A nice old chewy one from one of our tougher setters.
I managed a fairly paltry four acrosses on a first pass (10,18,21,22), and there was a lot of hopping around the grid for the remainder. An abundance of top-notch misdirection had me frequently looking for both wordplay and definitions in the wrong place. A bit more GK than we’re accustomed to, on top of that, but these were mostly clued about as fairly as you could hope for.
Definitely not a beginner QC, and more of a bridge to the 15×15: if that’s not your thing, then that’s perfectly ok, and roll on tomorrow! I finished up in 10:53, a good four minutes slower than yesterday, and very much enjoyed the extra challenge – many thanks to Bjorn!
| 1 | Champagne producer where I’m stacking bottles (5) |
| REIMS – is “bottled”/contained by wheRE IM Stacking | |
| 4 | Loud reprimand is frightening (7) |
| FEARFUL – F (Forte = loud) EARFUL (reprimand) | |
| 8 | Truss regularly caught some Renaissance vibe here (7) |
| TUSCANY – T r U s S “regularly”, C(aught) ANY (some) | |
| 9 | Stuffy actor with many Oscar nominations (5) |
| CLOSE – tricky double definition, the latter referring to Glenn Close, who has 8 Oscar nominations. | |
| 10 | Open fragrance — a special gift! (12) |
| FRANKINCENSE – FRANK (open) INCENSE (fragrance) | |
| 12 | Barbarian periodically astute? I’ll say! (6) |
| ATTILA – the “periodic” letters of the next three words. | |
| 13 | Animated films in franchise kill time (3,3) |
| ICE AGE – to kill = to ice (in dated US slang); age = time. Well, I have heard of the 2002 film, but was unaware of the sprawling franchise it has become: at around $6bn, its total revenue is about the same as Shrek, The Phantom of the Opera, and My Little Pony, but a mere twentieth of the largest franchise, the behemoth that is Pokemon. | |
| 16 | Compliment revolutionary lute/organ act (12) |
| CONGRATULATE – anagram (revolutionary) of LUTE ORGAN ACT | |
| 18 | Foreman ignoring last blunder (5) |
| GAFFE – GAFFER (foreman) ignoring the last. | |
| 20 | Moggy following his fresh catch from the river? (7) |
| CATFISH – CAT (moggy) F(ollowing) and an anagram (fresh) of HIS | |
| 21 | One employed to add depth to channel (7) |
| DREDGER – cryptic definition | |
| 22 | German river runs by hotel, one in Berlin (5) |
| RHEIN – R(uns) by H(otel), EIN (one, in Berlin) | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Liqueur served up in Andorra (if at a restaurant) (7) |
| RATAFIA – “served up in” andorrA IF AT A Restaurant. I wouldn’t have been able to tell you what this is: it’s a fruit liqueur, or brandy with added fruit, or almond flavouring, or a biscuit/cake. I’m eagerly waiting for a Ratafia Four Ways when Masterchef has to scrape the barrel with a wordplay dessert round. | |
| 2 | Convenient product for those escaping the daily grind? (7,6) |
| INSTANT COFFEE – cryptic definition. Of course, grinding coffee is far from a grind (assuming you’re not doing it by hand). | |
| 3 | Part responsible for incendiary atmosphere in the Chamber? (5,4) |
| SPARK PLUG -cryptic definition… or in fact a rather helpfully descriptive definition, if you’re as ignorant of the inner workings of engines as me. | |
| 4 | Female being economical with the truth in economy? (6) |
| FLYING – F(emale) LYING (being untruthful) | |
| 5 | French classic automobile with the top down (3) |
| ARC – CAR (automobile) with the top letter moved to the bottom. I originally thought this must be some sort of oblique reference to Joan of Arc, but no, it’s horse racing: a “classic” is a term for a major flat horse race, and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, known as the Arc for short, is apparently Europe’s richest flat race. | |
| 6 | Florida OAPs organised surprise on vacation in La-La land (5,8) |
| FOOLS PARADISE – anagram (organised) of FLORIDA OAPS; and SE (SurprisE “on vacation” = vacate the centre letters). LA-LA LAND can be either Los Angeles or a state of blissful unawareness, with the OED’s earliest citation for both being 1979 – surprisingly recent. | |
| 7 | Prune head of smooth and shiny allium (4) |
| LEEK – “prune the head of ” SLEEK (smooth and shiny) | |
| 11 | Meeting to extract answer from accountant having lost billions (9) |
| ENCOUNTER – a double deduction from BEAN COUNTER (accountant), A for Answer and B for Billions. Very neat! | |
| 14 | Before wife and husband uncovered long novel by Butler (7) |
| EREWHON – ERE (before), W(ife), H(usband), ON (LONG “uncovered”). Very tough if you haven’t heard of it. An approximation of NOWHERE backwards, which is a play on Thomas More’s Utopia, meaning NO PLACE in Greek. Also known as a place of frightfully expensive smoothies and foodstuffs in the US. | |
| 15 | Impudent language beginning to rile cup holder (6) |
| SAUCER – SAUCE (impudent language) R (“beginning” to Rile) | |
| 17 | No spring chicken my boss … silver on top (4) |
| AGED – ED[itor] (my/the setter’s boss) with AG (silver) on top | |
| 19 | Work unit, say, crushing resistance (3) |
| ERG – EG (for example/say) crushing/embracing R(esistance) | |
The NE corner was just too much for me, and I’d NHO EREWHON (there was no way I was going to believe that is a word) for probably my worst DNF in a long time.
I don’t understand how DREDGER is cryptic, is it not just a straight definition? I over-thought it trying to find some wordplay before just giving up and putting it in…
Re dredger: cryptic definitions often rely on a sort of pun or play on a single word/idea (like the “daily grind” in 2d). Here the surface reading is meant to make you think of a TV channel facing accusations of dumbing down, but I do agree the “water channel” reading dominates.
22 minutes. I found this tough. Started off slowly and things became even slower as I crawled through the clues, the several minutes spent for my LOI SAUCER taking me in to the welcoming embrace of the SCC. The cryptic defs didn’t help and I had to resort to biffing ENCOUNTER before working out the inventive wordplay.
Picks were the surface for AGED and the ‘Renaissance vibe here’ def for TUSCANY.
Thanks to Bjorn and Roly
14 minutes. Had no idea why ENCOUNTER or ICE AGE.
Followed the wordplay to the unknown ‘prewhon’ before hitting my cultural level with ICE AGE and seeing it was really the unknown EREWHON by the unknown Samuel Butler. Hadn’t heard of RATAFIA either and even though it was a hidden wrote the letters out in the wrong order to make FRANKINCENSE harder than it needed to be – and I needed those checkers. Despite being from Wincanton horse racing is another area of ignorance so ARC went in once only one letter was missing to complete the grid in 19.24. A struggle at the time but more fun in retrospect.
Really tough for me finishing in 23:07. Thanks rolytoly for the explanation of arc, without which I would have never guessed.
A slow but methodical solve with a pleasing 21.38 at the finish. Needed Roly’s help for the parsing of a couple and a trip to Google for the novel.
As said above, lots of misdirection but rewarding when unpicked. Liked saucer which is the most obvious cup holder once you have the right cup in mind!
Thanks
22:00…Met up with BR in SCC. Took an ice age to get close to Erewhon Catfish sparkplug arc…
TaRAB
By coincidence- it is Glenn Close’s birthday today.
I join others in being slow – a 14:13 completion – but differ a bit perhaps as I thought this a very odd crossword with weak clues, overcomplicated wordplay, obscure GK and loose definitions. From the top, REIMS is not a champagne producer but a city in the champagne region; FEARFUL does not mean frightening, it means frightened; TUSCANY is hardly the only place to experience the Renaissance vibe; Glenn CLOSE as an actress (note, not actor), and needing to know she has multiple Oscar nominations – 8 in fact, and none successful, the highest number for anyone not winning an Oscar – is not even close to GK … and that is just the first 4 across clues. ICE AGE also required an unusual level of GK (fortunately it was very biffable); RHEIN is in German (we call it the Rhine); I’ve NHO RATAFIA (but accept that for others it may be an everyday common word); ENCOUNTER was a classic biff-then-parse (eventually); and EREWHON completed a run of pretty obscure GK.
Enough rant. I’m sure others will find this puzzle refreshingly different, quirkily amusing and delightfully challenging. But it was not for me.
Many thanks Roly for the blog.
I agree with all your comments and criticisms, especially of REIMS, FEARFUL, TUSCANY, and CLOSE – very sloppy clues. I found EREWHON one of the easier clues (having been introduced to it at school) but any supposed QC that includes Samuel Butler’s book as ‘general knowledge’ is beyond reasonable.
In agreement with your comments.
The actor/actress thing is an interesting modern PC dilemma. Because many of the females like to refer to themselves as Actors until it gets to Oscars time when they want to win the Best Actress award.
I don’t even know who Samuel Butler is, let alone any of his novels. The clues was constructable but when that’s dumped into a puzzle with many other tough bits of clueing it feels less gettable.
Good morning, Cedric! What a very splendid rant, I hope you enjoyed writing it as much as I did reading it. A word or two in the interests of balance towards our setter.
“REIMS is not a champagne producer” – well, it’s not a house, if that’s what you mean. But it is utterly inseparable from champagne – it is the base for (among others) Veuve Clicquot, Ruinart, Taittinger and Pommery, all of which do their blending, ageing and marketing in Reims, as do many lesser houses. And Reims has literally hundreds of kilometres of crayères (tunnels) through the underlying chalk, making it the largest champagne storage hub in the world.
“FEARFUL does not mean frightening” – Collins “fearful in British English – 2. causing fear; frightening”. Hebrews 10:31 – “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God”.
“TUSCANY is hardly the only place to experience the Renaissance vibe” – well no, but it is where the Renaissance originated.
Glenn Close having multiple Oscar nominations “not even close to GK” – that’s probably true! And I agree with you about actor/actress, though I think that ship has sailed. But it was an easy answer because she’s a very famous actress/tor, even if you don’t know about the nominations thing.
ICE AGE “an unusual level of GK” – I think it’s pretty well-known, because even I’d heard of it (always the trouble with GK). See also RATAFIA and EREWHON.
RHEIN/Rhine – agreed that the Anglicised form is normal. But it wasn’t hard to work out? All you had to know was that the German for “one” is “ein”.
ENCOUNTER was a brilliant clue!
Reims is also famous for catching out non-native speakers. . .
Spot on with REIMS, FEARFUL and TUSCANY. Thought CLOSE was fair. Was pleased to learn about EREWHON. Not even going to go there on time!! Tough day.
I’d suggest that a ‘Fearful’ racket coming from the exhaust is more frightening than frightened.🙂
EREWHON is an interesting satire of humanitarian theories of punishment while exploring the possible ill effects of intelligent machines. That and the ARC played into my areas of interest so I was able to sneak in under ten minutes.
Tough, but I enjoyed the work out.
Some of the GK, such as ICE AGE and EREWHON, was new to me and some was vaguely familiar but needed lots of checkers before the penny dropped i.e. SPARK PLUGS and FOOLS PARADISE.
Started with REIMS and finished with EREWHON in 9.19. CsOD to ARC and ENCOUNTER.
Thanks to Rolytoly and Bjorn
DNF. DNE.
Pi ❤️
Nice? Took over an hour to get two-thirds, totally stumped by remaining eight.
Ah: thanks, Roly – no wonder: NHO Glenn Close, film ICE AGE (thought of it since it clearly fits, but no idea what all that about “franchise” means), race ARC, allium, or ERG.
So no chance today!
In fact: what does it mean, please, for a film to “become” a franchise? NHO this.
Furthermore: the clue says “films”, but ICE AGE is one film? – or not?
Thanks also to Cedric for confirming MERs at REIMS, FEARFUL and RHEIN.
Is DREDGER in any way cryptic?
SPARK PLUG was fairly obvious, but what is “Chamber” all about?
Misery.
Combustion chamber…
The franchise bit is where they collect the cash from selling the merchandising rights to companies such as Lego and Mattel.
Very difficult, but managed to finish in 26:05. Fortunately knew EREWHON (Butler’s “The Way of All Flesh” is excellent), but not RATAFIA or ICE AGE (eventually worked out) and needed rolytoly’s explanations for CAR, ENCOUNTER and FOOLS PARADISE. Hard work.
31:58, and given the number of clues I put in based on parsing rather than definition, a surprising lack of any red squares. NHO RATAFIA, or EREWHON. Did not know a LEEK was an allium, or that ARC was French horse race. Still enjoyed it, perhaps because of that. FOI REIMS, LOI EREWHON.
Thanks
Thanks Bjorn and Roly
I found this very tough for a QC. It took me just over 17 minutes (with one accidentally overwritten character causing a red square). NHO EREWHON, got it LOI from crossers and wordplay, NHO RATAFIA, although suspect I’ve seen it before and it seemed obvious from the clue. Shrugged my shoulders at CLOSE, I have heard of her (Fatal Atraction I think?) so just assumed she must have multiple Oscar nominations. I’m still not sure why TUSCANY is “Renaissance vibe here”?, but again the wordplay gave it to me. Maybe I need to research that one.
That research didn’t last long, apparently “The Renaissance began in Tuscany in Central Italy and centered in the city of Florence.” – thanks Wikipedia.
Tough but very enjoyable. There was quite a lot of looking round corners today – as Roly says, one of those puzzles to warn us of the sort of thing that lurks in the 15.
I’ve seen EREWHON referenced quite a bit recently in the media – its “Book of the Machines” predicts a Darwinian struggle between humans and artificial intelligence. (We lose.) I always preferred The Way of All Flesh, though.
INSTANT COFFEE was v good, ho ho! But on reflection I’m giving my COD to the brilliant ENCOUNTER. All green in 08:01 for a Very Good Day.
Many thanks Bjorn and Roly.
I managed to finish but was in the SCC at the end. Bjorn is very clever and tricksy but really needs to get a sense of perspective and some tighter definitions when setting puzzles described as QCs. Horses for courses?
I surprised myself by persevering but the pleasure gained from seeing through some of the misdirection and arcane features was outweighed by annoyance at the overall experience.
I have added some of my beefs as a response to Cedric’s excellent post above and will not catalogue the rest.
Thanks to Roly for a fine blog,
14:33
Delayed by initially spelling putting EREHWON for EREWHON. Seeing that and FOOLS PARADISE made me wonder if there was some sort of theme, but I can’t see any more words that would fit it.
Thanks Roly and Bjorn
A toughie. I always have trouble spelling FRANKINCENSE and today was no different despite the angrist giving all the letters. Almost twelve minutes and a pink square. Thanks Bjorn and Roly.
20:23 for the solve. Nice to see old acquaintances in the SCC.
Thanks to Cedric for expressing the majority of my complaints to which I’d add I had no idea what an Allium is, who Butler is or his novel and a 3rd French answer with the ARC. And that throwing the old “GAFFE/R” chest nut in doesn’t mircaculously turn it into a decent QC.
Thanks to Roly for the blog and harumphingly to Bjorn for the puzzle. There were a couple of clues I liked in INSTANT-COFFEE and SPARK-PLUG.
Nice to see you – it’s been a while – although I tend not to visit as much myself.
12:43 with a break in the middle
WOW the quitch says I did very well. The break is extremely helpful for the subconscious to work on clues
TYTBAS
7:23. Very tricky for a QC. LOI LEEK after CLOSE. I liked INSTANT COFFEE. Thank-you Bjorn and Roly-toly.
A slow grind and definitely not instant. I eventually finished up all correct in 35 minutes. The NE quadrant remained obstinately blank until I at last managed to solve the anagram at 6dn which unlocked FEARFUL. I was lucky in that I had vaguely heard of RATAFIA and EREWHON and being a German speaker I know how the river is spelt in that language. I had no idea what was going on with CLOSE – I was expecting a word with two o’s in it. Similarly bemused by ICE AGE. I also spent some time looking for the wordplay in DREDGER before eventually deciding there wasn’t any.
FOI – 8ac TUSCANY
LOI – 13ac ICE AGE
CODs – 2dn INSTANT COFFEE and 3dn SPARK PLUG.
Thanks to Bjorn and Rolytoly
Coming to it tired, 10:40. This was a genuinely tricky QC, and I really enjoyed it. So many great cryptic definitions.
I did find that there was a bit of NHO: EREWHON and RATAFIA, but they were fairly clued.
The trickiest QC ever if my time of 26.34 is anything to go by. Even then I was surprised to find it was all correct when I checked the answers, as ICE AGE and EREWHON were put in more in hope than anything. At one time I had LANGER (as in Bernhard Langer the golfer) in mind as the answer to 15dn, maybe referencing the Ryder Cup, but ‘impudent’ would have been superfluous in the clueing.
Where to start? I am in the camp that doesn’t think this is an appropiately pitched QC. However having said that I have learned quite a lot today. I would never have got RATAFIA had it not been a hidden. I thought ARC was something to do with Joan. I congratulated myself on seeing INSTANT COFFEE (a clue I really really liked) and then failed to apply the same logic to SPARK PLUG (got there with checkers). CLOSE wasn’t an issue as I am a bit of a movie buff. EREWHON was a complete unknown and I cheated by looking up novels by Butler. This then corrected a biffed but very clever clue RHone (silly me – not a river that flows through Germany). I biffed ENCOUNTER too and I can see why I never parsed it (as an accountant I do not consider myself a bean counter) and my LOI was ICE AGE. I think perhaps EREWHON to ICE AGE is a bit of a stretch for many QC solvers. Thanks Roly. 10:37 with a cheat.
As soon as Reims and Arc went in I guessed we were in for a tricky solve, and so it proved. Progress was slow but steady until, having never come across Butler, the best part of five minutes were spent trying to work out how *c*/a*p could be a film franchise. Ice Age (🙄) finally forced nho Prewhon to become nho Erewhon. Add in the German spelling for Rhein/Rhine, and the SE corner was, at best, distinctly unfriendly.
CoD Instant Coffee, the parsing of Encounter and the satisfaction of a completion a little north of 25mins are having to do quite a lot of heavy lifting. Invariant
I gave up with three answers left to complete.
I really did not enjoy this puzzle at all. Bjorn seems to have a completely different idea as to what a cryptic clue is when compared to the more regular setters here. I really cannot put my finger on it to explain exactly what I mean. But for me, Bjorn is probably going to end up on my list of setters to avoid.
DNF.
Well that was a slog and a half, and I was surprised to come in as “quickly” as I did with 18:03.
Parsed eventually after completing the puzzle: SPARK PLUG, EREWHON, ATTILA, SAUCER. I vaguely remembered the book from my childhood – I never read it but was annoyed that it’s almost but not quite “nowhere” backwards, so it must have lodged in a lobe somewhere. Forty years later it’s finally paid off.
Couldn’t parse at all: REIMS, CATFISH, DREDGER, ARC. Not often these days that I need to refer to the blog at all, much less to this extent. Still a bit nonplussed by DREDGER, though clearly the shortcoming is mine. I’ve already forgotten what ARC is, which may be a personal record.
Thank you for the blog!
FoI Close
Dredger
Instant coffee
Saucer
Erg bifd
Gaffe
Aged
Rhein
Reims
Acceptable for me given the apparent level of difficulty.
DNS.
Did not start.
Conceded defeat when I realised the level of difficulty.
Much too hard for me.
7.41 DNF. I’ve had a dreadful week at this so I was pleased to get a quick solve. Only to have a pink square for FRANKINSENSE. Bah. I liked ENCOUNTER. Thanks rolytoly and Bjorn.
At toughie which I duly completed in two sittings. Two NHOs (EREWHON and RATAFIA) but the wordplay for both was very kind so no complaints here. Stuck at the end on POI LEEK (asked Mr F who supplied the answer immediately) and then LOI CLOSE became obvious (btw I would recommend Dangerous Liaisons which she starred in with John Malkovich and Michelle Pfeiffer – fantastic). Lots to like along the way including ENCOUNTER (phew), INSTANT COFFEE and SPARK PLUG, but COD to FLYING for the misdirection and smile. I had to persevere but thoroughly enjoyed the process. Many thanks both.
DNF ICE AGE, NHO films, and I had to look up Samuel Butler to get EREWHON, which I v vaguely remember now.
Took a while to get ARC. Again I do know the Prix classic race but it isn’t GK unless you are horsey, imo.
Biffed ERG, and also CLOSE, having been held up by biffing Lily for allium.
PDM FRANKINCENSE. FOI RATAFIA.
Actually, I kind of enjoyed this obscure non-quick crossword. Liked FEARFUL, SAUCER, INSTANT COFFEE and ATTILA. Ah, FLYING SAUCER!
Thanks for vital blog, Roly.
I enjoyed this but not a puzzle for beginners.
Even though I did not have all the GK , I was able to work out LOI EREWHON for example.
I too am annoyed by actresses becoming actors but that’s the way it is; a slightly raised eyebrow at CLOSE.
17 minutes in total and lots of good clues. COD to RHEIN for specifying the German spelling.
A sophisticated challenge.
David
Curious isn’t it. Apparently women don’t like to be called chairman as it implies masculinity, but apparently do want to be called actors?
25 mins…
Although this was obviously tough, I enjoyed the more cryptic style – particularly 2dn “Instant Coffee” and 3dn “Spark Plug”. Like a few above, I was struggling to the see the cryptic element of 21ac “Dredger” but it really couldn’t have been anything else. Last 5 minutes was spent trying to pull together 14dn “Erewhon” which I had never heard of.
FOI – 12ac “Attila”
LOI – 14dn “Erewhon”
COD – 3dn “Spark Plug”
Thanks as usual!
Far too tough for me, finally got all but three but not very enjoyable and all the same eyebrow dancing as everyone else. Particularly dredger, anyone with any sort of nautical knowledge will immediately think of a dredger as what you use to deepen a channel, not even vaguely cryptic. Combustion chambers have been called cylinders since at least WW1. One additional one, nice to see a scientific clue in what is usually a desert, sadly the erg was replaced by the joule in 1948, even someone with a physics degree may well have not heard of it. I know that some of the bloggers are regular 15x15ers, I wonder if anyone who isn’t actually enjoyed this, if not then it is a little greedy, two for you and none for us. Thanks to both.
Although I had all the necessary GK, I found this a bit of a slog, but ultimately satisfying. I biffed a few, parsing afterwards, and thought that 5d was something to do with Joan of Arc, even though I’ve heard of the horse race (I didn’t know that it is often referred to as simply Arc). Loose definitions and synonyms don’t bother me. I regard them as simply hints/pointers.
Thanks to Bjorn and rolytoly
Abandoned ship after 15 mins, rememebered EREHWON , though
I got held up by my last two in, SAUCER (over thinking of cup bearers to the gods) and SPARK PLUG. I thought it had to be flag and only got there when SPARK suddenly occurred to me – oh, THAT kind of chamber
Otherwise, slow, but steady. I had the GK.
Yes, hard yards today, both here and with the 15×15. I was pleased to finish this one, fully parsed, which nearly took me into the SCC, and I abandoned the biggie after an hour with a few to go, because I really need to get on and do a bit of gardening while the sun is shining.
As Roly says, a lot of this was borderline 15×15 territory and I sympathise with solvers who might find this tough. I had all the GK, but didn’t much care for CLOSE, ICE AGE or EREWHON – at least not here. But overall it was worth the head scratching – there was also quite a lot to enjoy, like REIMS, INSTANT COFFEE, SPARK PLUG and ENCOUNTER.
17:24 FOI Reims, LOI Spark plug COD Fool’s paradise
Thanks Bjorn and Roly
8:08
I enjoyed it. At the chewier end of the QC spectrum, for sure, and slightly slower than my average of 7m47s for Bjorn. I too, had only four in from the first pass of acrosses (8, 12, 18, 21), the GK fit fairly well – haven’t read EREWHON but have an old copy (No. 20 in the Penguin Books series i.e. VERY early), that has been sitting on the shelf for years. A little more time required for SPARK PLUG, didn’t know that REIMS was anything to do with champagne, and no idea how to parse ENCOUNTER.
Thanks Roly and Bjorn
Thanks
I suppose everyone’s spheres of GK vary but horse racing and Oscar ceremonies are two definite negatives for me so DNF with ARC and CLOSE missing.