Good morning, and we have an excellent puzzle by Izetti today which in my view is very much what a QC should be – none of the answers is an obscure word, and regular solvers should have met all the various setters’ tricks the Don has employed. One omission is a straightforward anagram – there are two clues where an anagram contributes to the answer but none where the answer is a straight anagram pure and simple. Unusual perhaps for a QC?
I am not always fully on Izetti’s wavelength, so I’m quite pleased to have cracked this in a slightly faster than usual time of 10:53. How did everyone else get on?
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (abc)* indicates an anagram of abc, and strike-through-text shows deletions.
| Across | |
| 8 | Salacious old boy, part of act on stage (7) |
| OBSCENE – OB (old boy) + SCENE (part of an act).
The division of plays into discrete sections has a very long history. Theatre in ancient Rome had divisions and breaks in the action, in fact it is thought that in classical times a play was more a series of set pieces than a continuous action. By Shakespeare’s time some rudimentary stage settings and props were common, and the action was often halted for the stage to be reset. How this was done was more often up to the producer than the playwright though, and although Shakespeare often indicated where he thought the natural breaks were, not all early editions of his works had them, and not all of them had them in the same place. It was not until the publication of the First Folio in 1623 that the divisions became more fixed, and the terminology of Acts and Scenes became more standard. |
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| 9 | City in Croatia in two parts? (5) |
| SPLIT – A DD. I think the question mark in the second definition may be because one can also split something into more than two parts. | |
| 10 | Greek character short time back and long time back (5) |
| OMEGA – OM (mo, ie a short time, reversed, ie “back”) + EGA (age, ie a long time, reversed, ie “back”). A very clever clue, though I suspect a good number of people will have seen the O checker at the front, run through the Greek alphabet to Omega, and only then parsed it. | |
| 11 | Supposed visitor could be picked up (7) |
| GUESSED – Sounds like GUEST (visitor), with the homophone indicator being “could be picked up”. | |
| 12 | Feeling ecstatic, chaps into form of technology (9) |
| SENTIMENT – SENT (ecstatic) + IT (technology) around MEN (chaps). We have to lift and separate feeling and ecstatic to find the definition. | |
| 14 | Gratuity? Restaurant’s ending with one penny! (3) |
| TIP – T (restaurant’s ending, ie last letter) + I P (1 penny).
Izetti has got quite excited with his punctuation here and I am not sure I really follow what the ! is signifying. Or indeed the ?. |
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| 16 | Delay someone in and out of jail? (3) |
| LAG – A DD, and for those in the UK and of a certain age, the second meaning inevitably triggers fond memories of Norman Stanley Fletcher. | |
| 18 | Container of explosive vehicle meets somewhere on mountain? (9) |
| CARTRIDGE – CART (vehicle) + RIDGE (somewhere on mountain).
And a third clue where Izetti finishes it with a question-mark. I am clearly going to have to brush up on the various meanings and significances of question-marks in clue setting. |
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| 21 | This writer’s involved in new green diet maybe (7) |
| REGIMEN – I’M (this writer’s, via This writer is -> I am) inserted into REGEN (anagram of green, the anagram indicator being “new”). | |
| 22 | Toy missing head in sack (5) |
| RIFLE – TRIFLE (toy) with the T deleted (“missing head”).
Sack is here in its verb form, and the meaning is as in to sack a city. But I think when soldiers sack a city, they do rather more damage than rifling through it. |
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| 23 | Quiet king drinking beer, looking less healthy? (5) |
| PALER – P (quiet) + R (king) surrounding ALE (beer), with the surround indicator being “drinking”. And another clue ending in a question-mark. | |
| 24 | Second coffee (7) |
| INSTANT – A DD, and for once I might have put a ? by coffee (coffee is not the only thing that can be instant) but Izetti hasn’t! | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Huge financial deficit in fossil fuel (8) |
| COLOSSAL – LOSS (financial deficit) inserted into (ie “in”) COAL (fossil fuel). Another case of needing to lift and separate, as the financial deficit may indeed be huge, but it does not have to be. | |
| 2 | A second bird at the back of ship (6) |
| ASTERN – A (from the clue) + S (second) + TERN (bird). | |
| 3 | Goddess embraced by father, apparently (4) |
| HERA – A hidden, in fatHER Apparently, with the hidden indicator being “embraced by”. | |
| 4 | Dog beginning to bother bird (6) |
| BEAGLE – B (beginning to, ie first letter of, Bother) + EAGLE (bird). | |
| 5 | An HQ heard someone expressing agreement (8) |
| ASSENTER – Sounds like A CENTRE (an HQ), with the homophone indicator being “heard”.
Cue discussion on whether one would more naturally say “an HQ” or “a HQ”. For me, I think “a HQ” sounds more natural, and in this particular clue it would also fit the wordplay better (A + HQ = A + Centre) – but I suspect opinions will differ. |
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| 6 | Secret idiot spotted around home counties? (6) |
| CLOSET – CLOT (idiot) around SE (home counties, ie South East England). My first stab at this was CLOSED, with Clod for Idiot, until the T in 14A put me right. | |
| 7 | Home office mostly for boss (4) |
| STUD – STUDY (home office) with the last letter deleted, given by “mostly”. And a very neat surface, with the image of the boss working from home. | |
| 13 | Where film may be kept out of the public eye (2,6) |
| IN CAMERA – A DD.
We may be possibly the last generation for whom Camera and Film go together as a natural association – these days almost all cameras, whether as a separate item or as part of a mobile phone, are digital and so film-free. |
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| 15 | Papa dislikes gifts (8) |
| PRESENTS – P (papa, the name for the letter P in the NATO alphabet) + RESENTS (dislikes). I think Resent is usually a little stronger than merely dislike, but it is clear what Izetti means here. | |
| 17 | Leg broken after performance? Show amusement (6) |
| GIGGLE – GIG (performance) + GLE (anagram of leg, the anagram indicator being “broken”). | |
| 19 | Sour head of detective group did this (6) |
| RANCID – The wordplay is “ran CID”, ie managed the detective force – which is what the head of the detective group did. | |
| 20 | Fed up over preliminary race — not the first bad result in sport (6) |
| DEFEAT – DEF (fed reversed, ie “up”) + EAT (heat, ie preliminary race, with the H deleted, given by “not the first”). And yet another lift and separate, as we are not looking for the first bad result. | |
| 21 | One may be stranded in gym (4) |
| ROPE – An & lit clue, as the whole clue points to a rope, which is probably stranded, ie made up of strands, and is standard equipment in a gym.
I confess I don’t always find &lit clues easy (wot, no wordplay?), but the checkers were very helpful here. |
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| 22 | Impetuous artist shut up (4) |
| RASH – RA (artist) + SH (request to be quiet, ie shut up). | |
INSTANT had me groaning when I rather belatedly put two and two together. COD ROPE for the misdirection. Really liked the homophone clues (my second favourite clue-type after spoonerisms). Very enjoyable QC and great blog. Many thanks both.
A gentle Izetti for a quiet Saturday.
FOI 8a Obscene
LOI 3d Hera – missed the hidden!
COD – 19d Rancid – lovely!
Is ROPE an ‘&lit’ clue or just a simple cryptic definition? I thought an ‘&lit’ clue could be read in two ways, both as wordplay and also as a definition – but I can’t see any wordplay here, or am I being dim?
No, I go with just a ‘cryptic definition’ too.
I agree with our blogger that this is exactly what a QC should be. Very good progress was made until I stumbled with 5-6 clues remaining, all in the SE corner. RASH and then RIFLE unlocked it for me, and I went on to finish with RANCID in 23-24 minutes.
My only real doubt was RIFLE, as I was very uncertain of the validity of both definitions.
Many thanks to Cedric and Izetti.
A quick 8:17 for me. Very enjoyable, with RANCID getting my COD nod.
Thanks to Izetti and Cedric.
One pink square. I had REGEMEN, putting ME in the letters of “green”. Clue was “this writer’s”, which sounds like ME, with the s as just a connector. The spelling didn’t look right, but putting “MI” in didn’t make sense, and ASSENTER already unnerved me with an odd spelling.
CID & LOI RANCID
As the clues went in I made the mistake of thinking Izetti was being quite generous here then ground to a halt with SENTIMENT having failed to lift and separate. Finally after 28 minutes the penny dropped.
ROPE was another cleverly testing one and RANCID made me smile.
Lovely puzzle from Izetti and blog from Cedric.
4:37
Very gentle weekend puzzle. No real question marks – assumed ROPE was correct, and REGIMEN confirmed it. Had no thought that ASSENTER might end -OR, which is just as well.
Thanks for the usual quality elucidation to Cedric, and to Izetti for the puzzle.
I was baffled by the nasty clue for Rope. Easy enough to biff though. Thanks to Cedric for parsing it.
I found this QC by Izetti to be just right matching the expected pace of solving.
Also amused by more than usual question marks. I was subconscious of them, only realising when reading the blog.
I didn’t press ‘go’ on my timer, so am not sure exactly what my time was, but it was quick! (I’m doing this a bit too often 🙄)
Most enjoyable – as many others have said, Izetti gave us a classic crossword, with so many familiar words that were clued very kindly, but still precise and witty. The only clue I didn’t fully parse was ROPE – I didn’t get the double meaning of ‘stranded’. I got the ‘stuck’ bit, but not the ‘corded’ reference – not surprisingly, as I was the hopeless girl in the gym who managed to get about a couple of feet off the floor, and then get no further 😂 I would have made a terrible pirate.
I hope newbies enjoyed this, and got a big boost from it.
Less than 5:30 FOI Obscene LOI Rash COD Rancid
Thanks Izetti and Cedric
Even as a 1960’s 10 year old, the idea of trying to climb 20ft into the air by holding on to a rope so thick your hand couldn’t fit round it, struck me as bonkers. Also, the thin rubber ‘safety mat’ wouldn’t have been much help in a fall from that height !
I was the other hopeless rope climber. The PE teacher demonstrated, by racing to the top of the rope, but I couldn’t see what she was doing, that I wasn’t.
Happily, it’s not a skill I’ve needed since. 😉
No, me neither – never could see the point!
That’ll be why your career as a cat burglar never took off!!
14:33. My best ever time, I think. Amazed to read the blog and find it was set by Izetti.
Definitely a setting mistake to allow both assentor and assenter as possibilities, with no way of knowing which one was wanted. Instant for coffee definitely needed at least a question mark, instant does not mean coffee in itself. Otherwise very enjoyable.
I would class the clue for ROPE as a CD. There’s not enough wordplay for an &lit. This only plays on “stranded,” offering more of a hint than a definition.
6:56 for the Monday morning solve and hoping the Quitch will pick it up! Late to the party but blitzed through this until ROPE held me up for the last 1-2mins. Preceded by SENTIMENT/ASSENTOR. COD to GIGGLE.
Thanks to Cedric and Izetti