QC 3017 by Jalna

Author   MerlinPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Tough one today, I confess to opening the doors to the SCC today with a time of 20:20.

Definitions underlined in bold, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, synonyms in (parentheses), deletions in {curly brackets} and [ ] for other indicators.

Across
1 Adversary not against being messed around (10)
ANTAGONIST – (NOT AGAINST)*
8 One taken in by unacceptable idea (6)
NOTION – NOT ON (unacceptable) contains I (one)
9 Reasonable indication of approval about to be announced (3,3)
NOT BAD – NOD (indication of approval) contains TBA (To Be Announced)
10 Fair lot, by the sounds of it (4)
FETE – Sounds like FATE (lot)
11 Small matter involving money from overseas, arbitrarily (2,6)
AT RANDOM – ATOM (small matter) contains RAND (money from overseas)

On seeing the enumeration, and needing a FOI, I thought NO TROUBLE would work. (= small matter, and Rouble for the money)
12 Diplomacy leads to improved communications strategy (6)
TACTIC – TACT (Diplomacy) + I{mproved} + C{ommunications)
14 Where you might put your holiday items  to be safe (2,4)
IN CASE – Double def
16 Piteous account of terrible boss meeting politician (3,5)
SOB STORY – (BOSS)* + TORY (politician)

Piteous/pitiful/pitiable : very subtle shades of meaning here.
18 Old, mostly whitish gemstone (4)
OPAL – O{ld} + {PAL}e (whitish)

And of course an opal is whitish.
20 Plant, in retrospect, had trouble making a return (6)
DAHLIA – HAD reversed [in retrospect]) + AIL (trouble)  reversed [making a return]
21 Item of clothing that provides protection for work (3,3)
TOP HAT – THAT contains [provides protection for] OP (work)

I don’t usually think of headwear as an item of clothing, but of course it is. And that that=that, that was nice misdirection.
22 Doing extra obfuscated personal reason to get involved (3,2,5)
AXE TO GRIND – (DOING EXTRA)*

There’s a wealth of information on the origins of this phrase here : https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/158346/origin-of-to-have-an-axe-to-grind
Down
2 Not a single person of twelve came in the end (2,3)
NO ONE –  NOON (twelve) + cam{E}

Tricky parsing, I thought DOZEN was going to be involved.
3 Soldier perhaps eating fruit for nourishment (7)
ALIMENT – ANT (soldier perhaps) contains LIME (fruit)

My LOI, as I had assumed that the ANT would be split AN- – – – T. And its a word that I only know from Alimentary Canal, and looks too much like AILMENT.
4 Have one’s way, nastily at first (3)
OWN – O{nes} W{ay} N{astility}
5 Nicer, tiny, re-developed area downtown (5,4)
INNER CITY – (NICER TINY)*
6 Important individual engaged in some activity up north (5)
TITAN – AT IT (engaged in some activity) reversed [up] + N {orth}
7 Renowned American doctor beset by endless bother (6)
FAMOUS – A{merican} + MO (doctor) contained in FUS{s} (bother)

The abbreviation for American is AM in 99% of cases, but today it needs to be the “seen only in Collins” A.
11 A ridiculous charge on port (9)
ANCHORAGE – A + (CHARGE ON)*

There is a port in Alaska called Anchorage, so this neat clue works in both ways.
13 An exam in the morning? That’s unethical! (6)
AMORAL – AM (in the morning) + ORAL (exam)

I sometimes get this word confused with “amorous”, with hilarious results.
15 Police officer seizes hard, bladed weapon (7)
CHOPPER – COPPER (Police officer) contains H{ard}
17 Some colossal sausages and tomato-based sauce (5)
SALSA – Hidden in colossal sausages
19 Type of cooker fashionable once more (5)
AGAIN – AGA (type of cooker) + In (fashionable)

Other cookers are available. “AGA” stands for Aktiebolaget Gas Accumulator, the original Swedish manufacturers.
21 Extremely short pitchfork, maybe (3)
TOO – {TOO}l (pitchfork maybe)

89 comments on “QC 3017 by Jalna”

  1. 6:09. Good tricky puzzle today. Thanks for parsing NOT BAD, TOP HAT, and TITAN for me!

  2. I got lucky, there were several clever and tricky clues here (like NOT BAD, NOTION, AT RANDOM and FAMOUS) that fell into place without too much trouble, giving me 7.53 for the solve. I didn’t help myself by deciding initially that the port was Archangel and then got into bother at the end with the ALIMENT/FETE intersection. Thank you Jalna and Merlin.

  3. 17 minutes here, with an alphabet trawl at 10ac (?E?E) accounting for the last 5 of those minutes, but I had been generally slow throughout, taking ages to bring any flow to the proceedings.

  4. Five on the first pass then steady progress to finish all green in 14.00. Had to work hard for ALIMENT – alphabet trawling for a fruit with an i to fit in ‘ant’. AXE TO GRIND was hard to extract and filling in ANCHORAGE reminded me of seeing Michelle Shocked support Billy Bragg in Bristol for my first gig with friends not parents!

  5. Yes, definitely chewy. 15:07 for me and much of it a struggle. LOI TITAN put in from checkers but need the blog for the parsing.

    Many thanks Merlin for the blog. I do like your “seen only in Collins” – I quite often have that reaction when some obscurity turns out to be OK because the compilers of Collins have seen one person, once, use a word to mean something and feel duty-bound to include it.

    1. We all have our own instances of that, Cedric, and it makes for an amusing theory but I’m sure you’re aware that dictionary compilers don’t work like that when deciding what to include and what to leave out . One factor, possibly the most critical, is evidence-based selection (check out the article on ‘Corpus Linguistics’ on Wiki for more details). Lexicographers use vast electronic collections of texts and spoken language to analyse e.g. frequency and breadth of use across various contexts, durability, etc, and then create citations on which to base their decisions. There’s a lot more to it but that’s their starting point.

      As for the example in today’s puzzle that gave rise to Merlin’s comment [A = America(n)] two of the three dictionaries used by Times crossword compilers (Collins and Chambers) list it. The exception as so often is the COD and its Oxford siblings, but none of the Oxfords list AM = America(n) either. More common than either of these abbreviations as far as crossword solvers are concerned is US.

      1. Thank you Jack, and yes I’m well aware there’s a lot more rigour to dictionary compiling than my initial comment implies! My comment was largely tongue in cheek – as no doubt Merlin’s was. And it is a well known fact that the phrase “not known to man” always actually means “not known to me”. But then if dictionaries only contained what I already knew they would be (a) very thin and (b) not much use!

        1. Yes, I guessed you were not entirely serious, Cedric, and although I attached my reply to your comment and began by addressing you it was a response to the general point which seems to come up here regularly. I hoped it might allay some suspicions amongst our wider readership.

  6. A rare day out of the SCC at 18.54 with Mrs RH on top biffing form for me to parse!

    After 1a going straight in we had to come back at the end for the alimenation fete crossing and like Jack LOI fete took an alpha trawl.

    Some nice surfaces and CoD to Top Hat.

    Thanks Jalna and Merlin

  7. 15:46. A chewy one today. Some silly mistakes – INTER CITY (with a MER but I still wrote it in) and ARCHANGEL – that I had to come back to.
    LOI AXE TO GRIND totally bamboozled me for ages. I did not see the anagram and thought “obfuscates” might be a containment indicator if it means “hides”. The first word – A/something/E – didn’t have that many possibilities and AXE was one of them but it didn’t trigger the phrase. I worried that it might be an unknown Latin phrase beginning “ave/…” In the end, the X possibility alerted me to the anagram. Phew.
    Well done Jalna, I’ve been thoroughly obfuscated. And thank you Merlin for the blog.

    Incidentally, someone mentioned recently blogs that continue beyond the right-hand edge of the page, and this one is doing that today

    1. I noticed this too, on my (android) phone. But on my tablet and laptop it is OK.

      1. Hmm. Blogs shouldn’t go over the end of the RHS. What browser are you (and kapietro) (and any others finding this behaviour) using? There may be something in our theme/CSS that those phone browsers don’t support/ignore. The blog scales properly on everything I have tested on and you can rescale the browser on a desktop to any width you like. I’ll have a look, but can’t promise to do anything about it for a while as we have visitors coming today.

        1. Samsung internet for a Samsung android phone. But interestingly I use exactly the same app on my Samsung tablet, where the problem does not arise.

        2. it’s happening on my Nokia Android phone. But it’s just a one-off today. Normally it’s fine

        3. If it’s of any help, I’m using Samsung Internet on Android. It seems to be just this blog.

        4. It did it to me today too (Safari on an iphone). I solved it by turning the phone sideways (obviously I am an IT genius)! It was only the blog itself – the comments were fine.

        5. Same for me on my iPhone, just on Merlin’s blog. When we had this recently (on Jeremy’s blog, iirc) it only affected the Across items not the Downs (or it may have bene vice versa). Today it’s the whole thing.

  8. Strangely, I found this the most approachable Jalna yet; I certainly managed it faster than any of his previous offerings. I was on a par with jackkt (a rare event) and quite enjoyed it.
    I liked AT RANDOM, DAHLIA, and TOP HAT (for the misdirection mentioned by Merlin).
    Thanks to Jalna and to Merlin for a good blog (especially for parsing NOT BAD and FAMOUS for me).

  9. Tricky in places with my last two putting up a lot of resistance. It took me a stupidly long time to think of a four letter fruit with second letter ‘i’ to put into ‘ant’ but once ALIMENT appeared FETE soon followed as the penny finally dropped.
    Finished in 9.47 with COD to TOP HAT.
    Thanks to Merlin and Jalna

  10. No AXE TO GRIND from me this morning. I thought this was excellent, and after a brief hold-up in the NE corner (where I eventually biffed NOT BAD, parsing it afterwards), I crept inside my target by a skinny 7 seconds.

    FOI ANTAGONIST
    LOI TITAN
    COD AT RANDOM
    TIME 5:53

  11. As usual my last two in were the same as Plett’s; not as usual, I was a bit faster at 06:31. That didn’t seem on the cards when I got stuck on the ALIMENT/FETE crossing early on!

    Got lucky with TOP HAT, which I completely misparsed as a weak DD/cryptic hint.

    MER at TACTIC being defined as “strategy” – I have always understood them to be different, with tactics being specific, short-term actions and strategy being broader, long-term planning.

    Great puzzle – many thanks Jalna and Merlin.

    1. I agree about TACTIC – I’ve always recalled our football lecturer telling us that tactics are the actions you take as part of your strategy.

  12. Six. I didn’t get some of the parsing after revealing the grid. I lost patience with the blog because of the CR/LF issue. I thought it was the browser on the phone. I’ll try it on my desktop.

  13. 24:24 for the solve. Really needed to be able to bif some of those a lot quicker because it was a painful effort trying to build them e.g. at random almost impossible to build from its components.

    Everything parsed apart from TOO where I could see it was a tool but not the extremely=too def.

    Very much enjoyed the SOB-STORY!

    Thanks to Merlin and Jalna

  14. I seem to have been on Jalna’s wavelength today, finishing in 8:42. My only delay was convincing myself that a TOP HAT was an item of clothing.
    LOI DAHLIA.
    I am OK with American being abbreviated to A. It is used that way in the names of very many organisations, far more commonly than AM.
    COD to TITAN.

    Thanks Merlin and Jalna

  15. 24 mins…

    Got hardly anything on the first pass, but the lower half was much kinder than the top, and once I got a few the rest went in steadily. I was going to come in under 20 mins, but then got bogged down with 3dn “Aliment” (which I didn’t know) and an alphabet trawl for 10ac “Fete”.

    FOI – 11ac “At Random”
    LOI – 10ac “Fete”
    COD – 14ac “In Case”

    Thanks as usual!

  16. I didn’t think it was too bad. I admit to a biffed NOT BAD and failed to parse it post solve. FETE required a PDM and I needed some extra time to parse my COD TITAN. My LOI was FAMOUS in 7:51. Thanks Merlin.

  17. 6.46

    I stared in panic at _E_E at the end but FATE dealt me a good alphatrawl this time round.

    Having attended the drinks on Saturday and been missing in action yesterday this is the first time I’ve seen posts from folks I’ve actually met (here’s looking at you Cedric and Phil). How very pleasant it was, and is. Can highly recommend attendance next year even (especially!) for the lurkers 🙂

    Trickiesh puzzle I thought (though fair) but managed to keep the show on the road by flitting about. Seeing ALIMENT early helped.

    Liked SOB STORY

    Thanks Merlin and Jalna

  18. Glad I’m not the only one who found this tricky. Needed Merlin’s helpful blog to parse TITAN and TOP HAT. Struggled to work out NO ONE for some reason. Don’t understand why the clue for 10A needs ‘sounds’ instead of ‘sound’. Thought this indicated a 2-part clue eg so-so, which made sense for fair, but not the rest of the clue. COD SOB STORY.

  19. Very difficult. Needed help with TITAN to finish NE. Also a hint with ALIMENT.
    Did not enjoy this one, apart from AXE TO GRIND, SOB STORY, CHOPPER, IN CASE and FETE.
    Thanks vm, Merlin.

  20. Jalna is always tough. Managed all this in the end – N harder than S – but needed many explanations in the downs, thank you, Merlin. Couldn’t parse the O in FAMOUS, but MO, of course. Pitchfork: of all the tools to choose! Can’t quite see why “sounds” (10) is plural. But all doable, thank you, Jalna.

      1. Really! Thank you. NHO it. Sort of, like “anyways”? – or maybe simples?

  21. 5:22 so about an average time for me, but I did think a couple of clues bit tricky (e.g. NOT BAD and TOP HAT). Count me as another who has a MER every time “tactics” is clued as “strategy” and vice-versa. Thank-you Jalna and Merlin.

  22. DNF.
    I put MOTION not NOTION in my rush to finish the LOI.
    Otherwise, tough, but I got through it successfully. No time. App shows 16mins but it was at least twice that.
    I enjoyed this despite the slog.
    COD: NO ONE.

    Thanks Jalna and Merlin

  23. The 30min post was in plain sight by the time Top Hat and Too (pitchfork !) finally gave up their spirited rearguard action. My consolation for a slow time being that every answer was parsed, and I did get to appreciate some wonderful surfaces (eg Tactic and CoD Top Hat) along the way. Invariant

  24. I didn’t find this as tricky as some although it took me a while to get going. I finished up all parsed in 17 minutes which I’m counting as a good day. Not too much went in at the top to start with but it gathered pace as I tackled the bottom half. DAHLIA held out for a long time but was quite straightforward in the end.

    FOI – 11ac AT RANDOM
    LOI – 11dn ANCHORAGE
    COD – 6dn TITAN

    Thanks to Jalna and Merlin

  25. I too found this difficult.
    15 minutes in total with last two being TOO and TOP HAT.
    COD to TACTIC amongst some good clues.
    David

  26. Certainly tougher than average, and I wasn’t too disheartened to finish a little outside target at 10.42. Having made mistakes before by not properly parsing answers, I spent extra time on my LOI TITAN to make sure it was right. TACTIC caused me some unease, but I decided it had to be correct and stopped the clock.

  27. Bucking the trend as I found this one fairly doable. That said, I did need help parsing TITAN (many thanks Merlin). LOI FETE. COD AT RANDOM. Thanks Jalna and Merlin.

  28. Back into the SCC but lots of fun along the way: enjoyed the wordplay (AGA IN?) when our AGA has just gone off for the summer! Obfuscated was a new (to me) anagram indicator and I spent ages over 11a AT RANDOM. The morning oral exam was also a smiley moment. 25 minutes or more over coffee (which went cold) but thanks to Jalna and to Merlin. On with the day!

  29. 11:49

    If there is one thing that really gets my goat, it is a pointless interruption while solving the crossword, particularly when I’ve had a good start. That’s what happened today about 90 seconds in, with all going smoothly. Then after the interruption, I just couldn’t get back on track. With 8 minutes on the clock, I still had four in the NE to complete (6d, 7d, 9a, 11a) which took a further four minutes to crack. I wasn’t too keen on TITAN, neither for its definition, nor its indirect wordplay which seemed a little too much for the QC.

    Thanks Merlin and Jalna

  30. An embarrassing DNF with this, as when alpha-trawling -E-E, I went with the ee sound in my head and never noticed FETE. A very sneaky one from Jalna, that nevertheless doesn’t seem to have caught others out! The rest of the puzzle took me longer than usual, too. Not quite on the wavelength, perhaps.

  31. From OWN to TOO in 9:20. I felt this was quite tricky and was surpised to come in under target. Thanks Jalna and Merlin.

  32. DNF
    Called time after ~40 mins just not seeing NOT BAD and TITAN – thanks Merlin for the education.
    Two toughies on the trot for me.
    I did enjoy AT RANDOM though.

    Thanks to Jalna and Merlin

  33. Eventually got there in just over 20 minutes. Not to sound bitter but I wasn’t very impressed by the clues that held me up. Another appearance of lot meaning fate, which never comes up outside of crosswords, the archaic (unused) aliment for nourishment that I’ve never heard of (ant for soldier perhaps and lime for fruit were also incredibly hard to guess). Also got stuck forever on too and top hat, I suppose too does mean extremely but it wasn’t coming, top hat went in as soon as I got too, probably should’ve seen it faster. I have a problem with looking for a synonym of everything, when in fact I only needed the word “that” itself.

    Enjoyed notion, again and tactic.

    1. In a novel: John’s lot was to be grievously disabled by a riding accident. The word ‘fate’ could be substituted, for lot, in that sentence.

  34. Lots of multi-words and anagrams made this a bit slow for me.
    10a Fete. Took a long time to find lot=fate. COD for the PDM.
    12a Tactic. =Strategy? I suppose they must overlap at some point, or maybe one ends where the other starts? Templar, Johninterred and New Driver had the same worry.
    2d NoonE, tricky!
    3d Aliment; I thought this word was French only, but I guess we must have imported it.
    Thanks to Merlin and Jalna.

  35. Avoided the SCC and finishing in at 18:31 a BTB (Beat The Blogger) day! (Cheers Merlin and thanks for parsing Titan)
    Not Bad… it was brilliant! Furthermore no one had an axe to grind. I almost didn’t get a notion about that dahlia…
    Nice one Jalna and cheers Merlin

  36. Fast train to London today encouraged some slightly uncomfortable biffing so thank you, Merlin, for the parsing of TITAN, NOT BAD and NO ONE. On the other hand our LOI AXE TO GRIND (hat tip to Mrs T) went in at 11:44 which seems to have been quite respectable. Thanks also to Jalna.

  37. I had lots of problems with the FETE / ALIMENT crossover, and in particular was not really a fan of _E_E as checking letters, but such is life. I got there in the end at 16:38.

    Thank you for the blog!

  38. 12.30 WOE. After a couple of minutes stuck at the end I chucked in METE as a vague biff. FETE was obvious as soon as I saw the pink square. Thanks Merlin and Jalna.

  39. 11:40. Tricksy + I liked it! A good selection of clues and I didn’t get the sense there was too much of a theme – sometimes there are a lot of ‘letter dropped from x’ types and it feels a bit samey. Excellent work, and thank you for the parsing.

  41. 22:36

    Tough going. Held up by not parsing TITAN and thinking to be announced was a homophone not an acronym for NOT BAD. Then really struggled and relied on an alphabet trawl for LOI AXE TO GRIND.

  42. A very sluggish 28:15 to finish this. Couldn’t see the wood for the trees at first but once a few came to mind a slow grind finally got me there. Phew!

  43. Some playing up on iPhone in respect of blog for me, I found this remarkably difficult but after Merlin’s excellent blog kicking myself in a number of instances

  45. I enjoyed this until forced into an alphabet trawl for the mysterious FETE (I understood the “fair” part but not the “lot” part), put in after 15:42 with a resigned expectation of pink squares.

    Oh. FETE sounds like “fate” in Britain. Did not know.

    COD AXE TO GRIND, for the way the clue resolved itself from a mysterious jumble of too much information to an “oh you dummy” level of obviousness. Many good surfaces, especially AMORAL, a clue I might have heard verbatim in the past from my hapless students. I was befuddled by the clue for FAMOUS but figured it would work out, and it did.

    Thanks to Jalna and Merlin.

      1. Rhymes with “met”, “bet”, “debt” etc. (I’m assuming none of those rhyme with “fate”, otherwise I have to throw away a lot of what I think I know.)

        1. Aha ok, thanks. So similar to the French pronunciation, which makes sense, of course. 👍🏼

          1. Yes, fête –> fest/feast, bête –> beast, crête –> crest, quête –> quest, tête –> test, unlikely though it seems.

            I could be wrong.

  46. 13:08 here, and all parsed for an enjoyable and satisfying puzzle. Confidently started entering PROTAGONIST for 1ac, only to be stymied by running out of squares!

    Thanks to Jalna and Merlin.

  47. Great crossword, tricky but fair. Enjoyed TITAN the most from some excellent clues.
    Thanks Jalna and Merlin

  48. 11:12 but felt like longer. This seemed rather difficult for so early in the week? ALIMENT, my LOI, is surely one of those words which are only used in Crosswordland. I’m struggling to think of any instances in which it would be used without a suffix and CANAL being added. Maybe I could try that as a challenge? Use a slightly offbeat word in everyday conversation and see if anyone queries it? Thanks to Jalna and Merlin.

    1. Word I would never use IRL: obfuscated. Actually, I also feel a challenge coming on 😅 I look forward to hearing how you manage to squeeze ALIMENT into a conversation.

  49. 18:01 with several minutes at the end to get FETE. I see I’m not alone there. Very good clue, once I realised how it worked.

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