Another somewhat tricky puzzle today.
After getting the first five acrosses I thought we might be in for a gentler one, but things slowed up considerably. Another puzzle to test your long clue solving skills: I was slow to see what was going on with the “cases” at 16ac, but glad for the helpfully divided-up spelling lesson at 6d.
A few tricky things going on elsewhere. I’m not sure I’d count 1d among them, but it was my LOI and caused some thought, busy as I was devising a one-letter salute that would make some non-existent church thing on the tip of my tongue beginning NOV_.
I finished up in 7:49, almost exactly the same time as yesterday done just before. Most enjoyable – many thanks to Corelli!
Edit: as spotted by Cribbage, there is something of a Nina hidden in the grid…
| Across | |
| 1 | Indian dish female relative brought up, we hear (3,5) |
| NAN BREAD – NAN (female relative), and BRED (brought up) “we hear” the same as BREAD. One A or two acceptable for NAAN. | |
| 5 | Politician flanked by two African warriors (4) |
| IMPI – MP (politician) flanked by II (two) | |
| 8 | Leave no mark, concealing poison (5) |
| VENOM – leaVE NO Mark “conceals” the answer | |
| 9 | Freezing water affected ears: SOS! (4,3) |
| ROSS SEA – anagram (affected) of EARS SOS | |
| 11 | Corrupt Conservative with old African dictator in art gallery (11) |
| CONTAMINATE – CON[servative] with [Idi] AMIN (old African dictator) in TATE (art gallery) | |
| 13 | Furious at Rome’s conspiracy of silence (6) |
| OMERTA – anagram (furious) of AT ROME. More Mafia jargon after yesterday’s PADRONE: a very well hidden anagram makes this tricky if you’re not sure of the word, which is an Italian dialect form of umilta, humility. | |
| 14 | Gradually moves a very short distance (6) |
| INCHES – double definition, both in similar, mildly figurative senses | |
| 16 | Cases not kept in a set-top unit, unusually (11) |
| OUTPATIENTS – anagram (unusually) of A SET-TOP UNIT | |
| 18 | Flammable substance that’s existed around New Zealand, close to wildlife (7) |
| BENZENE – BEEN (that’s existed) around NZ, and E (“close” to wildlifE) | |
| 19 | Swimmer in fur coat, much warmer, losing head! (5) |
| OTTER – HOTTER (much warmer), “losing head” | |
| 20 | Several are flying each week, first of all (1,3) |
| A FEW – Are Flying Each Week “first of all” | |
| 21 | Abandon plane? No, lie back! (8) |
| JETTISON – JET (plane) NO, SIT (no, lie) “back”. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Church body welcome after November (4) |
| NAVE – AVE (welcome) after N (November in the phonetic alphabet) | |
| 2 | Connect canapé with cooking rejection (13) |
| NONACCEPTANCE – anagram (with cooking) of CONNECT CANAPE | |
| 3 | Protest concerning giant almost consuming rodent (11) |
| REMONSTRATE – RE (concerning) MONSTE |
|
| 4 | Aviator with tune descending on isle (6) |
| AIRMAN – AIR (tune) descending/coming down on top of MAN (isle) | |
| 6 | US state’s religious service: a church employs outside toilet (empty) (13) |
| MASSACHUSETTS – MASS (religious service), A, CH (church), USES (employs) outside T |
|
| 7 | Sort of ballerinas’ ensemble, somewhat reduced (2,1,5) |
| IN A SENSE – ballerINAS ENSEmble “somewhat reduced” | |
| 10 | Making last point in sung composition (8,3) |
| SPINNING OUT – anagram (composition) of POINT IN SUNG | |
| 12 | Colonel, old doctor and I going to a S American country (8) |
| COLOMBIA – COL(onel) O(ld) MB (Bachelor of Medicine = doctor) and I going to A | |
| 15 | Pleasant new English description of a creed (6) |
| NICENE – NICE (pleasant) N(ew) E(nglish) | |
| 17 | Architect’s flyer (4) |
| WREN – double definition, the first as in Sir Christopher | |
I’ve never seen the bread spelt NAN. Is that common in the UK or is that one of those dictionary things
Also lol @ nan bread. Chai tea. Silly double up words
I think it must be one of those dictionary things – Chambers has NAN as the primary spelling, but I’ve just checked out a few restaurants and a supermarket and they are all NAAN.
And you’re quite right about the silly tautology – in my quick supermarket search out of nearly ten producers, they are all simply called NAAN except for one well-known (and inferior) brand who insists on further clarifying them as bread. Panko breadcrumbs is another.
Big thank you for your eagle eye in spotting the hyperlink embedded into my user name. It was unintentionally created and rather obscure to track down its origin. Now resolved and the TFTT site admin aware of this pitfall. Hopefully it will be addressed in due course . As I regularly fall into traps placed intentionally by the setters, it is not surprising that I fell into this unintentional one as well. 🙂
The long ones were generously clued and I found this relatively easy apart from a long stare and alphabet trawl for NHO and LOI, OMERTA – finally twigged that furious was an anagrind, not the solution, and a lucky guess as it sounded better than OREMTA. A mer at VENOM, which was easy enough to find, but is very different from poison. Venom is generally not toxic if swallowed – the molecules (proteins and large peptides) are too large to be absorbed through skin or through the gut – so not poisonous, it needs to be injected directly into the blood stream to do damage. Poisons are small molecules which are absorbed when swallowed or touched.
The dictionaries directly equate the two, which is certainly enough to give Corelli a pass on the matter (although even in a figurative context I think there is a subtle difference describing someone as poisonous and venomous) – but either way, that’s a fascinating explanation you give to describe the difference.
Indeed. And you do hear people expressing a fear of poisonous snakes to which the obvious retort is “well don’t eat them then!”.
But language is dynamic and real-world usage doesn’t always reflect the original “correct” meaning. For instance it seems you can get electrocuted more than once these days. Shocking!
While I think a MER might logical for you, if your field makes that specific definition, not all fields use the same definition and indeed, looking at the SOED, the second definition for poison explicitly precludes any distinction about how a substance gets into an organism.
2 Matter which causes death or injury when introduced into or absorbed by a living organism, irrespective of mechanical means or direct thermal changes, esp. when able to kill by rapid action and when taken in a small quantity; a particular substance of this kind
11:46. OUTPATIENTS LOI and MASSACHUSETTS COD.
Nice puzzle from Corelli, 10.49. Missed the IN A SENSE hidden for ages (in fact I missed the definition, ‘sort of’) and finally did a bit of sideways thinking to get LOI OUTPATIENTS. I liked the elegantly constructed MASSACHUSETTS and there were a lot of lovely surfaces, though I’m not sure about no sit/no lie in JETTISON in that sit and lie are surely different. Thank you roly.
I think that where a golf ball lies is the same as where it sits. Usually under a grass tree in my experience.
We had the same MER but your example works well
5:49 and I thought OUTPATIENTS was pretty good.
Thanks Corelli and Roly. Agree that spelling assistance came in handy for MASSACHUSETTS.
10 minutes. Corelli has been setting for us since QC13 in March 2014 but after all that time has just 32 puzzles to his name. He appeared only once in 2023 and this is his first outing since August of that year. His last 14 offerings have all contained a Nina or a theme but I’ve not been able to spot one today.
‘Sit / lie’ in the sense of being situated is fine with me. I was going to give an example with reference to a golf ball, but I see Galspray has beaten me to it.
‘Poison / venom’ too when used figuratively rather than strictly scientifically. I think that distinction has been made here before.
This was my 201st QC and my first by Corelli (I keep a spreadsheet of how I am doing, better each week thankfully!)
Beaten by OUTPATIENTS, SPINNING OUT, NICENE, IN A SENSE, JETTISON. Not a good day but I can appreciate a tough but fair puzzle. Thanks Corelli and Roly.
Edit: are these quickies getting harder? – I got within one letter of completing the biggie today. Second time this week I’ve got further on the 15×15 🤔
I think that in terms of relative difficulty today was about as close as it gets between the two. Near-PB for me today on the other one.
Actual PB for me! Only a handful of seconds slower than this one.
Sorry, MangoMan, but I edited out the example you quoted. It’s a bit too early in the day to be mentioning specific answers in the main puzzle.
P.S. I did it myself earlier this morning because I got confused about which puzzle I was writing about, but fortunately Vinyl spotted it in good time.
Of course, makes perfect sense -apologies, I wasn’t thinking. Have made the appropriate comment on the other puzzle.
Since you do say “too early in the day”, implying “later, I will be able to reveal”, may I ask which clue it was in yesterday’s 15×15 that was said to be “the same” as one in yesterday’s QC? I stared at the 15×15 to see if I could find it but only managed one (1ac) which was irrelevant.
Thank you, Yorkshirelass!
It was GLAMOUR – 10 across. It took me a little while before I saw it, and it’s very obvious!
I see Yorkshirelass has answered your query. The clues weren’t identical but based on similar wordplay.
We have a ban on revealing answers in other puzzles on the same day but we may overlook it once the day is drawing to its close.
Thanks for the 15 x 15 reference – I tried it as a result of your comment and completed it!!
Great!
This was hard and I staggered home with one pinkie in about 28 minutes. OMERTA was a NHO, although it had to be from the checkers, but it was NICENE that finally tripped me up, wrongly putting in Niceae. (A bit galling really as I attended choral evensong in Canterbury cathedral on Monday evening and was surprised that I could still recite the Nicene Creed word-perfect after many years of non-attendance!)
So my 100% score thus far this week has been dented but it’s still going pretty well.
It took a while to get going with MASSACHUSETTS being my first one in and JETTISON my last. I think my favourite answer was NONACCEPTANCE.
ITTT
There is a NINA right in the centre of the grid.
Oh that’s a brilliant spot 😀
Oh yeah! Nice one.
The same NINA exists in the corners and possibly elsewhere too as there’s Ns, Is and As all over the grid. INASENSE and CONTAMINATE leap out…?
Well spotted indeed! Yes there are rather a lot of these letters – there’s another NINA in the “square” outside the central nina – the N and I of “contaminate” and the N and A of “outpatients”
Yeah, but who else spotted the *real* Nina of “I’m a tattie” (reading anti-clockwise starting from the I of INCHES)? *proud face*
🤣
Sorry to be a bit dim (me too), but what does “I’m a tattie” mean? I googled “tattie” and it means a potato. I can’t understand this.
It’s a coded message explaining that our setter is in fact none other than Igles Corelli, the great Italian chef whose signature dish is potato tortelli with stracchino cheese and whipped butter.
Either that or it’s happenstance and I’m being silly.
You decide.
Love it!
Because whether planned (genius – if as outlined above by Templar) or indeed ‘happpenstance’ what’s NOT funny about ‘I’m a potato’?!
President Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Kartoffel” to an enormous cheering Berlin crowd during the Cold War was rather geopolitically serious.
Are we going off the rails? I think Kennedy said “Ich bin ein Berliner” which unfortunately means a kind of doughnut. Sorry I know I have a weird sense of humour (never understand jokes) but I can’t see what’s funny about saying “I’m a potato”…….
(By the way Kartoffel is feminine, so it would be “eine Kartoffel” – though of course Kennedy might not have known that. Now we really are going off the rails.)
You’re right, Martinu, I often get very silly and need and welcome reminders to stay “on the rails”.
Sorry … don’t want to be a wet blanket …
“They laughed when I told them I was going to be a comedian. Well, they’re not laughing now.” One person’s Shakespeare is another person’s Bob Monkhouse.
💀
😂
👏👏👏
Sorry to be a bit dim, but what is the significance of a NINA?
Take a look at our Glossary under Help or Useful Links, or follow
this link.
But if you mean ‘what’s the point of a NINA?’ that’s a whole different matter!
Thanks for the link. So a NINA is a theme, but all I can see are the letters NINA spelled out in various places on the grid. Curious! Or maybe that constitutes a ‘theme’.
The terminology varies a bit with usage. Some like to distinguish NINAs which are hidden in the grid, from themes which are simply a bunch of answers linked in some way e.g. relating to a book, or a sport etc. But it’s also common to have NINAs with several hidden words all following a theme.
Today’s example is a classic NINA in that it’s a single hidden name which happens to recur in various patterns around the grid.
My favourite (and, to be fair, others’ most detested) was a Eurovision Nina on/around the day of the last event in May 2023. Can’t remember the exact date/puzzle but worth a look if someone can point to it. Fan or not of the thing itself (I’m not) I thought the Nina was absolute the result of absolute genius.
The original NINA consisted of Al Hirschfeld doing exactly that (hiding the letters NINA)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Hirschfeld#Nina
In the next diamond out from the middle, out first responder puts in an appearance. There Is No Alternative.
Another good spot! I tried looking for a pedants corner containing: There Is Never More Than One Alternative
Missed that SPINNING OUT was an anagram so bunged it in in desperation to avoid the SCC. By then I was pretty sure it was the only thing that would fit I’d just been misdirected to within an inch of my life. Totally failed to separate “making last” from “making last point” so I was on things like ‘closing out’ as well as not noticing what ‘point’ was really doing. Also missed that NONACCEPTANCE was an anagram, took as age as did spotting IN A SENSE was a hidden and seeing the trick with a A FEW. A bit outclassed today but I made it. All green in 19.35.
Tough but helped by a bit of a biff fest to come home in 29.50.
LOI omerta, as said above, well hidden anagram among lots that were well signalled but needed pencil and paper.
Yes very glad of ikea help to Massachusetts spelling.
NHO Ross Sea but guessed from the anagrist and assumed would be in the Arctic, but see it is Antarctic.
Thanks Roly and Corelli for the workout.
12 minutes. The surfaces for OUTPATIENTS and SPINNING OUT effectively disguised the definitions and these were among my last few in. Remembering OMERTA comes in handy for the few times it appears every year or so here and elsewhere.
Well done to the eagle-eyed Cribbage for spotting the surprise in the grid – I didn’t even look but probably would have missed it anyway.
Thanks to Roly and Corelli
I‘m sure I’m being quite stupid but I can’t see the Nina. Any chance of a bigger clue as to how to find it? Thanks
Look at the 4 checked letters in the middle of the grid
Thanks!
Literally then! Looks rather random than planned imho!
Perhaps so, until you see the other two NINA squares! (See comments above).
Ah ok. Thanks
A good test today, with a few that needed some serious thought.
Another ballet clue that automatically put my brain into shut down mode, which is my excuse for missing the hidden for so long.
Started with NAN BREAD and finished with IN A SENSE in 8.57 CsOD to OMERTA and OUTPATIENTS.
Thanks to Rolytoly
Top tough puzzle today- really enjoyed it.
Thumbs up to Roly and Corelli
20:25, which is one second outside my target time. Will be target time next year.
I thought SPINNING OUT was what happened to Formula 1 cars, which makes them last.
Made hard work of OUTPATIENTS, even with all the checkers and the anagram letters.
COD ROSS SEA
I found this one quite straightforward, didn’t have time to finish even one cup of coffee. It’s interesting how some contributors find one day’s puzzle easy but I don’t, and then some found today’s challenging but I didn’t. FOI IMPI, LOI OUTPATIENTS. Several made me smile at Corelli’s ingenuity, NAVE and JETTISON amongst them.
My anagram hat seems to have shrunk in the wash and wouldn’t stretch to the three (THREE) 13 letter anagrams until I had lots of checkers. Fortunately the Bee Gees had taught me how to spell MASSACHUSETTS. (Fun fact: they had never even been there – they just liked the phonetics.)
All done in 07:58 for a Good Day.
Many thanks Captain C and roly.
Templar
I suspect they just liked the idea of selling records in America…
7:24. A bit slow today. Loved the Ninas. Thanks Corelli and Rolytoly
Echo above, a bit tough, but not too tough!
OUTPATIENTS LOI, and COD for the misdirection in the definition. I was busily looking for a type of case that Templar might be familiar with. IN A SENSE was slow to come too, until I remembered that if you can’t make head or tail of a clue, then look for a hidden.
7:22
Managed less than half today, but liked ROSS SEA. NHO IMPI. In my stamp-collecting days we used to use BENZiNE for seeing watermarks; the dictionary gives both that and BENZENE as apparently two distinct substances; can anyone explain to a non-chemist what the difference is? Is one flammable, the other not?
Yes, benzene is a particular chemical made up of of a single molecule. It’s a ring of 6 carbon atoms usually drawn as a hexagon with a hydrogen atom attached to each carbon atom, so C6H6
Benzine is also known as gasoline and is a mixture of several hydrocarbons that comes from distilling oil. I think the term is only really used in the US?
Thank you for your expertise! Most kind. But please forgive me: chemistry is Greek to me, so the scientific detail is lost on me. The point is, as a stamp collector (in the UK) in the 1960s I used to use benzine on a daily basis. I don’t think there was ever a question of it being simply the same as petrol (is that what you mean by “gasoline”?). If you can recognise it as that (an aid to seeing watermarks), can you also say (a) whether it’s flammable, and (b) how it differs from benzene? Thanks!
Ah, looking this up it was Benzene that was favoured by stamp collectors which would make sense. It is highly flammable but has been banned for many years as it’s highly carcinogenic😧
The German for petrol/gas is Benzin.
Also liked assistance spelling MASSACHUSETTS. Wasn’t sure about LIE=SIT in JETTISON but accept golf example. Tried to convince myself there might be a RICE SEA (anagram of ice + ears) before PDM. Always slightly surprised at the GK that’s somewhere in the back of my brain that I can bring out for crosswords – today that included NICENE and OMERTA. Thanks Roly and Corelli.
10:27
More than 3’ of which was spent on LOI OUTPATIENTS, which is my COD too.
Lovely puzzle Corelli, thanks to you and roly
Found this very tough – 15 minutes to completion – with lots of clever misdirection. I had no idea what was going on in IN A SENSE and never thought of a hidden (mind you, my mind tends to go completely blank at the mere mention of anything to do with ballet), and was royally misled by the cases in OUTPATIENTS. On the other hand the two 13-letter clues were solve-then-parse: both went straight in and I then parsed to check I had the spellings correct.
I shared the minor queries that others have already commented on in Nan for Naan (I’m a Naan-er) and sit = lie (didn’t think of the golf analogy as I was solving), but both are probably “umpire’s call” so I accept Corelli’s judgment on them.
“Two” for two I’s in IMPI is also clever, and new to me, and as for Amin and Tate – does Crosswordland actually know of any other African dictators (he’s often there as Idi too) or galleries?
Many thanks Roly for the blog
Cedric
The Young Tradition had an album, Galleries, getting on for sixty years old now but still amazing.
After a good week so far, the wheels well and truly fell off today with a completion in 17.43. On assessing the answers I can’t see quite why it took me so long, but I think it was certainly on the tough side for a QC.
It was nice to see a fellow architect get a mention at 17dn, and what a legacy he left London in St Pauls Cathedral. I like the simplicity of the epitaph on his tomb which reads ‘If you seek his monument, look around’. My favourite epitaph however has to be his architectural contemporary John Vanbrugh (who designed Castle Howard amongst other achievements), which reads ‘Lie heavy on him earth, for he laid many heavy loads on thee’.
Itself a play on Martial’s famous epigram (5.34) to a dead child –
“Mollia non rigidus caespes tegat ossa nec illi,
Terra, gravis fueris: non fuit illa tibi.”
A reasonably literal translation would be:
“Earth, sadly mounded on this gravesite new,
Press lightly on her, as she did on you”
A looser version which has stayed with me is:
“Lie lightly on her, earth and dew –
She laid so little weight on you”.
Awwwwwww
Thank you for that.
And love this as well – thank you Andy and Templar for the edification!
A quick start at the top of the grid, but then I seemed to run out of steam and really struggled with the last few answers. Outpatients took ages (no change there, then), even with all the crossers, and I thoroughly explored all available rabbit holes before loi Jettison came to mind. The upshot of all this was a 24min solve, which now doesn’t seem too bad given some of the comments above. CoD to In A Sense, just ahead of a strong field. The well-hidden Nina was quite an impressive achievement as well. Tip of the hat to Corelli. Invariant
I found this tough and then failed by guessing OREMTA. However I was pleased that 6 Down helped the spelling.
22mins of fun, many pauses to scratch my head but it all fell into place gradually. The long anagrams didn’t leap out until a few checkers went in. Pleased to remember that I knew NICENE and OMERTÀ and that Ross had a sea, although that was the most obvious anagram. Wasn’t looking for a Nina, but well done setter and bloggers.
Done in by outpatients because I didn’t spell Colombia correctly. Also couldn’t get to wren or jettison. All a bit silly on my part. Good puzzle.
22 mins…
I didn’t find this too bad. I didn’t know 15dn “Nicene”, 9ac “Ross Sea” nor 5ac “Impi”, but they were all easily obtainable, even if I wasn’t sure about the use of two “I’s” for “two”. The “Nan Bread” issue seems to come up a lot.
FOI – 1ac “Nan Bread”
LOI – 9ac “Ross Sea”
COD – 17dn “Wren”
Thanks as usual!
17:30
I had biffed DEMONSTRATE for 3d, which stopped me from seeing 1a. Only after trying to think of increasingly obscure Indian foods did I finally spot my mistake, changed the D to an R and immediately got my NAN BREAD as my LOI.
Thanks Roly and Corelli
Wait, did nothing happen in 1730?
Nothing that came to mind. Wikipedia tells me that I could have had “Turnip” Townsend resigning from Walpole’s government, or Tsar Peter II dying of smallpox at the age of 14.
Well, a man called “Turnip” sounds a little cheerier than the poor teenaged Tsar.
I enjoyed this puzzle, coming in well under average time. Lots of clues had a bit to unravel, but all showed the answer pretty quickly. I much prefer puzzles like this where the wordplay is the key. I had NHO a few words (IMPI, NICENE, NAVE) but they couldn’t have been anything else. Held up by not even considering naan could be spelt with one A.
Great puzzle IMO!
A tough day at the office taking me 18 minutes. LOI SPINNING OUT; it took me a while to see the parsing.
There was nothing I did not know, I just had to work hard to get the answers; all the long anagrams delayed me.
Some good clues and not too contrived to suit the brilliant Nina in the puzzle-which I missed totally.
David
Definitely tricky. Only three Acrosses and three Downs solved during my first pass through all of the clues – and around 13 minutes had already elapsed by that stage. However, I finally started making better progress on the LHS and I ended up struggling with some of the clues down in the SE corner. Time = 34 minutes.
Both IMPI and NICENE were NHOs and OMERTÀ was a DNK, but NAN BREAD brought a smile to my face.
Many thanks to Corelli and Roly.
Another tricky one which I started at a trot before getting reined in. JETTISON and LOI, WREN caused me most delay. SPINNING OUT took a while too. NAN BREAD was FOI. 9:39. Nice Nina. Thanks Corelli and Roly.
DNF in an enjoyable 23:30. NAN BREAD, of all things, defeated me. My literal mind would not entertain the redundancy. But also I’m going through a phase of defeatism where I just think, well it’s some sort of Britspeak and I’ll never get it, so I might as well reveal the answer. More persistence needed!
I had a lot of fun unraveling the long anagrams in my head; I had resolved not to write anything down today. Probably that cost me some time but who cares anyway.
Thanks to the group for Nina-spotting and other excellent comments, rolytoly for the blog, and Corelli for the clever puzzle!
7:28
Didn’t spot the nina in flight – OMERTA remembered as another book by Mario Puzo (Il Padrino – The Godfather) – NICENE remembered from church in my early years – dredged up ROSS SEA from anagrist, not sure I would have known it otherwise. LOI OUTPATIENTS.
Thanks Roly and Corelli
Just right in terms of difficulty as far as my feeble mind manages, finished although OUTPATIENTS took a while
Harder than the main puzzle? The SNITCH is showing 61 so definitely worth a shot today.
No exact time so will put 20m.
Hit a total blockade with omerta, non acceptance, and spinning out.
COD venom/omerta.
QC 16:49 – thought I’d struggled today but seeing other people’s comments suggests it was harder than I credited it.
15×15 22:21 – easily a PB and would have been a sub20 had I just biffed the LOI.
11.11 I always thought the creed was NICEAN, which held up JETTISON for a while. LOI WREN took an alphabet trawl. Thanks rolytoly and Corelli.
Started really quickly on this one, a good few of the acrosses falling on the first pass. The downs proved more difficult especially the long anagrams which I had to write out, adding considerably to the time. I also took a long time to see IN A SENSE and failed utterly to see any sort of nina in the grid. I thought I was all finished in 18 mins until I spotted 17dn lurking in the corner. It’s a bit of a chestnut but for some reason it took me a further 4 mins and 3 alphabet trawls to solve it. So in the end 22 minutes, all parsed except MASSACHUSETTS where I had enough crossers to make it (and the spelling) obvious.
FOI – 5ac IMPI
LOI – 17dn WREN
COD – 7dn IN A SENSE
Thanks to Corelli and Rolytoly
Enjoyable puzzle. Got there in the end in one sitting. On the hard side but now I’m 5 years into these I can usually get there, so newbies have hope!
LOI and a COD OMERTÀ
Thanks Rory and Corelli
Did quite well but then held up by LOsI OUTPATIENTS and WREN (alphabet trawl finally arrived at W). Also a bit slow on SPINNING OUT and at first missed hidden IN A SENSE (doh)
Among FOsI NAVE, BENZENE, IMPI. Had to biff JETTISON. Knew OMERTA.
For once I saw the I of Man. Liked COLOMBIA, NICENE, REMONSTRATE.
I don’t see BREAD as a ‘dish’. MER.
Thanks for helpful blog, Roly. I see the word NINA in the middle and in the corners.
It struck me today that I would never have been able to solve this QC as a newcomer.
Re: non-newcomer
That’s great! Yes, progress is lovely like that when it strikes you that you’re significantly better than you were at something. (I suppose it can’t happen too frequently, though, which is why it’s so nice when it happens!)
🙂. Where would we be without the bloggers?
All correct in 26:28.
ROSS SEA was buried in the memory somewhere but thankfully the anagram was obvous.
A steady solve, but had to look up IMPI, OMERTA and ROSS SEA to see if they existed. Pleased that they do! Otherwise, took a while to see SPINNING OUT and JETTISON. Only ever seen NAAN bread in restaurant or supermarket.
10:54 here. I got all but one of the acrosses on my first pass, but was then held up by the 13-letter anagram (!) at 2d. My LOI was IN A SENSE: as others have commented, my brain freezes up at any mention of ballet.
Thanks to Corelli and rolytoly.
Despite early nerves at so many long clues a 25 min finish. My 3rd finish of the week. The M from Impi allowed me to biff Massachusetts but enjoyed parsing it after, my COD. FOI Nan Bread, never seen it spelt like that but what else could it have been. LOI Spinning out.
Thanks Corelli and bloggers, entertaining read
14:42
Fairly straightforward though took me a while to get LOI SPINNING OUT. Actually a technical DNF as I carelessly put an E and T the wrong way round in MASSACHUSETTS.
interesting differences of opinion on this. For me it was a massive DNF (6 unsolved) having enjoyed and finished yesterday’s and thought I was getting somewhere. Ho hum
After about 12 successive solves failed today on 3 clues
😭😭