Time: 15:02
Music: Bruch, Scottish Fantasy, Heifetz/Sargent
I tore through this fairly quickly, and it will be a breeze for most experienced solvers. There were some good clues, but those speeding along with just put in the obvious answer an move on. There were some attempts to hide the literals – Bond offering, the fantastic clue pro – but they were pretty feeble.
| Across | |
| 1 | Career detectives knocked back cocktail (7) |
| SIDECAR – RACE DIS, all backwards. | |
| 5 | Before two operations, a large cold drink (7) |
| ALCOPOP – A + L + C + OP +OP. | |
| 9 | Kitchen item for one consumer east of Great Britain (9) |
| EGG BEATER – E.G. + G.B. + EATER. | |
| 10 | Speak slowly to attract learner (5) |
| DRAWL – DRAW + L. | |
| 11 | Fool next to source of hazardous material (5) |
| CLOTH – CLOT + H[azardous]. | |
| 12 | Prepare to ambush load for dictator after some extra sleep (3,2,4) |
| LIE IN WAIT – LIE IN + sounds like WEIGHT. | |
| 13 | Bond offering from heads of legal industry needed vital changes (4,3,3,3) |
| LIVE AND LET DIE – L[egal] I[ndustry] + anagram of NEEDED VITAL. | |
| 17 | Fantastic clue pro to hire? (7,6) |
| HERCULE POIROT – Anagram of CLUE PRO TO HIRE, a fine &lit but an easy biff. | |
| 21 | Expert follows Frenchman with whiskey never running out (9) |
| RENEWABLE – RENE + W + ABLE. | |
| 24 | Space to sleep on board as back of big gun is removed (5) |
| BERTHA – BERTH[a]. | |
| 25 | One inactive feature of scoundrel disappointingly making a comeback (5) |
| IDLER – Backwards hidden in [scound]REL DI[sappointingly]. | |
| 26 | Flat feet ultimately observed on separate guys (9) |
| APARTMENT – APART MEN + [fee]T. | |
| 27 | Familial inheritance is beginning (7) |
| GENESIS – GENES + IS. | |
| 28 | Animal found in capital of China and part of Mexico (7) |
| YUCATAN – YU(CAT)AN. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Outline of comedy routine (6) |
| SKETCH – Double definition. | |
| 2 | Vicar’s attire upset deity, culminating in arrest (3,6) |
| DOG COLLAR – GOD upside-down + COLLAR. | |
| 3 | Auditor’s instruction to pay off Russian playwright (7) |
| CHEKHOV – Sounds like CHEQUE OFF, or CHECK OFF in the U.S. | |
| 4 | Get even with a literate criminal (9) |
| RETALIATE – Anagram of A LITERATE. | |
| 5 | See eye to eye on time limits (5) |
| AGREE – AG(RE)E. I biffed this, and erased it when I couldn’t see the parsing, and then put it back when I got all the checking letters. | |
| 6 | Measure key port to the north of church (7) |
| CADENCE – C + ADEN + C.E. | |
| 7 | Father about to relax endlessly in square (5) |
| PLAZA – P(LAZ[e])A. | |
| 8 | Plant from Montana extremely reflective in light (4,4) |
| PALM TREE – PAL(MT,R[eflectiv]E)E. The two-letter USPS abbreviation for Montana may not be obvious to UK solvers. | |
| 14 | Transport for Arab army with odder tanks (9) |
| DROMEDARY – Anagram of ARMY + ODDER. | |
| 15 | Cleaner put off dope with therapy initially (9) |
| DETERGENT – DETER + GEN + T[herapy] | |
| 16 | Delightful scheme briefly seen on Dynasty (8) |
| CHARMING – CHAR[t] + MING. I tried pleasing, but couldn’t make it work. | |
| 18 | Party dumping leader charges to greater heights? (7) |
| UPWARDS – [d]UP + WARDS. A party known only in crosswordland. | |
| 19 | Mechanical mug with old idiosyncrasy (7) |
| ROBOTIC – ROB + O + TIC. | |
| 20 | Typhoon at sea shedding variable amount of light (6) |
| PHOTON – Anagram of TYPHOON minus Y. | |
| 22 | Stocking stuff inside many longboats (5) |
| NYLON – Hidden in [ma]NY LON[gboats]. | |
| 23 | What may generate fanfare for top officials (5) |
| BRASS – Double definition. | |
12:01 but
I overlooked a typo (I’m pretty good at that). This is about as low as the SNITCH has gone. I biffed a half-dozen or so. Like Vinyl, I had some trouble parsing AGREE. I also assumed that CHAR was short for chart, but only because I couldn’t think of anything else, and it had to be CHARMING in any case.
Wow, that went by fast!
I just made a SIDECAR, first in some days. Delish!
35 minutes isn’t bad for me but it’s not good that the last 15 of these were spent on 6 clues in the SW corner where apart form IDLER and NYLON I had nothing after 20 minutes and suffered a complete brain freeze. The thaw began slowly but I then didn’t help myself by writing ONWARDS at 18dn (CON being the party) which gave me further problems with the elusive M. HERCULE POIRIOT.
The DUP is not simply confined to crosswordland and it’s not many years since the Conservative government was heavily reliant on their handful of MPs in order to remain in power.
12 minutes for me which is as quick as I complete them these days. No complaints.
10:45 with a typo (DOG COLLER). Does the fact that I always rue completing quickly on Mondays because it just makes me wish I could do the same on Fridays make me a glass half-empty sort?
All done and dusted in 14.27, so it must be an easy one. Quite a few, including SIDECAR, CHARMING and PALM TREE, went straight in without reference to WP, so thanks vinyl for filling in the gaps.
From Lay, Lady, Lay:
Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big BRASS bed
Stay, lady, stay, stay with your man awhile
Until the break of day, let me see you make him smile
7’38”, among my fastest ever. Momentary hesitation on AGREE. LOI was HERCULE POIROT as I was waiting to biff it with crossers but eventually had to think.
Thanks vinyl and setter.
6:06. I don’t remember seeing a SNITCH of below 50 before, and this was my second fastest finish. Seven out of ten as recorded on the SNITCH have been on a Monday.
15’26”. It doesn’t get much quicker for me (in fact, this is either a personal best or second best). I was hoping for something to pass the time in the airport lounge …
19 minutes. The ones to give me trouble were the consecutive AGREE and CADENCE and the ‘Fantastic clue’ was lost on me as I struggled with HERCULE POIROT as LOI. I liked the idea of PALM TREES growing in Montana; I don’t think so.
Yes, quick as befits a Monday.
The DUP are pretty well-known in Britain, not least for their Brexit- related demands.
33 mins which should have been quicker had I not got stuck, like Jack, in the SW. CHARMING finally gave me the H for M. POIROT, then UPWARDS & RENEWABLE sprung up, followed by GENESIS (great band).
Favourite clues, LIVE AND LET DIE and the aforementioned Mr P.
Thanks V and setter.
MER at EGGBEATER. We have several whisks….
Very easy this morning.
A rotary eggbeater is common enough!
11:13 knocks nearly 4 mins off my PB and for once no typos. In fact I had time to be very careful. One might argue that the QC is the place for this.
Liked GENESIS and BRASS. Thanks Vinyl and setter.
38:11 but needed aid for LOI APARTMENT, where I thought the T was on two guys, one of whom was Alan. Was stuck on other meanings of “flat”.
Top half went in very fast.
Had panic over Chechov/Chekhov, which has caught me out before.
COD HERCULE POIROT
18 minutes, held up by trying to parse PALM TREE at the end. COD to HERCULE for the surprise when David Suchet’s face appeared from the letters of the anagrind. My parents got as a wedding present in 1939 a big glass fruit bowl they christened as Big Bertha. I now have it and still call it that. Thank you V and setter.
14:51
A very Mondayish puzzle but I still made a hash of a few of the easier clues and HERCULE POIROT took longer than it should have.
A gentle start to the week so thanks to both.
I misspelled CHEKHOV 🙁
CHECHOV has caught me out before.
worse, I had CZECHOV
Even worse….the unchecked letters were the ones with ‘alternatives’. I also had czechov.
DNF. Like Mudge above, I misspelled CHEKHOV – I put CHECKOV, which meant I couldn’t get CLOTH. No issues otherwise, which makes it all the more annoying.
Thanks vinyl and setter.
COD Live And Let Die
As a musician, not at all convinced by defining CADENCE as MEASURE. Not at all the same thing.
ca
Your right about music, I think, but CADENCE is used in other fields too e.g. Collins has: a rhythm or rhythmic construction in verse or prose; measure.
For runners CADENCE is the number of steps per minute you’re taking.
Okay. I’m using Chambers, which doesn’t mention this, and as a graduate in English Lit, this is not something I recognise.
6:12, apparently off the wavelength this morning! I found the bottom half of this a bit trickier than the top.
My first ever finish under 20 mins and to mark the occasion, my first post here!
Welcome and congrats!
13:01 for a second fastest ever. Only panic was the LOI and NHO DROMEDARY but thankfully that seemed the most likely order of letters.
Top half filled in with 3:14 on the clock, where I quickly checked I hadn’t opened the QC, but a slight increase in difficulty as I approached the South.
Didn’t parse BERTH but was more interested in getting under my PB at that point and had a hunch PALM TREE was a trap before I saw the parsing.
Have we not had a very similar clue to SIDECAR recently? It gave me a sense of deja vu.
Liked LIVE AND LET DIE and HERCULE POIROT
Thanks blogger and setter. One to flag to the QC stalwarts.
24:59 Held up by APARTMENT, where I had the same problems as Merlin did, and by HERCULE POIROT where I needed pen and paper to untangle the anagram.
Thanks Vinyl and setter
7:17, which is one of my fastest times. I biffed PALM TREE. Thanks Vinyl and setter.
12.31, slowed by my last in David Suchet, where I knew it was an anagram, and pretty sure it was &lit, but struggled to see what kind of result I was looking for. Clue pro for hire… right. Obvious really.
Otherwise slower in the bottom half, not being sure of the spelling of YUCATAN and wanting to get a yak in there.
13.15 – would have been faster if I had been solving on paper rather than an iphone in a motorway service station but it was about as easy as the cryptic ever gets.
11,52 but with a misspelled CHECHOV. Drat! Thanks setter and Vinyl.
9:33
Amongst my fastest times – one of those where almost every first thought was the correct one. I did have to write out the letters for the Belgian detective; wasn’t 100% what the first part of 16d was, without the checkers to uphold my guess; and PALM TREE eluded complete parsing before coming here.
Thanks V and setter
33 minutes, with a couple of holdups: I spelled him Checkov, which if I’d only thought about it, was obviously wrong. And like Jack I assumed the party was Con so had onwards and found Monsieur Poirot difficult as a result, even with all the letters written down; was half expecting something from the setter’s toolkit: anagram, hidden, etc, but that would have been inappropriate for a crossword designed for the general public.
A nice brisk start to the week, much enjoyed. Would’ve been lightning fast for me, but held up for a good couple of minutes by the L2I: CHARMING and POIROT, even though I realised it (the latter) was an anagram – d’oh! 15;43.
Thanks vinyl and setter
A speedy solve at 18.50 which would have been a good deal faster if I hadn’t got bogged down in the sw corner. I must have spent three or four minutes here before onward and UPWARDS got me going again.
19.53 I found that harder than the SNITCH suggested, but it was still pretty quick for me. Thanks vinyl1.
12.45 but felt like a missed opportunity for a sub 10. Took a while to get Poirot . Instead of trying to guess, I should have just put the anagram letters down and ticked them off.
8.53. First finish under ten minutes for me, and without my usual typo. I used to use the format on the crossword club on my phone, but my times subscription does not seem to include that any more. I seem to be reducing my typo count on the app format.
14:20. think that’s a PB. Didn’t parse everything, but most seemed fairly clear. I bet there will be a few other PBs today as this felt more like a QC in style.
16 mins, and I’m generally a slow solver, so it must have been easy! (All parsed within the time.)
New (ish) to these. My first ever proper, full solve so I’m guessing this was super easy. Just over 40 minutes – I still take longer over some of the quick cryptics! 🙂
Congratulations!
On the easier side but still a DNF as I failed to get PALM TREE. It would be under 15 mins otherwise. Foolishly thinking of ‘Ma’ (Massachusetts) instead of Mt didn’t help and seeing a reflected ‘tulip’ made me put ‘puli tree’ in desperation.
15.13 probably a PB so it must’ve been easy. I almost invariably attempt it in the morning but today I didn’t start before 6.30pm so perhaps what is left of my brain was more awake even though I didn’t get my usual afternoon snooze. Perhaps that explains the absence of my usual typo? Only PALM TREE gave me pause really. Ignored the word play for YUCATAN as, once the crossers were in, it couldn’t be anything else. Seem to remember something rather controversial about the nature of photons that made me ponder for a moment.
Thanks to a very benevolent setter and to vinyl1.
Ah I see my perennial typo has emerged in the above comment. It was 5:30pm of course .P
Well, I found this very easy until my last two in, the Belgian detective and CHARMING, which I suspected, but couldn’t parse. They added a further few minutes to my solve, but I’ve just realised that I, too, misspelled CHECHOV! Of course, horizontally it looks wrong, but vertically it doesn’t, and having remembered the H, I moved on without thinking. Ah, well, I bet that accounted for most of the errors today.
I could see from the start this was going to be a quick one, but then I fouled it up by putting in ONWARDS. Glad to see I was not alone. With pen and paper I would have worked out the POIROT anagram quicker, but as it was I spent precious minutes looking for a non-existent word. 13’30” all up, which is way off the running. But fun was had!
31 minutes and very relaxed. I did spell CHEKHOV correctly, and knowing the name in Russian made it clear that the middle letters were KH and not CK, but I was praying that the English version of the first letter would amount to CH and not CZ — since the second letter isn’t checked (or is that czecked?) I could have been wrong.
Would have been a PB at 18mins but DNFed by Yucatan which I only vaguely know the name of and went with the animal being a COTI going in the YEN for whatever that makes. Oh well – not much you can do when you don’t know 2/3rds of the GK required.
Well, based on the hints in the QC comments we were hoping for a fast time here. 22:06 is fast for us but it’s not in our top three and it’s 4 minutes slower than our PB. We were a bit slow seeing POIROT and APARTMENT. Onwards and UPWARDS. Thanks, vinyl1, for clearing up a few bits of parsing that we skipped in our haste to get through.
A pretty easy one, although I couldn’t work out AGREE and PALM TREE, which were biffed.