A proper Friday Quick Cryptic from Teazel today which has a smattering of trickier clues among the easier ones. It took me an average time for me of 5:30, but it felt harder. My favourite was the car with the adjustable seat for the neat surface. Thank-you Teazel. How did you all get on?
Fortnightly Weekend Quick Cryptic. This time it is my turn to provide the extra weekend entertainment. You can find the crossword entitled “For the Benefit of All” here. Can you identify the theme and find the thematic references? If you are interested in trying our previous offerings you can find an index to all 142 here.
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, {deletions} and [] other indicators.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Not very well, following one pattern (5,1,7) |
| AFTER A FASHION – AFTER (following) A (one) FASHION (pattern). I needed checkers to see this. | |
| 8 | Step across referee: the first to go in the book? (7) |
| PREFACE – PACE (step) outside REF (referee). | |
| 9 | Not on deck, shout half-heartedly (5) |
| BELOW – BE{l}LOW (shout) with just one of the middle “l”s [half-heartedly]. | |
| 10 | Bowl in hamper, hate it to be broken (12) |
| AMPHITHEATRE – (hamper hate it)* [to be broken]. | |
| 12 | Effect of Ulster getting broken up (6) |
| RESULT – (Ulster)* [getting broken up]. | |
| 14 | Harbour with a large entrance (6) |
| PORTAL – PORT (harbour) A L (large). | |
| 17 | Lack what proverbially increases affection (7) |
| ABSENCE – Double definition, the second referring to the saying “Absence makes the heart grow fonder”. | |
| 19 | Gain keyless access, which may be conceded (3-2) |
| TAP-IN – Double definition, the second a cryptic hint based on the footballing expression describing an easy goal. [Update. Kevin in the comments had a better explanation… It is a term also used in golf. In matchplay, when you are left with a putt that’s a tap-in (aka a gimme), your opponent might concede it without you having to putt the ball into the hole. ] | |
| 20 | Picture of wizard on island (5) |
| IMAGE – I (island) MAGE (wizard). | |
| 21 | Summary justice in the end accurate (7) |
| PRECISE – PRECIS (summary) and last letter of justicE [in the end]. | |
| 22 | Qualified people, apart from Mike, named (8) |
| ENTITLED – {m}EN (people) without the M (Mike in the phonetic alphabet), TITLED (named). | |
| 23 | Through which to view French city? (4) |
| LENS – Double definitions. | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Range displayed, not all put up (4) |
| ALPS – Reverse hidden [not all put up] in diSPLAyed. | |
| 2 | Mother’s new hot water bottle? (7) |
| THERMOS – (mother’s)* [new]. | |
| 3 | Arrive at river, heading away from sandy shore (5) |
| REACH – R (river) and {b}EACH (sandy shore) without the first letter [heading away]. | |
| 4 | Car, fine one, with adjustable seat (6) |
| FIESTA – F (fine) I (one) and (seat)* [adjustable]. | |
| 5 | Too bad there’s confused description of extinct feline (5-7) |
| SABRE-TOOTHED – (too bad there’s)* [confused]. An extinct sort of tiger. | |
| 6 | Entrance passage at home, rented (5) |
| INLET – IN (at home) LET (rented). | |
| 7 | Islanders reportedly were aware of Scandinavian filled with enthusiasm (3,10) |
| NEW ZEALANDERS – NEW sounds like KNEW (were aware) [reportedly] ANDERS (Scandinavian name, the equivalent of English Andrew) [filled with] ZEAL (enthusiasm). | |
| 11 | Full of ideas, make a fuss about four (8) |
| CREATIVE – CREATE (make a fuss) [about] IV (four in Roman numerals). | |
| 13 | Dost ache? Stretched to the maximum (7) |
| LONGEST – Double definition, the first a cryptic hint based on the whimsical equivalence of “thou dost long” and “thou longest”. Tricky. | |
| 15 | Cut two parts of cardboard box (7) |
| TOPSIDE – TOP and SIDE (two parts of cardboard box). A cut of beef. | |
| 16 | Head, in part, for sacred space (6) |
| TEMPLE – Double definition. | |
| 18 | Like many modern devices, small with minute pictures (5) |
| SMART – S (small) M (minute) ART (pictures). | |
I could not let go of ‘new’ being an N, did not occur to me that it was an anagram indicator for THERMOS.
Also TOPSIDE got me. Never thought of ‘cut’ being the definition and even so, not a noun, anyhow. Also.. Most things have a top and a side not just cardboard boxes, so I was all over the place for that one.
I really enjoyed most of the surfaces for this one.
I assumed TAP-IN was from golf; DNK the soccer & basketball meaning. I can’t imagine a goal or a basket being conceded. Neither ODE nor Collins mentions golf, but the first three example sentences in Collins clearly refer to golf.
It’s a bit clunky. If you concede, or let in a goal, that goal could be via a penalty, or a header, or even a tap-in. A tap-in being an easy goal scored from very close range.
Aha. I hadn’t thought of that. I think you’re right. When you are left with a putt that’s a tap in, your opponent might concede it without you having to putt the ball into the hole. Will update the blog later. Thanks.
Needed John to clear up TAP IN. Just wasn’t thinking football – should have been, Yeovil Town are conceding more than a goal a game this season. TOPSIDE was last in – it was the cardboard that threw me. Otherwise, same as yesterday, fast start then crawled to the finish – all green in 12.03.
Started very fast, but ground to a halt with my L2I, the TOPSIDE/TAP-IN pair, which pushed a potential good time out to an average (for me) 12:23. I’m another who assumed – when I finally got it – that the sporting reference for TAP-IN was to golf.
Many thanks John for the blog and in anticipation for the Sunday Special.
I found most of this entertaining puzzle fairly gentle but I hit the buffers with ALPS (I really hope my reent ‘hidden blindness’ fixes itself next week), LONGEST and TOPSIDE remaining.
Started with AFTER A FASHION and finished with TOPSIDE in 6.37. COD to SMART.
Thanks to John and Teazel.
28.12 lot of space in the SCC if anyone cares to join us. The blog, as it so often does, makes all appear a walk in the park. We, however, could not find the AMPHITHEATRE for far too long, did not TAP IN for ages and were on the wrong side not TOPSIDE for quite a while.
Having read the blog, cannot fault the clues, so, we turn to the mirror : )
Did finish, did enjoy…and as evident by our time, ‘savoured every moment’.
Heading out for a swim in the still warm (20C+) sea.
Thanks to Teazel and to John Interred
Happy weekend to all.
Just the eight in 20 minutes. I find it easier the more crossers you get and it matters where they are. Were there more than the average Ikea clues today?
Conceeding a putt is at the discretion of your opponent, a gift, whereas a tap-in goal is gauling and anything but a willing gift.
Trivia -golfer Peter Allis had the registration PUT 3, presumably a tounge in cheek self deprecating comment on his putting ability or lack of it. Yip he possibly.
A good puzzle but I was thrown by a sudden change of format for the QC in my iPad version of The Times online. Only a part of the grid is visible at any one time (with madly oversized letters which might suit a seriously myopic solver). There is only a partial list of clues to accompany the grid. Daft! Why mess about with a well-tried format? Incidentally, the name of the setter was also absent.
Nobody else has commented on this. Is it just my experience or do others use a different way of accessing the puzzle?
NOTE. I finally discovered that I could get back to a normal layout via the Aa button in the top RH corner. I have never changed the grid or text size settings . Maybe it was a new ‘default’ setting….
Rant over. This was a good puzzle that I would have finished in under 15 mins if not for an extra minute spent scrolling up and down with steam coming out of my ears. TAP IN and TOPSIDE gave me pause for thought. I didn’t parse LONGEST.
Thanks to both.
Whilst the layout remains the same on my iPad mini, the font for answers has changed to one I find very uncomfortable. In fact so uncomfortable that I quit in a fit of pique, childish perhaps but if I can’t enjoy the puzzles I question the reason for my subscription.
Thanks for your reply. Yes my font has changed (and not for the better). I share your discomfiture when a well-tried format is messed about with for no reason or improvement.
Please add me to the list of those discomfited, nay, irritated, by the change from a familiar format to a much less comfortable grid, with small squares and illegibly-small numbers.
Happened, to mine, about eight weeks ago, though.
Font has also changed to a really horrible one on the Sudoku, really hard to use
I found the font ugly too. I assume it is meant to be stylish but doesn’t work for me.
Have to agree, the font is incredibly distracting/ ugly – shame because the last revamp was really good. This is so ugly I am wondering if it is a system default and someone has accidentally deleted the proper one (along with the setters name). I wonder how much of the NITCH score is due to people trying to figure out what was wrong with the app.
While I am at it, has anyone else lost their avatar picture? Mine has been missing for weeks until I went into my account settings and added it afresh. Other avatars are currently missing (e.g. Cedric and Mendesest where the avatar box is empty apart from a little blue square containing a question mark). Note (9.34 am) I can now add Bletchley Reject to the list.
The usual Times for the Times heading comes up when I hit my TfT bookmark in Safari but as soon as I press ‘view’ the landscape picture at the top of the page vanishes and is replaced by an enormous empty square with the same, central, tiny blue square containing a question mark. The blog works OK below this.
If I hit the little blue square the screen simply reverts to the usual TFT start page with the full list of current blogs so I go round in a circle.
Perhaps this is me (again) and someone can help with settings? Thanks in advance.
Lets see who else replies here. The images load fine for me in Firefox (desktop) and Chrome (tablet). It may be a Safari issue. Have you tried clearing your browser’s cache?
Edit: Apologies – I misread your reply JohnI and thinking you were referring to the main Times site rather than TfTT.
I’ve seen no issues with TfTT from my Windows desktop using Brave browser. Everybody’s avatars seem fine.
Thanks, John. I cleared my Safari history a day or two ago but have just cleared everything again. No change, though.
Try changing the cross-site racking setting in Safari. Depending on how users uploaded their avatars the internal URLs may be linking to the site as it was before the timesforthetimes.co.uk domain was attached (I can see that the link for the site header image is doing that). A video showing how to do it is here. I’ll see if I can make a database change to fix the links this weekend.
Many thanks, John.
I have changed the cross-site tracking setting but the issue remains. It is not a problem, of course; it is easily ignored. I will see what emerges after your promised, kind intervention.
John
Avatar images should be ok now. Does the header image work too?
All is now as it was before. Thank you.
Clearly, my post prompted many others to say that they had had the same problems. I will put a note on today’s (Saturday) blog to let people know that you have sorted things.
Your response was quick and effective, John. It is much appreciated.
I am on Chrome on a Windows PC, they are fine on that.
I noticed this when the temporary site switched to the new site. It was happening because some avatars are served from timesforthetimes.co.uk (e.g. mine) and some are served from fky.yin.mybluehost.me (e.g. Mendesest’s) and I was blocking third-party sites.
Interesting. They are actually coming from the same place but the URLs weren’t automatically changed when the timesforthetimes.co.uk domain was attached. I had to change all the links in posts/pages/comments and widgets but the image links are internal to the site. Maybe allowing cross-site tracking will work for Blighter.
Oh. I can see my avatar, on an android phone and a chrome laptop …
Thanks for the info. As JohnI suggests, it is probably a Safari issue.
Interestingly, I have just checked TfT on my Apple phone and Apple MacBook and everything seemed to be fine on both at first – no problems with missing avatars or other images.
However, the ‘image’ / avatar problems I described earlier suddenly started to appear on TfT using Safari on my Apple MacBook after a page refresh. It is still OK ( and as it should be) on my I-Phone.
On my MacBook, the online Crossword on thetimes.com (using the ‘Classic’ format for The Times) needs the layout adjustment under Aa and then behaves like it does on my iPad (with the font change mentioned by many). The ‘new’ Times app on my i-phone is not helpful for Crosswords at the best of times.
Curiouser and curiouser! Perhaps someone with more knowledge of Apple software can make sense of this?
Yes! Ghastly new format – made me really cross! Will look into your Aa button thing now!
Try the middle of the three ‘buttons’ under ‘layout’. It worked for me and took me back to my usual layout but it didn’t improve the font…..
Same experience here. Not sure what was wrong with the old font…
I had this problem too. Thank you for telling me how to fix it.
Same here to all your points, Blighter, though I’m on a Macbook. Glad it’s not only me! Even playing with the Aa button only partially fixed it for me – I’ve still got the HUGE font, and the setter’s name is missing….
….though I might have guessed it was Teazel, given that it was a tricky but excellent crossword. Thanks John and Teazel! (10 mins plus a bit of change)
Edit: there’s a feedback button in the settings menu on the crossword page, which is requesting comments on the usability of recent changes.
Totally agree about the new format on my iPad – oversized grid and font, can’t see all the clues – a definite mistake.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!! Agree totally with the font, sizing of crosswords. etc.
Please add me to the list of those discomfited, nay, irritated, by the change from a familiar format to a much less comfortable grid, with small squares and illegibly-small numbers.
Happened, to mine, about eight weeks ago, though.
One or two continued to limp in into the second hour but frankly beaten by 15 and 16. Liked LONGEST; guessed NHO LENS; diverted at 12 by putting in the (almost equally?) plausible LUSTRE (also = effect). Thank you, John, for ending the agony.
Not too many gimmes (or tap ins) here. Several tricky definitions (ALPS, AMPHITHEATRE, TOPSIDE) but all very enjoyable. 15:14.
8:56
I took a while to get going, with the upper half of the across clues being elusive for a while.
LOI was ALPS. I didn’t spot that I was looking for a reverse hidden, and needed a long alphabet trawl before seeing “oh that sort of range.”
Thanks John and Teazel
I enjoyed this as it ‘followed the rules’ for the most part. Straight in with 1A for a flying start. Another hidden missed. No problem with TAP IN either golf or football. LOI LONGEST and didn’t know MAGE was a wizard.
18m for a better than usual time, especiallyfor a Friday. Thanks John and Teazel who usually trips me up. Grey and rainy day ahead.
Fairly steady solve today. L2I ENTITLED and SMART. NHO ANDERS but answer was obvious. Some great surfaces. Thanks Teazel and John.
A real mix this for me, Mostly fair but definitely chewy. Thanks Teazel and John! I don’t understand ‘not very well’ for ‘after a fashion’. not very well makes me think of being ill. If you say not very well made it might mean shoddy???
It’s a phrase I’m not sure of but … I think it means you did a job in some kind of a way that got it done, but not very well.
The dictionary definition is to a certain extent but not perfectly: e.g. ‘he could read after a fashion’. … the example being the equivalent of ‘he can read but not very well’.
thanks both – I suppose the clue does work – after a fashion 🙂
32:51 – longest for ages and a real struggle to finish. Too many unparsed clues to name, but LONGEST, TOPSIDE and TAP IN last in. Phew.
12 minutes. Needed crossers for AFTER A FASHION but otherwise was doing well until I spent time trying in vain to work out what was going on with ‘Dost ache?’ and being slow to get the AMPHITHEATRE anagram for ‘Bowl’. Good QC though and I especially liked FIESTA – those were the days.
Thanks to Teazel and John
11:34 for the solve. Little struggle down in the SW with the four interlocking clues but fortunately saw(!) ABSENCE with the A checker. LOI SMART. Didn’t like AFTER-A-FASHION as it’s not a phrase I’m familiar with. COD TOPSIDE which was terrible with its “two parts of a cardboard box” but gets a pass for making me laugh out loud.
Was unsettled by the changes to the Grid sizing on my Windows desktop. Even after locating the appropriate setting they were still slightly different to yesterday. I found the revised font, which I assume is meant to be stylish for The Times to be ugly. I will adapt and have forgotten in a couple of days time but unsignposted change does unsettle me.
A good week totalling a best ever 43:20 with today’s having taken the longest. My streak keeps rolling.
Have a good weekend everybody and thanks to JohnI and Teazel.
Edit: Thanks again to JohnI for the Weekend Special – 5:32. And now see the theme.
11:13
Tough start, then a few answers flooded in, then tricky to finish. Don’t play golf so not really aware of TAP INs. Didn’t parse NEW ZEALANDERS (though did see the ZEAL part) – just bunged it in. Liked SMART and LONGEST.
Thanks John and Teazel
I’d forgotten about Anders the Scandinavian. Don’t think I’ve ever seen that before – obviously we get Ian the Scot, Dai or Sian the Welsh people from time to time but this was a new one on me. No complaint though as the answer was biffable
This one kicked me into the SCC at 20:03, though I’d have just squeaked out of it if I hadn’t put a typo in my LOI, TOPSIDE. Couldn’t parse CREATIVE as I’m not familiar with “create” meaning “make a fuss”, and I was perplexed by the cardboard box. I also suspected that “dost” might be a typo, which threw me a bit.
Thank you for the blog!
DNF TEMPLE and TOPSIDE.
Slow on many inc AMPHITHEATRE, ALPS, ENTITLED.
Liked THERMOS, SMART, CREATIVE, but kept having to rub out my wild guesses, including Lustre/Ulster.
Thanks vm, John. Did not see the sporting ref in TAP IN. Could not fully parse LONGEST or ENTITLED.
LUSTRE here too, and I was a bit hung up on it.
9.05 (with a crossing typo)
Tricky here, needing some crossers to pick up speed. But some lovely clues I thought – AMPHITHEATRE LONGING and SABRE-TOOTHED all got a big tick from me. Thanks Teazel and John.
26:23
Quickly polished off the easy ones, which was around 2/3 of the grid. But gosh, the rest were a bit of a grind. LONGEST, ENTITLED and SMART all took some digging out. LOI PREFACE.
Well, another mid-forty solve (43:06)
That means I’ve finished or almost finished every QC puzzle this week!
Feeling rather chuffed with myself – nowhere near the speed of you folks but I’m having a grand time every morning 😀
Great to hear. It’s the enjoyment not the time that matters.
🎉
Well done. I was taking 43mins on these a few years back so keep practicing and I’m sure you’ll get there.
🏆💪❗️
Good stuff. Entitled to feel confidently chuffed : )
12 minutes, like yesterday; and like yesterday I had to wait to get all the checkers for LOI AMPHITHEATRE.
Some tricky bits, and not all parsed e.g. LONGEST.
Some excellent clues; I ticked THERMOS and SMART.
Tap-in is a common golf expression, as some have noted ; another COD contender.
David
I thoroughly enjoyed that although TOPSIDE surely needed a ? Or is the nomenclature around cardboard boxes more defined than I thought?
I struggled at over eighteen mins and made an error (PREmISE)
All fair in the end, but the overall experience is why I find Teazel one of my least favourite setters. Most of the answers were write ins, even without looking at the checkers, but then the last few (LONGEST, ENTITLED, TOPSIDE, TAP IN) were really tough. Eventually finished on 26:55. Thanks anyway Teazel and, of course, John.
A bit of a toughie. Took me a while to get started, with FIESTA FOI. Then I battled my way through until I was left with 1d, where it took ages to see ALPS, which I only then noticed was a reverse hidden. 11:24. Thanks Teazel and John.
Please fix these messages I keep getting when logging in
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Thanks. Will look at that. It looks like an error in the latest Bluehost plug-in.
Can you try again? You shouldn’t get those warnings any more.
Thanks John, seems fixed now.
I have had those the past few days, but not today. Tx for fixing.
I thought the QC was tough but then it is Friday! My FOI was FIESTA to work out what was going on in 1a. I needed more checkers. The TOPSIDE and TAP-IN proved particularly problematic as the sporting reference was lost on me. I was also slow to see TEMPLE, SMART and LOI ENTITLED. 9:55 Thanks John
I found this to be very tough, with many clues that wouldn’t look out of place in the 15 x 15 I thought. My time of 16.27 was comfortably my slowest of the week.
My total time for the week was 51.43, giving me a daily average of 10.21.
Rare as hens teeth diagonally symetrical grid, makes a change.
Raced through until 22a and 16d, eventually twigged the latter as part of a head, not part of the word head (which had led me to “Heaven” until 21a went in). Couldnt parse entitled, and considerable MER at qualified=entitled, not according to the usual sources it isnt. Loved some of the surfaces particularly the elegant 15d. Thanks to Teazel and John.
“If you’ve qualified to run the London Marathon with a Good-For-Age time then you’re entitled to buy a place” would be an example of how I’d see them being related
Yes, it’s interesting how ENTITLED has taken on a whole new derogatory meaning in recent years. I feel that, as an editor/writer of sorts, I am entitled/qualified to comment on modern-speak.
Curiuosly there does appear to be an atlantic divide. Collins quite specifically has no mention of qualification (i.e. got by earning) in its definition of entitled (got by birth or position, literally from your title), however its USA definition is the same as the UK one but has “qualified” tacked on the end. I would have said to New Driver that he qualified for the London Marathon by running a good-for-age time in a recognised event (he had to actually do something for it)- should he win it, the the following year he would be entitled (by his title of current champion) to run again next year, and would not have to actually do anything to qualify again. I do agree its hazy, but I still think it is clear that you actually have to do something to qualify and you dont have to do anything if you are entitled.
In your example, “winning the race qualifies / entitles you to a free place again next year”. But anyways CW1 has given a very good example and along the same lines I would suggest “if you qualify as a doctor/solicitor/surveyor then you are entitled to put certain letters after your name”.
Bear in mind that when we are doing these substitutions – you only need to find one example to meet the wordplay to make it valid. It doesn’t have to work for every circumstance.
Certainly “find” one example – in one of the nominated dictionaries, not make one up.
Generally slow today, finishing in 24 minutes with the LONGEST/ENTITLED and TOPSIDE/TAP IN pairs accounting for 5-6 minutes of that. Couldn’t parse ENTITLED and was so unsure about TAP IN that I wanted to get 15dn before entering it. Had a MER at it before coming here and seeing the golf connection which had completely escaped me.
FOI – 9ac BELOW
LOI – 19ac TAP IN
CODs – several candidates today. BELOW, PRECISE and LONGEST all made me smile
Thanks to Teazel and John.
A good puzzle, not too difficult for a Friday, but should compilers be allowed to use brand names, as in FIESTA and THERMOS? I mean we Brits know them, but this crossword is done by many other nationalities, who may not. I’ve given up doing several NYT puzzles for that reason.
Thermos is a Greek word, it was originally a German company, now headquartered in USA aand owned by the Japanese. Not very British at all!
A quick google check shows Ford Fiestas being sold under that name in USA, South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela and much of Europe.
I whizzed through this until I didn’t.
TOPSIDE I eventually put in as a wild guess. I thought it slightly more likely than the alternative TOPLINE.
An enjoyable, well clued QC
CODs TOPSIDE, NEWZEALANDERS.
Thanks Teazel and John.
A big DNF, today.
20 minutes in, and with the doors of the SCC ajar, I had six clues left to solve. So far, so good. ALPS then came relatively quickly but, despite a further half-hour of hard graft, the other five remained unsolved – ENTITLED, SMART, TEMPLE, PRECISE and TOPSIDE.
The only things I got wrong were: not spotting the definitions, misunderstanding the wordplay, forgetting standard abbreviations, not thinking of the correct synonyms, not knowing/thinking of the required meaning, etc. So, only a few things to work on before tomorrow.
I’m off to source a new brain.
Thanks to John and Teazel.
This was exactly my experience. DNF with the same ones unsolved. I think I need a new brain too.
Oh dear! And with the same clues unsolved, there’s no real point in us arranging a swap.
Absolutely not!
Think we belong to the same club.
Like Plett that was easy till it wasn’t, my hold-ups being TOPSIDE and (embarrassingly) TEMPLE! On TOPSIDE I agree with Tina; almost everything has a top and a side so the reference to a cardboard box confused. Zero excuses on TEMPLE except I suppose that working in The Temple (the London legal ghetto) for over 30 years makes me regard temples as less than sacred!
Those two took a lot of head scratching so I finished in 09:24 for a Well-beaten Day. Good fun, many thanks Teazel and John.
24 mins…
Definitely a few tricky clues here. With regards to “Tap-In”, I initially thought of wrestling when someone concedes, but then realised it’s more “Tap Out”. Similarly, wasn’t convinced about “After a fashion”, but then saw it isn’t necessarily about being ill.
FOI – 4dn “Fiesta”
LOI – 16dn “Temple”
COD – 15dn “Topside”
Thanks as usual!
We were on the slow side with this. POI SMART and LOI ENTITLED after 16:19 and that was without fully parsing NEW ZEALANDERS (it had ZEAL in it – we didn’t pause to see the missing ANDERS.) Thanks as usual.
Challenging but enjoyable. Almost 50% longer than my target time. Not helped by entering LUSTRE without reading the clue properly (or probably at all…).
The long ones took some time to see. Should have got AMPHITHEATER sooner as have recently returned from the Istrian city of Pula where there a big one.
Sub 20 minutes until completely stumped by TOPSIDE. Oh that sort of cut, which is fair enough, but the reference to cardboard completely threw me.
So a DNF and Teazel wins the day.
Thanks for the blog.
6:55 lots I didn’t parse but could see what the definition was, so biffed away happily. Luckily no traps otherwise I’d have definitely fallen into one!
Top half went straight in and then I needed to jump around to finish off. Like others, 15d & 16d were the last to resolve themselves. Cardboard was def not needed – spent too much time trying to use ‘carton’. NHO golf/sports usage of Tap-In so that delayed me until I decided it couldn’t be anything else. Didn’t understand the Dost Ache but again, only one answer seemed possible.
13.07 Most of the clues needed a second visit and I was delayed by LONGEST, ENTITLED and SMART at the end. Thanks John and Teazel.
DNF
Got past 30 mins and threw in the towel with TAP-IN and TOPSIDE left unsolved.
I found this hard (but enjoyable) work, just not on Teazel’s wavelength.
NEW ZEALANDERS and LONGEST went in unparsed.
(As others – do not like the new font. Also, I couldn’t see the setter’s name on my iMac?)
FOI: RESULT
LOI: DNF
COD: ALPS
Thanks to Teazel and John
Well into the SCC at 22:12. I’m another one with LUSTRE for 12ac, which kinda-sorta works but made the whole SW corner hard to break into. Eventually CREATIVE came along to point out the error.
Thanks to Teazel and John.
13:17 and I was held up for a long time, like a normal person :), by the NHO TOPSIDE (good clue, but didn’t it need a def-by-example-question mark? Tops and sides belong to many things besides cardboard boxes.) Not helped by the crosser TAP IN, also NHO though guessable. Do I need to spend more time in hotels? watching golf? (noooooooooooooo)
So many good clues, FOI FIESTA, LOI TAP IN, COD, oh no, there really are too many. Bronze and silver to PRECISE and SABRE TOOTHED. Gold to SMART. Favorite NHO is “create” for “make a fuss”.
Thanks to Teazel and John.
Had trouble in the SW corner but once I got Entitled from the blog. Smart and Longest fell into place. Thanks all
SCC after a late start and several interruptions, all to a background of constant, heavy rain. 4d had to be ESTATE I thought so in it went: that delayed me on AFTER A FASHION until the trusty Ford Fiesta came to mind, releasing PREFACE. Having been in Am Dram for much of my life, the ULSTER anagram that came to me was RUSTLE – a stage effect if ever there was one, in plays like The Cherry Orchard. So I propose to count it! Hope it doesn’t make me 22a! Much enjoyed – thanks Teazel and John.
New format v. Irritating; puzzle OK but I agree some of it wouldn’t look out of place in 15×15, not my best day, especially given new format, thanks for A a tip
Seemed on par with the 15×15 today and to top it off I finished with a LENIENT rather than LONGEST so I actually did better on the other grid. Some good clues though. I don’t mind a trickier one every now and then.
AMPHITHEATRE was a neat anagram
Thanks blogger and setter.