Relatively gentle for Felix, of the usual high quality.
I clocked in at exactly the same time as yesterday (5:37) done just beforehand, which I think is a first, so I’ll be interested to see how close to 85-90ish this ends up on the snitch. I’d put this one as slightly trickier though – I’d certainly have been slower if I’d paused to parse everything, and there were at least three I gave up trying to parse while solving (5d, 13d, 22d).
There was plenty of this setter’s deftly-worded clueing to enjoy; if there’s a theme or nina it eludes me, although the grid certainly looks ripe for one. [Edit: there is indeed one, see sawbill’s post below.] Either way, a lovely puzzle – many thanks to Felix!
Anagram indicators in italics.
| Across | |
| 1 | Direction, as employed in Spielberg film (4) |
| EAST – AS employed in ET (Spielberg film) | |
| 7 | Cases to be cracked over breakfast? (9) |
| EGGSHELLS – cryptic definition | |
| 9 | After first of month, one’s going to factory (4) |
| MILL – after M (first of Month), I’LL (one’s going to) | |
| 10 | Extended November in one’s youth in area of NY (4,6) |
| LONG ISLAND – LONG (extended) N(ovember) in I (one) ‘S, LAD (youth) | |
| 11 | Fair Jordan, initially US tennis’s number one (4) |
| JUST – J (Jordan initially), US, T (Tennis’s number one) | |
| 12 | The Samurai strangely far from professional (10) |
| AMATEURISH – THE SAMURAI strangely | |
| 16 | Signal to go eco: not difficult! (5,5) |
| GREEN LIGHT – GREEN (eco) LIGHT (not difficult) | |
| 19 | Ruin a Parisian party (4) |
| UNDO – UN (a, Parisian) DO (party) | |
| 21 | A barge touring London’s outskirts? It won’t stop until morning (3-7) |
| ALL-NIGHTER – A, LIGHTER (barge) tours L |
|
| 23 | Nothing fitted round a collar (4) |
| NAIL – NIL (nothing) fitted round A | |
| 24 | Volatile, I excel with bat, somehow (9) |
| EXCITABLE – I EXCEL with BAT somehow | |
| 25 | Times of bewilderment, we hear (4) |
| DAYS – we hear the same as DAZE (bewilderment) | |
| Down | |
| 2 | Super Indian making comeback, regularly getting bye (5) |
| ADIEU – s U p E r I n D i A n, comeback = reversed, regularly = alternate letters | |
| 3 | A shopper, perhaps, giving things away (8) |
| TELLTALE – cryptic definition, with a play on “shopper” as informer | |
| 4 | Schedule article on sex for broadcast (6) |
| AGENDA – A (article) on GENDA, which is heard (broadcast) the same as GENDER (sex). | |
| 5 | Pick the centre out of a cold, brown sweet? (6) |
| CHOICE – take the centre letter out of CHOc ICE (a cold, brown sweet) | |
| 6 | Large porter maybe brought up for airline (2,2) |
| EL AL – L(arge) ALE (porter maybe) brought up = reversed. The Israeli national airline. | |
| 8 | Assent to reform most reasonable (6) |
| SANEST – ASSENT to reform | |
| 13 | NZ bird pinching top from sewing case (3) |
| TUI – an ETUI is a sewing case, remove the top to get the bird. I’m not sure how well known the bird is, but this is getting pretty close to an obscurity clued by an obscurity – I was only vaguely aware of either from crosswords past. | |
| 14 | Being elected again is way to secure fresh tenure (8) |
| RETURNED – RD. (Road = way) to secure a fresh TENURE | |
| 15 | Interrogated endlessly: that’s grating (6) |
| GRILLE – GRILLE |
|
| 17 | Envoy say coming in after hours (6) |
| LEGATE – EG (say) coming in LATE (after hours) | |
| 18 | Great eponymous hero keeping pistols near (6) |
| GATSBY – if you have GATS BY, you would be keeping pistols near | |
| 20 | Bloomer turning up in corduroys I admit (5) |
| DAISY – “turning up in” corduroYS I ADmit | |
| 22 | Condition to run in (4) |
| NICK – double definition: the first as in “in good ___”; the second (unknown to innocent old me) means to “arrest and take to a lock up”. | |
Found this the most tricky for a while and certainly didn’t like some clues. Have been going QC for a few years but don’t remember etui, gat etc. Agree that obscure words that are known to lifelong crossword solvers should not be encouraged.
Fortunately I knew ETUI from its several outings in the 15×15, so TUI was no problem. I missed the theme as usual, despite reading the book many years ago. EAST was FOI and NICK was LOI. 8:00. Thanks Felix and Roly.
DNF. I gave up at 25 minutes with ADIEU and CHOICE still outstanding. I had no idea what was going on with either of these clues or indeed which end of the clues to look at for the definition. In general I found the top half very tricky after the bottom half had gone in quite quickly. NHO the NZ bird but knew the sewing case, so I didn’t have to resort to guesswork for that one. Gats for pistols was lodged somewhere in my store of vocabulary that I would never use, so that one also posed no particular problem. Didn’t see the nina – in my defence it’s a long time since I read the book/saw the film, and anyway I never do.
FOI – 1ac EAST
LOI – DNF
COD – nothing stood out for me and in fact I found a lot of the clues vague and/or clumsy
28 mins…
However, based on the last few weeks, I was just pleased to finish. Main hold ups were in the SW corner with 21ac “All-Nighter” (these days I can barely make it to 9pm), 22dn “Nick” and 17dn “Legate”. Had doubts about 23ac “Nail”, but couldn’t see what else it could be.
Is Long Island technically an area of NY like, say, Manhattan or the Bronx? I guess it’s part of the state, so I’m probably being pendantic.
FOI – 1ac “East”
LOI – 22dn “Nick”
COD – 5dn “Choice”
Thanks as usual!
Only parts of Long Island(Brooklyn and Queens) are in New York City, but all of it is in New York State.
All green in 30:03 (this is a good time for me!) with only 1 brief look to verify TUI was a real word and not just a travel agent. I only knew LEGATE as a Roman officer, and “Gat” as in Gatling Gun which isn’t a pistol but I seemed to be on Felix’s wavelength for the rest which made it a very enjoyable solve. Favourite was CHO(C)ICE, bringing back childhood memories of having one in a bowl for pudding with strawberry sauce squeezed over it.
DNF. I couldn’t see CHOICE or GATSBY. No problem with etui, but NHO the bird, so I looked it up to be sure it does exist. Was expecting EMU when I saw a three letter Kiwi bird but I see from research that it’s only found in Australia.
I biffed MOA on first pass as a 3 letter bird that actually is (or at least was) from NZ.
A messy, hop around the grid solve that took a good 25 mins, but with Tai for the unknown bird. A terrible clue that fully deserves a GR. Invariant
GR? Giant raspberry? 🤔
Golden Raspberry, a term coined by an erstwhile contributer here as a (significant) step up from a simple MER. Felix is building up quite a collection !
Ah, thanks. Understood..and agreed re the GR award you gave the clue! 😂
DNF for me on this one for much the same reasons as others having difficulties. I’ve never heard of ETUI or TUI and guessed the wrong vowel between T and I. Also didn’t get GATSBY. I’ve never read it or seen the film and I certainly didn’t know a GAT was a pistol. Given my lack of literature knowledge I wasn’t going to see the theme. Now give me maths, science or classical music ….
Thanks to Felix and Roly.
Managed to solve this one in two sittings, not needing the cat’s help, which is just as well as he’s been asleep in his cat bed for much of the morning. After pestering me for a Tesco Cat Stick!
Never heard of the NZ bird, but I am sure there’s an airline called TUI, not sure if it’s a carrier from NZ. But it was flying related and so stuck it in.
The only one that caused me real problems was CHOICE. A good clue.
An enjoyable QC. Quite tricky but nevertheless a good one.
TUI is a travel company that operates flights and stands for Travel Union International. Nothing to do with birds, so I’d say you got lucky. I did exactly the same.
My first time this week to finish – 16 mins and v pleased with that. Biffed tui, choice and adieu as best guesses, and legate rang a distant bell from previous crosswords.
Found light a bit weak for not difficult.
COD Eggshells
Struggling to enjoy the QC at the moment. Scraped in under 35mins today – that’s the 8th puzzle in the last 17 taking over 30mins. The same as I had across the whole of Aug/Sep/Oct.
The positive is that November saw 20/22 solves which is the best since I started exactly two years ago. I can attribute a little bit of the slowness to being more careful this month, but most of the time it’s been fly into it and then spend a long time staring and picking off answers. I’m hoping it’s just a stage of the learning curve.
Today was typical. Had pretty much only the SW left around 12mins. Finally got that done but then spent last 15mins alphabet trawling NICK and CHOICE. Talked myself out of the latter around 22-23mins as “to pick” would be “to choose” but also considered that when you pick, you make a choice – just couldn’t see what was going on with the cold, hard sweet so I completed trawling before choosing which word to fit – at which point I saw choc-ice.
Obligation to the spreadsheet is the only thing that keeps me going with these at the moment …
PS Went back and did Orpheus Tuesday puzzle this afternoon which I couldn’t face at the time. Fairly pleased with 24min especially after seeing other comments on the blog. Pleased to be reminded by my LOI of Ferris and … “9 times” … “wake up and smell the coffee Mrs Bueller, he’s just leading you down the …”
Is it me or is ET film too often part of the solution?
Its easy to fit ET into a clue than say “The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down A Mountain”
😀
20.40 I found this tough. CHOICE was parsed after submission, GAT was new to me and I had no idea how TUI worked. CHOICE and GATSBY accounted for much of my time. Thanks rolytoly and Felix.
DNF. Gave up in despair / disgust after half an hour. TUI and ETUI? GATS for pistols? LIGHTER for barge? Clearly I don’t have the vocabulary for this.
Hopefully you won’t need Tui (Etui) and Gats/gun again for a few years, but Lighter/barge comes up more regularly, so it’s certainly worth remembering. Just a small sub-set of the new language that comes with this game.
5.12. A very biffable crossword for me. Like Jack I seem to have known etui for ever for some reason, but like many have never heard of the bird. I can see why people would be irritated.
I liked green light, but COD To NICK for its brevity and simplicity.
22:18
Well I didn’t find this gentle. A good couple of minutes over target and failed to parse ADIEU and LOI TUI which owed as much to luck as judgement.
Found this hard but did finish in 11 minutes. Gatsby, Nick and TUI were last in – with the latter got by a lucky (and wrong) thought that the airline TUI may have been named after a bird. It actually stands for Touristik Union International (“Tourism Union International”).
Both tui and Etui are very useful to Scrabble players.
Ah, thanks!
Finished after 40 minutes, 15 spent on TUI (I guessed correctly but take zero pleasure from that).
If that was gentle, then I’m wasting my time here.
This is now like walking through glue with my feet tied together – every day! Heading for another 3 hour plus week.
Too fed up to moan any more. ☹️☹️☹️
More hugs needed again today, Gary? You only have to ask! 🤗
Yes please 😊😊
I had almost exactly the same experience, Mr A. Somehow reached just one to go (T_I) after a veritable biff-fest. I had no idea how to parse many of the clues, but I guessed correctly. I worked on T_I for nearly 10 minutes before plumping for TUI purely from TUILAGI of rugby fame. 38 minutes for me, but I’ll never know how it wasn’t a DNF.
Well done for finishing. Interesting to see how you got to TUI. I was trying to think of the most Māori-sounding of the possibles!
Three DNF’s in a row for me – found today’s very tricky indeed with six blanks! One away yesterday and Tuesdays was an awful performance. Fingers crossed for tomorrow!
A small sewing case is or rather was normally referred to as an “Ussiff” (a homophone clue)
I was going to mention that in my early comment but forgot. I can’t say I’ve heard it said as your spelling suggests though, since its actually spelt ‘Housewife’ and would normally be pronounced Hussiff I think.
14:25 here. Solved hours ago but then a hectic day kept me away from the blog until now. Off to attack the next one now, and hopefully post a comment in time to be relevant.
Gat? Never heard of it. Biffed a few of these as I suspect others did too.