Good morning, and we have an excellent and most enjoyable QC from Joker today. No unusual words, and a good variety of clue types for us. I found it helped to have my anagram hat on, and that enabled me to record a 11:37 finish, which given the general standard I was more than happy with. How did everyone else get on?
I’ve followed the example of a few other bloggers and coloured the solutions in red. It’s still a minority of bloggers who do so, so I’d welcome comments on whether this is helpful, or distracting.
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (abc)* indicates an anagram of abc, ~ marks insertion points and strike-through-text shows deletions.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Having layers aids fitter when working (10) |
| STRATIFIED
(aids fitter)*, the anagram indicator being “when working”. |
|
| 7 | Performed a song including line in informal speech (5) |
| SLANG
S~ANG (performed a song) including L (line). About the most straightforward instruction for inserting the L one can have. |
|
| 8 | Weapon forming part of revolutionary multimode protection (7) |
| TORPEDO
A reverse hidden (given by “part of” and “revolutionary”) in multimODE PROTection. |
|
| 10 | SA animal or llama I’d disturbed (9) |
| ARMADILLO
(or llama I’d)*, the anagram indicator being “disturbed”. SA here standing for South American, and I confess that with family in Johannesburg and Pietermaritzburg, it took a while to shake off the automatic assumption that SA stood for South Africa. Actually, although an armadillo is most often associated with South America, they are also found in Central America, and even as far north as the United States. The nine-banded armadillo is the US representative of the species, found in southern states like Texas and Florida, and even occasionally up to Nebraska and Indiana. |
|
| 12 | Aid to smooth running regularly used in socials (3) |
| OIL
Every other letter (ie “regularly”) of sOcIaLs. |
|
| 13 | Said what to do to suitcase and a lot of money (6) |
| PACKET
A DD, one of the elements of which is a homophone. The two definitions are PACKET = a lot of money, and PACKET sounds like (given by “said”) “Pack it”, which is what one does with a suitcase. |
|
| 15 | Confirm where English cricket fans will be? (6) |
| ATTEST
Another DD, the second element of which is “At test”, ie at the Test match. Which is where I will be on 4 January, in Sydney. |
|
| 16 | What’s in piece arranged for organ (3) |
| EAR
A hidden, in piecE ARranged, with the hidden indicator being the innocuous “in”. Nothing to do with a piece of music arranged for an organist, despite Joker’s cleverly misleading surface for the clue. |
|
| 17 | Champion drink, beer (9) |
| SUPPORTER
SUP (drink) + PORTER (beer). A moment’s hesitation about the linkage Champion = Supporter: it works fairly straightforwardly as a verb, eg “to champion/support a cause”, but I was initially not so sure about the noun, as I struggled with, eg, “He is the champion/supporter”. Then I thought of a medieval jousting tournament, where milady would have her champion competing for her, and I think that works well enough. |
|
| 20 | Country path involves a very painful effort (7) |
| TRAVAIL
TR~AIL (country path) including (ie “involves”) A V (a very). |
|
| 22 | Respond about wandering cat (5) |
| REACT
RE (about) + (cat)*, the anagram indicator being “wandering”. |
|
| 23 | Improvement of gambler chaps with time (10) |
| BETTERMENT
BETTER (gambler) + MEN (chaps) + T (time). |
|
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Series of earthquakes in sierra close to end (5) |
| SWARM
S (sierra in the NATO alphabet – yes I know it has been explained to us that actually the phonetic alphabet we all know and love is nothing to do with NATO, but the name has stuck) + WARM (close to the target or end, as in children’s games – “You’re getting warmer/closer”). Did anyone else start by assuming that “close to end” meant that one should use the last letter of end in the clue’s construction? No, only me then … |
|
| 2 | Dressing I changed for lack of flexibility (9) |
| RIGIDNESS
(dressing I)*, the anagram indicator being “changed”. |
|
| 3 | Add small amount of alcohol, mostly ale (5) |
| TOTAL
TOT (small amount of alcohol) + AL (“mostly” ale, ie with the last letter deleted). Total in the verb sense here. |
|
| 4 | Company cut down tree (3) |
| FIR
FIRM (company) with the last letter deleted (“cut down”) |
|
| 5 | Looks at stuff from mine? Not a good sight (7) |
| EYESORE
EYES (looks at) + ORE (stuff from mine). |
|
| 6 | Ten campers on the rocks forming steep hillside (10) |
| ESCARPMENT
(ten campers)*, the anagram indicator being “on the rocks”. |
|
| 9 | Destroy old book, well-read (10) |
| OBLITERATE
O B (old book) + LITERATE (well-read). |
|
| 11 | Get contractors to do exterior to home before spring (9) |
| OUTSOURCE
OUT (exterior to home) + SOURCE (spring, ie of water). I found this easy enough to find the solution – by this stage I had most of the checkers – but I took a while to see Out = Exterior to home. But we regularly meet In = at home, so I think this is just the opposite, ie exterior to home = not at home = not in = out. |
|
| 14 | Inferior horse in mind for slaughter (7) |
| CARNAGE
CAR~E (mind) with NAG (inferior horse) inserted. |
|
| 18 | Like some bears primarily placing our lives at risk (5) |
| POLAR
Formed of the first letters (ie “primarily”) of Placing Our Lives At Risk. |
|
| 19 | Health food (5) |
| TOAST
A DD. The second definition, toast = food, is straightforward. The first is slightly looser, but a common toast to a group of friends at a party is “Your health!” |
|
| 21 | Fit a part (3) |
| APT
A (from the clue) + PT (abbreviation for part, as in “Henry IV, pt 2”). PT, like most 2-letter abbreviations, can stand for a large number of things, such as part, pint, past tense, point, port, part-time, and for those more active than me physical therapy or physical training. It is also the internet domain for Portugal and the chemical symbol for Platinum. Such a lot of choice for Joker today. |
|
6:37
I also took ‘close to end’ to mean D, and wasted some time thereby. Otherwise no problems.
19 or so minutes, every single hold up ended up with me wondering why it took me so long.
OUTSOURCE took me forever and looking back it seems so obvious now?
‘said what to do to suitcase’ is the clunkiest phrase.
I really enjoyed all the different clue types today!
16 minutes. Like Tina, I wondered why it took so long, but it did. For Cedric’s ‘close to end’ = D at 1d, I’ll raise you only being able to see ‘end’ in the sense of “finish” rather than “aim”. As for ‘Series of earthquakes’ = SWARM, that was pretty tough and is only in Oxford Dictionaries, not Collins or Chambers. I parsed PACKET as just ‘a lot of money’ as def with the rest as aural wordplay, indicated by ‘Said’, as Cedric explains.
I liked the zoological pair of POLAR, for which the whole clue could also be seen as a non-cryptic def and ARMADILLO; next time I’m in Nebraska I’ll remember to be on the lookout for one.
Thanks to Cedric (red for the solutions is fine by me) and Joker
It is in Collins, albeit as American English: “a cluster of earthquakes or other geological phenomena or features.”
News, to me ..
Ah thanks! – I was going by a previous comment. I stand by my comment that the clue was out of order, but it was only one blip for me in an otherwise good puzzle>
Sorry, yes you’re right. Not in my Collins app -13th Edition, 2018. Usually up to date enough, but occasionally, as here, a new word or sense has crept in. Now I look, it’s also in the Merriam-Webster app.
Without thinking, and with the s and m in place, I stuck seism in for 1down and didn’t realise my mistake until I accepted that 7a had to be slang. Took me ages to get swarm.
NHO an earthquake SWARM and assumed like our blogger that ‘close to end’ would be ‘d’, but after an alpha trawl decided that ‘close to end’ was simply ‘warm after Sierra’, as in it’s a bit close/warm in here.
OUTSOURCE was a bit odd, I thought. STRATIFIED took some time to unravel. Liked TOAST for ‘health food’. For CHAMPION, a ‘champion of human rights’ came to mind.
Thank you Cedric for another informative blog.
Mark me as a ‘champion of the red solutions’!
Just out of SCC – and like others, in hindsight not sure why so slow.
Total disaster with SWARM – NHO in relation to earthquakes, happily took the bait for ‘close of end’ and was simply getting colder and colder having failed to take up the invitation to get ‘warm’.
Also failed to see reversed/hidden TORPEDO, so that took a while, with us trying to introduce ‘ARM’ into the equation.
MER re TOAST= health.
All up – good crossword, sludgy solvers : )
As for the RED Mr Statherby? I rather like it, certainly makes a clue search easier.
Thank you Joker and the aforesaid Mr S.
Well I PACKEd my suitcase as I only half read the clue and assumed it was a homophone and couldn’t understand how the correct answer would work (not that my answer does either!).
Other than that a fairly gentle (but enjoyable) offering from Joker.
Thanks to Cedric and Joker.
Went very quickly but LOI was a toss up between SWARM and SPASM. Since I couldn’t parse it, I went with SPASM on the basis that I had never heard of a Swarm of earthquakes, and I have lived in earthquake territory. Hello pink squares.
Shame, as I was on a good time, and really enjoyed this puzzle.
I had very similar reasoning with Swarm and Spasm! I did think of the idea of getting warmer meaning you were getting closer to finding the object/solving the puzzle, but I thought Spasm sounded much more like a series of earthquakes than Swarm did. Still, I’ll know for next time, unless I forget as usual…
Dnf…
16 mins for everything but included the made up “Snaim” for 1dn (an incorrect combination of the last letters and “Aim”). Personally, I’ve never heard of a “swarm” of earthquakes, so it’s a bit of an odd one for me.
The rest were all very good.
FOI – 7ac “Slang”
LOI – 1dn “Snaim” (incorrect)
COD – 5dn “Eyesore”
Thanks as usual!
I agree this was a good crossword so thanks Joker and Cedric. It was slightly spoiled for me by ‘swarm’. The word ‘end’ is unhelpful and not necessary anyway. it made for difficult cluing to give an obscure answer. To be honest with s – a – m it was always likely to be swarm but Collins and Chambers are right to exclude this usage in my opinion.
It is in Collins, as mentioned above ..
I wasn’t keen on it. Obscure bit of GK with hard to see parsing. Its saving grace is that swarm, spasm, smarm are pretty much the only words which will fit but that didn’t forgo the possibility of it being some potentially unknown technical word (e.g. “shaim” or “skalm”) and needing to figure out the “close to end” parsing.
I hate the “In collins reply” – what then is the differentiation between words that are suitable for the 15×15 and words that are suitable for the 13×13? Apparently none. I only didnt comment on its obscurity myself because it is so clear from the wordplay.
I had to cheat for SWARM so a DNF for me – otherwise it was 15ish and a nice puzzle.
A very decent 15.11 which included writing out the letters for 1a and staring at them for a good half minute and giving up. As soon as the s arrived it popped straight out. Liked armadillo, we saw one in the Texas Hill Country this summer, very cute and surprisingly fast.
Thanks Cedric for the blog, I think your tilde is 1 character adrift for 20A, TR~AIL allows the av to go in in the correct order 😀
Thanks Joker
Thank you. Corrected.
A good QC to end the week. An excellent mix of clues and my only hesitation was SWARM which took time and an alphabet trawl before I decided that it had to be.
I did not rush things, enjoyed the ride, and finished with a PDM (TOAST) in 15.58 (all parsed).
Thanks to Joker and Cedric.
NHO SWARM in relation to earthquakes but it couldn’t be anything else. Had to do an alphabet trawl for TOAST as had a brain freeze, but otherwise found this an enjoyable puzzle. Thanks Cedric and Joker
Enjoyable puzzle. FOI 1a, which helped. Yes, I did hesitate about SWARM, and LOI TOAST.
Liked ESCARPMENT, OUTSOURCE, OBLITERATE and PACKET, among others.
Thanks vm for blog, Cedric.
18.33 for me. Held up by PACKET and CARNAGE, otherwise smooth.
Pi ❤️
10:05. FOI 1ac STRATIFIED which obligingly just jumped out at me. I was held up at the end by two: TOAST, where I didn’t think health=toast quite works, and of course SWARM, which needed a long alphabet trawl but, once spotted, had to be. I’m still glad I never saw Merlin’s “spasm of earthquakes”. It is a much much better collective noun. COD to POLAR, which I somehow didn’t see coming.
Thanks to Joker and Cedric
4:16. Hesitated at the end with SWARM – like others I hadn’t seen that referring to earthquakes. Neat puzzle. Thank-you Joker and Cedric.
17:55 for the solve having reached the last one of SWARM just after exiting the SubTenC. It was the only word I could think of for the checkers but just couldn’t see the parsing so spent a good 7 mins looking for an alternative until I saw the warm=close parsing. Wasn’t keen on the wordplay for OUTSOURCE either. Very much enjoyed the POLAR bear. Would have been much quicker if I could do anagrams.
Thanks to Cedric and Joker.
7.39
Enjoyable until the very strange SWARM which I stared at for yonks at the end. When a word isn’t in one of the main dictionaries and a NHO for most folks, it’s odd to see it in a QC. I got the WARM thing fairly early but obviously a gap in my vocab.
Great blog as always Cedric.
Pleasant romp through, thanks Joker and Cedric. Stared at 9d for ages and gave up. I dont quite agree with the parsing given, but it will come in handy. I will just say that I am going to inspect the exterior of the house when actually I’m popping down the pub. I am sure someone will correct me but my dictionary trawl only finds exterior meaning the outer shell of, not the whole of the rest of the universe.
Surprised at the MER on toast = health, “your Health” is an extremely common toast.
11:40 Pipped By Blogger QTPi but Tina wasn’t… so my difficulty markers seem to be up the spout atm😂
I can attest (my COD) to my half-parsed guesses paying dividends today. Swarm was 1/5-parsed (fairly sure it started with an S) then swarm was my best guess from checkers although I still think it gives bees a bad name.
Very enjoyable.
Ta CAJ
“No unusual words” says our esteemed blogger blithely. After the wrestle I’d had with LOI SWARM, impolite words almost escaped me!
Like Merlin I was tossing up between that and SPASM. Neither made a lot of sense. In the end I remembered “close” = “warm”, as in Betjeman’s “It’s ever so close in the lounge dear,/But the vestibule’s comfy for tea”. That’s how I parse it, like Quad.
Otherwise fast and easy, very surprised to find it was by Joker! Lots to like but COD TOAST, very neat indeed.
All done in 05:59 for an Excellent Day. Many thanks Cedric and Joker.
Well, the majority votes are clearly against me on SWARM. But I was certainly familiar with it, and for geologists it is a fairly standard word, including its equivalent in other languages (in Icelandic for example – and the Icelanders know a thing or two about earthquakes – the equivalent is Sveimur af jarðskjálftum). It just goes to show that one person’s GK is another’s NHO, and all that.
Golly, Icelandic!
For anyone interested in geology and geothermals/volcanoes etc, Iceland is the place to be!
Never been to Iceland but remember how in Jules Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth the expedition goes down a volcano in Iceland and eventually comes back up in Italy!
Most definitely, Cedric. I’m hoping my namesake will erupt in my lifetime!
12 after 20, 16 after 30
Missed a couple of obvious ones like attest.
I should have got outsource as I ran my entire business using subcontracts, developers, manufacturers, distributors. I’m back to DIY business now, outsourcing to AI….
I was stuck thinking of after shocks for series of earthquakes, not to be confused with AfterShokz, bone conducting Bluetooth headphones.
Thanks CJ
I didn’t get where I am today….RIP RP
6:38
No major issues – like others, I was mildly slowed by SWARM which I had never heard of in relation to a series of earthquakes. Also had to count and recount the letters to be sure that STRATIFIED worked.
Thanks Cedric and Joker
Obviously not on the right wavelength as I struggled. Also thought there too many anagrams to make this an excellent puzzle.
10:43 with LOI SWARM. NHO it as a series of earthquakes, but saw that “you are getting warm” could mean “close to end”, so entered it anyway.
Thanks Cedric and Joker
9.10 PACKET, SWARM and TOAST took a couple of minutes at the end. Thanks Cedric and Joker.
23:14
Another slow one. Struggled with TOAST, TRAVAIL (too busy looking for countries) and LOI TORPEDO where I failed for ages to spot the reverse hidden.
Tough. 13 mins ish. SWARM taking a good chunk of that.
If you completed this it is worth trying todays 15×15. Am I allowed to say that? Thanks Cedric and Joker
Another day, another breezeblock. This time it was SWARM – what a surprise! Everything about it apart from S = sierra baffled me. I didn’t know the name for a series of earthquakes, I tried to incorporate the D, I couldn’t parse it, and I spent several minutes racking my brains (despite there only being half a dozen words that might fit) before entering it with a shrug. So I was mighty relieved to see that it was correct. It would have been an 8 minute solution if it weren’t for that.
It seemed like there were a few more geological clues too – STRATIFIED and ESCARPMENT, not forgetting the stuff from the mine and the petrochemical at 12a. I did like the surface for OIL and it was close to being COD, as was EAR, and ESCARPMENT gets AOD.
Overall I enjoyed this, despite my issues with 1d, the clue for CARNAGE- that got a sad face – and TOAST. Yes, your health or good health are well-known toasts, but health on its own? I’m not so sure, so a bit of an MER there.
11 – 12 minutes (I was so frustrated that I turned off the timer!)
FOI Stratified LOI Swarm COD Outsource
Thanks Joker and Cedric – the red answers are very helpful and clear
The biggie only took 18 minutes today – remarkable for a Saturday prize comp!
Most enjoyable puzzle. No precise time but somewhere around 10 minutes. Surprised by the reaction to SWARM, it’s funny how knowing something makes one assume that everyone else does.
Thanks Cedric and Joker
Very late today, and a bit hesitant to try a solve with the aftereffects of my minor surgery still plaguing me, but managed an enjoyable 12:52, shockingly fast for me with a Joker puzzle. SWARM didn’t hold me up nearly as badly as PACKET, which probably cost me three minutes. Liked OBLITERATE and BETTERMENT. I suspect the drugs still circulating may have helped with the anagrams, which seemed to unscramble themselves.
Thanks to Joker and Cedric.
Enjoyed this one. Didn’t know SWARM but it had to be and rather a nice one to try and remember.
Thanks Joker and Cedric – I think highlighting the answer in red works very well.
Health for toast… just no. Enjoyed the rest.
I agree wholeheartedly here. Even after I’d entered it with checkers it didn’t seem right.
5.51. Unusually quick for me.
15:36. Despite commuting across the San Andreas Fault for decades, I’d never heard of a swarm of earthquakes, so that seems a little on the obscure side to me.
Thanks to Joker and Cedric.
That may perhaps be because a swarm of earthquakes describes a sequence of a large number of minor shocks over a short period with no major shock. They are typically associated with volcanic activity, as molten lava jostles for position and moves around under the surface, eg just before an eruption. (Hence, very common in eg Iceland, see earlier comment). The San Andreas fault has a different type of geology, much more likely to have long periods of no activity and then one large shock. So California probably won’t experience earthquake swarms in the same way.
Total nightmare 😱