This is a friendly grid if you can get 1a and/or 10d, and the cluing is fairly gentle. So I’m hoping to see some happy solvers, hard as it is to predict the general reaction! A pleasingly exact 06:30 for me.
It’s Pi Day today and I was on alert for a suitable Nina, but if it’s there I’ve missed it. (OK, PI is hidden in UTOPIA, but these things happen – if you read the unches across the middle rows you get “O sit me, Dr Purr”, for example, and I’m not reading anything into that either. Unless Hurley is sending Ninas to his cat, of course.)
Definitions underlined in bold.
| Across | |
| 1 | Insured person’s decision-making basis with husband not so young (6-6) |
| POLICY-HOLDER – POLICY = “decision-making basis” + H for “husband” + OLDER for “not so young”. I solved this in reverse order, starting by wondering what “not so young” could mean, getting “older”, adding an H and then seeing the answer. | |
| 8 | Highest point — unplayable tennis serve Mike welcomed (4) |
| ACME – ACE is the unplayable serve, inside which is M for Mike (NATO alphabet). As a child I once wondered out loud why objects in cartoons were regularly labelled “ACME”; my classicist mother explained to me that it was the Ancient Greek for “peak”. And then turned the television off. | |
| 9 | Historical ship all gone sadly (7) |
| GALLEON – anagram (“sadly”) of “all gone”. | |
| 11 | Tenant maybe full of energy to go in again (2-5) |
| RE-ENTER – RENTER is “tenant maybe”, into which (“full of”) we insert E for “energy”. | |
| 12 | Money Greek character’s keeping at home (5) |
| RHINO – Wonga. Spondulicks. Skrilla. There are some fantastic slang terms for money and RHINO is one of them, first used in the 1600s (origin sadly unknown) and still going strong. The wordplay is IN for “at home”, going inside the Greek character RHO (“keeping”). Fancy using RHO on Pi Day *looks sternly over spectacles at Hurley*. | |
| 14 | A second carrier off right path (6) |
| ASTRAY – A + S (“second”) + TRAY (“carrier”, very good). “All we like sheep have gone astray” (Isaiah 53:6, set to beautiful music by Handel in The Messiah). | |
| 15 | Brought by some guru to piazza, a perfect spot! (6) |
| UTOPIA – hidden (“some”) inside “gurU TO PIAzza”. When Sir Thomas More wrote Utopia he was at pains to point out that it meant “no place” rather than “a good place”, which would have been “eutopia”. But authors lose control over their creations, and a perfect place is what it means today. | |
| 18 | Behind street, a quiet hiding place (5) |
| STASH – I did not know that STASH can mean the hiding place as well as that which is being hidden, but it’s in the dictionaries. ST = “street”, after which (“behind”) we have A + SH (“quiet”). | |
| 20 | Travelling up from here, maybe, give voice to Left (7) |
| AIRPORT – a rather sneaky definition, but with reasonably accessible wordplay: AIR = “give voice to” and PORT = “Left” (always worth remembering “port” when L doesn’t help). | |
| 21 | The Spanish agent, potentially very smart (7) |
| ELEGANT – EL = “the Spanish”, followed by an anagram (“potentially”) of agent. Lovely clue. | |
| 23 | My mistake cutting end off spool when returning (4) |
| OOPS – take the last letter away from “spool” (“cutting end off”) and reverse what’s left (“when returning”). Another slightly elliptical definition, in the same family as “that hurt” for OW or OUCH. | |
| 24 | Sign of trouble ahead? End could hurt unfortunately (12) |
| THUNDERCLOUD – an anagram (“unfortunately”) of “end could hurt”. | |
| Down | |
| 2 | Group of musicians crash tore apart (9) |
| ORCHESTRA – it is a reasonably well known crosswording fact that ORCHESTRA is an anagram of “carthorse”, but here the anagram (indicated by “apart”, never seen that one before) is of “crash tore”. | |
| 3 | After popular late ruler, note a disinclination to act (7) |
| INERTIA – ER is our “late ruler”. She comes “after” IN for “popular”, followed by TI (the last of the DO-RE-MI-FA-SO-LA-TI notes) and then A. Phew. | |
| 4 | Food, you must swallow good? Right (6) |
| YOGURT – I would have given you any money that YOGURT has an H in it, so I refused to enter this until I had all the checkers. According to Collins, British English = YOGHURT and American English = YOGURT. But Chambers just gives “yoghurt, yogurt or yoghourt” without suggesting any transatlantic preferences and a quick squint in my fridge shows both with and without an H. We live and learn. Anyway, the wordplay is YOU containing (“swallow”) G for “good”, followed by RT for “right”. | |
| 5 | Losing head, one working hard in fuel ship (5) |
| OILER – someone working hard could be a “toiler”; take off the first letter and you have an OILER, which is a ship that carries oil. | |
| 6 | Fitting grand, you see ultimately (3) |
| DUE – the last letters (“ultimately”) of “granD, yoU seE“. | |
| 7 | Track down small animal, old, by where we live (3,2,5) |
| RUN TO EARTH – I liked this very much, COD from me. RUNT is a “small animal” (as in “the runt of the litter”), + O for “old” + EARTH for “where we live”. Again I solved this backwards, starting by wondering what “where we live” might mean. | |
| 10 | Newspaper era the bods recollected (10) |
| BROADSHEET – an anagram (“recollected”) of “era the bods”. | |
| 13 | Unprepared, I’m seen at concert, put out (9) |
| IMPROMPTU – IM for, err, “I’m” + PROM for “concert” + an anagram (“out”) of “put”. | |
| 16 | Confusion from time in school reportedly, one is livid at the start (7) |
| TURMOIL – TURM sounds like “term” and thus is “time in school reportedly”. To that we add the first letters (“at the start”) of “One Is Livid”. | |
| 17 | Minister’s contribution to coup — a story! (6) |
| PASTOR – today’s second hidden word, inside “couP A STORy”. Here “contribution” is the novel (to me) indicator for the hiding. | |
| 19 | Difficult to import oysters initially for store (5) |
| HOARD – HARD is “difficult”; it “imports” (ie has inside it) an O for “oysters initially”. Very neat. | |
| 22 | Monsieur in European Union — one that won’t fly? (3) |
| EMU – M = “monsieur”, and it goes inside (“in”) EU. | |
Temporarily sneaked out of the SCC at 19:51, having been held up for quite a while by RUN TO EARTH and AIRPORT. Can confirm that the inability to get 1a for most of the puzzle didn’t help.
Thank you Templar for a very entertaining blog!
19 minutes.
I only read the first few comments and then stopped. I didn’t find it easy and I get despondent when everyone else does.
Judging by the number of comments, I suspect many solvers recorded excellent times, so congratulations if that applies to you.
I’m afraid that I remain an unhappy solver, because I am nowhere near the level I want to be/should be at. As always, too many clues not solved immediately. If today’s QC was easy/gentle/friendly, then I really am nowhere.
Thanks for the excellent blog. NHO RHINO for £££! Shows how ignorant I am.
I’m at 81 minutes for the week. Not looking forward to tomorrow as I fear a hard Wurm/Izetti.
PS Still having a terrible time on Quintagram. Only 2 solved today, a truly pathetic performance which got me nicely frustrated before I did the QC.
Don’t worry Gary – at least half the posts are a discussion of ancient computer systems, sparked by the fact that this is Pi Day!
KBO, as Churchill used to say
Thanks Templar, sound advice which I shall follow. 👍
Oh dear
3:28. A belated post now I’m home having been astray like a sheep.. solved on the train between Ely and Manea on my way to the “Booze on the Ouse” in St. Neots. Very friendly. Just how an introductory level QC should be. Thanks Hurley and Templar. P.S. Super blog!
I’d never heard “rhino” as a slang term for money (I’m 48!) so you learn something new every day. Also, surely it’s ‘run to ground” rather than run to earth? Not happy with that one!