Author   BletchleyRejectPosted on 30th July 2024 at 2:30 AM30 July 2024Categories Quick Cryptic
A pleasant ramble until I lost my way at the very end.
I didn’t have any trouble with this until my last in, 21a. Not for the first time, sucked in by the wordplay, so spent about 5 minutes on this until the not very difficult answer appeared.
Despite this self-induced frustration, an enjoyable QC pitched at the right level without obscure words or intricate wordplay. All finished in 13:46.
Thanks to Jalna
Definitions underlined in bold, deletions indicated by strikethrough.
| Across | |
| 1 | Vermeer somehow encapsulates love, always (8) |
| EVERMORE – Anagram (‘somehow’) of VERMEER containing (‘encapsulates’) O (‘love’) I don’t know how the fine arts cognoscenti interpret the painting, but “The Girl with a Pearl Earring” would fit the wordplay nicely for me. My COD to kick off the day’s solving. | |
| 5 | Vehicle carrying unknown leader once (4) |
| CZAR – CAR (‘Vehicle’) containing (‘carrying’) Z (‘unknown’) CZAR seems to be in common use now for any powerful person, eg one appointed to have overall responsibility for dealing with a large task or problem such as the response to COVID, or for an organised crime kingpin. | |
| 8 | Heave big container alongside church (5) |
| CHURN – URN (‘big container’) in this case following (‘alongside’) CH (‘church’) MER at URN as ‘big container’; yes, it can be ‘big’ but doesn’t have to be. However, Collins has as sense 1: “a vaselike receptacle or vessel, esp a large bulbous one with a foot”, so Jalna is off the hook. | |
| 9 | Amount of sound indicated by central part of soundboard? (7) |
| DECIBEL – The letters dB, the symbol for DECIBEL, make up the central letters of ‘soundBoard’. I have no idea if the output in dB of a ‘soundboard’ really is indicated on its ‘central part’; maybe the question mark is meant to suggest this. If so, the whole clue could also act as the definition. | |
| 11 | Fitting take (11) |
| APPROPRIATE – Double definition The first as an adjective, the second as a verb, with different pronunciations, ie heteronyms. (OK, I admit it, I had to check that, though it helped that Jack used the term in his blog yesterday. I always muddle up hom*onyms, hom*ophones, heteronyms and hom*ographs. Just to muddle things up even more, heteronyms are hom*ographs that are not hom*ophones). | |
| 13 | Ancient ewer principally covered with a precious metal (3-3) |
| AGE-OLD – E | |
| 14 | Branch seen in river? Good heavens! (4,2) |
| DEAR ME – ARM (‘Branch’) contained in (‘seen in’) DEE (‘river?’) I think it’s been pointed out before here. The River Dee – one of four in the UK and one in Ireland. | |
| 16 | A tavern is struggling to accommodate eg, plant eaters (11) |
| VEGETARIANS – Anagram (‘struggling’) of A TAVERN IS containing (‘to accommodate’) EG (‘eg’) | |
| 18 | Given lubrication, outer parts of gear moved smoothly (7) |
| GREASED – G | |
| 19 | Silly passport, possibly with nothing in it (5) |
| IDIOT – ID (‘passport, possibly’) followed by (‘with’) O (‘nothing’) contained in (‘in’) IT (‘it’) I parsed this as ‘Silly’ as a noun, used to describe someone who has just done something unwise or stupid. I wondered if IDIOT could be used colloquially as an adjective in place of “idiotic” but on second thoughts I’m not convinced. | |
| 20 | Mediocre serving of miso soup (2-2) |
| SO-SO – Hidden (‘serving of’) in ‘miSO SOup’ Could have been a double def, or def + cryptic hint, if there had been a question mark to complete the clue. Just joking. | |
| 21 | They’re extremely keen to welcome new youngster (8) |
| TEENAGER – T I initially opted for ‘They’re extremely keen’ being the definition even though ‘youngster’ was in the singular. Very hard to shift with the pressure of the clock ticking. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Every single train failing to start (4) |
| EACH – | |
| 2 | A guest deduces incorrectly this is not mere conjecture (8,5) |
| EDUCATED GUESS – Anagram (‘incorrectly’) of A GUEST DEDUCES | |
| 3 | Deftly handles lost upset animal (11) |
| MANIPULATES – Anagram (‘lost’) of UPSET ANIMAL ‘Upset’ being part of the anagram fodder this time, not an anagram or reversal indicator. | |
| 4 | Right editor on very good paper (3-3) |
| RED-TOP – R (‘Right’) ED (‘editor’) above (in a down clue) (‘on’) TOP (‘very good’) Amusing surface reading, giving the idea of a RED-TOP as being a ‘very good paper’. From the ‘very good’ Wikipedia entry on the subject: “Red top tabloids, named after their distinguishing red mastheads, employ a form of writing known as tabloid journalism; this style emphasizes features such as sensational crime stories, astrology, gossip columns about the personal lives of celebrities and sports stars, and junk food news.” | |
| 6 | Way of changing sides laid out in black and white? (5,8) |
| ZEBRA CROSSING – Cryptic definition | |
| 7 | Underwent an experience again, full of energy and happy (8) |
| RELIEVED – RELIVED (‘Underwent an experience again’) containing (‘full of’) E (‘energy’) | |
| 10 | My family member provides a connection (11) |
| CORRELATION – COR (‘My’) RELATION (‘family member’) No shortage of exclamations today. With 14a, we have ‘Good heavens!’, DEAR ME, ‘My’ and COR. | |
| 12 | Recovers from Las Vegas revelling (8) |
| SALVAGES – Anagram (‘revelling’) of LAS VEGAS From the surface, I was expecting the intransitive sense of ‘Recovers’ so this took longer than it should have. | |
| 15 | Marriage partner will reportedly show anger (6) |
| BRIDLE – Aural wordplay (‘reportedly’) on BRIDE’LL (‘marriage partner will’) | |
| 17 | Celeb ultimately craves that extra honour (4) |
| STAR – Last letters (‘ultimately’) of ‘ | |
6:17!
I DNF the last few so that was very nice. I nho of RED TOP
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My! That’s what Q stands for! Great job.
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Wow, I was happy to finish in double that time. Excellent work, well done!
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👏👏👏
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No problems for me, as I wrote in the answers at high speed. It was very useful getting all the long down answers in the first two minutes, once I wrote in evermore. They made the across clues very easy, as I had the right bits for most of them but wasn’t sure of where to put them. Teenager was my LOI – I just biffed it, and parsed it later.
Time: 4:47
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9:43. I wanted to enter BRIDAL but fortunately TEENAGER made me reconsider.
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6.48, with a whole lotta 2-downing going on. Thanks BR, now I see what was happening with DECIBEL. And TEENAGER. And GREASED. Silly as a noun? Nah! Does anyone spell CZAR like that anymore? Fun puzzle and a nicely pitched QC, thank you Jalna. I wouldn’t call the thing they put the Ashes in a big container.
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CZAR is always spelled that way when it is part of an unofficial term for a US government administrative post, as in “drug czar.”
The tradition, though, is to spell it “tsar” when referring to the old Russian dictators.Reply
How interesting. Here in Oz czar is pretty much obsolete, they’re all tsars here!
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Have just read this -an English website: “With Rachel Reeves set to appoint a covid corruption tsar imminently we can expect a flurry of similar cases hitting the FTT in the coming months.”
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Fooled by thinking UPSET in 3d was a reversal/anagram indicator causing much head scratching. Couldn’t get CHUCK out of my mind for 8a. We’ve seen APPROPRIATE quite a bit lately so it was a write-in.
Thanks BR and setter.Reply
9 minutes. I always like my solving times to include parsing, so at least 1 of those minutes was used in thinking through the wordplay of DECIBEL and TEENAGER, both easily biffable answers.
According to SOED, ‘idiot’ would be fine as adjective, an alternative to ‘idiotic’. The usage dates from Late Middle English.
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Under 30 minutes, which is my quickest to date, so v happy. Thanks to Jalna and BR.
I believe, without actually checking, that IDIOT can be an adjective (like silly), as in “your idiot son”?
CORRELATION was my LOI, both because I found “my” a rather obscure clue for “COR” (which I expect is inexperience) and because “CORRELATION” seems an odd definition for “connection” (two things may correlate yet be unconnected?)
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👏💪🏆
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Fell to pieces on the LHS. CZAR, CORRELATION, DEAR ME, ZEBRA CROSSING and IDIOT all had to be painfully extracted taking me to a 20.11 solve. Carelessly had ‘bridal’ for too long – thinking it didn’t really parse as it went in – and so dismissed TEENAGER until I started unpicking. It was failing to see ZEBRA CROSSING that did me in – all the checkers were very handy when they arrived. All this made more painful by the fast times above!
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I join a few others with a fast time, just under 6 minutes for this very approachable puzzle. Jalna in benevolent mood! It certainly helps when the long clues go in straight away, for example ZEBRA CROSSING from the initial Z alone. Only minor delay was over CHURN for heave, not a linkage I could see until I recalled seas can heave and churn.
Many thanks BR for the blog
Cedric11:55
Great blog, and insightful on the different usages and spelling of CZAR. All derive from Julius Caesar of course.
The general consensus of the comments on Times Online is that this paper is now a RED TOP under the new editor. Any day soon I’m expecting the headline “Phew, what a scorcher”.
LOI AGE-OLD, where I was thrown by the unlikely Ewer as the source of the E the setter needed. It felt too significant so I assumed that “principally” went with the word following for a C.COD SALVAGES good anagram and surface
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So much so that I’m moving to a puzzles only sub (if such a thing still exists). The rest of the paper is utter garbage.
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I’m sorry to tell you that NONE of the British papers are worth reading nowadays.
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Utter garbage? A very red-top comment.
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Complete drivel? Sub-Hello tripe? One-eyed, sycophantic guff? Lowest-common-denominator drooling? Unhinged burbling dressed up as analysis?
The paper has become ever more unreadable over the last two years. If I wanted the Telegraph or the Mail, I’d buy them.
I’ve just googled it, and the puzzles sub at a fiver a month is the way to go for me.
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Edward Lucas, Matthew Syed, Anthony Lloyd, Daniel Finkelstein, Philip Collins, Emma Duncan to name but a few. I think they deserve better than a rant.
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Of those, I read Finkelstein, and actively dislike Syed’s writing – though I’m sure he’s a nice enough chap. I don’t think Collins writes for the times as a staffer any more. Each to their own, and the world would be a dull place if we all thought the same, but the Times editorial line under Gallagher is not for me, and despite being a Times subscriber or reader for many years, I’m not any more.
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And Matthew Parris, and Mike Atherton, and Hadley Freeman, and Giles Coren, and William Hague, and Hugo Rifkind … There’s loads of good journalism in The Times, there really is.
And anyway, it’s by far the best of the bunch. The Guardian is interesting but always predictable and far too US-focused now (because that’s where most of their subscription money comes from). The Telegraph has a gratifyingly easy puzzle and is useful for lighting the fire, but that’s about it. Oh, and helps you keep up with Kate Middleton’s latest frock news. What else is there, apart from tabloids?
I read The Times every day, the BBC every day, the Graun most days. The Times is definitely the best, by miles.
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I did exactly this some months ago, after taking the Times daily for nigh-on 50 years. I’d been getting more and more disillusioned with the paper for some time, and one particular article broke the camel’s back.
For info: the puzzle subscription does allow you to read 30 articles in the main paper per month, so I reserve those for Athers and Coren. (Although, actually, I never get pulled up on the 30-limit (it sometimes tells me I’ve hit it, but doesn’t stop me reading more), but perhaps I shouldn’t say that out loud.).
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Churn for heave?
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My stomach was heaving/churning
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Ah, thank you, I’d raised the same minor eyebrow.
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I didn’t find this as easy as others, and biffed a couple (both parsed immediately). My LOI could have been biffed earlier and led me to CHURN more quickly, but in the end I only parsed it afterwards – and then wondered why it had been a problem! Below par so far this week.
FOI EVERMORE
LOI EACH
COD GREASED
TIME 5:21Reply
Enjoyed
Finished in ~15m except for REDTOP… NHO that.
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Gentle going but I was nearly undone but biffing RED HOT. Fortunately I listened to that nagging voice at the back of my head during my proof read and reconsidered.
I also had a MER at an urn being large but maybe, like LindsayO, I always think of urns in the context of The Ashes.
Started with EVERMORE and finished with SALVAGES in 5.47.
Thanks to BRReply
Enjoyable with some nice touches took me to a low par 21 minute solve. ‘My’ catches me out 9 times of of 10 and today was no exception.
I liked AGE-OLD but NHO Red Top which was my LOI.
Coffee in the SCC awaits.
Thanks Jalna and BletchReply
Second visits to get TEENAGER, DEAR ME and LOI AGE-OLD prevented a really fast time, but otherwise they went in like GREASED lightning. And none the worse for it, a neat and well-clued puzzle. All done in 06:04 for a Very Good Day.
Excellent blog, thank you Bletchers, and thanks Jalna.
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4:34.. I puzzled for a while over zebra crossing on my first past through, but moved on. When CZAR arrived I didn’t need to read the clue again to see the answer. LOI TEENAGER. I liked the meat-eaters’ tavern. Thanks Jalna and BR
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If I’d seen CZAR first time round then the B&W thing would have been obvious and it would all have been easier, but…. Finished just before reaching the portico of the SCC, CORRELATION holding me up at the end even with lots of checkers, played with every possible family word except the right one. Lovely puzzle overall, good blog, thanks.
Over on the 15×15 section, Jackkt reached 1000 blogs today, a mind boggling dedication to entertaining, debating and informing around these crosswords. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻Reply
Another very friendly one; LOI TEENAGER. Except this: given RED -O- there was no way of hitting on the obscure (NHO) RED-TOP, so guessed SOG (SO = very + G) and assumed that was also something I’d NHO. No reproaches, anyway.
Briefly stuck on the last five, but RELIEVED gave me CZAR (the vehicle had to be CAR, not van or bus) which gave me ZEBRA – an enjoyable chain.Reply
One of my quickest solves today but biffed DECIBEL, AGE-OLD and TEENAGER – thanks BR for explaining what is now obvious!
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Worked through this in a quickish time, but I’m perhaps jaded after a PB over on the concise.
RELIEVED went in last. VEGETARIANS my favourite.
4:19
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10:37 (Harold Harefoot proclaimed King)
COD to DECIBEL. LOI was TEENAGER.Thanks BR and Jalna
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2d Educated Guest was a silly typo, corrected with the not-very-hidden 20a miSO-SOup. Fun puzzle, cod to 10d correlation.
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5:04
Quick again today – needed the Z for ZEBRA, looking at __B_A wasn’t doing it for me. My LOI was AGE-OLD which on reflection is not all that difficult. My eyebrow also twitched at ‘big container’ = URN, but then Russian samovars can be quite sizeable – I suppose it depends on what you deem ‘big’.
Thanks Bletch and Jalna
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09:20
Not bad after a few too many Adnams Ghost ships.
Only real hold up was manipulations.
COD Salvages.Reply
Wasn’t sure about churn=heave before reading the comments (get it now thanks). Biffed DECIBEL and couldn’t immediately see parsing. Thanks for explanation BR. Liked the surface for VERMEER (and his The Little Street is one of my absolute favs). ZEBRA CROSSING was a PDM making LOI CZAR immediately obvious. Lovely puzzle.
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Was on course for a sub 20m until LOI CORRELATION held me up for another 5. Nice clue though.
Thanks both. I also looked up Heteronym yesterday and got bogged down in a whole family of ‘nyms’ ‘phones’ and ‘graphs’ which require further study.Reply
Nothing too taxing for me here, though Pumpa did have to give me a hand, or rather a paw, with 10d and 3d.
My last answer was BRIDLE. For marriage partner I kept thinking of BRIDE but that last piece wouldn’t come to me immediately. Eventually my lightening fast mind gave me the answer.
19:17
My verdict: 👍
Pumpa’s verdict: 🐈Reply
Well I didn’t find this as easy as others seemed to have done, missing my target in 11.03. Perhaps if I had attempted to solve the down clues first as Vinyl did I may have been quicker, because I wasn’t too successful on my first pass of the across clues. Thinking about it, I might just try this in the future more regularly, as my impression is that the down clues are often more gettable. I’ve no statistics to back this up, but I will try it as an experiment.
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10 minutes, LOI TEENAGER which required a bit of thought.
I did wonder about TSAR/CZAR, so helpful discussion above.
Could not parse EACH until right at the end when I saw the point of Single.
A nice QC. COD to TEENAGER.
DavidReply
From EVERMORE to OLD AGE in 5:31 although the parsing of DECIBEL eluded me. Thanks for the explanation BletchleyReject.
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I did my best to convert this into a Oink puzzle by making a complete pig’s ear of 10d, Correlation. With Decibel giving the initial C, and family in the clue, Clan- seemed obvious 🙄, at least until Appropriate came into view, although by then too late to avoid another standing room only SCC visit. CoD to 6d, Zebra Crossing, one of the very few times I’ve known the answer without reading the clue ! Invariant
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To amplify my comment to hopkinb earlier. I’ve recently moved into sheltered accommodation, and fellow residents have a less refined approach to the newspapers than I have. The original RED-TOP papers here in the UK were the Daily Star, Daily Mirror, and the Sun (which is, like the Times, published by News International). I’ve “read” all three in recent weeks. Even the sports coverage is rubbish now. The Daily Express descended to the same level a good few years ago, while the Daily Mail is well on its way down there. The “quality” papers are the Guardian (which is too woke to bother with) and the Daily Telegraph, which is simply a Tory rag. One suspects that this term will become redundant as the newspaper industry fades away totally in the not-too-distant. How we laughed at Fletcher’s request for the Sun, and something to read, all those years ago in “Porridge”. Now he could apply it to any one of the National dailies.
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I hope that won’t curtail an annual trip to The George for a tftt get-together. I missed this summer’s as I was away, but very much enjoyed our chat the previous year.
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5:46
Nice puzzle, thanks all.
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29 mins…
I found this a bit of a struggle – especially with 10dn “Correlation” and 21ac “Teenager”, both of which took up a fair chunk of time towards the end. I’m also used to “Tsar” rather than “Czar”, so 5ac that took a bit of unpicking as well.
As an aside, “correlation” always reminds me of statistics – especially the concept of two things being statistically correlated, but not necessarily cause and effect – something I always bear in mind when reading those scientific papers you occasionally get articles on.
FOI – 9ac “Decibel”
LOI – 10dn “Correlation”
COD – 10dn “Correlation”Thanks as usual!
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I’ll budge up and make a bit more room 😉
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4:49
A rare sub-5 but not without a healthy amount of biffing, so there was still work to be done in the post-mortem. Spotting dB in soundboard accounted for some of that, which was a shame because it was quite clever. Perhaps I should adopt Jack’s approach and radically combine the two activities of typing and solving?Reply
Gentle fun with this one, all done in 15 minutes. CHURN had to be, but it took me a while. I was 7d when my 2d for 21a gave me BRIDLE, not BRIDAL as I at first wondered. Is there a rule for this sort of “which one” conundrum? I ask as a newbie. If it’s obvious, I shall content myself with a muttered 14a (and a silent 19a). Thanks to Jalna and to BletchleyReject for an excellent blog.
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I’m still new-ish, so corrections welcome, but in my experience the setters do include something in hom*ophone clues that, if read carefully (haha) makes the correct choice unambiguous. Here, it’s that “marriage partner will”, not “marriage partner”, is one alternative and “show anger” is the other. And that becomes clear when you consider that “bridal” doesn’t mean “marriage partner”. Hope that helps more than it befuddles.
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You’re spot on, I couldn’t improve on that explanation.
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Finished correctly in 55 minutes. Hooray ! First one completed for a while.
Some may say this was an easy one.
I don’t care.Reply
Great stuff Gordon😊
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Found this fairly straightforward and had done all bar 10d in 8 minutes. I took a break to do some gardening and then an hour later put the last one in. Don’t know why it took me so long as it’s obvious with all the checkers in place!! FOI ZEBRA CROSSING . Thank you Jalna and BR.
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Just under 7 minutes, but my index finger typed ZEBRA CRISSING. Stupid finger!
Thank you BletchleyReject and Jalna
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A model QC!
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Great puzzle. Slower on RHS until PDM with ZEBRA CROSSING, which helped me to find CZAR – yes, agree we usually spell it Tsar.
Cd not parse DECIBEL.
Thanks vm, BR.Reply
A couple of seconds more than Busman which I will take any day.
Excellent puzzle I thought, with zebra crossing making me smile. Thanks Bletchley and Jalna.
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Our blogger summed up my experience precisely. 16:41 and would have been several minutes less if I hadn’t lost my way at 21a. Very pleasant solve, with what after all may have been just the right seasoning of frustration.
FOI EVERMORE, LOI TEENAGER, COD DECIBEL. (Piano soundboards are not marked with how many db they are capable of, but my ignorance of other sorts of soundboards is complete.) RED TOP was new to me.
Great blogging, 😂 for the hetero/hom*o nyms/phones/graphs! Thanks to BR and Jalna.
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EVERMORE to EDUCATED GUESS in 6:21. Getting CZAR on the first pass made 6d a write in. Thanks Jalna and BR.
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I found this very easy finishing in 5:42 today, so interesting that Busman found it hard and still finished in 5:21 😂
21ac also my LOIReply
😂
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It makes a change to have one going in faster than it felt. 8:41 isn’t a PR for us but it’s certainly one of our faster ones. Thanks to all.
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Spelling DECIBEL incorrectly didn’t help but quickly rectified, otherwise smooth progress. Jalna normally ok for me
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8.01 For the first time I immediately thought of COR for “my” and bunged in CORRELATIVE, but it didn’t take too long to fix the ending. A nice puzzle. 1a and 2d had lovely surfaces to start. BRIDLE was LOI. Thanks BR and Jalna.
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Very pleasant, finishing in 12:35. I somehow convinced myself for no good reason that the definition of 18A was “moved smoothly”, which threw a spanner in the works.
Thank you for the blog!
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