So our first Saturday QC has landed – and I’ve been hauled out of retirement to fill the unexpected blogging space. It’s a pleasure to be with you once again. They say you never forget how to ride a bike – it turns out blogging is much the same. Very rusty at first but great fun – you should give it a go sometime (Templar is flying a standard from his charger and showing the way!).
I had hoped for a gentle reintroduction but found this not to be the case. I found this to be very challenging and took north of 15 minutes – which may be no bad thing with it being the weekend when there’s always an excuse required to delay the gardening.
Please find my explanations below – and let me know if I’ve missed a trick!
Definitions are underlined in bold italics.
| Across | |
| 1 | Broken patterns in cathedral wing (8) |
| TRANSEPT – anagram (broken) of PATTERNS. | |
| 5 | Obscene Oxbridge sportsperson (4) |
| BLUE – double definition. | |
| 8 | Knock-out verse about Irish city (5) |
| KIROV – knock-out (KO) and verse (V – it seems most things can be reduced to their first letter) around Irish (IR – or in this case first letters). NHO KIROV – it’s about 500 miles north east of Moscow. | |
| 9 | Cop lied — somehow did his job? (7) |
| POLICED – anagram (somehow) of COP LIED. | |
| 11 | Vengeful cook spreading only brie on roll (5,6) |
| BUNNY BOILER – a reference to Fatal Attraction. Anagram (spreading) of ONLY BRIE after (on) a roll (BUN). An extra bit of difficulty having a synonym before the anagram – but I liked the clue. | |
| 13 | Unpopular time for power cut (6) |
| OUTAGE – unpopular (OUT), time (AGE). | |
| 14 | Plantagenet king inside unleashed war dogs (6) |
| EDWARD – inside unleash(ED WAR D)ogs. With apologies to the history buffs out there here’s a quick summary to get the rest of up to speed – the name Plantagenet is used by modern historians to identify four distinct royal houses; the Angevins who were also Counts of Anjou; the main line of the Plantagenets following the loss of Anjou; and the houses of Lancaster and York, the Plantagenets’ two cadet branches. The family held the English throne from 1154, with the accession of Henry II until 1485, when Richard III died. Right, there we are, so let’s carry on. | |
| 17 | Ferocious creature let in — beggar devoured (6,5) |
| BENGAL TIGER – anagram (devoured) of LET IN BEGGAR. | |
| 20 | Aquatic mammal seen in play regularly — big draw? (7) |
| LOTTERY – aquatic animal (OTTER) seen inside pLaY. | |
| 21 | One making new life abroad — former postman? (5) |
| EXPAT – jocular reference to Postman Pat (and his black and white cat). | |
| 22 | Not the white team according to report (4) |
| YOLK – I think the homophone (to report) of team is yoke (as in oxen). Presumably you can team/yoke two beasts together. | |
| 23 | Fastest guns to win this international competition? (4,4) |
| ARMS RACE – a gun is a side arm – so the fastest arm will win the race? Took a while to get and I wasn’t sure I liked it when I did. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Capture bear (4) |
| TAKE – double definition. Capture/take a position, bear as in bear/take the strain. | |
| 2 | Tumbler‘s performance involving wild boar (7) |
| ACROBAT – performance (ACT) inside which is and anagram (wild) of BOAR. | |
| 3 | Economy by good people shows redeeming quality (6,5) |
| SAVING GRACE – economy (SAVING) by good (G) people (RACE). | |
| 4 | Dad holding a fork out for fruit (6) |
| PAPAYA – dad (PA |
|
| 6 | Number close enough? (5) |
| LOCAL – as in local anaesthetic. Close enough I take to mean in the local area – so near at hand – although I’m not sure I was too happy about that. | |
| 7 | Drunken ordeal and party in fabulous place (8) |
| ELDORADO – anagram (drunken) of ORDEAL and party (DO). | |
| 10 | Lumbermen accepting fine: DA to direct piercing glare (4,7) |
| LOOK DAGGERS – lumbermen (LOGGERS) around fine (OK) and DA is, erm, DA. | |
| 12 | Book kept in PO Box for corporation (8) |
| POTBELLY – book (B) inside PO=PO and box (TELLY). | |
| 15 | Roman commander having a vice we hear? (7) |
| AGRIPPA – a (A), homophone of vice = gripper. Neat. History buffs – you can switch off again – this chap, amongst many other achievements I’m sure, apparently defeated Anthony and Cleopatra and was responsible for building the Panthenon – on edit should read Pantheon. | |
| 16 | Street philosopher one unlikely to give up (6) |
| STAYER – street (ST), philosopher (AYER). Apparently he promoted ‘logical positivism’ – I think I may have liked him. | |
| 18 | Beat up a Liberal in old province (5) |
| NATAL – beat (TAN) upwards then a (A) liberal (L). ‘Old’ as it’s now called KwaZulu-Natal. | |
| 19 | Line dropped from fashion — problem for looker? (4) |
| STYE – line (L) dropped from fashion (STY)l(E). The ‘looker’ being an eye. | |
10:29. This was delightfully challenging, and it is a treat to be doing a quickie on the weekend!
Definitely did not know BUNNY BOILER but I was able to get it. Happy weekend, all!
15:15. NHO Pat as postman nor BUNNY BOILER as the vengeful cook. I knew of Fatal Attraction and basics of plot but don’t think I ever actually watched the whole movie. I would have guessed KIROV was a person and don’t recall hearing of it as a place. SAVING GRACE was my COD. Thanks for new Saturday QC and news John’s fortnightly will continue!
You’re going to love this … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmfriXprSRk
5-1 to you this week
Haha-thanks- very catchy and cheerful. I’ll know to watch out for Postman, Pat, or Black and White Cat in future puzzles!
NHO Postman Pat? Maybe you are too young.
If this is a joke, pls forgive me, I’m terrible at tone on the internet
But new Postman Pat episodes aired from 1981 to 2017, a truly excellent career for a post man, so I don’t think it’s youth that’s the issue!
Well, I’m blaming my DNF on the fact it took me a very frustrating 10mins to print the thing off in the first place. Like James, I couldn’t see a print button anywhere, and although emailing is not an obvious second choice it was still preferable to messing around with screen grabs.
As for the QC, I thought this was definitely a step up from the normal fare. A slow start (for some reason 🙄), and even slower progress left me three short (Potbelly, Yolk and Arms Race) at my 30min cut off. Invariant
16.14 I’m delighted to see a Saturday QC. This was a bit tougher than usual but very enjoyable. The parsing of LOCAL eluded me. I hope that’s the last time I don’t twig to “number”. YOLK and ARMS RACE took some thought. Thanks Chris and Wurm.
Crikey! Oink at the tougher end of his scale. I wonder if Saturday QCs are going to challenge us more rigorously. 31 minutes, which is not bad for me, but several clues remained un- or only partially parsed.
I started well with the two across clues at the top of the grid, but I couldn’t build on them for quite a while. I did not parse LOCAL or LOOK DAGGERS and didn’t work out every element of SAVING GRACE or YOLK. However, they went in and stayed there once I’d got their crossing clues. Also, I had NHO the philosopher or the Russian city.
My LOsI were LOTTERY and ARMS RACE and I breathed a big sigh of relief as I crossed the line.
Many thanks to Oink and Chris (great blog!).
It was wurm.
That explains a lot. Thankyou Flashman.
hello – can anyone help me find Wurm’s Sat QC in the actual folding hard copy paper? or is it only on the e-version??
Thanks! Enjoy reading the blog and posts…
It’s only available electronically.
There was a response on this to jackkt’s earlier post announcing the arrival of the Saturday QC. As Plett11 says it’s not in the paper version.
Definitely trickier fare today from Wurm, but a nice challenge. TRANSEPT was a quick starter, but I’d NHO AYER and LOCAL needed the crossers. BUNNY BOILER was a while coming but was obvious when I remembered the film. Took ages to see LOI, YOLK. 10:50. Thanks Wurm and welcome back Chris!
Is this online only – can’t find it in my printed version
yes
Thanks – do you know why – I’m paying more for my hard copy subscription
As Mick Hodgson the Puzzle editor has explained there isn’t room for it in the printed version, but due to demand they have started an online Saturday QC, but online only.
Thanks John
Maybe at some point they might do a proper overhaul. Currently they run a prize competition which has become a joke. All the answers to the jumbo cryptic can be googled on the day, so if like me, you do it honestly there is no real point in submitting an entry.
The answers to ALL the prize puzzles can be Googled on the day and there is nothing that the Times could do about that even if they wanted to. That said, given the frequency of repeat Jumbo winners, I would guess that filling in the larger grid is too much of a faff even for cheaters so don’t be putting off from entering the Jumbo competitions.
Sorry I don’t understand any of that. Why can’t the Times protect its content. Is it because none of the clues are original? I can do most of the cryptics in less than an hour so to top up the odd few clues by cheating is no real hassle. Why would I want to support the Royal Mail by wasting best part of a quid? Thanks for your interest though.
I should add years ago the Torygraph published a letter from a guy who admitted that he’d posted correct entries for a number of years without a sniff! I stopped submitting my own after that.
Where is the grid in the newspaper please
It’s not in the paper version.
How nice to welcome Chris back, and to see all the gang convening on a Saturday. I found this quite challenging – Wiggly Woo up to his usual tricks – so was glad to finish, but was definitely heading for the club. I wouldn’t say no to a cappucino and a pastry on a Saturday morning. It’s been a varied (and very slow) week but in the end it was Setters 2 Penny 4. Not sure of my overall time, but definitely more than an hour for the four that I completed.
On reflection, I thought there were quite a few dark, if not violent, clues today – vengeful cooks, Plantagenet war dogs, drunken ordeals, beaten up liberals etc. But I did like LOTTERY, EXPAT and SAVING GRACE, and despite being unable to parse POTBELLY, the clue amused me! No problem with corporation for a large tum – maybe it’s because I’m somewhat more than 50, but it was certainly a jokey term when I was growing up, aimed mostly at my father!
You know you’ve been doing these too long when your first reaction to seeing number is ‘anaesthetic’. However, I was looking at all the wrong options – LOCAL only appeared after quite a lot of puzzling, not helped by the fact that I thought ‘close enough’ was a bit loose.
FOI Transept LOI Local COD Policed
Thanks Wurm and Chris
Thank you, and surely if you recognise a clue quickly, you haven’t been doing them too long – only long enough to make a quick start. Well done and keep going!
I’ve just realised that the QC will be 10 this March!
So the SCC has had to start Saturday opening, but I was pleased to finish this chewy little number. Pleased also to remember the Xword centric meanings of corporation and number. Maybe I am learning, slowly. I wait to see what level next week’s weekender is pitched at – Saturday Izetti anyone?
Mmm – look forward to it!
21:51 here. I was held up in the SW corner, where I had dismissed POT BELLY as “definitely two words”, but eventually enough crossers came to make it impossible to be anything else. It probably didn’t help that I’d had the same thought about EL DORADO. I had parsed PAPAYA as “A Y in PAPA”, I’m glad to see a better explanation.
Thanks to Wurm and welcome back and thanks to Chris.
Thanks Chris. As it is a Saturday I started this off in the morning and had to abandon it with 18 mins on the clock in order to get to my gym session (tardiness earns you a black mark). I then completely forgot about the advent of the Saturday QC. I had only 1 clue to go. It is now the evening and the missing answer YOLK just came to me. So glad I didn’t bung in YELL. Room for improvement on my part.
Not used to solving in the evening when tired! Took an age to finish. Needed the blog to explain YOLK, LOCAL (doh, that sort of number…) and EDWARD (totally missed the hidden). Many thanks Chris. Will try to do in the morning next Saturday 🥱 Thanks Wurm.
Quite difficult. NHO BUNNY BOILER – had to look it up to see if it existed. (Never seen Fatal Attraction).
Guessed YOLK and LOCAL. Knew KIROV from the ballet – not the most obvious city! Not seen ELDORADO as one word before. Thanks to Chris for taking on the blog.
A tougher weekend QC is a great idea, it would be nice if it continues like this.
That being said, I did struggle mightily and DNFed with 5 clues outstanding, BUNNY BOILER, KIROV, YOLK, NATAL, and TAKE.
The amount of GK was quite frustrating, a real pet peeve of mine.
The multiple-part clues are definitely more complicated than “regular” QC clues are, having to find a synonym of a word then do something else to it makes a clue much harder since there are so many more possibilities to check.
One of the things I love about cryptics is that you can get answers you’ve never known from the cryptic – learning is fun imho.
I agree in principle, it’s very satisfying getting the solution from the wordplay, and knowing it’s correct even if it’s a word you didn’t know before. My annoyance comes from clues where the wordplay requires you to know some fact in order to solve it. I often feel I am stuck because I don’t know the reference. It’s a hard line to walk for the setters obviously between obscure and well-known GK, and I probably am at a disadvantage being relatively a bit younger and not English compared to the main cryptic crossword demographics.
13:22. Late comment on Sunday am our time here. As others have said great to see a Saturday QC. I’m with the majority in finding this harder than average with BUNNY BOILER unknown and LOCAL unparsed. Last in was YOLK which came after just as I was about to embark upon an A-Z trawl.
Very enjoyable all round; let’s hope this one sets the tone for future Saturday QC’s.
Welcome back to Chris – a big thanks to him and Wurm.
Another late-comer (I only found out by accident that this QC existed) and another DNF, beaten by LOCAL, BUNNY BOILER – very annoying, I’d seen the movie and the term has been widely used – and YOLK which was too clever for me. Got KIROV from the ballet company, and the arms/guns linkage from Anchorman.
Hmm… 100 comments on this, and no one noticed “Crytic” in the title?
That’s how I make the big bucks, y’all…!
I did, but didn’t want to say it…and the “cmments” in your post! 😜
Ha!
Ta
Thank you. Better late than never!
Tough and fun. Submitted off leaderboard because wasn’t sure why YOLK was a homophone for team despite trying it out numerous times. And I wasn’t sure that KIROV existed. Liked BUNNY BOILER and numerous others. 10:06.
Many thanks Wiggly Woo and welcome back Chris!!
Templar
Obviously in the minority as I prefer the paper version. One of the perks of retirement is doing the QC with a leisurely coffee at breakfast. This was the first time I’ve done one online and it was enjoyable – but not as satisfying as using pen and paper! Thanks very much to Wurm and to Chris for parsing PAPAYA, YOLK and LOCAL which I had to biff. I’m just going to have to get used to a new Saturday morning routine.
I always complete using the paper version too but if I need to print I do so from the Times website online using a laptop. Someone was looking for guidance on printing. Go to Times online, on menu select Today’s sections, select puzzles, select crossword you want. Click on the three lines above timer, menu opens, select print. Hope this helps.
Thanks WHS.
Put it in the printed version please as it is what we pay for. Many people can only do it on paper for a variety of reasons and this looks like discrimination
Get rid of some of the other rubbish please to fit it in.
Hello. Thanks for comments. I’m glad you enjoyed the birth of the Sat QC.
It wasn’t written specifically for the purpose, I have to admit. Just me being me!
Cheers all esp Chris
Wurm