Shay is, of course, [boxing compere voice] The Undefeated, The Reigning, The Highest Ever Quitch Score Champion Setter of the Woorrrllldddddd (160 on last outing, 20 March 2025). Oh the wailing and weeping and gnashing of teeth that ensued. Today the dial has been turned down a long way, though there is one proper obscurity, and I would calibrate this in the upper-medium bracket. 09:38 for me: hope you enjoyed it too.
Definitions underlined in bold.
| Across | |
| 7 | Tenure of corrupt cardinal (8) |
| FOURTEEN – it’s a Shay special to make you try to anagram the wrong letters (last time loads of us fruitlessly tried to anagram “rum in tiny”). And lo, it came to pass that your blogger spent some time trying to anagram “cardinal” into a word meaning “tenure”. Nope: it’s an anagram [corrupt] of “tenure of” to get a “cardinal” number. Shay 1 – Templar 0. | |
| 8 | Completely unknown supporter (4) |
| ALLY – ALL [completely] + Y [unknown]. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Shay 1- Templar 1. I’m feeling magnanimous so I’m calling it a draw now. | |
| 9 | Ways to bear love and poignancy (6) |
| PATHOS – PATHS [ways] containing [to bear] O [love]. | |
| 10 | Disheartened, many watch rubbish (2,3) |
| MY EYE – MY [disheartened many, i.e. without its middle letters] + EYE [watch]. MY EYE means rubbish, rot, bunkum; a shortened version of all my eye and Betty Martin. Trigger warning for the sensitive: this puzzle contains slightly dated slang. Deal with it. | |
| 11 | Some apparently backward times (3) |
| ERA – a reversed [backward] part of [some] “apparently”. (How can an ERA (singular) be defined as “times” (plural)? Can’t work it out myself and can’t see any justification for it in the usual sources.) | |
| 12 | Former secret police’s inactivity (6) |
| STASIS – having missed it so many times I now know that the STASI are the “former secret police” of choice. Add an S; the apostrophe is silent. | |
| 14 | Sponge pudding making comeback, I see (6) |
| LOOFAH – LOOF is “fool” backwards [pudding making comeback] + AH [I see, as in “ah, now I get it”]. | |
| 16 | Second finest horror film (6) |
| SCREAM – S [second] + CREAM [finest]. “Saw” the other day, now this. I am not a horror fan but even I have heard of the “Scream” series, where the killer wears a “Ghostface” mask looking a bit like Edvard Munch’s painting. | |
| 18 | Stay in, worried for soundness of mind (6) |
| SANITY – anagram [worried] of “stay in”. | |
| 19 | Eggs on vacuous airheads at first (3) |
| OVA – first letters [at first] of “on vacuous airheads”. Shay plays between verb [eggs on] and noun [eggs], so neat. | |
| 20 | Quietly copy conclusion of her essay (5) |
| PAPER – P [quietly] + APE [copy] + R [conclusion of her]. | |
| 21 | Forthcoming time on board yacht at sea (6) |
| CHATTY – anagram [at sea] of “yacht” with T [time] inside [on board]. | |
| 23 | Quaker colonist, regularly pregnant (4) |
| PENN – William PENN was an English Quaker whose existence I deduced from the eponymous Pennsylvania (granted to him by King Charles II as repayment of a debt owed to Penn’s father – read all about it here if so inclined). If only you’d stuck with us, chaps – you’d have King Charles III instead of the Donald. | |
| 24 | Inciting bent mate to go astray (8) |
| ABETMENT – anagram [to go astray] of “bent mate”. I could go into all sorts of lawyerly quibbles about the technical differences between “abetting” and “inciting” but no-one’s paying me for this so look it up yourselves. “Inciting” here is acting as a noun (i.e. a gerund). | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Silly sitcom about North American monk (8) |
| MONASTIC – anagram [silly] of “sitcom” about NA [North American]. MONASTIC is more usually used as an adjective but is a perfectly proper noun too. | |
| 2 | Principal part of foot (4) |
| ARCH – double definition (the first as in “arch enemy”). | |
| 3 | Taunts start to trouble moderates (6) |
| TEASES – T [start to trouble] + EASES [moderates]. Again Shay makes you think that “moderates” is a noun, but it’s needed as a verb here. | |
| 4 | Obsessive about one’s pet? (6) |
| ANIMAL – gosh I had trouble parsing this properly. On first pass I wrote it in, looked at it sideways and took it out again, because I just couldn’t parse it. After getting checkers I wrote it back in, puzzled over it some more, and decided that it must have something to do with “mania” and I’d sort it out later. Only when writing this up did I finally see how it works: it’s ANAL [obsessive] going round [about] I’M [one’s]. | |
| 5 | Vehicle owner crashed, showing signs of stress (8) |
| CAREWORN – CAR [vehicle] followed by an anagram [crashed] of “owner”. A lovely, elegant clue and COD from me. | |
| 6 | Hint of culture every so often (4) |
| CLUE – every other letter [every so often] of culture. | |
| 13 | Son tears blanket (8) |
| SWEEPING – S [son] + WEEPING [tears]. The sort of “tears” that Shay’s last puzzle induced, not “tears” as in ripping apart; once again the noun/verb trick. A blanket/sweeping assertion, eg. | |
| 15 | In a state about radioactive substance (8) |
| ASTATINE – Collins: “a radioactive element of the halogen series: a decay product of uranium and thorium that occurs naturally in minute amounts and is artificially produced by bombarding bismuth with alpha particles. Symbol: At; atomic no: 85; half-life of most stable isotope, 210At: 8.1 hours; probable valency: 1,3,5, or 7; melting pt: 302°C; boiling pt: 337°C (est)”. Nope, me neither. It’s an anagram [about] of “in a state”.
My LOI and I was left staring at A-T-T-N-. AST looked the most likely start and so it was either ASTITANE or ASTATINE. Both seemed plausible and that makes this a not-particularly-great clue in my book (since if you clue an obscurity as a straight anagram there’s no wordplay to help the solver to the answer if there are plausible alternatives available from the anagrist even after all the checkers are in). I guessed right or I might have been bitter. Fun fact: astatine takes its name from the Greek word astatos, meaning “unstable”, because it has no stable or long-lived isotopes. |
|
| 17 | Deadly cannon finally changing hands (6) |
| MORTAL – this is the first time I’ve ever managed to remember the “changing hands” trick. It signals swapping an L for an R, or an R for an L. Here the “cannon” is a “mortar”, and we swap the final R for an L to get MORTAL [deadly]. | |
| 18 | Part of God’s acre dutifully hallowed (6) |
| SACRED – a hidden [part of], neatly spread across three words [God’s acre dutifully]. | |
| 20 | Caught top spy (4) |
| PEEK – sounds like [caught, as in “I didn’t quite catch that”] “peak” [top]. | |
| 22 | Culmination of cases of academic malpractice (4) |
| ACME – thank goodness for Wile E Coyote and his endless deliveries from the Acme Company. I had to ask my mother what ACME meant and have thus never forgotten. The wordplay is the first and last letters [cases] of “academic” and “malpractice“. | |
Astatine may have been difficult but it seems to me that scientific words are greatly underrepresented as GK in the QCs compared with history, literature, music, languages, cricket etc.
Dnf…
Knew I spoke too soon yesterday thinking it was a good week. Saying that, I only had two to complete after 20 mins: 4dn “Animal” and 14ac “Loofah”, but they just wouldn’t come. A few obscure ones: 10ac “My Eye” and 15dn “Astatine”, although they were obtainable. Overall, based on my last experience with Shay, an improvement in some respects.
FOI – 8ac “Ally”
LOI – Dnf
COD – 13dn “Sweeping”
Thanks as usual!
An enjoyable 18:04 but with one error: I had PEER instead of PEEK and forgot to go back and double-check, even though I wasn’t happy with the parsing. I had at least heard of astatine, although I couldn’t have told you that it was radioactive.
Thanks to Shay and Templar.
Kind of enjoyed this one, despite DNF ASTATINE NHO; revealed ANIMAL which gave me LOOFAH – MER, agree not a sponge, imo.
Also biffed Peep, not PEEK.
Very busy today so plodded through QC in phases.
Biffed ABETMENT, SCREAM, MORTAL. Liked ACME, FOURTEEN, PENN, CHATTY.
MY EYE really olde worlde.
Thanks for vital blog, Templar.
1a Fourteen, got me too.
8a Ally took ages to see.
POI 11a Era; I looked it up and it is a multiple of periods, and is itself a subdivision of an eon. Templar was worried about that.
16a Scream NHO the film, but not too hard to guess. Actually New Driver says above that it was mentioned in this blog about the Saw films only this week, so HHO and INSTANTLY forgotten.
NHO 24a Abetment.
2d Arch, took a while for the PDM.
POI 17d Mortal. DNK that cannon can be the business part of a mortar. Amazing. Was going to raise a MER but I would have been wrong.
Thanks Templar & Shay.
I graded this as “Moderate” because I finished it just before Winchester. Didn’t know Abetment was a word, and NHO Scream horror film. No trouble with Astatine because I remember chemistry lessons spent staring at the periodic table on the wall. Also remembered “My eye” from a story, perhaps by Agatha Christie. DNK Monastic as a noun, but put it in anyway. I was happy with the level of difficulty, and there were some very admirable clues, COD being CHATTY for me. LOI Peek and POI Sweeping.
A nice supply of easy clues providing crossers to help with the harder ones. Very happy with this as a QC despite making the wrong call on the element.
Thanks both.
One question Top=Peak Spy=Peek what does Caught do
Belatedly I realised that Caught means ‘sounds like’ in this case. Caught in one’s ear.
The blog states “PEEK – sounds like [caught, as in “I didn’t quite catch that”] “peak” [top].”
13:35. quite tricky but doable. SWEEPING was my LOI.
Thanks for helpful replies a bit hard to reverse imagine the meaning, actually a bit cryptic!
Once again, and in my opinion is becoming really annoying – a warm up for the expert solvers and NOT aimed at genuine QC puzzlers. It spoils my day !
25 minute DNF.
Sorry, but I have nothing positive to say and I am totally fed up. My limitations were ruthlessly exposed by a QC that I struggled with from the beginning .
Several unparsed clues. Misspelt LOOFAH (put LOOFER) and NHO ASTATINE.
Another week blown to smithereens, just when I thought I might have a chance to hit my new target this week. I don’t think I’ll bother with the 15 x 15 after this. I will only feel worse.
Thanks for the blog.
PS Forced myself to look at 15 x 15. Got several hard ones and missed some absolute sitters!!! A really poor effort to be honest. Over 2 hours on this after 12 hours at work. Can’t say I feel any better as a result. Back for more tomorrow.
Yeah, the 15 x 15 was no joke. The SNITCH is at 122, and my time was 68 minutes.
It took me 26:30 but I got there in the end. Less monstrous than Shay’s last, for which we may give thanks (or possibly not, depending on your point of view).
And thank you for the blog!
I found this on the very tough side by cryptic standards. A completion but my time was approaching those for the main crossword.
There seemed one or two in each quadrant which slowed me down.
Liked FOURTEEN and CAREWORN
Thanks blogger and setter
16.03. I found this decidedly tricky.
Hmm DNF
Not keen on some of this – Loofah…
Difficult word with difficult clueing.
Peek – no doubt a chestnut…but..
Astatine – no.
Actually probably just not in the mood..
Thanks all
John
No indeed, I didn’t experience this as “kinder”. Took my shot, got stuck, went away for a few hours, tried again, third time was my last and gave up without 5d and 14a. And they weren’t the only hard ones!
Off to read the blog and comments now, thanks to Shay for a sound kicking and to Templar for blogging.