This one took me a long time: 24:27, practically double my average. After my first pass through the acrosses I had precisely two answers: TRAGIC and ROCK AND ROLL. Things picked up when 6 of the first 7 down clues went in at first look and then slowed to a crawl again, finally finishing with an alphabet trawl to find WAFFLE. But looking at the clues, there’s nothing really fiendish here, so maybe I was just having an off-day.
One opinion I’ll offer: two sets of linked clues is two sets too many.
Definitions underlined, synonyms in round brackets, wordplay in square brackets and deletions in strikethrough. Anagram indicators italicised in the clue, anagram fodder indicated like (this)*.
| Across | |
| 1 | Bristle, awfully sore (7) |
| BLISTER – (BRISTLE)* | |
| 5 | Weakness in gripper? (4) |
| VICE – A double definition. | |
| 7 | Go on, have it for breakfast! (6) |
| WAFFLE – A definition and a cryptic hint, or two definitions? Doesn’t really make any difference.
This was my last one in. On my first pass through, I pencilled in EGGING, as in “on”, even though it didn’t really parse. Fortunately that didn’t survive contact with 1d. |
|
| 8 | Deadly time to spread message (6) |
| MORTAL – T (time) inside (spreading; making wider) MORAL (message). | |
| 9 | Choir’s range is extraordinary — you can bet on it! (5,6) |
| HORSE RACING – (CHOIR’S RANGE)* | |
| 10 | Pledge I have, I say! (2,4) |
| MY WORD – I think this is MY (I have) + WORD (I say), but I’m not really convinced by either half of that parsing. | |
| 12 | Very sad US soldier in wagon, retreating (6) |
| TRAGIC – GI (US soldier) in CART (wagon), reversed [retreating].
This was the first one I was confident of. |
|
| 14 | Music the fate of Sisyphus? (4,3,4) |
| ROCK AND ROLL – Another one that could be a DD or a definition and a cryptic hint.
Sisyphus, as you’ll remember, was the character in Greek mythology condemned to always push a ROCK up a hill and then have it ROLL down again. |
|
| 17 | Seek a part of a church (6) |
| ASPIRE – A (in the clue) + SPIRE (part of a church). | |
| 18 | Said leader of opposition decorated after victory (6) |
| VOICED – V for victory, + O (first letter [leader] of Opposition) + ICED (decorated, as cakes).
Is V for victory just from Churchill? I’m struggling to think of anywhere where V is used as a substitute for victories: in league tables it is “W” for “wins” not “V” for “victories”. |
|
| 20 | Run over wild animal (4) |
| WOLF – FLOW (run), reversed [over]. | |
| 21 | 1 down, say, exhausted having crushed old monarch (7) |
| SERPENT – SPENT (exhausted) including [having crushed] ER (old monarch).
I’m not 100% convinced that ‘having crushed’ can really mean ‘including’, but I can’t see anything else here. This is part of the first of our two sets of linked clues today. If, like me, you got here before you looked at 1 down, you probably also just passed over this one with a shrug. |
|
| Down | |
| 1 | Finish off swine, reptile (3) |
| BOA – BOA |
|
| 2 | Fire in plant, out initially (7) |
| INFERNO – IN (in the clue), FERN (plant) + O Didn’t we have “fern” in a clue just yesterday? |
|
| 3 | Yonder tree seen briefly in which he hides (5) |
| THERE – HE is hiding inside TRE |
|
| 4 | Sheep with gasp rearing up (7) |
| RAMPANT – RAM (sheep) + PANT (gasp).
“Rampant” in heraldry means an animal is standing on its hind legs. Like this (src: Wikipedia):
|
|
| 5 | Maestro, drive round the bend (5) |
| VERDI – (DRIVE)* | |
| 6 | Cleaner part of fish that’s about right for cook (9) |
| CHARGRILL – CHAR (cleaner) + GILL (part of fish) containing [about] R (right).
Does anyone actually use the word “char” in this sense today, or is it only seen in crosswords? I tend to the latter opinion. |
|
| 9 | Spell words in prose they misspelt (3,6) |
| HEY PRESTO – (PROSE THEY)*
That’s “spell” as in “magic spell”, not the verb “to spell”. |
|
| 11 | Underwear — chest items? (7) |
| DRAWERS – A double definition that took me far far too long to spot. Don’t ask.
The second definition is as in “a chest of drawers”, of course. |
|
| 13 | Cuckoo is gone, a worry (7) |
| AGONISE – (IS GONE A)*
Not a wasted letter in this clue. Nice one. |
|
| 15 | First one put in cooker (5) |
| CHIEF – I (one) in CHEF (cooker – one who cooks).
I’d been doing these puzzles for a long time before I realized (or someone told me) that I = one isn’t just because “I” looks like “1”: it’s also 1 in Roman numerals. Just saying, in case I’m not the only person… |
|
| 16 | Bird 5 down stuffed (5) |
| DIVER – (VERDI)* (the answer to 5 down)
I think “stuffed” as an anagram indicator has to be a nod to the “..in that case we’re stuffed” colloquial usage. The second of our two sets of linked clues. |
|
| 19 | Polish off the extra dessert, last of all (3) |
| EAT – last letters of |
|
14:41 is a pretty good time for me given the snitch TYTBAS
14:41 is a good time for me given the snitch. TYTBAS
Late to the party (work). Exactly wot Plett said, down to the 08:50.
Good puzzle, really didn’t think it was that hard so surprised by the general view.
Many thanks Mara and Doofers.
A similar start to our blogger – except I went well into the downs before something fell into place 😅 13 – lucky for some! Fortunately things picked up a bit after that, but I was still surprised to finish in less than 10 minutes, all parsed. I’m going against the grain here – I enjoyed it. I particularly liked ROCK AND ROLL and HEY PRESTO, and HORSE RACING / CHOIR’S RANGE was a lovely anagram.
I’d forgotten the Morris Maestro – I think it was the first car to have some sort of voice warning system. That could drive you round the bend, but still not as bad as modern cars that just nag you constantly! I wonder if there was a deeper reference in the clue, or am I reading too much into it?
I agree – two lots of linked clues = too many!
9:48 FOI Agonise (13d) LOI Mortal COD Waffle
Thanks Mara and Doofers
This was a struggle… DNF (Wolf). Some biffing needed eg 21a serpent. Agonies/agonised needed the 21a biff to resolve. All-in-all, not much fun today.
FOI 9a Horse racing
LOI 20 Hoof – nearest I could get to ‘run’…..
COD 14a rock and roll
Loved ROCK AND ROLL. We were doing quite well until about 9 1/2 minutes in when we almost ran aground with the 3 down in the SW corner which took longer than all of the rest put together leaving us to limp home in 22:55, our longest in quite a while. For ASPIRE, our antepenultimate, the penny finally dropped but CHIEF and LOI WOLF both required long mental alphabet trawls with parsing as the last step. All fine clues though so no complaints here. Thanks, Doofers and Mara.
I wasn’t having a crossword brain today, but a 12 clue fail is worse than I can remember. So maybe I need to remember MARA puzzles are not the easy ones.
Yet again, not a “ Quick Cryptic” very frustrating and unenjoyable
17:10. Lots to ponder and lots to enjoy. So many good clues it is hard to pick a favourite but DRAWERS made me laugh – I’m easily amused.
Thanks to Mara and also to D for filling in the gaps in my parsing.
30 minutes.
Another appalling performance from me. How can I manage 13 minutes yesterday and then this abysmal time today? Being this inconsistent is no fun at all.
Not far short of 2 hours on 15 x 15. A massive struggle (as ever). Snitch says it’s ‘easier’!
No sense of progress or satisfaction in either solve today.
12:26 – I was really slow getting into this too. some the clues felt a bit 15×15’y. I did enjoy it thoroughly – particularly about Sisyphus…(maybe that’s a chestnut for others but I hadn’t seen it before).
‘crushed’ does mean ‘to eat’, as in, “Wanna go crush a sammy?” I’d wager that’s a little too slangy, though, and Mara was probably relying on a more obscure definition (when you crush something, say under your boot, you generally envelop it, maybe?), but it made sense to me.
16:56 My word didn’t think I’d wolf a boa.
Ta DAM
Late evening, long day… found this slow going -CHIEF took an age, then, tired and demoralised, did a rare reveal – W to trigger WOLF… still needed the blog to fully parse.
Add us to those unhappy to find cross-referenced clues…
Thank you for the work out M and for the welcome blog, D