Top notch puzzle, although another quite tricky one.
At 8:22, I came in exactly the same time as Tuesday and only about half a minute quicker than yesterday, making the third day in a row where my grid looked rather empty after a first pass of the acrosses.
Some very effective misdirection on show, and even a few well-disguised anagram clues, which is no easy feat. Throw in a good range of other clue types and a good number of cracking surfaces and it all made for an excellent puzzle – many thanks to Wurm!
| Across | |
| 1 | Spot where time’s up? (5,5) |
| CLOCK TOWER – Cryptic definition: the clue can be read as “Place where time is, high up”, which does indeed define a clock tower. | |
| 7 | Destroy recording in opera sequence (5) |
| ERASE – “in” opERA SEquence. This certainly had me fooled, as I didn’t begin to consider the definition could be “destroy recording”, and was instead looking at EP for the recording. | |
| 8 | Sick Shakespeare perhaps showing animosity? (3,4) |
| ILL WILL – ILL (sick) WILL (Shakespeare perhaps) | |
| 10 | Church men in role writing material (9) |
| PARCHMENT – CH(urch) MEN in PART (role) | |
| 12 | Manage to compete in marathon? (3) |
| RUN – double definition | |
| 13 | Paper published something spicy (6) |
| RAGOUT – RAG (newspaper) OUT (published). I wouldn’t necessarily have called a ragout spicy, but the various sources confirm it is “richly seasoned”, hence its name deriving from the French ragoûter, meaning to “revive the taste”. | |
| 15 | Flee easternmost part of remote southern headland (6) |
| ESCAPE – E (easternmost part of remotE) S(outhern) CAPE (headland) | |
| 16 | Water frozen in kitchen oddly ignored (3) |
| ICE – “odd” letters ignored in k I t C h E n | |
| 17 | Transported via Gate 4? (9) |
| ENTRANCED – Well, if Entrance A is Gate 1, Entrance D is Gate 4. “Via” is just a linkword: we get the definition VIA the subsequent wordplay. To entrance = to transport = to send = to enrapture = to throw into fits of ecstasy, etc. crops up a fair bit. | |
| 20 | Republican avoiding skirmish about religion (7) |
| SIKHISM -R(epublican) avoids and anagram (about) of SKI |
|
| 22 | Irish with a question: one for Arab (5) |
| IRAQI – IR(aqi) with A Q(uestion) and I (one) | |
| 23 | Stagnation put off opponent (10) |
| ANTAGONIST – anagram (put off) of STAGNATION | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Barnet after Conservative for seat (5) |
| CHAIR – HAIR (barnet) after C(onservative) | |
| 2 | Ring mobile phone: exploit hospitality for all (4,5) |
| OPEN HOUSE – O (ring), anagram (mobile) of PHONE, USE (exploit). For O = RING, think: O-shaped = ring-shaped = round-shaped, etc. | |
| 3 | What’s taken up by chef in kitchen? (5) |
| KNIFE – contained (“taken”) and reversed (“up”) in chEF IN Kitchen. (A semi-&lit clue: it would be an &lit, where the whole clue is both wordplay and a literal definition, except here the word WHAT’S is not providing any wordplay.) Lovely clue – great spot by Wurm. | |
| 4 | Remove top from dish for bird (3) |
| OWL – remove top from bOWL (dish) | |
| 5 | State flag raised on atoll originally (7) |
| ERITREA – TIRE (flag) raised/reversed, ON, A (Atoll “originally”). To flag = to droop, same root as flaccid. When you see FLAG, think TIRE, or the IRIS flower (not to be confused with The Isis flower). | |
| 6 | Sailors round new piano for women’s celebrations (3,7) |
| HEN PARTIES – HEARTIES (sailors) round N(ew) P(iano). Easier than it might have been – I would have been a while getting HEARTIES for SAILORS in a concise crossword. | |
| 9 | Sell iodine prepared as preservative (7,3) |
| LINSEED OIL – anagram (prepared) of SELL IODINE | |
| 11 | Conductor contains transformed current (9) |
| TOSCANINI – anagram (transformed) of CONTAINS and I (the SI unit for electric current). We’ve had this conductor clued a number of times, this was on the trickier end with a lovely surface. | |
| 14 | Cucumber her good family consumes (7) |
| GHERKIN – HER G(ood) that KIN (family) consumes) | |
| 18 | Speed up in pop-metal (5) |
| TEMPO – another reverse hidden, this time clued by UP and IN, in pOP-METal | |
| 19 | Talk involving king’s plan (5) |
| CHART – CHAT (talk) involving R (Rex = king) | |
| 21 | Gershwin say in restaurant asking for starters (3) |
| IRA – In Restaurant Asking “for starters” | |
A pleasant saunter in about average time – that makes a change for the Wiggly One! Usually I’m heading for the SCC when he’s in town 😅🪱 I liked ANTAGONIST, KNIFE and CLOCK TOWER.
I didn’t mark my FOI and now can’t remember what it was! Not 1a, that’s for sure – it practically never is.
10:11 LOI and COD Entranced
Thanks Wurm and Roly
5.05. Pretty much flew through this one.
Started this morning and quickly finished on my return this afternoon taking 30m.
For me this was a very nice QC just at the right level.
Enjoyed ENTRANCED which was parsed post biffing.
A relatively late solve for me after a busy day, which included (among other things) house cleaning, attending an auction, sorting out various stuff to do with my 95 y.o. dad and chainsawing logs. So I was pleased to find Wurm’s QC slightly more doable than some of his offerings and I finished without too much gnashing of teeth in just over half an hour.
My F2I were ERASE and RUN, the clue that made me laugh was ENTRANCED and my L2I were CLOCK TOWER and ERITREA.
I DNP HEN PARTIES and ERITREA and I’m embarrassed to say that I DNK TOSCANINI was a conductor. He certainly wasn’t a regular on the no. 20 (I think) trolley bus I used to catch to get to my primary school.
Many thanks to Roly and Wurm.
Answers sped in as the countryside sped by (I was on a Eurostar). Only problem I had until I finally clocked it was 1a – I was convinced it was CHECK POINT (where your time might be up for a leg of a race, or something). But when OPEN HOUSE went in I had to rethink and the CLOCK TOWER emerged making ERITREA loi. Enjoyed ILL WILL. No problem with ENTRANCED. Like others, not convinced of the spiciness of all the ragouts I’ve ever eaten but it had to be. Didn’t keep a time (interrupted by food and drink) but 15 minutes or so. Very enjoyable quart d’heure!!
Enjoyable puzzle, done over a coffee in Waitrose. I’d fallen a few clues short on the 15×15, so something accessible like this was very welcome.
Thanks Wurm, and thanks Roly.
Quickly done (for me) but half the time was spent on CLOCK TOWER (just wasn’t seeing it) and ENTRANCED (that trick always defeats me). High quality QC. Just under 15 minutes although I was having a chat with my wife at the same time.
We thought this was a very good QC today, held up by the vaguely recalled conductor TOSCANINI and anagram of STAGNATION for ANTAGONIST.
COD ILL WILL for Sick Shakespeare?
Thanks very much Wurm and Rolytoly.
Time: 09:23. FOI CHAIR, LOI ANTAGONIST, COD ILLWILL. Thanks rolytoly.
Encouraged by Mr Pickwick I’ll just weigh in late with a very distracted time of 12:52 at the end of a very various day. Really enjoyed it, thanks Wurm and roly.
My first completion doing the puzzle live ( have been doing old books of puzzles from years ago) and if wasn’t was Eritrea would of been a lot quicker. Glad of this site to help understand a few though of the trickier clues though. Hearties in particular I knew I had right but did not see the wordplay.
Well done! The first of many, I’m sure – onwards and upwards 😊
A mixed bag for me.Hard to comprehend 13a.and 17a.For 6d,i’ve never come across the word hearties being used for sailors:its usually AB;TAR;JACK;SALT ;or RN.
My personal best (while learning by following this blog) is completing 94% of this puzzle on my own in less than an hour (about 52 minutes). I know this is no feat among the ranks that hang out here, but I’m super excited to be learning and spotting more. I missed 5d (never heard of it, but now I know) and 11d (which I’m mad about, since I come from a family of classical music professionals).Thank you to everyone here who is helping my brain do gymnastics!