A mixture of easier clues and others that needed some thought so about the right level of difficulty for a QC. Finished in 8:38 which overall made it on the gentler side.
A nice popular culture reference at 10d had me scurrying down a few burrows to familiarise myself with the already extensive literature on the subject, so I’ll opt for this as my favourite.
Thanks to Orpheus
Definitions underlined in bold, deletions or letters from words in the clue not appearing in the answer indicated by strikethrough.
Across | |
1 | Area police officer lacking flexibility (8) |
DISTRICT – DI (‘police officer’) STRICT (‘lacking flexibility’) | |
5 | Sign made by wife leaving those of her sex (4) |
OMEN – |
|
8 | Unusually posh gear brought back by large retail assistant (8) |
SHOPGIRL – Anagram (‘unusually’) of POSH followed by reversal (‘brought back’) of RIG (‘gear’) then L (‘large’) | |
9 | South European serf, briefly (4) |
SLAV – SLAV I wondered if I’d swallowed the bait, hook, line and sinker here as I always thought SLAV was used to describe Eastern and central Europe and this is supported by the usual dictionary sources. However, Wikipedia tells me that the modern Slavonic people can be classified into three groups: West (eg Czechs), East (eg Russians and Ukrainians) and South (eg Bulgarians and Serbs) so I guess the latter group covers it. |
|
11 | A structural member at right angles to a ship (5) |
ABEAM –A (‘A’) BEAM (‘structural member’)
Can also be used in relation to the fuselage of an aircraft. |
|
12 | Metal works located by railway (7) |
FOUNDRY – FOUND (‘located’) RY (‘railway’) | |
13 | Old chap enthralled by cover of religious book (6) |
ROMANS – O (‘Old’) MAN (‘chap’) contained in (‘enthralled by’) R Paul’s Epistle to the Romans in the New Testament. On edit: As pointed out by Invariant in the comments below, the definition is just ‘book’ with ‘religious’ just part of the wordplay. Otherwise ‘religious’ would be part of both wordplay and definition, a no-no these days. |
|
15 | North Yorkshire resort’s colourful transport (6) |
REDCAR – RED (‘colourful’) CAR (‘transport’)
REDCAR has a racecourse where I suspect you may see the odd TOUT (qv) or two. |
|
18 | Jazz fan entertaining worker, perhaps with a choral composition (7) |
CANTATA – CAT (‘Jazz fan’) containing (‘entertaining’) ANT (‘worker, perhaps’) then A (‘a’)
CAT for ‘jazz fan’ as in a “hep cat”. Very generous of Orpheus to add the ‘perhaps’ to ‘worker’ for ANT, to the point of making me wonder if there was something else intended. Good surface, mixing two different worlds of music. |
|
19 | Corpulent southern racecourse spy (5) |
STOUT – S (‘southern’) TOUT (‘racecourse spy’)
A racetrack TOUT is someone with self-proclaimed expertise or inside knowledge about horse racing who offers tips or inside information, usually for a share of any winnings as a result of the information provided. Flash Harry (George Cole) in the St. Trinian’s films comes to mind, though he had a few more strings to his bow. |
|
21 | Stiffly formal first person’s behind pair (4) |
PRIM – I’M (‘first person’s’) following (‘behind’) PR (‘pair’)
Mainly for my own benefit, first person’s = first person is = I am = I’m. |
|
22 | Toothless old PM associated with gallery (8) |
EDENTATE – EDEN (‘old PM’) TATE (‘gallery’)
Probably just how he felt after the Suez Crisis. |
|
23 | Volcano appearing in street name (4) |
ETNA – Today’s hidden (‘appearing in’) streET NAme
The usual crossword ‘volcano’. I’m sure Orpheus would have loved to have included Eyjafjallajökull (yes, I cut and pasted that); pity about the thirteen-letter limit. |
|
24 | Tendency to compose simple song (8) |
PENCHANT – PEN (‘compose’) CHANT (‘simple song’) |
Down | |
1 | Loss of hope of the French couple (7) |
DESPAIR – DES (‘of the French’) PAIR (‘couple’) | |
2 | Misappropriated neckwear? (5) |
STOLE – Double definition
As a noun, a woman’s shawl or long scarf worn over the shoulders (hence the question mark with ‘neckwear’), or a priest’s long vestment hanging to the knee. As a woman’s garment, I tend to think of a stole as made of fur and a boa of feathers, but apparently a stole can be made of fabrics such as wool or silk and a there is such a thing as a fur boa. |
|
3 | Like section of army team, linger appallingly (10) |
REGIMENTAL – Anagram (‘appallingly’) of TEAM LINGER | |
4 | Glass container artist found in coffee bar (6) |
CARAFE – RA (‘artist’) contained in (‘found in’) CAFÉ (‘coffee bar’)
Our usual artist, RA for Royal Academician. |
|
6 | Tuneful little operetta primarily penned by doctor (7) |
MELODIC – L |
|
7 | Labourer in Ventnor initially welcomed into fighting force (5) |
NAVVY –V A canal or artificial waterway is a rarely used sense of the word “navigation” and NAVVY is an abbreviation of “navigator” for the workers who built the navigations (canals) at the beginning of the 19th century. Now used for labourers involved in road building etc. |
|
10 | Lovely hedgehog capable of great speed (10) |
SUPERSONIC – SUPER (‘Lovely’) SONIC (‘hedgehog’)
I have to admit to probably being the only person on the planet who didn’t know this, but Sonic the Hedgehog, the video game and animation character, does indeed run at SUPERSONIC speed and I presume is very appealing so the whole clue is also a non-cryptic definition. |
|
14 | Husband and child going round island’s imposing dwelling (7) |
MANSION – MAN (‘Husband’) SON (‘child’) containing (‘going round’) I (‘island’) | |
16 | Withdraw place of refuge (7) |
RETREAT – Double definition | |
17 | Item of tack or lumber (6) |
SADDLE – Double definition
The first definition as a noun, the second as a verb. For the noun, ‘tack’ as an abbreviation or synonym for “tackle” in the sense of equipment for horse riding. The verb sense as in to eg lumber or saddle with debt. A simple surface, but it misled me into thinking of a timber component of a horse’s harness. |
|
18 | Manage to fence in small wood (5) |
COPSE – COPE (‘Manage’) containing (‘to fence in’) S (‘small’) | |
20 | Outstanding king touring a key Japanese port (5) |
OSAKA – OS (‘Outstanding’) K (‘king’) containing (‘touring’) A (‘a’) then A (‘key’)
This was my LOI. The third largest city in Japan after Tokyo and Yokohama. I had a mental blank for Japanese ports other than Yokohama and looking at the clue now, the parsing is quite tricky. I didn’t know OS for ‘outstanding’, as opposed to outsize or oversize, but Collins gives it as an abbreviation used in the banking world. |
DNF
DNK ‘tack’ and could make nothing of the clue. I was surprised at ‘south European’, and I don’t think Wikipedia helps: Bulgarian is south of Czech, say, but they’re both Eastern European, as are the other Slavic languages, and their speakers.
Czechia is CENTRAL European.
I agree, saying “South European” for Slav because of Bulgaria & Serbia is like describing me as a South East European because I’ve always lived in the South East of the UK.
9 minutes with OSAKA parsed after the bell had sounded.
I didn’t notice a problem with ‘South European’ when solving but it seems wrong to me. If one is generalising, Slavs are East European surely?
Thanks BR, and Orpheus for a proper QC. 14:19 for me, which is quick. Many navvies were Irish, and not far from us in Bedfordshire is the place of their encampment when the Hitchin to Bedford railway was being built. It became the village of….Ireland. And I recommend the crossword from 1975 as being accessible.
As a lad growing up in Bedford I went on bike rides and was amused by the name. Do you have authentication for that claim? Wiki ( not the gospel I know) says it was called Inlonde in the 16C
Thanks Mr Cook for the probable origin of Ireland in Bedfordshire. A local told me the Irish connection and the’origin’ of the name when we arrived about 30 years ago, and I took it as gospel. It may be one of those convenient poetic myths. I’ll find out. And I love cycling round there too.
At 15.10 I struggled with this, possibly because I spent much of this lovely summer day lazing on the beach and my mind was in full relaxed mode. LOI was SADDLE (I thought tack had to do with something to eat) (like I always thought Redcar was in Wales) and other latecomers were SUPERSONIC (sorry, what’s that about a hedgehog?), PENCHANT and REGIMENTAL for which I don’t really have an excuse. Thanks BR, thanks Orpheus.
9:32, with the SUPERSONIC quadrant last in. A bit slow on the uptake, maybe, but I thought this was a smidgen tougher than average.
Two guesses only one paid off. OSAKA was OK but ScOUT gave me a well deserved pink square. I needed the O from what should have been STOUT to persuade me to go for OSAKA. Since I couldn’t parse that I didn’t think beyond ‘scout = spy’ – and was having trouble thinking what ‘corpulent’ meant for some reason. Also didn’t know what a tout was beyond the ticket type. Not all green in 12.52 and well reminded of my dimness!
This felt tougher than my time would suggest, although there were plenty of easier clues to provide helpful checkers.
When I went through a phase of reading Patrick O’Brian (and other similar authors) I never realised how much it would pay off in later life when tackling cryptic crosswords as my entire nautical vocabulary comes from those books.
Didn’t fully parse SADDLE as I went down the lumber = wood rabbit hole and came up blank and the unknown EDENTATE went in with fingers crossed.
Started with DISTRICT and finished with ROMANS in 6.26 with COD to SUPERSONIC for bring back memories of my student days.
Thanks to BR
A day of slow quick slow quick then stuck in the bottom right corner. Went to the thesaurus as I had a dialect word for hedgehog in the back of my mind but couldn’t recall (still can’t). Found urchin and hoglet among others. It was only when we decided that lovely might not mean cute (which fitted the crossers) that the PDM rang loud and clear. All done in 23.10, probably our median time these days
Knew Redcar as a northern racecourse but had no idea it was on the beach. NHO edentate but was generously clued and COD to carafe
Thanks Orpheus and BR
The lovely “Needlemouse” is one I know
I recently came across “Ouchmouse”, which I thought was rather cute.
Searching Chambers for hedgehog gives: hedgepig, herisson (heraldry), and tiggywinkle (quite possibly from Beatrix Potter), but not hotchi-witchi (Romany, various spellings).
I had never heard of edentate, but managed to parse it once I had the n from supersonic and tate, so thanks Orpheus for the new word! I also got caught on scout/stout and took ages over prim! Good crossword though, throughly enjoyed it.
What is happening. A rare sub 10 minute finish at 8.46 for me. Can’t believe I was close to the experts!
Well done!
I was sure the hedgehog was going to involve erinaceus, which proved rather tricky to fit in! The checkers gave it away in the end. Other struggles were with COD ROMANS (oh, that sort of book) and LOI PENCHANT.
Very good puzzle, much enjoyed for 07:09 and a Good Day. Many thanks Orpheus and Bletchers.
4:36. A bit of a slow start and NAVVY and SADDLE took a while to come, as did parsing of OSAKA, otherwise quite straightforward. I’m another with a MER at SLAV being clued as South European. Thanks Orpheus and BR.
Managed all except one letter (guessed pADDLE) despite NHO ABEAM, EDENTATE and SONIC hedgehog. You’ve done a lot of work on SLAVs, BR, but still can’t equate an unqualified SLAV with the definition “South European”; Poles are Slavs, too.
Item of tack (= tackle = horse riding) = SADDLE was way beyond anything I could ever have got.
Dnf…
Had everything after 24 mins, but put “Scout” for 19ac knowing full well I couldn’t parse it. I guess once I saw the solution it made sense, although I think of “tout” more to do with tickets etc. If I’d been a little more patient I’m sure I may have got it via an alphabet trawl until something clicked.
A good workout from Orpheus though.
FOI – 1dn “Despair”
LOI – 19ac “Scout” (incorrect)
COD – 10dn “Supersonic”
Thanks as usual!
12:13 for the solve! Fastest of the time so far which probably sums up that most QCs now seem like this – some old chestnuts/gimmes with some less comprehensible stuff. I wouldn’t have fancied tackling that as a beginner.
EDENTATE one of those words I’ve heard of but no idea of its meaning so pleased to bang that in at first guess for the PM/gallery pairing. Not that Crosswordland has many other galleries. Still don’t really understand ABEAM- just come across it in a past crossword to know its something to do with ships – think Izetti may have taught me that.
DESPAIR pronounced with an ‘Allo ‘Allo accent 🤣 and enjoyed the ROMANS clue
When I got to 24a, I had _ _ _ C _ A _ T
and so thought for a moment that the clue is a wordplay for AIRCRAFT with missing definition 🙂
MER at SLAV meaning South European. Only vaguely aware of the hedgehog but PDM when I knew the word had to end in -sonic. Two signature musical clues from Orpheus today. Know the lovely north Yorkshire coast well, so Redcar was a write-in. Thanks BR for great blog – had wondered about the derivation of NAVVY.
Had I been clueing STOUT I would have gone for “Fat Southern solicitor”, just for old time’s sake since that usage of “tout” seems to have died off in Crosswordland. Despite the MER over SLAV, I went though this in two very rapid passes, and I consider it a perfectly pitched QC. Thanks Orpheus and Bletchers.
FOI OMEN
LOI SUPERSONIC
COD COPSE
TIME 3:56
14:06, and I made pretty heavy weather of this. Several of the definitions were “the path less trodden” and not what comes to mind – southern European for SLAV (I share the multiple MERs above), spy for TOUT (I only knew the ticket-seller meaning), at right angles for ABEAM. For me, abeam simply means off the side of a ship, and not necessarily at right angles to it. It is the difference between –| and ||, and whereas another ship abeam mine might, indeed one hopes is, simply sailing a parallel course, a ship sailing at right angles risks a collision!
Also DK EDENTATE, and NHO Sonic the Hedgehog: SUPERSONIC was my LOI, and the wordsearch for it accounted for at least 3 minutes of my slow time.
So, not a great day. Many thanks BR for the blog
Cedric
A good mix of clue level and a fair challenge. I had to deduce EDENTATE but my LOI STOUT took longer (it stretched my sub-15 time to 16.50 all parsed).
My COD was ROMANS.
Thanks to both.
A fairly gentle solve, finishing in 8:53. LOI was REGIMENTAL.
12 mostly the downs (no obscure horse racing pun intended), roughly half biffs.
No hope of 22 across.
COD supersonic which I parsed on my second run through.
Enjoyed that! Only a couple that I didn’t get at all, which is one of my better attempts at the moment.
For all the people who have NHO Sonic, he’s been around for about 35 years now, has sold 100,000,0000 or so copies of the games, grossing about $5bn, the third instalment of the Sonic movie is currently in cinemas, etc, etc. He is a really fairly major pop-culture character of the last half century, certainly on a par with a major movie franchise.
Makes a change from references to bands who last had a hit sometime before I was born anyway!
Well, as an octogenarian who’s never heard of Sonic the hedgehog …. I do remember Bill Haley, Elvis etc. so I suppose you have a point.
Over 250 million copies sold!
14 minutes for me after getting stuck on LOI SUPERSONIC. I could not think of any words for hedgehog but knew the character once the alpha trawl got me to the right place. Also held up by STOUT -the spy part misled me.
Another MER at Slav.
I would never have described Redcar as a resort but I haven’t been so perhaps that’s unfair.
COD to MELODIC.
David
I didn’t feel on the wavelength at all with this as I started, so relaxed and didn’t worry about the time. Consequently surprised that I did it in under 6 1/2 minutes. Share the MER with regards to the southern European slavs.
COD to stole for simplicity and brevity.
For the second day running I finished in a fairly nippy time at 7.07. I worked out EDENTATE quickly enough from the cryptic definition, but didn’t know the word so left it until all the crossers were in place. The only one I had trouble parsing was OSAKA, but got there in the end.
Failed on last one ROMANS idiotically. Could have got that one if I had thought further. Story of my crossword life. Slow on MANSION, SUPERSONIC!
Thought of SADDLE early on but failed to see DD at first.
First ones in, NW.
Liked REDCAR, CANTATA, STOUT, NAVVY, among others.
Thanks vm, BR.
7:58
Nice puzzle. LOI SUPERSONIC.
Thanks Orpheus and BR.
7:45
My eyebrow twitched at SLAV being defined as South European as SLAVs are found all over the Eastern half of Europe, though I don’t doubt there are some South Europeans that are SLAVs – indeed the country name Yugoslavia (land of the South Slavs) contains the Slavic word ‘jug’ which means South. No problems with the rest – I did take a moment to twig SUPERSONIC and my LOI STOUT (after a little thought) confirmed the slightly uncertain OSAKA as the Japanese port.
Thanks BR and Orpheus
I agree with our blogger’s summary – several straightforward items and a few much more difficult: STOUT, EDENTATE (NHO although obvious from clue), SUPERSONIC (sudden flash of recognition here) and ABEAM (NHO).
The SE slowed down a very fast solve – to just a fast one at 8:50. I was surprised at the hedgehog clue, didn’t mind dnk EDENTATE as EDEN comes up fairly often. OSAKA went in without fully parsing how all the A’s worked. Thanks for a very interesting blog.
DNF. Two in a row.
Another rotten start to the week.
21 minutes. This is fast for me. A lovely QC.
No problem with SLAV. Have always thought of Serbians, Croats as Slavs.
LOI Supersonic which is also my COD.
Thanks to Orpheus and BR.
DNF
Oh that’s annoying. Carelessly biffed PRIG instead of PRIM. Otherwise a good puzzle. Slightly on the trickier side taking me 25 mins, LOI SADDLE.
Plain sailing until I hit last two PENCHANT and SUPERSONIC. After a couple of minutes I saw -CHANT for song which gave up PENCHANT and then with all the checkers the hedgehog clue suddenly made sense. Good to finally learn the meaning of EDENTATE. COD to ROMANS for misdirecting me so well, but also liked SUPERSONIC for same reason. Much gentler than of late but with a couple of head-scratchers. Nice one Orpheus. Great blog BR.
An enjoyable 15 minute solve: very welcome after recent struggles!
I struggled throughout this, finally coming in at 27 minutes but with one error- I had scout for stout. No problem with the vocabulary and I didn’t have a problem with Slav while solving but with hindsight it does seem a bit loose.
FOI – 5ac OMEN
LOI – 2dn STOLE
COD – 10dn SUPERSONIC with a runners-up prize to 6dn MELODIC
Thanks to Orpheus and BR
DNF
Just could not see the rather simple SADDLE. Went through tack such as REIN, BIT, BRIDLE. And also words meaning Lumber (already decided) it was not the wood definition: PADDLE, DAWDLE seemed possible, Feeling rather dim now.
NHO EDENTATE. How does the E prefix mean “lack of”? It’s usually an “A” with Greek words.
Chap on the Train next to me got the paper out and started the 15×15, I made the opening “How is it today?”, He replied “A bit too easy for me” and knocked it off before Surbiton. I felt embarrassed as I stumbled through the QC in 20 mins and didn’t finish.
COD SUPERSONIC. Sonic the Hedgehog came out in 1991, so not that new.
Edentate maybe Latin.
E is a Latin prefix which can indicate “out” – for example “egress”, “eject”, “emit”.
The 15×15 is definitely worth a stab today. Not obviously harder than some of the recent QCs, though I must admit to a DPS.
I got breezeblocked by the OSAKA/SUPERSONIC/PENCHANT corner, wasting a lot of time wondering if OSAKA was wrong and trying to make an anagram from “tendency.” eventually saw PENCHANT and having written out the exisitng letters for 10d saw SONIC. Doh! Will be at a folk club next door to Redcar Race Course tonight. 15:03. Thanks Orpheus and BR.
Tried to start with something flexible at 1ac (a good job there are only two ends to a clue), before moving to the NE corner for a clockwise solve. At 12ac the checkers briefly suggested a Faraday cage might be involved, before a more plausible Foundry came to mind. If only the options for 19ac had been equally short lived: with just the final ‘t’ I had to run through Ascot, Agent and Scout before finally selecting Stout. Throw in a few more minutes sorting out the Supersonic Penchant pairing, and parsing Osaka, and I’m left feeling quite thankful for a 25min solve. CoD to the hip Cantata at 18ac. Invariant
PS BR, I think the definition for 13ac is just ‘book’, albeit a major one, otherwise religious is doing double duty.
Thanks, Invariant. You’re quite right – sorry about that. Correct parsing now indicated in the blog.
Isn’t the “like” in 3d redundant or is it misdirection?
Thanks Mr N
I saw it as a necessary part of the definition
‘like section of army’ = regimental (adjective), whereas ‘section of army’ = regiment (noun)
Yes, that’s exactly how I saw it too.
DNF. Completely defeated by the SE corner. Should have got STOUT and RETREAT, but didn’t. NHO EDENTATE and I know nothing at all about the computer game. Also, lovely and SUPER don’t really equate for me. And, PENCHANT was just beyond me. I made no progress at all with this clue.
So, 20 clues at roughly one per minute, followed by just one clue only (ROMANS) in the next half hour. DESPAIR!
Many thanks to BR and, I suppose, also to Orpheus.
9:57. Didn’t see rig for gear or lumber for saddle.
19:01 with no errors. My main hold-up was LOI SADDLE. I knew it could be defined as lumber but couldn’t parse it from tack so after an alphabet trawl that got me nowhere I entered it and was relieved to see all green squares. FOI – OMEN, COD – ROMANS. Thanks Orpheus and BR.
20.12 Back in the SCC. I was stuck for a while on the straightforward RETREAT and then took ages on last two STOUT and SADDLE, which were both very good. Thanks BR and Orpheus.
The blog helped to see the parsing for Saddle and Osaka which I had biffed. Nice words compared to Navvy and Slav. Thanks!
10:45. LOI SUPERSONIC which I got from the crossers before the hedgehog PDM. Nice puzzle
Always interesting when the hold ups for others are largely different to your own. SADDLE went pretty much straight in for me and EDENTATE didn’t take long either. On the other hand I was reliant on Mrs T seeing SUPERSONIC (POI) to set me up for LOI PENCHANT at a perhaps slightly slower than average, these days, 13:28. A good mix overall. Thanks BR and Orpheus.
10 minutes for me – this one really flowed nicely! Just read a fascinating book called The Tack Room so SADDLE was a write-in! For 9a I separated south (S) and European serf and put in SLAV without a second thought. More surface Franglais at 1d but separating makes it work: DES for of the (plural) and PAIR for couple. I’m starting (slowly) to get the hang of this. Famous last words….
From OMEN to SADDLE in 7:28. I’m travelling through France to Spain in search of warmer weather but feeling a little 1 down as the temperature has been -4 for most of the day.
Thanks Mr Cook for the probable origin of Ireland in Bedfordshire. A local told me the Irish connection and the’origin’ of the name when we arrived about 30 years ago, and I took it as gospel. It may be one of those convenient poetic myths. I’ll find out. And I love cycling round there too.