Hello, and, if it is one for you, happy bank holiday! I am hoping to make the most of the day off work by doing very little, and will enjoy seeing your comments as soon as they arrive.
9a caught my eye as soon as I opened the puzzle, and it went straight in too. After this pleasant start others followed readily, although I took a little longer in the SE corner. I don’t think it was quite the last in, but I remember taking a while to get 18a. I still managed to squeak in just a second under my inner target time of 5 minutes – so not a piglet from Oink.
We do of course have a traditional piggy clue: today’s is 22a. Obviously, my favourite was the tittle-tattle in 9a, which, along with Sue’s drug taking in 22d, has inspired today’s blog title. Thank you to Oink for the smiles!
Definitions are underlined in the clues below. In the explanations, most quoted indicators are in italics, specified [deletions] are in square brackets, and I’ve capitalised and emboldened letters which appear in the ANSWER. For clarity, I omit most link words and some juxtaposition indicators.
| Across | |
| 1a | Split up new pet’s area (8) |
| SEPARATE — An anagram of (new) PET’S AREA | |
| 6a | Warning about keeping setter (4) |
| OMEN — ON (about, concerning) containing (keeping) ME (setter) | |
| 8a | Fizzy drink? It might get up your nose (4) |
| COKE — Two definitions – cola and cocaine | |
| 9a | Problem interrupting Kitty’s tittle-tattle (8) |
| CHITCHAT — HITCH (problem) going inside (interrupting) CAT (kitty) | |
| 10a | Recklessly rash peer put another way (8) |
| REPHRASE — Anagrammed (recklessly), RASH PEER | |
| 12a | Image of suspect: European blessed with good looks (1-3) |
| E-FIT — E (European) + FIT (blessed with good looks, attractive) | |
| 13a | One departing from bar providing purchase, by the sound of it (6) |
| LEAVER — LEVER (bar providing purchase), soundalike (by the sound of it) | |
| 16a | Secure anaesthetic on time (6) |
| TETHER — ETHER (anaesthetic) by (on) T (time) | |
| 17a | Nameless stadium in the locality (4) |
| AREA — Without N (nameless), ARE[n]A (stadium) | |
| 18a | Terrified old Vera took the plunge (8) |
| OVERAWED — O (old) + VERA + WED (took the plunge) | |
| 21a | Temperature in Corsica somehow a puzzle (8) |
| ACROSTIC — T (temperature) in an anagram of (… somehow) CORSICA | |
| 22a | Plans to come back for something to eat (4) |
| SPAM — MAPS (plans) is to be reversed (to come back) | |
| 23a | Criminal inclination (4) |
| BENT — A double definition | |
| 24a | Happy to stand in for daughter (8) |
| RELIEVED — RELIEVE (to stand in for) + D (daughter) | |
| Down | |
| 2d | Run away with Penelope, leaving writer behind (5) |
| ELOPE — [pen]ELOPE, omitting (leaving … behind) PEN (writer) | |
| 3d | Man blowing top, downing this in boozer? (3) |
| ALE — Removing the first letter (… blowing top), mALE (man) | |
| 4d | Painter supporting a couple of Charlies in African capital (5) |
| ACCRA — RA (Royal Academician: painter) underneath (supporting) A and C C (couple of Charlies). The capital of Ghana | |
| 5d | Detective inspector held up in incident, that’s obvious (7) |
| EVIDENT — DI (Detective Inspector) contained in reverse in (held up in) EVENT (incident) | |
| 6d | Has rector reassembled group of musicians (9) |
| ORCHESTRA — HAS RECTOR anagrammed (reassembled). | |
| If anybody reading is very new to cryptics, you may not be aware that ORCHESTRA is an anagram of CARTHORSE. Oink has avoided this crossword chestnut today | |
| 7d | Interrogate former partner for each lucrative source (7) |
| EXAMINE — EX (former partner) + A (for each) + MINE (lucrative source – you can think of a mine of coal etc, or a mine of information) | |
| 11d | Try to attack (4,1,2,2) |
| HAVE A GO AT — A double definition | |
| 14d | Fear a check-up involves painful experience (7) |
| EARACHE — A hidden: fEAR A CHEck-up involves the answer | |
| 15d | Roll with duck in it, or chicken? (7) |
| ROOSTER — ROSTER (roll) containing (with … in it) O (duck) | |
| 19d | Some say extra-large is better (5) |
| EXCEL — Sounds like (some say) XL (extra-large). Better and excel here both mean to surpass | |
| 20d | First lady welcoming a day’s escape (5) |
| EVADE — EVE (first lady) taking in (welcoming) A and D (day) | |
| 22d | Spot Sue on vacation taking E (3) |
| SEE — SuE on being emptied of inner letters (on vacation) adopting (taking) E. | |
| I interpreted this as SE with insertion of E, but I think it also works as SE + E | |
Rare for me to be the first to comment! A pleasant solve in 9:32, but not without a few places I had to think hard. The definitions Happy = RELIEVED (not very close) and Terrified = OVERAWED (arguably not close at all) caused me to pause, as did identifying the required piggy reference (ah so SPAM is made of pork, is it?). But it was my LOI E-FIT that held me up most at the end.
Thank you Kitty for the blog – very special to get a direct reference in 9A!
PS Kitty, for anyone using the search function, you might want to categorise your blog as a QC – it’s currently showing as “uncategorised”.
That’s strange – I distinctly remember ticking the box. Now correctly categorised, thanks Cedric.
A gentle but enjoyable offering from Oink and I would have snuck in under the 5 minute barrier if my brain hadn’t become fixated on, an obviously wrong, ‘pope’ at 8a.
Started with SEPARATE and finished with COKE in 5.08 with COD to SEE.
Thanks to Kitty and Oink
Straightforward but very slow for some reason. 6d would have been more grammatical if it had been ‘rector has …’ 9:20.
Yes, either that or it’s missing a question mark at the end.
Was all going well until stuck in the SW. Had all the crossers but the PDM clang for overawed was a long time coming, taking us to 21.18 with a slap of the forehead!
Very enjoyable all the same, with some lovely clues, in a packed field would go for Have A Go At. If the setter was Bleat, might this be Have a Goat??
Thanks Oink and Kitty
I like that!
11 minutes. I’ve no problems with any of the definitions but I’m sorry that poor Oink has been reduced to SPAM as it’s pretty nasty stuff.
spam. a well known christmas delicacy in S Korea.
Ps did the paper version a bit at a time. Took all day, but completed.
I was making swift progress through this like a red-hot knife through butter, until I was totally breezeblocked by COKE. Despite a couple of alphatrawls, I just could not see it, so ended with a DNF.
Otherwise very enjoyable.
Pi ❤️
Good morning all – I had a good start in the north. Missed coke despite the O and the E, just never been into either. Finished with 10, only one half bifd. Missed spam and the hidden. Thanks to setter and blogger.
A quick one today starting with SEPARATE and moving swiftly down to RELIEVED as my penultimate solve. I didn’t have to pass on many of the clues but I did have to return to COKE (briefly considered poke!) to cross the line in 6:13. Thanks Kitty and enjoy your day off.
A good puzzle but I got stuck on OVERAWED; I agree with Cedric about the definitions of OVERAWED and RELIEVED and I found wed = ‘took the plunge’ to be a bit of a stretch. SPAM took a while, too, so the SE corner was a disappointment for me at the end of an otherwise smooth, quick solve.
Thanks to both.
Got stuck on COKE, RELIEVED and OVERAWED; those three probably doubled my time. Quite racy from His Pigginess today!
07:01 for a Good Day. Many thanks Oink and Kitty.
31 minutes with about half of that being spent in the SE.
I had decided that TETHER must be the piggy link until Kitty pointed out SPAM which is much more satisfying – though not in the edible sense.
Thanks Kitty and Oink.
I would have made my ten minute target if it hadn’t been for my LOI 8ac, in the end the clock stopped at 11.40. It took me a full two minutes to get COKE being the innocent that I am! I only got it after two desperate alphabet trawls. Otherwise fairly straightforward except for OVERAWED which took longer than I would have liked. I have to disagree about previous comment on SPAM, being a man of simple tastes I always liked it, although I’ve not eaten it for quite a few years.
You may find your tastes have changed over those years. I loved it at one time (spam fritters with baked beans at school were a favourite) but I revisited it more recently and find it quite unpalatable now.
Oh. Now I don’t want my breakfast.
11:34
Was very slow to see the easy ORCHESTRA, when that went in the right hand side followed quickly.
Is it just me or do drugs and drug slang feature a surprising amount in these puzzles.
Oops sorry, the comment below refers to a clue from a different puzzle.
A not very satisfying puzzle from Oink with a big MER at OVERAWED being clued as terrified and RELIEVED as happy. However, a really excellent hidden in 14d and EXCEL fooled me for quite a while as I tried to fit OS into the answer.
Hi alto_ego. I’ve deleted your reply to Merlin above because, as he says, that clue was in a different puzzle.
Not a problem…
Sad to say, I saw COKE immediately despite my limited experience restricted to rum and coke in a tropical setting.
Very familiar with ether when during my childhood my father would return from on-call anaesthetic duties tinged with its distinctively sweet smell. So, my COD.
No doubt familiar to @Curarist in the distant past.
Altogether an enjoyable and relaxed puzzle which took under my benchmark 20min to finish in a Good Day.
Thanks Kitty and Oink for the Monty Python reminder.
Enjoyable but missed SPAM. Liked BENT, OMEN, EXCEL, EARACHE, among others.
Thanks vm, Kitty.
SPAM my LOI – a long wait for the piggy reference. The original meaning of AWE is fright or terror, now evolved to its current meaning of reverence or wonder. Thanks Kitty and Oink.
10.37
Totally breezeblocked on EXCEL OVERAWED and RELIEVED. Even when I got the latter I needed an alphatrawl for EXCEL. No complaints – nice puzzle
7,13 but with a fat fingered ESCEL for POI 19d. That together with OVERAWED and RELIEVED held me up for a while. SEPARATE was FOI. Thank Oink and Kitty.
Dodgy definitions for OVERAWED and RELIEVED I thought, and SPAM took a while to get. Nevertheless, a time of 21:55 is about par for me. A happy bank holiday to all in the UK.
11 minutes to get all except 18a. I spent several minutes then came here prepared to give in; but a final alpha trawl gave me OVERAWED- which I do not equate to Terrified exactly.
Anyway it was fun and my total time would be over 20 minutes.
When you’re stuck, you’re stuck.
David
7:10 I was also slowed down quite a bit by my LOI COKE, obviously I move in the wrong circles!
A little research confirms that ‘awe’ originated in Old English and meant terror, fear, dread, but it’s one of those words that has softened and taken on other meanings over the years. Nevertheless the original meaning is still around and in some dictionaries, e.g. SOED has as its first definition: ‘terror, dread’ with no qualification.
All straightforward fun stuff (so, up to 50% again), thank you, Oink – but where was your trademark? – oh it’s SPAM (thank you, Cedric) – that’s a sad reduction. As others have already said, wasn’t happy about happy = LOI RELIEVED but suppose it equates in some contexts, nor terrified = OVERAWED.
So that’s what bar was doing in LEAVER – thank you, Kitty. But actually “providing purchase” is surely adequate without it.
6:18
Gentle Monday fare though was held up at the end by EXCEL, RELIEVED and OVERAWED, the last of which took more than a minute to tease out. Even then, I thought that ‘took the plunge’ was a bit vague for WED.
Thanks Kitty and Oink
For some reason I found this tricky. I struggled with the acrosses but had more luck with the downs. After some time and quite a lot of biffing I was down to my last clue, 22ac. I couldn’t see this at all despite an alpha-trawl. Eventually, my self-imposed 30 minute limit being up, I gave up and used an aid.
FOI – 1ac SEPARATE
LOI – DNF
COD – 9ac CHITCHAT
Thanks to Oink and Kitty.
A pleasant stroll. I agree that relieved for happy is a bit tenuous, but I think terrified for overawed is fine, a word which has several meanings will never have another word that is synonymous with all of them. A dictionary trawl consistently shows fear as one of the elements of awe, so overawed means overcome with fear which almost exactly means terrified.
Started really well but the clues seemed to get harder lower down the grid. Bent took a long time to see, but the Overawed – Excel- Relieved trio were the rocks that the sub-20 crashed onto. Relieved came first, then a pdm for Overawed, but loi Excel turned out to be a poor way to describe my effort today. CoD to 9ac Chitchat for its rarity value. Invariant
10.05 I spent three minutes at the end on OVERAWED and EXCEL. I thought of OVERAWED immediately but rejected it because of an inexplicable AVADE at 20d. Thanks Kitty and Oink.
12:12. NHO E-FIT and almost settled on E-PIC, but luckily remembered fit=good-looking over in Albion. I liked Vera leading to VERA- so obvious that it’s cunningly deceptive. I have mixed feelings about SPAM- can’t look at it now but did pretty well live on it fried with beans over one winter. I think the word is a condensed form of spiced ham.
Tough times these days! I couldn’t finish, defeated by the unknown E-FIT where I guessed E-PIC without much hope of being right. “Fit” for attractive is a bit foreign but still would have gone in if I had thought of it.
The short ones held me up today (does the Pope fit up my nose? no, but…). Also OVERAWED and RELIEVED, which seem a bit sub-terrified/happy to me, but of course the meanings do overlap, so it’s the setter’s deviousness, very good. Most of the others went straight in, though ACROSTIC needed a satisfying bit of work to unravel.
Thanks to Oink and Kitty.
16:22
Last 4 minutes on an alphabet trawl for COKE. So obvious once it clicked.
Still trying to figure out how that bar providing purchase is a lever. Is that referring to leverage? A good QC overall even though I took a while to get wed for “taking the plunge” and relieve D for “stand-in for daughter”.
Think of a crowbar – very useful for teasing clues out 😉
6:07 with two errors due solely to my own ignorance. E-FIT (NHO) and OVERAWED (NHO ‘take the plunge’ = ‘wed’). The latter still should have been gettable but I was foolishly determined that ‘terrified’ was an anagrind, because I’m silly like that.
Top half in particular was very straightforward. Vague possibility of a PB until E-FIT put a stop to that.
SPAM should have been a write-in but took 10-20 seconds.
COD HAVE A GO AT and EXCEL. The latter needed an alphabet trawl but thankfully not a long one.
Rare trip out of SCC with a 15 minute solve; like others having most trouble with the SW corner.
FOI separate
LOI relieved
COD earache
thanks blogger and setter
Found this very gentle today. Missed the piggy reference – SPAM, of course! Got held up a little parsing LEAVER, but thought this was actually by far the best clue 😃 Didn’t spot the hidden in biffed LOI EARACHE (dearie me). Many thanks Oink and Kitty.
Raced away (like many) and then slowed down to a crawl: but 10 minutes saw the last amen to 6a OMEN. I had biffed OYEZ to start with, thinking OY! for the warning and deciding to parse EZ later. Liked TETHER and SPAM though the school stuff in the 1950s used to give me a headache – every time I ate it. Cod for me was ACROSTIC – clever clue. Thanks Oink and Kitty.
17 mins…
After last weeks shambolic run, just pleased to finish this in a sub-20 time. Nothing too stressful – although I also wasn’t sure about the definition of “terrified” for “overawed”, and 8ac “coke” raised a spock-like eye brow for its shocking revelation.
FOI – 3dn “Ale”
LOI – 14dn “Earache”
COD – 8ac “Coke”
Thanks as usual!
6.02.
An excruciating DNF. With just 15 minutes on the clock I had only two clues left to solve and a rare day out from the SCC seemed assured. However, 6-7 minutes on SPAM put paid to that and, worse still, RELIEVED never came ….. even after 10-15 minutes of alphabet trawling. Galling!
Thanks to Kitty and Oink.
Whizzed through all bar 3 clues only to be stopped by a red light at 18 & 21a and 19d. Not heard of Acrostic but it was obviously an anagram so did work it out eventually. Having put in LEAVE rather than EVADE held me up too until I took another look.
Enjoyable puzzle thanks Oink. Thank you Kitty for the blog.
An abysmal 22 minutes. Sheer incompetence as usual. Why do I bother when I am so clearly incapable of doing this in anything approaching a decent time?
If we were to think 22 minutes was sheer incompetence we would have given up ages ago! We don’t try to solve at speed, just solving it is pleasure.
Thanks for your reply. I’m too competitive for my own good sometimes. Happy solving! 😊
👍
Not abysmal. Well done for keeping trying. Why bother? For enjoyment, fun, satisfaction of seeing the answers, etc. etc. Never mind the time taken, as long as you are getting something out of it. Gymnastics for the brain, always worthwhile.
Thanks. I know you’re right and I will persevere. 😊
Hi Gary,
I won’t reply to [the content of] your comment directly right now, but I’d like to invite you to try an exercise:
Imagine your comment was written by somebody else. Let’s call him Barry B. Read it as such.
Write a reply to Barry.
It would be great if you would post your reply to Barry here, but no pressure. You are welcome to ignore me completely if you like – it’s just a suggestion I think may be helpful for you.
Thanks Kitty. I appreciate your advice and may try your suggestion.
A tad under 10 minutes with OVERAWED, RELEIVED and, rather annoyingly in hindsight, EXCEL. I think if I had approached those in 15X15 mode rather than QC mode I’d have got them a bit quicker. Was relying far too much on the (somewhat loose?) definitions. Great fun though from one of my favourite QC setters.
Thanks blogger and Oink
A nice start to the week, thank you Oink! 8:41, and it would have been a minute or two less if EXCEL and in particular EARACHE hadn’t caused me problems. One day I shall learn to reliably check for hiddens, but today was not that day.
Thank you for the blog!
3 short on 15 x 15, concluding another miserable day here. No progress whatsoever.
A smidgeon under twelve minutes. Good and chewy, this one, for me. I didn’t identify the setter until I had finished, and then checked for the piggy reference. I assumed it must have been spam – stretching it a bit, but then it must be a challenge to keep finding something relevant. Spent some time with the rare breed pigs at Wimpole Hall last week. They are so well-kept. So clean. So obviously well-handled. Happy. You don’t have to observe animals for long to see behaviour. Watched a sow tread on a sleeping boar to attract his attention, and then lay down on top of his flank when he ignored her.
Thanks, Kitty and Oink.
I had a girlfriend who used to do that- I think I eventually married her.
Enjoyable steady solve- easier top half I think. Took a while to get EXCEL.
Thanks for the blog.
I did this after the 15×15, so a pleasant, if not too taxing, solving day.
17:09 today, with SPAM my last one by a couple of minutes. D’oh!
Thanks to Oink and Kitty.
Like Kitty, I saw myself in there -bizarrely, both my first and second names in two SEPARATE clues. I wonder what the chances of that happening again are? It’s taken nearly 3000 crosswords!
I fairly zipped along for most of the puzzle but got breezeblocked for about 2 minutes on my last two, so I was RELIEVED to finish in a tad under 10 minutes. I too must be very naive, because I couldn’t work out what the drink could possibly be 🤧 (nearest emoji I could find). Naughty Oink – Coke and Es today.
Fun Oink as well, of course. I liked OVERAWED and EARACHE (s0 to speak), nice to see ORCHESTRA anagrammed in a different way, and SPAM was a neat way to get the piggy reference in.
9:58 FOI Separate LOI Coke COD – well, it’s obvious isn’t it? Elope
Many thanks Oink and Kitty
BTW Following Galspray’s comment about cheese-rolling, I see in today’s paper that it took place yesterday.
My surname turned up as an answer not too long ago, and that was certainly a surprise.
How intriguing! It’s funny how this sort of thing seems so personal, and, of course, it’s just random (or do I mean arbitrary?)