Solving time: 6:34
Joker delivers another quality mid-range puzzle, with very little to worry the equines. Though the grid is of the portcullis variety, which, some might say, is trickier due to the lack of first letters produced by the first across and down clues, none of the words are unknown, though 1d might be the most rarely used of this set.
While I particularly enjoyed both 13d and 14d, I was less keen on the device used for 19d.
What did you think?
Definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions and substitutions are in curly brackets} and [directions in square ones]. The caret ^ indicates an insertion point in containment clues.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 7 | An objection over brass instrument (4) |
| TUBA – A BUT (An objection) reversed [over]
From Latin tuba “straight bronze war trumpet” |
|
| 8 | Ancient water clock? (3-5) |
| OLD-TIMER – Mildly cryptic pointing to ‘Ancient’ as a noun
In ancient Greece, a water clock was known as a clepsydra Water clocks are some of the oldest time-measuring instruments. The simplest form of water clock, with a bowl-shaped outflow, existed in Babylon, Egypt, and Persia around the 16th century BC. Other regions of the world, including India and China, also provide early evidence of water clocks, but the earliest dates are less certain. Water clocks were also used in ancient Greece and in ancient Rome, as described by technical writers such as Ctesibius and Vitruvius. |
|
| 9 | Annul a law initially after peer’s upset (6) |
| REPEAL – Anagram [upset] of PEER, followed by A and first letter [initially] of L{aw} | |
| 10 | Irritable agent grabbing sleep (6) |
| SNAPPY – S^PY (agent) containing [grabbing] NAP (sleep) | |
| 11 | Leave completely, finishing early (4) |
| QUIT – QUIT{e} (completely) without its final letter [finishing early]
Are ‘quite’ and ‘completely’ synonymous? Well, you could say, “The room was quite/completely empty.“ |
|
| 12 | Cross and abrupt about endless wild party (8) |
| TRAVERSE – T^ERSE (abrupt) about RAV{e} (wild party) without its final letter (endless) | |
| 15 | Frailty of snakes we disturbed (8) |
| WEAKNESS – Anagram [disturbed] of SNAKES WE | |
| 17 | Small building just half completed (4) |
| SHED – Half of {fini}SHED (completed)
What is ‘just’ doing there? While it might seem superfluous, is it somehow synonymous with ‘right’, indicating the right half of the word defined by ‘completed’? |
|
| 18 | A large tree in the mountains (6) |
| ALPINE – A L (large e.g. in clothing sizes) PINE (tree) | |
| 21 | Almost new advance (6) |
| NEARLY – N (new) EARLY (advance) | |
| 22 | Special importance of the mph as I speed? (8) |
| EMPHASIS – Hidden [indicated by the little word ‘of’] in the mph as I speed | |
| 23 | Cake good for a bribe (4) |
| BUNG – BUN (cake) G (good) | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Rest of question I study in music (8) |
| QUIETUDE – QU (question) I ÉTUDE (study in music)
An ÉTUDE is a short musical composition, typically for one instrument, designed as an exercise to improve the technique or demonstrate the skill of the player. |
|
| 2 | Most recent Californian cricket match? (6) |
| LATEST – If a top-level cricket match was to be held in the Californian city, Los Angeles (aka LA), it might be referred to as the LA TEST | |
| 3 | Game permitted in road? (8) |
| ROULETTE – LET (permitted) in ROU^TE (road) | |
| 4 | Betting figures on Derby Day shown only for starters (4) |
| ODDS – First letters [only for starters] of O{n} D{erby} D{ay} S{hown} | |
| 5 | Become obsessed with God’s will holding team up (6) |
| FIXATE – F^ATE (God’s will) containing [holding] XI (team i.e. eleven) reversed [up] | |
| 6 | Difficult to understand river power (4) |
| DEEP – DEE (river) P (power) | |
| 13 | Cause of bad lighting on stairs must be changed (8) |
| ARSONIST – Anagram [must be changed] of ON STAIRS
Humorous definition – ‘bad’ indicating ‘for nefarious purposes’; ‘lighting’ indicating the starting of a fire |
|
| 14 | Pronouncing l-i-k-e a w-i-t-c-h? (8) |
| SPELLING – Witches, of course, are renowned for casting spells, or SPELLING
I’m inclined to think this is an all-in-one as I am not sure that ‘Pronouncing’ would work as the definition on its own. The words ‘like a witch’ are spelt out. |
|
| 16 | Report of what could be black chess piece (6) |
| KNIGHT – Homophone [Report of] of NIGHT (what could be black) | |
| 17 | Second taxi driver is despicable (6) |
| SCABBY – S (Second) CABBY (taxi driver)
SCABBY is British informal/slang use for “contemptible, mean, nasty, morally low-grade.” It’s in Collins Online… |
|
| 19 | Fruit somewhere between ugli and melon (4) |
| LIME – Consecutive letters [somewhere between] of {ug}LI ME{lon}
Botanically, I am not educated enough to say whether this might be true, but all things considered, I wasn’t convinced that this clue works very well? |
|
| 20 | A piece of cake? Queen’s left nauseous (4) |
| EASY – |
|
Didn’t get QUIETUDE (NHO QUIETUDE or ETUDE so would never get this).
Mostly a nice puzzle otherwise, although I also question QUITE/COMPLETELY (yes, I’m sure it’s in the dictionary).
COD 14d
I am quite sure you are familiar with that usage of quite
14 minutes with time lost wondering if there may be an alternative to SHED to account for the wordplay. I missed {fini}SHED as explained by our blogger, possibly distracted by the presence of ‘just’ which appears to be superfluous.
Some fun clues here. I particularly enjoyed ARSONIST and the nauseous Queen.
ODE sv ‘quite’
def 1 to the utmost or most absolute extent or degree: absolutely, completely:
(US) very; really (used as an intensifier)
def 2 to a certain or fairly significant extent or degree; fairly
SHED was my LOI so having biffed it and got the “Completed” message I didn’t linger to look too hard at the wordplay. But now I do I can’t explain the “just” satisfactorily either. I was more surprised though by SCABBY – Cabby looked wrong for what I have always spelled Cabbie. I see it is an acceptable variant though so no complaints.
7:43 for a sprightly solve. Many thanks Mike for the blog.
Around 16 but with “skippy” instead of “snappy”. Thought this was quite a challenge for a Wednesday. But, enjoying the chewiness of the more difficult quickies.
That was the error made by many in reverse yesterday on the QC.
Caught out by the two crossing pairs quietude/quit and fixate/timer which took at least half of our 25.20. Thanks Mike for the help parsing the latter pair.
Liked arsonist, raised a giggle, thanks Joker.
Similar queries to a couple of others re. SHED and ‘cabby’ with a ‘y’ but it’s in Chambers…
Other than that an entertaining and not too tricky puzzle. I was amused to see SNAPPY today after incorrectly biffing ‘snapping’ instead of ‘skipping’ yesterday.
I started with TUBA and finished with COD ARSONIST in 6.48.
Thanks to Mike and Joker
13:42
Hard. I thought TRAVESTY looked good, fitting my checkers with TESTY(cross) around RAV{e}
And SHED I was looking at S{mall} + half a building meaning “completed”
LOI QUIETUDE, tough one. I don’t ever see “qu” for question in real live. In “Q&A”
a single Q suffices, as it does in printed quizzes.
Spent way too long thinking about what a “CATEST” could be, before it clicked. Nice clue and COD for me.
Ah! Thank you for your sympathy, that you too found this at least relatively hard. SHED: I too. And entirely agree about QUIETUDE. Thanks.
A not exactly racy 18 minutes. I spent five minutes at the end becoming increasingly frustrated on SHED which I bunged in unparsed – seems I’m in good company. No excuses, but I became stuck on the ‘just’ too.
A good puzzle though with the difficult QUIETUDE making its first appearance in a Times puzzle (one blogged on TfTT anyway) since 2018. I liked OLD-TIMER and found the etymology of “clepsydra” v. interesting.
Thanks to Joker and Mike
13:44 for the solve. Same sort of problems as others – QUIETUDE / QUIT my last pair taking me out past ten mins. Was having a problem believing there was a word beginning QUIE- until I remember Columbo’s Etude in Black episode about a musician killing his girlfriend.
SHED was eventually parse but I was originally looking for a synonym for “Just” that would lose its last four letters. I wonder if that is the purpose of “just” i.e. to disract. For WEAKNESS, I momentarily tried to fit a version of “awakens” for disturbed but fortunately it’s short.
Definitely somewhat sticky in places but I liked ARSONIST and thought the SPELLING clue was inventive. Touches of the old Joker humour.
Thanks to Mike and Joker
That’s a fantastic bit of Ninja Turtling!
From the ridiculous to the sublime!
DNF – I bashed in IDEATE rather than fixate. That made OLD TIMER impossible, even though I had thought of it (and ruled it out) within ten seconds of opening the puzzle. Couldn’t unravel the mess I had made so gave up.
I think OLD-TIMER is a bit of a weak clue to be honest, but there you are. I thought of the answer immediately but didn’t really think it worked properly, and was expecting something better.
Otherwise a good puzzle, though on the hard end.
Dear JPTC,
Likewise re OLD TIMER. I thought of it, rejected it and tried OLD rIvER instead. Wrong, but ‘An ancient what?’ is my question.
I agree – still can’t see what ‘water’ is doing here when without it you have a perfect &lit.
I was so not pleased with OLD TIMER that I simply didn’t believe it could be the answer, and DNF.
Another unparsed SHED here, thanks Mike.
I got stuck on LTI QUIT/QUIETUDE – for the latter I had spent a while trying to work in I CON or I DEN for “I study”. Funny how hard it can be to abandon a line of thought even when it’s not working!
COD ARSONIST, really raised a chuckle when the penny dropped.
Many thanks Mike and Joker.
I found this one difficult (again…) – thanks to Mike Harper for the explanations!
I may be misunderstanding the discussion (sorry…) but ‘quite’ as ‘completely’ is something I say and hear every day.
‘Quite right!’ means ‘You are absolutely correct’, ‘That’s quite enough of that!’ means ‘Don’t you dare do that again!’; ‘He’s quite mad’ for ‘…totally bonkers’ and so on. It’s a perfectly normal usage to me.
But of course, as we also use it in the opposite sense, the meaning can be quite (fairly) ambiguous depending on the tone and context 😃
Is this one of those ‘divided by a common language’ things?
Yes, quite is one of about a dozen contronyms. We’ve been here before!
9:15, with my LOI SHED biffed.
COD ARSONIST.
Thanks Mike and Joker
SPELLING is a great clue and perhaps not given its flowers by our esteemed blogger. It is a lovely &Lit
Making pronouncements as a witch / pronouncing letter by letter l-i-k-e…
I completed this one in 12:25 but lost 2 minutes at the top to a colleague rudely interrupting me during my pre-work routine.
Tough but involving. I managed to avoid the SCC but biffed SHED and QUIETUDE and parsed them later (slowly). LATEST had to be but didn’t like it (LA doesn’t equate to Californian in my book). ARSONIST was my COD.
Thanks to Joker and Mike.
There used to be a cab driver in Manchester who had the cherished registration CAB81E, so I would never spell CABBY thus.
I found this rather Mondayish, with only my COD and LOI resisting the first pass. I seem to have struck a rich vein of form recently (if we ignore yesterday’s wrong answer in the 15×15), but I know it can’t last forever.
FOI TUBA
LOI QUIETUDE
COD ARSONIST
TIME 2:51
Yes, CAB 81E was a nonexistent registration, invented by the DVLA in 2004 to make £6,800 for their coffers. It would be worth a lot more than that now.
The fun and games of the Cherished/Personal number plate. A quirky British pasttime working within the constraints of restricted availability of a combination of letters and numbers. Some raise a smile on a long drive. I am sure some here have indulged themselves!
I saw the ultimate the other day, on a Luxembourg plated car. It was “L”!
My son and I spotted ‘1’ in Guernsey a few years ago. On an old Mercedes, if my memory serves me correctly.
I was wondering about this, but waited to receive an authoritative answer from the experts. The fact, I’m afraid, is that “personalised plates have been discussed for years in Luxembourg, but not yet launched”. You must have spotted the international oval (that’s like our GB plate, now UK) for Luxembourg, which of course is L. So sorry! Nice idea, though; when they do launch them, I’m sure L will be one of the first to go (it’ll be expensive, though).
I saw a number plate MSP166Y some time ago. My wife likes pigs and she would have loved to drive around as Ms Piggy. 🐖
That’s wonderful. A genuine everyday Dundee issue from 1982, before the DVLA learnt how to withhold any conceivably desirable number in order to sell it for a lot of money. Those were the days!
The only one I’ve seen that I coveted was ‘P45BAD’
I’m not sure if P45s are still a thing?
No, P45 isn’t (wasn’t) anything. Curiously enough, this was a totally normal number – the DVLA missed a trick there! It’s now cherished and on a new car, of course.
Actually – on second thoughts – that’s not how it worked then (in case this is of any interest?!). The DVLA allocated the series P-BAD to Worcester VRO, with instructions to withhold ‘desirable’ numbers 1-20, 22, 30, 33, 40, 44, 50, 55 etc., and that was it. They never thought to keep back other combinations that might one day be worth something. They’re more zealous now!
P45s are definitely something. If you leave a job (or perhaps in this context), if you are fired, you get handed your P45 on your last day together with your wages (or soon after).
Yes of course. But by “a thing” I understood “are for any reason excluded from the normally-issued sequence”, i.e. either deemed to be desirable and sold (like P72, P147), or forbidden (like P155, T175). To which the answer is No. But maybe that’s not what Filbert meant?
Found this terribly difficult, 7 to the bad for ages, after two hours gave up on the last three QUIETUDE (what’s that?), SHED and FIXATE. NHO BUNG or OLD TIMER being anything to do with water. Glad others found this of “quality”. Thanks, Mike.
It could have been any device used to tell time in days of yore such as a sundial, hence an “old timer”. The setter just happened to pick a water clock (see the blog for a full description). The definition is nounal, an ancient being an aged man, colloquially an “old timer”.
Thanks. In that case we’re just down to the fact that I’ve NHO the ancient water clock. My lack of GK!
Well into SCC and finished with little pleasure.
I struggle with this setter and that’s not going to change any time soon.
From TUBA to SHED (entered with crossed fingers), with a detour to insert FIXATE when I got the 97% Completed message, in 8:02. ARSONIST and SPELLING took some thinking time. Thanks Joker and Mike.
Never on Joker’s wavelength these days and I Aran out of time with 4 outstanding in the NE (8 & 12 across and 3 & 5 down). All except these completed and parsed in around 19 minutes.
FOI – 9ac REPEAL
LOI – DNF
COD – 13dn ARSONIST closely followed by SPELLING
Thanks to Joker and Mike.
Somewhere around 16-17mins . Good for us.
Held up for some minutes on last few – BUNG (NHO) QUIETUDE and FIXATE.
Enjoyed the ARSONIST and EASY queasy Queen… like the SPELLING witch.
Thanks to Joker and Mike H
A combination of ‘Got it’ and ‘what on earth is going on here’ with Bifs to boot. Frustrated finish in 29mins. Thanks Joker and Mike for the blog and journey into ancient Greece.
Another struggle. I did take time to parse SHED but I spent ages on my LOsI QUIT and QUIETUDE. 9:19 Thanks Mike
Seemed quite tricky to me, finishing with ARSONIST in 12:59. I stared at that one for quite a while with absolutely no idea what to do with it, but the penny finally dropped.
Hadn’t seen “qu” for “question” before. I mean yes, I’ve checked and it’s in the dictionary, but really. Fortunately “etude” came to mind pretty much straight away, so the rest of it didn’t take long to follow.
Thank you for the blog! Some interesting stuff there about water clocks which I didn’t know.
A witty puzzle today. NHO a water clock – enjoyed reading the info in the blog – but got OLD-TIMER from ancient. LOI QUIT after an alphabet trawl, otherwise no problems. Thanks Joker and Mike.
Dnf – in fact hardly started
DNF. Failed on QUIETUDE and ARSONIST (shd have go that). When I revealed these I solved QUIT and NEARLY.
Took me a while to arrive here today as ‘too many requests’
Liked ROULETTE, FIXATE (LOI apart from those mentioned).
Pretty difficult with difficult grid.
Thanks vm, Mike.
This took longer than it should have because of the crossers of FIXATE and OLD-TIMER, which I thought of immediately, but seemed too poor a clue to be likely. I also thought of FATE, but had trouble equating that with God’s will – destiny might have been a better way to put it. Eventually all sorted. TRAVERSE and ARSONIST were good.
10.17 Slow in the NW finishing with QUIT. I never parsed SHED. Thanks Mike and Joker.
Interesting puzzle, and certainly an interesting blog, for which many thanks. Have now been down a ‘water clock’ rabbit hole… Same thoughts re: SCABBY, biffed then parsed QUIETUDE (another to have tried and failed to shoehorn in con or den). ARSONIST was greeted with a wry smile. Never parsed SHED. LOI FIXATE. Slight MER at SPELLING as although witches cast spells they don’t make pronouncements and pronouncing is very different to SPELLING (aloud). Overall though, a really lovely QC that took me a little while longer than usual. Thanks again for the blog.
Dnf with QUIETUDE outstanding (and well into the SCC). Biffed SEMI for 17a until SPELLING (after much thought) trashed that one. Inserted SCABBY reluctantly, for reasons expressed by others. Those apart, I filled in steadily, enjoying a large pine and queasy without starters. So overall, an enjoyable and pretty chewy puzzle which gave me the odd ‘gotcha’ moment but defeated me by 1 run! Thanks Joker and Mike.
It took me 12 minutes to do the puzzle and nearly that many hours to remember I hadn’t posted to the blog. Been diverted by a sensational State-of-Origin rugby league match (NSW beat Queensland 22-20). This was an interesting puzzle, I liked ARSONIST but was bamboozled by the biffed SHED. Thanks Joker and well done Mike, now I know there was once a thing called a water clock.
Bottom left corner done with ease, but nothing after that! I found most of the other clues too obscure for a QC. Never heard of ‘Bung’ and Qu for question! – it’s usually Q as in Q and A.
In the week that Arsenal finally win the league, BUNG provides a nice reminder of one of their previous title winners, George Graham
DNF. I gave up after 40 minutes with one wrong and another unsolved. Basically, too hard for me.
I had to wait until WEAKNESS in the lower half to solve my first clue. ALPINE, NEARLY and BUNG then got me properly underway, but not for very long. I soon found it hard going and each success was followed by 2-3 minutes of nothing.
My final two clues defeated me. I thought of OLD TIMER, but it didn’t mean ancient (NHO ancient being used as a noun) or ancient water and was clearly not correct. So I tried OLD rIvER (as in Ol’ man river) which, whilst wrong, still gave me the right checkers for FIXATE. Trouble was that, despite extensive alphabet trawling, I never found it. Eventually therefore, I got bored and jacked it in.
So, nearly a PB yesterday followed by a DNF today. No consistency.
Thanks to Mike and Joker.
My thanks to Joker and Mike Harper.
17a Shed. I cheated here looking for shed???? in Machine, but nothing helped so I shrugged and moved on. Should have looked for ????shed instead, DOH!
23a Bung COD.
13d Arsonist COD2.
“Too many requests” earlier.
If you have a U try sticking a Q in front of it. Easy for QUIETUDE with “question” in the clue but did I remember it for QUIT? No and that took me well over my target ten. I rather liked OLD TIMER. Thanks both.
I’ve never seen Queen or Question abbreviated as “qu”. A learning for me. Thanks both
Dnf: beaten by OLD TIMER, where I thought I was looking for a named clock. Ho hum. I share the sentiment that QU is not a valid abbreviation for either “question” or “queen”. It’s a “Q&A session” and the ocean liner wasn’t the “QUE2”. Harrumph.
Thanks to Mike and Joker.
Well, Joker’s reversion to their earlier, more solver friendly style didn’t last very long. Loi Quietude elbowed past to deprive me of a seat, and on a hot day like this as well. I have no idea how that bounder sneaked past the Editor.
As a small consolation, I did manage to parse everything on the go, including the unfinished Shed. CoD to Arsonist for the smile. Invariant
20 mins…
Like many above, took a while to get 1dn “Quietude” (I knew the musical term of etude – but didn’t know the definition of the whole clue) and 11ac “Quit”. I couldn’t see what else 17ac could be apart from “Shed”, but never managed to parse it. Again, I was looking for some kind of “just” synonym.
FOI – 7ac “Tuba”
LOI – 1dn “Quietude”
COD – 13dn “Arsonist” – very clever.
Thanks as usual!
2 hours on 15 x 15 that Snitch says is easy – and I was still 7 clues short!
Truly demoralising.
A testing puzzle from Joker but also humorous in places as one would expect.
It took me over 50 minutes as I was determined to finish and required alphabet trawls for ROULETTE which I thought was a cryptic clue and TRAVERSE.
ARSONIST was COD for the smile and like rv1 the rule about trying a Q in front of a U paid off again for QUIT.
Thanks Mike and Joker.
Rather puzzled by so many above expressing their various difficulties of one sort or another with this puzzle. I find Joker very reliable and thought he was being pretty generous today. I never time myself, but it felt rather a breeze – and I’m def a slow-coach solver.
FOI 7a Tuba
LOI 5d Fixate
COD 12a Traverse
QUIT: I would also MER over completely = quite. Maybe, in cod period drama, the heroine might grasp the table for support and exclaim “Really! I am quite taken aback by your proposal, Mr Dashing”.
But I missed that parsing entirely and decided “Finish early” and “Leave completely” were a double definition. If so, does that make an &lit²?
IMO you are quite wrong.
🙂
21:18 – an average time but achieved with quite a lot of biffing. Thanks for the explanations!
10 minutes for me. I biffed SEMI at 17a and it took a while to unravel it.
LOI SHED, like others not fully parsed.
And Cabby? of course.
David
11:42, which for us these days is probably a little slower than our mode but faster than our mean (we don’t keep statistics though we’ve a vague idea of our PBs.) QUIETUDE didn’t hold us up much though we were FIXATEd on LOI 8d for much longer than we would have liked. MERs at the QUs for question and queen. Enjoyed SPELLING though. Thanks, Mike and Joker.
DNF. Forgot the q before u rule and bunged in oust as the closest word I could think of for leave after 20 mins.
FOI Repeal
LOI dnf
COD Fixate
thanks Joker and Mike
Another fairly tough one. Spent far too long on ROULETTE, TRAVERSE and FIXATE. No problem with QUIETUDE, which I think is rather a nice word, and I love Chopin’s Études. Thought of OLD TIMER early on, but was puzzled by ‘water’, even though I’ve VHO the water clock and realised that ‘ancient’ was most likely a noun. Smiled at ARSONIST and SPELLING.
Thanks to Joker and Mike