11:23, which is pretty good for me on an Izetti.
Lots of great surfaces which read completely naturally, and a great one at 13d. But the two cryptics didn’t quite work for me today.
Across
| 8 | Proper tea arranged for archbishop (7) |
| PRIMATE – PRIM (Proper) + (TEA)*
An archbishop is a primate — the senior bishop of a region, a new one was just installed last week in Canterbury, and was given her title of Primate of All England. |
|
| 9 | Superior meal in the evening without a starter (5) |
| UPPER – {s}UPPER
As in the UPPER Classes. |
|
| 10 | Golf attendant, bad guy, starts to diddle you (5) |
| CADDY – CAD (bad guy) + D{iddle} Y{ou}
The standard spelling in Golf (and those guys are sticklers for rules) is Caddie. This spelling is for tea. |
|
| 11 | House mother finally catches insects (7) |
| HORNETS – HO{use} + {mothe}R + NETS (catches)
HO is the official abbreviation for house, (H is for Hotel). You don’t often see HO, because houses look either like odd derivatives of Westward Ho!, Heave Ho!, or something a rapper might say. |
|
| 12 | Quiet relaxation before performing in city (7) |
| PRESTON – P (quiet) + REST (relaxation) + ON (performing)
ON=performing is common in crosswords, and is justified by the theatre expression “She is ON tonight.” |
|
| 14 | Correct this writer in margin (5) |
| EMEND – ME (this writer) contained in E^ND (margin)
AMEND/EMEND sound similar, the difference lies in whether you are fixing an error or making a change. You amend a constitution, but you emend a typo. |
|
| 15 | Something that could get one carried away (5) |
| SEDAN – Cryptic clue
The excellently-named Sir Saunders Duncombe patented the sedan chair in London in 1634. It was a little booth carried on two poles, and kept the upper classes out of the dirt. In 1911 the Speedwell Motor Co. in Ohio used the name to describe a fully enclosed car body, an innovation at the time. |
|
| 17 | Learner enthralled by puzzle-maker — one ensconced in new territory? (7) |
| SETTLER – L{earner} contained in SETT^ER (puzzle-maker)
Izetti being humble here, not using a self-reference for Setter. |
|
| 19 | Add to workers in month, having let us go (7) |
| AUGMENT – MEN (workers) contained in AUG{us}T | |
| 20 | Outfit needed by the Spanish star (5) |
| RIGEL – RIG (outfit) + EL (“the” in Spanish)
Rigel is the brightest star in Orion. I asked my AI what were the most famous stars, it came up with 1. The Sun, 2. Sirius, 3. Polaris, 4. Betelgeuse, 5. Alpha Centauri, 6. Vega, 7. RIGEL, 8. Antares |
|
| 22 | Smallest line with particular direction (5) |
| LEAST – L{ine} + EAST (a particular direction) | |
| 23 | Strange quality that fifteen will show (7) |
| ODDNESS – Cryptic clue
I mean 15 is an odd number, is that it? A Rugby Union team is pretty weird when they start grabbing each other by the shorts. |
Down
| 1 | Eastern picture — a large-scale film? (4) |
| EPIC – E{astern} + PIC{ture} | |
| 2 | Sort of coloured garment restricted you once (3-3) |
| TIE-DYE – TIED (restricted) + YE (“you” once, in Olde English) | |
| 3 | Woman and boy ending in Torquay (4) |
| LADY – LAD (boy) + {torqua}Y | |
| 4 | Fantastic cash in no time, with introduction of a movement abandoning manual processes (13) |
| MECHANISATION – (CASH IN NO TIME)* including an extra A
At first I was looking at words with MACHINE in them, and also an extra M (introduction of Movement). So Something like MACHINE-ISM |
|
| 5 | Greek character on river eating one nourishing substance (8) |
| NUTRIENT – NU (Greek character) + TR^ENT (river) containing I(one) | |
| 6 | Domain that has no edges (6) |
| SPHERE – Cryptic clue
A sphere has no edges. Um, that’s it. |
|
| 7 | Salvation Army limited by less sophisticated evangelist (8) |
| CRUSADER – SA contained in CRU^DER (less sophisticated)
I’m not sure how much evangelising those 12th century knights were doing in the Levant. I mean, when they captured a city, they didn’t exactly sit them all down and have an Alpha Course. |
|
| 12 | Dad’s dark colour or fair? (8) |
| PASSABLE – PA’S (Dads) + SABLE (dark colour)
Sable (black) one of those colours that exists in heraldry and nowhere else, like Gules and Or. I found this one hard, it was my LOI, I couldn’t get Pastel (fair) out of my mind. |
|
| 13 | Toilet surmounted by brown lines (8) |
| TANGENTS – GENTS (toilets) preceded by TAN (brown)
Best surface today! |
|
| 16 | Party attire that is folded over (3-3) |
| DOG-EAR – DO (party) + GEAR (attire)
This is the noun, which I don’t think I’ve ever heard. the adjective “dog-eared” is more common. |
|
| 18 | Made a note of unusual old egg (6) |
| LOGGED – (OLD EGG)* | |
| 20 | Impolite daughter getting in Parisian’s way (4) |
| RUDE – D{aughter} contained in RU^E (street in Paris/France) | |
| 21 | Girl in glasses (4) |
| LASS – Hidden in glasses |
16:21 Couldn’t do gear in a sphere or a sedan…
Ta MAI
10 minutes but with one error as the best I could come up with at 16dn was DOG TAG bunged in with fingers crossed but not much hope really. Like Merlin, I never heard of DOG-EAR as a noun, only in the term “dog-eared”.
I assumed I was missing something re ODDNESS but the simple explanation in the blog seems to cover it.
That’s oddness I’m first to post… can’t work out how Brisbane time made that happen. Ho Hun off for some Moreton Bay Bugs. 😋
11.07
Long pause over DOG EAR and SEDAN. In retrospect I think they’re fine though at the time I thought “carry away” could include a plane or other conveyance.
Thanks Izetti/Merlin.
Surprised to find others fared so much better, I found this really tough both in clueing and in required vocabulary. Struggled over the line in 20.16 – and still missed a typo in TIi DYE. Once SEDAN wasn’t stretcher I was out of alternatives and dimly putting ‘inner’ (like temples I figured with no great conviction) when the checker from SUPER would have help mightily with NUTRIENT (really must properly learn the greek alphabet) where the definition couldn’t have been clearer. Not all green and trying to take the positives from a tough morning!
12:49 and all green, but having finished it I have returned to my bedroom to check which side of the bed I got out of today, because unlike everyone else I really did not like this puzzle. Given the general approval for it, it must be my fault not Izetti’s, but CADDY is just not how golf spells it, SEDAN is IMO a poor clue (there are huge numbers of things that “could get one carried away”), ODDNESS is also weak, CRUSADER for evangelist would have the whole Muslim world up in arms, I’ve not met DOG-EAR as a noun, only dog-eared as an adjective, and End for Margin in EMEND is not a close link in my view.
Izetti is a very experienced setter and I am a not very experienced solver, so we’ll score this one as a Statherby fail and move swiftly on. Many thanks Merlin for the blog.
CRUSADER has a well-established metaphorical sense of people who campaign/evangelise for a cause. Greta Thunberg is a climate crusader/evangelist for example.
I agree!
Like you, Cedric S, I wasn’t keen on this puzzle, although there were one or two I liked. RIGEL was a NHO, SEDAN was, as you say, a weak clue and a golf CADDIE is the correct spelling – CADDY used to be what tea was kept in. I originally entered PRELATE for PRIMATE, although I couldn’t parse it until the crossers came in. Like you, have never heard of an ‘end’ being a margin and, whilst I could see oddness being a ‘strange quality’ I thought the rugger reference was downright misleading.
Agree with all your comments and a relief to find someone on the same page! Thanks
A nice romp for us to a pretty fast 14.04. One of those days where almost every clue fell at the first look, albeit taking a good few seconds to unravel.
Yes, typed in caddi, ran out of letters then read the rest of the clue.
COD to Do Gear, always makes me smile when setters find clever ways to split multiple words into a different enumeration.
On a side note, we start our day with the concise followed by the QC and once again there is an answer duplicated in the two puzzles [hope this isn’t a spoiler]. This seems to happen quite often. Do any of our stattos have the data to say how often I wonder?
Thanks Izetti and Merlin
A slow 19 minutes. The cryptic clues / hints for ODDNESS and my LOI SPHERE were my downfall, though by luck I managed to get SEDAN without much trouble.
The surface for TANGENTS was more than yucky enough to be my COD.
Thanks to Merlin and Izetti
An interesting mixture of responses to the difficulty of this puzzle and I fall in ‘found it hard’ group, particularly the SW and SPHERE.
As usual with Izetti, everything was fairly clued but cryptic definitions seem to be either very straightforward or fiendishly tricky depending on wavelength and today they fell into the latter category.
Started with PRIMATE and finished with COD TANGENTS in 10.20.
Thanks to Merlin and Izetti
I was 9:25, so not bad for an Izetti.
I agree with others who grumbled about CADDY, I also typed CADDI then went back to read the rest of the clue. I put it in with a shrug, thinking I’d check the spelling later.
I was slightly held up by putting INNER instead of UPPER, thinking that the inner circle might be superior (but not liking it). Fortunately, I saw it had to be NUTRIENT when I was on my first pass on the downs so the correction went in without too much damage.
I liked this, I had no problem with any of the cryptic definitions and, as always with Izetti, the surfaces were very smooth.
I don’t agree with the criticisms of CRUSADER for evangelist – as I replied to Cedric, crusaders/evangelists don’t have to be Christian. I thought that was an excellent clue.
Eyebrows for CADDY and struggled with PASSABLE but otherwise found this smooth and enjoyable. NHO RIGEL and was half expecting a DPS, but no. All green in 07:10 for a Regulation Day.
Many thanks Merlin and Don.
Would have been 5:48 but somehow I had amended the C at the end of EPIC, beginning of CADDY to a D. So a typo scuppered the leaderboard.
Fun puzzle, I enjoyed it very much. I had to write down the letters to get MECHANISATION.
A quick start but an equally quick deceleration as some testing clues emerged. Most of the puzzle was fine but slow, not least the NE quadrant with CRUSADER, HORNETS, and NUTRIENT. I wasted time on the latter having stupidly biffed Amend. SPHERE Was my LOI but by this time I was into the low 20s and knew that Izetti had beaten me.
Thanks to both. Worth a careful read of the blog to get the full quality of many of the clues. AUGMENT and NUTRIENT were up there with the best.
P.s. it took me a minute, a copy, a refresh, and a re-paste to get this posted. Also, I keep losing the down clues on my iPad when in landscape mode. The QC page layout and stability was much, much better on my iPad in the not too distant past. Recent changes have taken things backwards for me. Does anyone else have problems or is it really just me?
I don’t use an iPad but I usually solve/access here on an iPhone (occasionally a Windows PC). I don’t experience any issues with this site on any device, now that the demon causing the “too many requests” messages has been exorcised.
As for solving, my experience is that the Times app on my phone develops a random glitch every now and then – the last one for me was not filling in letters as I typed! I fixed it by deleting the app and reinstalling it. Good luck.
From PRIMATE to TANGENTS in 7:25 with a MER at the spelling of CADDY. Thanks Izetti and Merlin.
NHO PRIMATE (thought that was an ape? guessed PRelATE), RIGEL (but had to be) or TIE-DYE (what “sort of coloured garment” is that, please?). No chance today.
It refers to looping string around areas of cloth to prevent colour penetration when dying. I’ve never had to do it, so apologies for any steps missed out.
Yes, the cloth can be knotted and dipped in the dye to avoid colouring the knotted parts. Then knotted in a different part for a different colour. You can tie-dye your own T shirts🙂
Tie dye tee-shirts were popular in the late 1960s. There is a pop song from the 1970s that has a reference to a tie dyed tee shirt purchased in Spain. I’ve got the ear worm but I can’t get the title or the group….
MER at CADDY but otherwise enjoyable puzzle with clever clues. RIGEL added to my star knowledge, pretty much entirely gained from crosswords. Thanks Izetti and Merlin.
Well we found this particularly difficult. Did quite well then absolutely did not. Held up – to the point of revealing several letters, so DNF. Culprits causing our downfall included : DOG EAR (we join the chorus..) the ‘Y’ in CADDY, efforts to parse circle having failed to do so with SPHERE – and SEDAN – the NHO but happily sorted RIGEL, LOI PASSABLE.
Overall, definitely much to like and enjoy, however a 50:50 offering for us.
Thank you Izetti and Merlin… Esp for correct parsing of 2D’YE’.. we restricted YouoncE to two letters… far more laborious -and wrong (though feel we very much still learners deserve points for creativity).
DNF. I just could not see SPHERE, although with hindsight it should have been obvious.
Thanks Merlin and Izetti
A brisk start before running into problems in the SW and NE corners. Dog Ear eventually prompted Sedan, which in turn gave Tangents, but I had crossed into the SCC before realising that a hastily bifd Inner (circle) for superior wasn’t just dubious, but out and out wrong. A correction to Upper made Nutrient and loi Sphere a tad more obvious, thankfully still in time for an aisle seat.
I had no problem accepting Crusader, and never really noticed the unusual spelling of caddie, but agree with others that the clue for Oddness is itself quite odd.
Joint CoD to Dog Ear and Tangents. Invariant
Enjoyable puzzle. Finished all correct though slow on LOI SPHERE and POI PASSABLE, in particular. I was more or less on the wavelength. TIE-DYE is a method of colouring cloth – but maybe it is coloquial-speak for tie-dyed clothes.
Biffed RIGEL. TANGENTS amused me. Also liked AUGMENT, HORNETS, DO GEAR, PRIMATE and PRESTON.
Thanks vm, Merlin
Second DNF in a row for me. I found it to be far too difficult for me. Can’t say I enjoyed it, otherwise I probably would have continued for a while longer.
A slower than average 24:06 – not quite on the right wavelength today. Some biffs and the odd alphabet trawl needed to get RIGEL ((NHO), HORNETS, SEDAN, PASSABLE. Hard for a QC I feel.
Oh dear. Oh very dear. Having slept badly, I got up early feeling tired. Made the cuppa and really struggled with this puzzle, to the extent that the cuppa was distinctly cold by the time I finished. Didn’t like CADDY. Did like TANGENTS and SPHERE, though the latter took a while for the penny to drop. All correct and parsed, but I definitely underperformed today.
Thanks Izetti and Merlin
I agree with others that this was quite tricky, and I felt I was on reasonable form to finish it in 12.25. I thought of SEDAN quickly enough, but was uncomfortable putting it in without the suffix ‘chair’. Only when all the checkers were in place did I put it in. I initially biffed DOG TAG, but gave it more thought and DOG EAR then came to mind. I struggled to the finish with HORNETS and finally SPHERE.
Hmm.
Caddy it’s clearly an error. Sedan and sphere I thought we were a bit weak, leaving me thinking is that it?
Still not convinced about dog ear. “Folded over” is not a noun surely it is an adjective. In which case the answer would need to be dog eared.
Either way, most of you seem to like it so I will crawl back into my box and try to be chirpier tomorrow!
I treated Dog Ear as a verb.
‘ I’ll dog ear that page for future reference. ‘
‘ He dog eared the page for future reference. ‘
Or as a noun “Second-hand book, condition fair, several dog-ears”.
Slim pickings on the first pass with nothing in the NE and very little in the SW. I had to jump around the grid to join everything up and finish in 18 minutes. CADDY was strange as I thought given the golfing reference it should be spelled differently. ODDNESS was just strange imo. RIGEL was unknown to me but my astronomical knowledge is hardly astronomical.
FOI – 10ac CADDY
LOI – 15ac SEDAN
COD – 13dn TANGENTS
Thanks to Izetti and Merlin
4:21. A bit of a MER at the spelling of the golfer’s assistant, but I see it is OK from the dictionary. No problem with ether CRUSADER or DOG-EAR for me – they seem perfectly sound. In fact a sound and enjoyable QC all round. Thank-you Izetti and Merlin.
My customary eight in 20 minutes but nothing after that. MER at caddie/caddy like many others. Oddness from the checkers that I did get from rude, logged and lass.
DNF at 18.45 with sphere. I found this puzzle a battle, maybe my head just wasn’t on the same wavelength today. Enjoyable though. Dnk Rigel but there wasn’t anything else it could be
DNF. Despite a full 5 minutes of alphabet trawling at the end, I never found DOG EAR. Dog tag and dog(gy) bag were the only two I came up with that had anything to do with a party, but I knew neither would be correct.
Prior to that I solved at a rate of one a minute (quite fast for me) for the first 16 clues, but then slowed to one every three minutes for the next seven. I really struggled with EMEND, CRUSADER, the NHO RIGEL, SPHERE and PASSABLE.
43 minutes for all-but-one. Then I gave up.
Many thanks to Merlin and Izetti.
I don’t think SPHERE is a cryptic def, I think it’s a double def. “Sphere” means “domain” in the sense of “sphere/domain of influence” – i.e., “My sphere find cryptic crosswords quite simple” – and is, separately, also a thing that has no edges.
I’m fascinated to see so many commenters struggling here because I for, once, absolutely breezed through it…5:02 with almost no pausing to think. Didn’t bat an eye at CADDY because that’s the common American spelling. Consider it a little revenge for all the times people like me have been forced to know Welsh politics or Yorkshire towns. :p