Good morning one and all. When I opened up this crossword and saw the setter’s name, I confess I was a little apprehensive, as Cheeko rivals his fellow newcomer Asp for having caused me serious problems in his earlier puzzles. But here we have a charming puzzle, with many excellent clues, no obscure words (though one is in a slightly unusual form), and generally very understandable wordplay.
Even the GK is at a level that I hope most people can manage. There are two references to real people, but they are (a) both dead and (b) the actor is the very definition of famous, while the politician, although hailing from a small country and active 100 years ago now, is even so I would guess someone that most people have heard of.
All in all the puzzle took me 7:11, which for me counts as a very fast time for any setter, let alone one with Cheeko’s hitherto fearsome reputation. So bravo Cheeko – might one be bold enough to suggest that the various comments on his earlier puzzles have not gone entirely unread? – and thank you.
How did everyone else get on?
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (abc)* indicates an anagram of abc, and strike-through-text shows deletions.
| Across | |
| 1 | Dodgy men book her single-parent residence? (6,4) |
| BROKEN HOME – (men book her)*, with the anagram indicator being “dodgy”.
I wonder if I will be alone in finding this a little unkind – not all family units with one parent are the result of a broken relationship, as some are planned from the start and others the result of the early death of a partner. And I don’t think the question mark really rescues the clue. |
|
| 8 | Country, in the morning, with heather (7) |
| AMERICA – AM (in the morning) + ERICA (heather). I believe there are well over 800 separate species of plant in the genus erica, and the internet tells me that “a full taxonomy of the genus as a whole is still lacking” – with that number of variations I am not entirely surprised. | |
| 9 | Inexperienced environmentalist (5) |
| GREEN – A DD, and with the last two clues I was beginning to feel this was a new Cheeko, as one can hardly ask for a more straightforward one. | |
| 10 | Peer before the appointed time stops short (4) |
| EARL – EARL |
|
| 11 | Nit-pick favourite attack, going over own goal (8) |
| PETTIFOG – PET (favourite) + TIF (fit, ie attack, reversed, ie “going over”) + OG (abbreviation for own goal). The adjective pettifogging is familiar I hope to all, and it is not too much of a stretch to back-create the verb pettifog from it, even if it is not a word in common use. In fact the dictionaries do have it, although it is marked “archaic” in one I looked at. | |
| 13 | Criticise rock (5) |
| SLATE – Cheeko’s second DD, and another straightforward one. Both have been good examples of the “rule of thumb” that two word clues are often DDs. | |
| 14 | Smallest meadow, extremely silent (5) |
| LEAST – LEA (meadow) + ST (extremely, ie first and last letter of, SilenT). | |
| 16 | Drunken lad’s newt in boggy ground (8) |
| WETLANDS – (lads newt)*, with the anagram indicator being “drunken”. | |
| 17 | Genuine bobbin picked up (4) |
| REAL – sounds like reel or bobbin, with the homophone indicator being “picked up”. | |
| 20 | Run into, say, Kelly’s artistic style (5) |
| GENRE – GENE (as in Gene Kelly) with R (run) inserted into it.
All together now, “I’m singing in the rain” – perhaps Gene Kelly’s most famous song of them all, and seen here. |
|
| 21 | Leader avoids rabble-rousing book (7) |
| EDITION – This was about the only clue that caused me to pause and think a bit harder: neither the link sedition = rabble rousing nor the definition book = edition are the most straightforward, and I also took time to see that “leader avoids rabble-rousing” meant “rabble-rousing without a leader”. |
|
| 22 | Twelve hang out in gap between peaks? (10) |
| WAVELENGTH – (twelve hang)*, with the anagram indicator being “out”, and easily overlooked as “hang out” needs a lift and separate between the anagrist and the anagrind. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Burn jacket that’s not right (5) |
| BLAZE – BLAZE |
|
| 2 | About to stop melodrama losing sense of proportion (12) |
| OVERREACTING – RE (about) inserted into (ie “to stop”) OVER-ACTING (melodrama). For “stop” as an insertion indicator, think of a stopper in a bottle, or a Dutch boy’s finger in a dyke. | |
| 3 | Ruler making an appearance in The Mirror (4) |
| EMIR – A hidden, in thE MIRror, with the indicator being “making an appearance in”. As hidden indicators go this is a very clear one. | |
| 4 | Try containing some French footie manoeuvre (6) |
| HEADER – HEAR (try, as in try a case / hear a case) with DE (“some” in French) inserted into it.
I think to call a header a “manoeuvre” is a little unusual – it is certainly a part of the game, undoubtedly a skill, possibly a tactic, but a manoeuvre? |
|
| 5 | I light my bombs with much force (8) |
| MIGHTILY – (I light my)*, with the anagram indicator being “bombs”.
This clue allows me to retell a story which neatly illustrates the fact that British and US English are not the same. Many years ago I held a party which was a great success, and when an American friend asked me how it had gone I replied “It went like a bomb”. “Oh I’m so sorry”, he replied – and I learnt the meaning of the US expression “it bombed”. |
|
| 6 | Doctor gifts cleaner with kitchen facilities (4-8) |
| SELF-CATERING – (gifts cleaner)*, with the anagram indicator being “doctor”. Think holiday cottages … | |
| 7 | Noble king, fantastic thing (6) |
| KNIGHT – K (king) + (thing)*, with the anagram indicator being “fantastic”.
I’m not sure that medieval chivalry would have considered a knight to be part of the nobility. And further back, it is clear that classical Rome did not: there were 5 ranks in the Roman Republic, viz Patricians, Equites, Plebeians, Freedmen and Slaves. The Patricians were the nobility, the ancient families from whose ranks the Senators came, and the Equites (the Equestrians or Knights, the link being equus, the Latin word for horse), while one rank above the common people, were in the Republic not considered of senatorial rank – though later, in the Empire, they could rise to it. To complete the hierarchy, the plebeians were the ordinary folk, but still usually full Roman citizens by birth – and after that you had the freedmen (ex-slaves) and the slaves, the lowest social class. |
|
| 12 | Irish statesman raved wildly about beer (2,6) |
| DE VALERA – (raved)*, the anagram indicator being “wildly”, surrounding ALE (beer).
Éamon de Valera, 1882-1975, Irish politician and statesman, who held every senior position in the Irish Free State and Republic of Ireland over a very long career – he only finally retired from his final term as President in 1973, aged 90. A little known fact is that this quintessential son of Ireland was born in New York; his mother was Irish-American but his father, from whom he got his most un-Irish surname, was of Spanish heritage. And very generously clued with the mention of “Irish”; Cheeko has given us all a huge pointer here and indeed I am not sure how many other Irish politicians I could name outside those currently in the news. |
|
| 13 | Waste Home Counties salary? (6) |
| SEWAGE – SE (Home Counties, ie south east of England) + WAGE (salary). | |
| 15 | Stick promo in this place (6) |
| ADHERE – AD (promo) + HERE (in this place).
And very similar to a clue we had on Monday in QC 2818 by Joker, who gave us “Stick with company at this point”, answer COHERE. And at least one solver owned up on Monday to biffing Adhere instead for it – should’ve held that one up till today! |
|
| 18 | Take off without a meal (5) |
| LUNCH – L |
|
| 19 | Male rage — it’s dirty (4) |
| MIRE – M (male) + IRE (rage). Does one detect that with the last three clues in particular, Cheeko is in effect saying “You want QC clues? I can write QC clues …”. | |
20:32. Took a long time on many, especially EDITION! I noticed a Nina-5 anagram pairs- header/adhere, more/emir, slate/least, genre/green, and real/ earl.
Could possibly add REACTING and CATERING?
Sure-maybe 5 1/2 anagrams!
Well-spotted! Never seen that trick before.
Cheeko actually did something similar in their first puzzle where the four words heading towards the middle were DANIEL, NAILED, DENIAL, LEAD-IN
The second puzzle had a central H in the unches (like today’s puzzle) and the four words leading to this were HORSE, HOTEL, HEARTS, HEIGHT
The third puzzle doesn’t have anything in this form but I wouldn’t be surprised if there is some kind of message as it is a strange collection of words which seem to have been forced together
Thanks for sharing that- will watch for something similar next Cheeko.
A very plebeian 18 minutes for me. I was held up by several I found difficult, namely PETTIFOG, SELF-CATERING and my LOI WAVELENGTH.
An enjoyable puzzle, though I take Cedric’s points about BROKEN HOME and HEADER. Favourites were OVERREACTING and the little present of the five symmetrically placed anagram pairs pointed out by curryowen.
Thanks to Cheeko and to Cedric for the informative blog
Another DNF to finish my worst week of QCs ever I think! I understood the wordplay for every single clue I think but couldn’t construct the answers (annoying). Agree with the MER about the definition for 1a, unnecessary I would have thought.
I googled to find De Valera but mistakenly had OVERREACTION for 2d. I wanted to write GRACE (as in style?) for 20a knowing it wasn’t right, but Gene Kelly is not a name I could bring up from memory (I’ve heard of him, but I don’t think his fame has lasted amongst people not alive when he was active).
I don’t think there is any way to get De Valera from _E _A_E_A with a D, V, L, and R left unless you know the name, google it, or get lucky. Several variations of the unchecked letters give plausible names.
I’m sure for those with the (quite dated) GK this was fairly simple, but for the rest of us it’s quite frustrating (and feels like very lazy setting). And in this puzzle at least, the rest of the clues weren’t even that interesting.
Hopefully next week will bring the QCs back to a more usual level of challenge!
I saw ‘Irish statesman’ and the enumeration and didn’t need to read the rest of the clue. But then I’m an old fart with dated GK. (Is some GK dated? I would think that if it’s G, it’s by definition not dated, and if it’s dated, it’s not G.)
Once it may have been GK, but not these days
Of course it’s impossible to prescribe exactly what qualifies as GK, but we are often asked to recognise artists, composers and writers from centuries ago, not to mention a bewildering array of religious references. Given that de Valera would feature prominently in even the most cursory history of Britain’s nearest neighbour I think the clue passes muster.
In any case the enumeration and the “beer” implied DE _ALE_A, with de Valera sounding more plausible I think than de Raleva.
Au contraire; Keriothe gave us a perfectly clear criterion for GK: if I know it, it’s GK, if not, not. QED.
Once I’d eliminated the Taoiseach and Leo Varadkhar, I was left to rearrange the anagram.
Unfortunately while I had a feeling about VALE-A I still had the R & D to decide. I figured that RE-VALEDA might be the answer due to –LEDA perhaps being a translation of LEADER in a language which I have absolutely no knowledge or examples of.
This fellow old fart did exactly the same as you.
I’m more Matthew than Gene.
My first thought was Kelly Brook, so I reckon I’m top of the Lowbrow League.
NHO Kelly Brook until Race Around the World.
Yes, agree with Keriothe that if I know it, it generally is GK. But sons here today had not heard of De Valera, despite their extensive education. I myself went to a dud school where history apparently ended in 1815, so I was obliged to teach myself more modern history and anyway am so old I remember lots of it.
I had a similar reaction to Cedric’s to BROKEN HOME; but I see that ODE defines it as ‘a family in which the parents are divorced or separated’. (NB: family, not residence). I saw ‘heather’ in 8ac and immediately bunged in LING; prematurely, as it turned out. ‘Kelly’ told me nothing, and GENRE was my LOI, biffed from checkers, and delaying me a good bit. I think we’ve seen ‘sedition’ defined as ‘rabble-rousing’ before, and it’s a bad definition. 7:29.
Thanks Cedric another very informative and helpful Blog. Take it up full time.
Re the broken home, isn’t the point that broken homes are by definition single parent residences, not that all single parent families imply a broken home (I do think it’s a rather unfortunate expression though).
5:28. Thought WAVELENGTH was excellent, thanks Cheeko.
Excellent blog as always Cedric. I had similar thoughts on 1ac.
19:52
So very slow for me. But enjoyable compared to yesterday.
Lots of anagrams, but also nice surfaces.
Hurrah!
Steady going today, partly down to a missing anagram hat but also spent time trying, very unsuccessfully, to think of countries including ‘ling’.
Started with GREEN and finished with COD WAVELENTH in 8.51.
Thanks to Cedric
9 minutes, making this the easiest for me of Cheeko’s four offerings to date. The previous ones took me 15, 11 and 17 minutes respectively.
Re ‘footie manoeuvre / HEADER’ the second definition of ‘manoeuvre’ in Collins is ‘a movement or action requiring dexterity and skill.’ I don’t see a problem.
More generally it may be helpful to remember that definitions in puzzles do not have to cover every possible meaning of a word or phrase, only one.
That’s five out of six this week taking over 20m but only one NHO today – De Valera. Some great and well-hidden anagrams today and KNIGHT and WAVELENGTH deserve special mentions. Made some problems for myself by sticking in ‘ling’ for heather after the first pass of acrosses only yielded two and I was a bit desperate and by trying ‘room’ where the home of BROKEN HOME went. All green in 21.14 – a full six minutes more than the Telegraph 15×15 took.
I think my calf tear may have healed – no park run today but I am going to have a little jog and see how it holds up.
DNF.
NHO de valera. I saw the wordplay but could not get it to fit, so cheated.
I, too, was surprised at broken home being included.
Thanks for blog.
No two pass solution on offer to me today, as I still had the 6D/22A intersection outstanding after pass 3. At least I finished it without a pink square, and that has been a rare occurrence this week. I also managed to get inside my 6 minute target. I needed to drag PETTIFOG out of the junk room of my grey matter. A decent challenge – thanks Cheeko and Cedric.
FOI AMERICA
LOI WAVELENGTH
COD MIGHTILY
TIME 5:18
As someone who just cannot advance to the main cryptic crossword, the QC is the highlight of my day, most definitely taking time of double digit minutes.
So thank you Cheeko for an excellent crossword, no pettifogging from me, it was all quite doable for a change.
37 mins…
Slightly over my cut off, but I only had 11ac “Pettifog” to get and somehow dredged it from my memory, thinking favourite = pet was a fair bet.
I raised an eyebrow at 1ac “Broken Home”. It may be a legitimate definition, but it feels dated. The home could have been single to start with and doesn’t have to have been “broken”.
The rest went in fairly slowly. Dnk 12dn “De Valera”, but it was solvable from an educated guess of the anagram. As noted above, I nearly fell for 20ac “Grace”.
Not the best of weeks – but at least I finished.
FOI – 3dn “Emir”
LOI – 11ac “Pettifog”
COD – 22ac “Wavelength”
Thanks as usual!
14:23
Not really on Cheeko’s WAVELENGTH today, and that word required pen and paper to become my LOI.
Also needed pen and paper for SELF CATERING, as I was trying to think of examples of facilities found in kitchens, rather than the concept of having a kitchen.
Thanks Cedric and Cheeko
Limped in at just over 20mins to conclude a tough week.
Also instantly adopted brace position at 1AC anticipating a flood of comments.
Also went down the LING red herring for the heather clue and inexplicably putting in STONE rather than SLATE also set me back.
COD: PETTIFOG on basis that I am not sure I had seen the word before but was very gettable and sounds like it should mean to nitpick.
Stone first here for me too.
Add me to the list of those who thought BROKEN HOME a rather bleak and unkind clue. Otherwise a very enjoyable puzzle, which I found on the chewy side but with lots of wit.
I held myself up by putting DE VALERO, and then avoided the DPS by revisiting my initial “shake” (which fitted “rock” but didn’t feel quite right for “criticise”) at the last moment. LOI & COD to WAVELENGTH, a well-disguised anagram.
All done in 09:33 for 1.3K and a Decent Day. Many thanks Cheeko and Cedders.
I was slow on this one taking 12:57 ending a pretty poor week on the QCs
Absolutely no wavelength for me, so slow to spot the anagrams although once I did, they were quite clear, and the DDs bamboozled me for some time. Even the SCC may bar me today. I think the hangover effect that may afflict me tomorrow after tonight’s revelries may have arrived early.
PETTIFOG was especially frustrating as it had to end in OG but no word would come to mind, didn’t think of Pet as favourite… 6D was my third last in (anagram blindness again) and only then did I wrest it from the depths of my memory. Oh well. Could have enjoyed this a lot more than I did.
Never did parse EDITION, LOI, so thanks for the blog, Cedric, with the tidbits of wider information.
25:28 with the mixed up Irish Statesman.
Not a genuine QC in my opinion. I am reaching the point where I am sick and tired of slogging through these day after day.
Edit: Quitch at 117 suggests its tough again
BLAZE and EMIR were first 2 in. 1a was delayed by a postulated ROOM for the second word, and as for others, induced an involuntary pang of sadness when it materialised. OVERREACTING was LOI after STONE was replaced by SLATE. 9:04. Thanks Cheeko and Cedric.
NHO De Valera or pettifog. Well misdirected by header where concentrated on feet and wavelength. Nice that it was less traumatic than others this week.
DNF with PETTYFOG, I was sure this was correct spelling, thinking it was the anglicised version of “petit” as in Petty Treason, and Petty France. I saw OG and PET but did not bother to check the middle bit.
Feel bad that I NHO DE VALERA, but Irish Liberation history is quietly omitted from most English History curricula. I was slow to guess it, because SLATE wouldn’t come to mind, so that left me with chaps such as ED RALEVA, and DR EALEVA.
Off to a bad start with ROOM at the end of 1A, and heather=Ling.
COD WAVELENGTH Nice whimsical definition and clever juxtaposition of “hang out”.
Very enjoyable puzzle, but held up by biffing Grace for 20a.
DNF EDITION – should have got that one. Also I put Shake instead of SLATE, just as good an answer, I reckon.
Yes, not keen on BROKEN HOME clue. And yes, was distracted by Ling/heather for too long.
Knew DE VALERA. Took ages over WAVELENGTH, ironically, and SELF-CATERING and HEADER.
Liked PETTIFOG, LUNCH, BLAZE.
Thanks vm, Cedric.
27:23 for a slow, enjoyable solve. PETTIFOG, such a good word, though I couldn’t make much sense out of the clue surface. DNK ERICA as heather. My anagrammotor is well and truly broken this week so WETLANDS (shame!), WAVELENGTH and SELF-CATERING (chiefly British, so not in the forefront of my awareness) took a while. Fell into the “ling” trap. Loved OVERREACTING.
Thanks to Cheeko and Cedric! Helpful blog as always.
Back in the SCC at 20:32, but after the week we’ve had I’ll happily take it. I found it tough but enjoyable, with a lovely PDM courtesy of WAVELENGTH which had me utterly bamboozled.
Thank you to Cheeko for providing us with an actual QC, and to Cedric for a very helpful blog!
Annoyingly, after successfully negotiating my way through some pretty tough clues (Pettifog, Edition) and avoiding the Grace bear trap, I fell at the last fence with Shake rather than Slate. I fully expected Cheeko to have a crafty interpretation of rock, and to shake a fist/stick at could be the same as criticise if you squint an eye, cover your ears, and look from a distance. . . In other words, I never thought of Slate.
And heather is absolutely always Ling in crossword land, except today when it’s Erica.
All told, a standing room only solve, with CoD to 22ac, Wavelength for the pdm. Invariant
PS De Valera should also be remembered for offering condolences on Hitler’s death !
Re 4dn: ‘some’ in French. Most people are probably familiar with du, de la, des (and de l’). I’ve only ever seen du and des in crosswords. De can indeed mean some, but only in cases where it precedes an adjective that is before a plural noun (e.g. j’ai de bons amis). This is pretty niche stuff, imho, and beyond what can reasonably be expected of solvers. En can also mean some where no noun is present (j’en ai), but I wouldn’t expect to see that in a crossword either. I did wonder whether the setter might have mistaken de for des in this clue.
Thanks, CS.
Well spotted
Merci 😊
De rien 😉
29:21 with one pink square, I’m ashamed to admit to my second mis-spelling in two days although NHO pettifog so that’s my reason for using “y” instead of “i”. Note to self, when in doubt about the correct spelling, check the wordplay. FOI – GREEN, LOI – MIGHTILY, COD – WAVELENGTH. Not a week when I’ve covered myself in glory so hopefully I’ll be on better form next week. Thanks Cedric and Cheeko.
11.20 DNF. Like Invariant I stuffed in SHAKE for SLATE, but the rest was fine. I was also convinced that 8a ended in LING so HEADER was LOI. Thanks Cedric and Cheeko.
16:52, pleased to have managed to unravel all the anagrams without paper or aids for once. I didn’t help myself by bunging in GRANNY FLAT for 1a based solely on the enumeration and the hope that the parsing would become clear. I wish this had been the answer: it’s much less bleak than the actual solution. I have good friends who are single parents and their homes are definitely not broken.
Thanks to Cedric and Cheeko.
Doh – DNF because of 2d OverreactiON messed up 20a Genre where the best I could manage was Gnome (of Zurich!) – missed out on THAT Kelly, which might have forced a revisit to 2d. On the other hand – no problem with 13a Slate and some of the others mentioned today. Thought 1a a bit clumsy and poorly referenced.
Hope for a better day with the Sunday Special and then through next week too.
29:19
Struggled with the long anagrams SELF CATERING and WAVELENGTH but it was the NHO PETTIFOG which really held me up. Once I had that from the wordplay HEADER and LOI KNIGHT seemed obvious.
Managed to finish, but only with help. I agree about DE in 4d: it doesn’t mean “some” on its own. Really struggled with long anagrams – amongst other things, especially PETTIFOG.
47mins at the end of a very busy day.
MER 1a
LOI 4d which was another MER
DNK 11a. Chambers says it archaic, which I am mostly.
Good puzzle with some proper head scratchers.
Thank you
Utter carnage! Yet another whopping DNF to round off my worst ever week.
10 (yes, ten!) clues unsolved – AMERICA, EARL, PETTIFOG, GENRE, EDITION, BLAZE, OVERREACTING, HEADER, SELF CATERING, DE VALERA. An almost complete waste of 40 minutes.
Once again with Cheeko, I have no idea how this could be classified as a QC.
10:57 but…
…managed a pink square for OVEEREACTING. I’m catching up following a few days in Edinburgh – I’ve found I’ve been very slow with some of the puzzles so far.
Thanks Cedric and Cheeko for the entertainments