Although I completed it within my 6 minute target, this felt like a decent workout for a quickie. Some of the indicators are perhaps a little recherché , and it helps if you know what a sprit is (I didn’t), or that rotisserie is a restaurant as well as a kitchen appliance. My COD goes to 8 ac.
| Across |
| 1 |
Restaurant rubbish is strewn initially beside lake (10) |
|
ROTISSERIE – ROT (rubbish) + IS + S[trewn] + (lake) ERIE |
| 8 |
Nearly tan … half browny? (5) |
|
TAWNY – TA[N] + [BRO]WNY |
| 9 |
Perhaps vinyl LP more damaged around the start of Yesterday (7) |
|
POLYMER – anagram (‘damaged’) of LP MORE with Y for Yesterday |
| 10 |
High region covered in thick mist earlier (9) |
|
FOREGOING – FOG round anagram (‘high’) of REGION |
| 12 |
Time regularly needed for retrial (3) |
|
ERA – alternate letters of rEtRiAl |
| 13 |
See heads on Camra’s own choice of alcoholic drink (5) |
|
COCOA – Acronym |
| 15 |
Top clubs recharge one’s batteries (5) |
|
CREST – C for clubs + REST |
| 17 |
English appeal over draw (3) |
|
TIE – E + IT backwards |
| 18 |
What could be on actor is easy to carry around on location (9) |
|
SPOTLIGHT – SPOT + LIGHT |
| 20 |
One rejected from openly gay actors (7) |
|
OUTCAST – OUT + CAST |
| 21 |
Come running about a brief character role (5) |
|
CAMEO – anagram (‘running’) of COME around A |
| 22 |
Contaminate fully-fledged Ecstasy with speed (10) |
|
ADULTERATE – ADULT (fully-fledged) + E (ecstasy) + RATE |
| Down |
| 1 |
Sanction process of becoming a rodent? (12) |
|
RATIFICATION – cryptic definition, becoming a rat. |
| 2 |
Somewhere along rocky height you and I stand high (5) |
|
TOWER – WE (you and I ) inside TOR. ‘Somewhere along’ is a new indicator for me. |
| 3 |
Agent grasses up enemy in the end (3) |
|
SPY – last letters |
| 4 |
Quickness of European Pole on board? (6) |
|
ESPRIT – E (european) + SPRIT, ‘a small spar reaching diagonally from a mast to the upper outer corner of a sail.’ |
| 5 |
I will turn up. I visit mostly without reason (9) |
|
ILLOGICAL -ILL + GO backwards (‘turn’ up) + I CAL[L] |
| 6 |
Electrical unit checked after removal of terminals (6) |
|
AMPERE – HAMPERED without the ends. |
| 7 |
Style of swimming starkers to be changed (12) |
|
BREASTSTROKE – anagram (‘changed’) of STARKERS TO BE |
| 11 |
Donkey left in large area of pasture (9) |
|
GRASSLAND – ASS + L inside GRAND |
| 14 |
Make wooden box with key inserted (6) |
|
CREATE – CRATE with E inserted |
| 16 |
Gateway drink — a lager at first (6) |
|
PORTAL -PORT + A + L[AGER] |
| 19 |
Character of flowing magma (5) |
|
GAMMA – anagram (‘flowing’) of MAGMA |
| 21 |
Prompt remedy banishing runs (3) |
|
CUE – CURE minus R for runs |
I thought this was quite hard in several places and was surprised to finish in 8.57, thinking it had been longer. LOI CREST, the definition fooled me. I always think of ROTISSERIE as being the turning thing the food is cooked on, not the building that contains it, but never mind. Thanks Joker, thanks Curarist.
14 minutes, only just avoiding a fourth consecutive solve going over 15 minutes.
The last 4 minutes were spent on ESPRIT which I eventually bunged in as the only word that fitted. I missed the wordplay ‘pole / SPRIT’ and although I have met the term before I would never have thought of it unless I’d already got the answer and was working back from there. Despite checking a number of sources I remain unconvinced of the definition ‘quickness’ but I may have missed a context in which it works conclusively.
Echoing LindsayO with a time that was faster than I expected for this complicated puzzle. 8:16, but with a couple guessed from checkers and unparsed – I had not heard of sprit for pole either, nor did I immediately link ESPRIT with quickness, and ILLOGICAL was also unparsed. Two new indicators as well – the aforementioned “somewhere along” for an inclusion, and “high” for an anagram indicator in FOREGOING. So blog very much needed today.
Many thanks Curarist, and a good weekend to all.
A real workout indeed with lots of clanging PDMs, two of which came reading the blog, thanks Curarist. All done in 26.52
I sail a dinghy with a (bow)sprit but never thought of pole on board as something on a boat, grrr!
COD to ratification 😀 thanks Joker. Can’t spot a Nina but never do, I wonder if there is one??
I crawled home in 25 mins. Quite tough, I thought. I knew bowsprit from sailing, but didn’t think of SPRIT. I was looking for PRIT after entering E(uropean) and S (as in South pole). Eventually just biffed ESPRIT.
ROTISSERIE was a total biff from the letters. I couldn’t quite see what was going on there.
And I was confused about the wordplay in ERA. The “needed for” seem illogical in the surface. “Time retrial regularly” would be more logical, no?
Pi ❤️
My thoughts entirely on the clue for ERA. Unnecessarily convoluted and a strange logical order for the words, I thought, and your suggested alternative is definitely an improvement.
Perhaps every fifth letter of all three words….
Regularly needEd for RetriAl
I was very slow to get going on this one and the grid was blank until COCOA came to my rescue. I found the bottom easier and started to make good progress until hitting the buffers with ESPRIT, where I had no idea what was going on and got as far as ‘e’ for European and ‘s’ for pole before deciding to submit (On edit I see that I had the same experience as Pi).
Crossed the line in 9.16 with COD to RATIFICATION.
Thanks to Curarist and Joker
17:35 for the solve. Was really enjoying it for the first ten mins and would probably have scraped in that quick but held up by having to doublecheck stuff (AMPERE) when stuck on CREST and later ESPRIT. The latter was bunged in with hope after 5+ mins of alphatrawl- not impressed with the word choices there as NHO either other than “esprit de corps” which I just had to look up to spell.
Thanks to Curarist and Joker
A tricky but enjoyable puzzle, and like our blogger I snuck inside my 6 minute target. I was another with a limited usage of ROTISSERIE – every day’s a school day.
FOI POLYMER
LOI TAWNY
COD SPOTLIGHT
TIME 5:37
I had the same experience, it seemed hard but I finished below average
24 mins which is faster than average for me.
I started off slowly and FOI was COCOA.
Thinks picked up with LOI a guess at ESPRIT. Sprit is a new word for my lengthening list.
For 6D I had in mind TAMPERED without the ends – but both words work.
Enjoyable. Thanks to Joker, and also to Curarist for the very helpful blog.
How is tampered a synonym for checked?
OK I know now it doesn’t really work. My thinking was removing the ends means it had been tampered (with) which would check ( stop) it.
I woke early and in my 5am daze went for the first vaguely possible parsing. At least I got the right answer written down…..
Fair enough – I wasn’t sure whether it was a meaning I didn’t know or otherwise.
I thought “Hampered”, but “Tampered” could work as well. Either way, it was a great clue.
I did the same.
Very familiar with bowsprit but never put one and one together to make one.
I made heavy weather and rolled around in the bilge before slowly working my way up on deck, by which time, after 40 minutes, my boat had sunk.
Thanks Joker and Templar for making plain sailing from a rough crossing.
🤣
Bravo
Much as I would like to claim credit for the excellent blog, it was curarist!
DNF. All done in 9 minutes EXCEPT for ESPRIT, which I was never going to get, knowing as I do so few nautical terms, and trusting against my better knowledge that nothing so vicious would appear in the QC.
A workout indeed. After two mugs of tea I finally crossed the line in 59:56.
I enjoy taking time to work out, solve and parse the clues and Joker made me laugh a few times – mostly at myself for missing the obvious.
NHO a Sprit without the Bow but logically there has to be one.
Thanks Curarist and respect to you and others who solve in such amazing times.
Scraping in with the sub-1hr #5 – well done mate. You’re right there were some good clues in there – OUTCAST and PORTAL were the two I particularly enjoyed.
Thanks #50. You had a good time on a hard puzzle.
Hopefully taking time to work out the clues will lead to faster times in future but if not it’s still a pleasure to solve these.
We echo the respect – and quietly hope that these speedsters were once snails.
Over time, we have morphed from slug to snail and are grateful to the blog for much of our continued progress.
Next stage is turtle!
😆 good thing they can live for 100 years – we may need that to progress further
Thank you, Joker, for some fun. Feared I hadn’t got it all right and indeed it seems you don’t recharge your batteries with heat and to top someone doesn’t mean to cheat them! So CREST it should have been. Dragged up POLYMER from somewhere, and supposed it had to be ESPRIT (LOI) though slight MER, surely = spirit and liveliness, nothing to do with speed. Presumed ‘high’ = drunk = anagram to make FOREGOING. Thanks, Curarist.
Loved the anagram “to be starkers” = BREAST STROKE.
15:30
After yesterday’s 50 minute epic this felt like a breeze. Held up at the end by the unparsed LOI ESPRIT which was the only word that I could make fit.
Enjoyable puzzle. Hesitated about LOI ESPRIT, but just biffed in the end, despite sailing in the past. I think of Esprit as meaning Spirit rather than quickness, e.g. esprit de corps.
Liked FOI RATIFICATION (!), SPOTLIGHT, ADULTERATE, CUE, CAMEO, PORTAL. Yes, great swimming Starkers anagram.
Thanks vm, Curarist.
Not many laughs from Joker for me today. I biffed AMPERE, given crossers, but it made little sense. Same for ESPRIT and I was slow with CREST, my LOI.
Too many clues which I found weird. I biffed GRASSLAND and RATIFICATION and then parsed them (with a rare smile for the latter).
I’ll look back over the blog and see which of my difficulties were self-inflicted rather than down to Joker. Perhaps I am just just in a bad mood after problems sending a PowerPoint presentation to a colleague ready for a presentation later. (A wine tasting for 70+ people so I am sure I will feel better when the wine starts to flow.)
22 min in the end.
Thanks to both.
Having recently turned 70 myself, I’m pleased to hear about select gatherings of oenophiles. . .
😄 A crossword brain at work, clearly, Invariant.
Yes, the average age of our Society is gradually increasing but we are trying to introduce as many younger people as possible to appreciation of the joys of fine wine.
Same age drift as cryptic crosswords I fear.
Eight
I don’t get the parsing for 17ac. Where does the IT come from please?
I could only think along the lines of ‘it’ girls (who allegedly had ‘it’ / appeal).
No, me neither…..
If it ain’t IT it’s SA (for sex appeal, I believe). These terms for anything meaning appeal, sexiness etc etc have been a form of shorthand in the 15×15, but are starting to make their way into the QC. So we’d better get used to them! I think Blighter is right with the it girl ref, but don’t forget Eric Idle, you’ve done IT…
IT girls never came across as sexually appealing to me, possibly because I couldn’t afford that kind of lifestyle.
IT is sex appeal which also appears as SA in many crosswords. It’s dated slang that some around here dislike intensely, but it’s just too useful for setters to abandon it.
Well, they do have Information Technology and South America available!
Uh oh. South America?
South America is more usually S US in my experience. Perhaps it says something about the setters that they love dated stuff like IT and SA (no complaints from me on that), but then qualify IT (Information Technology) as “new” as we had in a puzzle last week.
Ah thanks.
I’m always ranting about this device, and I don’t buy “it’s just too useful”.
It’s standard in cryptic puzzles generally, Merlin, not just The Times , so I’m afraid you’re in for a long campaign to have it changed. If all our pet hates had to be taken into consideration nothing would ever get published.
A slow solve, finishing in 16:05.
Spent time at the end trying to parse ESPRIT, eventually bunging it in unparsed. NHO sprit (though I have heard of bowsprit, so I could have made the connection.)
COD to RATIFICATION.
Thanks Curarist and Joker.
FOI was RATIFICATION which gave me a chuckle. COCOA was my next. I couldn’t parse ESPRIT and now I know why. Thank you curarist for the explanation. I also incorrectly thought of tAMPEREd, hampered is a much better fit. My LOI was FOREGOING and gets my COD for the imagery in the wordplay. 8:38
Weird one. Only 3 in across pass, thinking it was going to be a slog. All but 3 of the downs and all the remaining across as write ins – going to be a new PB!, ILLOGICAL and AMPERE in fairly quickly. Then grinding halt on 4d, made and drank second cup of coffee and still no light (I knew sprit from bowsprit and sprits’l). Eventually had to put in Esprit as the only word that fits. 10 mins on Google shows no sign of esprit = quickness. Pity as using wit instead of quickness would have worked much better IMHO.
Hard. Biffed a few and put in the NHO ESPRIT with all fingers crossed. 26:11 – slower than my (slow) average.
18.24 Another day out of the SCC! (after taking off time for chatting with daughter stuck on Eurostar). Dare we hope this will become the norm?
Doing really well until ROTISSERIE (have only now discovered I struggle to spell it), FOREGOING.. not understood until explained by Curarist – and frustratingly, for the retrospectively obvious, CREST.
Enjoyed, though peeved we failed to pick up quite a few instructions until the excellent blog.
Thank you Joker and Curarist.
Good job, and yes, having recently made the transition to feeling that sub-20 is the new normal, I dare say that you dare hope so.
I’m with Nutshell about 17ac, it had to be TIE, but why?
In crossword-land, sex appeal can be IT.
PS – guidance welcome –
12A – Time regularly needed for retrial ERA
Link between TIME, ERA and regularly understood.
Choice of words – ‘needed for’, not understood.
Would not have queried had it been ‘ regularly seen at retrial’.
Are we missing something?
rEtRiAl…regularly missed gives era
Thankyou! Had that bit – I poorly expressed my query – it was the use of ‘needed for’…
‘seen at’ directs you to where it the word is ‘hiding’ -whereas I can’t find a link with ‘needed for’..
Had it said – ‘retrial is regularly needed for time’ – yes,…
As per my moniker..too often I am…
I read “time regularly needed for retrial” as: to build “retrial” I regularly need the letters of “era”.
aahh…. finally… the penny drops. Thank you..
I really enjoyed this puzzle, we’ve had two rippers in a row. This puzzle was not easy for me, but very satisfying and enjoyable.
Thanks setters and bloggers.
Another who found it hard going, but finished in a reasonable time. The NE was blank after my first pass, but gradually things came together. ROTISSERIE was FOI and FOREGOING brought up the rear. Knew bowsprit, but struggles to see ESPRIT as quickness. 8:39. Thanks Joker and Curarist.
13.00 I started very slowly and worked back up from the downs in the bottom half. ESPRIT was LOI after several minutes failing to think of a better answer. I didn’t make the connection to bowsprit. Thanks Curarist and Joker.
A quick 1d/1ac start, but the Tawny Tower had to wait for crossers to make any sense of the clues: A (disappointingly) common theme in today’s puzzle, with some very odd surfaces. That’s my convenient excuse for taking nearly 25mins. CoD to Illogical, just ahead of Polymer. Invariant
Rarely do you get a gimme from the Joker, and today was no exception. It seems quite a few solvers were stretched to the limits of their target, and I followed suit coming in at 9.58, just a couple of seconds inside. Sprit as a part of a boat has come up before, so ESPRIT came fairly quickly to me. I was a bit slow with my last two however, but GRASSLAND was solved which allowed me to finish with FOREGOING. ‘High’ as an anagram indicator wasn’t obvious, at least to me.
A good week for a change with a total time of 44.42, giving me a daily average of 8.56. On only one day was I over my target time, and then only ten seconds outside.
I’ve been doing well at getting the typo count down but not today. A careless I for the O in CAMEO mucked up BREASTSTROKE too. So not all green in 15.26, with quite a lot of that on ESPRIT where both ends of the clue caused me problems. Enjoyed POLYMER and COCOA particularly.
16 minutes. A bit too much like hard work for me, especially ESPRIT (like many others, my LOI), but TAWNY and RATIFICATION made it all worthwhile.
Thanks to Joker and Curarist
9.25.
I thought it tricky, and anticipated an OWL on Esprit.
10a Foregoing. Took a while to get this. High as anagrind is a first for me I think.
POI, 13a Cocoa. As a CAMRA person I never saw a cup of cocoa in a CAMRA hand….
1d Ratification. Ho ho ho!
4d Esprit BIFD. HHO sprit=spar, as in bowsprit, but was obsessed by Pole = N or S. Refused to attack from a different direction. Joker+1. Checked; esprit=liveliness, which is pretty close.
6d Ampere. Post-solve needed Cheating Machine to list out ?ampere? to find Hampered. Good one.
POI 7d Breaststroke. The only word I can think of with 5 consonants on the trot.
Thanks Curarist & Joker.
Unlike most of those here, I did not find this difficult. Getting the long ones along the edges right away was really helpful, and they were pretty obvious, although it took me a moment to see what was going on in ratification. I biffed ones like ampere and grassland, saving time. Last one in was esprit, which I did parse.
Time: 6:24
Found this easier than yesterday but still a very enjoyable workout. Held up by LOI CREST (royally misdirected!). Couldn’t quite parse FOREGOING (high is a new anagram indicator for me). TIE had me in knots for a while…. Lots were biffed then parsed. Really liked RATIFICATION and TOWER. Knew bowsprit so biffed then parsed ESPRIT with a shrug. Many thanks Joker and C.
18:40. CREST, TOWER, and FOREGOING all held me up a long time. RATIFICATION and OUTCAST each raised a smile.
I thought this was a grown up challenge.
I started solving while waiting for a medical appointment (not the best circumstances) and had to wait till I got home to get ROTISSERIE and LOI ESPRIT; I thought of bowsprit to confirm the parsing. DNK that a rotisserie is a restaurant.
Time taken well over 20 minutes.
A good challenge from Joker.
David
Another excellent puzzle after yesterday’s. I really enjoyed this in spite of blanking on the should-have-been write-in RATIFICATION until my second pass. Despite that I missed the Club, finishing in 16:11. Will have to make biscuits (that’s American ones) to compensate for the missed croissant.
I knew ROTISSERIE (fun clue) only as a spit, and had to dig deep for the SPRIT of ESPRIT (LOI). Quickness of wit seems a good enough definition for it; Collins agrees. ILLOGICAL might be my favorite clue of all time; it stopped me dead for quite a while to admire it without making any attempt to figure it out. COCOA was funny, heavens, now I guess I really know what CAMRA is. I could do without IT for “appeal” though.
I would defend ERA. It avoids the too-easily-detected cliché of “time retrial regularly” without being impenetrable. And it is logical, with a surface that reads well to me.
Thanks to Joker and Curarist.
I thought a ROTISSERIE was a thing not a place. I didn’t associate SPRIT with bowsprit, which I did know.( my knowledge of 19th century maritime terminology is a bit sparse)
I have never heard of rotisserie meaning a restaurant but in French nearly all shop type things end in “erie” so it was easy to guess that it was a shop that did that thing.
It is overseas, but in the UK we tend to think of it as one of those spit things that are slowly grilling chickens in supermarkets. Well, I do anyway.
The Quitch worked well for us today. 13:01 is somewhere around our average. POI ROTISSERIE and LOI ESPRIT where sprit (which I only knew in the context of bowsprit) eventually occurred to me. COD RATIFICATION. Thanks, Curarist and Joker.
I found this tougher than usual. Ran out of time by starting way too late on the train in to London after maybe 10 minutes. Finished quickly thereafter with LOI ESPRIT. I thought that European Pole was E for European and S for Pole, and couldn’t work out why “on board” or “board” gave PRIT. Having made that mistake, I never thought to look for the (obviously NHO) SPRIT. So thanks, Curarist, for the explanation.
16 mins…
A good puzzle with a nice mix of straight forward and more challenging clues. Quite a few could have been my COD: 1dn “Ratification”, 2dn “Tower”, 22ac “Adulterate” – but, in the end, 6dn “Ampere” took the award.
Only real hold up was uncertainty over 4dn “Esprit”. After discounting chess pieces, I had a feeling the “sprit” but had something to do with sailing and, luckily, I was right.
FOI – 3dn “Spy”
LOI – 4dn “Esprit”
COD – 6dn “Ampere”
Thanks as usual!
COD split between RATIfiCATION and the OUT CAST, both of which merit the Uxbridge Ebglish Dictionary.
All done in bang average 08:45. Many thanks Joker and curarist.
All done in 13:57, but LOI ESPRIT just went in as the only word that fitted the crossers. I spotted SPRIT after submitting, although I’ve not seen it as a standalone word before.
Thanks to Joker and Curarist.
All done and dusted but a slow solve, well into the SCC. Liked RATIFICATION. Took a while to get ILLOGICAL – I first thought it was going to be an anagram of I WILL TURN (up). You recharge your batteries when you rest, so CREST was neat. Cod BREASTSTROKE – because starkers to be is such a visual image! Ho ho Joker – and thanks to Curarist
We enjoyed this workout, just failed with 4d, esprit, as others we did not associate it with quickness.
16:48 with half the time on ESPRIT, only word that fitted, and I didn’t know the definition and NHO SPRIT. Not a satisfying end to a decent puzzle, apart from the tiresome It=appeal, which hasn’t been used for at least two generations.
COD RATIFICATION
This was indeed a decent QC despite Esprit parsed after solving along with Tower and Ampere. Thanks.
I didn’t know what a sprit was and I didn’t know that quickness was a synonym of ESPRIT, so that one was doubly tricky (and bunged in as my best guess). Just about outside the SCC with 19:23.
Thank you for the blog!