Time: 13:02. I’ll be interested to hear what others think, but I found this pretty hard; maybe it was just me though.
Most of the long answers weren’t gimmes and some such as 5d are uncommon words. Still, nothing overtly unfair and it’s OK to be given a stiffer challenge than usual every now and then so I’m not complaining.
Thanks to Hurley
Definitions underlined in bold, deletions and letters in wordplay not appearing in answers indicated by strikethrough.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Reduction of tension once sail date is rearranged (2-10) |
| DE-ESCALATION – Anagram (‘is rearranged’) of ONCE SAIL DATE | |
| 9 | Firework question interrupting sibling (5) |
| SQUIB – QU (‘question’) contained in (‘interrupting’) SIB (‘sibling’)
‘Question’ for Qu. is in Chambers. A SQUIB is a type of firework that makes a hissing noise before exploding, but Collins also has as the second sense a firework that does not explode. The idiomatic non-pyrotechnic “damp squib” therefore may be tautological. |
|
| 10 | Fool that is not disheartened or wise (7) |
| SAPIENT – SAP (‘Fool’) IE (‘that is’) N |
|
| 11 | Severe part of dialectic: it’s arduous, in retrospect (7) |
| DRASTIC – Reverse hidden (‘part of… in retrospect’) in dialetiC: ITS ARDuous
Amusing surface. I agree – any ‘part of dialectic’ sounds very arduous to me, and not just ‘in retrospect’. Hegel, Kant, Marx – a fun group of guys! |
|
| 12 | Device with blades, reversible (5) |
| ROTOR – ‘reversible’ indicating a palindrome
A bit of a chestnut but it still took me a while to spot it. |
|
| 13 | Rest as site redeveloped (6) |
| SIESTA – Anagram (‘redeveloped’) of AS SITE
There was a learned discussion about the time of day at which a SIESTA is taken in keriothe’s blog for Sunday Times 5204 by Robert Price (scroll down to about two-thirds of the way through the comments) a bit more than a week ago. |
|
| 14 | Gun shop is to license guards (6) |
| PISTOL – Hidden (‘guards’) in |
|
| 17 | Suitable punch (5) |
| RIGHT – Double definition
For the second definition, as in “Joe Frazier felled him with a powerful right”; more usually followed by eg “hook” but can be used by itself. This sense of “right” is in all three usual sources. |
|
| 19 | Stock policy ahead of time (7) |
| LINEAGE – LINE (‘policy’) then (‘ahead of’) AGE (‘time’)
‘Stock’ for ancestry or line of descent/lineage. “Line” for “policy” as in “What’s the Labour Party line on tariffs?” |
|
| 21 | Responsibility to include euro — you missed out — very demanding (7) |
| ONEROUS – ONUS (‘Responsibility’) containing (‘to include’) E |
|
| 22 | Record one making regular payment starting late (5) |
| ENTER – ‘Starting late’ to indicate a first letter deletion. |
|
| 23 | Elite troops admitting note works all right (12) |
| SATISFACTORY – SAS (‘Elite troops’) containing (‘admitting’) TI (‘note’) then FACTORY (‘works’) | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 2 | Teach Early English, introducing coin of past (7) |
| EDUCATE – EE (‘Early English’) containing (‘introducing’) DUCAT (‘coin of past’)
Both Collins and Chambers have ‘Early English’ for EE. I’m sure you’ll want to know this, but in NZ EE can also stand for “ewe equivalent”. I knew the word for ‘coin of past’, but not the details. Ducats were various gold or silver coins originating in Venice in the thirteenth century and used in many European countries up to as recently as the early twentieth century. |
|
| 3 | Bus isn’t out — it’s in need of repair — changes made (13) |
| SUBSTITUTIONS – Anagram (‘in need of repair’) of BUS ISNT OUT ITS | |
| 4 | Taking part in trials, a certain European region (6) |
| ALSACE – Hidden (‘Taking part in’) in triALS A CErtain | |
| 5 | Important changes with open distribution of share (13) |
| APPORTIONMENT – Anagram (‘changes’) of IMPORTANT ‘with’ OPEN | |
| 6 | Bungling at home, starts to embarrass people totally (5) |
| INEPT – IN (‘at home’) E |
|
| 7 | Not sharp or flat, as is to be expected (7) |
| NATURAL – Double definition
I’ve classified this as a double definition, but ‘Not sharp or flat’, in the musical sense, I suppose could be seen as a cryptic hint. |
|
| 8 | Worn American media boss (4) |
| USED – US (‘American’) ED (‘media boss’) | |
| 13 | Son, with sign of hesitation, promises to pay — not joking! (7) |
| SERIOUS – S (‘Son’) ER (‘sign of hesitation’) IOUS (‘promises to pay’) | |
| 15 | Expert leaving device to measure angles in farm vehicle (7) |
| TRACTOR – PRO (‘Expert’) deleted from (‘leaving’) PROTRACTOR (‘device to measure angles’)
My COD. The humble protractor (remembered from school geometry sets) contrasts with the hi-tech instrumentation seen in tractors these days. |
|
| 16 | Purchased land unfortunately knocked America to begin with (6) |
| ALASKA – ALAS (‘unfortunately’) K Referring to the purchase of Alaska by the USA from the Russian Empire in 1867. Again, something I was aware of, but know very little about. |
|
| 18 | One at wedding maybe judged correctly, we hear (5) |
| GUEST – Aural wordplay (‘we hear’) of GUESSED (‘judged correctly’) | |
| 20 | Merit attention? Not at first (4) |
| EARN – EAR (‘attention?’) N I spent a while trying to make ‘Not at first’ into a first letter deletion indicator for a word meaning ‘attention’. EAR in this sense of ‘attention’ as in a “sympathetic ear”, or “lend me your ear” = give me your attention. |
|
4:47. Roughly median difficulty by my estimation but maybe I just had a good day. Liked SAPIENT and ALASKA.
Nice one Hurley and thanks for the blog Bletch.
16:52, with one red square as I fumbled ALASKA as the LOI. 1A went in straight off and I had high hopes but after dotting around that final LINEAGE/ALASKA combo slowed me, as I put BONDAGE first and stared at it for a while. Glad to be under 20 minutes.
Thanks Bletch and Hurley
Whizzed through three quarters in record time then hit the buffers with ALASKA/LINEAGE. Threw in the towel at 15 minutes. Nicely played Hurley. Thanks BR for a helpful blog.
Me too
Really got engrossed in this. Wrecked it by overtyping a B with an N when inventing a SUnSTITUTION at the end. That ruined SQUIB too, which I’d been pleased to get on first sight. SATISFACTORY was LOI and was a mystery until GUEST finally went in. APPORTIONMENT was made hard by whacking in SAlIENT before a necessary revisting made it clear. About my average time but with average typing accuracy too.
10 minutes. Nice puzzle.
Took a lot of thinking then a trip to the thesaurus to get line=policy, which then dropped Alaska as LOI in 24.23.
Had the long anagrams written out but took lots of crossers before they revealed themselves, not helped by assuming sibling must be sis so having a rogue s in there!
Thanks Hurley and BR
6:25
I biffed the four long anagrams, trusting the anagrist was all there, and never bothered to parse them. ‘Not sharp or flat’ didn’t seem cryptic; is there a fourth category of notes?
Microtonal… used to good and spooky effect in Panufnik’s Lullaby.
I felt decidedly 7d solving this one, particularly in the SE where the LINEAGE, EARN, ALASKA combo put up stiff resistance.
Every time NATURAL for musical notes comes up I have to re-learn it so hopefully this time it will stick.
Started promisingly with DE ESCALATION and finished with PISTOL in a sluggish 9.05. COD to ALASKA.
Thanks to BR and Hurley
7d? Or 6d? Not that I’d ever suggest anyone was the latter.
Well spotted – definitely 6d.
I thought you were being self-deprecating and referring to the Shakespearean sense! (Collins for NATURAL “22. obsolete
a person lacking intelligence”)
Oh no! Now you’ve drawn attention to that meaning of Natural, I fully expect it to appear in a QC sometime soon – there are setters who think that an obsolete meaning ranking 22nd in Collins’ list is absolutely fair game for a gentle QC.
Anything in Shakespeare is absolutely fair game in my book, Cedric!
Rome & Juliet:
“Why, is not this better now than groaning for love?
now art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo; now art
thou what thou art, by art as well as by nature:
for this drivelling love is like a great natural,
that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole.”
I’ve never parsed that final line before. I’ve only ever seen the play, never read it. Being a dyslexic scientist english is not my strong suite…but the dyslexia really helps with anagrams.
Alas that would be pushing my vocabulary/knowledge of Shakespeare way to far 😒.
I didn’t find this as hard as our blogger, as my time of 9:11 indicates, though this was much helped by getting the long anagrams quickly – including 1a as my FOI which certainly set the tone. Thereafter a steady solve, though I did not parse my LOI EARN.
APPORTIONMENT is indeed a not-very-common word, but the surface for the clue is so good that it gets my COD.
Many thanks BR for the blog.
Long anagrams all dropped straight in and I was flying till I hit the bottom … couldn’t see GUEST, I think because I wasn’t really confident in RIGHT and was second guessing the G, until I finally had SATISFACTORY. That then also gave ALASKA leaving me staring at LINEAGE (trawl) and finally EARN (never understood, thinking it was a first letter deletion).
So a fast start ended up in a very average 07:24 and an OK Day. COD to the very topical DE-ESCALATION.
Many thanks Hurley and Bletchers.
Enjoyed this and it felt easier than my approximately par time of 9:03 suggests. Thanks all.
Yes … hmm … all somehow doable but some odd parsings, thank you BR. Puzzled by ALASKA but upon consideration I do vaguely recall something about it being purchased. Missed PISTOL staring at me, and attention = EAR, so that’s how it worked. And hoped for the best that fool = SAP; it’s not in all dictionaries. NHO sibling = SIB (expected SIS), or question = QU, but had to be. Thanks Hurley.
Off in search of sun, see you all next week.
Literally just followed this site’s link to the OED, put SAP in the search bar and 4th definition is “a simpleton, a fool”.
25:30 – rather a struggle to get the long words and put in APPORTIONMENT with a shrug – NHO. Thanks to our blogger for explaining a couple I couldn’t parse.
A good QC that I finished in 13.59. As did others, I bunged in the longer anagrams without checking the anagrist carefully and I hesitated over ‘line’ in my LOI LINEAGE.
Some MERs: SIB for sibling is a step too far IMO but it had to be SQUIB. I didn’t warm to the ‘you’ for ‘u’ missed out of Euro. And EE? – it had to be EARLY ENGLISH I suppose but it seemed bit desperate to me.
Thanks both.
Was pleased to get the long anagrams quite quickly but biffed the much shorter RIGHT, ENTER and EARN. Thanks BR for the helpful blog and Hurley for the testing but fair QC.
Managed a surprisingly quick (fm) 14:15 today, as I bumbled my way through, not quite sure of some of the answers until they all seemed to fit together.
Pi ❤️
19.57 – leg poised above SCC space.
1A very slow to arrive, which was not helpful.
Hesitated about whether RIGHT was indeed so.
Having read the excellent blog, now wondering what took us so long. We put it down to the masterful clueing- all fair, all solutions there to be found, yet not so easy to find.
Thanks to all.
21 in 30 and slightly annoyed at missing two hiddens, one of which would have likely led to the final solve of 10ac.
FOI across 1ac and FOI down 3d.
5d and 23ac took a bit longer.
CoD 15d because it just reminded me of my dad and his awful sense of humour eg steak and kidney wasted in English town (I hear added to make it a QC clue).
10.47. I found this harder than usual.
Biffed “earn” the. thought it was yearn (attention?) without the first letter.
Thanks for a fun and fair QC – 4:39 and fully enjoyable right through.
9:57 for the solve which is still quicker than this year’s average. Sped up once I unravelled the four longs one about two minutes before that.
Only got three of the Across clues on first go through but 8/12 Downs went straight in – helped by seeing EDUCATE(d) in QC book #6 yesterday (Tracy #1439 “English coin of yesteryear, editor learned”).
LOI ENTER with fingers crossed as while I could see record=enter, I didn’t want to trawl to confirm the Renter wordplay and miss the sub-10.
Thanks to BR and Hurley
Very slow. Needed hint for LINEAGE and EARN, as I was exhausted by then. LOI/PDM/COD ALASKA. Yes, I kind of biffed the long anagrams.
I also liked INEPT, SAPIENT, SIESTA and SERIOUS, among others.
Thanks vm for blog, BR.
9:57
I’m another in the ‘thought this was on the harder side’ category, but then, while I thought APPORTION_____ for 5d, I couldn’t imagine what would finish the word. Eventually, and with the final T in place, I wrote out all the letters and was underwhelmed. I liked ALASKA.
Thanks BR and Hurley
8:06
Not too tricky. The crossers made for quite a few biffs and/or half-checked anagrams. LOI LINEAGE.
The comments so far seem to be split on whether this was fairly straightforward or difficult. For me it was on the tougher side of average, and I felt I was on form to finish in 9.31. Hurley’s puzzles are rarely straightforward but always fair, and I thought this was a particularly good puzzle.
I found it quite hard and eventually gave up on lineage and earn. Nothing unfair though, NHO Sib or Qu for question, but it couldn’t be anything else. Does anyone have an example of Qu for question anywhere outside of a dictionary? Thanks Hurley and BR.
I agree, it’s usually just Q (as in Q&A), but that does rather limit the word options. . .
5.21
I thought this was on the tricky side too. Long anagrams not my forte but saw these ones quite quickly. Both vg clues imho.
Thanks BR and Hurley.
I’m not afraid to say that I found this very difficult. So much so that I lost interest in it and gave up. No excuses from me.
I enjoyed this: all the long anagrams seemed to come very easily. However, I biffed quite a few and only parsed them afterwards. And I failed to parse RIGHT or EARN. Slowed down in the bottom half and finished in 15.11 – which is quick for me!
Not easy, finished in 14 minutes. I struggled a bit with the long ones.
LOI NATURAL as I too can’t seem to learn the musical meaning. Actually the real LOI was ENTER which I had left for later.
Hard to pick a COD. I’ll go for SQUIB. Full marks to the setter for including this unusual word. And sibs is common parlance in our family.
David
Despite a flying start with De-escalation and associated offspring, my last few again conspired to push me into a window seat – I’m beginning to spot an unwelcome theme here. The irony is that clues like Sapient and Alaska, that many found difficult, went in without too much trouble, whereas Enter and Earn were for me decidedly slow to surface. Loi Right had to be the answer, but I still hesitated over the punch bit for a long time.
CoD to the parsing of Onerous, albeit I’m not normally a huge fan of ‘sounds like’ letters. Invariant
Flew through the top half (except 1ac) but the bottom proved much more challenging. Eventually finished in 25 minutes spread over two sessions. Couldn’t parse ENTER. Had to write out the long anagrams and even then they didn’t come quickly.
FOI – 9ac SQUIB
LOI – LINEAGE
COD – 10ac SAPIENT
Thanks to Hurley and BR
From DE-ESCALATION to GUEST in 6:48. I was held up at the end by RIGHT and GUEST. ALASKA also required some thought. Thanks Hurley and BR.