Good morning, and we have an interesting and – if my time is anything to go by – quite demanding puzzle from Shay today, which I finally managed to complete in 15:33. For some reason my blogger cycle and Shay’s setter cycle have got trapped in a mini-embrace, as this is the third puzzle of his in a row that has fallen to me to blog. Not that I’m complaining, but how about some variety please, Mr Crossword Editor?
That said, I enjoyed the puzzle, which has excellent variety, some chewy anagrams, some smooth surfaces and even a lesser spotted Spoonerism. I know they are not everyone’s cup of tea (tup of key?), and if you cannot see one they can be infuriating – but by the same measure when you do see it they can be very satisfying.
So as I say, quite a challenging puzzle I think, but all doable and all enjoyed. Thank you Shay! 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 | Brisk movement restricted by minimal legroom (7) |
| ALLEGRO – A hidden, in minimAL LEGROom, with the hidden indicator being “restricted by”. | |
| 5 | Drag loud female out of bed backwards (4) |
| PUFF – F (loud) + F (female) + UP (out of bed), all reversed (“Backwards”). That’s Drag as in Drag/Puff on a cigarette.
I was slow on this one, and at one point thought was looking for a six letter word for bed, out of which I would drag two Fs, leaving a four letter word meaning backwards. Not surprisingly I couldn’t find one. |
|
| 7 | Periodically took to drink (3) |
| TOT – Every other letter (“periodically”) of ToOk To. | |
| 8 | Wimp picked up little stick (8) |
| WEAKLING – Sounds like (ie “picked up”) WEE (little) CLING (stick, as in cling to/stick to someone). | |
| 10 | Time signal (5) |
| SPELL – A DD, as two word clues so often are.
While the first definition, Spell = Time, is clear enough (think spell in/time in prison), the second, Spell = Signal, took me rather longer to find obvious examples. But I think “that spells/signals trouble” is good enough for Shay’s purposes. |
|
| 11 | You initially neglected duties, and therefore suffer (7) |
| UNDERGO – U (you) + ND (initially, ie first letters of, Neglected Duties) + ERGO (therefore). | |
| 13 | Apple pie cut by Penny and Peg (6) |
| PIPPIN – PI (pie “cut”, ie without its last letter) + P (penny) + PIN (peg).
The best known of the Pippin apples, and the only one you are likely to find in anything but the most specialist shops, is the Cox’s Orange Pippin, but there are other rarer types, including the Allington Pippin, the King of the Pippins, the Newtown Pippin, the Ribston Pippin and the Sturmer Pippin. |
|
| 15 | Exhausted after end of hectic visit (4,2) |
| CALL IN – ALL IN (exhausted) after C (end of, ie last letter of, hectiC). | |
| 17 | Old man’s entering abandoned semi in cul-de-sac (7) |
| IMPASSE – IM~SE (anagram of semi, the anagram indicator being “abandoned”) containing PAS (pa’s, ie old man’s).
Slightly tenuous I think to call a cul-de-sac an impasse – one can always leave a cul-de-sac by the open end. |
|
| 18 | Unsuccessful contestant resolutely returned, half-cut (5) |
| LOSER – RESOL (first 5 letters, ie half, of resolutely, given by “half cut”) reversed (given by “returned”). | |
| 20 | Meet lass, desperately wanting friends (8) |
| MATELESS – (meet lass)*, the anagram indicator being “desperately”.
Wanting here is in the sense of lacking, rather than in the sense of desiring, though someone who is wanting/lacking a mate may also of course be wanting/desiring one. And despite its rather odd look, “mateless” has a long pedigree, first seen in the late 1500s. |
|
| 22 | Try ignoring son’s contemptuous expression (3) |
| BAH – BASH (try, attempt), with the S (son) deleted (given by “ignoring”). | |
| 23 | Sketch of runner, fifth in marathon (4) |
| SKIT – SKI (runner, ie the wooden board, not the act of using it) + T (fifth letter in maraThon).
An excellent surface, a little gem of the setter’s art, as Shay connects runner with marathon the running race. It’s touches like that that add so much to one’s enjoyment of a good puzzle. |
|
| 24 | Doctor runs tap in solarium, perhaps (7) |
| SUNTRAP – (runs tap)*, the anagram indicator being “doctor”. | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Patients actively in charge of medication (10) |
| ANTISEPTIC – (patients)*, the anagram indicator being “actively”, + IC (in charge). | |
| 2 | Heading off, carefree and lissom (5) |
| LITHE – BLITHE (carefree) with the first letter deleted (given by “heading off”). | |
| 3 | Travel with winos and get nicked (2,7) |
| GO WALKIES – GO (travel) + W (with) + ALKIES (slang for alcoholics, winos). “Go walkies” is informal for go missing, especially as a result of theft. | |
| 4 | Dull old secretary, quite without sex appeal (6) |
| OPAQUE – O (old) + PA (secretary) + QU And after its outing in Cheeko’s puzzle yesterday, the setters’ favourite word for anything to do with sex reappears. I shan’t reprise yesterday’s discussion about whether the word is actually still used in real life, and if so to mean what, but it certainly lives on in Crosswordland as a sort of Peter Pan evergreen word, and this is the more dated (but despite that more common) Crosswordland meaning of the word. |
|
| 5 | Chum is wan, lacking energy (3) |
| PAL – PALE (wan) with the E deleted (“without energy”). | |
| 6 | Flaneur enlivened leaving do? (7) |
| FUNERAL – (flaneur)*, the anagram indicator being “enlivened”.
A slightly whimsical meaning for “leaving do”, fully justifying Shay’s question mark I think. |
|
| 9 | Spooner’s fleeced a policeman in local store (6,4) |
| CORNER SHOP – Or as Spooner might have been trying to say, “Shorn a cop”, ie fleeced a policeman. | |
| 12 | Yields, and revels in lust? (6,3) |
| DEADLY SIN – (yields and)*, the anagram indicator being “revels”.
I think “revels” (or perhaps “revels in”) is a new anagram indicator to me, and I confess I am not entirely sure it works. But I imagine that it is the leap from lively enjoyment to chaotic and disorderly mess that Shay has in mind. Certainly many parents of teenagers have found their furniture rearranged and reordered after a youthful revel. |
|
| 14 | Encouragement for Man City? (3,4) |
| PEP TALK – A cryptic clue, as a talk by Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola might be encouraging for his team. | |
| 16 | Niche clothing of rude champagne socialists (6) |
| RECESS – Made up of the first and last letters (ie “clothing”) of RudE ChampagnE SocialistS. | |
| 19 | Solemn senior ringing gong (5) |
| SOBER – S~R (senior) including (“ringing”) OBE (a medal or gong).
Sr is not a common abbreviation for Senior in British usage, but is common enough elsewhere to distinguish, for example, a father and son with the same name, eg John Smith Sr and John Smith Jr. |
|
| 21 | Put away leather skirts (3) |
| EAT – a Hidden, in lEATher, with the hidden indicator being “skirts”. | |
8:54
Cedric and I are not alone in finding this one difficult; the SNITCH is currently at 180. I biffed a bunch: WEAKLING, UNDERGO, GO WALKIES, DEADLY SIN, RECESS, parsing post-submission. I had no idea how PEP TALK worked, and now I see why: NHO the manager.
The last few days have been tricky but satisfying, this was too much for me, I didn’t particularly enjoy it.
DNF, even after 30 minutes. Either I’m going gaga (quite possible) or something is very wrong here.
If a puzzle is difficult, I fall back into my slow solving mode, and start enjoying the clues instead of trying to rush to a time. There is a lot to like here, and only a few clues like puff, tot, impasse, loser, skit, lithe, opaque, pal, and recess were easy write-ins. That may seem like a lot, but the remaining clues were quite mysterious, and I never got what was happening in pep talk. Pippin and go walkies were really good clues.
Time: 18:35
18 minutes. Third hard QC in a row and I was just happy to finish in under 20 minutes. Like Cedric I had trouble in thinking of the ‘signal’ sense for SPELL but he gives a good example which I’ll almost certainly forget the next time this appears. I had trouble with GO WALKIES for my LOI, not an expression I’d use for ‘get nicked’, but fair enough.
I liked the ‘leaving do?’ def and the surface for PIPPIN and for OPAQUE.
Thanks to Cedric and Shay
18:45 Go Walkies… Bah (Humbug). Found the cut to get Pi curious.
TaCAS
Happily no time constraints this morning, so able to persevere for the 33.24 we needed to unpick all of these. Needed the blog to parse the sin, biffed deadly quite early on but did not write in until all the crossers appeared, tried various anagrams but never the first word!
Only VHO Pep as no footie fans here to that was LOI
Liked funeral as leaving do 😊
Thanks
Hard going this morning, but I enjoyed the challenge.
I had no idea what was going on with GO WALKIES which I chucked in from the checkers – I got stuck thinking that nicked meant arrested and wondered if it was an obscure slang term…
Finished in 11.54.
Thanks to Cedric for the top quality blog and Shay for the workout.
That was hard! From ALLEGRO to DEADLY SIN in 15:10. Only got PEP TALK when I had P-P -A-K. GO WALKIES took a while too. Thanks Shay and Cedric.
9.36
I thought this was much the hardest of the trio of QC toughies. PIPPIN and PEP TALK really quite difficult. But lots of the word play was really difficult as well, and as others have said, there were very few easy clues. This really felt more like the 15×15 in a smaller grid.
However, I actually enjoyed this one the most of the three. FUNERAL and PEP TALK are particularly witty clues, which made me laugh. And generally, lots to love.
I do have some sympathy for those who don’t follow English football though – if you don’t know of Guardiola, PEP TALK is a tough ask. Query whether that level of knowledge is genuinely ‘QC’?
A tough puzzle. Enjoyable, though, apart from some time-wasting difficulties with the touch screen on my iPad (mainly because of a plaster on my index finger……).
20 Mins for me with a few answers bifd, lots of PDMs, most entries parsed but perhaps a bit superficially in a few cases. PUFF was my LOI and I liked PIPPIN, SKIT, and OPAQUE among many others.
I didn’t warm to PEP TALK or GO WALKIES.
I will now go back to read Cedric’s excellent blog properly and explore some of my rushed entries in more detail.
Thanks to Cedric and to Shay (who seems to have almost broken the Snitch meter today).
27 mins…
Definitely a slog, albeit an enjoyable one, with some tough clues. Spent ages trying to unravel an anagram for 3dn “Go Walkies” before the penny dropped and even 22ac “Bah” had me thinking “Meh”/“Doh” and various other combinations.
FOI – 1ac “Allegro”
LOI – 2dn “Lithe”
COD – 14dn “Pep Talk” – obvious, but still made me chuckle.
Thanks as usual!
Tough but completed, unlike some this week. A few eyebrow raises, GO WALKIES was unconvincing and obscurely clued to me,WEAKLING didn’t have me enthused either. Nothing unfair but above what I enjoy generally. Clever, certainly.
Needed the blog to see exactly what was going on in places, so thank you Cedric, and to Shay for the mental workout.
DNF DISASTER.
But thanks, Cedric.
12 after 30 minutes m I missed 1ac which would have been a good indicator for 1d.
The South Oxfordshire village where I lived has an apple festival every autumn. Part of the communal area is planted with some 50 varieties of apple trees, and there is a Wassail every January to “wake up the trees”. And our cocker spaniel is called Pippin but that was because of Lord of the Rings.
Thanks C & S
12:30 for this, bang on my WITCH. Talking of which, this is the type of puzzle which may encourage a few to bale out before completion. Chewy, indeed.
Too hard for a QC. Many biffs and checks needed to finish in a very slow 33.25, way over average. Just not on the right wavelength at all. However, did like PEP TALK.
Surprised myself with PUFF to SPELL in 16:30. Only a few minutes over par for me.
Nothing unknown here though shuddered at the ugliness of MATELESS, but if Cedric says it’s a word that’s fine by me. Needed help to fully parse PIPPIN.
GO WALKIES, BAH and FUNERAL made me smile.
Much enjoyed, my thanks to Shay and Cedric.
Bits to enjoy so thanks,but too many tenuous and obscure clues for me to qualify this as a quickie
Another tough one but for me not as hard as Thursday’s. 46 minutes to complete.
PEP TALK was a guess as I’m not a football fan and really struggled with GO WALKIES which I thought might be an anagram of W, WINOS and GET.
If it’s any encouragement to new solvers I would never have managed this three years ago when I started solving the QC but now I enjoy the occasional hard tussle. It’s how we make progress
Thanks Shay and Cedric. I hope you get an easier setter next time.
19:57! If yesterday was hard, what is this? A super puzzle that really had me working hard. I have a busy work day today and thought I’d just knock this out before getting serious. Haha.
I was tempted by PUll instead of PUFF but thought again. “Leaving do”, very funny. I had to biff PEP TALK. Thank goodness at some point in my life I must have seen or heard the phrase GO WALKIES, otherwise I think it would have been hopeless; anyway I only half parsed it, not understanding “get nicked”. COD?
Gotta run.
Thank you Shay and Cedric.
I nearly PULLed as well! Then I wondered if PULF was a word. Had to crack FUNERAL (another brilliant clue) to sort it out.
I enjoyed that. I was a bit slower than usual and found the parsing a bit harder than usual, but nothing that made me get really stuck. I just don’t understand how I can do a QC puzzle at this level without any real problems, but can hardly ever finish the 15×15.
Lots and lots of very good clues, but the stand out for me was DEADLY SIN which is absolutely brilliant, clue of the year so far. Bravo!
All done in 10:10, including a rare proof-read because I’d enjoyed it so much that I couldn’t face a DPS.
Many thanks to Shay the Merciless and Cedric. I chuckled as I solved OPAQUE and thought of you, Cedric!
I also don’t understand why the transition to the 15×15 is so hard but seeing you say this makes me feel a great deal better. Thank you!
Yes I wondered whether the Crosswordland gods were trying to prove a point to me about IT! My blog comment went through various drafts, not all of which were printable …
3 days in a row of really hard puzzles. How discouraging for those of trying to learn. Come on editor spread the easier ones out a bit. Give us a bit of encouragement, we need to learn but also need to feel we are getting somewhere. A joyless last few days.
18:01 for the solve. Seconds quicker than yesterday but where I enjoyed that, I was left a bit meh about this one. Yesterday I enjoyed because many synonyms were things anyone would know; not so much today dull=opaque, antiseptic as medication, peg=pin mateless, shorn a cop.
Held up past eleven mins by WEAKLING, SPELL, PIPPIN and GO-WALKIES (LOI) and once I finished I saw why. Was trying to spell the apple as pippEn and GO-WALKIES is decidely yuk with alkies being the short form of alcoholics and we had a discussion about whether things getting nicked has gone walkies.
That said, there was some good stuff in here particularly the PEP-TALK and DEADLY-SIN.
Thanks to Cedric and Shay
I found this particularly tricky but staggered to a finish in 25:59. Thanks to Cedric for a great blog – very informative!
DNF. I was just beginning to think that I was (finally) getting to grips with the newer setters when along comes Shay to remind me of my place.
A slow and tedious solve meant that I was relieved to pull stumps after 25mins with Weakling, Go Walkies and Spell extant. Invariant
18.08 Slow throughout. All parsed except for LOI SPELL. Looking back it all seems fair enough. Thanks Cedric and Shay.
I found this much gentler than the last two toughies and there were some absolute corkers in there, including CORNER SHOP, WEAKLING and the sublime PEP TALK. I needed the blog to understand GO WALKIES and must admit I didn’t really like the ‘alkies’ part. Otherwise I thought this was a really cracking QC. Maybe it helps that I am a fan of spoonerisms and homonyms 😃 So many top clues but FUNERAL gets COD. Many thanks Cedric and Shay.
Way too difficult for me. I gave up. 🤣
Well! At least I crossed the finish line (in 36-37 minutes) today. I made a good start, but had to trust to luck in several places as the challenge wore on. I failed to parse SPELL, PIPPIN, GO WALKIES and DEADLY SIN and struggled with several others. For once, however, the Spoonerism came quickly and without too much anguish.
Many thanks to Cedric and Shay.
DNF
Never saw revels as an anagram indicator and failed on DEADLY SIN. But that was after an interminable struggle with the rest. Too tough for me.
Didn’t enjoy this at all. Lost confidence that things were running entirely fair at “ impasse” – I live in a Close or cul-de-sac – definitely never heard such a place called an impasse. Opaque just isn’t the same as dull – one means non-transparent, the other non- reflective ( the non- physics uses referring to meaning, comprehension or level of interest are surely equally different).
Thanks as always to the setter and blogger – my whinges are my problem !
Pleased to get all correct in 18 mins, b.ut hadn’t twigged why pippin and weakling were correct. Some chewy but enjoyable stuff.
FOI Call in
LOI Spell
COD Deadly Sin
Thanks Shay and Cedric for a much needed blog