Today we have a QC from Felix. A little on the tricky side of average but not overly so, I think, going by my time of 5:57. I liked “what parent passes to child”, the new kind of unpleasant smell, the biography that’s economical with the truth, and the tippling General but is there a mistake in 12D? Thank-you Felix. How did you all get on?
It being Felix as our setter, we have come to expect a theme/Nina in the grid. Can you find it?
Fortnightly Weekend Quick Cryptic. This time it is my turn to provide the extra weekend entertainment. You can find the crossword, entitled “Playtime” (and details of our London get together a week tomorrow) here. If anyone is interested in our previous offerings you can find an index to all 79 here.
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, {deletions} and [] other indicators.
| Across | |
| 1 | Potential spies lob explosive (8) |
| POSSIBLE – (spies lob)* [explosive]. | |
| 6 | One following quiet step (4) |
| PACE – P (quiet) ACE (one). | |
| 8 | Avoided non-fat, skipping odd bits? Capital! (6) |
| VIENNA – Alternate letters of aVoIdEd NoN-fAt. | |
| 9 | Go after short virginal girl (6) |
| PURSUE – PUR{e} (virginal) [short] SUE (girl). | |
| 10 | Info, ultimately instructive, which parent passes to child (4) |
| GENE – GEN (info) last letter of, [ultimately], instructivE. | |
| 11 | Coat to protect sailor, old, visiting island in Med (8) |
| CREOSOTE – OS (ordinary seaman; sailor) O (old), in CRETE (island in the Med). | |
| 12 | Unpleasant smell: a new kind (5) |
| HUMAN – HUM (unpleasant smell) A N (new). | |
| 13 | Currently in Sicily on vacation: but like N Canada? (5) |
| SNOWY – NOW (currently) in S{icil}Y [on vacation]. A bit of a sneaky definition. | |
| 15 | Yokels displace family with son (8) |
| BUMPKINS – BUMP (displace) KIN (family) S (son). | |
| 17 | Sound reflection from Henry wearing green (4) |
| ECHO – H (Henry; unit of electrical inductance) in ECO (green). | |
| 19 | Prison term that is finding one under par (6) |
| BIRDIE – BIRD (prison term) I.E. (id est; that is). | |
| 20 | Remains a cert, somehow, close to success (6) |
| TRACES – (a cert)* [somehow], [close to] succesS. | |
| 21 | Biography not entirely truthful I fear (4) |
| LIFE – Hidden in, [not entirely], truthfuL I FEar. | |
| 22 | Golf lessons put out without number? (8) |
| SONGLESS – (G (golf in the NATO alphabet) lessons)* [put out]. | |
| Down | |
| 2 | Express a view: nothing long (5) |
| OPINE – O (round letter; nothing) PINE (long). | |
| 3 | Ray taking newspaper with smile (7) |
| SUNBEAM – SUN (newspaper) BEAM (smile). | |
| 4 | Stole pig, removing the last (3) |
| BOA – BOA{r} (pig) without the last letter. | |
| 5 | The author, reflecting, urges on Catherine and Victoria for example (9) |
| EMPRESSES – ME (the author) [reflecting] -> EM, PRESSES (urges on). | |
| 6 | City fathers touring river island (5) |
| PARIS – PAS (fathers) round R (river) I (island). You have to separate ‘City fathers‘ to find the definition. Nice misdirection. | |
| 7 | State noble line (7) |
| COUNTRY – COUNT (noble) RY (railway; line). | |
| 11 | Thinks of alcoholic drinks outside on street initially (9) |
| CONSIDERS – CIDERS (alcoholic drinks) outside ON S{treet} [initially]. | |
| 12 | Escapist novel union hid, mostly (7) |
| HOUDINI – Hmm. I think the clue maybe ought to read “hid union, mostly”. We need (hid unio{n})* [novel] for it to work, but neither surface is great. Worthy of a Golden Raspberry, perhaps? | |
| 14 | General finished with a large double (7) |
| OVERALL – OVER (finished) A L L (large) twice [double]. | |
| 16 | Armed forces minister in residence, note (5) |
| PADRE – PAD (residence) RE (note, second of do-re-mi etc). | |
| 18 | What Observer does with male editors? (5) |
| HEEDS – HE (male) EDS (editors). | |
| 20 | Function that sunbather seeks? (3) |
| TAN – Double definition the second a cryptic hint. | |
20:55. Thinking a breve was a note and BE (British Expeditionary) around rev,a minister, could work I had to wait for crossers to eventually see PADRE. SONGLESS was LOI as I was confused by golf until it clicked that it was only contributing the g. I learned OS as ordinary seaman from the blog. Wondered about HUMAN equalling kind and would have to add that S Canada can be be very snowy too!
I took 1ac to be an anagram of (spies lob), all right, but thought ‘potential’ was the anagrind; took a while to get it right. I think I biffed HOUDINI, certainly didn’t look carefully at the anagrist, but I think one can justify (unio[n] hid) (or ([u]nion hid) etc.). Not that I like the clue much, mind you. 5:39.
Thought I was doing ok but on completion got the Unlucky! message and found I had not one, not two but three stupid typos which took me ages to locate and pushed me out to 11.31. Had most trouble on the BIRDIE/PADRE intersection, they were good clues. Also fooled by not equating state with COUNTRY and puzzled for a while over SNOWY, which was cleverly hiding in plain cryptic sight. Like Kevin I never thought about HOUDINI, as soon as the word escape is mentioned he comes to mind. SONGLESS is a weird word I have never heard in a sentence as far as I remember. I wonder if it somehow relates to the nina. Well spotted Johninterred, even if I find the whole nina concept somewhat bleah…
This one was somewhat harder than usual. I got stuck at the end on creosote/consider, although consider should not have been that hard – of course, I got creosote first. Songless seemed a little odd – could be a theme word.
Time: 11:18
A nice puzzle steadily completed in 26 minutes, so a good end to the week. I especially liked CREOSOTE and BUMPKINS and was held up for far too long at the end by VIENNA and EMPRESSES.
Happy weekends all.
Thanks Joker and John
10 minutes. Like others I looked twice at SONGLESS although its being correct was never in doubt. I’ve heard it used of a type of bird that has no song but I’ve never thought of birdsongs as being ‘numbers’.
Having read John’s notes on a possible theme I’m sure that he’s in the right area and as Vinyl has suggested SONG(less) may be tied in with it somehow. Perhaps its proximity in the grid to BIRDIE is relevant?
Yes. I did mention BIRDIE SONG in what I had seen. But what is the link?
Scrapped under 15 with SONGLESS the last in. Not an attractive word. Also slow on CONSIDERS and before that BUMPKINS. Mildly ashamed to join the ranks of those who clearly didn’t actually parse HOUDINI. Held up by carelessly whacking in POSSIBLy at 1a, not a typo that is what I thought it was until I revisited, so since I can invent letters in anagrist it’s not that surprising I didn’t look too carefully ar HOUDINI.
I have been looking hard for a Nina and have just spotted Sebastian Faulks references: Birdsong, Human Traces, Snow Country, Paris Echo …
Oh well done. Thanks!
Steady going today but the clue that caused me most problems was SUNBEAM. I saw the answer quickly but I have a complete blind spot about how to spell ‘beam’ so spent some time agonising whether it has as double ‘e’ in it. It’s strange how simple words can prove tricky (or is it just me 😂). Fortunately I plumped for the correct spelling.
Other than that no major issues but, like Kevin, I wasn’t sure which word was the anagrist and which was the definition in 1a so waited for checkers to point me in the right direction.
Finished in 8.45 with the CREOSOTE/CONSIDER pair.
Thanks to John for the blog and in advance for the weekend QC
I liked this one. Fair fare for Friday fun. Writing this from the SCC lounge, of course, but knew all the GK except BIRD. I smiled at TAN.
DNF after 20, with CONSIDERS and PURSUE the holdouts. Like several clues today, I had PURSUE the wrong way round, got the PUR part then looked for a 6 letter girls name. Same thing happened with PACK (one following) for PACE.
I just got back from VIENNA yesterday, but still made a meal of the clue owing to a typo in SUNBEAM. PARIS and VIENNA are QC capitals, they had the capital of the Central African Republic in the Fifteen this week.
Plenty of islands in the Med to work through, Malta, Capri, Elba looked possible, then the nagging fear that a nickname for oilskins might be Corosica. Good clue.
COD BUMPKINS
And, is this the worst Nina ever?
I’d hesitate to say that a themed puzzle is bad for being on a subject of which I have no knowledge (e.g. this one) because presumably others will have spotted and enjoyed it, but there’s no doubt in my mind that the worst was QC1817 simply because the topic could only have been been known to the setter himself. The puzzle was still enjoyable enough in its own right so it didn’t really matter other than some of us spent time looking for something that we’d no chance of ever finding.
I know something of Faulks books. But his most famous novel, Birdsong doesn’t appear properly, surely not a hard word to clue. BIRDIE SONGLESS? Charlotte Gray probably his next famous one doesn’t feature. It’s Snow Country, not SNOWY COUNTRY. I’m still not convinced it’s just coincidence.
I await his new novel, CREOSOTE BUMPKIN, a story of a rural fence painter who is called up in 1914 to repair trench works.
Well done, Merlin! I love the sound of the new book.
A steady solve today until I got stuck in the SW corner with LOsI BUMPKINS, BIRDIE and PADRE. 11:30 which is not bad for a Felix. I couldn’t work out the theme but I knew there would be one.
Not on on song today. This seemed unusually bitty with too many contrived words that seemed to have been shoe-horned in. I didn’t see or suspect a NINA but now I know why it didn’t flow.
I did not enjoy this one.
I don’t get it, what was a contrived word? How is a word shoe-horned in to a puzzle?
I’ll give you SONGLESS perhaps, though it’s in all the dictionaries.
Maybe you just don’t get on with Felix. I don’t get on with Teazel’s puzzles – I always suspected it, but keeping a spreadsheet confirms it.
Teazel is also my nemesis. Quite clearly so. My stats don’t lie.
As Felix invariably includes a theme or NINA, I don’t think Blighter needs a spreadsheet to know he doesn’t get on with him.
Personally I usually do. Avg. of first 7 puzzles this year close to 20mins with a worst of 28+. Today was a debacle.
My point is that it might not be the fact that there’s a theme that means Blighter didn’t get on with the puzzle, but that Felix could set a puzzle without a theme and he’d still struggle compared to a different setter.
There aren’t any odd words in this puzzle (excepting maybe SONGLESS), so I’m suggesting that it’s more the cluing style that makes Blighter feel like it’s disjointed.
I see my average for Felix’s 8 puzzles is a little under my running average for the year, but my average for Teazel’s 10 puzzles is 40% higher than my running average. Teazel doesn’t set themes or NINAs and Felix does.
Made heavy weather of this but got there in the end. LOI PADRE. FOI PACE.
I biffed Ruminates instead of CONSIDERS at first. NVG.
Why is TAN a function? Do not see the double definition.
Liked BUMPKINS, SNOWY, BIRDIE, EMPRESSES. BOA made me smile.
Thanks vm, John. Am a fan of Sebastian F but failed to see the Nina, as ever.
Later: see that TAN is a mathematical function. Not my area of knowledge!
SIN, COS and TAN are shortened versions of the mathematical functions SINE, COSINE and TANGENT.
Thanks, Rotter. I only just scraped through O Level maths, a very long time ago. But will try to remember the above for crosswords.
My pleasure – you may also need the ‘reciprocal’ functions of SECANT, COSECANT and COTANGENT from time to time.
But not in the QC, surely?
There’s a few more. How about “Hyperbolic Function is a hit (4)” for COSH. I have a degree in Mathematics, probably the least useful degree for crosswords.
Not sure that a Sports Science degree helps much…
18 minutes, not familiar with the Faulkes oeuvre so no chance of spotting the theme – well done to those that did. Many thanks both.
8 minutes. I am sure Sawbill is right about the theme .. but I still prefer your idea, John 🙂
8:26
A slower pace today – not for the want of trying – but the solutions all came to mind eventually. Didn’t spot the minor clue issue with HOUDINI, eyebrow raise at SONGLESS but I do like the word BUMPKINS. CREOSOTE was the most satisfying once thought of.
As for the Nina, could have named Birdsong as one of his books, but no others – have never read…
Thanks Felix and John
As usual the theme passed me by, but it was an enjoyable puzzle which tipped me over my target as LOI, SONGLESS, took some working out. BOA and POSSIBLE started the proceedings. 10:27. Thanks Felix and John.
More or less bang on median time. Looked for a theme, didn’t see one, never do. This week’s aggregate was a little lower than last week’s.
CREOSOTE held me up a bit – there are many permutations of sailor = ?? and OS is not high in my brain! CONSIDERS was initially biffed, but I saw CIDERS pretty soon after. BUMPKINS was LOI. Wasted time looking for explosive from spies lob*. I quite liked SUNBEAM and COUNTRY for its brevity.
6:49
I’m another that didn’t see the Nina, and as I know nothing of Faulkes’s work it was never going to happen. I did think however at the time that SONGLESS was such a weak word to include that it must be relevant to a Nina. I noticed the anomaly of removing the inner letter to form the anagram at 12dn, and don’t recall seeing this device used before. In spite of others accepting it, I personally feel like our blogger it is against established conventions.
I made steady progress with this finishing in a respectable 9.12 with my LOI at 11ac CREOSOTE costing me a little time.
My total time for the week was 42.21 giving me a daily average of 8.28, which was comfortably inside target, leaving me more than happy.
Felix on a Friday doesn’t fill me with hope, but thankfully this turned out to be the non-Dickens version and produced a steady 16min, top to bottom solve. Sloi Bumpkins took a bit of working out, but at least loi Padre then became obvious. A slight mer at the clue for 12d, but nowhere near a GR given that the intended answer was still clear – I would be hard pushed to name another escapist. CoD to 14d, Overall, but this wasn’t a strong field. Invariant
Was going through this quite briskly but PURSUE, HUMAN, BUMPKINS and LOI PADRE all delayed me long enough to make this an average time. I did enjoy it along the way, Felix has an neat style. COD to CONSIDERS from a packed field.
All green in 08:12 for 1.5K and a Good Day. Steady enough but not exactly Bazball – time to get the Ashes on!
Many thanks Felix and John.
Templar
Well, what can I say? My solving attempt went like this:
First 14 mins: First pass through entire grid – 15 clues solved (v. good progress)
Next 20 mins: Working on remaining 11 clues – 0 clues solved (increasing despair)
Next 8 mins: More work on remaining 11 clues – 9 clues solved (sprinting again)
Final 7 mins: Alphabet trawling last 2 clues – 2 clues solved (normality returns)
HUMAN was the breakthrough clue and SUNBEAM followed immediately. SONGLESS and BOA were my last two in. I DNK that HUM was an unpleasant smell or that OS was a rank of sailor (even though I have probably encountered it before). I never saw PURe for virginal, BUMP for displace or G for golf. It’s not difficult to see why I will never routinely escape the SCC.
3 hrs 21 mins for the week, but it was 5-0 to me.
Many thanks to Felix and John.
HUM (for smell), RUM (for odd) and TUM (Corporation ??) are words that only exist here.
I use hum all the time! Bloody hell, that hums. Your trainers hum. Can you give the dog a bath – she hums.
Rum used very sparingly, but it is from time to time, but corporation = tum is definitely only seen/heard here. Once learned, never forgotten though.
You solved all 5 Mr R! Given that Monday was hellishly tough, I think that is a real achievement. 👏👏
At the harder end of QCs requiring several visits, a tea, a coffee and over and hour of solving but got there in the end.
Fortunately changed meme to gene as it didn’t parse; and could not parse BIRDIE as I missed as usual the ‘that is/ie’ clueing. Thanks John for explaining it.
Thanks Felix for the fun….and the misdirections.
If Felix does requests, can we have an Ian Rankin theme please? An author I’ve actually read would be nice.
Obviously I biffed HOUDINI.
FOI POSSIBLE
LOI TRACES
COD CREOSOTE
TIME 4:42
21:11 SONGLESS, BIRDIE and PADRE took a while, and CREOSOTE held me up for five minutes at the end. I am familiar with Faulks’s work but missed the nina anyway.
Got off to a fast start with the top third going in fairly quickly, then spend far too long trying to make something of an anagram of UNION and HI for 12D. Had to resort to jumping about the bottom of the grid to try and finish before the cricket started!
SONGLESS took some working out and was the LOI.
Another joyless day on the QC.
Took a break at 30-mins with 4 left, came back and sorted the last 4 – CONSIDERS, PURSUE, BIRDIE, PADRE for a total time of 48:49. Partly my own fault as despite playing 5+ years of golf a decade ago, my brain registered one under as a bogey 🙄 It’s moments like this which leaving you wonder about dementia, cognitive decline etc.
Overall felt like Felix went out of his way to make this harder than necessary.
No idea who Sebastian Faulks is. So that’s another strike against it.
The Houdini clue seems to have been amended since I first looked at it. Now states “most of union hid”.
Overall week coming in at 3hr12 which is far away the longest in months.
Have a good weekend everybody 👍
Bit surprised you chaps haven’t heard of Sebastian Faulks. A dramatisation of ‘Charlotte Grey’ is often on the tv, for instance.
Guess I have spent a lot of time abroad when there wasn’t much else to do but read. (No study of Further Maths, though.)
I rarely watch TV and something titled “Charlotte Grey” wouldn’t pique my interest. That said, I have heard of it because my friend did an analysis of the film when we were doing a Film Studies ‘A’ level back in the 2000s! Something to do with wartime spy … or something. I like to think even if something doesn’t interest me, I usually know something about it.
I’m glad to see you back. Better luck for us both next week 🤞🤞
DNF with one left unanswered (11a)
An enjoyable QC, but, and I know this will offend certain delicate minded here, but I really didn’t like 22a. I thought it poor.
12:48. My main difficulties were with PADRE and my last in CREOSOTE which I thought was quite hard, both before and after solving. Even COUNTRY held me up for a while, so not my day.
No hope with the theme but the books sound interesting and I should give the author a try.
Thanks to Felix and John
6.22
Squinting a bit at my phone in the sunshine but even avoided a typo
Quite like Sebastian Faulks. Problem is I’m not sure it ever gets beyond quite. Birdsong is good though, as was this offering.
Left CREOSOTE to the end and a bit more squinting saw that one home
Thanks all
A fast start, but slowed down in the end by PACE, COUNTRY, BUMPKINS (two words which go together) and LOI PADRE.
15 minutes in all.
Favourites were SNOWY and OVERALL.
Did not notice any theme.
David
19 minutes, all parsed except HOUDINI, which I was pleased with, not normally having great success with Felix’s puzzles. Not many in the top half on first read through, although the bottom looked more promising. After that I dodged about all over the grid picking off the rest. HOUDINI went straight in once I’d separated escapist and novel and stopped looking for some unknown literary genre, so I never noticed any defects in the clue. Spent no time looking for a theme because I never see them and I’m not convinced they add anything to the enjoyment of the puzzle.
FOI – 6ac PACE
LOI – 12ac HUMAN
COD – nothing stood out for me today
Thanks to Felix and John
Late to the party today. All done in an enjoyable 12:01. LOI CREOSOTE, after running through all the islands in the Med I could remember.
Thanks to John for explaining why H is a synonym for Henry. I’d always kinda-sorta accepted it as a King’s name, like C for Charles in CR, but I’d never really liked that reasoning.
I was nowhere on the theme: not an author I’ve read. Thanks to Felix and John.
I quite enjoyed today’s puzzle. I missed the Nina completely but that is often the case unless I happen to spot a very helpful pangram en route.
My own particular GR today is a different candidate to those that have been submitted thus far – and it’s 7 down, COUNTRY (state? Hmmm.. however, I suspect I am being picky. Must be the heat)
FOI 1 across, POSSIBLE.
LOIs, the 11 combos of CREOSOTE / CONSIDERS
CODs – loads but my winners are the down clues of 2 and 4, OPINE and BOA. Lovely.
With many thanks to setter and blogger.
Louisa Janey
Country, nation and state are reasonably interchangeable. It’s just we tend to think of a state in the U.S. context of say California, Alabama, Texas.
A quick Google highlights that the U.N. (United *Nations*) is not a group of countries but consists of 193 sovereign states.
Not on form today and drowning our sorrows with gin.
😯
Late to the puzzle today, and a slow 15 minute solve to complete a less than stellar week. Nothing really stood out as holding me up, but equally nothing really sang to me (and the Nina completely passed me by, as they so often do). Perhaps it is just the heat getting to me.
Many thanks John for the blog, and here’s hoping for better things from the Saturday Special tomorrow!
Cedric
27 mins…
Tricky but enjoyable I thought, with some neat clues. Didn’t look for, or find, the Nina.
FOI – 1ac “Possible”
LOI – 7dn “Country”
COD – 15ac “Bumpkins”
Thanks as usual!
14:50
Nothing too tricky today though needed the checkers for SONGLESS and LOI PADRE. Well inside my 20 minutes target.
Nice to see L-Plates back, although neither of us have had a great week.
A v late solve following a long day. Took me 30 mins, so firmly in SCC.
Another day of stupidity on my part. How could I miss VIENNA & LIFE on first
pass? I did enjoy it but would like it much more if I felt that progress was being made.
Only one SCC escape this week and a horror show on Monday.
Thanks for the blog John and best wishes to everyone for the weekend.
I have only read one book by Sebastian Faulks. It was a James Bond thriller (Devil May Care??) and, like Colonel Sun by Kingsley Amis, could not come close to the peerless writing of Ian Fleming. A Fleming Nina would be one to savour!
Nice work at 30-mins.
Thanks for your kind words GA. I know I’m progressing – this far into June easily my best month (although May also began like it). I suspect that is part of the problem. As you have written about before, I am now often beginning to rip through on first pass and that makes a time of say 25mins feel all the more torturous from struggling over the last 3-4 clues. It will come eventually.
Doesn’t get away from the fact that Izetti’s puzzles are regularly inappropriate for QC. The better I get at the others, the harder it is becoming to rebuild the enthusiasm after one of his.
Have a good weekend mate. Happy walking to you 👍
Thanks L-Plates.
Entirely with you on Izetti, although I do think the time will come when we can both crack one of his QCs. I suspect many of the speed solvers took just as long as we do when they first came across him.
Great walking weather, although we’re forecast thunderstorms tomorrow. My old golfing waterproofs still have their uses!
One further comment about Izetti … I entered this year feeling positive about his QCs …
The six he set across Oct / Nov / Dec … 33mins (2 corrected), 33 (1 corrected), 27, 34, 28, 32 … probably no complaints if they were all like that.
I find it interesting how Izetti is approached with trepidation by a number of solvers. Thinking back, I too found his crosswords difficult when I first started doing the QCs. But I found that accepting a) there will be some ecclesiastical terms I might not know and b) there might be some scholarly “general knowledge” references that are beyond my ken too and trusting to the wordplay (which is always fair) they are gettable. Being used to his style now I am rarely flummoxed and, paradoxically, many of my fastest solves are of Izetti QCs. So my advice is to not worry if you can’t get the answer from the definition and be prepared to derive unknown words from the wordplay. I always enjoy getting my knowledge broadened like that. Maybe that’s why I volunteered to become the blogger of the Monthly Club Special. Now they are really tricky!
Thank-you for your well intended words, John. I appreciate you taking the time to respond. It may be that, as an experienced solver, your experience is too far away from mine to understand.
As I recall, you average around 5:15 per QC so imagine coming across one setter who takes you 10-15mins to complete. Every time for the past three months. No other setter give you the same issue with the same frequency.
Sometimes it takes you 20mins and it’s not just being stuck on one clue at the end; it’s getting to ten minutes and still having only 3/4s of the grid full.
You might eventually think you’ve solved it and then discover a DNF on some part that seemed to fit the tight wordplay. Perhaps you thought part of a ship was an OSLOP because it was clued as “servicemen cutting off” and it turned out the setter wanted “ORLOP”. You’ve seen sailor as OS and aren’t the Royal Navy sailors, where did this nuance come from?! Even the wordplay can’t save you. Think of how all that effort which finally seemed to have resulted in a finish, turned in a moment into failure.
Or perhaps you simply had to admit defeat and give up.
Ask yourself, “How long will I persist solving on a QC that’s already taken 2-4 times longer than usual?”. Ask yourself “Why is it this one setter I always struggle with yet the others I get done in 5 mins?”. Ask yourself “Why does it matter? Why does any of it matter? Why do I even bother continuing with doing these …”.
All very dramatic to the bystander, but I personally have to invest a lot of emotional energy to persist at a difficult solve. And that has an emotional cost. If I stop caring, I tend to stop doing.
Liked the boozy general in 14D … OVERALL
It was my favourite too.