I found this a fairly gentle offering from Oink, taking 10:35 on my phone. I’m (this)* at anagrams, so the two long across clues had to wait for most of their crossers before they went in. (Apologies to whoever I stole that joke from.)
My COD award goes to 14d, ANTENNA, because having got the first A, I was trying to put Anne at the wrong end of the clue for ages. Well played Oink.
Definitions underlined, synonyms in round brackets, wordplay in square brackets and deletions in strikethrough. Anagram indicators italicised in the clue, anagram fodder indicated like (this)*.
| Across | |
| 1 | Scoundrel joining mother in Dutch port (9) |
| ROTTERDAM – ROTTER (scoundrel) + DAM (mother). | |
| 6 | What might produce litter in southern town centre? (3) |
| SOW – S for South + middle two letters [centre] of Oink’s signature piggy clue. |
|
| 8 | Special involving battered local seafood (7) |
| SCALLOP – SP for special including [involving] (local)*.
SP for special is one of those Crosswordland abbreviations that I don’t think I’ve ever seen in the wild. Anyone? |
|
| 9 | Track down regularly overlooked Tory expert (5) |
| TRACE – Alternate letters [regularly overlooked] of T |
|
| 10 | Dim English sergeant involved in a squabble (12) |
| DISAGREEMENT – (Dim E sergeant)* | |
| 12 | American newspaper boss is exploited (4) |
| USED – US (American), ED (newspaper boss). | |
| 13 | Son leaving his breakfast? Exactly (2,1,1) |
| TO A T – TOA The question mark indicates that other breakfast foods are also available. |
|
| 17 | Kind to fat fiancée suffering abuse (12) |
| AFFECTIONATE – (to fat fiancee)* | |
| 20 | Provide defence for politician arrested in capital (5) |
| ALIBI – LIB (politician – member of the Liberal Party) in AI (A1 – capital).
“It was A1!” and “It was capital!” are both somewhat dated ways of saying something was good. |
|
| 21 | I dream of introducing new beginnings (7) |
| INFANCY – I FANCY (I dream of), including [introducing] N for new. | |
| 23 | Take in tenant periodically (3) |
| EAT – Alternate letters [periodically] of |
|
| 24 | Frightening experience making German hit out? (9) |
| NIGHTMARE – (German hit)*. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Wine went up (4) |
| ROSE – Double definition, although pronounced differently. | |
| 2 | Hangers-on to wacky ideas (7) |
| TOADIES – TO (from the clue) + (ideas)*. | |
| 3 | Slippery customer having brief look around (3) |
| EEL – LEER (look), minus its last letter [brief], reversed [around].
Not parsed during the solve. |
|
| 4 | Leave poolside partygoers, missing a lot (6) |
| DEPART – Hidden in poolsiDE PARTygoers [missing a lot]. | |
| 5 | Home at ten, horribly worn out (4-5) |
| MOTH-EATEN – (home at ten)* | |
| 6 | Outspoken Arab leader causing upset (5) |
| SHAKE – Homophone [outspoken] of “sheikh” (Arab leader). | |
| 7 | Anger surrounding European floral tribute (6) |
| WREATH – WRATH (anger) surrounding E for European. | |
| 11 | A way of speaking about daughter’s drug habit (9) |
| ADDICTION – A (from the clue) + DICTION (way of speaking) around [about] D for daughter. | |
| 14 | Social worker upset Anne, I sense (7) |
| ANTENNA – ANT (social worker) + ANNE reversed [upset]. | |
| 15 | Is monkey allowed to nibble on this? (6) |
| CANAPE – CAN APE (is monkey allowed?)
Not 100% sure of how to classify this one, but CAN APE is clearly “is monkey allowed”, and one nibbles on CANAPEs, so I’m happy. |
|
| 16 | In poor health, putting to sea without strength at first (6) |
| AILING – sAILING (putting to sea), minus [without] the first letter [at first] of strength.
Beware of “without”: as well as its sense of “minus” as here, it can also mean “surrounding”. |
|
| 18 | Pass out in mock attack, did you say? (5) |
| FAINT – Homophone [did you say?] of “feint” (mock attack). | |
| 19 | Sort to perform secretarial duties? (4) |
| TYPE – A double definition | |
| 22 | Fruitful following a diet, finally (3) |
| FAT – F for following, A from the clue, last letter [finally] of dieT.
F for following as in citations, where 5f means “page 5 and the following page”. Not as common as 5ff which means “page 5 and the following pages” without specifying the number of pages that follow. I had a brief MER at FAT = fruitful, but Collins has “fertile or productive” as one of the definitions, with the example “a fat land”, so while that’s not common, it works. My initial justification was “Mardi Gras” being “Fat Tuesday”, which isn’t quite as good. |
|
Phew, back to normal. I saw most answers quickly, and biffed alibi and to a T. I did have to write down the letters for affectionate, but that gave me canapé, my LOI. I was already thinking it might end in -ape. We have to take both ape and monkey as an uncouth person for the clue to work.
Time: 7:04
But ‘monkey’ doesn’t mean ‘uncouth person’. But it can mean any primate, and ‘ape’ can mean any monkey (see ODE or Collins). One bemoans such usages, of course.
Wiktionary doesn’t list ape=monkey but does provide a “see also” link to monkey.
5:14 for me, which is about as fast as I get, so this was pretty easy. I also wondered about FAT and fruitful, since “the fat of the land” sort of means fruitful but is a noun. But the wordplay was unambiguous so I didn’t wonder for long.
12:08
Wow what a week. I spent a lot of time on ALIBI trying to think of capital cities that fit the few checkers I had at the time. My LOI was CANAPE.
I also biffed ‘SEX’ for SOW… because sex produces a litter. And maybe sex is in ‘essex’, a southern town?
I took it out when I realised not many words started with X for the down clue 😅
9:20. We used to get told off as kids if we used CAN for MAY. “Can I have a peach?” “Of course you’re able to have one but don’t you mean “May I have a peach?”
FAT as fruitful reminded me of seven lean years and seven fat years from the Bible and also the U.S. phrase “fat city”.
I found this fairly straightforward but a couple had me thinking. I couldn’t come up with SHEIKH for SHAKE, despite having S?A?E. And, DISAGREEMENT had me thinking it was going to be an anagram of ‘e sergeant’ inside a three-letter word for squabble.
Thanks D and setter.
All green in 7.13. I’m glad I got FAINT/FEINT right, I usually don’t. Never saw the mechanics of EEL and DEPART, so thanks to the Doof and thanks to Oink.
I took a long time to get LOI SHAKE, largely because I pronounce the Arab leader as ‘sheek’ (I know the UK pronunciation, but). 7:48.
13:10 with one mistyped pink square (WREETH).
Some nice clues, such as ROTTERDAM and CANAPÉ. But a couple of weaker ones relying on dated or obscure usage. I agree that SP for special is never seen. I spent some time hunting down examples last time it came up.
Let’s talk about ALIBI. A1 (wartime usage) for “capital” (PG Woodhouse usage) seems a convoluted way to create the desired misdirection. LIB is not the abbreviation for the Liberal party, that’s just L. The party hasn’t existed with that name for 30 years, and the centrist politicians are all called LibDems. I don’t think Jeremy Thorpe was ever called a Lib.
I spent extra care getting the FAINT/FEINT the right way round, with the A/E being unchecked. Got that right then a dumb typo gave me the pink square. As noted previously, with me typos are much more common on down clues, my eyes don’t read them as words.
Re “sp” Wiktionary has:
“Noun sp
1 Abbreviation of spelling; often used when correcting or questioning one’s own spelling.
Alternative form: sp.
2 Abbreviation of spur. (in highway designations and signage)
3 Abbreviation of special. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
4 (typography) Abbreviation of space.
Verb sp
(proofreading) Abbreviation of spell out.”
I note no-one has come up with an example for special!
Enough is enough. Wiktionary is Wiki maintained by people like us. I have an account and I have proposed deleting sp=special since no-one has come up with an example in the last year, and the entry currently admits this.
SPAD = SPECIAL ADviser?
As well as SPAD there’s the Bond baddie organisation SPECTRE, Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion. In the wild? Sort of, not sure that it would qualify in the real world.
Well concerning sp=special is it fair to point out that it is used by setters so often that it counts as “seen in the wild”? OK, that is a bit off the wall.
I did know that wiktionary is maintained by “people like us”. I’ve just made an occasional payment to wiki. I’m too mean to have a standing payment, and only make one-offs when Jimmy thingummy has a begging exercise.
Well, there was once the Lib/Lab pact! But a long time ago, I agree
Early start due to jet lag. Couldn’t parse EEL and no problem with the many anagrams and a generous grid which led to an on par 20 minute solve.
COD CANAPE.
Thanks to @Steel city for encouragement yesterday: I am nervously watching H. Milton from afar and hoping against hope for the safety of people and property.
Thanks Oink for an achievable challenge and Doof for the blog.
10 minutes with most time for a single clue spent on my LOI SHAKE which required several revisits. Like Kevin I tend to pronounce ‘sheikh’ as ‘sheek’ as I probably first met the word in the old song The Sheikh of Araby and that’s the way it’s pronounced there, even when sung by Paul McCartney in The Beatles version. Collins differentiates between UK and US pronunciations but SOED has them both as English English.
Lib = Liberal has never been limited to UK politicians.
It was handy that FEINT turned up in yesterday’s 15×15.
Indeed. The capital “L” isn’t needed: that was probably a mistake on my part.
I remember from years ago Dorsetjimbo objecting to SHEIKH as he (and other Brits) pronounced it like me. I’d always assumed it was simply UK=shake, US=sheek.
Yes we have discussed this here several times before, most recently in January this year when there were quite a lot of comments on the subject.
Seven on the first pass of acrosses and then pretty fast on the downs but CANAPE and SHAKE both took their time to yield – both got good groans as realisation dawned. Lots to enjoy here – TO A T, ANTENNA and seeing ‘german hit’ hides NIGHTMARE not to mention a vintage rant from Merlin and a thought for the Rotter as 1a went first in. All green in 11.46.
Our esteemed blogger says: Beware of “without”: as well as its sense of “minus” as here, it can also mean “surrounding”.
I know that a lot of cryptic style guides decry that trick as archaic (the usage appears in hymns such as ‘There is a green hill far away, without a city wall’). I’m curious to know if the Times really does permit it.
Judging by the number of occasions it has appeared in clues over the years I think I can confirm with some certainty that The Times allows that meaning of ‘without’. Scots and northern English say ‘outwith’ to mean the same thing.
FWIW, the parish near to mine is called Wokingham Without. Although it doesn’t surround the main town of Wokingham, it is outside it, and is contiguous with it. So, in that sense, this definition of WITHOUT is still in use…for me, anyway!
Pi
From middle-England, a son moved to Edinburgh, went native, and ‘outwith’ entered his vocabulary. Local? variant of ‘without’ as the opposite of ‘within’ and perhaps less confusing to Sassenachs.
Oh yes, and the examples of the Hymn, and two churches in London are always trotted out. “There is a Green hill far Away” is a very popular sunday school hymn, and every child assumed it meant the hill didn’t have a city wall, and I’m sure most teachers let it go. Another one being in Away in a manger when you can always hear “…when morning is night” (for nigh).
Lovely puzzle from oink with some laugh out loud moments to enjoy, Can ape 😂
Was all going so well until truly breeze blocked by shake. Probably took 5 of our 21.16 to get with a monster alpha trawl for the second day running
Thanks Doofers for the parsing of alibi, didn’t know the a1 for capital. We also prefer your parsing of eel, we justified it as feel meaning look around (as in getting a feel for somewhere) without the f
Thanks to our piggy friend
An inability to see anagram indicators turned what should have been a quick solve into something nearer to my average – DISAGREEMENT, NIGHTMARE, COD AFFECTIONATE and LOL TOADIES being prime examples. Also struggled with SHAKE where I couldn’t get shah out of my head.
Finished in 8.40.
Thanks to Doofers and Oink
I also couldn’t get the shah out of my brain!
5:06
Pretty comfy though I did need to write out the letters for 10a, which I then saw immediately, and think about 6d for a few extra moments. I also recall pausing at 21a. I never did parse EEL fully but the definition was absolutely clear.
Thanks Doofers and Oink
All solved in 9 minutes for a Cheerful Day, but EEL not parsed – thank you for the explanation – and niggling doubt that “I sense” is really a close enough definition for ANTENNA. It is a wholly different part of speech and I cannot think of a sentence where the two are interchangeable. SHAKE for upset also took a moment to accept.
Many thanks Doofers for the blog
Cedric
It’s what I call a ‘riddle definition’ in which the solution is treated as if it were a person. You get this sort of thing in riddles that begin e.g. ‘My first is in a but not in b’ etc.
Oh, very clever, and a new trick to me. Thank you Jack for the explanation.
You’re welcome. I meant to add the last line of the riddle is always ‘What am I?’
Good fun today, an enjoyable puzzle. Recently changed trains at ROTTERDAM, so that was a good start. LOI and COD CANAPE, which made me smile once the penny dropped. Was also looking for a capital instead of ALIBI at first.
Cd not parse EEL. Didn’t know Americans say ‘Sheek’ . When I lived in an Arab country in the early 6Os, everyone said ‘shake’.
Agree that I Sense is odd for ANTENNA.
Thanks vm, Doofers.
I hope you had time to see the station from the outside ?
Unfortunately, no. Too much of a rush. Next time, I hope.
. . .you missed a treat
Lovely puzzle with two oinks in it. LOI SHAKE – PDM came eventually!
Generally steady progress apart from SHAKE. At least I am in good company as otherwise I’d have thought I was a complete idiot (as opposed to a partial one). Liked TO A T, and ANTENNA. Glad to see The Rotter is still with us in spirit.
Well said!
I struggled unnecessarily with this because most of it was perfectly fair. However if expert bloggers are discussing whether some clues work (can it really mean this? – or do people say this anymore? etc etc ) are such clues really apt for a quickie??
9:48 (Eadred tries to regain control of Northumbria.)
An enjoyable crossword. LOI FAT. TO A T was my COD.
If Americans pronounce Sheikh as sheek, they miss out on the old joke about the oil sheikh who diversified into dairy and became a milkshake.
Thanks Doofers and Oink
Well maybe not all Americans. I remember the genius Frank Zappa had a song called Sheikh y’booty (or something like that).
Somewhat off the pace today at 6.50, nearly 2 minutes over my target time. I took an age to see disagreement as an answer, because for some reason I had instantly decided that the answer would refer to dim rather than a squabble. Why do we do these things? Great puzzle though I thought, with LOI and COD to toadies.
A fairly quick solve until down to my last three. CoD Canapé (where I see the é drifted off to the 17ac clue) was as an eventual pdm, and Infancy removed any lingering doubts about fat/fruitful, but loi Shake needed aids. A good example of how dabbling with the 15×15 is sometimes a curse, as Arab instantly set me off down a (fruitless) twisty equine path. Invariant
7:19, no problems, and fwiw I always pronounced sheikh as shake 😉
PS LOI was DISAGREEMENT for exactly the same reason as Koppite above
Well the times posted so far suggest that this was fairly straightforward, so why did I struggle so much today? Just one of those days when the brain isn’t functioning as well as it usually does I suppose. Anyway, my time of 13.17 isn’t disastrous, but obviously could have done a lot better.
Me too. Had to resort to aids. Found it tricky..
14:37
A slow start, less than half done at 10 mins but as the checkers came the rest tumbled into place. Struggled with the innocuous looking FAT, does that really mean fruitful? LOI INFANCY.
A smidge under 15. Done by Alibi (how does a MP get arrested by __i_i ??) Then ape gave the droll can ape and Oink’s alibi seemed plausible (but without my understanding …as opposed to within my understanding) All in all a B+ 1.5 puzzle. Thanks Doof and Oink.
ps my spell check keeps wanting to anagrise your moniker (Food)* 😂
From ROTTERDAM to INFANCY in 7:00 and no typos! Thanks Oink and Doofers.
13 minutes today. I thought there was some tricky stuff in here.
Like others, my LOI was SHAKE after I finally sorted DISAGREEMENT.
COD to CANAPE.
David
Oink, you have restored my faith! I have been really under par recently, and there was a bit of a nadir yesterday with Hurley’s which I couldn’t get into at all. Just getting over Covid (first ever) so I’m happy to blame that. FOI Rotterdam – lovely to just look at a clue and know it. Had STATE for SHAKE (state for outspoken) and I’m still a bit confused by FAT; it could easily have been FIT. I still don’t quite see where the T comes from, and sorry, Doofers, your explanation doesn’t make sense. Did you mean dieT?
You are right the blog is wrong
Following=F
a=A
Diet finally=T
(As you say, I think)
Whoops, you’re right! I did indeed mean “dieT”. Now fixed.
A pretty average 12:10. Today the unworkable ‘shah’ was the word that got stuck in my head and delayed POI SHAKE. I’d flitted around the grid so having only the final ‘I’ at FIRST, I also spent time failing to make sense of DELHI and then trying to recall other CAPITALS. FAINT came to my aid with the second I to provide the PDM for ALIBI. That led the way to LOI CANAPÉ which took some seeing because in my, admittedly more technical, view of the world an ape isn’t a monkey. COD TOADIES. Thanks Doofers and Oink.
Fairly straightforward although INFANCY took some thinking through. COD TO A T. A few that cheered my start to the day, CANAPÉ and ANTENNA.
POI 6d Shake, I have seen some funny spellings of the Arab leaders and wasn’t sure it wasn’t Shaik.
18d Faint; we had this yesterday in 15*15 and I had to reread the clue to eliminate Feint.
COD to 13a To A T although we have had it before.
Greetings from sunny Greeceland, where Mrs R and I have brought our two sons and their respective fiancées (well, one isn’t quite that just yet) for a week of activity and leisure. Being here feels very strange as, apart from a couple of trips to Guernsey and the Isle of Man, we haven’t left British shores for more than seven years. That’s partly down to our (ongoing) responsibilities caring for our very elderly parents and partly due to our increasing concerns about how to justify travelling by air, these days.
I enjoyed today’s offering from Oink until I ran into the sand with three clues to go. ROTTERDAM and SOW went straight in, as did most of their dependent Down clues. In fact, I completed the whole of the top half of the grid in just six minutes (extremely fast for me). Alas, it couldn’t continue and, after some more fairly rapid progress, FAT, INFANCY and CANAPÉ held me up for 10-12 minutes at the end. However, my total time was 26 minutes, which is inside my main target of half an hour.
Many thanks to Oink and Doofers.
Can I ask where in Greece and how is the weather?
You may, of course.
Kalamata. Sunny, 27C, gentle breeze.
Sounds great! My late father-in-law came from there. We were in Greece in May-June, it was wonderful, and I was just curious to see how the weather was this late in the year. The point being to visit at any time other than July-August! Enjoy, have a little raki…
Did this a while ago and then got diverted.
I don’t remember much other than taking a while to get LOI SHAKE – I always trip up when Sheikhs are involved. I liked CANAPÉ.
5:34
20 minutes for me and a DNF – I could not get infancy for the life of me! I took beginnings to mean first letters so was exploring IDOIN… hoping to stumble across some arcane word! Duh. I also dithered over FEINT/FAINT – there must be a rule but I don’t know what it is. The rest was fun and (relatively) straightforward, with smiles for TO A T and CANAPE. With Oink as setter the litter producer had to be a sow and I trust the canapés included cocktail sausages! Thanks Oink and Doof
The clue ended with “mock attack did you say?” – which suggested to me that the answer would be a homophone of “mock attack”.
Also, I believe it is standard in cryptic clues for the definition of the answer to either be at the start or the end of the clue (in this case it was at the start).
A fairly gentle offering, although EEL and FAT were biffed. COD: CANAPE
In good company by taking a while over LOI SHAKE. Couldn’t get Shah out of my head until eventual PDM. Didn’t spot DEPART was a hidden. Also mis-parsed ALIBI taking the A and I to be the initial/capital letters of ‘arrested’ and ‘in’ (I knew it didn’t really work!). Otherwise fairly gentle I thought. COD to INFANCY for surface. Many thanks Oink and D.
8m
I would have been quicker but held up by disagreement and shake (rhymes with bake in Abu Dhabi).
COD depart or scallop.
I’m back again just to report (for completeness, really) my outcome from yesterday’s Hurley – 24 minutes, so a good day on the QC.
I also made a very rare (and slightly less successful) attempt at yesterday’s 15x 15. The outcome? I decided to pull stumps after 24 minutes (my QC time), having given all 30 clues a reasonable shot, but not having solved even a single one of them.
Needless to say, I won’t be attempting the 15×15 again any time soon.
I always look at the SNITCH before trying the 15, because unless it’s an easy one I know I’m wasting my time!
I’m guessing you were misled by Jackkt’s opening comment that he found it the easiest for a long time – however, for many of us that was a completely different experience and though I finished, I found it very difficult, whereas Jackkt was completely on the wavelength, clearly. I’d agree with Templar that checking the snitch is a better indicator of level of difficulty than an individual opinion.
Dnf…
I’m afraid 15dn “Canapé” defeated me. I knew it had to be something like this, but it wouldn’t come. Frustrating really, as the rest was pretty reasonable, allowing me to finish everything else around the 20 min mark.
FOI – 1dn “Rose”
LOI – Dnf
COD – 6ac “Sow”
Thanks as usual!
9.04 I found this harder than yesterday and was slower throughout. EEL was unparsed and CANAPE took a while at the end. Thanks Doofers and Oink.
Also MER at FAT, needed parsing assistance with ALIBI and SHAKE, tending to rely on massive biffs this week
From ROTTERDAM to SHAKE in 7:05. I didn’t parse EEL or TO A T while solving, indeed I wondered how sTOAT fitted in with the cluing, but having worked it out post solve TO A T gets my COD.
Solved in an airport, rather tired. I felt that that could have been faster but I got stuck on CANAPÉ, TOADIES and INFANCY. 08:01 for a Meh Day.
Super puzzle, many thanks Oink and Doofers.
You know what’s coming…
Another bad day (is there any other kind?)
20 minutes of toil. Took forever on FAT (didn’t understand clue at all) and INFANCY (because I’m just not very good at this). I am also completely inept with long anagrams. I look for endings, I look for beginnings, I look for inspiration, all to no avail.
Poor week so far and it will probably get worse.
I thought I was in for an easy ride, with Rotterdam going straight in but couldn’t get any of the downs from it except an unparsed Eel. In the end defeated by Toadies, Infancy and Canape (despite knowing Ape must be in there). Must think harder!
Thanks Doof and Oink
Quite an easy sniffing out of truffles with Oink.
I’d stick up for SP (or sp. in reality) for SPECIAL, as it has its berth in Chambers, but I’m guessing the double-letter indicators are allowed at the pleasure of the editor, rather than being on what would potentially be a very long list.
Thanks Doof and Oink.
Slow but satisfactory solve with us. A nice puzzle, as usual from Oink.
Enjoyable puzzle. Held up, like the blogger, by the long anagrams, which I need paper and pen for.