A classic QC, I think, with a nice mix of clues and no obscure answers. Plus it has the bonus that you don’t have to spell TAOISEACH. It detained me for an enjoyable 06:35 and I hope you had fun with it too.
Definitions underlined in bold.
| Across | |
| 1 | Young creature originally observed in Cornish river? (4) |
| FOAL – the FAL (as in Falmouth) is our river, inside which goes the first letter of “observed” [originally observed]. Very decent of Orpheus to specify “Cornish”, to save us trotting through Dee, Don, Tay, Esk, Ure and so on. | |
| 3 | Collected what the Strausses did? (8) |
| COMPOSED – definition with a cryptic hint. Johann Strauss the Elder begat Johann Strauss the Younger; both were very successful composers (although the father wanted the son to be a banker, not a musician, and famously whipped him for practising the violin as a child – only when the Elder abandoned the family and ran off with his mistress was the Younger able to blossom). | |
| 8 | Sick in charge? It’s not permitted (7) |
| ILLICIT – ILL [sick] + IC [in charge] + IT [it]. | |
| 10 | Military detachment crossing lake without illumination (5) |
| UNLIT – UNIT [military detachment] with L inside [crossing lake]. | |
| 11 | Time to stop demo by newlywed in lounge (7,4) |
| SITTING ROOM – T [time] goes inside [to stop, ie to fill, like a cork stops a bottle] SIT IN [demo] + GROOM [newlywed]. Phew! I don’t think the word “lounge” has ever recovered from being included by Betjeman in How To Get On In Society (“It’s ever so close in the lounge dear, But the vestibule’s comfy for tea”). | |
| 13 | Cud-chewing mammal better over in a US city (6) |
| ALPACA – this took me a while; I confidently typed in LLAMA (on the simple basis that it’s a cud-chewer with LA in it) and discovered as I typed that not only could I not parse it but it was one letter short! I then had a brain freeze and returned once I had checkers. The breakdown is: CAP for “better” (as in “she capped/bettered his story with one of her own”) going backwards [over] inside [in] A + LA [a US city]. Phew 2. | |
| 15 | Brainboxes managed to infiltrate American intelligence (6) |
| CRANIA – literal brainboxes, then, being the Latin plural of “cranium” (the part of the skull which encloses the brain). RAN [managed] inside [to infiltrate] CIA [American intelligence, soon to be twinned with the FSB]. | |
| 17 | Formidable religious education subject to uncertainty (11) |
| REDOUBTABLE – RE [religious education] + DOUBTABLE [subject to uncertainty]. I always assumed that this word came from “redoubt” as in “fortification”, but I now learn that they are unrelated. “Redoubt” is a C17 word coming from the medieval Latin reductus (shelter), and “redoubtable” is a C14 word coming from the Old French redouter (to dread). Every day’s a school day! | |
| 20 | Venetian artist turning out one giant figure (5) |
| TITAN -Tiziano Vecellio, known in English as Titian, is our Venetian artist; remove the second i [turning out one] to get the giant figure. | |
| 21 | Applaud a contention read out loud (7) |
| ACCLAIM – sounds like [read out loud] A CLAIM. Can’t argue with that as a homophone, rhotic speaker or not. | |
| 22 | Frustrated old peasant before duke (8) |
| HINDERED – to my astonishment as soon as I read “old peasant” I found myself thinking “ah, that’ll be hind then”. I must have spent too much time on here. HIND [old peasant] + ERE [before] + D [duke]. I think it’s the verb rather than the adjective: My attempts to enter the building were hindered/frustrated by the security guard. | |
| 23 | Study occupied by a university official (4) |
| DEAN – DEN [study] including [occupied by] A. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Day Welsh girl secures English cow (8) |
| FRIESIAN – FRI [day] + SIAN [Welsh girl] going round [secures] E [English]. All Welsh girls are SIAN, just as all Scotsmen are IAN. This be the verse. | |
| 2 | Share out every set of holy books (5) |
| ALLOT – ALL [every] + OT [set of holy books, ie the Old Testament]. | |
| 4 | Scandal overlooking Republican’s loss of power (6) |
| OUTAGE – OUT{r}AGE. An outrage would be a “scandal”; remove the R [overlooking Republican]. | |
| 5 | Corrupt capital wanting a court governed by the wealthy (11) |
| PLUTOCRATIC – an anagram [corrupt] of CAPITL [capital wanting a, ie lacking one of its two As] + COURT. | |
| 6 | Wise man thus goes on Scottish loch without daughter (7) |
| SOLOMON – SO [thus] on LOMON{d} [Scottish loch without daughter]. King Solomon asked God for the gift of wisdom to govern Israel, and was granted his request because he had not asked for wealth or the death of his enemies (1 Kings 3:4-15). My COD since I regularly drive along Loch Lomond on my way North and that’s a lovely device. | |
| 7 | Information — a bit going north (4) |
| DATA – A TAD [a bit] read upwards in a down clue [going north]. | |
| 9 | Detectives dividing cash in French church? A fluke (11) |
| COINCIDENCE -CID [detectives] goes inside [dividing] COIN [cash] + EN [in French] + CE [church]. Phew 3, lots of trips to IKEA today. | |
| 12 | Trader primarily supplying drinks on island (8) |
| SALESMAN – S [primarily supplying] + ALES [drinks] + MAN [island, as in the Isle of Man]. | |
| 14 | Train up new person adhering to strict moral principles (7) |
| PURITAN – anagram [new] of “train up”. | |
| 16 | Compassionate fellow kept in shade (6) |
| HUMANE – MAN [fellow] inside [kept in] HUE [shade]. | |
| 18 | Support British nation (5) |
| BRACE – B [British] + RACE [nation]. | |
| 19 | Make an impression, and so on, on husband (4) |
| ETCH – ETC [and so on, from the Latin et cetera “and other things”] + H [husband]. Slightly tenuous definition but in my view well within the benefit of the doubt always allowed to setters. | |
13:08. I enjoyed parsing HINDERED and FRIESIAN. Very interesting re redoubt and redoubtable coming from different sources- thanks, Templar!
Biffed PLUTOCRATIC & COINCIDENCE, parsed post-submission. HIND certainly did not pop into mind when I saw ‘old peasant’, and in fact took me some time to come up with. 6:39.
I was stuck on surf.
As an aside I still think it should be “cerfing the internet” as a nod to Vint Cerf, one of the pioneers. When Europe was talking seven layer model Cerf and Robert Kahn were knocking up TCP/IP (layers four and three) which is ubiquitous today in derivative editions.
Had to write out the angrist for PLUTOCRATIC to figure it out after missing the ‘wanting a’ bit. Some tricky stuff here. FOAL could have been anything unless you’ve heard of the river in question, which I hadn’t, but luckily, FRIESIAN came along and helped out. COMPOSED took a while to figure out as I was thinking it had to be something to do with playing, rather than composing. HINDERED my LOI as I’d forgotten that a hind was a peasant/farm worker and thought I was looking for a seven letter word for peasant. Yes, lots of assembly required today.
Thanks Templar and setter. Minor point, you have ‘a tab’ in 7d instead of ‘a tad’.
Thanks, fixed.
I found this very difficult and needed the check button. A lot were biffed.
NHO hind as peasant. HINDERED was LOI.
COD: DATA
Can I make a plea to setters and crossword editor if they read this blog to reconsider the use of ” race” as a synonym for nation? I do feel uneasy seeing the word used like this.Thank you.
Thanks for the useful blog Templar.
I’ve commented a number of times on the (mis)use of ‘race’ and was going to again here, but decided the hell with it. ‘Race’ is not synonymous with ‘nation’ and they shouldn’t be equated, even in a crossword clue.
It is etymologically correct, with both words referring to a descent from a common ancestor. Race was thus used as late as the 18th century, in Pope, for example. Educated people then were saturated in Latin, and often used words in the root sense.
Etymology is one thing, meaning is another. (cf. discussions here on ‘decimate’,) ‘Race’ is not synonymous with ‘nation’ and they shouldn’t be equated, even in a crossword clue.
Chambers: “race: noun: 1 any of the major divisions of humankind distinguished by a particular set of physical characteristics, such as size, hair type or skin colour. 2 a tribe, nation or similar group of people thought of as distinct from others.”
Ha! I can’t spell Taoiseach either!
Today’s puzzle was much easier, and once I got going the answers just popped into my head. The four long ones all went in from the literals, with just a glance at the cryptic. Yes, hind was the first thing I thought of when I saw old peasant, and crania is a chestnut if there ever was one.
Time: 7:40
8.04, held up at the end by HINDERED and ALPACA. Didn’t know hind as I’m more familiar with new peasants, not the old ones. As for the beast, I spent too long looking for a US city with WOC in it. Thanks Orpheus and Templar, fun puzzle.
12 minutes. The intersecting answers SALESMAN, BRACE and ACCLAIM delayed me a little at the end.
I’m sure I wouldn’t have type SOLOMaN in an across clue but I was sure it was Loch Lomand so that’s what I typed. Not a typo just ignorance. Before the pink square I’d annoyed myself by not being able to remember enough Cornish rivers and not taking time to realise the answer was FOAL when going through young animals – FRIESIAN was a write-in with the F (I’d forgotten about Sian). I was constantly surrounded by them growing up in Somerset. Not all green in 15.59. Thanks for Orpheas for a great puzzle and to Templar for the blog.
Another rogue A there!
11:56. Pleased to finish cleanly after the last two Red Letter Days.
Saw ILL so banged in ILLEGAL for “it’s not permitted”, but quickly had a rethink. Same with INDOMITABLE for REDOUBTABLE, which fits many of the checkers and the definition.
When I saw “old peasant” I knew it was one of those words that only ever appear in crosswords. Surely the other meaning (the deer) is more common, if only from pub names and Drakes boat? Clue would work just as well, or is there a limit in only one cud-chewer per puzzle?
LOI ALPACA
Enjoyed this one and sped to a 9:54 completion. CRANIA may be a chestnut to some but I’d not met it and needed to think twice about whether it was a real English word. Slight MER at equating a trader with a SALESMAN; for anyone who has worked in financial markets, they are very different roles with very different skills.
Many thanks Templar for the blog
I think he meant brainbox /cranium is the chestnut, crania less so, if at all.
I meant that I have seen ran in CIA many times before. As for trader, there is the trader in the financial markets, and the trader who buys and sells stuff at boot sales and online marketplaces – I think the latter is meant.
I had one of those days where everything just clicked into place and I even managed to spot a dodgy ‘a’ in SOLOMON on my read through.
Started with FOAL and finished with HINDERED in 5.25 with COD to CRANIA.
Thanks to Templar, I was particularly interested the unconventional parenting style of Strauss senior.
🚀
Perhaps I will break the run of fast times (above). I found this harder than yesterday’s QC; I just strayed into the SCC by seconds but quite enjoyed the journey. However, there were one or two clues that took too long to see. For example, HIND is obscure as far as I am concerned in this context so HINDERED went in unparsed at the end. Plutocratic and SITTING ROOM were two more biffs that looked OK but were not parsed rigorously.
FRIESIAN and SOLOMON were neat. RAN really gets a lot of exposure these days but I enjoyed CRANIA nontheless. I dislike the US expression OUTAGE but it seems to be in wide use now.
Thanks to both.
7:55 for the solve! Still had 9 clues to do as I passed the six min mark including unravelling whether we were looking for a plutocracy, plutocrats or some such. Momentary doubt about what the Strausses did – had they supPoSeD? And the only one I know is Richard Strauss who did Also Sprach Zarathustra
HINDERED went in at the end unparsed so thank-you to Templar for confirming that a hind is an old peasant as I post-solve suspected.
Current Personal NITCH for the week reporting at 39 🤣
You’re on a roll this week!
Nice bold ✅😁
A pleasingly alliterative 4:44. Spent some time flipping between an old peasant being a HAMP or a HIND before PURITAN sealed the deal.
Thanks Orpheus and Templar (sounds like an expensive legal firm).
I definitely will employ O&T if I ever need legal representation again (fingers crossed for no.)
My favourite name for a firm of solicitors is in Settle in Yorkshire. Goad & Butcher! Marvellous.
Is there any other sort?
Pot, kettle…. 😉
A perfectly set crossword at QC level today I would say, and there are many occasions when I haven’t been able to say that in recent times. My time of 8.45 was nicely within target and I was only held up to any extent by my LOI HINDERED. Well done to Orpheus and to our legal eagle for his blog.
Another lovely puzzle although I scrambled my brain trying to parse COINCIDENCE so thank you Templar for taking on the task.
Particularly enjoyed solving SITTING ROOM.
However a DNF as I had DECLAIM for ACCLAIM making HUMANE rather difficult.
Thanks Orpheus and Templar.
9:29
LOI was ALPACA, where I had to painstakingly construct it from the wordplay and checkers before seeing the animal.
Thanks Templar and Orpheus
A great puzzle today from Orpheus with his trademark musical clue. No problems but some solutions did need careful unravelling. Thanks Templar for your customary informative and entertaining blog.
One of those where the hardest are 1a and 1d … but managed it all in the end, LOI FRIESIAN. Thank you, Templar for sorting out ALPACA – we were in Peru last year so quick to jump to that affectionate (though temperamental) animal, but couldn’t quite parse it. Thanks to Orpheus for another friendly one. And thank you, Templar, for your good humour this morning; lots of laughs in your excellent blog. Just to continue our yesterday’s conversation a little: I think in the past my criterion has been “if all solved and parsed, no need to thank the blogger” but see now why you would castigate that standpoint. Off to the sun now – back week after next. Hope you all have a good week.
Dnf…
15 mins, but then found I had 22ac wrong. I dnk “Hind” for old peasant so put “Hankered”. Obviously one to learn going forward. Funnily enough, as I was working my way through the grid, I also thought it was very IKEA like.
FOI – 1dn “Friesian”
LOI – 21ac “Acclaim”
COD – 3ac “Composed”
Thanks as usual!
Several biffed for a rapid (for me) 6:37, and parsed afterwards. Great blog, your SIAN lesson made me smile 🙂
10 minutes for me, and all within my QC wheelhouse.
Like our blogger, HIND occurred to me instantly- as a result of doing these puzzles.
LOI ALPACA which required some thought.
A pleasant puzzle.
David
From FOAL to SALESMAN in 6:51. Managed to recall the old peasant. Thanks Orpheus and Templar.
11 minutes. Overall a not too taxing solve but some hard parsing eg for ALPACA and PLUTOCRATIC slowed me down and I was eventually faced with the unchecked letters of 22a at the end. Like JamesEd46, I’d forgotten HIND for ‘old peasant’ and just about put in “hankered” until rescued by the def.
Thanks to Orpheus and Templar
Many thanks to Templar but I am completely bemused as to why hind would spring into anyone’s mind on reading old peasant .
I think it was because I was so enraged when I first encountered it! (Probably in an Izetti.) It just stuck with me, like “number” for “anaesthetic”. And it does continue to come up from time to time …
Collins:
hind
in British English
noun (formerly)
1. a simple peasant
2. (in N Britain) a skilled farm worker
3. a steward
Word origin
Old English hīne, from hīgna, genitive plural of hīgan servants
ChatGPT agrees – probably trained on Collins:
The term hind as a synonym for peasant comes from Old English hīne (plural of hīwan), which originally meant a household servant or member of a household. Over time, it evolved to refer specifically to an agricultural laborer or farm worker, particularly in England and Scotland.
By the late Middle Ages, hind was used to describe a skilled farm worker, often someone responsible for managing part of an estate or working under a landlord. The word retained its rural and laboring-class connotation, distinguishing it from wealthier landowners or nobility.
So, while peasant is a broader term for agricultural workers of low social status, hind specifically referred to a farm laborer, often with some managerial duties.
One to separate the experienced solvers from the rest of us, I suspect. 18:12 for me, in a bifftastic display of hoping for the best.
Thank you for the blog!
As a novice I found this QC very enjoyable. A new best time too albeit still over 20 minutes
Well done!
Congratulations!
Congrats! Do you live in Carrickfergus?!
I quite like IKEA clues, especially on a really good day when all the long answers queue up to be written in – they don’t come along very often. Given my age, I satisfy at least half the requirements (others may say fully) of a Hind, but that meaning was unknown, and loi Hindered went in only when nothing else came to mind in order to secure a rare sub-15.
It’s nearly impossible to choose a CoD from such a strong field of parsing gems, but perhaps the Alpaca deserves to be a nose ahead of Solomon’s Redoubtable Sitting Room.
I half suspect Templar and Orpheus colluded beforehand, but for what it’s worth my thanks to both for today’s excellent QC and blog. Invariant
1d Friesian, cannot spell this, or couldn’t. Maybe the lessons in today’s Xwords will give me the tools to spell things like these cattle and [an answer in] the 15*15 today?
22a Hindered; Hind did spring to mind to be instantly dismissed as too obsolete for the QC. Wrong.
Thanks to Templar & Orpheus.
Edited so as not to reveal an answer in today’s 15, for those who haven’t done it yet!
Oops, thanks. Silly of me.
A few succesful biffs (including HINDERED) but managed to finish in 25 mins so that makes 4 consecutive. Maybe I am improving but very conscious of pride coming before a fall and it wont take much to trip me up.
Thanks Orpheus (who usually puts me flat on my face) and Templar.
5.22 WOE
The pink run continues. Not sure how the A in the wise man got there but it sure as hell did!
Otherwise, paused over HINDERED but then saw the w/p.
More gentle than some QCs of late. Paused over spelling of FRIESIAN but the wordplay helped me sort this out. Very interesting to hear about the etymology of REDOUBTABLE – many thanks Templar. Hind was VHO (from crosswords probably). I thought CRANIA was very clever, but also liked the surface for ILLICIT. Many thanks Orpheus and Templar.
I enjoyed this: all done in 14 minutes, though felt quicker. Biffed PLUTOCRATIC , COINCIDENCE and ALPACA and never did manage to parse them.
Great blog Templar as usual.
I found it pretty tough.
Thanks to Orpheus i will think differently of Drake’s ship in future.
Lovely puzzle but I was slow. No time to comment.
Thanks vm, Templar. CNP all, lots of biffs.
8:58
Slowish (I put that down to having woken up at 4.45am, and unable to get back to sleep, chose to solve this puzzle over a cuppa!) but having seen that the Quitch was at 97, not too perturbed.
For some reason, I couldn’t quickly come up with the Cornish river, and neither could I discern which letter to insert into it for a while. I’d also bunged in OUTCRY at 4d which affected 11a for a while. HINDERED wasn’t immediately obvious to me either, even with all checkers in place.
Thanks Templar and Orpheus
A steady solve today with no major hold-ups so I was surprised to find it had taken me 15 minutes – seemed quicker. Several went unparsed or semi-parsed so thanks to Templar for the informative blog.
FOI – 1ac FOAL
LOI – 18dn BRACE
COD – 17ac REDOUBTABLE
Biffed most to get to quick(ish) finish,NHO hind= old peasant
An entertaining 13:33 solve with no real frustrations, but a few that I had to think over for a bit. I didn’t exactly biff PLUTOCRATIC, but it was only when I went back afterwards to check it that I realized how cunning Orpheus was to use “corrupt” for the anagrind, since it contains all the letters of “court” and also the “p” of capital. CRANIA made me laugh, I haven’t been around long enough to recognize it as a chestnut.
Thanks Orpheus and Templar, very interesting blog today, especially about the Strausses. The word “lounge” in British English always seems to carry associations I can’t quite get, so you’ve added a piece to that puzzle.
It’s the whole U / non-U thing. The original 1950s essays and books were, apparently, light-hearted and satirical, but unfortunately some people took it very seriously. Rampant snobbery, when the upper classes felt it appropriate to sneer at people they considered to be beneath them because of the words they used. It’s very hard to shake off how you were brought up though.
Thanks. Of course we have that here too but with different words and different notions about class.
(I thought the Betjeman poem was kind of nasty. But again, I’m a foreigner.)
I’d agree! People will try and excuse it as satire, but to me it’s just snobbish and mean.
And we are always told that the US is a classless society!
Good puzzle, I thought on the trickier side with a handful of clues edging towards 15 x 15 territory. Never heard of this HIND, and Cornish rivers a bit of a weak spot. COD – CRANIA.
8.49 I found this very gentle though the Quitch has it as the hardest of the week. I did biff FRIGHTEN for 1d but GHTN seemed like an unlikely Welsh girl. LOI HINDERED. ALPACA and PURITAN were parsed after I was done. Thanks Templar and Orpheus.
Just inside the half-hour mark, I think, but it would have been ~25 minutes had I bothered to re-read my final clue before setting out in an unnecessary alphabet trawl. I already had OUTAGE as the likely answer, but still had 22a in mind and embarked on a ridiculous search for another word for frustrated to fit O_T_G_. Doolally or what?
Many thanks to Templar for an excellent blog and to Orpheus for a genuine QC.
What a delightful QC! I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed one so much. I was going to give COD to COINCIDENCE but then there was one lovely clue after another. Each time I thought I might get stuck, the answer came and made me smile. NHO hind but I shall try to remember it for the future. Many thanks to Orpheus and Templar.
12:04 today. I’m another who did not know that meaning of HIND, will try to remember that.
Thanks to Orpheus and Templar.
We found this trickier than the last two days, needed the dictionary to help with a few clues. Glad to finish in a reasonable time.
Enjoyable steady solve, over a cappuccino in Waitrose cafe this afternoon. Found it a bit easier than yesterday’s.
Thanks Templar and Orpheus
Hind a new one for me too…Hand is too close! Very enjoyable puzzle that had me scratching my head too often. wasn’t aware that crania is a chestnut. Had to rethink 11a from Drawing Room biff. Only 6a’s and 6d’s on first pass but mostly done before I left Costa. I do like IKEA clues. An entertaining blog too!
FOI 8a Illicit
LOI 1a Foal
CODs 1d Friesian and 8d Coincidence
All done in 20 mins, needed the blog to make sense of Hindered. Very enjoyable. Thanks Templar and Orpheus
Mindful of m’learned friend’s submission to us yesterday, I will start by thanking him for an entertaining and educational blog, and Orpheus for a nicely pitched puzzle, full of very amusing and mildly confusing clues.
Lots to like, so I won’t single out anything more than FOAL, given its reference to my favourite paddle boarding ria. And ALPACA, because who doesn’t like a cool camelid.