Around average difficulty, with a couple of trickier bits thrown in.
Some of this might be hard if you haven’t seen it (much) before, such as equating IS for LIVES at 5ac, or the heather at 12ac. Even then, I was held up at the end by that vaguely-remembered shoe at 12ac, and the crossing sport at 10d was my LOI for some reason: AGUE = FIT is another staple, while we’re at it.
A fine puzzle, much enjoyed for eight-and-a-half minutes – many thanks to Breadman!
| Across | |
| 1 | Company ordered to keep extremely slow breed of sheep (8) |
| COTSWOLD – CO. (Company) TOLD (ordered) to keep “extremely” S |
|
| 5 | Goddess lives twice (4) |
| ISIS – as in she is, she lives, she exists. Similarly, “live” = be, am, are. Useful! | |
| 8 | Remove dirt from lance frantically (5) |
| CLEAN – anagram (frantically) of LANCE | |
| 9 | White insect hidden in foliage Tim retrieved from the rear (7) |
| TERMITE – “hidden” in foliagE TIM RETrieved “from the rear” | |
| 11 | Aged heads of organisation leave dutifully (3) |
| OLD – “heads” of the next three words | |
| 12 | Heather tracks singular, stern type of footwear (9) |
| SLINGBACK – LING (heather) tracks/follows S. (singular), BACK (stern). Another word for heather that crops up is ERICA. | |
| 13 | Complete set of religious books found in Ireland (6) |
| ENTIRE – NT (set of religious books) found in EIRE (Ireland) | |
| 15 | Line of punctuation initially helps you write about Henry (6) |
| HYPHEN – “initially” Helps You, PEN (write) about H(enry). H for Henry is from the SI unit of inductance, rather than anything regal. | |
| 18 | The grime developed around a secluded abode (9) |
| HERMITAGE – anagram )(developed) of THE GRIME around A | |
| 19 | Quietly welcome Greek character (3) |
| PHI – P (piano = quietly) HI (welcome) | |
| 20 | Mum and Georgia brought in stray horse of renown (7) |
| SHERGAR – SH (mum) and GA (Georgia) brought in ERR (stray). I Was busy trying to make MARENGO work. MUM can be an interjection for silence, same as Sh! | |
| 21 | Pleased with English open space in woodland (5) |
| GLADE – GLAD (pleased) with E(nglish) | |
| 22 | Charlie leaves a preliminary exam in a frenzy (4) |
| AMOK – C (Charlie in phonetic alphabet) leaves A MOCK (prelim exam). Amok, from a Malay/Javan work amuk, meaning to attack furiously, or to go on an unprovoked rampage. | |
| 23 | Tree unknown on northeastern island (8) |
| ALDERNEY -ALDER (tree) and then Y (unknown, in maths) on the end of NE | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Violent storm in progress splitting bike (7) |
| CYCLONE – ON (in progress) splitting CYCLE (bike) | |
| 2 | Duke at the bottom of quaint British river (5) |
| TWEED – D(uke) at the bottom of TWEE (quaint) | |
| 3 | Maybe activity in the main secure: daughter browsing the Net (11) |
| WINDSURFING – WIN (secure) D(aughter) SURFING (something pre-millennials used to do online) | |
| 4 | The French on journey behave uncontrollably (3,3) |
| LET RIP -LE (the, french) on TRIP (journey) | |
| 6 | Animated chap starts to notice inner strength — eating this veg? (7) |
| SPINACH – anagram (animated) of CHAP and NIS (the “starts” to Notice Inner Strength). Lovely Popeye reference. | |
| 7 | Cut small tree (5) |
| STEAK – S(mall) TEAK (tree). I was considering the PEAR tree for a bit. | |
| 10 | Public school blue regularly fit for sport (5,6) |
| RUGBY LEAGUE – RUGBY (public school) B L U E “regularly”, AGUE (fit). Specifically, AGUE is an acute fit, deriving from the Latin acuta. | |
| 14 | Wreck games lesson after teacher finally stops commotion (7) |
| TORPEDO – PE (games lesson) after R (teacheR “finally”) stops TO-DO (commotion). The torpedo is named after a genus of electric flatfish, and was originally more of a floating mine. Before that, it had developed a figurative sense of something numbing: the OED has a lovely quote from 1762, “He used to call a pen his torpedo, whenever he grasped it, it numbed all his faculties.” (, Life of Richard Nash) | |
| 16 | Artless character spoilt Evita in New York (7) |
| NAIVETY – anagram (spoilt) of EVITA in NY | |
| 17 | Comic actor Stan’s wreath of honour (6) |
| LAUREL – double definition | |
| 18 | Army beginning to approach plant (5) |
| HOSTA -HOST (army) A (“beginning” to Approach) | |
| 19 | Man on board catches right shellfish (5) |
| PRAWN – PAWN (man = any piece on a chessboard) catches R(ight) | |
15:47. Pleased to be able to work out the NHO SHERGAR. I wondered if SHORN could work for” cut small tree” but I don’t think the hornbeam is ever just called horn. I also tried Agog first for AMOK. Thanks for helping parse SPINACH!
Interesting you haven’t heard of SHERGAR. It would seem it is a very British piece of GK as it was all over the news back in the early 80s. Its Wikipedia entry is longer than that of Red Rum!
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shergar
No excuse really for not knowing of him. I think maybe I kind of lost interest in racehorses after Man o’ War left the scene- now that was some horse.
14 minutes, so only just within my 15 minute target. I don’t know what delayed me other than the parsing of SPINACH which I had not resolved when I stopped the clock.
Now I come to think of it, STEAK required several revisits before the answer came to me, and I didn’t know that termites were white, so that distracted me for a moment. I now see their alternative name is ‘white ant’.
No problems here with SHERGAR, but I am surprised to find this is only his second appearance here and his last outing was 10 years ago. I thought he had come up very recently when a number of posters said they hadn’t heard of him, but I guess that must have been another famous racehorse.
Was the other famous racehourse you recall coming up, who people hadn’t heard of, Seabiscuit?
No, it was one of the really big names like Shergar or Red Rum. I think it may have been a puzzle I blogged myself.
ARKLE, I think? I’ve heard of the other horses mentioned in this thread, but didn’t know that one.
Yes, Arkle it was, on Christmas Eve. Thanks.
I remember Shergar from the kidnapping story. The only other horses I can put a name to are Red Rum and Seabiscuit.
8:40 today – no real issues, LOI was 23A where I was fixated about an island in the NE somewhere!! doh!
Right on the Breadman wavelength today finishing in a speedy 16.50.
COD to spinach, with the s starting letter was an obvious biff that was then parsed with much joy!
Got many of the answers at first go today although several took some unpicking. Had to come back to the sea sport several times having spotted the “in the main” device early, but had forgotten about surfing.
Thanks Breadman and Roly for the blog and parsing of Shergar
DNF for me. Some easier clues but a couple of tricky ones. I had slash for slight tree and couldn’t get sh for mum.
Nothing too tricky here, although I was chuffed to dredge SLINGBACK from the depths and relieved that the wordplay for the sheep was fairly kind.
Started with ISIS and finished with SHERGAR in 6.46.
Thanks to rolytoly
Fast start, with COTSWOLD and ISIS going straight in, then slowed down. LOI AMOK entered at 13:20. COD to SHERGAR.
Thanks Rolytoly and Breadman
DNF. Torpedoed by TORPEDO after 40 minutes but enjoyed the rest. Should have thought of PE for games lesson and the answer might have followed though I was looking for a word for a commotion not the verb wreck.
Agree with Roly that this was tricky in places.
COD STEAK which was cleverly misleading.
13:57
A well judged puzzle, in the Goldilocks zone for a QC.
SHERGAR pretty obscure GK. In the glory days of The Sunday Sport they ran the sensational headline “Lord Lucan seen riding on Shergar”.
COD SPINACH
Maybe age-related GK, but hardly obscure. I have no interest in horseracing and doubt if I could come up with half-a-dozen names of horses, but Arkle would be amongst them.
Christie Moore’s song “Lisdoonvarna” also contains the line “Shergar was ridden by Lord Lucan”.
Far too difficult for me only getting about 50%. Thought Alderney a poor clue virtually impossible to guess even with the three letters I managed to get.
Tomorrow is another day
And for me. Even with copious use of aids I failed to finish. Just not up to the devious ways these setters think, even after years of trying.
The easy route to ALDERNEY was to break it down bit by bit. So:
“Tree unknown on northeastern island” – following the general principle that the definition is at the beginning or end, the answer is either a tree or an island. You don’t know which yet, so focus on the rest of the clue – “unknown on northeastern”. This is definitely wordplay, not definition.
“Northeastern” is easy – it’s NE.
“Unknown” is always XYZ. So “unknown on northeastern” is going to be NEX, NEY, NEZ. NEY looks most likely and if you’ve got NAIVETY (you say you had three letters) you can see where the Y goes.
So now you’ve got either a tree or an island ending in NEY. The structure of the clue now strongly suggests that the answer is an island, with a five letter tree coming before NEY. So think of an island ending in NEY!
Hope that helps.
18:10 for the solve! Pleased with that for a Breadman. I couldn’t parse SPINACH and I’m not surprised now seeing the answer – that is next level stuff. Agree there was some straightforward stuff but the tough did seem tough. NHO HOSTA, SHERGAR also a postsolve parse and AMOK (LOI) where I had visions of alphabet trawling for minutes to come …
A surprising 13:15 when it felt much quicker. But I suppose quite a few needed some thinking through. Held up most by TORPEDO at the end. I liked SPINACH
12:18 for me, so a bit slow. I got everything apart from Torpedo, Shergar, Hosta and Amok in about 6 minutes. I had Shergar for the horse (remember it being horsenapped although I was quite young at the time) quite early but for some reason couldn’t bring Mum = Sh to mind. Once I got torpedo the rest went in and I biffed the horse without parsing. Disappointed with myself, standing in a (SW) corner and thinking about what I’ve done.
I found this mostly straightforward but biffed SHERGAR despite the obvious GA as I missed SH=mum. Careless. Several gave me a smile, including TORPEDO which brought to mind a Chinese associate who bewilderingly described a particular vessel as a TORDEPO. It did illustrate the ease of mispronouncing a word when speaking a foreign language to lead to amusement on the part of the listener.
Thanks Roly and Sh, you know who.
I’m another pear tree; wasn’t very confident, though, in SPEAR for “cut” and SLINGBACK soon put me right.
Otherwise ambled through without serious delays, pausing only on WINDSURFING and TORPEDO. SHERGAR well known to many commercial lawyers since there was a row about insurance payouts after he was stolen – many of the syndicate holders only had mortality cover, not theft cover, and a negligence action was brought against the brokers for failing to include theft cover extensions even though they were available in the market essentially for free. (The claim failed: O’Brien v Hughes-Gibb.)
All done in 07:52 for a Decent Day. COD to PRAWN. Many thanks roly and Breadperson.
Just reading the wiki article I linked above and it appears there was also some debate about whether the insurers should pay out on the theft policy, as the subsequent demand for money then made it extortion. Apparently a grey area and they were advised to pay out.
12:36, so just over par for me, and that’s probably fair for a puzzle which I found of medium strength with a few rather spicier clues hidden among them. I NHO (or possibly could not recall) SLINGBACK, but the wordplay was straightforward, and ditto HOSTA (the list of plants I don’t know is encyclopedic), and I also biffed but did not parse SHERGAR and SPINACH. Main hold-up though was NAIVETY, where I took “character” to be a person for too long before I realised it was character as in trait or quality.
Many thanks Roly for the blog
Cedric
Took 26 minutes to complete. LOI TORPEDO and AMOK. Nicely pitched puzzle I thought. SHERGAR very well known to my generation!
There were a couple of things I didn’t know but the answers were well flagged so no real problems. Enjoyable solve so thanks Breadman and Rolypoly! I have a slight issue with Shergar. Mum means silent to me, I think you have to say ‘keep mum’ to make it mean ‘sh’.
I agree.
Yes I would have agreed as well, but it’s clearly listed as an interjection for silence in both Collins and Chambers. I certainly can’t imagine ever using it as such – indeed, I think it would be more likely to provoke a confused discussion rather than silence!
Thanks – fair enough according to the rules ! Dictionaries seem retain lots of historic or obscure uses maybe – I prefer the quickie to stick to English as it is used today.
35 mins with aids.
Whizzed through most of this but a few took much longer. I have heard of “keep mum” as in “keep quiet”, but had not associated “mum” directly with sh, so tried to fit Marengo in.
Thanks for the blog.
6.04
Knew the horse which helped. Liked SPINACH
Another nice blog and puzzle.
Finished it! LOI TORPEDO. NHO HOSTA but Mrs M confirmed it exists. We did wonder if anyone younger than 40 would have HO SHERGAR. A few CNPs, especially SPINACH, also win = secure and fit = ague. Thanks, Breadman (for a friendly puzzle!) and Roly.
Spinach and Shergar were easy biffs for this gentleman of a certain age. Parsed / semi-biffed 12 others. Quite pleased with that.
Several clues (are they called clues?) pushed the boundaries of reasoned logic in my opinion 🙂 Double plus obscure.
I remember Shergar’s theft as 1983 because I was taking a cup of tea with an Irishman who asked me if I wanted some of the sweet stuff. It sounded like he was accusing me of something. A typical zoom for most of it and then getting a bit stuck. Thanks Roly and setter.
7:14. A bit slow getting going today. Held up by an unparsed RUGBY SEVENS for 10D for a bit and took a while to remember SLINGBACK – not the sort of shoe I wear, and MOCK exam. LOI TORPEDO. Thanks Breadman and Roly.
Finished correctly in 50 minutes. Two in a row.
I disliked this puzzle…
“14 Down : Wreck games lesson after teacher finally stops commotion (7)
TORPEDO – PE (games lesson) after R (teacheR “finally”) stops TO-DO (commotion). ”
Why ‘stops’ commotion rather than ‘in’ commotion ? This would have made it clearer. I know that the setter is trying to misdirect – but this was not fair.
4 Down: “The French on journey behave uncontrollably (3,3)
LET RIP -LE (the, french) on TRIP (journey)”.
I would have expected either for the French “Les” or the French on ‘En’ . But not ‘Le’ . I dislike this clue.
19 Down: “Man on board catches right shellfish (5)”
PRAWN – PAWN (man = any piece on a chessboard) catches R(ight).
Chess pieces should be called pieces and not “men” . The fact that there are two queens on the chessboard makes this use of the term “men” ridiculous and wrong.
I’m not a chess aficionado and would normally agree with you about ‘man on board’, however pawns on a chessboard are typically depicted as male ( I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong!). The clue’s reference to ‘man on board’ was also part of the misdirection (i.e. away from chess)
‘The’ in French can be le, la or les but not en
Using ‘in’ rather than ‘stops’ would not have produced a smooth surface which is all part of the setter’s art. There are many different containment indicators to look out for!
I give you that I misread the 4 Down clue as ‘The French” meaning plural.
But, I think it would be silly to depict the queen on a chessboard as a male. How then would the queens be differentiated from the kings ?
Yes. Far too many containment indicators for my liking.
But thank you for at being civil in your comments, unlike some contributors.
You’re welcome! My point was that a pawn (chess piece) is typically depicted as a male chess piece, so ‘man on board’ was appropriate. If it was ‘woman on board’ one would think of a queen perhaps
It’s neither ridiculous or wrong, it’s everyday English usage, and you’ll find “chessman” in just about any dictionary you care to consult.
As for your problem with ‘Le’, there are three forms of the definite article in French: ‘Le’ (masculine), ‘La’, feminine and ‘Les’, plural. “En” means “in” (a few other things as well, but never “the”).
“Stop” is not misdirection; one of the meanings of “stop”, the verb, is “plug”, and it is quite often used in crossword clues as an indication that you need to place something in the middle of something else.
I’m sorry to be so terse, but I found some of your comments silly and a little irksome.
😁👍
We may disagree, but I think we should try to remain civil to each other in our comments.
I found your reply more generously helpful than terse!
so now you’ve been told, Gordon. But I actually quite like your idea of “en” for the French on (or perhaps “sur”). Sneaky. I’ll be watching out for it
My apologies. A no no. Some may not have done the Quiz yet.
CT, I’ve edited the reference out now. Also further up where someone else gave it away.
I’m holding my breath that we might be enjoying a return to actual Quick Cryptics. Time will tell.
I enjoyed this and finished in 13 mins (within seconds of yesterday’s time). I entered STEAK with fingers crossed and the final K helped with 12a. LOI TORPEDO.
Thanks to Breadman and Roly for a good blog (and for legitimising a couple of biffs).
12 minutes for me. LOI COTSWOLD -I could not think of any breeds of sheep so needed the wordplay.
I did know all the other GK and presumed Shergar would be well-known. The GK debate will continue.
A good QC; couldn’t pick a COD.
David
I had no real problems, but didn’t help myself by biffing PEGASUS as the horse of renown simply because of Georgia. Stan LAUREL soon alerted me to my foolishness.
FOI ISIS
LOI STEAK
COD COTSWOLD
TIME 4:35
12:37
Got held up by LOI Alderney.
COD cotswold or spinach.
Started with CYCLONE and finished with TORPEDO. Didn’t parse SPINACH and needed SLINGBACK to dismiss SPEAR. Was trying to think of a horse starting with M until HOSTA arrived, then biffed SHERGAR. 8:24. Thanks Breadman and Roly
30 mins…
A bit slow really, but I thought there were some tricky clues. I never properly parsed 20ac “Shergar” nor 9ac “Termite” (once again, failing to see the hidden word in the latter).
For anyone who has the fortune to visit South Cumbria, there is a lovely statue of Laurel and Hardy outside the Coronation Hall in Ulverston (and associated museum in the cinema behind)- apologies if I’ve mentioned this before.
FOI – 2dn “Tweed”
LOI – 18dn “Hosta”
COD – 22ac “Amok”
Thanks as usual!
I lived in Cumbria for 18 years but never once set foot in Ulverston. Something I must rectify.
Fairly straightforward solve in 12:13 for me held up at the end by POI STEAK and LOI AMOK.
First came across AGUE studying Twelth Night for GCSE English. Sir Andrew Aguecheek being a knight with shivering cheeks and therefore indicated to be cowardly.
Cheers
Horners
I finished within target at 9.20, but I felt it was harder than my time suggested. A little bit slow with my LOI TORPEDO, but generally even paced, unlike SHERGAR who went like the clappers to win The Derby. I didn’t manage to correctly parse SPINACH and asssumed it was a straightforward reference to Popeye.
I struggled with this. DNF, but more to the point DNE (did not enjoy!) today
Another quick solve with the exception of my LOI TORPEDO. ALDERNEY also took a little time to unravel and I didn’t parse LEAGUE or SPINACH until post solve. Chuckled at LET RIP so that get’s my COD. 7:22 for a good day.
I found this much easier than of late and finished with most of my coffee still hot (almost unheard of). Held up slightly at the end by AMOK which gets COD for making my brain work a bit harder. I agree SHERGAR and SPINACH are definitely age-related GK; there’s got to be some compensation though, hasn’t there?! Thanks Breadman and RT.
Failed on AMOK and TORPEDO, having been very speedy up until then.
Easily biffed but CNP SPINACH, SHERGAR, and missed hidden TERMITE.
So thanks for blog, Roly.
I’m amazed anyone found 20a 🙂
🤣
There was certainly the odd piece of brioche, but I thought most of Breadman’s clues today seemed to be from the crusty end, and involved quite a bit of chewing to fully appreciate the parsing. In fact I gave up trying to understand Shergar after the 3rd attempt at the 25min mark, and so of course agree with others that Mum on its own doesn’t equate to Sh.
That grumble aside, this was a quite satisfying solve, with CoD to 23ac, Alderney – the one CI I have yet to visit. Invariant
I found this one easier than yesterday’s, apart from a couple. I couldn’t fully parse SHERGAR, which was a semi-biff, based on “Georgia” = ‘GA’ (I did eventually see how it worked, but some time after I finished the puzzle), and HOSTA was a NHO for me, got purely from the wordplay in the clue.
I think we’ve been treated over the last couple of days, in the QC and the 15×15, by some very enjoyable puzzles with just the right level of difficulty.
I was quite quick on this one until suddenly I wasn’t. I had all bar about 5 after 10 minutes but then ground to a halt. Eventually gave up at 23 minutes with 14dn and 22ac outstanding and used aids to complete.
FOI – 5ac ISIS
LOI – 22ac AMOK
Thanks to Breadman and Rolytoly.
6:00
Some moments’ thought on LOI SHERGAR, but with the checkers and the SH start I finally twigged I was looking for an actual horse. Apart from that I was lucky to be on the setter’s wavelength today.
Thanks Breadman and Roly
13:18. COD goes to SHERGAR – under the old rules, did horses have to be dead before they could appear in the crossword?
nice puzzle – thanks both!
DNF.
The QC again full of terms known only inside the crossword community (like ague = fit)
QC has a great premise of accessibility, but so inconsistently delivered. Shame
31:32
Well, I found that hard work. A couple of NHOs, SLINGBACK and HOSTA didn’t help. Couldn’t make head or tail of 3dn despite quickly thinking main = sea, there just seemed to be too much going on in the clue and had to wait until all the checkers were in place. LOI STEAK.
It felt like we were whizzing through this one. As it happens 9:43 is decently fast for us but not quite as quick as it felt. Very enjoyable puzzle I thought. SHERGAR is about as famous as it gets for this oldish couple. COD LE(T) RIP for its Franglais construction.
20:28 here, one of those days where words just wouldn’t come to mind despite having all the checkers. Never managed to parse SHERGAR, spotted GA but a tentative SHE for “Mum” sent me down the wrong path.
Thanks to Breadman and rolytoly.
9.16. Slow to get into a rhythm but gradually got into my stride to an extent.
13.27 Slow in the SW. Once I got over TORNADO I finished with TORPEDO, SHERGAR and HOSTA. I’m not sure that 20a works. GA is brought into ERR or ERR brought in GA, but GA brought in ERR seems wrong. Thanks rolytoly and Breadman.