Hello again. This crossword I thought was about average difficulty, or in other words not a Monday one, but significantly easier than most recent cryptics. LOI was the nho 25ac, but mainly it was a steady top-to-bottom solve. When I went to submit the puzzle I found I had one wrong, which I eventually tracked down to 3ac PARCOUR, which should have been parkour. According to Collins parcourse is a word, parcours is a word, but parcour is only a word if you’re French. And it doesn’t parse, of cours :-). What is slightly irritating is that Collins says parkour is “derived from the French word, parcour.”
I use the standard conventions like underlining the definition, CD for cryptic definition, DD for a double one, *(anargam) and so forth. Nho = “not heard of” and in case of need the Glossary is always handy
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Unfinished alcohol etc ruined bar, perhaps (9) |
| CHOCOLATE – *(ALCOHO(l) + ETC) | |
| 6 | Small river rod (5) |
| STAFF – S(mall) + TAFF, a river in the Principality of Wales. | |
| 9 | Stop tennis site’s insiders running sport (7) |
| PARKOUR – PARK (stop) and (c)OUR(t). As already mentioned, I erroneously put “parcour.” Also thinking (s)IT(e) had to go in somewhere didn’t help.. | |
| 10 | You shouldn’t complete crossword here, away from civilisation (3-4) |
| OFF-GRID – a sort of DD, one in the form of an instruction, and a neat clue. Though actually I quite often see how much of the crossword I can solve without writing anything down. I also remember an old story about a bishop sitting on a train, staring at a blank crossword. One of the other passengers sympathised with his difficulties, and he said no, actually I’ve finished it. And proceeded to fill in the whole grid, there and then.. | |
| 11 | Youngster in charge of power? (5) |
| CUBIC – CUB (youngster) + IC, in charge. A power, in this case of three. | |
| 13 | Miserable single on Web receiving love, say (9) |
| WOEBEGONE – O in WEB, + EG (say) + ONE, single. | |
| 14 | Accountant rejected person in high court ignoring books without backing (1,8) |
| A CAPPELLA – CA (Accountant) rev., + APPELLA(nt), someone in court, ignoring the new testament books. | |
| 16 | Nauseating bow tie repels daughter (4) |
| ICKY – (d)ICKY) | |
| 18 | Hoax letter in particular case for Endeavour Morse? (4) |
| CODE – COD (hoax) + the E from Endeavour, which is in upper case. Neat way to shoehorn Inspector Morse’s christian name in. | |
| 19 | Canadian green bisque ruined sandwiches (9) |
| QUEBECOIS – ECO (green) in *(BISQUE). Crosswords have no truck with cedillas, accents etc but when you use the word, don’t forget it needs two acute accents. | |
| 22 | Temperamental soldier hired uniform before retreat back (9) |
| MERCURIAL – MERC (hired soldier. It’s in Collins!) + U(niform) + LAIR (retreat), rev. | |
| 24 | Rack where flesh gets torn (5) |
| SHELF – *(FLESH). Nice surface! | |
| 25 | Regressive plans supported by a lack of sense (7) |
| ANOSMIA – AIMS (plans) + ON (supported by) + A, all rev. Anosmia means loss of the sense of smell, and this was my LOI. | |
| 26 | Regret insult overheard in staged conversation? (7) |
| RHUBARB – Sounds like RUE, + BARB. | |
| 28 | Ruminant taking time to stop (5) |
| DETER – T(ime) in DEER. | |
| 29 | Hard music genre with new idols (4-5) |
| ROCK-SOLID – ROCK, a music genre, with *(IDOLS). | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | What recognises people given cold tea bags? (7) |
| CAPTCHA – APT (given: eg “she was apt/given to break wind in public”) in C(old) CHA, tea. AI, still easily fooled, it appears.. | |
| 2 | Primarily river-based athlete, one going backwards? (3) |
| OAR – R(iver-based) A(thlete) O(ne), reversed. Another neat clue. | |
| 3 | Medical examiner turned up like this to handle the situation (8) |
| OTOSCOPE – SO (like this) + TO, both rev., + COPE, handle the situation. | |
| 4 | School overlooking beginning and end of King Harold (5) |
| ARROW – (h)ARROW, a school. | |
| 5 | It’s clear retired constituents of Barnet are no xenophobes (9) |
| EXONERATE – hidden, reversed, as above. | |
| 6 | One taking action to restrain very loud bear (6) |
| SUFFER – FF (very loud, musically) in SUER, one taking action. | |
| 7 | Broadcast, as an example, covers church where Clinton got high (3,5,3) |
| AIR FORCE ONE – AIR (broadcast) + CE (church, of England) in FOR ONE (as an example). Sneaky definition! | |
| 8 | Restless dog shortly to notice yard (7) |
| FIDGETY – FID(o), a short dog, + GET (to notice) + Y(ard) | |
| 12 | Aquatic plant’s book value cut by 20 per cent after damage to hose? (11) |
| BLADDERWORT – B(ook) + LADDER (damage to hose) + WORT(h), 80% of value. | |
| 15 | One pound in Omani currency raised — it’s been brought to a new state (6,3) |
| LIQUID AIR – I QUID, in RIAL (Omani currency) rev. Another sneaky definition! | |
| 17 | Suppose American cooked dishes (3,5) |
| PEA SOUPS – *(SUPPOSE + A(merican)) | |
| 18 | Doctor admitting staff following carbon monoxide rule (7) |
| COMMAND – CO (carbon monoxide) + MAN (staff) in MD, a doctor. | |
| 20 | Where one may lie, mostly to date teacher (7) |
| SOFABED – SO FA(r) (to date, mostly) + BED, ie B.Ed, a teacher. | |
| 21 | Largely obscure recurring complaint (6) |
| MURMUR – MUR(k), (obscure, largely) twice, ie recurring. | |
| 23 | Feature of extremely rich poem (5) |
| LYRIC – hidden, as above. | |
| 27 | Feel sick of ’orrible weather (3) |
| AIL – ‘ail, the sort of weather they have in East London.. hail, anywhere else. | |
28:59, but with the same PARCOUR for PARKOUR!
The STAFF/FIDGETY nexus at the end cost me a good 8 minutes. Had NHO TAFF but it made sense given ‘Taffy’, which is, however, apparently just one possible source of the word. Might not have got ANOSMIA had it not appeared recently.
Not much else to add except that it was a fun solve. Thank you setter and Jerry.
I struggled with PARKOUR, CAPTCHA and – annoyingly, because it was staring me in the face – PEA SOUPS. So it took me about 45 minutes but no less enjoyable for that. Thanks to Jerry. If we’re going to define civilisation by whether or not we’re on the electricity grid we might be in trouble…
From Murder Most Foul:
AIR FORCE ONE coming in through the gate
Johnson sworn in at two thirty-eight
Let me know when you decide to throw in the towel
It is what it is, and it’s murder most foul
Around 45 minutes for a very enjoyable puzzle. Lots of clues I got out without parsing and the blog really helped. COD AIR FORCE ONE
Thanks Jerry and setter.
I suspect our blogger was on the wavelength and didn’t realize it – I see where both Verlaine and Andrew Fisher struggled. I did do the right-hand side in a few minutes, but the left half was tough. I did not know either parkour or anosmia, and parsed the cryptic for anosmia incorrectly, too. It’s amazing I got the answer. Bladderwort was another difficult one, as I tried to insert run rather than ladder. Not a great solve.
Time: 52:15
I had a STAFF/FIDGETY delay as well…and FYI, I generally go by Andrew not Andy. I was not named after the former Aussie PM, and I hope I was not named after a youngish royal of the time.
I greatly enjoyed this, for the fresh vocab such as CAPTCHA, and the cheeky Clinton clue among others.
We do have an Andy Fisher – but he’s another solver! Now corrected.
Not sure I ever knew about LIQUID AIR!
Seems I’ve been confusing ANOSMIA with agnosia, which I’ve seen recently in puzzles elsewhere. The latter is a more dire condition. The former sounds like what it is.
This seemed harder than yesterday’s.
I liked Captcha for the vocabulary. If this is what the editors mean when they say “more
current usages” I’m all for it.
I liked Oar for the clue.
And I respect Parkour and Anosima for teaching me two new words.
thanks, jerry
42 minutes. Yes, a welcome relief after the last few Wednesday Championship puzzles. Struggled through, with a few half-parsed and entered mainly from def and crossers, eg FIDGETY and AIR FORCE ONE. PEA SOUPS for ‘dishes’ (sorry to be pedantic but only ‘dishes’ is the def) was unexpected, both as an example of a dish and the use of the plural. CAPTCHA was another one I don’t remember seeing in a crossword before and needed all the crossing letters.
I liked PARKOUR, ANOSMIA and BLADDERWORT, none common words but at least gettable from the not too convoluted wordplay.
Thanks to Jerry and setter
Adjectival use of ‘murk’ is somewhat rare and archaic these days. Could maybe alternatively parse it as largely ‘murky’, ie dropping last two letters.
15.45 (but with PARCOUR)
Starting to get the hang of the new surface-driven style now (would “particular case for Endeavour” have been acceptable for “E” in the past?) Biffing as first resort rather than last obviously leads to a shift away from pre-entry parsing, with inevitable errors.
LOI COMMAND
COD AIR FORCE ONE
41 minutes with LOI ANOSMIA but with PARCOUR. I’ve taken younger brother-in-law and family to such events and could have sworn that’s how it was spelt. That took all the gloss away from solving BLADDERWORT. Otherwise, all good. Thank you Jerry and setter.
Technical DNFas I had to resort to Chambers to convince myself of PARKOUR and CAPTCHA. Neither seemed really cricket, I’m afraid.
Otherwise just about the right level of difficulty for me.
Thanks to JerryW
The blog link to the glossary doesn’t work for me but as I’d like to have access, could anyone help please?.
Try this. You can find a link in the menu under “Help”.
Many thanks.
P
The link should work now! Apologies.
9:27, but another PARCOUR. I did wonder briefly how ‘insiders’ could mean ‘all but the last letters’: clearly I should have wondered a bit less briefly but I don’t remember seeing the word spelled with a K before. Then again it’s not exactly part of my everyday vocabulary.
7:46. Was concerned when I looked at the times of others but I was on the wavelength here even though I gave up on the NW corner at first and went steadily round from the NE. Knew ANOSMIA, CAPTCHA went straight in, and I’ve only ever seen it spelt as PARKOUR so no issue there. Thanks Jerry and setter.
23:06
I struggled for a while on this one but it all came together in the end. ANOSMIA was the only true unknown but there were bits and bobs along the way I had to take on trust.
An enjoyable solve so thanks to both.
26:26 with one error – another PARCOUR here! I had ENBISQUER for 19A at first. Surely it was a hiddne that I had just not heard of? Thanks Jerry and setter.
Just under half an hour.
– Can’t recall seeing ‘merc’ as short for mercenary before, but it had to be for MERCURIAL
– Didn’t quite parse OTOSCOPE as I didn’t separate ‘to’ and ‘handle’
– Not sure I’ve come across BLADDERWORT before, but it sounded reasonable and parsed
Thanks Jerry and setter.
FOI Ail
LOI Staff
COD Exonerate
WOE after 29 mins. I too was on wavelength, full-on Monday style until LOI 13ac where after 5 mins or so I bunged in WHEREFORE. On a slow day I would have persevered but I have no patience with the breeze block ones.
Shame because the rest was great fun, best puzzle for a while. Enjoyed CAPTCHA and A CAPPELLA amongst many. Thanks JerryW and setter.
Quite a bit tougher than yesterday. 32 ish minutes and a DNF, having not encountered ANOSMIA before. Even with all the crossers, I could not spot the wordplay – especially ‘supported by’ = ON. The top half of the grid was worryingly thin after the first pass through but there were enough crossers to make sense of what had originally passed me by.
FOI: OAR
LOI (apart from the def): WOEBEGONE
COTD: toss up between EXONERATE for the spot and SOFABED for the surface.
25:28
LOI: PARKOUR. Which I spelt correctly as I’d never heard of it – so was forced to parse it. I was quite surprised when I saw it was correct.
COD: CAPTCHA
Thanks to Jerry and our setter.
22 minutes apart from the never-before-seen PARKOUR, which of course I spelt with a C, with a slight worry about a probable missing S at the end. Since I no longer run and have trouble even with steps, the whole thing has no use for me. Is there any known reason why the Anglophones changed to a K?
Otherwise, this was an intelligent puzzle where almost all clues needed careful attention and gave a sense of reward after solving. Credit (and one curse) to setter. Thanks and sympathy to Jerry.
Is the clue for RHUBARB taken from the recent clue writing contest?
20’14”, a good puzzle. I too put in PARCOUR, a word used to describe the route in cycling, then thought better of it. Also misparsed ANOSMIA. LOI was EXONERATE, after groaning at all the vowels, before spotting the reverse inclusion.
Thanks Jerry and setter.
46:07
I didn’t fall into the 9ac trap, so I was chuffed about that. Good puzzle.
Thanks, Jerry.
I also fell into the ‘parkour’ trap, didn’t fully parse CAPTCHA and failed to get PEA SOUPS. Otherwise nearly finished in around 23 mins. Good to see a relatively easy one (no probs with ‘merc’ either, which can also be used as a slang verb meaning ‘kill’ which I haven’t yet seen in a crossword).
Revised COD. OTOSCOPE.
I work part time as a Medical Examiner. I have shared this clue with my colleagues- who are bemused!
22 – but another parcour. I thought the insiders might refer to the whole phrase “stop tennis site”, being sPAR COURt – or some other none existent word for stop. Otherwise nothing too challenging.
I think this is the first 15×15 I have been unable to complete online even after employing some of the milder cheating options that solving online affords. PARKOUR and ANOSMIA were the ones that did for me. PARKOUR is making its debut in the TfTT era, and before today ANOSMIA has appeared only in a TLS puzzle and a Jumbo I didn’t attempt.
Wow! I found this very tough, and was discouraged by Jerry’s comment about it being average! However, I struggled through, no idea about time, and completed it, to my surprise. Pleased to see that others struggled too. All correct too, as a bonus! I wrote in PARCOUR initially, then tried to parse it, and realised it needed a K, which I have seen before. ANOSMIA I’ve come across also, and I liked OFF-GRID and CAPTCHA. LOI was PEA SOUPS, which I initially thought was an anagram of US and dishes. I would never have got LIQUID AIR without the Q from the crosser. Good fun, with the bonus of completion.
My thanks to JerryW and setter.
Doable indeed, except I could not parse 21d Murmur and only entered it as it contained a repeat or recurrence.
Parkour must have come up before as it is in Cheating Machine and added by me. I won’t be entering such a competition.
13a Woebegone, I couldn’t find all the anagrist. Thanks to JerryW.
14a A Cappella, I was surprised at double P and L, but it had to be.
1d CAPTCHA, I think I remember this coming up before.
5d Exonerate, admirable hiding!
12d Bladderwort WOD.
must have been on the wavelength today, found it a bit of a stroll. a light dusting of biff in the course of the solve though usually parsed afterwards. LOI was WOEBEGONE, which made me think of Garrison Keillor and the Living Flag.
42:43
Harder than average in my humble opinion. Quicker on the RHS where I was missing only EXONERATE until the last few. It took an unlikely plant spot (BLADDERWORT) to open things up on the left, but there were several bits I didn’t know:
MERC – NHO in this context
ANOSMIA – there was a related word recently? Once I’d thought of AIMS, the rest slotted in fine
LIQUID AIR – the answer was obvious once the Q was in place, but I don’t know what this is
APPELLA(NT) – missed this bit of wordplay
CAPTCHA – didn’t get the ‘given’ bit, but seen the answer often enough in the modern world for it to be a reasonable guess
PARKOUR – NHO, and probably just as well, otherwise I might have fallen into the misspelling trap
Thanks J and setter
I found this quite tough, with a bottom to top solve, it took me half an hour, ending with P*R*O*R for an unknown sport, for which like @jerry I plumped for PARCOUR from the French. Some very good clues in here today.
49 minutes was rather too long as I didn’t see some obvious ones eg ARROW. Also a victim of PARK(C)OUR.
Held back by biffing SONIC instead of CUBIC, but got there eventually. Puzzle looked harder than it was. I suffer from ANOSMIA, so no prob there. Some excellent clues. Maybe 25 mins?
47 minutes approaching a tough Friday sort of time. I think the bar may have moved up recently but thought this was significantly on the harder side. Reading the comments the words I struggled on WOEBEGONE, ANOSMIA, MURMUR (COD) and OTOSCOPE and the SW corner generally don’t get a mention yet CAPTCHA and PARKOUR were in in the first minute.
I enjoyed the challenge though. Couldn’t see how CODE worked despite being my first thought -very neat now I get it.
Thanks blogger and setter.
Thought I’d make the effort to post today after Gael’s comment yesterday about the distaff shortage 🙂. About 14 minutes so not that straightforward. I do know how to spell PARKOUR but also I like to parse everything as I go and PARCOUR doesn’t. Held up at the end by MURMUR, still not convinced about murk for obscure. Liked ARROW.
On the wavelength for 22 and a half minutes today (pretty much exactly 4 magoos, whoo hoo). Managed to avoid the parcour trap, Anosmia was my last one in but remembered it from COVID first wave where it was a major symptom, just needed all the checkers to bring it fully to mind. Shelf / flesh such a simple anagram but a brilliant clue.
Thx Jerry and setter
I learned about anosmia during COVID from Facebook, long before it became a thing.
43 mins, LOI ANSOMIA, COD QUEBECOIS
This took me almost 56 minutes, so I wasn’t as lost as I was yesterday when I took more than an hour. Enjoyable, but it would probably be more sensible to set a limit and accept not finishing.
Thanks to setter and Jerry.
29.48
Thought I was going to be way off par for this particularly with a delay on STAFF/FIDGETY but it seems not. No problems with PARKOUR. I need to get in more.
Thanks Jerry/setter
Well clearly there are lots of people on this site who are younger than me and also sharper. I can hardly remember a crossword where so much was outside my ken. NHO Parkour, only vaguely aware of liquid air, didn’t know that appellant was a word, didn’t understand ‘in particular case for Endeavour’, uncomfortable with apt = given, and all on a crossword which is said to be average. It took me 70 minutes. But there were some things I did actually know, like ANOSMIA, QUEBECOIS, and OTOSCOPE.
‘significantly easier than most recent cryptics’? No sir. Much harder than Mon/Tues.
Fair enough, I apologise. I was thinking of the rather punishing sequence of cryptics last week .. should have said “Some recent cryptics..”
Yes, Wed to Fri last week was a nightmare.
Nice one for someone attempting to transition from the quickie to the 15×15.
Had a few gaps on the LHS but enjoyed the challenge.
In fact three decent efforts so far this week. Happy with that.
Thanks all.
23.03
Helped by having a friend who is a professional whisky taster; during the Pandemic he was very worried about ANOSMIA, one of the consequences of Covid which would have been fatal to his career.
Thanks J and setter
PARKOUR is the “street” (i.e. wrong) spelling of PARCOURS (with an ‘s’). It helped give the sport — which began with people leaping around on the roofs of Paris — a fashionably hip-hoppy feel. PARCOURS means route or course. 33’07” all up. No mistakes, though I had to check CAPTCHA. I couldn’t see the parsing, and though I suspected the word existed I was not certain. Slow again.
Not helped by inserting A CAPELLO SONIC FIDDDLY (!) misparsing PEA SOUPS and struggling with ANOSMIA. But knew PARKOUR. 51 mins. Great puzzle.
Another PARCOUR, since I have never heard of PARKOUR and I thought leaving off the S in “parcours” was enough misspelling for one day. So a DNF which doesn’t really bother me much.
Knew the running sport and thought it was spelled with a K, and the wordplay confirmed it. My Grandma had ANOSMIA so I’ve known that word since I were a lad! Otherwise from CHOCOLATE to WOEBEGONE in 23:32. Thanks setter and Jerry. Didn’t get around to yesterday’s puzzles until today due to the bathroom renovation. Saturday was fun when I came back from my daughter’s and started using the almost completed facilities. At 11:30pm one of the new fittings gave way and water cascaded through my kitchen ceiling. A cracked nut on a plumbing joint. Managed to turn the stop cock off before it did too much damage, but I was facilties-less until the plumber came back next day. I consider myself lucky it didn’t give way while the house was unoccupied. Once that was sorted the floor tiling was also delayed by Northern Power Grid who cut my power, for 5 hours on Tuesday, the very day the fitters were due. Almost back to normal now.
Mother in law had anosmia, so it came to mind quickly. She never trusted her ability to detect meat which had gone bad, so she was a daily butcher patron, must have cost a fair bit of fuel and time over her 55 year marriage.
A DNF as parkour didn’t come to mind, once I had the p 1d fell into place.
thanks to setter and blogger, best wishes for the imminent New Year.