Good morning, and we have another puzzle from Jimmy, who is still relatively new to the QC roster (this is his 11th puzzle for us) and who up to now has been one of the more gentle setters – my average for his first 10 puzzles was just 8½ minutes. But not this time, as there are some devilish clues and two that downright defeated me, for a 20 minute DNF before I pressed the reveal button. I might have got one of them (4D) if I had known the phrase referred to, but the other (11A) I completely misconstrued and got nowhere with.
Several of the other clues took quite some winkling out – I was on for a slow time even before the two I failed on – and in general either I was not on my usual form or Jimmy wasn’t. Or of course both of us.
Hopefully everyone else had a better day …
Well, the verdict is in after all the comments. And quite clearly this was a cracker from Jimmy, and it was me that was not on my usual form!
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (abc)* indicates an anagram of abc, and strike-through-text shows deletions.
| Across | |
| 1 | Job notices stirred up protests (10) |
| OBJECTIONS – (job notices)*, the anagram indicator being “stirred up”. | |
| 8 | Worker who should be very class-conscious? (7) |
| TEACHER – The first of a number of clues where the whole clue is a guide to the answer. Teachers teach classes, and so have to be aware of or conscious of their class, and they certainly work (actually they work very hard), so in that sense they can be called class-conscious workers. | |
| 9 | Tips for eggs, venison and darned excellent duck (5) |
| EVADE – I got this clue royally wrong when I first saw it as I took “tips for eggs” as giving me ES. From which there was no way forward, until I realised that the clue requires one to take just the first letters of Eggs, Venison And Darned Excellent. | |
| 10 | Python on TV reluctant to make an effort (4) |
| IDLE – I’ve decided to categorise this as a DD, the first definition being a reference to Eric Idle, a member of the cast of the British TV series Monty Python’s Flying Circus, which aired between 1969 and 1974. Perhaps not too challenging for anyone who remembers the TV series, but the last episode was 50 years ago and this might be deemed a little unkind to younger solvers. | |
| 11 | Are these people in front of supervised gateways? (8) |
| SENTRIES – Another all-in-one clue, and it completely defeated me. No wordplay, a pretty odd definition and what is a “supervised gateway”? I did not warm to this clue when doing the puzzle and I still don’t. I could suggest “Guards for the southern ways in” as a better clue – but I am sure there are others even better than that.
On edit – ZenPublisher points out that there is indeed wordplay hidden here: S (front of Supervised) + ENTRIES (gateways). I appear to have been unwittingly on the right track with my proposed alternative clue and even so unable to see it! |
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| 13 | Means of getting into a tin of good batter (6) |
| OPENER – A DD, the second definition referring to the person starting a side’s innings at cricket, and making use of the current style of using the word batter where previous generations would have said batsman. But that would not have given such a good surface … | |
| 14 | Messing about, Sartre’s put in detention (6) |
| ARREST – (sartre)*, the anagram indicator being “messing about”. | |
| 17 | Football club supporter using their hands (8) |
| MANUALLY – MAN U (Manchester United, a football club) + ALLY (supporter). And strangely, the first “construct it from parts” clue. | |
| 19 | Illegal drug fine to bring into church (4) |
| COKE – OK (fine) inserted into CE (church, specifically the Church of England). Coke or Cocaine is still illegal in most countries, despite being tolerated in a few jurisdictions. | |
| 21 | Awful, covering intro to Genesis’s sad song (5) |
| DIRGE – DIRE (awful) with G (intro to, ie first letter of, Genesis) inserted into it. | |
| 22 | I feel drunk aboard ship, getting shots (7) |
| SELFIES – (I feel)*, the anagram indicator being “drunk”, inserted into SS (ie “aboard” a ship). Shots as in photos to make the definition work, and a clever surface as too many shots (of alcohol) will certainly make one feel drunk. | |
| 23 | Removing section of complex tract in German (10) |
| EXTRACTING – A hidden, in complEX TRACT IN German, with the hidden indicator being “section of”. | |
| Down | |
| 2 | Dotty kind of writing Liberal composed (7) |
| BRAILLE – (Liberal)*, with the anagram indicator being “composed”. | |
| 3 | Parrot found in Czechoslovakia (4) |
| ECHO – Another hidden, in CzECHOslovakia, with the hidden indicator being “found in”. | |
| 4 | Might this underwhelming film get roasted? (6) |
| TURKEY – Our third all-in-one clue, and even with the T-R checkers I failed to find the answer. As well as being a country, a bird, something that might vote for Christmas and a way of talking when you want to discuss something frankly, I now know that a turkey is a poor film. | |
| 5 | Bit of cricket? Time the Ashes holder is upset (8) |
| OVERTURN – OVER (bit of cricket) + T (time) + URN (traditionally, the receptacle for the Ashes).
“The Ashes” is the trophy at stake when England play Australia at test cricket; the name comes from a famous newspaper notice in 1882 when England first lost to the Australians in England, noting that “English cricket has died; the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia”. On the subsequent English tour “Down Under”, the English captain vowed to “reclaim the Ashes”; when his team was victorious he was presented with a small terracotta urn with, reputedly, the ashes of a cricket bail in it. The actual urn is tiny, no more than 4 inches / 10 cm high, and even when Australia win it (which they have more often than not recently) the trophy does not leave England but stays safely at Lord’s. |
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| 6 | It’s as funny for group of oppressive buggers (5) |
| STASI – (its as)*, the anagram indicator being “funny”.
The Stasi or Staatssicherheit were the secret police of the German Democratic Republic, and were well known for their telephone-tapping or bugging. By the time the GDR fell and was re-incorporated into the Federal Republic in 1990, they had files on about one in every three East German citizens, and their archives – all paper based of course – stretched for over 70 miles / 110 km of shelving. Fear of the Stasi and their phone-tapping was very real. I went to the GDR just once, in 1980, and tried to ring someone living in East Berlin, who was from his surname a possible relative on my maternal side. As soon as he heard my name and my very western-accented German, he said “He is not here, I will tell him you called”, and put the phone down. Ten years later (ie after the fall of the GDR), he rang me, and said “I am now able to return your call. I could not speak before as I did not want anyone to know I might have a relative in the West”. |
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| 7 | In France I finally meet people like me and globe-trotters (3-7) |
| JET-SETTERS – JE (in France I, ie “I” in French) + T (finally, ie last letter of, meeT) + SETTERS (ie people like Jimmy). It took me a long time to work out how this clue worked, as I started by being convinced that “In France …” gave me EN-. | |
| 8 | I’m getting tangled with a leotard fitting perfectly (6-4) |
| TAILOR-MADE – (I’m + a leotard)*, the anagram indicator being “tangled with”. | |
| 12 | Eg Mo Salah on the ball, warning of danger (3,5) |
| RED ALERT – RED (ie a player for Liverpool Football Club, nicknamed “the Reds”) + ALERT (on the ball).
Mo Salah is one of the best known current players for Liverpool, so this is a definition-by-example, helpfully signalled by the “e.g.”. Liverpool’s nickname of “the Reds” is to differentiate them from the other leading club in the city of Liverpool, Everton FC, who are “the Blues”; a little known fact is that the nickname dates from well before they adopted their iconic all-red playing strip, so a rare instance of the strip being derived from the nickname not the other way round. |
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| 15 | Schoolboy’s brief message over newspaper article (7) |
| ETONIAN – It’s that school again! The construction is ETON (note, ie brief message, all reversed, ie “over”) + I (a UK newspaper) + AN (indefinite article). | |
| 16 | Sadly, capitals of Kansas and Alabama in a state (6) |
| ALASKA – ALAS (sadly) + K A (capitals of, ie first letters of, Kansas and Alabama). | |
| 18 | Tend to hurry up, sure to lose heart (5) |
| NURSE – NUR (run, ie to hurry, reversed, ie “up”) + SE (ie sure, with the middle letters removed, ie “to lose heart”). | |
| 20 | Group under pressure in secret scheme (4) |
| PLOT – LOT (group) under (ie after, as this is a down clue) P (pressure).
This clue took much longer than it should have, as I took a while to see that group = lot. At the time I thought it a loose linkage; on reflection I think it is fair enough but when doing the puzzle I was pretty frazzled by this point – at least that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it! |
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SENTRIES. Front of supervised, S, gateways, ENTRIES.
Yes of course. Thank you, and blog edited. Ironically I was groping towards that with my proposed alternative cluing.
17:53. Difficult but well worth the struggle. I had to discard BED SITTERS and RED SETTERS after realizing the answer had to start with JE. I didn’t mind the presence of the word supervised as the very presence of a sentry at an entrance makes it so.
NHO Mo Salah, no idea what was going on in the clue. SENTRIES as ZenP says.
11 minutes.
‘Eg Mo Salah’ looks like it ought to be anagrist but the enumeration ruled that out. The clue wasn’t hard to solve from the definition alone as I had most of the checkers in place by the time I got to it, but I had no idea about the wordplay as I’ve never heard of the person. Now that I’ve found out who he is I think using his name to clue RED just because of the colour of the shirts worn by the team he plays for is ridiculous. Bah humbug!
7:43
Agree, this felt a bit tougher than nornal. No very difficult clues but equally not many write-ins.
As a football fan the Mo Salah reference was a gimme, but I can see jackkt’s point.
I wonder which reference will be more familiar to the solver base – current footballer or old Python?
We’re either at Eton?
No more ridiculous than expecting anyone who doesn’t follow cricket to know about batters/batswomen, extras, on/off/leg and so on.
I’m not a football fan, but simply reading the sports pages to follow my own sporting interests has informed me sufficiently to recognise Mo Salah as a Red. As the blogger says, the nickname preceded the choice of shirt colour – and anyone following sport since the 1970s would be very hard pushed not to know of LFC’s achievements (and nickname) at the time and more recently.
Thanks blogger, and hat-tip to Jimmy for what I thought was a very well-pitched and enjoyable puzzle.
Edit: Although I do take matt_o’s point below …
I’d say it is more ridiculous than knowing cricket terminology because it’s more than just knowing football terminology like Man U, goalpost, throw-in.
Step 1 – you have to identify Mo Salah as a footballer
Step 2 – identify which team he plays for
Step 3 – know something specific about Liverpool FC
The cricket equivalent is something like clueing Freddie Flintoff who played county cricket for Lancashire who were the Red roses.
Interestingly, (Joe) Root was clued recently simply as ‘English batsman’ (QC 2813) and although several commenters had NHO him, no one suggested that this was a ridiculous clue (although I’d argue that this is a far more open-ended clue than today’s). You provided some helpful information for non-cricketers, adding that you’re not a cricket fan.
My point is that just because a solver doesn’t have the GK featured in a clue, it doesn’t make the clue ridiculous. It’s perfectly possible to complete both puzzles without the GK as many did.
Dismissing clues (and in some cases, setters) as sub-par just because they don’t conform to a particular worldview isn’t constructive.
Same two did for me as did for Cedric. NHO TURKEY for bad movie but should’ve seen SENTRIES. Nothing else causing too much trouble but I agree that Red for a football player is a bit much. STASI sent a shiver up my spine after learning a bit about the organisation over the years.
Thanks Cedric and setter.
Got off to a flier with 1a and most of the offshoots going straight in and I thought that Jimmy was going to be his usual benevolent self. However things got a bit trickier afterwards.
It was all fairly clued though and I finished with the TURKEY/SENTRIES double act in a slightly under average 7.21 with COD to SELFIES.
Thanks to Jimmy and to Cedric for the great blog.
A steady solve with some enjoyable, clever clues finishing with sentries which was biffed and unparsed. 21.20
With the t as the starting letter was fixated on tomato as maybe something you could roast as there is a film review web site called Rotten Tomatoes. Once the r turned up there was a clanging PDM as my fixation with other roasted vegetables was finally discarded.
COD to extracting
Thanks Jimmy and Cedric
I had turnip, I’m sure I would call a film I didn’t like (e,g. Oppenheimer) a “bit of a turnip”
I was also surprised by linking Mo Salah to RED, with my main concern being that he is probably not always going to play for Liverpool.
If this crossword appears in a future compilation book, will a future solver struggle? Especially if he goes and plays for a team like Everton? (Mo Salah that is, not the solver)
I’m guessing 99% of the solvers will solve around the time of publication, but as a new solver I am working through some older crosswords for practice so could see finding this type of clue frustrating.
I’m not against the changes to the living person rule, but seems like any reference to a living person should refer to something already set in stone.
This is a very excellent point.
Mirror online reports…
The future of Mo Salah may be at the forefront of most minds with the Egyptian star set to see his deal expire at the end of the season.
Salah will be able to speak to clubs outside of the from January as it stands but there could yet be cause for optimism according to the Sky Sports Back Pages podcast.
To be fair, based on the last few years, I’m not sure Man U can be classed as a football club either 😀
I’m doing the old books and sometimes the clues are changed from what was published.
If you want to challenge yourself with outdated material try solving “Apparent visit to Lib Dem leader (7)”
I liked the degree of crypticacity and admired the setter’s skills.
No problem with TURKEY, familiar, or parsing SENTRIES as intended but could not resolve the ‘I’ in ETONIAN which I now presume refers to ‘The Independent’. Around 30 mins.
Thanks Jimmy and Cedric
The ‘i’ is a newspaper … (inews . co . uk)
I found this pretty straightforward TBH finishing all green in 8:45. Tried a different technique of just starting at 1 and then going through both across and down clues in numerical order rather than my usual scattergun approach.
Grumbled inwardly about S being an acceptable abbreviation for supervised but that hads now been cleared up thanks to Zenpublisher.
Didn’t fully parse NURSE but think we have seen the word clued as tender in recent times.
LOI was ETONIAN
COD was STASI – I missed the buggers bit the first time round and thought it was just the setter asserting that the said folk were not very nice. When the penny dropped its a very nice definition.
Cheers Stathers and Jimmy good end to a good fair week of QCCing.
Cheers Horners
Finished all correct – eventually. Because of an initially wrong biff (Sect instead of PLOT)I was slow on SELFIES and stuck on ETONIAN (cd not parse).
Was initially a bit shocked by Buggers until I realised it was those who bugged!
NHO Mo Salah, but biffed. Also had to biff MANUALLY. Did not think of Man U. Few young people would know Eric Idle, or remember MPFCircus.
Luckily got all the long clues round the edge quite quickly. Liked ALASKA, EVADE, SENTRIES, OVERTURN, among others.
Thanks for much needed blog, Cedric.
I have to disagree with Cedric – I didn’t find Jimmy’s earlier offerings particularly easy, but this was a walk in the park.
FOI OBJECTIONS
LOI NURSE
COD MANUALLY
TIME 3:43
I’m with Busman (although obviously not his time!). This felt easier than Jimmy’s previous offerings and the only difficulty I encountered was in parsing ETONIAN. Hadn’t fully appreciated the work of ‘buggers’ in STASI until just now either. Great blog. Many thanks.
Technical DNF (used check function) in 36 mins.
Really enjoyed this. Lots of aha moments as I solved clues.
COD Sentries.
Thanks to setter and Cedric.
10:06. No major hold-ups. IDLE was a write-in, but RED ALET required my taking on trust that Mo Salah is in some way red. So my Monty Python knowledge greatly exceeds my football knowledge.
With Brook, Stokes, Pope and Atkinson all out-scoring our two openers, some may question the “good batter” definition in 13a.
Thanks Cedric and Jimmy
I got six today. I should have got idle given my age. I thought ashes holder upset was pointing to NRU …oh well
evade, durge, and opener came easy
extracting took a bit longer
23 mins…
An enjoyable Saturday puzzle, pitched just about right I thought. COD was a toss up between 17ac “Manually” and 5dn “Overturn”.
FOI – 3dn “Echo”
LOI – 11ac “Sentries”
COD – see above
Thanks as usual!
6:40 but…
…pink-square as I was too quick to remember to fill in the letters of 6d before pressing submit! Of course, I realised only as I was pressing the button… Given it was an anagram and three of the five letters were filled in, I think I would have solved it very quickly. As for the rest of the grid, it was up to Jimmy’s usual high standard – one little bit I failed to parse was RED ALERT – I know who Mo Salah is, but missed ‘on the ball’ = ALERT.
Thanks for the entertaining and educational blog Cedric, and Jimmy for the challenge
I’m with Cedric in finding this tough. After a first pass of the acrosses, I think I only solved 4 clues. Several passes later I’d managed to grind out most of the answers but was left with 15d and 19a. I biffed EDITION for the former, but took it out again when I saw COKE and then saw ETONIAN. I’m not a follower of football, so I had no idea what was going on with RED ALERT. 10:12. Thanks Jimmy and Cedric.
I started quite quickly in the NW, and thought I was on for a half decent time. Unfortunately my francophile tendencies led me astray, and I opted for Turnip (un navet) at 4d, which made the already difficult Sentries even more of a challenge latter on. Finally saw my error, and limped over the line with the 30min post in plain sight. CoD to 7d, Jet Setter, just ahead of Teacher. Invariant
11:18 for the solve! That’s pretty much bang on my average for Jimmy’s previous ten puzzles. As I was solving, I thought it was tougher than previous puzzles by them but certainly no complaints as I feel Jimmy has really mastered the QC brief.
Was a little concerned by Mo Salah, Eric Idle. Unparsed Etonian went in with fingers crossed albeit parsed postsolve although wasn’t entirely sure about whether I’d dreamt of the i newspaper. Didn’t properly parse sentries. Enjoyed the SELFIES, ALASKA and OVERTURN clues particularly. Sure I’ve seen TURKEY before.
Parksolve coming in at 36:03 as I continue to jog as I recover from squats at the gym.
I agree with our blogger that this was a particularly challenging offering from Jimmy. I wasn’t helped by several interruptions, discussion and laughter going on around me and I didn’t time my effort, but I know my elapsed time was 5-10 minutes over the hour mark.
I only arrived at ETONIAN via an alphabet trawl, which initially brought up EmOtIoN and then ErOsIoN, but I never managed to parse it fully. I for newspaper is particularly hard, IMHO. Similarly, TURKEY was entered as much in hope as in expectation.
BRAILLE was very tough to crack, but I enjoyed the PDM. And good to see Genesis making an appearance, although I wouldn’t describe any of their (brilliant) repertoire as a DIRGE.
Many thanks to Jimmy and Cedric.
Buggers in The Times! Matron! *clutches pearls* (very clever clue)
I agree with Cedders that Jimmy had turned it up a notch but sailed through reasonably untroubled for 07:11 and a Good Day.
COD to MANUALLY, runner up DIRGE because I’ve never been able to bear Genesis and their whiny prog rock lift music. Lots of cleverness on show today.
Many thanks Cedders and Oh Jimmy Jimmy.
A finish at 31 minutes. I thought this quite hard but still firs5 solve in many a week 😄😄
13:23
I’m surprised Cedric found this one tricky. I breezed through it and would have had a very rare sub 10 if I hadn’t been stumped for 3 1/2 minutes on LOI ETONIAN which I biffed in the end without parsing. Still well under my 20 minute average.
Combined QCPR 45 minutes
DNF.
TURNIP for a poor film, vied with SENTRIES.
Didn’t see OK as fine, I had E (drug) + F(fine) inside CE or CH.
Never a fan of ETON, so missed that one, I thought “brief” was a truncation indication. I for the Newspaper seemed pretty obscure.
COD MANUALLY
9.40 I did the top half excluding 11a in two minutes but was bogged down in the bottom half. Second last one in ETONIAN took far too long (what else could it be?) and I finished back in the top half with a biff of SENTRIES. Thanks Cedric and Jimmy.
I found this relatively straightforward with a 10:41 finish after biffing LOI ETONIAN. Slow to see ARREST but needed that to give me confidence for ETONIAN as I had been looking for a rather more generic schoolboy. I don’t consider myself to be a football follower but I had no problems knowing of Salah or in being able to categorise him as ‘red’. I suppose it helps to be in the UK though. Thanks Cedric and Jimmy.
I found that tricky for a Jimmy but about average overall, with a higher than usual number of PDMs and a time of 14:40. As soon as I saw “buggers” I made the connection to spying but somehow still required all the checking letters before that particular penny dropped.
The first half of MANUALLY did me no favours at all. I was aware that “manus” is the Latin word for “hand”*, and the clue had the word “hands” in there, so I was convinced that I was looking for MANUS _ _ _.
Thank you for the blog!
* I don’t know Latin, but a few years ago I was creating a quiz which had a round called “Rejected song titles”. This one was “I wish to grasp your manus”.
Bang on 9.00.
13m under the influence of some strong craft beers.
Etonian was hard. Sentries LOI and unparsed.
COD braille.
I though Mo Salah was a runner (Googling it looks like I’m mixing him up with Mo Farah) but RED ALERT was a write-in from the enumeration and the checkers so I assumed there was some reason he was RED (I do know Liverpool play in red, but so does Manchester United and others). Otherwise no problems, although my LOI TURKEY took longer than it should have, especially as it was Thanksgiving in the US last Thursday.
Woke up this morning and finished this apart from, like Cedric, having to reveal SENTRIES.
I thought it a very good puzzle requiring close attention.
As a non footballer I assumed the ‘red’ Mo Salah was a communist.
I’m enjoying Jimmy’s crosswords and great blog from Cedric.
DNF. Thought 20D was Pact (a group could be an act, if performing) and therefore couldn’t get 22A. Guessed Etonian but couldn’t see why. Did get Turkey and Sentries, so I can take consolation from that.
Finished in 24min which is pretty good for me, although I solve on paper during the week and don’t bother to time myself. LOI Etonian which required several alphabet trawls and I didn’t parse.