I often struggle with Teazel but got through that in regulation 07:31. I did have the requisite GK, though (the playwright, the card game, the antelope), which helped. There was also the added bonus of my usual Nemesis (geography) coming in the form of a merciful anagram. Lots to enjoy; some intricate parsing; hope you all had fun.
Definitions underlined in bold.
| Across | |
| 1 | Warm feeling is brought about by company head (8) |
| COSINESS – a little tricky to parse. SI = “is brought about” (i.e. the word “is” reversed). That goes after [by] CO for “company”. Then add NESS [head]. A bit of a snorter to get first ball. | |
| 5 | Little bird not entirely elegant (4) |
| CHIC – CHIC{k} [little bird not entirely]. This was my LOI, since I was fixated on L for “little” followed by a three letter bird meaning “not entirely elegant”. Lowl? Lauk? Lemu? Once that failed I thought it must be a four letter bird minus the last letter. Libi? Retired hurt, came back to it with checkers. | |
| 8 | Easy fun lacking initially, bowed to request, adopting pet (13) |
| UNCOMPLICATED – UN [{f}UN, “fun” lacking initially] + COMPLIED [bowed to request] containing [adopting] CAT [pet]. Another tough parse. | |
| 10 | Unsophisticated bachelors in charge (5) |
| BASIC – BAS [bachelors, as in Bachelors of Arts] + IC [in charge]. | |
| 11 | Soundly tick off playwright (7) |
| CHEKHOV – sounds like [soundly] “check off” [tick off]. | |
| 12 | Almost spear a speedy antelope (6) |
| IMPALA – IMPAL{e} [almost spear] + A [a]. IMPALAs are speedy and very beautiful. Last time I saw one I remarked that they also look delicious and the safari guide wouldn’t speak to me for an hour. | |
| 13 | Gently boil some frogs? I’m merciful (6) |
| SIMMER – hidden [some]. Wonderful, wonderful surface and COD from me. | |
| 16 | The moment for dad’s recreation (7) |
| PASTIME -insert an apostrophe and a space and lo, we have PA’S TIME [the moment for dad]. | |
| 18 | American snack to serve with pistachio for one (5) |
| DONUT – American spelling of “doughnut”. DO [to serve – for example, “That box will do for a table”] + NUT [pistachio, for one]. | |
| 20 | Weirdly, the dog’s in half: how does the conjuror do it? (7,2,4) |
| SLEIGHT OF HAND – anagram [weirdly] of “the dog’s in half”. | |
| 21 | Notice online agent? (4) |
| ESPY – online things often used to get the suffix E a lot, standing for electronic (for example e-commerce). So this is an E-SPY for an “online agent”, ho ho. | |
| 22 | Be furry, a change for cold time of year (8) |
| FEBRUARY – anagram [change] of “be furry a”. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Not much comfort in clubs, dance cut short (5) |
| CRUMB – C [clubs] RUMB{a} [dance cut short]. | |
| 2 | Absorbs universal pressure and grovels (5,2) |
| SUCKS UP – SUCKS [absorbs] + U [universal] + P [pressure]. | |
| 3 | Verbal insults in taking the register? (4-7) |
| NAME-CALLING – definition with a cryptic hint. | |
| 4 | Cut round page and join together (6) |
| SPLICE – SLICE [cut] going round [round] P [page]. | |
| 6 | Minor obstacle badly affected church (5) |
| HITCH -HIT [badly affected] + CH [church]. When HITCH followed so closely on from SPLICE I wondered if there was a wedding (or possibly knot-based) theme but if there is I can’t find it. | |
| 7 | Recording covering American state body (7) |
| CADAVER – I really struggled to parse this in flight. It’s CD [recording] going around [covering] A [American] + AVER [state]. I blundered my way to the right answer by (a) thinking it involved A for American + DA for “state” (which I wrongly thought was the abbreviation for Delaware; it’s actually DE), (b) as a result of having some of the right letters, CADAVER popping into my head; and then (c) not being able to work out how the heck CVER was “recording” but putting it in anyway. Smooth solving, ahem. | |
| 9 | Check artist put off gambling game (6,2,3) |
| CHEMIN DE FER – CH [check, chess notation] + EMIN [artist, Tracey] + DEFER [put off]. CHEMIN DE FER (literally “iron road” or “railway”) is another name for the card game baccarat, much beloved by James Bond and the centrepiece of the first Bond novel Casino Royale. It had to be replaced in the Daniel Craig film by Texas Hold’em poker, so that Americans could understand what was happening. | |
| 12 | I am out of fashion: no progress here (7) |
| IMPASSE – insert an apostrophe, a space and an accent and you get I’M PASSÉ. | |
| 14 | A man not suffering Canadian neighbour (7) |
| MONTANA – anagram [suffering] of “a man not”. So that’s where MONTANA is, who knew? | |
| 15 | Recent palpitating in heart (6) |
| CENTRE – anagram [palpitating] of “recent”. | |
| 17 | Hard-to-climb part of staircase consuming energy (5) |
| STEEP – STEP [part of staircase] containing [consuming] E [energy]. | |
| 19 | Present time? Dad almost breaks child’s gift (5) |
| TODAY – DA [dad “almost”] goes inside [breaks] TOY [child’s gift]. | |
Had no idea about the card game nor the artist required to arrive at the answer. Was convinced that 2d was soaks/absorbs rather than the correct ‘sucks’ until UNCOMPLICATED came to the rescue. Liked the anagram for SLEIGHT OF HAND. ESPY came late as I was thinking agent/rep. T, I think the ‘E’ in that would be a prefix rather than a suffix.
Thanks to Templar and setter.
I did biff some of the answers, including carcass which turned out to be wrong. What is another 7-letter word for body starting with C? Got it! I did have a MER at donut, since a pistachio is not actually a nut. Chemin de fer, sleight of hand – what else could they be?
Time: 8:22
I did this in 7 minutes but with a spelling error. Sadly The Times site is happy to inform us that we haven’t got it right but no longer shows us where when we hit reveal. I thought the tangential reference to Tracey Emin was not very QCish but overall this was fun, thank you Templar and Teazel.
NHO chemin de fer, or the artist. Thanks Templar and Teazel.
11 minutes. Slowed a little by not coming up with the playwright until the V-checker arrived and brought him to mind. Even then I was still thinking of “tick off” in terms of “rebuke” so I missed the obvious explanation.
Prior to that, CADAVER had been a hold up too with ‘record’ likely to be LP or EP ahead of CD which, having been brought up on shellac and vinyl I don’t immediately think of as a record.
12 minutes. A QC to get the mind into gear. Yes, the parsing of UNCOMPLICATED was anything but (BASIC did live up to its name though) and COSINESS, CADAVER and CHEMIN DE FER weren’t any easier to nail down; I doubt I would have been able to solve the latter, properly parsed, if it hadn’t been for the enumeration. Instant word association for IMPALA for me will always be “Chevrolet car” which of course was named after the ‘speedy antelope’.
My favourite was our poor old bisected canine friend; hope the conjuror has been able to reverse the process.
Thanks to Templar and Teazel