Solving time: 7:50
Something between gentle and medium-paced, I felt. There were a few answers which required some extra consideration e.g. not getting the 1a anagram off the bat meant building from checkers; not initially equating FOLK with family also slowed me down a little.
I enjoyed the misdirection at 23a, and the mildly cryptic 14d, and the resulting searches into the origins of 11a, 20a and 15d produced a few interesting nuggets. On the whole, the usual measure of quality from Joker, fitting the QC remit to a T.
How did you find it?
Definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions and substitutions are in curly brackets} and [directions in square ones].
| Across | |
| 1 | Inoculant worked non-stop (9) |
| CONTINUAL – Anagram [worked] of INOCULANT | |
| 6 | Image most choose (3) |
| PIC – Most of PIC{k} (choose) | |
| 8 | Tea’s temperature affected flavour (5) |
| TASTE – Anagram [affected] of TEA‘S plus T (temperature) | |
| 9 | Introduce power to remove exhaust (7) |
| DEPLETE – Insert [Introduce] P (power) into DELETE (remove) | |
| 10 | Traditional belief family role is changing (8) |
| FOLKLORE – FOLK (family) then anagram [is changing] of ROLE | |
| 11 | Amphibian beginning to wriggle in trap (4) |
| NEWT – First letter [beginning to] of W{riggle} in NET (trap)
NEWT is considered to be a fifteenth century misdivision of ‘an ewte‘ (i.e. ‘a newte‘), a variation of the Middle English evete, from which the modern EFT also derives. |
|
| 13 | Religious education’s pressing being born again (9) |
| RESURGENT – RE‘S (Religious education’s abbreviated) URGENT (pressing) | |
| 16 | Insolence about male’s lameness (4) |
| LIMP – LIP (Insolence) about M (male) | |
| 17 | Throw one’s weight behind Scottish barrister (8) |
| ADVOCATE – Double definition | |
| 20 | US breakfast loaf endlessly cooked by nan (7) |
| GRANOLA – Anagram [cooked] of LOA{f} without its last letter [endlessly] by GRAN (nan)
GRANOLA is a proprietary name for the similarly spelt GRANULA, which was invented in 1863 by Dr James Caleb Jackson in Dansville, New York, and sold by his Our Home Granula Company. The W.K. Kellogg version was also initially known as Granula, but the name was changed to GRANOLA and legally registered in 1886 to avoid legal problems with Jackson. |
|
| 21 | Shower reportedly sit on the throne (5) |
| REIGN – Homophone [reportedly] of RAIN (Shower) | |
| 22 | Fanatic beheaded king once (3) |
| NUT – CNUT, son of the brilliantly-named Sweyn Forkbeard, was King of England from 1016-1035. |
|
| 23 | Conductor’s chosen baton perhaps used with energy (9) |
| ELECTRODE – ELECT (chosen) ROD (baton perhaps) used with E (energy)
Oh, that sort of conductor… |
|
| Down | |
| 1 | Stop talking to leader of union supporting Conservative grandee (3,3) |
| CUT OFF – First letter [leader] of U{nion} supporting C (Conservative) then TOFF (grandee)
‘supporting’ is apposite as this is a down clue, and the C is ‘supported’ by (i.e. is sitting on top of) the U |
|
| 2 | Nosy neighbours always saw a lot at first (5) |
| NASAL – Initial letters [at first] of neighbours always saw a lot | |
| 3 | Wishful thinker that is accepting Muhammad, say (8) |
| IDEALIST – ID EST (“that is” in Latin) containing [accepting] ALI (Muhammad, say)
‘that is’ here appears in its longer Latin form – ID EST – rather than its more-commonly-seen abbreviation I.E. |
|
| 4 | Aunt regarded university bad for student (13) |
| UNDERGRADUATE – Anagram [bad] of AUNT REGARDED U (university) | |
| 5 | Circuits fail to maintain standard we’re told (4) |
| LAPS – Homophone [we’re told] of LAPSE (fail to maintain standard) | |
| 6 | Gift despatched in advance (7) |
| PRESENT – Something despatched in advance might be PRE–SENT | |
| 7 | Produce echo within wooden box (6) |
| CREATE – E (echo – NATO phonetic alphabet) in CRATE (wooden box) | |
| 12 | Protest about one traitorous US politician (8) |
| DEMOCRAT – DEMO (Protest) C (about i.e. circa) RAT (one traitorous) | |
| 13 | Unrestrained harangue involving a member of parliament (7) |
| RAMPANT – RANT (harangue) containing [involving] A MP (member of parliament) | |
| 14 | Continue to feel tired? This may be about alcohol (6) |
| FLAGON – If you continue to feel tired, you FLAG ON. The mildly cryptic definition indicates that a FLAGON would be ‘about’ alcohol i.e. surround or contain it. | |
| 15 | Can see about spiritualist’s meeting (6) |
| SEANCE – Anagram [about] of CAN SEE
In French, the meaning of SÉANCE is quite general and mundane. One may, for example, speak of “une séance de cinéma” (literally ‘a movie session‘). In English, and recorded by 1845, the word came to be used specifically for a meeting of people who are gathered to receive messages from ghosts or to listen to a spirit medium discourse with or relay messages from spirits. |
|
| 18 | Friend since penning note (5) |
| AMIGO – AGO (since) containing [penning] MI (note in the do-re-mi scale) | |
| 19 | Part of shoe pinched, losing time (4) |
| SOLE – S |
|
It took me a while to get Advocate and Idealist. I thought there was a wordplay for advocate but found out from our helpful blog that it was a double definition.
For Idealist , played with i.e for a long time fruitlessly.
That made this a non-QC by Joker.
This went in very smoothly for a Joker – until I doubted the 14d ‘Flag On’ (flog on would have been ok) although Flagon seemed an eminently suitable answer. Don’t recall a more approachable puzzle from Joker, but very welcome given my jaded state this afternoon!
FOI 1a Continual
LOI 14d Flagon
COD 10a Folklore
I managed all bar 5 or 6 before openreach disconnected me to change my ISP, install fibre and VOIP ( no mobile phone reception in my house).
After an exhausting few hours of connecting hubs, routers, extenders, wireless phones and what not I was too shattered to continue the QC.
What I did do was enjoyable. Harder than past two days but nothing, in hindsight, that was not straightforward.
Thanks joker and Mike.
21:25 for a steady solve, with GRANOLA and AMIGO last in. Thanks for the comprehensive blog.
Stumped at the end by LIMP and FLAGON, though having seen the answers FLAGON is a brilliant bit of word play. Really liked ELECTRODE and SOLE too. Thanks for the blog 😁
Two errors in the SW, and a late solve because I was at the cricket all day. Where the bowling was definitely not “gentle to medium paced”. Phone solve slowed me as well.
CONTINUAL held up SLAP, and TUT )”king once” made FLAGON looked as it must be ending in LIGHT. A,B , F, P,S all fit, and I spent ages guessing which it might be.
16 minutes. Poor.
Another fail – by a single letter – on 15 x 15. Pure agony!