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]. | |
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.
Fixed, thanks!
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
Collins disagrees:
pistachio
in British English
1. an anacardiaceous tree, Pistacia vera, of the Mediterranean region and W Asia, with small hard-shelled nuts
2. Also called: pistachio nut. The nut of this tree, having an edible green kernel
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.
The Times site has Check Letter / Word / Grid buttons which will highlight what is right and wrong. Hope that helps
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
NHO CHEMIN DE FER but I did see the French for railway would fit so in it went. Saw writing Checkov had mucked up HITCH but still left the C in the middle. So that’s yet another failure! Didn’t find the do of DONUT very convincing but otherwise great fun.
Had some fun spelling CHEKHOV but fortunately HITCH and CADAVER sorted it out. Could not parse the latter and just assumed it was A for American VER for Vermont and that a CAD was some sort of recording.
All good fun talking about 30 minutes.
Thanks to Teazel and Templar.
I found this fairly gentle but was grateful when CHEMIN DE FER was prompted to emerge from the depths by the ‘d’ checker.
Started with CHIC and finished with FEBRUARY in 5.42. COD to ESPY.
Thanks to Templar and Teazel
The unchecked Chekhov did me in. Thought of Czechov, Checkhov and other possibilities. I know I’ve got this wrong before.
Couldn’t parse CADAVER. That state=aver has caught me out before.
COD CALLING NAMES
I found this quite tough despite having all the GK, and just missed the SCC by a whisker. 19:50.
Pi ❤️
A regulation time of 10:25 for this one, but that hides much biffing. CHEMIN DE FER went in totally unparsed, and CADAVER and UNCOMPLICATED only parsed after entry. And I too wandered through several spellings of CHEKHOV before the H from HITCH put me on the straight and narrow. But like a par recorded via both bunkers and a lucky chip-in from off the green, it shows as a successful completion despite the less-than-textbook solve.
Many thanks Templar for the blog.
Indeed. I always told the chuntering bowler to look in the book when I edged through the slips for 4, which I did far more frequently than pinging it through the covers.
3:55. No hold-ups. I liked the novel magician’s trick best, but also getting furry for winter. Thanks Teazel and Templar.
I vaguely knew CHEMIN DE FER as a game, couldn’t have told you it was a variant (minor point, Templar, according to what I just read it is a variant, not another name for, Baccarat, in the same way that ‘Texas Holdem’ is not another name for Poker) of Baccarat (nor indeed anything about Baccarat beyond it being a card game).
Ultimately I failed, twice, on the spelling of CHEKHOV – firstly when I overwrote the H in HITCH with CHECKOV, without noticing and then, “correcting” that to CHECHOV. I’d never have guessed the correct spelling without the help.
Thanks Templar and Teazel.
I remembered getting CHEKHOV wrong last time he appeared by putting a C instead of a K in the middle, so managed to get it right this time. Otherwise, from COSINESS to FEBRUARY in 6:08. Thanks Teazel and Templar.
6:34 for the solve and fingers crossed for the spelling of CHEKHOV.
What a great puzzle – some absolutely super surfaces and clues in there – SLEIGHT-OF-HAND might just be my favourite for the year given the surface, answer and even knowing the answer “the dogs in half” doesn’t look like it will rearrange itself into it.
Wasted a minute mid-solve trying to figure out CHEMIN-DE-FER – which I biffed after about 15 secs but didn’t have anything more than the I and R checkers to confirm so took another 45secs to unravel. Not sure why Tracey Emin is unknown she was doing interviews a couple of weeks ago about her new exhibition at the Tate Modern. I’m not interested in gambling either but C-D-F has come up before.
Very approachable Cryptic Quintagram today. I continue to suspect they are set by the same person was the QC.
Thanks to Templar and Teazel
I made slow progress after a frustratingly slow start, all the time regretting my comment of yesterday about recent QCs becoming easier again. Teazel has produced another brilliant puzzle with many superb clues giving pleasure and reward for persevering.
I did speed up after filling in a few crossers but CADAVER, CHEMIN DE FER, and IMPASSE went in unparsed at the end in my rush to avoid the SCC. It did me no good; I was 2 mins over the 20 when I got the all-correct message.
Too many good clues to pick out a single COD.
Thanks to both.
P.s. This is the second day when my comments have failed to ‘SAVE’ and I have had to resort to copying text, refreshing the page, and re-pasting. Has anyone else had a problem? I solve on my iPad in the ‘Classic’ Times app.
18:00 – a good time for me for a Teazel puzzle, especially as UNCOMPLICATED and CHEMIN DE FER were completely unparsed. Otherwise, a pretty steady solve.
Great fun today, if a little gory with simmering frogs and slicing dogs. My COD CADAVER for clever misdirection. Wasn’t sure of the parsing for DONUT. Thanks Teazel and Templar.
Other than the transliterated spelling test (which, being clued by a homophone, I consider is not really fair) I enjoyed this as a relatively more difficult QC, with some fun and intricate cryptic.
6:39, but I misspelled CheChov.
Very slow start with just CO in after the first pass. 15 mostly bifd at the end.
Thanks TnT
7:49
Completed last night before dropping off, and subject to the speed of my phone-typing (slow). CHEMIN DE FER dredged up from somewhere and reverse-engineered to check the parsing. Wasn’t sure at all about CADAVER and spent quite a while justifying it. CHEKHOV pretty easy when you’ve studied Russian forty-something years before. IMPALA always reminds me of a work colleague who would brag about bagging his first IMPALA and often savouring the memory with some quality biltong – leave them to the lions, pal…
Thanks Templar and Teazel
My fastest for some time, done in 6 minutes. LOI ESPY.
I biffed quite a few as I was going quickly but everything came smoothly. I have misspelt Chekhov in the past but got him right today.
COD to IMPASSE.
David
18 minutes but it seems I can’t spell CHEKHOV (used C rather than K despite knowing there was a K in the somewhere).
I always seem to be slightly at odds with Teazel so I’m pleased to complete the puzzle but never can be sure I’ve enjoyed it. However, completion is progress as it tells me I’m learning to twist my brain in previously unlikely ways.
Definitely needed help with the parsing, thanks Templar.
Thanks Teazel.
PS if anyone hasn’t tried yesterday’s 15×15 I’d recommend giving it a go. Not much harder than this (took me 30 minutes), everything gettable from the wordplay and enjoyable.
Yes this was quite tricky but with the exception of my LOI CHEMIN DE FER it was right up my street. I wasn’t familiar with the card game so was entirely reliant on the wordplay and the generous checkers. I briefly contemplated ‘teddy’ at 19d with just the T in place but fortunately I couldn’t parse it. Just as well given the checkers. TODAY is my COD. Thanks Templar 7:34
I recall CHEMIN DE FER was mentioned as being a game James Bond played in the early Ian Fleming books I read in my teens, so not a problem for me to bring it to mind. A pretty steady solve from beginning to end, and I crossed the line in 8.13.
A lot of biffing from crossers but fortunately all correct (including the spelling of CHEKHOV). 14 minutes, not all parsed. Managed to see the hidden in the somewhat gruesome 13ac straight away, which is unusual for me.
FOI – 10ac BASIC
LOI – 7dn CADAVER
COD – 21ac ESPY
Thanks to Teazel and Templar