Parksolve time = 39:14. Slower than average on both counts.
Thought this one from Breadman was slightly on the tougher side. But I’m on the road at the moment so that may just be a consequence of playing away from home.
How did you go?
(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 | Board game taking place in Missouri academic institution (8) |
| MONOPOLY – ON (taking place) in MO (Missouri) + POLY (academic institution)
A game we’re all familiar with. Most important rule was “winner packs up” which meant the loser could send all the pieces flying in a fit of temper. |
|
| 5 | Lemon fine with chop (4) |
| FLOP – F (fine) + LOP (chop) | |
| 8 | Approach section of hospital about new organ (4,4) |
| DRAW NEAR – DRAW [WARD (section of hospital) reversed (about)] + N (new) + EAR (organ) | |
| 9 | Blue first-class quartz, half cut (4) |
| AQUA – A (first class) + QUA (QUArtz, half cut) | |
| 11 | Smallest final involving England’s capital (5) |
| LEAST – LAST (final) “involving” E (England’s capital) | |
| 12 | Weapon destroyed depot protecting men (7) |
| TORPEDO – (DEPOT)* “protecting” OR (Other Ranks, men) | |
| 13 | Journalist probes friend with old aquatic vessel (6) |
| PEDALO – ED (journalist) “probes” PAL (friend) + O (old)
Have only heard of these through crosswords and a mishap involving Freddie Flintoff. |
|
| 15 | Code of silence customer tacitly keeps (6) |
| OMERTA – Hidden (keeps) in custOMER TAcitly
Refers to the mafia rule of keeping your mouth shut if you don’t want to sleep with the fishes. |
|
| 18 | Having a daily cycle, face carrying tea-making vessel? (7) |
| DIURNAL – DIAL (face) “carrying” URN (tea-making vessel) | |
| 19 | Consumed drinks on mountain ridge (5) |
| ARETE – ATE (consumed) “drinks” RE (on) | |
| 21 | Cereal regularly used in local test (4) |
| OATS – Alternate letters (regularly used) in lOcAl TeSt | |
| 22 | Breathing apparatus hit tricky problem (8) |
| BLOWHOLE – BLOW (hit) + HOLE (tricky problem)
Not so sure about hole = tricky problem. To be in a hole is to be in a difficult situation, but can one said to be in a tricky problem? |
|
| 23 | Learning actor’s part, hands must be reversed (4) |
| LORE – ROLE (actor’s part) with R and L (hands) reversed | |
| 24 | Ma and sister crunched colourful confectionery (8) |
| SMARTIES – (MA + SISTER)* | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Up in workshop, Alf dumps component of bike? (7) |
| MUDFLAP – Reverse hidden (up in) workshoP ALF DUMps
Nicely concealed hidden. |
|
| 2 | Newly drained, like a lake in Africa (5) |
| NYASA – NY (NEWLY “drained”, ie contents removed) + AS (like) + A
Don’t be confused if your Mozambiquan friends call it Lake Niassa or your Malawian friends call it Lake Malawi. It’s the same body of water. A bit like the Gulf of… nah forget that one. Move on. |
|
| 3 | Wine very good, presumably rouge or rosé (5,5) |
| PINOT BLANC – PI (very good) + NOT BLANC (presumably rouge or rosé)
Can all wine colours be sorted into white, red or pink? I have no idea so I’ll leave it to one of our many |
|
| 4 | Sign outside worker’s outhouse? (4-2) |
| LEAN-TO – LEO (sign, as in Zodiac) outside ANT (worker) | |
| 6 | Left one remedy, reportedly a type of alcoholic drink (7) |
| LIQUEUR – L (left) + I (one) + QUEUR [homophone of (reportedly) CURE (remedy)]
Queue the complaints… |
|
| 7 | Musical instrument Scotsman found in Italian river (5) |
| PIANO – IAN (Scotsman) in PO (Italian river) | |
| 10 | Military campaign disturbed man and aircrew (7,3) |
| CRIMEAN WAR – (MAN + AIRCREW)* | |
| 14 | Party time aboard taxi for Thomas perhaps (7) |
| DOUBTER – DO (party) + T (time) “aboard” UBER (taxi)
As in the biblical Doubting Thomas, for whom I have some sympathy. Nothing wrong with a bit of healthy skepticism in my book. |
|
| 16 | Perpetually young fool retains set exercise to begin with (7) |
| AGELESS – ASS (fool) “retains” [GEL (set) + E (Exercises to begin with)] | |
| 17 | See, during crash, a meandering movement (6) |
| SLALOM – LO (see) “during” SLAM (crash)
As in the skiers that zigzag through the obstacles. |
|
| 18 | Amusing plaything entertains Romeo (5) |
| DROLL – DOLL (plaything) “entertains” R (Romeo in the NATO alphabet) | |
| 20 | Icon making supremo jittery to some extent (5) |
| EMOJI – Hidden (to some extent) in suprEMO JIttery
Am I the only 😠that stubbornly resisted using these things until the inevitable capitulation? Anyone still sticking to their guns? Stay💪comrades. |
|
I found this quite tricky. Worked around the grid clockwise starting with FLOP and ending with PINOT BLANC. Didn’t know the meaning of OMERTA but saw the hidden. I wonder if they have SMARTIES in America, I mean the confectionary kind? Was sure 8a DRAW NEAR would have to include ER or ENT somewhere so it took a while to see the light. I agree, hole for tricky problem isn’t quite right.
Thanks G & B.
I think Smarties are what in the US are called M&Ms. [on edit: They seem pretty much the same, but they’re made by different manufacturers, and Smarties aren’t sold in the States. Or if they are, they’ll be subject to a 25% tariff.] I only knew Smarties because of the Smarties Test, a version of the Sally-Anne Test, qv.
I don’t think they are the same – I always thought M&M’s were chewier and sweeter, whereas Smarties had a much thinner and crisper coating with standard chocolate inside.
Smarties are smaller too, everything is bigger in America. Scot’s home early…
You used to be able to pop the lid off a smarties tube if you thumped down on it briskly.
Leaving aside ‘tricky’, Chambers Crossword Dictionary has ‘problem = hole’ but I’m having difficulty thinking of a direct substitution that works. The best I can do is ‘There’s a hole in your reasoning’ but does ‘problem in your reasoning’ work? I think ‘problem with’ would seem more likely.
17 minutes for the puzzle, my third consecutive failure to complete within my extended target (15 minutes), but still an improvement on yesterday which was a DNF. Once again my problems were all intersecting answers: ARETE, AGELESS, BLOWHOLE and SLALOM.
Edit: I forgot I had an error at 2dn where I confused the African lake with African wildlife and carelessly put NYALA from wordplay N{ewl} Y [drained], A LA (like – in the style of].
Could you please explain why ‘very good’ means ‘pi’.
Thanks.
Pi means holy or saintly, doesn’t it? Presumably related to “pious”.
Short for pious, but usually (it seems to me) with an implication of sanctimoniousness.
It doesn’t, in the real world, but it does in crosswordland.
Indeed – one of my pet hates. I can’t recall ever seeing or hearing it in my 70+ years outside of crosswords!
Used by my mother-in-law who was at boarding school in WW1.
That is interesting. Did she use it in a pejorative sense?
My mother, who was at boarding school in WW2, used it well into the 1970s, and it was definitely not a compliment! In fact (and I’ve mentioned this before) it’s a word that has been known to pass my lips too 😅 I agree with Kevin – it’s not a good sort of goodness.
Yes I agree.. not a complement!
Yes indeed, not a complement!
I didn’t like ‘tricky problem’ either; I don’t mind ‘There’s a problem/hole in your reasoning’, but that still leaves ‘tricky’.
ARETE is, or at least was, a NYT chestnut.
Can’t give a direct substitution, but when you’re in a hole – stop digging. You’ve created a problem.
A stiffish end to the week, as this took me 13:18. SE corner was the culprit; I was slow to see SMARTIES, and very slow to see either BLOWHOLE (I agree on hole not really being the same as problem) and SLALOM. On the last I had .L…M for a long time and tried to get the cleary signposted LO in on the first L which of course got me nowhere.
Usual concern about Scotsman = Ian: most Scots I know would spell it Iain, and consider Ian the English spelling.
Many thanks Galspray for the blog and a good weekend to all.
Is Ian / Iain particularly Scottish either way?
A quick look at IMDB’s list of Top Ians ( https://www.imdb.com/list/ls031521091/ ), for example, doesn’t seem to suggest that Scots are particularly over-represented.
Not exactly ‘Hamish’ is it?
Or Dougal. You’ll have had your tea 🙂
this really annoyed me as is plain wrong. In Scotland, if you are called John in english you can be called Iain in Scotland. The spelling of Ian is English.
tut tut
Toughest of the week for me with the SE being particularly stubborn.
Started with FLOP and finished with SMARTIES in 13.26.
Thanks to Galspray
DNF with ARETE unsolved. NHO this word and it looks very unlikely. I saw ATE, and tried it at the start, but couldn’t get something for “drinks on”. Also tried “drinks” as a containment indicator, but ARÊTE seemed such an unlikely word. I went for ATERE.
The only word I could make fit was ADELE.
BLOWHOLE was tough as well, as noted above. FOI was MONOPOLY, as of the eight states that start with M, MO for Missouri looks odd because it’s not the second, or last letter. Once ME, MA, MT, MI, MN, MD, MS are the others. I remember that the battle ship USS Missouri, where the Japanese surrender was signed, was called “the mighty MO”
COD LORE
An arête or knife-edge style ridge was something I learned in physical geography at school. Maybe it’s not as common as I thought.
Incredibly common to anyone who climbs, hill-walks or skis.
Mountaineers are big on aretes.
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_North-East_Ar%C3%AAte_of_Mount_Everest,_by_Sandy_Wollaston_(Getty_10472G).jpg
I wouldn’t know an arete from a col but I think I remember the word BECAUSE it looks so unlikely. It must have come up in one of those rare lessons that I stayed awake for.
19:42 for the solve. It felt like a stepdown from the 15×15 where I’m sure PINOT-BLANCs (parsed eventually), ARETEs (tough to parse but suddenly remembered, probably from reading Touching the Void some years ago) and BLOWHOLEs for breathing apparatus are common place. NHO Lake NYASA but the clue was decent QC-material. Particularly enjoyed MUDFLAP surface.
Pleased to get through that and with a SCC escape. The SE corner and the wine left at 12mins.
NYALA Doh!
Took 50 mins but needed to use thesaurus et al.
A lot of clues went in unparsed. Even now, some clues seem a bit vague (Ian, flop for lemon??) Perhaps I’m not on the right wavelength today ( missed my train as train driver gave me the wrong platform), but I did not click with this crossword.
Thanks Galspray for an excellent blog.
That was a bit cruel – he must have remembered where he left his train. . .😉
Had to look up Ridge for Arête, so DNF. Very vaguely recognised the word when I saw it.
Quite a tricky puzzle but enjoyable with various PDMs like MONOPOLY, DIURNAL, OMURTA, FLOP. Had to build up SLALOM bit by bit. CNP LEAN-TO, DOUBTER or PINOT BLANC so biffed. Had to jump about the grid to get going. Luckily BLOWHOLE sprang to mind.
Thanks vm, Galspray.
7:54
Approaching medium pace, I felt. ARÊTE remembered from schoolboy geography. Delayed coming up with SMARTIES, but didn’t think too hard about BLOWHOLE.
Many thanks Galspray and Breadman
Dnf…
Struggled with the SE corner. How on earth I didn’t see the “Smarties” anagram is beyond me. As a result, also failed on 17dn “Slalom” and 22ac “Blowhole”, which I originally had but then removed as it didn’t look right.
Another Saturday failure 😞
FOI – 1ac “Monopoly”
LOI – Dnf
COD – 14dn “Doubter”
Thanks as usual!
Saturday strikes again!
I thought the academic institution was NO POLY where they offered HND (Has No Degree) courses
11:01, with AGELESS and ARÊTE my last two in.
COD to PINOT BLANC, despite it containing the abominable very good=PI.
Thanks Galspray and Breadman
11.25. Worthy of a 15×15 and very enjoyable.
Not too difficult to start with, but I thought the level moved up a step or two further down the grid. Diurnal, Lore, Blowhole and Slalom were gettable with a bit of thought, but I needed aids to solve the nho Arete, so another 30min DNF here. CoD to 24ac, Smarties, a tube of joy. Invariant
Re gulfs, on this side of the pond the Gulf of America is fast becoming associated with the space between his ears. . .
A DNF for us in 15:23. I knew ARETE but couldn’t see LOI AGELESS being hung up on using ‘set’ directly and eventually hoping that ASETESS would prove to be some set of ancient Greek or Scandinavian immortals. Elsewhere, we too wondered about HOLE but let it pass and were surprised to see SMARTIES, a brand name which doesn’t seem to have bothered anyone else.
Managed to sneak Uber in there as well.
I am literally scrolling down the comments waiting for an explosion from Phil about Ubers not being taxis. Going to be very disappointed if it’s not there.
Re colours of wine, “orange “ wines are trendy but not very orange.
Writing from France, we have vins jaunes (yellows) too.
Yes! My middle son’s delightful French girlfriend brought me some vin jaune last year, new to me.
Oh dear. Where do we start ? Presumably with where we didn’t finish – FLOP (we did), NYASA (ignorance), added time inserting ROLE instead of LORE, agree re HOLE. ARETE (add a T, cross the channel and we did). Took too long to see white wine instead of red… (might reach for one soon).
So, not a happy way to end a not so flash week. However, learnt from the blogs as always and next week looms large.
Happy rest of weekend every one and thank you Breadman and Galspray.
There’s always another week TOL. Don’t beat yourself up over “ignorance” of NYASA. I suspect the vast majority of solvers would have got it from wordplay and checkers rather than from general knowledge.
*raises hand*
thank you : )
15:40. Very slow to start, couldn’t see a way forward until success in the bottom left quadrant. I enjoyed PINOT BLANC, LORE, DOUBTER, and LIQUEUR the most.
Lots of new things I’ve learnt from this crossword. Didn’t finish it, so it was very helpful to see how my remaining clues, and some I just put it from the checking letters, all worked out.
21.35 That was tricky. I spotted all of the answers quite quickly but struggled to convince myself they were correct. LOI PINOT BLANC. Thanks galspray and Breadman.
Tough and took me nearly 30 minutes to a DNF. BLOWHOLE and LIQUEUR sent my eyebrows through the ceiling. (Keu the complaints?) PEDALO and SMARTIES foreign to me but dimly recalled from somewhere. I don’t know how the back office instantly came up with NYASA, sixth grade geography? Kind of liked PINOT BLANC in retrospect (a little sick of that PI thing though) but was so unnerved by all the British-isms that I put in PINOT PLONK in despair. A somewhat amusing non-answer.
Thanks Breadman and galspray!
25:31 here, so I found that tough. Didn’t know the African lake and spent a good five minutes peering at Africa on the maps app, which calls it Lake Malawi, humph. I also spent a while wondering if ELY was the see and if there was a musical term for “meandering movement” that I didn’t know.
Thanks to Breadman and galspray.
I tried to fit ELY in there too! So tempting with two Ls.
Quite a slow end to the week, with about three minutes doing an alpha-trawl on my LOI. Like yesterday’s LINENS, I had most of the letters but couldn’t make them work 😂 I liked LEAN-TO a lot, but 24a pipped it to the post for COD. I also like a glass of pinot blanc, but drew a blank when it came to parsing!
When I saw the Q and the J, I did wonder if it would be a pangram, but that idea fizzled out very quickly.
15:06 FOI Mudflap LOI Arete COD Smarties
Thanks Breadman and Galspray
DNF. Had Nyala (à la) for NYASA. Found this a bit tricky and solving later in the day doesn’t seem to suit me – brain seriously slowing down about now. Biffed then parsed a few, e.g AGELESS, OMERTÀ, DIURNAL, PINOT BLANC. Held up by not spotting the excellent hidden in MUDFLAP. COD LIQUEUR. Remembered ARÊTE from schooldays. Many thanks galspray and Breadman.
Done on my mobile for the first time ever – and I didn’t really like the process. Pencil and paper rules for me. However, I succeeded in crossing the line unscathed, although I never did parse PINOT BLANC and AGELESS.
The timer said something over 40 minutes, but I took a break to serve Mrs R with a glass of something refreshing (and some nibblements) and had to engage in conversation throughout. Probably a little less than half an hour, I’d say.
Many thanks to Galspray and Breadman
The occasions I solved puzzles on my phone – it’s fiddly. Often find the onscreen keyboard takes up too much room; can’t see the grid as well as the clue and easy to make typos and put letters in the wrong square etc,etc.
🍒 currently 5th in that spot between the dotted lines. Who knows what that means in this day and age. Place in the Autowindscreens Betfred Sherpa Van European League perhaps.
Was I the only one to enter ASWAN for 2d. (As drained)
Philip
PI for very good is the kind of Crossword-land nonsense that doesn’t make any real world sense and so makes crosswords exclusive. This sort of thing doesn’t belong in QCs, or shouldn’t.
Biffed Pinot – had no idea that very good = pi. Thought that was a Greek letter.
Sign = Leo. Oh dear, we’re into old crossword speak…
About 4 hours throughout the day, listening to Times Radio and now Nick Abbott on LBC.
And this is supposed to be “quick”.
Don’t know about diaurnal, will take longer than a day soon…
38:26
An incredibly slow grind. Struggled in the NW with the wine, DRAW NEAR and LOI the NHO NYASA.
This yank remembers Smarties – a tube of liittle discs that tasted faintly of soap. They were a penny candy.
US smarties are still around. Rockets in Canada, where we had actual smarties, whether or not we ate the red ones last …
North of 60 for me and American husband, who also had to be educated about the jingle. Ahem.
We couldn’t find this QC. We get the Times online and it wasn’t there. Where did everyone find it?
Right down the bottom of the front page in the awful new format.
I found this enjoyable but very hard, limping to the finish in 28:53 with PINOT BLAN as my LOI. Not familiar with “very good” = “pi”, and neither is the Chambers app on my phone, but many of you seem to know it so I’ll take your word for it.
Thank you for the blog!
My first time doing the quick cryptic fresh having been using books of previous grids for a while. Having used this website recently to help me get better with those was really looking forward to being able to post a time but was a DNF for me. Was let down by knowledge I think more than wordplay. OMERTA ,DIURNAL and ARETE all greek to me. Hopefully onwards and upwards from here. Love the website though.
Steady solve, getting stuck on the parsing of AQUA (answer was obvious because I had the Q and the A!) but I just couldn’t see why) and on SLALOM (the answer wasn’t obvious, and I messed up the parsing by trying to get ELY into it for the “see” – it’s funny how hard it is to abandon an idea which isn’t working).
All done in 08:55 for a Decent Day. I see the PI moaners are out in force. It’s just a code, get over it.
Many thanks Gallers and Breadman.
I remembered your previous comments on this when reading the blog – I couldn’t agree more! We can’t just use one type of wordplay, whether it’s 20th or 21st century – or even 19th 😅 I wonder when anyone last used lid instead of hat?
. . .only when Tile doesn’t fit
Chapeau!
Very tough🏳🏳