Times Quick Cryptic N0 2533 by Peridot

Author   TheRotterPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Well, I have the honour and privilege to blog a new Setter today, or at least a new Setter’s name (I did think that the ‘filthy place’ in 7d might be a nod towards our regular porcine Setter).

I found Peridot’s first puzzle to be approachable, taking 13 minutes. I was slightly slow at first, getting used to his / her style, but accelerated through with few difficulties. Welcome to the team Peridot, and I hope to see you again soon.

Across

1 Central London transport? It’s subject to inflation (5,4)

INNER TUBE – When talking about London, central and INNER are almost synonymous, and TUBE is the mass transit system of choice in that location. The cryptic definition completes this neat clue.

6 Cat losing 25 per cent of volume (3)

TOM – TOM{e} (volume) losing one of its 4 letters (25%).

8 Pay to get something off one’s chest? (5,2)

COUGH UP – Double definition, the second one not very pleasant.

9 Queen, like one in Through the Looking Glass, went wrong (5)

ERRED – ER (our late, lamented Queen) and RED (the Queen in Through the Looking Glass was the Red Queen, not to be confused with the Queen of Hearts, who appeared in the earlier book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland).

10 Star limits parties (12)

CELEBRATIONS – CELEB{rity} (star) and RATIONS (limits).

12 Thump coming across ace’s midriff (6)

PAUNCH – PUNCH (thump) containing (coming across) A{ce}.

13 Like food perhaps that’s unhygienic (6)

GRUBBY – To be like food is to be GRUB–BY.

16 Left in agonies, sickening for a piece of cake (5,7)

PLAIN SAILING – L{eft} inside PAINS (agonies) and AILING (sickening).

19 Invitation from whistleblower rejected (5)

OFFER – OF (from) and REF{eree} (whistleblower) reversed (rejected).

20 Enliven a Northern Ireland pal (7)

ANIMATE – A NI (Northern Ireland) and MATE (pal).

22 Duck backing away from big river (3)

NIL – NIL{e} (big reiver) losing last letter (backing away).

23 Spooner’s to choose vegetarian food or vegan option (9)

CHICKPEAS – Dr Spooner would have said Pick Cheese (choose vegetarian food).

Down

1 Get irritated in suit, chafing (4)

ITCH – Hidden (in) {su}IT, CH{afing}.

2 No rays from sun on St Tropez water? That’s new (7)

NOUVEAU – NO (no) with UV (rays from sun) and EAU (French for water – St Tropez water).

3 Cheer up Harold when half-cut (3)

RAH – HAR{old} (half-cut) reversed (up). My Chambers lists RAH as short form of HURRAH (Cheer).

4 Match official’s hesitation about booking Greek character (6)

UMPIRE – UM (hesitation) and RE (about) containing (booking) PI (Greek character).

5 Pick exam on subject of poll (9)

ELECTORAL – ELECT (pick) and ORAL (exam).

6 Sort out old trunk (5)

TORSO – Anagram (out) of [SORT] and O{ld}.

7 Fashion filthy place for humble character (7)

MODESTY – MODES (fashion) and STY (filthy place).

11 Strange to be focused mainly on City of London? (9)

ECCENTRIC – EC (postcode element of City of London) and CENTRIC (focused on).

12 Dad jokes, the kind of thing one might share during film? (7)

POPCORN – Cryptic type of double definition.

14 Financial product to mature, being tied up (7)

BONDAGE – BOND (financial product) and AGE (to mature).

15 Browser that’s for looking at the big game? (6)

SAFARI – Double definition, the first the name of the web browser that is built into Apple i-Products, the second the big-game watching holiday.

17 Legitimate to lose head, it’s terrible (5)

AWFUL – {l}AWFUL (legitimate) losing first letter (losing head).

18 Witnesses going up and down (4)

SEES – palindrome clue

21 Kind of dairy product, skimmed (3)

ILK – {m}ILK (Dairy product) losing first letter (skimmed, as in skimming the top of the milk).

104 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic N0 2533 by Peridot”

  1. 19:12 today, much better than yesterday! I liked this one, I felt like the clues were pretty varied.
    Particularly enjoyed INNER TUBE, ECCENTRIC, NOUVEAU, PLAIN SAILING.

  2. 20:49 the bulk of it spent on ECCENTRIC / CHICKPEAS

    I didn’t know the EC London thing, and it seems like something I should learn quick smart

    Spoonerisms! One day I will not be terrified of you. Excited to see a new setter 🙂

      1. Lol Gary you can’t just tell someone not to look at something, that will just make me want to look at it more

  3. 13:03. The new setter gave us some great clues. I especially enjoyed INNER TUBE and PLAIN SAILING. Also GRUBBY was fun, though for a long time I could only see greasy. I knew it had to be CELEBRATIONS but took a long time to see the parsing. The Spoonerism clue reminded me vegan and vegetarian are different. As kids we used to use inner tubes as flotation devices swimming in Lake Erie. The only problem was the valve stem stabbing you in the back!

    1. Almost completely in agreement (even remembering the valve stem and a patch, although N. Wales sea, probably similarly bracing). I didn’t parse CELEBRATIONS. Lots to like, particularly CHICKPEAS. Pretty much on target for a QCC and finished in 19.25. Jet lag must have energised some neurones.
      Thanks Peridot, and Rotter

  4. 11:52. I enjoyed this, with BONDAGE and the crossing GRUBBY taking time to work out at the end. I didn’t know the RED ‘Queen’ and bunged in CHICKPEAS without appreciating the clever ‘vegetarian’ and ‘vegan’ distinction as pointed out by curryowen.

    It’s much the same thing, but for ECCENTRIC I parsed all of the wordplay, ‘to be focused mainly on the City of London?’, as being a cryptic hint for EC CENTRIC. Breaking up the components of the wordplay into CENTRIC (‘to be focused mainly on’) and EC (‘City of London?’) doesn’t seem to quite work to me as, whether ‘on’ is a positional indicator (for a down clue) or not, the EC should then be the final two letters and there’s also that pesky question mark. Anyway, no big deal.

    Welcome and thanks to Peridot for a gem of a puzzle (I’m not fussed if you’re precious or semi-precious) and thanks to TheRotter

    1. Let’s not split hairs, and I have no argument with your interpretation, but ‘on’ cannot be a positional indicator here as it is an essential part of the clue for CENTRIC. To be focussed doesn’t work for centric, but to be focussed on, or to be focussed mainly on does, IMHO.

      1. Yes, sorry, it is me splitting hairs and I take your point about ‘focused mainly on’, rather than just ‘focused’, for CENTRIC.

  5. I began very quickly and thought our new setter was going to ease himself (?) in gently, but things became tougher as I worked my way down the grid, ending in the bottom row with quite a tough Spoonerism clue. 16 minutes took me over my target recently revised upwards, but I’ve no complaints.

  7. 11’20” and I hadn’t spotted that it was a new setter but something definitely felt different in the puzzle. Started slow and never hit sprint pace but it gradually fell into place with some thoroughly enjoyable and chewy clues including CHICKPEAS.

    Thanks Peridot for a terrific debut and great blog TheRotter.

  8. A very nice puzzle and if Peridot is a new setter not just a new name for an old friend, he/she is a most welcome addition to our little world. Just under 10 minutes, all parsed, with Dr Spooner’s menu choice my LOI. I usually find Spoonerisms very challenging but the luxury of having the first letter as a checker helps enormously!

    My only slight hesitation was over Nouveau. I’m not a fan on the whole of foreign words as the complete answer to a clue (ie as opposed to a component in the wordplay). But on this occasion I think Nouveau is by now practically a naturalised English word. So “Bravo, Peridot”.

    Many thanks Rotter for the blog
    Cedric

  9. Had the opposite experience to our blogger. I started quickly with the 1s and several others at the top going straight in but then got bogged down and overall found this a tough offering.
    Having said that it was an enjoyable solve with lots of clever clues (just a bit too clever for me this morning).
    COD goes to NOUVEAU for the hard earned PDM after time spent trying to shoehorn ‘med’ into it. CELEBRATION, ECCENTRIC and the pesky spoonerism were my other major sticking points.
    Finished with CHICKPEAS in 12.21.
    Thanks to Rotter for the blog and Peridot for the entertaining debut

  10. Oh dear. Unlike most of the others I found this very challenging. (I thought SAFARI a little niche – it being primarily an Apple browser). With two to go Mrs ITTT unexpectedly arose early for a visit to the hairdressers and wished to discuss hairstyles with me – a pointless exercise as she always arrives back home with the same style regardless. But as I dutifully listened I managed to parse CHICKPEAS in my head and I was then able also to work out SAFARI. I began to fidget with excitement and by the time I was freed to finish the grid 45 minutes had elapsed, but I nonetheless claim victory. So that is 3/4 so far this week. Not bad, for me.
    Thanks to Peridot and Rotter.

    1. I’m with you on this. I found it a real struggle. I’d managed about half a dozen on my first couple of passes then I had to resort to biffing answers (or parts of answers) and checking for pink squares in the app. That got me going. Finished eventually but can’t say I really enjoyed it.

  11. An excellent puzzle, with lots of wit and sparkle. Tough, too, pushing me over target. Solving on my phone (using SAFARI) meant I didn’t realise this was a new setter and I was wondering who it could be because it felt different – my guess was Joker!

    FOI INNER TUBE, LOI CELEBRATIONS, COD ERRED or CHICKPEAS (I do love a Spoonerism – where are all the Spooner-moaners this morning?!). All done in 09:21 for an Enjoyable Day.

    Many thanks Rotter and Peridot.

    Templar

  12. Thanks Peridot for a well-pitched crossword and welcome to the fold.
    I wondered if your name was Chris O and this was the Lite version of your 15 x 15s?

  13. 9/26 after 20m. I found this tough, but I seem to be at odds with most commenters about what constitutes a well-pitched QC. I’ve only been at this a few months now, and initially liked the thrill of the challenge, but have found most recent offerings unenjoyable. I think it’s time for this snail to slither off into the sunset. Enough is enough. Thanks for all the blogs.

    1. Understand your frustration 🐌 There was a point today where I thought I might need to put it aside for a few hours but fortunately my longterm experience (two years) got me restarted. I’m not convinced this was a beginner-friendly puzzle.

      The QC goes through ups and downs for its difficulty and it’s been in a down for a week or so. It will get easier again and then harder and then easier ….

      I suggest bookmarking the Quitch and do the easier puzzles until your confidence comes back up.

  14. Quick question to all. I am being logged out after every visit to the TfTT site. Tedious, but is there anything I have done wrong/should do differently? I do always tick the “Remember me” box.

    Many thanks
    Cedric

    1. Are you logging on on different devices Cedric? I find that if I jump between devices (I use I-Pad, I-Phone and PC at various times and for various reasons) and I find myself logged out when I switch back, which I agree is tedious, but at least it is understandable.

      1. Thank you Rotter. I do – phone and PC – but that is not it, as the sequence below shows:
        1. Access TfTT on phone, find I need to log in, do so
        2. Exit
        3. Re-access on phone 1 minute later, find I have been logged out and need to login in again.

        Very oddly, I am still logged in on my PC after this little 1-2-3. So I suspect it is something to do with my phone browser (Android system, Samsung internet). But it has only started happening in the last 2 days.

        1. Then I am at a loss, but clearly your original assertion is false as you remain logged in on your PC. What happens if you log off the pc and try multiple log ins on the phone?

    2. This happens to me as well and I only ever access the blog from my phone. It also seems intermittent- I can go for months without being logged out then have a period when I am logged out every day. I have given up trying to work out why.

    3. Same problem here Cedric – I use both my Android ‘phone and my laptop interchangeably and have had to re-log in to TftT each morning for the past three or four days.

      1. Very odd. I access on PC, Android tablet and iPhone constantly throughout the day according to where I am in the house or out and about, and if I have to log in on any of them even once a month it comes as a surprise.

        One tip which may help: As you go to log in, check the Remember Me box before putting in user-name and password as sometimes it can take you in before it’s registered that you want to be remembered.

    4. I had that problem last week, which I noticed when my avatar didn’t display on comments. Found I had to log in every day. After about 5 daily log ins it now keeps me logged in, so far anyway…

      1. Thank you all for your advice. It has happened before, and went away as mysteriously as it appeared, so perhaps it will this time too. Fingers crossed…

  15. It took a little while to tune in to the right wavelength for this, but when I had it was reasonably PLAIN SAILING until my LTI, NOUVEAU and SAFARI (no excuse as I use a Mac and iPhone) held me up a while. Final time was 22:27. COD is TORSO for the smooth surface, but lots to enjoy all round, so thanks Peridot and, of course, Rotter.

  16. I quite like a Spoonerism and smile as I recall the inadvertent one committed by the broadcaster Jim Naughtie when our current Chancellor was Culture Secretary

      1. Indeed, there was no swapping of consonants. On a related note, the musician James Blunt once commented that he was “officially handing over [his] Cockney rhyming slang title” to the aforementioned chancellor during the latter’s mishandling of a doctors’ strike as health secretary.

  17. Slow again, though my WITCH not too bad at 111, so not an easy puzzle.

    Good though – I liked the spoonerism and PLAIN SAILING. GRUBBY went in last after BONDAGE gave me the B.

    Welcome to Peridot, and thanks to Rotter and indeed all the bloggers.

    9:14

  18. If this is the standard of QC we can expect from this newcomer, then no thank you.

    I found this QC to be awful (and this is my personal opinion).

    I really got nowhere with this one and lost interest quite quickly.

    1. And Good Morning to you PW. I’d be interested to know if you got any answers before giving up. Did you not appreciate the wit in POPCORN, GRUBBY or CHICKPEAS? Or the brevity and cleanliness in TORSO. There really was much to admire here, and I think you are being a little unkind and unfair to our new Setter.

      1. With CHICKPEAS. I have to admit I did get that one, but only because I knew it was a Spoonerism. 😃

    2. Well of course it’s your personal opinion; whose would it be other than yours? (And a quick scan of the 20+ comments that follow yours shows 15 or so explicitly praising the puzzle, and none sharing your opinion.)

      1. Or, I’m the only one who’ll admit it was tough/not great. I’ve noticed that sometimes happens here. 🤣

        1. We’ve found every day this week hard, but as we are still recovering from moving house after 28 years and think it is a bit of AD too.

  19. 5:25. A jewel of a well-pitched Quick Cryptic crossword from our new setter Peridot with plenty of sparkle. I particularly liked PLAIN SAILING, TORSO and ILK. Thanks Peridot and Rotter.

  20. 11:26

    Thought this was going to be hard, as I struggled at first. But soon got into it and enjoyed lots of clues: inner tube, grubby, cough up, modesty, and eccentric.
    The only clue I didn’t really like was rah.
    COD bondage.

  21. 24:06 , nearly half of which spent on my LOI CELEBRATIONS. For some reason I could not see this for ages.
    Not usually a fan of Spoonerisms, but CHICKPEAS was rather good.

    Thanks Peridot and Rotter

  22. 20:40 – hmmm, not entirely sure about that.

    I often found it was fill-in-blanks-bif-then-parse which was fine until I had no checkers to work with. It then took inspiration to get going again. Never did parse the “of” part of OFFER and TOM(e) came after solve. Heart sank on seeing a Spoonerism especially one involving vegetarianism, veganism and while it was LOI, it wasn’t too bad with the checkers.

    Good to have SAFARI – it feels like a counter to all those 18th century painters, writers and cricket references we get from certain setters. Although RAH did leave me wondering if we aren’t still in Oxbridge.

    My time was decent enough time for a QC, so willing to give Peridot a 👍 for this initial offering. I enjoyed INNER-TUBE, building NOUVEAU and who doesn’t love POPCORN ?!?

      1. Don’t think I’ve ever touched an Apple product but I have looked at alternative browsers and software to get away from paying or being in thrall to Microsoft or Google.

        Currently using the Brave browser as it promises privacy and not using/selling your data … https://brave.com/

  23. Fourth time this week that I’ve finished outside my target time at 11.50. Either the QCs are getting tougher or I’m just not at the races this week; the latter I suspect.
    Nothing in particular held me up to any great extent, it just became a slow steady solve with me having to revisit clues after failing to solve them at first sight. Naturally my LOI was Dr Spooner’s latest manifestation, but as I have railed against their use on a regular basis, I will grudgingly admit this one was quite good.

    1. Quitch suggests they’ve been tougher since last Friday – all over 100. While I have grumbles about its specific accuracy, I think it’s generally a good guide to where they’re at.

  24. DNF as had to reveal GRUBBY and CHICKPEAS (COD).
    A mix of easy and difficult. I solved a few quickly like INNER TUBE and POPCORN then slowed to a crawl but PDMs like CELEBRATIONS, ELECTORAL and PAUNCH helped. Also liked ECCENTRIC, ILK. No anagrams?
    Thanks vm, Rotter.

  25. An excellent puzzle which I found very hard work.
    LOI GRUBBY which I felt might be GRITTY but I needed POI BONDAGE to ditch that thought.
    I was very slow on the Spooner clue, but I often am; this was a good one.
    I thought NOUVEAU was very good but I did have a Cedric type thought as I wrote it in.
    20 minutes in total.
    COD to CHICKPEAS.
    Well done Peridot.
    David

    20 minutes in the end

  27. I thoroughly enjoyed this. I found a lot of satisfaction in piecing together the clues. FOI ITCH quickly followed by INNER TUBE (although I’m a fan of tubeless tyres). I needed to solve the skimmed mILK before I could get CHICKPEAS but thought it was very clever. My LOI was CELEBRATIONS as I mistakenly had the definition as star. Thank you Peridot. A lot of the clue construction, for me, felt Izetti like which I think is a compliment. 7:48

  28. I thoroughly enjoyed this one. even though I couldn’t finish it. TOM, CELEBRATIONS, PLAIN SAILING, NOUVEAU, ECCENTRIC were all marked on my paper as clever clues as I went along. I don’t normally mark more than two so that to me is a sign of an excellent QC.
    After starting quickly with the 1’s I then had to go down to 12d before I got another one and was getting worried. Too many late nights? Then working back up it mostly fell into place.
    I failed on SAFARI and the Spoonerism. It didn’t help that they crossed. I had listed all the browsers I could think of but Apple’s was not on this list. I avoid Apple products like the plague, so I suppose I had blanked it out even though I have heard of their browser, I have even used the horrible thing!
    I seem to have developed a fear of Spoonerisms and can never solve them. Can anyone help me with any techniques as I need to sort this, they seem to be becoming more common.
    Thanks as always for the excellent blog.

    1. My ‘technique’ is to get as many crossers as possible, biff an answer and then see if it parses. They, and homophones, are my least favourite clue types.

    2. Omg I just wrote a whole essay on how I do Spoonerisms that was so convoluted that I think it would have confused you more.

      But the gist was
      – trial and error
      – guess an easy to rhyme synonym for half the definition (in this case choose = pick. Opt and Select etc don’t have many or any rhyming words)
      – find the rhymes – sick, dick, lick, wick, tick, flick, chick etc –
      – see if any of those sound like they would make sense for the rest of the definition, ie vegan and vegetarian food etc
      – pick one, say ‘lick’, it sounds foody, and then try to find words that start with L that would complete the definition.. Like ‘leaves’ are vegetarian. Test out the spoonerism – Pick Leaves / Lick Peeves? Nah. Rinse and Repeat.

      Helps immensely if you have checking letters – esp the first letter of either word. It’s why I didn’t get it til I got the C.

      I hope that helped, I bet it didn’t lmao

      1. No, that’s useful. I think that’s maybe roughly what I do but it’s good to see it broken down into steps.

      2. That’s amazingly helpful, thank you for going to so much effort to share that. Can’t wait for another spoonerism clue to try it out!

  29. Struggled at first to match Peridot’s wavelength, with no more than half the answers at the 20min mark. Something must have then given the set a good thump, because the other half fell into place quite quickly and I crossed the line just north of 25mins. Given the time lost trying to get h(eart)/card/suit into 9ac, and Med into 2d, I really can’t complain about that. CoD to Plain Sailing, though Celebrations ran it close. A warm welcome to Peridot, and thanks to Rotter for his usual clear blog. Invariant

  30. I enjoyed this offering, and completed left hand side quicker than the right.
    I have been doing the quick qc since it started, and with the help of this blog and the contributions from everyone I am now able to complete most puzzles in under 30 minutes. I would say to stick with it, as we all learn with practice.
    Welcome to our new setter, and thanks to our bloggers and everyone for the helpful comments.

  31. Terrific puzzle.. Witty clever and intriguing. I thought NOUVEAU was one of the best clues for sometime. look forward to more Peridot QC s.

  32. 21:37
    Another SCC appearance, soon I think I might need a regular membership. Can’t keep signing the book as a Guest.

    Smoked through the top half, but slowed right down at the bottom. Some really great clues, like POPCORN and INNER TUBE. Had to take a short break before guessing that GRUBBY ended with a Y (thought of GRITTY, BREADY etc). This unlocked MODESTY and the rest dropped, with LOI BONDAGE (thought of BANDAGE first)

    I don’t usually like Spooner clues, but this one was excellent. I’m sure Rev Spooner, who was an academic for 60 years thought he would be remembered for his works such as The Moral Philosophy Of Aristotle.

    From Wikipedia: As complements to spoonerism, Douglas Hofstadter used the nonce words kniferism and forkerism to refer to changing, respectively, the vowels or the final consonants of two syllables, giving them a new meaning.Examples of so-called kniferisms include a British television newsreader once referring to the police at a crime scene removing a ‘hypodeemic nerdle’; a television announcer once saying that “All the world was thrilled by the marriage of the Duck and Doochess of Windsor”

  33. This was a good QC, and I was very bad at filling in the answers… Lots of PDMs as I hopped around to get some bones to fill out the rest. I kept seeing bits of answers but struggling to join it all up. I would have been quicker if I had started in SE and worked back. Challenging but clever and enjoyable.
    Everything fell into place eventually and I look forward to tackling Peridot’s next one.

  34. Seem to have accidentally deleted my post so, in summary, had to reveal GRUBBY which opened up the SE and enabled me to finish this excellent QC. Thoroughly enjoyed. Favourite clues CHICKPEAS (of course) and ECCENTRIC. Thanks all.

  35. I got very few of the across clues on the first pass and thought I was going to spend a fourth consecutive day in the SCC. However the down clues went in much faster, possibly as I got used to Peridot’s style, and I completed in 15 minutes. I had parsed everything except 6ac where ‘volume’ in the sense of ‘book’ had completely eluded me (slaps forehead in disgust). Like Prof I had marked several clues which I thought particularly clever/amusing as I went through.

    FOI – 12ac PAUNCH (had to be, even though I hesitated because of the ‘u’ at the end of 2dn)
    LOI – 21dn ILK
    COD – difficult choice today but I think I have to give it to 12dn POPCORN for the laugh-out-loud moment. Also liked INNER TUBE, CELEBRATIONS and ECCENTRIC

    Thanks to Peridot for a very entertaining quarter of an hour and to Rotter for the blog.

  36. On finishing this one, my feeling was that it was a hard one. But looking back, it all looks quite fair (the benefits of hindsight?). I seemed to be dodging about the grid, filling in answers here and there, it wasn’t until the two long across clues had fallen that things seem to speed up.
    Look forward to more from this setter, thanks for the puzzle and to Rotter for the blog.

    1. Easy when you know the answers!

      Hard because of misdirection and the need to think of 5th level words. CELEB=star, RATIONS=shares – nothing unknown there but not easy to think of.

  37. 6:48

    Four in on first pass of acrosses, thought initially this might be heading towards a tougher solve, however the downs were more forgiving. Like many others, my LOI was CHICKPEAS – I don’t really have a method for solving Spoonerisms (which I do like for the alternative imagery, incidentally), other than gathering checkers (including the initial letter hopefully) and determining which word(s) in the clue constitute(s) the definition.

    Thanks Peridot and Rotter

  38. Very enjoyable, look forward to more from Peridot, even if it was a DNF. Just couldn’t see Celebrations. Also, extra points for an excellent spooner!

  39. 8.55

    Took a while to adjust to this with quite a few blank as I roamed around the grid but once a few checkers appeared, it flowed nicely.

    I like a spoonerism and this was a good ‘un

    Thanks TR and Peridot

  40. 18:31
    Under my 20min target time for a really enjoyable puzzle. I loved the way I had to go around and around the grid gradually filling in checkers to gradually reveal more and more of the answers.
    I even managed to biff the, for me, always scary spoonerism.
    More potential clues of the day than I’ve had the pleasure of unravelling in any other QC.
    FOI: 8ac COUGH UP
    LOI: 10ac CELEBRATIONS
    COD: 1ac INNER TUBE
    Brilliant – thank you Peridot and, as ever, thank you Rotter.

  41. 16.13 I particularly enjoyed this. It had some new twists and seemed to be more cryptic than biffable, which I usually struggle with, but it was all very fair. Thanks Rotter and welcome, Peridot.

  42. Took me a while to get going with COUGH UP FOI. Had to work at getting used to this new setter’s style, and went over my target. A fine puzzle though. I particularly liked LOI, CHICKPEAS. Liked GRUBBY too. 11:15. Thanks Peridot and Rotter.

  43. From the style of the humour etc I would hazard we have a new Setter. I enjoyed the wit and found the challenge worthwhile. So, welcome…
    FOI 1a Inner Tube
    LOI 10a Celebrations
    CODs 8a Cough Up, and 11d Eccentric.

  45. Tough but enjoyable. I kept getting stuck and had to revisit several times.
    All done except CHICKPEAS where I knew my despairing CHICKLESS was wrong.
    Still, only 2 incorrect letters overall.
    Thanks Rotter and welcome Peridot – which is a precious stone and a type of Olivine.

  46. Well I really enjoyed this. Peridot could become one of my favourites along with Oink. 25m on the phone with 3 biffs.
    My favourite spoonerism was Kenny Everett’s porn actress character, Cupid Stunt. 🤣 J.

  47. Very slow out the blocks. Just one on the first pass of acrosses and that was ANIMATE at 20a. Better on the downs to leave some tricky mopping up. All green in 21m almost all of which were out of my comfort zone.

  48. Very frustrating! I reached the four-to-go point just a after after having entered the SCC. Unfortunately I had Clear UP at 8a, which seemed (and still seems) a perfectly good answer, but that made finding NOUVEAU and RAH impossible. Discovering and correcting my error plus the Spoonerism occupied me for a further 25-30 minutes and it was a rather irritable Mr Random who crossed the line in 49 minutes.

    Mrs Random started after me, finished well before me and went out for a walk with a friend. So, a typical day here at the Random’s.

    Thanks to Peridot and Rotter.

  49. Thoroughly enjoyed this crossword with plenty to make us smile.
    Took a tad longer than our usual (26 minutes )but thoroughly enjoyed the extra time.

  50. Tough QC today. Entered the SCC with only 8 done and nearly gave up. Eventually bits began to click into.place and had the joy of escaping DNF. Thought SAFARI was a bit niche and had to look up to check it was a browser (clearly I don’t use Apple products)

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