There is nothing too troublesome here, but some solvers might get a bit held up by the slightly suspect definitions. Bang on 6 minutes for me.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 7 | Seldom met with Mark before church (6) |
| SCARCE – SCAR + CE | |
| 8 | Reprimand coach standing by favourite (6) |
| CARPET – CAR + PET. Supposedly so named for when workers were hauled in front of the boss, whose office was carpeted. | |
| 9 | Intervening period led to EMI going west (8) |
| MEANTIME – MEANT (led to) + EMI backwards | |
| 10 | Circle round pub game (4) |
| POOL – LOOP backwards | |
| 11 | Sing into main microphone finally (6) |
| INTONE – INTO + [ |
|
| 13 | Father meets new femme fatale (5) |
| SIREN – SIRE (father, verb) + N | |
| 14 | In truth, humdrum existence (3) |
| RUT – hidden word | |
| 15 | Correspond with tango partner (5) |
| TALLY – T (tango, NATO alphabet) + ALLY | |
| 17 | What’s cutting criminal charge — that is right (6) |
| RAPIER – RAP + I.E. + R | |
| 19 | Ruin atmosphere when returning (4) |
| DOOM – MOOD backwards | |
| 20 | SHAPE military headquarters (8) |
| PENTAGON – double definition | |
| 22 | What could be Kalahari rat (6) |
| DESERT – double definition, noun then verb | |
| 23 | Path following sheltered margin (6) |
| LEEWAY – LEE (sheltered) + WAY. Hmm, not sure about LEE as an adjective? It’s not listed as such in my dictionary, but I suppose ‘lee side’ is adjectival | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Run in fabulous area (4) |
| ACRE – ACE (fabulous) with R inserted | |
| 2 | Wild horse, breed mostly seen around North Carolina (6) |
| BRONCO – BROO[ |
|
| 3 | Concerned with valuable clothing? This will get oil out (8) |
| REFINERY – RE + FINERY. I always imagine that you put oil IN to a refinery, but I suppose some of the end products are oils of some description. | |
| 4 | Skin disease found in seven cases retrospectively (4) |
| ACNE – reverse hidden word | |
| 5 | Support former queen as appropriate (6) |
| PROPER – PROP (support) + ER (former HM the Q) | |
| 6 | Condemn study with little weight (8) |
| DENOUNCE – DEN + OUNCE | |
| 12 | Part of air in mobile ringtone (8) |
| NITROGEN – Anagram (‘mobile’) of RINGTONE. I may have seen this before but it’s very nicely concealed here. | |
| 13 | Check back of car concealed by street corner (8) |
| STRANGLE – [ |
|
| 16 | Clingy individual allowed to hold naughty child (6) |
| LIMPET – LET with IMP inside | |
| 18 | Earth? Tons supporting tree (6) |
| PLANET – PLANE (tree) + T | |
| 20 | Cause for regret is mine over years (4) |
| PITY – PIT (mine) + Y | |
| 21 | Gemstone ring carried by friend (4) |
| OPAL – O + PAL. The chestnuttiest chestnut to finish with. | |
12 minutes. MER here also at ‘breed / brood’. I’d be interested in seeing an example where than can be substituted.
Pretty quick progress today. Slowed by POOL where I had a mental blank once ‘skittles’ wouldn’t fit and then by INTONE where I’d been massively overcomplicating things. Good one, all green in 9.22.
Collins has ‘a group of a particular kind; breed’ for one sense of BROOD. Maybe a breeder could drop by and enlighten us.
I share our blogger’s doubts about both Breed = Brood and Lee for Sheltered, but luckily both answers were very biffable. I also took time to see Led to = Meant in MEANTIME, but another that was easy to guess the answer to and then worry about the parsing later. My main holdups though, and my L2I, were the pair PROPER and POOL; these two pushed me out to a not very sparkling 13:02. Not obvious once I got them why they took so long, but that’s often the way!
Many thanks Curarist for the blog.
Lee can be an adjective meaning sheltered e.g. the lee side.
Re sheltered = lee, I can sympathize. The only reason why it was a write-in for me is that it’s been bog standard NYT crosswordese since I started solving in the late 90s. Having said that, the vast majority of times it’s actually been “alee,” which is both more apt as an adjective and a word I’ve been waiting to see a setter utilise. I’m sure it’s happened, but I can’t remember an instance in the four years of Times cryptics I’ve gone through. Then again, memory is a FLEETING thing.
Yes, the lee side or lee shore was how I eventually rationalised the wordplay to myself while doing the puzzle. It’s a case of English’s “adjectival noun” – a noun used as an adjective, eg sports ground, horse box. But jut because one has the usage horse box, it doesn’t make horse equivalent to equestrian.
I was on a sub-6 pace before getting bogged down for a couple of minutes in the SW corner because of NHO LIMPET and the awkwardly clued DESERT. Confidently bunged the former because the wordplay was straightforward; bunged-and-prayed the latter. In the verb form of desert, I “rat on” someone or “rat them out.” I don’t simply “rat them.” The preposition seems to always accompany it.
Regardless of that MER, it was a fun and fair puzzle. COD was actually LIMPET because it’s an example of my favorite type (esp being an American trying to swim in these deep, cryptic waters): a NOH that’s approachable to suss out, which makes it a pleasant bit of education.
For RAT, Collins has the slang meaning, ‘ to desert or betray a cause.’
I had the same MER as some others but overall I enjoyed the puzzle which I thought was towards the easier end of things.
Started with SCARCE and finished with LEEWAY in 6.47.
Thanks to Curarist and Joker
11:24. All perfectly fair and not too difficult for a QC from Joker but a few blocks along the way – MEANT for ‘Led to’, like Cedric and making INTONE seem harder than it was, like Mendesest.
Sorry to be the usual pain, especially as it didn’t occur to me during or after solving, but in the entry for BROOD, Collins has as sense 3: a group of a particular kind; breed and sense 5 in Chambers has much the same thing.
Thanks to Curarist and Joker
24 Slow for us, though enjoyed the challenge. Just not on the wavelength.
Held up by MEANTIME and CARPET (NHO) and by trying to parse brumby (which was never going to work).
We, too queried BREED and BROOD, though have no issue with LEE and sheltered – father used to tell us to get on the lee side of the hill when it was windy…(we of course ran around the top enjoying the gale).
Thanks to Joker and Curarist
From SCARCE to LEEWAY in 7:28. Thanks Joker and Curarist.
I thought this was a pretty much average difficulty, and QUITCH seems to agree. I always hate puzzles where the crossers give you mostly 2nd, 4th, 6th in the word (often vowels, and few first letters). Is there a TftT word for that? I think there should be. Suggestions if none exists?
A C# Minor puzzle, where you start on a black note/box?
It’s simply a result of the symmetry constraint on puzzles of this form. The western across clues have even checkers, whereas the eastern have odd checkers. Meanwhile, the southern down clues have odd checkers, whereas the northern have even checkers.
Having said that, perhaps a term could be an “odd-even” or an “even-odd” since, much to my surprise and confusion when I first encountered it, “evens” mean “odds” in the UK apparently.
I’m sure that’s right. Whatever the reason, I do think there should be a name. I always find them harder where there aren’t so many first letter checkers. Maybe just a “piano” puzzle, because the top side and western side alternate black and white squares, like the keys of a piano.
I’ve seen it called a portcullis grid.
Not at the races today.
A jumpy solve with a mix of straightforward and abstruse clues. I needed the N of meantime to place NC in 2dn but even then, I needed INTONE before BRONCO clicked. I am glad I am not alone on the breed/brood issue. STRANGLE took a while to raise my eyebrow followed by LEEWAY as my LOI.
Good in parts but strangely unsettling; it took me a minute into the SCC.
Thanks to curarist for his blog and observations.
P.s. My iPad still has the utmost difficulty formatting the QC (using the Classic online version of The Times). It is all over the place – zooming, missing out the down clues in landscape mode, etc. I must try the alternatives – without this faffing about, my times will surely drop.
Can you not load the app on the iPad ? Works well on Android except it doesn’t display the setter’s name.
14:31
Not on the wavelength today. I could have biffed MEANTIME quite early on, but could not see how meant=led to. LOI was DOOM.
Thanks Curarist and Joker
I found this tricky, following many red herrings taking 32mins ( with a typo)
However I enjoyed the many pdms.
I didn’t find LEE odd. I semi-biffed BRONCO.
FOI CARPET
LOI DENOUNCE
COD REFINERY
Thanks to Joker and curarist
I found this pretty easy, and put in the obvious answers even if the literals were a bit strange. It always helps to use the cryptics first. Strangle is a good example – just follow the instructions, and that’s what you get, so it must be right.
Then at the end, I got stuck at the proper/loop crossing, although they are both a bit on the chestnut side.
Time: 5:26
19:10 TYTBAS
No problem with LEE but same MER as others with brood/breed. MEANT meaning LED TO seems a bit tenuous, but sure someone can give an example where that works. Generally a trickier puzzle for me today.
24:22 – above average time. A mixture of the obvious and rather obscure, I found. A couple of biffs, some head scratching and eventually got there.
I was fast through most of it but ground to a halt on INTONE (which I was over complicating) and LOI MEANTIME (which even though I’d immediately put in IME at the end I still had to trawl for and then biff, because I couldn’t understand how MEANT = led to).
I did like STRANGLE, LIMPET and COD RAPIER. Good challenge. All done in 08:51 for a Sluggish Day.
Many thanks Joker and curarist.
Quite quick today. Biffed BRONCO, without much thought, CNP. LOI LEEWAY.
Liked DESERT, NITROGEN, REFINERY, RAPIER and PROPER.
Thanks vm, Curarist.
I started off very slow and that’s how it remained throughout. Like others I was not fond of Brood/Breed or strangle. I couldn’t work out how the word could be strangle, though I suppose corner can mean strangle, but with what I had already present it just seemed that it had to be the answer, so in it went.
I needed a lot of help with this one today.
First lap: 3
Answered without help: 16
Answered with help: 8
DNF: Nil
Time: 43:46
Candy bar to restore my sanity.
What help mechanism are you using? I resort to revealing non-crossing letters first so as not to compromise other solves.
There are two I use.
1) Chambers Crossword Dictionary
2) An app on my iPhone called Crossword Genius. It has a function in it called “Ask Ross” where you can type in the clue, the number of letters and any letters you already have. It will then give you three hints, such as “I think the third letter is L”, or it may say something like “it looks like the answer is a hidden within the clue” or “I believe it’s an anagram.” After the third hint you can reveal the answer if you wish.
It’s not 100% reliable. Sometimes it will say “I have no idea”, or “I think I know the answer, here’s a list of words it may be.” But I find it to be very helpful on the whole.
I found this quite hard work, partly because of some of the definitions-as mentioned above.
The NW gave me the most trouble. LOI was INTONE after BRONCO.
But I was never completely bogged down and finished in 12 minutes.
Just the right level of challenge for me.
David
7:50
An improvement on recent days, but halfway through, I remembered that this was the QC and not the 15×15. Slightly slowed at the finish in the NW corner, REFINERY being last in. Balked slightly at Check = STRANGLE but the wordplay was clear enough.
Thanks Curarist and Joker
Hi! I submitted my first puzzle today .. 8:47 .. last couple of minutes spent on BRONCO .. I’m used to doing the crossword on my phone but to submit to the leaderboard I need to do the crossword on my PC. I find that you can’t see all of the clues and have to scroll to see them – does anyone have any advice here? Are there specific browsers that work and others that don’t?
Similarly when I press the leaderboard to see the top 100 times, I only see the top 16 and no scroll bar ..
Finally how do you get yourself included in the snitch stats?
Hooray: we think alike. I too had MERs at breed = BROO(d) and check = (LOI) STRANGLE (what’s that about?!). Otherwise all good (eventually). Thanks, Curarist.
12 mins…
I wondered about Brood = Breed as well, but then again, I also struggled with Plane = Tree. Does a refinery get oil “out” or does it process the crude oil already extracted? Overall, I was pleased with my time as there were definitely some left-field definitions.
FOI – 7ac “Scarce”
LOI – 13dn “Strangle”
COD – 16dn “Limpet”
Thanks as usual!
The last few puzzles from The Joker have been more straightforward than today’s offering, and I usually find I need all my target time to complete them. Today’s was a bit tougher, and I was pleased to finish only a little outside target at 10.38. Sometimes it’s the apparently easy ones that delay you, and this applied to my LOI INTONE which took me far longer to solve than it should.
My total time for the week was 62.54, giving me a daily average of 12.35. This is the third consecutive week I have been well outside target, which would suggest perhaps that January puzzles have been a little tougher than average.
Agree with everyone else about BROOD and STRANGLE, although I didn’t have a problem with LEEWAY. My worst clue was the pub game, entering POOH – PH is Public House, reverse HOOP etc. Didn’t twig that it was a pub game, just thought oh, ok, a game and thought of Pooh sticks – which did cause a MER, but I put it in anyway! Doh!
7.20
Struggled to get going but a few gentle ones in the southern hemisphere got me going. Like Templar, overcomplicated INTONE, but reasonably smooth elsewhere.
Thanks Curarist/Joker