The first puzzle I had printed was a Saturday Jumbo in the then London Evening News. I think it was harder than this offering. Even on blogging day I raced through in well under 15 minutes. Rather than look for clue of the day I suggest we nominate simplest of the day for which I offer 20A.
Across |
1 |
FLYCATCHER – FLY-CATCHER; a bird; |
6 |
GASP – G(AS)P; yawn would be more appropriate; |
10 |
JEANS – JEAN’S; |
11 |
REPROBATE – RE-PROBATE; |
12 |
ARMCHAIR,CRITIC – weak cryptic definition; |
14 |
COUPLET – C(O)UPLET; O from O(vid); |
15 |
ROSEATE – RO(SEAT)E; the roseate tern is a bird; |
17 |
ORDERLY – and another weak cryptic definition; |
19 |
PROSAIC – PRO-S(A)IC; |
20 |
PINS,AND,NEEDLES – could this have been any easier? |
23 |
INVENTIVE – IN-VENT-I’VE; what this puzzle isn’t; |
24 |
NEEDY – NE(E-D)Y; |
25 |
ELLA – EL-LA; |
26 |
CHESTERTON – (nother sect)*; |
|
Down |
1 |
FIJI – IF reversed-J-I; |
2 |
YEAR-ROUND – YE-(A-R)-ROUND; |
3 |
ALSACE,LORRAINE – AL’S-ACE-LORRAINE; we even have AL=gangster from the chestnut cupboard; |
4 |
CURRANT – sounds like “current”; |
5 |
EMPEROR – RO(REP)ME reversed; reminds me, Henry VIII’s coronation was today in 1509; |
7 |
ADAPT – AD-APT; |
8 |
PRESCIENCE – PRES(C-I)ENCE; |
9 |
CORRESPONDENCE – two obvious meanings; |
13 |
ACCOMPLICE – ALICE surrounds (CC-O-MP); |
16 |
ABASEMENT – A-BASE-MEN-T; |
18 |
YIDDISH – DIY reversed-DISH; Oy Vey! |
19 |
PEEPERS – Jeepers Creepers; |
21 |
NAVAL – sounds like “navel”; |
22 |
CYAN – hidden (fan)CY-A-N(ice); |
I’ll try it out on my young apprentice, see what she makes of it.
Tying in with yesterday’s discussion on girls’ names, I’d give SOD to ELLA.
Will try harder tomorrow.
Thanks to Jack for posting the Quick. Much nicer format than the standard online site. Someone at the Times really ought to look at the Groan’s print versions. Always grey; always fit on one page.
I found the ROSEATE / ABASEMENT pair distinctly tricky.
At 16 minutes with all completed bar 19dn I thought I was headed for a PB but then I came unstuck. Firstly I had to rethink i.e. fully parse, 23ac where I had INVENTION and having corrected that I plumped for PEEWEES at 19dn with some uncertainty. Justifiably as things turned out after reading Jim’s correct answer. Having said that I’m not sure I ever associated ‘peep’ with the sound of a bird, only ‘cheep’. Apparently ‘peeper’ actually was a proper word for a small chicken or pigeon.
Edited at 2014-06-24 06:49 am (UTC)
UNESCO has made it quite clear that if the wind-farm is built off the Dorset coast then its world heritage status will be removed. UNESCO has done this elsewhere for similar reasons and there is no reason to believe that they are anything but serious.
The massive cutting that will carry cables from landfall at Barton to the Grid will be a huge scar on our landscape. It will house 18 cables in 6 parallel trenches. It will generate its own electro-magnetic field around itself.
Thousands of trees will be felled and no trees can be replanted on the cutting. The cables will go through, over or under: 4 International Conservation Sites (ICS); 6 Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI); The New Forest National Park; the rivers Avon and Moors; local roads and footpaths.
Edited at 2014-06-24 09:50 am (UTC)
So welcome aboard and remember that being able to make any sort of headway with this crossword elevates you above most mere mortals!
9 dn was my LOI and YIDDISH my COD a no- brainer for anyone who knows either my ancestry or my football allegiance.
My father spoke fluent Yiddish along with Hungarian, Slovak, Hebrew, German and English. Comes from being born in Eperes in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1902 and waking up one morning in 1919 to find that you now lived in Presov, in Slovakia without any recourse to removal vans!
So it’s smart aleckism on both sides of the family…-:)
I’m not sure if I knew that terns can be ROSEATE or not. It rings a vague bell.
On another subject – does anyone actually know what is expected to happen with the crosswords and/or the Club after June 30th? From time to time here and on the Forum I see references to some sort of major upheaval coming down the pike, but nothing definite. If the weekly travails of the Quickie are anything to go by things look anything but “roseate”.
>On another subject – does anyone actually know what is expected
>to happen with the crosswords and/or the Club after June 30th?
As I understand it, Olivia, this is when those who are not renewing their subscriptions are finally going to be locked out. I’ve probably benefitted from this more than most, as my subscription theoretically expired on 2 July last year. Since then, I’ve resisted any attempts to persuade me to log in, in case failure would somehow mark my card (I didn’t feel the Quick Cryptic was worth the risk). However, I expect it’ll be forced on me next Tuesday, when (if my hunch is right) they plan to switch over to new software which includes that currently used for the Quick Cryptic. Past experience suggests that I’ll be well out of it.
My experience this morning was similar to Jack’s in that I rattled through it until my last two, 13 and 14, then had a fixation that 14 was an unknown type of boat, a SQUALOT.
Assuming I’ve parsed the clue correctly, “deficient” doesn’t seem to me a very good anagram indicator in 26; wouldn’t it have been better to miss out “not”?
“From” could have then indicated the anagram of “another sect”, deficient in “a”.
“Canny” (in the clue to 1 across) is one of those words I have to be careful with: as you move round the country, it changes meaning from “tight with money” to “decent and good-hearted” to “astute” to “artful and possibly devious”.
Anyway, I’m off to paddle down river in my squalot.
Edited at 2014-06-24 12:26 pm (UTC)
informal, humorous Following and emphatically negating a statement: ‘that sounds like quality entertainment—not’
[late 19th century: popularized by the film Wayne’s World (1992)]
Which I think is totally excellent.
Difficult to single out the easiest clue. I’d say any of the following would be candidates: 6, 10,24 (unless NEY doesn’t immediately spring to mind) 1, 2,7.
Now back to the one cryptic I am struggling with today (and no I am not going to admit which one!)
The Sun?
I too thought it very easy, apart from the two clues mentioned, which were strangely difficult by comparison.
Still fun though, and this has enabled me to be very proud of my solving time. On this one occasion.
Cheers all,
Chris G.
Having extra time, I did the (second) Third Qualifier, which was also rather easy. Anyone who qualifies that way is going to be in for a shock.
I spent more time looking up matryoshka and Grimm’s law than doing the puzzle. Matryoshka turns out to be a word I didn’t know for an object I’m familiar with, and as for Grimm’s law… well, I’ve heard the name Grimm and I know what a law is, but having read the Wiki entry I still have no idea what Grimm’s law is.
peeper
noun
A young bird
Having said that I find the idea that one would need dictionary support for the notion that ‘peep’ sounds like a young bird utterly absurd!
Dr. Ing. Roberto Molino
I’ve almost certainly said this before, but there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the occasional easy crossword. I know we now have the Quick Cryptic, but there’s no harm in encouraging those who are in the process of graduating to the real thing. We were all beginners once.
I could not for the life of me see “COUPLET” (and didn’t at that stage have ACCOMPLICE). I was convinced that the “lines Ovid originally” was LLO, and that I was looking for a “vessel”. Got there eventually, though. Was going to kick myself, but decided to take it out on the customers instead.
Regarding Bigtone’s comment on doctors disagreeing – it’s part of the NHS’s emphasis on Patient Choice*. Plus, if two doctors agree then at least one of them is redundant.
(*this is actually medical shorthand for “be patient; you’ve got no choice.”)
Talking of which, I have a Navajo friend in Arizona who has just discovered (at rather a significant moment) that his Native American healthcare plan pays for diagnosis of anything but treatment of nothing. Possibly the definition of worse than useless.
I agree with most of the above, but can’t give 20 the easy pass- where I came from being on PINS AND NEEDLES meant being antsy, so it took some crossers to fall into place
FOI – Fiji; LOI – Abasement
Martin Hill