43:39. Well, that’s how I felt solving this puzzle anyway. Don’t get me wrong, there were a lot of absolutely delightful clues here (meaning surface reading, wordplay, word choice, etc), but I felt that a fair amount of the difficulty for me stemmed from using very uncommon synonyms or abbreviations. But let me parse the clues and I’ll get back to you.
Upon reflection, yeah, I still feel that way. But gosh darn there were some gems in here.
| Across | |
| 1 | Friend from Eastern Europe reported fall of King (9) |
| CHECKMATE – homophone of CZECH MATE | |
| 6 | Part of leg somewhat laid back nurses start to ice (5) |
| TIBIA – A BIT reversed around I | |
| 9 | Root cut, following usual number of strokes (7) |
| PARSNIP – SNIP after PAR | |
| 10 | Looking for enlightenment they quickly run through plot (7) |
| BEMUSED – EMUS (they quickly run) in BED | |
| 11 | No place for carriage in mighty caper (5) |
| ANTIC – GIGANTIC minus GIG (carriage)
Ah, GIG, was it. Fortunately I didn’t need to figure out that part during the solve. |
|
| 12 | I will not run out of highway (9) |
| INTESTATE – INTERSTATE minus R
Should have gotten this sooner! |
|
| 14 | Priest is missing a beat (3) |
| LAM – LAMA minus A | |
| 15 | Nervous feeling, say, associated with Burton’s debut theatre part (11) |
| BUTTERFLIES – UTTER with B + FLIES (theatre part)
The FLIES are where the scenery are hung from, etc. |
|
| 17 | Waterproof, this is instinctive: spill tea! (5-6) |
| GUTTA-PERCHA – GUT + TAPER + CHA
Having understood GUT and CHA, and needing to fill in _A_E_ with reasonable letters, I thought I would try to find a synonym of ‘spill’. This wasn’t the right strategy. Eventually I thought of GUTTA-PERCHA, and TAPER at least is a word, so I went with it. Now, look. Is ‘spill tea’ a nice phrase to work into a clue? Sure. Is ‘spill’ a nice synonym for a thin strip of paper used to light a candle? Undoubtedly. Wish I’d known it. I don’t know, something about this one rubbed me the wrong way. |
|
| 19 | Introduction to Götterdämmerung that surprises me! (3) |
| GEE – G | |
| 20 | Unsteadily take aim at Balmoral boiler (3,6) |
| TEA KETTLE – anagram of TAKE + ETTLE (Scots word for ‘aim’)
I count myself among those who tried to make TEA KIMITA or somesuch work. Eventually I just went with my gut and assumed ETTLE was a word I didn’t know. |
|
| 22 | Cryptic pictures on public transport (5) |
| REBUS – RE + BUS | |
| 24 | Chinese agent engaged in Washington diversion (7) |
| HANGMAN – HAN (Chinese) + G-MAN (agent engaged in Washington) | |
| 26 | Why writer stops working? Good you hear this about pen (7) |
| OINKING – O INK IN (why writer stops working?) + G
I mean, this is just brilliant. |
|
| 27 | Counterintuitively best fare from Bavaria — zilch for you in the end (5) |
| WORST – WURST (fare from Bavaria) with O replacing U (you in the end) | |
| 28 | Church reader, fast one, keeps time (9) |
| GOSPELLER – GOER (fast one) around SPELL
Do not like GOER. |
|
| Down | |
| 1 | Drinking this, the reverse of cappuccino? (5) |
| CUPPA – hidden reversed in CAPPUCCINO
Partial &lit, with the definition being ‘the reverse of cappuccino’. |
|
| 2 | “Sinner” for “sinker”? I’m not sure — “singer”? Let me think (7) |
| ERRATUM – ER (I’m not sure) + RAT (singer) + UM (let me think)
RAT as in ‘one who turns informer’. A charming surface. |
|
| 3 | Dangerous animal caught, nothing retarding cycles (4,5) |
| KING COBRA – C (caught) + O (nothing) + BRAKING (retarding) with the letters cycled
I simply cannot wait for the commentary on this one. It’s almost as if someone wanted to find the most extreme use of this wordplay device just to rag some of the commenters here. 😉 Nevertheless, well found, setter! |
|
| 4 | Post a couple of applications (11) |
| APPOINTMENT – APP + OINTMENT
Two very different kinds of applications! Once again, a hat tip to you, setter. |
|
| 5 | Periodically, new baby will want a drop of water (3) |
| EBB – every other letter in NEW BABY
Brilliant again. |
|
| 6 | Numbers clocked / by / my employer (5) |
| TIMES – ‘Numbers clocked’. Perhaps some will hate it, but I love it. |
|
| 7 | A bit miffed receiving only half as much rice (7) |
| BASMATI – anagram of A BIT around the first half of AS MUCH | |
| 8 | Append residence, look, beneath this? (9) |
| ADDRESSEE – ADD (append) + RES (residence) + SEE (look)
When filling out an envelope, the residence goes after the addressee. A nice clue, provided you don’t look too closely at ‘look’. |
|
| 13 | Child’s character we think encapsulates “untrustworthy” (11) |
| TREACHEROUS – REACHER (Child’s character) in TO US (we think)
Thankfully I was able to get this one because I needed vinyl to parse this one for me. I did not know the Jack Reacher series by Lee Child, aka Jim Grant. |
|
| 14 | The method underpinning entries in Crossword Championship spectacle (5,4) |
| LIGHT SHOW – HOW (the method) under LIGHTS (entries in Crossword Championship)
LIGHT is the answer to a crossword clue — I assume stemming from something like shining a light on the mystery? I did know this one. |
|
| 16 | Its influence is Sweet Charity in the setting for Les Misérables (9) |
| FRAGRANCE – RAG (charity) in FRANCE (the setting for Les Misérables)
vinyl parsed this one for me too. I see ‘rag day’ and ‘rag week’, but I don’t actually see RAG as being a synonym for ‘charity’. But FYI, AGR (Amanah Global Fund) is a UK-based charity, so we could very well parse this as AGR in FRANCE as well. |
|
| 18 | One pushing athlete, European, right to the very south of ground (7) |
| TRAINER – TERRAIN with E+R moved to the bottom | |
| 19 | Being divine, cheese is tucked away by girl (7) |
| GABRIEL – BRIE in GAL | |
| 21 | Eve and Adam finally ran into someone doing the Eden Project? (5) |
| EMMET – last lettetrs of EVE and ADAM + MET (ran into)
EMMET is a Cornish word for a tourist |
|
| 23 | Ridicule the people here about money (5) |
| SUGAR – RAG US reversed | |
| 25 | Pain / riding horse (3) |
| NAG – double definition | |
After nearly an hour I had completed 51% of this, so I went off to watch the news. Another half hour and I actually managed to finish it correctly, despite the many, many obscurities and having to take things like EMMET and ..ETTLE on faith. But I do agree with Jeremy and Jack’s comments on the lines of “I’m torn between the high quality of some clues and the downright obscurity of rather too many”. Still, it was indeed a lot of fun. The one clue I didn’t like was INTESTATE, since I doubt there are interstate highways in Britain. But ERRATUM and especially OINKING were superb! Incidentally, pronouncing the introduction to Götterdämmerung in its language would not yield “gee”, so it would surprise me!
Must have taken an hour at least, I put it down and started again. Finished it in the end with a couple of biffs. My Scottish wife has never heard of “ettle”.
I liked cuppa, but I don’t think the clue quite works.
COD: appointment.
Ettle? Hmmm..
Still, I got there.
Are emus noted for speed? Had no idea.
I completed most of this early afternoon, but then went out for dinner. Alas, that was the end of the lightbulb moments. Subsequent solves were painfully slow and eventually I had to resort to aids for the NHO GUTTA-PERCHA and OINKING. TREACHEROUS, LIGHT SHOW, HANGMAN and TRAINER were unparsed, though no problem with the KING COBRA cycling device. LOI was EMMET, which I should have got sooner, as a regular visitor to Cornwall. A brilliant crossword and beyond my ability and GK, but I’ll certainly remember the waterproofing for a subsequent occasion.
As a still fairly new QC’er, I sometimes attempt the Big One. Usually I check the snitch and only try the easier ones but today I just went for it. OMG it was hard. After 90 minutes of biffing and occasionally parsing I was so exhausted I just revealed the remaining LIGHTS (BEMUSED, TIMES, OINKING, SUGAR) and came here to get the lowdown on the very large number of unparsed answers. You people are tough, that’s all I have to say.
DNF
Gave up 44 minutes, with OINKING still not found, and with WURST in place of WORST. I struggle to get which why round A for B clues are meant to be.
OINKING definitely COD.
Just did this on Saturday morning. Took 59:19. some very good clues indeed, for me let down a tiny bit by EMMET and ETTLE which were words I had to take on trust. (If I had believed in emmet as a word, I would have finished significantly faster!!!)
I was really stupidly slow to get INTESTATE, very good clue
Also for SUGAR it took me ages to think of RAG, and not having heard of sugar for money I was trying to think of obscure currencies starting SU
OINKING also very good and I got it by luck, thinking it was INK inside something and then seeing OINKING and realising how the clue really worked
Thanks setter and blogger
Too difficult for me. I enjoyed watching Simon Anthony solve it on “Cracking the cryptic”.
Agree with all the above comments : a brilliant but really tough puzzle that deserves its high Snitch rating ! Way too hard for me, and I was cheating before I’d hardly started. FOI EBB (very clever definition, so I knew then I was in for some hard work). But, being distracted (by life, as we females so often are, and the reason we don’t often indulge in crossword solving or compiling!) I scrolled through the clues ,trying find a foothold, but they were too few to help much(GEE and WORST and PARSNIP). Started looking up, and realised that the parsing was needed to even understand the answers, so I gave up the fight. Pity, as it was so good, and deserved of my complete attention! CODs to INTESTATE and OINKING, but many more.