They’re all going a bit bonkers for the living people thing now, aren’t they? Hey ho, I suppose it’ll settle down. But given the possibilities that have now opened up, how odd that they’ve all hit on one Britpop band!
Tricky grid, lovely puzzle, some really witty clues. Cracking fun, thanks Mr Piggy. I thought that that was a little harder than the average Oink, and I suspect that one answer may turn out to be an NHO for some solvers. Let’s see! Regulation 08:36 for me; hope it went well for you.
Definitions underlined in bold.
| Across | |
| 7 | Delight as first of penthouses let (6) |
| PLEASE – P for “first of penthouses” + LEASE for “let”. The verb to delight/please is what we needed here. | |
| 8 | Penniless knight defeated (6) |
| BROKEN – BROKE = “penniless”, N for “knight” (chess notation). I had this the wrong way round for a while, thinking it started with N followed by a word for “defeated”. | |
| 9 | Hope coppers finally arrest criminal (8) |
| PROSPECT – this is a very well hidden anagram (blogger code for “I completely failed to spot it”). The anagram indicator is “criminal” and the anagram fodder is “coppers” + T, the last letter of “arrest” (“finally arrest”). Well played Oink, you did me all ends up there! LOI. | |
| 10 | Knock back lager and fall over (4) |
| SLIP – “pilsner” is a type of lager, often shortened to “pils”; reverse pils (“knock back lager”) and voila. The name originates in the Czech city of Plzeň, anglicised as Pilsen, where in the 1840s Josef Groll (a Bavarian hired to run a new brewery) came up with a winning recipe using Saaz hops. It took Europe by storm. | |
| 11 | Determined to find cheap accommodation here? (6) |
| INTENT – “determined” as in being INTENT on something. If you live in a tent you could be said to be in “cheap accommodation”, though the price of some of the fancier geodesic tents these days is astonishing. | |
| 13 | Picky Chinese diner spotted in Co-op and Asda? (5) |
| PANDA – oh I did like this definition. Very good indeed and COD from me. It’s hidden (“spotted in”) inside “Co-op and Asda”. I don’t know why we make all this effort to save pandas, because if you decide only to eat something which your body isn’t really adapted to digest and then be a difficult eater anyway, you fully deserve to go extinct. | |
| 14 | Second person said to be a sheep? (3) |
| EWE – sounds like (“said to be”) “you” (grammatically the “second person”). Ye Olde Chestnutte. | |
| 15 | Committee fed up, one might say (5) |
| BOARD – sounds like (“one might say”) “bored”. | |
| 17 | Never-ending Oriental festival (6) |
| EASTER – EASTER[n]. | |
| 19 | A precious stone returned? That’s great! (4) |
| MEGA – A GEM backwards. We suddenly keep getting MEGA, too. Breadman used it in QC 2772, Jalna used it in QC 2759 … they’re all at it. Do you think the setters regard this as latest slang? Scenes in the Setters’ Common Room: “I say Breaders old chap, what do you think the youngsters say instead of ‘spiffing’ these days?” “I once saw a film in the 1990s where they said ‘mega’ a lot, try that.” | |
| 20 | Horribly garbled English in European capital (8) |
| BELGRADE – Anagram (“horribly”) of “garbled” + E for English. Having started with the downs, fortunately I had the checkers in place by the time I got to this. | |
| 22 | Comparatively ill-considered option for your breakfast plate? (6) |
| RASHER – aaaaaaaaaaaand here it is, the piggy clue. Excellent, I do love a running joke. Double definition – deciding to jump out of the window instead of using the stairs (for example) would usually be the RASHER thing to do, and you might have a RASHER with your egg. | |
| 23 | A rest for Ronnie O’Sullivan? (6) |
| SPIDER – if you listen carefully you may hear the faint echo of howls of outrage in Australia, the US and elsewhere. Ronnie “the Rocket” O’Sullivan is a living person and in my book he definitely passes the “famous enough to be included?” test, because he’s one of the greatest snooker players of all time. But then I am aware of snooker, and I have to accept that it’s a sport with a more limited global (or even national) reach than, say, football. So not everyone will know him. But the real issue here is having to know not only (a) who he is and what he plays, but also (b) that snooker players sometimes use a thing called a “rest” to balance their cue on (if the cue ball is in an awkward spot which they can’t comfortably reach with their cue hand) and (c) that one particular (rather rarely used) type of such “rest” is called … a SPIDER. Sense 9 in Collins: “billiards, snooker: a rest having long legs, used to raise the cue above the height of the ball”. I play pool and snooker and in fact I actually own a SPIDER but even so it took me a wee while to crack it because there’s no wordplay to guide you. Good luck if you had to trawl this – there are apparently 72 words that fit S-I-E-. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Obscure Britpop band (4) |
| BLUR – what, again? These words escaped me as I solved this clue and they cost me several minutes as I had to explain to Mrs Templar what I was on about. (Which was this: Biggy 28953 (26 June, 6d) – “Racier English Britpop band covers (5)” QC 2768 (Wurm, 30 August, 20d) – “Obscure band that rivalled Oasis (4)”; QC 2766 (Jimmy, 9 September, 19d) – “Promotional material Britpop band put on book (5)”.) Do you think this is another “Scenes From the Setters’ Common Room” thing? “I say chaps, does anyone know a popular rhythm combo more recent than The Beatles?” After a lot of umming and erring someone shouted out that their grandson liked Blur and they all wrote it down. | |
| 2 | Girl’s story involving donkey (6) |
| LASSIE – a “story” is a LIE and inside it (“involving”) we have an ASS. | |
| 3 | Disconsolate daughter expelled (8) |
| DEJECTED – D for “daughter” + EJECTED for “expelled”. | |
| 4 | A chance to help (4) |
| ABET – A + BET. Bet isn’t a square-on synonym for “chance” but it’s close enough for me. | |
| 5 | Relative caught in fiasco US instigated (6) |
| COUSIN – hidden (“caught in”) inside “fiasco US instigated”. | |
| 6 | Think date and time must be wrong (8) |
| MEDITATE – anagram (“must be wrong”) of “date” and “time”, Lovely, elegant clue. | |
| 12 | Aristocrat with millions invested in Lebanon unfortunately (8) |
| NOBLEMAN – anagram (“unfortunately”) of M for “millions” and “Lebanon”. | |
| 13 | Unrivalled description of House of Lords when empty? (8) |
| PEERLESS – double definition-ish, the second one being more of a cracker joke. If there was no-one in the House of Lords it would be peer-less, ho ho. | |
| 16 | Native American quickly concealing husband (6) |
| APACHE – quick, a Native American tribe including H … Sioux no … Navajo no … Cherokee is too long … aarrghh … APACHE! I knew that watching all those Westerns as a boy would come in handy one day. APACE (“quickly”) with H for “husband” inside (“concealing”). | |
| 18 | Anxiety of son on Eurostar? (6) |
| STRAIN – S for “son” + “TRAIN” for “Eurostar?”, the question-mark indicating that this is a definition by example. | |
| 20 | Writer of biography introducing Republican (4) |
| BIRO – BIO for “biography” (a bit weak, perhaps) including (“introducing”) R for “Republican”. “Who invented the ballpoint pen?” is a classic pub quiz trick question, because the answer is not László Bíró but John Loud, an American lawyer/inventor. Loud’s version was too clumsy, however, and it flopped. Bíró was a Hungarian journalist who wanted a pen filled with the ink used to print his newspaper, because it didn’t smudge. But it was too sticky for a pen, so he enlisted the help of his brother (a dentist and chemist) to reformulate it. The brothers patented the pen in 1938 but as Jews they had to flee Hungary; in 1943 they ended up in Argentina (supposedly after the Argentinian President spotted Bíró using an unusual pen at a hotel in Yugoslavia … honestly there’s a film here) where commercial success ensued. | |
| 21 | German article about Google’s latest browser (4) |
| DEER – DER is German for “the” (“German article”) and it goes around (“about”) E for the last letter of “Google” (“Google’s latest”). DEER feed by browsing on vegetation and so a DEER is a “browser”; cunning misdirection. | |
DNF. SPIDER was beyond me. SIESTA for rest was as close as I could get but Ronnie didn’t sound like a Spanish chap. Still, I did enjoy PROSPECT and NOBLEMAN. Templar, you’re a hard man- can’t you summon up even a tiny smidgen of pity for our hapless PANDA brothers?
Yes, siesta was an obvious rest to many of us, I’m sure – but it doesn’t fit the crossers!
DNF
NHO Ronnie O’S. I’m not sure that knowing of him would have been enough, as I doubt that I could have recalled SPIDER, which I only ‘knew’ from an appearance or two here.
10 minutes. There’s more piggy at 15ac!
I’m either stupid or slow or both – could you kindly explain?
I think he means BOARd.
Thank you, Pi – yes of course, slow it was that I was!
I enjoyed this one overall. I was held up not understanding the wordplay at 9a for a looong time.
I knew enough about snooker to get 23a, but I think that’s the kind of clue that is almost impossible to solve if you don’t know the specific bit of GK, which is a real pet peeve of mine. It’s also not even cryptic if you do have the GK, a snooker players rest is a SPIDER….
I think Templar and I had an almost identical solve, albeit his time was much quicker than my 12.08. I too failed to see the PROSPECT anagram and that, my LOI, took an age to arrive. I was also slow to see a few others in the top half, including BROKEN and DEJECTED, but unsurprisingly BLEUGH went in straight away. I like Oink’s puzzles but must concur with others about SPIDER, without the required GK (which fortunately I had) it comes down to nothing more than guesswork.
My failure to finish a puzzle continues. APACHi – what?!?! Must have totally taken leave of my senses, the letters aren’t even close on the keyboard. Annoying because today’s hard one – SPIDER – was a write in. Held up at the end like others on PROSPECT where “coppers” finally arrest had me for for a criminal ending in ‘dist’. Once that was sorted DEJECTED seemed a lot easier. Sub 10 for once, but with the DPS.
Much as above although no problem with Spider due to years of late night TV snooker, heralded by the arrival of colour. Didn’t spot PROSPECT anagrind/anagrist until too late which made it all the better. On par 25 minutes without much consternation and a moment of setter recognition when RASHER dropped in nicely.
Thanks Templar for the expansive blog and Oink.
“…..and for those of you who are watching in black and white, the pink is next to the green” (“Whispering” Ted Lowe).
He also came out with this gem :
” Fred Davis, the doyen of snooker, now 67 years of age and too old to get his leg over, prefers to use his left hand”.
I’m nearly 10 years older than poor Fred, and have similar problems with a much smaller pool table nowadays…..
😄
Ahahaha
🤣🤣
Lol
Ah, Pot Black. My introduction to snooker and happy memories. I believe the BBC broadcast it to encourage people to switch from B&W TVs to colour ones – on which the licence fee was larger.
🫢
We’re still laughing about Fred Lowe.. but SPIDER??? We are newcomers and still learning things like knight=n
There are several different types of rest in snooker, the commonest being the simple X. The “spider” is wider with 3 grooves in the top to enable the player to get a wider angle onto the shot. There are others but (sic) less likely to appear in a QCC.
The machinations of the setters’ art to conjure up letters out of nowhere is often perplexing to those of us less familiar with the cluing semantics, but fortunate to be enlightened by the bloggers’ skills.
I had one of those days when the answers just leapt up off the page (screen) and into my fingers ensuring a swift solve, even LOI PROSPECT didn’t delay me for long.
I feel for those solvers who aren’t familiar with the finer details of snooker as SPIDER is a fairly obscure piece of kit and the wordplay wasn’t overly helpful.
Finished in 4.44 with COD to the fussy eaters.
Thanks to Templar – your description of the setters common room made me chuckle.
Wow, rapid!! 🔥
Cracking time!
Or indeed crackling time, given today’s setter.
Add me to the list of those who did not spot the anagram for PROSPECT – I wonder why this one has caught so many of us out, as once it has been explained it is not that difficult. The other talking point, SPIDER, was however no problem as, being a UK-based snooker watcher (and occasional and very bad player), I’m very familiar with it.
Bigger hold-ups for me were EWE, where I confidently wrote in YOU until it became clear that both the Y and the U were unhelpful letters (I still think YOU is a permissible answer on its own, making this one of those annoyingly vague wordplays, but then the puzzle is clues in a grid and it does not fit with the neighbouring down clues), and SLIP, where I immediately wrote in SINK until, again, the checkers showed the need for a rethink.
13 minutes in all, so slightly more challenging than most Oink puzzles, but both puzzle and blog very enjoyable. Many thanks Templar, and I completely agree on the repeated appearance of BLUR!
Cedric
Dear Cedric, I would go further and say that YOU fits the clue much better than EWE. My error, if that’s what some may call it, definitely held me up for a while.
Same here.
I can see that it fits, and if I squint I can see that it fits equally well but I cant agree that it fits better
First OINK in a while I haven’t finished, I think.
I think PROSPECT was so hard because the anagrist was nowhere near the anagrind in the clue. That and it still doesn’t look like an anagram of COPPERS+T
I nho a spider in the snooker sense before so it didn’t matter if I had heard of the player or not.
I await the arrival of the OASIS clue, surely it is coming
It was my LOI because I was trying ES for hope (and) coppers finally with “arrest” as the anagrist.
Me too!
Suede must be in with a shout, but the Arctic Monkeys are probably not hopeful.
Leather band? (5)
😊👏🏻
Nice! I hope to hell that none of the setters are reading this, because I’ll have forgotten it by the time it comes round and that’ll be a DNF for me.
Oh so good
Thanks for the warning 😐
Doh! Had to look Suede up to believe they exist. Oh dear, hope they are a no-show.
So much of this was very easy that it was frustrating to be defeated by the last three. No idea what was going on with coppers (pence?), Ronnie O’Sullivan (NHO) or donkey (ass?).
So thank you, Templar: I should have worked out LASSIE, but there was no hope for the other two.
Hilarious blog as ever. Needed it too, in order to understand PROSPECT. So obvious when it’s pointed out – hindsight is 20/20 but my foresight sometimes seems to be 1/1.
Pi
Even Busman was fooled by that one Pi – take heart!
After a slow start where I failed to enter six of the first eight Across answers, I picked up all the rest on the first pass, and was only left with my LOI (see my earlier response to Tina) after the second pass.
Given the amount of (mostly adverse) publicity he’s received outside the scope of snooker, I’m surprised that anybody in the UK is unaware of “Rocket Ronnie”.
No more BLUR please – they weren’t much cop anyway.
FOI PLEASE
LOI PROSPECT
COD PEERLESS
TIME 3:50
Knew the snooker GK and enjoyed the rest of the puzzle. Thanks all. 10:13
Ha ha PROSPECT was my LOI and I didn’t understand it at all so I just came here to have it explained and I see I’m not alone!!!
Finished in 9:49 including maybe 30 seconds or so dithering before I put in PROSPECT at the end 🙂
PROSPECT my LOI. Tend to think copper = police/pence/cu so I wasn’t looking for an anagram. Knew SPIDER as spent one insomniac night watching snooker and learning what it was all about. Thanks Oink and Templar for enjoyable blog.
Snooker is one of my very favourite things to watch on TV (what a dull chap!), and R O’S has been entertaining me for very many years now, so SPIDER was OK for me.
Like many others, PROSPECT was my LOI, and it took much longer than it should have to unravel, so bravo to Oink for that one. Tremendous blog as ever Templar, and my normal extension of thanks to all our bloggers, which I don’t do often enough.
Faster than average time for me today, but could have been better but for PROSPECT,
5:28
18:48, with LOI PROSPECT causing trouble. I alpha trawled quite a few words that fit, and also tried coppers=MET, which I’m sure we’ve had a few times. I knew “criminal” could be an anagram indicator but did not expect such an “effect at distance”.
Query about how INTENT, a noun could be clued as “determined” an adjective.
Yeah, SPIDER would have been hard without multiple elements of GK. It has to be a pretty fancy snooker table to have a spider available.
COD MEDITATE
Intent is an adjective too.
Collins: “adjective
6. firmly fixed; determined; concentrated
an intent look”
12 minutes for me; LOI PROSPECT. I came here to see how SWIG at 10a worked and of course it’s wrong. So DNF for me.
When solving I thought the SPIDER clue was unfair in a cryptic. I did get it as a former occasional player.
In July this year I was on a train going to Totnes on a day after heavy rain. The train stopped for an hour en route because of a “trackside fire”; no sign of smoke or burning near us. The person sitting facing me across the aisle was Ronnie O’Sullivan. I decided not to introduce myself. He was deep into a book.
Great blog -thanks.
David
Wonderful blog, Templar, thank you! I enjoyed that almost as much as Oink’s puzzle.
I had a different parsing at 17a: never-ending means take the ending of ‘never’ to be ‘er’ and put it on the end ‘east’for ‘oriental’ and you get EASTERN. In hindsight I don’t think it actually works but it did for me at the time.
I’m not a snooker fan but have heard of Ronnie O’Sullivan as a multi-world champion. Seems fair general knowledge, as is the rest being called a ‘spider’. I’m enjoying the living people approach, even with the repetition so hilariously described by Templar.
A fast finish of 5.59 for me with nothing in particular holding me up to any great extent. SPIDER was no problem for me having played a great deal of snooker over the years. I used to hate using the damn thing, although one rarely had call to use it. I suspect there will be many DNFs as you need knowledge of the game to solve this. Most UK solvers will probably have a chance because it has been a popular sport shown on tv for many years.
6.03
Favourite setter and a great blogger makes this an excellent day 🙂
PROSPECT also had me kippered. In from definition; fingers crossed and then here for the explanation.
Usual amusing/smooth surfaces from Oink. A simple clue but DEER a great example.
Persevered to a finish although to say I made a meal of this QC is putting it mildly! Hold-ups and PDMs included ABET (a chestnut), LASSIE (dear oh dear) and INTENT (doh). Plenty to enjoy along the way, especially PANDA. Didn’t know the other meaning of browse so DEER was solved from the wordplay. Knew the snooker player but only VHO SPIDER although it seemed to make sense shape-wise. Great blog Templar. Thanks Oink.
I was held up by the PROSPECT/DEJECTED pair as I tried to use the wrong anagrist for the former until I noticed it was a letter short. No problem with SPIDER. I knocked a few balls about at Darlington Snooker Club last week and have played the game (after a fashion) since I was a 12 year old. I met Mark Selby and Ken Doherty at the club in the not too distant past and once watched my brother take a frame off John Virgo (celebrity visitor) at the BRSA Club in Gateshead (with 3 blacks start) in the dim and distant part. My brother played for the team there which was captained by Vera Selby, (no relation to Mark), who was the Women’s World Champion at the time. BLUR was FOI and DEJECTED LOI. 7:01. Thanks Oink and Templar.
As a newcomer to TfTT, an online community which adds greatly to my pleasure in wrestling with the QC, I’d like to applaud Oink for 21d, a brilliant clue in my opinion.
Welcome!
Nice to meet you
Hello!
Welcome! Do keep posting, the more the merrier.
Greetings!
Agreed, DEER was very smooth! Also agreed about TfTT, without which I probably wouldn’t have acquired this addiction, uhm, daily habit.
Another toughie! I got there, but only after having grafted for 47 minutes.
PANDA was my FOI, quickly followed by ‘you’ – and that was after having weighed the rather less obvious merits of EWE. The wordplay for EWE is too contrived, IMHO.
My final half-dozen clues took 20+ minutes to crack, the last three of which were BROKEN, ABET and PROSPECT. In summary then, I found this very hard work.
Thanks to Oink and Templar.
A bit upset by Google’s ‘ latest’ … meaning E. How does LATEST equal LAST?! Still a struggling newbie – only been at this for 4 years now!
Do you have the latest edition of The Times?
If you wrote it down, the latest letter you wrote would be E?
What an odd day: only 6 acrosses on the first pass, but then every down clue solved in order, a first I think. Only one clue left after 19 minutes but it took me 35 minutes to finish thanks to PROSPECT.
Ah well, another lesson in humility but what a wonderful puzzle and a great blog so thanks all round.
Technical DNF.
Another one who had not heard of spider.
Enjoyed it though.
Blur has very quickly become an old chestnut. Went straight in. Brilliant comments by Templar.
Thanks to Oink and Templar.
DNF as spent 15mins alphabet trawling pRoSpEcT and could only come up with prescient and crescent – neither of which works. The rest of it done in 9mins. Ho hum.
An interesting clue because it’s reasonably obvious in retrospect, yet clearly not as easily solved in the real world. Nothing to raise an editor’s spidey senses.
On the other hand, SPIDER which I pencilled in on first read having owned the Know Your Game book of Snooker as a ten year old is a stinker in almost all directions if you don’t have the SK. Ronnie is fair enough, but who would go for spider from S-I-E checkers.
In terms of moving the puzzles to become more modern, I feel like Oink did it really well here. Some brands and living people thrown in without destroying fabric of a good puzzle.