Beck’s sixth outing, providing a quality puzzle pitched around average difficulty.
There is an error in the clue at 7ac that I didn’t notice when solving, indeed it looked perfectly fine and in it went without any checkers. But yes, a rare mistake – I hope it didn’t throw any more careful solvers off the scent for too long. The clue could have been “An irrevenant partly returned…” with an IR-REVENANT presumably being some kind of strange ‘un-zombie’ type creature. Ok maybe not.
A few tricky things going on elsewhere with a touch of slightly unusual vocab, but all clued very fairly, giving us a lovely QC, flowing and enjoyable. My main hold up was definition-hunting at the wrong end of the clue at 18d, and I needed that opening checker to unravel 17ac.
I’d put this around the low 90s on the Snitch; I managed it in 6:48. Lovely stuff – many thanks to Beck!
Anagram indicators in italics.
| Across | |
| 1 | Caught flexible person at the rock wall gym? (7) |
| CLIMBER – C. is caught in cricket; LIMBER is flexible | |
| 5 | Fool‘s involuntary movement (4) |
| JERK – double definition | |
| 7 | Somewhat irreverently returned? In your dreams (5) |
| NEVER – “Somewhat” often indicates a hidden, and “returned” indicates reversal: apply to irREVERENtly and we have a collection of letters that rather resembles the word NEVER. Shame, as it would have been a nice clue – I liked the “in your dreams / no chance / never” definition | |
| 8 | Alternative healer we anger furiously (3,4) |
| NEW AGER – WE ANGER furiously | |
| 10 | Shakespearean king, scratching head, is a good listener? (3) |
| EAR – LEAR (Shakespearean king) scratch the head | |
| 11 | We’re told the writer cried, getting looked at (9) |
| EYEBALLED – We hear the same as I BAWLED (the writer cried) | |
| 13 | Hot goal in rugby score (6) |
| TRENDY – END (goal) in TRY (rugby score) | |
| 14 | Thrash with entirely old power (6) |
| WALLOP – W(ith) ALL (entirely) O(ld) P(ower) | |
| 17 | Reinforce mysterious brotherhood (9) |
| CONFRERIE – REINFORCE mysterious. At least with all the checkers, if you weren’t quite sure of the word, there was no other plausible arrangement of letters. | |
| 19 | Nearly stylish life force (3) |
| CHI – CHIc = stylish, Nearly = remove the last letter | |
| 20 | Deliberately lose best sleeveless garment (4,3) |
| TANK TOP – TANK (deliberately lose) TOP (best). I didn’t know this tennis slang sense of TANK. The OED gives a Guardian quote from Jan ’79: “But it is ironic that Connors, a player generally considered too honest to ‘tank’ to anyone, should be the one to suffer.” Would that be the Australian Open then? No further information, and I’m intrigued! | |
| 22 | Am leaving US to find evergreen shrub (5) |
| ERICA – AM leaves |
|
| 23 | Dog food (4) |
| CHOW – Double definition | |
| 24 | Circle of friends needing somewhere to sleep next to Great Lake (7) |
| COTERIE – COT (somewhere to sleep) next to ERIE (Great Lake) | |
| Down | |
| 1 | State: “I make incision after join” (11) |
| CONNECTICUT – I CUT (I make incision) after CONNECT (join) | |
| 2 | Opposite, one new poem (7) |
| INVERSE – I (one) N(ew) VERSE (poem) | |
| 3 | Publican‘s skill in heavy drinking (9) |
| BARTENDER – ART (skill) in BENDER (heavy drinking) | |
| 4 | Some cash brought up for cheesemaker’s ingredient (6) |
| RENNET – TENNER (some cash) “brought up” = reversed | |
| 5 | Gossip starts to jar as well (3) |
| JAW – “starts” to Jar As Well | |
| 6 | Large ugly royal (5) |
| REGAL – LARGE ugly | |
| 9 | Repeat paid lecture randomly (11) |
| REDUPLICATE – PAID LECTURE randomly | |
| 12 | Humiliation in a cellar (9) |
| ABASEMENT – A, BASEMENT (cellar) | |
| 15 | More fortunate, and braver, after losing head (7) |
| LUCKIER – |
|
| 16 | Discussion item about radius line on a globe (6) |
| TROPIC – TOPIC (discussion item) about R(adius) | |
| 18 | A bit of emotion in the Beethoven symphony (5) |
| NINTH – “A bit of” emotioN IN THe | |
| 21 | Pronounced piggy pull (3) |
| TOW – heard the same as TOE (piggy) | |
Needed all the checkers for NHO LOI CONFRERIE but sounded plausibly French. Always thought ‘tank’ meant ‘do badly’ rather than ‘deliberately lose’ – well I nerev (error not spotted). POI NINTH, took a while to spot the hidden but loved the surface. Also liked WALLOP – great word. FOI CONNECTICUT, only state I could think of that included ‘cut’. Many thanks all.
Delayed by NEVER even though I had all the crossers.
For 1d I just started typing the really obvious inscructions – CONNECT and I CUT, with no pause for thought required, because that is way I taught myself how to spell this tricky state. So as I had N*V*R I really should not have spent the time.
I thought CONFRERIE was easy to solve but French. I can’t find it anywhere so I spent another bunch of time on that as well. It is in both the French dictionaries I have, a Fr-Eng paper one and of course Wiktionary where it is absent from the English part.
My heart sank on seeing a rare setter whose foibles would not be familiar. As it turned out with 9 crosses solved, it turned out to be more accessible than I feared. Overall a nice puzzle but a trifle concerned at the 17a introduction of a less familiar French term. Lots of nice clues such as the hidden in 18d.
FOI 5a Jerk – does Jerk=Fool? He might be someone who acts in a crass way..
LOI 1a Climber – helped by 4d Rennet
COD 1d Connecticut – this might help me remember how to spell it!
I didn’t lose too much time over 7ac – just assumed that there was some arcane parsing that I couldn’t see. Everything else went in ok (although rather slowly) but I had to stop myself putting in ‘new gear’ at 8ac. NHO CONFRERIE and didn’t spot NINTH as a hidden. A MER at the tautological REDUPLICATE at 9dn.
FOI – 10ac EAR
LOI – 17ac CONFRERIE
COD – 3dn BARTENDER
Thanks (despite the error) to Beck and to Rolytoly
19mins here. Slowed by wondering about reve variations on dreams but eventually pout it in. Had never heard of confrerie but once the crossers were there it went in.
Pleased to be 4 of 4 this week.
All correct in 30 minutes, but it could have easily been either another SCC escape or a DNF. I just had C_N_R_R_E to solve (or so I thought) after 18 minutes and I had spotted the possible anagram. However, I couldn’t believe such a word existed, so I wasted time trying to find an alternative solution to BARTENDER (which I hadn’t fully parsed). Once I’d hesitantly gone with CONFRERIE I checked my other question-marked clue (CHeW) and was much relieved to have done so when I saw my error.
Many thanks to Beck and Rolytoly.
P.S. I saw and was slightly delayed by the error at 7a, but I eventually went with NEVER and assumed that my parsing was not up to it – a common occurrence for me, so I’m often having to wing it a little.
12.19 I had similar thoughts to Jack about REVER and NEVER went in with a shrug. CONFRERIE was new to me too. TOW and CHOW took a while at the end. Thanks rolytoly and Beck.
A question about 3d (BARTENDER):
BENDER is a noun, whereas “heavy drinking” isn’t. Shouldn’t the clue therefore read “…… heavy drinking session” or “…… bout of heavy drinking”?
Yes I’ve been tripped up by this sort of thing before. Don’t quote me on the grammar, although I think it’s called a gerund where an -ing verb acts as a noun. So in this case you could say something like: “Everything was going swimmingly until day three of the bender/heavy drinking.”
I found this harder after yesterday’s offering and just outside my target at 20:53.
Like others, got held up by not be able to parse NEVER, and had never heard of CONFRERIE. Otherwise all fair and just my sluggishness to blame.
Thanks to Beck and RolyToly
7.41
Thought I’d done this a little quicker but for a change I did notice the error and did waste some time there
Wasted a little time with the error, but not too much. Definitely felt like a puzzle from a rare setter, though I couldn’t put my finger on why.
Enjoyable though – I liked BARTENDER and finished with TOW after TANK TOP meant it wasn’t SOW, which I couldn’t parse, mainly because it was wrong!
6:13
24 mins, but a DNF as I did manage a different combination of letters for 17ac and put “Confriree”. A pity really, as I was quite enjoying it until I got to one of those clues that I hate.
I did wonder about 7ac “Never”, but couldn’t see it to be anything else (even if the parsing didn’t make sense). Main hold up was 9dn “Reduplicate” where I originally had “Replicature” until I realised I was missing a “d” and nothing else was working.
Other than that, enjoyed 1dn “Connecticut”, 11ac “Eyeballed” and 20ac “Tank Top”
FOI – 5dn “Jaw”
LOI – 17ac “Confrerie” (albeit incorrectly)
COD – 18dn “Ninth” – not often I have a hidden clue as a COD, but this took so long to spot (mainly because I was skilfully misdirected) that I believe it deserved it.
Thanks as usual!
Very good clue but inappropriate for the QC I’d say.
I’d forgotten about how good NINTH was by the time I’d finished. There were some nice clues in there.
So there isn’t an evergreen shrub called an EXITA 🤐 Made worse by knowing of ERICA=heather=ling and being able to remember it because my dad was an Eric.
I might have spent a little longer on it had I not been left with an expected DNF due to the CONFRERIE anagram possibilities and the unparseable NEVER.
Somewhat miffed but I may have been suffering from a surge of testosterone after finishing my Wednesday workout an hour before 💪
Why did you do your Wednesday workout today? It’s Thursday, isn’t it?
Good point! It’s assessment week so I got an extra rest day – only came in at 36 press-ups for the minute. It really has thrown me out as to where we are in the week.
For me, challenging but got there in the end (30 mins plus). Spent quite a while with REVER for 7a before assuming 1d had to be CONNECTICUT. Agree with others about REDUPLICATE being a strange word, initially wanted something like REPLICATE or DUPLICATE because those are more obvious words for “repeat”.
Another steady solve at at 30m. Put in never for 7a, as it was on irreverently, good enough for our standard of solving. Took time to sort out bartender. Thanks Beck for the puzzle.
Completing run has come to an end with confrereie. Saw score in 12a and entered twenty before realising I needed a d for bartender, also obverse instead of inverse.
Favourite clue was eyeballed.
Edit.
I am seriously thick – completely missed confrerie is an anagram of reinforce therefore ended up with a DNF.
13:03 here. Like others, I assumed I just wasn’t smart enough to figure out how the clue for NEVER really worked. Slowed myself by entering BARKEEPER for 3d, even though it didn’t parse. COD to NINTH, for a terrific surface.
Thanks to Beck and rolytoly.
Gosh, I thought that the setter took an irreverent approach to 7a, reversing it only somewhat. Like so many others, I tend to assume that an inability to parse is due to my own shortcomings, so I rarely fret over not quite managing.
19:44
Just inside my 20 minute target. Nothing too tricky apart from NEVER, which I just biffed assuming a mistake by the setter and the NHO LOI CONFRERIE.
have not been able to login for ages but still try to solve the quick cryptic.
spell checker did not like confrerie but all ok
I’ll NEVER understand how the mistake occurred – it’s not like it’s a typo, which one might forgive, as there’s no such word as irrevenently. The clue simply doesn’t work and I don’t understand how Beck ever thought it did. Only held me up about 20 seconds, as I had all the checkers, but even so it’s left me mildly disappointed.
I thought this was moderately difficult – until I checked the answers and realised that I DNF. Turns out that all my life I had thought that Connecticut was Connetticut. I should have read the clue more carefully. On the other hand, not reading 7A more carefully saved me a lot of time, as I “saw” NEVER straightaway and put it in without realising it wasn’t there. NHO Reduplicate or Confrerie but still got them. DNK Tank. Liked Ninth.
I really am stunningly incompetent!
DNF in 29 mins. Put TENNER instead of RENNET for 4dn and that ruined 1ac. Put CLIMBOT for this, knowing it was probably wrong (it’s a climbing robot).
No excuses, just another example of my ineptitude. There is seemingly no end to the ways I can find to mess things up. A stupid misreading of a clue that was a ‘schoolboy’ error.
Another week blown. No surprise there. Even had I finished, I wouldn’t have been satisfied with my time. I made this far harder than necessary and jumped around instead of solving it methodically.
One distant day in the future, I might actually achieve some measure of satisfaction with the QC, but, right now that is a long way off! It’s just frustrating beyond words.
Thanks for the blog.
PS To compound my frustration, I sailed through the Quintagram. Why can’t I do this with the QC – it should, if anything, be easier!
7ac got me stuck for a while. I spent ages reading the letters backwards in irreverently, wrote in “Never” then realised it couldn’t be right. Only when I got the V and it was the LOI did I try “never” again and it was correct. Came straight here to check what I’d missed with the clue. Turned out I hadn’t missed anything, BAH!
For 7a, I took “somewhat” to mean “some parts of”, i.e. ‘irREVerENtly’. When just these (capital) letters are reversed, they do make NEVER.