I finished this one in 18:32, but never felt like I achieved any sort of rhythm. Anagrams are not my strongest clue, and we had eight of them today, so that’s probably why this one didn’t hit the sweet spot for me.
When I submitted, I had my fingers crossed because I wasn’t 100% convinced by my parsing of SNATCH for 23a. So I wasn’t entirely surprised to see that I had a mistake. But I WAS surprised when I found that SNATCH was right, and BEYOND was wrong for 15d. I don’t normally look at the Snitch before publishing the blog, but I just broke my rule and so far 4 of the 12 reference solvers have got errors, so I think I’m not alone.
I thought we were going to have a pangram, but there is no J in the grid.
Definitions underlined, synonyms in round brackets, wordplay in square brackets and deletions in strikethrough. Anagram indicators italicised in the clue, anagram fodder indicated like (this)*.
| Across | |
| 1 | A calf I massaged in cosmetic treatment (6) |
| FACIAL – (A CALF I)* | |
| 4 | Sporting figure in Lord’s hat? (6) |
| BOWLER – A double definition, the first referring to a cricketer playing at the cricket ground in London called Lord’s. | |
| 8 | Vault I have for record collection (7) |
| ARCHIVE – ARCH (vault, as in a ceiling), I’VE (I have).
Ah, that sort of record collection. Nice one. |
|
| 10 | Same rare quality’s captured (5) |
| EQUAL – Hidden in [captured] rarE QUALity. | |
| 11 | European probe reported? (5) |
| CZECH – sounds like [reported] “check” (probe). | |
| 12 | Praise adult I trained on piano (7) |
| PLAUDIT – P for piano + (ADULT I)*
I didn’t do myself any favours here by pencilling in the P at the wrong end of this word on my first pass. |
|
| 13 | Ultimately hilarious punning in cutting performance? (9) |
| SWORDPLAY – last letter [ultimately] of |
|
| 17 | Test applied, odd parts ignored for instance (7) |
| EXAMPLE – EXAM (test) + the even letters [odd parts ignored] of aPpLiEd. | |
| 19 | Characteristic of revolutionary paintings etc with it (5) |
| TRAIT – ART (paintings etc), reversed [revolutionary] + IT (from the clue). | |
| 20 | Oil for cooking half of very green fruit? (5) |
| OLIVE – (OIL)* + half of VE |
|
| 21 | Versatile kitchen set (7) |
| THICKEN – (KITCHEN)*
Very neat. |
|
| 22 | Sweet piece of music entertaining lower classes, primarily (6) |
| DULCET – DUET (piece of music), containing [entertaining] the first letters [primarily] of L |
|
| 23 | Pilfer handful of notes (6) |
| SNATCH – A double definition, I think. The “handful of notes” definition as in “a snatch of song”. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Intended to work in cafe (6) |
| FIANCE – (IN CAFE)* | |
| 2 | Bird bites as nip infuriated dog (6,7) |
| COCKER SPANIEL – COCKEREL (bird) contains [bites] (AS NIP)* | |
| 3 | Sneeze in a sneeze catcher, did you say? (7) |
| ATISHOO – Sounds like [did you say?] “a tissue” (a sneeze catcher). | |
| 5 | Greek character, old and big (5) |
| OMEGA – O (old), MEGA (big). | |
| 6 | Place for dirty habits? (7,6) |
| LAUNDRY BASKET – A cryptic definition, which works well if you’re in a monastery. | |
| 7 | Tell English story about being led by king (6) |
| RELATE – E for English + TALE all reversed [about], following [being led by] R (rex, king). | |
| 9 | One going in deep next, where swimming appropriate (9) |
| EXPEDIENT – (I DEEP NEXT)* | |
| 14 | Remarkably valiant European (7) |
| LATVIAN – (VALIANT)* | |
| 15 | Further back (6) |
| SECOND – A double definition. The first as in “to promote, to further”, the second as in “to second a motion”.
Huh. I think BEYOND works just as well, and once the phrase “back of beyond” had popped into my mind, nothing was dislodging this answer. |
|
| 16 | Beginning to sense fish smell badly (6) |
| STENCH – First letter of [beginning to] S My Shorter Oxford English Dictionary marks the intransitive verb usage of “stench”, meaning “to stink”, as “rare”. Certainly I’ve never come across the verb form before. And it isn’t in my copy of Chambers, which only has a transitive verb usage, meaning “to cause to stink”. |
|
| 18 | Slice pastry, case unfilled (5) |
| PIECE – PIE (pastry) + the outer letters [unfilled] of C |
|
DNF. Oh dear, a sub-10 minute solve down the drain. Once I thought of BEYOND I couldn’t see anything better that meant both further and back. Really enjoyed SWORDPLAY.
I went with remote not having the final checker (D). Didn’t get dulcet obviously.
I thought STENCH was odd; never seen it as a verb. I bunged in BEYOND, too, once I thought of ‘back of beyond’, but I don’t think it really works. 6:12 WOE.
BEYOND was my undoing too. I didn’t think it worked, but couldn’t come up with anything better, even though SECOND should have been obvious in retrospect. I was trying to fit a J in to finish the pangram but that didn’t work. Otherwise I found this pretty good, if hard, with a mix of easy clues with some harder ones.
I’m another BEYOND, but also not convinced it was right but unable to see anything better. STENCH went in without any thought as to whether it was valid as a verb. At this point there are 4 comments and we all put BEYOND! So nobody has both commented and finished all green.
I had SECOND, but was vaguely unsure it could mean FURTHER. I’ve now seen it’s in Chambers, at least.
SECOND seemed dodgy enough that it could very well be in Chambers (I didn’t look, just reluctantly put it in) and I’m glad not to have to be the first to mention that STENCH as a verb is rare at best. Was surprised that a QC strayed twice into Chambers territory.
I parsed it without thinking about the connotations of tense. I am a newbie.
I parsed it without thinking about the connotations of tense. I am an oldie 😂😂
Odd solve. All the first four then nothing expect OLIVE. The downs went more smooothly until I was left with DULCET and then SECOND which added minutes at the end. Beyond was thrown up by my alphabet trawled but I pressed on. Enjoyed SWORDPLAY. Had to revisit CZECH to see I couldn’t spell ATISHOO. All green in 15.24.
That’s Bertie the much missed COCKER SPANIEL in my avatar.
Very handsome dog. My favourite breed, too.
15 minutes just because I was slow but I had the same error as most commenters so far.
Having discovered that 15dn was SECOND I am having difficulty making a case for BEYOND and unless somebody can do better I am happy to concede that the mistake was mine and not in the clue. My error was possibly twofold. I know I resorted to an alphabet trawl and BEYOND came up early and seemed to fit so I never got to considering alternatives further down the line. The other factor was that taking the clue as a whole, ‘further back’ appeared to define BEYOND perfectly, so I bunged it in without considering that wouldn’t then be a cryptic clue, just a straight definition.
SOED has STENCH:
1 verb intrans. Have a disagreeable smell; stink. Chiefly as stenching ppl adjective. OE.
2 verb trans. Impart a stench to; make foul-smelling. L16.
The first of these does the job, but both are qualified at the top of the entry as ‘Now rare’. There’s nothing to prevent setters employing a rare usage if they wish, but in a Quick Cryptic puzzle this setter might have been more generous and clued STENCH differently to avoid the rarity. TBH the problem didn’t occur to me until it was raised here so it’s possible the setter and editor may not have noticed it either.
My only query as I completed the grid was SNATCH as ‘a handful of notes’ but eventually I thought of the same ‘snatch of song’ example as our blogger.
It was beyond for me too, but I was already scratching my head over laundry basket and snatch. Neither really works for me. Enjoyed the rest of it though, especially swordplay
I toyed with beyond but decided to continue my alpha trawl to see if any alternative came up and discovered that SECOND seemed like a better option. However I still managed to get a DPS though my inability to spell ATISHOO, where I opted for a ‘c’ instead of an ‘s’.
Overall I found the puzzle quite tricky and it took me just under 10 minutes to finish.
Thanks to Doofers and Mara
I went for BEYOND even though it didn’t seem quite right. But I don’t like further = SECOND, so that doesn’t seem quite right to me either. While we’re about it, I don’t like EXPEDIENT = appropriate, or SNATCH = pilfer. I did enjoy SWORDPLAY so thank you Mara for that one and thank you Doofenschmirtz for the blog
how about this for a usage of second = further
You should do XXX
First of all it will help you do ABC
FURTHER/SECOND it will earn you great 123
Thanks. Yes, I sort of see it, but I still sort of don’t like it. If we continue your example
… further it will end famine
further it will reverse global warning
further it will bring world peace
“further” then means second, third, fourth or fifth. I prefer definitions that are more tightly nailed down
STENCH could have been clued “smelly bad” instead of “smell badly”: the surface would have worked just as well.
My son is doing an online English exam today, and I’m fairly sure STENCHED would cost him a mark.
…..and if you are further back presumably you might be second?..
I’m in the beyond group too so just didn’t worry about parsing and continued but a DNF technically
…..and if you are further back presumably you are second?..
Given the comments above, I was surprised to manage an all-correct and all-parsed solve in 13.50. I enjoyed the puzzle. Steady progress around the grid culminating in EXAMPLE and my LOI EXPEDIENT. My COD was SWORDPLAY.
A good QC and my third sub 14 solve in the last week or so. Things are getting better…..
Thanks to Mara and Doofers.
8.30 WOE
Yes that one and never got into any sort of rhythm but a nice puzzle. The KITCHEN/THICKEN anagram can’t be new but I don’t remember seeing it before. Thx Mara/Doofers
I came up with RECORD for 15d as in ‘setting a record takes you further’ and ‘back a record’ musically speaking. All a bit tenuous.
Otherwise a very nice QC from Mara. I rather enjoyed solving OLIVE.
Thanks for the blog Doofers.
DNF – another BEYOND here. The top 100 currently has 51 people on exactly 575 points, presumably all with the same “incorrect” two letters.
LOI was EQUAL.
Thanks Doofers and Mara
Golly that needed a lot of piecing together, especially EXPEDIENT. Another in the BEYOND club, miffed to have to call today’s puzzle a failure on that account. LOI STENCH, no problem with that. Thanks, Doofers.
Out of 13 Maras this year, only managed to complete two.
Another BEYOND, so don’t feel bad now I’ve seen what company I’m in. Odd for a QC, as is STENCH as discussed. EXPEDIENT is one of those oft-weasel words which means ‘to one’s advantage’.
Thanks all.
Finished all correct, she says smugly – luckily an alphabet trawl led me to SECOND. Was also doubtful about SNATCH, as failed to see second meaning.
POI SWORDPLAY needed a pause for a slice of toast.
Otherwise I plodded through steadily enough, with NW seeming easiest. Liked ATISHOO, BOWLER, ARCHIVE, EXAMPLE. Agree the EXPEDIENT STENCH was strange, but they had to be.
Thanks vm, Doofers.
A bit jealous of those who own the SOED or is it on line?
I have the OED online version which is very good. I just paid once for it and it has gone from an old phone to a newer one with no further cost.
Thank you.
Joined the SCC queue with ‘just’ 15d left to solve. A tedious alpha-trawl produced Beyond, but I wasn’t happy with the parsing, so pushed on and (eventually) arrived at Second. To me this fits easily enough: back/second when supporting a motion and further/second when mentioning a couple of points. North of (Beyond) 25mins, with CoD to Swordplay for the smile. Invariant
Struggled a bit with this, biffing a couple and only seeing DULCET and SNATCH at the end, also biffed! Never thought of BEYOND as we quite often have BACK = SECOND in the QC. 21:11 to finish.
All done in a regulation 9:26 with no issues, and I came here expecting entries along the lines of “nice puzzle, not too challenging”. Instead I find a large number of comments about BEYOND as a possible answer to 15D, which didn’t cross my mind as I was doing the puzzle. I think I was just lucky to hit upon the one Mara wanted first – and of course once you find an answer that you think fits, you don’t spend time looking for a second one/a further one. Which is how I justified the answer to myself.
Many thanks Doofers for the blog
Also in the BEYOND group, although wasn’t very happy as a double definition. Checked that STENCH can be used as a verb, but think the clue could have been worded differently to avoid obsolete use. COD SWORDPLAY. Thanks Doofers and Mara.
16:33 for the solve with nine answers going in during the last couple of minutes. A struggle in the NW until I saw ARCHIVE. Had put ATISSUE – don’t really like atishoo as a word and that was blocking CZECH and SWORDPLAY. At least my 2-3min trawl of every European country came in helpful when I got back down to LATVIAN which was among the difficulties in the SE. Wasn’t particularly sure of SECOND=further – so it went in with fingers crossed.
Thanks to Doofers and Mara
28 minutes.
I finished as BEYOND didnt occur to me. 15D was my penultimate answer and caused the most grief. The lack of helpful checkers led me to a long alphabet trawl concentrating on…O*D. When I got to N, SECOND jumped out and I hoped it was that.
SWORDPLAY was LOI. SATIRICAL came to mind early on and wouldn’t shift until the pdm.
Otherwise I was on wavelength and it was enjoyable. One or two only partly parsed though. COD LAUNDRY BASKET
Thanks for the helpful blog Doofers and to Mara.
4:35 but with…..yup, you guessed it.
At the time of writing, only 60 of 142 entries are correct….
16 again so much better than yesterday. Bit of a bifd fest. 2d from c x c and 6d from L having taken a trip round monestary and convent etc. Latvian I worked backwards from xxxxIAN. I read punning as pruning given the cutting performance KO.
Read further back as a simple definition and went with remote with the checkers E and O, so never going to get dulcet.
I went snitch rather than snatch, no idea why, a thief is not a grass. Pilfer is more of a stealth crime whereas snatch is an overt and often violent crime. Just saying….
Reference film of the same name although there is an inuendo (euphemism?) in the title with reference to the characteristics of Brick Top. Slang from Yorkshire I believe.
Thanks D / M
Not liking expedient as appropriate either. Expediency is conveniently a means to an end and can often be inappropriate.