I sometimes feel sorry for the people who zip through these in just a few minutes, just like I feel that I get more value for money when I play a round of golf than someone who only gets to hit the ball 70 times (and I visit ALL of the course). This one took me 18:47 and I enjoyed every moment of it.
My first one in was PALE ALE and I finished in the bottom left corner, after finally abandoning the attempt to fit MATIN into the musical.
There are two heroic hiddens that span four words each, and I spotted what I think are a couple of Milton references: PARADISE LOST in the top row and PARADISE REGAINED bracketing the across clues. Sadly, I don’t know the books well enough to know if there is more to the theme than that.
I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.
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 | Island in March — a heavenly place (8) |
| PARADISE – IS (abbreviation for island) inside PARADE (march).
You have to ignore the tricksy capital M, it’s just there to send you the wrong way. |
|
| 5 | Missing second item for auction houses (4) |
| LOST – LOT (item for auction) contains [houses] S (second).
Lift and separate “auction” and “houses”. |
|
| 8 | Old show featuring Queen Kate, notoriously (5) |
| SHREW – SHEW (archaic version of show, hence “old show”) containing [featuring] R for Queen, as in ER.
The definition is a reference to Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, in which Kate appears in the title role. Not my favourite of his. |
|
| 9 | Dad left each locale after draining beer (4,3) |
| PALE ALE – PA (Dad), L (left), EA (each) LE [L |
|
| 11 | Jesse stripped off, having first fought Resistance in uniform (11) |
| BATTLEDRESS – |
|
| 13 | Learnt about feature of browser? (6) |
| ANTLER – (LEARNT)*
That’s “browser” in the sense of “one who browses” – in this case, a stag. Nothing to do with a web browser. (Thanks to Tina for pointing out that I hadn’t explained this.) |
|
| 14 | Charlie wearing tartan, looking cool (6) |
| PLACID – C for Charlie (phonetic alphabet) surrounded by [wearing] PLAID (tartan). | |
| 17 | I met Pinter, roughly around November … so rude! (11) |
| IMPERTINENT – N for November (phonetic alphabet again) in (I MET PINTER)* | |
| 20 | A pot she stirred here? (7) |
| TEASHOP – (A POT SHE)* | |
| 21 | US soldier going over facilities in White House (5) |
| IGLOO – GI (US soldier), reversed [going over] LOO (facilities).
Again the capitals are just there to fool you. |
|
| 22 | Christmas verse taken from A Christmas Carol? (4) |
| NOEL – V for verse removed from NO V for verse as in Bible references. And of course A Christmas Carol is an example of a novel. |
|
| 23 | Won back Georgia having exercised restraint externally (8) |
| REGAINED – GA (standard abbreviation for the US state), with REINED (exercised restraint) surrounding it [having .. externally]. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Urge American to visit public house (4) |
| PUSH – US (American) inside PH (public house).
I think the only place I’ve seen PH for public house is in the legend on Ordnance Survey maps. |
|
| 2 | Unusual coin that’s plated (7) |
| RAREBIT – RARE (unusual) BIT (coin).
I can remember my grandfather talking about “sixpenny bits” and “thrupenny bits”. Also the phrase “two-bit” comes from when one “bit” was an eighth of a dollar. The definition is talking about Welsh rarebit, a dish that can be put on a plate, or plated. |
|
| 3 | Bandaged own toe, Arthur? To some extent that’s practical (4-2-5) |
| DOWN TO EARTH – Part of [to some extent] Bravo to Bjorn for a hidden that spans four words. |
|
| 4 | Provide drink Polly regularly downed (6) |
| SUPPLY – SUP (drink) and every other letter [regularly downed] of P I justified “regularly downed” to myself by thinking of those little shooting galleries at funfairs where the ducks lie down if you hit them. Just me? Ah well. |
|
| 6 | Hold forth over cost (5) |
| ORATE – O for over (from cricket), RATE (cost). | |
| 7 | Redesign seediest area in the north (8) |
| TEESSIDE – (SEEDIEST)* | |
| 10 | Where Hollywood is cold about musical classic film (2,5,4) |
| LA DOLCE VITA – LA (Los Angeles, where Hollywood is), then (COLD)*, then EVITA (musical). | |
| 12 | Musical morning in Paris? (8) |
| HAMILTON – AM in HILTON (Paris Hilton, famous for, um, being a celebrity?)
So, MATIN not involved after all. |
|
| 15 | Man from Barcelona possibly upset Arsenal at a corner somewhat (7) |
| CATALAN – hidden in [somewhat] Another hidden that spans four words, and this time backwards, to boot! It didn’t fill me with quite the admiration as DOWN-TO-EARTH, probably because two of the words are very short, but a very fine effort. Barcelona, of course, is in Catalonia. |
|
| 16 | Hollow, faint pulse periodically taken (6) |
| DIMPLE – DIM (faint, as a light) plus every other letter of P |
|
| 18 | New moon possibly to disturb, by the sound of it (5) |
| PHASE – Sounds like “faze”, to disturb. | |
| 19 | Deserted area leaving Dodge (4) |
| VOID – |
|
An absolute belter today. 3D one of the best hiddens I have seen
Brain absent today. Just couldn’t figure out what was going on with BATTLEDRESS so ended up revealing. This gave me RAREBIT which made me chuckle when the penny very slowly dropped. I also liked IGLOO and ANTLER. Also spent ages on CATALAN and never did spot the hidden. A really good puzzle. Shame about the brain fog 😆 Many thanks both.
Phew SHREW, the words ‘Taming of the’ could have brought that to mind, otherwise No, sorry. I now see we have PARADISE LOST and REGAINED etc but I’m afraid I just wrote down HAMILTON forgot Ms Hilton and have no excuses for ignoring the ‘AM’. I did try to squeeze in cows or sheep but resigned myself to a Google browser and wrote down ‘Answer’. A chastened attempt for me today.
I thought this was very hard for a QC and have come here to see how others got on.
My big problems were PHASE, NOEL and finally HAMILTON which had to contain Matin!
So the setter won the contest although I did finish all correct after a second session.
A long time in all but very tired after November golf, played in nice weather.
Lots of good clues.
David
Crikey, found this a challenge! Hugely enjoyable despite ending up in the SCC.
8.05
Surprised Phil didn’t like it as I thought there were some excellent clues in here (ANTLER TEASHOP IMPERTINENT SHREW NOEL RAREBIT and HAMILTON). I particularly liked ANTLER.
I seem to be quick on the hard ones and slow on the easy ones at the moment. Go figure! (Or whatever the expression is).
Thanks Doofers and Bjorn
22:44. A plodding effort from me but I did think this was quite tricky! v much enjoyed HAMILTON even with the dreaded PARIS involved.
17:56 and looking at the Quitch and accounting for the persistent effects of sedatives, I’m surprised it wasn’t more. It felt like pulling teeth. Why was it so hard to see ANTLER? (Good clue!) I resorted to pencil and paper for the first time in months before it fell. I didn’t see the Nina/theme until just now. A fine puzzle and I join the applause for DOWN TO EARTH.
I couldn’t parse NOEL because I know *A Christmas Carol* is not a novel. And I am a pedant. I biffed BATTLEDRESS, which had no right to appear in that way as it’s not part of my normal vocabulary. Thank you, obscure workings of the mind.
Thanks to Bjorn for the workout and Doof for helpful blogging.
Noticing this is the fifth of November, I got curious about a possible connection to Milton and found this at Britannica:
Another early poem in Latin is “In Quintum Novembris” (“On the Fifth of November”), which Milton composed in 1626 at Cambridge. The poem celebrates the anniversary of the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605…. Milton’s poem includes two larger themes that would later inform Paradise Lost….
Told you I was a pedant!
DNF
Was this supposed to be a quick cryptic?
I could hardy get a single clue – yet I managed to complete Monday’s QC and Tuesday ‘s. This one was ridiculously
hard. I will stop buying The Times until
the QCs start getting reasonably doable again.
Gave in after rather aptly staring at the “void” blankly. If the rest had come more quickly I might have persevered. Really had to grind out some of the anagrams (antler, teashop).
FOI Placid
LOI that I got Noel
COD Down to earth
Thanks both
Careful of that void!
The best thing I can say about my performance here was that it wasn’t a DNF. Took 42:46 though. A day at work is not conducive to my brain working. Thanks all.
SHEW meaning show?
ANTLER meaning stag?
BIT meaning coin is pushing things as well.
As the blog details …
– SHEW is an archaic form of show (clued as “old show”)
– ANTLER is clued as a “feature of browser” i.e. feature of stag
– Bit=coin comes up from time to time. My dad’s generation would have referred to things like a “tuppenny bit” for 2P coin
Solved the 15 x 15 which surprised me given that it was from the recent championships. I thought the puzzles for that would be impossibly difficult for the likes of me (it still took forever of course).
Tres difficult. Got most after a struggle. But many unanswered clues in bottom right. Thanks all
HAMILTON and VOID took forever, so long that the “quick” crossword took me longer than the 15×15 (and I wasn’t at the competition so I’d not seen it before like Verlaine et al).
Like the pathologist in the adage, I did everything and knew everything, but a day too late.
Tricky but enjoyable. Club was closed long before I got there.
Thanks Doofers and Bjorn.