Not a difficult one from Orpheus today, meaning I had to reluctantly return to Christmas shopping rather sooner than perhaps I might have liked (though the upside of online shopping is that I often end up buying stuff that I myself would like, so that the value of the order will exceed the threshold for free shipping). No particularly complex cryptic constructions but, even though we’ve seen the device used in 23A before, I like it nonetheless. Thanks, Orpheus.
The puzzle can be found here if the usual channels are unavailable: http://feeds.thetimes.co.uk/puzzles/crossword/20161205/20767/
Definitions are underlined.
| Across | |
| 3 | Practise on undertaker’s vehicle (8) |
| REHEARSE – RE (on, in the sense of “with reference to”) + HEARSE (undertaker’s vehicle) | |
| 7 | Prevent an area producing fruit (6) |
| BANANA – BAN (Prevent) + AN + A (area) | |
| 8 | Blooming action required in tiddly-winks! (8) |
| FLIPPING – double definition, the first a mild expletive, the second literal. I can’t find tiddlywinks hyphenated in any of the usual sources but, spelling aside, I’m assuming the game is familiar to all, even if one can’t tell a boondock from a Penhaligon. | |
| 9 | Complain, parking at east end of estate, perhaps (4) |
| CARP – P (parking) to the right (at the east end) of CAR (estate, perhaps, i.e. a station wagon as some people know it) | |
| 10 | Info supplied by senior officer, briefly (3) |
| GEN – Gen. is an abbreviation (briefly) for General (senior officer) | |
| 11 | Customer’s urn comes adrift (8) |
| CONSUMER – anagram of (adrift) URN COMES | |
| 13 | Half of them taking degree? That’s novel (4) |
| EMMA – {th}EM (Half of them, i.e. half the letters of the word “them”) + MA (degree, i.e. Master of Arts). The majority of the books in Crosswordland are copies of Jane Austen’s Emma and Rider Haggard’s She. | |
| 15 | Motorway circling a large West African country (4) |
| MALI – MI (Motorway) around (circling) A + L (large), to give the country in which one can find Timbuktu | |
| 17 | Lofty declaration of model at work? (8) |
| IMPOSING – a model at work might state I’M POSING | |
| 19 | News about union leader’s sister? (3) |
| NUN – NN (News, i.e. the abbreviation for new, twice) about U (union leader, i.e. the first letter of the word “union”) | |
| 22 | Some are altogether genuine (4) |
| REAL – hidden in (Some) aRE ALtogether | |
| 23 | Girl embraced by parents in TV programme (8) |
| PANORAMA – NORA (Girl) in (embraced by) PA + MA (parents), to give the BBC current affairs series that may not be familiar to overseas solvers (though Wikipedia tells me there is a programme of the same name in Poland) | |
| 24 | Strike in snack bar? (6) |
| BUFFET – double definition | |
| 25 | Pig chap always used for celebration (8) |
| HOGMANAY – HOG (Pig) + MAN (chap) + AY (always), to give us New Year’s Eve in Scotland | |
| Down | |
| 1 | He wooed many, initially counting as a star (8) |
| CASANOVA – C (initially counting, i.e. the first letter of the word “counting”) + AS + A + NOVA (star) | |
| 2 | A politician visiting key American college grounds (6) |
| CAMPUS – A + MP (politician), inside (visiting) C (key, in the musical sense) + US (American) | |
| 3 | Floating structure right behind (4) |
| RAFT – R (right) + AFT (behind) | |
| 4 | Musical carrier’s device for securing locks? (8) |
| HAIRGRIP – HAIR (Musical) + GRIP (carrier), with the slightly oblique definition referring to locks in the sense of hair (Goldilocks, dreadlocks, etc). All the usual sources define a grip as a travelling bag, hence “carrier”. Musicals in Crosswordland are either Hair, Evita, or Cats, in the main, with the occasional Gigi or Annie thrown in for variety. | |
| 5 | A large tree growing on high mountains (6) |
| ALPINE – A + L (large) + PINE (tree) | |
| 6 | Unhappy about new seaside feature (4) |
| SAND – SAD (Unhappy) about N (new) | |
| 12 | Look after chief, popular with army (8) |
| MAINTAIN – MAIN (chief) + TA (army, i.e. Territorial Army, now the Army Reserve) + IN (popular) | |
| 14 | Cannibal’s mother — of tidier appearance (3-5) |
| MAN-EATER – MA (mother) + NEATER (of tidier appearance). I was amused by the surface, though a bit of Googling revealed that Hall and Oates used the non-hyphenated spelling (not supported by any of the usual sources) for their 1982 single of the same(-ish) name. In related news, whilst wandering the streets of Whitby last week I found an outdoor shop called Hall and Coates. | |
| 16 | Sneak attending class? (6) |
| INFORM – if one was attending class, then one could be described as being IN FORM | |
| 18 | Conflict associated with trouble for Cockney spouse? (6) |
| STRIFE – a reference to the Cockney rhyming slang for wife (spouse) being “trouble and STRIFE“ | |
| 20 | Pudding ingredient originally steamed in the past (4) |
| SAGO – S (originally steamed, i.e. the first letter of the word “steamed”) + AGO (in the past) | |
| 21 | Very young child born in creek (4) |
| BABY – B (born) in BAY (creek) | |
FOI REHEARSE LOI SAGO COD SAND
I was over five minutes slower at 8.40.
There should be a National QC Championship – it would be all over in an hour and ten minutes.
COD 14dn MAN EATER WOD KEVIN
May I ask (plead) for the QC to be available through the Crossword Club? That way this forum may get even more expertise involved.
4’20” (my PB is 3’33”).
Having said that, I’m not sure if putting the Quicky on the CC would necessarily result in much additional traffic here, as there is no link as such between the CC and here. There are a number of prolific commenters on the CC who know of this blog but rarely post here (on the main cryptic threads) for whatever reason, and “new faces” that I occasionally see on the main cryptic threads don’t appear to have arrived here via the CC. I’m just guessing though and have no real evidence either way – it wouldn’t surprise me if the number of lurkers dwarfed the number of regular commenters.
Edited at 2016-12-05 02:13 pm (UTC)
By comparison, I find the new infrastructure to be quite resource-intensive on my iMac (it’s no fun doing a Jumbo as there’s perceptible key lag) and the archive only goes back 6 days. And of course there are currently no leaderboards or forums. The new infrastructure must presumably be more flexible and cheaper to support, or else it would never have been built, but the user experience (at least from this solver’s point of view) is not an improvement and, as you say, may reduce interest in the puzzles themselves if/when the CC bites the dust.
The Club definitely has the feel of a properly researched and designed product that has been thought through from start to finish, and probably benefited from being a discrete entity to be sold to subscribers independently from the newspaper. The new platform seems to have been tacked on to the newspaper site as an afterthought and has suffered as a result, though it has to be said it’s better than it used to be when it was first rolled out.
PlayupPompey
WOD and COD Hogmanay – a mildly risqué surface (or is it just my mildly warped mind?).
4’15”
GeoffH
Liked 17a and 25a (LOI) in particular, and enjoyed the sense of humour throughout. David