Tricky Friday from Breadman today. Some alphabet soup and a test of African geography (and other GK) give us some tricky words. We are an F and a W short of a pangram, but have a Breadman trademark symmetrical placing of the uncommon letters J, Q, X and Z, this time in the middle of the puzzle. Despite the unusual vocabulary, I was all but finished in 6 minutes but got stuck on 18A having never seen that spelling. Thank-you Breadman. How did you all get on? I’m not expecting any PBs today!
Fortnightly Weekend Quick Cryptic. This time it is my turn to provide the extra weekend entertainment. You can find the crossword here. If you are interested in trying our previous offerings you can find an index to all 136 here.
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, {deletions} and [] other indicators.
| Across | |
| 1 | Peak amount of weight besetting one chap with tankard maybe (11) |
| KILIMANJARO – I (one) MAN (chap) JAR, (tankard perhaps) all in KILO (amount of weight). One for experts at IKEA furniture assembly. | |
| 8 | One who condemns beer drunk around our country run (7) |
| REBUKER – UK (our country) in (beer)* [drunk], R (run). | |
| 9 | Enticement to obtain constant riches (5) |
| LUCRE – C (constant) in LURE (enticement). | |
| 10 | That woman records family’s type of rug (9) |
| SHEEPSKIN – SHE (that woman) EPS (extended Plays; records) KIN (family). | |
| 12 | Some ibuprofen knocked back — after boozing here? (3) |
| PUB – Reverse hidden in iBUProfen. Lovely surface. My COD. | |
| 13 | Companion welcome to join unknown South American revolutionary (6) |
| CHAVEZ – CH (Companion of Honour) AVE (welcome) Z (variable in algebraic equations; unknown). The Venezuelan politician, revolutionary, and military officer. Read about him here. | |
| 15 | German agreed with second agent about gemstone (6) |
| JASPER – JA (yes in German) S (second) REP (agent) reversed, [about], -> PER. | |
| 17 | Seaman’s thick black coat (3) |
| TAR – Double definition, the second a cryptic hint to Tarring and Feathering. | |
| 18 | African pickle engrossing European person (9) |
| SOUDANESE – DANE (European person) in SOUSE (pickle). I’d never seen this spelt with an O before the U. | |
| 20 | Unfit, sleep briefly surrounded by relations (5) |
| INAPT – NAP (sleep briefly) in IT (sexual relations). | |
| 22 | Doctor angered very important person (7) |
| GRANDEE – [Doctor] (angered)*. | |
| 23 | Part of body dance showing more happiness to Spooner (11) |
| GALLBLADDER – Spoonerism of BALL (dance) GLADDER (showing more happiness). | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Oxford college mostly keen to embrace British Library (5) |
| KEBLE – BL (British Library) in KEE{n} [mostly]. | |
| 2 | Student revised Keats and Poe — part of English Literature syllabus? (4,5) |
| LAKE POETS – L (learner; student) (Keats Poe)* [revised]. Another great surface. | |
| 3 | Top cyclist Rick dismissing current in Mexico (6) |
| MERCKX – R{i}CK without the I (current in electrical equations) in MEX (Mexico). Eddy Merckx, the famous Belgian cyclist. | |
| 4 | Love characters regularly seen in Enfield (3) |
| NIL – Alternate letters [regularly seen] in eNfIeLd. | |
| 5 | Strong drink curtailed all detective work (7) |
| ALCOPOP – AL{l} [curtailed] COP (detective) OP (opus; work). Strong in the sense that it has alcohol added to the pop. | |
| 6 | Six deliveries, arranged under bed, taxed excessively (12) |
| OVERBURDENED – OVER (six deliveries) [arranged] (under bed)*. Neat wordplay but as to what the surface reading means, I have no idea! | |
| 7 | Iron withering piece of paper? (5,7) |
| PRESS CUTTING – PRESS (iron) CUTTING (withering). | |
| 11 | Perhaps Titchmarsh in unusually sandy country once (9) |
| NYASALAND – ALAN (perhaps Titchmarsh, the avuncular TV gardener) in [unusually] (sandy)*. Nyasaland became Malawi in 1964. I suspect a lot of our overseas solvers will have never heard of the gardener. | |
| 14 | Heard inheritor, Irishman, returning long-distance communication (7) |
| AIRMAIL – AIR sounds like HEIR (inheritor), LIAM (Irishman) [returning] -> MAIL. | |
| 16 | Question and answer primarily giving good advice for extinct creature (6) |
| QUAGGA – QU (question) A (answer) and initial letters [primarily] of Giving Good Advice. Quagga is an extinct sub-species of zebra. | |
| 19 | Duck and fish in centre of mere (5) |
| EIDER – IDE (fish) in [centre of] {m}ER{e}. | |
| 21 | Group of workers book unwieldy boat (3) |
| TUB – TU (Trade Union; group of workers) B (book). | |
My thanks to Johninterred and I suppose to Breadman.
I don’t do these puzzles as a substitute for pub quizzes where arcane knowledge is important. I looked at 3d for a while and decided correctly that the answer was a cyclist and that the wordplay was too obscure to get me to an answer in a subject in which I have ZERO interest. So I left it blank. DNF obv, and did not care either. I did the rest though. I didn’t like the archaic spelling of 18a Soudanese either, had to look it up to check, and resent the absence of an indicator that it is archaic (according to Wiktionary). For 11d Nyasaland, we ARE told that the name is old, so OK but having to know Titchmarsh is a burden. 13a Senor Chavez was a bit tricky too with no indication if it ended in Z or X, but at least he is widely known by anyone who reads the Times and the wordplay was a bit helpful.
16d Quagga dimly remembered; it has come up before and the wordplay was helpful.
Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells! 😉
Oh dear.
No fun.
Very hard. Relief rather than delight when able to enter a word.
A lot of NHOs. A lot of ‘must be, no idea why’ moments.
A week of highs and lows.
That said, once again, blog and commentary very educational. And a little learning was had, which in this instance is helpful, rather than dangerous.
Might try last Monday’s with a grandchild over the weekend.
Happy weekend, everyone.
Thank you Breadman and John I ( JI – I look forward to your doubtless delightful crossword).
i feel pretty bruised by my general knowledge deficits here — couldn’t make it to NYASALAND, MERCX, SOUDANESE or QUAGGA, despite successfully guessing LAKE POETS, KEBLE and CHAVEZ. still don’t understand the link between “over” and “six deliveries” but i assumed, as i often to with the QC, it was something to do with cricket. thanks for the great blog and comment section!
Correct assumption: an “over” in cricket is a series of six successive balls delivered (=bowled) by the same bowler.
It’s funny how one man’s meat is another man’s poison: NYASALAND, MERCX, QUAGGA, LAKE POETS and KEBLE all went in straight away, but I needed all the checkers for CHAVEZ, which I then back-parsed, and as for SOUDANESE, I got it eventually and could see how it parsed but, I don’t care if it’s in Chambers, spell “Sudanese” like that at school or university and it will be marked as an error. I can only think that the setter painted himself into a corner with checkers and that this was an act of desperation. “NOUL POINTS” as they don’t say in Eurovision.
Mr P nudged me over the line, but under Round Britain Quiz rules a few points would have docked for the help I needed to get to souse for pickle. Not being a speedster I enjoyed this even though it was hard. The clueing was generally strong and fair, with only Liam being a bit weak for me. I am perplexed that there seems so much more angst about clues in this one, whereas the equally obscure in other puzzles (e.g. 1 down on Weds this week) seem to be far less controversial.
FOI Pub (🥂)
LOI Lake Poets
COD Rebuker
Thanks Breadman and John
22:29 here, and had to check that SOUDANESE was a real word before submitting. My other big holdup was self-inflicted: a typo of IRRMAIL meant CHAVEZ wouldn’t come. I had heard of Eddy Merckx, and QUAGGA is a word that I know of without knowing the meaning of, if you see what I mean.
Thanks to Breadman and John.
Needed help to get this finished, certainly the hardest of the week. Enjoyed the comments above, always good to read, thanks.
Thoroughly enjoyable. Dredged up Nayasaland from stamp collecting. I had a whole page in the album dedicated to ‘Rhodesia and Nyasaland’, a memory that has lain dormant in my brain for 50 years just waiting for today.
LOI Soudanese which I only got from an alphabet trawl that turned up souse.
Never parsed Chavez so thanks to John for the explanation.
Crikey. Well, the time on the clock is 1:22:51, which is a gross exaggeration because I was dealing with a boiler engineer for part of it.
As for the puzzle, I enjoyed it more once I resigned myself to a DNF and slowed down, and then somehow managed to finish it despite not knowing the cyclist, the poets or either of the countries. I say “somehow”; a more honest account would admit that I allowed myself a couple of presses of the “check” button. For a puzzle like this I don’t feel bad about it.
Thank you for the blog!
Technical DNF after 75 mins – I got a pink square in 18 ac – then the answer came to me. I should have got it- it was S*UDANESE and as it was French colony the missing letter had to be O. However I was certain W was the only missing letter from a pangram so in W went.
Some were write-ins but most weren’t.
No problems with NYASALAND as I collected stamps as a child. I have tried to climb Kilimanjaro twice so that was OK ( defeated by altitude sickness both times despite being super fit at the time).
NHO QUAGGA nor MERCKX but the wordplay was clear so I crossed my fingers.
Agree that was barely a QC, but the clueing was very tight and I was on the right wavelength if I took it slowly.
I enjoyed it. COD for me was PRESS CUTTING.
Thanks Breadman and John.
I started solving this at The George today, as I had five minutes before lunch, and thought that seems tough for a QC.
Finished at home after lunch with LOI SOUDANESE having worked out the Souse part and thinking there must be an alternative spelling.
And again I had the GK.
A challenge for the experienced solver I think.
David
47 minutes, with at least half spent on SOUDANESE. Saw SUDANESE immediately but took forever to get to the alternative spelling, which I’d never heard of.
Setting puzzles like this will just put people off cryptic crosswords. What is the point of that?
19/30 on 15 x 15.
I got them all except Merckx. Did not know the abbreviation for Mexico and it was a very unlikely-looking answer. If only I had spotted the pattern from the middle squares!
Still… the Weekend QC is called “Chocomania”. Any crossword called that has got to be good. So I am happy.
I hope you enjoy the WQC. It is very chocolatey.
10.36
SOUDANESE was a desperate punt at the end but luckily knew all the other GK. Whilst solving the word “really?” Popped into my head on more than one occasion. Having said that the w/p hands MERCKX and QUAGGA to you clear as crystal. I get there is a reluctance to put in words that look wrong but surely it is permissible for clues now and then to be solvable (absent the GK) only from the w/p. Arguably SOUDANESE was different because the w/p was very far from unambiguous.
So many NHOs and I ultimately fail with a misspelt KILAMANJARO.
Seemed out of kilter with other QCs but think it’s a good exercise in learning to rely on the wordplay. For anyone using these as a stepping stone it’s a skill you are going to need to learn.
Enjoyed QUAGGO
Thanks blogger and setter
This was a CBA for me. I was on high alert after getting Rebuker and then very few on the first pass. Inapt is is just silly, a word isn’t a word if no one would ever say it out loud. I don’t mind hard, because I don’t mind not finishing, but I do hate pointless obscurity and convolution, particularly when there is no humour evident.
Very later to solve and comment today. I seem to be in the minority in having enjoyed this one, even though I did end up revealing the U in LOI SOUDANESE 😆 I found it pretty tough throughout but just trusted the wordplay for the ones I didn’t know – very satisfying. Never understand the hue and cry when people come across new words. COD GALLBLADDER (ho ho). Many thanks John and Breadman.
Very very late to the party but happy to see so many new commenters have been stimulated to join the conversation today! I thought I was just being stupid because I couldn’t really focus on this very well with the other things going on in my life, then looked at the Quitch and felt better. I took 35 minutes but a good 10 of them were thrown away on CHAVEZ because somehow my LAKE POETS had turned into LAKE PORTS and I didn’t notice for a long time. But alas, KILaMANJARO.
Some great clues, some weird clues, and I couldn’t believe MERCKX, but now I know. Thanks Breadman and John.
Dnf…
Currently on holiday and thought I’d knock this one off quickly before everyone else got up. 😂
Definitely the hardest for quite a while. As a cyclist I did know Eddie Merckx – although it’s fair to say it’s a bit niche. Worth noting that both his and Cavendish’s records are in the sights of Pogacar. However, Chavez, Quagga, Lake Poets and Nyasaland were all new to me.
FOI – 1ac “Kilimanjaro”
LOI – Dnf
COD – 3dn “Merckx” – just for the audacity of putting it in.
Thanks as usual!
I’ve been doing the QC since the first one. I’m a paper solver and don’t worry about the time it takes. This is the only puzzle in all that time that I eventually lost the will to persevere with.
Thank you blogger.
An absolute mess 💯