Parksolve time 38 minutes (first run for a while)
Joker’s turn to provide our Saturday morning diversion. We have an unusual (to me) word at 5dn and a not-often-seen quadruple definition at 21ac.
How did you go with it?
(In the clues, definitions are underlined and anagram indicators are in bold italics. In the explanations (ABC)* indicates an anagram of abc. Deletions and other devices are indicated accordingly, I hope).
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Nuts in biscuits (8) |
| CRACKERS – Double Definition | |
| 6 | Rock band’s source of inspiration (4) |
| MUSE – Double Definition
Never ‘eard of ’em. |
|
| 8 | Set down outside a royal residence (6) |
| PALACE – PLACE (set down) “outside” A | |
| 9 | Bird arrives in vessel (6) |
| PARROT – ARR (arrives) in POT (vessel) | |
| 10 | Ruined tree removed from army town (4) |
| SHOT – ALDER (tree) removed from |
|
| 11 | Dry habit abandoned for celebration (8) |
| BIRTHDAY – (DRY HABIT)* | |
| 12 | What may be used for shipping tin and aluminium (5) |
| CANAL – CAN (tin) + AL (aluminium) | |
| 13 | Odd and blooming concerning (5) |
| OUTRE – OUT (blooming) + RE (concerning)
Not a word you use every day, but basically means weirdly unusual. |
|
| 15 | Mongrel with a vet I arranged making things better (8) |
| CURATIVE – CUR (mongrel) + (A VET I)* | |
| 17 | Stack building blocks without covers (4) |
| RICK – Most commonly used in relation to hay. |
|
| 19 | Risk the heart of Andes range collapsing (6) |
| DANGER – [D (“the heart of” anDes) + RANGE)* | |
| 20 | Railway by a Roman road where rails might be seen? (6) |
| AVIARY – RY (railway) “by” A + VIA (Roman road)
Rails as in the large cosmopolitan family of small- to medium-sized terrestrial or semi-amphibious birds. |
|
| 21 | We are going to fit spring successfully (4) |
| WELL – Quadruple Definition
Delightful. |
|
| 22 | Location to display car’s performance and capacity? (8) |
| SHOWROOM – SHOW (performance) + ROOM (capacity)
Had to stumble around this one a few times to find the definition. |
|
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 2 | Get in touch with every individual after run (5) |
| REACH – EACH (every individual) after R (runs) | |
| 3 | Discipline cat misbehaving with hens (7) |
| CHASTEN – (CAT + HENS)* | |
| 4 | Jacob perhaps initially educated with Esau (3) |
| EWE – First letters (initially) of Educated With Esau
Jacob being a breed of sheep innit? |
|
| 5 | Place above great facade (9) |
| SUPERPOSE – SUPER (great) + POSE (facade)
Yeah, I know, I know. We’re all familiar with superimpose which means pretty much the same thing. |
|
| 6 | Planet with hot wet region (5) |
| MARSH – MARS (planet) + H (hot)
I liked this one. Something distracting about the surface, including the need to lift and separate hot from wet. And with the R and H in place it was very difficult not to go straight to EARTH. |
|
| 7 | Manifest or agenda contains space to put items (7) |
| STORAGE – Hidden by (contains) manifeST OR AGEnda | |
| 11 | Game bird is all excited (9) |
| BILLIARDS – (BIRD IS ALL)* | |
| 12 | Bottle about as old as we are? (7) |
| COURAGE – C [about (circa)] + OUR AGE (as old as we are) | |
| 14 | Small canine, one attempting to get round Queen Elizabeth (7) |
| TERRIER – TRIER (one attempting) “to get round” ER (Queen Elizabeth) | |
| 16 | A new hair preparation? A heavenly one (5) |
| ANGEL – A + N (new) + GEL (hair preparation) | |
| 18 | Rare item — collectors usually rate it outstanding at the outset (5) |
| CURIO – Initial letters (at the outset) of Collectors Usually Rate It Outstanding | |
| 20 | Silver ring in the past (3) |
| AGO – AG (silver) + O (ring) | |
I found that difficult – over 40 mins. NHO superpose or outre. And SE corner tricky
Welcome – outre is one of those words I still haven’t used in real life or define if asked but will come up every six months or thereabouts. Worth remembering
8:22
Slowed down by bad typing with ice-cold fingers. NHO the rock band. I wasted some time trying to remember the tree after I’d biffed SHOT. Wasted some more time thinking ‘tin’=SN.
I found this somewhat difficult, and couldn’t parse several answers I put in – rick, muse, shot, showroom. I was able to write in super-, but it took me a while to think of pose. Billiards was also strangely slow to declare itself.
Time: 11:40
Bit dumb today, as I used to live near the army town, but conceived it as nearby Camberley, and tried to find a tree to remove from that. Still, got home in 8:16, with SUPERPOSE bringing up the rear.
9:41, basically straightforward but a very fast time denied by being breezeblocked by LOI MUSE. Not heard of the band and put it in with fingers crossed on the second of the two definitions alone. SUPERPOSE also not a word I use in real life and I waited until the checkers made it unavoidable.
Many thanks Galspray for the blog and a good weekend to all.
DNF NHO SUPERPOSE/OUTRE
Rest completed in about 25 mins.
Slowed by thinking ‘spot’ for ‘place’ (SHOWROOM), ‘show’ for ‘manifest’ (STORAGE) and ‘SN’ for ‘tin’.
NHO MUSE as band but had to be, likewise JACOB
Thank you Joker for the workout – Galspray for the blog.
Cheeko gave us “Eg Jacob’s mate runs vessel (4)” at the end of October. I had forgotten it already but kindly clued with an acrostic today
So we weren’t totally crazy… only partially forgetful. We wondered why we were happy enough to accept the EWE /Jacob connection… queried if we’d had it before, but couldn’t remember a clue. You are useful (and tactful…I doubt if you had forgotten it..simply kind 😉). Thank you!
DNF as I needed aids for the NHO SUPERPOSE. Things had been fine until then. Didn’t know the rock band but the other half of the clue was sufficient.
I found this fairly straightforward until left with the NHO SUPERPOSE which eventually went in after an alphabet trawl with fingers crossed.
Finished in 5.58.
Thanks to Galspray and Joker
Dnf…
In a rush, so couldn’t spend as much time on this as I would have liked. As a result, struggled with Outre, Superpose (I did think of this, but thought it was wrong) and Show Room which I don’t have an excuse for.
I never think of crackers as biscuits, so this always gets me as well.
FOI – 7dn “Storage”
LOI – Dnf
COD – 11dn “Billiards” – nice surface.
Thanks as usual!
Struggled with SUPERPOSE but otherwise OK. Biffed MUSE – NHO band.
POI AVIARY. Liked many inc CANAL, WELL, MARSH, SHOT, CURATIVE and OUTRE.
Many thanks, Galspray.
5:24. About an average time for me. I’m another who didn’t know the rock band, of course. LOI PARROT after SUPERPOSE. I liked the quadruple definition. Thanks Joker and Galspray.
I found this easy at first but it got tougher as I progressed. I had all the difficulties mentioned above: SHOWROOM, BILLIARDS, SUPERPOSE, LOI MUSE (NHO).
18 mins for a sluggish start to the weekend.
Thanks to Joker for a good workout and Galspray.
I had eight after 20 minutes. Finished with 16 in 35 minutes. The more esoteric clues got me as usual.
Clearly in good company with NHO the famous rock band MUSE. SUPERPOSE had to be but maybe more suited to the 15 x 15. These two clues apart, really enjoyed Joker’s puzzle today. Well well well well indeed! Thanks Galspray
Also got off to a quick start in NW then slowed down until left with 5d at around 17, superpose eventually came after a visit to the thesaurus brought up pose at 21.15 Then I kicked myself, I’m not a physicist, but was a chemist a long time ago, and non-superposable is the definition of “Chiral” molecules. Nerd time: these are molecules that can exist in right and left handed forms which no matter what way you turn them, cannot be superposed on each other! I’ll get my coat.
Impressed by the quad def.
Thanks Joker and Galspray.
I enjoyed my visit to images of chiral molecules, thank you!
Thank you! So I had heard of superpose after all….
Pleasent steady chug through. Thanks to Joker and galspray. The only pause was at Jacob, but then I rememberd that we have had it recently meaning a sheep. Chiral molecules are also called enantiomorphs which is a 13 letter word, I think the natives might get restless if that one popped up in a QC!
However, it would fit nicely in Mephisto, both in size and difficulty.
BILLARDSS balls!
29:48. Am I the only one who, not only has heard of the Band Muse, but loves their music. I’m 67 but acquired the appreciation from my kids.
You are not. Great band.
My apologies. My ignorance of the band is not in any way a reflection of their undoubted quality, and I was certainly not trying to use it as a badge of honour. The fact is there’s stuff we know and stuff we don’t, and it obviously varies between individuals.
If my favourite band Cold Chisel or my favourite guitarist Tommy Emmanuel were ever clued here I would expect (and be comfortable with) a torrent of comments protesting that they were “too obscure”.
I’ve seen people here protesting the inclusion of Tamil Nadu (a province with a bigger population than the UK) on the basis that they’d never heard of it. This week we had numerous commenters insisting that they’d never heard of Christian Bale.
Some people bemoan the frequent references to drug-related cant, whilst my pet beef is the overuse of obscure (to some) religious terms. Hard to please everybody.
Now… “Hey Siri, play me some tracks by Muse on Apple Music…”
12:02 for the solve. Last three mins on the second half of NHO SUPERPOSE. A Jekyll and Hyde puzzle with gimmes like PALACE, DANGER, AGO and then the aforementioned SUPERPOSE, OUTRE and NHO MUSE.
Apparently the rockband were formed in 1994 and seem to have been charting outside the Top 10 since about 1999. “Super Massive Black Hole” reached #4 in 2006 and here’s a link to it .. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xsp3_a-PMTw … nice tune I’d say.
Thanks to Galsprey and Joker
24:18 SCC …somewhat distracted by events in Brisbane and similarly any thoughts of a decent score were shot by the outre superpose.
Ta GAJ
Would have happily devoted the entire blog to events in Brisbane but thought it was wiser to “read the room”.
😂
😉
Another beaten by the NHO ‘superpose’. Don’t think its a word I’ll be adding to my vocabulary outside of crossword land.
Completed the rest in around ten minutes but couldn’t think of anything to follow ‘super’. Liked ‘aviary’.
Thanks both.
9.06 WELL, OUTRE, SHOWROOM and especially SUPERPOSE took a while at the end. Thanks galspray and Joker.
6:14
A bit of a shrug for SUPERPOSE and didn’t look long enough to figure the quadruple definition.
MUSE, for me, are arguably the best rock band of the last 25 years – knocks spots off any other in that period – and considering they’re only a three-piece, make a considerable noise. Their highest points were, in my view, the five albums from The Origin Of Symmetry (2001) through Absolution, Black Holes And Revelations, The Resistance to The 2nd Law (2012).
Thanks Galspray and Joker
Normal service is resumed with a 9:58 finish. LOI SUPERPOSE with fingers ever so slightly crossed for the final syllable, though it made sense. First sighting for us of a quadruple definition. We’d heard of Muse though I wouldn’t have been able to place their music. I’ll now take Mike’s recommendation and go away to correct the deficiency. Thanks, all.
7.16
Also knew MUSE: I believe they recorded one of their albums in a church here in Bath but will happily stand corrected. Unfortunately I also knew KISS which fitted the second checker whilst I worked out why EARTH was right or not, which caused a slight delay.
Tricky puzzle. Thanks Galspray and Joker.
I had a minor MER at the definition of ‘terrier’ as a small canine. My beloved Airedale, sadly no longer with us, was anything but small!
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTRhiWouxLNSwxnu3GRYEiZqTqF_48hz2UQtyIB-tnmeIxqCcARjIjhXxGPHCJrPUIRqtgUjjLKztGIypQ3hV4svN4-0S8lWOTqaZQpnTh_&s=10
What a delicious creature! The best friends….
My parents who married in 1926 used to walk their dogs together before getting engaged. My aunt described it as “Saying it with Airedales”. No more Airedales when I arrived at the end of the war.
Beaten by SUPERPOSE. Not a word I’ve ever come across – or expect to come across in future. Otherwise a good challenge.
No problems with OUTRE but LOI SUPERPOSE went in with fingers crossed. I’ve heard of Muse but couldn’t name any of their songs. I liked AVIARY. Many thanks galspray and Joker.
19:45 with a SHOT in the dark to finish, as “army town” meant nothing to me. There were some fantastic clues today. I was quick with about half and dead slow with the rest. Though I caught onto the “rails” immediately I somehow didn’t get AVIARY until a second look. Grabbed the wrong end of the clue for SUPERPOSE and hung on for dear life. And so it went.
WELL a clear winner for COD but the drunken BIRTHDAY a close second. MUSE my FOI and CRACKERS eluded me because I was looking for some probably unknown British biscuit, not for the obvious answer, which I believed was an Americanism. Collins says no, huh.
Thanks to Joker and galspray.
8.54.
I found this tough. All green in 23:03. Same issues as other: the band was unknown, knew it was super-something, and took forever to think of “bricks”. Ho hum, onto Monday.
Thanks to Joker and galspray.
Same comments as Plett but add a minute for 06:58.
NHO MUSE but as Jack said, the second half was easier!
Many thanks Joker and Galspray.
I enjoyed this one. I had very few on the first pass (then I had to make my son’s dinner) then came back and finished very quickly having sat down at the dining room table with the laptop.
Re: 21ac, I love the fact that this is a quadruple def, you don’t see many. However, as I was writing in the answer I mused (sorry) to myself that it would have been very easy to make it a quintuple definition without mucking up the surface:
So, we are going to fit spring successfully
Still loved it, definitely COD for me.
Having completely missed the gift at 1ac (I know, 🙄), I started a bitty, hop around the grid, solve with what must have been a tricky for non-UK solvers, Shot.
20mins later, I crossed into the SCC having finally put away the (fully explored) CoD bear trap, Aviary, but with loi Superpose extant. That eventually went in with fingers crossed, though thankfully in time for an aisle seat. Invariant
Liked this a lot of with no issues or problems, but nothing too mundane either. I enjoyed the X4 definition. SHOT took longer than it should, given it’s in Hampshire. No worries over SUPERPOSE – it parsed, so it went straight in. OUTRE is a word I’d use, so that was a gimme too.
Late to the party so won’t say too much but wanted to applaud the quadruple definition.
My parkrun was 4 times longer than my solve of this.
27:40. Struggled with this and biffed SUPERPOSE and MUSE – NHO the group. Hard work.
A big thank you to Joker for introducing me to the music of Muse.
Needed aids for superpose- which is a word I should have remembered.
I found this tricky, but enjoyable. It was satisfying working through this.
Thanks to both.
Just about swerved the SCC at 19:07, getting lucky with SUPERPOSE. I wasn’t familiar with “rail” being a bird either, but I’m not yet elderly so at least “Muse” wasn’t a problem for me.
Thank you for the blog!
(Sorry, I couldn’t resist)