4:25, no running to report.
Bit grumpy today, but that’s down to a fractured wrist, nothing to do with this NONCHALANTLY PREMEDITATED INTELLECTUAL EXTRAVAGANCE from Hursley. In fact if you got those four twelve-letter answers quickly then you probably set yourself up for a decidedly non-grumpy solve.
Typing’s not much fun at the moment so I’ll just thank Hurley for an enjoyable and (dare I say it) not overly-taxing Quickie.
Let us know how you found it, particularly if you’ve noticed a theme or a Nina that I might have overlooked.
(In the clues, definitions are underlined and anagram indicators are in bold italics.
In the explanations (ABC)* indicates an anagram of abc. Deletions and other devices are indicated accordingly, I hope).
| Across | |
| 1 | Fathers display travel document (8) |
| PASSPORT – PAS (fathers) + SPORT (display)
The verb form of sport is required here. |
|
| 5 | US uncle gets around Charlie’s fraudulent scheme (4) |
| SCAM – SAM (US uncle) around C (Charlie)
Uncle Sam was a brand of deodorant with a catchy jingle. “..and under your arm is the top of the world (no sweat).” But here we’re talking about the common personification of the USA, or its government. |
|
| 9 | Course, unfashionable, in Religious Education (5) |
| ROUTE – OUT (unfashionable) in RE (Religious Education) | |
| 10 | Introduction of short corner — one showing disdain (7) |
| SCORNER – S (introduction of Short) + CORNER
I wonder how many ways of clueing CORNER Hurley considered before settling on, um, corner. |
|
| 11 | Potentially neat clue, it’ll be seen as characteristic of one liking mental activity? (12) |
| INTELLECTUAL – (NEAT CLUE IT’LL)*
Number one of the Fab Four twelve-letter grid-builders. |
|
| 13 | Language evident in Sahara bickering (6) |
| ARABIC – Hidden in sahARA BICkering | |
| 15 | Shows concern with second gentle touch (6) |
| CARESS – CARES (shows concern) + S (second) | |
| 17 | Unnecessary spending — next gave a car, outrageous! (12) |
| EXTRAVAGANCE – (NEXT GAVE A CAR)*
Number two. |
|
| 20 | Text added after very short time shows muscle (7) |
| TRICEPS – PS (text added) after TRICE (very short time) | |
| 21 | Headdress that is at right angles initially (5) |
| TIARA – First letters (initially) of That Is At Right Angles | |
| 22 | Learner in university river, tranquil (4) |
| CALM – L (learner) in CAM (university river)
Must return there one day. Lovely spot. |
|
| 23 | In best of health? Agreed (4,4) |
| VERY WELL – Double definition | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Country salesperson turned up, you heard (4) |
| PERU – PER [REP (salesperson) reversed (turned up)] + U [homophone (heard) of you] | |
| 2 | Refuse incentive at start of November (5) |
| SPURN – SPUR (incentive) + N (start of November) | |
| 3 | New pet diet, dream, planned in advance (12) |
| PREMEDITATED – (PET DIET DREAM)*
Number three |
|
| 4 | Artist, quiet, extremely lazy in foolhardy way (6) |
| RASHLY – RA (artist) + SH (quiet) + LY (“extremes” of LazY) | |
| 6 | Condemnation of scene after stripping? Certainly (7) |
| CENSURE – CEN (sCENe stripped of its outer letters) + SURE (certainly) | |
| 7 | Say what you think is right — at heart famous serial needs to change (8) |
| MORALISE – MO (“at heart” of faMOus) + (SERIAL)*
Unfortunately it’s more often a case of “tell others why what they’re doing is wrong”. |
|
| 8 | In casual manner noble at outset only accepting tea, left walnuts regularly? (12) |
| NONCHALANTLY – N [first letter (at outset) of Noble] + ONLY “accepting” CHA (tea) + L (left) + ANT (wAlNuTs “regularly”)
The last of the Fab Four, and the only non-anagram. |
|
| 12 | Splendid mother with light-hearted mood in charge (8) |
| MAJESTIC – MA (mother) + JEST (light-hearted mood) + IC (in charge)
I wasn’t sure about jest as a mood, but it’s supported by Collins and others. |
|
| 14 | Place of bustle in hall, wild, time briefly to be included (7) |
| ANTHILL – (IN HALL)* including T (time briefly)
Drive north from Perth and you won’t believe the size of these things. |
|
| 16 | Young woman’s untrue statement about foolish person (6) |
| LASSIE – LIE (untrue statement) about ASS (foolish person) | |
| 18 | Where cricket batter stands, missing run in end (5) |
| CEASE – C A fundamental principle of batting. Ignore it at your peril. |
|
| 19 | Marsh bird’s method of travel (4) |
| RAIL – Double definition | |
So I got through this in 11 minutes plus mostly due to biffing the long ones through checkers.
I spent an inordinately long time on 10across. SNEERER? no doesn’t parse. Only to find out that ‘corner’ was wordplay for… Corner. 🤦🏻♀️
Short corner… Scorner.
18 minutes, entirely down to my own stupidity so I’m feeling grumpy too. 10ac was my LOI because, like Tina, I spent ages looking for a synonym for ‘corner’! My other problem was the muscle at 20ac where I was looking for something to fit S?I?E?S because I had inadvertently written MAJEESIC at 12dn.
Well well. A DNF since putting WELL WELL this meant I had to go for NONCHALENTAL, which is the kind of word I happily put in with a shrug.
I was sure SCORNER would be SCOFFER, and thought a COFFER might be some kind of corner, isn’t it a type of dam? So maybe it originally meant something else. Looks like everyone struggled with what was the “easiest” clue. I also thought “place of bustle” as relating to that old item of ladies underwear, but couldn’t make it work cleanly.
COD PASSPORT: easy, but still good
Sorry to hear about your injury, Gallers. Not a pleasant bone to break.
11:15 for me, so (looking at the other results too) you seem to do okay one-handed!
Scaphoid bone to be precise. Small but crucial. A classic example of what they call a FOOSH injury (Fall On OutStretched Hand). Fortunately no-one has dared to suggest that I “had a fall”, not within earshot at least.
And the one-handed solving thing was just a bit of sympathy-seeking by me. My arm’s in a cast but I have pretty good movement of my fingers.
Score me as another who hesitated mightily over SCORNER (can it really be this?), but my main hold-up was over RAIL, where I needed a full word search to get the answer. I knew rail was a bird but couldn’t have told you it lived in marshes.
Despite this, all green in just under 10 minutes, helped mightily by getting the long 4 early on (though NONCHALANTLY was only parsed after biffing).
Many thanks Galspray for the blog and a good weekend to all
Cedric
Yes SCORNER made me hesitate too
I took 7:33 and should have been faster as it was very easy today
Strange solve as most of this went in very easily and then almost doubled my time on my last few – ARABIC, NONCHALANTLY, MORALISE, PREMEDITATED (which I desperately wanted to be ‘predetermined’ despite it having the wrong number of letters) and RAIL which had to be dredged from the depths.
I wrote in SCORNER early on and then took it out as being too obvious before putting it back in once all the checkers were in place. I can’t work out if it’s a brilliant or terrible clue, as despite being so easy on one level it seems to have caused some early commenters (myself included) a lot of trouble.
Started with PASSPORT and finished with RAIL in an averageish 7.46.
Thanks to Galspray and I wish you the best with your wrist recuperation
SCORNER went in with a shrug and a brief thought like Plett’s; I now lean toward ‘terrible’. A MER at MORALISE; ; whaat galspray said, to which I’d add that what a moraliser thinks is right isn’t really relevant to what he says. The long ones all biffed, trusting in the first three cases that the anagrist was indeed there, NONCHALANTLY just because it looked right. 4:11. Sorry to hear about your wrist, G; I hope at least it’s your off hand
Thanks Kevin. It’s my right hand, and I can assure you I’ll be falling over myself to make sure it’s the left one next time.
10:22
ok time but held up by last two, anthill and triceps which I thought were tricky.
I’m glad most of the vowels in extravagance were checked!
COD Very well.
Raced through this one, but failed on RAIL as I biffed Sail.
Liked all the long answers and TIARA, ROUTE, MORALISE, among others.
An enjoyable puzzle. Thanks vm, Galspray. Bad luck re your wrist.
I did the same as I knew I wouldn’t know the bird and SAIL was the first mode of transport in encountered on my alphabet trawl
Massive anthills north of Perth ? Was thinking Cairngorm / Grampian mountains then twigged you’re talking about a land down under !
Ha! Sorry Goose, I should have clarified. Definitely two rather contrasting landscapes.
From PASSPORT to NONCHALANCE via a delayed SCORNER, which I only put in after I had the crossers. If it hadn’t been for EXTRAVAGANCE, I’d have biffed NONCHALENCE! The 4 long ones were definitely helpful. 6:04. Thanks Hurley and Galspray. Commiserations on the wrist injury. Speedy healing!
11 mins…
Pretty straightforward and a rare occasion where the NW corner was completed in a matter of minutes. I thought 10ac “Scorner” was initially a poor clue – but if you look at it in the context of the whole puzzle, and a means of misdirection, then in some ways it was brilliant.
Did cross my fingers for 19dn though.
FOI – 1ac “Passport”
LOI – 19dn “Rail”
COD – 20ac “Triceps”
Thanks as usual!
I made an utter Horlicks of that, despite having been very fast for most of it. Errors: (1) like Merlin I put WELL WELL, thinking it didn’t feel solid and “I’ll look at it again when I do the downs” – by the time I got back to that corner, needless to say I’d completely forgotten about that and of course it fitted three of four checkers; (2) because of the missing Y I couldn’t make sense of 8d (which is, if I may respectfully say so, an utterly dreadful clue – far too long, very clunky and a terrible surface) so in the end tried NONCOMMITTAL, which sort of made sense and fitted all the checkers I had (except it didn’t, because like an idiot I failed to notice that I’d overwritten the last A in EXTRAVAGANCE); and (3) that meant I was left looking at -M-E-S for what I eventually realised was CARESS.
By the time I’d unscrambled this shameful catalogue of errors my hopes of a speedy Saturday were long gone and I was just relieved not to see the DPS. Dear oh dear. Limped home in 09:44 for 2.2K and a Tail Between My Legs Day.
Many thanks Hurley and Gallers – get well soon.
4:54. LOI RAIL. PREMEDITATED took longer than it should have, but all done and parsed under my target time. Like others, I was surprised by SCORNER. Thanks Hurley and Gallers – Sorry to hear about the wrist.
Took some time to piece together the long ones and, like others, had a long time blank with RAIL at the end. A setter’s job (probably pleasure) is to keep us on our toes and the corner=corner clue did just that. Just over 10 minutes.
Fairly slow this morning. Held up by MAJESTIC (wasn’t sure about jest as light hearted mood) and LOI RAIL which was biffed (NHO bird). Liked ANTHILL. Not too keen on SCORNER. Sorry to hear about wrist G. Thanks as ever.
Like most here, I declined to enter my LOI until it really couldn’t be anything else.
FOI PASSPORT
LOI SCORNER
COD NONCHALANTLY
TIME 3:44
10:45
Have been faster but never had a solve like that with 9/12 of the Across answers going straight in – SCORNER, CARESS and VERY WELL being the culprits – where I knew WELL was involved. That had taken 2min30.
Then another 2min30 on the Downs added another 7/12 including a failure to get PERU even though I had the REP/PER part but added it on second look.
It then took the rest of the solve to untangle the remaining seven.
LOI was the NHO RAIL (bird) and fingers crossed it wanted that type of travel. The better part of 3mins wasted alphabet trawling it from 8-9mins and 10min15 to the end.
Great time considering all the holdups!
Thanks CO … you’ve been your usual consistent self this week
My student had to leave early, but another guy asked to see me solve the puzzle at speed, so I did. Fortunately, I was able to crack the three long anagrams at sight, as well as most of the short clues. I did start with scoffer, but I changed it to scorner when the crossers came in without re-reading the clue, so I didn’t notice that corner was given in plain text. I did have to write down the anagram fodder for anthills, but otherwise it was clear sailing.
Time: 8:10
A very nice puzzle. Nearly solved the whole puzzle but did not know rail and missed the anagram for anthill. To me a perfect level for a QC
7.50 Quite a few needed a second look but nothing was too hard. SCORNER was feeble. Like Merlin I put in WELL WELL but thought better of it. NONCHALENTLY was LOI. Thanks galspray and Hurley. And best wishes for a quick recovery.
9:56. LOI MORALISE with too much time spent a) trying to make use of ‘amou’ rather than just ‘mo’ and b) reading serial but thinking cereal! Same SCORNER hesitation as everyone else – though I quite like the double bluff theory it didn’t really feel satisfactory. Thanks galspray and Hurley.
12:11. PREDETERMINED and WELL WELL misled me for a while, also took ages on TRICEPS. I thought corner leading to CORNER was a clever misdirection.
Does anyone remember The ANTHILL Mob in Wacky Races? A highly INTELLECTUAL cartoon from my youth.
A great start with PASSPORT and SCAM going in early. Then good-ish progress with only one hold-up of around 3-4 minutes. Like others above, my LOI was SCORNER – rather lazy clueing, I’d say.
Thanks to Hurley and Galspray
I still swear like Muttley on occasion!
Certainly do Clyde. What was your eventual time?
A quick 10:30 for me, after finding my anagram hat and unravelling all of the long ones quite quickly. I’m on the fence about the “corner=corner” technique: it does seem to have been effective, based on the comments here.
Thanks to Hurley and thanks and best wishes to galspray.
11:52, but that includes googling marsh birds so I suppose that’s a DNF really. Otherwise seemed straightforward. Do you think we could have a whip round to bribe the new crossword editor to ban birds and fish?
Thank you to galspray for the blog, and best wishes for a speedy recovery!
Lovely Puzzle but pink’uns with 14d where I could only make any sense for Arterial rather than the anagram Anthill
FOI 1a Passport
LOI 14d def
COD and of the 4 long ones.
Many thanks, Galspray, for the excellent blog esp in such difficult circs for you. Hope it will all heal speedily. See Hurley is in naughty CORNER for some, but clue was, I think, a clear enough solve in the end. A football context was hinted at with such corners unpopular with many fans though not necessary to know anything about that to solve it.
Hurley
Thanks for those wishes Hurley, always nice to hear from the ringmaster. (And apologies for calling you Hursley in the blog, it was a mistake that fellow mainframe computer people will understand).
We really do appreciate the consistent high standard of your and your colleagues’ work but it’s a rare day when we don’t find something to whinge about!
I seem to have lost a day as I arrive back in the US to sort out a few odds and ends to complete the repairs after hurricane Ian wreaked its worse efforts in house restructuring. The anagrams seemed to fall quickly and I plodded through with the others’ mentioned hesitation re corner.
Whacked in Triceps without parsing from the checkers and finished with a smile just short of 30 mins.
Sorry to hear about your fall and # scaphoid. One of the things medical students never forget is its clinical diagnosis by tenderness over the anatomical snuff box. Not much call for snuff these days. I hope you are better soon. At least the cast should bring some sympathy.
Thanks Steakcity, hope the repairs go well. I first learned of the anatomical snuff box on these pages (who needs a medical degree when you have TftT?) and yes that was part of the diagnosis for this injury.
Can’t stand having the cast on, but I think it gets replaced with a less cumbersome (and less claustrophobic!) version after surgery this Wednesday.
Even though my student days were years ago it is still writ large in the brain. Pain in anatomical snuff box meant a scaphoid cast and fracture clinic regardless of Xray.
It helped that the x-ray was conducted on-site at the Urgent Care Clinic*. The radiographer invited me to inspect the image and pointed at the scaphoid. I said “oh, that’s smashed isn’t it?”. She replied “I’m not allowed to say” but the wink was a bit of a giveaway.
*Wandered in on a Sunday. Triaged, consulted, x-rayed, diagnosed and plastered within two hours. Referred to the Hand Clinic at the local hospital for follow-up the next day.
“Thanks. What do I owe you?”.
“Not a cent, it’s on Medicare”.
Who will protect us from this creeping Communism???
So many aphorisms to stir the memory.
‘If you don’t put your finger in, you’ll put your foot in it’ comes to mind.
Enjoyed this.
28 mins which is good for me.
Thanks to setter and galspray.
Solved a day late as Mrs RH had an early start yesterday.
Fairly whipped through until breeze blocked by anthill. Even after we got it the parsing eluded us as we were only using hill as the anagrist and could not see how the rest was clued, d’oh!
All done in 20.12. As still relative beginners we took scorner with barely a second glance.
Thanks Hurley and Galspray- wishing you well for the surgery and a speedy recovery.
When I started doing cryptics in ernest several months ago, this blog was my saviour, helping untangle the unfathomable string of words that greeted me each day. I promised that my first post would be the day that I finally completed my first one without aid. I am pleased to say that day is here! Thanks to all the bloggers, setters and commenters for the support. It took me around 45 minutes and 2 cups of coffee with 10 minutes staring at spurn as my LOI. How ridiculous!
Fantastic effort cjam, well done. Your experience so far mirrors my own from not so long ago, with this site being an amazingly helpful resource for beginners.
Hope we see you commenting more regularly, successful solves or not!
Well done! There’s always an empty chair in the SCC with convivial company. No need to rush, savour the solving is my policy.
6:57
A very bright start but slowed considerably in the middle, thinking I had too many letters for NONCHALANTLY – worked out OK in the end, finishing with ANTHILL and TRICEPS. Luckily remembered RAIL as a type of bird.
Thanks Galspray and Hurley