Author   TemplarPosted on 15th August 2024 at 2:00 AM14 August 2024Categories Quick Cryptic
I never find Teazel easy and today was no exception, with this providing enough challenge to push me over target at 10:42. Good fun and I hope you enjoyed it too.
Definitions underlined in bold.
| Across | |
| 1 | Material confiscated by Interpol yesterday (9) |
| POLYESTER – hidden inside “Interpol yesterday“. | |
| 6 | If turning black, don’t tell the truth (3) |
| FIB – FI is “if turning” + B for “black”. | |
| 8 | Leading visitor, Virginia is most uncertain (7) |
| VAGUEST – VA is “Virginia”, and it comes before (“leading”) GUEST for “visitor”. | |
| 9 | Small island’s equipment for divers (5) |
| SCUBA – S for “small” + CUBA for “island”. | |
| 10 | Working alone, like Captain Hook? (6-6) |
| SINGLE-HANDED – OK, I laughed. Don’t judge me. COD from me. | |
| 12 | I work with Russian initially — him? (4) |
| IGOR – cryptic definition (I think, the Clue Police will no doubt be down on me like a ton of bricks though). I + GO for “work” (“does it go?”) + R for “Russian initially”. IGOR is a stereotypical Russian name. | |
| 13 | Damage muscle say in race (4) |
| TEAR – “race” as in “tear about”. | |
| 17 | Evangelist on behalf of heathen is breaking limits of deceit (12) |
| PROPAGANDIST – PRO = “on behalf of” (dulce et decorum est pro patria mori), PAGAN = “heathen”, the “limits of deceit” = DT (first and last letters) and IS goes inside DT (“breaking”). Phew! | |
| 20 | Teacher confused Barbie no end (5) |
| RABBI – anagram (“confused”) of “barbi” (“Barbie no end”, i.e. without the last letter). | |
| 21 | Captivate neighbours at table with song (7) |
| ENCHANT – EN are the “neighbours at table” because they are East and North, who are next to each other at the bridge table (sneaky!). CHANT is “song”. | |
| 23 | Drunkard periodically shouts (3) |
| SOT – every other letter (“periodically”) of “shouts”. | |
| 24 | Splendid tomb of mother lined with gold only (9) |
| MAUSOLEUM – MUM for “mother”, inside which (“lined with”) is AU for “gold” and SOLE for “only”. Quite tough. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Place flags as quiet welcome (4) |
| PAVE – P for “quiet” (as in “piano”, musical notation) + AVE for “welcome” (Latin; e.g. ave atque vale). | |
| 2 | Getting behindinstalling insulation (7) |
| LAGGING – lovely double definition. Such a good surface, bravo. | |
| 3 | We must support English lamb producer (3) |
| EWE – WE after E for “English”. | |
| 4 | Secure last of potent anaesthetic (6) |
| TETHER – T for “last of potent” + ETHER for “anaesthetic”. | |
| 5 | Having had a break to take in contents of gallery, got going again (9) |
| RESTARTED – RESTED for “having had a break”, into which (“to take in”) goes ART for “contents of gallery”. I took a while over this, thinking that “contents of gallery” would be “aller”. | |
| 6 | Discovered nothing in kitty (5) |
| FOUND – O for “nothing”, inside FUND for “kitty”. | |
| 7 | Fortified wine, an unknown make? (6) |
| BRANDY -BRAND Y could be “an unknown make”, ho ho. My eyebrows are levitating at the definition, however. Fortified wine is wine to which a strong distilled spirit has been added (for example port, madeira, sherry). But that is not what BRANDY is: it is wine which has been distilled, not fortified. Totally different. | |
| 11 | One of the elements that may bring Gemma ruin (9) |
| GERMANIUM – anagram (“that may bring”) of “Gemma ruin”. A semi-conductor, named by Clemens Winkler in 1886 after the country of his birth, Germany. | |
| 14 | In danger, as a condemned witch may be (2,5) |
| AT STAKE – double definition, the second whimsical. | |
| 15 | Electrician after a second stops and leaves van (6) |
| SPARKS – I seem to remember that Commonwealth/former colonies solvers may struggle with SPARKS for “electrician”. Good luck all. S for “second”; PARKS for “stops and leaves van” (which is a bit of a stretch; could have been any other vehicle. And you can park without leaving the vehicle.) | |
| 16 | Leaders in game are unusually full of tea and cake (6) |
| GATEAU – GAU are the first letters of (“leaders in”) “game are unusual”. TEA then goes inside them (“full of tea”). | |
| 18 | In area of influence old Republican was effective (5) |
| ORBIT – O for “old”, R for “Republican”, BIT for “was effective” (Collins sense 7 for “bite” – “to take firm hold of or act effectively upon”). | |
| 19 | A cat, a tiny thing (4) |
| ATOM – A + TOM. | |
| 22 | Finish off the henhouse for Bill’s partner (3) |
| COO – take the last letter off COOP and you’re left with “bill & COO”. Very good! | |
Biffed a bunch: PROPAGANDIST, MAUSOLEUM, RESTARTED, GATEAU. I don’t think SPARKS is particularly British; ODE doesn’t mark it as such. 4:46.
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I treated this as a biff-fest – propagandist, lagging, gateau, in they go. I glanced at some of the cryptics, but both polyester and mausoleum were very easy, and gave me a lot of letters. No problem with sparks, as I have been solving British cryptics for many years.
Time: 5:32
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Found this very straightforward with very generous cluing. Only real puzzle was to find reason for EN in ENCHANT. Germanium is a semi metallic crystal, highly transparent to infrared but not transparent to visible light and accordingly, used to make (expensive) lenses for infrared cameras amongst other things.
Thanks Templar and Teazel for a gentle challenge all done and dusted in a rare 15 minute dash.Reply
9:57. Liked VAGUEST and ENCHANT the most.
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7.46, hesitating over the def of PROPAGANDIST and the NHO element. Thanks Templar for explaining some of Teazel’s cunning wordplay which many of us overlooked as we biffed happily away. I’m thinking here of MAUSOLEUM, GATEAU, RESTARTED and the EN part of ENCHANT. In Oz electricians are sparkies so no problem there.
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Gotta say, “turning black” sounds very…weird over here in the US of A this week.
Those of you who don’t get this, just be grateful for that.
I had the same objection about BRANDY. Cognac (which I always have on hand to make the occasional sidecar) is a kind of brandy. “Fortified” wine has never appealed to me.Reply
I didn’t know that insulation is Lagging so I didn’t get that one..
I also laughed at the single handed Captain Hook!
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Never seen Bill and Coo so struggled with that one. I think it’s a 1948 film about two birds.
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To ‘bill and coo’ means to be intimate with, used for courting couples. It comes from the mating behaviour of pigeons.
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I think IGOR is what we call around here a “semi-&lit.” The definition, such as it is, is only “him,” but it refers back to “Russian” in the wordplay, which spells out the name. It’s not a CD because there is only one definition, not an apparent one (surface) and a cryptic one revealed when you put the right spin on a certain word or phrase—it’s obvious that the clue is asking for an answer to “him?” However, it’s not a perfect &lit because nothing in the wordplay besides “Russian” is intrinsic to the definition. (Cited myself by Officer Biddlecombe on a similar infraction recently, I’ll let you off easy this time…)
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You’ll never take me alive, copper!
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8 minutes came as a relief after my times for the past couple of days. It’s 3 weeks tomorrow since I equalled it. I always check parsing as I go, but I missed the howler in the definition of BRANDY which is often used in the process of making fortified wine.
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A far more straightforward puzzle than many of late, although, like Templar, my eyebrows became active at the definition of BRANDY.
FOI POLYESTER
LOI PROPAGANDIST
COD SINGLE-HANDED 😂
TIME 4:08Reply
Raced to a sub 7 minute completion on this friendly puzzle (still no congrats message on the app though – come on Times, sort it out). Only hold-up was parsing MAUSOLEUM, where I saw the MA at the front, ticked off mother from the clue and after spotting SOLE was left with U-UM for gold which caused a rapid rethink.
Description of Brandy a definite error, no question.
Many thanks Templar for the blog
CedricReply
FOI POLYESTER then just worked through intersecting clues.
I enjoyed the building of PROPAGANDIST but smiley faces for ENCHANT and PAVE.
Also raised eyebrows at BRANDY and my LOI COO which I had written to one side earlier as it left me puzzled.
I just had ‘him’ as the definition for IGOR.Reply
Gotta love a Teazel, such elegant clues. A rare sub 20 for us at 19.35 with lots of smiles along the way.
See Also0814-24 NY Times Crossword 14 Aug 24, Wednesday - NYXCrossword.comSaturday, August 10, 2024 |Classic example of pronunciation being key, had worked out pro and dist and with the 2 a checkers Mrs RH suggested pagan but we hadn’t heard of an evangelist called pro-pagan-dist, so just to be sure I typed in the missing letters planning to press check to see if this was indeed a NHO, only to immediately see “proper-gandist”!!!
Coo was COD and of course special mention to Captain Hook
Thanks Teazel and Templar for great blog and parsing of en
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After a quick start this turned into a steady solve but with no major hold ups.
The only issue for me is that I’ve no idea what COO is doing as a partner to Bill (Ben and Ted were my initial thoughts), but the wordplay was clear so it didn’t hold me up for long.
Started with POLYESTER and finished with ENCHANT in 7.51.
Thanks to Templar for the blog and Teazel for the entertaining solveReply
Bill and Ted my first thoughts too. ‘Bill and Coo’ here is a rather quaint description of lovers kissing and talking quietly, derived I assume from the behaviour of some birds (like doves) in mating season.
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Ah, thank you for clearing that up.
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I was equally confused about this.
It’s not an expression I’ve heard before although ‘the couple were billing and cooing away’ sounds more familiar.Reply
This from George Formby:
Honeymoonin’ couples too
You should see them bill ‘n coo
You’d be surprised at things they do
When I’m cleanin’ windowsReply
All but LOI in 10:30 – very quick for me, especially for a Teasel. PROPAGANDIST pushed me over by another minute. Even when I guessed ‘pagan’ was in there, as the Roundabouts found, the change in pronunciation of it eluded me, making the answer sound like made-up nonsense.
Many candidates for COD in this enjoyable example of the setters’ art at its best – VAGUEST, SINGLE-HANDED (agree, Templar!) and the whimsical ATOM. Major gripe at BRANDY though – a witty clue, but factually just wrong.
FOI POLYESTER
LOI PROPAGANDISTThanks all!
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Phew, an easy one for a change. Much enjoyed. Liked SINGLE HANDED, COO, PAVE, among others.
Admit to biffing some like RESTARTED, PROPAGANDIST.
Thanks vm, Templar.
My 11-year-old granddaughter has begun doing this QC with Son 2’s help. I don’t think they’ve joined the blog yet.Reply
7:55
Same MER as everyone else about brandy.
COD to PROPAGANDIST.
GERMANIUM reminds me of my favourite Only Connect “what comes fourth” round, where the first three were Darmstadtium, Hassium and Germanium, leading to Europium as the answer.Thanks Templar and Teazel
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The easier days worry me because they usually precede a real beast, but for now I’ll enjoy my 15 min solve, albeit still without any acclamation from the app. Surely someone at the Times knows how it works and can hit reset??
Thanks, Templar, for explaining EN as neighbours, but otherwise the parsing ticked along nicely as I worked down the grid.
Slight delay when Tate wasn’t “gallery” although its letters were in there, but it soon made sense. 17A was a pleasing assembly job when the answer didn’t leap out at me. I’ll go and get some off that dodgy “Brand Y” stuff ready in case tomorrow is as harrowing as I fear it might be..Reply
18/26.
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12:24. I was nicely on course for a sub 10, but then took far too long with LOI TEAR, distracted by TT for “race” and last-one-left panic. I liked ART for “contents of gallery” in RESTARTED
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First puzzle I‘ve ever finished. Teazel and I must be on a wavelength. Many thanks to Templar for helpful comments
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Congratulations. First of many we hope.
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Well done!
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Heck yeah!
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Interesting how others’ minds work. My first thought was Bill and BEN, which obviously didn’t fit. Needed the blog to explain the EN of ENCHANT which I should have known as a bridge player. I was also expecting TATE to be in 5D somehow. I know brandy is a constituent of fortified wine, but didn’t think it was one by itself. Otherwise some great clues making for a very satisfying solve. Thanks Templar and Teazel.
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Finished in 41m
I wasn’t convinced TEAR was right and spent some time trying alternatives such as TRAP for a trapped muscle and the start of a greyhound race.
LOI PROPAGANDIST. Like others the pronunciation of pagan threw me which made it a lovely clue.
COD GATEAU which looked impossible on first reading and then joyfully revealed itself.
Thanks to the two Ts.Reply
14 minutes of quite hard work today. LOI was TEAR, having decided that Race =TT .
I had two candidates for COD: FOUND and BRANDY. Having now learnt how brandy and other similar drinks are made, FOUND is the winner.
Enjoyable challenge.
DavidReply
I have been doing cryptics for just a few months now, and this blog has been super useful, but I am still not very good. I also struggle with a lot of the cultural references from before 2000 as I had only just been born, and I just don’t have the dictionary knowledge yet.
If there are any others like me who are still learning the ropes I think I will start sharing my progress, starting with this puzzle. So if you too are solving in 10x the time of the other commenters, don’t feel alone. I’ll also post on the full cryptic when I have finished that one, give me an hour or so.
So this was a DNF for me, which is pretty typical. I couldn’t get “pave”, my Latin knowledge failing me. Ignoring that it was ~30mins, which is on the quicker end of things for me.
tricky clues included:
Enchant – biffed it just from checking letters but couldn’t explain it. I have never played bridge. Why are there compass directions in a card game?,
Propagandist – just a lot of steps to this one, I got the “dist” bit pretty quick but needed the checking letters before I could solve the rest,
Mausoleum – Had a vague idea that this was correct but couldn’t remember the exact spelling, had to google to check. and,
Coo – NHO. I had a guess from the wordplay, which happened to be correct, and then googled what Bill’s partner could possibly refer to. You’re really telling me people here have heard of a 1948 film about birds?Reply
I think the 1948 film was a joke, as we are always complaining about obscure old films. Bill and coo describes what e.g. doves do, as others have said.
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Well done for sticking at it! My advice is not to focus on the times, just enjoy the puzzle and solving the clues. Then as you practice the times will get shorter but it is not a race.
‘Bill and coo’is not a film, it’ an expression for dating couples being intimate, after the mating rituals of pigeons.
Bridge is played by two teams, each of two people. The partners sit opposite each other. They are referred to in shorthand as sitting at E and W and at N and S positions at a table. So S’s partner is N and N is sitting next to E (and W). There seem to be a lot of references to Bridge as a game in the QC so it’s one to remember.Reply
Sorry Prof – we must have been typing at the same time!
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Well done Paul, and welcome!
Bridge – it is such a popular game that many newspapers and magazines include a bridge puzzle. These involve a diagram showing each player’s hand, and since they sit facing each other in pairs, for convenience they are designated by points of the compass.
Bill & coo – I certainly hadn’t heard of the film! But I knew the expression for courting couples. I now see from Google that there’s even a romantic break hotel in Mykonos called “Bill & Coo”.
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Another blinking typo, that I spotted just as the grid faded away after pressing submit…today’s was the little known Russian IGOT, which also messed up the element. Grrr.
Otherwise I was a little over average time, but I that’s mainly because I got distracted by something for 30 seconds or so just as I started.
LOI was AT STAKE, which was nearly a breezeblock. Hadn’t spotted the fortified wine blunder due liking the wordplay and moving on, but the definition is just plain wrong as our esteemed blogger notes.
7:03 but…
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At last a sub ten minute solve at 9.13 after so many poor times. Even so, almost two minutes of that were spent on my LOI TEAR, which is ridiculous when in retrospect I consider how straightforward it was. Sometimes the blindingly obvious just doesn’t occur to you. Like others, I managed to resist the temptation to put BEN in as Bill’s partner.
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This seemed to me to be at the gentler end of the spectrum, or maybe it was just because I was on Teazel’s wavelength. I managed to complete in just under 10 minutes – the first time for a very long time! I particularly liked building up propagandist and my COD, single handed. Thanks to Teazel and Templar for a very entertaining and instructive blog (particularly for those clues I didn’t parse).
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Loved this one, smiled at the one handed pirate but COD to TETHER for needing to change the emphasis on the e to get the meaning.
Thanks Templar, nice witty and accurate blog.Reply
Much easier than of late but still biffed TEAR and ENCHANT with no idea of the parsing – thanks Templar. Same problems as other commenters with PROPAGANDIST – sounded a completely made up word until I changed the stress 😆 SPARKS confused me a little as I thought the singular was just ‘spark’ and the plural ‘sparks’, but I trusted the wordplay. COD goes to PAVE because I couldn’t make head nor tail of it to start with. As ever from Teazel a lovely QC. Thanks all.
On edit: Didn’t know about the film but have heard the decidedly quaint phrase ‘bill and coo’
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POLYESTER was FOI and I followed with the acrosses as far as IGOR, then had a few gaps until the downs gave me some help. Was glad of the wordplay to spell MAUSOLEUM correctly. AT STAKE was LOI. BRANDY mobilised the eyebrows here too! 5:47. Thanks Teazel and Templar.
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7:33
Nice puzzle; a proper QC after a couple of stinkers in my opinion. More likely to encourage than discourage new solvers like those above.
I finished in the NW with LAGGING, having overlooked the obvious 1a at first glance and having to return to it with PAVE in.
FOI FIB
COD S-HThanks Teazel and Templar
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Was expecting a tough one when I saw Teazel’s name at the top, but went through this with relative ease in 16:17. LOI ENCHANT. Didn’t think I’d heard of bill and COO but in retrospect I’m sure I have. COD to EWE even though it was a simple one. Thanks Teazel and Templar.
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06:38
Times improved by Croatian beer.
COD Single handed.Reply
I think Fortified works for 7D, as in this clue it is acting as a verb rather than an adjective. Brandy is not Fortified Wine. Rather, the brandy is acting as the fortifying agent for the wine (eg to make port)
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In that case the answer would have to be “brandied” or “added brandy”. You don’t “brandy” a wine! I think it’s just a stinker of a mistake.
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Dnf…
18 mins, but couldn’t get 18dn “Orbit” – then released I had 17ac wrong. I put “Perpagandist”, which I concede is probably made up and didn’t feel right, but thought it might be something obscure I hadn’t heard of. The rest I enjoyed.
FOI – 6ac “Fib”
LOI – Dnf
COD – 21ac “Enchant”Thanks as usual!
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Back on track after a torrid couple of days. This one was completed and all parsed in 13 minutes – my fastest for a while. No real problems on the way through – I had heard of the element and had no second thoughts about BRANDY as I was still admiring the surface of the clue.
FOI – 1ac POLYESTER
LOI – 15dn SPARKS
CODs – 10ac SINGLE HANDED and 20ac RABBIThanks to Teazel and to Templar
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6:05. Slow again. Stuck on, of all things, TEAR at the end. Eyebrows raised, like our blogger’s, by BRANDY being clued as a fortified wine, which it is not, rather than a distilled one. Thanks Teazel and Templar.
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5.36
Gentle one at last. Liked Paul’s post and interesting to see his thoughts. I guess age plays a big part. I knew all the GK apart from Bill & Coo which I did know but only from these things.
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DNF
Struggled with SPARKS and PROPAGANDIST but was pretty much finished in 20 mins apart from LOI COO. Bill’s partner? Well, that’s Ben. Obviously. Except it didn’t fit. An alphabet trawl yielded no results and had to resort to throwing in a (wrong) random letter to finish. What’s Bill & Coo?
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No time to say much at the moment, except that I was delighted to cross the line in just 20 minutes. Almost unheard of for me and Teazel. So, I think I qualify for one of the best seats in the SCC. Makes a very welcome change from the long and drawn out DNFs of the last two days with Izetti and Lupa.
I will return to read everyone’s comments later on.
Many thanks to Teazel and Templar.
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10.10 Tearing along but AT STAKE and TEAR took three minutes at the end. ENCHANT was unparsed. Thanks Templar and Teazel.
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09:27, a fast one. Much better than of late
LOI COO, didn’t understand Bill & coo. Was sure BEN would be Bills partner.
Liked EN for neighbours at table, which I figured early would be bridge. And better than those em/ en printers units.COD CAPTAIN HOOK
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Avoided the SCC by a couple of minutes: last in were GATEAU, ENCHANT and COO. Bill and coo and billing and cooing featured in several Hollywood musicals, authored (inter alia) by P G Wodehouse. BRANDY is a spirit, definitely not a fortified wine, but BRAND Y for an unknown make is neat, so Teazel is forgiven. My COD was SPARKS, the other common nickname being SPARKY. Fun puzzle, just right for me: thanks setter and blogger!
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I’ve just submitted and I’m outside the top 100 so quite a few solvers were on wavelength. My sticking points were the PAGAN in PROPAGANDIST and the ENCHANT/COO pair. I relied on the word play for COO(P) and wondered if the answer had something to do with a dove. As to ENCHANT I couldn’t work out the EN so thanks to Templar for the explanation. 7:46
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5:51. nice puzzle, in which I biffed a lot. my COD goes to POLYESTER as a surprising hidden word. I think this is a good level of difficulty for the quick. thanks Teazel and Templar!
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Found the bottom half easier, not spotting POLYESTER early enough! Biffed a few , although I got COO straightaway – thanks for explanations! I always find Teazel hard but fair.
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7:52 here, in my top ten or so. Nothing to say that hasn’t been said already: the curse of the late solver!
Thanks to Teazel and Templar.
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8:48 for us which is probably in our top 10 as well. Thanks to all
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6:44
Late to the party today. Would have been quicker if I’d left the biffed MAUSOLEUM as it was, but like Cedric, I couldn’t initially parse the U-UM bit – a real doh! moment when I saw it…
Thanks Teazel and Templar
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Finished correctly for a change. Took an hour, on and off. I thought that it was a tough one.
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