Joker on the gentle side here, 10:22 for me.
One of my pet peeves: that blasted sol-fah business, with all their variant spellings. But no Eton, and a great &lit and clever surfaces throughout.
ONE=I appears twice today, and the device of saying “one” is to avoid saying “I”, but it still seems to mean “I” when used by the Royal Family. I think it works better in French, where they have “on” for the generic you.
Definitions underlined in bold , synonyms in (parentheses) (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, other wordplay in [square brackets] and deletions in {curly} brackets.
| Across | |
| 1 | Premature judgement upsetting once to Crippen (13) |
| PRECONCEPTION – (ONCE TO CRIPPEN)*
Obviously an anagram to start us off, but I found this very hard to unpick, and needed most of the checkers. Crippen was a famous murderer, in the days when there weren’t many celebrities. He was found guilty of murdering his wife and was the first criminal to be captured with the aid of a digital phone (well, wireless telegraphy) |
|
| 8 | Those at match were exultant seeing English knocked out (5) |
| CROWD – CROW{E}D (exultant) – E{nglish} [knocked out] | |
| 9 | New — a perfume just being created (7) |
| NASCENT – N{ew} + A + SCENT (perfume) | |
| 10 | Unremitting on the outside, but not cross (7) |
| ETERNAL – E{x}TERNAL (on the outside) – X (cross)
Tricky, with “on the outside” looking like a device for the outside letters of “unremitting”, and ETERNAL does not seem a very likely synonym for “unremitting” |
|
| 11 | Work chanced upon over time (5) |
| TEMPO – OP (work) + MET (chanced upon) all reversed [over] | |
| 13 | Garial lot may get confused with this? (9) |
| ALLIGATOR – (GARIAL LOT)* sounds like Gharial (a crocodile)
This required some sleuthing: the gharial (Gavialis gangeticus), is a fish-eating crocodile from India. Alligators live in the New World, so the two are unlikely to be confused, except in a zoo. &Lit “may get confused with this” : it’s A semi&lit, (since “with this”) do not form part of the wordplay. See 6D for a full &lit. |
|
| 17 | Perfect one to trade (5) |
| IDEAL – I (one) + DEAL (trade) | |
| 19 | Highly praise advert university passed on (7) |
| ADULATE – AD (advert) + U{niversity} + LATE (=died, passed on) | |
| 20 | European female fined when working for Turkish gent (7) |
| EFFENDI – E{uropean} + F{male} + (FINED)* [working]
EFFEDNI is a title of respect or courtesy in the Middle East, particularly in the Ottoman Empire and its successor states, like Turkey, similar to “sir” in English. Not a common word in English, I first came across it in Tintin, Cigars of the Pharaoh when Tintin travels to Egypt. |
|
| 22 | Motorist losing velocity suffering falling quantities of rain? (5) |
| DRIER – DRIVER (motorist) – V{elocity}
A bit of a contrived definition. But here’s how to think about it: imagine looking at a graph of hourly rainfall as you might see on the iOS weather app. You see falling (reducing) quantities on the graph, it is getting DRIER. |
|
| 23 | Thug with money is not very polite (5-3-5) |
| ROUGH-AND-READY – ROUGH (Thug) + AND (with) + MONEY (Ready)
With four checkers I thought “ROUND AND ROUND” was a good shout. I’m not thrilled with money=ready, we’ve had it before, but I always say “readies” for money. The OED only has it has an adjective as in “ready money”. |
|
| Down | |
| 1 | Select beat regularly for soldiers on watch (6) |
| PICKET – PICK (select) + b{E}a{T}
The military usage comes from the original meaning of a fence or stockade. And in industrial relations (now the most common usage, I’d argue) from the military. |
|
| 2 | Former partner I think of highly, free from blame (9) |
| EXONERATE – EX (former partner) + ONE(I) + RATE (think highly of) | |
| 3 | What could be first loud noise during exam (7) |
| ORDINAL – DIN (loud noise) inside ORAL (exam)
You see these clever definitions for both ORDINAL and it’s twin CARDINAL quite often in puzzles. As a reminder “first”, “second”, “third” are called ordinals. Hence, it could be “first”. I’m going to the dentist this week, so I will be getting an “oral exam”, although I don’t think this phrase is often used this way? |
|
| 4 | Fire Conservative over decline with share (13) |
| CONFLAGRATION – CON{servative} + FLAD (decline) + RATION (share)
I think I’ve always spelt and pronounced this word wrongly, with an extra A in the middle. |
|
| 5 | Place one in job (5) |
| POSIT – I(one) in POST (job) | |
| 6 | What’s found in Antarctic expanse (3) |
| ICE – Hidden in Antarctic expanse
I’ll hazard that this is an “&lit” as the whole clue is the wordplay and the definition. Very nice clue: my COD (although it’s an easy one) |
|
| 7 | Idea unacceptable outside India (6) |
| NOTION – NOT ON (unacceptable) contains I{ndia} | |
| 12 | Girl that’s drunk (9) |
| MARGARITA -Cryptic
I found this very hard, my LOI. I was looking for a girl’s name, that was also a synonym for a drunk. I thought “MARY BERRY” might be Rhyming Slang for “merry”. MANHATTAN was an early contender, wouldn’t surprise me if girl babies are being called that these days. |
|
| 14 | Noise from above — or below following inversion of height? (7) |
| THUNDER – UNDER (below) follows TH (=HT(height) reversed [inversion of]) | |
| 15 | Flowing Nile, a river seemingly one-dimensional (6) |
| LINEAR – (NILE)* [flowing] + A + R{iver}
This is a nice surface: on the map, the “top bit” of the Nile does look very linear. |
|
| 16 | Break one’s promise to wager note (6) |
| BETRAY – BET (wager) + RAY (note)
Not happy with “Ray=note”, compilers already extend different spellings to these tiresome abbreviations which I think are on the way out anyway. The usual spelling is “re”, it’s not in the OED, but is in Collins on-line. I’d have preferred something like “heard” added to the clue. |
|
| 18 | Large group starting late meal (5) |
| LUNCH – L + b{UNCH} (group) with first letter missing [starting late] | |
| 21 | Viral infection was airborne reportedly (3) |
| FLU – Sounds like [reportedly] FLEW (was airborne) | |
Raced through this in under 20m although the MARGARITA TEMPO crossing threatened to take me over. Thankfully LOI TEMPO came to mind although not helped by thinking the T at the start was for ‘time’
Thanks Merlin for explaining a couple of parsings and Joker for another proper QC.
A light workout, but a very pleasant solve. ROUGH AND READY brought back happy memories of my late Anaesthetics’s colleague, Eddie Young, a superb crossword and puzzle solver, who won an AZED competition (No. 1775) many years ago with his clue: “A hard tussle with Dr E Young plainly winning?”
Certainly on the gentler side for us, 7:20 was our fastest finish in a long time. It helped to know what a garial was so ALLIGATOR went in very quickly. LOI BETRAY hindered by not having a homophone indicator for re / ray. COD CROWD. Thanks, Merlin and Joker.
Lamely surrendered @ 20 mins, failing to get Margarita. Cross as a with all the checkers, should have solved it. Thanks Merlin for parsing a few that I could not. And interesting puzzle Joker
A slow start and then noticed Joker, but recovered and once halfway finished in a rush until the tempo/margarita cross led to a near DNF.
FOI 13a alligator
LOI 12d margarita
COD 4d conflagration
Very good QC after an early wobble!
Another lovely Joker puzzle. As ever, a treat!
Nothing particularly hard, but enjoyable and neat throughout.
Thanks Joker and Merlin
Another puzzle done several hours ago before a nice pub lunch and walk in the bluebell woods this afternoon. Our wonderful ancient bluebell woods didn’t feature in the Times list last week, and neither did our local NT property today! It’s a bit of a joke really – seven properties out of more than 500. Who chooses?
Yes, I agree about ‘ray’ for ‘re’ – I put it in because it had to be, but was very unsure. Also in the music department, I completely mis-parsed TEMPO! I liked ALLIGATOR and MARGARITA. I had vaguely heard of g(h)arial but didn’t know how to spell it, so the missing H wasn’t a problem.
6:43 FOI Preconception LOI Thunder COD Ice
Thanks Joker and Merlin
15 mins…
Like a few people, I got stuck on my LOI 12dn “Maragarita”, and was convinced it was something to do with ‘Marian’ plus something else. Eventually the penny dropped, but what would have been an even quicker time was scuppered.
FOI – 6dn “Ice”
LOI – 12dn “Margarita”
COD – 1dn “Picket” – mainly because I only knew it from the industrial sense, so learned something new.
Thanks as usual!
Another poor day (there’s a surprise 🤣).
17 minutes for a puzzle many found easy. I can’t compete with most of the people who post here, despite slogging away at the 15 x 15 in an effort to improve.
Ok performance on 15 x 15 today, but still took forever.
More than usually on Joker’s wavelength today, coming in at a below-average 13:26. I was going to complain about “tempo” = “time” (as opposed to “speed”) but it turns out to be the first definition in Chambers, so I am denied that simple pleasure.
Thank you for the blog!
An enjoyable crossword. Nho garial, but answer was easy enough to get on word play.
Thanks to Joker and Merlin
Thanks, Merlin –
I’m 100% with you on use of the variously spelt Solfege Scale notes in general and on “ray” in especial particular.
I’m not with you on I = first person = one; I think it’s the Roman numeral I.
6:40 so feeling pleased with myself! Only Ray of Betray was unparsed, never saw that spelling before