I found this tough.
After breezing through yesterday’s in under 6 minutes just before, I came crashing down with this effort: DNF as the 14 minute mark approached, when I gave up and clicked on the answer to 10d. More glad than I normally am, when I do that sort of thing, as I could have easily been staring at it for some time with no success. Especially on a day that eking out the easier PERSEVERED and REPETITION took much more effort than they should have.
Other stumbling blocks were DECORATE, VERGER, and the maybe-possibly-heard-of STAGGERS. Will be interested to see how this compares to Tuesday’s on the Quitch. An interesting puzzle, with a mix of some gimmes, some toughies, some cracking clues, and a stinger in the tail – many thanks to Lupa!
| Across | |
| 1 | Skinny chap to live with an East European (8) |
| BEANPOLE – to BE = to live, with AN, and POLE (East European) | |
| 5 | Missile among dangerous cudgels (4) |
| SCUD – “among” dangerouS CUDgels. I remember in my youth these seemed to feature prominently in the ’91 Gulf War. | |
| 8 | Cut pack and speak grace (8) |
| DECORATE – DECK = pack (of cards), “Cut” = dock the last letter; ORATE (speak). Tricky, and not the first synonym of GRACE that springs to mind. | |
| 9 | Baltic supplier seen in moderation (4) |
| ODER – “Seen in ” mODERation. Hmm… my geography would have been found dismally wanting had I been asked the path of this river. | |
| 11 | Repeat concerning request (10) |
| REPETITION – RE (concerning) PETITION (request) | |
| 14 | Attendant king on edge (6) |
| VERGER – R. (Rex = king) goes on VERGE (edge). VERGER has cropped up a couple of times recently in QCs: a church official with a range of general responsibilities. | |
| 15 | Short break before prompt recovery (6) |
| RESCUE – REST (break), “short” = dock the last letter, before CUE (prompt) | |
| 17 | Confused Piers heard subscribers (10) |
| READERSHIP – anagram (confused) of PIERS HEARD | |
| 20 | Tragic villain DiMaggio regularly ignored (4) |
| IAGO – d I m A g G i O “regularly ignored” | |
| 21 | Irate Mod disturbed negotiator (8) |
| MEDIATOR – anagram (disturbed) of IRATE MOD | |
| 22 | Prime Minister’s paradise? (4) |
| EDEN – double definition | |
| 23 | Animal disease causes amazement (8) |
| STAGGERS – double definition: a range of diseases affecting a range of animals, it seems. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Unpleasant European gave orders (4) |
| BADE – BAD (unpleasant) E(uropean) | |
| 2 | Principal curve (4) |
| ARCH – double definition | |
| 3 | Kept going for each terrible day (10) |
| PERSEVERED – PER (for each) SEVERE (terrible) D(ay) | |
| 4 | Hide missing note: it’s froth (6) |
| LATHER – LEATHER (hide) missing E (musical note) | |
| 6 | Private protection from sham firearm? (8) |
| CODPIECE – COD (sham) PIECE (firearm). As in a thing to protect your privates. Very good! A “cod” is an obsolete word for a bag/a pod/the male genitals: from Old English codd, a small bag. | |
| 7 | In bewilderment, called in contract (8) |
| DERANGED – RANG (called) in DEED (contract). For the definition, as in: The farmer appeared out of nowhere, in nothing but a yellowed codpiece, wielding a firearm. Deranged/In bewilderment, the verger fled into a nearby field full of strange sheep staggering around the place. Yes, he had to finally accept, after catching his breath, the bishop was definitely sidelining him. | |
| 10 | Haphazard line in passing place causing demotion (10) |
| SIDELINING – anagram (haphazard) of LINE, in SIDING (passing place). Collins has SIDING as a short stretch of railway to allow trains to pass on the same track. I also had some trouble equating the answer with the definition, but Chambers defines sidelining as “relegating someone to a minor, peripheral position, preventing his or her participation in the main or most important area of activity”. | |
| 12 | Remove it possibly for extra payment (8) |
| OVERTIME – anagram (possibly) of REMOVE IT | |
| 13 | In error altering instrument (8) |
| TRIANGLE – anagram (in error) of ALTERING | |
| 16 | State an inevitable truth in hearing (6) |
| ASSERT – in hearing, the same as A CERT (an inevitable truth) | |
| 18 | Infection found in crusty eye (4) |
| STYE – “found in” cruSTY Eye. Could be an &lit, if you like. | |
| 19 | Upset tender love god (4) |
| EROS – SORE (tender) and in a down clue, upset = reverse | |
DNF
Couldn’t get SIDELINING; ‘causing demotion’ was a poor definition. But not as poor as defining DERANGED as ‘in bewilderment’. CODPIECE & STAGGERS not the best items for a QC, perhaps. The SNITCH is currently at 125.
So far it appears that I am the first to finish, which I did in 12.33 and not without considerable difficulty. My cause was not helped by the fact that I was keeping half an eye on the Test between the Oz and Indian A teams (India currently 7-79), but even so I should have got OVERTIME, PERSEVERED, MEDIATOR and TRIANGLE much sooner than I did. LOsI were SIDELINING and then STAGGERS, neither of which were easy I suggest. But I enjoyed the craftiness of many clues, thanks to Lupa and Roly.
Didn’t enjoy this one bit. Some biffed but others needing a lot of thought. Some too much for me; STAGGERS, DERANGED, SIDELINING. Too much for a quickie in my opinion.
I found this very hard for a QC, taking 23 mnutes!
I have been able to copy and paste two sentences from Roly’s intro word-for-word that reflect my experience exactly: “DNF as the 14 minute mark approached, when I gave up and clicked on the answer to 10d. More glad than I normally am, when I do that sort of thing, as I could have easily been staring at it for some time with no success.”
I don’t object to SIDING being clued as ‘passing place’ but it simply didn’t occur to me because I associate sidings more with storing rolling-stock and shunting than I do with passing as described in the Chambers definition.
As a former devotee of The Archers I knew of STAGGERS as an animal disease.
Too tough. Our first proper DNF for a while. Gave up with 3 left at 41 mins
Thanks Roly for some of the parsing
Tomorrow’s another day
Perversely glad to hear that others have struggled with this – could not crack 17A, NHO Staggers and got too hung up on 10D being an anagram involving ‘Line in’ and a passing place. COD would either be 9A or 6D (Cod!)
Started very fast with some straightforward clues in but then slowed markedly, wondering where Lupa had changed gear, for an eventual 12 minute completion. Some of the definitions caused me to think twice – calling a river a “supplier” for example (the more typical QC Clue might have read “Baltic flower” perhaps?), or a verger an “attendant”, or “payment” for overtime (overtime to me is the extra work one does to earn the payment, not the payment itself). Repetition clued as “repeat” seemed inelegant, and I’m with Jack that sidings are for storing rolling stock and not often used as passing loops.
As for STAGGERS, I didn’t parse it at all and having got the STAG- part (as an animal that fitted the -T-G checkers) I assumed/guessed/hoped there was a disease called GERS. At least today I have learnt that the whole word is an animal disease, but it’s a toughie for a QC.
So a rather mixed experience, and in the end glad to have finished all green. Many thanks Roly for the blog.
Cedric
15:41. Yes, a hard one. LOI SIDELINING for which I had to write out the crossers horizontally and experiment with the placing of an anagram of “line”.
TRIANGLE was a surprising anagram of “altering” (but, Roly, it would have been even more surprising as an anagram of “in error” as you say in the blog). I liked CODPIECE
An anagram of RELATING also, another one to remember.
And integral
Ah, thanks – well spotted! Will amend.
I (by which I mean my Chambers app) can add ALERTING and TANGLIER to the other anagrams of triangle.
Decidedly chewy and only a determined alphabet trawl enabled me to crack LOI SIDELINING.
I had the same experience as Cedric in my failed attempt to parse STAGGERS and had some ‘learnings’ (a horrible word that seems to be becoming more common these days) around VERGER and DECORATE.
I was relieved to finish in 13.32 with COD to CODPIECE.
Thanks to rolytoly
DNF. After struggling for the best part of 7 minutes, I eventually saw REPETITION, and gave up on SIDELINING with its distinctly unhelpful checkers. Absolutely zero enjoyment for me.
Not on this wavelength at all. All eight 4-letter clues were almost absurdly easy, but then nothing. Eventually and after much struggle another eight revealed themselves, leaving only ‘bewilderment’ (not quite = DERANGED?) for the final eight.
Thank you, Roly, for all the spadework; must concede the two anagrams “remove it” = OVERTIME, “altering” = TRIANGLE are brilliantly deceptive.
NHO STAGGERS but that was the least of my problems. Oh well.
Oh by the way in your excellent blog 13d is the wrong way round: it’s anagram (in error) of ‘altering’.
Ah thanks – well spotted! Will amend.
Hard.
For my LOI I took a punt on where LINE* would be, and that the word would end in ING, so I had ?I?ELINING to look at until I got the right word.
CODPIECE COD 😀
Generally tricky though. Not much respite for the beginners or those in a hurry at the moment (though that’s not necessarily the remit here!).
10:17
I couldn’t see this in the grid, but writing the known letters horizontally I saw it immediately. Does this count as cheating?
Not at all! It’s like writing out the letters for an anagram in a circle, just helps you see things in a different way.
Yes definitely not cheating! I’m routinely surprised at how effective it is though- I’ve even found it works (a little bit) for horizontal clues if I’m really stuck.
Dear Hopkinb,
If the QC is not for “beginners or those in a hurry”, among others, then what’s the point of having two crosswords at all? Surely the 15x 15 would suffice.
Mrs Random, who is a more accomplished solver than me, gave up on the QC some time ago because (in her words) it became “too obtuse” and “took too long”. I have stuck with it, despite being a less accomplished solver and rather against my better judgement, but I wouldn’t encourage any novices to test their wits against The Times QC just at the moment.
Maybe things will settle down with a new crossword editor, but I would have hoped the setters would already be better able to tune their puzzles to their intended audience without having to be moderated.
Hi SRC
I was just quoting the stated remit for the quiptic crossword in the guardian, I don’t believe there’s anything similar for the QC, which was my point, I think the QC is just meant as an introduction to the Times Cryptic style, and it’s certainly quicker than the main puzzle.
There have been folk saying the QC is getting harder for years. In the average, it’s remarkably consistent. I learned on the 15×15 maybe 17 years ago, and so when the QC started 11 years ago (?) I was delighted to have something I could complete nearly every time in 10-15 mins instead of failing over and over again. Now I do the QC in 6 and a half mins on average, and complete most of the main puzzles I attempt.
Practice makes perfect, or at least gets you to your level. I do 3 or 4 puzzles a day where time allows, plus the concise to keep up the quick vocabulary recall.
There’ll be an easier patch again soon!
A real struggle today. Found that GER is a medical acronym for gastric reflux, so thought the parsing must be related to stags having indigestion 🤨. Could not see SIDELINING. Thanks Roly for the entertaining blog.
Brilliant! Stags belching all over the place!
Love it – and apart from a slightly too obscure acronym it pretty much parses as well!
GER is the US abbreviation (for those who spell oesophagus with an “e”). The English English would be GOR – gastro-oesophageal reflux. Staggers is the the common name for BSE in cattle, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, (mad cow disease).
Staggers is the common name for magnesium deficiency in cattle. Cattle with BSE had many symptoms , staggering being one of them.
Late comment I know, but as a retired Veterinary Surgeon I often do old crosswords!
DNF and what Busman said, except ten minutes not seven. Great blog roly, thanks!
44:23 for the solve!
Had eight left at 18mins and then it was pulling teeth. CODPIECE / REPETITION and SIDELINING the ones needing trawls. STAGGERS with fingers crossed. We had the TRIANGLE/ALTERING anagram recently in a puzzle*.
Are these getting harder?!?
Edit: * Joker two weeks ago “Shape altering in a fluid way (8)”
Very well done, LP!
I had 20 left at 18 minutes …. and I ended up solving only 9 of those.
Tough for sure! 5d Codpiece is a very good clue for the main but for a quickie it is very poor! Agree about grace for decorate. Thanks all though!
This must be one of toughest QCs ever.
I nearly threw in the towel at the 25m mark, with four still to get in the SW corner. Eventually saw VERGER, which unlocked OVERTIME and then READERSHIP, finishing with ASSERT to limp over the line at 26:32.
Thanks Roly and Lupa
No SIDELINING today.
Thanks roly and setter.
DNF. Threw in the towel after 9 minutes with 1 still left. Defeated by SIDELINING failing to think of that “place for passing” and not finding a word for demotion – I didn’t think SIDELINING meant that, but Chambers has To relegate (someone) to a minor, peripheral position, prevent his or her participation in the main or most important area of activity, esp in business which is maybe close enough. Quite chewy in other places for a QC. Thanks Lupa and Rolytoly.
Tomorrow’s headline will surely be “John quits Halloween shocker”. Think I’ve only ever seen you DNF once, so to see you threw in the towel is 😲
I wasn’t entirely happy about sidelining as you’d think it means to put to the side, not up or down. But I accept it is a euphemism for a demotion.
Wow John!
Maybe.
I’ve run out of towels to throw in.
So it turns out that everyone else found this hard.
I finished in 22 minutes having spent some time on LOI SIDELINING. The parsing was clear and once I stopped thinking of roads, I was home.
I enjoyed the challenge; just treated it like a 15x 15 once I realised how tough the RHS was in particular.
STAGGERS I vaguely knew; a good clue I thought.
COD to DERANGED -another hard one.
David
Bucking the trend so far as I found this easier than the last few. I did need more than one coffee but still plodded my way through to a finish. Didn’t know STAGGERS in that sense and luckily thought of ‘siding’ early on so no problem with SIDELINING. Found CODPIECE very funny and solved easily from wordplay. Held up by 1a as I thought the definition was just ‘skinny’ so was trying to shoehorn a short man’s name into rather limited spaces. I liked this one. Thanks Lupa and roly.
Tougher than the average QC! Phew. BEANPOLE to SIDELINING in 14:48. Not a good day to choose to do the puzzle on my iPad without pen and paper for the anagrams! Thanks Lupa and Roly.
26:22. but got it done. In contrast I did the 15×15 in less than 2x this.
LOI SIDELINING, with three Is, there were a lot of ways to put an anagrammed LINE in there. And even when i saw it I almost pressed submit with SIDENILING in there. Is to be side-lined to be demoted? I don’t think so.
I liked ODER, for Baltic Supplier, tricky though. 4-letter Demonyms such as Dane, Finn or Pole both fitted “Baltic” very nicely.
GRACE=ORATE? Don’t see that.
COD CODPIECE (Bonus, it has COD in it)
That’s because Orate = speak, Dec(k)orate is Grace.
Oh that’s what I meant, but why does decorate=grace? Is it like “grace you with my appearance”
I think it works in the sense of make attractive – ‘the table was graced with golden candlsticks’ (or similar twaddle)
That was how I thought of it too, but the third verb sense in Collins is more precise: “to ornament or decorate (a melody, part, etc) with nonessential notes”.
That makes sense. From Wikipedia: grace note indicates either an acciaccatura when notated with an oblique stroke through the stem, or an appoggiatura when notated without.
Over on the 15×15 world those are just the kinds of words they expect to see in the puzzle.
I also saw “In bagpipe music there is extensive use of grace notes. ” Bagpipes have music? I thought they just droned on.
Drone drone YES!!
Finished correctly in 50 minutes. First success for over a week. Hooray !
None of the clues were particularly memorable or enjoyable to get.
I hope that Friday’s puzzle is a bit more of a crowd pleaser. After the end of a rotten month , it would be good to get something to cheer me up.
9:15
Mostly OK but ran into trouble largely with those answers where the first letter was unchecked. With six left, PERSEVERED went in, but didn’t immediately help though guessed 11a started with RE. 16d was next to fall, and with a pencilled in ING for the end of 10d, guessed STAGGERS (which I did Google to check on the existence of, as an animal disease) which in turn gave EROS. REPETITION was the penultimate faller, before a few minutes coming up with SIDELINING, where I had assumed that the middle four letters would be either ELIN or ILEN (anagrams of LINE), the former being more likely. (But then, with the I as the second letter of the answer, characters 2-5 could be INEL or ILEN). Quite tough as a whole then, with the Quitch currently at 130.
Thanks Roly for making head and tail of the puzzle, and Lupa for the challenge
19.10. As others couldn’t parse STAGGERS and not enamoured by SIDELINING .
COD: CODPIECE
Many thanks to Rolytoly for the blog and to Jimmy for yesterday’s QC. Hopefully we will have another one next week. One QC a week seems to be par at the moment.
Feels a bit like that, doesn’t it? Not convinced that the new ed has got the calibration quite right, or if he has, I have to question his objectives.
19 minutes. I stared at my one remaining unanswered clue – guess which – for what seemed like ages until I finally saw the correct letters materialise from the not v. helpful (as others have pointed out) checkers so just avoided a spot in the SCC. Along the way, CODPIECE and STAGGERS gave some trouble, so definitely a harder QC than usual, as reflected in the QUITCH which is at 130 at the time of posting.
Thanks to roly and Lupa
Started with 1d, Bade, and thought straight away that this was going to be a cut above the usual fare, but then had a very good run before pulling up with just three to go. Having read the paper I decided Lupa had been entertaining enough (Codpiece!) to warrant a second sitting. Assert then prompted the vho Staggers, but that still left 10d. Earlier thoughts about using Hospice for ‘passing place’ were now clearly on the wrong track (☺), but siding / Sidelining still took a long time. A very satisfying finish, probably 35 -40 mins in total, with Codpiece as the rather apt (wrapped?) CoD. Invariant
DNF
A bit tough for a QC. Nice blog though!
Thanks all.
18:07. When I finished I was not at all confident some of the definitions or parsings really worked. Oh well, all clear now after reading Roly’s blog!
Cor blimey guv’nor. Fantastic result 💪
Liked DECORATE, CODPIECE and ODER, but not the overall experience of this DNF after 45 minutes with three to get (SIDELINING, ASSERT and STAGGERS). I can’t help feeling that if a good number of the regular solvers are failing to finish, it’s a bit hard for a QC. Thanks anyway Lupa, and Roly of course.
I solved this in the lounge of a car dealership waiting for my car to be serviced. The accompanying Muzak and telephone conversations did not help my concentration levels. This was my ready made excuse for my finishing time of 12.05, a couple of minutes over target.
However, now reading the blog I see my time was a good deal better than I perhaps thought. I thought it was tough in solving it, but I didn’t expect to see so many slow times and surely a record number of DNFs from seasoned solvers. I think it is fair to infer that this may be considered the toughest QC to date. My main stumbling blocks to a faster finish were not surprisingly SIDELINING and finally STAGGERS, but having read the posting I’ll reconsider this as a good day.
DNF
Well, that started quickly enough with the LHS going in fine. Then things slowed down. I normally spot hidden word clues straightaway but ODER had me fooled. Didn’t really like REPETITION which seemed too close to the clue. But it was the the NHO STAGGERS and SIDELINING which caused me to throw in the towel after an extraordinarily patient (by my humble standards) 40 minutes.
This was a challenge, with SIDELINING not coming to me. The clue uses “demotion”, but sidelining is not a demotion; “failing to promote” would be a more accurate definition. COD CODPIECE.
DNF disaster. Revealed quite a few in the end, including CODPIECE which made me laugh. Makes a change from jokes about bras.
Will read blog later – thanks in advance, Roly.
Later: Roly, Typo alert- re 13d TRIANGLE is an anagram of Altering, as Kapietro says.
Joyless slog. All green but not all parsed in 20.02.
Gave up after picking off a few isolated clues, but could proceed no further
To be sidelined is absolutely not, in my view, the same as a demotion. I know – I was often sidelined! But never lost my existing position.
No thanks.
But Thanks Roly
Delighted to finish, albeit as the SCC was closing to the latest of members. Lots of prolonged glaring at clues to try to unwind the parsing, some of which as many have said was opaque. CODPIECE got my groan of the day award.
I did however enjoy the slow grind in a masochistic sort of manner, time not being a consideration. Amusing blog, Roly.
Coming in late on the conversation (stuck in a passing place on the slow coach,😉) So to 10d
My eyebrows are reaching heights hitherto unknown. Not only is sidelining, in its sporting sense, more of a removal from the arena of influence than a demotion (MPs excepted?) but also…the blooming checkers for the blooming word is a thing that causes amazement ?I?e?I?I?? and even after the g fell into place giving ‘a crossing place ending in ING that you put a haphazard line inside’…..the very thought of a lining being in the answer, frankly staggers me.
Tomorrow is another day
Thanks as always
My second worst result ever! A DNF with 11 clues unsolved after 40 minutes. I’m not going to offer any further comments today, other than to say that the setters are having a laugh at my expense.
17:57 with aids used to find SIDELINING, with its spectacularly unhelpful set of crossing letters. Tried to convince myself that a CODRIFLE was a thing, until RESCUE came along to prove the L wrong.
Thanks to Lupa and roly.
A DNF. I had entered ORIS for the god clue. Hard work. Liked ODER
Thanks rolytoly and Lupa.
23a Staggers; POI, full name is Grass Staggers or Grass tetany, and is due to magnesium deficiency. Of course I knew all that… well HHO anyway so didn’t have to cheat.
10d LOI Sidelining, too many Is in the checks!
Very hard for us. we would not want too many this hard, enjoy a variety of difficulty but there are limits for our agedbrains!
Another DNF. Pretty darn soulless experience only enlivened by the 6d Codpiece PDM. Thought some of these clues were less than tenuous in construction. Had to reveal 4d,10d and 16d. Please no more like this!
Dnf on sidelining/staggers.
Dear Jim, please can you fix it for us to have a proper editor again.
2 woeful clues.