| Across |
| 1 |
Dishonest republican interrupts chef and newspaperman (7) |
|
CROOKED – COOK with R for republican inserted followed by ED |
| 5 |
Managed to carry one bucket? (4) |
|
RAIN – RAN with I inside. ‘Bucket’ as a verb |
| 7 |
In the morning I depart for friend overseas (5) |
|
AMIGO – AM + I GO |
| 8 |
Wrap up Eastern European returning with five points (7) |
|
ENVELOP – POLE + V (five) + N[orth] + E[ast] backwards |
| 10 |
Genetic make-up of every other part of Donna (3) |
|
DNA – alternate letters. I’m sure clues like this used to be numerated as (1,1,1)? |
| 11 |
’50s conflict destroyed arena work (6,3) |
|
KOREAN WAR – anagram (‘destroyed’) of ARENA WORK |
| 13 |
US city splits westbound in tailspin (6) |
|
SPIRAL – LA + RIPS all backwards |
| 14 |
They say some hard looks are what’s needed to get to the next level? (6) |
|
STAIRS – sounds like STARES. This took me ages to spot as well |
| 17 |
Treated creakiest winter athlete (3-6) |
|
ICE-SKATER – anagram (‘treated’) of CREAKIEST |
| 19 |
Start on holiday (3) |
|
OFF – Double definition, the first as in ‘the off’, the start of a horse race. |
| 20 |
English northern couple with energy to twist (7) |
|
ENTWINE – E + N + TWIN + E |
| 22 |
Circle south, at times going by, city in Japan (5) |
|
OSAKA – O + S + AKA (also known as) |
| 23 |
Dad starts off very early to make a road (4) |
|
PAVE – PA + V[ery]+ E[arly] |
| 24 |
It helps relieve congestion encountered in government holiday (7) |
|
MENTHOL – hidden word |
Thanks for the blog, Curarist, but I still don’t understand where the N(orth) comes from in 8a. Could you clarify for me, please?
Many thanks.
Pi
North and East are points of the compass
Ah, got it. Thanks. I had taken the E from “Eastern” and Pole from just “European” rather than “Eastern European”, so couldn’t figure out the remaining N.
I read it that N and E are points of the compass and POLE accounts for ‘Eastern European’.
Understood now, thx.
A more straight forward one for us finishing in an enjoyable 17.50.
Started with 1a and 1d which gave a very firm footing for the rest of the solve. Mrs RH on top form with synonyms I couldn’t see, like loom = rear (I was stuck on “does my loom look big in this”!)
We also spent some time at the beginning discussing how crook plus ed is pronounced with 2 syllables but cook plus ed is one. Would you described a bishop as crooked with one syllable perhaps🤓
Thanks Beck and Curarist
12 minutes with several answers unparsed until after the event. ORIGAMI for one. And doom / DESTINE. I don’t recall meeting ‘destine’ before the QC 20th December when it was clued as ‘ordain’ and I had to blink several time to see how that might mean the same as ‘doom’.
10:02 for a mostly straightforward completion. But I still don’t understand the parsing of OSAKA – how does “at times going by” become “also known as”?
Apart from that, no major holdups, though I took on trust that ISOBATH was a word (NHO), and like our blogger I was surprised that DNA was not enumerated as (1,1,1).
Many thanks Curarist for the blog and a good weekend to all.
Cedric
I understood it as sometimes he goes by the name of Cedric…/is also known as Cedric
American influence I think…
An interesting Nina from Beck.
Scott Kannberg (aka SPIRAL STAIRS) formed a band called PAVEMENT(al). They had an album called CROOKED RAIN.
That is Mephisto level Nina-ism, or maybe I have very limited musical knowledge. Well seen!
Definitely Mephisto level (though my musical knowledge stops somewhere around the Millennium).
My musical knowledge stops at about 1980. As for SPIRAL STAIRS -no hope!
My pop expertise is limited to the 1960s, so NHO this lot.
snap!
🙂
What a spot!
Top quality puzzle from Beck which produced a number of smiles as some answers resolved themselves – AFTERNOON, STAIRS and MENTHOL being particularly fine examples.
Started with CROOKED and finished with PORTS OF CALL in 7.22.
Thanks to Curarist.
6.57 with a typo
Agree with Plett11. Good puzzle NHO DESTINE or ISOBATH but they had to be. Unfortunately there wasn’t a KOREAA WAR.
Thanks Curarist and Beck
Rather easier for me than usual. Almost a rare sub 10 minutes at 10.40. Thank you for all the information and entertainment in watching you all over the last year
Well played!
Happy to entertain.
Congrats – and keep posting!
Like Curarist, I found this on the trickier end of the spectrum. Started with RAIN, but didn’t really get into a rhythm and had to jump around the grid. Didn’t know ISOBATH, but constructing it helped to get LOI, MENTHOL. 11:00. Thanks Bsck ad Curarist.
10:59. Started quickly, with the first three across clues going straight in, then slowed down. Spent a while on 17a convinced it needed to start SKI, but unable to find an anagram of CREAET that made sense.
LOI SPIRAL took a while to see.
Thanks Curarist and Beck
I was a SKIer too
Also whizzed through this coming to a stop at spiral that just couldn’t see. Thanks all and a belated Happy New Year.
A lot to enjoy but one or two which were definitely too much for a quickie ( especially spiral).
Origami was an obvious answer but I’m not sure it’s a very fair clue. It’s a bit like saying ‘drink is made from this’ and wanting ‘orange’ because orange juice is a popular drink. Thank all!
17:28 for the solve! Last four mins spent on SPIRAL with a minute before that on ORIGAMI. Otherwise held up in the SE where I couldn’t fully parse OSAKA, NHO ISOBATH, missed the hidden MENTHOL, got fooled by AFTERNOON and PORTS-OF-CALL is not quite a familiar enough phrase to go straight in. The rest fairly shot in. Not too bad a puzzle from Beck who we only saw twice last year.
18 mins, so no SCC stop for me today, although it involved some being only partially parsed. 9D felt like a 15s clue; find another word for, insert anagrammed part of clue – the actual answer though was very biffable.
Liked ICE SKATER, sounds like the ISOBATH might have helped treat them…
A couple of semi-biffs for me today. Not really sure how ON means ‘in contact with’ in 12D. Thanks Curarist for parsing of OSAKA – don’t know why I didn’t see aka, but very fair clue.
When you sit “on” a chair you are in contact with that chair.
👍
Another DNF, 1 for 3 so far this year.
It was Party=“group of voters” that led me astray. Missed the hidden MENTHOL, so put in MONTHLY as the only word that fit. Spent too long on SPIRAL.
ISOBATH looks like a word constructed by an Hellenophile not an Oceanographer. Do they really draw them on charts ? Every chart I’ve seen (admittedly not many) just has lots of numbers for depth.
NHO DESTINE, but didn’t notice that I didn’t know it, just biffed from checkers.
COD ICE SKATER
DESTINE. Present tense of destined.
Very much enjoyed this – for us, a quick 15.52 (without parsing all). Much New Year excitement.
Missed hidden ‘menthol’ after labouring to put ‘MET’ (encountered) in N.HOL (stretching imagination to ‘National HOLiday’).
As for OSAKA – “at times going by” becoming “also known as”, we took it as ‘at times going by the name of ‘X’, also known as ‘Twitter’….?.
And thank you for hints to try the Jumbo cryptic as a stepping stone to 15x 15. Much appreciated.
We view the TC as more like hunting for a cousin once removed, rather than for the immediate sibling lurking in the TQC.
On that note – more in line with the ‘once removed’, ‘a group of voters’ ?- can someone please explain how that becomes ‘poll’?
Thank you Curarist and Beck
I never got into a rhythm with this, and I biffed ORIGAMI as it couldn’t be anything else. Challenging but ultimately fair puzzle – despite me thinking that you PAVE a footpath rather than a road.
My COD is my early contender for COY because “at times going by” is a simply superb usage – I wish I’d thought of it for one of my puzzles!
FOI RAIN
LOI PORTS OF CALL
COD OSAKA
TIME 5:14
13 minutes. I agree with Curarist’s assessment of the general level of difficulty of the puzzle. I didn’t know DESTINE or ISOBATH but wordplay made me confident they were real words. For some reason PORTS OF CALL held out stubbornly as my LOI and I doubt I would have solved it without crossers.
Thanks to Beck and Curarist and well done to sawbill for spotting the theme
Thanks for all the parsing over the year, most helpful. Ref isoBATH, this was confirmed to me by the word bathosphere, in which intrepid souls head off into the deep.
Merlin – the charts that I have used report depths based on lowest astronomical tide (LAT or Chart Datum) and in shallow water lines are drawn at 0, 2, 5, 10 and 20 metres in addition to spot depths. Above 0, the sea bed can dry out. In Suffolk, water depth is either shallow or very shallow which can make sailing interesting!
Near me there is Bramble spit and others. They move. I confess I giggle at the cargo ships ( and QE II) which get stuck on the sand banks. At the height of summer some years back, a yacht thought it would be fun to sail into a very busy bathing area. The look of consternation when the skipper realised he was about to ground was a delight.
I got to eight in a couple of minutes by taking a more random approach
FOI inlaw
SOI Korean War
Then I just went down that side from there but missed posts of call.
Finished correctly in 50 minutes with a lot of guessing.
Rather hard for a so-called QC and not much fun.
11:54
No difficulties today apart from taking a while to see SPIRAL then looking for the wrong sort of PM in LOI AFTERNOON.
Really annoying, thought I was doing so well, but no chance of getting SPIRAL, and couldn’t see a word fitting K-O-K (refusal? slight MER). May I suggest in 14 “some” is not needed? Didn’t delay me, though, it was obvious enough.
8.42 with the same delays that other commenters experienced.
Not quite on Beck’s wavelength yet which made for an intriguing and ultimately enjoyable solve. SPIRAL held out the longest and was also LOI. Lots of smiles along the way as my brain slowly got to grips with some of the clues (RAIN, AFTERNOON, DREARY). Liked STAIRS and OSAKA best. A nice coffee-time workout. Thanks Beck and C.
6:07
Only uncertain with ISOBATH and failed to parse LOI MENTHOL. PORTS OF CALL needed nearly all of the checkers to see. Everything else worked out fine though. Nina was miles over my head.
Thanks Curarist and Beck
DNF SPIRAL – ages searching for US city.
Slow to start but then got going OK, with biffs abounding. KOREAN WAR was a reasonable early clue. Biffed ISOBATH. Liked STAIRS, CLANDESTINE, MENTHOL, OSAKA (parsed!), AFTERNOON. PORTS OF CALL unparsed at first.
Thanks vm, Curarist.
A quick time for me at 6.15 to finish the week, finding this relatively straightforward. One answer I originally got wrong was inventing a new Japanese city called OSAGO. As I was writing it in, I thought should this be OSAKA? As I couldn’t work out why AKA should be relative to times going by I decided to stay with my original entry. When PORTS OF CALL was obvious I then changed to OSAKA but without the parsing. Having seen Plett11’s explanation all is now clear.
My total time for the week was 49.36 (spoilt by Mondays time of 17.23), giving me a daily average just under target at 9.55.
30 mins.
Biffed a few. Could not see how rain= bucket, nor how off=start. Could not parse Osaka either.
Origami was a write in. I have made a senbazura – made of a 1000 cranes. See elsewhere for Sadako Sasaki who began making cranes as a child ill with leukaemia as a result of Hiroshima. There is a statue to her where people leave paper cranes every year on Obon (ancestor day).
Many thanks to Curarist for helpful blog, and to Beck.
I had to go and look up senbazura ( hopefully it will turn up in a puzzle soon, before I forget it!). Wow. That’s a lot of folding and must have taken a long time. I hope you got whatever you were wishing for – which may just have been to get to the 1000th crane, I suppose…
Must have been easier as my first completion. Normally I am a DNF. Loved the puzzle. Bring on more from this setter😄
🎉🎊
Very well done Tim – what a start to the year!
🏆👏
Dropped straight onto Beck’s wavelength with Clandestine and quite a few others, but his quirky humour (Afternoon, Osaka) began to make a sub-20 difficult, before the tricky Origami Spiral (scissors not allowed) killed off any remaining hopes. I’ll happily stick with the French (Engrenages) version. 😉 Still, I managed to nab a window seat, and enjoyed the challenge. CoD to 22ac, Osaka, for the parsing. Invariant
I started quite well but slowed down in the bottom half, especially the SE. Wrote in ‘develop’ at 8ac but thankfully reviewed it quite rapidly when I couldn’t parse it. I eventually finished up in 21 mins for my first visit to the club this year. Couldn’t parse Osaka, origami or dreary and NHO isobath.
FOI – 1ac CROOKED
LOI – 15dn ISOBATH
COD – 12dn AFTERNOON
Thanks to Beck and Curarist
15 minutes. LOI SPIRAL. This was one of several I struggled to parse.
All correct in the end including the unknown ISOBATH-clearly clued.
I agree this was a tad harder than average.
COD to STREAM.
David
9 mins…
Apart from a slight hesitation on 15dn “Isobath”, I found this on the easier side.
FOI – 1ac “Crooked”
LOI – 15dn “Isobath”
COD – 14ac “Stairs”
Thanks as usual!
You certainly did!
It’s a rare event nowadays 😀
😂 . . .infrequent perhaps, but you have quite a collection
I took ages to see 13a too, and it would have been my LOI had I not foolishly biffed LANE instead of PAVE without bothering to parse it. Damned by my own carelessness in 15:35.
9.21 Pretty quick for me despite spending several minutes on AFTERNOON and PORTS OF CALL. OSAKA was biffed and ISOBATH was new, but bathysphere made it plausible. Thanks Curarist and Beck.
Well it didn’t start well. I couldn’t get going and then I realised I was ‘solving’ the 15×15. As for this QC I found it relatively straight forward with the exception of my LOI SPIRAL. From CLANDESTINE to SPIRAL in a healthy 7:36. The NINA is very niche.
19:37 for the first sub 20m of the year.
I seemed to be on Beck’s wavelength.
Like others SPIRAL was last one in and took some minutes.
Well, I found that very straightforward and was rewarded with a 15-minute solve, which is very fast for me. I gave up timing, record keeping and stats analysis back in the autumn, but I just happened to notice when I started and finished today and it’s good to have a day out from the SCC.
I got off to a great start with CROOKED and RAIN going straight in, followed by six of their seven dependents. My only real problem was that I biffed ‘Dismal’ at 4d and didn’t realise my error until trying to solve my final few clues (e.g. ENVELOP). DREARY ended up being my LOI.
I could not parse ORIGAMI and had NHO ISOBATH, but they both just had to be.
Many thanks to Curarist and Beck.
Congrats SRC! And happy new year to you and Mrs R 😊
Very nice! 💪
👏👏👏
Easily my quickest of the year so far at 14:29. LOI was my COD AFTERNOON for the great surface and misdirection. Didn’t really think ORIGAMI was cryptic at all, but it couldn’t be anything else. Thanks Curarist and Beck.
I am definitely in the easy camp, biffing obvious answers like port of call and Osaka. I put in menthol without even noticing it was a hidden. I agree isobath was a bit tough, although I know bathos is depth in Greek. I was left with the tailspin, which I thought about for a moment and then biffed.
Time: 6:51.
10:36, a gentle start to the day for me. I was a bit bewildered by KNOCK BACK (DNK its sense of “refusal”), PORTS OF CALL (poll = group of voters?) and OFF (didn’t think of “and they’re off!”). STAIRS cost me a few hard stares. I thought the clue for ORIGAMI was barely cryptic. DREARY is good! Liked CLANDESTINE best.
No chance of seeing the Nina, but you’d think SPIRAL and STAIRS would at least have made me look. Nope.
Thanks to Beck and Curarist!
10.26. I liked the flow, some trickier ones there to keep one guessing (CLANDESTINE), and all clued fairly imo. thank you both!
Things are quietening down now, so this is the first chance I’ve had to post for a while!
I didn’t find this so easy and had no clue about the nina. I’m aware of the band but wouldn’t know one of their songs in a million years – one for the fans of more esoteric music perhaps? Still it didn’t spoil my enjoyment of the puzzle – I guess this is the proof that a nina or theme doesn’t have to result in too many obscure words, although if we hadn’t seen DESTINE recently, I might have been more flummoxed.
All done and dusted in 12:47, although I biffed PORTS OF CALL and took a few moments to parse it. I liked the oblique reference to Paddington Bear in 14a (STAIRS). MENTHOL took a while to get unblocked, and OSAKA too, but once I worked out what was going on, that got a tick.
I bought a beautiful calendar yesterday, which features Japanese art – January is a picture of two cranes dancing in the snow 😊
FOI Crooked LOI Pave COD Ice-skater
Thanks Beck and Curarist
Welcome back!
Ah thank you 😊 And congrats on your excellent time today
Yes, welcome back Penny!
Thanks! I read the blog every day – just didn’t comment. But I must thank you for a terrific blog yesterday. As it was a Felix, I knew there’d be a nina, but didn’t even try to look for it 😅 I did wonder if there would be a new year theme, and that was why it had been held back. More fool me – on your prompting, I took another look, and there it was – staring me in the face!
My pleasure! Great Nina, good old RR
12:24. SPIRAL and AFTERNOON were favourites.
Bit of a slog but got there in 20! Hesitated over STAIRS/STARES but ISOBATH clinched it. Decided bucketing down with rain had to fit 5a and that gave REV and IN LAW: progress after that was slow, slow, quick quick slow. But fun overall and cod was AMIGO which made me smile. Thanks Beck and Curarist
A very different QC that at first had me thinking I would DNF, but they suddenly started coming to me.
DNK isobath, but the cluing was kind.
Going well and on course for a very rare sub 20 when SPIRAL converted it into a DNF. 😥. Does SPIRAL (rather than say, SPIRAL out of control) really mean tailspin?
Same for me. I was looking for an American city, which just wouldn’t work. Apart from that, all done in 16 minutes.