Very slow to get going, was staring at an empty grid for close to three minutes, before FOI way down at CHILEAN. 21:20 eventually, so first one in the SCC: I’ll put the kettle on.
I thought I’d weigh in on this business of whether AI will ever be able to solve Times Cryptic crosswords (Jack Malvern article, Sep 21). I predict that am AI will win the Time championship next year, and possibly this year. The solution set is constrained, and the source material is extensive, especially if it is trained on the thousands of entries in the Tftt. If you add in the ability to scour the dictionary for likely looking clues then it becomes even easier. Setters struggle to come up with truly unique clues, such as 7d today.
Definitions underlined in bold , synonyms in (parentheses) (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, other wordplay in [square brackets] and deletions in {curly} brackets.
| Across | |
| 1 | Accordingly, newspaper company starts to provide you material online (4,4) |
| SOFT COPY – SO (Accordingly) + FT (Newspaper) + CO{mpany} + P{rovide} + Y{ou} | |
| 5 | Solid mass next to tree (4) |
| FIRM – FIR (Tree) + M{ass} | |
| 8 | Mediterranean island found to have no end of taramasalata (5) |
| CRETE – CRE{A}TE (found)
This is “found” as in the verb (a common crossword misdirection), with the A removed. Malta looked tempting if you take some random letters out of {tara}ma{sa}l{a}ta. |
|
| 9 | Power, say, linked with a small American group of stars (7) |
| PEGASUS – P{ower} + EG (say) + A + S{small} + US (American)
I at first thought Power is an example of peg. |
|
| 11 | Nasty people won’t ultimately think highly of show (11) |
| DEMONSTRATE – DEMONS (Nasty people) + {won}T + RATE (think highly)
When Demons are used for people, they are usually positive : a demon on the keys, a demon fast bowler. |
|
| 13 | Shrublands have suffered, primarily after hot weather (6) |
| HEATHS – HEAT (hot weather) + H{ave} + S{uffered} | |
| 14 | Be unable to stand, or look at, that man (6) |
| LOATHE – LO (look) + AT + HE (that man)
“Lo” for “look”. As in “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.” — Matthew 28:20. Although if you replace “lo” with “look”, Jesus sounds a bit like Tony Blair. |
|
| 16 | Great work produced by teacher and bishop, maybe (11) |
| MASTERPIECE – MASTER (teacher) + PIECE (Bishop)
Bishop as in chess piece. |
|
| 18 | A lichen unusually coming from part of South America (7) |
| CHILEAN – (A LICHEN)* [unusually] | |
| 19 | Adele single arising out of anguish, followed by love (5) |
| HELLO – HELL (anguish) + O (love)
And since I’m the one who moans about old-fashioned clues, I was completely stumped by this, as I don’t know any Adele songs, but it is certainly guessable. They say it is a piano ballad with soul influences (including guitar) and lyrics that discuss themes of nostalgia and regret. I just listened to it, and I rather like it, and am now feeling a bit nostalgic and regretful. |
|
| 20 | In retrospect, some artists always endure (4) |
| LAST – Reverse hidden in artists always | |
| 21 | Multilayered news article entertains European editor (8) |
| STOREYED – STORY (news article) contains E + ED{itor}
Sorry, my American friends, we spell it STOREY here. The Etymology is not known, but one theory is that as an architectural term, historia may originally have denoted a tier of painted windows or of sculptures on the front of a building. Hence two stories would have been on top of each other: hence storeys. I find this unconvincing, but that’s what the OED is going with. |
|
| Down | |
| 1 | Nauseous and sweaty at first? Ugh! (4) |
| SICK – S{weaty} + ICK (Ugh)
ICK used to be nursery-speak, but now it is used in the phrase “to get the ick” when a date suddenly goes bad. |
|
| 2 | They may unintentionally reveal sinful despair somehow (8,5) |
| FREUDIAN SLIPS – (SINFUL DESPAIR)*
Cracking anagram. When singing Beethoven’s Ode to Joy in a choir many years ago, the basses came in a bar too early with a very loud “Freude” (Joy). The conductor said it was a Freudian Slip. |
|
| 3 | Ace scheme involved eating extremely restorative, mild food (5,6) |
| CREAM CHEESE – (ACE SCHEME) * [involved] contains [eating] R{estorativ}E | |
| 4 | Very hot spot in the middle of jungles (6) |
| PIPING – PIP (spot) + IN + {jun}G{les} | |
| 6 | Slo-mo clip in parts, neatly edited (7,6) |
| INSTANT REPLAY – (IN PARTS NEATLY)* | |
| 7 | Was a marshal or colonel suspected of murder, according to reports? (8) |
| MUSTERED –
I think the definition works because a Marshal musters troops, (that’s what marshal literally means). So “was a marshal” gives “mustered”. And the cryptic element relates to Colonel Mustard in Cleudo (Clue for Americans) who was suspected of murder (along with the 5 others). And the “according to reports” cues the homophone. |
|
| 10 | Do come by to collect that girl (3-8) |
| GET-TOGETHER – GET (come ) + TO + GET (collect) + HER
I’ll get/come to your house at 1700. |
|
| 12 | Charlie and Michael distributed methamphetamine, perhaps (8) |
| CHEMICAL – C + (MICHAEL)* | |
| 15 | Instrument fixed with nail inside (6) |
| SPINET – SET (fixed) contains PIN (nail)
A smaller type of keyboard instrument, often a compact piano or a small harpsichord |
|
| 17 | Ex-president supporting Democrat (4) |
| FORD – FOR (supporting) + D{emocrat}
And of course, FORD was a republican, so would be unlikely to support a Democrat. But in those days, politics was not so polarised. |
|
Rather too leisurely a solve for me for some reason. Like Merlin–well, unlike him now–I’ve never heard Adele and know none of her songs, but wasn’t worried about HELLO. I liked MUSTERED. 9:11, actually a few seconds faster than Phil, to my shock.
Kevin, do you ever listen to the radio at all? I know not everyone can know everyone, but I am extremely curious how a person escapes Adele given her cross-demographic appeal and record breaking sales and tours.
Also I think she’s come up in the QC a number of times now, so best remember her!
Actually I did a search for ‘adele’ and the other time she came up was the Sign of the Times crossword which doesn’t count.
I wonder why I thought I’d seen her a few times before…
I don’t listen to programs that would play her music (never heard Taylor Swift, either), although I know her name (and Swift’s).
Ditto Kevin’s second comment exactly to the word.
Almost the same here. So many of the female singers of today screech and squawk, and I hit the off button pretty quickly. Oh for my Dusty Springfield long ago…..
Adele is for people just like you! People who yearn for the time of real talented singing and story telling and feelings and personality.
She’s not record breaking for no reason.
Problem with modern music of any era is there’s a lot of terrible stuff and it takes years before the good stuff sticks around. I’m sure there was terrible stuff around the time of dusty Springfield too (and I bet I would have been into it 😂)
This 71-year old agrees 100% Tina. Adele is a generational talent and I can’t imagine any Dusty fan not liking her. Her ‘21’ album is an all-time classic.
PS you’re right, there was a load of dross around in the 60s – I was there!
I meant no criticism in my comment; literally, I don’t listen etc. For all I know I would really get off on Adele or Taylor’s stuff if I heard it; but when I listen to the radio, it’s almost always ‘classical’ music. (When David Bowie died, there were lots of laudatory comments here; as I wrote here, I couldn’t name one song of his.)
I may have mentioned before that I had never heard of Freddie Mercury until the announcement of his sudden death was on every front page and therefore unavoidable. I later learned that I had heard one of his songs a number of times without knowing who the singer was, but that was in the days when I went into pubs that played music in the background – something I stopped doing years ago.
This is incredible to me. I mean, I listen to classical too, I just thought pop music of all eras is unavoidable.
At the shops! At the pubs! At your mates barbeques! Weddings, funerals, birthdays! Sporting events.
We’re all different! Yes it’s “unavoidable” as background ‘music’, but I just filter it out, wouldn’t stop to ask “who’s that singing what?”, don’t know one ‘song’ from another. Of course we’ve all heard of Taylor Swift and Adele, but couldn’t name you (or recognise) any of their songs.
Each to their own of course, and part of one’s preferences now are influenced by one’s upbringing. My parents listened to classical and opera most evenings, but my Dad had a part-time job in a record shop to supplement his civil service day job – he would bring home early albums of AC/DC, Queen and Slade for his six kids to listen to. While I’ve left ‘pop’ behind somewhat in the 21st century, some acts such as Adele, Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran are unavoidable whether you like them or not…
I am in my twenties and relatively new to cryptic crosswords. One thing I like about them when an old composer or artist is clued you can google them and discover their work.
Maybe you oldies should do they same if (god forbid) an artist born this side of WW2 is clued 😉 You might even discover something you like!
Me too.
Me too!
While I’m here: I thought this was a wonderful crossword, really top drawer. Thank you, Jalna!
Totally with you – I remain mystified by the hype around Taylor Swift – wouldn’t have known what she looks like had it not been for her being all over the news.
I would say Adele and her music is better-known (by orders of magnitude) than many (most?) of the references in QCs!
This, 100%. Funnily enough, when I was explaining the living person rule change to a non-crosswording friend recently, “orders of magnitude” is the exact phrase I used
Thank you for popping in, Jalna and thank you for the clarification about “orders of magnitude”.
I listen to and know quite a lot about Nightwish (a Finnish symphonic-metal band) and Lazuli (a French prog-rock band), but it would be unreasonable of me to expect to see them referenced here.
Whereas, I don’t listen to or know anything about Adele’s or Taylor Swift’s music, but your “orders of magnitude” qualifier means that it is reasonable for a setter to expect that I know something about them.
Oh dear! I may be in for a hard time.
I’m probably on the young-ish side compared to many here (42). I confess I don’t know Adele’s songs, but I’ve certainly heard of the artist. The same would go for many modern references. If I didn’t know this particular song, it’s no different from, say, not knowing a certain major banking institution in the main today.
One thing I love about cryptics is that often it’s easier to get a UK cryptic clue right (because of multiple routes to an answer), than it is to get a US straight crossword clue right — and this is coming from an American.
Another thing I love about cryptics is that, because of all the words in clues, you get to learn twice as many references as you might otherwise, while only needing to know half of them to solve the puzzle!
Thanks for the recommendation, Jalna. Listening to ‘Hello’ now.
A stiff challenge today – the sort of Quickie that acts as preparation for transition to the main crossword. As noted, MUSTERED was very good. A solver of the Times’ puzzles might be expected to know about Cleudo, even if it is a silly game.
8 minutes plus change.
Actually Cluedo is s clever game with lots of subtleties. You have to take account of cards you see, sure; but information is revealed in lots of other ways: which questions others ask, which players say “no” when asked for cards, where people go, what players faces look like when shown a card. Games like monopoly, backgammon or chess that have no hidden element are now all solveable with AI.
I stand corrected. It is ages since I played.
My parents once gave Cleudo to my elder son (he was about 11-12 at the time) for Christmas and six of us sat down later on Boxing Day to play the game. We set up the board and pieces and carefully explained the rules to my son and his younger brother. This process took around 20 minutes and we allowed my elder son, whose present it was, to start. He shook the dice, moved into his nearest room and made an accusation. None of the rest of us had any of the accused cards in our hands, so we opened the envelope and saw that he had won the game on his first ever move. I think he said something like “That was easy. Is that it?”.
Wow. What are the odds?
Assuming he was smart enough to not suspect anyone from his own hand it is 1 in 200 (5x5x8). Chances of a win first time in Mastermind is 1 in 1296 and of throwing a Yahtzee in 1 throw is exactly the same.
A struggle for me today at 14.48, so well done Jalna. I had trouble getting a foothold and some of the long anagrams were both very good and hard to untangle. Merlin I wonder if at 10dn the intent is to equate ‘get’ and ‘come by’ in the sense of attaining something rather than getting or coming somewhere. Like ‘money isn’t easy to come by.’ So we have get/come by followed by ‘to collect that girl’?
The correct parsing was hard to come by.
A comment that for me applied to many of the clues today
Only four on the first pass of acrosses but as often happens the downs were more forgiving and I then had enough to work with. FREUDIAN SLIPS took a lot of unravelling, CREAM CHEESE too but HELLO put up little resistence – my daughters were young when cars had CD players and Adele’s was on repeat for what felt like years (and possibly was). Couldn’t draw you a SPINET or tell you what it was for (playing tunes on! Thanks Merlin) and I’ve never refered to an action replay as an INSTANT REPLAY. A cracker. All green in 17.26.
My uncle had a spinet when I was a boy. The thing I remember mostly was the keys were coloured in the reverse of a piano, ie the sharps and flats were white and the rest black.
20 minutes. I found this very hard and like our blogger had difficulty getting started. I think I read the majority of clues before finding an answer that leapt out at me.
I was not helped by having SEETHE at 14ac for a while which delayed progress towards GET TOGETHER. The anagrams weren’t easy and I note I wrote four different letter-circles on my copy as I tried to work them out.
It was probably a bad decision to do this puzzle at midnight (that’s my excuse anyway) but I wasn’t on Jalna’s wavelength at all. I can’t do with Adele, I’ve never played Cluedo, and I’ve never described anything as “ick”. Can you sign me in as a visitor at the SCC please? While many of you here would be happy with a sub 10 minute solve, it was practically 3 times longer than one of my good days!
FOI FIRM
LOI LOATHE
COD CRETE
TIME 9:18
Sadly no. You need to take another 11 mins or so. Perhaps try doing it blindfolded. . .?
I don’t mean to be all exclusionary but I think I have to protest your visit to the SCC with a time of 9:18, on the grounds that I’d never get out of it!
Hey, these are our croissants here. You can just look through the window and sigh.
Tricky going but I never got completely stuck.
Had a bit of a MER at INSTANT REPLAY being defined as a slo mo clip as surely they can be played at full speed as well, but maybe I’m just being a bit picky. With the S _ I _ S checkers in place I tried very hard to make FREUDIAN SLIP end in ‘spies’ until I resorted to pen and paper.
Started with FIRM and finished with LOATHE in 9.57 with my favourites being MUSTERED and CHEMICAL.
Thanks to Merlin
I looked twice at ‘slo mo’ too but definitions and synonyms don’t have to fit every circumstance.
I agree re. synonyms not having to fit every circumstance but was thinking that a question mark might have been in order, as in other types of replay are available…
I hasten to add that my understanding on the use of question marks is not the best.
I took that clue as a semi & lit with the full clue as the definition which I think addresses your concern.
A DNF after 32, completely stumped by piping – thanks Merlin for unravelling.
Disappointing as we were very pleased to work out 1a straight away, but then failed to get any of those dropping down from it.
Generally found the bottom half easier than the top.
Really liked Freudian slips and Merlin’s freude singing pun 😀
Thanks Jalna.
Yes, that’s a great story!
6:52. Definitely on the tricky side for a QC, but all fair. Count me as another who knew of Adele but couldn’t name any of her songs as I never (and never have) listened to pop music if I can avoid it, so HELLO was just a guess from the wordplay. LOI STOREYED. Thanks Jalna and Merlin.
Couldn’t even do half this: NHO PEGASUS, any Adele songs (nor want to), neither STOREYED nor ICK (even this computer adds wiggly line beneath both), spot = PIP, INSTANT REPLAY, or methamphetamine. Thank you, Merlin (love your Freude-ian slip).
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone. I’m faster than Phil for the first time ever. Absolute scenes. If I wasn’t on a commuter train I’d have done a double knee slide with accompanying fist pumps and shrieks of joy. As it was I had to maintain a stony faced silence. Inside I’m whooping!
At the moment I seem to be a reverse neutrino – whether the puzzle is generally deemed to be easy or difficult, I chug in at around 08:30. Yesterday was a QUITCH rating of 89 and I clocked 08:29; today is a QUITCH rating of 136 and I clocked 08:36. It’s a bit odd that I can’t speed up on the easy ones right now.
I have heard of Adele, know what she looks like and have read plenty of interviews with her, but I have never knowingly heard any of her music. Fortunately the word play was kind.
COD to LOI MUSTERED, which was really excellent.
Many thanks Jalna and Merlin.
Love this 😅 The same feeling when your player scores a hattrick in Fantasy Football land and you’ve captained them. You always hope there’s a long enough corridor nearby.
Ha! That would be a sight to behold! Congrats.
🔥🏆👏
From SOFT and SICK to LOATHE in what seems to be a relatively quick solve of 9:33. I really enjoyed MUSTERED (love Cluedo as it is a game of logic) and thought INSTANT REPLAY was a great anagram clue. The Adele single was easy to spot with the H in place and like Tina I am surprised so many here struggled with it. Having said that I would find it difficult to name classical pieces of music but could probably tell you which film or TV advert they featured in!
This took me 20 minutes, either one of my slowest completions for a long time ☹️ or only just over two Busmans 😊(or is that Busmen?). Which suggests that like many others I found this a very much stiffer challenge than most QCs. It is in fact the second Jalna puzzle running in which he has really stretched me, after for a long time me thinking he was one of the more approachable setters, so I wonder if he has decided to up his game.
It would probably be quicker to list the few clues I found relatively straightforward than the ones that held me up, but special mentions for STOREYED (did not know the word), HELLO (DK, but guessable), MUSTERED (took an age to see what was going on) and LOI PIPING (biffed and never parsed at all). All the long anagrams needed writing down to get traction on, and using methamphetamine as the random example of a chemical when there are, ooh, thousands of others Jalna could have chosen was distinctly mean.
All in all not so much a case of being on a different wavelength today with this puzzle as being on a different planet. If not in a different galaxy. Many thanks Merlin for guiding us through it.
Cedric
I have heard of Adele of course but do not know any songs by her so LOI HELLO took me a while as it seemed a weird title for a song. I found this quite hard, taking me 15 minutes overall, including maybe a couple of minutes at the end pondering that Adele clue. MUSTERED was clever I thought.
15:09 (Henry VIII becomes King)
I could name all the songs on 19 or 21, but less so with 25 or 30, so HELLO took a few seconds thought before it came to mind.
I spotted that 6d had to be some sort of REPLAY, and that the remaining letters did not fit ACTION. I needed the checkers before seeing INSTANT.
MUSTERED was my LOI. It is probably 50 years since I last played CLUEDO.
Thanks Jalna and Merlin
DNF.
Gave up after 10 minutes. Just no idea where this setter was coming from – one which I had no chance with.
Very, very upsetting and depressing.
Hope to get a doable one for tomorrow.
Cheer up, Gordon. Even BUSMAN found this hard.
Agreed, Gordon. I felt completely out of my depth and very disheartened.
43 mins…
I thought this was another toughie and, like Merlin, struggled to get a foothold anywhere. However, I found it ultimately very enjoyable. I particularly liked 14ac “Loathe” and 10dn “Get Together”. Wasn’t sure about 6dn “Instant Replay” – they’re not necessarily in slow motion.
FOI – 1dn “Sick”
LOI – 21ac “Storeyed”
COD – 10dn “Get Together”
Thanks as usual!
Not really a quickie in my opinion – far too tricky and in many places not very convincing! I don’t recognise ick as a term (at least I’ve never heard it used) and although I do actually like Adele’s songs I had to make up Hello and hope it was one of them. Thanks though!
9.09
Tough, but excellent and exactly as Ulaca said.
FREUDIAN SLIPS excellent but will give COD to Crete as off there on Sunday
Thanks Merlin/Jalna
16:34 … thought it was tough while I was doing it but would arrive here to see I was just being a bit of a thickie. But now seeing it Quitching at 136 and the times of others; I feel I did good.
Wondering if it had been Lionel Richie that would have been any better for the older solvers … Helloooooo is it me you’re looking for … 🎵
I’d say Adele and Swiftie (and Blur of course) are fair game for modernising the QC. Not sure about including titles of songs though and that would probably stretch back to almost any pop song. I recall we had “Yesterday” recently and I guess that is well known and covered enough. But outside of that 🤔
Interesting it was right next to the 1970s clue – FORD
***
Link to Hello by Adele if anyone wishes to give it a try … https://youtu.be/YQHsXMglC9A?t=138
Thanks for the link. A rich and beautiful voice (am I allowed to say “not much of a tune, though?” :)).
Agree. It did nothing for me. The first time I have listened to Adele. Have never heard
Taylor Swift either although of course know her name and appearance from media exposure.
A difficult QC but fair.
PS Have never played Cluedo either!
I must agree – Adele has produced some very decent stuff, but Hello is a long way from her finest three minutes
I quite like it although I’d agree her earlier stuff is better. Just noticed it has 3.1billion views 😲
Also just remembered that the Sign of the Times one-off puzzle in June included another of her songs … Remix of one samey Adele song (4,2,2)
I think the repetition helps – eventually everyone is going to learn Blur and Adele the way I have to learn random Hebredian islands… By rote.
(*Hebridean*) 🙂
That man with short new wife in Scotland (9) ?
Ahahaha this is why I’m still terrible at these clearly. Won’t forget it now though!
Funnily enough skipping through TV channels I just watched the video of Lionel Ritchie’s HELLO. I was over 18:00 minutes today, LOATHE and the parsing of GET-TOGETHER the main problems.
A wonderful song and video. Although not sure about its implication of of teacher-student relationships 😲 Hoping Tina will take a look and give us the younger generation’s viewpoint.
No idea about the lyrics to that song. I’ve only heard it a million times through bad garage karaoke floating through my neighbourhood.
You have to imagine in sung in a bad East Asian accent of your choosing, but like, two houses down.
Also my husbands number one song to sing to me over the phone when he’s drunk and telling he’s on the way home at 2am.
Nightmares induced on both counts 😂
(It’s the video we need you to review!!)
Lovely puzzle, and I see I did relatively well, BUT for some unknown reason paws overwrote PEGASUS and put PINING instead of PIPING, even though my brain distinctly told paws to type the latter. 2 errors therefore. Just as I was getting towards a “clean” position on the leaderboard. Bah, drat and double drat.
CREATE, LOI MUSTERED, FREUDIAN SLIP all excellent. I’m of the vintage that I know Lionel Richie’s “Hello” much better than the Adele version. I suspect that the subset of people who are au fait with Adele’s oeuvre and people who do cryptic crosswords might be small. I for one welcome change though, so bravo Jalna.
7:39 BUT
Toughie. Adele was a welcome easy amongst the cell-grinding struggle through most of the rest. I did a lot of pencilling in parts of answers that I felt relatively sure of, and filling in the gaps as crossers assisted me or inspiration dawned.
Normally I would be a little disappointed not to hit my target time, even though I was just a little shy of it at 10.24. Having now seen the times of those that usually give me a sound thrashing time wise, I think I must have had a good day. I certainly had to roam all over the grid to get answers, and eventually I was taken over target by my LOI STOREYED. Certainly tougher than average, but nevertheless very fair is my opinion.
Well I seem to be bucking the trend because I found this one of the most approachable QCs for quite some time. I progressed slowly but surely with no undue pauses apart from last two (FIRM/MUSTERED). Many were biffed then parsed, e.g. PIPING, PEGASUS, FORD, STOREYED, HELLO ( the only Adele song I could actually name), SICK, FREUDIAN SLIP… Seemed to be on the wavelength for once. COD to MUSTERED (love Cluedo) but also liked building up LOATHE. Many thanks Merlin and Jalna.
13m
Liked loathe. Don’t like the new rules. Feels guardianesque or worse Daily Fail.
Didn’t know the meaning of spot for pip. Didn’t parse crete.
Think of dominoes or dice for pips
Or military – two pips on the shoulder for a Lieutenant, three pips for a Captain
thanks ND, I looked it up and saw that but it was new to me.
Agreed. This is the day the rot set in.
I’m another who wondered if 19a was a cover of Lionel Richie’s song, but having listened to it can confirm it isn’t. Not a bad song though. The only song I knew that Adele covered is Make You Feel My Love written by Bob Dylan, as I used her version to learn it from, as I found Bob’s own version too croaky to listen to. I also struggled to get a foothold in this puzzle and went from SICK to LOI, HELLO in 13:12. Thanks Jalna and Merlin.
Don’t you be coming here criticising His Bobship. Any repeat of such sacrilege and I shall be compelled to report you to Boltonwanderer!
I wondered how long it would be before the howls of anguish arrived, and I admit to donning my tin hat in anticipation. Your defence of the venerable songsmith is admirable. I figured that as Bob’s biggest fan, BW, rarely appears on the discussions on this forum for the smaller puzzle, I might just get away with it. I still maintain that Adele’s vesion of His Bobship’s song is slightly more tuneful! 🎶🎶😀
Having read all the comments above I now feel better about my 31 minute completion time. I only got 3 of the across clues on first read through. The downs were better and getting CHEMICAL at 12dn opened up the SW. I had to stop myself biffing Malta at 8ac and seethe at 14ac because I couldn’t parse them (mind you I couldn’t parse CRETE either when it became obvious from the crossers). A toughie which I was glad to be able to finish. The SCC seems a bit crowded today!
FOI – 9ac PEGASUS
LOI – 15dn SPINET
COD – 11ac DEMONSTRATE
Thanks to Jalna and Merlin
Well done for getting a seat in the SCC today, Mr Flyer. I’m having to slum it out in the back yard.
10:33
Thoroughly enjoyable grid though my first across was as low down as MASTERPIECE. Some write-ins amongst the chewier fare – really enjoyed MUSTERED and FREUDIAN SLIPS, though wasn’t 100% sure that I had SICK correct. And you could have slapped me in the face with a SPINET and I couldn’t have told you what it was…
Thanks Merlin for the enlightenment, and Jalna for the puzzle
Not sure I could slap you in the face with a Spinet, Mr H. Have you seen the size of one?
You could drop it on his toes…..
Only 22 clues today, but they were nearly all tough. 58 minutes for me, so well outside even my (slow) target time.
Just three Acrosses and three Downs after my first full pass, which took nearly a quarter of an hour. And I didn’t really speed up after that. I had NHO a SPINET and DNK the star constellation or Adele’s song. Also, I could not parse CRETE or the GET bit of GET TOGETHER.
My last three in (DEMONSTRATE, LOATHE and MUSTERED) added nearly 15 minutes to my time. So, another non-QC and yet more evidence that I will never graduate to the 15×15.
Thanks to Jalna and Merlin.
Enjoyed the puzzle, a little tougher in places than usual giving me 14′ or so. Re the music discussion, I suppose each to their own, but I do find it strange that people who have lived through the 50s, 60s, 70s etc would positively avoid listening to any popular music. It leaves a huge cultural black hole, a bit like people who say “I don’t read books”. I do like classical music but couldn’t envisage it being all I’d listen to. As I say each to their own… from someone who still prefers ELP’s take on Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition to the classical version!
It’s not a bit like saying ‘I don’t read books.’ I read a lot but my taste is idiosyncratic. Thing is, if one raved, trended and grooved in the Sixties, modern pop just doesn’t cut the mustard.
Couldn’t agree more!
That was hard, even with a few fortuitous biffs. My last pair, Hello and Get Together, seemed impossible, and indeed they were until I (reluctantly) changed Seethe to the (slightly 🙄) more fitting Loathe. Even then nho Hello went in with crossed fingers. One to forget. Invariant
Tricky but enjoyable, finishing with GET-TOGETHER in 18:09.
Thank you for a very entertaining blog, which had me giggling at the Tony Blair / Jesus reference! One day I will remember the “lo” = “look” trick, but not today.
Forgot to mention the TB joke, but made us laugh too!
We enjoyed this very much, thanks Jalna, and, although we didn’t need the blog today, enjoyed reading it, thanks Merlin.
“Hello” by Adele wasn’t new to either of us but the earworm we both ended up with was “Instant Replay” by Dan Hartman C1978.
I don’t see any problem in references to modern culture but then I never see any problems with references to things going quite far back. A lot of things crop up in books and I bet some people here would be shocked to know how much I learnt about classical music from Jilly Cooper’s books (cue cries of “I’ve never heard of her and wouldn’t want to either!”). I also took note of my parents’ tastes and those of my daughters which expands my range of knowledge too.
I guess I’m one of the “oldies” who thinks there’s nothing wrong with the “living people” rule change but also would cry “Foul!” to “whippersnappers” complaining about answers being “before my time” 😉
Late getting to the QC today. Could not parse CRETE. No problem with PIPING – my mother had a thing about food being piping hot (led to a few burnt tongues). Agree with others that SLO-MO is not really a synonym of INSTANT REPLAY. Otherwise a good work-out. Thanks Jalna, and Merlin for the great blog – loved the Freudian slip comment.
13.52 A second quicker than yesterday. I was on much better form but this was much harder. All of the long downs needed several checkers. It took a while to remember that an INSTANT REPLAY used to be a thing back when most replays weren’t. MUSTERED was nice. LOI CRETE was a biff. Thanks Merlin and Jalna.
Wavelength is a thing — 5 minutes for the Quickie today puts me in lofty territory, while I labo(u)red for 27 minutes over the main (and had a typo to add insult to injury). My experience seems to be the reverse of everyone else’s!
Overall very hard IMHO.
19a POI, Hello. I don’t know any Adele numbers either, except that she did both write and sing one of the James Bond films. Was it Skyfall? Actually Adele is very good; I should know more of her work, not that I spend much time listening to music.
4d Piping; biffed, hadn’t a Scoobie-doo.
DNF disaster on the right hand side. Will draw a veil. But sorry I didn’t solve MUSTERED as it was v witty. Also failed on but liked STOREYED. Biffed CRETE but failed to parse. Re LOATHE, solved but I thought ‘that man’ was ‘him’.
Biffed Adele’s song. Long discussion above! My pop GK doesn’t extend much after 1970, apart from Queen. I don’t listen to pop on the radio or go to shops or pubs where musak is played.
Liked PEGASUS, FORD, FREUDIAN SLIP, PIPING, among others.
Thanks vm, Merlin. Very esoteric joke from the choirmaster.😀
Well well well, what a struggle culminating in a DNF. For a relative novice like me some of the short synonyms were way out there! Try again tomorrow
I agree with Merlin’s reasoning and AI prediction; I think it’s only a matter of someone making enough of an effort.
Joining the club at 24:12 today. I think I’ll get a croissant and come back to read the rest of the blog……
Lots of entertainment in this knotty puzzle! As well as Merlin’s blog. Love Jesus as Tony Blair. The long anagrams took me quite a while, except INSTANT REPLAY, which went right in, fittingly. If only I hadn’t rashly biffed Malta!
I don’t know any Adele songs either. I don’t mind the clue, but the editors might consider how this would play in the next collection of 100 years of crosswords. I guess I’d bet on Adele herself enduring, though not sure about the song title, so probably it’s fine as clued. (Is 20A a commentary on 19A?)
Don’t wish to contribute to the pop music controversy subthread, but will just point out that hearing it in a shop doesn’t mean I know what it is!
Thanks to Jalna for the workout, and Merlin for the great blogging.
Yes. We all ‘hear’ a wide variety of music, but each of us has our own preferences when choosing what to ‘listen’ to.
Incidentally, I suffer from a degree of hearing loss and Mrs Random forced me to get some hearing aids a few years ago. Since then however, she has revised her opinion and now thinks I suffer from (selective) listening loss. I can’t really see the problem – I always hear when the toaster pops up and when some suggests a beer.
Selective listening loss, haha! My little dog developed that too. To the end he had no problem hearing “Want to go for a walk?”.
A good few years ago I made a guest appearance on a live afternoon media show on Radio 4. The interviewer and I were at the old BBC on Oxford Road in Manchester, while Don Manley (Izetti) was on with us, but in London. The subject under discussion was a proposal by the Daily Telegraph to start using a computer to generate their daily cryptic crossword. Fortunately it never happened, but going over to AI is basically the same idea some 30 years later. I have to resist the urge to say “It’ll never catch on…..”.
SCC struggled with this for some reason – nobody else seems to have found it too tronlesome
Great word, Silas!
I found it very “tronlesome” indeed.
I like the sci-fi overtones !
Although in my eighties I certainly know who Adèle and Taylor Swift are but knowing the titles of all their songs is a matter for Mrs Google, no? On the other hand I would say Colonel Mustard has entered the general lexicon.
Found this really hard to get going, and barely half completed after 20 mins. Decided to leave it for about four hours and when I came back to it all the remaining clues slipped in easily. A really lovely puzzle and can’t understand why I initially struggled. Loved MUSTERED.
DNF. Found it very hard and failed on LOATHE, MUSTERED and STOREYED, having biffed CRETE. Quite dispiriting.
We were even later than usual in coming to this today and had 25 minutes to do it before an on line Spanish tutorial, thinking ‘no problem!’. Like Merlin we made no progress at all until CHILEAN and, at 22 minutes in, already thinking that the tea in the SCC would be well and truly stewed, we noted the time and went to fire up the laptop. Returning an hour or so later with brains more or less frazzled (not for the first time) by Spanish verbs representing ‘changes’ the end came, as often the case after some other diversion, faster than feared but still at 24:28. Very much at the more challenging end for us but worth it if only for the very lovely POI MUSTERED. FWIW, I’m not a fan of either Adele or Taylor Swift but they’re certainly both easily famous enough to be fair references for clues. Many thanks to Merlin and Jalna.
What you say about AI sounds logical (and I don’t know anything about the article you mention), but I have yet to see a single cryptic clue correctly created or solved using AI. I’ve seen several failed attempts. There are other facets besides straightforward logic that go into this art. So I’m not surprised that it hasn’t been done. I can’t see expressing any confidence (or qualms) about it until I see one such AI-generated or -solved clue that meets our standards. And that would still be a far cry from winning a championship.
For today’s QC the crossword genius solved all clues correctly apart from 17d (FORD), in 7 mins. All correctly parsed apart from MUSTERED, HELLO, CRETE which it biffed. When I pushed it a bit harder on the last clue, it got FORD with 99% confidence.
It picks clues it thinks are long anagrams first, then jumps around, just like I do looking for handy checkers.
Also tried it on todays 15×15 after 16 mins it had about 80% done, nearly all parsed. It struggled with the two I didn’t get either (1a and 2d). It did make a couple of weird errors at 15 and 25a.
It is currently almost exactly at my level, if a bit quicker.
OK, I hadn’t seen such successful solving before but only rather risible examples.
But they weren’t from a bot whose sole purpose seems to be solving crosswords. It must have quite a database to draw on, as you say.
Can it create clues too?
I tried todays 15×15, 29030, it did 94%. So getting close.
[from that blog]
AI Update. Ross from Crossword Genius completed all but 4 clues, it parsed almost all of them, and biffed a couple. The ones it struggled with were 26a 6a 7d and 21s (SCUFFS!, which I thought was dead easy with three checkers). I taught it how to figure out the other 4. It didn’t know the construction of swapping one letter for another (SIGH to SIGN), and it didn’t have a clue about AMOK.
I thought you were talking about using an app, but realize now that it’s the chatbot on the Crossword Genius solving-cheat site. So my question about whether it can create clues is irrelevant!
DNK Hello by Adele, but do remember Hello by Lionel Richie. Perhaps we could have him for the next clue for Hello, to cheer up the Gen Xers. Wasn’t sure about Get Together, so thanks Merlin and Lindsay for the parsing. Was quite pleased with myself when I got LOI Mustered. Nice clue.
There’s an excellent mashup on YouTube of the Adele and Richie songs. They’re completely different songs but sound all but indistinguishable.
38:56
Wow that was tough. This may well be my record time. And not in a good way. I’d normally bail out after 30 minutes but then I realised the puzzle really was expecting us to know an Adele single which unlocked a few more including the excellent GET TOGETHER and LOI LOATHE.
On the AI debate, it’s only a matter of time. Claude can already answer many of the QC clues.
Pleased the Mighty Merlin found this one tricky. I certainly did despite a smattering of easy ones. Got some without parsing eg Crete and Heaths. DNF due to Mustered (altho I tried to misspell Mustard to make it fit) and Storeyed despite having all the checkers.
Thanks Jalna and Merlin
Beyond awful.
39 minutes, half of them on SPINET. A pure guess as I thought nail meant N. I had heard of it and thought about it immediately, but discounted it as I thought it was spelt SPINNET.
I have no interest whatsoever in popular music and don’t know, or want to know, who Adele is. I try to avoid it wherever I can as I find it irritating at best.
Got about 80% of big crossword, but without any enthusiasm.
Losing the desire to continue with this. I’m no good at it and clues like 19ac are a major turn off for me.
62 minutes for the week. Hopeless.
I also found the Quintagram utterly impenetrable.
I haven’t read any other comments as I fear they will worsen my sense of inferiority. I have little doubt that those who began the QC around the time I did are now streets ahead of me. If I can’t improve after the effort I have made with the big crossword, I really am wasting my time here.
☹️☹️☹️
PS Just read blog for big crossword. A lot of clues I should have got. More misery!