An enjoyable medium-rare challenge from a setter I’ve not come across before. Lots of double definitions, as well as a particularly fine triple, which is my COD. 6:24
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Turn red, black and green (5) |
| BLUSH – B for black + LUSH | |
| 4 | Mistake flower for flour product (7) |
| BLOOMER – triple definition | |
| 8 | Captain who jumps over rope (7) |
| SKIPPER – double definition | |
| 9 | Like supporter, cry when heart gets ripped out (5) |
| FANCY – FAN + C[ |
|
| 10 | Citadel can convert into flat, perhaps (10) |
| ACCIDENTAL – anagram (‘convert into’) of CITADEL CAN. Sharps and flats in musical notation are collectively known as accidentals | |
| 14 | Perennial fantasy villain laid low (6) |
| ORCHID – ORC + HID | |
| 15 | Embrace a boring salad ingredient (6) |
| CARESS – A ‘boring’, i.e. drilling into, CRESS | |
| 17 | Food offered in boat and coach? Nice work if you can get it (5,5) |
| GRAVY TRAIN – self explanatory | |
| 20 | Am I ahead of the game, buddy? (5) |
| AMIGO – AM + I + GO | |
| 22 | One previously dated liberal, for instance (7) |
| EXAMPLE – EX + AMPLE | |
| 23 | Some given no blessing or honour (7) |
| ENNOBLE – hidden word | |
| 24 | Eg wide part of film’s background (5) |
| EXTRA – double definition – an extra run in cricket and a non-speaking background actor in film | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Disreputable singer overheard (4) |
| BASE – sounds like ‘bass’ | |
| 2 | Squad uniform on dummy (4) |
| UNIT – U + NIT | |
| 3 | Two-facedness of rich spy you almost corrupted (9) |
| HYPOCRISY – anagram (‘corrupted’) of RICH SPY YO[ |
|
| 4 | British liner refurbished in European city (6) |
| BERLIN – B + anagram (‘refurbished’) of LINER | |
| 5 | Raised for the attention of clumsy fool (3) |
| OAF – FOA backwards | |
| 6 | Max’s counterpart starts to support The Red Elvises’ lead singer (8) |
| MINSTREL – MIN (counterpart of ‘max’) + first letters of Support The Red Elvises’ Lead | |
| 7 | Supporter of sovereign, even if right became left (8) |
| ROYALIST – or ‘Loyalist’ if the R becomes L. | |
| 11 | Remove badly created AI (9) |
| ERADICATE – anagram (‘badly’) of CREATED AI | |
| 12 | Approximate maturity needed for coarse material (8) |
| ROUGHAGE – ROUGH + AGE | |
| 13 | Oscar wearing leather shoe without front for special event (8) |
| OCCASION – MOCCASIN minus the first letter, with O inserted | |
| 16 | Inexperienced English novelist (6) |
| GREENE – GREEN + E | |
| 18 | Ejected for quarrel (4) |
| SPAT – double definition | |
| 19 | Foreign character actor’s name coming ahead of Jones (4) |
| ZETA – double definition, the second referring to Valleys-girl-done-good Catherine Zeta Jones | |
| 21 | Globe kept by Gorbachev (3) |
| ORB – hidden word | |
A very nice puzzle done after a cold but brightly sunny 9 holes of golf.
I liked BLUSH and GRAVY TRAIN.
No time but no big hold-ups.
David
19 minutes, 3 spent on LOI Base… I had Bush for Kate but knew it was not the answer but spent a long while sorting it out.
Pleased to see a cricket reference and also that England recovered well this morning in the first test match!
Tricky crossword but enjoyable!
Thanks all
John
I crossed the line all correct in 30 minutes, which is about average for me. However, it didn’t feel average. BERLIN and OAF were my F2I, but only after I’d spent 4-5 minutes getting nowhere fast with the Across clues. And that stop-start pattern continued right through to the end.
I had no idea what was going on with ACCIDENTAL and EXAMPLE. In fact, I still don’t know what the word ‘dated’ is doing in the EXAMPLE clue (22a).
My LOI, which required an alphabet trawl, was ORCHID.
Many thanks to Curarist and City.
Your ex is ‘one previously dated’
Further to Amoeba’s comment – think ex-girlfriend
DNF. Failed on Orchid/Occasion cross. Jumping in with Hypocrite didn’t help Gravy Train either. Humph…
FOI 1d Base
LOI 17 Gravy Train
COD –
Well, darn. Finished in 19:34, but with two errors: turns out I don’t know how to spell “hypocrisy” and another typo in “royalist”. Very enjoyable, from BLUSH to ZETA, where the clue suddenly made sense as I moved on from BETA.
Thanks to City and Curarist.
Oh, cricket again, I put EXTRA but thinking it could mean a bit wide, and I was once a cricket scorer. Sorry ZETA, I BLUSH to say I didn’t think of you, the shame.
Beta Jones anyone? Also failed on Gravy Train as I biffed Hypocrite, failing to check the anagrist properly. Sailed through the top half and crawled through the bottom half. But very enjoyable. Thanks C & C
Lovely QC. Have only just realised why gravy train is so good 😆 Liked ORCHID too. About average for me (usually a cup of coffee, currently a glass of wine). Many thanks all.
Dear me, my second WOE this week and 18:19 to (not) get there. I needed a minder for this one, as after returning from a phone call (get outta here Porlock person!) I spent a few minutes stumbling about before realizing I hadn’t even read half the clues. Then didn’t think of ZETA (CZJ is a rarely-heard-of for me) and went for an unparsed BETA. Humph.
Liked BLOOMER partly because I finally seem able to remember the “bread” meaning — but I didn’t know the “mistake” meaning. Kicked myself over ACCIDENTAL because I’m a fanatical musician yet spent a while mulling over the inappropriateness of calling a flat tire/tyre “accidental”. Comedy of errors today. COD to ORCHID, just ahead of ROUGHAGE.
Thanks City and Curarist.
A frustrating DNF after 15:42. I felt we’d done all the hard yards but we had to return to _E_A. BETA didn’t really make sense but we couldn’t think of anything else (and we’d given up the trawl before getting to the end of the alphabet). Needless to say, having unsurprisingly discovered there was an error the correct answer immediately popped out of the grey matter. A nevertheless enjoyable puzzle with BLOOMER and GRAVY TRAIN bother being great clues. Thank you to both Curarist and City.
Lots of new thinking required but got there in just under 20 minutes! Phew. From blushing bloomer to ennoble extra, much fun along the way. AMIGO was a write in for a former GO club player (of very low ability). Liked ACCIDENTAL having twigged the misdirection, wondered how boring cress really is in salads, and only head scratching was BASS or BASE – luckily final letter didn’t matter. Thanks City and Curarist
Too demoralised (after Wednesday’s debacle) to attempt QC yesterday, so did Thursday puzzle today.
Shouldn’t have bothered – 20 minute DNF, after entering BYWAYS for BYPASS. Dreadful, dreadful, dreadful – several years at this and I still can’t get it into my thick skull that ‘I don’t know’ means PASS.
Friday puzzle took an ok-ish 17 minutes.
That’s two DNFs this week. I was better than this as a relatively new solver, when I once recorded over 20 consecutive completions. How did I ever achieve that?
Still unable to find any enjoyment in this. I do try, but there is no pleasure to be had in failing to finish a QC.
90 mins for week. Add the DNFs and that makes it another shocker. No surprise there. Back for more suffering on Monday. 🤣🤣
I’ve been doing these for years as well. I can usually manage to finish eventually, no speed solves, though. Sometimes, like today, I get totally stuck and have to use a crossword app to find an answer. Today there were two – 14a and 13d. I looked up “orchid” (I had the O and the I and the app offered me 48 words that would fit! Thankfully, there weren’t many real contenders – it wasn’t going to be OGAMIC, OKAPIS or OILRIG..). That made the 13d biffable and I then managed to parse it.
I’m never going to “graduate” to the 15×15!
I must be a glutton for punishment as I occasionally buy and work through the Times QC compilation books. The fact that, apart from the early editions, I have probably done the crosswords already doesn’t seem to be a problem, I have occasionally searched back to find the relevant blog here to discover that I had commented on that one at the time!
I hope you do make it to the 15 x 15 at some point. Although it is harder, sometimes the longer style of clue allows you to build an answer gradually and there is a lot of satisfaction to be had in eventually getting there. There also seem to be more truly cryptic definitions which some solvers may like.
I’ve also now got the books. That’s my Christmas sorted! 😊
Dnf…
I know there’s technically nothing wrong with 19dn “Zeta” – but I felt it was a little obscure in relation to the “Jones” element, and we definitely don’t often get that specific letter of the Greek alphabet. I toyed with Beta and even Peta, but ended up chucking in the towel. The rest was a good challenge.
FOI – 8ac “Skipper”
LOI – Dnf
COD – 1ac “Blush”
Thanks as usual!
9.35. No real problems, but I was a bit slow tonight.
Not on City’s wavelength so only 4/5 this week