Solving time: 6:49
.
A steady solve today, I think, and we might be looking at some quick times. There appear to be only three anagrams, two of which are the long answers across the top and the bottom of the grid.
.
I did like the construction of 19d which is one of only two English words still in use ending in these three letters.
.
What did you think?
.
Definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions and substitutions are in curly brackets} and [directions in square ones]. The tilde ~ indicates an insertion point in containment clues.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Hard fact: knob moves in two directions (4,3,5) |
| BACK AND FORTH – Anagram [moves] of HARD FACT KNOB . I was in two minds as to whether the definition should include the word ‘in’. I have included it as one might say that a pendulum moves BACK AND FORTH, or that a pendulum moves in two directions. |
|
| 8 | Something obscene turned stomachs (4) |
| SMUT – TUMS (stomachs) reversed [turned] | |
| 9 | Noisy party helping to make British indignant (7) |
| SHINDIG – Hidden [helping to make] in British indignant | |
| 11 | Spartan tea sure to be replaced (7) |
| AUSTERE – Anagram [to be replaced] of TEA SURE | |
| 12 | After port, yes to German wine (5) |
| RIOJA – After RIO (port) JA (German for ‘yes’) | |
| 14 | Heartily sick by middle of siesta, colder than anyone (6) |
| ICIEST – Middle letters [Heartily] of {s}IC{k} by middle letters of {s}IEST{a} | |
| 15 | A hunger to be settled (6) |
| AGREED – A GREED (hunger) | |
| 18 | Brief indication of echo in old type of rock (5) |
| GLEAM – E (echo – NATO phonetic alphabet) in GL~AM (old type of rock) | |
| 20 | Allow woman to grab a polisher (7) |
| LEATHER – LE~T (Allow) HER (woman) containing [to grab] A | |
| 21 | Tap mindlessly fast (7) |
| RAPIDLY – RAP (Tap) IDLY (mindlessly) | |
| 23 | Proceeds of robbery in large room picked up (4) |
| HAUL – Homophone [picked up] of HALL (large room) | |
| 24 | Creator sighs about self-made man’s story (4,2,6) |
| RAGS TO RICHES – Anagram [about] of CREATOR SIGHS | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 2 | Before two lots of bad weather, a king makes truce (9) |
| ARMISTICE – A R (king) before MIST and ICE (two lots of bad weather) . ARMISTICE “temporary suspension of hostilities by agreement of the parties,” was coined by the French in the 1680s, on the model of Latin solstitium (i.e. solstice) “the point at which the sun seems to stand still,” |
|
| 3 | Small pets nervous people would have? (7) |
| KITTENS – Double definition, the second of which alludes to the metaphor whereby very nervous people are deemed to be “having kittens” . This term apparently stems from a medieval Scottish superstition. Women, suffering pain in pregnancy, were assured by witches that its cause was not a growing child but kittens inside the womb, and that only a magical potion could destroy the brood and thereby alleviate their suffering. |
|
| 4 | Street filling requirement made cosy home (6) |
| NESTED – ST (Street) inserted into [filling] NE~ED (requirement) | |
| 5 | Father swallows false information in handbill (5) |
| FLIER – F~R (Father) contains [swallows] LIE (false information) . Not seen it spelt this way before, as a synonym for a handbill – think FLYER is more usual in the UK? . Collins Online suggests that this spelling is American English. Comments welcome… |
|
| 6 | Short journey, free (3) |
| RID – Shorten RID{e} (journey) by removing its last letter | |
| 7 | Stranded on mountain with nothing to drink? (4,3,3) |
| HIGH AND DRY – HIGH (on mountain) AND (with) DRY (nothing to drink) . The term HIGH AND DRY originates from nautical terminology, referring to ships that were beached or stranded above the waterline, unable to float until the tide returned. The earliest recorded instance of the term appeared in a 1796 article in The London Times. |
|
| 10 | Shirker, one reluctant to go after degree (10) |
| MALINGERER – LINGERER (one reluctant to go) after MA (degree i.e. Master of Arts) . MALINGERER is attested from 1761. To MALINGER meaning “to pretend illness to escape duty,” comes from the French malingrer “to suffer,” a slang word that probably also at one time meant “pretend to be ill,” possibly as a blend of mingre “sickly, miserable” and malade “ill.” . The sense evolution in French would be through the notion of beggars who feigned to be sick or exhibited sham sores to excite compassion. |
|
| 13 | Start hotel on river, where all are welcome (4,5) |
| OPEN HOUSE – OPEN (Start) H (hotel) OUSE (river) | |
| 16 | Strikingly explicit chart I start to check (7) |
| GRAPHIC – GRAPH (chart) I, then the first letter [start to] of C{heck} | |
| 17 | Team member finally asleep on bed (6) |
| PLAYER – Last letter [finally] of {aslee}P on LAYER (bed) . ‘on’ is apposite as this is a down clue |
|
| 19 | Middle Michigan is on Daylight Saving Time (5) |
| MIDST – MI (Michigan – two-letter postal abbreviation) on DST (Daylight Saving Time) . Again, ‘on’ is apposite as this is a down clue . There are 9 English words ending in DST, of which 7 are considered obsolete or archaic: COULDST, SHOULDST, WOULDST, SAIDST, DIDST, HADST, KYDST. The two words still in use today are MIDST and AMIDST. |
|
| 22 | Physical exercise good for leg (3) |
| PEG – PE (Physical exercise) G (good) | |
6.59, delayed mainly by GLEAM where I was thrown by the def. I had the same problem with LEATHER, come to think of it. Nice puzzle, thanks to Teazel and Mike.
5:14 – definitely seemed harder than yesterday. Today it was GLEAM (nice clue) and MALINGERER (nice word) that held me up. Also was tripped up by entering FLYER, as you mention.
The -DST part is interesting! I wondered about ‘ridst’, since ‘rid’ as a verb appears in the very puzzle, but it seems ‘riddest’ would have been the form.
Thanks Teazel and Mike.
I had to look at Chambers which has:
Didst
Midst
Kydst and
Hadst
Quite Spenserian! And some further research led me to ‘excrescent’ having the meaning of ‘superfluous’, which was new to me.
Yes, a little more difficult than yesterday, but not terrible. I, too, had a MER at gleam. Surprisingly, I couldn’t see high and dry immediately, which I certainly should have. Kittens was my LOI, but only because I forgot to look at it.
Time: 6:09
FLIER with this sense is more commonly spelled “flyer” (even over here).
I don’t think we’ll see super fast times – I was not on wavelength at all. Trusted the process and went back to basics and was all done in 9:06 which I’ll take given the first one HIGH AND DRY didn’t go in until nearly two minutes
LOI for me HAUL
cheers Mike
Worked hard at BACK AND FORTH at the beginning, it felt like it had taken so long that I glanced at the clock. 90s to get my first one – in but all those checkers were handy and for a change I then worked from the letters I had. Pretty much top to bottom before submitting only to see the 99% message – took another eternity to spot that PEG was missing its E. Good one, all green in 6.54.
12 minutes. It took a while for even the not difficult ones like BACK AND FORTH to come and I never could get the answers going in quickly. I didn’t know LEATHER for ‘polisher’ and looking it up now see that it’s only in the ODE in that sense and not Collins or Chambers (the apps anyway). Same initial MER at GLEAM as Lindsay and vinyl, but the figurative “gleam of hope” example is given in all the references and it’s obviously OK.
Thanks to Mike (I liked the list of the -DST words) and to Teazel
Collins online lists ‘chamois leather’ (several alternative spellings of the first word are available) aka just ‘leather’ used for polishing. These were standard kit for motorists at one time, useful for adding a final sheen to paintwork after washing the car and ensuring smear-free windows after rain.
I completed the puzzle in 8 minutes which may be a PB since I took to solving online a week ago. Like others, I looked twice at GLEAM, but fortunately I’d heard of ‘glam rock’ so it had to be.
I remember my dad would get the chamois and leather the car after washing it. But that was the 1980s. Not complaining but I thought it was somewhat dated definition.
10:18, held up at the end by GLEAM, even though I had all three checkers. Tricky definition, though if I was put on the spot I’m not sure I’d do any better! Didn’t notice the odd spelling of FLIER when doing the puzzle – the wordplay is crystal clear – but I note the internet suggests that “both ‘flier’ and ‘flyer’ are correct spellings, but ‘flyer’ is the more common and for the specific meaning of an advertising leaflet, almost universally preferred, with ‘flier’ increasingly rare”. But as we all know,”increasingly rare” does not mean “cannot be used in a QC”.
Many thanks Mike for the blog.
A swift top to bottom solve but with a lot to enjoy along the way. I thought ARMISTICE and MALINGERER were very good but my COD goes to GLEAM for the PDM (oh that type of rock!).
Started with BACK AND FORTH and finished with PLAYER in 5.14.
Thanks to Mike and Teazel.
I am apparently the first of the slower solvers at 17.50. I enjoyed this QC. Lots of good clues and my hopes were high when the top half went in very quickly. Unfortunately, I decelerated in the south; I was particularly slow with LEATHER, MALINGERER (I wasted time with backslider based on a BA degree but, clearly, couldn’t make it work), MIDST (nice PDM), and my LOI GLEAM which was a complete guess – the only word I could find to fit.
Thanks to Teazel; now to read Mike’s blog to check my parsing.
On the wavelength so fast today, with an enjoyable non-stop solve. Liked many inc HIGH AND DRY, FLIER, KITTENS, GLEAM. We used to use a chamois/shammy LEATHER for polishing, and for grooming horses. (One of my novels mentioned chamois, the mountain deer/goat, but the audio book narrator pronounced it ‘shammy’ which rather spoilt the effect of my, I thought, witty sentence.)
Thanks vm, Mike.
Tell more! What is your novel called?
Funnily enough, I was looking at chamois leather cloths for window cleaning just yesterday, but decided against it in the end 😅
They are very good for window cleaning.
‘An Old-Fashioned Arrangement’. By Susie.
That sounds fun – I shall look out for it. You’ve had some great reviews 😊
Growing up I used to buy my Dad ‘shammy’ leathers for his birthday for cleaning the car. I didn’t learn that it was from a Chamois (with a very different pronunciation) until much later on 😆
Oh dear… Am I the only one who still uses a chamois leather after washing the car?!
5:47. Just a bit slow today. I swithered over 8A, deciding it would be TUMS… until I got to the crossing down clues. LOI GLEAM. Thank-you Teazel and Mike.
Thank you for introducing me to “swither”, lovely word.
It was only when I looked it up that I discovered it is a regional word I knew from my Scottish heritage (I was born in Scotland to Scottish parents). It is a word my father used to use quite frequently. I agree it’s a lovely word and fitted what I wanted to say in my comment perfectly.
23:04. Hard. A few biffs needed to finish. FLIER is definitely someone who flies. Struggled with GLEAM- NHO GLAM, MALINGERER, NESTED (as a past participle) and ICIEST. Hats off to all you who can solve such puzzles in under 10 minutes.
Glam rock – the early 1970s at their most outrageous (some would say!). I’m sure you’ve heard of T Rex, the Sweet, and – of course – David Bowie ⭐
As an amateur geologist I was frustrated by being unable to think of a rock ending in M until the penny dropped. Good clue.
Overall quite tricky in places and it took me 31 minutes to finish.
LOI was HAUL and POI was 24a as I missed ‘about’ as an anagram indicator rather than a word order indicator. You have to be on your toes with these setters.
Thanks Teazel and Mike.
I thought I was in for a very slow time today with only two of the across clues solved on the first pass. Fortunately I picked up after that, and managed to beat my target finishing in 9.26. A really good puzzle from Teazel I thought with HIGH AND DRY my favourite.
After what I found to be a rather dull and mechanical offering from Pedro yesterday, Teazel hits the spot again today with a perfect QC. All the quality of the main Times puzzle but significantly less challenging and so deserving of the Quick attribution.
13:30 for the solve. I flicked through the Across clues and couldn’t get any until the final pair of HAUL and RAGS-TO-RICHES. The Downs provided more traction but after 8-9 mins I was left with the leftside seeming uncrackable. No good excuse for not being able to unravel AUSTERE or get SMUT quicker but eventually needed MALINGERER to open things up.
Thought there were some good offbeat definitions in there including ARMISTICE, GLAM (rock) but in turn those also made it slightly tougher.
Thanks to MikeH and Teazel
10 in 20 minutes, 14 in 30.
All of the north apart from 15a.
Only midst in the south.
Thanks T and M
Not keen on leather for polish. Only really applies to chamileather used to dry off cars before artificial fabrics took over and we all went to dubious car washes.
Chamileather used to be in the seat of cycling shorts. That too has been replaced by artificial fabrics. I guess you could have polished your Brooks leather saddle with movement of your cycling shorts?
See my comment above. Maybe to LEATHER = to polish is old-fashioned usage. But you can still buy chamois leathers on e.g. Amazon, seldom made of goatskin these days, I gather.
Or “Shammy” (sic) leathers as they were advertised in my local car-parts dealer.
Or Tesco! See my comment above 🤣
10 minutes. LOI GLEAM -like so many above.
POI MALINGERER.
Another good QC.
David
Always find Teazel a bit of a challenge and after only two across answers on the first pass I was anticipating a steaming hot chocolate in the comfort of the SCC. Happily the down clues were more fruitful and I was pleased to finish in 15:10, just a few seconds outside my target having spent way too long searching for the wrong sort of rock.
Rather similar to yesterday, had to work on the SW. NHO GLAM rock but apparently had to be, hence LOI MALINGERER. Good puzzle, thanks Teazel and Mike.
Did wonder about FLIER, thought it was more usually flyer – so that’s what it is! Humph (and that’s my comment, don’t know how “welcome” it is)!
11:04
Straightforward but failed to parse RAPIDLY. As a geologist my eyes lit up when asked to identify a type of rock. I was sadly disappointed to realise it was glam rock. LOI AGREED.
Quite straightforward until Gleam easily parsed it as “e” in stone or music but dnk Glam Rock and thrown by the “brief” although I see that some dictionary definitions do include that it can mean that.
I didn’t notice the americanism of flier, and I know that we have had comments before about words that are clearly marked as american spellings in the dictionaries. Is there a rule? Most american spellings seem to get accepted without comment, but I have a feeling that color or theater would make the natives restless. (Although neither have triggered a wiggly red line as I type.) Thanks to Teazel and Mike.
Only a few across clues on the first pass but the downs seemed more accommodating. The right hand side seemed in general easier than the left imo. All done and parsed in 14 minutes. Nice puzzle.
FOI – 12ac RIOJA
LOI – 6dn RID
COD – 7dn HIGH AND DRY. Also liked GLEAM.
Thanks to Teazel and Mike.
12:02 Like others struggled to rapidly gleam armistice but got there in the end. My brain is a bit frazzled from the paltry (albeit self-imposed) 4 hrs sleep I had last night following Radiohead’s rather excellent concert at The O2. I blame the unborn chicken voices in my head.
Ta MAT
I thought the cluing was top notch today. I pretty much solved from top to bottom admiring the clue constructions as I was going along. There was just one hesitation with GLEAM as the definition arrived some time before the parsing. My LOI was GRAPHIC in 5:07. Thanks Mike
Well, I wasn’t alone in lingering over MALINGERER and GLEAM. The rest of the puzzle went swimmingly, but those two held me up at the end. Only when the crossing G appeared did I (a geotechnical engineer) realise that we weren’t talking about that type of rock!
MER regarding FLIER
Thanks for a good puzzle, Teazel, and thanks to Mike for the blog
My thanks to Teazel and Mike Harper.
Good puzzle, not too tricky. Good blog.
18a Gleam, HHO glam rock but having the G?E?? I wanted to put Gneiss in. It doesn’t fit.
LOI 17d Player.
FOI Back & forth.
COD 20a Leather. I have a chamois in the car, but I have to say I never polish it, it’s just for the windscreen demisting.
14:21, which is quick for a Teazel by my standards. I was held up at the end by SHINDIG and HIGH AND DRY, but got there in the end.
Thank you for the blog!
I also got initially caught out by the spelling of FLIER but fortunately the word play was unambiguous. Chambers gives either spelling as legitimate with no indication that FLIER is US only so I guess it’s okay with me. Google’s Ngram shows both in use in British English for a long time and FLYER only become truly dominant recently, but it’s not always reliable on these things.
Thought I could have done better than my 10:08 today, but I got bogged down in the bottom left. Still, a fun puzzle with some nice clues.
Had to give up with malingerer and gleam unsolved, even though I knew how both worked. Gleam I couldn’t get the right meaning of old rock, and couldn’t think of the right word for brief indication. Malingerer, I knew it would begin either ba or ma, but neither lingerer or malingerer are really words that are used, they just happen to be in the dictionary for putting “er” on the end of a verb. Checking letters weren’t very helpful so couldn’t see it. Other hold-up was thinking that graphic was an anagram of chartic.
Was heading for a sub 20 min finish until I hit the rocks in the south-west corner. Took too long to change to music rock and then failed to think of glam. But Gleam defined by brief indication was always going to beat me. Once I got the G from Mike’s blog, Malingerer came easily. Thanks Mike and Teazel
Heading for a sub 15 (which would have made us very chirpy) then stalled – SMUT GLEAM and ARMISTICE. Slight self-inflicted hiccup (hiccough?) as rejected FLIER (thought FLYER but SHINDIG said no) and leapt sideways to FRIAR (for Father). Attributed inability to parse to lack of QC ability. Happily saw error of our ways, finishing clear of the SCC.
Thank you TEAZEL and thank you Mike H for an interesting blog.
7.13 I struggled to see why SHINDIG was correct and finished with MALINGERER and GLEAM. Thanks Mike and Teazel.
07:57. I found this didn’t go in so easily today – MALINGERER being my LOI. Nothing went in at all at the top on my first pass which maybe explains it. Nice puzzle though and a good way to recover after watching the Budget. AUSTERE anyone?
9:05, a fast-for-me time that surprised me seeing it’s a Teazel. Many amusing clues, of which I liked ARMISTICE best with RAPIDLY a close second. The indignant British raised a wry laugh because it made me think of my very, very noisy British neighbors long ago in France.
My eyebrows remained at rest as I solved 18a; I thought the definition showed a gleam of sense.
Thanks Teazel and Mike.
The third excellent QC of the week in my opinion. Would never have got Gleam unaided !! Thanks
12:31
Very hard to get a foothold today, eventually the chestnut RIOJA got me going. Nice clues, with no obscurities.
LOI GLEAM
19 mins…
A few tricky clues – especially 18ac “Gleam” (where I originally put “Geist”, thinking it was a type of rock) and 19dn “Midst”. The rest went in steadily and I came in quicker than I thought I would.
FOI – 4dn “Nested”
LOI – 18ac “Gleam”
COD – 21ac “Rapidly” – beautifully simple.
Thanks as usual!
Can’t find Geist as a type of rock. I thought of Gneiss, when the G appeared, but I already had the M so that was gone. Seem to recall we had it in a QC couple of years back as a soundalike for nice. Bottom middle Down clue!
Yep, it was made up – a mash of Gneiss and Grist. Although Geist is actually a German word meaning “spirit” or “ghost”.
Indeed – zeitgeist – spirit of The Times!
Random fact – I always have to go via Melania Trump in my memory palace to get to gneiss. (Her maiden name is Knauss in case you were wondering why)
30 minutes. A speedy top half of the grid, followed by a much stickier bottom half.
BACK AND FORTH, my FOI, provided six starting letters, five of which bore early fruit. I never parsed RAPIDLY – mainly because I read IDLY as IDDLY in my head.
My LOI (and COD for its PDM) was GLEAM. It brought back memories of The Sweet, T Rex, Wizzard, Mud, Slade, Queen, Roxy Music, Mott The Hoople, platform boots, ridiculous over-the-top outfits/make-up and so on.
Many thanks to Mike and Teazel.
DNF. I only managed to solve 5 clues today.
That’s how we get there!
Great QC which took me rather a long time to complete. Biffed RAPIDLY and stared at SHINDIG for ages until the penny finally dropped. Liked RAGS TO RICHES. Thanks all.
10:23 here, didn’t spot the parsing of RAPIDLY, my LOI. Everything else went in reasonably quickly, my COD award goes to SHINDIG.
I also tried to make GNEISS fit into the five spaces allotted to 18ac: “perhaps it can be spelled with only one ‘S’?”. Errr, no.
Thanks to Mike and Teazel.
I think Teazel was a bit of a STARMAN today, but it wasn’t quite ‘Wham bam thank you ma’am’😉 *
Another very enjoyable visit to Crosswordland – this week has been so much more fun than some of my recent experiences, especially courtesy of the 15×15 – but as usual I got breezeblocked on my LOI, and yes, I was another who looked for the wrong type of rock. Really silly, as I was a bit of a glam rock fan in my time.
Again, lots of ticks – SMUT, RAPIDLY, RAGS TO RICHES, HIGH AND DRY (nearly COD), KITTENS and MIDST.
9:34 FOI Kittens LOI and COD Gleam
Thanks Teazel and Mike
* Suffragette City – today’s earworm
Hello Penny,
Sometimes, I could do with dose of hazy cosmic jive to un-breezeblock myself.
My regards to you and Mr B,
from A (random) Lad in S.
Maybe we should just ‘freak out in a moonage daydream’. That’s got as much chance as anything when ‘I’m bustin’ up my brains for the words’ 😂
Hope everything’s Hunky Dory with you and Mrs R
Stinking cold today 🤧 and felt a bit sluggish. Delayed at the end by MALINGERER, COD GLEAM and LOI ICIEST. A very good puzzle completed in 07:07 for an OK Day.
Many thanks Teazel and Mike.
Excellent puzzle. Especially enjoyed the glam rock clue. 7:18.
Struggled a bit today but got there in the end with a certain amount of biffing. Did like midst.
I really am useless.
35 minutes of pure hell.
Took forever to get RAPIDLY, the easy MALINGERER and GLEAM. Why do I always get completely stuck like this?
Every time I think I’m making a bit of progress, it all comes crashing down, largely because I simply don’t have the right type of brain for this.
I shall now torture myself with the 15 x 15, with absolutely no optimism or sense of anticipation.
It was the fish wot did it, getting absolutely nowhere then fried salmon tails for supper, no bother doing these clues after that. Confidence in Teazel restored, sigh, thank goodness.
Well over an hour on 15 x 15 and got about 2/3! Very disappointing. I have no idea as to how I improve and that drives me up the wall.
Another bad day here. When I look at the times today of those I am often on a par with, it makes me want to give up cryptics.