Another pleasant but gentle Wednesday, which seems to be the new Monday of late. It took me less than 15 minutes and was easy to parse, I spent more time reading up the origin of gunk.
Definitions underlined in bold, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, anagrinds in italics, DD = double definition, [deleted letters in square brackets].
| Across | |
| 1 | Poignancy, though in former times, mostly (6) |
| PATHOS – THO’ inside PAS[t]. | |
| 5 | Count rat in a way to be this? (8) |
| TURNCOAT – (COUNT RAT)*. | |
| 9 | Renegade with an attitude about tattoo (8) |
| APOSTATE – A POSE about TAT[too]. | |
| 10 | Claim everything for instance European (6) |
| ALLEGE – ALL, E.G., E[uropean]. | |
| 11 | Is any train running in an unclean state? (10) |
| INSANITARY – (IS ANY TRAIN)*. | |
| 13 | Essential part of analysing unknown sticky substance (4) |
| GUNK – hidden as above. I looked up the origin of the word, to find several options; An American sticky soap brand in the 1930s, the Irish gunc for snot, the Welsh cawnc for filth, Scottish gunk for slop; take your pick. It’s now a brand of engine de-greaser solvent sold on Amazon. | |
| 14 | Weak eddying causing water turbulence (4) |
| WAKE – (WEAK)*. A weak clue? | |
| 15 | Wonderful friend guarding female round soldiers (10) |
| PHENOMENAL – PAL has HEN, O, MEN (female, round, soldiers) inserted. | |
| 18 | With some chance of restoration theatre being OK to broadcast (10) |
| REPAIRABLE – REP (theatre), AIRABLE (OK to broadcast). | |
| 20 | Son in company of soldiers is intimate and relaxed (4) |
| COSY – COY (abbr. for company) with S inserted. | |
| 21 | Let It Be and Time included in sequence of songs (4) |
| STET – T inside SET, a sequence of songs. | |
| 23 | Trainee’s job in winter stripped navy vessel (10) |
| INTERNSHIP – [w]INTE[r], RN (navy), SHIP (vessel). | |
| 25 | Brand horse queen’s breaking in (6) |
| MARQUE – MARE with QU inserted. | |
| 26 | Mistake in recording tailless reptile (8) |
| TERRAPIN – ERR inside TAPIN[g]. Another chance for me to ask when TAPING will be ‘archaic’ for recording! | |
| 28 | Developer of fashionable IOW resort, name forgotten (8) |
| INVENTOR – IN (fashionable) VENTNOR (in Isle of Wight, I’ve been there and I shan’t be returning), lose the N for name. | |
| 29 | Called to enter grand English country house (6) |
| GRANGE – RANG inside G[rand] E[nglish]. | |
| Down | |
| 2 | Write note in a single sheet attachment (9) |
| APPENDAGE – PEN, D (a note), inside A PAGE. | |
| 3 | Captive deer trapped in weed (7) |
| HOSTAGE – STAG inside HOE = weed. | |
| 4 | What’s leading summer each year? Spring (3) |
| SPA – S[ummer], P.A. = each year, per annum. | |
| 5 | Character in Iliad who volunteered to serve (5) |
| THETA – THE T.A. were volunteers. | |
| 6 | Answer lies in handy loom needing no fittings (5-2-4) |
| READY-TO-WEAR – READY = handy, TOWER = loom, insert A for answer. Tower as in “to tower over something” I think. | |
| 7 | Blimp perhaps endlessly circling good German city (7) |
| COLOGNE – G inside COLONE[l], as in Colonel Blimp. | |
| 8 | This is noble, the third exiled from ancient Spanish kingdom (5) |
| ARGON – ARAGON loses its third letter to give a noble gas. | |
| 12 | Cheeky rascal reconfigured internet (11) |
| IMPERTINENT – IMP = rascal, (INTERNET)*. | |
| 16 | Go out — be coming back holding key? (3) |
| EBB – BE reversed with the key of B inserted. | |
| 17 | Muscles suffering, reportedly letting oneself down (9) |
| ABSEILING – sounds like “ABS AILING”. | |
| 19 | Quite a hit introducing new museum piece (7) |
| ANTIQUE – N inserted into (QUITE A)*. | |
| 20 | Starch fool’s put in sparkling wine (7) |
| CASSAVA – ASS inside CAVA. A starchy root vegetable. | |
| 22 | Author with a popular following beginning to tire (5) |
| TWAIN – T[ire], W[ith], A, IN = popular. | |
| 24 | Teacher’s to show disapproval over unclothed form (5) |
| TUTOR – TUT ! = show disapproval, [f]OR[m]. | |
| 27 | Capital not all needed for equipment (3) |
| RIG – RIG[a], as in Latvia. | |
I avoided the pitfalls and completed in two straight passes.
I holidayed just outside Ventnor twice in the 1970’s. Lovely part of the world, and the local brewery, Burt’s, was still active. They only seemed to produce mild, but it was a very enjoyable pint, and remarkably cheap.
FOI APOSTATE
LOI ABSEILING
COD INSANITARY
TIME 5:57
But don’t you find that everything in the seventies was cheap? I holdayed twice in Cornwall in the early seventies and at the local pub the bitter was 1s 10d a pint. Marvellous ale too! The other day, I paid £8.00 for a pint in Clarksons new pub. Eek. Great pub though.
The TURNCOAT anagram eluded me for a while and I agonised over Ventnor because it doesn’t have just a single name in it, but two. Pedantically I always feel that the setter should indicate that it’s only one of the Ns that is dropped, with something like ‘… without a name’. 22 minutes, all went in pretty easily. A nice crossword, where the setter hasn’t compromised on quality just because it was easy.
15 relaxed minutes, nothing to frighten the horses….
13:10 – nothing to add to the pleasant and gentle verdict, except some surprise that Coy. as a military abbreviation for company caused any difficulty to my fellow Tfters
I didn’t find this as easy as has been indicated, and the usual panic set in when it was signalled as so. Held up by biffing AUTOCRAT in 5a, only noticing belatedly that the letters were wrong. APOSTATE was last one in, but a DNF anyway because of a careless WAVE. NHO COY for company. Once again, felt not on the wavelength for this. Thanks for the blog, Piquet.
10:43 but with a stupid typo INTERMSHIP.
I would have been very sad if that had been my first sub 10 minute solve! For a while it was on the cards, but I slowed down at the end, as so often. One of the things that slowed me down was not knowing COY as an abbreviation for company.
Thanks setter and blogger
A fairly nippy 26.20 although I’m left with the feeling I could have been quicker. I would have been under 25 minutes if I hadn’t read Kevin’s comment in the QC warning of a possible pitfall. I decided it had to be COSY as I didn’t like the unheard of COY abbreviation for company. As I couldn’t come up with an alternative in it went and the clock was stopped. Frustratingly Kevin hasn’t posted on the 15×15 so we’ll never know. I assume it was WAVE for WAKE, as at first glance it seems quite plausible.
My anagram error was autocrat instead of turncoat. Fortunately, ready to wear was a biff, and I immediately erased the wrong word. Many of the other answers were semi-biffs, as I paused long enough to partially parse them and then moved on. I was very careful to spell abseiling correctly.
Time: 13:35
I had most of this done in 30 minutes without any heavy breathing, but was inexplicably held up for another 10 minutes trying to unravel 25ac and 19dn. No excuse really, though I do not recall seeing ‘hit’ as an anagram indicator before. No problem with COY for company which I do recall seeing many years ago. A pleasant exercise, as it was clear that the answers were correct, which is not always the case.
FOI – INSANITARY
LOI – MARQUE
COD – COLOGNE
Thanks to piquet and other contributors.
Advised on the QC blog that this was very approachable and duly gave it a go. And was rewarded with a 15:28 finish, faster than several of my QC efforts recently. Mostly all parsed too, though READY TO WEAR was a biff (it could not be anything else but I did not see TOWER for Loom) and I also missed tattoo = TAT A standard abbreviation or a somewhat dismissive comment on the art of tattooing?
Many thanks Piquet for the blog.
Tat is just a slang expression, not derogatory.
The earliest usage of ‘tat’ I can find is in the song ‘Americana’ by The Offspring, released in 1998. It seems to have taken about 10 years for it to enter the mainstream but the slang word is very familiar to me (and not derogatory, though I wouldn’t personally get one).
Another careless unsanitary here but otherwise seemed fairly straightforward. Didn’t know coy for company so couldn’t parse COSY and took a while to spot the hidden GUNK. Many thanks piquet and setter.
Had a go, prompted by the comments on the QC and managed to finish in about 45 minutes. Obviously one of the easier Cryptics as I normally struggle to do more than a few clues!
11.50 after two very underwhelming tries with Monday and Tuesday. Encore I say!
An annoying DNF today, held up by THETA (which I smiled at after seeing it, at least), COSY and MARQUE. Also biffed INVENTOR like many others, never having been to the resort – and I’m not sure what it says about my current cultural identity that my immediate thought of ‘author’ from TWAIN was Shania rather than Mark…
32 mins, so not too testing. Last two APOSTATE & THETA held me up for a bit. I don’t know why. LOI COSY, I’m another who didn’t know/remember coy.
Some fun anagrams and I liked PHENOMINAL & INVENTOR.
Thanks pip and setter.
PHENOMINAL?
Oops. Luckily I got it right on the grid!
When I was young my parents took me on holiday once to Ventnor. Knew it would come in handy one day.
FOI ALLEGE
LOI ARGON
COD ABSEILING
26.05 Harder than expected from the QC blog billing, but still pretty quick for me. APOSTATE was LOI. I started counting the vowels in anagrams after someone here suggested it, though my first thought was INSANITARY anyway. Thanks piquet.
30 minutes (or 28 plus proofreading, which saved me from entering INVENTER) and although THETA and APOSTATE were slow to go in as my last entries, the only one which gave me any concerns was ABSEILING. That’s because if your local language is German one part of the clue doesn’t work. Fortunately I assumed, correctly, that the English spelling would be OK but the pronunciation maybe not (the EIL part in the German original is pronounced like “aisle”, not like “ail”. AB means downwards, SEIL is a rope and of course the word means descending using a rope). Otherwise one of the easiest Times cryptics I ever encountered.
23:40. Biffed COSY, not familiar with COY as abbreviation for company.
Nearly misspelled ABSEILING with an A for the E, but spotted my error just before submitting.
Thanks piquet and setter
Found this at last! (I’d thought I was sunk without any recourse to the blog and comments- I’m a lurker from Australia- and duly panicked!). 😱