Parksolve time = 37:40, slightly sluggish in both elements.
Again I thought this was on the tougher end of the Quickie scale today, taking me about 50% more than my usual time.
But now that I’ve done the parsing I don’t see anything overly obscure so who knows, maybe you all breezed through it. Please let us know either way in the comments.
(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 | Successfully survive school, and profit from the nasty experience (4,3,5) |
| LIVE AND LEARN – LIVE (successfully survive) + LEARN (school)
Slightly odd this one, as my parsing doesn’t really account for the “AND”. Maybe it’s meant as a double definition with “successfully survive school” being taken as a whole. |
|
| 8 | Type of comic, to duck out of meeting (5-2) |
| STAND-UP – Double definition
Second def as in to “stand someone up”, ie fail to turn up for a date or a meeting. |
|
| 9 | Be against crowd coming back for dessert (5) |
| BOMBE – BE after BOM [MOB (crowd) “coming back”] | |
| 10 | Blocks ears, being after quiet (5) |
| PLUGS – LUGS (ears) after P (quiet, in musical notation) | |
| 11 | Is given hard time acquiring a good online label (7) |
| HASHTAG – HAS (is given) + H (hard) + T (time) + A + G (good)
#IKEACLUE I was worrying over HAS = “is” until I realised it’s “is given”. |
|
| 12 | Count kid out of bed (3,2) |
| TOT UP – TOT (kid) + UP (out of bed) | |
| 14 | With vigour chef’s cut bread (7) |
| BRIOCHE – BRIO (vigour) + CHE (chef “cut”) | |
| 15 | River’s true shape distorted (9) |
| EUPHRATES – (TRUE SHAPE)* | |
| 17 | Back lecturer, giving sign of approval (3) |
| NOD – DON (lecturer) in reverse (back) | |
| 19 | Nocturnal bear, rambling, balancing his emissions? (6,7) |
| CARBON NEUTRAL – (NOCTURNAL BEAR)* | |
| 21 | Footballers are sort of cross (6) |
| CELTIC – Double definition
A team from Glasgow and a Christian symbol. Different pronunciations if I’m not mistaken? |
|
| 22 | Christmas decoration wife avoids entirely (5) |
| HOLLY – WHOLLY (entirely) “avoided by” W (wife)
Got me thinking of Neil Diamond. |
|
| Down | |
| 1 | Fail at card game: snap? (4,8) |
| LOSE PATIENCE – LOSE (fail) + PATIENCE (card game)
Is the card game better known as Solitaire in America? Anyway, you know the one I mean. |
|
| 2 | By way of channel coming to bridge (7) |
| VIADUCT – VIA (by way of) + DUCT (channel) | |
| 3 | Range through Arabian desert (5) |
| ANDES – Hidden in (through) arabiAN DESert
A bit of a geographical oxymoron, but that doesn’t matter in Crosswordland. |
|
| 4 | In small part of organisation Henry is a distance down (5) |
| DEPTH – DEPT [small (shortened form of) department (part of organisation)] + H (Henry) | |
| 5 | Bias seems out of place in diplomatic offices (9) |
| EMBASSIES – (BIAS SEEMS)* | |
| 6 | Handy way to channel-hop (6,7) |
| REMOTE CONTROL – Cryptic definition
Remember having to get off the sofa to change the channel? The humanity! |
|
| 7 | Hound British bird of prey (6) |
| BEAGLE – B (British) + EAGLE (bird of prey) | |
| 13 | Meaning not to finish perfect wine (7) |
| PURPORT – PUR [unfinished PURE (perfect)] + PORT (wine) | |
| 14 | Moving cabin to a form of garden (7) |
| BOTANIC – (CABIN TO) | |
| 16 | Get free of initially powerful impulse (5) |
| PURGE – P (initially powerful) + URGE (impulse) | |
| 18 | Put off daughter and lock up (5) |
| DELAY – D (daughter) + ELAY [YALE (lock) reversed (up)]
I think I always assumed Yale was a British brand, but apparently it’s those clever Swedes again. |
|
| 20 | Expression of disgust not half enough (3) |
| UGH – |
|
We had the REMOTE CONTROL answer in Thursday’s 15×15 with a similar clue; do you think I twigged to the ‘channel-hop’ hint? No! Instead I went looking for channel tunnels. Bah!
I think you’re right about LIVE AND LEARN, it’s just a double definition although I can’t help feeling ‘profit from’ and ‘earn’ together with ‘live ‘ reversed for ‘evil’ and ‘nasty’ were playing some part. Liked CELTIC for the cross.
Thanks G&T.
It is solitaire in the States, except that the tech companies have all given their (presumably copyrighted) versions special (presumably copyrightable) names. MicroSoft calls the game most North Americans know as solitaire “Klondike”. Go figure. thanks, galspray
PURPORT is pretty rare as a noun, so that one is pretty tough and was my last in. 6:35, so under par for me, though that may merely be natural variation.
I must have been longer than I realised writing my comment, ulaca , as I swear your comment about PURPORT wasn’t there when I started!
12 minutes as far as I went but I gave up on 13dn as was unable to crack it. PURPORT is quite rare as a noun rather than a verb so I don’t think it would ever have occurred to me from he definition ‘meaning’, and the wordplay didn’t help me. The main reason for abandoning it so soon was I suspected the answer would be the name of a wine known to most but not to me.
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of different versions of Patience aka Solitaire, that’s why other names exist to distinguish between different types.
Your parsing of 1ac seems fine, Galspray, but I’d say the two elements need to be read as one rather than lifted and separated, then ‘AND’ is implicit.
Wot Jack said about 1ac. It was refreshing to see CHE clued for once as something other than ‘revolutionary’. No problem with PURPORT. 6:18.
17:58 for the solve! Bit tough in places and only gained speed as checkers went in. PURPORT LOI preceded by CELTIC, BOTANIC, BRIOCHE which had all been hanging around for the previous 4-5mins
Edit: slow parksolve today with a total time of 43:43. Normal place off due to icy so had to go do hilly trails round the country park
Made brisk work of this until stumbling at the last with the PURPORT/CELTIC combo – I really wanted port to be at the start of 13d rather than at the end.
Despite that I finished in an under average 6.49 with COD to the CARBON NEURTRAL bear.
Thanks to Galspray
8:35, and clearly I was on wavelength here for a change as I had no holdups for a steady solve. LIVE AND LEARN was my FOI and LOSE PATIENCE the second, and with those two in, the grid opened up nicely.
I parsed 1A as a simple DD, as otherwise there just seems too many words and moving parts in the clue. Maybe Teazel didn’t enjoy school much, given the reference to a nasty experience.
Many thanks Galspray for the blog
Cedric
I don’t think “oh well, you live and learn” would be said after a pleasant experience, to be fair to Teazel.
But yes, very wordy and still not totally clear, so not my favourite.
I did like the environmentally-friendly bear though!
5:23. Held up at the end trying to make 13D PORTENT but it doesn’t even fit the definition. 2LOI CELTIC got me to the right answer. I enjoyed the bear balancing his emissions. Thanks Teazel and Gallers.
DNF.
Eight minutes for all the clues except PURPORT. Tried alphabet trawls for all unchecked letters. Looked at the clue both ways, but spent more time on a possible seven letter wine.
COD TOT UP
8:23 with LOI PURPORT.
Not really up for it this morning. A UTI when one has an SCI is not fun. Five write-ins. It either came or it didn’t this morning.
FOI nod followed by remote control clued off the N. Plugs, stand-up, Andes which could almost be a clue.
Did I do “get pleasure from evaluating fractions” 70s/80s band?
A flower is the key to this artist – Lilly Allen
Another tricky one for me. Perhaps I haven’t quite woken up yet, or the ongoing respiratory bug is dulling my brain. I assembled 1a in stages, starting with AND from DEPTH and ANDES. LIVE came after VIADUCT and LOSE PATIENCE, and LEARN eventually occurred to me just before I finished while taking a diversion from being stuck in the SW. CARBON NEUTRAL had scotched the PORTENT idea at 13d, but it took an age to see PURPORT. CELTIC then arrived as LOI. 11:10. Thanks Teazel and Galspray.
An entertaining 22:40 with no frustrations. A pretty fast time for solving on my phone in an airport sitting near someone who has Tourette’s. Thanks to whoever explained how to see the setter’s name on the phone!
Thanks Teazel and galspray!
😀
Dnf…
First fail of the new year. Spent 20 mins getting everything apart from 9ac “Bombe” and 13dn “Purport”. Looks like my Saturday struggles will continue into 2025.
FOI – 8ac “Stand Up”
LOI – Dnf
COD – 1dn “Lose Patience”
Thanks as usual!
A steady solve in 9:30, with no real hold-ups. A strong sense of deja-vu with REMOTE CONTROL.
COD to CARBON NEUTRAL.
Thanks Teazel and Galspray
Finished this in my average time (30min) but with one error. It felt harder than average, although the clues were all fair.
I hurriedly put in LOST PATIENCE on 1D not LOSE. Ironic
Thanks Galspray and Teazel.
I just (briefly) put my email under username so I have had another go at registering.
This is the second attempt. As before the username/password was not recognised when I then tried to log in. Am now blocked from logging in for a while.
Has anyone else had this?
(Am changing name to xwordnumpty from xwordnewbie, as I think I have progressed enough for this!)
Thanks
Now logged in 😀
6:31
Quick all round before coming back to 1a which I struggled with, even with all checkers in place – I didn’t see that it was a DD, and it was very much a slap head and groan moment when the penny finally dropped.
Thanks G and T
18:12. CELTIC and CARBON NEUTRAL were time consuming!
Close but not close enough! I’m pleased to report at the end of the first week’s play the scores stand level at 2-2. Already I have twice as many wins as last January!
You’ve unearthed a rich vein of form!
17:04
Nothing too bad. Didn’t parse PURPORT and held up for a while by putting LOOK AND LEARN. LOI PLUGS.
Parksolve a slow 50 minutes.
1d was lovely but, like others, I did find 1a rather underwhelming. The linking “and” is unfortunate and yet the answer’s required “and” isn’t clued. Odd. And how does one “unsuccessfully” survive? That “successfully” just seemed unnecessary to me. Brisk fun all the same. Thanks to Teazel and Galspray.
A disappointing DNF for me, as I put PURPOse for ‘Meaning’ at 13d and therefore could not find any footballers or crosses to fit _E_e_C. After 5 minutes of trying I re-visited 13d, but PURPORT simply never came to mind. How do our better solvers always manage to come up with the correct word …. and how do they do it so quickly?
Roughly 35 minutes + maybe 10 more wasted on those two unsolved clues.
Many thanks to Galspray and Teazel.
Enjoyable puzzle. Had to go out before I could write a comment, but as far as I remember, I solved about half then stuck on 1a and 1d and LHS. Then pennies dropped and I solved the rest. Liked CARBON NEUTRAL, BEAGLE, BOTANIC, and LOI BRIOCHE which made me smile.
Thanks vm, Galspray.
Yes, I did have an extra problem logging in. In any case, I have to log in every time I comment despite trying ‘remember me’.
20:19 so just qualified for the SCC. I’m always pleased to finish one of Teazle’s puzzles as I usually struggle to complete them. FOI – HASHTAG, LOI – PURPORT which many seem to have struggled with. Honourable mentions to EUPHRATES,LOSE PATIENCE and ANDES but COD – CARBON NEUTRAL. Thanks to Teazel and Galspray.
DNF in 21 minutes. All done in seven minutes except for LIVE AND LEARN, which took another ten, and PURPORT, which I never solved. As others have said, it’s uncommon as a noun. Thanks galspray and Teazel.
Tricky in places but I really liked PLUGS and VIADUCT.
Put in PERPORT assuming PER was the unfinished PERFECT so a DNF.
Thanks both.
18.30, but listening to football at the same time.
Back to my old chair in the SCC at 28:02, which is probably around twice my average. I don’t really understand why REMOTE CONTROL works, the clue just reads to me like a concise crossword definition for a remote control so I expect I’m missing something clever.
Don’t think I’ve come across PURPORT as a noun before, so bunged it in from the wordplay and hoped for the best. With hindsight I hindered myself by assuming that I was missing various facts – “It’ll be a river I’ve never heard of”, “a type of cross I haven’t heard of”, “a kind of garden, probably Japanese or something, that I haven’t heard of, I bet it’s some sort of rock garden”. Perhaps I should be more optimistic, but on the other hand that assumption is frequently correct.
Thank you for the blog!
Channel hopping would usually be the phrase meaning going over to France – so that is what Teazel is trying to misdirect you into pondering about.
11:18 here. I really enjoyed this one. After my first pass through the acrosses I only had three and thought I was in for a struggle, but then just enough of the downs yielded to let me finish in a pretty quick time. Well, quick for me. COD to the environmentally-aware bear.
Thanks to Teazel and Galspray.
In and out the other side of the SCC today and no running involved! I don’t know what I found so difficult about this but it’s the slowest I’ve been in a long time. In fact, the biggie only took about 10 minutes longer 😅
I liked LOSE PATIENCE and the anagram at 19a was terrific. UGH made me nostalgic – years ago I had an MGB roadster with that as part of its number plate. It definitely wasn’t an appropriate group of letters for such a fab car.
About 30 minutes – I stopped counting after a while. FOI Andes LOI Purport AOD Carbon neutral COD Euphrates (it seems that the river has been canalised over the centuries)
Thanks Teazel and Galspray
Done online while visiting friends, so completed with interruptions.
COD 1D LOSE PATIENCE
LOsI PURPORT/CELTIC held us up.
22:38 on my phone to continue my 100% record for 2025. Only 25% within target though. LOI DEPTH even though I’d thought of dept before and already had the H. Thanks Teazel and Galspray.
LOI PURPORT but it didn’t hold us up for so long, mainly because we gave up on parsing the PUR part and trusted to fortune. 10:44 in total which indicates somewhat easier than normal for us. We did remember the recent appearance of REMOTE CONTROL in the 15x 15 but thought the clueing was rather easier here. Thanks all.
A new record of the wrong sort.
Flew through most of it until baulked by BRIOCHE at about 15 mins.
Went away and did other things then finally saw it and finished for a dazzling 129 min. total.
Just did this on Sunday evening, horizontal on the sofa after a surfeit of sherry trifle. That does not seem to be a performance enhancing drug and I finished in a stately 09:17, LOI & COD BRIOCHE. Many thanks Teazel and gallers.
You are not alone – I managed a PB by more than a minute in the peace and quiet of Sunday evening …
6:20 with LOI PURPORT
Also delayed this one to Sunday evening and despite nursing a monster hangover from yesterday’s delayed Christmas festivities at the outlaws which involved me only wrapping up a final 9 holes of Wii golf at 6am this morning, I managed a very passable 7:41.
LOI was CELTIC for me having finally dealt with POI PURPORT and PPOI BRIOCHE.
Back to work tomorrow…..