11 minutes, delayed a little at the end in the NE segment by 6 & 7dn and 5 & 10ac. The surface readings struck me as particularly smooth today. This is Heron’s third puzzle and my first opportunity to blog him/her. My QC blog count now stands at 350, way behind Chris’s probably unbeatable record of around 450!
As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions and substitutions are in curly brackets} and [anagrinds, containment, reversal and other indicators in square ones]. “Aural wordplay” is in quotation marks. I now use a tilde sign ~ to indicate an insertion point in containment clues. I usually omit all reference to juxtaposition indicators unless there is a specific point that requires clarification.
 Across |
|
|---|---|
| 1 | Dog next to railway is mine (8) |
| COLLIERY – COLLIE (dog), RY (railway) | |
| 5 | Plaintiffs covering up small disagreement (4) |
| TIFF – Hidden in [covering up] {plain}TIFF{s} | |
| 9 | Start to faint moving last parts of set (5) |
| FLATS – F{aint} [start to…], anagram [moving] of LAST. I missed the definition until I came to blog this one. ‘Flats’ and ‘set’ refer to scenery on a stage. | |
| 10 | Intellectual burying a hatchet (7) |
| CLEAVER – CLE~VER (intellectual) containing [burying] A | |
| 11 | Not the principals in bronze medal events? (5,7) |
| THIRD PARTIES – THIRD (bronze medal), PARTIES (events). A bronze medal is customarily a third prize in a race or competition. | |
| 13 | Coolness of a head of policing left in front of angry mob (6) |
| APLOMB – A, P{olicing} [head of…], L (left), anagram [angry] of MOB | |
| 15 | Globe is special present (6) |
| SPHERE – SP (special), HERE (present) | |
| 17 | Details snags needing repair in decorative surface (7,5) |
| STAINED GLASS – Anagram [needing repair] of DETAILS SNAGS | |
| 20 | Mould a new girth initially for horse (7) |
| MUSTANG – MUST (mould), A, N (new), G{irth} [initially]. I don’t recall meeting ‘must’ in this sense, but ‘musty’ is commonplace. | |
| 21 | American leader of government not backing country (5) |
| TONGA – A (American) + G{overnment} [leader of…] + NOT all reversed [backing] | |
| 22 | Study temperature in hollow (4) |
| DENT – DEN (study) + T (temperature) | |
| 23 | Advises assemblies in the auditorium (8) |
| COUNSELS – Aural wordplay [in the auditorium]: “councils” (assemblies) | |
| Down |
|
|---|---|
| 1 | Starts to clean and iron for diner (4) |
| CAFE – C{lean} + A{nd} [starts to…], FE (iron) | |
| 2 | Drain meadow by church (5) |
| LEACH – LEA (meadow), CH (church) | |
| 3 | Influential piece of music without vocals (12) |
| INSTRUMENTAL – Two meanings | |
| 4 | Summaries concerning headgear (6) |
| RECAPS – RE (concerning), CAPS (headgear) | |
| 6 | Bill is fashionable singer (7) |
| INVOICE – IN (fashionable), VOICE (singer) | |
| 7 | Woodworker in favour of floral smelling compound (8) |
| FORESTER – FOR (in favour of), ESTER (floral smelling compound). Not mentioned in the dictionaries I have looked at, but some esters occur naturally in petals and fruits, apparently. | |
| 8 | Arrange optional term for city resident (12) |
| METROPOLITAN – Anagram [arrange] of OPTIONAL TERM | |
| 12 | Paid money to release declared amount in foreign currency (8) |
| RANSOMED – Aural wordplay [declared] SOME / “sum” (amount) contained by [in] RAN~D (foreign currency). | |
| 14 | Meeting a lion is reckless (7) |
| LIAISON – Anagram [reckless] of A LION IS | |
| 16 | Slow movement essential to Lady Gaga gig now (6) |
| ADAGIO – {l}AD{y} + {g}AG{a} + {g}I{g} + {n}O{w} [essential to…] | |
| 18 | Burn candles in genuine bottles (5) |
| SINGE – Hidden in [bottles] {candle}S IN GE{nuine} | |
| 19 | Young girl in American city starts to sing songs (4) |
| LASS – LA (American city), S{ing} + S{ongs} [starts to…] | |
Didn’t know that meaning of FLATS and assumed it was something to do with music. Liked APLOMB, RANSOMED and ADAGIO. Missed the events/parties link in THIRD PARTIES but it went in from the definition.
Thanks Jack and setter.
William (will.I.am) would have been a much nicer solution to 6 down!
Very clever!
7:21
FLATS was a long time coming before I finally thought of stage sets. I didn’t care for ‘intellectual’ as a definition for CLEVER.
I was fortunate to get colliery and instrumental almost immediately, getting off to a good start. But then I had to jump around the grid, picking off the obvious ones to get crossing letters. Metropolitan seemed a little strange, but the cryptic clearly pointed to it.
Time: 7:52
5.39, so a quick day for me. Everything seemed to flow in without a hitch, starting with COLLIERY and ending with COUNSEL. Didn’t get what FLATS was about either but it couldn’t be anything else. Thanks Jack, thanks Heron.
7:19 for a gentle start to the week, though like others I did not understand the stage reference for FLATS. The wordplay was very clear though.
Many thanks Jack for the blog.
15:35 Struggled in the sphere of flats and third-parties’ counsels…
TaHAJ
Mainly straightforward but got breezeblocked by INSTRUMENTAL, FLATS and FORESTER.
Finished in 7.51.
Thanks to Jack and Heron
14:33 for the solve. Was all done in under nine mins barring an alphatrawl for COUNSELS. Thought that was a bit tough for a Monday despite my time. First reading of many clues left me bewildered and it was only biffing that got me some of those I did (ADAGIO, APLOMB). With checkers more became obvious.
FLATS is a good example of why I didn’t much enjoy this. Simple wordplay but like others didn’t really get the definition – thought we were talking musical flats, perhaps we are flats and sharps – but I am aware of its usage in stage flats.
Anyway thank to Jackkt for today’s blog and his prior service. Even at one per week that is seven year’s worth! Thanks to Heron as well, I agree good surfaces.
19.12 after a brilliant start with most done in single digit time (good for us) .
Held up (‘forever’) by METROPOLITAN (not overly convinced), FLATS (NHO) and CLEAVER (with Mr Gregg on that one).
That said, despite our hesitation re those three, the cluing was certainly there, we just took a long time to grasp it.
COD ADAGIO (workings not fully appreciated until the blog).
Thank you Heron and Jackkt.
Biffed FLATS, FORESTER and RANSOMED – thanks for explanations! Otherwise, a steady solve in 15:52 – quicker than usual for me.
Bit tougher than of late, for me anyway. Tripped over THIRD PARTIES – jammed in PERSONS, and came unstuck for a while. DNK FLATS. Missed the very obvious pointer to COUNSELS, though biffed it anyway. Slightly frustrating for a would-be perfectionist – entirely my doing ( which doesn’t help!). Thanks to setter and blogger.
15:18. I’d forgotten the stage scenery / ‘parts of set’ sense of FLATS (not alone apparently) and despite the simple wordplay I got myself into a tangle in the NW corner, even wondering if the alternative EE spelling for the crossing LEACH would come up with a word that better fitted the def. MUST for ‘mould’ went in with a bit of a shrug as well but otherwise this wasn’t too hard and I should have been quicker.
Favourite was the surface reading of the clue for APLOMB.
Thanks to Heron and thanks and congrats to Jack on his 350th
A slow 9.53 for me today, putting me well off wavelength.
The main reasons for this were INSTRUMENTAL, which took me ages to see (for some reason I got stuck on the idea of ‘a cappella’, which is the opposite of the clue), and FLATS, where I had misspelled LEECH, and so couldn’t find the word or the parsing at all. Once the error was corrected, FLATS went in quickly, although I didn’t know this meaning at all.
Other than those, I would have been around an average time I think.
All very enjoyable.
Well, I was so far off Heron’s wavelength, I might have been circling the moon. His last QC took me 12 mins but, whilst I did manage to complete this one, it took twice that.
I can’t find the energy to go back and list my sticking points but many are mentioned by others above. There were plenty of good clues when I finally saw and parsed them. RANSOMED was my LOI and was clever, with hindsight.
Looking at the times above, it must be just me having a thick day.
Thanks to Heron and many congratulations and thanks to Jack for his consistently excellent blogs and comments over the years.
12 after 20, 19 after 45, failed around the NW corner.
Thanks H and J
Didn’t know the required meaning of FLATS, but the wordplay was clear. Otherwise from CAFE to COUNSELS in 7:40. Thanks Heron and Jack.
Really annoying to flow through the grid smoothly but be blocked right at the end, COUNSEL just wouldn’t come. Perhaps fortunate not to have experienced the law courts. Thanks, Jack.
I’d NHO flats on a stage, either.
Re COUNSELS: Snap! It just never came.
Lovely to hear I’m not alone and (moreover) in good company – thanks.
Same
Struggled with this one today particularly with the long anagrams. Only a small number were solved at first read, and I was darting all over the puzzle to finally finish. Even my LOI FLATS had to be worked out from the cryptic direction, although when I wrote it in I was then aware that I’d heard of the term. A tough day at the office taking 12.10 to complete it.
Getting the flats upright and lashed together before painting was a constant chore in my AmDram days – so in it went in a flash! And I found myself on Heron’s wavelength today, so all done in 14m. Very enjoyable with lots of helpful clues: like TONGA (who else remembers Queen Salome of Tonga at the 1953 coronation?) Thanks Heron and Jack: great blog.
Queen Salote (who was very tall) was accompanied in the carriage procession by a diminutive individual (later identified as the Sultan of Kelantan) who was referred to, in a shockingly non-PC comment by Noël Coward, as possibly ‘her lunch’!
Worked steadily through this enjoyable QC with no problems. L2I CLEAVER and FORESTER. Congratulations Jack on your 350th blog – great job!
I got perhaps a little over halfway through this one before giving up. I found it very difficult and was referring to aids too much for my liking.
Nice gentle start to the week. Cuppa still warm when I hit my LOI COUNSELS which held me up for a minute or two. Altogether an enjoyable offering. No problem with flats, as I was a stage manager for annual school productions.
Thanks Heron and jackkt
Agree with Jack about the smooth surfaces in this QC. Probably why I missed both the aural wordplays. Oh well.
I thought this was a bit on the difficult side for a Monday, with nho stage Flats, Instrumental and an alpha-trawl for loi Counsels, all combining to ensure another visit to the SCC. I am going to have to look into the price of season tickets if this carries on. . .
I thought Ransomed was good, but CoD to the lesser spotted Aplomb for the parsing. Google suggests French roots (à plomb, in the sense of perpendicular/upright/ steadiness). Invariant
8.13 DNF. I typed LEASH instead of my intended LEACH. I needed checkers for the long ones but there were no major hold ups. Congratulations Jack and thank you Heron.
DNF.
This was rather a lop-sided effort from me. I solved only one Across clue (TIFF) during my first pass, but nine Down clues went in which more than made up for that. I then made steady progress through the middle phase, despite not knowing MUST for mould or FLATS for set, and I arrived at my last clue (_ O_N_E_S) in a minute or two short of half an hour. Unfortunately, a further 15 minutes or so of synonym finding and alphabet trawling failed to reveal the correct solution. I gave up, somewhat disillusioned.
I had found several words to fit the space and, coming here, I found that I had parsed the clue correctly. It was just that I simply did not think of the correct solution and that I had never really got anywhere near it.
Many thanks to Jack and Heron.
9:03
Not my best solve. As with our blogger, I was slow in the NE corner, though my final entry was FLATS, once the penny dropped. Spent a little too long trying to justify RANSOMED, thinking SOM rather than SOME as the homophone, and therefore wondering what kind of currency was RAN~ED!
Thanks Jack and congrats on reaching another milestone, and Heron
Dnf – another who failed on counsels – knew how the clue worked, just could think of the word and 5 mins of alphabet trawling didn’t shine the required light. Otherwise took around 15 mins, some of which was spent thinking of a horse endind “itang” until I corrected my spelling of liaison. Enjoyable puzzle.
FOI Tiff
LOI dnf
COD Third Parties
Thanks Heron and Jack
All but 7 clues solved in 30 mins! Better than last week! Sounds like I hadn’t been aware of the variety of allusions to homophones!
A lovely puzzle that entertained me for 8:53, with the long anagrams needing some time to unravel. Loved FLATS, RANSOMED, and APLOMB, but really the whole thing is at a very high standard of smooth cluing. I do agree that METROPOLITAN for “city resident” is a bit weird. When parsing RANSOMED I thought “some” was good enough for “amount” and couldn’t account for “declared” (sloppy!), thanks Jack. FOI COLLIERY, LOI ADAGIO simply because it was left over.
Thanks Heron and congratulations and thanks to jackkt for the blogging milestone.
I couldn’t get a foothold on this, and didn’t help myself by entering “third persons”, needing INVOICE to show me the error of my ways. I agree with Kevin regarding CLEAVER. People tell me I’m clever, but I’m certainly no intellectual. I did know the definition for my LOI, but was slow to spot it.
FOI COLLIERY
LOI FLATS
COD FORESTER
TIME 5:50
FLATS went in with fingers crossed assuming a musical connection.
Like others I could not get COUNSELS despite a long alphabet trawl and had to look up synonyms for ‘associations’ to solve it.
Otherwise I rather enjoyed this one. ADAGIO was clever as was TONGA.
Thanks to Heron and Jack – 350 wow!
16:29 for me. As for many, NHO that meaning of FLATS, and both COUNSELS and RANSOMED were slow to emerge.
Thanks to Heron and Jackkt.
Enjoyable puzzle. Finished OK in fairly reasonable time. Started well, dotting about, but slowed midway. CNP or biffed various e.g. ADAGIO, FLATS, MUSTANG.
LOI/PDM RANSOMED. Liked THIRD PARTIES, INVOICES, RECAPS, and COUNSELS among others. Stupidly took rather a long time with INSTRUMENTAL.
Thanks vm, Jack.
29 minutes.
Awful time.
20 minutes (!!!!!!!) to get LOI – COUNSEL. What does that say?
I despair! 😞
It says it took you 9 minutes to do the rest of the puzzle and that’s pretty good going. Even very experienced solvers get stuck on a LOI occasionally, or in my case it’s more likely to be “last two in” with a pair of intersecting answers.
Thanks jackkt 👍. Yes, the last two intersecting answers are often my downfall when I DNF.
don’t despair. just couldn’t find Mustang, maybe because I spelled Liaison incorrectly!
Thank you. I’ve had to drum the spelling of liaison into my head having got it wrong on a previous occasion.
Happy one for me, though I circled round congress and councils and silly not to see ‘auditorium’ as ‘sounds like’ for COUNSELS. A pleasing cryptic perhaps, but I am on holiday brain today! I did like the FLATS after I had no other options, I’ve been on stage – at school.
Held up by THIRD PERSONS, which seemed reasonable until INVOICE was obvious. Never stopped to parse RANSOMED and FLATS was FOI, as soon as I saw the definition. LOI COUNSELS – took a little thinking. Nice puzzle.
15:14 with several minutes spent on LOI COUNSELS going back and forth through the alphabet. Delayed putting in FLATS until we had the checkers because, like many others, we’d never come across that meaning. Thanks for the explanation, Jack, and thanks also to Heron.
dnf today but a mer about woodworker. A woodworker works using wood. A forester works in the woods.
Strictly speaking, you’re right. But we have to think more in terms of the Uxbridge English Dictionary here and stretch the definition somewhat 😅
Surely “ransomed” is what the kidnappers did – not the people who paid up.
Good point, but I think ‘he ransomed his future by successfully betting everything on black’ just about works ?
I seem to recall RANSOMED (or some variation) coming up before. If memory serves me the paid up version is the original meaning which has now come to mean the version you bring up. You’d have to check the dictionary but it is correct here
Dnf…
12 mins for everything apart from 23ac “Counsels”. Fairly obvious now, but even with an alphabet trawl I somehow failed to see this. Other trickier clues included 9ac “Flats” (which I’d never heard of) and “Must” for “Mould” in 20ac.
FOI – 5ac “Tiff”
LOI – Dnf
COD – 3dn “Instrumental”
Thanks as usual!
I started with the downs today – not sure it made any difference really! I was a bit slower than average. Ticks for THIRD PARTIES, MUSTANGS and INSTRUMENTAL. I liked the anagram for METROPOLITAN, even if the definition was a bit loose. Like many others, I biffed FLATS 😅
I think John mentioned a while back that Heron is a ‘she’ – one of very few female setters here. Alex is the only other one I’m aware of.
11:35 FOI Leach LOI Flats COD Stained glass
Thanks Heron and thanks and congratulations to Jack for such sterling service 😊
9.30.
In answer to those who have queried ‘city resident / METROPOLITAN’ it’s in the usual dictionaries, e.g. ODE has: an inhabitant of a metropolis or large city.
A slow 18 minutes for me today. Held up for a silly amount of time by COUNSELS and RANSOMED. In the case of the latter I was sure the declared amount was going to be ‘sum’ and my brain struggled to move past this.
I’m pleased with myself however for sticking to the task rather than declaring a DNF and flouncing off in an impatient huff when reaching my target time of 15 minutes.
Liked TONGA and INVOICE but CoD goes to APLOMB.
Thanks to Heron and Jack.
5:25. Nice one again from Heron, who I had the pleasure of meeting in York last year a few weeks before her first QC was published. I liked the “bronze medal events” most. Thank-you Heron and Jackkt.