Hello and Happy New Year to everyone.
I’m the B-side of the new Tuesday blogging team following Merlin’s debut last week / month / year. A big thanks to Chris who has blogged the Tuesday Quick Cryptic for many years. I doubt I’ll match his record of 443 blogs, but I’ll do my best to maintain the high standards set by him and other TfTT bloggers. Apologies in advance for the almost inevitable bumps as I’m settling in to my new role and getting used to driving at the wheel, rather than just from the back seat.
An enjoyable and not too taxing puzzle which I completed in 8:13. I liked the novel construction of 16a and the references to various place names and people.
Thanks to Izetti
Definitions underlined in bold.
| Across | |
| 1 | One must have to have it! (9) |
| OWNERSHIP – cryptic definition | |
| 6 | A hundred up for a prize? (3) |
| CUP – C (‘A hundred’) UP (‘up’) | |
| 8 | Idle cat moving around fortress (7) |
| CITADEL – Anagram (‘moving around’) of IDLE CAT | |
| 9 | European bound to escape secretly (5) |
| ELOPE – E (‘European’) LOPE (‘bound’)
As in Gretna Green |
|
| 10 | Problems re ”abstainers” getting drunk (5-7) |
| BRAIN-TEASERS – Anagram (‘getting drunk’) of RE ABSTAINERS | |
| 12 | Everybody is in endless rush in US city (6) |
| DALLAS – ALL (‘Everybody’) contained in (‘in’) DAS (‘endless rush’=DASH with last letter deleted)
Site of a tragic event which occurred 60 years ago this year. |
|
| 13 | Lord penning pages for the season (6) |
| PEPPER – PEER (‘Lord’) containing (‘penning’) PP (‘pages’) | |
| 16 | Dubious ism, doctrine I suspect that takes people the wrong way (12) |
| MISDIRECTION – Anagram indicators x 2 (‘Dubious’ and ‘suspect’) of ISM DOCTRINE I
Interesting construction! This is my take anyway but I can’t see how ‘suspect’ can be part of the definition |
|
| 19 | Dance held by generous ambassador (5) |
| SAMBA – Hidden (‘held by’) generouS AMBAssador | |
| 20 | Alarm, we fancy, finding bad program (7) |
| MALWARE – Anagram (‘fancy’) of ALARM WE | |
| 22 | Story that is written by learner (3) |
| LIE – IE (‘that is’=id est) L (‘learner’) | |
| 23 | Delighted daughter by the front door, say (9) |
| ENTRANCED – ENTRANCE (‘the front door, say’) D (‘daughter’) | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Some touching that hurt (4) |
| OUCH – Hidden (‘Some’) in tOUCHing | |
| 2 | Note someone with innate talent (7) |
| NATURAL – Double definition, both nouns.
I’m tone deaf, but Chambers tells me a NATURAL is “A tone that is neither sharp nor flat”. I’m more familiar with the second definition, as in “He/she’s a NATURAL”, describing someone with an innate ability for a particular activity, often sporting. |
|
| 3 | Revolutionary looking angry? (3) |
| RED – Another double definition. ‘Revolutionary’ as a noun to describe a communist or left-wing extremist, or as an adjective to describe a communist group eg RED Brigade. Someone ‘looking angry?’ may be RED faced. | |
| 4 | Old land workers re-established hostel (6) |
| HELOTS – Anagram (‘re-established’) of HOSTEL
This word comes up quite often in crosswords and I usually just bung it in and move on without giving it much thought. The HELOTS were a subjugated group of people, ruled by the Spartans, who worked on the land, hence ‘Old land workers’. There is apparently debate as to whether they really were slaves, but slaves or not, they were not well treated by their rulers. |
|
| 5 | Pervasive plant ever spreading (9) |
| PREVALENT – Anagram (‘spreading’) of PLANT EVER | |
| 6 | Husband in essential task (5) |
| CHORE – H (‘Husband’) contained in (‘in’) CORE (‘essential’) | |
| 7 | Quiet tenant, one bringing joy (7) |
| PLEASER – P (‘Quiet’) LEASER (‘tenant’)
P for “piano”, a musical term for soft or softly |
|
| 11 | One female relation and one companion being inert (9) |
| INANIMATE – I (‘One’) NAN (‘female relation’) I (‘one’) MATE (‘companion’) | |
| 12 | Boy upset about some troubled maiden (7) |
| DAMOSEL – DAL (‘Boy upset’=reversal of LAD) containing (‘about’) anagram (‘troubled’) of SOME
I didn’t know this spelling, being more familiar with “damsel”. Instant word association with “damsel” = “in distress”. If I have ever heard the word used in another context, I can’t remember it. |
|
| 14 | Unimaginative professionals needing ace in charge (7) |
| PROSAIC – PROS (‘Professionals’) A (‘ace’) IC (‘in charge’) | |
| 15 | Mathematician’s achievement displayed outside empty room (6) |
| FERMAT – FEAT (‘achievement’) containing (‘displayed outside’) RM (’empty room’= first and last letters of RooM)
He of the Last Theorem, a French mathematician who lived between 1607-1669. He was also a lawyer and was fluent in six languages, so was indeed a true polymath. Euler has been the ‘mathematician’ du jour for crosswords for some time, so good to see someone else getting a look in. |
|
| 17 | Thus madame is seen in one of her rivers? (5) |
| SOMME – SO (‘Thus’) MME (‘madame’ = French abbreviation)
A word and river which will always be associated with the dreadful World War I battle and the horrors of war in general. |
|
| 18 | Drop article into cot? (4) |
| BEAD – A (‘article’) contained in (‘into’) BED (‘cot?’) | |
| 21 | Jump endlessly in meadow (3) |
| LEA – LEAP (‘Jump’) with last letter P removed (‘endlessly’) | |
About 11 mins, held up by having to write out the anagrist for brain teasers, and also by damosel and LOI helots.
COD to ownership and second to samba for the Ferrero Rocher association.
thanks
Rather sad that the word Ambassador reminds you of chocs.🙂
I started with the downs, having been a bit baffled by 1a (OWNERSHIP). I pencilled it in, and once I’d got the checkers, I got the confirmation I needed! It wasn’t a clean sweep by any stretch of the imagination, but I had few nice runs of clues, so was happy with 9:40 for this mostly friendly offering from Izetti. HELOT, DAMOSEL and FERMAT were knowns (the first only from crosswords) but as I wrote them in, I wondered if they might cause a few problems!
FOI Ouch LOI Inanimate COD Brain-teaser although Prevalent was a close second
Thanks Izetti, and welcome to the alternative Tuesday hot seat BR – thanks for an excellent first blog
I’m currently reading a book by David Crystal called Spell It Out, which explains how and why English spelling is so bananas (not his phrase!). It’s really interesting and helps you understand the many routes and influences that lead to modern English spelling – I don’t know if it will help with crossword solving, but you never know 😊
13 minutes all parsed, so a welcome bit of light relief after yesterday. NHO damosel and only vaguely recognised helots as some sort of historical underclass but had heard of Fermat and his last theorem. Funny how you can sometimes “see” anagrams straight away and at other times they prove incrdibly elusive. I saw the double anagram MISDIRECTION immediately but BRAIN-TEASERS literally did tease my brain!
FOI – 6ac CUP
LOI – 10ac BRAIN-TEASERS
COD – 13ac PEPPER
Thanks to Izetti for an enjoyable puzzle and thanks (and welcome) to BR for an equally enjoyable blog.
Excellent blog, BR!
31 minutes for me, but HELOTS and DAMOSEL were both pure guesses. I had NHO either and, unusually for Izetti, neither was unambiguously clued. Also, and very weirdly, I solved NATURAL (2d) from the clue for 1a (I didn’t have OWNERSHIP at the time). I wonder how my brain managed that.
N.B. Should anyone be interested, I can strongly recommend Simon Singh’s book FERMAT’s Last Theorem. It’s very readable, perfectly accessible to non-mathematicions and a great account of how it took 300 years until the relatively simple theorem was proved by Prof. Andrew Wiles in the 1990’s.
Many thanks to Izetti and BletchleyReject.
I watched an old Horizon on BBC iPlayer a couple of years ago about Fermat’s Last Theorem
Looks like it’s still available … https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0074rxx/horizon-19951996-fermats-last-theorem
Thanks for the link. I read the book and watched this program at the time, but fancy another look at this.
Hi Random – nothing to do with crosswords! Can we talk about your Airbnb 😊
Good morning, Mme B,
Yes, of course! Please could you e-mail me at [email protected] and we can continue our discussion there in the first instance. I could also send you a link to it. Mrs R and I would be delighted to host you and Mr B.
Welcome to our new bloggers Bletchley Reject and Merlin. Thank you for stepping up.
Just two clues pushed me over target. The first one was HELOTS which at least rang a bell but despite being a mathematician FERMAT was an unknown and constructed from wordplay. I didn’t have a problem with 16a and the inclusion of 2 anagrinds. The surface reading worked for me. 9:29
Marilyn vos Savant has a book on Fermat last Theorem, (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/475456) and one on the vagaries of English spelling (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2245123).
Thanks for the welcoming comments and for the extra discussion about several interesting points, eg the place of words with unusual spelling in the QC and the pointers to more info about Fermat’s Last Theorem.
See you all again, in the role of a blogger anyway, in a couple of weeks.
Thanks for taking over the blog BR and congratulations on an excellent debut. I found this extremely tough and was deeply into the SCC. Just not on the wavelength at all at the moment. As with yesterday, I will satisfy myself with avoiding a DNF, although I suspect I will be the slowest today. 😢
FOI – CITADEL
LOI – PEPPER (totally missed the significance of ‘penning’)
PDM – PROSAIC
COD – SOMME
Some of the above times are stunning.
to Bletchley Reject: Congratulations on a great debut blog!
Welcome Bletchley Reject – a very helpful first blog since 3 answers were NHOs for me: FERMAT, HELOTS and the spelling of DAMOSEL (not DAMSEL). A rather chewy puzzle all round, I found.
Welcome BR, and thanks for the blog.
I didn’t have my anagram hat on today, so found this one very tough until I cheated (a little) with BRAIN-TEASERS MISDIRECTION, and PREVALENT. After that, everything went in reasonably smoothly. I’d heard of DAMOSEL: I think it features in a Bertie Wooster story somehow. Happy to have finished in 16:10.
Thank you for an excellent blog. I was held up by 1ac (needed crossing letters, as I didn’t get the cryptic definition), and the bringer of joy was a PLODGER/PRENTER for some time in my head (Doh!).
DAMOSEL and HELOTS were new words. Good to see FERMAT: Simon Singh’s book is excellent on his and Andrew Wiles’ story.
Completed in 2 sittings, time unknown. Same NHOs as many others (HELOTS, DAMOSEL, FERMAT). Initially unsure about NATURAL until I realised ‘note’ could be musical note. Liked clueing of INANIMATE. LOI OWNERSHIP – needed all the checkers. Great first blog BR – many thanks. Thanks to Izetti too.
19 mins…
I enjoyed this, with the main hold ups being the NE corner. For some reason, I just couldn’t see 6ac “Cup”.
Didn’t know 4dn Helots, so it was a bit of punt based on the letter combos. However, Fermat’s various theorems were well known for 15dn.
Not sure whether 16ac is an error or not, as I’ve seen many a clue with superfluous words in it – I guess the question is whether having two potential anagrinds confuses things beyond the norm.
FOI – 1dn “Ouch”
LOI – 9ac “Elope”
COD – 13ac “Pepper”
Thanks as usual and a hearty welcome to BR for his blog!
PS. Based on previous comments – I might start actually keeping my times. I roughly know my average and my PB – but maybe I should be a bit more statistical like L-Plates.
DNF
It’s annoying when the clueing to a word you don’t know is an anagram. Had 2 choices for LOI but put HOLETS.
Tricky but completed this in two sessions – probably around 20 minutes in total. Ownership straight in for a pleasing start.
I needed the blog to see why Samba – ha a hidden!! And also to explain why natural = note, and confirm Helots.
Lots to enjoy.
Thanks all
John
As a solicitor- Leaser is not and has never been in my “dictionary”. A landlord is a lessor and a tenant is a lessee. The contract that binds them is a lease. I rest my case my lords.
I have to agree with Cedric Statherby’s comment. Damosel was an absolute stretch. I got it from the wordplay, but had never heard of the word. As Cedric says, if you can’t fit in a good word, change the grid.