I came in just under my target time at 14:40. I liked this a lot: multiple clues got the “oh, that’s clever” moment when solved. Definitely one on the trickier side, as we’ve come to expect from Izetti. I was surprised that I had beaten my target as quite a number of clues needed significant wrestling to subdue. But your mileage may vary.
Definitions underlined, synonyms in round brackets, wordplay in square brackets and deletions in strikethrough.
| Across | |
| 1 | Problems with hat back to front: Miss Woodhouse’s? (8) |
| DILEMMAS – LID (hat) reversed [back to front] gives DIL, then add EMMA’S (Miss Woodhouse’s)
Referring to Emma by Jane Austen, whose title character’s family name was Woodhouse. |
|
| 5 | Trick? Scot’s bowled over (4) |
| SCAM – Another reversal: take MAC as your archetypal Scot, stick an apostrophe-S on for the possessive & then turn it all around [bowled over].
Most Scots are either IANs or MACs in Crosswordland. |
|
| 9 | Some lifelong criminal (5) |
| FELON – Hidden in [some] “liFELONg”.
Nice. |
|
| 10 | Number of social workers who rent accommodation? (7) |
| TENANTS – TEN (number) + ANTS (social workers). | |
| 11 | Woman of the month? (3) |
| MAY – Double definition? Anyway, it had to be either JAN or MAY.
I opted for JAN first, but that gave me a distinctly unlikely __F_J_D for 1d, so I reconsidered. |
|
| 12 | What to expect: simple chap with Yankee’s meanness (9) |
| PARSIMONY – PAR (what to expect) + SIMON (simple chap – he met a pieman) + Y (Yankee in the NATO phonetic alphabet).
I wish I could expect a par. But that’s just a comment on how lousy a golfer I am, not on the definition, which is perfectly fair. |
|
| 13 | Mottled fruit item given to daughter (6) |
| DAPPLE – APPLE (fruit item) after [given to] D (daughter). | |
| 15 | Is troublesome cat about to drink? (4,2) |
| ACTS UP – Anagram [about] of CAT + SUP (to drink). | |
| 17 | Rubbish by an item of furniture that can be turned around (9) |
| ROTATABLE – ROT (rubbish) + A TABLE (an item of furniture). | |
| 19 | Vehicle is endless worry (3) |
| CAR – CAR I’m slightly embarrassed by how long I took to figure this one out. |
|
| 20 | A heartless wife upset me — so formidable! (7) |
| AWESOME – A + W
Edited: Thanks to Jackkt for pointing out that ‘upset’ works just fine as an anagram indicator. I’ve left my original comments above, as otherwise some of the comments below will make no sense. |
|
| 21 | Mischief-maker joining the Spanish force (5) |
| IMPEL –IMP (mischief-maker) + EL (the, in Spanish). | |
| 22 | Small child‘s bit of money (4) |
| MITE – Double definition.
The second meaning only came to me from “the widow’s mite” in the bible: people without O-Level Religious Studies in the 1980s may struggle. 😉 |
|
| 23 | Opportunist, almost the last character to appear in court (8) |
| CHANCERY – CHANCER (opportunist) + Y (almost the last character (in the alphabet)). | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Vilified female, a maiden caught in the act (7) |
| DEFAMED – F (female) + A + M (maiden – cricket), all inside [caught in] DEED (the act). | |
| 2 | Sweet dough (5) |
| LOLLY – Double definition.
Both definitions may be tricky for non-UK based solvers, I think. The first refers to an “ice lolly” – a frozen dessert on a stick much loved by the under-10 crowd, and the second conjures images of Vince Jones saying what he wants from the upcoming heist. |
|
| 3 | Careful handling of fellow, one with throbbing, lacking bit of sense (12) |
| MANIPULATION – MAN (fellow) + I (one) + PUL I’ll confess to being extremely unkeen on “bit of sense” being used to clue “S”. And when I try to make sense of the surface reading, my mind fortunately refuses at the first fence. |
|
| 4 | Change part of ’orse’s equipment (5) |
| ALTER – The dropped ‘H’ in the clue means you should do the same in the answer: |
|
| 6 | Swiss areas preserve huge amounts (7) |
| CANTONS – CAN (preserve) + TONS (huge amounts).
As England is made up of counties and the US is made up of states, so is Switzerland made up of cantons. |
|
| 7 | Sentimental Greek character disinclined to speak (5) |
| MUSHY – MU (Greek character) + SHY (disinclined to speak). | |
| 8 | Petty misdeed at home — consider it silly (12) |
| INDISCRETION – IN (at home) + anagram [silly] of CONSIDER IT. | |
| 14 | Obvious to take in one person for surgery? (7) |
| PATIENT – PATENT (obvious) with I (one) included [to take in].
As someone married to a patent agent, I’ll just note that “patent” and “obvious” are very very far from being synonyms. The only usage I can think of that links these words is “patently obvious”, which really makes no sense, since if something is obvious it cannot be patented. I’ll get down from my soapbox now. |
|
| 16 | Herb beginning to speak, interrupting conference (7) |
| PARSLEY – S [beginning to ‘S |
|
| 17 | Kingdom has king, extraordinary male (5) |
| REALM – R (king, as in CR) + anagram [extraordinary] of MALE. | |
| 18 | Tree in coastal stretch, we hear? (5) |
| BEECH – Homonym [we hear] of BEACH (coastal stretch). | |
| 19 | Manage to enclose second area with trees (5) |
| COPSE – COPE (manage) including [to enclose] S (second). | |
Wavelength exists – for me, this was the easiest Izetti ever. The first 7 clues were write-ins, and I had so many checking letters the downs were pretty easy. My only problem was misspelling patient, which made rotatable very difficult. I finally spotted my error, which confirmed that realm must be correct, even though I couldn’t parse it.
Time: 6:36
Me too!
‘Patent’ (paytent) and ‘obvious’ are indeed synonyms. ODE, for instance: ‘adjective 1 easily recognnizable; obvious’
Didn’t notice anything with AWESOME, but now you mention it, I suppose one would expect EMSO, or maybe OSEM; but SOME works for me. 7:47, worst NITCH on the chart last I looked.
‘Upset’ is an anagram indicator. ME SO is the fodder.
Of course it is. Thank you. I’ll update the blog.
D’oh! to coin a phrase.
And in legal proceedings, “it is the patent truth that ….” uses ‘patent’ for ‘obvious’.
Okay but are you married to a patent officer?
Patently not!
14:56. I thought mottled would give DAPPLEd? COD to ROTATABLE.
As an adjective, DAPPLE, without a final D, can mean ‘mottled’, which was new to me. Not directly relevant, but Collins and the ODE also have DAPPLE as a noun, either in the sense of “‘mottled’ or spotted markings” or “an animal with a dappled coat”, something else I didn’t know.
Thanks, I’d never read or heard that. Must get out more. Now that I think further my acquaintance with the word is probably just literary- “Glory be to God for dappled things”(Hopkins) and “A day of dappled seaborne clouds”(Joyce).
12:54. I was spooked by seeing Izetti was the setter, but overall this wasn’t not too bad. I had ‘problems’ with DILEMMAS though, initially thinking of “walkies”; wrong marital status for a start. I didn’t get the ‘bit of money’ def for MITE either, despite winning the Divinity prize in Year 7 at school.
In this part of the world LOLLY is a generic term for a ‘sweet’ (confectionery) and was considered by my parents to be very non-U. I see what you mean about AWESOME, with ‘upset’ as a word reversal, rather than the more usual letter reversal, indicator.
Thanks to Doofers and Izetti
13.43, with REALM and MUSHY pushing it out towards the end. Nice puzzle from Izetti with a lot of clues that required a bit of thought. Thanks to the Doof for explaining what was going on with MANIPULATION, DEFAMED (missed the cricket ref) and PARSLEY.
I DNF on not knowing Swiss areas are cantons – canton is Guangzhou to me!
I also nho Parsimony – so those two crossing over made it v hard
But the rest were nice and fair, surprising for an Izetti – no geographical (except canton), wine or religious terms I didn’t know
I don’t mind dnf on one or two words, it’s nice to learn things for next time.
I did try ‘ADDLE’ for the ‘orse clue though haha and I also didn’t know the second meaning of Lolly
Today’s my last day of work until mid January, it’s gonna be glorious
I tried ADDLE too and then asked myself why, why, why. It made me laugh.
Enjoy your lovely long break!
The “bit of…” bit is a common ploy in cryptics. “Me so, upset” is fine to clue SOME. The two halves of the word are individually intact while their order is switched, but there’s nothing wrong with that. The only other anagram I can think of for SOME is MOE’S. (Well, there’s ’OMES.)
As suggested by me above (but you may not have seen it as it was recent), what’s wrong with ‘upset’ as an anagram indicator with ME SO as the fodder to make SOME?
8 minutes for this, making it my fastest time for an Izetti puzzle for a while. Nevertheless I would agree there are a few tricky clues here and a couple of words that may not be familiar to all.
Defeated by ACTS UP, DILEMMAS and INDISCRETION after 35 minutes.
I didn’t enjoy this one at all. Far too hard for a QC in my opinion. (I mean, a reference to a ‘Miss Woodhouse’ is a way too obscure surely for a puzzle at this level?). Here’s hoping that tomorrow’s puzzle is a little more accessible.
Thanks for the blog Doof.
Especially as the name does not appear terribly frequently in the text.
“Woodhouse” occurs 314 times in Emma.
Just as I said.
We get a lot of literary references to all sorts of things in the QC, I’d argue Jane Austen is not obscure relative to the others
Whether or not any literary references at all should be made in a QC well that’s another matter.
There need to be occasional references to every subject in a QC that’s likely to appear in the main puzzle otherwise it would be failing in one of the Times stated aims that the QC should provide a way into the biggy. It’s fair enough to wonder if such clues might be written so as to be a little more accessible though.
Ah yes. There’s been a few obscurish words of late that have been clued very fairly, like with hiddens or first letters, I always appreciate that.
miss Woodhouse as Emma is pretty low level general knowledge in the uk I think.
I don’t time myself as I find it detracts from the fun but would guess about 20 minutes of enjoyment with no obscurities along the way. FOI DEFAMED finishing with LOI MUSHY. I left that ‘till last to give a few moments to think of the required Greek character.
Favourite PARSIMONY The fun of building from WP as with ROTATABLE.
A nice morning puzzle from Izetti.
Some tricky stuff but, as always with Izetti, the clueing was clear so there were a number of nice PDMs along the way.
Struggled at the end with MANIPULATION (where I was looking at the wrong end of the clue for the definition) and LOL DILEMMAS which I never did parse as I’d NHO that Woodhouse.
Finished in a slightly over average 8.35.
Thanks to Doofers
In the printed edition 6d reads “Administrative areas with various sanctions one ignored.” Deleting i still left one too many s’s but cantons went in anyway.
Yes I struggled with this for a while before deciding it must be a printing error and sticking CANTONS in.
Yes, definitely a harder clue
I agree. It’s the first time I ever remember a clue in the printed Times to differ from whatever the rest of you are using. However like Chris Giles I did get “cantons”
yes, I was doing the printed version too and would definitely have found the mention of Swiss a big help.
I thought this was a perfectly pitched QC. Very much the feel of the classic Times crossword but nothing too difficult. A few gimmes balanced out by a few more tricky clues. The two long downs took me the longest to get.
At 15 minutes, I found it harder than some QCs but still very much quicker than any classic I have ever done.
Happy with 9’20” for a puzzle in which there were very few write-ins. A proper chewy one but I wasn’t off wavelength – the perfect quickie in my eyes too, like AJ above.
Thanks Izetti, and Doof too for a great blog which was exactly along my line of thinking – even the MER over the SO ME processing and the PDM of seeing the anagram indicator for it.
Thanks all commenters for some enlightening and enjoyable toing and froing.
Whenever I see Izetti is the setter I assume the worse, I don’t ever seem to be in the right ocean let alone on the same wavelength so when the first few across clues yielded nothing I thought I had a struggle ahead of me. Imagine my surprise when it all suddenly clicked and I came in at 12:29. Off to buy a lottery ticket.
Thanks Doofers and my new BFF Izetti
. . .waveband?
The Miss Woodhouse who crept into my mind was Barbara, the dog trainer who enjoyed near-cult status during her 1970s TV series.
Have to agree with you! Could not get Barbara out of my mind until all of the checkers forced the penny to drop…
I also took a little time to satisfy myself that BARBARA’S just didn’t make sense as an answer. Emma was fortunately also a top of mind Woodhouse for Mrs T and me. I outright dismissed ROTATABLE at first, on the basis that ROTA was clearly nothing to do with rubbish, until the crossing T from PATIENT led me to re-read the clue more carefully. 13:30 by the end which is round about par for us. Perhaps we have the benefit of not seeing who the setter is in the digital version though, from memory, I don’t think we’ve had previous cause to fear Izetti.
Sometimes the inability to see the setter on a phone is an advantage – I didn’t know it was Izetti and so didn’t get spooked! Nor would I have guessed Izetti, since I breezed through in 07:27 for a rare sub-K and a Red Letter Day.
Lots to enjoy, COD to DEFAMED I think, bit of a raspberry to MANIPULATE for the terrible surface. Had a stern word with myself when I very belatedly realised that for POI 1a I wasn’t looking for a female PG *Wodehouse* character (hangs head in shame).
Many thanks Izetti and El Doofo.
Templar
I’m always amazed how quickly you can solve on your phone. I use a desktop and touch type on a qwerty keyboard which I think gives me a similar time to a paper solve. Using the iPad slows me down a little but If I have to use the phone I can pretty much double the solving time. Do you use the list or grid view?
I didn’t even know there was a list view, and now I’ve seen it I shall try to expunge it from my mind – hideous!
I am a bit quicker at a keyboard, but I’m the fastest one-finger-typist in the West (well on the 08:21 anyway) and I jab away at reasonable speed. I’ve got used to it now!
DNF, could not see ACTS UP which is not exactly the hardest clue today. Went for the only (other) thing that fitted, ICES UP. Up against the clock, after spending too long on MANIPULATION which I misread as “felon” not “fellow” so was trying to make it start with CON. Having S=bit of sense is a stretch, worth it for a good surface maybe, but this surface was poor.
I always struggle with Izetti, thought I’d start on the As but had nothing on first pass I felt confident with so finally found an in on the Ds with DEFAMED. Some of the clues were tenuous, and an apparent misprint with 6D (my clue read “Administrative areas with various sanctions one ignored” which is suspect should have been “ones ignored”) made it so I wasn’t seeing the answer. I feel there is definitely an aim to make them more challenging but in doing so, makes some of the answers make me go “ugh, well yes, but not really”.
One of the easier QCs for a while for me, or simply on the right wavelength today, at 13 mins. This included some few minutes spent toying with whether ‘sanctions’ was a printing error as I was sure the answer was CANTONS but had too many letters. Also held up by sticking (s)addle in for the ‘orse’s equipment and then struggling with the crossing word.
I had to ask Mrs Prof whether there is anyone famous called Emma Woodhouse so learned something today.
Lots of very clever surfaces today but I particularly liked 23a (CHANCERY) and 1d (DEFAMED).
Prof
7:08 (Sisinnius becomes Pope. Death of Sininnius 20 days later)
This must be the easiest Izetti ever. LOI was INDISCRETION.
Thanks Doofers and Don
A slow start with not much happening until I was well down the grid when the clues started dropping in one after another and I worked my way back to the top to finish with the Dr’s usual challenges (besides pay).
Enjoyable but no sprint. Coffee in the club as usual and turn to the obituaries. Thanks Izetti and Doofers.
Folk above talking about the additional s in sanctions made me wonder what I’d missed, until I looked back at the puzzle I did, which had the clue as per Doofers’ blog and reassured me that I wasn’t going mad.
Smooth and straightforward for Izetti. I saw MITE as a coin somewhere else relatively recently, so that was a write in with checkers. NHO Miss Woodhouse, but thankfully it was biffable. Like Tina, I had ADDLE for a bit until TENANTS made it impossible. I liked CHANCERY and INDISCRETION, and MUSHY was LOI.
6:09
Lots of people saying this was an easy Izetti. And in the sense that every word in the answers is one that one might see in every day usage that’s certainly true – no obscurities, archaisms or remote foreign geographical names. Hurrah for that, at least! But still quite enough to get one’s teeth into, and push me out to a 15 minute solve. Not quite all parsed though, as I biffed Dilemmas, not knowing who Miss Woodhouse was, and I tend to side with those who feel the reference just a little obscure for the QC.
Still, if that is the worst comment I can make about an Izetti he is clearly trying hard to get into the Christmas spirit, and may even be reacting to some of the comments on his previous offerings. Could this be the sound of a new leaf being turned, and we can look forward to genuine QCs from the master setter? I suspect we will have to wait for his 2024 offerings to see.
Many thanks Doofers for the blog
Cedric
My printed copy has different 6d clue which doesn’t work. I assume the correction didn’t get edited in time? I think this was a little too tricky but not outrageously so. Lolly may be UK but then again Felon is more often US. Thanks all!
7:41
Enjoyable puzzle.
Thanks, D.
A slow start, but with a couple of crossers the unrecognised family name in 1ac became superfluous, and with no real hold ups thereafter the finishing post was in sight shortly after crossing into the SCC. In sight but not reached for another minute or two, spent trying to fathom out what was going on with loi 15ac. Thankfully, yesterday’s loi disaster eventually prompted me to remember a clue has two ends, and Acts Up at once became obvious. Given the issues with the paper version of the 6d clue, I’m happy enough with that. CoD to 10ac, Tenants, for the smile. Invariant
I nearly gave up early on as the clues looked too hard, thinking I would come back later but somehow they fell in gradually.
Today, I learnt the meaning of CHANCERY – never thought about it before.
I knew about the widow’s mite from the Bible.
We had lots of LOLLIES when young and not just the frozen ones we had hard sherbetty sugary ones too.
LOI DILEMMAS – couldn’t think of a hat to fit backwards, NHO Miss Woodhouse, totally put off anything to do with classic texts by school….
Thanks Izetti and Doofers
Much better today than yesterday.
Any Izetti which doesn’t get me into the SCC is a good day for me, and I really enjoyed this one. Apart from knowing a little about one famous book, there doesn’t seem to be anything here that requires much more than following the clue carefully, and DILEMMAS I got from reversing, hat, cap, then lid, and seeing the obvious answer before tipping my hat (cap, lid, whatever) to Miss W to parse the end of the clue.
The TEN ANTS gave me my biggest smile, but lots to like overall.
Agree that LOLLY may be less obvious abroad but a write in for most, I suspect, also MITE which I have seen a number of times despite being no cruciverbalist.
There seem to be a mixture of reviews so far, with some suggesting it was tough and others apparently finding it a doddle. I’m on the side of those that found it tougher than average, although my time of 9.45 was inside target. I was surprised to find I’d broken the ten minute barrier as I had to revisit most clues, some more than once.
Like others, I was scratching my head at 6dn wondering if the setter had made a mistake with the intended anagram, or perhaps more likely there was an alternative method of parsing it that I couldn’t see. A slight disadvantage as it turned out for us pen and paper solvers.
15 mins…
I thought this was on the easier Izetti side, but enjoyable none the less.
As many have pointed out, the printed edition has an error for 6dn – luckily it was fairly obvious. Liked 1ac “Dilemmas”, 3dn “Manipulation” and 23ac “Chancery” – the last of which nearly always reminds me of Jarndyce v Jarndyce from Bleak House.
FOI – 9ac “Felon”
LOI – 12ac “Parsimony”
COD – 12ac “Parsimony”
Thanks as usual!
So pleased to finish an Izetti – now see it’s rated “the easiest Izetti ever”. Oh well! NHO Emma Woodhouse (tried various Jane Austen but never managed to endure past page 100 in any) but biffed and liked DILEMMAS anyway. LOI 6d, same comment as Chris Giles above.
Well it may have been on the easier side for Izetti but it was still quite a tough QC so a big well done for finishing it Martinů. You have come a long way. That is great progress!
And if you can manage to complete a QC of this standard, you might find some of the easier main crosswords more approachable than you think. Of course that might not be your goal in which case you can stick to the QC. In either case, it is good to see you back here.
You’re very kind, thank you for your warming comment. Every so often (e.g. today) I do glance at the 15×15 “just in case”, but am swiftly put in my place!
Yesterday would have been a better day to glance at the 15×15, definitely not today. Yesterday’s had one or two unusual words, but under 60 on the Snitch is definitely an easier one.
I found that SNITCH deeply depressing, having failed on both the fruit and the group. If even a SNITCH 59 contains words I don’t know and wordplay I can’t crack, I think I’m doomed (GaryA voice).
🤣🤣
Ah, today was not a great day to try the 15×15. Personally I found it really tough.
Well done Martinu 👏 👏👏
It wasn’t the easiest Izetti ever. After many complaints about the difficulty of his QCs, he set what was by his standards a ridiculously easy QC several weeks ago.
I remember because it was a PB, although I don’t count it as such because I thought he was taking the mickey.
Today was hard in places and to finish is great.
Thank you, Gary!
Came in under 10 minutes (by 20 seconds) – so a good day. Finished with MUSHY and MANIPULATION. Had a question about dapple/dappled but I note the comments above. Dnk MITE but the clue left no room for doubt. Thanks all.
DNF. I get dishearened when I read the blog and realise I would never had got the answer, no matter how long I had tried. Do I need to read the entire Jane Austen collection to make progress?
Please see my comment above! i.e. it was not difficult to biff despite NHO Emma Woodhouse. Have no further conscience about not having read Jane Austen – I found it no more consequential than a 19th-century version of Coronation Street. Devotees please forgive the sacrilege!
If you solve all the other clues, you have D _ L _ M _ A _ for a word that probably means problems. So you don’t really need to know all that much.
We used to have a commenter who couldn’t parse half the clues, but he always finished anyway – his idea was that if a word fit, it must be right.
And as a rank beginner I’m finding that parsing the clues can be dispensed with more often than I realized. Sometimes my subconscious seems to get enough out of them to find the answer even though I don’t know how it happens!
Can’t resist adding that I slightly beat that: I had D-L-M-AS so it was even more obvious!
The printed version of today’s QC 6D is “Administrative areas…..” which I believe is slightly trickier than “Swiss areas….”
8.16
Struggled with the long ones but no complaints with this Izetti. Nitch won’t look good and I fived in Wordle for the first time in 80 goes. What’s the opposite of a Red Letter Day. Hey ho it’s Chrimbo 🙂
Thanks Izetti and Doofers
8:02
Having completed this at stupid o’clock this morning, I went to bed before the blog appeared. As with Mikest above, I confess to having Barbara Woodhouse in mind (which would surely have seriously messed with the heads of overseas solvers) rather than Gwyneth Paltrow’s Emma – took all of the checkers to finally see the light. MANIPULATION was another where multiple checkers were needed. No problem with either meaning of LOLLY, but didn’t remember the money meaning of MITE.
Thanks Iz and Doofs
My printed copy had 6d as an anagram of SANCTIONS (one ignored) which is obviously an error, although CANTONS became the obvious answer. A number of tricky items, as expected from an Izetti puzzle: PARSIMONY, ROTATABLE, MANIPULATION, MITE (= bit of money:NHO).
Nearly got stuck on 15a as I assumed it was __SSUP the backwards cat being a puss. The C of INDISCRETION straightened me up.
It might have helped that I used to alight at Chancery Lane tube.
The (widow’s) MITE came up recently I think, but it was familiar to me anyway.
9′. Never read Brontes or Austen so Miss Woodhouse only prompted dog training in my head. Later crossers helped. Enjoyable, especially CHANCERY for some reason. Thanks all.
Best not to lump them together 🙂. Austen Georgian, Brontes Victorian. Austen amusing, Brontes not amusing.
haha, thanks I’ll remember that! if I ever get round to reading them I’ll know where to start!
SW corner delayed me because of my own bad writing. Had to reveal ROTATABLE in the end, which gave me LOI PATIENT.
My paper copy also suggested an anagram of Sanctions, but I bunged in CANTONS without thinking hard, luckily.
Not that easy and I was pretty slow And rather dim.
FOI DILEMMAS, (easy!) Also liked PARSIMONY, ALTER, DAPPLE.
Thanks, Doofers.
A bit staggered by all those complaining they have not heard of EMMA! Even if you haven’t read JA, you may have seen the oft-repeated Gwyneth or Reece W version on the telly.
The Anya Taylor Joy one is very good too!
Agree😀
But I now remember I wasn’t convinced by Mr Knightley.
Astoundingly I got it all in under 30 minutes, a fast time for this learner! Fortunately I didn’t register Izetti as the setter right away or I might have been too intimidated to function.
Maybe I should always have sleepless nights if I want to improve at this!
Really enjoyed a lot of the clever clues, but didn’t understand how DAPPLE could be fair, rather than DAPPLED. Favorite was INDISCRETION, first time I’ve ever just kind of squinted at the letters and had them swim into place in my mind’s eye.
👏👏👏
Easier than yesterday and a nice mix of clues. Wondered about DAPPLE but my question has now been answered. Biffed DILEMMAS then belatedly made the link to Miss Woodhouse. Favourites were ALTER, MUSHY and PARSIMONY, all of which made me think. LOI INDISCRETION – needed all the checkers although really not sure why. Thanks for the blog and thanks to Izetti.
14:15
Not on Izetti’s wavelength.
Struggled with north west: parsimony, defamed, lolly (not jelly), alter, and LOI dilemmas.
I agree you didn’t really need to know Emma Woodhouse, but not very festive from Izetti.
Might not pass the Times censor, but how about:
Dial me ms naughty for sticky wickets.
COD tenants
I’m in the easier Izetti camp. Very much on wavelength today but then I am a fan of clever wordplay and minimal GK (Emma and Canton came to mind relatively quickly). FOI DEFAMED, LOI ACTS UP and COD to PARSIMONY. 7:08 and a red letter day
I found this one quite easy, although I did pause to ponder on DAPPLE and didn’t know the required Woodhouse. Crossers proved adequate to solve the latter and a shoehorn just about made the former fit. From DEFAMED to AWESOME in 6:56. Thanks Izetti and Doofers.
10.31 DAPPLE rather than DAPPLED was new to me. Simple SIMON and the Widow’s MITE have come up fairly recently, which helped. I was also stuck on Barbara for a while making DILEMMAS LOI. A nice puzzle. Thanks Doofers and Izetti.
Me too with Barbara! Showing our age there oh dear! NHO mite for money!
Just as an aside, is anyone else finding the app on Android not working properly? When i completed this it flashed up “Congratulations, time 00.00”. While I would be minded to take that, even I am not brazen enough to post a sub-Verlaine time on TfTT!
Delighted to cross the line in 25 minutes today. TENANTS made me smile. Virtually the entire NE corner remained empty until the very end. Then it filled up all of a sudden. Weird!
Thank to Izetti and Doofers.
👏👏👏