Hi everyone. I thought this one fit the brief nicely; my solving was on the brief side too. Just a slight hold-up in 9a where I needed to let go of the idea that it would contain a B. I see I’ve given special mention to Trelawney’s surfaces before and I could do the same again today. My COD was the possibly hypoallergenic burglar food in 11a. Thanks Trelawney!
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 | Too inept to move stealthily (2,6) |
| ON TIPTOE — TOO INEPT to be anagrammed (to move) | |
| 5a | Recall computers making racket (4) |
| SCAM — Reverse (recall) MACS (computers) | |
| 8a | Period charm (5) |
| SPELL — Double definition | |
| 9a | Places to land black items of clothing (7) |
| JETTIES — JET (black) + TIES (items of clothing) | |
| 11a | Low-risk snack for burglar? (4-7) |
| SAFE-CRACKER — SAFE (low risk) + CRACKER (snack). The question mark is needed because a safe-cracker might not be a burglar | |
| 13a | Intimidate blokes with club, perhaps? (6) |
| MENACE — MEN (blokes) + ACE (club, perhaps? – the playing card of that suit) | |
| 14a | Mark almost excessively drunk (6) |
| BLOTTO — BLOT (mark) + all but the last letter of (almost) TOo (excessively) | |
| 17a | A little gale blowing around some pasta (11) |
| TAGLIATELLE — A LITTLE GALE anagrammed (blowing around) | |
| 20a | Fashion designer skirting northern body of water (7) |
| CHANNEL — CHANEL (fashion designer) going around (skirting) N (northern) | |
| 21a | Animal seen regularly in Aztec burial (5) |
| ZEBRA — The answer is found in alternate letters of (seen regularly in) aZtEc BuRiAl | |
| 22a | Require some gene editing (4) |
| NEED — This one is hidden in (some) geNE EDiting | |
| 23a | Strangely, inert gas is fuming the most? (8) |
| ANGRIEST — An anagram of (strangely) INERT GAS | |
| Down | |
| 1d | Expel leaders of our university skiing team (4) |
| OUST — The first letters (leaders) of Our University Skiing Team | |
| 2d | Finally invent rationale for betrayal (7) |
| TREASON — The last letter of (finally) invenT + REASON (rationale) | |
| 3d | Beat up cop in lift for Tarantino film (4,7) |
| PULP FICTION — An anagram of (beat) UP COP IN LIFT | |
| 4d | Protest‘s purpose (6) |
| OBJECT — Two definitions | |
| 6d | Prison beginning to concern couple (5) |
| CLINK — The first letter of (beginning to) Concern + LINK (couple, verb) | |
| 7d | Cry from a sled — space for fungus? (8) |
| MUSHROOM — MUSH (cry from a sled) + ROOM (space) | |
| 10d | Pioneer with time to complain furiously over jacket (11) |
| TRAILBLAZER — T (time) + RAIL (to complain furiously) over BLAZER (jacket) | |
| 12d | Once omit weird digital symbol (8) |
| EMOTICON — ONCE OMIT anagrammed (weird) | |
| 15d | Shudder when head of museum breaks three cups? (7) |
| TREMBLE — The first letter (head) of Museum goes inside (breaks) TREBLE (three cups? – sporting ones, won in a single season) | |
| 16d | Pinched scarf close to town (6) |
| STOLEN — STOLE (scarf) + the last letter of (close to) towN | |
| 18d | Look intently around river and eat grass (5) |
| GRAZE — GAZE (look intently) around R (river) | |
| 19d | Final piece of plastic (4) |
| LAST — Our last answer is found in a piece of pLASTic | |
A friendly puzzle from Trelawney, with a good mix of clues and enough humour (Safe Cracker is the stand out CoD) to make this a very enjoyable 16min solve. Like others, a slight delay with Jetties, but immediately obvious once Jet for black came to mind. Scam/macs was another hold up, even though its probably a chestnut. Invariant
Solved steadily until my last three: JETTIES, OBJECT, and LOI SPELL. Groaned when I finally saw SPELL as it is a bit of a chestnut really. Lots to like including favourites MENACE and MUSHROOM. Many thanks kitty and Trelawney.
My brain doesn’t seem to be working properly today. I took ages to solve the NE corner with Jet for black very slow to come. I also wasted ages trying to see how PULP FICTION worked, not noticing that UP was part of the anagrist. I put it down to the Covid and Flu jabs I had on Saturday! OUST was FOI, SAFE CRACKER and CLINK were last 2 in. 10:11. Thanks Trelawney and Kitty.
Very easy and lots of fun. Slightly slower on OBJECT but it gave me JETTIES and (COD) SAFE CRACKER. LOI SPELL.
Also liked BLOTTO, MUSHROOM. Biffed PULP FICTION without checking letters.
Thanks vm, Kitty.
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5:06
Trelawney is definitely one of the setters I am most comfortable with averaging at about six minutes. No real issues with the same pause for thought at the end as several others, coming up with OBJECT and finally JETTIES – I had thought of TIE but had misread the clue thinking it was a single item of clothing so wondered what the S was doing. I also missed the ‘three cups’ = TREBLE – COD for that.
Thanks T and K
Slow start, but solved steadily thereafter. As seems common, JETTIES and OBJECT last in.
9:29 – My first one ever in under 10:00!
I was starting to panic when my FOI was 17ac but rallied on the remaining across clues and fared much better on the downs – which then helped with the across clues I hadn’t been able to solve on the first pass.
Struggled in the top right corner with LOI’s 5ac, 6 & 7dn, but they came to me when I took a deep breath and focused.
COD 11ac SAFE CRACKER for me also, but I did like 7dn MUSHROOM.
A big thanks to Kitty and Trelawney.
Congratulations.
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Began a read through waiting at the dentist but only sat down to solve once home again. A lovely puzzle to start the week. With 2 x Z I was wondering about a repeat of the recent double…
FOI 13a menace
LOI 20a channel (fashion not my scene)
COD 11a safe cracker
7.15 Much quicker than usual. TREMBLE made no sense to me. JETTIES and OBJECT were the last two in. Thanks to Kitty and Trelawney.
7:17. A pleasant start to the week. I’ve never seen any Tarantino films but am fully aware of what they’re like, so liked the surface of PULP FICTION vey much. I liked the Mexican ZEBRA, ON TIPTOE, MENACE and NEED a lot too. Actually the list is getting quite long!
FOI Oust LOI appropriately it was Last 😅 COD Angriest
Thanks Trelawney and Kitty
5.27. In the zone today, but held up by throwing in a casual “safe breaker“ which made no sense really.
17/24. Very happy.
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I wondered what was going on at first when the setter was Trelawney but I couldn’t get anything. FOI was MENACE. Thankfully things started flowing more easily after that and I ended up with 15:44 despite taking a couple of minutes on the OBJECT/JETTIES pairing. COD to TRAILBLAZER. Thanks Trelawney and Kitty.
11 mins. I’ll never have a better chance to break 10 mins so very cross with myself for missing a golden opportunity. As usual, saw some answers but lacked confidence to insert them until I had checkers.
I began last week with an 11 minute solve and still missed my target, so hopefully this week will be better.
Thanks for the blog Kitty.
Another failure to complete the Quintagram ☹️. Wouldn’t have got no. 5 in a month of Sundays!
16.05 for me. Using a PC instead of Android phone was much faster and I found it straightforward without any particular holdups. Nice clues and helpful grid.
Thanks everyone