Lovely puzzle, on the trickier side of things.
Izetti is a master at creating clues that seem baffling until a checker or two (or a complete rethink) gives you a way in. So it was for me today, with a very sparse grid after a first pass of the acrosses (getting just 9, 16, 17 and 22), despite a number that seem perfectly gettable in hindsight. Exactly the way a good crossword should be.
I think it’s partly that some clues were unnecessarily long (such as 1ac or 17ac) – an effective form of misdirection, especially given this setter’s usual concision. A few of bits of GK might have helped or hindered your solve a touch, depending, although all were fairly clued. I came home a second under 8 minutes (slower than yesterday; much better than my performance on Tuesday), and enjoyed it all very much – many thanks to Izetti!
| Across | |
| 1 | Put in case what is needed for card games (4) |
| PACK – double definition | |
| 3 | People leaving money behind in trucks? (7) |
| TIPPERS – double definition, with Collins defining the second as short for tipper trucks | |
| 8 | Hostess died — he sadly washes up (4,3,6) |
| DOES THE DISHES – anagram (sadly) of HOSTESS DIES HE | |
| 9 | Mums participating in drama sometimes (3) |
| MAS – “participating in” the letters of draMA Sometime | |
| 10 | Island’s heavenly sign when corn has been cut (5) |
| CAPRI – CAPRIcorn (heavenly sign) when CORN is removed | |
| 12 | Room for service personnel in a port (7) |
| MESSINA – MESS (room for service personnel) IN A | |
| 14 | Musical section in street bands (7) |
| STRINGS – ST(reet) RINGS (bands) | |
| 16 | Church pursuing writer for money (5) |
| PENCE – CE (Church of England) pursuing PEN (writer) | |
| 17 | Wood that may be used for burning when hard (3) |
| ASH – AS (when) H(ard). I was a bit mystified by the definition while solving, but I see that ash is considered one of the best types of wood for burning. | |
| 20 | A life of someone by himself? (13) |
| AUTOBIOGRAPHY – cryptic definition: “by himself” meaning “alone” in the cryptic reading, and “written by himself” in the literal. | |
| 21 | French editor celebrated, ultimately fantastic editor (7) |
| DIDEROT – D (celebrateD “ultimately”), anagram (fantastic) of EDITOR. | |
| 22 | Left-winger to run (4) |
| TROT – double definition | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Home crops — limited space for horses (8) |
| PADDOCKS – PAD (home)DOCKS (crops) | |
| 2 | Boss sacks one kitchen worker (4) |
| CHEF – CHiEF (boss) “sacks” I (one) | |
| 3 | Article is on origin of mystical belief system (6) |
| THEISM – THE (article) IS on M (“origin” of Mystical) | |
| 4 | They seriously think hip-hop losers will regroup (12) |
| PHILOSOPHERS – anagram (will regroup) of HIP HOP LOSERS | |
| 5 | One written to by St Paul, man going after wandering sheep (8) |
| EPHESIAN – IAN (random man) going after an anagram (wandering) of SHEEP. As in Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians. | |
| 6 | Just right, just right, OK? (2-2) |
| SO-SO – just right = so; OK in the sense of just-about-average. | |
| 7 | A male in charge, having less feeling as a scientific figure (6,6) |
| ATOMIC NUMBER – A TOM (male) IC (in charge) NUMBER (having less feeling) | |
| 11 | Dan and Peter, badly brought up (8) |
| PARENTED – anagram (badly) of DAN and PETER | |
| 13 | Excited mate’s holding your old gemstone (8) |
| AMETHYST – anagram (excited) of MATES, holding THY (your, in old tongue) | |
| 15 | Deliberately avoided day away from home (3,3) |
| SAT OUT – SAT (day) OUT (away from home) | |
| 18 | Worker may be bananas (4) |
| HAND – double definition | |
| 19 | Box carried by his partner (4) |
| SPAR – “carried” by hiS PARtner | |
10:12 fast for an Izetti
Struggled with ATOMIC NUMBER, and LOI HAND, which we had before. I now know it’s a bunch of bananas.
DIDEROT was tough, knew him but not what he did. He’s the kind of guy you see as one of the many statues in the Louvre.
COD CAPRICORN, although I’m Sagittarius.
I biffed my LOI, DIDEROT, because I did not know what Diderot did. I was helped psychologically by having 1ac PACK as my FOI and proceeded at a reasonable clip to finish in 6.05. Thanks to Izetti and roly.
Well, I biffed Diderot because I couldn’t figure out the cryptic – my LOI. Other than that, the puzzle was not hard, and I got the first a fair number of answers on the first pass. I thought of mas and said no, that’s a French farmhouse, before remembering this was the Quickie. Once you had a few crossers, most of them were quite easy.
Time: 8:11
9 minutes. DIDEROT from anagrist. I knew his name but nothing more about him.
12.36 for me – good fair puzzle – reckon I left a few minutes on the table there which I’m putting down to having only rolled out of bed 15 minutes ago. There was quite a few that should have gone in a lot easier – I’m looking at you THEISM.
LOI ATOMIC NUMBER despite spotting the number device very early on.
No clear contender for COD but liked AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Had no idea about EPHESIAN but the anagram and the man brought it together once I had I?N from MESSINA and PENCE. I thought TIPPERS was clever for people leaving money behind. DIDEROT from the wordplay. Letter spacing again had me looking for a heavenly sign without COM instead of CORN for CAPRI.
COD to DOES THE DISHES.
Thanks R and setter.
I thought this was a very good puzzle. Pretty tough for me but with GK just on the fringe and same with the clueing. Five on the five pass of acrosses so never truly comfortable and nearly all clues needed a bit of wrestling. Made things hard by wondering if ‘prenated’ might go where PARENTED ended up but the starting P was helpful in getting CAPRI – which even once I saw the island I thought was something to do with Aries despite being a CAPRICORN (today’s Elle daily horoscope tells me “Whether you’re hanging with a roomie, a family member or a childhood friend, it will feel so good to just be yourself” – I shall try that while sat in a room with a bunch of Civil Servants. STRINGS was my LOI, took an absolute age to realise it was orcherstra sections and not something like ‘chorus’. Loved it, all green in 16.10.
8 minutes, very fast for an Izetti and much helped by the two 13-letter across clues going straight in. DIDEROT only vaguely heard of and I couldn’t tell you what he did, but once I had the checkers and had dismissed Doderit, Dedirot and the like it was the only answer. Slight surprise at run = trot in 22A, not really quite the same and while from any other setter one would just shrug and move on, Izetti is usually more precise than that.
Many thanks Roly for the blog
Cedric
We did the same. Wrote out the 6 alternatives and only one seemed familiar!
As a runner, I’ve known people who will say they are “going out for a little trot” or when asking others to go with “are you hot to trot?” … perhaps an older term or something regionally specific.
For those tempted to take a walk on the wild side, today’s 15×15 is very approachable.
Indeed, on seeing this I had a look and oh so nearly finished it. Defeated only by adding extra letters to EXTRAORDINARY which was a silly mistake as I knew it was wrong.
DH – appreciate it’s an oversight on your part but would have been nice not to have seen this spoiler before attempting it. Slightly takes the lustre off my 2nd fastest successful solve knowing it had a small bit of assistance.
12:45. Reasonably happy with that – I thought ATOMIC NUMBER was very neat, and could have been a candidate for a 15×15 clue (on an easier day). Everything else went in fairly easily though not at the normal pace for the QC. Thanks Izetti and Roly
8:24 LOI ATOMIC NUMBER. I found this puzzle pretty straightforward.
A lot of fairly straightforward clues to give plenty of checkers for the trickier answers.
I’d not heard of the chap at 21a so resorted to a coin toss for the order of the ‘i’ and the ‘e’ in DIDEROT and fortunately ended up with the right answer.
Started with PACK and finished with EPHESIAN (I’d heard of the place but not that there were letters associated with it) in 9.05.
Thanks to Rolytoly
I went to church & cathedral schools so was intrigued by the “letters to the Ephesians” so looked it up to find that ancient Ephesus is an archaeological site in modern Turkey. Not sure why St Paul felt it so important to write to them. Never got around to reading said letters; those gospellers are so preachy; St James is really bad as I know; I had to read his letter for some obscure reason. Never to be repeated.
Straightforward, especially for Izetti.
Biffed DIDEROT from the checkers. No idea that he was an editor.
At the time of doing the puzzle, I was 8th on the leaderboard, so I have a touch of altitude sickness.
4:05
Not a good day … both the long ones went straight in which was nice, but then struggled, and couldn’t do the SW corner at all.
Got MAS (had to be) but is it really a word?
PARENTED is a really horrible word.
How does “bananas” = HAND, please?
Barely heard of DIDEROT – editor? What did he ‘edit’?
Couldn’t think why it was CAPRI – ah! Thank you, Roly.
Hand is the name for a bunch of bananas (I suppose because they look like fingers on your hand). Not sure if it quite qualifies as a collective noun!
For those wishing to gen up on Denis … https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Diderot … it begins “a French philosopher, art critic, and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the Encyclopédie”
Thank you … NHO the Encyclopédie I’m afraid – not a Francophile so my GK there is weak. So he was a sort of French ETA Hoffmann.
NHO this ‘hand’ – since a bunch of bananas is called a bunch of bananas I can’t quite understand how it can also be called a hand – context? Not a “hand of bananas”, then?
Yes, a hand of bananas. More banana-specific than bunch which could be flowers, etc.
Well, well – you’re right – plenty of them on the web. This QC teaches us something new each day! Thank you.
And I learned that Didoret isn’t a French editor 🙄
When farmers are growing bananas, they count the better plants, as 8, 9, or 10 hands.
Hands are a lot more bananas than the bunches found in supermarkets. There might be 18 bananas on a hand.
9:19
I hesitated before putting in AUTOBIOGRAPHY, since it felt like a straight definition, with negligible cryptic content.
I had vaguely heard of the name DIDEROT, my LOI, but know nothing about him.
Thanks Izetti and Roly
13:53
Like others knew DIDEROT’s name but a took bit to figure out the parsing. Even worse, I spent two whole mins trying to fill in the last letter of SA- OUT … alphabet trawl established it could only be SAT, figured that was “deliberately avoided” but couldn’t see why SAT. Final 3mins spent in the NW with MESSINA, EPHESIAN, TIPPERS LOI.
In U.S. basketball good players often “sit out” the last few games of the regular season to rest and avoid injury before the playoffs. Sometimes teams get fined by the league if they overdo it as the ticket-buying fans are angry at not seeing the star attractions.
Apologies – I wasn’t clear. My difficulty was failing to realise SAT referred to the day which comes after FRIday and before SUNday 😀 I’m beginning to realise “lift and separate” clues do my head in!
Well done on your ⚡
Yes, I should have known you’d be familiar with the sporting meaning. Congratulations on being formally admitted into the august portals of the World of Snitch!
For someone who struggles with the simpler QC, having done this in a very quick (for me) 23 minutes, I came to this blog expecting to see times in seconds not minutes.
For once, I found the QC straightforward. Some lovely clues. Capri, Messina amongst the best for me. No problems with Diderot.
I hesitated to put autobiography in as seemed too straightforward.
Oh well, back to DNF tomorrow I expect.
Thanks to setter and rolytoly.
I predict you are going to be a fast solver! Better think of a new handle for yourself soon. 🙂
09:45
Fairly gently for Izetti but Diderot was unfair for a quickie. Cluing a french editor as an anagram.
What about: French editor overdid erotic nurses
COD atomic number.
👍 much better
I like it!
4:18. I’m another who had heard of DIDEROT but had no idea what he was famous for. LOI TROT. I chuckled at the widower doing the washing up. Thanks Izetti and Rolytoly.
A game of slow slow quick quick slow today with a finish at 24.12.
Really liked the hip hop losers and tippers when the PDM arrived, after looking at testate for too long.
Thanks Izetti and Roly
Saw how DIDEROT worked but a gap in my GK led me to guessing the letter order wrongly. Otherwise I really enjoyed this, Izetti being generally compassionate today.
7:11 (remember when that was a long time for a store to be open?)
I enjoyed this very much; thanks Izetti and Roly.
PADDOCKS held me up, and DIDEROT was a confident guess.
C’sOD to the two twelve letter clues.
I join the long queue of people who knew DIDEROT existed but not specifically who he was. For those that have never heard the name, they may consider this to be an unfair clue with three floating vowels to be placed. I found it generally harder than average with a finishing time of 11.50.
It seems I am in the minority having never heard of DIDORET
I was able to parse the clue and understood i was looking for a French editor with D (EDITOR)* and I went DIDEROT which sounded more French in my head
Felling I was likely to get a pink square anyway I gave up in the NW corner where I couldn’t see past DECK for 1a, and assumed 1D would be some breed of horse I’d never heard of. Had I soldiered on I like to think I could have eventually seen PADDOCK/PACK but we will never know. DNF in 15 Mins
Ha! I got it backwards here again
The quickest Izetti so far. COD ATOMIC NUMBER, LOI PADDOCKS, just couldn’t see it.
Finished correctly in 60 minutes after 2 failures. Hooray!
Not sure how HAND = BANANAS, though.
THEISM is a chestnut, comes up quite frequently.
TROT was a hard one to get, but it made me think of our wonderful leader Sir Starmer who I understand used to be one (though I could be wrong ) .
A hand of bananas, a parliament of owls…..a couple of things that come up often.
A hand is the group of bananas, on that part of the plant.
A very enjoyable puzzle; finished in just under 13 minutes after looking for something better than HAND. I vaguely thought Hand might be a bunch of bananas, and so it turns out.
Crete and Corfu were visited before CAPRI which is joint COD with AMETHYST.
Have just returned from Sicily, otherwise Messina would have been a problem.
David
I join the “Who is DIDEROT” club, knowing the name but nothing about him, and shoving him in from the checkers. This was more or less a clean sweep with a couple resisting the first pass, those being the aforementioned editor and LOI, TIPPERS. 6:00. Thanks Izetti and Roly.
11:39
Thought this one pretty easy. Well inside my 20 minute target. Seeing editor twice in a clue I assumed ‘ED’ had to appear somewhere in the answer but the rest of the checkers put paid to that and seeing the anagram it was then a case of arranging the vowels in the most plausible way which yielded the NHO DIDEROT.
LOI MESSINA.
A tricky but witty puzzle, needing some thinking about. LOI: HAND – didn’t see the connection with “bananas”, but I do now! Well aware of Diderot and the Encyclopedia.
Totally agree with Roly that there were lots of clues that seem much more gettable in hindsight than they were at first glance. My FOI wasn’t until I got to 14a. Can’t believe how long it took to see ATOMIC NUMBER after I’d realised the second word was number. Can’t be fully with it yet. Eventually finished on 19:29, but crashed like Wall Street upon coming on here and seeing I’d put in DIDORET instead of DIDEROT. Oh well. Thanks Roly and Izetti.
Must have been on the wavelength as I zoomed through this one, biffing right and left.
Only hesitated at LOI HAND..
Liked CAPRI, ATOMIC NUMBER, SAT OUT, EPHESIAN, MESSINA.
Izetti must be tricky if one hasn’t attended endless church services.
Knew DIDEROT,
though did not know
what he did.
Many thanks, Roly.
Another very nice puzzle from Izetti. 33.30 which I’m quite pleased with.
Even managed both the long anagrams without pencil and paper as they were quite straight forward.
We had two random men today, Ian and Tom, which makes a change from the random women Di and Anna.
Knew this was an Izetti when EPHESIANS went in. 08:06 between Lemsips. Many thanks Don and roly.
Still not very well, Templar. I hope that tomorrow sees you feeling a good deal better.
Thanks Pam. An unpleasant variant, this one, but it’ll pass.
Izetti is such a good setter!
Thanks Roly
From PACK to PADDOCKS in 8:14. I put in DIDEROT from checkers….knew the name but not his occupation. I also didn’t know of the Italian port MESSINA having never ventured that far south though I have been to CAPRI. DOES THE DISHES needed quite a few checkers too.
9:23. Thought of ATOMIC BOMBER first!
10:20 here. Another one able to write in DIDEROT from the checkers but wouldn’t have remembered that he was an editor. And another one who hesitated to write in AUTOBIOGRAPHY for it not being cryptic. Enough of a church history in my youth to accept EPHESIAN as GK so overall it felt like a nicely balanced puzzle. Thanks to all.
Dnf…
30 mins for everything but got 21ac “Diderot” wrong – I put “Didoret”. Hate those clues, because if you don’t know it you have no chance from the wordplay.
The rest was a good challenge though, with the NW corner proving particularly tricky.
FOI – 3dn “Theism”
LOI – 1ac “Pack”
COD – 1dn “Paddocks”
Thanks as usual!
I nearly put ATOMIC BOMBER on too! I did biff SUIT for 1ac – very silly, eventually realised my mistake. Very nice, slightly elusive QC, on the tricky side.
It took me 10+ minutes at the end to realise I was being asked to solve an anagram at 21a, but I had NHO the French editor and I guessed DiDoReT. So, I ended up with a DNF and the feeling that I had wasted my last 40 minutes (although I had actually really enjoyed the first half-hour).
I think Izetti let himself down with this clue, as how is it meant to be correctly solved when all the vowels are unchecked and you don’t have the necessary GK?
Thanks to Roly for the blog.
5.55 Good puzzle I thought, lots of great clues.
COD to “ does the dishes“ as it produced a very real image in my head!
Absolute blank at DIDEROT
10:24, quick for an Izetti. Another for whom the name Diderot rang faint bells without having any clue what he did. Liked AMETHYST and ATOMIC NUMBER today.
Thanks to rolytoly and Izetti.
Lovely QC, helped by knowing of DIDEROT (but like everyone else having no idea what he edited). Now nicely settled in a familiar seat in the SCC.
The role of Diderot in compiling the French encyclopaedia well-known to all students of French but not necessarily more widely: he was the least of my worries today. I whizzed along with the anagrams and the longer clues but simple solves like PACK and HAND and TROT took me ages! LOI HAND but well into the SCC by then.
TIPPERS was a fun clue. So was NUMBER for having less feeling! Overall a lovely mixture of GK and wordplay – perfect for a warm and sunny Suffolk afternoon. Thanks Izetti and Roly
We were stuck in the SE corner for a while, but otherwise we found this a pleasant solve for an Izetti.
13:05, a fast-ish time for me.
Lots of fun with this and the difficult ones didn’t take too long to dig out. AUTOBIOGRAPHY didn’t read as cryptic at all to me, though, so it was a gimme. Learned today what a TIPPER truck is. Really liked the long anagrams as well as ATOMIC NUMBER! Glad I was able to remember the banana thing. DIDEROT held me up due to my inability to believe “French editor” could be the definition. The clue for EPHESIAN was really, really clever, and sooo Izetti.
Thanks Izetti and roly!
7.26 I was slowed by the same trick in THEISM and MESSINA. IS clued by IS and INA clued by IN A. An early biff of ATOMIC WEIGHT clogged up the bottom half for a while and DIDEROT was biffed to finish. Thanks rolytoly and Izetti.
21 minutes all parsed. It might have been quicker if I had not half-read 12ac and bunged in ‘mission’. This left me trying to recall a gemstone beginning with N and failing. It wasn’t till I saw AMETHYST that I eventually revisited 12ac and order was restored. Like most people DIDEROT rang a rather faint bell but I could not have said who he was or what he did.
FOI – 1ac PACK
LOI – 21ac, the world famous DIDEROT
COD – I didn’t mark anything on the way through but liked PADDOCKS, DOES THE DISHES and ATOMIC NUMBER.
Thanks to Rolytoly and Izetti