My second Joker puzzle in a row, and again I was taken over my target time. All finished in 17:39, but I biffed ASSAY, DATED, and DELTA and parsed them post-submission.
Solved this one with an audience (hello Phil!) and we had a couple of chuckles as some of the chewier answers revealed themselves.
Definitions underlined in italics, wordplay indicators in square brackets, synonyms in round brackets, deletions in squiggly brackets.
| Across | |
| 1 | Buddy boiling, working out for this? (12) |
| BODYBUILDING
Anagram [working out] of BUDDY BOILING. I’m not sure how to classify this clue. It’s clearly an anagram, but “working out” appears to be doing double duty as both the anagram indicator and part of the definition, which feels a little bit off to me. The surface reading feels a bit clunky. Definitely not my favourite clue of the day. |
|
| 8 | Test, for instance twice (5) |
| ASSAY
AS (for instance) + SAY (for instance). For instance, twice. Very neat. |
|
| 9 | Act a sin out? Diabolical (7) |
| SATANIC
Anagram [out] of ACT A SIN. |
|
| 10 | Essential and reportedly complete part of lock (7) |
| KEYHOLE
KEY (essential) + HOLE (homophone [reportedly] of “whole” = “complete”). There’s a whole class of words and phrases that are used as indicators of homophones: just off the top of my head I can come up with “reportedly”, “we hear”, “for auditors” and “on the radio”. Any time the clue references hearing or listening, it’s worth looking to see if there is a homophone. |
|
| 11 | Danube’s opening, according to Plato? (5) |
| DELTA
Cryptic definition. Delta, in the Greek [according to Plato] alphabet, is the equivalent of D: the first letter [opening] of D{anube}. There’s a nice almost-double-definition here too, since there is a delta where the Danube opens into the Black Sea. There’s a good chance Plato would have known of it, since there were Greek colonies in the Black Sea well before his time. |
|
| 12 | Write down music? Never a note (6) |
| NOTATE
NOT A (never a) TE (one of the notes in the do-re-mi system of naming notes). |
|
| 14 | Way of growing small trees in old basin to move around (6) |
| BONSAI
Anagram [to move around] of O BASIN. “O” for “Old” is so common that I don’t think it matters whether it is O{ld} or an abbreviation, as in OB for Old Boy. |
|
| 17 | Swiss capital flow in Scotland reported? (5) |
| BERNE
Another homophone, this time indicated by “reported”. A “burn” is a Scottish word for “stream”, hence a “flow in Scotland”. |
|
| 19 | Train as fantastic skilled manual worker (7) |
| ARTISAN
Anagram [fantastic] of TRAIN AS. |
|
| 21 | Dishearten gunner veteran to some extent (7) |
| UNNERVE
Part of [to some extent] {g}UNNER VE{teran}. A nice bit of misdirection from Joker here: how many others were sent down the “Dishearten gunner” = “GR” blind alley? |
|
| 22 | Drive forward in stripped-down limo with key in place (5) |
| IMPEL
{L}IM{o} [stripped-down] + E (a key, in music) inside PL [standard abbreviation for Place, as in a street name]. I think this is the first time I’ve seen “stripped-down” used to mean “without its outside letters”. |
|
| 23 | Form of treatment the dopy Harry arranged (12) |
| HYDROTHERAPY
Anagram [arranged] of THE DOPY HARRY. |
|
| Down | |
| 1 | Bulk balanced in a mishap can make one very bruised (5-3-4) |
| BLACK-AND-BLUE
Anagram [in a mishap] of BULK BALANCED. I think “one” in this clue is referring to you, the solver. |
|
| 2 | Sooty perhaps having obligation to hold Sweep but not cry (5) |
| DUSTY
DUTY (obligation) holding S{cry} (sweep, without “cry”). “Sweep” for “scry” is perhaps a bit of a stretch, “scry” being defined in Collins online as “to divine, esp by crystal gazing”. But the surface reading is so good that I can easily acquiesce. Sooty and Sweep are glove-puppet characters in a children’s show that I remember from my childhood. Update: Errr, yes. As multiple people point out in the comments, make that DUTY (obligation) holding S{weep} (sweep, without weep (cry)). Trying to be too clever by three-quarters. 😉 |
|
| 3 | Refuse to deal with lad with company time and time again (7) |
| BOYCOTT
BOY (lad) + CO (company) + T (time), twice. |
|
| 4 | Section of foot soldiers marching must be this (6) |
| INSTEP
Double definition: instep is a part of the foot, and soldiers marching must be in step. |
|
| 5 | Old-fashioned saw (5) |
| DATED
Another double definition: something that is old-fashioned is dated, and if you dated someone for a while, it could be also said that you saw them for a while. The second definition took some thought. I got there via “seeing” = “dating” and then moving both into the past tense. |
|
| 6 | Confuse intelligence about National Physical Laboratory (7) |
| NONPLUS
NOUS (intelligence) surrounding [about] NPL. I tried to fit NPL inside NEWS at first, but then light dawned. |
|
| 7 | Sometimes supporter follows cause (12) |
| OCCASIONALLY
ALLY (supporter) following OCCASION (cause, as a verb). |
|
| 13 | Heartless Tory managed New York dictatorship (7) |
| TYRANNY
T{or}Y [Heartless Tory] RAN (managed) NY (standard abbreviation for New York). |
|
| 15 | Published policy summary (7) |
| OUTLINE
OUT (published, as in “now out in paperback”) + LINE (policy, as in “follow the party line”). |
|
| 16 | Caught a veterinary surgeon hiding a warning (6) |
| CAVEAT
C (caught: a cricket reference) + A VET{inary surgeon} hiding [containing] A. |
|
| 18 | Slip removing cases from ferry port (5) |
| ERROR
Remove the “cases” (outside letters) from {f}ERR{y} {p}OR{t}. |
|
| 20 | Reddish-brown primates climbing around one (5) |
| SEPIA
APES (primates) climbing [reversed, since this is a down clue] around [including] I (one, in Roman numerals). |
|
7:49
Fairly sailed through this, leaving the long anagrams until enough checkers available to reasonably biff then parse.
Not entirely sure of ASSAY. Liked the Sooty and Sweep wordplay.
Thanks Joker and Doofenschmirtz
Dear MH,
Despite now having clapped eyes on it many times, I still laugh every time I see your avatar. Thankyou!
P.S. Is it a good likeness?
Apart from the orange hair, bulging eyes and downturned mouth, it’s pretty close!
Glad to hear it has lifted your day a little…
FOI BODYBUILDING with a sigh of relief as the long answers normally throw me. I remember only part reading the clues in the SE corner and biffing answers that fitted with the checkers. I also biffed DELTA and parsed just before coming to the blog. LOI HYDROTHERAPY in 7:31 for a very good day.
I found this reasonably straightforward for a Joker puzzle, but had to cogitate a bit on LOI, DELTA. All in vain though, as I didn’t proofread properly and missed a typo, INSYEP. Drat! 6:58 WOE. Thanks Joker and Doofers.
Like some others, slow to start. However I then picked up speed and was finished in 13 mins, which is a decent time for me. Didn’t parse DELTA or OUTLINE (thanks Doofers) and also fell into the trap of trying to start 21ac with gr (but not for long as 1dn jumped out at me when I had a few checkers).
FOI – 10ac KEYHOLE
LOI – 15dn OUTLINE
COD – liked 4dn INSTEP and 7dn OCCASIONALLY
Er … in contrast to most people above, I found today’s puzzle very challenging. Not solving either of the 1s until way after the half-hour mark didn’t help, but my last few in were OCCASIONALLY, DELTA (a top-class clue, IMO), DATED, DUSTY (also a very good clue) and ASSAY. Total time = 52 minutes. Rather embarrassing!
Many thanks to Joker and Doofers.
Nice to see that I’m not the only one with a double digit time! Just under the hour at 56 minutes. Didn’t get the second definition for 5d and assumed that Delta was the mouth of the Danube! Still, managed to complete the QC in less than an hour, which is a result for me.
Well done, B2! When I started, two and a half years ago, my usual result was a DNF (>50% of the time) or well over an hour if I finished. Since then, I have steadily improved my game such that I typically finish nowadays somewhere in the 25 – 45 minutes range, and my DNF ratio is now down to about 1 in 7. I sense that my solving will continue becoming faster and more reliable, but by ever decreasing amounts. I’m sure I will always be a confirmed member of the SCC with only very occasional excursions outside of its boundary. Good luck!
Oh dear. I biffed HYPNOTHERAPY and then wedged ERRYN into 18d. I was probably thinking of Port Erin, which I visited nearly half a century ago. First miss in ages though so I’m not too unhappy about it.
Started a read through while waiting for an appointment at my local Surgery but didn’t finish it or get to put pen to printout until much later. I think this is definitely one of Joker’s more accessible QCs. Much to enjoy in the clues and an entertaining solve. Just right for me. Couldn’t see 1a until most of the checkers were available but the other long anagrams went in very quickly and proved a great help.
FOI 12a Notate
LOI 8a Assay
COD 21a Unnerve.
I really enjoyed this puzzle, particularly DELTA for the double use of “opening” in the clue. After a slowish start, all done in just shy of 12 mins.
Thanks to Joker and Doofenschmirtz.
1A is what we call a “semi-&lit.”
Enjoyed this puzzle, probably escaped from the scc, which is good for us. The four long clues sent in quickly, a great help. Thanks Joker.
18:38
Some of the long ones took a while but once in place the rest was straightforward. LOI OUTLINE.
Very erratic solving at the moment – 7 minutes today, more or less on the dot and fully parsed.
I enjoyed this one from Joker – lots of neat, amusing surfaces (although I did think the clue for DUSTY was a bit clunky). I liked DELTA, and BODYBUILDING was a great anagram- glad it wasn’t bunny boiling though! HYDROTHERAPY made me laugh – I’m sure Joker wasn’t having a pop at anyone in particular 😅
FOI and COD Satanic LOI Error
Thanks Joker and Doofers
Hi Penny,
In case you haven’t spotted it, this is just to let you know that I replied to your question yesterday.
SRC
Hi SRC – I’ve been trying to send you an email via the link in yesterday’s comment box, but to no avail! Not sure what’s going wrong P
Oh dear! I can’t even spell my own name. Please try again, using this link [email protected]
Yes, we had the same thought over hydrotherapy!
I found this very gentle, and finished in 6.42, my fastest for quite a while. My favourite clue was DELTA.
Saw from definition that answer was Berne but cannot think of any language/dialect where it would be a homophone of burn (possibly a Lancashire accent!!!).
All ok today
Bit of a struggle in places outline and caveat
Enjoyed our setter living up to his(?) pseudonym today., and was lucky to complete in under average time. I decided that 1a appeared a probably difficult anagram and needed crossers beforeI tackled it, then a few minutes later my eye fell on it and I misread it as BODY BUILDING! FOI. BLACK AND BLUE, LOI ERROR, COD toss up between BODYBUILDING for its cheek, as it is so easy, and TYRANNY for its surface. According to Google, the Greek word for DANUBE begins with delta, so Plato would have solved the clue. Thanks D and J
My first ever sub 20 minutes! We all have our own goals!
But I did parse every one in that time so I feel pretty smug.
The Danube opening into a delta certainly helped me.
Thank you to Joker and blogger – I like the education.
19/24.