11:48, but with a very slow start
Definitions underlined in bold , synonyms in (parentheses) (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, other wordplay in [square brackets] and deletions in {curly} brackets.
| Across | |
| 1 | Marathon backed by top athlete (4,6) |
| LONG JUMPER – LONG (Marathon) + JUMPER (top)
This would be the use of Marathon as an adjective: “that was a marathon solve, sixty-eight minutes”. Marathon has spawned countless “-thon” offspring, each inheriting their parent’s sense of endurance and sustained effort. The modern world now teems with telethons , swimathons , dance-a-thons and hackathons. |
|
| 8 | Creator runs into Satan, I suspect (7) |
| ARTISAN – (SATAN I)* [suspect] contains R{uns}
I was sure this would end -IST. |
|
| 9 | Tight skirt finally seen after adjustment (5) |
| TENSE – {skir}T + (SEEN)*
The device “finally” can just as easily be used to truncate the preceding or subsequent word, and this time I was chasing down a rogue {see}N |
|
| 10 | Catch part of the argument (4) |
| HEAR – hidden in “the argument” | |
| 11 | Fictional island nitwit oddly located in map reference (8) |
| ATLANTIS – N{i}T{w}I{t} inside ATLAS (map reference)
I was embarrassingly slow to think of this one. I had Avalon, Brigadoon, Treasure. Of course many people (such as Graham Hancock) think Atlantis was not fictional. |
|
| 13 | Roosevelt’s bedtime companion? (5) |
| TEDDY – Cryptic Clue
The name “TEDDY Bear” originated in 1902 after President Theodore “TEDDY” Roosevelt refused to shoot a captive bear during a hunting trip. A political cartoon depicted this moment, inspiring toymaker Morris Michtom to create a stuffed bear named “Teddy’s Bear.” After getting Roosevelt’s permission to use his name, the toys became wildly popular and the name stuck. |
|
| 14 | Smile having pinched a bit of salt, say? (5) |
| GRAIN – GRIN (smile) contains “a” | |
| 16 | A novel is translated in European country (8) |
| SLOVENIA – (A NOVEL IS)* [translated]
And I’m off there next week, it so happens (Piran, on the Adriatic). |
|
| 17 | Bypass ship’s captain (4) |
| SKIP – Double def
SKIP for captain originated in the early days of merchant sailing where “skipper” comes from the Dutch word “schipper” meaning “ship’s master.” Thence cut down to SKIP. |
|
| 20 | Diner dined in centre of Peru (5) |
| EATER – ATE (dined) contained in {p}ER{u} | |
| 21 | Refraining from punishing half-hearted fighting (7) |
| SPARING – Double def
This looks odd, as I would have thought that SPARING had a double R to indicate a short-A vowel sound. But it doesn’t. “bar” becomes “barring” and “bare” becomes “baring”; star/stare/starring/staring work similarly. |
|
| 22 | Inherited factor less cultivated in old actor (4,6) |
| GENE WILDER – GENE (inherited factor) + WILDER (less cultivated)
Well-known for his role as the original Willy Wonka. |
|
| Down | |
| 1 | Lead role ultimately bagged in hit (5) |
| LEASH – {rol}E contained in LASH (hit)
Does Lead=Leash? Pedants claim “lead” is used to lead something while a LEASH is used to restrain something. So, in America, dog handlers refer to it as a “lead” and ordinary pet owners refer to it as a LEASH. We Brits treat them as equivalents, I think. |
|
| 2 | Practicalities of securing devices? (4,3,5) |
| NUTS AND BOLTS – Nuts and bolts are examples of “securing devices”, although I think “fasteners” is the usual way of talking about them.
And lets not forget the famous headline about an Escapee from an Asylum who assaults women in a Launderette and then flees: NUT SCREWS WASHERS & BOLTS |
|
| 3 | Lawful, by a hair’s-breadth (4) |
| JUST – Double def | |
| 4 | Barely perceptible amount of time (6) |
| MINUTE – Double def | |
| 5 | Alienate set struggling with diversity (8) |
| ESTRANGE – (SET)* [struggling] + RANGE (diversity)
We had this clue in the QC late last week, |
|
| 6 | Characteristic of monorail enthusiast? (3-5,4) |
| ONE-TRACK MIND – Cryptic definition
And of course there is the Springfield Monorail from the Simpsons. |
|
| 7 | Soul for every boy (6) |
| PERSON – PER (for every) + SON (boy) | |
| 12 | From the pen of Eliot or Orwell? Dear me! (2,6) |
| BY GEORGE – GEORGE Eliot (The pen name of Mary Ann Evans) & GEORGE Orwell, both authors
Very nice. Bernard Shaw might be confusing, as would R.R. Martin. So Eliot and Orwell make the cut. |
|
| 13 | Perfume sample setter sprayed about (6) |
| TESTER – (SETTER)* [sprayed about]
TESTERs are either very small vials or the bits of cardboard the perfume is sprayed on. I think you then make noises like sniffing wine and make up unlikely scents (“I’m getting Pomegranate with a hint of New Car”) |
|
| 15 | Cleaner matter under bottom of carpet (6) |
| TISSUE – ISSUE (matter) follows {carpe}T | |
| 18 | Messaging device opening up electronic records primarily (5) |
| PAGER – GAP (opening) reversed [“up” in this down clue] + E{lectronic} R{ecords}
I think this was the hardest to parse this morning, although the clue was easy to guess. How long before “Messaging Device” has to be described as “Old Messaging Device”, as Gene Wilder is described as an “old Actor”. He died in 2016, about the same time as PAGERs did. |
|
| 19 | Country involved in formal institutions (4) |
| MALI – Hidden in formal institutions
This country appears extremely frequently in crosswords, but they only got a 10% tariff in Trump’s list, so there’s that. |
|
9:43. LONG JUMPER, ATLANTIS, and EATER were favourites. George Orwell is also a pen name (of Eric Blair).
This was a quick one for me, 5.34, und would have been sub-5 if I hadn’t been delayed by LEASH and HEAR (where I was misdirected with ease by Mara). A special thanks to Merlin for the Simpsons clip, the tale of the Teddy and the parsing of ATLANTIS and PAGER. I biffed both, which was a relief because in both cases the parsing was shown to be very tricky.
With a careless STAYING for SPARING, my new goal of breaking into the top 50 while submitting over 30 cryptics is likely delayed by another month. Must try harder.
Also took too long to think of ATLANTIS. Only Utopia and Erewhon (island?) came to mind.
Erewhon is an anagram of Nowhere, a fictional country in Samuel Butler’s satirical novel of 1872 (I always thought it was Erehwon – Nowhere backwards).
No particular island reference, as far as I can remember, unless New Zealand is in mind.
I don’t think SPARING is a DD: sparing is half-hearted sparring, i.e. with only one of the two central Rs.
7:40.
Agree, I see Merlin has not revised the blog yet.
Enjoyable QC and the blog too describing the amusing origin of teddy bears.
Yes I agree, that is how I parsed SPARING.
My thoughts also.
That’s the way I saw it, too.
DNF, with the top half a mess. Not entirely sure why but clearly not remotely on wavelength this morning. Puzzled by “map reference” in the clue for ATLANTIS – an atlas is a map book, certainly, but a map reference? But that was the least of my failures on a day to forget.
Many thanks Merlin for the blog, much needed today.
I think it’s to be taken as a work / book of reference concerning maps.
I solved this quickly, without parsing most of the clues. However, I did think that the teddy clue might be referring to the sexy nightgown. Watch out for tester; it might also be a sixteenth century bed, or an eighteenth century sixpence. I did like the jocular double definitions for the long clues, but they were quite easy.
Time: 6:23
11 minutes. Re PAGER, this appeared in a QC in February (also blogged by Merlin, as it happens) and one of our resident medics (Gasman) confirmed that pagers are still widely used in UK hospitals.
They used to be widely used by Hezbollah, too. Perhaps not so much now.
That raised a smile. Nothing like a bit of dark humour.
My only hold-up was SPARING which for some reason I just couldn’t see. I do think Kevin’s parsing works with the half-hearted sparring. This also meant TISSUE was difficult, wouldn’t really describe a tissue as a cleaner. Thought LONG JUMPER quite odd. Saw PAGER/GAP straight away. COD to NUTS AND BOLTS.
Thanks Merlin and setter.
Opposite of yesterday, a slow start followed by a fast finish. Just four acrosses on the first pass but then all done in a rare sub-10. Had to switch from moment (encourage by the M of LONG JUMPER) to MINUTE to get ATLANTIS – and had a near miss with TaSTER before checking the anagrist properly. Briefly tempted by ‘one trick pony’ purely on enumeration. All green in 9.44.
Slight delay in the SE corner but overall a fairly gentle offering from Mara.
Started with ARTISAN and finished with SPARING in 6.57.
Thanks to Merlin and Mara.
Thanks Mara, for an amusing QC, with plenty of playful wordplay. 20:13. Thanks Merlin for the blog. Thanks Kevin: it crossed my mind that SPARING could be clued more lengthily as ‘half hearted half hearted fighting’. Was Mara almost rolling the wordplay into one?
In retrospect I’m not sure why I had such a struggle with this one. I never shook off a sluggish start, and had a lot of trouble wiping out the NW corner – but reading through it all again afterwards there wasn’t much that should have been troublesome. Ah well, at least I’m free of typos today. Thanks Mara and Merlin.
FOI TEDDY
LOI ATLANTIS
COD BY GEORGE
TIME 7:30
FOI was HEAR. LOI, EATER. Kept looking at the wrong end of the clues. Well misled by Mara! Took ages to parse the first thing I thought of at 18d. 9:15. Thanks Mara and Merlin.
I was heading for a really fast (by my standards) time but as usual was undone by my ignorance of filmstars so it took an alphabet trawl to come up with the perfectly fair Gene Wilder. I really must get out more.
5:47, which is as quick as it gets for me. Pager was one of a number of very neat clues. Thanks to Merlin for (among other things) the Teddy explanation which was new to me.
A really slow start, with 10ac Hear my foi, but the bottom half of the grid was much kinder, eventually prompting the two long down answers. They in turn opened up the previously blank top half, and the marathon Long Jumper then led what became a sprint to the line for a comfortable enough sub-20. An informative and enjoyable blog from Merlin, leaving me Just to say that’s my CoD. Invariant
Very straightforward and enjoyable, with much to smile about. 6:50. (I parsed SPARING the same way as Kevin, btw)
Thanks M&M!
Another good puzzle and an actual QC for me.
Now we are back to real QCs, I seem to have relaxed and am less concerned about my times. I don’t seem to be making typos either (or, at least, I am picking them up before submitting). Not in the spirit of ‘Times for the Times’ perhaps but a lot more satisfying (and the fact that I took 16 mins, all parsed, didn’t bother me at all).
Some very nice clues; my last two were TISSUE and SPARING (which I parsed like Kevin and Dai).
Thanks to Mara and Merlin.
This felt like a slow solve, I think because my last two in were LEASH and LONG JUMPER, but in fact it was 06:54 and a Red Letter Day. It just shows the psychological influence of struggling over the first two you look at!
Great story about teddy bears, Merlin, thanks. And thanks to Mara for a fun puzzle.
9.10
I was also below par time for this. HEAR was a lovely hidden and just couldn’t see the LASH for hit thing. Then in the SE S_A_ING sent me into a panic with all the alphabetical options. But like Busman, no typos
Thanks Mara and Merlin
Nine which is becoming my new benchmark. I either get them or I never will. I lack patience and perseverance.
A real battle, gave up on the last three: SPARING (surely the fighting has two R’s?), NHO GENE WILDER, and TISSUE (ok). Thank you, Merlin; leave it to you experts to arbitrate as to whether lawful necessarily = JUST.
Oh – how is top = JUMPER, please?
Now I’ve read your blog in which you examine this ISSUE of the two R’s. Yes:
“Bar” becomes “barring”; “bare” becomes “baring”. So (exactly similarly):
Star becomes starring, and stare becomes staring. All clear and logical.
So this is spar, and becomes sparring, while spare becomes sparing.
Pick the hole in that, please!
Ah: Kevin has the answer: it *is* sparring, but it’s “half-hearted”, so only one R! Very good.
See above … fighting is SPARRING, the heart of which is RR, so, half-hearted is one R. Thus, half-hearted fighting is SPARING. Also, a JUMPER is a top that you wear.
Top is a generic term wheres jumper is someone that throws themselves off a platform in front of a tube tain, or a kangaroo.
eh? I think if you said ‘Look at that top/jumper’, most people in the UK would be looking around for a piece of knitwear. Granted, in the middle of the outback, in summer, a Skippy fan might come to a different conclusion. . .
Struggled with this for some reason, just not seeing what after a while was actually straightforward. SPARING, TENSE, PAGER, LEASH for example. Ah well. 26:33 – a poor effort!
Mostly quick, but slowed down by the SE and NW corners with SPARING my LOI. Stopped the watch on 17:04, which I guess I can live with given other people’s comments. Lots to enjoy. I liked the idea of the monorail enthusiasts, but COD to BY GEORGE. I’d love that to make a come back in schools just as “Oh my days” did a couple of years ago. Thanks to the alliterative duo, Mara and Merlin. Perhaps you could release an album or become rivals to Penn and Teller.
13:52
Slow to get started, and the top half of the grid held out longest. LOI was ATLANTIS, where I was stuck thinking map reference might be EN or GRID, but had not considered ATLAS.
COD to PAGER. There were still some in use in the NHS when I retired in 2021, despite strenuous efforts to get rid of them.
Thanks Merlin and Mara
Slow to start but rapidly picked up speed before coming to a halt on my final two. It took me well over a minute to see the hidden in HEAR (nothing new there), and just short of a minute to finally get LEASH, even though I was always on the right track as to what was required in the way it was cryptically structured. I eventually staggered over the line in 9.32, relieved but frustrated.
10:49 for the solve. Slow start indeed with just 4.5 of first 15 clues (not GENE Hackman or Kelly, not a soundalike of Jean someone) but then accelerated with 7 of last 9 plus filling in TEDDY and WILDER on the way past. Almost put TaSTER but avoided that bif. SPARING LOI.
A puzzle which initially was grinding my gears but rather enjoyable once it sped up – rather liked the simplicity of HEAR clue – thanks to Mara.
My grandparents always used to say “get the dog’s lead” when they were taking it out for a walk and a leash would certainly be a synonym for that.
Thanks to Merlin for the blog 🧙♂️ I would have thought “half-hearted fighting” is SPARRING minus a R – interesting that he informs us otherwise.
Perfectly pitched for a QC. It was a bottoms up solve for me, with the south completed very easily and the north following. NW corner was last because Itook a while to see the parse for LONG JUMPER.
Liked SPARING but CoD goes to BY GEORGE
Thanks to Mara and Merlin
6.41 I also started very slowly but the bottom half was easier. ATLANTIS was biffed and JUST was LOI. Thanks Merlin and Mara.
Failed on TISSUE and I don’t know why I needed help with PERSON when we have had this clue fairly recently. Smiled at and much enjoyed GENE WILDER, ONE TRACK MIND, and COD – BY GEORGE.
Also liked LONG JUMPER and TEDDY.
Thanks vm, Merlin.
Thanks Merlin, fairly gentle overall but could parse neither HEAR nor LOI LONG JUMPER. Huge groan when I saw ‘top’ (of course) = ‘jumper’ and that HEAR was a hidden. Dearie me 😆 Enjoyable. Thanks Mara.
I suffered only a slight delay today with my last ones in. I was trying to parse PApER as the messaging device! I had the P and had worked out the ER from the wordplay but couldn’t justify ‘pap’. PAGER arrived before SPARING my LOI and parsed as per Kevin. 6:58 and thank you Merlin for the history lesson.
I knew teddy bears were connected with Roosevelt but didn’t know why. Not convinced that TISSUE = cleaner, but the wordplay was clear. Thanks Mara for enjoyable QC and Merlin for amusing and interesting blog.
If I’m remembering it correctly, apparently Roosevelt was out hunting but didn’t want to kill a bear. The friend he was put hunting with made him a small bear toy, and called it teddy, after him. Don’t know how true it is, but quite a good story
I couldn’t believe 1a Long Jumper could be right, so I checked, so DNF. Then realised how it worked, DOH.
Thanks Merlin for the Teddy Bear at 13a. I was way off beam and got confused between Teddy R and FDR, his nephew (I think) who had WW2 fireside chats on the radio, so I bunged in Radio. Doh! Took a while to back that one out.
Thanks to Merlin, and Mara for the challenge.
Same as yesterday with 4 clues unable to get. Never knew ATLANTIS used to be an island before it sunk, so that was interesting, but could have figured it out if I didn’t think IWT were the odd letters of nitwit! Oops. Thank you for the blog and explaining the clues 😊
I really enjoyed this finishing in an under par 22mins.
COD BY GEORGE.
Thanks to Mara and. Merlin
All but two clues in a little short of 25 minutes, but then the inevitable …. two frustrating alphabet trawls. However, unlike yesterday, each one bore fruit JUST as my new five MINUTE rule was about to be applied. The two recalcitrant clues were TISSUE and SPARING, and both exposed my inability to bring to mind straightforward synonyms of well-known words/phrases. Total time: 33-34 minutes or thereabouts.
Many thanks to Merlin and Mara.
P.S. Yesterday’s problem pair (for me) were PEDIGREE and MAILLOT – I threw in the towel after an unsuccessful 5-10 minute alphabet trawl. Later in the evening, Mrs Random happened to spot that I’d left those two clues blank and, without pausing for breath, solved both – just like a that. Infuriating!
we solve together, not so many problems then!
I also enjoyed this and finished in 23 minutes.
COD TESTER for the disguised anagram.
Thanks Merlin for the blog and additional information.
6:32
Pretty comfortable after a slowish start. Liked ONE-TRACK MIND and the Graham Hancock reminder. LOI was TENSE.
Thanks Merlin and Mara
10:58 with LOI LONG JUMPER, having taken a while to see how the clue worked. A pause also to wonder why Gene Wilder should be an old actor. We often have those ‘is he still alive?’ moments. HEAR was a great hidden. Thanks, Merlin and Mara.
Had to resort to alphabet trawling for sparing and took far too long trying to set alienate into an order that was a synonym of struggling with diversity. Wonderful PDM with the heartless r loss. Still under 20 minutes (phone crashed and timer revealed 13:35 but I’m sure I took 5 minutes longer )
Thanks Eminem
Enjoyable puzzle, finished with a couple of references to the dictionary. Just about our level. Thanks Mara.
My best ever attempt so well done to me and hats off to Mara. Thank you Merlin for the elucidations. Note to self. Improve my parsing!
Congratulations!
I too had a very slow start and expected to be stuck but after going round the barn a few times on LONG JUMPER (forgot the British meaning of JUMPER), managed to fill the NW and be done in 18:24. NUTS AND BOLTS, which should have been easy, also eluded me. “Locks” kept interfering; there’s an old ballad “Locks and Bolts” and it stuck in my head.
I don’t think of “lawful” as equivalent to JUST, there are too many injustices in the courts, but it’s fair in crosswording terms, so moved on. Didn’t know about TESTER. For the island Gulliver’s Travels diverted me for a bit. I join the applause for BY GEORGE.
Thanks Mara for good puzzling and Merlin for entertaining blogging. Enjoy Slovenia!
Late to this after golf.
9 minutes which looks quick compared to others. LOI TENSE.
No big problems and certain answers came easily like Gene Wilder.
I was on the wavelength today.
COD to BY GEORGE.
David
14m
Got held up by leash and sparing at the end.
COD tense.
21 mins…
Had to do this over two sittings, and thankfully a whole bunch of clues went in on the second go. Initially, I got nothing from the top half and kept wanting to put Lilliput in for 11ac not knowing if it was even an island or not. Liked the long clues of 2dn “Nuts and Bolts” and 6dn “One Track Mind”.
FOI – 10ac “Hear”
LOI – 3dn “Just”
COD – 18dn “Pager”
Thanks as usual!
Very enjoyable puzzle and blog, so thanks all round. Held up at the end by 9a Tense (tight?) and 7d Person (soul?).
FOI 1a Long Jumper
LOI 7d Person
COD 22a Gene Wilder
Did anyone else think 3d could also be ‘Fine’? One of the first things I put down which was a bit annoying for a while until I got 1a.
I had a terrible start, managing only four of the acrosses. I then managed to rattle off all the downs in sequence, barring the first, which was very satisfying. 12:46 in total.
Thank you for the blog!
Edit: I have a general question inspired by today’s “Minute Cryptic” puzzle (and some arguing in the comments underneath it). We commonly take a word in a clue and reduce it to an abbreviation (e.g. “time” becomes “t”). Does it work the other way – can a setter put “t” in a clue with the expectation that the solver will replace it with “time”? And if so, does the rule still hold that the abbreviation must be supported by the dictionary?
I saw what I was supposed to do at 21a and remove one letter to make the new word, but I got bored with the alpha-trawl so gave up! I must persevere when this sort of thing happens, but I saw Staying and couldn’t get beyond it. As soon as I saw SPARING in Crossword Solver, I twigged straightaway 🙄 So a DNF after about 10 minutes today. Shame, because it was fun.
FOI Atlantic COD a toss-up between Gene Wilder and By George, although One-track mind made me smile.
Thanks Mara and Merlin – another very interesting blog!