I found this quite tough.
Either I’m entering holiday mode a bit early or this was hard, or possibly both, as at a bit over 12 minutes this is my slowest solve in a while. The answers contain little in the way of obscurity, so the difficulty all came from tricksy cluing and effective misdirection (along with a couple of lesser-seen abbreviations) that would not be out of place in the 15×15.
I was rather slow all over the grid, but my main hold ups at the end were the 1d/7ac crossers and both the 17’s. A very enjoyable challenge – many thanks to Joker!
| Across | |
| 1 | My career churning in butter factory (8) |
| CREAMERY – anagram (churning) of MY CAREER | |
| 5 | Spot a line missing in voting paper (4) |
| BLOT – A and L(ine) missing in BALLOT (voting paper) | |
| 9 | Promised the return of northern banks (5) |
| SWORN – the return/reverse of N(orthern) and ROWS (banks). As in a bank or row of dials, switches, etc. I couldn’t get past the deeply unpromising idea of “banks” being a containment indicator. | |
| 10 | Father’s holding a winning card, which makes all well (7) |
| PANACEA – PA (father) is holding AN ACE (a winning card) | |
| 11 | Animal trapped in the well (3) |
| EWE – hidden, or “trapped” in thE WEll. Whereas I was slow to see the actual containment indicator. | |
| 12 | Show changing time on map (9) |
| PANTOMIME – anagram (changing) of TIME ON MAP | |
| 13 | Chap turned back before a place in Cambridgeshire specifically (6) |
| NAMELY – MAN (chap) “turned back” before ELY (crossword’s favourite place in Cambridgeshire) | |
| 15 | Down-and-out, mostly rough-edged bachelor returned (6) |
| BEGGAR – RAGGEd (rough-edged, “mostly”) B(achelor) “returned” | |
| 17 | Try and move round to hide key symptom of indigestion (9) |
| HEARTBURN -HEAR (try) and TURN (move round) to hide B (key in music) | |
| 19 | Be unsuccessful getting rid of large peacock (3) |
| FOP – FLOP (be unsuccessful) getting rid of L(arge) | |
| 20 | A right pair mostly exercise hard (7) |
| ARDUOUS – A R(ight) DUO and USe (exercise) “mostly” | |
| 21 | British countryside is rather insipid (5) |
| BLAND – B(ritish) LAND (countryside) | |
| 22 | Merit attention before the third of June (4) |
| EARN – EAR (attention) before N (the “third” of juNe) | |
| 23 | End of stay after prison sentence able to be lengthened (8) |
| STRETCHY – Y (“end” of staY) after STRETCH (prison sentence) | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Island seabird seen below Cape reservoir? (7) |
| CISTERN – IS. (Island) TERN (seabird) seen below C. (Cape). I almost gave myself a nice big pat on the back for remembering that a CAITERN is a small, possibly artificial mountain lake (or something like that – possibly same derivation as TARN). | |
| 2 | Insect leaving gnu, say, to run off (5) |
| ELOPE – ANY (insect) leaves antELOPE (gnu, say) | |
| 3 | Skilful handling of rampant tulip mania working (12) |
| MANIPULATION – anagram (rampant) of TULIP MANIA, and then ON (working) | |
| 4 | Ruin regularly leads writer to mature (5) |
| RIPEN – R u I n “regularly” leads PEN (writer) | |
| 6 | Missing being idle when son’s away (7) |
| LACKING – sLACKING (being idle) when S(on) is away | |
| 7 | Commerce is traditional with English (5) |
| TRADE – TRAD(itional) with E(nglish) | |
| 8 | Disorderly, hungover and unable? Off their heads (12) |
| UNGOVERNABLE – remove the “heads” from hUNGOVER and uNABLE | |
| 14 | Bend in river is more tight around delta (7) |
| MEANDER – MEANER (more tight) around D(elta). Meander derives from the indeed quite tortuous River Maeander. | |
| 16 | Quickly paid running into railway (7) |
| RAPIDLY – anagram (running) of PAID going into RLY (railway) | |
| 17 | Drag bundles of corn endlessly (5) |
| HEAVE – sHEAVEs (bundles of corn) “endlessly” | |
| 18 | Distressed to go down after being at university (5) |
| UPSET – SET (go down, as in the Sun) after UP (being at university) | |
| 19 | Country abandoning European currency (5) |
| FRANC – FRANCe (country) abandoning E(uropean) | |
I cannot say why, but I didn’t find it that hard. Either the cryptic or the literal should give you a way in – no chestnuts, but gettable. Well, maybe Franc/France was a chestnut, but it was at the bottom. At least I saw sworn, panacea, and ungovernable right away, but I was slow on manipulation. I was left at the end with heave, the obvious answer, but it took me a moment to see sheaves.
Time: 9:08
How good was UNGOVERNABLE
I didn’t get CISTERN or MEANDER but I found this quite approachable in general
I gotta remember where ELY is.
Ungovernable was a chef’s kiss of a clue! Loved it.
I thought it was a marvellous clue. Read the wordplay and thought “Surely not…”, but there it was!
Pretty straightforward, although FOP didn’t come to me until I had the checkers, and I didn’t see how LOI UNGOVERNABLE worked until I put it in. 6:09.
Same here. Couldn’t believe the clue as I was writing it, and I was failing and falling until the p of fop showed up.
BEGGAR was my LOI thinking I was looking for something more like sad. RLY for railway raised an eyebrow but I’m sure it’s right, more used to RY. Interestingly, it’s also text speak for ‘really’, which is what I said to myself at the time! Thought 19a was clever as I immediately thought of FAIL instead of FLOP. COD to UNGOVERNABLE.
Thanks setter and blogger.
Done between DNC speeches so no proper time, I’d say about 15. Most of the top half seemed to go in quite quickly but then we slowed down. Significantly. LOI BEGGAR, along with HEARTBURN, STRETCHY, MEANDER and COD UNGOVERNABLE, would have been at home in the 15×15. Enjoyable but challenging QC, thanks Joker and Roly. Btw I noticed a sneaky ref to ‘Ode to Billy Joe’ at 22ac (‘It was the 3rd of June, another dirty dusty delta day’) and wondered if for once I’d stumbled across a hidden theme, but apparently not…
10:54, with LOI FOP after I thought FAI(L) might be a type of peacock.
RLY for Railway? I swear setters make abbreviations up that no one else sees in the wild. I mean RY isn’t exactly common either.
COD UNGOVERNABLE: always good to see a new clue type. Very nice.
Ditto FAI, I even went so far as to put it in. Same with RLY.
I wondered about RLY, once I read the blog–I hadn’t notice anything when typing in RAPIDLY–having never seen it. But it’s in, e.g., ODE, which is as far as I’ve looked.
10 minutes. I needed a checker to bring FOP to mind and I really must remember that ‘endlessly’ can indicate deletion of first and last last letters. ‘Go down / SET’ is another that regularly catches me out. No problem with ‘rly’ (or ‘ry’) for ‘railway’ as both are commonly used on signs and maps etc. Who’d be a setter if they were instructed to avoid all the little things we complain about?
Another stuggle in what I’m finding to be a tough week. Started well with CREAMERY going straight in but I ended up with only five on the first pass of acrosses and so still lots to do. Ended up with CISTERN and then SWORN to finish. All green in 14.14.
A rare occasion for me to think that this is as easy as the blogger does. Perhaps because trouble with a “cistern” is high among my priorities. I think that 1d/7a should read 1d/9a in the blog Rolytoly.
FOI CREAMERY followed by all its connecting clues gave me a quick start to this my only hold-up for reasons I can’t see was my LOI BEGGAR. It just took a minute or two to come to mind. I see no problem with RLY, as seen in these parts before.
Favourite: MEANDER.
I seem to have bucked the trend in finding this one at the easier end of the spectrum. I toyed with biffing Corsica but quickly realised I was looking at the wrong end of the clue for CISTERN and had a lovely PDM for COD UNGOVERNABLE
Started with CREAMERY and finished with BEGGAR in 5.51.
Thanks to Rolytoly
Very good.
Finished in 31m with the benefit of a couple of letter checks.
BEGGAR and HEAVES took me ages
Roly. Typo in blog.
2D is ANT not ANY.
I found this at the easier level and exercised self discipline to attempt all A’s followed by D’s in order to find a well filled grid.
Thought UNGOVERNABLE was an anagram for a a moment (I suppose it is) before the cleverness struck. COD.
Did not jump to C for Cape but Creamery did the work for me.
Probably a bit slower than my usual slow pace recovering from hectic day trip for meeting in Brussels. Glad I took Eurostar rather than flying. Recommended. Also, Grand-Place magnificent and worthy of a detour and several photos.
Thanks Roly and Joker
I found it on the tougher end of QC puzzles, but looking back over the scrupulously fair clueing I can’t really see why I should have done. Thank you Joker and Roly.
FOI CREAMERY
LOI BEGGAR
COD UNGOVERNABLE
TIME 5:43
Thought I was in for a quick one with top two thirds filled in as fast as my pen would go, pausing only to appreciate the brilliant UNGOVERNABLE. Then brought to a stop with 10 mins spent on the last four clues. Could not see the RLY for railway (I never enter an answer until parsed), HEARTBURN/HEAVE took ages (in my view using 7 possible music keys to clue a single letter is very lazy from the setter) to end in 27 mins.
Thanks for the blog Roly.
10:40
By the time 8 or 9 minutes were up, I suddenly remembered this was a QC and not the 15×15 – didn’t find it that easy, and the Quitch is at 108 currently – looking back at the puzzle though, there doesn’t seem to be much that’s appallingly hard – one of those that where having a couple of checkers in place definitely helps…
Thanks Joker and Roly
Is it my imagination, am I really getting dense, or are my regular fellow members of the SCC mostly on holiday? Newsold, glad I have one to share a drink with. The blog recently seems populated by speed merchants happily recounting their sub 10 solves of grids that I am just about able to complete around the 30 min mark. And so it was today with 1A going in easily, but 2D and 9A holding out to the end. Between, a lot of head scratching and long pauses.
Plenty of clever clues, UNGOVERNABLE was a new device to me with two headless words in tandem. 2D, when I got it, was very good.
I am deferring my entry to the Times Crossword competition for this year….
I am never out of the SCC, unless I am left behind on the platform. Agree, I won’t enter the Comp this year.
I’m almost always in the SCC and today is no exception. Would you like a pint of Doom Bar or Jail Ale (from just across the border)?
Doom hasn’t been quite the same since Sharps were bought out and they moved brewing it out of Rock. Still decent, though, as are several of the other, still locally brewed, ales. Sea Fury is excellent.
I got to EWE in the acrosses before the answers stopped flowing and I switched to the downs. FAI was first thought at 19a, but RAPIDLY changed that. I didn’t find this difficult, but it wasn’t easy either and needed full concentration. Liked UNGOVERNABLE. STRETCHY was LOI. 7:30. Thanks Joker and Roly.
Also tried to find a FAI peacock. LOI BEGGAR and brain-freeze as I couldn’t parse it. Thanks Roly & Joker.
11:13
Also hunting for FAI and OSE peacocks.
For 9a I thought “banks” might mean rivers, and wasted time trying to find suitable rivers in the north of England.
LOI UNGOVERNABLE.
Thanks Roly and Joker
6:04. I was a bit slow getting started as few of the across clues yielded on a first past despite my COD CREAMERY leaping out at the start. I liked UNGOVERNABLE too. LOI CISTERN trying for to long to find the name of an island. Thanks Joker and Rolytoly.
New solver back again.
I didn’t find this one two bad, only really struggled with three. Solve time 45 mins is massively inflated as I was doing it absent minded-ly while making coffee and reading emails at work. I think had I focused it would be under 25 mins which is pretty quick for me.
Tricky ones:
Blot – a slight misreading lead to me trying to do “A” + “voting paper – L” rather than “voting paper – AL”.
Beggar – tricky wordplay for me, even with all the checking letters I couldn’t see it. I think because I wasn’t thinking about returning the whole phrase, I was just returning bachelor.
Heartburn – quite a few steps to this one. whenever “key” is used to mean a letter from “a” through “g” it is particularly tricky as there are just too many options. “hear” for try is also a tough one.
FOI: Sworn
LOI: Beggar
COD: Ungovernable (very clever)
Agreed ‘key’ as a clue completely sucks, imo.
I see what you did there in the second line – one, two, three, 45. A nina!
Thanks Roly and Joker, most enjoyable – now, off to visit Plymouthian in the club.
Relatively quick solve for me in c.40 mins although quite a few were biffed and needed the help from our blogger to fully understand (thanks Rolytoly).
We solved this on an early train leaving Edinburgh after a few brilliant days at the Fringe. Despite little sleep after a late final hurrah last night, this was another Joker puzzle where we found the groove and a rare sub 20 finish (by 3 seconds) all parsed.
COD to ongovernable, LOI was beggar.
Thanks Joker and Roly. Time for a nap!
8:42
Clever puzzle. Like most, I was sailing along until LOI and COD UNGOVERNABLE, which I only parsed post completion.
Thought HEARTBURN was a very clever surface.
Thanks Joker and Roly.
Anyone else still not getting the grid completed message on the Times app when finished? Clock keeps ticking as well.
Me too. But if you go back into Crosswords it shows ‘completed’ and your time.
That’s on the Times Puzzles App which is what I use.
I thought I had finished in a relatively quick time for one of The Joker’s puzzles in 7.54, only to discover an error. In my haste to finish I put in COSTERN for 1dn, seeing only the Greek island and seabird, and ignoring the C[ape] in terms of parsing it. The Joker has the last laugh again!
23:12
This started ok but a few tricky gaps were left in my grid as the clock ticked past my 20 minute target. Struggled with CISTERN (was looking for an island) and SWORN. LOI ARDUOUS.
Taken a bit over average time, but nothing too bad.
LOI PANTOMIME, mainly because I read “show” as “slow”. I saw that PANTOMIME fitted the checkers, then saw the anagram, and wondered why on earth a pantomime was “slow changing”, then looked a bit closer and saw my error.
6:58
A reasonably successful start, with quite a lot of the top half populated. However, I then quickly reached the ‘banging head against brick wall’ stage, with barely anything to disturb the bottom half of the grid, so I stopped for a tea break. CoD Ungovernable then helped to unlock the SE corner, and Heave did the same for the SW. Probably something between 25 and 30mins solving effort in total, so I happily join our intrepid Devon correspondent in finding this another tough one from Joker. Invariant
22:16. I thought this was easy and was quite surprised to see the Quick Snitch at 104.
Another one who started 19a with FAI assuming it was another word from Crosswordland – like Ounce for a Cat.
Really liked PANACEA and UNGOVERNABLE.
Thanks both.
In Joker’s groove today with a 9 minute completion. Lots of clever clues, no unknown words in the answers, an above-average number of PDMs and smiles – really enjoyed this one. Pick of the bunch undoubtedly UNGOVERNABLE, which I thought was an anagram at first, wrote the letters down in a line, and discovered I had found the answer “just like that”, as Tommy Cooper used to say.
Many thanks Roly for the blog
Cedric
LOI CISTERN took a while to unravel. Wasn’t sure C = Cape was a thing and initially had wrong definition. Also never seen RLY for railway so that’s one to add to my list. Couldn’t parse HEARTBURN or ELOPE – thanks Roly. Liked FOP because of the succession of made-up words I created whilst solving 😄 Thanks all.
11:04
Scraped under par. Fop/rapidly and beggar took the longest to solve.
LOI Heave.
COD ungovernable and manipulation.
7.06
Nice puzzle. UNGOVERNABLE was good
Thanks Joker and Roly
Finished and enjoyed, mostly. Top half quick, bottom half very slow. LOsI HEARTBURN and HEAVE. I thought of Sheaf of corn straight away but failed to see I had to take S off both ends. Oh dear. Also slow on SE corner, inc FOP, BEGGAR, RAPIDLY.
Quite an ARDUOUS (gd clue) puzzle. What would setters do without Ewes and Terns, and Ely, I wonder. Liked PANACEA, NAMELY, RIPEN, and COD ELOPE made me smile. Solved but missed clever parsing of UNGOVERNABLE.
Thanks vm, Roly.
I enjoyed this – lots of Joker’s typical wit and tight cluing, I thought, and I finished in an about standard 10:48.
Ticks and smiles all over the place – in fact, the first four all got ticks. I particularly liked HEARTBURN and UNGOVERNABLE – I saw the trick straightaway, which is surprising, and I thought it was really good fun.
FOI Creamery LOI Earn COD Fop (by a whisker – it made me chuckle)
Thanks Joker and Roly
Re the Crossword champs – maybe we should just head straight to the pub 😂
07:13, jolly quick for me on a Joker. I liked UNGOVERNABLE in particular.
Many thanks Joker and roly.
Had to check FAI wasn’t a peacock, but finished relatively easily, LACKING being loi for which I kicked myself. Again not timing, so enjoyable saunter, without panicking or not thinking slowly and logically. Much better fun.
Straightforward for me, but did not get them all parsed. Even straightforward for me means half an hour at least so newbies don’t despair at some of the times you see. Enjoy the ride and smell the roses.
Loved ungovernable!
A pretty much on par 13:17 for us. Didn’t see the construction of HEAVE until I’d entered it. I also was looking for a word with just the final letter missing even though that was (improbably) likely to be just the same as a bundle of corn. Most surprising to us was our LOI PANTOMIME because neither of us had noticed that it was an anagram until after entry. Agree that COD was the rather good UNGOVERNABLE. Thanks to Rolytoly and Joker.
I warmed up for this by completing yesterday’s Orpheus in 39 minutes, after an excruciatingly slow start. My favourite clue was LEASTWISE, the parsing of which has only just dawned on me.
Today’s offering was a little more straightforward, but not much. I finished in 31 minutes, but I wasn’t at all sure about how a number of clues worked until I came here. The most challenging were CISTERN, FOP, RAPIDLY, HEAVE and HEARTBURN.
Many thanks to Joker and Rolytoly.
Was whipping through this with pleasure until halted by ungovernable which we just didn’t see.
I didn’t find this too difficult as evidenced by my completion time of 17 mins, all parsed. This is an average time for me. I was another who wondered whether ‘ose’ was an obscure word for peacock before deciding that ‘fai’ would be more likely. Luckily I waited for 16dn to make an appearance thus putting paid to either of those.
FOI – 10ac PANACEA
LOI – 19ac FOP
COD (by a country mile) – 8dn UNGOVERNABLE. Brilliant.
Thanks to Joker and Rolytoly
Feeling sociable, I’m happy to join others in the SCC today: 25 minutes plus. A definite 5a on my escutcheon, a word I am certain will one day figure in an Izetti. I decided 8d was going to be INCONSOLABLE (“off their heads” – with grief maybe?) which totally false assumption beggared me for 15a and nearly gave me 17a when I finally saw what was happening: brilliant clueing! My other slip was 19a where I entered FAP rather than FOP: I started with FAIL, removed the final L and then turned the I into a P when I got RAPIDLY. FAP is actually a word: Bardolph in The Merry Wives of Windsor admits to Falstaff: “And being fap, Sir, I was, as they say, cashiered”. That’s from memories of a student production in 1960s Cambridge with Miriam Margolyes as Mistress Ford!
FAP has a rather different meaning in modern parlance …
7.32 There seemed to be a lot of think of a word, knock a bit off clues but I found this much easier than usual. HEARTBURN was fortunately an easy biff because the parsing passed me by. I also entered the unlikely FAI for a while. LOI LACKING. Thanks rolytoly and Joker.
steady but not quick solve. Enjoyable puzzle, we also enjoyed 8d.
19:33. Silly me, should have shilly-shallied another half minute on LOI CISTERN and then waltzed cheerily into the SCC.
I found this tricky but enjoyable, finishing in 16:32. Couldn’t parse HEARTBURN and somehow managed not to notice that PANTOMIME was an anagram until after biffing it – poor show, no excuses. I don’t normally nominate a COD but today it has to be UNGOVERNABLE, which I thought was magnificent.
This time last year I’d have been delighted to finish a puzzle like this, much less swerve the SCC, so I seem to be slowly improving.
Thank you for the blog!
14 mins…
I didn’t find it too bad. As I’m currently away, and am limited in time, it seems the pressure to complete it before we go out gives a renewed focus for solving.
FOI – 1ac “Creamery”
LOI – 8dn “Ungovernable”
COD – 8dn “Ungovernable”
Thanks as usual!