Bit of a tricky one to keep our senses honed on Christmas Day.
Pedro is one of our tougher setters, with a quitch average of 103, which is roughly where I’d put today’s festive teaser: some of the parsing seemed a bit more involved than usual. I finished up in 8:10, helped along a touch by remembering the other sense of PATERNOSTER from crosswords past.
A lovely puzzle with some cracking clues, so many thanks to Pedro and a merry Christmas to all!
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | A lot of reporters having restraint around good reputation (8) |
| PRESTIGE – PRESS = reporters, “a lot of” = dock the tail; TIE (restraint) around G(ood) | |
| 5 | Beat soccer team? (4) |
| CLUB – double definition that I was slow to see. Question mark because non-soccer clubs are available. | |
| 8 | Powerful computer instruction initially making all code run optimally (5) |
| MACRO – “Initially” the five following words. | |
| 9 | Pale men nervously put on a jury (7) |
| EMPANEL – anagram (nervously) of PALE MEN | |
| 11 | Titanic performers that ignored this instruction? (7,4) |
| ABANDON SHIP – The Titanic performers were A BAND ON [A] SHIP, that famously didn’t abandon ship. Very nice! | |
| 13 | Mostly move carefully around children in nursery (6) |
| CRECHE – CREEP (move carefully) “mostly” around CH (children, in genealogical records and the like) | |
| 14 | British encountering different trouble (6) |
| BOTHER – B(ritish) encountering OTHER (different) | |
| 17 | Treat person differently in elevator (11) |
| PATERNOSTER – anagram (differently) of TREAT PERSON. Wiki tells me the paternoster lift is so called because it’s a loop resembling rosary beads (another meaning of the word, along with the prayer). | |
| 20 | Merely mouth words in various clips about revolutionary US city (3-4) |
| LIP-SYNC – anagram (various) of CLIPS around NY (US city) “revolutionary” = reversed | |
| 21 | Church feature is part of ecumenical target (5) |
| ALTAR – “is part of” ecumenicAL TARget | |
| 22 | Curious source of some concern for gamblers (4) |
| ODDS – ODD (curious) S (“source” of Some) | |
| 23 | Part of email message backing book, one by Conservative (8) |
| EMOTICON – reverse TOME; I (one) CON(servative) | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Pageantry elevated work with politician (4) |
| POMP – OP (work) “elevated”, with MP (politician) | |
| 2 | Enclosed region in North Carolina linked to Los Angeles during the day before (7) |
| ENCLAVE – NC (North Carolina) linked to LA (Los Angeles) during EVE (the day before) | |
| 3 | Novelist doubting character with strong constitution (6,5) |
| THOMAS HARDY – THOMAS (doubting character) with HARDY (strong constitution) | |
| 4 | Wanting more playing, ultimately, like that of the oboe? (6) |
| GREEDY – G (playinG “ultimately”) REEDY (like that of the oboe?) | |
| 6 | Start skipping a meal (5) |
| LUNCH – LAUNCH (start) skipping A | |
| 7 | Approximate venue for US game (8) |
| BALLPARK – double definition | |
| 10 | Report paint misused? But this is a picture in words (3,8) |
| PEN PORTRAIT – anagram (misused) of REPORT PAINT. If I’d heard of this I’d forgotten it: it’s not in Chambers or Collins, but the meaning is clear enough. | |
| 12 | Bill and company keeping Paul active in Mexican resort (8) |
| ACAPULCO – AC (bill) and CO (company) keeping an anagram (active) of PAUL | |
| 15 | This woman’s quote upset nonconformist (7) |
| HERETIC – HER (this woman); ‘s = has, which is just a link word; CITE (quote) “upset” | |
| 16 | Capacity to involve TV host in amusing film (3-3) |
| ROM-COM – ROOM (capacity) to involve MC (TV host) | |
| 18 | Not keen to eat less food including phosphorus? Just the reverse (5) |
| TEPID – DIET (eat less food) includes P(hosphorus), “reversed” | |
| 19 | A lot of hard work? Smile (4) |
| GRIN – GRIND (hard work), “a lot of” = mostly | |
Happy Christmas all – 9:53 for me which is almost bang on par but with yet another fat fingered pink square – decent puzzle I thought.
6:28
I thought of paternoster immediately, but I couldn’t think of the word until I got a couple of checkers. Biffed a few, including LIP-SYNC, which I didn’t bother to parse, and ABANDON SHIP, where I’d forgotten about the band and ignored ‘performers’.
17:00 and Merry Christmas,
COD ABANDON SHIP
11 minutes. A good one to fill in a bit of spare time in the preparations for Christmas lunch. I barely remembered PATERNOSTER for which I needed all the crossers and like Kevin, I biffed a few including LIP-SYNC. TEPID was slow to come as was the innocuous looking CLUB, not helped by looking for the name of a specific ‘soccer team’. Favourite was A BAND ON SHIP, a nice little stocking filler for the big day.
Thanks and Merry Christmas to Pedro and Roly
10 minutes. No problems.
6:20. I tried doing the anagram for 17A in my head and came up with TRANSPORTER, which I thought was just an odd synonym for “elevator” until THOMAS HARDY came along. It took me the P from ACAPULCO to remember PATERNOSTER, but all sorted in the end. Thanks Pedro and Rolytoly.
Merry Christmas to all.
Find it strange that Pen Portrait is missing in some dictionaries, at least it is there in OED. Nice term though.
Nice fun solve apart from the last 4 minutes of 23.05 on the club/ballpark corner that took a lot of alpha trawls.
Thanks Pedro and Roly especially for parsing of crèche which eluded us.
Merry Christmas all.
A most pleasant solve, enough to get one’s teeth into but not too much to detract from the other activities of today. 11:55 for a par time, and all but GRIN parsed – needed the blog for that.
Many thanks Roly for the blog and festive greetings to all.
I made hard work of this excellent puzzle, not helped by a couple of unknowns – PATERNOSTER and PEN PORTRAIT which needed most of the checkers before revealing themselves. I also had to work very hard to resist ‘macho’ at 8a where was slow to move past ‘mac’ for computer.
Started with POMP and finished with CLUB in a sluggish 9.28.
Thanks to Rolytoly and Pedro and Happy Christmas to all.
24:20. Much biffing needed to finish this difficult puzzle. Merry Christmas to all.
An excellent offering from Pedro which kept me on my toes.
FOI MACRO
LOI PATERNOSTER
COD ABANDON SHIP
TIME 5:18
9.44 Fortunately I didn’t get stuck because I really should be washing up. Finished with GRIN. Thanks rolytoly and Pedro. Merry Christmas everyone!
I average around the 40min mark and did this under 25 which was a lovely present today. Still learning and very much use this blog to help so thank you and Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas to all our setters, bloggers, strugglers and solvers.
Special thanks to Roly and Pedro.
COD ABANDON SHIP.
28 mins and two glasses of festive cheer.
Good puzzle. Most went in easily – a mix of write-ins and tougher clues. I found PEN PORTRAIT more difficult than it should have been. I slowed in the NE and took time to see BALLPARK, EMPANEL, and LOI BOTHER. Hampered by all the happy noise around me but I couldn’t leave my family (even though it is rude to have my head in an QC). All parsed in 16.90.
I am becoming used to completing most QCs in the mid/high teens these days. Gone are the days of regular sub-10 finishes…..
Thanks to Pedro and Roly.
Have just been issued with a glass of Bucks Fizz by the son-in-law, so I’ll keep this brief. From POMP to CLUB in 9:42. Thanks Pedro and Roly.
I thought Pedro produced some excellent clues today, so I was really pleased to squeeze a sub-20. Might even have been a shade faster if I had spelt Creche correctly the first time round!
I used to work in a building with a Paternoster, so that was a write-in, as was Abandoned Ship – my thanks, by the way, to Pedro for cluing this in an historically correct way.
CoD to Ballpark, just ahead of Enclave and Lip-Sync. Invariant
Quite quick but then took ages on LOI PATERNOSTER (NHO lift). ABANDON SHIP was a good clue in a sad sort of way. Liked THOMAS HARDY, LIP SYNC, EMOTICON, BALLPARK, ENCLAVE, among others.
Noble to blog on Christmas Day, Roly. Again God rest you merry ladies and gentlemen, let nothing you dismay.🌲🎄
14:51 with some time spent unraveling TEPID, but the real hold-up was caused by the intersection of sports and the transatlantic language gap in the northeast corner. CLUB for soccer team? (which of course I know, but…) failed to come to mind, and the Americanism signal in 7d BALLPARK baffled instead of helping. Luckily the dreaded alphabet trawl didn’t last long and the B tipped me over the edge. Anyhow I see I had company. And yet it’s mysteriously simple in the classic way.
Loved PEN PORTRAIT. I learned the origin of PATERNOSTER from this blog; before that I always imagined it was named that because you would nervously pray before risking your neck on the thing.
Thanks to Pedro and roly and a Merry Christmas to all!
. . .getting candidates to sketch the way it worked (you can travel over/under in safety) was a common interview question
Well that’s a relief to know, if I ever need to use one.
Excellent puzzle, and mercifully well clued from one of my trickier setters! Just the ticket while taking a break from preparing our Christmas dinner. Thx to Roly for parsing Crèche and Acapulco more fully than I managed!
FOI 1d pomp
LOI 5a club – I didn’t want to try to remember any by name!
COD the lovely 11a abandon ship.
The Seasons’s Greetings and thanks to all our setters, bloggers, contributors and our silent followers!
NHO empanel … but it hasn’t spoiled my day! HC to all!
A quite quick 23.41 for me. Perhaps I should try sipping a glass of champagne with all puzzles in future.
Thanks Pedro for some nicely clued obscure words and Roly for the blog.
18:12, famously a year in which nothing much happened. I admit to ignoring the parsing a bit more than usual but you should blame the buck’s fizz for that, not me.
Thank you for the blog, and merry Christmas to you all!
I’m surrounded by crosswords! This morning’s from the Times, the Private Eye one, and a Christmas special from the Guardian by Ludwig, who I believe is also Pedro. MrB has been honing his cryptic skills this year and we are planning to tackle some of these tomorrow, when the dust settles.
Having always struggled with Pedro, I’m definitely finding his puzzles less hard than before – maybe he’s eased up a bit, maybe I’ve got on his wavelength?
8:19 FOI Macro LOI Tepid COD Pen portrait
Many thanks Pedro and Roly – an extra big thanks to you for doing this at 1.30 on Christmas morning. I hope you got a bit of a lie-in 😊
A merry Christmas to Mme & Mr B from Mr & Mrs R.
And a merry Christmas to you both too 😊
An emoticon just for you 🙂
Thank you very much Penny, and yes I did get a lie-in: we were round at my brother and co this year, so my functional and temporal requirements were all very achievable! Just re the Guardian Ludwig puzzle: now definitely don’t quote me on this, but my vague memory is that the Guardian Ludwig is the creative team behind the BBC TV series Ludwig starring David Mitchell (and very good it is too if you haven’t seen it). From what you say, I’m guessing the second series will feature a Christmas special. I haven’t checked, but if so there should be a number of comments to that effect both at the Guardian and the fifteensquared blog. Interesting if that’s Pedro as well. Anyway, merry puzzling!
Apologies – I got my Hendersons muddled! Having doubled checked on the Best for Puzzles site, it seems Pedro is a pseudonym for Paul Henderson not John. But John is Enigmatist and did work on the Ludwig puzzles – there was an interesting article by Alan Connor in the Guardian about 18 months ago about how they designed the crosswords for the programme which I found online.
Although they’re very old, there is also a series of interviews from the Guardian called Meet the Setter – still available online and interesting reading for puzzle fans 😊
I found that very tough. Maybe I was slowed by soporificness after Christmas dinner, or maybe it was just plain hard.
41 minutes for me.
Several minutes had passed before I could type anything into the grid. In fact, some solvers may have almost finished by the time I did. Once again, the Down clues came to my rescue and, slowly but surely, I had some checkers to build on.
My last few in were the long forgotten PATERNOSTER, LIP-SYNC (I had LIP-READ for far too long), the NHO EMPANEL, EMOTICON (Is that a real word?), ROM-COM and PEN PORTRAIT. Phew!
Many thanks to Rolytoly and Pedro.
23 minutes so average for me
Couldn’t parse quite a few of these.
Bemused by 5ac. As rolytoly says other games are available, but why soccer which is a US term? Football would be more correct.
Only reason I can think of is that soccer sounds like sock-er. A sock-er could be a club???? I know, I know … I tried.
Thanks to Pedro and particularly to rolytoly for doing the Christmas shift as well as explaining the clues for me.
Late to the party on Christmas Day so won’t write too much but a speedy for me 6:23.
Loved PATERNOSTER. I used to travel on one most work days during my time at the University of Sheffield. It never stopped being terrifying. To the best of my knowledge it is still in operation.
Merry Christmas to all bloggers, setters, commenters and anyone who just reads these blogs.
12:04 for the solve. LOI PATERNOSTER which I vaguely saw featured on a Youtube video at some stage.
Merry Christmas everybody.
Thanks to Rolytoly and Pedro
12:01. No real problems.
A bit of fun after a hectic day.
ROM COM LOI.
David
Happily clear of SCC.
Enjoyed this and have learned of paternoster lifts.
Merry Christmas to all (esp today to Pedro and to Rolytoly).
Many thanks to all setters and bloggers for the year’s entartainment. Finally gave up with only paternoster unsolved which I would not have got in ten days of staring at it. One of those with no way of guessing it if you have never heard of it and no way of getting it from the wordplay as its an anagram. I suppose I could have checked all 60 possible combinations from the letter trawl to try to find a pronounceable one but too busy today. 13 hours elapsed of perhaps 20 3 – 4 minute sessions during the day. Just waiting for the dishwasher to finish before putting in the last load.
I really didn’t expect a puzzle today and only discovered this one while waiting for the Ashes to start. No rest for the setters or bloggers!
Got stuck on LOI PATERNOSTER and needed most crossers for COD ABANDON SHIP, but otherwise straightforward for 07:59 and a Decent Day. And we have three wickets. Looking forward to waking up and finding Australia on 438-4.
Many thanks roly and Pedro.
21 mins…
Spread into Boxing Day due to time constraints, but this took a while to fathom with some tricky clues.
My final answers of “Club” and “Ballpark” in the NE corner were particularly stubborn.
FOI – 1dn “Pomp”
LOI – 5ac “Club”
COD – 3dn “Thomas Hardy”
Thanks as usual!
Hello,
I just wanted to thank all the people that maintain and comment on this blog. I have recently started working through the Times quick cryptic crossword books and always come to this blog after finishing a puzzle. Often there are a few I can’t get or can’t parse so I’ve found this blog incredibly useful in becoming a better solver.
I’ve gone from missing 4-5 clues a puzzle to usually getting all or only missing 1-2.
Sorry for the slightly irrelevant comment, comments on the older puzzles are locked so I can’t post this there.
Anyway, thanks all and Merry Christmas.
Welcome and glad to hear you’re enjoying your progress! I’ve had the same experience. A belated merry Christmas to you!
Good to hear from you! I’d say you’re on the same route that most of us have taken and it sounds like you’re making excellent progress 😊 Hope you’ll post more often!