Today’s Quick Cryptic from Izetti was an enjoyable tussle. Being familiar with the style I was on the wavelength for this, finishing under target in 4:50. But there are some tricky bits, so your mileage may differ. Favourites include the bad-tempered minister and the ninja turtle. Thank-you Izetti! 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 120 here.
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, {deletions} and [] other indicators.
| Across | |
| 1 | Bad-tempered minister of religion outside house (8) |
| CHOLERIC – CLERIC (minister of religion) outside HO (house). | |
| 6 | Irish tribe determined to seize power (4) |
| SEPT – P (power) in SET (determined). | |
| 8 | One can see through this note penned by bereaved woman (6) |
| WINDOW – N (note) in WIDOW (bereaved woman) | |
| 9 | Crazy individual’s name, say (6) |
| NUTTER – N (name) UTTER (say). | |
| 10 | Second half of writer’s catalogue (4) |
| LIST – {nove}LIST (writer). “Second half” for half of the letters in a word is not a common wordplay device. | |
| 11 | Person protecting that place is troubled (8) |
| BOTHERED – BOD (person) outside THERE (that place). | |
| 12 | Untainted English in tribal group (5) |
| CLEAN – E (English) in CLAN (tribal group). | |
| 13 | Bizarre runes one observed in hospital? (5) |
| NURSE – [Bizarre] (runes)*. | |
| 15 | I mention going wrong very quickly (2,2,4) |
| IN NO TIME – (I mention)* [going wrong]. | |
| 17 | Classy shop refitted (4) |
| POSH – (shop)* [refitted]. Our third anagram in a row. | |
| 19 | Grass — it gets to change again (2-4) |
| RE-EDIT – REED (grass) IT. No not another anagram. A common sort of misdirection is, like here, for the enumeration in the wordplay (4,2) not to match the answer (2-4). | |
| 20 | Faulty regulation adopted by US agent (6) |
| FLAWED – LAW (regulation) in FED (US agent). | |
| 21 | Celebrity, good person meeting a king (4) |
| STAR – ST (saint; good person) A R (Rex; king). | |
| 22 | Continuing to annoy Heather after row (8) |
| RANKLING – LING (heather) after RANK (row on a chessboard). | |
| Down | |
| 2 | One wearing deerstalker maybe — one in country (5) |
| HAITI – I (one) in, [wearing] , HAT (deerstalker maybe), I (one). | |
| 3 | Inadequate character grabbing a daughter, a tearaway girl? (7) |
| LADETTE – LETTE{r} (character) without the last letter, [inadequate], outside, [grabbing], A D (daughter). An unusual but not unprecedented letter deletion indicator. | |
| 4 | Immature artist and wife (3) |
| RAW – RA (Royal Academician; artist) W (wife). | |
| 5 | Male or female’s argument against particular position (9) |
| CONSTANCE – CON (argument against) STANCE (particular position). A name that could be for a male or female. Tricky! I can’t find a single famous man called Constance, although there is the composer Constant Lambert who I thought was called Constance until I looked him up just now. | |
| 6 | Composer was a model in England originally (5) |
| SATIE – SAT (was a model) and first letters of In England [originally]. Eric Satie was a Parisian composer and pianist in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. His music, mostly for piano is terse and sparse in style and he was a big influence on Les Six. You can hear his characteristic Gnossienes here. | |
| 7 | Go before and go back under pressure (7) |
| PRECEDE – RECEDE (go back) under (this is a down clue) P (pressure). | |
| 11 | Famous runner one encountered on stairs? (9) |
| BANNISTER – Double definition, the second a cryptic hint. Roger Bannister was the first runner to run a mile in under 4 minutes. | |
| 12 | Satisfied with what’s inside (7) |
| CONTENT – Double definition. | |
| 14 | Hear pal upset painter (7) |
| RAPHAEL – (Hear pal)* [upset]. Did you ninja turtle this? | |
| 16 | Arrangement to request food? (5) |
| ORDER – Double definition. | |
| 18 | Birds together hide, conserving energy (5) |
| SKEIN – SKIN (hide) outside E (energy). | |
| 20 | Female, an ardent supporter (3) |
| FAN – F (female) AN. An easy charade to finish with. | |
I never figured out what LIST was half of; not a great clue. Nor did I care much for CONSTANCE, never having come across a male one. SKEIN only vaguely recalled, and entered with some hesitation. 8:20.
The nearest male composer I can remember is Constant Lambert. Perhaps this was a mistake by the setter.
Were you distracted by ‘composer’ in the next clue, Gordon?
Yes. You are correct. I conflated to the next clue which , as you say, referred to the wonderful composer Erik Satie. I did not get this clue either. Shame as he is one of my favourites.
Also, as in the comment by Don Manley, is he Izetti ?
Yes, he is.
Yes, I think it was. So sorry
Izetti
“Skein” beat me completely. But it was a rather woolly clue.
10:33. I couldn’t think of any male Constances either. I solved LIST by thinking of Annalist-oh well, it got me the same result!
I thought this was definitely the easiest Izetti ever – Don Manley must be listening to the complaints from the SCC. I scribbled in the answers pretty rapidly, biffing many of them while using the cryptics for other. Con + stance, in it goes – who cares if the setter messed up, and there are really no males named Constance.
Time: 5:38
I care!
👍 So do I!
Even Homer sometimes nods. There was a barely perceptible twitch of my eyebrow before I moved rapidly on.
I care! It depends whether you think the purpose of the puzzle is to scribblenin words that fit without understanding why, or solving the clue by getting to the meaning of what the setter intended. The enjoyment for me is in the solving and parsing the answer.
Well, I didn’t do that – I saw how the cryptic worked, and used that to get the answer. If you solve just from the cryptics, you often gloss over the literals.
Ditto re CONSTANCE and LIST but otherwise a fun solve, 10.05, thank you John and Izetti.
I did know a Greek man called Constantinos!
I wrote ‘Hard’ on my copy but then noted my solving time as 10 minutes which for years was my QC target time before I decided to allow myself another 5 minutes to appreciate the scenery. Goes to show the overall impression of a puzzle can sometimes be misleading.
I think I was disconcerted at the start by SEPT as an Irish tribe, which I don’t recall seeing before although I probably have. I was also put off my stroke a little by CONSTANT as a male name; perhaps Don knows one?
Re LIST, I’m not sure how often we are expected to think of a word and removed as much as half of it but we do it all the time with first and last letters and sometimes whole middle bits, so it’s only a variation on that. And it’s clearly signposted in the clue.
9:31, so the evidence is that those calling this on the less demanding end of Izetti’s scale are right. But it did not feel like it as I was doing it. Same comment on LIST (biffed from checkers, never found novelist) and CONSTANCE (again, NHO a man with that name). SEPT as an Irish clan also a usage I’m not familiar with, but the wordplay was clear.
All these offset by some more straightforward clues, indeed some merit the rarely used word “easy”. Which no doubt explains my faster-than-usual time despite a few long pauses. It is I am sure very challenging for a setter to keep the standard of cluing roughly the same over a whole puzzle – and individual views on what is “easy” or “hard” are very subjective anyway – but this puzzle felt more varied than some.
Which I am sure the Sunday Special will not be! Thank you John for the blog and Sawbill in anticipation.
Cedric
I did not find it as easy as others. The us agent was a poor clue and I spent a lot of time trying to make fbi work. To be clear a fed can work for any agency run by the federal government. Homeland security are feds as are numerous other agencies. Not a good clue
‘Fed’ comes up semi-regularly so it’s worth storing it away in the memory banks for future use.
“Fed” and “GMAN” would be the two I think of.
Thanks. Blog updated to refer to US Agent rather than FBI.
Grinning and great guns until SKEIN(only knew of wool), SATIE, SEPT and LADETTE.
Add ‘BOOK’ to contender for other half of LIST : )
So a DNF for us, though a very enjoyable time had.
Thank you John and Izetti.
I can’t pretend to know the US terminology in any detail but the clue doesn’t mention the FBI, it just has ‘US agent’. Leaving aside any technicalities, in crosswordese this can mean nothing more than an American word for ‘agent’ .
NHO Sept or Satie so had to go with them as punts until confirmed and struggled with Constance as a unisex name – 15.40 today
Wikipedia lists five men called Constance, all of them born in the 20th Century and I was aware of at least one of them. I don’t think the clue had anything to suggest that it had to be a man’s first name!
People
Constance (given name), female given name, also includes list of people with the name
Andrew Constance (born 1973), Australian politician
Angela Constance (born 1970), Scottish politician
Ansley Constance (born 1966), Seychelles politician
Lincoln Constance (1909–2001), American botanist
Nathan Constance (born 1979), English actor
Goodness. Great digging, but if we are going to include surnames as answers to the random generic “man” the field might become dauntingly large. Can’t believe that is what the Don meant.
I really don’t think surnames count here.
French Wikipedia advises us that “Constance est un prénom féminin ou masculin” and cites six saints/churchmen and three Roman emperors with that first name.
Vive la France !
In complete awe of our bloggers time! We really struggled to get into this one, with LOI Constance at 29.52.
As said by Cedric, a couple of write ins but otherwise a lot of head scratching and no real momentum, even after going to the bottom when stymied at the top.
Thanks John and Don
General knowledge found wanting for SEPT and SATIE. Listening to the gnossiennes now – thanks John but I’m not going to bookmark! Didn’t parse LIST and was generally slow getting becalmed with about half the grid left. CONSTANCE got me going again but I couldn’t really satisfy myself that the definition was met. Really enjoyed REEDIT and BOTHERED – so patchy is my rating. Add me to the list of those that found it hard – all green in 18.07.
PS Education welcomed.
5D We thought we were looking for a word referring either to variations of gender/person (male or female) OR to argument against a particular position.
We started with ‘stance’ for position and moved to word for gender/person.’Cons’ was not an addition we understood (but in absence of alternative, eventually added it…at our stage, there is quite a bit of that..)
‘Name’ as the definition did not occur to us – obviously it should have.
No complaint, just wondering if we missed a pointer?
again – a bit lost here….
A ‘con’ is an argument against something – think of making a list of pros and cons -, stance = position which you’ve already got and if you put them together you get a name which can apply to males or females.
Ah, duh… con…obvious less so when we left the ‘s’ –
thankyou
–and the ‘name’ a silent definition of sorts.
A little learning is a wonderful thing.
Steady going today with the NE putting up a fair amount of resistance due to the unknown composer and Irish tribe. CONSTANCE also took a bit of working out, but everything felt fairly clued (including an unparsed LIST, which went in last).
Lots to enjoy along the way but the stand out clues for me were FLAWED for the smooth surface and CHOLERIC.
Finished in 7.59.
Thanks to John and Izetti
10:25
No need to nina-turtle RAPHAEL, but I did do so for SEPT, which came to mind first as a place of worship in Game of Thrones.
LIST was my LOI, biffed without seeing how it worked.
Thanks John and Izetti
7,42 but with a typo at BBANISTER. BOTHERation! Didn’t parse LIST, just waited for crossers. Don’t know any men called CONSTANCE, but it went in from wordplay, and was followed by CHOLERIC as RAW was 3rd one in after SEPT (vaguely familiar) and WINDOW. Thanks Izetti and John.
Not on the right wavelength. Quite a few I don’t like or don’t agree with but others do, so I accept it must be me. Thanks though – just not for me!
In good company biffing LIST. Really don’t think CONSTANCE is acceptable as a possible male name but it was the obvious answer. NHO SEPT – another word to add to my GK. Thanks John and Izetti
24:39
Another slow one. The bottom half flew in apart from the NHO LOI SKEIN.
Struggled at the top though. NHO SEPT or SATIE. Took an age to get LIST and was looking for the wrong type of deerstalker, a wolf, lion or similar.
15:24 for the solve! Pleased with that time as I still had seven left as I passed 13:30 although I had tentatively earmarked LIST.
I suspect it is very much an example of a puzzle that will highlight the gulf between beginners and the experienced. While the wordplay is typically meticulous, the problem is getting to it – CONSTANCE – a simple clue for the experienced but younger me would have struggled to get to its CON and STANCE components, CHOLERIC similarly. There were some nice gimmes in there too e.g. STAR, POSH, WINDOW and NURSE.
Have a good weekend those who aren’t back for the Saturday puzzle.
Thanks to Izetti and JohnI for detailed blog.
7:30
Completed this on mobile before dropping off, so perhaps a tad slower than normal as I can’t type as quickly on the ‘phone. Much enjoyed, though same comments as others – had I heard of a male CONSTANCE? Notably, 5d and 11d together form a mini-nina – but I guess that most of us won’t have heard of this esteemed, female, American, baby photographer – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constance_Bannister
Thanks Izetti and John
17:22
GK fail in NE with the intersecting SATIE/SEPT. Eventually guessed them, although SEPT doesn’t sound very tribal. Goths, Vandals, Huns have better PR.
Also put in IN ON TIME, which is a phrase, just not quite the right one.
COD RE-EDIT
22 minutes to do, most time taken to work out (or guess) SKEIN, LIST, CONSTANCE, SATIE and SEPT.
11 minutes. LOI CONSTANCE- could not work out what was going on there so relied on the cryptic.
NHO SEPT in this meaning. LIST unparsed.
A strange puzzle with a number of straightforward QC clues and some that felt odd.
I liked NUTTER.
David
It got a bit easier in the NW when I stuck CONSTANCE in but I did not like it. The closest I could get was the composer and conductor Constant Lambert which didn’t really work.
I started very quickly but my potential agreement with vinyl1 was short-lived. There were just too many Izetti quirks for me. I worked out SEPT but didn’t believe it, biffed LIST but with fingers crossed (couldn’t parse it), kicked myself for not seeing SATIE quicker, thought that STAR was a bit of a sop and the list goes on (see comments above).
A strangely unsatisfying ‘QC’. I always feel that Izetti is only comfortable when working at his natural, more challenging level.
As part of the Scottish diaspora I didn’t like SEPT being clued as specifically Irish, since many Scottish families are septs of one of the main Clans (my family is a sept of the Gordons, for example). Collins has it right: “a branch of a tribe or nation, esp in medieval Ireland or Scotland”.
Also didn’t like CONSTANCE, because unlike vinyl I very much DO care if the definition in the clue doesn’t really fit the answer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constance_(given_name) ), or LIST (which was LOI and very much with a shrug and a prayer).
But lots of good clues too – CHOLERIC, RANKING, NURSE and COD HAITI (sent me completely up the garden path!). Got home in 09:11 for 1.2K and an Undistinguished Day. Many thanks Izetti and John.
Even AI can’t find any males called Constance, but does note a few US sportsmen called Connie.
Izetti confounding as usual, as somehow I managed to finish it against all odds.
Thanks John
MY impression is that for about a year now the comments under any Izetti puzzle are usually “much easier than normal” but I am never on the Dons wavelength and the same was true here
A tussle indeed. Got there in the end, but several either NHO/MER/CNPs. LOI NUTTER. Not even Mrs M had HO SEPT or SKEIN (ok, we have now). Writer = novelist (then play with that) and inadequate character = lette are both hard. MER at male or female CONSTANCE (ah, we now have Izetti’s confession, so all forgiven), also at BANNISTER though I do see the newer dictionaries allow it as an alternative spelling (bogus, I contend). Thank you, John.
Chambers: “banister or bannister noun (usually banisters) a row of posts and the hand-rail they support, running up the side of a staircase.”
Something of a foxtrot. Slow, slow, quick quick slow, with NHO SEPT and SATIE (whose music I am not fond of after forced enjoyment in music lessons at school) slowing the start of the dance around the grid.
Liked CHOLERIC and NUTTER, biffed LIST, didn’t think for long about a masculine CONSTANCE, a lot of peculiar names around these days.
Thanks Izzetti and John
Sir Roger was also a neurologist. When I was a medical student my neurology textbook was ‘Brain, ed. Bannister” (originally written by an eminent neurologist called Russell Brain – surely an example of nominative determinism) but I see that it is now known as ‘Brain and Bannister’.
4.45. Nice and straightforward with a shrug for Constance, and spent awhile trying to parse the obvious answer which was list, but took a while for the penny to drop.
10a List. I never thought of novelist and assumed annalist.
11d Bannister. He was Sir Roger.
I found this the easiest of the week, coming home in 13 minutes. That wavelength thing again. I couldn’t parse list or ladette and, along with almost everyone else, NHO the Irish tribe.
FOI – 8ac WINDOW
LOI – 20ac FLAWED
COD – 19ac RE-EDIT
Thanks to Izetti and John
Six across and six down with relative ease, all towards the bottom apart from window.
Did we do a vineyard is home to my French friend?
Have a good weekend y’all.
I didn’t find this especially easy although I did manage to finish within target at 9.24. I think most of my queries have been discussed at length already, and I join those who scratched their head at CONSTANCE, didn’t manage to correctly parse LIST opting for Analist and then not quite convincing myself I had heard of SEPT.
My total time for the week was a hefty 71.07 (entirely due to Mondays time of 30.08, my slowest ever for a QC), giving me a daily average of 14.13.
Multiple DNF. Failed in SE (could have done better). NHO SEPT, SATIE. Failed on FLAWED and SKEIN – admittedly vaguely knew latter.
Liked BANNISTER.
One for the experts, so not much fun.
Thanks vm, John.
CONSTANCE, I did manage, though only knew of Constant as he was related to a friend in days of yore.
It is interesting the way a discussion like this can prompt memories.
It has just persuaded me to pull out my faded copy of Constant Lambert’s book ‘Music Ho! – A study of music in decline’.
I can’t remember much about it so I will read it again…..
Reminds me of meeting The Who, managed by Kit Lambert!
I had no difficulty in zipping through this in two straight passes, minor quirks being no more than that. Thanks Izetti and John.
FOI SEPT
LOI SKEIN
COD CHOLERIC
TIME 3:29
I couldn’t see Choleric, even with Haiti and Raw in place, so moved across to the NE corner in search of an easier start. . . The nett result was barely anything to show after the first five minutes or so. Fortunately the bottom half of the grid was more forthcoming- I might even say ‘easy’ given it included Nurse, Posh, Fan and Star. Constance eventually unlocked the missing C(ho)leric, with CoD Ladette and a hastily bifd List coming just in time to secure an aisle seat.
Quite an odd puzzle overall. I think OB’s comment about Izetti hit the nail. Invariant
I found this averagely difficult and was beaten by not understanding how to parse LADETTE, LIST (which I biffed) and failing to see RE-EDIT and ORDER.
I also biffed CONSTANCE without understanding the ‘male or female’ part but forgive myself with Izetti’s gracious admission of an error in this blog.
Overall a good puzzle with some very clever clues. Thanks Izetti and Johninterred. Prof
31 mins…
Phew! That was a workout. Like a few above, hardly got anything on the first pass, with only the SW corner offering some kind of relief. Quite a few unknowns, but at least they were solvable based on wordplay and checkers.
FOI – 4dn “Raw”
LOI – 10ac “List”
COD – 2dn “Haiti” – purely for leading me down a Sherlock Holmes style path.
Thanks as usual!
14m
I found this tough, but that might be brain fog.
Struggled with bothered, bannister, choleric, constance, , precede, and skein.
COD skein.
Despite the fact there were a few unknowns I sped through this. Because it was Izetti I knew the wordplay would be more than fair. I needed it for SEPT, SATIE and CONSTANCE (I couldn’t think of any male with that name either!) My LOsI were LADETTE and LIST (the latter was parsed post submission) in 6:35.
9:31 indicates on the easier side for us even though there were one or two trickier ones. Biffed LADETTE without parsing. NHO SEPT but it went in from wordplay once we had the S (SATIE was recalled from a TfTT blog not so long ago!) SKEIN was familiar for me. Ignored my lack of knowledge of male CONSTANCEs once we had the starting C. Thanks John and Izetti.
Thanks also to whoever seems to have fixed the disappearing name / email problem!
9.35 Quickest of the week. SEPT was new, LADETTE took a while and I was unsure of LOI CONSTANCE. Thanks John and Izetti.
15 minutes for an Izetti – record! I began to wonder if there was a theme: BOD, LADETTE, NUTTER, but more mainstream GK in the form of RAPHAEL and SATIE, who answer to none of the above. Latter took a while – England in the clue set me on a fruitless trail of obscure English composers ending in -E: great misdirection! I’m sort of on the Izetti wavelength now: thanks and to John!
21:17 with no errors. My complete mismatch with the quitch continues, today’s at the time of writing is 85 but Bjorn’s quitch on Monday was 134 despite the fact that I completed it nearly eight minutes faster at 13:35.
I’ve always respected Izetti as a fair (if difficult) compiler, his admission of an error (and apology) today has made me respect him even more. NHO SEPT, CHOLERIC and SKEIN in that sense, only barely heard of SATIE but as previously mentioned, Izetti’s wordplay is always fair. FOI – WINDOW, LOI – SATIE, COD – HAITI. Thanks Izetti and John.
8:13 for me which I think is sub 1K and also 1T so will take that as a good day for me.
As with others LOI was LIST and I did parse it but such was strange (weak?) nature of the wordplay scarcely believed it was correct on hitting submit.
Had NHO the composer but was straightforward from cluing. All in all nice puzzle Izetti but echoing the gripes mentioned by others.
Thanks for blog John – it was one of those days where a bit of explanation was required.
Cheers
Horners
14:45. Thanks John for explaining ….list. Don’s Constance surface got a MER for bringing to mind a heterosexual couples Kama Sutra thought divergence.
8.12. Having seen the setter’s identity, I was ready for some curved balls. Not impressed with the clue for ‘list’.
Good of Don Manley to fess up to the error: if I’m honest I would have to admit that I thought that the composer’s name was Constance Lambert, but, even then, one example would hardly suggest that ‘Constance’ is normally a male given name.