Parksolve time 35:10 (slow run, rapid solve).
I’d call this a standard Quickie from Rongo, but not at all in a bad way.
It may be more suited to the experienced solver for whom hints like river, railway, air, snake and broadcaster will quickly suggest OUSE, RY, SONG, BOA and SKY.
Similarly, some of the anagram indicators (we had work, fix, out, tailor and terribly) might be easier to spot after you have a few thousand of these puzzles under your belt. But I still think it’s quite an accessible puzzle for the aspiring cruciverbalist.
As always, YMMV, and that’s one of the reasons we have a comments section. Let ’em rip…
| Across | |
| 1 | The two consuming starter of rich soup (5) |
| BROTH – BOTH (the two) “consuming” R (starter of Rich) | |
| 7 | Work relaxed an ancient Macedonian hero (9) |
| ALEXANDER – (RELAXED AN)*
Alexander the G is the canonical Macedonian hero. Unless you’re a follower of Australian Rules football in which case Alex would take second billing behind the mercurial Peter Daicos. |
|
| 9 | Roof support with no front behind (5) |
| AFTER – |
|
| 10 | Withdrawing air to help is for identification of a problem (9) |
| DIAGNOSIS – [SONG (air) + AID (help)] reversed (withdrawing) + IS | |
| 11 | Woman never undressed (3) |
| EVE – nEVEr with the outside letters removed (undressed) | |
| 12 | Hard time catching river snake in floating home (9) |
| HOUSEBOAT – H (hard) + T (time) “catching” OUSE (river) + BOA (snake) | |
| 14 | Perhaps did butterfly scheme initially drain fen area? (9) |
| SWAMPLAND – SWAM (perhaps did butterfly) + PLAN (scheme) + D (Drain initially)
Perhaps did butterfly. Very good. |
|
| 16 | Back equality in declamatory song style (3) |
| RAP – PAR (equality) reversed (back)
Declamatory: vehement or passionate in expression. Checks out. As a late-to-the-table appreciator of the genre, I’ve become quite a fan of Eminem in particular (and yes I realise that still leaves me a couple of decades behind, but I think I’ve left my run too late to catch up now). |
|
| 18 | Requirement to fix rot in rice (9) |
| CRITERION – (ROT IN RICE)* | |
| 20 | Spirit of good party-giver (5) |
| GHOST – G (good) + HOST (party-giver) | |
| 21 | Left the cumin out when midday meal is taken (9) |
| LUNCHTIME – L (left) + (THE CUMIN)* | |
| 22 | Hazardous lead-in for Radio 1 broadcaster (5) |
| RISKY – R [first letter of (lead-in for) Radio] + I (1) + SKY (broadcaster) | |
| Down | |
| 1 | British bird dog (6) |
| BEAGLE – B (British) + EAGLE (bird) | |
| 2 | Very old tailor in orange coat (12) |
| OCTOGENARIAN – (IN ORANGE COAT)*
A shout-out to the octo’s out there, some of whom remain amongst our slickest solvers. Are you really very old? |
|
| 3 | Stern on vessel in difficulty (8) |
| HARDSHIP – HARD (stern) + SHIP (vessel) | |
| 4 | Introductions to duke, earl, judge and viscount use sense of repetition (4,2) |
| DEJA VU – First letters of (introductions to) Duke Earl Judge And Viscount Use
Feels like we’ve seen this clue before… |
|
| 5 | New method to lift something boring (4) |
| YAWN – [N (new) + WAY (method)] reversed (to lift) | |
| 6 | Name missing from gift arranged in advance (6) |
| PRESET – N (name) missing from PRESE |
|
| 8 | Rude — too rude — I cuss terribly (12) |
| DISCOURTEOUS – (TOO RUDE I CUSS)* | |
| 13 | Put at risk, stop rage (8) |
| ENDANGER – END (stop) + ANGER (rage) | |
| 14 | Tool for cutting diseased edges of lucerne (6) |
| SICKLE – SICK (diseased) + LE (“edges” of LucernE) | |
| 15 | A Liberal exists? They say one’s somewhere else (6) |
| ALIBIS – A + LIB (Liberal) + IS (exists) | |
| 17 | Circle among favourite railway lines (6) |
| POETRY – O (circle) “among” PET (favourite) + RY (railway) | |
| 19 | Repeat fifth word of radio series (4) |
| ECHO – The fifth word of the NATO alphabet (radio series)
Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, Delta…. |
|
Managed to finish in 30 minutes. Normally takes me my whole lunch hour on a Saturday, so both happy to be quicker, but a bit lost on what to do with my other 30 minutes 😄 SWAMPLAND was my favourite, more because it reminded me of the Inisde No 9 epsiode ‘Riddle of the Sphynx’ which got me interested in cryptic. Thanks for the blog 😁
Nice, steady, enjoyable solve. Couldn’t parse DIAGNOSIS (thanks galspray), but fairly straightforward otherwise. I liked HOUSEBOAT and SWAMPLAND. LOI ECHO. Thanks Rongo.
A pretty quick 9:48 but finished with a pink square having quite deliberately entered OCTAGENARIAN. I hope I won’t get that wrong again! LOI YAWN. Liked the construction of SWAMPLAND. Thanks, Galspray and Rongo.
Quite a difficult one, I thought. Biffed a couple with YAWN and SWAMPLAND taking longest.
Oooh, another happy day out of the SCC. Small things like that greatly please the likes of us.
Minor rethink needed when tried to spell SICKLE like SCYTHE… (y) — and OCTO not OCTE…
Enjoyed from start to finish. Needed very helpful blog to understand role of ‘declamatory’ in RAP.
On a train. Sun shining. No complaints.
Thank you Galspray and Rongo
FOI EVE
LOI DIAGNOSIS
COD SWAMPLAND
Approximately 08.04.
11.08 ECHO baffled me, I was slow on the long anagrams and I spent two minutes at the end thinking surely A-LIB-IS isn’t a word. I finally wrote it down and the anvil dropped. Thanks galspray and Rongo.
10.55. Held up longest by YAWN, couldn’t get AWL out of my head. POETRY was favourite.
Almost a photo finish !
Indeed!
A speedy 7:25 for me. ECHO was my LOI, after the penny dropped that I didn’t have to think of the title of actual radio series.
Thanks to Rongo and Glaspray.
I’m back in QC-land at last, recovered from work, travel, and house guest. Missed you all. Now I have to remember how to do these. Today took 14:13, not bad for me, but I failed to parse a few including DIAGNOSIS and RISKY — and still can’t think of a context where H = “hard”. Very slow on the anagrams.
Loved RAP. Not recitative then.
Thanks to Rongo and galspray.
Welcome back – I had begun to wonder if you were gone for good.
Pencil lead = H=Hard
Ah, thanks!
Not gone, just wandering in the world where I get to indulge my other obsessions.
Did anyone else get to “YAWN” using “New” as the anagram indicator for way, “to lift” meaning to sit on top of, and “something” to be n, as in the mathematical symbol for an unspecified quantity?
Works for me…just about.
Creative! love it.
Sounds like you had an indirect anagram which are frowned upon and consequently avoided by setters.
DNF as I forgot to check the grid and failed to do 5 down. Good puzzle though
FOI Alexander
LOI (apart from Yawn) Octogenarian
COD Swampland
thanks Galspray and Rongo
Nightmare day.
Tried and failed to complete jumbo puzzle. Almost 3 hours and still several unsolved. Appalling performance.
No confidence whatsoever. This reminds me of my golf career. Slowly improved to an ok level and then hit a brick wall. ☹️
Late one today on the bus home but worth it, with a new PB of 17:22 and my first below 20 minutes, which was nice. Had to biff SWAMPLAND, and couldn’t get the parsing, but aside from that had no problems with it. Thanks Rongo and Galspray!
Congrats on the PB!
14:57 My second best ever time. But I turned the timer off while I went out to the kitchen to fetch pen and paper to solve the tricky anagrams CRITERION and OCTOGENARIAN. Couldn’t parse DIAGNOSIS despite having made a few in my time.