We haven’t had many puzzles from Juji, who appears in the “gentle/medium” bracket of the setters’ difficulty league. I found this one a stiffish test, though, and it pushed me well over average at 12:35. A couple of cracking hiddens, quite a few “remove the [first/last] [central] letters” devices, and some ingenious definitions made this a thoroughly enjoyable work-out; hope you enjoyed it too.
Definitions underlined in bold.
| Across | |
| 1 | Not very great shopping centre is in outskirts of Slough (8) |
| SMALLISH – MALL [shopping centre] + IS [is] inside [in] SH [outskirts of Slough]. I didn’t find that easy at all, thinking that “shopping centre” was going to be PP or OPPI, and needed checkers. | |
| 5 | Develop good argument (4) |
| GROW – G [good] + ROW [argument]. | |
| 8 | Run no further, regularly missing path (5) |
| ROUTE – R [run] + every other letter [regularly missing] of “no further”. | |
| 9 | Tight-fitting garment was first donned by old sailor (7) |
| LEOTARD – LED [was first] going outside [donned by] O [old] TAR [sailor]. Easier to solve than parse! | |
| 11 | Finally restore the ancient organ (3) |
| EYE – E [finally restore] + YE [the ancient, i.e. an outdated form of “the”]. | |
| 12 | So entertained by act here for evening (9) |
| THEREFORE – this is the first of two very good hiddens, inside [entertained by] “act here for evening”. Bravo! | |
| 13 | Cheers monarch is receiving (6) |
| TAKING – TA [cheers] + KING [monarch]. Not the most obvious of synonyms but well supported by the usual sources – Collins e.g. gives for “take” the following: “to receive or accept into a relationship with oneself”; “to receive or obtain by regular payment”; “to receive or react to in a specified way”; “to receive into the body” and others. | |
| 15 | Had success in test — that’s given (6) |
| PASSED – double definition. I suppose something that’s “passed” is “given”. | |
| 18 | Noted date suspect set off (9) |
| DETONATED – anagram [suspect] of “noted date”. | |
| 19 | Strike old boy back with power (3) |
| BOP – “old boy” is OB, reverse it [back] and add P for “power”. | |
| 20 | I’m surprised, overwhelmed by expenditure for presenting duo (2-5) |
| CO-HOSTS – OH [I’m surprised] inside [overwhelmed by] COSTS [expenditure]. There are lots of little phrases for “I’m surprised” (my, gosh, gee, coo, wow, OMG etc) and I couldn’t conjure up “costs” either, so I waited for checkers. | |
| 21 | One dodging certain fare, say, aboard transport (5) |
| VEGAN -EG [say] inside [aboard] VAN [transport]. Very good definition, COD from me! But no cod for the vegan, natch. | |
| 22 | Go astray by end of corporate function (4) |
| SINE – SIN [go astray] + E [end of corporate]. “A function that in a circle centred at the origin of a Cartesian coordinate system is the ratio of the ordinate of a point on the circumference to the radius of the circle”. In case you’d forgotten. I just used to press the button on my calculator. | |
| 23 | Cook reposes with second coffee (8) |
| ESPRESSO – anagram [cook] of “reposes” + S [second]. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Snake enters dilapidated housing quietly (7) |
| SERPENT – anagram [dilapidated] of “enters” containing [housing] P [quietly, musical notation]. | |
| 2 | Delight American showed in games boundlessly (5) |
| AMUSE – American is A, obviously, following our debate last week. Except today it isn’t – it’s US, going inside [showed in] AME [games boundlessly, i.e. “games” without its first and last letters]. | |
| 3 | Officers fib, you said, before number of soldiers (11) |
| LIEUTENANTS – LIE [fib] + U [you said] in front of [before] TEN ANTS [number of soldiers]. Excellent. | |
| 4 | I must replace area of tray made of metal (6) |
| SILVER – my LOI. I could see that we were supposed to substitute an I for an A [I must replace area] in a word meaning “tray” but I couldn’t think of “salver” until I had the checkers. | |
| 6 | Concerned about a child’s motives (7) |
| REASONS – RE [about] + A [a] + SONS [child’s, silent apostrophe]. | |
| 7 | Unite opposing sides in graduate club (5) |
| WEDGE – WED [unite] + GE [opposing sides in graduate]. “Golf: a club with a face angle of more than 50°, used for bunker shots (sand wedge) or pitch shots (pitching wedge)”. This gave me no end of trouble because I had the definition at the wrong end and was working on the basis of some combination of bridge opponents/the usual abbreviations for “graduate”/C for club. An impressive forest of the wrong trees to bark up. | |
| 10 | Six deliveries a vendor arranged repeatedly (4,3,4) |
| OVER AND OVER – OVER [six deliveries, cricket] + an anagram [arranged] of “a vendor”. | |
| 14 | Equipment that man installed in empty common room (7) |
| KITCHEN – KIT [equipment] + HE [that man] going inside [installed in] CN [empty common, i.e. C |
|
| 16 | Cursorily read old papers in retirement, consuming some beer (3,4) |
| DIP INTO – “old” is O; “papers” is ID (worth remembering that one, because it comes up quite a bit). Reverse those elements [in retirement] and you have DIO. Then insert [consuming] PINT [some beer]. | |
| 17 | Equilibrium not entirely lost as I swerved (6) |
| STASIS – our second excellent hidden, inside “lost as I swerved”. I was fooled into thinking that this was an anagram [swerved] of “los” [not entirely lost] and “as I”. Done like a kipper! | |
| 18 | Stink after gutting fish all around harbourside (5) |
| DOCKS – talking of kippers … SK = “stink after gutting”, i.e. S |
|
| 19 | Upset, cry about conclusions of you being fake (5) |
| BOGUS – another reversal clue, indicated by “upset” (this being down clue). SOB [cry] goes around [about] U and G [conclusions of you being], all reversed. | |
Another great puzzle with enough stretching clues to give a sense of achievement on finishing. Lovely surfaces all over the place but COD to DOCKS.
In future I’m going to start all my responses with ‘missed the hidden’ as that was the case once again. With THEREFORE this time.
Thanks Juji and Templar.
A bit slow now and then, but finished all correct. Wild guesses turned out OK fortunately. Slow because I had to think about the parsing. CNP e.g. DOCKS, WEDGE, BOGUS.
Liked many inc VEGAN, CO-HOSTS, SILVER, TAKING, THEREFORE.
FOI SMALLISH.
Thanks vm, Templar.
This felt like a 15×15 in many places and it took me 27 minutes with much of that taken on LOI THEREFORE; I was trying an anagram around SO to make Evening. Very clever clue and very well hidden.
Also held up by SILVER and DOCKS.
Lots of excellent clues and and COD perhaps to VEGAN.
David
33:57
A very slow effort today, not helped by failing to spot the hiddens. Didn’t parse DOCKS, LOI THEREFORE,
I spotted the hidden Stasis quickly but I wasn’t as quick for Therefore because I was mis-directed into thinking “entertained by” to be a containment indicator. Oh well …
Also, working out Silver took a while and I got into a tangle with the parsing of docks. This QC was only a bit better than Beck’s yesterday.
Thanks all.
I’m not doing so well this week. Six and then stalled. Even after revealing each answer I could only work out the parsing for about a quarter of them.
Not sure docks are harbourside . But there you go.
I never knew that ‘ye’ meant ‘the’ as well as ‘you’.
Pubs such as Ye Olde Leatherne Bottle in Lewknor spring to mind
Phonetically it was actually different – it came from the letter ‘thorn’ (Þ), which is still pronounced ‘th’, but at the point movable type came along looked close enough to the letter y that that just got used instead (because, fun fact, early typesetting equipment was imported from mainland Europe, where they didn’t have the letter). The only language to still use it is Icelandic, which has 32 letters in total (despite lacking a C, Q, W and Z).
Didn’t think it was very quickish. Got smallish straight off and thought that bode well but failed to see about half the clues. And proved wrong that I’d never need my cosine and sines again although I’ve not missed them for 56 years!
15 mins
Thanks for the blog
My brain was not on top form today. We were very slow with this, less than half a minute away from knocking on the door of the SCC. The CO-HOSTS / DOCKS pairing was our main nemesis but THEREFORE was also very slow in coming because we missed the hidden. Great clue! With one or two others in not liking the “that’s given” part of PASSED but a minor quibble with what was otherwise a fine challenge. Thanks, Templar and Juji.
For me this was a really hard one, needing lots of aids and with several unparsed even when grid was complete. Not on Juji’s wavelength at all.
Defeated on multiple fronts here, annoyingly – a hefty number I biffed but couldn’t work out the parsings for, and couldn’t get LEOTARD or DIP INTO at all. Bit of a shame, as I got the first two straight away and thought “ah, this’ll be a good one!”, but oh well. Thanks Templar and Juji.
18:16 here. Lovely puzzle. COD to the fare-dodging VEGAN.
Thanks to Juji and Templar.
Took me a bit longer than my average at 17:44, but I thought it was beautifully put together.
Well done to Juji, and thank you to Templar for the blog!
Lovely puzzle that probably took me longer than usual. Failed to parse LOI STASIS properly and needed blog to explain DOCKS. Several biffed then parsed (LEOTARD, SILVER, ROUTE, ESPRESSO, LIEUTENANTS). COD very definitely VEGAN (fantastic surface). Many thanks Templar and Juji.
I’m having tough times these days. This lovely puzzle took 19:14 to finish, with the clever hidden THEREFORE holding me up for a long time at the end. I was slow on CO-HOSTS too, and Templar pretty much describes my struggles with WEDGE.
Lots of pleasing surfaces, too many to mention all, but especially the dreary mall and the leisurely cook.
Thanks to Juji and Templar, many thanks for the chatty blog.
14:45 WEDGE and AMUSE were hardest for me to parse.
Not suitable as a QC – nice warm up for expert solvers – once again !
Don’t give up – I spent a long time being where you are.
I nearly quit with this one (as I have done with many), but surprised myself when I actually got to the solve.
It’s a slow process, and if all the QC’s were straightforward we’d never improve.
Stick with it. I totally empathise with your frustration, but I love it when I surprise myself with how much I’ve progressed (even if that’s rarer than I would like).
Also, these blogs have helped me immensely.
2 hours on 15 x 15 and still 4 clues incomplete.
I must be mad to keep on doing this when I make so little progress.
Very late but just had to say how enjoyable this was – ingenious and clever.