Right down the middle of the QC Avenue from Mara, taking me 08:30 which is my exact average time on the QUITCH. (Talking of which, have you seen Starstruck’s awesome new feature of a setters’ difficulty table ? The guy’s a genius!)
Definitions underlined in bold.
| Across | |
| 7 | Classy refurbishment of shop (4) |
| POSH – anagram [refurbishment] of “shop”. | |
| 8 | Admiral excited having penned good song (8) |
| MADRIGAL – anagram [excited] of “admiral” including [having penned] G [good]. | |
| 9 | Quick break in Post Office (6) |
| PRESTO – REST [break] inside PO [in Post Office]. A musical direction. | |
| 10 | Capital in Austria then, sophisticated (6) |
| ATHENS – neatly hidden inside [in] “Austria then, sophisticated”. | |
| 11 | Fringe say combed back on journalist (4) |
| EDGE – “say” = “eg”; reverse it [combed back] and you get GE; put that on ED [on journalist] et voila. | |
| 12 | See hippo splashing about — one spraying water around? (8) |
| HOSEPIPE – anagram [splashing about] of “see hippo”. Southern Water has banned all spraying around of HOSEPIPEs in my neck of the woods at the moment. | |
| 15 | Cut fruit’s surface again (8) |
| REAPPEAR – REAP [cut] + PEAR [fruit]. My LOI; “re-veneer” popped into my head and I had to call the bailiffs in to evict it. | |
| 17 | Fill day with love, finally (4) |
| SATE – SAT [day] + E [love, finally]. | |
| 18 | Preacher in circle, dancing (6) |
| CLERIC – anagram [dancing] of “circle”. Unbelievably (having solved MADRIGAL and HOSEPIPE in nano-seconds) I just couldn’t work out this simple six letter anagram, and after failing for least a minute I had to move on and return when there were checkers. Funny how the brain works. | |
| 21 | Country road originally on back street (6) |
| NORWAY – to get NOR you have to reverse [back] both “on” and R [road originally]. Then you add WAY [street]. I found that a tough clue and again needed checkers. | |
| 22 | Pop group, elderly, dressed (8) |
| BANDAGED – BAND [pop group] + AGED [elderly]. As in “dress a wound”. | |
| 23 | Thrill, footballing action? (4) |
| KICK – definition with a cryptic hint. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Scottish food served in prison? (8) |
| PORRIDGE – definition with a cryptic hint. A slightly feeble clue, perhaps, given that PORRIDGE became slang for time in prison (apparently first recorded in 1950 in the delightfully named “The Lag’s Lexicon”) precisely because it was so frequently used to feed convicts. PORRIDGE is now universally popular but was for a long time principally associated only with Scotland, hence Dr Johnson’s famous definition of oats: “A grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.” (Boswell, a proud Scot, claimed to have riposted “Aye, and that’s why England has such fine horses, and Scotland such fine people”.) | |
| 2 | Immaculate sachet spoiled (6) |
| CHASTE – anagram [spoiled] of “sachet”. Both CHASTE and “immaculate” can mean “pure”, so I guess this is fair enough but it might have been tougher as a double definition. Fortunately it was an anagram. | |
| 3 | Charmer blended fruit drink (8) |
| SMOOTHIE – double definition. | |
| 4 | One short contract plan (4) |
| IDEA – I [one] + DEA{l} [short contract, i.e. “deal” without its last letter]. | |
| 5 | First of brides I give away is 18 (6) |
| BISHOP – yuk, a cross-referenced clue which you can’t really solve until you’ve solved 18a (which was “cleric”), at which point it solves itself. I really don’t like those. Anyway, it’s B [first of brides] + I [I] + SHOP [give away, as in “Kev shopped me and now I’m doing porridge”]. | |
| 6 | Chief parent at home (4) |
| MAIN – MA [parent] + IN [at home]. | |
| 13 | Need ears working for song! (8) |
| SERENADE – anagram [working] of “need ears”. | |
| 14 | New patient fed 100 peanuts (8) |
| PITTANCE – anagram [new] of “patient” including C [fed 100, C being the Roman numeral for 1oo]. “Paid peanuts/paid a pittance”. “Peanuts” in this sense seems to have originated in the US in the 1930s. | |
| 16 | Stick in money for satire (6) |
| PARODY – ROD [stick] inside [in] PAY [money]. | |
| 17 | Attack and walk out (6) |
| STRIKE – double definition. | |
| 19 | Page left empty, as folio initially (4) |
| LEAF – L [left] + the first letters [initially] of “empty, as folio”. | |
| 20 | Horrific media making me finally shut up (4) |
| CAGE – the final letters [finally] of “Horrific media making me“. | |
Rather new to all this having picked up Cracking the Cryptic a year or so ago and this is the first crossword I managed to solve (with a little help). Don’t understand some of the acronyms here. LOI, COD (clue of the day?), if there is some enlightment somewhere then that would be useful, thanks.
Re 5d I think you can get that without solving 18a because the definition of 18 was in its clue.
Go to the menu and under the help section you will find a glossary with all of the acronyms. HTH (Hope this helps!)
Thank you!
10.40, with SMOOTHIE my LOI. I should have got it sooner, along with BANDAGED, STRIKE and NORWAY, but I didn’t because I was fooled by clever clueing. Thanks Mara and Templar.
NORWAY was also the biggest hold-up for me, but saw the light eventually after guessing the country and then figuring out the wordplay. Loved your heading Templar, one of my go to shows when I need a laugh. MADRIGAL took a little time to come to mind and needed the first checker to see it. PITTANCE was another that held me up. COD to HOSEPIPE.
Thanks Templar and setter.
Nice puzzle, no quibbles. I also thought the Norway clue was tough, but neat. 5:11.
16 minutes.
I sailed through the top half with only the cross-reference clue at 5dn having to wait for later.
10 minutes in I was left with two answers missing in each of the lower quarters and suffered a brain-freeze. After nothing for 3-4 minutes it cleared and I quickly finished things off. My last two in were the intersecting pair NORWAY and STRIKE.
Very fast start for me but slowed in the SW with PARODY, REAPPEAR and even CAGE taking careful thought – BANDAGED too. Nice to finish quickly – and accurately – after a little run of puzzles I’ve found tricky. All green in 9.20.
Got off to a good start and completed most of the left side in around 8 mins but then slowed on the right before a quick finish at 23.10
LOI Norway only came after Mrs RH saw strike then it was obvious, was convinced it was some obscure South American or African state that I couldn’t bring to mind.
As usual with Mara, lots of misdirection so climbing back out of rabbit holes is always a feature when solving his puzzles.
Liked reappear for its simplicity, once you lifted and separated the right words!!!
Thanks Templar for the parsing of Athens, iceberged again.
Thanks Mara, always a pleasure.
Fortunately I had my anagram hat firmly in place today as there seemed to be a large number of clues where it was needed.
Started with POSH and finished with BISHOP in 7.03.
Thanks to Templar and Mara
8:33 I was definitely on the right wavelength this morning with all bar three write-ins on the first pass.
Held up in the SW corner where I made a rod for my own back with no pay for the satire and didn’t reap the fruit of my labour, but what a brilliant surface… again.
All in all a very enjoyable puzzle so thank you Mara. Thanks Templar (almost matched the blogger today!) for the blog and the Fletch reference.
9 minutes. Reassured I’m not alone in having found NORWAY difficult. I also initially put in CAGE from the ‘shut up’ def until I saw the now obvious wordplay. Favourite was PORRIDGE for obvious reasons for someone of my vintage. I loved the Boswell retort you quote, which I hadn’t heard before.
Thanks to Mara and Templar
It reminded me of long-ago New Zealand PM Piggy Muldoon when asked about a sharp increase in the number of Kiwis migrating to Australia, saying it would result in an increase of the average IQ in both countries…
😂
BandAged – BandAid 40 years on…
Fun puzzle, no major holdups, although REAPPEAR made me think harder.
Haven’t seen Porridge for a very long time, I’m sure it is still floating on a network somewhere.
I finished a little quicker than my Snitch average, and was surprised to do so as my solve felt sluggish by my standards, with more than one penny being slow to drop.
FOI POSH
LOI SMOOTHIE
COD HOSEPIPE
TIME 4:31
BISHOP, PARODY and CAGE not parsed at first but obvious once crossers in. A bit of an anagram fest and a quicker than usual time of 16:21.
34 mins.
I was pleased with this time as I struggled. Looking back it seems straightforward.
I’m another one who hates cross referenced clues – especially in a QC.
Thanks for the blog Templar.
I was surprised that this QC was so approachable until I checked back and realised that Mara is now one of my most accessible setters. A nice puzzle with lots of anagrams (which I usually find easy) and one or two head scratches. SMOOTHIE was my LOI and took a couple of minutes (I was fooled by ‘blended’ into looking for an anagram until my brain clicked in). Nevertheless, I finished in 12.20 which is more than acceptable to me these days. I biffed NORWAY and was glad that CLERIC was an easy one – I share Templar’s dislike of cross references.
Thanks to Mara and Templar.
Managed to solve in 25 minutes, with NORWAY being my LOI and took me a while to figure it out. Tough clue, but felt very satisfying to figure it out. Only got MADRIGAL thanks to the Disney film Encanto 😆 Thank you for the blog 😁
Apart from not parsing the obvious EDGE, no problems today. A good straightforward example of a QC. Thanks Mara and Templar.
With only four clues remaining after just 13 minutes, a rare day out from the SCC seemed a nailed on cert. Trouble is the solver was me and my mind has an annoying habit of going blank for long periods and for no apparent reason. My problem area today was the SE corner, where PITTANCE, KICK, NORWAY and STRIKE held me up for 20+ minutes. All of these clues seem simple now and when one came (PITTANCE) they all came.
Total time = 35 minutes. Horrible at the end.
Many thanks to Templar and Mara.
On song today with a 7:15 solve – no idea why some days everything clicks and other days it is like wading through treacle. I even got the dreaded cross-reference clue BISHOP from wordplay before looking at the referred-to 18A.
My only very minor query while solving was what the word “combed” was doing in the clue for EDGE. I concluded it was there to make the surface smoother (fringes are combed) rather than any new type of wordplay.
Many thanks Templar for the blog and the nod to the great Fletch. What a series that was.
Middle of the road sword which resulted in a (for me) average time of 16 minutes. I was relieved to break the run of three bad days this week. I had hoped to record a quicker time as I set off at a great pace but then I started encountering some of the knottier clues and everything slowed down (except the clock of course).
FOI – 7ac POSH
LOI & COD – 15ac REAPPEAR
Thanks to Mara and Templar.
For sword read xword. Predictive text strikes again.
‘Click to edit’ gives you 12hrs. . .
I wouldn’t mind seeing a middle of the road sword 🗡️- somewhere between a light rapier and a massive, medieval style broadsword I’m guessing.
After a pretty poor week time wise in solving this weeks QCs, I was pleased to beat my target fairly comfortably today finishing in 8.30. I initially wrote in PRONTO for 9ac, but then taking the trouble to actually parse it, quickly changed it to PRESTO. No real delays to report although NORWAY probably involved me in the most thinking time.
I found this one trickier than average. I was held up in the SE corner for a while, and it took an age to see LOI, NORWAY. POSH was FOI. 9:53. Thanks Mara and Templar.
12:10
A nice quick finish after yesterday’s disastrous multi-DPS result.
Only delay was LOI NORWAY which I never did parse, but obvious from the checkers.
A gentle puzzle to return to after a week in Belgium and, at 17mins, a comfortable enough sub-20. A few too many anagrams for my liking, but there were some nice surfaces to compensate. Like others, Norway was a biff then parse, but at least it didn’t hold out too long. CoD to Reappear, and my thanks to Templar, especially for the Boswell riposte. Invariant
For 20D, having got Cage, I worked out the clue as Horrific media is Computer animated graphics CAG and the e from me finally!
Another one held up by LOI SMOOTHIE and also not sure why it caused such difficulty. Enjoyable all the same. I quite like the occasional cross-referenced clue. 10:19.
10:07. Good time but still two minutes on the easy NORWAY, although interesting how so many of us struggled. I thought of NAURU and NORMAN (as in porridge) before getting it.
COD REAPPEAR
Starstruck does incredible work on the Quitch, the formula for finding and removing “neutrinos” is very astute, and could be used in many branches of statistics to eliminate spurious data. And don’t forget to “buy him a coffee” (make a small donation), even if his time is free, his Amazon Web Services won’t be.
All correct fortunately in 15 minutes with no real hold ups until ATHENS and BISHOP delayed me for a couple of minutes. Kept looking to see how Vienna could be used!!
Thank you Mara and Templar.
5.56
Fairly SMOOTHie solve here, though like our blogger needed two looks at the CIRCLE ‘grist.
Thanks Templar and Mara