A tricky puzzle from one of our more challenging setters.
This is Asp’s fifth puzzle, who has been appearing monthly and clocking in at 150, 116, 94 and 108 on the Quitch. Hard to say where this one will finish up: I came in at 15:07, nearly twice as long as Tuesday’s rated as 115 on the Quitch, but today was heavily skewed by a good ol’ breezeblock at LIABILITIES and IDEAL. So maybe around 115 today as well.
I was sluggish elsewhere around the grid, and was briefly held up by an incorrect UNHOOK instead of UNLOCK at 13ac. I do know the rugby position is called “hooker” rather than “hook”, but it seemed completely fine when typing it in. I’m glad I wasn’t solving on paper: changing HOOK into LOCK would be a right mess… getting from LOCK to HOOK, though, well that’s pretty much the perfect crime, isn’t it? Aside from a slightly exuberant-looking H, no one would suspect a thing.
So yes, a tricky one, but well worth the extra effort – another quality puzzle from Asp, for which many thanks!
| Across | |
| 1 | Argument concerning family servant (8) |
| DOMESTIC – |
|
| 5 | Genuine regret follows guilt ultimately (4) |
| TRUE – RUE (regret) follows T (guilT “ultimately”) | |
| 8 | Raced around tree (5) |
| CEDAR – anagram (around) of RACED | |
| 9 | Worry about Liberal’s quality (7) |
| CALIBRE – CARE (worry) about LIB(eral) | |
| 11 | Limited company forced to adopt name (11) |
| CONSTRAINED – CO(mpany) STRAINED (forced) to adopt N(ame) | |
| 13 | Release a French rugby player (6) |
| UNLOCK – UN (a, French) LOCK (rugby player) | |
| 14 | Speculative financial venture involves seedy accommodation (6) |
| BILLET – BET (speculative financial venture) involves ILL (seedy). Can’t say I was aware of this meaning of BILLET – BEDSIT was all I could see until LANTERN showed the way at 15d, despite DSI being impossible to equate with SEEDY. Collins defines it as “accommodation, especially for a soldier in civilian lodgings.” | |
| 17 | Type of diet affected certain apes (11) |
| PESCETARIAN – anagram (affected) of CERTAIN APES | |
| 20 | Football club magazine (7) |
| ARSENAL – double definition. Another not-really-aware-of military term, but a MAGAZINE (apart from a thingy on a gun) is also a storehouse/place for military stores: from French magasin, from Italian magazzino, itself from Arabic makhzin, which means a… drumroll please… a storehouse. So it’s been around the block a bit. The publication sense of the word developed on figuratively from this, as in a repository of information. | |
| 21 | Vision close to usual standard (5) |
| IDEAL – IDEA (vision) L (“close” to usuaL). A couple of less-than-obvious synonyms made this decidedly tricky. The third sense of STANDARD in the OED is “An exemplar of something”, which is indeed the same as an IDEAL. | |
| 22 | Group of illustrious musicians? (4) |
| TRIO – a semi &lit: the whole clue is a valid definition; the word MUSICIANS, however, is not doing any cryptic wordplay. The wordplay is saying to take a “group of” the letters of illusTRIOus. | |
| 23 | Deliver first of several gifts (8) |
| PRESENTS – PRESENT (deliver) S (“first” of Several). | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Avoid worst innings (4) |
| DUCK – double definition | |
| 2 | Doctor claimed what she could do (7) |
| MEDICAL – anagram (doctor) of CLAIMED, with SHE referring back to DOCTOR. | |
| 3 | Special clearing up session’s conclusion? (6-5) |
| SPRING-CLEAN – a full &lit. The wordplay is: SP. (abbrev. for special), an anagram (“up” = excited, etc.) of CLEARING, N (sessioN‘s “conclusion”). The whole clue is also a valid definition – oblique, but valid: after the end of a session, a one-off clean might be called for. (The session need not be a winter term in school etc, we could also be talking about the detritus in a room after a long series of meetings.) | |
| 4 | Encourage popular tourist attraction we hear (6) |
| INCITE – IN (popular), CITE “we hear” the same as SITE (tourist attraction) | |
| 6 | Bird runs over rubbish container (5) |
| ROBIN – R(uns) O(ver) BIN (rubbish container) | |
| 7 | Correct errors of staff in English court (8) |
| EMENDATE – MEN (staff) in E(nglish) DATE (court = woo, etc) | |
| 10 | Potential problems reduced top skills (11) |
| LIABILITIES – LId (top) “reduced”, ABILITIES (skills) | |
| 12 | Take over from superintendent adopting scheme (8) |
| SUPPLANT – SUPT. (abbrev. of superintendent) adopting PLAN (scheme) | |
| 15 | Engineer learnt new lighting technology (7) |
| LANTERN – anagram (engineer) of LEARNT, N(ew). It didn’t specify cutting-edge technology! | |
| 16 | Suit maker trimmed formal coat with gold (6) |
| TAILOR – TAILS = formal coat, “trimmed” = dock the, er, tail; OR (gold) | |
| 18 | Fare from Japan or America aboard vessel cut (5) |
| SUSHI – US (America) aboard SHIp (vessel) “cut” | |
| 19 | I must abandon assumed name, sadly (4) |
| ALAS – I must abandon ALIAS (assumed name) | |
I enjoyed this, it had a good mix of non-threatening clues and more challenging material. 9.38 for me, with LIABILITIES bringing up the rear and a few more – CALIBRE (initially I refused to believe any answer could have ‘lib’ at its centre), EMENDATE and the anagrammed diet – holding out until near the end. TRIO, IDEAL and BILLET also took their time arriving. Overall this was a fairly-clued crossword that was fun to do. Thanks Asp and Roly.
23:45
Tough one. Top half was very slow, and never really felt comfortable. BILLET was LOI, although it’s a fair word. Certainly less obscure than EMENDATE, I always get my amend/emend mixed up, but not heard this form before.
IDEAL was not IDEAL, with two secondary definitions.
I felt foolish in being diverted by the “She” in 2d, whereas if it had been “he” I would have got the reference back to Doctor. There’s a classic riddle about this, which like this clue can be simply unlocked by remembering that many (and will soon be most) doctors are female. Good clue, and a point well made.
Yes I recall the old “world’s greatest surgeon” one being put to a large lecture audience in the 70’s and not one of us solved it. Seems laughably obvious now.
‘She’ threw me too – but not for long. I would have thought ‘they’ would have been more appropriate but that would have been too easy I suppose.
DNF. I went to enter PISCATARIAN before the checker nudged me to PISCETARIAN and thought “fair enough, Pisces and all that…”. I even stopped to count the number of As in the anagrist to confirm my correction. Probably should have counted a couple of other vowels as well.
Well played Asp. Quite a challenging one all round. And thanks for the blog Roly.
15 minutes. Like others I toyed with PISCETARIAN but fortunately thought to check the anagrist before I got to writing it in. I also thought twice about the definition of IDEAL. No such problems with the definition of BILLET although along with its crosser LIABILITIES it was among the last to fall.
I think I’m matching you consistently timewise, either we share the same genius or the same twisted minds 🙂 I rather hope it’s the former !
A hard fought five on the first pass of acrosses but the downs were kinder. Ended up in an increasinly rare sub ten when EMENDATE went in, purely on the strength of the cryptic. Eldest daughter passed through being a PESCETARIAN on the way to vegetarianism. Enjoyed SUPPLANT, CALIBRE and LIABILITIES. All green in 9.40.
Had to force in 7d to finish off – not sure I’ve heard of Emendate – otherwise a perfectly good QC, 10.36
DNF from me. NHO emendate (nor has autocorrect on this iPhone!). I though 8a was a hidden; raCED ARound – but the word play doesn’t quite work.
DNF after 40 minutes with 4 to reveal. NHO emendate, annoyingly didn’t spot the fish diet was an anagram, revealed billet which gave us lantern, another unspotted anagram, d’oh.
Thanks Roly, we also needed your help parsing trio and medical – another unspotted anagram!!!
Not our best work 😧
Thanks Asp, just didn’t get on your wavelength today
A tough but enjoyable solve and I was pleased to sneak in under 10 minutes until discovering that I can’t spell and, being unfamiliar with the abbreviation for Superintendent, ended up with ‘suRplant’ at 12d.
Spent some time wondering if ‘top skill’ was referring to circuses which may have been a case of trying to be too clever by half.
Thanks to rolytoly
15 minutes, so a slow solve compared to my norm, but I never quite ground to a complete stop. Same hesitations as others over the spelling of PESCETARIAN, the meanings of IDEAL and the existence of EMENDATE, but in each case the checkers helped me home. Wasn’t clear how the wordplay worked for SPRING-CLEAN, and needed the blog for that one – I never remember that “up” is one of the 275,483 words that can indicate an anagram.
Many thanks Roly for the very helpful blog
Cedric
Great puzzle by Asp. Many thanks to him and to Roly for the blog.
Separate to the ongoing debate about the inclusion of living people and whether or not this somehow represents a dumbing-down and/or patronising attempt to appeal to the youth, hopefully we can all find some common ground and agree that it’s refreshing to see this (male) compiler attempting to push things forward by not just defaulting to male pronouns and actually acknowledging the existence of females as doctors.
It’s 2024 though, and this kind of clue shouldn’t be giving solvers pause, be novel or even noteworthy. The more (and the sooner) these very very basic things are normalised, the better and more broadly appealing the puzzles will be.
23:43 for the solve! Reached my last six around 13mins and might have been quicker getting spring clean if I had spelt pescetarian correctly which was compounded by screwing up when I checked it later. Other sticking points were constrained, calibre, liabilities, emendate and billet.
While I felt this was generally more QC than Asp’s previous offerings, there is still a little too much going on in the clues – “light technology” might have made me laugh in a different puzzle but here just felt like it was an example of making things too complicated for the remit. See also “speculative financial venture”=bet, seedy=ill, “group of” for hidden word.
Anyway pleased to finish it. Hopefully Asp is checking in and taking feedback as certainly think there is good potential once the level is found. Thanks to Roly for blog
PS Arsenal FC so called because they were originally based in Woolwich where the Royal Arsenal is and founded by some of the munitions workers.
7:39. Another tricky one from Asp, but no complaints from me. LOI BILLET. The &lit SPRING-CLEAN was clever but I thought the definition a bit of a stretch. COD to MEDICAL. Thanks Asp and RolyToly.
Agree on the convoluted definition of SPRING CLEAN. If that’s what it takes to get a full &lit designation, give me the semi &lit any day.
Tough. Am I the only one who thought that SPRING CLEAN was a rubbish clue? The definition/surface just doesn’t work, despite Roly’s valiant efforts.
If 1a is a double definition then the underlining looks wrong – I think the two definitions would be “argument concerning family” (Collins sense 6 “an incident of violence in the home, esp between partners”) and “servant”. However, I think it might have been intended as a triple def – “Argument” (Collins sense 6 as above); “concerning family” (Collins sense 1 – “of or involving the home or family”); and “servant”. Another not very good clue either way IMO, since a “domestic” is slang for a violent incident not merely an “argument”.
As you’ll have gathered I didn’t enjoy some of this. I did like SUPPLANT, MEDICAL, BILLET, ALAS and LANTERN though, so swings and roundabouts. All done in an above average 10:35 for a Tough Day. Many thanks Asp and Roly.
Ah yes very good – domestic does work better as a triple def, thanks will 7d the blog.
Paraphrased from the UK parliamentary website:
A parliamentary session is a year-long period of time in the UK Parliament that usually begins and ends in the spring.
I think the clue works perfectly well if the solver parses it exhaustively rather than simply deciding that it doesn’t work.
Wow that was a tough one. I was speeding along quite nicely till I came to a grinding halt with half a dozen or so to solve. Like others I had trouble with spelling PISCETARIAN, and initially transposed the E and A. Fortunately I then thought of the Pisces derivation and corrected it. BILLET was a tough one to solve, but once solved it made my LOI EMENDATE a good deal easier. I agree with Templar, the SPRING CLEAN clue is not the best. I eventually crossed the line in 15.35 for a pretty slow day.
Dare I (cheekily) point out that maybe you’re still having a little trouble with it? PESCE ….
So sorry you joined me in the DNFs after all!
You’re quite right, my bad day is even worse than I thought. When I checked the answers I failed to spot I had misspelt it anyway. So a DNF for me!
Sounds like you will have to emendate that. Said no-one ever
Ah yes but that applies to many words found here. When was the last time you heard anyone call a sheep a tup? Yet we are expected to have that word on the tip of our fingers.
It was an attempt at humour. There’s rarely an opportunity in the comments to crack a joke about an unknown word – that is tup ’til now.
Well done! So sorry I never understand jokes – must be my autism ….
In parts of the UK, a ram is called a tup. Also see Othello.
You’ll hear a ram called a TUP quite regularly among people who keep sheep, possibly more often than ram. Putting the ram in with the ewes is referred to as TUPPING. It might, if course, be regional. Here (Midlands) tup is the norm.
I’m quite sure you’re right. We townies just don’t hear that language!
As for Othello, there are very many words in Shakespeare which (as New Driver says) no one nowadays ever uses.
Anyone who has sheep knows the term!
Ah, yes, but then they would. That’s rather different from it being GK. The question is whether it’s GK; I think I’m having to accept that it is, even though (this is where we were) no one in *general* society – on the Clapham omnibus, say? – would ever say the word.
Glad to hear this is rated as ‘tricky’ because I managed most of it in the end, stumped only by BILLET and LANTERN for which I do not berate myself, would never have got there. But several CNPs in the downs, for which thank you, Roly. And by the way: “solving on paper”: am never without a rubber!
Sorry to buck the trend, but I didn’t enjoy this one bit – and not just because I missed my target due to struggling with my LOI (eventually biffed) and a misspelled “pescatarian”. I’m with Templar on SPRING CLEAN, and I still don’t really get MEDICAL. Don’t rush back Asp, and thanks to Roly for unravelling some of the less than obvious stuff.
FOI TRUE
LOI LIABILITIES
COD BILLET
TIME 6:33
On edit : I wouldn’t suggest that today’s 15×15 is a cakewalk, but it only took me 93 seconds longer than this, and apart from one contentious definition was an absolute delight.
Not so much these days but you might go see the doctor for a medical. That seems to work for me.
Edit: just tried the 15×15 and scraped under 40mins which is decent for me.
What I wouldn’t give to match that time for the big puzzle!!!
I omitted to mention I made an error on the very last letter in. You wouldn’t have given anything for that!!
11:23
Did about 2/3s before hitting a wall. Must admit that without the anagrist to check, I would have spelt 17a as PESCATARIAN. None of the other long ones came easily – I was finally left with 3d – what else could it be from the checkers- parsed only after completion but I agree it was quite the convolution.
Thanks Roly and Asp
I’m with Templar, Busman and N Driver on this one. Though I do wonder whether the Calibre of recent QCs causes me to start me off in a less forgiving mindset than I used to.
Thanks Roly and Asp
Another tricky one! MEDICAL and CEDAR were first 2 in. LIABILITIES was LOI and I needed to write it out on paper before I saw abilities materialise from the crossers. BEDSIT was first guess for 14a until LANTERN arrived. IDEAL took a while to see. EMENDATE was another hold up. PESCETARIAN wasn’t a problem. One of my daughters is of that persuasion. 12:23. Thanks Asp and Roly.
12:08
Tricky and a bit loose in places I reckon, as mentioned above. On the other hand, I liked DOMESTIC.
Thanks Asp and Roly.
Despite not solving many of the early clues I made steady progress until I arrived at my last few.
EMENDATE was a NHO, but I trusted the cryptic elements of the clue. LIABILITIES required all of its checkers, as I didn’t think the second letter could be anything other than E or O.
But my main hold up was caused by inadvertently mid-spelling PESCaTARIAN. I couldn’t get DOMESTIC, so I was faced with __R_N_ C_a_N at 3d. The second word could only be ChaiN, so I was completely flummoxed for ages …. until I spotted my error at 17a.
So, another challenging QC from Asp, but, for the first time, s/he didn’t beat me.
Many thanks to Asp and Roly.
After my first trawl through, I thought this would be a DNF. But kept plodding through. A few were only parsed after I wrote them in (liabilities for one). And I’d never heard of emendate. 17mins though so pleasantly surprised
As a solver who can only manage to complete the 15 x 15 if the Snitch is below 80, I thought this a great puzzle, pitched towards the top end of the Quickie range, but which I was able to complete without too many problems. I do these things for the challenge and fun of the solve rather than to boast quick times, and I hope Asp will not be discouraged by some of the comments posted above.
[Checked the lunchtime QUITCH … running at 137, and the Personal NITCH column is an ugly sea of red. Even The Lord Verlaine was pushed out to 03:59!]
I got (rightly) told off for complaining that a QC a week or two ago was too easy to be any fun; no such complaints today.
It took a while to get going – only got three of the across clues on first pass, but more of the downs and after that things slowly fell into place.
There were a couple of answers that, although I was sure they were right, I couldn’t parse – SPRING CLEANING and the ‘LI’ of LIABILITIES, so thanks to Roly for explaining those.
However, I am now crestfallen because the outcome of my efforts was a DNF – I entered PISCETARIAN rather than PESCETARIAN – this was not knowing how to spell it rather than carelessness, but if I had checked the anagram I would have seen my mistake.
Incidentally, what is the “technical” term for the part of the clue which points at the answer, as opposed to the wordplay? There were three here that I thought were a bit “meh”; “light technology” for LANTERN, “vision” for IDEA and “quality” for “CALIBRE”. Sacrificing clarity for a nice surface? I guess it’s my fault for wanting to be spoon-fed synonyms. I should know better by now.
Incidentally, what is the “technical” term for the part of the clue which points at the answer, as opposed to the wordplay?
I usually call it the definition.
Thank you – makes sense.
Got there in the end, somewhat slowly, misspelling of PESCATARIAN as many others not helping. Not sure about equating IDEAL as ‘standard. Half-way tricky I’d have said
Disappointing DNF – for the first time for ages had to reveal three, i.e. SUPPLANT, EMENDATE (??), BILLET.
So did not enjoy this one, painfully slow.
Liked DUCK, DOMESTIC, SUSHI, ALAS, CALIBRE.
LANTERN – technology? LI = top reduced?? SUPT? Moan, moan.
Thanks for very much needed blog, Roly.
Hmm. I’m quite surprised that I am so high up the leaderboard. I didn’t find this as tricky as others did with only my LOsI BILLET and EMENDATE (the latter unknown and constructed from wordplay) taking time to appear. I didn’t have a problem with either SPRING CLEAN or LIABILITIES but did wonder if IDEAL and standard are interchangeable. 7:40
I share your doubts about IDEAL/standard – I think to be equivalent to IDEAL, standard needs something added to it, e.g. “gold standard”. That could just be me though.
I think “Ideal” can be looked at in two ways. For some, an “ideal” is the best something that can be, which is over and above an average. For others, an “ideal” is what you expect and want ie. a “standard”.
That was my rationale at least.
Tough! And a DNF…
An enjoyable puzzle all in all despite the challenge. Embarrassingly CEDAR would simply not work in my mind despite how easy it was.
NHO EMENDATE and BILLET
Thanks Roly and Asp
15.50
One of my slowest times, completely breezeblocked for ages on BILLET IDEAL and LIABILITIES. Got there eventually!
Completely failed this getting very few in. In my view a 15*15 disguised as a QC. Still suppose a very hard one are to be expected just don’t enjoy them nor have the time
Completely failed this getting very few in. In my view a 15*15 disguised as a QC. Still suppose a very hard one are to be expected just don’t enjoy them nor have the time.
26.41 Never quick but it was EMENDATE, DOMESTIC and SPRING CLEAN that really held me up at the end. Thanks rolytoly and Asp.
37 mins…
Slow – but this was an Asp puzzle – so I’m just glad to finish. Upon reflection, it wasn’t one of their hardest, but it still took a while to unravel some of the longer clues, and misspelling 17ac “Pescetarian” didn’t help. No idea why it took me so long to see 1ac “Domestic”.
FOI – 8ac “Cedar”
LOI – 10dn “Liabilities”
COD – 10dn “Liabilities”
Thanks as usual!
I’m surprised that you, as an accountant, didn’t see LIABILITIES sooner.
I was CONSTRAINED to give up on this one, ALAS, defeated by the fiendish TRIO of SPRING-CLEAN and its neighbors. Unfortunately for me, in my dialect it’s “spring cleaning” not “spring-clean”. My DOMESTIC life continues to be complicated, and my intellectual faculties at the moment are probably not tiptop, but I think it’s a pretty hard puzzle in spite of my personal LIABILITIES.
I didn’t see the clever triple DOMESTIC and still don’t understand DUCK; is it “worst innings” due to its meaning of “zero”? Cricket? It took too long to get the spelling right on PESCETARIAN (my spell checker doesn’t like it either). The rugby position rang only the faintest of bells, but I would have been ok if I could have confirmed it with the crosser. NHO EMENDATE so I kept searching for something else before giving up and trusting the wordplay. Lots of good clues! LANTERN made me laugh. ROBIN had me well and truly fooled, and I hope I will get better at taking seemingly content-less words like “over” more seriously. High-CALIBRE puzzle – Asp delivers a stinging defeat.
Thanks to Asp and roly!
Re DUCK:
To duck a subject or question is to avoid it: He accused the president of ducking the issue of campaign finance reform.
And ‘ worst innings’ would be a count of zero. In cricket, an ‘innings’ refers to a sequence of six consecutive balls, known as an ‘ over’. You often hear cricket commentators saying – ‘ he was out for a duck’ … ie no runs scored. Look at me all over the cricket thing! I could only solve half the crossword though so not being smug in any way – promise!
In very rare circumstances an innings could possibly be one over but the two terms have totally different meanings.
Ah….
Maybe I’m less confused now, but I doubt it.
Thanks for the cricket help, I thought it must be that but only after the fact. I had to laugh though – an ‘innings’ is an ‘over’ then? Typically opaque (to an outsider) use of language!
I think you are both still confused. An innings is the term for a period of play in a cricket match where one team of 11 tries to score as many runs as possible while the other side attempts to limit the scoring and remove each player from the pitch (field of play) either by bowling the ball (a fancy throw with a straight elbow) to hit the stumps, three sticks the player is protecting, to catch it after being hit or in a few other ways in this highly codified sport. The batter has a bat (obvs) to defend with, but scores runs, like a baseball player, by striking the ball out of reach. An over is a consecutive series of balls bowled from one end of the pitch by a single bowler. It normally comprises 6 throws, balls bowled. It may be possible to dispatch all 11 batters in one over, but it is in the realms of fantasy. For my fellow cricket lovers I apologise for the convoluted explanation but it’s a sport you have to watch with a knowledgeable person to understand. No better way to spend a day though.
My possible instance of one over equalling an innings was if one side had some reason to declare after dealing with just six balls! Or another possibility- side needs only a tiny score in their second innings to win and does it in their first over.
It’s probably worth adding that, while the team has an innings to score their runs, innings is also used to describe how the player did e.g. “He scored a duck in his innings”. That’s really the relevance of today’s clue. Duck=zero relates only to an individual.
Whimsically wondering whether innings is therefore the collective noun for a group of players’ innings 🤷♂️
(And baseball was mentioned, there are similarities. Typical baseball game is 9 innings but each of those is an inning. In cricket each team has two innings to score their runs. Ignore the singular/plurals and it’s the same sort of thing).
Yes, I didn’t think of an individual batsman’s innings as opposed to a team’s innings.
Mercy!!!!
(thanks to all for trying anyway)
As we all know, cricket is the only sport with LAWS as opposed to rules, and Law 13 defines an innings. “13.1.1 A match shall be one or two innings for each side according to agreement reached before the match.”
However, Law 25 discusses the innings of an individual. “25.2 Commencement of a batter’s innings
The innings of the first two batters, and that of any new batter on the resumption of play after a call of Time, shall commence at the call of Play. At any other time, a batter’s innings shall be considered to have commenced when that batter first steps onto the field of play.”
So it’s not whimsical but the truth. Innings are like sheep.
https://www.lords.org/mcc/the-laws-of-cricket/innings
Thanks for looking that up!
FWIW Football / soccer has laws too … https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_the_Game_(association_football)
A whole new can of worms! Football started with Rules and Regulations. You are right that they are now termed laws, but I have no idea when that change took place. It would seem that the words are used interchangeably in this context. https://www.cochranewolvesfc.ca/kicking-through-history-the-codification-of-soccer-rules/
Innings are like sheep! A sheep is like an innings!
🤣
Steady slog led to a DNF – I could not see BILLET for the life of me! And in government service parlance, your billet was simply your unit of accommodation – by no means seedy (unless it was)! I flirted with JOURNAL for the magazine, having N – L at the end but football teams came into focus! Put in EMENDATE with a shrug: really? My COD – ALAS. Clever clue. Thanks to Asp and to Roly
DNF. Foiled by BILLET.
😢
Tough, but managed to finish by biffing a few unparsed (or unparsable) clues: SPRING CLEAN, LIABILITIES, EMENDATE & BILLET. Too much of a struggle.
30 min finish, phew as it took sometime to get anything in. Even reading Roly’s blog not understanding the parsing of Spring Clean. But pleased with my most difficult finish to date. Thanks Roly and Asp
I really struggled with this. Submitting my membership to the “never heard of emendate” club. First one I haven’t finished thus far, so it goes..
Not fast, but completed.
About 20 mins,
Had t@*o though.
Struggled with liabilities, billet, emendate, and calibre
As busman said the 15×15 is about the same difficulty, and if it is the same setter, it points to him/her not yet being able to judge the QC difficulty appropriately.
COD medical.
A mixture of quick and slow. I seem to be the only person who had MILLET (seedy?) at first for BILLET and although UNPROP looked odd it seemed no less likely than EMENDATE! Got there in the end at 33:15. Thanks all.
Another Asp, another comprehensive DNF. But having played rugby (union!) at school, UNLOCK was a friendly clue for me.
Horrible day
0/5 on Quintagram
25 minute DNF on QC – entered PISCETARIAN
80% of big crossword in just under 2 hours
No fun, no confidence, no point! ☹️
PS And, of course, I failed to get the easiest of the clues on the big puzzle (as described by the blogger).
That quintagram was impossible without help. I managed the -AT of the Spoonerism and that was it!
That is some consolation 😊
32:35, which is longer than I generally allow these days. I like the fact that Asp tests my ability, such as it is, but I think that the editor needs to pay a bit more attention to the QCs.
I believe SPRING-CLEAN refers to UK parliamentary sessions, which begin and end in the spring – no need to write off a perfectly good clue as several posters have done.