QC 1825 by Izetti

Posted on Categories Quick Cryptic

A few weeks ago someone commented on the relative rarity of the two Dons meeting but here it is happening again. An enjoyable puzzle that once again largely eschewed the use of the anagram QC staple, with only one full anagram clue and two others I think in which anagrams make a contribution. Many thanks to Izetti.

FOI was 1A and I think LOI was 11D. I’ll also give that the COD award because the WAR bit tends to misdirect by confusing the parsing at first glance (to the lazy eye WAR may look as though it could be ‘dispute’ before you notice the ROW), although in practice it is quite biffable as soon as you see the month of JAN.

Definitions are underlined and everything else is explained just as I see it is as simply as I can.

Across
1 One being given sustenance by another (8)
CANNIBAL – cryptic definition. A CANNIBAL eats ‘another’ and therefore derives sustenance from them.
6 Some music, a feature in place of refreshment (4)
CAFE – hidden word: ‘some’ musiC A FEature.
8 Senseless maiden in retro hairstyle (4)
NUMB – a BUN is a hairstyle, and if it is ‘retro’ then we need to write it backwards: NUB. Insert M for maiden and you get comfortably NUMB for all you Pink Floyd 22As.
9 Criminal venture to achieve mastery (8)
CONQUEST – CON (criminal, short for ‘CONVICT’) + QUEST (venture).
10 Meant to have eaten outside — is in France stuck inside (8)
DESTINED – I don’t know, is there any rule against cluing part of an answer twice? It seems to me here that the definition is ‘meant to have’. Then we have DINED (eaten) ‘outside’ EST (French for ‘is’, i.e. ‘is in France’). But then we also have ‘stuck inside’, i.e. DINED with EST (‘is in France’) ‘stuck inside’. So both of those lead to the answer but one is superfluous.
12 Dog beginning to twitch and be ill (4)
TAIL – T (‘beginning to’ Twitch) + AIL (be ill). Dog here is of course a verb, as in ‘to dog one’s footsteps’.
13 Company car once made by Ford (6)
ESCORT – double definition.
16 Choose out-of-this-world person to encourage workers to strike (6)
PICKET – PICK (choose) + ET (extra-terrestrial: ‘out-of-this-world person’).
17 Droop when encountering a lengthy account (4)
SAGA – SAG (droop) + A.
18 Poetry with awful lines entertaining everyone (8)
BALLADRY – BAD (awful) + RY (railway, therefore ‘lines’) ‘entertaining’ ALL (everyone).
21 Owls flying towards county lose speed (4,4)
SLOW DOWN – anagram of OWLS (‘flying’) = SLOW + DOWN (county in Northern Ireland).
22 Expert‘s device for adding polish (4)
BUFF – double definition.
23 In gale we rescue vessel (4)
EWER – hidden word: ‘in’ galE WE Rescue.
24 Place for waiter bringing thick slice of bread (8)
DOORSTEP – double definition, the first one being slightly cryptic as people often have to wait on doorsteps until someone answers the doorbell.
Down
2 Article pretty sharp-witted? (5)
ACUTE – A (indefinite article) + CUTE (pretty).
3 Good Parisian, upwardly mobile bigwig (3)
NOB – BON (French, therefore Parisian, for ‘good’) ‘upwardly mobile’ (i.e. reversed in this down clue).
4 What may be brought home by the successful artist (5)
BACON – double definition &lit. BACON may be brought home (as in ‘bringing home the bacon’), and Francis BACON was a successful artist. But of course, if an artist is successful then he or she may well be bringing home the bacon which is what the whole clue suggests.
5 Impertinence involving naughty nude in a row (5,2)
LINED UP – LIP (impertinence) involving an anagram (‘naughty’) of NUDE.
6 “Crabby” types making a living, excellent actors originally (9)
CRUSTACEA – CRUST (a living) + ACE (excellent) + A (Actors ‘originally’).
7 Money paid to secure very good person, one very merry (7)
FESTIVE – FEE (money paid) ‘securing’ ST (saint, very good person) + I (one) + V (very).
11 Month in dispute — something black about that old conflict (6,3)
TROJAN WAR – JAN (month) ‘in’ ROW (dispute) with TAR (something black) ‘about’.
14 Believe what could be a sign of summer coming? (7)
SWALLOW – the saying ‘one swallow doesn’t make a summer’ implies that a number of swallows may make a summer. So one single swallow ‘could be’ a sign of summer if followed by others.
15 Paper a bit “old”, in need of redesign (7)
TABLOID – straight anagram (‘in need of redesign’) of A BIT OLD. The first and only full anagram clue today.
19 Slow time of abstinence before Easter egg (5)
LENTO – LENT (time of abstinence) before O (Easter egg). It is an occasional device in crosswords to clue something by the shape of letters although I must admit it jars a little bit with me. So here O ‘looks like’ an egg. Sometimes you get OO clued by ‘a pair of spectacles’. I think I have also seen J clued as a hook. You get the idea. But I suppose I shouldn’t complain. I mean there isn’t really much difference between letters ‘looking like’ something and dodgy homophones ‘sounding like’ something (and sometimes not all that much). Anyway, they do happen and just thought I’d mention it being aware of the ‘educational’ aspect of the Quickie. Also lento is one of those musical directions that appear on sheet music and which come up from time to time (I remember a few weeks ago an anonymous contributor having a problem with ff for ‘very loud’ (fortissimo) so again I thought it worth mentioning).
20 Front bit missing from toy weapon (5)
RIFLE – take the ‘front bit’ from tRIFLE (toy).
22 Vehicle has creepy-crawlies — not good! (3)
BUS – BUGS are creepy-crawlies, and ‘not good’ tells us to take out the G to leave BUS.

76 comments on “QC 1825 by Izetti”

  1. 10 minutes. On LENTO I think LENT is ‘time of abstinence before Easter’, and O is just ‘egg’. Another connection with egg and 0 is ‘love’ for zero in tennis which comes from the French l’oeuf.
  2. This took me a long time, largely because I put in DOORSTOP (can never remember this one), which of course made RIFLE hard to think of. It also took me ages to remember RY for ‘lines’ and to give up on BALLADES. I parsed LENTO as Jack did; and I also took BACON to be ‘what may be brought home by the successful’/ ‘artist’; not that it matters. [ON EDIT: Actually, I think it does matter a bit. ‘successful artist’=[name of artist] is an oddly gratuitous definition; I for one don’t know if he was successful, or what successful means.] 9:24.

    Edited at 2021-03-08 06:36 am (UTC)

  3. 20:27, another slow start and agree with last weeks comment that downs seem easier, so I did downs first and got started that way. FOI ACUTE.

    A few words needed to be confidently stuck in which I hadn’t quite heard of in that part of speech: BUFF as a noun for polishing device, BALLADRY and CRUSTACEA, where I had tried to jam in Crustacean by missing out the second ‘a’.

    I maintain that 3D can be equally NOB or BON the way it is clued, with the comma indicating that the upward instruction goes with nob, for an answer of BON. I’ve been caught out by these before, and didn’t commit until seeing CANNIBAL. This was a casualty of my down-first strategy today.

    LOI FESTIVE
    COD DOORSTEP (place for waiter, nice)

    1. I agree re BON / NOB and had confidently entered BON in the grid before being forced to think again by the arrival of CANNIBAL. The comma would most certainly seem to indicate BON except that I am too experienced a solver to believe that punctuation can be relied on in such matters. I made a judgement call and got it wrong. It might have been wiser to wait before committing, as Merlin did.
  4. Couldnt see CANNIBAL so started in the SW and worked steadily around in an anticlockwise direction finishing with 1ac, with a few stutters on the way but nothing to hold me up for too long.

    Liked BALLADRY

    Thanks Don and Don

  5. Well off the pace today. Especially in the NW. If only I hadn’t had to leave CANNIBAL until last.
  6. Tough today and a DNF — I was caught out by NOB/BON and by the face that a thick slice of bread is definitely a DOORSTOP and not a step. On to the next one!

    Pb

    1. “… a thick slice of bread is definitely a DOORSTOP”

      Unless people in your household regularly cut wedge-shaped slices, that is a rather poor metaphor. DOORSTEP makes far more sense for the uniformly thick slices most of us cut.

      —AntsInPants

    2. We always called thick slices of bread “doorstep” in my family when I was a kid.
  7. We really struggled to get going and only managed to solve a few clues on the first pass. Took us 25 minutes to complete what was an excellent puzzle and a great start to the week.

    FOI: cafe
    LOI: destined
    COD: conquest

    Thanks to Izetti and Astartedon.

  8. Found this slightly on the hard side. Just over my target at 21:25. I had DOORSTOP to start with which held me up. That made bottom right corner difficult until I corrected it. Enjoyed it although I do find Izetti puzzles harder than average.
  9. … and today was no exception, as it took me 18 minutes to wrestle this one down. No complaints having done so, and all the clues are fair on completion, but they took their time. Having said that though, not sure I understand why “crabby” is in quotation marks in the clue for 6D — but as Jack observes, punctuation seems to be “at the setter’s discretion” and not to be relied on in crossword clues! It did not seem to affect the answer.

    Longest holdup was on 18A Balladry, as I first tried to make “awful lines” into an anagram of lines. That clearly failed when the B from 15D Tabloid came in, but it took a while for the penny to drop on awful lines = bad ry. LOI was 11D Trojan War, a clever clue that I only saw the parsing of post solving.

    Many thanks to Don for the blog
    Cedric

  10. After several encouraging error-free completions lately I was considering tackling the 15×15, but this puzzle shattered my confidence. I simply could not get on the wavelength and abandoned the fight with only a handful of clues completed in my self-imposed 30 minutes.

    NHO DOORSTEP for a thick slice of bread, unfamiliar with BALLADRY and LENTO. Heard of EWER only as a surname. So my general knowledge failed me completely this evening…

    …will sulk overnight then pick myself up for another go tomorrow!

    WB

  11. I felt this was quite hard work and thought I must just be short of coffee, so good to see that others were a bit slower than usual too. Could not see the very clever CANNIBAL for the life of me, and so decided this was going to be a toughie and grid-hopped wherever I could solve. Found that the bottom half went in more easily, though LENTO went in uncertainly because I’ve never seen the “egg = O” thing before, and then returned to the north with added confidence.

    FOI CAFE, LOI CONQUEST, COD CANNIBAL (just pipping PICKET), time 1.25K for a Goodish Day.

    Many thanks to the two Dons.

    Templar

  12. …not helped by having PARASITE for 1A as FOI, and DOORSTOP for the sandwich – both of which fit and took a while to give up on. Got there eventually, but was on the second cup of coffee and about to give up before the penny dropped.

    Enjoyed LENTO, very clever with Lent being the fast before Easter (you can read the clueing as either “abstinence before Easter, egg” or “abstinence, before Easter Egg” as our blogger has it).

    Thanks Izetti and Astartedon, a decent start to the week in QC land.

  13. …. all in all a very slow one today completed amidst numerous (quite deliberate) diversions before finally turning green. 1a CANNIBAL, 9a CONQUEST and 15ac PICKET took an age, but the one I enjoyed most was 6d CRUSTACEA.
  14. Agree this was on the hard side – especially in the top half. Very clever and much appreciated stuff though – COD to cannibal (once I’d corrected Bon). LOI conquest which seems quite easy now but I just couldn’t see it for a long time even though I’d got the con bit. 12 minutes.

    Edited at 2021-03-08 09:21 am (UTC)

    1. My understanding is that ‘doorsteps’ as in ‘doorsteps and jam’ were so thick that you didn’t make them into sandwiches. I never heard of ‘doorstop’ in this context but if people say things enough they tend to become part of the language.
    2. Yes, mistaken usage becomes common usage. A subject which makes some of us pedants a bit tetchy.
      1. I used to feel that too, until I read Bill Bryson’s “Mother Tongue” and took on board how wonderfully lively our English language is, and has always been.

        After all, we haven’t used “thou” for some time now and no doubt there were a few complaints as it slowly altered to “you. “

        I still have a frisson when reading “decimate “ instead of “destroy” though. I hope to get over the feeling before too long.

        Diana

        Edited at 2021-03-08 01:29 pm (UTC)

      2. I couldn’t agree more. Words used erroneously, then dictionaries pick them up, as dictionaries are simply records of common usage (as far as I am aware). Finally, the dictionary is quoted, as an authority and we are stuck with the ‘word’.
        Sal
  15. 6:44 Over target for me – a bit tricky today. FOI CAFE, LOI FESTIVE. I liked CANNIBAL when I saw it. I wrote SLOW DOWN in the space for 18A. which didn’t help. I think the quotation marks for “crabby” are a hint that it’s an Uxbridge English Dictionary type of definition. Thanks Don and Don.
  16. I thought I’d got the hang of Izetti recently but not today.

    I retired hurt after 40mins with a few completed, and then discovered at least three of them were wrong anyway by which time I’d lost interest.

    Oh well , there’s always tomorrow.

    Diana

  17. A tough but enjoyable start to the week. I entered answers pretty haphazardly around the grid and slowly built up the crossers. Having added BALLADRY (hesitantly) I moved up to finish off the NE with CONQUEST, CRUSTACEA, FESTIVE, PICKET and TAIL (neat). Into the SCC for a disappointing start to the week. Back now to work through the clues again and savour the surfaces. Thanks to both Dons. John M.

    Edited at 2021-03-08 09:44 am (UTC)

  18. There were some tough clues in this puzzle which took me 16 minutes.
    LOI TABLOID after correcting ESTATE which had been my best guess for 13a.
    And I have just noticed that I got 8a wrong with DUMB (which had replaced Boob).
    So a DNF for me.
    David
  19. I found this one to be way too difficult for me. I gave up in the end.

    There’s not much more I can say about this one, other than I did not enjoy it at all. I lost interest in it in the end.

    On the bright side: I can’t do any worse tomorrow than I did today.

    Oddly enough I did get 6d CRUSTACEA. Once I had worked out the answer I did have to look the word up in the dictionary to see if it was really a word. I have heard of crustacean/s, and I guessed crustacea was Latin.

    Edited at 2021-03-08 10:21 am (UTC)

    1. I too found this one very tricky ended up with a DNF. I did get 3D but didn’t see 1A or 24D both of which were great clues! Many others not seen but hey ho there is always tomorrow!
  20. I also found this to be on the trickier end of the scale. I started off with BON, which I had to revise when NUMB came along, then made reasonable progress until arriving in the SW where I had to engage the spare neuron. Eventually SWALLOW opened up the corner and I finished with TABLOID. BALLADRY also held my up while I tried to fit ALL in and anagram of LINES. 10:16. Thanks Izetti and Don.
  21. A real struggle today, taking ages. Held up by guessing BALLADES instead of BALLADRY which give RIFLE and thence the SE corner. Only saw CANNIBAL after a long time, but sadly failed to see ACUTE instead of AWARE or ALIVE and so did not get NUMB either. Only myself to blame for this.
  22. A good challenge; just over 20 min after a very slow start in the NW corner, not helped by the NOB/BON issue. Thanks Izetti and blogger.
  23. Biffed TROJAN WAR but could not parse so thought it must be wrong and erased. Then put Detained and got stuck. Shd have got DESTINED.

    All the rest I managed relatively quickly. No prob with DOORSTEP. Liked PICKET, SWALLOW, BACON.

    Thanks for much needed blog, Don.

    Edited at 2021-03-08 12:34 pm (UTC)

  24. Tough one today, particularly the NW, but eventually finished in 57:27. As a result, I’d better cut this short. Didn’t know about the device where things looked like letters, apart from O, so thanks to Astartedon for that snippet. I’ll watch out for those hooks and spectacles. FOI CAFE, LOI CONQUEST COD 4d. Thanks to the Dons.
  25. A dreaded DNF today. I like to stop at half an hour but I kept going for a further ten minutes and still couldn’t do it.
    Like others here, I had entered bon for 3 down instead of NOB and that made 1 across impossible. Having said that, I did consider swapping it round and I still couldn’t identify what the first on the grid should be. The problem is, I guess, that once you’ve decided a puzzle is impossible, then that’s what it becomes.

    Some complex parsing here IMO. For example, DESTINED, BALLADRY (clever misdirection ), FESTIVE, TROJAN WAR etc.

    Ah, well. Tomorrow is another day….

    Thanks to Don and Izetti.

  26. Enjoyable enough, but I hope it’s not a pointer to the rest of the week in terms of difficulty. I had quite a lot of empty squares after the first pass, but managed to build up from the bottom of the grid thanks to write-ins for Doorstep (my wife, from Yorkshire, insists that it’s called a Doorstop) and Tabloid, and a hesitant (T)Rifle. Cannibal took an age to see, but it was loi Conquest that pushed me out to 30mins, having failed to separate venture from criminal. Lots of CoD candidates, with 16ac Picket just getting the nod from Trojan War. Invariant
    1. I wrote in DOORSTEP because of the way the clue was phrased but your wife is right — the thick chunky slice of bread is a doorstop. John

      Edited at 2021-03-08 01:42 pm (UTC)

  27. Clues typically (for izetti) ambiguous. 3D seemed so to me despite the comma and so i could only enter the “o” until 8A solved. 5D also tricky as i thought impertinence was the answer rather than in the row. LOI was 1A although i was not certain about doorstep. Finished in 6 minutes over the hour according to the clock, a bit longer than i should spend on a quick cryptic – this one wasn’t that. Thanks fo the blog. DavidS
  28. Usual Izetti not solvable by anyone new to puzzles. I had stopped doing any of his puzzles for a couple of months while I tried to improve. Clearly not enough to tackle his puzzles. Not fun and not encouraging. Will leave his for another 3 months.
  29. Tough going today for all the reasons previously commented upon. CANNIBAL, DESTINED, BACON and BALLADRY all caused a considerably hold up. I initially put in DUMB for the haircut clue but couldn’t make it work so had a rethink. Crossed the line in 15.51 with LOI SWALLOW.
    Thanks to astartedon
  30. It’s been a while since I had a DNF, but today’s was one. I have had a good run of late, finishing Saturday’s competition cryptic so was feeling more confident about the 15 x 15’s. Hey ho. Was fixated on bob for the hairstyle, forgot all about buns. I managed all but the NW corner, and conquest. I had a couple of goes at it which usually works but the NW would not yield. I can’t leave the thing and wait for the result so I got online and checked bob, (boob?) and only the b was right. Able to resolve that from there, I got nob and acute but nothing more. Had to reveal cannibal and destined, then managed to complete, after availing myself of a lot of help. I don’t mind when I DNF, and I enjoyed the puzzle in spite of everything, though finishing is much more satisfying. Had my first zoom meeting today which I was very nervous about, the unknown and all that. It went OK so that was a relief, but it may have been a cause of today’s brain-scramble. Many thanks for the blog, and to Izetti for the entertainment. GW
  31. No time today as interrupted by 5 hour delay, then stopped and started again. I agree that it was chewy though, and I was certainly in the SCC. All done though, and some good clues. Thanks both!
  32. Maybe the lady is from a different part of God’s Own County to me (Hull), but it was always a DOORSTEP (preferably slathered with well salted dripping !)
    1. I was t’other side o’t Pennines but it was always doorstop. Vive les differences as they say in Salford. 😁

      Edited at 2021-03-08 03:17 pm (UTC)

  33. ….weeping and wailing, and the gnashing of teeth — and I wasn’t disappointed. Now that I’m trying to solve on my phone regularly, my top target has been advanced by an extra minute — as such, I made it today.

    I thought NOB was, unusually for Izetti, an unfair clue. Otherwise I unravelled it without too many dramas.

    FOI CAFE
    LOI CONQUEST
    COD CRUSTACEA
    TIME 5:29

  34. Not an easy Monday QC but I still submitted in 9 minutes (<1K for an excellent day). My FOI was CAFE and my LOsI SWALLOW and ESCORT. I couldn’t parse CRUSTACEA satisfactorily as I had CRUST and EA for excellent and actors originally. I also failed to parse DOORSTEP. I enjoyed the cluing for DESTINED and I didn’t spot the outside/inside dilemma. Thanks to both Dons.

    Edited at 2021-03-08 02:48 pm (UTC)

  35. I found this a really tough puzzle and was extremely pleased (perhaps even proud) to finish, all correct in 50 minutes – or so I thought. That was until I spotted NUMB (8a) in astartedon’s blog, when I had DUMB. It was my LOI and, because I previously had BOMB (M in BOB), it just didn’t occur to me when alphabet trawling that another word ending in _UMB could mean ‘senseless’.

    P.S. I am an ageing Pink Floyd 22a (as our blogger puts it) equipped once again, now that I’ve retired, with the long hair.
    P.P.S. For any other prog-rockers out there, may I recommend you listen to Mostly Autumn, credited as “the best band you’ve never heard” by whispering Bob Harris.

    Unfortunately, Mrs R made precisely the same error, although after only 32 minutes (so she beat me again today).

    Many thanks to astartedon and Izetti.

  36. Very slow to get started but picked up speed once I got to the bottom half. Finished in 21 mins but unfortunately had put DUMB in at 8ac – entered without thought or parsing once 2dn & 3dn had gone in. Had to come here to see the error of my ways! Lovely puzzle with some unusual clueing.

    FOI – 6ac CAFE
    LOI – 9ac CONQUEST
    COD – 16ac PICKET

    Thanks to Izetti and Astartedon

  37. Very tricky today with some nice surfaces worthy of the 15×15

    Thoroughly enjoyed cannibal, bacon, balladry.

    11:24

    Thanks don and izetti

  38. Distracted and a bit too much for me. Could not get 10a or 11d and disappointed not to get Swallow and Escort
    Had Lente and then couldn’t get Doorstep
    Oh well out into the garden.
    If it is dry tomorrow I will cut the grass for the first time this year.
    Thanks all
    John George

    Edited at 2021-03-08 03:54 pm (UTC)

  39. Nowhere near today. Still had most of the NW corner empty after 30 mins — went away and did something else, still no luck, put it down again for another few hours and came back with fresh vigour. Needn’t have bothered.

    I knew I was in for a difficult morning when I finally deciphered 6dn as “Crustacea”. Was convinced 4dn was “Money” or “Monet” — but couldn’t fathom the homophone. Maybe my confidence was dented, but easier clues such as 13ac “Escort” and 11dn “Trojan War” failed to materialise. I also kept thinking “good” in French was “bien” which scuppered 3dn. At least I knew what a “Doorstep” was.

    FOI — 6ac “Cafe”
    LOI — dnf
    COD — 6dn “Crustacea”

    Thanks as usual.

  40. A couple of points on the parsing Don, where we had a minor difference. 10a “to have eaten” = “dined”, with “est” stuck inside removes the double usage, and 19d “time of abstinence before Easter” = lent, with the “O” coming simply from “egg” — that one took us ages while we struggled to see how Easter fitted. Generally found this hard to parse, but even harder to biff!
    Thanks for the blog Don.
    1. Sorry, wasn’t logged in so I can’t edit. I meant to say for 10a that the definition is simply “meant”.
  41. A few minutes over an hour of desperation. Finally had to change LENTE to LENTO to finish with a string of expletives. No prizes today for me but would have had to put at least a fiver in the swear box if anyone had overheard me. I suppose I could donate it to the NHS, or alternatively, endorse a good cause (me) and add a large bar of wholenut chocolate to my online shopping. I think that will do just fine. Thanks Izetti and Don.
  42. It was on the difficult side for a QC, but there should be a mix in my opinion, or how would you improve?

    I made it harder by falling for BON, which made CANNIBAL take a long time, then I’d made a complete pig’s ear of typing in TABLOID, which had me looking for 18 across to begin with L, rather than B. I also biffed LANCE, but that was soon changed to RIFLE once I got BUFF.

    Longest time for a while at 13:39, but a good bit of that was down to carelessness.

    Too much work on, so only just done this, and I’ve not had a proper lunch – must go and investigate dinner.

  43. Thank you to everybody who has pointed out parsing slips this week. All your comments are noted and I agree with all of them. I hope I would normally have picked them up on a final read-through but this week I had to rush through it as I needed to get some sleep before visiting some early morning clients. I think business is waking up again so I’m going to have to make sure I leave enough time to do the blog properly.

    I won’t go back and edit the blog now though as it is near the end of the day and people will not gain any benefit from it because nobody will be looking at it!

    Apologies for any confusion caused and many thanks to those who contributed comments to prop me up and fill in the gaps!

    Don

    1. Mrs Random and I (and several others, I notice) had DUMB for 8a. For us, this was because a BUD, (as in Rosebud) is a hairstyle – usually for women/girls with long hair, often in braids. Inserting M for maiden gives DUMB, which can mean ‘senseless’. May we count that as an alternative correct solution to the clue (for us it means the difference between a successful, albeit difficult solve and a DNF.

      Many thanks, Mr Random

      1. I think that works (and in fact considered it myself). But I am not the website that dishes out the pink squares!

        Don

      2. So yes, as you are asking me then you have my complete support. I think if you gave that logic in a competition they would have to accept it as an alternative answer.
    2. Fair enough about no need to update the blog, but pleased you commented – people such as myself who sometimes only get to complete late (or later in the week) do appreciate such comments!
      1. Thanks, that is useful to know. If I know there is still some residual interest towards the end of the day then it makes it worthwhile to do the edit.
        1. Here’s me reading this on Thursday evening…! Are there stats you can look at for when people view the blog…?
  44. Confidently wrote in bon but cannibal put paid to that. Balladry was my last in after quite a pause. Not my favourite puzzle but I did like conquest. In my family it was doorstop but rifle corrected me.
  45. Very tricky and a DNF here. The bottom half went in easier than the top half. I didn’t fall for the Nob/Bon error but did have dumb for senseless. I eventually gave up and looked at the blog to get Cannibal which enabled me to get nearly all the others bar destined. A challenge from Izetti & thanks to Don

  46. Usual Izetti not solvable by anyone new to puzzles. I had stopped doing any of his puzzles for a couple of months while I tried to improve. Clearly not enough to tackle his puzzles. Not fun and not encouraging. Will leave his for another 3 months.
  47. As regards 10ac I think the clue is just “meant”. Then “to have eaten” (dined) is outside “est”. That way there is no double clueing.
  48. Only sporadic attempts yesterday, but completed today. Successful but some unsatisfactory biffing needed. Thx for the blog to get corrected parsing!

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