Hello everybody. This felt a little tricky for a quickie: although it didn’t last much longer than usual, certainly no Monday picnic. (Cue lots of reports of scorching times!) I was surprised to see who the setter was as it didn’t feel quite up to his usual quality. Still enjoyable though – thanks Izetti.
Definitions are underlined in the clues below. In the explanations, most quoted indicators are in italics, specified [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 | Like a sort of view showing a main crop ruined (9) |
| PANORAMIC — A MAIN CROP anagrammed (ruined) | |
| 6a | Fish firm foremost with deliveries (3) |
| COD — CO (firm) + the first letter of (foremost with) Deliveries | |
| 8a | Without blemish? Not female acting illegally (7) |
| LAWLESS — [f]LAWLESS (without blemish) without (not) F (female) | |
| 9a | Poet and priest presented with holy books (5) |
| ELIOT — ELI (priest) + OT (holy books) | |
| 10a | Top artist involved with Sir — artist being one of these? (12) |
| PORTRAITISTS — An anagram (involved) of TOP ARTIST with SIR | |
| 12a | Visitors to Athens come across this (4) |
| STOA — VisitorS TO Athens surround (come across) the answer. Interesting to see the fodder treated as plural, which is not something I would expect from this setter or in The Times | |
| 13a | Fellow initially brought in by police investigator as expert (4) |
| DEFT — The first letter of (… initially) Fellow in (brought in by) DET (police investigator) | |
| 17a | Nation that’s initially angry over hill and dale? (5-7) |
| CROSS-COUNTRY — COUNTRY (nation) preceded by (that’s initially) CROSS (angry) | |
| 20a | Woman supporting a learner being kept in (5) |
| FLORA — FOR (supporting) and A, with L (learner) inside (being kept in) | |
| 21a | Wearing away with time, certainly (7) |
| ERASURE — ERA (time) + SURE (certainly) | |
| 23a | Gentleman showing some desire (3) |
| SIR — Some deSIRe | |
| 24a | Lord, one by loch, being present before expected time? (9) |
| EARLINESS — EARL (lord) by I (one) + NESS (loch) | |
| Down | |
| 1d | European police — not in charge (4) |
| POLE — POL[ic]E without (not) IC (in charge). We’ve had not as a deletion indicator above | |
| 2d | Fresh wine for many a town (7) |
| NEWPORT — NEW (fresh) + PORT (wine). I don’t know how many towns are called Newport but it makes sense that there’s a few | |
| 3d | Grass you once found below river (3) |
| RYE — YE (you once) found below R (river) | |
| 4d | Lose maiden on Scottish island (6) |
| MISLAY — M (maiden) on ISLAY (Scottish island) | |
| 5d | Betrayed prisoner, angry being locked up (7,2) |
| CHEATED ON — CON (prisoner) with HEATED (angry) inside (being locked up) | |
| 6d | Counters offering cooked food (5) |
| CHIPS — Two definitions. For the first think of casino chips etc. | |
| 7d | Hate getting low grades on exam (6) |
| DETEST — D E (low grades) on TEST (exam). We saw “on” used this way three clues ago | |
| 11d | Stare with Latin tricky? One misses out — unable to do this? (9) |
| TRANSLATE — An anagram (tricky) of STARE with LAT[i]N; I (one) isn’t included (misses out) | |
| 14d | A lot of money for piece of music (7) |
| FORTUNE — FOR + TUNE (piece of music) | |
| 15d | Eats quickly in barracks (6) |
| SCOFFS — Two definitions | |
| 16d | Pretentious person rose up unexpectedly (6) |
| POSEUR — ROSE UP anagrammed (unexpectedly] | |
| 18d | Smell nothing grim (5) |
| ODOUR — O (nothing) + DOUR (grim) | |
| 19d | Cockney cads — slippery types (4) |
| EELS — ‘EELS – Cockney heels (cads) | |
| 22d | Boxer limited by substantial injuries (3) |
| ALI — The answer is in (limited by) substantiAL Injuries | |
No scorching time to report here, Kitty. Only four on the first pass of acrosses, althougth was nice to have solved every clue I’d looked at for the week when PANORAMIC and COD went straight in. Got harder from there, peaking at STOA where even thought it was staring me in the face my poor Greek GK stopped me seeing it early. Felt like a crossworder when ELIOT went straight in. All green in 12.59.
I wonder when you start? I was here at 4.15 am (never before finished so early!) but you weren’t. (Thank you, Kitty, for your reply.) All good fun (thank you, Izetti); LOI POSEUR.
NHO STOA (but it had to be); not sure what you mean by “treated as plural” (which my Collins says it *is*!) – clue says “this”? NHO barracks = SCOFFS; NHO cads = hEELS (both biffed from the other definition); thank you for explanations.
I start at the last minute! Partly because I’m bad, partly because with crossword blogging if I allow more time it takes more time.
When I used to post at 1:30 or so* I found that I’d not sleep so well as, apart from the late night, I’d be conscious of the early commenters pointing out my many embarrassing errors. Doing it in the morning makes for a better night’s sleep.
*For quite a long time I liked to post at 1:30 plus the time the puzzle had taken. Now I just aim for consistency.
I too found this tricky, taking 14 minutes, and slightly uneven – a mixture of write-ins and much more chewy clues. I tend to agree not quite one of Izetti’s best.
It was mostly the short clues that held me up, especially CHIPS which took an age even with all the checkers, and DEFT where I felt sure that Don would feature in the answer somewhere given the setter (they all seem to be at this self-reference lark now). STOA LOI, put in with faith in the wordplay (and from the checkers) – now off to look up what it means.
Many thanks Kitty for the blog
Cedric
I know Stoa, mainly in relation to the Stoics. Apparently they congregated at the colonnade Stoa Poikile in the 4th century BC.
17 minutes, missing my extended target by 2. I thought it was mostly fair enough but I didn’t like CROSS-COUNTRY defined as ‘over hill and dale’. Until checkers made the answer inevitable I had been convinced that was wordplay and the definition was ‘nation’, yet I was mystified by the possibility of any nation fitting the enumeration (5-7).
Quick, slow, quick for me today as I got bogged down in the middle of my solve before everything clicked into place. Unravelling the anagrams for PORTRAITIST and TRANSLATE were the key to unlocking the central part of the grid.
Started with PANORAMIC and finished with DEFT in an averageish 8.20.
Thanks to Kitty and I’m now off to try and de-earworm ‘Give a Little Respect’ by Erasure.
14:48 . Quite a mixture, including some tricky anagrams. I invented (F)RECKLESS while trying to figure out (F)LAWLESS. COD COD. No, not really, I’ll go for FORTUNE
(Kitty, what does “Interesting to see the fodder treated as plural” mean in 12a? What’s the fodder? Sorry to be dim!)
I didn’t find that easy and had to scratch my head more than once, especially over LOI CHEATED ON (very good!) and POI DEFT (why is DET a police investigator? Is it short for “detective”? If so, a pedant writes, there’s no such rank in UK policing – officers in the CID only use detective in conjunction with another rank, so “detective sergeant”, “detective inspector” and so on). COD to FORTUNE.
All done in 08:36 for a Pretty Standard Day. Many thanks Kitty and Don.
‘Visitors to Athens’ is the fodder in the sense that these three words have to do with (in this case, contain) the answer.
One might expect to see the singular (‘comes across’) because the string (singular) of three words contains the answer.
Ah, thank you.
Sorry Templar, I should have been clearer, and thanks Ulaca for explaining so well.
Somewhat into the SCC, but nothing unduly perplexing along my way, just a bit of patiently decoding the Izetti guidance. Fun as ever.
ELIOT held me up until the Doh! moment. So obvious, there is after all only one priest in Crosswordland, or at least in short answers!
CROSS COUNTRY was deceptive and then very obvious. Nice to see the band name theme being continued; didn’t have Izetti down as a follower of 1980s synth-pop.
Yes, Zadok, Aaron and Melchizedek have less useful letters, despite being more prominent in the OT.
DNF. Missed on DEFT (DET?) and looked up ELIOT (a bit dim there). Started well but slow on e.g. SCOFFS, biffed FLORA.
The NW was suspiciously easy but then I sunk slowly into the mire.
Vaguely knew STOA, now confirmed as colonnade so puzzled by Kitty’s comment.
Liked CROSS COUNTRY, MISLAY, ODOUR, EELS, DETEST.
Thanks vm, Kitty.
Sorry, Countywoman1 – I try to avoid unexplained jargon, but sometimes some slips out. I think Ulaca has explained very well in reply to Templar above, but if you want me to elaborate further, do shout.
Took a while to see DEFT, as I considered DIs, DSs, dons. Needed FORTUNE before the penny dropped. MISLAY took a while too. As did LOI, NEWPORT. Quite chewy I thought. FOI was PANORAMIC. 10:35. Thanks Izetti and Kitty.
S l o w. 26:48 CROSS COUNTRY was the main hold up. Also found FLORA tricky as there didn’t seem to be enough words in the clue, as I had “supporting” as just a positional indicator, although on reflection it is not used thus in an across clue.
POSEUR feels very dated. Surely no one still uses it, except ironically?
COD STOA, nice self-reference
If you google “poseur table”, you will find that it is still in very frequent use!
Surely an artist is a PORTRAITIST and not a PORTRAITISTS.
The artist is “one of these”, hence the answer is in the plural.
Glad I’m not the only one to DNF because of DEFT. Thought I might be on for a good time when the first four went in straight away. Gave up on that idea when I failed to get the next five. Wasn’t sure if I’d heard of SCOFFS, though I think it might have been in the Andy McNabb book I finished a few months ago (knew I was reading it for a reason). Even with that pencilled in and all the other checkers, it took ages to get CROSS COUNTRY, which it perhaps shouldn’t have as I’ve run far too many of them. Anyway, I eventually gave up on DEFT after 35 minutes. Thanks anyway Izetti and Kitty.
When I saw Izetti’s name I thought this is probably not a day for Assange or Letterman. I was right about that.
I struggled to get going with this puzzle, odd clues being solved here and there.
17 minutes in the end; LOI FLORA where I resisted a biffed FIONA.
I was wanting to come here as I was very unsure about DEFT; I could not equate DET to police investigator. STOA I thought I had seen before.
COD to CHIPS.
David
11.35
Another struggler here. Breezeblocked on FORTUNE and DEFT at the end and had to write out the grist for PORTRAITISTS. Chewy.
Pretty slow, no paper and pen available, so anagrams were slow to arrive today. Also hampered by have entered TRANSALTE, giving me an “L” at the end of the woman’s name, which looked very odd.
LOI FLORA.
8:17
A very disappointing DNF for me as I failed to get DEFT. I stopped the clock at 14.09 after spending at least two minutes getting nowhere. I think I was so fixated on DI being part of it that it distracted me. Even an alphabet trawl didn’t help, although how I missed DEFT I’ll never know.
Nice to see my home city of NEWPORT get a mention, although strictly being a city it didn’t quite fit the clue. I know there are quite a few other Newports in the UK, but on looking it up I was surprised to find there are as many as 14. The other 13 are of course designated as towns.
Apparently 56 Newports all told in UK, US and Australia!
17 mins, struggled with portraitists and LOI cheated on.
COD POLE.
8.10, LOI DEFT, not sure that barracks is synonymous with SCOFFS but other than that I can’t remember much because I did it a while ago. Thanks to both.
Yes, I thought to barrack meant to heckle but I guess SCOFF is near enough for Crosswordland.
Thought I would DNF, but eventually DEFT showed up. I wasn’t keen on det=detective.
DNF. Most of the answers flew in, until they didn’t. Gave in and revealed POI DEFT. Didn’t think of Det=detective but I guess obvious now. Didn’t lift and separate LOI FORTUNE, expecting the definition to be ‘piece of music’ that was almost ‘a lot of money’. Even when I biffed FORTUNE I still couldn’t parse it (doh). NHO SCOFFS in barracks sense and FLORA took a while as I got hung up on F being woman… Still very enjoyable despite clear absence of brain. POSEUR made me laugh as it’s such an old-fashioned word. Enjoyed STOA as I had to remind myself what this/these were and I do like a bit of learning. Thanks Izetti and kitty.
Nothing to add to the above, and no real problems encountered. Thanks Izetti and Kitty
FOI PANORAMIC
LOI DEFT
COD CHEATED ON
TIME 4:14
DNF. A bright start, but a few too many tricky gaps in the bottom half of the grid meant my enthusiasm quickly waned. Pulled stumps around the 25min mark, but doubt I would ever have seen Deft (Det ?) or Cross Country. Invariant
Kitty, I parsed ‘port’ as ‘wine for many’ in 2d, with Newport then just a town
The port in my cellar is definitely only for a chosen few, so I dispute that parsing!
. . .I’m sure your chosen guests would enjoy a fortified wine 😉
… and if I offered them some, I certainly wouldn’t them serve them *brandy*! 😉
Everyone round Templar’s for Dows 1985 and a wheel of stilton. Mind you – the Quinta Do Noval 1970 he has tucked away is also worth ferreting out!
A man of taste!
I wasn’t keen on “Deft” either – but it was the only thing that fit when I went through my repertoire of PC’s, DI’s, and various other police style acronyms.
DNF but then I rarely finish a Izetti puzzle and don’t much care for his puzzles. This one I thought was one of his poorest in a long time with no flow and no humour. But then again I accept I have a down on his puzzles, so that’s my issue. Thanks to the blogger great as usual.
9.51 This was quite tricky but I didn’t get stuck. I hadn’t noticed it was Izetti, which probably helped. FLORA took a while to parse. CHEATED ON and DEFT were the last two. Thanks Kitty and Izetti.
It’s taken me nearly two weeks to catch up – being away for a couple of weekends delayed my crossword solving, but I had a bit of a blitz on Friday evening when MrB went axe-throwing in Manchester and I was stuck at home with very little to watch on TV!
I made life difficult for myself today by scrawling EARLIEST at 24a, then discovering a spare space. I entered EARLINESS but it was messy! Unfortunately that made 14d FORTUNE very hard as I was looking for a word ending in S 🙄 Eventually I realised what I’d done and finished in 11:30.
I thought Izetti was being mostly pretty kind today, but opinions may differ! I liked TRANSLATE, but am another one who struggled with DEFT – I didn’t make the connection with DET as an abbreviation for a police investigator until just now!
FOI Panoramic LOI Deft COD Cross-country – that made me giggle.
Thanks Izetti and Kitty
“axe-throwing in Manchester” – organised event, or should we be tuning in to the evening news?!
No, no news reports 😅 It’s what MrB and his siblings do to celebrate a 60th 🤣🪓🍻🍕
Axe throwing is great fun, but not as easy as it looks. I entered a competition once, in a country fete and agricultural show in rural Prince Edward Island. The highlight was the cattle show, and among the exhibits was a Highland cow – it was quite obvious from the reaction to this magnificent beast that none of the PEI locals had ever seen anything like it before.
👍🐂
love your avatar!!
Hello Penny,
Please would you ask Mr B to target Izetti when he next goes axe throwing? I found this one one the most difficult QCs I have ever tackled.
I’m afraid he’ll miss! He got the hammer (the axe-throwing equivalent to a wooden spoon) at the end of their session 🤣
🤣 Me too! Well, I don’t want anyone axed, normally I enjoy Izetti’s offerings a lot!
Is it BARRACKS as in HECKLES (NHO this meaning of SCOFFS) or is it Army slang?
Really struggled with the 5d,13a pair. Had to use an aid before getting 13a and then biffing 5d. Couldn’t parse it, so thanks for the blog.
DNF, failing on STOA in a little over half an hour. I think that Izetti’s puzzles are just not to my taste, which is fine; I’m glad that some of you feel otherwise.
Thank you for the blog!
Last week I was travelling in Cornwall and today I’m travelling in France so I solved on the phone again. I’m not a fan but I can see why so many phone solvers use the ‘across and down’ method. Even commenting on this site isn’t easy. I’m left handed and when I scroll through to see what you all thought I invariably hit the ‘Reply’ button three or four times. Anyhow, I would never have guessed this was an Izetti. My FOI was PANORAMIC. I was wrong footed on the CROSS COUNTRY and wasn’t keen on the parsing of DEFT. 9:07
DNF on STOA and DEFT.
When I first started the QC ELIOT would have been a complete mystery but now crosswordland’s favourite priest and the Old or New Testament for books are write ins.
COD: MISLAY as I rather like these changes of pronunciation.
Thanks Izetti and Kitty.
I started quite quickly and did about half the puzzle until I came to a grinding halt. The second half was a struggle, disappointingly so after the fast start. Completed in 25 mins with everything parsed except CHEATED ON. STOA vaguely remembered as an architectural term, otherwise no difficulties with the vocabulary.
FOI – 1ac PANORAMIC
LOI – 5dn CHEATED ON
COD – 14dn FORTUNE
Thanks to Izetti and Kitty
15:04. Spent many minutes trying to fit in INGEST for SCOFFS and DUFF for DEFT.
STOA alright with me,CROSS COUNTRY took a while vainly searching for a nation/country that would fit, can’t argue with parsing, though
33 mins…
I found this tough and wasn’t convinced that 12ac “Stoa” nor 20ac “Flora” were even correct (even if I couldn’t see what else they could be).
Whether it’s up to the usual Izetti standard or not, it was definitely a little chewy and, at worst, clunky in parts.
FOI – 1ac “Panoramic”
LOI – 20ac “Flora”
COD – 24ac “Earliness”
Thanks as usual!
12:38
Well, I enjoyed this, even though I was pushed out well beyond ten minutes. Very few in on the first pass of acrosses, and not too many more on the downs, so had to work harder than usual to dig out some of the answers. I was left with a bunch of unfilled answers mainly at the top once CROSS-COUNTRY went in. CHEATED ON eventually gave DEFT and PANORAMIC. I liked MISLAY having wondered which of the many Scottish islands must be involved.
Thanks Izetti and Kitty
Quite tough. NHO STOA, but guessed and then checked what it meant. Had to come back to the puzzle to get CHEATED ON and DEFT – why does DET = Detective? Just an abbreviation? I would expect DI or DS.)(
25 minutes so SCC but had fun along the way. Spent a few minutes wondering whether FORSURE was a form of geological erosion, but POSEUR gave me the initial E so ERASURE went in. Our school cross-countries were never over hill or dale but it had to be! Liked SCOFFS, ditto MISLAY. Thanks to Izetti and Kitty.
DNF
Defeated by LOI the NHO STOA. it would have been slow anyway as I was stuck forever with PORTRAITISTS (which I didn’t quite parse), DEFT and CHEATED ON.
Edit: Having checked the excellent blog I did parse PORTRAITISTS after all. I just had one too many Rs in my initial solution.
A number of buffs but got there eventually. Not happy with deft but nothing else seemed ok
Bang went the gun and, with PANORAMIC flying in, I was off to a great start. Trouble is, that’s when I hit the buffers. 25 minutes later, I had solved a total of only six clues and I was really starting to despair.
From then on, every clue was like pulling teeth, but I did eventually crawl across the line – (only) 79 minutes for me.
My verdict: Torture!
Did no one else struggle like this today?
Many thanks to Kitty for the blog.
You bet I struggled, 50 minutes to a DNF.
Another bad day after Friday’s horror show.
27 minutes – no sense of enjoyment or satisfaction. STOA a total guess.
Failed on big crossword by one. According to the blog, it was easy. If so, I’m wasting my time here.
DNF, defeated by SCOFFS (DNK the “barracks” sense of the word, where is this defined??? or is it a play on the also unknown-to-me “rations” meaning given in Collins?). So beaten down by this that somehow CHEATED ON eluded me too, for which there is no excuse! Good old Eli, if only I could get used to him! It would have helped.
I need to be a more aggressive guesser if I’m going to get better at this!
Thanks Izetti and Kitty!
My interpretation of 12ac was that ‘come across’ was an imperative: [In] ‘visitors to Athens’ [you must] come across this.
Mostly fine I thought, except for det, which isn’t supported (in this sense) by Collins. But it is by Chambers. However, are we to expect that if it’s in Chambers then it’s OK for The Times QC? Chambers may be OK for Azed’s puzzles but … After all, you wouldn’t see e = eccentricity or s = Stokes in a TQC.
15:14 – just adding to get it to register on Quitch