A fun tussle with Trelawney here – who I declare the winner after pushing me just over 10 minutes. Lots of anagrams, double definitions, blind alleys and smooth surfaces. Great fun – thanks.
Definitions are underlined in bold italics.
| Across | |
| 1 | Abrupt way to stop using Christmas leftovers? (4,6) |
| COLD TURKEY – double definition. I should have been quicker off the mark with this one, | |
| 7 | Neighbourhood surrounding Newcastle’s first stadium (5) |
| ARENA – neighbourhood (AREA) surrounding (N)ewcastle. | |
| 8 | Colours on drinking vessel (6) |
| FLAGON – colours (FLAG – as in ‘hoist the colours’), on (ON). | |
| 10 | Bread we gather for animal (3) |
| DOE – homophone (we gather) of bread=dough. | |
| 12 | Renegade‘s terrible speed approaching rough road (9) |
| DESPERADO – anagram (terrible) of SPEED next another anagram (rough) of ROAD. | |
| 13 | Plant‘s strange allure (6) |
| LAUREL – anagram (strange) of ALLURE. | |
| 14 | Sack impure judge (6) |
| UMPIRE – anagram (sack) of IMPURE. | |
| 17 | Have guests come into vehicle with no right? (9) |
| ENTERTAIN – come into (ENTER), vehicle with no right (T)r(AIN). | |
| 19 | Key amount to pay (3) |
| TAB – double definition. | |
| 20 | Outlaw in favour of offer (6) |
| FORBID – in favour of (FOR), offer (BID). | |
| 21 | Beginning to open very large letter (5) |
| OMEGA – (O)pen, very large (MEGA). | |
| 23 | US soldier, with pound, gets hold of small creatures and a big one (5,5) |
| GIANT SQUID – US soldier (GI) and pound (QUID) holding small creatures (ANTS). Last clue-itis hit on this one. GI was obvious but then I was stuck. I cracked it by heading off the wrong way – I thought ‘with’ could be ‘and’ which gave GIAN – so giant was obvious and then so was squid. I then had to rework the parsing to see how it worked. All that must get COD. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Cleaner hid broken light fixture (10) |
| CHANDELIER – anagram (broken) of CLEANER HID. ‘Char’ seemed an obvious ‘in’ to this clue but wasn’t to be. | |
| 2 | It’s not true rest (3) |
| LIE – double definition. | |
| 3 | Time to walk like a duck? Nonsense! (7) |
| TWADDLE – time (T), to walk like a duck WADDLE. | |
| 4 | Say no to waste (6) |
| REFUSE – double definition. | |
| 5 | Delete periods before end of sentence (5) |
| ERASE – periods (ERAS), sentenc(E). | |
| 6 | Disturb solitary supporter of the crown (8) |
| ROYALIST – anagram (disturb) of SOLITARY. | |
| 9 | Futuristic vehicle initially hauled into the sea? (10) |
| HOVERBOARD – (H)auled, into the sea (OVERBOARD). Hovercraft flashed into the grid but had to be removed and reworked. | |
| 11 | Mathematical statement butchered in a quote (8) |
| EQUATION – anagram (butchered) of IN A QUOTE. | |
| 15 | Chap leaves fruit (7) |
| MANGOES – chap (MAN), leaves (GOES). | |
| 16 | Young lady‘s help accepted by chaps (6) |
| MAIDEN – help (AID) inside chaps (MEN). | |
| 18 | Religious leader‘s pet, perhaps, with no tail (5) |
| RABBI – pet, perhaps, with no tail (RABBI)t. | |
| 22 | Bird beginning to emit kitten-like sound we can hear (3) |
| EMU – (E)mit, homophone (we can hear) of kitten-like sound – mew. | |
I was going lickety-split, but was held up (unduly) by the last couple, UMPIRE, ROYALIST, & DNK HOVERBOARD. 6:06.
For some reason I found this one of the easiest and straight forward puzzles in a long time, but we know it is always an individual thing.
14:23 for a rare sub 15 min finish with all parsed and no Bifs. I suspect there will be lots of seating room in the club today.
COD GIANTSQUIDS.
Thanks Trelawney and Chris
15:02. Finished with the unknown HOVERBOARD after I finally saw overboard after H. I don’t think I would have got this without TAB first which also took a long time to solve. Wanted monarch to fit some way before I got ROYALIST and candle for a while before CHANDELIER. As a dedicated futurist I might just mosey on down to the Yacht Club to see if I can purchase my own HOVERBOARD.
Okay, have to rethink this-on checking out what a hoverboard actually is ,I now realize it has nothing to do with water or hovercrafts or surfboards but rather is a land(or air?) conveyance.
I assume the word refers to the thingy McFly uses in “Back to the Future”.
Only in part II actually. And isn’t strictly futuristic anymore, the movie being set 7 years ago, in 2015.
Also used in part III, where he’s next to the steam train in 1885 *SPOILER*
What a fantastic film series though. Pure entertainment from start to finish.
There’s odd things to try to explain to my kids though what with the peeping tom stuff, and Marty’s mum being raped? Assaulted?
We tried to watch it as a family when the kids were like.. 8, might wait a few years to try again.
Molly Ringwald had a similar problem trying to show her daughter The Breakfast Club which she starred in. Lots of articles about it in search engine.
But with BTTF, given time travel is impossible, I’m not sure why we should take any of the scenes seriously. It’s quite a moralistic film as Marty is trying to save his mum from Biff’s actions, he highlights his father is a peeping tom and he inspires the black worker in the cafe to become the mayor.
Sure but prob still not appropriate for 8 year olds, which I thought would be a good age for it!
A lot of 80’s “kids” films got away with subjects/language that probably wouldn’t happen now. Just look at The Goonies.
Anything by Amblin, Spielberg etc. used to get more lenient film classifications.
Yes, of course-I did see that movie but obviously wasn’t paying attention.
I thought I was really struggling, but instantly seeing answers like cold turkey and giant squid really helped. It was the obvious refuse and umpire that I just couldn’t see, as I struggled in the NE. Flagon was a little more difficult, but I should have spotted it sooner.
Time: 7:43
13.46 I believe that’s a PB!!!
I just want to say that in my world, chaps are crotchless trousers and I just could not get that out of my head.
Thank you Trelawny for no geography or wine clues.
Foi: COLD TURKEY
loi: MAIDEN
COD: HOVERBOARD
Back to the Future promised us hoverboards in 2015 and I believe someone *has* invented them just not in any mass marketable way.
The kids do have a type of vehicle called a hoverboard now, which is like a step with two big wheels on either side – like a Segway without the handle.
Well done Tina – on fire!!
Congratulations Tina, especially with the distraction of “chaps” which I’m glad to say I was totally unaware of!
You know those leather pants that cowboys wear? Those are chaps!
Bread and butter to UK fans of TV Westerns back in the 50s and 60s!
In the early days of Invoice Automation we had AI read all the invoice line descriptions for a large insurance company. We couldn’t understand why so many invoices were getting classified as “Clothing:menswear”. Turned out a lot of the maintenance invoices had lines like “Two chaps came in to fix the boiler”. And as Tina points out, chaps=menswear.
So cowboys are chaps in chaps….😂
And, if they rub, could be chaps with chaps due to their chaps.
9 minutes with minor delays thinking MEW (a type of gull) at 22dn before the GIANT SQUID put paid to it, and the NHO HOVERBOARD that had to be constructed from wordplay and checkers.
848 Arabs complete conquest of Sicily
8:48, and on for a PB until the last two : FORBID and MAIDEN. felt as though I was typing non-stop, how can anyone can do it much faster? Respect.
GIANT SQUID caused trouble, as I had L= pound. Several unlikely animals were rejected (louse, lemur…)
COD TWADDLE
20 minutes again. Although I got off to a flying start with most of the top write-ins then for the bottom half having to read the clues with greater care to eke out the answers.
FOI: COLD TURKEY.
LOI: TAB after I had spent time breaking down the wordplay of HOVERBOARD and GIANT SQUID.
Fast out the blocks with all of the first six going straight but then only one more to give seven on the first pass of acrosses. Downs went well and I ended up with three in the East causing me trouble. HOVERBOARD, where I couldn’t tie down the definition and took an age to get to ‘overboard’, UMPIRE where I missed ‘sack’ as anagram indicator and GIANT SQUID where my years of Octonauts when the girls where younger abandoned me and I failed to get from ‘pound’ to ‘quid’. After all that it turned out I’d entered ‘lil’ for LIE and so ruining ARENA (looking at the keyboard that’s an impressive misstroke) to leave me with one pink square and two errors in 16m – which today is 2.6Ks and 1.1Ts .
My struggles with HOVERBOARD were trying to make it something related to “over sand” / “over beach” given the “hauled into the sea” surface despite understanding the significance of the H for hauled. And of course double checking SQUID to see if HOVERcraft would fit multiple times.
Interesting solve with the 4 long perimeter clues putting up a fight but with the ‘inner’ clues proving much more accessible.
Couldn’t get past GIANT SNAIL at 23a until COD HOVERBOARD finally succumbed, but I should have seen COLD TURKEY and CHANDELIER much quicker than I did.
Pleased to finish under target in 9.23
Thanks to Chris and Trelawney
This was a fun puzzle, mostly quite addressable but a few traps along the way. Also a relatively rare puzzle with 2 Qs but no pangram.
I was another who tried Hovercraft at first (well it was futuristic when I were a wee lad), and (a bigger hold-up) I also tried Giant Panda for the squid. I thought it parsed so beautifully too – GI…P for the US soldier with pound, ANT for the small creature followed by AND A from the clue. Then I noticed (a) it made all three of 16D Mangoes, 22D Emu and 9D Hover-something impossible, and (b) the clue actually said small creatureS. So that blew Panda out of the water, requiring a rejig of the SE corner completely and leading me to a finish just under 10 minutes.
Many thanks to Chris for the blog
Cedric
A good move to get the panda out of the water and leave the squid in there.
I made exactly the same mistake and misparsing of GIANT PANDA and was so convinced that it was right that I gave up on the impossible down checkers for a DNF. Completely stumped too on TAB for a terrible day.
Ditto re GIANT panda parsing!
I did exactly the same wrt GIANT PANDA but realised when I got EMU.
A nice QC from Trelawney which I seemed to take to. An unusual top to bottom solve for me with a time of under 10 mins for a change (actually 9.40). Even more unusual was that, timewise, I was in the same group as Chris and jackkt. Result!
LOI and COD was GIANT SQUID. Thanks to both. John M.
A frustrating 21+ mins as final 10mins or so wondering about HOVERBOARD/TAB until I gave up at 20:40. Had thought of TAB and maybe if I’d committed to putting it in the grid, the “futuristic vehicle” would have jumped out at me. Instead it occurred to me during the washing up. I guess it is a “vehicle” as it gets you from one place to another but like when we had skateboard and raft some months ago, it’s not your typical idea of one.
Oh well, a solve I’d have been very happy with some months ago so I shouldn’t be too disappointed. Maybe I’m beginning to get okay at this !!
Thanks to Chris and Trelawney 🙂
Sounds like great progress to me.
Usual thing, raced smugly along then stuck. CHANDELIER and COLD TURKEY helped a lot . TWADDLE made me smile, also liked FLAGON. I was another who went for PANDA, until MANGOES and EMU put me straight. Slow on TAB and LOI HOVERBOARD, which sprang or rather wafted into mind after a PDM with OMEGA.
(Wasn’t Captain Nemo involved with a giant squid?)
Thanks all, esp Chris.
Yes,great underwater struggle between giant squid and Nemo’s submarine ,the Nautilus! I think maybe Ned Land (Kirk Douglas) subsequently harpooned the beast?
Gosh, yes, epic!
Chris – fwiw – there’s a typo in the blog heading!
Thank you! Now corrected.
I started off well, but was slowed at the end by CHANDELIER, DOE, TAB and HOVERBOARD. 11:25. Thanks Trelawney and Chris.
Just over 9 minutes today (can’t be more accurate as I do the hard copy version). I too thought of hovercraft at first but couldn’t parse it but when TAB went in the penny dropped for OVERBOARD. I needed all the crossers for GIANT SQUID which was my LOI and only parsed post-solve. Thanks to Trelawney and blogger.
Another tough one for me. I initially entered HOVERCRAFT for 9d, which gave me T_C for 19a, which made no sense. Another look at the 9d clue showed me that I had not read the clue properly.
I also put Loyalist instead of Royalist before realising I had given myself an extra L.
But I managed to complete it with no aids, though I did come close to giving up.
I’ve just commented to L-Plates above about great progress. It’s good to see so many people getting the hang of this.
Excellent!
One of those weird solves where the answer just pops into the head as soon as you finish reading the clue. Started with 1ac and 1d, and then all the offspring, and then it was just a case of which one shall I write in next ? This could easily have been a PB, but Hovercraft for 9d didn’t feel quite right (ie wouldn’t parse), especially when the resulting Tic(k) for 19ac also seemed odd, but then Omega looked OK. Giant Squid finally confirmed the mistake and the need for some re-work. Hoverboard and Tab followed, but by then the clock was up to 12mins; a minute off the required pace. Rats. CoD to 12ac, Desperado, for the surface, and my thanks to Chris and especially Trelawney, for the fun while it lasted. Invariant
Just under 10 minutes. LOI was MANGOES. Like others NHO HOVERBOARD which was my first thought from the parsing but I didn’t put it in until nothing else would do.
Nice puzzle. COD to FORBID.
David
On the tougher side of average I thought, and I was happy to sneak in under target at 9.32. Like quite a few people my LOI was HOVERBOARD, and it was helpful that I’d seen Back to the Future, otherwise I may not have thought of it.
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay
My, oh, my, what a wonderful day
05:48 for a very rare foray beneath 6 mins and an even rarer sub-K for a Red Letter Day 😎
Many thanks Chris and the Squire. COD to the SQUID ho ho.
Templar
Well done – next target to break the 5 minute barrier perhaps?
Fractional K!
🔥🔥🔥 Congrats!
Congrats. I can still count my sub 6 minutes solves on the fingers of one hand.
Fabulous, Templar!
Like Alfweard I did well at the top but the bottom half was looking rather empty after the first pass. However I worked my way through the missing answers without to much of a hold-up to finish in 15 minutes, all parsed. I was slow to see the anagram at 1dn (trying to fit “char” round the outside of something) and very slow to see ENTERTAIN, which was really quite straightforward (but so are they all with hindsight). Enjoyable puzzle – thanks to Trelawney and also to Chris for the blog.
FOI – 1ac COLD TURKEY
LOI – 14ac UMPIRE
COD – several candidates. I particularly liked COLD TURKEY, DESPERADO and ROYALIST
Lots of good times above, which is great to see.
LOI was FLAGON, because I had fat-fingered EARSE.
I’m making a concerted effort to pick some down clues for COD, because when I review the grid I tend to only see acrosses.
Today’s picks were the excellent anagram for CHANDELIER, the underused TWADDLE, and the concise REFUSE.
5:43
3:22 this morning, one of my fastest times for a while – one of these days where the activities of solving, parsing and entering followed each other seamlessly. A rare experience of how Verlaine et al feel all the time!
I do think this type of grid is solver-friendly, as long as one can crack the peripheral clues quickly.
Only re-visit was to 6 d “royalist”, where I was looking initially for a word for “solitary” below a word for “crown” but then realised that an anagram was involved once crossers were in place.
Never associated 9 d “hoverboard” with being particularly futuristic but I now see from a dictionary reference that the clue was perfectly sound.
Liked 11 d “equation” with its shades of fake news perhaps?
Thanks to Chris and Telawney.
12 mins…
Like a few people thought I might be on for a PB, but got held up by the SE corner. I also thought 9dn might be “Hovercraft”, but everything was thrown up in the air when I biffed in “Giant Snail” for 23ac (which to be fair can get quite large – relatively at least). Anyway, after looking at it properly and not being able to parse it, the penny finally dropped.
FOI – 1dn “Chandalier”
LOI – 23ac “Giant Squid”
COD – 9dn “Hoverboard” – for conjuring up images of Marty McFly.
Thanks as usual!
“DESPERADO, why don’t you come to your senses ?”
I was slow coming to mine at the finish of this, having reached my LOI in a tad under 3 minutes, but refusing to believe the answer for almost a further minute until I was happy with the parsing.
FOI ARENA
LOI HOVERBOARD
COD ENTERTAIN
TIME 3:48
Rare outing from the scc today. Loi giant squid which took an extra minute or so to sort out.
5:49 here, a personal best by a large margin. Yay! Somehow all the right answers came to mind quickly and none of the wrong ones did. No doubt reality will come crashing back down tomorrow, but today I will enjoy this and perhaps buy a lottery ticket. 😀
FOI COLD TURKEY
LOI EMU
COD CHANDELIER
Congrats. Good luck with the lottery ticke 😅
Well done. PB s are to be built on!
🔥
7.09
Pleasant fare for an average sort of time for me
Thanks Chris and Trelawney
First time I actually timed myself today, I am a Scot in NYC, so always start this a little bit later than everyone else.
Liked 23 ac, pondered Gaint Snail for a while with Pound = L but Hoverboard put an end to that caper.
Flagon LOI and took up a number of minutes, so I didn’t exactly McFly through it..
20:41
Welcome!
Thanks!
A few chewy items and the unknown but gettable (eventually) HOVERBOARD made for an entertaining challenge. Helpful to get 1a and 1d early on for the useful first letters.
Very odd – I posted an hour or so ago, but no sign of it!
Suffice to say, I struggled with this one for some reason, although I can’t really say why. I thought it was a very nice puzzle, but HOVERBOARD and GIANT SQUID in particular slowed me down, and I came in at 16 minutes. I went halfway down the acrosses before going across to the downs to get my FOI!
FOI and COD Chandelier LOI Hoverboard WOD Twaddle
Thanks Trelawney and Chris
Wow, can’t recall ever getting to the line ahead of you. A digestif beckons 😉
I’m sure you have! Hope you enjoyed the digestif 🍷😊
Calvados ❤
Mr B’s favourite 😋 A nice malt whisky for me!
7:23 starting at the 1s and held up by a GIANT PANDA before motoring over the finish line on a HOVERBOARD.
7 is quick for me so flying may be more appropriate than motoring?
DNF
Was romping through this one with just the SE corner to go after 6 minutes. But then I hit the buffers on UMPIRE and HOVERBOARD and ended up putting GIANT SOUND instead of SQUID for the LOI.
Started with brain fog. Thought cold turkey but couldn’t parse it so waited for some checkers. Picked up speed on the down clues before being held up briefly by 14ac and 23ac. A hugely enjoyable QC.
Thanks for the blog today. I needed it for some of the parsing.