| 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.
Made with green ginger I suppose. We usually had Stone’s which was brown, but one Christmas the supplier sent us an alternative brand which was actually green. I think the name began with a C. Anyway we didn’t rate it compared with Stone’s.
Got it now, Crabbies!
Are you referring to the disgusting Seager’s Egg flip or the Bol’s ?
Used for making ‘Snowballs’ I think they were called.🤢
Absolutely right, Jack. Whisky and ginger ale is a “Whisky Dry”. (Brandy and ginger ale is a “Horse’s Neck”!)
Much beloved as a morning after tipple by sailors. Sugar lump with three splashes of Angostura Bitters added. At least that’s how I made them at the UTSC.
Ah yes, my naval father-in-law served a Horse’s Neck before lunch on Sundays.
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’.
extracted as the opposite to contracted perhaps?
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.
I read it as “extract an element from one or the other half of Cava”. So then it was a question of whether Ca or Va was a chemical symbol. Having toyed with vannium and vandium I decided to wait for checkers!
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.
We had chid yesterday!
Think I biffed it and didn’t check the blog ( lazily perhaps, but I was miffed with yesterday’s QC for other reasons). I consider myself chid !
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.
I missed it too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sooty_Show
Thanks, that explains MATTHEW rather than HARRY.
I wonder if the BASIL is a nod to Basil Brush.
Ahh – so easy!
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.
Nor I ever HO CORBETT (but it was staring out, so looked it up and there it was) or WHISKY MAC (ditto). Got there in the end, LOI NETTLE. QCs have now had 17 words for ‘fool’. Couldn’t quite see how CALCIUM works, thanks Curarist.
Many have hinted but I think none have spelt it out; is this a spoiler if I say at last I see Matthew Corbett, Sooty and Sweep, and ask: any more to it?
I was thrown by MATTHEW. It was Harry Corbett – his father – originally
Yes of course – I was thinking of saying all that, but thought better keep it simple. But yes I agree, I’d only HO Harry, Matthew’s long after my time.
Fortunately I have climbed many a Corbett and consumed many a glass of Whisky Mac, sometimes both at the same time, so there were no blockers here apart from parsing MIMIC and CALCIUM which I now understand thanks to Curarist.
27m to finish this rather enjoyable puzzle.
Tougher than average, I thought. It was two crossing pairs that held me up – MIMICS (S instead of ST for saint always throws me)/MATTHEW (had the definition at the wrong end), and DEPOTS (find a synonym, reverse it and take out a letter – tough!)/SWEEP. Oh, and I also needed a trawl for LOI SPIKE.
Fortunately the rest of it was pretty straightforward and it all added up to 08:59 for a Decent Day. COD to WHISKY MAC, very good indeed!
Many thanks Cheeko and Curarist.
Thank you for saying that – I nearly did but feared I’d be shouted down. Yes: surely in English it’s always St. In Italian it’s S. but surely irrelevant – what’s the context in English for S = Saint?
Not quite always. I’ve certainly carried a church banner dedicated to S Oswald.
That’s curious – and interesting; wonder what the rationale for that was? Can’t be the vowel; it’s always St Andrew. Is anyone suggesting Oswald is always S and not St? Or are others allegedly sometimes S? Wonder if AI has anything to say.
Google assistant says: Using “S” rather than “St.” to abbreviate “Saint” is an older, less common form of abbreviation in modern English, often deriving from Latin practices or specific, traditional style guides. While “St.” is the standard abbreviation, “S.” is occasionally seen in traditional, academic, or specific Catholic literature, particularly for church names or in British English usage where it is seen as a contraction
Yes I found that (or something very similar). However, when pressed for a specific example, it squirmed and finally came up with one (a church in Jesmond) which it then had to concede was usually called St. But when I confessed that my query originated from the world of crosswords it laughed at me and said that there, S is an absolutely standard answer for Saint, and that ST is usually clued “good man”. So I just have to learn it!
I’ve noticed that if churches are named after two saints (e.g. Peter and Paul) they are shown as SS Peter and Paul rather than STs Peter and Paul.
Sounds more like a couple of steam tugs to me 🙂
Under S my Shorter Oxford lists a series of “abbreviations”. The second one is “= Saint; so SS = Saints”. It then goes on to cite S as standing for Society, Solo (musical annotation), Sulphur, Sacral (anatomical), Sable (heraldic) and “snow (ship’s log book)”, so things could get worse!
Yes it’s clear that St’s doesn’t work. The doubling of a one-letter abbreviation to make a plural abbreviation is quite common, cf. bb and mm (musical bars / US measures), pp (pages), vv (verses), ff (pages following) and ll (lines). (Note that cc isn’t a plural.) What’s unique about the inevitable SS is that the singular is more usually the 2-letter abbreviation St. Or I think unique; is it? An interesting enquiry!
7:01
Another here that occasionally enjoys a WHISKY MAC, though quite happy drinking the ginger wine unadulterated. Wasn’t sure about the chemical symbol, but once the checkers were in, entered CONFIDENTly. Spotted the nina when reviewing the puzzle after the submit.
Thanks Curarist and Cheeko
From MAHLER to OVERCONFIDENT in 9:21. A sluggish day. Thanks Cheeko and Curarist.
A little over 12 minutes, but with a completely unacceptable DNF due to a hastily written CADMIUM, which I some how didn’t notice clashed with HOT-AIR BADLOON or some such. A nice end to the week. Thanks blogger and setter.
This is turning into a really odd week: I now have my first ever sub-20 Cheeko. Perhaps I should go away more often (. . .and you can stop that cheering at the back).
A 1ac Mahler write-in, soon followed by Mimics, gave me the desired start for a quick solve and my only hold-ups later on were the vho Echidna and nho Corbett mountain. As usual, I completely missed the Nina, which is quite annoying as Sooty was a favourite TV programme as a child (the ‘ever-so-naughty-Sooty’ jingle is now running through my mind).
CoD to Mimics, the novelty of the clue putting it just ahead of Sweep’s parsing. Invariant
👏👏👏
Quite tough I thought, about the same as yesterday for me.
Done in 14 minutes . LOI IDYLL after CALCIUM ( I think the clue works, as described above).
Whisky Mac used to be a winter staple at my golf club but I have not had one for about 30 years I guess.
Another CHID so that was fresh in my mind.
COD to WHISKY MAC now I have seen the parsing.
David
For the second day running I struggled. In yesterday’s (not attempted until this morning hence no post yesterday) I had everything bar 7dn in 22 minutes which seemed ok for a puzzle which was generally held to be difficult. Today’s supposedly easier version took me longer but again I ended up with a blank at 7dn, this time at my cut-off point of 30 minutes. However I wasn’t about to be beaten again so I persevered and eventually finished in 31 minutes. Lots of biffs though (8 and 17ac, 7 and 18dn). On 17ac I expected there to be more wordplay than there actually was. Knew Munro but NHO CORBETT but it had to be.
FOI – 1ac MAHLER
LOI – 7dn DEPOTS
COD – 9dn WHISKY MAC
Thanks to Cheeko and Curarist
Not all that straightforward, but fair enough for a QC I thought. I would have been just about on my ten minute target if it hadn’t been for my LOI SPIKE, which must have taken me the best part of two minutes to solve. Why this should have given me so trouble I just don’t know, it’s not that tricky! I have never heard of CORBETT, but I knew of a Munro, so figured it was similarly based on a surname. In the end I crossed the line in 11.48.
My total time for the week was 51.13, giving me a daily average a little over par at 10.15.
Happy I completed this in under 1/2 hour. Andy Pandy, L
Happy I completed this in under 1/2 hour. Loved Sooty & Sweep, Andy Pandy, Looby Loo, The Wooden Tops, Picture Book, Bill & Ben , “Bop bop little Weeeeed”
Not a fan of Rag, Tag & Bobtail!!
And we think our grandchildren are too involved in their on line entertainment.
Fortunately for me I remembered that Ca is the chemical symbol for caesium, but unfortunately for me I was wrong. Oh dear. 14:38.
I’ve somehow existed for half a century without having a whisky mac, which I will have to rectify at some point.
Thank you for the blog!
DNF.
Recently these puzzles have been much
harder. Far too hard for QCs in my
view.
I am going to stop buying the Times on a daily basis.
These QCs are ruining my day.
Another day, another dismal performance.
Around 30 minutes. Dreadful when I look at the times recorded by my erstwhile comparators. They are now miles ahead of me.
I didn’t like WHISKY MAC. An NHO for me and I initially had STICKY MAC. That caused the loss of several minutes.
A horrible week (again). I’m lost with this and my times are deteriorating. So far behind the competition now, despite my efforts to improve. I lack the right sort of brain for these puzzles, pure and simple.
PS I thought the standard abbreviation for Saint was ST. Where did S come from?
Why don’t you take a complete break (Kit-Kats optional) from crosswords for a week or so, and see if it works for you?
Thanks Invariant. That may be a good idea.
Seems to me like your mind is on targets, evaluating whether you’ve been successful and how the imaginary competition have done rather than solving the clues in front of you.
The increasing inner turmoil seems well correlated to times getting worse.
Fair points ND. I’m going to take Invariant’s advice and have a week away from it next week. Hopefully that will help.
17 in 40 minutes, another four on returning after my physio session. pleased with that. I should have persevered a bit longer having arrived at BLACK xWxN… same with SxIxE…
I was never going to get 3d even if I had spotted it was yet another anagram.
Thanks C & C
What a fun puzzle! Also learned something about mountains. Completed and pased in what felt like a quick time. Thought MIMICS was neat and spotted the NINA, which I don’t often do.
Thanks Cheeko and Curarist
9.54 CORBETT was new to me. I was distracted by SLING before getting SPIKE and NETTLE. Thanks Curarist and Cheeko.
45 minutes, so it was a hard one for me. My L2I, DEPOTS and SWEEP, added somewhere in the region of 12-15 minutes to my time. They shared the P and that proved to be the key letter.
Thanks to Curarist and Cheeko.
I would comment more frequently but find it a fag to fill in name and email every time, despite ticking the Save box every time I do it.
You could try registering, and then your login cookie would do the work for you.
The tick works for me. perhaps you clear down your cookies or have an add on which does it automatically for you when you close the browser.
Of course, as a US solver I couldn’t spot the theme, and didn’t know the “mountain”. Here in New England, mountains start at 4000 feet, while out west they probably require 10,000. I also thought CA was the symbol for cadmium, but then hot air balloon came along. So, a bit delayed.
Time: 9:48
Slow NHO CORBETT
25 mins. Massively held up by Sweep and Depots, which were fairly clued, just eluded me. Didn’t parse Mimics or Calcium either, so counting myself lucky to get all done on this one. I rather enjoy a whisky mac as a longer drink, diluted with ginger ale and a dash of tabasco.
FOI Mahler
LOI Sweep
COD Wastrel
Thanks Cheeko and Curarist
Loved Sooty & Sweep & Andy Pandy, Picture Book, The Wooden Tops .. not so keen on Rag, Tag & Bobtail… Bill & Ben were great…” bop bop little weeeeeed!” And we think our grandchildren are too engrossed with their iPad entertainment!