Lovely, on the tricky side.
This is Kybos’s fourth puzzle since first appearing last September, clocking up 120, 115, and 105 on the Quitch, in that order.
This should halt the downward trend, with some cunning definitions and tricks more often seen in the 15×15 than the QC. But we also had a good number of more gettable openers and anagrams that should help to open up the grid.
So nicely-pitched difficulty, I’d say, that took me 7:45 (compared to a notch under 6 yesterday and a notch over 9 on Tuesday). I thought it was a cracker, with lots of wit and satisfying PDMs – many thanks to Kybos!
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Giving seat, I moved to the end counter? (10) |
| CHARITABLE – CHAIR (seat) with I moved to the end, TABLE (counter) | |
| 8 | On reflection, treasure, I’d rather cuddles later (7) |
| TARDIER – a hidden (“cuddles”) reversal (“on reflection”) within treasuRE ID RATher. | |
| 9 | Legitimate to return age 50, having left before (5) |
| LEGAL – “return”/reverse AGE L (fifty in Roman numerals), with L(eft) before | |
| 10 | Metal coating for incinerator working (4) |
| IRON – IR (“coating” for I |
|
| 11 | Healthy concealing flings? Most dodgy (8) |
| FISHIEST – FIT (healthy) concealing/covering SHIES (to SHY = to fling) | |
| 13 | Shot took out sheltering king (6) |
| DARTED – DATED (took out) sheltering R (Rex = king). To SHOOT = to speed/dash/dart/etc; and TAKING OUT is a dated term for what the kids are calling COURTING. | |
| 14 | Suddenly drop breathing apparatus during exercise (6) |
| PLUNGE – LUNG (breathing apparatus) during PE (exercise) | |
| 17 | Despite expectations, rate fall is staggering (5,3) |
| AFTER ALL – anagram ( is staggering) of RATE FALL | |
| 19 | Finish second work — about time! (4) |
| STOP – S(econd) OP (opus = work) about T(ime) | |
| 21 | All voices express disapproval over it (5) |
| TUTTI – TUT (express disapproval), “over”/reverse IT | |
| 22 | Horse feeding device began so peculiarly (7) |
| NOSEBAG – anagram (peculiarly) of BEGAN SO | |
| 23 | Behaves contrarily, surrounded by mean people and no-hopers (4,6) |
| LOST CAUSES – ACTS (behaves) “contrarily” = reversed, surrounded by LOUSES (mean people) | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 2 | Refuge close to church and leafy glade (7) |
| HARBOUR – H (“close”/end to churcH) and ARBOUR (leafy glade). ARBOUR. Chambers says the origin is Anglo-French herber, from Latin herba grass, with the meaning having changed through confusion with Latin arbor tree. | |
| 3 | Make a mess of text checking someone’s home? (4) |
| RUIN – or, in text-speak, R U IN? (are you in?) | |
| 4 | Vegetable providing clue for PI (6) |
| TURNIP – the sort of reverse cryptic that crops up a bit more in the 15×15 than the QC: if you “TURN” IP you get PI. For the clever surface, PI is Private Investigator. | |
| 5 | Escape damage from crossbow? (8) |
| BOLTHOLE – an ESCAPE as in the 2d sense of a refuge or safe harbour; and then a cryptic hint with a (very much situationally dependent) bit of whimsy. | |
| 6 | Dog avoiding black bird (5) |
| EAGLE – BEAGLE (dog) avoiding the B(lack). B for Black as in HB (hard black) on pencils. | |
| 7 | The cop’s leg fidgets — it could stop trousers falling off? (7,3) |
| CLOTHES PEG – anagram (fidgets) of THE COPS LEG. I like the image of a jittery cop sporting the sartorial innovation of a clothes peg for a belt. | |
| 8 | Tip: try hard to change, providing limited coverage (5-5) |
| THIRD-PARTY – anagram (to change) of TIP TRY HARD. As in insurance. I needed to write the anagrist out for this, my penultimate one in, which I needed for the D for DARTED at 13ac. | |
| 12 | Armies scattered, dividing north and south — close call (4,4) |
| NEAR MISS – anagram (scattered) of ARMIES divides N and S | |
| 15 | Impotent celebrity (7) |
| NOTABLE – NOTABLE as noun: a person worthy of note; and NOT ABLE = impotent. | |
| 16 | Medical centre initially called lab investigating new index cases (6) |
| CLINIC – “initial” letters of the rest of the clue. | |
| 18 | Child, advanced learner, missing nothing (5) |
| TOTAL – TOT (child) A (Advanced: as in A-Level) L(earner) | |
| 20 | Falsely sue a son of Isaac (4) |
| ESAU – anagram (falsely) of SUE A | |
Yes, quite tricky. Could not make any sense of 1a for ages until the penny dropped. BOLTHOLE came to the rescue which allowed me to see table at the end and HARBOUR gave chair. CLOTHES PEG was neat. FISHIEST was also good, we seem to be having a lot of ‘shy/shies’ of late. Liked the textspeak ‘r u in’. TURNIP very good surface with clue included. Fun but tricky. COD to LOST CAUSES.
Thanks Roly and setter.
Looks like a consensus has been arrived at already! 8 minutes flat for this intriguing and satisfying puzzle, with a few at the top causing most problems. LOI FISHIEST, and I particularly liked RUIN and TURNIP. Thanks roly and well done Kybos.
Hard to say you have a concensus when only the fastest two are in.
I think you have been un-concensused below!
16 minutes but I missed some of the parsing I would normally expect to include in my QC solving time, THIRD PARTY and LOST CAUSES for example. I really liked CLOTHES PEG.
The answers that were obvious were very obvious – iron, eagle, tutti, clinic, near miss, Esau. The ones that were not obvious proved elusive, particularly the bolthole/charitable crossing. I did biff charitable and stopped the clock.
Time: 14:02
I’ve come across ESAU here before, probably many times, but I’d forgotten him in favour of ‘Asue’ – so I needed LOST CAUSES to clear that up. I enjoyed wrestling with FISHIEST which only became possible once BOLTHOLE was unpicked. Six on the first pass of acrosses, mostly in the bottom, followed by lots of (enjoyable) hard work. Surprised to see only 11.20 on the clock when DARTED went in. All green too!
With 3 mins on the clock we were still staring at an empty grid before bolthole opened up the RHS. Indeed some satisfying PDMs as we progressed clockwise finally finishing with charitable and the unparsed Turnip, thanks Roly for that and the extra info. Also surprised to see the clock stop at 17.29
Thanks Kybos
16:12.
Tried today’s on computer rather than phone to see if I could be quicker. Apparently not. FOI LEGAL and then trawled through a few times getting further with each pass. Got to about 11 minutes with two left (5D and 11A) and flicked between them, slowly constructing 11A (must be FIT….probably an I fifth and an S seventh…) then suddenly spotted BOLTHOLE and my fishy problem was solved. LOI FISHIEST. COD…well, has to be FISHIEST, surely?
Love it!
Ha! COD=FISHiest. Well done.
A lot of excellent clues but tricky in places. Fortunately I had enough checkers in place to reverse engineer some of the harder clues – CHARITABLE and LOST CAUSES spring to mind – which meant that I made steady progress throughout.
Started with TARDIER and finished with DARTED in 7.17.
Thanks to Roly and Kybos
Some very straightforward clues here and some which were much tougher, leading to a 13:25 finish, a time which was only a little longer than my average but hides periods of speeding through clues and periods of puzzled inactivity. The top few clues took me an age, especially CHARITABLE for which I needed the checkers, and I never parsed LOST CAUSES at all. Nice PDM moment when I got TURNIP, and it gets my COD.
Many thanks Roly for the blog.
I found this a lot more difficult than recently and took a long time to get even the first clue, eventually getting LEGAL and slowly building up from there.
I’m still at the stage where I have to do a lot of syntactical guessing (e.g. ‘… most dodgy’ so it probably ends in ‘…EST’, the clue looks like it’s a gerund so try ‘…ING’ and so on) and checking, rather than giving up, but this blog is very helpful in retrospectively understanding the logic.
Thank you!
Yes I got that far – to FI – – – EST, but the P was still far from D’ing.
That’s about where I am…
None after a run through ‘the acrosses’. Daunted but not done, we moved to the downs. Minutes had passed before CLINIC (to which we were almost headed) started the ball rolling.
Many fine clues, though ours was a much meshed undertaking – we needed the waft/weave checkers to help us as well as they clues themselves.
Finally finished, after an interruption, certainly sitting (not out of sight, but definitely in), that corner.
COD our LOI – CHARITABLE
Thank you for the excellent exercise and for the welcome blog
I found this very tough. I was slow all the way through and just did not get on to Kybos’s wavelength. I persevered into the SCC and, with only 13a holding me up, I finally gave up before seeing DARTED. So, a DNF.
I just didn’t enjoy this, I’m afraid. Perhaps I will get more out of it with the help of Roly’s blog.
I have just checked back and have yet to break out of the SCC with Kybos. Clearly we are just not compatible.
Does anyone else have a problem connecting with this setter?
Well … as one at the back of the class who found today’s one of the hardest QCs so far this year , I’d only say in her defence that I managed her last one, and both last year’s. Give her another chance?
My slow week continues but this time supplemented by two DPSs – NEAR NISS and NOSEBSG. Brilliant. Would have been eight forty five. COD to THIRD PARTY.
Many thanks Kybos and roly.
PS Roly – in the blog it might be helpful for novices to explain that in LOST CAUSES “acts” is going backwards (indicated by “contrarily”).
Ah thanks – well spotted! Yes that was an unintended omission, will amend the blog.
Kyboshed by Kybos – the P didn’t D and it was all just too difficult. Managed most of the bottom half but little of the upper. Liked the legal eagle, though.
Well thank you Roly, and well done – golly, no wonder and thank goodness I didn’t spend more time trying. All these are (I respectfully suggest, IMHO) are downright difficult: giving = CHARITABLE; counter = TABLE; later = TARDIER; fling = SHY; shot = DARTED; NHO mean person = LOUSE, and the two refuges HARBOUR and BOLTHOLE quite difficult too. Humph.
Tardier was a reverse hidden which fell for me from the T from Third Party but only later did I equate cuddles with contains.
With darted I eventually twigged dated for took out using the D from third after trying to work in Rex or K for king and not just the R from Rex.
Worked out arbour from crossers and guessed the H but still no idea for 1ac.
8:44
ESAU has brought back memories of Alan Bennett’s sermon in Beyond The Fringe on the theme of “my brother Esau is an hairy man”.
Thanks Roly and Kybos
Indeed! I remember that sketch. Very funny.
20:22
Pushed into the SCC by DATED, HARBOUR and LOI FISHIEST.
Never did parse TURNIP, but vegetables starting T blank R were thin on the ground.
Hoe hoe…
My usual eight in 20 minutes and another eight after 30 minutes. All the south. Didn’t get 1ac, missed the chestnut Eagle and thought local for legal (?) I did get the bolt from crossbow and should have got the cryptic hole part…
Thanks R and K
4:40. Flayan said it first but my LOI FISHIEST had to be COD. I liked RUIN and TURNIP too. Nice puzzle. Thanks Kybos and Roly.
Comfortably ensconced in the SCC with a lovely hot chocolate, complete with all the trimmings. Lots to enjoy here and a few that really made me ponder.
However, what is really making me ponder is why on some days I throw in the towel so easily and on others I enjoy the challenge to the bitter end. Is it just having different amounts of patience on different days, or is there something specific in a setter’s style that provokes me? Yesterday I was no more pressed for time than today, was equally well rested and yet my approach was completely different. Another hot chocolate perhaps whilst I continue to ruminate
Some days I feel sharp and keen, and wipe out both QC and 15×15 inside 15 minutes. Some days I can’t seem to motivate myself and it becomes 25 minutes. Yesterday was one of those, and I didn’t look at the puzzles until mid-afternoon. Regulars here will probably notice that on such days I seldom post, as everything relevant has already been said. In my case it’s quite probably an age issue.
I think we would all prefer you to post Busman…
I sometimes find that when I’m enjoying a puzzle and feel that I’m making progress, I’m motivated to put in an extra effort to finish it. Whereas if I’m thinking “This is just [unprintable]”, which happens occasionally, then I might decide that my time is better spent elsewhere.
I can happily persist for an hour as long as I am getting one every two or three minutes, or at least getting some productive ideas. I even take breaks for another coffee, or have my shower. The ones I hate are when I do all but a few (normally 4 in a # pattern) in 5 or 6 mins and then try everything, listing all the words and making synonym lists of each, listing them all again for possible wordplay meanings, listing all the possible anagrams, and writing down all the single and double alphabet trawls, followed by staring at it unproductively for 20 mins or so. If at the end of that I have the same ones still blank, then that’s when I give up and do a reveal.
Thanks, it’s interesting and reassuring to see how others react.
Today I feel sharp, and, although this very enjoyable puzzle was on the tougher side, it didn’t take too much polishing off. I saw the LEGAL/EAGLE crossing and wondered if there was a theme, but I can’t spot one. It would be typical of me to see one that’s not there when I regularly fail to see one that is!
FOI CHARITABLE
LOI THIRD PARTY
COD RUIN
TIME 3:54
Some nice clues, but overall too difficult for me, needed to reveal 1a to give me the first lettrs of the downs, and also tardiest to finish up. Thanks Kybos and rolytoly.
Just inside the SCC today. Oh well.
I note that the definition for DARTED refers to the intransitive sense of the verb ie sped, dashed etc. However the transitive sense also works as a definition eg “I shot/darted the lion”, which is how I got there.
Pi ❤️
Finished it but did not enjoy it one bit. Can’t put my finger on it – it just did not entertain me. It was a real joyless slog.
First Lap: 8
Answered (no help): 18
Answered (help): 6
Time: 37:10
What constitutes your ‘help’? When I’m stuck I usually resort to a ‘crossword solver’ and/or an ‘anagram solver’ but never sure how much I can then claim I have completed the crossword!
My help/aids consist of:
Chambers Crossword Dictionary
Bradford’s Crossword Dictionary
Anagram Solver
“Ask Ross” (part of the Crossword Genius app on my iPhone)
The cat
Thank you – I must remember to add the cat to my list!!
7.31 – I thought this was definitely a hard QC. The BOLTHOLE / FISHIEST intersection took the most time and were the LOsI, but generally each clue wasn’t easy and, and most were relatively long.
I enjoyed it throughout.
Quite tough for a QC, but I enjoyed it immensely, a really well thought out puzzle. It took me 12.42 to complete, so well above target. I spent quite a time on my LOI FISHIEST, eventually solving it from the cryptic direction, rather than thinking of a word that fits and trying to justify it. For a while I couldn’t get TIGHTEST out of my mind as the only word I could think of that fitted.
In contrast to other commentators, I found this one to be easier than the average puzzle, and finished in 7:29 with FISHIEST the only real slow down. COD for me goes to TURNIP; very clever, although I can see it being a style of clue that would wear thin if overused. I also really liked CHARITABLE and BOLTHOLE. As usual my knowledge of musical terms let me down, but the easy wordplay made TUTTI a confident guess. Thanks Rolytoly and Kybos.
32 mins in 2 sessions, 12, 20. Couldn’t parse TURNIP which, thanks to Roly, is my COD. Bifd LOST CAUSES and 1A came to me between sessions. Anagrams took longer than usual too. Altogether well clued but not an orderly solve.
Getting ready to pop out for some fishing in the sun. WFB.
Thanks Roly and Kybosh
17:58
Massively helped by the anagrams.
Incorrectly half parsed TURNIP. I had the ‘T’ and thought ‘P’ & ‘I’ must be part of it, then wrongly though ‘turn’ must be some form of synonym for ‘clue’ – ok, I fluked it!
That said, and despite rolytoly’s explanation, I’m still not getting it – help?
Biffed LOST CAUSES and never parsed TARDIER. I came up with two answers that fit the checkers, the other being TERRIER. Fortunately ‘later’ made me choose the right one.
A lucky solve!
FOI: LEGAL
LOI: TARDIER
COD: CHARITABLE
Thanks to Kybos and rolytoly
Ah! Re-read your blog roly with a big PDM – d’oh!
And a very, very big thank you to you and all the other bloggers – I would not be solving QC’s and improving as I have if it wasn’t for you all taking the time to blog and explain.
I owe you all a drink!
Cheers – I hope to be able to hold you to that some day!
An enjoyable puzzle. Needed T-R— before the vegetable appeared and was delayed by FISHIEST and BOLTHOLE. Otherwise from RUIN to CLOTHES PEG in 7:07. Thanks Kybos and Roly.
I found this quite tricky and drifted into the SCC on 22 minutes. The bottom half fell quite quickly – all my problems were in the top half. TARDIER and TURNIP parsed after solving but I needed Rolytoly for the parsing of LOST CAUSES having failed to lift and separate behaves and contrarily.
FOI – 9ac LEGAL
LOI – 4dn TURNIP
COD – 3dn RUIN
Thanks to Kybos and Rolytoly.
I’m with Dr Jack and a few others: not too difficult, and some super clues. A very enjoyable 8 mins.
Thanks Kybos – more please! – and Roly for the blog.
14:16
Hard, and more so by a particularly tricky 1a (a well-hidden definition, unusual device and unexpected synonym for “counter”*). Anyway, 16:43, with TURNIP unparsed.
Thank you for the blog!
*Yes, “table” is there in the definition of “counter”, but nobody looks at a counter and thinks “Oh look, there’s a table”.
19.05 On poor form today. I struggled with CHARITABLE, its descendants and LOI DARTED. And the font that doesn’t distinguish PI from Pl made me grumpy. Thanks rolytoly and Kybos.
An amusing witty puzzle. In the end, I needed a hint for POI FISHIEST, (cd not think of flings=Shies) which gave me LOI BOLTHOLE. But I missed RUIN as I was rushing about this morning. COD, though.
FOI THIRD PARTY, but had to hop around a bit.
Liked CHARITABLE, PLUNGE, CLOTHES PEG, and NEAR MISS, among others.
No problem with ESAU.
Many thanks, Roly. CNP TURNIP.
Excellent puzzle IMHO. Going fine until getting badly stuck in NW. I could see TURNIP fitted the grid, but couldn’t remotely parse ( not seen that trick – another for the toolbox – very neat). Convinced HARBOUR was HIDEOUT – why is it so difficult to get a wrong answer ( which again, fits the grid, but not the wordplay) out of your head ? TARDIER took a while too . All in all a slightly meatier QC, but none the worse for that, with no obscurities whatever and some very nice wordplays.
Thanks a lot setter and blogger.
20:48 SCC. Done by the filthiest turnip.
TaRAK
20:58 – a fairly average time for me. Rather surprised, as I found this quite tough, not being able to parse quite a few and relying on guesswork. LOI FISHIEST.
9:13
Quitch of 108 seems about right for this. I felt I was a little slow to solve some of the answers, though there were a few gimmes. The crossing answers LEGAL EAGLE were noted, though not sure I see any others which might constitute a nina. Last two in were BOLTHOLE which took far too long to see, and finally, FISHIEST.
Thanks Roly and Kybos
Tough going but stuck it out until the end.
FOI 14a plunge – see what I mean!
LOI 13a Darted
COD 15d Not/able
I needed 15 minutes for this quite difficult QC. LOI BOLTHOLE and POI FISHIEST.
Several I did not parse including CHARITABLE, so the blog is needed today -thanks.
I didn’t highlight a COD whilst solving but overall a good and stiff challenge.
David
Half solved in twenty minutes before hitting the mental merry-go-round! Having studied the solution I think i need to focus more on finding the definition and then look at the construction. I’ve been working the other way round ie constructing then seeing if it fits a definition! I question Table=Counter and the plural of Louse – isn’t it Lice?
Took a long time to get started on this one and a long time to finish but it provided a lot of pleasure and seemed like good practice for the 15*15.
I thought it was a bit of a stretch to describe something that was shot as D-RATED until moving the king produced the more acceptable DARTED.
TURNIP was very clever and FISHIEST was LOI by a long way.
Thanks Kybos and Roly.
A very leisurely 25:35 with more than 2/3 of the time on CHARITABLE / BOLTHOLE / FISHIEST. Was desparately trying to anagram “seat I” at the end which helped nothing. DNK “bolt” was a crossbow projectile, so that made BOLTHOLE all the harder. Thankful to see an all-green solve at the end. All-in-all a fair but tougher Thursday workout for me. Thanks all.
43 minutes but put Darken instead of Darted – just couldn’t work it out!! Good puzzle. Thank you Kybos and Roly.
I toyed with Darken at first, too, but it didn’t parse.
Spent the morning coaching croquet improvers. Then lunched with Mrs Muscovite, so didn’t pick up the paper until after 3. Kybos? I seemed to remember struggling with a Kybos before, so I feared the worst. But not this time. Found it to be a delightful puzzle, full of entertaining clues.
Loved: RUIN, TURNIP, FISHIEST, BOLTHOLE AND (LOI) LOST CAUSES.
All parsed and correct while the cuppa was still warm
Thanks Kybos and Roly
Dnf…
In a rush today, so this wasn’t the best puzzle to try and knock off quickly. As a result, had to throw in the towel with a fair number of the top of the grid not completed. Saying that, some of the clues seemed pretty difficult: 4dn “Turnip”, 3dn “Ruin” and 2dn “Harbour” not straightforward at all.
FOI – 6dn “Eagle”
LOI – dnf
COD – 8dn “Third Party”
Thanks as usual!
Just avoided the SCC at 19:29, but with a typo on CLOTGES PEG. Rats. FISHIEST took a long time because I saw HIES in there and thought that could conceivably be a synonym for “flings”. COD to RUIN today: I have to wonder whether the idea for that clue came from an actual text.
Thanks to Kybos and roly.
Hard but fun as they all should be.
AD&D in about 15 mins
As Toxshot says, hard but fun (or maybe hard but satisfying). In the SCC as ever, but steadily chipped away until all was done. I liked TURNIP (and assumed pi = 3.1415 . . . ) and RUIN when I eventually got there. Quite a few challenging (to me) clues but all fair (e.g. 1a wanting me to change chair to chari).
Oh and I never parsed LOST CAUSES (and looking at the blog, probably never would). Thanks all