Solving time: 6:24
I found this very accessible and was only really held up at the end by initially entering a similar word at 20a, which made 18d difficult to discern, particularly as the correct answer was not the most obvious meaning of the definition.
Having said that, there were a couple of obscurities which may slow one or two down e.g. 5d may not be a word that is that well-known; the last part of the 6d wordplay might seem a tad parochial; and, but for the checkers, the status implied by 17a might have been tricky to de-anagram…
How did you find it?
Definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions and substitutions are in curly brackets} and [directions in square ones].
| Across | |
| 1 | Drama teacher’s outmoded form of transport (10) |
| STAGECOACH – A drama teacher might be described as a COACH for the STAGE, or a STAGE COACH
Guess it’s only outmoded if you’re not a member of the Royal family… |
|
| 7 | Everyone originally occupying a town in Clackmannanshire (5) |
| ALLOA – ALL (Everyone) then first letter [originally] of O{ccupying} then A | |
| 8 | Disappear, carrying right sort of coating (7) |
| VARNISH – VANISH (Disappear) containing [carrying] R (right) | |
| 10 | Speech made in summer month by Russian river (9) |
| INAUGURAL – IN AUG (summer month) by URAL (Russian river)
Collins Online has this as a noun, defined as “a speech made at an inauguration, especially by a president of the US“ |
|
| 12 | Split grain young chap brought from east (3) |
| DAL – LAD (young chap) backwards [brought from east]
In Indian cuisine, DAL (also spelled daal or dhal) are dried split pulses (e.g. lentils, peas and beans) that do not require soaking before cooking. The word dāl (dal) derives from the Sanskrit verbal root dal- meaning “to split”. |
|
| 13 | Scandinavian course a Norwegian ultimately enters (6) |
| DANISH – DISH (course) with A {norwegia}N [ultimately i.e. last letter of] entered | |
| 15 | Emcee securing sparkling wine and aromatic resin (6) |
| MASTIC – MC (Emcee) “securing” i.e. insert ASTI (sparkling wine)
MASTIC (also known as “tears of Chios”, being traditionally produced on the island of Chios) is a resin obtained from the MASTIC tree (Pistacia lentiscus). During the Ottoman rule of Chios, MASTIC was worth its weight in gold. The penalty for stealing MASTIC was execution by order of the sultans! Gosh! The English word MASTICation is derived from the same Ancient Greek word μασᾶσθοι, meaning ‘chew’. |
|
| 16 | Broad sash initially introduced by former pupil (3) |
| OBI – First letter [initially] of I{ntroduced} by i.e. in this case following OB (pupil i.e. old boy)
OBI is a common word in Crosswordland – it is a belt of varying size and shape worn with both traditional Japanese clothing, and uniforms for Japanese martial arts. |
|
| 17 | Leader of heathen sect paid out for military recruit’s position (9) |
| CADETSHIP – Anagram [out] of H{eathen} [Leader of i.e. first letter of] and SECT PAID | |
| 20 | European design producing strong feeling (7) |
| EMOTIVE – E (European) MOTIVE (design)
I initially bunged in EMOTION (strong feeling) here, resolving only when I couldn’t solve 18d. Even then, I wasn’t sure about design = MOTIVE. The definition of MOTIVE is “a reason for doing something“. You have to read as far as the seventh definition of ‘design’ in Collins Online to find “a general plan or intention that someone has in their mind when they are doing something” – not convinced that an intention to do something is quite the same as a reason for doing something…
|
|
| 22 | Children? That’s the problem (5) |
| ISSUE – Double definition with some linking words to make the surface work | |
| 23 | Oust police officer’s back-up group primarily serving sheriff (10) |
| DISPOSSESS – DI‘S (police officer’s i.e. Detective Inspector’s) POSSE (backup group primarily serving sheriff) then the first letters [primarily] of S{erving} S{heriff}
The words “primarily serving sheriff” appear to be doing double duty here. The modern slang of POSSE meaning “small gang” is from Western movies, but is not, in fact, that different from its original meaning. In the 1640s, the general sense of POSSE was “an armed force” having derived from a shortening of the Anglo-Latin posse comitatus “the force of the county”. |
|
| Down | |
| 1 | Latin American dance some vassals attempted (5) |
| SALSA – Hidden [some] in vassals attempted
1846 as a kind of sauce served with meat; 1960 as an umbrella term for Cuban dance music being played in New York at that time. |
|
| 2 | A nice gal’s unconventional painkiller (9) |
| ANALGESIC -Anagram [unconventional] of A NICE GAL‘S
From Greek analgetos meaning “without pain”. |
|
| 3 | Young swimmer always seen around lake (5) |
| ELVER – EVER (always) seen around L (lake)
An ELVER is a juvenile eel. |
|
| 4 | Rower principally operating on a river (3) |
| OAR – First letter [principally] of O{perating} on A R (river) | |
| 5 | WWII ally using Asian language in court? (7) |
| CHINDIT – HINDI (Asian language) in CT (court)
The CHINDITs, officially known as Long Range Penetration Groups, were special operations units of the British and Indian armies which saw action in 1943-1944 during the Burma Campaign of World War II. |
|
| 6 | Friend in French department — Hannah, possibly (10) |
| PALINDROME – PAL (Friend) IN DRÔME (French department)
No reason why you should have ever heard of DRÔME (I hadn’t), which is the southernmost department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of Southeastern France. PALINDROME is from the Greek palin “back” + dromos “a running” |
|
| 9 | Cheer pilot manoeuvring hovering aircraft (10) |
| HELICOPTER – Anagram [manoeuvring] of CHEER PILOT
From a Latinized combining form of Greek helix (genitive helikos) “spiral” + pteron “wing” |
|
| 11 | Most foolish American, anyway! (9) |
| LEASTWISE – Being the most foolish might mean you are the LEAST WISE
LEASTWISE is an American English term defined by Collins Online as “at least; anyway“ |
|
| 14 | VIP absorbing atmosphere at first in African capital (7) |
| NAIROBI – NOB (VIP) taking in [absorbing] AIR (atmosphere) at first letter of I{n}
NAIROBI is derived from the Maasai phrase Enkare Nairobi, which translates to ‘place of cool waters’. |
|
| 18 | Line up something to wear (5) |
| DRESS – Double definition, the first of which is military, meaning “draw up troops in the proper alignment”
My LOI, I wasn’t aware of the first definition. |
|
| 19 | Entertainers — lots of them! (5) |
| HOSTS – As well as an entertainer heading up a show, a HOST can also be a large number of people or things
An example would be “the heavenly HOST”, which biblically, means the angels regarded collectively. To imply that there are many, many people or things, the plural of the noun can be used e.g. “there were HOSTS of sparrows flocking around the bird table”. |
|
| 21 | Mischievous type of politician supporting India (3) |
| IMP – MP (politician i.e. member of parliament) supporting I (India – NATO phonetic alphabet)
“supporting” is apposite as this is a down clue – MP is beneath i.e. supporting the I |
|
I got this done in 9:30 but with the caveat that a bunch were unparsed.
I got caught putting in EMOTION as well. Didn’t know what a ‘drome’ was but it couldn’t be anything else. Got CHINDIT and MASTIC from the wordplay and crossers.
No idea what a NOB – NAIROBI fit the checkers. Had no idea LEASTWISE was an American phrase.
lastly I meant to say yesterday that I was stunned when I found out that ‘podcast’ got the name because of the ipod obvs and because it rhymes with ‘broadcast’ in various US accents. Accents are wild.
6:54. I think as a lad growing up in Ontario I used to say LEASTWAYS rather than LEASTWISE. “Johnnie Sahib” by Paul Scott is a good read about the CHINDITS.
8.20, which I thought was OK seeing I’m simultaneously watching the DNC which is very distracting. LOI PALINDROME, which I thought was a good clue even though I tried for ages to include a-m-i and didn’t know the dept. It didn’t matter once PAL arrived and the point of Hannah was revealed. Some terrific anagrams, I’m not sure the ‘at’ is necessary in the clue for 14dn NAIROBI. I too was slightly dubious about HOSTS but the blog cleared it up, thanks Mike and Orpheus.
15:02 but felt faster
COD STAGECOACH, obvious really but very pleasing when it popped into my head.
When you see an impossibly long and obscure word like Clackmannanshire it’s usually a hidden, but not today. It’s s geographic indicator, lost on me, got it through listening through football results.
CHINDIT is pretty obscure, No? And I’m currently in India. (DAL served for breakfast and very good too).
I love the fact that HELICOPTER is made up from helico+pter, not heli+copter.
Great blog, Mike.
Confession re your COD: I started with SKATEBOARD. I think I have mentioned here before that HELICOPTER is one of my favourite words, for that reason.
I did pretty well, but didn’t parse half of them – biffed helicopter, Nairobi, dispossess, cadetship. I also biffed emotion, which was a biff too far and held me up a little at the end, but then I put in emotive. I assumed that motive was an alternate spelling of motif. Then I got stuck on palindrome until I tried putting in pal at the beginning – I was afraid it would be some famous Hannah I never heard of.
Time: 9:03
Started badly by biffing steamtrain at 1a before analgesic at 2d put me on the right track! NHO Chindit but it had to be. Palindrome took some time before I realised that there aren’t any really famous people with that name, so it had to something trickier. Also tried shoving in AMI before the PDM. Bingeing Antique’s Roadshow allowed OBI to be a write-in.
Thanks setter and blogger.
I think POSSE=backup group, and SS=’primarily serving sheriff’, so no double duty being done. Fortunately ALLOA came up once or twice in 15×15, as I had no idea what county it’s in. Maybe a PB, but anyway a lot better than I usually do. 3:35.
Wow! How that’s some rarefied air
Scorchio!!🔥
6 minutes makes this my fastest solve since 11 June and a time I have beaten on only 5 occasions since 2014. My timings for QCs include parsing however.
PALINDROME was my LOI, never having heard of Drôme as far as I can recall.
I was also going to claim that I NHO CHINDIT, but a trawl of the TfTT archive reveals it has turned up 5 times previously (leaving aside a Mephisto and a Jumbo) including one appearance in a QC in April 2021 also set by Orpheus.
I found this very approachable and came home in 7 minutes, the only delay being over EMOTIVE where my thinking was exactly as our blogger’s, ie “EMOTION for ‘strong feeling’, bother makes 18D impossible, try EMOTIVE, ah that solves 18D, can’t really see the parsing but no doubt the dictionary will allow Design = Motive, after all there are stranger meanings in Chambers”.
CHINDIT and MASTIC the only other slightly unfamiliar words but both very clearly clued. PALINDROME my LOI and COD.
Many thanks Mike for the blog and etymological explanations – much appreciated.
Cedric
12:23. I’m another with EMOTION at first, changed to EMOTIVE to accommodate DRESS at the end. I liked the mystery woman Hannah, COD to STAGE COACH
Gentle going today until hitting the ’emotion’ buffers and I had all the relevant GK which helped.
Started with PALINDROME and finished with DRESS in 6.28.
Thanks to Mike
Whooshing along at 150mph on the Eurostar in relaxed surroundings with a croissant and coffee to celebrate a new window seat with a view in the SCC.
No real problems and once again a double dose of OBI today (just one last week I think). I liked PALINDROME and DISPOSSESS.
Dredged up Orde Wingate and the Chindits (not a rock band) from somewhere deep in memory about Burma.
Thanks Mike for the informative blog, and Orpheus for keeping out of the Underworld today.
No so quick as others, it took me longer to get from ’emotion’ to EMOTIVE and a while before that wondering if I could make ‘denim’ work. DNK CHINDIT but parased OK and was pleased when I wrote in OBI and remembered I knew it. All green in 16.23.
I’d have fairly whizzed through this but for having to back out at least four typos, and amend “emotion” at the end of my second pass in order to accommodate my LOI. NHO the French Department, but ALLOA, the home of the excellent Williams Brothers Brewery, and the much missed MacLay’s – there were once nine breweries in the town – is the only place I could name you in Clackmannanshire other than its county town (checking Uncle Google as I type this, I can now add Dollar, Alva, and Tullibody).
FOI ALLOA
LOI DRESS
COD PALINDROME
TIME 4:44
4:46. LOI LEASTWISE I vaguely remembered CHINDIT but not the French department. I was pleased to see ALLOA, where my uncle and aunt George and Christine have recently moved to after many years living in Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis. Clackmannanshire, George told me when we visited recently, is the smallest county in the UK. At 159 km2 it is less than half the size of Rutland in England. Thanks Orpheus for the neat puzzle and Mike for the informative blog.
Quite fast then stuck on LOI PALINDROME. Was sidetracked by only be able to think of one or two famous Hannahs or only one or two French departments. Then the penny dropped. Groan.
Knew ALLOA from its football team? And CHINDIT just came to mind.
Biffed NAIROBI. Enjoyable QC.
Thanks vm, Mike.
Everyone was very fast today and I was very slow at 36:29!
I will hang my head in shame and say no more, except that I liked the ******* ******.
Cheers Steve
Join me in the SCC and we can commiserate together…
I am not sure if you meant this comment in the QC blog SteveB, but it gave away an answer in the 15×15, so I have edited your comment with asterisks.
Thanks for doing that edit, Mike.
Dnf…
19 mins, but I put “Hindu” rather than “Hindi” for 5dn and got a pink square. The rest took a bit of solving, but I got there in the end.
For what it’s worth, I wondered about “motive” for “design”, and also made the mistake of putting “Emotion” first.
FOI – 1ac “Stagecoach”
LOI – 18dn “Dress”
COD – 6dn “Palindrome”
Thanks as usual!
Given comments so far I am in Very Stupid mode, or 11D, as I found this a struggle and it took me well into the SCC. On review I don’t quite know why, but very little clicked on first reading, and some of my first reading was lazy so I missed points.
Had no idea what was going on with CADETSHIP which I biffed once I had sufficient checkers, but at least CHINDIT came to mind when needed. INAUGURAL didn’t, for ages.
I also wanted to get ami into what became PALINDROME so that held out, slowing the East side. And, EMOTION, until it wasn’t.
HELICOPTER was good.
Tomorrow may be better. Thanks for the blog assistance in untangling a few.
12:06
ALLOA familiar only from football.
There was a chemistry teacher at my school who had served in Burma, and named his house CHINDIT house, so that was familiar.
I fell into the EMOTION trap
LOI was PALINDROME.
Thanks Mike and Orpheus
Spent at least a couple of minutes trying to get the four long answers to unlock the puzzle, but came away with just a fairly useless Helicopter as a consolation prize. After that it was a case of hopping around and picking up answers here and there. Fortunately I had the GK for Chindit, and didn’t fall into the Emotion trap. Loi after 17mins, and head-slap CoD, was 6d Palindrome – having driven through and admired the Drôme scenery on more than one occasion, I really should have got that one a bit quicker. Invariant
41 mins. Pleased to finish (except for one letter).
Quite a few NHOs but clue-ING was good so could get there.
5:28
About as quick as I can manage pen on paper, which is fun to do now and again, thanks Orpheus.
FOI ALLOA
LOI EMOTIVE, only because it was.
COD DISPOSSESS
DNF after 20 minutes. Stuck on 18d.
The problem was E- MOTION which I failed to review.
Otherwise easy enough.
COD to STAGECOACH.
David
5.16
Like others found this v approachable despite entries like CHINDIT. Also an EMOTION but I’ve finally learned to check “correct” answers a bit more closely and a bit more quickly which helped here.
Cracking time from Kevin – though raises the bar for those who measure their time in multiples of K 🙂
STAGEC~OACH was FOI. I’ve read a couple of books bout the Burma campaign, so CHINDIT was a write in. LEASTWISE took a moment’s thought. I had to write out the letters I had horizontally before I could unravel LOI, PALINDROME. 6:49. Thanks Orpheus and Mike.
Interesting puzzle (and blog). Held up parsing dispossess and then palindrome – couldn’t get away from ami and had to rethink. Just clicked over 10 minutes. Thanks.
Solved this one at a steady trot hesitating only at my LOI DISPOSSESS, finishing in 7.37. I’ve never heard of DROME but I haven’t travelled that extensively in France. ALLOA was easy enough if you’ve listened to the football results often enough. CHINDIT was known to me from accounts I’ve read of the Second World War military actions. They were brave men who were sent behind enemy lines in Burma to disrupt the Japanese. It’s said the Japanese were always fearful about being grabbed by the Chindits – very painful apparently!
New solver here.
(had some internet issues so missed a couple days)
This one felt pretty easy overall, not sure what my solve time was as I was doing it piecewise over the course of an hour, but maybe 25 mins? Lots of new words for me but they were often paired with simple enough wordplay that they were guessable.
Tricky ones:
Alloa (NHO) – wordplay was relatively simple but never heard of the county let alone the town.
Elver (NHO) – simple enough wordplay
Mastic (NHO) – and not heard of Asti sparkling wine otherwise straightforward.
Chindit (NHO) – wordplay was simple enough.
Analgesic (NHO) – tough to find an anagram when you don’t know the word, had to wait till I had some checking letters.
Nairobi – “atmosphere at first in” being “AIR+I” rather than just “A” and the “in” being a connector was hard to unravel. “NOB” for “VIP” is a new one for me. I guessed from the checking letters but couldn’t justify it.
FOI Varnish
LOI Emotive (i had emotion until I got dress)
COD Palindrome
Well done – it’s interesting to see how you’re developing. You’ll be out of the SCC before long at this rate 😊 Watch out for Asti, Analgesic (don’t take them together) and Nairobi – they pop up pretty frequently!
Did all but 2 in under 4 mins, was thinking about them when I got a work call and forgot to press pause. Got the last 2 quite quickly after realising EMOTION was wrong giving me DRESS and then LOI was DISPOSSESS, but my time on the board was 20:55, so I submitted with no leaderboard.
Somewhere in the late 4’s I expect, but no accurate time today.
Unusually for me I did this on my phone, which I think slowed me up a bit. That’s my excuse for my SCC 21 minutes anyway (leastwise). That and spending too much time wondering if dress really could mean line up. I never came to a conclusion but bunged it in anyway, my LOI. NHO MASTIC or DROME, but otherwise all okay. Thanks Orpheus and Mike.
Got there in the end, but a bit of a struggle. Put EMOTION and only saw that it should be EMOTIVE when DRESS (a guess) proved correct. Also biffed INAUGURAL and DISPOSSESS.
Enjoyable QC. Only problem, like for others today, put in EMOTION which had to be changed to complete LOI DRESS. Thanks Mike for explaining how it can mean ‘Line up’ and for the rest of the interesting blog.
Took ages over LOI DISPOSSESS though not at all sure why. Didn’t know the other meaning of DRESS and NHO CHINDIT but followed the wordplay. Really interesting to hear about the hitherto unknown etymology of HELICOPTER. Many thanks Mike and Orpheus.
1a Stage Coach. Ho ho.
6d NHO Drome. Can’t spell PalEndrome, wrongly took the “in French” to be EN. Delayed 10a Inaugural.
Now discovered Drome is in Cheating Machine, so I have heard of it, probably wrt Times Xwords.
Very slow, even before grinding to a halt with 18dn outstanding. I had considered denim but DISPOSSESS put paid to that. I then conducted 2 alphabet trawls with no success before eventually concluding that I had something wrong. It had to be emotion and I recalled that I had wondered about it when I first entered it. Correcting that revealed DRESS with no further ado. NHO the French department but PALINDROME had to be right. all done and parsed in a very sluggish 27 minutes.
FOI – 7ac ALLOA
LOI – 18dn DRESS
CODs – 1ac STAGECOACH and 11dn LEASTWISE
Thanks to Orpheus and to Mike for the informative blog
9.43 I struggled a bit with HOSTS because I’d already thought of “host” for “emcee” in 15a, so I discounted it. Which was daft. Like others I was held up at the end by a biff of EMOTION and the unknown meaning of DRESS. Thanks Mike and Orpheus.
7:54 today. Orpheus and I seem to be getting on much better these days 😅
Not a lot to report but it was a pleasant solve.
FOI Alloa LOI Palindrome CODs Stagecoach and Helicopter (too hard to choose)
Thanks Orpheus and Mike – a fascinating blog as usual!
13m
Good time ruined by emotion. I had thought of dress earlier, but didn’t know the military meaning. Eventually decided it couldn’t be dungs or something equally strange, and whacked in emotive/dress.
COD Helicopter.
Got it all done. Knew all the words but took a while to work out the answers. I thought Chindit was brilliant. And analgesic and palindrome.
Cod STAGECOACH, not convinced by LEASTWISE, but got there ultimately, which is my sole goal now ( timing myself depressing given other bloggers’ performance).
As long as you’re enjoying the ride, it doesn’t matter how long it takes 👍
DNF
Had EMOTION which left 18dn unsolvable. Bunged in DUNGS which might have been short for dungarees, but knew I was heading for pink squares.
It seems I was not alone to struggle with these two but unlike everyone else I didn’t think to go back and revisit emotion. Lesson learned.
11:20. I knew of the chindits so that wasn’t a problem. I’d never seen DAL spelt without an H before but the wordplay was clear enough. Similarly I couldn’t recall ever having come across Drome as a French department before but it had to be. Thanks all.
Leastwise?! Sounds VERY American – I’m sure no one says that in this country! As bad as ‘ we will be landing momentarily ‘ …. and ‘ oftentimes ‘ …. and ‘ New Year’s ‘ … all v popular with our American cousins. Spare us ….!
I thought this was quite tricky, finishing in 16:17. The comments are interesting, and I’m increasingly convinced that those of you who are good at this stuff sometimes find it hard to gauge difficulty for those of us who aren’t. Which certainly isn’t a complaint – god knows I’m in no position to assess how difficult you lot will find a puzzle to be.
Thank you for a very helpful blog!
Have you tried looking at the Quick Snitch? It is a tool which measures the difficulty of each puzzle by collecting the times of those completing it – can be useful to see how your time compares from day to day…
You can find it at https://quick.xwdsnitch.link/crosswords
I have, and I think it backs me up to a limited extent. Most of the reference solvers have an average time of under ten minutes, which in my view puts them into the “good” bracket, and hence I don’t think that the Quick Snitch is necessarily a reliable indicator of how easy a puzzle is for a relative novice.
This puzzle has a Quitch of 79. You could fairly suggest that I’m extrapolating from a sample size of one (myself) but I’m reasonably confident that most new solvers will have found it harder than average.
13:39. last two took me ages… DRESS and HOSTS. not helped by me having EMOTION instead of EMOTIVE…. I liked the puzzle overall – thanks all!
Useless, useless, useless!
What is it that makes me so bad when you are all so good? What don’t I get?
27 minutes of anguish, with at least 10 of those spent on 18dn until I changed EMOTION to EMOTIVE. It takes me forever to see that I’ve made an error, when the rest of you spot this immediately.
I feel like I’m walking through glue with this. Already at 90 mins this week for the QC!
Spent 90 minutes on proper crossword today and still well short of finishing.
Never going to get there, am I?
☹️☹️☹️
Don’t despair. You are certainly not useless x 3. No! No! No!
Try reciting “Every day, in every way I’m getting better & better”
Say this 10 times AND BELIEVE IT before you start the clock. It really works.