Dangle’s fourth puzzle and it’s another good one. There are a couple of tricks we don’t often see in these parts, but also a good spread of reasonably straightforward ones to provide checkers and help us on the way. I really enjoyed it and hope you did too. It took me 07:28 which is below my average, so I’m guessing a QUITCH around 90. [On edit: it ended up at 97.]
Definitions underlined in bold.
| Across | |
| 1 | Service providers in Scottish town protected by those in charge (3,7) |
| LAY READERS – AYR is our Scottish town, and it goes inside [protected by] LEADERS [those in charge]. In the Church of England, a LAY READER is a person who is not ordained (and therefore “lay”) but is licensed by a Bishop to perform various functions, including the conduct of some religious services. So they are “service providers”, ho ho! | |
| 8 | Jack delivered part of church (5) |
| KNAVE – another word for the “Jack” as a playing-card. It sounds like [delivered] “nave”. | |
| 9 | Bishop is primarily made to take appropriate sacrament (7) |
| BAPTISM – B [bishop] + IS [is] + M [primarily made] containing [to take] APT [appropriate]. Phew! BAPTISM is one of the seven sacraments in the Church of England (and cannot be performed by a lay reader, save for emergencies). | |
| 10 | Resolve to put off excavation (9) |
| DETERMINE – DETER [put off] + MINE [excavation]. | |
| 12 | Tree has changed (3) |
| ASH – anagram [changed] of “has”. | |
| 13 | Hairdresser’s in small town on a regular basis (5) |
| SALON – every other letter [on a regular basis] of “small town“. Collins says “a commercial establishment in which hairdressers, beauticians, etc carry on their businesses”. | |
| 15 | Starting late, winter is unsettled still (5) |
| INERT – tough clue; my POI and took me a while to see. It’s an anagram [unsettled] of “winter” without its first letter [starting late]. A very neat trick. | |
| 17 | Part of brutal routine (3) |
| RUT – hidden inside [part of] “brutal”. | |
| 18 | Grange Hill’s opening bores distant timid individual (9) |
| FARMHOUSE – H [hill’s opening] goes inside [bores – remember this trick if you didn’t know it, because it comes up quite often] FAR [distant] MOUSE [timid individual]. Am I allowed to say that I thought this was a rather clunky surface? I think I am. A grange is (per Collins) “a farm, especially a farmhouse or country house with its various outbuildings”. It probably helped to get this if you listen to The Archers but there are many buildings called “Grange Farm” in Britain. | |
| 20 | Disinfect lists in church (7) |
| CLEANSE – LEANS [lists] inside CE [in church]. | |
| 21 | Taxi returned to Italian explorer (5) |
| CABOT – CAB [taxi] + OT [to returned, i.e. going backwards]. Giovanni Caboto was an Italian explorer who sailed from Bristol and landed in Newfoundland in 1497, commissioned by Henry VII. His name was Anglicised as John Cabot and I had forgotten (or never knew) that he was Italian. | |
| 22 | Plague pees client off (10) |
| PESTILENCE – anagram [off] of “pees client”. For those of us who had to advise insureds or insurers on how Covid fitted into the terms of their business interruption policies, this rang a bell. Ma’s out, pa’s out, let’s talk rude. Naughty Dangle. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | I distract elk roaming in national park (4,8) |
| LAKE DISTRICT – anagram [roaming] of “I distract elk”. Given that you only had to swop the “a” for the “i” to see “district”, this wasn’t too challenging! Lots of nice first letters if you saw it quickly. | |
| 2 | I agree to eat a starter of toasted fungus (5) |
| YEAST – YES [I agree] containing A [to eat a] + T [starter of toasted]. | |
| 3 | Before and after evening drinks (3) |
| ERE – hidden [drinks] inside “after evening”. I tried very hard to justify “pre” here, influenced by my children’s vocabulary of “pre’s” as meaning “the drinks you have at home before going out for the evening”, but it didn’t work, principally because it was wrong. | |
| 4 | Calling briefly for leather protector (6) |
| DUBBIN – “dubbing” [calling] without the final g [briefly]. My LOI because I haven’t come across this word for a very long time. Eventually I remembered it, because I am old enough to recall that back when hiking boots were made of leather you used to look after them by painstakingly rubbing in DUBBIN (a sort of greasy wax). Nowadays my boots are made of Goretex, weigh next to nothing and keep out water effortlessly. | |
| 5 | Helen rips pants and top up (9) |
| REPLENISH – anagram [pants] of “Helen rips”. Quite an image. | |
| 6 | Bad behaviour when driving to Leeds, perhaps, is illusion (6) |
| MIRAGE – if you were driving to Leeds you might well be taking the M1 motorway, and if you got angry on the way you could be said to be suffering from M1 RAGE … what a lovely clue, COD from me! | |
| 7 | A politician affected by temperature on stage (12) |
| AMPHITHEATRE – A [a] + MP [politician] + HIT [affected by] + HEAT [temperature] + RE [on]. A clue of many parts. | |
| 11 | Gang fight with a sword put to one side (4-5) |
| RING-FENCE – RING [gang] + FENCE [fight with a sword]. | |
| 14 | Spread foam over someone using metalworking tool? (6) |
| LATHER – a definition with a cryptic hint. A lathe is a “metalworking tool” so someone using a lathe could be called a “lather” (but never is). | |
| 16 | Harry, after taking coat, is in French nick (6) |
| ARREST – ARR is “Harry” without the first and last letters [taking coat – in other words, you remove its “coating” – sneaky and tricky!] + EST [is in French]. Excellent clue, worth the price of admission on its own. | |
| 19 | Civic headwear scratches head (5) |
| URBAN – {t}URBAN. Not an “owler” then. | |
| 21 | Company left in depression (3) |
| COL – CO [company] + L [left]. The lowest point of a ridge between two peaks. | |
Fun crossword. Lots of write-ins and friendly anagrams. NHO LAY READERS but gettable from the wordplay. DUBBIN took a while to come to mind and only saw ‘calling/dubbing’ after I had it. Liked INERT and MIRAGE. COD to ARREST.
Thanks Templar and setter.
I found this a little on the difficult side. I struggled a bit with amphitheatre, and needed all the checkers. I was thinking the national park would either be in the US or Africa, so that required some letters. I was left with the lay reader/yeast/dubbin crossing. Since dubbin was unknown to me, this took a while.
Time: 10:45
I found this quite hard and finished in 13.43. Some very nice clues here and some, like AMPHITHEATRE, INERT and MIRAGE, requiring more work than the QC usually requires. But all good, thank you Dangle and Templar.
12 minutes with AMPHITHEATRE unparsed until after the event.
Ended with ARREST mainly because I’d been too quick to see the ‘lean’ of CLEANSE and whacked in ‘cleaner’. I knew I needed an ‘arr’ in there so eventually backtracked to see my error. Took a while to piece AMPHITHEATRE together as it had done for LAY READER. Ended up all green in 15.07, thanks to URBAN correcting the middle letter of CABOT who I know no more than I did Carot who went before him. Thanks Dangle and Tempers.
Alas, Cabot should be as well known as Columbus is since he beat the latter to the mainland of America by a year. Also, his sponsor for the trip was the Bristol merchant Richard ap Americ. Now there’s a coincidence – or possibly not.
11:48 Dangle takes Harry’s coat off…bravo. Also my COD. Half parsed several so blog very useful as in a rush this morning. Great Gatsby matinée awaits (Mother’s 89th birthday treat)
Ta both
Tough one for us, never really got going so hopped around the grid taking what we could. Finally saw dubbin at 29.18.
Looked up Bacto as an Italian explorer before col made us realise we had it back to front!
Saw the device for inert straight away but bizarrely could come up with the answer until I wrote out the letters, event with the final t.
Thanks Dangle, and Templar for the humour and info.
Tricky in places but no serious dramas.
I’ve heard of LAY READERS but couldn’t have told you what they did so needed a number of checkers for 1a and I had a brain freeze over what a grange is 🤦♂️.
Started with LAKE DISTRICT and finished with inert in 8.18.
Thanks to Templar and Dangle
Decent puzzle from Dangle I thought albeit 17:42 is much slower than par for me.
FOI was LAKE DISTRICT – the weather being particularly lake districtesque here in South London this morning, something I’d commented on as No 2 son left the house clad in my waterproof gear that served me well last Autumn in a particularly wet start to Wainwright’s coast to coast that saw it lash it down and rather ruined the views of the national park pretty much whenever Id completed a challenging ascent.
I slowed myself down with an erroneous typo S on the end of CLEANSS which made ARREST tough till I finally noticed.
Was not helped by not seeing YEAST sooner despite conducting a brief inventory of the aforementioned fungii in my brewing fridge earlier this morning. This would have made LAY READERS easier rather than getting them in the reverse order.
LOI was INERT – not because it was particularly tough just because I only went back to it at the end.
Cheers for blog Templar.
10.38, but I need to go back and parse some of the solutions.
The setter seems to have been given insufficient credit for Grange Hill which was required post-school viewing a fair few years ago. It also had a distinctive theme tune immediately brought to mind by Grange Hill’s ‘opening’. Just me?
No. Me too….
Me too – images of an animated opening credit scene with someone stealing a sausage off another pupil’s plate)
For a moment, I actually thought the answer might be to do with the infamous sausage on a fork.
I got the reference, of course, but thought (and think) that in the second half “distant timid individual” was pretty clunky.
Welcome back, LP! Even though you never went away.
I’m having an attack of nostalgia; are you revisiting your past life?
SC: I’m not sure if you do the 15×15, but if you don’t, take a peek at 22a -after yesterday’s chat, it might make you laugh. I can’t give too much away in case people haven’t done it yet.
Timely! Good clue too, not sure how long it would have taken me without your hint.
That’s where my mind went, too. A very clever clue.
Slow, coming home in 15:14. Found several of the clues quite tough and needed the blog to explain FARMHOUSE (the definition Grange totally escaped me) and KNAVE (did not see “delivered” as a homophone indicator). DUBBIN also held me up, not so much the challenge of remembering it but more that I didn’t equate calling with dubbing. All in all I made slightly heavy weather of what in retrospect was a first rate puzzle.
Many thanks Templar for the blog and added explanations
. . . I dub thee Knight ?
Well I can see it now, but I didn’t at the time, and I still think it is pretty loose. I can see the King saying to his loyal subject “I dub thee Sir Humpty Dumpty” or whatever, but he would never say “I call you …”. “Pronounce you” perhaps (as in “I pronounce you husband and wife”) or “Declare you” (“I declare you to be …”).
But then I often find that I seem to be stricter than others in the degree of connection I expect between definition and answer, so it is probably just me!
Chambers: “dub [verb] (dubbed, dubbing) 1 to give a name, especially a nickname, to someone.”
Not loose at all!
A very good puzzle that started quite well but, in the end, took me into the SCC. A strange mix of short write-ins and some very testing clues. LAY READERS took too long and I only stopped agonising over ERE when I had both Es and the penny dropped.
Most time was expended on DUBBIN and ARREST (my COD, although I liked YEAST, FARMHOUSE and BAPTISM a lot, too).
Thanks to Dangle for a good workout and to Templar for his usual excellent, detailed blog which confirmed my parsing (my occasionally laboured parsing was part of the reason for my slow solve).
Whizzed through this until the final two (LAYREADERS and YEAST) which I couldn’t see for ages, so just under 10′ in the end.
ARREST gets COD among several nice clues – thanks Dangle, and Templar for the blog.
Found an old tin of dubbin which I threw out when moving home a few years ago. Drove to London (from Leeds) shortly after the M1 opened – very little traffic and just 5 service stations. Exciting times and no road rage! Thanks Dangle for good workout and Templar for your usual entertaining blog.
6.25
Agreed trickiesh in places but fun – MIRAGE was vg. DOBBIN remembered from Scout hikes many moons ago.
Thanks Templar and Dangle
Found this quite difficult with a few rather clunky clues taking time to unravel. LAY READER, AMPHITHEATER, FARMHOUSE, ARREST, YEAST were problematic for me. Took about 21 minutes – actually an average time for me, surprisingly.
Templar, you had a good day because this was tricky in places. The LHS was a breeze with LAKE DISTRICT FOI. The RHS was doable with some biffs e.g. MIRAGE and some half parsing on others e.g. FARMHOUSE and AMPHITHEATRE. Then there were my last two – the central downs. ARREST (COD) was my penultimate solve when I spotted the ‘est’ and DUBBIN (which I thought was a brand name) brought up the rear. 8:36 Thanks all.
9:53 (death of Rhodri ap Hywel, King of Deheubarth)
This felt very tricky, and I was surprised to finish it in under my average time.
The Church of England now tends to use the term “Licensed lay minister” instead of LAY READER.
Thanks Templar and Dangle
Very clever and enjoyable. Happy to finish in 11:47. Spent a bit too long thinking about different types of mushroom before the Y in LAY READERS made YEAST obvious.
I found this tricky, crawling home in 29m. LAY READERS and LAKE DISTRICT took me ages to see, despite being a write-in for most folk, it seems.
Helen’s disrobement is naturally my COD, as it made me smile.
Pi ❤️
Just about managed it – skin of teeth – despite two NHOs and one DNK. Couldn’t see anything at first pass, FOI the very last clue COL. DNK YEAST was a fungus; NHO LAY READERS (~ vicars, clerks yes) or LOI DUBBIN. Liked AMPHITHEATRE and BAPTISM, and LAKE DISTRICT was heart-warming as my great-grandfather founded K Shoes. Thanks, Templar.
All parsed and correct in a rather longer time than usual . Liked MIRAGE, parsing AMPHITHEATRE took a while.
Overall slightly tricky, but fun
Thanks Dangle and Templar
Started well but got very held up by three clues. I finally saw INERT, then MIRAGE; LOI was BAPTISM- not strong on sacraments.
The whole thing took me 25 minutes. But it’s raining outside and nothing much on this morning.
An excellent puzzle.
COD to ARREST.
David
Shocked by lack of ecclesiastical knowledge above.😯
but I admit LAY READERS was POI. I had to look up fungi to get YEAST.
LOI ARREST, unparsed. Not so easy.
Enjoyable though. Liked many.
Thanks vm, Templar. Must dash to French conversation.
Later: COD MIRAGE, which made me smile. Also liked URBAN, FARMHOUSE, RING-FENCE, INTER and DUBBIN, amongst others. I now see I failed on ERE and LATHER, so a DNF.
As others, slow to get inert and didn’t get grange=farmhouse. I never have liked the adding of -er or -ist to just about any noun to make a user of that item. Presumably a couple going on holiday are a suitcaser and an aeroplaneist?
The 30min post was in plain sight by the time I worked out Dubbin and Baptism, so this wasn’t a quick solve, but there was still lots to enjoy from Dangle even before Templar’s customarily entertaining blog.
Foi Lake District was a write-in, and I wish I had similarly gone with my initial idea of Lay Readers for 1ac, but I waited (. . .and waited) for a few crossers. In fact loi Ere was a dubious Eve for a long time, before a last minute check enabled me to spot the slightly earlier hidden.
Mirage (not the LXII then) and Dubbin were good, but 16d, Arrest, gets my CoD vote for the parsing. Invariant
I can just about see (in retrospect) “off” as an
anagram indicator. Can someone explain “pants”?
In the sense of pants/rubbish/useless/not structured ?
Yes. “Pants” is yoof slang for “rubbish”/“not very good”. It’s been around as an anagram indicator for some years now.
6:28
Fairly breezy though, unlike others, I was mildly perplexed by MIRAGE – got the definition OK but missed the M1 reference – from Lancaster, it’s M6, M61, M62 which doesn’t quite work with the clue…
DUBBIN and LAY READERS dug up from the back of my mind once a few checkers in. I liked the first part of the Grange Hill clue, not so keen on the second part, and I too juggled with the letters in the CABOT answer until they fell into their correct positions.
Thanks Templar and Dangle
Another pleasing QC, FOI LAKE DISTRICT, LOI REPLENISH. As others of a certain age, DUBBIN brought back memories of football boots and leather footballs, kids have it so easy these days! COD MIRAGE.
I appreciated the six easier clues that I found.
Being a cycling enthusiast col as in mountain pass, valley as in depression. I’ll ask a geologist. I guess both can owe their existence to erosion.
I appreciated the blog and the setters dedication.
I was stuck with three clues to go so went for a walk and then they fell into place, as often happens, for a 41m finish.
The last ones were BAPTISM, FARMHOUSE and AMPHITHEATRE.
I notice that ‘primarily’ can refer to the word or words preceding or following it which keeps us on our toes.
COD to ARREST which I enjoyed unravelling.
Thanks Dangle and Templar.
I agree with the majority that this was tough. I struggled to get a foothold to begin with, and few were solved at the first pass. In the end I crossed the line in 11.25, which included nearly a minute on my LOI INERT.
DNF
Too tough for me. Surprised to see the QUITCH down on the rest of the week which I did manage.
DNK LAY READERS, knew a Scottish town is always AYR and tried LAY RECTORS. That left DUBBIN impossible and I failed to find the mistake. Also struggled to parse LOI ARREST.
I found this tricky and made a careless error, sticking EVE in 3d. Doh! Otherwise held up by REPLENISH, FARMHOUSE and LOI, ARREST. 10,21 WOE. Thanks Dangle and Templar.
Dangle came as something of a shock to me, with lots of clever tricks which were new to me. Took a long time and I thought I might not finish. But 1d Lake D and 7d AmphiT got me a foothold, then I slowly assembled the others, phew!
Thank you Dangle and Templar.
25 mins…
I really enjoyed this, even if there were some tricky clues. For some reason nearly put “Lap Dancers” for 1ac, but I couldn’t get it to work. It would have created a whole new meaning of “service provider”. Whilst I agree the surface of 18ac was a little clunky, it was still a good clue and conjured up some fun images of after school telly.
I guess you would use the M1 to drive to Leeds, but the motorway now skirts east of the city and merges with the A1(M) in a delightful wacky races style junction of 6 lanes converging at once.
FOI – 8ac “Knave”
LOI – 16dn “Arrest”
COD – 18ac “Farmhouse” – purely for the Grange Hill memories.
Thanks as usual!
I suspect that would be a little too racey, even for the Methodists.
I’ll suggest it at our next PCC meeting!
Good guess, even if alternative🙂
17 mins with a careless pink square, again
Tough stuff, several not parsed. Liked MIRAGE.
9:35 but a few pink squares.
Could I be the only one in the world who went for FARSHYONE? Probably…
DUBBIN also escaped me, went for DIBBIN.
Otherwise some relatively simple ones took longer than they should have – CABOT I overcomplicated (got stuck on Italian = IT)
COD 16D ARREST and 5D REPLENISH.
And so Dangle gets away un-quibbled…
…almost. Not sure about 3D. Before = def, ‘and after evening’ = thing that hides the answer? But what is ‘and’ doing there??
The ‘and’ is just a connecting word. Like the ‘in’ in ‘Hairdresser’s in small town on a regular basis’.
Yes, thanks chabuduo.
Far too tough for me. Not on the wavelength at all. I have found some 15×15 easier than this.
Thanks for the blog.
10.24 I found this the hardest of the week so far with only about half done on the first pass. CABOT was helped by a day being touristy in Bristol a few weeks ago. INERT and MIRAGE were tricky. LOI URBAN. Thanks Templar and Dangle.
I was very pleased to finish in just 25-26 minutes, but then horrified to see that my EvE at 3d was incorrect. So, a fast-ish DNF for me. It’s not the first time I’ve been beaten by ERE …. and, as I don’t regard it as a real word, I presume it won’t be the last.
My FOsI were KNAVE and ASH, my LOsI were DUBBIN and BAPTISM and my favourite clue was MIRAGE.
Many thanks to Templar and Dangle.
Yes, I completely agree that Eve/before parses ! . . .but then ‘after’ is not doing anything, which was a bit of a red flag (albeit the pink end rather than scarlet), so I took another look.
Yes, you are right of course. The trouble for me is that it looks like ERE is an archaic word and I have never really come across it – or if I have, then it hasn’t stuck. Maybe it will this time …. or maybe it won’t and it will cause another DNF at some stage.
16:09. I was thinking it was DUBBIN I used to rub into my baseball glove until I remembered that that was neatfoot’s oil- used DUBBIN on boots.
Like Templer, write-ins Provided plenty of checkers, still didn’t help with LAY READERS or AMPHITHEATRE
Learnt about Dubbin , Lay Readers in this distinctly non-QC game. Had to sneak in to see what grange meant when the aha moment for farmhouse came as mouse for a ‘timid person’ is bit of a stretch.
After a pause for birthday and anniversary celebrations, I picked up today’s and raced through it! 8 minutes. Great fun along the way. At prep school we all used dubbin for our sports boots (vaguely unpleasant smell) and Shakespeare uses dub, meaning call, in several plays including Merry Wives. KNAVE for Jack was quick and easy. My loi was FARMHOUSE and it had to be, though I failed to separate Grange and Hill to start with….duh. Grange Farm Shop is near us in Suffolk. 16d was a satisfying solve and a new technique learned. Thanks Dangle and thanks to our blogger!
So many entertaining surfaces today – and a couple more local links too. I can hear the M1 as I type, as the wind is coming from that direction, and in a different nearby village from yesterday’s, there is a very charming old house called Pestilence Cottage, so named because an escapee from the plague in London stayed there. He was so grateful for his good health that he made several endowments to the local community. I always feel that the cottage should have a more positive name!
Anyway, enough history.
A lot of churchy stuff in the first few clues. I shoved EVE in at 3d, even though I was not happy with it. So it was my LOI and wrong too! I just couldn’t quite see what was going on there, and yet it wasn’t hard 😅 I don’t get on very well with hiddens.
I really liked DETERMINE, RUT, PESTILENCE, ARREST and REPLENISH. LAKE DISTRICT was easy, but most amusing.
10:35 with one wrong FOI Knave COD Mirage DNF
Thanks to both Dangle and Templar for the fun
. . . how about ‘Dun Fleain’ 🙂
🤣🤣🤣 That took me a moment!
😄
15:53 WOE, having persuaded myself somehow that EVE was an ok answer to a not-great clue. (I think I was influenced by a universally condemned clue in one of the back catalog puzzles I did last night.) Fun puzzle but I NHO DUBBIN and could not parse MIRAGE so took a few minutes to decide to put them in. Oh, M1 motorway, of course, but clearly I haven’t yet internalized this information. Great clue then.
Loved BAPTISM and REPLENISH but I join the applause for ARREST.
Thanks to Dangle, top blogging, Templar.
A good challenging quickie from Dangle. I decided the town at 1a had to be Ayr, so I had already separated it into -AY R—— but went for D initially, which didn’t help with 1d. However, DUBBIN and ERE quickly suggested ‘leaders’, so that got revised. Not sure anything else really held me up after that. LOI URBAN, when the crossers gave me the slightly unusual headwear.
I found this one tough. Finished in 20:55, with DUBBIN eventually dredged up from the “words my kids have never seen” treasury. Missed the homophone indicator for KNAVE, so was trying to come up with an explanation for why K could mean “delivered”. Thanks to Templar for explaining that one.
Thanks to Dangle and Templar.
PS: @Templar:how did you know this was Dangle’s fourth puzzle? Do you keep track yourself, or is there some public resource I don’t know about?
I don’t know how Templar does it but if I put Dangle in the search box for the blog the information is easy to find.
Shh, it’s a highly skilled secret 😉
😂
🤐
Tricky in places and very entertaining. NHO DUBBIN but wordplay was clear enough. Lots of great surfaces, e.g. REPLENISH. Had to biff then parse MIRAGE but failed to parse INERT (very nice wordplay). LOI FARMHOUSE held me up for absolutely ages. Lots to like. Thanks Dangle and Templar.