Good morning, and for our last Saturday QC of the year we have an interesting puzzle from Jalna. I found this initially quite difficult to break into, with no real rhythm emerging, but it came together in the end for a 12:16 solve.
For me that makes it a puzzle of medium difficulty, but there are certainly some clues that require a bit more thought – an unusual flower at 10A being one clue that might stretch the GK of some solvers (well, it was unknown to me at least, though perhaps others talk of little else), and I was well misled by the Oasis fan in 17A as well before I saw how the clue worked.
Overall though a very fair puzzle to round off Jalna’s year of contributions to our enjoyment. 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 | Fine and kind of brill? (4) |
| FISH – F (fine) + ISH (kind of), giving us a Definition By Example, brill being a species of fish. The question mark at the end of the clue is one common way setters can indicate DBE clues; an alternative is a word like “possibly” – see 16D for an example of this alternative indicator. | |
| 3 | Look to return with wine as a memento (8) |
| KEEPSAKE – KEEP (peek, ie look, backwards, given by “to return”) + SAKE (Japanese rice wine). | |
| 8 | Chief technical officer about to come to grief, nearly (5,2) |
| CLOSE TO – CTO (Chief Technical Officer) around (ie “about”) LOSE (come to grief). Not entirely sure that lose and come to grief are close synonyms, but the clue just about works.
The “C-suite”, or officers of a company that have the word Chief in their title, keeps expanding. It was traditionally used quite sparingly, the main one being CEO (Chief Executive Officer) but as well as CTO I have also seen and I am sure there are many many more that others have heard of. |
|
| 10 | Source of money taken away from old car plant (5) |
| ORRIS – An Orris is any of various irises that have fragrant rhizomes. The root of an orris plant, when dried and ground to a powder, can be used in perfumery, pot-pourris and some gins, and are also claimed to have medicinal properties, being a traditional remedy for colds, sore throats and toothache. None of which I knew before researching the word for this blog – I am afraid I put in the answer from Morris and the checkers, and crossed my fingers that it was a plant of sorts. |
|
| 11 | Disbelief is represented crudely in it (11) |
| INCREDULITY – (crudely in it)*, with the anagram indicator being “is represented”. | |
| 13 | In the end, you often discover you feel totally rebellious (6) |
| UNRULY – Formed from the last letters (“in the end”) of yoU ofteN discoveR yoU feeL totallY. | |
| 15 | Lied terribly to cover up extremely dim-witted swindle (6) |
| DIDDLE – DILE (anagram of lied, with the anagram indicator being “terribly”) around (ie “to cover up”) DD (extremely, ie first and last letter of, Dim-witteD). | |
| 17 | Drunk Oasis fan hit somebody with it? (11) |
| FASHIONISTA – (Oasis fan hit)*, with the anagram indicator being “drunk”. A very deceptive surface, and it took me a long time to see first what the definition was here, and then what the definition meant. But someone who is “with it” is presumably into fashion and being fashionable, and possibly therefore a fashionista. | |
| 20 | Animal seen in Morocco, at intervals (5) |
| COATI – A hidden, in MorocCO AT Intervals. And a good piece of misleading cluing from Jalna here, as “at intervals” often directs one to take every other letter of something, eg in this case in Morocco. But IMRCO is not an animal I’ve heard of! | |
| 21 | We ultimately fail to show up for reception (7) |
| WELCOME – WE (from the clue) + L (“ultimately”, ie last letter of, faiL) + COME (show up). | |
| 22 | Guy getting on and leading the team (8) |
| MANAGING – MAN (guy) + AGING (getting on, getting older). I think I would more usually write “ageing” with an E, but the spelling without an E is certainly permitted – it may be one of those instances of British vs US spellings. | |
| 23 | Second gear required for take-off (4) |
| SKIT – S (second) + KIT (gear), with the meaning of take-off being revue or impersonation and nothing to do with aeroplanes. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Divisive bit of info on debtor’s documents (8) |
| FACTIOUS – FACT (bit of info) + IOUS (debtor’s documents). | |
| 2 | Unemotional criticism, mostly involving nothing (5) |
| STOIC – STIC (stick, ie criticism, “mostly”, ie with the last letter removed) with an O (nothing) inserted into it, with the insertion indicator being “involving”.
Stoicism was an ancient Greek school of philosophy; adherents believed that virtue, the highest good, is based on knowledge, and that the wise live in harmony with one’s fate and are indifferent to both pleasure and pain. The word Stoic is derived from this and usually now concentrates on the last part of the Stoic creed, the endurance of pain without complaint. |
|
| 4 | One-time hoodlums regularly fleeing (6) |
| EXODUS – EX (one time) + ODUS (every other letter, ie “regularly”, of hOoDlUmS). | |
| 5 | Specialist insight given by Pacino for one acting (11) |
| PROVISIONAL – PRO (specialist) + VISION (insight) + AL (the actor Al Pacino).
Not acting as in the thespian sense here, but in the sense of someone standing in for someone else, doing a job on a temporary basis or pending ratification. And nice to see Al Pacino making an appearance in Crosswordland to join that other stalwart Al, Al Capone. Capone has been a regular for years, but Pacino, who is still alive (84 years old, b.1940), joins him courtesy of the new rule allowing references to living people. |
|
| 6 | Ordered a surprise attack over a radio (7) |
| ARRAYED – Sounds like A RAID (a surprise attack), the homophone indicator being “over the radio”. | |
| 7 | Each street is right on the map (4) |
| EAST – EA (each) + ST (street). With North now almost universally at the top of maps, East is on the right. It was not always thus though; early Christian maps of Christendom, known as Mappae Mundi (singular: Mappa Mundi), usually had East at the top of the map, as that was believed to be the location of the Garden of Eden. The change to having North at the top of maps appears to have been driven by the growing use of compasses in the period 1200-1500, as compass needles point north.
(Etymological note: The medieval Latin word mappa originally meant a sheet or a cloth, and only became the base of our modern word map from the use of these large sheets to depict a map of the world on them. A nice case of a meaning transferring from one part of an object, ie the material, to another, ie what was drawn on it). |
|
| 9 | Perpetual movement of giant levers (11) |
| EVERLASTING – (giant levers)*, the anagram indicator being “movement of”. | |
| 12 | After ten years, a collection of books is deteriorating (8) |
| DECADENT – DECADE (ten years) + NT (ie New Testament, a collection of books).
A slightly loose definition perhaps, as Decadent usually has overtones of a state of moral or cultural decline rather more than deterioration. The two do often go together – Rome in the 5th century CE was both physically deteriorating and morally decadent – but I’m not sure they are quite the same. |
|
| 14 | Stop in a few bars? (7) |
| REFRAIN – A DD, with the second meaning, “a few bars”, being the musical sense of a short passage of music typically at the end of each verse of a song, and often repeated. | |
| 16 | Bottomless prosecco, possibly more than once — that’s great for everyone (3-3) |
| WIN-WIN – WIN A lovely surface, and I suspect a fair amount of prosecco has been drunk in the last few days. And a neat piece of deception with the punctuation, as one has to ignore the comma and put “possibly” with prosecco not more than once. |
|
| 18 | Standard part of a risotto recipe (5) |
| STOCK – Our second DD. Stock is an essential ingredient of a good risotto, as well as many other dishes from soups to stews. | |
| 19 | Shady scheme requiring computers to be set up (4) |
| SCAM – MACS (ie Apple Mac computers) all reversed (indicated by “to be set up”). Slightly unusual to see a commercial brand name in a Times crossword perhaps – a Mac is not yet quite as ubiquitously common a word as for example hoover or biro are, both of which were once brand names but which are now generic words (and as a result are usually spelled without capital letters).
And with that, I close my blogging for 2024 and wish everyone a happy and successful 2025. |
|
10a took me back to the early 1970s with my maroon Morris Oxford, bur NHO ORRIS as the plant. I agree, ‘lose’ for ‘come to grief’ is a bit of a stretch. Saw what was going on immediately in 17a FASHIONISTA with ‘drunk’ supplying the common anagrind. COATI was in the quick cryptic on Christmas Day last week, otherwise I wouldn’t have known it. Liked DIDDLE, haven’t heard it for years.
Thanks Cedric and setter.
Re C-Suite, I’ve always felt that it doesn’t sound like a company’s top echelon as much as an A-Team! In some companies my old job role of Publishing Director has been rebranded as ‘Chief Content Officer’, which apparently appeals a lot more to stock market investors who consider ‘publishing’ a bit old-fashioned, staid and boring in this digital content age.
When I first saw CXO, I asked “who is that, the Chief Xylophone Officer?” (X can be replaced with E, F, T etc)
😂
I used to be a computer analyst / programmer. They only hire software developers now
30:55 for the solve! Reached the NHO ORRIS in 17mins and then a long alphabet trawling try to figure out makes of cars to take M from. Poor clue for the QC given it starts with O so spent a good chunk of my time thinking that was the Old part. As someone born in early 70s with no interest in cars, Morris feels before my time.
Overall didn’t seem well-slotted for the QC to me. NHO FACTIOUS and had NHO COATI before it came up earlier this week. Too many misdirections and multi-step solves e.g. STOIC – think of a word for criticsm, truncate it, insert another letter. Oh well, pleased to stick with it for that 14+min alphabet trawl and get the solve
Thanks to Cedric for another comprehensive blog 👍
Another tricky one for me, despite seeing a couple of the long anagrams quickly and benefitting from all the checkers.
I had particular struggles with FACTIOUS (NHO), PROVISIONAL, UNRULY and LOI KEEPSAKE. The unknown ORRIS was fortunately kindly clued and COATI would have been harder if it hadn’t caused me all sorts of problems when it appeared recently.
An enjoyable solve completed in 10.16.
Thanks to Cedric
Lose = come to grief as in the euphemism “we lost my grandmother last Christmas”, I think.
I’m not terribly happy about that euphemism tbh – I’m pretty confident I know where granny is! – but it is in common usage.
Otherwise I felt that one was ok. Much more my, decidedly beginner, level than yesterday’s anyway.
Thanks to both Cedric and Jalna
Lady Bracknell sums it up nicely in The Importance of Being Earnest: ‘To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness”
Finished this although struggled with last three (ORRIS , Provisional, ARRAYED)
Dare I confess I nho Al Pacino? Nho orris despite being a keen gardener. Got there eventually though.
I enjoyed this and felt I was on Jalna’s wavelength for much of this. I did miss the full parsing of some clues though.
No time as did in two bouts and left the app running. Way over 30 mins though.
Thanks for an excellent blog Cedric. I found it really helpful.
22:01. Last three in were KEEPSAKE, PROVISIONAL and ORRIS.
I initially had INTUITIONAL for 5d (not having selected the specialist insight), so the NE corner took a lot of untangling.
Thanks Cedric and Jalna
I found this quite approachable and finished in 30:03. Lucky to spot some of the hard ones quite quickly which helps.
Surprised that the Quick Snitch at 144 is higher than yesterday’s tough one.
COD REFRAIN. Nice surface.
Thanks Jalna and Cedric for the informative blog. (I couldn’t parse STOIC)
15 minutes with maybe the last 5 spent on 8dn as my LOI. If we’ve had CTO before, I didn’t notice. Otherwise this was fine but I was just a bit slow thoughout.
Oh, and I knew ORRIS so that was a help.
13.39. It took me a while to get tuned in to this one.
18:22
LOI FISH, with fingers crossed. Tried to make FACE work, with ace=brill. But STOIC, finally stopped it. STOIC had one too many instructions: synonym, truncation, insertion.
NHO ORRIS, not a QC word. Not really heard of FACTIOUS either, Fractious or Factional, yes.
COD ARRAYED
‘McIlroy came to grief on the 11th’ or ‘Denman came to grief at the open ditch’ are about as close about as close as we get, I think, ‘foundered’ being a closer synonym.
10 minutes for me, with FACTIOUS and FISH last in. Liked the latter, since it was clued as a fish. Not keen on these modern words for ‘great.’ I cringe every time my sister says ‘lush.’
Oh dear, I put Assayed and Oasis ( a source) instead of ARRAYED and ORRIS, nvg. But I enjoyed the puzzle. Found the top half difficult and was obliged to start at the bottom with SCAM.
PDM COD KEEPSAKE. Also liked FACTIOUS, FISH once solved, along with WIN WIN, DECADENT.
Thanks vm, Cedric.
A lovely puzzle and a great, informative blog, thanks Cedric, ideal for someone lazy like me who doesn’t do all the research around barely known plants! Never quite parsed CLOSE TO, didn’t much like deteriorating for DECADENT and was fooled for a time by COATI being a hidden. FOI was FISH, which I loved, LOI ORRIS. As a child, I was driven around for a few years in a Morris Traveller, whose number plate, 5422BY, I was taught, in case I got lost when we were out! Strange how one can remember series of numbers from early childhood, but not what 3 items are on a shopping list!
I found that difficult and went down all the blind alleys before being dragged back on the true path. Biffing ALOOF at 2d sent me on a wild goose chase with infidelism(didn’t fit) at 11a, and it took me almost to the end of the puzzle to see INCREDULITY and STOIC. FISH was LOI. 20a induced a facepalm moment as I stopped trying to fing the answer at intervals! Well played Jalna, and thanks for the blog Cedric. 16:22.
The things I learn from Quick Cryptics. Must find an excuse to slip Coati and Orris into my conversation at the New Year’s Eve party. Thanks Cedric and Jalna.
17:30 for me feeling hampered by a stinking cold and general malaise from spending ten hours in a car returning from the Lake District yesterday. Slowed down by a couple of NHOs the animal and the plant but ultimately they were gettable from wordplay so fair enough.
As with one or two others FACTIOUS and then FISH were my LOI despite the F being the most probable crosser and the IOUS being apparent from the off.
COD ARRAYED.
Thanks Cedric and Jalna.
Oh rats just realised its Sunday tomorrow so no QC.
Well you could always do Phil’s gentle Weekend Quick Cryptic No 119.
I had all of the bottom half in, but only two from the top, then worked my was back up. FISH is so obvious now, and funny, but I was trying all types of species related ideas and missed the oh so simple option. 1D, clearly ended IOUS, but the first part… Doh!
And so on.
Here’s hoping the new year brings me some replacement brain cells. They say FISH is good for the brain so will try that. Maybe I’ll be brill in 2025.
Knew ORRIS, so that’s something!
Interesting to read the other comments, I started quickly enough but then got stuck on my last few which were 1ac, 2dn, 3ac and LOI 8ac. So took 15:09 in the end.
The blog is written really well today, I noticed.
Dnf…
28 mins, but got 5dn “Provisional” wrong. A few tricky clues, particularly 10ac “Orris” if you know neither the car nor the plant.
FOI – 11ac “Incredulity”
LOI – 5dn “Prositional” (wrong)
COD – 17ac “Fashionista”
Thanks as usual!
29:30
Another tricky one (nothing like yesterday, although the quick snitch is currently reading 143). Only ORRIS was a NHO. Took a while to work out LOI FISH.
Ran out of time with just ORRIS (NHO) outstanding. My first car was a Morris 1000 convertible but penny didn’t drop.
Off to recycling to drop off a small mountain of packaging, then get to work on my new Ferrari (Lego Technic, 3778 pieces).
New Year resolution: One gift per person. Match donation per gift to charity of choice.
Thanks Cedric and Jalna.
I thought this was a first class offering from Jalna, and it was (as ever) matched by a top drawer blog from Cedric.
FOI FISH
LOI EXODUS *
COD FASHIONISTA
TIME 5:22
* Only LOI because I missed it, but got the warning “97% complete”. The real culprit was PROVISIONAL, which was biffed, and parsed afterwards.
DNF after 27 minutes. Mostly slow. PROVISIONAL went in after seventeen minutes and I spent another ten failing to see KEEPSAKE. I’m paying for yesterday. Thanks Cedric and Jalna.
Another quite tricky one for me, although still easier than yesterday! Didn’t ever parse CLOSE TO and NHO ORRIS, although seemed to fit. FACTIOUS took some time to unravel and needed all the checkers for LOI ARRAYED which gets COD for the smile. Also liked FISH for same reason. Thanks for the excellent blog Cedric. Thanks Jalna.
I liked this one, tricky but not overly so. The NHO ORRIS went in from wordplay. I’d tried (hunky) DORY for 1a, (John) dory and brill being similar fish. Fortunately Mrs T was alive to the more obvious alternative and the non-argument was quickly settled by 1d. COD REFRAIN. Thanks Cedric and Jalna!
Tricky QC for me. Brain fog getting the FASHIONISTA anagram even though I’d identified the definition, and should have thought of MORRIS much more quickly as it was our first car. Thanks Cedric for the great blog – very interesting about the Mappae Mundi.
15.21 no errors, which I’m quite pleased with as I usually struggle with Jalna’s puzzles. As a child, the first car we had was a Morris Minor so that helped with (NHO) ORRIS. Also not seen FACTIOUS before but the wordplay made it solvable. FOI – KEEPSAKE, LOI – FISH, COD – I really liked DIDDLE but FASHIONISTA was my favourite. Just noticed that in the previous sentence I’ve written FISH, COD. I wish I could say that was intentional. Thanks Jalna and Cedric.
22:03. PROVISIONAL and FASHIONISTA held me up the longest- couldn’t make out the definitions!
23:53, and thought I might be looking at another DNF, two in a row would be so so sad, but persevered with KEEPSAKE and EXODUS, took ORRIS on faith after getting hung up on ORGAN, and learned that I am among the great unwashed when it comes to FACTIOUS and FrACTIOUS. On the other hand, the back office somehow delivered FASHIONISTA without my having to think about it. If only I would listen better to that inner solver! COD DIDDLE, closely followed by REFRAIN.
Thanks to Jalna and Cedric! More great blogging!
Found this very hard indeed and had to rely on aids to finish. NHO (but guessed) ORRIS and FACTIOUS and only parsed several others after biffing the answer. 45+ minutes!!
4:49. A high-quality puzzle from Jalna as usual. No problem with ORRIS as it is one of my range of botanicals for gin distilling, although it has not featured in recent batches. LOI ARRAYED. I liked EAST… and Cedric’s explanation in the blog. In fact reading the blog and comments took longer than solving the puzzle and was just as enjoyable. Thank-you Jalna, Cedric… and commenters!
-273 C
Oh dear. None at all?
Or is it a cryptic mention that he found it 0K ? Or perhaps a reference to the lack of Kevin on the board recently 🤷♂️
Absolute zero – and isn’t that Kalvin?
Better on Monday – 13
… or 10 if you make 6 x 9 = 42
Absolute zero is indeed the beginning of the KElvin scale i.e. 0K
Tere are people on here who reference their times against a commenter called Kevin e.g. Kevin takes 5mins, I take 10mins that’s 2K
I think I must have been well off the wavelength today, taking longer than yesterday’s Cheeko at 26:51. Not sure what the problem was, but assuming that “Pacino for one acting” was an instruction to anagram “Pacino for one” probably didn’t help, given that we’re looking for eleven letters.
I wondered briefly whether “acting” was a legitimate anagram indicator, and then remembered that literally any string of zero or more letters from any alphabet* in human or any other species’ history is a legitimate anagram indicator.
Thank you to Cedric for a very interesting blog!
*Or collections of glyphs, pictograms, gestures, interpretive dances, strangled hoots or any other contrivances used to convey meaning. The sentence was already getting a bit cumbersome by that point.
Agreed! A cleverly compiled crossword, today. Not at all easy for me (approx. 40 mins), but I did make it across the line.
Not many to start with, but I kept plugging away and jumped around the grid, building on the available checkers as they arose. My LOsI were ARRAYED and KEEPSAKE in the NE corner.
Many thanks to Jalna and Cedric.
Whenever I see C-suite terms I’m reminded of Ralph Fiennes line as M in one of the Bond films-
Now we know what C stands for.
It may have only been me chuckling in the cinema.
About 40 today so twice my target but very enjoyable. Unlike yesterday. J
25:45 today in two sittings. First sitting: a real struggle – about 18 minutes, about ⅓ done. Second sitting, greased lightning. Strange thing, the brain.
Thanks to Jalna and Cedric.
11:32
Late to the party for this one – too many interruptions to get much done over the last week or so. I thought this was on the harder side, borne out by the Snitch of 132. The mark of a clever setter, just giving enough to make you think. I thought FASHIONISTA was very good.
Great blog Cedric – thanks also to Jalna
Just as bad as yesterday.😤Will try another go at it on Sunday(Daily Globe doesn’t feature Times Quick on Saturdays.
Maybe its time to give up the ghost on this meaningless exercise called cryptic crosswords.