| 3 |
Nosy Parker upset boy with empty diary on bus (8) |
|
BUSYBODY – Anagram (‘upset’) of BOY + D[IAR]Y with BUS to start. |
| 7 |
Shops here using a flexible card, European (6) |
|
ARCADE – A + Anagram (‘flexible’) of CARD + E |
| 8 |
Conceal imperfections in appearance and second-class career (8) |
|
AIRBRUSH – AIR (appearance) + B (second-class) + RUSH (career) |
| 9 |
Drop Old Testament? I’m heading back inside (4) |
|
OMIT – OT with I’M backwards inside |
| 10 |
Originally called — in the frame finally (3) |
|
NEE – acronym from last letters |
| 11 |
Directors in general primarily getting on (8) |
|
BOARDING – BOARD (of directors) + IN + G for General |
| 13 |
Interpret the meaning of study (4) |
|
READ – double definition |
| 15 |
Look around tower of fortress (4) |
|
KEEP – PEEK backwards |
| 17 |
Working with trees in front part — second attempt (8) |
|
FORESTRY – FORE (front part) + S + TRY |
| 19 |
Legal eagle carrying drink (3) |
|
ALE – hidden word |
| 22 |
Group’s time with Orbison on regular basis (4) |
|
TRIO – T + oRbIsOn |
| 23 |
Looking well, bishop expected soon (8) |
|
BLOOMING – B + LOOMING |
| 24 |
Story official’s accepting, pleasing change (6) |
|
RELIEF – LIE (story) inside REF (official). ‘Official’ always means REF |
| 25 |
Happen as company encountered regret (4,4) |
|
COME TRUE – CO + MET + RUE |
MASTER stayed quite close to the for me too but it was AIRBRUSH and then DASH that really added the minutes – and BUSYBODY had taken its time to arrive too. Started well with 8 (eight) on the first pass of acrosses but mainly on the LHS. Slowed from there to finish all green in 13.27, including however many seconds it took to walk round the table and plug the adapter in.
All done in 12.45, no horses frightened but some of these were quite hard…
10 minutes. No problems.
Couldn’t get BEAU for the life of me – maybe never thought of a dandy as a beau? Beau to me is a lover or suitor.
mr brummel? 18c dandy…..
Slow to start and I dotted all over the grid to get a foothold. But the bottom half came together, and I then found the top half easier on returning to it for an 11:37 completion. Annoyed that TROMBONE was one of my last ones, as it is the instrument I play!
Many thanks Curarist for the blog.
Commiserations on TROMBONE. But that’s not as bad as the time I couldn’t finish and the missing answer was my own name.
Without 3 alpha trawls to get master we would have had a day away from the SCC but 20.34 seemed ok for this one.
Airbrush took a while too, what an odd set of crossers that was, thanks Curarist for the parsing of rush, of that kind of career!
Thanks Hurley.
Following on from yesterday, once you click on ‘Aa’, go to layout and there are two grid options: one as you describe and the regular grid. That’s how I corrected the view on my iPad.
A nice puzzle which I thought I’d completed quite quickly until going to submit and realising that I hadn’t completed 2d, which proved to be the toughest clue in the grid!
Finished in 7.16. COD to the to 19a for bringing to mind one of our distinguished bloggers 😁.
Thanks to Curarist and Hurley
🍺
Yes, I instantly thought of him too, although I think the drink might be a nice glass of single malt!
Er …. a pint of Lagavulin?
Another fairly tough one with a few tinkles from dropped pennies for me. As usual, I jumped around the grid, finally returning to the NW with MASTER (it took a few moments to parse with fingers crossed) and ARCADE which I should have seen earlier but only came to me via crossers. I rather liked INFERIOR and AIRBRUSH.
Some good clues, some quirky ones but a reasonably satisfying 16.58 after a week where Oink was the only previous bright spot for me.
Thanks both.
Pretty much top to bottom but I got stuck on the two AIRs, BRUSH and LINER. Oh, and I spent a while trying to make “becoming” work at 23a (it didn’t).
Stopped the clock at 08:00 dead. It was actually faster than that because there was an annoying ticket check but them’s the breaks, my fault for not pausing it.
FOI & COD BUSYBODY, lovely clue. Many thanks Hurley and curarist.
On the wavelength today fortunately, so quite quick. LOsI DASH and AIRBRUSH (COD). Also liked INFERIOR, PAROLE, COME TRUE, AIRLINER and FOI BUSYBODY.
Thanks vm, Curarist.
9:42. Everything perfectly fair and nothing too difficult but for some reason I became stuck on the SETTLE double def. As well as our own eminent ‘Legal eagle’, 19a reminded me of the much missed Horace Rumpole at Pomeroy’s.
Thanks to Hurley and Curarist
3:52. A gentle one for a Friday from the ever-reliable Hurley, I thought. No issues or hold-ups for me. Thanks Hurley and Curarist.
Slow to start and then completed more or less from the bottom up. Delayed by 8ac (which I was convinced started with ab) and 6dn at the end which pushed me into the club on 20 minutes. Couldn’t parse FORESTRY but it was obvious from the crossers.
FOI – 9ac OMIT
LOI – 6dn DASH
COD – 25ac COME TRUE
Thanks to Hurley and Curarist
A pleasure to see Hurley’s name on a Friday … but I found the NE corner hard, and was nowhere near getting AIRBRUSH or DASH, just too difficult. Biffed OGRE though NHO own goal = OG (context?). Thanks, Curarist.
An own goal in football or hockey is where a defender tries to clear the ball to safety and accidentally puts it into his own goal. I scored two in my hockey career, the goalkeeper wouldnt speak to me for ages.
Yes please forgive me, (even) I knew that. My question is: when/where do you ever see that indicated merely by the two letters OG?
In printed match reports the goal scorers are usually named, followed by the minutes into the match when they scored, if one of those goals is an “Own Goal” then OG is also added.
Ah – I see – thank you. So it is deemed to be part of GK that one sees printed reports of football matches. Interesting – and maybe curious?
Sports abbreviations are pretty common; over = o, bowled = b, run = r. If they used baseball, hit would = h, and error would = e.
10:13
Nice puzzle.
Thanks, C.
Very pleasant stroll. Couldnt parse 8a – usual failure to lift and separate, but apart from that all very quick. Thanks Hurley and Curarist.
8:31 here which is as fast as it’s been for some time. Didn’t spend the time to get the homophone of knot for BEAU but with the first 3 letters checked it biffed in.
Another DNF : FORESTRY, I had starting with FIRS, (trees in front), looking for a first- compound.
DASH is a triple definition, the clue actually contains a —.
Fully engaged to finish in 23 mins. Very good puzzle and not as hard as Friday might deliver. COD DASH triple def.
Thanks Hurley and Curarist
Thanks Curarist,
Can someone help explain in what context are style and DASH synonymous? Genuine question. I’ve been searching around and can’t find anything.
Is it to do with being “stylish” and “dashing”, or is it to do with typography in some way.
He had a certain style/dash about him that attracted others.
14:52
Mostly gentle but really couldn’t see LOI MASTER which required a 4 minute alphabet trawl.
I found this one to be very tough and I needed a lot of help to complete it, so much so that I’m reluctant to call it a solve. However, I did enjoy it.
First Lap: 7
Answered (no help): 17
Answered (with help): 9
DNF: Nil
Time: 44:59
Hurley in a benign mood I thought! Sailed through from BEAU to COME TRUE in 5:32. Looking at the rest of the comments, perhaps I was in the zone, having just received a Waterstones gift card from The Times for 29460, just in time for the beginning of my 76th trip around the sun tomorrow! Thanks Hurley and Curarist.
Congrats on the win. I just spent the two gift cards I won last year yesterday. They expire in 2 years. And Happy Birthday for tomorrow!
Thanks John 🙂
Happy birthday!
I’ve often wondered if there’s much point entering the prize crossword (on the rare occasions that I finish it) as I imagined there would be so much competition. So it’s interesting to see that both you and John have won recently. Congrats to you both. And happy birthday to you too 😊
In a Puzzles Newsletter last August, Mick Hodgkin said they get about 2,000 entries a week for the Saturday prize cryptic, and with five winners that should give you a 1 in 400 chance. And if you entered every week, you might expect to win once every 7.7 years. Although they are the same thing, I somehow find the 1 in 400 chance more attractive than the possible 7.7 year wait. Congrats to the two Johns
25:26 – rather slow, being slow to get the hang of several clues that were obvious once the pennies dropped, e.g. MASTER, AIRLINER, DASH, BEAU … Regarding DASH = STYLE I thought of “Cutting a dash” pehaps.
13:18, struggling at the top initially and then spending a long time on BEAU (which I accept means “dandy”, having looked it up, but I’d never heard it – is it in modern usage?)
Thank you for the blog!
I always enjoy a crossword set by Hurley, and usually end up around the ten minute target time. Today I was on form to finish a little faster in 8.53. LOI like quite a few others I suspect was MASTER.
My total time for the week was 46.15, giving me a daily average of 9.15. Only Thursdays effort was above my ten minute target, so all considered a good week for a change.
5:52
Pleasantly surprised that this came in at under 6 minutes – it seemed to take a lot longer than it actually did – including a cat-shaped interruption and pause (paws?) while the issue was dealt with. LOI was INFERIOR where needed all of the checkers to think of something that might have been straightforward to others.
Thanks Curarist and Hurley
A fairly straightforward solve, but an alpha-trawl for loi Master ‘dashed’ my outside chance of a sub-15. Settle was another DD that needed a bit of thought, as did Relief before being confirmed by the parsing. Incidentally, I suspect a Turkish official (3), well-known in these parts, might want a word with Curarist.
CoD to the IKEA Come True. Invariant
20 mins…
Took a while to get into, but made steady progress after that. Main hold ups were 2dn “Master”, 6dn “Dash” and 14dn “Airliner”.
FOI – 7ac “Arcade”
LOI – 14dn “Airliner”
COD – 12dn “Inferior”
Thanks as usual!
I didn’t find this hard, except for master. As an audio guy, I should have thought of master tape at once, but I didn’t.
Time: 9:07.
Alpha-trawl for MASTER, otherwise all went in fairly smoothly apart from last two DASH/AIRBRUSH which both took a few minutes to solve and parse. Many thanks both.
Initially tried to make FIRS…. for 17A. LOI MASTER which took a short while to parse. Otherwise no problems in an enjoyable puzzle. Thanks Hurley and Curarist
Threw the towel in @ 17 mins with Airbrush as my fail. Found it hard but enjoyable. Thanks Hurley and Curaist
That’s more like it. 8:11.Some compensation for our two DNFs this week. Thanks, Curarist and Hurley.
Enjoyable puzzle but held up by a few at the end, which took me to 20.52: AIRBRUSH and MASTER last to go in, neither of which I managed to parse. Thank you Hurley and Curarist.
12:39 with the final three minutes spent stuck in the NE corner on BEAU, AIRBRUSH, and DASH. Vowel clusters and consonant clusters are my downfall. The rest went very smoothly. I liked the looming bishop.
Thanks to Hurley and Curarist.
6.45. All pretty straightforward.
A smooth solve in 12 minutes. LOI DASH.
Some nice clues including NEE and ALE- excellent examples of the three letter variety.
David
13.24 Oh dear. Thinking of ageing and progressing, I spent several minutes at the end not understanding how BOARDING could be “getting on”. Thanks Curarist and Hurley.
Haha I had the same problem though not for as long. Something to do with the average age of the solving population maybe.
14:16 for me, with both AIR answers taking longer to come than they should have. AIRLINER strikes me as dated, from the days when people dressed up to go on a flight.
Thanks to Hurley and Curarist.
Back to paper after a few days of online solving as we’ve been away.
A nice friendly Friday I thought, and all done and dusted in under 10 minutes.
9:37 FOI Omit LOI Dash COD Keep (once I twigged that the ‘around’ related to the look and not the tower. A nice surface.)
Thanks Hurley and Curarist
Enjoyable puzzle completed with help on some clues.
11:51 with an alphabet trawl for LOI MASTER. BEAU was neat. COD to BLOOMING.
Many thanks Curarist for the blog and Hurley for the puzzle
7 after 20, 19 after: returning for another 20 later in the day.
Airliner – which century are we in
Thanks C and H
Despite getting BUSYBODY early I found it tricky to really get started, but when I did I moved on apace. And, for once, when the going got tough at the end I didn’t suffer any interminable brain freezes. Time = 29 minutes, which I think is just under average for me.
My L4I were all situated in the SE corner – AIRLINER, RELIEF, FORESTRY and SETTLE. We’ve had AIR for broadcast and LIE for story so many times now, but I just can’t make them stick in my brain. So frustrating!
Many thanks to Curarist and Hurley.
Did much better today. Some slower ones, but only AIRBRUSH foxed me. I was stuck with makeup in front of a mirror or some sort of surgery (not personally .. ). Actually isn’t Airbrushing removing imperfections not concealing. Enjoy weekend.
14:54 Airbrush Beau Boarding Airliner would sum it up.
TaCAH
13 mins
3 short on 15 x 15