Smooth puzzle from Mara. As per yesterday, if you had your anagram hat on then you could make swift inroads: five in all, including the long 1a. Spice was added by a few tricksy ones (12a, 13a), a couple of (to my mind) slightly iffy definitions (8a, 2d) and one word which is an unusual variant spelling (1d) [I’ve edited my moaning about this after jill-anne pointed out to me how to use the Chambers app].
All done in regulation 07:49 for a Decent Enough Day. Many thanks Mara. Hope you all enjoyed it.
Definitions underlined in bold.
| Across | |
| 1 | Son, we learn, wrecked US city (3,7) |
| NEW ORLEANS – anagram [wrecked] of “son we learn”. | |
| 7 | Deer with one tongue (5) |
| HINDI – HIND [deer] + I [one]. | |
| 8 | Fastener in the air, drop a brick (5,2) |
| SCREW UP – SCREW [fastener] + UP [in the air]. Not very convinced by the definition – “drop a brick” means to make an unfortunate remark, whereas “screw up” means to make a mess of things. I suppose they’re in adjacent postcodes. | |
| 10 | Arms under wobbly instrument (5,4) |
| SNARE DRUM – anagram [wobbly] of “arms under”. | |
| 12 | Something to eat for one dining, finally (3) |
| EGG – EG [“for one”, very sneaky] + G [dining, finally]. | |
| 13 | Game where white has energy drained (6) |
| HOCKEY – my LOI; it went in unparsed from checkers/the definition and then I sat and stared at it. Eventually light dawned: HOCK is “white” (the German white wine) and EY is “energy drained”, that is “energy” without its contents, leaving only its first and last letters. Very good, but tricky. | |
| 15 | Nod when despatched (6) |
| ASSENT – AS [when] + SENT [despatched]. | |
| 16 | Manage marathon, say (3) |
| RUN – double definition, the second a definition by example. | |
| 17 | Someone wearing metal-tipped shoes, and carpet ruined (3-6) |
| TAP-DANCER – anagram [ruined] of “and carpet”. Terrific surface, COD from me. | |
| 20 | Ebbing river was filled with last of the algae (7) |
| SEAWEED – reading this backwards [ebbing] we have DEE [river] and WAS [was] containing [filled with] E [last of the]. | |
| 22 | Judge beyond indignant at first — furious! (5) |
| IRATE -RATE [judge] after [beyond] I [indignant at first]. | |
| 23 | Curse about tool that’s found at rear of vehicle (5,5) |
| BRAKE LIGHT – BLIGHT [curse] going round [about] RAKE [tool]. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Fool visited by new relative (5) |
| NANNA – NANA [fool – bit antiquated now, but as in My Old Man’s A Dustman (“He looks a proper nana, In his great big hobnail boots …“)] containing N [new]. NANNA as a relative is not in my idiolect so I looked it up. Collins has two definitions for NANNA, both stated as being American English: “Norse Mythology – the wife of Balder” and “the Sumerian god of the moon: the counterpart of the Akkadian god Sin“. However, my ancient (1990) paper Shorter Oxford lists it as “variation of nan” and the Chambers app (on which I’ve now wasted £9.95) has it as a variant of “nanny” if you click the right bits. | |
| 2 | Choice of turkey cooked with tea: yours truly tucking in (5,4) |
| WHITE MEAT – anagram [cooked] of “with tea” containing “me” [yours truly tucking in]. I wonder if this was supposed to say “choice bit of turkey” (or similar) since “choice of turkey” seems an odd definition. | |
| 3 | Vertical part of flight in error is erased (5) |
| RISER – hidden. The flight is a flight of stairs. | |
| 4 | What may resemble cauliflower and some corn? (3) |
| EAR – cryptic definition. If you want to know what a cauliflower ear is, watch some of the Six Nations interviews/post-match analysis. | |
| 5 | Present and present again or not present at all? (7) |
| NOWHERE – NOW [present] + HERE [present again]. | |
| 6 | Element in posh revolutionary with power over Egyptian god (10) |
| PHOSPHORUS – anagram [revolutionary] of “posh” + P [power] + HORUS [the Egyptian Sun God, hawk-headed]. I got this all wrong when I first looked at it, thinking that it was going to be U for “posh” and CHE or RED for “revolutionary” – none of that worked so I had to wait for checkers, which was a shame because all those lovely first letters would have helped! | |
| 9 | Good book where attendant meets artist (4-6) |
| PAGE-TURNER – PAGE [attendant] + TURNER [artist]. | |
| 11 | Canteen in decline, sending a note (9) |
| MESSAGING – MESS [canteen] + AGING [declining – which is true unless you’re a bottle of good wine, for example, in which case you are improving with age!]. | |
| 14 | Coin, gold, on head of roc, mythical beast (7) |
| CENTAUR – CENT [coin] + AU [gold] + R [head of roc]. Centaurs were half man, half horse, which must have been exceptionally inconvenient. | |
| 18 | Cycle exercise has boy going uphill (5) |
| PEDAL – PE [exercise] + a reversal [going uphill] of LAD [boy]. | |
| 19 | Price including a cruise (5) |
| COAST – COST [price] with A inside it [including a]. COAST along/cruise along. | |
| 21 | Yikes, some weekend! (3) |
| EEK – hidden. | |
Most of the clues were not difficult, but there were a couple of hard ones. It didn’t help that I had biffed soccer for no particular reason, making phosphorus rather difficult. I eventually saw that phosphorus was probably the answer, which gave me hockey almost immediately.
Time: 9:50
15 minutes
Slower than usual at 13 minutes. I found some of this hard going, namely HOCKEY, SEAWEED, WHITE MEAT (yes, a bit of a strange clue) and PHOSPHORUS so I don’t feel too bad about the time. I had the same MER at SCREW UP for ‘drop a brick’ but I suppose it’s close enough. I liked the ‘mythical beast’ that wasn’t a ‘roc’.
Thanks to Templar and Mara
Had a wait for the park and ride yesterday so tried the 15×15, got about halfway. So no surprise that I couldn’t parse SEAWEED or HOCKEY. With seaweed my working theory was ‘seaward’ for ebbing river and then some substitutions. HOCKEY just fitted. I do like “energy drained”, it’s all there, wonder why I couldn’t see it. I was pleased with myself for PHOSPHORUS though – via all the things Templar mentions and Ra too. All green, if ndot all parsed, in 15.48. Thanks Mara for the challenge and Templar for today’s much needed helping hand.
Mrs RH was away yesterday, so I also had a go at the 15, and also got about half.
She’s back today and we enjoyed this typical Mara. Thanks Templar for the parsing of our LOI hockey which was biffed from crossers but after a good look still couldn’t see why.
All done in 16.10, thanks Mara
I found this tricky in places.
I took the same circuitous route to PHOSPHORUS as our blogger and made life hard for myself by not being able to spell EEK (I initially went for eke for no good reason). HOCKEY and SEAWEED also caused me problems.
Started with NEW ORLEANS and finished with BRAKE LIGHT in 9.17 with COD to NOWHERE.
Thanks to Templar and Mara
Finished but couldn’t parse HOCKEY and LOI SEA WEED. Struggled with NANNA. Familiar with it as a variant of Nan, but couldn’t get NARNA out of my head for fool. All in all, mostly straightforward with the afore mentioned posers. 21 mins, so a bit under my norm.
Thanks Templar and Mara
Enjoyable puzzle. Very fast then stuck on 13a and CENTAUR. Eventual PDM with CENTAUR and then parsed HOCKEY at last, aided by more coffee.
NHO SNARE DRUM but it had to be. Also had to think about NANNA.
COD PAGE-TURNER. Also liked SCREW UP, HINDI, PEDAL, and NOWHERE.
Thanks vm, Templar.
Nice from Mara a regulation 9:06 for me. Couple took a while to parse including LOI SEAWEED – thanks Templar
Some brilliant anagrams: liked WHITE MEAT and SNARE DRUM but especially COD TAP-DANCER for its excellent surface. LOI SEAWEED but needed Mrs M’s GK for parsing: NHO cauliflower ear or Horus. Thanks Mara and Templar.
Oh I think “choice of turkey” works ‘cos it’s common to start by asking the guest “do you prefer white meat or brown?”.
Enjoyed today’s QC with some quite chewy clues. Biffed HOCKEY – thanks Templar for parsing. COD NOWHERE.
Found this unusually tough for a puzzle by Mara, with several queries as I went through it. Unlike our blogger I was OK with SCREW UP for drop a brick, but only after I’d overcome my hesitation about screw for fastener. EGG was a real biff-then-parse, as it took time to accept “for one” could imply eg. NANNA my LOI as it seems to me more a pet name than a word for a relative. But overall I was just not on Mara’s wavelength, for a laboured 14:29 finish.
Many thanks Templar for the blog.
HOCKEY, SEAWEED, EGG, NANNA (never seen this spelling) all problematic and unparsed and biffed, but completed in 20:42 – about average for me, but good for a Mara puzzle as I often struggle with this setter.
5:58
No major hold-ups. No problem with SCREW UP. Same thoughts about NANNA – hardly surprised it can be spelt that way, but definitely uncommon. Perhaps a shade slow with TAP DANCER where my first thought had been TOE-CAPPED which didn’t quite match the anagrist. L2I were PHOSPHORUS from four checkers and HINDI which was obvious once the first letter appeared.
Thanks Templar and Mara
A slow grind as yesterday but, also as yesterday, an enjoyable one. Finished on 26 minutes without being able to parse SEAWEED or WHITE MEAT. I was very slow to solve the anagram at 1ac having convinced myself that it started with either san or los.
FOI – 16ac RUN
LOI – 13ac HOCKEY
CODs – 5dn NOWHERE and 8ac SCREW UP (no problem with the latter).
Thanks to Mara and Templar
Thanks for the blog. I did find nanna in Chambers App by typing in nanna. It is an alternative spelling for nanny. I spent a lot of time on that corner of the grid as I had niece at first.
Ah, thank you. I did type in “nanna” but since no entry appeared I thought it wasn’t listed. I now discover that because it is a variant word, I needed to click on it in order to make the relevant entry appear.
32:13
Found that really chewy. Only a handful on first pass and never did work out what was going on with HOCKEY. Then 10 minutes on LOI SEAWEED where I was looking to put the last E from algae into a river to give a word meaning ebbing. I should have tried algae as the definition much earlier but I didn’t.
NANNA is quite common in North East England
5:06. I was held up for a while by trying to fit the answer to 6D in the space for 9D where I already had G for the third letter… I knew the answer had to be PHOSPHORUS. Why wouldn’t it fit? Doh! LOI and COD to SEAWEED. Thanks Mara and Templar.
Possibly my fastest ever Times QC solve. The answers just kept falling into place.
I struggled a bit with HOCKEY. I could see the answer but could not work out how to the clue got there, until I read this blog post solve. Same with BRAKE LIGHT. I had an idea it was the answer even before I had any other letters in place, but I held off for a while until more letters were present.
First Lap: 12
Answered (no help): 24
Answered (with help): Nil
DNF: Nil
Time: 18:41
Good work!
I haven’t visited for a while, nice to see a lot of the same contributors.
12:26 today. I am now using the app instead of hard copy paper and doing the anagrams in my head and somehow it has helped me to become much faster. Perhaps the pen and paper provided too much distraction.
I found todays puzzle fairly straightforward other than HOCKEY which I biffed from the checkers and the definition but needed the blog to parse. Thankyou Templar for that.
My times also got suddenly faster after I learned to (mostly) do anagrams in my head. Welcome back!
I think it was a tough one today, but judging by the times submitted so far, not as tough as I made it finishing in a very tardy 18.15. Apt really, as at one time I thought I’d met my Waterloo with this puzzle.
An enjoyable puzzle which, once more, had me jumping all over the grid and then filling in gaps. I hesitated over WHITE MEAT but it had to be. Biffed HOCKEY and BRAKE LIGHT
and liked PHOSPHORUS, SEA WEED, and CENTAUR (amongst many others).
A sedate 16.58 for me so I have avoided the SCC for a while, now. It seems as though the ‘Quick’ is returning to partner ‘Cryptic’ this week (for which, thanks).
Thanks to Mara for a good, fair puzzle and to Templar for an interesting, helpful blog.
On wavelength today. I didn’t have a problem with either SCREW UP or WHITE MEAT and actually thought the latter was a good clue. My only hesitation was with NANNA. I tried ninny and nanny but couldn’t parse them and needed SEAWEED to solve it. Not surprisingly my COD goes to PEDAL. 5:05 Thanks Templar
After three very fast solves I well and truly hit the buffers today. Possibly my slowest ever start – RUN was my FOI, but it was the 15th clue I’d attempted and more than seven minutes had passed. Two solvers above had finished by then, which is rather demoralising tbh. TAP DANCER was next in, but I then had to wait for the very last clue (EEK) before another one came. So, with 11+ minutes on the clock I had completed my first full pass and had entered just three solutions into the grid.
Fortunately, TAP DANCER helped me find PEDAL and COAST and they provided enough of a hold for me to work my way back up and around the rest of the grid.
Total time in the end = 37 minutes, but I never parsed WHITE MEAT, SEAWEED or BRAKE LIGHT. My LOI was PHOSPHeRoS, (the Egyptian god was a NHO) which I have just spotted I can’t spell and therefore makes my attempt a DNF. Serves me right for doing well earlier in the week!
Many thanks to Templar and Mara.
I first heard of (The Eye of) Horus in Tomb Raider PC computer game in 1995? I knew that all of those hours pursuing Lara Croft would pay off eventually!
Nothing to frighten our equine friends, and only my LOI remained after 2 passes.
FOI NEW ORLEANS
LOI BRAKE LIGHT
COD PHOSPHORUS
TIME 3:20
Just over seven minutes , but with a carelessly biffed PHOPHeRUS. Drat! Thanks Mara and Templar.
I took just over 12 minutes for this one, with 4 minutes on my LOI SEAWEED. I never thought of ebbing being a reversal indicator, I always thought ebbing meant “diminishing” or “reducing”, not going backwards. Obviously there are some tenuous definitions used as instructions in clues, so I shouldn’t really moan. Plus, I’m pretty sure it has been used in this fashion frequently, so I’m not quite sure why I’m moaning at all. Maybe I was struggling to lift and separate it from River because of the surface…
In the end I biffed it, got the green lights and then parsed it immediately on looking at it again.
Took me about an hour which is about my average.
Unusually, solved the puzzle before making the cuppa. Progress felt slower than usual. Got held up by my LOI HOCKEY. Knew it had to be right but the parsing eluded me for a minute or two. Liked the sneaky EGG, SEAWEED. and BRAKE LIGHT. Now enjoying a brew of Mrs Muscovite’s favourite Earl Grey.
Thanks Mara and Templar
12:58 here, which I’m quite happy with given the difficulty provided by having three hard clues overlapping (SEAWEED, PHOSPHORUS and HOCKEY). I’ll join the queue of solvers who couldn’t parse the last of those.
Thank you for the blog!
Enjoyable puzzle and a nice informative blog from Templar. An unhurried 24 minutes.
Thanks for explaining SEAWEED the parsing of which eluded me.
Had FIG instead of EGG for 12a until NOWHERE corrected it. Liked the clue.
Thanks both
It took me a while to get PHOSPHORUS, as I was certain the word would begin with CHE, but once that was in the second H immediately gave me HOCKEY. You don’t hear of hock much nowadays, but as a child I remember my parents talking about their lack of ‘hock glasses’!
If you watch BBC2’s quiz Only Connect you will be familiar with ‘Eye of Horus’ as one of the question choices.
A good QC. Thanks to Mara and Templar
Oh yes, of course, that’s how I knew Horus🙂
Up until about half way through today’s little teaser from Mara, I thought my run of quick(ish) solves this week was going to be extended by another day. Sadly, my inability to think of Phosphorous meant that the LHS became one bear pit after another. Hind took ages, white and game had me wondering how Whist could be stretched to six letters, and I gave up trying to parse loi Seaweed at the 25min mark. What a shambles.
CoD, through gritted teeth, to White Meat for the (eventual) pdm. Invariant
22 mins, but fully parsed. major tussle with seaweed, my loi. Not sure I fully equate decline with aging, but that may just be a sensitive topic.
FOI Hindi
LOI Seaweed
COD Nowhere
thanks Mara and Templar
All but 3 solved in 30 minutes! I put in Nanna but removed it because I couldn’t get 7 across. This is due to my recurrent habit of trying to solve the clues as a whole! I have to constantly remind myself to break the clues into separate pieces. This is the opposite of reading a book or any other text! – Whilst these clues may nurture creative thinking, I wonder if they slow down the speed at which we read other writing?
This QC didn’t quite hit the Goldilocks level because of more than a few tricky parsing for which I am grateful to Templar.
Thanks Mara for the workout.
Quite a struggle today ending with a DNF so no cosy chair in the SCC. Failed on SEAWEED, never thought of ebbing as meaning going backwards, thought ebbing was the definition. Definitely harder (For me) than the SNITCH implied.
18:20 to do this one, partly because I’m seldom on Mara’s wavelength, but mostly because I haven’t yet assimilated “hock” into my vocabulary, or gotten used to the crosswordland equation of “red” or “white” with “wine”. Time to do that, because LOI HOCKEY cost me a full 5 minutes or more.
“Drop a brick” was new to me, it’s kind of amusing. I liked EGG for the misdirection. I’m not sure I would ever describe tap shoes as “tipped” with metal, so a MER at 17a. The blogger said it all, and more than all, about NANNA. My, parsing 2d was confusing, so many choices. Did not parse SEAWEED, because didn’t think of “ebbing” as backwards. I could only think of “Osiris” for the Egyptian god until I got enough crossers to straighten me out. COD to NOWHERE, I have a thing for repetitive clues.
Thanks Mara, great blogging as usual Templar, and much needed today.
I found this one hard. 29:15, with the SW corner being the last region to fall. COD to NOWHERE.
Thanks to Mara and Templar.
I was a bit tired after golf, but I needed three separate looks at this so my time would have been off the scale.
LOI and unparsed, HOCKEY. Thanks for the explanation of that.
Also struggled with NANNA and PHOSPHORUS.
Mara can be tricky and I thought was especially so today.
COD to BRAKE LIGHT.
David
19:38
This felt like a struggle (with 1a taking far too long to see) – probably more to do with last nights red wine than the QC itself.
I share Templar’s thoughts re SCREW UP.
All parsed save my LOI where I fell into the same trap as DearHector.
FOI: IRATE
LOI: SEAWEED
COD: PHOSPHORUS
Thanks to Mara and Templar
I’m wary of jinxing this things here. A relatively fast 8:25 today, perhaps it was the pressure of needing to go out (there were perhaps two of three that we didn’t fully parse when the answer seemed clear). If I kept records of such things it has the makings of a fastest ever week. VHO NANNA as both a relative and a fool but only really in speech so wouldn’t have known there was a distinction in spelling. Other than that, neither notable difficulties nor standout gems. Thanks, Mara, and Templar.
9.41 In the top half I only got EAR and EGG on the first pass, but I was able to work back with checkers. LOI SCREW UP. Thanks Templar and Mara.
11 minutes and all very enjoyable. Not a biff fest but a swiftish work through – a good QC thanks all.
Generally ok which for a Mara was unusual.
Tap dancers reminded me of the old joke about their act going down the plug hole
37 enjoyable but head scratching minutes. Got there in the end but had trouble filling in HOCKEY WHITE MEAT and SEAWEED let alone parsing them! Thank you Templar for a very informative blog and to Mara for a very good challenge.
…late entry here… did on plane. Was up at 0300… tired… must have helped -did way better than my average, coming in at around 12+ minutes.
NOWHERE greatly pleased me : )