It is hard to predict the reaction of the QC community but I thought this was an absolutely splendid puzzle, packed full of terrific clues: 8a, 9a, 1d, 2d and 11d all worth the price of admission on their own. It took me 07:55, a little under average, and I don’t think there are any real obscurities. [On edit: the QUITCH is currently running at 127 so this seems to be harder than I thought; I guess it’s a wavelength thing.] Hope you enjoyed it too. Here’s how I saw it.
Definitions underlined in bold.
| Across | |
| 1 | Chap in charge is frantically busy (5) |
| MANIC -MAN [chap] + IC [in charge]. | |
| 4 | Continuous fire from gunners aboard boat (7) |
| BARRAGE – RA [gunners, i.e. the Royal Artillery] inside [aboard] BARGE [boat]. | |
| 8 | Doctor married her fiancé, presumably (7) |
| ADMIRER – anagram [doctor] of “married”. Anyone’s fiancé would also be their ADMIRER (Chambers sense 2: “a man who is attracted to a particular woman”). The definition therefore works well, elliptical as it may be, and this is a very neat clue indeed. Bravo. | |
| 9 | Wife shuns mature set (5) |
| GROUP – to “grow up” is to “mature”; remove the W [wife shuns] and you have GRO{w}UP for “set”. Very clever. I was working on “grown” for a while and half convinced myself that “gron” must be a C14 word of Icelandic origin for a bunch of seals or something. | |
| 10 | Copied direct plea incorrectly (10) |
| REPLICATED – anagram [incorrectly] of “direct plea”. | |
| 14 | Give up going into case for exemplary justice (6) |
| EQUITY – QUIT [give up] inside [going into] EY [case for exemplary, i.e. the first and last letters of “exemplary”]. “Case”, “shell”, “coating” etc are all words used to indicate the first and last letters of a word in the clue. | |
| 15 | Significance of product from abroad (6) |
| IMPORT – double definition. Once Trump realises that “significance” means IMPORT he’ll impose a 100% tariff on all “significance” by the weekend. | |
| 17 | What can open communication channels and keep them open? (10) |
| ICEBREAKER – my LOI, arrived at only through an alpha-trawl (fortunately C came early). One meaning of ICEBREAKER is the sort of conversational gambit designed to get people talking, which would “open communication channels”. And of course that metaphorical usage derives from the sort of ship that smashes through ice to keep navigational channels open. I don’t think there’s any more to it than that? Not quite sure how to define it – a cryptic definition, maybe. | |
| 20 | Shame leader of American party (5) |
| ABASH – A [leader of American] + BASH [party]. Some leaders of American parties seem hard to shame. | |
| 22 | Making uniform late in the day (7) |
| EVENING – double definition. | |
| 23 | Lead for one part of kettle (7) |
| ELEMENT – double definition. Since “lead” (the metal, symbol Pb) is just one of a number of possible elements it is clued as “for one”. | |
| 24 | Subject of article by this writer (5) |
| THEME – THE [article] + ME [this writer]. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Strike middle of gong for dinner possibly (4) |
| MEAL – it took me a little while to understand this very good clue. “Gong” is slang for “medal”; take D, the middle letter, out of “medal” [strike middle of gong] and you have MEAL. | |
| 2 | Insensitive male interrupts important point (4) |
| NUMB – M [male] goes inside [interrupts] NUB [important point]. What a brilliant surface, COD from me in a packed field. | |
| 3 | Complain and gain access to worker in wood (9) |
| CARPENTER – CARP [complain] + ENTER [gain access to]. Behold the difference between the QC and Big Puzzle, mes enfants – Asp generously tells us that we are looking for a “worker in wood“, whereas in the 15 it would just have said “worker” (or “craftsman” or some such). | |
| 4 | Brass player has run up to Rob (6) |
| BURGLE – BUGLE [brass player – the player is synonymous with their instrument, as in “first violin”] including R [has run]. I knew that the capitalisation of “Rob” was intended to deceive but this was still my POI as I scratched my head looking for the right instrument. [On edit: Quadrophenia rightly points out that my parsing doesn’t account for the “up”, and that the right reading is that this is “bugler” [brass player] with the R moved upwards [has run up, this being a down clue].] | |
| 5 | Tamper with equipment (3) |
| RIG – double definition. | |
| 6 | Paid to supply, on approval (8) |
| ADOPTION – I have finally started to remember that “supply” can indicate an anagram (if this isn’t familiar to you think “supple”, i.e. flexible). This is an anagram [supply] of “paid to”, followed by ON [on]. | |
| 7 | Facilitate expert conceding right to hold back tide (8) |
| EXPEDITE – EXPE [expert conceding right, i.e. “expert” minus the “rt”] contains [to hold] EDIT [back tide, ie tide going backwards]. Pretty tough. I thought that “conceding right” meant just dropping the R from “expert”, not the RT, so this took me a while. | |
| 11 | Able to take part, not disheartened (9) |
| COMPETENT – COMPETE [to take part] + NT [not disheartened, ie “not” minus its central letter]. Terrific surface. | |
| 12 | Kill 10 per cent of rodents turning up in fruit (8) |
| DECIMATE – good to see DECIMATE given its original meaning (killing every tenth man of a cowardly section in the Roman army). DATE [fruit] contains ECIM [rodents turning up in, ie “mice” backwards]. | |
| 13 | Manipulate true mean, having mathematical ability (8) |
| NUMERATE – anagram [manipulate] of “true mean”. Good surface. | |
| 16 | Keen in the morning to stop period of fasting (6) |
| LAMENT – AM [in the morning] goes inside [to stop] LENT [period of fasting]. To keen is to LAMENT the dead; Collins says “C19: from Irish Gaelic caoine, from Old Irish coīnim [wail]”. | |
| 18 | Story encapsulates start of first sentence (4) |
| LIFE – LIE [story] includes F [encapsulates start of first]. LIFE is one sentence available to a Judge sentencing a criminal. | |
| 19 | Cruel person helping to make progress (4) |
| OGRE – hidden inside [helping to make] “progress”. | |
| 21 | Tool made from chrome every so often (3) |
| HOE – every other letter [every so often] of “chrome“. | |
The old story! I started off well, so much so that I thought that Asp had had a change of heart and eased up on us a bit. But it was not to be – my last three or four took upwards of 5 minutes, and with 20 minutes on the clock and completely stuck on BURGLE, I abandoned ship. Frustrating, because I think we’ve seen something similar in the past. Some terrific clues in there though – MANIC, ELEMENT, MEAL, NUMERATE – the list goes on.
DNF FOI Manic POI Icebreaker COD Admirer
Many thanks Asp and Templar
Abandoned ship at 20mins? The iceberg wasn’t even in sight! 😉
Well, we’d been out all day and I had stuff to do! Also, I simply couldn’t see the answer and, as others have said, I find alpha trawl very frustrating, so decided to move on 😂
I Liked that. Most the clues needed a think. Very little went straight in but all were fair. Just how I like it. Quite a bit below my average time but reading the comments I am happy to have got ICEBREAKER very quickly.
COD: DECIMATE
Enjoyable but very hard. Beaten by ICEBREAKER.
Many were biffed, so your excellent blog was very helpful Templar. Thank you.
15:27. Late today, but I had to stop by to say what an excellent puzzle it was. Asp is having a laugh with DECIMATE. I loved it, since it has been so hard to force myself to believe this is not what it means. And thank you Templar for the blog to match
75 minutes.
Sheer hell. I can’t think of any reason to continue with this daily torture when this is the best I can do. Several clues made no sense to me and I was blundering around in the dark. I found this harder than many 15 x 15s!
Thanks for the blog.