I was pleased to end up with a pretty quick time in the end, worrying as I solved that I might need a lot more general knowledge than I have. Luckily, though, most of it is not required in order to get the answers. Lots of anagrams to get some letters in the grid, which also usually helps. I enjoyed all of the short and pithy clues, but can’t choose between 12dn and 14dn for COD. Hope you enjoyed the challenge too.
Definitions underlined.
Across | |
1 | Again starts Religious Education, arithmetic, taking in English (7) |
RESUMES – R.E. (religious education) then SUMS (arithmetic) containing (taking in) E (English). | |
5 | Strike part of sleeve (4) |
CUFF – double definition. | |
7 | Cross after the French becoming sloppy (3) |
LAX – X (cross) after LA (the, in French). | |
8 | One again inert, due to move (8) |
REUNITED – anagram of (to move) INERT DUE. | |
10 | Actress Jessica appearing in Shaft and Yentl (5) |
TANDY – hidden in (appearing in) shafT AND Yenti. The first unknown person that I did not really need to know. | |
11 | Constituent of tar: part primarily used by people (7) |
BITUMEN – BIT (part), first letter of (primarily) Used, then MEN (people). | |
13 | Empty tin in tank (6) |
VACANT – CAN (tin) inside VAT (tank). | |
15 | Ale not surprisingly found in shed (4-2) |
LEAN-TO – anagram of (surprisingly) ALE NOT. | |
17 | Storm as NY photo is doctored (7) |
TYPHOON – anagram of (… is doctored) NY PHOTO. | |
18 | An American taking in golf in Scottish region (5) |
ANGUS – AN and US (American) containing (taking in) G (golf, phonetic alphabet). | |
20 | German composer’s pal chasing small girl (8) |
SCHUMANN – CHUM (pal) after (chasing) S (small), then ANN (girl). | |
22 | Stefan, every so often, waves (3) |
SEA – every other letter from (every so often) StEfAn. | |
23 | Shock as spectacular feat is left unfinished (4) |
STUN – STUNt (spectacular feat) missing its final letter (unfinished). | |
24 | At the back, Charlie Lunnon held firm, tho’ was caught finally (7) |
ENDMOST – last letters from (finally) charliE lunnoN helD firM thO waS caughT. I suppose the definition could be at either end of this clue! The second unknown person for me – I assume not an actual person, as a cursory Google search reveals no-one of note? |
Down | |
1 | Subject of certain theories, complicated yet trivial (10) |
RELATIVITY – anagram of (complicated) YET TRIVIAL. | |
2 | Boy carrying short axe for German once (5) |
SAXON – SON (boy) containing (carrying) all-but-the-last letter of (short) AXe. | |
3 | After wedding, join Roy Martin dancing (5,4) |
MARRY INTO – anagram of (dancing) ROY MARTIN. Another unkown person! Again, my ignorance did not stop me solving the clue, but I maybe missed the intended mental image of the prolific musician dancing at a party. | |
4 | Painter picked up cigarette ends (6) |
STUBBS – sounds like (picked up) “stubs” (cigarette ends). Finally, a person it would have been helpful to know, or at least what they did for a living; George Stubbs painted lots of horses. | |
5 | Charlie greeting character from abroad (3) |
CHI – C (charlie, phonetic alphabet) and HI (greeting). The 22nd letter (character) of the Greek alphabet. | |
6 | Privileged citizen mean ref sent off (7) |
FREEMAN – anagram of (sent off) MEAN REF. | |
9 | Conservative coming in second, being far from reliable (10) |
INCONSTANT – CON (conservative) inside (coming in) INSTANT (second). | |
12 | Pretend an eccentric was boring (9) |
TREPANNED – anagram of (eccentric) PRETEND AN. I will never forget this meaning after listening to a BBC R4 documentary with some crazies from the 60s who performed the procedure on themselves in order to get high. | |
14 | Ape, Siamese perhaps, or parrot? (7) |
COPYCAT – COPY (ape) and CAT (Siamese perhaps). | |
16 | Dangerous guns: a few scaled back (6) |
UNSAFE – hidden in (…scaled back) gUNS A FEw. I thought we were looking for a reverse hidden here, but I suppose we are to take ‘scaled back’ to mean ‘limited’ or ‘contained’. | |
19 | Enthusiasm to blow over at the outset (5) |
GUSTO – GUST (to blow) and the first letter of (at the outset) Over. | |
21 | Rook stuck in a French vase (3) |
URN – R (rook, chess) inside (stuck in) UN (a, in French). |
EDIT: It’s not.
Edited at 2021-02-24 07:30 am (UTC)
In 19D I parsed “over at the outset” to mean O as the first letter of over rather than the cricket reference
Pb
An enjoyable solve that I finished in 9.31 with LOI UNSAFE, COD to COPYCAT
A nice puzzle to start the day,
Edited at 2021-02-24 08:40 am (UTC)
Some obscurities, but all guessable. No NHO’s for me. With two checkers I had a bit of Schumann/Schubert anguish, as could not parse until a third checker showed.
MARRY INTO seems like an obscure phrase, and biffers might have been tempted by HONEY MOON which was tempting.
At 24A, I wondered why setter picked on “Charlie Lunnon”, rather than, say Charlie Brown or Charlie Chaplin. When I googled this guy, I only got one Investment Banker and several crossword blogs…
LOI: UNSAFE
COD: COPYCAT
Came unstuck when I overlooked the ‘ape’ -> ‘copy’ pairing which I now remember learning about months ago in this very blog…
Called it quits at 30 minutes with everything else in place, so pleased with the effort but annoyed I missed a ‘gimme’ at the end!
WB
No real hold-ups, though NHO Jessica Tandy, Roy Martin or Charlie Lunnon. Not that one needed to to get those three clues. Was anyone else misled though by “chasing” in 20A — I spent some time trying to fit a word meaning pal after a shortened girl’s name until I realised that the pal was chasing/following S for small.
A wry smile at 1D Relativity. I studied Einstein’s Special and General Relativity at university — complicated it most certainly is, but trivial? Not exactly the word that comes to mind for the laws of how the universe works!
Many thanks to William for the blog
Cedric
Thanks all
Diana
Edited at 2021-02-24 09:44 am (UTC)
Very jolly puzzle with some excellent surfaces. FOI RESUMES, LOI REUNITED (unusually I had to write down the anagrist for both this and POI MARRY INTO before they would click), COD RELATIVITY or STUBBS, time 1.7K for a Good Day. But it would be a better day if I could find a Nina!
Many thanks Felix and William.
Templar
FOI: 5a – CUFF
LOI: 16d – UNSAFE
Time to Complete: DNF
Clues Answered Correctly without aids: 24/26
Clues Answered with Aids (3 lives): 20a
Clues Unanswered: 24a
Wrong Answers: Nil
Total Correctly Answered (incl. aids): 25/26
Aids Used: Bradfords, Google
I had high hopes for this puzzle. I was quickly finding many answers, and I thought I might have my quickest completion to date. Alas that was not to be true.
12a. TREPANNED – Have not heard of this word but it was the only word I could make from the anagram referenced with the letters already present. So, in it went.
20a. SCHUMANN – I do not know the names of many classical composers. My taste in music is quite varied (from Iron Maiden to Merle Haggard to Ozric Tentacles), but I find classical music mostly dull and not something I really listen to. I did know the name SCHUBERT, and I am not sure if he or she was German. But SCHUBERT did not really work with the clue. Bradford’s Solver List came to the rescue with this one.
24a. ENDMOST – This is the clue I did not complete. I was fixated too much on Charlie Lunnon. Who the heck is/was he? I kept thinking. I even Googled him, but nothing came up except for the title of a post that was, in fact, the clue. I found the temptation to resist clicking on the Google entry too hard, and I did so, coming up with ENDMOST. I was so tempted to consider this a clue “answered correctly with an aid”, using one of my three lives and claim a completion. Had I not seen the answer but, as Big Dave’s blog does, an extra clue from which I was able to answer, then I would have classed it as answered. But in the end, I knew I would only be lying if I did not admit a DNF. So, a DNF it is. So disappointing.
Your solving instincts are improving, but you’re not quite there yet.
No problem with the vocab mentioned by our esteemed blogger (in fact BITUMEN wafted into my head straight away) but stuck on UNSAFE (LOI) for ages.
Also slow on MARRY INTO. Even RESUMES took a while.
Thanks all, esp William.
6:57
FOI URN; LOI REUNITED – I wrote out the letters even with all the checkers.
An enjoyable 13 minutes on paper. COD to RELATIVITY.
David
Deep into SCC times as I dipped in and out whilst organising my day, but thanks to Felix for a fun little mental exercise.
My last clue in was ENDMOST (24a), because it took me ages to get the structure of the clue. However, I then had to go back to 4d (STUBBS), as I didn’t know the artist and hadn’t sussed the significance of “picked up”.
Many thanks to william_j_s and to Felix.
FOI: cuff
LOI: reunited
COD: a toss up between Schumann and relativity
Thanks for the blog William.
Nearly fell into the Honeymoon and Schubert trap — but held my nerve and waited for checkers and the parsing to drop.
Like a few above, wasn’t that keen on “Marry Into” for 3dn nor 24ac “Endmost”. In relation to 12dn, I’m sure some there were some obscure clans in Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” that were into “Trepanning” — but it’s been a while since I read them.
FOI — 1ac “Reseumes”
LOI — 12dn “Trepanned”
COD — 12dn “Trepanned”
Thanks as usual.
GK is a very personal thing and I do find it interesting what people do and don’t know. I would have thought many people of a certain age would have seen Driving Miss Daisy (even if they don’t remember the storyline) – the idea of the genteel Jessica Tandy appearing in Shaft is highly amusing! Equally, I imagine lots of people would recognise George Stubbs’ horse paintings even if they didn’t know the artist’s name. Check out Whistlejacket on the National Gallery website if you haven’t seen it.
I jumped around the grid with this one and can’t quite plump for a COD, although RELATIVITY and ANGUS with their wry definitions made me smile.
FOI Saxon
LOI Unsafe – like others, I was looking for a reverse hidden!
COD (at a push) Unconstant
Thanks Felix and William
I’ll blame it on the cricket 😬😬😬
No complaints with the puzzle or the excellent blog as always
Only biffed ENDMOST and parsed it (with a groan) afterwards. My COD is entirely in recognition of “scaled down” which was a new definition of a hidden for me !
FOI CUFF
LOI SAXON
COD UNSAFE
TIME 4:17
I observe that Mrs R’s strategy with these QCs is to correctly guess the answers at random. Quite a skill of hers (along with being able to see around corners, etc.)!
My strategy – trying to work out the solutions from the cryptic elements of the clues – is more laborious and generally slower. Maybe I should switch to guessing at random – correctly of course.
Edited at 2021-02-24 03:44 pm (UTC)
FOI – 5ac CUFF
LOI – 24ac ENDMOST
COD – 23ac STUN
Most of my thoughts already well documented by others. Trepanned just rang a bell but needed all checkers.
COD 14d
LOI 16d
Thanks all
John George
Hard going for me, none of the anagrams fell into place easily and I just didn’t feel like I was on the right wavelength. I did finish but no idea of time my time as printed it out this morning and was looking at it between meetings – maybe why it was so uneven.
FOI LAX
LOI UNSAFE
COD TREPANNED
I know someone who’s uncle trepanned himself and his wife with a home drill in the 70s. Luckily his sister interrupted them before they got to experiment on the children!
Tense error in 12d borING = trepannING, trepannED = borED, and clue would have worked just as well with bored. Couldn’t see 9d or 24a for ages for no apparent reason. Nice puzzle with plenty to chew on.
Full two courses but a good QC
The surface reading which leads you to think ‘pal’ is chasing ‘small girl’ is designed to mislead, and that’s part of the setter’s art. Part of the art of cryptic solving is to be prepared to separate the different elements of a clue and deal with them individually. For simplicity we sometimes refer to this as ‘lift and separate’, a slogan designed elsewhere for use in an advertising campaign.
So I’m back
There is a Nina in this puzzle but rather an obscure one.
I have never really understood why one or two people get so worked up about “random” names in clues. I do sympathise with objections to things like “girl” for ANN, etc, but as far as I can see a name used as eg anagram fodder is no more or less random than anything else …
I can’t see it, Felix! Give us a clue?