Hi everyone. I don’t have anything new or unexpected to say about this puzzle, for the good reason that Trelawney is very consistent. Nothing really held me up, so I put in one of my faster times. I really liked the rocket booster in 19a, which is my standout favourite. 16d also warrants a mention for its surface. (Which is a good occasion to say that if you need help sorting your green paint from your Ninja Turtles, you can consult this site’s glossary.) Finally, I was also amused by the serious business of juggling lemons (22a). Thanks Trelawney!
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 | Swindle Greek character for seafood (6) |
| SCAMPI — SCAM (swindle) + PI (Greek character) | |
| 4a | Prepares orthodontic device (6) |
| BRACES — A double definition | |
| 8a | Nurse pocketing certain revolutionary’s box of goodies (8,5) |
| TREASURE CHEST — TREAT (nurse) taking in (pocketing) SURE (certain) and CHE’S (revolutionary’s) | |
| 10a | Lift up and tear down, reportedly (5) |
| RAISE — Sounds like (… reportedly) RAZE (tear down) | |
| 11a | Fortress let acid out (7) |
| CITADEL — LET ACID anagrammed (out) | |
| 13a | Quietly permitted to split separate dessert (5,4) |
| APPLE TART — P (quietly) and LET (permitted) dividing (to split) APART (separate) | |
| 17a | Cut off one very behind schedule (7) |
| ISOLATE — I (one) + SO (very) + LATE (behind schedule) | |
| 18a | Immature insect right inside molten rock (5) |
| LARVA — R (right) inside LAVA (molten rock) | |
| 19a | Heads of secret aerospace lab dealing with rocket booster? (5,8) |
| SALAD DRESSING — The first letters of (heads of) Secret Aerospace Lab + ADDRESSING (dealing with) | |
| 21a | Anger about European flower arrangement (6) |
| WREATH — WRATH (anger) around (about) E (European) | |
| 22a | Juggling lemons is serious (6) |
| SOLEMN — An anagram of (juggling) LEMONS IS | |
| Down | |
| 1d | Ridicule South African flag (6) |
| SATIRE — SA (South African) + TIRE (flag) | |
| 2d | On camera, I stirred coffee (9) |
| AMERICANO — ON CAMERA, I anagrammed (stirred) | |
| 3d | Model entertains small gang (5) |
| POSSE — POSE (model) holds (entertains) S (small) | |
| 5d | Italian cheese — cook it with actor (7) |
| RICOTTA — Make an anagram of (cook) IT with ACTOR | |
| 6d | Signal is crude in every other place (3) |
| CUE — Alternate letters of (… in every other place) CrUdE | |
| 7d | Sort out US city ignoring amendment initially (6) |
| SETTLE — SE[a]TTLE (US city) omitting (ignoring) the first letter of (… initially) Amendment | |
| 9d | Loud noise and revelry periodically criminal (9) |
| RACKETEER — RACKET (loud noise) and rEvElRy taking every other letter (periodically) | |
| 12d | Decide to put off something explosive (9) |
| DETERMINE — DETER (to put off) + MINE (something explosive) | |
| 14d | Acclaim extremely practical inspection (7) |
| PLAUDIT — The outer letters of (extremely) PracticaL + AUDIT (inspection) | |
| 15d | Puzzle observed after merry dance (6) |
| JIGSAW — SAW (observed) after JIG (merry dance) | |
| 16d | Technical language primarily just gas (6) |
| JARGON — The initial letter of (primarily) Just + ARGON (gas) | |
| 18d | Young woman at first orders cowboy’s accessory (5) |
| LASSO — LASS (young woman) + the beginning of (at first) Orders | |
| 20d | Part of client’s falsehood (3) |
| LIE — The answer is part of cLIEnt | |
7:54
Might I venture to suggest this was perhaps too easy? Only my second sub-8 time (my target is 20 minutes) and nothing here needed much deliberation. LOI ISOLATE.
A lovely puzzle to start my day, managed just under 30 minutes. Really liked JARGON and APPLE TART. Thank you for the blog 😁
Our PB at 10.45 and very enjoyable.
Thanks for link to glossary as hadn’t really engaged with what was meant by surface before.
Also liked the rocket booster!
🏆❗️
Well done!
My thanks to Trelawney and Kitty.
POI 19a Raise. The only example of what a friend of mine called an Antiphone, where it is a homophone of an antomym, raze. As there is only one of them it doesn’t have a real word.
Very interesting. I asked ChatGPT about this, and he/she/it/they told me that RAZE/RAISE is the only true pair in English. Although it cited (sorry) PEER/PIER, SOUL/SOLE and CITE/SITE as “near” auto-antiphones (sometimes called “antagonymic homophones”).
Interestingly, French has many more examples, the reason being, according to our un-learned friend:
“Because spoken French reduced many endings (-s, -t, -x, -ent, etc.) to silence, you often get 4–5 different spellings/pronunciations converging into one sound, and literary culture has loved to exploit that with wordplay. That makes it much easier to construct antonymic homophones, even if they’re not always “pure” dictionary antonyms like raze/raise in English.”
The fact that ChatGPT idiotically ‘cited PEER/PIER, SOUL/SOLE and CITE/SITE as “near” auto-antiphones’ when asked about RAZE/RAISE suggests the end of the world is closer than many of us thought.
I didn’t include the detail, which pointed out that the other examples weren’t very strong and were context dependent. Speaking as one who uses ChatGPT frequently as a search aggregator / optimiser, and definitely not as an authoritative source of opinion or insight, I am well used to not trusting statements it makes (I always ask for primary sources).
I’ve seen it spew some proper rubbish, but I don’t think this is one of those times.
You’re so correct.
This shows that ChatGPT is a typical Anglophone! My French sister-in-law insists that there is a difference in the sound of the three words jouer, jouait and joué, and she can distinguish between them. Though even she confesses that she can’t tell jouait from jouaient except by context.
All serious students of French should be able to distinguish between the pronunciation of “jouer” and “jouait”, “tu” and “tout”, but I think it reasonable to leave the jouer/joué distinction to native speakers.
Enjoyable crossword, polished off well within the duration of a retiree’s breakfast.
Nice – I can imagine someone (me) making a bad pun on ‘his wills and his wonts’.
6.44 Like a few others, JIGSAW and WREATH delayed me at the end. Thanks Kitty and Trelawney.
Well, I go along with everybody else. Nicely-pitched puzzle for the start of the week
COD most definitely SALAD DRESSING
Thanks Trelawney and Kitty
Pretty straightforward start to the week thanks to the squire, and my fairly nippy time of 6.52 confirms that.
Very enjoyable qc. As others particularly enjoyed rocket booster
Flew through the first six acrosses and then couldn’t instantly get APPLE TART so switched to downs rather than finishing the sweep. Answers kept coming until I had to think quite hard about WREATH and then very hard for RACKETEER to emerge. All green in 5.29 – a new pb!
Great job – PB is always a great moment. Cherish them, they get harder and harder, thus rarer and rarer, to achieve!
Extremely fast until about two-thirds of the way through, when one of my all-too-frequent brain freezes intervened to scupper any thoughts of a PB. In fact, a possible first ever sub-10 became just another SCC day. Time = 22 minutes, which is very good for me, but it might have been so much better.
Many thanks to Kitty and Trelawney.
I was going like a train until I fell into the bear pit at 19ac. With S*l*d for the first word, I hardly paused before writing in Solid and then struggled to think of another word for Booster. . . To confirm my stupidity, I’m pretty sure I’ve come across Rocket Booster/Salad Dressing (cream) once before. Hopefully third time’s a charm. 18mins before everything was sorted, with CoD to Apple Tart for the parsing. Invariant
Same for me with solid stuck in my brain even though ‘Heads of’ clearly indicated SAL.
18 – par for the course or near enough these days. I’d lay odds a Trelawney will be the first one that I can complete. Let’s say before the end of this year….
Thanks Kitty and Mr T.
Yes, let’s say before the end of the year. Good luck, I’m sure you can do it!
14:54
Very happy to be outside the SCC for the day 😊
FOI: TREASURE CHEST
LOI: RACKETEER
COD: (as others) SALAD DRESSING
Thanks to Kitty and Trelawney
Biffed TREASURE CHEST, parsed quickly afterwards. The “rocket booster” was top drawer clueing, although I have to confess to removing rocket from anything to which it is added. Thanks Trelawney, and, of course, Kitty.
FOI SCAMPI
LOI WREATH
COD SALAD DRESSING
TIME 3:50
I feel like I let a really quick time, rather than just a top 10 time (this sneaked in at joint number 10 on my all time list at 5:23), slip through my fingers here. The first few across clues, down to APPLE TART went in with barely a thought but then I got stuck on the rocket booster. I also failed to see ISOLATE, WREATH and SOLEMN on that first pass. Then I got every down clue in sequence, with barely a thought, and returned to the remainder, now of course with all the crossers. The three shorter clues went in pretty much instantly but then, inexplicably, I pencilled in SOLID (thinking solid fuel) for the first word of our rocket booster, despite also thinking “heads of secret aerospace lab = SAL”. Not sure how much time that cost, but I’d say it certainly cost me a sub 5 minute solve.
Very nice puzzle, thanks as ever for the blog and the chat.
5:55, my best time ever, and very fun.
Congratulations!
Well done!
+1 to those praising this very enjoyable puzzle, and also a new best time of 05:50!
Well done!
A fairly gentle offering to start the week. Solved steadily in 16:11 (quite quick for me) with no real holdups.
This went pleasantly fast for me. Just a note to say about the interesting news about new words added to the Cambridge dictionary. Like skibidi and tradwife. Perhaps we will soon see these clued here?
The first quick cryptic I’ve ever finished without checking or revealing an answer! It took me long enough, c30 min, but it can only improve from here.
Enjoyable all the way. COD was SALAD DRESSING
Many congrats, Ryan!
Fantastic work, well done!
Well done!
Thank you jackkt, Kitty, Wombat! Let’s hope it continues…
I wish I could be held up whist completing it in under 5 minutes! I can barely read the clues that quickly. In my world a sub 20 minute solve is to be celebrated and today was the day. An enjoyable puzzle and cod to SALAD DRESSING. Thank you Trelawney and Kitty.
A pleasant Monday solve at 8:06, with the apt JARGON my COD. I felt rather slow and was surprised to finish in under 10, so I’m guessing there will be some very fast solves. If I hadn’t just been reading about the great Cheddar cheese theft, I would think the surface for 1a was unconvincing, but alas, human nature is what it is. The lemon juggling made me laugh.
Congratulations to all the PBers!
Thanks Trelawney and Kitty.
14 minutes all parsed – my fastest time for a few weeks. Slight hesitation over BRACES which seemed to be a plural where I had been expecting a singular but otherwise no problems.
FOI – 1ac SCAMPI
LOI – 9dn RACKETEER
COD – 19ac SALAD DRESSING
Thanks to Trelawney and Kitty.
Irritatingly missed a couple of sitters, so could have done with fewer fat fingers and more attention
A faster than it felt, and very enjoyable, 7:40. COD SALAD DRESSING. Thanks, Kitty and Trelawney.
A very nice start to the week, and at 6:58 not very far off my PB. I certainly did enjoy SALAD DRESSING very much.
Thank you for the blog!
Breezed through this one although slight hold-ups parsing TREASURE CHEST and APPLE TART. COD I SO LATE which made me smile. Also appreciated LARVA and SALAD DRESSING. Thanks Trelawney and Kitty.
17:01 always pleased with sub 20 mins. Slow with Braces and Cue. Otherwise my mental agility is improving. Much quicker at understanding word plays. Although out-thought myself thinking 21a’s ‘flower’ could have meant a river. Thanks all
Good show. 🙂 You were completely right that the flower could have been a river – it’s just that in this case it wasn’t. (That’s key to cryptic solving: thinking of, sifting and shuffling various possibilities until you find the magic combination which makes sense of it all.)
9:44. Hmmm, am I just being grumpy in not joining in the universal praise of SALAD DRESSING? I see the clever yoking of the aeronautical and gastronomic senses but to my way of thinking rocket has a distinctive peppery slightly bitter taste and the salad cream usually mutes this as opposed to enhancing ( boosting) it.
Depends on the dressing, I’d say. Salad dressing puts me most readily in mind of vinaigrette. Or you could dress your salad in something really boosty if you wish. There’s the question mark in the definition to cover dressings which you wouldn’t really consider boost the taste.
Yes, I agree your take makes more sense than mine- I think sometimes you just have to let your grumpiness out!
Oh yes, a good grump can be very cathartic!
My all time record completion of 35 mins. in over two years. No doubt tomorrow will bring me back down to earth.
Well done!