Solving time: 9 minutes
I found this quite easy but I shall be interested to hear how you all got on.
I imagine that not everyone who visits the Quick Cryptic blog also reads the 15×15 so I’m taking this opportunity to re-post Vinyl1’s reminder from his blog last Monday:
I have been asked to remind everyone – bloggers and commenters alike- that off-topic discussions of politics and religion are not required here. While living people can now be included in these puzzles, and this includes politicians and religious leaders, the fact that they exist and are who they are is sufficient for the purposes of the puzzle. If you wish to discuss these matters, there are thousands of other web sites available devoted to these topics.
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]. “Aural wordplay” is in quotation marks. I usually omit all reference to juxtaposition indicators unless there is a specific point that requires clarification.
 Across |
|
| 1 | Adorn well fantastically, being native of central Scotland, perhaps (9) |
| LOWLANDER | |
| Anagram [fantastically] of ADORN WELL | |
| 6 | Educationalist’s sleeping-place (3) |
| BED | |
| Two meanings. B Ed = Bachelor of Education. | |
| 8 | Drawing of box with nothing in it (7) |
| CARTOON | |
| CARTON (box) containing 0 [with nothing in it] | |
| 9 | Calm musical offering, by the sound of it (5) |
| PEACE | |
| Aural wordplay [by the sound of it]: “piece” (musical offering) | |
| 10 | Mean rebuke over fellow with evidence of debts (12) |
| PARSIMONIOUS | |
| RAP (rebuke) reversed [over], SIMON (fellow), IOUS (evidence of debts) | |
| 12 | Suit, one seen in part of West London (6) |
| ACTION | |
| I (one) contained by [seen in] ACTON (part of West London) | |
| 13 | Mistake originally riling boss (6) |
| GAFFER | |
| GAFFE (mistake), R{iling} [originally] | |
| 16 | Order distribution of gas in Ontario (12) |
| ORGANISATION | |
| Anagram [distribution] of GAS IN ONTARIO | |
| 19 | Greeting welcoming a small number in Asian capital (5) |
| HANOI | |
| HI (greeting) containing [welcoming] A + NO (small number) | |
| 20 | Bill — and what he hopes to be when singing? (7) |
| INVOICE | |
| IN VOICE (what he – Bill – hopes to be when singing) | |
| 22 | Twisted-sounding grain (3) |
| RYE | |
| Aural wordplay [sounding]: “wry” (twisted) | |
| 23 | Vessel of little weight giving warning at sea? (9) |
| LIGHTSHIP | |
| LIGHT (of little weight), SHIP (vessel) | |
| Down |
|
| 1 | Going north, pass over end of rich expanse of water (4) |
| LOCH | |
| COL (mountain pass) reversed (going north), {roc}H [end of…] | |
| 2 | Justify women’s set finally touring Scottish island (7) |
| WARRANT | |
| W (women’s) + {se}T [finally] containing [touring] ARRAN (Scottish island) | |
| 3 | A turn in the past (3) |
| AGO | |
| A, GO (turn) | |
| 4 | Energetic person upset a large number in party (6) |
| DYNAMO | |
| MANY (a large number) reversed [upset] contained by [in] DO (party) | |
| 5 | Contrite worker shut up again (9) |
| REPENTANT | |
| RE-PENT (shut up again), ANT (worker) | |
| 6 | Little sibling digesting Authorised Version? Well done! (5) |
| BRAVO | |
| BRO (little – abbreviated – sibling) containing [digesting] AV (Authorised Version – The Bible) | |
| 7 | Theatre employee — Welsh, possibly? (7) |
| DRESSER | |
| Two meanings. A Welsh dresser is a sideboard. | |
| 11 | Canoodle on promontory, finding wading bird (9) |
| SPOONBILL | |
| SPOON (canoodle), BILL (promontory e.g. Portland Bill) | |
| 12 | A different head of art — him, presumably? (7) |
| ANOTHER | |
| A{rt} [head of…], NOT HER (him, presumably?) | |
| 14 | Possible dessert is hot? That’s silly (7) |
| FOOLISH | |
| FOOL (possible dessert), IS, H (hot) | |
| 15 | Making request in capacity of monarch (6) |
| ASKING | |
| AS KING (in capacity of monarch) | |
| 17 | Information about category of literature or art (5) |
| GENRE | |
| GEN (information), RE (about) | |
| 18 | Act as custodian of castle (4) |
| KEEP | |
| Two meanings | |
| 21 | Check out surgeon (3) |
| VET | |
| Two meanings | |
15:03 I liked RE-PENT ANT, A NOT HER, FOOL IS H(ot), and IN VOICE. I didn’t know the Welsh DRESSER and PARSIMONIOUS took me the longest because I thought I was looking for MAN instead of SIMON.
Today I learned that there is a dessert called a Fool. Looks delicious, though also just looks like a fancy yoghurt.
I enjoyed ANOTHER.
My list of scottish islands it grows forever longer
The classic one is rhubarb, if you can get it in your neck of the woods it’s worth a try, delicious.
I looked up a recipe – it definitely looks like a grown up dessert. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten rhubarb anything. I should rectify that. I shall report back!
You really do need to try rhubarb crumble! Convention says you put custard on it, but I prefer single cream 😋
Love rhubarb fool and crumble – but may I suggest that gooseberries are even better with both? The only possible accompaniment to crumble is vanilla ice cream, but even that isn’t needed with fool. (No relation to yoghurt which I can’t abide – opposite ends of the spectrum of deliciousness!)
Rhubarb is almost the only edible thing that I can grow in our garden, but it grows in profusion from May to September. Delicious boiled with fresh ginger, vanilla and a little sugar. Sometimes throw in mint which grows like a weed nearby. Crumble, pie, or just on its own with vanilla ice cream.
To my mind the best fools are made with sharp fruits, especially rhubarb and gooseberries.
A relative who moved to Sydney used to lament the lack of gooseberries in Australia, but if you can get rhubarb that’ll do very nicely.
A hint of ginger is always nice with anything rhubarb-y too imo 😊
Oh yes. The recipe I found by an Australian cook I always enjoy said to crumble ginger nut biscuits on top, so it seems he agrees with you!
I feel like being cheeky and asking if off topic discussions regarding desserts are also best left to other fora but I understand the spirit of the rule 😉
Yeah, don’t trifle with the rules.
😂
I get it, and I’m a Yank. Yay me.
I think discussion of desserts in a cryptic crossword blog is right on song, it brings that test match cricket commentary flavour to proceedings. Rhubarb or gooseberry, both excellent, blackcurrants also make a good fool, less so a crumble. Back to times, 9:50 here so a relatively easy outing. Didn’t parse PARSIMONIOUS which became clear from the checkers. I think there are some random names such as Ian (clued by scot) which are tolerable but here something a little more specific than ‘fellow’, disciple say, would work better. An enjoyable puzzle nevertheless.
yes, you are really taking the biscuit!
I never did figure out ANOTHER. NHO Welsh dresser, so that half of the clue was a mystery to me. Jack, 23ac needs repair: LIGHT=of little weight SHIP=vessel; a CD, no?
Thanks.
12:16
Very Scottish opening, with the first three clues I looked at all needing GK from there.
Only word I could think of starting with S for “canoodle” was SNOG.
I liked INVOICE.
LOI GAFFER. Two excellent British slang words.
Can’t believe that the SNOGBLUFF isn’t a bird, which was my first attempt
😀🦉
Surely there’s one of those in a Roald Dahl book
I was frustrated by not being able to see the long anagrams like lowlander and organisation, which slowed me down considerably. I had to pick at the short ones until I had enough letters to get going, and even then I biffed dynamo, dresser, and cartoon.
Time: 9 minutes
Fun puzzle from Orpheus. My 10.53 was longer than it might have been because I was held up by the same two anagrams as vinyl1 (neither of which was particularly difficult) and spent too long puzzling over several clues – INVOICE, PEACE, ASKING, ANOTHER – that were way simpler than I had assumed. FOI BED, LOI ASKING, special mentions to REPENTANT and ANOTHER. Thanks to Orpheus and Jack for explaining how to parse PARSIMONIOUS.
I’m well out of sync finding this super hard and crawling over the line in 23m when I finally realised I did know a place in West London that would fit. In my desperation I had been wondering if it was a hidden and ‘estlon’ was a type of suit. Just two on the first pass of acrosses and although the downs were easier I struggled with lots of those too. All green though.
10 minutes for a pleasant and enjoyable start to the week, with only LOI PARSIMONIOUS not parsed – put in from checkers so thank you Jack for explaining it. I noticed the Scottish start with 1A, 1D and 2D, and wondered if we had a theme, but it came to nothing more than those clues.
Cluing Surgeon as VET – not a difficult one to see, but I have a question here: since not all surgeons are vets, and not all vets are surgeons, should this be marked in some way as it is not a straight synonym? Perhaps “Check out a possible surgeon”?
Many thanks Jack for the blog and for repeating Vinyl1’s request. Fully understand and support, but equally I am not entirely surprised that the inclusion of current and at times controversial personalities might have had this effect.
Cedric
Thanks, Cedric. Re VET, it’s in the dictionaries as ‘veterinary surgeon’ and as an abbreviation thereof so I really don’t see any reason to question today’s clue. Very few synonyms are valid in every circumstance, and it’s sufficient for them to mean the same in only one.
A quick start then bogged down for a bit before finally getting organisation which led to a rush to finish in 22.03
COD to repentant and thanks to Jack for the parsing of LOI another which we biffed
Thanks Orpheus.
Hope everyone is keeping dry where they are, it’s raining in biblical fashion here!!!
Thank you to the land of roundabouts! Amazingly here in London the rain has not amounted to more than a few drips so far. Had to take my car in for end-of-season check-up and was able to have the roof open for the whole hour’s drive, no rain and even a bit of sun which was briefly hot. Weather forecasts are so pessimistic, aren’t they – frightened of being sued ever since 1987?
(Sorry, well off topic here – will cease.)
A speedy start to the week with only the parsing of ANOTHER causing a minor hold up.
Started with LOWLANDER and finished with PARSIMONIOUS in 5.34.
Thanks to Jackkt
Just nowhere near the right wavelength today. 1a had me looking for a particular place rather than a regional native, and couldn’t stop thinking it started with’Llan’ even though that’s more welsh. Strangely, ANOTHER was write-in and parsed correctly at the time. INVOICE is a bit of a chestnut but I needed all the help I could get. Had PARSIMONIOUS but didn’t parse at the time. But COD has to go to DRESSER.
Thanks Jack and setter.
7.50
This felt at least medium difficulty for me but maybe it’s just Monday morning. Like others ANOTHER last in, not fully justified.
5:40. I was rather slow getting into gear with this getting less than a handful of across answers on a first pass through. Typically, I confidently put in REGENT for 15D before looking at how the wordplay worked – ad of course it didn’t. Wrong definition! COD to DYNAMO for the surface. Thanks Orpheus and Jackkt.
I didn’t find this particularly easy. I seemed to be a little off the pace on every clue. Trying to force mAn(a)gER in at 13a didn’t help matters and LIGHTSHIP had to be but was unknown to me. FOI LOWLANDER and LOsI ANOTHER, ACTION and WARRANT. 8:22
LIGHTSHIP unknown to us too but then Mr SR thought of Channel Light Vessel Automatic in the Shipping Forecast which gave it credence to it for us.
Horses untroubled but no records broken either. COD to ANOTHER, which provided a solid clunk as the penny dropped. Thought 1a was going to be “landowner” and tried my best to make “lighthouse” into a 9 letter word.
Home and hosed in reggo 08:29 for an estimated 1.2K and an OK Day. Many thanks Orpheus and Jack.
Vaguely on the wavelength today so fairly quick by my standards.
Had to think about the parsing of ANOTHER. LOI ACTION.
Liked SPOONBILL, PARSIMONIOUS, GENRE, ASKING.
Personally, I rather like the off-topic asides, but maybe there has been too much muttering about bad dudes we don’t like.
Thanks vm, Jack.
10:34
A slow start, with only two of the across clues on first pass, then speeded up. COD to ANOTHER.
Took a while to spot Simon as the random fellow in 10a, despite it being my own name.
SPOONBILL was my LOI. Spoonbills have raised young in Cambridgeshire this year, for the first time since the 17th century. The RSPB have named their young “teaspoons”.
Thanks Orpheus and Jack
NHO LIGHTSHIP but the answer was obvious. Not aware that bill could mean a promontory, but did know SPOONBILL. Thanks Jack for parsing PARSIMONIOUS, and Orpheus for a good start to the week.
. . .see Portland
Belated thanks!
👍
Struggled with this one after a reasonable start. Maybe my brain just hadn’t woken up yet. NHO LIGHTSHIP, which might have helped a bit, but a few I should have got quicker just didn’t come for ages, e.g. VET, INVOICE, SPOONBILL. It was getting the latter that proved to be the key to opening up the remainder, but a 31:05 was not a great start to the week. Thanks all.
DNF as could only think of MERTON as West London place and could not see ANOTHER for 12d. Nver mind. Can’t win them all.
I found this one difficult and after 30 mins had to ask Mrs Prof to finish the last three (WARRANT, PARSIMONIOUS and ACTION). She got them straight away of course as she is skilled at finding words that fit and not worrying about why. I get too bogged down in clue structure and parsing.
In 2d, why does the clue use “women’s” in the possessive? Is it just to make the clue read better or does it refer to the women’s toilet or Women’s Royal Air Force, etc? In which case the full “women’s” should be part of the definition.
Yes, you’re right it would have been better if I’d included apostrophe ‘s’. Most of the dictionary entries are w = women’s with specific reference to size of clothes, although SOED allows w = women again referring to size. I’ve amended the blog accordingly.
No real problems with this. I knew LIGHTSHIP. As a BUSMAN I am duty bound to bore you all with the information that, back in the 1960’s, Albion produced a double decker chassis known as the LOWLANDER. It was principally intended for the Scottish market, but nearly 80 made it to England – I remember seeing them in service with East Midland Motor Services in Chesterfield, and Yorkshire Woollen in Dewsbury.
FOI BED
LOI WARRANT
COD ANOTHER
TIME 3:39
FOI BED
No trouble with this one, a smooth start to the week finishing in 7.42. Whenever parts of London are mentioned, my instant reaction is to bring either Acton or Soho to mind. They are definitely crossword setters favourites, and today didn’t disappoint.
I’ll have to remember this!
Ealing comes up fairly frequently too.
👍
Very few clues seemed write-ins this morning. Brain obviously still in weekend mode. Much to like though including DRESSER, ANOTHER and PARSIMONIOUS. Very slow to solve the VHO SPOONBILL as I thought the ‘bill’ part equated to ‘canoodle’ (bill and coo) so was trying to find a headland beginning with S… when I eventually returned to the wordplay I realised bill = promontory and came after the canoodle bit 🤪 LOI ACTION involved an alphabet trawl but luckily only as far a C! Talk about heavy weather. Thanks to Jack and Orpheus.
Found this very easy, 6:53
Thought of ACTON immediately of course as it had been in the other puzzle
Thought A NOT-HER was clever
Finished correclty in 59 minutes.
Seemed very tough to me.
Never heard of “lightship”.
“Parsimonious”. Hate it when setters use random men’s names.
“Bed”. B.Ed. or place to sleep. Not had that before. I was expecting something like Don and Nod.
“Action” = Acton with “I” inserted. Why are all these puzzles so London-centric ? There are cities and towns in the rest of Britain.
Lots of cities and towns in the UK are mentioned regularly. Acton in West London has the distinction of having more railway stations than any other former borough, all with Action in their name, 7!
It is not just places. But also this over reliance that cryptic setters seem to have for Cockney usage in clues (mainly to omit the first letters of words). I find this very trying. Perhaps the setters in question need some lessons from Professor Henry Higgins.
Two sittings this morning, with a brisk start before hitting the buffers in the SE corner that required a coffee and quite a bit of lateral thinking to clear. Canoodle doesn’t pop up everyday, but it’s positively common compared to Spoon, which I don’t think I’ve ever come across in that context. In fact, I remembered the bird first. I also see that we had (yet) another London area making an appearance – is there not a better web site for devotees of former Municipal Boroughs. . ? CoD to 20ac, Invoice, for the smile, with Asking a close second. Invariant
No “spoon/moon/June” songs causing you earworms, then?
I think “poodle-faking” is even more archaic but have a feeling it came up in a crossword at some point, though may not have been the Times.
. . .not until your post prompted a search ! ☺
Got there in the end, with two belated PDMs SPOONBILL and (LOI) INVOICE. Oh: overlooked VET – but after INVOICE it just went in. CNP several: rebuke = rap, and NHO Welsh DRESSER, LIGHTSHIP or re-pent – so thank you for the blog.
7:51
Wasn’t quite all there this morning trying to pick off the easier fruit, and might have been a minute faster but for entering most of the letters of REPENTANT in the wrong squares which made 9a and 13a hard to see initially. Eventually corrected, but sometimes wish for pen and paper… LOWLANDER and ORGANISATION both took a second look to see.
Thanks Jack and Orpheus
A good start to the week, as 27 minutes for an Orpheus is faster than average for me.
I started with BED and PEACE before dotting around the grid as I fancied. Most clues put up some resistance, but only ACTION (my LOI) had me really stumped.
The CoD for me was ANOTHER.
Thanks to Orpheus and Jack.
A fairly gentle intro to the week imo. I came home in 12 mins with everything parsed except PARSIMINIOUS. Apart from writing in ‘ado’ at 3dn before actually reading the clue and then having to rapidly change the middle letter once I had done so, everything flowed very smoothly. Possibly the right hand side less so than the left but that might just have been the order I tackled them in.
FOI – 1ac LOWLANDER
LOI – 7dn DRESSER
COD – 5dn REPENTANT
Thanks to Orpheus and to Jack
13.53 I found this quite tough, though I’m not sure why. SPOONBILL and GAFFER took far too long and I didn’t remember the law sense of suit until I’d thought of LOI ACTION. Thanks Jack and Orpheus.
Had to jump around the grid today. LOCH was FOI. Eventually finished with GENRE. No particular problems, although I only parsed ANOTHER post solve. 7:30. Thanks Orpheus and Jack.
14:25 for me, with quite a few NHOs and another few requiring help with the parsing (including ANOTHER). Even so, it felt reasonably gentle and now I have a bit more vocabulary to inevitably forget.
Thank you for the blog!
15 minutes. But would have been quicker if I hadn’t put originally William in for 20 across, thinking of the singer Will.I.Am . The checkers eventually made clear that was wrong – but it started off looking like quite a clever clue and still works in my view. Unusual to get two very different but acceptable answers to the same clue.
15M
So not swoonbill then, and pettingbill didn’t fit!
COD invoice/another
I got quite a few in my first 7 minutes on the train returning home. But I needed much more than that to finish this.
Held up by SPOONBILL and ANOTHER in particular. LOI was PEACE which eluded me for far too long; no accurate time but plenty.
A good puzzle.
David
RE-PENT (shut up again) … you’re saying PENT = shut up? NHO of this definition! Know pent – up as in (of emotions, energy, etc.) unable to be expressed or released.
“pent-up frustrations” !
Exactly. I had re-pen as a sheepdog does to sheep when it wants to shut them up again. But then had nowhere to get the T from.
Done in about 16 mins with no attempt at speed so a truly Mondayish puzzle that I enjoyed throughout.
The SPOONBILL turns up regularly now in this part of the country, although I still remember my shock and surprise some 15 years or so ago when I first saw a pair casually strolling on the River Camel near Padstow!
How does suit =ACTION? Needed explanation for ANOTHER, but appreciated as great clue once enlightened
A court action is an example of a suit.
No problem with spoonbill, I am watching several roseate spoonbills feeding in front of me as I type. Spent too long on anagrams and some gritty parsing which took me up to 30 mins and a bit of grid hopping to fill in the blanks.
Thanks Orpheus and Jack
Thanks to some aggressive guessing (my newest tactic) some of this came quite fast but as one might guess (ha!) I made a guess, then forgot about it, and that held me up and took me out to 25:19. I’m not going to tell you my guess because it’s too silly 🤪
I couldn’t think of “rap” for rebuke and had no idea about Welsh DRESSERs, just biffed it. Know nothing of ACTON so guessing served me well there. I liked HANOI and ANOTHER because I like answers that assemble themselves while I watch. No idea about BILL as a promontory either, filing it away for the future. (Portland Bill sounds like an eccentric but lovable character from Maine.)
Thanks to Orpheus and Jack!
All done in 12:14. My only hold-up was inventing the Harrow suit for 12ac with the accompanying thought, “well, at least it isn’t Eton.” 😆
My COD to the very pleasing ASKING.
Thanks to Orpheus and Jackkt.
I thought this was going to be a flyer but LOWLANDER held me up for ages: I had LANDOWNER in mind (I know, it doesn’t fit) so I fretted over 3d AGO: could there be a three-letter word O-O meaning an old turn. Anyway, got there with a tiny nudge but way over the 20 minute mark! Nice to be back (four days in Germany for a cultural conference and no crossword time!)
25 mins but blew it. Author for Another. Slowed town by a mental drive along the Scottish central belt, looking for town names, until Lowlander jumped out my circle of letters.
Thanks Jack and Orpheus
Dnf…
I didn’t find this easy at all, but perhaps I’m just out of step. In the end I had a number of clues unfinished, including: 11dn “Spoonbill”, 10ac “Parsimonious”, 21dn “Vet” and 23ac “Lightship”.
I put “William” for 20ac – mainly because it fit and thought it might have something to do with “Wills” and such like. Stupidly, I did think of “In Tune”, but didn’t consider “In Voice”.
FOI – 1dn “Loch”
LOI – Dnf
COD – 12dn “Another”
Thanks as usual!
16:17
ANOTHER went straight in because I recall seeing it in a puzzle a year or two ago. Checking the archive I see it was #2443 by Orpheus where it was clued as A different head of art – him presumably? (7). An added comma this time.
As good as my memory is for these things I reached my last four at 12mins and was then stumped for the next 3+ mins over PARSIMONIOUS, WARRANT, ACTION and SPOONBILL.
I believe when I have been doing these 5-10years longer, any of these will go in quicker as I learn the meaning of the first word, remember Scottish islands, West London places (5 or 6 others named) and wading birds. I have seen them all before they just haven’t gone in yet. It was a last second decision / memory that took me from the SwOON to SPOONBILL! (QC 2326 – Feb 2023 – Orpheus)
Well, I see you’ve got your work cut out for yourself for the coming decade!
Just a pleasant distraction – getting my 400m under a minute is the current goal for next decade!
25:07
Well the first half was super easy. But then ground to a halt and had to tease the answers out one by one. Couldn’t see where the T came from in REPENTANT. Only vaguely associated DRESSER with Welsh and didn’t see why that was a theatre employee and had to guess at LOI ANOTHER.
Orpheus being kind today… All done over my Costa this afternoon, so pretty quick for me although I never chase the clock. ‘Spooning’ seems very 1920-1930 to me – don’t think I’ve ever heard it IRL.
FOI 1d Loch – to start me off with 1a
LOI 17d Genre – just because I got to it last
COD – too many entertaining to mention.
Another poor day.
23 minutes of toil for a QC that most found easy. Why do I never improve?
Tried my hardest with big crossword but too tired/frustrated/downcast to get more than 2/3 of the answers (in about an hour). No fun.
PS First line of blog for big crossword says most of clues were too easy for the QC. You can imagine how that makes me feel.
PPS Seven words in big crossword that were unknown to me. Easy? I’m wasting my time here.
. . . 1d is Teasel’s calling card 😉