Shay is, of course, [boxing compere voice] The Undefeated, The Reigning, The Highest Ever Quitch Score Champion Setter of the Woorrrllldddddd (160 on last outing, 20 March 2025). Oh the wailing and weeping and gnashing of teeth that ensued. Today the dial has been turned down a long way, though there is one proper obscurity, and I would calibrate this in the upper-medium bracket. 09:38 for me: hope you enjoyed it too.
Definitions underlined in bold.
| Across | |
| 7 | Tenure of corrupt cardinal (8) |
| FOURTEEN – it’s a Shay special to make you try to anagram the wrong letters (last time loads of us fruitlessly tried to anagram “rum in tiny”). And lo, it came to pass that your blogger spent some time trying to anagram “cardinal” into a word meaning “tenure”. Nope: it’s an anagram [corrupt] of “tenure of” to get a “cardinal” number. Shay 1 – Templar 0. | |
| 8 | Completely unknown supporter (4) |
| ALLY – ALL [completely] + Y [unknown]. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Shay 1- Templar 1. I’m feeling magnanimous so I’m calling it a draw now. | |
| 9 | Ways to bear love and poignancy (6) |
| PATHOS – PATHS [ways] containing [to bear] O [love]. | |
| 10 | Disheartened, many watch rubbish (2,3) |
| MY EYE – MY [disheartened many, i.e. without its middle letters] + EYE [watch]. MY EYE means rubbish, rot, bunkum; a shortened version of all my eye and Betty Martin. Trigger warning for the sensitive: this puzzle contains slightly dated slang. Deal with it. | |
| 11 | Some apparently backward times (3) |
| ERA – a reversed [backward] part of [some] “apparently”. (How can an ERA (singular) be defined as “times” (plural)? Can’t work it out myself and can’t see any justification for it in the usual sources.) | |
| 12 | Former secret police’s inactivity (6) |
| STASIS – having missed it so many times I now know that the STASI are the “former secret police” of choice. Add an S; the apostrophe is silent. | |
| 14 | Sponge pudding making comeback, I see (6) |
| LOOFAH – LOOF is “fool” backwards [pudding making comeback] + AH [I see, as in “ah, now I get it”]. | |
| 16 | Second finest horror film (6) |
| SCREAM – S [second] + CREAM [finest]. “Saw” the other day, now this. I am not a horror fan but even I have heard of the “Scream” series, where the killer wears a “Ghostface” mask looking a bit like Edvard Munch’s painting. | |
| 18 | Stay in, worried for soundness of mind (6) |
| SANITY – anagram [worried] of “stay in”. | |
| 19 | Eggs on vacuous airheads at first (3) |
| OVA – first letters [at first] of “on vacuous airheads”. Shay plays between verb [eggs on] and noun [eggs], so neat. | |
| 20 | Quietly copy conclusion of her essay (5) |
| PAPER – P [quietly] + APE [copy] + R [conclusion of her]. | |
| 21 | Forthcoming time on board yacht at sea (6) |
| CHATTY – anagram [at sea] of “yacht” with T [time] inside [on board]. | |
| 23 | Quaker colonist, regularly pregnant (4) |
| PENN – William PENN was an English Quaker whose existence I deduced from the eponymous Pennsylvania (granted to him by King Charles II as repayment of a debt owed to Penn’s father – read all about it here if so inclined). If only you’d stuck with us, chaps – you’d have King Charles III instead of the Donald. | |
| 24 | Inciting bent mate to go astray (8) |
| ABETMENT – anagram [to go astray] of “bent mate”. I could go into all sorts of lawyerly quibbles about the technical differences between “abetting” and “inciting” but no-one’s paying me for this so look it up yourselves. “Inciting” here is acting as a noun (i.e. a gerund). | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Silly sitcom about North American monk (8) |
| MONASTIC – anagram [silly] of “sitcom” about NA [North American]. MONASTIC is more usually used as an adjective but is a perfectly proper noun too. | |
| 2 | Principal part of foot (4) |
| ARCH – double definition (the first as in “arch enemy”). | |
| 3 | Taunts start to trouble moderates (6) |
| TEASES – T [start to trouble] + EASES [moderates]. Again Shay makes you think that “moderates” is a noun, but it’s needed as a verb here. | |
| 4 | Obsessive about one’s pet? (6) |
| ANIMAL – gosh I had trouble parsing this properly. On first pass I wrote it in, looked at it sideways and took it out again, because I just couldn’t parse it. After getting checkers I wrote it back in, puzzled over it some more, and decided that it must have something to do with “mania” and I’d sort it out later. Only when writing this up did I finally see how it works: it’s ANAL [obsessive] going round [about] I’M [one’s]. | |
| 5 | Vehicle owner crashed, showing signs of stress (8) |
| CAREWORN – CAR [vehicle] followed by an anagram [crashed] of “owner”. A lovely, elegant clue and COD from me. | |
| 6 | Hint of culture every so often (4) |
| CLUE – every other letter [every so often] of culture. | |
| 13 | Son tears blanket (8) |
| SWEEPING – S [son] + WEEPING [tears]. The sort of “tears” that Shay’s last puzzle induced, not “tears” as in ripping apart; once again the noun/verb trick. A blanket/sweeping assertion, eg. | |
| 15 | In a state about radioactive substance (8) |
| ASTATINE – Collins: “a radioactive element of the halogen series: a decay product of uranium and thorium that occurs naturally in minute amounts and is artificially produced by bombarding bismuth with alpha particles. Symbol: At; atomic no: 85; half-life of most stable isotope, 210At: 8.1 hours; probable valency: 1,3,5, or 7; melting pt: 302°C; boiling pt: 337°C (est)”. Nope, me neither. It’s an anagram [about] of “in a state”.
My LOI and I was left staring at A-T-T-N-. AST looked the most likely start and so it was either ASTITANE or ASTATINE. Both seemed plausible and that makes this a not-particularly-great clue in my book (since if you clue an obscurity as a straight anagram there’s no wordplay to help the solver to the answer if there are plausible alternatives available from the anagrist even after all the checkers are in). I guessed right or I might have been bitter. Fun fact: astatine takes its name from the Greek word astatos, meaning “unstable”, because it has no stable or long-lived isotopes. |
|
| 17 | Deadly cannon finally changing hands (6) |
| MORTAL – this is the first time I’ve ever managed to remember the “changing hands” trick. It signals swapping an L for an R, or an R for an L. Here the “cannon” is a “mortar”, and we swap the final R for an L to get MORTAL [deadly]. | |
| 18 | Part of God’s acre dutifully hallowed (6) |
| SACRED – a hidden [part of], neatly spread across three words [God’s acre dutifully]. | |
| 20 | Caught top spy (4) |
| PEEK – sounds like [caught, as in “I didn’t quite catch that”] “peak” [top]. | |
| 22 | Culmination of cases of academic malpractice (4) |
| ACME – thank goodness for Wile E Coyote and his endless deliveries from the Acme Company. I had to ask my mother what ACME meant and have thus never forgotten. The wordplay is the first and last letters [cases] of “academic” and “malpractice“. | |
A DNF from me. The second hardest QC I’ve attempted – after the last Shay offering. Thanks Templar for the explanation of my failings…..
I don’t really keep tabs on which solvers are tricky so never know what I’m in for, but I may remember Shay from now on. I really liked this and solving was a case of moving around the grid to see what I could get to provide some checkers.
I made the error of putting ‘sole’ in at 2d instead of ARCH which made things really difficult for the cardinal and poignancy. Couldn’t see CAREWORN being unsure whether van or car was the vehicle. MY EYE passed me by until I solved careworn giving me e?e, then saw it. Was thinking OTT for obsessive in 4d before I spotted ‘anal’ and ANIMAL came to me. ASTATINE was in two cryptics in the last twelve months so I must have remembered it but still needed the crossers to figure out the anagrist, but it hasn’t been in a quickie since 2017.
LOOFAH took a while as I think of a pudding as something hot and stodgy rather than a cold dessert. Didn’t know PENN as the Quaker. SWEEPING took forever as I’d typed in SCREAM as scraam and didn’t notice for ages. Didn’t know MONASTIC could also be a noun. Managed to finish but it took a while. COD to CHATTY. Great crossword and a fantastic blog too.
Thanks Templar and setter.
[deleted] … artificially difficult.
What a waste of the QC spot.
[I have edited this post because in my view much of it crossed the line between expressing a fair criticism of the puzzle, and being abusive towards the setter and editor. Templar.]
Nothing I said was abusive. The editor has said that he can’t assess the difficulty of QCs, I didn’t make that up. And Shay’s QCs have all been outside any reasonable range of difficulty. Given both are paid for this I think it’s reasonable to expect better.
Hear head
Not for the first time the pedant in me feels the need to point out that sponge and loofah are different things. Sponge is a marine creature whereas loofah is a gourd – animal vs vegetable. They are both used as bathing accessories but that doesn’t make them the same.
A series of shorter times can make up an ERA. Chambers Crossword Dictionary lists both ‘time’ and ‘times’ as synonyms.
13 minutes for the puzzle, which is an improvement on Shay’s previous two offerings for which I needed 22 and 30 minutes, but today I was unable to parse ANIMAL.
I vaguely remembered ASTATINE from its outings last year and it appears in the second verse of Tom Lehrer’s Elements song.
I know Python’s song to help me find philosophers, but I am not planning on learning Lehrer’s, albeit brilliant, chemical composition just on the off chance that it helps me with obscure elements….
I have a copy of that ditty from my days working at Perkin Elmer, the scientific instrument company. Not sure if they still exist. My first proper job after my Molecular Physics degree. Not that I really used my degree. More techie sales and marketing person.
These are the only ones that have come to light at Harvard
There maybe many others that are yet to be dis-covered.
An inspiration to Chris de Berg perhaps with his romance and dance…?
Perkin Elmer still going. I was their UK tax advisor for a time and visited them a couple of times in their US HQ on the outskirts of Boston IIRC.
“They are both used as bathing accessories”
Indeed! They are both used as … sponges! The word sponge isn’t restricted to the marine animal – the sponge I use to clean my car was most assuredly never part of the natural world, but it’s still a sponge!
But you’d have to be rather eccentric to clean it with a loofah!
But it’s certainly not a loofah, or related in any way to a loofah. I use an old towel to wash my car -it holds water, it cleans, but it ain’t a sponge either.
But the point is that the word “sponge” covers many things. It covers the marine animal, yes, but it also covers my car sponge (made of polyester and polyurethane) and it covers many other things used as a sponge, whether in the bathroom or the kitchen or anywhere else!
Collins on loofah: “the fibrous interior of the fruit of the dishcloth gourd, which is dried, bleached, and used as a bath sponge or for scrubbing”
Chambers on loofah: “the roughly cylindrical dried inner part of a tropical gourd-like fruit, used as a kind of rough sponge”.
So sponge for loofah is totally fine.
But it’s definitely not a loofah, which is abrasive, while the sponge is for squeezing water over one’s soapy self.
A loofah is an exfoliating joy! Give it a go!
Re Era being times plural… from Wiktionary…
“A time period of indeterminate length ….
2) … a subdivision of an eon, and subdivided into periods.”
So what? Just because an era (singular) can be divided into periods (plural) doesn’t mean that an era can be defined as periods. It’s like saying that because a cake (singular) can be divided into slices (plural), then “cake” can be clued as “slices”.
I would say times has a more general meaning here, as in “we live in exciting times”.
Yes, that works well.
About 14, so pretty tough for a QC but a decent challenge. LOI was ANIMAL, probably a bit of licence there, as was ASTATINE where I got lucky with the verb order. Thanks Shay and Templar.
I didn’t find this too hard. I relied on knowledge and experience gained from trickier puzzles; for example AT is the chemical symbol for astatine, and the more advanced puzzles clue it in a clue beginning with At, a clever trick. They also start clues with He for helium, As for arsenic, and I for iodine.
I did have to solve most of the clues from the wordplay, so I felt like I was going more slowly than I was. Monastic, fourteen, and abetment were particularly challenging.
Time: 8:24
Some tough stuff here but it was PEEK that caused me the longest delay at the end. I’m another SOLE only I didn’t notice it didn’t fit with FOURTEEN so left it there for ages, also managed to absent mindedly enter STAtIS for STASIS even though I’m reading Katja Hoyer’s amazing Beyond the Wall about East Germany at the moment – a recommended read for the TfTT Book Club. All green in 19.09. RHS a fair bit quicker than the left.
Finished, hurrah, in 27.43, and surprised at the time being as long, as this was an enjoyable solve that felt quicker. Looking back there were several clues we revisited and a few more where we spent time working out the parsing. Finally came back to Animal which Mrs RH had suggested several times along the way, but only with the final crosser did we submit with no scooby on the parsing. Thanks Templar for your perseverance on it and for, as ever, a thoroughly enjoyable blog.
Thanks Shay 😉
15:18 with aids. If I play beach cricket I don’t wear pads, if I play cricket with a hard ball and against fast bowling I do. So I have no compunction about using aids against setters like Shay – beach cricket this ain’t.
Without them I’d never for example have got ASTATINE, a clue I think Templar you are far too kind to. An obscure word clued by a straight anagram in which almost any permutation of the unchecked letters sounds plausible: this is a terrible clue for a QC because one is left with a straight guess.
Having completed the puzzle I did work out all the parsing, but this was a puzzle replete with biffs, post-completion parsing, stretching definitions and unusual words – but not a lot of enjoyment alas. Many thanks Templar for the blog.
It’s curious. Nobody bats an eyelid when an obscure Trojan leader pops up but a chemical element causes consternation. Astatine was very much a biff for me. I guess it’s the diversity of topics which keeps the puzzles fresh and entertaining.
Or British pop singer who headlined Glastonbury last year …
Nice cricketing analogy!
I found this tough but managed to crawl over the line eventually.
I had similar thoughts to our blogger about the radioactive element and found the SW a particular struggle with the SWEEPING/PAPER/PEEK combo proving particularly intractable.
Finished in 12.45 but with ANIMAL unparsed.
Thanks to Templar for the, as ever, informative blog.
Cedric Statherby wittily summed up my view and experience . I rarely use aids on the QC but had to today and took ten minutes longer than usual. NOT what is wanted in a QC. Thanks for excellent blog.
I finished, it nearly finished me, but I relish the success and enjoyed most of the journey. This is a more of a 15×15 that has been through the wash than a QC, IMHO. 16 and 18A may be pertinent to some comments.
ASTATINE may have appeared before but I can’t see how it falls within any definition of what should be in a QC. With checkers all in place it remained a guess unless one has particularly relevant knowledge. PENN was obscure GK but very gettable.
I echo Jackkt’s comment on LOOFAH; bit of a bish by Shay, I feel.
Otherwise, as Templar sets out elegantly, much to exercise the grey cells, plenty of sleight of hand and misdirection.
SCC 25:47 QC my eye seems to be the commentary today. Parsed animal straight off the bat @cedric definitely no beach involved) possibly because by that stage many ruder or rather less pleasant descriptive words were floating around my head to cathart my painfully slow progress, so anal came to mind very quickly.
No half-parsed answers today as imho the definitions weren’t particularly sympathetic so the answers had to be understood fully before the bung in.
Thanks Templar and Shay monumental work
Yes Shay’s last offering was the worst ever but this one was quite delightful so maybe he listened? Not easy to start, F2I just ERA and OVA but gradually they went in. Guessed 15 started AST so reached for the dictionary and there was the NHO ASTATINE – is that cheating? LOI ANIMAL. NHO the noun ABETMENT (nor has this computer which adds its patronising wiggly line underneath – or is it the website? computer or website, anyone know?) but it had to be. Thank you, Shay and Templar.
If you’re on a iPhone/ipad etc hold your finger down on the word and select ‘learn’. If a computer screen, right click and select the same or similar option.
Sorry, misunderstanding I think! Not sure which perceived problem you’re advising me how to solve, but what I’m asking is: when I type a word here which is perceived to be wrongly spelt, my laptop adds a red wiggly line underneath. Is it my laptop that’s doing that (i.e. it doesn’t happen to others contributing to this blog), or is it part of the set-up of the website hosting this blog? (Sorry if my tech terminology is not quite accurate.) I’ve noticed that whatever AI it is that’s adding these wiggly lines, it only likes (i.e. accepts) US spelling!
Is your laptop Apple or Microsoft?
Thank you! Microsoft.
Sorry. I only use Apple. But the procedure should be the same. Right-click on the word with the red underline and it should bring up an option to ignore the spelling or learn the word and add it to your computer’s dictionary.
It’s definitely to do with the language settings on your laptop, not the website as until you actually send the comment the website hasn’t received anything from your laptop.
I suggest you also change the language settings to British English assuming that’s where you live. Google will help you with that if you’re not sure how.
To add a word to the Microsoft Word dictionary by right-clicking, right-click on the word with a red wavy underline in your document and select “Add to Dictionary”. This will add the word to your custom dictionary, so it’s no longer flagged as misspelled.
Thank you! Now I understand. Most kind of you. It works! At last I am English and not American. Wonderful!
(So sorry – if you’re US, please forgive my saying that!)
As a Canadian I am very forgiving to both the English and the Americans.
I’m sure Wolfe will be relieved. . . 😉
You have answered your own question – you computer is probably not Microsoft at all, it is Dell, Hewlett Packard etc. (Although Microsoft does make some). The “is your computer Microsoft” refers to the operating system (“Windows”) which is software. So also is the word-processor or web browser that is adding the wiggly line.
Anything you can actually see or read is coming from the software (except the little on/off light – that is hardware).
On apple the same applies except that both hardware (iPhone IPad etc) , and operating system software (iOs) are made by Apple.
Wow! Thank you for that – some of which I can understand. OK: my laptop is Hewlett Packard, and I access this blog through Firefox. So who is adding the wiggly line?
I think it is Firefox, that certainly has a spell checker built in.
In the top right hand corner there is a symbol of a jigsaw piece, if you click on that you will get a page called “Personalise your fire fox”. In the bottom left corner there is a cog-wheel symbol called “Firefox settings”. If you click that you will get a page called “General”. If you scroll down that you will find a section called “Language” which allows you to select which dictionary to use, and a self-explanatory check box saying “check spelling as you type”
Try deselecting it and your wiggly lines will disappear.
(If not it is possible that the TfTT site has a connected dictionary – John can you comment?)
Don’t forget to turn it back on again if you want the spell checking to continue.
Thank you SO much. That was a completely brilliant idiot-proof guide. It worked exactly as you said, and I’m now looking forward to being able to write English without this computer objecting all the time. Wonderful – so kind of you – thank you!
He?
How good (and woke) of you to point that out!
I wasn’t meaning to be snarky, but I was just guessing that Shay isn’t a he.
How interesting! I wonder if we’ll ever find out.
Busy time in our world and have missed quite a few over the past week or so.
Found half an hour this morning and sat down, determined to finish.
Alas, not to be.
Simply not on the same wavelength. We look forward to going through the blog – the harder it is the more we learn. We expect to learn quite a bit…
Thank you Shay, and in anticipation, Templar.
Quite fun, certainly felt like a challenge but my determination to treat it as a QC probably helped. Sadly by 8′ I wasn’t seeing ABETMENT (my fault for not realising that -MENT would have been a possibility), so gave up. DNF!
Very, very hard. Had to resort to aids and guesses to finish, taking 40 minutes. QCs should not be so difficult.
That was a proper workout, and in the end I was just happy to cross the line in 13.59. I was pretty slow from the off and didn’t really build up any speed at all. The only parsing that defeated me was ANIMAL, so thanks to Templar for sorting that out, I’m not sure I would have got that at all even if I spent another chunk of time on it. ASTATINE went in with fingers crossed as I’ve never come across it before.
10:34 (death of Malcolm II of Scotland)
I found this to be a lot easier than some recent QCs. LOI was ASTATINE.
Struggled with ABETMENT.
Thanks Templar and Shay
No, I didn’t enjoy it. Sorry, Templar.
DNF. Six clues unsolved. Hard graft for 50+ minutes, then gave up.
Shay joins Cheeko on my list of setters not to attempt. I will go missing from here when I see their names. Other setters will be added to my list, I’m sure.
Brilliant stuff, very much enjoyed. I couldn’t parse ANIMAL, either, so just assumed it was modern-speak for OBSESSIVE and moved on. Some lovely clues, my fave being LOOFAH.
A super challenge for a 12:27 completion. Thanks Shay, and Templar for the splendid blog.
I had no problem with ASTATINE (given 3 crossers!) but I have spent my life in Chemistry.
This was simply daft as a QC – I agree with much of Cedric’s post. It was even worse than Shay’s last offering (2941, SNITCH 170). I thought he might have learned something from the reaction to that one.
I can see no point in ‘QCs’ like this when we have the 15×15 every day for those who enjoy a tougher workout. They will simply drive away newer solvers (and ‘old hands’ like me who are increasingly looking to other puzzles for a quick, but pleasurable, cryptic fix each morning).
I am impressed that some solvers got pleasure from this; I finished it but, labelled as a QC, I did not.
Thanks to Templar for an excellent blog. I think he might be better at setting a true QC than Shay……
17:28 but losing the coin flip on ASTASTINE. Oh well, shrug. Taken out past fifteen minutes by SWEEPING but otherwise while it was on the tough side, it felt doable for me.
I really enjoyed FOURTEEN. I immediately saw that either end of the clue could be anagrammed and once MONASTIC gave me the O, it ruled out cardinal as the grist. PAPER also a clue I liked for its simplicity, CHATTY=forthcoming is fun and PENN was a good alternation for a lesser known colonist (but think Pennsylvania). Wasn’t keen on ABETMENT. Everybody will surely have heard of SCREAM after I mentioned it in Monday’s comments 😉 Thanks to Shay for the challenge.
Thanks to Templar for the blog and the parsing of ANIMAL which I was happy to think was just an Olivia Newton John obsessive thing after a cursory think about whether I=one in the middle of something (as it ultimately turned out to be).
Edit: 36sec PB on the Cryptic Quintagram
From FOURTEEN to MORTAL in 8:44. Felt tricky, but not on the same planet as that other offering! SCREAM and MORTAL held me up, but no problem with ASTATINE. Just one of those elements I’d heard of, but I’m not sure why. Thanks Shay and Templar.
12:32. Probably just as well I didn’t recognise Shay as being one the difficult setters. I’d never heard of ABETMENT but did know ASTATINE, which has been clued by “At”, as explained by vinyl1, whenever I’ve come across it before. Overall I agree this was harder than average with some particularly sneaky ones such as SWEEPING and CHATTY. Favourite was ACME, including Templar’s comments; I have exactly the same fond memories.
Thanks to Shay and Templar
Agree with the comments about ASTATINE. If there’s a really uncommon word, the letters should be obvious eg via an anagram. Biffed and then parsed ANIMAL. Started with a careless SOLE instead of ARCH.
Knew STASI from the brilliant film The Lives of Others – well worth watching. Thanks Templar for the interesting blog.
That is a great film, as you say. Seen it twice and will happily watch again. Uncomfortable but so enlightening.
But surely it *was* an anagram – even though I agree the order of the letters was still not obvious.
Well, there are several other elements ending in -ine: bromine, fluorine, chlorine. So that would be the most likely ending if you don’t know the word. That would leave you with an A and an S, whose placement is obvious.
Just checked and it’s true, there are no elements ending in ‘ane’ – wow. That is bound to come in handy in future. During solving I’d assumed the solution could end in ‘ane’ on the grounds that methane, butane and propane are chemically. But of course those aren’t elements just organic compounds where the −C−C− group has been attributed the highest priority according to the rules of organic nomenclature. Definitely hadn’t appreciated the suffix may also be used for a mononuclear hydride of an element (but not the element itself).
With thanks to Wikipedia!
All chemicals have “IUPAC” names for use in all scientific literature so that scientists in different countries know what each other are talking about. That doesn’t mean that other names are “wrong” there is a lot of variation between languages and brand names etc. The names are denoted by the last three letters, all newly-discovered elements end in IUM (including aluminium), ANE cannot be (and never will be) used for elements as it is reserved for the Paraffins family of hydrocarbons, methane, ethane propane etc.
Aluminum arose from an advertising slogan for saucepans (that doesn’t make it wrong), even Americans pop the i back in when writing scientific papers.
Yes, meant the order should be obvious.
12:15
Very slow – I seem to recall that Shay’s puzzles are pretty tough, and my logging backs this up – for me, this was the hardest of their three puzzles so far. I was either misdirected or just very slow with MONASTIC which gave SCREAM, MORTAL and PATHOS. Did parse ANIMAL which gave LOOFAH and I was left with just NHO ABETMENT (what else could it be with first three checkers in place?) and finally ASTATINE (heard the word before but no idea what it is) – I wish I’d paid more attention to that bl**dy irritating Tom Lehrer song that my kids sang ad nauseam some years back…
Thanks Templar and Shay
I had completely forgotten about Shay’s previous offerings (probably some sort of trauma defence mechanism), so approached this with a completely open (some might say empty) mind and enjoyed the challenge from a ‘new’ setter.
The top half went in pretty quick, even allowing time for a quick check of the Sole and (Cardinal)* rabbit holes, but the bottom half, especially the Peek/Penn/Abetment corner, put up more of a struggle. Astatine was a vho from an age when I was gainfully employed and rounded off a pleasant enough 21mins – plenty of window seats still available. CoD to the cunning 5d, Careworn.
Thank you, Templar, for your customary entertaining blog: worth a guinea or two of anybody’s money, and Shay for turning the dial down. Invariant
A good time I think.
They were flying in at one point, albeit more Sopwith Camel than, say, Eurofighter.
I agree that Shay would have been “worth a guinea or two” if he had. But he didn’t, so he wasn’t, IMHO (if you see what I mean).
The ‘fee payment’ was for Templar
Ah, so it was! I stand corrected.
In that case: I agree that Templar would have been “worth a guinea or two” if it was, which it was IMO, so he was (if you get my drift).
Thanks Templar. I very much needed your blog today as I wasn’t happy with my dodgy parsing of ANIMAL. I assumed animal could be a synonym for obsessive. The correct parsing makes much more sense. I also didn’t help myself by misspelling LOOFer. Doh! Not surprisingly ASTATINE was my LOI as I needed all the checkers to put together the anagram fodder. COD to ACME. 9:51
Gotta stand up for Shay here. Yes, it was maybe a bit too tough, but the cluing was excellent. So very enjoyable nevertheless!
Thanks Templar, Shay and Jason 👍
I couldn’t help smiling as I completed this, as I was anticipating a wall of criticism for the level of challenge presented. All credit to you lot, as most of you have taken this on the chin. As a physicist, astatine was a write in, but I can see why people would find this clue to be a little unfair.
A great blog as always, so thanks for that.
Very tricky, taking me as long as Monday’s and Wednesday’s combined at 31 minutes all parsed. I quite enjoyed it though as there were some lovely clues. NHO of the word ABETMENT but I guessed it was some legal concept. I had also NHO ASTATINE (or else had forgotten it). I don’t recollect ever seeing the ‘changing hands’ device at 17dn before.
FOI – 10ac MY EYE
LOI – 15dn ASTATINE
CODs – three contenders in my book: CHATTY, CAREWORN and MORTAL
Thanks to Shay and Templar.
This is a common device in more advanced puzzles – some of them even substitute an L for an R and an R for an L in the same word. There is also changing directions, which is meant to fool you into thinking you should reverse something, but instead you substitute an E for a W or an S for an N.
Biffed but couldn’t parse LOOFAH, ANIMAL and ASTARTINE were write-ins, FOURTEEN was not until I realised I was getting nowhere with trying to anagram Cardinal. S WEEPING took me a lot longer than it should have. Surprising really, having attended two funerals recently.
COD CAREWORN. Altogether enjoyable challenge that took quite a while. No setter name shown on phone app, but thanks Shay and Templar (unpaid!).
16:24. Entertaining and absorbing. All parsed but ANIMAL, which might have meant obsessive?
I think Shay is safe with his sponge. The first Collins Cobuild definition goes: “Sponge is a very light soft substance with lots of little holes in it, which can be either artificial or natural. It is used to clean things or as a soft layer”. LOOFAH was one of my favourites alongside SWEEPING, CHATTY and ACME.
So, from me, it’s thanks to Shay and special thanks to Templar for the blog
26:04
Found this one tough going, not helped by putting SOLE as the principal part of foot. Eventually saw FOURTEEN and my mistake. LOI CAREWORN.
I enjoyed this. A tough grid but good clues from Shay.
I had completely forgotten his last one.
MY LOI was PEEK after the unknown ABETMENT-no other letter order really worked.
ASTATINE I know only from crosswords but it readily came to mind.
15 minutes. Not easy but clearly clued I thought.
David
DNF. Threw in the towel at 20mins.
Just not on the wavelength today.
A very very hard puzzle.
Agree with previous comments about loofah definitely not being a sponge.
Some new words for me today.
Thanks for excellent ( and much needed) blog Templar.
Yes, great blog Templar, many thanks. This did take me a while and I admit to using the check button for NHO ASTATINE and doing an alphabet trawl for LOI PEEK (doh). Definitely on the harder side. I tried making an anagram out of cardinal too, as well as assuming ANIMAL was a DD. Favourite clue was LOOFAH (agree not really a sponge but we use the terms interchangeably in our house) which made me smile. Pleased to spot the ‘changing hands’ device in MORTAL. I really enjoy solving the QC over coffee so if it’s more challenging I just end up having a slightly longer break – what’s not to like guys?! Thanks Shay, hard but not impossible. Loved the blog.
At the tougher end of the QC range, but I enjoyed it. All parsed except ANIMAL which I biffed. Particularly liked MY EYE and MORTAL.
Thanks, Shay and Templar
thanks Templar. A very rare DNF for me today gave up after 22 mins and looked up the last three in which were sWEEPING; PEEK AND PAPER. All gettable in retrospect.
8.57
What Koppite said.
Shay may be voted the least favourite setter but Mr Templar please step forward to collect your MVP award for another highly entertaining blog. A number of posters weren’t too far behind. Thanks all
+1 for MVP award for Templar 👍
Given Astatine has received rough treatment, may I suggest in future we only allow elements that often appear on Pointless – like Tennessine and Protactinium 😄
19:58 avoiding the SCC by a hair. Took a break before FOURTEEN opened up the last few. Took a long time before deciding PEEK over PEER.
NHO ABETMENT
COD MORTAR/MORTAL changing hands. Very nice.
I don’t need ASTATINE in my computer vocabulary, radical difference in difficulty between this and yesterday. This one definitely not a QC, didn’t start, let alone finish.
A good puzzle spoilt by astatine. I guessed right but if you’re going to have such an obscurity, the wordplay surely needs to be more helpful (neat as the anagram was). 17:18.
10.49 This did feel tricky but the clues were all very logical. I had to return to FOURTEEN, MONASTIC, SWEEPING, ASTATINE, LOOFAH, CAREWORN and PEEK. Thanks Templar and Shay.
P.S. Yesterday’s 15×15 was an easy one. I spent 40 minutes on it and gave up with three clues unsolved. This QC was a bit harder than usual but it is very much a QC.
P.P.S. https://tomlehrersongs.com/the-elements/
DNF. Foiled by ASTATINE and ABETMENT! I got ANIMAL but couldn’t parse. I thought first of rocks and peeves for pets, I imagine, since I haven’t had an animal one for decades. SWEEPING, CHATTY, LOOFAH, MY EYE, and FOURTEEN were very enjoyable.
Agree with Templar that Shay was a little kinder in this QC. I just ignored parsing the clue for Animal, thinking it was a double definition with one being vaguely cryptic. Thanks to the blog to help me see the parsing. Took a while to figure out Acme parsing. Further, that chemical element was an awful anagram.
I really enjoyed this – including a bit of Freud. Thanks to the setter
DNF with 5 clues I couldn’t figure out today. An interesting puzzle, which gave me lots of new information about secret police, Quakers, cardinal numbers and monks! Hopefully retain this information if it every comes up in a quiz. Thank you for the blog explaining the clues 😁
A slightly faster than average 11:18 for us. I took chemistry to quite a high level so ASTATINE was known but still took a bit of recall. However, although it’s not an element you come across regularly IMO it’s a perfectly fair clue; its use is no different to a host of other authors, composers, ports etc. LOI was the not previously encountered ABETMENT but, with some checkers, and the likelihood of it being related to ‘aiding and abetting’, it seemed an obvious solution. Forgot to go back and parse MORTAL which we’d biffed from the M and R checkers and assumed might involve an R / L swap but hadn’t at the time twigged mortar for cannon. There were many clues here which gave the feeling of an as yet uncommon setter. I rather enjoyed it. Many thanks, Shay and Templar.