A severely over par 09:41 for me, though this was mostly spent on two clues. Otherwise fairly straightforward, with some nice anagrams and a cracking &lit that is so perfect I can’t believe I’ve never seen it before.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Identify Eastern fellow going west (4) |
| NAME – E + MAN backwards | |
| 3 | What may be offered by therapist? Service ahead of time (7) |
| MASSAGE – MASS (service) + AGE | |
| 8 | Hospital transplant? Second thoughts could lead to this (6,2,5) |
| CHANGE OF HEART – double definition | |
| 9 | Writer’s page introducing Old English (3) |
| POE – P + O + E. Edgar Allan, obvs | |
| 10 | Attempt to gain advantage once leader’s left area of influence (5) |
| AMBIT – GAMBIT (from chess) minus first letter | |
| 12 | Joy crossing lake with daughter and boat crew (7) |
| DELIGHT – D (daughter) + EIGHT (boat crew) around L | |
| 14 | Class was first aroused (7) |
| KINDLED – KIND (class) + LED (was first) | |
| 16 | Change with time being put back creates alarm (5) |
| ALERT – ALTER with T for time being put to the end | |
| 17 | Beast pauses every so often (3) |
| ASS – alternate letters | |
| 20 | Dog gets in shelter, having been disturbed (7,6) |
| ENGLISH SETTER – anagram (‘having been distributed’) of GETS IN SHELTER | |
| 21 | Literary device TS Eliot transformed (7) |
| LITOTES – anagram (‘transformed’) of TS ELIOT. Who, as we all know, can also be anagrammed as TOILETS | |
| 22 | Fat boy eating last of dinner (4) |
| LARD – LAD with [ |
|
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Cheap ornament in prison can upset folk ultimately (4-4) |
| NICK-NACK – NICK (prison) + CAN backwards + [ |
|
| 2 | Drink and nuts around start of evening (4) |
| MEAD – MAD around E | |
| 3 | Elevated space editor secured (6) |
| MOORED – MOOR (elevated space) + ED | |
| 4 | One to organise the classroom? (12) |
| SCHOOLMASTER – anagram of THE CLASSROOM, and an &lit. Bravo | |
| 5 | Having two hands operating for a time? (8) |
| ANALOGUE – cryptic definition. This took me ages | |
| 6 | Food some require at six (4) |
| EATS – hidden word | |
| 7 | Devious spy I get to log as “one specialising in African country”’ (12) |
| EGYPTOLOGIST – anagram (‘devious’) of SPY I GET TO LOG | |
| 11 | Cake and fruit that’s regularly seen in tea party (8) |
| BUNFIGHT – BUN (cake) + FIG (fruit) + alternate letters of tHaT‘s. This was the other one that held me up. I biffed it but couldn’t see the parsing for ages. | |
| 13 | Clutching mammal, Edward walked uncertainly (8) |
| TOTTERED – TED with OTTER inside | |
| 15 | Marks runs (6) |
| DASHES – double definition | |
| 18 | Tumbled down hill (4) |
| FELL – double definition | |
| 19 | Greek character entertaining any number in Sicilian location (4) |
| ETNA – ETA with N inserted | |
Steady going but held up at the end by ALERT and ANALOGUE. Didn’t really understand the BUNFIGHT/tea party definition.
Finished in 7.48.
Thanks to Curarist and Izetti
Enjoyable QC from Izetti. Could not parse BUNFIGHT – thanks Curarist for explaining. Know the word LITOTES but always forget the meaning. SCHOOLMASTER very clever.
Crikey that was tough. Gave up on Analogue and Bunfight and I’m glad I did. I am never on the Dons wavelength
I thought this was a superb QC until my LOI ANALOGUE. I had all the rest done and parsed in 15 mins but just could not see it and DNF.
Such a clever, enjoyable puzzle until I hit the wall; my satisfaction at solving so many excellent clues evaporated when I realised that the last one was just too clever for me.
Perhaps others found this too. I have never seen so few posts at 9.40am.
Thanks to both.
I think there was a system error until 09.00 today so could not post.
Yes, the blog was delayed by problems at our hosting site. Everything seems OK now.
I empathise – the same feeling of disappointment at wading through a tougher-than-most puzzle to be undone by a clue you had low chance on.
Just me then! I found this Izetti offering a little lack lustre in the story telling. However all is forgiven for SCHOOLMASTER which was my LOI. I failed to parse it thinking it was just a cryptic. My favourite clues were TOTTERED and FELL. 8:34 Thanks Curarist
Both NE and left centre were rather difficult. Thanks, Curarist; ANALOGUE far beyond me, glad I wasn’t being daft not to see it. And: so that’s what the point of SCHOOLMASTER was! I was the opposite with BUNFIGHT: took ages to see it but once I did, parsing was obvious.
15:08 with last two mins of that spent trying to parse ALERT. Only to then find they’re not LoTiTES – rather miffed about that as only come across it once before. Thought that was quite tough in place – had the AMBIT/BUNFIGHT pairing as a sticking point also – can’t say I really knew that a bunfight is a tea party or what and probably took a minute to parse it.
Good Friday fare I suppose but disheartened by wading through that only to be undone by an anagram.
Have a good weekend everybody. It’s felt like a tough week on the QC for me. 1hr24 in total.
Thanks to Curarist and Izetti.
My university (Southampton) used to use “bunfight” for its annual get together of clubs and societies trying to attract new members at the beginning of each year.
aka Fresher’s Fayre!
Agree with most of the above (!), very enjoyable until LOI ANALOGUE which I refrained from biffing as it didn’t see how clever it was. So I DNF. That’s twice this week. SCHOOLMASTER and ANALOGUE are both exceptional in their ways.
Thanks Don and Curarist
DNF. Defeated by ANALOGUE.
Thanks Curarist
Another ANALOGUE victim, but great clue to lose to. Otherwise a fun puzzle, mostly parsed but thanks for the blog to reveal the cleverer bits.
Six in 20, 13 in 30.
Most of the south and south east.
Change of heart, Poe and schoolmaster at the north end. Sadly lacking in the north west in particular.
Thanks Curarist and setter
Under 20m with one to go and 15 minutes later a DNF thanks to ANALOGUE. I eventually googled ‘clocks’ and analog without the ‘ue’ was on the list which led to the answer.
Fortunately we covered sarcasm and litotes at school, but I never really understood the difference.
A typically fine crossword from Izetti. Thanks Curarist for the blog.
DNF in 16:32 after staring at A_A__G_E for too long. I also got the I and O the wrong way round in LITOTES, and needed the blog to understand BUNFIGHT.
All of that aside, I enjoyed the rest of it. Although having surprised myself earlier in the week by enjoying a few cryptic definitions, I now dislike them again. Looking forward to seeing how Simon gets on with this in the Cracking the Cryptic video later today.
Thank you for the blog!
Edit: Simon bashed it in immediately, no problem whatsoever!
Lovely QC – 8.39 -I must be on Izetti’s wavelength. FOI NAME, LOI DASHES, COD AMBIT. I biffed ANALOGUE and also Bunfight, which I still don’t get, although I can see ANALOGUE was clever. Thank you Curarist for the blog, and Izetti for the QC. I got stuck on 1D for a while though – I thought it was spelled KNICK KNACK?
What does biffed mean when its a cryptic definition?
BIFD = “bunged in from definition”.
Yes, but if it’s a cryptic def, what does that mean?
I had to use aids to crack the last clue, 5dn and had problems generally in the NE. I didn’t see the anagram for SCHOOLMASTER so entered it with a bit of a shrug. I didn’t much like ‘elevated space’ defining ‘moor’ either. Litotes was vaguely remembered but I couldn’t have said what it meant. Time was 24 minutes.
FOI – 1ac NAME
LOI – DNF
COD – 8ac CHANGE OF HEART. Also SCHOOLMASTER now I understand it.
Thanks to Izetti and Curarist
Moor is “room” written upwards in the down light.
I was on for a reasonably quick time of about eight minutes until I got to my LOI, yep, you’ve guessed it ANALOGUE. By the time I worked it out, the clock finally stopped at 12.47. Other than the torture Izetti put me through with that clue, I enjoyed the rest!
My total time for the week was 48.48, giving me a daily average of 9.46, just inside target.
Failed on ANALOGUE. Cryptic definitions can be a right bugger!
I read ‘elevated space’ as ‘room’ spelt backwards (and upwards as it is a down clue). ‘Room’ as in I made space/room for something.
Having said that I loved this puzzle. Izetti is my favourite setter and fortunately I am generally on his wavelength.
11 minutes give or take as I solve on paper.
Yes, I read it as “room” going upwards too. After I’d discarded MOONED!
ROOM for me too
I’m struggling to understand ANALOGUE. Is it just because analogue clocks have hands rather than a digital display?
That was a hard clue and accounted for about a third of my solve! I did like the fat boy, COD from me.
Eventually stopped the clock in 09:46 for a Tough Day. Many thanks Izetti and Curarist.
That was my reading of ANALOGUE too and was also my LOI by some distance. Same thoughts as you on MOORED too fwiw. ROOM upwards, I did think of MOOR as an elevated space to begin with and didn’t like it much.
14:07. I was just about another ANALOGUE victim, staring at it as my last to go in for some minutes until inspiration appeared. As if cryptic defs are (often) not difficult enough, those consecutive unchecked letters always make things even more difficult. I agree about the excellent SCHOOLMASTER (semi-)&lit which was my COD.
Thanks to Izetti and Curarist
ANALOGUE did for me. With the rest of the puzzle completed I gave it 5 minutes and then revealed its second letter and the answer jumped out at me. Before that I’d been nowhere near solving it.
You may find this interesting. Amoeba has dug up an ancient programme from the 90s, featuring our own @Busman, Phil, on how to solve cryptic crosswords. Check it out here: https://vimeo.com/297517318 Phil’s contribution starts around 20 minutes in.
Wow – I’d forgotten Vimeo even still existed.
Enjoyable watch – Don Izetti also heavily featured
For me the four double unches didn’t help, and gave up on ANALOGUE. Izetti is one of my favourite setters, but too clever for me this time. Thanks Izetti and Curarist
From NAME to ANALOGUE, which caused much furrowing of eyebrows before the chime struck, in 7:55. A tricky puzzle! I missed the anagram in SCHOOLMASTER to! Thanks Izetti and Curarist.
I found this tough, which it appears many others did. I nearly gave up on my LOI, ANALOGUE, but used the age old technique of closing the Mac lid, making a cup of tea, moving from the office to the living room, switching on Homes Under the Hammer and then looking again. It went straight in then.
I did spend a while trying to justify TOILETS as a literary device but couldn’t. I predict that LITOTES as an anagram of TS ELIOT will not stick so easily in my mind as TOILETS has.
Just to nitpick slightly, isn’t SCHOOLMASTER only (!) a semi-&lit, since the wordplay is “organise the classroom”, that is to say “One to” is only part of the definition, not the wordplay?
DNF, but uncannily similar to yesterday.
Approx. 22 minutes for all-but-one, followed by 10 (ultimately wasted) minutes on my final clue.
Unfortunately, A_A__G_E withstood all my efforts. Try as I might, I couldn’t decipher the structure of the clue and my (very) thorough alphabet trawl clearly wasn’t thorough enough. Most disheartening at the end of an otherwise enjoyable and well pitched QC.
Thanks to Curarist and Izetti.
49 mind crunching minutes to finish having nearly given up half way through. Once SCHOOLMASTER (great clue) and EGYPTOLOGIST went in all was soon completed. I too read Room elevated as Moor.
Thanks Izetti and Curarist
Enjoyed the usual (lengthy) tussle with Izetti but, like Jack, I had to cheat by revealing the second letter of LOI ANALOGUE. No problems with BUNFIGHT, a word much-used by my late father, tongue firmly in cheek, to describe a wake. I recognised LITOTES but now need to look up what it means! I rather liked KINDLED. Many thanks to Curarist and Izetti.
Slightly on the tricky side, but all finished and parsed before the cuppa was cold.
COD: ANALOGUE and BUNFIGHT
My time not helped by writing in LARD in the ETNA space, but I noticed fairly quickly that something was wrong.
Very enjoyable puzzle
Thanks Don and Curarist
I saw ANALOGUE quickly, but having biffed BUNFIGHT (which spell check here translates as “nun fight”, making me chuckle at the possibilities of a punch up in a convent), I had to come here for the parsing.
I’m sure I’ve met the SCHOOLMASTER clue on a number of previous occasions.
FOI NAME
LOI ALERT
COD LARD *
TIME 4:14
* I had a 😂 moment as I recalled the exchange in “Bottom” :
“What are you eating Eddie?”
“LARD!”
I see I was not the only one but – DNF ANALOGUE. Pity because I had done OK up until then. Managed to drag LITOTES out from what remains of my memory. Quickly biffed the long ones which luckily turned out to be right.
Liked TOTTERED, CHANGE OF HEART, BUNFIGHT and ETNA, among others.
Thanks vm, Curarist.
I, too was left with analogue at the end, but after a minute or so I saw it. I will confess to supposing that schoolmaster was just a cryptic definition, so missed all the brilliance of the setter.
Time: 10:40
8.25. It took me a while to see ‘analogue’.
12 mins – fun challenge for a Friday. Loved BUNFIGHT once the penny dropped!
Fairly straightforward until the last few: Ambit, Bunfight, Litotes and Schoolmaster, and then a very long pause before I finally bunged in Analogue on the basis I couldn’t think of anything else that would fit. I still don’t understand the clue. I know an analogue watch has hands, but do people really say ‘I’m getting my son an analogue for Christmas’?
This has all the makings of a Golden Raspberry clue. Invariant
21 minute DNF. Mostly fairly quick. I liked SCHOOLMASTER. Slow on BUNFIGHT, which I eventually biffed, but I just could not see ANALOGUE. That brings to an end three weeks of unusually good form. Thanks Curarist and Izetti.
My thanks to Izetti and Curarist.
Mainly fine, but I had a Q or two.
1d Nick-nack, DNK this spelling, I have 2 Ks in mine. It’s in the dictionaries though.
4d Schoolmaster. Didn’t see the anagram, thought it weak. It’s brilliant!
5d Analogue, I don’t understand, biffed, the only word I could find to fit. Is it a non-digital watch?
11d Bunfight, biffed, never saw the fig nor the tHaT’s.
28:25. Really hard. ANALOGUE a wild guess from the crossers, BUNFIGHT and AMBIT biffed. Amazed to have finished it.
Dnf…
I’m another Analogue victim. Like many above, had pretty much solved everything in 15 mins apart from this head scratcher. Had a feeling it had something to do with clocks, but nothing would appear. Didn’t know 21ac “Litotes” either, although at least I made an educated guess based on it being an obvious anagram.
FOI – 9ac “Poe”
LOI – Dnf
COD – 13dn “Tottered”
Thanks as usual!
I must admit to being underwhelmed by schoolmaster until I saw the blog. Wonderful.
Finished with analogue which I enjoyed since I love a cryptic.
14:17, tricky but enjoyable. In common with, um, everyone else, ANALOGUE was my last one. I also didn’t devote the brain power to parse BUNFIGHT.
Thanks to Izetti and Curarist.
I’m joining the ANALOGUE victims. Also defeated by BUNFIGHT and AMBIT until I got some extra letter clues.
DNF. The hopes of us two old hands being able to solve the time clue proved to be illusory! Otherwise a good crossword. I recall learning of LITOTES when I was at school, so that helped, though I will now need to look it up to remind myself of it’s meaning. Thanks, all.
Not sure if I would ever have got ANALOGUE but admiration for the ingenuity. Strained the brain for this puzzle but completed otherwise. Thanks always Izetti.
10:21 for the solve, fast for me and which seems to buck the trend of both the SNITCH and most commentators. I found it a rather unbalanced puzzle, to be honest, with mostly quite straightforward clues (hence the good time) but a few very much more chewy. I was held up by BUNFIGHT, tough wordplay and poor definition IMO (a bunfight and a tea party are not the same), and while I can cope with either of those two, both together make a challenging clue. I also thought the wording of the clue for AMBIT pretty Yoda-esque – the leader has left the attempt to gain advantage, not the area of influence, so the surface smooth isn’t very. And finally, like many I took an age over ANALOGUE, only getting it with an extended word-search. I don’t get on well with &lits, as if you don’t see them there’s nothing to go on, and an &lit with a ? at the end of it (setter code for “aren’t I being clever here”) is doubly difficult if you don’t get it.
Many thanks Curarist for the blog.
I looked up bunfight online and it’s first definition (was surprisingly to me) a teaparty.
All done in 12 minutes bar ANALOGUE. Went away and waited for my subconscious to do its thing. Waited all day. Didn’t work. More than happy to be defeated by such a wonderful clue 🙂
Thanks both.
DNF
Beaten all ends up by BUNFIGHT and ANALOGUE. Nothing was coming to mind so threw in the towel at 25 mins.
I feel much better about my DNF by 6 having read the other comments. Of course ANALOGUE and MOORED were amongst those beyond me (about 40 mins before giving up).
7.06
Very much the same experience as our esteemed blogger. Bunged in BUNFIGHT but I really could not see the parsing until coming here. Great clue as of course was SCHOOLMASTER.
18 minutes. Guessed LITOTES and ANALOGUE.
2 hours on 15 x 15. Four answers short and a lot of guesswork.