After last week’s gentle offering from Oink I was expecting something a bit more difficult and so this proved to be.
Having five anagrams helped, as did the absence of a full clue as a cryptic def, but even so, a not exactly speedy time of 15:15 (yes, 13:13 would have been more appropriate, if not much quicker) was the penalty for being generally sluggish and for being very slow to spot the reverse hidden at 20d, my LOI.
Thanks to Mara
Definitions underlined in bold, deletions and letters in wordplay not appearing in the answer marked by strikethrough.
| Across | |
| 1 | Food, something in freezer on right (4) |
| RICE – ICE (‘something in freezer’) following in an across clue (‘on’) R (‘right’) | |
| 3 | Piano, scratched on the outside, thrown on rubbish tip (8) |
| SCRAPPED – SCRAPED (‘scratched’) containing (‘on the outside’) P (‘Piano’) | |
| 9 | Greek character accompanied by slim South American (7) |
| CHILEAN – CHI (‘Greek character’) and LEAN (‘slim’) | |
| 10 | Coloured paint unsuitable (5) |
| INAPT – Anagram (‘Coloured’) of PAINT
I don’t remember seeing ‘coloured’ as an anagram indicator before, but it seems fair enough in the sense of “embellished”. |
|
| 11 | Ever a grown-up? (2,3) |
| AT ALL – A (‘a’) TALL (‘grown-up?’)
I wondered about TALL for ‘grown-up?’. I suppose something which grows upwards, more or less vertically, may be TALL, but there is a hyphen here which suggests the “adult” sense of ‘grown-up?’ instead. The question mark is working hard here. For the answer, not the best example but “Have you been to Rome ever? / Have you been to Rome at all?” |
|
| 12 | Consumer embraces beginning of song festival (6) |
| EASTER – EATER (‘Consumer’) contains (’embraces’) S |
|
| 14 | Succeed as paparazzo — see? (3,3,7) |
| GET THE PICTURE – Double definition, the first a cryptic hint
For the first def, to ‘Succeed as paparazzo’ you need to GET THE PICTURE of your famous subject. For the second def, GET THE PICTURE as an informal term for ‘see?’ as in “to understand”. |
|
| 17 | Two articles written by chap in country (6) |
| GUYANA – AN and A (‘Two articles’) placed next to (‘written by’) GUY (‘chap’)
In mainly American use, GUY(S) can also mean men and women. |
|
| 19 | Blade losing its edge, say (5) |
| UTTER – |
|
| 22 | Popular place for contribution (5) |
| INPUT – IN (‘Popular’) PUT (‘place’) | |
| 23 | Perfume in smell, might you say? (7) |
| INCENSE – IN (‘in’) then aural wordplay (‘might you say?’) of SENSE (‘smell’) | |
| 24 | Lovely dog’s activity? (8) |
| FETCHING – Double definition, the second cryptic | |
| 25 | Brood in ferment at regular intervals (4) |
| FRET – F |
|
| Down | |
| 1 | Boost has excited archer, eg (8) |
| RECHARGE – Anagram (‘excited’) of ARCHER EG | |
| 2 | Tea bags in tea cups etc (5) |
| CHINA – CHA (‘Tea’) contains (‘bags’) IN (‘in)
A natural surface for what seemed such a simple clue but undoubtedly as intended, I took a while to separate ‘Tea’ and ‘bags’ to get the correct part of speech for ‘bags’. My COD. |
|
| 4 | New topic on mental thought (13) |
| CONTEMPLATION – Anagram (‘New’) of TOPIC ON MENTAL
My first reaction on reading this was: “‘Mental thought’? Shurely shome mistake!”. No. |
|
| 5 | Overturned sheet on which is a pseudonym (5) |
| ALIAS – LIAS a reversal (‘overturned’) of SAIL (‘sheet’) following in a down clue (‘on which is’) A (‘a’)
One of Mara’s appears in the next clue. A sail is a sheet of sorts, but in a nautical sense a sheet isn’t a sail. As a landlubber, I’d better leave it there. |
|
| 6 | Paul ate off table (7) |
| PLATEAU – Anagram (‘off’) of PAUL ATE | |
| 7 | Go out as part of crowd at event (4) |
| DATE – Hidden in (‘part of’) ‘ |
|
| 8 | The law reforms in plentiful supply (6) |
| WEALTH – Anagram (‘reforms’) of THE LAW
As in “there was a wealth / plentiful supply of information”. |
|
| 13 | Loose as it were, most ready to drop (8) |
| WEARIEST – Anagram (‘Loose’) of AS IT WERE
Not the sense of ‘drop’ suggested by the surface reading. |
|
| 15 | Bit of a daffy instrument! (7) |
| TRUMPET – Double definition, the first referring to the familiar trumpet-shaped flowers of a ‘daffy’ or daffodil, known as the TRUMPET. Yes, ‘daffy’ as an abbreviation for “daffodil” is in Chambers.
Not that I knew this, but the trumpet of a daffodil is not comprised of petals but is a separate structure. More here if you’re interested. |
|
| 16 | Critical moment, sound of teeth on Corn Flakes? (6) |
| CRUNCH – Definition with cryptic hint
As used in expressions such as “when it comes to the crunch” or “crunch time”. |
|
| 18 | Letter a prickly thing? (5) |
| AITCH – A (‘a’) ITCH (‘prickly thing?’)
As for AT ALL above, the question mark (just about) makes ITCH acceptable for ‘prickly thing?’. |
|
| 20 | Performer in gutter, one tanked up (5) |
| TENOR – Reverse hidden (‘in… up’) in ‘ I made a real mess of this, just not identifying the correct def or seeing the reverse hidden and it was my LOI by a few minutes. |
|
| 21 | Head scratched in difficult argument (4) |
| TIFF – |
|
I raced through the top, solving everything including get the picture and contemplation in about three minutes, and then got most thoroughly stuck in the bottom. Guyana, crunch, and fetching proved tough, and I ended up biffing tenor without being able to see the wordplay – but what else could it be?
Time: 11:38
Like Vinyl, I biffed TENOR without seeing how it worked; not seeing hiddens is one of my strong suits. 7:26.
Forgot to mention that I also biffed TRUMPET; no idea about ‘daffy’, although after coming here I realized that I did know ‘daffy-down-dilly’, which shows up in some forgettable old poems (and in a story by Dorothy Parker).
And in an A A Milne poem
Same experience as Vinyl. Flew through the top half and got stuck in the lower half. I could see it was probably TRUMPET but didn’t know a ‘daffy’ was a name for a daffodil or that that’s what part of the flower is called, so googled ‘daffodil trumpet’. At the end I was just missing GUYANA and eventually saw it. Liked FETCHING but COD has to go to CHINA.
Thanks BP and setter.
Ditto re the bottom half, or for me its LHS. On coming here I learned what was going on with TRUMPET, how AT ALL might mean ever and how ALIAS worked. Having spent some time before the mast I can assert that a yacht’s mainsheet is not a sail but the rope by which the sail is controlled, but I suppose if you were lost at sea and floating on a piece of wood you could fashion a sail out of a sheet tied to a broomstick and make progress. I believe that is how William Bligh got to Timor after they threw him off the Bounty. 7.38, thanks BR and Mara.
11:45, also didn’t parse TENOR. And didn’t see the daffodil connection for TRUMPET.
COD CHINA
18 minutes. I sailed through three-quarters of this without a problem but hit the rocks in the SW where I had 4 intersecting answers missing and was unable to make further progress until one of them gave way. Eventually I went with TRUMPET at 15dn merely because it was an instrument that fitted the T and P checkers I had in place. Then I spotted ‘daffy’ for ‘daffodil’ and knew it was correct and the remaining answers followed on fairly easily.
It was useful that INPUT went in early as its T prevented me writing THORN at 18dn which had seemed the obvious answer to the clue Letter a prickly thing (5), and possibly a better one than AITCH, although I suppose in a QC it’d be more likely to be defined as ‘old letter’.
I didn’t notice the problem with ‘sheet / SAIL’ but having read the comments in the blog I checked the usual sources and found I had been under a misapprehension all these years. After that I looked in Chambers Crossword Dictionary because the setter may have looked there, and sure enough I found SAIL listed under ‘sheet’ but not vice versa. So that must be an error. However I then thought to check the Shorter Oxford Dictionary and there I found:
sheet – 6) A sail. Chiefly poetic E16–E18.
As a sailor myself I remember shouting at the TV when a contestant on Who Wants to be a Millionaire had the question “on a boat what is a sheet” and having gone 50:50 chose the wrong answer between rope and sail. I’m sure it was the £250k question!!
I see what you mean about THORN being an obvious answer to 18d, but (fortunately!) it just didn’t occur to me.
For the first entry for sheet (as a noun) as a headword in the OED, sense 4 has the same entry as the sense 6 in the Shorter Oxford Dictionary that you’ve quoted. However, added to this is:”Not a nautical use; probably originating as a misuse of a sheet n2″, sheet n2 (the 2 is a superscript) in the OED being the rope attached to a sail meaning. Intersting.
I confidently wrote in THORN, having started with the downs, and it caused me no end of problems later because it seemed so obviously right!
That’s because THORN is right!
I agree, THORN is the better answer. I too was lucky to have INPUT first.
Same here!
Spotted the reverse hidden easily enough, it was reading it that caused in the problems and ended up typing ‘toner’. So a failure starts the week. Enjoyed this one, a solid six on the first pass of acrosses and then looked well placed to go close t0 10m before FETCHING held me up – big old groan when that landed. Once I had the F TIFF was easy peasy. All done in 13.43 but not accurately enough!
13:36 so a very rare Bested the Blogger day for me. That said, it was a massive biff fest and I couldn’t parse China, Tiff or Trumpet post solve, so thank you BR for your enlightenment and I’m sure all that parsing must have slowed you down; your piano is most definitely not scratched on the outside from any codebreaking establishments imho.
Thanks Mara. Very enjoyable.
Very much the same experience as Jack. Pretty quick for us with only the SW left after about 12 mins.
I impressed Mrs RH by remembering the thorn letter from last year and was well chuffed, so put it in confidently. After about 5 minutes of then getting nowhere we pressed the check button to bring me down to earth!!!
Considered biffing trumpet but left it until input gave another crosser so went with it. Finally crossed the line with fetching at 26.11
Thanks Mara and BR for parsing of trumpet. We knew all the bits but didn’t join the dots
My only issue today was being completely bemused by ‘daffy’ but the answer couldn’t have been much else so TRUMPET went in unparsed.
A fairly swift solve, starting with RICE and finishing with WEARIEST in 5.46.
Thanks to BR and Mara
Very good!
A reasonably speedy 16:10 for me today, though biffed TRUMPET from the letters, and took a while over FETCHING. A nice start to the week.
Pi ❤️
Sluggish here, like Plett not getting the reference to daffy and also struggling with FETCHING and AITCH at the end. Can’t remember seeing the “Tea bags in” thing before but even if it is a chestnut it was clever.
16:09. Seriously held up in the southwest with AITCH, GUYANA, FETCHING and TIFF which finally fell in that order. Also in that corner TRUMP and PUTIN cross. I don’t know what to make of that.
At 11ac I invented a new Latin tag – AD ULT, meaning “ever” – which looked OK until the checkers arrived.
Thanks to Mara and BR
I did the same. It seemed a plausible abbreviation for “ad ultimum”, which at a stretch could mean “ever”.
Exactly what we did.
Even looked up “Ad ult” to find “Ad ultimum” and it seemed a reasonable leap to think this was a shortened form.
It wasn’t long until we came to CHINA, though, and that put us back on the right track.
Five.
Saw get the picture on second pass.
Biffed trumpet from the T.
Fret crunch plateau and that was me done.
Are you a poet? Your comment summed up some of the cryptics I attempt brilliantly! ( especially fret crunch plateau). 🙂 Thank you for the chuckle.
Excellent 😄
A semi-literate has been scientist would be a better description 🙂
I once spelled suggests as sudgests and received a scathing comment along the lines of this is the strongest evidence I have seen to date to support the claim by men of letters that all scientists are illiterate. That was in my first year at university.
The chemistry building at the University of Reading has a double helix staircase. There is probably a video on line with students going up and down on the two separate helixes. It was a very weird feeling using that staircase the first time.
Could be worse; a former colleague once spelled “salad” with an “R”, and never lived it down. From that day on we never had salad with lunch, only salard.
15:35 for me – like many raced off to good start but then hit the brakes. Saw TRUMPET early but thought maybe it was something to do with a duck and only entered it once all the checkers were in so thanks Bletchley for the parse.
A standard 31 mins for me. LOI was WEARIEST.
Unlike others I found TRUMPET and TENOR straightforward (for me). FETCHING (my COD) held me up a while and only fell after I biffed TIFF.
I enjoyed this.
Thanks to Mara, and also to BR for the helpful blog.
9:35, pretty pleased. LOI TIFF, biffed as somehow didn’t see the wordplay. GUYANA took a long while, as did that whole corner. COD China for sure.
I started confidently with RICE and CHILEAN, but then spent the rest of the puzzle hopping around the grid, eventually finishing with ALIAS. 8:39. Thanks Mara and BR.
TRUMPET went in with a shrug, as I didn’t see the daffodil connection, even though I’m surrounded by the things here in Wales. COD FETCHING, which went in with a smile.
Sheet being a rope rather than a sail is news to me – we learn something new every day, even at my ripe old age!
Thanks Mara for an entertaining puzzle, and BR for the blog
The key for me was the long down anagram CONTEMPLATION; that went in quite early and opened the grid nicely, allowing a speedy 9:51 completion. Not without a few hold-ups though – I never parsed CHINA, struggled with both definition and wordplay for AT ALL (like our blogger I query tall = grown-up), and was royally misled by the clue for INAPT, where I thought “unsuitable” was the anagram indicator and “coloured” therefore the definition. Fortunately the anagram itself was clear, and that helped me “solve” the clue in a backwards way.
I must say I think Jackkt’s answer THORN to 18D is much superior, but also like him, by the time I got to it the checkers made it impossible.
Many thanks BR for the blog
Finished in 35 minutes today, but like yesterday my last few answers I couldn’t figure out the word play for. Really liked FETCHING and CHILEAN. Thanks you for the blog 😊
Couldn’t parse a few, so biffing was to the fore today. However, managed to finish in 21:11, about par for the course. TRUMPET, WEARIEST, AT ALL, CRUNCH the culprits.
No real problems today apart from wanting to make 18D THORN in spite of having the A from GUYANA. Slight MER
with AT ALL. Brilliant clue for CHINA. Thanks Mara and BR
DNF. Gave up with GUYANA unsolved. The “in” had convinced me that I was looking for a word for a citizen of a country, but the only one I could think of was CUBANA, which didn’t work.
Liked TRUMPET and FETCHING.
Thanks BR and Mara
Never heard of daffy for daffodil but trumpet had to be the instrument and that gave me GUYANA which I had earlier ‘solved’ as Panama and then deleted as it made no sense. 7:28.
Ground my way through this and enjoyed it so thanks Mara and Bletchley Reject. Daffy made me think of the cartoon duck and I’ve only ever heard the flowers referred to as daffs. Simple go out doesn’t mean date to me – go out with perhaps. Also I’ve seen tall for grown up before but I think it’s a bit of a stretch if you’ll pardon the pun! Minor quibbles though – thanks again!
Started quickly, most of the top went straight in – lovely! Bit more difficult was the SE corner. Then the mental thought became clear, leaving all the SW. OK, GUYANA. So suppose it must be TRUMPET, but why? Then guessed 22 paper, but no idea why … Last three: no idea at all. Humph.
So: thank you, BR; wouldn’t have tumbled to lovely = FETCHING in a million years – bet that isn’t in any dictionary! Attractive, charming, seductive, yes – but ….
NHO daffodil being called TRUMPET.
The TRUMPET is part of the daffodil, so “a bit”.
19.42 Phew! That was close – reaching for door handle to the SCC.
Held up, like others, by GUYANA, TIFF. Initially wondered if ‘prickly thing’ for AITCH might have been the oft had discussion re pronunciation.
‘AT-ALL’ for us ‘has that ever happened, has it happened at all’.
Enjoyed CHINA and FETCHING, the former only half understood until the blog.
A good workout.
Thanks to BletchleyReject and Mara.
12:07 with a silly GoT-THE-PICTURE. Blast. Certainly not a write-in but enjoyed it as it came together and I was able to parse it all. Rather liked FETCHING
Thanks to Mara and BR
15:01
An enjoyable puzzle. Had to biff TRUMPET and wasn’t entirely sure about LOI AT ALL. Unfortunately, defeated by a DPS on INCENSE where I slipped an extra C in instead of an S. Careless!
I had THORN for 18 down. Probably being a bit too clever!
Fast at first but, like others, stuck in the SW. Had to rub out Thorn when INPUT appeared. Solved TRUMPET OK, but just could not get FETCHING for ages. When the penny dropped the rest fell into place. LOsI AITCH and GUYANA.
Liked CHINA (tho not parsed properly), CHILEAN, GET THE PICTURE, among others.
Thanks vm, BR.
Very nice crossword, quick without being a pushover. Thanks to setter and blogger.
As another nautical person I have heard both sails and lines referred to a sheets. Surely the former makes more sense as sails clearly are similar to bed-linen and paper, both of which are sheets. Some dictionaries have the derivation of sheet when used for a rope as a shortening of sheet-line, i.e. the line that controls the sheets. I haven’t been able to discover any others. Also three sheets to the wind as drunk, clearly refers to the sails being out of control (lost to the wind) which causes the boat as a whole to be out of control. The boat can be completely under control with the loose ends of the ropes flapping about, even if it is not very ship-shape.
See my comment below re Brewer
Daffy Down Dilly
has now come to town
with a petticoat green
and a bright yellow gown.
(Nursery rhyme)
Thank you!
I knew I’d come across the phrase “Daffy Down Dilly” but couldn’t remember the context until now.
I was relatively quick on this one today; bearing in mind the difficulty others seemed to have had, finishing in 8.40. Like others I was tempted with THORN for 14dn, and double checked INPUT which convinced me it had to be something else. I also had to resist GATE for 7dn, even though I couldn’t get it to parse. My only other hesitancy was with 14ac where I initially put in GOT instead of GET THE PICTURE. Rereading the clue I quickly realised that it would only work for GOT if it was succeeded and not succeed.
A good QC from Mara – not easy but doable, I thought. Most of my comments have been made above (I always flip through the comments before posting because I find many of my thoughts have already appeared).
Like others, I finished in the SW corner (FETCHING, TIFF, TRUMPET, and LOI GUYANA). 18.13 for me, all parsed.
Thanks to Mara and to BR.
I thought CHINA was a superb clue. Thanks Mara and BR.
Slowish on the acrosses at first but when I tackled the downs they all went straight in except for 4 and 21dn. Or so I thought but I had confidently entered ‘thorn’ at 18dn which completely destroyed my attempts at the SW corner. I also put ‘escence’ in at 23ac but a careful study of the anagrist at 4dn soon sorted that out. The SW proved more intractable until I saw INPUT at 22ac and realised that ‘thorn’ was incorrect. I soon saw AITCH followed by FETCHING and TIFF. GUYANA took some time to drop by which time 27 minutes had elapsed.
FOI – 9ac CHILEAN
LOI – 17ac GUYANA
COD – 2dn CHINA. I biffed this at the time and never went back to parse it.
Thanks to Mara and BR
Shipwrecked in the SW, where a confident THORN (entered without checkers, having started with the downs) proved my undoing. By the time I’d reluctantly abandoned it and started again, the clock had ticked on and I ended up at 09:53 for a Not Great Day.
I admired CHINA but COD to FETCHING, which made me chuckle. LOI AITCH.
Many thanks Bletchers and Mara.
I was careful today after a silly lapse yesterday, missing out an answer. Hence was held up by wondering about ALIAS. As a fan of the great sea stories (Hornblower, Aubrey, Ramage etc.) I know that a sheet is a rope. Pace Ham above, Brewer has:
“Sheet. Three sheets in the wind. Very drunk. A sheet is the rope attached to the clew of a sail used for trimming sail ……..”
6’48”, thanks Bletchley and Mara.
Agree there are many references to a sheet being a rope, but that does not exclude a sheet also being a sail. Jackkt cites a dictionary reference above. The derivation of sheet = sail is obvious. The derivation of sheet = rope from sheet-line is also straight forward, it is the line that controls the sheet. Are you aware of any other derivation?
Ah, so nice to meet another Hornblower fan. Sillier than Aubrey, but more lovable. Oh Horry!
Quite tricky in places, and that’s without having tried out the Thorn rabbit hole at 18d. As it was, an alpha-trawl for loi Guyana nudged me into a window seat, but the sun is shining so I’m looking forward to the trip out. CoD to Fetching, for the smile. Invariant
DNF after 41 minutes thanks to a careless INCENCE.
A lovely puzzle with a testing SW corner.
NHO daffy apart from Daffy Duck and thought it might be another word for a daftie but TRUMPET fitted nicely.
LOI AITCH
COD CHINA which I didn’t parse properly so thanks Bletchley….and Mara
A 6-clue DNF, all in the SW corner and all inter-dependent.
21 clues correctly solved (except it turned out that one wasn’t) in the first 20 minutes, which is quite good for me, but zero clues solved (and an alternative to THORN not found) in the next 20 minutes. So, I gave up and decided to give the QC a significant break (I haven’t missed since I started almost five years ago). It’s wasting too much of my time.
I had THORN – a perfectly good solution – at 18d, which rendered 17a (___t_A), 22a (____o), and 24a (____n_N_) impossible. Alphabet trawling T______ (15d) and ____ (21d) also proved too challenging for me.
Many thanks to BR for the blog.
SRC, we are losing far too many regulars, so please reconsider.
Thorn is a great answer, but sadly not the right one. Believe me, I know that setting aside a wrong answer when you are convinced it’s right is really, really difficult, but it’s every bit as essential as looking at the other end of the clue when you get stuck.
Keep going Mr R!!
22 mins…
An odd one this. For 15 minutes, I only had about 5 clues solved and was anticipating disaster – but after getting 4dn “Contemplation” things started to slot into place quite rapidly. In hindsight, I should have done better and probably dallied about the top half of the grid without moving on quickly when something wasn’t obvious.
Some good clues here though, and I particularly enjoyed 17ac “Guyana”, 18dn “Aitch”, 15dn “Trumpet” and my COD 2dn “China”.
FOI – 7dn “Date”
LOI – 24ac “Fetching”
COD – 2dn “China”
Thanks as usual!
I parsed TRUMPET as an instrument that is ‘daff-y’ meaning ‘daff-like’ as ‘daff’ is a common abbreviation for daffodil. Held up by SCRAPPED (biffed), otherwise all went in fairly smoothly. LOI UTTER. Really liked CHINA for the misdirection and FETCHING which is the sort of thing my gran would have said. Many thanks BR and Mara.
We both enjoyed this, thanks Mara, and, as ever, enjoyed reading the blog, BR. Didn’t need on this occasion but always peruse it and it’s comforting to have a safety net.
Only brief glitch was making up AD ULT for 11a, but the error of our ways was soon shown to us by CHINA (agree with others that it’s a lovely clue).
THORN definitely would have tricked us but (due to the route we take in solving) we had 2 of the crossers in place.
I very much liked FETCHING which is a word I quite often use in that sense.
Also enjoyed AT ALL. Mara’s clues often make me smile and I was picturing some adults smiling benignly at some toddlers playing, saying “Look at the little ones” while the toddlers may be wondering what “the Talls” are up to.
Some gimmes helped – 1a R Ice, 9a Chi Lean, 12a Ea(S)ter, and so on. Despite a recent outing LOI 17a Guyana took an age. Wot was I finkin’? Clearly not at the races today.
15d Trumpet. Wasn’t sure what the clue meant, then PDM for the daffy flower.
18d Aitch; As others I was tempted by Thorn. It slowed me down quite a lot. It fits the def (prickly thing) to a tee, and I’m an inveterate biffer. In fact ignoring crossers I think they are equally valid.
Thanks to BR and Mara.
I’m not sure THORN and AITCH are equally valid as an itch isn’t prickly, whereas a thorn definitely is.
I dunno, but ‘Prickly heat’ rash is quite itchy.
We were on the ball today with 10:12. Never thought of THORN, which could have been a great answer, though we already had INPUT by the time we got to AITCH which, for me, still shares COD honours with FETCHING. Held up a little by the use of ‘coloured’ as an anagram indicator and GUYANA might have held us up a little longer than it did had we not already seen it elsewhere today. Thanks, BR and Mara.
9:19
Slowish while walking into town. Failed to get the daffy connection but otherwise fairly straightforward.
Thanks BR and Mara
Sail for Sheet was new to me. As well, the daffy trumpet link to daffodils. Thanks to our blogger and setter.