Parksolve 38:06 (middling run, slow solve)
Again they’ve given me a Joker to blog and again I’ve taken longer than usual to solve it. I always do better with anagram-rich puzzles whereas this one contained just two. That’s not a criticism of course, we welcome all clue types in these parts and it certainly didn’t affect my enjoyment of the puzzle.
Hope you enjoyed it as well.
(In the clues, definitions are underlined and anagram indicators are in bold italics. In the explanations (ABC)* indicates an anagram of abc. Deletions and other devices are indicated accordingly, I hope).
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | What dealers might provide or it can get distributed by clubs (8) |
| NARCOTIC – (OR IT CAN)* + C (clubs)
An anagram to start us off, but don’t get used to them. |
|
| 5 | Record one chapter for very long literary work (4) |
| EPIC – EP (record) + I (one) + C (chapter) | |
| 9 | Well known day college near Windsor suffering setback? (5) |
| NOTED – DETON [D (day) + ETON (college near Windsor)] reversed (suffering setback) | |
| 10 | Breastbone of bird found in addition (7) |
| STERNUM – TERN (bird) in SUM (addition) | |
| 11 | Timidity of playwright and son taking in actor’s words (12) |
| COWARDLINESS – COWARD (playwright) + S (son) “taking in” LINES (actor’s words) | |
| 13 | Hard working hours embraced by company boss (6) |
| HONCHO – H (hard) + ON (working) + [H (hours) “embraced by” CO (company)] | |
| 15 | Group text message that’s explicit and in French (6) |
| SEXTET – SEXT (text message that’s explicit) + ET (and in French) | |
| 17 | Association of states with low prosperity (12) |
| COMMONWEALTH – COMMON (low) + WEALTH (prosperity) | |
| 20 | Trump, say, dislodging current Democrat here (7) |
| PRESENT – PRES |
|
| 21 | Silly mode of speech losing Mike time (5) |
| IDIOT – IDIO I think the use of silly as a noun might be more common in the UK than it is here. |
|
| 22 | Heads of Algeria, Libya, Somalia — and Oman too (4) |
| ALSO – Initial letters (heads) of Algeria, Libya, Somalia and Oman | |
| 23 | Opportunist with years in embassy office (8) |
| CHANCERY – CHANCER (opportunist) + Y (years) | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Nobody heard member of religious order (4) |
| NONE – Homophone (heard) of NUN (member of religious order) | |
| 2 | An element of durational proportion (5) |
| RATIO – Hidden in (an element of) duRATIOnal | |
| 3 | Cocktail past its sell-by date? (3-9) |
| OLD-FASHIONED – Double definition
The cocktail is made up of whiskey, bitters and some sweeteners. |
|
| 4 | Popular team not going out (6) |
| INSIDE – In (popular) + side (team) | |
| 6 | Following joke, man’s bitter (7) |
| PUNGENT – GENT (man) following PUN (joke) | |
| 7 | Quote about some current temporary accommodation (8) |
| CAMPSITE – CITE (quote) “about” AMPS (some current) | |
| 8 | Serious thought of return to occupation? (12) |
| DELIBERATION – Double definition
The second definition (de-liberation, geddit?) is slightly whimsical, as indicated by the question mark. |
|
| 12 | Freshly pick each ingredient for hummus (8) |
| CHICKPEA – (PICK EACH)*
Our second (and final) anagram for the day. |
|
| 14 | Son’s after new brown items of clothing (7) |
| NUMBERS – S (son) after N (new) + UMBER (brown) | |
| 16 | Exchange showing humour in school (6) |
| SWITCH – WIT (humour) in SCH (school) | |
| 18 | Junk food (5) |
| TRIPE – Double definition
Again the second definition is questionable! |
|
| 19 | Obstruct small river in Scotland (4) |
| STAY – S (small) + TAY (river in Scotland) | |
9:33
I was slow on this, too, I’m not sure why, other than taking much too long to get LOI NUMBERS.
This was my third consecutive 15 minutes solve, right on the extreme edge of my revised target, extended from 10 minutes a year or so ago to allow me more time to enjoy the scenery. There was no time for diversions today though as I struggled with a couple along the way (NUMBERS, for example) and then had a major hold-up on my LOI, DELIBERATION. I had realised early on that I wouldn’t manage to come up with the answer until I had every available checker in place.
7.25
Even when NUMBERS had to be right, I was slightly hesitant. And didn’t help myself assuming DELIBERATION started RE. Liked CHICKPEA.
Thanks Galspray and Joker.
After a quick start I ground to a crawl and was ready to throw in the towel around the 30 min mark when LOI DELIBERATION dropped in. Couldn’t see what NUMBERS has to do with items of clothing, DNK SEXT was a thing and spent far too long trying to parse CAMPSITE being determined to use CA for Circa and i for current. Thank you Galspray. Also, wasn’t convinced of ‘silly’ although idiom did not trouble. No problem with Old fashioned but wouldn’t think to apply to stale milk but more likely to apply to many items of clothing languishing in the back of a closet. A neighbour in US makes them regularly and garnishes with a Maraschino cherry. Very moreish. Thanks Joker.
Can’t say I’ve ever thought of garnishing old clothes with a Maraschino cherry, but to each their own!
I would be loath to confuse them with moth balls. 😀
It went pretty quickly in the top half with and slowing only due to discussion of the parsing. The bottom however was more trick and like others numbers was our LOI at 18.08 for a decent time for our funny friend, thanks Joker
Liked old fashioned, but then I DO like an old fashioned, especially made with bourbon.
Thanks Galspray
Galspray : assuming Australian dairy cattle are no different to those here in the UK, your milk will be fine unless it’s developed an unpleasant aroma when opened. Just had my morning cuppa using milk that’s 6 days out of date.
My only pause for thought came after I submitted, and came back to parse NUMBERS. It took me a minute or two before I saw “she was wearing a chic little number” as an example.
FOI EPIC
LOI NUMBERS
COD CHICKPEA
TIME 3:25
I was very slow to start this one, with only 4 answers entered at the 7 minute mark, but COMMONWEALTH unlocked the bottom half (oh, that meaning of low) and a flash of inspiration to get OLD-FASHIONED unlocked the rest for – in the end – a creditable 14:23 solve on what I thought was a tough puzzle. L2I were NUMBERS and then HONCHO, both only parsed after completion and with some difficulty – I can’t say I’ve ever referred to any of my clothes as a “number”.
Many thanks Galspray for the blog and a good weekend to all.
Slowish solve for me today but got there in the end after eventually connecting NUMBERS with clothing. COD DELIBERATION. Thanks Joker and Galspray.
I know it is Saturday but this was tough. I was slow with quite a few MERs along the way. I agree with earlier posters about NUMBERS. It had to be but still doesn’t make much sense to me.
I biffed a few e.g. CAMPSITE, DELIBERATION (thanks for parsing this and a few others).
I found myself quite impressed by some of the clever clues when I went through Galspray’s helpful blog to remind myself of my erratic, slow progress. However, I didn’t really enjoy this solve at the time and took around 25 mins. Joker doesn’t provide me with many laughs these days.
Glad to finish, but this was quite a struggle and I was slow to get into Joker’s groove. Top wasn’t too bad although DELIBERATION held out until the latter stage of my solve. Southwards, progress slowed considerably.
Nothing unfair, but I suspect that other QC only solvers will feel that there is a stronger than average 15×15 tinge to the clueing. Or that I am more than normally dim today.
A challenging puzzle which I was pleased to finish after 47 minutes.
Some of the definitions were well hidden such as HONCHO where I was looking for a word for Hard Working.
If only the clothing had been JUMPERS.
Thanks Joker and Galspray.
Very challenging. Too much for me. I got absolutely nowhere.
DNF DELIBERATION, CAMPSITE, SEXTET. Needed hints with other clues.
Mostly pretty slow. Liked HONCHO, COMMONWEALTH, and COWARDLINESS, but found this very difficult on the whole, so not enjoyable.
Thanks, Galspray.
Too much for me, needed four reveals, and then it was an “oh is that it” rather than an “Ahhh so thats how it works”. Thanks to Joker and galspray.
At the tougher end I thought. From NONE to DELIBERATION where, like Dvynys, I was delayed by surmising an R at the start. NUMBERS took a bit of sideways squinting. 9:17. Thanks Joker and Galspray.
I fear we are on the verge of non political correctness with cute little number. I can’t see how that could be worked to a plural. Possibly the Supremes or the Three Degrees in identical attire?
I digress. 12 solved without reveals of letters. Southeast remains blank. Got the pun but missed the gent. Was looking for script and bard rather than lines and Coward. Significantly better than I would have done a year ago.
Is my glass half full or half empty? That depends on if I’m topping it up or taking another slurp.
Thanks J and G
23:14 after a very slow start with the across clues. Finally got going and with some crossers in managed to see the long answers. NUMBERS was biffed and OLD FASHIONED not known as a cocktail. Not easy.
27 mins…
You can get a hint of how a puzzle is going to be by just one clue, and for me 14dn “Numbers” pretty much summed it up (no pun intended). Nothing too difficult, but enough to make me think more deeply across a number of clues. 8dn “Deliberation” took an age to see – primarily because I thought it would be being with “Re”.
FOI – 5ac “Epic”
LOI – 8dn “Deliberation”
COD – 11ac “Cowardliness”
Thanks as usual!
There was a lot to enjoy in this, which was a good job because it took nearly 30mins to solve, quite a few of which were spent on my loi at 8d.
I couldn’t remember the cocktail, even with the Old gift at the start, and so had to wait for Honcho to belatedly make an appearance before Fashioned rang a distant bell.
Like others, Numbers went in with a distinct twitch of the eyebrow, but Deliberation resisted several alpha-trawls until I finally accepted that it was just possible that it didn’t begin with Re– after all.
CoD Chancery was a good early spot, as was Cowardliness, but Commonwealth needed a Chickpea starter, even if the Tripe was (mercifully) not required. Invariant
7.30 Many of the clues needed two goes and I took a while to solve NONE and NARCOTIC at the end. Veering off topic, yesterday’s and today’s killer sudokus seemed much harder than usual. Thanks galspray and Joker.
Extremely difficult. Just short of 80 (!) minutes. Very few clues came easily. Long periods spent completely devoid of inspiration. No idea how I made it to the line, but I did in the end. Definitely one to forget.
Many thanks to Galspray for the blog.
I’m never much of a speed merchant but this took only 2 mins less than todays biggie. A significant chunk of that alpha-trawling for TRIPE which is stretching the definition of food somewhat, esp. to a veggy.
Serious cryptic stuff. HONCHO and COWARDLINESS were very good.
Thanks to galspray and Joker.
27.33 Ever so slow on last two in : DELIBERATION and OLD FASHIONED – alphabet trawl and any number of impossible words suggested on the way through.
We, too had MER on those clues as flagged above.
Did eventually get there.
Not a favourite, but then again, they can’t all be.
Happy weekend to all – and thanks to Galspray and Joker.
27 mins. Ouch. Though I was going to have to give in with a lot of the bottom half missing, but going back to some half thoughts on Honcho and writing in Stay helped unlock it. Was left with 11ac and 8d, and a prompt from Mr P bagged me those. Agree that numbers isn’t the first thing you think of for clothing, but not unheard of (e.g. a snazzy number, if you go back far enough).
Thanks Joker and Galspray
I’ve never got Joker’s wavelength and found this tedious work. I liked COWARDLINESS and CAMPSITE, but not much of the rest.
I think I carry the can here for having indicated a couple of days ago that it seemed to be heading to a fast week. It might well have been, since I don’t keep records, but today’s offering was definitely tricky IMHO. 15:21 for us with at least the last 3 of those spent on our LOI DELIBERATION. We hesitated with NUMBERS as well since the association with clothing seemed a stretch (I think I’ve only come across it in the phrase ‘a little black number’). Overall a good puzzle, though it’s certainly reasonable that others differ. Thanks to Galspray and Joker.
35mins for the slowest solve of the year (so far). Half that was spent alphatrawling DELIBERATION and the NHO OLD-FASHIONED plus CHANCERY. A puzzle is rarely enjoyable when you have to alphatrawl to finish and far too many of the definitions seem to need a bit of squinting to see them with the right perspective. Another look through the clues all these hours later and none of them stand out as enjoyable or funny in the way Joker puzzles once were.
Just scraping under the hour for the parksolve. Thanks to Galsprey for the blog
I ordered tripe once in Paris by mistake, thinking that “Gras-double à la lyonnaise” sounded nice because I liked foie gras. I was only 18. They brought me a dish of bicycle inner tubes covered in delicious sauce. I ate the sauce. None of this was the cause of TRIPE being LOI.
I was mostly fast but then stuck on DELIBERATION (tough) and NUMBERS (kept trying to get tan or ochre to work). All averaged out for a fairly standard 08:10 on what felt like a puzzle with a sting in the tail. COD to the superb CHICKPEA, take a bow Joker.
Many thanks Gallers and Joker.
NHO old-fashioned cocktail – only screwdriver and Hemingway came to mind.
Deliberation was hard because of the devilish twist. Just as well I had seen our Coward playwright before here, otherwise that would have been too hard too. I was surprised with the numbers as I knew them as musical numbers.
Thanks Galspray and Joker.
15:36 for me, which I thought was slow, but after reading the comments above, I’m quite pleased with. Didn’t spot the de-liberation parsing, but it had to be. The lack of anagrams bothered me not one iota, although my COD goes to CHICKPEA.
Thanks to Joker and galspray.