Joker in fine form with his misdirections, and I completed in 12:51.
Across
| 1 | Expect garden tool needs power input (4) |
| HOPE – HO^E (garden tool) contains P{ower} | |
| 3 | Pitiable walkway — mention when returning (8) |
| PATHETIC – PATH (walkway) + CITE (mention) reversed | |
| 9 | Audible prank after flatulence affecting the stomach (7) |
| GASTRIC – GAS (flatulence) + TRIC (sounds like[audible] Trick=prank)
I so wanted Trump=flatulence to work here |
|
| 10 | Oscar limited by failing faculty of speech (5) |
| VOICE – V^ICE (failing) contains O{scar}
My first attempt was SHOUT, with SHUT(=failing) which I felt pretty good about, until the Downs stopped working. |
|
| 11 | Mind supporter at home (5) |
| BRAIN – BRA(supporter) + IN (at home)
Supporter can be Fan or Tee, but not today. See Current Bloggers under my entry for my all time favourite clue that works similarly. |
|
| 12 | Babble, having knocked back strange spirit (6) |
| MURMUR – RUM (strange) + RUM(spirit) all reversed [knocked back] | |
| 14 | Hideous quality of arranged lessons at home (13) |
| LOATHSOMENESS – (LESSONS AT HOME)*
This looks like a hideous word, but Shakespeare used it. In Act 2, Scene 6 of The Merchant of Venice Jessica, who is escaping her father (Shylock) by disguising herself as a page, says For if they could, Cupid himself would blush To see me transformed to a loathsomeness. |
|
| 17 | Thirty-one days inside a yacht harbour (6) |
| MARINA – MAR (Thirty-one days) + IN (=inside) + A
Thirty-one days could be any of the seven, and the IN=inside threw me as well. Just as well the definition is biffable. |
|
| 19 | Easy to understand cold Shakespearean king (5) |
| CLEAR – C{old} + LEAR (Shakespearean king)
Well. it’s never Coriolanus is it? |
|
| 22 | Not even make payment to get round politician (5) |
| BUMPY – BU^Y (make payment) contains MP (politician)
I have to confess to looking up to see if LUY is a word for payment. |
|
| 23 | Wicked devil promises to pay money back (7) |
| IMPIOUS – IMP (devil) + IOUs (promises to pay money back)
Very nice juxtaposition of “wicked” and “devil”. Although to me IMPIOUS seems a lot less severe than wicked. I guess in modern times, doing something like swearing or skipping church doesn’t seem very wicked. But Socrates was put to death for being IMPIOUS: refusal to conform to social and religious norms. Even his accusers didn’t necessarily think he was a “wicked” man who wanted to hurt people. |
|
| 24 | Limit on court is party policy (8) |
| SIDELINE – SIDE (party) + LINE (policy)
Not Baseline, which are more common lines on a tennis court. Yesterday Starmer tried to energise the base/party. Doesn’t quite work, though. And neither did his speech. |
|
| 25 | Go away, taking time off from branch (4) |
| SHOO – SHOO{t} (branch)
I love researching onomatopoeia words in other languages: Pschitt (French), Husch (German), Zape (Spanish), Sciò (Italian), Sou (Greek), Hoşt (Turkish), Kish (Arabic), Kysh (Russian), Hut (Hindi), Shi-shi (Japanese), Xô (Portuguese), and Kst (Dutch). |
Down
| 1 | Alcoholic drink drunk before dance (8) |
| HIGHBALL – HIGH (drunk) + BALL (dance)
I always think of this as just the glass. But its just a type of mixed drink consisting of a base spirit and a larger proportion of a non-alcoholic carbonated mixer, typically served in a tall glass over ice. Whiskey Soda, Gin & Tonic, Rum & Coke: all Highballs. |
|
| 2 | Filling food getting father’s thanks (5) |
| PASTA – PAs (father’s) + TA (thanks)
Is Pasta particularly filling? The adjective “Italian” would have made it too easy, and none at all perhaps a bit too hard. |
|
| 4 | Place to live in settlement (13) |
| ACCOMMODATION – Double definition
An accommodation is an agreement/settlement in law. As in “The committee reached a final accommodation regarding the zoning dispute.” Thanks to my old English teacher Dr Lowe who spent an entire lesson on this spelling. |
|
| 5 | Loiter in E Sussex resort, second only to Brighton (5) |
| HOVER – HOVE (E Sussex resort) + {b}R{ighton}
The full name of the council (and football club) is “Brighton and Hove”. And people who live in Hove call it “Hove actually”. |
|
| 6 | Former magistrate new in war-torn Beirut (7) |
| TRIBUNE – (BEIRUT)* [war-torn] contains N{ew}
A TRIBUNE was an official in Ancient Rome chosen to protect the interests and rights of the common people (plebeians) from the actions of the aristocracy and government. Who in our society plays that role now? |
|
| 7 | Signals for actor’s lines to the audience (4) |
| CUES – Double def
And here, “to the audience” does not signal a homophone but is exactly what it says. Joker up to his tricks here |
|
| 8 | Morning meal — some bananas about right? (6) |
| BRUNCH – B^UNCH (some bananas) contains R{ight}
And again, “bananas” is not an anagram indicator. |
|
| 13 | Refreshment provided by Times press office (8) |
| ESPRESSO – hidden in Times press office
Although a British barista will silently judge you it you call it an “expresso”, in France you actually would say it, because they adapted the Italian word to fit their own linguistic rules. |
|
| 15 | Startled nearly everyone with a weapon (7) |
| ALARMED – AL{l} (nearly, indicating a truncation) + ARMED (with a weapon) | |
| 16 | Avoid breaking peace around centre of armistice (6) |
| ESCAPE – (PEACE)* contains {armi}S{tice}
We’ve had this in a few crosswords recently, and for some reason I always try ESCHEW first, it seems such as classic crossword word. |
|
| 18 | I had the last of many lines for poem (5) |
| IDYLL – ID (I’d=I had) + {man}Y+ LL (lines)
A short, descriptive poem that depicts a peaceful state of existence, usually on a simple rural setting. In my early crossword days, I was doing a cryptic, and the answer was “Idylls of the King”, anagram of “Lightly dyed in silk”. First time I had heard the word. (PS, it’s by Tennyson) |
|
| 20 | Manage over hard period (5) |
| EPOCH – COPE(manage) reversed + H{ard} | |
| 21 | Island is providing refuge for black bird (4) |
| IBIS – I{sland} + IS contains B{lack}
I went through my list of three-letter islands first (Man, Iow, Cay, Key, Egg, Kos) |
Well, I thought CUES was a homophone clue with ‘signals for actor’ being the literal, and then ‘cues/queues’, lines to the audience.
I bunged in ‘vocal’ instead of VOICE which slowed me down. Managed to see LOATHSOMENESS once I had a couple of checkers in place. Liked SHOO and IMPIOUS, a word I didn’t know but makes sense. Managed to miss the hidden ESPRESSO for too long.
Thanks Merlin and setter.
Yes, that’s how I had CUES too. An actor’s lines to the audience aren’t cues.
Me too
5.14, so no problems today. Thanks Joker and Merlin, I think the clue for PASTA would have been eminently gettable without an adjective, ie just ‘food’. I mean there’s a father, then there’s thanks…
Yes, pretty easy, and it helped to see the two long ones right away. Some of the clues are novel, but they are also quite simple. Only tribune required a bit of thought – is war-torn really an anagram indicator?
Time: 6:16
I was a bit hmm about “war-torn”. I guess it just about works given it suggests things will have been reduced to smaller components and now need to be rebuilt.
Had the same thought: This “war” is superfluous.
(Which reminds me of a particular one going on right now…)
17 minutes, so a bit slow. I had the same parsing of CUES as Quadrophenia.
+1 for CUES
+2 for CUES
HOPE went straight in but then only 3.5 more on the first pass of acrosses. The half was IOUS but that ended up being deleted because I was trying to say IMPIOUS like ‘devious’ so couldn’t see it made a word! I never, ever think of ‘high’ for ‘drunk’ despite seeing it in crosswords for years and LOATHESOMNESS took forever to unscrambled. Ended with SIDELINE. Tough for me, ending up all green in 19.53.
An almost top to bottom solve, starting with HOPE and finishing with LOATHSOMENESS in 4.58.
Thanks to Merlin and Joker
Wow that’s quick!!
A gentle run with no real hold-ups on my way to an 8:47 completion. But I did wonder if Babble and MURMUR are the same – Babble is to talk fast and nonsensically, whereas the essence of a Murmur is that is quiet to the point of being barely audible. And I learn today that IDYLL can be a poem about a peaceful state of existence – I thought that it was just the peaceful state itself.
Many thanks Merlin for the blog.
Just a suggestion – a babbling / murmuring brook? Maybe.
Yes – and when the dying Falstaff “babbled of green fields” I think he was murmuring rather than talking fast.
I enjoyed this – thanks Joker and Merlin. Only quibble is Highball. I’ve seen high for drunk before but I’m not convinced, I’d always associate being high with people using other drugs.
The usual sources all mention alcohol and drugs re ‘high’. I think it meant drunk originally and then stretched.
Thanks for the reply! I get that – it’s just that nobody uses it that way now do they? To be fair there are worse examples of references to words which have either changed their meaning or are no longer used.
8:25 for the solve for the Quitch. ESPRESSO LOI with fingers crossed as missed the hidden until post solve.
Thanks to Merlin and Joker
9:02. Not too difficult though for no good reason MARINA took a while to come. I don’t know much about football but I still think of the club as Brighton and Hove Albion and remember their “missed by that much” FA Cup final draw against Man Utd from many years ago.
“And Smith must score”
Wonderful! Perfect QC, everything was just what it ought to be, no obscurities. Thanks, Joker. And thanks, Merlin, for explaining CUES, but still don’t quite understand “exactly what it says”; are they “lines to the audience”? Literally speaking, the audience isn’t supposed to hear them, surely.
I’d suggest reading the comments for CUES
You’re right, thanks, I’d omitted to do that, most unforgivable. Yes, I’d forgotten lines = queues “sounds like” cues, I’m sure Quad is right, that’s what it is. Thanks.
Very good puzzle and blog. Was fast but slowed in bottom half and got properly stuck on LTI IBIS and SIDELINE (where I confused myself by thinking it would end “doline” for “party policy”). It all balanced out for 07:16 and a Decent Day. COD TRIBUNE.
Many thanks Joker and Merlin.
4:25, so quite quick today. I’m surprised to see that the Snitch today is higher than yesterday, as I thought this was more straightforward. Would have been sub-4 but for MARINA, which took 30 seconds to think of.
Another enjoyable puzzle, COD to SIDELINE.
Out of step again. Not on Joker’s wavelength at all. I finished but slowly. The NE was tough, I thought. I should have seen HOVE much earlier but only progressed in this corner when it clicked and allowed VOICE (via my first thought: vocal), PATHETIC, and CUES (a strange clue, IMO).
Good blog.
18:01. Solved steadily with no real holdups. A fairly gentle offering from Joker.
Enjoyable. No hold-ups today though needed all the checkers for LOI ACCOMMODATION.
Liked HOVER, ESPRESSO and BRUNCH among others.
I had hoped the setters had given up BRA supporter.
Many thanks, Merlin.Great blog, but I am afraid I have a sense of humour failure about your favourite clue.
Sorry if someone has said this but the baseline is at the back of a tennis court, Merlin, and the sidelines are, er, at the side.
11 minutes
19 minutes with no real difficulties for once. Thanks Joker and Merlin for a very detailed blog – Dr Lowe would be proud of you!
Started off quite well but then slowed to a painful crawl. I was very slow to unravel the anagram at 14ac and didn’t see the hidden at 13dn until very late on. I eventually finished in 24 minutes with everything parsed, so a full 11 minutes slower than yesterday’s Izetti. Nothing too difficult in hindsight but it seemed difficult at the time.
FOI – 1ac HOPE
LOI – 12ac MURMUR
COD – 9ac GASTRIC
Thanks to Joker and Merlin
All bar three. epoch, shoo, and murmur.
xxxIOUS and xxxxxxxxxNESS en route.
CoD Tribune – I happen to be watching the series Rome at the moment. The image of the crier (Praeco – asked Gemini for that one) lingers. I saw the actor in an Oxford bookshop back in 2007. I wouldn’t expect to see that in a QC.
Excellent! Another failure to lift and separate meant I wondered for a while how a sideline could be party policy, but everything else dropped in and was parsed in a steady chug through. Nothing difficult but not too quick either. Thanks Joker and Merlin.
Leigh-on Sea dwellers say “Leigh-on-Sea actually”, for the same reason. Leigh-On-Sea has twice won the Times best place to live in England award, I cant see Southend winning it any time soon.
An excellent puzzle, keeping up to The Joker’s high standard. My time of 10.04, which is just a few seconds over target, and for me is about par for a Joker puzzle. Started with HOPE (as I always do), and finished with the adjacent HIGHBALL.
9:45, which is pretty quick for me, and would have been faster had I not become mired in the SE corner by SHOO / EPOCH. For some reason IBIS is firmly lodged in my brain so I probably dodged a bullet there.
Thank you for the blog!
SCC for me with a query on 1a: does expect really mean hope? I got it but surely you can hope for something without expecting it? Or am I being 3a. LOATHSOMENESS needed all the down crossers, but ACCOMMODATION fell immediately. I thought war-torn an appropriate (if desperately sad) anagram indicator for Beirut, which was a sophisticated jewel of a city when I was there in the 1960s. IMPIOUS took a while and the customary groan for supporter! With a smile. Thanks Joker and Merlin for great blog.
We spent our short honeymoon in Beirut in the sixties, on our way to Bangkok.
How lovely! Like Aix en Provence only with the seashore and gorgeous hillsides. We drove to the Bekaa valley and shepherds with their flocks and tinkling bells transported us to Biblical times…
From HOPE to BUMPY in 7:22. Reasonably straightforward, with IBIS holding out until SIDELINE was in place. Thanks Joker and Merlin.
Ooh! A Tuesday treat from Joker. Where have you been?
A typically enjoyable offering, completed in reasonable time and rewarded with:
BRUNCH of PASTA followed by ESPRESSO
rounded off by A HIGHBALL and double RUM
Plenty to get the GASTRIC juices flowing. What’s not to like?
Thanks Joker and Merlin
8:34
Quitch of 86 suggests I might have been a bit quicker off the mark with this. Only 3 and a half in on the first across pass left me with a lot of catching up to do. I also considered LUY before thinking of BUY. LOI was LOATHSOMENESS which seemed a pretty horrible anagram until I wrote out the remaining letters and realised that only the O would fit as the second letter.
Thanks Merlin and Joker
13 minutes for me including quite a long pause over LOI MARINA. I just couldn’t think of the [yacht] harbour at first and was looking for a hidden which might mean a month in some calendar or other.
An excellent QC.
COD to BUMPY.
David
A fairly standard time today, and no problems on the way.
I really appreciated 6d as a clever clue but felt was too sad to give it COD. We could do with some wise TRIBUNES.
On the other hand, the silliness of GASTRIC made me smirk, my COD made me chuckle, and BRUNCH made me hungry – all the emotions in one crossword!
9:57 FOI Hope LOI Brain COD Murmur
Thanks Joker and Merlin
Thanks vm for your hint about ticking the box first!
Oh, did it work? That’s great news 😊 I can’t remember how I found out – trial and error perhaps!
An old style Joker and a fully parsed completion in 17mins, remind me of why he was once one of my favourite setters. A few more like this please, Joker.
A straightforward top to bottom solve, with Loathsomeness from just the initial L as a solving highlight – Accommodation needed a few crossers. Vocal didn’t parse, so was quickly changed to Voice, and Tribune needed Murmur to unlock, but those were the only hold-ups.
CoD to Bumpy for the smile. Invariant
15.41 for us – a pleasant ramble with a few moseys up garden paths. Went through a run of blackbird varieties…
Delighted to have the X and S issue in short black explained. Well, there we are, thought I.
A very gentle yet enjoyable QC from Joker. COD GASTRIC made me smile. I parsed CUES as comments above. Many thanks both.
A straight top to bottom solve, although I had pause for thought at 9A, which I wanted to start with “fart”, and I tried to insert an extra E in LOATHSOMENESS (which spell check on here doesn’t recognize either!)
FOI HOPE
LOI IBIS
COD TRIBUNE
TIME 2:39
2:39 I’m speechless. Well clearly not but.
8.34 Mostly straightforward but LOATHSOMENESS, HIGHBALL and ESPRESSO were slow at the end. I liked CUES. Thanks Merlin and Joker.
A seat in the SCC for me, taking 25 mins over this. Didn’t spot the hidden at 13d but manged to construct an entirely wrong parse for it.
FOI Hope
LOI Shoo
COD Escape
Thanks Joker and Merlin
Despite not knowing the alcoholic drink (HIGHBALL), the former magistrate (TRIBUNE), the alternative word for poem (IDYLL) or that IMPIOUS is actually a word, I still almost avoided the SCC today. Unfortunately, however, a brain freeze on my LOI (CUES) turned a probable 18+ minutes finish into 20 minutes. Drat!
My CoD today was BRUNCH, because it’s one of my top six meals of the day.
Thanks to Merlin and Joker.
Though I was stuck at SIDELINE, getting a little too attached to the wrong end of the clue, the checkers rescued me and I had a pretty smooth finish at 9:47. LOI MARINA also gave me pause. Joker’s usual artful clues made it a very entertaining start to the day. I especially like GASTRIC and IMPIOUS, but COD to SIDELINE.
Thanks Joker and Merlin. I had LUMPY for a bit too. Love the multilingual commentary on SHOO. 😂 Hove actually. “Lightly dyed in silk” must be the most beautiful anagram I’ve ever seen.
18 mins…
Should have been quicker, but, like Merlin’s English teacher, I could have done with some lessons on spelling “accommodation”, as I was convinced it didn’t have a second “m”. The rest was a good challenge.
FOI – 1ac “Hope”
LOI – 4dn “Accommodation”
COD – 12ac “Murmur”
Thanks as usual!
Lovely QC, great blog. Thanks Joker and Merlin.
13 minutes, bit slow in the NE.
8.52 which I am pretty sure is a PB for me.
Thanks to Merlin and Joker
17:21
All parsed eventually, but staring blankly at my LOI, I thought it might take me to the back of the SCC – could MAYINA be a yacht? Then the PDM.
A very nice QC.
FOI: HOPE
LOI: MARINA
COD: GASTRIC (for the smile)
Thanks to Joker and Merlin
14:32
would have been quicker but for my pathetic loathsomeness (over pondering of marina murmur)
Ta JAM
Woeful performance on the main crossword.
10 clues short in 1.5 hours! I’m struggling badly with this.