Time: 22:22
I’ve heard tell that our editor and chums want to include more yoof friendly answers in the grids, though the two examples in this one may be well be into their adulthood by now, because I know them, naht meen? But this was a decent exercise requiring proper attention to details and juggling of the wordplay. There are a couple of unusual anagram indicators, but clearly they worked for me, and I liked the clean surfaces, particularly of the two longer anagrams.
I’d class this as moderate difficulty, but we’ll see what the scores on the doors say. I show definitions underlined in italics, and unwanted letters (most of them anyway) in [].
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Could it be five gold rings one’s received? (7) |
| VISITOR – Could it be translates to IS IT, then inserted into V (five) OR, heraldic gold. Rings the instruction to place one outside the other. 5th day of Christmas already? | |
| 5 | Stretching out, snake biting back of heel (7) |
| ASPRAWL – The necessary snake is an ASP, RAW in the sense of cold, biting weather, and the back end of heeL. | |
| 9 | Left husband living in moderate, unfashionable property (9) |
| LEASEHOLD – Start with L[eft], and EASE for moderate in its verbal sense, tack OLD for unfashionable on the end and let the H[usband} “live” inside. | |
| 10 | Nothing odd in winning appeal, wouldn’t you agree? (5) |
| INNIT – Regrettably so (IMHO), but its the even letters of wInNiNg with IT, traditional (sex) appeal. | |
| 11 | Show technology advanced by Tesla? (5) |
| EVITA – I think this is quite clever. Tesla are renowned producers of electric cars, which are represented by E[lectric] V[ehicle] I[nformation] T[echnology], A[dvanced]. Evita the Lloyd Webber musical. | |
| 12 | American river choked by container vessel (9) |
| CATAMARAN – “Choked” can work either way indicating inside or outside. This is the former. A[merican] TAMAR, the border river between Devon and Cornwall, with CAN for container outside | |
| 14 | Before program preparation, briefly record frustration (14) |
| DISAPPOINTMENT – A brief record is a DIS[c], program APP, and preparation OINTMENT. | |
| 17 | Journal lacking nothing in review of semi-final action (9,5) |
| FINANCIAL TIMES – Now Japanese owned (Nikkei) but still pink. A striking anagram (review) of SEMI-FINAL ACTION with the O (nothing) missing out. | |
| 21 | Languishing composer, tense inside, rolling smoke (9) |
| LETHARGIC – The required composer is Franz LEHAR (The Merry Widow his best known). Insert T[ense] and add a reversed, rolling CIG or smoke. | |
| 23 | Son to cook with little butter maybe (5) |
| KIDDO – Son, innit? To cook is to DO (I did toast this morning) and the preceding little “butter” is a KID | |
| 24 | Raise cap when freed of constraints by court (5) |
| ERECT – We have a b[ERE]t or cap freed from its exterior, placed by C[our]T | |
| 25 | Footballers less happy about noise when playing (9) |
| LIONESSES – The English women’s football team. I take this as an anagram (happy) of LESS containing an anagram (when playing) of NOISE. Happy may be a less common indicator, but the clue doesn’t work otherwise. | |
| 26 | One trying education the second time leaving shocked (7) |
| TASERED – One trying is a TASTER, add EDUCATION and remove taster’s second T. | |
| 27 | Ordinary bronze set back Russian runner (7) |
| NATURAL – Bronze is TAN, which must be reversed. The Russian runner is the river URAL. | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Long hollow source of Venetian marble (6) |
| VALLEY – The first letter of Venetian plus an ALLEY, a “large or choice marble” (Chambers). | |
| 2 | Hail is misconstrued, undone by Welsh language (7) |
| SWAHILI – An anagram (misconstrued) of HAIL IS undone (opened, I assume) by W[elsh]. | |
| 3 | However elected, the new Turkish leader comes first (4,5) |
| THEN AGAIN – Elected is IN, preceded buy THE N[ew] AGA, in this clue not a cooker, but the Turkish leader. | |
| 4 | Taking back couple crying about missing lad’s debut (11) |
| REOCCUPYING – Another decent anagram (about) of COUPLE CRYING without the first letter (debut) of Lad. | |
| 5 | Put together some speed dating tips (3) |
| ADD – If you tip speeD DAting… | |
| 6 | What starts producing rainbows if suitably manipulated? (5) |
| PRISM – A pretty good sort of &lit, featuring the “starts” of Producing Rainbows If Suitably Manipulated. | |
| 7 | Betting site, a popular source of windfall (7) |
| AINTREE – A plus IN for popular plus TREE, the generic source of windfall fruit. | |
| 8 | Turner possibly behind houses in classical style (8) |
| LATINATE – The late, magnificent TINA Turner is “housed” in -um- LATE for behind. | |
| 13 | Peril dissipated, councillor enters town sporting honour (6,5) |
| TRIPLE CROWN – Any sport where three elite wins are obtained. An anagram (dissipated) of PERIL with C[ousello]R contained by TOWN, in plain sight. | |
| 15 | Most problematic in trial, fruitcake is regularly unavailable (9) |
| TRICKIEST – TEST for trial into which the even letters of fRuItCaKe Is are inserted. | |
| 16 | Waste initially cleared after a flush (8) |
| AFFLUENT – Nearly my downfall. EFFLUENT for waste needs to lose its initial E, to be replaced by A | |
| 18 | Amphibians putting away jack rabbits (7) |
| NATTERS – Natterjack (toad)s are the required amphibia, remove the jack but keep the S | |
| 19 | Customer ultimately tolerates having residence knocked about (3,4) |
| END USER – Tolerates is ENDURES, reverse (knocked about) the RES[idence] part. | |
| 20 | Scrap line introduced by coder (6) |
| MORSEL – The creator of the eponymous code is MORSE, placed before L[ine]. | |
| 22 | Following beam, losing sight of its origin (5) |
| AFTER – Beam in this case is RAFTER, lose its first, original letter. | |
| 25 | Top holiday, though case lost twice (3) |
| LID – hoLIDay minus is first two and last two letters. Saved me having to think of a 7-letter word with lid in the middle by kindly placing is in clear. | |
You must have been on the wavelength, because the SNITCH is at 136, and my time is not going to help. I did mess up by scribbling DISPPPOINTMENT in my printout, which made then again rather difficult. Then I spotted my error and completed the whole NW pretty quickly – except for Evita. I couldn’t parse it, but stopped the clock anyway. I did like the Financial Times, since we’re always seeing FT in the clues and we might as well give it full credit. I sometimes even do their cryptic.
Time: 55:17
28:26. Tricky but fun! EVITA was a bit of a mind-bender to parse, and I think it can’t be classified strictly speaking as one clue type or another. Liked INNIT. There are at least two kinds of ‘innit’, one just being a commonly heard contraction in many forms of UK English (“that’s a bit rum, innit?”), another being the once much-maligned multipurpose tag originally associated with what is now called Multicultural London English (“you went shops innit”). I wonder if it was on purpose that IS IT appeared, too, because this has also been maligned when used as follows:
A: I got an A in the mock test.
B: Is it?! [ie “really? wow!”]
For me, LIONESSES (though vaguely known) is a more modern and obscure term as they’re rarely mentioned outside of the UK, whereas INNIT was already being panned nearly 30 years ago.
Thank you Zabadak and setter!
Around 90 minutes to complete. Lots of answers biffed often with no clue about parsing. I could never have worked out EVITA. NATTERS was confusing since I kept thinking of jack rabbits, a type of rabbit. Took me ages to put in LIONESSES since I couldn’t see how it could be correct.
Thanks Z
So near in one hour, but a couple of errors. ASPRAWL took an age, but that left me with A-D. I went with AND, as I failed to see “tips” as a reversal indicator. Also messed up by placing EFFLUENT in the grid.
Liked the long anagrams, esp FINANCIAL TIMES.
‘Happily’ was used as an anagram indicator in the Quick the other day, and now we have ‘happy’ here – I don’t quite get it, as the core meaning is not the same as ‘tipsy’. You can happily be jumping for joy, but you can also be happily untroubled. Anyway, I’ll look out for it in future.
PS enjoyed the puzzle
Chambers has it as a informal word for “mildly drunk” which makes sense to me which I guess justifies the usage. I think I’ve heard it used that way before.
Even after seeing the answer I don’t see how EVITA is really justified, I’ve never heard of Electronic Vehicle Information Technology and I can’t find it as a term searching on the internet, even if it was I can’t see how the construction puts the A from advanced at the end? I found this one quite a struggle with a couple of constructions that seemed a little off to me. Still, I got there in the end and I enjoyed AFFLUENT, PRISM and INNIT. Thank you, Zabadak and setter.
56:57 for me.
I had EVITA as “technology” = IT plus Advanced = “A” placed by “Tesla, maybe” – EV (Electric
Vehicle)
That makes sense, I guess, thanks Mike. I’d have thought the Tesla needed a “perhaps” or “maybe” although the setter seems to have thought a question mark sufficient.
Must confess I see a question mark and surmise the maybe – to the point I even wrote the word in my response when it clearly doesn’t actually appear!
me too!
Tough going and a DNF in about 45 with the ASPRAWL/ADD intersection doing me in. I put EFFLUENT as well. But an enjoyable puzzle, thank you Z.
From Isis:
She said Where you been? I said No place special
She said You look different, I said Well, I guess…
She said You been gone, I said That’s only NATURAL
She said You gonna stay? I said If you want me to, YES!
I don’t see how happy could ever be used as an anagram indicator. Why didn’t the editor change it to excited (or similar)?
Happy means (slightly) drunk.
Quite liked this one, bar the mer at the unhappy happy clue..
45 minutes. Quite hard with the usual 2-3 semi-parsed answers, including missing the ADD reverse hidden. Relieved to have spotted the possible EFFLUENT trap and to have remembered the NATTERJACK toad from previous encounters in crossword land. The PRISM (semi-) &lit was excellent and helped to open up the NE corner.
20.30
Only five biffs today (VISITOR, EVITA, LATINATE, END USER, TASERED), so I must be coming up to speed. Not keen on “happy” as an anagrind, though I was aware of the genre of techno music known as “happy hardcore”, suggesting speed and distortion.
LOI TASERED
COD FINANCIAL TIMES
25 minutes with no major holdups. Managed to avoid biffing EFFLUENT and got the right answer in the the end. Quite liked LATINATE for making me think of the artist not the rock diva for ages.
36:04. definitely harder than yesterday’s – and I totally missed Tina TURNER – oh dear! Still got that one from the definition. Very enjoyable puzzle overall.
40 mins bang on and pleased with that. Tough but very good.
The number of WOEs on the leaderboard suggests alot of Effluent.
NHO Alley = Marble and dislike Happy/Happily as an anagrind but I suppose I will learn it as one of those crossword tricks.
COD to the FT, great anagram as Zabadak says. Thanks both.
25:10 which is about my average time so going to say I was on wavelength for this. Found it quite a bit easier than yesterdays so I seem to be against the consensus for the second day running.
I spotted the ‘yoof’ words although apparently both predate my birth.
Thought this was going to be a stinker on the first pass but getting REOCCUPYING, FINANCIAL TIMES and DISAPPOINTMENT allowed me to work steadily out without too many delays.
Corrected my neologism of VELGIN (alley=marble NHo) with ASPRAWL and LATINATE (being too highbrow with my Turners) holding out the longest.
Liked LIONESSES and THEN AGAIN
Thanks blogger and setter.
25 minutes or so.
– Misparsed KIDDO as I thought the definition was at the end (I get now that it doesn’t work)
– The alley marble only rang the faintest of bells for VALLEY
– Almost went for EFFLUENT but avoided the trap in the end
– Only remembered the natterjack toad after I’d put in NATTERS from the checkers
Thanks Zabadak and setter.
FOI Add
LOI Evita
COD Prism
Around the hour and I agree with our blogger, a lot of careful working out had to be done. Stuck on the L3I LIONESSES, then MORSAL & KIDDO.
I did like the long anagrams too. Not sure about INNIT though.
Thanks Z and setter.
From SWAHILI to NATTERS in 36:28. Pretty tough! Thanks setter and Z.
A little over an hour with interruptions. I was pleased to finish with only one cheat (REOCCUPYING) after I’d sweated blood over it, but also annoyed with myself as I had considered the answer might be an anagram of COUP(l)E CRYING but had miscounted the letters and dismissed the idea.
I biffed EVITA having no idea why other than it’s the setters’ go-to 5-letter musical.
MER at W / Welsh at 2dn. Have we had it before?
W[elsh] is in Chambers, and I didn’t have any concerns.
I assumed it would be somewhere and I don’t have access to Chambers at the moment, but I don’t recall seeing it before. What about S / Scottish?
And Chambers never quotes its sources. Any examples, apart from inside other acronyms? London W. The rugby side?
Collins also has it, FWIW, but also doesn’t give examples. The Oxfords (which do normally give examples) don’t have it of course. A google search suggests that E, S, W and NI are used as abbreviations in legislation but if that’s the justification then S for Scotland should be there too but it isn’t (E for England/English is).
Hmm.
23:52 with a silly typo. I found this a lot more straightforward than yesterday’s puzzle and enjoyed it a lot.
HAPPY is ok but where do you stop: BUOYANT, INSECURE, INVIGORATED ?
I don’t mind INNIT which is in both Collins and Chambers but LIONESSES, though perfectly valid here, always irritates me because it is a manufactured nickname, – like TeamGB.
I obviously got out of bed on the wrong side this morning.
Thanks to Zabadak and the setter
Effluent 🙁
Thanks, Z.
17:41. I felt I was making heavy weather of this: lots of clues that seemed intractable until they seemed obvious. The sign of a good crossword.
No problem with ‘happy’: it just means drunk. I did wonder about W for ‘Welsh’.
I like newfangled usages but the only really modern one in here is LIONESSES.
The TAMAR manages to be the border between Devon and Cornwall by rising about 4 miles from the north coast, but then deciding to do it the hard way and flowing all the way to the south. Contrary bugger.
At 23:00 on the money, I’m another who found this more approachable than yesterday’s (just over the half hour, yesterday evening), and very much liked it. No issues with “happy”, now that Dr Jack has pointed out it meaning “tipsy”. It strikes me as equally fair game as any number of other oblique anagram indicators, and new and lesser-seen ones help stop things becoming stale.
Fair bit of biffing towards the end, with the parsing of NATTERS remaining utterly elusive. Thanks to Z and setter for the entertainment.
Late to this after birth of grandson overnight in Hong Kong. DNF, ASPRAWL and INNIT missing, but I enjoyed playing Murps to get VALLEY. My head was mainly elsewhere. Thank you Z and setter.
Congratulations!
31:42
Wavelengthy for me, but with a few shrugs and biffs:
VISITOR – didn’t have the IS IT part parsed
EVITA – Though it comes up increasingly frequently, I seem to constantly struggle equating Tesla with EV, perhaps because I don’t have an EV, and don’t really want one (until the charging infrastructure is considerably better; battery construction and life is vastly improved – I could go on…)
LEHAR – kind of think I’ve heard of the composer before, but no clue as to what his tunes sound like
ALLEY – never played marbles but think this has come up here before. No idea why it is named as such.
LATINATE – bunged in from all checkers – still didn’t spot TINA, nor LATE
END USER – no idea what was going on here
Thanks Z and setter
My thanks to Zabadak and setter.
Pretty tricky I would say, Thursdayish. Some biffing.
11a Evita biffed. EV=Electric Vehicle? OK then.
14a Disappointment biffed, never saw the ointment, so clearly didn’t read the clue.
21a Lethargic, had forgotten Franz Lehar, but he’s in Cheating Machine so can’t say NHO.
1d Valley, DNK alley=marble, I thought it might be where marbles is played.
POI 3d Then again, I was surprised this was in CM so probably has come up before.
8d Latinate, oh, that Turner (Tina).
19d End user biffed.
23:10 – a few tricky ones and a few where full parsing would have stretched my time somewhat. Didn’t see the right sort of Turner in LATINATE and spent too long trying to shoehorn lathe into an improbable collection of letters.
Found this tough and threw in the towel on the hour mark with EVITA missing. NHO the marbles, so VALLEY guessed. Also cheated with REOCCUPYING, having wrestled with just about everything beginning with ‘RE’ and ending in ‘ING’. Vaguely irritated by this throughout.
I only learnt alleys for marbles after moving to Yorkshire. However, they are occasionally mentioned in the hilarious radio vignettes The Bradshaws, by Buzz Hawkins, now happily on YouTube.
Effluent. Scissors!
Thanks setter and Z
24:44.
COD: VISITOR
Late to this and found it tricky, probably about 55′ given various interruptions. Biffed VALLEY, never heard of the marble connection.
I had L_T as the start for Turner and spent some time trying to justify a made-up “latheman”, which I then subsequently found to be a proper definition of someone who works a lathe. Waste of time obviously…made worse when I saw it actually referenced one of my least favourite singers.
Glad to complete it. Thanks Zabadak and setter
Lathiste, cf artiste, with the second T in place? Wondering if Hist.(orical) was classical.
I liked this, inventive and tricky in places. MER at ‘undone by’ as an insertion indicator. SAHILI is ‘undone’ by W. Eh?
Thanks to Zabadak and setter
Maybe if you think of undoing as taking apart, i.e. SAHILI is taken apart by W?
Fell down on affluent, annoyingly as completed in 31 minutes. Could not parse effluent but thought it must be as I’d missed the sneaky flush definition. I doubt using alley as slang for marble is likely to attract the yoof so I think innit kiddo and lionesses are just a coincidence today. Enjoyed the puzzle a lot.
Thanks Z and setter
I found this hard but enjoyable. But I failed with my LOK where I fell into the EFFLUENT trap.
Done in two parts, which always seems to slow me down, not that I’d have been much faster at one sitting. 63 minutes, no major problems except for the ADD answer, which defeated me despite the ‘some’ giveaway, so I biffed it and was surprised to see that it was right. EVITA surely doesn’t require that obscure abbreviation and can, as already said, surely be easily explained as EV IT A, where EV is ‘Tesla?’ and IT is ‘technology’. I liked the PRISM clue; thought it was a rather weak CD.
No time to record as interruptions meant it required three sessions to finish this. My best estimate would be about an hour, although it was possibly a little more. It was certainly a good test, and I was pleased to finish with all correct and parsed, with the exception of my LOI ADD, which although correct I just couldn’t parse. The inclusion of INNIT and KIDDO raised an eyebrow, and I have to say the former is my least favourite word bar none.
Especially as KIDDO isn’t specifically a son. So the setter hasn’t quite got ‘down with the kids’ just yet.
No, but ‘Son’ as referred to (mainly by Americans) in the vocative – ‘Hey, Son/Kiddo, what are you up to?’ is legitimate enough…
Tough today, as befits Thursday but some great clues which rewarded persistence.
Really didn’t like EVITA however . Altho’ I finally got LATINATE, I missed the recently deceased Tina Turner reference completely.
Just read — literally two days ago — a description of 18th century London as a place of “affluence and effluents” (Roy Porter). The hidden hand of coincidence helps again. I seem to have been vaguely on the wavelength because my time is ok: 24’37”. I know you’re not supposed to say it, but I prefer Tina’s early stuff with Ike. Many thanks.
The clock says 1 hour 25 minutes, but I fell asleep during the middle of it and then took a TV break after an hour (which helps immensely), but I did finish all of it correctly for a change, EVITA and ASPRAWL and NATTER and AFFLUENT being my LOIs. The only thing I really didn’t catch was the wordplay for DISAPPOINTMENT, but it was a fun puzzle which divulged its secrets very reluctantly. I’m getting to enjoy this, although masochism has never been my thing before.
I persevered and dipped in and out of this all day, eventually getting some help from my partner on innit, asprawl and tasered to complete. I probably spent 2 h 30 mins altogether. Thanks to setter and Zabadak, because I had no idea on some of the parsing.
All done and parsed correctly, though a MER at END USER having ‘res’ for residence reversed on ‘endures’ and also W for Welsh! Needed Mr Ego’s help with one or two of these, and perhaps a bit more difficult than yesterday’s. Pretty satisfying, though. LOIs in LATINATE and ASPRAWL
‘Alley’ is from ‘alabaster’ which was used to make marbles and ‘kiddo’ is only ‘yoof slang’ in the sense that it’s a slang word used to describe ‘yoofs/yutes’ as it’s certainly not used by them. ‘Kiddo’ is basically the American equivalent of the British ‘kidder’ which I mentally associate immediately with Yam yams (Black Country folk) for some reason, though Wiktionary says it’s chiefly a Scouse word.
Alley might possibly come from the Alley Agate company, which apparently used to manufacture marbles. Named after a Mr. Alley. (So says the Internet anyway.)
Enjoyed this one. But another EFFLUENT My first error this week. An apposite four letter word comes to mind …
Thanks setter and Z. Great blog.
Very tough. In the end took 3 sessions over 2 days, probably more than an hour overall instead of the usual 20 minutes. As Keriothe says, many clues seemed impossible, until they were obvious. No problem with HAPPY, all parsed with no NHOs, slight MERs at undone and Welsh in SWAHILI.