Hello all. When possible I like to keep the setter’s identity a mystery until after solving, so I come to the puzzle without preconceptions and can guess and then check who was responsible. Today’s setter not only gave himself away courtesy of a couple of religious references, but also signed the puzzle at 11a. All good fun, for which thanks to Izetti.
Timewise, I was a little slower than usual at just under 9 minutes. These past few weeks I’ve often been on the sluggish side – not sure whether to blame brain-fail or the puzzles!
Definitions are underlined in the clues below. In the explanations, quoted indicators are in italics and I’ve capitalised and emboldened letters which appear in the ANSWER. For clarity, I omit most link words and some juxtaposition indicators.
| Across | |
| 1a | Greatest achievement of expert enthralling millions (4) |
| ACME — ACE (expert) surrounding (enthralling) M (millions) | |
| 4a | Irresponsible act of Nero, supposedly cheating (8) |
| FIDDLING — Two definitions, the first referring to Nero reportedly fiddling while Rome burned | |
| 8a | Seaside resort has to keep smart (8) |
| HASTINGS — HAS containing (to keep) STING (smart) | |
| 9a | Old boy brought aboard ship cries (4) |
| SOBS — OB (old boy) put inside (brought aboard) SS (ship) | |
| 10a | European hostelry led by female (4) |
| FINN — INN (hostelry) preceded by (led by) F (female) | |
| 11a | Fellow hugged by unconventional padre is forgiven (8) |
| PARDONED — DON (fellow) surrounded by (hugged by) an anagram of (unconventional) PADRE | |
| 12a | Hasten around capital city (6) |
| ATHENS — HASTEN anagrammed (around) | |
| 14a | Make box for storing eggs primarily (6) |
| CREATE — CRATE (box), whose purpose here is containing (for storing) the first letter of (… primarily) Eggs | |
| 16a | Company vehicle, one provided by head (8) |
| BUSINESS — BUS (vehicle) + I (one) + NESS (head: a headland) | |
| 18a | Christian virtue of work embraced by ambassador (4) |
| HOPE — OP (work) surrounded by (embraced by) HE (His/Her Excellency, ambassador) | |
| 19a | Beware a hollow space! (4) |
| CAVE — A double definition, CAVE being Latin for beware and also schoolboy slang of a certain era | |
| 20a | Girl sitting by one slope in biblical territory (8) |
| GALILEAN — GAL (girl) + I (one) + LEAN (slope) | |
| 22a | Bothered, deep rest being tricky (8) |
| PESTERED — DEEP REST anagrammed (being tricky) | |
| 23a | Periods when shock is reported (4) |
| DAYS — This sounds like (… is reported) DAZE (shock) | |
| Down | |
| 2d | War vehicle in church, leading to a disturbance (7) |
| CHARIOT — CH (church) + A + RIOT (disturbance) | |
| 3d | School said to be taken in (5) |
| EATEN — A homophone of (… said) ETON (school) | |
| 4d | A Parisian going after loud and amusing activities (3) |
| FUN — UN (a, Parisian) following (going after) F (loud) | |
| 5d | Turns aside from area in East Anglian town (9) |
| DISTRACTS — TRACT (area) in DISS (East Anglian town) | |
| 6d | Somehow graceful, having smile so out of the ordinary (7) |
| LISSOME — SMILE SO anagrammed (out of the ordinary) | |
| 7d | Lord turning up in Hotel Bonaparte (5) |
| NOBLE — We find the answer hidden in reverse in (turning up in) HotEL BONaparte | |
| 11d | Permit, fancy green, for traveller (9) |
| PASSENGER — PASS (permit) + an anagram of (fancy) GREEN | |
| 13d | Demanding information in passage going out (7) |
| EXIGENT — GEN (information) in EXIT (passage going out) | |
| 15d | Garden style is supreme and surprisingly airy (7) |
| TOPIARY — TOP (supreme) and an anagram of (surprisingly) AIRY. I can’t not mention The Topiary Cat | |
| 17d | Employment of university person deemed wise (5) |
| USAGE — U (university) + SAGE (person deemed wise) | |
| 18d | House was first to be susceptible to rain coming in? (5) |
| HOLED — HO (house) + LED (was first) | |
| 21d | Cover I had left on top (3) |
| LID — I’D (I had) with L (left) preceding (on top, in a down entry) | |
Most of this went in pretty quickly, but I was slowed in the bottom half by the nho EXIGENT and by GALILEAN, for which I had started to put Galilee in until I realised I was a letter short. I was also worried by ACME which I had lightly written in because it fitted the wordplay and I vaguely remembered it coming up before, but I couldn’t remember what it meant. To me it’s the company (the precursor of Amazon perhaps) from which Wile E Coyote manages to mail order all his explosives and booby traps. Anyway, all done in 18:52, which isn’t bad for me for an Izetti. COD to BUSINESS. Thanks all.
Totally outclassed today. If not an outright personal worst – and it might be – then definitely the slowest for years. 30m + with a fair bit staring at an empty SW. I’m obviously out of sorts though because I couldn’t get BUSINESS from the definition and ran out of vehicles after car and bus. Not my finest solving moments.
A bit over 10 minutes. I found this easier than the last few Izettis so no complaints here. I didn’t know what EXIGENT meant and I certainly don’t know how to pronouce it, but the cluing was clear, so in it went.
I don’t have a problem with the Latin CAVE – I’ve seen pictures of a mosaic at Pompeii which says CAVE CANEM, one of the more famous ‘beware of the dog’ signs I would imagine, and we have surely seen the word here before. I read recently that there is an increase in teaching Latin in state schools – it certainly is useful to study if you’re interested in European languages, not that they’re so popular these days, sadly. In any case, we’re back to the thorny issue of GK, really – if you know it, it’s not obscure, and I knew it. It just took me a little while to work out the answer.
FOI Fiddling LOI Cave COD Athens
Thanks Izetti and Kitty (thanks also for the Topiary Cat. I nearly fell for the first pic of the man cutting the hedge 😅 I thought Wow, that’s an enormous piece of topiary, then PDM!)
Oh, I’m sure I thought the topiary cat was real at first. There are more improbable things than that to be found in this world, after all!
I agree with the general sentiment that today Izetti was being generous. But I liked most of his clues – as I usually do. Again, on a couple of clues I knew what the answer must be well before being able to parse it – a strange feeling! – Hastings and Athens being two examples. Liked chariot, distracts, business, Hastings in particular.
FOI 1a Acme – not a word I use or often hear; maybe I dredged it out of schoolboy comics…
LOI 18d Holed – a semi-biff
COD 8a Hastings – just amusing.
Thanks to Kitty and Izetti
Dare I peek at the 15×15…I always find them a big step up.
12 and a half minutes after starting late due to an early tee time this morning. No problem with CAVE, EXIGENT or anything else really, although I did initially bif BRIGHTON on the basis that bright could be smart! I’m now going to go back and enjoy Kitty’s blog. Thanks all.
90% of this was completed pretty quickly for an Izetti puzzle, but the last few really took me some time. I did, however, manage to finish at last in 24 minutes, all parsed. Knew LISSOME (but not that spelling), EXIGENT and CAVE, although they’re hardly in everyday usage, so no problems with vocab or GK at least.
FOI – 1ac ACME
LOI – 8ac HASTINGS
COD – 16ac BUSINESS
Thanks to Izetti and Kitty
Late to this, and most of my observations have been covered by others. 26mins, with loi Distracts responsible for a chunk of those, ‘abetted’ by the criminal Galilean. Invariant
Not what I wanted for a Monday. Got there in the end but can’t say it was anything other than a struggle.
Thanks for the very helpful blog.
Very late solve, as visiting elderly parents, and a brief post today.
I found this very challenging, particularly ACME, DISTRACTS, CREATE, CAVE and USAGE. However, I got them all in the end (no idea how) and crossed the line in 40 minutes. Much relief!
Many thanks to Izetti and Kitty.
Apparently a knowledge of Latin is required for the QC. That excludes rather a lot of the population. Is that the intention of the QC?