Loon’s fourth puzzle, a bit gentler than the others.
Loon’s previous puzzles have been 101, 131, 109 on the Quitch. I found this to be on softer terrain, with the top half being a fairly straight solve, and, despite a few stickier things in the south, I came home in a nice neat 5:55.
Much enjoyed – many thanks to Loon!
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 7 | Australian native’s time to settle down (5) |
| ROOST – ROO’S (Australian native’s) T(ime) | |
| 8 | This suggests Laura’s excited to receive love (7) |
| AROUSAL – anagram (excited) of LAURAS to receive O (love), with the definition referring to the rest of the clue. | |
| 10 | I retain peculiar disinclination to move (7) |
| INERTIA – anagram (peculiar) of I RETAIN | |
| 11 | Son follows description of six and eight irons? (5) |
| EVENS – S(on) follows EVEN (description of six and eight). As in to iron/press/flatten/even. Hands up if you briefly joined the “what on earth do eight irons have to do with evens?” club. | |
| 12 | Item from bakery and fizzy water brought up for auditor (4,5) |
| SODA BREAD – SODA (fizzy water) and BREAD “for the auditor” sounds the same as BRED (brought up/raised) | |
| 14 | Friend coming round for drink (3) |
| LAP – PAL (friend) reversed | |
| 15 | What encourages Sergio García? Endless holes (3) |
| OLE – is HOLES “less the ends”. Very nice! | |
| 16 | Chopped up wood taken for one-on-one combat (9) |
| TAEKWONDO – anagram (chopped up) of WOOD TAKEN. Can be three words or one. | |
| 18 | Having returned, make strong argument against potato? (5) |
| TUBER – reverse REBUT (make strong argument against) | |
| 20 | Herbivore’s blunder eating skinned bird (7) |
| GIRAFFE – GAFFE (blunder) eating IR (“skinned” |
|
| 22 | Unusual small portion is tasty snack (7) |
| RAREBIT – RARE (unusual) BIT (small portion) | |
| 23 | Assign everybody books (5) |
| ALLOT – ALL (everybody) OT (Old Testament = books) | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Reputedly boring individual teaches ceramicist (12) |
| TRAINSPOTTER – TRAINS (teaches) POTTER (ceramicist) | |
| 2 | Too lazy to work, Blondie beginning to eat bananas (4,4) |
| BONE IDLE – anagram (bananas) of BLONDIE and “beginning” of E |
|
| 3 | Restore this section of permafrost ethically (4) |
| STET – “section of” permafroST EThically. Latin for let it stand, used in editing, etc. that I first encountered in a crossword (and have never seen in the wild). | |
| 4 | Ruin wild party pinching silver (6) |
| RAVAGE – RAVE (wild party) pinching AG (silver) | |
| 5 | Sweetheart delivered sufficient melon (8) |
| HONEYDEW – HONEY (sweetheart) and then DEW is “delivered” or spoken the same as DUE (sufficient) | |
| 6 | Ascending sequence in Handel’s Imeneo is key (4) |
| ISLE – “Ascending sequence” in handELS Imeneo. KEY for ISLE from Spanish cayo. | |
| 9 | Changing sport, reply to office for recovery of kit (4,8) |
| LOST PROPERTY – anagram (changing) of SPORT REPLY TO | |
| 13 | Bad breath surrounds old boy in loose clothing (8) |
| BATHROBE – anagram (bad) of BREATH surrounding OB (old boy: abbrev. as in a school alumnus) | |
| 14 | Descend below ground, where cruise ends (8) |
| LANDFALL – FALL (descend) goes below LAND (ground) | |
| 17 | Some scores important having lost wicket (6) |
| EIGHTY – WEIGHTY (important) having lost W(icket). In the score = 20 sense, of course. | |
| 19 | Scottish child, heartlessly, in outhouse (4) |
| BARN – BAIRN (Scotting child) “heartlessly” = remove the centre | |
| 21 | Raise seat (4) |
| REAR – double definition: the first as in either to lift up or to breed; the second as in REAR-END, with Chambers defining the relevant sense of SEAT rather strangely as “That part of the body or of a garment on which on sits”. | |
I was strangely helpless for the first seven or eight minutes, getting few answers, and all of a sudden my brain clicked into solving mode and I started to rapidly enter the answers. Maybe it was just that I finally had enough crossing letters to biff like mad.
Time: 12:28
Inertia could just as accurately be defined as disinclination to stop moving!
Early arrival in the SCC by a minute. 4 am is probably not the optimal time of day for me to be puzzle solving but I suspect that had I been fully awake I’d still have been slow. A enjoyable crossword with nothing unknown but plenty of misdirection. A good number of anagrams prevented an even slower solve.
My CoD is often one that makes me smile and today that’s TRAINSPOTTER. An honourable mention to GIRAFFE and RAREBIT,
Thanks Loon and Roly
I did okay on Loon’s first appearance with a respectable 12 minute solve, but his next two took me to 18 minutes, missing my extended target time. Today I needed 25 minutes. Looking back on it now I’ve no idea why as there’s nothing remotely obscure or oblique in it. Probably just down to me on the day except that I note vinly1, as a very experienced solver, struggled just a bit. .
Saw ‘eights’ would fit and nearly fit the definition but surprising discipline made me parse more intently and there was EIGHTY, very nice. Seven on the pass of acrosses, probably more on the downs and then some mopping up. Lots to enjoy. Except I can’t (couldn’t hopefully) spell TAEKWaNDO – careless for an anagram, especially when I knew there was scope to go wrong. So not all green but a shade below 10.
I took a while to get going but then things went smoothly to finish in 10.01. I forgot what a rave was which cost some time. I hesitate to ask because I never get these things right, but is the 8ac clue giving AROUSAL an &lit? Thanks to Loon and Roly. You’re unlikely to have seen STET in the wild because it is only used by sub-editors working on hard copy as an instruction to compositors, and never to be set in type and published. These days hard copy is virtually obsolete so you’ll only ever see it here.
I made heavy weather of this one, possibly a result of attempting it before my morning cuppa.
Started with ROOST and finished with LOST PROPERTY in 9.29. COD to GIRAFFE.
Thanks to Rolytoly and Loon
10:35. Not too hard but I didn’t get some of the earlier clues such as TRAINSPOTTER until later on and there were a few hurdles such as HONEYDEW and LANDFALL which needed a revisit to solve. I had to check the anagram fodder for TAEKWONDO to avoid the same mistake as Mendesest.
Given his recent meltdown at the Masters, I’m not sure ‘endless holes’ exactly encourage Sergio García at the moment!
Thanks to Loon and Roly
😅 if the setter knew, it would be an extremely brilliant bit of clueing
Held on just long enough to stroll into the SCC, surprised it wasn’t a bit longer as a few bits took some thought. EVENS and EIGHTY didn’t parse quickly, and thankfully the martial art was an anagram or I might have been trying to insert all sorts of letters in various orders for ages. TRAINSPOTTER got a smile.
Ideal mix of mental stimulation and enjoyment.
I’m in a run of finding puzzles much more difficult than the SNITCH would suggest, and today was no exception as I rather limped home in 14:36. Not obvious why, as eventually almost all was clear enough; the sole exception was the parsing of HONEYDEW, an easy biff and Honey was straightforward, but I never saw Due for Sufficient (and still don’t really).
EIGHTY my LOI, and I needed all the checkers as I was nowhere near getting the answer from wordplay alone. Big PDM when I clicked what “scores” meant.
Many thanks Roly for the blog.
due diligence?
I see that as more “the diligence that is due” ie appropriate to or expected for the situation. It may very well be sufficient, indeed one hopes it is, but I’m still puzzled …
If I had ‘spotted’ the chestnut at 1d before I was halfway through the puzzle, I might have finished in time for a seat, but a slow solve overall meant it was standing room only by the time I finished. Having said that, this was still an enjoyable solve, with several pdms and some good parsing challenges.
CoD to Giraffe, unsurprisingly a neck ahead of Eighty. Invariant
6 mins in Id done half the clues and the rest seemed impenetrable, but fortunately each of them was only one or two checkers away from being write in, and it all fell into place after I made myself puzzle out the long anagram at 9D
COD to OLE, made me laugh
6’32”, a steady solve. Liked the Laura clue.
Thanks roly and Loon
Fast start, slow finish. Got stuck in the SE with LANDFALL, GIRAFFE, EIGHTY and LOI REAR all taking a while to winkle out. Thank goodness TAEKWONDO was an anagram because I’d have given you any odds that it had an I in it!
Fell over the line in 07:10; looking above I think I’m scoring that as a Very Good Day. This may be a wavelength puzzle because Son #1, who took up cryptics in lockdown, was only 20 seconds slower.
COD TRAINSPOTTER. Many thanks Loon and Roly.
7:04
As someone who still likes to check a document by printing it out, making corrections on paper before typing them back into the document, I frequently use STET as an instruction to myself.
COD to GIRAFFE.
Thanks Roly and Loon
Thanks to Roly for a good blog but I cannot agree with him (or the QUITCH) about the level of difficulty. I found this much more difficult than Loon’s previous offerings. I was slow to pick my way around the grid and almost set it aside but LOST PROPERTY suddenly appeared and I made quicker progress on the RHS.
I was still off-wavelength, ignored my time, and battled on for a while. Strangely, I was so bamboozled by the end that I could not see my LO(N)I EIGHTY, even with crossers, and just gave up. Not usually my style but I am clearly out of step with most solvers in finding this anything but a QC.
A challenge with some clever clues but, overall, not an enjoyable experience for me.
My response was remarkably similar to Cedric’s but I was a great deal slower. I felt a bit better when I saw how similar Jackkt’s reaction was to my own. Thanks to both for making me feel a little less stupid.
Very pleasant. Another setter, another wavelength. Some neat clues at reasonable QC level. EIGHTY held me up briefly, before the light dawned – nicely done, and typical of several pleasing clues. Must be very satisfying to be able to create such things.
Many thanks to both
PS I resolve to read the blog ( but not the other comments) before posting – I was convinced EVENS had to do with golf. Ho- hum
I am with Blighty on this, finding it very difficult and taking a massive 30:54 to crawl home. Just not on the wavelength for several clues and needing a couple of alphabet trawls to finish. A bad start to the day.
Gentler? True the last one (in February) was extremely hard, but I managed both his offerings last year. This one was a long and arduous battle from FOI ALLOT to a hopeless search for “some” (which turned out not to be some) and G – T – wicket = gate? – also on the wrong track, DNK wicket = wife = W, again ignorance of sport my downfall. Otherwise all clear enough (eventually), thanks Roly. Liked AROUSAL.
7:18 – hardest of the week, surely.
Nothing stood out as particularly difficult to me, it was just a matter of none of the clues of 5+ letters being particularly easy. A lot of fairly tricky definitions to work through, which made biffing difficult until a few letters were in.
An enjoyable puzzle overall.
10:28,
LOI STET.
COD TRAINSPOTTER
Lovely puzzle, very much enjoyed, with OLE and AROUSAL making me smile. 8:10 – thanks Loon and Roly.