Good morning, and after a few days of more straightforward puzzles, we have a puzzle from Jalna this morning that I found very much at the tougher end of the QC spectrum. It took me 20:11, and a number of the answers took considerable time on top of that to get the parsing straight for the blog. I only had 4 on the first pass through the Across clues … and it did not speed up much from there!
Some of the definitions need careful consideration as Jalna often chooses “the path less travelled” and eschews the more obvious meaning for a less common – though entirely valid – alternative. It certainly kept me on my toes.
So this is how I (eventually) called it. Overall quite the challenge, but 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 | Someone preferring not to move is bored travelling with him (4,4) |
| HOME BIRD – (bored him)*, with the anagram indicator being “travelling”. A phrase I have not heard before, and indeed Collins thinks it is an 8-letter word not 4, 4, but once the checkers were all there I could not think of anything else that fitted. | |
| 6 | Provide financial investment here again (4) |
| BACK – A DD, the first relatively straightforward (I back you / I provide you with funds) but the second requiring a bit more lateral thinking (I’m back / I’m here again). | |
| 8 | Run fantastic 400m, perhaps (4) |
| RACE – R (run) + ACE (fantastic), with the definition being a DBE, indicated by the “perhaps”. | |
| 9 | It’s annoying, and I ultimately bluster and yell when holding it (8) |
| IRRITANT – I (from the clue) + R (ultimately, ie last letter of, blusteR) + RANT (yell) containing (ie “holding”) IT.
One of the several clues which took me longer to piece together the parsing than biff the answer. |
|
| 10 | Programme on which to see celebs walk out with host (4,4) |
| TALK SHOW – (walk host)*, with the anagram indicator being “out”.
This one held me up for a long time, as the definition is not the most helpful we have ever been given and the anagram is quite well hidden in the back end of the clue, with the two anagrist elements separated by both the anagrind and a padding word. |
|
| 12 | Old blokes periodically forming part of an orchestra (4) |
| OBOE – O (old) + every other letter (ie “periodically”) of BlOkEs | |
| 13 | Ancient area of Casablanca, say, seemed inaccessible to some extent (6) |
| MEDINA – A hidden, in seeMED INAccessible, with the hidden indicator being “to some extent”.
Another one where I think Jalna has not been over-generous with the definition. The main thing that the name Medina brings to my mind is the city of that name in Saudi Arabia, one of the three holiest places in Islam (along with Mecca and Jerusalem) and the burial place of the prophet Muhammad. But that is not what Jalna had in mind, and I learn from the internet that in many north African countries, medina is simply the local Arabic word for a city’s old town or historical centre. So yes, in Arabic the old centre of Casablanca is called a medina. |
|
| 16 | Bar in Munich is taken on by family member (6) |
| BISTRO – IST (the German for is, so how “is” would be said in Munich) contained within (ie “taken on by”) BRO (brother, ie family member). We add the need to have a knowledge of German to the need to know a little Arabic. | |
| 17 | Great quantity left out of garden material (4) |
| MUCH – MULCH (garden material) with the L deleted (left out).
The parsing continued to challenge me with this one too, with “garden material” lacking a certain amount of elegance or clarity and even the link between “great quantity” and “much” taking time to emerge. |
|
| 18 | Cover with vocals over a backing beat (8) |
| WRAPPING – W (with) + RAPPING (vocals over a backing beat). | |
| 21 | Engineer cried about every single phone feature (6,2) |
| CALLER ID – (cried)*, the anagram indicator being “engineer”, containing (ie “about”) ALL (every single).
This was another where I took a long time to see the parsing. I was convinced that “engineer” meant there was an RE somewhere in the clue, and even after I cracked how the clue worked I thought ALL was given by every, and was left wondering what the word single was doing. Single phone feature as the definition, perhaps? No, think again … |
|
| 22 | Faction ready to bring Conservative on board (4) |
| SECT – SET (ready, as in “all set”) with C (Conservative) included in it (ie “on board”). | |
| 23 | Group of people live very dangerously at the end (4) |
| BEVY – BE (live) + V (very) + Y (last letter of, ie “at the end” of, dangerouslY).
Not the meaning that Bevy has for me, as I’m more familiar with the British slang usage of the word as an alcoholic drink (as in “fancy a few bevvies?”). But it is in the dictionary with the meaning “a large group of people” – and it is also, I learn, the collective noun for a group of roe deer, quails or larks. |
|
| 24 | Problems involving empty tenements outside capital of Belarus (8) |
| TROUBLES – TS (empty TenementS, ie the first and last letter with the inside letters removed) containing (ie “outside”) ROUBLE (the currency or capital of Belarus).
Many people will know that the rouble is the currency of Russia, so in keeping with the general quirkiness of today’s puzzle, Jalna decides instead to use the other, and much less well known, rouble-using country. |
|
| Down | |
| 2 | Love rice wine, mostly followed by a Japanese port (5) |
| OSAKA – O (love) + SAK (sake or rice wine, “mostly”, ie with the last letter deleted) + A (from the clue).
A very nice piece of deception as the combination of wine and port in the surface had me thinking along the lines of alcoholic drinks for the answer. |
|
| 3 | River — it may mark the spot between two points (3) |
| EXE – X (as in “X marks the spot”) between E E (two points, ie of the compass). Not difficult once one has the checkers, but “river” on its own offers many possibilities. | |
| 4 | Murdoch, for one, hailed primarily from Dublin? (5) |
| IRISH – IRIS (“Murdoch, for one”, a reference to Iris Murdoch, see below) + H (Hailed “primarily”, ie first letter of).
Dame Jean Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) was an Irish and British novelist and philosopher. She was born in Dublin but her parents moved almost immediately to England, where she lived for the rest of her life. So a doubly clever surface, as she “hailed primarily from Dublin”. |
|
| 5 | A secret surfing location? (4,3) |
| DARK WEB – A cryptic clue, playing on the verb surf as “to explore the internet”. | |
| 6 | Last drink? Down the hatch! (7,2) |
| BOTTOMS UP – BOTTOM (last) + SUP (drink), and a very nice surface indeed as one toasts downing the final drink of a session. | |
| 7 | Profile clubs playing in various cities? (7) |
| CONTOUR – C (Clubs) + ON TOUR (a band or orchestra playing in various cities is “on tour”).
Contour comes from the Italian contorno, meaning “to draw a line,” which is precisely what you are doing when you trace the contour, outline or profile of something. The meaning I instinctively think of when I hear the word contour, ie the mapping sense of a line connecting places of the same height on a map, is a derivative meaning. |
|
| 11 | British actress regularly in audition (9) |
| KNIGHTLEY – A homophone, given by the words “in audition”, as Knightley sounds like “nightly”.
Keira Christina Knightley OBE is an English actress, born in 1985 and still very much alive, and this I think is a good example of how the new freedom to reference living people can be used well – it is a very addressable clue with good wordplay to help one, with as an added bonus the clever use of “audition” in the clue as the homophone indicator, auditioning being an activity actresses often have to go through at the casting stage of a play or film. |
|
| 14 | Fast Australian runner behind rival (7) |
| EMULATE – EMU (fast Australian runner – emus can reach 30 mph or 50 km/h) + LATE (behind).
Another instance where I had to dig a bit to find the definition link. Emulate more often these days has overtones of mimic, copy, imitate, which was my first thought on getting the answer, but the meaning of rivalling someone still exists, and is closer to the origin of the word, as it is derived from the Latin aemulus, meaning a rival or competitor. |
|
| 15 | In the most serious case, a couple starts to regret selling before time (2,5) |
| AT WORST – A TWO (a couple) + R S (starts to, ie first letters of, Regret Selling) + T (time) | |
| 19 | Big fuss surrounding limits of diet supplement (3,2) |
| ADD TO – ADO (big fuss) containing (ie “surrounding”) DT (limits of, ie first and last letters of, DieT). Supplement is in the verb sense here – to supplement, to add to. | |
| 20 | Mini cheese sandwiches for a particular market (5) |
| NICHE – A hidden, in miNI CHEese, with the indicator being “sandwiches”. | |
| 22 | Deputy in vehicle heading northbound (3) |
| SUB – BUS (vehicle) reversed (ie “heading northbound”, this being a down clue).
A rather simpler clue as a reward for reaching the end of what was quite a chewy puzzle for me. |
|
A terrific crossword – clever, crafty, erudite and not remotely in the ballpark of what most of us would consider a QC to be. Really it was a 15×15 jammed into a smaller grid, but putting that aside it was a most enjoyable challenge. I was repeatedly interrupted so have no precise time, but I suspect it took me a little longer than Cedric. Great blog btw, there were some curly ones in this and some tricksy definitions. In TROUBLES, for instance, I was stuck for ages thinking the capital of Belarus was the B already delivered by wordplay, and trying unsuccessfully to work around that. Thanks to both.
I really shouldn’t have started this straight after doing the Saturday 15×15. It was, as suggested by Lindsay, “nearly another 15×15”. Got through it but had never heard of a HOME BIRD, home body, yes. And, although I had WRAPPING, I just couldn’t see the parsing, so thank you. I seem to recall the expression ‘a bevy of beautiful females’ from the past, which is what I immediately thought of when seeing the clue.
Thank you Cedric, great blog as usual.
I was going to mention BEVY; I too remember ‘bevy of beauties’ as a cliché, from back when there were beauty contests.
DNF
NHO HOME BIRD or DARK WEB. I don’t know how much time I spent on those two, but I’d already spent a lot. I biffed KNIGHTLEY, and only realized that I knew the name when I came here and saw ‘Keira’. I knew MEDINA but took ages to recall it.
Disaster, multiple blanks after I called time at 20 mins. Missed MEDINA, BEVY, KNIGHTLEY, CONTOUR, EMULATE etc. SW Corner particularly bad.
NHO HOME BIRD
19:47. CONTOUR and BISTRO favourites.
I put IRRITATE instead of IRRITANT (“rate” for yell, which I guess is not quite right), which meant I could not get CONTOUR. So DNF. Otherwise some of the same issues like NHO HOME BIRD, MEDINA in that sense.
14 minutes. I’m surprised how many people so far have NHO HOME BIRD but that’s offset against my never having heard of Keira KNIGHTLY. I looked her up on imdb and note she was in two films I saw quite a long time ago, but evidently her name and contributions to them didn’t make any lasting impression on me. I got that answer as my LOI from checkers and wordplay. I lost time at 10ac trying to make CHAT SHOW fit.
I persevered, though not without a plangent thought of the effect on my NITCH, coming home in 12:28.
BISTRO as bar jarred, but I’m sure it’s fine.
6:16. Agree that it was more like a 15×15 crammed into a Quickie grid. Held up by a futile attempt to shoe-horn Minsk into 24ac, and an inability to see the now-obvious RACE.
COD to KNIGHTLEY, who I find always leaves a lasting impression!
Thanks Jalna for the workout, and Cedric for the excellent blog.
My slowest QC of the year. I wasn’t helped by entering DARK NET which I only corrected on realising that TALK SHOW was an anagram, by refusing to accept “people” for BEVY (definitely unisex to me!), and by not realising that Keira KNIGHTLEY was British. My time would be disappointing to me in many a 15×15.
FOI HOME BIRD
LOI TROUBLES
COD BISTRO
TIME 9:13
25:53 – that was a struggle. Keira went in last but one, just ahead of BEVY. Accepting I made the mistake of forgetting the KN- start potential but otherwise didn’t feel I was getting any help from the clue and it was a poor one for QC.
One of those puzzles where I was spitting blood at Jalna and the editor throughout; then each time an answer went in I thought “Oh that’s fair enough” 😀 So really not sure what to make of this other than certifying it with a Not One For Beginners rating.
Nice comprehensive blog as always from Cedric 👍
Edit: Back from a puddlestrewn 5K for a combined parksolve time of 48:47
Tricky despite having most of the required GK – the exception being 1a where I wanted the answer to be ‘body’ not ‘bird’, but the clueing was very clear so it was my FOI.
Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge and I finished with KNIGHTLEY in 11.05 with COD to DARK WEB.
Thanks to Cedric for the top quality blog.
Yes I found that hard taking 14:40
I’m another who NHO HOME BIRD
Yes, I found this one hard, taking 17:41. I knew Keira (that is to say, I knew of Keira) she is a local lass. Good to see her doing so well. With BEVY I too thought of beauties and beers. I panicked slightly that the first might not be allowed nowadays, but Collins has “a group, esp of girls or women”. The beer is surely a bevvy?
Nice crossword. Thank you Jalna and Cedric
Yes, that’s how I’d spell bevvy, too.
7:02 on the train. Yes a great workout. Nicely summarised by Cedric. LOI CONTOUR. Thanks Jalna and Cedric.
I must have been on the wavelength, as I found it straightforward, if not easy. Well-crafted crossword, and a very enjoyable 7 mins. Biffed emulate, so thank you, Cedric, for explaining the meaning other than ‘imitate’. COD CONTOUR.
DNF. Definitely not my wavelength i.e. far too difficult.
Staggered through this only by very copious use of the check button. Blog was very helpful in understanding more. At times I put in answers as they fitted but had no idea what the parsing was. Glad others enjoyed it.
Got Knightley. No idea who the actor is. Once I had found Kn it fell into place. Had heard the name but as Kieron Knightly. Yes, I know….but popular culture doesn’t usually interest me.
Actors (understandably) usually dislike the use of the gender specific “actress” or was this use just to narrow down the field? Hmmm. Not that it helped me. Duh..
COD bistro.
Tx for blog!
As is often said here, it’s what you know, and the common expressions to me, ‘She’s a bit of a home bird’, ‘Bevy of beauties’ and ‘Nightly’ went in without stopping for breath. I did get held up with ADD TO. COD CONTOUR. Penny dropped with EMU after trying for a while to rationalise ‘Educate’. Overall a very enjoyable ride which I managed under 25 mins without falling off the horse.
Thanks Jalna and Cedric for the insightful blog and explanation of Medina.
Definitely a toughie. From EXE to NICHE in 11:58. Nothing unknown, but some very tricky parsings. Thanks Jalna and Cedric.
Yup, hard yards today. Mind you I didn’t help myself by shoving in IRRITATE, on the basis that RATE (Collins: “to scold or criticize severely; rebuke harshly”) was a reasonable proxy for “yell”. The result was that I was totally stuck on C-T-O-R, and even typed in CATDOOR to see how it looked! Fortunately a rethink produced a slapped forehead, IRRITANT and LOI CONTOUR.
A clever puzzle, all done in 12:41, but not one which is going to encourage the return of SomeRandomChap (or indeed cheer up Gary). COD to BISTRO.
Terrific blog, Cedric, and thanks in particular for explaining that ROUBLE was the “capital of Belarus” – I’d thought that was the B and just couldn’t parse it. Many thanks Jalna.
As others have said, a “grown-up” feel to this one.
LOI EMULATE. Liked MEDINA and BISTRO.
Bravo Cedders and Jalna.
9:27
Good grief. I’m bruised and cut all over from repeatedly having to climb out of one elephant trap after another, before finally limping across the line, way after the 30min post. I seem to have spent half the morning trying (and failing) to parse Wrapping (ping/beat was just so tempting), and Troubles (the B for the Belarus capital was, no doubt, deliberate), while Bistro (a German bar in Alsace 😉) and a potential Dark Sea (an unknown surfing term?) were just sneaky. It’s a minor miracle that Bevy and then Emulate came to mind quite quickly, or I would still be stuck in the SW corner. On the plus side, Bottoms Up, Caller ID and Contour were all involved in a terrific photo-finish for CoD. Invariant
DNF. Sorry Kiera, I wouldn’t have got you if I had stared at the grid for another hour, although missing BEVY and MUCH as well wasn’t helping. Once I had EMU.. I should have been able to find a word so beginning, regardless of the clueing, but by then the cells were clearly run down.
4 unfinished. Worst outcome for a long time, but I enjoyed the rest of it! Seems I will never be 15×15-worthy apart from the occasional extra green one, but each to their own.
Great blogging, Cedric, interesting asides on top of some real toughies to unravel today.
37 mins…
Some tricky clues here. Managed to get most of the grid after 25 mins, but then got stuck on 14dn “Emulate” and 23ac “Bevy” – both of which had definitions I wasn’t familiar with.
Never did parse 24ac “Troubles”, although I should have seen the rouble connection.
FOI – 2dn “Osaka”
LOI – 23ac “Bevy”
COD – 24ac “Troubles”
Thanks as usual!
I’m relieved to read that it was not just me who has been stretched by Jalna’s cluing today, and slightly surprised to note that the SNITCH is standing at “only” 128 at midday UK time. We have certainly seen higher levels, though on the other hand this is the highest QC SNITCH since Cheeko’s début in early August, a puzzle that practically sent the SNITCH off the charts at 159.
For comparison yesterday’s gentler offering from Jimmy settled down to a SNITCH of 79. I wonder if 49 points between consecutive puzzles is something of a record.
Cedric
We started off well but soon slowed considerably. Nothing was beyond us though and our final 14:41 now seems quite respectable looking at some of the comments above. A great set of clues I thought and nicely challenging. Thanks Jalna and Cedric.
If this really was 15×15 standard, then I was happy to scrape in at just over 20 minutes. Parkrun was very wet and muddy today.
So exhausted by the end that I looked up rivers for LOI EXE and then felt an idiot. I made very heavy weather of this one but muddled through, apart from the aforementioned river.
Crawled around the grid looking for a foothold. PDMs KNIGHTLEY , POI BISTRO (unparsed – anyway a BISTRO is not a bar, rather a small resto), DARK WEB, TALK SHOW. Could only think of R Murdoch at first!
Liked MUCH, CALLER ID, EMULATE, CONTOUR.
Thanks for much needed blog, Cedric.
16.20 After correcting HOME BODY the top half flew in. The bottom half didn’t. I was on the verge of giving up before getting LOI KNIGHTLEY. None of it looks that bad in hindsight. Thanks Cedric and Jalna.
12:19
Another here that struggled on the first pass of acrosses – four in – but then I filled in five of the six across the top, right off the bat. Slowed down though largely in the SW where some of the answers were slow to come – I have seen several of Keira KNIGHTLEY’s films so that was a nice pdm. Finally left with 6a and 7d – BACK falling first and meaning that 7d began with a C, I had imagined it would be in the middle – with all of the checkers in place, C ON TOUR fell promptly.
Thanks Cedric for the entertaining blog, and Jalna for the challenging puzzle
25:31
An excellent blog! Everything very clearly explained, thank you.
And an enjoyable puzzle. Nothing too obscure, although it took me a while to see what Munich was doing. Staying on the German theme, struggled with AT WORST before the W led me to LOI WRAPPING which, on reflection comes up regularly in various guises.
QCPR time 56 minutes
A wrestling match today, and 29:58 minutes of alternate bafflement and enlightenment. NHO HOME BIRD, I like it. IRRITANT is my COD. I somehow simply could not see how TALK SHOW worked, and worried that the answer would be some British TV thing unknown to me; this was not helped by carelessly putting OSAKe. Do orchestras use any instruments other than OBOEs and strings? WRAPPING haha. Lots of amusing clues, really good puzzle.
Thanks Jalna and Cedric. Good puzzle and blog today!
Liked Niche, Osaka and Medina but overall too difficult for me. Roll on Monday.
18:36, which I’m happy with given all the comments above. COD to CONTOUR, with KNIGHTLEY a close second. Very much enjoyed this one.
Thanks to Jalna and Cedric.
Nearly knocked on the club door, but managed to finish, all parsed in 18:30, before going off to do my volunteering stint this afternoon. I feel quite gratified, bearing in mind the struggles that far better solvers than me faced today!
I didn’t have a COD until Cedric explained the full detail of 4d – now I do 😊
FOI Sake LOI Emulate COD Irish
Thanks Jalna and Cedric – excellent blog
Found top half easier than bottom. Didn’t get KNIGHTLEY even though I’ve heard of her – missed the homophone 🙄
Thanks Jalna, great blog Cedric
I recognised that a lot of the clues were tricky and yet somehow I kept solving them, to finish in the very good time for me of 26:51.
For me the difficulty of a clue is proportional to the obscurity of the definition, e.g. group of people = bevy. I am gradually learning to be more open-ended rather than reductive in my search for words. Several times today I thought “he can’t mean that – oh, yes he does!”.
Amazed myself by being unable to name more than a handful of British actresses. Cinema isn’t my thing but even so. And had of course heard of Keira KNIGHTLEY once I finally stopped trying to parse ‘game show’ where TALK SHOW ended up. Bevy was second last in ahead of Keira. All green but in 22 Sunday morning minutes.
A day late, but the extra preparation didn’t work. A DNF for me with four clues unsolved at my 40 minute cut-off time. The CONTOUR/BISTRO and EMULATE/BEVY pairings did for me and, now having read the blog, I know that I was still a very long way from solving any of them.
Only three Acrosses and five Downs solved during my first pass, which took 13 minutes, so I was well behind the clock even then. HOME BIRD needed all of its checkers and almost every clue proved a real struggle.
Definitely not a QC.
Many thanks to Cedric.
As beginners we struggled, became depressed, and couldn’t finish. One last thought, Keira Knightly is a huge international star and would never, these days, be asked to audition. A film would get finance and be given the go-ahead once it was known she had agreed to star in it.
Had several attempts at this and eventually threw in the towel tis afternoon with half a dozen to go. 3d I first thought was WYE – an unknown between two points of the compass but struggling with Home Bored anagram save me the first E so EXE was (then) obvious. Def 15×15 territory in several places, and not a real QC IMHO. Probably too braindead to try the Sunday special… but will give it a go.