Goodness me, this was rather convoluted. Some very complicated parsings and some quite obscure GK. I suspect many will struggle. 11 minutes for me.
| Across |
| 1 |
Racecourse in Nova Scotia (5) |
|
ASCOT – Hidden word |
| 4 |
Greek character with walking stick bends on track (7) |
|
CHICANE – CHI (greek character) + CANE |
| 8 |
Bearing skis awkwardly affected greeting (3,4) |
|
AIR KISS – AIR (bearing) + anagram (‘awkwardly’) of SKIS |
| 9 |
Cunningly escape publicity in evening (5) |
|
EVADE – AD inside EVE |
| 10 |
Stanley Edwards disrupted Yankee’s holiday in Edinburgh? (2,7,3) |
|
ST ANDREWS DAY – ST AN (Stanley) + anagram (‘disrupted’) of EDWARDS + Y (yankee) |
| 12 |
Tabloid reported outstanding insectivorous plant (6) |
|
SUNDEW – SUN (tabloid) + DEW (sounds like ‘due’). NHO this |
| 13 |
Expert, one unknown in hospital section (6) |
|
WIZARD – I + Z inside WARD |
| 16 |
Scottish writer first to recommend best protection for skin (7,5) |
|
BARRIER CREAM – (J.M.) BARRIE + R for recommend + CREAM (best) |
| 18 |
Round, unaltered fertile area (5) |
|
OASIS – O + AS IS |
| 20 |
Most familiar end street (7) |
|
CLOSEST – CLOSE (end) + ST |
| 21 |
American shields companion’s PIN, for example (7) |
|
ACRONYM – AM (American) either side of CRONY |
| 22 |
Success by European Commission using modern electronic equipment (2-3) |
|
HI-TEC – HIT + E.C. |
| Down |
| 1 |
Gathers outside in elements supporting a religious service (7) |
|
AMASSES – E[LEMENT]S under A MASS |
| 2 |
Play Community Shield match? (7-6) |
|
CURTAIN-RAISER – double definition. The Community Shield is the first game of the English professional football season and is often called a ‘curtain raiser’. I had to look this up. |
| 3 |
Part of transmission involved dare, right? (5,4) |
|
THIRD GEAR – anagram (‘involved’) of DARE RIGHT |
| 4 |
Money we raised for tree (6) |
|
CASHEW – CASH + WE backwards |
| 5 |
Anger that is about Republican (3) |
|
IRE – I.E. outside R |
| 6 |
At intervals, Haitian roughly demarcates arid expanse (7,6) |
|
ATACAMA DESERT – alternate letters of HAITIAN + anagram (‘roughly’) of DEMARCATES. Quite a lot of moving parts and not on my list of top ten most familiar deserts. |
| 7 |
European place of refuge, a heavenly place (4) |
|
EDEN – E + DEN |
| 11 |
Feel ill in middle of Biscay, unwilling to get material on board boat (9) |
|
SAILCLOTH -AIL inside [BI]SC[AY] + LOTH (unwilling) |
| 14 |
Popular annual test I held in final month (7) |
|
DEMOTIC – MOT + I inside DEC. Stretching the definition a bit according to my dictionary. |
| 15 |
Set up computer, live, with device to transmit images (6) |
|
WEBCAM – MAC (computer) + BE (live) + W (with) all backwards |
| 17 |
Working in heart of friary somewhere in Hebrides (4) |
|
IONA – ON (working) inside [FR]IA[RY] |
| 19 |
Perhaps envy son at home (3) |
|
SIN – S + IN |
QC felt unkind with the clues for “Curtain Raiser”, “Barrier Cream”, “Sailcloth” , “St Andrew’s Day”.
I had all the GK but unfortunately it didn’t help. Gave up at 25 minutes as I couldn’t spare any more time (and anyway I had got fed up by then). Failed on acronym, closest (shameful – one of the easier clues), barrier, webcam and sailcloth. CNP St Andrew’s Day. Demotic unknown but looked convincing.
FOI – 1ac ASCOT
LOI – DNF
COD – liked the unchanged OASIS at 18ac
Thanks to Breadman and Curarist
I ventured ALABAMA without a clue whether or not that was feasible. So dnf. And I took an age to get BARRIER CREAM. I put in HI TEC thinking that it really should be TECH but this biff worked. But SCC and out the other side today: a tough one by my reckoning. Thanks Breadman and Curarist
I wizzed through this in about 7 minutes because I had heard of all the obscurities that others picked out. But then my phone rang, or I had to go to a meeting or something, forgot about it and looked back several hours later to see that I hadn’t finished. Then I couldn’t get WEBCAM for a few minutes so I gave up with a DNF. Disappointing. I still always thing of PC for computer despite the fact I have not used one, and only used Macs (and only do the crosswords on one) for about 15 years.
NHO substantive part of it, not my idea of a QC
DNF
Another tough one. Completely defeated by ACRONYM, despite an alphabet trawl. Also spelt SUNDEW wrong, knew what was going on but used the homophone for the paper giving SONDEW. Oh, and failed on WEBCAM too. All in all a bit of a disaster.
8.36
Knew the GK apart from SUNDEW which was very generously clued.
Thanks Breadman and Curarist
This felt too hard but then at the end of the day I did finish it in 17:34, proof if proof be needed that despite my misgivings it was doable. reckon a couple of the clues were more suited to the 15×15 though and not a day to be a beginner I imagine.
Had to look up 21a Acronym – just didn’t twig. NHO 12a Sundew. worked out the others eventually. Had been going pretty fast (for me) until the last few!
FOI 1a Ascot
LOI 21a Acronym
COD 10a St Andrew’s Day
Thank goodness for the blog to help see the right way to solve some of these! Thx.
10.28, but the instability of the puzzles was worse than ever. It only happens on The Times site.
Very slow! I actually did better yesterday despite solving while still somewhat sedated after a hospital procedure 😂
Today, I couldn’t parse CURTAIN RAISER fully, got stuck thinking the CREAM had to be sun protection rather than any old BARRIER cream, and took a while sorting out ST ANDREW’S DAY . Fortunately I had the GK – it does help – otherwise it could have been rather slower.
Not my favourite day this week!
15:33 FOI Ascot LOI Amasses (because I forgot about it) COD Acronym
Thanks Breadman and Curarist
Didn’t manage to finish this one, with 2d, 18a and 17d stumping me. Very enjoyable, made even better by learning new things such as SUNDEW, ATACAMA DESERT and DEMOTIC. Enjoyed the aha moment with a lot of the clues, especially ACRONYM which had me for a while but figuring it out was a lot of fun. Thank you for the explanations 🙂
Sheer hell.
Well over an hour on this. I might as well give up. A humiliating day to end a dire week.
I’m back to beginner-level times and my confidence is shot to pieces.
Somewhere not that far off 3 hours this week. After almost 5 years, that is a deplorable performance. Before I started attempting the QC, I thought that I was reasonably bright. Now I know different.
I am simply incapable of doing this.
I won’t be back until Monday, so don’t reply.
Thanks for the blog.
Barrier cream is to protect hands from dirt, not sun. For gardening in particular- its very useful.
Very poor cryptic IMO. I am surprised by the lack of criticism in the comments. Not just in this particular example. Are people afraid of offending the setters?