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) | |
Only solved 10 clues – far too obscure for me! At least I correlate with the more experienced solvers with regard to difficulty. What I still don’t get is the use of the first letter of a word eg C for caught? Does it apply to any word? If so I think it’s a cop out for creating clues!
It’s one of those cricket abbreviations – C = caught, B = bowled, R = run, O = over, ST = stumped – that appear regularly. There are plenty more, plus all the other jargon. Not being a cricket fan, I took a while to get to grips with it all, and I’m still learning! I’m afraid you’re going to have to do the same 😉
Every abbreviation should have a real world example. In this case, C=Caught is what you would find in a cricket scorepad along with B=bowled, W=wicket, RO=run out, O=Over, M=maiden, R=run (see 22a) off the top of my head. Unfortunately if you don’t watch cricket, it is worth reviewing the basic terminology of the game as it comes up a lot.
If there isn’t a real world example then the setter will be indicating to take the first letter e.g. G=start of Guess (just made that up, can’t find an example in this puzzle)
Edit: PB seems to have posted similarly while I was in typing mode
Calling that a DNF as only got saucer when I was told to think about Barbara Windsor for the impudent langauage. Otherwise biffed Close and was nervous about Dredger, but thought the rest were perfectly fair. Liked Arc, Encounter.
FOI Erewhon
LOI DNF
COD Arc
thanks Bjorn and Roly
As one who aspires to get to grips with the 15×15 I felt this was much like an easier ‘biggie’ and was a challenge I appreciated finishing in 28 minutes with interruptions. Not that I think a challenge of this type should appear too frequently as a QC!
Two of the things I find hardest about the big one is the fact that clues are generally far more wordy and the answers can feel less precise on first scrutiny; this puzzle was a good introduction to both those features.
FOOLS PARADISE, ARC and CLOSE held me up for ages and I need help parsing the first two.
Thanks to Bjorn for the challenge and to RT for the blog.
30 minutes.
Gave up on 15 x 15 after 20 mins and only one clue solved.
I am incapable of doing this to anything approaching an acceptable standard.
Rather like my golf career, I have plateaued at a very mediocre level of competence and have no way of improving further. Disillusioned doesn’t come close to describing how I feel about cryptic crosswords right now.
13.46.
Hmm, I didn’t find this one all that tricky (my 2nd fastest time this week for the QC), but I was fine with all the GK so maybe that helped a lot.
Surprised nobody’s mentioned the otherworldly Nina – not just 4D/15D FLYING SAUCER, but also 9A/11D CLOSE ENCOUNTER.
Re: the Close encounter otherworldly Nina
Oh yes, very well spotted! You’re right, people generally spot every Nina spottable, and generally fairly early on. (And *they* are *here* as well, of course, inscrutably, so who knows what other Nina elements could be hidden within..)
A day late and I wish I’d never started it. I have wasted too much of my day.
A DNF after 75-80 minutes with five clues still unsolved (FRANKINCENSE, ICE AGE, SPARK PLUG, ENCOUNTER and EREWHON) and others (e.g. CLOSE) unparsed.
I hope never to see Bjorn again.
Many thanks to Roly for the blog.
DNS.
Again.
Way too obscure for me. If you haven’t heard of the word it makes it difficult/unenjoyable