Solving time: 6:29
An enjoyably gentle-to-medium-paced Pedro puzzle, which seemed to reveal its answers with pleasing regularity. I don’t think there were any particularly tricky clues here, no unusual answer words, apart from perhaps 5d if you’ve never come across it before.
What did you think?
Definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions and substitutions are in curly brackets} and [directions in square ones]. The little upward arrow ^ indicates an insertion point in containment clues.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Hard rock? Start to bop with a sailor (6) |
| BASALT – First letter [Start to] of B{op} with A SALT (sailor) | |
| 4 | April fools ultimately upset one going round and round (6) |
| SPIRAL – Anagram [upset] of APRIL and the last letter [ultimately] of {fool}S | |
| 8 | Energised of right before air journey? It’s the effect of adrenaline (5-2-6) |
| FIGHT-OR-FLIGHT – Anagram [Energised] of OF RIGHT before FLIGHT (air journey) | |
| 10 | Control remains with the French at first (5) |
| LEASH – ASH (remains) with LE (‘the’ in French) upfront [at first] | |
| 11 | Cover up how long performers have been together? (7) |
| BANDAGE – the gently cryptic “how long performers have been together?” might be a BAND AGE | |
| 13 | Preserve horse, keeping illness curtailed (9) |
| MARMALADE – MAR^E (horse) containing MALAD{y} (illness) without its final letter [curtailed] | |
| 17 | Lennon’s first and second wife penning joke in the past (4,3) |
| LONG AGO – First letter of L{ennon} and ON^O (second wife i.e. Yoko Ono) containing [penning] GAG (joke) | |
| 18 | Second deal overlooking a fashion worker (5) |
| MODEL – MO (Second i.e. short for moment) DE |
|
| 19 | Session rather showing the result of good fortune? (7,6) |
| SITTING PRETTY – SITTING (Session) PRETTY (rather)
PRETTY/rather as in “My word, Agnes! Your beetroot surprise really did taste PRETTY/rather good!“ |
|
| 21 | Advanced maths resolved inspiring problem (6) |
| ASTHMA – Anagram [resolved] of A (Advanced) and MATHS | |
| 22 | Strike or work on far side of partition (6) |
| WALLOP – OP (work) on the other side of WALL (partition)
OP is short for Opus. The word Opus comes from Latin and simply means “work.” In music, Opus (often abbreviated as Op.) refers to a work or composition by a composer. More commonly, it’s used to catalogue or number a composer’s works in the order they were published or composed. |
|
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Perplex pair of females wrapped in bundle (6) |
| BAFFLE – FF (pair of females) contained [wrapped] in BA^LE (bundle) | |
| 2 | Railway worker poorly aligns a great number, but not all (9) |
| SIGNALMAN – Anagram [poorly] of ALIGNS then MAN{y} (a great number) without its last letter [but not all] | |
| 3 | Fasten rear of chancel and church after visiting (5) |
| LATCH – Last letter [rear] of {chance}L, then CH (church) after AT (visiting)
AT seemed to me an odd substitution for ‘visiting’ but it does work e.g. “My mother and father enjoy travelling around the country. They were AT/visiting Blenheim Palace yesterday.“ |
|
| 5 | Italian dish not pale when stirred (7) |
| POLENTA – Anagram [when stirred] of NOT PALE POLENTA is boiled cornmeal or buckwheat, but is a staple of many southern European countries. Its consumption was traditionally associated with lower classes, as in times past, cornmeal mush was an essential food in their everyday nutrition. Must admit I’m not a fan. . Etymologically, POLENTA is derived from the Latin pollen for ‘fine flour’, which shares a root with pulvis, meaning ‘dust’. |
|
| 6 | Regretting throwing out popular floor covering (3) |
| RUG – RU |
|
| 7 | Subsequently suppressing hot sweat? (6) |
| LATHER – LAT^ER (Subsequently) containing [suppressing] H (hot) | |
| 9 | Somehow manages massage and hairdressing shop, succeeding finally (4,5) |
| RUBS ALONG – RUB (massage) SALON (hairdressing shop) then last letter [finally] of {succeedin}G | |
| 12 | Article located ground according to reports (9) |
| ANECDOTAL – AN (Article – indefinite) then anagram [ground] of LOCATED
The word ANECDOTE comes from Ancient Greek ἀνέκδοτον literally meaning “unpublished” or “not given out.” Procopius of Caesarea is credited with an early use of the word, as the title of his 6th century work Anekdota (Unpublished Memoirs), which contained private stories and court gossip about Emperor Justinian I. |
|
| 14 | Natural approach is seen in field of study (7) |
| REALISM – IS inserted [seen in] into REAL^M (field of study) | |
| 15 | Question invading in the style of American state (6) |
| ALASKA – ASK (Question) inserted [invading] into À L^A (in the style of) | |
| 16 | Bet accepted by youngster to go wrong (4,2) |
| PLAY UP – LAY (Bet) inserted into [accepted by] P^UP (youngster)
A LAY bet is a type of wager where you bet against a particular outcome e.g. your friend might say “I’ll bet you £10 that Arsenal beat Manchester City in the EFL cup final.” If you accept the bet, you are effectively backing Arsenal not to win i.e. you win the bet if Arsenal lose or draw the match. |
|
| 18 | West Side Story character beginning to master operatic song (5) |
| MARIA – First letter [beginning to] of M{aster}, then ARIA (operatic song)
TBH, I’d struggle to name any other West Side Story characters… |
|
| 20 | Drink, child (3) |
| TOT – Double definition | |
Yes, rather easy. I was annoyed I could not think of salt for sailor when I finally saw basalt. Realism also gave a little difficulty until I saw what was going on. As often, I biffed answers like marmalade and anecdotal from the crossing letters.
Time: 6:58
Enjoyable but I have no time to report as I was tired and nodded off before completing. I’ve learnt that POLENTA originated in Italy.
Not that I say it much but I think I’ve been saying POLENTA wrong – lucky it was an anagram. Four on the first pass of acrosses, so a slower start than Monday or Tuesday but the pace remained good from there to end up all green in 10.10 when WALLOP and then PLAY UP went in.
10 minutes. Good QC, no excuses, just slow to get SITTING PRETTY, RUBS ALONG and PLAY UP.
I don’t know what the dictionaries say, but a pedantic MER (sorry!) for ASTHMA as an ‘inspiring problem’. Asthma is mainly a problem in breathing out (expiring) rather than breathing in (inspiring) though I can see that Pedro is using ‘inspiring’ as a general term for “breathing” and of course no argument with asthma being a breathing problem.
What about Bennie, as in “Bennie and the Jets” as another ‘West Side Story character’ 😊.
Thanks to Pedro and Mike
As I recall the problems for the lungs in asthma is caused by inspiring dry air
Its an allergic problem, not dry air. In my wife’s case it is perfumes, I am also sensitive to perfumes but with different symptoms. We had been dating for months before we realised that that neither of us ever used any perfumed products. Saved me a fortune in Chanel and Co’s products over the years.
19:23 over half of that in the SE unable to bring myself to wallop that pup.
Ta MAP
Like Jack I was tired and fell asleep, so no time. Think my sluggish brain made harder work of it than was necessary as now I’m awake it seems pretty straightforward and some nice clues.
I had a bit of a mare with this. 9:33. The main problem was I mistyped ANECDOTAE, so had an E in the middle of WALLOP, and therefore couldn’t solve it.
But I thought it was another good puzzle. For me, even aside from my silly error, I thought this was above average, and harder than yesterday.
I started brightly but ran into problems in the SW corner, severely hindered by mistyping a K for the last letter of SIGNALMAN. Well, they are close on the keyboard. Eventually spotted and corrected it, and ran through to a completion, but the clock showed 14:35 as I did so for a Slow Day. RUBS ALONG gave me the most pleasure when I finally parsed it, but overall not my finest effort.
Many thanks Mike for the blog.
Straightforward to finish sub 20m.
LOI PLAY UP. Never been a fan of polenta despite having had it served up in various flavours of culinary excellence. COD ALASKA. Not the baked variety.
Thanks Mike & Pedro
But baked Alaska is delicious, imo.
Slightly sluggish today for no apparent reason but an enjoyable solve nonetheless.
Started with BASALT and finished with ANECDOTAL in 8.50.
Thanks to Mike and Pedro
Started with BAFFLE and ended with PRETTY (having seen “sitting” straight away but missing the significance of “rather”).
COD to BANDAGE, I do like a cracker joke!
All done in 06:56 for a Very Good Day. Many thanks Pedro and Mike (I did enjoy the anecdotes about anecdotes).
6:02. Held up at the end not being able to see BANDAGE by having a lazy RUNS ALONG not thinking through the unlikelihood of there being such a things as a “massage and hairdressing” salon. Hmm. Maybe there’s a business idea there. I’ll get my coat. Thanks Pedro and Mike.
I didn’t find this easy at all, taking a long 28:05. Problems with FIGHT OR FLIGHT (not familiar with the expression), WALLOP, PLAY UP, LATCH. Not on the right wavelength at all.
Enjoyable puzzle. Pretty fast at first with inspired biffs like FIGHT OR FLIGHT and SIGNALMAN. 1a and 1d being easy helped.
On the other hand, it took me a while to solve SITTING PRETTY, ALASKA and LOsI PLAY UP and WALLOP.
Remembered Yoko, but biffed LONG AGO. I like it, along with BANDAGE and ANECDOTAL.
Thanks vm, Mike. Good knowing about Procopius. Also liked Agnes.
14:24
Held up by a rogue SIGNALLER, then couldn’t parse MODEL, which led to a LOI ANECDOTAL.
Officer Krupke comes to mind, his name also features in a song title.
COD SITTING PRETTY and BAND AGE
Many years ago Andre Previn (as pianist rather than conductor) and a couple of pals recorded a jazz version of West Side Story. One of the tracks, apart from Maria of course, was Gee, Officer Krupke. A Google check reveals the ‘many years ago’ was 1959. Wow, must be time to give it another spin!
11:49 for the solve. Last couple of mins spent trying to understand WALLOP rather than biff it; couldn’t see the parsing because I thought the final P = side of Partition. Brain was definitely not quite firing on all cylinders as also struggle to parse ALASKA on first creation; and was generally held up by BANDAGE, RUBS-ALONG (looking at wrong end for definition) and MARMALADE which felt ironic due to bunging it in on Monday’s QC.
In LONG-AGO; rarely if ever seen a clue constructed like that. Lennon’s first gives you the L but then you also have to reuse him for his second wife.
Thanks to Mike and Pedro
I was way off Pedro’s wavelength and made heavy weather of this – quite a lot slower than my last Pedro QC and I certainly found it tougher than most of the contributors above. I finished, having just stepped into the SCC, but didn’t enjoy it.
Perhaps down to my mood and tiredness after a rush out for a very early appointment.
The blog looks interesting so I will explore that and see how my unparsed answers (ALASKA, LONG AGO and my LOI ANECDOTAL which I bifd) were put together.
Golly – more medium than gentle, I suggest. Real struggle to get going at all, many definitions far from obvious. For example if someone has cancer (or asthma) do they have a “problem”?* Many possibilities for “the result of good fortune”, SITTING PRETTY far from the first to come to mind. Many were doable once you have the crossers, it’s getting the first ones in that was difficult. Enough fuss; it was all doable in the end, thanks Pedro and Mike.
*Thanks BR for explanation! And John: BANDAGE was my LOI, too.
I was held up by LOI WALLOP, due to having biffed ANECDOTES at 12d. Eventually saw the error of my ways. FOI was LATCH. Generally slow on the uptake today, possibly due to a fuzzy head and sore throat. 10:15. Thanks Pedro and Mike.
My last two, SITTING PRETTY and ALASKA, took ages to come to mind, for some reason. Other than that, it was quite a biffing session, not bothering to parse LONG AGO, MARMALADE, FIGHT-OR-FLIGHT or BANDAGE. Somewhat easier than most Pedro’s, I would say. No unknowns.
I found this difficult although in hindsight I can’t put my finger on why. I eventually staggered over the line on 28 minutes with several biffed. I think this mirrors my experiences with previous Pedro puzzles.
FOI – 8ac FIGHT OR FLIGHT
LOI – 12dn ANECDOTAL
COD – 11ac BANDAGE
Thanks to Pedro and Mike
Quite a tricky puzzle in several places, eventually finishing a bit over my average at 16:33. Didn’t help myself by managing to miss the anagram indicator for ANECDOTAL.
Thank you for the blog!
I had already drifted into the SCC before I decided that a second sitting would be more beneficial than continuing to stare at my last three: Bandage, Anecdotal and Wallop. As usual, the short break worked wonders, and the previously unfathomable trio became obvious (I would love to really understand why this happens). Sadly, that still meant it was standing room only at pens down.
CoD to Rubs Along, which started life as an odd looking Runs Along that certainly didn’t help with Bandage. Invariant
Re the short break, in my younger days my father gave me a piece of advice that I still try to follow today – when writing an important document, sleep on it and then revisit it the following day, i.e., revisit it with ‘fresh eyes’.
For me taking a short break from a QC, similar to above, seems to allow your thoughts to reset. This seems to either allow me to revisit and see fresh, previously unseen ‘context’ to the clue or remove my thinking from the ‘solution’ rut it had fallen into during the first visit. 🙂
Agree, this works for many tasks. When I was lecturing in computer science I enjoyed surprising my students by admonishing them sternly to never spend more than 40 consecutive minutes trying to solve a homework problem. I really meant it, though not sure how many of them took me seriously. I believe that the attention shift allows very efficient subconscious or semi-conscious work to happen and slowly work its way to consciousness.
Agree with that. It’s like going to sleep on a problem and allowing your subconscious to wrestle with it, often resulting with an idea of how to resolve the issue on waking.
Yes, I agree it’s a common enough experience, just like not being able to remember someone’s name only for it to suddenly come to mind, usually several minutes too late. I’m still intrigued as to how the mind actually does this though, since it suggests independent (uncontrolled) processes substantially more involved than, say, a simple reflex action.
Indeed it seems to involve some pretty deep philosophical and/or neurophysiological questions. How does the mind, whatever that is, do anything anyway? Way over my head.
I have exactly the same experience.
Yesterday for example I had to go out before completing the QC but on my return several hours later sat down and filled in all the remaining clues in short order.
I am convinced the brain works away in the background.
A medium paced solved starting with BASALT and ending with WALLOP in 7:09. The only clue I failed to parse was LATCH or more specifically the ‘AT’ part so thank you Mike for explaining it to me. My favourite clue was BASALT.
Nice steady chug through nothing obvious, but no hold-outs. DNK the cornmeal, but only two real possibilities, and the correct one sounded better. Thanks Pedro and Mike.
I found this one to be difficult and in the end I lost patience with it and decided to give up.
Eight mostly north east. Didn’t like leash for control. I did like long ago.
Not the easiest of puzzles at least for me, and it took me 12.18 to complete it. A fair bit of overtime was taken up by solving my last two, SITTING PRETTY and finally PLAY UP. All in all a good puzzle that I enjoyed doing
15.32 Trouble with MARMALADE. Again. Thanks Mike and Pedro.
I found this quite tricky but I’m really not sure why. LOI SITTING PRETTY (became obvious with all the checkers) but also held up by BANDAGE and ANECDOTE. Liked ASTHMA, although agree it’s an expiratory issue not an inspiratory one. COD LONG AGO (interesting wordplay). Many thanks Mike, especially for info about Greek origins of anecdote. Thanks Pedro.
Our blogger rates this QC as “gentle-to-medium”, but I would suggest gentle-to-hard, avoiding anything medium. My first nine clues (all in the top third of the grid) went straight in, but everything below those put up a real struggle.
Eventually, I restarted with MARIA and TOT and so began the long slog back up the grid. My LOI was BANDAGE and I crossed the line in 37 minutes. Phew!
Many thanks to Mike and Pedro.
13:04 – I didnt consider it easy but not hard either and no breeze blocks which is always nice
TYTBAS
21:52
Only one crosser and two downs on the first pass so I found this more on the harder side.
But it was my COD and NHO LOI that took me into the SCC.
Biffed LONG AGO, SIGNALMAN and my LOI – thanks Mike.
FOI: BASALT
LOI: RUBS ALONG
COD: BANDAGE
Thanks to Pedro and Mike
Another below par 14:09 here with POI SITTING PRETTY and LOI PLAY UP doing all the damage. On the former we spent far too long trying and failing to make my mistaken belief that it was probably an anagram of ‘session rather’ come to fruition. Needed the Y to be able to see lay for bet. Thanks, all.
All but seven clues solved in 30 mins – definitely slipping back to where I was some months ago! I thought 16dn was a bit tough with ‘Lay’ and anecdotes having a definition of ‘according to reports’ – isn’t it ‘according to hearsay? Reports threw me also into looking for a homophone – I suppose that’s deliberate!
In formal scientific reports there is a precise level of “evidence” called anecdotal. It means that a lot of different sources say so, but that no concreate evidence has been found, so the crossword’s definition is spot on. It has been responsible for many medical cock-ups. In the 70’s the entire medical establishment swore blind that excess stomach acid caused ulcers. People who said otherwise lost their jobs. Turned out to be nonsense, stomach ulcers are almost all caused by a bacterial infection.
Mostly approachable but with some fairly tricky clues taking me to exactly 30 minutes.
Top marks to 17a LONG AGO for a lovely surface which made me smile once I unravelled John Lennon’s two wives.
No complaints about a second helping of Marmalade this week.
Thanks Pedro and Mike.
10:53 with a bit of head-scratching over PLAY UP, WALLOP, and LATHER. I got hung up on “after” for a while – afther? hafter? – until SPIRAL helped me out. I liked REALISM and ALASKA best.
Thanks to Pedro and Mike. Very entertaining blogging.
All done in 14:01, held up by having the made-up phrase RUNS ALONG for 9d, which made BANDAGE impossible. Spotted my error eventually. COD to ASTHMA.
Thanks to Pedro and Mike.
5.49
On the wavelength today. BANDAGE was rather good, though tricky. Thanks Pedro and Mike.
8.50.
16 mins…
Not bad considering I did this after my first bike ride of the year. Not normally a fair weather cyclist, but the weather has been truly atrocious over the last few months and today was the first opportunity with work, sun and warmth. I will no doubt suffer tomorrow.
With regards to the crossword – fairly average I thought. Got slightly mixed up with the parsing of 4ac “Spiral”, but other than that fairly straight forward.
FOI – 1ac “Basalt”
LOI – 19ac “Sitting Pretty”
COD – 19ac “Sitting Pretty”
Thanks as usual!
A nice semi-gentle puzzle though I haven’t a time as I don’t do it on line and don’t know when I started. SIGNALMAN is now an out of date term. Signaller is now used as so many are women.
Thanks to Pedro and Mike.
Found this quite straightforward, extended time due to misspelling and mistyping
Wordplay for latch was rather cumbersome, and having to think of sitting for session and then pretty for rather was tough. Otherwise quite pleasing.
Fell asleep half way through – have played golf in the sun today.
But solved in about average time. LOI after a long think was BANDAGE.
David
23 minutes.
If this was gentle to medium then I have wasted 5 years on cryptic puzzles. A horrible day, demoralising in the extreme.
An abysmal performance on the 15 x 15 as well. Several errors and many clues unanswered. No doubt it was ‘easy’.
I see no light at the end of the tunnel with this. You have a brain for cryptics or you don’t. I don’t and no amount of practising will change that. I spend 1.5 hours each day on these puzzles and make no progress whatsoever. ☹️
Far too difficult for a QC in my opinion – not that it will make any difference.
An enjoyable 21 mins for me, with some good clueing. Managed eventuallly to get crossers in the trickier ones to then unlock the answer. Long ago was nicely done
FOI Basalt
LOI Anecdotal
COD Rubs along
thanks Pedro and Mike
I thought this was difficult. Too many expressions I had never heard of.