| 1 |
Composer from New Harlem (6) |
|
MAHLER – anagram (‘new’) of HARLEM |
| 4 |
Starts to alter bus route in a foreign country (6) |
|
ABROAD – A[LTER] + B[US] + ROAD |
| 8 |
Dull Head of Theology cut gospel (7) |
|
MATTHEW – MAT (dull) + T for Theology + HEW |
| 10 |
Clean seats returned around back of stage (5) |
|
SWEEP – PEWS backwards around E |
| 11 |
Pound pinched by rebuked infant (5) |
|
CHILD – CHID with L inserted |
| 12 |
Criminal harm that primarily involves old British chemicals company (7) |
|
ILLICIT – ILL (harm) + T[HAT] with ICI inserted. |
| 13 |
Gloomy, small, unnaturally pale bird (5,4) |
|
BLACK SWAN – BLACK + S + WAN |
| 17 |
Element extracted from half of Cava? (7) |
|
CALCIUM – half of Cava is Ca, the chemical symbol for calcium |
| 19 |
Spear second fish (5) |
|
SPIKE – s + PIKE |
| 20 |
Smutty pair of ducks kept in pen (5) |
|
SOOTY – OO (pair of ducks) inside STY. Smut originally meant soot, before the other meaning arose. |
| 21 |
Section of Arctic or, better, Scottish mountain (7) |
|
CORBETT – Hidden word. A corbett is a mountain between 2500 and 3000ft. Over 3000ft and it becomes a munro. I don’t make the rules. |
| 22 |
Friends divided by extremely naïve juries (6) |
|
PANELS – PALS ‘divided’ by N[AÏV]E |
| 23 |
Fool shortened her dress (6) |
|
CLOTHE – CLOT + HE[R] |
NHO heard of CORBETT nor a WHISKY MAC but at least the mountain was a hidden. Realising ‘it beats’ clued “whisk” is my crosswording moment of the week. The mountain was needed for the nina – which I spotted after a heavy hint in the comments under the puzzle in the club. Speaking of clubs, a second day in a row in the SCC, all green in 20.08. I knew what was going on in MIMICS I just didn’t take it far enough – because I wanted saint to mean ST, got there once MATTHEW went in. Finished on SPIKE, not sure why ‘pike’ was so hard to get but glad I’m glad I resisted inventin the pine fish. Ace puzzle, ace blog – good all round crossingwording!
Whisky Mac is whisky and ginger wine, quite different from ginger ale. Traditionally it’s the green variety rather than the brown, I think.
11 minutes. Nice puzzle.
As a child we always had a bottle of ginger wine at Christmas, a tradition I’ve recently resurrected, yum!
Why was it “ green” ( because it clearly wasn’t) ? I was also allowed it at Christmas as a nipper ( feeling very grown up), also that dire sticky yellow stuff, that’s only drinkable with lemonade.
Much enjoyed with the added frisson of an unknown setter as our iPad app doesn’t show it today. 18.24 with spike LOI
Thanks Curarist for the parsing of Ca, d’oh, as an ex chemist I should have worked that out for myself.
Some very nice surfaces, enjoyed black swan in particular
Thanks Chico
I was slightly thrown off by not knowing who the setter was which is odd as I’ve no idea why it should make a difference.
I thought this was slightly tougher than average but everything was fairly clued and I even spotted the nina whilst proof reading so I’m expecting a blue moon tonight.
Started with MAHLER and finished with DEPOTS in 9.02. COD to BLACK SWAN.
Thanks to Cheeko and Curarist
9:19
Very slow today. Like Mendesest, DNK CORBETT, WHISKY MAC. (The drink sounds awful, whether ginger ale or ginger wine. But then the idea of mixing Scotch with anything other than water or seltzer appals.) I wondered if there was a Ben Corbett in Scotland; knew of Munros (in ODE) but not Corbetts (not). Couldn’t parse CALCIUM; I can see how ‘Ca’ is extracted from ‘calcium’, but ‘calcium’ from ‘ca’?
Ca is the chemical symbol for Calcium.
Yes, I know; I was questioning ‘extracted’.
Luckily I lived in Scotland for years so no problem with CORBETT and WHISKY MAC (which is made with ginger wine, not ginger ale, as I now see others have pointed out). My LOI was NETTLE but that was just because I worked from top to bottom so that was the last clue I got to after 7 minutes and 40 seconds.
7:50 for the solve. Theme spotted post solve. While I think there’s only four words involved, it highlights how the setter than has to crowbar vho WHISKY-MAC in. Minute spent at the end on DEPOTS where I double-checked the ILLICIT parsing which I’d confident bunged due to the -ICI- part.
Nonetheless enjoyed it although somewhat distracted by having no setter info online. Thought it might be Izetti with the MATTHEW clue and the vHO CORBETT but he doesn’t tend to go for themes. So I’m surprised to discover it’s Cheeko – I’ve never broken fourteen mins on any of their puzzles before.
1hr20 for the week with almost half of that on yesterday’s.
Thanks to Curarist and Cheeko and have a good weekend everybody.
17:23 Managed to spike the whisky mac but couldn’t get Matthew or Basil to put Calcium in.
Ta CAC
10:09
My Nan likes a Whisky Mac. There must be something to them given she’s 94 and still going.
FOI MAHLER LOI CALCIUM COD WHISKY MAC (in honour of my Nan)
: ) well done, her! The Queen Mother apparently enjoyed a daily champagne (amongst an array of other daily thirst quenchers) until over 100. Carry on!
A much tamer Cheeko than some of his earliest offerings! All done in 9:29, but I did not parse CALCIUM, and tbh still don’t really see how the clue works. Yes Ca is the chemical symbol for Calcium, but is that all the wordplay? No attempt to clue the LCIUM?
Many thanks Curarist for the blog.
All done in an enjoyable 17 minutes; I’m sure that being aware of the setter wouldn’t have made any difference but I was also surprisingly distracted by not knowing who it was.
Starting with a couple of easy crossers and two long simple anagrams gave a good framework from which to build. Like others, CORBETT was an unknown and though I did know WHISKY MAC it’s entirely beyond me why anyone would want to add anything to a perfectly good whisky! Or maybe it’s a way to make a bad whisky tolerable‽
I didn’t see the NINA until it was mentioned here, I never do.
COD BLACK SWAN.
Thanks Cheeko and Curarist.
I totally agree about desecrating decent whisky in this way. Mixing it with anything other than a few drops of water would only be vaguely tolerable to try to improve a totally rubbish Scotch Whisky (and I have yet to come across one of those).
All pretty reasonable. DNK CORBETT ( now I do), but easily biffed. DNK chid as past tense of chide ( not a word I ever use, but if I did, I’d have guessed chided). Wasted a couple of minutes trying to be too clever and force in Cadmium, then Caesium, before twigging the clue referred to the symbol ( duh).
Thanks to setter ( who doesn’t get a name check in the app FSR) and blogger.
Not easy (didn’t know it was Cheeko but he never offers an easy ride IMO). Lots of MERs (as others have pointed out above) but I enjoyed some of the clues and got there in the end. I just put a toe into the SCC as a result of a mis-type of wastrel which delayed completion of the SE corner.
A difficult four days (as I said earlier this week, only Trelawney managed to set a QC that really flowed for me).
Whatever their merits, too many QCs ain’t what they used to be these days.
Thanks to both, though, especially Curarist for a good blog and expert parsing.
Nice crossword. Badly held up by putting in Echnida, but otherwise no problems. “Chid” like buses, don’t see it for ages and then two in sucession. Thanks Cheeko and Curarist. Still can’t see the Nina.
Like others, we were discombobulated (such a great word – sounds a little like its meaning 🙃 ) by not knowing with whom we were dealing… interesting.
Anyway – a repeatedly interrupted event which rather diminished the pleasure and removed any flow that we might have enjoyed.
Nevertheless, a read of the blog shows it to have been a clever offering… with, for us at least, a number of NHO entries (WHISKY MAC, CORBETT) – all achievable however.
Thank you all.
15:24. Slow and steady today. It was one of those puzzles where the answers appeared more readily than the parsing. That’s where I spent the time. Worth it though. It is satisfying to have everything nailed down.
We needed CHID in yesterday’s QC too. Fair enough, but it risks a second day of my daft earworm:
Do as you’re bid
And never be chid
I don’t know how I know it. I don’t recall it being said to me as a child. It doesn’t sound like my parents and certainly not my teachers. Still. There it is.
Thanks to Cheeko for an entertaining puzzle and thank you Curarist for the blog
Good puzzle but I was pretty slow today and glad to finish all correct. The NE held me up until various pennies dropped. LOsI SWEEP and unparsed DEPOTS.
Biffed a few like NHO CORBETT, and MIMICS
Always worry about spelling of ECHIDNA, egg-laying mammal.
Liked SOOTY, WHISKY MAC, and HOT-AIR BALLOON.
Ah, the theme has just dawned on me!
At an outdoor event my Finnish friends were most impressed to be given a whisky mac and bought some ginger wine to take back with them
Thanks vm, Curarist.
4:43. I enjoyed this as an about average difficulty QC. MAHLER is a lovely surface, my COD. I also liked WASTREL.
NHO CORBETT but fortunately it was hidden. CHID appeared recently (yesterday?) I think.
Very enjoyable, a great start to the day.
4:27. I thought I was doing the 15×15 at first as the title didn’t have the setter’s name on my printed page, but the answers went in much too fast for that. LOI CLOTHE because it was at the bottom on my second pass through the clues. I liked MAHLER and WHISKY MAC. It’s ages since I had one but, having just checked, I see I do have some ginger wine in my drinks cupboard. Thanks Cheeko and Curarist.
A slow 13:39. My excuse is the two unknown Scots related clues but I was just generally sluggish. I had to come here to see there was a theme (unless I’m missing something I don’t think there’s an associated Nina) which funnily enough I first heard of in an episode of the “Antiques Roadshow” involving one of the experts (Ronnie); very touching.
I liked the trick for CALCIUM which I don’t remember seeing before.
Thanks to Curarist and the just revealed Cheeko
18:26 – about average for this entertaining puzzle. NHO CORBETT, but not hard to work out, and eventually remembered MAC.