A masterful QC from the great man. A few obscure bits of vocab but the clues are generous and (as always) scrupulously fair. I enjoyed it, and also enjoyed learning a new word for essential oil (which I intend to deploy in casual conversation as soon as possible). All done in 08:10 which is slightly below my average, so I hope this will go down well.
Definitions underlined in bold.
| Across | |
| 7 | Report of way travelled on horseback? (4) |
| RODE – sounds like [report of] “road” [way]. Since you could ride other things (e.g. a bicycle), we get a ? to indicate that this is a definition by example. | |
| 8 | University officer, one friend best of all? (8) |
| ULTIMATE – U [university] + LT [officer – abbreviation for “Lieutenant”) + I [one] + MATE [friend]. | |
| 9 | Unruffled debate, quiet all round (6) |
| SMOOTH – MOOT [debate] with SH [quiet] around it [all round]. | |
| 10 | Gave a speech — nothing highly thought of (6) |
| ORATED – O [nothing] + RATED [highly thought of]. | |
| 11 | Insect seen in spring, naturally (4) |
| GNAT – hidden [seen in] inside “spring naturally”. This is the first of three hiddens today, so if you suffer from hidden-blindness then it may have slowed you down! | |
| 12 | Island frenzy after job’s unfinished (8) |
| TASMANIA – MANIA [frenzy] coming after [after] TAS [job’s unfinished – job is “task”, remove the last letter]. | |
| 15 | One who moralizes quietly about a dear Parisian (8) |
| PREACHER – P [quietly] + RE [about] + A [a] + CHER [dear Parisian, “cher” being “dear” in French]. | |
| 17 | Food course (4) |
| TACK – double definition. Took me a while to see this since “tack” for “food” did not leap to mind and even when I thought of it I wasn’t sure. I put it in in the end because I thought it was a sort of hard biscuit used on old sailing vessels, though I now find that that’s “hardtack”. Anyway, TACK does indeed mean “food, esp when regarded as inferior or distasteful” (Collins: C19, unknown origin). | |
| 18 | Took a chance, heading off, and walked slowly (6) |
| AMBLED – {g}AMBLED. | |
| 21 | Ointment possibly manufactured by Italian river (6) |
| POMADE – MADE [manufactured] after [by] PO [Italian river]. Very decent of Izetti to specify “Italian”, to stop us cycling through the long list of three letter rivers. POMADE is “a perfumed oil or ointment put on the hair” (Collins); because it could be an oil, Izetti says “ointment possibly“. I remembered the word from Agatha Christie – there was a running gag about whether Poirot used POMADE on his moustache (he denied it). | |
| 22 | First-class job consumed disloyal individual (8) |
| APOSTATE – my POI. A [first class – I was looking for AI or ACE or even IST] + POST [job] + ATE [consumed]. I had never encountered this word until Salman Rushdie wrote The Satanic Verses and was declared an APOSTATE; then it was everywhere. | |
| 23 | Carol provided by choristers in Germany (4) |
| SING – our second hidden, inside “choristers in Germany”. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Person without title not so rare (8) |
| COMMONER – double definition, the second one slightly whimsical. | |
| 2 | Response from rotter being devious (6) |
| RETORT – anagram [being devious] of “rotter”. RIP Rotter, my illustrious predecessor in this blog-slot. | |
| 3 | Bird Greek character found on roofing material (8) |
| NUTHATCH – NU [Greek character] + THATCH [roofing material]. Very good; it takes a setter’s eye to spot the “thatch” in “nuthatch”. They are charming little birds . I arrived at this by thinking of “thatch” first and then cycling through the incomplete jumble of Greek letters which mills around in my mind. | |
| 4 | Essential oil obtained through trampling olives originally (4) |
| OTTO – first letters [originally] of “obtained through trampling olives”. NHO but generously clued. Collins says that this is another word for “attar” (or “ottar”) and that “attar” is “an essential oil from flowers, esp the damask rose, used pure or as a base for perfume”. So now we know. Makes a change from OTTO being a German chap. | |
| 5 | This writer’s chum, a beast (6) |
| IMPALA – I’M [this writer’s] + PAL [chum] + A [a]. IMPALAs are beautiful antelopes: they are two a penny if you are ever lucky enough to go on safari, but I never tire of looking at them. | |
| 6 | Nasty eye — what contributes to it? (4) |
| STYE – our third hidden, inside “nasty eye”. Could this be an &Lit? I think so, but the Clue Police will tell us. | |
| 13 | Small amount for each fighter (8) |
| SCRAPPER – I thought of SCRAPPER early on but since I was breaking it down as S for small, I was rather baffled as to how CRAPPER meant “amount for each”. Stop sniggering at the back. Eventually I realised that it’s SCRAP [small amount] + PER [for each]. | |
| 14 | Damage follows popular Channel Islands event (8) |
| INCIDENT – this also held me up because I thought “damage” was going to be “mar”. It isn’t: it’s DENT, which comes after [follows] IN [popular] + CI [Channel Islands]. | |
| 16 | Book on time, finally (2,4) |
| AT LAST – ATLAS [book] + T [time]. What an elegant clue. | |
| 17 | Most uninspiring teams playing — last thing cricket needs (6) |
| TAMEST – anagram [playing] of “teams”, + T [last thing cricket needs]. I hesitated here because I wondered if the definition was going to be “thing that cricket needs”, like “wicket”. | |
| 19 | Look gloomy as the first person appearing outside work (4) |
| MOPE – ME [the first person] going round [appearing outside] OP [work, abbreviation of the Latin opus]. | |
| 20 | Daughter and guy go slowly (4) |
| DRAG – my first stab at this was “drib”, which means “to flow or let flow in small drops or amounts” (Collins). My logic was D for daughter and “rib” for “guy” (as in “tease” – if you haven’t logged “guy” for “tease” before then make a mental note, because setters love to confuse us with the double meaning). Right idea but wrong word: in fact it’s D [daughter] + RAG [guy, as in tease]. | |
NHO the NUTHATCH but’THATCH’ was obvious as the roofing material. TACK came when I had the ‘T’ from TAMEST having known the course and the food meaning. I thought of ‘panic’ as the frenzy for 12a before seeing ‘mania’ for Tasmania. Managed to remember ‘rag’ for ‘guy’ thanks to crosswords so DRAG was no problem. SCRAPPER took a little while as I initially thought ‘per/a’ was the beginning of the answer before Tasmania went in. COD to INCIDENT.
Thanks T and setter. Very informative blog as usual, much appreciated.
I also thought of S+CRAPPER, but not for long. And I also thought 17d might be a cricket thing; but ‘most …’ suggested -EST, and I saw the anagram. TACK was my LOI: I thought first of TUCK, but couldn’t see how that could be a course. Whereas TACK could be a course, but food? So I dithered a bit, but thought of hardtack, and chose correctly. 6:09.
Not terribly tough, but I couldn’t see tamest for the longest time, due to a forest of words in the clue. I did know otto from Mephisto and tough puzzles, and for some reason you often find a nuthatch in Times puzzles.
Is someone who collects old metal bits and pieces to sell called a scrapper in the UK?
Time: 7:07
Maybe among the trade, but I’ve never heard it. Scrap dealer and scrap merchant are more usual.
In the taxi trade we referred to a cab which was beyond economic repair as a SCRAPPER.
Scrappy in UK. Source of my second ever bicycle after first one got stolen.
11 minutes. lost a moment considering TACK or TUCK but TACK had been my first choice for ‘course’ and I vaguely remembered it as some sort of foodstuff.
Did you mean two-letter rivers at 21, Templar?
No, actually – I only know one two-letter river! And because the answer is a six letter word, there was plenty of scope for a three-letter river.
Thanks. I misunderstood because I read the comment as suggesting you’d already arrived at MADE.
There is the River Am, on which you will find the village of Ambridge, if you are an Archers fan
I finally kicked the habit after 50+ years and several previous failed attempts. It was the lockdown monologues that did it for me.
Mrs K is the fan in our house so I sometimes can’t avoid it. But whether we listen or not, the River Am keeps flowing
. . .there’s also the Aa in northern France – yet to make an appearance.
Perhaps some setter can manipulate that into a clue for aardvark?
Well, I’ve given them a good start, but the rest looks tricky 😀
Coupled with Dvorak somehow? No, that doesn’t work. Anyway the Aa doesn’t have to be at the beginning:
Is a river in northern France cold, Mr Asimov? (5)
👌
Flower on way, vital first craft for animal
Pest controller in French river by street starts to vent about rapacious kingfishers (8)
Though I’d be very unhappy if that appeared in a QC! Or elsewhere in the animal kingdom, you might have:
South African scavenger in horrible gloves next to French river (8)
I actually quite like that second one.
Edit: friendlier version that doesn’t require obscure geography: South African scavenger in horrible gloves following self-help group (8)
. . . and you think the Aa is obscure? 😂
Yes guy and rag are about as common in commoners’ speak as pan and carpet and imho even uncommoners of Eton would be more likely to tuck into tuck than tack. Drag went in with some certainty but like K, I wasn’t convinced by the half parsed Tack. Thanks Templar for the explanation.
Nice nod to Rotter, not a coincidence perhaps that it was his old spot? Coming to this website in the 20’s I only benefited from his wit and wisdom for a couple of years. Thanks Templar for boot filling and blogging and Izetti for being kind. 12:58
18:53. I found it fairly tricky – there were a couple I didn’t know e.g. guy for rag. I first ran into POMADE in O Brother, Where Art Thou?, where George Clooney’s character is trying to get his preferred brand… “Well, I don’t want Fop, goddammit. I’m a Dapper Dan man!”
That was also my link to pomade, although I’d forgotten it was Dapper Dan.
Funny how the memory retains these odd bits of information while contriving to forget other more useful things.
DNF. It is of course de rigueur to applaud Izetti for his elegant fair cluing etc etc, but I find his puzzles always seem to include obscurities and complexities to confound me. Today we have OTTO, which I NHO (yes I know the wordplay is clear, but it is hardly a word anyone actually uses), we have the letter T in TAMEST clued as “last thing cricket needs” – other setters would content themselves with “cricket finally” or something like that rather than a 4-worder, and we have the letter A in APOSTATE clued as first class. As Templar says, “not AI or ACE or even IST”. And there are many cases where simply “A” does not mean first class, from credit ratings to A-level results.
But I actually failed on TACK/TUCK … Tack as food another NHO …
Many thanks Templar for the blog, which I enjoyed much more than the puzzle.
Otto came up in a QC a few years ago. I only know it as a torpedo fuel, but that’s a bit specialised for a QC.
Wow, let’s hope so!
Would that torpedo fuel be H2O2 – hydrogen peroxide?
Propylene glycol dinitrate, dibutyl sebacate, and 2-nitrodiphenylamine.
No, me neither.
Ah, clear as mud, many thanks.
Great puzzle which we enjoyed but struggled with drag and tuck. Had the same thoughts as Kevin but opted for tuck first, didn’t parse drag but will now add guy=rag to The List! 16.26 WOE
Thought per as for each straight away so never saw the other word, but still sniggering at the back 😉
I remember from birdwatching many years ago that nuthatches and tree creepers ar both small birds that you find on tree trunks, easily differentiated at a distance as tree creepers go up and nuthatches go down.
Thanks Izetti and Templar
Steady going thanks to the kind clueing of the obscurities but like our blogger I went down the hard TACK route to justify the second definition of 17a.
Started with ORATED and finished with RODE in 7.28 with COD to NUTHATCH.
Thanks to Templar and Izetti
7:08, also NHO OTTO, LOI was DRAG which I went back to at the end
14:09 but its a DNF for me as I plumped for TUCK having also considered TACK.
Thanks Templar for explanation on that one and also DRAG …..
Having missed the obvious CI for Channel Islands I needed a bit of help to get INCIDENT which then resolved LOI TACK. So all clues filled in after 40 minutes.
I don’t fully understand the ‘guy’ ‘rag’ synonym but will note it.
Thank you for a typically precise and enjoyable puzzle from Izetti and a most helpful blog from Templar.
15:22. As so often, I’ve WS Gilbert to thank for me knowing some obscure-but-useful-in-crosswordland vocabulary.
“Breathing concentrated otto
An existence a la Watteau”
from Trial By Jury.
Another TUCK here, I assumed that ‘course’ was some reference to tuck in the sewing sense (yeah yeah) so a DNF at 11.45. APOSTATE and DRAG held me up for a while, and all up an enjoyable puzzle despite some NHOs. Thanks Izetti and Templar.
I also had a vaguely hopeful thought about tucks in dressmaking. Very vaguely.
DNF as TUCK not TACK
NHO TACK, OTTO, RAG for guy.
Oh, so speedy at the start – NW and more all filled within a few moments …. then, slogged: POTION (took IT reversed as manufactured… ?ON)…so stalled with POMADE, ULTIMATE, IMPALA. Unsure about TAMEST. We’re with Cedric S re ‘needs’.
Usual increase in admiration of skill of setter post excellent blog.
Thanks to all.
Was on Izetti’s wavelength through most of this puzzle, just a slight holdup with LOI DRAG. NHO OTTO but wordplay was clear, and took a moment to realise that ‘last thing’ was the last letter when parsing TAMEST. Great QC. Thanks Templar for your usual good blog.
Fairly chewy I thought, taking longer than usual to complete. NHO OTTO, but obvious from clue, and INCIDENT, DRAG, APOSTATE and SCRAPPER took time to work out. Coffee needed now!
All going very smoothly indeed until the last two, APOSTATE and DRAG, which took me far longer than they should. TAMEST went in with a shrug, because I thought I was missing something for the extra T – I realised it was the last letter in cricket, but thought “it couldn’t be referencing that, surely!” But indeed it was.
Thanks Izetti, and Templar for the nice blog
Brownie point for predicting when I woke up that it’d be an Izetti today?! A struggle but got there in the end. NHO OTTO; officer = LT is difficult; and thank you, Templar, for confirming that MOOT (somehow) = debate. LOI TASMANIA.
Oh! NHO guy = tease; assumed this was guy = rag doll as in (or on) Nov 5th bonfire. But I agree it’s there.
Hooray – been fighting to claw up to 50% pass rate, finally got there today.
I read MOOT as a noun in this context, Collins gives us
1) A discussion or debate of a hypothetical case or point, held as an academic activity.
Think of the moot court where law students argue cases in a mock court.
Yes – thank you. Sort of NHO but did wonder whether Aldeburgh’s Moot Hall relates to that meaning. Thanks.
6.39
No problems here though DRAG did need a brief alpha trawl. Great blog as always and thx Izetti
I feel like a teenager this morning – there was nothing I didn’t know. Izetti has been relatively gentle on his more recent visits to QC land, but this was far more like his old self, and, for me at least, none the worse for it. Thanks Templar for your (as ever) excellent blog.
FOI RODE
LOI IMPALA
COD AT LAST
TIME 4:42
Dnf…
After a great run recently, I have now done a complete about turn and can’t seem to finish anything correctly. Completed the grid in 20 mins, but incorrectly put “Tuck” for 17ac and “Ipostate” for 22ac – not really sure what I was thinking for the latter, but I’d NHO of “Tack” for food.
FOI – 12ac “Tasmania”
LOI – 22ac “Ipostate” (incorrect)
COD – 15ac “Preacher”
Thanks as usual!
Hardtack? A hard biscuit food which lasts for years and makes me think of rations for explorers and soldiers/sailors (although ‘tack’ for food came first).
I was right on Izetti’s wavelength with this one, finishing in 7.02. All the down clues were solved on first read, so perhaps I may have been quicker if I’d started with them first. I’ve come across OTTO a few times in crosswordland over the years, otherwise it would have been unknown to me. My only hesitation was with DRAG, where I worried that the setter wasn’t asking for a synonym of tease, but perhaps had a three letter male name in mind.
Tack and drag put a halt to this beautiful QC redolent of fragrant oils.
A very good puzzle. Izetti sucked me in early on – I cleared up the top half in record time (except for NUTHATCH where ‘thatch’ was far from obvious at first because I was hung up on tile, felt etc.). I only got it after TASMANIA slowly dawned on me and gave me the T.
I was slower completing the lower half but it was mainly straightforward (and all well clued). I spent ages on my last two: SCRAPPER (thanks for the parsing, Templar) and the sting in the tail APOSTATE (I, too, was hung up on A1).
Thanks to both.
I thought this was going to be tricky, but there were enough write-ins to give several footholds, and then it was just a case of following Izetti’s scrupulous cryptics. Tamest and loi Tack required a bit more thought, but all done in 21mins for a good choice of window seats. CoD to 14d, Incident, for the smooth surface. My thanks to the Templar and Izetti – a perfect pairing. Invariant
Very nice crossword. Much appreciated. Quite slow, but mainly because of hesitation over Drag, Pomade and Tack. Nuthatch was easy – how many roofing materials spring to mind?, only 3 for me, and slate and tile were non-starters.
Thanks Templar and Izetti.
7a Rode, FOI, got off to a poor start by misreading and going for road.
17a Tack. Pencilled tuck initially then plumped correctly for tack.
22a Apostate. Lots of people realise later that they have been raised in a particular religion and come to deny it; I would not characterise that as disloyalty. In Islam apostasy automatically attracts a death sentence. They don’t seem to have read the 6th commandment. Rant over.
4d Otto, HHO attar, not sure I HHO otto, alternate name.
17d tamesT. The T was too clever for me so I biffed it.
7:29
OTTO familiar from Trial by Jury
“Breathing concentrated otto!—
An existence à la Watteau.”
Thanks Templar and Izetti
. . .you and Rusty (@8:54) could play Marco and Giuseppi ?
Raced through this with many acrosses on first pass and all the downs bar SCRAPPER, though I’d already pencilled in PER. No unknowns, the only holdup a slight pause for thought on LOI APOSTATE, for the unusual first class reference.
7:46
A few answers struggled against being inserted into the grid – 17a/17d crossing pair, the NHO 4d. However, a couple of the less common words went straight in – POMADE frequently referenced in Poirot stories; and APOSTATE which I first came across in Susan Howatch’s Starbridge series of books (quite a hard read, I thought). LOI TACK I assumed was related to hardtack.
Thanks Templar and Izetti
Generous Izetti today. I was finished in 6 minutes. Perhaps the fastest I have completed one of his puzzles.
He always gives clear instructions so I was not delayed by OTTO, which I vaguely remembered.
TACK occurred to me quickly and both meanings were known to me.
LOI DRAG.
Most importantly a very enjoyable QC.
David
From RODE to SCRAPPER in 8:15. This felt tricky but I finished in slightly under my average time. Thanks Izetti and Templar.
Somewhat frustrating because I vaguely remembered having problems with SCRAPPER relatively recently. In fact, having just looked back, I see that in January (#2891), Merlin blogged this one from Izetti: ‘Small amount for each fighter (8) SCRAPPER – SCRAP (small amount) + PER (for each)’.
So exactly the same clue! And I had exactly the same problem this time as before, as I couldn’t do the lift and separate. My previous comment will suffice today: ‘I had S for small, PER for each, and well, you can see what I was left with. Much too rude for Izetti 😂’ So I biffed it – again!
I knew OTTO as a word from the polygon -although not what it is – so that helped a bit. I did know attar though, and guessed the connection. Otherwise no problem with the vocab or GK, and I enjoyed it, particularly NUTHATCH and INCIDENT.
09:11 FOI Rode LOI Scrapper COD Stye
Thanks Izetti and Templar
Like others here I had a debate over TuCK and TACK but only after I had dismissed lamest for TAMEST. After all, being lame wouldn’t help you in cricket. Fortunately I couldn’t parse it. I started with RODE and finished with DRAG in 7:14. Thank you Templar for the definitions of OTTO oil and TACK food.
I was quite quick for an Izetti at 14 minutes. All parsed except for DRAG where I failed to equate guy with tease (although I’m sure it‘d come up before). Vaguely remembered OTTO from somewhere.
FOI – 7ac RODE
LOI – 20dn DRAG
CODs – 3dn NUTHATCH and 6dn STYE
Thanks to Izetti and Templar
Nine, not bad for a Thursday. I’m now getting more on the first pass and coming back to it later.
DNF, as I failed on Mope because I put Rolled for 18a. (StRolled). Should have rethought those two. Also put Tuck.
Pride comes before a fall as I had been feeling rather smug about my speedy solves of earlier clues like SCRAPPER, APOSTATE, NUTHATCH etc.
Biffed OTTO.
Thanks vm, Templar.
A fun puzzle, with Izetti taking a step back to his former ‘trickier-but-fair’ self? After the crossers 14d looked as if it should end ING so I had to consider whether Inciding was a word!
FOI 7a Rode
LOI 22a Apostate
COD 8a Ultimate – for the construction
12:44. ULTIMATE, INCIDENT, and NUTHATCH were favourites.
8.50 WOE. I was stuck for a while on the last two. After I solved INCIDENT I threw in TUCK for a pink square. I do know both tacks so I have no excuse. Thanks Templar and Izetti.
11:12 WOE is me, and it was going so nicely too. I see I have plenty of company with TUCK (a rather hopeless guess) for TACK (which would have been equally hopeless); could tuck be a course? could tack be a kind of food? oh well. NHO OTTO either but the wordplay gave it to me. Liked NUTHATCH and indeed they are a favorite with me. I had the same mental shuffle for SCRAPPER as others, but all ok in the end. DRAG gave me pause but I finally remembered the other meaning of “guy”. Learning every day.
Thanks to Izetti for a fine puzzle and to Templar for the exemplary blog. And I did think fondly of Rotter, who’s become a sort of ghostly friend during my rambles through the back catalog, though I only overlapped briefly with him in real life.
Izetti clues are somehow particularly satisfying to solve but I’m in the TUCK camp having rejected TACO as the only other food to fit and convinced that a racing circuit or course had certain types of bends called tucks.
Third consecutive DNF after a careless SAMEST, led to an impossible LOI at TACK.
GUY=tease is on my Pet Peeve list, and is certainly due for retirement.
Usually do OK with Izetti but failed miserably today. Missed the string of first letters in 4d but having heard of attar hoped there might be an ATTO. I’m another to fall foul of TUCK / TACK and having, reasonably in my opinion, entered D(RIP) at 20d, not feeling confident about DRIB, APOSTATE certainly wasn’t going to come so I threw in the towel at that point. Ah, well. Thanks, Templar and Izetti
Great puzzle from my favourite of the harder setters. LOI DRAG, same reason as others, but TACK wasn’t a problem. OTTO is new to me. COD PREACHER. Good blog too.
16:42 here, with the last three minutes spent staring at D_A_. Fortunately I didn’t believe the theory that DRAY had a secondary meaning of “go slowly”. My only other holdup was entering DIET where TACK had to go, but the clear anagram for TAMEST took care of that.
Thanks to Izetti and Templar.
Busy day and ended up revealing LOI SCRAPPER. Other hold-ups included TASMANIA, PREACHER and DRAG but otherwise all good. Luckily didn’t think of tuck for TACK – solving more from ‘course’ than ‘food’. NHO OTTO but generously clued. Rather liked POMADE and IMPALA. Many thanks Izetti and Templar.
Most of this went in very fast but was left with tricky short ones at the end. Never heard of tack meaning food (even googling this didn’t return much), didn’t know op for work, didn’t know rag for guy. Apostate also in the SW corner needed all the tricky crossing words before I could get it as well. I had assumed “consumed” was indicating a word inside another, would’ve been a lot faster if I thought of the simple synonym of ate instead. Nice puzzle.
Thought I’d done ok even if a couple weren’t parsed – until I checked the blog!!
Saw that TUCK was incorrect then I saw SCRAPPER as an answer and realised that SHRAPNEL was nowhere near!! A disappointing fail for me today! Thanks Izetti for a challenging puzzle and Templar for the explanations.