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. An 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.
Is 8a perhaps a semi-&lit? I don’t think it qualifies for removal of the “semi” because “This suggests” isn’t part of the wordplay.
Yes agreed – I’d say that’s spot on.
As I said, I approach this whole area with great trepidation and am gratified that we think it’s a semi &lit which means I’m half right! Right?
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 …
Collins:
due
in British English
adjective
4. (prenominal)
adequate or sufficient; enough
But the third definition is “requisite, fitting, proper” and I find it impossible to think of any example for “sufficient” which doesn’t also mean “fitting”! (Eg “in due time”, “after due consideration”, “take due care” and so on – in all those examples you could use fitting or sufficient.) If there’s a distinction it’s very subtle …
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.
I had an extra E until I checked the anagrist, so between us that all of the wrong vowels accounted for.
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
Same here!
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.
Must be on the wavelength today, coming in at 8:00 exactly, helped a lot by getting 1d right off the bat and only EIGHTY causing significant problems. STET seems to have finally embedded itself into what remains of my brain’s long-term storage.
Having restored some confidence after a poor couple of weeks, I will now destroy it utterly with a look at the 15×15.
Thank you for the blog!
I reached 22 after an hour, missing eighty and rarebit, both of which I should have seen.
FoI inertia – the property of a body to remain in its present state unless acted upon by a force – if I remember my O-Level physics correctly.
Potter went in before trains.
Lap only went in after lost property.
CoD giraffe because I parsed it
LoI Barn and I needed the B from tuber to get that.
Thanks Loon and Roly
I sure there is a duck pun in there somewhere.
15:49
Happy with that as thought it was going to take longer after the first few minutes of finding my feet. FOI AROUSAL, then INERTIA and EVENS, but slowed down a bit, not helped by inputting PAL rather than LAP. LOI HONEYDEW as I threw in LOVE when seeing “sweetheart” and then stared at it for too long before backtracking. COD EIGHTY.
Also pleased to note that I’m a SNITCH reference now. That definitely feels like I’ve arrived!
Thanks Loon and Roly
DNF EIGHTY. Slow on excellent TRAINSPOTTER. Also liked GIRAFFE, OLE (made me smile when penny dropped), RAREBIT.
SODA BREAD is delicious.
In haste, thanks Roly.
Just as I like them, only one write-in but then a steady chug through. Only hold up was 1d / 15a. goodness knows why, 1d is obvious in retrospect and that gives 15a as a write in. Couldnt parse 5d or 14d (I had land=descend, as in aeroplane) so I toyed with Landfill (that descends below ground) but no connection to a cruise. Thanks to Loon and rolytoly.
I enjoyed this puzzle despite ending up well into the SCC at 25 minutes. Progress was slow throughout without ever getting completely stuck. Everything parsed en route except EVENS which I originally thought a poor clue having completely overlooked the significance of the word “irons”.
FOI – 7ac ROOST
LOI – 17dn EIGHTY
COD – 5dn HONEYDEW
Thanks to Loon and Rolytoly
I enjoyed this and finished in 9 minutes with LOI EVENS. POI HONEYDEW took a little time but this mainly fell into place for me.
COD to AROUSAL.
David
This was a tough one taking about 40 minutes but all the clues were fair except initially for EIGHTY which I thought was a very poor definition of a random score – until Roly explained it that is. Very good and 15*15 material.
Really liked EVENS and REAR among several others
Thanks both
Less horrible than earlier in the week, but still a stiff challenge. 37 minutes for me.
I set off in the knowledge that, come what may, I would take a break at the half-hour mark if I hadn’t already finished and, with only eight clues written in as the doors of the SCC opened, it was clear that I would indeed have to return for a second bite of the cherry if I was to reach the line.
Just getting started proved difficult and I wondered if I was attempting the wrong crossword, but things eased up later and five clues remained when my 30 minutes was up. A second coffee and a scrape out of Mrs R’s date and walnut cake bowl provided the impetus to come back and complete the grid.
LAP was my FOI and ISLE my last.
Thanks to Roly and Loon.
On edit: I have just realised that I recorded a DNF, as I put EIGHTs instead of EIGHTY at 17d.
Five in first pass then embarrassing INERTIA
11:41
Yes, sorry Roly but I disagree with this puzzle being of the ‘gentler’ variety. The Quitch is currently 100 suggesting medium-paced, which for me would set a target of around 9m30s, which I missed by some distance. Personally, like vinyl1, I found it hard to get going, though there are probably a few that I might have seen more quickly on another day. Thanks for the blog, though, I always appreciate the effort that goes into breaking down some of the more puzzling wordplay – I too was temporarily mystified by EVENS, and like Cedric, had trouble equating DUE/DEW with delivered.
Thanks also to Loon for the puzzle
I could have worded it a lot better, but I didn’t say it was a gentle puzzle, I said it was a bit gentler than Loon’s other puzzles (101, 131 and 109 on the quitch) – I’m going to give myself a little pat on the back for a superficially accurate appraisal! (A single average number can be misleading with wavelengthy puzzles like this.)
DNF WEIGHTY – left ‘weights’ in even though it didn’t parse (doh). COD EVENS which I have only just understood, and it’s brilliant! Also liked AROUSAL and OLE. Thanks Loon. Tricky in places but much enjoyed. Thanks for the blog Roly.
On reading Rolytoly’s blog I thought I would likely be on my own in finding this difficult, but I see a lot of other seasoned solvers had problems too. I eventually managed to complete in 15.24, but I was clearly on a different wavelength to the setter. It took me some time to find the hidden reverse in ISLE even though I was sure I was looking for one. The juxtaposition of an italic letter with Times New Roman threw me I think. Another cock up with the spelling of TAEKWONDO didn’t help where an errant I instead of an E made EIGHTY impossible to get until I finally checked the letters of the anagram.
Well into SCC but enjoyable along the way, with so much misdirection that I began to suspect double bluff! Handel, ascending sequence, name of oratorio and then key: has to be ISLE surely! At 4d I felt sure that party would be ‘do’ and ruin would be ‘mar’ so spent ages considering MARADO as arcane silverware or the like. Oh dear. Potter training made me smile (what would be the clue for potty training?) and I liked (and like) HONEYDEW. Biffed EIGHTY without parsing and I’ll think of a rarebit as unusual and small from now on! Thanks Loon and Roly – excellent blog.