A Quick Crossword of about average difficulty from Oink today, if my time of a little over 5 minutes is anything to go by. Mostly quite straightforward as always with Oink, but I fell for a couple of misdirections. ALICE and SPARING held me up most. Some lovely smooth surfaces, the Italian cook Angela being my favourite. Thank-you Oink. How did you all get on?
Fortnightly Weekend Quick Cryptic. This time it is my turn to provide the extra weekend entertainment. You can find the crossword, entitled “Some Hae Meat”, here. If you are interested in trying our previous offerings you can find an index to all 121 here.
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, {deletions} and [] other indicators.
| Across | |
| 1 | The fall of Kamala Harris? (6) |
| AUTUMN – Cryptic Definition. I should have seen this more quickly as it is a bit of a chestnut. Kamala Harris is American and in the USA they call AUTUMN “fall”. | |
| 4 | Fat Scottish landowner abandoning island (4) |
| LARD – LA{i}RD (Scottish landowner) without the I (island). Lard is the clarified fat of a pig… so this is our trademark porcine reference of the day from Oink. | |
| 9 | Anticipate enemies crossing river by middle of week (7) |
| FORESEE – R (river) in FOES (enemies), and the middle letters of wEEk. | |
| 10 | He’s going to love this magazine (5) |
| HELLO – HE’LL (he’s going to) O (0; love in tennis). | |
| 11 | Programme made by bad actors abroad (9) |
| BROADCAST – Did you try to find an answer including the (porcine reference) HAMS, as I did, too? But no. It’s an anagram… (bad actors)* [abroad]. | |
| 12 | Regret cruelty to an extent (3) |
| RUE – Hidden in cRUElty. | |
| 13 | Times editor removed (6) |
| ERASED – ERAS (times) ED (editor). | |
| 15 | A French team playing in Madrid? Amazing! (6) |
| UNREAL – UN (A in French) REAL (Real Madrid; team playing in Madrid). | |
| 17 | Intend using Valium regularly (3) |
| AIM – Alternate letters of vAlIuM [regularly]. | |
| 18 | After revolution, bosses attract attention (4,5) |
| TURN HEADS – TURN (revolution) HEADS (bosses). | |
| 21 | Panic after leader’s departure? That’s a mistake (5) |
| ERROR – {t}ERROR (panic) without the first letter [after leader’s departure]. | |
| 22 | Moderate South Africa group holding power (7) |
| SPARING – P (power) in SA (South Africa) RING (group). This held me up a bit – needing a bit of a squint to match answer to definition. | |
| 23 | Attempt to arrest old right-winger (4) |
| TORY – O (old) in TRY (attempt). | |
| 24 | Limped excessively carrying hamper (6) |
| IMPEDE -Hidden in, [carrying], lIMPED Excessively. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | A couple of females, clever and congenial (7) |
| AFFABLE – A F F (couple of females) ABLE (clever). | |
| 2 | Body temperature, approximately (5) |
| TORSO – T (temperature) OR SO (approximately). It’s worth remembering OR SO as it comes up quite often. | |
| 3 | Stadium never condemned for accident (12) |
| MISADVENTURE – (stadium never)* [condemned]. An unusual anagram indicator, but not unprecedented – last seen here in Times 28933 last June. | |
| 5 | Generally free (2,5) |
| AT LARGE – Double definition, conforming to the late Rotter’s rule “If the clue is just two words, it’s probably a double definition”. | |
| 6 | Doctor and I talk interminably (5) |
| DRONE – DR (doctor) ONE (I, the Roman numeral). | |
| 7 | Bishop worried about letter to Greek ambassador (4) |
| BETA – B (bishop) ATE (worried) [about] -> ETA. The clue doesn’t need “ambassador” but it improves the surface reading. It got me looking for something ending in HE (His Excellency), though. | |
| 8 | Hit by a bullet? This will give you a boost (4,2,3,3) |
| SHOT IN THE ARM – Double definition, the first a cryptic hint. | |
| 14 | Criminal married man who adored him? (7) |
| ADMIRER – [Criminal] (married)*. | |
| 16 | Angela’s cooking an Italian dish (7) |
| LASAGNE – (Angela’s)* [cooking]. I liked the neat surface for this. | |
| 17 | A chap who’s employed by the CIA? (5) |
| AGENT – A GENT (chap). | |
| 19 | Retiring English teacher getting pay increase (4) |
| RISE – E (English) SIR (teacher) all reversed [retiring] -> RISE. | |
| 20 | Adventurous girl caught in a lie (5) |
| ALICE – C (caught) in A LIE. I was held up with this one thinking the definition was just “Adventurous”. Alice, of course, had adventures in the Lewis Carroll book “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland“. | |
Straightforward, although I was puzzled by ‘ambassador’ and slow to see the hidden in IMPEDE. 4:52.
I just looked at the SNITCH for today’s 15×15; it’s at 221!
8:37 Moderate meaning SPARING took a while for me to see. I thought the adventurous girl must be Annie (Oakley or Little Orphan) before ALICE came to mind.
Well well, that’s a new PB for me at 5.13 so no complaints here. Thanks John, thanks Oink. By comparison I spent a few minutes looking at today’s 15×15 and decided life was too short…
👏👏👏👏👏
Congratulations 🌟
Well done on the PB!
Thank you one and all, much appreciated…
Congratulations!
Thought of AUTUMN on sight but left it a while until I finally realised what it was about Kamala that was important. Seven on the first pass but I had to work hard throughout, so pleased to come in under 10 at 9.44 – and all green too. Slow on how to parse HELLO and BETA – it’s not often we have to think of a word and then unscrambled it, more common to just lop a letter off I think. As so often delighted by seeing what Angela’s and married could contain.
“it’s not often we have to think of a word and then unscrambled it” – isn’t that an indirect anagram? I didn’t think they were allowed.
Which clue are you referring to this happening in?
Yes Indirect Anagrams are a no-no, but in the clue for BETA, ATE (worried) [about] -> ETA is a reversal not an indirect anagram, so our setter is in the clear here.
Ignore me! ETA is an anagram of ‘eat’ but more importantly also ‘ate’ backwards as John patiently pointed out to me below! Got bamboozled by what ‘about’ was doing in the clue.
A low personal NITCH for me all green in 6.06 which was pleased with after feeling very foggy having had a rubbish night sleep listening to the doors and windows banging in the gales. Didnt get off to a rapid start and FOI was the pig derived LARD. Couple of biffs in there so looking forward to reading Johns explanations while I finish my rosy lee. LOI was AUTUMN which I thought of immediately but remained unparsed.
Good QC from Oink I thought.
Mozart’s requiem for me tonight as I continue my quest to improve knowledge of more highbrow matters. Have a good w/e everyone.
Cheers
Horners
Ok so the two unparsed were AUTUMN and BETA – not really life changing devices…
Looking at my stats this was my third best ever time. From the dates, the first two of my top 5 in the QUITCH data I would say were ones in the very early days (before i came on here) that I would have solved on paper and then written in afterwards to keep up my completion rate on the Times CC app. I wonder if there is anyway of getting these struck from the record if Starstruck happens to read this.
Thanks
A rare sub 15 minutes for us. Right on Oinks wavelength and Mrs RH on top biffing form too.
DNK that lard was pork fat, always thought it was the same as beef dripping so continued to look for piggy clues right up to LOI beta
Liked admirer, not an obvious anagram of married at all.
Thanks Oink, and John for the blog and parsing of Beta, which we still don’t quite get 🤫
It’s B for bishop, then ATE for “worried” (definition 6 in Chambers for “eat” is “To upset, irritate or worry (informal))”, with [about] indicating a reversal (not an anagram) so ATE -> ETA, to give BETA the Greek letter, or “letter to Greek”. The “ambassador is a red herring and superfluous to the clue.
Thanks, now I see, eat as in “what’s eating you”, so past tense worried = ate!
Don’t think this works, you might say what was eating you, but never what ate you. In he sense of worry it is active so ate doesn’t work.
7 minutes. My fastest time for a QC for a while. The closest was 8 minutes for Oink on 10th December and I last equalled it at 7 minutes in November for a puzzle set by Mara.
Nice!
Good work Jackt 👏
Nice crossword, though the otiose ‘ambassador’ puzzled me. 7 mins, while waiting for daylight to see how much damage Éowyn has done – she’s been going crazy all night long, and more to come.
A gentle offering from Oink that resulted in a speedy top to bottom solve with only His Excellency at 7d causing any issues.
Started with AUTUMN and finished with IMPEDE in 4.46 with CsOD to AUTUMN and LASAGNE.
Thanks to John
Think I’ll pass ono the 15×15 and instead look forward to watching one of the boys from Cracking the Cryptic tackling it this afternoon.
A pleasing 15.47 for us. Held up for best part of a minute by SPARING as – having failed to solve via the clue, we trawled the alphabet, trying the backwards approach.
For BETA, confused – could ‘ambassador’ have equally been any Greek reading individual ?
Most chestnuts still hiding in the tree for us, so first time exposure to (T)ORSO made us smile.
Thanks to John I and to Oink.
Fastest ever solve for me – sub 15 minutes. Assisted by the Jet Stream no doubt…
Congratulations! I’m blown away. (I’ll get my coat.)
Well done!
16:49, with half the time at least on the AUTUMN/TORSO cross.
Didn’t like the spurious ambassador, clue works fine without it.
COD LASAGNE, great surface.
Thanks for the tip about the 15×15, one to avoid today.
It’s “The fall of” that’s the chestnut. Ronald Reagan or Bing Crosby would have done just as well.
Had AGILE …. Girl in A LIE instead of ALICE otherwise good
Like it! Better than my ALIvE.
I tried ALIVE and used check to confirm what I really knew – that it was wrong. Then ALICE popped in to my mind.
A nice puzzle but with a sting in the tail. I completed in 14.40 but with 1 error having faffed about for far too long with 22ac and filled in the gaps in desperation to biff SHARING (no, me neither). I wasn’t comfortable with the definition of SPARING and saw this as the only weak point in Oink’s offering.
I will pass over the unnecessary Ambassador. No trouble with ALICE – good clue.
Thanks to both.
5.27
Breezeblocked on A_T_M_ at the end, and that gets my COD in another excellent offering (imho) from the very consistent Oink.
Aaarrrgh ADMIRiR. 05:44 but WOE indeed. Many thanks Oink and John.
12m
It was fast until reaching Alice (not alive, and why does v = girl!), admirer, and autumn.
COD Alice
7:42 for the fastest solve of the year! First sub-10 in 49 puzzles.
Held up momentarily at the end as couldn’t fully parse HELLO until post-solve (BETA also needing unravelling). ALICE and SPARING the last to fall just before that.
Very much enjoyed the TORSO clue and ALICE being an adventurous girl.
Decent end to the week with the five puzzles taking 1hr12 but silly mistake yesterday blocking the clean sweep. I’ll be back for Saturday but for those who won’t, have a good weekend 👍
wow!
Congratulations!
Congrats. Good effort.
One sweet solve, ND!
Thanks all 👍
👍
A nice quick exercise today. As others have mentioned, “ambassador” was confusing and SPARING, in the sense of moderating, delayed me. COD AUTUMN, such good misdirection!
Lacked one PDM for AUTUMN (wondered whether maybe Kamala Harris had AsThMa?!) , the other (BETA) beyond me, NHO worried = ATE. Drat: got ALIcE wrong, too – thought ALIVE couldn’t be right. So three to the bad …
Thinking about it: yes, “what’s eating you?” = worrying, but is there a context for worried = ATE? Not, I think, “he worried his food”, means something different from merely “ate”.
Nice, relatively straightforward puzzle. Thanks John for the explanation of AUTUMN and BETA (can’t see why worried = ate though????)
Defn 6 for eat in Chambers is To upset, irritate or worry (informal)
May I beg that this still doesn’t quite answer my point? – that it works as in “what’s worrying you?”, but not in the past tense. But I’m sure you’ll demonstrate that I’m wrong!
The past tense for eat is ate and for worry is worried?
Thank you! That, of course, is obvious. I wanted to suggest that the desired assumption does not *necessarily* follow – that a word X might mean Y in one tense but not in another – but I am assured by one whom I respect and to whom I always defer, that here we could say “I could see that it really ate him” – so I will accept the judgement of both of you with pleasure, and go away!
9:21
A rare foray into sub 10 territory. Failed to spot Oink’s usual pork reference, unless it was lard. Was a bit hesitant on LOI SPARING but no real difficulties today.
Edit: having knocked this one off in near record time I was emboldened to look at the 15×15. OMG! It is a monster of biblical proportions. Snitch had it over 200 which I’ve not seen before.
12:26, with delays over SPARING (not very close to the definition “moderate” IMO) and BETA (yes I too tried to get HE in there to make sense of Ambassador in the clue). Very much liked AUTUMN; it may be a chestnut but it was new to me. Overall an enjoyable puzzle which given my time (par for me), and despite some sparkling times posted by several others, I’d have to agree with John was “of average difficulty”.
Many thanks John for the blog and I look forward to the Sunday Special.
Cedric
Can’t be a chestnut, poor old Kamala only recently had her Fall. Good topical reworking of an old device, maybe. Although Autumn is the right time of year for a chestnut.
It’s “Fall of (any random American name)” that’s the chestnut. Ronald Reagan or Bing Crosby would have done just as well, but not be so topical.
Kamala’s Fall was specifically in November, which is why she is a clever choice for this clue.
Maybe its a clever choice and its a chestnut
Raced through, though had doubts about BETA, looking for HE somewhere, as others did.
Last minute hold-up with SPARING which took about the same time as the rest of the puzzle to solve.
Liked AFFABLE, LARD, ALICE, DRONE, TORSO, among others.
Thanks vm, John.
Another agile here. G for girl.
Could not get impede having missed the hidden indicator.
And a couple of fat thumb errors which I swear appeared after I had initially entered the word correctly. Duh!!!
However, I enjoyed this greatly.
Thanks to Oink and John.
Pretty straightforward end to the week with a nippy time of 6.31. Like others I was puzzled by the appearance of the ambassador, and it prevented me from initially writing in BETA. With the checkers in place it had to be, but I took the trouble to correctly parse it just in case.
My total time for the week was 46.35, giving me a daily average of 9.19, nicely under target. I’m quite content with that given that only two solves were under my ten minute target.
Puzzled by HELLO and BETA but biffed them, and only saw AUTUMN at the end (LOI). A steady solve for the rest.
Hello Plett! Same time but slightly different hold ups. Like our blogger I was slow to see SPARING and LOI ALICE because I was trying to justify agile. 4:46 is a red letter day and a new PB on the Quick SNITCH. COD to AUTUMN.
Great minds!!
My joy at a rare sub-15 was unfortunately short lived, as the Agile girl turned out to be Alice. Fortunately it made no difference to loi Sparing, which was itself well on the way to being classed as another type of ‘porcine’ 😉, given the effort trying to make Wing work for group.
CoD to 8d, Shot in the Arm, for the smile. Invariant
PS The spurious ambassador was not appreciated.
Lovely puzzle – all done in 10 mins. I have never commented before but do the puzzle and enjoy reading the blog every day. I always used to chuckle at comments from Poison Wyvern who contributed every day but have noticed he hasn’t commented for some time. Just wondering if he did a final sign off?
Welcome. Do comment more often. And PW last commented in August last year and then just stopped commenting.
Welcome! I miss PW too!
I am a usually non-commenting ‘lurker’ like you… And I also miss Poison Wyvern – sadly I seem to remember he was given a rough ride on a couple of occasions. If you are still out there, PW, come back – your fan club awaits!
Last posting was 8th August 2024.Just a regular comment.
In a bad mood today, especially after the 15*15 stinker.
Got cross about the spare ambassador in 7d and failed to properly parse Sparing so I didn’t put it in, DNF. I think it is a bad def; we have this from Wiktionary which to me says sparing not equal moderate:
“sparing (comparative more sparing, superlative most sparing)
Prudent and restrained in the use of resources; careful, economical or frugal.
Synonyms: see Thesaurus:frugal”
So there!
Haha! I feel your day is improving already.
Maybe I just cracked a reluctant smile!
4:50
Pretty brisk, I felt – six acrosses missed on the first round, but with all but two downs entered, mopping up was much easier than usual. LOIs BETA and SPARING. Didn’t know the provenance of LARD either, so thanks for the education John!
Thanks also to Oink
I thought this was a terrific QC. Not that hard and with lots of enjoyable clues and surfaces.
10 minutes for me; LOI IMPEDE after failing to see the hidden for too long.
I liked the Ambassador misdirection to catch us out.
COD candidates AUTUMN and ERASED amongst others including LASAGNE.
David
From LARD to a slightly breeze blocked AUTUMN in 7:29. Thanks Oink and John.
DNF, due to ‘agile’ instead of ALICE (whose adventures I have never read). I guessed it probably wasn’t right, but forgot to go back to it at the end. And once one has seen the correct solution in the blog it’s too late. Drat!
Otherwise, all fairly straightforward for me, today. I started with LARD, finished with HELLO and put down my pencil somewhere within the 20-25 minutes range.
I haven’t read everyone’s contributions yet, so apologies in advance if I’m the 94th person to have failed to spot Oink’s customary piggy reference.
Many thanks to John and Oink.
On edit: I have just spotted LARD.
I did mention it in the blog 🙂
I originally thought I had it completed in 13 minutes which would have been my fastest time for a while but then realised that 22ac remained incomplete. By the time I had solved that one the clock had ticked over to 16 minutes – still my fastest of the week. Biffed beta and autumn, not realising with the latter that Kamala was just some random (if topical) American.
FOI – 4ac LARD
LOI – 22ac SPARING
CODs – 2dn TORSO and 16dn LASAGNE
Thanks to Oink and John
Fun and reasonably quick solve bar 9a which I could not get. Why? Because my 1d was AMIABLE, my two girls being AMI and MIA! I know – doesn’t work. Liked UNREAL but cod was TORSO: lol moment. Thanks Oink and an excellent blog to boot!
7:04 (Æthelred of Mercia abdicates and becomes a monk)
Almost a clean sweep, apart from my LOI ERASED, where I failed to spot times=eras.
Thanks John and Oink
Fairly quick (for me) but got stuck at the end solving ALICE. Finally opted for AGILE, so a DNF. Lovely puzzle though, very QC-ish in the main. Liked UNREAL and TORSO. Thanks all.
13 in 20 minutes, mostly parsed.
GB as in getting better.
Every day in every way….
14:16, relatively quick for me, but I felt at the end that I had been generally dull though never stuck. I put in 1a AUTUMN immediately but with hope rather than certainty. Good clue! It was probably the to-me-unjustifiable “ambassador” in 7d that delayed me the most. LASAGNE is a very neat anagram.
Thanks Oink and John!
Dnf…
20 mins for everything apart from 1ac “Autumn”, which looks so obvious now that I’m embarrassed to not know it was a chestnut. I can take some solace that I did manage to get “Alice” and not put “Agile”.
I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who wondered about the “ambassador” element to 7dn “Beta”
FOI – 1dn “Affable”
LOI – dnf
COD – 20dn “Alice”
Thanks as usual!
Yes, about average for me today. I couldn’t see an obvious piggy reference but assumed it was LARD, not knowing it was specifically pork fat.
As usual lots to like, especially in the downs – ADMIRER, ALICE and LASAGNE (I thought of Angela Hartnett straightaway). I also liked HELLO and the surface for TORY made me giggle. It made a change to see BROADCAST as the answer rather than part of a clue for once.
10:53 FOI Autumn LOI Impede COD Torso
Thanks Oink and John
The 15×15 was very, very hard – I finished about 3/4 of it, with a few pencilled in and not really understood 😆
An error free 11:46 which I’m happy with after yesterday’s disappointment (I failed on STAGE STRUCK). FOI – LARD, LOI – SPARING, COD – AUTUMN. I also liked UNREAL and SHOT IN THE ARM. Thanks Oink and John.
7.26. A satisfied grunt from me.
I assume 14d is just being modern as men have been allowed to marry men for a number of years. Or is there something more cryptic that I’ve missed?
Can’t see this clue getting past the editor in The Telegraph. J
5:35
Nice easy Friday, thanks Oink and John.
9:04 here, a rare sub-10 for me. COD to LASAGNE, how people make anagram clues is a complete mystery to me.
Thanks to Oink and John.
10.29 DNF. LOI ERASED took a couple of minutes but I also had AGILE. Which didn’t really make sense. Thanks John and Oink.
Enjoyable puzzle, one error, we had alive for Alice.