I think this will be at the easier end of the scale for most solvers. There are enough fairly easy clues that the trickier ones will all have plenty of crossers by the time you get to them.
Having said that, I took just a smidge longer than my average time, finishing in 15:44 and had a real howler of an error at 15ac, described below. Much of my time was on my last two in: GARISH and STREAMER
How to read the explanations: definitions are underlined, synonyms are in (round brackets), wordplay is in [square brackets] and deletions are in strikethrough. Anagram indicators are italicised in the clue, anagram fodder is indicated like (THIS)*.
| Across | |
| 1 | Wet, like that American monarch (7) |
| SOAKING – SO (like that), A for American, KING (monarch). | |
| 5 | Artistic work broken (4) |
| BUST – Two definitions. | |
| 7 | Forty winks scruff cut short (3) |
| NAP – NAP |
|
| 8 | Flag media player? (8) |
| STREAMER – Another double definition.
I’m not sure if the media playing device or the person using the device would be described as a “streamer”, but I don’t think it matters. It took me a very long time to see this one, even with all the crossing letters in place. |
|
| 10 | Passage made of tin and aluminium (5) |
| CANAL – CAN (tin) + AL (chemical symbol for aluminium).
Hands up everyone who spent time wondering where the fifth letter came from after starting with Sn and Al. |
|
| 11 | Something on a motorbike raised when flying round first of corners (7) |
| SIDECAR – (RAISED)* including [round] first [letter] of C |
|
| 13 | Warmer months, might one add? (6) |
| SUMMER – Our third double definition. | |
| 15 | Yellowish, everything scoffed by pig (6) |
| SALLOW – ALL (everything) inside [scoffed by] SOW (pig).
This was where I made my mistake. In fact, two mistakes. Firstly, I somehow came up with “cow” as a synonym for “pig”. As childish insults go, ok, that almost works. But then, in justifying CALLOW to myself as the answer, I went from “callow” to “inexperienced” to “there’s a colour that means that” to “aha, there’s a colour in the clue too, must be right.”. Sadly, the colour that means “inexperienced” is green, not yellow. Sigh. A reminder to check your working. |
|
| 17 | Country hotel so in need of renovation (7) |
| LESOTHO – (HOTEL SO)* | |
| 18 | Player in fact ordinary (5) |
| ACTOR – Hidden in |
|
| 20 | Meat found in armpit as horrible! (8) |
| PASTRAMI – (ARMPIT AS)*
I’ll never be able to look at a pastrami sandwich without thinking of this anagram from now on. |
|
| 22 | Colour studied, we hear? (3) |
| RED – sounds like [we hear] READ (studied).
The most straightforward homophone clue ever? |
|
| 23 | Butcher’s little sound (4) |
| PEEP – Double definition.
The first definition is from Cockney rhyming slang, where “butcher’s hook” – often shortened to “butcher’s” – means “look”. |
|
| 24 | Famous and lacking skills? (7) |
| NOTABLE – If you are lacking skills, you are NOT ABLE. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Son with man — one of those might be on the beach (10) |
| SANDCASTLE – S for son, AND (with), CASTLE (man, on a chessboard). | |
| 2 | Writer under a small tree (5) |
| ASPEN – PEN (writer) under A and S for small. | |
| 3 | Cheeky hosts very, very short of money (9) |
| INSOLVENT – INSOLENT (cheeky) contains [hosts] V for very. | |
| 4 | Loud tease stood up, and I shut up! (6) |
| GARISH – RAG (tease) reversed [stood up], I (from the clue) and SH (shut up!).
Picture someone hissing at a noisy audience-member for “sh” = “shut up!”. |
|
| 5 | Primarily bleating actually, as sound from animal (3) |
| BAA – First letters [primarily] of B |
|
| 6 | Template with holes in Celts manufactured (7) |
| STENCIL – (IN CELTS)* | |
| 9 | Defensive feature of design game (10) |
| DRAWBRIDGE – DRAW (design), BRIDGE (game). | |
| 12 | Admit star upset playwright (9) |
| DRAMATIST – (ADMIT STAR)* | |
| 14 | Treatment that’s needed, reportedly? (7) |
| MASSAGE – “needed” is a homonym [reportedly] of “kneaded”. And if you get a massage you could say you were kneaded.
A little unusual in that the homonym isn’t actually the answer, but a stepping-stone to the answer. This reminds me of the sign near the tip jar in many a bakery, “we knead the dough”. |
|
| 16 | Fix principal area (6) |
| DOMAIN – DO (fix), MAIN (principal). | |
| 19 | Pulse right in both for a change (5) |
| THROB – R for right in (BOTH)*.
Even though I saw how this one worked, I spent too long thinking of the “lentils and beans” meaning of pulse. |
|
| 21 | Best cardigan, say (3) |
| TOP – Another double definition, or a definition and a definition-by-example? I don’t think it matters. | |
I didn’t get MASSAGE or STREAMER. I think it’s very uncommon in the QC to have to come up with a synonym of a homonym, I never even considered it, and gave up after a 10 minute think. INSOLVENT took me a while but I found the rest pretty easy.
8:07 WOE
Once again failing to notice a typo. I had no idea how MASSAGE worked, but as they say, it had to be. Didn’t care for do=FIX.
I pictured a sinister Kray brothers-style henchman, for whom “I’ll fix ’im” and “I’ll do ’im” could be synonyms.
I’ll do/fix the dinner tonight
I found this a bit harder than yesterday’s, with the very clever massage providing a bit of trouble, along with the difficult domain. A streamer is definitely a device, they sell them at online audio stores.
Time: 9:07
HaHa a rare QTB 15:24 but another one… (and this is something I never the thought I would be admitting…) that massage took far too long.
Ta DAM
I wanted to make a SIDECAR tonight, but I’m out of lemon juice.
11 minutes. I missed the 10-minute barrier because of STREAMER as my LOI which added a good 2 minutes to my time. Another very nice puzzle. So far this week is shaping up better for me than last week which was very poor overall.
Had to leave SOAKING until almost the end but otherwise a fast start before finishing in regulation time. Made things hard for myself by misspelling LESOTHO – INSOLVENT and MASSAGE became much easier once I reanagramed the letters. Then misssed the CRS for PEEP so showed good restraint and didn’t whack in PEEP. I did whack in cALLOW though and do remember thinking “is a female pig called a cow” before moving on not even considering my answer fitted green not yellow. A fully deserved pink square for being super dim. Not all green in 16.
Classic Mara full of clever misdirections. Typical of him to put the homophone IN the clue, I liked it!
Started pleasingly with soaking and a nice steady solve until,like our blogger, stared at garish and streamer for about 3 of our 20.38
Thanks Doofers for parsing of sandcastle, must remember man=chess piece
Thanks Mara for all the PDMs
5:59
A good day where everything dropped in nicely, apart from my LOI PEEP, where I didn’t get the CRS in flight. Bunged in for a quick completion at the risk of being hopelessly wrong, but it turned out fine. Needed all of the checkers to see STREAMER and took a few moments with BUST, but other than that, no issues.
Thanks Doofers and Mara
I didn’t find this as easy as our blogger suggests, taking 14:14 to complete it, and I see the SNITCH is currently over 100, but other than MASSAGE (put in from checkers with all fingers crossed) the clues all responded to careful thought. MASSAGE was different though, and I’ve not met that trick before – I think I applaud Mara’s innovation, but it certainly surprised me when I read Doofers’ explanation.
Many thanks Doofers for the blog.
A slow start in the NW but the rest of the puzzle was very obedient and, with checkers in place, my revisit to the top left corner at the end didn’t take too long.
Started with SANDCASTLE and finished with GARISH in 6.40. COD to PASTRAMI.
Thanks to Doofers and Mara
The first network enabled music players were “streamers”. RJ45 input and two phono for the output. Wireless “Ethernet” if you were lucky. Forerunners of the Sonus devices circa 2001/2. Several first mover self funded business didn’t make it when VC funded Sonus entered the market. Your smart phone is effectively a streamer, 5G in, Bluetooth out at the physical layer.
I went yelp for peep.
Managed 20 without help.
Missed the anagram indicator in 17a
Thanks D and M
Wow – not sure I understood any of that, but shows what a variety of knowledge lurks behind all the avatars!
Still shaking the snow off my boots after a week on the slopes, but managed to navigate this safely if a little slowly. MASSAGE would be very welcome just now. As would a SIDECAR….
Yes: thank you, Mara, enjoyed that, especially the surface for SIDECAR. LOI DRAWBRIDGE after staring at it for some time.
Wow – I did wonder about MASSAGE, thank you Doofers, that is ingenious.
Another DNF, maybe I should have spent longer on the last three: MASSAGE, STREAMER, and GARISH.
MASSAGE really doesn’t work for me. It never occurred to me to look for a synonym of a homophone, or the other way around? I went for MISTAKE, which sounds like “missed ache”, well, it fitted.
6.11
No problem with MASSAGE but SOAKING GARISH and STREAMER needed thought. Enjoyable blog and puzzle.
5:48. Exactly the same time as yesterday. I was slow spotting some of the clues were anagrams (e.g. SIDECAR and DRAMATIST) but nothing held me up unduly. LOI DOMAIN. I was mystified by the surface of 7A, otherwise all good. Thank-you Mara and Doofers.
I was held up by two initial errors.
Firstly I put in OPUS for 5ac thinking Work = OP, broken = US. I did think it didn’t work but tried to justify it as some kind of half &lit. I was never convinced and thought about it for far too long before moving on. Fortunately 5dn couldn’t be anything but BAA so it didn’t detain me later.
Then I put in STANDARD for 8ac while wondering if the venerable London organ was even still a thing (I haven’t commuted since before the pandemic) and further asking myself if any arbitrary newspaper would constitute a media player and, if that was the right answer, what was the question mark doing there. That one stood up to 3dn going in (I couldn’t see 4dn on the first pass) but also fell to BAA.
I finished in just over 15 minutes, with SOAKING, GARISH and MASSAGE the last to fall. Overall I liked this one again. Good week so far.
After a very good start, I was seriously delayed by STREAMER, MASSAGE, SOAKING and PEEP (the latter was a biff – the rhyming slang caught me out on this occasion) .
A typo put the tin hat on it for me today and took me into the SCC again.
I was pleased to see my way through some very good clues but, in the end, some of Mara’s misdirections were just a bit too clever for me.
Thanks to both.
Finished all correct, but slow on LOsI GARISH and STREAMER. In fact, not particularly fast in general as I had to hop around the grid.
Liked SANDCASTLE (biffed), THROB, DRAWBRIDGE, and BUST.
CNP MASSAGE, INSOLVENT. FOI SOAKING.
Thanks vm, Doofers.
I’m sat on the DNF step today, lost patience after banging my head for a while on STREAMER and PEEP. I got MASSAGE but couldn’t parse it – thanks Doofers! (And Mara.)
11:07, with MASSAGE and PEEP holding me up at the end.
Thanks Doofers and Mara
10 minutes but very puzzled about MASSAGE – came here for enlightenment – thanks! I expected the first 3 letters of 3dn to be IMP due to ‘cheeky’ but ended up leaving until more checkers came long.