I did Tuesday’s puzzle just before this and arrived at a similar time: kicking around the 15 minute mark. I confess to being a bit tipsy, but I doubt that held me up too much. On the contrary, I cheated and clicked on the answer for the final clue on both crosswords with much greater speed than I might have otherwise. I thought the puzzle was pitched quite similarly to Tuesday’s, in terms of both difficulty and quality, which is to say tougher and better than average. As the average is very high, that means there should be some relatively good clues, and indeed there were: 10ac, 19ac and 4d were my favourites, but I wouldn’t argue strongly against a different selection. Much enjoyed – many thanks to Mara!
| Across | |
| 1 | Weak peers slow to reform (9) |
| POWERLESS – anagram (to reform) of PEERS SLOW | |
| 6 | Carried by shoppers, a carrier bag! (3) |
| SAC – Carried by [the surroundingl etters of] shopperS A Carrier | |
| 8 | Poisonous element nicer, as improved (7) |
| ARSENIC – anagram (“improved”) of NICER AS | |
| 9 | Religious leader, a saint and a cult follower (5) |
| RASTA – R (“leader” of Religious), A, ST. (saint), and A. My LOI, for some reason, just couldn’t see it. And so with the alacrity of alcohol I cheated. | |
| 10 | Very sad trying to maintain fashion (5-7) |
| HEART-RENDING – HEARING (trying, as in a trial) to maintain/keep/hold TREND (fashion) | |
| 12 | Housing payment in the future returned, including compensation finally (6) |
| RENTAL – in the future = LATER, reverse it and include/insert N (compensatioN, “finally”) | |
| 13 | Estate agent, possibly, a character! (6) |
| LETTER – double definition | |
| 16 | Instrument is tacky, darn it! (12) |
| FIDDLESTICKS – FIDDLE (instrument) STICKS (is tacky). I reckon I spent about fourteen minutes trying to work out a “tacky” anagram of “instrument is” to find a dated curse word. So my true solving time must be a little over a minute – that’s a PB. | |
| 19 | Hurt isn’t terribly good (5) |
| STING – anagram (terribly) of ISNT, G(ood) | |
| 20 | Cost, old penny, seen to change (7) |
| EXPENSE – EX (old – as in an ex model) P(enny), and an anagram (to change) of SEEN | |
| 22 | Place left another year, initially (3) |
| LAY – Left Another Year “initially” | |
| 23 | Racecourse calculator Aristotle designed! (9) |
| TOTALISER – anagram (designed) of ARISTOTLE. I really can’t be bothered to look up this word. I’m guessing it’s broadly equivalent to a turf accountant, but that’s possibly wrong. So Aristotle is an anagram of “totaliser”, who knew? A man of immeasurable intellect who couldn’t totalise the number of teeth in his own head, and totalise that against the number of teeth in his wife’s head. Figure that one out if you will. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Top dog heard? (4) |
| PEAK – sounds like (“heard”) PEKE (dog – aka a Pekinese) | |
| 2 | You and I back film (7) |
| WESTERN – WE (you and I) STERN (back, of a boat) | |
| 3 | Manage to flee (3) |
| RUN – double definition | |
| 4 | Come along with fancy corset (6) |
| ESCORT – anagram (fancy) of CORSET | |
| 5 | Plain green, site for development (9) |
| SERENGETI – anagram (for development) of GREEN SITE | |
| 6 | Japanese dish — keep quiet about American one (5) |
| SUSHI – Sh! (keep quiet!) goes about US (American), I (one) | |
| 7 | Big Ben, possibly, a mistake (7) |
| CLANGER – double definition | |
| 11 | Nobleman put in correct lamp at the back (4,5) |
| REAR LIGHT – EARL (nobleman) put in RIGHT (correct) | |
| 12 | No judge has us over a barrel in the end (7) |
| REFUSAL – a no = a refusal. REF (judge) has US over/above A, L (barreL, in the “end”) | |
| 14 | Money coming in cheers monarchs (7) |
| TAKINGS – Ta (cheers) KINGS (monarchs) | |
| 15 | Rise like money (6) |
| ASCENT – as (like) MONEY (cent). The best substitution for money/cent I can come up with is something like “the smart ____ is on such-and-such a thing happening”. A better example is welcome! | |
| 17 | Girl is in time (5) |
| DAISY – IS inside DAY (time). | |
| 18 | Legendary king real, surprisingly (4) |
| LEAR – (un)surprisingly an anagram of REAL | |
| 21 | Friend removes one from bucket (3) |
| PAL – take I (one) from PAIL (bucket). | |
As to today’s puzzle my last two were PEAK and finally HEART RENDING. I thought some of this was quite tricky but I was able to finish in 15:24;quite pleased with that. COD to TAKINGS. David
Cod fiddlesticks
Nice puzzle, thanks Mara and Roly for the blog.
1.5 on the Kevinometer so a Very Good Day. Only got hung up on LETTER – which to a lawyer is not correctly clued. An estate agent is not the letter of a property, he is merely the letter’s agent. Only the person who has the title to grant a lease is, strictly, speaking, the actual “letter”.
Thanks to Mara and roly.
Templar
Thanks for the blog
Only misdirection was an attempt to use “old penny = d”.
LOI took a bit of cracking, only falling when the I appeared at the end. I’d tried a few “ing” endings first.
FOI POWERLESS
LOI SERENGETI
COD FIDDLESTICKS
TIME 3:35
Thanks all,
John George
Thanks to setter and blogger.
6’55”
Beginning solvers beware: in harder puzzles, ‘arsenic’ is often clued as ‘As’, which is its chemical symbol. So you will get clues like “As seen in poison…”
Edited at 2019-01-31 03:08 pm (UTC)
How long does it take for plodders to reach ace standard?
Best wishes Ged