Solving time: 7:06
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Pretty quick, but needed to double check my final answer (1d) which I did not know was an actual thing – I suspect I may not be the only one.
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I guess there may also be a few who are not quite sure of the wordplay at 6d.
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Other than that, I hope you found it an enjoyable solve!
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Let me know how you got on…
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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 | |
|---|---|
| 8 | Charge every individual backing mischief-maker (7) |
| IMPEACH – EACH (every individual) behind [backing] IMP (mischief-maker) | |
| 9 | Girl making Rachel envious to some extent (5) |
| HELEN – Hidden [to some extent] in Rachel envious | |
| 10 | Go after vehicle returning with king (5) |
| TRACK – CART (vehicle) reversed [returning] then K (king) | |
| 11 | Wise, misconstrued as “inept” (7) |
| SAPIENT – Anagram [misconstrued] of AS INEPT | |
| 12 | Time messenger comes with duck and fruit (7) |
| TANGELO – T (Time) ANGEL (messenger) O (duck) | |
| 14 | Man maybe at the east side of a passage (5) |
| AISLE – ISLE (Man maybe) to the right of [at the east side of] A | |
| 15 | Left work in the middle of week to go to Gretna Green? (5) |
| ELOPE – L (Left) OP (work) between [in] the middle letters of {w}E~E{k} | |
| 17 | German city worker cut short series of deliveries (7) |
| HANOVER – HAN{d} (worker) without its final letter [cut short] OVER (series of deliveries i.e. in cricket) | |
| 19 | One throwing large jug (7) |
| PITCHER – Double definition | |
| 20 | Under arch, offering accommodation for the Spanish (5) |
| BELOW – B~OW (arch) containing [offering accommodation for] EL (‘the’ in Spanish) | |
| 22 | Professional wearing an outer garment for protection (5) |
| APRON – PRO (Professional) inserted into [wearing] A~N | |
| 23 | Delighted editor backing requests (7) |
| PLEASED – ED (editor) following [backing] PLEAS (requests) | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Order unhealthy food for one to tuck into? (4) |
| FIAT – I (one) inserted into [tucked into] F~AT (unhealthy food) . If something is done by FIAT, it is done because of an official order given by someone in authority – from Latin, meaning “Let it be done“. . Questionable perhaps whether FAT is always unhealthy food, hence the question mark at the end of the clue. |
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| 2 | Odds on wet weather bringing physical injury (6) |
| SPRAIN – SP (Odds i.e. betting abbreviation for Starting Prices) on RAIN (wet weather) . ‘on’ is apposite as this is a down clue |
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| 3 | Customer’s first request — quantity of beer? (4) |
| CASK – First letter of C{ustomer} ASK (request) | |
| 4 | Hippy so hearty after manipulation — treatment to improve movement? (13) |
| PHYSIOTHERAPY – Anagram [after manipulation] of HIPPY SO HEARTY | |
| 5 | Fellow at home entertaining the French minister (8) |
| CHAPLAIN – CHAP (Fellow) IN (at home) containing [entertaining] LA (‘the’ in French) | |
| 6 | Strangers beginning to assert legal rights (6) |
| ALIENS – First letter of [beginning to] A{ssert} LIENS (legal rights) . A LIEN is an official order that allows someone to keep the property of a person who owes them money until it has been paid. |
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| 7 | Clothes ink spoilt and water ruined (8) |
| KNITWEAR – Anagram [spoilt] of INK then anagram [ruined] of WATER | |
| 12 | The son, affectedly religious, an actor (8) |
| THESPIAN – THE S (son) PI (affectedly religious) AN . I sometimes like to look things up to verify definitions, but attempts to verify that PI means ‘affectedly religious’ (rather than merely ‘religious’) are swamped by references to mathematical PI, or references to the book/film ‘Life of PI’, so on this occasion, I’ll take it as read… |
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| 13 | Huge animal damaged a net — help! (8) |
| ELEPHANT – Anagram [damaged] of A NET HELP | |
| 16 | More than one mammal staggers with head hidden (6) |
| OTTERS – |
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| 18 | Bag is buried in valley (6) |
| VALISE – IS inserted into [buried in] VAL~E (valley) | |
| 20 | Sounding unhappy, exhaled forcefully (4) |
| BLEW – Homophone [Sounding] of BLUE (unhappy) | |
| 21 | Some new idea of great scope (4) |
| WIDE – Hidden [Some] in new idea | |
In his Quickies, Izetti uses standard cryptic elements with clear instructions, allowing experienced solvers to see the answer almost immediately. Even the long anagram was immediately obvious thanks to the explicit definition. Unlike our honorable blogger, I had no doubt what a fiat is, and it was in fact my FOI.
Time: 4:53
Indeed, PHYSIOTHERAPY was my FOI!
Me too! (FIAT first in). Lovely, thoroughly enjoyable puzzle and swiftly completed ( for me) – 10 mins. Thankyou Mike and Izetti.
5:54
Whereas FIAT was my LOI; just wouldn’t come to me until I did an alphabet trawl, which fortunately came to a quick end. Took me a while to justify OTTERS.
8 minutes. Izetti in gentle form today. I liked the staggering mammals at 16d and the ‘Hippy so hearty after manipulation ‘ anagram and indicator for PHYSIOTHERAPY.
Thanks to Mike and Izetti
7.36 for me, FIAT not a problem but OTTERS fooled me because I was looking for something more complicated. There’s a Robert Johnson lyric about a woman having ‘a mortgage on my body [and] a LIEN on my soul’ which is probably the only time I’ve ever heard it used except when it comes up here. Thanks to Mike and Izetti.
8 minutes. The wordplay of THESPIAN delayed me for a moment although the answer had gone in straightaway.
4.22
Very similar thoughts to Vinyl. I thought there were a few potentially tricky bits and bobs here but the w/p was very clear.
14a – My solution was ALANE which my brain had worked out as either ALAN (a man) plus eastside (E) at the end of A LANE (passage). It fit the checking letters too – alas, it was very wrong and resulted in two errors at once.
A straightforward run from IMPEACH to WIDE in 5:29. Thanks Izetti and Mike.
I enjoyed this. Figured 1d had to be “fiat” but needed to check word! Completed in 14.20 which is good for me. Thanks Mike and Izetti
Eight on the first pass of acrosses and fast on the downs too – including barely reading the clue for ELEPHANT, I knew I had E-E-H and ‘huge animal’ was the definition. Held up a bit at the end by TRACK and finally SPRAIN. Really must do more gambling, I’ve been held up on such things before. All green in a very speedy 7.12.
3:42 with just a bit of hesitation before getting my LOI ELOPE. There were a few gimmes along the way, including the aforementioned ELEPHANT.
Thanks Mike and Izetti.
Like others have said, enjoyable without being too testing and all precisely clued.
Started with HELEN and finished with BLEW in 5.37.
Thanks to Mike and Izetti
If for some reason you’re not getting paragraph breaks with a linespace when you input a hard return but have to put in a linespace with a character to make a linespace, I’m pretty sure that you can use a defined html space there (en space, em space, nonbreaking space…) instead of a period. (I don’t know why you need a linespace between the parsing and your further explanatory comments; seems a soft return would do… but it’s a matter of taste, I guess. Old print typographer here.)
🙂
Thanks Guy – I’ll try something different next time. Seems a bit rum of the host to not use standard linespacing like the rest of the online world though…
The script works fine for me in that regard so why it doesn’t work for you is a mystery to me. I do like to have extra space between the clue/solution blocks, so I tweak the results for that (soft return & an enspace). But if I put in a hard return, I get a paragraph break with a linespace and if I shift-return the text drops down one line without an intervening linespace. There was one week in which things weren’t working this way in the Intro section and I had to add some extra code offered by the developer. But after that, it hasn’t been a problem. I run the script in Chrome on an iMac.
This was a very good puzzle so thanks Izetti and Mike. It’s a shame about 1d in my opinion. I don’t think obscure words have any place in a quickie. in my 70+ years I’ve only ever known a Fiat to be a car – when they first came out not a very good one 🙂
Fabricated Italiano a Turino or something like that isn’t it? I had a Fiat 125 which had the best sun visors I’ve ever seen in a car. Tinted perspex the pulled down from inside the head lining. It was a fast car for it’s day.
Indeed – Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino according to Wiki 🙂
My uncle had one of my uncles had a small fiat in the 60’s . On a rainy day like today it would splutter to a stop or not start at all .
I really enjoyed this puzzle, not something I have always said about an Izetti puzzle in the past. Perhaps I have changed and learnt more of his style, but I think he has also altered and recalibrated his approach to QCs and those who do them a bit. Whatever, this was an 8:12 solve with no hold-ups but enough to ponder over to be most satisfying. OTTERS took the most time to parse, and I needed to correct an initial Strain to SPRAIN, while KNITWEAR was an excellent clue with a very smooth surface and my COD.
Many thanks Izetti, and Mike for the blog.
Finished with a few bumps on the way:
Not knowing the abbreviation for odds I toyed with SPRAIN or STRAIN for 2d until IMPEACH sorted that out.
Considered RIOT for 1d but couldn’t link it with order and finally came up with FIAT after vaguely recalling Papal Fiat.
NHO TANGELO but the clueing from IZETTI was precise as always.
Pi for religious has been added to my crossword vocabulary.
Thanks Izetti and Mike.
4:24. Held up for 30 seconds at the end by my LOI FIAT, otherwise plain sailing. COD to CASK. Thank-you Izettit and Mike.
12:23 – one of my quickest solves ever. Only FIAT held me up a little. Biffed THESPIAN and still don’t get the wordplay, despite the blog.
For those of us who live in Hong Kong, FIAT is depressingly well known, as the draconian “National Security Law” was introduced in 2020 by fiat from Beijing, bypassing the local legislature.
Has somebody had a word? Not so long ago, seeing Izetti as the setter would lead to a difficult morning followed by reading a litany of complaints under the line here.
This, however, was relatively straightforward, but still satisfying to solve. And I think his last few have been too.
I prefer this to a morning of staring blankly at a barely half-completed grid!
Many thanks to Izetti & Mike
DNF
Very fast work of all the acrosses on track for a good time but made a poor guess at 1d where I put DIET. Didn’t really know what the Diet of Worms meant, and it could have been an order.
“More than one mammal” seems a weak definition. I considered OTTERY, as I was looking for something a bit cleverer.
Bloody PI again. But it didn’t hold up the easily biffed THESPIAN.
FIAT currency is often referred to as the opposite of Crypto currency.
COD KNITWEAR
Pi is one of my pet hates – it’s pretty well confined to crossword world imo
Fiat currency isn’t exactly the opposite of Crypto. The distinction is between money which has intrinsic value (such as for example gold and silver coins), and money which has value only because the issuer says it does – in other words by the issuer’s fiat.
In the past, most currencies were based on gold (or sometimes silver): one could go to the Bank of England with (eg) a £10 note and ask for ten gold sovereigns in exchange. In other words, the £10 note, and sterling in general, had real or intrinsic value because you could turn it into gold. Nowadays, one cannot – although a £10 note still says “I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of £10”, if you went to the Bank with it and tried to hold them to this promise all you would get in exchange would be another £10 note, or possibly two fivers. In other words, Sterling bank notes, and sterling in general, only have value because the Bank (and hence the state) says that they do. That makes Sterling a Fiat currency.
The problem with a fiat currency is that it relies entirely on us all believing the fiat or order of the issuer. When one loses faith in the issuer, then a fiat currency can become effectively worthless, because it has no intrinsic value other than the word of the issuer.
Gold and diamonds as objects in olden days only had value because of hype. Today they have value because of their applications, just like other commodities. All the fuss over Greenland is because of the mineral rights. We could have quite a debate about the way the elite will manage the hoi poloi in the second half of this century.
Slight differ in that the state underwrites their currency, the exchange of notes isnt really relevent you dont have to go to the state to turn your banknotes into gold, you can just go to a bullion dealer. The crunch comes if a state can’t pay its due debts, then it “defaults” and will have extreme difficulty borrowing in the future. what happens if a non-sovereign debt defaults is regulated by the contract between lender and borrower. Crypto currencies can (an are) loaned and borrowed subject to contract in exactly the same way that non-sovereign loans are. The only real difference is that banks have to have a licence to borrow and lend from the public, and that licence only extends to the currency of the licencing state.
Thanks all…. but I still can’t claim to have heard of it before today 🙂
FIAT my LOI after a bit of thought. The rest of today’s puzzle was very straightforward. Not sure if Izetti’s QCs are getting easier or I’m getting more used to his wavelength.
A few interruptions but around 13 minutes – held up for too long by FIAT and OTTERS.
Another enjoyable solve. Have enjoyed all this week.
Thank you Izetti and Mike –
11:46 Nice Izetti. What’s occurring?
Ta MHAI
Or if you’re Garient Thomas Watts occuring…his podcast.
I know what a FIAT is (“fiat lux”, let there be light, being a famous example from the Latin Vulgate Bible), but it was still my LOI. Trying and failing to crack it first up, followed by trying and failing to crack IMPEACH, meant I had nothing solved with 90 seconds on the clock; I really must learn to move on more quickly.
Everything else fell in and then with checkers those two were easy enough. Grand total 06:05 but it can only be a Decent Day with such a low QUITCH rating. Loved the hippy.
Many thanks Izetti and Mike.
A slow start but I worked up from the bottom and soon settled into a clever, well-pitched puzzle which I finished in 12.35 after correcting a stupid typo from an accidental over-write (I have just moved to a new iPad and hadn’t checked all my crossword settings).
I really enjoyed this – I soon forgot the clock and admired the economy and skill of Izetti. An example of a real QC that many recent setters would do well to try to emulate.
Many thanks to Izetti and Mike.
DNF
I was heading to a quick finish, so did not spend as much time as I should have done on 1d. I knew DIET was wrong …
Otherwise no real problems. Plenty to enjoy. A brilliant QC.
Thanks to Mike and Izetti.
Yeah, I ended up guessing diet, though couldn’t make sense of it. Everything else was fine
I parted company with Latin after just a few terms at school, but for some reason the expression fiat justitia ruat caelum has alays stuck in the mind, so I was fine with Fiat as my foi. That set the tone for a reasonably quick solve, with loi Otters parsed at 17mins.
Quite a few CoD candidates, but I think Sprain gets the prize for the smooth surface.
Invariant
I did Latin O level so I had no excuse …
Well done ! I lean more towards Churchill’s observation: And why would I want to talk to a table ? 😉
Marcus Tullius in tablino sedet. et al
I quite agree, I was told I needed Latin to study medicine. Obviously wrong. I did enjoy it though.
However, as a result I know absolutely no German which would have been a lot more useful.
Me too, but I also did German, French and Greek in case I didn’t get into medical school.
After yesterday’s shamble of a solve, I got back to a reasonable solving time finishing in 7.40. Fairly steady solve from start to finish, although my LOI FIAT took me thirty seconds or so, even though I new the word as being an ‘order’.
Disappointingly slow today (7.36), disappointing because maybe 2 minutes were spent on FIAT! Otherwise, I thought a fair and not too difficult puzzle.