Bit of a tricky one today.
Quite a lot of effective misdirection – even just the extra, well-chosen word here or there made things confusing. Throw in a smattering of geography and a couple of words that don’t exactly trip off the tongue (like 16d), and you get a puzzle rather close in difficulty to a lot of the 15×15 puzzles we’ve had since the new year.
I took a notch over 10 minutes, my slowest for a while. Much enjoyed – many thanks to Izetti!
| Across | |
| 1 | A worry, having to stuff something in a clue? (7) |
| ANAGRAM – A, NAG (worry) RAM (stuff) | |
| 5 | Club providing spice (4) |
| MACE – double definition | |
| 7 | Get hold of outlaw retreating (3) |
| NAB – BAN (outlaw) retreating = reversing | |
| 8 | Hearing politician backing car-maker (8) |
| AUDITORY – TORY (politician) to the back of AUDI (car maker) | |
| 10 | Bad person editor thought highly of (5) |
| RATED – RAT (bad person) ED(itor) | |
| 11 | I am having to demonstrate progress (7) |
| IMPROVE – I’M (I am) having to PROVE (demonstrate). “Having to” appearing again from 1ac as linkwords. | |
| 13 | Pain in a north German city (6) |
| AACHEN – ACHE (pain) in A, N(orth) | |
| 15 | Relaxed in a seat, sprawling, with little energy (2,4) |
| AT EASE – anagram (sprawling) of A SEAT, with E (“little” Energy) | |
| 17 | Left with one excellent boy offering cooperation (7) |
| LIAISON – L(eft) with I (one), AI (A1 = excellent) SON (boy) | |
| 18 | NT woman featured in holy diagram (5) |
| LYDIA – “featured in” hoLY DIAgram | |
| 20 | One spiteful woman about to go tight-lipped? (8) |
| TACITURN – I (one) CAT (spiteful woman) About = reversed, TURN (go). So we can add CAT to the long list of long-suffering animals mischaracterised as one half of those awful human creatures. And it always seems to be the same half, did you ever notice that? | |
| 22 | Small amount of drink for youngster (3) |
| TOT – double definition | |
| 23 | Explosive laid by soldiers in this location (4) |
| HERE – HE (High Explosive) laid by RE (soldiers) | |
| 24 | This writer is taken in by dull unrealistic person? (7) |
| DREAMER -ME (this writer) taken in by DREAR (dull) | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Naughty baron with married friend breaking conventions? (10) |
| ABNORMALLY – anagram (naughty) of BARON with M(arried) ALLY (friend). Hmn, the answer is an adverb, which doesn’t seem to square with the definition. Edit: it does, of course – see ulaca’s example below. | |
| 2 | Monk and a couple of bishops with holy books (5) |
| ABBOT – A, B B (couple of Bishops) OT (Old Testament = holy books) | |
| 3 | Once again look at ace in crimson garment (9) |
| READDRESS – A(ce) in RED (crimson) DRESS (garment) | |
| 4 | Doctor entertained by lass in capital city (6) |
| MADRID – DR (doctor) entertained by MAID (lass) | |
| 5 | Covering Scottish headwear up (3) |
| MAT – TAM, short for TAM O’ SHANTER = Scottish headwear, up = reverse | |
| 6 | Gosh — person getting upset over a Spanish city! (7) |
| CORDOBA – COR (gosh) BOD (person) getting upset = upturned over A | |
| 9 | Generous person has been upset over workplace closing early (10) |
| BENEFACTOR – anagram (upset) of BEEN over FACTORy (workplace, “closing early”) | |
| 12 | Favourite you finally pierce, showing bad temper (9) |
| PETULANCE – PET (favourite) U (yoU “finally”) LANCE (pierce) | |
| 14 | Cleaner given notice — minimum of excuse for absurd act (7) |
| CHARADE – CHAR (cleaner) given AD (notice) and E (“minimum” of Excuse) | |
| 16 | Provided as expected in conclusion (6) |
| ENDUED – DUE (expected) in END (conclusion). | |
| 19 | Crazy upset about union providing bit of information (5) |
| DATUM – MAD (crazy) upset = upturned about TU (union) | |
| 21 | US President popular, expelling extremists (3) |
| IKE – L IKE D = popular, expelling the extreme letters | |
Crumbs! Izetti didn’t hold back today.
I started well and had 6-7 clues to go as I approached the doors of the SCC, but those last half-dozen or so tested me to the limit. They were DREAMER, HERE, LYDIA, ENDUED, IKE, TACITURN and ANAGRAM.
The reasons for my struggles were poor GK (LYDIA, IKE), limited vocabulary (ENDUE, TACITURN, DREAR), and an inability to parse (IKE, ANAGRAM, TACITURN). So, a few things to work on then.
Time = 37 minutes.
Many thanks to Izetti and Rolytoly.
Doing all right until defeated by the TACITURN, ENDUED, IKE trio. No objections to IKE, I just couldn’t see the ‘popular’ that it was going to come from and I didn’t have TACITURN to help me. NHO ENDUED and FWIW can’t say that I like the word!
DNF
Not too bad apart from that SW corner. All but 3 completed in 15 minutes but couldn’t get the last 3. Even pencilled ENDUED in given the wordplay but discarded it thinking not an actual word. Tried ABE for the president and got nowhere with TACITURN.
An Izetti for the biggies, tough, I suspect, for other QC stalwarts like me. Happy to finish but very fair, and satisfying when the multiple pennies dropped, albeit somewhat slowly. New words learned, some geography and history refreshed.
Is IKE so famous that, say,30 year olds should recognise him, or is this becoming like knowing Tree and Actor etc are still synonymous in Crosswordland?
Really enjoyable puzzle – that’s two consecutive puzzles that get my 5-star rating.
DNF after about 40 minutes, failing on ANAGRAM, RATED, LIAISON, ABNORMALLY, ENDUED. Didn’t even make the SCC today but left out in the cold.