Good morning, and we have a nice puzzle by Jalna this morning which I completed in a relatively sprightly 9:53 – somewhat of a relief after a tough week in which I came close to an all time worst aggregate for the 6 puzzles. Since 9:53 is a couple of minutes under my par time it might suggest a straightforward solve, but there were a few clues which took a bit more than the normal working out and one (6D) where although I got the answer, I’m not entirely sure of the parsing. So I shall be looking to see what others make of it.
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (abc)* indicates an anagram of abc, ~ marks insertion points and strike-through-text shows deletions.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Resolute company (4) |
| FIRM – We start with a straightforward DD. | |
| 3 | Cavers moved east around small crack in a glacier (8) |
| CREVASSE – (cavers)*, with the anagram indicator being “moved”, gives us CREVAS, + E (east), and the whole lot surrounding S (small).
A somewhat complicated way of getting the S and E at the end of the clue, and perhaps the cavers could have simply moved south east, ie SE? |
|
| 8 | Blocked current politician meeting senior journalist more than once (7) |
| IMPEDED – I (current) + MP (politician) + ED ED (senior journalist more than once). | |
| 10 | Some tension in the last inning of baseball game (5) |
| NINTH – A hidden, in tensioN IN THe, with the hidden indicator being “some”.
Baseball games usually last for 9 innings a side … except when they have more than 9 to decide a game tied at the end of the 9th inning, or have less than 9 if weather forces a curtailment. And they say cricket is complicated. |
|
| 11 | Task of certain workers is to survey one group of people (11) |
| POLLINATION – POLL (survey) + I (one) + NATION (group of people).
The workers here are bees, going about their task of pollinating flowers while collecting their pollen. |
|
| 13 | Foolish individual turned in another foolish individual (6) |
| NITWIT – NI (in “turned”, ie reversed) + TWIT (another foolish individual). | |
| 15 | Piracy perhaps alongside a peninsula (6) |
| CRIMEA – CRIME (piracy perhaps) + A (from the clue). | |
| 17 | Shrill publicity stunt was irritating, we’re told (4-7) |
| HIGH-PITCHED – HIGH P (sounds like hype or publicity stunt) + ITCHED (was irritating).
This one was easy enough to biff once I had the checkers, but took rather longer to parse, as firstly I wondered about hype = publicity stunt (to me, hype means excessive claims, not necessarily a stunt), and then I took time to work out where the homophone was. But the “we’re told” applies to the whole, i.e. “hype itched”. |
|
| 20 | Caregiver periodically on our roster (5) |
| NURSE – Every other letter (indicated by “periodically”) of on our roster. | |
| 21 | Tenant takes time at the end to come back inside (2-5) |
| RE-ENTER – RE~NTER (tenant) with E (time “at the end”, ie last letter) inserted (indicated by “takes”). | |
| 22 | Job arrangement (8) |
| POSITION – This must be a DD, based on the standard rule that two word clues usually are, but while position = job is straightforward enough, I struggled with position = arrangement. I am sure though that someone will have a simple phrase where they are interchangeable. | |
| 23 | Object almost entirely lacking in solidity (4) |
| THIN – THING (object) with the last letter deleted, given by “almost entirely”. | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Blooming common thing to be doing on Shrove Tuesday? (8) |
| FLIPPING – A DD, with the first a colloquialism (“it’s a blooming/flipping shame …”) and the second a whimsical reference to flipping pancakes, traditionally eaten on Shrove Tuesday. | |
| 2 | Fend off horrible person partly on the rise (5) |
| REPEL – A reverse hidden, in horribLE PERson, with the hidden indicator being “partly” and the reversal given by “on the rise”, this being a down clue. | |
| 4 | Spoke really aggressively at first on phone (6) |
| RADIAL – R A (first letters of Really Aggressively, given by “at first”) + DIAL (on phone).
It’s a lovely smooth surface, with the dual meaning of spoke, and I was well misled here, thinking that “on phone” was a homophone indicator. So full marks to Jalna for that, though the second part of the parsing, the linkage dial = on phone, is I think perhaps slightly tenuous and the weakest element of the clue. |
|
| 5 | Given attire distributed for dressing (11) |
| VINAIGRETTE – (given attire)*, with the anagram indicator being “distributed”. | |
| 6 | Illustration, for example? (7) |
| SYNONYM – I got this from the checkers, but am not entirely sure of the parsing. My first thought was a DD, but neither Illustration nor For example are really synonyms of Synonym. Instead I think it is probably a cryptic clue (the default option for clues I don’t understand)*, with illustration being a synonym of for example, as in the possible alternatives “For example, …” and “As an illusration, …”. But I’m not entirely confident of this parsing and await enlightenment from others here.
* A bit like archaeologists using “Probably used in rituals” when they find an object they have no other explanation for. |
|
| 7 | Imitate head of entertainment on radio broadcast? (4) |
| ECHO – Head of (ie first letter of) Entertainment gives us an E, which when spoken (“on radio broadcast”) is ECHO in the NATO alphabet.
A very clever clue which was simple enough to get once I had the E-H- checkers, but which took considerably longer to parse. |
|
| 9 | Place of control in advertising, possibly (7,4) |
| DRIVING SEAT – (advertising)*, with the anagram indicator being “possibly”. A very impressive anagram, too. | |
| 12 | Fruit in Massachusetts, North Dakota, Arkansas, and Indiana (8) |
| MANDARIN – Constructed from the 2-letter codes for the states of Massachusetts (MA), North Dakota (ND), Arkansas (AR), and Indiana (IN). | |
| 14 | Clothing items from this new designer didn’t impress, ultimately (1-6) |
| T-SHIRTS – (this)*, gives us TSHI, with the anagram indicator being “new”, + R T S (last letters of designeR didn’T impresS, given by “ultimately”). | |
| 16 | Circles round harbour somewhere in Iberia (6) |
| OPORTO – O~O (two circles) round PORT (harbour). | |
| 18 | Temporary setback had an effect on church (5) |
| HITCH – HIT (had an effect on) + CH (church).
I saw the answer fairly quickly here, but then wondered a bit about the synonym implied by Hit = Had an effect on. One can say “The news hit John hard”, and this certainly implies that the news had an effect on John, but it is perhaps not the strongest of links. |
|
| 19 | Cut legs when climbing (4) |
| SNIP – PINS (legs) reversed, given by “climbing”. | |
13 minutes, a little slower than the past two days but still within my target and after my poor efforts on Tuesday and Wednesday I’m happy enough with that. I didn’t have misgivings about anything in the clues. Only a minor point on the parsing at 17ac, I think the two parts of the clue need to be taken together for the homophone to work, so HIGH-PITCHED sounds like “hype itched” (shrill publicity stunt was irritating).
The parsing of ECHO had me baffled until I made the connection with the radio alphabet. CREVASSE was my LOI.
Yes, I came to the same conclusion (eventually) on the homophone in HIGH-PITCHED; see end of my blog comment.
Apologies, must have missed that. So much to read on a Saturday with the two normal blogs plus the Jumbo!
I think you are right with Synonym, but I don’t think the ‘for’ is needed before ‘example’. Rather, I think ‘for’ is saying something like illustration ‘equal to’ example.
I found this a bit tricky in places and despite staring at ECHO for some minutes, failed to equate the NATO alphabet connection. Thought RADIAL was quite good. CRIMEA took longer than it should. Liked the anagram for VINAIGRETTE along with DRIVING SEAT. Also liked ‘hype itched’ for shrill. Wasn’t sure about NINTH but it rang a bell as something to do with baseball and it was a hidden anyway. Liked your alternative for CREVASSE.
Thanks Cedric and setter.
Ah yes, that’s a very good example of SYNONYM! Thank you
Thanks you Templar. I thought afterwards it could have worked better without the comma.
7:08
In 4d, it’s ‘phone’ =DIAL; ‘on’ simply means ‘on’ (it’s a down clue). POLLINATION is hardly a task of the bees.
Yes that makes sense. Thank you.
FLIPPING is a pretty tough clue, especially for people who don’t make a connection between pancakes and Shrove Tuesday.
That held me up the longest, but there were some other tricky clues, besides.
I won’t be surprised to see a few towels being thrown in on this one.
10:42
13:11 Echo synonym issue and held up by flipping high pitched radial pollination.
Ta CAJ
I found this fairly gentle with my biggest issue being the spelling of VINAIGRETTE, where I transposed the central ‘ai’ which caused problems with POLLINATION.
Started with FIRM and finished with POLLINATION in 6.17. COD to HIGH PITCHED.
Thanks to Cedric and Jalna
Very slow, at 23:11.
Main hold up was a brain freeze over the word CREVASSE, I knew it from my Ladybird book of British heroes, Robert F. Scott, (who often fell into them with his ponies) but couldn’t get the exact word.
Struggled with where to put that extra A in VINAIGRETTE.
COD DRIVING SEAT : top anagramming !
And RADIAL=spoke was tremendous misdirection.
Dnf…
Initially I thought I was in for a fast time, but then got stuck in the NE corner and just couldn’t see 11ac “Pollination” and 7dn “Echo” – not helped by my inability to spell “Vinaigrette”.
A week to forget I think. Perhaps I’m clutching at straws thinking I’m struggling because I’ve switched from using the newspaper to doing it on the iPad.
FOI – 1ac “Firm”
LOI – Dnf
COD – 17ac “High Pitched”
Thanks as usual!
21.48 having spent many minutes on last two in – CRIMEA and SYNONYM.
We join those who made a salad dressing of the letters > VINAIGRETTE
COD ECHO only after explained by the esteemed Mr CS in his as always, delightful blog.
Thanks to Jalna also
16:38 – not bad for me after a tough week. Biffed HIGH PITCHED, but got the rest fairly steadily once a few crossers were in. Didn’t we had a very similar clue for NITWIT recently?
Was all going well with at least three quarters done around 11 minutes then a bit of a fight to a technical DNF at 19.35 as we needed to resort to an aid for echo, which despite 2 alphatrawls would not come. Came here to understand the parsing, thanks Cedric and now it’s our COD, very clever. Like others, slowed down by inabilities to count vowels and spell vinega.. vinage… 🤔
Thanks Jalna
Like others, I thought I was in for a quick solve until I ended up in the N/NE where I almost ground to a halt with the downs – 4d, 5d, 6d, 7d. I needed the checkers for SYNONYM, spent time trying to remember the spelling of VINAIGRETTE, and crossed my fingers having not parsed my LOI RADIAL. I bifd ECHO (as I did HIGH-PITCHED).
No need for me to repeat the comments in posts above on these clues but they left me with a less than happy ending to my solve (but I just avoided the SCC at 19.51 which is around my average with this setter).
My COD: DRIVING SEAT (great anagram).
Thanks to Jalna and, especially, to Cedric for a very good and much-needed blog.
16 after 30 minutes, another five with a bit of help with the spelling. Failed to equate piracy with crime and echo for E. Needed the blog for that one and synonym.
FoI crevasse
CoD radial
Parsing success of the day impeded. I’m starting to recognise Ikea clues.
Thanks setter and blogger
I was fast through this until an arm wrestle with ECHO and SYNONYM. The former I got and parsed but the latter gave me the same sense of unease as Cedric expressed in the blog – could that really be it? So pleased to read Quad’s further helpful thoughts above.
All done, with SYNONYM not properly understood, in 06:18 for Plett+1 and a Very Good Day.
Many thanks Jalna and Cedric.
13:14 today – I’m happy with that.
Held up by RADIAL and SYNONYM, which I squinted at for a while before entering.
Pi ❤️
A nice puzzle for a Saturday!
No problem with CREVASSE after attending a talk recently at Scott Polar Museum, well illustrated in black and white! COD RADIAL with mention for MANDARIN for ingenuity.
22 mins for a bit faster than usual. Thanks Cedric and Jalna
As expected with a Jalna, this took me longer than usual, but all happily solved to my satisfaction, despite not actually parsing ECHO, which was a bit daft, as I use the NATO alphabet for work! LOI was CRIMEA. We’ve had piracy to give crime before, but it never seems to stick and it didn’t occur to me that Jalna might be referring to a well-known and topical peninsula, so I was well and truly stumped for a few minutes. SYNONYM was also great. It is indeed a cryptic definition – the ‘for’ indicating ‘alternative to’ and the question mark indicating ‘an example of…’
As I had no idea about baseball, it was kind of Jalna to give us a hidden for that one…
Found this one on the tough side, being particularly held up at the end by SYNONYM and CRIMEA. FIRM was FOI. 12:16. Thanks Jalna and Cedric.
Great anagram for DRIVING SEAT. Biffed ECHO as couldn’t see where -CHO fitted in. Clever misdirection for RADIAL. Thanks Jalna and Cedric.
I started off well and then slowed after the first lap. Some of the clues took a lot of thinking, scribbling and placing random vowels where I thought they might belong to see if a word would jump out at me.
I have never heard of pollination referring to surveying a group of people. I kept wanting to puts ANTS into the work for workers.
Like others I too kept thinking along the lines of a homophone for “on phone” in RADIAL.
A very enjoyable crossword before work.
First Lap: 12
Answered (no help): 21
Answered (with help): 3
Time: 39:04
6:52
Biffed quite a few this morning without stopping to admire the beauty until post-solve – HIGH PITCHED, CREVASSE, VINAIGRETTE, DRIVING SEAT, FLIPPING. Liked RADIAL for its clever misdirection.
Thanks Cedric for the usual informative blog, and to Jalna for the puzzle
I certainly didn’t find this as straightforward as Cedric suggests, drawing an initial blank with 1ac/d, before starting with Crevasse and Impeded. A sluggish solve thereafter, with the Crimea/Synonym pair ensuring another visit to the (ever welcoming) SCC.
I am however grateful to Cedric for the parsing of a couple that eluded me – Echo and Hugh Pitched – and in return observe that ‘the arrangement/position of the flowers was just perfect’
CoD to Nitwit for the smile. Invariant
PS I don’t think any American sports are allowed to end in a draw ? Hence their inability to understand why a 5 day Test can often still end in a draw.
NFL regular season games end in a tie if the teams are still level after a period of overtime.
The MLS also has draws. Think the old NASL didn’t.
Oh, of course, RADIAL, but DNF, also missed THIN.
Struggled with POLLINATION but finally the penny dropped.
And had to look up peninsulas – Crime, doh.
Enjoyed the puzzle all the same. In haste. Thanks vm, Cedric. CNP several. COD FLIPPING.
Nice chewy QC for a Saturday morning with some first class clues taking about 30m to finish.
I needed Cedric’s blog to explain the parsing on some e.g. ECHO and HIGH PITCHED.
COD RADIAL followed by MANDARIN.
Thank you both.
Tricky but lots to like. Couldn’t parse HIGH-PITCHED but this now gets COD. Slow to solve CRIMEA, and to spot that DRIVING SEAT was an anagram. Totally misdirected by POLLINATION and the excellent RADIAL. Great puzzle and thanks for the blog Cedric.
Hope you were shriven of your sins approx 40 days ago on Shrove Tuesday. Happy Easter to all.
And to you
I was slow on this one and it wasn’t really to my taste.
DNF. Gave in after 40 mins with Pollination, Crimea and Synonym outstanding. Nothing wrong with the puzzle, juat a slow day for me when my head was not geared up for this one.
FOI Firm
LOI DNF
COD Nitwit
thanks Jalna and CS
A good puzzle on which we were a slow 16:21 overall with the NE corner doing all the damage. ECHO, NINTH, CRIMEA and SYNONYM fell slowly in that order. The irony with the latter was that I thought early on that it didn’t seem to be a very good clue because the two parts meant the same thing. Thanks, Cedric and Jalna.
Yes, most ironic. I even said to Mrs R that I was struggling to find a SYNONYM for those two words. She just smiled and suggested I keep trying.
Just two to get with 16-17 minutes on the clock, so an SCC away-day was there for the taking. But reality then intervened and it took a further 11 minutes before I fell over the line. SYNONYM and CRIMEA were the culprits. Such extended breeze-blocks are commonplace for me, but a sub-20 would have been really nice after one of the toughest weeks in recent times.
4 hrs 36 mins (incl. 2 DNFs) for the week.
The first four Across clues (FIRM, CREVASSE, IMPEDED and NINTH) all went in quickly, but a slight drop off in speed meant a PB was never really on the cards. Still, I enjoyed the challenge and, despite my travails at the end, it was definitely a QC.
Many thanks to Cedric and Jalna.
Repeat after me “I will think laterally, I will not get hung up on possibly false assumptions “. This took me much longer than it probably should have ( I blame a disturbed night). Hit a bit of a wall with about six left, and couldn’t complain about any of them when I eventually twigged. Convinced myself there were ten innings in baseball, causing something of a holdup ( despite having watched several games back in the day). Fell into the trap of assuming the obvious meaning of spoke. I could go on. Liked the neatness of SYNONYM ( though surely must have been used before – like many short clues I suppose ?).
Perfectly fair puzzle- my sloth is my problem. Thanks to setter and blogger.
8.44 I thought of FLIPPING early on but it took me a long while to realise it was correct. Finished with FIRM. Thanks Cedric and Jalna.
Ooooo Jalna got me today (19:21). DRIVING SEAT, ECHO, FLIPPING my difficult ones. I didn’t see the anagram indicator for DRIVING SEAT, and I was left scratching my head for a long time, as it’s not in my dialect (“driver’s seat”). Forgot ECHO was in the alphabet. And obviously FLIPPING not in my dialect either, nor have I been at a pancake dinner for many decades, if ever. Liked RADIAL, very clever misleading clue, it took eons (I parsed it as Kevin did). MANDARIN a gift to us Yanks, as was NINTH, thank you. HIGH PITCHED very cute. But COD SYNONYM.
Thanks to Jalna and Cedric. Surely you jest about cricket v. baseball. Archaeologists, rituals, very funny.
13:28, which is slightly under my average, but it felt pretty stretching at the time. Advertising / driving seat sounds like it might be a chestnut, but if so it’s new to me and I found it very pleasing. Couldn’t parse ECHO or (for some reason) NITWIT. I was also unaware that CREVASSE applies particularly to glaciers, so that was interesting.
Thank you for the blog!
13:59 for the solve. Last couple of mins unravelling VINAIGRETTE and then double-checking the vowel placements with a further 2mins before that on others in the NE.
Some great clues in there – MANDARIN, the DRIVING-SEAT/advertising, NINTH, POLLINATION among others.
Thanks to Cedric and Jalna
Not sure this has been spelled out clearly:
The clue for SYNONYM is an &lit, a definition by example.
“Illustration” is a SYNONYM for “example.”