A touch on the trickier side perhaps.
My solve was a bit all over the show, with bits and half-bits solved here and there, courtesy of some excellent misdirection and well-woven anagrams: I really liked ‘serve = minister’ at 19ac, and the PRESCOTT anagram at 1ac (which could be rather tricky if you’re not aware of him). 12d is a thing of beauty, however, with both a satisfying PDM (“Ah, that sense of compromise”) and a cracking surface.
A cryptically-defined tool and a couple of sports references might also vary on people’s obscurometer. I came in at 7:45, a bit slower than average.
Lovely puzzle – many thanks to Wurm!
| Across | |
| 1 | Reshuffle protects old Labour man (8) |
| PRESCOTT – anagram (reshuffle) of PROTECTS. Deputy Prime Minister with New Labour, the press had a bit of a running theme with nicknames for him: Two Jags (what with having two fancy cars), became Two Jabs after a ding-dong with a protester, became Two Shacks, and so on, culminating with “Two Shags and No Jobs” when a cabinet reshuffle decidedly did not protect him (unlike in the clue) after revelations of an affair. | |
| 5 | Birds section in Science Museum (4) |
| EMUS – “section” in sciencE MUSeum | |
| 8 | Stick knife into second fruit (5) |
| SPEAR – S(econd) PEAR (fruit) | |
| 9 | Pluck wingless eagle in Swiss city (7) |
| LUCERNE – a “wingless” |
|
| 11 | Sudden crash! End absurd with Plutarch (11) |
| THUNDERCLAP – anagram (absurd) of END with PLUTARCH | |
| 13 | Arrested outlaw Kelly embracing trouble (6) |
| NAILED – NED (outlaw Kelly) embracing AIL (trouble) | |
| 14 | Arsenal player one trained to shoot (6) |
| GUNNER – double definition, one nickname of Arsenal being (fairly unmysteriously) the “Gunners” | |
| 16 | Sherry transformed emotional lad — no E needed! (11) |
| AMONTILLADO – anagram (transformed) of |
|
| 18 | Cosmonaut Georgia twice runs home (7) |
| GAGARIN – GA (Georgia), twice, R(uns) IN (home) | |
| 19 | Minister to start game at Wimbledon? (5) |
| SERVE – double definition | |
| 20 | Mystical character about to ensnare French one (4) |
| RUNE – RE (about) to ensnare UN (French for one) | |
| 21 | How mince is cooked for noodle dish (4,4) |
| CHOW MEIN – anagram (is cooked) of HOW MINCE | |
| Down | |
| 1 | I can’t answer that question or succeed in exam (4) |
| PASS – double definition | |
| 2 | Elgar concerti excited music producer (8,5) |
| ELECTRIC ORGAN – anagram (excited) of ELGAR CONCERTI | |
| 3 | Engine part in vehicle, awkward brute on hill (11) |
| CARBURETTOR – CAR (vehicle), an anagram ( awkward) of BRUTE, on TOR (hill) | |
| 4 | Poem set around Spanish city (6) |
| TOLEDO – ODE (poem) LOT (set/group)around = reverse | |
| 6 | Film legend in minor role many reviewed (7,6) |
| MARILYN MONROE – anagram (reviewed) of MINOR ROLE MANY | |
| 7 | Rubbish clearances with these defensive players? (8) |
| SWEEPERS – double definition, a sweeper being one of the backs in football (in which a “clearance” is indeed getting the ball away from one’s own goal area). | |
| 10 | Cutting-edge tool of revolutionary design? (8,3) |
| CIRCULAR SAW – cryptic definition, with a neat play on both “cutting edge” and “revolutionary” in the “groundbreaking” sense in the surface reading. | |
| 12 | Stop being annoyed: compromise (8) |
| ENDANGER – END (stop) ANGER (being annoyed). As in: “Anger/being annoyed will only further your opponent’s aims.” And as in: “The agent’s asset was compromised.” | |
| 15 | Embrace line contained in easy task (6) |
| CLINCH – L(ine) contained in CINCH (easy task). CINCH: originally a rope used to secure a saddle or pack to a horse; from that into any sort of firm or secure hold; and later into a sure thing or simple task. | |
| 17 | Plant in river surrounded by marshy land (4) |
| FERN – R(iver) surrounded by FEN (marshy land) | |
I encountered a few difficulties, as I NHO Prescott, the British don’t know how to spell carburetor, I had to guess at sweepers, and I didn’t know the nickname for Arsenal. Such are the perils of being a US solver. OTOH, circular saw and Marilyn Monroe were write-ins, so I got a lot of letters quickly enough, and I saw what Amontillado must be, although I always have trouble spelling it. Getting it right the first time was helpful, but my solve was still poor because of the stragglers that took a while to mop up.
Time: 12:44
Biff City: PRESCOTT, AMONTILLADO (sherry always is) GAGARIN (actually saw the wordplay at the same time; but does anyone know another cosmonaut?), CARBURETTOR (knew the spelling), SWEEPERS (guessed). 5:09
Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space. Unless there’s a separate word for a female cosmonaut.
Well, you’re one up on me; NHO her.
There was also the Soviet dog Laika, the first living creature to orbit the Earth – is there a separate word for a dog cosmonaut?
Probably just an unwilling passenger. There were no plans to bring her back so she died up there. Astronaut and cosmonaut by definition have to be specifically trained in space travel.
I was going to mention Laika also. I remember being in the USSR in 1987 and a popular brand of cigarettes had Laika’s little face on them, she was a Soviet heroine. We called them Dogs in Space…
I remember Laika, it was terrible as a child to imagine her fate.
8:09 today. PRESCOTT definitely tough for non-Brits, but it’s nice to have the odd local reference now and again. I still didn’t get the compromise meaning until coming here; had just trusted the wordplay.
The philosopher of mind Jerry Fodor, closely associated with Noam Chomsky, famously held that carburettors were an innate concept, along with all kinds of other complex and/or modern concepts, as part of his language of thought hypothesis. If I ever understood the argument, I certainly don’t any more.
I felt in no great hurry and ambled through this pleasant puzzle in 9.20, taking time to appreciate some nice clues. CIRCULAR SAW was LOI and PRESCOTT dragged his feet somewhat too. Thanks Wurm and roly.
An hour to get to 19 with three left in the south west. I didn’t twig the alternative definition of compromised. I had the UN but didn’t think of rune as a character. I thought it was an object portending interesting times or disaster. Likewise had NED but not AIL.
I’m thinking the setter is possibly of my age group…. same wavelength…. anyone under forty might struggle with sweeper and carburetor.
Thanks Wurn and Roly
Meet Wurm. Not, I think, in your age group! https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/crossword-blog/2021/mar/01/crossword-blog-meet-the-setter-tees
Thank you, interesting link. Loved the Yes Album, one of my early teenage buys, but completely forgot Wurm…
My Yes album of choice is Fragile.
Couldn’t find his age. Inference is certainly over 70…
11 minutes. I enjoyed the CHOW MEIN clue.
For 10 years I had the dubious pleasure of working under Mr PRESCOTT when he was Deputy Prime Minister but in all that time he never once showed his face.
I’ve been on a good run of good typing but today THUNDERCalP gave me two pink squares and so ended a typo free streak of an incredible 25 days. It also mucked up MARILYN MONROE so that’s two errors in my 16.53 to place me second last on the leaderboard. Gambled a bit on AMONTILLADO having NHO but if Kevin says that’s what sherry always is I shall try to retain the information. Had to go through TOLEDO to get to LUCERNE and needed PRESCOTT to get to TOLEDO, so lots of work going on today. Enjoyed CIRCULAR SAW even if I did take a finger off with one many years ago. Major brain freeze on Ned Kelly, Josey Wales would not leave the front of my brain.
Poe has a story, “The Cask of Amontllado”, which is where I first came across the stuff, though I didn’t know it was sherry; for that matter, I was too young to know what sherry was.
It sounds as though you are not a fan of Sherry, Kevin. I think it is one of Spain’s great wine pleasures (and bargains at the moment).
In addition, manzanilla, fino, amontillado, oloroso, palo cortado, cream and Pedro Ximénez should all provide great opportunities for Crossword setters as well as Sherry aficionados like me.
Whose finger?
Ha! That’s the broad appeal of crosswords – am I an absent minded machinist or a ruthless gangland enforcer?
🙂
🤣
😝 Himself tried that caper (on his own fingers). Brilliantly stuck back together to avoid mangling his own surgical career.
First run through of this produced several grimaces at the long anagrams but not many answers until MARILYN MONROE appeared to lighten my day, and thereafter I kept going and never quite ran into the roadblocks I feared for a satisfying 10:03 solve. I did think at the time that PRESCOTT was quite niche GK, especially for non-British solvers, and that SWEEPERS rather dates Wurm (and me – it was a write-in).
I suppose “mystical character” is fair enough for RUNE; they were in fact a standard alphabet and could be used for anything from incantations and fortune-telling to more mundane graffiti along the lines of “Haermund Hardaxe carved these runes” and “Ingigerth is the most beautiful of women” – both genuine runic inscriptions found in Orkney. It seems the urge to leave one’s mark far predates today’s juvenile spray-painters.
Many thanks Roly for the blog
Haermund Hardaxe sounds like the kind of SWEEPER the GUNNERS should be signing.
First cousin to Chopper Harris, of Chelsea fame in the 1960s and 1970s.
Love those Orkney inscriptions, must learn more. I don’t know about football but the term sweeper has entered limited-over cricket commentary in more recent decades, describing an outfielder who’s there to scoot around the boundary and prevent 4s. So maybe that’s what our setter had in mind…
Indeed. I got SWEEPER from cricket. Didn’t think twice.
Second cousin to Norman “bites your legs” Hunter of Leeds United iirc….
Later examples of aggressive tacklers being Roy Keen and Patrick Vieira. John Terry possibly?
A very clever puzzle where I kept thinking ‘I don’t have the GK for that’ and then realising that actually I did e.g. ELECTRIC ORGAN, CIRCULAR SAW and PRESCOTT (where I thought the answer was going to be an archaic version of serf/peasant etc).
Started with EMUS and finished with a tentative AMONTILLADO, which however many times I see it in crosswords I never remember, in 9.18.
Thanks to Rolytoly and Wurm
09:46 so a run of sub tens this week; must be something in the water. DNK erne and held up by thinking that the eagle was the wingless one until pdm luc….
No problem with Prescott, Gunners, Sweeper, Amontillado or Marilyn. Almost put jailed (half-parsed ail) but Jed Kelly sounds more boy band than bandit.
Ta R&W
CARBURETTOR with a single T is actually suggested by auto fill on here, but I would maintain that it should be pronounced differently were that the case. Otherwise I encountered little difficulty with this puzzle.
FOI EMUS
LOI PRESCOTT
COD CIRCULAR SAW
TIME 4:00
Too many interruptions for me to gain momentum and gain much pleasure. I found it a bit of a biff-fest after I had entered a few crossers; I biffed and then parsed rather than deducing many of the answers. I avoided the SCC but not by much.
‘Carburettor’ brought back memories of buying repair/rebuild kits rather than replacing whole units on my early (old) cars when funds were tight. The carburettor has been replaced by fuel injection on most internal combustion engines for many decades.
Some good clues but I have only managed one decent time for a Wurm puzzle in his last half dozen – my brain seems to be wired differently to his.
Thanks to Roly for an excellent blog and Wurm for a bit of a challenge.
Certainly the toughest of the week by some distance, and I think I was on form to get anywhere near my target. I eventually finished a few seconds over at 10.03, but my LOI PRESCOTT held me up for the best part of a minute, even though he was known to me of course. I was also held up for a while trying to unpick the cryptic clueing for CARBURETTOR, as my first thought was that ‘brute on hill’ was the anagrist.
Enjoyable puzzle, with a couple of clues probably easier for UK solvers. Several very clever surfaces. COD ENDANGER. Thanks Roly and Wurm.
Biffed a few to finish in about 20 minutes. LOI CINCH. Not a smooth solve at all.
7:07
Enjoyable fare without too many hiccups. PRESCOTT had me baffled until the P went in; LUCERNE visited recently by my son, so was fresh in mind; surprisingly needed all of the checkers to think of MARILYN. LOI SWEEPERS. I liked TOLEDO.
Thanks Roly and Wurm
DNF. Gave up after 15 minutes with 2 clues answered. Just too hard. Perhaps doable for most of these geniuses out there. But this was supposed to be a “Quick Cryptic”.
Far too hard for that. .
It will get better. A year ago I was getting between two and six. I’m still yet to finish but I’m now averaging 15/16 but it does take me an hour.
In a similar boat. I’m normally 2 or 3 short on most days, and I doubt I will ever be able to fathom something like 12d. All the best with it.
11 minutes. Took far too long to get the ‘Spanish city’ and to see the correct part of speech for ‘being annoyed’ as roly has explained so well. Fortunately I remembered PRESCOTT and even though my first attempt at spelling his name was incorrect, Yuri GAGARIN.
CIRCULAR SAW was a very good cryptic def.
Thanks to Wurm and roly
I had the T and thought it must be Toledo, but then panicked when I couldn’t immediately see the parsing.
Well … finished but NHO SWEEPERS so guessed S l EEPERS which would seem to almost fit the bill but won’t press that one. NHO GUNNERS (more football!!!!!) but Mrs M assures me it’s GK – as also GAGARIN which also (more shamefully, perhaps) NHO.
Then it had to be LUCERNE but NHO ERNE and didn’t see wingless pluck. And it had to be TOLEDO but the parsing far too difficult. So I didn’t really deserve to score this one anyway, did I?! Thank you, Roly.
11:37
LOI ENDANGER, as could not quite parse it. That usage is pretty obscure.
The I and Y of MARILYN are both unchecked, so MARYLIN was possible.
COD GAGARIN
Something may endanger / compromise the success of a mission or project. Is that obscure?
I spent ages sweating over Marilyn/Marylin. Is there a mnemonic?
Enjoyable puzzle. Weirdly, I was OK today and finished all correct in a steady but hop-about solve. LOsI ENDANGER (could not parse Compromise until I saw the blog), and RUNE. Not that familiar with football, but fortunately SLEEPERS rang a faint bell. Ditto GUNNER.
Had to think about spelling of AMONTILLADO and CARBURETTOR.
For once, all the anagrams fell into place.
Liked GAGARIN, SERVE and MARILYN, of course.
Thanks vm, Roly.
PASS was my FOI, then the rest of the top row downs came fairly easily to reveal PRESCOTT. I seemed to get bogged down after that and had to make several sweeps before ending up with ENDANGER. 8:36. Thanks Wurm and Roly.
18:07 for the solve. Just generally slow throughout. Almost every clue had to be unpicked – almost nothing went straight in without a tussle. Arsenal, of course, called the Gunners because they first played at Woolwich Arsenal which was an artillery depot. Joining Jackkt in knowing Valentina Tereshkova but not necessarily how to spell her name – those woke Soviets with their DEI policies sending women into space back in 1963. ENDANGER an old chustnut but with a new twist on the clue. Didn’t much enjoy the puzzle on first readthrough but it came together and I had an appreciation for it by the end.
Thanks to Rolytoly and Wurm
I had three goes at spelling Maralyn/Marilyn/ Marylin. Oh dear. Yes, the second one was right but it somehow didn’t look it. So I went with the third and its two pink squares. There were some hard ones in this QC; MARILYN MONROE wasn’t one of them. Anyway, thanks Wurm and rolytoly
Delighted to see I’m not the only one who can’t spell Marilyn, I had exactly the same mistake.
Exactly 9 minutes.
Only slight delay was trying to fit AGL into Basel to make a word meaning pluck. Luckily the checkers made LUCERNE obvious.
I tend to prefer fino to AMONTILLADO, but no problems spelling the latter.
Thanks Roly and Wurm
I knew all the GK required for this and finished in 9 minutes. And we were in Lucerne in June -very pretty.
LOI was CLINCH.
Enjoyable.
COD to ENDANGER.
David
22 mins.
To my surprise I found that the football and film clues were write ins.
I tried hard to make a fruit out of 8 across until checkers led to pdm. I too tried to make ‘agl’ into a word meaning pluck for in 9 across. Was pleased to remember ERNE.
AMONTILLADO caused spelling difficulties but I got there.
All very satisfying.
Thanks Wurm and rolytoly
Removed previous comment as it was erroneously added as a reply.
DNF
A great puzzle, nothing too obscure but plenty to think about. Failed to parse LUCERNE, NHO the eagle, and didn’t see how ENDANGER meant compromise. Thanks to the blog for the clarification.
Took about 24 minutes but two DPSs as I transposed the Y and I in MARILYN.
15.36 Well out of SCC however can’t say really much joy for us – PRESCOTT, AMONTILLADO, GUNNER, SWEEPERS, GAGARIN — got there in the end however not without much work. The slight greyness was offset by the very educational blog and commentary.
Favourite of the week remains fun Monday. We wait to see what tomorrow brings.
Thank you all!
Well I am British and PRESCOTT eluded me. From the checkers I figured it was an anagram of protects (eventually, as it was my last clue to be solved). I was thinking more along the lines of a labour man doing unskilled manual work! DNF Thanks rolytoly.