Some nice Friday QC fun from Hurley today with a couple of clever clues to test us. Were the horses frightened? Not in my stable, but others may have had more neighing. I took little over average time of 5:59 held up mostly by the clever 17A. Thank-you Hurley. How did you all get on?
Fortnightly Weekend Quick Cryptic. This time it is Phil’s turn to provide the extra weekend entertainment. You can find the crossword here. If you are interested in trying our previous offerings you can find an index to all 128 here.
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, {deletions} and [] other indicators.
| Across | |
| 1 | Merit of French verse in translation (7) |
| DESERVE – DE (of, in French) (verse)* [translation]. | |
| 7 | Mundane way to welcome home? (7) |
| ROUTINE – IN (home; at home) in ROUTE (way). | |
| 9 | Transport Glaswegian maybe carrying duck — I’m not sure! (7) |
| SCOOTER – O (zero; duck) in SCOT (Glaswegian, maybe), ER (I’m not sure). | |
| 10 | In middle of a maiden song, terribly tense (7) |
| AMONGST – A M (maiden, as recorded on a cricket score card) (song)* [terribly] T (tense). The wordplay’s a little tricky, but the answer is biffable. | |
| 11 | Part of Papal Mass this Sunday? (4) |
| PALM – Hidden in PaPAL Mass. | |
| 12 | Quality of thanks recalled: statement of admiration (9) |
| ATTRIBUTE – TA (thanks) reversed, [recalled], -> AT, TRIBUTE (statement of admiration). | |
| 14 | Angry at outset is returning rather inferior furniture item (9) |
| IRRITABLE – First letters, [at outset], of Is Returning Rather Inferior, TABLE (furniture item). | |
| 16 | Release charge about right (4) |
| FREE – FEE (charge) [about] R (right). | |
| 17 | Seven years at the coalface — finally moan constantly, effective at first (7) |
| TEENAGE – Last letters, [finally], of aT thE coalfacE, NAG (moan constantly) and first letter of Effective. 13,14,15,16,17,18, and 19. Very clever. My SLOI and it took me a while to get it. | |
| 20 | Looting — small community needs new start (7) |
| PILLAGE – P {v}ILLAGE (small community) replacing the first letter ,V, with another one… in this case P. Another where the answer came from the definition first. | |
| 21 | Reveal most of ugly dive has to be revamped (7) |
| DIVULGE – (ugl{y} dive)* [to be revamped]. Where [most of] indicates all but the last letter of. | |
| 22 | Tenant perhaps, full of energy, to go in again (2-5) |
| RE-ENTER – E (energy) in RENTER (tenant, perhaps). | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Let down — initially dud is assigned to position (12) |
| DISAPPOINTED – First letter of Dud, IS, APPOINTED (assigned to position). | |
| 2 | Quiet, more mature, say, accepting you assume responsibility (8) |
| SHOULDER – SH (quiet) OLDER (more mature) outside, [accepting], U (you). | |
| 3 | Castigate pace of progress (4) |
| RATE – Double definition. | |
| 4 | Tirade supports former monarch going off the rails (6) |
| ERRANT – RANT (tirade) under ER (former monarch). | |
| 5 | Highly praise guile so easily at start — out of order! (8) |
| EULOGISE – (guile so e{asily})* [out of order], using only the first letter of easily, [at start]. | |
| 6 | Sovereign relations good (4) |
| KING – KIN (relations) G (good). | |
| 8 | Business person found in daycentre pre neurosurgery (12) |
| ENTREPRENEUR – Hidden in daycENTRE PRE NEURosurgery. Nice hidden! | |
| 12 | A constant trade union supporter in fact (8) |
| ACTUALLY – A C (constant) TU (trade union) ALLY (supporter). A four-part charade. | |
| 13 | Describing this turn made surprisingly? (8) |
| UNDREAMT – (turn made)* [surprisingly]. A semi-&lit, I think, where the whole clue is the definition and all but “describing this” the wordplay. If a turn that is made is a surprise, it might be one you hadn’t expected or even dreamed of. | |
| 15 | Device to remind social gathering agent’s coming up (6) |
| BEEPER – BEE (social gathering), REP (representative; agent) [coming up] -> PER. | |
| 18 | Diplomat ignoring Oscar’s resentment (4) |
| ENVY – ENV{o}Y (diplomat) without the O (Oscar in the phonetic alphabet). | |
| 19 | Unhappy Tory (4) |
| BLUE – Double definition. | |
DNF TEENAGE did me in. I can see there are seven years when one is a teenager but don’t see how TEENAGE can be defined as seven years and I couldn’t think of a sentence where they were substitutable. Oh well, I missed UNDREAMT too anyways!
One’s ages are -teen, for just seven of them.
I did solve this, but I suspect many will not, particularly the honorable ladies and gents of the SCC. Besides teenage, undreamt and eulogise were rather challenging. I also struggled with some of the more obvious ones, and should have done better.
Time: 14:33
I saw the parsing for TEENAGE but failed to see the connection to the seven ‘teenage’ years, pretty clever, IMO. But, UNDREAMT was a reveal, and don’t like it at all. RATE should be no problem for most after yesterday’s quickie. COD to SHOULDER.
Thanks John and setter.
UNDREAMT was my LOI; took me forever to do (dreamt, learnt, etc. are not in my dialect). Demi-biffed TEENAGE (TEE …) and AMONGST ((song)*). ENTREPRENEUR was an impressive hidden. A couple of nits to pick: SHOULDER I’d include ‘say’ in the parenthesis; PALM is not this Sunday, Palm Sunday is; so I’d say only ‘this’ should be underlined. An embarrassingly slow 10:53.
[PS] Like jackkt, I had no eyebrow movement when solving TEEENAGE & UNDREAMT, but now tend to agree with him, Ulaca and others.
Awake at 3am for some reason, so I thought I’d do the crossword. I’m glad I did, as it’s mostly very good, though TEENAGE went in with a shrug. As curryowen has said, I’m struggling to think of a sentence where it works as a sub for seven years. COD to UNDREAMT, though it is an odd clue.
Very enjoyable indeed, thanks Hurley and John.
On edit: the fortnightly cryptic is also excellent – thanks, Phil!
Solving the anagram for UNDREAMT took me a long time, and I still don’t understand the definition in the slightest. Can anyone explain the connection for me please?
That clue really soured an otherwise great puzzle for me.
If a turn that is made is a surprise, it might be one you hadn’t expected or even dreamed of.
I don’t think UNDREAMT works, and TEENAGE is pretty tough. So, my horses were a bit spooked, and I have a feeling that other mounts (not to mention, their riders) will be in a state reminding one of the effects of the fire in ‘Black Beauty.’
Even ‘Gone With The Wind’ levels may be seen among some equestrians, I fear…
8:59
10 minutes. I didn’t think anything of TEENAGE and UNDREAMT when solving but I see now that they are both a little iffy. I was delighted to see RATE clued as ‘castigate’ because it’s a meaning I seem to have known all my life and I was surprised at the adverse reaction to it yesterday.
My problem was teenage seems to be an adjective while seven years isn’t. I thought of the movie with Marilyn Monroe, “The Seven Year Itch”, where seven year seems adjectival. But that usage just uses year not years.
I think the definition for TEENAGE is intended to be a bit tongue-in-cheek rather than literal.
Yes, and that was my original take on it, so 7 years = TEEN AGE. Great for wordplay support, but not good enough for a literal of TEENAGE in my view.
TEENAGE here is a noun – the period of seven years (Collins dictionary)
Hands up, gave up at 8′ today without RATE, ENVY or TEENAGE. Always annoying when you don’t get the cleverest definition (TEENAGE).
Nice to learn that BEE is a social gathering. Makes sense after looking up and remembering ‘spelling bee’.
or quilting bee
DNF, with UNDREAMT, TEENAGE and AMONGST not solved. I might have biffed AMONGST but by then was well beaten, and I still don’t see how “tense”, on its own, gives the T without any clue that one is to take just its first letter. TEENAGE is a word I do on reflection know (“one’s teenage years”), but to use it to mean “a period of seven years” is new to me. As for UNDREAMT, &lits and semi-&lits often defeat me, and the surface here was unusually opaque – even with the blog I cannot see the definition.
I did at least get RATE; you wait all your life to encounter rate meaning tell off, castigate and then it appears two days running!
Many thanks John for the blog, and I look forward to the Sunday Special
T = tense is a standard abbreviation in linguistics, for example TAM = “tense/aspect/mood”.
Well that’s the joy of TfTT – always something new to learn. Not being a student of linguistics I was quite unaware that T could stand for tense. I shall add it to the list, along with T for Time, T for Temperature, T for Tango, etc.
T for Two?
UNDREAMT and TEENAGER don’t work in my opinion. Shame.
A real struggle, about 17, and I still have no idea what was going on with UNDREAMT. TEENAGE was my LOI and I only got it because nothing else I could think of would fit the crossers. Those two aside it was an enjoyable puzzle, and quite a challenge. Thanks John and Hurley.
Saw NAG with E and spotted the 7 year indicator to solve TEENAGE without parsing TEE, similarly AMONGST, biffed by definition and filled letters as I didn’t see tense =T as I missed it as grammar. At last I remember Supporter = Ally if it is not Bra, so I suppose this shows progress.
COD IRRITABLE. A long (= harder) solve 38 mins, mostly due to UNDREAMT and needing to get paper and pencil out of frustration. Thanks Hurley and John.
Both of the 1s went straight in and most of the rest of the grid followed at a canter. UNDREAMT and TEENAGE (which I never did parse) added a couple of minutes to my time at the end and I’m guessing they’re the main cause of the QUITCH running at 118 (at the moment).
I was very impressed that Hurley managed to clue ENTREPRENEUR as a hidden.
Finished in a spritely 6.57.
Thanks to John and Hurley.
I was sailing along very nicely, until I hit TEENAGE and UNDREAMT. I got there eventually after 22 mins, but those two took a huge amount of that time.
Glad to have finished.
Pi ❤️
16:24 Quite fancied a seat in the SCC and with only 4 on the first pass of acrosses was resigned to that fate, but the downs started to slot in quite nicely and things were looking quite promising until the QC, in imitation of life, dropped a teenager into the mix. That with the undreamt hold up (never seen an anagrist as a definition, or was the definition ‘describing this’ as in you couldn’t dream up a device like this? A nod to John’s semi &lit explanation) led to much scratching of the head and more delay. All finished off with a half parsed entry of teenage (had to be t e e …then nag but needed the blog to understand the seven years definition) my loi
Thanks John and Hurley you are a very naughty person😉
I found this tough but I enjoyed when the penny finally did drop for TEENAGE, though I do see the issue with the definition.
I think UNDREAMT is a bad clue but my parsing of it is much simpler. “Describing this” with the ? At the end is enough to be a vague definition of the solvers experience when solving the crossword since she is probably awake?
21:27
If a turn that is made is a surprise, it might be one you hadn’t expected or even dreamed of.
14:23 for the solve. Held up for last 2+ mins trying to unscramble TEENAGE where I immediately thought it filled the checkers but couldn’t link it to “seven years” or see “nag=moan constantly” as it wasn’t typesd in. Before that some shenanigans with IRRITABLE and BEEPER (again couldn’t see BEE=social gathering at the time). Didn’t really understand UNDREAMT definition but the anagram seemed the only option. Everything parsed though – if a couple done postsolve.
Interesting week coming in at 1hr11 but with a DNF on Monday’s Des puzzle . For those who aren’t back for Saturday’s QC, have a good weekend – and for those who are, have a good weekend 👍
Thanks to JohnI for the blog and to Hurley for another challenging but doable QC.
Edit: 10:03 on the Weekend Special.
DNF – we were heading for a first ever three consecutive days out of SCC until our hopes were dashed by TEENAGE and (NHO) UNDREAMT.
I suppose one could say, ‘those awful/wonderful seven years before you turn twenty’, however, I have not heard one say that….
A cleverly constructed clue, just not quite within our reach
Very much enjoyed the rest of the offering.
Thank you Hurley and Johninterred.
…..belatedly— undreamed, HO, yes… of undreamed chances/wealth.. dictionaries have now educated us to the presence of undreamt. New lesson every day : )
Enjoyable puzzle, solved fairly quickly until, like others, LOsI TEENAGE and UNDREAMT.
Luckily the long ones sprang to mind. Liked ERRANT, PALM, PILLAGE, ATTRIBUTE, SCOOTER.
Thanks for blog, much needed in parts, John.
19:55, dodging the SCC by a few seconds.
TEENAGE slowed me right down as I didn’t have ENVY either. But LOI was AMONGST, where I had already rejected AMIDST, so worked on the other end of the clue for the definition, “terrible tense” gave the made up AROUGHT.
Hmm, made it to the SCC with relief, but it was a tough journey. Plenty to tax the brain cells, and same MERs as previous contributors. The v long hidden was clever but so obvious that I felt it distracted from the effect. Thanks Hurley, and John for clarifications and comment.
All done in about 12 minutes and then spent what now seems an unbelievable 9 minutes on RATE and TEENAGE. I don’t think castigate is a reasonable definition for rate (at least in a QC) and while I did think rate probably was the solution, I spent ages on all sorts of absurd attempts to find an alternative before eventually yielding. TEENAGE was a good clue and I just took far too long to see it.
Was going along nicely until I hit the wall with last 2 in, UNDREAMT and TEENAGE The latter accounted for at least two minutes of my 11:20. ROUTINE was FOI. Thanks Hurley and John.
DNF.
As others, TEENAGE and UNDREAMT were too much for me, and I don’t like either of them very much. The clue for TEENAGE surely needs a question mark or some other indicator of the oblique definition.
Saw Hurley’s name and hoped for a friendly Friday; alas, was not to be. Merlin: your point yesterday is well made, and today RATE was obvious. Humph: had IRRITAted which is angry, not sure that IRRITABLE is?
11: Questions to which the answer is No!
NHO BEE (my DIY crib now has: social gathering = bee, social worker = ant).
TEENAGE, EULOGISE, UNDREAMT just too difficult. Five to the bad, the worst Hurley yet.
Thank you, John, for much much-needed instruction. Golly.
10.24. Rather slow-witted this morning.
Another that struggled with TEENAGE AND AMONGST with the former unsolved for a DNF. Thanks for explanation John.
RATE was no problem today after yesterday’s discussion. TEENAGE was clever. UNDREAMT my LOI – can see how it worked but not totally satisfactory for me. Thanks John for blog.
My first “proper” (i.e. not counting typos) DNF for a long time. Had everything bar 17ac after about 6 minutes. Spent another 5 trying to work it out before hitting reveal. Then stared at it for another 5 minutes or so trying to work it out. Couldn’t even workout what the definition was, never mind the wordplay. Thanks, blogger, for the explanation!
DNF, and also had one or two MERs, none that I can blame failure on though.
It must set a new record for unhelpful crossers with 21 vowels including 10 Es.
Thanks to both as ever.
(Finally worked out how to reinstate picture!)
I thought 26mins was a touch on the slow side, but was still surprised to see the SCC so full – standing room only in fact. Perhaps one of the teenagers from 17ac will offer up a seat as penance for being so hard to pin down? I do wonder sometimes where our blogger, John, gets his supply of police horses from. . .
CoD to 8d, Entrepreneur, a simple hidden but nicely done. Invariant
Mostly done in about 10 minutes but then everything stopped. There were 4 left at that point – 14 & 17ac and 13 & 15dn. After an age IRRITABLE fell (and I was by that stage), followed quickly by BEEPER. NHO bee as a social gathering. Biffed TEENAGE and saw the anagram at 13dn but couldn’t make anything of it. I eventually lost interest at around the 23 minute mark and used an aid to arrive at UNDREAMT. I also biffed AMONGST from the definition- I don’t think I would ever have parsed this or TEENAGE. I still don’t understand 13dn which is a poor clue IMO.
FOI – 1ac DESERVE
LOI – DNF
COD – 8dn ENTREPRENEUR for the ingenuity in making a hidden out of a 12 letter word. However I did think it stood out rather obviously.
Thanks to Hurley and John
Like many others I struggled with this, especially TEENAGE and UNDREAMT both of which I biffed, and AMONGST . Didn’t know BEE = social occasion. 22:39, but seemed much longer.
Having underperformed in the last two days, I think I was tuned in to Hurley today finishing under target at 9.49. The times posted so far would suggest this is a toughie, which was the impression I got when solving, but I managed to keep a steady flow of answers going. The clue that caused me the greatest delay was my LOI TEENAGE. For quite a while the clue made no sense, but once I’d parsed it I realised what a good clue it was. I share others concerns about UNDREAMT however, and agree it wasn’t the best of clues.
My total time for the week was 53.59, giving me a daily average of 10.48. Missing my target time by nearly a minute.
Finished correctly in 57 minutes.
Tough but do-able.
11:16
Slow start – three acrosses on first pass, and not too many more downs meant this was a bit of a slog. Finished with ENVY and finally the 15×15-quality TEENAGE which took at least two minutes to get. Liked the hidden ENTREPRENEUR.
Thanks John and Hurley
Very pleased to finish this one. 35 minutes in total for me, a third of which was spent on my final three clues – AMONGST, ATTRIBUTE and UNDREAMT (How many words end in MT?). Others that gave me trouble included TEENAGE, ENVY and IRRITABLE. Some tough clues, I suggest.
On the plus side: ENTREPRENEUR was an astonishing hidden, I remembered RATE = castigate from yesterday and I learned that BEE is a social gathering. As a former beekeeper myself, I find this quite apt.
Many thanks to John and Hurley.
As per Plett, except I did manage to parse TEENAGE. Couldn’t make head or tail of the surface for UNDREAMT but it fitted the checkers and had something to do with surprise so in it went … even after reading John’s explanations of it I still don’t really think it works!
Horses had to be kept on a tight rein but were calm enough. 07:45 for a Very Good Day. Many thanks Hurley and John.
A bit over 15 minutes. Like many others TEENAGE and UNDREAMT were the two I found most difficult, especially to parse TEENAGE properly. No surprise after yesterday’s discussion, but RATE for ‘Castigate’ went straight in. The ENTREPRENEUR hidden was a beauty.
Thanks to Hurley and to John
26 mins…
Weirdly, I think I’ve had three 26 mins on the trot. Perhaps in the past I would have thrown in the towel, but 17ac “Teenage” dragged me well past the 20 min mark. Can’t decide whether it’s a clever clue or just too obscure. I didn’t have an issue with 13dn “Undreamt”, although the anagram took a while to figure out.
Still not sure what’s going on with the “terribly tense” element of 10ac “Amongst”.
FOI – 6dn “King”
LOI – 17ac “Teenage”
COD – 12dn “Actually”
Thanks as usual!
Hi James, song is terrible giving “ongs”, followed by t=tense. A + M at the beginning gives AMONGST.
As the parsing in the blog says, It’s not the tense that’s terrible, but the song, with “t” a standard abbreviation for tense.
Fair point – have to admit, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen “t” = “tense” before. But if it’s a standard abbreviation, I’ll have to add it to my list.
I’d say t=tense comes up in the weekly Guardian puzzles I do. I’m sure I recall it occurring here at least once in the past year and people questioning it.
Yes. Most recently in March in Cryptic 29186.
Surprised you have a difficulty with the distinction between a very clever clue and “Just too obscure”, the answer is simple, if you solve (and parse) it it is a very clever clue, and if you don’t it is just too obscure! Same for everyone really.
1d and 8d write-ins. Plus four others.
Not bad for a Friday.
UNDREAMT and TEENAGE both went in from the building blocks but neither clue works for me
Found this tough going, especially ATTRIBUTE, BEEPER and LOI TEENAGE which went in without any understanding and after an alphabet trawl for the second letter. Like Blue92 above I thought the definition for UNDREAMT was ‘describing this’ (the solving of a clue) and didn’t even think about the turn bit 🙄 RATE went straight in after yesterday’s discussion. Many thanks for the much-needed blog John. Quite a challenge but a very enjoyable one. Thanks Hurley.
DNF
All but completed in 12 minutes but misspelt DISAPPOINTED, getting the double S and P mixed up. Took ages to resolve that before I could finally get PALM.
Ultimately defeated by the straightforward UNDREAMT. Just didn’t see the anagram.
Think this is the first puzzle I’ve been able to solve, and understand the cryptic clues without having to check the blog! It did take me about an hour and a quarter, but I’m classing that as an improvement. Thank you for the blog today, and I’ll give the extra cryptic crossword for the weekend a go too! 😊
Well done! Have fun with Phil’s Weekend QC and let us know on the solution blog how you got on.
Result! If you could parse them all as well, you are definitely getting the hang of it.
Well done. When I started three years ago I was regularly spending 1-2 hour on a puzzle – and I would perhaps finish half of them in a month. Took me six months to register a sub-20 finish.
There were a few tricky ones like Teenage, Undreamt, Beeper that probably lifted the snitch score to be ranked as being harder. I found this to be a reasonable QC.
12.40 I found this much easier than yesterday’s. TEENAGE was odd. UNDREAMT went in last with fingers crossed. Thanks John and Hurley.
P.S. I think Blue92 is right. With John’s explanation the word “this” in “Describing this turn made surprisingly?” is redundant, and the clue would work better without it. It does make sense if “this” refers simply to the solver’s experience.
Sorry. I don’t follow you. “this” is required for the self-reference to turn the whole clue into a definition. “Describing turn made surprisingly” would require the definition to be “describing” which doesn’t match the answer either in meaning or grammatically.
Sorry, you’re right, my amendment doesn’t work, but I’m still struggling with what “this” is doing. If the whole clue is the definition would “Describing a turn made surprisingly?” have worked just as well?
No. Again that would point to the definition being “describing”. “Describing this” turns the whole clue into a definition. Read about semi&lit clues here.
Thank you John. Really helpful. Finally fully understand UNDREAMT.
Thank you, that is very helpful.
17:19, with TEENAGE going in without a lot of confidence. I found this one pretty chewy in general.
Thank you for the blog!
17:13 but with aids for TEENAGE and ACTUALLY. As others have said, T for tense was a new abbreviation to learn. COD to ENTREPRENEUR. Hurley must have been happy when he came up with that.
Thanks to John and Hurley.