Times Quick Cryptic No 1792 by Teazel

Author   plusjeremyPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Introduction

Did not finish. Well, Teazel, you got me.

Solutions

A brief summary of cryptic crosswords —feel free to skip— :

  • Each clue has at least one “definition”: an unbroken string of words which more-or-less straightforwardly indicates the answer. A definition can be as simple as a one-word synonym; but it can also be a descriptive phrase like ‘I’m used to wind’ for REEL or SPOOL. A definition by example must be indicated by a phrase like ‘for example’, or, more commonly, a question mark (?). Thus ‘color’ is a definition of RED, while ‘red, for example’ or ‘red?’ are definitions of COLOR. Punctuation (and capitalization) is otherwise irrelevant.

  • Each clue may also have an unbroken string of words which indicates the answer through wordplay, such as: using abbreviations; reversing the order of letters; indicating particular letters (first, last, outer, middle, every other, etc); placing words inside other words; rearranging letters (anagrams); replacing words by words that sound alike (homophones); and combinations of the above. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but the general theme is to reinterpret ordinary words as referring to letters, so that for example ‘lion’s head’ indicates the first letter of LION: namely, L.

  • Definitions and wordplay cannot overlap. The only other words allowed in clues are linking words or phrases that combine these. Thus we may see, for example: “(definition) gives (wordplay)” or “(definition) and (definition)” or “(wordplay) is (definition)”.

  • The most common clues have either two definitions, or one definition plus wordplay, in either order. But a single, very misleading definition is not uncommon, and very occasionally a definition can also be interpreted as wordplay leading to the same answer. Triple definitions (and more) are also possible.

My conventions in the solutions below are to underline definitions (including a defining phrase); put linking words in [brackets]; and put all wordplay indicators in boldface. I also use a solidus (/) to help break up the clue where necessary, especially for double definitions without linking words.

After the solutions, I list all the wordplay indicators and abbreviations in a Glossary.

Across

8 Perhaps consul’s not finished off certificate (7)
DIPLOMA – DIPLOMAT (perhaps consul) without the last letter
9 Man will ring, [and] say this first? (5)
HELLO – HE’LL (man will) + O
The second “definition” is a descriptive phrase suggesting that when someone rings, the first thing they’ll say is ‘hello’.
10 Cocktail ingredient right for man to swallow (5)
PRAWN – R in PAWN
11 Shelved piece of furniture that now needs replacing (7)
WHATNOT – THAT NOW anagrammed
Whatnot: https://www.lexico.com/definition/whatnot
12 Lack of guile / one never has to prove in court (9)
INNOCENCE – double definition
14 Damage marrow, destroying half (3)
MAR – MARROW without the second half
16 It’s funny, whichever way you look at it (3)
GAG – cryptic definition, alluding to the answer being a palindrome
18 A character man spared collapses (9)
AMPERSAND – MAN SPARED anagrammed
21 Doorman / that’s aimed at the head (7)
BOUNCER – double definition
Bouncer: https://www.lexico.com/definition/bouncer
22 Its blades cut blades (5)
MOWER – cryptic definition, the second ‘blades’ referring to blades of grass
23 Different part of bible seen by woman (5)
OTHER – O.T. (part of bible) + HER
24 Pays no attention to singer, worried / about nothing (7)
IGNORES – SINGER anagrammed around O

Down

1 Choosing awfully doting Pa? (8)
ADOPTING – anagram of DOTING PA
2 Injury [from] run in European country (6)
SPRAIN – R in SPAIN
3 Go to be with girl / at home (4)
JOIN – JO + IN
4 Scientist argues really well at first / in row (6)
DARWIN – first letters of ARGUES REALLY WELL in DIN
5 Flier[’s] clothes keep in warmth (8)
WHEATEAR – WEAR around HEAT
‘Clothes’ = WEAR as in ‘menswear’, although the word ‘wear’ on its own has the meaning in question. I could only get as far as GHEATEAR: HEAT in GEAR.
6 Full meeting [in] place, menu to be worked out (6)
PLENUM – PL. + MENU anagrammed
7 For the moment, time [is] nothing up north (4)
NOWT – NOW + T
Nowt: https://www.lexico.com/definition/nowt
13 [In] court, unscrupulous type gets years (8)
CHANCERY – CHANCER + Y
Chancer: https://www.lexico.com/definition/chancer. Couldn’t get this one.
15 International organisation looking embarrassed and angry (3,5)
RED CROSS – RED + CROSS
17 It’s awkward [being] left in Calais (6)
GAUCHE – double definition (‘gauche’ is French for ‘left’)
19 Leaving car briefly [for] teatime snack (6)
PARKIN – PARKING without the last letter
Parkin: https://www.lexico.com/definition/parkin. Got this one, but didn’t know it.
20 A couple in old vessel, busy (2,4)
AT WORK – TWO in ARK
21 Loudly disapprove of / new benefit (4)
BOON – BOO + N
22 Object to / wits (4)
MIND – double definition

Glossary

Wordplay indicators

about = containment
and = linking word, next to
awfully = anagram
being = linking word
briefly = remove last letter
collapses = anagram
destroying half = removing half the word
for = linking word
gets = next to
in = containment, linking word
is / ’s = linking word
keep in = containmemnt
needs replacing = anagram
not finished off = remove last letter
seen by = next to
swallow = containment
worked out = anagram
worried = anagram

Abbreviations and little bits

at home = IN
couple = TWO
embarrassed = RED
girl = JO
new = N
nothing = O
old vessel = ARK
part of bible = OT
place = PL
right = R
ring = O
row = DIN
run = R
time = T
woman = HER
years = Y

80 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1792 by Teazel”

  2. I nho WHEATEAR but managed to get it ok. Spent a bit of time at the end on my loi MOWER, which I thought might be ROWER (blades and all) but couldn’t justify.
  3. PARKIN my LOI; like Jeremy, I got it but didn’t know it. WHEATEAR, fortunately, I did know. I wasted some time taking ‘court’ to be inclusive C___T. 5:27.
  4. 18:32 which seemed a good time on a puzzle with some tough clues. Spent 4 min on WHEATEAR, LOI.

    I thought LOL was a good answer for 16a (GAG).

    Surprised to see Calais as an indicator for a French word, maybe it’s part of a French “levelling up” agenda, promoting a Northern Industrial city well outside the capital.

    COD : MOWER. Excellent cryptic definition

  5. DNF.

    Not that I object to the clue, but I remember Fowler saying that a boon is a request, not it’s granting. An instance of an idolum fori, where the meaning of a word changes over time in the “word market”.

    1. Perhaps.. but the earliest quotation in the OED for “A favour, a gift, a thing freely or graciously bestowed” is 1460, so I reckon this meaning is quite well-established by now 🙂
      1. It certainly is. Have you ever seen that old advertising slogan:
        “They come as a boon and a blessing to men,
        The Pickwick, the Owl and the Waverley Pen.”?
        Over a century old, but still remembered.

        I note that both Chambers and OED online list the older definition (derived from Old Norse “bon”, a prayer). So both the meanings we have been discussing come from that source. But note that the usage meaning “convivial”, as in a “boon companion”, comes from French “bon”. Busy little word, eh?

  7. Just’avin’usteas wi’thee! No wonder Jezza were bothered.

    NOWT, PARKIN, WHATNOT, PRAWN cocktail, BOUNCER (crickit),’AMPERS, WHEATEAR (awn!)

    FOI 1dn ADOPTIN’

    LOI 4dn DARWIN nearly put DARWEN! But that’s Lancashire.

    COD 17dn GAUCHE – parlez-vous?

    WOD 11ac WHATNOT – often seen ont ‘Bargain Hunt’

    Time a sprightly 14 minutes.

    Edited at 2021-01-20 07:00 am (UTC)

  8. Top half was hard. Six on the first pass of acrosses all in the south but then made fast progress to be left with just four with 10m on the clock. NHO WHEATEAR, WHATNOT or PLENUM. If the last two hadn’t been anagrams I don’t think I could have got them and WHEATEAR took minutes on its own – a tough cryptic with unheard of definition made for hard work. JOIN was LOI – took a surprising amount of time to solve _OIN.
  9. I thought this rather tricky, particularly the top half and was relieved I knew all the vocab. LOI NOWT. I liked MOWER best. 6:38.
  10. 14:39 for an enjoyable QC last night before turning in. All OK, with just enough work required. It helped that i somehow knew WHEATEAR and WHATNOT. And plenary, so PLENUM looked all right. I liked AT WORK and CHANCERY but COD to PRAWN for the combination of cocktails in my MIND
  11. I usually get on well with Teazel’s puzzles but this one had me stumped and had to resort to alphabet trawls for JOIN and the unknown PARKIN. Also new to me were PLENUM, WHATNOT and WHEATEAR, although these were kindly clued. PRAWN and MOWER were my favourites for the PDM’s when I finally saw what was going on. Finished in 20.17.
    Thanks to Jeremy and Teazel for the workout.

    Edited at 2021-01-20 12:32 pm (UTC)

  12. … as I limped home in just over 16 minutes, and that with aids. NE corner took the time: could not remember 5D Wheatear which I had to guess from the cluing and then look up in the dictionary to check it was a real word (and a real bird), took an age to see 6D Plenum and neither were helped by a real struggle with 11A Whatnot , which while I have certainly heard the word I have not met it used as an item of shelved furniture before. With three blanks all intersecting it was a slow process completing the grid.

    Also NHO 19D Parkin (though it was generously clued), but having looked it up it certainly looks one to try!

    COD 20D At work, a very nice clue.

    Many thanks to Jeremy for the blog and glossary
    Cedric

  13. Too tricky for me, a massive DNF after 20 minutes with a virtually blank NW corner.

    Brian

  14. Only got 6 clues right after half an hour. Just too clever for me. This time I really do give up, permanently.
    Thanks Teazel, you may have saved me a lot of time in the future.
      1. If this is the same anon who gave up on 14 December (QC 1765), you may have spoken too soon.
        1. The IP address doesn’t match so perhaps not, but I’ve no problem with people giving up and then returning, that’s what we’re here for.
    2. Don’t give up.

      I am a noob at these crosswords, and there have been times when I have felt like giving up permanently. Often I answer so few clues after an hour or so, that I really feel like people must be reading my daily input and thinking, “Strewth! This guy is dumb!” But I keep thinking to myself “maybe tomorrow I’ll get a full completion.”

      I started attempting these crosswords last month, I have only had 3 completions out of about 35 attempts so far. However, I take a little bit of selfish comfort when I see the far more experienced solvers here reporting DNFs.

      Please do not give up. Keep at it.

      2. poison wyvern, I do not think you are dumb. I thank you for reminding me how far I have progressed in the few years I have been doing the QC. When I first started I could pick up and put down the paper version of the QC for a whole day and only have anon’s 6 clues that he/she achieved in half and hour. I would have been very proud of 3 completions in 35 attempt when I first started.
  15. NHO WHEATERN but suspected a bird, butterfly or wasp. Never liked PARKIN (sticky porridge rather than the vastly superior sticky toffee pudding). Very familiar with PLENUM in committee and air chamber contexts from work perspectives at one time or another.
    Thought about RAZOR then couldn’t make it work and MOWER popped into mind. Didn’t spot the direction to solve WHATNOT which made it difficult.
    Altogether a puzzler and took me well over my allocated 1 hour.
    Thanks Jeremy and Teazel
    1. Parkin is a delicious sort of oaty ginger cake. Not sure why it should be compared to sticky toffee pudding…
      1. Both are basically a mixture of flour, eggs and treacle. Parkin add oats to turn it into a sort of sticky ginger porridge. Just not my cup of tea or accompaniment to one. Happy that others enjoy this UK traditional alternative to a superior US chocolate brownie.
  16. My mother had one, very delicate and it looked as if a light breeze would blow it over. I was never very fond of it and it certainly wouldn’t have survived my nine unruly grandchildren.

    Finished this today, with aids as usual, and found it quite a challenge.

    I liked MOWER, nho PLENUM

    Thank you Teazel and Jeremy.

    Diana

  17. After a good start in most of the top half I came to grief in the bottom half, especially the SW corner. PRAWN (my LOI) left a hole early on and I biffed it late, in desperation. Finally the ‘man’ dawned on me but I though I would not accept a cocktail from Teazel for fear of finding a ruddy prawn in my glass. Then my wife pointed out that it might be a prawn cocktail *!#*?!. How single-minded can one be? BOON, BOUNCER, CHANCERY, PARKIN were all OK with hindsight but took me an age for some reason. I was looking for an easier QC today but Teazel went way beyond teasing (for me) and the enjoyment just wasn’t there for me. I liked WHATNOT, AMPERSAND, WHEATEAR but found myself taking over 20 mins with a sense of disappointment and frustration. Ah well…. thanks to Jeremy. John M.

    Edited at 2021-01-20 10:00 am (UTC)

  18. After several days of QC’s that I have struggled with, this one reassured me!
    (I have always thought QC’s are deemed to be ‘quick’ not only due to their size, but also for having simpler clues than the full Cryptic. Am I wrong on this? )

    I worked quickly (for me) through clues but have never heard of the Wheatear nor a Parkin. Something new!

    Thank you for the helpful explanations, PlusJeremy, and for the puzzle, Teazel.

    1. No you’re not wrong. That’s the intention and is generally the case.

      Looking at this puzzle, for example, the clue for 2d could have been “Injury from run in country”, but the setter has added “European” to help you narrow the country down.

      At 14a you’re given “marrow” as the word to chop in half, but the setter could have just left it as “vegetable”.

      The definitions in the QC tend to be more straightforward as well.

      There are exceptions of course, and I can see why you raised the point today. As I was solving I did encounter clues that I thought were tough for a QC, either because of the relative obscurity of the answer (e.g. WHATNOT, PLENUM), the tricky wordplay (e.g. CHANCERY) or both (WHEATEAR).

  19. An enjoyable puzzle with precisely the right level of difficulty for me, so I could finish comfortably within my 30 min target but without much feeling too easy. All the vocabulary was somewhere in my brain, some took a bit more rooting out but the cuing all seemed very fair and helpful. WHEATEAR took a bit of working out and PARKIN likewise until l saw the parsing.
    Thanks to Teazel, and to Jeremy for a very full blog which will be much appreciated by my learner friend.
  20. There were some obscure words in this which made it difficult. The clues were generally clear enough but without any idea of the definition, you could easily get stuck.
    My FOI was GAUCHE, very much not the first clue I read.
    DNK the full definition of MOWER but guessable; and DNK WHATNOT but again the checkers made it obvious-if you had them.
    LOI by some measure was PRAWN where I was looking for a man’s name and something in a cocktail glass. I’ll make that COD.
    Very good puzzle from Teazel. A learning experience for the newcomers. 15:20 on the clock.
    David

    Edited at 2021-01-20 10:18 am (UTC)

  21. Date: Wed, 20 Jan 21

    FOI: 14a MAR
    LOI: 22d MIND

    Time to Complete: DNF

    Clues Answered without aids: 15

    Clues Answered with Aids (3 lives): 3 (13d, 20d, 22d)

    Clues Unanswered: 8 (9a, 11a, 18a, 24a, 4d, 5d, 6d, 19d)

    Aids Used: Chambers

    Total Answered: 18/26

    Today I did much better than I have recently. I knew I would not have been able to complete it once I came here and saw the answers, as there were words I have never heard of before, and wouldn’t have been able to guess (Wheatear, Plenum).

    I liked 20d AT WORK. I answered this one by using Chambers to get ARK. Then putting TWO (“A couple”) into ARK I came up with AT WORK.

    22d MIND. I did consider putting this but didn’t have the courage of my convictions, which led me to using Chambers and seeing that in fact MIND was the correct answer. However, I marked this down as a clue answered using an aid.

    17d. Took me a while to get this one until I reasoned that “left in Calais” meant the French word for left, which gave me GAUCHE. I had heard of this word but wasn’t aware it meant awkward. However, I entered it as it seemed to me that gauche could mean awkward.

    5d WHEATEAR. One I did not answer but got it here. I had to look up wheatear in the dictionary, which defined it as a small northern songbird.

    10a PRAWN. This is one I answered without aids, though I never knew there was a cocktail with a prawn in it. However, I was thinking of a drink cocktail. I got the right answer because I suddenly remembered that in crossword language pawns in Chess can be called men. That led me to thinking of PAWN. I then inserted R (right, swallowed), and came up with the word PRAWN. Only now did it strike me that cocktail was referring to prawn cocktail, the dish, not the drink.

    A DNF, but I am pleased with my effort today.

    Edited at 2021-01-20 10:22 am (UTC)

  22. I did finish this but it took me the full half an hour that I allow myself to devote to the crossword. There are some challenging things here, that’s for sure. I’d be surprised if a non Brit knew what NOWT, WHATNOT and PARKIN were. But on the other hand, the clues are great today. Really liked PRAWN and MOWER especially. I didn’t know the cricket reference to BOUNCER but it’s pretty guessable. Thanks, Jeremy, for the, as always, excellent blog and thanks too to Teazel
  23. Had impatiently looked up wits which gave me MIND and MOWER (I too had hesitantly put Rower). Did manage WHEATEAR from the parsing.

    Otherwise zipped through, by my standards, and enjoyed it. PARKIN made me smile.

    Thanks for helpful blog, Jeremy.

  24. No problems with NOWT PARKIN WHATNOT and WHEATEAR but just couldnt get the AT WORK MOWER and MIND threesome. MOWER was a particular struggle as I didnt have the checking M and all sorts or possibilities rotor; razor; rower kept popping up

    Well over my par score so well done Setter and thanks Jeremy

  25. I struggled to get going with this one, but eventually SPRAIN got me started. A number of less common words populated this grid, but they all lurked within the recesses of my mind. A biffed IGNORACE held up my LOI, CHANCERY, by which time I was well over my target. 12:52. Thanks Teazel and Jeremy.
  26. Hard again today and another DNF – PARKIN (why is it teatime?) & MIND (just didn’t see it) defeated me. Needed help for WHEATEAR. Unhelpful grid as well. Hoping for an easier time tomorrow.
  27. Phew! *mops brow*

    That was a toughie. Good to see that some others found it so, too. Cracking work-out. I’m another who thought hard about the well-known GHEATEAR.

    FOI ADOPTING, LOI PRAWN (aarrgh – totally led up the garden path on that, well played Teazel), COD MOWER (so witty), time 2.6K but even so I’m calling this as a Decent Day.

    Many thanks Teazel and Jeremy.

    Templar

  28. Dare I say I’m starting to get a little despondent about the QC? It’s like training for a cycle route, improving your fitness and strength, only to be told each week that the course is getting hillier and longer.

    Maybe it’s just me and the weather affecting my mood, but I really do feel I’m not finishing more and more.

    Anyway – 5dn “Wheatear” and 5ac “Whatnot” did it for me – NHO of either.

    Saying that I still enjoyed a lot of the clues – particularly 10ac “Prawn” (how many of us were were deconstructing Pina Colada’s?), 7dn “Nowt” (Northern bias) and 17dn “Gauche”. Nice to see “Mower” rearing its head again for 22ac (how many times have I seen this recently in various forms?)

    FOI – 1dn “Adopting”
    LOI – dnf
    COD – 19dn “Parkin” (Northern bias again)

    Thanks as usual.

    Edited at 2021-01-20 12:40 pm (UTC)

      1. Whilst I am in no doubt I am probably at the start of some kind of mental decline as I get older, I still think they’re getting harder. I’ve no way of proving this, it’s just a feeling.
      1. I live in the Lake District – it’s pretty hard to avoid them whatever direction you set off in 😀

    3. Take heart my first ever cryptic was QC 0001
      I now have a pb of 7:50. This one just wasn’t particularly good or representative.
  29. after 30 minutes I had completed about 60%. It was too hard for me and I had never heard of some of 5he definitions. I agree that it is easy to get despondent when one never seems to make progress. But I do think with the very odd exception these puzzles have got much harder in r3cent weeks. Certainly much more difficult than when I started. Not giving up yet
  30. Well I found this one much harder than yesterday’s, but still had some fun on the way. I really sympathise with people who are finding the crosswords tough at the moment – as I’ve said before, it took me more than six months of daily struggle before I completed my first quickie, and it was by no means a regular occurence thereafter! So, if you enjoy the challenge, don’t give up – your time will come. Equally, there’s no point banging your head against a brick wall!

    I also fell into the PRAWN cocktail trap so that raised a smile when I twigged, and MOWER had me flummoxed for a while too.

    FOI Adopting (if I can’t get 1a quickly, I quite often go to 1d next to get a toehold)
    LOI Mind
    COD Hello (it made me smile)
    Time 14 minutes

    Thanks Teazel for the workout and Jeremy for the blog

    Incidentally, I discovered today that an anagram of Joe Biden is ‘I need job’;)

    1. Yes, ‘I need job done…’ was a clue in another daily this morning. They’re more liberal with their topical references than The Times but of course the conventions about living people (which I support) usually prevent that sort of topicality here.
      1. Ah, I only do the Times crosswords so didn’t know about the other one. Hope I haven’t spoilt anyone’s fun. It was in a brilliant list of presidential anagrams I was investigating for a quiz!
      2. I never understood the ban on live people as long as it is not offensive. The alternative is (as we now get) horrible “stuck in the 1940’s” syndrome. Almost all of the references to music, cinema, sport etc are for events that happened before I was born
  31. That felt hard. Good puzzle though.

    PRAWN went in last, I was looking for an alcoholic drink, as I’m sure Teazel intended! As others, I flirted with GHEATEAR, and C??????T being a synonym for years.

    Lots of misdirection and fairly clued unusual (ish) vocabulary. 7:06.

    Are the puzzles getting harder? I don’t know. When the QC was first published, I was delighted, as I had been cutting my teeth on the main cryptic, completing some Monday puzzles, but otherwise just learning and using this blog to see the answers that I couldn’t solve myself. I suppose I finished 3 out of 5 QCs each week in about 15 minutes, I tended to give up after 20-25 minutes. With practice, I completed 5 out of 5, and that 15 minutes became 12, became 10. This year, I started doing more puzzles, returning to the 15×15 and doing the Guardian puzzles too, and now the QC is done between 4 and 10 minutes, with most in the 5-7 minute range, and if the time is >10 minutes, it’s a hard puzzle.

    As a comparison, I finish maybe 3 or 4 out of 5 of the 15x15s, usually in the 15-30 minute range, and if I fail to finish, the snitch is usually >110.

    As I complete the QC in less time than the main puzzle, I have no problem with it being called the “quick cryptic”! It’s not called the “easy cryptic” but it’s a much more approachable way to learn from one’s mistakes than the main puzzle.

  32. What a belter of a puzzle – some excellent clues that really made us think. We completed the puzzle in 13 minutes. Thanks Teazel, really enjoyed the challenge.

    FOI: diploma
    LOI: wheatear (Steed was a keen reader of the Observer’s Book of Birds as a lad in God’s Own County)
    COD: mower

    Great blog Jeremy, thank you.

  33. NHO and couldn’t parse wheatear, plenum, parkin and gauche. Some super clues but the plethora of unknown words for me took the shine off it.
    Graham
  34. Third toughie in a row this week. I started well and the first few answers flew in fairly quickly but it all became much slower as I went along. Still I managed to finish in 22 minutes, a considerable improvement on yesterday and also somewhat better than Monday. There was no vocabulary that I didn’t know but various answers seemed to take a long time before the penny dropped (prawn, whatnot, mower). Quite a work out but a nice puzzle nonetheless – thanks Teazel.

    FOI – 8ac DIPLOMA
    LOI – 4dn DARWIN
    COD – 22ac MOWER

  35. I was on wavelength today for all but my last two in. My FOI was DIPLOMA and then I continued building up the grid using checkers. I took a while over DARWIN and WHATNOT and PARKIN rang a bell from a previous discussion on the TFTT blog. My penultimate solve was WHEATEAR which was wholly reliant on checkers and wordplay and my LOI in a pleasing sub 9 minutes was PLENUM. The meetings I have been involved with have struggled to reach a quorum (probably due to their voluntary nature) so a PLENUM is a new one for me. Thanks to Teazel for the workout and Jeremy for the blog.
  36. … as that’s my 4th DNF in the last five QCs. Only 10 clues to do after 20 minutes (that’s good for me, especially with Teazel), but finally gave up after 75 minutes, with the following three clues unsolved:

    10a: PRAWN – After a very long alphabet trawl, I had 18 possible words to fit P_A__, from ‘peach’ to ‘psalm’. Unfortunately, they did not include PRAWN. (Dim or what?)

    3d: JOIN – I had the ‘O’ and guessed ‘at home’ might be ‘IN’, but I still could only find the word ‘coin’. (How dim can I get?)

    5d: WHEATEAR – I worked out the clue structure, but had NHO this bird. Weirdly, I went with ‘gheatear’, as ‘gear’ signals clothes to me.

    Thanks as usual to plusjeremy and to Teazel.

    P.S. Mrs Random had no such trouble, breezing through in just 25 minutes (a time I have rarely seen since starting last June).

    1. illegitimi non carborundum! We’re on a run of tough ones – even a really good solver like desdeloeste has had several DNFs recently (though he/she breezed it today). You’ll get it back soon enough.
  37. ….at least they should be accurate. A BOUNCER is categorically not aimed at the batsman’s head – such a delivery is a beamer ! A BOUNCER is intended to rear sharply off the pitch to reach head height, and is aimed at a specific point on the pitch short of the batsman’s reach.

    While my pedantry is in full swing, much as I love PARKIN, it’s hardly a teatime snack – it’s more associated with Guy Fawkes Night.

    I used to work with a lady who would routinely salvage and take home any item that was to be disposed of from the office – broken staplers were a favourite of hers. My colleague was wont to say of her “she’ll have owt for NOWT”. However, my late mother-in-law would address her misbehaving grandson as “you little NOWT”.

    I enjoyed this puzzle, and had all the required knowledge. However, I can again see that many would find a number of unknowns in there.

    FOI HELLO
    LOI JOIN
    COD MOWER
    TIME 3:45

    1. Mr. Jordan, we too only had PARKIN on 5th November and that was in Lincolnshire, made by Mrs. Tinkler from near Harrogate. T’were divine! After we always sang ‘On Ilkley Moor.’ without hats! Thems weret’days.

      Edited at 2021-01-20 06:00 pm (UTC)

    2. 3:45! Well done. Wasn’t sure if that was a time check or the time to complete. I think it would even take me longer than your time to do yesterday’s crossword having already read the blog!!!
  38. For me, the most straightforward QC for several days, so confidence restored! I remember parkin being a feature of bonfire night when I was a child. Wheatears are beautiful birds.
  39. 18 minutes for me, and something of a struggle, despite knowing all of the unusual words except for WHEATEAR, which I also struggled to fit GEAR into. Excellent challenge by Teazel and blog by Jeremy.
  40. Many thanks, Templar. I won’t be ground down. My disappointment is but temporary and I hope to bounce back tomorrow.
  41. Bit of a dull trudge
    A surfeit of old fashioned / out of date / obscure plus some dodgy definitions as others have pointed out
    Particularly mind = cares about in the dictionaries I could find, paper and on line, not object to, boon as already mentioned, menswear means clothes, wear doesn’t (unless you think a hog and a hedgehog are the same thing)
  43. We do the QC for fun and enjoy the struggle, but this one and several recent puzzles had been v much on the hard side, making it less of a pleasure. It’s nice to hear of people solving the QC in under ten mins, but presumably it’s really too easy for them! We have been casually doing the QC for two years plus, so we do think there has been a clear shift up of gear, but who knows why?
  44. I only knew wheatear as some time ago I was curious why it had that name – I couldn’t see any feature that looked wheat-like. It seems its old name was white arse, which clearly comes from its white rump. I favour a return to the original.
    1. Yes, I remember finding out the etymology the first time a WHEATEAR appeared in the 15×15 and being suitably amused!
  46. I would call this a proper grown-up puzzle. Happily, I knew all the words and really enjoyed the way they were clued. Overdue ‘lights out’. Goodnight all.
  47. Thanks Jeremy and Teazel,

    A tough but assailable puzzle. I struggled a bit with WHEATEAR which I DNK and PARKIN, PLENUM and WHATNOT were all “half-known”. The proper name DARWIN threw me a lot. Used solving aids for about three clues.

    Some new subs for me to learn like (old) vessel=ARK so learning here.

    Thanks,
    Woodspiral.

  49. I’d never heard of a wheatear or an ampersand but finally got them both with a bit of trial and error!

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