This is only Beck’s 7th QC since his first in November 2022, and his first of 2024. I found it tougher than most and needed 13:53 to complete it – some of the anagrams took a lot of teasing out, and there is one clue (10A) that I biffed and then took longer to parse than the whole puzzle took to complete.
That apart, the puzzle has I hope something for everyone – some nice and not too obscure GK, some words coined in the 21st century, which makes a nice change from the archaisms we sometimes see, and one of the cleverest hiddens I have seen.
Thank you Beck for an enjoyable puzzle.
An Anniversary: tomorrow sees the 10th anniversary of the introduction of the QC on 10 March 2014. I am honoured to be blogging ‘the last of the first decade’ – in that time the QC has given a lot of pleasure to many people, so a big thank you to all the setters who have created the puzzles for us.
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, deletions and [] other indicators.
| Across | |
| 1 | Feeling of dismay with smile after tea (7) |
| CHAGRIN – CHA (tea) + GRIN (smile, “after” the cuppa). I often smile after a nice mug of tea. | |
| 5 | Lentil dish picked up for children’s author (4) |
| DAHL – The author is Roald Dahl (1916-90), whose name sounds like (ie “picked up” by the ear) the dish of lentils called Dal. Or Dhal. Or sometimes even Dahl, so this could even be a Double Definition. | |
| 7 | Hold up cup (3) |
| MUG – A much more straightforward DD, no argument about this one. | |
| 8 | Literary rascal perhaps cracked up on the air (8) |
| ANTIHERO – (on the air)*, the anagram indicator being “cracked up”. | |
| 10 | Running small broadcast leads to boredom (5) |
| ENNUI – My LOI and biffed from the definition and checkers. The parsing came later – a lot later – and is made up of ON (running, as in “the machine is running/is on”) + WEE (small), with ON-WEE then sounding like (“broadcast”) ENNUI.
Devilishly complex, and hats off to Beck for this one. Ennui is a favourite word of setters, possibly because it is the only one I know of that goes E-N-I, and our setter has done well to pull something new out of the bag for a word which has been seen several times before. |
|
| 11 | Beer with strange name in area of Rio (7) |
| IPANEMA – Constructed from IPA (India Pale Ale, a type of beer) + NEMA, anagram of (“strange”) name. Ipanema is indeed a district of Rio de Janeiro, with a fine beach and an even finer song from the 1960s “The Girl from Ipanema”, which I suspect will be how most solvers arrive at the answer. | |
| 13 | Some threw a stereo, old printers, and computers, say (1-5) |
| E-WASTE – A clever hidden, in thrEW A STEreo. In this age where everything is disposable and nothing is worth repairing, old printers and computers are indeed fit only for the recycling centre, and are thus electronic waste. | |
| 15 | Ship five initial pieces of extra spicy salami: eat lots (6) |
| VESSEL – V (five) + the first letters (“initial pieces”) of Extra Spicy Salami Eat Lots. | |
| 17 | Computer test used in diagnostic: apt challenge (7) |
| CAPTCHA – An even more stunning hidden, in diagnostiC APT CHAllenge. Captcha is the name given to the various ways in which we have to prove on websites that we are human not some sort of AI or bot; the surface is a little clunky with the colon, but one forgives our setter for this when the hidden is of this quality and originality. | |
| 18 | Friend with lots of flowers about to bloom? (5) |
| BUDDY – A Double Definition: a flower that is about to bloom will be in bud and so could be said to be buddy. | |
| 20 | Outlaw carved up hip to rib (8) |
| PROHIBIT – (hip to rib)*, with the anagram indicator being “carved up” and outlaw being the verb not the noun form of the word. | |
| 22 | Ring of flowers put down we’re told (3) |
| LEI – A LEI is a wreath or garland of flowers, most common in Polynesia or Hawaii, and it sounds like (“we’re told”) Lay, as in Lay down. | |
| 23 | German water found in Amstel beer (4) |
| ELBE – The German river Elbe, hidden in (“found in”) AmstEL BEer. | |
| 24 | Exposed to risk alongside vampire killer (2,5) |
| AT STAKE – AT (indicated by “alongside”) + STAKE (vampire killer). The parsing is clear, even if using Alongside to indicate At was not immediately obvious to me, but a ship can be “alongside a quay” as well as “at a quay” so it is fair enough. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Ability to engage with Northern church (10) |
| COMPETENCE – COMPETE (engage) + N (Northern) + CE (Church, ie Church of England). | |
| 2 | Gas industry talk starting late (5) |
| ARGON – Industry talk gives us JARGON, from which the first letter is dropped (ie “starting late”). I’ve not met the device “starting late” to mean take off the first letter before, but the meaning is clear. | |
| 3 | Unusual recital is true to life (9) |
| REALISTIC – (recital is)*, with “unusual” being one of the less obscure anagram indicators. | |
| 4 | In turning up one idiot, finding another (6) |
| NITWIT – NI (ie In “turning up”) + TWIT (an idiot), giving another idiot. Of course “another” only makes sense as the definition if one reads the whole clue. | |
| 5 | Boy am I dumb turning over this builder’s carrier (3) |
| DOH – The builder’s carrier is a HOD, which is then reversed (“turned over”). Sometimes spelt D’OH, but we ignore apostrophes in crosswords.
The DOH-HOD combination came up about 2½ weeks ago (QC 2603 on 26 February) where Jalna set the clue “How silly of me to overturn this carrying trough” and the answer that time was HOD. Which excited much comment from those who thought that Hod was the wordplay to be turned upside down, not the answer. Today’s clue from Beck is much clearer! |
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| 6 | Difficulty dropping duke’s race horse equipment (7) |
| HARNESS – HARDNESS (“difficulty”) with the D (for Duke) deleted. | |
| 9 | Beery in-law’s drunk strong ale (6,4) |
| BARLEY WINE – (beery in-law)*, with the anagram indicator being “drunk”. A deceptive clue, as despite being called a wine, the drink is actually a beer, usually strong, as the clue says, and sometimes very strong indeed. Some barley wines are up to 12% ABV, which is certainly wine-strength. | |
| 12 | Embitters one Republican motel owner Norman (9) |
| ACERBATES – an IKEA clue made up of ACE (one) + R (Republican) + BATES (Norman Bates, the motel owner in the film Psycho). I biffed this answer, and then had to resort to the internet to check that Norman the motel owner was indeed a Mr Bates. | |
| 14 | Clothing: dismay when note found inside (7) |
| APPAREL – APPAL (ie dismay, taking the verb meaning of the word) with RE (a note in the Do-Re-Mi scale) included inside it. | |
| 16 | Innocent U.S. lawyer gets overseas letter (6) |
| LAMBDA – LAMB (our stock innocent) + DA (US lawyer, D.A. standing for District Attorney), giving us the Greek letter Lambda (Λ, λ). | |
| 19 | River feature’s made-up detail I ignored (5) |
| DELTA – (detal)*, being detail with the I deleted (“ignored”), with the anagram indicator being “made-up”.
Two Greek letters in a row, but I think only a coincidence as I cannot see any others to indicate a theme. |
|
| 21 | Garden tool cut off the top of footwear (3) |
| HOE – SHOE (footwear), with “cut off the top” indicating that we delete the initial S. | |
10:37
Felt somewhat slow today and like Cedric had a problem parsing ENNUI – got it only after completion. Similar with the seemingly obvious APPAREL. Liked IPANEMA, E-WASTE and CAPTCHA.
Thanks to Beck (sorry, the nina was miles over my head) and to Cedric for the elucidations
gave up, didn’t enjoy.
So glad to hear that I wasn’t the only one perplexed by ennui – thanks for the parsing!!
I didn’t get LAMBDA – I reckoned it was a greek letter but I can’t rattle off the alphabet, if I’d looked at it, I might have picked up on lambda – but I was falling asleep at the stage.
QC – doing it’s job. I do it in bed as a way to turn my brain off from the day’s whizzing thoughts, and sometimes fall asleep pen in hand!!
Didn’t do this on Saturday as out in a craft beer taproom – which perhaps made barley wine come to mind a little more easily. After DNF on Thurs/Fri, I found this surprisingly friendly. And got through it in 16 minutes although leaving ennui unparsed and guessing at Lambda.
Congratulations to The Times and our esteemed blogger for my years of mental exercise and enjoyment here. I rarely venture to the Biggie, happy as I am here (and oft in the SCC), although the occasional excursion makes me appreciate here all the more. Here’s to many more.
A friendly exercise today, avoiding the SCC in celebration.