16:50 for me, and I think that was good going. Quite a few wry smiles as the last ones went in, well-played Teazel.
My earliest Cryptic Crossword that I came across was in Asterix the Gladiator. Asterix has persuaded them not to fight but to sit down and play word games. One Roman Gladiator comes up with this riddle:
My first is a Hundred, my second is a sign of the zodiac, my third is a Hibernian, my fourth is the Egyptian god of the son, and Julius Caesar loves my whole.
No word length is given, but all of the words are Ancient. Well played translator Anthea Bell (daughter of the inventor of The Times cryptic, Adrian Bell), who translated it from the French
« Mon premier ouvre les portes, mon deuxième se boit, mon troisième garde les moutons et Jules César aime bien mon tout. »
There is a completely different one in the Latin version clued by “Julius Caesar does not love me” (Caesar non amat), the answer in “Vercingetorix”, the Gaulish god.
| Across | |
| 1 | Small northern town deprived of field is convulsed (8) |
| SHUDDERS — S{mall} + HUDDERS{field}
Huddersfield, Yorkshire town, where Rugby League and Harold Wilson were both born. |
|
| 6 | Fuss exceptionally loudly around area (4) |
| FAFF — FFF (exceptionally loud) contains A{rea}
Three Fs is much rarer in musical scores, when the composer ones everyone to play at maximum volume, where ff wouldn’t cut it. Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture uses fff and even ffff for critical moments. Not that a cannon has much of a volume control. |
|
| 8 | Initially shaky piece of furniture is steady (6) |
| STABLE— S{haky} + TABLE (piece of furniture)
I was trying to make SETTLE work somehow, which works if the clue was just a double def (“piece of furniture is steady”) |
|
| 9 | A time nurse is to present herself (6) |
| ATTEND— A + T{time} + TEND (nurse)
And there I was trying to think of all of those abbreviations for nurses, RN, SRN etc. |
|
| 10 | Request garment fold to be shortened (4) |
| PLEA— PLEA{t} (garment fold) | |
| 11 | Annual charge for room from mum and dad (8) |
| PARENTAL— PA (per annum, annual charge) + RENTAL (charge for room) | |
| 12 | Extra condition for one in the saddle (5) |
| RIDER—Double def.
A RIDER clause is a provision that is not part of the main legal document, but still applies to it, so I guess it “rides” it? |
|
| 13 | Be obliged to keep pounds to divide (5) |
| HALVE— HA^VE (be obliged) contains L (pounds) | |
| 15 | Success saving the planet? Fail to convince any more (4,4) |
| WEAR THIN— WIN (success) contains EARTH (planet)
“Saving” is a rather odd containment indicator. |
|
| 17 | What’s afoot is a hit (4) |
| SOCK— Double def, a-foot could mean on your foot.
The a‑ prefix comes from Old English an / on, other examples are ashore and abed. |
|
| 19 | Prepare us some creamy dessert (6) |
| MOUSSE— (US SOME)* | |
| 20 | Crushed in sporting arena (6) |
| GROUND—Double def | |
| 21 | Questionable moment to lose head (4) |
| IFFY— {J}IFFY (moment, “in a jiffy”)
The exact origin of “jiffy” is unknown, but you can expect a local tour guide to come up with a cute folk etymology. “The Innkeeper at this pub here was a Frenchman called M. Joiffre, and he served pints very quickly, hence…” |
|
| 22 | Raising a glass to Browning (8) |
| TOASTING—Double def
Double def, I couldn’t get Tanning out of my head. The Surface refers to Robert Browning, top quote “Grow old with me, the best is yet to be” |
|
| Down | |
| 2 | Very warm, the Spanish inn (5) |
| HOTEL—HOT (very warm) + EL (“the” in Spanish) | |
| 3 | Expert to wipe fingers lightly? (3,4) |
| DAB HAND—Double def, second definition cryptic
The reason for dab=expert is also not really known. |
|
| 4 | Girl, the middle of seven (3) |
| EVE— The middle letters of {s}EVE{n}
Eve wasn’t one of seven, she was an only child, and no mother either. |
|
| 5 | Sure China disturbed some marine life (3,6) |
| SEA URCHIN—(SURE CHINA)* [disturbed] | |
| 6 | Great pleasure keeping to mattress (5) |
| FUTON—FU^N (great pleasure) contains TO
I had a hard time getting this, but it is originally just a mattress in Japanese use, but in modern Western use it usually means a mattress on a folding frame that converts between a sofa and a bed. |
|
| 7 | Cooler, manage and flourish (7) |
| FANFARE—FAN (cooler) + FARE (manage)
“How did you fare?”/”How did you manage?”. This was my LOI. |
|
| 11 | Page merchant developed something to write on (9) |
| PARCHMENT—P{age} + (MERCHANT)* | |
| 12 | Rapidly read out “Dance cancelled” (4,3) |
| REEL OFF—REEL (dance) + OFF (cancelled)
I liked this one, I imagined this a sign on a Scottish Church hall. |
|
| 14 | Liberal with a turn at the bar, spend extravagantly (4,3) |
| LASH OUT—L{iberal} + A SHOUT (a turn at the bar)
This has come up before in these puzzles, I always called spending “splashing out”, and reserve “lashing out” for unreasonably berating someone. On reflection I think that LASH OUT can be used for spending if the speaker doesn’t approve. |
|
| 16 | Tiny state broadcaster is precarious (5) |
| RISKY—RI (Rhode Island, the America’s smallest state) + SKY (broadcaster)
This was tricky, as plenty of babyish words for tiny end in -Y, which led to me seeing the clue backwards. (teeny, titchy, dinky, mimsy) |
|
| 18 | Cold soon, as a general rule (5) |
| CANON—C{old} + ANON (soon)
I didn’t know this meaning of Canon, I thought it was just an authorised or accepted body of works. But the original meaning (from the Greek for a measuring stick) is “a general rule”, as in the canons of good taste or the canons of fair play. |
|
| 20 | Energetic person reported in Indian state (3) |
| GOA— Sounds like “goer” (energetic person)
Since the famous “nudge nudge” python sketch I am sure “goer” now has a different sense : “Is your wife a… goer… eh? Know what I mean? Know what I mean? Nudge nudge. Nudge nudge. Know what I mean? Say no more.” |
|
6:47
FUTON took me a while, ironically. There are two futons, actually: a mattress (shikibuton 敷布団), which you lay on the floor, and a duvet (kakebuton 掛け布団).
ありがとうございました！
This was not too bad, but in the end I just couldn’t see fanfare, so I stopped the clock and went on to the main puzzle.
The puzzle is highly UK-centric, with faff, Huddersfield, lash out, and dab hand. As an experienced solver, I knew them all.
After finishing the main puzzle, I returned to this one and saw fanfare instantly, adding 1 second to my time.
Time: 11:18
6.57. I spent longer trying to figure out what was going on with Asterix up in the blog. The puzzle basically went straight in though WEAR THIN, my LOI, required all the crossers and was a clever clue I thought. Thanks Merlin and Teazel.
11 minutes. No problem seeing ‘flourish / FANFARE’ but took a moment to reconcile ‘manage / FARE’ along the same lines as our blogger.
4:42 for the Teazel, but still stuck on “O” = drinkable (or drunk) from the blog, assuming I got the other bits right.
The gladiator in the next panel provides the parsing, and says O=EAU (one drinks it). No homophone indicator, Goscinny let himself down a bit there. English translator did much better, but her father was Adrian Bell, the first Times cryptic crossword setter.
I like to think he had a hand in this.
In recent years I have read collected stories of Stefan Zweig (Pushkin press) and Austerlitz, WG Sebald, both translated by the late Anthea Bell, a master of her craft. I was of course a huge Asterix fan in my youth. Her son, Oliver Kamm, writes occasionally in The Times.
Her translation of Kafka is also brilliant.
Eau of course. Très bien.
Sounds like “eau”.
I’m another that had to take a moment to convince myself ‘manage’ clued ‘fare’. Before that a solid seven on the first pass of acrosses and then lots of downs. Hold ups on the way included WEAR THIN -needed all the checkers which is a pity because I’d have loved getting that from the excellent clue – and the crossing IFFY / RISKY pair. All green in 10.34.
12:03 Got held up by Risky Sock Fanfare which got me thinking about what3words and ///risky.sock.fanfare is near Regina, Saskatchewan. I feel a foible coming on.
TaMAT
15:36, which was very good for me
I thought Teazel was being quite benevolent today despite having a brain freeze trying to think of ‘field towns’ other than Chesterfield.
Started with FAFF and finished with COD WEAR THIN in 5.21.
Thanks to Merlin and Teazel.
.. likewise, and annoyingly CHESTER fitted with HOTEL and EVE
Sprinted through most of this, even with a question-mark over manage = fare in FANFARE, but well and truly breezeblocked by WEAR THIN. To say “Saving is a rather odd containment indicator”, as our blogger does, rather understates first my bafflement and then my reluctant understanding of what Teazel intended here!
Ten minutes or so until then, but a 16:08 completion when I finally cracked it. Many thanks Merlin for the blog.
Wakefield, Chesterfield, Sheffield … move on to the next clue.
Generally fast but got stuck on LOI RISKY (didn’t understand what “tiny state” was asking for and needed the blog for that) and the crossing GROUND/CANON. “Ground” feels a bit of a stretch for “crushed” to me, in that “ground” is turned into fine particles and “crushed” is just … well, splatted. But I’m sure there’ll be dictionary support so I’ll just mutter into my coffee (when I’ve got it).
All done in 06:04 for a Good Day. COD SHUDDERS. Many thanks Merlin and Teazel.
Doesn’t ground / crushed work in a food & drink context? e.g. pepper or coffee 🤷♂️
All pretty smooth, with no significant holdups. Couple of doubtful synonyms ( to me anyway) Fare/ manage, lash out/ spend extravagantly ( it means a violent outburst to me). Not sure convulsed/ shudders are quite the same tense. Liked SOCK.
Thanks to both – a pleasant start to the day.
On reflection ( and reading the blog properly…), the tense is of course fine – I’d associated the “ is” incorrectly. Sigh. Still don’t like fare/ manage though ( so there)
“How did you manage, today?” =
“How did you fare, today?”
They mean different things to me. “ How did you cope today”, “ How did the world treat you today”. Subtle, but distinct.
5:44 – not completely straightforward, but not difficult either. I thought it was marginally more difficult than yesterday, but SNITCH has exactly the same rating for now.
My query is ‘LASH OUT’. Like Merlin, I would never have used that to mean spend extravagantly, rather than SPLASH OUT. I’ve never heard of it in the sense required today, and that slowed me down.
Otherwise, plenty of great clues. COD to DAB HAND.
5:43
Off to a flyer with SHUDDERS – the first -field town I thought of. Felt I could have been a tad more on the ball towards the end where I was slow to see PARCHMENT and WEAR THIN, but can’t really complain. Used to sleep on a FUTON, so no problems there – surprisingly firm and comfortable.
Thanks Merlin and Teazel
Top half was (mostly) easy; SE corner hardest; but couldn’t make any sense of cooler (?icier? prison?), manage (run?) or flourish, so that one to the bad. Thanks Merlin for the various essential revelations (RI, and NHO turn at the bar).
I was sure it was Flay (exceptionally loudly =LY around A), and flay = fuss – but true, F is then left out in the cold. Nothing so very special about fff; it was first used by Biber in 1670, then Haydn and Beethoven. The first to write ffff (and fffff) was Tchaikovsky, but after that we’re in the extremes of the post-moderns. So I suppose you could argue it was “exceptionally loud” for 200 years.
Quite agree it’s always spLASH OUT but as you say this has appeared here before and it’s supported by the oracle dictionaries.
I momentarily made the same mistake of “exceptionally loudly” = LY but that’s because it’s similar to the “extremely” convention. I can’t see that “Exceptionally” works as an indicator to take first and last letters.
Thanks. Of course you’re right; I fell into the trap.
Had to look up Flourish for FANFARE. I thought of FAN but Fare? Oh yes, Fare thee well, as per the blog.
POI/PDM WEAR THIN.
I liked SHUDDERS, FUTON, REEL OFF and SOCK. And DAB HAND.
Thanks vm, Merlin.
9:40. Not quite as hard as I’d been expecting for a Teazel but still some difficult bits such as working out the parsing for RISKY. I liked FAFF – a good word to apply to many activities – and the WEAR THIN and SOCK juxtaposition across the grid which might have some relevance to my own wardrobe!
Thanks to Teazel and Merlin
A good but quite testing QC from Teazel, I thought, and very enjoyable. I finished in 18.25 which isn’t bad for me for a Teaser (and it seemed easier to me than yesterday’s Wurm. Quite a few PDMs – FAFF, FANFARE, IFFY, RISKY, REEL OFF, WEAR THIN plus my LOI SHUDDERS.
Thanks to Teazel and to Merlin (now to check my parsing with his help).
P.s. I have no idea what the stuff at the top of this page is (boxes to fill out Name, Email, Website, Message) when I am already logged in. Is it just me?
Looks like a Contact form.
Not just you, I’m also getting that today
With my admin priveleges, I was able to edit the post to remove it. I’m not quite sure how it can have got there.
Thanks, all. And many thanks for your quick response and action, JohnI.
DNF. Could not see FANFARE or WEAR THIN.
Like Doggins, I can’t get my head around “convulsed” and SHUDDERS. The clue should read “convulses”, or am I missing something?
Pi ❤️
I think the definition “is convulsed” works for “shudders”. “He is convulsed with laughter” / “he shudders with laughter”
A fast 5:54 for me, so no difficulties. FAFF seemed like a non-Times word but obvious enough.
Great word though, in both noun and verb. Expresses frustration without being too over the top.
8:15 for the solve and Quitch. FANFARE LOI with fingers crossed as couldn’t see the relevance of manage until post solve.
Thought the SW corner had potential to be difficult – especially the RISKY clue. I’m unsure whether “tiny state” is actually relating to Rhode Island being the smallest, or telling us to use the RI abbreviation or both. The “some” in the MOUSSE clue led me to go hunting for hidden words. WEAR-THIN was probably my COD.
Nice puzzle. Thanks to Teazel and to Merlin although not sure what the relevance of the Asterix anecdote is to the actual puzzle though?
Yeah, it doesn’t. I just came across the connection between the translator and her father, and thought I’d share it. Could have waited a long time for CLEOPATRA to appear on my blogging day. If it ever does, I’ll repost.
I see, it’s a charming little story.
17:15 – pretty good for a Teazel puzzle. A few holdups: FUTON, RISKY, LASH (not SPLASH?) OUT, FANFARE and WEAR THIN, but gettable/guessable with crossers in. A good start to the day.
A 16 minute plod. Took a while finding the correct northern city until DAB HAND helped me out but the biggest hold up was in the SW where REEL and RISKY were slow to appear. Like others I was uncertain about fanFARE but couldn’t think of anything else it could be.
COD to WEAR THIN but I did like FAFF too.
Thanks both.
4:06. Nothing too tricky here. PARENTAL is a bit of a chestnit, and we’ve had WEAR THEIN somewhere else recently. I liked LASH OUT best. Thanks Teazel and Merlin.
Certainly quicker than yesterday’s, slowish to get last two, 9a/7d, but otherwise plain sailing. Thanks Teazel and Merlin.
Another day when I was nearly finished in 10 minutes. I was a bit slow getting SHUDDERS but LOI FANFARE was the big hold-up taking me to 15 minutes.
I too wondered about LASH OUT.
David
Well that was frustrating! Five thirty two, but I obviously didn’t press the R key hard enough when I typed WEAT HINN. Drat! Thanks Teazel and Merlin.
16 minutes but needed an aid for FANFARE. Lots of good surfaces but I didn’t like that one much. All parsed except for the RI of RISKY.
FOI – 1ac SHUDDERS
LOI – 7dn FANFARE
COD – liked PARENTAL, TOASTING, REEL OFF and LASH OUT
Thanks to Teazel and Merlin
I was beaten by this one with 6 clues unanswered.
I too feel that shudders/convulsed did not sit right with me. Shuddered/Convulsed or shudders/convulses is what I feel it should have been, not a mix of the two.
Enjoyable puzzle though.
According to the blog, the literal is “is convulsed”, which can equate to shudders.
About 8 minutes, followed by 3 miserable minutes running an alphabet trawl on _ _ S _ Y (which turned out to be RISKY), followed by a DNF when I surrendered. I have learned the hard way that perseverance in such circumstances is a terrible idea.
I was very fortunate with IFFY, because immediately before starting the puzzle I was thinking about the lovely “Jiffy bags” clue in Friday’s 15×15.
Thank you for the blog!
Everything was going in smoothly (although FUTON went in from checkers) until I hit the SW corner. I struggled with IFFY, WEAR THIN and my LOI RISKY which I parsed after submitting. Thanks Merlin 7:04
Enjoyable 15m for me with MOUSSE and RISKY my last pair of crossers. Flourish immediately suggested FANFARE – a flourish of trumpets to announce an entrance, and Monteverdi’s Orfeo begins with a flourish. And fare is used all the time in Suffolk – “fare to me, it’ll be raining soon”. Ronald Blythe and George Ewart Evans both give lots of examples of different uses of fare, including manage. Blythe’s village deprived of field would be Aken. Enjoyed PARENTAL and DAB HAND, in fact lots of smiles throughout. The CANON in musical parlance includes the generally accepted doctrine, so no problems there. Thanks Teazel and Merlin – great fun!
My thanks to Teazel and Merlin.
Jolly puzzle no real problems but Fanfare was a slow one.
FWIW at 14d Lash Out; I use that more than Splash Out and without necessarily indicating disapproval.
An enjoyable puzzle from Teazel that kept me occupied for 8.45. Particularly liked SHUDDERS and for some reason was held up with my LOI PARENTAL in spite of having all the checkers. A great word FAFF which brought back some of my earliest memories, as my father used to affectionately call my mother Faff, as he considered she was habitually fussing around when he wanted to get on with things.
Lovely Teazel puzzle. WEAR THIN/RISKY were last two in, with COD to WEAR THIN for the fantastic surface (appreciated post-solve). Also enjoyed FAFF – such an expressive word. Many thanks both. Thoroughly enjoyed.
11 mins…
I think most of my thoughts have already been mentioned above. A tripe F in musical scores is fairly rare and I don’t think I’ve ever seen one whilst playing something for the piano. With regards to the other clues, “Lash Out” for 14dn still doesn’t feel right and it took the blog to see the Manage = Fare link for 7dn.
FOI – 4dn “Eve”
LOI – 7dn “Fanfare”
COD – 15ac “Wear Thin” – although I also did like 16dn “Risky”
Thanks as usual!
Too esoteric for me (again), resulting in yet another DNF. 50+ minutes of toil before giving up with five clues unsolved and some others only faintly written in.
I was beaten by WEAR THIN (couldn’t parse), RISKY (lack of GK), CANON (poor vocabulary), SOCK (no checkers) and LASH OUT (NHO in that sense). ATTEND, FANFARE, SHUDDERS and TOASTING all had un-cancelled question marks when I jacked it in.
I think I’m no longer part of The Times’ target audience for this puzzle, so maybe I should switch back to Sudokus and Killers – they’re so much easier.
Thanks to Merlin and Teazel.
Do stay. We SCClubbers need you.
I’d love you to stay, Mr Random. How about this: decide on a cut-off time, at 30 minutes, unless it’s going well?
A half-hour cut-off sounds a good idea, Mme Pam. I could stop at that point and report my progress (or otherwise) and deliberately wait until later to finish off if I so wished. I’ll give your suggestion a go. Many many thanks.
👍
11.22 FAFF, FANFARE, RISKY and WEAR THIN were the slow ones. Thanks Merlin and Teazel.
Took me 19:42, way over my average and way worse than the snitch indicates. Teazel and I are rarely on the same wavelength but I do enjoy their puzzles
All but 5 clues solved in 25 mins. Slowly learning clues that are familiar to the speedy solvers but no obvious improvement over time!
17:11
Felt like a game of two halves, quick start and then a slow finish. It actually felt like two distinct sets of clue difficulty, though thankfully, the ratio of easy to difficult was perfect for me.
Drew a blank with my second from LOI then realised what ‘cooler’ indicated, leaving FAN_ _ _E.
As others, it took a while to get FARE from ‘manage’.
FOI: FAFF
LOI: PARENTAL
COD: WEAR THIN
Thanks to Teazel and Merlin
I found this relatively hard (as usual).
However, ‘lash out’ for extravagance wasn’t a surpise – at least to someone who was brought up on The Famous Five and ‘lashings of ginger beer’, and who had colleagues who used to talk of going out ‘on the lash’ on the weekend.
In fact the OED has it as obsolete: To lavish, squander. Chiefly with out.
The last example they give is from Joyce’s Ulysses:
“ You cant get on in this world without style all going in food and rent when I get it Ill lash it around I tell you in fine style.”
They don’t where dab hand comes from, though…
Many thanks to the original setter and for the explanations!
20 mins. One clue taking a good 5 mins at the end (fanfare – and I had the fan part for most of that time too!). Apart from that grim alphabet trawl to finish, enjoyable solve.
FOI Faff
LOI Fanfare
COD Toasting
Thanks Teazel and Merlin
Stumped by WEAR THIN and had’ well then’ pencilled in,which spoilt RISKY for me, otherwise all okay , but nho FUTON as mattress, not sofa, but was successful biff
I was able to do this as well. 2 days in a row. Wow. Took me 34 minutes but did it. Compared to the above times. Took me awhile to figure out why FUTON was the answer. I can understand including Huddersfield in the parsing but why on earth and how do we consider using RI in RISKY for Rhodes Island!!!!! Thanks for the heads up on parsing this clue. CANON I had heard of so was surprised when I passed it after putting it the answer. Jiffy has appeared in in the past few days. 👌
9:46 for me, with WEAR THIN getting my COD award.
Thanks to Teazel and Merlin, especially for the Asterix story.
5.38. Short and sweet.
09:52. I started strongly but GROUND to a halt in the lower half for no discernable reason. A really nice puzzle offering some challenges as well as a few sitters. thanks both!
I’ve just discovered, after several years of doing QCs, that I can have the timer off, during the solve (my preference), but find out at the end how long I took.
So, 13 mins and 23 sec, today. I’m not usually on Teasel’s wavelength, but thoroughly enjoyed this one.
Thank you, Teasel and Merlin.
No nice chair in the SCC for me today, DNF by 4 WEAR THIN, SOCK, RISKY and IFFY. Frustrated by WEAR THIN where I had thought of WIN and EARTH but had no clue about putting one in the other (saving???)
And definitely in the club of those who think LASH OUT means physical violence.