A little bit harder than usual, I think. Lots of history-related answers but if there’s a theme, I can’t spot it. I earned a pink square for being ignorant of philosophers and their spelling. One or two slightly tricksy clues and a couple of chestnuts. In the end I managed a par time of 6 minutes (ish).
Oh, and it’s a pangram, too.
| Across | |
| 1 | Part of shoe Alf’s found in cavity (4-4) |
| HALF-SOLE – ALF’S inside HOLE | |
| 5 | Audibly milk sheep (4) |
| EWES – Sounds like ‘USE’ | |
| 9 | Curtailed the strange monotonous sound (5) |
| THRUM – TH[ |
|
| 10 | Early Egyptian king initially relished cooked sesame (7) |
| RAMESES – R[elished] + anagram (‘cooked’) of SESAME | |
| 11 | Unmarried girl with rook finding English hillfort (6,6) |
| MAIDEN CASTLE – self-explanatory. I was not familiar with the term, which apparently derives from the Celtic ‘mai dun’ meaning great hill. There are several of these dotted around England | |
| 13 | At the end, notable player posed with unknown substitute (6) |
| ERSATZ – E R (ends of ‘notable player’) + SAT (posed) + Z (unknown) | |
| 15 | Somewhere in Canada, plaque becomes visible somewhat (6) |
| QUEBEC – hidden word | |
| 17 | Antique coach given to couple — it might represent preferential treatment (3,6,3) |
| OLD SCHOOL TIE – Self-explanatory | |
| 20 | Relative emptied out Austin that’s dirty (7) |
| UNCLEAN – UNCLE + A[ |
|
| 21 | Open-mouthed, Georgia’s overwhelmed by primate (5) |
| AGAPE – GA (Georgia, USA) inside APE | |
| 22 | One that can hear large aristocrat (4) |
| EARL – EAR (one that can hear) + L | |
| 23 | Old rebel leader, terribly disheartened, left in rain? (3,5) |
| WAT TYLER – T[ |
|
| Down | |
| 1 | Headwear husband owns no longer (4) |
| HATH – HAT + H. ‘No longer’ meaning it’s an outdated term. Some punctuation would make that clearer, but punctuation in clues is only ever there to be unhelpful. | |
| 2 | Undeveloped creature right inside molten rock (5) |
| LARVA – R inside LAVA | |
| 3 | Editor in Times, reflecting, longed for certain type of house (4-8) |
| SEMI-DETACHED – ED inside TIMES, all backwards, plus ACHED | |
| 4 | Casual about occasionally fraying part of body (6) |
| LARYNX – LAX outside the alternate letters of fRaYiNg | |
| 6 | Wife remains, contrary to expectation, lifting cleaning vessel (7) |
| WASHTUB – W (wife) + ASH (remains) + BUT backwards | |
| 7 | Ancient coin southern engineer found under compound (8) |
| SESTERCE – S (southern) + ESTER (compound) + CE (civil engineer) | |
| 8 | German philosopher‘s ailment UK man treated (8,4) |
| IMMANUEL KANT – anagram (‘treated’) of AILMENT UK MAN. I messed up by biffing this and spelling him with an E à la française, instead of his very Teutonic I. | |
| 12 | Stalwart sore after playing musical instrument (8) |
| RESOLUTE – anagram (‘after playing’) of SORE + LUTE | |
| 14 | Cocktail party above saloon perhaps (7) |
| SIDECAR – SIDE (party) + CAR (e.g saloon) | |
| 16 | Bringer of bad luck ultimately avoided carrying a new piano (6) |
| JOANNA – Bringer of bad luck is a JONAH, remove the last letter (‘ultimately avoided’) insert A + N. Hands up who spent five minutes trying to wedge a P for Piano in. | |
| 18 | Some final lessons? Everything considered (2,3) |
| IN ALL – hidden words | |
| 19 | River erosion (4) |
| WEAR – double definition | |
14.11 WOE. I had SISTERCE but corrected the spelling from the wordplay and I nearly biffed HATS at the end before realising what was going on. But I still had a pink square from EMMANUEL. Gah! I thought the difficulty level was fine though. I could have checked the anagrist. Thanks Curarist and Breadman.
About 25:00 today is my guess, but solved in 2 sessions without turning off the timer in between, so the timer read 7 hours plus. I was lucky to know almost all of the GK, although half-sole went in with a “well, it sounds plausible” attitude, and I needed to find the civil engineer to be sure of the last letter of SESTERCE.
Thanks to Breadman and Curarist.
7 hours plus? That would be impressive it it was genuine!
Dnf due to sesterce (news to me),erstatz and Joanna which I had heard of but didn’t connect. Cockney’s do seem to have an advantage in crossword land! Was pleased to have done the rest in 25 minutes and even more pleased reading the blog – excellent fun as always.
Oooof. Hard but fairly fair. Glad to crawl across the line, realising there was a pangram helped.
Madly crowded in the SCC, much wailing and gnashing of teeth in the darker corners.
I wish I’d rumbled the pangram – it would have helped. Am a great fan of Immanuel Kant – he seems to me to have it right to see we have responsibilities/duties rather than rights -divine or otherwise. Happily I had the GK but messed up 13a and that led to all sorts of problems. So a fat DNF, BUT unlike the puzzles earlier this week this was a good mental workout and good entertainment value. I suppose we need the occasional really hard one.
FOI 2d Larva (testing out for the 1a)
LOI 20a Unclean – didn’t unlock the SW tho.
COD 17a Old School Tie – was looking for p-air until I saw School.
Great puzzle, just disappointed not to complete it.
A dreadful 23 minutes and, even greater humiliation, a DNF because I put SESTERCI for 7dn, so one letter out. I’m sure that was the spelling in the Asterix the Gaul comic books, but maybe that’s the plural. Stupid mistake in any event, and, in my book, that’s still a fail and another week when my target has been missed.
There was nothing particularly difficult here for me and I should have finished in under 20 minutes. A really bad performance to end another woeful week. As usual, I took far too long to see some easy ones.
Awful stats for this week. 2 hours, 10 mins, with today’s DNF and two solves of over 30 mins. Two SCC escapes are scant consolation. Improvement seems more of a dream than a realistic aspiration at the moment.
Thanks for the blog Curarist.
I’ve come to enjoy your Frankie Howerd style “Woe, woe and thrice woe” style comments, Gary. Plenty others got one wrong today and 23 minutes to finish is not bad at all. Would you be as woeful trying to solve my latest Weekend Quick Cryptic, I wonder? (you may find the solving hints and tips here helpful. You can read those without revealing the answers).
Thanks John. I did actually enjoy the QC today and I was surprised that so many solvers experienced the level of difficulty that was apparent from the comments.
I shall have a look at your Weekend QC soon. I’m sure it won’t leave me woeful! 🙂
Sorry for late post re Kant. Completed this on a long haul flight without Wi-Fi jus as we were landing at LHR. Agreee very tricky QC all the more so without any aids whatsoever.
Don’t see the complaints/confusion re Kant. It can only be Immanuel from the spelling unless there is an extra E in the anagram….