Jimmy is an excellent addition to the Setters’ Common Room and this was another cracking puzzle, full of wit, sparkle and sly devices. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Fast solves have been eluding me of late but this one entertained me for only 05:38, so I am expecting some blistering times from the MVPs.
Definitions underlined in bold.
| Across | |
| 1 | Rue passion running wild in Jane Austen’s work (10) |
| PERSUASION – anagram (“running wild”) of “rue passion”. PERSUASION was Jane Austen’s final novel, published posthumously, and is a magnificent work. Before anyone harrumphs about early C19 novels not being the way to attract millennial solvers, Netflix filmed PERSUASION in 2022 (starring Dakota Johnson no less), so there. | |
| 8 | Reportedly get hold of father’s capital (7) |
| BAGHDAD – aural wordplay (“reportedly”) for “bagged” (got hold of) “dad” (father). | |
| 9 | Wanderer, sane in Glasgow? (5) |
| NOMAD – “Ah’m no mad“, a Glaswegian might insist when their sanity was questioned. Ho ho! COD for me, I do love a cracker joke. | |
| 10 | Swear word from husband on go-kart at regular intervals (4) |
| OATH – H for husband, which goes on every other letter (“at regular intervals”) of “go-kart“. | |
| 11 | US novelist from outskirts of Maine left French town (8) |
| MELVILLE – ME (“outskirts of Maine“) + L (“left”) + VILLE (“French town”). Herman Melville’s best known novel is of course Moby-Dick, although it was not particularly well received on publication and in his lifetime made him less money than his previous works. | |
| 13 | The setter in Panama, say, and one Caribbean country (5) |
| HAITI – I for “the setter” inside HAT (“in Panama, say” – the “say” indicates that this is a definition by example) + I. | |
| 14 | Soldier eccentrically accepting scouting mission (5) |
| RECCE – hidden (“accepting”) inside “Soldier eccentrically”. With a son in the Light Cavalry, who are recce (slang for “reconnaissance”) troops, this was a gimme for me. | |
| 16 | Enter taxi by home, a wooden hut (3,5) |
| LOG CABIN – LOG for “enter” + CAB for “taxi” + IN for “home”. | |
| 17 | Stick a knife in bananas from the east (4) |
| STAB – reverse STAB (“from the east”, ie reading from the right) and you get “bats”, which is “bananas”. | |
| 20 | Kind of heron, for example, by river banks in Egypt (5) |
| EGRET – EG is “for example” +R for “river” + ET for the first and last letters of Egypt (“banks in Egypt”). EGRETs are rather lovely (well the white ones are anyway). | |
| 21 | Dissolute rake receiving a fine, singing in bars? (7) |
| KARAOKE – I wonder if he was singing an Adele song? Or maybe it was Blur. Anyway, an anagram (“dissolute”) of “rake” with A OK (for “a” and “fine”, respectively) inside it (“receiving”). The origin is from the Japanese kara empty + ōkesutora orchestra [awaits correction from Kevin!]. According to The Times on Tuesday (Gabriella Bennett’s article about a day out in Tokyo with no human interaction), “30 per cent of all karaoke patrons go alone”. | |
| 22 | People who study biology GCSE toil so terribly (10) |
| ECOLOGISTS – anagram (“terribly”) of “GCSE toil so”. My house is awash with ECOLOGISTS at the moment because we are doing some works which will disturb the roosts of five bats. This has so far cost £1,600 per bat in surveys and licences. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | A lot of old bread brought up for Picasso, say (5) |
| PABLO – I thought this was a tough clue to parse, though easy to biff (which I did, and then chewed my pencil over why it was right) because Picasso is a pretty well-known Pablo. Reading it backwards (“brought up”, this being a down clue) you get OL for “a lot of old” + BAP for “bread”. If anyone didn’t “biff then parse”, take a bow. | |
| 2 | Footballers, those on the blue side hoping to defeat the Reds (5-7) |
| RIGHT-WINGERS – double definition, the second one a rather good cryptic jest. Made me chuckle. [On edit – perhaps I should have explained that in the UK the Conservative party (right wing) is traditionally associated with the colour blue and the Labour party (left wing) with the colour red, so that “the blue side hoping to defeat the Reds” = the Conservatives = the RIGHT WINGERS.] | |
| 3 | Cancel a Parisian party (4) |
| UNDO – UN for “a Parisian” (ie the indefinite article in French) + “DO for “party”. | |
| 4 | Wet turf above animal’s lair (6) |
| SODDEN – SOD for “turf” + DEN for “animal’s lair”. | |
| 5 | More vino ordered for unfussy consumer (8) |
| OMNIVORE – anagram (“ordered”) of “more vino”. Lovely definition. | |
| 6 | Suggestions of corrupt politicians pocketing millions (12) |
| IMPLICATIONS – anagram (“corrupt”) of “politicians” with M inside (“pocketing millions”). | |
| 7 | Stick of jade uncovered in this place (6) |
| ADHERE – sneaky one because you need the verb to stick, not the noun as the clue suggests. AD is “jade uncovered” (because you remove the first and last letters to leave “ad”), and HERE is “in this place”. | |
| 12 | Some splendid act I cited teaching a lesson (8) |
| DIDACTIC – hidden (“some”) inside “splendid act I cited”. | |
| 13 | Stopped Henry meeting Theodore (6) |
| HALTED – HAL for Henry (think Prince Hal) + TED for Theodore (think Theodore “Ted” Logan, so movingly portrayed by Keanu Reeves in the seminal Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure). | |
| 15 | Steal heartless earl’s cash abroad (6) |
| NICKEL – NICK for “steal” + EL for “heartless earl” (“heartless” indicating that you take out the middle letters). | |
| 18 | Give priestly approval to the grade below A minus (5) |
| BLESS – B is “the grade below A” and LESS is “minus”. | |
| 19 | Black tails of woodpecker, skua, lapwing and crow (4) |
| BRAG – this is another super sneaky one. I spent a while trying to understand why RAGW (the last letters of all four birds) meant “black”. Eventually I went back to the drawing board and realised that the definition was at the other end: the word play is in fact B for “black” + RAG for the last letters (“tails”) of the first three birds. Maybe this should have been COD because it was very good, it being almost irresistible to take “crow” as avian given the preceding three but too late now, I have cast my vote. | |
My QC solving has been a bit patchy for the past fortnight so it was good to finish in 10 minutes, within my old target once again. I lost a little time parsing PABLO and justifying IMPLICATIONS where the fact that it was an anagram didn’t jump out at me immediately. Also not really understanding the football stuff at 2dn. I still don’t but am not particularly interested anyway.
Yes, quite the Quick Cryptic. A bit literary, with Melville and Austen…and the log cabin. I did biff most of them.
I think our blogger has neatly dodged politics, but for Brits who don’t get it, the clue for right-wingers refers to the colors of the US political parties.
Time: 6 minutes
I think you need British politics to make it work with right wing blues hoping to defeat left wing reds.
Yes, I should have explained that. Blog adjusted, thanks.
Surely you mean UK?
For Mancunians, Blues v Reds is the long-standing rivalry between Manchester United (Reds) and their noisy neighbours Manchester City (Blues).
Or in Liverpool, Everton (Blues) vs Liverpool (Reds).
After a long time, finally a quick that deserved the name — for me, at least — 9:48. Lovely puzzle, lovely definitions. COD 19d.
Very enjoyable puzzle, 7.12. FOI PERSUASION, LOI ECOLOGISTS/IMPLICATIONS. The first Theodore I thought of was Teddy Roosevelt. PABLO took ages to parse because I haven’t heard bap for bread for about 50 years, and had almost forgotten it. Thanks Jimmy and Templar.
I noticed Templar’s title today is “See you, Jimmy!”, inspired, I’m guessing, by the “Wanderer, sane in Glasgow?” clue.
Perhaps “baps” was another nod to Scotland as I understand that in Scotland “bap” is often used to describe a bread roll.
Mr SR reckons he’s seen “Floury Baps” in M&S recently too.
I knew it in London in the 70s as a bread roll, but the term never made the journey to Oz. Come to think of it, nor did M&S!
Ah! Fair point 😊
Fun puzzle, thank you, Jimmy. LOI OATH, after the PDM that it wasn’t RUGBY after all – still can’t quite see where defeating the Reds comes in.
Both a rare sub-10 and a personal worst with managing to miss the D in ADHERE and not noticing muck up NOMAh and MELVILLr and then wrecking IMPLICATIONS with KARoaKE. So a day of careful parsin and wrecked by slack typing. Not all green in 9.26 including a break to sub the tooth fairy a pound.
. . .it was sixpence when I was a boy 🙄
When I was at school, the grade below A minus was B plus.
It probably still is. In this crossword, however, you have to lift and separate “A” and “minus”. The clue works as “B” for “the grade below A” and LESS for “minus”.
Lovely puzzle with lots to admire and chuckle at. Good to get 1 a straight away then steady progress to finish in 17.40, well under target.
Yes Templar we also studied ragw for a bit.
COD among many to omnivore, great surface and the PDM for “oh that type of consumer”
Thanks Jimmy and Mr T for the excellent blog
Completely ruined my efforts by entering the two letters I already had instead of two fresh ones so that BRAG went in as “rrgg”. I’m happy that I finished in 3:31 while knowing that it almost certainly wouldn’t have happened with good old pencil and paper…..
Had to smile reading that as it happens to me all the time!
6:02 Yes it was an easy one today but very enoyable
Fairly straightforward after initially drawing a blank in the NW where my ignorance of Jane Austen novels did me no favours.
Lots to enjoy but my COD goes to IMPLICATIONS for its surface.
Started with the excellent NOMAD and finished with PABLO in 6.52.
Thanks to Templar
I agree with our blogger that Jimmy is a first rate addition to the setters’ roster. Lovely crossword, all done in 7½ minutes with several smiles on the way. RECCE LOI, didn’t spot it was a hidden until after biffing it.
Many thanks Templar for the sparkling blog.
Cedric
Quick times for most so far, but I was not so speedy at 11.04. I guess I must have had a bad day. However, I would have beaten my target comfortably if I hadn’t taken about two minutes on my last two. Failure to think of NICK as a synonym for steal meant I needed to solve KARAOKE first before tying things up. I’ll give my clue of the day to 6dn, an excellent example of the crossword compilers art.
4:19. After failing to see the answers to 4 of the first 5 across clues on a first pass, the rest came in a clean sweep. DNK the Austen book, of course, so that came from the anagram when I had the checkers in place from the downs. LOI Melville. I liked IMPLICATIONS best for the surface. Thanks Jimmy and Templar.
I found this challenging but maybe my flue is addling my brain! It was all a fair cop though, so yes enjoyable. Just one thing isn’t B plus below A minus? Thanks all¬
As Templar has explained in the blog, B is below A and LESS = minus. It took me a moment to twig what was going on too.
Lovely puzzle from Jimmy and equally great blog from Templar. Thanks to both.
Reading yesterday about the crossword ‘beasts’ solving in under 2 minutes, my first thought was how?! Even though I’m a fast reader, I don’t think I could physically complete a crossword either with pen & paper or online in that time. Also for me, doing the QC with a cup of coffee is one of the pleasures of retirement.
My thoughts exactly. I settle down with my coffee and am always a bit disappointed if I finish too quickly. Even a very gentle QC would still take me around 9-10 mins. How anyone does it in 4 or less is totally beyond me!
When I’m on blogging duty here, I print out the puzzle, solve it on paper and then fill in the grid online to get the skeleton of the blog entry created. It normally takes me between 2:00 and 2:30 just to fill in the grid, with no thinking time at all. And typos are not uncommon either! So yes, in awe of those who can actually solve and enter faster than I can just enter.
Just checking, Doofers, that you do know that having solved on paper you can just click ‘Reveal/Grid’ to fill the grid to create the skeleton?
Ah yes, so I can! I usually go in through the “crossword club” link that doesn’t have the Reveal button. Thanks!
I’m puzzled because whichever way I access the QC the controls are the same and there’s a Reveal button above the clues. Perhaps it varies with device. Same on my tablet except the controls are under the grid.
After missing the hidden 1a yesterday I was hawk-eyed today and spotted both RECCE and DIDACTIC quickly. I loved both NOMAD (very funny) and IMPLICATIONS (lovely surface) and I can’t decide between them for my COD. From PERSUASION to NICKEL in a back on form 7:04.
Much gentler than of late. Enjoyable and no hold-ups. Liked wordplay for PABLO and HAITI which were both biffed. Probably a chestnut but COD to BAGHDAD. At least after doing all these crosswords I now know where the ‘H’ goes. Many thanks for the blog Templar. Thanks Jimmy.
Finished and much enjoyed. On the wavelength so very quick today. Laughed at NOMAD, also liked PABLO, MELVILLE, RECCE, ADHERE, among others.
BAGHDAD is a very old joke, but I can’t remember how it goes.
Thanks vm, Templar.
Nice steady top to bottom solve. I came here to avoid a very difficult 15×15, and now that I have finished this enjoyable puzzle I might have a look at what the SNITCH is suggesting.
Thanks setter and thanks for the blog.
Wonderful puzzle, proof that a QC does not have to be obscure or difficult to be highly enjoyable. COD goes equally to the beautifully constructed birds in BRAG and the wonderfully topical political bungs in IMPLICATIONS.
Thanks Templar for excellent blog and parsing of RECCE which I somehow got without seeing the hidden.
Missed my twice achieved PB by four seconds, but always good to get a sub-10, especially when it isn’t a Trelawney. Some biffing going on I have to confess including NOMAD and KARAOKE. The trouble with doing it all fast, much like running as opposed to walking, is that the view tends to pass you by. Still, with a crossword, at least you can look back afterwards, and now I see so many excellent clues. Being a biologist I’ll give COD to EGRET. FOI PERSUASION, LOI BRAG, Time 8:38. Thanks Jimmy and Templar
7:02
Very nice puzzle, thanks Jimmy and Templar.
By the way, the times2 has an excellent nina today.
A very pleasant 16min sprint this morning, greatly assisted by spotting both literary answers straight away (almost unheard of for this scientist), and by Didactic being a hidden. I may well have come across the word before, but if asked to define it I would have struggled. Lots to enjoy, especially from a parsing perspective (Bless was excellent), but CoD has to go to loi Brag, for Jimmy’s sneaky misdirection. Invariant
6:33 which is very quick by my usual standards. Maybe my second best ever – helped by switching from a tiny iphone to a computer.
LOI was PERSUASION – just couldn’t see it and wasted time on it early doors.
COD: NOMAD
Thank you Jimmy, and you Templar for 1d Pablo. I did see a BAP but couldn’t justify the L.
POI 13d HalTed I was thinking of Theodore Roosevelt, not NHO Logan (who he?)
I should perhaps have indicated more clearly that I was gently satirising the setters’ new “let’s use pub quiz material instead of stuffy old culture” approach. Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure is about as low-brow as it comes!
Party on Dude!
Thoroughly enjoyed the blog today, thank you, Templar; gave us a few chortles along the way.
Bill & Ted’s EA was mentioned from the pulpit a couple of years ago in the church I attend. The sermon started “We’re not worthy!” and we were then asked which film the quote came from. I was horribly pleased with myself for being the only one of the congregation to be able to answer.
Mind you, our new curate went one better by mentioning the serial killer Dexter in one of his early sermons…
You’re fortunate there wasn’t a prize on offer. “We’re not worthy” is from Wayne’s World not Bill & Ted.
Gahhh! You are, of course, right. I promise I did give the correct answer at the time but was totally wrong today 🤦♀️
I should have concentrated more on the sermon that took “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall” as its inspiration.
😂
I don’t think it’s fair to highlight Theodore “Ted” Logan while ignoring William “Bill”S. Preston Esquire
He Missyed that one out!
But the sequel Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey, if not exactly high-brow, does delve into some heavy metaphysics.
Templar’s “so movingly portrayed by Keanu Reeves” line reminded me that the Wikipedia article for Point Break in which he stars with Patrick Swayze states “The film inspired a piece of cult theater, Point Break Live!, in which the role of Johnny Utah is played by an audience member chosen by popular acclamation after a brief audition. The new “Keanu” reads all of his lines from cue-cards for the duration of the show, “to capture the rawness of a Keanu Reeves performance even from those who generally think themselves incapable of acting.””
Loved Point Break-I’ve been known to do a lot of reciting of Johnny Utah’s lines over the years!
Hopefully not too emotively!
7:28, with LOI ECOLOGISTS.
PABLO was a “biff then fail to parse”. Thanks Templar for explaining how it works.
Also in the Roosevelt camp rather than the Logan one.
10:06
Nice puzzle, in particular liked bless, omnivore, oath, karaoke, ecologists, and pablo.
Gentle puzzle, though still some lovely clues.
Great to get a completion after two days of fat fingers – though I see that my time yesterday made it onto the QUITCH, which must be picking up the time from here.
IMPLICATIONS LOI and COD.
4:16
Finished correctly in 75 minutes.
A tough one, I thought.
N.B. :
“9 Across – Wanderer, sane in Glasgow? (5)
NOMAD – “Ah’m no mad“
Good to have a clue using a dialect other than Cockney.
“1 A lot of old bread brought up for Picasso, say (5)
PABLO”
Good to have another clue referencing a famous painter.
16 mins…
Nice puzzle. 2dn “Right Wingers” brought a smile to the face – especially as both Chelsea’s wingers ran riot on Tuesday night at Stamford Bridge. As I said to someone at the ground, when you don’t often see PL players apart from the TV, you suddenly realise how physically big and strong they are when you are close to them near the pitch.
FOI -1ac “Persuasion”
LOI – 6dn “Implications”
COD – 19dn “Brag” – great surface.
Thanks as usual!
Television does no justice to live sport. The speed athletes run, the heights they jump are amazing when you see it up close.
Except F1. Wherever you stand on the circuit, you have a 95% chance of missing any given occurrence. TV wins hands down.
From UNDO to ECOLOGISTS in 5:33, with PABLO biffed and reverse engineered as predicted. Nice puzzle. Thanks Jimmy and Templar.
09:27
Good to log a sub-10 after a couple of really tough days. And found two typos on the final check before submission. Got NOMAD from a recent puzzle where I was correct on the difference between “No mad” and “Nae mad”.
I watched the first episode of “Ludwig” on BBC1, which features David Mitchell as a crossword compiler. No crosswords yet, though.
COD RIGHT WINGERS
If you pause the opening scene he was doing a cryptic which as best I can make out had …
Across
7 Note you’ll hear: warmer Mexican fare (6)
8 I’m persuasive. Like a milkshake (8)
9 Cryptic clue for wolf or pheasant perhaps (4,4)
10 Meal measures up perfectly – to some extent (6)
11 In Korean capital, lacking energy, scoff seeing sweet potato pie etc (4,4)
Downs
1 Some paratha, ricotta and a kind of bean (7)
2 Rice and this curry can be arranged for Leonardo Da Vinci (7)
3 Booze: aroma: roses or latterly, oak, primarily (6)
4 Mostly chocolatey desert? In other words – it includes lamb (8)
Noting also from the answers he fills in there’s a couple of spelling errors and somehow the grid he fills in with Acrosses then loses those and has the Downs instead!
Years ago, my wife had a book by Jane Austen : Persuasion and Northanger Abbey.
For years I thought that Northanger Abbey was a venue where they taught the arts of persuasion.
Until I realised that it was book with two separate Jane Austen novels. But thereafter I did remember
Persuasion. I never actually read the novel, someone made a film of it in 2022 so I did not need to. Phew !
6.57 I stared blankly at 1a for a while. Once it was in everything else followed quickly, finishing with ECOLOGISTS. NOMAD made me smile. Thanks Templar and Jimmy.
I have a particularly unpleasant cold, which is clearly the way forward because now I have a new PB of 8:03. I’ll admit to cheerfully biffing KARAOKE towards the end when I realised that the PB was in sight.
Thank you to Jimmy for a lovely puzzle, and to Templar for a lovely blog!
Hurray! 🏆
I don’t recall much of this, but I think PERSUASION was my FOI. Before anyone harrumphs about early C19 novels not being the way to attract young solvers, they should shut up. Templar has the origin of KARAOKE right; his 30% statistic reminds me that when as a newcomer to Japan I asked a Japanese colleague what it meant, he told me that karaoke is a kind of musical masturbation. 5:38
Wow. Japan.
Easy finish 25 mins but was in pub trying to eat lunch at the same time. The wordplay and definition leapt out of nearly every clue, which is something I can’t always say! Thanks all
11:42. BRAG and SODDEN were my favourites. Templar, I think the parsing of BAGHDAD is just BAG for get in the present not BAGged for got.
10:48
I may have bagged today’s spoils but I agree with your bag=get parsing 👍
A welcome not-so-demanding puzzle today with some witty clues. LOI BRAG.
Bananas? Clearly ‘nuts’ and therefore STUN must be some unusual way of expressing ‘stick a knife in’. Had to undo it of course when it came to 18d when I recalled making the same error on a previous occasion. More haste etc. We biffed PABLO once we had a couple of checkers and then, as Templar, chewed on the parsing for a while. The only other real holdup was, also like our blogger, contemplating RAGW before LOI BRAG emerged at 10:13 . Great clue. Thanks Templar and Jimmy. After the last couple of days an easier puzzle was welcome but no less enjoyable for that.
I considered, yesterday, taking a break from these QCs as I was fed up of having to grind it out for an hour or more …. and then having to give up or finding I’d made an error somewhere along the way. Fortunately, a new day dawned and my frustrations of yesterday had dissipated and Jimmy came up with a proper QC – fun, clever and achievable in a reasonable time. 22 minutes for me.
My FOI was OATH, but I didn’t get many of the other Across clues on first pass. The Downs, however, were more benign and I made good progress from then on. I’m ashamed to say that PERSUASION and MELVILLE were NHOs for me, but both were very fairly clued. I thought IMPLICATIONS was very clever and I finished with SODDEN.
Many thanks to Jimmy and Templar.
P.S. I have decided to abandon my long held ‘must-finish-at-all-costs’ policy and instead to implement a strict cut-off time as, I notice, do some others here. My new personal milestones are as follows:
1) Stretch target = 20 minutes
2) Standard target = 30 minutes
3) Cut-off time = 40 minutes
I expect to suffer rather more DNFs, of course, but I hope to avoid those long, enjoyment sapping struggles over the final few clues.
How about putting it to the side at 40mins and then coming back to it later? As you know, that occasionally gives new zest and might avoid one or two DNFs.
I second this!
Well good luck with the cutoff. I usually say I’ll stop at 30 but so often an answer will pop into my head at the last second forcing me to continue.
PB of 16mins.
Very enjoyable.
Congratulations! 👑
5:05
Fastest for a while. Didn’t stop to parse IMPLICATIONS, thinking the politician reference would turn out to be MP. Nothing else really slowed me down, with many of the answers being very speedy write-ins.
Thanks Templar for the excellent blog, and Jimmy for the gentle puzzle
10:44 here, nothing to say that hasn’t already been said, which is one of the perils of solving in the morning in California. COD to NOMAD, by a whisker among many.
Thanks to Jimmy and Templar.
Second time I have managed to complete the QC without resorting to online assistance (still very much a beginner). The anagrams are getting much easier to spot now. Currently watching Ludwig on BBC iplayer – a crossword setter turns murder detective – very entertaining.
I thought this was a lovely QC from start to finish.
Nice to see another Scottish reference from Jimmy. Nomad was COD for me.
15 enjoyable minutes for me and a cracker of a puzzle from Jimmy. The wavelength thing must have worked: we’re in Glasgow now and “Hey Jimmy! I’m no mad at you any more”. I also loved log cab in – the real fun of these puzzles is when you laugh or smile at the wordplay. Many thanks to Jimmy and to Templar for a great blog
A sparkling puzzle from Jimmy which gave me great pleasure. Please can you help me with MVP, the abbreviation in Templar’s intro, which isn’t included in the site glossary?
Sorry – a sports term, used by analogy, which stands for Most Valuable Player! The Galacticos of Crosswordland, like verlaine, mohn, aphis99 and Busman.
I’m not even a Crosswordland Galactico in the Random household.
13:19
It’s been a tough week so nice to get an easy one. No real hold ups but was looking the wrong way at LOI SODDEN until I realised wet was the definition.
A cracking puzzle but no cracking time for me today, a DNF due to carelessly trying RECON instead of RECCE (not a word I’ve seen much if ever) without noticing what I had done to ADHERE. Otherwise 16:15 minutes of fun. Loved PERSUASION, v. witty if you know the book! Is it weird that both this and Moby-Dick are among my very favorite novels? OMNIVORE and many more were also excellent!
Thanks Jimmy and Templar! Needed you to understand the Glasgow connection.