08:12. An enjoyable mix of the not so difficult with a few that needed teasing out.
I thought this was pretty much on the money for an ideal QC. There were some good surfaces, starting off with 1a and other smiles along the way, particularly the born-again granny. Any minor frustrations were of my own making. Overall, just what this solver ordered.
Thanks to Dangle
Definitions underlined in bold, deletions and letters in wordplay not occurring in answer indicated by strikethrough, insertion point indicated by tilde ∼.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Whimsically extinguish pleasure? (7) |
| DELIGHT – To ‘extinguish’ eg a flame is to DE LIGHT it, ie the reverse of lighting it. Very good; an Uxbridge English Dictionary clue to start with and yes, it is in there. | |
| 5 | Make gentle flapping motion with a newspaper? (4) |
| WAFT – W (‘with’) A (‘a’) FT (‘newspaper’)
Not quite sure of the function of the question mark here. |
|
| 7 | Stay away from American invalid (5) |
| AVOID – A (‘American’) VOID (‘invalid’)
VOID for ‘invalid’ as in “null and void”. I’m embarrassed to admit this was my last in. I couldn’t stop myself trying to work out which of the two common senses of ‘invalid’ was meant, instead of just biffing the answer which I should have done. |
|
| 8 | Surprisingly genial, Charlie is adorable (7) |
| ANGELIC – Anagram (‘surprisingly’) of GENIAL and C (‘Charlie’) | |
| 10 | Cold water lovely when face is scratched (3) |
| ICE – |
|
| 11 | Current business partner (9) |
| ACCOMPANY – AC (‘Current’) COMPANY (‘business’)
Partner as a noun in the surface reading, as a verb for the def. |
|
| 13 | Reported crafty bloke in natural water feature (6) |
| GEYSER – Aural wordplay (‘Reported’) of GEEZER (‘crafty bloke’)
I didn’t know what the ‘crafty’ was doing here, but Chambers has, as sense 3 for GEEZER “A crafty or unscrupulous person” without specifying gender. However, I doubt “geezer” would ever be used to describe a female, ‘crafty’ or not. Oxford Dictionaries also gives (spelt as pronounced) “guyser” (which I would use) and “gayser” as alternative pronunciations of GEYSER. |
|
| 14 | Incentive from coach to become corrupt (6) |
| CARROT – CAR (‘coach’) ROT (‘to become corrupt’)
No, we’re not talking about dodgy dealings in the sports world. |
|
| 17 | Six deliveries in cricket somehow worth extra run (9) |
| OVERTHROW – OVER (‘Six deliveries in cricket’) then anagram (‘somehow’) of WORTH
Ah, the good old days; I’m old enough to remember when there were eight balls in an over. An overthrow is a run scored when the ball is thrown back to the wicket and not retrieved by the fielders there, allowing the batsman time to score an extra run or runs. I’ve always thought it unfair that the overthrow runs are counted against a bowler’s figures (unless things have changed) when it’s often not the bowler’s fault. |
|
| 19 | Turning on setter (3) |
| GEL – A reversal (‘Turning’) of LEG (‘on’)
Two cricket related clues in a row – the leg side being the side or half of the cricket pitch or ground, divided by a line running from the stumps at either end of the pitch, in which the batter has his or her legs / is standing. Well known enough in crossword land, even for non-cricketers. ‘Setter’ here as in something which sets or hardens. |
|
| 20 | Making fun of second Conservative leader (7) |
| MOCKING – MO (‘second’) C (‘Conservative’) KING (‘leader’) | |
| 22 | Setter’s mostly tender feet (5) |
| IAMBI – I AM (‘Setter’s) BI Another use of ‘setter’ after 19a. Good to see that everything is right with the world; IAMBI – just what you think of for ‘feet’, in the world of crosswords anyway. No need for a podiatrist – veterinary or human. |
|
| 23 | Collapse of pound welcomed by dandy (4) |
| FLOP – L (‘pound’) contained in (‘welcomed by’) F∼OP (‘dandy’) | |
| 24 | Disinfect tips in outskirts of Carlisle (7) |
| CLEANSE – LEANS (‘tips’) contained in (‘in’) C You can cleanse eg skin of make-up or skin oils without necessarily disinfecting (attempting to kill bacteria and other microbes), but to cleanse eg a wound usually does imply disinfection. |
|
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Contract to tidy up parlour (7,4) |
| DRAWING ROOM – DRAW IN (‘Contract’) GROOM (‘to tidy up’) | |
| 2 | WC Fields’ conclusion on cathedral city, more or less (7) |
| LOOSELY – LOO (‘WC’) I wondered what W. C. Fields might be doing in the fens, but no full stops after ‘W’ and ‘C’ are a clue to “lift and separate” these two letters from ‘Fields’. |
|
| 3 | Gran opted to change into responsible adult (9) |
| GODPARENT – Anagram (‘to change’) of GRAN OPTED
I wonder what sort of mischief she was getting into before? |
|
| 4 | Some idiot ran ceremony in stupor (6) |
| TRANCE – Hidden (‘Some’) in |
|
| 5 | Comedian’s salary cut (3) |
| WAG – WAG |
|
| 6 | Tripped over a guy (5) |
| FELLA – FELL (‘Tripped’) A (‘a’)
In Collins, defined as “a nonstandard variant of fellow”. |
|
| 9 | Make clear: less clarity is bad (11) |
| CRYSTALLISE – Anagram (‘is bad’) of LESS CLARITY | |
| 12 | When email is rewritten? In the interval (9) |
| MEANWHILE – Anagram (‘is rewritten’) of WHEN EMAIL | |
| 15 | Group of soldiers shortened course of treatment (7) |
| REGIMEN – REGIMEN |
|
| 16 | Very sad, finally got something to smoke served up (6) |
| TRAGIC – |
|
| 18 | Surpass 40 in Rome, it’s said (5) |
| EXCEL – Aural wordplay (‘it’s said’) of XL (’40 in Rome’) | |
| 21 | Mischievous child of one politician (3) |
| IMP – I (‘one’) MP (‘politician’)
A couple of gentle ones at the end to wind down. |
|
Not on the wavelength. I started out with waft, and then biffed wit, even though it clearly didn’t parse. We just had iambi, which I saw at once, and we just had carrot, which I did not see for quite a while. I wanted the parlour to be the sitting room, even though it clearly did not parse. Ignorance of cricket held me back with overthrow, and I struggle with the anagram for crystallise.
Time: 13:07
9:22
ACCOMPANY was my LOI by a long shot; it took me forever to see what was going on.
14 minutes. I had a wrong answer at 1ac that delayed me but I can’t remember what it was now. Nice puzzle.
Finished in 21.03 but only after a fat finger revealed the b in iambi rather than checking my incorrect entry. Not sure we would have ever have got to iambi without that so really a DNF here
Thanks BR for the blog and especially the cricket passing of leg which was NHO here.
Liked the gran clue very much, thanks Dangle
I made heavy weather of this, taking 14:24 – and even then there were a couple not parsed. I did eventually work out how IAMBI worked (not a word I’ve ever seen before) but DRAWING ROOM remained a mystery until I came to the blog.
GEYSER is one of the very few words that English has borrowed from Iceland, as it is an English adaptation of Geysir, the name of an erupting hot waterspout in Iceland’s Haukadalur valley. In Icelandic the word is pronounced Gay-seer, which may explain the alternative pronunciation of Gayser that BR notes.
Many thanks BR for the blog, needed today.
Some clever clues and I finished all green in 9:38 as with other respondents didn’t parse DRAWING ROOM OR LOI IAMBI so also extend my thanks to Bletchley
I was making fine progress until a half semi-parsed ‘platoon’ caused havoc in the SE. I thought a shortened course could be plat(e)… Overall, a very enjoyable solve.
Started with WAFT and finished with CARROT in a slightly over par 8.30.
Thanks to BR and Dangle
A lot of twists and turns to trip me up. Missed the cricket relation to GEL/Leg. I had never thought about the reason for On/Off obviously related to the batman’s feet as I just intuitively knew it. Thanks Bletch for pointing out the obvious. Unlike IAMBI which was not obvious to me at all although IAMBIC and its unforgettable pentameter are a fond memory. Spotted GEYSER/GEEZER straight away but had to consider U or E. Somehow I always think of Diamond and Geezer as being inseparable.
Got there in 22mins with the one Bif. Thanks Bletch and Dangle.
21 but it took me an hour to get there. difficultly in the SE. Couldn’t get away from platoon or squad with no cosssers. I thought I thought 19ac and 22ac a bit of a stretch for a QC. Crossers from those and I would have probably twigged 15d but 14ac probably not.
Good workout. I would have got about three or four when I was a beginner.
Thanks setter and blogger
Yes, some nice ones, but so much cricket! And NHO IAMBI, so helpless at the end, one to the bad. May we have an explanation of that, please – plural of iambus (what’s that?)? CNP DRAWING ROOM, thanks BR.
I now see that Dangle enjoys a sting in the tail: all five of his (?) this year have been one to the bad, except the one I couldn’t do at all. Not completed one yet.
Collins informs us that “iambi is one of the valid plural forms of the noun iamb, alongside iambs”. Presumably someone coined it from iambus (which yes, does exist alongside iamb)- and as is well known, Collins is always happy to quote a usage, however unusual, uncommon or unseen in real life.
Thank you, Cedric! Well well, one iamb, two iambi or iambs. NHO any, only the adjective iambic. Thanks.
Orpheus gave us ” Foot doctor in Iowa, America (6)” for IAMBUS back in #773 – Feb 2017 which is long before I started.
I thought we’d had more references to feet/iambs/pentameter in QCs but a search of the archives suggests not – but bloggers have mentioned them when “verse” comes up in clues.
Thank you – that’s interesting on two counts: 1) so now it’s one iamb or iambus, two iambs or iambi. 2) what happened to Orpheus? I seem to remember he (if it was) was one of the more friendly setters. Nine puzzles last year, but this year so far nothing .
I got there after entering IAMBI in desperation. I seem to have a love/hate relationship with Dangle’s ‘QCs’ and today was not one of the former.
Very clever but just not pitched at a QC level imo. To continue the cricketing theme, it seemed to me it was good for Test cricketers rather than members of a more humble village side who play for fun rather than glory.
10:49 for the solve for the Quitch. My word, that was an excellent puzzle. A slower time than usual for a Tuesday but many very good clues on display – particularly WAFT, LOOSELY, FELLA, WAG, MOCKING. There was quite a lot of misdirection between surfaces and individual clue words.
I felt it slightly let itself down with the inclusion of consecutive cricket clues and the unparsed, barely heard of IAMBI. We’ve had some version of iambic pentameter / feet coming up in the past but it comes up rarely in the QC.
Thanks to BR for the blog and to Dangle.
This took me just under an hour – by 51 seconds to be precise. Started strongly but then had to work away at some real toughies to finish.
IAMBI was last one in and sounded vaguely familiar from poetry; oh that kind of feet.
Could not understand the WC Fields reference but now that BR has explained it it’s my COD. Nice misdirection.
LEG for ‘on’ was beyond me but GEL made sense.
Thanks both.
From AVOID to CLEANSE in 7:29. Thanks Dangle and BR.
6.29, and I thought this was tough for a QC. Nothing much was easy here. I enjoyed it though.
11:04
I did not understand GEL, and entered it as being more likely than any other G-L word. Thanks BR for explaining how it works.
14 mins…
Lots to like here. I’ve struggled with Dangle before, but this was very enjoyable with some clever clues and surfaces. Only issues were resolving 22ac “Iambi” and parsing 1dn “Drawing Room”.
FOI – 7ac “Avoid”
LOI – 22ac “Iambi”
COD – 2dn “Loosely”
Thanks as usual!
I found this pretty difficult – seem to have spent ages on it, so not on the wavelength. Pleased to solve LOI IAMBI, having vaguely remembered iambic pentameter. Liked REGIMEN, EXCEL, DELIGHT, COD LOOSELY. Stupidly I needed hint for CARROT, despite the fact we had it recently. I too had a dodgy Platoon for a while.
Thanks vm for vital blog, BR. e.g. CNP GEL Nor did I see tender = bid.
Not too many gimmes with this puzzle, which kept me happily occupied for 11.20. My LOI which was ACCOMPANY delayed me more than it should. I saw IAMBI as the answer for 22ac, only because I have come across the word on many occasions in crossword land. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have got it if I needed to construct it from the parsing.
Same for me in having often come across IAMBI in crosswords. The wordplay in crossword land often produces I AM BI – of the nudge, nudge… wink, wink variety.
13:41
The double L in CRYSTALLISE held me up as it really doesn’t look right. Also I had the middle class SITTING ROOM rather than the Upper class DRAWING ROOM.
LOI ACCOMPANY
COD LOOSELY though I did wonder what bogsley might be.
9:14
About par for the course with the Quitch currently at 96. GEYSERs are often portrayed as the crafty cockney sort, ducking and diving, bobbing and weaving etc. “My FELLA” is how a loved-up younger woman might refer to her man, when discussing with her chums over a large prosecco. I liked 1d best.
Thanks BR and Dangle
Well I struggled through this in 28 minutes, not greatly to my surprise as I tend to struggle with Dangle’s puzzles. It seemed quicker though as I was still enjoying the tussle right to the end. Alas when I came to read BR’s excellent blog I discovered I had two errors. I had ‘iambs’ instead of IAMBI (couldn’t parse it of course). But what of 9dn then? On close examination I found I’d written ‘crystalisee’! Someone who becomes crystallised perhaps. Well there’s always tomorrow.
FOI – 5ac WAFT
LOI – 2dn LOOSELY but really a DNF
COD – 1ac DELIGHT. I also liked DRAWING ROOM and EXCEL.
Thanks to Dangle and BR
17:34 for me with GEL being LOI. Liked TRAGIC. Thanks BR and Dangle.
Very very slow solve involving breaks for coffee and a shower. Possibly slowest ever, all very enjoyable though, all parsed, and no lengthy blank stares. Thanks Dangle and BR.
Having initially failed to spot Delight, a tentatively bifd Sitting Room for 1d caused no end of problems later on. Add in the fact that my hat was in the wash, and what should have been a pleasant enough QC from Dangle turned into a frustrating experience. Stumps were pulled at my 30min cut off, having been left staring at loi I*m*i for far too long.
CoD to Loosely for the parsing. Invariant
I’ve seen this expression about stumps being pulled so many times here, and never questioned where it comes from. Is it more cricket?
. . . yes, the stumps (the wooden things that the bowler occasionally aims at 😉) are literally pulled out of the ground by the Umpire at the end of the day’s play. So pulling stumps means game over.
Not to be confused, of course, with ‘no side’ which signifies the end of a game of rugger.
It is. It’s when the umpire pulls the stumps (i.e. the three wooden sticks that the batsman is defending) out of the ground to show everyone play is over for the day in a multi-day match. They don’t actually do it any more though. They leave them there and call time and take the two shorter sticks (bails) that are sitting on the top of the stumps.
They also write “stumps” on a live scorecard to indicate that play is over for the day too.
It’s typically a moment of great sadness for cricket fans when there could have been just one more over – it’s use triggers the deepest pathos there is for a cricket fan – but for crossword fans I think the moment shows admirable restraint (I can never stop at 30 mins on a Quick Crossword if I’m not done by then – but I feel like I should even if that is happening less these days).
16:43 including a lucky guess for IAMBI which I had NHO but guessing it might be linked to ‘iambic’, which I have heard of but did not know in relation to ‘foot’. Needed the blog to parse. DRAWING ROOM and MOCKING.
Nice to see the return on cricket to the QC – when I started doing them it seemed to be an unwritten rule that every QC had a cricket-related clue. Maybe that was just a phase we were in 6 or 7 years ago.
Thanks BR for the blog. Prof
My thanks to Dangle and BletchleyReject.
I found 1a and 1d very hard to understand at first and I do like to start in the NW as it gives so many initial characters. So it was a slow start and a bit of a gallop towards the end.
13a Geyser; I was confused by the dodgy homophone but not for more than a second.
22a Iambi. Never saw tender=bi(d). Doh!
2d Loosely COD.
15:15 Couldn’t avoid iambi gel
Ta BRAD
Much needed completion without help today, after having to give up without finishing the past few QCs. Thanks Dangle for helping end my DNF streak! Done in 52 minutes, with a good amount of guesswork to get there.
Got DRAWING ROOM immediately, which made the NW very quick, then major hold up until I finally worked out the anagrams MEANWHILE and CRYSTALLISE (staring at anagrams accounted for about 20 mins of my final time). I’m hoping anagram skills develop with practice! Don’t know anything about cricket, so those clues took some effort but make more sense now, thanks BR.
I was held up briefly by putting TOILETS in for 2dn, having not twigged DELIGHT on the first pass. I then didn’t notice that I’d overwritten AVOID for AVIID whilst making that error. Fortunately I spotted that TOILETS had to be wrong when I saw DELIGHT on the second pass. Unfortunately, I didn’t spot that I’d broken 7ac. So LOOSELY ended up being my LOI in 9:24 as soon as I’d spotted the error in the crosser from AVOID.
Re: overthrows, the bowler has always been exposed to poor fielding (a frequent occurrence at my level) or taken the benefit of exceptional feilding (extremely rare), that’s cricket, look in the book. 🙂
I used to field at square leg in the school team, and often felt exposed to a batsman facing poor bowling !
SCC for me but I got there – just. No LEAR today but another CARROT (“and that’s a good root” as Mistress Quickly says in the Merry Wives). My instinct with 13a was ARTFUL, thinking of the Dodger and a vague homonym for waterfall….but DRAWING ROOM scotched that! 2d took ages, I failed to separate WC from Fields and went off on many tangents as a result, biffing LOOSELY in slight desperation (unparsed). The FT showed up again – haven’t read it for ages! Challenging but fun – thank you Dangle and BletchleyR.
Don’t know anything about cricket but OVERTHROW and GEL both seemed to work. Biffed then parsed IAMBI as soon as I had the final I. Really liked EXCEL and WAFT. Thanks Dangle and BR.
10:02. Quite tricky in the SE corner – LEG I found especially hard! good puzzle though and thanks!
DNF
No real problems apart from the NHO IAMBI. Threw a couple of random letters between the I, M and I but to no avail.
Hard yards for me! Quite a few answers went in unparsed including AVOID, CARROT, GEL, EXCEL and IAMBI so thank you BR for the blog. 10:53
18mims so a little harder than average. I had IAMBS in for a long time until I worked out 9 down.
Thanks dangle and BR.
19 mins, which suggests this was one that suited as that’s a good-ish time for me.
FOI Waft
LOI Delight
COD loosely
Thanks Dangle and BR
To my mind surpass is a transitive verb, and excel an intransitive verb- so not equivalent or interchangeable?
I thought they were close enough not to give it much thought, but I take your point. Not the last word on the subject, but Collins has ‘to be superior to (another or others); surpass’ as sense 1 of EXCEL with sense 2 ‘to be outstandingly good or proficient’ noted as intr; followed by in or at. For substitution, maybe to “excel/surpass oneself”.
17:23 with a couple of biffs. Dredged up IAMBI by recalling IAMBIC PENTAMETER from learning poetry at school many years ago. A well judged QC.
No fun whatsoever.
21 minute DNF.
Didn’t understand 22ac and so put IMMOI, and put DEALING ROOM for DRAWING ROOM.
What a miserable performance. Beaten out of sight by my comparators (as usual).
Another week ruined.
Me too!
12.28 Plodding throughout. LOI LOOSELY. I’d assumed that overs were always six balls, but apparently this was only standardised in 1979/80, just a couple of years before I first played cricket. I’m unreasonably surprised. Thanks BR and Dangle.
A DNF here. I have heard of iambic so no idea why IAMBI didn’t occur to me. All the cricket nomenclature is way over my head too.
I had BLOWOUT for 1A which put me off for ages.
Thanks for the blog for enlightening, nay delighting, me 🙂
10A. Cold water is not a definition of ice.
I wondered about this myself, but wasn’t certain enough to give an opinion one way or the other. Still, I see what you mean with one being a liquid and the other a solid.
Was a bit slow on this. Rather cool tea awaited me on completion. All correct and parsed but never got up to speed .
Liked, but struggled with W C Fields
Thought ICE was a pants clue
Thanks Dangle and BR
Lots to like here though I was rather slow at 22 minutes with the SE proving the trickiest. But it’s not all about time and I enjoyed the process. I’ve also enjoyed reading about the number of balls in an over of cricket; I had no idea this had been such a moveable feast over the years.
Thanks Dangle and BR
The number of balls in an over in cricket has varied historically more than most people realise. In the 19th century, overs had either 4 or 5 balls, but this meant too much time was spent changing ends at the end of the over and in 1900, 6 balls was made the norm. Later, several countries, most notably Australia, increased the number to 8, again to cut down time spent changing ends (and for one season, 1939, even England experimented with 8-ball overs – not something most English cricket lovers know), but in 1979, the International Cricket Council standardised all international and domestic matches to 6-ball overs, a rule that remains in effect today. NB, this ignores illegal deliveries like no-balls or wides – these do not count toward the ball tally, and the bowler must bowl an extra delivery to complete the six legal balls.
With thanks to the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians, see https://acscricket.com/?page_id=464.
DNF, due to never having heard of IAMBI (in any context). Did Dangle make it up just to fool unsuspecting dullards like me? I tried IMMOI (I’M for Setter, and MOI(st) for mostly tender), but I knew it was a long shot.
Prior to that I had spent 33 minutes wrestling with the other clues. GEL was my LOI, but it took me nearly 10 minutes to work out the parsing.
Thanks to BR and Dangle.
A nicely judged crossword from Dangle. For those who haven’t heard of IAMBI, it’s a good one to remember – it crops up regularly in the 15×15, along with IAMB. My LOI was CARROT, which kept me guessing for too long!
When I first looked through this, I couldn’t immediately see anything and thought I was on completely the wrong wavelength. Then I got a couple of anagrams and TRAGIC and then worked steadily through. I was pleased with myself for getting OVERTHROW and my COD was LOOSELY. I did everything except 22a and when an aid gave IAMBI I still didn’t understand. I must remember that meaning of feet! A good puzzle and thanks all round.
14:55, for a solve of two distinct parts. I started off very well and got about three quarters of it done at the first attempt in five minutes, and then ground to a standstill on the rest. Only managed IAMBI because it came up in (I think) Friday’s 15×15, and couldn’t parse OVERTHROW. ACCOMPANY caused me no end of problems because I was fixated on “partner” being a noun, which is my own damn fault.
Thank you for the blog!
16:48 for me. After yesterday’s New York Times puzzle celebrating the start of Pride Month (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/31/crosswords/daily-puzzle-2026-06-01.html), I wondered whether the setter was telling us something with IAMBI.
I found this one a little anagram-heavy. My COD goes to DELIGHT.
Thanks to Dangle and BR.