Good morning, and we have a nice puzzle from Juji today, only the second one from this setter after their debut on 21 March (puzzle no 2942). That was quite a stiff test, but today I sense that Juji is finding the QC range and, a couple of quite challenging anagrams and my usual quota of BTPs (“biff then parse”) apart, I found that there was little to cause too much concern or head-scratching.
The puzzle took me 11:38, pretty much my par time these days, and as far as I can see there are no obscure words or unusual wordplay, and only the one quirk that there are no Double Definitions. I’d call that a successful QC, and as it is only Juji’s second attempt for us, they are entitled to a “Bravo”/”Brava”.
Having said that, I’m sure there will be those who react differently – there always are! So 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 | Cocktail drunk at social event (8) |
| HIGHBALL – HIGH (drunk) + BALL (social event). I briefly tried to find an anagram of cocktail (with “drunk” as the anagram indicator), but it didn’t take very long to work out there aren’t any. | |
| 5 | Wise King of Israel leaving Monday, alone (4) |
| SOLO – SOLO I think this is generously clued, as “wise king” would have been enough for most people I suspect, and it was this clue, early in the puzzle, that first made me think Juji was trying hard to respond to the comments from some of this parish that a QC was not just smaller than the 15×15, but also meant to be less challenging. |
|
| 9 | Measure some adopt, I challenge (5) |
| OPTIC – A hidden, in adOPT I Challenge, with the hidden indicator being “some”.
An Optic is a valve and chamber unit that can be affixed to a spirits bottle, to dispense a set measure of the spirit. It is much used in British pubs, as it is both quicker and more reliable than alternative ways of measuring and pouring a precise amount of liquid, but (speaking personally) I’ve not seen them in other countries. The name Optic is actually a trademark name, created by Gaskell & Chambers, the company that invented them, and was chosen because the customer could see that the chamber was full and that they were not being short-changed, but like a number of trademark names it has become the generic word for such dispensers. |
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| 10 | Serving diners starters of all Indian types in part of mansion (7) |
| WAITING – AIT (initial letters or “starters” of All Indian Types) contained within WING (part of mansion). Although “serving” could be “waiting” on its own, I think diners needs to be part of the definition, as otherwise the word is playing n0 part in the clue. | |
| 11 | Chat in which Victor and son exchange locations for environmental work? (12) |
| CONSERVATION – CONVERSATION (chat) with the V (Victor in the NATO alphabet) and the S (son) changing places. | |
| 13 | Harbour with a large entrance (6) |
| PORTAL – PORT (harbour) + A L (a large). | |
| 15 | Deity really turned against most people from Ireland (6) |
| OSIRIS – OS (so, ie really, reversed, ie “turned”) + IRIS (Irish, ie people from Ireland, with the last letter deleted).
Osiris was the Egyptian god of the dead. He ruled over the underworld and was associated with the cycle of life and death, as well as the growth of crops and the annual flooding of the Nile. His sister Isis was also his wife; the story of Isis and Osiris is perhaps the best known and most powerful of the myths of the Egyptian gods. |
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| 17 | Transfer shocked mentor deeply (12) |
| REDEPLOYMENT – (mentor deeply)*, with the anagram indicator being “shocked” and the definition implying someone being moved or transferred from one task to another. A tough one, and I deliberately left it till I had most of the checkers. | |
| 20 | Spin drier, an accessory for the kitchen (7) |
| DRAINER – (drier an)*, with the anagram indicator being “spin”. And a very nice “lift-and-separate”, as we are not looking for a spin drier here, useful though such a machine is. | |
| 21 | Drink is great — putting resistance aside (5) |
| LAGER – LARGE (great), with the R (for resistance, as in the physics of electricity and electrical circuits) moved to the back of the word (“putting aside”). | |
| 22 | Pretty item used by potter holds water essentially (4) |
| CUTE – CUE (item used by a potter) containing T (water “essentially”).
The potter here is a snooker or billiards player, who has the objective of potting balls and uses a cue to do so. And “essentially” meaning the central letters or (as in this case) letter, singular, is a standard crossword setters’ device. |
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| 23 | Copper overseas men grade differently (8) |
| GENDARME – (men grade)*, with the anagram indicator being “differently”.
This should have been a straightforward enough clue, but for some reason I was slow to see how it worked, confidently starting with CU for copper, then wondering what “overseas” gave, and finally realising my error when I could not make “grade differently” into any form of definition. |
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| Down | |
| 1 | Head covering up party that’s a surprise (4) |
| HOOD – DO (party) + OH (a surprise), all reversed, given by “up”, this being a down clue. | |
| 2 | Reach poor city area lacking hotel (3,2) |
| GET TO – G |
|
| 3 | Rugby players drinking and behaving cheerily (12) |
| BACKSLAPPING – BACKS (rugby players – other sports also have backs of course) + LAPPING (drinking). | |
| 4 | Drops bloomers after removing top (6) |
| LOWERS – |
|
| 6 | Musical about orphan receives one award (7) |
| OLIVIER – OLIVER (musical about orphan) with I (one) inserted into it.
The Laurence Olivier Awards, or simply The Olivier Awards, are presented annually by the Society of London Theatre to recognise excellence in professional theatre in London. The awards were originally known as the Society of West End Theatre Awards, but they were renamed in honour of the English actor Laurence Olivier in 1984. Oliver! (the exclamation mark is important) is a musical based upon the novel Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, with music and lyrics by Lionel Bart. It premiered on the stage in 1960 and was made into a very successful film in 1968. On a personal note it was my primary school’s play in 1967 and the last time I “trod the boards”; it was very obvious even then that my acting skills were non-existent and I was not invited to act ever again. Again Juji has clued this generously for the QC fraternity – had the clue merely said “musical” rather than “musical about orphan” it would have been more challenging. |
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| 7 | Being grim, a son needs reforming (8) |
| ORGANISM – (grim a son)*, the anagram indicator being “needs reforming”. | |
| 8 | Taken apart, decommissioned shelters tip over (12) |
| DISASSEMBLED – DISABLED (decommissioned) containing SSEM (mess, or tip, reversed, ie “over”). A classic BTP – I found it easy enough with the checkers to biff but I then stared at it for a while trying to work out the parsing. | |
| 12 | Happening now and then, AirPods moving about (8) |
| SPORADIC – (airpods)*, the anagram indicator being “moving”, + C (about). Another BTP, as the answer was clear fairly quickly, but having assumed that the anagram indicator was “moving about”, I could not see where the C came from. A real D’oh moment when the penny dropped. | |
| 14 | Shining wireless almost put on insect (7) |
| RADIANT – RADI |
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| 16 | Crude educational programme for audience (6) |
| COARSE – Sounds like COURSE (educational programme), with the homophone indicator being “for audience”. | |
| 18 | Raised king, say, in African country (5) |
| NIGER – R (king) + EG (say) + IN (from the clue), all reversed (“raised”).
Other than the fact that its name is wholly contained within the name of neighbouring Nigeria (a quirk it shares with Oman, contained within Romania, and Mali, contained within Somalia), I confess I know almost nothing about Niger. It is in fact a large country – 5 times the size of the UK – but with most of it desert and the rest of it sparsely inhabited it has not impacted much on the world stage. As the latest UN Multidimensional Poverty Index report notes, “Niger faces challenges to development due to its landlocked position, desert terrain, low literacy rate, unstable governments (5 coups d’état since independence from France in 1960), jihadist insurgencies and the world’s highest fertility rate”. “Challenges” sounds something of an understatement … |
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| 19 | Desire bit of nice grub to be served up (4) |
| URGE – A reversed hidden, in nicE GRUb, with the hidden indicator being “bit of” and the reversal indicator “served up”. | |
Pretty much the same experience as Cedric. I saw the definition almost straight away in most of the clues and figured out the parsing after writing the answer in. My only hesitation was LAGER where the ‘resistance aside’ was something I hadn’t come across before as an instruction for moving the ‘r’ to the end, so waited for checkers to go in before entering it. CONSERVATION was clever and spotted the letter change immediately after reading the whole clue, otherwise I would have gone with ‘conversation’ for chat as a biff. I liked all the long ones especially disassembled. COD to OSIRIS.
Great blog Cedric, leaving aside your Oliver! performance, I think you’re doing a great job of entertaining this crowd. Thanks Juji.
This was just a bit harder, and I biffed disassemble to save time. Osiris was somewhat tricky, and parsing Niger required a little thought.
Time: 10:29
Another slow QC for some reason. I biffed DISASSEMBLE, never parsed it. I didn’t see how CUTE worked, not thinking of snooker. I didn’t know of the Olivier award, but assumed there was such. (‘Annie’ is also a musical about an orphan, though it didn’t occur to me at the time.) At 1d, I’d say that OH was “that’s a surprise” not “a surprise”. 10:52.
12 minutes with delays only in the SE over the intersecting answers NIGER, GENDARME and LAGER. If I’d had the confidence to write in LAGER when I first thought of it the other two may have come to me sooner, but I didn’t because I was unable to parse it.
Cedric has mentioned the original name of the OLIVIER awards -the London equivalent of TONY awards on Broadway – but didn’t go on to say that Society of West End Theatre led to them being referred to as the SWET awards which didn’t sound so attractive but the nominees and winners may have felt better reflected the efforts involved in their work.
28 mins. Used aids for DISASSEMBLED and then kicked myself as it was so obvious.
Several were biffed but I really enjoyed this.
CODs GET-TO, WAITING
Many thanks Cedric, and also to Juji for a great QC.
Steady solve, starting with SOLO and finishing with OSIRIS (where it took me an embarrassingly long time to work out what people from Ireland were called 😳) in 8.22.
Thanks to Cedric and Juji
Thanks to friends who were in the Irish Guards, I tried hard to get “Micks” in there!
I was with you in bewilderment. Sometimes I just can’t figure out why things were hard to figure out.
Nice crossword, straightforward yet not easy, so ideal fare for a QC (indeed, I’m just repeating what Cedric said). COD to HOOD. 10:02.
Thanks Juji, and Cedric for the excellent blog.
Started slowly, didn’t see HIGHBALL for a while, but did better as I went down the grid and finished short of the SCC. Thanks Cedric for tidying up the parsing I didn’t quite do in places. As you say, our setter seems to be leaning towards generous clueing in places, but a nice balance of clues and a pleasant start to Saturday.
I managed 14 today so chuffed with that. Takes me a while to get going. Of course the more checkers that appear the easier it gets.
Have a good weekend y’all.
My “long clue” hat seemed to have its batteries fully charged this morning and I flew through that by getting REDEPLOYMENT, DISASSEMBLED, CONSERVATION and BACKSLAPPING without a second glance. The result was 05:49 for an Excellent Day and a nosebleed on the leaderboard. The ones which held me up were 1a and 1d, my last two in.
COD to LOWERS, which gave me a schoolboy snigger.
Great blog, Cedric, thanks. Despite your valiant efforts to promote it I don’t think “BTP” is ever going to catch on, though! Many thanks to Juji for a fun puzzle.
Congratulations on the super time, you may borrow my hankie.
An enjoyable QC today. DISASSEMBLED, CUTE and GENDARME all clever clues. Thanks Juji and Cedric for great blog.
I had to concentrate on this one and just managed to scrape in under my target at 9:58. FOI, SOLO, LOI, URGE. Thanks Juji and Cedric.
A good puzzle – I found it challenging in parts but fair. I don’t think I was really ‘with it’ this morning (restless night) so that is my excuse for just tipping into the SCC again. The longer clues fell out quickly for me, given some crossers, but I spent more time with some of the short ones. E.g CUTE, my LOI.
Some great clues but all have already been identified by posters who were quicker off the mark than me.
Many thanks to Juji and to Cedric for a very interesting blog and for completing some of my lazy parsing properly.
Made heavy weather of this by starting in SE with GENDARME but got there in the end. Completed RHS first.
Yes, could not see where C came from in SPORADIC until I read the blog. And CNP CUTE or NIGER.
Liked HIGHBALL, DISASSEMBLED, OLIVIER, BACKSLAPPING, OSIRIS.
Thanks vm, Cedric. Great info.
Really interesting to learn why an optic is an optic today!
25 minutes, with time taken to unravel the long anagrams. LOI CUTE, not seeing the right sort of potter!
15:09
Steady solve.
Thanks, CS.
Dnf…
I still thought this was on the tough side, although I fell into the trap of getting the definition the wrong way around for 11ac which caused much head scratching for 3dn “Backslapping”.
In addition, I struggled with some of the longer anagrams: 17ac “Redployment” in particular.
FOI – 2dn “Get To”
LOI – Dnf
COD – 22ac “Cute” – didn’t parse this, but upon reflection it was a good clue.
Thanks as usual!
Nice from Juji – gentle canter for me coming in all green in 8.44.
Thanks for blog Stathers will enjoy reading it leisurely on train up to Wembley shortly.
Couldn’t see 1ac/d, so started in the NE with Solo for a clockwise solve. All the long answers went in with a few checkers in place – Coarse certainly helped with the vowel placement in Redeployment – as it became clear that Juji was in a generous mood. Finished at the door of the SCC with the by now obvious duo, Highball and Hood. CoD to 15ac, Osiris, for its creativity. Invariant
13:30. Steady progress- tried to fit in Little Orphan Annie but she couldn’t keep Oliver Twist out. LAGER was tricky to understand.
Well done Juji, this was a nicely pitched QC with enough difficulties to rack the brain on a few occasions. Took about 35 to 40m which is my usual.
Thanks Cedric for parsing CUTE (nice one) and NIGER and also for the rest of your blog. I like BTP. It describes quite a lot of my solving.
DNF with GENDARME as the one I couldnt figure out, even with the checking letters I couldn’t figure out what way the G and M went. Really enjoyed the puzzle. Thank you for the blog 😊
DNF. My run of completions with a single letter wrong continues, with a foolishly entered COURSE for COARSE.
Thanks Cedric and Juji
It certainly takes time to get used to a different style, and I found this is a bit confusing – some quite easy clues, some a bit trickier but still very nice, and a couple that really stretched me. I thought the surface for RADIANT was a bit daft, although the answer was clear, and it took a while to see that I needed to move the L in large, rather than delete it from larger! Good misdirection there.
Funnily enough, I got REDEPLOYMENT straightaway, and it got a tick, as did PORTAL, DRAINER and BACKSLAPPING. Plenty of food and drink references today, and overall, I enjoyed it – perhaps more in retrospect!
13:53 Comforting to see that a couple of people who are usually much faster than me were not quite so far ahead today! Templar on the other hand – well, what can I say? Scorchio maybe?
FOI Optic LOI Disassembled COD Highball
Thanks Juji and Cedric – excellent blog as usual!
Actually, you move the R in large to the end to give lager.
Oh yes, that’s what I did! Just couldn’t tell my left from my right when posting 😂😂😂 Definitely a case of Biff Then Parse, and even then it was wrong!
I thought that 21ac was LARGER with one of the Rs removed, rather than as Cedric has parsed.
But then it would have needed to say ‘drink is greater’ to be able to give larger.
That was my original thought too, but as Q says, great doesn’t equate to larger. As I say above, I still managed to get in a pickle despite getting the right answer – perhaps it was a strong LAGER 😅
10:37 slowed somewhat by unusually bad typing on the phone but probably more than compensated for by not stopping to parse DISASSEMBLED (thank you, Cedric!) COD to the rather topical CUTE. We are spending considerable time watching the snooker world championships at present but still managed to be misled for too long by ‘potter’. Thanks also to Juji.
8.33 That was mostly straightforward. Parsing CUTE and HOOD added some time at the end. Thanks Cedric and Juji.
All the leaderboards on the Crossword Club website (and the app) are displaying blank for me today (since yesterday evening). I’m surprised nobody has mentioned it here, and the Snitch can apparently still access the solving times – is it the same for everyone, or just me?
Not just you.
Thanks
9.48
Cracking time from our Legal Correspondent – bravo Sir
The long ‘uns proved more sticky for me and OSIRIS (LOI) an escapee from the Main Fare.
Good stuff. Thanks all
An enjoyable 10:54. I liked it, but had to biff DISASSEMBLED (mess = tip foreign to me) and take OPTIC on faith. Like CUTE (oh that kind of potter) but COD to ORGANISM.
Thanks to Juji and Cedric.
15:56, and thank you to Juji for a good anagram workout.
Couldn’t parse DISASSEMBLED for the life of me, so extra thanks to Cedric for the blog!
Same as WOMBAT – couldn’t parse DISASSEMBLED at all. Lazily biffed ‘episodic’ for SPORADIC before struggling to solve REDEPLOYEMENT caused me to reconsider. LOI and COD OSIRIS. Made this much harder than I needed to by initially getting the wrong end of the definition. Quite tricky in places I thought. Many thanks for the blog and thanks to Juji.
15:02 here. I was held up slightly by putting EPISODIC in for 12d, which made REDEPLOYMENT impossible, until I went back and checked the anagrist properly.
Thanks to Juji and Cedric.
Nice one thanks, couldn’t parse Lager or Hood, but otherwise an easy jog.
9:45 for the solve. I really rather enjoyed that especially as I was time pressed and knew the first Juji QC had been a struggle. But even beyond time considerations, I found myself marvelling at some of the wordplay especially as the Downs at the top but also the cleverly disguised DRAINER anagram and a chuckle at OSIRIS and the misdirection of CUTE. Perhaps helped by having seen BACKSLAPPING before and biffing DISASSEMBLED with just the I in place. Had to parse that post solve along with LAGER.
Noting this was 100th QC of the year – with 86% success which was even higher on Tuesday before three consecutive DNFs. 17th sub-10 (+2 DNF sub 10s); another 24 in 10-15mins and 24 in 15-20. Median time currently at 15:11, mean average at 17:11.
Thanks to Cedric for the blog and Juji for an excellent QC.
PS Niger got a mention on the news last year during some rebellion or riots or some such and I was amazed to learn it is pronounced Knee-J’air which I take to be due to its French colonisation.
Amazing progress! Well done.
Having to change gears for a new (ish) setter caused me all sorts of problems with several obvious and many that seemed obscure. So, not at all easy for me, and needed aids to be certain of some answers.
That was a good and enjoyable QC – mostly testing but nothing that seemed unfair and doable within a reasonable time. In my case that was 12:36.
Very nice enjoyable puzzle. Pitched at just the right level.
Thanks Juji and Cedric
Mmm! I’m not sure what to make of this. I crossed the line in 32-33 minutes, which isn’t too bad for me these days, but I had to rely on quite a bit of biffing and several clues remained only part-parsed at the end. HIGHBALL, SOLO, OSIRIS, LAGER and DISSASSEMBLED all fell into that category. Basically, in spite of there being some straightforward clues, I never felt at ease and was expecting the worst most of the time. A day off tomorrow – hooray!
Many thanks to Cedric and Juji.
22a was biffed. Didn’t get the potter angle despite sitting here watching the snooker. 😵💫
I liked it. Easy, but with some nice surfaces.
8.30, but only achieved by skipping some parsings.
Always good comments, always good blogs – thanks Cedric 😄
Thanks to Juji and Jason too, a satisfying QC.
(Dodgy comment posted a couple above probably best deleted by an admin)
Thanks. Spam posting removed by Admin.
Many thanks to Cedric and Juji
6:58
Late to the party following an exhausting weekend – took daughter back to university on Friday (5 hours driving in total), then down to Wembley on Saturday to see my team Crystal Palace overcome Aston Villa for the dubious joy of meeting Manchester City in the FA Cup final (10 hours driving in total).
Juji’s first grid took more than 12.5 minutes – this was a much softer ride – half a dozen acrosses bolstered by plenty of downs gave enough material to work with. As with our esteemed blogger, DISASSEMBLED took a lot of checkers to see, but for me, was parsed only after completion.
Thanks Cedric for the enjoyable and entertaining blog, and to Juji for the puzzle
I have come to accept that cryptics is not everyone’s cup of tea.I’ve been at it for 4 years now and still get frustrated for not being able to solve > 75% of the grid.Any advise from the more established solvers?Is it time to call it a day?I would really,really,appreciate your sincere response.