I went through this very quickly for 04:53 and an Excellent Day. No obscurities, I think, except maybe 14a. A very neat, well-constructed puzzle; hope you all enjoyed it too.
Definitions underlined in bold.
| Across | |
| 1 | Fortitude in champion, British individual (8) |
| BACKBONE – BACK [champion] + B [British] + ONE [individual]. | |
| 5 | Wicked Satan abandons daughter (4) |
| EVIL – {d}EVIL [“abandons daughter” indicates remove a D]. | |
| 8 | Some sensors on a radio locating system (5) |
| SONAR – hidden. | |
| 9 | Check bloodsucker removed (4,3) |
| TICK OFF – TICK [bloodsucker], OFF [removed]. When our children were small they often picked up ticks on holiday in the Highlands; to soften the blow my wife introduced a rule that they got a sweet for every tick removed. That led to our youngest sneaking out to roll around in the heather to ensure a good tick/sweet count … The Law of Unintended Consequences in action. | |
| 11 | Factors then for cooking breakfast item (6,5) |
| FRENCH TOAST – anagram [for cooking] of “factors then”. | |
| 13 | Reportedly, seat cast away (6) |
| THROWN – aural wordplay [reportedly] of thrown/throne [seat]. | |
| 14 | Returning distance runner first to pass early test (6) |
| PRELIM – MILER [distance runner] and P [first to pass] all reversed [returning]. I have just read Melvyn Bragg’s Another World (his time at Oxford) so PRELIM for “early test”, which I think is mainly an Oxford thing, came easily. People who like to chunter about Oxbridge bias in the crosswords may now clear their throats and proceed. | |
| 17 | Virtuoso dismissed reputation (11) |
| OUTSTANDING – OUT [dismissed] + STANDING [reputation]. I hesitated over the definition for a moment but then thought “virtuoso performance/outstanding performance”. | |
| 20 | Wild region capital of Denmark passed over (7) |
| IGNORED – anagram [wild] of “region” + D [capital of Denmark]. | |
| 21 | After villa, terraced houses (5) |
| LATER – hidden [houses]. | |
| 22 | Strand of narrative? (4) |
| YARN – definition with a cryptic hint (a good yarn/good narrative). | |
| 23 | Rent lower — evidence of distress? (8) |
| TEARDROP – TEAR [rent] + DROP [lower]. My LOI. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Work of art in smithereens? (4) |
| BUST – definition with a cryptic hint. | |
| 2 | Trick with fire damaged tree (7) |
| CONIFER – CON [trick] + an anagram [damaged] of “fire”. | |
| 3 | Drink, breaking law, try a beer! (6,5) |
| BARLEY WATER – anagram [breaking] of “law try a beer”. “Mr Matthias Robinson invented Robinson’s Patent Barley and Barley Groats in 1823”, according to the BBC. Robinson’s then moved into the rather nicer-sounding lemon version in the 1930s. They did a sponsorship deal with Wimbledon from 1935 to 2022, which explains why I remembered it as being associated with tennis. | |
| 4 | See it once when camouflaged (6) |
| NOTICE – anagram [camouflaged] of “it once”. Such a neat clue, COD from me. | |
| 6 | One found in book, a musical instrument (5) |
| VIOLA – I [one] inside [found in] VOL [book] + A [a]. All the viola players I’ve ever met have told me they took it up because it was so much easier to get into an orchestra as a viola than a violin. | |
| 7 | Corrupted file, item in existence (8) |
| LIFETIME – anagram [corrupted] of “file item”. | |
| 10 | Provide food and support for little animal (11) |
| CATERPILLAR – CATER [provide food] + PILLAR [support]. | |
| 12 | Mixture of ricotta and gravy, ultimately an abomination! (8) |
| ATROCITY – anagram [mixture] of “ricotta” and Y [gravy ultimately]. Can’t see that recipe catching on. | |
| 15 | Smoker’s accessory easier to pick up (7) |
| LIGHTER – double definition. | |
| 16 | Figure with digger regularly worried (2,4) |
| ON EDGE – ONE [figure] + DGE [digger regularly]. | |
| 18 | Singer with cash for the audience (5) |
| TENOR – aural wordplay [for the audience] with “tenner” [cash]. | |
| 19 | Stay forward (4) |
| PROP – double definition, the second one being a position in rugby (league and union). | |
6:12
Biffed PRELIM, parsed post-submission. Straightforward otherwise.
I did need the parsing of prelim to see it, even though I suspected it was a likely answer. Barley water is not a thing in the US, but I had heard of it. Everything else was pretty easy.
Time : 8:56
PROP needs to be summarily deleted from the collective consciousness. It’s cost me four minutes this week alone. I should’ve had this puzzle in 3 flat but needed to spend a couple extra seconds on ON EGDE and TEARDROP and then I stared at 19D for a minute and a half before giving up and checking it.
No problems other than losing track of my time. Slight MER at PRELIM, but it’s in all the usual places with Chambers listing it as a word in its own right and ODE has it as an abbreviation dating back to the 19th century.
All very fair. Fell into the THROWN/THRONE trap, due to not reading the clue properly , making the drink a bit tricky until I twigged. Prelim is perfectly familiar to non- Oxbridge me, though I got it by reversing MILE for the distance and glossing over parsing the R ( it’s no wonder I come unstuck at times – cheats never prosper!). PROP occurred to me almost immediately- I do worry that I may be on an unusual wavelength at times. Enjoyable. Thanks to both.
Sorry – wasn’t meant to be a reply – finger trouble.
Yes Prelim appears in several sports. At least it wasn’t Tripos.
All quite straightforward until left with the excellent 19d PROP. Took a while on that, but that’s the nature of the beast. Good challenge from the setter.
6:32
Similar to metagloria and ulaca, had it all-but-one done in short order, but then had to have a long, long think about what ended up being LOI PROP. After a minute or two of alphabet trawling, bunged in my best guess, and ended up getting lucky.
Even seeing the correct parsing here with the NOH rugby definition (thanks Templar!), because I’m an (although increasingly less-) ignorant American, I still don’t get it. Consulting Collins and Chambers, it seems that prop means to stop suddenly in AUS and NZ and stay means to stop suddenly in a legal sense, of which I’m familiar. But that can’t be what’s intended (or is it?), so I’m at a loss. If anyone could elucidate how stay = prop, it would be much appreciated. (Again, ignorant American here, so apologies in advance if stay = prop is an obvious synonym across the pond.)
Having said all that, it was nevertheless an enjoyable puzzle. Thanks, Mara!
7:55
Collins:
stay
in British English
noun
1. anything that supports or steadies, such as a prop or buttress
stay
in American English
(stei) (verb stayed, staying)
noun
1. something used to support or steady a thing; prop; brace
Got it. Very many thanks again!
This is a common trick in Mephisto – if you can’t understand why the answer word equals the literal, then look up all the obscure meanings of the literal. Aha, there’s a word sail that means jut out, that has nothing to do with the sail on a ship.
Had to leave BARLEY WATER to the end,it wasn’t until I had all the other letters that the anagram occurred to me, quite easy when you’ve only got three of twelve letters to place. Started fast with BACKBONE and VIOLA but the V tempted me to change technique and use the V to get VIOLA and build from there – seemed to work, finished all green in 8.19. I was mainly an 800m runner but it was a short stride from there to ‘miler’ so PRELIM went in easily enough, PROP too since Sundays are spent on the touchline of the U14s (roll on summer).
Prelim common in Scotland as the name for exams that I believe are called mocks in England.
I was slow to get going for some reason, but the bottom half fell into place nicely and the top half then followed smoothly enough for a 9:34 finish. Well misled by SONAR, as I expected “on a radio” in the clue to indicate a homophone, and puzzled by OUTSTANDING = Virtuoso until I thought of exactly the same example as Templar.
FRENCH TOAST is probably one of those things, like Dutch courage or Danish pastry, which the people in question would not recognise at all as a thing. But they return the compliment with crème anglaise.
Many thanks Templar the blog.
I asked a French friend once what they called bread soaked in egg and milk and fried. Pain perdu, “lost bread”. I was so amused that I now call it lost bread all the time.
11:57 French Toast and Barley Water… Outstanding!
TaTAM
8.14, ending with PROP and bunging in PRELIM without really thinking about it. Thanks Mara and Templar.
Only self-inflicted problems today – I got the wrong end of the stick for the homophone at 13a which made LOI BARLEY WATER somewhat baffling until I changed throne to THROWN.
Finished in 5.28.
Thanks to Templar and Mara
My usual start with “ah, Mara, king of misdirection” stood us in good stead. He’s so clever at creating a surface that takes you in the wrong direction, but it does lead to some ringing PDMs. All done, and parsed, in a very decent 15.30.
Favourite, also POI, tear drop, for rent lower looked at let cow!
Thanks both
6.27 – which is not a particularly good time for me for this puzzle I feel. The thing that slowed me down was the the anagrams: BARLEY WATER and ATROCITY in particular, the latter not difficult but for some reason took me a little time. The other slow clue was BUST.
No NHO, no hold ups except self-made. An enjoyable puzzle, COD to FRENCH TOAST.
I’m not a morning person and a much faster solver in the afternoon, but I can never wait till then. Anyone else like this?
Definitely I am sharper in the afternoon but like you I want my morning QC.
Compared to many of the times above a slowish 10:18. Never really got into stride though nothing too difficult with even PROP going in easily enough, admittedly once I had the two crossers. I liked BACKBONE and the abominable sounding (and presumably tasting) ‘ricotta and gravy’.
Thanks to Templar and Mara
As usual with Mara, anagrams abounded – seven of them this time – and they always slow me down.
A very slow 24:21, not seeing for ages several which in retrospect were pretty obvious. Biffed PRELIM. A poor day.
Agree with Templar’s initial comment: this horse (or sheep?) safely grazed, except that for me the obscurity was not PRELIM but NHO MILER. LOI TEARDROP. Liked the surface anagram for BARLEY WATER.
Actually I was none too sure what FRENCH TOAST is … Mrs M says it’s eggy bread (which I used to adore about 70 years ago)?
14:30 for the solve. Held up by the TEARDROP / PROP pairing despite immediately seeing TEAR and knowing PROP is a stay but not seeing the rugby player until post solve.. Also caught out by not spotting the “wild region” anagram.
Noting that MILER=distance runner came up in the last Mara puzzle a couple of Saturdays ago as part of the wordplay for FORELIMB. As an athletics fan, the TV commentators will often mention that we are watching the preliminary heats of the men’s 100metres or whatever – so it didn’t seem too obscure.
Thanks to Templar and Mara
In the old days of the 11+ there was a preliminary test to qualify for the second part of the test. It was known as the prelim so older plebs should be familiar with the term. If you passed the prelim at age 10 you got to take the 11+ exam a year earlier. The prelim was an intelligence test mostly verbal and image reasoning iirc. The main exam was a maths paper and an English paper, probably equivalent to today’s GCSEs 🙂
This one was pretty smooth, nothing much held me up except the noise of my son watching CBeebies and my partner on the phone to a friend.
Speaking as a regular runner, I do not think a MILER is a “distance runner”. 800m and 1500m are usually referred to as “middle distance”. As a club runner who runs almost exclusively on roads with a few trail races thrown in, the shortest official race I’ve ever done is 5k (which feels like a sprint) and the most common distance I’ve raced is the half marathon. I’ve only ever done one timed mile on a track which my running club organised one evening. Saying all that, as soon as I saw “distance runner” in the clue, and that it had far too few letters to be MARATHONER, I thought it had to be MILER, so it didn’t hold me up.
My time today was 6:47, which coincidentally is almost idential to my per mile pace in my fastest marathon. Thanks Templar and Mara.
I could do a 90 minute half when I was half my current age 🙂 Take care of your knees. I’d say take up cycling to protect them but it was coming off a bike in an age group qualifier that rendered me paraplegic.
I didn’t take up running until I was 40, ran my two best marathons (so far) at 43 and 49. My knees are in decent shape, I think, because I only started running late in life.
Finished in 44:32. Only the second time I have completed the QC. The rugby clue from Wednesday (?) helped with Prop. I’m getting the nack with Ikea clues, and I’m pretty good with anagrams, quick to spot water but not so quick with barley. Don’t think I bifd anything. Checkers helped. Took a while to see later…
FoI evil
LoI busy (!)
CoD teardrop because I twigged rent.
Thanks T and M
Well done 👏
That’s terrific, Nutshell, well done!
Straightforward puzzle that I finished at a canter. Perfectly pitched for a QC.
Particularly liked TEARDROP
Thanks Mara and Templar
5:59
No horses worried here either, though I did nearly write in BARELY WATER. I didn’t know PROP was a rugby forward specifically, but I had heard of the term in connection with rugby and it seemed a reasonable assumption.
Thanks Templar and Mara
A good QC from Mara. I saw miler quickly but hesitated over the definition. Surely a miler would be a ‘middle-distance runner’? The P clinched it, though.
I finished in 13.30 with a fat-fingered typo. I entered PROP rather late and I needed the crossers for OUTSTANDING. Good anagrams, esp. BARLEY WATER.
Thanks to Mara and Templar.
Back in the SCC. I was doing quite well this week in the sunshine outside SCC, until today, 27.40. Slow going but got there in the end. NHO French toast but, as with viola, got from existing letters. No idea how existence equates to lifetime. Last two in were the cross (very cross) backbone and conifer. Clearly need another cup of tea. Thanks Templar and Mara.
15:05 LOI OUTSTANDING. I had ENDING=dismissed, so had the clue backwards, looking for a shortish virtuoso.
BUST was nicely misdirected, I looked for a “hidden” in “smithereens”.
12 mins…
A good puzzle. Only issue was inputting 13ac “Throws” into the iPad rather than “Thrown” which is what I actually intended.
FOI – 5ac “Evil”
LOI – 19dn “Prop”
COD – 12dn “Atrocity”
Thanks as usual!
No problems and solved in 19 minutes, all parsed.
FOI – 5ac EVIL
LOI – 22ac YARN
COD – 10dn CATERPILLAR
Thanks to Mara and Templar
No problems with this one, a steady solve giving me a time of 6.44. All the down clues were solved on first read with the exception of 2dn, where I thought an anagram of tree came into the equation.
Nice friendly chug through, nothing too difficult, until entirely stuck on 14a so eventually gave up, even thoiugh I had thought of miler as the runner. On reading the blog I realised that for reasons only known to me I had put in lifeTEAM for 7d. Thanks Mara and Templar.
All done in 12.15 – a good time for me. I think I was on Mara’s wavelength as nothing seemed too tricky. Barley Water took some time, but Prop came fairly quickly as I am a rugby fan. Thanks to Mara and Templar for another excellent blog. I really appreciate the efforts of all our bloggers.
Thank you!
I thought I was doing quite well with this, until loi Teardrop forced an alpha-trawl. However, looking at the times of others, my window seat finish now seems decidedly sub-standard. Not sure why I was so slow, as my anagram hat was definitely in place, and Prop/Prelim were soon sorted. Just one of those days?
CoD to Viola for the parsing. Invariant
10:43, most of it without difficulty, though I thought that PRELIM and (especially) PROP were tricky clues. Needed the blog to parse the former and was nervous about the latter.
Thank you for the blog!
Nothing that caused me any real issues today.
First Lap: 10
Answered (no help): 24
Time:19:27
MER at Rent = Tear, anyone?
I don’t think the tenses match. Rent = Tore, Rend = Tear, unless I’m missing something?
I think it’s “rent” as a noun, not a verb.
(Collins: rent
in British English
noun
1. a slit or opening made by tearing or rending; tear.
2. a breach or division, as in relations.)
Aha. Thank you
Had to have my brain switched on, especially for LOI TEARDROP. Lots of misdirection which I love as my rigid thinking is a great source of personal amusement 😂 Some fantastic surfaces throughout, especially NOTICE, FRENCH TOAST and ATROCITY. COD BARLEY WATER. Many thanks Mara and Templar.
22 minutes. although it would have been closer to 15 had I not suffered a ridiculously extended brain freeze with six clues to go. The offending clues were all interlinked and situated in the SE corner. Eventually, LATER succumbed and PROP, CATERPILLAR, TEARDROP, LIGHTER and PRELIM all fell within little more than another minute. Very frustrating, but still a good time for me.
Many thanks to Templar and Mara.
Enjoyable very Quick puzzle.
Liked many inc BACKBONE, YARN, VIOLA and THROWN.
Biffed OUTSTANDING but did not associate it with Virtuoso at first.
We had PROP the other day, didn’t we?
LOI/PDM TEARDROP.
Many thanks, Templar.
At last – a completed puzzle in 30mins, including an incubating 5 minute break. Enjoyed this! – thanks Mara
Congratulations!
5.57 There were some lovely anagrams and I liked the ricotta with gravy. Thanks Templar and Mara.
11 mins, which is very quick for me -probably due to the number of clues using anagrams wholly or in part.
FOI Backbone
LOI Outstanding
COD Ignored
Thanks Mara and Templar
Although I’m horribly under the weather this morning, the usually formidable Mara spared me any hold-ups, and I wandered haplessly through in 14:14. I vaguely remembered PROP as some sort of rugby thingy, otherwise it would have been a wild guess. I liked BARLEY WATER best; I’ve always wondered what it could be, it doesn’t sound much yummier than ricotta and gravy (another great surface, but I think I’ve lost my appetite).
Thanks Mara and Templar, an entertaining blog as usual.