Time taken 7:07, but I’m not sure I would file this immediately under not-so-tricky Thursday just yet.
I raced through this but I saw many of the cryptic devices quickly, and there’s some quirky phrases here, as well as one proper noun clued as an anagram which might be difficult for those unfamiliar with her work (which was extremely popular in Australia in the 70s, but I am not sure if it travelled the globe).
How did you get along?
| Across | |
| 1 | Pelt spy’s family (8) |
| MOLESKIN – MOLE’S(spy’s), KIN(family) | |
| 6 | Tone of medic gripped by fatigue (6) |
| TIMBRE – MB(medic) inside TIRE(fatigue) | |
| 9 | State of the art, but periodically returned (4) |
| UTAH – reversed in alternating letters of tHe ArT bUt, your daily dose of Americana | |
| 10 | Keen on writer after kiss, empty talk and booze? (10) |
| INTOXICANT – INTO (keen on), then I(writer) after X(kiss), followed by CANT(empty talk) | |
| 11 | Tiny blonde novel writer (4,6) |
| ENID BLYTON – anagram of TINY,BLONDE. I think young me had read about 80% of her output by 1977. How well known is she today? | |
| 13 | Part of speech, touchingly genuine (4) |
| ECHT – hidden inside speECH Touchingly | |
| 14 | Study plants wild bison eat (8) |
| BOTANISE – anagram of BISON EAT | |
| 16 | Large numbers leaving northern border in chaos (6) |
| MAYHEM – MANY(large numbers) minus N(northern) then HEM(border) | |
| 18 | Part of flower cultivated in tin (6) |
| STAMEN – TAME(cultivated) inside SN(tin) | |
| 20 | Secure tax cut (8) |
| LACERATE – LACE(secure), RATE(tax) | |
| 22 | Small sweet potato (4) |
| SPUD – S(small), PUD(sweet, dessert) | |
| 24 | Laughing king replaces leader in prominence (10) |
| RISIBILITY – R(king) replacing the first letter in VISIBILITY(prominence) | |
| 26 | Storyteller dictates first couple of notes in the wrong order (10) |
| ANECDOTIST – anagram of DICTATES and the first two letters of NOtes | |
| 28 | The very thing children desire (4) |
| ITCH – IT(the very thing), CH(children) | |
| 29 | Quip from toff about half-cut parent (3,3) |
| BON MOT – NOB(toff) reversed, then half of MOTHER(parent) | |
| 30 | Handles twinkling new president with extremes of resourcefulness (8) |
| MONIKERS – MO(moment, twinkling), N(new), IKE(president Eisenhower) and the external letters of ResourcefulnesS. Your second daily dose of Americana. | |
| Down | |
| 2 | Complete dosser’s no longer burning for drink (3-3-3) |
| OUT-AND-OUT – DOWN-AND-OUT(dosser) with OUT(no longer burning) replacing DOWN(drink) | |
| 3 | Monster cycling over tail of stricken American animal (7) |
| ECHIDNA – CHIDE(monster, subject to criticism) cycling, then the last letter of strickeN, A(American) | |
| 4 | School meal? (5) |
| KRILL – cryptic definition based on a school of fish | |
| 5 | Cuckoo egg (3) |
| NIT – double definition | |
| 6 | Male holding nerve, partly in charge of systematising classes (9) |
| TAXONOMIC – TOM(male) containing AXON(part of a nerve cell) then IC(in charge) | |
| 7 | One’s arresting oafish Aussie for contempt (7) |
| MOCKERY – MY(one’s) containing OCKER(oafish Aussie) | |
| 8 | Continued with chapter in Animal Farm (5) |
| RANCH – RAN(continued) and CH(chapter) | |
| 12 | Tell sir about climbing frame (7) |
| TRELLIS – anagram of TELL,SIR | |
| 15 | Dreadful monster, in private (9) |
| INNERMOST – anagram of MONSTER,IN | |
| 17 | All one’s possessions on credit, including a vehicle (6,3) |
| ESTATE CAR – ESTATE(all one’s possessions) then CR(credit) containing A | |
| 19 | Whit Monday’s beginning with Charlie in disgrace (7) |
| MODICUM – first letter of Monday, then C(Charlie) inside ODIUM(disgrace) | |
| 21 | Left with speed after right old romp (7) |
| ROLLICK – L(left) and LICK(speed) after R(right) and O(old) | |
| 23 | Floor covered with rubbish and crumbs (5) |
| PANKO – KO(floor, knockout) under PAN(rubbish). Japanese breadcrumbs | |
| 25 | Airline with 100 staff (5) |
| BATON – BA(airline), and TON(100) | |
| 27 | One starts to study Monroe Doctrine (3) |
| ISM – I(one) and the first letters of Study Monroe. Your third daily dose of Americana. | |
10:43, but as George suggests it felt a bit harder than that.
Didn’t know one could BOTANISE so I needed the checkers to confirm the last few letters.
Oafish Aussie? No such thing, surely 😉.
Thanks setter and George.
Around 60 minutes. Probably just below average in relation to hardness since I was able to parse all but one at the time. The Australian National dictionary, the Macquarie gives
ocker
/ˈɒkə/ (say ‘okuh) Colloquial
–noun 1. the archetypal uncultivated Australian.
2. a boorish, uncouth, chauvinistic Australian.
–adjective 3. of or relating to an ocker.
4. distinctively Australian: an ocker sense of humour.
Thanks G.
So, no such thing as bondskin then! Soon put right when I remembered mole/spy. Makes an appearance often enough so I should have seen it sooner. ESTATE CAR making its umpteenth appearance in the last few weeks. Always thought it was anecdotalist. Tricky wordplay in 1d, out-and-out, thanks for the parsing George, had the answer but didn’t get the ‘down’. Liked SPUD for small sweet. NHO BOTANISE but it makes sense. COD to INTOXICANT.
Thanks George.
I did this in just over 20 mins which is fast for me. I don’t remember any holdups until ANECDOTIST (my LOI) since even with the checkers I’m not good at long anagrams. Oh, and putting ECHINDA instead of ECHIDNA and taking too long to notice I’d mistyped.
I always do that too, so I just waited for the crossing letters.
30 minutes. I missed the parsing of ECHIDNA as I don’t think I’d ever have equated ‘monster’ with ‘CHIDE’. Didn’t know AXON which can also be spelt ‘axone’ apparently. NHO PANKO, making its first appearance here today.
How lovely to see Enid Blyton is not forgotten.
Happily I used PANKO in a recipe a couple of weeks back. Also no problem with Enid Blyton; I saw recently that there’s a newish adaptation of the Famous Five for the BBC made by Nicholas Winding Refn, which for me was a bit like finding out that Martin Scorsese had directed a series of Peppa Pig, but no doubt put the Blyton name back into the British consciousness at least. Must give it a watch at some point.
32 minutes all told, all parsed, even if I wasn’t sure about CHIDE.
There was a series of three episodes shown in 2023 and a fourth went out last Christmas. A fifth is still in production, I believe. I watched the first batch but didn’t feel they caught the mood of the time so I decided not bother with the later one. I always preferred her stand-alone novels anyway, and Noddy of course when I was a toddler.
I didn’t manage to parse ECHIDNA, and am only satisfied when I find in Chambers the relevant verb sense of “monster.”
Thanks to Jack for confirming that PANKO has never been served here before.
LOI ROLLICK. Rollickin’ good time.
But the clash of “Laughing,” which can be a noun, sure, as a gerund, with RISIBILITY, which isn’t a gerund, gave me pause (would seem to need something like… “laughingness”).
9.09, glad the cuckoo wasn’t a NUT (it’s not an egg, of course, but could be somewhere in crosswordland…).
I read lots of Enid Blyton as a child in the 90s, but I doubt the next generation will. ‘Monster’ feels very different to ‘chide’ in strength.
Thanks both.
You may be surprised. Last I heard, Enid is still fighting it out with JK Rowling for top global sales total..
Gosh, that does surprise me! Not due to the content (which I’m sure has been appropriately updated), just the style.
17.55 with only one misstep (NUT instead of NIT). The usual 20/80 rule – 20% of the clues taking 80% of the time, with ECHIDNA and ANECDOTIST the trickiest.
50 mins but at least finished. LOI KRILL, quite clever really.
ECHIDNA & OUT-AND-OUT were unparsed so ta to our blogger for that.
I agree it’s nice to see ENID BLYTON, I was an avid reader back in the day.
Thanks g and setter.
34 minutes with LOI the unknown PANKO. I hadn’t realised that an OCKER has to be OAFISH and that Galspray was an exception to the rule. “Clickety click, clickety click, we’re on our holidays, the train wheels seemed to say.” (John Lennon’s parody of Enid Blyton went something like that.) COD to MONIKERS. Decent puzzle. Thank you George and setter,
20:46
PANKO and AXON were both unknown so relied on the wordplay, and there were a few which I didn’t parse so the blog was definitely needed today.
I can’t remember being bogged down at any point so I’d count this as a steady if not speedy solve.
Also, my snitch shows that I successfully solved Tuesday’s crossword, but I had a couple of typos if memory serves. Is this because I put my time in this blog, albeit with an * next to it?
Thanks to both.
Having an awful week of it. 47 mins with pinks in LOCKRATE and LOCK was the part of that I was most confident of.
PANKO and ANECDOTIST both unknown and unparsed and needed a prod from Mrs rv to get to the easy BATON.
The fact that I’m still comfortably still on the leaderboard after all that would suggest that this is decidedly tricky.
COD to BOTANISE which reminds me of Matt Damon in The Martian though just checked and its not the quote I was thinking of.
Thanks both
A high failure rate revealed by the stats. I wonder how many had “nut” at 5D? I enjoyed the puzzle, though I have George to thank for the parsing of ECHIDNA (two monsters in the clues for same non-thematic puzzle seemed unusual).
FOI MOLESKIN
LOI ANECDOTIST
COD KRILL
TIME 10:40
About 15 minutes, but not all understood by any means.
– Never come across BOTANISE as a verb before
– Same question as Guy above about RISIBILITY for ‘laughing’
– Had no idea how OUT-AND-OUT worked
– Ditto for ECHIDNA, and like Jack above I wouldn’t equate ‘chide’ with ‘monster’
– TAXONOMIC was only partially understood as I didn’t know axon
– Vaguely remembered ocker from a previous crossword for MOCKERY
Thanks glh and setter.
FOI Moleskin
LOI Anecdotist
COD Innermost
At just over 11 minutes, I’ll happily file this as “not-so-tricky Thursday”, though being under time pressure I rather bullied my way through it and ignored the fact that it’s difficult to reconcile RISIBILITY with laughing. Mallory Towers was my Blyton. Zut alors! Tiens!
25 mins.
Not keen on derogatory language in 2dn. Otherwise, an okay puzzle, I guess.
Thanks, g.
20 minutes. Not too difficult though ECHIDNA and OUT-AND-OUT not parsed properly. Didn’t know (and am not too fond of) BOTANISE as a word. I liked the crossing ROLLICK and MONIKERS.
Thought this was going to be a good one with 1a straight in for that wonderful feeling. But oh no, I’m a NIT and put NUT instead for a DNF. I was a bit slow with this one but I don’t think I was at my best today. There were a lot of “of course” moments when they did go in. I was even having to think back to primary school as STAMEN was on the tip of my tongue but just wasn’t coming out. BATON as well took an age and eventually solved the hard way by running through B&C words when bacon popped in my head which allowed the penny to drop. It was an inset day yesterday so I may have been a bit tired this morning.
A couple were only half parsed (although fully confident on them) so thanks for the blog.
Nice to know that someone can BOTANISE. I might start using that in everyday speech with the gardening season coming.
From MOLESKIN to INTOXICANT. COD: ESTATE CAR
I had to do this over a few sessions and found it way, way harder than everyone else. No time but I’d guess an hour for sure, maybe longer, and I was gratified just to get it done. It all looks so easy now but some of the WP elements in clues like ECHIDNA and TAXONOMIC were right out there (I biffed both). God knows when anyone last used the term ocker, it was big in the 70s. Happy to see the little ocker anteater waddling through the grid.
From Sign on the Window:
Build me a cabin in UTAH
Marry me a wife, catch rainbow trout
Have a bunch of kids who call me Pa
That must be what it’s all about
You are not alone. When you seem to be at odds with everybody else, it can be unnerving, like suddenly wondering whether you have turned stupid overnight! I thought this was a fiend, didn’t understand 4 of them and ended up with one wrong anyway!
More often than not it’s just a poor crossword.
You needn’t be beating yourself up.
40 mins. Like others, unimpressed by RISIBILITY = ‘laughing’. Didn’t parse ECHIDNA, so thanks for that.
Secret Seven and Famous Five were my Blytons. I re-read a dusty old Famous Five book with my children last year and it’s safe to say that it probably wouldn’t pass through today’s Woke sensors. There was one line where Julian is leading the gang on a walk through the fields and they come across a farm labourer.
‘Morning, peasant!’ said Julien, merrily.
I wouldn’t say this was easy, although there were some easy ones. It took me quite a while.
29a Bon mot. I thought the on was “about” leaving only B for a toff, so I was foxed. Nob makes sense, thanks glh.
2d Out-and-out. It had to be but I couldn’t parse it.
3d Echidna, couldn’t see chide=monster but shrugged.
4d Krill. I was reluctant to put this in. I would have said a school of whales would need krill rather than fish in general. But we weren’t given pod, gam or a whale specific word, so obv not. Oh well, not a great clue IMHO, and surprised it is anyone’s COD. It takes all kinds.
DNF. NHO 23d Panko. I put pinko as panko wasn’t in Cheating Machine. So DNF even with CM.
Thanks to setter and blogger.
14.08 which I thought was pretty reasonable till I saw glh’s score. On the wavelength though I was puzzled by echidna which is an Australian mammal, not American. LOI anecdotist which is ironic as I am now well into my anecdotage ( apologies to Peter Ustinov).
Just read the setter’s blog about echidna. Seems I was too literal.
9:51 but with a stupid error. My initial thought was NUT, but then I thought ‘that’s not an egg, it must be NIT’ and then wrote in NUT anyway. 🙄
No unknowns for me today. I knew of Enid Blyton of course but never read any. When I was a kid the rather, er, outdated attitudes were already considered beyond the pale.
23.09 without my usual typo, a couple unparsed.
21 – couldn’t parse ECHIDNA and wasn’t sure about MOLESKIN as a pelt rather than a cotton cloth but of course it is both.
Moleskin was my FOI, and earned a MER – if you look up moleskin, it’s either a cloth, or a kind of paper. So I was expecting trouble, and I wasnt’ wrong. The clue for echidna is quite far-fetched, and since I can never spell it, I didn’t biff it until the end. I thought I NHO panko, but it did ring some sort of vague bell. Had trouble remembering ocker, and krill was definitely off the beaten path. But finished and all correct – nit is obvious!
Time: 38:31
Collins says ‘the dark grey dense velvety pelt of a mole, used as a fur’.
I think children do still read Enid Blyton nowadays. Some of it is cringingly un-woke, but that doesn’t bother children. In my teaching days I came across people who could ‘only’ read Enid Blyton and I suspect that is still true of some. My namesake Arthur Ransome despised her, but perhaps he saw her as competition.
Several tricky answers here in my 50 minutes, with some aids. Ocker’s true meaning was unknown, as was chide’s, and I nho PANKO. KRILL defeated me — I thought it was a DD — and the parsing of OUT-AND-OUT did too.
I believe the books have been updated to remove the racism and assorted other bigotries.
Something about this crossword irritated me, not sure what. Maybe it was clued by an ocker.
I now see I accidentally failed to solve panko, nho anyway.
Monster definitely does not equal chide, in my world at least. There is a difference of scale as well as of meaning. No need to bother telling me what Mr Chambers/Collins says, unless you want to be monstered.
What word should I use, I wonder, for Aussies who are not “oafish?”
Fabulous stuff!
But you need to be careful of questioning the merits of Chambers/Collins/ [insert dictionary] on here. You might be accused of cruciverbalist blasphemy.
We are all bonza blokes Jerry mate!
Australians.
Our word for oaf is bogan.
The echidna is named for a mythical monster so I biffed it. Chide in that sense beyond my ken.
From —-SKIN (MOLE came somewhat later) to ANECDOTIST in 30:55. KRILL was a very late entry after a large clanging noise. Eyebrows twitched at BOTANISE and RISIBILITY. PANKO was unknown. Liked MONIKERS. Took a while to substitute LACE for LOCK. Thanks setter and George.
29:02
Fairly smooth solve with a few unknowns/unremembered in AXON and OCKER. I liked MONIKERS.
Given the updating and revision which must have taken place for a considerable amount of ENID BLYTON’s output (Famous Five and Secret Seven well recalled), one wonders how much of The Three Gilliwigs (vowels changed to protect the innocent – a book about three naughty fellows (infer for yourself whether there was any stereotyping going on here)) required updating….
Thanks George and setter
I thought of ECHIDNA but ended up with ENHYDRA instead. Luckily it didn’t do any harm.
DNF as I hit my 30-min limit with a couple of blanks, but enjoyed it nonetheless. I got ECHIDNA, but would never have equated CHIDE with monster – I don’t recall seeing the latter as a verb, ever!
Nice puzzle, thanks setter and G.
Much better than yesterday thankfully.
All parsed as I was going along, which is rare, DNK BOTANISE, LACERATE LOI.
16:06
25 mins held up by ROLLOCK which didn’t help with what eventually turned out to be ITCH. Also held up by NHO PANKO (which I needed for the ANECDOTIST anagram) and OCKER, although MOCKERY couldn’t be anything else.
For various reasons I needed to set up a shiny new account today so I was looking forward to starting out with a clean stats sheet and making a special effort to put silly mistakes behind me. I think we can all guess where this is going…
Not only did I manage a stupid typo (I think because I usually have it set not to skip letters already in the grid) but I went for NUT instead for NIT too. I was pretty sure “egg” was a valid synonym for “head” but I see Chambers is not convinced. Ah well.
(Enjoyed the rest. Finished in 12:51. Didn’t/couldn’t parse ECHIDNA.)
I thought likewise for NUT but fortunately went with NIT.
36 mins. Couldn’t parse ECHIDNA but bunged it in. I tend to have problems with any clue that includes the word ‘cycling’, which seems to be a newish convention!
A ridiculous amount of time spent on this ‘not-on-the-wavelength’ puzzle, only to find my assumed, and puzzling ANACRONIST (changed from ANACRONISM when BATON finally appeared) was incorrect. ANECDOTIST, what a dreadful word! Had forgotten ocker and NHO BOTANISE. A disappointing day…
Straightforward and pretty much a top to bottom solve for me today, which is a rarity indeed. RISIBILITY was my LOI and it couldn’t be anything else by the time I got there, so the looseness of the definition which has raised an eyebrow or two among contributors here occasioned less than a shrug from me. 21 mins including a moment or three wondering how ‘spy’ could possibly yield ‘fore’ before electing for the far more likely and distinctly less Guardianesque correct solution.
25.48, but the blog was needed for some of the parsings and my overall feeling was ‘meh’.
Raced through this till about the last five clues, and then slowed to a near halt. No pen and paper, so ANECDOTIST took an age. As then did PANKO, which I had to guess. PATIO got stuck in my brain, which complicated matters. Agree about RISIBILITY. I once had a pair of MOLESKIN trousers, but they weren’t really moleskin, just a bit velvety. Attracted the dirt, I ended up thinking, and threw them out. A disappointing 24’39”.
DNF as had about 2/3s done at 40mins but succumbed to the Reveal button as no idea about KRILL, TAXONOMIC, RISIBILITY and a Check to get to ANECDOTIST to finish in about 50mins. Need the blog to understand MO=twinkling and PANKO (NHO). Once again the step up from the QC highlighted by it containing stuff I don’t know rather than being unparseable in general – saw ECHT a few weeks back had forgotten it until MOCKERY went in. Never seen that come up in QC and not sure I want to. I will have to persist with these more frequently.
Well done for persisting! Developing the confidence to construct unknown words and say “Well the wordplay works, and I suppose this could be a plant/whatever” is a part of most 15×15 solvers’ armouries, I think.
Thanks Amoeba – for me that it’s not so much an issue with “trust the wordplay”; it’s not knowing the wordplay e.g. floor=ko, twinkling=mo. The 15×15 just seems to contains another level of regular vocab that the QC never brings into play. And I don’t necessarily want it to – I’m happy to learn that here and maintain my confidence by having lots of success at the QC.
I couldn’t finish this in one sitting (but the missing MOLESKIN, ECHIDNA and KRILL took about 5 minutes to complete when I came back). The consequence was that I didn’t rethink ECHO for 13ac (and didn’t see the hidden ECHT, which it seems to me is actually a German word — did it cross the Channel on a tiny, overcrowded, leaking boat?). So a DNF, despite having surmounted all of the real difficulties, like Australian slang or the rather oblique definition for KRILL. Not quite sure what to think of this puzzle.