Quite a straightforward one today, I thought, confirming Dangle’s position on Starstruck’s stats table as the second easiest setter. I was slow getting either of the 1s or this could have been very fast; even as it was I clocked 05:34 so I’m expecting warp speed from The Lord Verlaine and other gods. [On edit: TLV clocked in at 01:56 … left in the dust by mohn at 01:34. Look on their Works, ye Mighty, and despair!]
Accessibility did not come at the expense of quality cluing and I thought this was a terrific puzzle. Many thanks Dangle; hope you all enjoyed it too.
Definitions underlined in bold.
| Across | |
| 1 | Congratulatory gesture seconds before friend returned (8) |
| BACKSLAP – BACKS [seconds, as in “backs the motion”] + LAP [“pal” backwards, i.e. “friend returned”]. | |
| 5 | Unaccompanied male’s second name (4) |
| STAG – S [second] + TAG [name]. | |
| 9 | Discard attempt in game (5) |
| BINGO – BIN [discard] + GO [attempt, as in “have a go”]. | |
| 10 | Red mark on skin from really minor injury? (7) |
| SCARLET – definition with a cryptic hint. A scar could come from an injury, but if it was a really small scar it would (whimsically) be a scar-let and thus in turn the product of a “really minor injury”. | |
| 11 | Shelter from swimmer going the wrong way (3) |
| LEE – “eel” backwards [swimmer going the wrong way]. | |
| 12 | Avoid losing money from holiday flat (5,4) |
| BREAK EVEN – BREAK [holiday] + EVEN [flat]. I could do with a break, roll on the Christmas vacation. | |
| 13 | Most pleasant flying insect (6) |
| NICEST – anagram [flying] of “insect”. Well-disguised. | |
| 15 | Makes great effort to lose Romeo in Cornish town (2,4) |
| ST IVES – ST{r}IVES. | |
| 17 | Muscular gent inappropriately entertains country (9) |
| ARGENTINA – hidden. | |
| 19 | Very eager to finish early in the past (3) |
| AGO – AGO{g} (i.e. “very eager” [agog] without its final letter [finishing early]). | |
| 20 | Good girls in spectacles (7) |
| GLASSES – G [good] + LASSES [girls]. Such a neat surface. | |
| 21 | Sick following doctor’s training exercise (5) |
| DRILL – ILL [sick] coming after [following] DR [doctor]. | |
| 22 | Grass on editor (4) |
| REED – RE [on] + ED [editor]. | |
| 23 | Bruce and Dicky’s vegetarian paste (4,4) |
| BEAN CURD – anagram [dicky] of “Bruce and”. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Infant left on “wonderful” location (7) |
| BABYLON – BABY [infant] + L [left] + ON [on]. One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World was the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and so Babylon was a “wonderful” location, geddit? I didn’t geddit until the end of my solve. Very good clue. | |
| 2 | Ocean tossed around small vessel (5) |
| CANOE – anagram [tossed around] of “ocean”. | |
| 3 | Appear to be fully employed in the field of entertainment (4,8) |
| SHOW BUSINESS – jokey cryptic; to “look busy” is to appear to be fully employed, and “show busi-ness” sort of equates to “look busy”. | |
| 4 | Passage in church I will broadcast (5) |
| AISLE – homophone [broadcast] of “I’ll”. | |
| 6 | Attendant upset four in city in Israel (3,4) |
| TEL AVIV – VALET [attendant] going backwards [upset] + IV [four in Roman numerals]. | |
| 7 | Grow old, say, after turning 100 (3,2) |
| GET ON – EG [say] going backwards [after turning] = GE + TON [hundred]. | |
| 8 | Denmark great for development as place to sell fruit and veg (6,6) |
| MARKET GARDEN – anagram [for development] of “Denmark great”. | |
| 14 | Connected up Echo, Tango, Charlie (7) |
| COGNATE – reading backwards [up] this goes E [echo] + TANGO [Tango] + C [Charlie]. This one really stumped me because I blundered straight into the trap of treating “Tango” as simply indicating a T. That gave ETC, so I mucked around wondering whether “etcetera” could also be shortened to 7 letters or whether I was looking for a synonym of it, and also whether “etc” or some equivalent could mean “cognate” anyway. Eventually light dawned. COD from me, clever clue. COGNATE means “akin” or “related”; it comes from the Latin co-natus, literally “same born”.
[On edit: given the number of people who think this is a reverse hidden, I need to explain myself more clearly. It’s not a reverse hidden: that would give you “cognato”. It operates as C [Charlie] + OGNAT [reverse tango] + E [echo]. That’s why it’s so clever, because all three words are from the Nato alphabet but only two of them are being used in that way.] |
|
| 16 | Grimaced, as small farmyard animal was ahead (7) |
| SCOWLED – S [small] + COW [farmyard animal] + LED [was ahead]. | |
| 17 | Fury in most of French city (5) |
| ANGER – ANGER{s}. The Crosswordland map of France largely consists of Nice, Tours and Angers. | |
| 18 | One’s to make legal claim for children (5) |
| ISSUE – I’S [one’s] + SUE [make legal claim]. A pedantic lawyer writes: “As a matter of law, the word ‘issue’ ordinarily means more than simply ‘children’, and encompasses all descendants.” In other words, if you leave a gift in your will to your “issue” you probably bring in all the grandchildren too. However, the dictionaries are less pedantic, so Dangle’s in the clear. | |
| 19 | Gold pens stop working in farewell (5) |
| ADIEU – AU [gold] contains [pens, as in penning up sheep] DIE [stop working]. | |
9.23 SCARLET was delayed by a fat-fingered AILSE. I biffed ARGENTINA and COGNATE to finish and parsed them afterwards. The latter was nicely misleading. Thanks Templar and Dangle.
Thought it must be easy 6:30 ( do it on paper) ish. I could not even write or type out anwers out in 96 seconds. I just tried, after solving, on the photocopy i save for mu wife. Took two mins plus!
9:08 here. FOI EEL, LOI COGNATE, which doesn’t mean what I thought it meant. So there’s my TIL moment for the day (“Today I Learned…”)
Thanks to Dangle and Templar.
8:56. Thought I was going well until I saw those times by the greats! Great puzzle, nice surfaces and a little bit of crunch for us mere mortals…
Having got NICEST and GLASSES I thought I’d learned a new word CHOTANG for connected, so I bunged it in. Bad mistake! Only when ARGENTINA revealed itself as a hidden did I see the light and start over! So 19 minutes but good fun and some excellent clues – thanks Dangle and Templar.
We were quite happy with our 11:08 and remain so even having now seen some of the very fast times posted. Seeing the proper parsing of COGNATE took a little while – as indeed did recognising it as a known but barely understood word. MER at LOI SCARLET but it was fair enough. COD to BEAN CURD which we didn’t know was not a paste! Thanks to all.
17 min finish. Slow on Stag and Get On. Biffed many. Thanks Templar and Dangle
Lovely and straightforward.
My thanks to Dangle and Templar.
Nice puzzle, not a big challenge though.
14d Cognate only known from dictionaries, Wiktionary in particular uses it a lot. Took me a while to suss out that the TANGO was whole.
1d Babylon, failed to get the “wonderful” bit. Oh dear.
A flying visit as I only did this when we got in from a day out, and now have to go and make some supper! I’ll read everyone’s comments later.
In the meantime, I thought this was a very nice crossword – yes, quite easy (on the whole) but with some lovely surfaces. ST IVES made me smile. I was just about to say that I didn’t quite get SCARLET, but then – BINGO, as I typed, the penny dropped! A bijou scar-lette (such a 70s phrase!). But COGNATE and ISSUE both went in semi-parsed, even though I got the general drift.
7:48 FOI Canoe (started on the downs for a change) LOI Cognate COD Break even
Thanks Dangle and Templar
Late to it today. Online course on internet marketing….all done bar backslap and scarlet. Don’t ask.
Thanks T and D
15 minutes
If that was easy then I really am wasting my time here! Still miles behind the competition. Reading all those comments about how simple it was makes me want to give up.
Only 10 on 15 x 15. I am nowhere with these puzzles compared to those who started when I did. I would give anything to know the secret to this (or maybe I just lack the appropriate level of mental acuity).
I really enjoyed this offering today,elegantly crafted,unlike the garbage we’ve been getting lately on Daily Globe.Only one I couldn’t parse was COGNATE.