I always struggle with Teazel and this was no exception. Just like yesterday it was the NE wot dunnit, with 7d, 4a and 5d (in that order) fighting to the last bullet. To add insult to injury (the injury being 12:48 for a Very Slow Day) I’m now going to think in trochaic tetrameters all day (see 13d). Grr. Hope you all get on better than I did!
Definitions underlined in bold.
| Across | |
| 1 | Doctor’s firm edict partly ignored (5) |
| MEDIC – hidden [partly ignored] within “firm edict”. Here “doctor” is not an anagram indicator. | |
| 4 | MPs’ business finishing early is prudent (7) |
| POLITIC – my POI, just couldn’t think what “MPs’ business” was going to be once I’d exhausted incompetence, posturing, braying and stabbing each other in the back. In fact it was POLITIC{s} [shortened because “finishing early”]. | |
| 8 | Doctor reveals a few (7) |
| SEVERAL – doctor, doctor! Here doctor is an anagram indicator … it’s like trying to spot Warne’s googly today. It’s an anagram of “reveals”. | |
| 9 | Keep shaking the cart (5) |
| WAGON – if you were to WAG ON, you might be said to “keep shaking”, ho ho. | |
| 10 | Fight duel, drunk: hospital finally charming (10) |
| DELIGHTFUL – anagram [drunk] of “fight duel” + L [hospital finally]. | |
| 14 | Number needing a drink, not small! (6) |
| THIRTY – THIR{s}TY [“not small” indicates “remove an S”]. | |
| 15 | International law not broken (6) |
| INTACT – INT for “international” (yes it’s in Collins) + ACT for “law”. | |
| 17 | Might provide accommodation for forceful individual (10) |
| POWERHOUSE – not sure how to parse the first half of this; maybe a cryptic hint? I didn’t find that clear and needed the checkers. [On edit: Kevin helpfully points out that this is “might” for “power” + “house” for “provide accommodation for”.] | |
| 20 | Putting tea, say, in small bottle is essential (5) |
| VITAL – T [tea, say] in VIAL [small bottle]. Lovely surface. | |
| 22 | Way of styling hair that’s short and curly (7) |
| PIGTAIL – pigs do indeed have short and curly tails so that’s another cryptic hint. My first thought was another sort of short and curly beginning with P, but I got there in the end. | |
| 23 | Clergyman touring a nuclear plant (7) |
| REACTOR – RECTOR is our “clergyman” and he goes round A [touring a]. Female clergy are also available but the clue does specify a man so don’t flame me. | |
| 24 | Deliberately lose light blanket (5) |
| THROW – double def. To THROW a sports fixture is to lose it on purpose. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Newly-pressed grape juice is essential (4) |
| MUST – double def. When grapes are harvested they are crushed together with their skins, stalks and stems to produce a sweet, thick, cloudy juice. That is vinum mustum (Latin for “young wine”), known as MUST. | |
| 2 | Bird runs away from port (4) |
| DOVE – DOVE{r}. Maybe it was a bluebird. | |
| 3 | Tradesman saw part of his equipment? (9) |
| CARPENTER – definition with a cryptic hint. | |
| 4 | Sermon here: if no good, do this with text? (6) |
| PULPIT – I liked this very much. The PULPIT is where traditionally the vicar would go to deliver the sermon; and if text is no good you might PULP IT. Ho ho! COD from me. | |
| 5 | Soft sound from farm shed (3) |
| LOW – I think this is a double def. LOW is certainly “soft” (“a low whisper”); it would also be a “sound from farm shed”, if there were cattle lowing in the farm shed. But the word “shed” seems redundant (the clue works just as well with “sound from farm”), and cattle can low from fields just as well as from sheds, so then I wondered if it was a triple def? But I couldn’t find any trace of low = shed anywhere and then I got bored looking and gave up. My LOI and a bit of a GR in my book. | |
| 6 | Strong backing needed for this sports-day event? (3-2-3) |
| TUG-OF-WAR – not totally sure how this one works either, but I think the idea is that you have a big strong person at the back of a TUG-OF-WAR team. So I’m putting it down as another cryptic hint. | |
| 7 | Combine ice-cream with smooth filling (8) |
| CONFLATE – CONE [ice-cream] with FLAT [smooth] inside it [filling]. | |
| 11 | Post hoc ability to understand glimpse of deer? (9) |
| HINDSIGHT – only hindsight offers 20/20 vision, as litigators are fond of saying. If you catch “sight” of a “hind”, you’ve had a “glimpse of deer”. | |
| 12 | Break in journey by provost travelling round east (8) |
| STOPOVER – anagram [travelling] of “provost” going around E. I tried hard to believe that “pitstop” had enough letters for a while. | |
| 13 | Ha-ha! A wit convulsed native American leader (8) |
| HIAWATHA – In this clue did tricksy Teazel, Use the name of Hiawatha, Using it not like Longfellow, But as cunning anagrammer. Anagrist is “ha-ha! A wit”, And of course convulsed’s the signal, Telling us to rearrange it, Bringing us upon the answer. I cannot believe how many trochaic tetrameters Longfellow could churn out | |
| 16 | Manager reserves parking for conductor (6) |
| COPPER – a COPER could be said to be a “manager” (coping with/managing); it contains [reserves] a P [parking] and the result is an excellent electrical conductor. | |
| 18 | Blonde not that good (4) |
| FAIR – double definition. “How did it go?” “Only fair I’m afraid”. | |
| 19 | What wind did, sounding sad (4) |
| BLEW – aural wordplay [sounding] with “blue” [sad]. | |
| 21 | OT character’s fortune (3) |
| LOT – double definition. Lot is mostly remembered for the fact that his wife looked back at Sodom as they were leaving and was promptly turned into a pillar of salt (Genesis 19:26). This gave rise to the famous apocryphal muddling of Old Testament stories in a school exam, leading a child to write “Lot’s wife was a pillar of salt by day but a ball of fire by night”. | |
14:53, a respectable time for me, so I must be in recovery from the blast of too much sun and fun. Like the rest of the world I had a hard time in the NE. I had to simply trust the back office’s suggestions, write something in, and then see if/why it parsed. I’m in awe of those who had the courage to go with ONWALT. Better luck next time! Loved PULPIT.
“Ha ha, a wit” did indeed convulse me with giggles, compounded by our blogger’s thumping versifying, so COD to HIAWATHA.
COD to HIAWATHA
inadvertent trochee foursome
ear worm, ear worm, do shut up!
Thanks to Teazel and Templar!
Ha ha – lovely inadvertent trochee!
DM. Among life’s troubles when nearer to 90 than 80 the QC is a daily delight. I was still asleep when most of the posting was done today, but I would like to say how much the civilised and witty contributions add to my day when I have finally completed or (more occasionally) given up on the day’s challenge. I still wonder at this obsession with times. As with my golf I accept that I might have been just a bit better in my youth – pleasure comes from anything near to 100 against hoping to break 90. Among it all I still wonder that the unquestioning way of attacking the beast is across and then down. I cannot help feeling that for the slowcoaches it is good to make the best of what one has and build on 1 across or 1 down, whichever works best on the day. Or, in desperation go down to the bottom and work up. Just wanted to thank all the regulars for the pleasure you give – and you are an erudite well-read lot!
Dear Mr M,
It was a pleasure to read your comments. Do please contribute again, from time to time. I comment regularly, but alas, I’m neither erudite nor well-read. However, I get a buzz from the mental challenge and I persevere. And, like you, I enjoy coming here.
You have the wisdom of maturity, Douglas!
I like your comparison with golf. I try to wear my obsession with times lightly. Erudite or not, I love the good humor or humour here.
I share your wonder about across then down. I’ve tried it that way but I seem to do better by immediately attempting to capitalize on any starting or otherwise highly informative letters that I get. Of course solving on line encourages across-then-down (or the reverse) as a single keystroke gets you to the next clue that way.
Toddled along pretty nicely until INTACT. Once I got the supposed anagram of LAWNOT out of mind an alphabet trawl got me there. Toughie.
Slow going and needed help with some clues, eg intact.
I tackled this earlier today, but have only just got around to coming here.
In summary: a tough start followed by a speedy mid-phase and a tough finish. All completed, though not all fully parsed, in about half an hour.
SEVERAL, DELIGHTFUL and REACTOR were my FOsI. POWERHOUSE, COPPER, CONFLATE and INTACT were my LOsI.
Many thanks to Templar and Teazel.
16:55. PULPIT, POLITIC, and CONFLATE took up most of my time.
I seem to be the only one to be thrown by “post hoc” in 11D, which meant nothing to me and is not really explained in the blog. I finally got it from the second part of the clue. Apart from that it was a steady solve with a bit of head scratching, especially the apparent anagrams of NOT LAW. Home in around 18 minutes to avoid the SCC.
I didn’t really understand “post hoc” until I got the answer. At that point, “post” felt right for something which indicates “afterwards” and I didn’t think too hard about “hoc”.
It appears it means “after the event” e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_analysis
Coincidence – M Portillo talking about Longfellow on U and Yesterday channel
8:56. I loved that puzzle. almost all flowed easily, a little bit held up at the end with INTACT and CONFLATE. I thought PULPIT was especially nice and agree with the blogger on COD. thank you both.
We’re usually pretty hopeless, but breezed through this. Thank you Teazel!
45 minutes of toil, stress and despair at my many shortcomings.
A miserable DNF (of course!).
Another horrific error on a par with yesterday. Put BLOW rather than BLEW for 19 dn. What a stupid, dumb thing to do!
As if that wasn’t enough, I thought 15 ac was an anagram and came up with a nonsense word from ‘law’ and ‘not’.
Utterly useless! I just cannot think laterally.
PULPIT, POLITICAL and THIRTY also took forever. How so many of you evidently found this easy and recorded such good times is beyond my comprehension.
2 DNFs and 2 SCCs this week. Even by my pathetic standards, that is bad. I should have followed the advice I received last week and accepted that I simply haven’t got what it takes.
Irony of ironies, I found the 15 x 15 more straightforward, until I ran into a brick wall with about 6 left. What does that say? I wish I knew.
4.5 years and I am still at the very back. Everyone else improves, I go backwards.
PS After checking, short on 15 x 15 by 3 answers (and I got half of one of them). That just makes my abject failure on the QC even worse.
Found this straightforward until it wasn’t. Flew through the first 24 clues in 30mins (which is racing for me) and then took another 12mins to tease out PULPIT and INTACT. Thoroughly enjoyed the challenge as well as the opportunity to complete it in one sitting on day of publication which is a rare luxury these days. Thanks Teazel and Templar.
14:42 (Columbus will sail the ocean blue in 50 years’ time, if my memory doesn’t mislead me, which it usually does).
Dredged up MUST and HIAWATHA from somewhere. Wasted a couple of minutes doodling on a notepad in the hope of getting “law not” to do something useful. Was going to complain that “conflate” is not a synonym of “combine”, then thought “Perhaps you should check that before you complain and look like an idiot”, so I did, and I am. That would have been a bullet dodged, had I not decided to include it in this increasingly rambling comment. I am very tired.
Thank you for the blog!
21 mins. Slowed down by not parsing my LOI, conflate, before giving up and putting it in anyway. Otherwise no real problems. Thanks Templar and Teazel
As an enthusiast of American crosswords, my New Year’s resolution was to get better at cryptic crosswords. This one was the first quick cryptic I’ve been able to solve completely without the help of a dictionary and without any errors. I’m hooked!
Well done Patrick and welcome – this blog is an excellent place to learn some cryptic tricks.