Solving time: 7:55
My average for Wurm’s puzzles is currently around the nine-minute mark, so this grid was perhaps a shade easier…. and notable perhaps? Wurm has included as many as five question marks, two of which are used where the answer appears to be defined by the whole clue.
My last two entries were 8a which even with three checkers took a while to come to mind, followed by 9d – I wonder if anyone answered this without the first checker being in place…
How did you all get on?
Definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions and substitutions are in curly brackets} and [directions in square ones].
| Across | |
| 7 | Achievement to hold small banquet (5) |
| FEAST – FEAT (Achievement) containing [to hold] S (small) | |
| 8 | Do we expect to be moved by this anthology? (7) |
| OMNIBUS – Double definition, the first of which is a somewhat oblique reference to the type of transport of which, in modern parlance, BUS is the commonly-used short form – in this respect, we would expect an (OMNI)BUS to move us from A to B.
For the more direct definition, an OMNIBUS might be a volume containing several literary works previously published separately. |
|
| 10 | Sinister look from Levi troubled detective (4,3) |
| EVIL EYE – Anagram [troubled] of LEVI then EYE (detective i.e. short for Private EYE)
Private EYE may be a phonetic allusion where ‘I’ stands for Investigator The notion of an EVIL EYE dates back at least 5000 years and has been referenced by notables such as Plato, Plutarch, Pliny The Elder and Virgil. |
|
| 11 | Lives with girl: shares perhaps? (5) |
| ISSUE – IS (Lives) with SUE (girl) | |
| 12 | Fungus hateful people saw for instance (9) |
| TOADSTOOL – TOADS (hateful people) TOOL (saw for instance i.e. a saw is an example of a TOOL) | |
| 14 | This spewed out when hot? (3) |
| ASH – AS (when) H (hot)
Think this is one where the whole clue defines the answer. |
|
| 15 | Duke appearing in Old English poem (3) |
| ODE – D (Duke) appearing between O (Old) and E (English) | |
| 16 | Finance officer‘s rearrest arranged outside university (9) |
| TREASURER – Anagram [arranged] of REARREST outside U (university) | |
| 18 | Person with no future an individual in Greece (5) |
| GONER – ONE (an individual) in GR (Greece) | |
| 20 | Dodgy old ruse used in place of cure (7) |
| LOURDES – Anagram [Dodgy] of OLD RUSE | |
| 22 | Outside of Tours a friend there gives wave (7) |
| TSUNAMI – Outside of i.e. first and last letters of T{our}S where a friend there (in Tours) would be UN AMI | |
| 23 | Food counter stocking hearts in metropolis (5) |
| DELHI – DELI (Food counter) containing (stocking) H (hearts) | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Having considered the matter offers footnote (12) |
| AFTERTHOUGHT – ‘considered the matter’ is THOUGHT and ‘Having considered the matter’ being an action already completed, gives AFTER THOUGHT | |
| 2 | Awful batting? Time for teasing (8) |
| BADINAGE – BAD (Awful) IN (batting) AGE (Time)
From the French verb ‘badiner’ which means ‘to jest, joke or banter’ |
|
| 3 | Saint with the old eyelid problem (4) |
| STYE – ST with YE (the old i.e. old form of ‘the’) | |
| 4 | Very soggy duck in Johannesburg township (6) |
| SOWETO – SO WET (Very soggy) O (duck i.e. cricket parlance for scoring zero)
The name SOWETO comes from the abbreviations for SOuth WEstern TOwnships. |
|
| 5 | Soldiers surrounding sinister eastern islands (8) |
| ANTILLES – ANTS (Soldiers) surrounding ILL (sinister) E (eastern) | |
| 6 | One is caging black bird (4) |
| IBIS – I (One) IS containing [caging] B (black) | |
| 9 | Cooked alternative to ploughman’s lunch? (9,3) |
| SHEPHERDS PIE – Another where the whole cryptic clue defines the answer, there would appear to be no wordplay here. | |
| 13 | Doctor Sara with duty for twenty-four period (8) |
| SATURDAY – Anagram [Doctor] of SARA with DUTY | |
| 14 | Barker‘s excellent ginger beer (8) |
| AIREDALE – AI (excellent i.e. A1) RED (ginger) ALE (beer) | |
| 17 | Cake is miracle prepared without topping (6) |
| ECLAIR – Anagram [prepared] of {m}IRACLE without its topping i.e. remove the first letter
I thought that an ÉCLAIR is a pastry rather than a cake. The word ÉCLAIR comes from the French for ‘flash of lightning’, so named because it is eaten quickly i.e. in a flash. |
|
| 19 | No American shows common sense (4) |
| NOUS – NO US (American) | |
| 21 | Language doctor up between two universities (4) |
| URDU – RD = DR (doctor ‘up’ – apposite as it is a ‘down’ clue) between U U (two universities) | |
26:47 Would have been sub 20 minutes but took far too long with LOI BADINADE. FOI EVIL EYE, COD TSUNAMI
10:12. I really enjoyed LOURDES, TSUNAMI, BADINAGE, AIREDALE and ECLAIR. I thought of a vile eye first but luckily didn’t stop searching. SHEPHERDS PIE and ploughman’s lunch as alternatives? I see ploughmen and shepherds are both agricultural workers and the first meal is cooked while the latter isn’t, but still, it seems tenuous.
A shepherd looks after sheep and won’t do much ploughing.
No problems. 4:48.
9:31, fast for me, but I found the left-hand side went in much more easily than the right. A minor hold-up wanting the thing that was spewed to be hot air, but the shepherd’s pie nixed that idea.
Thanks to Mike and Wurm.
6.27. Nice example of the QC setter’s art from Wurm. Not fully convinced that ill = sinister, never mind, and I’m with curryowen on SHEPHERDS PIE. Wouldn’t the cooked alternative to a ploughman’s be something like cheese on toast? Thank you Mike, I’ll never look at an ECLAIR in the same way again.
This was pretty easy, although for some reason I had a lot of trouble with afterthought. I got quite a few on my first run-though, including badinage, which may not be in everyone’s vocabulary. It is often clued as the opposite of good in youth, so watch out for that one.
Time: 7:53
I scraped home inside my target 10 minutes but only by a whisker. 2dn remained an unsolved outlier as I completed the rest of the grid. I knew BADINAGE well, that wasn’t the problem, but an 8 letter word in which all the checkers are vowels didn’t set my brain racing with obvious possibilities so I was reliant on wordplay. Anyway I cracked it eventually perhaps assisted by ‘batting/in’ which featured in yesterday’s 15×15 puzzle.
Back to normal times with 9’15” slowed by a lazy (just plain wrong) chucking in of ‘Thursday’ for SATURDAY.
I was also slow to see TREASURER (no reason) and ANTILLES which was LOI.
I’m sure there’s a neater clue for SHEPHERDS PIE.
TSUNAMI very neat.
Anyway, thanks Wurm and MikeH.
No time given this morning as I simply could not get BADINAGE, even though in retrospect the parsing was quite straightforward. I also got bogged down with ANTILLES for far too long. TSUNAMI made me smile. All in all it took me about half an hour to fail.
So after two good days I am brought back down to earth, with a swift return to the back of the class. ☹️. Still, the weather is looking promising 😊
Thanks to Wurm and Mike.
9.38
Bit sluggish today. Liked OMNIBUS but not convinced by SHEPHERDS PIE
Nice puzzle and blog
Thanks Wurm and Mike
11:48. Just generally slow. SHEPHERDS PIE was my LOI but I saw no problems with it as a cryptic def. You could argue about the accuracy of the def (?evidence) but I liked the surface for LOURDES.
Thanks to Wurm and Mike
Wurm is getting around a bit in this puzzle. At least eight geographical references including the last four across clues. Finished in just over 10m with delay over badinage (remembered batting=in often). Had an “O” in the fungus clue so tried to fit mushroom for a while. Enjoyable puzzle. Thanks B&S.
Straightforward solve with a slight pause at the end for ISSUE and ANTILLES, where I wanted to fit ‘evil’ into the middle of it.
Finished in 6.20.
Thanks to Mike for the blog and Wurm for the entertaining puzzle
First puzzle of the week with no typos. Ended up all green in 12 with ANTILLES last to fall having previously tussled with BADINAGE. FEAST went straight in but then there was bit of a wait for GONER on the way to seven on the first pass of acrosses. LOURDES and TREASURER both needed to be revisited, as did SHEPHERDS PIE but there the checkers made it clear. Enjoyed SOWETO and IBIS.
As others have said too, I thought ill for sinister was a bit of a stretch. Apart from trying to make LONER work for 18A, no hold-ups. LOI OMNIBUS. 3:55.
I had no problem with sinister/ILL as ‘sinister’ is the Latin for ‘left’ and has been associated with misfortune and things threatening, evil, or harmful since Roman times. It later transferred into English with the same associations. One might say that a shady character had sinister or ill intentions, for example.
Btw, thanks John for dealing so promptly with my suggestion about amending the Contact Us form.
Nice smooth solve with some fun clues.
ANTILLES LOI.
5:44
I also didn’t care for “ill = sinister” but it didn’t cause me a problem.
FOI FEAST
LOI AIREDALE
COD OMNIBUS
TIME 4:29
Some wonderful images here – the hateful people seeing TOADSTOOLs, the people on the Clapham OMNIBUS being moved by the anthology and the Saint with the STYE…
Great puzzle thanks Wurm and Mike
I made a meal of this, about five courses plus cheese given it took me about 25 mins + hard chewing, whilst those commenting above seem to have found it more of a pleasant light snack.
Several including AIREDALE, BADINAGE, ANTILLES and GONER evaded me for some time whilst unaccountably I could see immediately that TREASURER was an anagram but the obvious answer had to wait until a few more letters helped me. Despite my pervading dimness I enjoyed this throughout so no complaints.
Like jackkt, I scraped home inside my target but mine is 5 mins longer than his….
I thought this was a fine puzzle – plenty to chew on, some clever clues, plenty of PDMs, and I was immersed to the extent that I thought this was a much quicker solve until my time appeared.
Others have mentioned my clues of the day. I finished with OMNIBUS and ANTILLES.
Many thanks to Wurm and Mike. John M.
7:23
Fun puzzle.
Thanks, M.
All done in almost an hour except 2d, wondered whether it was some obscure cricketing word – and indeed, “awful batting time” = BAD-IN-AGE too difficult for me, especially with the unhelpful crossers -A-I-A-E. Otherwise enjoyable; FOI FEAST, COD OMNIBUS, LOI (i.e. POI) SHEPHERDS PIE. Thanks to Wurm and Mike.
30 mins, so a bit slow, but I got there. Enjoyable.
A reasonably quick 30 minutes today.
Even though I knew LOURDES was an anagram it needed three crossers before the penny dropped. Nice clue.
15a was slow trying to find a duke rather than a poem
Thanks Wurm and Mike – I learned at least two new things from the blog.
Fairly straightforward, albeit with pauses over Issue (shares ?) and Antilles (wrong soldiers), but a DNF thanks to loi Badinage. I only vaguely knew the word, and while there is nothing actually wrong with the clue, it’s not a word that springs to mind as an obvious fit for teasing. No trouble with foi Afterthought, nor Shepherds Pie, which went in with just a couple of crossers, so a bit disappointing to fall at the last. Invariant
15:16 (birth of Mary Tudor)
Started well, then held up by the clues on the right hand side. Like others, I wasted time on 9d thinking of alternative names for cheese on toast.
I needed to write out the anagram for LOURDES , even with all the checkers, but once spotted it became my COD.
LOI was ANTILLES.
Thanks Mike and Wurm
Like others, ANTILLES was LOI after 13 minutes, so middling difficulty is how I found this very enjoyable puzzle from Wurm. I also enjoyed the blog from MikeH, with just the right colour presentation for my tastes. Nice to see a different treatment for the oft used TSUNAMI, which gets my COD for its cleverness.
Not too much trouble solving this although I did get a little held up in the ne corner at the end. OMNIBUS and IBIS finally dawned on me, and I crossed the line in 9.26.
I agree – lots to enjoy. Particularly liked the ploughman’s alternative. 9 minutes.
I struggled to get my last three clues and my geography isn’t great. The problems were TOADSTOOL, ANTILLES and LOI SOWETO. There are a lot if islands in the world and Sinister was not an obvious pointer to ILL, as people have mentioned. Could not bring Soweto to mind so that had to be worked out from the cryptic-Sodden was my first thought.
Anyway all done in 18 minutes.
I enjoyed it.
CsOD to OMNIBUS and TSUNAMI.
David
“Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania” has always sounded sinister. This was. A combination of easy clues interspersed with the very difficult, expecially AFTERTHOUGHT for which I needed all the crossers. Some great surfaces eg NOUS and AIREDALE. FOI FEAST, LOI OMNIBUS, COD LOURDES. Thanks Wurm and Mike.
A shade under 20 mins. held up pondering the unknown BADINAGE before sticking it in and checking the blog. TSUNAMI also held me up as I could not parse ‘unami’ but biffed it anyway and needed the blog to understand. Obvious now of course.
Is there a word missing in the clue for 13d? That also took me a couple of minutes extra wondering about the significance of ‘twenty-four period’ rather than ‘twenty-four hour period’. Perhaps the word is only missing in the printed version as nobody else has commented on it?
Thanks Mike for excellent blog. Prof
Must admit Prof, I didn’t notice that there might be an ‘hour’ missing while writing the blog – good spot! Seems like others may also have overlooked it too…
Missing in my paper version, too. The fact that so few noticed suggests it wasn’t necessary, so full marks to Wurm for not using superfluous words!
A pleasant 10 minute solve which at one stage promised to be much faster until the NE corner held me up. LOI was – as for a number of others – Antilles but before then both Omnibus and Ibis held me up for longer that they might have done on a sharper day. Ibis in particular a real D’oh moment when I finally got it.
Many thanks to Mike for the blog, and I echo Rotter’s comment that the use of colour seems just right and very helpful.
Cedric
Whizzed through until LOI BADINAGE which I eventually got from the definition then belatedly worked out the parsing. Must remember ‘in’ for batting… Particularly appreciated surface for LOURDES 😂😂😂 No problems with ill = sinister (agree totally with Jack’s comment). Thanks Wurm and MH (great blog – did not know derivation of SOWETO).
Worked through steadily with NE corner last to go in. Rather a neat puzzle, I thought.
I found this enjoyable and was all green in 15:22. FOI FEAST, LOI ECLAIR. Had to come here for the parsing of AIREDALE because I failed to separate ginger and beer. COD TSUNAMI. Thanks, Wurm and Mike.
I carved my way rapidly through the LHS but slowed down in the RHS. Still managed to finish in 5:48. FOI was FEAST, LOI was LOURDES. A quick scan revealed EYEE instead of STYE at 3d. Good job I checked! Thanks Wurm and Mike.
Had to jump about and biff a bit, but enjoyed this one. FOI ODE. LOsI SHEPHERDS PIE (PDM) and ASH. (Had assumed hot air too.)
Did not think of GR for Greece at first but an AFTERTHOUGHT confirmed GONER. Liked SATURDAY, TSUNAMI, TOADSTOOL, SOWETO (COD), among others.
Thanks for blog – much needed, Mike. To my mind, there is quite a difference between OMNIBUS and anthology. e.g. the Spiderman Omnibus and, say, a collection of poetry.
Yes, I did question whether OMNIBUS and anthology were quite the same thing – there are probably examples where either word could be used, but equally a significant number of examples whether one or the other would be the more appropriate.
I was (unusually) zooming along and was confident of a completion, but I put EBON for 6D. This is a fictional bird. IBIS just didn’t come to mind. So that put an end to anything in the NW corner.
Had no issues either way with this one. Completed with no aids.
Thought I might be on for a super quick time at one point as I went through all the across clues, only missing three of them, in about 3:25 and then must have done about the same for the downs, again with only three not filled in. Sadly, that was when the fairy tale stopped as even with so many checkers, the only one of the missing six that went in straight away was GONER. I should have thought of the soldier ant quicker, and the shares, given I did think of is=lives, but it was BADINAGE that took me from what would still have been a good time of maybe 13 minutes, over the SCC boundary. I was just about to give up, when I considered IN for batting and then I saw it. 22:17 in the end.
7:15, put me down for a personal best today.
AFTERTHOUGHT went straight in a then all its crossers for a good start. I was lucky with speedy biffing with ANTILLES TREASURER and ECLAIR dropping in from definition alone.
LOI was BADINAGE which I have always thought was actually BANDINAGE, so bunged it in hopefully as did not see bat=in.
Congratulations!
Congratulations on the PB.
Chapeau Merlin 👏👏👏
20.15 Three quarters of this was complete after six minutes but I absolutely drew a blank in the NE. After another thirteen minutes I took a turn around the lounge and OMNIBUS went in immediately followed by IBIS, ANTILLES, ISSUE, SHEPHERDS PIE and ASH. Thanks to Mike and Wurm.
About 8m with LOI afterthought.
I quite liked shepherds pie, but as an alternative:
She reshipped broken dish
COD soweto
I like your version much more. My main quibble with the set clue is the linking of a shepherd and a ploughman just because they both work on farms. We wouldn’t link a bus driver and a policeman or say, a street cleaner and a bank teller, just because they all work in cities.
How many types of worker are there on a farm versus in a city? I’m not sure the comparison holds.
I think you’re right-I was making too much of it. I guess I just thought it was somewhat demeaning to our rural brethren, lumping them all together. On a totally irrelevant note Abel herded goats or sheep while Cain grew crops.
Well done – your clue is much better.
👍
Like Merlin I started with AFTERTHOUGHT and finished with BADINAGE in a very similar time of 7:20. I wasn’t sure about the cluing for SHEPHERDS PIE but the more I think about it the better I like it. I rather like the visual image of a ploughman having a lunch and a shepherd having a pie.
Came late to this today but managed a very respectable 12 minutes. Everything parsed except AIREDALE. Some lovely clueing from Wurm.
FOI – 7ac FEAST
LOI – 2dn BADINAGE
COD – 22ac TSUNAMI. Also liked OMNIBUS and SOWETO
Thanks to Wurm and Mike
DNF – stuck on 5d Antilles and 11a Issue. Might have got both but decided not to persevere as I was firmly in the wrong rut… Needed the blog to parse 2d Badinage. Had to revisit 4d from Lost to Soweto. Disappointed not to finish a good puzzle! FWIW No problem with 9d Shepherds Pie without the opening S.
23 mins…
2dn “Badinage” (which I didn’t know) and the NE corner caused the most problems. I thought it was harder than average, so I’ll have to see how everyone else got on.
FOI – 7ac “Feast”
LOI – 2dn “Badinage”
COD – 5dn “Antilles”
Thanks as usual!
“Badinage” is the standard excuse offered by someone who has been called out on inappropriate sexual comments. I think that’s the only context in which I’ve seen it in the last twenty years.
I’ve heard of “Banter” – but didn’t appreciate its derivation from Badinage nor heard that specific term in the context you’ve mentioned.
I should be happy with 14 mins, but it really might have been better. A few clues where I got the answer immediately but lacked the confidence to put it in. A sub-10 was possible so I am annoyed rather than pleased.
As other times would suggest, this was remarkably straightforward in comparison to Wurm’s usual offering.
Great blog as always, many thanks.
13:47
A quick time (by my modest standards) so must have been fairly easy. Nevertheless there was a leap of faith over the last 2, AIREDALE and BADINAGE which I got from the wordplay without really knowing the definitions.