Shay the Merciless stalks again. This is a tough puzzle and will probably provoke howls of outrage from some quarters. Sorry that this is a no-frills (and no time!) blog; I’ve been rather pressed of late and just cranked this out. Forgive typos. And indeed please forgive its appearance – in the classic way of late night endeavour, I have had an IT issue in which TfTT shut me out from the desk top for want of a security code (which it said it had sent but which never arrived), so I’ve had to reconstruct this blog on my phone.
Across
1 – NOVICE. A NOVICE is a trainee nun or monk and should have NO VICEs.
4 – SCORES. Double definition – to scratch is to score; and you could keep the score/record.
8 – SERGEANT MAJOR. Anagram (carelessly) of “jams generator”.
10 – IDIOM. IDIO{t} + M for millions
11 – GAINING. GAG (joke) + INN (pub) containing I (setter)
13 – IMPATIENT. Anagram (writhing) of “intimate” including P (papa).
17 – NIRVANA. N (northern) + IR (Irish) + VAN (leaders) + A (start to anticipate). Tough.
18 – BRIAR. Hidden.
19 – QUEEN’S ENGLISH. The QUEEN’S ENGLISH is “proper” English and thus not what common people speak; hint from the year of her death.
21 – EFFORT. E (energy) + FT (paper) going round (rounds) FOR (for). Tough.
22 – PERNOD. NOD after PER (each).
Down
1 – NESSIE. Anagram (swimming) of “seen is”.
2 – VERSIFIER. VERIFIER (checker) checking (containing) S (society).
3 – CREAM. C (carbon) + REAM (paper).
5 – COMBINE. COMBIN{g} (mainly scouring) + E (middle letter of field). Tough.
6 – RAJ. Backwards hidden
7 – SPROGS. S (second) + PROG + S (second).
9 – NIGHTMARE. {k}NIGHT (headless man, as in chess man) + MARE (horse)
12 – INTUITION. IN (home) + TUITION
14 – PLAINER. Anagram (new) of NEPALI + R (king)
15 – UNIQUE. UNI (university) + Q (question) + U (you) +!E (last letter of challenge)
16 – ORCHID. O (Oscar) + R (winner finally) + CHID (rebuked)
18 – BUGLE. BUG (hide microphone) + LE (the French)
20 – ELF. Every other letter of “tell off”, makes a change from imp
I agree this was on the hard side. No, it’s not mic in the middle of something, nor is it that famous sea-monster, the Seisen. I also put novice and erased it; when I came back, the cryptic was obvious. I did get stuck in the middle, with no answers for two minutes, and then it started to flow again.
Time: 11:35
Yes indeed this was hard. Much of my time was lost on the last two intersecting answers, but since my attempt at Shay’s most recent offering in March had been a DNF I was determined not to repeat that today, so I persevered and finished with 25 minutes on the clock. The two culprits were SPROGS and GAINING, but I had been generally slow throughout.
UNIQUE : You need a U, Templar, I assume from ‘yoU’.
Fixed, thanks
8:59
I thought, as I plodded through this, “There are going to be complaints”. I biffed a half-dozen, parsing post-submission except for NIRVANA (‘Northern Irish leaders’=NI, right? so what’s RVAN?) and COMBINE. Tough, indeed.
11 minutes. Started off thanks to the SERGEANT MAJOR anagram but never got a good run-on and several such as NIRVANA weren’t properly parsed.
I’ve never seen VERSIFIER in the real world and thought it may be a made-up word but the OED has quotations going back to the 14th century, so there’s no doubt it’s the real deal. I liked the ‘Suspicion of home schooling’, though no further comment!
Thanks to Templar for doing the blog under such difficult circumstances (and at such an ungodly hour) and to Shay
5:37. Good blog under duress Templar. FWIW I think SCORES is a triple definition.
13-odd minutes for this toughie. Definitely one not to submit on leaderboard!
Thanks for the blog in such tricky circumstances Templar. I found this one difficult, unable to parse several.
I know the monthly average time on the Snitch doesn’t really matter but I am starting to regret Monday’s typo. Four on the first pass of acrosses, then a little flurry and then hard yards. Getting UNIQUE led to QUEENS ENGLISH – which suddenly became clear once the Q was there but had me stumped until then – and that opened things up. Slow on NIGHTMARE too but spotting negotiate would fit allowed me to use the G to set GAINING. Stared at the space that became EFFORT for a while at the end. All green in 20.47.
Isn’t Nirvana N for northern, ir for Irish, van for leading and then a start of anticpate
If only someone had written EXACTLY THAT in the blog. Oh hang on, they did.