QC1609 by Juno – VEry CleVEr!

Author   JohninterredPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

What fun! A great piece of grid filling by Juno to mark today’s anniversary… and some pretty good clues too. I was about 1/2 way through solving before I realised exactly what was going on.  My LOI was 20D, which was a write-in given the theme – you surely can’t have missed that every answer incudes “VE”? I was a bit slow to start but finished just a few seconds over 5 minutes, so, with the aid of the theme, I don’t think it can be too hard. But I’m sure you will let me know if I got that wrong! COD to 14A for the lovely incorporation of the theme in the surface, but 15A is pretty good too. Beautifully done, Juno. Thanks! How did you all like it?

Definitions underlined in bold italics, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, deletions and [] other indicators.

Across
7 Annoying very old partner, one no good (6)
VEXING – V (very) EX (old partner) I (one) NG (no good).
8 Gutted, venerable European socialist changed direction (6)
VEERED – VenerablE without its middle letters [gutted] E (European) RED (socialist).
9 More intelligent installing bar in church? Right! (8)
CLEVERER – Insert [installing… in] LEVER (bar) in CE (Church of England; church) R (right). Bar in a church? Yes it can be done… like in the marvellous Michaelhouse Centre in Cambridge.
10 Turning back periodically unnerves Swede, perhaps (4)
SVEN – Alternate letters [periodically] of uNnErVeS reversed [turning back].
11 Suddenly turn to render assistance, grabbing wife (6)
SWERVE – SERVE (render assistance) outside [grabbing] W (wife).
13 Worked out only daughter’s about five (6)
SOLVED – SOLE (only) D (daughter) [about] V (five).
14 US ex-serviceman, seventy-five today? Much less than that (3)
VET – Neatly hidden [much less than that] in seventy-fiVE Today. Lovely surface. VE day was, of course, 75 years ago today.
15 Struggle to eat what’s laid for breakfast? One would if it’s bacon (6)
VEGGIE – VIE (struggle) outside [to eat] EGG (what’s laid for breakfast) and an all-in-one semi-&lit cryptic definition. Laid for breakfast. Ho ho! VEGGIE is short for vegetarian – if you were one you wouldn’t be wanting the bacon.
17 Prevents vast reforms overwhelming monarch (6)
AVERTS – (vast)* [reforms] outside [overwhelming] ER (The Queen; monarch).
19 14 having zero power to stop (4)
VETO – VET (answer to 14A) O (zero).
20 Better than average sort of pea — bravo! (5,3)
ABOVE PAR – [sort of] (pea – bravo)*. Mind you, at golf “above par” is worse not better.
22 Hard to translate verse? Easy at first (6)
SEVERE – [translate] (verse)* Easy [at first].
23 Flatter male TV personage in the bar, last of all (6)
EVENER – last letters of [last of all] malE TV personagE iN thE baR.
Down
1 ’E tucked into girl’s meat (4)
VEAL – ‘E inside [tucked into] VAL (girl).
2 Second prize for pirate (6)
SILVER – Double definition. The second referring to Long John Silver.
3 Give gear mistakenly, causing distress (8)
AGGRIEVE – (Give gear)* [mistakenly].
4 High temperature not starting at any time (4)
EVER – fEVER (High temperature)* [not starting].
5 Elves wandering around close to this craft (6)
VESSEL – (Elves)* [wandering] [around] [close to] thiS.
6 Furious, means to escape across English border (8)
VEHEMENT – VENT (means to escape) [across] E (English) HEM (border).
12 At unspecified place in meadow, he reverses (8)
WHEREVER – Hidden [in] meadoW HE REVERses.
13 Voter, say, unexpectedly to be a Remainer? (4,4)
STAY OVER – (Voter, say)* [unexpectedly]. A bit of a cheeky definition.
16 Crawl, lazily, at first, beneath small plantation (6)
GROVEL – Lazily [at first] [beneath] GROVE (small plantation).
18 Football or cricket team’s prime? (6)
ELEVEN – Cryptic definition. There are ELEVEN players on a football or cricket team and 11 is a prime number.
20 Welcome small bird’s class (4)
AVES – AVE (welcome in Latin) S (small). “Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves.”
21 Declare a vicar has turned up (4)
AVER – A REV (vicar) [turned up] -> VER.

55 comments on “QC1609 by Juno – VEry CleVEr!”

  1. Well, I sure as hell missed the VE pattern; just plodded along, noticing nothing in particular. Slowed down in particular by EVENER (talk about not noticing: ‘last of all’ took forever to register), SILVER (stuck on ‘second’=S? MO?), and VEGGIE (where I come from, that means vegetables not vegetarian). 7:05, or a projected 2 Phils.

    Edited at 2020-05-08 02:52 am (UTC)

  2. Victory in Europe! Nice one Juno! It probably took less time than my miserable 14 minutes to construct.

    FOI 1dn VEAL

    LOI 5dn VESSEL

    COD All ov’em!

    WOD VE DAY!

    The real challenge will be 14 August!

    1. You mean Venerate Jordan day. It would have been Martin’s 46th birthday….
      1. I will light a candle at our little shrine for him on that day. Bless.
    2. Was it not 15 August? I have always believed it was because that was my mother’s birthday so easy to remember.

      Cedric

  3. I’m kicking myself for spotting the VE theme but not spotting that it included every word – my 23m (all green at least) could have been rather better. All of the first five went straight in so I thought I was on for another fast one but then only got two of the remaining acrosses and struggled from there. Partly of my own making, especially where I somehow decided 3d was enumerated 4,4 not 8. Definitely needed the hints to unravel how VEHEMENT worked – I had EH from English border and then VEMENT as a ‘means of escape’, which was clearly not right but with those checkers and that definition it had to be. But I took the longest over the two four letter words VETO and AVES. VETO because I was trying to use XIV not the answer to 14a (where I missed the hidden) and O and AVES because I just couldn’t see which end of the clue to start and not even considering ‘bird’s class’ as the definition – finally solved thanks to Asterisk comics and remembering the VE theme.
  4. 10 minutes. I noticed the abundance of V’s for Victory long before realising they were in every word and followed by E in every case. The setter also deserves kudos for having V’s as a line of unches at Row 11, each with E below in keeping with the theme.
  5. Thank you Juno and the crossword editor! I do enjoy themes and ninas. Got through this in about 26 mins – that’s okay for me – helped by spotting the VE before I’d finished the acrosses, though had to guess AVES. Also VEGGIES was a bit of a punt as I’m not sure I fully understand what’s going on there.
    1. I’ve updated the blog to make it clearer how the clkue for VEGGIES works.
    1. I’m rather hoping people do the crossword before visting TimesforTheTimes. If the title is a spoiler for some, then my apologies.
      1. John, anyone who comes here before trying to do the puzzle deserves it.
    2. Why on earth would you think this, kpc?

      Edited at 2020-05-08 07:33 am (UTC)

      1. The capitalisation in “VEry cleVEr” could be a giveaway, but why would you come here first anyway ?!
        1. Exactly, but in any case my understanding is the only embargo is on giving away ANSWERS in the title of the blog, and this is not an answer.

          BTW, the very name Juno as setter might have alerted regulars to the possibility of something special going on. She (?) has given us only 10 puzzles over the past 6 years and all of the last 3 have contained Ninas.

          Edited at 2020-05-08 10:28 am (UTC)

          1. Glad I didn’t break any of the rules with my title (are they written down anywhere?), but I couldn’t resist. I reckoned, as Kevin says, anyone who comes here before doing the crossword… just shouldn’t.
  7. I found this tricky in places and got very stuck on my last three SVEN, VEHEMENT (which I never parsed) and AVES. In desperation I started looking for typos to see if that was why I couldn’t solve them which is when I spotted the nina and all became clear. I thought VEGGIE was particularly clever. Finished in 13.28.
    Thanks to john and Juno
  8. Got a bit stuck on this and failed to see the VE message.
    After a couple of days of trying to go too fast, I tried to parse all these clues before submitting. My last 3 were Vehement (tricky parsing I thought), Aves (not a word I was sure of) and Evener which I had biffed then removed as I couldn’t parse it at first. Finally went back to Evener with 16:15 on the clock. COD to Veggie.
    Thanks to John for unravelling this and congratulations to Juno for a brilliant,topical puzzle. David
  9. Didn’t find this easy and didn’t twig VE – I just thought there were a lot of Vs – doh! I was on target (under 2.1K) but failed to finish – AVES was beyond me. Never heard of it but I suppose avian is a derivative. I might have managed it if I’d looked at the developing grid and really thought about the Vs. Ah well. A brilliant effort from Juno – VEry, VEry cleVEr but I’ll be kicking myself all day for having had the blinkers on. Thanks also to john. LoVEd the blog – now to moVE back and go oVEr it again. Wish I could reVErse the clock. I craVE your forgiveness but this solVEr is a bit peeVEd. John M.

    Edited at 2020-05-08 09:09 am (UTC)

  11. I rarely spot themes until they’re pointed out and today was no exception. Very clever indeed! No problems solving the clues and came in at 9:05. Thanks Juno and John.
  12. Like Kevin, I solved in blissful ignorance of the theme, then kicked myself when I came here and saw the blog. 18 minutes for me, and struggled mostly in the SE, with EVENER LOI. I was unsatisfied by the grid and clues until John pointed out the cleverness in his blog title, now I am impressed. Well done Juno, you definitely got one oVEr on me.
  13. I came to this wondering if there might be a bit of a theme for the day, so I picked up on it right from the start, which was an enormous help! Still took a while to work out Vehement however. Hadn’t noticed the VE rows at the bottom however until it was pointed out by jackkt. Excellent work by Juno.
    Plymouthian
  14. Shave over 15 mins with a few interruptions.

    Missed the theme, must be the crossword mind solving zone.

    COD wherever or veggie.

    Edited at 2020-05-08 09:57 am (UTC)

  15. I spotted the NINA on my third solVE. You would haVE thought that this would haVE resulted in a PB but it didn’t. It did mean that I scored 0.95 on the Kevin scale. HaVE a great day eVEryone!
  16. ….CLEVERER than some by spotting the possibility of the theme straight away, and being certain of it only three clues in. But despite that assistance, I was still bang on my target time before it was SOLVED. My problem was the SVEN/VEHEMENT intersection. I have terrible trouble with reverse hiddens, especially when the letters are alternate, and I do wonder if it’s a symptom of my dyspraxia.

    EVENER was parsed afterwards.

    An excellent puzzle from Juno, and thanks for the blog John.

    FOI VEXING
    LOI VEHEMENT
    COD VEGGIE

  17. glad I spotted the NINA, which was helpful, done in 7:41, thought the wherever hidden was very clever. Thanks blogger and Juno.
  18. I came to do this immediately after the two minutes silence and was delighted to get the VA’s after the second clue.
    Thank you.
    Didn’t spot row 11 though.

    Diana

  19. Well, I spotted the VE theme four clues in, and thought I had been a bit slow to pick it up… Anyway it helped enormously with some of the trickier clues, apart that is from loi Vehement, and allowed me to finish in just over 14mins (nearly got you this time, Plett). I think that has to go down as ‘wind assisted’, but fun while it lasted. My thanks to Juno and John, and especially to those who we remember today. Invariant
  20. I spotted it after about 5 clues (which to be fair is pretty rare), but still only managed to complete it in about 25 mins, mainly because I found the top half quite difficult.

    In terms of recognising today’s anniversary then I think it was an admirable achievement, however in a strange way knowing that all of the clues contained “VE” kind of spoiled it (purely from a technical solving point of view mind).

    FOI – 11ac “Swerve”
    LOI – 6dn “Vehement”
    COD – 15ac “Veggie”

    Thanks as usual.

  22. Did not get Veggie or Aves! Had I been more patient I might haVE done.
    Mixed bag, some VEry easy and some not so, for me.
  23. Like oldblighter I thought there were a lot of Vs but I remained completely oblivious to the theme until being enlightened by this blog. Very, very clever! Luckily I found it relatively easy for the most part even without the added assistance of the them. Just slowed up a bit in the NE by the Sven/Vehement crossing.

    FOI 9ac Cleverer
    LOI 6dn Vehement
    COD 15ac Veggie

    Thanks to Juno and blogger

  24. I thought that was brilliant. Bravo, Juno. What a feat. I was on alert as soon as I saw “Juno”- not because I remembered Juno as a Nina-fiend, but because I thought we might get a Normandy beach theme. Sword and Omaha never appeared but I very soon spotted VE and it was an immense help in hurtling to a second sub-K (0.95 but hey) in a week. A Red Letter Week! I don’t think I’d ever have got AVES without the Nina.

    FOI VEXING, LOI AVES, COD VEGGIE

    Super, super puzzle. Thanks Juno, and thanks for a great blog John.

    Templar

  25. Interestingly, we plod through the QC separately and then together to compare answers, parsing as we go. It takes 45 mins or more, but that is unimportant. The whole point is the mental exercise. So I’m very puzzled by the fact that I spotted the VE theme on the third clue I completed. Is my brain differently wired from the very fast solvers, or what??
  26. I was a bit slow to spot the VE pattern but, once I had, this helped a lot although it still took me just over 18 minutes to complete.
    I loved VEGGIE but biffed VEHEMENT and I didn’t know that birds were part of the AVES family so thanks for the blog, John.

  27. the VEs after 3 clues. A bit more difficult than usual, even knowing that VE had to go somewhere! 9:27 for me.

    Well done to Juno and thanks to johninterred for the blog.

  28. Rara avis , rare bird, should have guessed that one.

    Thanks all round, as ever

  29. We saw the theme fairly quickly which was a great help. Could not parse vehement, but again helped by the theme. Aves came to the mind from somewhere. A fun puzzle, thanks Juno.

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