Not too tricky, though there was a lot of biffing. Some of the clues have rather a lot of moving parts which may trouble some. I quite like 3dn and 4 dn. 7 minutes for me.
| Across | |
| 1 | Travel document shown by directors in Golf? I don’t know (8,4) |
| BOARDING PASS – BOARD (directors) + IN + G (golf, NATO alphabet) + PASS (I don’t know) | |
| 8 | Bird’s name given to music party (5) |
| RAVEN – RAVE + N | |
| 9 | Exclamation of surprise with herb appearing in floral arrangement (7) |
| CORSAGE – COR! + SAGE. | |
| 10 | Last characters in text indicate uncertain number (3) |
| TEN – last letters of texT indicatE uncertaiN | |
| 11 | A new suggestion regarding opening course (9) |
| ANTIPASTO – A + N + TIP + AS TO | |
| 13 | Fine place for mascara that’s overly decorative (5) |
| FLASH – F + LASH | |
| 14 | Attempt meeting of bridge opponents, for example (5) |
| ESSAY – E[ast] + S[outh] (bridge opponents) + SAY | |
| 16 | Most of each part of the golf-course staying fresh (9) |
| EVERGREEN – EVER[y] + GREEN | |
| 17 | An opening for trainee soldier (3) |
| ANT – AN + T[rainee] | |
| 19 | Thin material turned fat, horribly fat, with infusion of energy (7) |
| TAFFETA – TAF (‘fat’ turned) + anagram (‘horribly’) of FAT, with E for energy inserted. | |
| 21 | Material business in place before November (5) |
| LINEN – LINE (business)+ N (NATO again) | |
| 22 | Australian monarch getting defamation (12) |
| QUEENSLANDER – QUEEN + SLANDER | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Exploded item of statuary incorporating King (5) |
| BURST – BUST with R inserted | |
| 2 | A TV and broadcast age offering benefit (9) |
| ADVANTAGE – anagram (‘horribly’) of A TV AND + AGE | |
| 3 | Treatment of teeth: repositioned in head gently, with minimum of effort (6,7) |
| DENTAL HYGIENE – anagram (‘repositioned’) of IN HEAD GENTLY + E for effort. | |
| 4 | Subtlety? Good attempt, but not right (6) |
| NICETY – NICE TRY minus R | |
| 5 | Various items — a harp, a praline — scattered around (13) |
| PARAPHERNALIA – anagram (‘scattered around’) of A HARP A PRALINE | |
| 6 | Father supporting Southern resort (3) |
| SPA – S + PA | |
| 7 | Iron company avoiding settlement is a criminal act (6) |
| FELONY – FE is iron. COLONY is settlement. Take off CO for company | |
| 12 | America turned dirty on a continuing basis (9) |
| SUSTAINED – US backwards + STAINED | |
| 13 | Celebration, after loss of heart, encourages and cheers (6) |
| FIESTA – FIRES minus the middle letter + TA | |
| 15 | Inclines to have millions invested in race venue (2,4) |
| LE MANS – LEANS with M for millions inserted | |
| 18 | Singer partly prone to getting upset (5) |
| TENOR – reverse hidden word: pRONE To | |
| 20 | Viral infection was airborne, according to radio report (3) |
| FLU – sounds like ‘flew’ | |
All that money spent on our education, and we still can’t spell paraphernalia . . .
. . .well it’s quite hard to work out where a silent ‘r’ goes 😉
7:00 on the nose (that’s twice this week) to match Plusjeremy.
Like others, didn’t see the parsing for the LONY part of FELONY – everything else was OK.
Thanks Pedro and Curarist
I think that I have a wonky crossword brain! For me Queenslander was a write in (what else could it be) while I only got ant because eventually it could not be anything else. With regard to the 15 x 15 anyone who doesn’t think 8 across is brilliant has not understood the parsing. Great misdirection both in the definition and the wordplay!
. . .and grammar
Or (like me) they have been stalking deer all their lives and thought it was a write in
What a difference compared with last week. Last week was 1/5 solved, this week 4/5 (and just one clue stopped it being 5/5. Thanks for a run of crosswords that provide some encouragement to those of us living in the far reaches of the SCC.
Well done DaveC – certainly a better week for those of us frequenting the SCC
13.30 A bit quicker than the last few days. The first pass only yielded about a quarter of the answers and I got stuck for a while but BURST led to BOARDING PASS and the rest flew in with much biffing. Enjoyable.
I thought it was antEpasto as ante means ‘in front, before’ eg ante meridian whereas anti means ‘against’ as in opposed to something.
As antipasto is an Italian starter I thought maybe the derivation would have meant ‘before the pasta’ rather than ‘against’ the pasta!
Luckily the checkers prevented me from a red letter!
I was somewhere around the 30 min mark for this one, so back in usual territory after some extraordinary highs and lows recently.
I loved this QC, but was a little disappointed to come on here and see so many great times. I thought I had done extremely well with a hard offering from Pedro, but my time looks like nothing special.
Perhaps it wasn’t as hard as I thought, but it struck me as tricky, with some fantastic wordplay and misdirection.
FOI – BOARDING PASS
LOI – LE MANS (breeze block ish)
PDM – QUEENSLANDER
COD – ANTIPASTO
Great blog as always Curarist.
I hope everyone has a good weekend. I’ve got to work tomorrow unfortunately ☹️
I did this hours ago – I wonder if anyone is even reading the blog at this time of the evening! It’s been a busy day.
13:50 – I often struggle to unravel Pedro’s clues for some reason. I tried to put drivers pass in at 1a, getting quite cross that it should be ‘licence’ when I realised I was going in the wrong direction! Once I got BURST, everything fell into place 😅 But it was a bit of a plod. I biffed FELONY – thanks for the explanation Curarist.
My weekly total was a nicely palindromic 50:05 – but doesn’t entirely count as I had one letter wrong at the beginning of the week.
FOI Burst LOI Corsage COD Paraphernalia made me smile
Thanks Pedro and Curarist
Hello Penny,
I also have read your post, albeit just now (Sat. pm). Your 50 minutes total for the week is mighty impressive, but does my 5-0 (in a total of 2hrs 25 mins) trump your 4-1 result? If thge truth be told, I don’t think it does.
Btw: I finally finished Sandy Balfour’s ‘Pretty Girl In Crimson Rose (8)’. An entertaining read, so thank-you once again. I will pass it on to another like-minded friend.
Enjoy your weekend!
Glad you enjoyed the book 😊 MrB is enjoying A Fabulous Creation and will get it back to you in the next few weeks. BTW we now have a red Honda Civic. Not a batmobile though 😅
I’m reading it Penny (before an early night), so your post wasn’t in vain! I look forward to the day when my weekly time is under the hour mark. There are still days when a single QC takes me perilously close to this.
Gary 😊
Imagine only taking 50mins for the week 😮 This was probably my quickest week ever (1hr51+). I’m thinking a sub 1hr40 week is the equivalent of escaping the SCC – at least as a first stepping stone.
My times are gradually improving and this year has just one solve over the hour, which turns out to have been Pedro’s other contribution! There’s a
It reminds me of my golf days. One bad round for a pro can destroy a pro’s tournament. One bad hole can destroy what had been a good round. Improvement comes by wiping out the shanks and thins so that nothing too bad ever happens. Then slowly honing the accuracy.
Sorry to hear you’re working tomorrow GA – but at least you won’t have the QC to distract you 😉
Imagine taking only 1 hr 51 mins for the week. Well done, Mr Plates! I took 2 hrs 25 mins in total, for an average of 29 minutes. Sub-30 was almost unheard of a year or so ago, so I am very pleased with this outcome. Good luck next week!
That’s real progress Mr R, well done!
A good week L-Plates, very well done. We are all getting better (slowly), but it’s a long old process.
I avoid crosswords on a weekend, work or not. It heightens my enthusiasm for the battle on Monday.
😀
Hello SRC, L-P and Gary A. Considering you guys are all recent residents of Crosswordland, I think you should all be immensely proud of yourselves. You’ve stuck with it through thick and thin and you can solve in times you might not have dreamt of a year or two ago 😊
There are plenty here who probably achieve an average of well under half an hour a week. I’ve been doing these since the beginning and I think I’ve reached my level! In any case, as has been said many times before, for me it’s about the time spent enjoying the challenge, not the actual time. I’m not going to pretend that I don’t get a liitle rush when I have A Very Good Day, but it’s not my main focus!
And yes, Random – your 5-0 definitely trumps 4-1. A mistake is a mistake!
That’s very kind of you to say Penny. I think we do sometimes forget the progress we have all made. One thing I am apt to forget is that, when I began, I was using a list of the most common abbreviations as an aid, whereas now I solve unaided.
You are also right to emphasise that it is embracing the challenge which really matters. That was why I enjoyed Friday’s QC so much.
I hope you’ve had a good weekend.
Gary 😊
👍
A very late comment as was not around yesterday due to a celebration at Claridge’s (name dropping like mad!)
Found it hard and biffed some. Antipasto in particular.