8 minutes for an anti-clockwise solve finishing with 6dn. I’m a bit tight on time today so let’s snap into it.
Definitions are underlined in bold italics.
| Across | |
| 1 | New dating site got going (10) |
| INSTIGATED – anagram (new) of DATING SITE. | |
| 8 | Catch business associate mostly lying around (6) |
| ENTRAP – a business associate is partner – take most of it and turn it around r(ENTRAP). | |
| 9 | Power held by very severe overseas correspondent (3,3) |
| PEN PAL – power (P) held by very severe (PENAL). Did we need the ‘overseas’ bit? | |
| 10 | Run one marathon, perhaps (4) |
| RACE – run (R), one (ACE). | |
| 11 | Macerate bananas for afternoon treat? (5,3) |
| CREAM TEA – anagram (bananas) of MACERATE. Would cream teas be as popular (or cost as much) if someone hadn’t invented the three layer plate thing? | |
| 12 | Blunders and fears losing face (6) |
| ERRORS – fears losing the first letter t(ERRORS). |
|
| 14 | Log touching piece of rope? (6) |
| RECORD – touching [upon] (RE), piecing of rope (CORD). | |
| 16 | Visualisation of data from each trip out (3,5) |
| PIE CHART – anagram (out) of EACH TRIP. | |
| 18 | Remain behind everybody else (4) |
| LAST – double definition. | |
| 20 | Artist hosting one West Indian festival (6) |
| DIWALI – artist (DALI) hosting one (I) and West (W). | |
| 21 | Cross, somewhat tetchy bridegroom (6) |
| HYBRID – some of tetc(HY BRID)egroom. | |
| 22 | Insect worn out eating top of gnarly plant (4,6) |
| STAG BEETLE – worn out (STALE) eating (G)narly and plant (BEET). | |
| Down | |
| 2 | Japanese combatant seen in jazzy trousers (5) |
| NINJA – ‘trousers’ means pockets/takes/holds so the answer is within the clue see(N IN JA)zzy. | |
| 3 | Pressure injected in to overhaul weapon (7) |
| TORPEDO – pressure (P) injected in to (TO), overhaul (REDO). | |
| 4 | Doctor taking a break (3) |
| GAP – doctor (GP) taking a (A). | |
| 5 | Like 007’s work, until SPECTRE crumbled (3-6) |
| TOP-SECRET – until (TO), anagram (crumbled) of SPECTRE. | |
| 6 | Material dug up (5) |
| DENIM – dug – mined – upwards (DENIM). | |
| 7 | Person tending to accept European job (6) |
| CAREER – person tending (CARER) accepting European (E). | |
| 11 | Damage a car travelling round island country (5,4) |
| COSTA RICA – damage (COST – what’s the damage?), anagram (travelling) of A CAR around island (I). Tricksy jigsawing that one together. | |
| 13 | Dried fruit is placed in water (6) |
| RAISIN – is (IS) placed in water (RAIN). | |
| 15 | Be concerned about Liberal bore (7) |
| CALIBRE – be concerned (CARE) about liberal (LIB). | |
| 17 | Church carols regularly creating confusion (5) |
| CHAOS – church (CH), c(A)r(O)l(S). | |
| 19 | Even so, it’s somehow extremely logical (5) |
| STILL – anagram (somehow) of ITS, (L)ogica(L). | |
| 21 | Hot ring broke at the front part of cooker (3) |
| HOB – hot (H), ring (O), (B)roke. | |
I thought the QC was pitched just about right but then I did see LAST straight away. FOI was INSTIGATED and LOI was CALIBRE. I enjoyed the clues for ENTRAP, DENIM, CAREER and CALIBRE. 8:12 for a good day.
This was tough and took me 27 minutes. Surprised to see so many people struggling in the SE corner. I got only two on the first pass of the across clues – RECORD and HYBRID (did much better on the downs). This enabled me to solve from the SE upwards. As has been the case all too frequently recently I had two outstanding which took an age to solve. Today it was the PEN PAL/DENIM crossing – all very straightforward with the benefit of hindsight.
FOI – 14ac RECORD
LOI – 8ac PEN PAL
COD – 20ac DIWALI, for the West Indian misdirection.
Thanks to Jalna & Chris
I found this hard work, only managing HOB at the first pass of all the clues. Once on the right wavelength answers began to flow. Liked ENTRAP, LAST and DENIM; biffed STAG BEETLE and TORPEDO (as both only half parsed) and stared at CAREER (trying to fit EU for European in somewhere, forgetting that EU is the E Union) for some time, thus LOI. Pleasing puzzle, all the same. Thanks Jalna and Chris.
We also joined the rest and curable brigade, also slow in solving 9a penpal. Finished within target but two incorrect.
There was a lot to enjoy in this – at least for the first 20 mins or so. By that stage I was down to my last few clues. At the 25 min mark I had finally worked out what was going on with Diwali, so just had 15d left. A few minutes later I realised I must have one of the crossers wrong but deduced it was probably Record, the parsing of which seemed iffy at best, and Rest was obviously right. . . Pulled stumps at 30mins for a frustrating DNF and came to the blog to find, like others, I had been well beaten by Last/Calibre. Invariant
On the subject of pen pals, Chambers says “An otherwise unknown person (usu abroad) with whom one corresponds” so yes, overseas is unnecessary and maybe even incorrect!
Dreadful again! Only got NINJA. Feel less bad on reading that many others found it tough, possibly too tough for a QC?
I reckon so. Was a toughie if you couldn’t get started. Not sure I’d have got far if I hadn’t unravelled CREAM-TEA, PIE-CHART and INSTIGATED. Even the latter might have passed me by as my first writedown of the letters threw up IGNITED + STA.
22:33
That started really tough with only PIE CHART and DIWALI on the first pass and only 5 answers after 10 minutes. Once the checkers started to fill in the rest eventually fell into place with LOI ENTRAP.
Failed with bore and last
Very late solve today, as it is Mrs R’s birthday and we had a lovely day out.
Tough for me (44 minutes), but not so hard for Mr R (28 minutes). ERRORS required a long alphabet trawl.
Many thanks to Jalna an Chris.