Happy New Year to one and all, and we have Quick Cryptic 2300 to mark the first puzzle of 2023.
My solving time was 14 minutes. I found this tough in places, missing my target by 4 minutes and getting an answer wrong at 13dn where I transposed two unchecked letters when unravelling the anagrist of an unknown word.
Oran is one of the many pseudonyms of Crossword Editor, Richard Rogan, who in some of his other guises often provides us with a theme or Nina. This is only Oran’s 20th QC since his first in 2014 and I have just one of those noted as having a theme — something to do with Northern Irish football. His reappearance after a break of nearly four years plus the milestone number of the puzzle might suggest there’d be something extra for us to spot today but my efforts to find it have not been entirely successful. I’ve come up with a few things, but nothing that makes a coherent whole, so rather than holding on until later in the blog I’m going to list these up-front in the hope that one or more of you can piece something together and point out what I have missed.
At 1ac / 7ac we have ABOVE SUSPICION, the very first novel by Helen MacInnes written in 1941. It’s a spy story set at the outbreak of WWII and was made into a movie in 1943 starring Joan Crawford and Fred MacMurray. The only other answer I have linked to this directly is 8ac LISZT whose music features in the story when an annotated copy of one of his piano pieces provides clues as to the name of a village in Austria where some of the action takes place. I’ve not read the book or seen the film so I would be unlikely to pick up other references
The remaining themed clues (if that’s what they are) don’t appear to have any direct connection to this but are related to acting :
11ac PLAYERS
12ac / 15ac AMATEUR THEATRE
23ac / 24ac CHARACTER ACTORS
I also wondered about 18ac / 20ac MAILING MACHINE and even 18ac / 8ac MAILING LISZT (!) before finding a more likely reason for the composer’s presence. Items possibly to be found in the theatre box-office.
As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions and substitutions are in curly brackets} and [anagrinds, containment, reversal and other indicators in square ones]. I usually omit all reference to positional indicators unless there is a specific point that requires clarification.
 Across |
|
| 1 | Boy briefly caught in hail overhead (5) |
| ABOVE | |
| BO{y} [briefly] contained by [caught in] AVE (hail – Latin e.g. Ave Maria) | |
| 7 | Pi cousin’s somehow causing scepticism! (9) |
| SUSPICION | |
| Anagram [somehow] of PI COUSIN’S | |
| 9 | Composer’s last letter found in register (5) |
| LISZT | |
| Z (last letter) contained by [found in] LIST (register) | |
| 10 | Public service’s lack of purpose when missing leader (7) |
| UTILITY | |
| {f}UTILITY (lack of purpose) [missing leader] | |
| 11 | Cast top layer, staying inside (7) |
| PLAYERS | |
| Hidden [inside] {to}P LAYER S{taying} | |
| 12 | A friend, you are not getting paid (7) |
| AMATEUR | |
| A, MATE (friend), UR (you are – text-spell) | |
| 15 | Tear wildly into the scene of operations (7) |
| THEATRE | |
| Anagram [wildly] of TEAR contained by [into] THE | |
| 18 | Posting message, initially poorly (7) |
| MAILING | |
| M{essage} [initially], AILING (poorly) | |
| 20 | Mechanical device in pit containing a chain (7) |
| MACHINE | |
| MINE (pit) containing A + CH (chain – 22 yards) | |
| 22 | Sunday dinner, perhaps right next to oven (5) |
| ROAST | |
| R (right), OAST (oven – a kiln for drying hops) | |
| 23 | Letter to be burned: react badly (9) |
| CHARACTER | |
| CHAR (be burned), anagram [badly] of REACT | |
| 24 | Thespian to go off — about to return (5) |
| ACTOR | |
| ROT (go off) + CA (about – circa) reversed [to return] | |
| Down |
|
| 1 | A Yank raised total weight of aircraft (3-2) |
| ALL-UP | |
| A, then PULL (yank) reversed [raised]. This was unknown to me but not hard to work out. SOED has it as the weight of an aircraft, total, including crew, passengers, cargo, etc., when in the air. | |
| 2 | Bolt case after adjusting bar (8) |
| OBSTACLE | |
| Anagram [after adjusting] of BOLT CASE | |
| 3 | Judge meets up with European (6) |
| ESTEEM | |
| E (European), then MEETS reversed [up]. I was unaware of ‘esteem’ as the verb it’s required to be here. Later edit: Thanks to Bletchley Reject’s example below I now realise that of course I knew it as a verb and have used it here many times myself. | |
| 4 | Quartz that’s still pit-coal, oddly (6) |
| SILICA | |
| S{t}I{l}L {p}I{t} C{o}A{l} [oddly] | |
| 5 | Skirt I located after thirty seconds? (4) |
| MINI | |
| MIN (thirty seconds – half a MINute), I | |
| 6 | In New York, a road outside area of tavern (7) |
| INNYARD | |
| IN, NY (New York), A, RD (road) | |
| 8 | Ill at ease as gum provides savoury filling (7,4) |
| SAUSAGE MEAT | |
| Anagram [ill] of AT EASE AS GUM | |
| 13 | Something stirring, etc, in tax reforms (8) |
| EXCITANT | |
| Anagram [reforms] of ETC IN TAX. I didn’t recognise this word and as mentioned in my intro I managed to transpose two of the unchecked letters to give an incorrect answer. |
|
| 14 | Cat in bag: initially hard to put up with (7) |
| STOMACH | |
| TOM (cat) contained by [in] SAC (bag), then H{ard} (initially) | |
| 16 | Asian state broadcast match lacking in colour (6) |
| TAIWAN | |
| TAI sounds like [broadcast] “tie” (match), WAN (lacking in colour) | |
| 17 | I go off course in SA mountain range (6) |
| SIERRA | |
| I + ERR (go off course) contained by [in] SA | |
| 19 | Something snappy held up by protagonists! (5) |
| GATOR | |
| Contained and reversed in [held up by] {p}ROTAG{onists} | |
| 21 | Fellow placing tea on piano (4) |
| CHAP | |
| CHA (tea), P (piano) | |
Not easy, I agree, but we both should have done better. I struggled with the pi cousin’s anagram, and tried to do something with Thailand for too long when it was obviously some other country. For stomach, I failed to try the stock tom until I had most of the checkers. Not a good effort at all.
Time: 13:03.
19:46. Another puzzle where I seemed doomed by many unfathomable clues but gradually as checkers slowly appeared everything became clear. I thought CHAR just meant burn not be burnt but see from dictionary research it works. I needed blog to understand ALL-UP and CH for chain. Also EXCITANT was NHO but thought if accelerant is a word this could be too.
Happy New Year to the TfTT community
16:15. I was destined to be slow today, with the NW corner not providing the hoped for write-ins, including the hidden PLAYERS which took a while to see. ALL-UP as a specific term for ‘total weight of aircraft’ was new to me too and ‘Something stirring’ is usually a “stimulant” rather than an EXCITANT. As for vinyl1, “Thailand” delayed me at 16d.
Same thoughts about a possible theme as our blogger, though without the ABOVE SUSPICION details. There was also a MINI and a SIERRA, but no more UK cars. I noticed the fourth row of the grid contains UTE as the three unchecked letters followed by UTILITY, but this is probably serendipitous.
Thanks to Jack and our eminent setter, both of whom we greatly ESTEEM.
I didn’t think it was hard so much as I thought I was dumb. Clues that I should have solved instanter instead took ages: didn’t see PLAYERS, didn’t see ABOVE, didn’t see OBSTACLE for chrissake. NHO ALL-UP; if I had, I wouldn’t have seen it. 14bloody29.
7.44
TAIWAN came to me before THAILAND which helped. As did getting the gaps right in EXCITANT
Thanks Jackkt and Oran
Way to hard for me and in my view not a fair puzzle for a quick cryptic. I am glad the setter does not appear often as he gives no pleasure in his puzzles.
A 26-minute workout all parsed after a bit of thought.
I had also never heard of the aircraft’s weight but the answer was clear.
FOI: ABOVE.
LOI: TAIWAN.
Favourite: STOMACH also MINI.
I didn’t spot or look for a theme.
You do have UTILITY PLAYERS to add to the list.
Like Kevin, I struggled with the NW corner. NHO ALL UP, and it took an age to see it. Then PLAYERS was LOI. To round off a miserable experience I had a typo at 1a ABOBE. Drat. 12:03. WOE. Thanks Oran and Jack. HNY to all.
26mins and while 5D went in relatively quickly I thought the toughness of the whole puzzle was summed up by the fact that MIN was clued by “thirty seconds” and not just “half a minute” and so I have some sympathy with Tim above. However, having come close to throwing in the towel, it’s satisfying after a toughie like this when the LOI – for me TAIWAN – is done and “Congratulations” appears on my tablet screen.
No real standout clues for me, which is telling when it comes to rating the overall enjoyment of a puzzle. If there is a clever Nina or theme I’m prepared to revise that opinion, whether or not it’s too obscure for me. I can’t spot one but respect and thanks to Jackkt for a really good go.
Thanks Oran too for a proper workout. Happy new year all.
A tough start to 2023. A few clever clues plus lots of chewy ones that were OK when they finally clicked. I have little to add to the comments above, many of which chimed with my experience (especially Kevin’s). Like others, I found ALL UP to be a new term and I needed all the crossers.
I agree with MangoMan that none of the clues stood out from the rest and, looking back, I felt that many were rather contrived -presumably in the setter’s quest for a theme.
This was far from a QC for my brain – it took me 5 mins into the SCC. I think my achievement was simply to finish it (and to come in under 2K for a change……)
Thanks to jackkt and oran. I do hope that the rest of the week will be a little kinder. John M.
The New Year means my cut-off for the puzzle is now 20:23, which I achieved today, but only just. Very slow to get started. Both “in NY” and “yank” are used to mean American usage, but not today. INNYARD and ALLUP (also used in the Space Program) were tough.
COD AMATEUR
LOI TAIWAN
All of those extra seconds will add up to more than 4 minutes by the end of the year. How do you plan to use that time?
Not overly impressed with this one – several of the clues felt clunky as if the answers needed to be shoehorned in for the sake of the nina. I did spot the linked clues but couldn’t see an overall theme.
Started with LISZT but like some others I found the rest of the NW tricky and a brainfreeze over LOI TAIWAN took me over target, finishing in 11.37
Thanks to Jack
I parsed it like jackkt in his blog, above, with SAC as bag and the ever-faithful TOM as cat. Never thought of STOMA. John M.
I just avoided the SCC today, finishing in 19.44.
The reason for my woes was putting LOVER for 1ac (it was caught in haiL OVERhead, and boy could have been the definition). Only when this failed to fit any of the down clues in the NW corner did I have to revisit this. 1dn an 11ac we’re my last two in.
Happy new year.
Yes, I too wasted time with the hidden LOVER, thinking of ‘lover boy’. John
LOVER – Me too.
Definitely tough – maybe too much so for quickie, but lots to enjoy. I take issue with ‘innyard’. I suppose someone might tell me it is in a dictionary (not in my Oxford Dictionary of English or my spellchecker), but I think for a quickie it is more important that it is a word that people actually use! Thanks though!
I cringed with text speak UR… does anybody even use that anymore given that most mobiles have predictive text?
Ahh … the days when we were limited to 168(?) characters in a text! Takes me back to the New Years around the Millennium when everybody would send msgs and overload the networks.
In a bit of a rush now as this took me 32 minutes. No excuses really.
LOI UTILITY after INNYARD , a new word to me.
David
10 mins
Enjoyable solve.
Thanks, jack.
Just inside the SCC, on the look out for a coherent theme, but nothing emerges immediately. It is perhaps worth an investigation later today if I have time. Several obtuse bits including ALL UP, INNYARD, EXCITANT and GATOR. THANKS Jackkt.
A 13 minute solve to get to all green, but not all parsed. Biffed but did not parse Actor, NHO but solved the wordplay for the unknown All-up and the unloved Innyard (is this a word in common use?), and LOI Excitant put in as the only sensible anagram that fitted the checkers rather than with any confidence. So not quite the success the raw time suggests for this pretty challenging puzzle.
The glass-half-empty side of me says “if all the QCs in 2023 are going to be like this I will struggle”. The glass-half-full side says “If I can solve this one then 2023 will hold few fears”. Take your pick!
Many thanks Jack for the blog.
Cedric
Left me feeling I was back in beginner’s class of a year ago with only five answers in first 20mins (MINI, AMATEUR, SILICA, ROAST). Possibly unravelled SUSPICION in that time and tentatively had ACTOR but couldn’t unravel.
It was THEATRE that finally got me out of the hole and enabled me to unravel SAUSAGE-MEAT. EXCITANT held out to the end and required brute force anagramming to despite what order to put the C-N-T; like OBSTACLE was a brute force of OBS, OCS, OLS, OTS, OAS…
I found it incredibly bland in many ways. Two clues beginning with “Something …” and another two with “go off”. NHO ALL-UP, INNYARD, EXCITANT.
Took 45-mins to complete the top half and all solved in 57:12 with a decidedly “I don’t care whether it’s correct” as I filled in my LOI of Taiwan. Given the opposite of love is indifference it doesn’t say much for this QC.
FOI SUSPICION, LOI ABOVE, COD PLAYERS,the puzzle today for me was how someone I thought was a new setter came up with so many high quality clues, such as my FOI , where I struck lucky, and my COD which was well hidden and almost LOI. All enjoyed except struggle in NW, where I misread clue for my LOI and had to guess NHO ALL-UP, which I suspected was a bit clunky in order to accommodate a theme or Nina, probably theatrical, but, sadly, lost on me. Time a little above average, thanks Oran and Jack.
A struggle to finish this puzzle and reliant on guessing the NHOs: ALL UP, EXCITANT, INNYARD. Very pleased to get them right!
Started off very poorly and didn’t think I was going to get anywhere.
I was puzzled by amateur as being an amateur doesn’t mean you’re not getting paid. Does it? There are plenty of amateurs I’m sure who do get paid for what they do. Not as much as professionals I grant you.
Never heard of INNYARD, but it just had to be the answer, so in it went.
I knew Liszt, but every time I hear that word I do not think of the composer, but rather, when preceded by another composer, Harold Steptoe slang for being drunk.
I felt this was a difficult start to 2023 QC.
Time: 47:28
Lives used: 3/3
The distinction between amateur and professionals in sport was always the matter of payment.
It’s only recent years that we’ve seen many sports professionalise (80s/90s). Rugby split into the two codes of union and league in the 1800s over the matter of payment until union allowed payments in 1995. The Olympics and notably athletics were strictly amateur until 1992. But you also saw it in golf, tennis and many other sports.
Professionals simply weren’t allowed to play with amateurs. Think of Torvill and Dean who went professional as ice dancers after their 1984 Bolero success and couldn’t return to the Olympics.
Or when you hear about all the tennis Grand Slams won by Federer/Djokovic/Nadal spare a thought for Rod Laver at the peak of his powers who didn’t compete in any from 1965-70 due to professionals being banned.
It even went beyond being paid to play your sport. You couldn’t be paid for having played another sport. Jim Thorpe won the 1912 Olympic golds in pentathlon and decathlon but was then stripped of them when it emerged that he’d been paid for playing baseball a few summers before. It was 1983 before the IOC returned his medals to his family. Or there was John Tarrant – a great distance runner who was banned by the British athletics board for having been paid £17 in boxing expenses as a teenager – he made the mistake of admitting it.
The matter of payment was always a thorny issue. The ideal of the gentleman amateur began in the Victorian age and being largely created as a “barriers to entry” and to avoid competing with the working classes. That was really the nub of it but it continued throughout. Arguably when you look at how modern sportspeople can seem to lack passion and make business decisions about what to compete in, or the desire to win by cheating becomes too much there is a case for it.
Yet the American college system essentially allowed its Olympians to be paid athletes (scholarship for studying) while the Eastern Bloc countries had their athletes enrolled in the military system where they essentially spent their time training rather than doing military things!
As the Cold War hotted up in the 70s/80s “shamateurism” began to grow. There were rumours of “boot money” i.e. unpaid players would find money left in their boot and then there were the question of prizes. In athletics prizes were limited to a set amount and Britain’s great marathoner Ron Hill tells of how he would tell organisers before a race that he wanted first prize to be a new iron or whatever he needed for his home!! There was the matter of how much expenses could be paid and eventually track and field athletes began to have their winnings paid into a trust fund that could be accessed after they retired.
Very clear and thorough presentation of this topic-thanks!
I found this far more enjoyable than today’s QC. A very interesting overview of the amateur/professional distinction.
It turned out to be a bit longer than I intended 😂
Shamateurism was around long before the 70s. My Dad played football for a top team in the Southern Amateur League before WW2 and talked of money in boots. He never referred to his own boots, but naturally I assumed it was only others’!
My mistake/inaccuracy. Good to hear a personal recollection rather than what I’ve only read about 👍
⚽️😇
Finished all correct but very slow in NW and elsewhere. I too struggled with NHO ALL UP and INNYARD (the latter has been underlined by spellcheck). Lots of wild guesses turned out to be wrong. But I liked UTILITY, AMATEUR, SAUSAGE MEAT, MAILING, TAIWAN, LISZT. FOsI ABOVE, SUSPICION.
Fellow solvers seem to disapprove of this puzzle but I kind of enjoyed it.
Thanks for much needed blog, Jack. I thought the setter might be American but if Oran is RR, obviously not.
Later- Looked up INNYARD and see that one meaning is a sort of stage, so goes with the theatre theme.
And yes, HNY to all!
I too thought the setter was American as INNYARD and ALL-UP just didn’t sound British to me. I also found some of the clues and solutions a bit clunky but if there is indeed a Nina that can be forgiven.
I didn’t really like this puzzle but was pleased to get it all finished and parsed in 16 minutes.
Happy New Year to all.
Happy New Year to fellow solvers from both me and Looby Loo (you need to be of a certain age to know who that is!).
In spite of this being a toughie, I was attuned to it finishing just inside target at 9.45.
I initially transposed probably the same two letters as Jackkt in EXCITANT, but before stopping the clock returned to the clue and changed them round to give me the correct answer. A challenging start to the year!
Andy Pandy was on Antiques Roadshow last night!
. . .a shout out for the star of the show – Teddy
The Woodentops and the Flowerpot Men were my favourites! Flob a dob 😂
Mrs Random and I watched an episode of Magic Roundabout shortly before Christmas. It was superb. Dylan was always my favourite character.
Not the easiest of starts to 2023, especially the NW corner, leaving me with a sluggish 27min solve. However, I see I am in good company in finding many of the clues clunky and convoluted, for example 6d, Innyard (really ?). In the end, just glad to finish with loi Taiwan.
Happy New Year to all Setters, Bloggers and fellow solvers. Invariant
I wanted to see the answer for 1 across as I was stuck so thought it was safe to check the blog. Fortunately I’d already got suspicion but then the blog lists loads of anwers. Maybe I’m the only person who finds this annoying. Fortuately I’ve recently discovered I can get my anwers by Googling. I do however enjoy people’s comments and sometimes find them conforting.
If you subscribe to the Times on line you can find the QC puzzle and Reveal Word. But I prefer to find hints in my old fashioned hardback Chambers Crossword Dictionary – not that I have needed it for ages, of course (ahem!).
I can understand your frustration as I used to look up the occasional answer back in the day.
You were probably particularly unlucky today as Jack’s intro was discussing the possible NINA themes and going through more answers than you’d usually get. Most of the bloggers refer to answers in the intro by number but I personally dislike that as you end up scrolling up and down.
It’s a bit of a rock and a hard place really between different preferences. The general consensus seems to be don’t come on the blog if you want to avoid spoilers.
Anyway best of luck with your 2023 solving 👍
Yes, that is official blog policy. No answers in the title and extract, but once you click on the blog, you will see the answers,
If you Google the entire clue, possibly in inverted commas, then you’ll usually get links to solving sites such as danword, where they will (usually) have the correct answer.
A new year and a new week so I thought it might be a gentle start. Alas, I was soon disabused of that thought. Not too many in the first read-through, although the SW was reasonably well populated, so I started there and worked anti-clockwise to the tricky NW. All correct in 23 minutes but by no means all parsed. NHO ALL UP, INNYARD (although this was a fairly straightforward solve) or EXCITANT.
FOI – 9ac LISZT
LOI – 2dn OBSTACLE (this took ages despite knowing it was an anagram)
COD – 12ac AMATEUR
Thanks to Oran and to Jack for the missing parsings and a Happy New Year to all.
I didn’t find this easy. Having hesitatingly put in LOVER for 1A, it took the appearance of OBSTACLE to make me think again. DNK ALL-UP, but the wordplay left no doubt. I liked the neat hiddens PLAYERS and GATOR. Thank-you Oran and Jackkt (and good sleuthing on the obscure theme) 6:55.
Hard yards! 15 mins, but as that turns out to be a little over 1K, I don’t mind quite so much 😅
I thought this was tough and – sorry to say – not so much fun.
FOI Liszt LOI Players Nothing really stood out as a COD
But thanks anyway to Oran, and of course to Jack 😊
Very glad I wasn’t the only one to find this a slog. Gave up after 30 mins with ALL UP, PLAYERS and TAIWAN unsolved. When I looked at the blog I wasn’t sure why I had made such a meal of things as all the clues were fair (in retrospect!). AMATEUR was my LOI before giving in. Wasn’t familiar with INNYARD. Liked STOMACH. Generally a bit ho-hum about this one. Many thanks for the much-needed blog. Happy New Year all.
Found this hard. Had to resort to aids for UTILITY and then biffed the nho INNYARD and was a little surprised when it turned green. Struggled with 16d as well but probably shouldn’t have.
If I’d compiled this, and then sent it to John for submission as a Weekend Special, I’d expect him and his fellow testers to be critical of a number of clunky clues. Although I finished within my 5 minute target, I’m afraid it afforded little satisfaction or entertainment.
FOI SUSPICION (I misread the clue for ABOVE, or it would have been that !)
LOI PLAYERS (after I finally saw ALL-UP)
COD SAUSAGE MEAT (I fancy a runny M&S Scotch Egg !)
TIME 4:29
23 mins…
Definitely a toughie to start the new year. I wasn’t a fan of 1dn “All Up” or 6dn “Innyard”, and the anagrams of 2dn “Obstacle” and 13dn “Excitant” took far longer than they should have.
In terms of a Nina, I thought there may be some linkage between the horizontal answers eg.
Above Suspicion,
Utility Players,
Amateur Theatre,
Mailing Machine,
Character Roast (as in coffee)
Character Actor
However – the above may all be totally random and unrelated for all I know.
FOI a 4dn “Silica”
LOI – 2dn “Obstacle”
COD – 1ac “Above”
Thanks as usual!
11.37
On the tougher side – pleased that the unknown EXCITANT proved correct. Didn’t notice any nina…
Thanks both
Oh dear, not the start to 2023 I was hoping for. I took somewhere just short of an hour to slog my way through this. There’s little I can add to what has been said above, save that I was perhaps not at my best. I will content myself with the knowledge that I finished and avoided a DNF (which seemed likely for much of the solve).
NHO ALL UP or EXCITANT, and found INNYARD a rather odd word.
FOI – SUSPICION
LOI – TAIWAN
COD – TAIWAN
PDM – LISZT
Back to work tomorrow. Hope my brain is a bit sharper than today.
Thanks for the much-needed blog.
Happy new year to all.
I don’t seem to have found this as perplexing as some, though it pushed me outside target by a little bit.
LOI was INNYARD, favourite was UTILITY.
6:49
Happy new year to all!
A new year and a new setter (to me, at least), but a similar experience to many previous QC attempts. just three clues remained as I approached the half-hour point, but I’m afraid they took another 15 minutes. Those clues were OBSTACLE, which I didn’t see as an anagram until way too late, PLAYERS and ABOVE (my LOI). In fact, I spent so long trying to solve A_O_E, that I nearly threw in the towel. My total time = 44 minutes and Mrs Random clocked in at 26 minutes..
Following the publication by some solvers of their 2022 solving data, here are a few selected stats of my own:
a) Success ratio = 84% (76% in 2021)
b) Average time (excl. DNFs) = 36 minutes (39 in 2021)
c) No. SCC escapes = 14 (8 in 2021)
d) No. DNFs with >1 unsolved clue = 17 (31 in 2021)
Of the most frequently appearing dozen or so setters, those with whom I have most success are Breadman, Trelawney and Oink, and those who I find most challenging are Teazel, Wurm and Orpheus.
One final observation: Since I started these infernal puzzles in June 2020, I have broken free from the SCC on 24 occasions (roughly once every 6 weeks). However, despite having set a total of 144 puzzles between them during that period, I have yet to achieve this honour with Orpheus, Pedro, Felix, Jalna and Corelli.
Many thanks to Oran and Jack.
Well done on your solve today Mr Random.
Nice concise set of stats highlighting your improvement. Thanks for sharing 👍
Interesting stats Mr R, showing a steady improvement 👏. I’m very much with you when it comes to the individual setters and how I fare against them.
I know I am not at my sharpest today, but still reckon this was very tricky. If I had to use a single word to describe it, it would be ‘uneven’. Not a satisfactory puzzle to solve.
Congratulations to Jackkt both for resolving it, and to researching the NINA.
dnf by three which should have been solved
never heard of innyard and all up instead of gross weight?
Tough today. 3 clues not finished. Not being a pilot I can forgive myself for all up. But innyard? I’ve been boozing for 40 years and never heard of that. My dictionary phone app has not heard of it.
A made up word? Can’t be US as they only have bars. No inns pubs or taverns. 😡
If you google, you can see INNYARDS were a kind of pub courtyard sometimes used as theatres.
NHO INNYARD, ALL UP or EXCITANT , but from wordplay, definitions and crossers I had no doubt all were correct, which pointed to an expert setter.
Interesting that INNYARD too is theatrical, which suggests that there was going to be a theatrical theme, but the plan was abandoned, hence, eg, SILICA, LISZT, TAIWAN, ROAST, GATOR. But there does seem to be something with five pairs of across clues, 1+7, 10+11, 12+15, 18+20and 23+24.
Maybe we shall be told tomorrow?
I seem to be the only person who knew ALL-UP (though no idea why other than a lifelong love of aeroplanes thanks to Airfix kits). A good workout if you were on the setter’s wavelength ( I was, my wife sadly wasn’t). But like others NHO EXCITANT.
DNF
Foiled by ALL UP.
Driving back from Somerset yesterday, via dog walking on the beach at Burnham-on-Sea, so very late to this. Ended up all green in 14. Could have got a second sub-K if only I’d seen the hidden PLAYERS quicker. Tough but enjoyable I though.
Found this difficult- managed to finish on the second day with a fresh brain!
At least the word play was fair – allowing some fairly obscure if not artificial words eg Innyards.