Good morning, and we have City’s second QC today, after their debut puzzle on 6 September. As it happens I blogged that one as well, and really enjoyed it; this one is a little more challenging, especially if like me your anagram hat has temporarily gone AWOL, but no less enjoyable. There are some clever definitions which may stretch some solvers, but no unusual, obscure or outdated words to cause one to scurry to a dictionary to check they do actually exist. I also notice a strange lack of either Double Definitions or Hiddens, which is I think unusual.
As I say, a bit more challenging than City’s last outing, and it took me 14:22, a couple of minutes above my par time. How did everyone else get on?
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (abc)* indicates an anagram of abc, ~ marks insertion points and strike-through-text shows deletions.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Excited cast use this in act (12) |
| ENTHUSIASTIC
(use this in act)*, with the anagram indicator being “cast”. Not the most obvious anagram indicator perhaps, but I picture picking up Scrabble tiles and casting them onto the table to see what new arrangement they end up in. A tough anagram to open the puzzle, and I needed quite a few checkers before it went in. |
|
| 8 | At first, pets are nervous in cat flap (5) |
| PANIC
Formed from the first letters (given by “at first”) of the words Pets Are Nervous In Cat. A lovely lift and separate at the end of the clue. It’s the little touches like finding the word flap for the definition, and then placing it by cat to allow the reference to the common phrase cat flap, which are the hallmark of a class setter. |
|
| 9 | Celebrity cleaner briefly recalled our distant relative (7) |
| CAVEMAN
NAME (celebrity) + VAC (short for vacuum cleaner, the truncation given by “briefly”), all reversed (“recalled”). |
|
| 10 | Alternative to “aye”? (3) |
| YEA
A cryptic clue, an anagram, and probably a chestnut too. But mainly for me an all round headache, as I first of all tried NOE (as in the Ayes and the Noes being the two alternative ways one can vote) and then when the Y checker proved that wrong, wondered about YES. I only got it when the second checker appeared. So much effort for such a short clue. |
|
| 11 | Messenger’s first warning to America of great significance (9) |
| MOMENTOUS
A four part IKEA clue, the construction being M (Messenger’s first) + OMEN (warning) + TO (from the clue) + US (America). |
|
| 13 | Where you may find lag over instrument (5) |
| CELLO
CELL (ie a prison cell, where you might find a lag) + O (over). |
|
| 14 | The Spanish drink in Scottish town (5) |
| ELGIN
EL (“the” in Spanish) + GIN (drink). |
|
| 16 | Intermediary seizing head of The Thinker (9) |
| MEDITATOR
MEDI~ATOR (intermediary) containing T (head of, ie first letter of, The). We had this answer as recently as just over 2 weeks ago, in QC 3109 by Lupa on 2 October, where it was clued as “Go-between taking time for Marcus Aurelius”. No need to know about second century Roman emperors this time – or for that matter Rodin’s famous sculpture. |
|
| 17 | Novel experienced in audiobook (3) |
| NEW
Sounds like KNEW (ie experienced?), with the homophone indicator being “in audiobook”. Is Knew a synonym for Experienced? Not sure, so I asked my pet AI engine exactly that. And the answer came back “No, ‘knew’ is not a synonym for ‘experienced'”. But to be fair the AI did then go on to say “however, they are related and ‘knew’ can be used in contexts that imply experience”. Which qualifies as rather a loose link, but probably just about an acceptable one. |
|
| 19 | Unit went first, skirting black ice in retreat (7) |
| DECIBEL
LE~D (went first), containing (“skirting”) B (black) + ICE (from the clue), all reversed (“in retreat”). One of the less helpful definitions perhaps – yes a decibel is a unit, but City has not given us a great deal to go on here! |
|
| 21 | Where much is framed around second experience (5) |
| TASTE
TA~TE (ie the Tate Gallery, where “much”, ie many pictures, are framed) containing (“around”) S (second). Crosswordland’s favourite art gallery gets yet another mention, though at least this time the wordplay for it is new. (I was about to say Crosswordland’s only art gallery, but last Saturday in QC 3117 by Teazel we had The Louvre. So it does have at least 2 galleries). |
|
| 22 | With time running out, Italy hadn’t worked with EE (4,2,3,3) |
| LATE IN THE DAY
(Italy hadn’t + EE)*, the anagram indicator being “worked”. And another long anagram which held me up and needed pencil and paper to solve. Slightly inelegant surface perhaps, and to me there is the merest hint of a suspicion that City just needed those two Es to complete the anagrist and could not think of a neater way to indicate them. |
|
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Vacant setter brought up apathy regularly (5) |
| EMPTY
EM (ie me, or the setter, reversed, ie “brought up”) + every other letter (ie “regularly”) of aPaThY. I spent too long thinking that “vacant setter” was going to be SR, ie the first and last letters of setter, before the penny dropped that City was referring to himself, ie “me”. |
|
| 2 | Eel finally caught in net acted strangely like an octopus (9) |
| TENTACLED
L (eeL finally, ie last letter) inserted into (“caught in”) (net acted)*, with the anagram indicator being “strangely”. |
|
| 3 | Troubled group of countries mostly appear in favour of board (13) |
| UNCOMFORTABLE
A second 4-part IKEA clue, the construction being UN (group of countries) + COM (come, ie appear, with the last letter deleted, given by “mostly”) + FOR (in favour of) + TABLE (board). |
|
| 4 | Terrible cinema almost securing Odeon’s opening receipts (6) |
| INCOME
(cinem)*, with the anagrist being cinema with the last letter deleted (given by “almost”) and the anagram indicator being “terrible”, and then the resulting INC~ME containing (ie “securing”) O (Odeon’s opening). Phew, that took longer to describe than parse. |
|
| 5 | I envy cheaters, struggling with this? (5-4,4) |
| SEVEN-YEAR ITCH
Both an &lit clue, I think, and also an anagram-based clue. The anagram wordplay is (I envy cheaters)*, the anagram indicator being “struggling”. Although, if they are indeed cheaters, they are more succumbing to it than struggling with it. City’s third long anagram of the day, and the third time I was well held up before the answer emerged. |
|
| 6 | Doctrine is meaningless to begin with (3) |
| ISM
IS (from the clue) + M (first letter of Meaningless, given by “to begin with”). I have come to accept ism as a full word in its own right, and I’m sure we’ve seen it in previous QCs, but it still seems slightly strange, a suffix with ideas of independent grandeur. Collins gives it full word status though (albeit marked as “informal, often derogatory”), so that is good enough for City’s purposes; only the OED is holding out in declaring it unequivocally just and always a suffix. |
|
| 7 | Child supporting university agreement (6) |
| UNISON
UNI (university) + SON (child). “Supporting” because this is a down clue and the SON is underneath UNI. |
|
| 12 | Grandiose dances arranged (9) |
| ORGANISED
(grandiose)*, the anagram indicator being “dances”. |
|
| 13 | Extremely canny to welcome protest over humour (6) |
| COMEDY
C~Y (ie the first and last letters of CannY, given by “extremely”) containing OMED (demo, ie protest, reversed, given by “over”). |
|
| 15 | Hot sweet bread with length removed (6) |
| STOLEN
The sweet bread is a STOLLEN, from which one L (length) is removed. Confession time, I adore stollen, and I am delighted that it seems to have become established in the UK as a Christmas treat. I first met it in Germany on a visit there over 50 years ago, and at that time it was very difficult to find back in London and I was hunting high and low for it with little success. Now every supermarket has it as part of their “Christmas range” – which means it is in the shops from about September! |
|
| 18 | Almost 168 hours plus 24 hours losing heart like a weakling (5) |
| WEEDY
WEE (week, ie 168 hours, with the last letter deleted, given by “almost”) + DY (day, ie 24 hours, with the middle letter deleted, given by “losing heart”). |
|
| 20 | Tea dance using only one of its repeated parts (3) |
| CHA
The dance is the cha-cha-cha (sometimes abbreviated to cha-cha), and we want “one of its repeated parts” for the colloquial word for tea. The various words for the drink known as tea, cha, char or chai all come from the same Chinese word 茶, and the differences are all to do with how the leaves reached Europe. Tea first reached Europe in the 1590s via the Portuguese, who traded in Macao and therefore picked up the local Cantonese pronunciation of the word, cha – the modern Portuguese for tea is still chá. The more common form tea arrived in the 17th century via the Dutch, who sourced their tea closer to their colony in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) and got their pronunciation from the Malay teh, connected to the Hokkien pronunciation te (the Dutch call the drink thee, pronounced tay, to this day). The third form chai (usually in the UK used for spiced tea) originated from tea (ie the Chinese cha) that travelled overland via Central Asia and the Silk Road, where it picked up both the spices which differentiate this version of the drink and a Persian ending yi – one can see echoes of this, and of Russia’s control of Central Asia, in the modern Russian word for tea, which is чай, or chay. The standard English word for the drink, ie cuppa, as in “Fancy a cuppa?”, is however entirely home-grown. |
|
A stiff test for a Saturday morning and I went down several of the same dead ends as our blogger. A casual ‘yes’ proved particularly tricky to unravel as did the long anagrams , with ‘cast’ as an indicator causing me all sorts of headaches.
In the end a very satisfying solve which I started with COD PANIC and finished with the TENTACLED/ENTHUSIASTIC combo in 11.15.
Thanks to Cedric for his ususal excellent blog and City for the workout.
22.01 Back in the corner and all our own fault. Bunged in YES and DECIMAL. Well, that stymied the flow for many minutes. If not for that, were well down in early teens. However, QC life does not allow such wishful indulgences, so we wait to see if friends appear.
Mr S, we love your blogs, always clear and amusing. Thankyou. Needed you for 9A and to fully parse 3D.
And seems there a lot of 7s in life… year itch, days in weeks, deadly sins, dwarves, continents, ?seven seas.
A most enjoyable crossword. Thank you City.
43:54 (average: 35, target: 39)
A hard one but very satisfying. I’ve really enjoyed both of City’s puzzles so far. Wordplay pushed me quite a bit. Ended up with a pink square on a typo (doubled up the first letter of INCOME). I put that down to the difficulty I had with the clue taking my mind off the typing – inattentional blindness like the Invisible Gorilla of Chabris and Simons in cognitive psychology.
Thanks Cedric and City.
7.39
Crikey – a notch above the usual level of chewiness. Some excellent clues imho though – SEVEN YEAR ITCH was very good and I also liked KNEW which I must confess to not fully (ie not) understanding. Also failed to identify the grist in 1a which was desperately bunged in at the end.
Great blog Cedric and thanks City.
35.22 …. yuck!
Never parsed STOLEN as I didn’t know the German Xmas bread and personally wouldn’t like it at all. Too many raisins, reminds me of my boarding school days.
ODE sv know2: have personal experience of (an emotion or situation)
knew better times
They knew plenty of personal pain and grief …
etc.
Yes, I thought of that too.
4:51. LOI CAVEMAN. I liked WEEDY and AYE… and the explanation of the different names for tea in the blog. Thank-you City and Cedric.
A decent workout which left me peeking round the door of the SCC. Enjoyed CELLO and an excellent and informative blog, even though I think tea is one of the most disgusting drinks on the planet! Strange how our taste perceptions can vary. I’ll stick to the gin and stollen.
Stollen appeared in my store in August this year. At this rate in a few years it will be fighting for shelf space with the eggs at Easter.
Got home in 14:35, so surprised to see the SNITCH score currently at 113 – I very rarely escape the SCC when it goes above 100. Perhaps the extra hour in bed has helped.
So yeah, enjoyed the puzzle and blog today. Thanks City and Cedric.
Tough. Enjoyable but very chewy indeed. My last in were TASTE and SEVEN-YEAR ITCH (and, unusually, I had to write out the anagrist for the last one).
PDMs all round – e.g. STOLLEN, CELLO, COMEDY. I needed crossers in many cases but these allowed biffs followed by parsing.
The SNITCH doesn’t work on my iPad today so I can’t assess the response of others but I entered the SCC a few mins before finishing and wondered if I was a bit slow today. Just not on the setter’s wavelength, perhaps, but I question whether this goes beyond the usual QC level for mere mortals. I stopped worrying about the time and just made the most of the challenges.
Somewhat reserved thanks to City (although it was a good test) and thanks to Cedric for a very good, comprehensive, blog that I will now read properly over a cup of coffee.
P.s. it took three attempts and a refreshed web page to get my comment accepted and posted. Luckily, I had saved most of my post. With this and the dead SNITCH link I hope we are not having problems again……..
P.p.s. The SNITCH link is now responding so just another glitch, I suppose.
20 seconds over my Qsnitch average, but I was happy to be within my 6 minute target for what was quite a tricky but enjoyable offering from City.
I had INCOME in place, which gave me the C for CAVEMAN, but totally misinterpreted the surface. “Cleaner briefly” led me believe that the answer began “cha” and that “celebrity” was the definition. Only when I eventually cracked SEVEN YEAR ITCH did I realise the error of my ways. In view of CHA being the answer to 20D I should have probably realized my misreading more quickly.
Thanks for the usual entertaining and informative blog Cedric. I shall now head off to the “reinterred” blog to see what you made of my “Weekend Special”.
FOI ENTHUSIASTIC
LOI TASTE
COD CELLO
TIME 5:05
17:24 Seven year itch late in the day stolen with caveman says it all.
Ta CAC
Just lost my previous comment – a glitch shut the page down altogether! I think the subtlety of 5d is that the ‘speaker’ envies those that cheat, as he has a 7-year itch and presumably doesn’t succumb to it! Liked this a lot, though have no memory of doing City’s first – perhaps I didn’t for some reason? I thought it was clever and not derivative, with some lovely surfaces. Particularly liked STOLEN, MOMENTOUS and DECIBEL, plus my LOI, TASTE. Only MER was at vac being a shortened form for cleaner. Does anyone say that? I do actually say hoover rather than vacuum, despite not having owned a Hoover for decades.
*NEE NAW*
Cedric, this is the clue police, I am arresting you on suspicion of mislabeling an &lit clue. “I envy” is not performing any definitional duties so the clue for SEVEN YEAR ITCH can only be described as semi-&lit
I got through a very enjoyable puzzle in 14:02, slightly over my average
Templar’s first law of blogging: the Clue Police will always show up if you describe something as an &Lit!
Cedric’s first law of blogging: if I describe anything as an &lit it means I’m largely flailing around in the dark for a better explanation of what’s going on …
Tough but fun. ENTHUSIASTIC went straight in but SEVEN YEAR ITCH and UNCOMFORTABLE didn’t. Lots of very good clues; COD to ELGIN.
All done in 09:12 for a Decent Day. Many thanks City and Cedric, especially for the tea education!
12:30
Greetings from Kyoto. I was not at the races today – exhausting day visiting temples and shrines is my excuse – but I did detect that this was tougher than average. I love stollen too!
Great blog Cedric! And an entertaining puzzle, City.
11 minutes. I was doing well until I became bogged down about half way through, for no good reason thinking the ‘cheaters’ at 5d (my COD) would have something to do with cards or other games. Started up again and then finished without too much trouble. Same MER at “knew” for ‘experienced’ as Cedric, but as he says, just about acceptable and I also note Kevin’s comment.
Thanks to City and to Cedric, including for the erudite exposition on the etymology of CHA and ‘tea’.
11.34. Just very slow today.
22 mins…
Longest for a while, but still a completion. I was misdirected in a couple of places, initially biffing “Middleman” for 16ac and “Charmed” for 9ac, until I realised something wouldn’t fit. Some of those anagrams were pretty tricky.
FOI – 10ac “Yea”
LOI – 1ac “Enthusiastic”
COD – 21ac “Taste”
Thanks as usual!
We KNEW our run of sub 20’s was too good to last. Only had around half the grid completed as we sauntered into the club. It did come quicker at the end to finish in 28.10
A lot of BTP and a couple of BNP but an enjoyable romp though some of high echelons of the art. Having counted the letters in the wrong words in 1a and deciding it could be an anagram, on,y finally saw it with about half the checkers in place, d’oh. Like decibel which came quickly by thinking of Black and ice backward giving ecib which made it a write in.
Thanks City and Cedric for excellent blog as usual.
Nine mostly the west side. OK with that given that it was quite hard
38 minutes to finish this enjoyable puzzle on a relaxed Saturday morning.
My COD is CELLO for the clever use of LAG but a special mention for TASTE. Both parsed after trying out the words.
Thanks City and Cedric for an equally enjoyable blog.
I’m another one who found this hard.
Just not on the wavelength today
Thanks for the blog
I must have been otherwise engaged for City’s first outing, so approached this as a first outing and took things steady. Enthusiastic (via Empty), Uncomfortable and Seven Year Itch opened up the grid, but Stolen and CoD Decibel were then slow to come to mind, so another trip out in the SCC. Invariant
Found this enjoyable, with lots of thinking having to be done. Finished just over 30 minutes, with DECIBEL as my COD, as first had DECImaL, but couldn’t parse it, so took my time and finally got it. Thanks for the blog 😁
25 minutes. A little quicker than average for me, so I’m quite pleased.
I failed to parse everything (e.g. CELLO, CHA) before coming here, but they all really had to be.
I started with PANIC, finished with UNISON and even worked out why 10a should be YEA rather than ‘nay’, without any checkers and despite constantly being beaten by that type of clue.
Many thanks to Cedric and City.
20:29
All was going well but the last few added several minutes. Failed to parse CAVEMAN, overlooked the V in the anagram fro SEVEN YEAR ITCH which then took an eternity and struggled with LOI TASTE.
I must have been on City’s wavelength because I solved this nearly as fast as I did for Trelawney’s QC and Hurley’s QC this week. Thanks all.
12.45 The anagrams were tricky, particularly SEVEN YEAR ITCH, and I finished in the NE with CAVEMAN. Thanks Cedric and City.
I’d say 15:43 is about 3 minutes over par for us but nevertheless a very enjoyable test. MEDIATOR didn’t go straight in but it might have taken us longer still had it not come up quite recently; and I could easily imagine being lost if you weren’t familiar with STOL(L)EN. COD to SEVEN YEAR ITCH. Thanks to City and to Cedric for the interesting background on CHA especially.