A bit on the tricky side
I struggled with some of the GK. Or would have, had this been a concise crossword: the French painter, the bouquet, the bird of prey.. better known around these parts as our local magical blogger. My main hold-up was the too-troublesome-to-parse 2d: CONTRBANDING. An ugly non-word. With that untangled, I crept home around the nine minute mark. Neat wordplay aplenty, of course – many thanks to Izetti!
| Across | |
| 1 | Greek character and relations — about 100 — work together (4,2) |
| MUCK IN – MU (Greek character) and KIN (relations) about C (100) | |
| 4 | French painter of peasants in grass (6) |
| MILLET – double definition | |
| 8 | Meant not to be caught in act (7) |
| DENOTED – NOT caught in DEED (act) | |
| 10 | See copper, male officer standing in? (5) |
| LOCUM – LO (see) CU (copper) M(ale) | |
| 11 | Child in frivolous programme (5) |
| SPROG – “in” frivolouS PROGramme | |
| 12 | My sons get old bouquet (7) |
| CORSAGE – COR (my, gee, blimey, etc.) S (sons) AGE (get old). S for SONS, and D for DAUGHTERS can be seen in family trees and the like. | |
| 13 | City pub cold with no ale unfortunately (9) |
| BARCELONA – BAR (pub) C(old) with an anagram (unfortunately) of NO ALE | |
| 17 | Fruit and nuts (7) |
| BANANAS – lovely double definition, the second as in barmy | |
| 19 | Facial guard — it is taken from guest (5) |
| VISOR – IT is taken from VISITOR (guest) | |
| 20 | Weld in section of gun I tested (5) |
| UNITE – “in section of ” gUN ITEsted | |
| 21 | Terrible performances with no leader or rules (7) |
| DIRECTS – DIRE (terrible) |
|
| 22 | Tear sleeve of T-shirt off for rag (6) |
| TATTER -anagram (off) of TEAR and the “sleeve” of T-shirT | |
| 23 | Magician’s bird of prey (6) |
| MERLIN – double definition | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Smart little Maureen, good-looker? (6) |
| MODISH – MO (dimin. of Maureen) DISH (good-looker) | |
| 2 | Illegally trading criminal gang, one with external difference (13) |
| CONTRABANDIST – BAND (gang) I (one) with an external CONTRAST (difference) | |
| 3 | At home greet fantastic number (7) |
| INTEGER – IN (at home) anagram (fantastic) of GREET | |
| 5 | I had left with little sign of hesitation as one with no desire for work (5) |
| IDLER – I’D (I had) L(eft) with ER (little sign of hesitation) | |
| 6 | Careless kids — acacia all messed up (13) |
| LACKADAISICAL – anagram (messed up) of KIDS ACACIA ALL | |
| 7 | Maybe watch circling bird initially in wood (6) |
| TIMBER – TIMER (maybe watch) circling B (Bird “initially”) | |
| 9 | Went down river, having gone outside (9) |
| DECREASED – R(iver) having DECEASED (gone) outside | |
| 14 | Old boy with lines in face (moneyed type) (7) |
| OBVERSE -OB (old boy) with VERSE (lines). The heads of a coin, with the REVERSE being tails. | |
| 15 | Short brat struggling to keep up (6) |
| ABRUPT – anagram (struggling) of BRAT to keep UP | |
| 16 | No gentleman quietly set up in place of confinement (6) |
| PRISON – NO (SIR (gentleman) P (Piano = quietly) “set up” = reversed | |
| 18 | French city enthrals English relative (5) |
| NIECE – NICE (French city) enthrals E(nglish) | |
12:23. I went for CONTRABANDING first as I had the definition as just illegally trading. I also lost time looking for a ring instead of a band.
Well done CO – excellent performance on a puzzle many found tough
Thanks, when I post early( evening here in Canada) I have no idea how others do. If I post the next morning I have forty-odd opinions to read to see if there’s a consensus . Re MILLET I thought first of Millais ( English Pre-Raphaelite) but he had too many letters. Luckily I was vaguely aware of the grass!
Various remarks about Millet remind me of a comment I made on my first entry here in 2023, when Angelus was an answer: I think Millet’s Angelus in the Musee d’Orsay is one of the high points of human artistic achievement. I’m sticking with that, and MILLET went in quite quickly today. Wonderful picture.
Yes, thanks for reminding me of it.
Same here on CONTRABANDIST, not the greatest word I’ve ever encountered. No idea about MERLIN and the bird of prey, or the parsing of 2dn, and never encountered TATTER in the singular before. I made very little headway with the top acrosses but things eventually picked up to deliver a 13.14 finish. Thanks roly and Izetti.
Tatter connected with “tatterdemalion”?
I said on Monday that my puzzle was a Quickie in a 15 x 15 grid. Here we have just the opposite, a 15 x 15 in a Quickie grid. I did solve it, but I had to use techniques learned in solving more advanced puzzles. Why I can glance at the letters of kids, acacia all and immediately see lackadaisical is hard to say. I also thought of bar, and immediately entered Barcelona without even reading the rest of the clue. Obverse, prison, visor – they all flowed in.
Time: 9:27
2o minutes. Phew, this was a hard one so we may need our tin hats around here later!
I went down the same route as curryowen, with CONTRABANDING as the only fit I could come up with at 2dn for far too long.
No joy for me and a terrible puzzle for a QC. Not even close to solving this so 0 fun
I think Izetti left this one in the oven a little too long!
Oh good, I found a different way to be wrong – going for CONTRABANDISm to mean “illegally trading”. That made TATTER hard. Saw ‘bar’ much later so BARCELONA had to be carefully extracted – I had the A at the end early so was trying to anagram the wrong words to find something like taverna, only longer (Trocadero suggested itself at one point). Made it but a little short on sparkle, although I enjoyed seeing Merlin make his appearance. All green in 21.20.
Very tough. Only completed with a judicious use of the check button along the way to confirm (or not) some half-ar*ed guesses. That at least took off the ng at the end of 2d
Some very clever clues, but a difficult 35.12 this morning.
Thanks Roly for parsing of a a few!
My forte is half-parsing! 16:16 but on the harder side and I agree with all the above reservations
I’m trying not to look at the solution, but I would like to record that on my first quick pass through, I have the sum total of one answer put down.
Whatever else this is going to be (enormously frustrating, I suspect), quick it is most definitely not.
Could someone gently suggest to Mr Izetti that he, and I, might be happier if he restrained himself to the full 15×15?
DNF. DNE.
Pi ❤️
13+ minutes for me hoping I’d got one wrong. Sadly not! Nice stuff from The Don, the prolix smuggler notwithstanding.
Got there in the end after about fifteen minutes on the last two, CONTRABANDIST and TATTER. Not really worth the effort! Fine up till then.
Awful DNF on a puzzle that may be very clever but was not a QC. I’m sure regular fans of Izetti will once again solemnly say how precise and fair his cluing is – a bit like the Emperor’s new clothes, to not praise him is just not done – but any puzzle that contains the ugly word CONTRABANDIST, a 19th century French painter who is hardly GK and a word TATTER that is almost never seen except in the plural has simply not understood the brief for a QC.
And those were only three of the clues I struggled with. I do these puzzles on my phone so don’t know who the setter is while doing them, but half way through this puzzle I said to myself “this is so convoluted and unenjoyable that it must be an Izetti”. That says it all, and neither I nor the Don should take any pleasure from my guessing correctly.
Many thanks Roly for the blog. Very relieved this one did not fall on my blogging watch.
I don’t understand the criticism for TATTER. It’s a cryptic; what difference does it make whether you know the word or not so long as it is solvable? How else could you construct the anagrist? And how is anyone to progress to the next level unless they are challenged? I despair of these people that moan about taking more than 5 minutes to ‘do a quickie’. If the Quick crossword can be finished in that time, frankly it’s not worth doing, unless you are an habitual speed solver like Mohn or Verlaine. In my opinion, FWIW, this was a perfectly pitched puzzle. There are setters I don’t bother with because I don’t like their style – you have the choice to eschew a particular setter – though it would help if the setter were displayed on the app – but your criticism of him is without validity. Rant over…
We are of course all entitled to our opinions, and on TATTER I was mainly basing my comment on the fact that if you type “Tatter meaning” into a search engine you are shown the meaning of Tatters and Tattered, but not Tatter itself. I am sure Tatter exists but it is not exactly regular fare. And that is my main concern – it is perfectly possible (and most setters manage it) to construct a pleasing, even challenging crossword without using obscure GK like Millet or barely used words like Contrabandist and Tatter. Unfortunately Izetti has form here – in his last puzzle we had the Greek goddess Até – and it does detract from the enjoyment for more simple solvers like me. And the puzzle is meant to be entertainment …
As for the puzzle overall, the SNITCH is the second highest this year, and elicited comments from very experienced solvers like “a 15×15 in a quickie grid”, “that was a hard one” and “ignores the idea of a QC in pursuit of his own cleverness”. And they were from solvers who completed the puzzle. FWIW I did also complete the grid, but with aids for at least 4 clues (which was why I showed a DNF). It took me 28 minutes, which is over 4 standard deviations from my par time, and I am not sure how that counts as “perfectly pitched” – but as our late Queen once remarked, “recollections may vary”.
I was probably being unfair targeting my rant at you – certainly there were plenty more negative comments subsequently. I just feel that if this crossword is to limber people up for the big one, then it has to challenge occasionally, and yet each time, people complain as if they were the only arbiters of the standard. I was obviously well on the wavelength, and found it easier than eg Joker’s this week, let alone today’s 15×15, which I’m struggling with, but not complaining. Since I started doing cryptics a few years ago, I’ve got so much better, thanks to persistence and this blog, that I rarely fail to finish in the end, but I don’t want something where the answers are a write in from a glance at the definition. Many people commented how difficult it was to write a cryptic clue at Christmas, yet Izetti has done entire puzzles for decades and I think deserves more credit than he regularly gets on this blog
And therein lies the problem, surely ? The QC is expected to be both an introduction to this game for newbies and an opportunity to ‘limber up’ for the 15×15. Hard to see how both groups can be satisfied by the same puzzle.
Perhaps most of the complaints about TATTER come from those of us who bunged in CONTRABANDING and then couldn’t see the error of our ways. As for the general level for a QC, I didn’t think it unreasonable – there has to be some level of difficulty or else there will never be enough improvement to move to 15 x 15.
I fully agree. Had to give up today and when the answers were revealed, was not impressed.
I agree with all your points. A quick cryptic is usually a fun challenge.
Not this one, though.
Not easy but I made steady progress throughout my solve and never ground to a halt.
Fortunately I got TATTER before tackling the ugly looking CONTRABANDIST but it still took some parsing. I had to rely on the wordplay for OBVERSE as I’d forgotten about the names of the sides of coins and chucked in LOI MILLET from ‘grass’ as the artist was a NHO.
Considering the Quitch score I’m fairly pleased with my finishing time of 9.23.
Thanks to Rolytoly
I’ll just say I echo Cedric’s comments wholeheartedly. Contrabandist in a quickie? Really!
Wot Pi said. Oh well, it’s only a game! Thanks Roly and Don.
As a veteran of solving Don Manley puzzles, I had no real difficulty. Only my LOI was left after two passes through the clues – but I concur with the view that it was effectively a 15×15 in a smaller grid.
FOI MUCK IN
LOI DIRECTS
COD MILLET (Obscure??? Mon Dieu!!!)
TIME 4:41
how can you pick a DD for COD and not pick fruit and nuts!
It’s by no means a new clue…..
This was a fail for me. Having put in CONTRABANDING (?!?) because of all (bar one) the crossers and being able to nearly parse it, I was left with 15d and 22ac. I couldn’t work out 22ac and I had OBTUSE stuck in my mind (even though I was certain it wasn’t right) for 15d until, after about 15 minutes, I finally pressed the check button in frustration. Even then I couldn’t get to CONTRABANDIST from CONTRABANDI**. Never seen either word, TBH, although obvious what they mean.
I also put in CONTRABANDING, skipping filled letters. Luckily my pre-submit proof-read spotted that I was about to submit with CONTRABANDINT, leading me to change the N to an S, despite doubts about whether CONTRABANDIST is really a word. Finally pressed submit at 13:15.
Thanks Roly and Don
Two – sprog and visor, say no more.
Gave up at 45mins – worst performance of the year by a long way with with five issues which I struggled with from twenty mins onwards. NHO MILLET the painter and had plumped for unprased PILLOT (pot=grass), couldn’t see DECREASED having put DI-ED, barely heard of CORSAGE and CONTRABANDing/TATTER. Parsed everything once I knew the answers.
What I don’t really understand is how a setter of Izetti’s experience can get this so wrong. I don’t want to say too much more because I believe he’s turning 80 this year and I noticed last weekend The Guardian published his first Quiptic in the guise of Pasquale since August – so perhaps he is easing off on his workload. As much as his puzzles have frustrated me over the years, it would be a shame to lose a setter of his quality. But I would appreciate it if QCs were set to be quick and fun.
Well, he did resign from Mephisto a while ago, and he told us that he is cutting back. I always enjoyed the Mephisto puzzles he did – they were completely fair and logical. I had the honor of blogging his final Mephisto nearly two years ago.
Thanks setter and especially blogger but I don’t think this qualifies as a quickie. At least a couple of times it relied on words or expressions that people don’t generally use so it was difficult to get on Izetti’s wavelength.
From MODISH to a DNF on MILLET (Who?) which I had to look up. I also went with CONTRABANDING until TATTER put me right. Thanks Roly. Oh, 14,14 but submitted off leaderboard.
Seven to the bad, just too difficult. Got CONTRABANDIST though didn’t like it and CNP it. Knew MILLET, almost not cryptic, just exactly as given. Coin collectors know OBVERSE of course. NHO CORSAGE. Suppose just about heard of Maureen = MO but hardly in the last 40 years, they must be disappearing.
DNF. All but 2 solved in 9 minutes. Did not come close to MERLIN or MILLET..
44 mins…
For once I went beyond my usual cut off time, as I only had a couple left and wanted to persevere due to its trickiness. Dnk 4ac “Millet” as a painter, but the grass came to mind and the checkers were helpful – similar with 12ac “Corsage”. Main hold up though was 2dn “Contrabandist” and 22ac “Tatter” – the former proving particularly difficult: was it “contrabanding”, “contrabandied” or some other combination? Until I resolved 22ac, this was elusive. Personally, I didn’t like the clue and thought it was a little clunky.
My review of stats so far this year have shown an improvement in completion rate (72% compared to around 67% last year), but a marked increase in both mean and median completion times. A couple of years ago, I was around 18 to 19 mins – but I’ve crossed the rubicon and seem to be averaging around 21 to 22 mins now. Perhaps I’m just willing to complete them more at the expense of time.
FOI – 5dn “Idler”
LOI – 2dn “Contrabandist”
COD – 15dn “Abrupt”
Thanks as usual!
I was relieved to read your note and to find that I was not alone in finding my QC times gradually extending over the last two or three years. I feared it was brain rot!
Over many years (since #1) I always managed a completion. Most of my times were from 7 – 15 mins (averaging under my then 10 min target but with the odd SCC entry and the odd sub 7). Those times have now become 13/14 – 20/25 (with the occasional 25 – 30 and DNF, like today).
Of course, my Izetti times were/are always longer than average but they are now 17 (rare) – 30+/dnf.
My early days gave me much more pleasure and encouragement. I feel sorry for fledgling solvers trying to learn the ropes with current ‘Q’Cs.
Still not sure it isn’t brain rot Blighter. I think it’s a mix of getting older, the QC’s getting slightly harder, my inclination to persevere a bit longer and being more relaxed when I actually do them. I used to be much more concerned about getting a good time which probably focused my mind a bit more.
I’m sure my times have slowed down. I don’t keep records, but a couple of years ago, I think I was often around the 8 – 10 minute mark, now I’d say it’s nearer 10- 12 minutes on average. The strange thing is I don’t think my solving is worse – I generally see what the setter is getting at, but it takes me longer to get there! I’m not fussed about being a speed freak (just as well) – I quite like to see how long the puzzle took me, but not in competition with anyone else. I certainly don’t beat myself up if things don’t go so well – as we regularly say: it’s just meant to be a fun way to exercise your brain.
Hello Mme B,
I also used to keep records, but now I just keep records. They’re 12” across and each one comes in a ‘sleeve’, but not one torn off a T-shirt.
Actually, the first one I ever bought was Simon & Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water. If the QC these days is the troubled water I am still searching for the bridge.
Hello SRC! How about that. Smith’s in Windsor (or it might have been Woolies) knew how keep this customer satisfied – BOTW was also my first LP. I still have it, and it is still one of my Desert Island Discs.
Hear hear…
Well done on getting it done.
FWIW my stats have improved on success percentage ( last year 71% to 85% in 2025) with a small improvement in average time from 18+ to 17+. Just two puzzles taking me past 30mins, both of which I quit – today’s and Bjorn’s in early January. But there have been quite a few puzzles which I think are the stepdown from 15×15 rather than an intro to cryptics.
Edit: after reading Blighter’s comment – I’ll add that since July I feel the QCs have got tougher. To that point, my times and solving rate were improving nicely after 2-3 yrs of doing them. Then they went backwards for a few months. While I’ve righted the ship, I generally don’t see as many very fast times as I’d expect.
It’s early days for 2025 – so I am hopeful I can get both my mean/median down from where they currently are. As an aside, I used to be convinced that the Saturday QC’s were harder than any other day. From reviewing my stats for 2024, my completion rate for Saturdays was 48% compared to an average of all the other days of 72%. Maybe I wasn’t wrong.
My 2024 Saturday’s came in at 37/52 which is 71% spot on my annual average 🤷♂️
Timewise my median was similar to the rest of 2024 as was the number of SCC escapes.
But 8 of the Saturday’s took me out past 30mins. There were only 21 puzzles across the rest of the years which did that – so perhaps they were a little harder at times.
I was interrupted at 20 mins with two clues left. When I returned, I wrote in OBVERSE with fingers crossed (why the hesitation?) but couldn’t see 22ac (T_G_E_). Yes, I also had CONTRABANDING for 2dn. So, a dnf.
Some fun clues, some nice PDMs but, once again , Izetti managed to ignore the idea of a QC in pursuit of his own cleverness. He provides pleasure but just cannot find the right level, overall, for a QC.
I agree with vinyl and Busman that this was simply a 15×15 in a smaller grid so not appropriate.
Thanks, Roly. You certainly had to deal with a tough one today.
12:20
Started badly by bunging in CHIP IN at 1a, which made even seeing CONTRABANDING/ISM/IST hard. No idea what was going on with the NHO painter – forgotten about MILLET as grass. Not keen on TATTER. I concur with many others that this grid was a step too far.
Thanks Roly
DNF. And one of the clues I missed in the SE was my own name. 🙄
Could not believe 2D was CONTRABANDIST, I kept adding it and rubbing it out. Even then very unsure about last three letters. Could be –AGE, –ING, –ISM. MILLET was a real guess as NHO the painter, and wasn’t sure it was a grass, either. Missed OBVERSE looking for LL(lines) in a word for face and DIRECTS where I thought the missing letter was from an 8 letter word.
At 20 minutes I was done, although any of those last 3 in the SE would have probably opened up the other 2. But I’m limiting myself to only 20 mins, I do actually have other things to do.
Oh dear. With just the final letter in place my first guess was Falcon. . .
I belatedly solved your clued name and I did wonder if it was a write in for you!
Can’t believe you missed MERLIN – I thought of you immediately!
Me too! 🧙♂️🦅 (more of an eagle than a merlin, I’m afraid)
Once you put in contrabandist as a guess, you should go ahead and try to parse it. Gang must be band, and one must be I, so what is around it? Does contrast mean difference? Bingo!
If cannot parse your guess, it’s probably wrong, or the parsing is very tricky. I did a puzzle the other day where TIS- was clued as being startled, and I had to think a while before I saw how it worked.
(it’s)* ?
This week is certainly not getting any easier. Must have been well in excess of 30mins over two sittings, with the use of aids for Lackadaisical- I had the anagrist, but just couldn’t see the word -to open up a stubborn RHS. CoD, for what it’s worth, to 9d, Decreased. Invariant
I refused to be beaten by this, so I had to assume an error when I could find no solution to 22a.
Eventually I reconsidered CONTRABANDING and that was that.
30 minutes in all.
DIRECTS and OBVERSE also held me up a lot.
Very tough.
COD to DENOTED.
David
A big DNF in 20 minutes for me, defeated by the ones causing others trouble. Never heard of MILLET, MILLAIS of course crossed my mind but only briefly. At one time I even thought it may be a hidden with someone called SINGRA! I also failed to negotiate the sw corner where CONTRABANDING meant I was doomed, and TUGGED was as near as I got, unparsable of course. By definition, too tough for a Quick Cryptic I think.
Are Millet and Millais pronounced the same way?
According to Wikipedia, no. Millais rhymes with lay. The sound at the end of Millet is like the e in best.
It was so close to being INGRES, who I had heard of!
Very hard for a QC. Managed to finish with some help and guesswork. Is CONTRABANDIST a real word? NHO Millet, struggled to get (guess) TATTER, DECREASED, CORSAGE. Need a coffee after all that.
A definite DNF.
I agree with above comments about Izetti and QCs. I thought that the QC is supposed to encourage those new to cryptics.
Thanks for the blog rolytoly.
Did the crossword, came for the comments, was not disappointed…
Misery loves company
I find it hard to understand how a setter of such ability can consistently pitch his ‘Q’Cs at the wrong level. Reminiscent of certain school teachers of my acquaintance who were only set loose on the most able pupils.
I thought that The Times had appointed a new Crossword Editor. Would someone please explain the meaning (and ethos) of the phrase “Quick Cryptic” to him?
If you look at the recent QUITCH ratings, most of them are below 100. He only throws in a hard one every once in a while. OK, you solvers, you think you’re getting really good?
QUITCH, I believe, updates the average 100 on a rolling basis. If the puzzles are getting harder over time, the QUITCH will still be 100. It would be interesting to see if the average was reset to 2-3 years ago, there would be a difference. Also QUITCH tends to follow experienced setters, not newbies. For us it can be frustrating to try and get started, rather than look at 3 missing after 5 mins.
I completely agree. Unfortunately this has been a recurring theme now for several weeks
About eight minutes for me, which is significantly over my target. I thought it was pretty fair however, I don’t really see the issue with 2D. The only one I didn’t like was 22 across, because as others have commented just about nobody would use that word these days, but otherwise all fair I thought.
Thanks Roly and Izetti.
DNF re CONTRABANDIng and TATTER. Also not helped by my struggle to spell LACKADAISICAL (I thought it had 2 x S). I am normally an Izetti fan but some of the wordplay was just too difficult today and my GK let me down again.
17 minutes. What a difference a day makes. CONTRABANDIST is right up there with the most difficult QC clues I’ve come across, both for the obscurity of the word and the complexity of the parsing. Some other tough ones like the sense of OBVERSE and TATTER. I was glad to be just able to remember the ‘French painter’ and finally complete the grid with MILLET.
Thanks to Roly and Izetti
Also CONTRABANDing, so DNF TATTER either. Usually plural, as ‘in tatters’ surely. Didn’t understand the ‘sleeve’ concept.
Very slow but enjoyed various PDMs, like BANANAS, MERLIN, TIMBER, MILLET. Also liked MODISH, CORSAGE, SPROG.
CNP OBVERSE.
Other LOsI DECREASED, DIRECTS.
Yes, hardly a Quick crossword. Thanks for much needed blog, Roly.
Once you think of a record sleeve, it lodges in the brain until next time.
Ah, thank you. Luckily I am old enough to remember record sleeves.
Normally i enjoy Izetti , but today I’m with Templar, who’s with Pi.
Thanks Roly!
14:55
Loi Millet of whom I’ve never heard, after trying something in rat for a while I gave up on that and then remembered millet was a grass.
Also had contrabanding before struggling with 22ac and going back I saw how the clue worked with band-i inside contrast.
A mixed bag! I saw BANANAS as I picked up my print-out, so it went in straightaway and I vaguely hoped I’d be in for an easy ride. A few more went in reasonably quickly but thereafter it was quite a struggle, until LACKADAISICAL showed up and opened up a good chunk of the right hand side. What a terrific word, although I like SPROG too. I’m another one who didn’t much care for CONTRABANDIST, either as a clue or a word! Overall, I enjoyed this – TIMBER, BANANAS and MERLIN were all candidates for COD – but I would have given up in despair in my early days.
17:29 FOI Bananas LOI Contrabandist COD Barcelona
Thanks Izetti and Roly
DNF
Couldn’t get past CONTRABANDING, which left TATTER impossible. If the last one had been easier I might have spotted the error, but it wasn’t and I didn’t.
(Mrs Wade) Good in parts, I thought. I too biffed Contrabanding so DNF – couldn’t then get to Tatter, though not sure if I would have done anyway. I usually enjoy the challenge and wit of Izetti but this was more of a slog today.
19.22 I also had CONTRABANDING, which delayed LOI TATTER for five minutes. The rest was slow. Thanks rolytoly and Izetti.
DNF, due to MODeSt, CONTRABANDIng and (the untrawlable) T_g_E_. Also, I had NHO the French painter (MILLET) or the old bouquet (CORSAGE), and I could not parse DIRECTS. Time in excess of 50 minutes. So, >4 hours effort this week already, and a success rate of only 2/4.
Mrs Random gave up sometime last year, because the setters seemed to be more interested in “showing off”, and the QCs were becoming too “elitist” and no longer “something an average solver could reliably accomplish over a cup of coffee”.
I agree with her descriptions and, sadly, may participate more on a part-time basis from now on. Does anyone have a line into the editors and regular setters?
Many thanks to Roly.
P.S. I will continue to post my comments here on the days that I do have a go.
Hi Random(s),
I have been through the same process as Mrs R before and agree with her assessment. I have ‘resigned’ a couple of times but still found myself reading comments on the blog and missing the interaction with others.
Like you, I now try to respond when I have something to say but no longer feel the need to rush my solving, compete on times, or post every day.
I trust that you will find it possible to ‘have a go’ frequently!
John
Well we did finish, though in a rather slow for us 15:49. It seems we joined a fairly substantial crowd with an over-hastily biffed CONTRABANDING. TATTER, consequently, took rather a long time even though, on first look, I’d decided it was probably an anagram of tear and tt. My crime then was to assume it probably wasn’t because by that time I had a G! Took quite a while to backtrack again and pay more attention to the parsing of 2d. NHO the painter but I knew enough about MILLET the plant to realise it was quite likely a grass. I’d say on the whole that this was tough but still enjoyable with the exception of 2d which is a horrible word in either version. Thanks Roly and Izetti.
Well, I’ve already thrown my hat in the ring, but I will say that I didn’t find this one of Izetti’s harder ones, thoroughly enjoyed it, and had no problem with 22a, a straightforward anagram. But having looked at 2d, not detected an anagram, and nothing immediate coming to mind, I simply left it until the end, when I had every other letter, after which it was obvious and parseable. I can understand why, if you don’t know the painter or the grass, MILLET was a poser, but I’ve been let down before by my lack of GK and I don’t usually blame the setter, unless it’s equally obscure to all the other posters! For goodness sake, Mr Manley, if you’re reading this, don’t stop doing great crosswords, QC or otherwise, for your fans!