I found this enjoyable offering from Dangle toward the easier end of the QC spectrum with no uncommon words or complicated wordplay. A welcome change from the last few weeks when I’ve found at least a few difficult clues in each puzzle. Finished in 07:35.
Thanks to Dangle for QC number five – look forward to more.
A very big thanks to Merlin for filling in for me for the last few weeks.
Definitions underlined in bold, letter deletions or wordplay not appearing in the answer shown by strikethrough.
| Across | |
| 1 | Person exploring underground Conservative state (5) |
| CAVER – C (‘Conservative’) AVER (‘state’) | |
| 4 | Left bread-winner for student (7) |
| LEARNER – L (‘Left’) EARNER (‘bread-winner’) | |
| 8 | Very legal petition (7) |
| SOLICIT –SO (‘Very’) LICIT (‘legal’) | |
| 9 | Make it less bright, on reflection, lacking courage (5) |
| TIMID – Reversal (‘on reflection’) of DIM IT (‘Make it less bright’) | |
| 10 | Where to purchase delicious buffet ie pastries (10) |
| PATISSERIE – Whole clue as definition (not really cryptic), with part of the clue as wordplay: anagram (‘buffet’) of IE PASTRIES, so a semi-&lit clue | |
| 14 | Circle in iron border (6) |
| FRINGE – RING (‘Circle’) contained in (‘in’) FE (‘iron’) | |
| 15 | Leader of Union aboard public transport getting a shock (6) |
| TRAUMA – U |
|
| 17 | Ninth bloke badly failing (2,3,5) |
| ON THE BLINK – Anagram (‘badly’) of NINTH BLOKE | |
| 20 | Endless shortage of water is harsh (5) |
| ROUGH – We know all about that here at the moment. Fires in Europe as well – very ‘harsh’. |
|
| 22 | Official waste abandoned next to road (7) |
| STEWARD – Anagram (‘abandoned’) of WASTE then (‘next to’) RD (‘road’) | |
| 23 | Notices Toni Arthur entertaining country (7) |
| ESTONIA – Hidden in (‘entertaining’) |
|
| 24 | I distribute cards? Perfect (5) |
| IDEAL –I (‘I’) DEAL (‘distribute cards?’)
Not quite sure of the function of the question mark here. Maybe to ‘distribute cards’ is an example of to DEAL. |
|
| Down | |
| 1 | Price of lettuce with Truss’s face attached (4) |
| COST – COS (‘lettuce’) T Up to the minute biting political comment. Without knowing all the details, I believe the lettuce won. |
|
| 2 | Glen’s manservant taking time off (4) |
| VALE – VALE |
|
| 3 | The shape of football pitch in playing field introducing confusion (9) |
| RECTANGLE – REC (‘playing field’) preceding (‘introducing’) TANGLE (‘confusion’) | |
| 4 | Speak without restraint contributing to indefensible tripe (3,3) |
| LET RIP – Hidden in (‘contributing to’) |
|
| 5 | A court edict (3) |
| ACT – A (‘A’) CT (‘court’) | |
| 6 | Many signs of hesitation surrounded by common sense (8) |
| NUMEROUS – UM ER (‘signs of hesitation’) contained in (‘surrounded by’) NOUS (‘common sense’) | |
| 7 | Marxist cared about tree (3,5) |
| RED CEDAR – RED (‘Marxist’) than anagram (‘about’) of CARED | |
| 11 | Green site around African plains (9) |
| SERENGETI – Anagram (‘around’) of GREEN SITE | |
| 12 | Wayward female leaves, obviously (2,6) |
| OF COURSE – OF |
|
| 13 | Suspect water vapour is associated with corrosion (8) |
| MISTRUST – MIST (‘water vapour’) RUST (‘corrosion’) | |
| 16 | Climbing mountain with son and mother gives a bit of blood (6) |
| PLASMA – PLA, a reversal (‘climbing’) of ALP (‘mountain’) S (‘son’) MA (‘mother’)
The ‘bit of blood’ without the cellular components. |
|
| 18 | Child found in brambles, periodically (4) |
| BABE – B |
|
| 19 | Report of unemployed person who is greatly admired (4) |
| IDOL – Aural wordplay (‘Report of’) of IDLE (‘unemployed’) | |
| 21 | Fella with new bird (3) |
| HEN – HE (‘Fella’) N (‘new’)
Straight out of the vernacular of the 60’s. Maybe not very exciting but my COD. |
|
Yes, this was a compendium of chestnuts and biffs. You see African plain starting with S, you write in Serengeti and move on. Only fringe and on the blink took any effort.
Time: 5:38
12:29, felt easy but I never got any rhythm.
NHO RED CEDAR, and I was a bit confused, with “red” also being in the anagram.
Long discussion on the etymology of ON THE BLINK in this article . Seems like the Anglo version of the American “on the fritz” which appeared at the dawn of the electric age. I thought it related to old tellys, which were then hit to reset the vertical frame rate, but it’s older than that.
COD OF COURSE
PS, good to have you back on the Tuesday slot, Bletchers
You may have seen red cedar hedges around. See my post.
All done in 6.17, so not too many hold-ups. I’m sorry to say I missed the excellent Truss/lettuce reference. Maybe it’s a chestnut but I liked the way pastries got worked into the anagram for PATISSERIE. I also liked ON THE BLINK because looking at ‘ninth bloke’ it doesn’t seem like those letters will get you there, but they do. Thanks you Dangle and thanks BR, welcome back.
Nothing here to cause much of a problem, though my LOI held me up for half a minute.
FOI LEARNER
LOI TRAUMA
COD ON THE BLINK
TIME 4:17
It is hard to explain why, but I really didn’t enjoy this at all. The best explanation I can come up with is that it felt like just any old cryptic, and a pretty easy one at that. It didn’t have that special Times cryptic feel to it.
Tricky at the top of the acrosses but ended up with seven on the first pass before downs helped out. Good progress to there before taking really quite a lot of time to unravel FRINGE – it’s all there in the clue but I couldn’t see what was doing what. Almost convinced myself a ‘feedge’ was a border at one point. All green in 8.55.
No big problems but NUMEROUS held me up for a bit. Good clue. Never heard of a REC but perhaps they call it that at a Berkshire school.
When I was a kid, the rec was the recreation ground – hanging around on the swings when there wasn’t anywhere else to go! More likely to be called a playground or park these days, I expect, but not really a playing / sports field.
11 minutes delayed by my own stupidity, somehow managing to put TOUGH at 20ac by taking the first and last letters off ‘drought’. That gave me problems with my LOI at 12dn OF COURSE.
Welcome back, Bletchers!
I thought that this was a cracking puzzle and at the easier end of the spectrum.
Started with CAVER and finished with TRAUMA in 4.59 with several contenders for COD includig, COST, LET RIP and NUMEROUS.
Thanks to BR and Dangle
Steady solve with no real difficulties. 17 dead but with lots of time chatting through the parsing. Totally on the wavelength here so maybe could have been much quicker but that’s less fun for us.
The school boy in me would have preferred another definition for let rip but enjoyed remembering watching Toni Arthur in Play School with Jeremy Irons. Just looked her up and her full name was Antoinette Alice Priscilla, can see why she used Toni😀
Thanks Dangle and BR
Straightforward enough, and I ambled contentedly to an 8:51 finish. But I really don’t see how the clue for PATISSERIE works, on a number of levels. Where is the anagram indicator? If it is “buffet” this redefines forced anagrinds – I’m well aware of the theory that almost any word in the language can be used as an anagrind, but buffet? And then, isn’t the word doing double duty as part of the definition too (“where to purchase delicious buffet”)? Quite apart from the fact that patisseries are far from the most obvious place to go for a buffet. Not in my view a very successful clue.
Many thanks BR for the blog, and welcome back.
Thanks Cedric. I think ‘buffet’ can qualify as an anagram indicator as in the sense of “to knock about” and being a (semi-)&lit clue it contributes to both wordplay and def; that’s how I saw it anyway, perhaps erroneously. I do take your point though about a patisserie not being the ideal place to go for a buffet; having just been to the local patisserie for an afternoon tea, I don’t think my waistline would have survived all those goodies being laid out to eat at will!
Yes, “buffeted by the wind”. Seems fair to me (Collins: “to knock against or about; batter”). But I didn’t think the clue really worked even as a semi &lit.
That’s the meaning of ‘buffet’ that worked for me, here, too.
Buffet? Agree – though in my case a buffet means making a meal out of a piece of EVERY offering….so, make a word?
As for patisseries being far from the most obvious place to go for a buffet, well, quite. However, with respect dear Mr S, in my case, when at a buffet, the patisserie area is by far the most obvious area to go for! 🐷🐽
Although an easier QC, I take much satisfaction from achieving a personal best at 6m 38s! Prior best was just under 8m…
Well done!
I was on for a sparkling time, but got waylaid by FRINGE and NUMEROUS. In the end it was 13:20, which is not too shabby for me.
Very enjoyable and LOL’d at the Truss clue.
Pi ❤️
10:51 with a pinky. Distrust water vapour Look at me I’m as helpless as a kitten up a tree. And I feel like I’m clinging to a cloud. I can’t understand. I get Disty just holding your hand. Ho hum. Read The Clue.
Nicely pitched puzzle for a QC
Thanks Dangle and BR
🤣
All good, thank you Dangle even if PATISSERIE isn’t (as you say, BR) really cryptic, almost worryingly easy. LOI SOLICIT but RED CEDAR caused more trouble as Mrs M pointed to our red acer in the garden and we tried to make that work somehow!
6:20 for the solve. Not much (if any) commentary so far that Dangle’s previous QCs have been relatively difficult – for me taking between 18-23mins and ending in a DNF last time out on “lay-leaders”/”dubbin”. So this was a welcome ‘dumbing down’ and I rather enjoyed it for that.
Finished up in the NW with CAVER/VALE/SOLICIT. I enjoyed RECTANGLE and NUMEROUS, NHO red cedar but well clued.
Thanks to BR and Dangle.
A steady solve, with no problems. Western RED CEDAR, thuja plicata, is a bit like cupressus leylandii, only slower growing and you can trim it easily.
Liked ON THE BLINK, VALE, LET RIP.
Thanks vm, BR.
I found that tougher than yesterday’s, getting delayed by three clues – TRAUMA (where I took a moment to see what the “a” was indicating), ROUGH (where I thought “endless” meant just remove the last letter, not the first and last, so dismissed “drough”) and LOI by miles OF COURSE, where finally the penny dropped with a resounding clang!
All that pushed me to 06:53 which today with the QUITCH running at only 69 can only count as an OK Day. Many thanks Dangle and welcome back Bletchers!
3:58. Mostly straightforward although I did have quite a few gaps after a first pass through the across clues. I liked the dig at Liz in 1D. Thank-you Dangle and BR.
6.34 for me – found it similar to yesterday in terms of difficulty but got held up for a whole minute by LOI FRINGE where I had been looking for a solution beginning FE-.
Not eased my irritation from the heat though, now 32C in house and its only half nine. Payday today maybe time to bite the bullet and splash out on a portable AC unit.
Thanks Bletch for the blog and Dangle for the gentle puzzle.
Solved in 13 minutes, which is a new best time for me! NHO of nous before, so that was an interesting word to learn. Try and figure out the word play before writing the word in if I can, and took me a while to figure of the wordplay for OF COURSE and RECTANGLE. Thanks for the blog 😁
Straightforward. COD NUMEROUS. LOI TRAUMA. Spent time looking to fit in BUS which made this harder than required.
I can see @AgileJames point of view and it did seem a bit vin ordinaire in parts but there was enough fizz to leave me pleased to finish in below par 16 minutes.
Thank you Bletch and Dangle
13:22
A very nice QC but enjoyed Trelawney’s QC yesterday more (I couldn’t post as the site kept crashing but loved TRAFFIC WARDEN and managed a 11:03 along with a ‘Very Good’ in the Polygon and a rare Concise finish. A good day!)
Two days outside of the SCC, so today is pretty good too.
😊
Thanks to Dangle and BR
11.44 – a pleasing time for us – especially given a few slow moments (unwarranted in retrospect). Biffed ‘LET FLY’ – then L clearly wrong – tried anagram of tripe -though missed the hidden until blog. Duh. A fun, gentle puzzle – much enjoyed and as always, we leave wiser if not yet reliably faster!
Thank you Dangle and BR.
Did you happen to attempt Vulcan’s puzzle in The Guardian yesterday? Which had “Attack poor service and hurry away (3,3)”.
20.53
Halfway way down the across clues I thought this was going to be really difficult. Fortunately I was wrong, and the pace picked up.
I enjoyed 1 down , but my COD: MISTRUSTS.
Thanks for blog BR and to Dangle for a good QC.
A good QC. My memory is not good enough to recognise most ‘old chestnuts’ so I approach every clue afresh and didn’t have reason to complain today. I thought it was a fair and interesting puzzle.
The (still moving) clock showed 11.05 – much quicker than the last two Dangles for me.
The iPad version of the ‘Classic’ Times App seems to be developing all sorts of glitches (many photos are missing, too) so maybe I should bite the bullet and go for the newer App. I prefer the ‘Classic’ format, though.
LOsI were TRAUMA and NUMEROUS and most of my favourites have been mentioned by others. My COD: COST. 😄
Thanks to Dangle and BR.
6:21
Took a few moments to get the wavelength, meaning the top half was bereft of answers for the first few minutes. The bottom half was much better – took a few moments to enjoy the Toni Arthur reference – before making inroads into the top half. LOI PATISSERIE.
Thanks BR and Dangle
A 1ac/d write-in start, followed by a swift canter around the grid, meant that after nine minutes I was down to my last pair (Of Course and Fringe) with a good chance of a sub-10. The almost inevitable breezeblock then struck, and it was a further four minutes before Of Course surrendered, immediately followed by the suddenly obvious (🙄) Fringe. Despair doesn’t quite cover my sense of disappointment.
CoD, through gritted teeth, to Of Course for the parsing, almost good enough to make me forget how long it took to see. Invariant
It’s the old rush of excitement to the head Invariant, when you think you’re nearly there. Done it many times myself. I know I’ve said this before, but it’s like running around 5 players in a footie match, beating the keeper and then skying the ball over the bar and into the stands.
A good analogy, but the combination of pen and paper, with parse as you go solving, (and not forgetting my general stupidity) means that the ‘sitter’ chances are few and far between. . . but I live in hope !
Second sub-10 in a row for me with 8:43, I fully expect tomorrow’s to be a brute to stop me getting complacent. Some I didn’t parse including patisserie but they were all generously enough clued for it to seem obvious. FOI caver, LOI Hen. Thanks Dangle and BR
A rare visit to sub 5 territory forme today. From CAVER to IDEAL in 4:40. A true QC. Thanks Dangle and BR.
Just 15 minutes, so a brilliant day for me. And, had TRAUMA and RED CEDAR not got in the way, it could have been a medal winning day. Those two clues consumed 5 minutes at a the end (plus a minute or so between them on the way through), so I must have completed the previous 24 clues at PB pace.
My joint CsOD go to LET RIP and COST, which I would have more expected to see in a Private Eye crossword.
Many thanks to BR and Dangle.
10:00
Just missed my first sub-10 for a while being too slow to hit submit.
All very gentle. Didn’t spot the anagram indicator for PATISSERIE but the letters were all there and hesitated over ROUGH, thinking only the T was at the end of drought, not the D. LOI MISTRUST.
Considering I only solved four on my first pass through the across clues, I’m more than happy with my finishing time of 6.29. The down clues were much easier I thought, and with the additional letters, the across clues were then solvable. Slight delay at the end where OF COURSE took a little extra time to solve and parse.
Didn’t learn anything from this, which isn’t to say it was a bad puzzle of course. Thanks blogger and setter; must have been a bit boring for blogger today though!
My 6th-best time at 4:05, so the excellent Quick SNITCH tells me. (Any chance of a Concise SNITCH? Would love that.)
Really enjoyed the puzzle especially cost and of course
Very enjoyable thanks both. I also took a while to realise that you needed to take both ends off drought, not just one. Slight MER at Mist (in Mistrust), its water droplets, not vapour, water vapour is invisible. Close enough for crosswordland though I suppose. Also IMHO “on the blink” means failED, not failING, would you go and try to use something that you had already been told was on the blink? Quite easy though, so also close enough.
Ham, I also think of ‘on the blink’ as implying an intermittent mechanical or electrical malfunction (as in a lamp with a poor connection which leads to flashing hence ‘Blink’ as in eyes opening and closing).
Failing (not just failed) is fine for me.
Interestingly, I have just lost my version of this response (no, I didn’t copy it!) and had to try many times to re-post with fail message every time until now.🤞
So, the TfTT site is on the blink again…..
I daren’t try to modify my response to Ham for fear of losing everything.
Is anybody else having trouble with this site taking over a minute to respond (and repeatedly showing ‘failure’ messages after a long delay)?
In my case, both my iPad and my wife’s iPad constantly do this.
Maybe there is some AI involved somewhere and it is upset by my suggestion that the site is ‘on the blink’?
Yes, I agree the site is intermittently ON THE BLINK, slow to load or saying Error 500.
Thanks for your response, Countrywoman. I am glad it is not just me and hope it will be followed up.
I have been investigating and have a callback request in with hosting support. I’m fairly sure the problem is an overload on our shared hosting infrastructure, but I await their explanation and suggestions.
Thanks for taking this up, John.
Like Countrywoman I have been getting the Error 500 message at intervals for weeks but today was much worse at around 1.00 pm.
It seems fine now, though.
I did a few tweaks to the site and I never did get the requested callback, but my request must have triggered a review of the service and, seemingly miraculously, the site is now performing as it should. Hooray!
Thanks again for your intervention, John.
It is now much better although it seemed to hesitate a bit longer than usual before loading/reloading this morning (Thursday 3rd). I did get one blank page with error message this morning when I tried to open a second window to respond to your response above. Just saying – not a complaint!
I guess you have a point, the expression itself is very dated so I suppose it could be said that when it was last used outside crosswordland it was still in the era of tellys that needed the occasional thump and lights that flickered without blowing the fuse-wire fuse.
On the site problem, I did not get an error when I posted, but I did get the whirly thing for about a minute before it appeared, two or three seconds is normal, so the site overload theory works for me. Most web-servers use a protocol called TCPIP which is notorious for working absolutely perfectly up to about 75% of maximum capacity and then dying almost completely before 80% is achieved.
5.54 WOE. Very straightforward except that I chucked in the obviously wrong DISTRUST at the end. Thanks BR and Dangle.
Just 15 minutes to solve this gentle offering. Liked the Truss/lettuce link!
Very similar to yesterday’s in terms of difficulty and once again I had an interrupted solve. Unsurprisingly therefore I crossed the line in the same time as yesterday – 17 minutes. No real hold-ups just brain fade caused by the temperature.
FOI – 1ac CAVER
LOI – 8ac SOLICIT
COD – 1dn COST
Thanks to Dangle and BR
My record finish time 55 min! Things are looking up from one of a lesser intellect. Going to bask in my glory and heat.
Great effort Pugwash (and great name!).
Gave up at 15mins having confidently entered ‘salient’ in lieu of SOLICIT, all the rest relatively straightforward ( after slow start to upper half)
9 mins…
I thought this was great. It might be on the easier side, but it’s not often I complete a puzzle with a smile on my face, especially with the amusing surfaces. 1dn “Cost” was worth it on its own. I also enjoyed 9ac “Timid”, 17ac “On the blink”, 20ac “Rough” and 18dn “Babe”.
FOI – 1ac “Caver”
LOI – 6dn “Numerous”
COD – 1dn “Cost”
Thanks as usual!
6:13, which is very fast indeed for me. I almost had the perfect solve – all the acrosses went in in order, but I couldn’t see how NUMEROUS worked: I was trying to shoehorn either UMS or ERS in there for a while.
Thanks to Dangle & thanks and welcome back to BR.
12 minutes of smiles and enjoyment: DIM IT was fun for a backward lacking courage and the Liz Truss lettuce was inspired! Took a while to get FRINGE and was agreeably misled by state in 1a, going through states of the world beginning with C. Should have twigged earlier with all the G&S in my past repertoire: they all aver in the Lord High Executioner! I’m still a 4a but buffet as in shake about seemed fine to me for ie pastries! Teatime coming up!
A long time since we have solved within 20m, seemed to suit our ageing abilities, Thanks Dangle.
Approximately 5.52.
Easiest one for a while, and very enjoyable. Flew through (for my standards) in 8:08.
4:53 today. I’m another person who really enjoyed COST. Many clues make me smile but that one actually made me laugh out loud.
Thanks to Dangle and BR.
Agree this was gentle, and a big ‘step down’ for Dangle. But that allowed me a top-down solve dawdling over a freebie in my local Costa waiting for my time slot at the Council Tip. No complaints here!
FOI 1a Caver
LOI 11d Steward
COD 9a Timid.
Definitely gentle, as it allowed me a slightly under-10 minute finish at 9:56. Enjoyed NUMEROUS and SO LICIT, I like weird phrases that you would never actually hear. Not-so-mild MER at “pastries” in the clue for PATISSERIE, since they seem closely cognate; as I read the clue I immediately thought of the answer but didn’t believe it. Maybe that’s the setter’s double bluff, but it didn’t hold me up long. RECTANGLE mystified me even as I entered it. I need to learn this REC thing.
Take my rainfall, please.
Thanks to Dangle and Bletch, and welcome back!
If you aren’t already aware … REC is short for recreation which may help remember it … and while my local park was referred to as the Rec when I was growing up in the 80s, “recreation park/ground/field” feels like a term from the century before.
Thanks! Yes, we have “rec room” (dated I believe) and such but this usage keeps slipping my mind.