Hello everyone. Thanks to Jalna for a puzzle which I found lots of fun and thought perfectly pitched for the slot.
Time after time, I don’t have a clear favourite to mention here, but this time I do: 17d. I also liked the gift of frilly clothing in 14a. Neither of these clues have misleading definitions, but both have delightful wordplay.
My biggest hold-up was 5d (I have a bit of a history with anagrams: when I’m not being slow unscrambling them as here, I’m missing perfectly obvious indicators), and my last in was 16a.
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 | Slow, scruffy members of parliament? (4) |
| OWLS — An anagram of (… scruffy) SLOW, a parliament being the collective noun for owls. Owls are often clued as members of parliament, so this is one to remember if it’s new to you | |
| 4a | A Scotsman assuming the name of a place in Greece (8) |
| ATHENIAN — A and IAN (Scotsman) around (assuming) THE and N (name) | |
| 8a | Sink filled with large fish (8) |
| FLOUNDER — FOUNDER (sink) containing (filled with) L (large) | |
| 9a | Uncultivated land with space for retreat (4) |
| MOOR — ROOM (space) in reverse (for retreat) | |
| 10a | Poet excluded in conversation (4) |
| BARD — BARRED (excluded), sound-alike (in conversation) | |
| 11a | Final, net value adjusted (8) |
| EVENTUAL — NET VALUE anagrammed (adjusted) | |
| 12a | Empty garage next to little house (6) |
| GEMINI — Without inner letters (empty), GaragE next to MINI (little). The zodiacal meaning of house is another thing worth remembering | |
| 14a | Inheritance gift of frilly clothing for example (6) |
| LEGACY — LACY (frilly) is around (clothing) EG (for example) | |
| 16a | Female effortlessly acquires billions, probably (8) |
| FEASIBLY — F (female) + EASILY (effortlessly) gains an insertion of (acquires) B (billions) | |
| 18a | Small, pale-coloured bird (4) |
| SWAN — S (small) + WAN (pale-coloured) | |
| 19a | I try embodying a Shakespearean character (4) |
| IAGO — I and GO (try) incorporating (embodying) A | |
| 20a | Person arranged extremely sensible answer (8) |
| RESPONSE — PERSON anagrammed (arranged) + the outer/extreme letters of (extremely) SensiblE | |
| 22a | Rather a few, eh? (8) |
| SOMEWHAT — SOME (a few) + WHAT (eh?) | |
| 23a | Sumptuous portion of yakitori chicken (4) |
| RICH — A part of (portion of) yakitoRI CHicken | |
| Down | |
| 2d | State benefit is thoroughly reasonable, we’re told (7) |
| WELFARE — A homophone of (… we’re told) WELL (thoroughly) and FAIR (reasonable) | |
| 3d | Crew ultimately provides muscle (5) |
| SQUAD — The last letter of (ultimately) provideS + QUAD (muscle) | |
| 4d | Admiral regularly turned up to offer assistance (3) |
| AID — Alternate letters reversed of (… regularly turned up) aDmIrAl | |
| 5d | Fooling around and also hyper, possibly (9) |
| HORSEPLAY — ALSO HYPER anagrammed (possibly) | |
| 6d | Guy supervising entrance held up a form of ID (4,3) |
| NAME TAG — GATEMAN (guy supervising entrance) written upwards (held up, in a down entry) | |
| 7d | Perfume from a city in Italy (5) |
| AROMA — A + ROMA (city in Italy). Rome is indeed in Italy, of course, but the “in Italy” is really needed here to indicate that we are using the local name for the city | |
| 11d | Hired gun travelling round British capital (9) |
| EDINBURGH — HIRED GUN anagrammed (travelling) surrounding (round) B (British). While B turns out to be used in the wordplay rather than the definition part of the clue, putting “British capital” in the solver’s mind is immensely helpful – at least it was for this solver! | |
| 13d | Rhinos moving east away from water? (7) |
| INSHORE — RHINOS anagrammed (moving) + E (east) | |
| 15d | Student group starts to improve and creates great work (7) |
| CLASSIC — CLASS (student group) + the first letters of (starts to) Improve and Creates | |
| 17d | Time after time, love is a source of inspiration (5) |
| ERATO — T (time) after ERA (time) + O (love) | |
| 18d | Singer’s first substandard track (5) |
| SPOOR — Singer’s first letter + POOR (substandard) | |
| 21d | Compile a crossword collection (3) |
| SET — Two meanings | |
All fair in retrospect, but quite tough overall and I can see that it would have been tougher for people without a few crosswords under their belts already. Constellations being houses, a SPOOR being a track and a knowledge of Muses are all things that I wouldn’t have had a clue about until I started doing these. Anyway, it was the NW corner that really did it for my time. In the end I finished in 34:02 with WELFARE. COD to ATHENIAN. Thanks all.
Am posting without having read the comments yet as I have to go out shortly, but I promise I’ll read them later. So apologies if I’m repeating what everyone else has said.
This would have been a quick one if I’d remembered the rule about putting a Q in front of a random (sorry arbitrary) U. But I forgot that basic rule so struggled for a couple of minutes on 3d 🙄 Not so good on muscles either! Otherwise I thought this was most enjoyable – fingers crossed I’m starting to get the hang of Jalna!
Lots of ticks and smiles today – GEMINI, HORSEPLAY and SPOOR were particularly good, I thought.
FOI Owls; LOI Squad; COD Erato; Time – about 9 minutes
Thanks Jalna and (in advance) Kitty
Later on: Interesting to see the variety of opinions today. In a way, I’m glad I didn’t read the comments before posting above – I wonder if it would have affected my view of the puzzle. I didn’t parse NAME TAG, I’ve now realised, so thanks to Kitty for that!
Northwest corner also caused us problems and we spent the an hour with the puzzle almost complete.
Newbie here (18 months in), still battling to beat 15 mins. And as long as there are answers like “erato” I never will. IRL I’m a journalist and author but i have never come across that word.
And “gate man”? Come off it. There is no such term. Door man, or doorman, yes.
Oh, and “Ian” for “Scotsman”? For heaven’s sake! Scottish Ians are usually spelt Iain anyhow.
Dear Mr. Newbie, despite your harrumph,at our compound, we have six uniformed gatemen at anyone time, on twelve hour shifts, here at Splendid City in Shanghai. They wore Hazmats during the recent lockdowns. They are also to be found in Singapore, America, South Africa, Australia and many large, gated, cummunity properties and large hotels across the world.
I think you need to get outdoors a bit more often. Meldrew
I dream of the day when I too can live in a gated community and avoid the riff-raff. It seems like ever since the French Revolution the proletariat has been getting so uppity!
I agree about the unfamiliarity of Gateman, Rossminster, but turns out it is a normal term for Gatekeeper or Doorman. Despite our travels, have never lived in a gated community as such. Eastern compounds had guards, not gatemen, imd (In my day).
Another one to add to the DNF collection, which is the only collection I have. Many thanks for the very useful blog.
Ian, Are you Scottish by any chance?
No!
Not thinking well enough today to spot 1a parliament/Owls so missed that (despite the acknowledging anagram indicator) and also 3d Squad despite having the U and D, so a DNF. Annoyed with myself – seeing 1a would have led to a satisfactory 3d. At least I am not alone! Really liked 12a Gemin, 19a Iago and 22a Somewhat.
FOI 4a Athenian
LOI 17d Erato
COD 12a Gemini
Tough for a Monday, but that’s partly down to me being slow on the uptake. Hoping my brain is clearer tomorrow!
You don’t really need to learn all nine muses, as Erato is odds-on, her name being far the most setter-friendly!
There were some well hidden anagrams today and a lot of clever misdirection. I struggled with some parsing and am very grateful for the blog. Guessed Erato from the wordplay but it was a new one on me. I don’t need the pressure of a clock when I’m solving these puzzles but I was somewhere in the region of 35 mins. A tough start to the week!
I found this harder than average. Unlike most commenters, I did not have a lot of trouble with the northwest corner, but it took me an age to get Erato and Somewhat. I had never heard of Erato, but worked out the word from the parsing. I liked Owls and Name tag. Managed to parse all the clues, so didn’t need the blog this time – but thank you Kitty, and thanks to Jalna for the prolonged entertainment!
Interesting comments today, thanks. Seems like most of you found this one harder than usual, which just reminds me that I’m terrible at gauging Quick Cryptic difficulty! This was my first sub-6 mins in over two weeks – but clearly the pitfalls I managed to miss when solving, I also managed to misjudge the size of when blogging.
Glad to see the extra comments are useful. It’s easy to fall out of the habit of including this detail, particularly when there are always helpful contributors around to answer questions as they arise. It may depend on time and energy, but I will try to keep that up.
The setter should be encouraged to see that at least the enjoyment level seems generally high, and that there are lots of different favourites cited.
Tough – especially the NW corner, as others have found. Once OWLS clicked, the others followed. Guessed ERATO (I remembered an old record label so named: only word that fitted!), took a while with HORSEPLAY anagram and also guessed GEMINI: didn’t know the HOUSE link.
Found this hard.
Failed at the end with ERATO and SOMEWHAT
ATHENIAN doesn’t seem to match the definition of a place in Greece.
Ian=Scotsman
Eh=what
Ok if you know all the hackneyed old crossword defs. I don’t- prefer more modern wordplay.
But some nice clues apart from the those.