A gentle Friday Quick Cryptic from Teazel today [Edit: well it was for me as I had all the required knowledge and vocabulary, but your mileage may differ]. I was just 3 answers short of a clean sweep and was held up only briefly by finding the first word in 6D (my clue of the day for the surface) to finish in 4:32. I also enjoyed the cheese sandwich. Thank-you Teazel. How did you all get on?
Fortnightly Weekend Quick Cryptic. This time it is Sawbill’s turn to provide the extra weekend entertainment. You can find the crossword here. If you are interested in trying our previous offerings you can find an index to all 117 here.
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, {deletions} and [] other indicators.
| Across | |
| 1 | Beyond Europe, price increase to make milk safe (10) |
| PASTEURISE – PAST (beyond) EU (Europe) RISE (price increase). An easy one to start. | |
| 8 | Seen milling around outside, graduates in a group (2,5) |
| EN MASSE – (seen)* [milling around] outside MAS (graduates). | |
| 9 | Retrospective look breaking through in stringed instrument (5) |
| VIOLA – LO (look) reversed -> OL, in VIA (through). | |
| 10 | Scatterbrained daughter at the back (4) |
| DAFT – D (daughter) AFT (at the back of a ship). | |
| 11 | Bury dung for disintegration? It’s bottled! (8) |
| BURGUNDY – (bury dung)* [for disintegration]. The image conjured up the by surface is not pleasant, unlike Burgundy wine. | |
| 13 | Rural deity finally blessed a wild animal (5) |
| PANDA – PAN (rural deity), last letter of blesseD, and A. | |
| 14 | Bad weather announced, as a rule (5) |
| REIGN – RAIN (bad weather) sounds like REIGN. | |
| 16 | Loss of nerve as result of a walk in the snow? (4,4) |
| COLD FEET – Double definition, the second a cryptic hint. | |
| 17 | Fellow making section of book much shorter (4) |
| CHAP – CHAP{ter} (section of a book) much shorter. | |
| 20 | Miss run, and one may be out of the competition (5) |
| LOSER – LOSE (miss) R (run). | |
| 21 | Derisory payment for strip cartoon (7) |
| PEANUTS – Double definition. | |
| 22 | Opposing band on the radio — a necessity when driving in cold weather? (10) |
| ANTIFREEZE – ANTI (opposing), FRIEZE (a decorated band along the wall of a room), sounds like FREEZE. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Implore to take some simple advice (5) |
| PLEAD – Hidden in simPLE ADvice. | |
| 2 | One may need two knockouts to win (12) |
| SEMIFINALIST – Cryptic definition. | |
| 3 | Facility that troops may stand at (4) |
| EASE – Double definition. | |
| 4 | Piteous in French street, suffering flu (6) |
| RUEFUL – RUE (French street) (flu)* [suffering]. | |
| 5 | Violence, say, involves grave wrong (8) |
| SAVAGERY – (grave)* [wrong] in SAY. | |
| 6 | Louche cousin desperate for accommodation (7,5) |
| COUNCIL HOUSE – (Louche cousin)* [desperate]. I had to cross out the letters for HOUSE to see the first word. | |
| 7 | American jail, that one in the ravine (6) |
| CANYON – CAN (American slang for jail) YON (that one). | |
| 12 | Endless hostilities at home for killer of vermin (8) |
| WARFARIN – WARFAR{e} (hostilities) without the last letter IN (at home). A chemical used as a rat poison. It is also used as a medicine to prevent blood clots. | |
| 13 | What you might add to a cheese sandwich is a difficulty (6) |
| PICKLE – Double definition, the first a cryptic hint. | |
| 15 | Key Greek character in tourist spot there (6) |
| DELPHI – DEL (delete key label is often abbreviated to that) PHI (Greek character). The tourist spot in Greece. Delphi in legend (previously called Pytho) was an ancient sacred precinct and the seat of Pythia, the major oracle who was consulted about important decisions .. | |
| 18 | Dated and almost approved (5) |
| PASSE – All but the last letter of PASSE{d} (approved). | |
| 19 | Den left impression (4) |
| LAIR – L (left) AIR (impression of a quality or manner given by someone or something). | |
I only knew of WARFARIN as an anti-clotting drug, DNK it was a rat poison. 7:39.
The fluoride in toothpaste is another use for a rat poison. In smaller doses of course.
9:14 today. I also had to cross out the letters for HOUSE to get ‘COUNCIL’. I don’t even know what a council house is.
Also only know WARFARIN as a blood thinner type drug.
Think public housing for council house.
That’s how it kills the rats!! It thins their blood until the have internal bleeds
I prefer RatSak – but not as a blood thinner. Crossing out the letters for HOUSE is all very well, see how you go if you cross out the letters for HOTEL which aren’t even all in the anagrist. Anyway I recovered from that fit of dopiness to finish in 8.43. Nice puzzle, thanks John and Teazel.
🤣
Well, at least I saw at once there was no T, so it definitely wasn’t hotel – the key to solving is to discard wrong ideas immediately. I still ended up writing down the letters, only to see the obvious.
The rest of the puzzle? Mostly write-ins. Warfarin might be a little difficult for some, but I have seen this clue before.
Time: 6:58
4:20 today so not too many hold-ups. I think I do better with anagram clues and there were a few nice ones today.
WARFARIN well known for controlling vermin, but then so is ANTIFREEZE, with neither of them being terribly pleasant for our old mate rattus rattus.
Thanks John and thanks Teazel.
9 minutes. I’d forgotten about ANTIFREEZE, not something one needs to think about these days.
Even with all the checkers and writing it out horizontally I still took ages to get SEMIFINALIST, at least partly because I was looking for something ending in -less. NHO WARFARIN as thinner or poison but kindly clued and struggled with DELPHI too, so much so I wondered if it might really be COLD FooT to allow Pompei. Lots to like here. All green in 12.06.
10½ minutes, of which a fair proportion spent biffing in this friendly puzzle – all parsed in the end but a number post entry into the grid. SEMIFINALIST the LOI but PEANUTS took the most time and needed the P checker before the penny dropped. True fame for a cartoon strip from one country to feature in a crossword from another.
Many thanks John for the blog and I look forward to the Sunday Special
Cedric
Another cracking puzzle which I made a bit harder than it should have been.
BURGANDY became a lot easier once I noticed that the definition wasn’t ‘bolted’, I missed the obvious hidden for PLEAD, COUNCIL took a long time to unravel even with the relevant letters written down and I spent some time trying to fit a word for ‘piteous’ into rue at 4d.
Loved the surfaces for WARFARIN and COUNCIL HOUSE.
Started with VIOLA and finished with CANYON in 7.34.
Thanks to John and Teazel
17 minutes which is fast for me.
An enjoyable solve.
Thanks to Teasel and Johninterred.
I don’t agree with 2D: a finalist isn’t knocked out. They just lose. Unless it was some sort of boxing tournament where a semi-finalist might actually knock out their opponents.
I had a similar idea, but then I rationalised it by thinking that the winner is the winner of a knock-out competition, so all the ties are knock-outs, even the final.
Sounds semantic to me. If you’re in a knockout competition then once you lose you’re knocked out of the competition whether it’s the final or earlier rounds. The last man/woman/team standing is the winner.
Reminds me of the old logical problem about if you have a knockout competition with 86 competitors how many matches do you schedule to get the winner?
(Edit: Oops – John must have replied while I hadn’t done a page refresh)
I’d have to work that out numerically, although coming up with a general formula could be possible.
It’s a bit like how many seconds in six weeks, ten (!)
Or how many seconds in a year, 252.
There is a general formula …
What is this formula, does it involve byes?
It’s n-1, surely. Everyone but the winner loses 1 match. So 85 matches needed for an 86 person tournament.
Indeed it is 👍
So I got the question on how many matches if there’s 86 competitors in about one second, but I can’t fathom your two questions! Please enlighten.
Ditto.
six weeks = s(9) + weekS = 9+ 1 = 10
A year includes 2nd Jan, 2nd Feb. . . = 12
plus 22nd Jan, 22nd Feb. . . = 20 seconds + 20 seconds + . . . = 240
12 + 240 = 252
Que?
10:10 (birth of Gruffydd ap Llywelyn)
A fast solve, until I needed pen and paper to get COUNCIL HOUSE.
Thanks John and Teazel
Actually finished it after a struggle (LOI NHO WARFARIN) … to read that it’s rated “gentle”. Oh well…
19:00 for the solve! Enjoyed DELPHI and PEANUTS. Really had to dig the bottom half out though. Only heard of WARFARIN because my dad used to take it for his high blood pressure.
I just got around to recreating my 2024 spreadsheet after a mid-year crash and I knew Teazel is one of the tougher setters but was amazed to see my average on their puzzles this year is 25+ mins and my fastest solve is 16min36 and I’ve only successfully completed a quarter of their puzzles (7/24). So I suppose a 19min successful solve was gentle by their standards.
Have a good weekend everybody who’s not coming back for Saturday 👍
I’m coming back Saturday; can’t I have a good weekend?
Not if it’s Izetti 😜
5:15
Share Dom’s reservation about 2d; otherwise an enjoyable solve
15:17
LOI WARFARIN, NHO. I could see it would be some kind of drug like many that end in IN. Since all drug names are made up, wasn’t going to be so easy to find a word for “hostilities”, when “war” wasn’t going to work. Fair amount of time spent here.
Also struggled with RUEFUL, by following instructions to put “piteous” in RUE.
Didn’t like LOSER.
COD DELPHI
Have to say I struggle to see where LOSE / MISS can be used synonymously.
How about the example ODE has… “He has lost his chance of becoming world No. 1”, where you could substitute “missed” without changing the meaning?
Thanks JohnI – that’s where I can see they’re sort of synonymous. If I think of “lose” and “miss” in future tense whereas the OED examples are past tense, I guess it works. (“If I lose this match I lose/miss my chance of becoming world No. 1”. Blimey that was hard work to get to!
I bought the Times today as I didn’t want to MISS / LOSE the chance of trying Teazel’s excellent crossword.
Brilliant – that works perfectly!
10 minutes. Generally slow without too many specific hold-ups. Favourite was WARFARIN; the interesting “History” and “Society and culture” sections of the Wikipedia article are well worth a read.
Thanks to John and Teazel
Made heavy weather of parts of this one. Should have looked at 1d first but instead started at the bottom. Among LOsI were DAFT, SEMI-FINALIST, ANTIFREEZE, LAIR and RUEFUL, which I tried to make more complicated than it was by thinking of French rheum.
Liked easy ones like PEANUTS, COLD FEET, PICKLE, PASSE.
Could not parse VIOLA – a bit dim there.
Thanks vm, John.
7:42
Fairly comfortable – only three acrosses in on the first pass, but managed to piece together bit by bit. Another here that had to write out the letters for 6d (though I assumed it was something HOUSE). I had forgotten band = frieze – just bunged in the obvious from definition.
Thanks John and Teazel
I differ from most today and found this impossible, giving up after 30 mins with 7 unsolved. I failed to spot that a key can be on a keyboard, could not think of a three letter word for ‘at the back’, did not spot the alternative meaning of ‘band’, coukd not think of the strip cartoon, could not think of a word for ‘dated’, and did myself in by somehow thinking 2D was a 6,6 word. My worst performance for several years. Perhaps my mind was not in it. Hopefully next week will bring more joy.
Bad luck. Put it down to just an off day. I have them sometimes too.
With a key, always try alt, del, tab, and enter. Or it might be A, B, C, D, E, F, or G. If that doesn’t work, try ait.
Not to mention ESC!
Or it may be a synonym or the actual definition and you’re looking for a word like ….
main, primary, greatest, highest, predominant, dominant, foremost, big, first, leading, central, principal, chief, paramount, supreme, great, cardinal, overriding, prior, major, master, premier, primal, important, capital, sovereign, top, outstanding, overbearing, distinguished, notable, grand, preeminent, noteworthy, signal, senior, eminent, prestigious …
23:10
Certainly not a gentle one for me and well over my 20 minute target. Struggled in the SE corner with ANTIFREEZE, DELPHI and LOI LAIR.
I managed 10 today. I hate pickle so that was an easy win. As usual, some answers I get from the definition before I’ve fully solved the clue eg 1ac.
I think we all get the answer just from the definitions sometimes – it’s known as “biffing” – see here.
You can tell I’m new to this…
Haha I hate pickles too but instead of an easy win, it gave me a long moment before I thought, yeah, if you’re crazy like most people, and put it in.
Started really quickly which was a surprise this being a Teazel, but then slowed significantly in the SE. LOI ANTIFREEZE, ah, that sort of band – thanks John. COD PEANUTS for the nostalgia. Still have a Snoopy soft toy (plus flying suit and goggles) from exactly 50 years ago! Also liked CANYON. Thanks John and Teazel.
9.29 for me. Brain foggy after a work social at Winter Wonderland last night and one too many vodkas in the Ice Bar where they made me wear a parka over my parka.
WARFARIN was a write in. ANTIFREEZE was not fully parsed.
LOI:EASE having fiddled around with trying to involve the royal engineers.
COD: I’m going to controversially nominate SEMIFINALIST.
Good, fair puzzle I thought.
Cheers to all fellow commenters, our blogger and the setter.
Sounds like you needed a shot of 22a!
All but one done in just under five minutes, then another 43 seconds on peanuts!
COD To Burgundy, simply because I like it.
You and I were on the same wavelength. I just needed a few more seconds to solve PEANUTS
10 minutes for me with loi savagery after my failure to parse VIOLA (duh). WARFARIN standard rat poison for us country dwellers but they seem to adapt to it and go on proliferating. Enjoyed PICKLE and RUEFUL – lots of friendly clues today and nothing obscure: even the oracle at DELPHI made an appearance. Thanks to Teazel and John: nice start to the day (and the sun is shining here in Suffolk)
10 minutes today; LOI PASSE where I had got stuck with Paste coming to mind and being difficult to shift, even though clearly wrong.
I agree with our blogger’s rating as medium difficulty.
WARFARIN had to be; I thought Band = Frieze a bit of a stretch , but the answer was obvious.
COD jointly to COUNCIL HOUSE ( great anagram) and EN MASSE.
David
I thought I was on for a super quick time as the first half of the puzzle went in at quite a lick, but I slowed dramatically in the second half. So, as virtually every football manager in the history of the game has said post match, it was a game of two halves. In the end I ran over my target finishing in 10.46. The main culprit was COUNCIL HOUSE, where I saw HOUSE quickly enough, and then rather pathetically couldn’t for a long time make out the first word with the remaining letters. WARFARIN was effectively my LOI, as although I’d biffed it, I wouldn’t stop the clock until I’d successfully parsed it; a killer of vermin who’d have known.
My total time for the week was 51.27, giving me a daily average of 10.17. I’ll settle for that even if slightly outside target.
I’ve been taking WARFARIN since 2013. It’s definitely better for me than it is for rodents. 2D continues to perplex me – what about two-legged SEMIFINALS (and occasionally finals)?
I sailed through the puzzle, only missing my LOI while scurrying through the Down clues.
FOI PASTEURISE
LOI SEMIFINALIST
COD COUNCIL HOUSE
TIME 3:31
And there was I, bemoaning the 6 months I spent on it after a P.E.
Hated the fortnightly blood tests and having to forego Bananas and Cranberry juice because of their highs Potassium levels.
8:21 today of which at least 2 minutes were spent looking for pen and paper and then scribbling there on. As an IPad solver, I sometimes struggle with longer anagrams and just could not work out 6dn. Once the letters were scattered on the page, the answer became obvious and was then followed immediately by my LOI BURGUNDY.
I normally warm up my work brain with the QC; today I warmed up my QC brain with work and came later than usual to this. I don’t know if correlation is causation in this instance, but I flew through that. Most things just clicked straight away, the exceptions being SEMIFINALIST (I share the queries above) and COUNCIL HOUSE (LOI).
I normally struggle with Teazel so very pleased indeed with 05:05, which is my 5th best ever time on the QUITCH and is a sub-K to boot, for a Red Letter Day.
Many thanks Teazel and John.
🔥🔥
From PASTEURISE to PEANUTS in 5:55. I would have been close to Templar’s time if I had seen PEANUTS sooner. Still, a Red Letter Day here too.
07:35
Stuck again on the last clue, the unknown warfarin.
CsOD burgundy, panda, or cold feet.
Perhaps it’s the cold, but I was a bit sluggish on this one, being slow to see DELPHI, PEANUTS, ANTIFREEZE and LOI, COUNCIL HOUSE, for which I also had to write out the anagrist and cross off the letters for HOUSE. Still well within my nominal target. 7:52. Thanks Teazel and John.
In all my time as a solver (coming up to three months now!) I hadn’t seen “on the radio” as a homophone indicator before, and I’m not wild about “band” as a clue for frieze either, so that required some crossers before getting it from the definition.
Otherwise this was much more my level than some of the others this week.
Well done! Homophone indicators are legion … here are some to give you the flavour.
Announcing
Broadcast
Caught
Commentator’s
Dictator’s
For delivery
In auditorium
In ears
On a podcast
On a teleconference
On radio
Out of trap
Picked up
And so on!
18 mins…
A good puzzle with a nice level of difficulty. Main hold ups were 2dn “Semi-finalist” and 3dn “Ease”. Tried fitting “chutney” into 13dn, but it wouldn’t work 😀, nor did “Demister” for 22ac.
FOI – 1ac “Pasteurise”
LOI – 3dn “Ease”
COD – 12dn “Warfarin”
Thanks as usual!
8:33. Just the right level for me.
18.02 no errors. I enjoyed today’s puzzle especially BURGUNDY, and COD – COLD FEET which made me smile. I seem to be one of the few that has heard of WARFARIN. Probably helps that I spent 39 years working at a builders merchant that sold rat poison. I’m surprised so many struggled with COUNCIL HOUSE which was a write-in for me. I was pleased to finish today in under 20 minutes as I usually struggle with Teazel’s puzzles. FOI – PASTEURISE, LOI – SEMIFINALIST which I felt I should got quicker after the PDM. Thanks Teazel and John.
11:02, reasonably fast for me. FOI PASTEURISE, LOI LAIR.
Thanks to Teazel and John.
No problems today – solved at a generally steady pace. LOI LAIR.
13 minutes for me with no particular problems although I was slow to get BURGUNDY from an unpromising anagrist. Didn’t parse VIOLA and only partially parsed DELPHI (I always forget computer keys). No problem with WARFARIN.
FOI – 1ac PASTEURISE
LOI – 20ac LOSER
COD – 13dn PICKLE
Thanks to Teazel and John
Very much enjoyed by this resident of the SCC. Thanks for the blog for how VIOLA worked and DELPHI was hard work because I was thinking of musical keys and not alt, esc, enter, etc. D’oh
Gentle it may have been, and maybe I psyched myself out by noting the setter, who is something of a nemesis for me, but oh my oh my, it took me 37:18 to finish this puzzle. Most of it was straightforward, but my anagrammar was unanagrammatical and worst of all, I seem to be having great difficulty these days with straight-up cryptic definitions. So there I was, staring at S_M_F_N_L_S for heaven knows how long, looking for the wordplay. Finally got up to walk the dog and saw it instantly. Classic.
Like VIOLA best!
Thanks to Teazel for the tease and to John for the blogging.
It largely seemed straightforward enough but still took me 17:23. I’ll admit to looking up WARFARIN as a NHO, and I’ve no idea why PEANUTS took me as long as it did.
Thank you for the blog!
27 mins analogue timing. Generally easy and fun, but like many Council House took some writing out. Thanks all
Two days in a row with gentle puzzles, much appreciated.
A second good day in a row. And a Teazel (my nemesis) to boot. Untimed, but probably an SCC escape.
BURGUNDY was my FOI, followed by REIGN, CHAP and PEANUTS (nice to be reminded of Charlie Brown et al), so nothing on the LHS until I moved onto the Down clues. I was very lucky to biff SEMIFINALIST with no checkers in place, but it really helped when I came back to PASTEURISE, EN MASSE and other Across clues down the LHS.
I enjoyed PICKLE and found ___N_I_ HOUSE very hard to fill in, despite knowing the letters involved.
Many thanks to Teazel and John.
8.00 on the dot. EASE, LOSER and WARFARIN were the last few. I spent a while failing to think of exterminator. Thanks John and Teazel.
17 minutes, 0 errors. FOI Pasteurise. LOI Delphi. Nice relaxing Friday diversion.
10:45. nice puzzle, nothing too unusual and good to have something a bit more straightforward than today’s 15×15… thanks both!