This is my first Dangle, so to speak, but it seems we can expect one in the first week of each month. At least that’s been the pattern so far.
I thought it was nicely crafted with neat surfaces throughout. Some interesting clues, including the lesser-spotted triple definition. And just the three anagrams, for better or for worse. The picks of the bunch for me were STEGOSAUR, NEVER MIND and MISANTHROPE.
Let us know in the comments how you got on, what you enjoyed about it and how much you admire the setter’s work. We really are spoiled for quality here on a daily basis.
NB: It’s stormy out there so my Parksolve time is 4:16 + whatever it would have taken me to stumble 5km through wind and rain and fallen branches if I hadn’t pulled the covers back over my head and gone back to sleep.
| Across | |
| 1 | Note is extensive, originally — reduce as much as possible (8) |
| MINIMISE – MINIM (note) + IS + E [first letter (originally) of Extensive)] | |
| 5 | Professionals like to tour church (4) |
| ACES – AS (like) to “tour” CE (church) | |
| 8 | Doctor regularly reuses item of clothing (5) |
| DRESS – DR (doctor) + ESS [alternate letters (regularly) of rEuSeS] | |
| 9 | Decline to vote? That’s a black mark (7) |
| ABSTAIN – A + B (black) + STAIN (mark) | |
| 11 | Female sheep in tree, reportedly (3) |
| EWE – Homophone (reportedly) of YEW (tree)
More of a chestnut than a yew! |
|
| 12 | New editor protects obnoxious people? Oh well (5,4) |
| NEVER MIND – N (new) + ED (editor) “protects” VERMIN (obnoxious people)
You Nirvana fans might have thought this was a single word. Crazy kids. |
|
| 13 | Trifling insult (6) |
| SLIGHT – Double definition | |
| 15 | Change second character in Macbeth (6) |
| SWITCH – S (second) + WITCH (character in Macbeth) | |
| 18 | Engineer grouses at ancient browser (9) |
| STEGOSAUR – (GROUSES AT)*
Very good. |
|
| 19 | Save local court (3) |
| BAR – Triple definition
Lovely economy of clueing. |
|
| 20 | Odd characters from Die Hard finish in cul-de-sac (4,3) |
| DEAD END – DEAD (odd characters from DiE hArD) + END (finish)
I’m still the only person on the planet that hasn’t seen Die Hard. No spoilers please. |
|
| 21 | Start of vicious complaint is imprecise (5) |
| VAGUE – V (start of Vicious) + AGUE (complaint) | |
| 22 | Bare necessities usually don’t exist, at first (4) |
| NUDE – Initial letters (at first) of Necessities Usually Don’t Exist | |
| 23 | Very sophisticated group examine male sheep from behind (5,3) |
| SMART SET – [TEST (examine) + RAMS (male sheep)] reversed (from behind) | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Church service about death, on reflection, is insanity (7) |
| MADNESS – MASS (church service) about DNE [END (death) reversed (on reflection)] | |
| 2 | Relative in French city, we hear (5) |
| NIECE – Homophone (we hear) of NICE (French city)
Speaking of chestnuts… |
|
| 3 | “I hate Smartphone,” I snarled (11) |
| MISANTHROPE – (SMARTPHONE I)*
Nice clue. Sneaky definition, good surface, clever use of “snarled”. |
|
| 4 | Deprive celebrity very easily, to begin with (6) |
| STARVE – STAR (celebrity) + VE [initial letters (to begin with) of Very Easily] | |
| 6 | Insurrection after tea in horse-drawn carriage (7) |
| CHARIOT – RIOT (insurrection) after CHA (tea) | |
| 7 | Extremely silly head movement in church court (5) |
| SYNOD – SY [first and last letters (extremely) of SillY] + NOD (head movement) | |
| 10 | Defraud golf club for vodka and orange (11) |
| SCREWDRIVER – SCREW (defraud) + DRIVER (golf club)
Not really my thing, but back when it was a popular drink I think we called it a “vodka and orange”. |
|
| 14 | I run over antelope in country (7) |
| IRELAND – I + R (run) “over” ELAND (antelope)
This wordplay only works for a down clue of course. |
|
| 16 | Rash vet disrupted the gathering of crops (7) |
| HARVEST – (RASH VET)* | |
| 17 | Organised party with Mike without any definite plan (6) |
| RANDOM – RAN (organised) + DO (party) + M (Mike in the NATO alphabet) | |
| 18 | Bemused anchorman hides chair (5) |
| SEDAN – Hidden by (hides) bemuSED ANchorman | |
| 19 | Fake uniform found in toilets (5) |
| BOGUS – U (Uniform in the NATO alphabet) found in BOGS (toilets)
Steady on Dangle, this is a classy joint! Maybe could have used “King’s Diamond” for BOGS instead? (Anyone?) |
|
As galspray says, some nice clues (and some chestnuts); I liked MISANTHROPE. 5:49.
Knew it had to be MISANTHROPE but had STEGASAUR instead of STEGOSAUR until I realised my mistake. I wanted 1a to start with ‘memo’ for ‘note’ until NIECE went in. Liked the triple definition BAR.
Thanks G and setter.
10 minutes. I looked twice at ‘professionals / ACES’ being a bit presumptuous – e.g. Rod Laver was an ace at tennis long before he turned professional – but I later found that Chambers specifies it.
After decades of cryptic puzzle solving I was appalled with myself for needing checkers to come up NIECE as the relative that’s a homophone of the name of a French city!
A very nice puzzle, which I took my time over – 13:50 – and much enjoyed every minute of. I did not parse ACES as I was completing the puzzle, but it had to be, even though I shared Jack’s initial “looked twice”, and I needed all the checkers for my LOI MISANTHROPHE. I’m not sure I’ve seen “snarled” as an anagram indicator before, and my first stab at the clue before I had all the checkers was an unparsable (but rather attractive) Technophobe. Well, it fitted the N, O, E checkers …
Many thanks Galspray for the blog and a good weekend to all.
A gentle and enjoyable start to the weekend with just a brainfreeze over my last two – STEGOSAUR (missed that it was an anagram) and SLIGHT – causing me a minor holdup.
Finished in 6.50 with CsOD to MISANTHROPE and BAR.
Thanks to galspray and Dangle
4.49
Amusing blog 👍 Excellent puzzle and agree STEGOSAUR and MISANTHROPE vg.
Approximately 6.39.
Very gentle with lots of write-ins. Hats off to STEGOSAUR and MISANTHROPE – very nicely done. LOI SLIGHT (a dreaded dd) was the only hold-up. Many thanks galspray.
A good QC. My times for this setter have varied from 11 to 21 mins so I am content with today’s relaxed 15 mins.
Thanks to both.
Is it me or is the TftT site very slow and flaky today? It took me many attempts to get anything other than ‘an internal server error’.
I couldn’t edit my post so I will ‘reply’ instead.
I, too, enjoyed MISANTHROPE AND BAR.
It took me 6 attempts to get this page instead of ‘500 Internal server error’.
Happened to himself and I – separate computers. My icon changed to a W and his to a V – same message as you. Closed browser, started again – slowly it appeared. Seems ok now.
It wasn’t just you, John. I got the ‘internal server error’ response, five or six times, so gave up, until this morning.
Thanks, Pam. It is now clear that the problem has been dealt with properly.
The site has been slow and erratic for quite some time so it is good to have it back to normal.
I’m glad it’s been fixed, too.
An enjoyable true QC. COD MISANTHROPE but a. few other contenders. Thanks Galspray.
An enjoyable true QC. COD MISANTHROPE with several other contenders. Thanks Galspray.
I also got ‘internal server error’ which I assume explains my duplicate comment which I couldn’t delete.
An enjoyable puzzle and a steady solve. FOI MADNESS, LOI ACES.
BOGUS made me smile. Yes to MISANTHROPE. Also liked SEDAN, CHARIOT, and SYNOD, among others.
Struggled to remember SCREWDRIVER.
Oh dear, I see I carelessly put Iceland, not IRELAND, Never Mind.
Thanks vm, Galspray.
This was my first ever sub-10 solve (08:25), helped by the fact that I was in a play called “The MISANTHROPE” in uni, something I could never have imagined at the beginning of the year. Working towards a full solve of the main Cryptic still, but just wanted to say thank you to everyone who writes these blogs – they have been immensely helpful to a new solver!
10:14. Nice crossword. I had problems too getting into the TfTT site. Here I am now but I’veeen signed out. I liked STEGOSAUR but COD to 14dn for the surprise appearance of the ELAND in IRELAND. Thank you Dangle and galspray
Very gentle and enjoyable. A new record for me: 12.06.
7:06 (SYNOD of Nidd reconciles St Wilfred with fellow bishops)
Fast solve. LOI was MISANTHROPE.
SCREWDRIVER puts me in mind of the episode of Fawlty Towers where an American guest orders one, causing Basil to search for the tool box.
I am logged out, and get the “500 internal server error “if I try to log in.
Thanks Galspray and dangle
Late on parade, but this was fairly straightforward and bit the dust with 3:50 on the timer. Liked LOI STEGOSAUR, but COD MISANTHROPE. Thanks Dangle and Galspray.
Agree. Well crafted QC. 8:47 here.
A proper QC even though I needed some help
6:20 for the solve – which coincidentally is the same time as I achieved on the last Dangle puzzle we had and scraping into my Top10 times.
Given their earlier puzzles were tougher, I decided to leave today’s until after parkrun. Well, well, well – what a decision that was. I recorded a Season’s Best run of 22:38 and, if my maths is correct, this means I have not only achieved the sub-30 parksolve but also the sub-29 😲
As far as the puzzle went, while I found myself biffing a few, I also felt myself getting a little hit of joy whenever I subsequently parsed the answer and saw the words just fall into place – a b stain … a black mark – for example. Must admit in my rush I didn’t parse SMART-SET until postsolve and was really struggling to see the save=bar part of the triple but otherwise all very good. Pleased to get STEGOSAUR on first look after brief moment of trying to remember the name of Netscape Navigator. COD to BOGUS – both its Bill & Ted-ism and bogs for toilets 🤣
All in all a highly enjoyable day which I topped off with some sprints between parkrun and the solve!
Thanks to Galspray and Dangle.
(NB Logged out to post with autofill details as won’t accept that I’ve filled in the comment box when I have)
Congrats on your Roger Bannister moment ND!
A superb effort and you have every right to be chuffed.
Galspray (logged out)
Thank-you sir. Funnily enough I will probably be doing an Oxford parkrun next weekend as I am attending my daughter’s Master’s graduation. I’m hoping to go see Iffley Road and what is now the Sir Roger Bannister Track. Doubly hoping that I can have a little run on it but from what she told me, it’s unlikely.
Congratulations on your daughter’s achievement!
If you are in London you can, at worst, walk the track where Bannister did his training – it’s in Duke of York Square on The King’s Road near Sloane Square. There used to be a group which had permission to run early in the morning, but I’m not sure if they still exist.
Out of interest, is that the sports field next to the Saatchi Gallery? I always thought that was private land and that a school used it.
Yes, that is the field in front of the Saatchi Gallery. I don’t know if it’s public or private land, but you walk near the track to get from the street to the gallery. I do see schools using it during the weekday, so someone must be managing access for their play and restricting other access. On Saturdays there is a food market on it, if you prefer pie to running.
10.07 MISANTHROPE was nice and I followed it with SLIGHT to finish. Thanks galspray and Dangle.
P.S. I also had to log out to comment.
I leave any early morning exercise to my daughters, so by the time I gingerly opened an eyelid, my elder daughter had risen in York at 2am and was already 5 hours into her walk from Ravenscar, which is where she was starting the Lyke Wake Walk. The nearest I get to that sort of thing is singing the Lyke Wake Dirge! It’s a 40 mile hike and her last FB post from the starting line was 11 hours ago now. Still a few miles to go I’m guessing. Anyway MADNESS to IRELAND in 5:05, which is considerably less than the time I spent trying to post this morning before giving up and giving the site time to recover. Thanks Dangle and Galspray.
Ah, I see that the only way to get a comment posted is to log out!
john_dun
10:20. Agree with the sentiment expressed in 23 Across that veterinarian proctologists are indeed a highly sophisticated lot.
Lol
Much easier to do the puzzle (05:23) than post a comment today! Delayed by the same two as Plett; COD MISANTHROPE. Many thanks Dangle and Gallers.
22 mins…
In the end it was slightly more straightforward than I thought it might be. Grateful to John and everyone else for getting the site back up.
FOI – 2dn “Niece”
LOI – 3dn “Misanthrope”
COD – 3dn “Misanthrope”
Thanks as usual!
Done a day behind, so I will keep my comments brief.
I found this quite challenging (about average+), so well done to most people above who seemed to have breezed through with hardly a care in the world. Getting started took a while and the Downs were significantly more tough than the Acrosses.
At one stage I even wondered whether I might not finish, but RANDOM (naturally) came to my rescue and gave me the impetus to make it to the line. Approx 30-32 minutes for me.
Many thanks to Galspray and Dangle.
I actually did this yesterday, but couldn’t get onto the site when I tried to post a comment. For completeness, I found this straightforward, with just the ‘g’ from a carelessly bifd Smidge (no idea) causing a moment of panic when inspecting the anagrist for misanthrope. All sorted in the end for a comfortable sub-20. Invariant