Quince fills the Saturday slot this week.
It’s been over a year since we last blogged a Quince puzzle and we really enjoyed this one.
Some of the clues were write-ins, but others were rather trickier – we’re not 100% sure about 24ac for example. There are great surfaces throughout with some ingenious definitions. 1ac, 10ac, 19ac in particular raised a smile.
BOG (toilet) STANDARD (quality)
H (husband) EX (old lover)
bRAd pITt (each missing the first and last letters or ‘stripped’) + A
An anagram (‘fresh’) of TRAUMA ASK
A homophone (‘reportedly’) of CROESUS (King of Lydia 585-547BC, renowned for his great wealth – ‘old moneybags’)
Even letters (‘oddly left’) of dUe KaRmA fIaNcEe
LO (look) OR (gold) O (over) LL (lakes)
C (first or ‘original’ letter of ‘created’) in an anagram (‘cryptic’) of THE
EG (‘say’) in or ‘boring’ BS (bull shit – ‘nonsense’)
X (‘Twitter now’) after or ‘backing’ an anagram (‘high’) of FEES AS
TIFF (spat) IN (opposite or ‘contrary’ of ‘out’) S (seconds)
A clue-as-definition: SuPpLy (alternate letters – ‘regularly wasted’) + URGE (impulse)
We think this must be: MAINE (US state) VENT (broadcast) but we’re not sure about ‘vent’ being a synonym for ‘broadcast’
An anagram (‘pants’) of LATEX
Hidden (‘bottled by’) and reversed (‘over’) in rEUSable
A homophone (‘announced’) of TIE (truss) + PINGS (pandemic alerts) PEED (leaked)
A Spoonerism of CURD BALL (‘mozzarella?’)
GUIDE (escort) + G (last or ‘final’ letter of ditching) after DO (party) thanks TFO
In adverts, Italian vermouth is described as ‘it’, so if the vermouth tastes stronger it would be MORE LIKE IT
A reversal (‘returning’) of S E N (first letters of Steps event nervously) round or ‘touring’ UK (country)
ARM (member) + middle three letters or ‘centres of favOURite advERSary
An anagram (‘terrible’) of CLUES GRIN FADES + S (first letter or ‘beginning’ of solve)
O T (first or ‘initial’ letters of overcame tippler) in HAIR (shock)
X (kiss) RATED (deemed)
A clue-as-definition: an anagram (‘wandering’) of THE SLOPES
Hidden (‘held by’) and reversed (‘capsized’) in bargEMAN RESUrfaced
ErECTED (put up) with P (pence) after X (vote) replacing the ‘r’ (Republican)
SeaT (missing the middle letters or ‘gutted’) + a poor election result might result in O (zero) MPS (Members of Parliament)
OFF and ICE are two slang terms for ‘kill’
SAT (‘was model’) IN (wearing)
A slightly x-rated theme here: sex and toilets. Thanks Quince and B&J.
Loved this, nothing BOG STANDARD about it at all, full of innovative clueing and (dare I say) “toilet humour. I have ticks all over the place but I’ll mention KAMA SUTRA, SAFE SEX, TYPING SPEED, BIRD CALL, LOST SHEEP and STOMPS. Great stuff.
Thanks Quince and B&J, agree with your parsing of “MAINE VENT”
Thanks, Quince and B&J!
Liked SPLURGE, TYPING SPEED, LOST SHEEP and STOMPS.
Lovely crossword. I parsed MAIN EVENT as in the blog but agree that ‘broadcast’ and ‘vent’ don’t really equate. Close enough, I guess.
The crossword does contain one of my pet peeves though. Why not put ‘reportedly’ at the start of 11a to make it clear that the answer is CREASES and not CROESUS? Had to leave writing it in until I solved 2d.
Thoroughly enjoyed todays offering. I parsed 24a slightly differently. Having “State broadcast” = main, “headline” = event (as in “main events of the day” and “main headlines of the day” being synonymous), and “act” being the overall clue.
Thanks to Quince and B&J.
Thanks both. An engaging challenge – my only uncertainty was GUIDE DOG apparently clued as ‘best friend’ but I guess the intention is the definition is ‘seeing best friend’
Thanks TFO – we have corrected the blog.
Thanks Quince for an excellent set of clues. My top picks were HEX, ETCH, BEGS, SPLURGE, ARMOURERS, USERNAME, and OFFICE. I value good surfaces so I had a lot to like here. My only stumble was TIFFINS, an unknown word to me. Thanks B & J for the blog.
Hovis @4: it was left that way so a knucklehead like me would be unable to solve 2D, having gone with the old moneybag instead of the folds. Apparently.
Very fun & funny puzzle though, thanks to Quince and our blogger(s?) Bertandjoyce. I had no idea how to parse 3D but it was my first in despite that. Also foozled by 27A.
10A made me laugh and 5D seemed especially clever.
Was I the only one to appreciate the Mark Cracking the Cryptic clue?
I’m probably just the only commenter still learning the various clueuing methods.
Just in case anyone doesn’t know about it and is interested here’s a link to Mark Goodliffe’s youtube channel which hosts Simon Anthony vlogging and explaining the completion of The Times cryptic every Friday.
A very well constructed puzzle today. No quibbles that I remember.
Thanks to Quince and the dynamic duo for their usual excellent work.
I didn’t have time for this yesterday but am glad I gave it a go this morning. As rocket says @10, the Mark Goodliffe reference is fun. But, for me, COTD is the outstanding LOST SHEEP.
Now, having waded through sex for half an hour, I guess I’d better turn to Hoskins for the drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.
Thanks Quince and B&J
23ac Where is the definition here? Splurge means waste, not wasted, nor regularly anything
Sorry – the clue says ‘waste’ not ‘wasted’ as in the answer blog, but still splurge is not regularly anything