Hello everyone. Ulaca is away this month, so I have the pleasure of standing in.
Although slow to start I soon warmed up to finish in 14:34, and that was having been held up a little by at least one of the anagrams. It was much simpler to write up than expected too. So I’m not anticipating any problems from the seasoned solvers among us. Scanning the clues again to pick out a COD, I can’t choose but do notice lots of commendably smooth surfaces. Thanks setter!
Definitions are underlined in the clues below. In the explanations, quoted indicators are usually in italics, specified [deletions] are in square brackets, and I’ve capitalised and emboldened letters which appear in the ANSWER. For clarity, I omit most link words and some juxtaposition indicators.
| Across | |
| 1a | First of comedians gets a lot of laughs (6,2) |
| CRACKS UP — The first of Comedians + RACKS UP (gets a lot of) | |
| 6a | Judge beginning to swear, surrounded by fools (6) |
| ASSESS — The initial letter of (beginning to) Swear surrounded by ASSES (fools) | |
| 9a | Time taken to resolve complaint? (13) |
| CONVALESCENCE — Cryptic definition, the complaint being an illness | |
| 10a | Arrested by church, father turning red (6) |
| CERISE — Inside (arrested by) CE (church), SIRE (father) reversed (turning) | |
| 11a | Speculator, one believing gold to be within his grasp? (8) |
| THEORIST — THEIST (one believing) with OR (gold) going inside (to be within his grasp) | |
| 13a | Case cracked: 500 held by French city authority (10) |
| ASCENDANCY — CASE anagrammed (cracked) + D (500) inside (held by) NANCY (French city) | |
| 15a | Revolutionary Soviet leader beheaded in square (4) |
| NINE — In reverse (revolutionary) [l]ENIN Soviet leader without the first letter (beheaded) | |
| 16a | One fuming after bet knocked back? (4) |
| ETNA — ANTE (bet) reversed (knocked back) | |
| 18a | No swearing about these descendants of the Vikings? (10) |
| NORWEGIANS — An anagram of (… about) of NO SWEARING. | |
| I wanted this to start with NORSE, but NORSEMEN was too short, and NORSEWOMEN didn’t quite have the requisite letters. Never mind that this would leave “descendants of” unneeded … | |
| 21a | Joint squad carrying out visit to begin with (8) |
| DOVETAIL — DETAIL (squad) containing (carrying) Out Visit to begin with | |
| 22a | Figure has Sumerian features (6) |
| ASSUME — Hidden: hAS SUMErian features the answer | |
| 23a | Traders here swapping cattle for sheep? (5,8) |
| STOCK EXCHANGE — An exchange of stock could involve swapping cattle and sheep | |
| 25a | Drug finishing off naive novelist (6) |
| GREENE — E (drug) following (finishing off) GREEN (naive) | |
| 26a | Entertainer dean sues mistakenly (8) |
| DANSEUSE — An anagram of (… mistakenly) DEAN SUES | |
| Down | |
| 2d | Supporters missing top game (7) |
| RACKETS — bRACKETS (supporters) without the first letter (missing top) | |
| 3d | Donates rice crackers, being kind (11) |
| CONSIDERATE — DONATES RICE anagrammed (crackers) | |
| 4d | Trap initially set a long time back, capturing knight (5) |
| SNARE — Initially Set plus the reversal of (… back) ERA (a long time) surrounding (capturing) N (knight) | |
| 5d | Quickly reaching northern city (7) |
| PRESTON — PRESTO (quickly) + N (northern) | |
| 6d | Model in sports car going under bridge (9) |
| ARCHETYPE — E–TYPE (sports car) going under ARCH (bridge) | |
| 7d | A setter’s offspring, might one say? (3) |
| SUN — Sounds like (… might one say?) SON (offspring) | |
| 8d | Leave this young fellow’s hat (7) |
| STETSON — STET (leave this) + SON (young fellow) | |
| 12d | Investigation extinguishing party’s revival (11) |
| RENAISSANCE — RE[con]NAISSANCE (investigation) taking out (extinguishing) CON (party) | |
| 14d | Criminal not masked? I’ve no idea (4,3,2) |
| DONT ASK ME — An anagram of (criminal) NOT MASKED | |
| 17d | Nick right to be upset with old addict (7) |
| TROUSER — RT (right) reversed (to be upset) + O (old) + USER (addict) | |
| 19d | Laid-back cardinal holding large guitar (7) |
| RELAXED — RED (cardinal) holding L (large) and AXE (guitar) | |
| 20d | Book of Songs (7) |
| NUMBERS — Two definitions, the first biblical | |
| 22d | A second layer devoid of colour (5) |
| ASHEN — A + S (second) + HEN (layer) | |
| 24d | Broadcaster’s outstanding offering at Eisteddfod? (3) |
| ODE — Homophone of (broadcaster’s) OWED (outstanding). | |
| Eisteddfod, the Welsh festival, is one of those things I knew but couldn’t remember the meaning of until prompted by the wordplay | |
24:58
Somewhat slow cf the usual suspects above. Thoroughly enjoyed it though.
LOI RACKETS after CRACKS UP
COD DOVETAIL.
Thanks Kitty and setter.
Nice blog, Kitty, and thanks for Renaissance. Reading the above, it seems most people found this straightforward except for one – and a different one for each person – very simple clue which they got crosswise with. Me too, and my crosswise was the easiest of the simple clues, Snare.
19:42
A shade off the pace perhaps but pleased to get round in 20 mins. Think I should concentrate more on ensuring I have a pencil and paper handy when starting such puzzles as I am sure I would have solved the anag at 3d far sooner if I had been better prepared.
Thanks Kitty and setter
q4.43, so quick for me. DOVETAIL last in. 7dn is a type of clue I find ambiguous, never sure to which bit the “might one say applies”. I could easily have gone for SON, but went with SUN.
I wonder if the wise people of this blog could enlighten me on RACKETS v RACQUETS. This was my LOI and I confused myself as to which was the game and which was something with which to hit the ball and whether it made a difference on which side of the pond I live!
Thanks!
OED says that RACQUETS is North American, but then the most recent citation is clearly English: ‘Rex had been asked to play a trial match with Holland Hibbert to decide which of them would play racquets for Eton at Queen’s Club’. Make of that what you will!
Thanks for the clarification!!!
I enjoyed this one for the most part; held up by three or four clues, but got there in the end.
However, I’m not sure about the clue to “TROUSER”; “nick” in the clue suggests an answer that has something to do with theft, but “trouser” as a verb simply means to receive or to earn, without any implication that the money concerned has been stolen.
Happy to be put right.
Collins says: ‘to take (something, esp money), sometimes surreptitiously, undeservedly, or unlawfully’. This accords with my experience of the word: there is usually an implication of skulduggery of some kind.
Thanks for that. Yes, I’ve seen that definition. The on-line OED definition is “to take or earn an amount of money”. I guess meaning of some words changes over time. I worked in the City most of the last twenty years; when people used the verb “trouser” (not one that I would use myself),it was always as a synonym for “earn”.
I can’t remember whether it was in Frank Richards’ Greyfriars stories or in P. G. Wodehouse, but “trousered” there implied acquiring something that had to be immediately hidden so that nobody could see it and ask for its return….
About 20′ in two visits, initially as a comp puzzle but which had changed back to normal on my return. All pretty straightforward, held up mostly in SW corner where the TROUSER/DOVETAIL crossing took note time than it should have. Thanks Kitty and setter.
Thanks for parsing RENAISSANCE, I couldn’t get “do” for party to fit in anywhere.
TROUSER as a verb is much used in Private Eye to imply earnings of dubious rectitude.
It took me more than a country moment to think of RACKS UP for “gets a lot of”
Thanks Everyone
38 mins. LOI DOVETAIL. Definitely unparsed, so ta stand-in blogger. I found this a bit tricky in parts for a Monday. I had to work quite hard on some clues that, on reflection, are not too difficult. Perhaps the fact that a) I’m on holiday in Italy, and b) I’d had a rather good lunch might be mitigating circumstances!
I liked ARCHETYPE. The car of my dreams.
Thanks kitty, great job, and setter.
21 mins. Seems like par for the course today. And DOVETAIL last in like most as well
26:42
Held up by LOI CONVALESCENCE. Could not parse RENAISSANCE . Otherwise a steady solve with no issues.
Thanks Kitty and setter
Failed on DOVETAIL and ETNA and not convinced by ASCENDANCY/authority equivalence. I also parsed GREENE with ‘green’ as the drug rather than ‘e’. It works either way but I’m the one who added the Goldie Looking Chain quote for ‘green’ to the Wiktionary entry.
Thanks all for your comments, and extra thanks to those who have answered questions and supplied detail/discussion.
I did this on the newspaper site so although I clocked the absence of a completion message I just assumed I had a typo and cracked on with blogging hoping to uncover it. Then, as everything seemed ok, I shrugged and just assumed a mistake somewhere … and (as usual) looked carefully at early comments in case of corrections.
I’ve been back at work today after two weeks off, so a bit glazed over. Definitely ready for another holiday, but sadly I think that won’t be until October.
I’m a bit late today, probably due to getting up at 9. This was quite an easy puzzle for me, but I did get stuck at the end trying to work dovetail from the cryptic. When I just thought what joints would fit these crossing letters, it was easy enough, and then I could see the parsing.
And thanks to Kitty for filling in, as Ulaca is traveling around the world.
Time: 14 minutes
Lucky Ulaca! I found this more straightforward than many recent Mondays, and as I accidentally printed the QC on top of another page, I decided to skip it for once, being a bit behind. Seeing the comments above, I’ll reprint it and have a go. DOVETAIL LOI of course, and Renaissance unparsed. 3a needed all the checkers to see – in fact the NW corner was the last section to complete, apart from the joint.
12’30”. Slight pause wondering where on earth was the town of PRONTON. But it didn’t last. Many thanks.
I had exactly the same experience as Jack, finishing in 24 minutes with the last several spent on DOVETAIL.
Also Graham Greene held me up a bit, I was very annoyed with myself for that
Why is this marked as a competition crossword???
Otherwise nothing to add
Thanks setter and (I think??) new blogger
Steve
Kitty’s been blogging for TfTT since 2019 (I checked the “Current Bloggers” roundup, linked above under “About.”
Most annoying i put Son. I am alwys doing this…work out and then put the wrong one on paper. Would have been my fastested ever in 13 mins. So 22 remains. Enjoyed it though.
39 minutes, but mostly because I was unsure of 2n: is RACKETS really a game? Are bRACKETS really “supporters”? But it all seemed more likely than ROCKETS or anything else, and there were no other problems. For 11ac I first had INVESTOR (in vest, or, get it?), but of course that made 6dn impossible so it didn’t survive too long. No problems with ASCENDANCY, which I rather liked, or DOVETAIL once I found the OV (and not just V) in it. Nice Monday puzzle, not as much of a stinker as they often have been recently.
“Time taken to resolve complaint” is a very weak clue for “convalescence” if it depends only on the fact that “complaint” can mean illness. (The French edition of Portnoy’s Complaint was called “La Maladie de Portnoy”.) I looked to the blog for a better explanation but found none. Am I missing something?
Not sure – but I got it quickly. Medical family background perhaps, but the idea/phrases like “convalescence period”,”a week’s convalescence”, and “I’m convalescing” were there in the mental mixture, along with “recuperation” too.
A pleasant puzzle, all done over a lunchtime pint in 26 minutes. No issues. Could not parse DOVETAIL at the time but it was fairly clear from the crossers. Thanks Kitty for the enlightenment.
FOI – ETNA
LOI – ODE
COD – ASHEN
Thanks to Kitty and other contributors.
Does anyone else think that cerise is pink rather than red?
According to my ODE cerise is ‘a light clear red colour’. I suppose ‘pink’ is a light red colour.
hallo everyone. Referring to ante, it’s short for ante-post, it’s a bet taken with an early price, rather than the SP (starting price).
For example, in 1989 I took the ante-post price of 12/1 on Desert Orchid winning the Cheltenham Gold Cup, which he narrowly won at the SP of 5/2..
Well! Best time for me, ever! Don’t know what it was, but I started this thinking I’d have a go and leave it until all the necessary things that must be done, are done. However, as the first few just sailed in, I kept going, and the rest followed like the proverbials. ( it was under 20 minutes for sure). I can now get on with life with my head held a little bit higher. Thanks Kitty for stepping in.
Congratulations!