Solving time: 9:55
First time blogging a Pipsqueak puzzle – their tenth QC – which for me, took the longest to solve. Most of it was comfortable – the reversal at 1a, the homophone at 8a, and seen-before word building at 4a and 1d etc. However, the last three, none of them connected to each other, gave me the greatest problems.
With all checkers in for each, I had to think unexpectedly deeply to come up with 9d; focus on the probable definition and reverse engineer for 11a; and frown a lot at 21d before the not-too-difficult answer materialised in my head. I’d like to think that this is a medium-paced puzzle which I found untowardly difficult to finish.
Let me know what you thought…
Definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions and substitutions are in curly brackets} and [directions in square ones].
| Across | |
| 1 | Backing students a mistake? (4-2) |
| SLIP-UP – Reversal [Backing] of PUPILS (students) | |
| 4 | Most recent US city trial (6) |
| LATEST – LA (US city i.e Los Angeles) TEST (trial) | |
| 8 | Tree from Mediterranean island, I’m told (7) |
| CYPRESS – Homophone [I’m told] of CYPRUS (Mediterranean island) | |
| 10 | What’s almost too nice to put in your gin? (5) |
| TONIC – The whole clue is the definition, but I’m not sure all of it is wordplay so I’m guessing it’s a semi &lit. The wordplay being most of the letters [almost] of TO{o} NIC{e} | |
| 11 | Legal documents delivered for hotel (4) |
| RITZ – Homophone [delivered] of WRITS (Legal documents)
“delivered” perhaps in the context of an actor delivering their lines. My second last in. |
|
| 12 | What makes perfect business for a doctor (8) |
| PRACTICE – Double definition – lift and separate – What makes perfect? PRACTICE makes perfect. | |
| 14 | Last English team involved in deadlock (9) |
| STALEMATE – Anagram [involved] of LAST E (English) TEAM | |
| 18 | Introduction of expert tactics mistakenly showing great enthusiasm (8) |
| ECSTATIC – First letter [Introduction] of E{xpert} then anagram [mistakenly] of TACTICS | |
| 20 | Catch sight of drunkard embracing Penny (4) |
| SPOT – SOT (drunkard) surrounding [embracing] P (Penny i.e. One New Pence) | |
| 22 | Ottoman intelligence protecting Arab citizen (5) |
| OMANI – Hidden [protecting] in Ottoman intelligence | |
| 23 | Man carrying weapon in jacket perhaps (7) |
| GARMENT – GENT (Man) containing [carrying] ARM (weapon) | |
| 24 | This is a sin all right (6) |
| AGREED – A GREED (sin – one of the seven deadly sins in Roman Catholic theology)
Not quite sure how ‘This is’ fits into the wordplay, other than for surface reading. |
|
| 25 | Issue resolved by a chap from Wagga Wagga (6) |
| AUSSIE – Anagram [resolved] of ISSUE by A
‘by’ is a placement indicator here – I don’t know whether there are any hard and fast rules about whether it indicates something coming after or before… |
|
| Down | |
| 1 | Certain to keep city safe (6) |
| SECURE – SURE (Certain) containing [to keep] EC (city – postcode of part of the City of London) | |
| 2 | I’m upset, struggling for momentum (7) |
| IMPETUS – Anagram [struggling] of I’M UPSET | |
| 3 | Waste product found in bureaucracy (4) |
| UREA – Hidden in [found in] bureaucracy | |
| 5 | Doctor at court a tyrant (8) |
| AUTOCRAT – Anagram [Doctor] of AT COURT A | |
| 6 | Boredom displayed by drunken nuisance (5) |
| ENNUI – Hidden [displayed by] in drunken nuisance | |
| 7 | Bank receiving about £1000 for watch (6) |
| TICKER – TIER (Bank) containing [receiving] C (about i.e. circa) K (£1000) | |
| 9 | Showing — or concealing? (9) |
| SCREENING – Double definition
My third last in. |
|
| 13 | Wonderful place is found in March (8) |
| PARADISE – IS inserted into [found in] PARADE (March – ignoring the capital letter misdirection) | |
| 15 | State of former journalists (7) |
| EXPRESS – EX (former) PRESS (journalists) | |
| 16 | Iron Lady’s hat (6) |
| FEDORA – FE (Iron – chemical symbol) DORA (Lady)
Conjures an image of a be-hatted Margaret Thatcher… |
|
| 17 | Sue acquiring rubbish work of art (6) |
| STATUE – SUE containing [acquiring] TAT (rubbish) | |
| 19 | Rita’s affected by turbulence in part of flight (5) |
| STAIR – Anagram [affected by turbulence] of RITA’S | |
| 21 | Language spoken in old city of the French (4) |
| URDU – UR (old city) DU (French for ‘of the’)
My LOI |
|
Pretty straightforward, although GARMENT & SCREENING took a bit of time: With the G and T in (I put in ING at 9d), I thought of GAT, and wasted some time with RMEN before seeing the light. I didn’t notice it when solving AGREED, but ‘This is’ certainly seems superfluous: ‘A sin, all right’ works fine. I’m pretty sure that ‘A by B’ and ‘A with B’ are both ambiguous as to the order of A, B. Jack? 5:51.
I’m pretty sure there’s no rule or convention regarding ‘with’ or ‘by ‘ as placement indicators.
I did find screening difficult, but also struggled with autocrat, as I was expecting an -or ending. Fortunately, Ritz and Urdu did not give trouble.
Time: 6:42
11:14. SCREENING held me up the longest.
Think we had SCREENING (or SCREENED?) a few months ago, didn’t we? I remember an exchange in which we listed other words such as “sanction” which can mean their opposites. Or maybe we had SANCTION and “screen” was then cited in the discussion? Anyway, this previous acquaintance with the phenomenon came immediately to mind.
Yes, I do vaguely recollect that! I think hew was mentioned along with cleave.
This was not easy, though no less enjoyable for that. It took me 11.30, with PARADISE last in and not parsed until I came here. Liked AGREED and RITZ among others, thanks Mike and Pipsqueak.
For some reason I put patience instead of PRACTICE in 12a but soon corrected when AUTOCRAT came along. OMANI was a write-in with the ‘O’ from FEDORA and only saw the hidden after. SCREENING came easily with s?r?e?ing.
Thanks M and setter.
Hard work throughout but despite the pauses between solving clues ended up all green in 11.54. Really enjoyed seeing pupils backwards is SLIP UP and smiled at RITZ – where we stayed after our wedding at Marylebone Town Hall – as well as FEDORA and LATEST just for being nice QC clues. Good one!
A fairly rapid solve all the way to my L2I, PRACTICE and SCREENING. These two took a little more thought before the light dawned, but I still came home in a regulation 11:19. A very nice puzzle.
Many thanks Mike for the blog.
Fail. Missed PRACTICE, SCREENING and AGREED. Double defs did me in, although I should have got AGREED, just couldn’t think of a five letter deadly sin.
Liked FEDORA, and I like wearing them as well.
I thought of you, Merlin, at 16dn. You have a blue FEDORA, I recall, that you wore to identify yourself to the others at the AUSSIE get-together
Mainly straightforward but breeze blocked at the end with my last 3 almost doubling my time. The culprits being PRACTICE, SCREENING and PARADISE.
Finished in 7.06.
Thanks to Mike
What Plett said, but 25.10.
Liked slip up. Spent a long time trying to put a word for place inside something like stride or pace for March!
Thanks Pipsqueak and Mike
SLIP-UP was very good, wasn’t it? I needed all the checkers before the PDM.
Good puzzle, mainly got there but DNF as URDU passed me by (and would never have got to Ur for old city). Also didn’t get SCREENING despite all the crossers but can see I could/should have done.
Thanks Mike
UR for old/ancient city is a “must remember” – setters use it all the time, it’s so convenient for them.
Super fast down to the SW, where I bunged in IRAQI because, you know, there’s an IQ in there for “intelligence” and well it fits the checkers and I’m in a hurry, ok?
Not ok. That brought me to a halt, and only once FEDORA (my COD, what a superb surface) emerged did I sort it out.
Home and hosed in 06:08 for K+change and a Cuddawuddashudda Day.
Lovely puzzle and blog, many thanks Mike and Pippers.
Only 5 acrosses on first pass, but the downs started dropping in nicely as I read the clues and avoided biffing. LOI SCREENING which took a long time despite having all the crossers and ending in ING. Eventually saw it but took my time from under 20 to under 30. A nice puzzle.
Thanks Pipsqueak and Mike
9:00 for the solve. Reached my last two of SCREENING / PRACTICE with just over a minute to go; screening popped into my head within a few seconds and then practice took the last bit.
Lovely puzzle from Pipsqueak. Got breezeblocked on their last puzzle by the pairing of SOFA / FLOOR up in the NE so was glad to get this one knocked through. Nice mixture of chestnuts and original clueing. Still feel like we’re getting too many hiddens with three today.
I didn’t find anything too difficult here. 7:32 for me which I think is a little faster than average. My LOIs were paradise and then agreed. Agree (sorry) with the earlier poster who said that “This is” was not needed in 24ac.
CYPRESS, clued as a homophone with CYPRUS (or vice versa) is, for me, the oldest of old chestnuts as I remember when I was at university back in the 90s and trying to learn how to do cryptic crosswords, it cropped up in some form with “SAY” (or maybe “in conversation”?) and island in the clue. I remember writing in CONIFER (I thought CONFER = say / conversation and I for the island) and not getting very far with the rest of the crossword. Ever since then this clue in all its forms has been a write-in for me.
I will look out for conifer in the future (perfect misdirection for devious setters methinks 😉)
PARADISE and SCREENING my last two in. COD FEDORA- conjured great image of Maggie T. Thanks Mike and Pipsqueak.
A good QC. Lots of trips and recoveries and, as crossers built up, quite a few biffs (followed by PDM parsing). Like others, SCREENING and PARADISE held me up and only when I entered the latter did I see my LOI, AGREED.
I also enjoyed RITZ, TICKER, and SLIP UP. In the end, 15.14 all parsed.
Thanks to both.
9:22 with no real hold-ups, other than a bit of a pause before getting my LOI AGREED. I’m another one who didn’t spot that OMANI was a hidden until after entering it.
Thanks Mike and Pipsqueak
I gave up racing the clock a while ago but at 11 minutes this was my fastest solve of the last 8 QCs. PARADISE and AGREED were my last two in.
Typo alert in your intro, Mike, 21d not 21a.
Thanks Jack – corrected.
Much better today as I seemed to be on the wavelength, apart from a wild guess that the Iron Lady’s hat was Thatch. Soon had to change that one.
Fast, but slowed down on AGREED, STALEMATE (joint COD), SCREENING, PARADISE. Liked SLIPUP (joint COD), LATEST, FEDORA.
Whenever I see Boredom, I put ENNUI automatically.
Thanks vm, Mike.
THATCH is pretty good, would work well for Iron Lady’s covering (6).
How about “Iron Lady’s covering while the Queen is absent?”
(maybe I have the words in the wrong oder…)
“Queen absent, Iron Lady’s covering.” ?
Lovely friendly puzzle – thank you, Pipsqueak. Enjoyed PDMs of RITZ and LOI AGREED. Thought maybe I’d heard of PARADISE March somewhere … but evidently not, thank you, Mike, so that’s what it was.
30 minutes to do with SCREENING LOI. Didn’t see SLIP UP at first either. Well pitched puzzle, I thought.
12.30 This was a steady solve for me and very enjoyable. I think that a ticker is more likely to be slang for the heart than a watch ( tick-tock for clock – not sure what for watch) but everything else was very fair I thought. Thanks Pipsqueak and Mike.
12 mins…
Best result for a while. Hesitated a little over my last two: 24ac “Agreed” and 13dn “Paradise”, and had a slight wobble whether 12ac “Practice” was actually “Practise” – but thankfully stuck with my original answer.
FOI – 3dn “Urea”
LOI – 13dn “Paradise”
COD – 25ac “Aussie” – just made me smile.
Thanks as usual!
Practice and practise work the same as advice and advise, which are much easier to remember because the pronunciations differ.
I was sailing along quite nicely with seven minutes elapsed and two to get, the two in question being PARADISE and AGREED. It took me longer to get those two than the rest of the puzzle put together. I eventually crossed the line bloodied and definitely bowed in 14.35 for a pretty poor showing. I even started to write in AVARICE at one time for 24ac until I realised that was one letter too many, and yes I know it doesn’t parse!
DNF on SCREENING and PRACTICE!
19:30
Rattled through this fairly quickly but then spent 5 minutes on the last 2, PRACTICE and LOI SCREENING. Obvious in hindsight but with both being long words with limited checkers the answers failed to jump out.
7:54
There’s always one….Today it was SCREENING which took me (well) outside 6’.
Nice puzzle, thanks Pip and Mike.
9d Screening is one of a few words that can have directly opposing meanings. I once met an “antiphone” – a homophone with differing spelling that has opposing meanings: Raise/Raze. Like it?
I thought this QC was easy until it wasn’t, in the SW. L2I 13d, 24a, Paradise/Agreed.
Cleave and cleave. One means to split apart and the other to stick together.
Ah, yes, good one. But not meeting the def for antiphone, has to have different spellings.
Thanks for Cleave though, I’ll try to remember it.
PS, for the stick together meaning Wiktionary has:
“(intransitive, rare) Followed by to or unto: to adhere, cling, or stick fast to something.”
Frankly without the CofE marriage service probably extinct IMHO.
I was also breezblocked by SCREENING and PRACTICE, mainly because I’d biffed SECRETING for 9d. Apparently though it seems that only means to produce a substance, not to hide away as far as I can tell from a quick Google. Eventually I saw PRACTICE and SCREENING was then LOI. 9:59. Thanks Pipsqueak and Mike.
I’m playing catch-up after getting a backlog through concentrating on other stuff. Having spoiled Monday’s with a typo, I took a tad over 5 minutes with yesterday’s – which taught me that I shouldn’t tackle crosswords when I’m yawning at 11pm! Fortunately I found this one sufficiently straightforward to clear it in two passes. Now for two 15×15 puzzles to get me back up to date…..
FOI SLIP-UP
LOI PARADISE
COD RITZ
TIME 3:11
I was going well until completely breeze-blocked by my last 4, practice, screening, paradise and agreed. Eventually I realised that secreting for 9dn didn’t work and came up with screening after a great deal of thought. Similarly paradise revealed itself after I stopped trying to put ‘mar’ round the outside of a word meaning place. Alas practice and agreed remained outstanding at my 30 minute cut-off mark so I came here for enlightenment.
FOI – 1ac SLIP UP
LOI – DNF
COD – 12ac PRACTICE with an honourable mention to SLIP UP
Thanks to Mike for the much needed blog and to Pipsqueak.
A bit over 6 minutes. All went smoothly till I hit SCREENING at the end; looks like I’ve joined the club. I was lucky enough to have seen a very similar clue with the same answer a month or so ago which helped. I liked the surface for the hidden in ‘bUREAucracy’.
Thanks to Mike and Pipsqueak
A bit over 6 minutes? You’re on fire 🔥🔥🔥 – a personal best
Thanks. Just one of those lucky days I suppose. Normal service to be resumed tomorrow.
7.58 all parsed. Held up by LOI PARADISE
10:44. LOI SCREENING. Lots to like, including RITZ, FEDORA, SLIP UP…
Having spent not far short of two and a half hours on the QC already this week and with only a 50% success record, I really needed a confidence boost today. And with only four clues to solve at around the 18 minute mark, I thought my wish might come true. Unfortunately, however, those four clues – PARADISE, SCREENING, PRACTICE and AGREED – combined to push me out to a little over 40 minutes. Everything I tried just led to a dead end (like Rael in The Chamber Of 32 Doors) and I felt no real satisfaction when I finally crossed the line. Six months or so ago, I was averaging 27 minutes and 40+ minute solves (and DNFs) were uncommon occurrences. Not so now. Oh for those days ….
Thanks to Mike and Pipsqueak.
13.54 Mostly quite quick but I was breeze-blocked for four minutes by AGREED. Thanks Mike and Pipsqueak.
I enjoyed that, getting breeze-blocked on a few occasions and finishing off with AGREED in 15:25.
Thank you for the blog!
16m
Easy until I got stuck on cypress, practice, agreed, and LOI screening.
CODs from stalemate, fedora, tonic, or practice.
8.34
Needed four alphatrawls for SCREENING…
Good puzzle
I found this much more gentle than the last few. Was fairly zooming along (for me) until I hit last two in AGREED/PARADISE. SCREENING also took a little while to conjure along the way. Hadn’t fully appreciated TONIC and missed the hidden in OMANI (thanks Mike). Nice puzzle. COD RITZ if only because it reminded me that delivered can be a homophone indicator, but also appreciated FEDORA. Many thanks Pipsqueak.
25 minutes with URDU spelt ERDU – never heard or seen UR as old city!
Apart from that a satisfying challenge and solve. Started looking for the rest of the alphabet when I had the X Y and Z!
CoD 1a LOI 21d 😢
Thanks PS and Mike
Clue for Urdu was tricky but last Saturday’s Qunitagram clue “Language in old city said to be enough” must have helped unconsciously.
For TONIC, I’d say only “to put in your gin” is the definition. The wordplay is entirely distinct.
13 minutes.
Still behind the competition and the week is already a write off after 2 lousy DNFs. The confidence tank ran dry a long time ago.
Where do I get an entry form for this competition you’re running? How much does it cost?
Point taken 👍
How can people solve these things in 3 minutes? I can’t even read the clues in that time. However, I have a friend who often matches that time so I know it is genuine. A reality check for ordinary bods like me. I got about 75% in 20 minutes, then spent another 20 using aids to finish. I have completed one unaided in 20 minutes or less, so I think they are harder now.
Started off very slowly this morning. I decided to leave it and was able to complete it just now. ( total 30 mins).
Enjoyable although I could not parse several clues.
Thanks Pipsquak and Mike.
Short by 6 on 15 x 15. One error and 5 incomplete. Took about 1.5 hours. A massive struggle.
Same old, same old! Yes, I started well, slowed down and was eventually breezeblocked – but by 24a rather than any of Mike’s clues, where I couldn’t fit avarice in 😅 But I did chuckle my way through this – I liked RITZ, AUSSIE and SLIP-UP; I was happy to excuse the random lady’s name in FEDORA – it was such a good clue; and SPOT (obviously) made me laugh – although I’m not entirely sure that I like the image it conjures up!
About 13 minutes FOI Latest LOI Agreed COD Practice
Thanks Pipsqueak and Mike
Around our average at 13:05. Unlike Mike, RITZ and URDU went straight in. Our last two were AGREED and PARADISE though SCREENING also held us up. Thanks all.