Hello, and happy Boxing Day. (Kitties like boxes!)
The right hand side of this puzzle went very smoothly for me, but the left took rather longer, bringing the whole a little past my average time. My last in was 12a. 18a stood out for its surface and so is my pick of today’s clues. Thanks Izetti!
Definitions are underlined in the clues below. In the explanations, quoted indicators are in italics, explicit [deletions] are in square brackets, 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 | City vehicle given protection outside university (9) |
| VANCOUVER — VAN (vehicle) + COVER (protection) around (outside) U (university) | |
| 6a | A chunk getting knocked over — it’s wooden (5) |
| BALSA — A and SLAB (chunk) reversed (getting knocked over) | |
| 8a | Country — an area with lots of grass? (9) |
| GREENLAND — A GREEN LAND might well be a grassy area | |
| 9a | Shocker that could make you stare (5) |
| TASER — The answer, anagrammed, could make you STARE | |
| 10a | Badly laid out galleries — they bring adverse reactions (9) |
| ALLERGIES — An anagram of (badly laid out) GALLERIES | |
| 12a | Property in fact lacking in India (6) |
| REALTY — The answer is found in REAL[i]TY (fact) without (lacking in) I (India) | |
| 13a | Not just a French trading event (6) |
| UNFAIR — UN (a, French) + FAIR (trading event) | |
| 16a | Facial feature that suggests someone will be smitten with love? (6,3) |
| CUPIDS BOW — Two meanings | |
| 18a | Believer in British industry (5) |
| HINDU — The answer is hidden in BritisH INDUstry | |
| 19a | Time to get up and make provisional arrangements (9) |
| TEMPORISE — TEMPO (time) + RISE (to get up) | |
| 21a | Make journey spanning grand line of high ground (5) |
| RIDGE — RIDE (make journey) across (spanning) G (grand) | |
| 22a | Chap getting old penny in each helmet (9) |
| HEADPIECE — HE (chap) + D (old penny) in APIECE (each) | |
| Down | |
| 1d | Homeless person, very short, getting a financial allowance (7) |
| VAGRANT — The abbreviation for (… short) V (very) + A + GRANT (financial allowance). Abbreviations don’t need to be indicated explicitly, of course, but there is nothing wrong with doing so | |
| 2d | Anger of the Parisian overcome by poverty (6) |
| NEEDLE — LE (the, Parisian) having on top of it (overcome by) NEED (poverty) | |
| 3d | Personal hesitation to expose proprietor? (5) |
| OWNER — OWN (personal) + ER (hesitation) | |
| 4d | Through the last bit of Bolivia (3) |
| VIA — The last bit of BoliVIA | |
| 5d | Socialist is given accolade, put about in a new way (12) |
| REDISTRIBUTE — RED (socialist) + IS + TRIBUTE (accolade) | |
| 6d | Sweet bishop, say, Glaswegian perhaps leading church (12) |
| BUTTERSCOTCH — B (bishop) + UTTER (say) + SCOT (Glaswegian perhaps) before (leading) CH (church) | |
| 7d | Desperate model quietly squashing gossip (4-4) |
| LAST-GASP — LAST (model – a shoemaker’s model) and P (quietly) surrounding (squashing) GAS (gossip) | |
| 11d | One group of wise men and boy, it’s supposed (8) |
| IMAGINED — I (one), MAGI (group of wise men) and NED (boy) | |
| 14d | Present in this place or not visible in any place? (7) |
| NOWHERE — NOW (present) + HERE (in this place) | |
| 15d | Compel old boy to rest — good to get tucked in (6) |
| OBLIGE — OB (old boy) + LIE (to rest) with G (good) to be inserted (to get tucked in) | |
| 17d | Slump? Unfortunate daughter should stand up (5) |
| DROOP — POOR (unfortunate) and D (daughter) needs to be reversed (should stand up, in a down entry) | |
| 20d | Mother protecting egg? This bird has gone! (3) |
| MOA — MA (mother) around (protecting) O (egg) | |
I missed the hidden (as usual) at 18ac, and wasted some time thinking ‘British’=B. Biffed LAST-GASP. I don’t much like ‘the last bit’ indicating, arbitrarily, the last three letters of ‘Bolivia’. 5:01.
8 minutes. I was helped by model/last having come up in a Times puzzle within the past week or two in a clue I failed to parse or maybe to solve at all (I forget which now) so it was still fresh in my mind. I might have been unsure of REALTY but for remembering that ‘realtor’ is American for ‘estate agent’.
I might have shared Kevin’s misgivings about ‘the last bit of Bolivia’ if it had been indicating the use of the three letters as part of the wordplay in a longer answer, but as confirmation of the answer itself I thought it was fair enough.
I agree with Kitty: right side ok, but struggled on the lh side till ‘butterscotch’ magically appeared in the gloaming, leading to a quick finish. Thanks to Izetti for a very enjoyable puzzle.
I saw butterscotch right away, but very little else. Redistribute came very slowly, and I also garbled a number of the easy answers giving me the wrong crossing letters. So not a very successful solve, although I did finish eventually.
Time: 12:36.
Slow with very few going in on first pass. I think BUTTERSCOTCH was FOI. Held up by last two in DROOP and HEADPIECE which I could not parse – thanks Kitty.
Minor quibble: Does 9A work as a clue? How is ‘you’ not entirely redundant?
Happy Boxing Day all and thank Izetti
‘Shocker that could make stare’ might be a concise expression of the definition and wordplay but it doesn’t convey any meaning as a sentence. Sometimes setters need to use minor link words to create a decent surface reading and that’s an accepted part of clue writing.
You as in the solver I think. The letters for TASER can also make you the word STARE. At least that was my take.
I understood the anagram part (I used it to get the answer!) but I don’t remember seeing such an obvious redundancy as ‘you’. I’ll take Jackkt’s note that it’s simply the use of a small word to make the clue flow – which I expected was the case, because of course they have to – but this one stood out for me as slightly clumsier than others. Maybe not.
..could make you stare. In sense of make [the word] stare FOR you. ie not make you perform the act of staring.
That’s how I see it too (and as hopkinb above says). Extra words should not be used if they have no function, but are fine if they have an optional function, as “you” does here.
I agree and I’m really pleased that I can now see it as you do and as Slowcoach explains.
Thank you Slowcoach, you’ve nailed it for me. In this way ‘you’ is no longer extraneous, my original ‘quibble’ is quashed and I am utterly satisfied. Thanks again.
Had ‘last gRsp’ and ‘reRlty’ – not easy to type R when you mean A, so I’ve no idea how I managed that but a pb of sorts for the typo with the longest separation on the keyboard. Before that I’d found the acrosses much harder than the downs before being left with TEMPORISE (NHO, so a vocab fail on my part) and HEADPIECE (heard of, couldn’t parse). One pink square, two errors in 14 and dead last on the leaderboard.
Slightly stodgy solve, the left side only really being unlocked by BUTTERSCOTCH. Within target, just.
The hidden HINDU was well disguised by B for British. LOI HEADPIECE. I liked TEMPORISE best.
6:27
Slow to get going on this one until BUTTERSCOTCH came to my assistance and then made steady progress throughout. Struggled a bit with CUPIDS BOW, which was either NHO or long forgotten. My last two in where HEADPIECE and TEMPORISE both of which required some thought before the parsing became apparent.
Finished in 8.34.
Thanks to Kitty
Like our blogger I found the right hand side went in fairly smoothly and the left took more work. Never parsed Headpiece, NHO Cupid’s bow, so both of those put in from checkers alone, and that led to Last gasp, appropriately enough my LOI. 11 minutes in all which is fast for me for an Izetti puzzle.
Many thanks to Kitty for the blog
Cedric
33 minutes with both TEMPORISE and HEADPIECE BIFD helped by checking letters. Not sure I’ve come across REALTY before but the WP helped with that one. No problems with the rest just took my time.
FOI: VANCOUVER.
LOI: TEMPORISE.
Performed very poorly on this one. I gave up in the end as I was using aids far too much.
Have to say I thought 9a was a very poor clue indeed.
13:44 here, which pleased me because after 5 minutes I only had BUTTERSCOTCH. Then BALSA and TASER came out of nowhere, and the rest followed reasonably quickly (for me).
Didn’t parse either DROOP or HEADPIECE, but the crossers forced them in, and I hit “submit” with crossed fingers.
FOI: BUTTERSCOTCH
LOI: DROOP
COD: REDISTRIBUTE
10 minutes for me including a delay getting TEMPORISE from wordplay and then LOI HEADPIECE; both unusual words to me.
I remembered Last = Model from a recent puzzle.
COD to REALTY or maybe UNFAIR.
David
A rare opportunity to attempt the QC early in the day. Like others, I found this tricky in places. I finished somewhere just inside the 30 min mark, which I will take for an Izetti.
NHO TEMPORISE and dredged up CUPIDS BOW and HEADPIECE from somewhere.
FOI – BALSA
LOI – LAST GASP
COD – IMAGINED
PDM – REALTY
Thanks Kitty. Best wishes to one and all for Boxing Day.
13 mins fully parsed for all but 7d and 22a which I could not solve after a further 10 mins. Should have got them in hindsight as they are fair enough.
Lots of clever clues and good variety today – I like it when it is not just a series of anagrams.
I was expecting some sort of Boxing Day theme or Christmas message but cannot see one.
Prof
I started well, then needed a long time on the left hand side. CUPIDS BOW and LAST GASP were my last two in, the latter without being able to parse. I finished on the cusp of the SCC with exactly twenty minutes.
Thanks Kitty for the blog.
Everything complete and parsed, but the trickiest for ages, all took far longer to come to mind than it should, except BUTTERSCOTCH. 7d suggetss that we are now going to have to adjust to LAST/MODEL in the minds of setters though nowhere else; perhaps it will replace SAFE/PETER, which I haven’t seen for a long time.. i wasted a long time deciding I did not know a city beginning with V, but as soon as I had O from 3d, VANCOUVER, my COD, strangely came to mind. FOI TASER. LOI RIDGE, having finally got RANGE out of mind when solving IMAGINED. Thanks Kitty and Izetti.
After the excesses of yesterday I was pleased to find my brain was still in gear, managing to finish in 8.54. Nothing held me up unduly, but most clues needed working out with few gimmes, just how a good crossword should be I think.
Looking back, quite a lot of this went in without any problems. . . but my last three: Headpiece, Last Gasp and Realty must have taken as long as the rest put together. I can’t really grumble about the first two, but I think nho Realty is too specialised for a QC. Either way, it turned into a disappointing 30 min solve. Sadly, not much Christmas spirit on show. Invariant
20:57
A rather unsatisfying solve. There was simply too much guesswork involved in filling in the left hand side. Failed to parse TASER or LOI TEMPORISE.
10:31. Same hold-ups as many others and had never heard of CUPIDS BOW as an anatomical feature.
I’m a bit surprised GREENLAND hasn’t received more positive comments, probably because it’s such a seemingly inappropriate name for the country anyway. Still, it was my clue of the day; the question mark said it all.
Thanks to Izetti and Kitty
“Greenland” is one of the oldest, and most successful, realtors’ lies ever. The original Viking settler, Eírik, having seen what the name “Iceland” did for that country’s image, chose a more upbeat name for his new colony. And it worked – other settlers followed him. And over 1,000 years later, it has stuck, and we have the oddity that Greenland is mostly ice, and Iceland is mostly green (no, really it is).
My first thought was how can Greenland be a country when it’s part of Denmark? Research showed, however, that it is considered an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark.
This leads to the interesting pub quiz question of how many countries have left the EU or EEC. Obviously the UK has, but there were in fact two others before the UK: Greenland did (member since 1973 when it joined as part of Denmark, left in 1985), and even earlier, Algeria was part of the EEC from the start as it was part of metropolitan France in 1957, and left when it became independent of France in 1962.
Very interesting to learn!
Didn’t register a time on this as I got distracted halfway through, but it was well over 30 mins.
Personally, I thought this was tough. Whilst I managed to get 6dn “Butterscotch” fairly quickly, the rest of the long clues were fairly elusive until I had a lot more checkers. Wasn’t even sure 19ac “temporise” was a word, but it was the only thing that made sense. Further complications arose from putting “Proud” at first for 17dn, which caused issues for the SW corner, and not being able to parse 7dn “Last Gasp” ( I kicked myself when I saw Last = Shoemakers model, I think we only had that the other week and I missed it again!)
FOI – 4dn “Via”
LOI – 7dn “Last Gasp”
COD – 6dn “Butterscotch” – a nice example of an ikea type clue I thought.
Thanks as usual! I hope everyone is having a good Christmas.
Today’s 15×15 is quite friendly for the most part, and well worth a punt.
I had to jump around the grid quite a lot for this one and eventually finished up in the SW corner with 17dn and 22ac outstanding. Puzzled over these for some time until I realised I had carelessly entered ‘temparise’ at 19ac. Once this was corrected the other two fell into place quickly enough. No exact time as I was interrupted mid-solve but must have been around 22mins.
FOI – 13ac UNFAIR
LOI – 22ac HEADPIECE (unparsed)
COD – 14dn NOWHERE
Thanks to Izetti and Kitty
Steady away for this one with VIA FOI, and HEADPIECE bringing up the rear. Noted the unusual device for VIA and shrugged. 8:50. Thanks Izetti and Kitty.
Not esy. Really struggled to see BUTTERSCOTCH, LAST GASP, HEADPIECE and TEMPORISE. Took quite a while!