** Update **
Our Crossword Editor has confirmed that “the setter formerly known as Mango” wishes henceforth to be called Tango. The confusion has at least had one positive side-effect, in that it has illustrated how many of us solve online (where the name was erroneously Mango) and how many still stick to pen and paper!
A rarity for me today as due to a gap in the roster I have been given the chance to blog a weekday QC – and therefore as it happens two puzzles in a row. Apologies to anyone who finds even one of my blogs more than enough …
And what a very engaging puzzle we have this morning, a debut puzzle from Mango, who thereby becomes by my count our seventh new setter of the year so far. Some excellent clues, too – my COD is 15A, because it took me longest to work out the parsing, and a real PDM when I finally figured out what the large plant was.
Definitely at the more straightforward end of the QC spectrum, if my time of 6:48 is anything to go by, but 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 | Unfriendly presenter edges away from Miles (7) |
| HOSTILE
HOST (presenter) + ILE (middle letters of Miles, with the deletion of the first and last letters given by “edges away”). Host is one of those strange words with two meanings that end up almost exact opposites, as it can mean either a person who receives guests, or an army, usually an enemy army. The ultimate root for both is the Latin word hostis, which meant “stranger”; the genial innkeeper or party-giver is the entertainer of (friendly) strangers, and via a variant of the word, hospes, we get words like hospital, hostel, hospice, hospitable, while the horde of less friendly strangers, the enemy host, gives us words like hostage and today’s answer, hostile. |
|
| 5 | Team audibly expressed disappointment (4) |
| SIDE
Sounds like (“audibly expressed”) SIGHED (disappointment). |
|
| 7 | Periodically grouse and regret (3) |
| RUE
Every other letter (given by “periodically”) of grouse. |
|
| 8 | Narrowest hotel bar established on seafront at last (8) |
| THINNEST
H (hotel) + INN (bar) + EST (standard abbreviation for established), all following (ie “on”) T (seafronT “at last”, ie last letter of). |
|
| 10 | Cut scarves shorter at both ends (5) |
| CARVE
|
|
| 11 | Swallow one drink (7) |
| MARTINI
MARTIN (swallow) + I (one). A martin is a type of swallow, belonging to the bird family Hirundinidae. There are about 30 different members of the Martin family, though the count is complicated by the same bird being given different names in different parts of the English speaking world – and one at least, which in Europe and Asia has the name sand martin, is not called a martin at all in the US, as Americans refer to it as a bank swallow. |
|
| 13 | Catch significant other briefly coming back (6) |
| ENTRAP
PARTNER (significant other), with the last letter deleted (given by “briefly”) and then the whole reversed (“coming back”). |
|
| 15 | Large plant in extremely short road (6) |
| STREET
S~T (“extremely”, ie first and last letters of, ShorT) containing TREE (large plant). This was simple enough to work out once I had the checkers and realised that the definition was at the end of the clue (“road”) not the start (“large plant”). But from there to the parsing held me up for quite a while, as to call a tree a large plant is not the most obvious definition that comes to mind. |
|
| 17 | Saint called George ultimately foreign (7) |
| STRANGE
ST (saint) + RANG (called) + E (GeorgE “ultimately”, ie last letter of). |
|
| 18 | Country home charity returned (5) |
| INDIA
IN (home) + DIA (aid, or charity, reversed, given by “returned”). |
|
| 20 | Tense friend in France eating the first bit of red meat (8) |
| PASTRAMI
PAST (a tense, as in past, present, future) + AMI (friend “in France”, ie in French), containing R (first bit of Red). A nice lift-and-separate, as we are not considering red meat here – although pastrami is as it happens red meat. |
|
| 22 | Existence without fine fiction (3) |
| LIE
LIFE (existence) with the F deleted (given by “without fine”). Like any single letter, F can stand for a whole host of words, from Fahrenheit to Fluorine, Forte (loud) to Fail (in exam gradings). One area where F stands for Fine is in numismatics, or coin-collecting, where it is one of the grades used to describe the condition of a coin – the grades run from Poor and Fair via Good, Very Good, Fine, Very Fine, Extremely Fine, Uncirculated and Brilliant Uncirculated to the final accolade of FDC, Fleur de coin. Ironically, a coin described as “fine” is actually not in the best condition; the industry’s definition is “most major and minor detail visible, some lustre remains” – which sounds to me relatively worn. But then descriptions are put on coins by the person trying to sell them, so a bit of salesman’s hype is no doubt to be expected. |
|
| 23 | Try to persuade company beginning to adopt social network (4) |
| COAX
CO (company) + A (beginning to, ie first letter of, Adopt) + X (social network formerly known as Twitter). |
|
| 24 | Deeply impress English party (7) |
| ENGRAVE
ENG (English) + RAVE (party). A change for English to signify ENG; usually it just gives us E. |
|
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Drunk has cheered bad luck (4,6) |
| HARD CHEESE
(has cheered)*, the anagram indicator being “drunk”. The phrase Hard Cheese seems to come from farmers making cheese for themselves from skimmed milk because they had sold the cream/butter to their wealthier customers. Cheese made with skimmed milk was of poorer taste and much harder – therefore, hard cheese came generically to mean something unpleasant, and anyone faced with it was clearly unlucky. The phrase was first seen in British English in the early 19th century and is now somewhat old-fashioned, even in the UK; if used at all, it is invariably in the rather less than entirely sympathetic phrase “hard cheese, old boy!”. |
|
| 2 | Direct visionary around Turkey’s capital (5) |
| STEER
S~EER (visionary) with T (Turkey’s “capital” or first letter) inserted into it (given by “around”). |
|
| 3 | Mostly at sea? (2,3,4) |
| IN THE MAIN
A DD, the second part a play on Crosswordland’s standard usage of Main for Sea. Although most of us when we are at sea would hope to avoid being actually in the main. |
|
| 4 | Puzzle in game’s complicated (6) |
| ENIGMA
(in game)*, the anagram indicator being “complicated”. |
|
| 5 | Very northern child (3) |
| SON
SO (very) + N (northern). |
|
| 6 | Notwithstanding these tips, editor’s upset to some extent (7) |
| DESPITE
A reverse hidden, in thesE TIPS EDitor, the hidden indicator being “to some extent” and the reversal given by “upset”. |
|
| 9 | Doctor envies mate from Hanoi, perhaps (10) |
| VIETNAMESE
(envies mate)*, the anagram indicator being “doctor”. |
|
| 12 | Selling gin I later trashed (9) |
| RETAILING
(gin I later)*, the anagram indicator being “trashed”. |
|
| 14 | Rent trouble causes storm (7) |
| TORNADO
TORN (rent) + ADO (trouble). |
|
| 16 | Entertain king for example with beer (6) |
| REGALE
R (king) + EG (for example) + ALE (beer). |
|
| 19 | Greek character with key star’s inside (5) |
| DELTA
DEL (the delete key on a computer) + TA (“inside”, ie middle letters, of sTAr). |
|
| 21 | I’ll avoid cab charge (3) |
| TAX
TAXI (cab), with the I deleted, given by “I’ll avoid”. Well, it is quite clear what Mango wants here, but “I’ll avoid cab” is perhaps not the most straightforward way of indicating “cab without I”. But then given the very limited space setters have for each clue, it’s remarkable how smooth most surfaces are. |
|
20:10 for my first solve in a couple of weeks. I absolutely hate solving online and find the process disorienting, but ‘needs must…’ as they say, and it could have been a lot worse.
As for the puzzle, I liked HARD CHEESE as a reminder of a bygone era in which the likes of Billy Bunter and cads played by Terry-Thomas would use the expression apparently offering sympathy but with the utmost insincerity. An enjoyable debut from Mango, a welcome addition to the setter team, and thanks to Cedric for the blog.
Welcome back Jack. I, for one, missed your regular input and was happy to see your return to the blog.
I’m guessing you’re sans printer at the moment, I sympathise as I could never do a crossword online.
A tip that may help: if I’m in a hotel or other establishment, I save the crossword as a pdf and email it to the reception, they’re usually happy to print it out.
Nice to see you again, Jack.
Wondered what had become of you, welcome back!
Many thanks to all. I’m only commenting for now. Hoping to resume blogging duties before too long when I have access to all I need.
10:52!
Though I didn’t know the term ‘hard cheese’ the anagram was forgiving.
I thought ENTRAP was very clever!
7:27 for me having suffered an episode of insomnia.
Nice time and blog Cedric.
Good debut for Mango
LOI – ENTRAP
5:34
Straightforward. Like Jack, I was reminded of Terry-Thomas by HARD CHEESE.
My favourite Terry-Thomas line was ‘Absolute bounder…sort of chap who sleeps in his vest.’
🤣
Curiously, I was listening to a US pressing of Bunny Sings the Wailers as I solved this puzzle, which is on……Mango Records!
OK, on to the puzzle. I agree it was easy, and this time I checked to see if the words in the clue were the actual ones to use – OK, scarves => carve, got it this time. I was solving with pencil and paper, writing as fast as I could with very little hesitation, but I still can match the top speedsters. Typing must be a big advantage.
Time: 4:53
Not much of an advantage when you have to keep backtracking and re-typing to correct your fatfingerisms.
Tell me about it!
A fun Monday quickie. No hold-ups except for initially thinking the country in 18a was Spain, well, it had ‘in’ on the end for ‘home’, but didn’t write it in, DELTA solved the issue. All very familiar wordplay in the clues today so I assume that Mango has been at this for a while and maybe sets under another name too. COD to IN THE MAIN.
Brilliant blog again Cedric, thank you and thanks to Mango.
3:47, with just the slight hesitation that often comes when you’re thinking ‘a four-letter word ending in X?!’ I like your explanation of ‘fine’. I’ve never collected coins but I did collect Pokémon cards back in the day, and I seem to remember them (as well as comics) being very seriously catalogued for sale in various websites and magazines, using M (mint), NM (near mint), VF (very fine), F (fine), etc.
Nice puzzle, a gentle start to the week.
Good to see the old font back (at least for me)
Thanks Cedric for the educational components in your blog. I enjoyed the etymological and numismatic
pearls of wisdom almost as much as the crossword itself.
12:21 for me this morning, I almost wish it had taken a bit longer as I thoroughly enjoyed it. ENTRAP and PASTRAMI delayed me at the end but they eventually made sense!
Welcome Mango, thanks for a lovely puzzle. We romped through in sprightly 13.38 taking plenty of time along the way to savour the parsings. We probably spent half a minute discussing whether Swallows were a type of Martin, thanks Cedric for helping us realise we had the question upside down!
COD to STREET, maybe not the most obvious but you really can’t argue that a tree is a large plant.
Tree a large plant? Well, okay, unless it’s a Bonsai or a Herbert Beerbohm.
A fine debut puzzle at the easier end of the scale.
Started with HOSTILE and finished with PASTRAMI (my only hold up where I briefly wondered if ‘tautrami’ might be a very select type of Japanese beef😳) in 5.20.
Thanks to Mango and Cedric
Whoosh!
A rare sub ten 7:34.
Didn’t find it easy to coax and entrap but got all of them into the grid in the end.
Ta CAM
Welcome Mango! I proceeded from SIDE to PASTRAMI in 6:25, with a pause while I tried to work out how ENTRAP worked. Thanks Mango and Cedric.
A nice puzzle, completed in 13.58. A good start for Mango.
LOI ENGRAVE. COD ENTRAP.
Thanks to both.
What a surprise to read of this first puzzle by “Mango”; am I the first to comment that my newspaper says “by Tango”? What’s going on there – is everyone else online where it says Mango? And which is correct? Anyway it was an excellent breeze, top half went straight in, only the SE corner took longer, LOI ENGRAVE, and couldn’t work out parsing of DELTA, oh those computer keys, thank you, Cedric.
I do the puzzle in the paper so my thoughts exactly . Are we eating or dancing?
We have a joint “print and online subscription” – Mrs S prefers to do the 15×15 the old-fashioned way on paper and I do it online. So I can confirm that this puzzle is Tagged as by Tango in the printed paper and Marked as by Mango in the online version. But under whichever name, it is his/her debut puzzle.
Excellent puzzle. Particularly liked STREET, MARTINI and ENGRAVE. Thanks for the F for fine explanation – I’ve been bunging it in for a while without really knowing why. 7:50.
16 in 20 – I saw the anagrams quickly. Needed to reveal a few letters to complete the puzzle.
Thanks Mango and Cedric
Took a wee while to tease out ENTRAP, I think because I was determined to make it begin “ex”. Well, your ex was your “significant other briefly”!
Anyway, that didn’t work. But my biggest delay was after I’d finished but before pressing “submit”, when I was trying to parse THINNEST. I could see the H and the INN, but was trying to get “set” for “established” and it just wasn’t quite there. In the end I submitted and held my breath for a DPS. Phew, and thanks for explaining it, Cedric.
All done in 06:06 for a Very Good Day. COD MARTINI. Many thanks Cedric and welcome, Mango.
Not necessarily briefly – I was married to my first wife for 15 years and my second for 21.
my first lasted 13 year, and my second for 13 also and my third has now lasted 20 years. hmm! or by her reckoning some 35 years with a couple years off for bad behaviour. now that’s a tricky clue!
Rattled through the Acrossers at a record pace before tackling the downs. Would have been sub 15 if not for repeatedly fat finger trouble but ended in 15.10 which is definitely indicative of the more accessible end of the spectrum and suitably placed for a Monday mental boost.
Thanks Mango and Cedric.
9 minutes. An enjoyable debut from Mango with a few easier clues to get started then some requiring more thought to fill the grid. The crossing ENTRAP (nice surface) and TORNADO were my last two in.
Thanks to Cedric’s as always interesting and comprehensive blog – I second Corymbia’s appreciation of the educational value of the blog – and thanks and welcome to Mango.
6:30
Gentle Monday, though failed to parse either THINNEST (though could see the INN) or DELTA whilst in flight.
Welcome back to Jack, and thanks to Cedric for filling in, and to Mango for the puzzle.
6:43 for the solve. My brain was all over the place today, coming up with numerous distractions – for example puzzling as to why “sighed” wouldn’t fit in the 4 letter space having immediately recognised what was going on. And then onto THINNEST where I could bif thinnest but wanted to put H—–ESTT and so it seemed to go on. LOI TORNADO. COD STREET.
What I note is that it’s a puzzle which was full of familiar synonyms which helps with quickness. COD STREET. Also liked COAX. And very smooth surfaces throughout.
Thanks to Cedric and Mango
4:39 LOI ENGRAVE. Nice one. Welcome and thank-you for the neat puzzle Mango and thank-you Cedric for the blog.
Welcome Mango. All competed and parsed in 14.10 so more like this please.
Thanks Cedric for another informative blog.
10:38
Nice easy and enjoyable start to the week.
FOI: SIDE
LOI: PASTRAMI
COD: PASTRAMI
Thanks to Cedric and Mango
3.14
Can’t explain this likely PB but, welcome Mango and more of the same please!
Thanks Cedric (interesting about the HARD CHEESE) and nice to hear from you Jackkt.
👏🔥
Wowsers!
Speedy!
Wow I’m brushing off the dust
So nearly QTPi…
An enjoyable first offering from Tango/Mango, so good they named it twice, which didn’t cause me too many holdups with a finish in 5.53. If I’d started with the down clues first, I would have been even quicker I suspect.
Very quick today but failed to note my start time. Well under 10 minutes and welcome to Tango -I get the newspaper.
LOI RUE which I had forgotten. Real LOI was ENGRAVE which required some thought.
Lots of excellent clues.
I liked STREET and PASTRAMI best.
David
Regarding the confusion between printed and digital references to the setter’s name. Well as the man said “it takes two to Mango”.
Tee hee 🤭
First of all, a warm welcome to Tango/Mango, though I think the Setter’s use of two different names on the same day to sow confusion is a step too far 😉
As for the puzzle, I thought I was in with a chance of doubling my sub-10 count, but it took some time to see loi Entrap, and even longer to parse. Still, an 11 mins solve is good going for me. CoD to the IKEA Pastrami, making a welcome change from meatballs.
Thanks also to Cedric – I had wondered where ‘hard cheese’ came from as I wrote it in. Invariant
A gentle introduction to the week which I completed in 14 minutes. I couldn’t parse DELTA having forgotten as I always do that key can reference a keyboard. Otherwise fairly straightforward.
FOI – 5ac SIDE
LOI – 13ac ENTRAP
COD – liked the strange saint at 17ac.
Thanks to Tango/Mango and to Cedric
Welcome Mango. I think the QC was befitting of a Monday -a gentle start to the week. I was delayed on two clues PASTRAMI which required all the checkers and my LOI HOSTILE. My favourite clue TAX was simple but I liked the wordplay. 5:57 Thanks Cedric
9:00 minutes on the nose.
Welcome Mango, a fine first offering I felt.
A proper Monday quickie, a bonus Cedric blog and sunshine too. All makes for a very good day.
10 mins…
A good start to the week and a nice debut from Mango/Tango (I’m sure someone will let us know which it is, if only for the sake of my statistics spreadsheet).
FOI – 7ac “Rue”
LOI – 20ac “Pastrami”
COD – 11ac “Martini”
Thanks as usual!
Apologies for the confusion over the setter name. It should be Tango, as in the newspaper.
Thank you Jason for clearing up the confusion. I have updated the blog title.
Cedric
My thanks to Mango/Tango and Cedric Statherby.
LOI 23a Coax which I wrote in without parsing. I forgot that Twitter had been renamed to a really stupid X.
Nice gentle start to the week. Cuppa still pretty warm when I finished.
Liked PASTRAMI MARTINI and ENTRAP
I belong in the dancing group, being an on-paper solver
Thanks and welcome to Tango/Mango
Thanks to Cedric
Happy with my 8:33 time for a fun puzzle. HARD CHEESE made me smile, and I was glad of the easy construction for PASTRAMI because I certainly couldn’t have spelt it correctly otherwise!
Thanks Tango and Cedric.
11:19 here, and very enjoyable it was too. On several occasions I had absolutely no idea what was going on, only for a bit of pondering to get things moving again.
Do any of you do Minute Cryptic? I thought today’s clue was a great example of one that’s both simple and lovely:
Girl swapped clothes with boyfriend for a lark, perhaps? (4)
Thank you for the blog!
Blimey! Just under 13 minutes for me. And that was despite spending nearly two minutes getting started (CARVE) and a similar time spent pondering over my LOI (ENGRAVE). Without those two delays it would have been my first ever sub-10. But I was delayed, so it wasn’t a PB. Oh well!
Many thanks to Cedric and Tango.
The SCC will be in mourning today …
❗️
Hey, slow down, you might turn an ankle!
On the wavelength, so a fast non-stop solve. Enjoyable puzzle. I didn’t even have to write out the anagram letters in a circle – I confess I often do.
Liked FOI HARD CHEESE, LOI COAX, ENTRAP, and COD MARTINI, among others.
Thanks vm, Cedric and Tango.
Nice one – very slow for me but, in retrospect, for no apparent reason. Cedric your blogs are like fine wine probably best for body and soul restricted to once a week, but given the opportunity to indulge more than once why not! Thanks also to Mango.
7:56 which I think is our fastest (just) for quite some time now. Very enjoyable and not just for that. Like the Roundabout Heres I’ve been going down the Swallow / Martin rabbit hole (Sand Martin burrow?) but remain unconvinced that either is a type of the other. All my sources have them as separate subgroups (though not in a strict taxonomical sense. Anyway! Thank you, Cedric and Tango!
5.33. Quick and gentle again today.
A nice introduction from Tango, and an excellent blog from Cedric. And no typos! Perfick!
FOI SIDE
LOI REGALE
COD THINNEST (once I parsed it!)
TIME 4:20
9:56
Definitely an easier one. I don’t see sub-10 times very often. I did biff LOI ENTRAP in order to get under 10 but saw the parsing soon afterwards.
8:00 for an enjoyable first dance with Tango. FOI HOSTILE, LOI ENGRAVE but no, it wasn’t a straight, it just fell out that way. COD to 13a ENTRAP for the poignant surface.
Thanks TTTTTango and Cedric, and a pleasure to have two of your blogs in a row.
4.59 My joint second quickest. I had to come back to STRANGE and IN THE MAIN but very straightforward otherwise. Thanks Cedric and Tango.
8:39 here, from HOSTILE to PASTRAMI, with a bit of a hold-up resulting from trying TIGHTEST at 8ac, despite it not parsing.
Thanks to Tango and Cedric.