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.
Both of them mean “offspring”; if I referred to my kids as “my breed” or “my brood” nothing would substantively change.
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.
And other rather less printable terms …
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.
Thanks for your interest.
I do use the Times (Classic) app on my iPad and update it whenever I can. I have used the app on iPad for many years. It appears similar on both Classic and Live versions. In both cases, the grid is too big and I need to use it in portrait mode to see all of the grid without scrolling. The ‘down’ clues occasionally disappear when I turn the iPad from the upright portrait mode back to the horizontal.
It was OK for years – until major changes (‘improvements!!’) were made some time last year.
My husband has this problem sometimes but if he reduces the tablet font size it fits in. Annoying as he has to increase it again to read some articles.
… you should try solving on a smart phone… 😱
I do, on a Pixel 7a. I can see all the grid. Have to be careful to make sure I read all of the longer clues.
I have used a ‘smart’phone, TC but only a couple of times. I vowed ‘never again’.
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.
His laziness in not tying his shoelaces meant a broken ankle when he tripped over them later.
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.
That sounds very much like how Mrs S helps me!
😂
I wonder how this app would do with Mephisto. I’ll bet I have no idea would come up rather frequently.
If you give me a complied of typical Mephistoclues I’ll see what the app says.
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?
I can’t see all of the clues at once but as I move around the grid the current clue automatically scrolls into view. Pressing “Enter” moves to the next clue. My browser hides the scrollbar on the top 100 page but it is scrollable. I’m just using Firefox.
Thanks – I’ll message the times guys to see if they can improve on both front
To be included in the SNITCH/QUITCH, you have to do the crossword in the Crossword Club part of the puzzles site and finish in the top 100 (at some point – you can fall out of the top 100 and still be included). Or, you can contact the architect of the SNITCH (starstruck_au) via the site and ask to be included as a “blog solver”, in which case I think your time will be picked up from here if you post in a certain way.
Ah ok – i’ve just dropped to exactly 100 – i’ll keep at it until I can get one inside the top 100 and hopefully i’ll get picked up, thanks
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
I needed poi Bronco to finally see that (led to EMI)* was never going to be the answer to my loi, but Meantime still took long enough to rob me of a window seat. Still, after the last couple of days I will take that as a minor Triumph (. . .250cc, say 😉).
Like others, Intone was perceived to be harder than intended, with a bifd Nitrogen coming to the rescue – I was aware of an Oxygen ringtone but not Nitrogen. As for Check/Strangle, I think it works with: a valve was used to check/strangle the flow. Invariant
On edit: Sheesh, only just realised that Nitrogen was (ringtone)*
Bronco slowed me down because of the brood/breed play , love the wild horse def though.
Also liked the Meantime wordplay. Nice QC like Rongo’s Monday QC which feel like they hit the Goldilocks level in hardness.
On the wavelength today or at any rate more so than on any other day this week. All done and parsed in 15 minutes. Bit of a MER at brood = breed and strangle = check is decidedly iffy. I also wondered about the refinery as the oil has already been extracted at that stage, although I suppose the output is also oil.
FOI – 7ac SCARCE
LOI – 11ac INTONE
COD – 20ac PENTAGON
Thanks to Joker and Curarist.
This one felt much more gentle than of late. Wasn’t sure how to parse BRONCO – thanks C. Remembered CARPET = reprimand from a previous crossword. Like others, tried to make INTONE harder than it was. Many thanks Joker and C.
6.17 This mostly flew in. I hesitated over the brood in BRONCO. INTONE and SCARCE were a bit slow at the end. Thanks Curarist and Joker.
What fun – a Joker to end the week.
Finished in an average sort of time.
MERs: the BROOD thing and STRANGLE
FOI: ACRE
CoD: NITROGEN and REFINERY
LOI: INTONE. (Overthought it)
Thanks Joker and Curarist
14:30 which seems to be around par for me these days.
Ground to a halt at 10 minutes, closed my eyes for a few seconds, had a rethink and the rest flew in.
Like others I didn’t care for the BRONCO definition but no problems with LEEWAY or STRANGLE. Very much enjoyed the desert rat which cost me a couple of minutes searching for an obscure rodent.
Thanks Joker and Curarist.
My eyebrows were active on a couple of occasions, which have been discussed above by others.
I was slow to start, but then fairly whizzed along, though I tried for much too long to use “led to EMI” as anagrist for my LOI.
FOI SIREN
LOI MEANTIME
COD NITROGEN
TIME 3:44
2 Clues solved after 15 mins! In the same way that the folk who finish in under 10 mins won’t get much better over time due to practical limits and the compiler variable, I won’t get any worse as I’m at the bottom of the curve.
11:33 in a mostly smooth solve that stumbled at the end, as so often. But no horrible frustrations, just weirdly slow at REFINERY (anyone for relivery?), PROPER, POOL, and DENOUNCE. I liked RUT and PENTAGON. The NITROGEN anagram and surface are very pleasing.
Thanks Joker and Curarist.
I also spent too long pondering whether relivery was a word! Nearly put it in but fortunately REFINERY came to the rescue after further mental searching.
DNF. Gave up on 18 mins with BRONCO/INTONE missing. TL;DE. Too long; didn’t enjoy.
Into = INTO never occurred to me and had BRENCE pencilled in anyway.
REFINERY was neat, the rest was par speedy stuff.
LOI REFINERY took nearly a minute but our 10:16 was still a good deal faster than our average. Shared others’ MERs over brood and lee but they didn’t really get in the way. Thanks, Curarist and Joker.
25:47
That’s twice in a week I’ve been slowed by mixing my definition and my word to be reversed. In this instance I had LOOP instead POOL which caused problems with PROPER. I also failed to parse MEANTIME and LOI BRONCO, so well into SCC territory yet again.
18ish mins. Slowed down by not trusting Bronco (the Brood problem) and slow to get intone. The downs came much quicker than the crosses today. Thanks all
14:48 here. COD to NITROGEN by a mile: not hard, but “mobile ringtone” is a fantastic anagram indicator.
If I remember my Patrick O’Brian correctly, a “lee shore” was the reverse of sheltered: by being downwind of the ship, it was a danger. Add “lee” to the list of words that can have two opposite meanings.
Thanks to Joker and Curarist.
Am I being stupid, why does plane = tree?
Because there is a tree called a Plane. Quite common in London. See here.
The peeling bark meant that, years ago, the Plane was one of the few trees that could survive the sooty London atmosphere.
5:17 I was rather slow to get going, not helped by starting to biff INTERIM for 9A until I saw it fit neither the enumeration nor the wordplay. Stupid boy. Apart from that crossing out nothing other than my answers in the grid and time on my copy. Thanks Joker and Curarist.
Not only did I do that, but I invented the word INTERIME (both to make it long enough and to have IME at the end) and then admired it for a bit to see if it parsed.
33 minutes for me, so not too bad. Indeed, it could have been a lot slower as I found it hard to get started and nearly ground to a halt about halfway through.
Weirdly, the shortest clue (RUT) hampered my progress the most. It significantly delayed my solving of both REFINERY and STRANGLE and also of their respective dependants.
Fortunately, I remembered to review and correct rENOUNCE before stopping the clock and coming here.
Many thanks to Curarist and Joker.
11 minutes here and something of a light relief after ploughing through 15×15 today. Lots of clues to enjoy – loi INTONE (probably the simplest clue of the lot!).
Put me down for a DNF. Couldn’t get start of MEANTIME or SCARCE.
A tricky one for me at 18:16, but judging from the comments the problem’s at my end. I shall blame my aunt Linda, at whose funeral I was today, which she would no doubt find enjoyably outrageous.
Thank you for the blog!
I made life very difficult for myself today by desperately trying to finish this before going out for the day, but it just slowed me down. More haste, less speed 😅 I also tried to make ‘led to EMI’ an anagram – could going west be an anagrind? Everything else is. (I know it’s a direction indicator really.)
Actually, that clue made me very sad – I worked for EMI during its peak years in the 70s before it did go west. It was an absolute blast.
About 15 minutes over two sittings FOI Acne LOI Doom. Apt really, I felt quite doomed 😂
Thanks Joker and Curarist