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).
19 mins…
Wow – a lot of comments on this. Apart from being pleased I actually finished (it did take a while to get going), I really enjoyed it and had lots of smiley faces next to a number of clues: 1ac “Inner Tube”, 16ac “Plain Sailing”, 23ac “Chickpeas” and 15dn “Safari” to name a few.
On the last point, to be somewhat pedantic, Safari is Apple’s native browser for all of its products (not just those beginning with “i”).
Great to have a new setter – however it does cock up my links on my statistical pivot tables 😀
FOI – 3dn “Rah”
LOI – 6ac “Tom”
COD – 2dn “Nouveau”
Thanks as usual!
An enjoyable puzzle from the witty new setter, but a DNF for me: just could not see the Spoonerism (rarely can, to be honest) and SAFARI beyond my ken, despite coming back 3 times for another go to try to get these last two.
22:58 I’d like to join the everyone else in welcoming Peridot to the list of compilers, a very nice first puzzle and I look forward to the next one.
A little short of my target (20 minutes) but certainly enjoyable. FOI PLAIN SAILING LOI MODESTY and COD CHICKPEAS which made me smile when I solved it, also liked TORSO for the surface reading. Thanks Peridot and Rotter.
I found this hard, and surprised myself when I finished it. Unlike Tuesday’s, where I was held up by the last few clues, I thought this was hard all the way through. I thought Chickpeas and Grubby were clever.
16:07, just over my target. Thoroughly enjoyed this one. As I solved on my phone, I didn’t know we had a new setter until I came here, so welcome Peridot, and keep it up!
COD to PLAIN SAILING which prompted an out-loud “oh, that’s good”.
Thanks to Peridot and TheRotter.
After I got used to the new style of the setter found it hard but enjoyable.
Not happy about grubby for liking food though.
Having been away for a while I notice Mr P.W. still moaning!
I’m with Snail on this one . Got about half of them then gave up. I’m still a relative beginner and too many like Peridot’s offering today do make one disheartened.
Just have to keep trying.
I found this one hard. I tackled it in several sittings but slowly got through.
DNF as I could not work out the spoonerism, yes I hate them too but accept we need something of everything. I also accept that for me it would not be satisfying to whizz through everything.
I do like a crossword that makes me smile so here I enjoyed INNER TUBE and COUGH UP.
So thanks Peridot and The Rotter.
Another day from hell.
How can I go from 14 mins yesterday to 50 mins today? I am serially incompetent, that’s how!!
I struggled from beginning to end and felt like a complete novice. No inspiration came and I was groping from clue to clue. That’s much worse than being stymied by the last clue, as it shows that I just don’t have the mental ability for this.
People with whom I compare myself clearly found this straightforward, so that tells me that I am getting worse by the day. I hoped to come here and find complaints about it’s difficulty, but turns out it was straightforward.
I am now at 2 hours, 36 mins for the week. Utterly useless, shameful and embarrassing. Not much better than when I began. I would give anything to be a decent solver but it’s not going to happen. Perhaps I should just accept that I am incapable of achieving anything vaguely acceptable. I really am at my wits end with this.
Thanks for the blog.
PS Sailed through the Quintagram. That makes my frustration with the QC so much worse.
Oh dear Gary. I sometimes take days to complete a crossword or killer sudoku. Go with the flow. Be happy to stretch the grey matter.
I’ll try but I struggle with the disparity between my aspirations and the daily reality. I can’t get my head around the inconsistency in my performances.
I enjoyed this, especially the Spoonerism. Thanks Peridot – I look forward to your next one – and Rotter.
We really enjoyed this one and appreciate the new setter’s style. Few anagrams which is a plus for me!
Liked Nouveau and plain sailing and the Spoonerism particularly