I have noticed a minority of comments recently suggesting that I (and presumably other bloggers as well) should not describe a puzzle as easy because new people who come along and who might find it difficult can get a bit disheartened, which is exactly the opposite of what we all want to happen. As it is I normally don’t post my times anyway as I tend to think they don’t mean a lot on the QC. Instead I restrict myself to saying whether I personally found a puzzle more or less difficult than the average, and then generally I find that my perception differs anyway from many of the seasoned contributors either one way or the other. So with that pattern I am quite happy to give a more objective assessment a try and see how it goes. As it is I couldn’t give you a time this week anyway even if I wanted to as when I finished it it turned out that the timer was in the ‘off’ position.
So what I am going to try to do is to give the usual FOI, LOI and COD furniture and then a quick run down of the clue stats concentrating on the types of clue that are generally considered to be the ‘easiest’, namely anagrams, hidden words and double definitions. I may start to include other types of clue as time goes on but that is how I propose to start anyway. So here we go – just after I have said thank you to Hurley for providing our first fix of the week.
FOI was 1A. LOI was I think 16D. I’m having difficulty deciding on a COD as no particular surface or cryptic construction stood out for me above the others but I will go for 17A.
I counted three anagrams, three double definitions and two hidden words, which should have given most people a good scaffolding of checkers upon which to build the rest of the solution. It also helped that the anagrams were relatively long and the anagrinds (‘wrecked’, ‘revised arrangement’ and ‘new’) could hardly have been clearer.
Definitions are underlined and everything else is explained just as I see it as simply as I can.
Across | |
1 | With noted talent for “Oklahoma!” say? (7) |
MUSICAL – if you are musical then you could cryptically be said to have a ‘noted’ talent. ‘Oklahoma!’ is the famous first musical by the Rodgers & Hammerstein duo. | |
5 | Overtake father and sons (4) |
PASS – PA (father) + S + S (sons). | |
7 | Fruit woman got, partly missing (5) |
MANGO – hidden word: woMAN GOt ‘partly missing’, i.e. with the other letters removed. | |
8 | Is able to vote as several standing initially seek support (7) |
CANVASS – CAN (is able to) + V (vote) + AS + S (Standing ‘initially’). EDIT: see anonymous comment below and my reply. This should be CAN (is able to) + Vote As Several Standing ‘initially’, i.e. the initial letters of those words. I parsed it correctly while doing the puzzle but when writing it up I had an unfortunate slip of the mind. | |
10 | Discourteous when daughter leaves leading to regret (3) |
RUE – RU |
|
11 | Not half mocked in jockey’s equipment? Leave fast! (9) |
SKEDADDLE – delete half of |
|
13 | British school language (6) |
BRETON – it’s that contentious educational establishment again! BR (British) + ETON (school). Breton being the language spoken in the region of Brittany in France which is in the Celtic family of languages including Cornish ‘whereto ’tis kin’ as Hamlet might say. Having spent several holidays in the region I have found it interesting to note ‘Cornish’ characteristics in a lot of the place name spellings and so on. | |
14 | Choice tips from expert getting post (6) |
PICKET – PICK (choice) + ET (‘tips’, i.e. the end bits, from ExperT). | |
17 | Resort everyone rejected — Northern failure? No (9) |
LLANDUDNO – ALL (everyone) reversed, i.e. rejected, = LLA + N DUD (northern failure) + NO all strung together lead inexorably to this resort in Wales. | |
19 | Dry a very short time (3) |
SEC – double definition. SEC = dry as in wine, and also an abbreviation for second. That is either a straight definition for a ‘very short time’ (it’s all relative after all), or the idea may be that a second is a short time, and if you abbreviate it to SEC it becomes a VERY short time. Either way, we do indeed get there in quite a short time I hope. | |
20 | Fuss about vocal, never ending, Green? (7) |
AVOCADO – ADO (fuss) ‘about’ VOCA |
|
22 | Song of Republican over in California (5) |
CAROL – OK. We have all heard of Republicans have we? I know I saw something about them on the news the other day. Well as a political party in the US they get abbreviated to R (they are also sometimes known as the GOP – ‘Grand Old Party’, and I have seen this acronym turn up in crosswords as well, although I don’t think I have ever seen it in a QC). An over is a series of six deliveries in Cricket (or more accurately six ‘balls’, as the delivery of a ‘no ball’ will add to the number of deliveries in an over). I think the Australian tradition also used to use eight-ball overs at some point in history. An over is usually abbreviated to O. So put R + O into CAL (California) and there you have the answer. | |
23 | Continue after all others (4) |
LAST – double definition, hopefully requiring no further explanaton. | |
24 | After time more unusual accepted learner’s young child (7) |
TODDLER – T (time) + ODDER (more unusual) ‘accepting’ L (learner). |
Down | |
1 | They may help to recall mobile Maria wrecked (11) |
MEMORABILIA – straight anagram. MOBILE MARIA ‘wrecked’. | |
2 | Open all the time after resistance ended at front (7) |
SINCERE – SINCE (all the time after) + R (symbol for the electrical quantity of resistance) + E (Ended ‘at front’). | |
3 | Ill-tempered promise — this?! (9) |
CROSSWORD – CROSS (ill-tempered) + WORD (promise, as in ‘I give you my word’). The definition is of course what you have presumably just completed. | |
4 | Jewellery item — severe reprimand when directions are reversed (6) |
LOCKET – ROCKET (severe reprimand) with R (right) ‘reversing direction’ to L (left). | |
5 | Pole needed to use ATM (3) |
PIN – Personal Identification Number. If you need some Cadbury’s Smash you’d better go to the hole in the wall and put in your Huckleberry Finn. (Sorry, I was just reading an article about east end ATMs the other day that have an option to display instructions in Cockney rhyming slang). | |
6 | Pay for exhibition area at fair (5) |
STAND – double definition. Pay for as in ‘I’ll stand you all a drink’. And if you all meet me at my local (if it’s still there) once all this virus business is over I certainly will. Maybe we could even do it on a night when |
|
9 | Impressive revised arrangement of act? Clap? Sure! (11) |
SPECTACULAR – straight anagram. ‘Revised arrangement’ of ACT CLAP SURE. | |
12 | New aid in coma — it’s found in proteins (5,4) |
AMINO ACID – and another one. ‘New’ AID IN COMA. Amino acids are the basic building blocks of which proteins are made. The clue is in the name: they have a basic (AMINO) chemical functional group at one end and an acidic (ACID) one at the other. Elimination of water enables them to join together to make the long-chain biological polymers known as proteins. | |
15 | Flier, quickest, relative displays (7) |
KESTREL – hidden word: quicKEST RELative ‘displays’. | |
16 | Publicity, limitless, from computers etc that’s skilful (6) |
ADROIT – AD (publicity) + RO ( |
|
18 | Fragrance of a capital (in local parlance) (5) |
AROMA – A + ROMA (capital ‘in local parlance’, i.e. ROME in Italian). | |
21 | Suitable carpet oddly overlooked (3) |
APT – ‘overlook’ the odd letters of |
I feel like there’s some moral here for new solvers. Finding the balance between “trusting your gut” and “wanting to understand how it works” is tricky, and many minutes can be spent in the process.
Edited at 2021-01-11 12:28 am (UTC)
Don
Interestingly, a similar problem arose in a similar place in the grid on the main today.
That was a word that I had on the periphery of my knowledge and I had no fear in writing it in as I didn’t feel the cryptic could be pointing anywhere else.
It’s the classic risk and reward situation so beloved of golfers. To BIFF or not to BIFF? But the thing is the more experienced you are the more you can have confidence in your BIFFs. It’s a bit like whoever the golfer was (probably apocryphal as I think it has been attributed to several sages of the course over the years) who, when somebody congratulated him on a ‘lucky’ shot, said “Thanks. And you know what, the more I practise the luckier I get”.
As I keep telling the newbies, it’s all about experience!
Thanks Hurley for the fine QC. thanks astartedon for the wonderfully chatty blog
Edited at 2021-01-11 11:39 am (UTC)
Thanks to astartedon
Thanks John
Don
Anyway. Thank goodness KED was in the clue or I’d have put SKIDADDLE. I liked that, and TODDLER, and CANVASS. I await the rage of those who complain about Eton’s status as the sole/predominant school in Crosswordland!
FOI MUSICAL, LOI LAST, COD AROMA, time 14:47 for a Not Very Good Day.
Many thanks Hurley and Don.
Templar
I did parse LOCKET, one of my last in. Thank goodness LLANDUDNO was well signposted as Welsh spelling is beyond me. As is the language; last night I found myself listening to radio commentary on the Newport v Brighton penalty shoot-out -and it was in Welsh.
My LOI and near error was LAST-how appropriate. I almost went for something else just to stop the clock.
Finished in 11:07. I liked LAST and CROSSWORD.
David
Not exactly sure what the hold-ups were as none of the clues seemed unfair or obscure to me. In fact almost the opposite – I “saw” 1A Musical straight off but didn’t enter it as I could not believe there was not more to it, and likewise Pin = pole caused me to hesitate in 5D until I had both the P and the N from checkers. LOI for me was, appropriately, 23A Last. I always find short common words difficult and it took a while staring at -A-T to see the answer
I sympathise with those who groan at the mention of the Berkshire school, again, but the sad fact is that there are no obvious other 4-letter schools for the setters to use! 5 and 6 letter schools are not uncommon (Douai, Fettes, Harrow, Oundle, Radley, Rugby, Stowe …) but presumably much less easy to use in a clue.
Many thanks to Don for the blog
Cedric
Edited at 2021-01-11 11:16 am (UTC)
The rest of the puzzle was still a bit chewy though, the SE corner in particular. Wasn’t confident about “Carol” for 22ac even though it couldn’t be anything else, and it took me ages to see the hidden word in 15dn “Kestrel”.
FOI – 1ac “Musical”
LOI – 4dn “Locket”
COD – 17ac “Llandudno” – once went on holiday there as a child…
Thanks as usual.
FOI – 5ac PASS
LOI – 2dn SINCERE
COD – 23ac LAST
7:16 in the end.
Went to school near LLANDUDNO and SKEDADDLE sprang to mind immediately too. I don’t think it is American.
After rushing through I stuck in NW corner, with POsI MANGO (having also biffed Melon) , CROSSWORD and SINCERE, BRETON.
LOI LAST!
Much guessing then parsing today. Couldn’t parse LOCKET.
But I enjoyed it – thanks for helpful blog, Don.
Edited at 2021-01-11 12:20 pm (UTC)
Edited at 2021-01-11 11:59 pm (UTC)
Like many, I did not parse LOCKET, looking for N-S, or E-W reversal. But also did not see the hidden KESTREL. Was late to see MUSICAL which was probably my downfall in the NW Corner — LOI SINCERE.
Indeed, long anagrams with easy anagrinds sets up a good “scaffold” (great turn of phrase, Don)
COD SKEDDADLE
If there is anything else that you feel I could do to make the explanations any clearer then do mention it.
And please – it’s nothing to do with being thick. It’s just a question of experience. Personally I’ve been doing the Times Cryptic for over 40 years. When I started I promise you my grids were as blank as yours but now I finish it every day. But then you’d expect me to after all that wouldn’t you? Now that would perhaps be thick. If I were still looking at blank grids after 40 years then I would probably have decided my energies were better directed elsewhere. But even then, probably not thick, just not good at crosswords.
Alan Turing wasn’t thick. But he was by his own admission no good at crosswords. The claim made by Benedict Cumberbatch’s character in his interview in The Imitation Game is merely dramatic licence.
All the best
Don
Edited at 2021-01-11 02:08 pm (UTC)
It starts about 2 minutes in, after an introduction setting the historical context.
Don
A nice enough puzzle from Hurley. I had no problems with spelling, and I’ve met the “reversal” of LOCKET somewhere before (although I suspect it was in a 15×15). These are the sort of setter’s tricks that newer solvers should try to digest. I’ve said it before – it’s like learning a new language with different grammatical rules.
FOI MUSICAL
LOI LAST (rather aptly !)
COD CANVASS
TIME 3:38
FOI: musical
LOI: sincere
COD: skedaddle (lovely word).
Thanks Astartedon for a great blog.
FOI Musical
LOI Last – couldn’t see it so an alphabet trawl slowed me down
COD Stand – neat surface
WOD Skedaddle
Time 19 minutes
Thanks Hurley and Don
The anagrams, unusually for me, went in quite quickly.
Hopefully, tomorrow will be more my sort of resort….
FOI: 1d MEMORABILIA
LOI: 13a BRETON
WOD: 11a SKEDADDLE
Dear astartedon: Many thanks for not classifying the puzzle as easy/middling/difficult (or whatever), as they’re all still tricky for me. Also, whilst a particular clue type may be be relatively straightforward for one solver, another solver may find the same clue type more awkward. I, for example, often find double-definitions difficult, whereas Mrs Random will sail through these without any problem. I think this is because her active vocabulary is broader than mine. On the other hand, my rather more twisted brain sometimes favours me when it comes to cracking some of the more convoluted clue structures.
Many thanks to astartedon for the explanations (I never did work out why 17a was LLANDUDNO) and to Hurley for providing a challenging, but solvable crossword for a relatively inexperienced cruciverbalist.
Don
I had similar vowel trouble with PICKET, rather than packet, but the limitations of the anagrist of 12 down, AMINO ACID, luckily kept me on the straight and narrow with that one.
I liked CROSSWORD and AROMA. Rather less impressed with SINCERE which, from the checkers, had to be this but which I resisted for ages because, for me, while the word might collocate with open, it’s hardly synonymous with it, and, also, more seriously, I couldn’t quite see how the parsing worked.
Thanks so much, Don, for the blog which explained the parsing of the aforementioned 2 down but also that of CAROL – I’m regularly bewildered when cricket enters the clue. I love your blogs because they always seem as if you’re actually talking to me – calm, reasoned, kind and thoughtful.
Thanks too to Hurley for a very nice 3 down.
You are all those words that you have used to describe me but also witty, funny and charmingly self-deprecating as well.
All the best
Don
I don’t think that I have ever seen the word Skedaddle written before – and like Jackkt was tempted by Skid… WOD
Thought that Canvass was tricky, and not keen on the clue for Adroit…
Otherwise 19 minutes very pleased
Nice crossword
Thanks all
John George
I suppose it depends which convention you are using. A bit like the modern standard phonetic alphabet went through several mutations before becoming the familiar one that turns up quite a lot in crosswords.
Randle P McM
LOI: 12d AMINO ACID
DNF
Clues used with aids: 10
Aids Used: Chambers, TftT
Total Answered: 16/26
Not a great start to the week, with a DNF. I struggled with a number of clues, and was very disappointed I didn’t get 3d, considering I was just doing one!
My favourite clue was 17a LLANDUDNO, as I answered that one by looking at the component parts of the clue: Anagram of ALL (rejected), N (Northern), DUD (failure) + NO
I noted that the blogger mentioned about some bloggers saying that “I … should not describe a puzzle as easy because new people who come along and who might find it difficult can get a bit disheartened…”
I am not sure if that is referring to my comment on Friday when I lamented that I felt dumb as the blogger had said that they found the puzzle tricky, taking about 8.5 minutes to complete. I had said that somebody who describes a puzzle as “tricky” when it only took them some 8 minutes to complete made me, who took over an hour, feel dumb.
My comment that day was meant to be taken as tongue-in-cheek, as a bit of self-depreciatory fun. It was not intended as a dig at the blogger. If my comment was taken as such then I apologise. It certainly was not intended to offend.
No my comment wasn’t directed at you. It was referring to an anonymous poster who commented on my last blog. And absolutely no umbrage was taken on my part at all anyway. I’m only here to try to help, and if somebody comments about something that I say being or not being helpful then I will cheerfully take that on board and may adapt my blogs accordingly. That’s why I am trying to explain my thinking on the clues at a more basic level than I used to.
Keep at it because if it was easy it wouldn’t be worth doing and you have made amazing progress so far and I am sure it will get much easier with experience.
All the best
Don
Why is it that the nastier comments are often anonymous ?
Enjoyable qc as we finished it with only one biffed clue
Found this reasonably straightforward. Like others, couldn’t parse LOCKET, so thanks for that, Don. Not sure why rejected means reversed in the LLANDUDNO clue but managed to figure it out once I had all the crossers. AMINO ACID was a write in as I’ve been helping my daughter with school biology.
Hope that makes sense? It certainly does in Crossworld anyway as it turns up quite a lot.
All the best
Don
I guess reject could also be an instruction to leave out some letters? That’s what I was initially thinking.
Yes, I do. It takes me ages but I have occasionally completed it. I’ll make a start on it now.
I printed it out to take to the playground after home school and managed to get my first three there but then didn’t get round to doing the rest until after I finished work and cooked supper so it was a very bitty solve. I just couldn’t believe musical could be 1 AC but eventually stuck it in, and also could not think of the language, kicking myself for not spotting Breton. I also missed sincere which now seems obvious and couldn’t parse locket but couldn’t think of any other jewellery that could fit. Thanks so much Don for your patient explaining in the blog and to Hurley for the challenge.
All the best
Don
liked CROSSWORD
Nice to see so many here have fond associations and memories of Gwynedd.