Time: 14:46
Music: Louis Armstrong – Satchmo Plays King Oliver
If you are Quickie solver who wants to move up, this is your chance. This is another mild Monday where experienced solvers will see the answers very quickly. I tend to put in the answer, and then parse it, but sometimes I just move on. There is one word which may be unfamiliar to some, but the cryptic and the crossing letters point directly to the answer. The rest should be plain sailing.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Some letters in top of shoe box (5,4) |
| UPPER CASE – UPPER + CASE. | |
| 6 | Quietly add number to constant acceleration (5) |
| PIANO – PI + A + NO. | |
| 9 | Catch leader in town centre (5) |
| HEART – HEAR + T[own]. | |
| 10 | Pull up garment put on around start of winter (5,4) |
| DRESS DOWN – DRESS + DO(W[inter])N. Pull up is not stopping your car, or what your toddler might wear, but bears the UK slang meaning of reprimand. | |
| 11 | Sceptic occupied with bank job? (7) |
| ATHEIST – AT HEIST, a chestnut. | |
| 12 | Financial expert taking one pound from fastidiously good person (7) |
| ANALYST – ANAL[l]Y ST. The financial chap was chosen to mislead, rather than using a psychiatrist which would give away the game. | |
| 13 | Not sorted out where to broadcast customer announcement? (3,4,3,4) |
| ALL OVER THE SHOP – A bit of a cryptic hint for an idiomatic phrase. | |
| 17 | Girls from Berkshire hosting grand spectacles (7,7) |
| READING GLASSES – READING (G) LASSES. Am I wearing reading glasses while solving? Yes. Does this help me think of the answer? No. | |
| 21 | Near duo performing verse (7) |
| RONDEAU – Anagram of NEAR DUO. Also a pan, watch out for that. | |
| 23 | Code for “g” (7) |
| PROGRAM – PRO + GRAM, for which G is a valid abbreviation. | |
| 25 | Bar made from metal by Native American (9) |
| BRASSERIE – BRASS + ERIE, who lived on the shores of….Lake Erie! | |
| 26 | Be bigoted, losing face (5) |
| EXIST – [s]EXIST. | |
| 27 | Vote concludes dead rubber (5) |
| LATEX – LATE + X, your mark on the ballot. | |
| 28 | Ordinary state, and not country with vacated territory (9) |
| NORMALITY – NOR + MALI + T[erritor]Y. | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Disruption at university — high explosive and hot stuff lying around (8) |
| UPHEAVAL – UP + H.E. + LAVA backwards. | |
| 2 | Check under type of green fruit (5) |
| PEACH – PEA + CH. | |
| 3 | Heard about Victory in Europe after soldiers got back (9) |
| RETRIEVED – R.E. + TRIE(V.E.)D. | |
| 4 | Someone reviewing books theatre with 30 per cent off (7) |
| AUDITOR – AUDITOR[ium]. | |
| 5 | He easily managed, without one bit of hair (7) |
| EYELASH – Anagram of HE EASILY – I. | |
| 6 | Basic fare no longer available with first class (5) |
| PASTA – PAST + A. | |
| 7 | Working in a city, shy person doesn’t wind up nameless (9) |
| ANONYMOUS – A N(ON)Y + MOUS[e]. | |
| 8 | Decorated knight in love with judge (6) |
| ORNATE – O + R(N)ATE. | |
| 14 | Rise late with serve and be ready to attack (3,2,4) |
| LIE IN WAIT – LIE IN + WAIT. | |
| 15 | Show religious leader in rocket with American (4,5) |
| SOAP OPERA – SOA(POPE)R + A. | |
| 16 | International attempt sustains a little equality of measure (8) |
| ISOMETRY – I (SOME) TRY. | |
| 18 | Time in cell for small thing with no charge (7) |
| NEUTRON – NEU(T)RON. | |
| 19 | Kit receives pay out for study break (3,4) |
| GAP YEAR – G(angram of PAY)EAR. | |
| 20 | United Nations ignored by arbitration board displaying group loyalty (6) |
| TRIBAL – TRIB[un]AL. | |
| 22 | Cricket team somewhat jinxes second over (5) |
| ESSEX – Backwards hidden in [jin]XES SE[ond]. | |
| 24 | Healing by touching arsenic regularly with bare skin (5) |
| REIKI – [a]R[s]E[n]I[c] + [s]KI[n]. This was vaguely familiar; seem like it was in a puzzle I blogged in 2023, so maybe that’s why. | |
A delightful puzzle for a Monday. Some lovely stuff too. ALL OVER THE SHOP took me a while as I thought it was an anagram of something and then twigged and wrote in ‘show’ instead of ‘shop’ but immediately saw my error and corrected. Liked NORMALITY and ISOMETRY and both were clued very generously. Wasn’t sure about DRESS DOWN but the wordplay left little doubt. Liked TRIBAL and ANONYMOUS. Really enjoyed this. COD to PROGRAM, very clever.
Thanks V and setter.
Easy but great fun. I had ALL OVER THE SHOP first of all. Nice to see ATHEIST properly defined.
ALL OVER THE SHOP is the correct answer, so do you mean it was your first answer in?
Yes. I had it before I had any of the others. I didn’t just think I had it!
At first, I thought you were saying I’d mistyped something.
35 minutes. I wouldn’t say it’s particularly easy, but the level of difficulty I would expect as a standard offering for a Monday.
DNK REIKI, but I’ve said that on all 4 previous appearances in 15x15s and a QC including a puzzle I blogged myself 10 years ago.
Your honest does you great credit, Jackkt .. fingers crossed, for the next time Reiki turns up!
Some words never stick, no matter how many times they turn up.
I did it in 33.53 and TBH for a while I was getting nowhere, and ended up filling in the clues from the south-east corner back up. So no, not the breeze that others found it, but enjoyable once I got going. I guessed PIANO and ISOMETRY at the end, thanks V.
From Blowin’ In The Wind:
How many years can a mountain EXIST
Before it is washed to the sea?
Yes and how many years can some people exist
Before they’re allowed to be free?
Yes and how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn’t see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind…
My favourite Dylan song. Great stuff.
I’ll probably be the only DNF today. I was pretty confident about the ‘metal’ for 25a but was left with _R_E for ‘Native American’. What else could it be but CREE and who cares about the resulting nonsense word. I should have followed Vinyl’s advice and just concentrated on the def instead.
Me too – just before I got to the difficult Cree/Erie I was trying to fit Apache or Arapaho around the second A. I found this whole puzzle difficult, so off beam I guess.
23 ac: The clue is even more subtle and precise. It is ‘g’ that is the valid abbreviation for ‘gram’ not ‘G’. ‘G’ is the internationally recognised scientific abbreviation for ‘giga’ as in GHz (10 to the power 9, a billion, Hz) in which computer processing unit speeds and wireless communication frequencies are measured. The devil is in the detail 😊
And for the gravitational constant, G, but not g which is gravity at the surface of the earth.
I match your pedantry and raise you a G ($1,000).
Very funny – worthy of Private Eye
Makes a change. Setters play fast and loose with unnecessary capitalisation, all the time …
A few seconds off my PB. I am certain it would have been but for a few careless typos in checking letters slowing me down.
Not the toughest challenge but I was amused by a number of the surfaces.
COD PASTA
Thanks blogger and setter
42 mins but with one pink square. ALL OVER THE SHOW sounded plausible i never went back to think of any alternatives. At least i didn’t leave BRASSCREE as my bar.
I think all over the show is a valid phrase in itself but of course does not account for the customer in the clue.
38 mins for a breezy Monday crossie. Only hold up was the NHO REIKI but, as someone said recently, « follow the instuctions ».
I loved ALL OVER THE SHOP & READING GLASSES which, as it happens, I too am wearing!
Thanks V and setter.
Nice puzzle. LOI EYELASH, as only then did I spot the anagram. REIKI again showed why you should follow the instructions when all else fails. COD to READING GLASSES. Thank you V and setter.
12 minutes or so. Was tempted to invent BRASSCREE for 25a and didn’t parse SOAP OPERA (I was fixated on ‘religious leader’ giving R), but no issues otherwise.
Thanks vinyl and setter.
FOI Exist
LOI Brasserie
COD Retrieved
Not on the wavelength for this one at just over 40′ which, once completed, shouldn’t have been nearly so difficult. Funnily enough I’d pencilled in AUDITOR as the 22ac financial expert (without parsing) before seeing it as 4dn.
Like almost everything else ALL OVER THE SHOP took far longer than it should have. Hopefully my brain will warm up as the day progresses.
Thanks Vinyl and setter
12.50
Back from hols after a week without newspapers, I thought it might take me a while to get back in the swing of things, but this was the perfect refresher.
LOI HEART
COD READING GLASSES
8:01. Plain sailing this morning, with no unknowns in the answers. I don’t think I knew that the ERIE were a Native American tribe but it seemed perfectly feasible.
Not only am I wearing READING GLASSES (well varifocals but close enough), I am also a Reading lad so that one came to mind easily.
Very pleasant start to the week. PIANO my LOI, is “a” a recognised abbreviation for add?
16:32 as I solved on the app today rather than on paper.
Thanks to the blogger for parsing those that I missed (SOAP OPERA) for example and to the setter for the enjoyable puzzle.
‘add’ is an instruction to the solver – you’re being told to add NO (number) to PI (constant) and A (acceleration)
Acceleration was f when I was at school… s=ut + 1/2 f t^2.
How about Newton’s second law f=ma?
Ah, another difference. When I was at school force was “p” so f=p/m. Not helpful at all really.
Also I did O level in Imperial (g=32 ft/s^2 approx), then A level in CGI (g=981 cm/s^2 approx) and at Uni (mech Eng.) we migrated to MKS (g=9.81 m/s^2 approx.) But on day 1, one lecturer said “we’re on MKS now but I’ll teach you in Imperial and you’ll have to translate.”
I’m a p=mf and s=ut + 1/2ftsquared man too. We had a sports master who used to urge us to show mf, by which he also meant moral fibre. A man who led by example, he used to slip out to the pub at lunchtime for a pint and a ciggy.
Very wise of him!
24 minutes, with which I was disappointed until I saw that some others on here had also struggled. I too spent too long in the search for a religious leader. Delayed also by ISOMETRY, the meaning of which was a bit of a mystery to me heretofore. Two clues struck me as both elegant and economical: PROGRAM and EYELASH.
A pleasant start to the week.
Thanks to setter and vinyl1.
Merciful Monday – 16 mins. I don’t think I’ve met REIKI before and didn’t know that an ERIE was a Native American. First one in was PIANO and last HEART. Favourite clue: to RETRIEVED. Thank you Setter and Blogger.
A doddle, but a tidy one Thanks for the blog.
Every American placename is either (a) a place in England, or (b) a native American name.
That is not universally true, but it works most of the time …
A great Monday morning crossword.
LOI was DRESSED DOWN, because although I had it earlier, I wasn’t seeing the parsing as per V and so delayed entering the obvious.
COD to program, because don’t we all love a concise clue?
Many thanks to setter and V.
15.03, nearly another “easy until it wasn’t”. The top right was slow, looking at the wrong end of 6a for the definition, simply not seeing ANALYST, and hence struggling with ORNATE. The other hold-up came from READING GLASSES (the clue, not the absence thereof), only because I had LAY IN WAIT, which now I look at it is a poor substitute.
I liked the economical Code for “g”, and, though I’ve never tried it for fear of tickling, I’ve somehow known REIKI practitioners for most of my life.
Pleasant start to the week.
19:44. Nice puzzle. I didn’t think it was that easy.
COD: READING GLASSES
Thanks to vinyl and our setter.
10’52”, seemed to be a slow start, with – GLASSES half of FOI. Avoided brasscree and all over the place/show etc. Liked READING GLASSES once I’d got it.
Thanks vinyl and setter.
Everything straightforward enough until the NE corner, where I became unaccountably slow (quite accountably actually, because I can be very slow). Liked the READING GLASSES.
From UPHEAVAL to SOAP OPERA in 18:32. Liked READING GLASSES and ALL OVER THE SHOP. Had some hold ups in the SE and NE. PROGRAM cleared the former and EYELASH cleared the latter. Didn’t know the Erie tribe, but Cree didn’t make sense. A nice start to the week. Thanks setter and Vinyl.
20.50. Old style Monday warm up but very welcome.
23:32
Took a while to get going with this – just one across in from the first pass. Slowest in the NE, where a pencilled MANNA as the basic food slowed seeing the answers that crossed. ANALYST is a bit unspecific to be specifically a financial expert, and not all ANALYSTs are necessarily expert… but that’s a minor quibble.
Thanks V and setter
Generally I wouldn’t comment, but I have no idea why this would be recommended for a beginner. It requires far too many synonyms. Not enjoyable in the slightest.
Agreed- if I were a beginner this would put me off.
I didn’t find this as easy as others appear to have done, but on reviewing it afterwards I couldn’t see why. I’d only just had my hair cut, so maybe my brain was inadequately insulated against the unpleasantly chill wind out there.
FOI UPPER CASE
LOI ORNATE
COD DRESS DOWN
TIME 9:59
Another DNF. Stumped by EYELASH, which I eventually revealed after staring at for ages without success. Obvious with hindsight.
Thanks vinyl and setting
Piece of cake, 15 minutes. Daughter in law is a trained Reiki practitioner, which meant I knew it, although I’m a sceptic / atheist as far as its effects are concerned. ALL OVER THE SHOP was good, wasn’t tempted by SHOW.
20 minute Monday job. Nice to see the cricket team I have been following for nearly 70 years getting a mention.
27:45. Too much interruption so paused for later. Should have known better and waited until lunch because this was a sub-20 opportunity.
OTOH I started slowly and there were a few tricky ones: TRIBAL/BRASSERIE as LOIs held me up and had to take the existence of an anallyst on trust.
A lifetime at the keyboard, man and boy makes PROGRAM a shoo-in for COD. Thanks to Vinyl and setter.
I also didn’t think this particularly easy, finding yesterday’s David McLean considerably more straightforward! However, all complete in the end, with a few standout clues – PROGRAM, EYELASH and BRASSERIE, where I did consider Cree initially, but not once I’d seen the metal! Luckily, it wasn’t required knowledge, as I wouldn’t have been able to dredge it up.
Enjoyable puzzle, done between appointments. The app decided to wipe half of my entries at one stage, so the time wasn’t accurate, but less than an hour.
Found the bottom half easier than the top.
Lots of excellent clues.
Perfect start for a Monday.
Why did I find this so difficult? Eastern half of the grid troubled me lots but when I solved it I could not for the life of me see why so it took me 35 minutes and my personal nitch must be off the scale.
Very enjoyable puzzle, thanks v and setter
Agreed that the bottom half was easier than the top, but nothing especially taxing today, which means I now have to go back to what I should be doing. 19’ plus change.
16:10 – I seem to be perpetually occupying a position in the dead centre of the rankings – does that make me the ‘average solver’? If so I judge this to be pretty easy for a Monday but with a few gems: UPHEAVAL and AUDITOR.
I liked this .. but it is not for beginners, imo.
After reading Vinyl1s suggestion that this was easy, I thought I was in for a fast time, but 42.15 minutes later I can confirm that I didn’t find it that easy. Having said that, quite a few people seem to have found it a doddle, so I guess it’s a wavelength thing.
I had to trust the cryptic direction on REIKI, and I didn’t help myself by initially putting in LAY IN WAIT for 14dn. READING GLASSES put that right fortunately.
After a slow start I was feeling quite pleased to finish this in one sitting in a reasonable time for me. But felt somewhat deflated after reading our blogger’s comments. Glad to see that others found it challenging, and not that suitable for those who usually only do the quick cryptic. Some lovely clues I thought.
FOI ANONYMOUS
LOI ISOMETRY
COD AUDITOR
Certainly not as easy as our blogger made out.
Enjoyed it though
My wife was a Reading lass. She did English at the university. I like to say she was Reading Reading at Reading. There is a show called Star Mania which I briefly considered for 15 down. But I see now it is written as one word, and as a Franco-Quebecois production was unlikely to have troubled our setter. All done in 14’03”. When am I going to get down to under ten again? Feels like years since I was in PB territory.
Hi, As a newbie this was difficult as I didn’t have all the synonyms.
I need assistance with understanding with the following.
1. 12a. ANALY. Definition of this in the Word play.
2. 3d.
3. 20d TRIBAL definition in the word play. Is it arbitration board?
4. How is HE defined as High explosives?
Some such as 13a, 17a, 25a and 15d. Could not do these.
Thanks for the above.
1. Fastidiously = anally, take out one L, good person = Saint = ST.
2. R.E. = Soldiers, the Royal Engineers. Then heard = TRIED, as in tried a case in court, surrounding V.E.
3. A tribunal is a arbitration board, take out the U.N.
4. H.E. is a valid abbreviation for high explosive – it’s in the dictionaries.
Remember the literal is always underlined in these blogs.
You might want to spend a while doing the Quick Cryptic, which is more beginner-friendly. This is as easy as it gets in the main puzzle, and the hard ones are really tough.
Thanks. Yes I do do quick cryptic as well. I find these challenging and rewarding when I understand both the definition and word play.
Your response helps a great deal 👍🏾.
Well, it’s still Monday here, and this was a very Monday puzzle for me, taking 25:32 to finish, a few minutes over my pb. I join those who fiddled with “Cree” where ERIE belonged, but there were no huge holdups. Never heard of ALL OVER THE SHOP so had to wait for crossers and hope. Thanks setter and vinyl.
Thank you Vinyl for recommending to QCers wanting to move up. Third or fourth completed 15 x 15 for me in a PB of about 44 minutes, albeit not in one sitting. Thank you setter for an accessible puzzle.