One for the double definition fans. This was very gentle except for a couple of clues that took a bit more thought. I was expecting a fast time but I seem to have stretched it out to an exactly par 6:00.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Pigment more likely to ooze, as reported (5) |
| SEPIA – Sounds like ‘Seepier’, i.e more oozy | |
| 7 | Emperor, black one, keeps away (9) |
| BONAPARTE – B + ONE surrounding APART | |
| 9 | Finally, short book (5) |
| ATLAS – Short for AT LAST | |
| 10 | School’s good stuff repeated back (7) |
| GRAMMAR – G + RAM (stuff) + MAR (RAM backwards) | |
| 11 | Stop flow from firm (7) |
| STAUNCH – double definition | |
| 12 | A number competent and believable (7) |
| TENABLE – TEN + ABLE | |
| 15 | I won’t bore you with the rest too quickly (3,2,2) |
| AND SO ON – AND (too) + SOON | |
| 18 | Actress’s floral wreath (7) |
| GARLAND – double definition | |
| 20 | God! Fantastic answer that will fix everything (7) |
| PANACEA – PAN (god) + ACE + A | |
| 22 | I study small pictures (5) |
| ICONS – I + CON + S | |
| 23 | This designer could move to the Arctic (9) |
| ARCHITECT – anagram (‘could move to’) of THE ARCTIC | |
| 24 | Badger and pair of rooks in grass (5) |
| HARRY – RR (two rooks) inside HAY | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Photographs of biscuits (5) |
| SNAPS – double definition | |
| 2 | Robbed tablet, not new (8) |
| PILLAGED – PILL (tablet) + AGED (not new) | |
| 3 | First two letters posted elsewhere (6) |
| ABSENT – A+B (first two letters) + SENT | |
| 4 | Injury from run in the country (6) |
| SPRAIN – R in SPAIN | |
| 5 | A weird lily (4) |
| ARUM – A + RUM | |
| 6 | Apprentice left good source of income (7) |
| LEARNER – L + EARNER | |
| 8 | Singer’s dark time at home with grand beer (11) |
| NIGHTINGALE – NIGHT + IN + G + ALE | |
| 13 | Thrash, live party (8) |
| BELABOUR – BE (live) + LABOUR | |
| 14 | Panic, as floundering in sea (7) |
| CASPIAN – anagram (‘floundering’) of PANIC AS | |
| 16 | Evil goblin concealed beautiful flower (6) |
| ORCHID – ORC + HID. Chestnut | |
| 17 | Violent indignation, transfixed by one apparition (6) |
| WRAITH – WRATH with I inserted | |
| 19 | Regularly dour where clouds are somewhat dark (5) |
| DUSKY – Alternate letters of DOUR + SKY | |
| 21 | Quite pleasant city? (4) |
| NICE – Double definition. Double chestnut. | |
No problems but ‘could move to’ doesn’t work for me.
The letters in the answer “could move to” this string of letters – seems to me to be far from the biggest stretch Ive seen
Yes, I see your argument.
14:02 Couldn’t see sepia snaps and so on.
Ta CAT
DNF
Spelt Napoleon as BONEAPART, which parses, but this messed up all the other downs in the NE.
I have an issue with this every time. I always end up spelling it Boneparte, but from the clue I couldn’t see how this parsed. It was only until I remembered my previous issues that I re-looked at it and replaced the “e” with the “a”.
Boneparta?🤔
13 minutes. More than a couple which needed some thought for me. Started off badly at 1a with “Siena” becoming lodged in the neural circuitry and refusing to budge until I had the crossers much later. A nice surface, but as an uncommon word, BELABOUR also took some getting. Not hard, but ORCHID was also ‘concealed’ for longer than it should have been. Teazel was very kind though in having NICE to finish off.
A few ICONS in BONAPARTE, GARLAND and NIGHTINGALE scattered about the grid but I doubt enough to make up a theme.
Thanks to Teazel and Curarist
8 minutes. No problems.
An entertaining solve that didn’t put up too much resistance. My only minor issue is that I pronounce SEPIA with a short ‘e’ which made 1a slightly more challenging.
Started with ATLAS and finished with ORCHID in 6.50.
Thanks to Curarist and Teazel.
16 in 20 minutes. NHO belabour but I have now. Missed pill aged – doh
Blog is definitely concise 🙂
Thanks C and T
I had to work hard in the NW, where SEPIA needed two checkers and PILLAGED three before pennies dropped. But then everything else came in a rush, except LOI BONAPARTE (where I thought the “one” was going to be an i), so I finished in 05:33 for an Excellent Day.
I’d never seen the ORC HID, so chestnut or not it’s my COD!
Many thanks Teazel and Curarist.
Very frustrating but a fine puzzle. I was very slow to start and jumped around, as usual, picking off answers steadily but with no momentum. I was resigned to a seat in the SCC but laboured on. Strangely, I had a quick burst of activity towards the end and more than half a dozen answers simply flew in. All but two: HARRY and BELABOUR (which followed with a d’oh once the R was available). However, as I had feared, the clock had ticked past 20 mins (as it has often done recently with Teazel).
At least I finished. Thanks to Teazel and Curarist.
This seemed hard and I was all over the grid but it all fell into place in a reasonable 25 minutes.
Have to confess to a fail though with BONEPARTE which I did not properly parse or I would have spotted the error. How often do I say that?
Lots of good clues but COD to GRAMMAR
Thanks Teazel and Curarist.
The second QC this week that I’ve really enjoyed – just seemed to click somehow. Enjoyed the neatness of GRAMMAR – one of those “ so it does” moments. Thanks to both – a much appreciated few minutes of enjoyment ( well, maybe not strictly a few – but I don’t worry about times)
Not sure why but I found this anything other than “very gentle”, as our blogger labels it. Very few on the first pass and a bitty solve thereafter, jumping all over the grid. I also seemed to misconstrue a large number of clues, for example I thought the emperor started BI (“black one”), that in the clue for PILLAGED I was looking for a word I could delete an N from (“not new”), and the clue for ORCHID had a hidden in it (given by “concealed”). When I finally worked them out there were a large number of PDMs! But eventually all green, in a not very fast 12:46.
Many thanks Curarist for the blog.
Made heavy weather of NW but got there in the end. Also spelt BONAPARTE wrong at first, but knew ARUM must be right.
PDM with chestnut ATLAS helped with LOsI SNAPS and SEPIA.
Liked GARLAND and BELABOUR, among others.
NIGHTINGALE helped.
Thanks vm, Curarist. CNP GRAMMAR.
4.33, so on the easier side for me. Good puzzle though.
LOI was learner, but only because it was the last one I looked at.
COD was going to be “AND SO ON”, but then I started to wonder about “and” being clued by “too.” So and can mean also, and also can mean too, but when would you use and instead of t00? Just a thought.
Wow – that was hard. After ten minutes had just two (the obvious NICE and a rather doubtful SNAPS – what biscuits are snaps? brandy snaps? hardly biscuits). NIGHTINGALE then unlocked more, and in an hour it was done. L2I HARRY and finally WRAITH. All difficult. NHO ARUM. Thanks Curarist.
I remember ginger snaps from my youth.
I got absolutely nowhere with this one. Way too difficult for me.
Enjoyable QC and all complete on one cup of coffee. LOI BELABOUR, although WRAITH also slow to see. A good week of QCs, thanks to all the setters.
Bang on the money as far as I’m concerned for a QC, echoing the standard of setting for the week. I finished only one second outside target at 10.01, but would have been a minute or so faster if I’d been quicker in seeing WRAITH and my LOI BELABOUR. I also needed three visits to solve the anagram for ARCHITECT which is somewhat ironic (or pathetic), as I was one in my working life.
My total time for the week was 48.25, giving me a daily average of 9.41.
Very few of the acrosses on first pass but then the downs flew in almost without a break leaving just some of the trickier ones as a mopping up exercise. All done and parsed in 13 minutes.
FOI – 12ac TENABLE
LOI – 2dn PILLAGED
CODs – 10ac GRAMMAR and 4dn SPRAIN
Thanks to Teazel and Curarist.
Wierd one, omly 24a on first across pass, all but two of the downs as write-ins, followed by all but one of the acrosses. Then belaboured belabour and pillaged to finally lever siena out the way and put sepia in. Also a groan at 23a, “this designer”, immediate thought is its going to be an architect and I dont know any, then PDM. No problem with the anagrind, if you have the right number of lettrs and they fit the crossers then one is hardly necessary, and, as several bloggers have commented, almost anything will seem to do. Very enjoyable, thanks Teazel and Curarist.
DNF
All in at 23.28 but managed to spell BONEPARTE/BONAPARTE wrong!
Thanks Teazel and Curarist.
9:24 for the solve. I fairly raced through but there were a few clues which slowed me – SPRAIN/GRAMMAR pair, CASPIAN/ARCHITECT anagrams needing p&p, WRAITH, and the last two of BELABOUR and AND-SO-ON going in with fingers crossed as couldn’t fully parse and wonder if it was GO. Classic Teazel and one of those puzzles which got easier with checkers.
Just a tad over 50mins for the week but messed up Weds with a DNF – oh well.
Have a good weekend everybody and thanks to Curarist/Teazel.
Top to bottom solve straight through in probably the shortest time ever, though I don’t time, so no idea, probably about 5 minutes. Why? No idea. Only hold-up, which I went back to when the rest were in was BELABOUR, which I then saw as soon as I had the crossers. Teazel is one of the Quickies that I do because they are more challenging, but this was none the worse, clue-wise, for being easier – I liked it.
Well done!
Slightly harder for me than the rest of this week but nothing too scary, finishing in 13:45.
I was a bit slow to get going and then rather hopped about the grid, ending with AND SO ON which seemed odd at the time but now is perfectly obvious.
Another fine puzzle to finish a great week. I particularly liked ABSENT, ORCHID and GRAMMAR.
Thanks T and C
Maintaining my low standard this week with only 7 clues solved in 15 mins. I clearly approach these crosswords wrongly. For example 5 Dn – that is clearly an anagram of lily with ‘weird’ there, but no there’s no such word! Then there’s 6 Dn which I read as Apprentice = Learner = (according to the flaky rule of first letter usage) = L then ‘left’ which we all know is shortened to ‘L’ then there is ‘good’ which we all know means saint or ‘st’ so now I have LLST which leads nowhere! Then ten minutes later I get the correct answer. So my conclusion is that for learners like myself it would be much more instructive not to have these multiple interpretations! It would still be cryptic, but the way in would be so much easier and we would become more skilled. Meanwhile the sub 10 minute folk could try the harder crosswords on the back page where there will be room for improvement for them too. If you are sub-ten mins it’s unlikely that you will get beyond the physical limit determined by typing speed!
I don’t think we’d be expected to use the first letter of a synonym (you mentioned trying the L from learner which you had as a synonym for ‘apprentice’). That would be a bit much! First letters are always signposted by use of ‘initial’ or ‘first’ etc., unless they are a known shortform, e.g. R for ‘right’ or L for ‘left’. Additionally, definitions are almost always at one end or another, so in this case, the answer could only be a synonym for either ‘apprentice’ or ‘income’/‘source of income’. I found this one of the hardest things to get my head round, but about 10 years on and I’m starting to get there 😂 It’s honestly all about practice, and don’t forget that the Times QC is likely more challenging than those in some of the other publications (which is surely why it’s worth doing).
I don’t agree that your approach is wrong. I go through similar processes and have improved by learning to back out more quickly when I come to an impasse and juggle alternatives until everything is accounted for. For me one of the great charms of learning to do the QC has been the calming of my tendency to persist on paths that lead nowhere. Helps with real life too!
Maybe your approach of only attempting the puzzle for 15mins is problematic. Obviously it depends on your circumstances but when I was a beginner I would regularly tussle with QCs for an hour. On occasion I would only have a smattering of answers after half an hour but find more answers going on with persistence. Online the Check and Reveal buttons were part of my repertoire for the first couple of months before I went cold turkey. Nonetheless a well chosen Reveal can give checking letters that then help out on another clue
I totally agree ND. I used to use the Times QC books when I first started and once spent 3 days on a single puzzle 😂 Perseverance helps you learn
From SEPIA to BELABOUR in 7:53. Nice puzzle. Thanks Teazel and Curarist.
11.59 Two delicious offerings in a row. Clever clues that made us smile not sigh (other than at our own failings). Our mantra should be, ‘follow the instructions, beware the misdirections’ .. too bad we don’t always act on it.
Like a number before us, a VERY slow start before all started rolling at speed.
NHO BELABOUR, slow on WRAITH.
COD a tie between DUSKY and GRAMMAR.
Thank you Teazel and Curarist.
30:49
Joined the SCC with just 2 needed but then spent over 10 minutes on last 2. Looking back I can’t see why but I just couldn’t figure out SEPIA and LOI PILLAGED.
I found this very difficult and struggled home in a pathetic 31:32, just not seeing what was later the obvious. ORCHID a chestnut? Never seen it before, probably because I have never read Tolkien (just looked ORC up).
6.26 I had to come back to PILLAGED and SEPIA but I found this to be the easiest of the week by far. Thanks Curarist and Teazel.
16:11. BELABOUR took me a while to see, otherwise enjoyable.
Pi ❤️
8 mins…
A good end to the week – and that included my usual issues with spelling with “Bonaparte”.
FOI – 1dn “Snaps”
LOI – 11ac “Staunch”
COD – 15ac “And So On”
Thanks as usual!
⚡
Seemed like a slow start but then the answers started to flow for a 10:03 finish. COD PANACEA. Thanks to Teazel and Curarist.
Made heavy work of this and must admit to revealing the first letter of WRAITH along the way. Elsewhere everything went in, eventually. COD to SEPIA. Many thanks both.
I can’t say I detected very much gentleness, but I enjoyed it and managed to finish in 13:48.
Thank you for the blog!
Good 15m for me and some enjoyable clueing along the way. Sending A and B away made me smile and I enjoyed the unusual lily. I began toying with NOTE and ETON at 10a, thinking “not again” but the M of ARUM scotched that (hooray!) Liked GARLAND. Having lunched many times at a dive in the Rue Bonaparte, I have the spelling firmly in mind. Great fun: thanks Teazel and Curarist.
I hastily clicked submit after PILLAGE at 11:26 with SEPIA still outstanding (I too had been hung up on SienA), argh! Loved PANACEA. Liked GRAMMAR also, as a foreigner I was slow to see it.
Thanks Teazel and Curarist.
The answers all flew in until I got to 13D: still couldn’t work out the answer when I only had 2 letters to put in! For some reason I didn’t think of that sort of party, nor could I get to BELABOUR for thrash. So a DNF though the rest done in 11.11. Very frustrating!
Really enjoyed this one. Hardly got any on first run through, but then on 2nd run a soon as I got SEPIA everything flowed.
However still don’t understand how study is CON in 22a.
Thanks to Teazel
It’s a dated usage but … con = study.
Collins:
con
in British English
verb
Word forms: cons, conning, conned
(transitive) archaic
to study attentively or learn (esp in the phrase con by rote)
Word origin
C15: variant of can in the sense: to come to know
I (wrongly it appears) thought I really saw that con was simply taken from “to concentrate”. Apparently not but potentially a good way to remember it
Well I never did! Just 16 minutes for a Teazel, which is proper fast for me. Wonders will never cease …. although they probably will tomorrow.
SEPIA got me started and the NW and NE corners both went in without too much trouble. I slowed a little thereafter, but still managed to maintain a medium-fast pace (for me, at least). My last three in were WRAITH, BELABOUR and ICONS – all down in the SE corner.
I might even have been a little quicker, had I not carelessly biffed PILferED at 2d and PANdorA at 20a. I’m not complaining today, though.
Many thanks to Curarist and Teazel (usually my nemesis).
17:51 for me, a day where I never achieved any sort of flow. The pun of SEPIA was my COD.
Thanks to Teazel and Curarist.
4:21 LOI BELABOUR. I liked SEPIA. Thanks Teazel and Curarist.
6.50.
Hard work for this resident of the SCC but ultimately successful. Slow start and about to give up as “too hard”, then checked the snitch and saw it was (only) 83. Decided I must be able to do it so set off again with a more positive attitude, finishing with BONAPARTE and SPRAIN.
Aren’t we strange, my first question = wasn’t this Teazel being easy, it was for me, and all country people will say Hay is not Grass it’s dried! But Happy Weekend.