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 prefix 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]. | |
After a slow start with 1a and the downs dropping off it, I moved on and found traction elsewhere. Got all in the end (many not parsed) except the easy, after the blog, Centre.
Thanks T & T
Always a happy evening when I can do a Teazel.
Some fun cluing.
DNF.
Managed 67% before calling time after about 30 minutes. (Into month three of learning and feels like I’m getting worse – I couldn’t get a single one of the 15×15 today!)
18 mins
Thanks for the parsing of cadaver – I went for cad being some kind of recording, an a, and then ver for Vermont to rationalise it. Vaguely heard of chemin de fer, but needed to parse it to get the spelling right.
FOI Chic
LOI Chemin
COD Espy
Thanks Teazel and Templar
Glad I’m not the only one who found this tricky! Took me 40 painstaking but enjoyable minutes to finish it. Only know Chemin de Fer as a railway so was happy to get that.
Thank you Teazel and Templar
Was making a complete meal of this, then we had our meal and I got it all ok. Except, UNCOMPLICATED and CHEMIN DE FER, the parsing of, too ‘complicated’ for me, but I admired these clever clues.
Thoroughly enjoyable crossword, and an equally great blog. Thanks to setter and Templar.
A very disappointing 16 minutes when I look at the times recorded by my comparators.
Not going near the 15 x 15 today.
That was tricky!
I think some of those clues wouldn’t have been out of place in the cryptic puzzle (which I think defeats the point of the thing).