A lovely puzzle from a new setter, a bit on the tricky side.
My slowest solve of the week, at 7:22. There was definitely an extra wrinkle or two in some of the parsing, but little obscurity or crosswordese, and a few generous openers and anagrams, so I’d say this was an excellently pitched debut from Apus.
I particularly enjoyed the quality of pretty much all the surfaces (I think my favourite being ONION), and the nifty wordplay (CHAMPION being one of many).
Super stuff – welcome and many thanks to Apus!
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Unspecified number of streaming channels offering basic service (2-6) |
| NO-FRILLS – N (unspecified number in maths), OF, RILLS (streams/streaming channels) | |
| 6 | Kind characters in variety performance (4) |
| TYPE – “characters in” varieTY PErformance | |
| 8 | Starts to prune around large maple tree (4) |
| PALM – “starts” of the next four words | |
| 9 | She scores 100 initially on maths problem (8) |
| COMPOSER – C (100) O M (“initially” On Maths) POSER (problem) | |
| 10 | Republican backing amendment of crucial letter (8) |
| CIRCULAR – R(epublican) backing an anagram (amendment) of CRUCIAL | |
| 12 | One serving Whoppers in bar on the counter (4) |
| LIAR – RAIL = bar, on the counter = reverse. The rule for words like “Whoppers” is that any word can be capitalised in the middle of a clue for misdirection (the Burger King burger in this surface reading), because we should ignore punctuation (or lack thereof), and that is how it would correctly start a sentence; proper nouns, however, cannot be “uncapitalised” for misdirection (but might appear disguised at the start of the clue: “He”, cluing Helium, for example, but masquerading as “he”). | |
| 13 | Search over a long period, with no end in sight (6) |
| FORAGE – FOR AGES (over a long period) “with no end in sight” = dock the tail | |
| 16 | Hamper emptied out except last of fruit (6) |
| IMPEDE – anagram (“out”) of EMPTIED, except the T (“last” of fruiT) | |
| 17 | Identity of small supernatural creature (4) |
| SELF – S(mall) ELF (supernatural creature) | |
| 18 | Support man entertaining millions in boxing ring (8) |
| CHAMPION – CHAP (man) entertaining/absorbing M(illions), IN boxing/absorbing O (ring) | |
| 21 | Attractive model acting with me (8) |
| MAGNETIC – anagram (model) of ACTING with ME | |
| 22 | Beginning of short family film (4) |
| SKIN – S (“beginning” of Short) KIN (family) | |
| 23 | My turn — quiet! (4) |
| GOSH – GO (turn) SH! (quiet!) | |
| 24 | Bring down other end somehow (8) |
| DETHRONE – anagram (somehow) of OTHER END | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 2 | Took a picture capturing wild animal (5) |
| OKAPI – “captured” by toOK A PIcture | |
| 3 | Farm animal close to river in the morning (3) |
| RAM – R (“close”/end to riveR) AM (in the morning) | |
| 4 | Pub suitable for some dieters? (5) |
| LOCAL – and LO-CAL is suitable for some dieters | |
| 5 | Old fighter in Asia struggling to keep spirit up (7) |
| SAMURAI – anagram (struggling) of ASIA to keep RUM (spirit) “up” | |
| 6 | Spooner’s advice for dog is so long (6-3) |
| TOODLE-PIP – and a POODLE TIP = advice for dog | |
| 7 | Spotted horse that is in lead with extraordinary lad (7) |
| PIEBALD – IE (that is) in PB (lead) with an anagram (extraordinary) of LAD | |
| 11 | Two churches hosting a very loud popular singer (9) |
| CHAFFINCH – CH CH (two churches) hosting A, FF (very loud) IN (popular) | |
| 14 | Aromatic herb and orange cooked with duck (7) |
| OREGANO – anagram (cooked) of ORANGE with O (duck) | |
| 15 | Left outside cold and agitated (7) |
| EXCITED – EXITED (left) outside C(old) | |
| 19 | Son wearing fancy coat and tie (5) |
| ASCOT – S(on) wearing an anagram (fancy) of COAT | |
| 20 | Love and marriage not appropriate for everyone? That might cause some tears (5) |
| ONION – O (love) and UNION (marriage) lacking U (appropriate for everyone, in films, etc) | |
| 22 | Knight is returning with king (3) |
| SIR – SI (is “returning”) with R[ex] (king) | |
I had this all done bar two (13ac and 15dn) in 17 minutes. As I couldn’t give it any more time I came here for those two. I couldn’t parse LIAR and nor could I initially parse TOODLE PIP until I realised that I had been reading it as ‘tootle pip’ in my head.
FOI – 6ac TYPE
LOI – DNF
CODs – 18ac CHAMPION and 4dn LOCAL.
Thanks to Apus and Rolytoly
I must be on my own here as I found this puzzle to be very hard. Hardest this week. So for me not a great puzzle.
Tough, fun, and a slow near-solve: despite all the crossers I simply failed on NO FRILLS. So obvious now.
I liked the OKAPI (featuring in Flanders & Swann’s gnu song) and TOODLE PIP straight off the P G Wodehouse page… Pleased to get CHAFFINCH. Got COMPOSER from the crossers and wondered (like others) about the gender: would “He or she” spoil the fun? But all told, fun, a challenge and a longish spell in the SCC. Hey ho.
From NO FRILLS to MAGNETIC in 7:52. Whilst I am not generally a fan of wordy clues I really did enjoy the clueing for ONION and that gets my COD. Thanks Roly
I found this tough but enjoyable, which is ideal. I finished in 20:51, but with a typo in OEEGANO, grr. That was my second typo: having MAGNEEIC meant that 15d was hard, but once I’d corrected that, I didn’t check the rest. Ah well.
Thanks to Apus and rolytoly.
In a rush earlier today, so lots of lucky guesses. Good puzzle but had to wait until I had time to finish LOI COMPOSER this evening. Biffed FOI NO FRILLS, saw Rills eventually. CNP UNION, CHAMPION, SAMURAI, LO-CAL doh! Liked GOSH, FORAGE, CIRCULAR, and PIEBALD.
Thanks vm, Roly.
I finished this just before Winchester, so rated it Moderate, so right in the middle of the difficulty range for me. Nicely satisfying and entertaining.
Welcome Apus! Thank you for a most enjoyable and entertaining crossword. I especially enjoyed ‘toodle-pip ‘ and ‘onion’.
Thanks Rolytoly
I found that hard but very enjoyable, though I needed the blog to understand how to parse ONION. Good stuff, and welcome to Apus.
Thank you for the blog!
Crikey – that was a tricky one!
7:45. I liked this one, it had excellent surfaces and a good range of clue types. I hope we see more of Apus!
7.49. I think that it would have taken me a good deal longer if I had tried to parse everything.
Welcome to the new setter.
Great debut. Not sure what to make of the difficulty. Most the clues needed a think but nothing really caused me difficulty. Over my par time but not by a huge amount.
Liked CHAMPION and CHAFFINCH.
Thanks blogger and setter.
A sad week with another DNF / well beaten. My friends in the SCC will be wondering where I am.
19 minute DNF.
Another failure. Put EJECTED for EXCITED. Silly mistake but par for the course for me at the moment. I still have very little ability to discern what is wordplay and what is the definition. My brain lacks the capacity to perform these challenges.
Already failed twice this week. That’s bad, even by my standards.
This took us a lot longer than our usual time and after several visits. One we could not do (9A) and one we could not parse (20D). We found this tricky especially the bottom half & struggled with some parsing. But there was no obscure vocabulary which was good.