Good morning, and you have me for a second consecutive Saturday as the rota is juggled very slightly to allow for holidays.
And we have another puzzle by Wurm to enjoy, and for the second puzzle running he is making full use of the new freedom to reference living people – two in the clues this time, and two as answers. I would imagine that the film director who forms the answer to 23A and the musician and ex-Beatle referenced in 16D are well enough known for even the most blinkered of our solvers, but I am less sure that Ukrainian boxers, however good (and looking at his entry on Wikipedia Usyk really is very good), are really GK enough for a QC. And even though he is arguably one of the most influential and successful British politicians of the 21st century (successful that is in shaping the country’s destiny according to his views), our non-British solvers might perhaps feel a little surprised at being expected to know the answer to 17D.
Enough of that, and we are all, Wurm included, feeling our way with the new policy. The rest of the puzzle was more orthodox, with enough to set one thinking but nothing I hope too obscure or difficult for most people. It took me 11:20, by coincidence exactly the same time (to the second) as last Saturday’s puzzle, with several smiles along the way. How did everyone else find it?
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (abc)* indicates an anagram of abc, and strike-through-text shows deletions.
| Across | |
| 1 | Search round for dance band (5) |
| COMBO – COMB (search) + O (round). “Combo”, short for combination, was originally 1920s US slang for a jazz band, but has become more widely applied and is used now for dance bands and other musical groups as well. | |
| 7 | Pub to ban Scotsman, wild sort (9) |
| BARBARIAN – BAR (pub) + BAR (to ban) + IAN (random Scottish male name). Not all Scotsmen are called Ian (in fact if anything the spelling Iain is more common north of the border), and not all Ians are Scottish, but in Crosswordland a random Scot is as often as not Ian. | |
| 9 | A key passage (5) |
| AISLE – A (from the clue) + ISLE (key). A small island is probably not the first meaning of key that comes to mind, but it will be familiar to anyone who has lived in or visited the Caribbean. Perhaps the most famous string of such islands is the Florida Keys, stretching for more than 100 miles from the Florida mainland to Key West. The drive along the Keys on US Highway 1 is justly famous – I did it about 10 years ago in an open top car. Fabulous. | |
| 10 | Peace as interrupted by the French (7) |
| SILENCE – LE (ie “the” in French) inserted into SINCE (as) with the insertion indicator being “interrupted by”. | |
| 11 | Aesop mixed up vegetable broth (3,4) |
| PEA SOUP – (aesop)* + UP (from the clue). A little care is needed here, as the the anagram indicator is “mixed”, not (as I first thought) “mixed up” – we need the up for the second part of the wordplay.
In mentioning Aesop, Wurm cannot possibly be accused of referencing someone still alive; the more relevant question is whether he ever lived at all, as there is almost no evidence for a real person with that name. |
|
| 12 | Agitated doubter to butt in (7) |
| OBTRUDE – (doubter)*, with the anagram indicator being “agitated”. | |
| 15 | Old writer in problem about anthology (7) |
| OMNIBUS – A complex construction, made up of O (old) + NIB (writer) inserted into (ie “in”) MUS (SUM, ie problem, all reversed, ie “about”). | |
| 18 | Picture one GI covered in hair (7) |
| IMAGINE – I (one) + GI (from the clue) inserted into MANE (hair), with Picture being used in the verb sense here. I biffed this from the checkers and then completely messed up my first attempt to parse it as I thought “one GI” gave me the -AGI- in the answer. That left IMNE for the hair which was never going to work, so a rapid rethink was required. | |
| 20 | Plant different encased in lead (3,4) |
| POT HERB – OTHER (different) inserted into (ie “encased in”) PB (chemical symbol for lead). | |
| 22 | Saw some Canada geese (5) |
| ADAGE – A hidden, in canADA GEese, with the hidden indicator being “some”. Saw in the sense of an old saying here. | |
| 23 | Film director in story by composer (9) |
| SPIELBERG – SPIEL (story) + BERG (composer).
Alban Berg (1885-1935) was an Austrian composer and a leading member of the Second Viennese School. He is considered by many to be one of the most important composers of the early 20th century and even has an asteroid named after him (4528 Berg, discovered in 1983). But even so, I would venture to suggest that more of our solvers will have heard of Steven Spielberg than him – which fact might add to the debate over whether living people are well enough known. |
|
| 24 | Personage finally opening show (5) |
| EVENT – E (personage “finally”, ie last letter of) + VENT (opening). There are almost limitless ways to clue the letter E, and I am fairly confident that “personage finally” is not in the top ten most commonly used. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Usyk say needs minute stopping man (5) |
| CHAMP – M (minute) included in (“stopping”) CHAP (man).
Oleksandr Usyk (born 1987 and very much still alive) is a Ukrainian boxer and the first heavyweight in history to hold world titles under the auspices of all the four current major sanctioning bodies. Which certainly qualifies him to be called a Champ. (Yes yes I know you all knew that, but I’m adding it to the blog for the 0.1% of QC solvers who are not intimately au fait with Usyk’s career record). |
|
| 2 | Wrong girl almost abducted (8) |
| MISTAKEN – MIS |
|
| 3 | Spritely ruler in Borneo collapsed (6) |
| OBERON – (borneo)*, with the anagram indicator being “collapsed”.
In medieval literature Oberon is a king of the fairies (also known as sprites, hence “spritely” in the clue), and is perhaps best known for being the husband of Titania in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In fact he far predates Shakespeare’s time, being first encountered in French chansons de geste some 300 years earlier. |
|
| 4 | Great many supporting Labour up in vote (6) |
| BALLOT – LOT (great many) after or underneath (ie “supporting”, as this is a down clue) BAL (ie LAB, for Labour, all reversed, ie “up”). | |
| 5 | Relatives installing large oven (4) |
| KILN – KIN (relatives) with L (large) inserted into it (ie “installed”). | |
| 6 | Two for one for example in Bury (7) |
| INTEGER – The construction here is EG (for example) inserted into (ie “in”) INTER (bury), and a nice shout-out to John Interred of this parish. That was the easy bit, but it took a bit longer to work out how the definition worked. If you put a comma in it though, ie “Two, for one” it emerges as a DBE, with Two being an example of an integer. | |
| 8 | At fault, not entirely sober, Pilsner drunk (11) |
| RESPONSIBLE – An anagram, of SOBE (ie sober “not entirely”) + PILSNER, with the anagram indicator being, appropriately enough given the rest of the surface, “drunk”.
The definition part of this clue was simple enough to spot, but I have to say I had a slight MER at the connection of “at fault” with “responsible”. For me responsible has more overtones of being in charge than being culpable, and not everything I am in charge of goes wrong or leaves me at fault. |
|
| 13 | Mutilate badly in final (8) |
| ULTIMATE – (mutilate)*, with the anagram indicator being “badly”. | |
| 14 | Fertiliser in firm mass on display (7) |
| COMPOST – CO (firm or company) + M (mass) on (ie on top of, this being a down clue) POST (display).
The link Post = Display took me quite a bit of thinking along the lines of “to post something is to put it on display”, eg on a noticeboard or in an online chatroom, to make the connection. |
|
| 16 | Insect Ringo Starr perhaps caught? (6) |
| BEETLE – Ringo Starr was the drummer for the Beatles, and so was a “Beatle”, a homophone (indicated by “caught”) for the solution to the clue.
Starr, real name Sir Richard Starkey, was born in 1940 and is not only still alive but still very active, releasing new recordings and touring with his group well into his 80s. He was awarded an MBE for services to music in 2018, but to a certain generation of children he was perhaps better known as the narrator of two TV series about Thomas the Tank Engine in the early 1980s. |
|
| 17 | Right-wing MP following a trend (6) |
| FARAGE – F (following) + A RAGE (a trend, as in “all the rage” for something popular).
Nigel Farage (born 1964) is a divisive UK politician and leader of the populist Reform Party. The fourth of Wurm’s references to someone still living. |
|
| 19 | Virtuoso lacking piano to bring into use (5) |
| EXERT – EXPERT (virtuoso) with the P deleted (“lacking piano”). And for the third time in the down clues, I needed to think hard to construct the linkage, with this time the connection between “exert” and “bring into use” being my stumbling block. I got there in the end via “to exert pressure / influence” being “to bring into use pressure / influence”, but it is perhaps not the most straightforward of synonyms. | |
| 21 | Dog in story told (4) |
| TAIL – sounds like TALE, ie story, with the homophone indicator being “told”. This is the verb meaning of dog, as in “to dog someone, to follow them, to be on their tail”. | |
I’m still not used to living persons, and took forever to get SPIEL to stick on to BERG. NHO the boxer. I also wasted a lot of time by sloppy typing, requiring backing up and typing over. 8:03.
Okay, so I knew the boxer, given that I follow sports where people hurt each other but yeah I don’t know how well known that guy is. I think there are tons of other champs Wurm could have used.
FARAGE took a while, for some reason I didn’t think the answer was actually going to be the name of an MP.
I think Spielberg and Ringo Starr are totally fair game.
I thought this was fun. EXERT was really hard and the definition tricky.
I thought this was really tricky in parts but managed to complete with the exception of 19d, as I couldn’t think of anything except ELECT perhaps ‘elect to use’. 1a COMBO had me thinking until I saw 1d CHAMP and the penny dropped. INTEGER was cleverly clued with the ‘Two for one for example’ being quite misleading and gets my COD.
Excellent blog, as usual. Thanks setter.
13:37. I had trouble parsing OMNIBUS but eventually saw how it worked. EXERT was hard too as I thought maybe EVERT, but wasn’t sure if it was even a word!
I’ll take my hat off to anyone who built up OMNIBUS from the clue. It was a BIFF then awkward parse for me. And Cedric?
27:22, as slow as it gets, but at least finished.
NHO Usyk, and since it doesn’t even look like a name of a person, I had no idea what was going on. Clue could have been a random man’s name containing M. I was missing 1a COMBO as well, so a lot of time spent here.
Also didn’t expect the double living COMBO of FARAGE and SPIELBERG. I had “following” as a positional indicator not an abbreviation.
COD INTEGER
PS I completed the 15×15 in less than half this time, under 15 mins. That’s the Quick Cryptic today.
That makes two of us. Easiest Saturday cryptic I’ve ever done.
We took the hint and did the 15 x 15 earlier than usual (normally a late evening activity for us). We not only beat our QC time by around 20s or so but, in doing so, knocked somewhere around 7 minutes off our PB! (I think, we don’t keep a log).
Thanks for the tip about the 15×15. It did seem easier.
Thanks for the tip! Fun puzzle!
Thanks for the 15×15 tip off. I rarely attempt it but completed for the first time, albeit in two sittings.
I needed 13 minutes for this one, which is only just within my target time for a QC.
Looking back I can’t see anything difficult apart from not having a Scooby who, what or where Usyk is or was, but checkers resolved that issue without needing to know. EXERT had to wait for all the checkers too, and was my LOI.
I also looked twice at ‘at fault / RESPONSIBLE’ but then remembered that it isn’t necessary for definitions to match every meaning of the answer, only one.
Elegant crossword. Loved ‘Saw some Canada geese’.
Grrr.. just managed to delete my comment and log myself out when on the point of posting it.
WRT the puzzle I was very slow to get going so moved to the bottom of the grid and worked my way up with no serious delays along the way. The parsing of IMAGINE was a bit fiddly but I knew Mr. Usyk so once I’d stopped trying to work out how to parse ‘boxer’, CHAMP became obvious.
Started with TAIL and finished with INTEGER in 7.41.
Thanks to Cedric for the blog and Wurm for the enjoyable solve.
I bit too tricky for a quickie in my opinion. Irritated by being reminded of someone who makes me ashamed of being British!
Gosh, I think bearing in mind his whole body of work Ringo wasn’t that bad a guy.
Aww – quite right – hopefully Ringo could drum some sense into those who are so easily swayed by charlatans !
🤣🤣🤣
😄
7.43
EXERT needed thought at the end not helped by wanting the nounal IMAGING rather than the answer.
Liked the BORNEO* = OBERON
Thanks Wurm and Cedric
Sadly, not my cup of tea and finding Farage invading my moments of relaxation did nothing to raise my spirits.
Another day this week pushed to the far end of my 20-30 minute window, justly cornered by EXERT.
Thanks Wurm and, as ever, Cedric.
I don’t really like the living persons thing and tbh I didn’t appreciate having my morning relaxation invaded by politics of whatever colour.
NHO this Usyk person but CHA(M)P was pretty obvious.
22 mins…
Enjoyable and at a good level. I had a slight chuckle at 17dn.
Main hold up was nearly putting “Cramp” for 1dn (as it does stop man occasionally – although I was struggling with the parsing) and the SE corner with all the “E’s” in 19dn “Exert” and 24ac “Event”.
7ac “Barbarian” reminded me, as usual, of Conan, and in particular this week the death of James Earl Jones.
FOI – 9ac “Aisle”
LOI – 24ac “Event”
COD – 7ac “Barbarian”
Thanks as usual!
Enjoyed this. 29 minutes.
Assumed a Usyk was a member of some Northern European tribe but luckily CHAMP fitted the clue for my LOI.
Thanks Cedric for explaining the parsing of INTEGER and well worked out.
COD: TAIL.
4:08 but with a pink for ULyIMATE. NHO USYK, but the parsing was clear.
Took an age, struggling through PEA SOUP (FOI) but got there in the end, all correct.
PDMs included SPIELBERG, AISLE, BARBARIAN, OBERON and, oh dear, FARAGE. NHO the boxer but CHAMP was biffable.
Liked ADAGE, COMPOST, MISTAKEN.
Only easy clue was BEETLE. I suppose RESPONSIBLE can mean at fault/to blame but I found that one v tricky.
Thanks vm, Cedric. Most informative.
17dn: ugh.
14.52 Generally slow. It required a bit more thought and a bit less biffing than usual, but it was very enjoyable. I couldn’t remember who or what Usyk is until I’d solved the clue and I was surprised to see the Clacton chancer. Thanks Cedric and Wurm.
15:16 (over a minute longer than today’s 15×15 took me)
I join with others in wishing the crossword to be a Farage free zone, but otherwise an enjoyable solve. LOI IMAGINE, which I failed to biff, but built up slowly from the wordplay before an “oh that meaning of picture” moment.
NHO Usyk, but assumed he must be a champion at something.
Biffed OMNIBUS, but failed to parse.
Thanks Cedric and Wurm
An entertaining Blog thank you Cedric. Some difficult clues and 15 x 15 was easier than the QC.
Took a very long time working out FARAGE and SPIELBERG. Still not used to the new rules (not a fan). CHAMP went in easily enough but NHO Usyk. COD to INTEGER for the misdirection. Thanks Wurm and great blog Cedric.
A hard-earned 17:12, with some eyebrow action at EXERT and requiring the very helpful blog to parse OMNIBUS. Didn’t know the boxer but the checking letters and wordplay forced the answer. I also didn’t know that “following” could be F, and not convinced that “rage” and “trend” are synonymous (sure, “all the rage” was a thing a few decades ago, but “all the trend” wasn’t as far as I know).
Thank you for the blog!
I found that fairly tricky. COMBO went straight in. I got the boxer mixed up with the mayor of Kyiv who was also a boxer, but it helped me anyway. Last 3 in were FARAGE, EVENT and EXERT, which all combined to take me over my target. 10:41. Thanks Wurm and Cedric.
13:52
NHO Berg but an otherwise straightforward puzzle. Perhaps four living people is a little OTT but no complaints on any of them. Usyk is the best boxer on the planet so hardly unreasonable to expect people to know him.
QCPR double 46 minutes but it was one of the hilliest in the country this morning.
Tricky! I crossed the line in exactly 30 minutes, which is spot on my new(ish) target.
COMBO went in straight away, but precious little else came easily. However, I didn’t experience any severe hold-ups. My LOI was FARAGE, although I had to force myself to write it in. Fortunately, I use a pencil and will now rub it out forthwith.
Thanks to Wurm and Cedric.
Another crossword puzzle lesson was given using this one. My student was able to biff a few, but he still has trouble picking out the wordplay and how it works. I am not really able to explain how I am able to do it so easily. We had a few kibitzers, and every once in a while an answer was supplied by a spectator. My student biffed 17 down, and of course then the parsing was immediately obvious to me – following a rage! We were left with E_E_T, which puzzled us both for a long time, with a long discussion of the best way to conduct an alphabet trawl – what letters are possible for the second blank? We were fixated on N and C for a while, but I finally saw what the answer must be, and a few minutes later saw the parsing. Removing letters from the middle of words is tough to see.
If I had speed-solved this puzzle, my time probably would have been something like 8 minutes for 98% of the puzzle plus 5 minutes for exert.
A slowish solve, not helped by the change in rules allowing an unknown boxer and that unmentionable charlatan to make an appearance. What a pity the old rules no longer apply.
Loi Spielberg also took ages, until I gave up trying to think of a composer to fit the start of the answer and thought of Berg. Exert was another tricky one, but a nice pdm. CoD to Barbarian for the smile. Invariant
Some inventive clues here. We were stretched out to 15:32 though not by the NHO Usyk as the clueing there was reasonably clear. I think I’d heard of Berg before but might not have recalled him if we hadn’t guessed Spielberg first. LOI FARAGE, though well known to us, because I wouldn’t have easily got from ‘trend’ to ‘rage’; for me the former is more of a slower development. All in all though I thought this was an enjoyable, slightly harder than average puzzle making reasonably fair use of living people.
One issue I have with using living people is that the crossword will not age well, at some point Farage will no longer be an MP and so it will make less sense to solvers in the future. I also don’t like to me reminded of Nigel Farage.
The aging out is a good point, and that issue is already evident as I work my way through the back catalog and have to remember at what point Charles became king.
I girded my loins when I saw the setter’s name, for Wurm is my nemesis. Thus my amazement at finishing in under 15 minutes. Oh I loved OBERON and OMNIBUS.
Cedric wrote a fragment of verse, here is my amplification:
A setter called Wurm said, “I planned
A clue hard to misunderstand,
For a random Scot
As often as not*
Is Ian in Crosswordland.”
* though to be picky I’d say more often than not!
Thanks to Wurm and Cedric!
🙂
Very good!
18:20. I found this quite tricky. I really really don’t like the references to living persons – there are enough dead ones to keep track of. are they allowed in the 15×15 too now? thanks but no thanks!
Sadly, yes they are, but so far have not been as prevalent there as in QCs.
I always find Wurm tough and today was no exception. Slowly picked my way down it.
Usyk is The Man Who Beat The Man (Who Beat The Man), the linear and true heavyweight champion of the worrrlllld, and everyone should know him!
To think that I was satirising the setters only last Thursday for thinking that pop groups were still called “popular rhythm combos” 🙄.
What’s a POT HERB? Feels like green paint to me.
OBERON was brilliant, in fact lots of the clues were really good. Wurm is terrific, he just has trouble dumbing down. And he’s a bit over excited about living people.
Crossed the line in 11:47 for 1.5K and a Slow Day. Many thanks Wurm and Cedders.
Gave up in the end with 4 unsolved, after biffing 3 others. A bit too hard for me. Can’t get used to so many references to living people.
I see I neglected to read the blog and comment yesterday. Thanks for the call out! NHO Usyk but that didn’t matter. I thought “spritely” was a bit cheeky for OBERON. I’m not sure what slowed me down but I finished in a little over average in 5:39. Thank-you Wurm for the entertaining puzzle and Cedric for the great blog .
5:46
Late finish as travelling home from Croatia yesterday. Completely failed to parse OMNIBUS, bunged in CHAMP from part of the wordplay – NHO Usyk. Still surprised by the ‘living persons’ – SPIELBERG took a while to come, and needed all checkers for FARAGE to become clear.
Thanks Cedric for the excellent and educational blog, and to Wurm for the challenge.