I got off to a flyer with 1ac going straight in, and more than half the acrosses followed on my first pass. But then the wheels came off a bit, and I ended up taking 16:03, a bit over my average time.
The ones that ate up my time were REAPPOINT, EVERY INCH and INVENT. Each of these uses non-obvious synonyms and meanings, but there’s nothing unfair here from Jalna.
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 | Places where people call xenophobes out (5,5) |
| PHONE BOXES – (XENOPHOBES)*
One of my favourite anagrams, right up there with T.S. Eliot being an anagram of toilets. |
|
| 8 | Supporter of the arts? (5) |
| EASEL – Cryptic definition.
I think the question mark is there because not all types of art can be supported by an easel. Statues and murals spring to mind. |
|
| 9 | Eliminate small feeling of uncertainty, by the sounds of it (4,3) |
| WEED OUT – Sounds like [by the sounds of it] “wee doubt” (small feeling of uncertainty). | |
| 10 | Really recover following diet (9) |
| LITERALLY – RALLY (recover) follows LITE (diet, as in tonic).
Minor shudder at ‘LITE’. |
|
| 12 | Eggs, mostly egg-shaped! (3) |
| OVA – OVA |
|
| 13 | Extreme component of long-haul travel (5) |
| ULTRA – hidden in [component of] long-haUL TRAvel.
An appropriate clue for me as I’m just back from New Zealand, definitely a long-haul trip. |
|
| 15 | Nearly time for hours of darkness (5) |
| NIGHT – NIGH (nearly), T for time. | |
| 17 | Closely examine part of potato (3) |
| EYE – A double definition. | |
| 18 | Writer heading for town to take in luxury flat (9) |
| PENTHOUSE – PEN (writer), first letter of [heading for] T |
|
| 20 | Touching performance in hat, once (7) |
| TACTILE – ACT (performance) in TILE (hat, once).
I think reading the Flashman books is where I encountered “tile” meaning “hat”. It’s dated usage now, but fairly indicated by “once” in the clue. |
|
| 21 | Pinkish, black and very green? (5) |
| BLUSH – B for black, LUSH (very green, like a lawn).
I had this one backwards for a while, thought I was looking for something along the lines of ROSEB. Ho hum. |
|
| 22 | Volunteers express disappointment in Wales about legislation (7,3) |
| STATUTE LAW – TA (Territorial Army, volunteers) and TUT (express disappointment) inside WALES reversed [about].
“Volunteers” in the clue often leads to “TA” in the answer. |
|
| Down | |
| 1 | Honoured bard out late, cavorting with a peer (4,8) |
| POET LAUREATE – (OUT LATE A PEER)*. | |
| 2 | Start working as a film director, perhaps (5) |
| ONSET – A film director works on a set. | |
| 3 | Devious type ultimately made everyone distrustful (3) |
| EEL – last letters [ultimately] of I suspect that the phrase “slippery as an eel” is more often used to describe character rather than actual slipperiness so I’m comfortable with “devious type” as the definition here. |
|
| 4 | Periodically dour, thoroughly dystopian author (6) |
| ORWELL – Every other letter [periodically] of |
|
| 5 | All at the finish are incredibly on edge (5,4) |
| EVERY INCH – Last letter [at the finish] of That’s “inch” as in “Zaphod inched his way up the corridor as if he’d rather be yarding his way down it”, for today’s gratuitous Douglas Adams quote. I didn’t parse this while solving, I was stuck on the “rim” meaning of “edge”. |
|
| 6 | Farewell single, no good (2,4) |
| SO LONG – SOLO (single), NG (no good).
I don’t think I’ve seen the abbreviation NG in the wild, but apparently it is used in the film industry to mark a shot or take that is unusable. |
|
| 7 | New athletes turn up and have surprising success (5,3,4) |
| STEAL THE SHOW – (ATHLETES)* + SHOW (turn up).
SHOW without UP for “turn up” caused a MER here, but then I thought of the phrase “no-show” which means “didn’t turn up”. Close enough for me, anyway. |
|
| 11 | Assign position again to gather what is relevant (9) |
| REAPPOINT – REAP (to gather), POINT (what is relevant). | |
| 14 | Swimmers crowding river channel (6) |
| TRENCH – TENCH (a type of fish, swimmers) including R for river.
I’m struggling to see how ‘crowding’ means ‘including’. Anyone? |
|
| 16 | Coin in small opening (6) |
| INVENT – IN (from the clue), VENT (small opening). As in “to coin a phrase”.
Nothing to do with money, then. Ah well. And “small” didn’t give “S”. Doubly tricksy. |
|
| 19 | Typical America university starts to accept loans (5) |
| USUAL – US (America) + U for university + first letters of [starts to] A |
|
| 21 | Bill raised for sporting equipment (3) |
| BAT – TAB (bill), reversed [raised]. | |
Re 14d (and apologies if I’ve missed it above)
“I’m struggling to see how ‘crowding’ means ‘including’. Anyone?”
Does “The players were crowding [surrounding] the referee after the dubious penalty was awarded” work?
P.S. Thanks for the gratuitous Douglas Adams quote. You might recognise the derivation of my username…
My thanks to Jalna and Doofenschmirtz.
I really thought I would fail on this one, but eventually all was OK.
5d Every Inch went over my head I’m afraid.
14d Trench. I suppose if a group of people want to intimidate someone they might surround him/her so the target would be included, involuntarily, in a crowd?
Tougher than average I thought, and I was happy to finish in 10.26 even if I marginally missed my target. It was the finish that took me a while to sort out, with WEED OUT and finally EVERY INCH enabling me to stop the clock.
A tricky end of the year test from Jalna, although I have to say a thoroughly enjoyable one. I could hardly believe Phone Boxes, but that and the reappearance of the Poet Laureate (you wait an age for one to turn up and then . . .) saw the NW off to a flyer. Naturally the rest of the grid proved a stiffer challenge, but the compensation was more than adequate, with numerous entertaining clues and parsings in an all too quick 30min solve.
As to a CoD, I think Weed Out just about gets there, in a photo-finish with Tactile and Statute Law.
My thanks to Jalna and Doofs. Invariant
4:59
A good day for me after a several days of sluggish solves. Didn’t quite parse 7d but it was the obvious answer with all of the checkers in place. Not seen the xenophobes anagram before – very good.
Thanks Doofers and Jalna
9.20, with a short hiatus when my iPad froze.
Another DNF. Far too many recently.
This time I had just two to go (INVENT and STATUTE LAW) when the doors of the SCC opened for me, but a further 15 minutes of hard graft failed to reveal their solutions. In essence, I never thought of VENT for ‘small opening’ or TUT for ‘express disappointment’. More frustration.
Many thanks to Doofers and Jalna.
Bucking the trend here as I got stuck on a very easy one until I had both checkers (BAT – I know!) yet managed all the others quite easily. COD WEED OUT (lovely). Great blog and a nice puzzle. Thanks both.
On edit: I also really liked INVENT for the misdirection
Dnf after a good recent run.too tricky for me, never really got started
Lovely puzzle, with -N-E-T holding out for too long while I tried to fit an S in! With so many options it was difficult to come up with the answer, and to be fair, volcanoes have vents – they wouldn’t necessarily be small! I missed the parsing for LITERALLY, though finally got the ‘lite’ reference (must try to remember as it comes up often enough!). Liked the misdirection in TACTILE, after too long trying to create a word out of ‘hat once’. Tile will be well-known to anyone who has listened to music hall songs. FOI PHONE BOXES, LOI INVENT, and special mentions to EVERY INCH, TACTILE and WEED OUT.
Off to a flier with 1ac and 1dn going straight in as did most of the top half. Couldn’t parse LITERALLY but decided it had to be but then wrote in ‘laterally’. I had completed the bottom half apart from 16dn by about the 17 minute mark but several minutes staring at it failed to reveal INVENT so I gave up and came here.
FOI – 1ac PHONE BOXES
LOI – DNF
CODs – WEED OUT and PHONE BOXES
Thanks to Jalna and Doofers
Really didn’t enjoy this: I never seem to be on Jalna’s wavelength. Finally struggled through in about 45 minutes. Not a good day!
14:06 so significantly harder than yesterday but I didn’t stall out, and was well entertained. PHONE BOXES, what a great anagram, never seen before. LITERALLY took some time because the nonstandard “lite”, despised by us pedants worldwide, never crossed my mind. Was it really a good idea to invite that POET back so soon? Many good clues, my COD is ORWELL, in a dead heat with EVERY INCH, which resisted for a long time.
Happy New Year to all! I second New Driver’s thoughts on absent friends.
Thanks to Jalna and Doof. Welcome back and hope you get a good night’s sleep soon.
8.51 DNF with a foolish biff of INSERT at the end. PHONE BOXES was nice. Thanks Doofers and Jalna.
A slower than average 14:57 for us with INVENT being the last one in, it having taken a while to appreciate the equivalence with ‘coin’. Good clue! Also loved PHONE BOXES though that went straight in. Dredged up ’tile’ for ‘hat’ from memories of crossword blogs past and didn’t stop to parse STEAL THE SHOW. Could see there was a probable anagram of athletes but might have struggled more with show for ‘turn up’ if we’d had to rely on it. Thanks, Doofers and Jalna, and a Happy New Year to you all.
Definitely on the harder side for me. Spent the first 20 minutes putting in the odd answer – then something clicked and the rest went in over 15 minutes.
Thanks Jalna and Doofers.
I started quickly but finished slowly in a total of 16:46, with TACTILE (my last in) taking the final couple of minutes. I wasn’t familiar with “tile” but have a vague feeling that I may have seen it before, possibly in the Friday CtC masterclass? Needed the blog’s help to parse EVERY INCH, because I was nowhere near it.
I’ll add to the chorus of approval for PHONE BOXES; that was very surprising and a lovely start to the puzzle.
Thank you to Doofenschmirtz for this blog, to all of our wonderful bloggers for your much-appreciated help this year, and to everyone else for your company!
All answers seemed a bit laterally to me but did get LITERALLY and others correct, except didn’t dare enter EVERY INCH failing to parse and not believing the answer.
Small is always S . . . except when it isn’t! This resident of the SCC failed on INVENT. A fair clue which completely misled me. A challenging but nearly successful (for me) QC.
Lots to like and ticks for WEED OUT, ONSET, STEAL THE SHOW and SO LONG in particular, but 1a gets all the gold stars today 🌟
About 15 minutes much earlier today – I got totally breezeblocked on STATUTE LAW and INVENT, and I couldn’t parse ON EDGE or REAPPOINT. Thank you so much for the Hitchhiker’s quote – a good reminder to revisit the books 😅
Despite the struggle, I enjoyed this – a fun way to end the year.
FOI, COD and AOD Phone boxes LOI Invent
Thanks Jalna and Doofers, and happy new year to one and all (that’s if you’re still online!) 🥂
Began very well but, as ever with this setter, I slowed up. Eventually finished in a disappointing 18 mins.
Took forever on 15 x 15 and still short by 6 or so. A massive struggle and not much enjoyment.
Once again, way too many difficult clues for a QC – will the editor/ setters ever take note ? My guess is that all or most of the positive comments come from experienced very good solvers.
One clue solved after 15 mins! Gave up.The problem is in breaking the habit of trying to make sense of the clue as a whole!