Quite challenging today.
I had a very sparse grid after a first pass of the acrosses, with just five entered (1,9,10,11,21), and was then becalmed by a number of tricky clues at the end: BLOUSON was LOI and NHO, but I also struggled with UPSTAIRS, EVACUEE and CAKEWALK. These pushed my time out to 10:03, a fair bit slower than the seven-and-a-half-ish minutes for the previous two days.
A very enjoyable challenge – many thanks to Breadman!
| Across | |
| 1 | Hazel perhaps with time to pursue copper engraving (7) |
| WOODCUT – WOOD (Hazel, perhaps) with T(ime) to pursue CU (copper) | |
| 7 | Evening containing a signal for person moved away from danger (7) |
| EVACUEE – EVE (evening) containing A and CUE (signal) | |
| 9 | Vegetable cutlet prepared first in eatery (7) |
| LETTUCE – anagram (prepared) of CUTLET and E (“first” in Eatery) | |
| 10 | Where to see actors taking part in Goethe? At rehearsal (7) |
| THEATRE – “taking part in” goeTHE AT REhearsal | |
| 11 | Part of river Thames one’s seen repeatedly (4) |
| ISIS – I’S (one’s), repeated. The part that flows through Oxford. | |
| 12 | Fish a French duke recalled on Hebridean island (9) |
| BARRACUDA – A and DUC (french duke) “recalled” = reversed on BARRA (Hebridean island) | |
| 14 | Car reversed behind plot (9) |
| HATCHBACK – BACK (reversed) behind HATCH (plot) | |
| 16 | Male’s small identifying mark (4) |
| STAG – S(mall) TAG (identifying mark). In the surface reading MALE’S is possessive, but in the cryptic it should be read as MALE IS, as in: the definition IS the following wordplay. | |
| 17 | Giant pig restricts dog heading west (7) |
| GOLIATH – HOG (pig) restricts TAIL (dog/follow) “heading west” | |
| 20 | Ordinary path around home (7) |
| ROUTINE – ROUTE (path) around IN (home) | |
| 21 | Half of each can to corrode (3,4) |
| EAT INTO – EA (“half” of EAch) TIN (can) TO | |
| 22 | British eccentric adopts American attire (7) |
| BLOUSON – B(ritish) LOON (eccentric) adopts US (American). I’d never heard of this word for a jacket drawn tight in at the waist, but it’s a common enough style, especially as Wiki says in military/law enforcement contexts. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Tory’s feverishness after Bill through finally (7,5) |
| WILLIAM HAGUE – AGUE (feverishness) after WILLIAM (Bill) and H (througH “finally”). Now in the House of Lords, he also writes a weekly comment piece for The Times: another politician who leaves frontline politics and grows into this elder statesman dispensing much greater wisdom than was previously apparent. It’s almost like politics is hard, or something. | |
| 2 | External equipment hasn’t drained totally (8) |
| OUTRIGHT – OUT (external) RIG (equipment) HT (H |
|
| 3 | Committee really upset initially by crucial point (4) |
| CRUX – Committee Really Upset “initially” and X = by, as in 2×4 = 2 times 4 = 2 by 4. | |
| 4 | Sway social media user to ignore weight (6) |
| TEETER – TWEETER (erstwhile social media user) to ignore W(eight). | |
| 5 | Dance that is very easy to perform (8) |
| CAKEWALK – double definition: the first apparently being a dance-off where the winner gets a cake; the second is where if you describe something as a cakewalk it is a doddle. | |
| 6 | Depart, still lacking energy (4) |
| QUIT – QUIET (still) lacking E(nergy) | |
| 8 | Gemstone with fresh colour (7,5) |
| EMERALD GREEN – EMERALD (gemstone) with GREEN (fresh/wet behind the ears). It does seem a little weak to clue this colour with “gemstone”. | |
| 12 | Middle Eastern graduate welcome to grab shower (8) |
| BAHRAINI – BA (graduate) HI (welcome) to grab RAIN (shower) | |
| 13 | Dicky puts melodies in one’s head (8) |
| UPSTAIRS – anagram (dicky/sick) of PUTS and AIRS (melodies). As in: he’s not got much upstairs. | |
| 15 | Beating path, robber hides (6) |
| ATHROB – pATH ROBber “hides” | |
| 18 | Regularly flaunt unknown ice-skating jump (4) |
| LUTZ – f L a U n T “regularly” Z (unknown, in maths), more probable than LUTX or LUTY. | |
| 19 | 50 per cent of judges love sport (4) |
| JUDO – 50% of JUD |
|
Slow and steady for us – an interrupted effort and though certainly ended up in the SCC, we were not clear contenders until BLOUSON stopped us in our (plodding) tracks.
In several cases, we found attempts to biff were stone walled, so, forced to do what we were told, obedience revealed OUT-RIG-HT and UPST-AIRS .
NHO BLOUSON or ATHROB
A methodical and deliberate solve reached with few leaps or jumps.
Enjoyable nonetheless.
Thanks to Breadman and to Rolytoly
About 48 minutes for me, so definitely on the more challenging side of not easy.
LETTUCE and THEATRE went in early on, but then nothing else came to mind until I was well into the Down clues. So, when I embarked on my second pass I was faced with an almost empty grid and nothing much to build on. I knew then that I was in for a rough ride ….
…. and so it came to pass. Every clue put up a fight and, of course, I had to endure my customary 5-10 minutes barren spell sometime around the 60-70% done mark.
Eventually, however, I exited the final bend and finished with OUTRIGHT and CAKEWALK (despite having no idea what that had to do with ‘dance’). Phew!
Many thanks to Roly and Breadman.
I have been doing the QC since it started and I found this one the most difficult yet. Talk about getting blood out of a stone!
Totally agree with every word you write 1down & 13down especially
I found this very tough, and needed aids to stagger to the finish in 31:54. Struggled with BLOUSON, OUTRIGHT and CAKEWALK, although many others were also tricky.
Thanks to Breadman and roly.
Like others we found this very tricky and needed help to finish.
After a slow start the answers started dropping in but CAKEWALK just wouldn’t reveal itself so a DNF after an hour.
COD: EAT INTO as the answer just appeared by following the instructions.
Thanks Roly and Breadman.
23:43
Nearly within my 20 minute target but stuck on LOI CAKEWALK. Thought there might be a pangram so spent ages playing with Fs and Ys but to no avail. As I’d NHO the dance I just entered something that looked vaguely right, crossed my fingers and got lucky.
I rated this as “moderate” because I solved all the clues before Winchester Station. My only worry was not seeing any Fs – until I realised I could not see any Ys either. NHO Barra or Athrob. Just about remembered Lutz from a previous crossword. Yesterday’s, however, was “very hard”, and I was very surprised that the Snitch put it at the low end of the “moderate” band. I only just managed to finish yesterday’s before the end of the day. Thanks Breadman and rolytoly.
12.03. I agree; this was a bit more challenging than usual – but very good.
I thought this was a good and fair challenge. 13:55.
A lousy 22 minutes. Almost 2 hours so far this week!
Five either wrong or incomplete on 15 x 15 in 80 minutes.
All that effort for very little return. I’m still not improving. I lack the mental dexterity to do this properly.
Thanks for the blog.
Gary, can I just point out that today I, and quite a few other posters, had several left to solve after 22mins ?
If I took up running as a hobby, I wouldn’t expect to do a sub 4 min mile, and similarly I don’t expect to ever challenge the regular sub-10 crew here – but I still enjoy completing a QC (most days, that is 🙂).
If you really need a benchmark, just identify a few solvers who post similar times and compare yourself against them. Invariant
Thanks Invariant. I take your point. I hadn’t read the other comments before posting yesterday. Having read them now (and seen the difficulty rating), my performance was fine and certainly not lousy. 🙂
Well, that wasn’t at all easy. 17:37, and it would have been much worse if my brain hadn’t been unusually helpful and dredged up both LUTZ and BLOUSON from somewhere. ATHROB caused me the most difficulty, completely stumping me until I remembered the rule: “If you’re absolutely nowhere with a clue, there’s a good chance it’s a hidden”.
Thank you for the blog!
Just given up with all but outright done. I have done other things today, but still a long haul. As has been mentioned above a crossword of all medium-difficult clues in totality is very difficult because the crossers appear so slowly. Re the hatch v plot I am with the not-the-same group in that you do not plot a plot, you plot a course or a graph. That being so the verbs to plot and to hatch never have the same meaning. (Having said that it was one of the easiest clues). Blouson I knew, but discarded for ages as it is not American attire – Doh! Sympathies to the US solvers though, it is fairly obscure even this side of the pond.
Despite the difficulty all of the answers were easily parseable once I had them, and I did enjoy doing it so thanks to blogger and setter.
We had all the GK* for this but it still felt faster than it was in the end, with the penny finally dropping for UPSTAIRS at 15:33. Though at the slower end for us it’s faster than quite a few QCs that we’ve done and still substantially quicker than anything we’ve ever achieved on the 15 x 15 so, IMO, in QC territory. Thanks, all.
* I’m not counting the never previously encountered ATHROB.
Late to the party but really enjoyed that. Although ultimately defeated by CAKEWALK which was not in my GK.
Whilst I enjoyed it I think the setter thought they were setting the main crossword. Was certainly on the tough side.
COD: UPSTAIRS
Whilst it was at the harder end of the spectrum I thought that it was Qc standard and easier than some of the stinkers over the last month