QC 1635 by Trelawney

Author   astartedonPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Another very straightforward offering for the nursery slopes here.  I know some of the less experienced of you don’t like it when bloggers say that but all I am trying to do is put it on a scale so that you have some sort of rough idea of its objective difficulty. It certainly would have been a PB for me If I had been doing exam conditions and my eyes had been brought up to scratch (but I’m afraid I don’t really know if my optician is willing to put his fingers anywhere near my eyes again yet). I am sure there will be a lot of “I didn’t know people could even type that fast” comments once the leaderboard is up and maybe we will see verlaine or someone like that beating the neutrinos again.

As a guide to its level of difficulty I can say that for me pretty much all of the clues went in sequentially in Across and Down numerical order. I think the only one that didn’t was 23A which I had to pick up on the second pass. From that it follows that FOI was 1A, LOI was 23A and I think that will have to be my COD as well. Many thanks to Trelawny for providing what I hope will be an effective teething ring for the less experienced.

Can I also just say thank you to all you people who take the trouble to comment. If I get round to it I try to respond to at least some of the comments during the day but often I don’t get round to reading them until the evening and by then people have lost interest and moved on and anything I say goes into a vacuum. I would particularly like to thank louisajaney for her unfailingly enthusiastic comments (they always make me laugh with their sheer exuberance) and also whoever it was last time out who commented that my avatar looked like she was wearing a lockdown mask! I hadn’t noticed but you are absolutely right. How unintentionally appropriate that is.

Definitions are underlined and everything else is explained just as I see it in the simplest language I can manage.

Across
1 Punctuation mark perhaps too irregular (10)
APOSTROPHE – straight anagram (‘irregular’) of PERHAPS TOO.
8 Young lady hugs retreating Frenchman — typical! (7)
GENERAL – the most frquent French visitor to Crossworld is RENE. Here he is retreating and getting hugged by GAL (young lady).
9 Solemn robes altered (5)
SOBER – straight anagram (‘altered’) of ROBES.
10 Chilled and cut up, with head removed (4)
ICED – dICED (cut up) with head removed.
11 Trendy suit, to a large degree (2,6)
IN SPADES – IN (trendy) + SPADES (suit).
13 Theist arranged donations to the church (6)
TITHES – straight anagram (‘arranged’) of THEIST.
14 A republican badly hurt legendary king (6)
ARTHUR – A + R (a republican) + THUR (anagram (‘badly’) of HURT).
17 Before end of sermon, religious leader to speak for ages (6,2)
RABBIT ON – RABBI + TO (religious leader + to) before N (end of sermoN).
19 Worry forfeit is regularly ignored (4)
FRET – FoRfEiT ‘regularly ignored’.
21 Material found in ebony longbow (5)
NYLON – hidden word: ‘found in’ eboNY LONgbow.
22 Caught young woman with dictionary (7)
LASSOED – LASS (young woman) + OED (Oxford English Dictionary).
23 What an escapologist might say — I’m sure of it! (3,2,5)
I’LL BE BOUND – well after the escapologist has said it, there’s nothing more to say.
Down
2 Powerful fellow supports joke (7)
PUNGENT – GENT (fellow) supports (i.e. is underneath in this down clue) PUN (joke).
3 Energetic secret agent captures traitor, finally (4)
SPRY – SPY (secret agent) ‘capturing’ R (traitoR finally).
4 Give in regarding period for abstinence (6)
RELENT – RE (regarding) + LENT (period for abstinence).
5 Hand over booze — It’ll get you over the border! (8)
PASSPORT – PASS (hand over) + PORT (booze).
6 Fix me up with piece of furniture (5)
EMBED – EM (ME reversed (i.e. ‘up’ in this down clue)) + BED (piece of furniture).
7 Thwarted clumsy fraudster pocketing wallet, ultimately (10)
FRUSTRATED – FRUSTRAED (anagram of FRAUDSTER (‘clumsy’)) ‘pocketing’ T (walleT ultimately).
8 Dazzling girl initially making a mess (10)
GLITTERING – G (Girl initially) + LITTERING (making a mess).
12 Criminal or genial local (8)
REGIONAL – straight anagram (‘criminal’) of OR GENIAL.
15 Talk tediously about old hunting weapon (7)
HARPOON – HARP ON (talk tediously) ‘about’ O (old).
16 Recline under mountain pass for sheepdog (6)
COLLIE – LIE (recline) ‘under’ (in this down clue) COL (mountain pass). I think COL was a word that was queried by one commenter in a similar context in one of my blogs in recent weeks. Well here it is again and I hope it caused no worries this time around.
18 Not finishing, freezing cold curry (5)
BALTI – BALTIc (freezing cold) ‘not finishing’.
20 Loos redesigned for European capital (4)
OSLO – straight anagram (‘redesigned’) of LOOS.

83 comments on “QC 1635 by Trelawney”

  1. Straightforward, EMBED I think being my LOI. Biffed GENERAL. 4:39, or 2 Verlaines. Incidentally, there’s a new kid on the block, Nathan Panning, who’s giving Verlaine a run for his money.
  2. 22 minutes today so a good start to the week for me. I was delayed by the final 23a as I still find seeing apostrophised words (I’LL) tricky to spot. When I saw it it was a real Doh! moment. I could well have managed the elusive under 20m if it hadn’t been for that, (and RABBIT ON which threw me a little too).
  3. 16 minutes, four under target for a fairly easy but still enjoyable puzzle, with some very nice clues like RABBIT ON and PUNGENT. Like others I needed an alphabet trawl for the last word in 23A, I haven’t heard I’LL BE BOUND for many years.
    Thanks to Trelawny, and to astartedon for his (as usual) entertaining blog.

    Brian

  4. Well under my recent average at 12m but managed to enter PUNGRNT which also gave me ICRD and last place in the early leaderboard. Held up in the bottom where I’LL BE BOUND was very resistant until I finally got BALTI – cannot explain why that took so long to come to mind and once I had that all thoughts of LET ME LOOSE evaporated – not sure why it held on so long as REGIONAL was very clearly right and then HARPOON revealed itself. Should have proof read – annoying!
  5. 7 minutes. All pretty familiar stuff, but I have been solving cryptics for many a decade.
  6. Started quickly before going to sleep and turned off the timer. Woke up and forgot to restart the timer expecting to take my usual 30 minutes or so but whizzed through in about 15 with no delays till 23a which took some head scratching. I knew it was on the easy scale so took it as a confidence builder and enjoyed it.
    Thanks Trelawny and Astartedon (PS I have always found your avatar to be somewhat scary!).

    Edited at 2020-06-15 07:46 am (UTC)

  7. I started off with SPRY, did the rest of the down clues from the top row, bunged in APOSTROPHE from checkers and then noticed it was an anagram. I carried on without much let or hindrance, finishing with the BOUND of 23a in 6:49. Thanks Trelawney and Don.
  8. Started by taking “perhaps” as the anagram indicator rather than part of the anagrist and trying to create a 10 letter anagram out of “too irregular” … which is 12 letters … dear oh dear. And ended with a long trawl to find “bound”, having become fixated on “I’ll be going” but not being able to parse it.

    In between those two logjams everything went fast enough and I finished in 1.8K for a Good Day. FOI GLITTERING, LOI I’LL BE BOUND, COD RABBIT ON.

    Many thanks Trelawney and Don (I was the avatar-mask spotter, Don! I agree with steakcity about the alarming nature of your avatar, which Google has now shown me is the head of a figurine in the Louvre of the Middle Eastern fertility goddess Astarte.).

    Templar

    Edited at 2020-06-15 08:19 am (UTC)

    1. Interesting note about this avatar. I wonder what the back story is regarding this and many other avatars. Lots of psychologically revealing stuff to uncover, I am sure!
        1. Not severed! Heaven forbid….. if you knew whose hands they were, your blood might run cold as mine just did! ☹️😉
  9. Nothing too testing until I got to my last 2 I’LL BE BOUND and REGIONAL, where I inexplicably missed the fairly obvious anagram indicator. My favourite was LASSOED and I finished in 9.21.
    Thanks for the blog
  10. I decided to approach this week in a relaxed frame of mind and enjoy the ride instead of putting myself under time pressure. So, a straightforward but enjoyable 13 mins with some nice clues and some gifts. I quite liked HARPOON but my LOI and COD agree with templar’s. Unlike others, my memory isn’t good enough for me to immediately recognise ‘chestnuts’ but I am usually quick to see where a clue is taking me. Thanks to Trelawney and don. John M.

    Edited at 2020-06-15 08:30 am (UTC)

  11. I always expect to be quite slow, content to finish eventually, so was surprised today to amble across the line in 17 minutes. Now I wish I had made a real effort! I may even take a daring step across to peer fearfully at the 15×15…
    Plymouthian
  12. Enjoyable challenge thanks Trelawney and astartedon. Only query is balti – is the Baltic necessarily freezing??
    1. Yes good point. We went on a Baltic cruise the other year and it was very temperate.
      1. Yes I thought it could be nice – maybe Trelawney was thinking about food and Got Baltic confused with arctic rolls or something 🙂
        1. I thought it might be rhyming-slang-related but failed to make a connection.
          There is an entry for Baltic in the Uxbridge English Dictionary but it is too rude to include here. 🙄
          P.s. A later entry is ‘Baltimore’ defined as ‘To ask for seconds in an Indian restaurant’.

          Edited at 2020-06-15 10:56 am (UTC)

      2. It’s a Northern/Scottish expression. It’s Baltic means it’s freezing. K
      3. Whilst I have no documented proof, I’m led to believe (by an ex-partner who originally hailed from Musselburgh) that BALTIC as an adjective meaning “freezing cold” is originally an East of Scotland expression, referring to the winter wind blowing in across that sea.

        As an aside, one of my favourite pubs is the Baltic Fleet in Liverpool.

      4. My wife is from the West Midlands, and the first I know that the thermostat on the central heating needs turning up Is her declaring that “it’s Baltic in here”!
  13. I thought Trelawney was in a generous mood today, with quite a few of these being write-ins. I did hesitate over Embed for fix at 6d, but then decided it was close enough. My main hold up however was loi 23ac, which needed two alphabet trawls for the last word – I completely missed Bound the first time round. I’m only grateful that I never thought of Me for the second word… 18mins in total, with CoD to 18d, Balti. My thanks to Trelawney and Astartedon. Invariant
  14. My partner and I worked through this in just under 22 minutes, we were very pleased! Certainly a quickest joint time and one of the first where we could parse every clue. We also got a bit stuck on 23A I’ll Be Bound and 12D Regional, not seeing the anagrist criminal until right at the end.

    I hope other less experienced solvers also enjoyed this!

    Thanks for a lovely puzzle and for the blog.

    FOI: 1A Apostrophe
    LOI: 23A I’ll Be Bound
    COD: So many, but perhaps 7D for a nice surface which gave me the answer without needing to check the anagram.

  15. Nothing too testing here, but I think my brain wasn’t quite in gear so I took a little longer than I should have to see a few of them and crossed the line in 26:57. COD to either 17a or 6d. A nice start to the week, so thanks Trelawney and Astartedon.
  16. But couldn’t solve Harpoon and I’ll be Bound for a while
    Got the ‘I’ll be’ but not the bound!

    Enjoyed the above and In Spades, Pungent, Lassoed

    Thanks all. Just the right level of QC for me.

  17. Thanks templarredux. Yes I thought it was you but I didn’t really have time to go and check. And very often when I am most certain about something it proves to be a false memory so I didn’t want to risk misattribution.

    And thanks oldblighter. Yes I agree, avatar back stories could be a very interesting line of enquiry and it has made me think about where Astarte came from in the first place which I haven’t done for some time.

    I remember I first used it back in the days when this internet thingy was very young. My brother and I were doing some web-based activity together, it may have been one of the early chess sites. I saw his avatar and it was something very boring, so much so that I now can’t remember. Then he saw me as Astarte and asked what on earth that meant and I said she was the ancient Phoenician goddess of sex. He came straight back with “Wow, now why couldn’t I come up with something interesting like that?” So naturally having put her out there and got a positive response she stuck with me.

    And of course this crossword thing feeds on itself, as the reason she was near the surface of my mind was that I had just started dabbling in crosswords and she had come up as an answer in what must have been a Times Cryptic (long before the days of QC) and I just liked the sound of her.

    But there is a reason I think why she appealed to me when I found her in that crossword. And that is that when I was young I used to be a serious Bible-basher (funnily enough a bit like Richard Dawkins from what I understand). And of course there in the Old Testament the children of Israel were always getting into big trouble for going off and cavorting with gods and goddesses other than Yahweh such as Baal and Ashtaroth or Ashtoreth or Ishtar, who I later learned from that crossword was also known as Astarte.

    So it is very interesting that people find her ‘scary’. I guess my young self found her very scary indeed. In fact, I guess she put the fear of God(dess) into me. In my mindset at the time I wanted to stay very much on Yahweh’s side as he was such a jealous god etc., and wanted to avoid the wiles of loose goddesses like Astarte. Then, as St Paul would say, I ‘put away such childish things’ or in other words grew up and found there was nothing to fear about Astarte and in fact quite a lot to like about her.

    So I suppose now she seems to me a bit of a comic book figure, standing for all that was evil in my youth but now exposed as just another character with a history including a funny-looking statue in the Louvre.

    Incidentally, when I first signed up for this blogging lark I chose the simple name ‘Astarte’. But with my inexperience with how the website worked I did something wrong which meant that I couldn’t get back into the account. I tried to ask someone how to rectify the situation so that I could retain that name but it turned out that it was a very complicated process and it would be much easier if I just set up another account. So I came up with Astartedon instead, which I suppose is more appropriate as it might be seen as signifying a sort of alchemical marriage between us. But if anyone knows an easy way for me to get my simple Astarte aback I would be very grateful to hear from them.

    Well when I started that explanation I didn’t expect to write all that so it has been a worthwhile brief analysis for me. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

    Is there anyone else out there who wants to spill the beans on their avatar?

    1. Re name changes – I wanted to use ‘blighter’ as my name here. This ws what my american lab mates called me when I, as an Englishman, was on a research fellowship in the US many years ago). The system wouldn’t let me use it here; I probably used it once on the Times Puzzle site) so I stuck ‘old’ in front of it and it was accepted. I regretted the ‘old’ later (I don’t feel too ancient) but it hardly matters!
      Good to have the background to Astartedon. Thanks, John

      Edited at 2020-06-15 10:41 am (UTC)

      1. Well that’s part of the attraction of avatars. You don’t actually have to be what they say. So you don’t feel that old, and by the same token I don’t feel all that female!
      2. I was in a hurry to set up a Live Journal account and had no idea how its usernames worked, so having tried any number of variations on John (my real name) which were rejected as username already taken or some such, I tried ‘Jack’- sometimes a nickname for John – and bunged on a couple of extra letters. I had absolutely no reason to think that I was going be using it for any length of time, but here I am nearly 12 years later!

        Edited at 2020-06-15 10:47 am (UTC)

    2. Have to admit – I always thought it looked like something out of a Japanese horror film.
    3. Simple really – I was looking for a suitable nickname for forums and chose ‘filbert’ – the name of one of our Jacobs at the time (a wether) – I add ’42’ as the answer when the short form is not available. The picture is of filbert himself. He was a character.
    4. Somebody here once asked me about my avatar picture – I think it was Templarredux?? – because they thought that I looked like I was about to throw a book at someone. I wasn’t, obvs, but it made me laugh!In fact, the photo was taken by an arty friend who got a whole load of us to dress up in a curtain holding an item which they felt represented them.As a teacher, I chose a book and I faithfully swear I have never once hurled it at a student, parent or colleague. Not literally, anyway.
        1. I had a similar problem to Jackkt (John) and Don. The mysteries of Livejournal were such that my chosen name based on QC got “lost” and then every variation of David was rejected as already used until I added 1 to Davidivad.
    5. Like others, the tft bit is just my dodge to make up for username problems.
      As for Invariant itself, any particle physicists out there might be able to have a good guess at my initials… though of course not their order! 😉
        1. eh? I think I can safely say you are the wrong track with those.

          PS it’s not a great pun (though obviously it amused me when I first thought of it during a lecture many years ago), so I wouldn’t lose too much sleep over it.

          1. I was thinking of rest mass, intrinsic mass or m0 which are invariant under the Lorentz transformations if I can remember my very limited relativity? But obviously on the wrong track. I’ll have another think but as you say won’t lose any sleep!
    6. I have been failing to solve cryptic crosswords for 52 years . They are a stupid idea. So I wanted a really stupid avatar and name. A duck with webbed feet that nested up a tree in old woodpecker holes sounded equally stupid. I was in Kerala at the time so chose the pic.
    7. My username is just a contraction of my real name and the avatar is me playing at a Sunday afternoon folk session at the Station Hotel in Loftus near Whitby. It was Vin Garbutt’s local when he was still with us.
  18. Ooohhh, yes ! Zinged my way through this in about 12 minutes which, compared to many here, is a bit glacial but, for me, is almost warp speed. My FOI and LOI mirrored Don’s (by whose very kind comments, by the way, I am extremely touched). Like Templarredux, I wibbled a bit over the role of “perhaps” in 1 across, APOSTROPHE, and I also had a problem removing “I’ll be going” from my mind in 23 across, I’LL BE BOUND, trying to convince myself that that would be a phrase that an escapologist would at least be hoping was true. Doesn’t work with “I’m sure of it” , though, and, anyway, once I’d seen the right answer, it made me laugh at the clever yet simple, rightness of it. Some super surfaces here, always something that impresses me with our wonderful setters. It’s the staying within the same semantic field, that does it, I think, as in for example, 13 across, TITHES (“theist”, “church” ) and 17 across, RABBIT ON (“sermon”, “religious”). The smoothness neatly hides the anagrinds, making them easy to miss as in, eg, “criminal” in 12 down, REGIONAL, and “badly hurt” in 14 across, ARTHUR. Great fun. Thanks so much to Don – hope you get your eyes fixed soon. I know they’ve been bothering you for a while. And thanks, too, to Trelawney, for making Monday glittering in spades.
    1. Great Louisa, glad it was good for you!

      Yes, you’re right about what you call the ‘same semantic field’. The zenith of that achievement is of course the &lit clue in which the cryptic and definition lead to the answer but so does the whole clue.

      1. I am in awe of the setters. I so admire the brain that can compile clues which not only create an answer but stretch to include additional complexity such as homogenous phrases, Ninas and pangrams.

        I teach, and examine in, A Level English and sometimes the terminology is really helpful when you want to describe language. Semantic field is such a useful term when you want to say concisely that ‘all the words in a particular expression come from the same area of human experience’ – what a mouthful that is!

  19. 14 minutes here, struggling with the exact same two logjams as Templarredux. It didn’t take long to discover the anagrist was too long for [too irregular] to ever work, but I did take a while trying to justify I’LL BE GOING for some reason, before the obvious answer revealed itself. Nice easy puzzle other than that. Thanks both.
  20. I mist be in a minority here as I didn’t get on with it at all. Got about three quarters done and ground to a halt. Maybe I should just have left it and come back later but I gave in and resorted to aids.

    Didn’t like baltic for cold – not something I’d come across, even though it was one of the answers I did work out. Also can’t get used to apostrophes being ignored, as in 23ac.

    Just not on wavelength today… Hohum

    1. Every Sunday, I answer an Australian cryptic, sent to me by an Ozzie friend. Whenever the answer includes an apostrophe, it is indicated in the clueing as in, for example, one in this week’s offering: “Scrub kneeling for fortunate start (8’1,4)
      Personally, I don’t mind the missing direction in the QC….but I know what you mean, filbert42.
      1. Nice anagram but isn’t it missing an anagrind? Or am I being more than usually thick? Maybe something like “Scrub kneeling, unusually, for fortunate start”. Trouble is although it is a good anagram as soon as you put an anagrind like that in it lights up like Guy Fawkes on coke.

        In the Mephistos, which I have just started trying my hand at, you don’t even get numbers of letters for multiple word answers. You just get ‘two words’ or ‘three words’. And another thing I have had to get used to is that living people are fair game unlike in the Daily Times cryptic.

        Different rules for different games I guess, and you just have to get used to them.

        Yes you do look ‘ready for action’ in your image!

        1. Although I only know you from the blog, were I asked to provide a description of you, it would never include the word “thick”!

          Yes, it is missing an anagrind. In this particular book of puzzles, anagrinds are frequently missing so it’s a bit swings and roundabouts – you get notice of apostrophes but not of anagrams. I know which I’d prefer!

          The Mephisto sounds tricky.And also I didn’t know that living people could not be included in clues or solutions in the QC so thanks for that. It might just stop me from haring off on a wild goose chase one day.

  21. On paper today after a visit to the just re-opened dentist; was lucky to get an appointment.
    FOI OSLO and then a very quick but enjoyable journey to my last two I’LL BE BOUND and REGIONAL (I’d seen the anagram earlier but didn’t want to pause with checkers missing).
    Might have just snuck under 7 minutes so very quick for me.
    COD to LASSOED. David
  22. After last week’s shenanigans, a relatively straight forward beginning to the week completed in a brisk 20 mins (well, for me anyway).

    Some nice clues such as 17ac “Rabbit on” and 23ac “I’ll be bound” which I initially thought could have been “Get me loose” (following on from Louisajaney’s thinking and prior to any checkers).

    I think this has come up before, but I always have an issue with 10ac “Iced” as being “Chilled” even though I know it is perfectly acceptable (assuming in relation to chilling drinks etc.).

    FOI – 1ac “Apostrophe”
    LOI – 8ac “General”
    COD – 17ac “Rabbit on”

    Thanks as usual

  23. I really enjoyed Trelawney’s challenge today evenm though it took me slightly over my 15-minute target.
    Like some others, I totally missed ‘criminal’ as an indication of an anagram and entered REGIONAL without fully understanding it.
    I too was held up by I’LL BE BOUND but think this is worthy to be my COD, just pipping RABBIT ON which also made me smile.
    Thanks to Don for his entertaining blog and interesting explanation of his avatar (which reminds me that I really must find one!)
      1. Can’t now correct my anonymous post as I’ve replied to it. It should of course have read ‘even though’. Finger trouble today!
  24. Belated post yoga solve done and dusted in 8 minutes.

    Templar and I suffered the same problems at the top and bottom of the grid. I too was trying to make an anagram out of ‘too irregular’ and couldn’t see how I’LL BE gOiNg parsed. FOI GLITTERING and LOI BOUND! My COD is HARPOON.

  25. Pretty easy for me too today. Not sure of exact time because I was interrupted half way through for a few minutes, but even including the interruption I got 13:55, so would have ben one of my fastest times.

    FOI: apostrophe
    LOI: I’ll be bound
    COD: rabbit on

  26. What an interesting story, Don, thanks.

    I was originally Templar but had the same problem as you about LiveJournal and found it simpler to create a new account – hence Templar Redux (as an ex-part-time classicist). My avatar is the crest of Inner Temple, of which I am a member (hence “Templar”).

    1. Thanks templarredux and davidivad1. That question of oldblighter‘s has definitely unearthed some revelations and I feel I know some people a lot better now.

      Just thinking of it now though it’s interesting from the etymological trail for redux to consider how reduce came to mean reduce. If you see what I mean.

    2. Thank you Templarredux. I though I recognised the Inner Temple’s Pegasus.

      My father was Treasurer of the IT some time back, and my brother is a current bencher. From which the knowledgeable, or those with access to the IT’s records, will deduce that, alas, Cedric Statherby is an alter ego. But in my defence it is one I have used for over 45 years, since well before the internet – its origin was a letter heavily criticising my headmaster, for which I felt anonymity was wise. Alas it didn’t work – he knew well enough!

      Cedric

      Edited at 2020-06-15 03:00 pm (UTC)

  27. Nothing too trying in today’s challenge and we finished it relatively quickly (12 mins 35 sec). Some fun clues that brought smiles to our faces – thanks Trelawny.

    Great blog Astartedon and I loved reading the subsequent comments.

    FOI: apostrophe
    LOI: pungent
    COD: I’ll be bound

  28. ….GLITTERING performance, as I didn’t spot the first two across answers on first reading. It might have been a PB had I done so, as I’ve grabbed 13th place on the leaderboard (maybe a true 6th/7th ?)

    FOI SOBER
    LOI APOSTROPHE
    COD FRUSTRATED
    TIME 2:51

  30. … as for the first time I solved in order, all the acrosses then all the downs. Hooray; not done that before.

    Time was slow but is immaterial – I spent an age getting 23A I’ll be bound … but with all the earlier across clues done I certainly wasnt going to give up! And it was put in with some nervousness even then.

    Thanks to the Don for the blog, and the discussion on avatars. And to Trelawney for making my day.

    Cedric

    1. Well done! I call that the “true” clean sweep and I’ve only done it once.
  31. Very much enjoyed the blog and the comments (as I usually do!).
    I couldn’t get Glistening out of my head and tried to equate Listening to “making a mess” so it was a relief when Glittering dropped in after eventually seeing Rabbit On.
    My mind is slow when it comes to thinking through alternative words and definitions (I’m more of an Engineer/Mathematician by education) and I was slow with Apostrophe and Pungent my last ones in. Harpoon took time as did of course 23a.
    But finished and delighted with that. Time an approximate 35 minutes after interruptions while I had a brainwave in the garden.
    Thanks all
    John George
  33. Agree a nice simple puzzle, 15 minutes or so whilst in front of the TV – so not concentrating fully. Perhaps I should have concentrated a bit more though because I fell at the last hurdle of 23a. I got ‘going’ stuck in my mind and managed to convince myself it was ‘I’ll be going’, as in my job is done here and I’ve nothing more to add. I’d not come across ‘I’ll be bound’ before, so thank you to the blogger for putting me right…….I’ll be going now.

    Edited at 2020-06-15 09:09 pm (UTC)

  34. You weren’t alone with thinking of ‘I’ll be going’, unfortunately I couldn’t move on from that. Well done to you for taking that final bound to the correct answer.
    1. Thanks! Once a phrase or word gets into your head, it’s certainly hard to shift it.
  35. Thank you all for your comments and some fascinating avatar insights which were as entertaining as the crossword itself. Double thank you to Astartedon whose avatar will no longer be scary, although it is beyond my imagination to see her as sexy.
  36. Very impressed that you and others can more or less write down answers as you see the clues. I am trying one QC per week and usually after breakfast on the second day I have a few remaining undone.

    Is ‘freezing cold’ in Baltic because the ‘c’ has been ‘frozen out’ ie excluded?

    Interesting to read that Rene is a common French crossword name. We used to live in France and I don’t think any of our friends were called Rene, although I do recognise the name. In this clue ‘GAL’ is informal usage which perhaps was why I didn’t think of that, indeed it is not very woke so I wonder how acceptable it is?

    The parsing of Glittering was a revelation. I had thought making a mess would be an anagram. So that would be my clue of the day. I only wish I managed it. I had convinced myself that Shattering was right.

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