A good selection of clues here, some very straightforward, and some … not. This pushed me well out beyond my target time, finishing in 23:48.
After 10 minutes I had everything to the left of the centre-line done, and a couple of minutes after that the south-east was done. It was the north-east corner where I struggled. My last five in were OLDISH, SMASHED, HARE, FLOOR and SOFA, and I found none of them easy (although in retrospect, SMASHED is pretty straightforward.)
Definitions underlined, synonyms in round brackets, wordplay in square brackets and deletions in strikethrough. Anagram indicators italicised in the clue, anagram fodder indicated like (this)*.
| Across | |
| 1 | Crazy combination of drugs (8) |
| CRACKPOT – CRACK (a drug), POT (another drug).
I initially pencilled in COCKTAIL here, purely on the grounds that it was 8 letters long and I’d heard it used to mean a combination of drugs. But it was not to be. |
|
| 6 | Extremely overweight, spending time on this? (4) |
| SOFA – SO FAT (extremely overweight), minus [spending] the T for time.
Hands up everyone who thought “aha, extremely overweight, eh? Must mean O and T. Gosh, I’m good at this.” |
|
| 8 | Raced around island in wet weather (4) |
| RAIN – RAN (raced) around I for island. | |
| 9 | Doctor to reveal way of getting to the top? (8) |
| ELEVATOR – (to reveal)* | |
| 10 | Huge temptation for Adam in New York (3,5) |
| BIG APPLE – Double definition, the first being a mildly cryptic reference to the story of Adam & Eve. | |
| 12 | Try moving east? Go quickly! (4) |
| HARE – HEAR (try, as a judge does), with the E for east moving, as instructed. | |
| 13 | Secure place in which to keep a hack? (6) |
| STABLE – Double definition.
I’d always assumed that a hack was a slightly derogatory term for a horse, but it seems to just be a contraction of “Hackney”, as in “Hackney cab”, and to have no negative connotations. |
|
| 15 | Over 50, good-looker, but getting on a bit (6) |
| OLDISH – O (over, from cricket), L (50 in Roman numbers), DISH (good-looker). | |
| 17 | Outstanding poem read out loud (4) |
| OWED – Sounds like [read out loud] ODE (poem).
Surely one of the least-controversial homophone clues we’ve ever had. |
|
| 19 | Conservative tendency to create poorly-paid work (8) |
| CLEANING – C (standard abbreviation for Conservative) + LEANING (tendency). | |
| 21 | Foreign boat sure to be a destroyer (8) |
| SABOTEUR – (boat sure)* | |
| 23 | Born and died in poverty (4) |
| NEED – NEE (born) + D for died.
You’d see both of these usages in the Who’s Who? entry for a deceased female who changed her name on marriage. For example: “Margaret Thatcher (née Roberts), b 1925, d 2013…” |
|
| 24 | Smile for one providing constructive support? (4) |
| BEAM – double definition | |
| 25 | Hypocritical pair confronted (3-5) |
| TWO-FACED – TWO (pair) + FACED (confronted). | |
| Down | |
| 2 | One having no illusions about most celebrated group of individuals (7) |
| REALIST – RE (about) + A-LIST (most celebrated group of individuals). | |
| 3 | Dance with prisoner, happy for the most part (5) |
| CONGA – CON (prisoner) + GA |
|
| 4 | American author regularly spooked (3) |
| POE – Every other letter [regularly] of sPoOkEd.
Once you see “American author” and “(3)”, it’s pretty much always going to be POE. |
|
| 5 | Wrong to free her for this reason (9) |
| THEREFORE – (to free her)*. | |
| 6 | Mum’s in shed, completely drunk (7) |
| SMASHED – MA’S (Mum’s) in SHED. | |
| 7 | Where to spend a penny in French ground (5) |
| FLOOR – LOO (where to spend a penny) in FR (French).
I’m struggling to come up with an everyday example of where “FR” is used as an abbreviation for “French”. But it is in Collins online, so we’ll go with it. |
|
| 11 | Far-seeing prince set out (9) |
| PRESCIENT – (prince set)* | |
| 14 | Unacceptable behaviour of disobedient class (3,4) |
| BAD FORM – double definition. | |
| 16 | Genuine, almost as before (7) |
| SINCERE – SINC |
|
| 18 | Sea creature’s mournful cry picked up (5) |
| WHALE – sounds like [picked up] WAIL (mournful cry). | |
| 20 | Hitman in Jamaica concealing another killer (5) |
| NINJA – Hidden in “hitmaN IN JAmaica”. | |
| 22 | Romeo leaves me jumper (3) |
| ROO – RO This clue doesn’t really work for me. This is “me leaving Romeo”, surely, not “Romeo leaves me”. Although I suppose if Romeo leaves his sweater behind, he leaves without his sweater, but that still feels like a stretch. |
|
Did anyone else get sloshed instead of smashed to start with?
19:56. As with others struggled in the NE corner. HARE was my LOI. I felt some of the cluing was a little vague, and ROO didn’t work for me at all – I think another approach should have been taken. Thank you to both!
15m
Time ruined by sincere, oldish, sofa, and LOI floor.
Liked need, sofa, and smashed.
14:28
After a week of struggles, finally back under my 20 minute target. Nothing too tricky though didn’t parse LOI SINCERE until after submitting.
21 minute DNF.
Put AWED instead of OWED. Not a typo! I have an unenviable talent for shooting myself in the foot.
Why do I make these idiotic errors? Quite possibly the worst mistake in the time I’ve been doing this (and that’s saying something).
My performance on the QC is definitely poorer since I began to attempt the 15 x 15. Bizarre and beyond frustrating.
1.5 hours on 15 x 15, described in the blog as undemanding and a romp. I must have been doing a different puzzle ☹️
DNF Sofa Floor and Hare combo did for me.
I’m really turned off by clues referencing ‘overweight’ or ‘fat’ etc. Maybe because of my family’s situation, but I think that this is becoming dangerous territory these days… just saying…
Thanks all
John
.FR is the domain name for French websites, loo in fr seems reasonable.
Same experience as everyone else, but thankful to be done in 16:10 after yesterday’s head-scratching. Maybe now I’ll have the nerve to try the next one in the morning instead of waiting until I’m definitely, definitely awake.
Thanks to Pipsqueak and Doof!
Did the QC after the 15×15 and found it pretty tough, with same trouble as nearly everyone else with NE corner. I did appreciate the SOFA and FLOOR junction though.
Thank you blogger and setter