work to do. Then being slow on GRANDILOQUENT and PICK AND CHOOSE deprived me of much needed checkers. Surprising how easy ACQUIT became when the Q went in. All green in 18.56.

    The Wikipedia page for the Grelling–Nelson paradox has claim to be the greatest page on the web – thanks Merlin!

    1. This was how my Maths teacher introduced Goedels Incompleteness Theorem to a bunch of 11 year olds.

  4. 12 minutes with time lost at 6dn because of an incorrect checker supplied by 4ac where my original answer HEADWEAR might be perfectly valid for a clue taken in isolation. HEAD (teacher), W (with), EAR (good ability to listen). People are often said to have an ear for something e.g. music.

  6. We enjoyed this very much and found it well pitched. A good steady solve with lots to think about and some nice PDMs along the way. Thought we might just have a rare day out from the club but the SE slowed us to 21.21

    COD to seduce and the PDM of witness not being the noun!

    Also liked the job sharing politicians, thanks Pedro, and Merlin. Have looked at the paradox and now need another coffee!

  7. Another sluggish solve.

    I was completely bamboozled by PICK AND CHOOSE as I assumed cooked was the anagram indicator and ‘spinach in stew’ the anagrist. It gets my COD vote for the misdirection.
    Also struggled with the definition of ACQUIT as I couldn’t see how it related to perform but eventually got it through the expression ‘how did you acquit yourself?’, which in hindsight seems rather obvious.

    Started with ROMP and finished with EXPRESS in 9.40.
    Thanks to Merlin

  8. 15 minutes. A HALO and an AURA in one puzzle but I can’t see it’s indicative of a theme. AURA was my LOI and almost my downfall as I was sure that ‘perceived by the ears’ was a homophone indicator and I needed an unwelcome alphabet trawl to eventually show me what was going on. GRANDILOQUENT is one of those “how to sound clever” words which I steer well clear of; at least I obeyed the anagram fodder and didn’t turn the unchecked I into an E.

    I’m still trying to get my ageing brain around the Grelling-Nelson paradox, so far without success. Thanks for the link anyway.

    Thanks also to Merlin for the blog and to Pedro for an enjoyable QC

  9. 12:38

    Ouch – I found this unaccountably hard to get into and after six minutes, still had only six answers in place. The rest was pretty quick, but for me, and maybe Pedro and I simply are not on the same wavelength, Pedro has reinforced their position as the hardest of the setters.

    Thanks Merlin and Pedro

  10. All done in a sprightly 8:56, but not quite all parsed as I needed the blog to explain DOT. There must be a technical term for those instances where you solve all the tricky clues and get stumped on a straightforward one – any suggestions?

    Many thanks Merlin for the blog.

  11. 22:51 for the eventual solve. Held up from 12mins by ACQUIT, TIER and GRANDILOQUENT – the latter problematic because it’s a real word which no-one ever used and I’d made the HEADwEAR mistake mentioned by Jacktt. Liked the surface for OPERA.

  12. I’m not generally quick to get onto Pedro’s wavelength, and today was no exception, but I finished inside my 6 minute target, and enjoyed the challenge. A fair few errors on the leaderboard – have people fallen into the “expresso trap” again? Good to see “gay” in its original context.

    FOI ROMP
    LOI ACQUIT
    COD GALAXY
    TIME 5:32

  13. Thanks Merlin. I think you have a typo AS for AD (is that Advertising Departement?) in the blog unless I’m missing something?
    Quick quick slow for me Aura and acquit took a long time to see at the end. 18 min. Fun puzzle fairly clued methinks. Thanks Pedro

      1. Thanks Jack. My eyesight! I read the clue as ‘team’ instead of ‘item’ so wondered how ad worked then got caught up in Merlin’s typo AS for AD (saw plank comes to mind!)

  14. Not on the wavelength today. Only two of the across clues on first pass, and needed 19:42 to finish. Needed pen and paper to get GRANDILOQUENT.

    Thanks Merlin and Pedro

  15. I wasn’t really on Pedro’s wavelength but finished this OK (with interruptions). The longer answers were very helpful and I accelerated as crossers emerged. GRANDILOQUENT came at once and helped me to confirm headGear. ARTISAN, PENCHANT and my LOI HEADY took too long.
    Some very good clues which are worth re-visiting now. I suffered some forehead slaps when my answers emerged and were parsed and I am impressed by the many quick times above.
    Thanks, both.

  17. DNF as I put Airs instead of AURA. LOsI PENCHANT and HEADY. Also a bit slow on ACQUIT. HEADGEAR was a welcome PDM.
    Solved quickly at first as I managed all the long ones.
    CNP DOT!
    COsD ARTISAN, SEDUCE, ESPRESSO.
    Thanks vm, Merlin.

  18. Pedro always tricky for me. Today the left went in fairly fast but I was very stuck on the right until GRANDILOQUENT; all those checkers then enabled me to mop up tooty da sweety.

    All done in 08:57 for a Decent Day. Many thanks Merlin and Pedro.

  19. Great puzzle from Pedro with some satisfying solves, although like Cedric, needed the blog to explain the ridiculously easy DOT.
    Merlin – your blog today is in the Daily Cryptic category. Thanks as usual for the extra interesting info.

  20. Struggled with NHO GRANDILOQUENT but managed it after excluding ‘eloquent’.
    8D Typo in blog? Promotional item is AD not AS
    Liked HALO and more. A few shrugs here and there but altogether straight forward to finish c. 25 mins.
    Thanks Merlin and Pedro

  21. Just about managed this though not on Pedro’s wavelength. Cannot equate perform with ACQUIT (the word “perform” cannot replace “acquit” in “How did you acquit yourself?”), and NHO HEY as an expression of joy (by the way, Merlin, a little typo in your blog, AD, not AS). LOI EXPRESS (always forget times = X).

  22. 8.32

    Toughish. Couldn’t immediately get/recall GRANDILOQUENT and held up by AURA at the end, but a good challenge.

  23. The 30min post was in plain sight by the time I finished this. Penchant and Aura put up a courageous rearguard, but the real sticking point was 16ac, where I spent ages looking to squeeze ‘h’ into a five letter dance, ending in ‘p’, to give a (really) obscure religious leader. Bebop at least eventually prompted the initial ‘B’, at which point my schoolboy error became embarrassingly obvious. Overall, this seemed distinctly on the hard side of average, though I did enjoy CoD Headgear. Invariant

  24. I’m getting there! Around 6 months into learning and I’m understanding more and more, completing around 2/3rds most days and finding this blog most helpful. Thank you to all who contribute.

    4. Excellent, and you may find the knowledge snowballs as time goes on and you will wonder what ever was so hard.

  25. 12 minutes . LOI AURA which nearly went awry and airy as I searched for a homophone that worked.
    So I guess that must be my COD.
    A nice puzzle. I had to dodge around a lot to stop getting bogged down.
    David

  26. Lots of head-scratching today although with hindsight not quite sure why. Like David1 COD goes to AURA which was LOI and took an age to solve. Other hold-ups included PENCHANT (loved the wordplay) and HEADY. Also appreciated the surface for ISSUE. A two-cup of coffee QC today – brilliant. Thanks Pedro and Merlin.

  27. Nice puzzle, thanks to all. In the goldilocks zone for difficulty for me. Didn’t get Aura, but otherwise a steady chug through.

  28. I struggled with this one, not being on Pedro’s wavelength at all finishing in 13.35. Major hold ups included the long anagram at 6dn, where the required answer is not the sort of word you can biff. My LOI was 9ac where I couldn’t come up with the right answer after an alphabet trawl, and then debated whether AIRS or AIRY would be possibilities. AURA never occurred to me and must have escaped the trawl. So in the end it was a DNF with the obviously unparsed AIRY.

  29. (Mrs Wade) Had to dance around the grid to find answers. Stuck at the end on PENCHANT. Then able to biff HEADY but cannot connect “hey’ with an expression of joy. Also find ACQUIT difficult to relate to “Perform.” Surely it would have to be “Acquit oneself” to mean that? (As in ‘how did you acquit yourself’?)
    These holdups took me over 25 minutes. But I enjoyed the challenge.

  30. Almost a PB for us so a little surprised this was not the consensus. The most experienced bloggers seem to be commenting most on its difficulty.

  31. 9a Aura, that was LOI and well hard.
    17a Acquit, not sure acquit=perform. Well it can but it’s not an easy biff.
    20a MER, Espresso. Es is French for “art” – tu es. Obv we always actually say “You are” but tu es may only be accurately translated by thou art. Which is admittedly obsolete so it is OK then, MER off.

  32. 20 mins…

    I enjoyed this puzzle, but I do think it was on the harder side. I could have quite easily got 6dn “Grandiloquent” wrong, and a couple of the clues on the RHS: 11ac “Seduce”, 17ac “Acquit” and 9ac “Aura” required a bit of thought. Some good surfaces though.

    FOI – 1ac “Romp”
    LOI – 9ac “Aura”
    COD – 14dn “Express”

    Thanks as usual!

  33. After just missing the SCC yesterday with 19:56, I was firmly in it today with 23:35, though I’d like to think this was partly because I wasn’t hurrying. LOI was AURA which I never parsed, convinced it was a homophone. Perhaps in a sign of dumbing down, in the early years of GCSEs, my German aural exam was just referred to as the listening exam, so it’s not a word that immediately springs to mind. The oral part was called speaking. Neither change helped me to pass mind. Thanks Merlin and Pedro.

  35. DNF. Something approaching 40 minutes, I think, but I couldn’t solve 9a (AURA).

    The closest I got was AIRS and AIRY, neither of which I realised were quite what was needed, but I never thought of ‘aural’ and I didn’t have the patience to trawl through the alphabet for as long as usual. The only other words I found were ‘acre’ and ‘awry’, but by that stage I was bored of the puzzle.

    I used to be able to persevere over the QC for well over an hour, but anything much over half that time these days just does my head in, I’m afraid.

    Many thanks to Merlin and Pedro.

  36. Hour and a half to solve it today, but did have to look up what a French Nobelman was, so will be storing DUC away in a clever little words drawer somewhere in my brain. Thank you for explaining the clues as a few of them I couldn’t figure out the wordplay.

  37. Not properly concentrating meant I was meandering all over the grid for a while, and then not reading the clues carefully enough when filling in the gaps. Got there in the end. SE corner held me up but probably because my attention faded even further. Did not ACQUIT myself well.

  38. 11.25 Mostly a steady solve again finishing with ACQUIT and DOT. DOT couldn’t be anything else but I took far too long to parse it. Thanks Merlin and Pedro.

  39. 13:02 Agree with PennyW that perform equates with ACQUIT oneself, not just ACQUIT. GRANDILOQUENT is one of those words which cause no trouble when reading it but I would never use it when speaking.

  40. A quick, for me, solve. Ambled through in 30 minutes and now wondering whether I should still go for my afternoon Costa. Pretty well top down except for my loss 11a seduce and 7d African (was looking for ric or ice at the end of the word). Helped by getting the long ones easily so plenty of crossers to work with.
    FOI 1a Romp
    LOI 7a African – pretty obvious now
    COD – none stand out today.

  41. I agree with those who thought this a good puzzle, but on the trickier side, by a modest but significant margin. Had to do an ‘alphabet trawl’ for AURA. COD – IMITATE. Thanks to all.

  42. 11:47. Having seen the times I thought this was going to be a lot harder but it was mid-range I felt. good puzzle with some fun cluing. LOI was HALO which I struggled with for quite some time. thank you both

  43. I quite often struggle with Pedro, and today was no different. It was a very scrappy solve and I gave up after about 15 minutes, breezeblocked by my LOI, a word which has given me trouble before. I seem to have a PENCHANT for getting stuck on this. After a walk to see the snowdrops, I came home and in it popped! So about 15 minutes, three hours, and an extra minute in all 😅
    FOI Romp LOI Penchant COD Pick and choose Anagram and word of the day Grandiloquent
    Thanks Pedro and Merlin

  44. I enjoyed this and took 14:13 to complete it with no frustrations, though with some surprise that it wasn’t quicker. At 16a I insouciantly biffed hipHOP for a minute before the wordplay sobered me up. Loved ESPRESSO for wordplay and surface.

    In my particular dialect of English ORAL and AURAL are not exact homophones. I wonder how the majority of native English speakers perceive them.

    Thanks to Pedro and Merlin.

    1. Did you do today’s NYT connections? I assume it’s today’s – not sure about time zones! Anyway, the purple line was the easiest for us 😅

      1. Well I hadn’t, but at your instigation went and looked, found the purple by process of elimination and got a HEARTY laugh out of it. My glee began to ring a bit HOLLOW when I realized or realised I don’t know what CHIPPY and BUTTY mean. So I’m off to some HANDY internet reference to start FILLING the HOLE in my GK.

        1. Well, a chippy is a fish and chip shop, although it can also be an adjective describing someone who has a bit of a chip on their shoulder, and a butty is a sandwich. You can, in fact, even get a chip butty! Carbs in carbs, with tomato ketchup – what’s not to like 😋

          Nicely done BTW 😊

    2. I agree with you that they don’t sound the same. Oral emphasises a long o sound, whereas aural is more like aiow (if I bumped my elbow) + ral.

  45. DNF. Got bogged down in SW corner.
    Perhaps I will have more success tomorrow.
    Thanks for helpful blog Merlin.

  46. I made a hash of that, for the second day in a row, but unlike yesterday I at least finished this one (24:18).

    Thank you for the blog!

  47. Not easy. Took 30 minutes with a couple of biffs to get there. Needed the blog to see what was what!

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