15:14 for me. Dangle has a nice puzzle for us, with some head scratchers in the SW corner which held me up after a rapid start.
I draw your attention to Parseword , created by Wordle’s Josh Wardle. It’s designed as an accessible introduction for people curious about cryptic crosswords, breaking the wordplay down into clear, sequential steps. It’s a smart way to introduce different clue types, and, like Wordle, there’s just one puzzle each day.
Across
| 1 | Son remains in more than one band (6) |
| SASHES – S{on} + ASHES (remains) | |
| 4 | Ignore idiot bitten by young dog (4,2) |
| PASS UP – ASS (Idiot) contained in P^UP (young dog) | |
| 8 | Broadcast entertaining recommendation for allowance (7) |
| STIPEND – S^END (broadcast) contains TIP (recommendation) | |
| 10 | Fast food item enthralling male primate (5) |
| CHIMP – CHI^P (fast food item) contains M{ale} | |
| 11 | Lemon is fresh fruit (5) |
| MELON – (LEMON)*
“Is fresh” is an anagram indicator, the letters are in a fresh order. |
|
| 12 | State stopping clandestine servitude (7) |
| SLAVERY – AVER (state) contained in SL^Y (clandestine) | |
| 13 | Slightly cowardly cry over desire (9) |
| YELLOWISH – YELL (cry) + O{ver} + WISH (desire)
In older medical theory, the liver was the seat of courage. A “brave” person had a liver full of red blood, while a coward’s liver was supposed to be yellow “white as a lily” (lily-livered) In Giotto’s, The Arrest of Christ fresco (1304) Judas wears a bright yellow robe. |
|
| 17 | Reduce value of collection housed in exhibition centre the wrong way (7) |
| CHEAPEN – HEAP (collection) contained in NE^C (exhibition centre) reversed
That’s the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham. |
|
| 19 | Silly act following foul play regularly ignored (5) |
| FOLLY – F{ollowing} + {f}O{u}L{p}L{a}Y | |
| 20 | Outcast quietly wearing lascivious grin (5) |
| LEPER – LE^ER (outcast) contains P(quietly)
Lepers have been outcasts since at least Old Testament times. Figurative sense “outcast” dates from the late Middle English period.
Modern style guides describe the metaphor as stigmatising and dehumanising. Best avoided.
|
|
| 21 | Criticise one’s boring second husband from Madrid? (7) |
| SPANISH – PAN (criticise) + I (one) contained in S{econd} H{usband}
I went down a rathole looking for a “husband from Madrid” which had to be SENOR |
|
| 22 | Produce canines, perhaps and support them, mostly (6) |
| TEETHE – TEE (support) + THE{m}
This is the verb. I saw canines=teeth and struggled with t sixth letter, even considering the double-plural “teeths” |
|
| 23 | Rage corrupted a new American president (6) |
| REAGAN – (RAGE)* + A + N{ew} |
Down
| 1 | Oil producer unchanged after surprise on vacation (6) |
| SESAME – SAME (unchanged) preceded by S{urpris}E | |
| 2 | I let my helpers cast child star (7,6) |
| SHIRLEY TEMPLE – (I LET MY HELPERS)*
Made her screen debut at age 3, became famous at age 6 for her song “On the Good Ship Lollipop”. Less well known, she was the U.S. Ambassador to Czechoslovakia in 1989 and personally witnessed the collapse of communism during the Velvet Revolution. |
|
| 3 | Cross taken from outside is everlasting (7) |
| ETERNAL – E{x}TERNAL (outside) with the X=cross omitted | |
| 5 | Bend over following a cold in African city (5) |
| ACCRA – ARC (bend) preceded by A C{old}
Capital of Ghana, but you all knew that. |
|
| 6 | Old rhino eating pine cone’s top is horrifying (5-8) |
| SPINE CHILLING – SHILLING (old rhino) contains PINE + C{one}
I think this is correct. While “rhino” is still technically recognized as British slang for money, it has largely fallen out of common everyday use and is now considered archaic or rare. A recent 2019 study (“Decoding the Dough“) found that “rhino” was the most confusing money slang term, with 49% of people baffled by its meaning. |
|
| 7 | Father and young adult in tree (6) |
| PAPAYA – PAPA (Father) + YA (Young Adult)
YA is an abbreviation used in publishing. At my second-hand bookshop I have to identify these by cover only. If the title sounds like a particularly dramatic three-word shopping list for a Goth wedding (e.g., A Court of Silk and Cyanide), you’re halfway there. The cover will almost certainly feature a crown made of something wildly impractical like frozen tears or jagged obsidian. It’s a book that says, “I may be 400 pages of emotional upheaval, but I will look absolutely stunning on your shelf next to your scented candles.” |
|
| 9 | Eats a meal around some weird state capital (3,6) |
| DES MOINES – D^INES (eats a meal) contains (SOME)*
I resent having to be familiar with all 50 American State capitals, when we are never asked about our own County Towns. |
|
| 14 | Blow up trendy apartment close to Knightsbridge (7) |
| INFLATE – IN (trendy) + FLAT (apartment) + {knightsbridg)E | |
| 15 | Stole coat on the counter, partly for fur (6) |
| OCELOT – Reverse hidden [on the counter, partly] in Stole coat
This was hard. Ocelot is an animal (an American Leopard), which I confuse with the also obscure OUNCE and AI. All beloved of crossword setters. |
|
| 16 | One might be constricted by this skimpy thong, somewhat (6) |
| PYTHON – hidden in skimpy thong
Pythons are non‑venomous snakes that kill their prey by constriction. |
|
| 18 | Place of rest in a church (5) |
| PERCH – PER (a) + CH{urch}
Tricky stuff. PER=A is use in expressions in “three times a week”. This was my LOI. I thought it must be a cryptic definition, where part of a church was the answer. Parts of churches like Nave, Apse, Transept often crop up. |
9.38, with thanks to Dangle for a nice QC challenge and to Merlin for explaining what was going on with OCELOT, the old Rhino and CHEAPEN (I should remember NEC I suppose). SHIRLEY TEMPLE was a write-in (‘child star’ is a very generous def) but the A=PER penny dropped very late.
25 minutes with one wrong answer remaining after I had corrected another one.
Most of the time lost was accounted for by 7dn where the answer I was completely happy with proved to be incorrect so I had to look for an alternative. Originally I had put POPLAR (tree), parsed as POP (father), LAR (young adult), the latter being in Collins as ‘Northern England dialect – a boy or young man. But the A-checker gave me a problem when I came to write SLAVERY at 12ac and I realised I must have an error. Eventually I came up with PAPAYA but didn’t know YA as an abbreviation of Young Adult so I justified it by lifting and separating Y (young) and A (adult) . Only after reading Merlin’s explanation did I check and find that Y is not listed in any of the usual dictionaries as an abbreviation for ‘young’. This rather surprised me as we meet O for ‘old’ almost every day.
My other error (uncorrected) was PORCH at 18dn instead of PERCH. I had read it as possibly a rather feeble cryptic based on my experience that church porches sometimes have bench seating built into the walls and therefore serve as resting places. I realise now it was my own reasoning that was feeble and not the clue! I like to think that if I had not expended so much time and effort correcting my earlier error I might have given more thought to avoiding this one.
Y is short for Young in YMCA, which is itself often abbreviated to just “the Y” in America. That makes it at least as real an abbreviation as O=old.
Dangle is becoming a favourite in these parts. Another puzzle that took a lot of thinking and a fair bit of our new acronym BTPTS, biff then parse then smile!
A very satisfactory 19.34 of enjoyment and lots to choose from for COD. Melon takes it for the elegant simplicity and PDM
Thanks Dangle and Merlin
PAPAYA and SLAVERY caused me problems. Both of my own making. Took too long to get beyond ‘Pop’ for father despite having thought of PAPAYA early and similarly with SLAVERY saw it fitted quickly enough by couldn’t parse. In that case because I thought ‘state’ would lead to ‘say’ and that would be around ‘clandestine’. So quite a lot went wrong there. OCELOT and PERCH both raised a smile for outsmarting me (‘on the counter’ in particular). CHEAPEN a write in for someone who used to work in the same Borough as the NEC (Solihull not Birmingham!) – and DES MOINES reminded me of Bill Bryson’s Lost Continent – which I must get round to finishing. It was given to me close to publication and I enjoyed the first couple of chapters then put it down (more than 30 years ago!). Anyway, all green in 14.47 after a fast start.
Struggled to avoid the pot holes and wasn’t helped by half heartedly convincing myself that 15D was STABLE, which felt a bit like squashing the wrong piece into a jigsaw. Shirley Temple is a mocktail, much improved by a generous slug of dark rum, IMO. Slow but enjoyable 26min.
Thanks Merlin & Dangle who invariably trips me up.
I showed my age in this one and found it tricky in places – the child star had to be dredged from the depths and shillings were before my time so I never did parse SPINE CHILLING.
Having said that I thought this was an excellent puzzle with the hidden fur providing a very satisfying PDM.
Started with PASS UP and finished with COD OCELOT in 8.47.
Thanks to Merlin and Dangle
9:31 despite not spotting that ocelot for a while (did I know what an ocelot was before crosswording… no!) Me and Dangle synchronized farewelling; the length of our waves being the same on this occasion.
Ta MAD
Nice puzzle, the only issues I had were not parsing the NEC, and not having heard of the abbreviation YA.
COD to python, because the idea of being constricted by a skimpy thong sounds intriguing!
Thanks Merlin and Dangle.
14 – completed the east side, missing Des Moines which I think is the capital of Ohio but I have to look that up. Clues on the west side definitely harder for me apart from melon and Shirley Temple. Yellowish with help from the crossers for the ISH.
Iowa not Ohio..
Thanks M and D
11:07 for the solve. Didn’t really enjoy this one as while it ended in a decent time, the clueing/synonyms felt a bit off the Family Fortunes board in place. NHO rhino but at least the answer was gettable from -PINE… and other animal names are used for money e.g. pony and monkey. PAPAYA went in with fingers crossed and was only decoded post-solve. Don’t think I’ve heard the NEC mentioned since the 1990s. Shame really because Dangle is undoubtedly a fine setter but I wasn’t keen on this one.
As for Parseword – not sure whether I like it or not. It’s meant to be accessible but there are occasions where I spend longer working out how to get the answer into it than solve it. It’s better than Minute Cryptic which has moved away from teaching beginnners to obtuse definitions with mostly deletions, anagrams and hiddens. Today’s MC is a typical yuk example where it’s forced in an extra word to make the surface work.
Thanks to Merlin and Dangle
Thanks to jackkt (above) for almost writing my post for me. Yes, POPLAR/PAPAYA and PORCH/PERCH were my first thoughts and were corrected only at the end when they were shown as wrong (so a DNF, really). My time was similar, too: 24 mins.
Dangle is a tough cookie and almost always shoves me into the SCC (although I managed a 12 minute solve once….).
I did a BTPTS on more than one occasion (thanks to Roundabout Here for the acronym) and shared the experience of others with OCELOT, CHEAPEN, SLAVERY, and DES MOINES. Lots to think about, here.
Thanks to both.
25.02 for us after an interesting and variably enjoyed solve. Slow start, rush in the middle (a spate of often unintentionally biffing first then parsing later) then a slow plod to the finish.
Spent time trying to parse WHELPS for 22a – then, after PDM, v briefly trying to justify TEETHS – a word never said but then again, this is crosswordland and we assume anything is possible.
Thanks to all.
Well sort of finished it but lots of guesses, biffs and shrugs of shoulders. Thanks, Merlin, for making sense of it all. Golly ExTERNAL minus X was obscure, and NHO rhino or YA abbreviation. And thanks for making the point about state capitals versus county towns! So which state is that the capital of? I’d just about HO it, dredged it up from somewhere.
Drat. With so much unparsed I didn’t deserve to score this one and indeed was felled by guessing PoRCH, the correct parsing just too difficult for (IMHO) a QC.
Humph: haven’t completed a single Dangle (is that a jingle?) correctly yet.
Iowa – see my post above.
FWIW Des Moines got a bit of discussion due to Bill Bryson coming from there when it came up in a Saturday puzzle blogged by Cedric in January last year
https://timesforthetimes.co.uk/quick-cryptic-no-2883-by-hurley
From SESAME to CHEAPEN in 9:25. Quite tricky in places. I was tempted by POPLAR until SLAVERY came along. Thanks Dangle and Merlin.
27:53 – a bit of a struggle. NHO RHINO = SHILLING, despite being a baby boomer. Struggled too with PERCH, CHEAPEN, SLAVERY and PAPAYA. Not really on Dangle’s wavelength, sadly.
I found this slightly harder than recent puzzles coming in just outside target at 15:45.
I missed the reverse hidden for OCELOT, PAPAYA gave me pause for thought and didn’t know ‘rhino’ as slang for money. Also, ‘f’ indicating following surprised me though no doubt I’ve encountered it before.
COD to the amusing PYTHON.
Thanks to Dangle and Merlin
School boy joke about the rhinosauras being the richest animal in the jungle because it has piles of money….
Haha! I’ll not forget it now 😀
DNF, messing up SW, (NEC??) and failing on SASHES. Had to look up DES MOINES, despite its fame as Bill Bryson’s home town.
Like Too Often Lost, I biffed Whelps for producing canines, which did not Help.
Managed PAPAYA (familiar with publishing lingo) and SHIRLEY TEMPLE.
I liked CHIMP, LEPER, ACCRA and PYTHON. Biffed SPINE CHILLING, nho Rhino as money.
Thanks, Merlin.
Hats off to the setter ! This felt really well crafted with some very satisfying “ clicks” . Didn’t fathom parsing for PERCH and lazily put in PORCH, so strictly DNF. Chuckled at PYTHON, having spent far too long trying to fit G-String in somehow (I know, I know…). Thanks to both – most satisfying.
Just slipped into the club having finished in 20 minutes. 4 unparsed – STIPEND, CHEAPEN, PAPAYA and OCELOT so Merlin’s help very much appreciated. More than usually on Dangle’s wavelength today, in fact 20 minutes may be a record for one of his.
FOI – 11ac MELON
LOI – 15dn OCELOT
CODs – 13ac YELLOWISH and 14dn INFLATE
Thanks to Dangle and Merlin
12:36 for a leisurely solve, much enjoyed. But not all parsed as I could not work out how PAPAYA was constructed – I had PA for father and then faced the unknown PAYA for young adult.
Des Moines keeps appearing – this is its 4th outing in QCs. The last time it did I noted that I didn’t know how many of the S’s are pronounced – 2, 1 or even none of them. And I still don’t.
Many thanks Merlin for the blog.
Americans don’t do subtle French pronunciations. They’ve been saying Orléans wrong since the Louisiana Purchase.
But they do say Shicago not Tchicago …
My runner in Minneapolis corrected my terrible pronunciation of Des Moines – no Ss – De Moyn I think it is.
I thought I was on for a quickish time having completed 70% or so of the puzzle fairly rapidly, but then I hit the buffers. The sw corner in particular slowed me down with TEETHE and finally CHEAPEN my last two in. It was useful to have heard of DES MOINES otherwise I might have struggled on this one. Bill Bryson often makes reference to his place of birth, so it was embedded in my brain. Beside this clue, there seem to have been a lot of American themed answers with REAGAN and SHIRLEY TEMPLE, although not too many of our friends across the pond would have heard of the NEC I suspect. An enjoyable puzzle I completed in 11.11.
Dangle produced some excellent surfaces today and, if you enjoy parsing, there were more than just a few interesting challenges. In short, I thought this was a very enjoyable QC, topped off by an informative blog from Merlin. Just a pity then that a few missteps (aka blunders) on my part stretched the finish out to just north of 25mins (quick nod to Jackkt on passing).
Talking of blunders, Spine Chilling was obvious with sufficient crossers in place, but (Old Rhino pine c)* had kept me happily entertained until Reagan turned up. Likewise Cola/Coke, rather than Chip, really didn’t help with the primate. . .
All sorted in the end, with CoD, in a strong field, to Eternal for the parsing. Invariant
enjoyed this except for old rhino – I’m 76 and have never heard of a shilling being a rhino while completely familiar with pony’s etc. please don’t be quite so obscure!
Could not finish this one. I have to say I really do not like Dangle as a setter. I can’t put my finger on it but I personally just do not rate Dangle as a good setter. Sorry Dangle. 🙄